Anniversary Throwback - #22: Jonathan Lusk, BirdDog

As we near one year since starting In The Thick of It, we're working on a celebratory episode. In the meantime, we'd love for you to catch up on some founder stories you may have missed.

In this episode, we learn from Jonathan Lusk, an entrepreneur who grew up in a small town in Texas before going on to attend Texas A&M and build a career in wealth management. Jonathan started out at AT&T and Goldman Sachs, but eventually left to launch his own independent investment firm. More recently, Jonathan co-founded BirdDog, an online marketplace that connects landowners with hunters looking for places to hunt. We’ll hear about Jonathan’s journey from small town kid to successful entrepreneur, the lessons he learned along the way, and how he’s bringing technology and innovation to the hunting industry. Jonathan is all about living life to the fullest, taking risks, and constantly learning and growing, so I think listeners will find his outlook inspiring regardless of their background or industry.

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About Jonathan:
Jonathan grew up in North Texas on a fish farm where he developed a love for the outdoors. Upon graduation from Texas A&M, he joined the workforce, married his college sweetheart, and started a family. After completing his MBA at Rice, he worked on Wall Street at Goldman Sachs and then launched his own finance company. Jonathan loves relationships and finds great joy in making sure BirdDog hunters are changed through the friendships they make in the outdoors. Jonathan now resides in Washington, TX where he lives on a little piece of land with his wife, Kat, and kids, Jackson, Sam, and Charlotte. They enjoy fishing, hunting, and being outdoors.

To learn more about his latest venture, BirdDog, visit birddogit.com.

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If you or a founder you know would like to be a guest on In The Thick of It, email us at [e-mail]

Creators & Guests

Host

Scott Hollrah

Founder & CEO of Venn Technology

Guest

Jonathan Lusk

CEO & Co-Founder, BirdDog

What is In The Thick of It?

Join Scott Hollrah, founder of Venn Technology, as he takes you "In the Thick of It" with the real stories of founders who are actively navigating the challenges and triumphs of running their businesses. This podcast goes beyond the typical entrepreneurial success stories and delves into the messy, gritty, and sometimes chaotic world of building and growing a company. Get inspired, learn from the experiences of others, and gain insights into what it truly means to be in the thick of the entrepreneurial journey.

Hey, listeners, this is Scott Hollrah.

It's hard to believe that we launched
In The Thick of It almost a year ago.

As we're nearing our first anniversary,

we're working
hard on a celebratory episode.

In the meantime, we'd love for you
to catch up on a founder story

you may have missed.

In today's episode,
I talk with my friend and former

Fightin Texas Aggie Yell leader,
an entrepreneur who grew up in Whitesboro,

Texas, before going on to build a career
and wealth management.

Jonathan started out at AT&T
and Goldman Sachs, but eventually left

to launch his own independent investment
firm.

More recently,
Jonathan co-founded Bird Dog,

an online marketplace
that connects landowners with hunters.

We'll hear about Jonathan's journey from
small town kid to successful entrepreneur.

The lessons he learned along the way,

and now he's bringing technology
and innovation to the hunting industry.

Jonathan.

It's all about living life to the fullest,

taking risks,
and is constantly learning and growing.

So I think listeners will find this
outlook

inspiring regardless of their background
or industry.

Get ready for
some high energy inspiration.

Well, today is a super fun

one bringing in an old college buddy,
Jonathan Lusk.

Welcome to In The Thick of It.

Thanks for having me, man. Yeah.

So you grew up in small town Texas?

Whitesboro. That's right. Yeah.

What was Jonathan
Lusk and Whitesboro, Texas like as a kid?

Oh my goodness.
It was, it was pretty crazy.

So Whitesboro is a small town
of about 2500 people north of here.

Dallas, about 70 miles, ten miles
south of Oklahoma.

Very poor family.

Growing up,
my dad was a fisheries biologist.

Still is.

And so he stocked, and managed
lakes and ponds with fish.

And so we grew up.

You know, seining ponds and working.

There were six of us.
You're one of six kids.

I'm one of six of my mom left
when I was in kindergarten.

And then my dad got remarried,

had my little brother,
and then I had two step siblings.

So there were six of us in the house
growing up.

And my dad made.

I found out
when I got my first job out of college,

I was making 55,000 bucks a year,
and he's like, that's more than I make.

I was like, how much do you make?

Like 30 grand a year?

It's like you,
a six of us on $30,000 a year.

Like, yeah. So it was
we didn't really know.

Just because the community
doesn't really flourish there.

And it's more of like, how how do you get
out of here and go do something else?

And there are a few people
a year that do get out and go to college.

But most of my friends growing up
still live there.

Got some, you know, fun stories.

My best friend, you know, Daniel Pruitt.

Growing up, I took my wife to go meet him,

and he was like, man,
you know, she's really beautiful.

And he's like, where are you from? Plano.

She's like,
no, I'm from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

I don't meet too many people
from Minneapolis and Whitesboro.

And he's like.

Tell me, right now you're like,
I got a serious question for you, for

Chevy.

And she's like, I don't know.

I said, just say Ford, just say Ford.

She's like, I like Ford.

He's a nice guy, I like her,
I like her a lot.

I was like, I need your DP, I need you.

So grew up there, graduated high school
and then ended up going to.

And my dad was the first person
in our family antiquity to go to college.

I was a second person to go to college
and he went to A&M.

So that's where I chose to go.

But that was
I just wanted to go to college.

I wanted to get out of town,
go to college.

But beyond that,

I really didn't have any dreams

or aspirations of anything else
because it's all that I knew.

Were you into sports? Were you?
Yeah. Yeah.

So it's a it's a small three day school.

So in that context you play everything.

Basically you play football,
basketball, baseball, run track.

You know as many people
as you can get on the field.

They do.

So that was really cool
playing the sports.

My friends all growing up,

you know we had a pretty decent
basketball team growing up.

And now they're actually decent
at football.

But I played football for, you know, three
years on varsity we won like five games.

It was so bad.

And now they make the playoffs every year.

I'm like very proud of these guys.

And this is this is awesome.

But it was not like that
when I was growing up.

But you know I had a lot of. You to leave.

They were waiting
for me to leave. Exactly.

It sounds

like hard work was something that
was instilled in you from a young age.

Oh, I mean, from what I can remember,
very young.

You're signing ponds, you're dragging
a sign to go, you know, pick fish up.

You're putting them on the back of a truck
at a tank and you're delivering them.

And I just remember
riding in the front seat with my dad.

And one of those bucket or not bucket,
it was, you know, one of the long benches

and the truck driving all over the state
with him to deliver these fish.

And that was just and still,
you know, you'd get up at, you know, this

not during the week you go to school,
but weekends are in the summer.

You're up at 4 or 5:00 loading
fish and delivering them.

And you got to meet interesting people,
you know, landowners and,

you know, people who owned companies
and sold companies lived out the country

and you knew they were different from you
and you knew you worked for them.

But it was also, you know, it was very
interesting meeting these types of people.

I was like, man, I want to do that.

You know, how to how do you do that?

But yeah, it was always work hard.

My dad always instilled us.

He's like,
do you want to be a winner or loser?

Yes. What do you want to be
a champion like?

Here's what you have to do to be a winner.

And so he like put this mentality in us.

I don't want to lose them.

I want to win. You know,
I want to be a champion or whatever it is.

So like whatever he told me to do,
I would do.

And it was one of those deals.

He said to him,
he's like, the most important attribute

is can you be coachable?

Can you be coachable?

If you can listen to people who are wise
and do what

they tell you to do and go execute on it,
then you'll make it.

And if you don't, you won't.

And it was very, very simple for me.

And so I think about that a lot as I try
to grow and learn and gain knowledge.

Just try to be an open book
and surround myself by people

that are better than me, smarter than me.

And I just listen to what they say
and then go do it.

Talking about your dad's,
you know, winning

mentality had a little Talladega
Nights flashback.

If you're not first, your last is that
is that kind of how it was basically.

Yeah.

I mean, it was it was like, hey, Eddie,
do you want to be a champion?

Do you want to be a winner or do you not?

It was very binary with him.
And I was like,

you know, I choose the winning,
you know, so whatever that means.

And it was hard work.

It was discipline.

It was humility,
and it was those types of things

that were instilled at me at a young age
that kind of grew from there whenever

I got to them and met my friends.
Like you.

You've never met a stranger.

You've got a lot of charisma.

Is everybody in your family
as outgoing and boisterous as you are?

We're all very similar.

My dad is like this.

My brother, my sister, my little brother,
not so much,

but we're all
I mean, it's the life of the party.

And when you're around for the holidays
and you're sitting around the dinner table

or watching, you know, the Cowboys player
or whatever, it gets lively

and fun and people are telling stories
and it's a blast.

I love my family and very thankful,
but we are we're very similar in that,

you know, the fun loving
but also the work.

Like we're all very some of my sister's
a nurse.

She, manages
a bunch of nurses here in Dallas,

and my brother brother's a, residential
real estate agent in Phoenix.

And there's just this work
ethic and drive.

And you don't make excuses.

There's no.

There's like, no woe is me
or I can't do this or can't do that.

Everybody's like, suck it up.

We have to get this done kind of thing.

And it's very consistent
with those people.

Where are you in the birth order?

So I'm, I'm third, third or four. Really.

So I've got a brother
who's eight years older than me.

A sister is two years older. Me.

And then I've got a little brothers
eight years younger than me.

So I'm number number three. Come.

And did everybody leave Whitesboro?

Yeah.

My brother left right after high school,
moved to California.

My sister ended up moving out of town
as well.

And then.

And then me and then.

Yeah. So no one,
no one lives there anymore.

My dad sold his house about two years ago
and moved to Granbury

when he was a little kid.

His parents had a place on the Brazos
River near Granbury,

and that's where he grew up
and learned to love fish.

So I wanted to go to A&M, and that's where
he really drew up a passion from there.

And so he's like,
that's where I want to spend.

The last chapter
is where I spent the first chapter.

So he bought a place out by Lake Granbury

and he lives out there
on the, on the Brazos River now.

But no one,
no one lives in Whitesboro anymore.

All right.

You mentioned earlier the goal growing up
was just get out of town

and you went off to A&M.

What did you want to do?

I didn't know what I wanted to do
when I got there.

It was actually it was

I was really nervous
that I was going to fail

because I was like,
you know, small town kid.

I met all of these people
who were just excellent.

I joined the Corps cadets.

And so that was pretty wild
and full of discipline, which I needed it.

Whenever I was in high school,
I was a lifeguard at the White

Republic pool, and this guy, Bob Joel own,
local daycare, and he's like,

hey, Lusk here, you're going,
you're going to be in the Corps.

I was like, absolutely not.

And, he said, why not?

I was like, man, I just that sounds hard.

I was like, I want to do that.

He's like, go home tonight and you're
going to put a teacher together.

Of all the positives and negatives
of the Corps, I was like, okay, so

I wrote down the positives were that
I would, stay in shape,

that I would make my grades
because they make you study.

And I thought that the girls
would like the uniform.

So that was like what I based
my decision on.

And, What was in the negative column?

Negative was like,
can't sleep and don't get to hang out

with the people that I want to.

It was just stuff that didn't matter.

When I got down to it,
and the fact that he just challenged me

to think about it, I was like,
okay, I'll go do this and that.

I mean, I didn't know,
I wasn't didn't know ROTC.

I didn't know what to expect.

I just thought like more discipline and
boy, were my eyes open when I got there.

But I don't know what I expected.

I didn't have great expectations
other than getting out of Whitesboro

and trying to achieve something bigger.

You know, when I think about life,
I think a lot about legacy,

and I think about my grandfather
and then my dad and how

this guy got the ball down
the field as fast as he could.

And then my dad did.

And then I'm getting
as far as I could down the field.

And then my,
my kids will pick it up and take it.

And so I think a lot about that.

But I was just trying to get to a place
that I'd grown up going to football games,

and that I love the atmosphere
and I love the people,

but I didn't know really what I wanted.

A lot of people didn't going in

and a lot of people even years afterward
didn't know what they wanted.

and I would actually put myself
in that category.

Real quick talk

just a little bit about the core cadets
for people that may not know what that is.

Are you guys all in the Army now or what?

So the Corps Cadets is an ROTC program
as part of, Texas A&M.

I'm making this number up, but it's
somewhere between 2500 and 3000 people.

So a large
a small percentage of the university,

but very important
for the image of the university.

I would say that 25 to 35%
take military contracts.

It's a decision you make
after your sophomore year to do that.

I did not take a contract,
but a lot of my friends did.

So it's very regimented during the day
where you have morning formation workout

and then breakfast,
and you have classes during the day

and you come back and

do more workout and learning and training
and all those things.

Formation, go study, go to bed every day.

A lot of drill and ceremony,
things like that.

And you bond some very significant
relationships

just because of the trials
that you go through

and you think about like the harder
things that you do with other people,

the closer
those bonds typically, come together.

And so that's what I found.

And that, I mean, when I first started,
when they're recruiting you, I got it's

awesome everything.

I remember my first day, my commanding
officer was a guy named Scott here.

And I walked up and I just got out of fish
camp, which is, basically

it's a camp before you go to eight
M to teach you all the traditions.

And I got off the fish camp bus,
and I came into my dorm

and I was like, hey, Scott.

And they're like,
shut up and get on the wall.

And I was like,
oh, we're not in Kansas anymore.

And I was wearing like a Hawaiian shirt
and some frayed shorts

and some, like, Doc
Martin sandals or something.

And I was like, oh, then they shaved
my head and I got yelled at every day.

And I was like, man, I hate this.
I want to go.

I wanted to quit like six times.

But that was not in the playbook
of how I grew up.

If you started something, you finished it

and so made it through my my freshman year
and was like, okay, I've got this.

And and you don't even feel
like you're part of the university

because all your friends are having fun
and doing all these things

and you're not you're
just basically doing push ups.

And then you realize, like,
you are the image of the university,

and you're like, man, I didn't you don't
realize it until you do that 1st March.

And you're like, this is pretty awesome.

This is pretty awesome.

When you say
that you are the image of the university.

Certainly being in the Corps
totally get that.

But you actually had
some other pretty prestigious things,

and you literally were
the image of the university you were in.

Pass mount, carve your Ross volunteer

and you were a fight and Texas Aggie
Yell leader.

Well, I would do a one minor correction.

I was in the cave.
I was not a Ross volunteer.

I didn't go up for the RVs.

I went up for Aggie Men's Club instead
of the RVs which they did not like.

But I was like, hey, I love these guys.
I want to go do it.

I always felt that.

I just love the Cav.

I'm from the country
like I loved being out there

and, you know, parts, amount of calories,
the mounted unit

that is part of the core cadets
and they march in before the games

and they all the horses are on Fiddler's
Green, which is off campus.

And it's a very hard unit.

There's a very hard year.

It's basically twice as hard in terms
of discipline than your freshman year.

And so maybe 30 guys go out for it
and 20 of them make it.

And so I looked at that going, I
see those guys wearing that, yellow cord.

And I want to be part of that group
because those are some bad guys

in a good way.
And I had a lot of respect for them.

So I went out for that.

And then into my sophomore year,
I got elected for junior year later

and then got reelected senior year later.

And so it was it was a dream for me.

I mean, there was no legacy. There was.

I didn't know anybody.

You go through a system in your block
where you're selected

within the core cadets,
and then you run and the general election,

against folks who are not in the corps
that want to run a campaign.

And so to win, that was a life
changing experience for me,

changed my whole life
in terms of image on the, you know, at the

at the university, but also like
the relationships that I've been able

to develop the rest of my life,
it put me on a different trajectory.

I'm sure it's opened all kinds of doors.

I mean, the
the L'Etre network in and of itself

is a whole bunch of guys that have gone on
to do a lot of big, amazing things.

And but the exposure that you got being a
yell leader

had just had a compounded
and opened up all kinds of doors to you.

Well, I'm 42 years old,

and people still introduced me
as the leader of For hearing.

And you say this, John, he was the leader.

I was like, yeah, 20. Years, 20 years ago.

And our teams were terrible.

And I was there.

Let's not talk about this.

So we beat out you, we beat you.

And they were number one
when I was a junior was. Friend coach and.

He was that.

So my junior year later

year was coach locums last year
and my senior was friends first year.

so my junior year when we beat Oklahoma,
which was like

the highlight, you're in a fish pond.

And still I still remember that game.
Yeah.

Yeah. It was, it was it was a big deal.

When Reggie McNeil.

Yeah, he was actually a student
in a class that I was a to for,

you know, Doctor Welch.

Yeah, I was the to
and regimen Neal was in that class.

And when he showed up the next week
for class, people were throwing oranges

and and all kinds of stuff.

But he's getting a standing ovation.

Yeah, exactly.

What did you study in college?

I was an ag major. I was ag development.

I started out in business.

And I remember my sophomore year
I made like a 40 on

an accounting test, and I was like,
maybe this isn't for me.

And then I wouldn't
talk to these guys who were like,

you know, leaders in the quarter.

Like, I'm like, developer, but I give up.

And I was like, well,
that sounds good to me.

I grew up in the country, I understand
agriculture, and I loved it, I loved it,

and then, you know, when I graduated,
I went to work for AT&T, here in Dallas.

And succession planning was always like,
what's ag development?

Because I was doing
really good in the business.

But they were, you know,
what is this degree?

I was like, oh, man.

So I always felt self-conscious about my
my degree, which is very interesting.

And so it's really the reason I went
to get my MBA was self-consciousness,

because people are like, man,
you can't make it to where you want to be

if you don't do this.

And now the business I'm in, I'm like,
so thankful I was an egg major.

It's like it is all come full circle.

I totally get what you were saying
a minute ago about people were telling you

you couldn't rise above a certain level
without that.

But looking back today,
do you still buy that?

I don't buy it.

I don't buy it at all.

And man, if I was a mom,
my wife was a finance major.

She's a doctor now.

She's like pre-med
and my finances are major.

And she might remember
2% of you know what she learned.

Same thing with me.

I was like, I bought this property
out in the country, and I'm like.

And all I care about right now is like,
growing grass, growing

trees and, like, flowers and stuff.

And I'm like,
I need to call the extension of.

I wish I would have paid more attention
to these classes because this is

what I actually care about deeply now,
and I don't really know what I'm doing.

And so I don't know that it matters
as much as the relationships

that you develop.

I really think that
and I think like just the university

as well, that you choose and that network
and the people who will help you along.

I mean, if you have a work ethic,
if you're humble,

if you don't make excuses like, and you do
good work, people will find a spot for,

I mean, that's what I want.

That's what I want to hire businesses
that I've started.

That's what I look for.
I look for that. And there's people not.

Are you technically proficient
and such and such?

I can teach you that,
but I'm looking for a specific

type of person
that I want to hire, and it's that.

How far post college
should you go get your MBA?

I got my MBA whenever I was 28,

so six years after I graduated undergrad.

You'd gone on from AT&T at that point?

No, I was living in Dallas.

I was dating my college sweetheart, Cat,
who played soccer at A&M,

and she was a freshman.

I was a senior, and so I lived here
and I would drive to College Station

every weekend.

And I remember I went and asked her
dad's permission to marry her,

and he told me, no.

And he didn't
want her to marry a southern boy.

And I wasn't a doctor or a lawyer,
so I wasn't successful

as smiling
and dialing in a cubicle at AT&T.

So he's like, no, I don't think so.

And so he wanted us
to date in the same city.

So she moved here with a family,
and we dated in Dallas

while she applied medical school
and then got in in Houston.

So we moved to Houston in 2008,
and that's when I applied and,

started going to business school at rice.

But I was working during the day
and got my MBA at night at rice.

And then from there I just started, see,
I was like, man,

you've got a really nice house
and you have a really nice car.

What do you do? And these guys are like,
I do finance.

I was like, what does that even mean?

You do finance?

Like, what do you know, wealth management
or do sales and trading or do investment

banking and investment bankers like, yeah,
we stay up all night, do pitch decks.

I was like, man, it sounds lame.

And, and then the wealth management
guys develop relationships

and investing in the markets. I was like,
that's what I want to do.

So I met a couple guys did this, and I met

this guy, Shea morenz, who was like
one of the best human beings in the world.

He was the quarterback for Texas
back in the early 90s,

and he was a managing director
at Goldman Sachs.

And I interview with him
and he gave me a job,

and it was so funny because he was like,
hey, why should I hire you?

How's that?

Well, I look on the on the floor
and all I see is longhorns.

I was like,
you don't have any Aggies, man.

And I was like, I know him.

So I was like, you should hire me
right now and let's go crush it.

And he was like, game on, let's do it.

Lusk and so that's how I got my job
at Goldman and that was at it.

So I literally like, you know, resign
gave me a 30 day notice at AT&T.

15 days later I graduated from rice
and then six weeks later

I started at Goldman in New York,
trading July the 5th of 2011.

I want to dig into to Goldman.

But first, for people
who are considering going

and getting an MBA,
what advice would you give about that?

I would say go to a school, I would go
I mean, when I think about MBAs, it's

you're basically going for
the relationships and the name on the wall

because it provides credibility
to whoever you're talking to later.

Like nobody cares.

You know how you finished in your class,
all of those things?

I wouldn't say that.

I was like, I left rice and I was like,
man, I've got all this more,

not more knowledge.

And I, I did, but again, I was just
I was trying to get through it.

I was working, married,
you know, trying to to execute on that.

But when you say, hey, I went to rice
and I've worked at Goldman,

you have instant credibility with people,
you and whatever you're doing.

So when I tell people and they say,
I want to go get an MBA, I was like,

just go to go to prestigious school
and make a lot of friends.

And if you can't, then don't do it.

Go work somewhere, get experience,
get a great mentor.

And that's what I tell your kids anyway.

It's like your first job doesn't
necessarily matter what you're doing,

but it matters who you work for
and go work for a great leader

and do it for 2 or 3 years
and learn everything that you can.

Like that.

So Goldman Sachs big, big name,
very prestigious.

And you were doing wealth management
there.

What what did that mean at Goldman?

You basically go get meetings
with rich people and bring in someone

who actually knows what they're
talking about, to talk to the people

you got the meeting
with as a young person.

So it's a lot of networking and,
you know, spending time around.

I focused primarily on people
who were selling companies

because you have this thing
called a t list,

which is a list of names
that each person has.

And you can't call that person
if they're not on your t list.

So basically anybody you'd ever read about
is already covered by somebody.

And so I would just I wouldn't
tell my investment making buddies

that worked for these smaller shops
that were, hey,

we're selling this company for 20 million
bucks or 50 million bucks or whatever.

I'm like, hey,
can you connect me with those guys?

So I spent a lot of time in Berlin,

and that's kind of how I built my business
was, you know,

developing those relationships.
And I go back to it.

Most of my clients were all, you know,
blue collar guys who sold these big, awful

service companies

that I could just relate with
because they were like me

from a small town, but they just hit it
big and figured it out.

And so it was very different.

I really didn't spend much time
in the city going after folks,

but that was kind of that's
how I built my little bit, my business.

And go on a meeting with these people.

The goal was to get them
to move their investments to Goldman.

Yeah, yeah.

And you know, at at the time

2011, it was like four years after
oh eight, Goldman had a bunch of bad

publicity and, you know, you're
just trying to get meetings.

I remember there was this guy
who sold this awful service company.

And you know, Goldman's
great to tell your friends.

I think it's cool.

But at the time was very challenging
to get clients.

I mean, people would call in
because they want to work with Goldman

and those leads would get distributed
to different people.

But our job was to go get those meetings.

And I remember this guy
and I brought him in the office

and he was like,
all right, he's a goldsmith.

You guys are an investment bank.

What kind of investments do you have?

And I was like, oh, dude, I'm probably
going to get a client because, like,

he actually doesn't know who we are.

And I mean, we are an investment bank,
but we were in the wealth management

side of it.

And so we were able to bring him
one of the clients, my first client,

like 17 million bucks,
I was like, high five.

And it was really cool.

But yeah, I spent a couple of years

there and went to work
for a group called Avalon, which,

spun out of Goldman back in the 90s
and then started their own shop.

And so WeWork for
those guys are just the great guys.

I loved working for them.

And the culture was like,
probably what Goldman was like

when it was, you know, private.

And so, I mean, they were
they were just great.

And I did that for a few years, and
I was like, I was super successful at it.

And I was like, man,
I can do this on my own.

Like,
I can either make you guys a lot of money

or I can go make money for my family.

They respected it.

I mean, I was
it wasn't like I was a big dog.

I'm not trying to portray myself as that,
but I was like,

I want to go to this someone I own,
and and I'm a terrible employee.

I'm terrible at working for people

because I see the world a certain way,
and I want to go do it a certain way.

I'd rather be told, hey, here's the result
I want, and then let me go do it

the way that I want.
And then I'll deliver for you.

But it's not going to be your typical
call.

100 people do this or that.

And so I was like, man, I, I never thought
that I wanted to be an entrepreneur.

I was just too much of a maverick,
not to be.

And so I ended up figuring out
that there's all these guys in wealth

management that have their own shops,
and it's very fragmented industry.

And so it's all based on relationship.

Like if one bank had the best results,
like everybody would be of that bank.

And so nobody does.

It's like it's basically marketing.

And so I was like,

and there's this industry
that will help you,

you know, from custodian to compliance
to products, all these things,

they all support you to go
start your own deal.

It's like, can you go get clients or not?

That's the biggest question.
And so I was like, I'm going to go do it.

You know, I could have just finished her.

No, she'd finished

medical school, was in residency,
and we didn't know Jackson was born.

He was six months old. And I was like,
you know what?

I made a decision before I was 35 that
I was going to go start my own company.

And so I was 34 when I left and started

the investment management business
eight years ago.

Talk a little bit more, though, about
how did you compete against the

the big names like Goldman, Merrill
Schwab, like these are these are names.

They're household names or names
that people trust.

Why are they going to trust a guy
without a big name behind them?

Yeah. No, it's a it's a great question.

When I first I just didn't know
I mean I, I left going

you know, I want to I'm going to do this.

It's already been done. It's
not like I'm reinventing the wheel.

I know 20 people right now.

They've got their own shops.

You manage 100 million
to 2 billion or whatever it is.

And I was like, man,
if they can do it, I can do it.

And it was a confidence.

It was confidence.
I just saw how the business worked.

I saw how these other other entrepreneurs
worked,

and I just thought, like,
I want to go do this.

If you can do it, I can do it.

And it's not rocket science.

It's literally like,
go develop a relationship.

And this is what they taught us at
Goldman Training.

There was this guy

I wish I could remember his name, but
he came in and he wasn't wearing a tie.

Even Lloyd Blankfein had a tie on.

But this guy,
he had the largest wealth management shop.

And Goldman is from South Africa.

And he was like, okay, here's the deal
I got here.

I didn't know anybody.

I'm not from this country.

I got a credit card numbers and business
cards, and I just started calling people.

He goes, if I can do it, you can do it.

And he used some pretty funny analogies
to explain what was going on.

And, he was like, you know, somebody,
you see somebody lose a lot of weight

and you're like, well, what did you do?
You're like, I just changed my diet.

And I started exercising, you know?
But what else did you do now?

I just get up every morning at five
and I go work out and I eat healthy.

And that's how I did it.

And he was like, that's what
this job is. Diet and exercise.

But can you do it because most of you
will hit the snooze button.

Can you get up and go do it?

And then at the end he was like,
and do me a favor,

write me a bad review so they'll stop
asking me to come talk to you guys.

I don't like doing this.

And I was like, dude,
I love standing ovation.

Like, love this guy. He's like, awesome.

But when I got on my own,
I just did the same thing.

I just, I looked for people selling
companies, never pitching people

who already had wealth.

It's a waste of time
and just found those folks that were

that were selling companies.

The other thing that I noticed

is that entrepreneurs
want to see other entrepreneurs succeed.

And so guys gave me business
that they did not have to do

because I was taking a risk.

And I'm like, hey, I cut the assets
at Schwab, you know, do this and do this.

On investing. Like,
you can't screw that up.

I can see it every day.

So I'm going to help you out

by giving you a couple million bucks
or whatever it is and like, get you

because I want to see you succeed
because I like you.

And so it started out like that.

And then you just build a track record.

And I started doing private investments,
not just, you know, the public markets.

And so that draws the younger crowd,
kind of the 35 to 45,

because they're not looking for a 60%
return.

They're like,
hey, I'd rather give up liquidity

and go invest in a in a private investment
that I can't not

get my money back for 5 or 7 years,
but higher expected returns.

So we started doing a lot of those,
which is different.

And then I haven't shown a PitchBook
in six years.

It's all referrals.

What I learned
is just take care of your clients.

Take I mean,
I don't ever take a sales man.

I'm just like when I meet with

I met with somebody last night
and it was a referral from a client.

They already know what to expect.

They know what I do, what I don't do,
and then it's like, okay, when do we start

this kind of the conversation?

Here's what we do. It's like an hour
and then we go.

And so that kind of helps that.

I've also saw that
there was a relationship

between the wealth manager
and the, like, rich guy.

That gets really upset
with the wealth manager.

There's a codependent relationship.

The wealth manager takes it

so the guy doesn't pull the money
so he doesn't lose his fee.

And I was like, man,
that's that's pretty jacked up.

I was like that.

Well, why would you
why don't you just tell the guy the truth?

Well, he's going to pull his money.

And I was like, I'm never doing that.

Like, I like to sleep at night
and so talk straight, follow through.

And if you set those boundaries,
the right people will come to you

and the wrong people will stay away.

Something you said
before you kind of dug deeper.

There was you're maverick.

You don't like doing things

you don't like, people telling you
how to do things a certain way.

And I've probably said this before
on on the podcast, but the only thing

I like less than being told what to do is
being told how to do it does that.

It does.

And I tied together because it's kind of,

there's like this dichotomy in me
between being teachable, coachable,

but also seeing a way of doing things
that I'm sure other people see it.

But it's like,
I think this works over here

versus like checking a lot of boxes
so that you can go report to your manager

and they feel good.

So you have kind of these false metrics
that don't really matter at all.

And so I'm like,
how do we get rid of all of that.

And it's hard
to do in a large organization.

It's very hard to do.

The second thing I'd say is

if you want to create wealth,
you need to own your own company.

You've got to own equity in something.

And that was my other conviction is like,
if I want to go do this,

you can't complain.

You have guys that have been at these
firms for 20 years and they complain,

why don't have equity?

What do they do this for this I'm like,
why don't you go do your own deal?

Like, what's stopping you right now?

It's your monthly expenses, I get it.

But like, stop complaining
or just go do something different.

Go do something about it.

Because you don't want to be that guy
who's 45 or 50 years old

and trying to stick it to the man, like,
go be the man.

You have the opportunity.

And this one, I'm sure, and told me
when I saw the company, he was like,

you know, you're standing over a cliff
and it's really scary.

And you look down there
and you've got to jump.

And he's like, you look over and then
finally you jump in what you realize it

was it wasn't actually a cliff,
it was a curb.

But most people won't jump.

And that's what I've found is like people,
you work your tail off,

you find a niche, you find customers,
you take care of those customers.

I tell other people
and the thing just goes bananas.

1,000%.

And I love that cliff curb analogy.

I think it's the fear that holds
most people back.

And the fear is what you said.

It's making making those

those monthly expenses,
making sure that they're covered and paid.

You talked about
you'd set a goal for yourself

that by the age of 35,
you wanted to start a business.

When did you make that decision?

Probably when I was 33,

because I was talking to this, old guy.

I own the hemp company, exploration
production company, and, Houston.

And he said that he started his company
where he's 35, and he just challenged me

as like, hey, by the time you're 35,
that's when you need to do it.

And I've heard this great Jack Ma or
watch this video and have you seen it?

Or he's like in your 20s, you should be
learning everything you possibly can.

you should be a student.

Like learning under a great mentor.

When you're in your 30s, go try something
because your risk level is very low

by the time you're 40.

In your 40s should be do something
that you're passionate about.

By the time that you're 50,
you should be like pouring in

and mentoring tons of people.
And when you're in 60s,

you should be spending all your time
with your grandkids.

And I think about it, I tell that a lot.

I tell the younger folks who work for me
and just go, hey,

you're in your 20s right now.

Like you, I hope you go live, bird dog.

You can go start a company and I'll back
you like in your 30s.

But right now, learn everything
you can, develop as many relationships

as you can
and just be an awesome employee.

And then go start something.

When you're in your 30s, when
the risk is minimal and you can go do it.

And so that's kind of how I think about it
in those terms.

Mentorship is a topic
that's come up a ton with our guests.

You clearly had a lot of mentors that
that spoke into your life along the way.

Were those mentor relationships?

Were they like formal relationships where,

you know, Jonathan,
we're going to sit down

once a week and we're going to talk about
we're going to go through this program,

or was it more about just somebody
that was present in your life

that that spoke when they saw something
that needed to be spoken about.

The way that I've gone about it
is when there's someone that I meet

and respect and want to learn from,
I typically pursue them.

And again,
I tell this to kids coming out of college.

I'm like, hey,

whatever you want to do,
go find five people that you respect

and email them or

call them and say you want to
take them out the coffee or lunch

and you're never going to,
I know, you know,

mean money,
but like, you're never going to pay.

They're going to pick it up
with just the fact that you'll go

take the initiative
to get in front of them,

and if they like you,
then they'll spend more time with you,

or they'll help you and connect you
and all those things.

And so that's been my approach.

If there's been somebody that
I respected a lot, then I'll pursue them.

And if they like me,

then they'll invite me, hey, come to this
dinner with me or come to this.

And then I just ask a lot of questions
and just go through things

that I'm struggling with,
that I'm thinking about.

And a lot of like, how do I make good
decisions and things like that.

And so all of my mentor
relationships to this day are informal.

It's like, hey, can we go, you know,
can we go grab dinner on your schedule?

I know you're busy, but
I'd love to just talk to you for an hour.

And they typically always make themselves
available.

And do you have people that you're
now doing that for?

Oh, yeah.

I would say that

the people that work for me
are the people that I talk to every day.

You know,
a couple of them are in their 20s

and I teach them everything
I possibly can.

I would say the two groups of people
that I've mentor the most are my kids.

And my employees that are in their 20s
and spend a lot of time with them.

Then I've got tons of kids from Adam
they call and want.

I mean, I talk to these guys
who started a company yesterday

and we had an hour
and 15 minute conversation

just about life and business
and how to think about things,

how to prioritize who to listen to,
who not to listen to,

how to make decisions, things like that.

And so I mentor, you know, down
and get mentor, you know, up as well.

You still have your investment business
friend that's been gone eight years now.

You're like, there's last week.
Yeah. Okay.

What gave you the confidence
to make that move?

It was more like dissatisfaction.

You could go back to,
why did I want to get out of Whitesboro?

Why did I want to get out
of the corporate world?

Just not satisfied I'm not there.

I was like, your boss comes by 3:00
and you're acting like you're busy

and you're done at 11.

And I wish I was, like, taking a nap
or working out because I'm tired

and then,
you know, getting back up at four

and go to meet somebody for coffee
or drinks and dinner

and then go in
and that's what I want to do.

I mean, I'm like, goes back to my like,
this is how I think it should work.

Like,
I think you should get up and work out

and go make some money for breakfast
in the all your calls and go to lunch

and then go for me. I'm like a slut.

I need like an hour nap or whatever
because I'm like going very fast

and then I'll re-energize and like,
get after it and then go meet more people.

But I find myself, like,
acting like I'm busy when my boss walks by

and sending him reports that don't matter
about things that don't matter,

that aren't really moving the needle.

And I was just like, man,
there's got to be a better use of time

to actually just do the job and spend time
with people that I really love

and enjoy being around
and building a business around that.

I don't know how I'm going to do it.

There's no guarantee success.

It could fail
and I could have to come back and ask

for my job and just live in a situation
that I don't enjoy.

But like the pain is too much
for me to to stay.

And so I have to go.

And then when you start the company

and then it's successful and takes off,
you're like, man, I made it.

And then I think a lot about
and even in the bird dog venture,

which I talk about a little bit, is you
don't want to miss out on the adventure,

especially when you're like,
this is a startup.

I hope my business works.
What if it doesn't?

Am I going to lose money?
Lose investors money?

I mean, I haven't investors
in the wealth management business,

but what if it doesn't work?

Reputation. I'm all in.

All these things that you battle against,
you're like, I don't care.

I'm going all in. I'm
going after it all in.

And from the first business to now,
I just think about,

do not miss that opportunity of facing
fears, of going through tough times

and enjoying the moment,
because you hear about guys all the time

and have big exits and I'm like, man,
I just miss the grind and how hard it was.

And you know, things like that.

When you came home one day
and told your wife, Cat that you wanted to

go off and start your own investment firm,
what was her response?

Well, she knows that I pray
about everything, that I seek wisdom

about all major decisions, and I talk
to her and just and she knew I mean it.

She knew that I needed to go do it myself.

And she was in the middle
of medical school

and then going into residency.

So she was super focused on that,
and our expenses were very low.

I mean, we lived in an 800 square foot
house in Houston and had a couple of dogs

and a bunch of student debt,
but I was like, I've got to go do this.

And she's like, okay.

And that's how she's always been
when I've talked to her about it.

And I'm like, I'm certain of this.

Like, we have to go do this. She's like,
okay, go do it.

I'm here and we're doing this together.

So she's always been solid. She's solid.

All right.

Bird dog. Yeah. What is it?

So bird dog is a marketplace
connecting landowners with hunters.

the genesis of this
is that two of our friends, Evan

Loomis and Jason Ballard,
start a company called icon Build.

It's a 3D printing company,

and they took some money off the table
on a recent fundraise.

And Ballard bought a ranch
in Terlingua down in Big Bend.

And I'm managing their money for them.

And, Ballard's like, hey, Lusk.

It was like, after the Christmas party,
he's like, okay, here's the deal.

I need you to not just manage my money,
but I need you to do my taxes

and manage my ranch.

And I was like, well, I don't do
any of that because that's a lot of work.

And that does not sound fun to me.

He's like, we'll just double my fee.

I was like,
what did you just say? I was like,

let me let me update my resume.

I'm in the ranch management business.

I was like, that's amazing, let's do it.

And so I was trying to find like an Airbnb

for hunting to put his ranch on
so we could show some income.

And his LLC, that was that was basically
what I was trying to do.

And I scoured the Earth
that I could not find a good solution.

And I went back to him and said,
hey, there's no Airbnb for hunting.

You can imagine
there's no technology in this business.

And like 95% of the land in Texas
is privately owned.

You have all of these ranches,
you only get to hunt if you're invited

or you own a ranch.

It's like,
hey, Scott, you want to come hunting?

Well, it's like January the 8th.

And you know what?

It doesn't work for me or whatever.

And here's a list
of all the things you can't shoot.

You're like, okay, but my dad said,
we can shoot hogs, you know?

Okay. That's fun. Yeah.

It's great,

but what if you had a central place
that you could go to and choose

what species you wanted to hunt, what
price, what geography, where you could go?

And I liken it to, like,
if there are golfers out there,

imagine a world in which
there are only private golf courses

and you only get to play
if you're invited.

We're effectively creating a public
tee time system for hunting, so I can

choose where I want to go, what date
I want to go, how much I want to spend,

and then we're getting these guys into it
who are just falling in love with it.

A lot of guys who didn't grow up hunting
like me, I didn't grow up hunting my dad.

I mean, I,
I worked in the fish business and my dad,

yeah,
he traded fish for one hunt when I was 14.

And so I got to shoot one buck.

And so I've got kids now, and I'm like,
well, I want them to grow up.

Is this part of our family tradition?

But I don't even know what I'm doing.

And so what I found
is there's a lot of guys like that

that have got some capital to spend.

Want to go hunt?

Maybe not know what they're doing,
want their kids to get into it.

So we do a lot of hunters,

where the kids are in the front row,
the dads are in the back row,

and that's okay.

I know what I'm doing.

And I'm like, no,
you don't, and neither do I. So it's cool.

And then we teach the kids

and teach the dads,
and then you go shoot shotguns and rifles.

Hey, dad, you get up here and load it,
you know, and then he starts shooting,

and then you open up the laptop

and you have a father son hunt
and it's just been very, very successful.

And in the spirit of not growing up in it,
I had a view of what I wanted

my experience to be like, and I could
I was like, I want to show up to a ranch.

I want to go sight rifles and go hunt,
and then I want to have a great meal,

sit around the campfire, smoke cigars,
all my buddies and like,

laugh and talk and go deep
and then go hunt again, have great meals.

And I was like, man, I'd love for there
to be some country music aspect of this.

It'd be fun to have somebody playing.

The month after Taylor Jackson,
I started this business, by the way.

So, and then Ballard backed us.

So Taylor and Taylor was in the
construction business and was like, hey.

He's your co-founder. He's
my. Co-founder. Ted's my co-founder.

So he was in the construction business,
and he was looking at it

from a perspective of, hey,

I want to take all my subcontractors
hunting, but it's hard to find places.

And I was coming at it from a stewardship
perspective, from

I've got these wealth management clients
who've got ranches

and they need to sell more hunts
to generate income.

So Ballard's at 810.
There's been talk about this.

You guys get together
I'm gonna I'm going fund you.

And then the next month
I was hunting with Colt McCoy.

And Colt was like, hey, I love this idea.

I want to invest in the company.

And so he and
I become really good buddies.

And so he was my second investor.

So we raised some capital

and gotten our trucks
and just started signing ranches up.

And basically you've got all of these
ranches, tens of thousands of them

in Texas that already have lodges,
food guides and game.

They just need help on marketing

and maybe a website
that's 20 years old and call for pricing.

It's very challenging
for the hunter to decipher.

Why does this animal cost 3000?

This cost $2,500. Same animal.

What are the amenities? Things like that.

It's just like Airbnb or Vrbo,
but for hunting.

And so we just, you know,
I read Brian Chesky talk about how

he would go to a professional photographer
in early days of Airbnb and the

in the photo sold.

So right when we started,
we got a professional photographer,

photographed all the ranches,
drone footage, all the things,

wrote descriptions, talk to the biologist
about what game could be harvested.

And then we put it on a website
and we built it on Shopify.

originally.

And, you know, our first year we had 112
hunters come through in like four months.

And, you know, we just finished our first
full year and it was around 200 hunters.

But all everybody starts

shooting a doe or something smaller
and everybody goes up for bigger animals.

So higher margin stuff.

But it's been really cool.

Back to the country music.

I called Colt and I was like,
hey man, I've got an idea.

We should get some country music
singers out here on the ranches

and just play private concerts
and things like that.

I was like, well, how do you know?
He's like, I know everybody, man.

I was like, well, let's go.

And so he hooked me up with Pat green.

And so I brought on Pat as a partner,
gave him equity in the business.

And so, he's been great,
playing shows for us and then brought in

Roger Krieger

same way and then do a lot of stuff
with Josh Abbott, who's wonderful.

And so we've got this, and then we've got
a bunch of guys who are in the Texas

country music scene,
but not those big names, but phenomenal,

phenomenal musicians, singer songwriters
that will come.

And it's,
you know, corporate groups who like,

hey, I've got 8 or 10 guys
and I want to go do this hunt.

Can we get a musician to play on Saturday
night or something like that?

Not Saturday, because all these guys
are busy on the weekends.

But if you did a deal

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,
then they're going to come and do that.

So, it's been I'll tell you what,
we're having a lot of fun.

It's a blast and it's fun.

It's always fun.

It's really cool to see the lives
get changed on these ranches when you can,

get guys off their phone
and onto the ranch and to go hunt,

especially the father son stuff,
where you're creating a rite of passage

for them that they otherwise couldn't
figure out how to do,

and they don't know how big of a deal it's
going to be until it happens.

And so the
the comments are not like three star.

It's like all five star.

And hey, this is life changing.

Thank you so much
for what you guys have done.

And so we see that there's a huge purpose
behind what we're doing

building this company.

You talk about being a maverick
and wanting to kind of I'm paraphrasing

but break the rules.

And man, it sounds like with this,
you've done that.

I mean, there weren't a lot of rules
to begin with, but like, you've

you've really pushed the boundaries
and taken it created something

out of nothing
that is truly, truly unique.

I listened to a podcast recently
where the founder of Calendly,

I don't know if you're familiar Calendly,

but it's a calendar system that helps
people book meetings with one another

in creating Calendly
came out of his frustration with the fact

that he needed to schedule meetings
with different people, and it was so hard.

There was nothing.

There was nothing out there to
to help him do that.

Your thing was birthed out of necessity,
right?

You had this need.
You had this frustration.

It amazes me how many problems

there are still out there
that don't have a solution.

Do you think beyond bird, dog
and are there other ventures

that you're thinking about getting into,
or are there other problems

in the marketplace that you see
that you want to go solve for?

Most of the problems
that I see can be solved within Bird Dog.

So I didn't seek this out.

Go on. I'm
looking for another company to start.

I mean, life was really good

and now it's really hard,
like working 12 to 15 hour days.

But when I look into this industry,
it was out of necessity.

I just couldn't believe there was
no technology in the hunting world.

I mean, you got websites that connect
outfitters with hunters, but there's,

you know, there was no real websites
that connected landowners with hunters.

And I knew the landowner really well
from doing my wealth management business.

I mean, these are all the guys
that I was talking to.

And so within that,
I've noticed a lot of things,

like the companies that will start,
you know, it'll be within Bird Dog,

but there are things like the animal
live trade, like Texas is like

Africa, basically, where you've got
all these species of animals that are bred

and then sold from ranch to ranch,
and then people go hunt them.

And a lot of species exist,
like are not extinct because of hunters.

And so they breed all these animals.

But there's no technology within
the buying and selling of the animals.

So hey, we just sold 20
or we need to reload.

Can you help me find oryx?

And then you call a bunch of people,
and then you finally find some,

and then you hope that the guy

is trustworthy to get it there,
and then you hope some of them don't die.

And you're like, man,
this is super inefficient.

And so what I've noticed
is as we talk to our customers

on the land on our side,
they tell us all of their problems.

I mean, the other one I would say is
you have a lot of landowners

who own 20 to 100, maybe 200 acres,

and they live in the cities they live in
Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio,

and the pipe bus on their well
and they're like,

okay, what do you have to do?

You got a call from Dallas,
like five different plumbers

until somebody can come
get it fixed, or I need my fence fixed.

I need to build a pond.

I need a pole barn, put up whatever it is.

Like the services out
there are very fragmented.

And so at some point,
not right now, but we'll create, you know,

think of like the Angie's List
for rural landowners.

So the reason that people do
good work is if they can do their job

and then they and there's accountability
like you're publicly rated and reviewed.

I think about myself as an example.

We've got a little place in Washington
County.

It's like 26 acres.

I got my barn yesterday
and one of my pipes is busted at the well.

And so I use a real example of mine,
and water's going everywhere.

I've turned all the valves off
and I can't think of what to do.

And I called two different plumbers,
and thankfully

one guy was like, hey,
I can come out there.

We happened to just finish a job,
but if not,

you'd be lucky
to get somebody out there that day.

And he was like, hey,
you know, totally electricity after the,

you know, hit the breaker.

I was like, oh, great.
I didn't think about that.

So turn off the water stops.

Fine. He fixes it.

But I live there.

Imagine if you don't live there, you have
a caretaker or something like that.

Then imagine like going into a website
and we call it like a landowner portal

that we're building
where the landowners can go

in, they can blackout their dates
when they're at the ranches.

They can buy and sell animals,
when they need to reload.

And then you also say,
hey, I need a plumber.

And guess what?

The top

ten plumbers with all five star ratings
in the surrounding three counties come up

and you message them
and they pick up the job,

you know, like an Uber driver or whatever,
and like, hey, I'll be over there

because whenever you're pipes busted,
you're not really negotiating on price.

You're like, hey,
I just need it fixed as soon as possible.

And so that's the next thing.

I think there's no real service component,
especially those ranches

that are 20 to 100 acres
who don't have a dedicated ranch manager.

But you could put together a platform
for fractional ranch managers,

for people who mow and trim your trees
and clean your house.

And if you don't live there, have it
prepared.

When you and your family and friends
want to go, it's all fragmented.

These guys are on the phone
ten hours at a time before

they can find somebody to come spray
the weeds on their pond.

I see a lot of things
that are ancillary to what we're doing is

you start out with hunting,
but then you can become a SAS company

for that landowner to go, hey, if you want
to sell hunts on your ranch, you can.

If you don't, BrewDog offers
these other this other marketplace

this, you know
kind of business to business for you.

I think about that.

As a business leader, business owner
you got lots of ideas.

How do you prioritize
what you're going to do next?

How quickly
my design product and engineers can work.

And how much capital I have.

I mean, I've got a lot of ideas,
but I also have a board of directors.

And so we have quarterly meetings
and kind of go through here's what we did.

Here's kind of the vision.

And Jason Alexander board, probably
the best board member you could ever want.

He's he's total is unbelievable.

We have this law firm for startups
in Austin.

This guy was like
Ballard left our board meeting

and the guy was like, hey, you guys
want some honest feedback after me?

He just. He didn't say a word.

The whole meeting is just,
you know, taking notes.

He's like, as for a guy who sits on 20
or 30 of these a quarter, he's like,

that's the best I've ever seen
of any company I've been involved in.

And what. What made it so.

He said that Ballard was command
and control.

He said most board

members are like finance guys
who really don't think about operating,

but they just want to see the numbers
and all that stuff in Ballard

whiteboarding, going, okay, here's
what the organizational chart needs.

Here's where we're weak.

We need to go find a product person
for the hunter side.

I probably person for the lander side.

You need three engineers
for each of these.

If you're not willing to commit three,
you don't care about the product.

All right.

We need to identify a product person
to report the CTO.

Okay. The next group is the sales team.

Here's how it's broken out okay.

Admin, this is our CFO.

And he's going to handle all documents
for hiring all financials,

all those things okay. We got it.
All right.

Lusk, your job by the next board
meeting is to go interview 60 landowners

and hunters.

You're going to get 15
new ranches on the website.

I want you to add fishing to the website.

And then I want to do a deal code
for anybody who signs up for it.

Give them 250 bucks

and they give me another 100
for each friend they have that signs up.

All right. That's your to do list.

He goes, I'm just a board member.

You don't have to do anything,
I'm telling you.

But this is my point of view.

So a board member who's actually
whiteboarding and strategizing

with you, he's got a but I said, well,
how did you learn that, Ballard?

I told him at dinner,
I was like, man, yeah,

I wasn't impressed
because this is how you always are.

Like,
I just thought, that's par for the course.

But this guy was very impressed.

He's like, I learned it from a guy
named Jason Portnoy, who's

I think he's like the first CFO
for Facebook or something like that.

He's the PayPal Mafia and just a stud.

And he's on Jason's board.

He's like, this is how Portnoy does
all our board meetings.

It's I've learned it from him.

And I was like, man, that was I'm
so thankful for you to have you.

And so how do I go back to your question
about how do you take all these ideas

and really stay focused
is those board meetings are super helpful.

I need like three tasks to go get done.

Like what can I go execute
and where does that fit in with the vision

for right now?

Because I tend to live in the future,
and a big area of opportunity

for me is to be present and to go like,
what do we get?

We got to go execute on this now
and then we just do 30 day sprints

before the next board,
30 days or so, 90 day sprints.

What are we going to do the next 90
days? We've got to get it done.

And all of our KPIs, key performance
indicators

are all driven
towards those goals to achieve.

And then you go to the next board meeting.

It's like,
okay, let's update the org chart.

What do we need next?

And that's been super helpful

to have that structure with Taylor,
my co-founder on the board, and Ballard.

You've touched on this

a couple different times
and you've referenced Uber and Airbnb.

You are a two sided marketplace.

You've got to find the landowner
and you've got to find the hunter,

which is harder of the two.

So I think in the in the
if you were to come into this

with no relationships
in the state of Texas

or wherever that you're starting it from,
the landowners the hardest part

because these get like
the typical landowner

is a guy who sold a big company
or owns a big company, bought this land.

It's recreational. They all lose money.

I mean, if you have a huge cattle
operation, you might break even

or make a little bit of money,
but I'd say 99% of them are in the red.

They're recreational,
they're fun for family and friends.

They're typically in a trust.

There's five kids in the trust.
One kid likes to hunt.

The rest don't care,
and everybody gets capital.

Called for property
taxes, feed bills and insurance.

And so you may get a sibling is like, hey,
we need $50,000.

Like, well, I don't that's not my ranch.

Well, yeah, you own 20% of it.

So like send the money and so
and then they've got to generate income

because they're, they're LLCs.

And so they're either cattle hay
hunting operations, whatever they're doing

to generate revenue.

So through our relationships
and really our investors in our cap table

who are really tied in with this,
and just as we talk on podcasts

and meet different people,
somebody is like,

hey, my cousin's got a ranch,
my uncle's got a ranch.

Hey, these guys want to sell some hunter?

They've already got
a commercial operation.

We want to put our ranch on Bird dog.

And so we've been very fortunate
to get ranches.

We've got about 30 ranches
in the last 15 months.

we're going to add another 35 this year
because we think that that that capacity

you can have again, a fan of metrics like,
oh, we got 300 ranches.

Doesn't matter if you're not feeding
these people business and they're happy.

And I'd rather have 65
people love us than, you know, a handful.

Not like us
because it's not working out for us.

So we've been very fortunate on the ranch
side.

The interesting thing about the Hunter
side is the two groups

that we really focus on
are high net worth individuals

because our experiences are premium.

You sell a premium product, we.

Sell.

Them to sit around the campfire and drink
bourbon and smoke cigars with that grain.

That's not an everyday kind of everyone.
We put these opportunities on Facebook.

We hear about it.

It's like, that's highway
robbery. I'd never pay for that.

I'm like, I know that, I know
we'll get there as you scale ranches

and then you can show all these ranches,
like who's paying what for what.

You have all the data on the back
end to go, hey,

the average hundred
and 50 inch whitetail is going for $4,500.

And so you can adjust your pricing
accordingly accordingly. Mr.

landowner, then I can take it down to 3500
and then like its supply

and demand, you know, increase supply
and then prices come down.

But the other group outside of that,
those individuals are corporate groups,

and there are corporate groups
that have budgets that are 20,000, a

half $1 million to take clients
hunting in the construction business.

All full service companies, whatnot.

And they usually go to the same ranch.

And so we spend a lot of time going,
like setting up booths at different events

for all full service companies,
for exploration

production companies or whatever
it is at these events.

And then they're like,
oh man, we can go do this.

Like, hey,
we're going with you guys this year,

and then you get that repeat business
or they'll bring 8 or 10 guys on a trip.

And if you can get 50 of those a year,
you break even in this business.

And so we focused really heavily
on those groups of people.

I also think that
we launched two years ago

and then last year with the rate,
you know, interest rates

where they're at like this couldn't
be like the harder year to ever operate

because they're raising
all my budgets cut.

I set of ten guys this year.

I've got to bring three or like

bring them and we're going to knock it
out of the park for them.

And when it comes back,
we'd love your business

and we'd love to hear this more like,
no, definitely we'll be back.

It's just budgets are down.

And so those are the
I don't know that the hunters are the

the hardest part, but they are whenever,
whenever the economy's down.

But we still fought through it
and had a really good year

and developed
some really important relationships.

So I'd say the hunters this year
were harder to get than the ranchers.

But at the same time, when hunters aren't
hunting, ranchers need more support.

So we weren't able to,
like, really level up all of our ranches

because everybody went from
if you had 50 guys,

you know, two years ago or three years
ago, you might have had, you know, 30.

And so like, hey,
we need help sell more hunts,

which is allowed us to get more
ranchers on the platform.

Is it safe to say with your
your first business, your investment

business, it was not a capital intensive
thing to get off the ground.

Yeah. It just took grit.

And you know,
you need some money to go buy

coffee for people and tell the story.

And maybe you know, go print pitch decks.

You didn't have to raise money
to start that one.

That was interesting

because I partnered with a family early
on, who gave me working capital,

and then I bought them out
after a couple of years.

But the working capital

was really just a hedge against my fear
because I was afraid of failing.

And so I was like, if I could partner
with this family, that'd be really good.

But never in a kind of a raising a,

you know, a
safer convertible note or a price round.

I never raised money.

I mean, I didn't, you know, Ballard
coached me up on all this.

He was like, yeah, you got to get a C corp

and you got to do this
and you're going to go raise money.

And this is the wall you're going to use.
And here's how it works.

And so it's, in the venture capital world,
and we've raised

a little bit of venture capital.

Roger Sealy here in Dallas
is one of my partners.

Morrison. Seager.

They're awesome.

And so there are one venture
capital partner.

We've got another special purpose

vehicle group that came in,
and then the rest are all individuals.

But it's definitely kind of a venture
capital structure

of raising, you know, rounds of capital
to grow the business,

to eventually, you know, grow a really,
really big company.

Is it stressful having these investors,

and how active are they in terms of what
they want to see the organization do?

What I thought

about raising money from investors was,

when I first started was, you know,
am I going to get feedback?

Is it

going to be talking to a ton of people
when I need to be operating the business?

The way I thought about it, it's
very similar to how

I thought about my wealth management
business.

Like I'm not working with any jerks,
you know, there's no

I don't care how much money you have.
I'm not working with you.

And so you can't do that at first.

You got to take whatever you can
when you're in that business,

but eventually you can do it
the way that you want to do it.

I thought the same thing about investors.

I was like, I only want to work
with people that are really like that.

We have a high level of trust
and they can help us grow the business.

So these investors are all guys
who own companies or running companies

or own ranches,
and they're all accretive to our success.

Like if I go to those guys right now
like, hey,

I need five more ranches,
they're going to connect or hey, I need to

we need three more groups
to go hunting with us.

Okay. Hey, I got this company that we work
other here.

Their starts coming
up, introduce them to us,

and you just remind them and they can help
you actually grow the business.

Versus like I should say,
it's a real estate company.

You give that those guys money,
you really can't add any value.

You just hope to get some return from them
from what they know, what they're doing.

This is actually different
where these people can be involved.

They're focused on people who can help us
grow the business, who know the industry,

and really, it's just a business
that attracts the same type of people.

Like they either get it or don't like.

I pitch this to probably 300 people
and I've got about you,

about 15 investors,
and then two of those are spivs,

that have got,
you know, 10 to 15 in each of those.

And most people said no, you know,

and then but the people who said, yes,
we're like, I totally get this.

This is a brilliant idea.

Like,
why is no one doing this? I'm all in.

And so when I'm raising money,
I don't push it hard.

I just tell the story.

And if you want to do it, do it.

If you don't know, big deal.

But usually they'll say, hey,
talk to these three other people.

And that's how I've gone about it.

I mean, I just I live with open hands
and the right people will come.

It's like mentor. Mine is like,

you know, he's like, I imagine myself
sitting in a chair every day.

And then I look around a room and there's
a door over there, and I go open it.

And if it's if it opens and I walk
through it and explore what's in there

and if it's locked,
because when I was younger, I kick it down

because I wanted it so bad
and then it would never work out.

It's what I wanted so bad, but
it's not what it was supposed to happen.

And so I think about that
in life in general,

whether it's, you know, investors
or ranches or,

I mean, there's 100 decisions a day
that you can try to force,

but if you don't, if you explore
but not force, then

things typically work out
the way they're supposed to do.

You get two separate companies at least.

Yeah. Just do. And a family. Yeah.

And how do you balance your time?

it's very challenging with Bird Dog,
and it's something that I talk to my wife

a lot about because there's this aspect
that you have to be on the road

and you have to be on these hunts.

You have to understand what the landowner
wants because they're all unique.

You got to understand what
the hunters want and then resolve problems

while they're there.

So there's an element you're one on one on
22 hunts, like I had to be there.

But I also felt this guilt and shame
of being away from my children

because like, hey,
when are you going to come home?

What are you gonna do?
When are you gonna hang out with us?

And there's all these country music songs
that you listened to, like my dad

wasn't there and, you know, whatever.

And like, oh,
I don't want to be a country music song.

And so I thought about it a lot in year
one and just decided the folks

that work for me who don't have kids
or aren't married, I'm like, hey,

you're going to go on all these hunts.

And I just have to trust that, you know,
you can pull it off

and you can identify things
that need to be resolved.

But when I think about the balancing,
you have to prioritize

and you have to really take a look
at what your priorities are

and then put those first.

And for me,
it's like my walk with the Lord.

Number two, it's my wife as my children.

And then it's, you know, my friends
and then business.

And so I'll ride it out.

We're like,
where am I actually allocating my time?

And am I staying true to those
first principle things like you have to

and if I'm not, which no one does,
you just go,

okay, it's time to recalibrate
and I'm going to do it right now.

And then I'm going to go

say it out loud instead of keeping it
in, I'm going to go tell my wife and I

go, tell my children, go tell my friends,
I'm going to tell the colleagues.

And then that something about saying it
out loud, you get a lot of power

and then you just get back up
it like, right now, you know, I went on

maybe two hunts this year.

And so I've spent a ton of time
with my children,

with my wife, very attuned
to I'm not just like, know about am

I know them I know I'm really well,
there's this joy in that.

And now I'm going to season this next
month where I'm on three different hunts.

I'm here in Dallas for Dallas Safari Club
and it's time to work.

And I told them, hey,
this is what I've got to go do.

And here's the expectations,
but I'll be back.

But I just want to get
to the end of my life.

You know, knowing that
I kept those first principles first.

And I took care of my wife and my kids

because it goes back to my family,
like a broken family.

And then like getting the ball down
the field is like,

we've been married for 15 years together

for 23 kids, and it's like,
let's go for 50 or 60 or whatever.

We can.

And then I want to see these kids
grow up to be awesome human beings.

And it's just that bird dog
in the wealth management

business are just a way to do that.

Doors that open up that I
they just opened up.

but it's not like I'm like,
oh man, I love finance

and I'm, I'm passionate about hunting
and all these things.

It's like the Lord's called me into it,
as best I can tell you, Scott.

And I'm and I'm going to go deliver.

What hasn't worked out
like you expected it to.

Working with friends is really hard.

Working with friends is very challenging
or just working with people who,

even if they're not friends,
let's just say it's a colleague.

Like they have different interests
from what your interests are.

And so let's say you have like,

a supplier
that, you know, I'm making this up, but,

you know, someone who sells shirts
or something like the outdoor shirts,

and they want to partner with you,

and you really like them a lot,
and you're like, man, I need shirts

for this,
but it's a bad allocation of capital or,

you know, I'm not going to do it
and you're going to be mad at me

because I really want to do it
and be big for you and your business.

But I can't do it, okay?

Conflicts of interest are very
challenging, and there's a lot of them.

The other one be like,
we meet these people,

and when you're building these companies,
you don't know exactly what you need.

I don't know anything
about engineering and tailoring.

I found that
neither one of us are engineers.

And so he's like,
hey man, take what I'm getting paid.

And let's go find an engineer,
and I'm going to be on the board

and like,
let's go showed a ton of humility on that.

But we didn't know that.
We didn't know that.

We just thought there's like some white
label thing you could buy off the shelf.

And do this and just use relationships
and things like that.

And then you have these different

groups of people who are like, hey,
this is how much it costs.

This is what you should expect.

And then it's completely different
from what you thought.

And then you have to fire them
and you're like, man,

I really like you as an individual,
but like,

we can't keep you
because it's not right for the business.

And I've got investors.

If it was like

just me by myself, I'd be like, okay,
I'd be a little bit more compassionate.

But when you have other people's capital,
it's a different ballgame of going,

and it makes you better because those
are the right decisions you ought to make.

Like you're a fiduciary, like a fiduciary
in this one business.

You're also fiduciary in this other one.

And you have to make decisions that are
in the interest of your investors.

That's something that surprised me.

I can't remember the question. Yes.

Well, that's been hard.

That's very hard
because people get their feelings hurt.

But then the day, you know,

you're doing the right thing
and you can sleep at night.

How many people do you have on the bird
dog team today?

We have got seven people on the bird
dog team.

Right.

Earlier in your career,
when you were at AT&T

or when you were at Goldman,
did you manage people?

My first job out of college
was managing a team at AT&T.

I was in there like leadership
developed program or manager program,

where they put you in an area
for 12 months and right

when you under like the training wheels
come off, they move you to another spot.

So my first job out of college
was managing 12 network engineers.

And they were ladies

who, when, they would make a change out
like on a telephone pole

or something, they would call in
and these ladies would type in the change.

And it was a union environment.

Two which is very interesting.

They're like,

hey, the Ldpe program, I called them,
they called us little dumb people.

And they're like.

The leadership development program.

And I just

I laughed it off and they're like,
hey, you just sit back

and don't try to be a hero,
and we'll make you look really good.

I was like, all right, let's do it.

And so I'm just like bringing people
coffee, like,

you know, hey, let's win
a, you know, gift card to so and so.

I was just like out there
keeping everybody happy.

And they crushed for me.

But I managed teams and then I, I did that
and then I managed a big sales

team was get my MBA is actually the reason
I could study all the time

because AT&T

had just bought Cingular Wireless and
they were integrating into AT&T wireless,

and there was no integration
between businesses

that had AT&T landlines
and internet and wireless.

So like, hey,

we want you to manage the team
that goes into all these businesses

that have wireline business
and sell them cell phones.

And by the way, we're going to give you
15 of the best Cingular

AT&T wireless salespeople
to come over here and work for you.

And so we crushed it.

I mean, I literally have sales
team meetings in the morning,

like just putting out fires for people
solving problems.

And I'd study, you know, during the day
and then go to school.

That and thanks to those people
like we made, we all made Diamond Club.

We got to go to Vegas.
So I was like your top salespeople.

I was like, it was cool.

But, you know, thankfully the managing
teams for, you know, a long time.

Is it different managing

when it's your business
than when you were at AT&T?

Does it feel different things?

Do you manage them different?

You know what?

I've thought a lot about the leadership
now that you're like, older and

have gained a lot of wisdom from people
that I've surround myself with,

is that you actually have something to
to teach them.

The younger folks,
you have someone that you can like,

wisdom, you can pass on them,
and the leadership is interesting.

Like the guys I was talking to yesterday
started this apparel company

and they're like,

we only manufacture in the USA
and we're giving 12% of our profit away.

There are revenue to nonprofits.

And we've talked to all these leaders
and they told us what a bad idea it was.

But they had a lot of conviction
around it.

And I was like,
hey, man, don't listen to them.

Like, you go do your deal.

And if this makes it big, stick
to your guns are what you're building

and just go build it
because like, you're fully committed to it

and you're young and you're hungry
and you don't know what's going to happen,

you could be the next big whatever,
but don't ever be discouraged.

And I think, like leadership
now is a lot about those.

I just think about the things
that I've learned about decision making.

I talk about this a lot,

but Terry Looper is a mentor of mine,
and he has like this process

of like how he makes decisions,
and he's wrote a book on it.

And, you know, the first is like,
consult your friend Jesus.

This is what he says.

First, he's like,
you know, I was talking about bird dog.

Like, we're blowing and going.
We're crushing it. He's like, hey, Laura.

He goes, hey, Lusk, if you talk
to the Lord about this, I was like, nope.

He knows.

You know, he's like, well,

you might have a nervous breakdown
like I did when I was 37, but

now he's got a $6 billion company
that he owns by himself.

And he uses framework
consult, consult your friend Jesus.

He said, number two, gather the facts,
like figure out what's true

and what's false.

Number three, watch for circumstances
like what do you see that are trends

that are important.
And number four is get neutral.

Don't try to manipulate the outcome
because a lot of times we want to do

what we want to do instead of like
just waiting for the right thing.

It's kind of like what I was saying

about sitting down
and waiting for that door to to open.

And he's like,
and if you use that framework,

you'll make the best decisions
every single time.

And so even importing that wisdom
on these guys, it has impacted my life

if you can, if you can impact lives,
I think that's the biggest thing.

On mentorship.

The other thing is just hiring a players.

If you hire a players
and you lead them well,

I just think most of my job is taking
what the board says,

going and delivering a clear vision
and then letting people execute.

And when they have big issues
that if they bring it to me, it's

an issue that they really need help on
and I need to get resolved ASAP.

And so it's a big decision
that takes time to think through

and make the right decision.

And so, you know, I really empower them.

I'm very impatient with B players
and have no tolerance for C players.

But like that's the one of the biggest.

Get the eight players on
and pour into them

and lead them well and they'll go flourish
and then let them be free.

Don't try to control them.
They want to go start another company.

Go let them do it.

If they want to go, call me and say, hey,
I'm leaving to go somewhere else.

Great. How can I be supportive of you?

Live free.

The next person is going to come along
and they're going to crush it.

And that guy's going to get crushed.

That girl is going to go crush it,

and you're going to be friends,
and it's going to

and you're going to watch your success,

and you're the one who planted the seed
in the first place.

Like, let it grow and flourish.

Don't get upset.

That's how I think about it.

When I was younger, I was just like,
what numbers I need to hit is the team.

How do we do it? Please help me.

You know, I'll do whatever, whatever
I can.

It's very different now where I think
a lot about the mentorship and the wisdom

and trying to take what I'm learning
and even delivering that wisdom.

It's one thing to learn something.

It's another thing

to teach something that grows
you even deeper into what you believe.

It's like saying it out loud is important.

It's kind of ingrain it in your heart,
in your mind, and your soul.

How are you finding good people?

Hiring
people is the hardest thing in the world,

and I've hired some eight players
and I've hired some really bad folks.

And a lot of people say hire
slow and fire fast.

And in the startup world,
you have to hire fast and fire fast.

So what I've found is, like word of mouth
is the most important thing.

And then I take my time interviewing them

and then always get reviews on people.

Like before I was like, you know what?

I don't have time.
They're going to crush it.

Let's go do it.

I learned this in engineering
with these engineers

where we had a really bad experience,

and we've got these new folks
that that came on and they're really good.

But I really want to get the old engineers
out, the new ones.

But I was like, no, we want
we want two references

for the specific guys,
the not your company, but these guys.

And they got one. Okay.

It's going to be another ten days
before something like that.

Then we can get the other one.

I was like, oh, we're not signing
the contract until we enter.

Like, we think you're great.

All the things,

but we have to know, like, I have to know
somebody who's worked with you

to do that.

And then I'll give typically, you know,
give a project before you get paid.

This is going to take you take you a day
could take you two weeks.

And I want to see how you do.

And I want to see how you are
with the team.

I want to see your work ethic.

I want to see if you don't know how to
do something, if you're asking questions.

And on the other end of that, you know,
we've got an offer that we're ready to do,

but we got to make sure that we like you.

It's like date before you marry.

It's like going to make sure
that we like you and you can do the job.

You're competent and you have
the attitude, the right attitude to do it.

But I think it's the hardest thing
that I'm still learning.

I'm still learning.

But that's that's I'm thinking about very
specific situations because we've done

we've done a lot of hiring
and had to let some folks go as well.

I wholeheartedly agree that hiring is
one of the absolute hardest things to do,

and one of the challenging things
is that you don't really know

if somebody is going to be a good fit
for 90 days,

six months, maybe even longer,
and you can do all the reference checks.

But I find that,

I mean, people aren't

going to give you a reference
that's not going to say good things.

So I wholeheartedly agree.

That's one of the hardest things,

and there's only so much
you can do to mitigate on the front end.

And I think for me anyway,
I've had to go with my gut a lot of times.

Yeah same here.
And sometimes my gut right.

And sometimes it's wrong.

And then it goes back to expectations
like am I going to leave this person

in the business

just because I feel bad about it
and I'm going to hurt your feelings,

or am I going to do what's right
for the business and you have to do it?

I mean, you're
you have a lot of responsibility

and you're kind
and you're gracious about it, but you go,

hey, just didn't
work out and hear the reasons,

and I love you,
but I'll help you any way that I can.

Oftentimes, you're not just doing
the right thing for the business.

You're doing the right thing for them.

Yeah, because if they're not,

if they're not flourishing,
you're preventing them from going

and doing something
where they could be flourishing. Yeah.

Yeah. That's that's a great point.

Looking back,

is there anything that you would do
differently knowing what you know today.

Yeah, I mean this is like very specific.

But I would
I would get a deep technical understanding

at first like two years ago

because like when you're not technical,
you want to change an industry.

I'll tell you,
I don't have time to do it or like,

but go into the third party
engineering world

and turn that thing on its head,
because the gap between great engineers,

it's like great engineers are terrible
engineers.

It's like there's something in the middle,
and you've got all these companies

that will outsource their service
and you don't know what you're getting.

And the model is, is really broken.

But I think that two years ago,
I mean, this is like

if you don't have enough capital
to have in-house engineers, right?

This is if you have to have
a third party group.

But I would have gotten more technically
savvy, like we don't have any fatal flaws.

We haven't made any issues with that.

But I wish I would have known

a lot more early on,
like when we built the website on Shopify.

At first it was a great experience,
but then the functional pretty quickly,

you know, we needed more functionality
that we had to go build ourself.

And so when we started doing
that about eight months ago, it was rough.

And then I just jumped in. I was like,
hey, I'm going to learn everything.

I possibly can.

I'm going to hire a new guy

who could be a fractional CTO,
get this stuff cleaned up.

I learned the difference.

When you know that engineering product
are two different things,

and you have to have design product
and then front and back and engineers,

quality assurance, stuff like that,
and then within those roles,

yeah, who's going to play those roles?

That's something that, you know, it's
very specific to my situation,

but it's something that we got fixed
very quickly.

But I wish we'd have done a better job
six months ago.

We've covered a lot of ground.

Is there anything that you wanted
to get into that we haven't yet covered?

No, man.

This is this is awesome.

I'm so proud of you for doing this podcast
and featuring

all these different folks on. I think.

I think it's super helpful, man, to learn
and I think podcaster and that's

I listen to music and podcasts
and I learn every day.

I'm on the road for like 40,000 miles
a year on my truck,

like just traveling and meeting
with people and things like that.

And so podcasts are very important.

So it's nice to do what you're doing
because you get to not only

are you understanding what people do,
but why they do it.

And if you could understand
how people think

and why they make decisions
and why they do what they do,

it's very interesting
because you can pick up nuggets here

and there that can make you better,
that you may not get in other forums.

And so I'm thankful for you
and proud of you for doing this.

And I appreciate you having me on.

Always be learning.

Always be learning. Lusk.

Thanks for coming
in, man. Yeah, bro. Thanks for having me.

That was

Jonathan
Lusk, CEO and co-founder of Bird Dog.

To learn more, visit birddogit.com.

That's birddogit.com.

If you or a founder you know would like
to be a guest on In The Thick of It.

Email us at [e-mail].