Building Trust and Collaboration: The Story of Disca with Chad Bellin

Speaker A: Welcome to the Inflection Podcast, where we explore the pivotal moments that have shaped us into who we are today. I am your host, Anebi, and I can't wait to dive into these moments with you. Let's get it. Well, thank you so much for jumping on board the Inflection podcast. It's always fun hanging with you, man.

Speaker B: Right on. Absolutely.

Speaker A: Since we met, what, years ago, it's been fascinating to get to know you more. And I think one of the things that stands out to me, I mean, interacting with you and getting to collaborate over the years, is your abundant mindset. And just like, this idea of, hey, there's enough for us all, and just your ability to collaborate with so many different people without trying to go the whole my precious build your little fifth dump. So I really appreciate that about you, and I wanted to lean into that a little bit more. And, like, how did Chad. Right. Get to point where you operate like that?

Speaker B: Sure. Well, I guess that leads us into story time right away.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: But I was even being very young, I was exposed to a lot of role models who provided really good examples, and that was in faith, in business, and just in life. And so my grandfather had a trucking business that he ran for almost 40, 45 years.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: And a lot of times, he would have some of his customers that sometimes he knew, sometimes they were friends of friends, and they would come in and, you know, want to need to have a repair or want to lease some equipment or things like that and wouldn't necessarily have the funds right then to pay. And so a lot of times he would kind of extend them credit and they would come back and pay him, and then they would be loyal to. To him for a really long time because he went ahead and sort of trusted them. I saw a lot of other examples of that, and I was like, well, really, the key to this is really kind of taking that first leap of faith and saying, this person seems like a good person, or it seems like this person is in need, or, I would like to work with them. Um, sometimes it just takes you making the first move and saying, you know, I can have a conversation with you, or maybe I can help you through this little patch or whatever. Uh, and that kind of starts the cycle, and they're lifted up by that and are able to do whatever they need to do, and then that starts to come back to you. And so I think the key to it all is just recognizing in those moments that there's an opportunity maybe to jump in or help or provide some guidance. Or whatever. And a lot of times that just starts this chain reaction of, well, something is improved on the other side. And so then that starts coming back to you or it gets spread onto others, which really lifts up, you know, more of the greater community.

Speaker A: Yeah. And thank you so much. I did not know your granddad, uh, had a trucking business. Is that still in the family or is it.

Speaker B: That was sold several years ago, but it was sold to a longtime employee and he has now passed it down to his. Oh, wow, that's megaby. It's very cool. And they've continued to do some really amazing things.

Speaker A: Yeah, that is cool to go off on a tangent a little bit because we've talked about this. There's this thing called the silver tsunami. You know, older folks retiring. And when I say older, like 60s, 70s retirement age. Yep, pretty much. And, um, some of them have businesses that have built over 20, 30x amount of years. And it's like there's a vacuum on who is going to take this on. Is that continuity. Some family members don't want to take it on. Right. Or they may not have kids or whatnot, and they might not be a key employee to take it on. So that's something I've been looking at more lately. And you start to see those opportunities now. The Cody Sanchez is sort of popularizing the boring businesses. So you said that my ears perked. I was like, well, that's interesting.

Speaker B: Yeah, this wasn't really a boring business. I mean, it was a quite vibrant business and still is with, you know, they would buy and sell and then parts and service and all of those kinds of things. But to your point. Yeah. I mean, there were family members that worked in the business, but it got to be the time where decision was sort of made that it was, uh, appropriate to bring partners on. And so two longtime employees actually took over the business and they had the transition and then the one kind of continued on with it. So really cool how that worked out. And, you know, the name serves as a legacy and all of those kinds of things, but that's cool. Um, but yeah, there is that opportunity coming up for a lot of people. And, you know, kind of thinking about that in terms of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is challenging, whether you get that opportunity to jump into an existing business or whether you're building it yourself. But I think that's one of those reasons why some of the family businesses don't go from just generation to generation is that, you know, sometimes there just isn't anybody to kind of take on that burden of running the business and growing it and doing all those things.

Speaker A: Absolutely. And speaking of that, with partnerships, so at disc, you have your co founder, you have multiple partners. I'm curious, like with partnerships, so how do you determine that? Like, let's look at the origin story of this guy. If you're getting those partners and all working together cohesively. I've worked with you guys and you guys all work really well together. So what has that looked like to incept and survive and thrive as a company with different partners?

Speaker B: So the origin story of Diska goes back almost a decade.

Speaker A: I'm going to sit back and relax.

Speaker B: I was working for a cybersecurity company and Aaron actually came in as an interviewee as a software engineer. And he was sort of fresh out of school and second job kind of thing. And what I, and what the hiring team recognized in him was just this really, really high capacity to learn and a lot of curiosity and very, very good, just from a technical and problem solving perspective and very humble and willing to do a lot of different things. So he was an easy hiring choice. And we worked together for a while there. After I left, Sean, who's our other partner in Disca, came in and was hired at that same company. And so I moved on and started working at Mindspace, a digital agency. And my first hire was Aaron. And Aaron said, well, we should hire Sean too. And so I hired Sean.

Speaker A: Nice.

Speaker B: And we were a team there and worked on their technology for a number of years. And then during the pandemic, as ah, Mindspace business started to change and go more towards the creative and less towards the technical, we really decided that it might be a good idea for us. You know, during the middle of the pandemic, no better time to start a business, right? Uh, to maybe try it on our own because we knew we had and still do have a great relationship with Mindspace and the team there.

Speaker A: That's precious when you.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's super cool. And so we were able to get a contract from them to continue our work there while we figured it out by ourselves. And so the three of us agreed that we would be equal partners. And we are. And for most things it's a, uh, two out of three majority decision, which is really unique because all of us have different skill sets and different abilities. But it's a really great opportunity for us to kind of play off each other and, you know, the different viewpoints on a particular topic. And so all of those big things are like that and we just kind of leverage our own Unique abilities.

Speaker A: That's awesome.

Speaker B: Uh, to help drive the business forward. So I've obviously through my career I've been at an executive level, I've run teams, I've had 50, 60, 70 employees working for me and then I've also been in the startup world and so I understand a lot of those dynamics. I obviously as you do love product and product management and product design and so I fill that role for our team. Sean is really, really wonderful with all of our cloud architecture and DevOps and things like that. So he leads that up. And Aaron is a wonderful software developer and architect. So between the three of us we really have a lot of those bases covered.

Speaker A: Awesome. Um, it's been really great like I was saying earlier, to see you guys interface and work together cohesively, it's like a wonderful team dynamic. One of the things from working with you on projects, um, I've seen is just like you have a, you can be super high level and you can go down to more nitty gritty, no hands on. And I ah, really appreciate that the ability to go between, you know, higher level to lower level and roll up your sleeves and operate that way. And also from a product perspective, I love product and ah, talking product strategy. And even on the, on the tactical side, what are some things that you're seeing on the horizon like product from the product side that you're excited about in the space?

Speaker B: So I think the number one thing is just kind of a revolution in user interfaces because we have so many different devices now and there's so many ways to interact with you know what we would servers or computers or whatever. It doesn't necessarily need to be a UI on a phone or a web interface. It could be a voice interface or it could be that you're interacting just with your face and emotions or you might be you know, playing music or other different things. So it's just opens up this whole box of different inputs and, and yeah, Minority Report stuff kind of moving like this. So I think that's one thing is with wearables with all kinds of different inputs and all kinds of different outputs, there's going to be a revolution in how we experience technology and how we experience the world. What's really dumb about stuff right now is that a lot of people still use Excel spreadsheets for Things and use PDFs for things. And this is just this way of transacting. And then you have other people like good friend of mine is creating these immersive digital experiences and contextual and location specific Brand aware things.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Uh, and then you have somebody wanting to send you an Excel spreadsheet with formulas in it and you know, here, open this and see if you can work with it. So that's, I think one of the opportunities for products is to really take out a lot of the manual steps that you know, we've just dealt with and have been used to over the past 20 years and really start to change the way we interact with things. So no longer should something have to be hand keyed, maybe it can be scanned and I'm just editing and checking that all the numbers appeared in the right place or I trust that all the numbers appeared in the right place and I'm going about doing my own business. We've had so many prospects and clients come in that have traditional businesses that are non tech that want to integrate tech into their businesses.

Speaker A: That was the question I was going to ask you about.

Speaker B: And they say, you know, I have these four people that all they do is, you know, they transcribe stuff or they're sorting PDFs or they're manually reviewing stuff. I don't want to eliminate these jobs and I don't want to, you know, fire these people.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But I want to repurpose these people to do something else. So it would be really great if we could get a system in that would be as good as they are at doing this particular job but then allow those people to reskill or upskill and do other things within my company.

Speaker A: Yeah. That is so interesting you said that because I was also going to ask you from software, tech enablement perspective things you said with working with traditional businesses and how that might again as within the context of the many businesses that need to be transferred, like someone is retiring is going to sell it. So for an operator who's coming in to buy that and invariably is thinking m, how can we upgrade the tech for this so uh, it runs better? I was going to ask you about that. If you are beginning to see some of those and maybe some opportunities there and um, things you might focus on first.

Speaker B: So what's really interesting is a lot of times in a small business the tech is the person that owns it or the people that run it because they don't have systems because they have a small business. And so everything's in their head and things are written down. Maybe it's on their personal device or things like that. They'll sit down on a Saturday and run invoicing and it'll be manual or different ideas like that. So thinking about Coming into a business like that, you almost need to have that transition of uh, the person needs to tell you all the things that they do or that they need to do. And it's one of the opportunities that small businesses have to make themselves more valuable is if they would even go with off the shelf products that are appropriate for their industry. If they have an invoicing system and a work order system and a, ah, maintenance logs and things like that, that already puts them at a level where they could probably get a 10 or 20% higher price on the sale price because somebody who comes in to purchase that business can see what's going on and can jump into those systems rather than learn what this person has cobbled together for themselves. So technology in small business is very, very important. But it comes with the caveat that it's a little bit more work and obviously a little bit more expense. But that expense can be returned in the form of roi, usually very quickly if you're deploying the right technologies and fixing the right problems in your business.

Speaker A: Yeah, and that's I think the key points that uh, the right technology and the right problems where could you just go put something off the shelf and try to DIY and implement it and save. But then if you're not getting the roi, maybe it even could be detrimental if it's not done right. And I've seen you in action do that. And it's partly why I brought that up. Like one of the projects worked on, working on a small business, you spent so much time upfront to get those requirements right and really pull those from the owner's head mind and then document those requirements and translate that to software requirements for your team. So that was really cool to see because if you just jumped in, optimizing for speed and getting it done is just so much more that could be lost in translation.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And this is where I used the analogy with it. In a conversation last night, somebody asked me, how do I know if my outsourced contract development team is doing a good job? Somebody who is an accountant or is a business person or things like that has literally no idea if your software team is doing a good job.

Speaker A: Totally.

Speaker B: The only way to know if your software team is doing a good job is to have somebody who knows software come in and tell you if they're doing a good job or not. So there's sort of a couple options you have there. But what's really important I think is what you were saying, making sure you're doing things purposefully, really thinking about what you're trying to solve, making sure the solution is fitting what you're trying to do and making sure that the costs are relevant. And if you feel like you need help, or maybe as a business person, you haven't implemented technology or implemented software before, there are a lot of really good resources and expensive ways to help ensure that your project can go more quickly. Even hiring a consultant. And that consultant may be a few hundred dollars an hour, but they're going to be able to do their work very quickly and be able to get you the answers that you need very quickly. But there are experts in it, there are experts in cybersecurity, there are experts in software and other things. If you're unsure about that, get in touch with some of these people and have the conversation. Because it'll even that conversation that'll be free or over coffee or something like that will broaden your mindset and probably help you consider some different options.

Speaker A: Yeah, and that's really key because you're going to spend some money on that for good advice unless person is generous and has like 30 minutes or one hour free consultation. But even if you're paying for it, you're potentially saving at least thousands of dollars in costs. Because I've been dumb. On the other end of. I work with an outsourced team on a project. Right. And requirements are not clear and it was not a successful project. And in hindsight, looking back, right. If I had met you then and brought you in to help flesh out some of those things upfront, things that you just don't know. Right. You don't know what you don't know to help figure those things out upfront, then it's a lot more effective. Which brings me to outsourcing. What are your thoughts there? I've seen, I've seen a shift. That was the time it's like everyone's going offshore, offshore. And then I'm seeing more nearshore and a blend or some key folks here. And so like, what are your thoughts generally on like nearshore versus offshore and how might that work? Really well, depending on the company and the project they're working on.

Speaker B: That's a great conversation topic for a whole.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's a big one.

Speaker B: I think in general it goes back to really having the right internal requirements and the internal capacity to help drive the team. Because it does come down to requirements. We have found that for the most part, engineers globally are, uh, very good. I mean they go through. There's a lot of information on YouTube and other ways for engineers to Even supplant or uh, supplement an education. Maybe they got an education from, you know, some university wherever they live. Maybe it's not the best or highest rated university, but they got through it. But they have all these other tools that are available to help them. Yeah, the engineers generally are good and talented, but there are best practices and then there are sort of good practices. Best practices are usually honed over time and are based in really sound theories and practices from a lot of others. And then what's really key is making sure that you're solving the right problem and making sure that you're really going and directing the team in a way that they understand.

Speaker A: Absolutely.

Speaker B: There can be some cultural barriers, there can be some language barriers because the words maybe don't exist, you know, to uh, fully express some of those ideas. So we've found that obviously if we're working with local teams and teams that we trust, like here in Arizona or here in the US we uh, don't have a lot of those challenges necessarily because everybody understands sort of the baseline of what we're trying to do. If we reference cultural references or it's like Uber. Yeah, like Netflix, everybody understands that. But you can't use those references, just drop them and go with somebody who's based in India or Bangladesh or wherever they may happen to be. So there needs to be that more full explanation. In a lot of our projects we work in a hybrid mode where we're fractional cto, fractional product or senior engineer type roles. And then we often have global resources that end up filling in the actual build out of stuff. And there ah, are actually South America is full of talented technical engineers. Mexico has some wonderful universities. Costa Rica, Brazil, Argentina all have wonderful technology programs. Eastern Europe is a great place for a lot of really good technologists that aren't that expensive. But these super resources need to be pointed in the right direction and solving the right problem. If you just tell them to go and build something and you're not giving them those instructions, the likelihood that that solution is going to solve your problem is a lot less.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's key. And one thing along those lines too is the communication aspect that I have found. There's a lot that get lost in translation when it's just text. And I have found like even real time calls are awesome, but then the time zone differences can be a pain to sort out. So the next best thing that I have found is like video walkthrough. So right out of the technical stuff, but also doing like a video walkthrough recording of that and explaining what you mean when I say that is what I mean and things like that. I have found that, uh, in the projects I've been involved with with nearshore and offshore, like that has helped with the success rate because then it's a lot more context to err on the side of giving too much information, if there is such a thing. With regards to requirements. And in the videos, no.loom.com and things like that are awesome because it can be rewatched a billion times and I can ask more questions and then at, uh, when necessary, do the real time calls because they've had time to digest, get context, see how it translates and then, you know, engage. So I'm a big, big fan of that. I sent you way too many loom videos.

Speaker B: Actually. We've adopted a lot more of that methodology as well. And it was partly because of you, because I found out like some of our communications had been so effective. If you just did a video and it's a two, uh, minute video and it just shows all of the different things. Here's the option for this. Here's what I was thinking here.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And you can kind of show that in real time. It's really, really powerful. And then I can go to 1 minute and 31 seconds exactly. Hey, this thing that you pointed to here, I want it moved over or I want that icon changed or any of those kinds of things. And those types of things are very effective, especially for offshore teams because the visuals translate really well. Yeah. Birds or things like that. So the visuals and the functionality, they'll understand. So video is a very effective way of communicating.

Speaker A: Yeah, agreed. Something else I wanted to bring up, like, over your career you've worked executive level, you've worked with startups, you have your company now. There is certain, like leadership anecdotes have been helpful along the way. Or maybe leaders you've worked with and you're like, oh, I really like this style and it stuck with you.

Speaker B: I've been also blessed with knowing a lot of really good leaders.

Speaker A: Frankly.

Speaker B: I've seen some bad leaders as well.

Speaker A: Yeah. What to do and what not to do.

Speaker B: Exactly. So probably the first, you know, kind of leadership type saying that I was introduced to was goes back to Isaac Newton. We're standing on the shoulders of giants. I wouldn't be able to see what I've seen without standing on the shoulders of giants. And just thinking about that is really humbling. And turning that into, you know, you're a leader of an organization, frankly, you're nothing without the entirety of your organization doing the work and having the skills that they have to put you in that position where you're able to lead and drive results. If you didn't have an organization, obviously the results would be a lot different.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So even in the context of being a manager or supervisor or a leader, understanding that there's a lot of other people that are contributing to your success and it's very selfish and actually very rude to just go out and claim all of that success for yourself unless you've actually created that success individually for yourself. Yeah. So that's one of those sayings that can be used in those two different contexts and has just always been really powerful for me. I try to avoid a lot of kind of the cheap sayings and things like that just because sometimes it can take away from the power of the moment or the meaningfulness of the moment. So you know, if you're coming in with a quick cliche or a one liner or things like that, and in relating especially to people who are younger than me, it comes across sometimes as a little bit less, less authentic because I don't necessarily speak in these words that this other person said. I speak in my own words. And so yeah, sometimes they appreciate that a little bit more. But a lot of the leaders that I've really admired, so there's trust that's been built both ways. Like you know what they're going to do, they know what you're going to do. And a lot of the strength of the relationship is based on that mutual understanding and that mutual trust. And so I think like that you said that uh, trust, that is the key to those kinds of relationships is if you're hiring somebody, if I'm making a hiring decision, I need to be able to trust that person.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Otherwise why are they on my team? And obviously there's some limits and there's some get to know you factor and things like that. I mean our engineer Alex, we hired him a year and a half ago. He has absolutely my trust in confidence in anything and I bet he feels

Speaker A: that, I mean it makes him also want to work harder and stuff because like there's this thing I was discussing with Ruchi some episodes with podcast ago. She's the co founder of Maple Billing and we're talking about the subtle shift between there's some leaders that bring you on, right. And it's like there's no trust. They don't really trust you to get it done. It's kind of like, hey, prove me wrong. Uh-huh. Right. But then as a subtle shift where a leader is like, I already trust you. Prove me. Right, right, prove. Which is very different if you think about it, where you're always trying to earn the trust, that's exhausting versus you already have a trust, prove me right. Now, things may happen to change that, but if the default is, you know, leaning, it's positive, Prove me right, I trust you. Then I think it's a lot easier to do a great job versus trying to earn that in the first place, which is exhausting and hard to do.

Speaker B: And it motivates people to do a great job, in fact. And it really goes back to that abundance piece. Right. Like, if you're going into situations with negativity or trying to find the bad rather than trying to find the good, you're putting yourself as a leader at a disadvantage. Because now you're a conspiracy theorist and you're, uh, looking for all these things where you can like, you know, rip somebody out versus saying, hey, generally things are good and we want to make them even better. And the incentives, like if you offer, you know, bonuses for achievement or hey, we're going to promote you or we're going to give you more responsibility that you're interested in or things like that, those things are super motivating and very powerful. And so the leaders that I've admired have all really built that trust, but also taken it more positive and more proactive, kind of guiding people along and encouraging them to achieve as opposed to like more of the, well, you know, if you don't achieve, then, you know, we're going to have a double kind of threats. Threats don't work very well. I only really had one circumstance where I felt like there were people working in bad faith. That whole situation, which was almost 15 years ago now, I mean, that situation took care of itself eventually. Yeah, but that was very frustrating to be in a climate where there was very little trust and you felt like people were working in different ways for different reasons than you were and certainly had different values that you did. This is very, very challenging. We definitely try to keep things more positive and build that trust and really encourage people.

Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. Along the lines of what you were saying earlier about standing on the shoulders of giants, there's this thing that pisses me off, quite honestly. And it's like you hear someone say, I'm a self made ex. And um, yeah, you could argue life is tough. People, some people don't have as much support system. But I was thinking about It I was like, if you really think about it, if you go back far enough and along the lines like, yes, you had to be motivated or intrinsically inspired to get stuff done. But like, there's so much support around, whether it's a mentor or even being in a country like America or other countries where you have more opportunities. So that's one that I'm always like. I'm very reticent to use that the self made title because we're always standing on the shoulders of giants in one way. Using technology for your job. Okay. Some giants, right, created that. So it's just one that uh, for me, when you talk about cheap saints, for me, that's one I don't like at all. It's like my self made. Whatever. I'm like, yeah, whatever.

Speaker B: I feel like I was probably a lot more obnoxious and a lot more brash as a younger person than I maybe am, um, now. And maybe some people will disagree with that. But I've really come to appreciate that it, uh, really sometimes at ordinary points in my life, but at key points in my life, as you were saying, there's somebody there that has provided a piece of advice or some help or guidance or was there to help clean up or did something that really made a difference. And so as much as everybody's individual journey is a bit of a self journey, and obviously, you know, you're the star of your own show, those supporting casts, even though they may seem minor or they change over time, end up being very important to most people. I mean, if you live in a cave and you know you're the only one around and you're the, you can claim that you're the one that went and went and gathered all the berries and stuff. Like, okay, so yes, you're. But then, yeah, at that same point you have no one to share it with and it becomes very lonely sitting there eating all the berries by yourself.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So I kind of tend to agree, like it's a little bit of a misnomer. Uh, and I don't think everybody means it. Yeah, uh, yeah, trumpet themselves necessarily. But yeah.

Speaker A: Ah, I could see that. And it makes me think there's something you and I have talked about. Right. You can have the whole pie all to yourself. Smaller pie because one person. How do you scale one person? You can do a lot or you can. The abundance mindset of working collaboratively with others. He ends up being a bigger pie because you have different giftings and skill sets. And as you work together cohesively and it's a bigger pie for everyone, you know, and that's the mindset. I know you embodied that, uh, you're super generous in the community, in the Phoenix ecosystem and outside of it. But it's just been awesome to see you, you know, offer advice to me and many others, you know, with different companies. That's something else I wanted to bring up with your focus on the Phoenix community. Yes, Phoenix. And supporting a lot of entrepreneurs in the ecosystem. Like there's some opportunities you see, you know, here in the Phoenix ecosystem based on all the conversations you're having and just what you see on the horizon.

Speaker B: It's a really exciting time to be here in Phoenix. I mean, I'll give a shout out to our Commerce Authority. The legislature just renewed the charter for.

Speaker A: Yeah, uh, I saw that.

Speaker B: And their work is so vital because they are not only ambassadors of, of Arizona and Phoenix and, you know, Phoenix to a certain extent, but Arizona to the global economy. And they have drawn so many businesses here, both startup businesses and established businesses, and have created so many jobs and so much economic opportunity. We have asu, which is one of the world's great universities, here in our own backyard, helping to educate, you know, our workforce. Great companies like TSMC and Lucid and all of these high tech and clean tech and all of this evolving technology that's choosing to do business in Arizona or to relocate to Arizona. So there's just so much opportunity. Uh, but it also requires a community and it requires systems to help people work through that community. And so I've been involved with the Small Business Association, I've been involved with the Commerce Authority.

Speaker A: Yeah. Uh, you're an advisor.

Speaker B: Yes, so I'm one of their mentors in one of their entrepreneurial programs there and really enjoy doing those kinds of things. But there needs to be that community and there needs to be, you know, the encouragement and the building up and even the partnerships that go along with that. So, you know, companies that realize they're doing similar things or complementary things, being able to have a place to connect and hook up. So it's very important that everybody kind of takes an active role in the community. And I know, like, I'm an entrepreneur, I have a busy schedule, but every minute that I spend having a podcast with you or going to meetups or mentoring others, it comes back and it just builds on it. And maybe it's not for me personally every single time. Maybe I don't get like $5 every time, but it goes back to, you, uh, know, I encourage others to, you know, if I helped you go help somebody else, then I don't mind, you know, a little bit of help, but then pass it on and kind, uh, of continue the chain. And it's important for us to recognize that there's so many good things happening here. I mean, do you hear about, you know, Wyoming in the news? No, you don't hear about them. As far as business development or things like that, you don't hear about so many of these other places. You hear about Phoenix. You used to hear about Austin. You don't hear about Austin anymore.

Speaker A: That's interesting.

Speaker B: But you're hearing a lot about Salt Lake City. Yeah, hearing a lot about some of these other places and some of the places that have had longevity like Los Angeles and New York and places like that. But we have an opportunity here in Arizona and Phoenix in particular over the next 10 years to really continue to emerge on the global stage and continue our economic development and our growth. And the opportunity for entrepreneurs, from scientists to technologists to even tradesmen and things like that is just continues to be massive.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'm all for it and I'm excited for things on the horizon. It's an exciting time right now with all the innovations going on and like. Yeah, let's go.

Speaker B: Absolutely.

Speaker A: How do you feel your tank, Chad? Like, you do so many awesome things. You're always pouring out advising you're building a thriving business. Like, how do you stay grounded through it all?

Speaker B: Well, I have a lot of people around me who can help me stay grounded too. Why are you still working 7 o' clock at night? Why are you working already at 6:30 in the morning? Yeah, so I do get those questions from time to time. But I think, you know, I try to generally on a week to week basis, kind of plan out what the things to do for the week might

Speaker A: be to, like, the big items. Yeah, okay.

Speaker B: I mean, a lot of times, so I'm still obviously very active in my business doing work. And so there's times when we need to block out to make sure that we're serving all of our clients like that. And of course we have a team that can help out with that. I went on vacation last week. Everybody kind of chipped in and filled in, which was wonderful. But on a week to week basis, it's really, you know, what do I want to accomplish? And I think certain weeks just opportunistically, it's a little bit heavier on certain, uh, tasks. But I do everything, any kind of outreach. I do mentorship or meetings or things like that. A lot of that ends up being our marketing. We have done so much business by word of mouth and referrals and just starting off with a conversation and somebody realizing, oh, my gosh, you know what you're talking about. Can you help me? Or I know somebody who, you know, you should be introduced to. So even though it seems like some of these activities are off on their own, they end up being business development, marketing, name recognition, and some kind of product market fit, too. Like, I'm listening to the responses.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: That people are doing.

Speaker A: That's the best way versus assumptions. So it's good to have assumptions, but you got to test it out. But actually listening and talking with sad people that you have the assumptions of.

Speaker B: Absolutely. And, you know, even in mentoring sessions, I end up learning things myself that, you know, a certain result came out of a certain action that I haven't seen before or I didn't realize somebody would have that reaction to, you know, something that I've done two or three other times.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And it's important to take that feedback and kind of bring it back in. So even though there's a lot of different activities, it's not necessarily random. It's, you know, kind of structured with what's needed week to week. But there's also this feedback that's sort of generated where we can take what we learned during that week and help make, you know, feedback engagements and, you know, future everything better.

Speaker A: Yeah. That's so cool you say that. What is something you. For those listening, piece of advice or whatever you're leaving with. Let me build a Persona. So perhaps a business exploring innovation in their software, in their tech. I don't want to make it work better. They don't know how to start. Like, hey, I just know I have a bunch of clunky integrated systems tied together. It's going to cost me to clean that up and maybe get better roi. But how should someone even think about that to get started so they're on the best path and it's not just a waste of money and you don't get ROI from it.

Speaker B: So I think if you're a business owner and you have kind of a successful business or things like that, you want to make it better.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: First of all, talk to your peers. Talk to other people that you know, other business people that you know, even if they're in a different industry, because they might have some, you know, really interesting insights or good advice. So I think, you know, the number one step in general would just be to talk to people. But I think in Particular, you know, I've worked with some really amazing female entrepreneurs and some really amazing, you know, minority entrepreneurs and other people who maybe haven't come from the prototypical. What you'd say, you know, some advantages and things like that. And what I would say is make sure to not sell yourself short and make sure to not kind of self limit. Because a lot of times, you know, I'll be talking to an entrepreneur that's doing really well and we have a mutual friend who's dear to both of us who does this and you know, the person will be like, well, I don't know if I'm good enough. And it's like, you have a successful business or you have a scaling startup, or you're employing five people and you know you're looking to hire more. You're absolutely good enough. You absolutely have this. And maybe something didn't go your way or you are feeling inadequate, but that doesn't mean you are.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: And you know, if you're feeling that way, make sure to partner with other positive people that can kind of help lift you out of that. Because I just got done talking about all this opportunity that's there, all of the opportunity is there. And the worst thing you can do is, you know, limit your own ability to capitalize on that opportunity. Let the market tell you that you're not good enough, and then go pivot and do something else. Don't tell yourself that you're not good enough because in most cases you absolutely are. And you know, unless you're sitting on the couch and you know, not doing anything, well, maybe you could probably do more. But uh, if you're out there doing it and you're trying stuff and you're paying attention to what's happening and you're adjusting, you're absolutely good enough and you know, you're smart enough and all of those kinds of things, definitely, you know, surround yourself with the people who will support you and will be that base for you to help go forward and build whatever it is that you're building.

Speaker A: Amazing. Well, thank you so much, Chad. Uh, always a pleasure. Always a pleasure for you, hanging with you. We'll put links on how folks can engage with this, your LinkedIn and all your relevant links. But thank you. Such a pleasure.

Speaker B: Thanks for all you do, Sam.

Speaker A: Mhm.