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The Dreamfuel Show is a research expedition to uncover and unpack the mindsets of impactful tech founders and executives. On this show, we’re going to get real and talk about what was actually going on in their hearts and minds during the harrowing journeys that forged them and their companies! We’ll also speak with performance experts who will share the latest tips, tools, and tricks that can help us realize our own dreams, too.
As we like to say at Dreamfuel, every quarter is a hero’s journey. So be sure to hit follow to join us along the way.
Jon Speer [00:00:00]:
There's probably folks in your lives that you have relationships, whether it be kids, parents, significant others, best friends, whatever. Just make sure you have good quality time with those people, because those are the people that have been there for you and will be there for you. And hopefully you're there for them. But just realize that meaningful qualitative love is really the most valuable thing that we'll ever get as humans.
Kevin Bailey [00:00:26]:
I'm Kevin Bailey, CEO of Dreamfuel, and this show honors founders who are stepping through fire on their quests to realize their dreams. We dive into their failures and successes and the mental performance skills they're using to achieve their goals in less time and with less frustration. Enjoy the dream fuel show. Welcome to the Dream Fuel show, everyone. I'm here with Jon Speer, co-founder of the SaaS company Greenlight Guru, and I've got a guest co-host with me, Max Yoder, who is the co-founder and CEO of Lessonly, both incredible SaaS startups. We're going to talk a little about Jon's heroes journey. For those who don't know, Jon Spier, again, co-founder of the SaaS company Greenlight Guru, which streamlines the FDA approval process for medical device companies. On June 14, 2021, Greenlight received a strategic investment from JMI Equity of $120 million, which gave Jon the means to exit the business and start living the kind of life many founders dream about.
Kevin Bailey [00:01:22]:
Jon has a background as an engineer graduating from Rose Holman, and is a known expert in the FDA approval process for medical devices. Currently, though, he's a part time executive performance coach at Dreamfuel and spends a lot of his time investing in real estate, which includes some pretty amazing vacation properties that I've had the privilege to enjoy recently. Welcome to the show, Jon.
Jon Speer [00:01:40]:
Thanks, Kevin.
Kevin Bailey [00:01:41]:
Like I said, I've also got Max here as a co host on this episode.
Max Yoder [00:01:44]:
Thanks for having me.
Kevin Bailey [00:01:45]:
Max is the co-founder and former CEO of Lessonly, like I said before, and he also had a pretty spectacular exit around a similar timeframe as Jon, Max is the author of Do Better Work, which explores eight ways anyone can be a better teammate. It's a number one Amazon bestseller in the business teams and workplace behavior categories, and this is one of the reasons why I invited Max on, because he knows a thing or two about mindset himself.
Max Yoder [00:02:06]:
Thanks, man.
Jon Speer [00:02:07]:
And your book is phenomenal. You could read it in one sitting and then you could come back to it and come back to it. Come back to it.
Max Yoder [00:02:12]:
Thanks for reading it.
Kevin Bailey [00:02:13]:
So I'm gonna kick this off the way I normally do and just kind of explain that. Vern Harness from EO says that about one in 10,000 startup founders reached the level of success, Jon, that you and Max both have gotten. And, you know, the show isn't much about the startup strategy and the specific tactics you used to get there, but it's really about the mental hero's journey, the psychological one that you went on as a founder, and how this experience helped you build a mindset that was capable of building a one in 10,000 startup. This show loosely follows Joseph Campbell's hero's journey, and I like to look at the hero's journey through the lens of a japanese misogi. A misogi is a water cleansing, an ancient Japanese practice involving the purifying of the mind, body, and spirit through physical and mental challenges. In the samurai tradition, it helps warriors build mental clarity and gain a deeper understanding of themselves by pushing their limits. The hallmark of a misogi is that basically, there's as much a probability of success as there is failure as there is success. So a one in 10,000 journey means you had a lot of odds against you, and it was much more likely you would fail than succeed.
Kevin Bailey [00:03:19]:
Now you ended up succeeding. So I wanted to share a little bit about your mindset. Even if you failed, you'd have great things to share. And there were failures along the way. In successes, there are people who have chronic anxiety, clinical anxiety, you know, and then there are people who chronically put themselves into high stress situations that create anxiety. And I think a lot of us founders kind of have that. So I just want to unpack your journey, Jon, and I want to talk about both the building of the company up to the exit, and also, since we got Max here as well, I'd like to talk a little bit about the hero's journey post exit and what life is like. I think our listeners could learn a lot from both sides of these journeys.
Kevin Bailey [00:03:53]:
Starting off, I want to talk a little bit about the call to adventure. I want to hear a little bit about who you were as a person, maybe some of your personality dynamics, beliefs before you started Greenlight.
Jon Speer [00:04:04]:
Looking back on my career, I mean, I could see there's been several entrepreneurial adventures that I've taken on over time, but I don't think I give myself a lot of that credit until many years after I had done so. Because coming out of college, I went kind of the traditional path. I got an engineering degree. I went to a big company. I got to be a product development engineer for a medical device company. I got to get cocktail napkin sketches from doctors. I said, hey, can you make this? Go back and figure it out? It was a lot of fun. And through that, I just learned a lot about the medical device industry and that whole process.
Jon Speer [00:04:40]:
And I was climbing this corporate ladder and I didn't even realize it. Well, I think every company, but certainly large companies, there's politics involved, and I got pegged with a particular political party within the company. I wanted to be an independent, you know, it's not that I want one or the other per se, but it became clear to me that climbing this ladder, that wasn't the journey that was interesting to me. It took me away from the things that I was enjoying, so I just felt compelled to go do something else. So I went and joined the startup company that couldn't have been further away from the job where I was at. And it was a great experience. This is a startup company that did design and engineering services, but they struggled. They had four founders, and none of the founders shared the same vision.
Jon Speer [00:05:27]:
But I got paid to watch this company implode. I got laid off from that, which nobody ever is prepared for that sort of situation. But that was sort of a catalyst that eventually led to me starting my own consulting practice, which then eventually led to starting Greenlight. At this point, I have two young kids, mortgage, car payments, you know, all these things, and I don't have a big nest egg to fall back on. And I'm the breadwinner, you know, the primary source of income for the family. So I have to find something. And so I start networking like crazy phone calls. And fortunately, within a couple weeks, I had multiple job offers, and they paid better, had better benefits, and they were closer to home than the one that I just got laid off from.
Jon Speer [00:06:11]:
So I get into this new job, the rebound, so to speak, and it's fine, I can do the work, but it is boring, you know, I'm not being creative, but it's fulfilling the need, you know? Cause, you know, I'm the provider. I took the provider role probably to the extreme when my kids were young. This company survived for five years with four founders that were not on the same page. And I'm like, man, if those guys could do that for five years, surely I could hang my own shingle and do my own consulting. Even if I'm a business of one, surely I could do that and manage and so on and so forth. So I ended up starting a company, a consulting company called Creo Quality, and the focus was to work with medical device companies who were trying to get products to market. But, you know, I did a lot of work with small med device companies, too, just helping them with their systems and their policies and their procedures and, you know, getting their ideas for their medical devices to the FDA and through that process and into the market. So that was a lot of fun.
Jon Speer [00:07:10]:
We did that for a lot of years. But the whole time, the medical device industry is really interesting in some respects. It's a pretty archaic industry. They don't embrace technology. And from a policy and procedure standpoint, I mean, as we would expect, there's certain rules and regulations that medical device companies need to follow. So that way, we, as potential consumers of medical technologies, or certainly loved ones who might be exposed to these sorts of things, you want to make sure that the products are designed and developed and manufactured in a way that's safe and effective and that there's documentation and records and all this sort of thing. So companies, you hear the horror stories, but generally speaking, the industry does a decent job of that. But their process of doing so was all paper based.
Jon Speer [00:07:53]:
When we started Greenlight, 75 80% of medical device companies were maintaining their policies, procedures, documents, records in paper. When I worked at the medical device company out of school, I couldn't even tell you how many fireproof file cabinets we had. It was ridiculous. Even the companies then, when we started Greenlight, even if they weren't on paper, always called it digital paper, where they basically had a folder tree on a server and the files dumped into. It was a terrible way to manage and maintain a business. The thought occurred to me, this is a barrier to entry for a lot of startups. They don't understand the process. They don't understand FDA regulations or if they're working outside the US.
Jon Speer [00:08:35]:
So they need a system, something that can help them better manage this whole process. And that was where the idea for Greenlight came.
Kevin Bailey [00:08:43]:
Since we're gonna get into the green light's heroes journey for you here, at that moment in time, if you had to take a snapshot of you, your personality, your belief system, how you treated people, how you showed up before you started Greenlight, you obviously went through a massive transformation through the hero's journey of Greenlight.
Jon Speer [00:09:02]:
At this point, I had already started my consulting practice, and I had a few folks that worked with me along the way, but I wasn't really interested in growing a large consulting practice. Like I said a moment ago, I took the provider role seriously, probably to an extreme. I was working long hours. I would work, you know, oftentimes a significant portion of the weekend if we would go on vacation and be out of town. I had my laptop in tow and was probably working a good chunk of that time. So, you know, which was good, providing for the family, but not good for being engaged with the family and your friends and things of that nature. So, like I said, it was thrilling. I was getting rewarded.
Jon Speer [00:09:46]:
I wanted to grow the business, but I didn't want to continue to work more and more hours. Cause, well, number one, there weren't a lot of extra hours left in my day. And like I said, I didn't want to grow a big consulting practice. I mean, I had a few folks that worked with me, but beyond that, I wasn't looking to add a lot of headcount because I had enough managerial experience to realize this is not really who I am. I'm not a great manager. I'm more of, let's dive in, let's roll our sleeves up. I'd have some sort of product, right? And so first version or first iteration of this thought was, okay. A lot of these people that I'm working with, these startups, these inventors, these entrepreneurs, doctors, what have you, they have ideas, they don't have capital.
Jon Speer [00:10:30]:
And I have some knowledge that they don't have. So maybe we can do an exchange. I'll do some work for them in exchange for equity. So I dabbled with that a couple times, and honestly, it just didn't pan out that well. And then the thought occurred to me that, you know, there's this problem that keeps recurring and why don't I just develop my own product? This is pre Greenlight, obviously. Then I kept trying to reach out to people, because to me it's like a software product, but I don't know software. I knew enough about WordPress to be able to publish my own blogs and to change some basic css, but not too much beyond that. I didn't get any takers.
Jon Speer [00:11:09]:
And so I got to the point where I was like, I'm going to teach myself how to write code. And I got as far as the hello world tutorial and I'm like, this is not me.
Kevin Bailey [00:11:19]:
So you learned that you couldn't code this. You also were in a situation where you were running a services business. You were working incredible hours. Your family, yeah. Felt like you weren't spending time with.
Jon Speer [00:11:30]:
I think what I tried to do is I tried to be physically present when the kids had soccer games or doctor's appointment or school events, I would physically be there. But I think they just knew emotionally, I wasn't as in touch or engaged. They would make comments. They're like, dad, you're always working. They want the people that they love and care about to be excited with them. And I probably wasn't as excited.
Kevin Bailey [00:11:54]:
Let's talk about a crucial decision that you made that takes guts, understanding your time and skills. You met a gentleman, David Durham, very early on in this business. I feel like that was the formation of Greenlight. When you met David, I think at that point he had done six or seven startups, some success, but nothing over the top. And you decided that this gentleman would be CEO of the startup that you were founding. Tell me about that decision.
Jon Speer [00:12:21]:
So I had this consulting practice. I got into blogging, writing more as therapy, I think. But I found that I was okay at it. I probably thought that I was better than I actually was, but it was like a real social network. You actually interact with people and then you'd go actually meet and have coffee with them. And I was looking for someone to help with a website marketing. And through smaller Indiana, I met Brooke Durham. Long story short, I ended up hiring her to do some website marketing, email marketing, things of that nature.
Jon Speer [00:12:53]:
And through our relationship, I shared with her this idea that I had for a product. And she's like, oh, you should meet my husband. And so she facilitated introduction, and I think really the only reason he responded the first time is because his wife Brooke said, hey, David, you need to meet with this guy. I could tell he wasn't like super into it. It didn't dissuade me. It probably actually pushed me a little bit harder. And then he did some wireframes. They were really, really crude of a real basic idea and gave them to me.
Jon Speer [00:13:24]:
And then there was this event where they had the entrepreneur showcase.
Max Yoder [00:13:27]:
Yeah, innovation showcase.
Jon Speer [00:13:28]:
Yeah, innovation showcase. I applied to be one of the companies that exhibited at this and got accepted. And coming out of that event, David and I, you know, handshake, agreed, hey, we should do something. And so there was a company on the north side, med device company, some guys I used to work with back in the day, they had gone to this startup and this startup ended up getting acquired. They had their operations on the northwest side of 465. And we were going to do this joint venture, the med device company. David, me, we were going to build this product. We actually had legal involved.
Jon Speer [00:14:07]:
We were redlining contracts and agreements and all this sorts of thing. The parent company, it was based in Boston, said, hey, we're shutting down the Indianapolis operation. So it's like okay, well, this is going on the back burner. So it sat on the back burner for a while, and I was, like, not frustrated, but not pursuing anything at that point. You know, I kept my heads down, still working non consulting, and then sort of out of the blue, back in thanksgiving of 2013, David called me and said, hey, do you still want to do that thing? We talked about it. He's like, hey, I'm in a position where we could do this. I've got a couple of developers we can go. And so that was a pivotal moment where it's like, okay, we decided, let's go forward.
Jon Speer [00:14:49]:
So, anyway, that was sort of the.
Kevin Bailey [00:14:51]:
Beginning of Greenlight when David said, hey, these are my terms. And you looked at that. What made you decide to go for it?
Jon Speer [00:15:00]:
Going into it, I mean, I had some idea of what I wanted out of life, and, you know, I had a number in mind, so to speak, that if this thing could achieve this sort of value, it would be a game changer for me and my family. I had a number.
Kevin Bailey [00:15:15]:
What was that number?
Jon Speer [00:15:16]:
It was $2 million going into. It's like, okay, if this thing could connect me, $2 million, it would be a game changer, and it would. That's a lot of money. But it was tough because I'm like, this is my idea. But David was gonna do all the things. Like you said, he had done this a handful of times already. He already knew friends and family process and how to raise money and all these sorts of things. Max, kudos to you.
Jon Speer [00:15:41]:
Cause being a CEO of a company, that takes something that very few people have.
Max Yoder [00:15:46]:
I also needed people who were not.
Jon Speer [00:15:48]:
That it takes a team.
Max Yoder [00:15:49]:
Right. And I think I'm hearing you say you might have recognized that in David. It's like, hey, I see a yin yang sort of thing.
Jon Speer [00:15:54]:
Yeah. The CEO, especially when you're first starting that person's role, is to keep cash coming, whether that means through sales or fundraising or whatever the case, cash is the fuel of the business. And I was so ingrained in the product and the concept that I don't think I would have been a good fundraiser because it would have taken me away from the development of that product. I needed to be pretty hands on with what was going on with that. And so we did come to that crossroads, and I was like, oh, man, I just had to suck it up and trust. Honestly, I think there's a lot of.
Max Yoder [00:16:31]:
Folks who would say, I'm going to give you a little, and you can earn it over time. I just think it shows a lot of trust. It shows you're in it together. So it's easy to look back and say, that was a good decision. I respect folks who are like, I want to bring somebody else in it. I don't want to hoard what I have. I'm willing to share it to make it more.
Jon Speer [00:16:44]:
Kevin knows this about me, but why I trusted him at that point in time, I don't know. Historically, I'm not a person who trusts others without, you know, some sort of proven track record experience with me.
Kevin Bailey [00:16:56]:
But you think maybe subconsciously understanding how much you were working and how much extra you'd have to work to do this. You sort of said, I'm not willing to sacrifice everything related to my life to do this.
Jon Speer [00:17:06]:
You don't get paid when you start a company. So early days. For a while, it wasn't like I was drawing a salary from this new venture that we call green light. So I still was doing the consulting thing because I didn't have that nest egg to just fall back on. I think I was kind of half in, half out in early days. And, yeah, actually, David and I talked about that, you know, some months into the journeys, like, hey, what are you doing here? You got to do this or that. It's an interesting time. I don't know how I came to that decision at that moment in time, but I don't regret it for sure.
Max Yoder [00:17:37]:
I have a question about David and trust. I've been kind of taught that there's a couple different ways people have trust. Some of them start with their trust full and it can be depleted. That's kind of how I roll. Like, I meet you and I'm just going to roll with like I trust you until I figure out I can or can't. And it sounds like you're saying, hey, I want to have some experience with you, and then that'll fill the cup of trust. Do you sense David has a similar view of trust to you, where it has to be earned over time? Or does he kind of start out with, hey, I'll give you the trust?
Jon Speer [00:18:02]:
We both had to trust each other over time? Sure. I think for David, we knew each other for a couple of years before we started Greenlight. Plus, we have a common denominator in that he's married to Brooke and I worked together in some capacity, but the fact that Brooke trusted both of us was sort of like the transitive property. Right. So, you know, I think that probably helped.
Kevin Bailey [00:18:24]:
Sure.
Max Yoder [00:18:24]:
I think trust is like fundamental in a team functioning well. And so I'm just curious how that dynamic played out.
Jon Speer [00:18:30]:
There's levels, right? There's level one, a trust. And then it's like, okay, is this guy gonna do this thing that he said that he did? Oh, fricking did it.
Max Yoder [00:18:39]:
Yeah.
Jon Speer [00:18:39]:
So I think, you know, with each step that trust leveled up. And several years into the journey, there were certainly some low points in the relationship with David and I. But once we mended, it is like, David and I, like, had brotherly trust. Like, I never had a brother. I had a sister growing up. But what I could imagine you would feel if you had, like, a true biological brother, you just. You might fight like brothers, but at the end of the day, you got each other's back. David and I built that over time, for sure.
Kevin Bailey [00:19:09]:
Okay, so you and David and the team crossed the chasm. You're now in the special world. You're building this startup. You're starting to distance yourself from your consulting business and kind of running that financial roller coaster, which can be a little bit challenging. What was the biggest dragon you had to overcome? Either something external or something internal, something in the environment or something in your mindset that you had to overcome to get past that threshold? About 5 million.
Jon Speer [00:19:35]:
I think there were a couple. But the first one that comes to mind is when we were targeting investment, we didn't raise institutional money through the entire journey. There's pros and cons for sure, but the pro for us was that we were able to retain the majority equity between David and myself pretty much through the entire journey. So that also helped strengthen that trust relationship, because we kind of needed each other in a manner of speaking. But my idea, original idea for the product, was all about design control, which is really about documenting product development process. And as David was out networking, he used to work with this guy, Bruce. Bruce said, I'll make an investment in your company, and I will double the investment if you can convince this other guy named Jason to also make an investment. And Jason McKibben was the a guy who had worked in the industry and was knowledgeable and so on and so forth.
Jon Speer [00:20:35]:
Jason had had an exit from the company, and he was traveling the United States in an rv with his family. And he made his way from Bend, Oregon, through whatever path, but was like down in Orlando at Disney World. David gets on an airplane and goes and, like, stalks this guy. Well, he didn't stalk him. Jason knew he was coming. But he meets Jason down in Disney World, and Jason says, yeah, I'm in. Jason's gonna come onto the team Jason brought an idea to enhance the product that was broader than my original concept. He's like, if we could do this instead of JusT this, it WOuLD open up the opportunities.
Jon Speer [00:21:11]:
He was more encompassing of the entire quality system, which, without getting too deep in this, a quality system describes a company's policies and procedures for how they do business. Design control is a slice of that.
Kevin Bailey [00:21:25]:
What was going on in your head as he's trying to convince you to do this?
Jon Speer [00:21:28]:
I love product development. I love the design control process. I mean, it's the nuances that being able to tell a story of a journey, of an idea that somebody had for a product and how you document the prototypes and the iteration and all the testing, and that's fascinating. Some of the bigger stuff, I know it. I implemented it at a lot of companies when I had consulting practices, but it's not exciting to me. But he wasn't wrong. There was a need. There was nothing really out there that was solving this problem for the medical device industry.
Jon Speer [00:22:00]:
I think from a design control, had we stayed focused there, it would have been interesting to see what we could have done from an innovation perspective, more so than what we already did. But I think it would have limited our audience. Right. And so Jason, investor, but also became COO of the company, said, let's tackle this bigger thing, which wasn't the vision that I had for the product originally.
Kevin Bailey [00:22:21]:
How did that make you feel?
Jon Speer [00:22:23]:
For a while? Frustrated. I love McKibben to death, but you always hear the stories. When you get investors coming in, they start to change the direction of your company, your product. I'm like, it's not going to happen. But here, lo and behold, it sort of was happening, and I'm stuck. What do you do about it? You know, what I did about it is I started to spend more and more time with Jason, trying to understand his experiences, why? He saw this as a challenge. We became good collaborators with one another because he had deep product knowledge, the need for this product. He understood that space really well.
Jon Speer [00:22:58]:
And so we just spent a lot more time with one another, trying to walk in each other's shoes and see the world through each other's lenses and that sort of thing. So I think that's what changed about it.
Kevin Bailey [00:23:09]:
Let's just look at the whole journey. I want to hear some of the mindset and mental performance traps that you fell into, say, on the road to multiple tens of millions of dollars in revenue.
Jon Speer [00:23:18]:
Sure. I think the next mindset or mental performance crossroad happened a couple years into it. The team's growing. We're probably around 20 employees at this time. I would say half were developers and the other half were other, which included sales, marketing, and things of that nature. So we're trying to grow a sales team, and David is basically leading that sales team, and we're trying to be a disruptor in a space because there were other software solutions that the people would use for the problem that we were solving. But everything that was on the market required some sort of configuration or customization. We're ready out of the box.
Jon Speer [00:24:03]:
You didn't have to do anything to configure setup. You just plug and play. You just go. And we were edgy. I mean, the beginning, we had bright green colors, chartreuse, and we referred to the company as Greenlight guru, the throwback to the.com era. Thankfully, we ended up dropping the dot and moving off from that and muting our colors just a little bit. But we tried to be provocative. I would say we were pretty aggressive when it came to sales, and David was leading the team, but I was still a pretty integral part because I had deep domain knowledge.
Jon Speer [00:24:35]:
And all the account executives that we brought in, none of them knew anything about med device. A lot of them, this was their first sales position. Everything they knew about sales, we were teaching them, and I think we were pretty successful at that. Why I wanted to start with this company was for more flexibility and freedom, especially as it related to my engagement with my friends and family. And we were at a stage where I felt like I had to double down. I had to work longer hours than I've ever worked in my entire life. And I became more and more disengaged with my kids, my best friend, and they were vocal about it, and they let me know, like, we don't like you. You say you're doing this for us, but this is not fun.
Jon Speer [00:25:20]:
We're not enjoying this journey.
Max Yoder [00:25:22]:
They're not asking for that.
Jon Speer [00:25:23]:
We want you here now. We want you to be a part of our lives and vice versa. I was getting further and further away from that, and I think I ignored it for a long time. And, you know, at the same time, I think it created a lot of friction between David and me to the point where I could speak for myself. I didn't want to be in the same room, literally, when he was there. And somewhere along this point is when actually we invited Kevin to come in and start doing some coaching with. With some of our AE's. And one day, Kevin, Kevin Bailey, to his credit, he's like, hey, what's up with you and David? I don't know what you're talking about.
Jon Speer [00:25:59]:
He's like, no, really, what's going on? And to your credit, Kevin, you pushed and persisted. You didn't take no for an answer. And so thank you for that. So Kevin basically facilitated a conversation with David and me, and we were in the same room. I think it's probably the first time, certainly in this company, that I might have spoke my truth. And my truth was, I'll work hard. I'll give you everything I got. I will absolutely do everything I can to make sure that this venture is successful, and I am not going to sacrifice the most important relationships in my life to do so.
Jon Speer [00:26:34]:
I'm not going to sacrifice the relationship with my kid, Zach. I'm worried. I'm not going to sacrifice the relationship with my best friend at the time, Amanda, which, you know, we're married now, but I'm not going to sacrifice those relationships because I value, and I'm doing this for our lives. So if they're not going to be there at the end of the journey, what's the frigging point? And so that was a pivotal moment, because from then on, the relationship with David and me. Fantastic.
Kevin Bailey [00:27:02]:
Hey, it's Kevin, and I hope you're enjoying the show. I know what's tough out there right now for tech leaders, and we appreciate you taking the time to focus on your mental performance and well being. Speaking of time, did you know that 76% of tech leaders lose 20 or more hours of productivity a week due to stress, fatigue, and feeling overwhelmed. To win these hours back, leaders need to learn the mental performance skills that keep you in the zone, where research shows that executives are five times more productive. And that's where we come in. Dreamfuel's octane cohort is our flagship mental performance program, built for tech leaders under pressure who want to achieve their most ambitious goals in less time and with less frustration. To learn more, go to dreamfuel.com octane, or just click the link in the description to see if you qualify. All right, back to the show.
Kevin Bailey [00:27:49]:
Clearing the ear, telling David what you needed as a co-founder of the business changed the relationship entirely with he.
Jon Speer [00:27:57]:
And I, for sure. And then there was another period. We have our executive team, and I mentioned Jason McKibben. He's a person. The other gentlemen I mentioned, Dave Obark, our CTO, and then Nick Tippman, our marketing genius. I think that was the core of our executive team, and we would have our executive team meetings with whatever frequency. We hadn't shared our truth, but there was an assumption that each of us had similar points of view and perspectives, and we were at an off site. And I think David suggested this exercise.
Jon Speer [00:28:30]:
Why doesn't each person on the executive team share why you're here and what your vision is, what you want out of this adventure? And so that was important, too, because I didn't appreciate or necessarily even know why Jason, what he was looking for, what David was looking for, what Nick and so on and so forth. We all get to speak our truth to each other. And I was like, oh, that's important. And so once we understood each other's why, we were a much more cohesive, a better functioning team with one another.
Kevin Bailey [00:29:05]:
Let's go all the way to nearing the acquisition and some of the maybe maladaptive mindsets or beliefs that sabotage some of that process, or what were the dragons at that point?
Jon Speer [00:29:17]:
When David and I first started this, the target was an exit of $2 million in two years. Let's say it's like end of 2019, early 2020. The leadership is like, okay, we've been grinding at this for, I think at that point it would have been about six and a half years or so, give or take. We should start to figure out if there's opportunities for strategic m and A or acquisition or, you know, just to correct myself.
Kevin Bailey [00:29:46]:
It was a growth equity investment.
Jon Speer [00:29:47]:
Growth equity investment, not an acquisition. This is 2020. And we're like. We hired an investment banker to basically work on our behalf and put some feelers out to see if there's any interest in the market for Greenlake guru. We had grown and built the company. I don't remember our ARR at that point. It was north of ten. So we decided to go into a process, basically see if there's any interest from making an investment or potentially acquiring Greenlight.
Jon Speer [00:30:14]:
And the executive team. We had some investors. I mean, again, we never raised institutional funds, so we had friends and family who came in at the beginning. Some of them re upped along the way. Some of the investors had been into this now for five, six years, which isn't terribly long, but a lot from a SaaS company. It's exacerbated a little bit because it's med device and there was a little bit more into that, but we had a fiduciary responsibility, so we wanted to try to make everyone whole and that sort of thing. As an executive team, we talked about a number that we would accept and we agreed upon that number as some back and forth. It was a pretty intense session, but we came out of it on the same page.
Jon Speer [00:30:57]:
We get something that's this order of magnitude, then that's a good offer. So we decided to go into this whole process, well, March 2020, everybody remembers what happens then. I remember the day quite well. I was like, all this chatter about, I'm like, what in the hell is this thing? And like, there started to be suggestions that we're going to have to shut down the location and we're all going to have to work remote, which at the time, it didn't seem that big of a deal because so much of what we did anyway, I mean, we were doing virtual. Everything we were doing from a sales perspective was via zoom. Already. Developers can work anywhere, and it didn't seem like it was going to be that big of a deal as the rest of the world did. You know, we went remote March 13.
Jon Speer [00:31:38]:
That was our last day in office, and we're in the middle of going through due diligence and meeting, having investor calls and doing it all virtual and remote, which was kind of bizarre. So we go through this whole process. If you've never been through due diligence, I know you have. It is freaking exhausting because you prepare the data, you prepare all this information, everything you can possibly imagine that describes everything that your business has done, and you're naked and afraid you're exposed. You're basically saying to people who may invest in your company, here's everything. Look at it. And they will, and they will rip it apart and they will ask for things that you can't even imagine what they're going to ask for sometimes. This is where Jason McKiman was a freaking beast because he just took that whole process on and just like drove it and made sure that we got everything that needed to happen.
Jon Speer [00:32:35]:
Of course, you know, each of us had our parts play, but we go through this whole due diligence process. I think we had meetings with three or four different investors. At this point in time, we come out of it and no offers. We would just went through that pain and suffering and that struggle, and it was deflating and probably for a while, but we knew we had a couple of little warts that we needed to address. We needed to shore up our predictability on our sales process, and we needed to shore up our retention, because at that time, David and I were both kind of in these roles.
Kevin Bailey [00:33:07]:
David was running sales. We were basically running client success retention.
Jon Speer [00:33:10]:
And not because we wanted to, but we felt we needed to. And we add people in those seats from time to time, that just didn't work out.
Kevin Bailey [00:33:20]:
It's kind of like, we're not going to get acquired right now and the warts are you and you.
Jon Speer [00:33:26]:
Sort of. But I knew this. I mean, everything I knew about customer success, I'd learned on the job. I mean, I knew how to be nice to clients and that sort of thing, but I didn't know SaaS customer success.
Kevin Bailey [00:33:36]:
This was right about the time that you guys both decided to bring people in. David brought in Jimmy Spire, and you brought in frame.
Jon Speer [00:33:43]:
We had hired this company called winning by design to come in and basically scrutinize our sales process and our customer success process and help us re architect that. And part of that engagement, Jimmy Spire joined in a consulting capacity initially. And after, you know, he had been there for a little bit, all of us at the executive team, like, that's the guy we need to bring in. We ended up hiring Jimmy in similar timeframe. We brought in a lady by the name of Fran Cruz. The customer success had sort of became my baby. But at the same time, I knew that it plateaued as far as the growth of that team. And I knew we needed someone with the right EQ, you know, the right people skills and the expertise to help bring in practices, you know, state of the art sass and all that sort of thing.
Jon Speer [00:34:28]:
And so she was a no brainer when she came on board. I was like, oh, well, I'm gonna have to, like, hold her hand, work with her for three or four weeks. After a few days, she's like, john, I got this. And she took it, and she ran with it, and Jimmy took sales and ran with it.
Kevin Bailey [00:34:42]:
How did it feel to have to humble yourself? Already been in six, seven years, and, you know, just putting your blood, sweat, and tears, and you thought it was gonna be two years, and you're like, that's going to be another few years to get this thing, get a big investor to come in and buy some of your steak. How did that feel?
Jon Speer [00:34:58]:
I was okay with it, because I think from the moment that I spoke my truth that I talked about earlier with David, I lived my life the way I wanted to live it. So I flipped the switch. And the most valuable relationships, personal relationships in my life, I was enjoying life. Sure, I had green light and that adventure. Once I realized it's important to just enjoy what we do and have a good time, there's green light, and I get to do all the things that I want to do and help grow this company and help grow workforce and a team of people that I get to work with and I get to have great relationships with Zach and Morgan and Amanda and my sister and my parents. I'm fulfilled as far as life is concerned. So it really wasn't a factor.
Kevin Bailey [00:35:41]:
I want to ask you, and I want to talk about post exit for a moment, but I was your coach throughout this. We consciously crafted the journey you went on. You decided how involved you wanted to be with your family. We visualized conversations you would have with people. We visualized the post exit stuff, the vacation homes and all those things. I was wondering your two cent on how visualization showed up for you as a tool to consciously craft your journey as a founder.
Jon Speer [00:36:12]:
What I learned with what you taught me and what we experienced together is I had visions in my mind of things that I wanted out of life, but I don't know that I was necessarily open or articulating these things to other people. Not because I didn't want to, but I didn't even think about, you know, I should share with this person that I want to have a house in South Carolina. Some people knew, like Amanda knew, my parents knew. I've always wanted to live in South Carolina. I don't know why. I don't know what the fascination is or the draw is, but there's just something about that place that's always pulled me there. When you could, like, be in a place that has a specific energy, it could be magical. And this place that we found in Edisto is one of those places, like, the energy there is just.
Jon Speer [00:37:01]:
There's just something about it. It just pulls me there. I think for me, the first big aha was, I remember very distinctly, we were in that little tiny conference room just next to my desk at the Union building, and you were guiding me through a visualization, and you got on the whiteboard and started to draw a picture. And at the time, Amanda and I, we were in a committed relationship at this point. And she was living in an a frame, which was big enough for her and her girls, but not big enough for her and her girls and me and my children. She and I were talking about doing a significant addition to this house to accommodate everyone. You drew a picture of what this looked like, and you talked about, you know, imagine there's a big movie screen in front of you, and you're seeing this movie and this sort of thing. And so that was the goal.
Jon Speer [00:37:51]:
But then we started this journey of renovating this house. We had a builder. We were ready to go. We were ready to start buying materials and the builder backed out. This is the fun part of tapping into the universe. Just because you can see something happening in a very specific way, chances are it will never happen in the very specific way that you can see in your mind. There will be a version of that. And so what happened is Amanda was a real estate agent and she's like, hey, there's this house that came just sale in our neighborhood.
Jon Speer [00:38:23]:
We should go look at it. So we go look at it and it's a three bedroom, but the basement was a blank canvas and it was huge. It was a huge basement. So we ended up buying this house and we ended up converting the basement. So we were able to add, you know, all the bedrooms and bathrooms that we needed for everyone to blend this family. It just happened in a completely different way than I imagined.
Kevin Bailey [00:38:46]:
Was the feeling the same?
Jon Speer [00:38:47]:
Yeah.
Kevin Bailey [00:38:48]:
So the key to visualization is like you use the details to cultivate a certain feeling and then by whatever mechanism, your subconscious will work everything it can do to recreate that feeling. Like a self fulfilling prophecy.
Jon Speer [00:39:02]:
Yeah. That was a big aha for me because at that point in time when I was working with you, I didn't feel stress and pressure from green light. That wasn't the biggest stressor in my life. The biggest stressor was, here's a woman I love and care about. I will spend the rest of my life with. And blending families is freaking hard because, you know, each of our kids has their own personality at this point. Their parents have been through a divorce. They are hanging on to or dealing with in their own way, but you want everybody to have their own space.
Jon Speer [00:39:34]:
You know, you don't want people bunking up or sleeping on couches and this and that. So we were very deliberate, like we wanted to make sure everybody had their own room. But the way it manifested, it was just perfect.
Kevin Bailey [00:39:43]:
All right, so after you get acquired, strategic growth, investment, after that happens, you go on and you stick around with the company for about a year and your role sort of becomes not necessary because Fran was running cs very effectively at that point. You had other thought because you were a thought leader in the industry.
Jon Speer [00:40:01]:
Let me back up just 1 second. So I talked about the process where we went through and we got no offers. Fast forward a year later, I don't know how it all transpired, but the result is the same. JMI Equity. We got connected and they're like, hey, we're interested. So we went through another due diligence process a year later and that twelve months or so that had transpired, bringing in Jimmy Spire to lead our sales team was a game changer and then Fran was a game changer. Plus, for me personally, I was doing everything that I could to the best of my ability to lead this customer success team. But Fran is.
Jon Speer [00:40:36]:
She's a badass. She is amazing. And it was like I was playing Little League and she's in the major leagues. And I think David probably saw the same thing with Jimmy on the sales front. But the offer that we got about twelve months later was three times the number that we would have agreed to had we got an offer in 2020. Glad we waited.
Max Yoder [00:40:57]:
Had JMI been involved in the earlier conversation.
Jon Speer [00:40:59]:
They were, but they had a company. Arena Software was a company that they had invested in. Arena was in a similar space as Greenlight was. I think it was after the 2020, but before they made the growth equity investment in Greenlight. Somewhere in that window, PTC, which is a big large software company, they make pro engineer and some can and things like that. They acquired the asset, Arena Solutions, and so that was no longer on JMIs book. I think there was interest the first time we talked. We were in a competitive space from some other portfolio companies.
Jon Speer [00:41:35]:
Plus they're still in their books. I think once they had that opportunity, then it gave them a little bit more freedom to consider something like Greenlight.
Max Yoder [00:41:42]:
Isn't it amazing that if, let's say, arena doesn't sell, you might not have this event?
Jon Speer [00:41:47]:
I know.
Max Yoder [00:41:47]:
I mean, it's like something that was completely out of your hands. I felt the same way with Leslie. Some other thing happens over here that we have control over, that we're not masterminding at all, and that makes the ultimate difference to the outcome.
Jon Speer [00:41:58]:
It's so wild. I mean, going through that process the first time, the whole due diligence, talking to investors, we learned so much about ourselves as a company. We knew where a couple of our warts were, but we found out there were a few others that we didn't even know were there. And there's nothing you can say or do or imagine that would prepare you for those things.
Max Yoder [00:42:18]:
Yeah, it's almost, it's out of my hands feeling to me, which is both uncomfortable and nice. You know, it's nice when it works out in your favor and it's not nice when it doesn't.
Jon Speer [00:42:26]:
Right? Yeah. It's a different level of trust, for sure.
Max Yoder [00:42:29]:
Yeah. Universal stuff.
Jon Speer [00:42:30]:
It is absolutely higher power.
Kevin Bailey [00:42:33]:
That's cool. You guys both got to go through that experience about the same time. I'd love to hear from both of you guys, since you guys, you know, exited at similar times. Now, Jon, I know you had a little tale with the company. As you're kind of getting out of there, I want to hear what is the hero's journey like post exit. You spend all this time trying to get to this financial event. Both of you guys had similar stuff in it. Since we did a podcast with you earlier, Max, you both didn't want to work for the man.
Kevin Bailey [00:42:55]:
The corporate thing didn't work out for you. Built your own companies. Probably had a modest. I remember you talking about your conversation with Dorsey, you know, financial desire, relatively modest versus what you guys got. You get this pretty incredible windfalls for both of you guys, and now you have total financial freedom to do whatever you want. What is that journey like? I'm not there.
Jon Speer [00:43:14]:
It's surreal sometimes. Honestly, it's humbling. That may seem like a weird way to describe it, but sometimes it's like a dream. Like I'm in disbelief. And in the moment, it felt like it was taking forever. But in this moment, didn't feel like it was that long. You know, it was almost like a blink of an eye. It happened where we are at today.
Jon Speer [00:43:34]:
And my wife Amanda, she and I are true partners in this adventure. Like, we're startup nerds and junkies, like, you know, watching shows like shark Tank. And, you know, we look at other opportunities to make an impact. We want to try to help teach our kids, of course, try to make sure they're on their life's journey, making sure that they're doing the things, like the things that we understand at this stage in life. Like, could you imagine had we understood that back in our twenties? I don't think we're supposed to get some of this until we're supposed to get some of this. You know, we just try to be as much as we can, as best as we can there for the people that we love and care about. You know, not in a charity perspective, but, you know, just try to be there as a resource, as a guide, as mentors, as parents. We're very interested in helping other businesses, small businesses.
Jon Speer [00:44:25]:
So, you know, we've entertained and actually engaged in making some investments in other companies. We talked about the real estate. We have a couple of short term rental properties, one in Michigan and one in South Carolina. And, you know, it's a great resource we've got. Both of those properties are pretty well booked. Other people are paying our mortgages on these houses. Plus, it's an asset that we have, and it's a great resource to be able to share that with family. Like, you know, we allow each of our kids to book a week at one of the houses.
Jon Speer [00:44:56]:
All you have to pay for is the cleaning fee. You know, as younger people, you know, sometimes vacations are sometimes in that category of luxury. So, you know, we like to be able to share this with people, and then we do other things. Like, we're in the process of flipping the house next door to us. It needed some love, and we flipped a house before. We've renovated a house before. It was like, okay, that was kind of an interesting experience. So we're doing it again.
Jon Speer [00:45:18]:
We've got a Ford Transit cargo van that we're converting into a camper van. And, you know, we're going to be able to share those types of things with our parents. So it's just for all those people in our lives who sacrificed and tried to make sure that we were living, had a better life than what they had, just being able to help in any way that we can be support for them.
Kevin Bailey [00:45:38]:
Now, what is the big challenge of having this optionality in your life, or whatever you call it?
Jon Speer [00:45:44]:
Max and I were talking about this before we started the episode today, but the growth equity investment happened in, I think it was June at one point at Greenlight, and I was there through all of 22. Basically, I'm not doing anything. You helped me through a lot of that, dude. You've earned this. Just relax, enjoy it. Right? But it was hard because I was programmed. I do this every day. I do this every day.
Jon Speer [00:46:08]:
And now I'm not doing that. But I'm still pretending like I'm doing it, if that makes sense. And then I learned that there was not going to be a position at the start of 2023. Well, that's kind of what I wanted. I've imagined this moment in time forever. I always talked about being at a position where I could retire, but then that whole last year, I wasn't miserable, but I was confused. It's the weirdest year of my life. And the thing about it is, I shouldn't have been right.
Jon Speer [00:46:37]:
When you do something for so long and then you don't have to do it anymore. I equate it to, like, you see people who do go into retirement. I mean, it's sort of analogous, I think, in some respects, like that first year retirement. For a lot of people, it is a hard adjustment. Maybe this story will help. So one time we went to, I think, a doctor appointment or something. They were asking about our employment, or whatever the case may be. And the lady said, what do you do for a living? And I said, I'm unemployed.
Jon Speer [00:47:06]:
And Amanda nudged me. She's like, you're retired. You're not unemployed. It's an adjustment, for sure, but at the same time, it gives us other opportunities from a work perspective. I was a kind of a keyboard warrior. Most of what I did, I was typing, sitting at a desk, at a computer. But when you renovate a house, to be able to, like, go in and be hands on, you know, that's been interesting. It's been fun, enjoyable in a completely different way.
Kevin Bailey [00:47:33]:
Max, what's been the hardest thing for you?
Max Yoder [00:47:35]:
Well, I was incredibly disoriented. The orientation I felt at Lesanlea was very clear. We were nine years in. It was 2012 to 2021, and while I was not emotionally stimulated by it, at some point it was an orientation. And then shortly after we were acquired, one of my best friends, Drake, died. And that was like, double disorienting. So, you know, I'm two and a half or so years removed from the Les Nly experience, and sitting in the disorientation was very difficult for me. The way I would talk about it is my body was wired up for a certain amount of stress that Lessonly brought to me each day.
Max Yoder [00:48:12]:
And when that stress stopped coming, my body was like, what's wrong? When I use the word stress? What I really mean is stimulation. And that stimulation wasn't there. And because my body expected that stimulation, not getting it became an alarm. It took a couple years for my body to get used to that lack of stimulation. Now I'm like, if my body went back into that amount of stimulation, it was very prepared for the time. I think it would flail. I think it'd be like, what is all this? It would be so overstimulating to me based on how my life is now, which is very much downshifted, just not nearly as stressful. You know, I'm not on back to back meetings every day, which I was.
Max Yoder [00:48:48]:
So that going through that disorientation, which I'm still going through, and I feel like I'm finally have some real clarity of, like, my next path of my life, not in like a concrete way of just being more at peace with this kind of new orientation. Going through it was very alienating. We have a culture that is built around economics, so people think if you get the economic win, you must have it all. When really that is one of seven 8910 pieces of the pie. We just have a culture that has made economics supreme. Whether that is actually, life giving or not. So it's very difficult to engage with somebody who believes that I have it all, and therefore, pain for me shouldn't be relevant, because I'm still a human. I still have pain like anybody else.
Max Yoder [00:49:30]:
And financial security is a way to ease certain parts of life, but it's not a balm for the entire life. And so just feeling misunderstood a lot.
Jon Speer [00:49:37]:
The way you put it, is so simple and eloquent at the same time. So thank you.
Max Yoder [00:49:41]:
Well, thanks for listening. I feel for the folks.
Jon Speer [00:49:44]:
You feel misunderstood sometimes, right?
Max Yoder [00:49:46]:
Big time. And I feel for the people who misunderstand me. Cause it's like, it's not just one person, it is the bulk.
Jon Speer [00:49:51]:
Because they look at you and like, how in the world can you be, quote, struggling? And I don't feel like I struggle, but maybe I'm in denial about that, too.
Kevin Bailey [00:49:59]:
It's hard to admit it, right? Because they're the way our society is.
Jon Speer [00:50:02]:
To your point, most folks look at, like, the economic lens. That's a great way to put it.
Max Yoder [00:50:06]:
And that's a systemic thing, right. It's not like each individual decided independently. I think the economic lens is the most important one. You know, having Conor Burt, who was my business partner through all bless and Lee is my best friend. I've got childhood best friends, and he's like my best friend that I made in adulthood. And we went through the same thing at Les and ly in so many ways. We went through different things, but the same thing. To be able to call him and to just vent with him and know that he won't judge me for it, you know, is huge.
Max Yoder [00:50:32]:
Just even one person. To be able to call and be like, I know that this person, because we have similar life situations now. They're different, but they're similar in certain ways. Just knowing that he loves me, nobody else in the world I'd feel comfortable telling this to, you know, other than my therapist and my wife. Just recognizing that the rest of my life I might be misunderstood. And maybe that's good for me because I will not put as much energy into, you know, I need to be understood by everybody else. Like, what if I decide it probably isn't gonna happen and try to find peace with that without villainizing, you know, the other people who don't misunderstand me because I don't wanna do that, you know, I completely understand why they misunderstand me.
Jon Speer [00:51:08]:
What I'm trying to lean into is I might be misunderstood. And it's okay.
Kevin Bailey [00:51:12]:
Yes, it's always okay.
Jon Speer [00:51:14]:
The big thing for me is this word and this practice of being content, because I think somewhere along the way, I have had equated complacency and contentment as synonymous. And so part of me sitting here, not getting the stress or the stimulant, whatever the case might be, of being in and running a company, I don't have that anymore. And so it's like, you did it.
Kevin Bailey [00:51:41]:
You know, Max, you described very well the stimulation that you could almost use the word we're addicted to. Dopamine pathways reinforced all the way since you picked a backpack up and then only exponentially reinforced as you were a CEO. You know, the serotonin pathways and networks and other neurotransmitters, those neurons not as needed throughout a lot of the startup journey, and they prune back a little bit. You become just lacking in those pathways. You just started transcendental meditation, which is a beautiful thing. Jon, we worked on meditation because I told you, I was like most people, when they hit the exit, they get so uncomfortable. They go, found another company. We kind of worked on visualization and meditation and stuff.
Jon Speer [00:52:23]:
Everything that had happened or is happening are exactly the things that we visualized over the course of the past few years. This is exactly what I asked for. The universe delivered.
Max Yoder [00:52:34]:
Right? That doesn't make it easy, though, right? Jeb Banner says, you know, even the things we want can be difficult. I get what I want, and it's difficult. And I appreciate that, Grace, to feel.
Kevin Bailey [00:52:43]:
That almost going back to a kid's mindset a little bit. Kids kick a ball because it's fun. Adults play soccer because it's goal oriented.
Jon Speer [00:52:51]:
Yes.
Max Yoder [00:52:51]:
And I've got a three year old daughter, so she's reminding me of that all the time.
Kevin Bailey [00:52:53]:
Yeah, it's a serotonin activity versus a dopamine activity. That's the transition you guys are going through neurologically. And you guys both sound like you're maybe in a similar place at this point or whatever, where you've learned that it's not being complacent, it's being contented, and that's okay.
Jon Speer [00:53:07]:
It's weird because, you know, I used to get up early every morning, and I was like, will be binge watching some series about whatever. And I'm like, I need to go to bed. And my wife's like, what are you having tomorrow? I'm like, nothing. She's like, what's the big deal? Just sleep in. I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess I can do that. I'm thankful for her being there. Because she's like, dummy, enjoy this. This is why you did everything you did, so that you could be in this moment to just enjoy it.
Jon Speer [00:53:34]:
I could not have imagined being at this point in my life had I not, you know, had some sort of mindset and mental performance practice of myself. So thank you. There are times that I get a little complacent and then something happens. You know, I get stuck in that flight and I'm feeling frustrated or anxiety, and it's like, oh, for me, this is something I have to do perpetually. And there's nothing wrong with it because it's fun. It's like just working out. We did some breath work before we started today. That's pretty friggin awesome.
Jon Speer [00:54:02]:
Thank you for teaching me these things.
Kevin Bailey [00:54:04]:
Yeah, no problem. Well, I loved ending on the note of talking about the new hero's journey, which clearly is learning how to be content without having to drive yourselves, putting yourselves in high stress situations, chronically, so to speak. And I really appreciated your guys time today. It's very special to me. I respect you guys and I'm fans of you guys, both, honestly, like, you guys are awesome. So, Jon, any advice you want to give to anybody who's going through what you're going through right now, surround yourself.
Jon Speer [00:54:30]:
With people that you love and who love you and make sure that they know it and be there. I heard this saying once, and I. I don't know if it's true, but something along the lines of, especially when you have kids, they don't measure the time with you in a quantitative way, they measure it in a qualitative way. So there's probably folks in your lives that you have relationships, whether it be kids, parents, significant others, best friends, whatever. Just make sure you have good quality time with those people, because those are the people that have been there for you and will be there for you, and hopefully you're there for them. But just realize that meaningful qualitative love is really the most valuable thing that we'll ever get as humans.
Kevin Bailey [00:55:15]:
As I reflect on what we just talked about, I see a man who went through the startup rodeo who stood up for his relationship with his family the entire time.
Jon Speer [00:55:25]:
It's non negotiable.
Kevin Bailey [00:55:27]:
I think that's wonderful that you prove that you can still have an incredible outcome and maintain a family relationship the entire time, which is very cool. Well, thanks, everyone, for listening. I want to give a huge shout out to share your genius for producing our podcast. They're awesome. Have a wonderful hero's journey. Hey, everyone. Hope you enjoyed the dream fuel show. If you'd like to continue listening to more episodes, subscribe to Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Kevin Bailey [00:55:54]:
We'll be here every other week. And if you want to learn more about Dreamfuel's octane program for tech leadership, go to dreamfuel.com octane or just click the link in the description.