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Welcome to the Kodaris Community Show with your hosts, Tony and Margaret, and the occasional friends stopping by.
This is the podcast where we explore how innovation and technology is reshaping distribution and the supply chain as a whole. Discover how technology is making companies more efficient and profitable, making customers happier, and is paving the way for the future.
Join us for insights from industry experts, interviews with innovators and actionable ideas to stay ahead in our rapidly evolving world.
Margaret Kelsey (00:42)
This episode Tony and I talk about understanding market dynamics as they shift, what's important in the long term, and also how people technology are intertwined through it all.
Margaret Kelsey (00:54)
So Tony, you have an ethos that I think is really fascinating around ⁓ really loving an underdog story. Can you talk to me a little bit about where that came from?
Tony Zakula (00:56)
Mm.
Yeah, it's interesting because I grew up in, I'm old so I grew up in the 80s. So I guess I'm vintage now.
Margaret Kelsey (01:17)
I was born in the 80s.
Tony Zakula (01:21)
And that was all about, you know, you the Rocky movies, had all kinds of, the 1980s Olympic team that beat the Russians for the gold medal. it was 80 or 82. My kids have actually probably watched that 10 times.
So, you I grew up with that and I also grew up in South Chicago without much. Always wanted a shot to do things. Many times, you know, you just didn't have the same opportunities that a lot of other people had. And I always knew that if I could get a shot, I could outwork someone and...
I may not be quite as good, but if you work hard enough, long enough, with the right opportunities, you can still win or you can still go places. But you do need the opportunity. And I think, again, maybe not so much based on real life, some of the watching movies and feeling like, that that US team was there. They maybe couldn't beat them every time as the coach told them.
Tonight was their night to win the gold medal. To the underdog story of Rocky and everything else, I kind of grew up with that in my DNA of a chip on my shoulder that I could do something if I had the chance. And I think as you go through your life and you went through, I grew up, went to school, did things. It wasn't always easy,
Sometimes there wasn't the same opportunity or people weren't willing to give you the same shot or willing to share the same information because you weren't that person, you weren't at a certain level in society,
Margaret Kelsey (03:09)
didn't have the right college on your resume.
Tony Zakula (03:12)
Exactly. But I decided that I was never going let that stand in my way. There had to be a way. And I was fortunate I had a couple very good mentors I worked in. I worked in the industry. I worked at Steel Mill. I had some good mentors in the Steel Mill of how to get ahead even within the structure of a union structure and other things. So I always question, I always find the way to do it.
within the rules but around the rules. That maybe sounds kind of bad, there was always opportunity if the right situation presented itself, right? So I don't know, I've carried that through life and now that I am fortunate enough to be responsible for...
Margaret Kelsey (03:46)
Everything's made up, even the rules, you know?
Tony Zakula (04:06)
company with employees and offering employment to folks. I look for those folks that are willing to work hard, hungry for opportunity and willing to earn it. And I think that's one of the most enjoyable things that when we look at why are you doing a startup or why are you in business? Why have you done what you've done for 11 years?
You know, obviously we all want to make a comfortable living, it also becomes, I'm doing this because I've had some amazing stories and I've had the chance to impact people's lives in amazing ways. And I think great companies can do Give people opportunity, make their lives better, make lives better for their families. So that's kind of where it started. you know, I think if...
People talk a lot about charity and I'm for charity, but I also think when you give people opportunity to help them help themselves, it's even more satisfying many times.
Margaret Kelsey (05:06)
Yeah. And the third line that I also see that you haven't touched on yet is when you light up around customers, it's oftentimes the customers that the underdog customers that you really get excited about helping. So I love the idea of, the employees and, and your own underdog story, but talk to me a little bit about how Kodaris is set up to help maybe an underdog distributor.
Tony Zakula (05:33)
Yeah, so, you know, we, it's interesting in markets, right? Whether it's technology, whether it's distribution, whether it's manufacturing. Many times you have huge companies with massive resources and then you have smaller family companies that are started or they're lower mid-market, maybe they're mid-market. And we all have to compete and that's great. That's what our economy is built on.
And you need those large corporations to service government, all those different things. But sometimes they're not the best at serving the smaller customer either, right? And in business, we always talk about segmentation, small business versus middle market versus large corporate. ⁓ So there's always this diversity. And what's interesting is technology is becoming such a
piece of serving the customer. Technology costs money though, costs money to develop, costs money to... So, you know, are the same tools available to massive corporations as well as the small business? Or do small businesses start dying because they cannot keep up with the technology aspects? you know, technology can be used as a weapon.
for certainly gaining market share, servicing the customer. mean Silicon Valley companies, I've been there. We do it all the time, change to something people like, you change your habit, you have a customer. That foments and turns over with the next best thing on the consumer side with business, it's a little more difficult, especially in distribution.
So you know, when we talk about underdogs, we talk about family businesses that have been around 75-100 years. How are they going to compete with all this change in technology? it can be mind boggling.
So it's not that I'm anti-large company. We certainly have some huge companies that customers of Kodaris and important customers and actually fund a lot of our R &D and feature sets. But it's interesting when you get a family company that's been around 75 years and they're also trying to service the market.
But yet struggling and they're worried about their family business because they feel certain niches, but customers want technology to be able to offer that at affordable price. And we do that top tier technology because of the way we model and price on, flat rate. You can afford this. And because we're not VC invested that
A lot of our intellectual property is funded by customers that we contribute back to everyone. And creating this kind of association, it's empowered us to actually help the smaller companies. Service their customers with same level technology as the very large companies. And that's cool because then all of a you see the light bulbs come on and they say, we do have a chance. We do have an opportunity to.
be at the same level playing field technology wise with some of our largest competitors. That's just really fun because we're not closing business, we're not selling against large companies, we're just enabling, leveling the playing field a little bit for smaller distributors or manufacturers to compete at scale. And that's great, because if they got great family business with relationships,
And they're in business another 25 years because they're part of the Kodaris I mean, that's fun. That's pretty amazing to see them thrive.
Margaret Kelsey (09:19)
Yeah. Well, and
outside of just like the good feelings of helping family businesses and all that, like, why does it matter on a macro level whether or not these maybe on the low end of the medium sized distributors exist in the next 10, 20 years? what, is there a reason outside of just like, ⁓ they've been around for a while. So
We want to keep the legacy alive.
Tony Zakula (09:51)
Yeah, you know, I think anybody who, if you study economics, certainly the economy is so massive, like it's uncomprehendable ⁓ how massive it is. And you look at segments of markets, like I said, there needs to be those very large corporations that service the very large customer. But at the same time, there's so many small niches, so many different service areas.
It's very important to have a diverse market. And I think no matter what market you see that in, you're going to see like in wherever there's consolidation, the market may consolidate down to even 60, 70 percent, a few large companies at some point. ⁓
You still need 30, 40 % of smaller companies serving those diverse niches where it makes no sense to go into. You know, people ask me, you're on Amazon, you use Amazon tooling, you provide commerce, CRM, all these different things. Wouldn't you worry about Amazon taking your business? I say, not at all. In fact, Amazon helps us. Why? Because
The markets we're in are not large enough for them to go after efficiently. So the really big companies actually help fund. And we see that not only with Amazon Web Services, but with Amazon. It used to be everybody said Amazon was going to put every small business out of business, right? And some did because they didn't go to online shopping. Others, however, thrived and do an amazing business on Amazon.
Margaret Kelsey (11:15)
Mm.
Tony Zakula (11:41)
And yes, Amazon takes their cut for the services, but there's a lot of jobs, businesses, all of those things running because now you have third party sellers, which over 60 % of Amazon revenue comes third party sellers. So business changes. It's very dynamic. The markets change.
those small businesses are important and they'll always be a part of the US economy because that's where the iteration that's actually where the big corporations come from small businesses growing up and either being bought or folded in or becoming large businesses themselves. So it's important engine of the economy and sometimes that just the technology aspect gets faster. It's also interesting because if you're a manufacturer supplying distribution and consumers.
Do you want to only have two customers? And then things get a little dicey negotiating and supplying and ⁓ anytime you have those relationships in the supply chain, people really want that diverse customer base. So they're not dependent on just a few. So you see manufacturers trying to sell direct to consumers now. It's quite common, distributors hate it, but they're there to diversify some of their customer base.
take advantage of a segment they don't have. They like those smaller distributors being mixed with the big ones. Do they like the constant volume of a few big ones? Absolutely. But they don't want it to be 90 % and then they're basically beholden and they're out of business if there's a decision at a distributor changes somebody else, So good business says we need a diverse market. SMBs.
Margaret Kelsey (13:11)
Mm-hmm.
Tony Zakula (13:28)
Small business, mid-market business contributes to innovation, dynamic, what customers want. And large corporations fulfill their role that you got to supply the government, you got to supply other big corporations, you got to have different ways of doing things. And I'm an I love all those But I don't know how many times we've heard over the last...
50 small businesses are going away. They're not going to survive and it never happens.
Margaret Kelsey (14:01)
Yeah. Well, so there's this
interesting... ⁓
And I don't want to like reduce it to the fact that it actually is untrue, but it feels like the large corporates are really good at having their own stockpiles of money to invest in technology. But they're also probably not niche down enough to have a very focused customer specific understanding. And so it feels like the
SMBs, small medium businesses, probably have better touch points or understanding of what their customers need, but then not the technology budgets to necessarily implement that solution from a technology standpoint. Do you agree with that? is that too, like, that reduced down to being a nothing burger?
Tony Zakula (14:57)
Parts of it, it's interesting. I think it depends. We're very broad brush technology corporations, right? So you have consulting companies like the big four buildings, but very specific things for massive corporations. have Silicon Valley, who's all about building a product, scaling it. So it has enough features, but let's make sure the features are all.
scalable to enough of the customer base and what happens is customers change their business to match that or they cobble together solutions, right? And I want to when we talk about budget it's more about What's the investor appetite and what's return on that investment? And is it worth it because not everything's worth it. I think where it becomes interesting is this
niche we're in where we say we're a product company, we're kind of a hybrid product slash you can develop on top of us or we will develop custom for you for your industry or whatever. But we also need to fund our product. rather than try to do that through a hundred percent profit, we do through services and we contribute that back. So, know, distribution is interesting when you have big, big corporations, you
typically see buying groups or groups of distributors for buying power to compete. And we're just modeling after, you we're not doing anything new. We're just modeling and saying, well, if you're part of our community and you get those free features every seven days we release, you get all that for free. And if you need something custom specific to you, we'll also develop that or you can develop it.
So you get your cake and you can eat it too. And we're not investor focused, so we can still offer that price that makes sense for you, kind of your dues for being part of the community. I mean, it's a little bit parallel there, right? You pay your monthly fee. Some folks pay more than others based on data and volume, but.
Margaret Kelsey (17:00)
Is that what you think the SaaS subscription is? It's due for being part of the community?
Tony Zakula (17:13)
You're not really paying per feature. You're not paying per transaction. You have a flat rate, right? So it's almost like your dues to get those updates every seven days, be part of the community, contribute.
I like to draw parallels to other businesses. It's kind of interesting or other economic models. So then...
is it a question about some companies don't have the budget as a matter of it's not investor interest as a matter of we're not going in that market. The matter of we think we can enable people to change. it's, ⁓ you know, in Silicon Valley, create a new category is terribly risky. so is it, we're going to invest. think we can get everybody to change and create a new category.
and then we kill it because everybody goes into that category? anyway, I don't think there's any hard and fast answer to that question. I think it all depends on businesses. It's that win-win in business and being an entrepreneur. What is a win for the customer? What is a win for you? Because if you don't have that win-win, then it's not going to make sense and you're not going to do it, right? Either the tech company is not going to do it or people don't buy. One of the two.
Margaret Kelsey (18:25)
And you've talked to me about this before, but I know that something you repeated to me time and time again is that like plenty to go around in terms of business and there's not going to be one winner that serves the entire market. So talk to me a little bit about that in terms of how that fits into the rest of.
this idea around underdogs and whatnot. It feels like it's a core belief of yours of like, there's enough to go around. don't have to be a monopoly and wipe out all of the other competition, but also it's probably not good if one distributor becomes the complete winner and wipes out all the competition.
Tony Zakula (19:10)
Yeah, well I think it's in any market distribution technology.
manufacturing, you name it, right? I think what's interesting about the US economic system is, and I learned this a while ago, several years ago, being an entrepreneur, even growing up and getting a job, that's okay, why would you get a job? Well, to earn money. But you're only gonna get paid really what you're contributing back to society. So.
developed a car, all of a sudden horse and buggy people were nervous. Now it took 25 years, but eventually they lost all their jobs. this economics folks quote this all the time. The world's coming to an end. Do you know what happened? That created jobs in the car industry, automobile industry, which is now employs millions and millions of people, right? So.
Margaret Kelsey (20:03)
and even drivers, you
still need, you're not driving the horse, but you're driving the car maybe.
Tony Zakula (20:09)
And now we're trying to get rid of those drivers, right? ⁓
Margaret Kelsey (20:11)
I know.
One day we'll all be sitting on a beach with a pina colada and everything will be automated.
Tony Zakula (20:19)
So, you know, the economic rule is as things change, there's opportunity. So if you have a very large market player, I'll say, ⁓ dominating the whole market becomes almost impossible because you cannot address the needs of every single customer in that market
one product, one corporation. Because as an entrepreneur, if I'm competing against somebody large, you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to see lots of people see how large they are, what they do, and try to model that and say, I can go kill the market and be big like them. Good entrepreneurs say, OK, they have that locked up. They're at that. Where are the people I can serve slightly differently?
or with a slightly different model that makes sense for them, because that will be my part of the market. And if I'm only ever half a percent of what that big corporation is, because they do all that stuff great, that's okay, because as a small business, I have my customers, my niche I serve. But then a lot of people also forget the choice comes down to the customer, right?
The customer is number one. As human beings, we make choices. And there was no bigger message of that than like during COVID and all of a people quit buying. And what did it do to the economy? was ⁓ amazing. But all that happened was masses of people made a choice, which is all economics is. So those big corporations are only there because
people are making choices to use them because they provide a great service or they provide a service in a way masses of people need it. It's not everyone. Because we all know we're different. Some of us just like to be different. Not me, I like to be like everybody else, but. Yeah.
Margaret Kelsey (22:22)
just like to fit right in, right? You don't
know distinguishing factors.
Tony Zakula (22:27)
So there will always be people out there that want something slightly different, want it their way, want and think it's cool, right? And as a startup, you always look for those.
You I've been through several startups that you always look for those early adopters, the people that want to change that want something different. Those are going to be your adopters, right? Not the people are just, I've used this for 20 years. I'm good with it. Right. Because what happens is as those early adopters adopt and they like it, we as human beings watch other people and say, I might want to try that. You'll never get the people if you're unproven, but that's what makes.
Margaret Kelsey (22:51)
fine with the status quo.
Tony Zakula (23:08)
going in the business hard and being entrepreneur hard is getting that initial traction and building it and making the customer happy. And it just repeats itself with every business, right? so big market players, the competition's always coming, right? And you have to continue to iterate. have to maybe even buy those people that are changing so you can adopt those strategies. But I don't think the economy is so dynamic. I don't think...
any one company will ever dominate entire markets. It's never happened in as long as we've been having a U.S. economy.
Margaret Kelsey (23:47)
Talk to me a little bit about your relationship with competition. It feels like a friendly relationship. And I feel like this history of being an underdog and really believing in the underdog story, there is no underdog without some sort of competition, right?
Tony Zakula (24:06)
Yeah, competition is healthy, right? Competition and the government does this. Competition is healthy for the market. So. I think as an entrepreneur, it's important to understand
When is something not good for us business-wise and maybe we don't want that customer. I think sometimes people are too greedy or they think I want to win every deal because that's what I get high on or I want every dollar. Look, some people are better at things and nobody's best at everything, right? So I think that
You know, I don't like to lose as much as the next guy. I hate to lose, but if I'm in a deal or talking to a customer and they're looking for specific things or they say we think this solution is better for these reasons for us, I'm like, great. should use that. Cause one, I don't want to be that person who sold you something. Now you invested and you're unhappy because unhappy customers don't bring more customers to me two I'm in business.
and I want to have fun. It's not about money. I want to enjoy my customers. I want to be friends with them. I don't want to have sold them something that's not good for them. As human beings, nobody likes that, right?
So sometimes competition is going to win or sometimes people specialize in thing and your customer doesn't need everything you offer. They just need this one thing and somebody's better and that's all good. Where it makes sense. And so the key to be entrepreneur is always appeal to a larger and larger set of customers and more will come because you have capabilities appeal to them and they'll buy from you versus competition.
But I think that the folks who say I'm, want to own this space. I want to put other people out of business. I want to do that. I learned early on. it was always interesting. years ago when I started with a GMS some of the execs who are retired, ⁓ they had that attitude. They were the biggest in the market, but they started small and they were said, always said,
When I had to hear them talking about pricing or the markets, ⁓ sometimes when I was at corporate, they would say, enough, we don't need it all. There's enough in the market for everyone. Obviously they were acquiring and building, but I I don't know what they were at their peak or whatever before they got purchased by Home Depot. But I mean, I don't know that it was over 25%, might've been less than that.
So when they were in a competitive deal or when they were pricing something, they don't worry too much if somebody else got I think as things become more corporate and then change and you're publicly traded, there's obviously investors and analysts that don't see it quite that way. But when it was a private company, that was their view on the world. And I really respected that. I thought that was always interesting. Even when they were the biggest, they were like, it's OK for other people to...
being the market and servicing customers, we're fine with that.
Margaret Kelsey (27:10)
Yeah, it's almost like if you can pick your head up from the, yes, I'm a entrepreneur, I'm at this company and I want to win, I want to be the best. But if you can lift your head up to the macro lens and saying, but if we look at the markets, if we look at the economy, it's actually really helpful if we don't win all the time, right? Because like it's, it's the, the macro lens is that that's actually the better option.
Tony Zakula (27:39)
always winning or always selling no matter what takes the human aspect out of it. At the end of the day, we're all humans. And I'm really big, obviously, on the human aspect of business. So the customer, say, you know what? I'm not the best fit. You should use that other product if it's a better That customer is, or potential customer is likely to come back when they have a need in the future if you have something they can buy. Right? Versus
hounding and hounding and selling and selling and then they buy it, they're unhappy. And that customer, even if they don't buy, they may say, you know what, I was talking to so-and-so about this, but you might want to check them out because, you know, they seem to do the right thing. So going back to it's always about the customer, it's about people and holding them up. And that takes discipline for you not to blame other people if you don't win or not to blame the customer.
But to say, what did we not have? What could we do better? Well, how could we serve this market better if we really want to sell to folks like that? And does it make sense? Now it's a business decision. Do we invest in getting better or do we just hold back and say, no, not really our space. We're going to keep going. I remember I was in a very large negotiation. We had demoed to.
a huge international pharmaceutical firm for expense reporting when I was at Expensify back in the day. They were going to need a global rollout across, I don't know, 18 countries and they had all these regional systems. And ultimately we didn't win it and their reasoning was we didn't have the infrastructure to do the rollout, support them, we didn't have the people. Product was great.
But we couldn't support them. I always thought that was disappointing. But after some years, I
It was a good thing, good thing for them. And it probably would have been a nightmare for us. Right. So at that point in time is probably the best we didn't get it. Right. And I always, ⁓ I think about that sometimes everybody wants that massive deal. Sometimes you're not equipped to handle that massive deal. And sometimes the large corporations are just better at it because they're equipped. They've done it before. They know how it works. ⁓ And so businesses are at trajectory.
different trajectories, different places. ⁓ And what you think you may want, you better be careful because it may kill you if you actually were able to get it, right? So.
Margaret Kelsey (30:18)
There's a parable and I'll probably butcher it, but it's this idea of this old man is in this village and he has a son and the son falls off the horse and breaks his leg and everyone's like, that's such a shame. And he's like, we'll see. And then the army comes to the village and enlists all of the young boys that are healthy, but his son has a broken leg so he doesn't go to war.
And they're like, wow, you're so lucky. And he's like, we'll see. And the, and the parable goes on and on and on, right? anything that happens, whether it's good or bad is not necessarily good or bad based on the judgment in that moment, because like, who knows, right? maybe sometimes when you lose, that's actually a better opportunity for you than if you had won that deal just for money.
Tony Zakula (31:05)
Yeah, and you know, I think also sometimes in have to invest and try and you learn. And then you might if you're learning from your failures, you might. another had a. VC that I knew that I was talking to one time
He told me, said, I thought it was amazing. said, I don't know, we lost a few deals. And he's that's okay. Cause you were shortlisted. I'm like, what does that mean? We lost. He's like, no, it's great because if you're shortlisted on the top three, the more you're shortlisted, the more likely you're going to win. But then when people started seeing you across the industry,
That's like rising your ability for them to see and take you seriously than if they never see you. So when I realized, ⁓ losing actually can be a very positive thing. because sometimes about being in the game, not necessarily winning the whole thing. Eventually, you'll learn enough to win the whole thing if you're learning from your failures. anyway, there's been some great words of wisdom I've learned from people over the years.
that about business and about not being a instant gratification thing. It's a slog. It's a long process. I also understand with customers, we may have great tech, but they have to change their people, their business process. They have to do a lot of things. ⁓ Business is a slog no matter which business you're in. And technology is just one component of that.
Margaret Kelsey (32:44)
Software doesn't always solve people problems. Change management and digital transformation is not push button, unfortunately.
Tony Zakula (32:48)
Honey.
Yep, because it's people that make the world go around. And it will be that way no matter how fast AI gets and everything else. The world operates on human beings, not machines.
Margaret Kelsey (33:08)
Well, and that's the interesting thing that I find so fascinating with AI is that I think that this, the human touch point will actually just become like that much more precious, right? It's like with everything else, like if you can go and order your fast food on a kiosk, but then when you sit down at a fine dining restaurant, there are no kiosks. You know what I mean? So it's like the, there's a certain luxury to.
relationships, then I think that will only see that increase.
Tony Zakula (33:41)
Well, it's like when we were finally able to do Zoom video, right? And that was, everybody said that was great. Nobody needs to travel anymore. And even after COVID, when there was no travel, for the most part, and you could finally just close deals by Zoom, right? You didn't have to go travel to actually close sales deal. And now,
Margaret Kelsey (34:01)
No golf trips or steak dinners.
Tony Zakula (34:06)
You know, I think the world is coming back, so we still use Zoom heavily all the time, every day. However, customers, team members, people still want to see people in person. And when I don't do it for a couple I'm always amazed at how much the relationship is built with an in-person trip or an in-person discussion, even for, you know, a few hours.
It makes all the difference in the world and then on the other side of that zoom meeting the next time you understand that person better, you can better relate to them. So anyway, AI will change some things of our jobs and our lives and make us more productive. Still not going to change the human component. mean, same as same as people predicting small business will go away.
AI is just going to change our lives and how we work and maybe make us more productive, but it's not going to change us as human beings. I don't see it.
Margaret Kelsey (35:00)
Well, and we saw that too our first customer summit, right? Our customer innovation summit a couple months ago, that it's one of those things we get to see customers and prospects at tug or other shows that we go to, but it feels like there is something special bringing people in person together.
build those relationships and also have the focus. I think there's a piece of it too of when you are on zoom, you're getting email updates and slack and whatnot or whatever. But when you're sitting face to face with somebody, it's much more poignant to have relationship build.
Tony Zakula (35:40)
Yeah, it's interesting. Absolutely. But I think as humans, all about, we remember experiences and we relate to experiences. And on Zoom, there's no experience, right? So that in-person gives you the ability to have experience together. Whether it's a meal, whether it's a conference for a day or two days, no matter what we're doing.
As human beings, that's what we relate to because that gets stored and saved with us and we remember it and we remember that time. And if it was a fun time or a special time, we're going to carry that the rest of our lives. I think on a more personal note, that's what we don't sometimes take into consideration as human beings. The impact we have on others, they will take with them the rest of their lives, whether it's positive or negative.
When you think on a personal level, how you're interacting with your family, with your friends, all of those things, you are having impact on them that they will have to deal with the rest of their life. And I think it's, yeah, I think it's no different with customers. You know, if we positively impact their lives, and that's what I hope with every one of our customers, we're making that positive impact on not only them, their families.
Margaret Kelsey (36:47)
No pressure, parents.
Tony Zakula (37:03)
everything we do, we become their friends. become, unlike if it makes sense, they no longer do business with us, that's fine, but they're not a transaction. They're impact we're having on the world. And I think that's one thing where we've been very successful is our customers tell others a lot. They sell us, right? But I think that's mostly because
We try to be good people. We try to do the right thing. We try to give a fair deal. We service. We want to be a community. We don't want to be a... They're not a transaction to us. And as human beings, we enjoy that. We like that. Right?
Margaret Kelsey (37:45)
think it was Maya Angelou who said, people will forget what you say, but they remember how you made them feel. And I think that's really poignant to what you're talking about, which is it's less about the exact right words and more about the cumulative experience of being in a relationship, whether it's a business relationship or a familial relationship of how does that person feel when they interact with you? And to that point,
Zoom, you probably don't feel much other than like I checked it off, you know.
Tony Zakula (38:17)
Yeah, I think that's how we build in the technology as well, right? I mean, when you have Uber pick you up, you have this relationship with Uber, always, tech companies know this, right? When they pick you up, you have your ride, you have your experience. They ask you to rate that experience because they want to make sure you're getting a good experience.
And we get very vocal about that, but now the experience becomes almost like a transaction, right? But if 90 % of the time we have a great experience, or we say, oh, that one's got five stars, I want that guy.
You know, that becomes, well, I don't, I just use Uber. I don't use anybody else, right? Or I just use Lyft or whoever. So technology companies know even when they don't necessarily interact with you at a corporate level, wherever that human touch point is extremely important, right? Cause that's the experience people remember. That's why they may or may not come back. Anyway, it's, it's fascinating people, technology.
markets, people don't really understand sometimes, you should, all of this is interconnected in your success, right? ⁓ all of these things together. And what's the one thing in the middle of all those things? The human being and how we feel and the choices we make. ⁓
Margaret Kelsey (39:23)
I know we really touched it all on this one.
and
how we need each other, right? I think even when going back to the competition and the underdog and whatnot, like we need the Goliath so that there is an underdog. We need the competition because if you were the only one playing, you're not actually doing anything. You're practicing, honestly. You're not playing if there's nobody else there. ⁓ And so I think that's probably the...
That's the thread that I'm picking up on is just this need, this like, ⁓ reliance on the other in order for the world to go around.
Tony Zakula (40:22)
Yeah, absolutely.
Margaret Kelsey (40:23)
And that's your philosophy lesson for today.
Tony, thank you so much for chatting today. I feel inspired to go out and number one, be a better parent. If I'm thinking about how my interactions with my son, he's going to carry for the rest of his life. So thank you for that one. I'm going to carry that one with me today. ⁓ But thank you as always for spending the time with me.
Tony Zakula (40:49)
Yeah, no, this is always fun. It's always interesting. ⁓ And yes, I think that sometimes we get frustrated, but being a better human being every day, I think, is a good goal to strive for.