Jay: Hi everyone, my name is Jay Agner. Welcome to the First Customer Podcast. Today I'm lucky enough to be joined by John Sicilian, uh, of Sicilian Partners. John, how are you buddy?
John: Fine. Jay, thanks for having me. Excited to be here on this Monday.
Jay: Yes, this Monday. Uh, it is Monday all over again.
John: Yeah,
Jay: so Sicilian Partners, we're just talking a little bit about it. It's a prop tech company, uh, which I find, uh, very interesting and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more about it. But let's, um, let's talk about where you came from. Uh, where did you, where'd you grow up?
Jay: And, and, you know, kind of what impact, if any, did that have on your entrepreneurial journey?
John: that's a great question. So I've had the privilege of living all over the US. Uh, I was actually raised by an entrepreneur. So I was born in Chicago, uh, lived in South Florida. And then I've been in really the Northeast the last 25 years. Uh, my mother, believe it or not, had a real estate, uh, strategic marketing and branding company, uh, that serve the exact same crop of clients that we serve today.
John: And. Uh, she started that business from the ground up, uh, and very much had a, a lot of opportunity to learn from her. My professional background, however, is, believe it or not, in retail. So for about 17 or 18 years, I worked for a bunch of different global brands, uh, started cutting my teeth at Abercrombie Fitch in the early 2000s and had the privilege of working for a variety of others, Michael Kors, Under Armour, uh, just to name a few.
John: So it's been great.
Jay: those. It was like the who's who of like 90s, 2000s
John: Yeah,
John: that's right. Yeah. Thank you.
John: Yep.
Jay: of micro cores, like you said, and a bunch of other ones. So, um, I saw you went to a couple colleges, right? To, was it Villanova? And what
John: Yep. So I went to, I went to Duquesne University for my undergraduate degree out in Pittsburgh and then I went to Villanova for my MBA. Yeah.
John: Yeah.
Jay: uh, how did you, what, you know, that retail journey that you went through, where
John: Yeah.
Jay: of start to, to etch out that you wanted to do your own thing?
John: Good question. So, you know, retail is tough with the advent of Amazon really throughout the two thousands. It really changed how retailers think about brick and mortar retail. Uh, and so you have this sort of evolution of brick and mortar retail meets e commerce meets mobile commerce on. It's sort of sort of We did how jobs were allocated to many of these organizations for me.
John: Personally, I was sort of the byproduct of layoff. So I had almost three layoffs over the course of 18 months. In the back of my mind, I always sort of fought with the idea of becoming an entrepreneur and having the I think both stamina and bravery to be able to kind of go out and go out on my own to make it happen.
John: And I really took sort of that final layoff Labor Day weekend 2018 is sort of the trigger. Um, to finally go out and bring all the things I learned in and around retail and how you engage with customers and bring that to residential real estate, which I think is a, an industry starving for help when it comes to customer engagement.
Jay: Very interesting. Um, what do you think? I mean, obviously you're kind of forced into it, but what, what, um, during that course of your career did you kind of build up to, to be able to say, all right, on this last layoff, now's the time. What did you learn? Like, what was kind of like the, the, uh, the final straw, if you will?
Jay: Um, you know, what did you learn to kind of propel you into being an entrepreneur as opposed to just going back to another retail place?
John: Sure. So I will say, I'll be very candid. I think part of it is that I was angry. Uh, I think I was sick of executing other founders visions.
John: Uh, I thought, I think it was time to sort of take my own vision and actually. Glean all the things I adopted from working for some of incredible founders that were out there.
John: I had the privilege of working for organizations, founders, so companies as big as Michael Kors, as big as Under Armour. I had the privilege of having, you know, peer to peer or face to face interaction with these men and women that wanted to cultivate and build these brands. And so I think for me, I felt that I had enough knowledge to be able to go out and sort of realize my vision.
John: And no longer sort of be the service person, uh, for others visions, if that makes sense.
Jay: How did you decide on what the vision was going to be for your company when you stepped out?
John: So I had a very clear vision of what was broken in and around real estate. Uh, my wife and I, about a decade ago, bought a production home from a builder. And we really felt that our experience buying, uh, and experiencing production home sales, right? So you go through a process of touring model home visits, going online, going in person.
John: It was so broken. I didn't understand why. The process of shopping for, let's say, a half a million dollar home was more cumbersome and dislocated than buying a great pair of sneakers at Under Armour or buying a handbag at Michael Kors. In my mind, I thought, geez, this is supposed to be the singular most important purchase of someone's lifetime, and it doesn't feel like it's being treated that way.
John: And so part of my sort of hypothesis was, can I adopt and bring in this retail methodology of thinking to. All things residential real estate and that I think was sort of the start of how things began to unwind
Jay: Interesting. How did you set out to solve that problem? What were your kind of first steps to kind of
John: Yeah, so my first steps my first steps were to see if I was uh full of baloney or not and here's what I did I decided to, uh, secret shop Toll Brothers. So, right here in, in Greater Philadelphia, Toll Brothers Corporate Office is in Horsham, Pennsylvania, which is in our backyard, if you will. Uh, and I had the privilege of touring 12 of their communities between, really, New York and New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
John: I wrote up a report on what my experience was like through customer experience, both on the online side as well as the in person side. I took that report and I sent it to their then chief marketing officer, a woman named Kira Sterling, and their CEO, uh, a gentleman named Doug Yearley. And when I sent that out for them to review, I got their attention.
John: They actually asked me to come on site and share with them my findings of what the experience was, where the opportunities were. And that gave me tremendous, like, Validation and that my hypothesis of what I thought was broken was indeed broken and told brothers was working to get that fixed, you know, in short order, but it was very validating, you know, doing this in sort of an unpaid, uh, unique way, right?
John: I just stood in front of these men and women that were all at the time, you know, gainfully employed. Yours truly at that time was unemployed and I was, I let it rip. I decided to put my full self out there and that was such a validating moment that gave me the courage, I think, to move forward.
Jay: Wow. Where did it go from there? I'm very curious how that, I
John: Yep, so
Jay: unique story. I'd love
John: Yeah
John: So that would have been the fall of 2018 late fall. So call it like October October November 20 2018 from there I decided to go to pitch a Residential developer out of Dallas Fort Worth on my big idea of how to solve the customer journey Uh, and when I pitched him that idea, he told me that he had a software product that they built in house that they thought was going to change the game for community development and home building.
John: And I asked him to show it to me. Uh, and so when he showed it to me, I realized that that product was built really only for their organization. It wasn't something that could be commercialized, wasn't off the shelf, required some TLC and some real development work. And so I gave a commitment to him. I said, Hey, look.
John: I believe that I can build a team around this idea, my idea and customer experience, your software product, but I can build a team to commercialize this product and get it where it needs to go. Uh, and I said, give me six months and I think I can raise a million dollars on this idea. So we put together a, uh, uh, sort of a, a combination of a purchase agreement and operating agreement.
John: And I went out and made that happen. Uh, I did a million dollars in six months. Uh, so January, 2019, I started my business June 3rd, 2019, I became fully operational, brought on my co founder, uh, and a couple of other teammates, uh, and the rest has been a wild ride since lease J. So, so yeah.
Jay: I, You know, everybody's got pandemic, uh, fatigue, and I don't even
John: Sure.
Jay: about it, but it is such a formative time, especially, you know, an impactful time and a formative time in your business. Um, how did, you know, what did that mean for you guys at the time?
John: It's very scary. I think that's something that's not talked about. I think you go out on your own. I'm married with two children. Uh, you know, I was paying myself very little to kind of believe in this idea. We were working out of the basement of my house in 2019 and we were, uh, you know, working towards a goal.
John: We did not know what to expect. I think there was so many unknown variables. Obviously, the global reaction of the pandemic and what that did created a lot of worried and a lot of headwinds for about six months. And then there was a shift. Uh, and that shift actually was a benefit, believe it or not, uh, a behavioral benefit to who our clients are.
John: Here's what I mean. That shift with COVID 19 in the peak of 2020 into early 2021 resulted in new home construction sales skyrocketing. And people that were living in sort of urban dwell were now leaving, going into the suburbs. And so these markets that were once growing started to grow even faster.
John: Markets like Austin, Texas, Denver, Colorado. Uh, places in sort of the suburbs of New Jersey and Philadelphia, all of a sudden became this hyper growth. And what that resulted in is home builders and land developers needing great software to help them understand that journey for the customer. Jeez, how do I manage my lot inventory?
John: How do I tell my Community story. How do I manage all of these incoming leads and do it in a way that's digitized, you know, jay One thing you should know that's important is that in residential real estate we do business like it's 1990 You know, there there are so many third party studies of industries who are late adopters Uh, it's all things technology and innovation And believe it or not agriculture was ahead of real estate in this study done in 2020 by McKinsey and Harvard Business School.
John: Really, really funny stuff. So I say it's sort of tongue in cheek, but it's real. It's, you know, COVID 19 forced our industry to adopt new behaviors, new innovation in a way that otherwise they might not have done.
Jay: Interesting. Very cool. Do
John: Yeah.
Jay: how tied is your business... To those new home sales and is it somewhat you know is there is it somewhat insulated because there's always gonna be new home sales And you
John: Well said. Yeah, it's
John: it's definitely the latter. It's definitely the latter. It's definitely insulated because people need homes, whether it's a built for rent product or whether it's a new home, people need homes and all in all major markets. I think that's a very realized thing. Um, at the same time, I will say to you that it is a little bit insular in that.
John: We are not a cost center to our clients, right? We very much are providing both the service as well as a way to Visualize and realize data that is exciting, right? So it's not like they write us off as a cost center or nice to have We are making our clients faster more efficient in a way They never were before and I think that's why we are foundationally different as an organization
Jay: Interesting what do you what do you think know, I'm not gonna say took you so long but what what You know What took the time to start the business for you? Was it that you needed the experience over those years to kind of see how to be a business owner? Like, what do you,
John: Good question
Jay: ten years ago as opposed to when you did?
John: So there's a series of events that got me there. Um, and I'll try to give you the abridged version. So those series of events are, uh, I, my undergraduate degree is an organized psychology. I've always loved people behavior in the studies of team, uh, organized psychology. Organizational development is essentially how.
John: organizations, corporations are formed, right? Understanding pod management, people management, why there's layers and sort of how these org structures come together and and human behavior behind that. And I was recruited by Abercrombie and Fitch in college to sort of be in their manager and training program.
John: And so my undergraduate degree was very complimentary to sort of managing teams and people building strong teams, allowing that to kind of happen and evolve. Fast forward, uh, I am at working for Under Armour, realizing that I probably have some opportunity to understand traditional finance and accounting in a way that you can learn on the job, but business school will help.
John: So, I applied to a variety of different executive MBA programs. I got into Villanova's executive MBA program and a handful of others. I chose Nova for a whole host of reasons. Uh, one of the greatest schools in the region. Love what they stood for. Uh, there's a whole couple other ideas there too. But within that, uh, I was there from 2014 to 2016.
John: And had the privilege of meeting a guy named Ned Moore and Ned Moore is a serial entrepreneur here at greater philadelphia Uh, he I have tremendous respect for Ned. He's become a mentor for me He's a board member today of Sicilian partners But he recruited me when I was in grad school to work for him because he sold a loyalty commerce platform to all everybody in retail And so I was sort of their industry SME if you will And it was exciting, Jay, because I had the opportunity of learning from an entrepreneur and understanding software as a service and seeing how he built multitude of businesses, but that business specifically that company's called Clutch, it's out of Ambler, Pennsylvania.
John: And I learned a great deal from Ned. So that part, if you will, from 2017 to 2018 is when I got laid off at Clutch because they had a reduction in force, which is sort of standard for, I think, early stage tech companies. But within that period of time, I learned so much. It was like a secondary schooling.
John: It began really the, the momentum for me to think about, gosh, I think I could do this. I think that there's something there, but you have to be willing as an entrepreneur. To believe in yourself before anything else. If you don't have clear vision and you don't have the confidence to do what you want to do, I do not think that you will be successful.
John: I think it creates a whole laundry list of challenges. So to be honest, over 17 years of retail management, working for a bunch of brands, I always flirted with the idea. I just didn't have, it just wasn't ready. I just wasn't aligned to do it and do it right.
Jay: Interesting.
John: Yeah.
Jay: that, that's not the same, is that the, which clutch is that? The clutch, the, the tech review site?
John: No, there's a bunch of clutches to your point. So it's called Clutch Holdings.
John: Clutch is a, effectively a loyalty, loyalty management platform. They work with point of sale solutions, e commerce solutions, if you will.
John: Gift card solutions, too. Yeah.
Jay: Okay, I wasn't sure which, which clutch it was.
John: Yeah, no problem.
Jay: um, Who was your first customer? I mean, who,
John: So,
Jay: of talked about a little bit, but I mean, who would you call
John: Yeah, that's it's a great.
John: No,
John: I can, I can tell it and talk about it because it's all about relationships. And I think it's obviously the most important part of what we're talking about today. Our first customer was a group out of Orlando, Florida called Tavistock Development Company. Um, Tavistock Development Company, uh, develops Lake Nona, uh, outside of Orlando, Florida.
John: Uh, as well as another group called Sunbridge are the two big projects they do. But over the years I developed a relationship with a guy named Jim Zaboral. And Jim Zaboral at the time was the president of Tavistock's real estate portfolio. And what I learned in that first customer piece was it was an incredible, I think, catapult for us to earn trust and respect in the industry because Tavistock is so highly regarded.
John: The reason why I think we earned that deal is because I formed a relationship with Jim that was based on a foundation of trust. So he knew that we were a four man company, very early stage, trying to make it work. But he knew that we had a group of people that were smart, driven, and unified with vision, and could really help his company.
John: And I think because we had that foundation of trust, it allowed us to deliver for them. We had a tremendous amount of mistakes. It was very difficult to deliver our platform in a time in which we thought we could. And so, there was sort of an understanding in that Jim said, Hey look, you're going to learn, we're going to learn, but you're also going to learn, right?
John: So there's this kind of unique dynamic of, can you develop that foundation of trust with a would be client? Because you've been open and candid the entire time and you've set the right expectation that you can make some mistakes along the way, uh, and also continue to learn. And I think that's why we had such success with our first customer.
John: But I think it's worrisome, Jay, like many organizations, in my opinion, or many founders might not be willing to be radically candid with their customer and be able to tell a very clear story of, Hey, look, we're early. This is going to be bumpy, but we're going to make it work. I don't know. I don't know how many people feel comfortable in that way, but that was a great learning lesson for me.
John: There's still a customer today. We've been a customer for four years, and it's been a wonderful ride with them. And, uh, but it was a tremendous amount of learnings there in the very beginning.
Jay: Beautiful.
John: Yeah.
Jay: it. And I think, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think the people who are not comfortable typically Uh, uh, they, they don't put that forward that they are, it is going to be rocky from the start, right? You're trying to have that nice shiny veneer and that everything's going to be
John: Yeah,
Jay: and they try to be the brand that they think they want to be down the road, but it sounds like you kind of set expectations from the jump that like, we're going to learn together, which is, I think is a great, great way to put it.
Jay: Um, so, uh, if you had to start to ceiling partners over again, uh, tomorrow with the lessons you've learned so far, what would be step one?
John: I think step one, that's a hard question, um, I think that I would raise more money from the beginning. I think that one of the things that my co founder Phil and I have always done is try to protect our equity as long as possible. And I think when you start a business in your, in your late 30s, early 40s, yours truly, you know, you have a different take on what it is you're trying to build.
John: Um, but... You're scrappy and being scrappy is really hard because it limits your ability to grow. Uh, It limits your choices So I do think step one would be raising more money Uh and be willing to give up more equity in the beginning believe it or not, uh than where we currently sit today
Jay: Interesting. That's a new, I've not heard that. I like that. Um, well let's switch gears a little bit. Um, as, like you said, I mean, I'm in my late 30s so I'm right there with ya. Uh, what do you think uh are three kind of healthy things mentally, physically, you know, whatever it is, uh, as an entrepreneur, as a dad, as a husband, um, that you're trying to do to, you know, on a daily basis to increase your longevity, uh, as a, as a human being on this earth.
John: Great question, so, uh, I have I have three kids, uh, stella delilah and this business Uh, and I will tell you that I shouldn't say that because at the end of the day, to put my business at the same level of importance as my Children is sort of a unique thing. Um, one of the things that I talk a lot about, but I wish I did more is the opportunity of really investing in self and investing in self can be things like Anything fitness, whatever that would be to use the whoever's listening or engaging today.
John: That could be something simple as a walk, a great bike ride, a run, competing in an event. But I do think that sort of sense of self and making sure that you find that even 15 minutes a day to get outside and move. I think that movement is such an important thing. The second thing I would argue is. Open communication with sort of your circle.
John: So think about kind of that hub and spoke analogy right where you're in the center and the outside of those spokes would be your founder and business people. Those that are closest to you, an advisor, mentor, board member, right? Your spouse, right? Even your Children to a degree as you kind of go around the wheel and this idea of being able to be open and candid with how you're doing all the time.
John: I think that that's not comfortable for everybody, but open and steadfast communication. It's a huge plus. It works for me. People know where you're coming from. Uh, people have context and it allows you to get things out, which I think is really important. The third is diet. Uh, I do think that what we put in our bodies really does matter.
John: Uh, I think that you have to be sort of mindful of what that is. No doubt as things become stressful, we might make bad choices. Maybe we drink more alcohol or eat more sugar or smoke a cigar or whatever those things are.
John: Uh, we do to try to limit those, but still allow yourself to have those with grace, believe it or not, I think is important.
John: Uh, I don't think it's a cut it all out, but I do think moderation is key with what you put in your body and making sure you have sort of those balanced things, right? So, sure, enjoy having that ice cream, but make sure you try to eat balanced, whatever that looks like and get those nutritional needs that you need so you can feel better, uh, I think is, is, is, is core.
John: So, uh, again, you know, fitness or movement, uh, communication and really what you put in your body, whatever that is. So,
Jay: communication one. I love all three of them, but I love the communication with, uh, especially, um, That's something I've to get better at, and I think, um, not always, just the ability to recognize that you're wrong sometimes, or that,
John: yeah.
Jay: like, that's been the biggest key for me, especially with, you know, my wife and my kids, is like, I don't have all the answers, but like, It's okay to say that you don't have all the answers as
John: Yeah.
Jay: you know, willing to, to listen and change and grow.
Jay: So I love, I love all three of those. Um, uh, mystery question, last, last one. Um, I've been steering this away from business because the business answer is the easy one where you can just say, I want my business to be the greatest thing in the world.
John: Yeah.
Jay: what's something you would do, uh, if you knew you couldn't fail?
John: Wow. That's a crazy question. Um,
Jay: right? But it's, you know, maybe it's a bucket list item, maybe it's whatever. I don't know. What would you do if you knew you couldn't fail?
John: gosh, I don't get stumped. That's a good question. Um,
Jay: ha ha ha.
John: I wouldn't do anything actually.
Jay: Really? Mm hmm.
John: I'm wired different than most. Here's what I mean by that question. The reason why I wouldn't do it is because it ain't worth doing. You see, to me, the, the notion of failure excites me because I know that when you fail, you learn. And that to me, the idea of being able to make that, take that risk and overcome what that might be, gives me a great sense of worth.
John: Um, an example of that is in 2017, uh, I decided to train for an Ironman event. Uh, I've been, I was a, I was an active cyclist for many, many years and wanted to do something really hard and different. And an Ironman event is sort of a crazy thing. It's a 140. 6 right? Swim, bike, run, you swim 2. 4 miles, you bike 112, and yeah, you run a marathon.
John: Crazy idea. Uh, and I set myself up for six months. I trained as hard as I could. I went out to Lake Placid and I finished that Ironman event in 15 hours and change. Um, what's my point? My point is that that to me has so many room for failure and so much opportunity not to finish. And that, after that event, Jay, it rewired my brain around what you physically and mentally can do if you put focus on it, which still has so many failure points, if that makes sense.
John: Uh, and so to me, uh, it's a great question, but I don't know if I would do anything. I think I would just say, you know, cause it doesn't have the same level of merit or value, right? I think that's what's so interesting.
John: Um,
Jay: very interesting take on the question. I haven't, I've heard people, uh, weasel out of the question. But I won't
John: Ha ha,
John: yeah,
John: yeah.
Jay: You qualified it, so I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, uh, I'll
John: You let it slide? Alright, cool.
Jay: you definitely qualified it, I, but it's, it's a great point.
Jay: I mean, it's a great point. Like, everything that's a little scary is the things that kind of
John: Yeah.
Jay: to do better things. So that's a, that's a fair, that's a fair answer.
John: Yeah.
Jay: alright, so where can they find you? Where can they
John: Sure.
Jay: Partners? Like, how
John: Yeah.
Jay: touch if they're, they're looking to learn more about you and your
John: Yeah, for sure. So, just a simple Google search, SicilianPartners. com, you can learn everything about myself and my team. Uh, SicilianPartners. com will tell the story of who we are, what we're about. Uh, we have a really great LinkedIn presence as well. We really try to share twice a week all the things we're doing for our customers, our community, uh, as well as our teammates as well.
John: We, uh, We're really proud this year actually, uh, through the Philadelphia Business Journal, we're awarded it as, uh, one of Philadelphia's best places to work. So I'm very proud of that. We're really creating a culture of, of belonging for people. And I think that they feel really excited about being part of Sicilian.
John: So, uh, yeah, so pretty easy to find.
John: So thanks. Yeah,
Jay: on that honor. That is a big honor. Uh, you want people to want to work with you. That's, that's been my biggest thing as a business owner.
John: for sure. Jay. Thank you,
Jay: well, it's been great, man. Uh, you're an
John: man.
Jay: You're, uh, you know, I think people can learn some stuff from the stuff we talked about today and I hope people reach out to you to learn more.
Jay: So, uh,
John: Appreciate it.
Jay: and we'll talk,
John: Yeah.
John: Talk soon. Be well. Thanks so much, Jay. Yep. You too.