But I was like , let's write up the name of whatever we're going to build . I want to know what it does , how important it is to the customer , how much work has been done , how much work is yet to do , and is the work that needs to be done front end or back end ? So user interface side , or like making it work right ?
Sure , and then I want to go through and prioritize them . And so we go through one . What a logical approach . And that was great , man . It took two days , okay , to walk , to walk through these , and I had nothing else to do . I just joined the company , right . This was like three days in .
And so we start putting up the post-it notes and , I kid you not , we covered up one wall , we covered up a , we covered up a second , we covered up a third and we started on the fourth wall in the place . And at one point I was wondering if we were going to run out of walls in here . We're going to have to go to the next room or something .
Lots of ideas , oh , lots of started ideas . There were probably 26 or so that we had done development work on but had not gotten out the gate Right .
And so what I started doing is going all right , this one is important , yeah , and it's only got eight hours of work To bring it to fruition , yeah , so let's get it in the software , right , let's wrap it up Right , and we started prioritizing .
And then , you know , this one's really important , but it's not as far along , but it really is truly important and this makes us this differentiates us from others , so let's go ahead and invest the time in it , and but we started cranking out .
Yeah , you know these pieces awesome I think that gets to where you're still . No , it does .
I mean , yeah , because , like it's , you know and your approach to that , and then you're able to then not only the product side , but then you start , you know , looking at the people and what the people are doing , what the positions and the roles that they're playing , and then what are their goals , and then how do you assign metrics to achieve those goals that
all roll up to the company . I mean it is fantastic . Like you know , it's nothing that I could really I didn't ever have . I obviously didn't have the playbook for it , but also never had the time in my mind for it , because I mean there was more products that needed to be invented .
Right , there's , there's no playbook ever for this stuff , but I mean , make it up as you go but that's the thing . He has prior experience . He did , okay , he did , but he came in and playbooked this thing and it was laid out the road I was . I wish you could do a movie about the , the transition , the culture .
I mean we always had a really fun invigorating culture .
We're going to be fun , absolutely Always .
Great times and everybody's loving what we're doing , but what JS was able to do was then attach a roadmap to it so people knew what's your statements on it . You have three things .
Yeah , four things , and what it really boils down to and I learned a lot of this at pace industries , or figured it out at pace industries tell people what pace industry . Yeah , so pace industries . So it's very non-walmart , right , right , uh , so pace industries aluminum , magnesium and zinc die casting . Okay , so you're making components for manufacturers .
So harley davidson's one of their top customer was , when I was there , one of their their top customers Weber Gas Grills . Okay , you know , tier two , automotive . You guys made wheels , didn't you , or did you ? That was Superior .
I knew Superior did too .
But okay , it's a different process , but a very similar business , very similar type of business Like foundry work . I mean it's tough work , right . I mean it's very blue collar , I understand In . I mean it's very blue-collar , I understand , in the summer in Harrison , arkansas , I'll make die castings .
I mean the aluminum is 1,200 degrees , yeah , and you're sitting next to a machine and I mean it's probably 140 degrees .
It's brutal yeah .
You know working in front of that machine . Okay , so you were at— .
So anyway , yeah , I just wanted to give people some— yeah it . How did you know ?
so much about software coming from that . Well , yeah , I had done that before , and so you know , my first real startup was during the first internet boom , you know in like 98 .
And I was in college at the University of Oklahoma , and started a comparison shopping engine , which is so funny because it was all based on scrape data , which is what a lot of SKU Ninja tools are based on . So it's weird . It's been around 20 years later , but it was software .
And then I was one of the founders of Field Agent , which is the first app that actually pays users , and they're still doing great here in northwest Arkansas .
But a lot of it goes back to employee engagement and it's like one of know , one of the , and I could throw out some crazy statistics about us , but one of the reasons we were so successful is because we retained our employees At Pace you're talking about , no , I'm talking about at White Spider . Oh , I believe so , chuck , absolutely .
If you're going to retain your employees , you have to have a high level of engagement , right , right and um , and so I want to be part of the process . They want to know what's going on .
It's super critical , yeah , and so I believe there there are four keys to having a high employee engagement , and there are a lot of other things that play into it , but four things are really important . Number one you have to have a clear vision of the goals of the company . Amen to that . People have to be able to understand it , and you .
It needs to be transparent . Number two they need to know what's expected of them . Right , all right , so that comes down to personal KPIs yeah , then they have to be able to see how what is expected of them contributes to the goals of the company . Yeah , this gives them meaning , right and purpose Agreed .
And finally , they need to know where they stand at all times . Sure , and so if you do this , then there's a path to what I'm . I know how I'm doing . I know that I'm because I'm doing it well , I know how it contributes to go to the company , and so I have meaning and I have purpose and I'm .
There's a reason I'm here , right , sure , yeah , and so what we did and the fourth piece there , and you know how they stand at all times , our KPIs were 90% objective metrics that they could measure , and then 10% was are you playing well with the team ? Sure , if you don't get the 10% , there's a problem .
Right , yeah , and so it's very objective and it's very easy . With sales Sure , how many calls are you making ? It's a lot harder with developers . What's your close ratio ? Dollars brought in ? Sure , with developers , we found some ways to do , like Jira software on hours and things they knocked out .
But it's hard because you have to figure out how to make it objective and with some it's tough , right , yeah , I bet , but a lot of that came that the goals of the company . It goes back to what I referred to , strategic deployment , yeah , and so this is lean manufacturing technology production system .
This is what I learned at pace industries and because we were manufacturing and automotive and that's what you had to do back then , right , yeah , now I hated it there , right , I was gonna be honest , like this was these were very long meetings , stuff that I did not feel like it was the best use of my time to sit in and hear it all all the time .
Sure , um , and we were doing some other stuff for the sales group within salesforce to track metrics and stuff , and so I just I felt I kind of resented it back then , right , sure , and so when I'm , when I joined , I remember this moment where I'm thinking what , what do we need here to bring this company together and have a vision and move a direction ?
And I was just like crap , it's SD , strategic , strategic deployment , and we call it ST . I'm like crap , it's SD .