150: Brian Scudamore — Willing To Fail

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done. I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have. Talk to docs of Talent and you won't be disappointed. Go to docsatant.com Bill G Again, that's doxatallent.com Bill G One more time. Doxatalent.com Bill G Check it out today. Well, we intellectually know the value of being willing to fail. The value of experimenting and having room and freedom to fail. We even may know the term fail forward. But not everyone puts their money where their mouth is with regard to themselves, their own efforts and the people around them to really embrace failure. Today's show is with a guy who built a business from half a million from 500,000 through over $440 million in sales by a succession of failures and embracing the failing and the learning from failure. So listen in to the story of what it is to be willing to fail. Hello and welcome again to the Scaling Up Business Podcast. I'm your host and scaling coach, Bill Gallagher. On the show with me today is Brian Scudmore and we are talking about his new book and all that. So Brian, you in Vancouver today?

I am in Vancouver finally. Not on the road. I've been on a whirlwind book tour and it's been enjoyable. But it is nice to be home with the family and with the business.

Awesome. For our listeners or folks who haven't heard of you before listening for the first time. Brian's a long time practitioner of the ideas of scaling up. We've talked about him. He's been around our world a bunch. He's a Harvard Business professor and a guest lecturer at Print. I'm joking.

I was just like, when do I interject to me what? I'm a high school dropout, dude.

I was gonna keep pushing it. I was thinking like, what shit could I make up?

That was good. That was good.

So he's a giant in business. So. And created a whole bunch of things. You'll know him mostly around 1-800-got junk the business that he has built up and then a variety of brands to go along with it. But of course he's more of a college dropout than a college professor, but a brilliant education.

Harvard did do a case study on 1-800-got-JUNK. And it's interesting because I was invited by Noam Wasserman, the professor who did the study. He said, why don't you come to Harvard and spend some time with the classes when they read your study and you can show up at the end. And so I got to not necessarily guest lecture in Harvard, but I certainly got to be there for a Q and A, which was fun.

Awesome. Well, and you participate in a lifetime of education in a variety of ways, not the list of which is learning. And you've been going to the MIT program forever.

Yeah, I'm a big, big lifelong learner for sure. I mean the, the school of hard knocks is the school that I seem to study from. I, I went from kindergarten to college. 14 schools if you count them all. I never finished high school, I never finished college, and the only diploma I have is true story, kindergarten.

Isn't that awesome? I love that.

I wish my dad thought it was awesome.

Well, you know, if you were living in a van down by the river, battling some substance abuse issues or cooking up meth in the van, it'd be a different conversation.

Of course it would.

Yeah. But you know, so I went to 16 schools before I finished high school and I would finish two years early. Wow. I took an early out instead of walking, graduating in the typical way. But I'm not technically a dropout of high school and I did drop out of college and I was so excited to get my son to go to a great school, great program, and you know, he did a brilliant job and he's really smart and he, and then he dropped out after one semester and like a lot of things he was just done. He was ready to quit. And we said, instead of running away from school, why don't you run to something? So before you quit, find the next thing. And we said that in high school too. And, and that worked really well because he, unfortunately we thought I'd just slow him down so that he'd stick it around, but instead he came up with a really cool job like almost instantly and became self supporting. So one semester and he was out. And today he has a funded startup with a team of I think seven now and his office and international investors. Like he's done font too.

Exactly. It's so easy.

That whole thing of like I was going to fix my college by sending him out. No, it didn't happen.

Yeah, I think it's easy to look at kids and, and, and be like, well, they've got no idea where they're going. You know what? They don't. I, I think of myself at 18 years old and starting the rubbish boys before it came became 1, 800 got junk. I didn't have a clue what I was doing and I wasn't that smart to go, wow, I'm going to build an empire here with 1, 800 got junk. And we're going to be the largest junk removal company. I was just out there failing, making mistakes, learning and continuing to evolve the model until I was in the right place at the right time, where I thought, wow, this could actually be something.

And one of these days it might.

Exactly. Still working on it. One day we're going to figure that out.

Yeah. So it's not just 1, 800 got junk now you've gone into other areas and before we talk about the. So I teased kind of an aspect of the book in, in this discussion of education and life path. But before we get into that, O2E brands, right. Is your talk about that for a minute and the other stuff that you've got behind 1, 800 got junk.

Well, we created 1, 800 got junk. 22 years of growing that business, being sold out of franchise territories and growing double over every three to four years organically. We said, we've got to create something else here. I mean, you know, the entrepreneurial boredom can kick in and you want more growth. So I stumbled across a business called wow. One Day Painting. I was having my home painted. I got three estimates, referrals through friends and family on Facebook. And the first two came in and the first guy, you know, reeks of cigarette smoke and he's late. Second guy, just like the first, the third guy comes in completely different, uniformed, professional, clean cut, smiley, happy guy says, I'll paint your home in a day when we agree on, on painting day, the quality, my prices, they're all great. I've done this for 22 years and I was intrigued. I didn't think you could actually do it. And I wanted to give him a shot. And lo and behold, the end of the day, 6:30pm I come home, floor to ceilings, molding, trim, immaculate. And I was like, wow, how do you really do that? And he said, well, the company's called One Day Painting. I said, have you ever tried to franchise? He said, I have, but it doesn't work. You can't franchise this model. I said, let's grab a beer. I bet I can change your mind. I Merged with him and then ultimately acquired the business. And now we've got over 50 franchise owners with wow, one day painting taken on the world. And it's certainly been a really cool model. So we said, how can we take these other brands we're starting and going to start and put them under an umbrella company. And when we started thinking about what do we stand for, we were always in the business of making the ordinary business of junk removal exceptional through customer experience. We're doing the ordinary business of painting. We're making that exceptional. So we called it O2E ordinary to exceptional. And it's been amazing how it's evolved because we've taken people who have said, I'm entrepreneurial and I don't know if I've got a business idea or the right one or where to start. Maybe I should learn about business by starting a franchise, by learning with you. And we get to build something much bigger and better together. Ordinary people doing exceptional things.

That's really great. And great that you began to discern that pattern because you're an expert in that. And the mechanism is franchising. But there are lots of people who do franchising in a mediocre fashion. Right. Or who fail at it, say it can't be done.

Yeah, franchising is a tough game because if you have the wrong franchise owner trying to get that person out to part from the 150 page legal agreement you've got, it's a challenge. If you've got the wrong employee, as any of your clients and people that you coach would know, you can generally pay them, get them out fairly easily. It's a unilateral decision. But in a franchise system, it's not that easy. And the courts generally favor the franchisee when the big bad franchisor is trying to get them out. So to get it right, you really have to get good at picking the right people. And for us, culture has just been everything. Recruiting based on culture, training on skill in our systems and then growing this together. And if you don't have people, if we don't have People in O2E Brands that want to build it together, that don't truly depend on each other as partners. We don't even call our franchisees franchisees, we call them franchise partners. They depend on us to be successful. We depend on them to be successful. And that marriage is what becomes a perfect match when it's done right.

That's great. So the book is Willing to fail wtf, right?

It is.

And how failure can be your key to success. And we talked about failing out of school in the beginning. So talk to us about the book and the intention, the ideas. Tell us all about it.

Well, the intention with the book was. Wasn't my idea. It was Roy H. Williams, who's my co author, brilliant marketer, great friend. And every year we go down to meet him in Austin and he does all our radio creative campaigns. And he's, he's a genius. And so I trust him. And he kept saying, brian, you gotta write a book. And I'm like, roy, I know you tell me that every year. And he goes, no, no, I'm serious. It's. Now's the right time. You got to write a book. And I said, I buy books, I don't read them. Yes, I like to write, but I don't have the time. He goes, no, no, no, you got to write a book. And I said, my ego doesn't need it. He's like, brian, you're missing the point. This isn't about you. This is about the message of your stories that will inspire others and make a difference in their world.

Yeah.

So I trusted him and said, okay, let's talk. I found myself back in Austin where he said, I'll make it easy for you. We'll lock you into the Wizard's Tower. It's a real place. And there we are, spiral staircase, sitting down, drinking a couple of glasses of wine. And he was just, he had me mic'd up and he asked story or question after question after question. And I told story after story after story. And we had 135 page transcript, which was the starting point of him weaving together my stories in a way that he thought could lend some inspiration. And then of course, we built on it and added more and got it to a point where we were happy. And I remember Roy kept saying, don't worry about a title because I kept saying to him, I'm a branding guy. I've got shack, shine and wow, one day painting and 1, 800, got junk. I love brands. We need to know the title of the book. He said, let's get the manuscript all tied up. Once it's closed and we know what the book says on the inside, the title will jump to the outside. And as I said, I trusted him and he was right. And there was this theme of failure and failure over and over and over again which led to all these bigger successes. And so the title, wtf, which really stands for Willing to Fail. And it taught me to look at failure.

And that's not what my Kids think it stands for.

Exactly. I got to be careful when I show the title around home. But it's one of those things where what the book actually taught me, which was interesting that I learned something from my own book, is throughout my life, failure has been a gift, and these failures had to happen. I needed to fire my entire company five years into the business. So, you know, you want to get into stories. One of the first big failures, nine bad apples. I had 11 employees, so that left a remaining two. But one bad apple spoils the whole bunch. And I said, I am not having fun here. I'm not enjoying the people I'm working with. They're negative, they're naysayers. They're bringing me down. So I brought them all in one day. We had five trucks, half a million in revenue, and I sat my team of 11 down and said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've let you down, but you're the wrong people. I haven't hired the right people or trained you right or given you the love and support that you need to be successful and time to part ways. So we parted ways, and I did a group firing, and I had a struggle of the next three to six months. I don't remember exactly how long, because it was a hard period, but rebuilding the business, but this time based on finding the right people and treating them right.

Yeah, that's. That's so learning from the lesson and then just wiping it out and starting over again. And. And. And it would be far more common that we would try to salvage something and. And do a little bit of a half measure, right?

Yeah, I think that's what we do often as entrepreneurs. And. Have I made some bad hiring decisions since? Yeah, of course, a few. But we. You know, when we do that, we often. How do we fix the department? How do we get rid of one or two sometimes? And. And I've known other entrepreneurs that have followed in those same footsteps. We had a franchise partner in Philadelphia, Alan Remer, who calls me up one day and he's like, I hate my team, Brian. And I said, well, I can tell you, they probably hate you too. And he said, no, no, you don't. You don't get it. He goes, I seriously have the wrong people. And I said, well, you've heard my story. You knew what I. What I did. Yeah. And he thought about it and called me back the next day and. Or a couple of days and said, I did it. I said, did what? He goes, I got rid of the entire team, and I'M like, what? I didn't mean go get rid of everybody. But you know what? He did it. And he also would agree it's one of the best things he's ever done. Because sometimes we make these mistakes. And you know, where Alan and I would both agree, I'm sure is it was our fault as the leader and what a valuable leadership gift to learn. You know what? We didn't bring in the right people. Time to start buttoning up our processes and taking our time finding the right people versus just putting bodies and seats.

Yeah. And yet once you've done that, right, like, people are like, oh, it's your fault. Well, so then why do I have to go? Well, because you've got to make a change. Even though it might be your mistake and it might have cost them something. There's there, like, it can become unsalvageable. Right.

Yeah. And I think, you know, as a leader, we also have to do these things and leave people their dignity and do it in a way where, yes, they might feel bad, but let's minimize how bad they feel. Let's tell it like it is and say the truth. But you know what? It really is us. I think Those people, those 11 people left that day and they. They got it. They might not have been happy about it, but I think they got it and understood what it was all about.

So the guy who was failing at franchising with the painting, before you talk about that, how do you paint in one day? I've got painters outside right now. We just had the downstairs inside painted. It was way more than a day.

Yeah. So the interesting thing is, and you'll get this very quickly, you know, to me, I was expecting this big secret that, well, once I heard it, you know, someone was going to have to kill me. But it was really one of these things where Jim Baden, the founder of the company, when we acquired it, and he said, you know, it's. It's simple. Everyone knows that one room can be painted in a day by one person. So you count the number of rooms and you put one or two people in each room, depending on the size and the complexity of the job. And so my house, we had 16 people in my house the day it was being painted. It's a numbers game. And if you think of it, you, you know, initially I remember going, whoa, you know that my house must have just crammed with people and so crazy busy. Well, no, because one person fits in a room just fine. You're in your own room, focused on getting that room done to excellence. It's all spread out. But what it does is it's such a coordinated effort. And this is where most painting companies can't, can't come up to the same sort of standards of how we do things is they don't know how to hire people. Painting companies know how to paint. They don't know how to recruit. And so some of our secret sauce is, is finding entrepreneurs that come in. We've got a guy, Craig Merrill, who's an EO organization member in Washington, D.C. and he's just killing it. And he used to run restaurants. And he goes, I know how to coordinate labor in restaurants. This is going to be a perfect fit. And I'm like, man, you're awesome. Because you truly get that this is nothing to do with holding a paintbrush. This is about building people, developing them and watching them grow. So it's a numbers game and it's coordination. And we believe we will build the largest painting company on the planet just in the same way that we've got the largest junk removal company on the planet once we've really sort of built a groundswell of the right people as franchise owners.

Well, I know your franchisor where I live does a really good job. And I see the trucks and the billboards and the stuff all over the place all the time. So I know they're killing it in the San Francisco Bay area.

Yeah, we're building a business that we're proud of. And you know, as you know and all your, you know, people in your network would know that it is not easy to build a business, but you figure out what you're good at and you stay focused on that. I think that, as you said, you're seeing the trucks and the billboards in San Francisco. Good at branding. We're good at finding happy, smiley people. We really play to our strengths and we're building businesses in a fun way. And so it's attracted a group of people, people to us that, that, that want to belong, that they go, you know what? 1, 800, got junk is my home. Or wow, one day is my home. I'd way rather build something bigger and better together than. Than building it alone. And that's what's been super exciting and, and I have to say, unexpected. You know, when I fired those 11 employees, little did I know that we would build something that has thousands of employees across three countries with this culture and this energy that is just contagious.

It's really cool. So what are the other failure stories you can tell us? Clearly you ended up with a success there. But I know there have been other failures along the way. Regale us with some more of your fabulous failure.

Fabulous failures. I love that. I'm going to steal that. So I think one of the most fabulous is, let's see, it would have been right around 2008. So if you think back, that was a terrible, terrible time in the economy. Now we had dropped $40 million in revenue, which as about 100 and some odd million dollar business. That was a lot. Now we didn't lose revenue mostly because of the financial meltdown. We were really in growth mode and we should have had some good momentum there still. But what the real problem was was again, a leadership challenge. I recruited. So I had, I had a fellow. Let me step back for a second. I had a fellow, Cameron Herold, who is known out there really well in the entrepreneurial world. He and I chatted yesterday. He's an awesome buddy of mine and he was my CEO from 2 million to 106 million. And we built something awesome together. We were having a blast. But we were two leaders at the top that were both fire ready AIM types. I mean huge, you know, there goes a squirrel. Two ADD types that were sitting there going, man, like we were making changes way too quickly as the company was getting way too big for our own good. So I had to get Cameron out of the business. And firing someone who you were the best man in their wedding, I mean, that just feels awful. A big failure. But my board, my people, people around, we all knew it was the right thing to do. Cameron would tell you today if he was on your podcast that it was the right thing for both of us, for the company and for both our friendships and so on and his career. It led me then to finding who was going to be the right coo. And I thought I had hit the jackpot. I found someone who through referral was a ex president of a, of a Starbucks division in the United States. 30,000 employees on their team. They moved to Canada, where they were originally from. And so getting out of Seattle was what they were looking for. And I thought, wow, what they're going to do to my little company is going to be phenomenal. I was wrong. And the failure was this. 2008, down 40 million in revenue, 14 months in, I've got to get this person out of my business. Because while we weren't fighting, we just had different perspectives on what the business was about and where it should grow. I think that this person, this Starbucks COO or ex Starbucks didn't see my talents and gifts that I might bring in an add quirky, entrepreneurial way to the business. And so we weren't really contributing together. And I was getting to the point where I was being pushed out of my own business and ultimately had a wake up call and had to get this person out. Now, what was interesting is the leadership team that this person built. My franchise partners, no one was aware of how I felt and what was really going on. And I had to make a really tough decision to go against what everyone else believed. So I had franchise partners saying, brian, you're not just willing to fail here. You're failing. You're making some really dangerous mistakes. We're going to lose the business. And I said, you know what? You got to trust me here. I see something you don't see. We're going to fix this and it's going to take us time and I need your help. And so we ended up, because of the financial meltdown and this mistake, laying off 52 people that year and three tranches, it was painful, it was depressing, it was hard. But you know what? What?

I ended up not just a layoff, but three times. Yeah. Could feel that. And the people feeling like, what's next? Right.

Yeah. I mean, the amount of tears you'd see in the office and it was horrible. It was not the business that I was wanting to be building at that time. So very much in love with the brand and the future of where 1-800-got-JUNK could go. And so I, of course, in that moment of failure, as I always do, not right in the moment, but during that period of failure, I took out a sheet of paper and started thinking, what were the things that could come from this seemingly dark time? What was the. What was the good? What were the possibilities? And I always find that something better does truly come from the failure. So that's where to me, failure is a gift. It's a stepping stone in your journey and your learning. And what the stepping stone was for me is I reflected and I kept asking myself, why did I fail? So like 1994, when I brought in the, you know, got rid of the 11 people, that was my failure. This one was also my failure. I fell in love with the pedigree of Starbucks. I didn't spend enough time in the courtship phase of trying to get this person on board to really know they were the right fit. And I took out a sheet of paper and divided a line down the middle and on one side, I said, what do I love to do? And I'm good at that. This company needs what am I bad at and don't like to do, but the company needs this. And I said, I need someone that is good at those things I'm bad at. And so I created a little painted picture vision. A job description that described who. Not a job description. A description that described who I was looking for in that position and got it out to my networks and started flying all over the country. And I finally found someone that fit perfectly. And it was interesting because three different people I reached out to came back to me saying, the person you described is Eric Church. Not. They didn't give me two names or three names. They only gave me one. And it was because I was so clear on what I was looking for that when I met people who knew that person I described, they told me who he was and where to find him, and the rest is history. He's here. It's been seven years. We've gone from 100 million ish when he came into the business to a current trend for 2019 of 444 million across all brands, almost quadruple. Because I believe we found the right leader for me.

The right fit. Yeah. And the right partner. So pointing to two things just to underscore, one of them is when you're in an adverse situation, you reimagine the future. So how is this the perfect circumstance to create sort of a new setting? So you. You incorporate the present situation and you reimagine then what it could lead to or where you want to go. So it's a blend of getting your current thing and then the, like a painted picture type thing. Right. And then the other thing that I hear in there is how do I figure out what I love to do and what I hate to do? We do this about once a year with themes. You'll hear it called either Love Loathe. And you'll hear. Or you'll hear it called Love Hate. There's a slide I love with this character, Radio Raheem from Do the Right Thing movie. And love and hate are on his big ring fingers. Right. And. And thinking about that, then you can either begin to delegate, automate, or abdicate things away. Or you could hire them. Right. Which is a form of delegation, and hire that person who compliments you instead of trying to be that. I, like you, always wanted to be a better operator. You know what? I'm never going to be that. And now at 54, I can finally say that I'm never going to be a great, great operator. But turn something around, launch something fantastic, right? So figure out who you are and be that, like, way better. And then start to give away all the other things. Hire the people around you, especially if it's your company or you're a leader in a department, even if it's not your company. If simply lead a team or department, start to build it to suit you so that you can be effective or. Or quit. Right.

I think we all get in our own way as entrepreneurs, as leaders, and it's finding someone who's better at doing what you can do than you are. And I think that, you know, the, the whole hiring A players, A players often hire other A players, but B players usually hire C players. You know, it's really. How do you sit there and go, my ego aside, I can hire better people. I can have them perform better than me, because I know that's the smart, right thing. It's getting people to see that. And so bringing in someone like Eric Church, I mean, the guy has been able to light this place up in so many ways. And I try and learn from him in so many ways. And I realize I can't learn that. It's not my DNA. And I don't need to because he's doing it and he's building an amazing team. I need to be the visionary, the culture guy. He needs to be the implementer, the rigor and discipline guy. And it's working for us in a big way.

I hear it. Are there other situational failures to share with folks that you're dying to tell? We're getting the idea of it, but.

You know, I think some of the failure I've struggled with, which, you know, maybe I'll go into the personal side for a second. I. Yeah, I had been stricken from about the age of 19 through to 29 with debilitating panic attacks. I have had depression on and off throughout my life. Now, what can I learn from those failures? You know what? They're still a gift. There's still gratitude in them. It makes us stronger. I wouldn't wish my panic attacks on my worst enemies in the world if I, if I have any, if you're out there, you know, but it's one of those things where I do believe that we learn things for a reason. And it. As long as we can look failure in the eye and say thank you and acknowledge that there's a gift there, it allows us to be a better, stronger leader and human being. And so for me, exercise and diet has become an incredibly important part of my life. From understanding that when I get depressed, I'm no good. When I'm trying to work from bed, you know, or if I can't even do any work in bed, you know, it's one of those things where I think as entrepreneurs, there's not enough people out there being vulnerable, admitting some of the things that, that we as leaders can suffer from. And so I think that's the reason why I chose just a minute ago to go to the personal side is it's okay. We have these things. We, you know, I can't say that depression is a mistake. I can't say that it's a failure, but I feel like one at times. But what it teaches me is just how do I manage that? I'm a human being and life happens. I think that I'm one to, you know, when I do get states of depression, it's over real things. It isn't just, you know, making stuff up. It's. It's generally some life event or, or some stressful thing in the business that I can't get through. Learning to fight through it has been powerful stuff. And learning what works to minimize those things from happening.

That'S really. Talk to me about helping your people learn to fail with grace. And how do you notice that you're as willing to let them do it, or do you put more pressure on them not to fail?

So I would say you've got to walk the talk, right? I mean, when people say I, when they see that I make a mistake and I own it, I think that starts to give permission to others to say, you know what, What Brian and Eric are saying is really true. We're going to make some mistakes. We're going to have some business units fail, departments fail, people fail. We're going to try lots of new stuff. If a leader doesn't work out in our business, and they've really tried, but they've had failure after failure. We might sit down and have a conversation and allow them to have a graceful exit, but nobody's getting fired because they failed a couple of times. Like, this is a. We know people need to learn, and you learn by making mistakes. I've got a lot of skiers in the, in the family, my kids, and, you know, it was amazing watching them ski and fall and cry and, and go, I hate this. It's cold. But they work through the failure. And I talk in my book how I believe that passion follows commitment, not the other way around, as most people think. People often think, you know what? Find something you're Good at. Hey, you know what? I love red wine. I don't want to work in the red wine business. You know, I love eating. I don't want to own a restaurant. Find something you can commit to. An idea like buying a pickup truck and starting to haul junk and making a living, but then realizing, wow, I am really enjoying this gig. Working outdoors and building a team of people and watching things grow and making money. The passion certainly came from the years that I put in, and the passion grows each and every day. I mean, I feel like this is just bearing fruit all day long. But I think that people often think just find the idea. I hear from entrepreneurs all the time who ring me up and say, hey, can we chat about my idea of my business? I want to franchise? Or can we talk about my business idea? And they spend so much time thinking about the idea. And my advice is always find a way to start. Just get that mvp, that minimum viable product out there. Do what Airbnb did. You know, I love when I met Joe Gebbia in San Francisco, one of the four founders. And Joe is telling a story about how he they got out there and they were renting air mattresses. I'm like, oh, what a stupid idea that is. And you know, they're like, yeah, it's wasn't a very good idea, but it got us to the point of iterating the model and getting to the point where they are Airbnb, the largest inventory of hotel rooms on the planet by far.

Yeah, it's really great. We call it the pivot. Right. In the world of techs and startups, that's the place where you're working on one thing and you move into something else. But what you're pointing to is that one thing isn't actually working the way that you want it to, and then you're connecting with something that you love. But in both cases, you're actually in motion. You're learning something.

Yeah. And you know, I love the word pivot. You know, I think if you look at the early days of O2E brands of 1-800-got junk. I mean, pivot after pivot after pivot in terms of people and systems. And we had franchised a student model similar to a college propainers model, and that didn't work and we failed. I think that a pivot is a great thing, but you can't pivot off of nothing. People often come with ideas and they've got all these great business ideas, a new one to start, whatever it is, and they keep Trying to get the idea right, but you can't pivot off of just an idea. I believe it's okay, let's start it. Let's rent air mattresses. Let's pivot from there. You got to have something.

I had a couple tech companies in the past, and somebody asked me once, and we had started the business with a very modest amount. So my earliest attempts to raise a lot of money and a lot of key partners had failed. And I'm like, I know that the idea at core is good here, but not only did we fail to raise a lot of money, we raised a very, very modest amount of money. And then I funded a bunch myself. But we'd been rejected in partnerships by the key brands that we wanted to or were counting on in our business plan to align with. So then I'm like, okay, what are we gonna do? So our first thing was, okay, we're gonna launch independently and focus on independence rather than big brands and do this. It was a SaaS business back in the, in the 90s, which was still a little early for that. And that got a little bit of success. But then we started to realize it wasn't limited to this one category. It had application other category. And people didn't really want to be part of our brand either. Just like the big brands didn't want to be allied with our brand. They just wanted to focus on their own brand. So it became more and more of a pure SaaS play from a portal play. And so then we started. So we essentially had two little pivots and then we just hit breakeven as the market really imploded in 2001. And then I had more some personal decisions to make about being self supporting and stuff. But somebody asked me in the middle of all that, well, what would you have done if you had raised 5 million instead of 250,000?

Right.

And I said, well, I probably would have made the exact same mistakes, but in a more epic fashion.

Right, right.

With like, better offices. So I had done the same mistakes with more people because it was time to evolve the thinking. And I think the value in that was getting that MVP out there, like starting with something and playing with it, getting real learning. Because no matter how brilliant you are or think you are, you'll learn something.

Yeah. What was your first. What was your first podcast like? Have you ever gone back to listen to the first one you ever did?

I have, yeah. So I. The would be really funny to hear is my first radio show. So the first podcast was a couple of Years ago with Bob Bloom, who wrote Inside Advantage. And I did a bunch of them and it was not bad, but it was not as easy and as comfortable and confident as it is today. And also the production, what it takes to get a show together and out there and like all that. I think we did six episodes in the can before we launched and that kind of thing. But my first radio show back when I was 20 was a complete accident. So I'm 54 now. 34 years ago, I was doing some projects. I had a small newspaper, I was doing some photography around the music space. And late one night I was in the recording studio. I forget why I was there. I was like visiting with one of the on air personalities and. Or just hanging out or whatever. I was 20, right. And the next guy didn't show up and I guess it wasn't his first time or that kind of thing. And the other guy had to go. And so the program director, who was also a friend, gets on the phone with me. He's like, bill, Bill, you've been around station, you know the music. You should go in the air tonight. It was like I was both thrilled and terrified all at once because I knew that, like, oh, that sounded really great and I couldn't imagine what would it take. And maybe I'd sort of casually daydreamed about that, but I hadn't really thought about it very seriously. I was just hanging out and. But now I suddenly had to do it and it was awkward, right? Like I like, end a song without having another song ready to go. And I couldn't figure out this and I fumbled this and I. And I spoke and the mic was off and like it was all over the place, right. But then I kept at it. And then pretty soon I had a show and then, you know, I did some nightclub gigs and some private group events and things like that. And then pretty soon I was DJ Bill.

Amazing, amazing.

Now my daughter's friends call me be ill.

And so. Right.

Yeah.

But I mean, you know, you think of 34 years ago, how you've grown and changed. And I think of myself and all the evolutions I've gone through. I mean, thank goodness that we've gotten to enjoy this journey. And it really does, I believe, lead us to a bigger, better place, never letting us.

Well, hope hopefully you get enough working well that you can keep one foot in front of the other. Right? But ultimately, if you don't quit, something's going to turn out. You're going to figure something out.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

As Long as you don't quit, it's something. Well, so I think we got the idea, right? Willing to fail and then walk in the talk with your people, supporting them in failing thoughtfully, failing forward. Sometimes we hear folks say, and you tell just a really compelling story of going from 500,000 through 2 million through 100 million and back down, then back up through 400 and some million now and continuing to grow from that and looking at being willing to try things and to learn from them along the way. That, like arrogance and defensiveness and never helps you or anyone else, but that looking thoughtfully is the thing that I know about you, that that comes through.

Yeah. And it's funny, you know, the arrogance can get in the way. And it. And it has for me. I mean, if I think back to a time where, what year would it have been? It probably would have been about six years into the business. And a friend, a close friend who was employed with me for a while, told me he was going out on his own. He calls me up one day, actually, and said, I've gone out on my own. We were still friends at that point. And he says, are you sitting down? He calls me up. I said, no. He said, you shouldn't sit down. I've just started a company called Trash Busters, and, you know, I'm going to be in competition with you. And I said, I thought we were friends, you know, when are you starting? He said, well, I'm starting today. And it shocked me and it rocked my world. And I got so angry for a couple of years that I did things like tried to intercept business, tried to sway employees of mine as to, you know, why what he did was so evil and how I was so hurt and, you know, tried to interfere with opportunities that he had. And I was so obsessed with the competition that I spent time actually not growing my business while their business was growing. And it's interesting. You can let your ego really get in the way versus just saying, okay, this happens, and how am I gonna stay on my toes and be sharper and better and do a better job? So when I was able to get rid of the. The hurt and the anger and shift it to, okay, this is a positive, this has happened for a good reason, and I am going to get out there and find ways to learn from what they're doing better than us, and I'm also going to figure out how we can be even better than them to just compete on customer experience and compete on building better brands. And it was a scary ride. For five years when they kept doing some interesting things, and they actually started in the United States. States before us. But then again, I look back and I go, when they started in Seattle, I very quickly raced to get our Seattle operation up and running as our first US Operation because I really had that fear of missing out towards type of opportunity. And so, you know, we wouldn't have grown as quickly if I didn't let the competition inspire my fire in a. In a different way.

Yeah. Well, our last business was. Definitely went through a couple of phases. One in particular where it was. There was a competitive move to try to do something against us. And, and it got us. Well, it got my. My wife fired up and, and fighting back about stuff. And then other times where people did stuff and we're like, yeah, we don't care. Yeah, we're not playing that game.

Yeah, you play. You play the long game. Right. And that's. That's the way to win.

All right, so the book is mywtfbook.com we'll put the link, of course, in the show notes. You can go to my wtfbook.com and go find it there, or you can just go to Amazon and find WTF Book Willing to Fail Book and Brian Scudamore and get him there. Of course, we'll put a link to O2E brands as well, if people want to know and understand about your franchise opportunities, because they can hear that working with you is fun and cool just from the podcast. So I thank you so much for being on that. I look forward to bumping into you in one of the conferences or something again soon. Are you going to Atlanta by any chance?

I am not going to Atlanta, but I do need to get to one of the upcoming summits for sure because I end up learning so much and I know you.

Anaheim is after Atlanta on the West Coast. This probably come out just after Atlanta right about the. The time that's happening. I don't know when the schedule is, so people will be hearing it right about then. And then, of course, after that is the Anaheim Summit. If you haven't been to one of our summits before, we have just a ton of great entrepreneurs and speakers sharing stories of how people build companies and all the mistakes and the things that they've learned along the way to growing companies through hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars. And it's just a great, inspiring mix of stuff for a couple days. You can go to scalingup.com and register there. And if you're not working with a coach, you could just list me as your coach and just let me know. Yeah that you did that and you'll get a discount on the thing. If you're working with a coach, then just indicate them you'll get a discount on the registration for the summit.

So I definitely have been to several over the years but I've gotten so busy with some other things that that's where I've pulled back. But it is going to be time soon to get to another one for sure. So awesome.

All right, it's time to close this show. Reminder to everyone, we're back here every week with a new topic, new whatever, so subscribe. Share it wherever you get your podcast from. You can of course go also and find our back catalog@scalingcoach.com along with free downloads of our tools and worksheets. We'll even give you the book for free, the Scaling Up Book if you just pay for the shipping handling. Scaling coach.com thanks again Brian. Talk to everyone. Next.

Thanks so much Bill, as always.

Special thanks to the original growth guru Vern Harnish for being the inspiration and behind our shows. The show is produced by Crystal Carson. Audio production is done at Podfly Productions and audio editing is done by Albert Burge. Our show notes are compiled by An Kudina and proofread by Tim McGowan. If you got any value out of our show today, please share it. Pass it along to somebody else. Let us know the parts that you love. Drop us a line. Drop us a message to info@scalingcoach.com of course you can find us in all our back episodes@scalingcoach.com we've got regular public workshops, we've got our Scaling Up Summits, we've got free downloads of the tools, we've got a free book offer there. So lots of stuff for you@scalingcoach.com thanks again for listening. Keep Scaling Up. Are you ready to turn your goals into daily wins? You should check out our Scoreboard software. Powered by Alignment, it's the official software for Scaling up. With Scoreboard, you'll get an AI driven coach for priorities and KPIs and it'll help keep your team focused on what matters most. With Align, you can track your goals in real time and you'll even see results on the go. With their mobile app, you can rest easy knowing that Align has world class onboarding and support to set your team up for success. This is really more than just software, it's what I actually use to manage growth in our Scaling up client teams unlock clarity and results with Scoreboard by aligned to try it now. Go to aligntoday. Com Bill G One more time. Aligntoday. Com Bill G. That's aligntoday. Com Billg. Check it out and try it now.