Psychology of Successful Entrepreneurship: John Kerber

Summary

In this conversation, John Kerber, founder of WhoFi, shares his entrepreneurial journey, discussing the inception of his company, the challenges faced, and the pivotal moments that shaped its direction. He reflects on the psychological aspects of entrepreneurship, the dynamics of co-founding with Luke, and the importance of trust and communication in partnerships. John also delves into the lessons learned from failures and how they contributed to personal and professional growth.

Takeaways

• WhoFi was created to solve real problems in community spaces.
• The journey of entrepreneurship is filled with highs and lows.
• Understanding user needs is crucial for product development.
• Pivoting can lead to unexpected opportunities and growth.
• Trust and communication are vital in co-founder relationships.
• Failures can be humbling and lead to greater self-awareness.
• The psychological makeup of entrepreneurs can impact business success.
• Analyzing customer feedback can reveal valuable insights.
• Partnership dynamics can enhance business resilience.
• Success often comes from learning and adapting to challenges. The value of a well-defined target market is crucial for success.
• Entrepreneurs often struggle with defining their audience due to a desire for broader appeal.
• Understanding the customer's problem in their terms is essential for growth.
• Personal growth can be significantly influenced by participation in entrepreneurial organizations.
• Delegation and letting go are vital skills for business leaders.
• Earnings are necessary for reinvestment and sustainable growth.
• Entrepreneurs face unique inflection points that require personal and professional growth.
• Emotions can cloud judgment and hinder problem-solving abilities.
• Leadership behavior sets the tone for team dynamics and culture.
• Entrepreneurship offers freedom, but it comes with responsibilities and consequences.

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Transcript

Speaker 2 (00:01.086)
All right, Christian Brim back here from the Dream Big studios. Have a wonderful guest today, John Kerber with Hoof Eye. Welcome. I'm great. Thanks for coming. Yeah. So give us the two minute version of John Kerber's and Hoof Eye.

Hey Christian, how are you?

Speaker 1 (00:21.954)
Yeah, so as far as Whoify, we do software and tools for community spaces, So libraries, parks, museums. We make it easier to manage a community space and also stay connected with their community, with their patrons. So think like a calendar of events, registration and reminder emails for somebody to go to an event, booking the meeting rooms. We also do this thing with wireless statistics so we can see busy times of day.

and collecting stats and things like that. So basically, lot of the tools that are out there for community spaces are not very good. And we just kind of came in there and said, you know what, we're going to make this better so that it's easier to run a community space. Because I used to run a co-working space, the 404. And I ran into all those problems with that. so it just kind of, you know, it was sort of like half-solving my own itch and problems that I had.

when I was running my co-working space that ultimately shut down. So trying to make it easier for other people like me, effectively.

Well, that's how a lot of great businesses get started, is scratching your own itch. So, how long have you been doing WhoFy?

Right, right.

Speaker 1 (01:36.91)
Yeah, so I left Paycom in 2012 and it was that summer that really like launched Who-Fi and so yeah, so it's 2024 summer, so it's solid 12 years, which is, I mean, that's a solid decade.

So plus, plus some. So what are some of the highlights of that 12 years?

Oh, I mean, you know, that's what's kept me engaged the whole time. It's like there's so many different things that are like new highs during the whole process. So, I mean, one of our big wins was getting the State Library of Ohio to basically use the WhoFy service in all the public libraries across the entire state. And that was in 2016, 2017, and that was awesome. And then we kind of continued with

working with different states that would provide it to all the libraries and kept getting those until about 2020 and then of course COVID hit, right? And so we were just doing the wireless statistics. That's what we started off with. But then when COVID hit, you know, I was kind of looking around talking to our library customers and it was like, you know, did everything just change? Right? Because suddenly, I mean, we could see in the Wi-Fi stats drops of 70 to 80 % usage of the space.

And what we saw was, you know, there were some places, right? There were some places that they kept going, right? They started doing like Zoom story times. And so basically just decided that our role would be to document, the Wi-Fi statistics drops, because I like, this is just fascinating. This is a once in a lifetime situation.

Speaker 1 (03:25.41)
we just need to like track this for if nothing else, just to show up on like a history channel one day about usage. Because we could see it. We could literally see in our data like what was happening. And then two was we wanted to share like the people that were that we were talking to that weren't that didn't look like they'd been hit by a truck or didn't seem like they were they were excited. They're like, you know, now we're doing these videos on YouTube and now we're having more people show up this way. And, you know, kind of all the things that people kind of who successfully navigated COVID were doing. And so we started like

Blogging about it and telling people about it and then and then that's when it became more apparent You know again some of the other tools that were out there, you know, yeah, there were calendar programs But they weren't like making it easy to share a zoom link and this is like what everything was and so we just started kind of down this path of like well, you know the You know the the events have changed right like people's expectations of being in person or virtual have changed and so that was a big win too like when we basically kind of

pivoted from just the Wi-Fi to doing like calendar and meeting rooms and all this, know, with kind of a focus on, you know, the hybrid element of being in person or virtually to almost everything that people do now, you know. And so, you know, that was kind of our second or it was kind of a major pivot in 2020 from that. And that was a big win. then, you know, I mean, then there's been

big wins along the way too. Like a most recent one is we just opened up a WhoFi UK. So we opened up a subsidiary in the UK and it was because the University of Glasgow, Caledonia, they wanted to start using our Wi-Fi statistics, but now they're interested in like the meeting room management and all that. so that's been a big win too. So it's kind of our first international, you know, library and university that's using us. So.

So that was a win. getting to like, I mean, getting to our first thousand libraries was a win. And then, you know, now we're at about, I think we're at like 16 or 1700 or something. it's just, yeah. mean, you know, opening the new office was a win, you know, getting to 10 people was a win. like these all felt like wins along the way, you know? And so it's hard for me to say like a single. No, no, that's great.

Speaker 2 (05:29.23)
I'm surprised.

Speaker 2 (05:42.734)
So what were some of the low points?

man, low points. So we originally started off as a Who's on My Wi-Fi security app. And this is some of the same technology. I would say, I very distinctly remember year three, because year three was when we actually got to like a million free users. So we got to a million. Think everything should be amazing. However,

A million free users literally don't pay anything. By definition, So, you know, we're, we'd, I'd read all about the freemium and, all those kinds of things, you know, with a million free users, think about the level of support and questions and stuff like that, that comes in from that. And we were making $30,000 a year, right? Between my co-founder and I. And it was just like,

By definition.

Speaker 1 (06:36.814)
So painful, right? So this is circa 20, let's call it 2014 or something like that, 2015. And my co-founder and I had basically just like, what are we doing? And we'd launched a router, we'd taken on a little bit of investment money, we had an employee and launched the router. Router fails, right? So because we thought that was like another thing. so, mean, literally around, I mean, want to call it, let's call it like...

February of 2015. I mean this thing is teetering on just absolutely shutting the whole thing down right because my co-founder and I were like What are we doing the the guy who built the router? Is like well this didn't work and that's right, you know and and you know, we because of the free users Well, okay. So let me just stop there so this thing's teetering like we're about to it's about to just shut down and my co-founder and I literally have the conversation of What are we doing? And should we just shut this down?

You know, the one kind of the kind of spark of it was I don't know if you know Danny Maloney is from Tailwind, really good entrepreneur in Oklahoma City area, tech entrepreneur. know, I telling him about what was happening, you know, because what was happening with all this for users is we were getting, I mean, we were getting, you know, 100, 200 something signups per month, right? Okay. And then we were churning 180 signups within two months or three months.

We had this constant set up process and everything. And Danny and I were having lunch one day and he basically was just like, so John, have you ever looked at the people that don't churn? And I was like, what do mean Danny? He's like, you know, you've had thousands of people, or you've got millions of free users, you've had thousands of people pay for the premium product. You know, most of them leave. I'm like, yeah. He's like, have you ever looked at the people who don't? I'm like, no Danny, I never thought that.

And so when we analyzed it, there were basically like two groups of people. was banks and libraries. it was like, this is weird. And then we called them up and we're like, know, John, who's on my Wi-Fi? Sorry, using our paid product. What are you doing? Why are you using it? And for banks, they still saw it as a security tool. And they were like, well, it's just low cost. And the security is OK. But if it catches one guy eventually, cool, then it was worth it.

Speaker 1 (09:02.27)
And the libraries were different. They were like, you know, we're not using it for security. We're using it for these like wireless stats that we have to provide to the state and all this kind of stuff. And so they wanted something totally different. They wanted privacy. They wanted all these kinds of features. And my co-founder and I were just like, man, this seems like a good mix. know, like this seems like this would work better. And so we talked to him and...

and then just started pivoting the product that way. So then that was how we became Who-Fi and that was how we started working with libraries. But it was literally in this moment of 2015, companies teetering, the security company that was originally planned is failing. Luke and I were like, okay, we've got 12 months to make five grand each. So when you and I can make five grand a piece, this thing can continue.

And then that's what happened. So we literally put all of our energy into postcards and emails and all this kind of outbound to libraries. then that's when the whole thing kind of shifted. So that was definitely a low point. An early employee leaving, product failing, pivoting, for sure out of money. was just like, that was an absolute low.

At what point, after you pivoted, at what point did you know, okay, this thing's not going to fail?

Well, I think yesterday. No. I don't know that it's not going to fail has ever entered my mind. think it has always been kind of a, you know, there's always something in the back of my mind that could like take it down. You know what I mean? So, you know, but I would say when we finally felt a little bit of breathing room was in probably about 2018, 2019. So at that point,

Speaker 1 (11:05.058)
You know, we had these individual libraries across several states. had some state deals. So we had the state of Ohio. We had the state of South Dakota. We had the state of Iowa coming on board. state of a lot like, you know, and it was like, OK, and I looked around and not only that, but because we'd grown, I mean, we probably about a thousand libraries then could actually hire because that was the next thing. Right. It was like, OK, we start to get all those libraries. Well, it still kind of Luke and I. Right. And then we were trying to hire people. But.

you know, then we were making $100K. Well, you can't really hire a lot of people. Like, you can hire person. Like, you've got like, hundred. Right. You know, so then it was still just like, you know, and, you know, he's doing all the work, I'm doing all the work, the new person's doing all the work. There's a lot of work to do just to kind of like, get that going. And so, you know, and the other thing is because we pivoted, I mean, we're like year five with like, just a handful of people. You know, and so...

So yeah, I would say that was that was still just kind of continual right but But yeah, I mean, I don't know if that answers the question

Yeah, when we discussed you doing this interview, yeah, you were a little resistant at first sure Why

Yeah, so I think it probably comes down to a couple different things. So the first is that a little bit how you framed it was that you were talking about the psychological makeup of entrepreneurs. And I'm not super excited about anyone having my exact psychological makeup. So that was one concern. And then the other concern was just that

Speaker 1 (12:51.534)
I've definitely been around film and video and audio recordings and stuff since I was like a teenager. And certainly it's usually better to have edit control than not. I guess I would say so. So it just kind of, when it was sort of framed as, I'd like to dig into your head and dig into the psychological makeup of you as a person and your history is like, ugh. So that was concerning. And then the other concern was just things like,

your head.

Speaker 1 (13:22.06)
certainly have already seen times where things get recorded and you think it's like thrown away, but it's actually not. then you see it years later and you're like, my gosh, you know, what, what was, what was I saying there? Right.

Well, so let's talk about the psychology of an entrepreneur. we've covered a lot of ground on previous episodes, but the thing that keeps surfacing for me is this concept that the character traits that make us disposed to be an entrepreneur, to start a business,

Those character traits can become liabilities after the business is started, right? And the idea of being self-aware to know that you, the individual, the entrepreneur, are the business's problem.

Right, so a business has lots of problems. If it has employees, it's got people problems, you have customer problems, you have competition problems, you know, all of these things that every business has. the one that I think that is often overlooked, I definitely overlooked it for a long time, is my effect on the business and how I was potentially

limiting the business? Not potentially, definitely. Because of the way I showed up, my behaviors, my biases, prejudices, thought process, feelings. So, can you talk about that?

Speaker 1 (15:25.142)
So as far as kind of like my behaviors, which are also, you know, what would lead me to become an entrepreneur and start my own company and do things like that and then how those turn into liabilities. Yeah, I mean, think about it for just a few seconds. I as an entrepreneur, one thing was I didn't like being told what to do.

Pretty much, I still don't really enjoy that. Even when other people have way better ideas, that's a problem, right? So, start it off as a reason to do it, right? But then, can definitely be an issue because, you know, as the company's grown, I'm not the expert in everything. Not even close to it, right? Other people become the experts and when I don't take the advice of the experts that are on my team, that can be a real issue.

Yeah.

That's one thing. I was kind of in the hard worker achiever camp or whatever. I would want to take on a lot of projects and effort and do stuff till 8 o'clock at night, whatever, to get things done. then, and so that was a positive because that helped the company and the product get off the ground. the liability on that is either A, I expect other people on the team

to behave in that same manner or B, I don't delegate enough because I'll just like, I can just do it. I can just throw five minutes. I've got 10 minutes. I can do that. And then literally, I I find myself still in situations where other people on the team are waiting on me because I've thrown too much on my plate because I just think that I can.

Speaker 2 (17:10.445)
I think for me that showed up in two ways one. I had this expectation of work like I had to work hard right and I that's different for everybody but like I had an expectation of myself of what I needed to bring to the table right if it needed to get done I had to make sure it got done But you know the thing that I I realized was for me the flip was

When I always felt like I was having to pull everybody along, right? I was the workhorse and they were just kinda getting drugged by ropes behind me. Was when I felt like they were actually taking the lead and going in front of me. Like they knew where we were going and so they went ahead and passed me.

Right? And started doing the things to get to where we needed to go and I was like, holy shit. I can't tell you exactly when it was, but it was in the last, I don't know, two, three years that it was like, wow. I didn't believe that was possible, right? I thought that if something had to get done, I was the one to make it happen.

Yeah, got it Yeah, I luckily Luckily because I have a co-founder who's like a college friend of mine from 20 years ago and We played rugby together and everything Let's let's just say we don't pull any punches in our conversations. So so you know,

bottom of the scrum nasty stuff happens.

Speaker 1 (18:59.648)
Because I've heard that before, it hasn't been my experience as an entrepreneur. And I think a lot of it is because Luke has been able to be like, hey, John, you're being a jackass, right? Like not, you know, in a very friendly, professional, but we've known each other for 20 years and quit being a jackass way, right? Like he's been able to, I think, point out sometimes when I'm doing that and like, John, why are you not? that guy go.

Right, like what do his thing.

You guys have been together, friends for 20 years. Plus, yeah. You've been co-founders together for 12. 12. That seems to me, my experience, fairly unusual. What would you ascribe the success of the partnership to?

12, yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:52.066)
Yeah. don't know. mean, being totally honest, I have no idea. You know, except that we're very different people, right? So he and I have very different views on a lot of different things. We have a different skill set. So for example, I tried to start a company, I mean, when I was like 20 or something like that. And I have an engineering background and I tried to start with another engineer.

And we're constantly stepping on each other's toes and doing all that. he'd do something, I'd redo it, I'd do something, he'd redo it. So let's just say that project or idea, I don't know if it failed because I think he ended up just doing it himself, but that's kind of how that definitely us working together wasn't going to work. And I tried to launch some different products and stuff on my own, but clearly I have massive blind spots and things didn't really kind of take off.

And really, mean, he was in a situation where, so he has more of a sales operational service type background. At one point he was managing like 4,000 people for kind of a mega cap type company and he got fired from this major corporation that he wanted to like work at for 20 years. well, he didn't even get fired. He got downsized, right? His layer of management was no longer needed. Like, are you kidding me? know, so, and so hilarious.

I was just talking to him and I was like, and he was then very upset about the whole corporate, you know, mega company, don't care about people kind of thing. It's like, you know what? You're right. You should join me and I should leave and we should do this thing together and this, you know, it'll be great, right? Of course that's where I went. And it just kind of worked. mean, it's, you know, I kind of like to say if we were a...

mountain climbing expedition or something like that. Like I'm the guy who's pointing at the top of the mountain like, hey, we need to go there. know, and Luke's the guy who's like, John, that's great. No, yeah, we got to go there. You see that big ravine you're about to lead everybody into? let's go around the ravine. I'm like, it's right there. He's like, yeah, yeah, I get it, get it. Let's go around the ravine.

Speaker 2 (22:01.454)
He's it's more of a yin and yang more of a visionary integrator dynamic. Yeah Yeah, and You know, I think that Relationship that dynamic of the visionary integrator Is it's well, I mean they wrote a book about it I mean it because it is rocket fuel. Yeah, if you can find that person

100 %

Speaker 1 (22:25.634)
The rocket fuel.

Speaker 2 (22:30.508)
Yeah. For me, that was a challenge because I didn't want to let go of the operational, right? Not that I was particularly good at it. It was, you know, when we first tried to implement EOS, we did it ourselves. We didn't bring in an implementer. Yeah. And it failed. And it was only after

we had hired a professional implementer and been doing EOS for a year, which was probably four years after we had tried it, I really began to get some insight as to why it failed. And it was, I describe it as a gut punch because what, there were some small things, but the big reason it didn't work

was because there wasn't any trust. And that trust showed up, that lack of trust showed up, it was reciprocal, right? I didn't trust them, they didn't trust me. And that was a gut punch because I would have told you that there was trust, right? And I think for me in my journey,

The honest self-assessment, visionaries tend to be focused on the mountain and miss the ravines, right? But it's also about not just the external factors of what's going on, but like me myself.

Is there a point in your partnership where, besides the, you know, I don't know if this thing's gonna work, we're gonna have to shut it down. Has there been a point where your partnership didn't work or there was conflict that you, I mean, know, that was challenging?

Speaker 1 (24:52.268)
Yeah, I mean...

Not yet, I guess I would say, it's the... And I don't know, like the people that I'm closest to, that's my co-founder, my wife, my brothers, my sisters, we're skirmishers. And maybe this is just me. I don't... You're saying? Well, no, no, yeah, right. What I mean is I don't let things build and then explode, generally. My personality type and...

personality types of the people that are very close to me. When something's wrong, they say it then. They might give you a day. They might not do it in public. like, it's, I mean, within that day, like if you're, if you're doing something stupid, they're going to say it. And if I think they're doing something stupid, I'm going to say it. Like, doesn't, it doesn't build up into a list of grievances over time. And we tend to hash it out. I mean, I won't go into any details. I mean, we were literally talking about something

Great.

Speaker 1 (25:56.654)
on Wednesday that was like a miss that I thought he had and a miss that he thought I had, you know what I mean? And we weren't mad. was like, well, know what I mean? And things can get like a little elevated, but then it's like done because it didn't build up. was, hey, why'd you do this on Monday? hey, why was this going? know, like, boom, done. And we've done that. We've done that for a long time.

Right. And that's why I said, because we've known each other so long, like, he's not afraid to pull any punches with me. I'm not afraid to pull any punches with him. And so I think it gives a lot more insight. Because what I like to say, and this is my belief of this, is that who's on my Wi-Fi was a company that I imagined I built, had a co-founder kind of come on, but then absolutely collapsed, that I didn't listen to. And really, who fires the company we built together? Right. Which was that like,

You know, that was library community space focused. You know, we were doing different marketing stuff that he wanted to do, some sales stuff he wanted to do, some customer service stuff I wanted to do, some product stuff that I wanted that he would like. There literally would not be Who-Fi without my co-founder, right? There was a Who's on my Wi-Fi without him, right? To some degree.

You know you you just said that you you started it and it was Your idea and it failed and then you you pivoted was there Something that excuse me had to change In you or for you at that point Beyond like the market dynamics of like these are the people that are actually using it and I need to focus on them but like

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:48.684)
Yeah, well that's a really good question. mean no one's ever asked me that, but I would say 100 % yes. And what I mean by that is, you know, who's on my Wi-Fi and the router failing, I would say was probably the first massive big failure of my life. Right? mean like, yeah, hey.

I'd like to ask a good

Speaker 1 (28:16.12)
did not achieve everything. screw up. No, plenty of screw ups, right? But like, this is what I told everybody I was gonna do. This is what I quit my job and left to do. This is what like, you I put all my eggs into this basket and it failed, right? And you know, was crushed, right, by that. But then there was also, and this is what I did not expect from it.

Especially because just a little bit of a backstory on it. mean, it was, we'd launched it on Indiegogo, right? And so Indiegogo, a unique thing about it is that it's 30 days, right? And you know if you're not going to hit it within day two. And so literally, on day three, this thing was like toast. And rumblings were in the company. Like I said, when the guys was going to leave. Everybody flew in. I mean, this is kind of a big thing.

And this launch just completely bottomed, cratered. And there was nothing I could do. There was nothing I could do for 26 more days. And so it was a very like, the first week was just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this, all the things that go through your head, I'm an embarrassment to myself and my family and whatever. But then you get to week two and it's like, well, I guess I'm just gonna sleep.

have everything else to do.

Yeah, there's not really much else I can do. mean, support stuff was still coming in from the other stuff and, you know, still having conversations, but like, I'm gonna rest. And I finally, like, took a rest, you know? And, and it was kind of like, and then at the end of it, I would say it was just kind of like a full acceptance of the failure that had actually just happened, and that that was okay, right? And that not only was that okay, but that...

Speaker 1 (30:12.814)
You know what those other customers again would make like 30 grand but like they mostly didn't even know about it because we've done such a poor job of marketing the launch to it. They still had other things are you know like my my wife still loved me my kids had no idea that the people that were using it for some other thing were still using it for some other thing. And so even though it this thing that like I built up and the team had built up and we built up and it was big in our minds in my mind.

And it completely failed well. mean for the most part Everyone just kind of goes on right and it's not really as big of a deal And so I would say that was a big shift for me just to like recognize that but it but it was very humbling right so I definitely had some some arrogance and ego I mean you have to almost to launch company right so it's very humbling Fair enough it was very humbling to fail like that But also it wasn't you know not fatal right and and

Delusion, but okay.

Speaker 1 (31:11.958)
So it made me a lot more receptive to like, quite frankly, other people's ideas. I would say that like, you know, probably if that first idea had succeeded, but the way even Luke and I's partnership was, if it had been from that idea, which was originally my idea and I'd done some of the work, like it would have blown up later. You know what I mean? It would have absolutely cratered later from my blind spots.

that if I wasn't listening to him, you know, but we had succeeded kind of on the security space. Does that make sense?

Yeah, but I mean I would even push back that it was a failure because if you had not done that work you wouldn't have found the libraries

100 % right percent yeah well And that's that's what's so tough about it too because when people ask me about like finding a market or finding your product market fit You know we basically gave away our product for free to a million people To then which was awful to then find that there were like these small groups of people that thought it was amazing right you know that the masses thought it was garbage, but like to the small group of people it was something they were looking for and didn't exist right and

And those people really valued it and really thought it was great and have really, you know, kept us for a decade.

Speaker 2 (32:32.354)
And I think that's I think that's a critical point that the people need to hear that, you know, you had this idea Yeah, right and You thought it was very widespread applicability It wasn't that you had the wrong idea It was that there was just this smaller subset of everyone that need that actually needed it and would pay for it and and I think that's

One of the traps that visionaries and entrepreneurs get into is they see all of the possibilities. And for me, what that looked like was I had a real hard time defining a target market. For many years, I thought I had a target market, but it was

Yep.

it was way too loosely defined, even the way I had it. And I mean, to the point that I guess I was resistant to it subconsciously. Like I wanted to be, I wanted to be for more people, right? But that's the exact opposite of how you get traction, right?

Yeah, yeah. mean, yeah, I couldn't agree more. You know, it's funny because now 10 years later and eight plus years in libraries, you know, now we're looking at a second market. Right. Right. Like after, you know, now at several people and an office and a product that is well defined and works. you know, and now it seems much more obvious. It's like, well,

Speaker 1 (34:25.408)
It turns out this can also work for universities. But that was a decade of builds and improvements and business processes and everything to get all of it to a point to where, it could actually handle additional people, beyond this narrow scope.

Yeah, yeah, and I think that's a classic, know, I think it shows up in the tech space. Yeah more quickly or easier. It's easier to see But it's applicable to every business is not just knowing your your target market but what the the problem they have in their terms so for existing businesses like ours

That becomes a real challenge because you have all of this baggage that you're dragging along all this history all these biases Your perceptions of what the customer thinks right? Yeah And and you know, this is what they want, right? But you know at the end of the day that's what business is about is solving people's problems, right? And they're willing to pay you money for it. So

If you're not real clear on what the problem is that you're solving in their terms, not your terms, then you're gonna struggle with growth.

Right.

Speaker 1 (35:53.356)
Yeah, no, I completely agree. mean, it's kind of like I'm not really much of a golfer, but my son plays golf and I've of started to pay attention to it. And it's the I feel like it's the, you know, golf is a good analogy for business, right? Like it doesn't matter how how much effort, how much work, how much strength or speed or any of that that you may have naturally or even that that you put into it.

It's really about how well you hit the ball. like if, you know, and the more dead on you hit what the, who the customer is, what their problem is, how they want it solved and the price they want it solved for. Like if you hit all those factors, that's hitting it dead on and it goes straight and can fly. And it doesn't matter if you're six years old, you'll knock it past a 72 year old with or 40 year old, whatever, with all the experience in the world that doesn't solve the problem that well.

Right.

Speaker 2 (36:46.71)
Right. And then you can add things like strength and speed.

And you can do that. Right. But if you don't. Yeah. 100 percent.

So you've had some experience with EO Forum. How has that contributed to your personal growth?

Yeah,

Speaker 1 (37:16.322)
That's again a really good question, Krishnan. Thank you. So I think what I could say is just a little bit of a story, is that after about a year in EOA, I was like, I don't know if I'm getting anything out of this. You know, it's nice and it's fine and everything, but whatever. I was talking to my wife, right? And she was like,

Good question.

Speaker 1 (37:44.376)
Well, I don't know what's going on there, John, but you just seem better. know, like, like she was basically like, you know, you don't seem as as wrapped up in the company. You don't seem as agitated like like you just seem better and like happier. Didn't perceive it at all, you know, and it was and it was actually another guy from EOA, Andrew Cross, that I was having a conversation with.

Interesting.

Speaker 2 (38:01.774)
You didn't perceive that.

Speaker 1 (38:11.756)
the same thing. And he said that to me too. And he was like, and I was like, you know, don't know if I'm getting much out of this or whatever. And he was like, John, when you showed up on day one, you like had your laptop bag with you. Like you were about to check support yourself during breaks or something. And then look at you now, you showed up with a pencil and paper. So, you know, it's kind of like from a business leader standpoint or business owner standpoint, you know,

Delegation and forcing myself to let go and all that like that that had such a profound impact on me because You know that was the thing I didn't do right and I didn't take chunks of a time and like disconnect from the business regular so

Did say that it was skills that you acquired through that or was it like being around other people and seeing how they behaved or what like what what

It's all the above. it's really both. So my EOA journey was five years, basically. there was such an aspect of skills. again, because I go back to my blind spots. So my thought on running a company was, startups are supposed to burn all the cash so that.

you can grow as fast as possible. And I know you're laughing, that's literally what I thought. Because it's risky part of a portfolio or whatever. So that's what all the investors say. You just burn all the cash. OK, that's great for VC funded. For Bootstrap, that cash is yours. And it burns out real quick. So I'd made that mistake. so was actually, I think it was you that pointed this out, that my earnings at the end of every year were zero or negative.

Speaker 1 (40:04.214)
And then amazingly, we didn't have any cash to grow with. was like a weird, you know, and that was just looking at my financials in year one. And that was, and that sounds basic, but that was actually so profound for me and for us as a company, because then once we had earnings, then we could reinvest them. Then we could like take chances and do things and either hire the person or not hire the person or try the marketing or try the, know, buy the equipment, whatever, to make everything better. But without that, like,

earnings or cash just literally to use, then where does it come from? And that's what had happened. That's why we joined EOAs that had grown, but then had stagnated. And this was even before COVID kind of did a number on a lot of the community spaces. So that was a skill. But then the other side of that was, so when I joined the 404, so I didn't actually start off as the owner of the 404. was just a member going there.

Right. Right.

Speaker 1 (41:04.07)
And I remembered thinking like, you I was the only guy in Oklahoma City doing a startup. That's what I was thinking in my head before I found it. But I kind of found that Oklahoma City startup community. And that was very helpful just in and of itself to like, you know, there's other people doing this or, you know, and they've got the same crazy and it's, know, so when I joined EOA, it really felt like I just kind of hit the next level of that because mainly in the startup community was a lot more very, very early stage, you know, so if

If somebody was making 50 grand, you're like, my gosh, how did you do that? You where you go hit the EOA and it's like, all those companies are at least a little bit established. They at least have a customer. They at least have a market. They're making revenue. They usually have at least some amount of employees. And so it kind of just felt like the next level of that. And so, you know, that's hugely impactful anyways, because I also found that in EOA, mean, and probably in EOA as well, like

Everyone has their own different skill thing that they're awesome at. And it's probably not what you're awesome at. So learn so much more about people who are good at marketing, people who are good at sales, people who are good at finance, people who are good at operations, people who are good at product. Everyone's got their thing that has kind of taken them to this level and can just rapidly learn from them. So I would say it was, again, and that goes back to skill, but then the

The emotional side was like the, you know...

Because we all share the same crazy, That when I'm in my crazy that other people don't understand, it's like, well, so-and-so would get this. So there's a very, know, it's sort of like there's technical or skill type things, there's learning from others, and then there's also just kind of the, yeah, this might be a little bit off what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (43:08.61)
but I'm pretty sure like he just did that too. You know, it's, you see what I mean?

It's the... I call it the tribe. It's the people that share the same overall values that, you know, get you. And they... know, they may sit there and look at you funny and say, you know, I wouldn't do it that way. That's not the decision I would make. But you at least know that...

they've been there to have those types of decisions and have to question them, right? I think the thing that's interesting about what you said was, what I see in my own journey has confirmed this is that we all reach these, Drew Goodman and calls it these entrepreneurial inflection points.

And it's different for every person in every business because there's too many variables. But this inflection point is when the entrepreneur realizes that it's beyond them. In whatever capacity. That might be time, that might be money, that might be skills. They come up with a problem that they can't solve.

you know, depending upon the problem, you know, it may be that the entrepreneur has to grow themselves, to change themselves in order to facilitate that growth. Or it may be where, you know, the entrepreneur says, I've taken this as far as I can go, someone needs to take it further. And having the humility to...

Speaker 2 (45:11.33)
to say that, but that's hard. That's hard. It's hard for me because I'm like, I think I can do anything.

Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:25.73)
Grind more.

Exactly. Yeah

Yeah, I mean, it's.

Speaker 1 (45:38.662)
You know, I'm trying to think of how to articulate it.

In English, please.

Yeah, won't bust out Spanish. It'd be embarrassing anyways. yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot of value in seeing other people who are in similar situations either go through problems that you haven't realized yet, right? Or struggles that you have had experience with. And I mean, whether...

You know, if like I'm the person that, you know, I'm hearing about somebody else's problem and they're talking about it very candidly. And then when it, when it eventually hits me, right, two years later, three years later, whatever, I'm in a similar situation. One, I know who to talk to. Two, I've already like, you know, I'm like, yeah, I figured this would happen. know, eventually, right? Like it's not, not caught as off guard as much. So that's been massive. But then also the,

Like when I see somebody who's in the exact same situation that I was in, right? And, you know, never to give advice on it, but just like... Right, right. But like, you know, literally that happened to me, right? And this is how... This is why I did it, like, even worse than you're talking about. But this is how I finally got out of it. Maybe that helps, right?

Speaker 2 (46:55.531)
advice work.

Speaker 2 (47:14.126)
Because like you pointed out, you don't want to be told what to do. And I think that's a common characteristic of entrepreneurs, right? I remember sitting at EO's master program and one of the speakers, there's 80, entrepreneurs in this presentation. And he looks at one of the guys on the front row and he said, will you get me a cup of coffee? And the guy just kind of balked.

And he was doing it as a teaching moment because he knows us, right? But even something so simple as, get me a cup of coffee. It wasn't, can you get me a cup of coffee? It was get me a cup. If someone tells me what to do, like my wife, I've had to train her. Like, can you ask me? Because it's not that I don't want to do it, but as soon as you command it, it just, that's what happens.

spikes come out.

I don't get that about my personality. I don't know why that is. I just, I don't like to be told what to do. But going back to problem solving, if you're around people that want to tell you what to do, you're not gonna hear it. Even if it's brilliant.

Not not gonna hear it and not going to stay in that group very long, you know, I guess who wants to I mean and some people you know, I would say some people find it easier or more fitting to their personality to Kind of have a list of things to do that have been you know already identified and then to do those jobs well and then to you know Kind of be rewarded or not rewarded based on those things being done, right?

Speaker 1 (49:08.462)
And then that's great. And I mean, you know, but But there's also people who like that feels confining right like that feels like To you that sounds awful, but but I know a lot of people that would find that yes, like, know It's really about did I get the gold star? Did I not?

That sounds awful, actually, to me.

Speaker 2 (49:27.662)
Well, and frankly, we have to have those people. We have to have those because otherwise nothing gets done.

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 (49:33.454)
No, because you know like because the people who are who don't want to be confined also aren't all that consistent. No, that's downside, right? And that's the, you know, that's the me and Luke dynamic in that case, right? Like, you know, I can come up with ideas and you know, 10 of them and you know, two of them are like, okay, two of them are like pretty good, right? But there's a 50-50 chance that three months from now

I'm already onto the next idea. And even those two gold nuggets, like I've already dropped them on the ground. And then he's like, wait, don't you remember those two like gold nuggets? Like, no, those were like good. Let's keep doing it. And like that's the consistency that keeps going.

I'm not.

Speaker 2 (50:16.206)
Don't you remember when you say that and I'm like, no, no, I really don't

I could, yeah. yeah, I remember that conversation, kinda. Yeah.

I said that? Sounds like something I'd say. I think the group dynamic is also interesting because kind of like when I had Piesch on and we were discussing counseling and therapy, he was talking about how the counselor's role as he's being trained as a psychologist and a clinician.

is to be like detached. They're emotionally detached from the situation, right? And that's what I found so difficult in my journey is I get caught up in the mechanics of what's wrong in the problem I'm trying to solve.

and not dealing with the emotions behind it, right? And I think in a group dynamic, I can sit here and you're describing your problem and I don't know, I don't have any skin in the game. I'm not experiencing any of the feelings that you are around that. And there's a certain level of clarity that comes with that.

Speaker 2 (51:50.574)
But if emotion, I, let's say I don't give you advice, I give you experience, share, like I had that same situation, and this is what I did, this is what I wish I had done, this is how it turned out. If you aren't in the head space, you can't even hear the advice because you're stuck in the emotion, right? Has that ever come up with you?

Yeah, and I mean another thing this is this kind of goes back to what you're asking about with was there something that that pivoted me back in you know 2015 after the failure and everything and I Mean one of the things that's really been helpful You know in the the forum groups is We actually have some integrators in there right like people who are integrators that they're not kind of the visionary type person, right?

And it's been interesting to hear them talk about their visionary. Like when they're like, you know, because I know I'm the visionary. They're not talking about me, but they might as well be. And it's so fascinating to hear that kind of perspective to deal with a visionary every day.

you know, its own challenge. so that alone, I think, has helped me like step back on some of the things I do, you know, and just be like a little bit more aware of it, you know?

I was a contract CFO for a client a few years ago. was a startup in an industry that was new and they had very rapid growth. And the visionary, I think I worked for him for about six months and I left with the phrase, lose my fucking number. I that was literally like, do not call me, delete it out of your phone.

Speaker 2 (53:56.078)
I was so pissed. And that guy, the founder and visionary, he was... I was never him, but I saw enough of myself in him that it gave me that perspective of what my people had to deal with when dealing with me. And I'm like, oh...

God, that sounds awful. It was awful for me. That was a switch, because I started thinking about how I showed up to those other people and how I could be influencing them just being me. Not intentionally, but.

And that, I mean, it's taken me a while to work with that within the company too. You know, I'm not sure I have great examples of it, but it's kind of like, I mean, very early on in the company, I mean, very, very early on, I noticed that little things, right? Like, if I cut my hair a certain way, I started seeing it around the office. I had, well, as the owner, you are, and it's the little things, and you don't even...

Thanks for

Speaker 1 (55:16.236)
you know, like people are picking up on things that you're not even saying or even verbalizing, right? And that's, you know, that kind of hit me around like, you know, I don't remember what year it was. Maybe I saw it a little bit in year two. I saw it more like as we had more, you know, people in the office and everything. And so I just started to try to get very careful with like my actions or words or something because I didn't want...

You know, mean, it's even little things. It's like if I'm leaving every day at four and they're seeing it, then they think that the exact correct course of action is to leave early every day. Now, they may or may not see me at eight o'clock working that evening, right? But they certainly saw me leave at four. Or if I'm like, it's not a big deal, then they think it's not a big deal. You know, even though it might very well be a big deal to some.

Right. Right.

Speaker 1 (56:14.05)
customers, some partners, et cetera, to other members of the organization. So I've tried to, and I still catch myself doing this, right? Like, you know, in that leadership role, whether you think you are or not, there's a lot of eyeballs on you that are looking at things that maybe you didn't even intend for them to see, you know?

100 % and it's, I had one of my leadership team tell me one time, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. you don't understand the weight of your words. And I think one of the things that I had to grapple with is that,

Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:03.118)
People want people have this idea of entrepreneurship that you know, it's it's it's it's freedom. Well, sure there's there is freedom. Yeah, but Right that freedom comes at a cost Yeah, right if you're gonna if you're gonna act exactly how you want to because you're the boss Yeah, it's gonna have ramifications whether you want it to or not, right? And and so like you said developing that leadership of modeling behavior modeling language

Like Braveheart.

Speaker 2 (57:33.262)
You know, it's been a struggle for me. I mean, it's an ongoing one. Like, you have to self-censor a lot of times.

Yeah, yeah, agreed, agreed.

Like that, that,

I was thinking of one instance where I was, to me it was a funny, practical joke and like the other team members are saying, no, you can't do that, you'll leave her in tears. And I'm like, really? And then it's like, yeah. And I'm like, okay, I won't. mean like, but to me, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it's been a crazy ride. That's for sure.

Speaker 2 (58:18.968)
Well, John, I appreciate you stopping by and sharing your thoughts. Yeah. Good luck and we'll talk to you soon.

Yeah, thanks, Christian. Talk to you soon.