1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:02,560 long before I even got close to thinking about what that was. 2 00:00:03,320 --> 00:00:04,520 But awesome. 3 00:00:04,800 --> 00:00:07,400 If there was one major takeaway that you'd want people to have today, what 4 00:00:07,400 --> 00:00:08,400 would it be? 5 00:00:10,800 --> 00:00:14,200 I think it really is about when you're trying to build a startup, 6 00:00:15,440 --> 00:00:19,580 focus on the business aspects more than on the sort of the technical 7 00:00:19,580 --> 00:00:22,980 and the product aspects. I think most of the founders I talked to are so 8 00:00:22,980 --> 00:00:27,000 into the nuts and bolts of what they're doing that they 9 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:29,280 haven't looked at the bigger picture, how it fits in. 10 00:00:29,280 --> 00:00:31,880 And that's doubly true when they're thinking about fundraising. 11 00:00:32,840 --> 00:00:33,240 So true. 12 00:00:33,240 --> 00:00:37,440 All right. Welcome in to Vision Pros Live with Jackson Calame. 13 00:00:37,440 --> 00:00:41,360 I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary entrepreneurs and 14 00:00:41,360 --> 00:00:44,480 guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there. 15 00:00:53,600 --> 00:00:56,640 Hey, what's up and welcome in Vision Pros. My name is Jackson Calame. 16 00:00:56,640 --> 00:00:59,440 I'm your host. So excited to have you on today. 17 00:00:59,440 --> 00:01:02,360 We have a wonderful guest named Lance Cottrell. 18 00:01:02,360 --> 00:01:06,360 And Lance has a lot of experience in the startup world. 19 00:01:06,360 --> 00:01:10,160 He has had exits. He's still part of the board from one of his long term exits. 20 00:01:10,480 --> 00:01:13,760 He has a whole lot of insight when it comes to entrepreneurship and business 21 00:01:13,760 --> 00:01:15,360 ownership. So if that's you, 22 00:01:15,360 --> 00:01:19,360 if you're one of those serial entrepreneurs or young startup entrepreneurs 23 00:01:19,960 --> 00:01:22,720 and or you're a seasoned entrepreneur, 24 00:01:22,720 --> 00:01:25,560 but looking to look over the shoulder of somebody who's been at this for several 25 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:27,920 decades and you're in for a real treat today. 26 00:01:28,320 --> 00:01:32,280 He's also an expert in I almost said cryptocurrency. 27 00:01:32,280 --> 00:01:37,080 That's not the case is cryptography, online privacy, internet security. 28 00:01:37,080 --> 00:01:39,880 We probably won't dive too deep into those aspects, 29 00:01:39,880 --> 00:01:43,280 but the cool thing is if that's something that you need to know more about for 30 00:01:43,280 --> 00:01:46,280 the sake of protecting the vulnerability, the privacy of your users, 31 00:01:46,280 --> 00:01:49,440 then he's probably a fantastic person to reach out to and talk to about that as 32 00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:52,440 well. So we'll talk a little bit more about his story before I bring him on 33 00:01:52,440 --> 00:01:54,000 stage. But first off, I want to, 34 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:59,000 I want to derail a little bit towards our sponsorship. So icon maker live.com. 35 00:01:59,920 --> 00:02:01,840 Go check it out. Go see what the event was about. 36 00:02:02,040 --> 00:02:07,000 Icon maker has helped is helping icons launch their brands. 37 00:02:07,000 --> 00:02:09,800 We're talking about influencers. We're talking about the creator economy. 38 00:02:10,040 --> 00:02:14,320 We're talking about people who want to make a massive global impact while also 39 00:02:14,320 --> 00:02:18,160 building a seven figure business. Check that out. There's Tom in the room. 40 00:02:18,280 --> 00:02:20,480 It was such a cool setup to work, uh, 41 00:02:20,480 --> 00:02:25,240 to be presenting on stage at the studio called Sage in Charleston, 42 00:02:25,240 --> 00:02:27,000 South Carolina. But more importantly, 43 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:30,280 there was 300 people who had tuned in online to figure out how did they launch 44 00:02:30,280 --> 00:02:33,000 a podcast successfully? How do you run a business? 45 00:02:33,120 --> 00:02:37,960 Tom Madsen ran an amazing mastermind and session after session after session, 46 00:02:38,160 --> 00:02:41,960 him and Cheryl Pluff as well. Both dove deep. Um, 47 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:43,840 Daniella ran an amazing event. 48 00:02:43,880 --> 00:02:47,400 I've never been part of a better event and what's really cool is they had never 49 00:02:47,560 --> 00:02:49,840 run an event together themselves. 50 00:02:49,840 --> 00:02:51,080 It was the first time they all came together. 51 00:02:51,080 --> 00:02:54,920 So the fact that they pulled that off and then out did 50 plus events that I've 52 00:02:54,920 --> 00:02:57,920 been to, um, and over 500, 53 00:02:58,040 --> 00:03:01,960 I should say 50 plus conferences that I've been to and over 500 events that I've 54 00:03:01,960 --> 00:03:04,120 participated in, like their hands down amazing. 55 00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:07,440 So check out what's going on over at icon maker live and cap show, 56 00:03:08,080 --> 00:03:12,360 CIP, sho.com. This is the number one, uh, 57 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:16,960 ranked content, AI content creator for podcasts by digital 58 00:03:16,960 --> 00:03:20,280 marketer.com and they go above and beyond that. 59 00:03:20,280 --> 00:03:21,960 So if you have any type of content, 60 00:03:21,960 --> 00:03:26,800 if you have any type of video or audio content that you have not repurposed 61 00:03:26,800 --> 00:03:29,920 yet, that you've not built what is often called in the content world, 62 00:03:30,200 --> 00:03:33,600 a digital waterfall or a content waterfall, 63 00:03:33,840 --> 00:03:38,680 then just take your episode or your file uploaded into cap show.com. 64 00:03:38,680 --> 00:03:41,600 They give you a couple of free credits with the affiliate link that we have, 65 00:03:41,920 --> 00:03:46,840 and you'll be able to click buttons to get social media posts generated in 66 00:03:46,840 --> 00:03:48,640 sound by it's old from that as well. 67 00:03:48,800 --> 00:03:51,880 It's an amazing technology that can help you get your content, um, 68 00:03:51,920 --> 00:03:52,520 ready to go. 69 00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:56,080 So you can just copy and paste that information right onto your social media 70 00:03:56,080 --> 00:03:59,560 platforms and get that distributed between tools that go high level, 71 00:03:59,560 --> 00:04:03,320 where they provide you a social planner to get these things scheduled or social 72 00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:08,240 oomph, which allows you to create evergreen content that gets reposted at random 73 00:04:08,440 --> 00:04:10,440 on, on a sites like Twitter. 74 00:04:10,640 --> 00:04:14,320 You can take cap show and that tool and for, you know, 75 00:04:14,320 --> 00:04:17,800 what pretty much less than I think it's less than a hundred bucks between the 76 00:04:17,800 --> 00:04:19,880 two. And you can take Opus as well on top of that. 77 00:04:19,880 --> 00:04:23,400 And you've got a phenomenal strategy to get your content out there without 78 00:04:23,400 --> 00:04:25,560 having to be plugged into it on a day to day basis. 79 00:04:25,800 --> 00:04:29,440 That can be very helpful when you consider that the top of your funnel, 80 00:04:29,600 --> 00:04:33,080 if you are in, if you are working on your marketing, understanding marketing, 81 00:04:33,360 --> 00:04:34,160 you look at that funnel, 82 00:04:34,160 --> 00:04:36,360 there's the people who will buy from you at the bottom of the funnel. 83 00:04:36,680 --> 00:04:37,920 But at the top of the funnel, 84 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:41,800 a lot of people forget the importance of the top row. The top row is distribution. 85 00:04:41,800 --> 00:04:44,520 You've got to get your message in front of more people. 86 00:04:44,800 --> 00:04:46,640 The more people you get your message in front of, 87 00:04:46,640 --> 00:04:49,400 the more likely you're going to come across what's called the low hanging fruit. 88 00:04:49,680 --> 00:04:53,800 That would be the 5% of your market who is ready to take action here. 89 00:04:53,800 --> 00:04:57,160 And now it's very important to get yourself in front of more people in order 90 00:04:57,160 --> 00:04:59,880 to be able to focus more on fulfilling with your business, 91 00:05:00,000 --> 00:05:04,240 doing business with people rather than constantly trying to convince people to 92 00:05:04,240 --> 00:05:07,480 do business with you. Not the, not the best approach. Then last, 93 00:05:07,480 --> 00:05:10,040 and of course, not least we've got the water project. 94 00:05:10,040 --> 00:05:13,040 The water project is one of my favorite charities on earth. 95 00:05:14,360 --> 00:05:17,960 Please just, just consider going and giving five, 10, $15 to it. 96 00:05:18,200 --> 00:05:20,600 Take a look at the projects that they have going on as well. 97 00:05:21,240 --> 00:05:24,200 These kids, their families, their moms, their dads, 98 00:05:24,200 --> 00:05:26,040 they don't have access to clean drinking water. 99 00:05:26,040 --> 00:05:30,360 And this organization goes out and either plans what's called a sand dam or bore 100 00:05:30,360 --> 00:05:35,040 whole well, or something similar to help them get access to clean drinking water 101 00:05:35,040 --> 00:05:38,840 because they're either drinking extremely unsanitary water or they're walking 102 00:05:38,840 --> 00:05:41,280 miles and miles away to bring water back to their village. 103 00:05:41,280 --> 00:05:44,720 And that creates a discord on whether the people that, 104 00:05:44,760 --> 00:05:47,920 that keeps kids from going to school because they have to carry these buckets, 105 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:51,080 long distances and, and go get water rather than being educated. 106 00:05:51,080 --> 00:05:53,960 This absolutely changes people's lives in so many ways. 107 00:05:54,480 --> 00:05:59,480 And I love being able to see exactly how you help and the outcome of, 108 00:05:59,480 --> 00:06:02,920 of what occurs and you'd have the same opportunity and you get an email or 109 00:06:02,960 --> 00:06:05,000 every time there are little updates about the community. 110 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:08,640 So you can see the progress of the good that you've done by simply giving a few 111 00:06:08,640 --> 00:06:11,680 of your dollars to, to contribute to that. 112 00:06:11,680 --> 00:06:14,080 And I don't, I don't think there's many better causes out there in the world 113 00:06:14,280 --> 00:06:16,040 than helping people get water. 114 00:06:16,040 --> 00:06:20,040 So thank you for hearing me out on that without further ado, Lance Cottrell. 115 00:06:20,040 --> 00:06:21,560 Thank you so much for being here today. 116 00:06:21,560 --> 00:06:22,560 Let's dive right in. 117 00:06:22,560 --> 00:06:23,560 Welcome to vision pros. 118 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:24,760 Thanks so much. 119 00:06:24,760 --> 00:06:25,520 Great to be here. 120 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:27,000 Absolutely, man. 121 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,960 So, you know, Lance, there's, there's so many things that we could dive into 122 00:06:30,960 --> 00:06:32,200 with your years of experience. 123 00:06:32,200 --> 00:06:36,160 The first place we'll start is kind of simple, but super pointed. 124 00:06:36,400 --> 00:06:38,240 Who should be listening today? 125 00:06:38,240 --> 00:06:39,480 Why should they listen to you? 126 00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:41,200 And what are they going to get out today? 127 00:06:41,200 --> 00:06:41,720 Show. 128 00:06:42,280 --> 00:06:44,080 So who should be listening? 129 00:06:44,120 --> 00:06:46,960 I really am focused on early stage founders. 130 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:51,880 So the content that I create, a lot of the work that I do now is oriented 131 00:06:51,880 --> 00:06:54,400 around helping them be more successful. 132 00:06:54,400 --> 00:06:59,360 So we're talking from idea stage through, uh, you know, precede, 133 00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:03,080 or seed maybe as late as a, but I really like to work at that stage where 134 00:07:03,080 --> 00:07:05,800 the company is in this formative process. 135 00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:09,160 Uh, and, you know, they should talk to me probably for two reasons. 136 00:07:09,240 --> 00:07:10,280 One is I've been there. 137 00:07:10,280 --> 00:07:13,560 I had a very successful startup, uh, went through a pivot. 138 00:07:13,560 --> 00:07:16,880 I've done B2B and B2C in that context. 139 00:07:17,360 --> 00:07:20,400 And then after that, I became an angel investor and I'm now on the 140 00:07:20,400 --> 00:07:22,040 board of directors of the North Bay angels. 141 00:07:22,040 --> 00:07:23,400 I run our selection committee. 142 00:07:23,400 --> 00:07:27,560 So I see huge numbers of startups come through and I'm really excited 143 00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:31,200 to see how many different types of startups come through and I've 144 00:07:31,200 --> 00:07:35,800 developed a really refined insights into what makes them successful, uh, 145 00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:39,000 both as companies and what makes them successful at fundraising. 146 00:07:39,000 --> 00:07:42,240 And, uh, you know, I've also parlayed that into being a global 147 00:07:42,240 --> 00:07:44,360 entrepreneur in residence at the founder Institute. 148 00:07:44,360 --> 00:07:47,240 So kind of my whole life revolves around startups. 149 00:07:47,720 --> 00:07:48,080 Nice. 150 00:07:48,080 --> 00:07:48,720 That's awesome. 151 00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:52,680 So you said early stage, which is not necessarily 18 year old founders. 152 00:07:52,960 --> 00:07:55,240 Uh, these could be founders that are also 48, 58, 68, that are getting their feet 153 00:07:55,240 --> 00:07:59,880 wet for the first time with the process of starting a company. 154 00:07:59,880 --> 00:08:00,440 Is that correct? 155 00:08:00,920 --> 00:08:01,520 Absolutely. 156 00:08:01,520 --> 00:08:05,640 In fact, I found many of my favorite founders are ones that have been in 157 00:08:05,640 --> 00:08:11,440 industry for, you know, some significant chunk of a career, partly because they 158 00:08:11,480 --> 00:08:16,120 really understand the market, they understand the problems, they have deep 159 00:08:16,120 --> 00:08:20,880 insight into the customers that they're trying to, uh, support and address. 160 00:08:20,880 --> 00:08:25,280 In most cases and you know, that's a whole different world than someone 161 00:08:25,280 --> 00:08:28,400 who's just come out of an entrepreneurship program, just graduated 162 00:08:28,400 --> 00:08:33,360 college and they want to do a startup, but there's often much less understanding 163 00:08:33,360 --> 00:08:35,440 of the why around what they're doing. 164 00:08:36,320 --> 00:08:36,800 I love that. 165 00:08:36,800 --> 00:08:38,720 And I've, I've seen that myself as well. 166 00:08:38,800 --> 00:08:42,680 Um, the, the, you can't replace the experience that comes from being 167 00:08:42,680 --> 00:08:47,760 able to be exposed to the pain, the, the nuisances, the problems that 168 00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:51,600 exist in the market, that they only come from being in the market for five 169 00:08:51,600 --> 00:08:56,000 to 10 years first, um, not to discredit the young bucks that do have intuition 170 00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:56,640 come their way. 171 00:08:56,640 --> 00:09:01,120 So Lance, um, and energy and the energy, right. 172 00:09:01,120 --> 00:09:01,840 That's true too. 173 00:09:01,840 --> 00:09:03,600 That is super true with the young ones. 174 00:09:03,600 --> 00:09:06,720 You got, you got a lot of energy that I can't compete with these days anymore. 175 00:09:07,120 --> 00:09:09,040 Um, even at, at just 35. 176 00:09:09,440 --> 00:09:12,000 Um, so I can only imagine what I feel like at 55. 177 00:09:12,400 --> 00:09:14,000 Um, so, all right. 178 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:14,960 There was, um. 179 00:09:14,960 --> 00:09:17,040 Oh, you mentioned your, your success. 180 00:09:17,040 --> 00:09:18,160 Let's quantify that a little bit. 181 00:09:18,160 --> 00:09:21,200 So the success of your first company, what does that look like? 182 00:09:21,200 --> 00:09:22,000 What are the details? 183 00:09:22,560 --> 00:09:25,520 So it ended up running for 13 years. 184 00:09:25,520 --> 00:09:29,680 And I have to say, when I started the company, I had zero clue what I was 185 00:09:29,680 --> 00:09:31,920 doing, but I was passionate about privacy. 186 00:09:31,920 --> 00:09:36,880 I'd been building privacy tools in the open source community for some time 187 00:09:36,880 --> 00:09:41,520 while I was doing my PhD in astrophysics and decided that that's really where my 188 00:09:41,520 --> 00:09:42,240 passion was. 189 00:09:42,240 --> 00:09:48,880 So in 1995, I put the PhD on permanent hold and created anonymizer, which was a 190 00:09:48,880 --> 00:09:50,480 consumer privacy company. 191 00:09:50,960 --> 00:09:55,600 And we grew that to probably a million active users, a hundred thousand paying 192 00:09:55,600 --> 00:09:56,480 subscribers. 193 00:09:56,480 --> 00:10:01,200 Uh, we survived the 2000, you know, dot-com collapse. 194 00:10:01,680 --> 00:10:06,400 Uh, and then after that, actually, uh, today's the anniversary, 9-11 happened, 195 00:10:06,400 --> 00:10:10,800 and it really got us thinking about how we could contribute in a more substantive 196 00:10:10,800 --> 00:10:12,400 way. 197 00:10:12,400 --> 00:10:16,960 And we ended up discovering that the government had a need for privacy and 198 00:10:16,960 --> 00:10:17,600 anonymity, right? 199 00:10:17,600 --> 00:10:22,640 They, they needed to be able to go after bad guys and not be identified for 200 00:10:22,640 --> 00:10:23,440 obvious reasons. 201 00:10:23,440 --> 00:10:27,040 I would have assumed this was a solved problem, but it turns out that they 202 00:10:27,040 --> 00:10:29,120 really didn't have good solutions for it. 203 00:10:29,120 --> 00:10:31,680 Uh, and so we started building tools for them. 204 00:10:31,680 --> 00:10:36,400 And within three years, that was 95% of our revenue. 205 00:10:36,400 --> 00:10:39,120 We were on this crazy hockey stick going up. 206 00:10:39,120 --> 00:10:43,120 Uh, and then we eventually sold the company a couple of years later in 2008, 207 00:10:43,120 --> 00:10:46,000 largely because I didn't know that customer, right? 208 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:51,360 I didn't come from that, you know, DOD, uh, intelligence community, national 209 00:10:51,360 --> 00:10:53,760 security community kind of background. 210 00:10:53,760 --> 00:10:57,920 Uh, so I didn't have the access and I didn't have the insight that I needed. 211 00:10:57,920 --> 00:11:02,000 And I figured the best way to be, to maximize the potential success was to 212 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:04,000 pair up with a company that did that. 213 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:05,360 Yeah, that makes sense. 214 00:11:05,360 --> 00:11:06,080 That's really neat. 215 00:11:06,080 --> 00:11:12,080 So you took a strategic pivot because of your own weaknesses that you were able 216 00:11:12,080 --> 00:11:18,400 to, to be self-aware enough about, um, and also probably to align further with 217 00:11:18,400 --> 00:11:21,360 your passions, um, is, is kind of what it sounds like. 218 00:11:21,360 --> 00:11:23,600 Um, don't let me feed you words so you can. 219 00:11:23,600 --> 00:11:25,920 No, I mean, absolutely it was, it was a passion. 220 00:11:25,920 --> 00:11:28,880 It felt like it was a way of doing something that was going to have an 221 00:11:28,880 --> 00:11:32,880 impact on the world, but it's also an example of one of those sort of wild 222 00:11:32,880 --> 00:11:34,400 coincidence opportunities. 223 00:11:34,400 --> 00:11:39,200 Uh, the way we ended up doing the pivot was we were being subpoenaed by the 224 00:11:39,200 --> 00:11:41,200 local FBI cyber crime group. 225 00:11:41,200 --> 00:11:43,760 Uh, and we did consumer privacy. 226 00:11:43,760 --> 00:11:48,560 That was not a rare occurrence, but this time it occurred to us to actually 227 00:11:48,560 --> 00:11:51,360 ask them how they addressed this issue. 228 00:11:51,360 --> 00:11:55,360 And they sort of admitted that, well, you know, largely we think people 229 00:11:55,360 --> 00:11:58,160 aren't watching that closely, but if we think someone's going to like see that 230 00:11:58,160 --> 00:12:01,360 we've got an FBI IP address, we'll use the Starbucks down the street. 231 00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:02,560 And I said, wait, what? 232 00:12:02,560 --> 00:12:04,560 We got to talk. 233 00:12:04,560 --> 00:12:08,560 And they actually became our first customer in the government and really 234 00:12:08,560 --> 00:12:10,320 opened the flood gates for us. 235 00:12:10,320 --> 00:12:10,800 Oh, nice. 236 00:12:10,800 --> 00:12:11,360 Okay. 237 00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:15,040 Was this a six figure exit, seven figure, eight figure, or not, not 238 00:12:15,040 --> 00:12:16,080 possible to reveal? 239 00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:18,320 Uh, can't, can't share that publicly. 240 00:12:18,320 --> 00:12:18,720 Okay. 241 00:12:18,720 --> 00:12:19,440 That's fair. 242 00:12:19,440 --> 00:12:20,640 Um, very good. 243 00:12:20,640 --> 00:12:21,680 Then go ahead. 244 00:12:21,680 --> 00:12:24,480 I've got a, I've got a big house and a vineyard in wine country. 245 00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:25,680 Okay. 246 00:12:27,840 --> 00:12:29,600 That's a decent way to quantify it. 247 00:12:29,600 --> 00:12:30,560 Thank you for that. 248 00:12:30,560 --> 00:12:33,760 Um, and you don't rent it for, for the sake of the videos. 249 00:12:33,760 --> 00:12:34,640 Uh, right. 250 00:12:36,400 --> 00:12:37,200 All right. 251 00:12:37,200 --> 00:12:39,920 And when I do this advising, I do it all for equity because I'm not 252 00:12:39,920 --> 00:12:41,760 particularly concerned about cash flow. 253 00:12:42,480 --> 00:12:43,120 Right. 254 00:12:43,120 --> 00:12:44,640 What does, let's see here. 255 00:12:44,640 --> 00:12:48,240 So what does, uh, passion for privacy look like? 256 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:53,280 One thing that came to mind was, was a tin hat, um, you know, and, and, 257 00:12:53,280 --> 00:12:56,080 and hiding in a closet, but I have a feeling there's a, there's a 258 00:12:56,080 --> 00:12:57,280 different angle to this. 259 00:12:57,280 --> 00:12:59,840 So, um, what does that look like to you? 260 00:12:59,840 --> 00:13:02,960 Yeah. I mean, I really became aware of, of the, as the internet was 261 00:13:02,960 --> 00:13:06,480 exploding and remember this was early on, you know, I was building 262 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:11,280 privacy tools in 93 and I think the worldwide web was invented in 92. 263 00:13:12,080 --> 00:13:15,600 And of course the internet had been around for a while, but it became 264 00:13:15,600 --> 00:13:19,440 immediately, obviously just how much data was being collected on people by 265 00:13:19,440 --> 00:13:21,280 large corporations, by governments. 266 00:13:22,160 --> 00:13:25,600 And so the thought was, how do you allow people to take some control of 267 00:13:25,600 --> 00:13:27,520 that back on a personal level? 268 00:13:27,520 --> 00:13:30,880 And so we ended up doing, uh, working with human rights groups. 269 00:13:30,880 --> 00:13:36,080 We did some big projects, uh, to, uh, to censorship circumvention, uh, and 270 00:13:36,080 --> 00:13:40,640 allow anyone to use the internet freely from within China, within Iran, 271 00:13:41,280 --> 00:13:45,280 uh, bypassing all of their sort of oversight systems. 272 00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:48,720 And then of course, with the government, uh, allowing them to be able to go out 273 00:13:48,720 --> 00:13:52,800 and do the things they needed to do to keep us safe. 274 00:13:53,360 --> 00:13:56,560 Uh, I remember I was talking to one customer and said, why, what is 275 00:13:56,560 --> 00:13:57,920 driving you to buy the solution? 276 00:13:57,920 --> 00:13:58,800 What, what do you need? 277 00:13:58,800 --> 00:14:01,120 And this was a covert communications platform. 278 00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:03,440 So people could do undercover chat from this country. 279 00:14:03,440 --> 00:14:07,040 And he said, well, we have a bunch of people in this hot, sandy country. 280 00:14:07,040 --> 00:14:10,560 And one of them turned out to be unreliable, tipped off the bad guys 281 00:14:10,560 --> 00:14:13,600 and all of, you know, the other dozen people who were working with us 282 00:14:13,600 --> 00:14:15,200 ended up minus their heads in a ditch. 283 00:14:15,200 --> 00:14:16,640 And we don't want that to happen again. 284 00:14:16,640 --> 00:14:19,120 And you're like, okay, that's a pain point. 285 00:14:19,120 --> 00:14:22,080 And you can get up in the morning every day trying to address that kind of thing. 286 00:14:22,880 --> 00:14:23,200 Right. 287 00:14:23,200 --> 00:14:23,840 Absolutely. 288 00:14:23,840 --> 00:14:29,520 Now you seem like too nice of a guy and too positive, too happy of a guy 289 00:14:29,520 --> 00:14:30,640 to be in this space. 290 00:14:30,640 --> 00:14:32,000 And here's what I mean by that. 291 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:36,240 When we look at documentaries or we look at people who are into privacy, 292 00:14:36,240 --> 00:14:41,760 I mean, there's so much fear that is talked about express utilized in this, 293 00:14:41,760 --> 00:14:46,240 you know, you know, not, not only like a big governments taking, you know, 294 00:14:46,240 --> 00:14:50,160 all your data and, you know, hate Mark Zuckerberg and let's get our pitchforks 295 00:14:50,160 --> 00:14:54,480 and, and, you know, torches and go just complain about it. 296 00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:57,760 I guess that's the today's world view of how to do something. 297 00:14:57,760 --> 00:14:59,760 But so how do you balance that? 298 00:14:59,760 --> 00:15:02,800 You got this demeanor that says you're a really nice guy 299 00:15:02,800 --> 00:15:05,600 and I could just have lunch with you and talk about cool things in life. 300 00:15:06,240 --> 00:15:11,520 But you're also involved in an industry that is so tightly guarded and angry. 301 00:15:12,160 --> 00:15:14,160 Maybe that's not fair, but that's what I see. 302 00:15:14,160 --> 00:15:15,920 I mean, certainly there are some people in there. 303 00:15:15,920 --> 00:15:18,880 There are definitely a lot of extremists out there. 304 00:15:18,880 --> 00:15:21,120 You know, for me, I'm very pragmatic about privacy. 305 00:15:21,120 --> 00:15:24,960 I think that people don't have a lot of control over their information 306 00:15:24,960 --> 00:15:27,200 and there certainly are people trying to spine you. 307 00:15:27,200 --> 00:15:31,440 But at the same time, we want the benefits of being able to engage in these things. 308 00:15:31,440 --> 00:15:37,200 Like I always think it's fascinating when people say, I want privacy on Facebook. 309 00:15:38,160 --> 00:15:41,200 I don't even know what those words mean in that combination, right? 310 00:15:42,400 --> 00:15:45,680 You want to be able to share all the personal details of your life 311 00:15:45,680 --> 00:15:49,200 without them being accessible to other people. 312 00:15:49,200 --> 00:15:51,680 So it is a funny thing. 313 00:15:51,680 --> 00:15:58,400 And I try to really focus on what are the things that I care about protecting? 314 00:15:58,400 --> 00:16:02,560 Because if you're trying to protect everything, you're effectively protecting nothing. 315 00:16:02,560 --> 00:16:04,240 So be very specific. 316 00:16:04,240 --> 00:16:09,520 Know what it is that you're trying to guard and guard that carefully and then relax. 317 00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:15,120 I'm not worried about Facebook because I don't post things that I'm worried about on Facebook. 318 00:16:15,120 --> 00:16:16,640 Yes, I love that. 319 00:16:16,640 --> 00:16:18,080 And you're right. 320 00:16:18,080 --> 00:16:22,800 That is very much a mindset of I would say if you haven't thought through 321 00:16:23,600 --> 00:16:26,480 what it is that you should be protecting in life and shouldn't be, 322 00:16:27,440 --> 00:16:30,240 and you can actually be scared of everything if you'd like to be. 323 00:16:30,240 --> 00:16:32,960 But that doesn't necessarily help you live life. 324 00:16:32,960 --> 00:16:36,960 So in 30 seconds, what's your vision for those of you, Sarah, 325 00:16:36,960 --> 00:16:40,240 what's your vision for these early stage entrepreneurs? 326 00:16:41,120 --> 00:16:46,080 So really, I want to help them climb the vertical learning curve 327 00:16:46,080 --> 00:16:50,960 because there is nothing that prepares you to be a founder, 328 00:16:51,680 --> 00:16:53,200 except having been a founder before. 329 00:16:53,920 --> 00:16:56,560 You've got to know everything on every topic. 330 00:16:56,560 --> 00:17:00,640 It's an utterly unrealistic expectation. 331 00:17:00,640 --> 00:17:04,480 And so I'm trying to provide both sort of educational materials, 332 00:17:04,480 --> 00:17:09,920 but also sort of direct feedback to help people get up to speed really quickly, 333 00:17:09,920 --> 00:17:12,320 discover the things that are their blind spots, 334 00:17:12,320 --> 00:17:17,120 learn how to compensate for those things so that they can then build a successful business. 335 00:17:17,120 --> 00:17:18,640 Because if they're just floundering around, 336 00:17:19,200 --> 00:17:20,800 they're not going to get to where they're trying to go. 337 00:17:22,160 --> 00:17:22,640 Yes. 338 00:17:22,640 --> 00:17:26,080 And there's so much depth of truth to all of that. 339 00:17:26,080 --> 00:17:30,240 So how accessible are you to these early stage founders, Lance? 340 00:17:30,240 --> 00:17:31,040 You're accessible to me. 341 00:17:31,040 --> 00:17:31,840 You came on my show. 342 00:17:31,840 --> 00:17:33,040 So I appreciate that. 343 00:17:33,040 --> 00:17:33,440 For sure. 344 00:17:33,440 --> 00:17:36,960 Yeah. So it's pretty easy to get a hold of me. 345 00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:39,280 All the content that I've created is free. 346 00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:42,640 It's all up at feeltheboot.com. 347 00:17:42,640 --> 00:17:45,840 And the name came from some of the people I was advising, 348 00:17:45,840 --> 00:17:48,640 spontaneously began referring to me as The Boot. 349 00:17:48,640 --> 00:17:50,080 And I decided to lean into that. 350 00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:56,320 But feeltheboot.com has all these articles on all aspects of the startup process. 351 00:17:56,320 --> 00:17:58,160 It's also a YouTube channel. 352 00:17:58,160 --> 00:18:01,360 So it's all available there as videos as well. 353 00:18:01,360 --> 00:18:03,120 Through that, I do office hours. 354 00:18:03,120 --> 00:18:04,720 So I've got free office hours. 355 00:18:04,720 --> 00:18:07,520 Anyone who's interested and signs up for my newsletter 356 00:18:07,520 --> 00:18:10,480 can get on my calendar to get a 15-minute session. 357 00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:13,920 I also offer paid advising for people who need longer chunks of time 358 00:18:13,920 --> 00:18:17,280 or want to get on sooner because the free stuff does tend to book up. 359 00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:22,000 I take on some clients as formal advisees, but not so many. 360 00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:25,520 And then I also do advising through Founder Institute, 361 00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:28,080 which is an accelerator program. 362 00:18:28,080 --> 00:18:33,200 And there I work with cohorts in a number of different cities, primarily San Diego, 363 00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:38,800 San Francisco, Toronto, London, and Tunisia. 364 00:18:39,680 --> 00:18:42,000 Oh, cool. Awesome. That's fun. 365 00:18:42,000 --> 00:18:43,520 Yeah, Tunisia is an interesting one. 366 00:18:43,520 --> 00:18:46,400 The kind of businesses and the kind of problems that they have 367 00:18:46,400 --> 00:18:50,320 are very different than the kinds of problems that you see coming out of, say, 368 00:18:50,320 --> 00:18:52,720 London or Silicon Valley. 369 00:18:53,360 --> 00:18:56,880 And so it stretches your brain a little bit to try to help them 370 00:18:56,880 --> 00:18:59,440 navigate their unique kinds of issues. 371 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:02,960 Absolutely. What are a couple of those examples? 372 00:19:03,520 --> 00:19:08,800 So one of the first is that a large fraction of the population is fundamentally unbanked. 373 00:19:08,800 --> 00:19:13,920 So a lot of the sort of payment mechanisms that you might assume you have access to 374 00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:15,200 don't exist there. 375 00:19:15,200 --> 00:19:17,200 There's a lot of issues with corruption. 376 00:19:17,200 --> 00:19:20,320 There's societal expectations. 377 00:19:20,320 --> 00:19:24,560 If you're trying to do fintech, there's both problems and opportunities 378 00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:29,840 because in most Islamic countries, you can't borrow or lend money. 379 00:19:30,960 --> 00:19:33,680 But yet people still need financing for things. 380 00:19:33,680 --> 00:19:36,880 And so you've got to go about things in other kinds of ways. 381 00:19:36,880 --> 00:19:40,480 So it really does raise a lot of interesting problems. 382 00:19:40,480 --> 00:19:44,640 Interesting. Thomas Friedman wrote a book a long time ago called The World is Flat. 383 00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:48,160 And it's one I really enjoyed reading during my college years. 384 00:19:48,160 --> 00:19:51,600 And it talked about how all these countries are starting to kind of 385 00:19:51,600 --> 00:19:53,600 arrive to the same level. 386 00:19:53,600 --> 00:19:55,600 And I love the vision. I love the dream. 387 00:19:55,600 --> 00:19:58,160 But I mean, you brought up something critical right there. 388 00:19:58,160 --> 00:20:02,160 It's not even close to level in many of these countries. 389 00:20:02,160 --> 00:20:04,720 They have so, so far to go. 390 00:20:04,720 --> 00:20:08,080 Yeah. No, they're coming up fast and often hugely disparate. 391 00:20:08,080 --> 00:20:12,560 So there is an upper class in most of these countries that does have access. 392 00:20:12,560 --> 00:20:13,520 They've got great Internet. 393 00:20:13,520 --> 00:20:15,200 They've got access to all of these things. 394 00:20:15,200 --> 00:20:19,760 And then there's the 95 percent of the population that's unbanked. 395 00:20:19,760 --> 00:20:22,880 You know, 95 percent of the population, which is, you know, 396 00:20:24,800 --> 00:20:26,400 in iron age in some cases. 397 00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:30,240 And, you know, they've got a long ways to go to try to get access to these capabilities. 398 00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:33,360 But it's funny how they're leapfrogging whole technologies. 399 00:20:33,360 --> 00:20:38,800 Like they're not going to put in cable systems or telephones to every house, 400 00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:41,120 but everyone does have a cell phone. 401 00:20:41,120 --> 00:20:44,800 And so they're now suddenly getting access to all sorts of things, 402 00:20:44,800 --> 00:20:48,000 bypassing whole stages that we spent decades going through. 403 00:20:48,000 --> 00:20:50,000 Right. Absolutely. 404 00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:55,760 And it's interesting because I don't think without help from people like yourselves, 405 00:20:56,400 --> 00:21:02,160 you know, they would have as much propensity to magnify the opportunity. 406 00:21:02,160 --> 00:21:06,000 Right. That's the whole point of having somebody come in who's been there and done that with the 407 00:21:06,000 --> 00:21:10,400 technology that has those decades of experience bridging the gaps that you just don't necessarily 408 00:21:10,400 --> 00:21:11,680 see or understand by yourself. 409 00:21:12,960 --> 00:21:16,400 For sure. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of them here in America, you at least see 410 00:21:16,400 --> 00:21:18,320 entrepreneurs around. We're sort of aware of it. 411 00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:20,160 It's kind of in the water a little bit. 412 00:21:20,160 --> 00:21:26,240 But in a lot of these places, yeah, it takes a pretty exceptional person to even sort of 413 00:21:26,240 --> 00:21:30,240 conceive of this as something that they could go pursue and then go in that direction. 414 00:21:30,800 --> 00:21:37,040 That's also what my South American counterparts concluded when I started our group to help 415 00:21:37,600 --> 00:21:40,960 Latin Americans get involved in Fiverr, Upwork, etc. 416 00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:45,360 One of my great and smartest friends from down there, Sid Jackson, 417 00:21:45,360 --> 00:21:48,880 we grow up, we don't grow up learning about entrepreneurship. 418 00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:53,440 You guys grow up making lemonade stands, you know, and like learning about how to become 419 00:21:53,440 --> 00:21:57,600 entrepreneurs. And we don't have any concept of that down here. 420 00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:00,560 We were never taught to think that way from the get go. 421 00:22:00,560 --> 00:22:04,400 So this is completely foreign territory for us as a collective whole. 422 00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:08,720 And I was like, wow, that is really helpful insight for somebody who's trying to go and make 423 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:11,920 changes in societies that don't necessarily have access to some of that. 424 00:22:11,920 --> 00:22:15,760 I'm going to switch gears, though, back to you, early stage entrepreneurs. 425 00:22:15,760 --> 00:22:17,280 I might get a kick out of this one. 426 00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:22,240 So Lance, what's your worst business experience ever? 427 00:22:23,360 --> 00:22:27,040 I have an embarrassingly large number to choose from here. 428 00:22:27,040 --> 00:22:29,040 Sure. 429 00:22:29,040 --> 00:22:35,280 But I actually did a whole episode of my podcast on my kind of worst day as a founder. 430 00:22:35,280 --> 00:22:36,320 What's your podcast? 431 00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:36,880 I need to know. 432 00:22:36,880 --> 00:22:37,840 So Feel the Boot. 433 00:22:37,840 --> 00:22:38,800 Feel the Boot podcast. 434 00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:39,760 Oh, Feel the Boot podcast. 435 00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:40,240 Makes sense. 436 00:22:40,240 --> 00:22:42,240 I'm going to go back. 437 00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:43,120 I'm going to interrupt you. 438 00:22:43,120 --> 00:22:44,000 So The Boot. 439 00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:45,120 You got called The Boot. 440 00:22:45,120 --> 00:22:47,840 Is this about bootstrapping or is there some other reference to them? 441 00:22:47,840 --> 00:22:49,040 Or is this bootstrapping? 442 00:22:49,040 --> 00:22:53,440 I think it was a motivational kick in the ass is what it was. 443 00:22:53,440 --> 00:22:54,960 Oh, there it is. 444 00:22:54,960 --> 00:22:55,440 Good. 445 00:22:55,440 --> 00:22:56,160 I like that. 446 00:22:56,160 --> 00:22:56,800 We need more. 447 00:22:56,800 --> 00:22:57,600 We need more of that. 448 00:22:58,160 --> 00:22:58,640 That's right. 449 00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:00,240 No, it's a boot of love. 450 00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:01,520 But I don't know. 451 00:23:01,520 --> 00:23:02,720 I've had fun with that. 452 00:23:02,720 --> 00:23:04,480 And it's unique. 453 00:23:04,480 --> 00:23:09,440 It's not the same kind of business oriented titles you see on so many of these kind of 454 00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:11,360 incubators or startups or advisories. 455 00:23:13,360 --> 00:23:17,360 My first assistant is one of my best friends to this day called me The Steel Bat. 456 00:23:17,360 --> 00:23:20,000 So I think The Boot would have been better. 457 00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:24,240 I did have to learn to tone it down a little bit. 458 00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:25,680 So over a lot of it. 459 00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:25,920 All right. 460 00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:27,920 So your worst business experience? 461 00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:28,240 Yeah. 462 00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:35,200 So this was in 2000 as we were going into the teeth of the dot com collapse. 463 00:23:35,200 --> 00:23:39,760 And but we had we were in a good spot. 464 00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:43,680 We had an angel investor who was about to write a million and a half dollar check 465 00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:46,000 into the company. 466 00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:53,120 And we had an offer to acquire the company from a bigger security company at, you know, 467 00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:54,880 it was like 12 million. 468 00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:55,680 It was pretty modest. 469 00:23:55,680 --> 00:24:02,000 But we were really over a barrel at that point and hemorrhaging a fair amount of cash. 470 00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,840 But we're like, OK, we have investment and we have this deal. 471 00:24:07,360 --> 00:24:14,320 Over the course of a couple of weeks, as the economy started to tank, the angel pulled out 472 00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:15,360 and he was gone. 473 00:24:15,360 --> 00:24:16,800 Got no investment from him. 474 00:24:16,800 --> 00:24:18,560 No one else was investing at this point. 475 00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:20,960 So money coming in was not an option. 476 00:24:20,960 --> 00:24:27,840 And while we were negotiating with the acquirer, their stock price went from $30 a share to $3 477 00:24:27,840 --> 00:24:28,800 a share. 478 00:24:28,800 --> 00:24:30,640 And this was going to be an all stock deal. 479 00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:35,840 So suddenly this was turning into being a fairly substantial fraction of their net worth 480 00:24:36,400 --> 00:24:37,600 and their company size. 481 00:24:37,600 --> 00:24:39,520 So that didn't make sense for them. 482 00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:40,720 They pulled out. 483 00:24:40,720 --> 00:24:48,400 And I think we had, I don't know, four, six weeks of working capital in the bank, basically 484 00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:50,000 a six week runway. 485 00:24:50,000 --> 00:24:57,040 And we buckled down and rode out 18 months with never more than six weeks of capital 486 00:24:57,040 --> 00:25:02,080 in the bank before we were able to really get things right size, start getting some 487 00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:06,960 investment, grow the company some more, and then accelerated out of that trench. 488 00:25:06,960 --> 00:25:10,960 But that was a rough year and a half. 489 00:25:10,960 --> 00:25:16,160 Oh, and the week that that deal fell through and the acquirer pulled out, my father-in-law 490 00:25:16,160 --> 00:25:16,660 died. 491 00:25:17,520 --> 00:25:18,080 Oh, man. 492 00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:23,280 So that was a rough time. 493 00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:30,000 So, you know, and I must have had at least 10 times when the company was just within a 494 00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:35,840 whisker of total annihilation and we were able to, you know, just grit strong fingernails, 495 00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:40,080 hold on and whatever we needed to do to struggle through. 496 00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:43,280 We sort of at some point started calling it the cockroach strategy because, you know, 497 00:25:43,280 --> 00:25:46,480 after the nuclear annihilation, the cockroaches will still be walking around. 498 00:25:47,200 --> 00:25:47,680 Geez. 499 00:25:47,680 --> 00:25:48,160 Yes. 500 00:25:48,160 --> 00:25:51,360 So what are some of the things you guys did to hang on for dear life? 501 00:25:51,360 --> 00:25:54,560 So we laid off some people, right? 502 00:25:54,560 --> 00:26:02,000 We downsized and we just became utterly laser focused on immediate returns. 503 00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:02,240 Right. 504 00:26:02,240 --> 00:26:10,000 We did not spend a penny that could not generate a multiple return on like a 30-day time horizon. 505 00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:13,920 So everything just narrowed down to like you're looking through a straw. 506 00:26:13,920 --> 00:26:15,280 You cannot be distracted. 507 00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,560 You can't think about any kind of long-term strategic things. 508 00:26:18,560 --> 00:26:20,160 You just have to be there the next day. 509 00:26:20,160 --> 00:26:24,800 Then eventually you'll be able to do the strategic things, you know, once that starts to open up. 510 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:30,800 You discover that there's efficiencies you didn't think you had. 511 00:26:30,800 --> 00:26:36,000 You know, when suddenly everything depends on it, you discover the kinds of things that 512 00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:39,840 you can eliminate or save money on or tighten down. 513 00:26:39,840 --> 00:26:43,280 You know, we'd be almost out of money and you're like, you know, I wonder if we could 514 00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:46,240 send out a renewal notice to people two weeks earlier. 515 00:26:46,960 --> 00:26:47,680 Okay. 516 00:26:47,680 --> 00:26:48,080 Boom. 517 00:26:48,080 --> 00:26:50,480 There's another, you know, $20,000 in the bank. 518 00:26:50,480 --> 00:26:52,480 That'll give us another week to go. 519 00:26:52,480 --> 00:26:56,720 You know, you just had to get insanely scrappy around these things. 520 00:26:57,680 --> 00:27:02,080 And it also sort of gave me a very relaxed worldview about things. 521 00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:05,360 You know, people will be in a panic about some situation in their business and like, 522 00:27:05,360 --> 00:27:06,640 no, no, this is not a crisis. 523 00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:07,440 I've seen crisis. 524 00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:08,480 This is not a crisis. 525 00:27:08,480 --> 00:27:09,040 Relax. 526 00:27:09,040 --> 00:27:12,320 We'll just, you know, unpack this and work out what the next steps are. 527 00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:17,760 That's a powerful mindset that every entrepreneur has. 528 00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:21,920 It's a lot of entrepreneur benefits from understanding how to go through. 529 00:27:21,920 --> 00:27:26,000 You know, a lot of us didn't grow up close enough to the depression era to get that, 530 00:27:26,000 --> 00:27:28,000 you know, to get that mindset inherited. 531 00:27:28,000 --> 00:27:32,800 I was fortunate my parents inherited that pretty strongly from my grandparents. 532 00:27:33,840 --> 00:27:35,520 And then there's Pearl Harbor. 533 00:27:35,520 --> 00:27:42,640 There's this scene in the movie Pearl Harbor where they have to fly the planes across to, 534 00:27:42,640 --> 00:27:44,080 I believe it is Japan. 535 00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:47,040 And these planes were not designed to make that flight. 536 00:27:47,040 --> 00:27:49,060 they're stripping down the plane everything they can. 537 00:27:49,060 --> 00:27:50,140 They get it down, stripped down, 538 00:27:50,140 --> 00:27:52,420 they're still not even close to where they're gonna make it. 539 00:27:52,420 --> 00:27:55,840 And so they start taking out the seats, you know, 540 00:27:55,840 --> 00:27:57,840 and the buckles, like everything 541 00:27:57,840 --> 00:28:00,900 that you could possibly imagine, they had stripped down 542 00:28:00,900 --> 00:28:02,540 and they're now stripping out more. 543 00:28:02,540 --> 00:28:04,820 They're basically destroying the aircraft 544 00:28:04,820 --> 00:28:07,700 in order to be able to complete this mission. 545 00:28:07,700 --> 00:28:10,860 And it reminds me a lot of, again, 546 00:28:10,860 --> 00:28:13,500 what you have to do during these crappy times 547 00:28:13,500 --> 00:28:14,940 during startups, so. 548 00:28:14,940 --> 00:28:17,500 Yeah, right, things that you would under normal conditions 549 00:28:17,500 --> 00:28:20,020 never consider, like, no, these are essential things 550 00:28:20,020 --> 00:28:23,180 suddenly become not essential anymore. 551 00:28:23,180 --> 00:28:24,020 Yes. 552 00:28:24,020 --> 00:28:26,700 I mean, I was holding board of directors meetings 553 00:28:26,700 --> 00:28:30,680 at a local bar because they had free food at happy hour. 554 00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:32,340 So, yeah. 555 00:28:32,340 --> 00:28:34,080 Cool, that's a good find. 556 00:28:35,740 --> 00:28:37,260 Cause that couple hundred bucks of food 557 00:28:37,260 --> 00:28:40,500 was not meaningless to us at that point. 558 00:28:40,500 --> 00:28:43,680 Right, exactly, nice man, I love that. 559 00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:46,900 So, let's talk about the best experience in business. 560 00:28:46,900 --> 00:28:49,300 What's your best experience in business so far? 561 00:28:52,300 --> 00:28:55,820 You know, I think it was probably one of my favorite ones 562 00:28:55,820 --> 00:28:57,900 was getting to do that project. 563 00:28:58,860 --> 00:29:00,660 It was actually a contract to the Voice of America 564 00:29:00,660 --> 00:29:04,580 to do the censorship circumvention into China and Iran. 565 00:29:04,580 --> 00:29:07,180 Right, and being in a position to help 566 00:29:07,180 --> 00:29:11,300 a hundred thousand people, roughly, in each country 567 00:29:11,300 --> 00:29:14,900 get free access to information and free expression 568 00:29:14,900 --> 00:29:17,060 and all of that sort of thing. 569 00:29:17,060 --> 00:29:18,740 You know, that was incredibly rewarding. 570 00:29:18,740 --> 00:29:21,340 And the feedback from customers, I think, as well. 571 00:29:21,340 --> 00:29:24,740 Knowing that you're doing things 572 00:29:24,740 --> 00:29:27,020 that are having meaningful impact on lives. 573 00:29:27,020 --> 00:29:31,620 It's not, you know, some new widget or something like that. 574 00:29:31,620 --> 00:29:35,100 It's life changing for the people who are using it. 575 00:29:35,100 --> 00:29:37,820 That was hugely rewarding. 576 00:29:37,820 --> 00:29:38,740 That's amazing. 577 00:29:38,740 --> 00:29:39,660 Oh, that's awesome. 578 00:29:39,660 --> 00:29:41,500 That might steer you in this question 579 00:29:41,500 --> 00:29:43,940 or you might decide to shake it up. 580 00:29:43,940 --> 00:29:47,600 So, what's another powerful, you've already shared many, 581 00:29:47,600 --> 00:29:49,380 but this is one of my favorite questions 582 00:29:49,380 --> 00:29:50,420 to keep diving into. 583 00:29:50,420 --> 00:29:52,060 It's been, I'm glad we have the time. 584 00:29:52,060 --> 00:29:53,620 What's another powerful lesson 585 00:29:53,620 --> 00:29:56,120 these visionary early stage entrepreneurs 586 00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:59,180 can learn from your experience, Lance? 587 00:29:59,180 --> 00:30:01,340 I think probably two. 588 00:30:01,340 --> 00:30:06,340 One is keeping an open enough mind to get luck, right? 589 00:30:06,500 --> 00:30:08,820 Luck is sort of something that happens 590 00:30:08,820 --> 00:30:12,820 when you are ready for it and you're keeping your eyes open. 591 00:30:12,820 --> 00:30:16,260 So, it's really easy to get too laser focused in 592 00:30:16,260 --> 00:30:18,300 on exactly what you're doing. 593 00:30:18,300 --> 00:30:20,160 And then opportunity walks in the door 594 00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:21,300 and you didn't even see it, right? 595 00:30:21,300 --> 00:30:22,300 You didn't recognize it. 596 00:30:22,300 --> 00:30:24,260 And that kind of goes back to that situation 597 00:30:24,260 --> 00:30:28,160 where we were converting the people subpoenaing us. 598 00:30:28,160 --> 00:30:30,820 And we had other sort of situations like that. 599 00:30:30,820 --> 00:30:35,820 And I think that also ties to what I call 600 00:30:35,820 --> 00:30:40,420 strong convictions loosely held. 601 00:30:40,420 --> 00:30:42,380 I think that's the key to a lot of startups 602 00:30:42,380 --> 00:30:44,540 is the odds of you being right 603 00:30:44,540 --> 00:30:46,580 about your initial business model 604 00:30:46,580 --> 00:30:49,700 and the first direction you're going aren't good, right? 605 00:30:49,700 --> 00:30:52,080 Statistically, most successful companies 606 00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:55,540 have had major pivots, often several of them. 607 00:30:55,540 --> 00:30:57,660 But at the same time, you can't always be looking 608 00:30:57,660 --> 00:30:59,320 for the greener grass on the other side. 609 00:30:59,320 --> 00:31:00,400 It might not be. 610 00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,920 So, there's this kind of Goldilocks zone 611 00:31:02,920 --> 00:31:06,820 where you need to be totally committed to what you're doing 612 00:31:06,820 --> 00:31:10,820 and ready to abandon that and move in a different direction 613 00:31:10,820 --> 00:31:13,020 when there's sufficient evidence to show 614 00:31:13,020 --> 00:31:16,360 that's the right move to make. 615 00:31:18,020 --> 00:31:20,500 Because it's just so easy to get so locked 616 00:31:20,500 --> 00:31:22,020 into the plan you had. 617 00:31:22,020 --> 00:31:25,940 And as Ivor said, no plan survives first contact 618 00:31:25,940 --> 00:31:26,780 with the enemy. 619 00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:31,180 Yes, oh man, both super powerful. 620 00:31:31,180 --> 00:31:33,380 So, and I see it a lot, 621 00:31:34,420 --> 00:31:36,940 especially in the space that we serve. 622 00:31:38,060 --> 00:31:42,160 So, your background with early stage startups 623 00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:44,740 and entrepreneurs, they are, 624 00:31:46,340 --> 00:31:49,600 by the way, so one of my first companies was a SaaS company 625 00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:51,060 as was my second. 626 00:31:51,060 --> 00:31:52,980 And the mentality of those companies 627 00:31:52,980 --> 00:31:55,460 versus the ones I typically work with these days 628 00:31:55,460 --> 00:31:58,420 is very different, very different attitudes. 629 00:31:58,420 --> 00:32:00,800 I work with mostly coaches and influencers 630 00:32:00,800 --> 00:32:02,380 and the creator economy. 631 00:32:02,380 --> 00:32:05,740 And these individuals, they get into it more so 632 00:32:05,740 --> 00:32:09,420 for the desire to impact on an extreme level, 633 00:32:09,420 --> 00:32:10,500 like a coach, for instance. 634 00:32:10,500 --> 00:32:11,860 They don't normally get into coaching 635 00:32:11,860 --> 00:32:13,780 because they wanna make a bunch of money. 636 00:32:13,780 --> 00:32:14,620 They get into coaching 637 00:32:14,620 --> 00:32:16,940 because they want to make an extreme impact on the world. 638 00:32:16,940 --> 00:32:20,260 They wanna have this legacy of helping others. 639 00:32:20,260 --> 00:32:21,940 And then they start to understand that, 640 00:32:21,940 --> 00:32:24,860 oh man, I need a business strategy to survive. 641 00:32:24,860 --> 00:32:28,460 And the entrepreneurs, the startups, 642 00:32:28,460 --> 00:32:33,460 the ones that are following the Jeff Bezos, 643 00:32:33,460 --> 00:32:34,940 the Steve Jobs of the world, 644 00:32:34,940 --> 00:32:38,060 that's kind of their hero persona per se, 645 00:32:38,060 --> 00:32:41,500 or the Elon Musk's, they're kind of going into this, 646 00:32:41,500 --> 00:32:43,860 hey, I have a business idea in mind. 647 00:32:43,860 --> 00:32:46,940 I have something that I want to invent and create, 648 00:32:46,940 --> 00:32:48,580 and I know it's gonna be successful. 649 00:32:48,580 --> 00:32:52,360 And I better learn about business as much as possible 650 00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:54,140 in order to create this. 651 00:32:54,140 --> 00:32:56,860 They're very different ways of looking at 652 00:32:56,860 --> 00:33:00,020 and how you shape reality, move forward. 653 00:33:00,020 --> 00:33:02,800 So both of them, I would say, 654 00:33:02,800 --> 00:33:07,500 have a different unique challenge of playing with luck 655 00:33:07,500 --> 00:33:10,980 and missing the opportunity in front of them. 656 00:33:11,980 --> 00:33:13,540 So I'm glad you're bringing it up 657 00:33:13,540 --> 00:33:15,660 because I'm internalized for myself 658 00:33:15,660 --> 00:33:16,820 as much as for anybody else. 659 00:33:16,820 --> 00:33:20,680 But in the coaching cases, 660 00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:24,480 they're not used to business people approaching them. 661 00:33:24,480 --> 00:33:25,780 They don't know how to deal with it. 662 00:33:25,780 --> 00:33:27,180 They don't know how to think through it. 663 00:33:27,180 --> 00:33:29,460 They see somebody presenting a case study, 664 00:33:29,460 --> 00:33:30,740 hey, here's how we can help you grow 665 00:33:30,740 --> 00:33:32,980 as somebody who's coming after them, 666 00:33:32,980 --> 00:33:35,500 ready to shark and eat them alive. 667 00:33:35,500 --> 00:33:38,900 And they then end up turning their nose up to it 668 00:33:38,900 --> 00:33:42,660 rather than understanding how to build a strong filter 669 00:33:42,660 --> 00:33:45,540 around recognizing difference between Jackson Callum 670 00:33:45,540 --> 00:33:46,900 as a startup advisor, 671 00:33:46,900 --> 00:33:49,620 Lance Cottrell as a startup advisor, 672 00:33:49,620 --> 00:33:51,460 and Grant Cardone. 673 00:33:52,460 --> 00:33:55,340 They don't know how to assess the three difference 674 00:33:55,340 --> 00:33:58,060 or your giant venture capitalists 675 00:33:58,060 --> 00:34:03,060 that may not have their best interests at heart or may, 676 00:34:03,060 --> 00:34:04,820 depends on which venture capitalists. 677 00:34:04,820 --> 00:34:09,420 But how would you go about then breaking that down further 678 00:34:09,420 --> 00:34:12,900 rather than just looking at it from the good luck event, 679 00:34:12,900 --> 00:34:15,620 but saying, okay, if you've got an advisor coming in 680 00:34:15,620 --> 00:34:17,660 to talk to you about your growth, 681 00:34:17,660 --> 00:34:22,380 what are some of the core strength aspects you'd look at? 682 00:34:22,380 --> 00:34:24,340 And what are some of the red flags 683 00:34:24,340 --> 00:34:27,420 that they should also consider saying, whoa, 684 00:34:27,420 --> 00:34:30,340 that's something that's kind of on the scary side 685 00:34:30,340 --> 00:34:32,340 that they might not recognize on their own? 686 00:34:33,740 --> 00:34:35,700 I think business model is often 687 00:34:35,700 --> 00:34:38,100 one of the biggest red flags, right? 688 00:34:38,100 --> 00:34:41,300 How aligned are your interests 689 00:34:41,300 --> 00:34:43,180 with the people you're working with? 690 00:34:43,180 --> 00:34:46,140 I see, for example, a lot of cases where people say, 691 00:34:46,140 --> 00:34:48,380 well, I will help you do fundraising. 692 00:34:48,380 --> 00:34:50,460 And so if you pay me $50,000, 693 00:34:50,460 --> 00:34:52,420 I'll help you raise a million dollars. 694 00:34:52,420 --> 00:34:53,500 Is that refundable? 695 00:34:53,500 --> 00:34:55,340 No, right? 696 00:34:55,340 --> 00:34:58,740 And so why can you trust this? 697 00:35:00,980 --> 00:35:03,580 I'm always telling people to do reference checks 698 00:35:03,580 --> 00:35:04,860 on all of these people, right? 699 00:35:04,860 --> 00:35:06,860 Talk to some other people that they've helped 700 00:35:06,860 --> 00:35:10,460 and really dig in to see, has this been successful? 701 00:35:10,460 --> 00:35:13,380 What are these people able to bring forward? 702 00:35:13,380 --> 00:35:15,580 Are they sharing information freely? 703 00:35:15,580 --> 00:35:19,380 My approach to establishing my credibility 704 00:35:19,380 --> 00:35:21,340 and credentials as an advisor 705 00:35:21,340 --> 00:35:23,940 is this mountain of free content that I put out, 706 00:35:23,940 --> 00:35:27,540 as well as free advising office hours. 707 00:35:27,540 --> 00:35:31,580 So come in, try the goods, talk to me, 708 00:35:31,580 --> 00:35:32,820 see whether this is useful. 709 00:35:32,820 --> 00:35:34,860 If it's useful, I think it will be obvious 710 00:35:34,860 --> 00:35:37,100 to both of us pretty quickly that this is useful, 711 00:35:37,100 --> 00:35:39,700 then we can establish that relationship. 712 00:35:39,700 --> 00:35:42,580 But I'm not asking anyone to take it on faith. 713 00:35:43,980 --> 00:35:48,780 Nice, that openness and centeredness as a leader. 714 00:35:48,780 --> 00:35:50,820 I'll also throw that in there, Lance. 715 00:35:50,820 --> 00:35:55,820 It takes a special type of person in the business world 716 00:35:57,260 --> 00:36:02,260 that has a base of success 717 00:36:03,140 --> 00:36:05,380 to still remain open to the public. 718 00:36:05,380 --> 00:36:07,060 I commend you for that. 719 00:36:07,060 --> 00:36:08,340 I don't see that a lot. 720 00:36:09,380 --> 00:36:12,580 And I don't think that Richard Branson's 721 00:36:12,580 --> 00:36:14,980 necessarily bullying anybody to move forward 722 00:36:14,980 --> 00:36:17,260 in meetings with him, or saying, 723 00:36:17,260 --> 00:36:19,660 hey, I'm unapproachable. 724 00:36:19,660 --> 00:36:21,340 I think he's the extreme case 725 00:36:21,340 --> 00:36:23,660 where he's got so many millions of people coming his way 726 00:36:23,660 --> 00:36:26,940 that he's gotta find ways to protect his time. 727 00:36:26,940 --> 00:36:31,940 But at the same time, I have a feeling he's, 728 00:36:31,940 --> 00:36:34,340 and it's Gary, you know who Gary Vaynerchuk is? 729 00:36:34,340 --> 00:36:35,220 Oh yeah. 730 00:36:35,220 --> 00:36:37,580 Yeah, he's the type of guy, 731 00:36:37,580 --> 00:36:40,060 I think Richard Branson probably is too, 732 00:36:40,060 --> 00:36:44,900 that will spend some time with people on the street, 733 00:36:44,900 --> 00:36:47,460 right, everyday folk, and say, 734 00:36:47,460 --> 00:36:50,300 hey, let's engage on a real one-on-one basis. 735 00:36:50,300 --> 00:36:51,460 Now we can't do that with everybody. 736 00:36:51,460 --> 00:36:54,020 There's some luck that comes into being one of the people 737 00:36:54,020 --> 00:36:55,780 who's drawn out of that. 738 00:36:55,780 --> 00:36:57,500 But I think everybody who's listening right now, 739 00:36:57,500 --> 00:37:01,020 I hope you stay aware there's people out there like that 740 00:37:01,020 --> 00:37:02,740 who will give you the time. 741 00:37:02,740 --> 00:37:05,140 And you gotta be ready to have that conversation 742 00:37:05,140 --> 00:37:05,980 when it happens. 743 00:37:05,980 --> 00:37:08,380 You don't wanna miss the buck and miss that opportunity. 744 00:37:08,380 --> 00:37:12,260 So Lance, how do you go about advising people 745 00:37:12,260 --> 00:37:15,260 on how to do the reference checks? 746 00:37:15,260 --> 00:37:17,940 I mean, I think really it is, 747 00:37:17,940 --> 00:37:19,980 don't be worried about that power dynamic. 748 00:37:19,980 --> 00:37:22,020 So when you've got an investor coming to you 749 00:37:22,020 --> 00:37:25,660 or when you've got an advisor or some service provider, 750 00:37:25,660 --> 00:37:29,100 I think it is not offensive to just directly say, 751 00:37:29,100 --> 00:37:31,460 hey, I wanna understand 752 00:37:31,460 --> 00:37:33,460 what this relationship might look like. 753 00:37:33,460 --> 00:37:35,540 I wanna understand what it's gonna be like working with you. 754 00:37:35,540 --> 00:37:37,540 I know you're doing due diligence on me. 755 00:37:37,540 --> 00:37:40,460 I'd really like to be able to talk with some folks 756 00:37:40,460 --> 00:37:43,220 you've worked with in the past to understand, 757 00:37:43,220 --> 00:37:45,700 is this gonna be a good fit? 758 00:37:45,700 --> 00:37:48,060 Can we work together effectively? 759 00:37:48,060 --> 00:37:51,260 And if someone pushes back on that, 760 00:37:51,260 --> 00:37:53,060 that's a huge red flag, right? 761 00:37:53,060 --> 00:37:55,020 That suggests to me that you probably wanna run 762 00:37:55,020 --> 00:37:57,220 the other way or start doing a lot of Googling 763 00:37:57,220 --> 00:38:00,140 to see whether you can find people saying bad things 764 00:38:00,140 --> 00:38:02,420 about working with that individual. 765 00:38:02,420 --> 00:38:05,340 My experience is most people are more than open 766 00:38:05,340 --> 00:38:10,340 to allowing you to kind of have that access. 767 00:38:10,780 --> 00:38:11,620 Nice. 768 00:38:11,620 --> 00:38:13,300 I was talking about Richard Branson, 769 00:38:13,300 --> 00:38:15,020 one of the companies I'm advising, 770 00:38:15,980 --> 00:38:17,700 super early stage founder, 771 00:38:17,700 --> 00:38:21,060 but just through opportunity and networking 772 00:38:21,060 --> 00:38:23,500 ended up getting invited to one of the big gatherings 773 00:38:23,500 --> 00:38:26,660 on Branson's private island for a week 774 00:38:26,660 --> 00:38:29,020 and had made all sorts of amazing connections 775 00:38:29,020 --> 00:38:31,380 with the other people who were out there. 776 00:38:31,380 --> 00:38:34,540 But made that effort to be in the network, 777 00:38:34,540 --> 00:38:38,580 to talk to people, to have, create a situation in a space 778 00:38:38,580 --> 00:38:41,500 where those opportunities can happen. 779 00:38:41,500 --> 00:38:44,300 And then recognizing and jumping when they do. 780 00:38:44,300 --> 00:38:45,660 That's awesome. 781 00:38:45,660 --> 00:38:46,500 That's really cool. 782 00:38:46,500 --> 00:38:48,420 I think that part of that, 783 00:38:48,420 --> 00:38:51,380 everybody who's listening has to do with mindset. 784 00:38:51,380 --> 00:38:54,340 As you open your mind to that reality existing 785 00:38:54,340 --> 00:38:57,380 and you leverage the principle that Lance talked about, 786 00:38:57,380 --> 00:38:58,500 it might seem super simple, 787 00:38:58,500 --> 00:39:00,100 but I know there's so many people out there 788 00:39:00,100 --> 00:39:01,840 who don't see it this way. 789 00:39:03,380 --> 00:39:05,940 Especially if you come from like the MLM world, 790 00:39:06,820 --> 00:39:08,660 there's a lot of high pressure tactics 791 00:39:08,660 --> 00:39:10,900 that make you feel like, man, 792 00:39:10,900 --> 00:39:12,380 this is your last shot. 793 00:39:12,380 --> 00:39:14,320 This is your only opportunity. 794 00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:17,240 And if you've been involved in that community too much, 795 00:39:17,240 --> 00:39:20,420 it's important to test this concept 796 00:39:20,420 --> 00:39:21,780 that Lance is talking about. 797 00:39:21,780 --> 00:39:24,420 Break free of that mentality and say, you know what? 798 00:39:24,420 --> 00:39:27,180 Red flag, I'm not touching it. 799 00:39:27,180 --> 00:39:28,380 Red flag, I'm moving on. 800 00:39:28,380 --> 00:39:29,940 Some will, some won't, so what next? 801 00:39:29,940 --> 00:39:32,420 Which is also an MLM concept. 802 00:39:32,420 --> 00:39:34,900 But you've got plenty of leaders out there 803 00:39:34,900 --> 00:39:37,620 who are willing to take you under their wing. 804 00:39:37,620 --> 00:39:38,820 If you don't know Lance 805 00:39:38,820 --> 00:39:41,500 or you're not comfortable going to him yet, 806 00:39:41,500 --> 00:39:42,820 I would advise you to check out 807 00:39:42,820 --> 00:39:47,060 the small medium business development centers 808 00:39:47,060 --> 00:39:48,420 and universities, 809 00:39:48,420 --> 00:39:50,620 because they have free access to coaching. 810 00:39:50,620 --> 00:39:52,700 But what I would do is I would go to them 811 00:39:52,700 --> 00:39:54,700 and I would go to Lance 812 00:39:54,700 --> 00:39:56,940 to get a different perspective 813 00:39:56,940 --> 00:40:00,500 of how they both look at your business opportunities 814 00:40:00,500 --> 00:40:02,020 and situations, 815 00:40:02,020 --> 00:40:03,460 because one's gonna come with a whole lot 816 00:40:03,460 --> 00:40:05,060 of university background 817 00:40:05,060 --> 00:40:08,380 and not necessarily the expertise of having done it 818 00:40:08,380 --> 00:40:11,020 versus Lance who's had the opportunity 819 00:40:11,020 --> 00:40:12,580 to be in the trenches for many years 820 00:40:12,580 --> 00:40:13,940 of running a startup. 821 00:40:13,940 --> 00:40:16,380 What's your thoughts on the business development centers 822 00:40:16,380 --> 00:40:17,340 that are out there? 823 00:40:17,340 --> 00:40:18,180 I think they're great. 824 00:40:18,180 --> 00:40:21,300 I mean, you have the opportunity to do in-person meetings, 825 00:40:21,300 --> 00:40:22,620 which is advantageous. 826 00:40:22,620 --> 00:40:24,540 And these people usually have a lot of experience. 827 00:40:24,540 --> 00:40:27,140 They're talking to a lot of startups. 828 00:40:27,140 --> 00:40:30,180 So yeah, it's a hugely valuable asset. 829 00:40:30,180 --> 00:40:32,940 I think coworking spaces often have an opportunity 830 00:40:32,940 --> 00:40:34,380 to network with other founders 831 00:40:34,380 --> 00:40:37,420 or effectively creating a mastermind 832 00:40:37,420 --> 00:40:39,460 that you can work with and learn from. 833 00:40:39,460 --> 00:40:41,540 Really, you wanna have a diversity of advisors 834 00:40:41,540 --> 00:40:42,940 because every advisor comes 835 00:40:42,940 --> 00:40:47,940 with their particular experience and skillset and biases. 836 00:40:48,180 --> 00:40:52,140 And so I try to be kind of take as much heat off the ball 837 00:40:52,140 --> 00:40:53,660 as I can when I'm giving advice, 838 00:40:53,660 --> 00:40:56,940 particularly if it's sort of not absolutely mainstream advice 839 00:40:58,100 --> 00:41:00,900 because it might or might not work for you. 840 00:41:00,900 --> 00:41:02,100 You should talk to more people. 841 00:41:02,100 --> 00:41:04,900 You should get more opinions 842 00:41:04,900 --> 00:41:09,900 because a lot of these things are contentious 843 00:41:10,060 --> 00:41:12,260 and you'll hear different kinds of advice. 844 00:41:12,260 --> 00:41:14,780 So talk to multiple people, get feedback. 845 00:41:14,780 --> 00:41:17,980 And if you have a really strong opinion about something 846 00:41:17,980 --> 00:41:19,580 and you talk to five advisors 847 00:41:19,580 --> 00:41:21,780 and they all tell you to do something different, 848 00:41:21,780 --> 00:41:23,940 that's the time to start embracing some humility 849 00:41:23,940 --> 00:41:25,140 and think about that. 850 00:41:26,900 --> 00:41:28,820 I talked about this a while back 851 00:41:28,820 --> 00:41:32,020 in context of power in a company 852 00:41:32,020 --> 00:41:33,260 and someone was really worried 853 00:41:33,260 --> 00:41:37,380 about losing control and getting below 50% ownership. 854 00:41:37,380 --> 00:41:38,820 And I said, oh, look, if you're bringing in a bunch 855 00:41:38,820 --> 00:41:41,300 of investors and there's a dozen people 856 00:41:41,300 --> 00:41:43,420 on your cap table maybe or more 857 00:41:43,420 --> 00:41:45,460 by the time you get below 51%, 858 00:41:47,180 --> 00:41:48,540 that's not a magic number, right? 859 00:41:48,540 --> 00:41:52,300 The only way you lose a vote with 49% 860 00:41:52,300 --> 00:41:53,820 and a dozen people on the cap table 861 00:41:53,820 --> 00:41:58,820 is if 100% of them show up to vote and all vote against you. 862 00:41:59,220 --> 00:42:01,340 And if that's happening, 863 00:42:01,340 --> 00:42:02,980 you probably should be listening, right? 864 00:42:02,980 --> 00:42:06,380 It's highly likely they have a good point 865 00:42:06,380 --> 00:42:08,380 and you should be engaging with that. 866 00:42:08,380 --> 00:42:10,660 And I think that's just universally true 867 00:42:10,660 --> 00:42:15,100 is always be open to questioning. 868 00:42:15,100 --> 00:42:17,220 And founders, I think, can often get a little tunnel vision 869 00:42:17,220 --> 00:42:18,980 but yeah, listen to your employees, 870 00:42:18,980 --> 00:42:20,780 listen to your advisors, listen to your customers. 871 00:42:20,780 --> 00:42:25,260 Always be open to the fact that you may be running down 872 00:42:25,260 --> 00:42:26,540 the wrong track or getting it wrong 873 00:42:26,540 --> 00:42:30,020 and be prepared to reevaluate that. 874 00:42:30,020 --> 00:42:32,540 Dude, that one clip right there is golden, thank you. 875 00:42:32,540 --> 00:42:34,100 I mean, everything you've talked about 876 00:42:34,100 --> 00:42:36,780 with that particular concept 877 00:42:36,780 --> 00:42:39,300 can protect so many founders against themselves 878 00:42:39,300 --> 00:42:42,260 and our greatest strengths are often our greatest weaknesses. 879 00:42:42,260 --> 00:42:44,420 So I love that. 880 00:42:44,420 --> 00:42:46,220 That's right, because it takes a huge amount of ego 881 00:42:46,220 --> 00:42:47,420 to be a founder, right? 882 00:42:47,420 --> 00:42:51,260 Inherently, it's sort of an insane thing to do. 883 00:42:51,260 --> 00:42:53,380 But at the same time, that you wanna be servant leader, 884 00:42:53,380 --> 00:42:56,660 you wanna really understand what you don't know. 885 00:42:56,660 --> 00:42:58,940 And of course, at the end of the day, 886 00:42:58,940 --> 00:43:01,700 you're gonna have to hire other people to do things 887 00:43:01,700 --> 00:43:03,700 who won't do it as well as you. 888 00:43:03,700 --> 00:43:06,300 Because those are things that you can delegate 889 00:43:06,300 --> 00:43:07,980 and there are so many things as a CEO 890 00:43:07,980 --> 00:43:09,260 that you can't delegate. 891 00:43:09,260 --> 00:43:11,580 You're literally the only person who can do it. 892 00:43:11,580 --> 00:43:13,540 That ends up being your whole job 893 00:43:13,540 --> 00:43:15,540 and everything else has to go to other people 894 00:43:15,540 --> 00:43:18,180 and you kinda need to let them learn, right? 895 00:43:18,180 --> 00:43:21,460 You can't micromanage that, it doesn't scale. 896 00:43:21,460 --> 00:43:22,540 Yeah, absolutely. 897 00:43:22,540 --> 00:43:24,220 I wanna go back to one quote you said 898 00:43:24,220 --> 00:43:26,220 because it's one that on the fringes, 899 00:43:26,220 --> 00:43:27,820 I think I understand it, but it would be one, 900 00:43:27,820 --> 00:43:29,620 it's like, I know this is a powerful quote 901 00:43:29,620 --> 00:43:31,300 that would help me as well as others 902 00:43:31,300 --> 00:43:32,900 to break down, you said, 903 00:43:32,900 --> 00:43:35,820 strong convictions loosely held. 904 00:43:35,820 --> 00:43:38,140 What does that mean from your perspective? 905 00:43:38,140 --> 00:43:41,340 Yeah, so it does mean kind of utter commitment 906 00:43:41,340 --> 00:43:43,180 to the direction you're going. 907 00:43:43,180 --> 00:43:44,820 We've decided this is our strategy, 908 00:43:44,820 --> 00:43:46,220 this is our target customer, 909 00:43:46,220 --> 00:43:49,140 this is the solution that we wanna build 910 00:43:49,140 --> 00:43:50,660 to address the problem. 911 00:43:50,660 --> 00:43:53,980 And you need to have not only commitment from yourself 912 00:43:53,980 --> 00:43:57,060 all in, in that direction without distraction 913 00:43:57,060 --> 00:43:58,860 and from your whole team, 914 00:43:58,860 --> 00:44:01,260 but at the same time, knowing that you might be wrong 915 00:44:01,260 --> 00:44:02,100 about that, right? 916 00:44:02,100 --> 00:44:04,180 As you're validating, as you're testing, 917 00:44:04,180 --> 00:44:08,580 as you're going to market, always kind of being aware 918 00:44:08,580 --> 00:44:11,380 that you may need to revisit that 919 00:44:11,380 --> 00:44:14,220 and at some point drop that thing 920 00:44:14,220 --> 00:44:17,500 that you had high conviction about 921 00:44:17,500 --> 00:44:20,780 and pick something new to absolutely commit to 922 00:44:20,780 --> 00:44:21,940 and run towards. 923 00:44:21,940 --> 00:44:23,780 And so that's the held loosely, 924 00:44:23,780 --> 00:44:26,060 you need to be able to sort of find that, 925 00:44:26,060 --> 00:44:28,060 it's a bit of a part of the strategy 926 00:44:28,060 --> 00:44:30,540 and it's a bit of a paradoxical mind state, 927 00:44:30,540 --> 00:44:34,660 but to have the flexibility as well as the passion and focus. 928 00:44:34,660 --> 00:44:35,500 Yes, I love it. 929 00:44:35,500 --> 00:44:38,940 So in terms of a physical symbolism, 930 00:44:38,940 --> 00:44:41,460 because I'm big on symbolism, 931 00:44:41,460 --> 00:44:44,580 that would be like a pitcher, a baseball pitcher 932 00:44:44,580 --> 00:44:47,180 with the confidence to throw a fastball or a curveball, 933 00:44:47,180 --> 00:44:49,420 but you're gonna hold that ball 934 00:44:49,420 --> 00:44:51,820 with a certain degree of care or a robot 935 00:44:51,820 --> 00:44:53,780 that's holding a massive container, 936 00:44:53,780 --> 00:44:56,220 fright container of delicate goods. 937 00:44:56,220 --> 00:44:57,700 You have to hold it confidently, 938 00:44:57,700 --> 00:45:00,700 but at the same time, you can't crush it like a tin can. 939 00:45:00,700 --> 00:45:03,340 Otherwise you end up ruining the goods inside. 940 00:45:03,340 --> 00:45:04,540 The same is true with our dreams 941 00:45:04,540 --> 00:45:06,420 and our passions and our visions. 942 00:45:06,420 --> 00:45:09,900 We gotta have that care and that ability to pivot, 943 00:45:09,900 --> 00:45:11,500 but at the same time, the confidence 944 00:45:11,500 --> 00:45:13,740 that we're going to move this vision forward. 945 00:45:13,740 --> 00:45:16,420 So Lance, this was a massive, massive help 946 00:45:16,420 --> 00:45:17,420 to everybody who's listening. 947 00:45:17,420 --> 00:45:18,940 Thank you so much for being here. 948 00:45:18,940 --> 00:45:20,580 Vision Pros, we hope you took notes. 949 00:45:20,580 --> 00:45:22,340 We hope you go back and listen to some of these truths. 950 00:45:22,340 --> 00:45:25,300 We also hope you take the opportunity to reach out to Lance. 951 00:45:25,300 --> 00:45:28,460 And Lance, they can reach out to you on LinkedIn. 952 00:45:28,460 --> 00:45:30,700 Is there somewhere else you also prefer to be contacted? 953 00:45:30,700 --> 00:45:32,260 So LinkedIn is great. 954 00:45:32,260 --> 00:45:34,380 And if you just go to feeltheboot.com, 955 00:45:34,380 --> 00:45:36,660 there's a contact page right there. 956 00:45:36,660 --> 00:45:41,620 And I'm always happy to respond and answer questions. 957 00:45:41,620 --> 00:45:42,460 Excellent, guys. 958 00:45:42,460 --> 00:45:44,180 Everybody have a phenomenal rest of your day 959 00:45:44,180 --> 00:45:46,300 and we will see you on the next show. 960 00:45:46,300 --> 00:45:47,460 Take care. 961 00:45:47,460 --> 00:45:48,820 Thank you for being here today. 962 00:45:48,820 --> 00:45:51,300 I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. 963 00:45:51,300 --> 00:45:53,940 I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions 964 00:45:53,940 --> 00:45:56,220 as these episodes continue to move forward. 965 00:45:56,220 --> 00:45:57,900 This is going to get more and more fun. 966 00:45:57,900 --> 00:45:59,740 We'll have more and more engagement as well. 967 00:45:59,740 --> 00:46:01,860 We'll invite people to participate in the show. 968 00:46:01,860 --> 00:46:04,180 And thank you for giving us your time and attention. 969 00:46:04,180 --> 00:46:26,540 Have a nice day.