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A podcast that explores what it means to work with purpose by interviewing people who are working for more than just a paycheck.
Are you in corporate America grinding away the weeks as you watch the years fly by? Do you have that voice in your head that’s asking for something more? But you shouldn’t complain, right? You’ve got a good job, good pay, good benefits. There’s people out there that would kill for a job like that. But that little voice just won’t go away.
I’m your host Gino. And as an ex 9-5er I know that feeling all too well. I worked in corporate for 6 years before I finally decided to walk away, choosing to live my life a little differently. And since then, I’ve met some pretty amazing people who do work that positively impacts the people around them, their communities, and the world. This podcast exists to share their stories, and to help inspire you to do the same. Leave that job that you hate and to start working towards your purpose.
Welcome to Working Towards Our Purpose, a podcast that
offers a different perspective on what a job can be. For everyone
out there that's heard that voice in the back of their head asking for something
more, it's time to listen to it. I'm your host, Gino,
and join me as I interview people who have decided to work in their own
purpose. Together, we will learn, become inspired,
and hopefully find our own path towards working in our purpose.
So joining me today on the podcast is Trevor Hufford, who is co
founder of Box, which is a startup that creates prefab
work from home pods that are installed in your backyard. It's a really
cool idea, and I'm looking forward to getting to talk more about the business. But,
Trevor, thanks so much for being here. How are you doing today? I'm doing great.
I'm very excited about being here. Little nervous, but but very
excited. Well, glad to have you. Glad to have you. So, yeah, if
you wanna just start off by telling me a little bit more about yourself
and a little bit about Box and what you do, I think that'd be a
good start. Well, so Box is a
very early stage startup company that
we thought about kind of, you know, mid
pandemic. So it's definitely driven by that. So many
people working from home, we thought there was a need to
have kind of a separate space that you could
go to to get away from the house, but
not, you know, spend an hour, hour and a half on a train
getting there, or an hour, an hour and a half in traffic getting
there. My day job is selling what is
called structural insulated panels. We call them SIPs,
and they're a very energy efficient way
to build a new home or a new building. They're very
large panels. They have 2 pieces of of
OSB glued to a foam core, so they look like a
big ice cream sandwich. And they basically replace
all the exterior studs in a house and
and then the rafters in the roof. And you replace them with
these big sheets that are, then cut with a very
precise CNC machine to be the puzzle parts
that you need to put your house together. Mhmm. So during during
the pandemic, people were calling me and saying,
hey. Could I build a, you know, a studio in the
backyard with your panels? I got enough calls
that I thought maybe this was a business. And,
that was the formation of the the decision to
go forward on this. Taken a while to come up with a a
marketing plan. How do we reach people that that want
one of these studios? But it seems like a very
large market. There are a couple of national, competitors,
but this still seems like a very highly fragmented business.
Interesting. Yeah. It's definitely something I never was aware of before that was an option.
I know that there's some, like, interior kinda,
like, similar solutions for, like, more so for offices, and I've seen those before. But
I think it's a definitely a cool idea to, you know, be outside of your
living space and to kinda have a mini office in your backyard.
Yeah. We we just sold one of our first, or it was actually
our second pod. I actually like to use the word studio versus
pod, but we we use the word pod in our website a lot because
it's a keyword that Mhmm. We're searching for. But we like to call them
studios. You know, one of the audiences we
thought maybe would use them are podcasters. So Yeah.
Tell one to you. Yeah. Maybe in the future. I was I was
curious about that because when you say studio, I think of, you know,
music having a music studio in your backyard. I think that'd be pretty cool to
have all the audio equipment and everything. Yeah. And and and the the the
studios really are we're trying to sell them as traditional
office spaces, but we're also marketing them as, yoga
studios or workout areas, she sheds or e
sheds or whatever you wanna call them. Psychiatric
offices where you might have a home practice and people would
come in. We get you out of the house to provide the privacy that might
be needed. When we have sold them, you know, people have been,
you know, they're working out of their basement often. And they'll
say, oh, yeah. You know, I'm working down the basement. It really stinks. I can't
see outside at all. And, you know, and my kids interrupt.
And and just as they say that, usually their kids run-in the back
and make some loud noise. So if you're if you were a
professional corporation, you might actually wanna buy
these for your employees as a fringe
benefit so that they're in more professional
places even when they're at home. The cost of our
units is low enough that it's cheaper to
have one of our units than to have an office space in some, you know,
in big cities. So, you actually can save
money. You may gain a little more, loyalty if
your your employees have these, And we can also,
design them to be branded. So, you know, if you had a blue
color, we could use that color on the walls or, you know,
put a sign up or whatever made the branding work.
Mhmm. Very interesting. So, yeah, I guess if we, maybe can
go a little bit more into, like, your history and may maybe your schooling and,
like, what brought you what is your your previous work history and your background?
So my my my background is definitely not where I am.
So I I graduated in 1987 from Brown
University with a degree in computer science. I was early
enough that, like, when I grew up, I didn't know anybody in
that industry. So I, you know, I didn't know that there was a job called
programmer. But I really loved it when I got to ground and,
I majored in it. And I got out, and
I was first hired into an investment banking position
to help other investment bankers use computers. And I
thought it'd be very intense programming and stuff like that. It turned out that I
was basically plugging in computers or installing
computers and things like that. But I was put through the training
program as a investment banker, and I quickly
changed my career and went into investment banking. So I did that for a
couple of 3 2 or 3 years as an analyst, and then, went
back to business school and graduated from, Duke's
Business School, Fuqua, and went back into
investment banking for another 7 or 8 years. And, you
know, it was a great learning experience and stuff like that, but I
really wanted to do things versus help other people do
things. And so I always wanted to be the
guy on the other side of the table. So, in
roughly 2000, I, left investment banking
and did a startup in the voice over IP
industry. You know, great experience on startups.
At one point had made lots and lots of money, but the
dotcom thing blew up right then, and there went the money.
So at least I learned how to deal with cycles pretty well. After that
first start up or actually, there were 2 start ups there. I decided I
wanted to kinda look at what I wanted to do with the rest of my
life, and I wanted to do something that I really enjoyed getting up
every morning and doing. I'd spent a lot of time in my
childhood with my passion, kind of renovating houses and stuff
like that. I've always been kind of a tinkerer and
thought I might wanna get into building. I found a company that
was struggling on the business side, but but a very good builder.
And they hired me as their COO, and I embarked on
a career of building very, very, very high end homes
in Greenwich, Connecticut and, Fishers Island, New
York. And we we ran a very successful
design build with 10 architects on staff company
until 2009 when the 2008, 2009
housing crisis happened. And basically all construction
just stopped overnight. So at that point, I had to recreate myself
again, and I joined a startup company that
was building kind of very green, very innovative
modular homes that you could build
almost a 100% in the factory, fold them
up, put them on the truck, ship them across the country,
and then unfold them. And, you know, kind of 5 days later, the owners are
ready to paint and move in. And that was just
kind of revolutionary on you know, versus the very high end building
where everything you know, we massaged every piece of wood
and stained it. Everything was perfect. This was
really thinking about how do you manufacture a home,
standardize it, and then make it deliverable. It was a
great great learning experience. In that process, I learned
about structural insulated panels. I then bought a structural
insulated panel company down in Texas and tried to make that
work. That lasted for about 3 or 4 years. We weren't able to
grow it fast enough, so we ended up selling the assets. And
I've been selling for other people, and designing
homes for people using these structural insulated
panels. And that led me to
thinking about prefab building a lot, what I
call precision building, where we
really design every bit of it in 3 d,
typically. So every screw, every nail,
every wire is typically predrawn
into whatever structure we're building. And that's what we did
at at the start up modular company. And
so every decision was made virtually before
we then executed in the real world.
So one of the keys to, Box is
that soon, we think we'll be able to every
part that we're putting into the module will
be a precision part versus
a craftsman built piece of wood that has been
whittled into the right shape and connected very carefully.
It'll be more like assembling a car or other manufactured
goods, and we actually may be able to use robotics
to build these things. So we've already simulated
taking these large passion, and, you know, you got a
pile of these panels and you pick them up and put them together, and
it builds the the box that is our basic design for
for our company. So I would expect in 2
years or 3 years that we'll be fully automated in our manufacturing
facility. So, it sounds like you've had a a
interesting kind of turn of of career events, and I'm curious to
know because because I'm similar, and my corporate background is
kinda very different from what I do now. Was was there
things that you, like, appreciate from your undergrad degree
and things, like, transferable skills that you've used to be able to kind of
leverage new passion? So everything that I've done,
I've kind of looked at it from a computer or, you know, automation
kind of a point of view is even when I was doing finance,
you know, how do we make a, you know, an Excel or Lotus spreadsheet at
that time? Now how do we take that and make it really robust,
fully automated, you know, giving back, data
in a better way. Back then, you know, nobody had iPhones or anything
like that, so just getting stock data and then downloading it from
some online source was a creative thing.
Nowadays, everybody can get any stock price anytime all the
time. So it's always been that.
Once the computer, you know, 3 d modeling came out, I've
basically been, you know, self taught how to use
3 d modeling software. I've now written programs
that are part of the the 3 d model that you can,
you know, take a stick frame, drawing and then fully
populate it with the structural components.
Interesting. I did a little bit of 3 d modeling, when I went to
engineering school. I thought it was cool, but I I never once I got into
the working force similar similar to you, I was basically making presentations
and not really doing any engineering. You said something about,
you know, being able to work with your hands and and that kind of inspiring
you to maybe go in into a specific direction. I find that similar
with myself. In in high school, we had a, like, a very
robust shop program. So I really got, like, a chance to learn how to weld
and to use mills and lathes and stuff like that, and we had a construction
class. So I really enjoyed that stuff in high school. But then
once I graduated, I never really got a chance to do that sort of thing
anymore. So can you talk to me about a little bit how you are able
to use your hands more and and how that inspires you to do the work
that you do? Yeah. Well, the the great thing about startups
is you get to, kinda get to do everything
once or twice. So recently, we've been
putting together these models or the, you know, designing these
structures for the box. And, you know, on the weekends,
I will go down in my workshop and put something together
as a mock up. I'm not the world's greatest carpenter, but I can
figure it out and make sure that it it actually works even though
we've drawn it in 3 d. So I get to do some of that
because I'm the corporate structure at this point. You
know, there's nobody else yet to do that. And then even when you get a
little bigger, you know, you're you're often going out and
working with guys that are really doing the work. And
that's that's kind of been awe inspiring for me too is to
to get to work with guys that maybe haven't had the education
benefits that I've had, but are truly gifted
tradesmen and really know their stuff.
And to go out and design something and then have their
input has been a huge value, driver
for me. So just that experience of working with people that really
know a trade has been a very
exciting part of the the thing. I also grew up with a lot of,
wood workshops in houses, and my grandparents had a big, big,
workshop with leads and drills and band saws
and things like that. So Neat. That's awesome. That's
awesome. So can you talk to me a little bit more about
how you got into kinda start ups? Because you did mention that you had some
previous startups before Box. Yeah. Right. But, unfortunately, I've had too
many. Again, they're just you know, you get to
create. I I constantly wanna be kinda creating
something. I'm not very good at keeping the books every
day, but I'm really good at setting up how to do the
books, you know, figuring out processes or at
least eliciting experts to help me figure that out.
So startups are just a great place to to just be
creative every day. You're learning you know, if you're
designing a new way to build a house,
it's just every day you're learning something new. And,
that's what's really kept me interested in
always trying something new. It makes it very difficult to go to
back to a corporate kind of place where you might be doing one thing for
the rest of your life. Mhmm. For sure. And and
I guess off of that note, maybe, you know, the the work
life balance part of it. What does success look like to you as far as,
like, a startup being successful? Is it is it just, you know,
sales and and that sort of thing, or is it also, you know, balancing
doing creative things and and the work life balance part of it? Well, I
I've never been really good at work life balance. I I I tend to
work pretty hard every day. The greatest thing
I've had is just kind of again, I get back to the word of
creating. I mean, I love creating jobs for people.
The success for me would be to have a company that is
is able to have created a product
and then be reasonably stable. I'm not looking to
make, you know, 1,000,000,000 of dollars or, you know, that would be fine, but
that's not what really drives me every day. It's creating an
organization that is self sustaining and can
create value for for lots of the stakeholders
in the company that are not just me or my partner.
So that that would be success. It's it's hard
to do. I've done probably 4 or 5 startups
in, you know, some that were very, very well funded
and some that were not, and some that
were worth a $1,000,000,000 at one point, and, you know,
2 years later were worth nothing. I've probably done 5,
and I don't know that any of them are still functioning. That doesn't
mean that they didn't run for 5 or 10 years and and have
great success, but they tend to be kind of cutting edge and
either get acquired or bought out or the technology went away
or whatever. You know, the first one I did was a
telephone startup that did voice over IP
internationally, and we were the first people to get it going. And it
was, like, it went to a 1000000000
in value in 2,000, and, you know, we thought we were
at a rocket ship. And 2 years later, it was out of business,
and everybody in the world could do voice over IP. The technology we're
using today is what we designed. Okay? We had a
company called Phone Free over your computer.
You could call anywhere for free. The problem
was that it didn't have a really good revenue model because it was free.
Right. Interesting. That I mean, that's gotta be a, like, a
wild cycle of of the highs to the lows. How how
do you, how do you, like, deal with that? It's it's been difficult.
I mean, you know, my career, I'm I'm not sure. Though I've enjoyed
every minute of it or many of the minutes of it. It has not
been a steady course. It has not been incredibly stable.
So it's it's been a challenge in a lot of ways, but at
least emotionally, it's been it's been very rewarding for me.
Yeah. And I I think that's a good point in, you know, in contrast
to at least my previous corporate job of of the very
stableness of it, and you get the paycheck no matter what even gets accomplished,
really. But the trade off being maybe you get to
do cool things and you get to work on things and and experience the
highs and the lows and and kinda learn from them. Has
there ever been, a job where you did have, like, that stability? Well, well, for
the first 10 years of my life, I was an investment banker. So, you
know, lots and lots of stability, lots
and lots and lots of hours. So very intense.
So I'm not sure it's called stable, but it was very
financially rewarding and and absolutely a paycheck every
day or every week or whatever it was. So so there were
10 years or so of that. It was, you know, a 100 a
120 hours a week on a regular basis. So it
wasn't loads of fun or you were always tired. You're always
pulling all nighters, and you were rarely going out to happy hours with
your buddies. So but it was great. 2 months into
my thing, I was making presentations in front of boards of
directors of big companies. So
And and all part of the process, I would imagine.
So what were the specific challenges now talking about box startup?
What were some of the specific challenges you had with creating that company and
especially, you know, in the midst of a pandemic? So I'm pretty good at
the the, operational side of these kind of businesses,
the design side, you know, how to make things go
together and and the physical part of it. The
marketing has been very difficult. How do you find somebody
that wants one of these things in their backyard? It's it's a
needle in a haystack. Now there are lots of needles. So
we think that there's an opportunity there. And right now we're,
you know, we really started kicking this off kind of late last
year. So we've been working on it for 3 or 4 months on the
marketing side, and we're starting to see some more traction on our
website and stuff like that. But that's been the hard part and
that's been the hard, you know, I think that's the hard part for any business
is how do you sell the great solution that
you've come up with? You know, there are way more products that are
great than there are that have been able to be sold.
Having the idea is almost, you know, the least important part.
It's how do you find people that might want what you're
selling. Yeah. I I think there's a chance you might interview my partner.
She's got the unenviable, job of trying to figure
out a marketing plan to get out there and reach people.
And so far, she's done a great job. You know, a month after we
you know, we'd been we'd spent a couple of, you know, a year or so
trying to, you know, wing it. And then we got she joined
us as a cofounder, and it's
going very well so far. It's still very early.
Mhmm. So when when you
first started, were you the only founder and then you kinda brought her on as
as help? Or No. I I had an initial partner that
who thought he had the time to come up with an idea of how to
market it. And in the end, he was just too busy, you know, with a
very dynamic career of his own to spend the
time to do it every day, stuff like
that. So after a while, he bowed out. He's still a partner, you know, still
a, shareholder of the company, but he's not helping us run that
business on a day to day basis. And that's, you know, that's another,
you know, difficult thing when you're a startup is finding
coworkers and partners that you may or may not have
known at all. But you need a skill, and
you you need to find somebody that you can rely on.
And took me 6 or 8 months to find my current partner,
and she's spectacular and is a 50% owner of the business
with me. Yeah. That I think that brings up a
a good point and, something that maybe I always struggle with.
As far as I've run my business, I've mostly just been by myself.
I've hired a couple, like, contracting work and stuff like that, but
mostly been by myself. Have you found it difficult to, like,
ask things from other people and to kinda let go of some of the control
and to trust them in doing what, you know, they say they're gonna do and
that sort of thing. How how's that been for you? Well, with with my
partner specifically, it's a skill that I don't have.
Okay? Mhmm. I I am not a marketing guy at all. So
without I mean, I knew that this business would go nowhere if we
didn't have somebody that figure out how do we go to
market. So so knowing your own
limits, you know, is is an important part of the
the startup process, and then finding people
to help you achieve those goals is is critical. One of the things I
always say as a startup leader is, you know, I
get to do whatever it is. I get to do it first,
but I try to figure out the process, document it, and
then as quickly as possible, hand it off to the next person
to do every day. And then I go on to the next
problem and try to solve that, come up with a solution, and
then keep handing it off. So I don't I I have not historically had
a problem hiring people and giving it off to other people,
and they've always been able to take my processes and improve them.
So I think that there's a lot of value in other
purpose. And I think a lot of startups,
maybe their their biggest problem is that they're not willing to give up
either some ownership or or some, you know, control of
the day to day business. So they're always stifled and
limited in their growth. That doesn't mean they can't have a nice little business by
themselves and and other people are you by yourself.
But the opportunity to to meet on a product that you're
passionate about with other people and get their input and their
insights into process or design ideas, I mean,
that's, you know, those are moments to cherish
if you get that opportunity. Mhmm. Yeah. That's awesome. I I really like the
way you described that. And I think it's a skill too to be able to
identify, you know, like you said, like, marketing, that's not me. You
know, I I can't I don't know how to how to do that. But that
that in and of itself, I think, is a skill because especially, like, with me
and I maybe I have a tendency to teach myself
things, and I always think, like, oh, marketing. I could just learn that from the
Internet. Right? And and you could say the same thing, but it's definitely
an art for for sure. And I think recognizing that you're not good at it
is is a big step. And then I also like the idea of,
like, being able to collaborate with people and both be passionate about
something and have that be more impactful or drive the
the vision further than you could have ever dreamed. So I really like that idea
and and the way that you described that as well. So for
somebody who maybe is working one of those corporate jobs
and, you know, has ideas of of
starting off their own business or or doing something more creative. Would you have any
advice for somebody who, like, would wanna take a risk? Because we talked about, like,
you know, the risk versus the stability and and that sort of thing. You know,
when I left investment banking, I was very optimistic
that the next thing would be as successful as being an
investment banker. It's a very big
risk going out on your own. Okay? I mean, I've
I've muddled through, but there's no way that I
if if financial stability is what you want
and what drives you, startups are very
follows. And good ideas may not
always just drive success. So I'm I'm
hesitant to tell people to jump out and do it. If your
life is more about what you're doing versus what you're getting paid to
do, then being a startup is is
great fun and and can be financially rewarding if if
it takes off. You know, there are a lot of startups these days that
are, you know, technology based
where the scalability is, you know, 0 to
a1000000000 very quickly. But many of the
startups that most of us fall into are gonna
be, you know if we did a 100 of these boxes a
year, that would be a huge home run for us.
So do you have any, mentors that you've ever worked with or
people that you've looked up to or, you know, certain people like that in your
life? You know, it's been probably 20 years that I've
been kind of working either as a, you know, a leader of a
startup or by myself. So I haven't had a lot of
mentors, which is probably something that's that's been,
lacking. One of the startups we had, a CEO that
was great vision, great motivational skills, and a
and a real delight to be around. That only lasted 2 years,
so he wasn't a mentor for long, but a very
motivating guy. Otherwise, you know, the the
real joy that I've had to work with are trades
guys or or plant operators. I owned a
small company down in, Texas where we had a
huge CNC, you know, 100, you know, $1,000,000 piece of
equipment. It was a 100 feet long and, you know, ran on
railroad tracks. And, you know, I hired a guy
that had no skills, no education, no
background. And within a month, he had set up the machine
and was running it and maintaining it beautifully
and, you know, cared for it as if it was his baby.
So people that do everything they can to do their job
well, and are really dedicated no matter what that
job is, you know, if they're out sweeping the floor, but they
do a really good job at it, you know, that's that's what I
really love to see and and work with those kind of guys. And, you
know, cleaning up a facility is just as important as
running it well or making the product. Every
job is critical. So to have to be able to
find people that do whatever that job is and
really take it to heart, you know, is a sheer you know, it's lots
of joy to see that happening every day, especially at a company that you may
have helped create. And to create those kind of opportunities
for people is is really fun.
Yeah. That's something I think, I guess, a lot about these days. I think
for a while, I thought I just wanted to be out on my own and
do everything myself so I didn't have to, like, you know, deal with other people
and and personalities and that sort of thing. But I'm quickly realizing
that that's not really what what's gonna bring you the most joy, at least for
me. So how do you how do you find those sorts of people? Like, talking
about, you know, getting employees and having people work for you, how do you find
those people that have that certain, you know, drive or or
sparkle in their eye or or whatever it is? Well, it's it's
it's been 6 years since I've employed anyone, so it's been a
while. I think giving people a chance has
been my best methodology for for hiring
people. I I rarely like to hire somebody that's kind of
done it, and they're bringing theirs, you know, their
practiced skills to my, employee.
I'd much rather give it to somebody that's hungry and and maybe
hasn't figured it out yet, but has the drive and the
and the just you know, find people that wanna learn how to do it.
And, again, that doesn't mean that it's always the the the smartest
guy in the world. You know, it's it's more of the people that just
really have it somewhere in their heart that they wanna kinda act as an
owner even if they're not or or really grab their job.
And they were sweeping the floor, but now they figured out a way to do
it twice as fast with a a new machine or what whatever
whatever the job is, and have the willingness to
work hard and and really dedicate themselves. Giving
people a chance, helping them learn
their job, providing the tools and the,
training to do it. Most people fail because their
managers are failing them, not because they
are inherently bad at what they're doing.
It's that you gotta design the company to for success,
help people achieve whatever it is you wanna do
versus, you know, some vision of this is how it should run,
but those people aren't helping me. You know? You've designed the wrong
organization usually, not that you found the wrong
people. Most people are are at least reasonably,
positively intended to come to work every day
and and do something good. And and then the other thing is when you
find the wrong people, quickly let them know that they're not
gonna work out and wish them best of luck in their next
endeavor. Some people are not right for the jobs you hire them into. I mean,
most to be honest, most people aren't, But that's not
typically because they're bad people or something like that. It's just not the job that
they're created to do. Yeah. I think that's
really good advice. And and even just from, like, the other perspective, you know, if
I think that's being a good, you know, boss. Like, I most bosses that
I've ever had in corporate did not have that sort of
idea about what the employee should be. It was more so, like, do this thing
that I tell you to do, and then when you're done with it, come tell
me. And I think giving people, like, the freedom, like you were saying, to learn
and to, you know, make mistakes and then overcome those mistakes is a
hugely important part of getting people to want to work for you.
Yeah. And it I mean, there are lots of employees I've had that probably wouldn't
say that I was so so forgiving and so encouraging.
So it doesn't mean that you just clap your hands
every day for your employees, but you need to motivate
them, and sometimes that's not as warm and fuzzy as
everybody wants. But if they're half decent at
what they are trying to do, there's always a way to make them
make it successful. Maybe their compensation isn't the right
number and it needs to go up or down, and then it works fine. There
are lots of ways to make it work. In the end, you do need to
get stuff done, and and sometimes it there
are rules. But I I do think that,
you know, there are lots of big companies today that,
you know, they're failing because the management is leading them in the
wrong direction. And and, you know, I don't have a big successful
company, so maybe I'm leading in the wrong direction. But I'm hoping
to find the right one, and that's part of every day, getting up
and designing the right path or trying to design the right path
and then getting people to help figure it out.
Yeah. No. I think that's I think that's really a good way to think
about it. So, yeah, as we're kinda coming to end of our time here, I
did wanna ask you what's next for Box and and what do you see
in the future and and what do you hope to to accomplish? So we are
very early. We've sold our second unit. We'll be installing that
in 6 or 8 to 10 weeks. It's really been
encouraging to to get all the details, you know, ironed
out so that we can actually move forward and do that. So what
we're really focused on is is the marketing side and how do
we reach people and let them know about what
we're doing and then helping them sign up and move
forward. We really think that the work from home market
is is an exciting addition to
how people could work. You know, we're we're not necessarily
saying you need to never go into an office, so the hybrid work is
there. It's amazing in the northeast
around the metropolitan area of New York. You know, people are spending
2 to 3 to 4 hours a day on trains
and cars and stuff like that. It is totally
nonproductive. And, you know, when you're
working 8 or, you know, even if you're working 10 hours a day,
you know, 2 to 4 hours is a big part of your day. And it's
a you know, I don't know how even if the water cooler is an
incredibly dynamic place for you to
motivate your employees or learn new ideas or whatever,
to come up with 4 2 to 4 hours of productivity around
the water cooler is a lot. One of the things that's been kind
of behind most of my building in the last 10 years has been
energy efficiency. Most people drive their
cars. Most of the time, it's just commuting. And if you can
eliminate that, the tons of carbon dioxide that
you're not putting out there is really very large.
So commuting is a very large part of our impact
on, the environment. So just preventing that and then
bringing dollars home. You know, we now all you know, if
you're working from home, you're buying lunch at home every day
instead of, you know, going into the big city and buying lunch there,
which is a bummer for them. But it's great to have
a community that you kinda see people more often
just because you're, you know, at a restaurant locally or you're at the
grocery store or whatever it is. And, you know,
towns could use a little more infusion of people
and and business. So I think it's a I think it's a very dynamic,
and and I hope it isn't viewed as a kind of
a I go off on my own and I never see anybody kind of a
thing. You know, we had more people doing it. We all could
have lunch with those people locally. Yeah. Yeah.
No. I like I never really thought about it in that way before, but it's
more so bringing the, you know, where you're living community
up versus, like, traveling to somewhere and then finding community. It's
finding community at home. So I like that piece of it. Yeah.
Right. Well, so yeah. Where can, people find more information about Box? We have
a great website at boxx.work,
w o r k, which is a little of an unusual
URL, but hopefully, it'll be, something that you can
find. So we'd love to see you there, and call us anytime.
Our our our direct cell phones are on there. We'll pick up the
phone anytime you call. Awesome, man. I will leave a link to, to your site
in the show notes so people can find it if we're listening to this. And,
Yeah. Thank you so much for your time and and the conversation, and I wish
you guys the best in the future. Well, thanks for asking the questions, and thanks
for giving me your time. Thanks for tuning in and
listening to Working Towards Our Purpose. If you like this
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