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How did you get started in this particular approach?

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So this approach actually comes from my days, you know, in grad school, I was working at a bar.

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I was actually, I know I don't look it today, but I was a bouncer. I was a big guy.

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Now I'm a coder. It went the other direction. But I actually worked as a bouncer at a bar,

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worked my way up to a general manager there, helped them kind of build from the ground up.

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And what they did was they opened up several locations, but it wasn't one umbrella company.

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Each location had its own LLC. It had its own owners, its own stakeholders. They were able

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to bring in outside investors, but they shared a similar goal and they shared similar ownership

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across the group. And they created this thing called Consortium Holdings down in San Diego,

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which I thought was a brilliant model to still create the autonomy, innovation, creativity of

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the individual companies. So you didn't have this sort of corporate top-down limitation of a little

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pup back there. Apologies for that. Unfortunately, there's not going to be a lot of editing they can

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do about that. Somebody heard about restaurants and they were thinking it was dinner time. Yes.

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So sorry to break your flow. Go ahead. No, you're good. So they started this restaurant group down

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in San Diego and it was really cool. I noticed how folks who may, if you're familiar with a

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restaurant and industry workers, they tend to only have part-time shifts and they can't really live

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off of one restaurant or one job alone. So they work multiple places. The cool thing about this

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was they were able to have multiple locations that they could go work at, all with similar systems,

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with similar culture. A lot of their friends worked together, but they were technically

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different businesses. So it was really cool. And I saw how successful that was and their ability

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to scale up to 10 restaurants within three or four years. And now the ownership structure was

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different in each one. There was different vested interests in that what was cool was some owners

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maybe didn't love that model. Hey, we don't want to have the Uber hipster gastro pub or

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more traditional seafood place. Well, they didn't have to be sort of roped into one.

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And so I took that same approach coming into what we call Fractal Group. We've started out with a

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simple software development agency called FYC Labs. That's kind of our core business. And they

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provide the services and development services across the building product, digital product

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businesses and SaaS companies like our other, our accounting, accounts receivable platform called

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Accru, our Dealflow platform for investors called DealSend and our cybersecurity platform called

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Attack Vector. So it's cool that all of our engineers, they get to bounce from job to job,

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but they're all still in the family. So I guess one of my other questions is where are you going

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with this vision? So I'm not naive in thinking that this is all just for authentic, great, happy,

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good culture for my friends and my coworkers. There's obviously business outcomes. So we

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actively are growing our businesses with the intent to be acquired, to either get the IP acquired,

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to get our customer base acquired. So our goal is to grow businesses to about a certain size.

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What that specific size is yet, we're not sure, but we have acquisitions,

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opportunities that come in pretty often because of the attractiveness of what we're doing.

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Some of them are too early stage. Some of them are too, the offers aren't quite where we want

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them to be. FYC was actually partially acquired. I had an acquisition opportunity. I ended up

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partnering with the buyer because I just had so much fun working with them. So that we didn't do

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a full exit on that one, but a couple of my partners did get out. So we've gone through that

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acquisition process and we do get that there's outcomes that are needed for our stakeholders.

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That's why it's really important that when I know about what fractals and visions are, is to create

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the authentic, positive culture and outcomes for our employees, as well as our stakeholders and

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investors. So I do have that mindset of like, this isn't just for fun. This isn't just a kumbaya

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session. This actually has to have business outcomes for people who are staking their careers and

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their lives on it. So that is the vision is to build up more startups within the group,

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to build more product businesses, to continue to grow our services businesses so they become

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attractive for acquisition and eventually sell off different parts of our group,

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make some additional capital, reinvest into the next big idea, reinvest the next big idea.

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We typically want to get out at about a 10 to $25 million valuation range. So we don't have,

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we're not moonshotting. We're not unicorning. We're trying to create solid, effective,

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profitable businesses that are attractive for someone else who has the marketing chops.

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I know where my weaknesses are. I don't know how to take a product to market at a mass level.

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I know how to take it to market at an early adopter level, but there's people who know how

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to do that better and they just need a product that's already baked in and has an initial

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kind of evangelist following. So that's our goal is to continue to build up those types of

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businesses and then find the right buyers who can take them to the next level. And hopefully our

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employees get to go with that. We've seen that occur for a couple of cases where employees are

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actually bought out, their contracts are bought out from us and they go and work upstream during

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an acquisition and they're successful. They miss FYC because they miss our group because it's such

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a fun place to work and they kind of get pulled into those other cultures here and there, but

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they have successful outcomes. I love watching people get their first home, get married,

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have their first kids, like watch these people grow and build careers for themselves

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because of what we're doing. And that's really valuable and really like, that's where our vision

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will be for the employees, but I have to make those outcomes for my stakeholders as well. So yeah.

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And it's interesting because as much as we'd love to pretend that change goes on a line like this,

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it's more like this. What would you say was your most significant learning experience along the way?

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It comes in phases. So the first learning experience was the moment when we ran out of money

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and I couldn't pay my employees because clients hadn't paid us on time. And I learned that people

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don't have the integrity that I assume they had. So clients will ask for the work, you know,

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we'll do the work, we'll deliver and then wait, wait, wait, where's the check? Oh, we'll get it

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to you next week. We'll get to you next week. And I sat outside of Comerica Bank, it's like

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four o'clock in the afternoon, it was windy downtown San Diego and I cried. That was the first

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time I cried as a business owner over it because I'm like, I can't pay my employees. I just went

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to the bank, I asked them for an advance on our credit line. They said that we hadn't had a long

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enough history with them and we couldn't pull it, we couldn't convert our credit card into a credit

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line. And we needed like two more months. And I just went, I'm not going to be able to pay these

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people. This is the worst feeling I've ever had is that I can't pay my employees and I got to go

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back there and face the music. The irony was that after all that, the checks went cleared and I was,

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I was, or the checks went out. And then the next Monday I'm ready to talk to everybody like,

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Hey guys, I'm really sorry. You know, we're going to have to, this was back in the office days,

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right? Nobody was actually was in and I'm like, Hey guys, like, what are you talking about? Checks

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cleared just fine. I'm like, wait, what they did? Oh, it turned out you had overdraft protection on

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your credit card. So I had to eat like a 25% interest on it, but my checks cleared and my

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people were paid and I lived a fine another day. But that moment of how vulnerable you being able

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to pay your people is and how many things you have to put in line. And then now as having been an

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employee for a part of my life, not realizing how important that, that cashflow recognition was.

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Holy cow. That changed me for a long time. It changed me for knowing what I meant to take care

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of my people and how much it actually affected me was like, Holy crap, this is, this is a big deal.

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The second time has been when the company was acquired and sort of what it meant to be in that

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in those shoes and to walk through that process and saying, okay, I'm going through an acquisition.

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So I've done something that someone wants to buy. This is something that I felt successful,

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but then recognizing how the nuances of all that work and the earn out process and like that this

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isn't as, you know, no one comes in there and gives you a high fives, hands you a million bucks and

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says, good job kid. Take it, take the next six months off. No, you're not there. It's not over.

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It's not that simple. So that was a really interesting learning process. I learned how much

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I, you know, like I said, I ended up partnering with the acquiring party. And he's one of my best

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friends now. It worked out amazing, but it was just such an interesting learning experience of,

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Oh, it's there. No one's going to give you the trophy at the end of the line. No, this isn't

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going to be an exit. That's that was what you think it is. You're going to be working to get that exit.

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And it's not going to be as simple as you thought. It's not like winning the lottery.

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Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned in to vision pros live.

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I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward.

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This is going to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll

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invite people to participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention.

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Have an excellent time building out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.