The Exchanges

Q Okay. And of all of those businesses, which was the one that was most exciting for you?

A The e-commerce business was the most exciting at the, um, probably because there was a new industry being opened up. In addition, the scale of that organization was national and international. So we, we were working with very large Distributors at the time, uh, I think one of the largest or the largest HVAC distributorship in the world. We were working directly with manufacturers. We were, um, working with 30,000 contractors across the US. I built the computer systems to manage that and, um, and generated a lot of strategy to create a A type of business that, you know, didn't exist at that scale before, um, because we were opening a new, we were opening up new channels, new distribution channels in a very closed industry. So that was, that was pretty exciting. It is different than that sort of, that sort of work is different than, um, you know, creating a better mousetrap. You know, when there are already mousetraps that exist.

AI assessment note: “The e-commerce business was the most exciting at the, um, probably because”

Q Yeah, didn't they let him? They let his blood go?

A He was killed within, uh, something like 40 hours. Um, less, less than that, in fact. Uh, because, um, He has, he was traveling around his estate, just like looking at stuff and enjoying a ride. Um, it was raining out. He was late for dinner. He decided to not change his clothes, as the story goes, to show that he could show up on time, you know, cause, so he could show up to dinner quickly. Uh, he subsequently got a sore throat. As one might do being out in the cold and the rain, you might end up with a sore throat. It happens. In fact, we might take a cough drop today, but instead, uh, they gave him a salve of ground up beetles, uh, and they swabbed the back of his throat with, you know, the ground up beetles because that's what a person would do. Uh, they also gave him an enema. Just to, I don't know, make sure everything, make sure everything's out of him, you know, because the poor guy had a sore throat. They bled, bled him several times, which would have led to about 40% blood loss in 24 hours, and so a man who showed up late to dinner, ended up with a sore throat, was killed by the doctors, Of that age because they were already wrong in very specific ways to, to pretty large degrees in ways that they were not aware of. They wouldn't have been aware of that in their lifetime. Most of those people who would have believed that those were the remedies of the day, they did, t…

AI assessment note: “They bled, bled him several times, which would have led to about 40% blood loss”

Q So what made you want to get into entrepreneurship?

A I think that it's always been in my blood. I don't know that I knew it could be any different. Um, I come from a family of entrepreneurs, let's say, or a entrepreneur. My dad started a trucking company a long time ago, uh, and maybe 50 years or something like that. And so I grew up in a family of people who just did their thing. They launched, you know, they launched companies and And worked out of them, and so I've always created things. That's, I think that's the basic of it. I got a computer at a young age. I was a self-taught programmer and started writing software. I think out of, out of that idea of, well, well, if I can create all this stuff, then, you know, it's just a little, it's just a short jump from people wanting to buy it. I never went to school or something like that where somebody's like, hey, you could be an entrepreneur. I think, you know, they have that right now. You know, you introduce kids to entrepreneurship. Well, I was introduced to it already. I didn't know I couldn't.

AI assessment note: “I come from a family of entrepreneurs... My dad started a trucking company”

Q uh, zoom fatigue where some people can't handle that. So, you know, we're all, we're all different. And that's why companies are, are so interesting because if everybody was great at everything, then like nobody would be good at anything. So you need to have your, your customer service specialist, or your sales specialist, or your marketing specialist. So when did you get the idea to start your first company?

A I would say that my first company was way back when I was in sixth grade. I created a system to sell fish, an ERP system. My friend and I were going to sell ERPs a little bit loaded, but I created a point of sale system at least, uh, to sell fish and inventory them from my friend's pond. On an old IBM, two 86 or three 86 or something. Maybe it was, maybe it was a four 86 at a time. You know, I was, I was dreaming of business. Then I got to the point where I was, like, selling the ability to write code. My dad paid me to write code for his company before I, before I worked technically at the company. And then I was doing IT work. For some reason I got into IT work. I thought, you know, I know computers, I can fix computers, I can help people. And so, you know, I'd run around and people pay me by the hour to fix their stuff. So after dabbling in all of these things and figuring out a lot of what I didn't care about, I was working at a, uh, they called themselves a cross media firm. So basically it was just, Hey, we do the internet stuff and we do video work and, and we do graphic design. That's what it was. We do all the design things, name them. We do them. That company, I was a technical account executive there. So I would go in with the sales guys. Or a salesperson who didn't know anything about the internet, and I, because I could cross both chasms, and I was good with people…

AI assessment note: “my first company was way back when I was in sixth grade.”

Q Okay. So then what's the most important thing or the hardest thing that you know you want to do and yet you haven't done yet? Besides skydiving.

A I don't know. I, I would, I'm going to philosophize this a little bit on you. And not turn it into a particular thing to do, but a, but a quest to be on. The hardest quest to be on, having, having started, run, grown several companies, exited some, advised a thousand more entrepreneurs by now. Um, and Been around, been around the block a bit, you know, not my first rodeo. Um, the hardest thing to do is to get out of your own damn way and just be confident in being humble. There is, that is the absolute hardest thing to do for me. It might be different for somebody else, but the hardest thing to do is address your own self and how you are not, how you're getting in your own way. And again, how we get in our own way might be different for everybody, but for me, it's, ah, for me, it was asking for help and not having to figure out, like, I had to do it all the time and, and really engage experts and be okay with that. Um, that was a big, that was a big deal to me. Um, and, ah, waiting, like, not chasing after every, every new thing, that was a big deal for me. Um, Because I'm capable of so much. I've done so much. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Um, you know, bite the bullet and just stop. Shut things down. I mean, that was, it was a big deal to sell a company. You know, how do you stop the business ball from rolling? Once you get it started, it's very difficult. Um,…

AI assessment note: “I'm going to philosophize this a little bit on you. And not turn it into a particular thing”