Entrepreneur Intel

As an entrepreneur, are your customers buying because they believe in your product, or because they believe in you? This week’s guest explains the difference, and why it’s important for entrepreneurs to know. He’s a skilled entrepreneur, and 4x founder with 2 successful exits. Please welcome to the show, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Targatek, Bill Adams Jr!

Bill sits down with Host Wes Mathews to discuss the future of entrepreneurship. Bill shares the importance of humility, how for many entrepreneurs their most successful product is their expertise, and how AI will change business for the better. 

 
Takeaways:
  • One of the most important skills to have as an entrepreneur is humility. While you may have a game plan, it’s important to allow yourself to adapt to roadblocks that arise to prevent disappointment. 
  • In business, people are driven to success by either their ego, or their paycheck. While there is no wrong answer, it is important to know your personal motivations. For entrepreneurs, they tend to be more ego driven. 
  • When it comes time to scale the business, many entrepreneurs try to “clone” themselves. If you are working off of an established framework, it is easy to hire other people with those skills. But if you are unique in your offerings, it becomes more difficult.
  • One of the best ways to acquire more business is through customer referrals. If you are targeting specific industries, there is a good chance that your customers know other people in the industry who are encountering the same problem. 
  • In the past 10 years AI has ushered in a level of change similar to the industrial revolution. While there are many key players, there is still a large degree of first mover advantage. 
  • While tools like Chat GPT have garnered attention, they are largely aimed at the corporate workforce. In the current landscape, there is a lack of AI tools that are aimed at executive leaders. 
  • For many entrepreneurs, it’s not the product they offer that customers are drawn to, but rather the skills and ability of the entrepreneur. Understanding what your true product is allows you to focus more strongly on what you offer. 


Quote of the Show:
  • “My job was to take all the technology pro-head and to figure out a way not to change a company, to change an industry” - Bill Adams


Links:


Ways to Tune In:

Creators & Guests

Host
Wes Mathews
KC
Producer
Kyle Conover

What is Entrepreneur Intel?

Welcome to Entrepreneur Intel, a podcast where we discuss the most important strategies for success from amazing entrepreneurs. Host Wes Mathews sits down with business owners to learn about how they got started running their own business, what helped them succeed and the biggest lessons they learned along the way.

Be sure to catch new episodes every Thursday morning, and to make sure you never miss out on any insights, don’t forget to subscribe to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, You Tube or wherever you get your podcasts.

This show is sponsored by Stealth Consulting, your Fractional CMO. Stealth provides the roadmap and accountability to reach your business and marketing goals. Learn more at https://stealthconsulting.com/

wes: I am so excited for today's guest. He is a skilled entrepreneur with nearly four decades of experience under his belt. He's a four-time founder with two successful exits, has received numerous accolades, including CEO, monthly, Magazine's chairperson, and top five CEO to watch 23 by CIO magazine. He is the author of the book Out Focus, founder chairman, and CEO of Target Tech.

Welcome, bill Adams, Jr.

Bill Adams: Thank you so much.

wes: Bill, great to have you on. Really excited, but I ha First I have to ask a question. I ask all the guests on the podcast, targetact employees, uh, almost 30 individuals. Um, you've been doing this for about four decades in your intro, what's the most important lesson you've learned over these four decades?

I mean, obviously there's more than one, but what's that North Star for you?

Bill Adams: Be humble.

wes: Yeah.

Bill Adams: Be humble because, um, especially in startup situations, the roadblocks, the, the, that are, presented to you along the way, you never know. the Roadblock. You think you know the pathway and you have a strategic roadmap built up. But the humility I've learned that no matter how positive I am, that we're gonna be very successful.

You gotta have humility all the way around because these road, these blocks are gonna come at you and the better you're prepared for them and they don't disappoint you. So if you are always thinking. You know, we've got it all figured out. Nothing will happen when they happen. You can be very disappointed in yourself and the organization, and I've learned to take the opposite.

I know there are things out there that are gonna surprise us. Don't panic. Just keep moving forward.

wes: That's really great perspective. Something that I started thinking about lately is taking your, your humble concept and just letting people know like this is part of the process. Like without this stuff happening, we can't get to the next level. Because I think when you're starting something, you're as an entrepreneurial company, like you said, stuff's going to happen.

So now we kind of have this mantra around here where. When it happens, you're like, oh, good. Like now we can move forward because this is what we are waiting for. Um, so talk a little bit about like the beginning, right? I mean, did you, were you always an entrepreneur? Did you come from the corporate world?

Like, what drove you to become an entrepreneur? I.

Bill Adams: Well, I was in corporate America. My first, my first position, uh, out of my MBA was Johnson & Johnson. And they moved me from Syracuse, New York where I'm from, uh, to, uh, New York City. And I took over every hospital in New York City for their. Number one division called Patient Care and that launched me in the corporate career.

And I progressed with three or four Fortune 100 companies until I turned thirty-eight. And I found myself literally realizing that in order to get the Corner office, you either, you have to be in love with the art of politics. And I was in love with the Art of the Deal. So at thirty-eight years old. I decided to leave corporate America and hang my first single and open my first consulting firm.

That was the beginning and I never looked back. I just continued to build. I've sold a couple and, um, uh, I find that I have an entrepreneurial spirit and passion that I don't fit in a. Corporate environment because I'm always looking to challenge myself, entrepreneurially. And I've always said, even when I was nearing the end of my career in corporate America, I always said to my associates, um, you know, if we're good enough to do it for this company, imagine what we can do if we went off on our own.

So did that kind of wily eye about the entrepreneurism. Now, where that stems from, like to know. My father was an entrepreneur. He was a dry cleaner and his own dry cleaning, uh, did very well in the fifties and sixties, and I grew up as watching my father walk into his, uh, dry cleaning plant every day, taking his hand and kissing the picture of President Truman, and always saying, he's the only guy I work for.

So it, it kind of rubbed off, I think, right.

wes: What's interesting you say, you know, like the corner office and politics, sometimes I, I feel I have blinders on, but to me it's like, I, I, I can't believe that there's people out there that want to engage in that for that corner office. And what I've heard in my experience, or people like or that would say, well, being an entrepreneur is scary because, you know, you have to go out there and generate your own revenue.

And at least if I'm working with this corporate organization, it's, I know it's coming in, but to me I'm like. It's quite the opposite. I mean, you know, for me now, I, I, I have to wait for this corporate organization to pay me. Like that's scarier to me to have that kind of control. And then this other thing, you sparked in me.

I've been with this organization called EO for many, many years, Entrepreneurial organization. There's kind of a running joke that says we are all like extremely unemployable as people like. I've always felt like a big outcast, right? Like, I'm just like the worst guy that would ever be, be in a corporate environment. So, coming up, uh, watching your father be an entrepreneur, you know, you, you kind of go through the corporate ladder ranks. Was it a consultant? So you kind of look at that market, said, Hey, I either can drive revenue for this company, or I could potentially become a consultant and do it myself.

So what, what did that look like? I mean, was it a traditional consultancy that you build or did you. Take on a bunch of associates there that you worked with, that you would, you know, tell stories with or what did that look like?

Bill Adams: Well, it's interesting, um, near the end of my corporate career in the last couple years before I had done some things in, you know, um, in corporate America that got some press, got some notoriety. And I started to be asked to do speeches. Um, I didn't get paid for 'em because I worked for a corporation at the time, but they loved it because it gave exposure to what I was doing within the corporation.

My last position, I was a director of corporate accounts, uh, for a Fortune 100 company. So imagine big corporate accounts, AT&T, IBM. These were the essence of the team. That I supported that, uh, we did every day. So, you know, there were, there was one Eli Lilly, they were our accountant. They asked me would I come in and do a keynote speech.

I did. I did some more. I've also written a lot of white papers over my career. And when all that became the gel when I was thirty-eight years old, um, I realized that, um, I didn't fear risk. Uh, I mean, I did think under the corporate umbrella for an example, uh, the ninth building in the, um, in New York City that fell was the last one that crumbled, that used to be called the Schirst-Lehman Building, believe it or not.

Um, the company I was with was in the interior furnishings business. It was called Herman Miller. And at the time, uh, I worked with the salesperson. And we were able to get that company to buy. 14 at that time was a big number, $14 million worth of furnishings for I, I forget how many floors. In essence, it wasn't the whole building, it was the majority of the building.

And I did it by being an entrepreneur. I went to the, I only went to the, uh, chief facilities Officer. And I made a deal with him that if he were to come on do this experiment, it was a brand new product line for them, um, that I would, uh, make sure that he got on the covers of magazines and we would probably present his story.

And so that's very entrepreneurial. So my mind always worked on the edges, um, and. As you know, um, you can only do that so long in corporate America, especially at the apex, at the top echelon. So I just thought to myself, I like the edge. I'm not afraid of, of risk, um, and my passion is to build something that came from my ingenuity that was my passion.

And so everything I do and I, when I do all my consulting, you probably enjoy this. I used to go in, I'd be dealing with a room at 20 twenty-five executives in a large or maybe mid-sized corporation, sometimes in SMBs. And I used to run a series of vignettes. They were like games, but they were based on game theory.

But in essence, it was uncovering unmasking the organization leadership problems. That was the reason I built this, if you will, series of vignettes. And one of 'em was near the beginning as I ran these vignettes. One of 'em was I threw my wallet on the middle of the 'cause. We always been around the board table, large table.

I'd throw my wallet on the table and I say, all of you have gotta make a decision. Your lives at some point or another. What's more important to you, your wallet or your ego? Think about that, and I would let them think about it. They would ruminate, I'd say ruminate. Ruminate on that for about 10 minutes.

Then I'd leave and I'd get a cup of coffee, do what I do, and I'd come back and it was really interesting. There is some people that almost put broke out in sweat, tried to make the right choice. There is no right choice. You either are ego driven and think your wallet will follow or you are there for the paycheck.

Which is it now, after working with hundreds of leadership teams, there's no question in my mind that the people that really are ego-driven are more entrepreneurial-spirit, and they generally don't last their whole career in corporate world. Because they want to leave something behind an impression. My ego, I think I can do it better.

These are things that I search for, um, because when I find them, and it's always about 10, you know, you get that 10 80, 10 rule. Tenor really you could depict is down 80, kind of sit in the middle. They give you kind of mushy stuff and then 10% say, absolutely I'm here. I'm my wallet's the most important thing.

So you can always break it up that way. And it used to help me a lot in how to deal with these three segments of, uh, leaders. And it made my job easier knowing up front where they were coming from.

wes: Now with that being said, that's really, that's really interesting to me because I look at the world as, it's either you're an entrepreneurial run organization or you're not. And what I found for myself personally, like I, I get along really well with other entrepreneurial run companies 'cause I just don't speak the language of corporate America.

Um, now have you found that, like, obviously I'm gonna assume it was, it's super helpful that you know, until you're 38 years old climbing the ranks of a corporate organization. But behind you you have Outfocus book in Targa, which we're gonna get into, but. Is that generally like the direction of where you took your entrepreneurial journey, like selling through to corporate organizations or were you a little bit of both or

Bill Adams: No, all of you, you mean my clients, my number one client? Yeah. My client base, um, was always in corporate America, so I knew, I knew the animal. I knew how the animal. Active reactive. I knew the, I knew where the, where the weaknesses, uh, strengths and weaknesses were in leadership teams. I, I, I came with all that.

I'd been doing it for enough years. I became a vice president, thirty-one years old, so I was seven years, not, not in that company, a different company, and then I switched over, but I had years. Of really watching the leadership dynamics and I understood, you know, many of the problems that they were facing trying to lead.

And of course, um, nothing better to guide someone in an endeavor than understanding the audience that you're going after.

wes: deploying into this company, was there many forms of this entrepreneurial venture where your client's, the corporate organization or has it always been the same company? 'cause in your introduction, which is phenomenal, four-time, founder with two exits, were you able to exit in your consulting firms or were these other organizations.

Bill Adams: Good question. Um, sorry. Good question. Um, there were two consulting firms and then I built a technology company. Uh, back in the day called Valley Collaborator and uh, I offloaded that onto a mid-size consultancy. So, um, I've been, if you look at my career, very successful. I was bought out by Delpro Systems and with that buyout, that was the last buyout.

Uh, but then buyout, it was actually a roll-up. They actually, uh, and actually I had to go to work for the office as vice chair. So I had, I left the company behind the partners. Uh, actually one is, there was two sides of the business. One still exists in New Jersey. It's, and the partner and I still talk, it's called Brain Works.

They're a recruiting firm, but I got them into the very high, high-end, uh, recruiting for, uh, technology through my, uh, consulting firm. And, um, so, um, my last exit was a roll up. Into Perot. Each exit is different. You know, you can have a roll-up. I've had, um, uh, an out loud buy. So it, it, it, depending on where you're at in your career, you learn from these experiences.

And what I, one thing I've really learned is this. was my partner. For one year I worked with them in, uh, to get 'em in companies like DuPont, Merck, Stigna Insurance. And at the end of the year when I went to renew the license, they said, bill, you don't wanna renew the license. Long and short of it is they said, we wanna buy you. I wasn't for sale, it, it. Bolstered my opportunity to work with one of the leaders in the world. He's now written 10 books. He and Michael Hammer were the ones that wrote the book called Reengineering, the Corporation. They made, uh, business process reengineering popular. And because I worked with him, I got to understand fundamentally where they were coming from.

Why, and what I did is actually departed from their theory. That process was the center of the world, and I created my own. Which where the theory was assets were the center of the world. And, uh, unfortunately, Jim Champy was one of my primary references for, and that was in nineteen-ninety-eight when I formed White Space.

And he remained a friend and a, uh, and matter of fact, in my book, I give 'em accolades and acknowledgement. So, um, the whole thing is, it's, it's all, when you look at, if you're an entrepreneur and you look at life. You never know when the roadblocks are gonna come. You never know when the opportunities are gonna come.

You, you can have a great plan, but if you are not

um, if you're not agile

and you're not flexible and you're not willing to take,

you know, um, uh, Roadblocks

and tournament, I say lemons tournament lemonade,

every time I get a lemon thrown at me, my job is not

to handle the lemon.

My job is to

handle the lemon.

How to

make the lemon a. So I've always had that. Opinion about entrepreneurism since I got in it. Thirty-eight years old, and I'm more convinced today than ever

wes: And they definitely, they'll, those definitely appear like what you were

talking about. You never know where. You know, this buyer's gonna come from, I think in the entrepreneur world, it's like

you

never really know where your problem's gonna come from. it.

just sort of happens. You gotta be able to roll with the punches.

So, you know, for an entrepreneur who's looking to tap into that, that market, right?

Um, you know, the consulting side, like my brain goes, you know, your, your client base must have been very valuable, But it's hard to scale you or buy you right? Because I mean, if you're a consultant, you're the one kind of driving that.

So.

What was the main value driver? Or maybe talk a little bit about how to build that in a consulting

company where you are like the,

guy you know, and unless you want to go work for that company

and kind

of repeat that corporate process over again, how do you design it in a way that it's not just all about Bill?

Bill Adams: Well, that's a, that's, that's like the sixty-four thousand dollars question when you're a consultant, especially when you have a proprietary approach. So I have my own

approach. I created it, we went through a patent pending process, et cetera, et cetera. Um, it was, it was, uh, distinctly, uh, different than, um, the majors out there.

So the PW. The My competition, believe it or not, with the PWC's Accenture back then these companies were having into consulting. Um, a lot of companies had tried them. Uh, why did they use us? Well, um, they didn't get what they thought they were gonna get. They really kind of, you know, a rehashed version of what was already out in the marketplace, and that's not what they were looking to do.

So, let's say it, since ninety-eight, when I started Whitespace, I started it on the premise of a. Program I where I departed from BPR, and it's called the Value Component System and it's an asset-based system. And my, when I went out into the market, my first client was digital. Digital, knew me through my consulting efforts and I said, look, I've got my own.

When I was, um, the, uh, director of alliances for Perot Systems, I. My job was to take all the technology pro-head and to figure out a way not to change a company, to change an industry. And I found one, and it was a friend of mine. It was at Sagan Insurance and literally. Uh, we were going to figure out how to reduce the, the processing of claims from $4 and 25 cents down to $2 and 50 cents.

Then we were gonna package it up, create a, uh, new, new company, and then we were gonna sell it to the second and third tier. Um, insurance firms so they could give up, uh, their backroom operation. So it was a major, uh, major endeavor, major opportunity, but I learned a lot, um, dealing with Jim Champy and the application of business process reengineering, and came up with my own approach to value component system.

And that was the approach that was a differentiator. Now, um. To the point of cloning yourself, Jim Champy taught me one thing. When you are the thought leader in creating a business or something of that nature in consulting where it's got a proprietary PR process. In other words, I am not taking a existing process on the market.

Lean thinking, whatever you wanna Six Sigma. Now I'm gonna go out and I'm gonna be a black belt and six Sigma. I'm gonna do six Sigma. You could scale that 'cause you could hire other six Sigma's with me. Jim, champion warned me. Bill, you're the only guy that can do what you can do. There in line, the dilemma, I could not scale my business.

I had associates, they had roles, but every client wanted Bill Adams to be the thought leader in the innovation and

transformation. So there is, and we experienced that. I tried twice to clone myself and unfortunately, both times

it, uh, it failed. So, um, there is

that limitation, but it. usually you have to have something

unique that only you

know it intimately.

'cause you've invented it.

If you're gonna go out

and copy

or take what exists

and you're gonna apply it and be a better salesman to get it in or maybe bring some enhancement

wes: to do it all over again, like you're, you're, you're, you're making me generate a lot of thoughts around the, the idea of.

You know, just latch onto something where the market's already conditioned, where they're

already aware of it. So like, should I go out there and be the best six Sigma consultant versus coming out with my own way? and I think it's important. For entrepreneurs, and maybe you probably have a

wealth of knowledge on this, just seeing where

the,

where technology is today and

social media and we're gonna get about and talking about target and AI and all these different things, like how do you separate yourself from all the noise, especially as a

consultant, introducing something brand new is a little, it's scarier than latching onto something that's already worked.

But

my common denominator

brain is, well, if it's already worked and there's a pool of

clientele. That might be a lot

easier to penetrate, to kick off my business versus having to educate

them on something brand new.

Bill Adams: Sure. Well, when I hit the component system in 98. No one ever heard of it. I mean, I was out there,

but I, I'll tell you this. Um,

there's, we didn't spend one dime on marketing. Once I got, once I got, uh, once I got into, um, a series of big companies, Compact Digital, AT&T, Lucent, I mean, uh, and I gotta, I, you know, it, it, it carried its own voice.

These people run in circles. They all know each other. So when I sit with a client, uh, the lead in my client and I say, look, um, I've got some space for some more business. Do you know of anybody that you may wanna introduce me to? It never failed that there was a connection. I also carved out certain niches.

For an example, um, I carved out a niche, which became a niche after I did it. And where I was helping CRM, I'm sorry, um, companies that marketed pharmaceutical products online. I actually dealt with the first company Simstar, who was ever successful at doing that. Um, and he had been running the. The rope with it for about eight years.

And what was happening now is competitors were coming in all over the place. Everyone wanted a piece of that pharmaceutical market, direct-to-market campaigning. And um, but um, in the end, the CEO won, uh, CEO of the year for pharmaceutical marketing, uh, by the pharmaceutical industry. And the company became the company of the year.

So, and that's only one example. I do have some accolades underneath me that I, I was able to take small to mid-sized firms and completely re-engineer, innovate their current business model, and then I would

help them transform their asset base to support that model going forward. So that experience got around, uh, the niche got around.

I ended up working with I think three companies in the pharma industry. And I can only take on, as you can imagine, so many clients at one time, which we had clients in different phases. So we offered our product in three phases. You had concept development, content development, and execution.

You

could stop after the

first stop after the second. They were all pre-packaged price. It was a hundred thousand some negotiated. Oh, if I

gave you seventy-five cash, would you take twenty-five percent of our stock? Uh, twenty-five percent in stock

at one time.

My wife and I, 'cause we built the firms, uh, held, um, stock at nine

SMBs, half of 'em paid

off and half of 'em just didn't

But um, so we had to be flexible

also. Right. But they were all pre-packaged.

wes: Well, I really like what you said, you know, didn't spend a dime in marketing and you know, went to your network and, and. Simply just asked, Hey, I have capacity. Who can you refer me to? Essentially in, in different terms. But I think it's a really important tidbit for, for entrepreneurial folks or people that are currently in an organization that are wanting to spin off and do something on their own.

I mean, a lot of people think you have to pump in all this money into marketing to create this thing, but it's like, go out there and start making it happen. Right? And then you can start to invest. But I wanna dive in while we have the, time into Targa ai. I mean, right now. AI is the, buzzword. you have way more experience than I do in this world.

But you know, I mean, when I- and, my phone bills would get

outta control to a couple thousand dollars a month. 'cause I was calling my girlfriend from a different state, know? And then I watch my kids today play Fortnite and they're speaking through their remote controls with all their friends. And you know, it's just a different world that we live in and you know, from a technological perspective and ai, you know, talk a little bit about Targa, what you're doing now, what that company is.

I also wanna talk a little bit about how you are kind of building this company. 'cause I find it very interesting with, with all the knowledge you have and how you're

approaching it is really

fascinating.

Bill Adams: And, um, you can find this book on Amazon. And, in this, this book was, uh, my book was published by Forbes. It's the first of a three-book series I'm doing. And, um, the reason I bring it up in there, I discuss all the organization leadership and automation changes that have went on over the last decade, but especially since Covid.

The world has become a, a completely different world. If you look at 10 years, we've never seen this kinda change in 10 years since the industrial Revolution. And in my book I even talk about the fact that we are in an AI gold rush,

similar to the California Gold Rush. And the rule is going to be, is actually the first in.

Reap will reaps all the rewards. They, I'm sorry, the first in rates all the rules and reaps all the rewards. Look at chat GBT. You look at go down the list, the ones in first, they're gonna model it up. They're gonna more than likely be the ones that are going to reap the most rewards early on. And we are still early on.

I mean this transition, and I'm telling you it was really in my opinion. They got every company to think big about collaboration and ai, how that was gonna fit in. So we were building this before covid took us five years to build the platform. And the essence of the ai, it's more than AI on our platform.

It's a combination of ai, ML, um, um, obviously we have chatbot technology. And it is how to blend those advanced automation tools on a single platform that is built specifically for the leader. The number one thing that differentiates us from any other SaaS platform out there is all SaaS platforms are built for the masses, and they hope to bubble it up to the leaders.

And the leaders still don't use Salesforce. They don't use Bundy.com. They leave that to the, to the minions, the workforce. Right. So one of the things I realized while I was doing all this consulting since 98 is leaders were more frustrated and often disoriented today than they were 10, 10 years prior.

And I'm going, wait a minute. The purpose of technology, the whole story behind technology is they were gonna make the workplace. Well, a simple place, it's become more complex than ever. And that is what sparked my interest and, uh, the passion, my ego to see could I solve this leadership problem? And if so, what would it take?

And it took five years to get it to market, which it is now. And, um, it, it is that kind of inspiration. In the AI world, you have to start with the German. The idea AI is really about algorithms. It's you, you, you don't go and say, oh, you see this? This is ai. It's not the way it works. It's about how you formulate and utilize algorithms to either predict right, uh, the future or help you automate.

Right, and we put both on one platform. We have automated the, um, uh, the automated, the business process. And we have predictive analytics built in the platform that helps leaders to predict future moves so they can pivot corrective action. So no, it's no longer, geez, we're in a bad situation. We're behind not gonna meet our revenue goals.

Okay, now let's get everybody together in meetings. We'll decide what to do to pivot. No, we think in the future it's gonna be AI driven. Now you need ML because you can't do predictive analytics unless you're learning from it. So it's a combination of ai, ML, and then of course we went to the nth degree and we've enabled every leader to run their business off of any device in the world.

Voice-activated, or by text. This we see as the way of the future. So how are we different? No one has accomplished his feat yet. According to Gartner, who is my guiding light from 2017, and this whole notion that AI is, is, um, is the future, is only in its beginning stages. We are still learning what it really means, how we utilize algorithms to learn, to predict.

Um, even on our platform in 25, we're gonna be adding a feature, which is going to augment decision making. So you can be on an airplane, the problem shows up on your phone,

you can get variables, change those variables. The A synchronizer will work with predictive analytics. It'll come back and

say,

if you do these

things, you have an 18% chance of meeting your goal, improve

your chances of meeting goal by

18%.

So it's fundamentally, AI has got two sides to that coin, and initially I think there's gonna be many, many

wes: I, I gotta ask, so

as an entrepreneur, right, I mean you hear like

executive titles and positions, right? You have the CEO, the owner,

COO, head of Sales, operations, delivery,

finance. How much of

AI

do entrepreneurs need to be thinking about now

spinning up a new company? Just like

my first company, I'm like, I'm gonna run sales until I can find

somebody to run sales.

Right? I

I knew in my heart of hearts that

at some point somebody's gonna need to own this seat. Like it, it just came with the territory of being an entrepreneur. What Does AI look like for like the next five

years as an entrepreneur? Because

I guess the overwhelming thing is where do, where do you start?

And you know, there's chat GPT,

but where, where do you go

to get this information?

Bill Adams: Sure. Well, it's a, it's another good question. I mean, the fact of the matter is, um, ideas, the seeds of ideas, uh, come from, I always. Get a seat of an idea. And then I look to other universes. I call it universes. So if I'm solving a problem, uh, or if I'm looking at a problem like we did, uh, and it's a leadership problem and there's no platform built for leaders, believe it or not, they're all built for the masses.

We're the first ones that stepped up. We, I just got off the phone today. Um, with, um, a very rich conversation with the director of MEDMEDAIN for EDP. They're all over it. They want a demo. They wanna see how they can, uh, embed this in their organization. So when I started out, I started out with a system architect myself with a vision, the architect, understanding how to convert it into,

uh, technology. And never, when we started out five years ago, uh, did we, in our wildest dreams, think we'd be this far along in five years for the application of AI and ML and, and other advanced technologies, but we are. And if you're an entrepreneur and you're looking to try to solve a business problem or a technology problem, but you need technology to but you're not looking to technology to be

incorporated,

probably a

wes: to clarify, ML, that stands for machine learning, correct?

Bill Adams: So you've gotta be thinking

about it in a way that seeds, whatever your seed for your idea

that

incorporates the, the, capabilities of

ai. And it's, and all the other terms

that go with it,

correct? I'm sorry. Yes. Machine learning

and machine

wes: Well, what's amazing, I, I hate to admit this, but I'm going to, I typically don't watch the news, but I caught it last night. Briefly and they were highlighting Neuro Link, which is Elon

Musk's company. I don't know the details and his involvement, but they were showing that it's underway and it's being developed and somebody's got it,

now implanted and it's taking paralyzed individuals and allowing them to walk.

It's,

it's allowing them

to control phones through their brain. I mean, what we're about to get into is just, it's hard for the human brain to process, um. So excited to see the evolution of Targa and what you guys are able to do, but can you talk about a guy with your success and background, how do you go about starting this company?

Like, do you take all your capital from the

sale of your company to launch, to go all in on this new venture? Or,

you know, you're a guy with four

decades of experience. How do you,

how, how do, how do you start this

venture in, in a way that makes sense for you?

Bill Adams: Well, it's um. It's very hard to start, uh, like we used to in the old days that we but other people, gates, jobs, they started on college, campuses, went to garages, started their companies in garages and grew it from there. Can it be done that way? Yeah. But today things move so fast and by the time you get outta the garage, two iterations may have been out somewhere else.

So you have to be very discreet about. These kinds of stories in the past, 'cause they, they were true and it worked. You have to understand you're not only gonna have your blood, sweat, and tears in it, but you gotta have some capital in order to get it off the ground. Right. So, uh, in our case, um, we have raised 2,450,000 as of yesterday.

Private investors that see the future and, um, we are pre-revenue selling our stock at $2 and twenty-five cents per share. Unheard of. I mean, even the VCs that talked to me saying, that's impossible. There's nobody giving money to, uh, pre-revenue companies. Well, when I handed it 10 million for all of twenty-three, I got 18 people, 900 twenty-five thousand dollars.

Again, it goes against the stream. And, and the more I raise it, the better the talent I keep acquiring. So we just raised it on twenty-four to 12.5 million. Why do I bring this up? To answer your question, I took a non-traditional approach to solving a problem, which is leaders are frustrated and disoriented because they're trying to manage organizations with the fragmented, disconnected resources of today.

So we're solving that problem. And then all along I had VCs saying, oh my God, just this is when Trump is still president, regardless of, you know, just giving you a timeframe. And at that time they were like, man, just get this thing done. We don't care. You don't have revenue. The idea is there, right? Well. As you probably know, that all shut down, uh, with the new administration is what it is, and I had to make a limit on 11 and how I did it, I said I am going to raise the price from par value.

We're a Delaware Seacourt, so 0.001 par value. I had my first investor, who was my CFO. I went to her and I said, I want 50 grand. And she goes, what do you mean you want 50 grand? I said, starting a new company and then want you back in. Now she's, I've known her for 30 years. She's invested, she's a CFO. She's a MBA CPA.

So in her own right she's retired now and done very well. But it's, it's, it's, it is contrary. You ask anybody? You raised pre-revenue money during this last three years. Yep. And I just raised it to 12 and I just closed my first person at 12.5. So that is the antithesis of what everybody's running around begging for money, pre-revenue.

And you know, again, I. I'm working with my attorney right now. We're actually thinking about giving advice on how to

build the model that we've built and be able to raise two point, almost 2.5 million

and, have our valuation before we get revenue at 12.5 million.

Does that, does that make sense? I mean,

look, we're in a sweet spot.

We

are a SaaS. We are in

the workplace. We're selling it to the

leaders.

My theory

is, my theory in my book in the first page says

The leadership challenge in the twenty-first century,

and

how is how leaders

contend with the convergence of

technology in the human element in building the collaborative organization

wes: I, love the fact that you're in this space and, and I know I'm gonna reach out to you from time to time and check in on you to see how things are going and maybe get the download on what's going on in ai. But where can people find you? Uh, what's, what's a good way

for people to connect with you if, if they want to inquire about, you know,

Targa.

Bill Adams: Well, I mean, first of all, you can Google me. Uh, my, my pen name, uh, from Forbes is Bill Adams, Jr. Jr. You can Google me.

Um, you'll note that, uh, you go to our website, um, you can go to YouTube, BillAdamsJr on YouTube. You can go to my LinkedIn, which is really simple.

Just Bill Adams or app you, you can go, uh, William Adams, um, on LinkedIn, uh, and put Targa.

So, William, Adams, Targa. My book, it's in Amazon.

You can see in my book or my contact information, you can reach

me, uh, through my, Uh,

email.

It's really simple. B Adams at.

wes: That's pretty cool. Uh, bill, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Bill Adams: at Targettech.com. Or if you'd like to call me directly, I have people who call, who read my book and call me directly. 'cause my number's in there. 9 0 8. I'm sorry, 9 7 3

wes: Well, thank you very much. If, if you learned something today, please share this podcast. But again, thank Bill. I'm gonna let you get back to Targa and AI and Uh, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Bill Adams: I've been on, uh,

several podcasts

and,