Jason Knight  0:00  
Hello and welcome to the show and an episode where we ask what's wrong with the design industry? And why is it got such a high staff turnover? Speaking of staff turnover, this episode is sponsored by product people. Now if you're a company founder or product leader needs to get a product management team up and running quickly or cover parental leave, check out product people. They've got a thriving community and 40 in house product managers, product ops, pros and product leaders. They onboard fast align teams and deliver outcomes. You can check out one night in product.com/product people to book a free intro chat and quote code Oh Kip to get a 5% discount. That's one night in product.com/product people. Check the show notes for more details. Now back to the design industry and one founder is charged to make God forbid the gym of design studios. If you want to find out whether swearing and cursing at people in your mission statement helps you or hinders you stay with us on whatnots in product

Jason Knight  1:04  
so my guest tonight is Mackenzie Daisley. Mackenzie is a former tea entrepreneur who says she started out dancing with packs of sugar outside of an American Dinah. Now I don't know whether she means she was waltzing with lifesize packs or sugar or little packs tumbling out of her pockets while she did a jig, but it sounds pretty sweet. nonetheless. McKenzie says she hates me in cold. So it's lucky she's a in Australia and be she has been warming herself up with foul mouthed, hot and spicy takes on the state of design, which she claims to be at a fixed with a new startup brief whose mission statement is, and I quote to unfuck design. Hi, Mackenzie, how are you tonight?

Mackenzie Daisley  1:36  
Jason, I'm absolutely wonderful. It's so good to be here. I'm what an introduction.

Jason Knight  1:41  
Hey, guys, I like to put all of the effort in to make everyone feel secure and safe so that I can then start to deconstruct them as I go. Yeah. All. Right, first things first, let's get down to it. You say that you? And does your company have a mission to unfuck? The design industry, which does beg the first obvious question, how and why is the design industry fact?

Mackenzie Daisley  2:06  
Jason, that is such an excellent question. There are a couple of key, I guess, statistics or like a couple of key clues that really illustrate the problem very broadly. And one of the ones that I love to talk about is the attrition rates in the design industry. So by attrition, I mean staff turnover in Australia. And from what I've seen, this is also a global problem. But in Australia, the staff turnover rates are 30% and our national average. Yeah. The national average is 8.7%. So there is a huge cultural problem that is really, really strongly identified with working in design, like when we talk about design and advertising and working within that industry. Some of the things that we talked about, it's like long hours and terrible pay and being asked completely unreasonable demands from clients and having to tolerate sometimes completely unhinged management. The list goes on and on and on. And in fact, there's an Instagram account. In fact, there are multiple Instagram accounts, that detail all of these all of these stories that people have. And they're they're never without more and more stories to add. So there is a deep cultural problem that is happening in the design industry. And it's almost synonymous with the kind of cultural problem and kind of work ethic expectation as the hospitality industry, as well. So, yeah, so in terms of like, why is the design industry fucked? Well, the design industry industry is so far out that the national average of staff turnover is 3.5 times the national rate.

Jason Knight  3:55  
But is that kind of agency design work? Or is it product design work? Where people are kind of embedded in long running teams? Or is it kind of just across the board?

Mackenzie Daisley  4:03  
It's interesting. So that problem is the most extreme version of that problem is definitely unique to agencies. Yeah, and it's, yeah, it's definitely unique to agencies, definitely unique to working in an agency culture, and that is across like a creative agency or design agency, or a advertising agency. Once you start to separate design from advertising and design agencies explicitly and into kind of more corporate teams, then you're more a part of the infrastructure that is that protects those workers within within that kind of corporate culture. So quite different and quite unique, I would say to working in agency.

Jason Knight  4:47  
Nice way to come into product design the waters lovely, but you're here with the company to unfuck it with briefed. So come on, pitch time, what problem was briefed up so for me I Out of the unfuck it for me?

Mackenzie Daisley  5:01  
Yeah. So when we talk about the culture being a problem, the biggest part of the culture being a problem is to two things. The first is a communication issue. So communication issue that happens between the design agency and the client, firstly, and then secondary to that, also the communication issues that happen internally. And so the way that a project is run from beginning right through to the very end, is done with at the moment, it's done with a lot of different tools. So an average design agency in Australia would use maybe seven or eight or 10, sometimes up to 12, different SAS tools to kind of get the job done. And what's actually happening is, none of these tools are integrated in any way. status updates are really manual, there's absolutely no automation that's happening. Communicating transparency to clients is behind smoke and mirrors, files are lost, or they're sent in a myriad of different ways as updates. So you might have a file, you need to pass it on to a client, or a client sent you something you need to find that file could be in Slack, could be in Trello, could be sent on a wire transfer could be an email could be sent to another client manager, the communication is siloed. There's a lack of transparency, there's a lack of integration. And because there's a lack of integration between those tools that we use every day, from end to end, it means that there's also this lack of automation and a lack of data as well. And I think automation and data are really, really interesting. And I think they have the potential to completely transform design and the design process. And I would argue, and this is our kind of big, audacious goal is to try to transform the design industry. Like if we can create space, by automating tasks by creating integration by giving transparency and empowering teams using technology. Is that then space for people to go home on time? Is that then space for people to create more meaningful relationships with clients? And that's where we hope that technology and brief can come in and really start to look at and solve some of these issues.

Jason Knight  7:28  
Oh, there you go. You're saving the world one presentation at a time, but I looked at your website. Yeah. And I saw a proud testimonial that says and I quote, you've created JIRA for design studios. Now, what you just said sounds amazing. The solution sounds amazing the use case and the kind of attempt to change culture sounds amazing. But are you really aiming to be the JIRA for design studios? I mean, JIRA.

Mackenzie Daisley  7:58  
JIRA is a really, it's a really interesting product. And I mean, you could talk about the whole Atlassian suite as being really interesting products, they, when you talk about Jira, depending on who it might be might be product manager might be a developer might be somebody in the design space, it creates a lot of different kinds of emotions.

Mackenzie Daisley  8:25  
And elicits a lot of different kinds of emotions. What I wanted to do with briefed and when I went through and designed the UX for brief, something, I wanted to be aware of the kinds of solutions that were out there that people were trying to solve this problem at the moment, but I actually didn't want to use any competitor products. So I had never used JIRA up until that point. And now I use it every fucking day is originally from Julio with the two of well, yes, as familiar as one convey. But yes, so basically, do we want to become the JIRA of the design space? I don't think we want to elicit such strong times negative emotions. Do we want it to be an all in one studio that empowers every single stakeholder? Along the workflow? Yeah, we absolutely want to do that. And we want to do that at scale.

Jason Knight  9:21  
Yeah, I was gonna say you'll probably take the market share, right? And the valuation, if nothing else.

Mackenzie Daisley  9:28  
Yeah, both of those things. And maybe we'll throw in profitability as well. That would be cool.

Jason Knight  9:38  
But this is obviously an innovative podcast. We've proved that already. And there's always room for a good punchy, not safe for work headline and a good old swear. Yeah, you're leading front and centre with a potentially divisive, yes. value statement value proposition and I imagine correct even in Australia that that sometimes gets a bit of a raised eyebrow, and maybe even some complaints. Is that true? Have you got any heat so far? Or people kind of Yeah, in there with you and kind of up for it and kind of up for that spicy message?

Mackenzie Daisley  10:12  
Spicy message? Sorry, spicy? The short answer is yeah, absolutely. We have pissed some people off with that line. We're an early stage tech startup. And what we are really hoping to achieve at this stage is to attract the innovators in the industry, who want to work with us and innovate and help build a product that continues to be built with industry in mind. And what's been really interesting is like when we've kind of sent that messaging out into the into the I was gonna say the metaverse, but not quite, but when we're

Jason Knight  10:52  
sure wouldn't like that kind of headline.

Mackenzie Daisley  10:55  
I'm sorry. I'm sure what it was gonna say. Sorry, really rude. But I weren't. But yeah, so the short answer is, yes, we've absolutely offended people. What that messaging is done, those that women send it out, like into the design space, the people who were innovators who do have a vested interest in wanting to innovate, and wanting to disrupt and change the industry, and the way that it works, have responded in a really positive way to the messaging, it's really resonated with their experiences in the industry. And not just their experiences, but also people who contribute a lot outside of their nine to five, to try and improve their health. And even I would go as far to say, the mental health of the industry as well. Yeah. So those those people have gotten it now like bang on. But then you got people at the other end of the scale who are like, I would never pay for your product. It's absolutely ridiculous. You don't need to bring in like all of these different features under one roof. I didn't really understand it. Also, your messaging is vile, you need to one person who apparently was the 2021, Australian designer of the US. And

Jason Knight  12:10  
that's high praise, by the way.

Mackenzie Daisley  12:12  
I froze, I froze. He sent me an email. And in the email, he said, You need to change this immediately. It's completely offensive. And just like, just like clickbait, you click into it, and there's it's of no value to me. I was like, Oh, my friend. But you know, what some of the messaging that like some of the other parts of his email because he went to town or is this like five paragraphs or something. And like, a lot of the information that he gave me was so valuable, because it kind of really highlighted parts of our value proposition that we hadn't highlighted. And so we ended up shutting down our website and completely rewriting all of the content and rewriting everything we'd ever written about the business. We kept the swearing though, we kept the swearing.

Jason Knight  12:57  
I admire some of the principles. Yeah. I guess also, it's just it's that kind of no publicity is bad publicity type angle as well, right? Like you're, you're getting attention that, rightly or wrongly, you wouldn't have got necessarily in other cases, if like you were just another SAS tool. So I'm here for that. Yeah. But the company has been going for about three years now give or take, certainly, according to your LinkedIn, I don't know how much of that was in stealth mode and building and how much of that has been out in public? So and you've kind of touched on it there, you're still pretty early. But have you reached the? Or do you feel that you've reached the promised land of product market fit? Or you're kind of on the way to that?

Mackenzie Daisley  13:34  
Great question, we, we are very early. So we have only just released the beta version of our product into market. Once we finish that beta trial, that will give us a clear indication of where we need to go to next to reach product market fit. So we're definitely a number of steps away from that. It is the Holy Land, I do want to get to that holy land as quickly as feasible. What I guess has been interesting is like you mentioned, we've been running the business for three years, it's been three years of ideation and COVID. And we built one version of the product and shut it down and build another version of the product. Yep. And the one thing that we've done consistently is that almost every decision that we've made, especially in the second iteration of the of the product has been in constant contact with industry and with our users as well. And so like there are very some there are some clear indicators that I feel probably nobody else on this planet would agree with me, but there are some clear indicators of us breaching product market fit and I mean, there's a and one of those indicators is we recently had a company which I probably weren't mentioned, because it's very, very early days. They very much reached product market fit with our users and actually approached us to a buyer us and I explained that yeah, explain get that

Jason Knight  15:00  
cash out get to the casino.

Mackenzie Daisley  15:03  
Oh, well, that's probably for the stage of where we're at. That's probably the only place that it would get me to. I was like, Oh, we have a little bit more work to do. And what we've discussed is actually creating a partnership to kind of come together and capture and continue to capture that market together. So yeah, really exciting days really, very, very early. Not a product market fit yet.

Jason Knight  15:28  
Give it time. Yes. But obviously, before all of this, you're designing yourself, you're working. I believe in design agencies, you've also worked for brand consultancies, I'm assuming that you had some problems there that frustrated you made you want to solve them, inspired you to want to solve them in the way that you're now trying to solve them. So yeah, what sort of stuff were you working on? Before you did strike out on your own? Like, what types of company and what types of work were you doing?

Mackenzie Daisley  15:54  
Yeah, I've had a really, I guess, normally, the best time. I've had a very non linear engagement with the design industry. I studied design and can design and am a designer by trade and have designed, I've worked on a very large freelance project where I had complete control over every single creative element. And it was creating a brand for a Tea Company, which was really exciting blew up, I, we came to an agreement, like a value based agreement where I would take a percentage of their profits. And I ended up having a passive income for three years, we created a brand that was so unique and didn't look or behave like anything in industry. And that was four and a half, five years ago. And the really interesting thing about that brand, as well as like I was in the supermarket the other day, and I saw all of the same elements, the same language, like all of this stuff that we created four years ago, is now kind of translating into the supermarket. So that was kind of like really only that, unlike other freelance projects, that's the only time that I've really designed when I was employed in the design industry and working in an agency. I knew as soon as I finished my design degree that I never wanted to push pixels for eight hours a day. Like I love designers, obviously. And I love design. And I'm particularly good at it. But it is like the actual tools themselves don't engage or interests me, they only interests me to a certain point. So designing in a studio, I knew wasn't going to be the pathway for me. And I worked in client management. And because of working in client management within an agency, it was actually my responsibility to manage the client communication between the agency and the client. And then between the client and the creative as well. And so very much was enmeshed in the problem right in the middle of it with all the stakeholders and then that's where the idea started percolating. actually left the industry after three or four years, four or five years. And I left for four or five years and actually left to go and study Chinese medicine as you do.

Jason Knight  18:12  
Of course, who hasn't? Yeah,

Mackenzie Daisley  18:14  
exactly. And then a series of events happened one was the T brand I did a like product management course, an organisation called general assembly here they asked me to come back and help teach it and then I found myself back into design studio for the first time in four years and I was one of the first things I noticed is that the digital ecosystem had split wide open so all of a sudden you've got all these amazing new tools that we never had access to four five years ago slack Trello Asana Monday on and on and on this list goes tools that I use today actually to like manage my team we're slowly migrating over onto braved lol Yeah, they say you shouldn't dog ate your product. But you know, but yes, so So walked into a studio. So all of these tools and I was like two things, why a design grease being created still in Word documents and PowerPoint presentations. They're being sent over email updates are offline in silos, assets are being shared also on internal servers offline using a plethora of different tools. It was still all of the same problems that now just dispersed across a really incredible tech stack that wasn't bespoke, for the design industry.

Jason Knight  19:31  
But then you decided to go and solve that as we've kind of discussed already. But was that then easy for you? Like was it easy for you to then break out and be an entrepreneur, a founder, or was that something that you kind of had to kind of just jump in and work out as you went along?

Mackenzie Daisley  19:52  
Surely, I didn't even know I had a startup when I was at my first pitch event like I went to these pitch this third A day pitch or ipados workshop to learn about entrepreneurship, I knew I wanted to solve the problem. And when I went back into the design studios, basically what happened is like I had flights and accommodation booked to go and live in Bali indefinitely. And my intention was to stay there and replicate that same business model of taking, like a value based commission, from the profits have an endless stream, an endless amount of like, passive income streams, and just like never work. Again. So that was the original plan, then I tried to find a solution. So don't come up against the same problems that I had working in the design studio. I realised it didn't exist. And then basically, from there found this weekend that I thought was to learn about entrepreneurship. And it wasn't it was a three day pitching competition. So kind of walked in how I know,

Jason Knight  20:54  
there was sort of that means you didn't even have a pitch ready?

Mackenzie Daisley  20:57  
No. So they said, you had to have this pitch ready, but I thought, oh, like we'll work on the pitch over the weekend. And then I have a better pitch, but it was like, No, you weren't, you create a team. You work on the pitch over the weekend, and then you're going to present it to three investors. And the very first day of first night it was like a Friday night I walked in, I pitched her that flown there was sponsored by Facebook that flown this woman in from San Francisco just for the three days. And I pitched it and with every other person should ask questions go to the audience. And my pitch was that fucking bad that she just turned around. I remember she looked at me blankly. She turned around to the audience. And she said, Okay, who's next? And I was I

Jason Knight  21:42  
go, Yeah, I

Mackenzie Daisley  21:43  
died. I thought, Oh, my God, I cannot do this. And then I went home, I cried the entire way home. I was like, what were you thinking? But long story short, came back, build a team ended up winning the pitching competition, there was no like big check at the end. But what there was, is that it allowed me to build some cloud out to them go and build a development team, the last three and a half years have been about learning on the go, being ready to mitigate risk and to get comfortable with risk. And also being willing to admit that there's so much I don't know, but it's entirely possible to learn it. And so every single time that I've like needed the next thing, being willing to ask, allowing myself to be vulnerable, going out to industry, finding the right people making connections, has allowed the next right thing to come up. And then that's essentially been the last three years in a nutshell.

Jason Knight  22:42  
Yeah, I think that kind of vulnerability is an interesting one. Because of course, there's two connotations that when one of which obviously is this is very, maybe anti some of the kind of hustle culture stuff out there where everyone's walking around, basically trying to say they're invincible. And I guess be there's maybe almost an implication there that people might see you as less credible, especially obviously, given all of the problems that we see published repeatedly about, for example, the difficulty, or the more difficulty that female founders have, for example, being taken credibly at all, even if they are walking around looking invincible, like, do you feel that that authenticity has been a net positive? Or do you also get kind of judged and talked down to by people when you are like that in front of them?

Mackenzie Daisley  23:29  
I have been, especially my early days, when I very first I just, I woke up one morning. So there was we basically bootstrap for a year, it was in the middle of COVID, I'd moved states and basically was living in a hostel had sold everything I owned, and I woke up one day, and I was like, You need to raise capital. And all I had at that point was a pitch deck. And we got really lucky with some really high profile investors very, very early on, that allowed us access to them more and more investors. So very early on, we, we were able to generate some noise, we were able to get some success we got we negotiated some really great relationships, and then that kind of allowed and propelled things to keep going. In terms of authenticity. What's been really interesting is that, I guess, like there are different segments of everyone's personalities. And I think this is really interesting. And I don't know if a lot of people were will identify with this, but I think, I don't know if it's because I'm queer or because like I'm just very comfortable with my masculinity and then also my femininity, that I have found that being comfortable with both of those aspects of myself. Being very authentic, being absolutely a straight shooter, and having very direct conversations with people has actually completely Peled, what we're trying to do, I think what ends up happening, when you're in corporate, there's an expectation, especially of women, what they should look like how they should dress, how they should talk, how they should think. And often all of those expectations are in direct contrast to how men act or to act to supporting roles for men, right. And so I have worked and have worked in corporate was one of my first jobs, and I kind of I don't really align, like, that's not my vibe. And I think I'm, I can be quite colloquial, obviously, like, our tagline is, like, unfuck, the design industry? Yep. And I think people, yeah, people really resonate with that, and is definitely aided and helped us get through, basically achieve success where I don't think we would have otherwise.

Jason Knight  25:54  
Oh, hey, hear, it's always good to be able to be your true self. But you've talked about having to go out there and, and get investment. And I've heard lots of stories, again, from female founders about how, again, they found it was hard, like they had to be more credible, they had to have an even better business case, they, they had to kind of prove themselves more rather than just kind of just walk in and out people. So dollar bills at them. Did you find a particularly hard process to go out there? Because I imagine also, it wasn't something you'd ever done before, like, go out and actually raise money? Absolutely not. Was that a hard process for you? Yeah,

Mackenzie Daisley  26:27  
I had never done it before. I didn't know what to expect. I can't give you an exact answer as to why. But I did not find it hard. And I did have money people throw money at me. Was just Yeah. And I think it was the, the network that I had built around me at that time. I think that's one aspect of it. I think the other aspect of it as well is that none of my investors, very few a couple have, but most of my investors have never worked in a design agency. But something that investors and other stakeholders who have never worked in a design agency before, really deeply resonate with is that they have been clients of design agencies before. And so them that summer in procurement, management, some have worked in retail, some have worked in corporate. And so they have been clients of design agencies. And I absolutely know how fucked the process in the industry is. I've experienced that firsthand. So I do think that there was this resonance with the problem space as well.

Jason Knight  27:36  
Yeah, again, if you can get that narrative in a way that resonates, I guess that does make it easier. And if you swear at them a bit, maybe they give you a bit more money to just leave them.

Mackenzie Daisley  27:45  
But the other thing I'll add to that, as well as that, that was the very beginning. And like as we've gone on, we have found it harder to raise capital, obviously, like we're in a very different market at the moment, I made some mistakes. And one of those mistakes was holding out for an investor for nearly five months. That kept saying one more meeting one more meeting one more meaning we've done the due diligence, we want you to meet the partners. And I didn't know that we were that we were even ready to be considered for VC investment. And it just delayed everything. And then it delayed everything into the current market that we're in at the moment. So I think that that has been Yeah, that's been really challenging. And then I think as well, in terms of gender, and then like having to raise in this market, there have been certain things that have happened with certain investors where I definitely feel like I haven't been heard, like one investor, one of the largest VCs in Australia had a meeting with them. And they said, they wrote me an email back and they said, We think there's too many CRM products in the industry. And I was like, What the fuck you actually into I didn't say this to Him in the email, but he interrupted my product demo in the court is that I want to say the product and I showed him the product. He was like, why have you built rebuilt Trello. And I said, this is a Kanban board, we've not rebuilt Trello at all. And then he's like, Okay, I kind of get it now. And then kind of moved on to other questions and then labelled the product to CRM, it's definitely not a CRM, it's nothing like CRM doesn't solve any problems or behave like a CRM in any way, either. So yeah, there's definitely been moments where I feel like I've been dismissed because of my gender as well.

Jason Knight  29:36  
Well, I'm sure that person will listen to this and think a lot about their behaviour and hopefully be a bit better next time.

Mackenzie Daisley  29:43  
Yeah, I mean, like, every single time that those kinds of situations happen, I never wish any ill will. I just, I always feel sorry for people who behave like that or even knock us back because I think, yeah, I understand the opportunity. And I know that one day you're going to shake your head and you're going to be like, Damn, if only I'd invested at that point in time. So that is my that's always my thinking around

Jason Knight  30:10  
it. I can buy after you've IPO. Right? Yeah, that's exactly right. But you said before this, that technology can change culture. And you talked a little bit about how you want to achieve that with your company. But what's the biggest thing that you'd like to change with briefs? Like? Is it just getting people to go home on time? Or is there some broader goal that you feel that like, at the end of all this, once you maybe do IPO, or whatever happens to the company in the future that you can look back and say, Yeah, I succeeded?

Mackenzie Daisley  30:39  
Yeah, great question. And I didn't have an answer to that until recently. For me, I would love to see that 30% attrition rate halved. Like I would love to see people who love design, and people who love the industry and people who love having a creative outlet that also provides an income for them and their family, to stay in the industry and keep doing the work that they love. Like, that's the ultimate goal is to keep people in and to ultimately like a data barometer of what that potentially could look like is having that having that turnover rate,

Jason Knight  31:23  
big goals, I'll keep an eye on the stats. And what's next for you in the company? Any exciting plans, you can share that we won't have to Kyle?

Mackenzie Daisley  31:35  
Great question. Great question, Jason. The most exciting plan is that we're going to market with our beta product, we are currently engaging agencies to onboard them, which is really exciting. And something that I mentioned earlier, as well as potentially creating a partnership with a product that has the same access to industry as we do, but we don't currently don't have any crossover in features. So yeah, the partnerships exciting, talking to more agencies is really exciting as well. And we're looking to speak to more and more agencies. So I'm sure there are multiple ways to find briefed and to find my details. So yeah,

Jason Knight  32:15  
well, I mean, just in case of any agencies listening to this, where can people find you after this, if they want to find out more about unfuck in design, your journey into entrepreneurship, or maybe the child find out what the heck kind of bags of sugar you would dance with? I

Mackenzie Daisley  32:33  
am going to write to the mystery and they were tiny pockets of one serve sugars and we had to hold them in our hands and shake them as we were dancing. So

Jason Knight  32:46  
there's video proof on Tik Tok.

Mackenzie Daisley  32:50  
This over 22 years ago, absolutely no proof of that. No, that

Jason Knight  32:56  
would have been entrepreneurial.

Mackenzie Daisley  32:59  
salutely Absolutely missed out on that. Yeah, if you wanted to find out more about brief, you can go straight to our website, which is brief. So the word brief with a T at the end, dot a double P do not go to.com. We've been trying to buy that website for a long time unsuccessfully. You can also reach out to me on my email, which is just Mackenzie at briefed dot app. Or you can find me on Twitter and my Twitter handle is my own underscore tech brand TTC, page brand.

Jason Knight  33:34  
What I'll make sure to link that all into the show notes. And hopefully you'll get a few people sashaying into your direction. Great. Well, that's been a fantastic chat. So obviously really glad you could spend some of your time chatting about entrepreneurship, saving designers everywhere and we'll cut out all the rest of the expletives. Hopefully we stay in touch. But yeah, that's for now. Thanks for taking the time. Excellent. Jason

Mackenzie Daisley  33:55  
was so great to chat to you as my first podcast. And I think I've discovered that I just love talking about my business. So

Jason Knight  34:05  
I appreciate there be many more.

Mackenzie Daisley  34:07  
Yes, may there be many more.

Jason Knight  34:11  
As always, thanks for listening. I hope you found the episode inspiring and insightful. If you did again, I can only encourage you to hop over to one night in product.com Check out some of my other fantastic guests sign up to the mailing list or subscribe on your favourite podcast app and make sure you share your friends so you and they can never miss another episode again. I'll be back soon with another inspiring guest but as for now, thanks and good nights