Who are you, and what do you do? What do you like to do outside of work?

My name is Jeff Gelwix. I’m a serial “pivoter” (i.e., one who frequently pivots), a CPA turned burger flipper turned tech geek, and a dad to two beautiful twin girls.

I packed a lot into that last line, so I’ll expand.

I am a restless individual with a few crossed wires, which leads me on an endless pursuit of learning new skills and taking on new hobbies. I’ve always overextended myself both at and away from work, which is likely the reason that I’ve become obsessed with efficiency, productivity, and automation. Inadvertently, through this progression, I’ve similarly become obsessed with technology.

I grew up in San Diego, CA, went to school in Colorado, moved to Israel for a couple of years, then to Vegas, and finally back home to Southern California (restless). I studied accounting, got my CPA license, and spent six years at a big public accounting firm.

In 2007, my dad, who gave me the restless gene, became the first Sonic Drive-In franchisee in San Diego. He grew the business from one location to fifteen between 2007 and 2016, from twenty to six hundred employees. Their business experienced an unexpected departure of their controller at a time when I was ready to move on from the fraternity that is public accounting, so my girlfriend-now-wife and I left the desert and moved to San Diego.

After spending a few years learning the business of operating Sonic Drive-In restaurants and taking on additional responsibility, I found that we needed about twenty more people with twenty different skill sets to join our back-office team, and I only needed about 5-10 hours of their time each week. As this wasn’t realistic, I turned to no-code/low-code automation. I spent multiple years learning everything I could about the Make (formerly known as Integromat) platform and general API usage to leverage automation within our business. We’re not flipping burgers with API calls, but we have greatly improved our business’s back office and operational oversight capabilities through these automation efforts, which has been a game changer for us; all the while, our headcount hasn’t changed.

The automation journey led me to discover a fair amount of new technology, which led me to ZSA. I have been extremely impressed by ZSA/Erez’s focus on not only building top-notch high-quality hardware but also fostering the creation of a community, building personal relationships with customers (i.e., how I arrived at writing this), and being comfortable with open-sourcing their proprietary and one-of-a-kind creations. I am thrilled to have found ZSA!

Outside of work, I enjoy spending as much time as possible with my wife and our twin girls, playing golf, and 3D printing/modeling.

What hardware do you use?

I use a MacBook Pro with two Asus ProArt monitors, ZSA Moonlander keyboard, Logitech G502 mouse, SpaceMouse (for 3D modeling), a clunky 10-key as I am still an accountant at heart, and an Elgato Stream Deck MK.2 because the more buttons, the better (I have never streamed anything…).

And what software?

It’s a long list, but the notable mentions are keymapp, of course; and Raycast; Arc; Superhuman; Keyboard Maestro; Snagit; Command-Tab Plus; Parallels, Fusion 360; Warp; Fantastical; Grammarly; MacDown; and Raindrop.

What’s your keyboard setup like? Do you use a custom layout or custom keycaps?

Before moving to a Moonlander, I had never used customized keyboard layouts. As I’ve only been at it for about a year, I still find myself tweaking my layout a fair amount. I suspect no one will say it is ever “just right,” so this might be normal.

My layout is a mix of traditional keyboard layout, macros/shortcuts, some Windows keys for use in Parallels, and the very clutch addition of “Reset,” so I don’t need to track down an object to get to the bootloader button.

I am a big fan of the ZSA keycaps, so the only physical change I made was to the two rows of function keys in the middle of the board (not sure if that is the correct terminology). I added metal keycaps with a different texture/size as training wheels to get used to these new keys, and I have yet to remove them.

After using my Moonlander for a few months, I decided to add on The Platform. ZSA’s directions (i.e., don’t go nuts with the angles at first) was great advice. The Platform is great!

What would be your dream setup?

I think I have it! I am pretty happy with my setup at the moment. Until ZSA shows me the next thing that I am “missing”…