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He Built a $10M Company With Zero Venture Capital · Business Roundtable

0:13
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Business Roundtable podcast. I am your host,
0:16
Speaker 1: David Carr, founder Steward Your Business, where we help business
0:19
Speaker 1: owners and leaders align their teams grow sustainably. And part
0:23
Speaker 1: of that is having great guests here on the podcast
0:26
Speaker 1: that share from their life experience building companies, teams, organizations.
0:33
Speaker 1: And one of the topics we haven't covered actually in
0:37
Speaker 1: great length at all is how do you do that?
0:39
Speaker 1: How do you do that in a way that is
0:41
Speaker 1: sustainable from a funding or bootstrapping perspective. And I'm excited
0:45
Speaker 1: to have my guests, Brian Clayton come on here from
0:47
Speaker 1: green Palm, going to give you a little bit more
0:48
Speaker 1: background here. But a lot of companies they look about
0:52
Speaker 1: and they hear about scaling fast, venture capital raising rounds
0:56
Speaker 1: and growth at all costs. But what happens if you
0:58
Speaker 1: built differently? And that's what Brian has done and we're
1:01
Speaker 1: going to break that down a little bit here about
1:03
Speaker 1: how you focus on profitability systems customer experience, long term
1:10
Speaker 1: durability instead of just the hype. And so Brian is
1:13
Speaker 1: the CEO. Brian Clayton, the CEO co founder of greenpal
1:18
Speaker 1: and often called the uber for long care for those
1:21
Speaker 1: of you that are n't familiar with green Pal now
1:22
Speaker 1: serving hundreds of thousands of users, hundreds and thousands of
1:26
Speaker 1: users here across the country, and exciting because Brian has
1:31
Speaker 1: built this company over years now doing and you can
1:35
Speaker 1: correct me, Brian, I think you're doing over ten million
1:37
Speaker 1: in annual revenue without venture capital. And I'm excited Brian
1:41
Speaker 1: for you to come and share with our audience your
1:43
Speaker 1: journey and how you've been able to do this and
1:46
Speaker 1: not go down that venture capital path. So welcome to
1:50
Speaker 1: the podcast.
1:51
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for having me on, David great.
1:53
Speaker 1: Absolutely that yes, definitely, definitely tell me a little bit
1:58
Speaker 1: about your story briefly because I want you because it involves.
2:01
Speaker 1: One of the reasons I wanted to give on the
2:02
Speaker 1: podcast Brian, is you know you led with me when
2:05
Speaker 1: you reached out to me and said, look, I was
2:07
Speaker 1: able to grow this company. I learned a lot, but
2:09
Speaker 1: I I bootstrapped this thing. I didn't go out and
2:11
Speaker 1: get money. I jumped in. You know, I created this
2:15
Speaker 1: and now you have Greenpow, which is something very unique
2:18
Speaker 1: in the market. But talk a little bit about your
2:21
Speaker 1: journey of you know, the v the ventral capital of
2:24
Speaker 1: the VC world is kind of like, hey, get rich
2:26
Speaker 1: or die try And you know, we talked about this
2:28
Speaker 1: before we recorded. What do you mean by that, Brian,
2:30
Speaker 1: About this whole journey that you've been on.
2:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know when when you're starting a tech company,
2:36
Speaker 2: kind of the the sexy uh journey is if you
2:41
Speaker 2: go right a bunch of money and you get in
2:43
Speaker 2: you know, you you get in the Bloomberg Business Press
2:47
Speaker 2: and Tech Crunch and uh, you know, Forbes and Ain't
2:50
Speaker 2: cover you and and uh and everybody's kind of cheering
2:54
Speaker 2: you on. And and that's what That's what we thought
2:57
Speaker 2: we were going to do when we were starting green
2:59
Speaker 2: Pal ten ten to eleven years ago. We thought we
3:02
Speaker 2: were going to go down behalf of raising angel funding
3:05
Speaker 2: and then raising venture back venture funding, and and what
3:09
Speaker 2: I learned early on was was that that's not necessarily
3:13
Speaker 2: a ticket to success. In fact, if you raise outside capital,
3:19
Speaker 2: it can actually decrease your chances of success then increase it.
3:24
Speaker 2: And I actually heard this put very well the other
3:26
Speaker 2: day a guy by the name of Mark Andresen that
3:30
Speaker 2: that that is, founder of a famous venture company called
3:34
Speaker 2: Andres and Horowitz. He said that more companies die from
3:39
Speaker 2: indigestion than they do starvation. But yeah, what he meant
3:43
Speaker 2: by that was that actually, if you raise a bunch
3:46
Speaker 2: of money before you kind of have it figured out,
3:49
Speaker 2: it's going to cause your demise rather than rather than
3:52
Speaker 2: you die from starvation, meaning you don't have enough capital.
3:54
Speaker 2: And so so that that was really clear to me
3:59
Speaker 2: early on when we started green Pal, was was all
4:02
Speaker 2: of these companies around us were raising a bunch of
4:04
Speaker 2: capital and and then you would read about them in
4:07
Speaker 2: the tech press, and then and then eighteen months later
4:09
Speaker 2: you would read about them going out of business. Yep.
4:12
Speaker 2: And it was kind of like they they started, raised
4:15
Speaker 2: a bunch of money and then and then drove off
4:17
Speaker 2: the cliff and didn't even leave skid marks. It's like
4:20
Speaker 2: they really tried to get rich or die trying and
4:24
Speaker 2: for the fences on like the first couple of pitches.
4:27
Speaker 2: And I didn't want to do that because I had
4:29
Speaker 2: one good idea. I had that idea for that somebody
4:32
Speaker 2: should build an app that works like Uber but for
4:34
Speaker 2: lawng care services. Yeah, I didn't have any other good
4:37
Speaker 2: ideas and I still haven't had any other better idea
4:40
Speaker 2: in the last and the last decade, and so this
4:42
Speaker 2: had to work. And so I figured that kind of
4:45
Speaker 2: a slow and low approach that was focused on getting customers,
4:50
Speaker 2: keeping those customers, and then growing on that base and
4:53
Speaker 2: just renting and repeating that over and over again, that
4:57
Speaker 2: was going to be a more predictable and more likely
5:00
Speaker 2: uh outcome for us for what we were trying to do,
5:03
Speaker 2: rather than going down the path of raising a bunch
5:05
Speaker 2: of capital and then and then trying to grow the
5:07
Speaker 2: business ten x in a year or or or bust.
5:11
Speaker 2: I didn't want to do that. I don't want to
5:12
Speaker 2: risk that.
5:13
Speaker 1: Mm hm. That makes a lot of sense. Actually, as
5:15
Speaker 1: you described that, I like that that indigestion versus starvation.
5:19
Speaker 1: And I've heard that, and I've talked with multiple folks
5:21
Speaker 1: that have raised multiple rounds millions of dollars only for
5:24
Speaker 1: it to be, like you said, be completely gone. Nobody
5:28
Speaker 1: even remembers anymore eighteen months, two years later, what what
5:31
Speaker 1: whatever the case might be. And to your point too,
5:34
Speaker 1: I think you come we were talking, we were talking
5:36
Speaker 1: about this before we recorded the this podcast before. But
5:39
Speaker 1: I come in a biology background before it started through
5:41
Speaker 1: your business, and I think you and I know from
5:43
Speaker 1: anything you're trying to grow. If you try to grow
5:47
Speaker 1: it really really quickly. Yeah, yeah, right, like a long
5:52
Speaker 1: or anything like hurry up, make agree and make it
5:53
Speaker 1: grow fast. It doesn't sustain right totally.
5:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, And and and evolution takes you know, hundreds of
5:59
Speaker 2: thousand millions of years, and and and a business is
6:02
Speaker 2: kind of the same way. And and uh, you can
6:06
Speaker 2: you know another another really good analogy for this is is, uh,
6:09
Speaker 2: you know it takes takes it takes nine months to
6:11
Speaker 2: make a baby, but you can't put you can't make
6:15
Speaker 2: a baby in one month with nine people. It's it
6:17
Speaker 2: just doesn't wait. You have to follow the natural laws.
6:20
Speaker 1: Yes, So one one question I want to hear for
6:23
Speaker 1: our whether you're a business owner or a leader. And
6:25
Speaker 1: by the way, you guys, if you're connected with me
6:28
Speaker 1: on LinkedIn Brian and are connected there on LinkedIn, and
6:30
Speaker 1: we're going to put all in our show notes the
6:32
Speaker 1: ways you guys can connect with him and go to
6:33
Speaker 1: GreenPower dot com. But Brian, what as you built your
6:36
Speaker 1: company and you do you went to this journey what
6:39
Speaker 1: without that funding with forcing what did you have to
6:43
Speaker 1: get right early on in the journey of setting this
6:45
Speaker 1: company up so you don't have the money Because I
6:47
Speaker 1: think that kind of, like you said, kind of bloats.
6:49
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, we got the money, we can do this,
6:51
Speaker 1: but you don't have that now, So what did you
6:53
Speaker 1: have to get and get right as you started the
6:55
Speaker 1: company with bootstrapping it.
6:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's kind of like a contact sport if
7:02
Speaker 2: if you're going to go down this path of self
7:04
Speaker 2: funding any business, because really your personal expenses, your personal burn,
7:12
Speaker 2: is the company's burn. And Mark An once said, the
7:16
Speaker 2: less you can live on as an entrepreneur, the less
7:19
Speaker 2: you can live on, the greater your your options as
7:22
Speaker 2: a founder. And so the first step was taking an
7:26
Speaker 2: audit of my co founders and I how much does
7:29
Speaker 2: it take for me to live? And you know, that
7:33
Speaker 2: number started off as like ten to twelve thousand dollars
7:36
Speaker 2: a month as what all of my bills were. And
7:39
Speaker 2: we had to reduce that number to less than four
7:42
Speaker 2: grand a month for each of us because that meant roommates,
7:47
Speaker 2: that meant you know, part time jobs, that meant you know,
7:50
Speaker 2: not going out to out to eat a lot like
7:52
Speaker 2: it meant like, okay, we can only afford to pay
7:56
Speaker 2: ourselves so much or not pay ourselves at all for
8:00
Speaker 2: a period of time because every time that this business
8:03
Speaker 2: generates is going to have to go back into the
8:05
Speaker 2: business to fund its its exploration and growth. And and
8:09
Speaker 2: so that was like the first hard choice was was
8:11
Speaker 2: a person personal expenses and then yeah, and then beyond that.
8:17
Speaker 2: But then if you can get past that point and
8:19
Speaker 2: you can get to where you're building something that people
8:21
Speaker 2: want to use, then it really clarifies your thinking because
8:26
Speaker 2: you need to kind of get in the trenches with
8:29
Speaker 2: your early customers because you need to figure out if
8:32
Speaker 2: you're building the right thing or not, if you're solving
8:35
Speaker 2: a real problem that they will pay for and continue
8:38
Speaker 2: to pay for. And it really clarifies your thinking and
8:41
Speaker 2: clarifies your like daily activities around that. And if you've
8:47
Speaker 2: got a bunch of capital in the bank, you kind
8:48
Speaker 2: of want to do everything but that. Yeah, you don't
8:53
Speaker 2: want to go sit at Starbucks and and do you know,
8:56
Speaker 2: meet with a customer and let them talk to you
8:59
Speaker 2: about how bad you your app? But yeah, your app
9:01
Speaker 2: is you you want to like meet with a PR firm,
9:04
Speaker 2: or meet with the new head of uh of of
9:08
Speaker 2: of of marketing or something. You know, you want to
9:10
Speaker 2: do all these things other than talk to your customers, right,
9:14
Speaker 2: I really clarified you're thinking in your daily activities, especially
9:17
Speaker 2: in the early days.
9:18
Speaker 1: I really like how you broke that down. So I
9:21
Speaker 1: heard definitely personal sacrifice. There's you know, and looking what
9:24
Speaker 1: that is, the cash flow, the lifelow that's coming into
9:26
Speaker 1: your company. But I heard also your your your customer obsession,
9:30
Speaker 1: being willing to hear the hard facts and maybe it's
9:33
Speaker 1: not so sexy, but it's it's absolutely necessary. And and
9:38
Speaker 1: I would I would say, you know, you're you're coming
9:40
Speaker 1: about how do we make this company profitable from the
9:42
Speaker 1: get go as much as we can, you know, But
9:44
Speaker 1: I like how you said this, like you know, you
9:47
Speaker 1: are essentially you are the business. You're infused this your
9:49
Speaker 1: you're funding your life. This is I mean, I've heard
9:52
Speaker 1: early business owners, you know, you know, looking at yeah,
9:55
Speaker 1: like you said, how can we put my own basically
9:59
Speaker 1: life on line here, Like you said, of trying to
10:01
Speaker 1: get this going? So how do you So that's that's
10:05
Speaker 1: so that's obviously created a lot of discipline in you
10:08
Speaker 1: of like, okay, well what we can spend and what
10:10
Speaker 1: do we need to spend our time and being very
10:11
Speaker 1: efficient and effective because it's like every day is if
10:15
Speaker 1: we're not making this work. You know what's gonna happen.
10:18
Speaker 1: We don't have any We don't have any funding, We
10:20
Speaker 1: don't have any angel funding. We not have somebody that's
10:21
Speaker 1: just going to drop money on us somewhere.
10:24
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, is on the line.
10:27
Speaker 1: Your butt's on the line.
10:28
Speaker 2: And a weird thing happens when when you're back is
10:30
Speaker 2: against the wall like that. It's like from the moment
10:33
Speaker 2: you wake up and get in the shower, you're thinking
10:36
Speaker 2: about the business. When when your head is on the
10:39
Speaker 2: pillow at night and you're trying to fall asleep, you're
10:41
Speaker 2: thinking about the business. And so it's it really crystallizes
10:45
Speaker 2: your thinking where it's it's not like it's it's a
10:48
Speaker 2: seven day a week thing. You're obsessed with getting to
10:52
Speaker 2: the next level because because you know your your future
10:56
Speaker 2: depends on it, and then everybody else that's in the
10:58
Speaker 2: trenches with you also there's like this benevolent thing that
11:02
Speaker 2: starts forming between you and them to where a lot
11:05
Speaker 2: of a lot of times you'll come in on a
11:06
Speaker 2: Saturday or Sunday because you don't want to let them
11:09
Speaker 2: down because everybody's back against the wall trying to make
11:13
Speaker 2: this thing works. That's how it was starting greenpal with
11:16
Speaker 2: no outside funding, and that's that's a similar story that
11:19
Speaker 2: I hear from other founders as well.
11:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and going going all in and being there for
11:24
Speaker 1: each other. Brian, and I feel like, as you said that,
11:26
Speaker 1: I know some people that they're they're working a full
11:30
Speaker 1: time job or they're trying and they're trying to do
11:32
Speaker 1: this hustle of the side. But it's like there's a
11:35
Speaker 1: certain point where you got to like say, hey, I
11:36
Speaker 1: just got to go all in if I really want
11:38
Speaker 1: to make this happen, right, because otherwise it's like you're
11:41
Speaker 1: kind of going and living in two worlds. And what
11:43
Speaker 1: I heard you say is I found partners. I found
11:45
Speaker 1: people that shared my vision, shared my passion. And would
11:49
Speaker 1: you say that was also contributed to access versus just
11:53
Speaker 1: going alone, But you actually found some key people that
11:55
Speaker 1: you felt like that got my back.
11:58
Speaker 2: I got extremely lucky with my two co founders in
12:03
Speaker 2: the sense that the three of us wanted something more
12:06
Speaker 2: out of life. That was it like, we wanted more
12:09
Speaker 2: to be challenged more, we wanted to create something. We
12:12
Speaker 2: wanted the monetary upside of building a scalable tech company.
12:19
Speaker 2: We didn't want to be in a cubicle under fluorescent light,
12:21
Speaker 2: unless it was it was something for something that we
12:25
Speaker 2: were working on together. And so it was really just
12:29
Speaker 2: that we three of us were sufficiently motivated to want
12:34
Speaker 2: something more out of life and that the business, the idea,
12:38
Speaker 2: the project could be the vehicle to get there. And
12:41
Speaker 2: so if you can get that right, then you figure
12:44
Speaker 2: out everything else. You'll figure out. Like we had to
12:46
Speaker 2: figure out how to write software, We had to figure
12:48
Speaker 2: out how to code, We had to figure out how
12:49
Speaker 2: to do online marketing, had to figure out how to
12:51
Speaker 2: build a product. Like all that was challenging, but it
12:54
Speaker 2: was like it was taken care of because we just
12:58
Speaker 2: had the motivation to do what it is we had
13:00
Speaker 2: to do.
13:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that having that compelling vision and shared
13:04
Speaker 1: that you guys had this from the get go, I
13:06
Speaker 1: think is absolutely critical. And I work with companies and
13:09
Speaker 1: where that can get fuzzy and not and lost and
13:12
Speaker 1: then you're working against each other, and so to me,
13:14
Speaker 1: that's critical to your point of going. And then you
13:17
Speaker 1: guys went into this journey of creating greenpal what I
13:20
Speaker 1: one of the things that really stood out to me
13:21
Speaker 1: when we were talking before we recorded your hear of
13:24
Speaker 1: the podcast was you said, you know, you thought you
13:26
Speaker 1: guys had this one challenge that you're going to solve
13:29
Speaker 1: with greenpal, But then, like you said early on, you
13:31
Speaker 1: guys are getting feedback from your clients, your customers, and
13:34
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about how you came in and
13:38
Speaker 1: adjusted okay with the customer validation, because I think this
13:41
Speaker 1: is important too, that those companies are going and you
13:43
Speaker 1: only have a limited time to get up and running
13:45
Speaker 1: and get in the right place starting, you know, creating
13:48
Speaker 1: that value. But what was that that? What did the
13:50
Speaker 1: market tell you is you guys were getting in there,
13:52
Speaker 1: because I think that's a really powerful story and journey. Brian, Yeah,
13:56
Speaker 1: it was.
13:57
Speaker 2: We didn't know what the hell we were doing. We
13:58
Speaker 2: had no clue. One of us had ever built a
14:00
Speaker 2: website before, none of us certainly had ever built a
14:03
Speaker 2: mobile app. And uh so we were reading every book
14:07
Speaker 2: we could get our hands on. And that time, the
14:10
Speaker 2: book The Lean Startup by Eric Reese was was had
14:13
Speaker 2: just came out or or it was it was new,
14:16
Speaker 2: and so it was like the hot book at the time,
14:18
Speaker 2: and it's still still a valuable important book to read
14:21
Speaker 2: if you want to try to build a technology product
14:24
Speaker 2: from scratch. And what that book tells you in like
14:26
Speaker 2: three hundred pages is like two or three things. And
14:30
Speaker 2: the main point of the book is you have to
14:33
Speaker 2: get out of the building. You have to get out
14:36
Speaker 2: from behind your laptop, and you have to go talk
14:39
Speaker 2: to your customer face to face and and you know,
14:43
Speaker 2: so you really have to get belly to belly with them.
14:46
Speaker 2: And so that's that's what we That's what we did
14:50
Speaker 2: only because that book told us to do it. We didn't.
14:55
Speaker 2: We didn't enjoy it. I didn't like, wasn't grab it,
15:00
Speaker 2: hated towards it. But I know the inside of every
15:03
Speaker 2: Starbucks in Middle Tennessee and Florida because those were our
15:09
Speaker 2: first two markets because I met with so many users
15:11
Speaker 2: of our platform in the early days. And so the
15:16
Speaker 2: the kind of save the company result of that was
15:20
Speaker 2: when we first started building green Pal, I came to
15:24
Speaker 2: the like starting block from a contractor's background. I actually
15:27
Speaker 2: ran a landscaping company for fifteen years and then sold
15:30
Speaker 2: it and then started green Pal. And when you have
15:33
Speaker 2: a contractor's perspective of a marketplace like this, you kind
15:38
Speaker 2: of get jaded in the sense where you think that
15:41
Speaker 2: every consumer just wants the cheapest price. You you believe
15:45
Speaker 2: that in your soul, in your tenure, like in your
15:48
Speaker 2: DNA like because you because you do get being on
15:50
Speaker 2: the price often. And and so I thought with building
15:54
Speaker 2: green Pal was that we were just going to build
15:56
Speaker 2: a platform that had a competitive bidding dynamic and would
16:01
Speaker 2: drive down the cost of long care services. And so
16:05
Speaker 2: that's how we built the first version of the platform.
16:09
Speaker 2: We really emphasized pitting long cair companies against each other
16:15
Speaker 2: and and and and designed the product and workflows in
16:20
Speaker 2: a way that that actually encouraged them to bid a
16:24
Speaker 2: lower price. And and we did that at the expense
16:29
Speaker 2: of the consumer experience. And and so what I learned
16:32
Speaker 2: in the early days talking with our first dozen customers,
16:35
Speaker 2: eventually our first one hundred customers, was that the main
16:40
Speaker 2: pain point was just getting the long guy to show
16:43
Speaker 2: up on Thursday when he was supposed to. It was
16:46
Speaker 2: actually solving this mysterious problem of the disappearing long guest
16:52
Speaker 2: that you hire somebody to do a service for you,
16:54
Speaker 2: and it probably exists in other industries, and then they
16:57
Speaker 2: just like everything's going great, and then it is poof
16:59
Speaker 2: drive off the face of the earth. And and so
17:02
Speaker 2: that was the main problem Greenpal was meant to solve.
17:06
Speaker 2: It wasn't actually a cheap lawnmowing service. It was actually
17:10
Speaker 2: a reliable lawnmowing service. And just if we could build
17:14
Speaker 2: a system that delivered that that the price actually did
17:18
Speaker 2: not matter as much as we thought. We have known
17:21
Speaker 2: that had we not met with so many customers in
17:25
Speaker 2: the early days and and asked them what they wished
17:28
Speaker 2: the platform would do differently, and what they wished the
17:30
Speaker 2: app would do that it didn't do, And and that
17:33
Speaker 2: was a key early insight that probably saved the company,
17:37
Speaker 2: because had we just kind of stayed in our office
17:39
Speaker 2: and stayed behind the laptop and just kind of coded,
17:43
Speaker 2: coded away and tried to build it from from the
17:46
Speaker 2: computer screen and not not from the Starbucks cafe, then
17:52
Speaker 2: we would have never gotten an early insight and we
17:54
Speaker 2: would have spent five years building something that that people
17:56
Speaker 2: didn't want.
17:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, that to me sounds like you know, the Earth
18:00
Speaker 1: the warning system. I've I've heard this too, like even
18:02
Speaker 1: when people get the venture capital, Brian, they're building something
18:05
Speaker 1: to solve a problem that they don't know hasn't truly
18:07
Speaker 1: been validated there. And to me, that's the danger of
18:11
Speaker 1: a founder falling in love with our idea and not
18:13
Speaker 1: getting the customer feedback exactly right. And and sometimes it's
18:18
Speaker 1: just something that's just enough of a tweak to where
18:21
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, I just want I just want them
18:23
Speaker 1: there to show up on you know, I don't want
18:24
Speaker 1: my disappearing long guy all paying more. It's like, oh,
18:27
Speaker 1: really that's the big issue. That's that's more than Yeah.
18:30
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh wow, just shifting that much. It made
18:33
Speaker 1: a huge difference in the success of Green Palace. And
18:36
Speaker 1: I agree with you getting in the field and understanding,
18:38
Speaker 1: and I think and even as market shift, you can't
18:41
Speaker 1: just set it and forget it. It's like understanding, I'm
18:43
Speaker 1: sure you're evaluating your clients. You're getting ongoing feedback too.
18:46
Speaker 1: Brian is like, Okay, what's working, what's not working, so
18:49
Speaker 1: that we can continue to adjust and and and meet
18:52
Speaker 1: our clients where they're at.
18:54
Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, And everybody knows this stuff already, but nobody
18:59
Speaker 2: really really does it in the early days, so you
19:02
Speaker 2: don't know. We need we need data and feedback in
19:05
Speaker 2: order to to to build any kind of successful business.
19:09
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter, it's aid stand you need to know, like
19:13
Speaker 2: you just need to know if customers are happy or not.
19:15
Speaker 2: And so everybody knows this stuff. The thing is is
19:18
Speaker 2: like the difference between qualitative and quantitative feedback and and
19:25
Speaker 2: and knowing when to use which one. And in early
19:28
Speaker 2: days that qualitative feedback really just having a conversation with
19:33
Speaker 2: with your customer and and figuring out what they liked,
19:36
Speaker 2: what they didn't like, and what they wish it would
19:38
Speaker 2: do differently is key to figuring out if you're if
19:42
Speaker 2: you're building something that people want, Whereas if you just
19:44
Speaker 2: look at the data and you just look at like
19:47
Speaker 2: sign ups and retention and things of that sort, and
19:50
Speaker 2: especially in the early days, you will never get those
19:52
Speaker 2: insights and and and if you don't have customers you
19:57
Speaker 2: need to We would go to Starbucks and we would
20:01
Speaker 2: put in front of our laptop coffee on me for feedback.
20:06
Speaker 2: Hey there, you sit there all day long and and
20:10
Speaker 2: buy coffees for people that would do a quick usability
20:13
Speaker 2: test of the of the website and watch them use
20:16
Speaker 2: it and just just ask them, Okay, what what did
20:19
Speaker 2: you think that would do? And Okay, what do you
20:21
Speaker 2: think this website does? And would you use this website?
20:24
Speaker 2: And that generated our first dozen customers and so and
20:27
Speaker 2: so you have to kind of do those things in
20:29
Speaker 2: the early days to figure out if you're on the
20:31
Speaker 2: right track or not.
20:32
Speaker 1: So as you grew the company, Brian, and that's great feedback.
20:37
Speaker 1: And you had a great core leadership team that your
20:40
Speaker 1: partners as you grew have grown. And I find that
20:44
Speaker 1: at different points in the business life cycle, you know,
20:46
Speaker 1: going from zero to one million, maybe one million to
20:49
Speaker 1: five million, ten million, there's different things that pop up,
20:52
Speaker 1: whether it be systems or people where you have problems
20:55
Speaker 1: and breakdowns. And so for you, Brian, what in your
20:58
Speaker 1: journey you know, now, where have you been able to
21:01
Speaker 1: identify is this a system operations issue or is it
21:06
Speaker 1: more I don't have the right person in the right place.
21:09
Speaker 1: Can you break that down for a business owners that
21:11
Speaker 1: they can pay attention to these things as they're growing
21:13
Speaker 1: and scaling their company.
21:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's like a video game. You're working
21:19
Speaker 2: through one level at a time, and however you want
21:24
Speaker 2: to lay out the ten levels or twelve levels of
21:26
Speaker 2: Super Mario Brothers, and whether it's revenue milestones or or
21:32
Speaker 2: customer based numbers or whatever, you kind of have to
21:35
Speaker 2: look at it that way and you have to look
21:36
Speaker 2: at it like one level at a time, and the
21:40
Speaker 2: skills and team and things that got you through level
21:43
Speaker 2: one won't get you through level three, and so it
21:47
Speaker 2: doesn't it doesn't work forwards, and it doesn't work backwards.
21:49
Speaker 2: You know, you're level two and you're trying to do
21:51
Speaker 2: level eight things that won't work. And so you really
21:55
Speaker 2: need to be aware of metaphorically what level of the
21:58
Speaker 2: game you're on, and what are the actual tactics and
22:01
Speaker 2: things you need to be doing just to get through
22:04
Speaker 2: that level. Don't worry about anything else other than the
22:08
Speaker 2: level that you're on. And so, like everything that I
22:11
Speaker 2: just talked about with Starbucks and and and usability tests
22:15
Speaker 2: and meeting with customers and their kitchen you know, on
22:17
Speaker 2: the at their kitchen table, that's level one stuff. If
22:21
Speaker 2: you're if you're you know, if you've got five hundred
22:23
Speaker 2: thousand customers already, you don't really have time to do
22:27
Speaker 2: that anymore. It's not the best use of your time.
22:29
Speaker 2: So you don't want to be doing that kind of
22:31
Speaker 2: stuff at that stay at that stage of the game,
22:34
Speaker 2: And so you're you're always auditing that and you're always
22:38
Speaker 2: trying to figure out what do I got to do
22:39
Speaker 2: to get to the next level and nothing else. The
22:42
Speaker 2: problem is a lot of times founders will be at
22:45
Speaker 2: level one, two or three or five and they'll be
22:47
Speaker 2: worried about Bowser, and it's like, don't worry about Bowser.
22:51
Speaker 2: That's that's that's not related to like what you're doing.
22:54
Speaker 2: Like like I listened to a podcast with Elon Musk
22:57
Speaker 2: the other day, and he might as well be on
22:59
Speaker 2: Mars uh compared to the problems I face. And and
23:03
Speaker 2: it's like it's it's understanding, like Okay, I'm I'm, I'm
23:06
Speaker 2: I'm reading materials and consuming information from somebody who's one
23:11
Speaker 2: level ahead of me, and then I'm adapting that to
23:14
Speaker 2: my business. And and you got to figure out, okay, well,
23:17
Speaker 2: well what you know, what is the main to use
23:20
Speaker 2: an e must must the limiting factor? What is the
23:24
Speaker 2: main bottleneck at this stage of the game. And let
23:27
Speaker 2: me just focus all of my intensity on that bottleneck.
23:31
Speaker 2: Is it a is it a people problem? Is it
23:33
Speaker 2: a system problem? Is is am I have I hired
23:38
Speaker 2: the same if I hired five people for the same role? Uh?
23:42
Speaker 2: And I can't keep anybody there? Is Is that? Is
23:44
Speaker 2: that a systems problem or a people problem, and it
23:47
Speaker 2: just really got to get in the trenches and and
23:50
Speaker 2: focus on what that one limiting factor is to get
23:53
Speaker 2: you to the next level and then rinse and repeat
23:56
Speaker 2: and be willing to do that over and over and
23:57
Speaker 2: over again.
23:58
Speaker 1: H Yeah, I would say, and you know, I think
24:02
Speaker 1: your willingness to get in the trenches Brian, and like said,
24:05
Speaker 1: without judgment, just say, Okay, what is that limiting factor
24:09
Speaker 1: for me? Is it? Is it the system? Or is it,
24:14
Speaker 1: like you said, is it the people? Because I don't
24:15
Speaker 1: have people, it could be like you said, I like
24:17
Speaker 1: your example, I have people rotating in and out of
24:20
Speaker 1: the company. Well because maybe it is because there's a
24:22
Speaker 1: bad manager in there, or maybe it's because the system
24:25
Speaker 1: is too complex, they don't understand it and you're not
24:28
Speaker 1: they're not able to adapt and use it the way
24:30
Speaker 1: that you thought you would, and so they're leaving. So
24:31
Speaker 1: it could be either one of those things. But I
24:33
Speaker 1: think what I heard you say Brian is is get
24:35
Speaker 1: in there, be curious understand like why what is the
24:38
Speaker 1: limiting factor? Where are we having there? Because every every
24:42
Speaker 1: business is going to have at some point in their
24:45
Speaker 1: life cycle, and I think, you know, just exposing that Brian,
24:50
Speaker 1: I guess is what I hear you saying. And don't
24:52
Speaker 1: be afraid that because sometimes it's like like is there's
24:55
Speaker 1: no sacred cow, so to speak. Right, We're going to
24:57
Speaker 1: look at everything right and and nothing is thack off
25:01
Speaker 1: the table.
25:02
Speaker 2: This is what Elon Musk does, by the way, with
25:04
Speaker 2: his like entire empire and suite of different businesses and
25:07
Speaker 2: different verticals. Like he literally will go to SpaceX and
25:12
Speaker 2: sleep on the floor, uh, to help the engineering team
25:15
Speaker 2: figure out why the last rocket blew up. Or he'll
25:18
Speaker 2: he literally like will go to Tesla and and and
25:21
Speaker 2: sleep in the office until and work with the team
25:24
Speaker 2: that that you know that has a problem around self driving,
25:27
Speaker 2: and and until until they until they figure out that
25:30
Speaker 2: what that what that limiting factor is. And like he
25:32
Speaker 2: literally like zooms in, zooms out, moves laterally and like
25:36
Speaker 2: is a is all over these problems and at a
25:39
Speaker 2: much smaller scale. That's what I do at Greenpal, and
25:42
Speaker 2: that's what every founder should be doing in their business.
25:44
Speaker 2: Is this is zooming in and putting putting out fires,
25:49
Speaker 2: but figuring out what is the one thing or two
25:53
Speaker 2: or three things that that is holding us up and
25:55
Speaker 2: let me get in the trenches. It could just be
25:58
Speaker 2: you doing the job through a few repetitions, and that
26:01
Speaker 2: way you know how to create the standard operating procedure
26:05
Speaker 2: around it better. We try to delegate stuff that we've
26:08
Speaker 2: never done. And if every time I've ever done that
26:13
Speaker 2: where I try to delegate something that I haven't kind
26:15
Speaker 2: of hand cranked myself, it usually blows up in my face.
26:20
Speaker 2: So a lot of times you kind of have to
26:21
Speaker 2: go backwards before you go forwards. And you get in
26:24
Speaker 2: there and you do the role as the founder, you
26:27
Speaker 2: you zoom in and do the job for a week,
26:30
Speaker 2: and then you kind of have a better understanding of Okay,
26:31
Speaker 2: this is what success looks like, and this is how
26:34
Speaker 2: I build a standard operating procedure around what it is
26:37
Speaker 2: I want and expect for this role, rather than hey,
26:40
Speaker 2: I know I need a chief of marketing, let me
26:43
Speaker 2: go hire one. Well, have you ever really managed a
26:47
Speaker 2: Facebook campaign? And have you ever really done you know,
26:51
Speaker 2: content marketing? Yourself? Will know? Well, then, how do you
26:55
Speaker 2: really even know who you want to hire for that?
26:57
Speaker 2: If you've never had a point really hard And so
27:01
Speaker 2: a lot of times every time I've been kind of
27:03
Speaker 2: stuck and beating my head against the wall on something
27:06
Speaker 2: like that. It's usually I'll go in and I'll just
27:08
Speaker 2: do it for twenty hours or forty hours, and I
27:11
Speaker 2: have a better understanding of what success looks like.
27:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's to me as you're springing that. The TV
27:18
Speaker 1: series Undercover Boss or something like that comes to my
27:20
Speaker 1: right where they go and I even deal with this, Yeah, yeah,
27:26
Speaker 1: that show is comical because it's it is.
27:30
Speaker 2: Uh, those CEOs are doing a lot of the doing
27:34
Speaker 2: a lot of the things that we're talking about right
27:36
Speaker 2: now the wrong and they're not getting in the trenches,
27:41
Speaker 2: and they're not talking to customers, and they're not you know,
27:45
Speaker 2: delegating things that they have done themselves. And you know,
27:48
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter which one you watch, it's like the
27:50
Speaker 2: CEO is always clueless about some sort of thing that's
27:52
Speaker 2: going on. And you know where the where I watched
27:55
Speaker 2: one of the CEO of Dunkin Donuts and he was
27:58
Speaker 2: at the store and did not know how to work,
28:00
Speaker 2: you know, like the coffee maker. Right, Oh my gosh, Like,
28:04
Speaker 2: how can you be so disconnected?
28:06
Speaker 1: Right? No, and and and it's it's absolutely true. I
28:10
Speaker 1: mean where I came from Stewart your business when I
28:12
Speaker 1: started that to your point, Brian, I lived from what
28:15
Speaker 1: I've been in and I go back in there. But
28:17
Speaker 1: I can totally see where you're where you're coming from.
28:20
Speaker 1: If you don't understand this, it doesn't you don't have
28:22
Speaker 1: to be the expert. You have to understand it, like
28:24
Speaker 1: what's involved there. Because one thing I liked when you
28:28
Speaker 1: and I were talking before before we recorded the podcast
28:31
Speaker 1: was this idea of the founder bottleneck and you flipped
28:35
Speaker 1: it around and I and and and I appreciate this
28:38
Speaker 1: because you said, look, if you know if I delegate
28:41
Speaker 1: you started saying this earlier, if I delegate everything away,
28:44
Speaker 1: well then that's you know, and they're not doing their job.
28:47
Speaker 1: There's not good guard rails then, and it has to
28:49
Speaker 1: come back on me then that that is a problem.
28:51
Speaker 1: But what I said, if you understand what they're supposed
28:53
Speaker 1: to be doing, when I heard you to say, Brian,
28:55
Speaker 1: like I know they're supposed to doing this, I know this,
28:57
Speaker 1: and I'm empowering them, then I'm not the bottle neck
28:59
Speaker 1: anymore because I empowered them to do what they do
29:02
Speaker 1: and I know what they're supposed to do. Right, talk
29:03
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that your journey there.
29:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, the The problem of the founder bottleneck is real,
29:12
Speaker 2: and it is real, and I've experienced it a few
29:14
Speaker 2: times in thirty years of doing this. But every time
29:20
Speaker 2: I've ever experienced that problem is because things were going
29:22
Speaker 2: really well and I was getting in the way, and
29:24
Speaker 2: that's actually quite rare. It's usually the other problem that
29:27
Speaker 2: things are not going well that I've tried to like
29:32
Speaker 2: be more hands off and delegate too much. And on
29:35
Speaker 2: the opposite of the bottleneck, I'm not actually in the trenches.
29:39
Speaker 3: Enough on what it is that that is holding us up,
29:43
Speaker 3: and I actually get my hands dirty, get really like
29:47
Speaker 3: inspect what I expect and really try to figure it
29:50
Speaker 3: out at the like at the first principles like root cause,
29:54
Speaker 3: and then build out what success looks like from there.
29:58
Speaker 2: And it's because I've been lazy about that, Like the
30:00
Speaker 2: opposite problem of the bottleneck, it's like hands off that
30:04
Speaker 2: that gets me in more trouble. And I see that
30:07
Speaker 2: problem especially with new founders more than they're in the way.
30:12
Speaker 2: It's like when they're in the way, it's like you've
30:15
Speaker 2: already got a great team that's doing that gets working,
30:18
Speaker 2: and it's like you're just getting in the way of
30:19
Speaker 2: their success. That does happen, but usually it's like you've
30:23
Speaker 2: tried to like open too many stores and the you know,
30:27
Speaker 2: the two new ones you opened are just like falling apart.
30:30
Speaker 2: You've got the wrong managers in there. You you don't
30:33
Speaker 2: have the right systems and standard operating procedures. You've you're
30:37
Speaker 2: you're it's the opposite of bottleneck. You need to like
30:40
Speaker 2: go walk through there a couple of times a week
30:43
Speaker 2: and like and make and and and and and literally
30:47
Speaker 2: figure out where the system is breaking down. It's that
30:50
Speaker 2: and and and so it usually is the opposite problem,
30:53
Speaker 2: especially in my experience anyway.
30:55
Speaker 1: Well to your point, actually, Brian, because as a bamb
30:59
Speaker 1: businesser myself, I'm often approach do you need more leads
31:03
Speaker 1: people to help you with sales, let's say, for example,
31:06
Speaker 1: And if I'm not clear on this and I'm outsourcing it,
31:10
Speaker 1: there's a problem because you know they're not going to
31:12
Speaker 1: do nearly as good To your point, Brian, and and
31:15
Speaker 1: so you need to and I do think that you're
31:18
Speaker 1: outsourcing too soon. You know, you need to be clear
31:21
Speaker 1: on your sales process and understanding this how my client
31:24
Speaker 1: journey and all this stuff. And so I kind of
31:26
Speaker 1: laugh because I get other people all the time. Could
31:28
Speaker 1: you use more leads or this other But you don't
31:30
Speaker 1: even really know my business. You haven't taken the time
31:32
Speaker 1: to understand me, and that you're pitching this stuff all
31:35
Speaker 1: day long, all.
31:36
Speaker 2: Of that trap all the time. I mean, I can
31:39
Speaker 2: give you a dozen examples with green power where I
31:41
Speaker 2: have where I have messed this up. For example, like
31:44
Speaker 2: I don't I don't use TikTok. I don't have TikTok
31:47
Speaker 2: on my phone. I don't need one more app to
31:49
Speaker 2: check and I don't want to. I don't want to
31:52
Speaker 2: have like one more thing to get addicted to. So
31:54
Speaker 2: I don't use it. But but we need green poal
31:58
Speaker 2: needs to have a TikTok presence. I've never used TikTok.
32:01
Speaker 2: I certainly have never ran a TikTok marketing campaign. And
32:05
Speaker 2: so we have a freelancer that we pay for ten
32:09
Speaker 2: hours a week, like their sole job is to run
32:13
Speaker 2: our TikTok, and the results suck. We suck there, We
32:18
Speaker 2: have no take, we have no pick up. It's almost
32:21
Speaker 2: not even worth doing. So I know the thing that
32:23
Speaker 2: I need to do is just live, eat, breathe, and
32:27
Speaker 2: die TikTok for a month I do that, I will
32:31
Speaker 2: know a lot more about how to get us where
32:33
Speaker 2: we need to be when it comes to that channel
32:35
Speaker 2: than where we are. And so you know when when
32:38
Speaker 2: that becomes a priority, when it becomes the thing that
32:41
Speaker 2: I will do that. But but it's just like you're
32:43
Speaker 2: always going to be making these trade offs and making
32:47
Speaker 2: these mistakes, and that's okay. It's just knowing when, when
32:50
Speaker 2: when you're screwing them up, and when to act.
32:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that brings a follow up question. I wanted
32:55
Speaker 1: to a because one of the things I really thought
32:57
Speaker 1: that you've been able to do is build what I
33:00
Speaker 1: call an anti fragile business, meaning you can handle the
33:04
Speaker 1: challenges and not like you said, the firefighting like that's
33:07
Speaker 1: not critical, it's not mission critical right now, the TikTok
33:09
Speaker 1: thing for example, and so being able to zero in on,
33:13
Speaker 1: like we said earlier, what's the what's that? What do
33:16
Speaker 1: I need to get into that system or people problem?
33:21
Speaker 1: And so what is it that in your experience where
33:24
Speaker 1: you've been you've been now doing this for a decade longer,
33:28
Speaker 1: you've been able to keep the maintaining and organized, keeping
33:31
Speaker 1: an organization what I call it being you know, anti fragile.
33:34
Speaker 1: So it's not going to just break down. You're doing
33:37
Speaker 1: the redio maintenance. You're looking at that. Talk a little bit.
33:40
Speaker 1: Will use the garden analogy, Brian of like, you know,
33:43
Speaker 1: it's a lot harder to build a garden from scratch
33:46
Speaker 1: than to maintain it and weed it and keep it going.
33:49
Speaker 1: Talk a little about how you've been able to do
33:50
Speaker 1: it and keep the business it strong and and and
33:54
Speaker 1: you know able to withstand changes in the market.
33:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, look like the gold standard for anti fragile and
34:02
Speaker 2: and what it is and it looks like is not
34:06
Speaker 2: only as the owner, as the founder, as the as
34:09
Speaker 2: the CEO, whatever you want to call yourself. Can you
34:11
Speaker 2: step away from the company, from the team for a week,
34:17
Speaker 2: a month, yep, and come back and it be in
34:20
Speaker 2: the same state when you left it. Not only that
34:22
Speaker 2: it actually is going to be better like anti fragile,
34:26
Speaker 2: Like it doesn't decay, It excels, you know, even if
34:32
Speaker 2: you step away, even if you're even if you're not
34:34
Speaker 2: wrangling it every day. And the opposite, you know, the
34:38
Speaker 2: the opposite, like polar opposite of this was my last company.
34:42
Speaker 2: It was which was a landscaping business. I grew a
34:44
Speaker 2: landscaping construction company to over eight figures a year in revenue,
34:48
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty people. That business was the was
34:51
Speaker 2: the ultimate, like non anti fragile was the most fragile
34:55
Speaker 2: business I've ever ran, because like I often used a
34:58
Speaker 2: joke when I ran that company for fifteen years is
35:00
Speaker 2: I could not and I never did take a vacation
35:04
Speaker 2: for longer than two days because because if I was
35:08
Speaker 2: gone for four days, it would it would have just
35:11
Speaker 2: self imploded. And that just required me to like be
35:16
Speaker 2: in the middle of everything. And so so that's you know,
35:19
Speaker 2: if if you find yourself there, you've screwed screwed a
35:21
Speaker 2: lot of things up. And so you want to be
35:25
Speaker 2: on the other end of the spectrum where you build
35:26
Speaker 2: a business that runs so well and there's departments and
35:29
Speaker 2: there's there's there's different aspects of it that are running
35:32
Speaker 2: so well that you can like you can go hands
35:35
Speaker 2: off and not only will it keep status coul, but
35:37
Speaker 2: it will actually excel without you h being all over it.
35:41
Speaker 2: And and to go back to Elon Musk, like he
35:44
Speaker 2: has this there's parts. It's like you know, he's got
35:47
Speaker 2: x Ai, he's got he's got Tesla, he's he's he's
35:51
Speaker 2: got you know, uh, space X and and these companies,
35:55
Speaker 2: like he's not at every one of them every day.
35:57
Speaker 2: He can't and so so he he's kind of bouncing around,
36:01
Speaker 2: moving in and out, and there's aspects of it that
36:03
Speaker 2: are anti fragile. And so that's the standard you want
36:05
Speaker 2: to hold yourself too. That's the goal. That's that's where
36:08
Speaker 2: you're trying to get to.
36:09
Speaker 1: I so appreciate you said that, Brian. I even put
36:11
Speaker 1: that on my linked and I said, I help business
36:13
Speaker 1: owners and leaders take vacations because to your point, they
36:17
Speaker 1: whether you're the businesswner, even some of the leaders. I
36:19
Speaker 1: was in a co organization and I felt like, oh,
36:21
Speaker 1: I can't lead my team too long. They're not going
36:23
Speaker 1: to be able to know what to do. And I'm like,
36:24
Speaker 1: I'm not doing my job. Well if that's the case.
36:27
Speaker 1: And to your point, that's where I love what you've
36:29
Speaker 1: been able to do at Greenpal. You've created and assembled
36:31
Speaker 1: this amazing product service now and you have a team
36:36
Speaker 1: behind you and you can step away and you're like, Hey,
36:38
Speaker 1: come on a podcast and really share your journey, which
36:42
Speaker 1: I think is fantastic, Brian, because we need more to
36:45
Speaker 1: know that Hey, you can do this, you can do
36:47
Speaker 1: it in a sustainable way. And you obviously, Brian, you
36:50
Speaker 1: love what you do. It comes through as you're passionate
36:52
Speaker 1: about it and to this day. And so you know,
36:54
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this as a business owner leader,
36:56
Speaker 1: I would definitely want you to encourage you to reach
36:58
Speaker 1: out connect with Brian and leave comments here on the podcast.
37:01
Speaker 1: We'll make sure it gets back to him. Check out
37:03
Speaker 1: greenpow dot com and see what he's built there. But
37:06
Speaker 1: Brian is we're getting close into the podcast here and
37:09
Speaker 1: we've covered a lot of ground. What would you encourage
37:13
Speaker 1: that that business owner or somebody that's not stepped out yet,
37:16
Speaker 1: they're they're thinking about the entrepreneur that they can start
37:20
Speaker 1: to evaluate themselves or take action today and what you've
37:23
Speaker 1: shared Brian, so that they can have a more meaningful,
37:26
Speaker 1: fulfilled life the way you're living your life today.
37:29
Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, if if we've talked a lot about
37:33
Speaker 2: how as a founder, you know a lot of it
37:37
Speaker 2: boils down to like your personal attributes and and how
37:41
Speaker 2: really you are the business and the business is you,
37:45
Speaker 2: and that mentality that just does not exist in every everybody.
37:48
Speaker 2: I don't I don't I don't believe everybody's cut out
37:50
Speaker 2: to be an entrepreneur. But but if you can like
37:55
Speaker 2: do a self audit and and you realize you check
37:59
Speaker 2: those boxes, then it is one of the greatest things
38:00
Speaker 2: you can do with your time on this earth. Like
38:04
Speaker 2: I truly believe that. And there's a book called Extreme
38:08
Speaker 2: Ownership Jocko will Kill Will Yeah, And that book is great.
38:17
Speaker 2: It's about you know, military life and being a Navy seal,
38:23
Speaker 2: but that book is great because it applies to entrepreneurship
38:27
Speaker 2: as well. And and one of the points of the
38:29
Speaker 2: book is like, as a navy seal, everything is your
38:33
Speaker 2: fault all the time, and as a founder as an entrepreneur,
38:36
Speaker 2: that is the same thing, Like everything is your fault
38:39
Speaker 2: all the time, and that's okay, Like it's you just
38:42
Speaker 2: need to embrace that. Customers not hitting your sales numbers
38:47
Speaker 2: going backwards, you know, accident heaven forbid at the place
38:51
Speaker 2: of business, like that is going to be your fault.
38:55
Speaker 2: And if you can embrace that, if you can understand that,
38:57
Speaker 2: internalize it, then then that's going to make life a
39:02
Speaker 2: lot easier as a founder. And it took me years,
39:07
Speaker 2: took me a decade, Like I used to feel like
39:09
Speaker 2: I had a victim mentality in my first business, where
39:11
Speaker 2: I would just be upset and pissed off that things
39:14
Speaker 2: weren't going the way I wanted them to go. And
39:15
Speaker 2: then I realized, you idiot, you built this. All of
39:20
Speaker 2: this is the creation of actions you have taken over
39:23
Speaker 2: the last ten years, and so that that book came
39:25
Speaker 2: around at a really good time when I needed to
39:27
Speaker 2: read it.
39:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fantastic, Brian. I so appreciate you jumping in
39:32
Speaker 1: here and sharing with us your journey. You've obviously built
39:36
Speaker 1: a successful business because of that, taking that ownership and
39:40
Speaker 1: that discipline and applying it to your life, and I'm
39:44
Speaker 1: grateful for you to share your insights with our audience today.
39:47
Speaker 2: Well, thanks for having on, David. I really enjoyed our conversation.
39:51
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely. If you guys found value in this, hopefully
39:54
Speaker 1: you did, because it hopfully challenged your thinking a little
39:57
Speaker 1: bit more sharing with another found or operator business leader
40:02
Speaker 1: that you know. Come back and join us again. We
40:05
Speaker 1: want to help continue to strengthen your leadership, your business acumen,
40:09
Speaker 1: your operational clarity so that you can help grow and
40:12
Speaker 1: sustain your business. And again, listen to Brian check him
40:16
Speaker 1: out greenpoal dot com and his website and all the
40:19
Speaker 1: great things that he's doing, and come back here to
40:21
Speaker 1: the Business Roundtable Podcast again. Until next time, be well,
40:24
Speaker 1: thanks everybody for listening.