00:00:01 [Music] moving the needle and found a failure one conversation at a time I'm your host Lukas poles and welcome to startup to point out by spark XYZ join us each week as we give you access to some of the top investors and entrepreneurs around the country to help me think through and overcome some of the challenges it started I think there's no better place in the country to be investing than Los Angeles what is the problem that you're solving and for who like what is that specific pain point sometimes when a company is not

00:00:32 listening to his customers and just thinks it knows better than it customers has a really really hard time finding product market fit I want to see somebody that that isn't gonna stop you know this person you just feel like they're gonna they're gonna they're gonna make it work today I'm sure we have carry ransom is the president and founder of OSI for venture studio Cary has held numerous positions across a variety of startups over his 20-year career and we're super excited to have him on the show today to talk through

00:01:06 some of the challenges that the startups faced Cary welcome to the show thank you great yeah really appreciate it I know that you've traveled quite far to come here what you have to get off the one of the gridded highways through the Southern California get on service streets yeah oh it's definitely appreciated typically the way that we start like to start out is a little background by yourself finding out more just kind of about you and Jeff will dive into oc4 and something you're doing sounds good

00:01:48 sounds good so background about me I guess the way I would describe myself is I been a lifelong entrepreneur but that I have explored in a whole host of different arenas and I think most people when they would think about entrepreneur they think oh this is somebody who starts companies and that that and founder and I look at it and view entrepreneur is somebody who really pulls resources together to solve problems in new compelling unique ways and that's more high or in so sometimes I'm an entrepreneur when I go volunteer

00:02:30 for youth sports league that I get involved in and just try to make it better you know what it is sometimes I'm an entrepreneur and how I think about joining an existing company that's in process and seed doesn't need to get adjusted pivoted changed in some meaningful way and so I have started a couple companies that you know see for when my latest endeavor is a ground-up startup a partner down there are working on and so I think if you know the orientation of the entrepreneur is really looking at what are problems in

00:03:04 the world how might I pull those resources together to actually attack it in some meaningful way and so that's sort of how I show up and so I've done that my whole life I grew up in a family business that is where I feel like I probably got some of that either nature and nurture in that my family like I didn't start with him a business my grandfather didn't started my great-grandfather didn't even started it was in my family for well over a hundred years and so I grew up working with them and I think that just imprinted on me so

00:03:41 much about that owner might set own the opportunity from the problem and roll up your sleeves and dig in it and tell figuring it out and so I always saw that coming earliest days and so I've been one of these people that throughout my life generally been willing to say yes when the world is always telling us to say no and I find that that is like a really rich and interesting set of experiences that I continue to sort of seek new ones because it keeps me really excited and engaged and I think I'm just broadly

00:04:21 curious person so I get to to go explore new things that maybe I've seen part of but I haven't seen a lot and so that's sort of you know rough background Groveland Midwest lived in Chicago for a number of years after college and then after the in software industry and was involved in public companies in the Chicago area after the dot-com crash things got pretty bleak and one of the companies that I was in and I decided that that was maybe my opportunity to come to California and so as I was saying before

00:04:53 we started I used business school as my excuse and saw that it's kind of an entry plan to come into a place where I didn't know a lot of people and it's also night at 3:00 and defeat potential a little good friend exam and we're all on the same state that's for me and so I came out here 18 years ago and you've got okay I'll just seek refuge for a couple years let the economy blow over and maybe we'll say maybe we'll go back but it'll be our top horn adventure my wife know to each other about weekend and said

00:05:26 this is good and so at that point I turned my attention to the market year and they started to actually go this beautiful graduate school bubble no and decided you know there's actually stuff happening out in the real world I can't here in LA this stuff everywhere and so I started showing up to two things and I'm started connecting my friends to jobs and opportunities and started finding my element next thing you know I'm working on startup that's based out in urban and I'm the only business person in the company and I started

00:05:59 commuting down there while I was finishing school and almost left school but did make it across the finish line and moved Orange County now sixteen years ago and moved down there and we were growing really quickly and next thing you know we've sold that company and I'm on to the next next and so fast forward to where I am now has been ten or so startups later that I've been involved with in some way as a senior partner team investor and have had virtually every job you can imagine in mostly software or software century

00:06:38 companies and so I built this breadth of experiences that I'm now realizing are probably as broad and various what someone could amass over a 15 year period and when I think there we go well yeah I've been through this growing base from a handful of people to hundreds of people multiple times most people I've survived you know I have some gray hairs and some bumps and bruises but I can probably get her life and now you know that I've sort of turned my attention to hey this is an opportunity for me to help this next

00:07:20 generation of entrepreneurs to navigate some of these challenges which a lot of them means some of them are strategic but a lot of them are human and people and relationship leadership types of challenges and really you know still be excited and curious about these new sets of problems that exist in the world because every time we solve something a whole new set of problems arise and use use this background not as as a playbook but really as a way to connect and help advise coach roll up my sleeves and get

00:08:02 in the trenches next to people that have that drive and ambition to go build great companies and do this now instead of serially one to another really doing a parallel you know that's a big part of the thesis with OSI four is to welcome these folks in together and do it in community which we think is healthier for all people involved and actually will lead to better outcomes nice so a lot coming back there yeah I don't have a lot of questions around it before we dive into that I would love to just find

00:08:38 out a little bit more about OSI for the venture studio kind of main managers there are a lot of different I guess models for the venture studios so would love to just kind of unpack how you're specifically approaching it and kind of what makes you different or the same as those up there out there sure I spent significant amount of time last year talking to and studying I would say probably close to 20 different so the idea of the studio was not really on my radar has certainly familiar incubators

00:09:15 and accelerators and other different programs you know some that your funds have a set of services that they will provide beyond just the capital and what I really started to reflect that home how I approached a lot of the companies that I've been involved with i've oriented toward an entrepreneur was really compelling that i wanted to help and i looked at myself as a force multiplier upon the company by getting involved and i would get involved with my capital my investment in the business but i would also get

00:09:50 involved with my time my talents by coming in and so role and and so my view and I've said this for a long time and so a lot of people have worked over the years I've heard me say things like company building is a team sport and the best teams win and so how do you get the right and best possible team you can get around an organization at those different stages and what I've learned through a lot of these experiences is that there isn't just one way to do it but they you want to get the best possible people you can and often when

00:10:26 you're really undercapitalized or you haven't had experience in strudy organ building company you often just pull in the people that validate you then that willingness say yes and sometimes that works out sometimes it doesn't it and so we started with looking at the studio model a core part of that was how do we really assist founders and entrepreneurs with the talent and team aspect believe that was a critical part I've had the good fortune of working with thousands of people in Orange County in Southern California over the

00:11:05 last 15 years and thankfully most of them still like me and are willing to you know answer a call or an email and a lot of these people are world-class talents but they're very disconnected and so a porter thought around in the studio was this idea of really being a center of gravity at a key node in this network to be able to connect opportunities which I would call your new startup companies with the right people at the right phases which could be fractional could be consultative advisory or full-time digging in to

00:11:44 right opportunity as they were transitioning from one thing to another but having that big bench available was something we felt would broadly have a tremendous amount about it and so as we thought about the studio we really ended up with four key elements that we did that that was why we've called it OC Fuller was it there or you know as we said there were four C's capital being a key part but not the part we did not on our face really aspire to be venture capitalists but we knew we had to provide some Early's meaningful early

00:12:21 capital into these companies and take off some of the burden of them going out and having to fundraise because building companies is about more than just raising capital for sure in fact that often is a big distraction toward billon company is about focusing on the problem focusing on a compelling solution to that problem we call it a problem and then figuring out how to get customers and how to build a business model around that it has scalability repeatability - so we really look for founders that obsess about that area no

00:12:58 and so we felt like we want to be able to take on and support everything else that they may possibly and so capital was a portion of that we said another seed we thought collisions but that's collisions with the right people the right now at the right so creating an environment where those collisions can actually happen we said there they really need we all need coaching we all need another set of eyes and ears the ability to reflect or push us and that that was a key part of the studio's to really be a coach and mentor to these

00:13:40 entrepreneurs and then the last one was this community aspect of all the other key pieces you would need that building company that I said it's a team sport and that a community support around could provide all the other services you might need whether that's a county or HR or legal that there's a whole set of things needed to build a company and you know often you have this idea that maybe turns into a product that maybe starts to turn into business because you actually have somebody paying you for

00:14:14 that product that generates some income now you have a business but a business is also different from a company no company has a culture and a purpose and a lot more to it than just a business remember you have money coming in and pay me for a product right so we were really trying to orient or how do we help people the long-term value company and that in the idea of company building there's a whole array of things that have to happen there's a whole set I call necessary not strategic that if you're

00:14:49 in a community you can offload those to other trusted people in there if you're not and you're doing this all by yourself you're gonna probably have to go figure all these things out and any of these necessary not strategic things are time taken away from the strategic things that matter which are the product that you have to build a compete in a world that's increasingly competitive and figuring out the business model the customers and delight them and so we really look at a lot of this from the

00:15:20 studio as providing everything you could possibly need and I think that's what really starts to distinguish a studio model from other ways to support early companies and that was kind of a through-line that I saw is that most of the studios really looked at it is we can build companies from the studio no and then it became an orientation for us around who or what are the kinds of companies that we want to try to fill and our view was in our community in Orange County the ideal need that we saw that we could

00:15:58 fulfill was partnering with entrepreneurs know that they were lonely that they didn't have a lot of other options for support there and certainly not support in this broad base of way and so we felt like we get appeal to them as partners even almost like co-founders to say we want to be partnered with you just like I've been doing on my own for a long time that we could start to do this in a more parallel and scalable way as a studio with that muir orienting for the entrepreneurs not our own ideas that a

00:16:33 lot of other studios have oriented around some of the ones here in LA know for example that have been very successful and that we really are are why our purpose was to help these entrepreneurs get more companies off the ground and build faster growing bigger and better companies than they might otherwise be able to do them no nice the I obviously feel like as investors you half of you have our job is to be is to be the investor of the other half as long as they to be a therapist that's right Maggie

00:17:10 just to try to help their own sejong firms because you're right it's very very long for that I say like I'm a missionary and what I'm supposed to do and I you know I have to go do and try a lot of the things to really finally realize it yeah this is this is what I'm supposed to be doing you know and there are a lot of ways to make a living or you know whatever you you want to use a sort of your scorekeeping mechanism for life another part of the world but authorship is often the hardest but you've got to really feel like a clear

00:17:58 purpose or or quality of do that and I think it's incredibly no I don't they go try to solve problems in the world in in a new and compelling way and that you can do it better and actually created real company around no but it's really trendy and you have to have a level of you know I would say that get that level of self-delusion you get to do it and you know there's this whole you know you caught the entrepreneurs paradox but you have this level of confidence and self delusion you gonna do with it because if you look

00:18:35 at failure rates and data it wouldn't make any sense you like rationally this doesn't make any sense to do this but I feel like I have to do it you know I haven't really to do that this is my purpose and that's right I feel that sense of nobility the paradox is once you start having success what you really want to do to succeed is you want to give that all the way you want to get into many other people to buy in and be owners of that thing with you feel that sense of purpose and mission to go with

00:19:07 you and they're probably never going to feel at the same level know that you want to try to get them to feel it as deep a level as you can so there is Bob in because that's how you really get that amplification of energy and excitement and momentum yeah and often you know the dilution that enables us to start is the delusion that's the undoing as we try to grow because we try to take credit we try to control we try to do all these things that aren't healthy and aren't actually as effective in how do

00:19:41 you motivate and lead and grow an organization and so that you know back to mind the coaching aspect of what we try to do is really to help them start to see that as early as possible so they don't get in the runway because we're all really not true so let's dive into this I was actually listening to one of your another podcast they were on and you talk a lot about validation and especially with the team about bringing people people that are excited about an idea that may very close they end up

00:20:23 joining the team and ends up validating the idea for the venture movement right so my question is with with that do you find that if you are you might not get the right people if they're if you're grabbing people who are just validating the idea early on do you ever is it ever a concern that if you end up grabbing those people early on that you will have a little more difficulty transitioning to a more hierarchical hierarchical whole structure later down the line so if I grab say someone like a friend or a

00:21:02 classmate who is excited about it like can you give me your thoughts around that especially if you make the kind of that's a good that's a really good question so the way I would think about it is in the early stages you you are just trying to find a little spark a little kernel of hey there's some opportunity here this is a pond worth fishing in and there's a fish in there and we can we can serve a need at what looks like it could be a profitable approach and so often you just need some sets of hands to help you with that

00:21:41 right and it's that ideal but you don't really need to optimize you want to get some early signals oh okay here's where we might see some scalability or repeatability in this business but part part of the challenge I sometimes see is people that take that signal and they start trying to optimize as quickly as possible that could be you go raise money and I'll send you build this big team and you do it earlier then then you need to and so some of the validation that you get from some of those early

00:22:14 folks it's more just hey we can we can speak quickly we can we trust each other or whatever the the connection point is that is often just about getting going you know and just starting it to get some of that early early progress and I'm a big believer in this idea of seasons and order toward I think Reed Hoffman types of tours of duty okay and I think that's a right the right mental model to use and I use that for myself when I go into an organization and if you think about all of these different

00:22:51 roles I have if you look at all the business cards I've had every title imaginable and I sorta don't care and usually my my view is well what title do I need to get the right kinds of meanings either internally or externally that's that seems a bit I don't hear nothing morning and we're getting to it tight right and so it's just about what you need but that that really puts me in this place where I'm usually looking at okay I'll start this which is kind of what you need observable stages but I'm gonna be the

00:23:24 first one to say I can find somebody better to do this or how do you think about the scaffolding in this organization you mentioned kind of this hierarchical structure so I don't like that that model that there is a sense of order and this sense of scale I like to use the term scaffolding in that you need to start thinking about layering in the type of scaffolding to grow the just like you're building the building you know you need to grow that organization and and some folks even in those early

00:23:55 stages maybe they have six jobs that they're doing but there's one of those six that they're really good at they really enjoy and so as you scale they move toward that you know there are other people that really are just broadly good at being in there early and doing those things and they may get to a season where it doesn't make sense for them to be there anymore and so I'm always a fan of having those conversations it doesn't happen nearly often you know and now we're usually doing that with a state where you

00:24:29 weren't having these conversations formal way you didn't have a vision for what the organization evolved into through these various seasons and therefore people end up in roles that they probably shouldn't either because they're not enjoying it they're not good at it they haven't been equipped to be successful in it or you have these organizations that sort of weirdly of all because you're evolving them around people as opposed around order and efficiency at times when there is a point where you need to

00:25:01 optimize so and so I like to have this notion of tours or seasons where we're just always having those conversations and thinking about here's what's likely to be next and do you have the skills you need to get the skills is this a role that you should be playing in this next season because the idea that from an early stage company - you know mid-sized to large that the roles stay static is completely untrue every job changes right the CEO job when you have four people is very different than the

00:25:41 CEO job at 25 is very different to the CEO job at hundred you know and that everybody has to experience that and really happen that evaluation either of self or the organization and trying to figure out how to help people get into the right seats along the way or is there even a seat anymore and that that's not a criticism of them no it just may be time to move to that next two or I think it's a much healthier way to think about it in a much healthier way to approach it they don't feel like that is a normal course of of management

00:26:22 or leadership that occurs in most companies but that's how I tend to think about it that make sense no I would say it does mean I don't think wonderful I think it's one of the big things I try to convey on charge having the tough conversations early while you're both still in a good state of mind where if you try to have it later when you absolutely have it but it often it ends very very well and I mean I think you know human nature you know these are people that were helping you at those formative very unclear stage you know

00:26:54 and there's a loyalty there and I get it the loyalty on both sides and I totally respect that but you know this is now especially as you start to raise other people's money and you have outside investment there is a bigger really purpose that this is a group of people that now have a vested interest in this and yes you may have been the person who started it but it's you know you you have an option at those early stages say this is going to be my company I'm gonna retain 100% ownership that is an option

00:27:26 no the the idea that you're going to retain that psychological view when you've raised and in some cases that raised enough money where you've given up control you know that's just a flaw now you're just thinking about this the wrong way and you can still have a very purposeful very missional company and in fact you could have many more people that are equity owners because they have options or they've invested in the company you want all those people relying and feeling a sense of ownership and you have to give that away out of

00:28:01 your ego and out of your approach and sometimes that's where there's a challenge in that same challenge can happen with people that had balls hey you you've done great you've been here for three seasons of this that's amazing look at the growth you've had look at the contributions you've made here's here's what the next season looks like and and seeing objectively like are you the right wood we hired you would we go out and recruit you into this role today given all the needs of half I try to have a little bit more of an objective

00:28:35 you'd like that and I think you should look at that across the entire organization and again I don't know that it's as common as it should be and that's I think a role that we have to play and part of what we think about with community is if you're in a community with other entrepreneurs that are having the same kinds of challenges and conversations it's going to be healthier because you're not going to feel like you're alone in the world trying to navigate this and I think that's a key part of what we're also

00:29:07 trying to establish with a big heartfelt thank you to Breck's who is out there support this show would not be possible we've seen firsthand the difficulties accessing basic corporate credit without providing a security deposit or personal guarantee early on as companies grow managing expenses has become more difficult and time-consuming which is why we've partnered with Breck's to offer a corporate credit card that is not personally guaranteed offers higher credit limits provides Auto reconciliation and integrates with ERPs

00:29:39 using receipt capture Breck's is the credit card let's start ecosystem and we highly encourage you to check them out in weeds you don't have a lot to go along true and so walk us through kind of your process and how you think about making an investment into them and bringing them to the studio sure so we you know as I was saying before second we haven't even been open for 90 days so there's really very new you know very new endeavor we just this past week brought our first seven and companies that were

00:30:25 really excited about most of which were already invested in the more will be shortly and put them in front of a group of investors that came in to see what we've been up to and people were really blown away but we found this great initial group of founders and I'm pretty confident that we could continue with that kind of clip of call it six or seven a quarter for the foreseeable future if if we think that it is the right trajectory for us we we need to make sure we have the right infrastructure also following along to

00:31:02 be able to make sure we're working with them at the level that we want but first and foremost we look at it as do we feel like this is the right kind of a founder that we can work really collaboratively with and understand and Orient's around our team sport mentality you know and that sees the broad value of our experience and the set of other folks and other capabilities that we can bring around them and that's what we've seen a lot of the value and that's helped us there getting to know them is been a key

00:31:37 part of our diligence process so I say that's it's very much entrepreneurial first no second we would say is what is the core problem space that they're playing in is this one where we feel like we can be so we're primarily focused right now on what I've called data centric SAS businesses things that have a really strong data orientation to them and a heavy software element and that that starts to lead toward things like hey I'm actually learning it leads to b2b types of automation opportunities and

00:32:14 even sheer data companies where we may have a data asset that we're building because of this that we believe the core business model might be licensing or selling the data off of it and so that's kind of the rough area that we've we've tended to look in and we've seen a lot of really great opportunities and so we look at those and say ok is this a market we believe is the right kind of market as me as an opportunity do we have the ability that had value there whether that's we are their customers we

00:32:49 are partners we are talent what are the we're the places where I started is how do I create unfair advantage no are the ways that we can help really accelerate early traction through no and so that's one and then the third I would say is do we feel like them around in the studio is additive to the overall community and culture ecosystem that were trying to do and so that's a key part of how we think about these are you know the entrepreneur doesn't fit with our model and and the opportunity set that we see

00:33:28 can we be added and then do we feel like they're additive into the overall and the reason I think of it under those is because we don't subscribe to the model of you know you're gonna pick twelve one's going to really be the winner we can we say like augment there we think all of them we have twelve all twelve should have some value and by being in community together we're going to see cross-pollination opportunities we may see situation in the future where we combine none of these because they fit nicely the other

00:34:04 week for example we've seen several businesses early on that have to do with the talent employment future work sort of space whether it's data companies around that software to enable people that are in that and so we're not seeing that these companies necessarily will combine but they're already seen collaboration know opportunities that exist and so I think that is the other part of the studio value that we see and we're seeking people that you know probably want to build companies of substantial value and that that could

00:34:42 end up in a bunch of different forms and so that's we've seen early on that the diligence process has sort of not been part of yet know that it it seems to be working and that we're seeing a group of people that that are oriented and not the lone wolf you know occurs that are oriented to the value of doing this in collaboration and community thanks awesome so let's dive back to some of the stuff that you talked about from the very beginning a woman your background so you tell numerous different positions all over different

00:35:25 companies what you were thinking about jumping on into one of these startups like of course with my criteria they do ended up looking at to make the decision whether this was something that you wanted to join so yeah it's a great great question so I think as I look back at my career a lot of it it's been similar to the orientation of what I just described as no diligence that we're doing at OSI 4 so I meet this founder and you know not surprisingly founders that are really passionate about an idea or a new business can be

00:36:03 very convincing because I could come CEO they wrap themselves around this and get super excited and they want to convince others to get involved and so I ended up working with a number of very charismatic founders that got me excited about a problem space that they were working in and so I would start to wrap myself around that and go is this a an area of business that I really want to be involved with and is it the right business and the right time another part of our diligence process at UPS before

00:36:34 and also a personal one has been kind of this why why us if I were to join this and why now no and you know hardly the right team gonna get the right team to win and is this the right time you know one of the early startups that I was a co-founder of many many years ago we were too old you know and we actually shut it down after a little over a year because we weren't getting the kind of traction and we thought we were trying to push the market toward a point of view that years later we were writing it just we

00:37:11 were too early right now somebody told me being too early to say me wrong no and so I think why is why did now with is a key set of questions that I tried to ask and so then for me it was is there an opportunity is there a right if the organization has you know a few people in it is there a role for me to enter that makes sense and so I come in in a very market facing role whether that's sales marketing business or you know I'm going to mark bases I or is there a core internally like product or

00:37:48 marketing where I could play a key role and helping to establish some of that and so if there was that need and I really believed then I felt like that was really what helped define joining it you know been somewhat challenged in that I would say you know I have a lot of friends at our recruiters that they really never helped me because I don't make their job you know because I don't have a oh this is your fill in the blank the VP marketing VP sales CEO of a CEO CFO man have all those roles now I said

00:38:26 I don't do any of them very well but I think that's where I'm valuable is because I'm really good at getting them going to then go find the people who are really good at those in that you don't necessarily need to optimize those things from day one but you can go find those people out there that are really good at optimizing those and so I'm often more clue or broad broad thinker across understand how these things might fit together through various stages and so I haven't had a resume in the entire day

00:39:03 in almost 20 years since I've been in California I've had people ask me for it it just it really requires that I'm probably not the ready yeah and so it's been a lot more relational and me just can I see where this business is going then it fits my values that we can build the right kind of culture and get the right group of people around this to win and go it's worked out well enough but you know continue to do it no no I do I am curious one of the roles that you manage of jumping into was you said a

00:39:40 team full of mainly technical talent right so how how was that I guess transition being the first business person in there because it feel like technical and business sometimes our challenges understanding is about different languages and so how did you navigate being kind of the first and showing them different processes around like hey for this in this minutes we have to we have to do it this way even though you might have been doing check this before yeah and then remember in this case there were three other people

00:40:13 there when I got there those three engineers and one was the founder of the CEO and when I met him he had great product yeah and one customer and he was looking for a quote unquote VP of Sales okay and he was I think at the time looking for somebody who's far more experienced and selling know than I was but as I quickly tried to convince him I said look you know if you really interested over 20 years of sales leadership experience they probably haven't picked up the phone and call the customer and yeah you know kind of cold

00:40:49 call all are really sold any quite and so back to what I'm saying earlier is like figuring out like what are the real needs you have at this point in time and do have the right people to do that no and it's easy to think oh I need to get a resume I need to ask I just need customers you know it's playing because you have wine which is great it's better than zero but I think I can maybe letter to that one to get you the next set of customers and so it wasn't that harder the beginning because I made it he's one

00:41:21 of the hallmarks that I've tried to employ is to make myself that's easy to do business with as possible and so in the case of him as I said look I'm a student full-time I'm living on ramen and essentially an effective teacher so I'll do this on a handshake or equity because I think I can help and if I can help this probably could be worse no and so I tried to make myself as easy as possible to say yes to in that case and said like proofs in the pudding if I can help get you more customers than this

00:41:53 thing could be really interesting if I can maybe I'm not very good at some I'm definitely believe in betting on myself but also could be a flawed this so either which way like if it wasn't as easy as I thought it might be then that might be a flaw in the business I may not want to be there anyway so I feel like there's a lot to be learned in doing that in those early stages and so what I did is I just I just had to prove that there's an ability to get more customers once I really started to do that and we started to see support

00:42:24 progress then my conversations with the technical team but we're really positive because I could say hey I just talked to these three companies and this is what they're asking for you know and so then my ability to influence the product roadmap was very credible because it wasn't my opinion this was coming from the actual marketed and so they were very open to that so we started to establish a very high trust relationship and they weren't minded and I think you have more of a problem maybe than today

00:42:55 then this was a number of years ago where they weren't minded of this we're just gonna build it and they're what become I think there is some of that that you get at times today where people feel that the product will sell to sell and there are some cases where a great product can really help do that but you still need to figure out how to get in front of the right people the right places and so as I think about it even just the sense of quote book go to market there's a lot of different ways you can go to market but then you still

00:43:26 do generally have to go out you know in some way and often the really build oriented you know minded person may not be comfortable or capable at truly going out into the market in some way be and so in that case an innovative great partnership no and we built a pretty efficient revenue machine if you will that had a combination of the content marketing to bringing them into sales know and we exited the business very very quickly faster than I ever even realize we would and probably even looking back that we probably should

00:44:08 have but we had a great outfit so nice to target be critical of it but I think that's what also gave me complan much more confidence so I you know I've worked with engineers prior but after that they gave me a lot more confidence easy to work with engineers and understanding of what got them decided to make a change in direction if they thought this is what we need to build they did were open to the input when it came from people who were she's going to buy it and use it because then adapting but I quickly start

00:44:36 realizes that most people who build stuff they don't want Dolan to just sit there no they want to build it to really solve a problem that people use and derive value from and so they're showing them hey by doing this you're going to increase the value and increase the satisfaction of customers anything for usage their music pretty resident no it's good to differ open to I guess product changes I feel like some people have so much potential still feel like I'll run into that no calm I know that it's so new but it's not Steve Jobs

00:45:14 which is always done awesome so let's dive a little bit more into you talk a little bit about family business I'm always fascinated with family businesses from the there's such different dynamics within a family business and compared to just either a lifestyle or a vc-backed one that there there are a lot of challenges because you're not just dealing with the employees or like the CEO they're also dealing with the patriarch so so walk me through make some of the challenges that you ended up seeing and

00:45:54 maybe how they were pointed or maybe some of the different firewalls I guess they might have put up to try to shield the different relationships within so is a missionary grew up in a family business multi-generational business and a lot of what I've learned about business about life about professional relationships customer relationships I feel like it all goes back to my early childhood and growing up in this business and I probably started when I was 10 and it started with me going to breakfast on Saturday morning my dad and

00:46:34 I go to the office with him and a store and you know give me hot chocolate it was I just want to be able to help and hey go clean up this mess over here gonna file this and I just you know sort of got to show up and I think you know they can go one in two ways and it's easy to to be the boss's kid and take advantage of that and I'm sure I did it at times but I always had that view of I want to earn my right to know right and I want to learn as much as I can people were there and so I somehow had

00:47:14 just gotten talked to me to sort of this bill does this need to prove myself no and that you know as I got more and more time there I got more responsibility and I got to see the full scope of business and I think you know part of why I didn't rejoin the business is because I just had a different in addition for what I felt like the business could be and as I told my dad I said I think we're probably going to drive each other crazy if we work together because I I don't want to do what you've done no for your most of

00:47:51 your career today so I'm gonna try to push us to places to where I don't have to do that and that's probably gonna make you uncomfortable or drive me crazy and I don't want to do that but I also don't want to be driven crazy about you for not letting me do that right and so we I think give that was you know somehow a moment of clarity that I don't know if I've had it since but I just realized that it probably wasn't a good fit and so I think just like any business you you add your hat family on

00:48:26 top of it there's there's so many dynamics it can be amazing I mean a level of trust the level of a really compelling thing about our kind of business is even the people that work there were extended family and with people that they worked there their whole careers and then their kids worked with us their whole careers and so they were extended family and so even our family was around this business we have holiday gatherings at the store and our whole family would be there with other people's families and so that aspect of

00:48:57 it in that community element of it I thought was incredibly powerful and I've never really wanted to not have that because I think you can have that in a culture of your business but the the the difference it's really difficult some family businesses figure out and navigate this is really difficult for example to have what I call objective performance evaluation with family member and Career Planning and you know there there is always going to be some another variability who's in charge and and some of these things you

00:49:35 know could you fire our family member and I think that that gets a little bit more difficult and so part of what I think has led me to the career that I've gone to is that it just feels like a venture back company should have can still have a lot of excitement a lot of purpose a lot of culture that has a little bit more of a objective in game that it's trying to achieve with outside investors putting some professionalism and expectation on it and I think that I felt like you know got me somewhat close

00:50:15 but also a different pace and maybe you know if I really decide you know the fact that I've done so many of these is this you know I was so embedded and attached as I was born into this family business so maybe this has allowed me to be a little bit more detached even though I've been the crazy one who's literally written checks and invested in the nominees to just sort of attach me to it forced me to be you know a committed owner and say like I believe that I can add a lot of value here so I want to be a part of that so it's yeah

00:50:54 family businesses are a really interesting dynamic and I wrestled with you know do I want to try to establish for my kids so to have that experience working with them haven't yet done it not Charl carry any final thoughts anything you any advice for entrepreneurs about looking at oc4 of the potential path or just general advice that you have so yeah i think the you know the thing i think about like I said it's a it's a calling it's a mission the less you buy into the press and the media around being an

00:51:38 entrepreneur probably the better it's a it is it's really hard i I think it's absolutely something we need more because entrepreneurs often are the ones that can inspire hope and a better world and change that we continuously will see we're seeing change at a rate that we have never seen before in human history and I think it's only going to increase and the entrepreneurs are often the ones leading that and we need people like that to get behind and support and so I think it is it's a lifestyle it's a way

00:52:23 of beam and you can try it on by just saying I want to go build a business but the more you embrace is really a part of who you are I think the more likely navigate through it because it is it's not gonna take harder and there's a there's a lot of different roles that we all can play I I encourage people to try it you know if they even feel the sense of a fire burning and part of what we're trying to do those before is to make it a safer or more supportive place to try it because I think a lot of people sort

00:53:03 of have that little ember burning and they pick their head up and look around and look for success stories or or support systems that might exist for them out there and they don't see them and so they go back in into their safe place of or seemingly safe place out of the job and I think there's probably no greater satisfaction you can have been taking an idea and turning it into a real thing and so that's that's what gets me really excited when I get to be part of doing that and why I keep going

00:53:37 back to war even though I don't have to be the founder right and I don't have to wrap my entire identity into that and I think that's you know the live the last part I would say is you know if you feel like maybe you should go do this explore it lean into it but don't let it define who you are we're all way more than than this company that we started and find people around you that will remind you of that because I think you can get you know being really excited and committed and and working hard is critical to

00:54:13 being successful and start a business but wrapping their whole identity and it can be really unhealthy from an emotional standpoint psychological standpoint even in the potential success and that you're not going to probably be as objective going to welcome outside input that may be really helpful to creating the best possible company that you can and so finding that support system around you people that can help remind you that you're way more than just this company is really really important nothing great

00:54:47 advice honestly and carry a where can people reaching so you can find me pretty active on LinkedIn so you can always find me on there you can also go to OC for B as in Victor calm on email or you do that so try to be as I said try to be easy to dance with and jerry' speaking pretty easy to find I try to be responsible drinking so thanks for having me really fun concert not really appreciate you coming come on show thank you yes