From the Vault: Ep. 16 - Life as Entrepreneurs: The Reality Behind the Glamour

A lot of the best teachers at the Walton College , I feel like , are former business owners or people who have operated in the space that they're teaching , that have real world experience , and Mark was a great testament to that .

It's completely different from Walmartcom , is completely different from just normal online marketing , sure , so it's been super interesting to learn . But yeah , I'm a Northwest Arkansas native , grew up here .

Some of those sales team members won't let me live it down . Well , let me forget , but did that for about six months as an internship and then moved over to the insights and account services side of the business .

they just came back and said they're not going to sign for another 30 days and he's like , oh my gosh , you know . And there's like why you know , and something like that . And now there's just sit back and just and just enjoy the reaction See me get excited . I do I like instigating .

And then Sarah I know you've kind of inquired some as well about just some entrepreneurial related things . I just thought it'd be kind of neat for the audience to kind of hear that perspective . I'm actually interested too , like what types of questions ? And I think there'd be a lot of folks that might be able to relate to that .

So that's , I think that's pretty neat that you know that we could kind of have that dialogue . So why don't you go far away ? Who's going first ?

And to walk into it and think that just because you have a good idea doesn't mean it's going to be received , you know , and just because you can see other folks doing it doesn't mean it's going to be easy to do , and there's a lot more devils in the details as you start to get your business going , and so it's just hard , right .

I mean , like I even you know Mark was mentioning it , you know , you know , along with White Spider , white Spider has obviously grown into a much larger organization . But even starting up a new business like what I have , you know , like it's just as hard as it was the first time .

And because I might even know exactly certain things to go do , like and just dealing with with the tax regulations , the government , dealing with human resource issues , dealing with legal contracts and everything you know new technologies , softwares , banking , I mean all that type of stuff , financing I mean it's just as hard to do that as it ever was .

And I don't think that when you know if you create more entities or whatever , doesn't necessarily get any easier . I mean , there's certain things that are that maybe you know a little bit and you can avoid the pitfalls , but it's just . It's just hard to start up a business and get it going , and so I think that you'll walk an end to that .

One of my biggest lessons would be to try not to be too terribly naive although being naive is also not a bad thing especially depending on the age . You know I mean when I was young . You know I mean I started my first business .

I was like , oh , I'm doing it because it needs to be done , but it taught me a lot of lessons . But then I wouldn't have learned all the lessons . I learned . Never used any nonsense . The only points mark biggest lessons .

They communicate , did they ? You know , are they going earlier ? Are they going late ? I mean , if they're not , if they shut down on the weekend and you don't hear from them , or they shut down at five o'clock , forget it . I mean , I'm sorry , you just have to be obsessed . You do .

And , and you know you got to be able to multitask because you're never gonna be able to just Hyper focus on one thing . There's a million things going on and you got to be able to Juggle all that and deal with the ambiguity of not knowing for sure what's gonna happen .

You know , just dealing with ambiguity is really hard for a lot of people , but you know the other it's a cliche , but it's true . It's like if you never give up , you'll never fail .

Yeah and and then I guess the last thing is just action you know some people , they're there coffee shop Entrepreneurs is what I call them .

They just sit around and they got a million ideas and they never Actually do any of chief strategists yeah , chief strategist , yeah , strad , at my undergraduate degrees in strategy , and I'll never forget that this , this sounds ridiculous and I don't think I don't remember if either of you were in the class .

I don't think you were , maybe Sarah , but I don't recall and I had this one girl . I go around and ask everybody like what do you want to do when you get out of school ? And this girl said I want to be the CEO of a fortune 500 company . Like , wow , that's ambitious , you know , you know that's a big goal . But great .

I said where do you think you're gonna start out ? She goes well , I'd be willing to start out as a COO , hmm . And I'm like oh , okay , you'll be the number two person in a fortune five . Wow , okay , that's gonna be a problem , mm-hmm .

Anyway , I the other , you know , I just think If you're gonna be successful as an entrepreneur , you got to be willing to get your hands dirty . Yeah , you do . And , and you know , do the work of the business , sometimes just to show everybody you can do it . Otherwise it's really hard to garner their respect .

designing this . Yeah , yeah , I geek out . I mean , it's like a painting to me that I'm trying to express and what I've kind of can see and I've I learned a long time ago I was like man , this is just absolutely not getting me anywhere .

And so how do you break off from that to get into the actions and just trying things like and not being afraid to fail on any little thing ? I mean , just sometimes you just got to sign the document , you know , instead of sitting there reading over and thinking in this legal documents are a lot like that .

Like you could , I don't like reading legal I don't either .

Yep , I don't need to know all the facts . You know I wrote several articles recently like should you invest in the firm you work for ? You know , and and there's a million people write articles like this , right , and they'll talk about , well , what is the debt to equity ratio ? Yeah , you know how profitable are they . Is their ebit ? You know ?

get through all that . That's just a temporary situation and I think , you know , if I did anything right that really helped me a lot Was I was really pretty good at picking people . I mean , I made some . I made some errors . Sure , undoubtedly I made . I made some errors , but I would try to rectify them .

But just being able to pick good people and , just , you know , give them a real opportunity , not this , yeah , it's gonna be great , but , by the way , I'm gonna pay you nothing . Right , okay , I'm not gonna share any information with you and you don't get to make any real decisions . Yep , yep . That's not the way to get good , smart people .

Mm-hmm , you know .

I mean a you have to be somebody that they feel is trustworthy and responsible and has a purpose in that purpose is is going to be Conveyed to the rest of the organization . I think that's important to a lot of people , but I also think it's important to do things like you know Share the business planning process with everybody .

Share the key financial metrics with everybody you know , bring them in . Not be afraid to not hold your cards too close to the vest . Yeah , yeah you know , or you won't get good people to work for you .

There's going to be certain people that are going to Be even interested in that to begin with , you might as well knock most of the population out , like I'd say , most of the folks that are in your all-is-age range , right that are we're in their career area , are looking for more . Hey , I want to make this certain salary that I've been told about .

This is my kind of lifestyle . I'm trying to get to and I want it to be secure , and I work for a big company that has a lot of places to move up . Like you , you know you're not going to get that with working with a small business , and so you go ahead . I mean a lot of times .

I wouldn't even waste a breath on a lot of folks like that , you know . But then you're going to have some that that just don't want to fit that boat , and so that's kind of your audience and you're talking to . But there's two things , two things on that . Number one those people in that that smaller audience , are going to be driven off passion .

And so if you come to the table , I mean this is what my experience was , man , I was always just passionate about what I'm doing , like I mean , like even in with podcast videos or something , I'm just like man , this I can paint . I'm just like insistent In , relentless on the fact that this is going to fit a need and it's going to be fun .

And let's say I'm going to do it and we're going to do it together . And then the things that mark said transparency . I've learned that over the years , like , don't be so guarded about everything . People just want to know where they're at , where they're going , how they're going to impact it , etc .

And I'd say , on top of that , one of the big things that I like to do is just entrust those people to make decisions , even even when I know that it may not be the right decision .

And and then they're going to know it for sure , and then they're going to be able to teach it or lead it the next time , and and you got to be able to let things go . I mean it's , it's hard , that's . I see a lot of entrepreneurs . I have a hard time with that letting go why they do , and they and you will suffocate your business .

I did that my first business . I suffocated it until it was worth nothing . You know , so yeah , I think that's a very common problem , as you said .

You know you have to let go more . They're in the key people that you bring in , or even more , and maybe it kind of compounds itself as it gets bigger , the people get more and more important that are leading that company .

And then you got to make harder decisions , like if you know , if Luke , you , if I started a company , you came into Join because you're excited about my enthusiasm about it and we built something together over the last two years . But then we start growing and you can't handle it because you act like a buffoon .

That decision to have a talk with him like hey , man , you got to go . Yeah , you know , I mean those . That's that's a harder decision as the company's growing , but you know that's that's what happens you know , things become a lot more difficult .

That is crap . You will never get anybody good to work for you if that's your view . The growth is where the opportunities come in for triple , and you've got to commit to growth . If you're not committed to growth , then you're gonna have a really hard time getting good people .

Yep , so in those two kind of phases of the starting the business , and the growth side of the business .

Is that the case or do you ?

I have a . I mean this Mark Martin does not agree with me but I mean like legitimately , like I've said it in interviews before where I did sacrifice my family and my health for the , for the business , and it's true and people be like . I didn't sacrifice my family and you know I'm a successful likes . That's okay , but I mean like .

But the reality is , I think if you look at any entrepreneur , are they sacrificing their , their time with their family , their income , you know their health , their business ? I mean there's always trade-offs . There's trade-offs everywhere in life . As an entrepreneur , you can't , you can't escape it . There's not a balance to it man , you're never off .

And if you I mean that's .

It's like all these massive , complicated things and this person , that and that , and it's just it got to be too much . And you know that's happened a million times in my career .

But the thing in time my integration and I told my wife I was like the cool thing is is being an entrepreneur , you can escape , like you just need to know when you need to go escape . Like if it starts getting cloudy , I mean you bounce out . You know , go do something separate from it . But you know it's funny enough .

As I came back to it about , you know , in 45 minutes an hour I was like I was kind of a depressurized and then I got back into it and I felt good and was able to keep cranking and doing what I love . But there are points where it's just like it's a little too much . I mean it's just sometimes just too much information .

My man brain's not very big I'm not the smartest guy in the room you know you're plenty smart . Thanks , mark .

It does , it's just less boring .

I feel like I'm invigorated again because I can't handle the mundane we're gonna have our wives on next week ? Yeah , it's gonna be a good one to tune into yeah we're gonna finally set them straight . I'm , I have , I'm so ready bro .

I can't tell you I'm like every time we talk my wife and I do she's always , like you know , doesn't listen to what I have to say or react and change like I want her to change .

I never miss kids birthdays . I was always home . The only holiday I ever missed was Halloween once , where I was flying from Phoenix to Boston and they flew us to Minneapolis first and we got stuck in a snowstorm . It's the only time . So having that kind of control is is is a plus .

Even if you work a lot , you know you still can do those kinds of things , I think , easier than if you're an employee .

But I knew that like I could literally visualize myself crawling across the hot asphalt from my spider-bus and like literally bleeding out and down on the road to keep the company going . But I mean that was like how intense it is . It was to me . You know , I mean it wasn't a it wasn't necessarily a pride thing or that's my baby , like that .

I can't stand that . Like I mean , maybe my first business it was my baby , but it has nothing to be my baby .

It has to do with the fact that I 100% confident believe that I was right in fitting a puzzle piece to the market and the world needed to have what we were delivering to it and I had a responsibility and honor to make sure that that puzzle piece got stuck in that world , because this is my life mission and so , you know , brave heart it , man .

I mean , if the world's not gonna listen to you , then freakin , go out doing it , silverback , silverback it , yeah , exactly . But that's that's how far I get into kind of your question like how much is the commitment ? I mean that that's how serious it is to me , you know that's a total commitment .

Like if you don't find it something that you're really interested in anymore , then it's probably time to get out of it yeah , it's kind of like you you start waking up and hating what you're

doing .

it , yeah you know .

This is very important , not when you think that the market doesn't need a product , but when you've exhausted all the audiences in the market and so a lot of people make a mistake like , okay , got this product , I'm gonna go sell it , and then they go talk to five or ten people with a certain demographic profile or whatever you want to call it , and then it

doesn't work . Then they just say it's not gonna work , like an entrepreneur can't do that . You go to the next audience . You try to find your audience , like when the businesses I have right now . I know full well . All I know is that the market needs it . I just don't know which audience is the best .

It's gonna really , really engage with what I need , and there might be multiple audiences that engage in it , but there's one audience that really pays for the value of it .

Right , pay for the lion's share of it , yeah , but I think that if I went through my little investigation and exploration and I can't find an audience , you know , then then I'd probably start dialing out interesting that's an interesting perspective , because I feel like you more often hear the opposite of that , where you identify an audience in their need and then

you create the product yeah , I don't know how the hell I mean like man , seriously like dude , if you ask me , like on just some white spider my time there , like our business , is nothing like what it was in the beginning , yeah , other than some core competencies , you know , and capabilities and know how .

But , like the pricing model , the business model , the marketing , the sales process , the execution process , everything's different .

And then what we did is different and who we said we are , you know , I mean we have evolved and adapted a hundred times over and so I don't know that you can , you know , you can theoretically determine that it's this audience , they're gonna pay this price and they're gonna want it for this long and it's gonna do this kind of churns gonna .

You know , whatever the case it might be , you cannot , you cannot predict that , especially with macro influences , you know , which happened a lot in our business too , right , I mean , you know . I mean there's just well , they influence everything .

They determine their sense of well-being and how much money they can spend based on whether that goes up or down . If it goes down , they start panicking . Has no impact on their income , really on it , you know , a daily or monthly basis at all . It's just their sort of perception of self-worth , you know . And so the macro market , just it . Yeah , you're right .

I mean there are things that do happen that influence your buyers that are completely out of your control .

Increase the odds , yeah , and plan for it like I'm gonna be . You know Mark's age . You know whenever he marks gonna lift till he was like 130 , by the way , it just FYI he's got the genes and he takes really good care of himself , so he's like double laughing about that on the way here and just had a lucky strike in the parking lot .

Like you have to be able to have to be able to react to it on a , on a dom too , and like you know , it's like I was talking to one of the sales folk , a person the other day selling some stuff , and it's like okay , we , we built this rate card , we built the pricing and we here's our products and our offerings and our services and you go to a

meeting and you know who that person is . You walk in the meeting and you're ready to give them all this stuff and his response means like well , this she wasn't really interested in any of it , but she did bring up something about this . I'm like where's the contract for ? Yeah ?

that's an opportunity , yeah and he's like well , I mean you know , I mean you know I'm wanting to come back as we don't really have that in our kit . Yeah , I don't care , you tell them . You say you're interested in that , you got a keen in on those interests , because that's an audience and , by the way , you have the capability , you're competent for it .

Like you take the needs assessment , you go back , you talk to your team , you come with a plan and because you can always say , hey , let me go back and let me , you know , put some polishing touches on this . I'm making a proposal , I make sure it's great for exactly what you're talking about . That's how you deliver it .

But if you just set there and stayed in your box , like you plan , that's probably . The problem is that people make these great , grandiose plans and they won't allow themselves to be flexible . And then you're going back to a group of investors who put money on your plan and now you're trying to duck and dodge and navigate that as you're going to market .

There's a massive disconnect between the investor and the entrepreneur or the manager professional manager in that standpoint , you know .

And so , if you like , if those things aren't married up like it , that's where there's a lot of tension that goes on and then you could you can really hurt your business by doing that if you have investors if you have investors but yeah , I mean , if you do have investors , the best thing to do is just talk with them constant yes , that's good it's essential

yeah , that is , that is really good yeah people don't do it .

But like I mean I did not communicate , like I did not , like I mean , look at it now , like all they're one , they're wanting to be engaged in the business , you know , and I mean honestly , like they'd probably rather hear more from me and me be on their nerves than to not hear enough , even though it might in the meantime they're like well , this is great ,

they're not bothering me .

But the reality is is that at some point , whether that's week , three weeks or two months , they're gonna start getting a little antsy about it , especially when you pop in the next , next presentation and you've lost fifty thousand bucks yeah , or five hundred or five hundred yeah millions it gets worse that's such a good piece of us right there too , because there's

so many people that are getting raising capital . It seems to be a trend or it's the new way of doing in a lot of ways like I mean , a lot of people think that's the first thing I do .

Yeah , I guess entrepreneur , cuz like you could be given , you could be unknowingly giving away many , many millions of dollars yeah , if you're successful , that is really expensive and then the only way they can get their money out is to do what ? There's no liquidity unless they sell the business , yeah .

So if you're not ready to sell the business , that's another problem , mm-hmm , but anyway it . I don't mind outside investors . If a I need him and I've exhausted my debt capital opportunities for sales right and B , they bring something to the table that the company doesn't have .

So they're much , they're much more active participant and contributor than just the money , mm-hmm . The money is one thing , but energy , contribution , ideas , connections yeah , you know that's valuable , absolutely .

Would you do it differently ? Yeah , what does that look like ?

You know we co-founded it and then we didn't take , we didn't relinquish any equity in exchange for capital , you know , or investment and the and so that's been predominantly my experience . I haven't really bought , ever bought , a business . You know that's existing , although I can see a lot of value in that .

It can be tremendous amount of value in that , especially when you get into .

Actually that's not true I have , but the value that is is that it's , you know , the database , the customer base that's already there and a lot of the processes you know and those types of things , the history , the history of it , and you know there's there's a lot to having a brand name . I mean trust you built .

It's not a cheap thing to build trust in the community , not at all or or against your audience . I mean . I think that we can even look at white spider . I mean it's hard to get your fingers on while we continue to grow .

But I'm I'm adamant about the fact , about the fact that I've never failed somebody , like I haven't , and I don't think our team has , and you know and like fail them . I'm not saying like mess up , but you know , but like you , you build that reputation proceeds itself like in , in , uh . So anyway , that's a lot of value there .

I can see , uh , raising capital . I've never gone out and done . I have done pitch decks . I have tried to raise capital in the past . It just didn't work out , um , for multiple , multiple reasons . I'm glad it didn't . I would say that , um that if I was , there are certain businesses that I would do that with .

I think that's one thing , like if you can start up something and a lot of times service businesses are really great for that Like I can start a service capital don't take a lot of capital , doesn't take many people at first and go chase the money and work that up and build that up solely . I think that you know that's .

Don't go raise capital for that stuff . But if you're going to try to develop out a full tech stack and all this kind of stuff and compete with the major markets like I mean , you might as well be in for a ride that you're not even really an entrepreneur in a sense for that .

You're a chief strategist and you want to become a good manager like you're an executive type person like that . I'm not talking smack about , there's just different . It's like the difference between a CFO and a CEO , you know , or a CMO .

I mean , like you know , we have some of the greatest executive leaders on the freaking planet live in within 15 mile radius of us , right here , and I wouldn't be able to hold a candle to them , you know , when it comes to management like that .

But you know , I think that you know , if you're , if you know , if you have that idea , you know there's , there's a lot of ways to fund and capital something doesn't have to be with you relinquishing all your equity , because once you do , you become , you become a , an executive manager .

I have bought um troubled businesses myself or as part of other companies that I worked with and turned them around and I bought successful businesses . I would say my preference , if I look back in history , it would be um , I was going to start my whole entrepreneurial career over again .

I would probably go buy an existing business that needs to be turned around . Um owner financing is available . It's just a faster start . If they're really in poor shape , the owner wants to get out . They're going to make it real possible for you to get that things Okay , cause they want out of it more than anything else . They don't expect a huge payoff .

They'll probably finance it to you and I like that . Then I got you know . As Eric pointed out , you've got employees and processes and a brand and maybe a bad brand .

You might be a hero to a lot of people that love that brand originally , which is cool . It is .

Most of the time they don't want to be acquired Right . The employees are unhappy . You're there . Any change you make is one .

But I mean , you know , unless you're you're sitting on a lot of you know millions of dollars and you're starting your own PE firm and you're talking about just being an entrepreneur , I think what Mark's talking about I mean it's , it's good stuff , man .

You know I mean we work with some of them at at ZY group that you know have invested nine figure investments in some of these businesses that were successful and that's the reason they do it . They're looking for a platform . They're like these guys have proved they they bought 10 other companies and integrated them . This is the company we're going to bet on .

We'll throw capital in there and they can do more of that , not just what they do on their own . Right , right , and that's a good situation for private equity , that or we've got all these different companies , we can share clients , or we can share capabilities to move across the platform .

Most of them don't do a very good job with the sharing , though , and there's a whole lot of reasons for that . They set up their deals based on earnouts and other things , so you have to keep that entity discreet and on its own . That works against integration , in my experience it does .

You know , it's definitely not what it is in today's time , where it's kind of been risen up as a glamorized , sensationalized yeah , and it's not so sensational . I'll tell you that , like you better be ready to be brave heart . Like if you like being attacked , it's true , like , let's get real here . Oh no , there's a trace to that .

If you like being attacked , if you like having targets on your back , I'll tell you this one quick thing is in the beginning it was very exciting and everybody was supportive . But the second that I started that , that the company started to become successful , the Arles got out man , and it was brutal . I don't and I was not .

I had no reality check to that , like a like I had no understanding . But but I mean like , if you , if you don't , if you're not ready to go to war , then it's going to be absolutely miserable .

I can't remember what I was really really say Well , if I would have been , had I known back when I was young and starting my entrepreneurial career , about all these different options , it would have been , it would have been pretty nice . I calculated it , but you can't calculate too much , right ?

But I mean , there's just a lot of different ways you can take and it's kind of like going to bank , right , they have a lot of services . Like , if you go down this road , you just need to know , like , where that's going to put you . You know immediately in the future and don't don't fantasize that it's something else Like I think that's the problem .

What I worry about in all honesty . I've shared this with Mark before offline , but I'm going to put it on video now and record it . I'm legitimately concerned by the sensationalism of entrepreneurism .

All these people are supporting you and telling they love you and you got a great business plan and there's nothing that can go wrong , and all these little bells and whistles and these spreadsheets , and it doesn't work out .

And then all of a sudden , you turn around one day and none of your expectations in life have been met and you've been grinding it for five or 10 years . You're going to need to look and go , man .

The only reason that Mark and I are not narcissists is the fact that we question whether we are or not .

But you know , and if it doesn't work out , then you , what do you ? I mean , don't you can't wallow in that .

And I'm afraid that there's , like there's stuff that my junior high teachers told me and made me believe that was truth in the world that I'm still , and as you know this , mark , the older you would get , we process through those things that we were taught and like that shit ain't true . Yeah , like , what the hell ?

Like , like you know , like , why am I just now realizing that you know that's not really what that meant . You know because I get older and I start figuring that out . Same thing with this .

This is another form of learning , to where it's at the high probability and theoretical . And even when you read about people going through bad times and didn't work out , well , there's a reason why it didn't work out . If they should have done this , then it wouldn't have been so bad .

And so now in your mind , you're avoiding that pitfall , but you still get slapped in the face . Yeah , you know , and it's like nothing's true , it's like you have to be able to go into it . That's where that enthusiasm , that passion comes into this .

Nobody needs to calculate the size of the freaking market . We got what ? 580,000 people living in Northwest Arkansas , I'd say probably 499,000 of them love pizza and maybe 50,000 of them will eat pizza .

Well , our plan if we achieve it in seven years , all we need is 0.53% of the US market to hit our goal . Is that likely ? Is that seen point ? That's a half a percent . It's a huge market I have . Should we be able to scratch out a half percent ? Yeah , if we're not freaking lazy , okay , okay .

If we spend money on marketing and we keep innovating our product , we're going to hit a percent of the domestic market . That doesn't even include all the international market opportunities that exist . But I mean , it's like I like big mature . Do I have to convince you know Sarah , to buy a motorcycle today ? No , I don't .

I don't need to sell one to Sarah because I've got a massive market of people that already know they want one , Right , and all I got to do is get one out of 200 to buy mine . I mean , so I like these big , mature markets . I think the risk is super low when you go into those kind of things .

You know , maybe it's not as dramatic , but you know , usually with just really good marketing and just like cutting all the bureaucracy out of the business , making it a better place to work than everybody else's , because they're all following the same stupid rulebook that they learned , wherever they learned it from , like their bosses boss learned it from , you know

it's like . So just you know you can break a few of those molds out and spend money on marketing and keep innovating . Then you're probably going to do really fine and it's not that risky .

You know , as great as you know , at age 65 , I'm going to turn into , like you know , the world's number one triathlete .

I've seen this happen when you do have somebody that goes and raises capital and they , they get the capital and then they exit , like the news media is like oh so , mark , mark Rose , kate wrote , raised some capital and then they just sold for 500 , you know million dollars to the next round and you still got this founder . That was that raised to begin with .

And they're just . You know they're in cityscapes or celebrate and you know , just looking like that in the cover , everything's great . But if you really started digging in , they might have gotten , like you know , 150,000 dollars for the buyout .

And then a wolf has eyes on the front and they're going out to hunt , right . But anytime you get investors and an investment group involved , that's why they crunch the hell out of numbers . It's why there's a massive , painfully massive and due , diligent process . Like if you , if you sell a company , you just it doesn't .

It's not like selling the car over the weekend . I mean it is freaking , one of the most painful transactions you can go through , because you feel like that . You know it's worse than going to the freaking doctor , you know . I mean you're getting examined like . You know . It's like the IRS , right . I mean it's bad , yeah and so .

But it's because there's could be at any moment this breaking point of where all their the money is just gone and it's at risk , which I don't kind of blame them , you know . But who ends up winning is if I could have somebody with a big vision big idea and working 90 hours a week and blah , blah , blah and all this kind of stuff .

And then I'm letting them create this thing that I put some , put some money into and I get to go sit down every once every month and just kind of look over the numbers a little bit and give some consultation and I go back and hang out with you know and do other things , but this person's other driving and driving and putting everything I love that .

That's what we're looking for Love it Right there . Love it , yeah , and then they get on them . But then they get that that entrepreneur gets on the cover of the magazine . You don't see the investors on the cover of the magazines , right ? You see the founder riding the founders up there and they're being glorified .

That just kind of feeds the frenzy of my next candidates , because they said , hey , I went into Howerton and his wide capital and got my first seed round and then I get more people like them coming back to me for more money . You know , yeah .

I think that there are a lot of good deals and there's ideas and there's things that cannot be done without capital Right , and you have to have an army to start up , like tech . Software technology is a big example , right . Or , if you wanted to , drug company drug company a approval if you wanted to create your first car .

But now you've been off of it for three years and no one loves you anymore . Those aren't good things . It's not good things , and you know , and you made a hundred thousand dollars .

You agree with the principles , but you end up fighting over the territory on who yeah , because you both let's say you both are good at design and you both Don't like dealing with clients or whatever , all right .

Well , if you're gonna be in the design business , somebody's got to deal with clients , and if you both want to do the design , you're gonna have conflict . Mm-hmm , I think that's the biggest mistake a lot of people make , is they go into business with their friends and and other people that they think are like them . We're just alike .

We ingest alike is horrible . The best partners I had were people who were totally different . They did things I wasn't gonna do well and I did things that they didn't do well . Yeah , you put the two of us together . It's not all that different from you and Alex when you started out . You're a lot different .

Both of those guys work for me at one time , so I know they're both still friends . I mean , I think that's that's as good of an example as any .

I mean , if you can have two folks that are Invested , worried , wig and Al , scared you know , and all that kind of stuff , obsessed you know , then the better . That's true .

Yeah , because I mean , here's the other thing nobody tells you You're , you're gonna be crazy to everyone else , like you're gonna be on an island from day one because you're gonna believe in this and nobody else can see it , although you know your spouse might be like , oh , I'm so proud of you that that'll be the first day , but come about three months later

when you've been freaking , check floating and you're not making any money .

That's a really tough situation , yeah , and you might think it's great to work together and there can be some situations where it really works out Well , but a lot of times it doesn't . A lot of times there's resentment there . Yeah , one of them is in the sort of driver seat , the other one's helping .

The helper gets tired of never having the limelight and is very resentful . Okay

, that can develop .

I mean , especially when I mean in my experience I've , like you know , I was kind of the front person a lot of times right , and I mean I would appear in in some sort of media and it really became uncomfortable Whenever , whether I quoted something or or I was in an event , you know I mean , but I was just that's just what I did .

I mean , like between me and the in the partners , I was the more Extroverted , yeah , I guess , and I showed up right and I would call and you know I just do those things and but when it starts getting Noticed , then it becomes , you know , it can , it can make making even the person that's in that , like myself at the time , that we feel uncomfortable about

the attention and not in the lack of attention , rather from my for the partner , who I know is really the one that's driving , I mean like there's no way in hell that I've .

How much do you feel like you Maybe played the game a little bit and how much do you kind of try and stay out of it ? Just general thoughts on that . I .

Right like so , for example , if you are working together and you're responsible for marketing , you're responsible over sales , and you come with a , with something that would impact , you know , the sales side of things , you know I want you to be recognized for that , even though you're head of sales , right , I mean , there's that's not necessarily political , as it is

more recognition and consideration , and I think that you have to be , you have to be strong in this stance to to bust that open and keep it open , because those are the tops of things that can really lead into the politics .

Because if I didn't allow that recognition for you to happen , like that one decision , we'll just start cascading into a bunch of politics that become cancerous and toxic and silos , yeah , silos and clicks , yeah , I just .

Some people would go , oh shit , that's why he's a friggin brown noser . He's being political . Okay , no , it's not that at all , it's like your business . Yeah , I Realize who ultimately has control of the resources .

I need resources to do my job as the head of marketing or whatever it is Well , and so I've got to have a relationship , I've got to have the attention of that person , I've got to have their respect , and it's essential for me to be successful in my job , to help the company . It's not political . Now , some people wouldn't do that .

Okay , well , then maybe they don't get the resources they need , yeah , and then they fail . Yeah , who benefits from that ? The company ? No , right . So I think a lot of times , you know , I will admit I always had a relationship with the top people .

stuff you recognize and you get all over that and destroy it . I mean , if it means I mean it's like literally having a couple of your kids and they get in a fight and you just not doing anything about it . They're gonna destroy themselves .

You know a lot of other well and those are the things everybody's like .

I just had lunch the other day with a friend of mine . He worked at , you know , like Microsoft and ti and all these at the highest level . He's like , yeah , it's like nobody's sitting around worried about like where's the cash gonna come from to me payroll ? Where's the next thing ?

Instead , they're worried about like well , luke and Sarah getting along you know , I mean what kind of meeting I'm gonna have tomorrow . Yeah , what am I gonna do then ? And you know , I mean , it's just those are the things that really tend to preoccupy .

At least that was my experience , not to say I wasn't ever in some really tight situations , you know very true .

And they're good , they're a good employee , but your spouse doesn't like them ? Oh yeah , it's bad , it's horrible , it's a horrible position to be in . I've been in it .

Okay , I'll buy that also may go back to the , the need for a little bit of narcissism and the entrepreneurship . I'm just kidding .

The only reason I ever use my name in my business was I already had like Knowledge of my name out there in the field when I started , because I did a lot of writing and I did a lot of speaking . So when I first started what today is why group is marks , wagon associates it was because I was already known .

Yeah why wouldn't I want to cash in on that ? If I called it the , you know , the consulting collaborative or some you know it wouldn't , I would have been , I would have lost out on the yeah investment that I already made and building up my name Mm-hmm . But there's negatives associated with that . Obviously fail . Yes , Problem your entire name is destroyed .

I mean that's thought about that .

It's like the names a lot of times have nothing to do with what the business track is true , it's just very short and catchy you know , can you make electric trucks ? You know , let's call it water bottle . You know what do you do ? We provide cleaning services .

I don't like the fact that my pants and so we promise next episode is gonna be a lot more serious and we're thankful to spend time with these intelligent and motivated and perceptive and good looking young people here that we have in Luke and Sarah , and so it's been another episode of Big .

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