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Telling the stories of startup founders and creators and their unique journey. Each episode features actionable tips, practical advice and inspirational insight.
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it's about carrying forth a message that says uh as a leader I'm going to listen to you I'm going to take your
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advice cuz I can't do it all myself I mean that's just arrogance I can't do it
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all myself I need people to tell me and welcome to the founders Journey podcast inspiration education for
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Founders by [Music]
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[Applause] Founders welcome back to the founders Journey podcast this is um every once in
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a while we we we start one of these things and we hit the record button too late and we're like halfway through
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something ridiculous going on and that's where we are already talking about unspeakable things already um we'll get
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I'm sure we'll get into more but um guest Our Guest today is a guy I don't even know how long William we've known
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each other probably it's probably 20 years now coming up somewhere along that line at a certain point you stopped
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using years you just say right couple of decad not sure who was the bad
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influence but anyhow we're here it so um one of the one of the funniest guys and
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uh and certainly most interesting guys um you'll ever meet William tincup is uh is our guest today William and I like I
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said we've known each other for a long time we both come out of the kind of broadly HR technology space and got to
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know each other through that Williams been an advisor a mentor a board member and various companies that I've had and
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uh and for so many you know for many many many others there's you know has had a wealth of experience in his own
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Founders Journey has helped other Founders there's just so much to talk about here so William welcome uh welcome
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to the podcast this I've been looking forward to this all week guys this is gonna be fun all right that's awesome
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and it's it's Thursday too I think right is it no it's Wednesday when people it's Wednesday normally when people say
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they've been looking to it looking forward to it all week it's like Monday at 10: a.m.
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so I've been looking forward to this all week uh the two last two hours that's
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right that's right we're going to talk about his entrepreneurial experience but today um really focus on actually
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building out his own podcast Network which is kind of an interesting thing right called work defined and we'll
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we'll talk about that um a little bit and uh and get into what William's working on today so um let's sort of
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start at the really top uh William what you know just give us a give us the two-minute version of a you know multi-
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career here as um as a founder and tell us about your own Founders Journey what
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was that uh Steve Martin bit in uh in one of his movie I was born a poor black
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child yeah that was from The Jerk from The
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Jerk so I'm gonna go with that I was born and Bor poor black child anyhow um
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I think you know I learned outside of college and even before I learned the industry of ret retail so retail
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industry uh then I learned um what is basically Native American studies so you
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know the Native American kind of industry if you will culturally at least and then I learned the Museum Industry
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uh because I I thought I wanted to be a curator of the Indian museum I found out
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that there's no money in that and so I decided to Pivot uh and then I went to business school got out of business and
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then I learned the kind of the integrated marketing advertising PR
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industry if you will and then once I landed at at the time I would an ad AG
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to once I landed uh on hrtech because all of our clients so the the the funny
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thing to do if you're if you're ever trying to figure out like if you should focus on an
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industry as a software company you're saying like Okay well we got Healthcare clients we got retail clients we got
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some clients over here in government whatever you're trying to figure that out okay so here's the suggestion go to
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a state park with about a pound of weed for a week story I had no idea
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where the story was GNA go but you got yourself smoke yourself sober and then
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use a lot of posted notes to then decide okay where are we making money check
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they go on trees you put the post notes on trees doesn't matter doesn't matter okay doesn't matter we got a cabin but
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you can be an evil it doesn't you know go you you're focusing on the wrong part of the story here okay sorry I just but
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you start to segment the business by saying where are we making the M most money where are where are people the
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happiest yeah where are the clients the happiest and you start narrowing in on
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the place that you after you have a 50 maybe 100 clients or so you start to
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figure out you know what we're really good with restaurants we're really good
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with whatever the whatever the industry it doesn't matter don't force just let it come to you it's that's the
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pound of wheed so so once it comes to you and when we did this it was HR Tech
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hrtech was a growing industry we had 15 20 clients
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already and uh our our own team was happiest because they were great people
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to deal with so we just said okay what we're going to do is we'll take all cers like if someone calls us say hey can you
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yeah we'll say yes to that however we're going to focus on that industry so the
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website and everything will be about that industry and that's how I got into uh work Tech hrtech whatever you want to
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call it and the the reason for that pound of weed the reason for that is I
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didn't want to learn a new industry after we figured out like this is the good for the business I decided I'm I'm
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not going anywhere I'm just going to stay here so even after I exited that business in a really good way really
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good partnership a really good way I stayed in the industry and and it was cool it was
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kosher with with Brett and everything like that so nothing no problems I just stayed in the industry and just kind of
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kept doing what I was doing uh not with an agency and not in that in the same shape or form but I was like to answer
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the question Greg I just didn't want to learn a new industry I already learned four or five industries by that point in
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my life I'm like that I'm not going to go spend four years of learning some new right and and to become
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known at the time when I left I was already is HR famous so I didn't need to
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go and do that in the pharmaceutical industry like okay because it's going to take a while to build up that that presence the
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knowledge what conferences you what what trade magazines what blogs what people to follow who to avoid you know
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all that it takes three to four years to learn that in any industry
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there's no shortcuts you can't chat G te your way out of that you just got to learn it Y and to learn it is to go
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through a bunch of experiences and that's about when we met was 08 is and uh we started you were you we
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started just talking I mean I remember just having calls with you and then once I went out on my own I think I was a
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Consulting uh client yeah uh you were a Consulting CL cuz Peter I think that's when we met yeah in Saratoga yeah by the
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way way if you could ever go to Saratoga in the summer do so um and we had a
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writer room I don't know if y'all remember this bit yep but this was like awesome we were trying to figure out
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okay like what thematically yeah you know what are some of the things that we should push for the next six months n
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mon a year whatever and uh there was just this you know this this this room
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of people all bright but also trying to figure out like okay where is this thing going I'm like all right let's talk
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about like people and ref you can just feel crazy you can just
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feel the air going oh my God where's he going I'm like yeah that's a bad idea but let's write it up on the wall all right let's go so the idea was just put
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if it's in your head just get it out and then we'll figure out the better ideas
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will come to the top cream Rises and uh that was a fun bid I've done that thing probably 100 times since then it's
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always the same you start off with just really
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and do you know William one of the things that was written on that board a couple years later was used for a piece
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of content and it was called um hydranges duct tape and intuitive
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thinking literally this could have come out of your head knowing you right that
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piece of content we we then had the structure where we measured content by
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how much pipeline Revenue it it was influenced was a part schol a deal whatever so we no matter what that was
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top two or top three for years yeah years no one knows we had a new CMO came
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in and he was like what is this piece of content like what is this thing I'm
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like dude let me show the data for whatever reason it's part of all of our
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Revenue like I don't know what to tell you he's like have you ever read have you should have you ever read the thing
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you wrote here and we're like yeah we've read it he's like it doesn't actually say anything like it means nothing we're
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like no one cares yeah no it's a little embarrassing but for some reason people down keep no I talked to I talked to a
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CMO yesterday and they're like okay content strategy this that the other I said no one knows who the y'all
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are like why are we talking about themes of content no one knows it's an ATS it's
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called discover great ATS whatever yeah but the but the entrepreneur is
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absolutely fantastic like this is a guy you'd follow long beard red hair 65 like
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you just like this is a guy he has thoughts I've had him on a podcast I've talked to him a couple times and he has
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thoughts like I those thoughts are good right so the marketer is trying to push me into this place like what should we
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be doing I'm like you should be building a cult of personality that's what you should be doing put him front in center
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and have him on every show doing everything and just let him talk yeah I don't give a about what he talks
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about because people won't care either so they're just going to like the guy the founders Journey podcast sponsored
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by render tribe Peter what does reder tribe do we help BBB companies hit their revenue goals through account-based
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marketing rev op support and really supporting the full goto Market motion you can find this at render tribe.com
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you know so I'm curious when like when you look at your career right so you had start tiup you go off you you then you
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go off and be become sort of a top analyst in the HR technology Arena what
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is it was it a passion for HR Tech or was it a passion for brand building and marketing that's kind of defined so
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what's what's been that underlying thread right that's that's allowed you to continue to build back up to HR I'll
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back up to stinka for a second I started that actually with a different guy Brian burough and good guy solid citizen uh
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but he got kind of his life kind of got got very complicated and uh in the interim we had brought Brett in he was a
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fraternity brother of brides and uh BR and I were as polar opposite as you
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could be if you ever take like some of the dumb personality tests like true colors or some like that like he
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was all empathy right all empathy I have zero empathy like I don't even know how
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to spell the word like I don't know what empathy is if it hit me over the head I'd be like I don't know what you are so but it worked
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because he handled with the business but also with our employees that I could like we he could tell like
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if an employee was struggling he could tell and he could do stuff and I could whereas I could do some other things so
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we had to and this is for the audience this is important a Business Partnership
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is a marriage it it uh I guess we're all heterosexual doesn't matter anyhow so uh
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I've been married 30 years y'all all been at some point married whatever got it it is a marriage it's the same
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that makes your marriage work or not work you know communication and trust and respect and blah blah blah it's all
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those core pillars and when some of those disintegrate you get into a separation you get a divorce we had to
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kick Brian out of the firm so we had to have the hard conversation I'm workking at home Brett's on like three Xanax and
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he texts me he's like uh Hey Brian's in my office he won't leave until you come in and I'm like okay cool I'm
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confrontational so a personality uh character trait or
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personality fail for me is I actually enjoy conflict so Brett on the other end
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of that with empathy doesn't enjoy conflict so we took Brian down to a restaurant and I just looked across I
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mean it was literally like right out of uh Jerry Maguire I'm like I'm here today
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to fire you and he's a business partner he owns the third of the company right I'm just like yeah here's the deal you
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can stay and we're going to take all the assets so we'll take all the customers
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and we'll take all the things that are worth it and you just keep the debt or you can leave and we'll give you a
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payout right but one of the two when we leave this restaurant one of the two is going to happen and so having those very
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hard conversations with Partners I know we've all had to deal with and every founder you've had on the on the on the
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show has had to deal with this they're not you're either not syano or they're
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drifting in a different direction or something's going on with their life you got to have these you got to have these conversations and they're never
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easy and I don't care what legal agreement you have or had or whatever none of that matters comes down to
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you and another gal or guy what are you going to do and so that led that was in
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' 06 so we we we let him go well I haven't talked to him since so you know
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it it is what it is but when Brett and I did our partnership and when we do a
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buyout I'll tell you about a fascinating trip we he had he was going to
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Mexico no he had just come back from Mexico he had just come back to Mexico and been visited a bunch of tequila and
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so he had he was divinely inspired so he's like listen the business is is just
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you and I even though we have 50 employees or whatever it was the business is just you and me so like if
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you if you die I'm screwed if your wife dies I'm screwed if I die okay vice
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versa all that stuff true and so we said we need to get keyman insurance and we
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what we'll do with keyman insurance is we'll pay if your wife dies we'll pay you for three or four years and you just
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go get get your life together go and go and do whatever you need go to Napa drink a lot of wine do whatever you got
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to go so as we were doing that we built the the valuation of the business so while doing this up on a
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wipe off board we're building the valuation of business up based on what we would pay the other person if they
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went through some type of tragedy and because it was like the wives too if if Brett were to die I'd pay Jennifer the
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company would pay Jennifer for four years whatever bit was so once we get done with that and all the baths up on
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the wipe off board I looked at him I said I I don't want to piss you off or anything but I want to do that can I do
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that he's like what do you mean I'm like I want it now what
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I'd like to do that I'd like to do I'd like to do that bit he's like oh cool
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okay let's work let's work it out from that moment to nine days later is all it
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took no my my lawyer his lawyer the corporate lawyer everything was agreed
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upon done why so all right so that that's super fascinating right so why
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why was was it that easy because you weren't actually having a conversation
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about your departure you're just having a theoretical conversation about what if something happens when suddenly like
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don't it just had to be in the back of your mind right I mean this had to be no no no it wouldn't I swear to God it
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wouldn't what swear to God it would like do you know why you did it like is there reason and I he knows I what I told him
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and what I believe to be true is when your client's voices just a sure voices
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send you into a fit of rage yeah you you should probably get out of the business
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you're probably not good you're toxic at that point right because you you yeah they tou you off in a second right and
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and I didn't even manage clients so like I didn't even have I sold so I sold them
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but I I enjoyed that bit because Brett gave me the freedom to just like go sell whatever the you want I'll deal
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with it right okay cool so I'd sell stuff and then he'd put the people together and make it happen and uh I
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remember a client who we rebranded Brett and his team they rebranded this company
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had tried to change their name and Rebrand for four years some outrageous number and Brett did it and launched
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about a trade show in five months and they were paid us let's say $25,000 a
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month and right the month after the trade show the CEO called me and said
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hey uh you got a moment I'm like yeah yeah of course man what's going on he go
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okay so I understood the retainer while we were going through the build but I don't like why would we be paying you
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$225,000 a month month now and I'm like are you kidding
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me which is not an appropriate response for services for yeah I think it is but
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I said are you kidding me are you high like what what the is wrong with you and he goes well I'm just
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I'm trying to figure out the justification I'm like the justification is you could do it on your own we shut our firm down literally shut her
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firm down to get you out of and now you want to faking figure out a new way
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to work together are you kidding me like give it a couple months homes like you don't have to do this right now like
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that's up right show yeah oh lovely oh yeah and so
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that that was definitely in my mod when When Brad and I did the human Insurance discussion is I'm not good for the
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business because that stuff is that sort of stuff when you're an agency in a
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Services business when a customer asks for unreasonable you should be able adult enough and able
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enough to then say okay they're asking for some unreasonable stuff don't overreact just pause breathe meditate
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smoke some weed whatever and then don't overreact okay but I didn't and I
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couldn't right so I knew that about myself but the keyman insurance conversation that was just literally
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us without ego and I think this is important for Founders to understand when you start talking valuation
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uh with your partners a lot of ego is in that and we start talking by oh my God
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that's a divorce right yeah I want the house I want the kids I want the cars I want this it becomes a thing that's
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polarizing when you're just doing an exercise on the board none of that stuff's there right you're just you're
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just talking about okay if your wife died you're going to end up in a bottle and I'm going to have to run the whole
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firm okay well like I get that that'd be fair I'd end up in a bottle so that's cool so the firm still has to go on we
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got all these livelihoods that are attached to this so we firm has to go on and so when we built that I wasn't
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thinking about myself I really wasn't I mean he knew he knew all that had
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happened and he knew that i' over overreacted and all that other stuff but that wasn't the impetus you could feel
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it you you could probably feel it for a while right oh yeah yeah six months yeah
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that whole 2010 is really cuz I'd had a a son Ben ALS was born in O November of
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09 and from that moment I and again I was selling I'm in sales and marketing
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Ops so I'm doing stuff that's not even close to facing but customers would reach out to
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me and when they did i' be like what okay that's not good that's not
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good for the business even if you didn't say anything they knew yeah which really great advice
20:56
Peter Peter and I uh We've we' been doing a few recordings today of the podcast and we just we actually just had
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a guest on a bit ago we were talking about founder co-founder relationships and I think we think about
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prenups right when you get married right yeah but operating agreement in an operating agreement all that stuff right
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and you know but a right as you're looking at you know when you're going into these founder co-founder
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relationships I know I've had a very similar experience right where where I
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in a previous company this is C couple businesses ago we had actually done what seemed to
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me at the time to be a ridiculous thing we had negotiated the exit what happens if one of us leaves when we're first
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starting the company so when came it was like look it says right here and you're
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doing it in a way where the bias is toward being fair to the other at that
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point when you're negotiating it up front both sides are sitting they saying
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hey you already agreed on it right if this doesn't work I want to be fair with you I care about you and then you know
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before all that resentment and everything else hit right that's ego resentment and again this if we if we go
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back to the marriage analogy yeah you we've like when you get when someone gets divorced like how many people do we
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know that it's been really truly amicable right yeah right like it's usually you know that we're friends
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until the other person starts dating or someone else and then we're not friends and there's chaos and all this
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other my oldest brother John is the only person he's like a Jedi I
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don't know how he's done it he first marriage my niece he gets divorced and
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and a lot of it's his fault and all that he's just throwing dick so he he gets divorced he's in a bottle
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for a couple years and uh he gets climbs out of the bottle and he meets another
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woman and they have two kids together right now this is the the Jedi his
23:05
first wife takes care of his second wife's kids MH they're on text together
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yeah they text each other and talk and he talks to both of us he has a wonderful relationship with both of them
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all the way to the point of the first wife on the weekends when the the other
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wife isn't available she'll take care of the kids and she's got tons of money so it's not you know none of that issue but
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she loves taking care of the kids yeah like who the does this who can who
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can pull this off it doesn't have to end in disaster right and and you know as
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Founders it doesn't it doesn't need to end in like the train wreck that it that
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it often does let me just kind of P because I think it it's sort of related
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right think about your entrepreneurial career yep you know spans multiple
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businesses and things like that what are the if if you think about it what are the biggest mistakes that you've made
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you look back and you're like oh Jesus like what you know we were talking about buying wands as before like that was not
24:17
a mistake I'm just going on the record you think about like what are the what are the biggest mistakes you've made as
24:22
a Founder the founders Journey podcast is brought to you by the founders Collective your ultimate support system
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on the entrepreneurial path we're fellow Founders we're fellow entrepreneurs and we understand the highs and lows of the
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only be available over the next couple weeks so get in there son up for the pre-launch today look forward to welcom
25:11
you as a member of the founders Collective I think uh the biggest mistakes is hiring yeah and and making
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what I believe was a good decision and not because of ego not pulling the
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trigger fast enough yeah yep uh in terms of letting that person go and I've had it probably three times in my life where
25:34
I've hired someone going best hire ever because I thought so even though even though something like my employees said
25:40
yeah this a bad hire I'm like no no this is the best hire ever not even listening to my own people this is the best TI
25:47
ever only to find out fraud this is a complete fraud not not just a little
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fraud like it very dark very bad fraud like this isn't just a person that
25:57
couldn't do job like they were stealing from us it was a horrible Oh you mean like literally literally that is a big
26:05
mistake so what and in all three cases it's like that uh it's like that bit I sent you a rabbi a priest and a fireman
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like in all three of those hires I had other people on my team say yeah well I
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I just you know I don't get the same feel I don't get the same feel and I'm like no no no I I understand it's a
26:24
little bit counterintuitive they don't know the industry and they don't have the experience like I'm justifying like this is a good
26:31
hire because I think it's a good hire so what did you do what do you do about that if you're if you're going to advise
26:37
a Founder on that right because this is always I'll tell you we ask this question all the time and this is like always happen right an hour ago right
26:45
just right but like what what do you tell a Founder how do you tell a Founder to avoid that mistake because we've all
26:52
made the exact same one well you're not going to avoid it so that's like avoiding a speeding ticket right so like
26:58
you know no matter how you drive you're going to get a speeding ticket just going to happen so you're saying like after that
27:05
you're then you're listening to people but then you then you get comfortable again then you're you're racing down the
27:10
highway and that's right it happens again yeah and I think so so so first of all for Founders don't try to avoid it
27:19
what you need to do is trust your instincts and again we live in a scientific world but I believe the
27:25
moment you know it you know it in your heart you know in your gut like yeah something's not right and then your
27:31
people will tell you and especially if you have an open environment with your people which you should have kind of a trusting environment they should be able
27:38
to tell you whatever the hell is on your mind on their minds if they tell you hey
27:44
Jimmy it's it's not working like the clients don't like Jimmy right like you
27:50
know that we're we're having trouble working with Jimmy instead of justifying
27:56
why you made the hire listen to them and just go okay let me
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dig in tell me what tell me more about what's going on let's get some more people in the room let's we're on the call let's kind of figure this out okay
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then let me figure out if this is fixable and if it's not fixable cut how do you they cut fast how
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do you get them to tell you how do you get your people to good question to actually tell you that right because
28:23
every the the first per the first time someone tells you something no matter
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how you action it you action it like if they say hey
28:34
the walls on the the walls are gray you painted the office Gray which makes everyone depressed so like you
28:42
made the color Choice William this is a true story William you made the choice of the color and it's gray and everyone
28:48
comes in happy and then all of a sudden they want to drink themselves to sleep it's like yeah I can see that fair
28:55
enough you know what what color we should we go with like just something not gray cool so you're basically saying
29:02
like if if someone reaches out to you and because it takes a lot for someone to you the moment there's something
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right there's something way more than you know you can't be like oh just you don't like the color you can't blow it
29:14
off right no you action it and the moment you action it they go back and tell other people it's like hey I told
29:21
William that the walls were gray and all of a sudden like next week they're you know blue or whatever the
29:26
bit was like they changed the colors of the wall now that permeates the organization you tell the leader or
29:33
leaders something they take it to heart and then they action it that's how you
29:39
build the trust in order to kind of do that is just the first time and again I it's stupid it doesn't matter what the
29:45
thing is people were like we shouldn't have these cheap pins we need expensive pins like okay those were
29:53
three cent pens and you want $4 pens okay sounds a bit much but if that's the
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thing I'm going Office Depot right I'm going to go get a box of expensive pins and put them around the
30:05
office and be like all right done if that pins is the thing then that's it but really it isn't it it isn't about
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pins right it's about carrying forth a message that says uh as a leader I'm
30:18
going to listen to you I'm going to take your advice cuz I can't do it all myself I
30:24
mean that's just arrogance I can't do it all myself I need people to tell me and in in hiring especially when you've made
30:31
with with me when you've made a bad hire you need other people to go yeah that
30:36
was up right okay all right right people are willing to tell you because
30:42
you built this rapport with them that's right by listening to them and they're like I think he'll listen to me yeah
30:47
people say this Val what I say yeah and it drives me into a wall have an open door policy open no policy
30:54
doesn't mean anything if you don't action their advice right right you you could have no door you can you
31:00
can have a just a open office and uh and if you don't action their advice and
31:06
again their advice can be pure lunacy it doesn't matter it's because because you
31:11
got to kind of fight through some of the lunacy to get the good stuff when they come to you with Innovation and they say
31:18
I think we need to do this bit you're like I didn't even see that all right let's do that right and that is
31:24
but that is pure culture will right like I mean that that that's it I mean that's what you're talking about is actually
31:30
having a culture of listening and actually like action right yes this is
31:37
amazing right you got actually and and I think that's you know that's the part where you know it's really easy and I
31:43
think we've all had the all I'm sure the three of us on this call have had this experience a million times where like you make a bad hire or you make a bad
31:50
decision right maybe it's a hire maybe it's something else and then you know you kind of start to unwind it and then
31:56
you start to hear yeah I don't know why I HED that guy to begin with but it's like too late day one this happened
32:02
you're like day one this is 6 months in too late built culture it it gets even
32:08
worse with me I'm a terrible interviewer like I'm horrible like literally
32:15
somewhere there's a list I'm near the bottom of the list of of inter like the mar Assad you know somewhere around
32:22
there I'm horrible interviewing people because I'm esoteric so by the
32:27
time reaches me I'm like okay if you're a Beatles album like what Beatles album would you be you know like like
32:33
that like stupid that has nothing with the job another with comence another with because people have already
32:38
interviewed right they've already talked to a bunch of my people this a great example of a horrible interview so this
32:44
this woman is up for a project manager job at our company and uh she's already interviewed
32:50
with the entire team everyone has green lit her everyone no problem she's
32:56
awesome so she comes in to interview with me and we're in these uh we have
33:02
concrete floors and kind of like the Costco chairs that kind of roll and she's sitting across and she has a 4 in
33:09
binder of all of her projects that she's worked on right like this is like this
33:15
is dope so but I don't give a at all because I'm going to ask you these
33:20
esoteric questions that I just come to me at the moment if you're a crayon what kind of crayon would you be and why I'm
33:26
just trying to get a feel for how they not not that not that I even care about the answer like what Apostle would you
33:32
be you know stuff like that I don't give a just which one would you be in why and so she pushes over the binder
33:39
she goes I'd really William I'd really like for you to look at my work I'm like absolutely I flip a couple page not looking at it not giving a put it
33:46
aside ask an es an esoteric question and uh so uh I kind of pushed the binder out
33:53
to the middle of the table like I'm not looking at this my folks of people they look at this I you're only green li
33:59
like I'm just going to ask you test cars do we go back I'll speed up the story cuz we go through about three or four of
34:05
these she keeps pushing the binder back in front of me to look at her stuff CU she wants valid she wants me to validate
34:12
that this is some cool and I don't care I just care about asking my es ter
34:17
CR which again being a horrible interviewer this is what I'm doing so the last straw was she pushes the binder
34:23
back over to me but in the meantime her chair had rolled out from behind her
34:29
unbeknownst to her she goes to sit down and face plants into the table the
34:36
conference room table which is solid wood by the way another mistake comes up
34:41
and it's like a Quinn Tarantino movie man is spraying
34:47
everywhere my God and and I I for the first time in my
34:54
life I freeze I didn't know what the to do I didn't know if I should go
35:00
hugger if I should run and get Kleenex if I could get somebody else like you know what should I do I just took back
35:06
the binder from the middle of the table it's started like there was nothing
35:13
happening again I have no empathy it's my fault I start looking at her I'm like yeah this is actually some really cool
35:19
I'm glad you brought this C I have my head down I'm like I don't
35:25
know what the going on with your nose man but you anyhow there's a lot of blood there's some T there's some
35:31
tampons in the girl's bathroom I don't know anyhow I'm going look at this bind so I'm looking at the binder she comes
35:37
out she cleans up the blood she's got like tampon sticking in her nose
35:45
and and I'm like I look through your binder and I'm so glad that you asked me
35:51
to look through this because I I didn't even acknowledge that any of it happened like I'm just acting like it didn't happen like the blood on the walls
35:58
sh I want repaint that don't worry about it I just like this is fantastic I'm so
36:04
glad that you came in today this work is amazing and Charles will be inol in in
36:10
touch with you really soon so then she leaves very ungraceful
36:16
exit she leaves all my team comes in and goes what the I'm
36:21
like I I don't know I didn't do that oh
36:26
I know she really wanted look at this binder and I didn't want to look at a binder and then she fell and and I
36:32
hit her nose like what did you do I'm like yeah I didn't do
36:38
anything like you I just kept looking at the binder I started
36:44
looking at her work didn't actually and she it was some really cool work and I'm like dude seriously like this is the
36:52
best this person we're going to L we did we lost her W she's TR like
37:02
drama conference room was right at the entrance there was a reception hall and the conference room and then you went
37:08
into the the bullpen and so that was like the pl she she would never been able to make it and and it was all my
37:15
fault so when when you interview do not take any of that advice at all if
37:21
someone want you anyone want you to look at their binder just look at their binder it's all right big deal get
37:26
hurt but it's it was a forced process right like it was in my in my head I had
37:32
a process that I wanted to take people through because I wanted to understand how they thought right I would to understand how their brain worked and I
37:39
could have probably gotten there in a different way and I was trying to force this process this false process and it
37:46
really impacted someone she would have been a good project manager for us and she probably even could have changed the business and it all because of my own
37:53
arrogance that I didn't allow that to happen well she had a horrible experience yeah and I think that's you
37:58
know that's a lot of what interviewing can turn into right it's just that like these you know we get sort of caught up
38:05
in our own in our own nonsense about this stuff right and I think that's a that becomes a big that becomes a big
38:12
issue I I don't become our one worst enemies in hiring and we we're we're GNA
38:18
run up against it on time here so we got just to kind of get into these last few questions but the question I was just
38:23
about to ask was what's the scariest day you've had as a founder this episode of
38:29
the founders Journey podcast is brought to you by Evergreen Mountain Equity Partners Evergreen mountain is a thesis
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today's Founders really shape tomorrow's future although you did have a woman
40:33
bleeding profusely in front of you in your com so I don't think that was nothing I don't think that made him
40:38
scared no I know but what I mean seriously like you look look back on your career what's the scariest thing I
40:44
I don't believe that you're an actual founder until one of two things maybe both if you're really lucky happens one
40:52
is you get sued so if you've never been sued as a founder yeah then you're not then you're
40:58
not a Founder so there's got to be a lawsuit or at least a threat of a lawsuit yeah okay so that's one thing
41:05
the second is yeah threats is fine I had a seasoned assist from uh mark bny off
41:10
at salesforce.com from him from from Mark Benny off this is
41:17
doing good work like 03 and we had built for the company called sales net we had
41:23
built because the logo at the time was no software y yeah like right that was the Salesforce deal we put no Salesforce
41:30
so it's the same round circle with a line through it it was sales Force's brand name yeah we're like that would
41:37
piss him surely this can't go wrong and uh
41:42
so he sends me a letter somebody founds out my name sends me a letter
41:48
and goes hey uh first of all very creative secondly never use our logo
41:55
again in your lifetime I'm like absolutely 100% I I emailed him we're good because he gave me his email he
42:02
like he gave me it was a Salesforce letterhead back in the day and it had him and it has his email so I emailed
42:07
him I said hey got your letter done already discontinued campaign don't have to worry about it thank you for saying
42:12
it was clever because we thought it was clever yeah won't use your brand won't use your likeness no have to worry about
42:18
those things but you got to get threatened you gotta you there's got to be something that threatens you the
42:24
second is about extending the business past your means getting over your skis
42:29
if you will you've got to at one point put payroll on a Visa or American
42:35
Express yep like you've got to go so far to go yeah that kind up uh how
42:40
much do we owe yeah yeah okay what I know I
42:46
have a platinum car but what does it go up to yeah you got you got to many months do I have left on my
42:53
Platinum I remember the first time I got a platinum card they like you can buy a course with this I'm like I can but
42:59
should I right well it's that it's that it's that one phone call you have to make to American Express when they say
43:05
oh yeah there's no credit limit I know you say there's no credit limit but what is
43:11
it I have a feeling what I'm about to do May test that theory to know because
43:18
it's people roll quter million um will a
43:24
light so but I mean but those things look but it's really real right I don't
43:29
think I swe and P is the worst you got you got to be terrified that's the thing
43:37
so horrible you have to be terrified in your core like you know you have a good idea for a startup if you can't sleep
43:45
right yeah you also know you have a good startup if you've been threatened or
43:50
you've extended yourself so far that it scares the out of you yeah that you could be effed that you get F you could
43:58
be this could be bankruptcy your are off and you're in the air right now and you're hoping there's a way they can
44:05
land where your feet are gonna be did I put on SK why am I in the air right
44:11
now like full send full send I have been sued I think or or or the threat of sued
44:19
I should say I've been sued I've been I've had the threat of a lawsuit yeah from a competitor in every single
44:26
business I've started without fail now on some level that's when you know that you're doing things right yeah yeah
44:33
right cuz you're T only care if they're scared like whoa they say they got a lawyer involved this can f with us like
44:39
yeah it's like wait a minute it's it's similar in marketing I know y'all know this but in marketing if you don't get
44:48
an angry email like a screamer or someone saying that you should go to hell or something you know something
44:53
like that you haven't pushed hard enough right yeah stop sending this garbage to me please you're just sending
45:00
out that's middle of the road gray no one's going to be offended no someone should be offended like I talked to my
45:07
son last night coming he were coming home from a ceremony and uh he goes you know I don't want to wear that because
45:13
you know it might offend someone I'm like here's the deal dude you need to wake the up this this a kid with
45:18
your DNA yeah no but yeah but he's super conservative it's crazy I like it I like
45:24
it because it's so different to me but he he he's like you know I just don't want to offend anybody I'm like dude you
45:30
can't live life not or worrying about offending every single person yeah you're going to offend somebody and in
45:36
fact if you don't offend somebody I go that far if someone's not pissed at you you just haven't done enough you haven't
45:42
pushed it far enough I I'll tell you a funny story pet and you guys both lived this experience with me right like
45:48
William was the cause and Peter was the engine this is the this is the story right so William no no so so do early
45:57
days in in uh previous company at at chat before it became out will we talked
46:03
about this doing the brainstorming thing and then we were doing email marketing and we're sending out emails and sending
46:09
out emails and William was like you need to be sending out these marketing emails
46:14
every day of the week and we're like dude nobody's doing you can't do that like we're gonna get thrown off we're
46:20
gonna get thrown out like you can't that's not a he's like he's like and we're like we'll do it one day a week
46:25
he's like every day yeah so we went to like one day a week right and I say Peter was the
46:31
engine because Peter's marketing agency render tribe was the one actually doing the stuff right Peter's agency starts to
46:37
say we we build this completely like like list of 250,000
46:44
people nobody opted in nobody did anything it was total ridiculous right so we're hammering this list every day
46:51
or every every once a week and and William's like no more than that I said
46:56
every every day so we said we'll try like two days a week all right do it so
47:01
we start doing this this goes on and goes on and goes on we finally hit five days a week we're sending out we're
47:08
literally sending millions of emails out to this list every week millions and the funniest day ever so like we're getting
47:15
complaints and and every time this is happening William's like this is awesome like all these people are playing their
47:21
ownr was like you have to stop sending this garbage right so and all okay all
47:28
of the emails said the for the the from was Greg at checked right yes so I'm
47:34
literally when we knew when we knew we had something I'm literally walking and Peter will Peter like I called you
47:39
immediately when this Happ I'm walking through an airport I sit I'm like sitting on a plane I sit next to a
47:45
person and they're like what do you do and I said check.com she's like I get your emails every day I get an
47:52
email and she's like who and I and she introducers you know Sally I was like oh I'm Greg she's like you're Greg at
47:59
checked I said yeah she's like I didn't think there was a real human behind
48:05
this even better my yes I I live in Saratoga a lot of people in my
48:11
neighborhood rent their house for track right the CEO of um what is it uh
48:19
Fridays comes next door and he's like asking me what I do he's super nice guy
48:24
with his buddies from high school and they're hanging out going the track and he goes what do you do and I'm like oh yeah and you know he's like what
48:29
companies you work with and tell me a few and I was like telling him and he's just super fascinated as an entrepreneur
48:34
and he's I said well you ever heard of outmatch it was outmatch then and he goes oh yeah I get your emails and I
48:42
just started laughing I'm like you get our emails he's like yeah well we're the ones that send them and he's just like I
48:48
get all of them it was hilarious it was hilarious small world you know but the
48:54
the more the and and I what I for to mention up front is William is actually an operating partner at Evergreen
49:00
Mountain our um our Venture fund and one of the things we talk about all the time is like it stop being so afraid like
49:08
yeah I mean telling Founders like stop being afraid like if you're not because I know you're we're saying it in a
49:13
joking way but if you're not pushing it to that point you're not pushing hard
49:19
you're just in the noise you're just you're you're a part of you go to hrtech and everybody's marketing very much the same way and people will tell you they
49:25
want to be different and every time someone tells me you you know how to be different.