From Pizza Hut to Peloton: What Broken Experiences Taught Me About Building a Loyal Tribe

Watch the full video on YouTube here.

Are you a law firm owner looking to understand the importance of connection? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson interviews Sam, an entrepreneur and leader of Nashville’s Entrepreneur Center. Sam shares his unconventional journey from studying history to hotel management, nonprofit work, and founding multiple businesses. He emphasizes the importance of hospitality, community, and authentic relationships in business, drawing lessons from both corporate and local experiences.  

Sam talks about how important community and connection is to success. For him, success is directly related to the depth of the community. People just want a place to belong and it is crucial for businesses to thrive when they have other people or other businesses supporting them. Whether it's through networking or partnerships, building connections and maintaining a community of support will make or break success. 

Sam provides some advice to listeners about building better client relationships. One way is getting to know other client businesses. Once you get to know other clients, their business and what is important to them, you are able to understand them and their work, which can help build trust. Relatability is important in the legal space and it can really help build that bridge between clients and can create great relationships over time.

Listen in to learn more!

• 5:19 Lessons from Hospitality
• 9:06 Community and Belonging in Business
• 12:20 Corporate vs. Local Business Culture
• 16:52 Consistency and Service in Hospitality
• 17:38 Practical Tips for Client Communication
• 25:11 Building Community: Safety, Growth, and Meaning
• 26:46 Rituals for Team and Customer Bonding
• 45:28 Product-Market Fit and Customer Discovery
• 51:06 Bad Business Advice to Avoid
• 53:37 Finding and Working with Co-Founders
• 57:33 First Hires and Building a Team 
• 1:02:02 Best Advice for New Law Firm Owners

Tune in to today’s episode and checkout the full show notes here. 


Connect with Sam:

• Website  
• Linkedin 

Creators and Guests

Host

Tyson Mutrux

Tyson is the founder of Mutrux Firm Injury Lawyers and the co-founder of Maximum Lawyer.

What is Maximum Lawyer?

Maximum Lawyer is the podcast for law firm owners who want to scale with intention and build a business that works for their life.

Hosted by Tyson Mutrux, each weekly episode features candid conversations with law firm owners, business experts, and industry leaders sharing real strategies and lessons learned in the trenches.

If you're ready to grow your firm with less stress and more support, this is your next must listen. Subscribe today.

Tyson Mutrux 00:02:44 So, Sam, you've been described as someone that takes ideas and you actually turn them into reality, which I think is pretty cool. And so for people that are meeting you for the very first time, what's the journey that led you to become so deeply rooted in entrepreneurship and innovation.

Sam Davidson 00:03:01 So I never thought I'd be here. it's funny, man. On the day we're recording this, I came from a couple of meetings where I got the tie on, but the the, president of the Atlanta, Federal Reserve Bank was in town today. So is that in a couple of meetings that he was in, and he never thought he'd be running a Federal Reserve Bank, which is like, you know, what 12 people do at ten people do it, I don't know. And, I'm sort of similar here that I'm like, yep, I know what you're talking about, man. because I did not study business in college, I studied history. I was like, I took macroeconomics, I got a C-minus.

Sam Davidson 00:03:33 I was like, that's fine. I just got the requirement out of the way. I'm never gonna do anything with business. My dad was, in healthcare and was a healthcare entrepreneur. I didn't think I was going to do it. I thought I might teach or work at a nonprofit, do something kind of benevolent, and that was it. And was on that path. Graduated college, came back to Nashville, needed a job. I worked in hotel management for two years, which in retrospect was awesome. Was. Probably was. Was where I got my business education, which for Marriott Hotels largest hotel chain in the world. got leadership training. Learn how to read a PNL, hire fire sales, customer service, everything. And, but then. Then again, wanted to work somewhere where I felt like I was making a difference. Went to a nonprofit, and it was there down the hall, a guy named Stephen. We were talking one day about this is way back in 2006 about how young people who we were working with at this charity, man, they were online.

Sam Davidson 00:04:24 They were on their phones, they were on the internet. They were using these new tools like YouTube and blogging and what would become social media. how could we, as a charity, use those tools to reach more young people to spread the cause? And we were chatting and the answer was, well, let's let's build a website. And in other words, let's start a business. And once I got that taste of here's a thing we want that we wish existed, it doesn't exist, let's create it. I knew. I was like, look, this is what I'm gonna do the rest of my life. And I not run this single company, but take ideas, do something with them, turn them into reality, maybe help other people do that. So I ended up starting four different businesses, throughout my time before coming into my current role running the Entrepreneur Center, which is teaching people to do that same thing.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:12 That's awesome. I want to focus in on the the first one of the first things you said, the the history part, it was interesting.

Tyson Mutrux 00:05:19 I do think that they should teach more history and business class that way. People aren't repeating those mistakes. But yeah, the the hospitality side, I think there's a lot of value in you starting over in hospitality. What are some of the lessons that you learned from that man?

Sam Davidson 00:05:36 It's it's funny because again, all, several people have said something to the effect of, you know, life can only be lived forwards but understood backwards, or we all like to think like, oh, here's here's my resume. Look, it all makes sense. But it's like, no, in the middle of it didn't make sense at all. Hotel management for me. I it was the only job I was qualified for. So in college, my part time job was I connected microphones like we're using here at college because they would have corporate meetings or people get married, chapel services, things like that. And that was my job. So I knew how to do that. And the Marriott Hotel by the airport in Nashville was hiring for an audio visual technician.

Sam Davidson 00:06:12 I think it was. It paid 13 bucks an hour. I was like, dude, I'd be so rich. because I made almost like half of that in college. And that was the job. And so it was thinking, going and connecting microphones. But the way that most hotels, but especially Marriott was like your front lines, you're talking with customers every day. These business customers were paying a lot of money. The meeting business of hotels is very high margin, so it really matters to keep those customers happy. and so understanding that now that I think is part of going back further, how I grew up, and a family that was very warm and welcoming, whether it was welcoming people into our home to stay with us or at the holidays. Again, lots of families do that, but just that understanding and a lot of that was probably our our faith upbringing. My, my parents and I grew up very religious, very Christian. And so part of that hospitality, that kindness, that loving, kind of nature was also part of it.

Sam Davidson 00:07:06 Making other people feel comfortable, feel warm. And so doing that in a corporate setting was something new. I'd stayed at hotels before. Of course. Yeah. but thinking about it, I remember our director of operations talking about, you know, someone saying in this hotel today, they've they've maybe saved up for a whole year, a whole decade to stay here. And what what experience would we want them to have? And that was part of the Marriott's philosophy. The family who started that was taking care of the employees. We'll take care of your customers. Your customers will come back. And several businesses since then have employed something southwest for a long time used that. And so just that idea of making people feel welcome and seeing that there's an entire business around that, it's something pretty unique. And it was pretty fun to be a part of.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:46 You know, I don't know why I was thinking about this yesterday, but I was thinking about Pizza Hut and Pizza Hut used to. It was to be.

Tyson Mutrux 00:07:57 I used to love going as a kid. Right. You would go. You did have the the red lights above the booth. You know, you'd go and sit in there with the family, the smells of it, and then it feels like sort of corporate America took over Pizza Hut, and now it's this very, just watered down, very streamlined marketing where there's no you can't go in there and sit anymore. You have the you order your pizza for delivery or you pick it up. And it really made me I was thinking like, okay, what makes like the local pizza place better than just take the pizza part of it out, right? Yeah, because I used to love pizza. Pizza. Right. But you compare the local place to, like, pizza, like, what's the difference? And it's like that place to go and hang out with your family. And that's what's really interesting. But you were talking about the Marriott and yeah, I feel like that's what we've lost in businesses, many businesses, you've lost that part of it where it's like the human part of it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:08:56 They've just kind of stripped down and let's cut down all our costs, let's increase all of our profits. And here's what you ordered. Right. And it streams. It removes all that human element of.

Sam Davidson 00:09:06 It, man. Okay, dude, we're just we're jumping into it, I love it. I love this. okay, so. Yes, you're you're completely right. Because what do we want? All of us want. We want to belong somewhere. So part of my other through line, through through my life again, looking back is this phrase. The height of my success is directly related to the depth of my community. So the height of my success directly related to the depth of my community. I didn't realize that to kind of in the midst of Covid, my business that I was running at the time, my fourth company was experiencing crazy growth. We were one of the the rare companies that grew during the pandemic, but I was exhausted and I was working a lot trying to keep the thing alive.

Sam Davidson 00:09:42 but I wasn't able. You couldn't do this. We could do zoom. We got great at graded zoom, but even that was exhausting. I had had also had a long. Part of my career had been in public speaking. So getting to travel, meet people, hang out, develop relationships, give speeches, all that kind of stuff. And I just couldn't do that. And you couldn't also do like, hey, you want to go meet for coffee later or grab a beer after work? Just couldn't do it for a while. And so that was what dawned on me was, man, the whole reason I've been successful, what what I'm missing right now is this connection and all of us wanted. I now give a talk where I really look at the economic viability, the economic benefit of creating community for businesses to do that, and not in a way that's inauthentic, like, hey, we'll call it community. People are lonely. It's true. People are lonely. We can get in some stats if you want, but that's what we enjoyed about these businesses.

Sam Davidson 00:10:26 Like you're talking about. Whether it was a certain era was we felt like we'd go somewhere. Maybe, maybe we knew the person behind the cashier, we knew the guy who owned it or who was cooking there. it was a place we could belong. A place where our family could come and, like, do family stuff every week. So mine. You said Pizza Hut. Mine is a high school student. Was Mr. Gaddis as a pizza joint. Had some like arcade games, but we would go every Sunday after church. Our youth group would go. There's a bunch of guys, you get a buffet for like six bucks, and we'd go.

Tyson Mutrux 00:10:54 And it's a cheap buffet.

Sam Davidson 00:10:56 Cheap buffet. Against the 90s, teenage dudes would go and, we developed these rituals. Any any community does. And ours was called the crust pile. So we had these rules. Rule number one, you know, like Fight Club number one do this. Well, one of the rules is you can't eat the crust.

Sam Davidson 00:11:11 All the crust go on one tray in the middle of the table and you build this giant pyramid. Oh, wow. But it was just that idea. And then, of course, Mr. Gettys is gone. It's consumed by, who knows, whatever kind of conglomerate. Because the idea the, the, the product they thought they were delivering was not community or sense of place. The product they thought was, you know, cheap pizza. So what's the cheapest sauce we can get? How do we cook it quickly with the fewest amount of employees? Spend the least amount on advertising. Because yes, you're right, it just became this play. And so many businesses have done that. Whether it's restaurants, hotels, stores, retail. They just think that in order to compete and stay alive and it becomes a race to the bottom. The worst part about a race to the bottom is if you win, then you're on the bottom. And so a lot of these places have felt that. And we as a society, as humans, we really want a place to belong.

Sam Davidson 00:11:57 And that's why the places that are doing that Starbucks is not about coffee. It did not grow and explode when it did in the 2000. Howard Schultz, the CEO who kind of started that, took that over and grew. It was he started saying, we're the third place and is at a time where now you can argue that third places, we actually need them back again. But that was it. Just because you it felt like this. It looked like this. Nobody loved it for the coffee.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:20 You know, we've we've gotten to befriend. I know I'd say 90% of the Starbucks employees at the Starbucks we go to. They they know me by name. I know, of course, my name. And it is interesting that because they they're feeling this like push and pull. It's like the push and pull of corporate America because they're asking because they they want to recreate that third place there because they, they that's why they're closing a bunch of stores. They're trying to really invest more into that, and they really are trying.

Tyson Mutrux 00:12:51 So I'm gonna give them credit for that. But what they're also doing is that they still are. They're pushing the KPIs on the employees. So drinks have to get out within a certain number of minutes. They've got. I mean, they've really and you I have noticed that they, they learn how to game the system. So you order them on the mobile app and they'll say scan it. It's it's completed, the order is complete and it's not yet complete. Well, it's, we'll set that aside, but one of the things that they'll do is they want they always want to. When a person comes in, they get greeted. Every single person. So anytime that goes, you go to a Starbucks, watch your eye. If they're following the guidelines of corporate there, you're going to get a greeting. Hey welcome. Good morning. They always say my name because they know I'm like, hey Tyson, what's going on? Good morning. So they they like that the employees like that. But they're also getting the the pull of.

Tyson Mutrux 00:13:41 I also have to get this drink out because they want them to engage. It's not just saying hello, it's they actually want them to engage with the with the customers. But they're so they're they're getting that they they're okay with that. But it's also but don't expect me to get this drink out in two minutes like it's I can't do both. So how do we balance those two things.

Sam Davidson 00:14:00 So I think and you're right Starbucks feels that tension. I think a couple things. One, they call their employees partners always have and probably always will. And that distinction is helps the employee feel like something different. A partner like you're in a you're a co investor, in something I'm a co-creator of ownership here, a lot of lot of good benefits, a lot of things like that. So even if I just say that because if you're running a business listening to this, if you do want more from your employees, we all need and want more, think about ways to bring them into that mission versus just saying, here's the KPIs.

Sam Davidson 00:14:38 Compare that to another coffee shop or restaurant that is only about the KPIs where they don't do the things you just said.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:45 Dunkin.

Sam Davidson 00:14:45 Donuts. And again, you could be like, wow, that's a great investment.

Tyson Mutrux 00:14:49 I just made a lot of Dunkin. That's right.

Sam Davidson 00:14:51 You get some letters on that one. but do you, do you want to go there every morning? To your point, if you have a choice. Now, the other piece, though, is the tension of us is the consumer. So your piece about who wants to drink out quickly what corporate does. Because we do. Yeah. and, and when I can just make a couple taps in order, the same thing. I mean, again, my my daughter. I've a teenage daughter. She's got the Starbucks app on her phone. Of course, it links to my card, so I see everything every time she's ordering it after school, etc. but that's the expectation. And there's now several Starbucks. You can't sit in them.

Sam Davidson 00:15:20 They're not third places, they're just pickup places. Starbucks also fascinating. I'll misquote the stat, but if they were a bank based on deposits, they would be one of the call it ten largest because of all the pre-loaded dollars on our app or on our Starbucks cards. Just cash sitting there on their balance sheet. Great business for them. So again they've got their. They're at scale now. Now again. But contrast that not to a Dunkin or a Starbucks but the locally owned single unit here in Nashville yesterday. the longest one of the longest running coffee shops 30 plus years said, hey man, it's time to fold it up. And they can keep going. They're doing fine. Multiple locations, roasting business wholesale and grocery stores. But the owner, he's like, man, it's been a good run. And it's one of those people like, oh, here's Nashville. You know, another one bites the dust. And I'm like, I don't know, man. I think 30 years of running a profitable business that was a community staple.

Sam Davidson 00:16:09 Like it's not on him to run it forever till he dies if his kid like. So we've got to recalibrate some success. But if you go to Fido and you have two, they put a countdown clock. Yeah, I like the ones here. So because it's two years in the making and he did say he goes, you know, when locals close, they say, you know, like last week, you better come. He's like, no man. We're going to celebrate these last two years. So he's like he's like, my lease is up. But he's got a clock the number of hours. And so it's one of those things like, don't say you didn't get a chance to go to Fido before it closed and go like, get the the best thing there. If anybody's listening to the bachelor bomb is this hangover cure. It's a a whole wheat bagel with a bunch of peanut butter on it. It's called the Bachelor Bomb. It's awesome anyway, but there's.

Tyson Mutrux 00:16:50 That lovely peanut butter bagel, so that's.

Sam Davidson 00:16:52 There you go. But again, contrast that small unit versus the corporate that doesn't care about your name versus the corporate that does. And that just ends up in the choices we all make every single day based on where we're at. and again, back to my hotel experience. That was the other thing we said is like, you know, there's there are people who stay in this hotel more, more nights than they are in a hotel with Marriott, more nights than they sleep in their own bed. So, folks who are the highest status, some folks sleep in hotel beds 300 and nights a year, and they want the same bed, same sheets, the same remote control, the same chicken breast, the same fill in the blank. And they want that consistency, but also still with some service. Sure, with some kindness, with some community.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:29 I wonder if there was any any lessons you picked up about. And maybe it's just the phraseology, Certain things that you said, certain things you picked up using their first name, all of that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:17:38 Are there any little tricks that you think people can use when it comes to their practices? When it comes to, you know, communicating better, communicating with their clients, or at least conveying the service in a better manner.

Sam Davidson 00:17:51 I think it is. I think there's a couple things. One is and I see this a lot in the services business. I mean part of it was because I was an entrepreneur, I have an attorney, I have an accountant, I have a wealth planner. I had these people not because I talked to him every day and hopefully I needed them sparingly, especially on the attorney side, just for setup. Hopefully set up an acquisition versus, I got this letter. but again, like, there was such relief in knowing that for a long time I could call Rob if it needs something. Got a question whether it's like, here's a sticky employment thing that happened to help me talk through this. And just knowing, having that person there. and it was because they would take time to get to know the business.

Sam Davidson 00:18:33 They would they would patronize the business. and as he was growing his book of business, that's who he wanted to know his ultimate goal. He wanted to get an estate planning. He want to get out of business law, transaction law. He want to get into a state planning a state law. Great. And so some of that, he just knew he needed to get to know these people. But he went in through business owners as they grew their wealth to something that he could help them plan as they headed toward retirement and into life planning. And so if it's something about them, we all have this. If we're like at a big room networking meeting. Okay, Tyson, I can remember this Tyson's name. I'm about to shake hands with 15 people. Like, so people do the trick like, hey Tyson, good to meet you, Tyson. How's your day, Tyson? It's like, you know what I'm doing at that point. Yeah. You know, whereas.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:12 Like, also drives me nuts.

Tyson Mutrux 00:19:13 It should as it should. It's like okay. Or or the worst. not the not to shift us too far off the topic, but when they really, whenever they're using it to manipulate me a little bit, they're like as a, like a sales person. Well Tyson like that's right. Listen, you didn't need to say my name right there. Like, you're just, you're you're using it gratuitously. That's right. yes.

Sam Davidson 00:19:32 Versus, something that I can remember better than your name. or a way to help me remember your name is something that I selfishly that I also kind of gravitate to. So I heard earlier, you guys are from, near, like, outside Columbia, Missouri. Yep. And so, like, earlier when we were talking with the crew that was here, before you came in, I was. So I've been thinking, like, okay, call me. I've never been to Missouri, but I was kind of outside Saint Louis. Saint Louis just got a non-stop flight to, London.

Sam Davidson 00:19:59 I know that because I'm an aviation guy, so I read that in the headlines. And, Saint Louis is a city, so, like, there's these things that I can be like, man, Columbia. So, like, we can sort of relate on something. None for everyone to know. Tyson is from Columbia, so whatever that is for you and your practice getting to know folks. I ran a gifting company for 11 years before I sold it and eventually got a chance to do what I do now. But when we would help people think through corporate gifting strategy. So, law firms were our biggest client. and so they would send gifts to clients to retain at the end of the year, they would definitely. Send in prospects. They would send for interns they wanted to hire. There were lots of reasons law firms would get gifts. We said, look, you can send the box of chocolates, you can send the frozen steaks. But what is it that's unique about your firm? And so we would walk them through that.

Sam Davidson 00:20:47 And then again, our longest running client was the largest law firm in town. And then we got to a point where they said, man, if you really want to impress this executive, what do you know about their spouse or what do you know about their kids? What do you know about their hobby? Because again, you could send them some nice coffee. We can send them some unique we specialize in kind of artisan made good. So it's not the same stuff from every city. We worked with multi-city firms to send a coffee from each city, for example. But we started to say, like, what if you spent this allocation, instead of the executive who has everything, the guy running a multi-million dollar company, health care executive, he doesn't need another set of leather coasters. He does not need, you know, another, rocks, glass or even an ice bottle of whiskey. Do you know what his wife likes to do? Where does his kids go to college? Where did he go to college? So again, there's those elements that you can, if you're willing to do a little bit of research or make that blatant and memorable when you have that next sort of discovery call or meeting just to say, yeah, man, he mentioned he just went to a golf trip to Scotland.

Sam Davidson 00:21:43 He loved it because his family's from there. You file that away somewhere and you want to remember it, but put that in your CRM, store that and then randomly or whatever you send something or you just bring that up. Hey, last year when we met, you had just come back from that Scotland golf trip. Did you go back or. Oh no. This year we went out to, you know, Bandon Dunes. We played Oregon for a little bit. So whatever those things are, it's a little bit of effort, but it's that special touch versus, hey, I saw the quarterly returns were great.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:09 So you you mentioned aviation. So I'm going to take this opportunity to actually plug something that it has really it's related to gifts. Yeah. One of the best gifts I've ever gotten. So got him Matt Burke. He's he's sponsoring Max Locke on Zillow metrics. I'm gonna plug them to good. But he's, So I'm a private pilot. I like to fly. We own a piper, but I like to fly a Cessna just because I like taking people up in the Cessna so they can see under the wings all that kind of stuff.

Tyson Mutrux 00:22:36 That's cool. He sends me last week, I get this box and I'm like, what is this? And it's, you know, says fragile. And I open it up. It is a Cessna with our firm's logo on the side of it, and I'm like. And it sits on this little stand. Yeah. And it's got, so we are, we have a trademark strike fast strike often. And so it's it's awesome. Just the coolest gift. Right. It's got that on it. Just just amazing. And so like there is like some people are just really good at gifting some people. And that's the other point though, actually paying attention. People listen to people. I used to do this game, I'd go, I'd go get my haircut. And I love doing this with people right where I had this. I had my notes out every time I would try to pick up new, new information on the guy that was cut my hair right. So I'd go, he'd cut my hair and he'd tell me all these things, right? And I would immediately go and get sit in my car, make notes of it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:29 Right. And then I'd come back. I would, I would make sure that I hit all the things that he mentioned. Every single thing. Yeah. He would tell me, I would get more information, write it down. And so he would start saying like, your memory is incredible.

Sam Davidson 00:23:43 Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 00:23:43 Nobody's is just no one is.

Sam Davidson 00:23:44 There's a trick for everything. Yeah. And I think to your point, like it's two things. One, we all we all want to be noticed, recognized to your point about whether it's the name in the coffee shop or just saying like, hey, Barbara, last time you mentioned this. because we deep down, that's how we're wired. That's who we are. We just want to be noticed and known by somebody and therefore, because in so many places that seek to anonymize that or where you are a number or a transaction, it's it's hilarious how easy it is to stand out by doing that simple thing, which businesses used to do all the time because they didn't you weren't.

Sam Davidson 00:24:18 Customer number 1471. You were Tyson and Tyson's coming in. He always likes to eat the whatever because there was no CRM, there was no record, there was no. Now we can have digital tools that help us. Especially as we're growing our business and we have hundreds or thousands of clients and touch points. We can rely on that technology. But that's it, man. And that's what I tell my kids is, is to stand out nowadays, it's not necessarily to get noticed digitally by thousands, but I think it's to get known and remembered by the right folks to ask the right question. in order to do that, would you tell people feel like they matter?

Tyson Mutrux 00:24:51 So you said the phrase, and I couldn't remember the full phrase, but deeper in the community, what was it again?

Sam Davidson 00:24:58 Yeah, the height of my success is related to the depth of my community.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:01 I love that phrase. I'd never heard that so high did. My success is related to the depth of my in my community.

Tyson Mutrux 00:25:06 Okay, so how do we go deeper in the community? What are some ways of doing that?

Sam Davidson 00:25:11 Great question. So there's a couple ways that we do it. So I'll I'll kind of break this down a couple of ways. One. Number one, what is community. Because we can call a lot of things community. We like to use that word. It feels good. But community is only true when when three requirements are met. The first is, safety. So we have to feel safe in a place and that can feel safe in a place of work, a place of worship, whatever that is physically safe, psychologically safe, mentally safe, emotionally safe, all that kind of stuff. We want to feel safe. And the reason is because our brains have always been wired. That's how that's the whole reason we formed tribes and groups early on. then growth. We want to be at a place where we want to grow. And so this is why we go to school in community while we teach each other things, because we get smarter when we're together.

Sam Davidson 00:25:55 And the third is meaning we're the only species that thinks on a higher plane. So we form communities to seek meaning, whether that's religious philosophy, whatever that is. So if those three things are true, then we've got community now, the ways that we do that, and again, research backs up, three simple things we can do to to build real community. number one is to eat together. And so again, there's an endorphin release when we're eating. When we're eating, we're at the same height. We've put down our weapons again. Thinking back to our early brains. Early ancestors. We put down our weapons. We picked up a spoon. And so there's just. That's just part of how we're wired physiologically. Research also backs that up. I've done a lot of research on this, but there's a book called Eating Together where a woman does research. She looks at potluck culture. So covered dish culture. Oh, interesting. And it's fascinating. It's kind of boring. It was her dissertation, but, it's just fascinating about how she studied all these cultures.

Sam Davidson 00:26:46 And there was this kind of cause, especially at a potluck where the CEO is bringing a dish just like the janitor, whatever you want to do. And so it's just a unique kind of culture that we've developed and just around food. And so you want to build teamwork. You want to build camaraderie. Just eat together doesn't mean you have to pay for it all as the boss. but it just means you can go out, you can do an outing. you can bring your lunch. I'll bring my lunch. Let's just sit together and eat. the second is, sweating together. So again, releases endorphin. And so if we move together, it doesn't have to be a CrossFit workout. You know, hop on a bike, run a hundred miles. but if we just exert ourselves. So if we just want if we were to go on a walk right now and talk, we would feel more bonded than if we're emailing each other or doing a zoom call. So the more we can move together, we don't have to be moving in the same place at the same time.

Sam Davidson 00:27:30 So if you're on your headset doing a lap and I'm on mine and we're in different countries just the same.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:35 So you can do this virtually, this.

Sam Davidson 00:27:37 Is you can still do it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:27:38 Just give me one more questions. Okay.

Sam Davidson 00:27:39 That's right. Right. And so it can also happen with teams. Teams feel bonded if you guys have a, a physical challenge together. So it could be a step goal or it could be like, hey, we're all going to do 1000 pushups amongst us, by the end of the week. Because even if I'm doing mine and you're doing yours at a different timezone or a different time of day, collectively, I'm thinking about Tyson. Yep. Great. So, a release of endorphins. if you ever know people who have done, CrossFit, of course you do, because they talk about it, but, it's because it's built that community around. Yeah. peloton. It grew, and we think it's because they shipped bikes to homes. That's part of it.

Sam Davidson 00:28:08 But they have a whole community around that that they've built that has led to their success. The last piece is in service. And so if we serve together, do something charitable together again, doesn't have to be at the same time in the same place. But teams who serve together bond as well. And so again, it's that active service. I see you at your kindness. If you're reading to a kid or doing a food drive or building a habitat house. So if we've got a team, if we've got a group of people that feel safe, wants to grow and finds meaning together, the next thing we want to do is set up some kind of routine or ritual around eating together, serving together, or sweating together. We'll keep building those bonds in that way. I think it's trust falls. We think it's filling out the survey. Tell us your most embarrassing moment. those things, they don't hurt. But if you really want to cut down and jump into it, do those three things with your team.

Sam Davidson 00:28:50 Do them with your customers. Do them with your family. there's a reason and we probably remember as kids, and if you're a parent, you do this too. You sit around the dinner table, we're eating, and so we're. How is school? Fine. We know that. And so if we can find rituals of story together, then then we'll build those connections, getting people to talk about that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:09 I love that that part of the video is just we can just clip that.

Sam Davidson 00:29:13 And.

Tyson Mutrux 00:29:13 That's right, that's right. That's awesome. That's I think that's a great game plan. It's something we do like. Like one of the things we try to do is like, make sure we like, build traditions as a family. You know, like, so when we're sitting around the dinner table. You know, what's the funnest thing we did today? Like, so which.

Sam Davidson 00:29:27 Question is opening a question like that? Or I mean like, why you you could have done everything that you're doing these next couple days.

Sam Davidson 00:29:32 You're in Nashville. That's awesome. Love having you here. Could have been an email. Could have been a call. But no, there's something valuable. Doing it in person and in the addition of physical presence and all the things. Seeing each other, getting that reaction. but there's something else you can add on top of that. And so for remote teams that are spread out multiple offices or the value of remote work love that maybe come together once a year for a treat just at the retreat, make sure you eat together, you do something to sweat and you do something to serve as part of that retreat. And you'll bond more than just, hey, we got a fun trip to Nashville or Cabo or wherever the corporate meeting was.

Tyson Mutrux 00:30:04 So does it matter how often those things are done?

Sam Davidson 00:30:07 It doesn't need to do with some some regularity. So it creates routine. And so, that's that's the hallmark of, of, communities that we have rituals and routines. And so as long as as well as rules.

Sam Davidson 00:30:19 So who's in, who's out? But don't do this or else you are out because that hurts the community. but yeah, those rituals and routines allow us just a repetition. Another R-word. so we know what it means to belong here. So yeah, it again, it can be based on budget. That's what I tell people. You don't have to buy dinner for everybody every night of the week. Or or maybe it's once a quarter you splurge or once a week. An example I'll, I'll give is even before I was a leader, because a lot of times I talked to either up and coming leaders or folks who aren't C-suite, just about what can they do? because young people, especially the younger you go generationally, the more lonely they index. And we think, but they're on their phone, they're connected, they're talking to their friends all the time. They are chronically lonely. And so, I tell folks, especially young, young people in their companies, what can they do? One thing we did is, one of my first jobs we got together.

Sam Davidson 00:31:07 We were talking about cool restaurants. We liked it in Nashville again, back to local restaurants. We were like, do we want to do, like, a lunch club? Just like on Mondays. Mondays at noon. You know, everybody can take a lunch break. All right. Anderson, where should we go next week? And we'll just go, and everybody pays for themselves. If you didn't want to go or you couldn't go one week, that's fine. But it was just so everybody knew what to expect. So, hey, we're just going to go eat together just to build this community. And, hey, this is what you know, Sarah likes. It's in her neighborhood. Cool. Never heard of it. She's going to take us to a new cool restaurant. Awesome. we did that. I had a, When we ran my gift company. We had a, worked in a warehouse, a very diverse workforce. And so we would do where folks could, could kind of bring in food from their home that they cooked from wherever they were from.

Sam Davidson 00:31:46 And it was a cool way to experience that. And they felt, again, that was their active service. Hey, I'm going to cook, cook food for the team. We did it in December because we were crazy hours around the clock to get stuff out. And so we would buy we would buy dinner, have dinner, brought in, every night. We stayed late in December. That was part of the deal. We'll pay for food if you'll stay to work. so, yeah, that's fine. We're making a ton of money in December anyway, so we can splurge for food. We didn't do it any other time of year, and that's okay. So whatever those routines are for that cadence, and we got more out of our people because they felt connected to each other, so they'd step in. All right. Somebody's slipping on the line. They're getting tired. I'm going to go jump in, help them out.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:21 What do you think? I want to ask you about the gifting company in a second.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:24 But what do you think peloton did to screw up? Because, like, they like, their stock plummeted. Like they were like they're in the toilet right now. So, like, what did how do you think that they screwed things up?

Sam Davidson 00:32:35 I think, probably a couple things in retrospect. And one is like take, take the volatility of the stock market out of it. I think it's there was a lot happening, obviously in 2000 and 2001 in terms of these pandemic companies. I mean, we bought a peloton.

Tyson Mutrux 00:32:48 20 and.

Sam Davidson 00:32:49 20, 2021. I mean, we we bought a peloton and I'd never ridden a bike but did it. And I was like, this is cool. I did my house. Great. it was affordable and it made sense. We weren't going to the gym, weren't doing anything else. Oh, wait, there's these leaderboards. Oh, wait, I can be friends and see their workouts and oh wait, I'm trying to get to a hundred rides and a thousand rides and all these things.

Sam Davidson 00:33:08 So again, they got that really right. they expanded it beyond the bike. So you could argue that a rower. They added a treadmill. Sure. There's sort of a reason that that might have made sense. So I go back and forth between should they have focused? Stay the lane. Chick fil A just does chicken. So like do you just stay just keep doing the bike. So this is the name peloton literally a group of riders and not seek to grow so fast. I think in that era you had a couple companies. There was another one, I think it was called drizzly that did alcohol delivery. And so based on where you were, because alcohol is regulated sometimes even at the county or city level, but they figured a way where you could order beer or wine or whatever and have it delivered to you based on all this, they eventually sold, but they had to sell, or else they were probably going to go out of business based on where they were. and so that was a function of people were at home, alcohol consumption went up.

Sam Davidson 00:34:03 And so that was a business that started and kind of was a product of its time. the other piece of course, nowadays is people are back in gyms doing just fine. And so how do you differentiate in that world? Yeah, so I think I think it's probably a combination of those things of cheap capital at the time. IPO ING when you could and then man, hardware is really hard. Oh yeah. Great company. I mean, again, we were essentially a hardware product because we were physically sending, molecules, so to speak. and so anything with the hardware, like whether it's a cell phone or, a bike is also just another layer of difficulty. And they got so popular the waitlist. A lot of people were fine to wait, but some people were like, I don't want to, I want to do a bike six weeks ago, but not now.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:47 Yeah. No kidding. all right, so let's talk about the gifting, because we used to use a company called Send Out Cards.

Tyson Mutrux 00:34:53 Yeah. Okay. And, like, we would automate gifts and things like that. And it was great. And I just learned the other day that they'd closed down. I didn't, because I was like, I wonder what happened to that company? And like, yeah, I don't know what happened. Yeah. But I wonder why why did you get into it and why did you.

Sam Davidson 00:35:06 Grow out of it? So I got into it again, not thinking it was going to become the biggest company I started. Of the ones I did at the time, this is 2012. So a couple things sort of happened that that all came together. One, I was traveling and speaking at the time, I was kind of doing that mostly full time. was running a branding marketing company also. So I got a chance to go to Cool cities. And that's why when somebody says they're from somewhere, maybe I've been there. but when I went, if I brought something back for the for the family, I didn't want to bring back a stupid keychain.

Sam Davidson 00:35:37 I was like, I'm going to go find go to the local bookstore, get a book for the kids, or, maybe, bring back some local coffee or a chocolate bar for the wife or something like that. So that's what I would do. And I would think about that in Nashville, because I knew the local coffee place and stuff. I liked 2012. Friends of mine in Denver talked about Nashville's so cool. We love coming there. I was like, I'm gonna send you some of my favorite stuff. Hop online a search Nashville gift, local gift. two things popped up. One was, Jack Daniel's barbecue sauce. Love all those words, but just not something I used And a shot glass shaped like a boot with the skyline and the word Nashville on it. I was like, no, it's not what I want, man. I want this coffee. I want these marshmallows. I want this chocolate bar, I want this. So I spent half a day running around town. I stood in line at the post office, nailed it.

Sam Davidson 00:36:20 I was like, God, why is nobody doing, like, a cool, nice Nashville gift set? Yeah, I know it's made here. So talk to two buddies who had started companies with. I was like, man, do you think, should we open a store? And they were like, no, we never worked in a store, much less run one. Why would we do that? You have to hire people. Inventory. That's dumb.

Tyson Mutrux 00:36:38 Especially the inventory part of it. That's that's the that's the tough part.

Sam Davidson 00:36:42 And I was like, well, but don't we like this stuff? Yeah. So, the idea instead was a subscription box. This is when Dollar Shave Club, Bark Box, Birchbox, all this was popular. So we said, what if we had a Nashville subscription box where you could get sight unseen for locally made things? Maybe it's popcorn, jam candles, and we'll get people like us, locals who love the city Just as like, here's a way to discover stuff.

Sam Davidson 00:37:06 So if you didn't make it out to the farmer's market or this fair or this boutique, you can see what's here. Cool stuff's here. So. All right, let's do it. So built the website early 2013, and we thought this would be a side hustle. We'll get maybe 200 subscribers like ourselves, but that's fine. Side hustle. Be great. We'll get together once a month. We'll go find some stuff. We'll pack it, ship it neat. And so we launched in the summer of 2013. that first month we got 200 subscribers. So we're like, okay, ahead of schedule. That's pretty, pretty good, right? Yeah. Good. All right. it went out and people got it. And a couple things. One, they shared it. They were like, this is so cool. What a what a cool service. And, people shared it online media covered it. A very popular local kind of lifestyle blog covered it. I woke up the next morning after they covered it at 600 new orders and I was like, oh man, that's more than 200.

Sam Davidson 00:37:56 Hey guys, where do we get 600? Where are we going to pack 600.

Tyson Mutrux 00:37:59 Bucks in New.

Sam Davidson 00:37:59 Kid. How do we get 600 bucks to the post office? and what we also noticed was I think it's cool to your point. I think it's cool when, you can personalize a gift message and not just print it out on some slip of paper, you lose. I was like, we should handwrite gift notes because, again, these are mostly going to be locals wanting to find local stuff. We're not going to handwrite that many 80% of our orders from the day we started till the day we sold it were gifts. So we realized this is not locals buying it, it's people. Send them to kids at college, sending them like, hey, miss you, thank you for this. Deepest sympathies. They just wanted us in a taste of their hometown. And three months in is when we got our first corporate order that said, hey, we normally law firm, we normally get an intern at Christmas.

Sam Davidson 00:38:41 We clear the conference room for three days, we make them go around town with the company card and buy this stuff and pack it, and we go deliver it. You're telling me you guys can just do that? If we just send you a spreadsheet of address, you're like, yeah, we'll do it. And we we made it as much on a corporate gift as we did a three month subscription with fewer cost of goods, fewer shipping. We said, let's do more of that. We eventually opened a retail store, and then eventually we started doing that in other cities. And then eventually we grew, especially during the pandemic, where it became more than just the geography. And so it allowed us to truly go nationwide. We were looking for an investor and ended up finding an acquirer in the process. And so that's how it was kind of the very condensed version of that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:39:19 I'm very curious if the company that acquired you all is the same one that sends them out of Cleveland, it's either Cleveland or Cincinnati.

Sam Davidson 00:39:27 This was not so. This was a private equity play where they were trying to do roll up with some other brands. was not well managed post acquisition, unfortunately. And so, there was some upside. There was a good kind of six month run when I was still there running it, but eventually sort of was under-resourced. a couple challenges it faced, given where the economy was kind of 2022, Silicon Valley Bank, some of those things were happening. Corporate budgets pulled back for about 6 to 9 months. So ultimately, no. But part of that, to your point is, there has been some roll up. I knew you should know that space very well. and there were lots of people I would get calls from by saying, oh, I see what you do in Nashville. I want to do this in Pensacola or Cleveland or fill in the blank because we love our city, too. that's what I thought we were going to do prior to the pandemic. we were working on a business model, actually.

Sam Davidson 00:40:14 Go franchise it where you find somebody, whether it's Columbia, Missouri or Saint Louis, Missouri, who loves their city, knows what's there, but knows that there's people who want to send and a taste of that city or represent that city well and so and know everybody and know who those corporate buyers are Realtors, attorneys, CPA, PR firms, client based businesses that need that touchpoint. that this is a great option that you can fully customize, make authentically yours. And again, whether it's including a note or put your logo on a on a mug, let's do that with the local coffee. We eventually got into helping our small business vendors offer that custom made thing because because corporates want their logo and stuff, I get it, but let's not put it on something that nobody wants to display. So if you put it on a locally roasted bag of coffee or a chocolate bar or something like that, then that stands out. People keep that around, or at least they remember it as they consume it versus like, here's another Yeti.

Sam Davidson 00:41:08 I mean, it's good. It's a Yeti. It works.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:09 But I don't I need another Yeti, like in.

Sam Davidson 00:41:11 The whole.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:12 You know what I mean? But so it's the reason why I asked about Cleveland is Hunter. Cavell. Cavell. I think it's Cleveland, not Cincinnati, but he sends me. He sent me for the last two years. He sent me this box from Cleveland, and it was a bunch of like, it was chocolate. It was like a popcorn. It was like a seasoning. It was a barbecue sauce. But I think about the barbecue sauce was. It was his barbecue sauce. It didn't taste like regular barbecue sauce. It was a little different. So I used it for like other things. And I used it like really quick. And I ran out of it and I'm like, where did that barbecue sauce come from? I could not remember where it came from. And last Christmas when I get a box and there it is, and oh, thank goodness it's funny.

Tyson Mutrux 00:41:53 And I was also kind of wondering like, oh, not that I was expecting. I was like, oh man, I wish, I wish hundreds. Send me another one. Those boxes were really cool. I liked it, yeah. And I it didn't come and I didn't get to like 2 or 3 weeks later and someone had stuck it under a desk and I was like, what is that box? And opened it up, was like, oh, it's freaking awesome. It was. It was so luckily, like, nothing in there went bad. But yeah, it's such a cool thing. One thing we talked about doing was for the firm, like we have people all over the country, and we thought it'd be really cool. From the each city where we have an employee, we all we have a basket that we send to each client. And I thought that would be so, but it's sourcing all of those things. See, that's what we did.

Sam Davidson 00:42:31 We would say, great, tell me the cities.

Sam Davidson 00:42:33 Yes. And tell them have each person tell me what they like. And then we would contact we would do the logistics on that.

Tyson Mutrux 00:42:38 So that would be so awesome because I mean like like off the top of my head, I'm going to be more like Eau Claire, Wisconsin. Yeah, right. Like you.

Sam Davidson 00:42:44 Can get. Yeah, you can get real small, real small town if you want because yeah, something is made there. That's that was a cool thing to discover. And now what I do and even seeing it around the country, I mean, like somebody is roasting coffee, making candles properly, making popcorn in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, like in all these cities, because the barrier to entry for a lot of these businesses is low. You have to open a factory to do these things. No. A lot of these things can be great home based businesses, and you can work on the quality of it. A lot of these folks where the, the, the partner, the spouse may be doing something, working somewhere and they, they moved because of that and they can't find work or don't want to find work.

Sam Davidson 00:43:18 I mean, we had so many vendors who were stay at home moms but wanted to do something during the day. Their kids were in school, so they wanted to do something from 9 to 2, and they would tell us they were like, like the best. Still, to this day, the best pancake mix I've ever had was a woman here. And she was like, I dropped the kids off at nine. I'll milk pan and bag pancake mix until two, and then I'm done. So if you need something after two, I'm with my kids. Sorry. And that we were like, cool, we can work with that. Like, now that we know that. So if if I need 500 bags to like a big order, she's like, you need to give me a month. I said, okay, cool, cool. But that was how they how she wanted to run her family and run her business. And eventually the kids got older and she just didn't want to make a pancake mix.

Sam Davidson 00:43:56 She's got a different job now, so we see those things happen all the time. But to know what that capacity is, we had other folks who are like, no, dude, I'm taking this thing to the moon. I'm gonna sell it to Kraft Foods. I'm going to get a couple of million bucks. You see me at the beach, you're like, okay, cool. That's the American dream. Whatever you want it to be.

Tyson Mutrux 00:44:11 Yeah. No kidding. Well, let's shift gears a little bit. Want to talk about the Entrepreneur Center? Because I think it's a really cool thing. So you run the Entrepreneur Center? Yeah. And I, I guess I wonder what made me think, really, my first question was like, okay, like, I wonder if there's like certain bedrock principles that you all focus on that every business needs to start with. And, and so talk about that a little bit.

Sam Davidson 00:44:36 So there's probably a couple things within that. So the Entrepreneur Center has been around 15 years.

Sam Davidson 00:44:41 We exist to help anybody in Nashville who wants to start and grow a business. And so you could you could do a law firm. You could be starting a software company. you could sell on Etsy whatever you want to do, whatever you want to take it. That's your dream. We've got folks who want to raise a bunch of money IPO. Great. We have other people who are like, just trying to create a great business. Hand it off to my kids. Cool. So whatever those industries are, we we have something for you. A lot of that. And this is where it gets into the principles. Again, go back to those connections, that community piece. The number one thing that will grow your business other than sales is a mentor. So we have an army of 150 volunteer mentors who are are ready to help any of our member entrepreneurs. And it could be a quick thing. Hey, I never hired anybody. I might have a interview tomorrow. What should I ask? What should I ask the right thing and pick the right person? it could be strategic.

Sam Davidson 00:45:28 Hey, my landlord said I can expand in the unit next door. Got a great deal, am I am I ready? Can you help me look at the numbers, figure out this makes sense. Whatever those are, dial them up. Sometimes it's just, hey, I've never done this before. You're a eight time entrepreneur, man. Can we. Can I just chat? So whatever those are, we want to connect you to the mentor. Number one. Number two then yeah it is some of those principles. So we kind of look at a couple of different areas. number one is what we call product market fit. So does your product fit the market? So back to me and my company. We thought the product for the market was a subscription box for locals. Nope. It was a city based corporate gift for for the corporate buyer. And so we didn't know that until we got to market and we were able to pivot. If we had stayed in the subscription space, we wouldn't have had the success we did.

Sam Davidson 00:46:11 And so we encouraged those founders to figure out what does that product market fit the number one way? Ask people. And so we have part of our accelerator programming during that week. We talk about that. And then I issue a challenge. hey, next week when you come back I'm gonna ask you how many customer discovery conversations you had. And it's usually here's what I'm working on. Does this sound interesting? Does this meet a need? What would you pay for it. And so it's covering those things because you could think, hey, here's the service I'm offering. I'm going to charge 50 bucks for it. And it does this. And everybody says I don't want that or I wouldn't pay 50. You're going to save some time. I remember one woman, one.

Tyson Mutrux 00:46:46 So you're not even talking like formal surveys you're talking about.

Sam Davidson 00:46:49 This is just. And you can do that before you incorporate, before you name the thing. asking people, what is your biggest pain point and what would you pay to have that go away? sounds like the Mafia.

Sam Davidson 00:47:02 but what would what would that. And again, it could be something as simple as, you know, I got these ants outside my window. I pay $100. Like. Or it could be like, no, man, you know, when I have to schedule my employees, it takes me six hours. And, man, if my time is worth $100 an hour, I would pay somebody 600 a month for a scheduling software. That worked great. Let's go. Let's sit down and talk about what doesn't work about your current and why it takes six hours. So that's that's lets you in to know because you can have a great idea and you could love it. But if people aren't going to pay for it, it is not a business man. It's a.

Tyson Mutrux 00:47:34 Hobby. It's part of that process. Getting them used to going out and talking to people.

Sam Davidson 00:47:38 Absolutely. Yeah. So that's one. Again, these aren't necessarily like maybe I should make a list of kind of these ten commandments or something.

Sam Davidson 00:47:44 But things, things I find myself saying over and over again to your question. Yes. As a founder. Even if you're not going to be the front guy forever, you are as a founder, you are the lead salesperson. And if you think sales are slimy and you don't like sales, again, I got okay with sales and I realize, like, I have something that's going to help and that's all I'm telling them about. And if they don't need it or want it, cool. That's great to know. I'll go on to somebody who does. And so when you see yourself as that, it's like, no, they have a pain. Like this is painful. This scheduling for them is painful. I have something, I'm gonna help them. So of course I'm trying to ease their pain. So when you look at it like that, then, then it doesn't feel we all get like the used car salesman. The slimy guy. Well, yeah, because he's trying to sell somebody something they don't want or need.

Sam Davidson 00:48:27 And so if you don't want to do that, you shouldn't do that period ethically, then don't do that. So yeah, you're the front person as you grow. You can't do all the sales and you can bring on somebody to do those things. But yeah, for a very long time you were going to be the lead sales dog, product market fit. And then it's the go to market strategy. So, hey, I know who I'm selling to. I'm selling to, you know, stay at home moms. Who this, Great. Well, where are they? Where are they? Hang out. What media they're consuming. What apps are they on? Where they go in the community? because again, we're like, we'll put up a billboard on this interstate. Well, if that's not the interstate stay at home moms are driving on, then you're everybody who's not interested in your product is going to see it. So being really smart about that, the number one thing I said this earlier today, your job as a as an entrepreneur is just to not run out of money.

Sam Davidson 00:49:13 Just don't run out of money for as long as you can, and you cannot run out of money because you're making sales. That's the best because you get to keep all that money. You can not run out of money because you borrow some. That's fine. You get to pay it back and pay back a little bit more, but it can help you not run out of money or you can raise it. And so again, that's also good because you maybe, don't have to pay back as much until you have some kind of event and exit. And maybe but there's different ways to do that. And then your job, when you have the money through sales, borrowing or raising it is to make it last as long as possible. And that's that's all entrepreneurship is. And so you as the leader, as the founder, as the entrepreneur. Those are those things to keep in mind. Knowing who your market is. Knowing how to reach them and then managing those dollars when you get them, that'll that'll lead to the success.

Sam Davidson 00:49:57 Helping with all that is that mentor.

Tyson Mutrux 00:49:59 Yeah. The thing that in undergrad Mizzou the undergrads in marketing business marketing and they're there I always say number one rule business is break even. You want to break even. You know hit break even is what you want like that. That's that's where you want to get to. It's not like, yo, you want billions of dollars or you want to break even. That's that's like number one. Now, you mentioned the sales part. So I want to go back to that a little bit. And so Alex Hermosa, I don't know if you follow him much, but he, he talks about he, you know, he's this, you know, 100 millionaire or whatever and talks a lot of different things. One thing he mentioned was you should be in charge of sales for as long as possible because like, that's the most that's like the engine that drives everything else. So whatever your sales are, whatever you could be selling widgets or legal services doesn't matter. You need to be in charge of that for as long as possible.

Tyson Mutrux 00:50:45 Because if you lose control of that and then someone someone takes it. That's, that's that's bad for your business. So that's a good bit of advice I think it's great. Yeah. I wonder how much of how much bad advice you see, business advice you see online or other places and what are what are some of those things that people should stop listening to?

Sam Davidson 00:51:06 People ask me, like who? Who does the e c the Entrepreneur Center in Nashville compete with? And it's really nobody locally. Like we actually could use more educational resources, especially those that are in person. We offer a lot of virtual stuff, and you might meet with a mentor virtually. But as the city's growing and as more people here are and become entrepreneurs, we had 40,000, I think new Business Applications LLC filings, in the state in 2023. So it's the, the the demands there. Yeah. the help is needed, but it's the competition, like with anything else is people's time. And when I can scroll and see some bit of advice from somebody, that's a temptation.

Sam Davidson 00:51:41 So, obviously, no such thing as get rich quick. No, no, No method by which that's true. or it will ever happen. number two, I would say, passive income is usually, a myth. Oh, I'm going to create this, this business, and it'll give me passive income. again, there are some models of income that you are not working equally hard for. That over time, the input is less and the return is greater. Like the investments or that. Right? Investments can be that insurance can be that some some asset ownership, whether it's nowadays maybe crypto. I don't know nothing very little about that real estate etc.. so there are some things like that. But again it's it's still over time. I think that you can do this alone. This idea of like, man, your family doesn't believe in you, your wife, you just do it anyway. Go about it on. No no no no. Again. Nobody. All the all the single name people.

Sam Davidson 00:52:41 Ellen, Oprah, Beyonce, whatever. they are, they've got an army behind them and always have. And some other kind of a benefit, whether they acknowledge or that or not. So I think by pairing partnering with someone, I always am I for businesses, I always had a co-founder and I never regretted it. My my equity share was last, but I could not have done it. now, in finding a co-founder, I always partnered with somebody who had different skill set than me. We never duplicated skills on the founding team as we grew. Maybe we needed duplication to scale, but, that was something that I think. Don't be afraid or ashamed of that. now, partnering with the right business person, it is as as intense and legally binding in many cases, a partnership as a marriage. And so be very deliberate about that. about how things are divided up and what those agreements are. But, don't shy away from it.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:30 Well, how do you do that, I wonder? Because like minded people tend to hang out with like minded people.

Tyson Mutrux 00:53:34 Right. So how do you find the right fit for a partner?

Sam Davidson 00:53:37 Man, I tend to, equal ambition, but different skills is sort of what I find. And maybe that's somehow, how I gravitate in my friend set. I've started businesses with people I've known. The one time I jumped on as a number two. So I was kind of in between starting companies. Somebody I admired, was starting something, and he was like, why don't you come in? Come in is like the number two, not as a co-founder, but help me do some of these other things. And I realized after about 3 or 3 months and we both sort of realized, like, we've got pretty much all the same strengths and that's cool. But this was your idea. You need to go run it. You need a true number two, not a mirror, whatever you want to call it. He and I are still great friends. He's doing great things now. He grew and exited that company and his is, leading here.

Sam Davidson 00:54:24 Great organization in town. And we're still friends because we both realized, like, we're both strong at this. We both love this. But the things you're doing is like, I want to do that, or we should do that. So. But that frank, honest discussion. And if you're already friends and you can have that, then you can stay friends after that piece.

Tyson Mutrux 00:54:38 But, well, how do you decide who should be the one and number two, I wonder? Because like that is something where because I'm a firm believer there should be one decision maker like you can't know. You both can't run the firm together. How do you make that decision? Is there a certain traits that would make the number one, number one and number two? Number two? Can you give some guidance?

Sam Davidson 00:54:56 Yeah. The way we always did it was what is the decision. So for example, with my gift company there's actually three of us co-founders. And so if a there could always be a majority vote with three.

Sam Davidson 00:55:06 But if somebody wasn't available or somebody was like, I don't even know, was like, let's defer to the expert. So I would be the sales guy, finance, kind of the growth minded. And so if the decision was about that, again, they would ask great, smart, penetrating questions that could help us really unpack the decision. Somebody else was marketing the brand, the trajectory, the story. So it was a question about that. Like that's what he's good at. And if he's wrong, then we'll then we'll talk about it and we'll deal with it and figure out how we need to address it going forward. And then we had somebody else who was operational. And so how do we scale the actual physical and shipping piece of this? and so trust is at the heart of that. So just like a good marriage, just like any sort of good friendship or business partnership, it's do we have that trust? Because if it's I'm questioning every decision you're making, it's because I don't then there's not trust.

Sam Davidson 00:55:53 And do we really need to be in business together even if it's different skill sets, even if we have fun on the weekends, enjoying whatever hobby. If I don't trust you to run this business, then that's a critical issue. If you didn't trust your wife to parent your kids, then we've got bigger problems to talk about. It's not the decision of you let them stay up or it's there's a lack of trust there. So it can be the same way in business. that and it equally matters if you're seeking investment. Not all capital is the same. And so sometimes we like to think that because we watch Shark Tank and we're like, hey, they got $100,000 from one of them. That's great. But you can see that in Shark Tank that I don't watch it a lot. I do appreciate what it's done for kind of my industry, so to speak, and the popularity of it. But, you know, Laurie's money is not the same as Mark's money in terms of their background and their connections and and their brand.

Sam Davidson 00:56:39 And so based on what product you've got, the capital is not equal. And so it's the same in any investor that friends and family. Your uncle's money may not be as important or different than the banks or whatever that may be. So thinking all about that back to community, it's it's people at the end of this thing that we're dealing with people as part of this, whether they're employees, co-founders, customers, employees, all those elements is it's still the human side of this. We got to keep in mind.

Tyson Mutrux 00:57:05 Let's talk about first hires. Do you have any guidance on the. So let's say you're you're starting out by yourself okay. Because one of the first questions I always get about from law firm owners is, okay, what should be the first hire? Yeah, right. And a lot of times it's hire reception should hire an assistant. Should I hire an office admin should hire an attorney or should I hire a paralegal. Do you have. And so we'll have to be a little more general when it comes to running a business, but I'm guessing the principals are going to apply the same.

Sam Davidson 00:57:33 I always yeah, my first hire was always a shortstop. So I play baseball. So the shortstop is the most versatile position on the field. They can usually play anything from second base to center field to pitcher. And so it was always somebody who had a lot of different talents, knowing that early on they were going to be doing a couple of different things. So at the gift company, our first person, she was doing sales, she was sourcing product. she was out networking. she was very organized. So she did a couple of things that took a thing off of each of the co-founders plates. And so she was only able to stay. We didn't need a shortstop forever because eventually, as we grow and specialize, okay, now somebody can just do sales, but then she gets a choice. Hey, if you want to stay a shortstop, you can go find another company who needs a shortstop. But are you ready now to move from that into just sales or just something?

Tyson Mutrux 00:58:15 So you read my mind because I said, I was going to ask you, are are you? You're basically hiring them though, knowing they're not going to be around forever.

Sam Davidson 00:58:23 Not in that position forever.

Tyson Mutrux 00:58:24 Yeah. Well, definitely not this position. So that so you answer that question. My, my follow up is going to be though. Isn't that person really hard to find. And are you gonna have to overpay for that person?

Sam Davidson 00:58:34 The height of my success is directly related to the depth of my community. So every time, especially in the gift company, that we needed a critical hire. So that first hire somebody that had intern at my very first company and we just stayed in touch and what they were looking for, and we kept chatting, we opened our, we eventually did open a retail store. Ended up being $1 million part of our business. We need somebody to run a retail store. We're just three dudes who I mean, we've been to stores, but, a friend of ours who had been a regional merchandiser for gap, she was, like, kind of ready to leave corporate. I've always want to own my own boutique, but I don't have the money to open mine.

Sam Davidson 00:59:11 We were like, what if you open one? Like for us, you need complete control. And she was like, sounds awesome. So beautiful store, beautiful element. We had to design that store. Her husband was an architect. He was like, I know he's not boring medical buildings. Like, I'd love to get back to cool stuff and design a beautiful story. So it's it's building that, building your network before you need it. As a phrase, dig your well before you're thirsty and so understanding like who can you meet today? Hey, I'm thinking about starting a firm, in a year. A year after that, I'll need a short stop. Go meet some folks who in your space would like that? And it's it's so interesting now where maybe we're in a different labor market, TBD. But people are looking for meaning back to that safety, growth and meaning. Three elements of community. Meaning is hard to find, especially in the corporate space. I think you'd be surprised about how many people want to help a friend, want to help somebody start something new when I want to try that out.

Sam Davidson 01:00:04 Because if if you are in a large corporate job, legal side or otherwise, you can probably go back to a large corporate job. By and large, you've proven that great name on your resume. Been there a couple of years. Several years. Like based on where you're at financially, talk to your family, but you could probably try something out so those people are out there. You don't have to go find some college kid that you're spending half your time teaching how to be a professional. You can find those folks. So if you start now. Don't start when it was like I needed a shortstop three weeks ago. the the only exception that I'll say, obviously, if you're in a specialized field, if I'm running a hospital, I need a nurse.

Tyson Mutrux 01:00:40 Sure.

Sam Davidson 01:00:41 Yeah. But is what are you doing as the founder that you don't need to be doing that a lot of people can do just as well, or maybe better. So I was balancing the books every month because I it's math.

Sam Davidson 01:00:55 It's a spreadsheet. I got it, man. If I can stop doing that and there's a million people who can balance the books, enter the ledger, etc., I can spend three more hours a week on sales, and that will create more than enough money to go pay somebody to do the books, so you can start to carve out a few things like that until you bring on a full time hire. And so either I identify those with you and your founding team. Great. That's 40 hours amongst us. Here's the list of the shortstops going to take care of. Or if it's just nope, I'm only gonna bring in somebody for ten hours to do this. but you've got to be clear on how that allows you, as a founder, to create additional wealth to pay for that person and then some. Otherwise, you're never going to scale. maybe it allows you to sleep an extra hour and you really need that right now. That's fine too.

Tyson Mutrux 01:01:41 That's that's important.

Sam Davidson 01:01:42 That's right. Because again, you can get that hour and create value from that.

Sam Davidson 01:01:46 So that's where you just do that math. It can be quick back in the napkin math, but show that there's value there to figuring that out. and that it's worth you're going to create kind of that, that wealth or that extra revenue from farming that out and hiring that out.

Tyson Mutrux 01:02:02 My last question. Let's say that a law firm owner comes to you, says, I'm going to start a I'm going to start a law firm in Nashville today, tomorrow. Right. And, give me your best advice. What do you tell him?

Sam Davidson 01:02:15 Show up. So Nashville is a town that, will say yes to meetings, say yes to the first meeting, and you earn the second one. So it's a nice enough town that. Hey, I'm new to town. Starting a law firm. Trying to get to know business owners. Can I take you to a coffee? You will get. You ask hundred people, you'll get 95 yeses. Now, if it's. Hey, great meeting you. Learn about your business.

Sam Davidson 01:02:38 Consider your proposal for what I think I can help you with. You just told me your pain points. I think you need maybe some legal eyes on something. Can I send you? That's what you've got to earn and kind of show up. Show your authentic that you're not just here. Oh, screw Tyson, he didn't want my business. I'm never talking to him again. Show up at things. This city has enough stuff going on through our civic groups, where you have opportunities to plug in in a meaningful way. And it's funny, this town built on songwriters is very collaborative in nature. Every songwriter I've heard when I go to a songwriter night, they always say Nashville is a ten year town. You moved to Nashville today. As a songwriter, you're probably not going to have a number one hit until 2035, because you gotta you gotta tell people, you got to write some songs, you got to play out, you got to get booed, you got a demo, you got to meet people.

Sam Davidson 01:03:23 and they're kind of, you know, sometimes you get a couple of years earlier, sometimes a couple, nobody shows up and in a week they've got a hit. and so I don't think on the business side, it's a ten year town. I think it's at least a 1 or 2 year town in terms of getting to a level where people know you, refer you, patronize you, those sorts of things. I think if you're willing to put in that kind of work, the city will see that, know it's authentic. I don't know the exact stat. Call it net. 100 people move here a day from all over. Some have jobs, some are starting jobs, starting companies. But that naturally thrives on that of welcoming the outsider. And so you have a chance to do that if you move here to start it, or if you leave a big firm. You've been here for a while. You're ready to hang up your own shingle. the city embraces that with with as many new businesses and even just nuances of of specialties within the, the legal field that are ever emerging.

Sam Davidson 01:04:12 there's entire parts of firms, but entire firms that are starting to really understand and leverage and think about AI, the crypto space, the creator economy, all these things that we would not have thought of if we had been chatting when you started your podcast. are now realities and so mastering one of those, but getting to know folks and letting them know how you can help them, this you can make it work here.

Tyson Mutrux 01:04:35 Even if it is a 1 or 2 year city and let's say any cities 1 or 2 years. Yeah, I still thinking I still I think that if you think on the ten year horizon or even longer, I think it's gonna be really helpful for you that, you know, like, this isn't gonna you're not gonna be an overnight success. You might get lucky and maybe you will be, but you're not going to be. So I think that that's I think it's great guidance. I think it's great advice. So I appreciate you doing that. You bet. Sam Davidson thank you so much for doing this.

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:00 I really appreciate.

Sam Davidson 01:05:00 It. This is a fun chat. Sweet cool.

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:03 Starting to get hot. I'm sure you get warm. They return.

Sam Davidson 01:05:08 That was a fun chat, man.

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:09 Yeah, absolutely. I was, they turned the ACL because it was a little noisy. Whenever it's, We're recording.

Sam Davidson 01:05:14 Yeah.

Tyson Mutrux 01:05:15 Oh, no. It's fun. yeah. It's, I'm glad you understood the the Pizza Hut reference. Yeah. The younger kids, like, kids don't like. They don't know anything.