Welcome to Tectastic, where we navigate the intersection of technology and business, uncovering innovations that redefine our world. Justin 48, welcome to it's techtastic. It is lovely to have you here. Great. Thanks for having me. Tell me about your journey how you think about starting a business in the first place and how that fits into your overall strategy. Cool. So the the best way to get started on that is to how I started FYC back in 2012. That seems so long ago now.
So I actually came out of grad school in 2008, 9, not the best time to be looking for a job if you guys are familiar with that era. Right? So I jumped in and started working at bars and restaurants, with a master's degree. So it was great, though. I met some of the coolest people, some of the most influential small business owners in, in my career, explaining me how to build a consortium of businesses. They were around restaurants bars, craft cocktails, kind of that scene, at that time.
And I was, you know, looking to start my own business and I was good at technical side. I was good at the marketing side. And I ended up partnering with a, an amazing graphic designer named Pablo Stanley. He is just one of the most interesting personalities, one of the most talented individuals. And he said, you know, he came back looking for a buser, buser job. And I'm like, what? No. Your way no. No. No. You and I are doing something more. So we started FYC.
It started as a the goal being, you know, get some clients, but then eventually build up our own internal products, build up own websites. We started a comic series. We started a poster series. Some really cool creative projects that we started initially. Both of us did get a a word away as many do when a lot of early stage startup folks, they get kind of, you know, baited into some of the, like, he went to Udemy.
I went to a a manufacturing SaaS company and worked kind of in the normal job for a while. Meanwhile, the business was kind of coming along in the background. It was a lifestyle business kind of side hustle for several years during that time. Well, he and I went in our separate ways kind of working for bigger companies. That SAS business taught me a ton about programming, kind of introduced me to software development versus just web development websites. I then jump over to blockchain.
I spent 4 years in blockchain, at 2017 to 2021. Amazing time to be working in chain. We built some really cool stuff around geospatial data being pushed onto the Ethereum network. So then I come back to the agency in 2021, where I had a buyout of some of my existing partners. I had a really cool private equity offer to buy out my partners, and I got I brought a partner on onboarding Grand Peck. He has been amazing.
It reinvigorated the agency and it brought back that model of let's build our own internal products. Then I took that kind of what I've learned from that consortium of restaurant owners and, and bar owners back in, like, the 2008, 12 era and then start applying that to a syndicate, what we now call the fractal group of businesses where we have our own accounting platform that we've developed. We have our own investor founder CRM that we've generated.
We have a media company that does cinematography, photography. So we have all these different businesses now within the group. We're at 21 total businesses. There's a venture arm where we are raising for those businesses. But many of them are small businesses, serviced type businesses, and homegrown products. So we said Venture Armed. Do you mean that you're actually, you have a fund or that you are, that's a group that's going out and raising capital with interest?
It's a group of angel investors, so I wouldn't. It's hard to call it a fund, but it's we call it venture. Because that's just the right there's no appropriate word for it. So we call it our venture arm. Very interesting. And so you've got, repeat, investors that are very excited with what you're doing. They like need to put money into new opportunities, get them another bite of the apple each time.
Yeah. And we also Hammer, and, companies we brought in from after we've invested in, and then we kind of provide them with discounted services, access to advising, things like that. So not much in the startup studio state because we're not that formal, but we have that approach and that community is really what's been important. It's just creating that community of businesses that can you know, borrow ideas, talent, and kind of grow together. That's fantastic.
So there's a there's a whole bunch of things in there I wanted it to catch on. You said comic, and I wanna know more what you meant by that because I I'm not sure if you're talking about, like, comic strips or if you're stand up. Comic strips? No. Comic strips. Yeah. We have a lot in common. I I did a number of them for a long period of time, and one of my start was called the funnies. It was one of the few times I tried to get out of technology and do something that just was fun.
And it was literally the funny section of the newspaper that was good. I know that. Yeah. But somebody just called it that. The funniest. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It ended up being pretty big until the, about 2008 when the print industry completely collapsed and my the printers I was using across the country, all of them were shutter. And I was like, well, I guess I'm done, but I did comic myself for a long time.
I the first one was called, cold copy, and it was about, squirrel and an albino magpie who watched the world through, like, a cafe. They lived in a tree. They were both afraid to come down of it, and they watched the world and made commentary on it, of what happened in front of them. Ours were more in juvenile. Our big hit was a boner man. Boner man was a big hit for us. Nice. Nice. Like, definitely more juvenile. But, like had a good time.
But, yeah, it's, yeah, that that like, it it's such a cool like, opportunities to just have a creative outlet and decide, just in tech, you get so caught up in, you know, if else statements, you know, I need something. I I often thought of them as almost like 2 5ths. You get code and then draw and or, like, creative and logical, and you almost always put them together, for it to be really exciting.
And and to be fair, to be fair, I was not the one doing most of the illustrations and created as Pablo, but what I was was his inspiration. He's Pablo's, his English is a second language. So he would listen to things that I would say at one point, he told him to cut the shit and tell me tell me what's going on. And he goes, cut the sheet? What what is his cut the sheet? And then, like, 2 days later, he has a comic of a guy chopping up, some shit.
And the guy's girlfriend's asking him, do I look good in this? And he's like, she goes, cut the shit. Tell me how it look. And you go he's sitting there cutting the shit and he goes, You look fat and ugly. I do. So I was I was just muse. Nice. So we were in the business together. We together on it. It was cool going through that process, and they're, like, having some fun. Yeah. Yeah. It it was a weird there was, webcomics were really big about that time too. So a lot of that going on.
Pretty cool. Most of it's just meme stuff now. You know, it's just mean material. Right? And there's there's no way today to really make a living off of that like it was there for a brief shining moment. So it's Yep. You use all that to kind of build a personal brand so you get yourself a job. Right? That was the second thing is that, in about that time period when the fundies closed, I was doing the the first version of this podcast, which was called SuccessU.
And me and my business partner, who had another business on the side called Innovocus, kind of actually what you're doing. We ended up too successful with a resulting side of it and got pulled away. I got yanked into Nike to be their entrepreneur and help them build out their, digital innovation teams and their direct to consumer business. Which turned into a while I was there, it went from nothing to, $2,000,000,000 a year. Part of the business now it's like 16.
He went off and did some other stuff. And I guess stuck in that exact same pet trap that you did, right, where you're you're working for the paycheck, but the paycheck's so that it was hard to con like, you can't really complain about it because you're doing well, but you're not betting on yourself. You're not swinging for the fences. And eventually, like, I had to get back to it. For me, though, I took a little longer. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, That's that's very true. That's super tempting.
And that's sort of like that. A lot of entrepreneurial journeys end up that way, where they really are just getting themselves personal brands is maybe they they don't wanna deal with the corporate hierarchy and the battles and the politics that help them kind of level up within a corporate environment. So they go ahead and they spin off on company, and maybe they get acquired, and they just end up with jobs within these organizations. I've got friends who are in that position.
They got paid out okay. The earnouts are so difficult in any ways on half these aqua hires that I'm like, you're just getting a job. So I've been very careful not to do have been sucked in a few times. Like you said, I've done I've done that too. It's easy to get enticed into that, and it's it's flattering when you get those offers over and over, and it's hard to say no to these people. We're like, oh, I need you I fractional CTO stuff. I mean, I did pick up CTO work. Right?
Like, it it's really hard to say no to those people because you know you can help them. They've got the funding, but you've gotta bet on yourself. And there's a really cool, there's something interesting along that same lines that occurred when my wife's father passed away, he left some money, not a lot, but I went and talked to every, you know, every person that I do, every person I've looked up to, and I said, Hey, if you had this much money, what would you do?
You know, some people say, every investor real estate, some people say, throw it in stocks and bonds. Some people say, do this, do that. And I had one that the guy that I worked for at the bar at the time, really great guy Nathan Stanton. I don't know what he's doing today, but he was really successful that consortium holdings group down in San Diego, great group to work for. He gave me some really interesting advice. He's like, one thing I regret is that I didn't bet enough on myself.
So exactly what you said is he's like, if I do it all over again, I would have bet it all on myself. And that's so interesting that he, you know, I think we're looking I look back on that. I didn't do I didn't bet on myself. I had been part of it. We we did some of it for ourselves. We we we did buy some real estate in San Diego that did okay, but You know, if there's anything I regret in during that time was I just didn't bet on myself enough.
Yeah. No. I that's the one that haunts me a little bit. And I for me, I pride myself on being a strong learner. I, and I'm always seeking out the opportunity for mentorship to, like, learn from somebody else that's done what I haven't, right? And I've I'm always striving for it, and that has led me in some ways to almost doubt myself more than I should.
You know, others were more willing to bet on what I knew and what I said than I was myself, because I would say it with a certain amount of, like, I don't know my mic a little bit. Right? Right? You know, just feel like you're you're a little bit that that's imposter syndrome. Right? That's the phrase everybody uses. Yeah. And the the reality was This actually just recently happened, where I was hired by a very large company to help them try and spin off another company.
And, in the of it, I the person that we brought in as the CEO of that group was like, Christian, you know, you're the best entrepreneur I've ever met. I was like, whatever, Kim. Sold the Google, you've done more than I have. And she goes, yeah, but I didn't do any of those things. The things that you just said about product development growth, all that good stuff, even how you think about organizing teams, I don't know anybody like that. Would you beat my beat my mentor? And I was like, what?
Your ex Mckenzie, like, you know, you've done all these things. I haven't done any of those she goes, yep. You've been in the battle. You've been doing it for a long time. You tripped on all the landmines along the way. You've learned. And these are things that I've never, you know, I've never really gotten through. I was like, Okay. Great. So now I'm the old man with the wise and you don't now people are supposed to listen to me and I'm like, well, okay. Well, that's true.
And I still have a lot of learning too. Everybody does. I haven't done large numbers of the things I wish I Hammer, then why am I not taking the bet of myself? I'm convincing these companies to bet on me. Right. Why am I not taking that bet, which is what got me right back into it? And I love it. It's a stressful life. You're never feel like you're quite attaining everything you think you should because you're know. I I always feel like there's another amount decline.
There's another hill to go over, and you're always looking at that. And I I think it's more like there's another bullet to dodge. Yeah. Sheesh. Right? Because as an entrepreneur, you're really just paranoid of the next bullet. Right? The the next mountain, you you've got the legs. You've got the arms. You've got the you've acclimated. You can climb mount everest if you had to. But the problem is you don't know what bullets are coming at your head because maybe some market shift will occur.
Or somebody in your team will have suddenly, I don't know, embezzled money, whatever. Maybe that's never happened to me, by the way. I wanna, like, there's always, to me, it's the paranoia of what hell could I potentially, like, what's gonna suddenly show up? I know, I know if my goals are there, Hammer path. I can tackle that, man. I got it.
I'll I'm willing to work the 12 hours a day if I have to. 15 hours Elon Musk sleep in the in X's headquarters if I have to, but it's the unknowns that get me and cause me always to have that lack of but then I, you know, what I do is I roll back and I say, well, if I were an employee, would I feel just as as if I were a day to day employee for one of these, you know, if I were 8 at Amazon, No. Just watched all those people lose a bunch of jobs. So, like, it the certainty becomes relative.
So that's what's allowed me to to continue that journey and not I can't go back. I'm actually more confident now. Like I said, I regret some of the ways that I did not trust myself, better myself, but now I'm like, I, I actually feel more comfortable in this position as an entrepreneur than if I were to go get a job, because I know probably at the job, I'd be disruptive. I'd probably pissed someone off. Right.
Yeah. The the the bullet dodging thing was exactly right because as soon as you said, I was like, that's it. That's it. It's fear of the unknown coming from and it could be a giant competitor with a machine gun coming at you, or it could be the silent killer of some startup in in the corner in the bushes. Right? You have no ideas there. So true. One other thing I wanted to ask you about because I saw the shirt, and it says, yeah, it says something yeti hockey club.
Yeah. So do you play hockey first of all? Of course. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can see, well, your your viewers see it, but I have a broken nose right now and a little bit of a black eye because I just I got took a stick to the face a couple couple weeks ago. Yeah. It's not a it's not a pretty sport, but yeah. Going on? No. I played 20 seasons with firefighters. And Awesome. Yeah. It was awesome. I I only stopped recently because, the nearest ice rink, I have to take a ferry to get to.
So it's just not practical. Right? But I love ice hockey, favorite game. My wife's grandfather played the NHL before they wore helmets. Oh, wow. Yeah. They get to it. I'm sure his nose is probably crooked too. Was. Yeah. And they were helmets, and he was, just an amazing skater, even at, like, ninety years old, you could still out skate me. Right? It's, it's a crazy skull. It just never goes away. It's like riding a bike. Right? So Yeah. Very cool. But it is it's applicable to some of this too.
I use I use Hockey analogies all the time, you know, like, that playing defense or yep. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, my co founders are Canadian, and, he grew up playing hockey. It's the only sport he ever played. And so most of our internal dialogue about things we use hockey is the multiple metaphor for it. You guys would absolutely kick my butt. I'm a California hockey player, so you know we're I'm a I there's some pretty good players out of California now. What is it?
Is an Matthews or maybe he's out of Phoenix. I don't know. The Phoenix, but, yeah. Actually, I I never thought that, a California hockey was particularly bad. There's just a lot of ice rink. So there's a lot more opportunity. And there's just great high school athletes and junior athletes because there's so much competition. There's a lot of people here too. Yeah. The Pacific Northwest, we had probably more ice ranks per capita, but there's not that much competition. Yeah. It's true.
True. Like Boston, I will playing there. I was shocked how bad most of the players were. It's like Really? Boston, you expect them. Yeah. There's just like a You grew up late. Did you? They're like, yeah. But, you know, Pawn hockey with my friends, and they all sucked. Alright. Yeah. Very bad. I mean, if I played roller hockey, even. So there you go. There's some, there's some California for you. Oh, wow.
I I did a little bit, but after I played ice hockey for a long time, and it was, dangerous because There there's on ice, there's things you can't do on roller blades, and I didn't know that for the first couple times I was out there doing it. Like a hockey stop? Oh, yeah. That's a big one. Right? You keep your momentum in both sports, but the way that you do it in hockey is usually, like, the transitions forward to backward. Like, that's the way you're doing that.
If you tried that on roller blades, you're dead. Like, you're you're going into over real fast. Yeah. I I have a hard time, so I ski also. So I think in 1 week, I steed played roller hockey and ice hockey. My feet were so confused. Oh, man. Yeah. Well, ski, yeah, I grew up skiing more than the more than not playing hockey. So, the skiing thing, people were, as I was learning to play hockey more and more, they're like, Edge is a the same idea. I'm like Yeah. It's the same idea. But it's not.
I mean, it is, but it's it's a different, pace and your footwork at even your stance is different. So a different muscle. You pick it up faster than someone who doesn't do either sport, right? You're not going either way. But at the same time, yeah, that, that week, that transition back and forth remembering what you're supposed to do. Like, what's weird muscle memory that just gets confused and Yeah. Hammer plenty of spill for like, oh, I'm not on ice. Oh, I'm not on, I'm on a sneeze.
Yeah. Sorry. I totally distracted. I'm easily stressed. It's all good. So I wanna know more about what you guys are working on. What's the what's the meta plan? Like, besides the consortium, like, as you're picking off individual businesses starting each one up, there's a there's a puzzle that you're putting together. I imagine.
Yeah. So, again, it all kinda comes back to the lesson that I learned working for those small is down in San Diego is we're creating a community of projects that we can move people from one to the other and and retain talent longer. As you know, in technology talent tends to be about a 2 year life span. They find they find other things. They get bored of one project, one move on to the other. So what I have is ability forward. We use similar systems throughout all the businesses.
We have a playbook, so to speak. It's not as formal as, you know, you'd get out of one of those renewal conventions that sell you their playbook, but we have a general playbook that we use that allows and, you know, boilerplate code that we have from project to projects project management and tools that are similar.
So what it does is it gives us a community of people who get to try on different hats, get to be a little bit of an entrepreneur, get to go play in creative, or good to go play in this technical world, and allows us to create this talent pool that we retain all of that reinvestment that we put into those people. So I think what's really sucky about a lot of, technology startups is those they put so much time and effort into creating that culture team.
And then, again, someone gets aqua hired away, or they've they're just basically resume building. But what we've created is people who've been staying with us for 10, 11 years. And it's pretty awesome, and it all came from that concept from the the restaurant group that I was at because they used the same POS. Okay. They had the same, checkout, like, end of night closing procedures.
We all had parties together when we all the different restaurants would come together and we trade shifts with people from different restaurants in the talent pool just became so deep. So our goal is to continue to build the community. That's really if you wanna, like, our, our current meta goal is to just continue to build this community of talent. Investors and, and systems to grow all of our different verticals.
So again, kind of diversifying what we're doing in terms of some cash flow services businesses with some venture, type businesses, some in homegrown startups, bootstrap startups, and all will kind of moving people around and keeping that momentum and fun going that allows us to have many different shots. Right? So we have 2 in particular right now that are our sort of our moonshots that we have, which are 2 SaaS products. 1 called a crew and another one called DealSend.
These products, crew aims to kind of solve the problem of accounts receivable and payable. So automate your invoice reminders, provide client statements that are beautiful and wonderful and easy to look at silly PDFs that you get out of quickbooks and also some budgeting and planning around projects. The other one is dealsend, which connects investors and founders together and creates a a joint CRM with automated due diligence.
So those are our 2 big SaaS products that we're hoping to get to that, you know, $50,000,000 ARR rate that gives us the wonderful exits. So we do have those plays, but in the meantime, we have an agency that's got fifty people working at it. You know, we've got good good clients building set for REMAX, founder shield, National University, good clients like that.
And then in 2 weeks, I'm going to, Las Vegas to go to EDC because our our cinematography business won the media contract for shooting all of Las Vegas EDC at the motor speedway. And they're hoping to, you know, you know, maybe we can get the F One stuff over there. There's just so much cool different things going on that it's it's it's hard. It's a lot of, context switching. But it is, it's pretty amazing to see the whole group coming together. Amazing. Amazing.
So if people wanna know more about what you're doing, if they want maybe they wanna they're looking for shop. They don't put an operating event themselves, or they have something that might be a good, opportunity to partner with you. Where would they go? Fyclabs.com is the primary day to day So that's our that's our software development agency. You can check out fractal group. Io as well as if you wanna kinda check out what we're doing as as the fractal group. Deals send.
Io if you wanna learn about that investor platform and accrue.co, if you wanna learn about our invoicing platform. Justin, this has been an amazing conversation. I love having you on a ton. Thank you so much for being on the show. Likewise is fun to talk to a fellow hockey player. And that's a wrap for this episode of Tectastic. Wanna thank you personally for joining us, and we'll see you next time. Until then, keep exploring, and stay curious. Thank you for listening.
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