[00:00:27] Jay: Hi, everyone. Welcome The First Customer podcast. My name is Jay Aigner. Today, I am lucky enough to be with the pilot in command, Bill Evans himself, the CEO, the founder of Liberty Fox. what's going on, brother? How are you?
[00:00:39] Bill: I'm doing good, Jay. Thank you so much. you know, it's been a great week so far and just looking forward to the weekend.
[00:00:45] Jay: I bet you are. You're probably, we were just talking about flying. we have a shared passion there and also agency on her. So, tell me, man, where did you grow up and did that have any impact on you being an entrepreneur?
[00:00:55] Bill: Yes. So, I actually grew up in Northeast Philadelphia. My parents still live there. And, you know, my, my grandfather was an entrepreneur. My father took a stab at it, and ultimately didn't work out, but, you know, it definitely runs in the generational blood and I figured it was my chance to do some trailblazing.
[00:01:11] Jay: Did you,was Liberty Fox the first company you tried to start?
[00:01:15] Bill: yeah, I didn't, I, you know, I had ideas before that, but this is the first one that I actually, really started and brought to fruition.
[00:01:21] Jay: Got it. And how, what, how did you start it? you know, when did you start it? And what was the process?
[00:01:26] Bill: well, I started the company back in 2010, so 14 years ago. how did I start it? I got laid off from my last job and I was unemployed. and, basically, The company had actually gone belly up. They were out of business. And so I was enjoying unemployment for about two weeks before I was completely and utterly bored.
I couldn't watch another episode of Judge Judy, and I couldn't find myself going to the bar 12 o'clock in the afternoon every day. so it actually worked out that, The customers, that had worked with, my, my previous company, since that product no longer existed, they'd reset to me personally to ask me, help them transition to something else.
And, then the, then the company that actually acquired their tech reached out to me and asked me to repurpose it. So that kind of was the beginning.
[00:02:09] Jay: Did,did you get like the immediate, like, oh, this is going to be a business or are you just like, this is something I'm going to do for now because I don't want to be unemployed?
[00:02:17] Bill: Not at all. Actually, it's kind of funny. I wasn't thinking business and I can actually almost kind of thank my first customer who's still a friend of mine and also a fellow, aviator. he, when, he bought the health care, when he bought the technology for, that business, he asked me, Hey, well, can I hire you to repurpose it?
I said, sure. He said, yeah. He said, you should start a business. And I said, why? He's like, well, so I can't sue you. and I was like, oh, that's a great idea. So as his recommendation, he was being tongue in cheek, but he's also being serious. I started Liberty Fox and then started doing independent consulting at the first, that's the way it started out.
[00:02:50] Jay: It's funny how many, like actual action items come from people kind of tongue in cheek joking, because I've had that same experience a lot of times along the way, somebody will say something that they don't want to, you know, be telling you to do it, but they're like, you know, they're kind of telling you to do it in a nice way.
So, where did Liberty Fox, the name come from, by the way, I've always wanted to know,
[00:03:07] Bill: It's a fun little, little bit of trivia. So the Fox is pretty straightforward. The neighborhood I grew up in, in Philadelphia is called Fox Chase. So just stole that straight from where I came from, where the company officially started. and then the Liberty is a little bit of a double edged thing.
Primarily an onshore organization. We wanted to kind of, portray a little bit of patriotism and the liberty. But then it's also a fun fact that in the 1800s, Northeast Philadelphia actually tried to secede from Philadelphia and call themselves Liberty City. So it's another fun fact about Northeast Philly.
Back then it was like a downtown and I'm like, why are we Philly? Why do you keep gobbling up these neighborhoods? We're paying all these city wage taxes and it's a day drive to the city. We shouldn't be Philly. They obviously failed and Liberty city was never born, but it's a fun little fact.
[00:03:52] Jay: that is a very fun, maybe the funnest fact I've learned, this
week, that's a great, I did not even, I'm going to have to look that up. That seems like a very, I love that sort of it's always weird to me that like we live in this current state of whatever it is, but like, it hasn't been like this and it won't be like this.
We're just like in whatever it is today is like what we're living in. But like, you know, a hundred, 200 years ago, whatever they were trying to secede and make a whole thing. I love the history of that. So tell me about the company. How did you go from doing independent consulting to like going, okay, I need to hire somebody else to work with me or for me?
[00:04:21] Bill: Oh, it was an experiment, honestly. So, I had been, you know, so I ran the company from 2010 to, 2013 all by myself, just doing job after job bouncing between a couple of different companies, and just kind of making sure that I was lining up gigs so that they were good to go. but then I got a couple of requests come in at once and I was like, huh, there is no way I can do this.
you know, I'm kind of curious, maybe I should consider hiring. So. I had like two, we'll call it two and a half, you know, two and a half fractional clients. And I did the math and it was going to be about 70 to 80 hours a week. So I was like, all right, well, maybe I can hire. So I did the risk assessment in my head.
I said, okay, well look, worst case scenario, I failed at hiring somebody and I have to work 80 hours a week for six months. Good for me. I'll make some extra money. Worst case scenario, it's still doable. So the risk is very low, but let me try to hire. So I ended up hiring two part timers, who, who split one project.
And then I took the other project myself. I was still very much a dev back then. And one of those part timers is still with me right now is my longest tenured employee.
[00:05:16] Jay: That's, I have the same story, and one of my longest. Tenured employees is actually working with you guys. and it's the same, it's like,it's a testament to a good business owner, I think that somebody wants to work with you for more than, you know, five minutes or, you know, a week or a month or a year.
And they just, they hang around because you treat them like a human being and you treat them like, you know, I hate the, I think corporate America has ruined, families calling. Their employees business, I mean, a family, but I think you do feel that, right? I mean, you spend more time with those folks and you do your own family.
So it's kind of hard not to grow attached to them.
[00:05:51] Bill: Yeah, 100%. we treat that like, you know, everybody here, like I stand up for you. I will support you. I'll defend you within reason. And I will also help you grow. And so this guy came on as a junior developer part time and now as a full time tech lead, you know, basically co in charge of my entire technology division and, you know, I've watched him grow over 11 years.
[00:06:12] Jay: and what, what are some of the lessons you learned during that kind of initial hiring phase? Like what is a good tip for somebody who's trying to hire for the first time?
[00:06:23] Bill: That's a good question. it is initially terrifying and your, your natural reaction is going to be a micromanage. And you really can't do that. you got to give people some room to scrape their knees and make mistakes. And the other thing is, you know, I can jokingly equate it to having a baby.
There's never a good time for the first hire. There's never, it's not, it's just do it or don't do it. Right? Just like, don't be like, well, maybe next year, next month, or maybe in three months. You're always going to have a reason to wait a little bit longer. Just take the plunge and the worst case scenario, it doesn't work out and the right people will get that if you're a small bank, the couple people that I hired, I was working out of my apartment.
I had a three bedroom apartment. I converted one of those bedrooms to be an office for two guys and they would come and knock on my door and work in there. And I was like, look, my risk is low. Worst case scenario. If it doesn't work out, sorry, guys, you had a job for a couple months
[00:07:14] Jay: right. No, I love that. well, and speaking of skin, knees and, you know, broken bones, what is the What's the biggest mistake you think you've made so far? And what was the lesson you learned from it
in all of my business. business? I'll give you a minute. Cause it's been 14 years. So like, there's probably one or two along the way, but
[00:07:31] Bill: I mean, I would say it's a challenge. I still have today and it's really hard because we talk about culture and family. I tend everybody always says higher, slow and fire fast. And I tend to be the exact opposite higher fast and fire slow. I don't really hire fast. I tend to be more methodical with my hiring, but I'm very slow to fire, probably give people 1 too many chances and.
I've allowed that, with certain employees in the past that are now longer with me. I've allowed them to become a toxic cancer and damage my culture. and if I was gonna say where that falls on me is I allowed culture. I,I'm very sensitive to company culture, and have been for probably about eight years.
But early on, I kind of just let the culture evolve ad hoc without any guardrails. And before I knew it, we were turning into like corporate America. I'm like, we don't have 50, 000 employees. We have 10. Why do we have rules about who can touch the air conditioner? You know? So, yeah. So I would just say, my biggest mistake was be sensitive to culture, be sensitive to people's feelings.
They're still people. And I would say loyalty, truly skill is important, but if skill is in the ballpark of what you want, loyalty wins.
[00:08:41] Jay: yeah, no, that's a great point. And I, somebody told me one time early when I started this business was, You know, first impressions are always correct for employees. Right. And I found that to be probably the most true thing. Like people are who they are and can they improve and change? Yes, they can obviously, but like the core stuff, like dependability and communication.
And like, if that is off from the start, I have found that to be. Kind of consistent throughout the relationship. It doesn't really change or get better. Do you, have you felt kind of the same way?
[00:09:12] Bill: Yeah, well, you're, you know, what you're talking about, like, essentially soft skills. soft skills, I've noticed, are way harder to cultivate out of somebody than hard skills, right? I have trained hard skills over and over again. I've trained my staff on better software development, better practices, better SDLC lifecycle, you name it.
I've taught them new skills. I've taught them new languages. I've encouraged them to go think outside the box. Hard skills are way easier to teach than soft skills and soft skills are pushing a boulder uphill. So if somebody is a little off on soft skills, you might be willing to take that punch, but if they're way off, they're never going to get better.
[00:09:48] Jay: Right. Yeah, I totally agree. So tell me who is the, Who is the customer for you guys today? And has that changed over the course of your business? have you, are you serving different customers now than you did 10 years ago?
[00:09:59] Bill: I would say not different, but more limited and rifled. we started kind of as The handyman we fix all makes and models. We'll do whatever you want. You want us to fix a shingle on your roof. Do you want us to replace a window? Obviously, I'm using metaphor because we're in software development. but, We've gotten a lot more rifle.
We've brought up the floor of project size that we can deal with and we've gotten very targeted into the healthcare space and a few other industries. We're housing logistics, but we really tried to change our brand image away from being. And we don't advertise ourselves as a software development company anymore.
We refer to ourselves as a software consultancy with specialties in certain industries, because companies like to work with companies that get their domain and understand their vertical. And when you say you do everything, that's really, even if you can, at the end of the day, what we do is really business workflow and it applies to so many different industries.
But they don't want to hear that. I want you to pick a couple. And so I would say we're still doing very similar to what we did on the first day. Just very particular with the customer base that we target.
[00:11:08] Jay: That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense. I was going to say, I would be very impressed if you guys were actually changing shingles and, windows as a software development shop. That would
[00:11:18] Bill: I didn't even make
[00:11:18] Jay: that would be a generalist. That would be the ultimate generalist. If you guys will also fix your office, for you. how are you guys? Marketing today. Do you put a bunch of money into paid ads and SEO and whatever? Are you doing more traditional kind of bdr stuff reality conferences? Is it a mix of it? What do you guys do to get your name out?
[00:11:37] Bill: Great question so that has been a 14 year experiment with lots of failures and a couple of successes. we have not seemed to figure out the secret sauce around cold outreach. Although we have a couple new experiments in 2024. we're kind of, you know, re engaging in that space. We've actually been very dormant in the cold outreach space.
we have had salespeople in the past, and, they were great people that just weren't in a position to be successful. so you're looking at the salesperson of the business right here as well as my business partner. and so, What we've actually done is decided to direct our time into channel partners and our channel partners represent over 90 percent of our inbound referrals.
We pay them a commission, in perpetuity on all business they bring in, and they tend to be very strategically aligned. They're talking to the same customers for different reasons. And it's a very reasonable introduction to connect us. And so I spend most of my sales time. cultivating and empowering my channel partners.
and then where the rest of my time I spent as a sales engineer, actually scoping out projects and then moving them forward,
[00:12:43] Jay: And it's a great point and I think I don't know if you've seen bob moore's book is kind of exploding the ecosystem led growth Which is basically channel partnerships and all sorts of stuff like that. how do you cultivate? Those relationships, if at the time you don't have anything to offer them, right?
Like, I mean, now, you know, if we're going to work with a QA tools company, if I can give them a lead and I can say, Hey, these guys need a tool. We can help implement it, but they need a tools that we're going to send them to you guys. Then there's like a very clear, you know, then they'll go, Oh yeah. We'd love to work with you guys.
You're bringing us business. how do you do that today? If you don't have a, you know, one in the chamber when it comes to like, we're going to give you business today. How do you make that appealing to them?
[00:13:21] Bill: well, that's a great question. And I think what I've realized within reason is people don't necessarily need a referral in a bow, you know, to, you know, they don't necessarily need me to hand them business. What they want is for me to hand them relationships. So what I do when I meet somebody. I make it very important that before the end of the call, I say, what is a good introduction to you?
I usually try to say, look, I understand what a good client is for you. Like Jay, I know what a good client would be for you. I mean, if I, if it falls in my lap, I'm going to say, go talk to him, but it's far less likely that I'm going to have a client for you, but I may have a channel partner for you. And so, I have a pretty, Large Rolodex of, connectors and I try to understand what, what a good connector would look like a good synergy would be.
And, I usually leave a call almost any call offering somebody between one and three introductions. And that usually gets the same reciprocity. On their end as attempting to get me some business. so, so that's one thing that I do with them. And then we just try to stay engaged with them. You know, one thing I refer to them as channel partners, not referral partners, because I want to make sure that we have some cadence that we stay in touch, usually some kind of a quarterly recurring meeting that's sticky on the calendar, we do like a yearly channel partner appreciation event where we bring them all out and say, thank you so much, regardless of whether you refer to us business this year, you've chosen to put our hat on and our brand on and represent us in some way, shape or form.
Thank you. Come have, you know, come have a cocktail and food on us.
[00:14:51] Jay: No, I like that. That's a great idea. yeah, I think that's, yeah, that's where I think a lot of people struggle with partnerships is, they don't have the value to add immediately. So they go, well, why am I going to even reach out to these people? Cause they don't, you know, I don't have anything from, I love the relationships.
Like, Hey, I know somebody, you know, somebody it's more of a networking that leads to partnerships kind of thing, which I think is actually how we met was from some networked, Person in our, I think it was a Mac,
somewhere along the way. so, and that came from like another connection that I met from somewhere else.
And it's just all these different, but I love the fact that you're kind of engaging in that, like active networking to end yourself in a partnership. Cause that's. Like you said, they're dealing with the same exact customers. Once you identify who those people are, why would you not work together?
Why would you not pass business back and forth together? So I think that's a super powerful thing that seems to be on the rise again. Like, and have you seen cross beam that, Bob Moore's platform?
[00:15:45] Bill: yes. my business partner is very excited about it. He's been reading about it.
[00:15:48] Jay: Okay. Well, yeah, we'll have to both get on there because I, I have an account. I just haven't done anything with it yet, but that's the whole premise of that is to just share, you know, partnership information and leads and all that sort of stuff. So I think it's a, going to be a big one that comes out.
I feel like my wife's like, is that something you think you could invest in? I'm like, I don't, I'll talk to Bob. We'll see. That's, it's going to be a good one. so, let's switch gears real quick. three things. Okay. That you're doing as a business owner to increase your longevity personally, like not business wise, which is personal health wise, mental wise, whatever.
I mean, it's a lot of stress and the job is not meant for some people. what are you doing to kind of stay sharp and to make this last as long as you can?
[00:16:24] Bill: Great question. I think, a couple of different things. I really enjoy learning. So, you know, mental neuroplasticity, like when I actually have some time to like veg out on the couch, I'm watching educational YouTube or, you know, reading about something that I really want to know. So like, I always love learning.
I'm like, you know, my friends, my girlfriend calls me, bilipedia.so like, that's something I just think is like, as much as it's like, you know, stressing the brain, it's also something I relax with and, you know, as a fellow aviator, I actually find flying to be a form of meditation because you're so focused.
On the fact that you're flying an airplane that you're really not letting cross thoughts fill your mind and as much as from an outside perspective, a non aviator might go like, that's gotta be so stressful. I feel so calm once I've landed and parked the plane. I'm like, that was just an hour of, like, relatively speaking, an empty mind, you know, like,
[00:17:16] Jay: Yeah.
[00:17:17] Bill: So, those are some things I like to do that just really, just, you know, you have to have some me time, right?
Like, you know, within reason, I try to make sure that at least one day of the weekend is work free, you know, I can't say I don't look at an email here or there, but I try to have at least one day of the weekend. And ideally both, if I'm not super busy, ideally both where I do not pull that laptop out and just respect my weekend and work harder during the week.
cause if you work a little bit every day, you're going to burn out so bad.
[00:17:43] Jay: Right. Yeah. No, that's, those are great tips. And I feel the same way about, flying. I think that's why I love it so much. It's like, it's a,It's because you're in a flow state the whole time. I think, right. It's like an artist or like whoever who's like just doing something.
And you're like, you're in your zone, you're checking dials, you're scanning for, you know, you're talking on the radio, doing all these things. There's no time to think there's no time to worry about, you know, the laundry that's piling up or the dishes or like the kids or whatever it's like, you're just, and then you get down and you're like, holy shit, that was, an intense. But needed, therapy session. So I
[00:18:14] Bill: Yeah, you know, as a fellow entrepreneur, I feel like we all have some variation of ADHD. So if that's a perfect way to satiate that,
[00:18:22] Jay: Oh, yeah. It's I mean, you couldn't get any better, man. You just whistles and dials and bings and boops and, you know, planes and wind and everything else. So, I love that. all right. So last question, non business related again. if you could do anything on earth. And you knew you couldn't fail. What would it be?
[00:18:39] Bill: like, something like on my bucket list,
[00:18:41] Jay: Sure.
[00:18:42] Bill: I want to go to space and come back down just to do it. Like, I'll do the Jeff Bezos way. I don't care, but I would love to see the curvature of the earth and come back to talk about it.
[00:18:53] Jay: I love
that. I, that is a, a shared, answer to that question. A lot of people feel the same way. I don't know if I would be able to afford the Bezos ticket, but, you know, I think
[00:19:02] Bill: it's up there.
[00:19:03] Jay: it would be very cool. It's on my list too. I love that one. All right. If you want to reach you, Bill, directly, how do they do that?
[00:19:09] Bill: You can just go right to my email. It's bill at Liberty Fox tech. com. Liberty like the Liberty bell Fox, like the animal tech spelled T E C H.
[00:19:18] Jay: Beautiful. All right. Well, hope people reach out and, it's always good seeing your brother. We'll have to have lunch. We'll go flying soon and, enjoy your weekend. All right.
[00:19:24] Bill: Thank you so much, Jay. Same to you, sir.
[00:19:26] Jay: Thank you, brother. Appreciate it. See ya.
[00:19:27] Bill: Have a great day.