Ep. 57 - Unleashing Entrepreneurial Success: Battling Retail Hurdles & Seizing Market Opportunities

This is like two episodes in a row where the audience has had to listen to my stupid face . So , uh , but I have great guests , that's all that really matters . So , um , I have another one today . His name is Clay Bell . He , uh , has been an entrepreneur , small business owner , for for a few decades now , actually .

Yeah , yeah , sorry to age you on that one , but it's true , yeah , thanks . Eric , you're a legend , eric , I'm an old man , you're a legend around here . Yeah , well , yeah , how about that ? Been doing it for a little while , a little while . So I've known Clay for quite some time .

We were actually neighbors about 15 years ago and you remember how we met right , met neighbors about 15 years ago and uh , you remember how we met , right met at a party at a neighborhood mixer , howard hamilton .

Howard hamilton had a little neighborhood mixer and you and I met and then , uh , after that it was like I'd look out my front door and I could see eric over in his yard yes , garage working on stuff I just kind of meander over there . Afterward we were always getting into something you know over in your garage , very , very true .

And then we got , uh , it really worked in the same kind of industry . I mean , I wasn't nearly as close as you were , but you've been selling products to major retailers . Well , yeah , we rented office space from you guys at white spider yeah , that's right . when you guys were over , all right , oh , by milsat there in fayetteville .

So you've been , you , you know the retail market like back of your hand . You spend a lot of time in there and you've worked with a lot of good brands that that are going into mass retail , um and and so you , you've always had had a good business going on . So , uh , but anyway , I want to tell your story .

Clay , why don't you start out telling us a little about your pathway to business ownership ? Yeah , well , I was thinking about this when you shared kind of what you wanted to talk about today .

But yeah , it took me back to my childhood as I started thinking about how I got into small business , entrepreneurial business development and then doing what I'm doing today in the retail , consumer packaged goods industry . So my dad , he's a car dealer . He's a longtime car dealer in Hot Springs , arkansas . That's where I'm from . He's a small business owner .

Small business owner , yeah , he had two partners . They had the Buick , oldsmobile GMC dealership there in Hot Springs . I grew up there . I mean , I was up there mowing weed eating from the time I was 10 years old to . You know , all the way through college I detailed cars back in the service department .

But you know , the reason I bring that up is because I look back to those days , you know , from about probably 12 to 18 , 20 years old , because I'd do it in the summer when I was in college and just learning how to work .

You know , working in a small business and my dad being in small business and in that type of business where it's all about you've got to sell cars or you don't get paid , I mean , you've got to be moving inventory and you've got to be hustling , and it kind of helped me , I think , from the early days on to understand that , hey , business is all about .

You know , you've got to be generating sales , you've got to be moving that inventory , you've got to be , you've got to find things that sell , and it's a lot of hard work . You know that's . I really am appreciative of my both of my parents , because they were always plugging me in to . You know , they never just gave me things .

They said if you want this , we're here , you can go do this work and we'll pay you and you can use your money to buy it . So you know from a young age . It helped me to understand that if you're not working , you're probably not making any money . Well , you said a good point . That , I think , is so simple .

But it's also like , honestly , truth , like you have to hustle and go get the money . When you start a business , money doesn't land on your lap like you're not receiving , you're activating money in the market and so like to your point . You got to see your dad , like I mean , there did he work saturdays ? Did he work ?

Oh yeah , dude , saturdays was the only day of the week back in those days where they didn't have to wear a coat and tie . So he was coat and tie every day , Monday through Friday , and then they would work pretty much all day Saturday , because Saturday's a huge day in the car business , because that's when a lot of people car shop .

So yeah , I mean it was six days a week that he was logging in . So he spent a lot of time and it's a business where if you're not selling , you're not selling cars you're not getting paid . Now , he was one of the owners , so obviously he was part . You know he had a salary . But you know , in that business you just you have to turn inventory .

Did he have a really balanced life ? Oh , absolutely , you know , you know you've met my father . You know how he's an old cowboy .

Well , and you know , I think you can realize that maybe you're four , five or six in a new business , but when you're starting something and it's consuming , I mean when you , you know , and I've tended to in my career I like being a part of the early stages .

That's where I get most excited and passionate , from concept to proving the concept , to growing and scaling . I've always enjoyed those stages and I tend to find myself losing interest once it gets past into , you know , into the more scale , more stable , it's , more managing the business .

You know that's usually when I tend to move on to something else , just because I , you know , I get bored and lose interest . And so , you know , I've always enjoyed being a part of the early stages , of starting new things and that's kind of , I mean , if you look at my career , that's really what it's what it looks like .

I mean , I've been doing different things for five to ten years , and then I'm moving on . So yeah , but the blessing and the curse of being in those early stages is it's hard work , man . I mean a new business doesn't just happen out of thin air when you're doing it just kind of on your free time . I mean you've got to make it your , your passion .

You got to , you got to put your heart and soul and your blood , sweat and tears into it if it's going to go . And I mean you know you started enough businesses . It's , it's all consuming .

So , young entrepreneurs , don't think day one it's going to be all about balance and control , because you're trying to push a heavy boulder up the hill . That's a dangerous expectation to go into .

I mean I just get worried about that , putting you ahead . I mean I just I just get worried about that because you know , the only people that I see that that are really making money the easy way are the ones that are writing the books telling you how you can make money the easy way the coaches , the coaches .

There are a lot of coaches out there and some of them are really good . I've , I've , I've , utilized several coaches in my in my days coaches in my days . But there has become a proliferation of coaches . There has been All right .

So you started your entrepreneurial experience at a very young age and then you moved into the retail sector because that's what you've been doing for so long . Yeah , so you know my first job out of college . I started in the nonprofit world , so 501C3 Charitable .

I worked with an organization called Stumo Student Mobilization was the full name , but Stumo is what people know now Campus ministry organization , multiple campuses throughout the South Central US . But my first job out of college was I was the campus director for Stu Mo . I mean , we were compensated like missionaries . We had to go raise our own salary .

Sales yeah , it was sales . It's like , if I want to get this many supporters giving me $50 a month . I need to go meet with this many and I'm going to be told no by 70% of them . So I learned pretty early that it's a numbers game in some ways . You've got to be getting those at-bats .

But I did that for six years and it was great training for me because basically I've always loved working with either high school or college students , and so I did that for six

years . And then my wife and I we were planning to move to India . We actually started Stumo , the new work in India . We went over there for a couple of summers and then they now have a really growing ministry in India today . But this was back in the late 90s and we were planning to move there . That was our plan .

When our kids were really young Got out other plans . It didn't work out for us to actually move . So we've been in Fayetteville since college . But I thought I was going to be a missionary . That's what I wanted to be . I wanted my kids to grow up in other cultures and learn to be bilingual or multilingual .

And so when that didn't work out , it was like , well , I guess I have to go , I need to go get a real job . So I put together a resume and I'm like , okay , I don't know who's going to hire me to do something , but I know I can sell .

You know , because that's kind of in my blood and that's what my family's always been about my dad's in sales , my sister's in sales , my grandparents were in sales and so I actually joined . There were some guys that were former Procter Gamble local team here on the Walmart team . They were actually .

They took a severance in the early 2001-ish and the concept was to start a cross-functional customer team brokerage for small privately-owned brands .

You know that either they're family-owned or they're owned by private equity , or you know some sort private-owned brand that maybe they have a few items at a major retailer like Walmart or Sam's Club , but to bring that full cross-functional expertise where sales , marketing , supply chain , data , analytics , insight , development to that smaller challenger brand to help them

win on shelf in the category . And we started that company in 2001 . I was one of the early first members with the team . It was called North Star Partnering Group , later morphed into Field Agent , which you'll know Field Agent today , and so that's how I got started in the consumer packaged goods industry , so fell in love with it . I love the .

I love just the whole concept of you know , putting putting items on shelf , whether it's the Omni shelf or on the actual physical store shelf , that that meets needs of consumers you know meets unmet needs and consumers . And love working with challenger brands is what we call them because typically they're not the number one brand in the category .

I mean , usually you have you a Tide or a Coca-Cola or whatever . That's the market share leader , and then you have brands , the next brands , below that , and usually the challenger brands are number three , number four , number five in the category and they're maybe even single-digit market share .

But the challenge is to help them grow their market share against all odds . And the firm that I'm a part of now I'm a partner in now it's called Dark Horse Retail . I named it Dark Horse because in a horse dark horses the odds are against that without winning , and we feel like that's exactly what we do .

Is we help challenger brands win when the odds are really stacked against us ? Yeah , we don't have the budgets , we don't have the marketing firepower . We don't have that . All that our competition does . But we have to figure out a way to try to grow the business and to gain more , you know , to gain more share . So something satisfying about that , like it's .

Yeah , it is , it's hard , but I love it . I mean it's always been a fun challenge . You know , to take a category and go , okay , where is the white space , where , where are the unmet needs ?

And you know , a lot of times when brands get really big , they get kind of settled and comfortable and maybe they're not the changing needs of the consumer , they're not meeting those needs . And that's where challenger brands come in .

And I'll tell you , the last 10 years 5 to 10 years a lot of innovation , especially in food and beverage , is coming from small challenger brands . They're the ones bringing a lot of these better for you , healthier options . Um , you know , and those are the brands that we like to work with .

Well , you know it's , it's interesting , like I've witnessed in the retail sector , like you know , a lot of these innovations and what happens is is that the bigger brands are really acquiring that . That's where it's almost become their innovation strategy . Yeah , because they just can't . I mean , it's just so fast today .

And there's so much opportunity to enter in . The entry to market for a product is like so easy . Now that can actually take off a storm . And now the influencers are getting involved . You know where , know where ? I mean you can have an influencer , start a brand and it's just instantaneously as millions of potential customers , yeah , buying the product .

Well , I mean , you're really right , it's changed the , the pathway , uh , to being on shelf at the largest retailers , you know , like the walmarts of the world the targets of the world used to be , you have to get in all the smaller ones first and to some degree there's still some of that , but , you know , not so much anymore .

I mean , we have challenger brands that have very little retail , actual physical retail space that they occupy , but they're , you know , over $100 million online . It's crazy and it's like so and the retailers have actually , you know , they've now that's really been in the last five , ten years , really the last five .

You're seeing these brands are , you know , emerging via the omni-channel , via the Amazons and the online , and you know , and these major big box retailers are going , hey , we need to put this on shelf because it's been so successful online . So we see that .

So the pathway is much shorter when you're able to build your brand online versus having to produce all this inventory to service all these retail stores . So it is really it's helped , I think , entrepreneurs and small business owners to not have such the incredible capital outlays .

Plus , online the online , you know the whole omni-channel you can kind of improve the plane as you're selling it and building it . You know you can , without having to make you know hundreds of thousands of units . You can be improving it along the way , really perfect it to the point where you do get it .

When you do get to that scale , you know , you know you're meeting the consumer's need Well , I imagine your . You know you know you're meeting the consumer's need well , I imagine your sauce is pretty perfected . Yeah , imagine that . Like , even though it's easier , there's less of an entry barrier , yeah , for them to get into .

But when they do get into mass like and you taught me this a long time ago , a decade ago it doesn't mean that you're ready for it , right , I mean a lot because , like , let's say that you did have a really successful product online and then all of a sudden , you know you want to go to Walmart .

Like , that's just not an easy thing to do , you know , even if Walmart accepts your product and oh yeah , like you just added , I mean that's a whole nother business man . It is , and you know we , it's , it's , it's . It's something that we have to cause we deal with it a lot .

We get a lot of phone calls from you know brands , you know the hey , we , we really would like for you to help us . You know , go sell uh in Mintonville to the , to the , to the Walmarts and Sam's club of the world , and then there's a

lot of you know . Let's talk about where you are today . You know because it's it's also about your operational capabilities . You know , because it's a different operational skill set and capability to be able to service the largest retailers versus some of the smaller ones .

Working with these brands is helping them understand how much they can deliver and being able to deliver what you do , because it's easier to get on shelf . What's really hard is to stay on shelf . That's right . And if your service metrics are poor , you're going to get deleted and that's painful . It is Because you put a lot of work to get deleted .

Yeah , you know so , and that's painful . It is Because you put a lot of work to get on that shelf . You know when you've produced to go . You know service thousands of stores and the next thing you know you're deleted . That's a really tough blow and you don't . You've probably seen that happen . Oh man , I have , I have .

I've lived through some really difficult .

I mean , they've only got so much space , yeah , and they've got to generate a certain number of dollars per square inch to hit their targets . And so if you're occupying space and you're not measuring up , then you're going to get cut , especially like Walmart and that shelf space , some of the most valuable real estate on the planet Earth , right ?

They know how to procure products , yeah , and you know it's . So , yeah , I mean you have to really deliver on the service side . You know , I just want to get into definitely the small . I mean that whole industry is super intriguing . We need to have it back and just maybe keep going deeper .

I wonder if the audience would like to learn more , because I'm sure that there's bound to . So we talked about the easy entry level , right ? Well , that's going to encourage a lot of entrepreneurs that are like , oh , I'm going to create a product . I see a product need . Well , take it to market . I'm going to start online .

You hear a lot of these stories , these glorious stories of online D2C or direct-to-consumer products . Or I sell on eBay or Walmart Marketplace .

I can start this online business without much headache or much capital in and they can um , but you know , like understanding that pathway , like there's there's a lot of challenges and I've seen it on the digital side right , basically on the digital merchant , not merchandising side , like where it's just not an easy , it's not as easy as a game as what's painted

out there , to be like you only see the highlight reels . What they don't see is , hey , when you're in the warehouse building displays at 11 o'clock at night trying to get them out for that next day , they don't see all of that . Those blood , sweat and tears is what it takes to develop a product line and bring it to market and to grow it successfully .

I mean , yeah , and they don't understand , they don't see the uh , you know like , look in my business at white spider , I just remember . Like they don't see the relentless amount of details needed to get your attribution and your content correct for the , for the digital side of things , and if you don't have that , it never ends right .

There's just so much group work involved and anybody that's doing well online or in-store in these products and manufacturing like there is so much damn work .

Your clients are small business owners , so you are basically , in essence , advising and guiding them and you've seen a lot of mistakes and successes through them . In addition to you being a small business entrepreneur yourself , I'm sure you've got a lot of really important topics that you think are like .

Can you , what are some of the biggest like , from your perspective , the most important things for an entrepreneur , small business owner in general , if they're going to start a business ? Like ? What do you see as like some of the biggest , most important things ? Yeah , I mean , you know , I , I I wrote down some things here just some learnings I've had .

Um , you know some of these learnings . The hard way and I think you and I were talking about this earlier this morning is , you know , if you're going to be an entrepreneur , you know , one of them I put on here is you can't be afraid to fail . Um , nobody wants to fail , nobody , nobody . But it's going to happen .

You're not going to bet $1,000 if you're going to be an entrepreneur , and I think , as an entrepreneur , it's important to understand what the downside could be . A lot of entrepreneurs never really contemplate if this doesn't work , how do I recover from that ? And so you can't be afraid of it .

You got to be aware of it and then you work like crazy to make sure that it doesn't happen . But you know people who are afraid of failure , or maybe they're just you know they need a lot of security . Yeah , you know the world of entrepreneurship is probably not for you and it's not for everybody .

Yeah , yeah , you know the world of entrepreneurship is probably not for you and it's not for everybody . Yeah , I mean , it really isn't . I mean it takes . It takes a certain personality type , certain , uh , level of tolerance of risk .

Um , you know it takes a certain , you know , uh , I I call it just , I'm gonna figure it out as I go you know , I don't know . I don't know what I'm doing , but I'm just gonna figure it out . Um , and I'm gonna fake it until I make it . That's'm doing , but I'm just going to figure it out and I'm going to fake it until I make it . That's right .

I'm just going to learn fast and be a fast learner and quick study , and that's a lot of what I believe . A lot of small business startups , I mean there's so many things you heard I talk about this earlier . They have to go right for it to work .

I mean , there is some , whatever you want to call it , you know god's , god's blessing or luck , or whatever you want to call it . There is some of that . You know , um , and then you know , obviously you're putting your heart and soul into this , into this new , new venture .

Um , you know , but I think the fear of failure is is what prevents a lot of people from maybe , maybe stepping out there and trying to do something . You know , you said something that actually kind of struck me a little bit and I've experienced this .

I wonder if you have the same like this figuring it out mentality I have seen in my career , like I'll have people on the team coming to me all the time oh my gosh , this is happening , or they just oh , we can't do this , or we don't have the ability to do this and I'm like or you know , so-and-so , your competitor's doing it and you can , and I'm just

like figure it out . Yeah , like I don't understand , like you know , it's interesting . Like I don't understand . Like you know it's interesting . Like I think that , like I don't literally see any barriers of something that I can't figure out , especially with today's resources .

I mean there is no , so you have to . You're pretty much creating your own manual along the way . Yeah , here's what I'm going to try , and I'm going to keep trying things until I find something that works . Yeah , and that and I think that's another really important mindset of an entrepreneur is they don't get intimidated by a problem .

Sure , they see it as okay , we're going to go here . It is , let's find the solution . And if we put our heads together , I feel confident we will find a way through this . And so you know , because that's just kind of daily yeah .

It's kind of like I figured out just enough to get by for this hour or this day . Yeah , and I'm gonna have to , I need to go . You know , I gotta sleep a little bit tonight because I didn't sleep well last night . Yeah , yeah , yeah , like you try to navigate oh yeah , how to figure it out . Oh yeah , well , you know john maxwell , you know he writes .

He's written all these books . He's kind of these , uh , uh yeah . I love his saying he's like we don't need any more problem spotters , we need problem solvers . That's a good point . He's like I don't need you to spot problems for me . I need you to spot them and then come with a solution .

Hell , yeah , you know , in any kind of small business , I mean , you have to have people like that . Yeah , you know , you can't just have people that can see all the problems and spot them and point them out to everybody . It's like , no , no , it's important to identify them , but then you need to have a solution , have an idea of what we need to go do .

Those are your valuable teammates and that was the other thing I was going to say is , you know , having the right people in any small enterprise , because you know , one bad egg can just one Debbie Downer , one problem spotter can be the detriment , you know .

So you got to have people who think are like-minded and think , you know , like we're talking about , hey problem , let's , let's figure it out . Um , we're going to figure it out . Do you think that that's something that can be , I don't know , like taught or or or guided , like with a team ? You know what I'm saying .

I mean there are certain people that I've experienced that are just negative Nancy's and don't want to ever evolve .

It's kind of like they have blockers from their childhood or educators , wherever it might be . But I've been seeing a lot of of being able to help them get out of their own blockers and then they're empowered and their confidence grows . And then now you got this team of people that can solve problems .

Yeah , without you having to solve all the problems all the time . No , I think you know it's . It's one of those things . If you're to train young people , you know how to do this . I think the most effective way is just to do it with them . I call it the with them principle .

It's an old principle we used to use in campus ministry where we're training our leaders is just do it with them , they'll see you do it , and then you let them try , and then that's how you really learn how to do anything that requires a skill , and problem solving is a skill .

And so when you problem solve and you model it for someone and then you let them take the point and you do it together until it becomes something pretty natural for them , so you don't think problem solving is a natural talent ? I think some people are just more oriented and geared than others , but it can be something that you love .

But I think , yeah , I really do believe in it Anybody can become a problem solver . I mean , they can hone their skills and abilities at how to see a problem and come up with some solutions . It just requires you know it's a certain muscle memory and mental memory of how to approach . You know A lot of it's , I think confidence , it's confidence .

Yeah , absolutely I can solve . You know creativity and all of those things . Like you know , I can just try some things until I figure something . Resources , I mean , yeah , you know .

I mean yeah , you got you know and so , but yeah , that's you know , when you talk about having the right people on your team , you know they're going to model what the leader does and so you know , if you have that mentality and you approach problems that way , then they're going to approach them that way . So we were talking earlier for the show .

Like you mentioned something else that , like you get better with it the more you do it . Like what was that you were talking about ? We were , oh , we were spotting opportunities .

Just the ability to spot opportunities , um , unmet consumer needs that aren't being met today . Um , I mean we , when we look at categories , um , you know it could be any category , it could be the peanut butter category . You know what's missing , what do consumers need ? That's not there today and you know it could be .

So we look at it that way when is the white space ? And it really does start with the consumer . You know what's the consumer want or need . That's not there yet . Now you have some , you know , used to not even be categories like smartphones .

I mean , nobody knew they needed a smartphone until we actually had them and used them and like , oh , how would we ever live without these ? Yeah , so you have those kinds of just groundbreaking innovations that there never was , this unmet consumer need that we knew of , but it actually came about as technology emerged .

But a lot of what we do is it is being able to spot the white space and going , okay , if we could cater our product or our service to this particular unmet need , there's a real business opportunity there . What I love about that I've always appreciated about your business of retail right . Is that ?

Like , even as you're saying that , I can picture the shelf at Walmart of the peanut butter shelf and like , yeah , what is it ? And so what you're talking about , just as an entrepreneur , is like you look at the peanut butter that's up there , you've got creamy , you've got no sugar , you've got all these things .

And then there's something else Although they've got creamy , you've got no sugar , you've got all these things , and then there's something else . Although they've got 10 products , there's something missing in there , and an entrepreneur's job is to go okay , there's something . That's what they're missing , and then that's where it all sources from .

Right , I have a client Actually , I use the peanut butter example because I wanted to tell you about this client . It's a brand called Fit Butters . Yeah , it's on shelf at Walmart today and most other retailers , but this brand started as a young couple started it in their garage .

They were crossfitters , healthy , loved peanut butter yeah , but they wanted a healthier peanut butter that had a cleaner ingredient deck yeah , so they created this product called Fit Butters and it's made from different flavors .

They have some almond butter and they have peanut butters and they have macadamia nut butters and all these different nut butters , but it's made from coconut oil . It has a real clean ingredient deck . It's got good protein . The macros are really solid on it . So they created it in their garage .

But there was nothing on the shelf like it , and they created it in their garage during COVID , and now they're pretty much . That was only during COVID . That was during COVID and they started selling it online and next thing , you know , I mean , they're at every major retailer today .

So it's a perfect example of someone who was in a particular lifestyle and they were looking for a healthier peanut butter and they started this brand called Fit Butters . You know , I like the perspective too of like what I was bringing up . What prompted that question was that you get better at that over time .

So I mean , like what your statement is is like you , as you know , you're a small business owner but you're consulting with these brands and over time , over the years , you're able to go look at a shelf and you can already know what a white space is by probably seeing other categories , learning from that experience and saying , okay , there's a fit butter .

Well , what about fit being anywhere else in the store ? Yeah , what other categories ?

I don't know anything that I might do that would be contribute any to any success that I might have , because it's just such a massive amount of stuff . Yeah , most of the time it feels like you're just trying to keep a nostril above water . You know it's like when someone asks you what are your keys and I'm like I don't know .

I think about that for a while . I just try to survive , I try to keep air coming into my lungs and , by the way , I'm still not safe . Yeah , I could go out of business any day now , you know . So Things are great today , yeah , today .

But I mean , like I just you know a lot of times it'll just come out the easiest thing to say is oh luck , a lot of good luck . You know what I'm ? saying yeah , hopefully that's not all we're counting on . Is our good luck ?

No , no , yeah , you're right , but you know , I think that over the time , the experience what I like about this it gets better Because , yes , it does Like to see an opportunity .

But then you also have this , you know , super rapid thinking process , like if I see that opportunity , like like I'm able to now go through this , like almost like an ai type process right , that's a good , good way to say it .

Yeah , yeah , to where I can see a lot of pitfalls and problems and how , okay , if I do that , like , okay , what are the risk mitigations ? What are the legal consequences of it ? Like , how much capital is that going to take me ? Is it going to be worth going for that ? Yeah , is the juice worth , the squeeze juice worth ? You know is it is . Is the r ?

Is there an roi there ? Yeah , and that has to be . Yeah , I mean that has to be . You know , you , you , you , you learn to do that after . You know , I know I learned the hard way after , after failures and losing money . You learn to make that part of your calculation when you are spotting opportunities . That's right . What's the potential downside ?

And can we weather it . If it doesn't work ? Yeah , how big can the market be ? Another thing is what's the exit opportunity ? How does this thing end ? And do I have to be ingrained in this like I have been before ? You know there's just . I just thought that that statement you made earlier about you get better with it .

It's true , I never really thought about that , but you do . What other points you got ? We got a few more minutes . That you know . I mentioned it earlier .

But I think being able to bring together the right people you know any small business startup or you know if you're further along the path having the right people I've always been in the service business people who really know how to take care of your clients and your customers and their needs , and you know they go over and above and they , you know they're kind

and they're courteous and they have a great sense of customer service . You know we talk about it a lot . You know , in our business I've always had really good success hiring young people who've had a lot of experience working jobs like waiting tables , yes , and they're anticipating the customer's need before they even have to tell them .

You know they're like oh , it looks like you need some more water here . Mr Howerton , can I get you some ?

And having the right talent mix in your group . You know one of my the reason I think I've always gravitated towards more startup types , small business , startup , early stage kinds of things is I just love that whole . Hey , we're all going to get in our canoes and we're going to go down this river . We've never been down before .

We're just going to see what happens , we're going to figure it out . It's a culture , we're going to figure it out . The adrenaline of that , I think , is what I've kind of gotten addicted to . It's so you know , the adrenaline of that , I think , is what I've kind of gotten addicted to . It's like it's so much fun and it's not a solo deal . It's right .

You're , you're a team and you , if you have the right team and I've been a part of some really cool teams I've been so fortunate in my career to be part of so many so super talented teams to where it's like man . Together we create a synergy . It's like playing music in a group . It's like we create this synergy together .

That's just that's what keeps you coming back for more . If you give me a guitar by myself , I'm going to sound a little like shit , but if you put me in a band , yeah , yeah , with some other people that start playing yeah , exactly , that's a really good analogy . You're not limited by your own talent and your own abilities .

You've got a team of people that you can really , especially when you jibe together really well . That's such a good analogy because you've got your drummer that keeps you on beat , you've got your bass that keeps you on beat . Everybody's got to listen to one another . Yeah , or it's not , gonna say .

And you gotta sometimes let that lead guitarist start shredding it and sometimes that lead guitar player is just gonna have to solo for a while . Let him get it out of his system and he'll come back and play with the rest of us .

Sometimes they're playing so loud you gotta take them off the stage , you know sometimes you just you just sneak over there , turn down their amp and then you got the lead singer . He's got this very arrogant , narcissistic attitude right .

You do have that sometimes , but you've got to have that sometimes , yeah make sure you stay in good graces with the sound guys and they can make sure that they are managing the volume levels . That's right . Yeah , you've got the back end .

I mean , that's a really cool analogy , because it is like , as an entrepreneur , to start your own business and you want to be what we would call a solopreneur right , which has become another big thing . I have no interest in that . That seems very lonely to me . Yeah , you know , I started my firm .

Actually , it was just me Started out with some partners , didn't work out . This was 2012 when I started my firm 12 Company , and it still exists today . It's actually my consulting business , more of a sideline these days , but I was the only employee , only owner for years .

That was actually when I started working with you guys at White Spider , because I just got tired of working from home . I was like man , I just like being on a team , and I did that for several years . It was a good experience . It was good for me to do that , but exactly it taught me and I became convinced that I want to be on a team .

I've always been a band guy . I've never been a solo artist . I want to play in a group . I want to be in a team of other people who have all these talents that I don't have , so that I'm not just limited by me . That's right . There's so much to be said about that . Everything that you're sharing , like enjoyment of that startup and that team culture .

I love the canoe down the river . There's an adventure to that . There's an exploration . That's what's really cool about business . Is that , like when we're talking about finding those white spaces , like you're going into a realm that no one's . It's uncharted territory in a way .

And even if you , if it's uh , if it's already been set a path , if you , if a little diversion to the quality or characteristics of a product or service is uncharted , new territory . And that's what . That's what makes the lifting . It's not man . I'm sorry we run out of time .

You and I have talked way too much before the podcast that we were running a little late for it .

You know , at the end of the day , at some point you've got to turn a profit yeah , that's true or your business no longer can continue to exist . I know there's a lot of businesses out there that tend to be able to keep raising more and more outside capital , but fiscal financial discipline , I think , is critical . I've learned that sometimes in the hard way .

You've got to really be smart with how you , if you are in a position where you've raised capital using other people's money or you're using your own money , having that fiscal financial discipline or really being smart with how you invest and where you put your resources , is really important .

The ability to enter that realm is a lot . I mean , it's exciting for people .

It doesn't take a major reason to not be successful , it just takes one minor reason . That's what makes it , you know .

But same thing if you're going exploring , you know , and everything's worked out and you got , you know , and you're hiking across a mountain and you got a big team , everything's good , but then you snap an ankle that could ruin everything , yeah , and it was just , it's because you stepped on a rock for them . That's right .

Doesn't take much to put you out of the game , bro .

There's so many like what are all these little minor things that can happen to you in business ? And maybe we got some advice . So I think it's been another episode of Big Talk about small business . Lock it , you're doing a little rap . Yeah , that's nice , big Talk , big Talk . Thanks , man , all right .

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