Cahlan & Colt: 10-Year DevMountain Reunion, Bootstrapping, Bootcamps, Acquisitions

[00:00:00 -> 00:00:07] Hey, what's up? I heard your interview like this. Do you need some guests on your podcast? [00:00:07 -> 00:00:10] We're just trying to come rescue you.

[00:00:10 -> 00:00:11] Wait, what? What's up? [00:00:13 -> 00:00:14] I'm prepared for Joseph. [00:00:14 -> 00:00:15] I know you do.

[00:00:16 -> 00:00:17] What the crap? [00:00:18 -> 00:00:20] Are we doing a Dead Mountain reunion or something? [00:00:20 -> 00:00:22] Yeah, we are. That's what it is.

[00:00:22 -> 00:00:23] No way. [00:00:25 -> 00:00:26] You did it to me once. [00:00:26 -> 00:00:30] What the fuck? That's actually awesome.

I've been trying to get you on the podcast forever. [00:00:30 -> 00:00:32] All right, for full AI, but hey. [00:00:33 -> 00:00:33] There we go. [00:00:34 -> 00:00:34] What the crap?

[00:00:35 -> 00:00:46] This will be fun. If you know about the Startup Initiative background, Tyler made his fame and fortune by leaving college and starting a company with these two guys here in the building. [00:00:46 -> 00:00:47] And we're going to talk all about that. [00:01:12 -> 00:01:14] Hey, welcome to the Startup Initiative podcast.

[00:01:14 -> 00:01:19] This is the old guy being the host today instead of Tyler because we just sprung a surprise on Tyler. [00:01:20 -> 00:01:22] We have not the guests we had planned today. [00:01:22 -> 00:01:26] I did what he did to me a few months ago with somebody that he surprised me on. [00:01:27 -> 00:01:38] And today I surprised him with his two co-founders from Dev Mountain, the legendary Dev Bootcamp that changed everything on the tech scene in Utah and was one of the best Dev Bootcamps in the country.

[00:01:38 -> 00:01:44] We got Kalen Sharp, the CEO, another co-founder, Colt Henry, Tyler's co-founder. [00:01:44 -> 00:01:45] These are the three that made it happen. [00:01:45 -> 00:01:46] It's going to be such a fun day. [00:01:46 -> 00:01:47] Were you surprised, Tyler?

[00:01:47 -> 00:01:48] Yeah, I really was. [00:01:49 -> 00:01:53] I was telling Kalen pre-podcast, I'm like, I saw his pink hat walk into the room. [00:01:53 -> 00:01:55] I'm like, that's not Joseph. [00:01:55 -> 00:01:57] We had another guest that was supposed to be here.

[00:01:57 -> 00:01:57] I literally didn't. [00:01:57 -> 00:01:58] He'll come in a few weeks. [00:01:58 -> 00:02:05] I had been planning it for like five days, like working with the assistant back and forth for apparently a fake scheduling. [00:02:06 -> 00:02:07] That's kind of crazy.

[00:02:07 -> 00:02:08] The look on your face was worth it. [00:02:09 -> 00:02:10] I was like, what? [00:02:11 -> 00:02:16] Speaking of hats, we should have coordinated because I was thinking, you know, on all of your guys' podcasts, you're the one that usually wears a hat. [00:02:16 -> 00:02:21] So I was going to wear a hat for you in like honors, but I was like, Kalen's not going to wear a hat.

[00:02:21 -> 00:02:22] And here he is with the hat. [00:02:22 -> 00:02:23] We should have coordinated. [00:02:23 -> 00:02:23] This is true. [00:02:23 -> 00:02:23] This is fine.

[00:02:23 -> 00:02:24] Okay. [00:02:24 -> 00:02:25] So I'm going to try to be a host. [00:02:25 -> 00:02:28] Tyler is like the world's greatest moderator, but I'll try to be a good moderator. [00:02:28 -> 00:02:31] I have an agenda, but it's for a completely different podcast.

[00:02:31 -> 00:02:32] Yeah, that's not going to work. [00:02:32 -> 00:02:33] That went out the window. [00:02:33 -> 00:02:35] And actually, I've got to turn off my phone. [00:02:35 -> 00:02:37] Like we know I need to do it most of time.

[00:02:37 -> 00:02:39] Did you prepare anything for like an icebreaker? [00:02:39 -> 00:02:40] I've got it. [00:02:40 -> 00:02:41] Don't worry. [00:02:41 -> 00:02:41] No, you don't.

[00:02:41 -> 00:02:42] Yes, we do. [00:02:42 -> 00:02:42] What? [00:02:46 -> 00:02:48] Here we go. [00:02:49 -> 00:02:49] All right.

[00:02:49 -> 00:02:50] Well, welcome, everybody. [00:02:50 -> 00:02:51] This will be fun. [00:02:51 -> 00:02:57] If you know about the startup initiative background, Tyler made his fame and fortune by leaving college [00:02:57 -> 00:03:00] and starting a company with these two guys here in the building. [00:03:00 -> 00:03:01] And we're going to talk all about that.

[00:03:02 -> 00:03:04] So first, an icebreaker, though, because we like to start with icebreakers. [00:03:04 -> 00:03:05] So here's my icebreaker. [00:03:05 -> 00:03:10] And then also, before we get to too much DevMountain, we're going to hear the backgrounds of these two a little bit. [00:03:10 -> 00:03:13] Well, I was going to say, we should introduce them so everybody knows who these two are.

[00:03:13 -> 00:03:13] We are. [00:03:14 -> 00:03:15] We're assuming a lot of knowledge here. [00:03:15 -> 00:03:19] Well, I'm going to start with an icebreaker and then we'll get to the backgrounds. [00:03:19 -> 00:03:19] Okay.

[00:03:20 -> 00:03:20] All right. [00:03:20 -> 00:03:22] So first of all, here's the icebreaker. [00:03:22 -> 00:03:23] All three of you have to answer. [00:03:23 -> 00:03:25] And it's a very simple icebreaker.

[00:03:25 -> 00:03:27] Get the juices flowing, your memories going on DevMountain. [00:03:28 -> 00:03:36] I want to hear the greatest moment for you in the history of DevMountain and the worst moment for you in the history of DevMountain. [00:03:36 -> 00:03:37] I think the worst moment. [00:03:37 -> 00:03:38] And you've had less time to think about it.

[00:03:38 -> 00:03:40] So we'll start with the CEO, Kalen. [00:03:40 -> 00:03:41] He gets to start first. [00:03:41 -> 00:03:42] Then we'll go to Colt. [00:03:45 -> 00:03:46] There were a lot of good moments.

[00:03:46 -> 00:03:56] The few that came to mind, though, was was one finding Colt passed out in a closet because he'd stayed up all night working on getting one of our cohorts set up. [00:03:56 -> 00:03:59] That was just like this moment where, yeah, Colt's amazing. [00:04:00 -> 00:04:01] And it was just fun to see that. [00:04:01 -> 00:04:10] So another another really great but also slightly terrifying moment was when I watched one of the students from a Dallas cohort tattoo our logo on his arm.

[00:04:10 -> 00:04:10] Oh, I remember. [00:04:10 -> 00:04:14] That was one of those moments where I was just like, this is this is real. [00:04:14 -> 00:04:16] He also validating, though. [00:04:16 -> 00:04:16] I never.

[00:04:17 -> 00:04:19] He tattooed the DevMountain logo. [00:04:19 -> 00:04:19] Yeah. [00:04:19 -> 00:04:19] Yeah. [00:04:19 -> 00:04:20] On his arm.

[00:04:20 -> 00:04:22] Not a henna tattoo. [00:04:22 -> 00:04:22] No. [00:04:22 -> 00:04:23] Like a real. [00:04:23 -> 00:04:26] I mean, he has a sleeve, so it kind of blended in.

[00:04:26 -> 00:04:26] Yeah. [00:04:26 -> 00:04:28] He had other tattoos, but it was right there. [00:04:31 -> 00:04:32] How come you three don't have a tattoo? [00:04:32 -> 00:04:32] Yeah.

[00:04:32 -> 00:04:34] Well, I don't know. [00:04:34 -> 00:04:34] Maybe I do. [00:04:35 -> 00:04:36] Maybe you haven't seen it yet. [00:04:36 -> 00:04:36] I don't know.

[00:04:36 -> 00:04:37] Right, Colt. [00:04:37 -> 00:04:38] We'll get it if Caitlin gets it. [00:04:38 -> 00:04:40] I'm saying this time because maybe I already have. [00:04:40 -> 00:04:41] So hey, I like it.

[00:04:41 -> 00:04:42] All right. [00:04:42 -> 00:04:42] Anything else? [00:04:42 -> 00:04:50] I think the last well, best moments in general is just every single time I run into a grad, which is still today, by the way, and I find out how DevMountain has changed their life. [00:04:50 -> 00:04:52] That's always a highlight for me.

[00:04:52 -> 00:04:52] Oh, my gosh. [00:04:53 -> 00:05:00] Tyler and I run into that because, you know, with what we're doing, we meet with thousands of people a year and it comes up. [00:05:00 -> 00:05:00] Yeah. [00:05:00 -> 00:05:05] I'd say somewhere between 20 to 40% of the time when we're talking to Utah people.

[00:05:05 -> 00:05:05] Yeah. [00:05:05 -> 00:05:06] It's crazy. [00:05:06 -> 00:05:06] It's amazing. [00:05:06 -> 00:05:15] And what's really fun is they, you know, weren't coders before they went to DevMountain bootcamp, DevBootcamp, and now they're like CTO of major companies.

[00:05:15 -> 00:05:15] Yeah. [00:05:15 -> 00:05:16] Yeah. [00:05:16 -> 00:05:16] It's amazing. [00:05:16 -> 00:05:24] Like, you guys really created real engineers and they're gone to lofty pursuits and I have high positions.

[00:05:24 -> 00:05:25] It's pretty amazing. [00:05:25 -> 00:05:25] Yeah, it is. [00:05:25 -> 00:05:27] And you see that too, it sounds like. [00:05:27 -> 00:05:27] Oh, yeah.

[00:05:27 -> 00:05:28] Absolutely. [00:05:28 -> 00:05:29] And it's still very meaningful. [00:05:30 -> 00:05:30] Yeah. [00:05:30 -> 00:05:33] Technically, these were the three founders as I helped you guys advising along the way.

[00:05:33 -> 00:05:35] So I feel a little bit of part of it too. [00:05:35 -> 00:05:36] So it's kind of fun. [00:05:36 -> 00:05:36] It's so rewarding. [00:05:37 -> 00:05:37] You are my dad.

[00:05:38 -> 00:05:38] Yeah. [00:05:39 -> 00:05:40] It's so rewarding. [00:05:40 -> 00:05:42] I'm sure their parents saw the whole journey too. [00:05:42 -> 00:05:42] Yeah.

[00:05:42 -> 00:05:47] It's so rewarding when somebody finds out Tyler was with DevMountain. [00:05:47 -> 00:05:48] They go, I went there. [00:05:48 -> 00:05:49] What's so funny? [00:05:49 -> 00:05:54] Me, I mean, Caitlin, I'm not throwing you under the bus here, but me and Colt, we were really young.

[00:05:54 -> 00:05:54] Yeah. [00:05:55 -> 00:05:55] Yeah. [00:05:55 -> 00:05:55] Very young. [00:05:55 -> 00:05:58] Like when we sold, I was 28.

[00:05:58 -> 00:05:58] Yeah. [00:05:58 -> 00:05:58] Yeah. [00:05:59 -> 00:06:03] Like looking back 10 and we haven't even said anything yet. [00:06:03 -> 00:06:07] The real reason why you probably sprung this on me and surprised me with my two co-founders [00:06:07 -> 00:06:12] of kind of the launch pad of all of our careers was because it's a 10 years ago that we sold [00:06:12 -> 00:06:16] the company, started it even 14, 15 years ago.

[00:06:16 -> 00:06:18] It's very close to 10 years, almost exactly. [00:06:18 -> 00:06:19] To the day. [00:06:19 -> 00:06:20] It was May 4th. [00:06:20 -> 00:06:21] I remember because we thought it was so funny.

[00:06:21 -> 00:06:24] It was like, may the 4th be with you with Star Wars. [00:06:24 -> 00:06:26] We thought it was so funny. [00:06:26 -> 00:06:28] It was like, oh, we're selling on May 4th. [00:06:28 -> 00:06:29] We'll get into the stories of that, finishing everything.

[00:06:29 -> 00:06:32] Colt, what do you answer the icebreaker question as? [00:06:32 -> 00:06:33] And we're doing just the best right now, right? [00:06:34 -> 00:06:35] Well, did you have any worse moments? [00:06:35 -> 00:06:37] Well, I can, this is probably not going to be only mine.

[00:06:37 -> 00:06:38] Let's do best and worst. [00:06:38 -> 00:06:38] Yeah. [00:06:38 -> 00:06:44] The worst was when Tyler and our CFO, which was Colt's wife, Cassidy, called me while [00:06:44 -> 00:06:49] I was on a trip in New York with my wife to tell me that we were running out of money [00:06:49 -> 00:06:50] in like four to six weeks. [00:06:50 -> 00:06:52] That was, that was the worst moment by far.

[00:06:53 -> 00:06:54] That was a fun period of time. [00:06:54 -> 00:06:55] It was a fun period of time. [00:06:55 -> 00:06:59] And part of that, probably Colt's worst moment was when you were gone, me and Colt got together [00:06:59 -> 00:07:05] for probably about 48 hours straight, went to his office for about 12 of those hours. [00:07:05 -> 00:07:08] And we're like, what are we going to do?

[00:07:08 -> 00:07:09] Do you remember that? [00:07:10 -> 00:07:11] No, it was like over Thanksgiving, right? [00:07:11 -> 00:07:11] Yeah. [00:07:11 -> 00:07:13] So I think it was two days before Thanksgiving.

[00:07:13 -> 00:07:14] Yes. [00:07:14 -> 00:07:19] And so we stayed home, like our, all of my wife and her and my family are from Idaho. [00:07:19 -> 00:07:22] And so Thanksgiving comes around our heater, our house broke down. [00:07:22 -> 00:07:24] We thought we're going bankrupt.

[00:07:24 -> 00:07:27] Cassie gets sick and she's like throwing up and I'm just sitting here. [00:07:27 -> 00:07:29] I'm like, this is the worst Thanksgiving ever. [00:07:29 -> 00:07:31] I have nothing to be thankful for. [00:07:31 -> 00:07:34] And now it's one of the best holidays ever.

[00:07:34 -> 00:07:35] So, yeah. [00:07:35 -> 00:07:38] So the great Dev Mountain cashflow crisis, that really wasn't a crisis. [00:07:38 -> 00:07:38] Okay. [00:07:38 -> 00:07:39] We'll talk about that.

[00:07:39 -> 00:07:40] Luckily it wasn't. [00:07:40 -> 00:07:41] So best and worst moments for you. [00:07:42 -> 00:07:42] Yeah. [00:07:42 -> 00:07:42] What's your best one?

[00:07:43 -> 00:07:43] Yeah. [00:07:44 -> 00:07:46] You want me to start it with the sweet and then go to the sour? [00:07:46 -> 00:07:46] Yeah. [00:07:46 -> 00:07:48] You can do it either way you want.

[00:07:48 -> 00:07:51] I'm going to do the worst one first because then it rolls in. [00:07:51 -> 00:07:55] Cause I knew that we were going to say it have maybe some of the same best and worst, [00:07:55 -> 00:08:01] but a personal worst for mine was, uh, at one time we hired an employee and this kind [00:08:01 -> 00:08:03] of shows like how important key employees are. [00:08:04 -> 00:08:06] And this employee like, Oh, Colt sucks at this. [00:08:07 -> 00:08:09] Colt says this, you know, to down talk, to down talk me.

[00:08:09 -> 00:08:14] And then even with like me with you guys and say, you know, yeah, Colt's not the guy and [00:08:14 -> 00:08:17] everything, but I'm glad you guys stayed in there for me. [00:08:17 -> 00:08:17] Yeah. [00:08:17 -> 00:08:18] Right. [00:08:18 -> 00:08:24] So that time when he was there, I would say feeling alone and on an Island for that stint [00:08:24 -> 00:08:26] of time probably was like the worst time.

[00:08:26 -> 00:08:30] And that's what it pulls into the best time. [00:08:30 -> 00:08:32] Like Caitlin says, there's too much. [00:08:32 -> 00:08:35] It's like when we started, we were like a team. [00:08:35 -> 00:08:37] We were like trying to conquer the world together.

[00:08:37 -> 00:08:38] Right. [00:08:38 -> 00:08:42] Like trying to take down the, the walls of Troy is all Greece, you know? [00:08:43 -> 00:08:48] And, uh, so then when I felt isolated, that was the worst, but then afterwards we came [00:08:48 -> 00:08:53] back together and that's when we grew the company to multiple locations. [00:08:53 -> 00:08:57] We went through the acquisition and so many good times.

[00:08:57 -> 00:09:03] And I'd say just, uh, even like getting excited about us through getting our first cohort and [00:09:03 -> 00:09:06] having it filled and just like seeing the stars in our eyes. [00:09:06 -> 00:09:07] Like those are some of the best moments. [00:09:07 -> 00:09:13] This is not my best moment for me yet, but I do remember some, some of really good times [00:09:13 -> 00:09:17] where we would go travel and we would go to these different places, just us three.

[00:09:17 -> 00:09:20] And we just explore and be like, okay, is Boise, Idaho going to work? [00:09:20 -> 00:09:25] Like, let's go up there for a couple of days, meet people, shake hands, talk to municipalities, [00:09:25 -> 00:09:30] talk to coworking spaces, see what kind of, you know, ecosystems up there that we could [00:09:30 -> 00:09:30] tap into. [00:09:30 -> 00:09:31] Same thing in Dallas. [00:09:31 -> 00:09:33] Oh, let's go view the apartments we would actually rent.

[00:09:33 -> 00:09:35] Let's go look at the space and square footage. [00:09:35 -> 00:09:37] We would actually slap down. [00:09:37 -> 00:09:37] Right. [00:09:37 -> 00:09:39] That, that, that was fun times.

[00:09:39 -> 00:09:43] Like just going around together and just be like, okay, like, dude, we built this. [00:09:43 -> 00:09:44] Like, so you guys had each other's backs. [00:09:45 -> 00:09:45] Oh yeah. [00:09:45 -> 00:09:46] For sure.

[00:09:46 -> 00:09:46] Yeah. [00:09:46 -> 00:09:47] That reminds me today. [00:09:47 -> 00:09:50] It's cool that you guys are even coming on the podcast today and we're still friends [00:09:50 -> 00:09:52] and we're still going at it. [00:09:52 -> 00:09:55] Like we're all doing our own separate things, but like, man, the core team that was at [00:09:55 -> 00:09:57] Dev mountain and Kaylin can attest.

[00:09:57 -> 00:09:58] And I know you can attest to this. [00:09:58 -> 00:10:01] Those are some good people just even outside of us three. [00:10:01 -> 00:10:02] Yeah, exactly. [00:10:02 -> 00:10:05] I mean, I still talk to a lot of the team, you know what I mean?

[00:10:05 -> 00:10:06] And you guys do too. [00:10:06 -> 00:10:09] I, I think you work with, I think your core team was amazing. [00:10:09 -> 00:10:09] Yeah. [00:10:10 -> 00:10:10] Yeah.

[00:10:10 -> 00:10:14] I mean, you know what you said here, Colt reminds me of experience I had with Omniture, [00:10:15 -> 00:10:19] which is a legendary company in the Utah market here that literally was bought by Adobe. [00:10:19 -> 00:10:24] And now Utah has thousands of Adobe employees and it's basically built this incredible city [00:10:24 -> 00:10:27] of Lehigh that is a tech powerhouse in the world. [00:10:27 -> 00:10:32] And the two founders of Omniture, they're very famous here locally, Josh James and John [00:10:32 -> 00:10:39] Pistana all during the time and all the tumultuous history in that company and the ups and downs, [00:10:39 -> 00:10:42] they literally each had each other's back.

[00:10:42 -> 00:10:48] Josh always had John's back and John had Josh's back and they were very different people with [00:10:48 -> 00:10:49] different roles. [00:10:49 -> 00:10:53] One more flamboyant and out front, one in the back scene, getting stuff done. [00:10:53 -> 00:10:58] And they just, all the time, they never let any outsider, investor, venture capitalist [00:10:58 -> 00:11:02] or employee weaken their relationship, which was really cool. [00:11:02 -> 00:11:03] And that's what you guys are saying you did.

[00:11:03 -> 00:11:04] And it's rare too. [00:11:04 -> 00:11:08] Like I always tell people, if you can start a company with somebody and at the end of it [00:11:08 -> 00:11:11] not have sued them or like, you can still talk to them. [00:11:11 -> 00:11:11] That's a pretty good outcome. [00:11:12 -> 00:11:13] And a lot of people don't know this.

[00:11:13 -> 00:11:16] We didn't know, we didn't know each other that well before doing anything. [00:11:16 -> 00:11:17] It was kind of an arranged marriage. [00:11:17 -> 00:11:23] I met you what, like maybe two months before we started and I, and I met you literally [00:11:23 -> 00:11:27] day of, we started like, I remember getting brought into the team and they're like, Oh, [00:11:27 -> 00:11:31] this guy, Kalen Sharp, he, he says he can make the curriculum and like be the, the head [00:11:31 -> 00:11:34] instructor and everything and take care of that whole side of the house.

[00:11:34 -> 00:11:35] It's like, who's Kalen? [00:11:35 -> 00:11:35] Yeah. [00:11:35 -> 00:11:35] Yeah. [00:11:35 -> 00:11:39] I think I called you Callahan for a moment because I'd never heard the word Kalen before.

[00:11:40 -> 00:11:41] That's Irish, right? [00:11:41 -> 00:11:42] Yes. [00:11:42 -> 00:11:45] What's crazy is we became official business partners before we met in person. [00:11:45 -> 00:11:48] Hey, let's not advise anyone else to do that.

[00:11:48 -> 00:11:49] Not a good idea. [00:11:49 -> 00:11:50] Generally speaking, we got very lucky. [00:11:50 -> 00:11:51] Yeah. [00:11:51 -> 00:11:54] Apparently arranged marriages work better than other marriages.

[00:11:55 -> 00:12:00] So, um, I've got a pattern we're going to follow for the show, but, um, I'm going to [00:12:00 -> 00:12:03] have Tyler give one more clear best and worst moment. [00:12:03 -> 00:12:03] Okay. [00:12:03 -> 00:12:04] I'll go quickly. [00:12:04 -> 00:12:05] I'll go quickly.

[00:12:06 -> 00:12:08] I remember this so vividly. [00:12:08 -> 00:12:10] So should I start worst or best? [00:12:10 -> 00:12:11] I'll follow the worst best. [00:12:11 -> 00:12:13] So worst and then we'll end on best worst one.

[00:12:13 -> 00:12:16] One was from that cash crunch. [00:12:16 -> 00:12:18] We had to fire some people. [00:12:18 -> 00:12:18] Yeah. [00:12:18 -> 00:12:19] I knew you were going to share this one.

[00:12:19 -> 00:12:23] And I was in charge of doing the actual firing or one of them. [00:12:23 -> 00:12:27] I think we all kind of took turns, but one of them was so bad. [00:12:27 -> 00:12:30] I was in the basement of our Salt Lake city location. [00:12:30 -> 00:12:30] I remember this.

[00:12:30 -> 00:12:31] I was there. [00:12:31 -> 00:12:32] You were there with me. [00:12:32 -> 00:12:34] And we fired him together. [00:12:34 -> 00:12:37] And I think we dragged it out so long.

[00:12:37 -> 00:12:40] It was so like, I think it was 45 minutes. [00:12:40 -> 00:12:41] It was excruciating. [00:12:41 -> 00:12:42] It was torture. [00:12:42 -> 00:12:44] If you've ever fired anybody, you know, not to do that.

[00:12:44 -> 00:12:47] It's like quick, dirty and done and just get it over with. [00:12:47 -> 00:12:48] And just don't even apologize. [00:12:48 -> 00:12:49] It's hard when they're a friend. [00:12:49 -> 00:12:49] Yeah.

[00:12:50 -> 00:12:51] And this guy was a friend, right? [00:12:51 -> 00:12:53] And we were firing him. [00:12:53 -> 00:12:57] And then he, he tells me at the end of the firing, Hey, I don't have a car. [00:12:57 -> 00:12:58] I need a ride home.

[00:12:58 -> 00:12:59] Yeah. [00:12:59 -> 00:13:05] And so I gave him a 20 to 30 minute ride home from our, our campus location and it extended [00:13:05 -> 00:13:06] it and the pain even longer. [00:13:06 -> 00:13:09] And I remember he was crying on the way home. [00:13:09 -> 00:13:11] I started crying in the car.

[00:13:11 -> 00:13:12] I drop him off. [00:13:12 -> 00:13:13] He like walks up to the house. [00:13:13 -> 00:13:18] He like turns his head, like, like, like a kid in a movie, like, okay, see you later. [00:13:18 -> 00:13:21] And I'm like, this is the worst moment of my career.

[00:13:21 -> 00:13:22] It was so bad. [00:13:22 -> 00:13:27] Firing people is one of the hardest entrepreneurial things to have to do, especially when it's [00:13:27 -> 00:13:34] like, you have to do it for the survival of the business, but it's a friend and you like [00:13:34 -> 00:13:39] him and you know, contributor it's got, it's got, I, you know, having fired enough people [00:13:39 -> 00:13:43] in my life that, uh, you know, seen this happen a bunch of times, but like there are [00:13:43 -> 00:13:46] times where you can try to make it short and sweet, but, but there are times where [00:13:46 -> 00:13:51] literally the employee is begging you, begging you, uh, for their job and there's just nothing [00:13:51 -> 00:13:51] you can do.

[00:13:51 -> 00:13:52] And it is awful. [00:13:52 -> 00:13:53] It's awful. [00:13:53 -> 00:13:56] And if anybody says they love to fire people, they're a narcissist in my opinion, because [00:13:56 -> 00:13:57] it's just awful. [00:13:57 -> 00:13:58] It's the worst.

[00:13:58 -> 00:14:02] Our last podcast that we did here and we filmed it's, it's not lunch yet, but it will be by the [00:14:02 -> 00:14:09] time we launched this was, uh, Korean Clark and she, it has been a CEO of very high places [00:14:09 -> 00:14:11] or times with large companies. [00:14:11 -> 00:14:16] And I don't know, I, not that she, it likes firing, but from what I could tell during that [00:14:16 -> 00:14:18] podcast, like she's really good at firing. [00:14:19 -> 00:14:20] You can be good at it.

[00:14:20 -> 00:14:20] I think you can be good at it. [00:14:21 -> 00:14:21] You need to be good at it. [00:14:21 -> 00:14:24] Well, she was even saying, she was the one that's saying like, yeah, just quick. [00:14:24 -> 00:14:25] And you don't apologize.

[00:14:25 -> 00:14:27] And you just say, this is what the decision is. [00:14:27 -> 00:14:28] This is what's best for the company. [00:14:28 -> 00:14:32] It's one thing though, when it's a, you know, 500% company versus. [00:14:32 -> 00:14:37] A 30 to 40% company and you've all been pulling in the same direction for a few years.

[00:14:37 -> 00:14:37] Yeah. [00:14:38 -> 00:14:38] That's hard. [00:14:38 -> 00:14:38] Yeah. [00:14:39 -> 00:14:39] Yeah.

[00:14:39 -> 00:14:39] All right. [00:14:39 -> 00:14:44] Best one was, I remember this super vividly too, as I was interviewing a candidate for [00:14:44 -> 00:14:49] the marketing team, you know, when we had hit our like paces, right, we were growing, we [00:14:49 -> 00:14:51] were doubling down on an employee headcount. [00:14:51 -> 00:14:52] We had multiple campuses. [00:14:53 -> 00:14:56] We were just hiring kind of a lower level marketing person.

[00:14:56 -> 00:14:57] I can't even remember the position. [00:14:57 -> 00:15:02] And I was going through like a handful of candidates and I had got down to like the top [00:15:02 -> 00:15:04] five in person that I was going to interview. [00:15:04 -> 00:15:08] And I remember them coming in and saying like, Oh, I love Dev Mountain. [00:15:09 -> 00:15:10] I'm like, you love Dev Mountain.

[00:15:11 -> 00:15:11] What do you mean? [00:15:11 -> 00:15:12] How do you even know who we are? [00:15:13 -> 00:15:15] Oh, I've been wanting to work here for like the last year. [00:15:15 -> 00:15:16] I'm like, what are you talking about?

[00:15:16 -> 00:15:18] Like, how do you like, we're not that big. [00:15:18 -> 00:15:19] We're not that cool. [00:15:19 -> 00:15:23] And I just remember the moment thinking in my head, Holy crap. [00:15:23 -> 00:15:24] Like we're a destination.

[00:15:24 -> 00:15:26] Like people want to be here. [00:15:26 -> 00:15:27] People want to learn here. [00:15:27 -> 00:15:28] People want to work here. [00:15:29 -> 00:15:30] People want to come here.

[00:15:30 -> 00:15:32] People want to participate in this ecosystem. [00:15:32 -> 00:15:35] And I was like, wow, it was kind of like a made it moment for me. [00:15:35 -> 00:15:39] And from that moment on, I was like, okay, we're doing the right things. [00:15:39 -> 00:15:41] And I had so much more confidence in what we're doing.

[00:15:41 -> 00:15:44] And things just started like snowballing like crazy from that moment. [00:15:44 -> 00:15:47] But it was just such a cool moment as like a founder, like we built this thing from [00:15:47 -> 00:15:50] the ground up and people want to be here. [00:15:50 -> 00:15:51] It was awesome. [00:15:51 -> 00:15:56] And 10 years later, as Kaylin said, as you and I experienced, look at the impact on so [00:15:56 -> 00:15:57] many people.

[00:15:58 -> 00:16:02] Now, Dev Mountain, for the views and listeners that don't know, and we're going to go into [00:16:02 -> 00:16:08] history in just a little bit, but it really was a game changer and really impacted the [00:16:08 -> 00:16:08] Utah tech scene. [00:16:09 -> 00:16:11] And you did create something very cool. [00:16:11 -> 00:16:14] And it's the way you three mesh together as a mentor advisor, looking from the outside [00:16:14 -> 00:16:15] in a little bit. [00:16:15 -> 00:16:21] You guys, it's your relationship as founders and your desire to change the world with an [00:16:21 -> 00:16:26] incredible product and service, but also create value and wealth for the stakeholders.

[00:16:26 -> 00:16:32] Everybody, stakeholders are you guys, founders, any advisors that you were having to the table, [00:16:33 -> 00:16:34] your employees to the table. [00:16:34 -> 00:16:35] They all got great work experience. [00:16:36 -> 00:16:39] So many of your employees went on to have great jobs at other places from what they learned [00:16:39 -> 00:16:42] under your tutelage at Dev Mountain. [00:16:42 -> 00:16:42] I've seen that too.

[00:16:42 -> 00:16:47] So let's go back now before we get into more of the Dev Mountain story, because it's amazing [00:16:47 -> 00:16:50] as we're going to learn a little bit about Kaylin and Colt. [00:16:50 -> 00:16:50] Okay. [00:16:50 -> 00:16:52] So we like to do this with all our guests. [00:16:52 -> 00:16:56] So we're going to start you off like, and I'm going to start with you, Kaylin.

[00:16:56 -> 00:17:00] Tell us where you grew up and where you went to high school and how you got to have any [00:17:00 -> 00:17:02] entrepreneurial desires at all. [00:17:02 -> 00:17:02] Yeah. [00:17:03 -> 00:17:05] I'll try to make this short. [00:17:05 -> 00:17:10] I grew up in a small town in Nevada, Elko, Nevada, which is just off I-80 on your way to [00:17:10 -> 00:17:11] Sacramento.

[00:17:11 -> 00:17:12] His mother has relatives in Elko. [00:17:13 -> 00:17:13] Yeah. [00:17:13 -> 00:17:14] So super small town. [00:17:14 -> 00:17:16] Anytime I tell somebody I'm from Elko, they're kind of like, huh?

[00:17:17 -> 00:17:18] But yeah. [00:17:18 -> 00:17:18] So small town. [00:17:19 -> 00:17:25] Grew up, had zero entrepreneurial, you know, tendencies or aspirations or anything like [00:17:25 -> 00:17:25] that. [00:17:25 -> 00:17:29] My dad owned his own business, but it was like small mom and pa type business, like still [00:17:29 -> 00:17:32] owns, you know, still does the same thing to this day.

[00:17:32 -> 00:17:33] He's almost 50 years into it. [00:17:33 -> 00:17:38] Um, so if anything, I learned the dangers of, of having a small business and the ups [00:17:38 -> 00:17:40] and downs that come with, uh, the impact of the family. [00:17:40 -> 00:17:41] Yeah. [00:17:41 -> 00:17:42] Taxes and all that kind of thing.

[00:17:42 -> 00:17:46] Um, feast and famine, all that stuff, uh, in college. [00:17:46 -> 00:17:49] Um, and this is, this plays into the history of DevMount a little bit, but in college, I [00:17:49 -> 00:17:51] got really interested in web development. [00:17:51 -> 00:17:53] It was just after the.com boom.

[00:17:53 -> 00:17:57] So there was a little bit of a lull and kind of, you know, the presence of the web as a [00:17:57 -> 00:17:59] early two thousands, early two thousands. [00:17:59 -> 00:18:03] But yet I just got really interested in the technology of how websites were built and new [00:18:03 -> 00:18:04] things that were coming out. [00:18:04 -> 00:18:06] And I just loved doing it. [00:18:06 -> 00:18:11] I had a job at BYU as a, as like a web editor of, of independent study courses.

[00:18:11 -> 00:18:16] So you grew up in Elko and you got accepted to Brigham University and as a freshman, you [00:18:16 -> 00:18:17] got a job or. [00:18:17 -> 00:18:17] Yeah. [00:18:17 -> 00:18:17] Yeah. [00:18:17 -> 00:18:21] I think it was like sophomore year or something like that, but I was working as a web editor, [00:18:21 -> 00:18:24] just proofreading online courses for independent study.

[00:18:24 -> 00:18:27] And I just got exposed like HTML and like how these courses were built. [00:18:27 -> 00:18:31] And at the same time I saw these programmers at, at BYU independent study who were like [00:18:31 -> 00:18:32] rock stars. [00:18:32 -> 00:18:36] Like they would just like command the room and they were like, you know, everybody was [00:18:36 -> 00:18:40] sort of like bowed to whatever the programmer said, because whatever they said went, nobody [00:18:40 -> 00:18:41] else knew what was going on.

[00:18:41 -> 00:18:45] Really how it was for a long, long time, for a long time, all the way up through the [00:18:45 -> 00:18:47] teens, 2000 and teens. [00:18:47 -> 00:18:51] It was like, yeah, developers were just like, Oh, how did exactly. [00:18:51 -> 00:18:54] How do I develop the tail wagging the dog a lot of times? [00:18:54 -> 00:18:55] Exactly.

[00:18:55 -> 00:18:55] Yeah, totally. [00:18:56 -> 00:19:01] So I, but at the time there was not really a track at Brigham University, especially to [00:19:01 -> 00:19:03] kind of learn web development as a discipline. [00:19:03 -> 00:19:07] I mean, you could go to the CS program, you could go to the information systems program, [00:19:07 -> 00:19:09] but there was not like a web development track. [00:19:09 -> 00:19:11] So I kind of would just piece it together.

[00:19:11 -> 00:19:12] I took a class here, a class there. [00:19:12 -> 00:19:17] I did a minor in computers and humanities, and I just did stuff on my own freelance, learned [00:19:17 -> 00:19:17] how to do it. [00:19:18 -> 00:19:21] And, and that was kind of a little bit of some of the Genesis of DevMountain, where [00:19:21 -> 00:19:26] it was like, why, why isn't there an easier way to learn what I want to learn by building [00:19:26 -> 00:19:29] stuff rather than having to take like an entire major or something like that.

[00:19:30 -> 00:19:33] So yeah, that's how I got into web development, got my first job out of college as a web [00:19:33 -> 00:19:34] developer. [00:19:35 -> 00:19:39] And then, yeah, most of my career has been, well, I worked for the church, Church of Jesus [00:19:39 -> 00:19:44] Christ of Latter-day Saints for a while as a multimedia developer, and then, and then [00:19:44 -> 00:19:45] ended up in a few startups. [00:19:45 -> 00:19:49] That's a whole another story where I sort of fell into entrepreneurship because I took [00:19:49 -> 00:19:52] a contracting job, not realizing it was a contracting job.

[00:19:52 -> 00:19:54] I thought I was going to have benefits and health insurance. [00:19:54 -> 00:19:55] My wife was pregnant with our second child. [00:19:55 -> 00:19:56] It was 1099. [00:19:56 -> 00:19:57] You thought it was 1099.

[00:19:57 -> 00:19:58] I thought it was W2. [00:19:58 -> 00:20:01] And I showed up the first day and went to the HR department to ask about my benefits. [00:20:01 -> 00:20:02] And they're like, what are you talking about? [00:20:02 -> 00:20:03] You don't have benefits.

[00:20:03 -> 00:20:04] You're a 1099 contractor. [00:20:04 -> 00:20:06] And I was like, you can't say that. [00:20:06 -> 00:20:08] My wife is pregnant with our second child. [00:20:08 -> 00:20:12] We have like very little income, but anyway, so it was like that I fell into entrepreneurship [00:20:12 -> 00:20:17] and it was like, well, if I'm going to be a contractor, I'm going to do other stuff.

[00:20:17 -> 00:20:18] I'm going to make a little business out of it. [00:20:18 -> 00:20:23] So I made a small business and that's really when I fell into like love with entrepreneurs. [00:20:23 -> 00:20:28] So as a student at BYU, married with kids, you're getting into your web development company [00:20:28 -> 00:20:29] kind of thing. [00:20:29 -> 00:20:29] Okay.

[00:20:29 -> 00:20:31] Doing a master's program at the same time. [00:20:31 -> 00:20:35] So yeah, since then, most of my career has been in a combination of engineering and some [00:20:35 -> 00:20:36] type of education. [00:20:36 -> 00:20:39] Take us from there all the way up to the precipice of DevMountain. [00:20:39 -> 00:20:43] What did you do from junior, senior year in college when you were doing web development?

[00:20:43 -> 00:20:45] Sounds like on a contracted basis. [00:20:45 -> 00:20:47] What did you do all the way up to DevMountain? [00:20:47 -> 00:20:47] Yeah. [00:20:47 -> 00:20:52] So I had a small studio where I was doing mostly contract work for larger companies, really [00:20:52 -> 00:20:53] tough business to run.

[00:20:53 -> 00:20:55] Dev shops are notoriously difficult. [00:20:56 -> 00:21:00] Went from there, ended up joining a startup out of San Francisco with McHagan. [00:21:00 -> 00:21:05] Uh, and there's a funny story behind that, but I ended up in San Francisco for a couple [00:21:05 -> 00:21:08] of years and felt like I was getting my PhD in startups, right? [00:21:08 -> 00:21:13] That was a legendary event because the way that he raised his money with a YouTube video [00:21:13 -> 00:21:16] kind of was very notorious in the venture capital industry.

[00:21:16 -> 00:21:17] Yeah. [00:21:17 -> 00:21:17] Yeah. [00:21:17 -> 00:21:17] Yeah. [00:21:17 -> 00:21:19] I mean, we should just bring it up.

[00:21:19 -> 00:21:22] It's, we need an angel with, uh, on drip, right? [00:21:22 -> 00:21:23] It's still on YouTube. [00:21:23 -> 00:21:23] It's still there. [00:21:23 -> 00:21:24] It's pretty catchy.

[00:21:24 -> 00:21:25] Doesn't it have a lot of views too? [00:21:25 -> 00:21:26] Yeah. [00:21:26 -> 00:21:31] Viewers and listeners go to YouTube, look up undrip, the name of the company and we need [00:21:31 -> 00:21:31] an angel. [00:21:31 -> 00:21:33] Is that what the name of the video is?

[00:21:33 -> 00:21:34] It's a music video parody. [00:21:34 -> 00:21:39] Uh, and, uh, that got them scores of venture capital meetings. [00:21:40 -> 00:21:40] Yeah. [00:21:40 -> 00:21:40] Yeah.

[00:21:40 -> 00:21:41] And they made waves. [00:21:41 -> 00:21:45] And Mick told me that it was the 41st one that invested. [00:21:45 -> 00:21:46] Wow. [00:21:46 -> 00:21:49] It took 41 meetings.

[00:21:49 -> 00:21:50] What year was that, Kalen? [00:21:50 -> 00:21:53] That would have been 2011 or so somewhere around there. [00:21:53 -> 00:21:55] So that you went to undrip. [00:21:55 -> 00:21:55] Yeah.

[00:21:55 -> 00:21:58] And so you got a baptism by fire in Silicon Valley. [00:21:58 -> 00:22:00] Cause I thought you were at scan before you came up. [00:22:00 -> 00:22:02] No, that was after that was after. [00:22:02 -> 00:22:06] So I was in San Francisco for a couple of years, getting my PhD in startups, learning [00:22:06 -> 00:22:10] the ins and outs of what venture startups looked like, learning the ins and outs of what [00:22:10 -> 00:22:12] engineering at some level of scale.

[00:22:12 -> 00:22:12] Yeah. [00:22:12 -> 00:22:13] I was a software engineer there. [00:22:13 -> 00:22:15] I was learning what like it looked like to build scale. [00:22:15 -> 00:22:17] We were a social media aggregation platform.

[00:22:17 -> 00:22:21] So it was like, we were taking all this data from Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and [00:22:21 -> 00:22:23] trying to make this single consolidated feed at the time. [00:22:24 -> 00:22:26] Social media aggregators were pretty big. [00:22:26 -> 00:22:28] I think we need to say what your education was. [00:22:28 -> 00:22:31] Cause you get something that'll play into Dev mountain later.

[00:22:31 -> 00:22:32] What did you get educated? [00:22:32 -> 00:22:35] So my undergrad, yeah, my undergrad was Portuguese, totally unrelated. [00:22:35 -> 00:22:38] My master's degree was in instructional psychology. [00:22:38 -> 00:22:43] So you went at, so instructional psychology, which later played a good role in Dev mountain.

[00:22:43 -> 00:22:45] What was your intention of doing that? [00:22:45 -> 00:22:48] It was really a backup plan while I was running this small dev shop. [00:22:48 -> 00:22:51] I was like, well, if this doesn't work out, I need a degree to fall back on so I can go [00:22:51 -> 00:22:52] get a job. [00:22:52 -> 00:22:52] Yeah.

[00:22:52 -> 00:22:55] But like, what do you do with a master's degree? [00:22:55 -> 00:22:58] Well, nowadays, nowadays it's different, but like back then you'd be like a learning designer [00:22:58 -> 00:23:01] somewhere building training for some company. [00:23:01 -> 00:23:04] What made you feel like it was there a certain event that made you inspired for that? [00:23:04 -> 00:23:11] Cause obviously it was so key for us to tell like your credentials at Dev mountain and everything.

[00:23:11 -> 00:23:15] I was in meetings where that credential actually helped Dev mountain. [00:23:15 -> 00:23:15] Huge. [00:23:16 -> 00:23:16] Yeah. [00:23:16 -> 00:23:21] I think, I mean, it was really, like I said, it was a backup plan, but it was kind of a byproduct [00:23:21 -> 00:23:25] of the fact that a lot of the contract we worked, we did at this company just happened to be like [00:23:25 -> 00:23:27] e-learning, which was a big thing at the time.

[00:23:27 -> 00:23:31] Building online learning platforms was a big thing for the church. [00:23:31 -> 00:23:33] It was a big thing for a lot of our big clients. [00:23:33 -> 00:23:38] And so we were constantly building like online courses or, you know, online learning platforms. [00:23:38 -> 00:23:43] And so that became, and at the time canvas and Instructure were just getting started.

[00:23:43 -> 00:23:46] And so there was a big kind of boom in the e-learning industry, online learning. [00:23:46 -> 00:23:46] Yep. [00:23:47 -> 00:23:50] And so, yeah, I just sort of gravitated towards that because it was where my work was. [00:23:50 -> 00:23:50] Yeah.

[00:23:50 -> 00:23:50] Yeah. [00:23:50 -> 00:23:55] We had a company e-learning brothers that did really well in the Utah market for that. [00:23:55 -> 00:23:55] Okay. [00:23:55 -> 00:23:58] So then, so Undrip, then you came back.

[00:23:59 -> 00:23:59] What happens after Undrip? [00:23:59 -> 00:23:59] Yeah. [00:23:59 -> 00:24:01] So, and funny story. [00:24:01 -> 00:24:01] Yeah.

[00:24:01 -> 00:24:05] We raised a million dollars in seed funding, ran out of it in a year. [00:24:05 -> 00:24:07] I remember very vividly. [00:24:07 -> 00:24:09] It seemed like you had so much more. [00:24:09 -> 00:24:10] At the time it was very expensive.

[00:24:11 -> 00:24:13] Million dollar seed was like, whoa. [00:24:13 -> 00:24:16] And yeah, we, I remember the day, talk about best and worst. [00:24:16 -> 00:24:20] Remember the day we raised that money, we went to the Apple store and bought $15,000 worth [00:24:20 -> 00:24:20] of equipment. [00:24:20 -> 00:24:22] You know, it was a lesson maybe there.

[00:24:22 -> 00:24:26] Uh, but we, but we needed like iPads to test on because we had this mobile device and whatever. [00:24:26 -> 00:24:31] Anyway, so we left, we left Apple with literally a cart full of equipment for the company. [00:24:31 -> 00:24:32] It was like the greatest day ever. [00:24:32 -> 00:24:35] And then a year later we were shutting down the business essentially, right?

[00:24:35 -> 00:24:40] Asking ourselves to go back to being contractors and going without paychecks for a, but we were [00:24:40 -> 00:24:40] just out of money. [00:24:40 -> 00:24:41] Came back to Utah. [00:24:41 -> 00:24:41] Yeah. [00:24:41 -> 00:24:42] We were out of money.

[00:24:42 -> 00:24:44] My wife and I were like, we can't afford to do this again. [00:24:44 -> 00:24:49] And so at the time I got connected to Kirk, we met and Garrett G at scan Kirk and I [00:24:49 -> 00:24:52] became good friends and he recruited me to come work at scan. [00:24:52 -> 00:24:56] And it was a good soft landing for me because again, we'd sort of ran out of everything. [00:24:56 -> 00:25:00] By the way, when Tyler did what I just did to him today, it was Garrett.

[00:25:00 -> 00:25:00] Yeah. [00:25:00 -> 00:25:04] Now I was going to say to all the views and listeners, go watch the Garrett G episode. [00:25:04 -> 00:25:06] If you want to learn that story, it was a great episode. [00:25:06 -> 00:25:07] It was a part of that.

[00:25:07 -> 00:25:08] Incredible, incredible story. [00:25:08 -> 00:25:12] So I didn't, so you were that right down there in the building kitty corner to the startup [00:25:12 -> 00:25:13] building in Provo, Utah. [00:25:13 -> 00:25:13] Yeah. [00:25:13 -> 00:25:17] So that was when, that was when scan, that was when scan was moving back to Provo.

[00:25:17 -> 00:25:19] They, they were in San Francisco for a while as well. [00:25:19 -> 00:25:21] Because they got their investment out of Google Ventures. [00:25:21 -> 00:25:22] Exactly. [00:25:22 -> 00:25:22] Yeah.

[00:25:22 -> 00:25:25] So while they were moving back, they said, Hey, why don't you move back to Utah with [00:25:25 -> 00:25:26] us and join the company? [00:25:26 -> 00:25:27] And so I did. [00:25:27 -> 00:25:30] Um, and so that was some connection with the startup building. [00:25:30 -> 00:25:31] I like it out in Silicon Valley.

[00:25:31 -> 00:25:32] He wanted to come back to Provo. [00:25:32 -> 00:25:32] Yeah. [00:25:32 -> 00:25:33] I think Kirk was the same way. [00:25:33 -> 00:25:34] It was not.

[00:25:34 -> 00:25:34] Yeah. [00:25:34 -> 00:25:37] And so, and then, so they just brought you back with them. [00:25:37 -> 00:25:38] Yep. [00:25:38 -> 00:25:38] Okay.

[00:25:38 -> 00:25:38] Got it. [00:25:38 -> 00:25:42] Back in the day when you actually really had to leave the state to go get VC funding. [00:25:42 -> 00:25:42] Yeah. [00:25:42 -> 00:25:44] That's literally what scan did.

[00:25:44 -> 00:25:44] What undrip did. [00:25:45 -> 00:25:47] All of them had to go to San Francisco. [00:25:48 -> 00:25:51] And that, well, back in the day when like moving to Utah was a cheaper option. [00:25:51 -> 00:25:54] And I don't know if that's so much the case nowadays, because prices have gone up so much, [00:25:54 -> 00:25:58] but yeah, back in the day it was like, Oh, we can, we can live on so much less in Utah.

[00:25:58 -> 00:25:58] Yeah. [00:25:58 -> 00:26:00] Much, much more house for less money. [00:26:00 -> 00:26:02] Let's talk like back in the day. [00:26:02 -> 00:26:04] These timeframes we're talking about.

[00:26:04 -> 00:26:05] We're, you're old. [00:26:06 -> 00:26:06] Yeah. [00:26:06 -> 00:26:07] You're old now. [00:26:07 -> 00:26:07] It's a sad.

[00:26:12 -> 00:26:16] At the same time I joined scan when we were moving back, I was kind of having one of [00:26:16 -> 00:26:19] these, like, what does my life mean moments? [00:26:19 -> 00:26:21] Like, what do I really want to do with my career? [00:26:21 -> 00:26:24] I think I listened to some podcasts and stuff where I was just like, okay, what, what is [00:26:24 -> 00:26:26] the thing I do that really matters? [00:26:27 -> 00:26:31] And education, you know, coming out of a social media company that felt kind of, I don't know, [00:26:31 -> 00:26:32] not super meaningful.

[00:26:32 -> 00:26:34] I was like, I was searching for that meaning in my work. [00:26:34 -> 00:26:39] And at the same time I saw dev bootcamp out of Chicago that it started and it was really [00:26:39 -> 00:26:40] successful. [00:26:40 -> 00:26:41] And I thought Utah needs one of these things. [00:26:41 -> 00:26:45] And so I had visited that one called the starter league.

[00:26:45 -> 00:26:45] Right. [00:26:45 -> 00:26:50] Well, there was a few that one was in 1871, this incredible coworking space. [00:26:50 -> 00:26:52] And I toured it and I go, what the heck is this? [00:26:52 -> 00:26:52] Yeah.

[00:26:52 -> 00:26:52] Yeah. [00:26:52 -> 00:26:55] So at the same time I was coming back to Utah, I thought Utah needs one of these. [00:26:55 -> 00:27:00] And so part-time while I was working at scan, I started talking about the idea of teaching [00:27:00 -> 00:27:04] part-time classes, nights and weekends with what we call Dev Mountain. [00:27:04 -> 00:27:08] Well, really, we got to give a lot of credit to the startup building because they kind of [00:27:08 -> 00:27:09] put up this team together.

[00:27:09 -> 00:27:13] Like literally the startup building was like, we want that in our building and who's going [00:27:13 -> 00:27:13] to do it? [00:27:13 -> 00:27:13] Yeah. [00:27:13 -> 00:27:18] And we're like, they gave me, they gave me free rent to teach the classes and we basically [00:27:18 -> 00:27:20] just partnered up half and half on the business. [00:27:20 -> 00:27:26] So the Taylor family, the father and son had sold buildings in California, very little small [00:27:26 -> 00:27:30] buildings and bought an entire city block basically in Provo, Utah.

[00:27:30 -> 00:27:34] And the funny thing, the building was called the startup building because of the startup [00:27:34 -> 00:27:37] candy company that was from the late 1800s. [00:27:37 -> 00:27:37] Yep. [00:27:37 -> 00:27:39] We all thought it's because they wanted to be cool. [00:27:40 -> 00:27:43] No, it was the guy's last name, which is fascinating.

[00:27:43 -> 00:27:48] And so then they turned it into a true startup building and you guys became a nucleus of it. [00:27:48 -> 00:27:49] Right. [00:27:49 -> 00:27:49] Yeah. [00:27:49 -> 00:27:49] That's cool.

[00:27:50 -> 00:27:50] Yeah. [00:27:50 -> 00:27:53] So, so that's, and they kind of started talking about this. [00:27:53 -> 00:27:55] You saw this, that's perfect pause moment. [00:27:55 -> 00:27:55] Yeah.

[00:27:55 -> 00:27:57] Let's get Colt's history now. [00:27:57 -> 00:27:57] Yeah. [00:27:57 -> 00:27:57] Colt. [00:27:57 -> 00:27:59] Cause I know I want to hear the father.

[00:27:59 -> 00:27:59] Colt. [00:27:59 -> 00:28:01] Where'd you grow up, go to high school. [00:28:01 -> 00:28:05] And I know a little bit about how you got into entrepreneurship, but, um, tell the story. [00:28:05 -> 00:28:06] I know.

[00:28:06 -> 00:28:08] I was like, I was kind of expecting you to say it. [00:28:08 -> 00:28:12] Cause I heard you say it like in your start commission bootcamps and stuff like that on [00:28:12 -> 00:28:13] my side. [00:28:13 -> 00:28:16] So, um, I grew up in Idaho, right. [00:28:16 -> 00:28:20] Uh, in a small town, a lot of potato farmers and stuff like that.

[00:28:20 -> 00:28:23] And so I was always fascinated with things different, right? [00:28:23 -> 00:28:28] Like what's the most different thing from a white boy in Idaho. [00:28:28 -> 00:28:29] It's like China. [00:28:29 -> 00:28:30] So what did I go?

[00:28:30 -> 00:28:32] I declared my major before even going to BYU. [00:28:32 -> 00:28:34] I got accepted to BYU. [00:28:34 -> 00:28:35] Get me out of the state. [00:28:35 -> 00:28:40] And I declared international relations, Chinese and American relations.

[00:28:40 -> 00:28:44] Like before I even sit there to the cats, it was like, are you sure you want to do this? [00:28:44 -> 00:28:46] It's like, it's different from what I know. [00:28:46 -> 00:28:48] This is what I'm doing. [00:28:48 -> 00:28:52] So then I go down there and, um, did my freshman year.

[00:28:52 -> 00:28:53] Then went on the mission, came back. [00:28:53 -> 00:28:59] And, uh, I just, I got a janitor job where I had to like, wake up at like four o'clock [00:28:59 -> 00:29:01] and go clean a BYU building. [00:29:01 -> 00:29:04] And, um, I was always like listening to podcasts. [00:29:04 -> 00:29:08] Cause that's kind of like when the downloadable podcast and then teams was kind of getting [00:29:08 -> 00:29:09] bigger, right?

[00:29:09 -> 00:29:11] I think it was an iPod. [00:29:11 -> 00:29:15] My kids found my old iPod, the ones where you had the white ones where you'd scroll with [00:29:15 -> 00:29:15] the wheel. [00:29:15 -> 00:29:17] And they're like, what is this? [00:29:17 -> 00:29:19] And I'm like, yeah, that's the iPhone before the iPhone.

[00:29:20 -> 00:29:20] Exactly. [00:29:20 -> 00:29:20] Right. [00:29:21 -> 00:29:23] So you listen to the stuff like Dave Ramsey and that. [00:29:23 -> 00:29:26] And I'm like, I got to make sure I'm financially set, you know, whatever.

[00:29:26 -> 00:29:30] While I'm like minimum pay janitor job on campus. [00:29:31 -> 00:29:38] And, uh, I think I got out of my janitor job and walked across campus and that's in Brigham [00:29:38 -> 00:29:39] square. [00:29:39 -> 00:29:43] I see like a Lamborghini and like a Ferrari and everything. [00:29:43 -> 00:29:44] And later on, I found out.

[00:29:44 -> 00:29:48] So this is out in front of the student main center called the Wilkinson center in the middle [00:29:48 -> 00:29:49] of campus. [00:29:49 -> 00:29:50] You see a Ferrari and Lamborghini. [00:29:50 -> 00:29:50] Yeah. [00:29:50 -> 00:29:57] And, you know, I'm jumping too far fast when I'm alone in like the basement of the chemistry [00:29:57 -> 00:29:59] building all by myself.

[00:29:59 -> 00:30:00] I have a lot of time to think. [00:30:01 -> 00:30:04] So I think I have a lot of great business side. [00:30:04 -> 00:30:06] And so I come out and I see these Ferraris. [00:30:06 -> 00:30:07] Okay, that's cool.

[00:30:07 -> 00:30:08] But then there was like a poster. [00:30:08 -> 00:30:10] It was like, you want to be an entrepreneur? [00:30:10 -> 00:30:11] You got a business idea? [00:30:12 -> 00:30:13] Like take my course.

[00:30:13 -> 00:30:15] There's John Richardson right there. [00:30:15 -> 00:30:20] So I, I went past the cars that wasn't of interest to me and I was like, I have the [00:30:20 -> 00:30:21] best business idea. [00:30:21 -> 00:30:24] I need to like talk to you about it anyway. [00:30:24 -> 00:30:26] So you're like, send me an email.

[00:30:26 -> 00:30:32] So I like wrote out one of the business ideas and, um, anyway, sent it to you and you can [00:30:32 -> 00:30:33] visit me in my office. [00:30:33 -> 00:30:33] Yeah. [00:30:34 -> 00:30:34] Yeah. [00:30:34 -> 00:30:39] And you basically told me back like that is one of the worst business ideas.

[00:30:39 -> 00:30:40] Right. [00:30:40 -> 00:30:44] And I've already like was telling so many like family and friends are like, yeah, that's [00:30:44 -> 00:30:45] great. [00:30:45 -> 00:30:50] I had a lot of believers in my life, which is like very good, but it's also like, uh, [00:30:50 -> 00:30:52] I had a lot of yes people in my life too. [00:30:53 -> 00:30:53] So, right.

[00:30:53 -> 00:30:55] Cause I remember you, you do. [00:30:55 -> 00:30:59] And I said, that's probably the worst business idea I've heard in my entire time at BYU. [00:30:59 -> 00:31:00] So who's telling you it's great. [00:31:00 -> 00:31:08] And you said my mom, my mission friend, my roommates, people I meet, you know, so then, [00:31:08 -> 00:31:11] um, and then, but I told you here's why.

[00:31:11 -> 00:31:12] And I gave you five reasons. [00:31:12 -> 00:31:14] And then you said, you're going to go check it out. [00:31:14 -> 00:31:14] Yeah. [00:31:14 -> 00:31:21] And I took another course, um, from a professor that, uh, really kind of hit a nerve for me.

[00:31:21 -> 00:31:25] He's like, find the people out there who are like going to be good mentors and be around [00:31:25 -> 00:31:27] them and even be willing to work for them for free. [00:31:27 -> 00:31:31] So the first step was like, I was going to take your course. [00:31:31 -> 00:31:32] Cause that's what you're advertising. [00:31:32 -> 00:31:33] It was a brand new course.

[00:31:33 -> 00:31:33] Right. [00:31:33 -> 00:31:34] Right. [00:31:34 -> 00:31:35] So I went and took your course. [00:31:35 -> 00:31:40] And the reason why I valued like the five things of why it was a bad business idea was [00:31:40 -> 00:31:43] like, it's not just that you said, this is the worst.

[00:31:43 -> 00:31:45] Just get out of my sight. [00:31:45 -> 00:31:45] Yeah. [00:31:45 -> 00:31:47] It was like, this is the worst. [00:31:47 -> 00:31:47] And here's why.

[00:31:47 -> 00:31:49] And it was very educational. [00:31:49 -> 00:31:52] And I could learn so much from you. [00:31:52 -> 00:32:00] So anyway, that's when I took a business management, 170 intro to entrepreneurship, took that course, [00:32:00 -> 00:32:03] learned so much, went up and said, Hey, I'm willing to be your TA. [00:32:03 -> 00:32:06] And that's when I became your teacher assistant.

[00:32:06 -> 00:32:06] Yeah. [00:32:07 -> 00:32:08] And then it's kind of started taking off. [00:32:08 -> 00:32:09] He goes, I need to hang around you more. [00:32:09 -> 00:32:10] And I go, well, I need a TA.

[00:32:10 -> 00:32:11] And that's what I'm doing. [00:32:11 -> 00:32:13] And think about like the introductions. [00:32:13 -> 00:32:18] Like you were talking about in the Star of Munition, Garrett G episode, you know, where [00:32:18 -> 00:32:21] it was like, Garrett G is like, I just became a yes, man. [00:32:21 -> 00:32:22] That was like, that was me.

[00:32:22 -> 00:32:23] Right. [00:32:23 -> 00:32:28] Cause then Garrett G was saying like, Oh, I was able to go sit behind Utah angels and just [00:32:28 -> 00:32:32] like listen to all these pitches of what not to do the same thing. [00:32:32 -> 00:32:36] Like he said, John, I was involved in the Utah Valley entrepreneurial forum. [00:32:36 -> 00:32:40] And Garrett said, I'll just come a free intern or assistant helping that organization and did [00:32:40 -> 00:32:40] the same thing.

[00:32:41 -> 00:32:41] Yeah. [00:32:41 -> 00:32:41] I opened somewhere. [00:32:42 -> 00:32:46] I sat into the Utah angels and the Utah angels too, and, and went into different events. [00:32:46 -> 00:32:52] And that's like getting to about where we were, which was, you were like, Hey, uh, [00:32:52 -> 00:32:57] you sent me with an entrepreneurship internship one summer and it was a horrible answer.

[00:32:57 -> 00:33:00] It's not your fault, but I went there and it was all about entrepreneurship and it wasn't [00:33:00 -> 00:33:01] about entrepreneurship. [00:33:01 -> 00:33:04] So the next summer I was like, I need something more about entrepreneurship. [00:33:04 -> 00:33:08] You're like, I'm doing boom startup and we don't have a position place to pay. [00:33:08 -> 00:33:10] I can just cry about it and squeeze you in.

[00:33:10 -> 00:33:12] Cause the one paid position was you. [00:33:13 -> 00:33:14] Imagine it was a boom startup. [00:33:15 -> 00:33:15] It was the accelerator. [00:33:16 -> 00:33:17] So is it like, that's fine.

[00:33:17 -> 00:33:18] I'm going to do it anyway. [00:33:18 -> 00:33:19] Right. [00:33:19 -> 00:33:22] Classic, like why common or tech stars accelerator in the startup building. [00:33:22 -> 00:33:22] Yeah.

[00:33:22 -> 00:33:28] And then Tyler was graduating and I said, Tyler, I need somebody to be the program manager [00:33:28 -> 00:33:30] sitting on the floor all summer with those 10 companies. [00:33:30 -> 00:33:32] And Tyler got that one paid position. [00:33:33 -> 00:33:37] And then you came up to me and said, yeah, I got to do something better than I did last [00:33:37 -> 00:33:37] summer. [00:33:38 -> 00:33:42] And anyway, that's when you and I became acquainted and we sat in the startup.

[00:33:42 -> 00:33:45] You wanted to be his assistant, like work under him. [00:33:45 -> 00:33:45] Yeah. [00:33:45 -> 00:33:46] And I said, cool. [00:33:46 -> 00:33:48] We don't have any budget for that.

[00:33:48 -> 00:33:50] And you said, I'll do it for free. [00:33:50 -> 00:33:52] And not only that, do you remember that I recruited more? [00:33:52 -> 00:33:55] I was like, I'm going to get a bunch of unpaid interns. [00:33:55 -> 00:33:56] And then I like sold it.

[00:33:56 -> 00:34:00] And like, you even just had one guest, uh, Phil Kirchner was one of those like unpaid [00:34:00 -> 00:34:03] internships that I really recruited into boom startup. [00:34:03 -> 00:34:07] And so like, it was a nucleus of like young. [00:34:07 -> 00:34:09] And do you know how much revenue this company might do this year? [00:34:09 -> 00:34:09] 13 million.

[00:34:10 -> 00:34:10] Oh my gosh. [00:34:11 -> 00:34:11] Right. [00:34:11 -> 00:34:12] It was a great time. [00:34:12 -> 00:34:15] And we sat at those tables in that coworker space, the startup building.

[00:34:15 -> 00:34:18] So that's like how I mean, you said I was paid, but I was basically. [00:34:18 -> 00:34:20] Yeah, it was not much. [00:34:20 -> 00:34:21] And you were also involved. [00:34:21 -> 00:34:23] You were paid boom startup wages.

[00:34:23 -> 00:34:25] And you were involved with two genomics. [00:34:25 -> 00:34:27] I was really jealous of that and stuff like that. [00:34:27 -> 00:34:28] But you know, what's really interesting. [00:34:28 -> 00:34:32] Think about these decisions that you all make and do.

[00:34:32 -> 00:34:32] Oh yeah. [00:34:32 -> 00:34:35] And like Kalen and what led to the moment. [00:34:35 -> 00:34:40] And then your decision to just come up and talk to me on, in the middle of campus. [00:34:40 -> 00:34:42] If that hadn't happened, if you hadn't said, I'll be your TA.

[00:34:43 -> 00:34:46] And if you hadn't said, I want to, I'll, I'll work for free under Tyler. [00:34:46 -> 00:34:46] Yeah. [00:34:47 -> 00:34:48] What would have happened? [00:34:48 -> 00:34:48] Right.

[00:34:48 -> 00:34:52] It's our, our life is a product of our succession of decisions we make. [00:34:53 -> 00:34:55] And it's really interesting how it turns out. [00:34:55 -> 00:34:55] Yeah. [00:34:55 -> 00:34:59] Well, it shows you, it shows you how important it is to optimize at that stage of life, especially [00:34:59 -> 00:35:01] for learning over any kind of income.

[00:35:01 -> 00:35:05] Like, and I've seen this happen a bunch of times where kids fresh out of college are trying [00:35:05 -> 00:35:09] to get the right job, the right salary package, the right comp, whatever that matters [00:35:09 -> 00:35:15] way less than being in the right place to learn from people, from mentors, from companies, [00:35:15 -> 00:35:16] from experiences. [00:35:16 -> 00:35:20] Like, even if, even if it means working for next to nothing or even free, that knowledge, [00:35:20 -> 00:35:23] that experience is worth, it's worth its weight in gold.

[00:35:23 -> 00:35:23] Yeah. [00:35:23 -> 00:35:28] And I try to drill that into students' heads today, but they're, they're, they're still [00:35:28 -> 00:35:31] on a war beaten path of, I have to get a career. [00:35:32 -> 00:35:33] I have to get into a job. [00:35:33 -> 00:35:35] I have to get the highest pay I can.

[00:35:35 -> 00:35:35] Yeah. [00:35:35 -> 00:35:40] And it's, and it, which is funny because higher education's in crisis and has been for 20 [00:35:40 -> 00:35:40] years. [00:35:40 -> 00:35:44] It's just, there's less and less majors that have a good ROI. [00:35:44 -> 00:35:44] Yeah.

[00:35:45 -> 00:35:45] Right. [00:35:45 -> 00:35:47] So, um, cool. [00:35:47 -> 00:35:48] Thanks for sharing that. [00:35:48 -> 00:35:48] Yeah.

[00:35:48 -> 00:35:50] You want me to get up just to the pause over here? [00:35:50 -> 00:35:56] So you, so you're assistant program manager in the boom startup accelerator for that summer. [00:35:56 -> 00:35:57] What, then what happened? [00:35:57 -> 00:36:00] So I basically like put my best effort.

[00:36:00 -> 00:36:02] I was there always early in the morning. [00:36:02 -> 00:36:03] And we stayed there for late. [00:36:03 -> 00:36:04] Right. [00:36:04 -> 00:36:10] So then one of the startup, uh, building, uh, partners came up to me and says, I always [00:36:10 -> 00:36:11] see you're here.

[00:36:11 -> 00:36:12] And guess what? [00:36:12 -> 00:36:14] We're going to do these code and bootcamps. [00:36:14 -> 00:36:15] This is Christian. [00:36:15 -> 00:36:16] This is Christian Faulkner.

[00:36:16 -> 00:36:19] I owe so much to Christian Faulkner about this. [00:36:19 -> 00:36:21] And he's like, I want you to bring you on. [00:36:21 -> 00:36:22] I said, great. [00:36:22 -> 00:36:24] And then we came up in a room.

[00:36:24 -> 00:36:25] I thought it was just me bringing, bringing it on. [00:36:25 -> 00:36:28] And what was funny, it was like something you showed up in the room too. [00:36:28 -> 00:36:30] And you're like, he's bringing you on too. [00:36:30 -> 00:36:31] I was like, yeah.

[00:36:31 -> 00:36:35] So then that's like, we were being independently recruited, even though we were already working [00:36:35 -> 00:36:36] with each other. [00:36:36 -> 00:36:37] Like, that's great. [00:36:37 -> 00:36:39] And that was even before we met you. [00:36:39 -> 00:36:39] Yeah.

[00:36:39 -> 00:36:40] We're like, well, what was funny was, yeah. [00:36:40 -> 00:36:42] At the same, at the same time. [00:36:42 -> 00:36:45] So I started doing Dev Mountain classes as just like a side project. [00:36:45 -> 00:36:48] I did not think it was going to be a full-time big company.

[00:36:49 -> 00:36:49] Do you remember? [00:36:49 -> 00:36:50] I had a full-time job. [00:36:50 -> 00:36:51] That was a whole story. [00:36:51 -> 00:36:51] Yeah.

[00:36:51 -> 00:36:54] And so you're like, you guys got, you have to come full-time at this date or otherwise [00:36:54 -> 00:36:55] you're not going to get this. [00:36:55 -> 00:36:57] And I'm like, dude, guys, I just got this other job. [00:36:57 -> 00:37:00] I think we all thought it was going to be completely part-time. [00:37:00 -> 00:37:04] Well, what happened was I was doing it part-time and then it kind of got to this point where [00:37:04 -> 00:37:08] it was like, this is either going to die or live based on how much effort I can give it.

[00:37:08 -> 00:37:13] And I, and we saw those first cohorts, those first part-time cohorts, we saw a little taste [00:37:13 -> 00:37:14] of what it could do for people. [00:37:14 -> 00:37:17] Well, I remember we all talked and we're like, Kalen should be the first one to go full-time. [00:37:17 -> 00:37:19] He should be the first one pulling pay. [00:37:19 -> 00:37:20] He should be the first one.

[00:37:20 -> 00:37:23] How did you get from the Christian Faulkner, you two being recruited by Christian. [00:37:27 -> 00:37:29] Christian Faulkner to do something like this. [00:37:29 -> 00:37:32] And then you're doing something already with nighttime part-time work. [00:37:32 -> 00:37:37] So what happened was the partnership works anymore because unless you guys can do a lot [00:37:37 -> 00:37:42] more than what you're doing, which is offering free space, like marketing and helping me [00:37:42 -> 00:37:44] with, you know, brand and all of this stuff, then I don't think this makes sense.

[00:37:45 -> 00:37:45] I think we need to rethink this. [00:37:46 -> 00:37:49] And that's when Christian has said, Christian said, what if I bring in a couple of guys that [00:37:49 -> 00:37:52] can put in the time and really can contribute to it. [00:37:52 -> 00:37:54] And that's when they introduced me to Tyler and Cole. [00:37:54 -> 00:37:55] Wow.

[00:37:55 -> 00:37:58] That's where it felt like, Kalen, it's an arranged marriage. [00:37:59 -> 00:38:03] I think selfishly, the startup building literally just wanted more foot traffic into the co-workers. [00:38:03 -> 00:38:04] Initially, yeah. [00:38:04 -> 00:38:10] Like literally they said, we need content, curriculum, classes, whatever, just more ecosystem [00:38:10 -> 00:38:13] buzz, more events happening here so we can get more FaceTime.

[00:38:13 -> 00:38:17] But at the time, there was a dearth of coding talent in Utah. [00:38:18 -> 00:38:22] Startups could not compete with the big companies for talent. [00:38:22 -> 00:38:24] So we needed to create more talent. [00:38:24 -> 00:38:29] But the funny thing is, this is my lamenting of it all, is when you guys started this, I [00:38:29 -> 00:38:33] was going, I hope that, you know, the startups will get great coding talent now.

[00:38:34 -> 00:38:37] But most of the big companies loved what you were doing and sucked up your people too, right? [00:38:37 -> 00:38:39] So it was kind of interesting. [00:38:39 -> 00:38:43] There was just such an insatiable demand in Utah for coding talent at the time, right? [00:38:43 -> 00:38:43] Okay.

[00:38:43 -> 00:38:45] So that's how you guys got together. [00:38:45 -> 00:38:50] And then when you said that in your early effort, you said, you're going to go do it on [00:38:50 -> 00:38:53] your own and he introduced you to these two and you three got together and decided to [00:38:53 -> 00:38:54] do it. [00:38:54 -> 00:38:57] Well, and it was a little bit dramatic at first, especially with like Tyler and stuff, [00:38:57 -> 00:39:00] because we were again, throwing a room together saying, okay, you're going to be partners.

[00:39:01 -> 00:39:03] And initially we couldn't trust each other. [00:39:03 -> 00:39:04] We didn't even know each other. [00:39:04 -> 00:39:05] We didn't know each other. [00:39:05 -> 00:39:07] And you two were willing to go full time.

[00:39:07 -> 00:39:07] Yeah. [00:39:07 -> 00:39:12] But Tyler had just taken a full-time position at a genetic software company. [00:39:13 -> 00:39:17] At the startup, it was literally the CEO, the CTO and me. [00:39:17 -> 00:39:22] It was like, I was the first hire and he had thrown so much at me within like the first two [00:39:22 -> 00:39:23] months of me being on the job.

[00:39:23 -> 00:39:25] And he's like, you go have to go handle these conversations. [00:39:25 -> 00:39:27] You have like, you're literally doing all of our fundraising. [00:39:28 -> 00:39:28] You have to do this, this, this. [00:39:29 -> 00:39:32] As I'm like, and then you guys are like, no, you guys, you have to go full time, Tyler.

[00:39:32 -> 00:39:34] I'm like, oh man, I'm going to leave this guy in a lurch. [00:39:34 -> 00:39:39] Do you remember the time we were in the room and we, we got kind of heated. [00:39:39 -> 00:39:43] You and I, like voices were being raised and next door, our cohort was waiting for me to [00:39:43 -> 00:39:44] go in and teach the class. [00:39:45 -> 00:39:45] Oh yeah.

[00:39:45 -> 00:39:47] And somebody came in and we're like, guys, we can hear you. [00:39:47 -> 00:39:48] Like we can hear the shout. [00:39:48 -> 00:39:51] It wasn't like we were screaming at each other, but like our voices were raised. [00:39:51 -> 00:39:53] It was getting kind of intense.

[00:39:53 -> 00:39:54] I think Colt was, you were there too. [00:39:54 -> 00:39:54] Probably. [00:39:55 -> 00:39:55] Oh yeah, I was. [00:39:55 -> 00:39:58] Cause like when you went and taught me and Colt went and talked for like an hour and [00:39:58 -> 00:40:01] I'm like, Colt, you had to talk to Caitlin for me, bro.

[00:40:01 -> 00:40:01] Yeah. [00:40:01 -> 00:40:03] And then somehow we got to the conclusion. [00:40:03 -> 00:40:06] You meet together, which I laugh at it bad. [00:40:06 -> 00:40:07] Now you're like, what should I do, man?

[00:40:07 -> 00:40:08] I think I just blew this up. [00:40:08 -> 00:40:09] I'm like, I don't know. [00:40:09 -> 00:40:13] Just show him something that like you mean, well, you're like, should I go give him some [00:40:13 -> 00:40:14] BYU ice cream after this? [00:40:14 -> 00:40:15] Right.

[00:40:15 -> 00:40:16] Or something you went delivered. [00:40:16 -> 00:40:20] You literally dropped off ice cream at my doorstep. [00:40:20 -> 00:40:20] Oh yeah. [00:40:21 -> 00:40:22] Which I'm glad happened.

[00:40:22 -> 00:40:23] It was great. [00:40:23 -> 00:40:23] It was great. [00:40:24 -> 00:40:25] He doesn't love ice cream. [00:40:25 -> 00:40:27] I mean, it worked, but yeah.

[00:40:27 -> 00:40:31] And then, and I remember Tyler kind of said, I'm going all into a mountain. [00:40:31 -> 00:40:31] Yeah. [00:40:31 -> 00:40:34] When we came up with a timeline and I hit that time. [00:40:34 -> 00:40:36] You didn't leave the other guy in the lurch.

[00:40:36 -> 00:40:36] Yeah. [00:40:36 -> 00:40:36] No. [00:40:36 -> 00:40:38] But at the same time, your decision was made. [00:40:38 -> 00:40:38] Yeah.

[00:40:38 -> 00:40:43] Well, I think what's incredible about that is again, there was kind of some initial call [00:40:43 -> 00:40:46] it like, you know, growing pains or whatever to get together. [00:40:46 -> 00:40:50] But after that, once we kind of settled into roles and responsibilities, those were like, [00:40:50 -> 00:40:53] we really, we really gelled so well together. [00:40:54 -> 00:40:55] Like, isn't it the most fun at the beginning? [00:40:55 -> 00:40:56] Oh, year one.

[00:40:57 -> 00:41:00] Well, we're saying that some of the friction was in the beginning, but once we got past [00:41:00 -> 00:41:03] the friction, that's when the great times were. [00:41:03 -> 00:41:03] Yeah. [00:41:03 -> 00:41:03] Yeah. [00:41:04 -> 00:41:04] Yeah.

[00:41:04 -> 00:41:06] So, um, let's, okay. [00:41:06 -> 00:41:07] So that's how you got together born. [00:41:07 -> 00:41:08] Now let's talk about it. [00:41:08 -> 00:41:15] So you three get Dev mountain going, and this is one of the first two or three in the country [00:41:15 -> 00:41:17] Dev bootcamps like this.

[00:41:17 -> 00:41:20] And I'm just going to kind of give a little bit of spoiler. [00:41:21 -> 00:41:25] I personally, as a student of this industry, because I was mentoring you guys, I think you [00:41:25 -> 00:41:29] guys executed better than any other Dev bootcamp. [00:41:29 -> 00:41:31] And I've seen and studied the entire industry. [00:41:32 -> 00:41:35] You executed better than all of them.

[00:41:35 -> 00:41:37] And that's why you had this incredible tremendous success. [00:41:38 -> 00:41:42] I mean, there were competitors to you in other parts of the country that received 30 million, [00:41:42 -> 00:41:44] 70 million in funding. [00:41:44 -> 00:41:46] And you guys bootstrap this the entire way. [00:41:47 -> 00:41:47] Okay.

[00:41:47 -> 00:41:50] That's really important for viewers and listeners to think what can be done. [00:41:50 -> 00:41:52] Money is not the answer in entrepreneurship. [00:41:53 -> 00:41:59] It's a tool, an important tool to be used at the right moment, but it is not the make it [00:41:59 -> 00:42:00] or break it that everybody thinks. [00:42:00 -> 00:42:05] And I know Kalen's example was of undrip and we're not like we're calling out Mick because [00:42:05 -> 00:42:06] we love that whole team.

[00:42:06 -> 00:42:10] We love the whole idea, but it's just like, that's a smaller case of it. [00:42:10 -> 00:42:13] But there's startups that raise 10, 30, 50, a hundred. [00:42:13 -> 00:42:16] And you know, we have the case study of Quibi of 2 billion, right? [00:42:17 -> 00:42:22] Like General Assembly got 70 million, comes to Salt Lake City, lasts less than a year.

[00:42:22 -> 00:42:24] And you guys wipe them off the face of the map. [00:42:24 -> 00:42:25] I'm just going to call it like it is. [00:42:25 -> 00:42:26] That's what happened. [00:42:26 -> 00:42:28] So it was an incredible success.

[00:42:28 -> 00:42:29] I think that was Iron Yard. [00:42:29 -> 00:42:29] Oh yeah. [00:42:29 -> 00:42:30] What was it, Iron Yard? [00:42:30 -> 00:42:31] There were a couple.

[00:42:31 -> 00:42:32] Iron Yard got like 40 million. [00:42:33 -> 00:42:36] Anyway, they're very fun to compare to you guys. [00:42:36 -> 00:42:41] So, and you guys built this company, expanded to multiple states, multiple locations, incredible [00:42:41 -> 00:42:41] run. [00:42:42 -> 00:42:42] Well, let's go back.

[00:42:43 -> 00:42:44] You said the first year was so fun. [00:42:44 -> 00:42:46] Tell us some stories on that first year. [00:42:46 -> 00:42:47] Cause I remember, here's what I remember. [00:42:48 -> 00:42:49] I think it was 2012.

[00:42:49 -> 00:42:52] You were in business for like half of the year, the last half of 2012. [00:42:52 -> 00:42:54] And you got like 50,000 revenue. [00:42:54 -> 00:42:59] And then in 2013, you come and tell me what your 2013 revenue was. [00:42:59 -> 00:43:03] And it was like 700,000 or something, you know, just a massive increase.

[00:43:03 -> 00:43:06] And then from there, it just kept multiplying and multiplying. [00:43:06 -> 00:43:09] Tell what the first year was like and how that happened. [00:43:09 -> 00:43:11] And why was this such a hit? [00:43:11 -> 00:43:17] Why did it go so, we can see the founder stuff, but macroeconomic or industry wise, why [00:43:17 -> 00:43:19] did everything go so well for you?

[00:43:20 -> 00:43:20] Yeah. [00:43:20 -> 00:43:22] I have my thoughts, but I don't know if you guys want to see. [00:43:22 -> 00:43:23] Go ahead. [00:43:23 -> 00:43:23] Just start sharing.

[00:43:23 -> 00:43:33] My thoughts are we, we just hit the trend and wave and the like technical timing of the [00:43:33 -> 00:43:41] industry so well, like it was a perfect timing where there was this huge movement of, I have [00:43:41 -> 00:43:42] to be a developer. [00:43:42 -> 00:43:44] Developer is the best career. [00:43:44 -> 00:43:46] It is the best opportunity for me. [00:43:46 -> 00:43:54] Tech and startup was just starting to blossom and really hit its stride in like 2010 to 2020.

[00:43:55 -> 00:43:58] And there was no AI, there was no cloud code. [00:43:58 -> 00:44:00] There was nothing out there. [00:44:00 -> 00:44:02] You literally had to learn these skills. [00:44:02 -> 00:44:05] And new languages like React and Angular, all that.

[00:44:06 -> 00:44:07] And the whole industry was booming. [00:44:08 -> 00:44:13] And the CS programs around the country were semi-broken where it took four years to get [00:44:13 -> 00:44:14] through a degree and a ton of- [00:44:14 -> 00:44:16] And teaching you antiquated stuff. [00:44:16 -> 00:44:21] Yeah, super old languages and even just a lot of theory and not just hands on keyboard. [00:44:21 -> 00:44:28] So I think the model that we saw and replicated in Utah and kind of gave birth to alongside [00:44:28 -> 00:44:32] of some other players, I feel like was just perfect timing.

[00:44:32 -> 00:44:35] You just reminded me of something too, for the previous five years. [00:44:35 -> 00:44:40] So even since the mid-2000s through the Great Recession, and you guys did this coming out [00:44:40 -> 00:44:47] of the Great Recession, those of us older and in industry were lamenting that in the Utah market, [00:44:47 -> 00:44:53] the universities like Brigham Young University, the University of Utah, Utah State, Utah Valley [00:44:53 -> 00:44:58] University, their CS departments were not producing workers for industry, not engineers that could [00:44:58 -> 00:45:01] actually go into a company and build product.

[00:45:01 -> 00:45:01] Yeah. [00:45:10 -> 00:45:13] We were all going, how can we get these universities? [00:45:13 -> 00:45:15] And I spent a decade trying to make this happen. [00:45:15 -> 00:45:18] How can we get these universities to spit out actual code monkeys?

[00:45:19 -> 00:45:23] I hate to call it that, but people that can actually write features and codes for software products. [00:45:23 -> 00:45:27] And that's what you guys were producing, real coders. [00:45:27 -> 00:45:27] Yeah. [00:45:27 -> 00:45:30] While we were at DevMountain, I had a CS program.

[00:45:30 -> 00:45:33] A host of faculty take me out to lunch one day. [00:45:33 -> 00:45:37] And I'm not going to say the university, but it's not that many around here, so you can guess. [00:45:37 -> 00:45:41] They took me out to lunch and they basically said, is there any way you can teach most of [00:45:41 -> 00:45:41] our classes? [00:45:41 -> 00:45:42] Because we don't really want to teach.

[00:45:43 -> 00:45:44] We don't really want to teach the skills. [00:45:44 -> 00:45:47] We just want to do research and we want to teach the higher level stuff. [00:45:47 -> 00:45:49] And I just sat there thinking, this is so broken. [00:45:50 -> 00:45:53] You're like, from the student's perspective, your entire job is to teach.

[00:45:53 -> 00:45:55] And yet that's the one thing they don't want to do. [00:45:55 -> 00:45:55] Yeah. [00:45:55 -> 00:45:56] They want it. [00:45:56 -> 00:45:57] So, you know what?

[00:45:57 -> 00:46:01] This is a funny thing is you just remind me of the story and let's get into why it was [00:46:01 -> 00:46:01] so successful. [00:46:01 -> 00:46:08] But one time I invited Tyler to come speak to, literally in Utah, there's an association [00:46:08 -> 00:46:09] of CIOs. [00:46:09 -> 00:46:11] It's very highfalutin, okay? [00:46:11 -> 00:46:14] Meaning the top CIOs of the top 30 companies in Utah.

[00:46:15 -> 00:46:19] And I hosted a meeting of those people with what I was doing for BYU at the time. [00:46:20 -> 00:46:21] Held it at John Pistan's garage. [00:46:21 -> 00:46:23] Really nice environment. [00:46:24 -> 00:46:28] And Tyler came in and part of the docket on the program was Coding Bootcamp.

[00:46:28 -> 00:46:30] There's this incredible Coding Bootcamp, DevMountain. [00:46:30 -> 00:46:33] And what does that have to do with CS departments and CIOs and all that? [00:46:34 -> 00:46:40] A lot of those CIOs frowned upon DevMountain thinking, there's no way in 12 weeks you can [00:46:40 -> 00:46:43] make a coder, a programmer in 12 weeks. [00:46:43 -> 00:46:44] Your program was 12 weeks, right?

[00:46:45 -> 00:46:45] Yeah. [00:46:45 -> 00:46:46] This is what happened. [00:46:46 -> 00:46:47] Tyler comes in. [00:46:48 -> 00:46:50] I can't remember if you came or not, but Tyler gave a presentation.

[00:46:50 -> 00:46:51] I think it was just me. [00:46:51 -> 00:46:51] Yeah. [00:46:51 -> 00:46:56] Tyler gave a presentation, wowed the socks off these CIOs with what you guys were doing. [00:46:56 -> 00:47:01] And I saw right then they started turning around on their thoughts.

[00:47:01 -> 00:47:06] And not only this, a few of them go to town and go, I need my son to take this. [00:47:06 -> 00:47:07] I need my daughter to take this. [00:47:08 -> 00:47:13] And one of them, I can remember distinctly, super influential, who was really a naysayer [00:47:13 -> 00:47:16] against it, got his son to go to DevMountain. [00:47:16 -> 00:47:22] 12 weeks later, he calls me and goes, my son, who I couldn't get on track for anything, just [00:47:22 -> 00:47:28] landed an $85,000 coding job, 12 weeks after starting DevMountain.

[00:47:28 -> 00:47:31] And we have thousands of those stories. [00:47:31 -> 00:47:31] I know. [00:47:32 -> 00:47:36] I was going to say, I love the whole, like, that's one of the best things of reflecting. [00:47:36 -> 00:47:43] It was like how laughed at we were at the beginning by former computer science students [00:47:43 -> 00:47:44] or companies.

[00:47:45 -> 00:47:48] And then suddenly there were some of our best supporters. [00:47:48 -> 00:47:50] They didn't believe boot camps could work. [00:47:50 -> 00:47:55] But the funny thing is, it turns out a 12-week intensive short-term boot camp can actually [00:47:55 -> 00:47:57] produce real workers better than a four-year degree. [00:47:57 -> 00:48:00] I want to hear Kalen and Colt's answer to that.

[00:48:00 -> 00:48:02] Like, why do you think it went so well? [00:48:02 -> 00:48:03] Yeah. [00:48:03 -> 00:48:04] Colt, you go first. [00:48:05 -> 00:48:05] Yeah.

[00:48:06 -> 00:48:13] I mean, part of it, right, is Utah was trying to position itself into being, like, to grow [00:48:13 -> 00:48:20] from our roots of Word, right, or Novell and some of these things where we needed to go [00:48:20 -> 00:48:21] to the next evolution of tech. [00:48:22 -> 00:48:26] But everybody was going to San Francisco and even, like, tech and some of our best computer [00:48:26 -> 00:48:26] science degree. [00:48:26 -> 00:48:28] And it's like, we need these people.

[00:48:28 -> 00:48:33] And so, yeah, I think it went well at the beginning because there was such a need for [00:48:33 -> 00:48:35] here as well as, like, I've taken computer science classes. [00:48:35 -> 00:48:40] Like, my first intro was, like, it took me a semester to figure out how to make a word [00:48:40 -> 00:48:44] prompt to figure out how many slices of pizza I could, you know, order or whatever, you [00:48:44 -> 00:48:44] know. [00:48:44 -> 00:48:47] And it's just like, this took me 12 weeks to get to this point.

[00:48:47 -> 00:48:52] And so, it was great to see a fast on-ramp, like, onto the interstate. [00:48:52 -> 00:48:56] But then we had to really teach on them how to learn because we knew new language were [00:48:56 -> 00:48:56] going to come. [00:48:56 -> 00:48:57] So, I think that. [00:48:57 -> 00:48:59] Another thing is, if we were to start- [00:48:59 -> 00:49:04] You actually changed your major, well, to computer science for, like, three weeks.

[00:49:05 -> 00:49:05] You were so excited. [00:49:06 -> 00:49:07] Like, three semesters, right? [00:49:07 -> 00:49:07] Or something. [00:49:07 -> 00:49:07] Yeah, yeah.

[00:49:07 -> 00:49:09] You came back to me. [00:49:09 -> 00:49:09] I can't remember now. [00:49:09 -> 00:49:12] You came back to me and said, I'm not learning anything. [00:49:12 -> 00:49:12] This sucks.

[00:49:12 -> 00:49:14] It just was too slow, right? [00:49:14 -> 00:49:17] I was like, and it felt antiquated, right? [00:49:17 -> 00:49:17] Yeah. [00:49:17 -> 00:49:18] And we'd have, anyway.

[00:49:18 -> 00:49:22] But the thing, another thing is, you brought up earlier a bit, like, oh, you know, there [00:49:22 -> 00:49:27] was these boot camps in San Francisco and Chicago and stuff like that, where they couldn't [00:49:27 -> 00:49:28] bootstrap. [00:49:28 -> 00:49:29] They had to raise those millions of dollars. [00:49:30 -> 00:49:33] But we were in, like, Provo, Utah, right? [00:49:33 -> 00:49:38] And so, it's like, our costs were really low, and we had people that needed to be hired.

[00:49:38 -> 00:49:40] That's when we did location-wise. [00:49:40 -> 00:49:45] The next step where I think we did really well is, like, there was no way we would have been [00:49:45 -> 00:49:48] able to survive just on students from the Utah market. [00:49:48 -> 00:49:53] We took on, sometimes, and this is what I call, some headaches are worth taking on, or [00:49:53 -> 00:49:54] it's just going to be like any other business. [00:49:54 -> 00:49:58] So, we decided, hey, we're going to give housing to out-of-state students.

[00:49:58 -> 00:49:59] This was magical. [00:49:59 -> 00:49:59] This is a big deal. [00:49:59 -> 00:50:03] And then we had to become property managers, which is a huge headache. [00:50:04 -> 00:50:05] I wouldn't recommend that, too.

[00:50:05 -> 00:50:05] Yeah. [00:50:05 -> 00:50:06] Especially for me. [00:50:06 -> 00:50:08] So, your tuition took on that burden. [00:50:08 -> 00:50:10] So, viewers and listeners, the tuition became about $12,000.

[00:50:11 -> 00:50:11] Yeah. [00:50:11 -> 00:50:14] But it included three months of dormitory. [00:50:14 -> 00:50:14] Yeah. [00:50:14 -> 00:50:21] And so, then we suddenly had some cohorts that were more than 50% from out-of-state.

[00:50:21 -> 00:50:25] So, that kind of increased our addressable market that we got here in Utah. [00:50:26 -> 00:50:29] And then so, our reputation went from just Utah to out of there. [00:50:29 -> 00:50:33] And then there were some people who came and says, I never heard of Provo ever. [00:50:33 -> 00:50:34] But you know what?

[00:50:34 -> 00:50:35] That's okay. [00:50:35 -> 00:50:36] Because now I got free housing. [00:50:37 -> 00:50:39] It was way cheaper to go to. [00:50:39 -> 00:50:41] And I could just hone in and focus.

[00:50:41 -> 00:50:44] And so, that kind of became better students because they were so focused. [00:50:45 -> 00:50:49] You know, it wasn't like going to Miami or something and going late at night. [00:50:50 -> 00:50:52] And then so, then our word got out. [00:50:52 -> 00:50:56] And people were like, oh, there's, you know, in a mid-market Provo, they're doing it.

[00:50:56 -> 00:50:59] And that's when people start reaching out from other, you know, co-workouts. [00:51:00 -> 00:51:00] But they're also out. [00:51:00 -> 00:51:01] Can you go elsewhere? [00:51:01 -> 00:51:01] It was great.

[00:51:01 -> 00:51:04] And maybe you can touch on this, but to me, it's outcomes. [00:51:04 -> 00:51:05] Real quick story. [00:51:05 -> 00:51:09] You guys invited me to show and tell night or whatever it was. [00:51:09 -> 00:51:11] You invited corporate people that wanted to hire coders, right?

[00:51:12 -> 00:51:15] To see the work of the students, like halfway through a cohort or something. [00:51:15 -> 00:51:17] And I remember going one night to one. [00:51:17 -> 00:51:19] And I'm going to be honest with you. [00:51:19 -> 00:51:19] I'll just tell the story.

[00:51:19 -> 00:51:22] Honestly, I'm talking to the different people you had in your classes. [00:51:22 -> 00:51:24] And they're showing off what they built and done. [00:51:24 -> 00:51:29] And there was this really attractive young woman and didn't fit the mold of a nerdy coder. [00:51:30 -> 00:51:30] Okay.

[00:51:30 -> 00:51:35] And I go up there and I go, I kind of, in hindsight, shouldn't have said it this way. [00:51:35 -> 00:51:37] I said, so tell me what you're doing here. [00:51:37 -> 00:51:38] Because it was surprising. [00:51:39 -> 00:51:40] She goes, oh, I came here to learn how to code.

[00:51:40 -> 00:51:42] And you want to see my work? [00:51:42 -> 00:51:43] And then I go, well, tell me your story a little bit. [00:51:44 -> 00:51:46] She goes, well, I got an economics degree from BYU. [00:51:47 -> 00:51:48] Spent a year.

[00:51:49 -> 00:51:50] Couldn't get any job. [00:51:50 -> 00:51:58] And I was about to go home and live in my parents' basement in Michigan and take a job at a restaurant as a server. [00:51:58 -> 00:52:01] And I saw this billboard on I-15. [00:52:02 -> 00:52:03] Want to be a coder?

[00:52:03 -> 00:52:04] Okay. [00:52:04 -> 00:52:12] And so I said, I scraped up the tuition money and said, this will be my last try to stay here in this market before tail between my legs back to Michigan. [00:52:12 -> 00:52:14] And so, okay, so what happened? [00:52:14 -> 00:52:15] So I got it.

[00:52:15 -> 00:52:15] I'm here. [00:52:16 -> 00:52:18] And the cohort ends in a few weeks. [00:52:18 -> 00:52:19] I go, so what's the status? [00:52:19 -> 00:52:20] How's this working out for you?

[00:52:20 -> 00:52:22] I go, well, I've got three job offers. [00:52:22 -> 00:52:23] You've got three job offers? [00:52:23 -> 00:52:23] Yeah. [00:52:23 -> 00:52:26] One for 65, one for 75, one for 85,000.

[00:52:26 -> 00:52:27] So which one are you going to take? [00:52:27 -> 00:52:31] Well, I'd like to take the 85, but I think I'm going to take the 75,000 one because that interests me more. [00:52:32 -> 00:52:36] And she was going to make about 18,000 as a server in Michigan living in her parents' basement. [00:52:36 -> 00:52:41] That right there encapsulates what you guys did for thousands of people.

[00:52:41 -> 00:52:41] All right. [00:52:41 -> 00:52:42] Let's hear Caelan's. [00:52:42 -> 00:52:43] Which billboard do you think it was, Tyler? [00:52:43 -> 00:52:46] Do you think it was the one that said, your job equals poop?

[00:52:47 -> 00:52:47] Come on. [00:52:47 -> 00:52:48] I'm proud of that one. [00:52:48 -> 00:52:49] I know you are. [00:52:49 -> 00:52:49] It was great.

[00:52:49 -> 00:52:53] I think that went down as one of the best billboards in Utah history. [00:52:53 -> 00:52:54] Kind of set off the billboard chain in Utah. [00:52:54 -> 00:52:55] It really did. [00:52:55 -> 00:52:56] I may be biased, but I think Tyler did great, Mark.

[00:52:56 -> 00:52:57] He did. [00:52:57 -> 00:52:58] I mean, I was going to say that. [00:52:58 -> 00:53:01] There was a cheeky billboards like that in Utah at the time. [00:53:01 -> 00:53:02] So thank you.

[00:53:02 -> 00:53:03] Well, it's all about starting the conversation. [00:53:04 -> 00:53:04] And Tyler knew how to do it. [00:53:04 -> 00:53:08] I was going to say that was one of the things that I would attribute our success to is like. [00:53:08 -> 00:53:08] To me?

[00:53:09 -> 00:53:09] Yes. [00:53:09 -> 00:53:10] Of course. [00:53:10 -> 00:53:16] I mean, it's a whole host of things, but like Tyler, I mean, it's a synergy, right? [00:53:16 -> 00:53:18] Like you have to, outcomes were critical.

[00:53:18 -> 00:53:25] Like I remember one of the first full-time cohort students coming to my house to give me the check for tuition [00:53:25 -> 00:53:29] and basically looking at me in the eyes and saying, is this really going to work? [00:53:29 -> 00:53:35] And I'm sitting there going, I better believe that this is going to work because I would feel terrible if I'm taking this guy's money. [00:53:36 -> 00:53:37] They're hard-earned money. [00:53:37 -> 00:53:40] The last money they have before they go home, their tail between their legs.

[00:53:40 -> 00:53:45] And if I can't deliver, if we can't deliver an education that provides them the outcomes they need, we're screwed. [00:53:45 -> 00:53:46] Like there's no way this is going to work. [00:53:46 -> 00:53:48] And so that had to be true. [00:53:48 -> 00:53:55] Like we had to focus on an educational model that really taught people how to learn, taught people how to adapt to new technologies, [00:53:55 -> 00:53:56] taught people how to contribute on day one.

[00:53:56 -> 00:53:57] That had to be true. [00:53:58 -> 00:54:00] So that was, I think one thing is like, it does not work without that. [00:54:01 -> 00:54:04] All the marketing in the world does not save a program that doesn't deliver results, right? [00:54:04 -> 00:54:12] And yet that plus the fact that we had a really great brand and a really great, I mean, Provo was kind of having a moment at the time too.

[00:54:12 -> 00:54:18] Like Mayor John Curtis, who's now in the United States Senate, like Provo was becoming an interesting place. [00:54:18 -> 00:54:19] He was a great mayor for you guys too. [00:54:20 -> 00:54:20] Yes, he was. [00:54:20 -> 00:54:23] I mean, Provo was no longer the bedroom community it used to be.

[00:54:23 -> 00:54:25] Now it was kind of becoming the startup hub. [00:54:25 -> 00:54:29] We had the startup building, like all these things were coming into place, the front runner station across the street. [00:54:29 -> 00:54:32] But you also expand to Salt Lake and then other states. [00:54:32 -> 00:54:37] So it was, it was, it was this flywheel effect where we had this really good branding that got people's attention.

[00:54:37 -> 00:54:39] We talked about these outcomes and then we delivered. [00:54:39 -> 00:54:39] And guess what? [00:54:39 -> 00:54:45] Like, I think until the day we stopped, you know, being there, word of mouth was what, 60%? [00:54:45 -> 00:54:46] Oh, more than.

[00:54:46 -> 00:54:47] Of our referrals? [00:54:47 -> 00:54:51] I remember when we got acquired and maybe we can move into the transition. [00:54:51 -> 00:54:54] I got two, we're going to cover two things and that's one of them. [00:54:54 -> 00:54:55] So we got to keep going though.

[00:54:55 -> 00:54:56] Say what you say. [00:54:56 -> 00:55:00] So I just remember when we got acquired and our acquiring company, like, [00:55:00 -> 00:55:04] I don't even know what kind of multiple they put on all of our budgets. [00:55:04 -> 00:55:05] Right. [00:55:05 -> 00:55:08] We, but infinitely the marketing budget got, you said you went up eight X.

[00:55:08 -> 00:55:09] Oh, it was huge. [00:55:09 -> 00:55:12] They were like, I remember working with the CMO of the acquiring company. [00:55:12 -> 00:55:16] And she's just like, yeah, here's what you're going to do in the next 12 months. [00:55:16 -> 00:55:17] And here's what we expect out of you.

[00:55:17 -> 00:55:23] And I'm like, I don't even know how to spend this kind of money because everything we do here just comes from word of mouth. [00:55:23 -> 00:55:25] Like I can't do paid advertising. [00:55:25 -> 00:55:27] Like we don't do paid advertising. [00:55:27 -> 00:55:27] Yeah.

[00:55:28 -> 00:55:31] And even when you spent that budget, we, we never saw that number go down. [00:55:31 -> 00:55:31] Yeah. [00:55:31 -> 00:55:32] Yeah. [00:55:32 -> 00:55:37] It was still largely word of mouth referrals, which speaks to the fact that, I mean, the story repeated itself thousands of times.

[00:55:38 -> 00:55:40] Person doesn't have a lot of opportunity. [00:55:40 -> 00:55:41] Maybe they have a degree that didn't work for them. [00:55:42 -> 00:55:42] They need something. [00:55:42 -> 00:55:44] They go, they go to Dev mountain.

[00:55:44 -> 00:55:47] They, they scrape and save and they pay off their loan or whatever. [00:55:47 -> 00:55:51] They get a job and they tell their brother-in-law about it, or they tell their cousin about it, or they tell the people. [00:55:52 -> 00:55:55] 100% viewers and listeners mark these words. [00:55:56 -> 00:56:01] You can do all this other stuff, but at the core, if you really want a great outcome, you have to have a great product.

[00:56:01 -> 00:56:01] Yeah. [00:56:01 -> 00:56:03] You have to have a quality product. [00:56:03 -> 00:56:05] And you guys had the best Dev. [00:56:05 -> 00:56:14] What you said about outcomes is honestly what I would, I love what you say about marketing, but I would attribute like, because that side of the house was much more your side of the house.

[00:56:14 -> 00:56:25] And like, you know, Kaylin and your curriculum designers and the teachers and instructors and mentors and everything over there, where, where mine was obviously marketing and sales or, uh, tuitions and applications. [00:56:25 -> 00:56:29] Doesn't matter what you said, how much marketing, how much dollars you throw at it. [00:56:29 -> 00:56:34] If you can't deliver on the promise that your product will actually do what you say it does, it doesn't even matter.

[00:56:34 -> 00:56:37] So I think that's what I remember was spring of 2015. [00:56:37 -> 00:56:38] You guys were riding so high. [00:56:39 -> 00:56:44] You then start expanding and you not only to Salt Lake city, you went to Texas in Dallas. [00:56:44 -> 00:56:52] I remember you going to Dallas and you guys were expanding and you went on this expansion boom from spring of 2015 to like late summer of 2015.

[00:56:53 -> 00:56:54] Then there's more to tell a story. [00:56:54 -> 00:56:57] Did you want to tell a story before I get to the fall of 2015? [00:56:57 -> 00:56:58] Okay. [00:56:58 -> 00:57:04] So then in the fall of 2015, I remember, and I'm not sure how you guys approached me or what happened.

[00:57:04 -> 00:57:08] And it may be Kaylin was out of town when you got together, you came to my house or whatever happened. [00:57:08 -> 00:57:13] And you go, uh, you don't want me to talk about what happened in the fall of 2015. [00:57:13 -> 00:57:16] Cause you guys were all stars in the community. [00:57:16 -> 00:57:20] You had millions in revenue, but you came to my house and told me what, all right.

[00:57:20 -> 00:57:25] Uh, a lot of this lessons, I reflect a lot cause Cassidy was there like on the financial part. [00:57:25 -> 00:57:29] So let's give her like your wife was your bookkeeper CFO. [00:57:29 -> 00:57:32] Well, like, let's talk about that history really, really fast. [00:57:33 -> 00:57:34] She was working at Fidelity.

[00:57:34 -> 00:57:41] She had a candidate major, me, Kaylin and Tyler, we were like, all right, we're going to go full time, but really don't want to like pay it too much out there. [00:57:41 -> 00:57:44] So we're like, Hey, your wife keeps bookkeeping, have her do it. [00:57:44 -> 00:57:45] Right. [00:57:45 -> 00:57:46] So we're like, Hey, can you do this?

[00:57:46 -> 00:57:48] And she's like, okay, yeah, sure. [00:57:48 -> 00:57:48] I'll help you out. [00:57:49 -> 00:57:50] And they're like, we need someone full time. [00:57:50 -> 00:57:51] You need to quit Fidelity.

[00:57:51 -> 00:57:52] So she quit Fidelity. [00:57:53 -> 00:57:58] But then as we were going forward, we had advisors, you and like the other advisors, like, whoa, whoa, whoa. [00:57:58 -> 00:58:01] You have a partner's wife taking care of this. [00:58:01 -> 00:58:03] A lot of red flags, which happens.

[00:58:03 -> 00:58:03] Right. [00:58:04 -> 00:58:07] So we're like, we need to get you another like CFO. [00:58:07 -> 00:58:08] So we hired that young CFO. [00:58:08 -> 00:58:09] He didn't work out.

[00:58:09 -> 00:58:12] We hired an old CFO, everything. [00:58:12 -> 00:58:12] Right. [00:58:12 -> 00:58:13] And so then, right. [00:58:13 -> 00:58:13] Okay.

[00:58:14 -> 00:58:15] And Cassie was fine. [00:58:15 -> 00:58:16] Cause he was like, I get that. [00:58:16 -> 00:58:17] I get the vision. [00:58:17 -> 00:58:20] Like it could cause like a rift between us.

[00:58:20 -> 00:58:24] Well, then I remember, uh, it was an end of October. [00:58:25 -> 00:58:26] It was right. [00:58:26 -> 00:58:31] Like right before November, she was like sitting down or maybe it was in November, but she went [00:58:31 -> 00:58:35] into the, to one of our classrooms where the CFO that we had. [00:58:35 -> 00:58:39] And she's like, we asked Cassidy, cause we're like, we don't speak CFO speak.

[00:58:39 -> 00:58:41] Like, like have you review it? [00:58:41 -> 00:58:44] So she sat down and reviewed it with this man. [00:58:44 -> 00:58:47] And then later on, she came out with like wide eyes. [00:58:47 -> 00:58:50] She was like, you guys are going to run out of cash in December.

[00:58:50 -> 00:58:51] We're like, what? [00:58:51 -> 00:58:55] What we didn't realize is like our revenues were going high. [00:58:55 -> 00:58:56] I mean, this is all hindsight, right? [00:58:57 -> 00:59:05] But then because we accepted payments at certain beginning of cohorts, we had a cash shortfall [00:59:05 -> 00:59:06] when our cashflow.

[00:59:06 -> 00:59:11] So our revenue was shown like, as it was adjusted for gap standards across, we didn't realize [00:59:11 -> 00:59:15] December timing of it to like February. [00:59:15 -> 00:59:20] We're in a drought where we have to have enough cash reserves and we didn't keep that cash [00:59:20 -> 00:59:20] reserve. [00:59:20 -> 00:59:22] So we were going to go under, right? [00:59:22 -> 00:59:27] And so that's like when we went to, and I go, what are you talking about?

[00:59:27 -> 00:59:28] You guys are killing it. [00:59:28 -> 00:59:30] And then here's what happened. [00:59:30 -> 00:59:37] I said, okay, let's slow down and let's build a corporate pro forma, truly figure this [00:59:37 -> 00:59:37] out. [00:59:37 -> 00:59:41] And really over the next few weeks, it took about two to three weeks.

[00:59:41 -> 00:59:47] We built all of us together because you had a very special business model and we built [00:59:47 -> 00:59:50] a spreadsheet that was massive. [00:59:50 -> 00:59:50] I remember. [00:59:50 -> 00:59:55] Super, but very accurate and predictive on your cashflow, which this is why we hired [00:59:55 -> 00:59:57] a CFOs for, but we had to do ourselves. [00:59:57 -> 00:59:58] I did it.

[00:59:59 -> 01:00:03] And then I got another friend of mine to help and we got in and after I go, Oh, these guys [01:00:03 -> 01:00:05] are going bankrupt. [01:00:05 -> 01:00:05] They're killing it. [01:00:06 -> 01:00:10] This is just the average normal cashflow shortage from hyper growth. [01:00:10 -> 01:00:12] You guys were growing too fast.

[01:00:12 -> 01:00:14] And so I said, guys, you know what you do when you do this? [01:00:14 -> 01:00:19] You get a line of credit with your bank to smooth out your cashflow. [01:00:19 -> 01:00:22] So that was hard and you guys, and that was horrible, but that didn't work out. [01:00:23 -> 01:00:23] Yeah.

[01:00:23 -> 01:00:26] But during the, it worked out at the very end, but anyway, during the three weeks, during [01:00:26 -> 01:00:29] the three weeks, I think you guys were in panic mode and all of you thought you were [01:00:29 -> 01:00:30] going out of, it was dark. [01:00:31 -> 01:00:33] Those were some of the darkest times I've ever had. [01:00:33 -> 01:00:34] I was 27. [01:00:35 -> 01:00:37] You were 26 or whatever.

[01:00:38 -> 01:00:40] It's 33 or whatever. [01:00:40 -> 01:00:43] I think I remember your wife telling me she had to go in a closet and cry. [01:00:43 -> 01:00:44] Okay. [01:00:44 -> 01:00:45] It was dark.

[01:00:45 -> 01:00:48] I remember feel, I mean, especially the CEO, you feel like it's all your fault. [01:00:48 -> 01:00:50] Like, how did I let us get into this position? [01:00:51 -> 01:00:53] And I'm thinking about, we're going to have to lay off employees or how are we going to [01:00:53 -> 01:00:54] pay our teachers and mentors? [01:00:54 -> 01:00:55] We're going to shut our doors.

[01:00:56 -> 01:00:58] Do you not remember the Christmas party that was right before? [01:00:59 -> 01:00:59] It was awful. [01:01:00 -> 01:01:00] Or right? [01:01:00 -> 01:01:01] This is Thanksgiving to Christmas.

[01:01:01 -> 01:01:01] Yeah. [01:01:02 -> 01:01:08] But luckily, I hope I felt, I said, guys, this is a normal problem fast growing companies [01:01:08 -> 01:01:08] have. [01:01:08 -> 01:01:09] We just got to address it. [01:01:10 -> 01:01:11] You went to your bank.

[01:01:11 -> 01:01:13] We're not going to name the bank to protect the innocent. [01:01:13 -> 01:01:14] Okay. [01:01:14 -> 01:01:17] But you're putting millions of dollars through the bank account. [01:01:17 -> 01:01:17] Yeah.

[01:01:18 -> 01:01:22] And they took like a long time to come back with an answer on a line of credit. [01:01:22 -> 01:01:26] And you got on at about a 200,000 line of credit to smooth out your cash. [01:01:26 -> 01:01:26] No, no, no. [01:01:26 -> 01:01:27] 15,000.

[01:01:27 -> 01:01:28] No, no, no. [01:01:28 -> 01:01:30] You wanted 200,000. [01:01:30 -> 01:01:30] We needed 200,000. [01:01:30 -> 01:01:32] We needed 275,000.

[01:01:32 -> 01:01:35] And they came back after a long time and said, we'll give you 15,000. [01:01:35 -> 01:01:35] Yeah. [01:01:35 -> 01:01:36] It was insulting. [01:01:36 -> 01:01:37] You guys were fear.

[01:01:38 -> 01:01:40] Because you're putting millions through the bank account and they gave you 15,000 line [01:01:40 -> 01:01:41] credit. [01:01:41 -> 01:01:41] What the heck? [01:01:41 -> 01:01:42] They just didn't get your business. [01:01:42 -> 01:01:44] So then I said, okay, let me help.

[01:01:45 -> 01:01:53] And I got some local people and a Texas debt fund to give you guys, I think, three [01:01:53 -> 01:01:55] to 400,000 just to pad it. [01:01:55 -> 01:01:55] Yeah. [01:01:55 -> 01:01:57] And that smoothed everything. [01:01:57 -> 01:01:58] I remember it smoothed everything out.

[01:01:58 -> 01:01:58] Yeah. [01:01:58 -> 01:01:59] And then you guys, you're normal. [01:01:59 -> 01:01:59] We were fine. [01:01:59 -> 01:02:00] You guys were great.

[01:02:00 -> 01:02:05] You guys smoothed out a temporary cashflow because you guys just grew too fast for six [01:02:05 -> 01:02:05] months is what happened. [01:02:06 -> 01:02:06] Yeah. [01:02:06 -> 01:02:10] The only mistake you made was not accounting for cash during hyper growth. [01:02:10 -> 01:02:11] And that's a normal thing.

[01:02:11 -> 01:02:13] And then six months later, we sold. [01:02:13 -> 01:02:13] Yeah. [01:02:14 -> 01:02:14] So here's what happened. [01:02:15 -> 01:02:16] And here's what happened.

[01:02:16 -> 01:02:20] So I actually recruited three or four of my friends to go in on that loan with the fund [01:02:20 -> 01:02:23] to get you what you needed because that fund wanted some local people to be in [01:02:23 -> 01:02:24] the debt, right? [01:02:24 -> 01:02:27] And then you guys did so well. [01:02:27 -> 01:02:28] I'm not kidding you. [01:02:28 -> 01:02:33] 45, 60 days after the loan, you guys were back flush with cash.

[01:02:33 -> 01:02:34] Didn't we pay it off? [01:02:34 -> 01:02:35] You paid it off early. [01:02:36 -> 01:02:36] Yeah. [01:02:36 -> 01:02:39] And I had my friends call me up and go, John, what the heck?

[01:02:39 -> 01:02:39] Yeah. [01:02:39 -> 01:02:40] They were mad. [01:02:40 -> 01:02:40] They wanted more interest. [01:02:42 -> 01:02:45] We did this so we make some interest and all that.

[01:02:45 -> 01:02:46] And these guys are pre-paying it. [01:02:46 -> 01:02:48] We thought it'd be out for at least six to 12 months. [01:02:48 -> 01:02:48] Yeah. [01:02:48 -> 01:02:50] And they paid it off in two and a half months.

[01:02:50 -> 01:02:51] Yeah. [01:02:51 -> 01:02:51] Yeah. [01:02:51 -> 01:02:52] Cash shortfall. [01:02:52 -> 01:02:53] Anyway, we got it.

[01:02:53 -> 01:02:54] So anyway, that's smoothed out. [01:02:54 -> 01:02:57] But here's what I also felt happened from that. [01:02:57 -> 01:03:00] This is why those kinds of situations were a couple months later. [01:03:00 -> 01:03:01] I'll never forget.

[01:03:01 -> 01:03:03] You guys started giving me acquisition offers. [01:03:03 -> 01:03:10] I remember the phishing email that we got from not the acquirer, but some kind of firm [01:03:10 -> 01:03:11] brokerage hired. [01:03:11 -> 01:03:12] Well, they hired a scout. [01:03:12 -> 01:03:12] Yeah.

[01:03:12 -> 01:03:15] I mean, that was actually kind of used to getting some of those. [01:03:15 -> 01:03:15] Yeah. [01:03:15 -> 01:03:17] Like sometimes they were fishing expeditions. [01:03:17 -> 01:03:17] Yeah.

[01:03:17 -> 01:03:17] Whatever. [01:03:17 -> 01:03:19] So we kind of treated it as just another one of those. [01:03:20 -> 01:03:22] But every time they would come back and seemed very serious. [01:03:22 -> 01:03:25] And so it kind of became more and more of a conversation.

[01:03:25 -> 01:03:30] And then, yeah, right around the time, that early spring of the next year, you know, late [01:03:30 -> 01:03:34] winter or whatever, we could tell it was an actual like legitimate. [01:03:34 -> 01:03:35] They finally told us who the company was. [01:03:35 -> 01:03:38] They finally told us that they had plenty of cash reserves. [01:03:38 -> 01:03:40] They were interested in making an acquisition.

[01:03:40 -> 01:03:42] We met with the acquiring company. [01:03:42 -> 01:03:44] In fact, you and I flew out to Minneapolis to meet with you. [01:03:44 -> 01:03:49] But before that, I remember they asked for like like revenue documentation and all of [01:03:49 -> 01:03:50] our financials. [01:03:50 -> 01:03:51] And you were just like, why would I give?

[01:03:51 -> 01:03:52] Let's preface this. [01:03:52 -> 01:03:56] I remember you telling me, why would I ever give them all of our financial docs to a random [01:03:56 -> 01:03:56] person? [01:03:56 -> 01:04:00] Basically, the bottom line is you got a serious interest offer and it was starting to happen. [01:04:00 -> 01:04:06] And after the whole thing was done and you did sell, you wrote an article, really good [01:04:06 -> 01:04:11] article about what it's like to go through an M&A transaction, the one being acquired, [01:04:11 -> 01:04:13] like it was a second job.

[01:04:13 -> 01:04:16] And I've had so many people go read that article that you wrote. [01:04:16 -> 01:04:17] And that was that. [01:04:17 -> 01:04:18] And you said it was like a second job. [01:04:19 -> 01:04:22] And the funny thing is, it was so fun to watch you guys because I'd been through all [01:04:22 -> 01:04:26] this in my career and all of it was just completely the way it does go.

[01:04:26 -> 01:04:29] But you guys were discovering the first time it was fun to kind of relive it with all [01:04:29 -> 01:04:34] of you guys, because you actually had a great acquirer that was really nice because it can [01:04:34 -> 01:04:34] go a lot worse. [01:04:35 -> 01:04:37] I remember us meeting with all the C-suite and it was going really well. [01:04:38 -> 01:04:43] But then there was a few minutes where the CEO of this big public company comes in and [01:04:43 -> 01:04:47] you go to the whiteboard and start teaching about your model and what you're doing and [01:04:47 -> 01:04:48] your mission and all that.

[01:04:49 -> 01:04:53] And his master's degree came into play and he's talking like an instructional designer. [01:04:53 -> 01:04:58] And what happened in this meeting, this very meeting, this is no joke, I could tell in [01:04:58 -> 01:05:03] two seconds after he was at the whiteboard and that CEO's face and how he was soaking [01:05:03 -> 01:05:05] it in, I said, this deal's going to happen. [01:05:05 -> 01:05:06] Well, I remember that. [01:05:06 -> 01:05:09] That was a key moment because I remember sitting at the table around this big table and they're [01:05:09 -> 01:05:12] asking us very financial questions.

[01:05:12 -> 01:05:13] He's asking us business questions. [01:05:13 -> 01:05:15] And I just wasn't feeling like it was going super well. [01:05:15 -> 01:05:20] To preface this two seconds, I remember we decided to send my dad because we're like, [01:05:20 -> 01:05:21] we don't know what we're doing. [01:05:21 -> 01:05:22] We've never done this before.

[01:05:22 -> 01:05:23] We've never done a deal. [01:05:23 -> 01:05:24] Like we need to look. [01:05:24 -> 01:05:25] We're so young. [01:05:25 -> 01:05:27] And we're like, just send him.

[01:05:27 -> 01:05:28] I think it helped to have the gray hair along. [01:05:28 -> 01:05:28] Yeah. [01:05:28 -> 01:05:30] But at the same time. [01:05:30 -> 01:05:30] Now you've got gray hair.

[01:05:30 -> 01:05:34] What ended up actually, I think really sealing it from what I hear from the stories of that [01:05:34 -> 01:05:36] very first meeting was you. [01:05:36 -> 01:05:37] Yeah. [01:05:37 -> 01:05:38] I remember, I remember that meeting. [01:05:38 -> 01:05:40] It was like, yeah, these questions are coming.

[01:05:40 -> 01:05:44] And I was kind of like, it just felt like a business conversation and it felt very uncomfortable [01:05:44 -> 01:05:44] for me. [01:05:44 -> 01:05:46] I didn't really know the right answers to give. [01:05:46 -> 01:05:48] And you're wondering what answers you're supposed to give. [01:05:48 -> 01:05:51] And finally, I think I asked, I'm like, can I just show you?

[01:05:51 -> 01:05:52] Kind of what our model looks like. [01:05:53 -> 01:05:53] And they're like, sure. [01:05:53 -> 01:05:57] And so I went up to the whiteboard and it felt so much more natural playing the part [01:05:57 -> 01:06:01] of an instructor because that's what I've been doing for the last three years than playing [01:06:01 -> 01:06:04] the part of some sort of business, you know, at a table board meeting sort of thing. [01:06:04 -> 01:06:05] Yeah.

[01:06:05 -> 01:06:07] And once I got up there, I felt totally natural. [01:06:07 -> 01:06:08] It felt so much more comfortable. [01:06:08 -> 01:06:09] And you could just tell the energy. [01:06:09 -> 01:06:10] You did a masterful job.

[01:06:10 -> 01:06:11] It was really good. [01:06:12 -> 01:06:12] Yeah. [01:06:12 -> 01:06:13] It shifted at that point. [01:06:13 -> 01:06:14] Can we say one thing though?

[01:06:14 -> 01:06:17] Well, they were looking at other companies to acquire, right? [01:06:17 -> 01:06:20] And they had their mindset to acquire another company. [01:06:20 -> 01:06:25] And they told us later on that, like, because of Kalen and how well he sold himself, we're [01:06:25 -> 01:06:25] like, all right. [01:06:25 -> 01:06:25] Yeah.

[01:06:26 -> 01:06:26] Right. [01:06:26 -> 01:06:28] Like, that's how key people. [01:06:28 -> 01:06:32] I want to go through best and worst moment and we'll end on this best and worst moment [01:06:32 -> 01:06:34] of the M&A transaction. [01:06:34 -> 01:06:35] You guys ultimately sold.

[01:06:35 -> 01:06:40] You all became wealthy and you guys, it was the dream of dreams for entrepreneurs, right? [01:06:40 -> 01:06:41] Yeah. [01:06:41 -> 01:06:41] And okay. [01:06:42 -> 01:06:44] Best and worst moments of the M&A process.

[01:06:44 -> 01:06:46] Cause that was spring of 2016. [01:06:46 -> 01:06:49] That kind of stick and you close sometime a few months later. [01:06:49 -> 01:06:49] Yeah. [01:06:49 -> 01:06:52] So best and worst moments of the M&A process.

[01:06:53 -> 01:06:56] Well, it's, it's funny because the best and worst moment are probably the same for me, [01:06:56 -> 01:06:59] which was the day we sold. [01:06:59 -> 01:07:03] I mean, like you said, the, the, the process of selling your company is grueling. [01:07:03 -> 01:07:04] It is a grueling process. [01:07:04 -> 01:07:10] And that's when you have a team of people like in-house counsel or, you know, a team of [01:07:10 -> 01:07:10] financial people.

[01:07:10 -> 01:07:12] We didn't have any of that. [01:07:12 -> 01:07:16] We were a team of what, 30, 40 people, not counting our, not counting our mentors or [01:07:16 -> 01:07:20] whatever, but we were a small scrappy group trying to provide all of this documentation. [01:07:20 -> 01:07:24] I mean, this acquiring company had entire teams of people that were focused on this one [01:07:24 -> 01:07:25] thing and they had outside counsel. [01:07:25 -> 01:07:30] So it was like my day job was kind of trying to pretend like I was running the company.

[01:07:30 -> 01:07:34] And then my night job, when I got home was chasing after contracts and providing, you [01:07:34 -> 01:07:39] know, predictions and, and spreadsheets and documentation and all the crazy amounts of [01:07:39 -> 01:07:41] stuff they ask for in the due diligence process. [01:07:41 -> 01:07:46] And it was so stressful because I kept thinking we were, you know, we were running hot. [01:07:46 -> 01:07:48] We had been three years in this just crazy. [01:07:48 -> 01:07:50] I mean, you talk about startup years, like their dog years, right?

[01:07:50 -> 01:07:53] Like three years feels like 20 because you're just like every day it's crazy. [01:07:53 -> 01:07:58] And I just kept thinking my worst nightmare was going to be, we were going to wake up [01:07:58 -> 01:07:59] the day of the transaction. [01:07:59 -> 01:08:02] It was going to fall through the CEO of the other company was just going to decide for [01:08:02 -> 01:08:03] whatever reason they didn't want to do the deal. [01:08:04 -> 01:08:05] You're not normal if you don't feel that way.

[01:08:05 -> 01:08:09] At any point they can just pull the plug and you've spent all of this time, money, emotional [01:08:09 -> 01:08:09] energy. [01:08:10 -> 01:08:10] It's very distracting. [01:08:10 -> 01:08:12] Oh, it's, it's, I mean, I don't know. [01:08:12 -> 01:08:13] Most companies don't grow during that period.

[01:08:13 -> 01:08:14] I was going to say, I don't know. [01:08:14 -> 01:08:15] I'm sure we could have survived. [01:08:15 -> 01:08:18] I don't know that I could have survived emotionally if it wouldn't have gone through. [01:08:18 -> 01:08:23] Well, what's so funny is after we got a relationship with the acquiring company with Capella and [01:08:23 -> 01:08:27] Strayer and everybody that was over there, they started opening up more about the process.

[01:08:27 -> 01:08:31] Like what you said, how, how Kalen sealed the deal or a lot of conversations for me were [01:08:31 -> 01:08:38] all these little pivotal decisions, like these small little, like small decisions throughout [01:08:38 -> 01:08:42] the process that I didn't know were detrimental or the reason why we were even acquired. [01:08:42 -> 01:08:46] Cause I was just so innocent and novice at this whole process. [01:08:46 -> 01:08:51] I didn't know that these little things could have had these huge effects in that stressful [01:08:51 -> 01:08:54] in just like grueling process.

[01:08:54 -> 01:08:58] The day we sold, the day we closed my wife and I said, let's go to our favorite place [01:08:58 -> 01:09:00] to get dinner, which was an Italian restaurant or whatever. [01:09:00 -> 01:09:01] Oh, one. [01:09:01 -> 01:09:02] Carrabba. [01:09:02 -> 01:09:03] Oh, I love Carrabba.

[01:09:03 -> 01:09:03] It's great. [01:09:03 -> 01:09:06] So when you say close, let's get our viewers and listeners to understand. [01:09:07 -> 01:09:10] So you're saying when you refreshed your screen and saw the money hit your bank account. [01:09:10 -> 01:09:11] Yeah.

[01:09:11 -> 01:09:11] Okay. [01:09:11 -> 01:09:13] Which by the way, funny, funny call out here. [01:09:13 -> 01:09:18] Uh, the next day, that same bank who tried to give us the line of credit, $15,000 called [01:09:18 -> 01:09:21] me and said, Hey, we saw that you got a big bunch of money. [01:09:21 -> 01:09:22] Would you like to talk to our private bankers?

[01:09:22 -> 01:09:25] And I said, no, I do not want to talk to your private bankers because you guys were not [01:09:25 -> 01:09:26] there for us. [01:09:26 -> 01:09:27] We needed you. [01:09:27 -> 01:09:27] I know. [01:09:28 -> 01:09:30] Bankers, this is a huge lesson.

[01:09:30 -> 01:09:33] You got to treat the startups and emerging companies well. [01:09:33 -> 01:09:35] If you want the later big deals, right? [01:09:35 -> 01:09:35] Absolutely. [01:09:35 -> 01:09:35] Go ahead.

[01:09:35 -> 01:09:40] So at, we're at this restaurant, our favorite place, and I'm, I almost have a panic attack [01:09:40 -> 01:09:44] in the restaurant, which seems crazy because we just sold the money, but it was like all [01:09:44 -> 01:09:47] of this stress, all of this worry. [01:09:47 -> 01:09:50] It was like releasing in my body was just like freaking out. [01:09:50 -> 01:09:50] I didn't know what to do. [01:09:50 -> 01:09:52] And I was just like sitting there in the restaurant.

[01:09:52 -> 01:09:53] I'm like, I feel like I'm going to have a panic attack. [01:09:54 -> 01:09:57] And I had to walk, I had to go out of the restaurant and walk laps around the restaurant, just [01:09:57 -> 01:09:59] breathing until I felt like I calmed down. [01:09:59 -> 01:10:00] It's a huge life moment. [01:10:00 -> 01:10:01] It was, it was massive.

[01:10:01 -> 01:10:05] And it was just this, all of the stress built up over months and months and years, really. [01:10:06 -> 01:10:10] That was finally just like, my body was like, okay, it's okay to process this or let it [01:10:10 -> 01:10:10] go. [01:10:10 -> 01:10:13] Now it was, it was a great, but best and worst. [01:10:13 -> 01:10:13] Yeah.

[01:10:13 -> 01:10:13] Cool. [01:10:13 -> 01:10:14] You're best and worst. [01:10:15 -> 01:10:22] I know like for one of the worst, I know you want me to bring this up, but we kind of [01:10:22 -> 01:10:27] messed up on, like you were saying so many small things we did had so many things, right. [01:10:27 -> 01:10:33] But one of our, is we got wrong on when we were doing our founding documents as a company [01:10:33 -> 01:10:35] that would have cost us so much money.

[01:10:35 -> 01:10:42] And luckily we, because of Kaylin's relationship with scan and Gary G we use his Larry truth [01:10:42 -> 01:10:43] shout out to him. [01:10:43 -> 01:10:44] Larry truth. [01:10:44 -> 01:10:46] Same lawyers that scan used. [01:10:46 -> 01:10:46] Yeah.

[01:10:46 -> 01:10:49] So he's the one who came in and he's been doing it. [01:10:49 -> 01:10:50] You didn't say what the problem was. [01:10:50 -> 01:10:54] Why did you need a lawyer in the, can we say it was like the 11th hour of the deal. [01:10:54 -> 01:10:55] You needed to hire an expensive lawyer.

[01:10:55 -> 01:10:56] Why? [01:10:56 -> 01:11:02] We didn't fill out our 83 B it's cause like, it was just part of the stack. [01:11:02 -> 01:11:03] Viewers and listeners. [01:11:03 -> 01:11:08] 83 B is if you do a startup and you have founder vesting, which you should always have, you [01:11:08 -> 01:11:09] have to fill out this one page form.

[01:11:10 -> 01:11:14] It's a stupid for a functory process and you have 30 days to do it after you found your [01:11:14 -> 01:11:15] company and do that. [01:11:16 -> 01:11:17] All three of these guys did not do it. [01:11:18 -> 01:11:18] Yeah. [01:11:18 -> 01:11:24] That was discovered in the 11th hour of their M and a deal and to get out of that [01:11:24 -> 01:11:26] catastrophic mess.

[01:11:26 -> 01:11:27] And it was a catastrophic mess. [01:11:27 -> 01:11:31] They had to hire a very expensive attorney and he fixed it. [01:11:31 -> 01:11:31] Yeah. [01:11:31 -> 01:11:32] All legal.

[01:11:32 -> 01:11:33] And I don't even know what happened. [01:11:34 -> 01:11:39] I don't know how it got fixed, but the structure of the deal, I can't even speak to it because [01:11:39 -> 01:11:42] it was so complicated from a legal perspective, but they call it like a reverse triangular [01:11:42 -> 01:11:44] merger or something like that. [01:11:44 -> 01:11:49] We just know it worked and we, it's, we don't need the IRS knocking on our doors. [01:11:50 -> 01:11:51] That's why I was like, okay.

[01:11:52 -> 01:11:56] Anyway, so that was probably one of the worst things, but okay. [01:11:56 -> 01:11:57] What's the best though? [01:11:57 -> 01:11:58] What's the best though? [01:11:58 -> 01:12:03] The thing was like, I do remember because when that money hit me and Cassidy just got [01:12:03 -> 01:12:10] such a relief of like relief that we went to the university park place mall, put some [01:12:10 -> 01:12:12] dollars into the automatic massagers.

[01:12:12 -> 01:12:19] We just sat there and we just finally did it and we're in our twenties. [01:12:19 -> 01:12:20] That's awesome. [01:12:20 -> 01:12:20] I didn't know that. [01:12:20 -> 01:12:22] We just became, you know, we did this.

[01:12:22 -> 01:12:26] That was like the single moment of me sitting in the university mall and the massages that [01:12:26 -> 01:12:28] I was just like, it all hit me. [01:12:28 -> 01:12:30] And the IRS still got our money by the way. [01:12:30 -> 01:12:32] They got nice money. [01:12:32 -> 01:12:32] How about yours?

[01:12:33 -> 01:12:36] Best and worst thing about the acquisition. [01:12:36 -> 01:12:40] The best thing was probably finally being able to tell people about the deal. [01:12:41 -> 01:12:45] If you remember, it was a long process and that we had to keep things so quiet from like [01:12:45 -> 01:12:51] key employees, from family, from all of our business relationships. [01:12:51 -> 01:12:54] And then the second we could find, cause it was a public company.

[01:12:54 -> 01:12:57] They wanted to keep everything quiet so it didn't affect the stock price. [01:12:57 -> 01:13:03] And so I think just the relief of telling people was really, really probably the best moment [01:13:03 -> 01:13:04] for me. [01:13:04 -> 01:13:09] Like obviously the dollars and the money was life-changing, but at the same time, I think [01:13:09 -> 01:13:13] just talking about the deal, cause we had been hush about it for so many months. [01:13:13 -> 01:13:15] It was really, really a strain on it.

[01:13:15 -> 01:13:16] What was the worst thing for you? [01:13:17 -> 01:13:18] The rule 83B or something else? [01:13:19 -> 01:13:24] Worst thing, like obviously all the due diligence and dividing and conquering and getting all that, [01:13:24 -> 01:13:27] compiling all the documentation and doing all that work was bad. [01:13:27 -> 01:13:31] But at the same time, it's like, I, I think I always saw the light at the end of the tunnel.

[01:13:31 -> 01:13:35] And I think we had to constantly remind ourselves like guys, like let's, let's, let's put some [01:13:35 -> 01:13:38] time and effort into this, but also like, let's keep the business running. [01:13:38 -> 01:13:41] So maybe balancing those two things was the worst thing. [01:13:41 -> 01:13:42] It was really hard. [01:13:42 -> 01:13:47] And I remember Tyler coming up to me shortly after the sale going, Hey dad, it's just not [01:13:47 -> 01:13:49] the same when you don't own it.

[01:13:49 -> 01:13:49] Yeah. [01:13:50 -> 01:13:50] I don't know. [01:13:50 -> 01:13:52] Admittedly, Kaylin, we played a lot of golf after that. [01:13:53 -> 01:13:55] Well, I mean, a lot of the pressure was off.

[01:13:55 -> 01:13:56] You had a marketing budget. [01:13:56 -> 01:13:57] We had, we had funding. [01:13:58 -> 01:14:00] We had like people to help us with finances. [01:14:00 -> 01:14:01] I mean, it was a big company.

[01:14:01 -> 01:14:02] Yeah. [01:14:02 -> 01:14:03] It was like time of learning. [01:14:03 -> 01:14:03] Yeah. [01:14:03 -> 01:14:07] It was a huge, it was a huge new chapter where we just didn't have a lot of the same stress [01:14:07 -> 01:14:09] and risk that we had before.

[01:14:09 -> 01:14:09] Did you like it as well? [01:14:09 -> 01:14:10] I think it was fun. [01:14:10 -> 01:14:11] It was fun for a little while. [01:14:11 -> 01:14:13] Like, yeah, it was a lot less stressful.

[01:14:14 -> 01:14:17] I think we could get back to focusing on some of the stuff that was fun about it. [01:14:17 -> 01:14:18] But yeah, ultimately. [01:14:18 -> 01:14:20] But probably not as fun as your first year in business. [01:14:20 -> 01:14:20] No, no.

[01:14:20 -> 01:14:21] I mean, ultimately. [01:14:21 -> 01:14:22] It was different, right? [01:14:22 -> 01:14:26] After a while, you know, you especially saw this, but after a while, it's kind of like, [01:14:27 -> 01:14:28] oh yeah, you can't say that in marketing. [01:14:28 -> 01:14:30] You start getting told what you can and can't do.

[01:14:30 -> 01:14:30] Yeah. [01:14:30 -> 01:14:34] And that just slowly but surely erodes all of the fun out of it. [01:14:34 -> 01:14:37] The Capella in-house legal team did not like me at all. [01:14:37 -> 01:14:40] So the poop billboard did not go well with it.

[01:14:40 -> 01:14:42] Well, I know everything got scrutinized. [01:14:42 -> 01:14:48] Everything from the way I said something to a word I had in a pamphlet to what I said on [01:14:48 -> 01:14:53] the marketing website to what the application form said to what a Facebook ad said. [01:14:53 -> 01:14:57] Like I had to get every piece of content approved, which we never did before. [01:14:57 -> 01:14:59] That was like our job was to talk to lawyers.

[01:14:59 -> 01:15:00] This has been great. [01:15:00 -> 01:15:02] I want to thank you two for helping pull this off with Tyler. [01:15:02 -> 01:15:03] Yeah, I can't believe it. [01:15:03 -> 01:15:03] This is so funny.

[01:15:03 -> 01:15:04] It was fantastic. [01:15:04 -> 01:15:06] We don't have time to get into much of what you've done. [01:15:06 -> 01:15:10] We'll have to have them both back and tell them about what they're currently working on. [01:15:10 -> 01:15:11] Come in and tell us what you're working on sometime.

[01:15:11 -> 01:15:14] But today was just a Dev Mountain reunion. [01:15:14 -> 01:15:15] Well, 10 years. [01:15:15 -> 01:15:17] And just at the 10-year mark. [01:15:17 -> 01:15:18] We are so old news now.

[01:15:19 -> 01:15:19] It's not even funny. [01:15:19 -> 01:15:24] But I want to tip my hat to all three of you as father, mentor. [01:15:24 -> 01:15:27] I feel kind of a father relationship with all three of you. [01:15:27 -> 01:15:31] And I just feel that you guys were excellent executors.

[01:15:31 -> 01:15:36] When all is said and done, you built and put out in the market a great product. [01:15:36 -> 01:15:37] But what's so funny? [01:15:37 -> 01:15:39] That could not exist today. [01:15:39 -> 01:15:40] Yes.

[01:15:40 -> 01:15:40] The timing. [01:15:41 -> 01:15:41] No, the timing. [01:15:42 -> 01:15:43] I teach in the boot camp, right? [01:15:43 -> 01:15:45] You got to catch the wave at the right moment.

[01:15:45 -> 01:15:48] And you guys caught the wave right, but you also have to ride the wave in. [01:15:48 -> 01:15:50] And you rode it with great execution. [01:15:50 -> 01:15:53] I remember telling people, you don't understand what they've got going there. [01:15:54 -> 01:16:01] They're down here in Provo, Utah, running several concurrent classes with 30 to 35 people in it, all paying $12,000 tuitions.

[01:16:02 -> 01:16:03] That's huge, right? [01:16:03 -> 01:16:05] And if you count the money. [01:16:05 -> 01:16:10] I remember Tyler one time coming to me and saying, Dad, I can't believe the money I'm seeing go through this account. [01:16:10 -> 01:16:11] No, our Slack bot.

[01:16:11 -> 01:16:12] I remember that guy. [01:16:12 -> 01:16:19] And that all is because, and I want the viewers and listeners to walk away from here and go, look at these founders. [01:16:19 -> 01:16:20] Look how they got along. [01:16:20 -> 01:16:21] They pulled in the same direction.

[01:16:21 -> 01:16:22] They had each other's back. [01:16:22 -> 01:16:25] And they put a great product into the market. [01:16:26 -> 01:16:31] And they executed really well and did what was needed and necessary. [01:16:31 -> 01:16:32] And they bootstrapped it.

[01:16:33 -> 01:16:33] That's amazing. [01:16:34 -> 01:16:36] So kudos to you guys. [01:16:36 -> 01:16:39] Let's give a hand to everyone on our team, too. [01:16:39 -> 01:16:39] Like everybody.

[01:16:39 -> 01:16:44] I can't say enough about all of your team members and people. [01:16:44 -> 01:16:46] I still know them and also have a relationship there. [01:16:46 -> 01:16:47] So it's awesome. [01:16:47 -> 01:16:47] Okay.

[01:16:47 -> 01:16:48] That is it. [01:16:48 -> 01:16:49] We're going to say goodbye for today. [01:16:50 -> 01:16:50] Thank you for coming. [01:16:51 -> 01:16:51] And we are out.