Mark Rickmeier - CEO of TXI, Founder of Walkshop

Welcome to another CEO Wisdom Podcast. We have Mark Rickmeyer with us today. Mark is CEO at TXI, builds intelligent systems that unlocks your data, reduces risk, and empowers your teams. He's founder at a couple of other companies, Kermit Collective and Walkshop, I guess the main ones. So Mark, happy to have you on the pod. Tell us a bit more about yourself and what you're building here.

Sure. Well, thanks for having me. My name is Mark. As you said, I'm the CEO at a company called TXI. which stands for technology, experience, like user experience, innovation. Those are the 3 things we care about and talk about the most. So we build AI workflows for industrial companies, and a lot of those folks aren't, you know, haven't really thought about ways of unlocking their data to be able to automate and improve things. So it's neat to be able to see how much value we can create relatively quickly in industries like that. So part of my brain focuses on the technology side, and then the other half is actually doing something that's incredibly analog and very different from all that. So once a year, I try to get together with other leaders from around the world and do something totally away from technology and getting some time together to talk about where we're going, think about professional development, and we go on these long-distance hikes together, which is an interesting— another way of thinking about growth. So I try to get— like this year, I'm taking 14 people to southern Argentina to go to Patagonia. We're gonna have a go hiking through Patagonia together for a week. So interesting, left brain, right brain. A lot of what I do is technology-driven, and then occasionally I'm out in the woods hiking with other leaders trying to learn about something about where my career is going and be able to pick their brains about what, you know, what might come next for, for myself and from them.

I love that. Um, yeah, the workshop I think is the most interesting for sure, but let's start with TXI, right? Like, you started, uh, That company, what, 15 years ago? So that was in 2010. How did that happen?

Well, the company actually started 20— I joined then, but the company started 25 years ago. So the company started a long time ago. I joined in initially as the COO, helping to kind of grow and scale the business. And after maybe about 5 years in that role, the founder, who had been growing up at that point, I think realized There's a stage where you're the right CEO for the right time. And I think at that point he realized he was a very strong zero-to-one person, loved starting things, loved being entrepreneurial. But when we started growing and scaling, I got a lot more interested and he was getting interested in going back to his more entrepreneurial roots. So that's when he actually said, how about you make the leap from COO to CEO, which I've been doing for almost 10 years now. And so I then went from that kind of scale the business to actually helping to provide a vision and grow the business.

And how did that company get started initially? What are you guys doing specifically? What's the thesis?

So the idea was at the time, it was really— you have to think back to what, you know, the— when you think back to the late, you know, 2000s, there was like about 1999, 2000 era, technology was really exciting but wasn't terribly well understood. And so DXi started really as almost like a CTO service for hire, providing advice on how do you build a technology roadmap, how do you want to be thinking about leveraging software. So we've always been in that kind of custom software space, but early on it was really, it was really an advisory company trying to provide insight on should you buy versus build, and if you are going to build, what languages, what frameworks, how do you think about, you know, building a technology roadmap. And the, the early tagline back then was trust is harder to build than technology, because the coding part wasn't the difficult part. It was knowing how to approach it and what the right thing was to do. What we found was that nothing trusts— nothing zaps trust higher than saying, here's what we think you should do, and then they'd ask for help saying, great, we have a strategy, can you help us do it? And we would say, no, you know, we're just ideas people, go hire developers for that. So we said, let's actually do the things we're advocating for. Let's actually start helping our clients. putting these things into practice. So we hired engineers and started hiring designers and started building out the applications and building the custom software that we were advocating for. So at the core, it's always been a strategy company trying to provide some advice. Where it's evolved over time is the building out the team to be able to do more of the things that we think will drive change. And so that's where you see the growth beyond the strategy group of an engineering group and a design group and a good strong— agile project management group that can really drive and lead product.

And what's the scale of the company now in terms of employees, clients? Tell me a bit more.

Uh, so we work mostly, it's, uh, in the US. We have a small team in Canada. We've got a small team in South America. Um, we're around, if you look at all the employees and contractors, around like 60 or so. Um, and we work in a couple of key domains. So generally speaking, I would say industrial companies that either make, move, or maintain things. So on the make side, you get a lot of involvement in manufacturing. On the move, this is where you get into supply chain, transportation, logistics companies. And then maintain, so people who have a lot of like operational maintenance operations or repair yards, things like that. So like one of the areas we're working in is in the rail industry, helping people who are doing rail car maintenance and like walking around a rail yard. So Chicago is where we're headquartered, and you see a lot of those, you know, blue-collar industrial companies. I mean, we work a lot in those areas. We also do some work in pharma, in the kind of biopharma medical area, and have a fair amount of work in the kind of healthcare space. So those are the primary domains that we're working in. And most, most people, I think, are— maybe 2/3 are Chicago-based. But as I said, we have people that have been now moved around the US, and ever since COVID we've been very remote-friendly. So, you know, having people who have set up shop in Canada or South America, all time zone aligned, so it works very well.

And how do people find you?

Me personally or the company?

Both.

Um, well, in the, in the company, I think we've been involved heavily in community work. So you'll see us going to manufacturing conferences and showing up in, you know, rail conferences and rail community things like that. Having been— when you're in business for 25 years, thankfully the brand, people have heard of TXI or worked with us before, so we get a lot from referrals. But I think a couple years ago we made a pretty intentional shift. When we go to conferences, we stopped going to like software development conferences as much and go more where our clients are likely to be. So you're much more likely to see us at an industrial conference, for example, and engaging in that community than you would at like a Ruby on Rails conference. And then myself, I think through a variety of either community engagements or I'm, you know, probably more active than most on LinkedIn, so I connect with people that way. But it's been— I find actually there's a nice overlap between the work we do on the technology side and some of the work that I do as I'm out coaching and hiking around the world that I've now made an entire career of meeting the right people at the wrong time. So you meet someone, you build a relationship, and then 3 or 4 years later, you find out that there's a reason to do some work together.

Yeah, I love the workshop funnel. We're going to discuss about it a bit later, but to just finish off on TXI, why should people hire you? You're an agency, right? You diagnose data problems, you fix these pipelines. Data is the new gold, right? Like, that's the thesis. There's a bunch of agencies doing that. Why should they pick you?

I think a couple reasons. One, rarely will you find in kind of one area a group that work across multiple different areas together. So we have a strategy practice to really help figure out what should be done, what's the right problem to solve. We have a very strong engineering design practice. And what's nice about this, you don't have to hire multiple different groups. You know, sometimes you see someone like, okay, first thing to figure out what the roadmap should be, and I'm going to bring in a strategy consulting firm, and then I'm going to bring in an engineering firm to help me to try to create the thing, and then I'm gonna go try to find a designer who's gonna come help me work on the experience. And having a small team that can work across all these disciplines is rare and unique. Secondly though, I think the domain expertise, working really closely in these industries when we're jumping into a new project, chances are we've seen and done things like that because we've been so deep in these industries before. And I think the most interesting thing about that is the way we first start. And so rather than coming in saying, here's what you should do, we like to spend time walking around the operations, the manufacturing floor, the rail yard, things like that. And we call it an edge finder, where basically we're looking for some kind of competitive edge we can recommend to this company. And if we can't find $3 million of some benefit, some operational savings or improvement we can make, we do the assessment for free. So like that level of Being able to bring ideas and experience to the table has helped quite a bit finding that competitive edge for folks.

Right. I see you have a podcast as well, right? Is that driving business?

It's been good for us to be able to get ideas out there so people can learn more. So it's called The MIX, which stands for the Modern Industrialist Exchange, but it's exchanging of ideas around these industrial companies that are looking for a new way of working. And so for us, it's been a fun way of being able to go in, talk about what's working in an organization, and then kind of spread that throughout the community. So we have the podcast, but we also do a series of mixed events where you bring these industrial companies together to talk shop and connect ideas. I'm a big believer of community, and so getting ideas to spread amongst the community is really valuable.

I love it. What about the events? How are these events different? How do they attract your ideal customer persona?

So sometimes we do it where we have like a speaker we're bringing in so we can all learn from them. But some of the better events actually are more, you pose a question to the community and have people when they're there all trying to answer the same question. So you've got people from manufacturing, from supply chain, from transportation, and we're all thinking around different lines of a similar topic, but it's good to get some insight. So we were talking most recently about the connected worker experience and how people are changing what the employee experience looks like to give their frontline workers better access to tools and to data to do their jobs better. You know, those are things that affect multiple different companies as we start thinking about the impact AI and automation has on the employee experience. So it's been nice to be able to get people from across industries to talk about what they're trying, what they're doing, what's working, what's not working. And so as much as we've done events that are around, let's bring in the speaker and all learn from them, actually the ones I enjoy better are like, you're like, here's a question or a problem statement, now in small groups all talk amongst yourselves. And I think that's a better way of getting ideas kind of spread throughout the community.

Yeah, I love that. And where are these events?

Mostly Chicago. That's where we're headquartered, so that's where we have relationships with local universities, and sometimes we get them to weigh in on what they're studying or what their professors are engaging in research around. But it's also where you see a lot of people will come into Chicago for various different events, and so we'll kind of piggyback on an existing conference and say, here's a dinner afterward that we're going to get together and talk about that. But almost always in person, because it's nice, frankly, to get face-to-face again. So we try to, whenever we're doing those kinds of things, we try whenever possible to do them as an in-person exchange.

Interesting. Then tell me a bit more about the thesis behind Walkshop. That was in 2019, so we're right before COVID right? Which was an interesting timing.

Yeah.

You were already running TXI 16. Successfully? What prompted that idea?

Well, as we've talked about on that journey, so my founder was the, was the CEO of TXI, which was a growing and thriving business at that point. And then he said, I think you should be the CEO, which kind of frankly caught me off guard. It wasn't something that I was thinking about. I was joining to really help him grow and scale his vision. And so the very first time that I had that opportunity to step into that role in the C-suite, I didn't have a lot of good role models. Like, most CEOs I saw were highly anxious, overworked, often divorced. Like, there weren't a lot of great, happy CEOs I was talking to. And so before I said yes to this, I said, you know what, give me, give me a minute to think about what you're offering. Took a week away from me being a father with my little kids and a week away from work just to think about this role. And I invited a bunch of other, you know, leader types I had wanted to learn from and said, I'm gonna go— in this case, it was to Scotland in 2017— I'm gonna go for this long hike to think about this opportunity. I've got a great trail mapped out, whereas I'm gonna go for a walk, I'll end up at a bed and breakfast, and I have a service that's gonna deliver all my bags for me. So when I get there, all my bags will be waiting, so I don't have to carry like a big pack. I'm just gonna go for a walk in the woods, and gosh, I'd love it if you could come. I could pick your brain about this role. Should I take it? Should I not? What's— what am I gonna get, you know, into if I take— if I say yes? And, you know, amazingly, all of them said yes. So we had 5 men, 5 women go to Scotland for this walk to talk about what it is to be an executive in a company like that. And when I came back, and honestly, I don't know, the things I thought we would talk about were going to be how much of a percentage of revenue do I put into sales and marketing and things like that. And everyone's like, yeah, no, no, no, no, no. How do you handle stress? How do you take feedback? How do you generally process anxiety? Like, it was like personal things we were talking about. And when we came back, everyone was writing about this unique ability to be out in the woods for 5 days learning from each other. And I was writing about it on LinkedIn, and I started getting these questions of like, when's the next one? That sounds amazing. And I had to tell people, I'm like, what, what next one? Like, I said yes, I've got a company to run now. Like, I got a whole job to do. But I kept getting questions. And so then once a year I would organize the thing. So yeah, I was the genius that started a travel company in 2020. That worked out brilliantly. But eventually it did come back, which is nice. The world opened up again.

Yeah, I love it. I just came back from a mastermind last week and it was like a first official experience. We've been wanting to bring back physical in a digital world. I already scaled the podcast system through great heights. It's paying very good money for me and my clients, but I still want to accelerate trust physically and Yeah, I have so many pieces of feedback as a first official edition. I've done like these masterminds between partners, but this time we invited clients and prospects and—

Oh, nice.

We were 10. So I'm still like processing all of that. It was 7 days in Oaxaca, 3 days in the mountain, 4 days at the beach, right? And it was pretty interesting, the pieces of feedback that I got from different stakeholders. Partners were generally really happy. Clients and prospects were less. It's like, and it's like, oh, bring the right people in the room, right? Like filtering for these people, filtering a bit more, charging for it because it was free for everyone that time, getting them accountable, right? And think like some environments were great for business. I wanted to give people more space for business. So I planned activities, but I didn't plan business stuff, which was an interesting thesis. I'm curious what you think about that one, because my goal is like, oh, it's gonna give them space to think. And there was some conversations, but I also had the feedback like, I wish we would have done more business and this would have been more structured, right?

Yeah, I buy that. I think so. The first time I started doing this, I didn't have as much of a structure to it, and now I do. Every time I bring people together, there is a very specific purpose or discussion. So when we're doing this, people who come to these things with me are generally, generally speaking, going through some kind of transition. Like, there's a reason why you want to go offline for 5 days with other folks. It's because you're thinking about a change in your role or your career, and you're looking to get some kind of input or guidance. But there is a very specific theme. So every time we get together, there is a book we're gonna be diving into that we can have that guides the entire thread of the conversation. And so It's always nice when that theme ties to the geographic area as well. So when we were in Japan, for example, we were talking about the concept of ikigai, which is the Japanese philosophy around finding purpose and passion in your life. When we were going through the Swiss Alps, we talked about the StrengthsFinder assessment and how people lean into using their strengths as leaders. So every time we get together, there's going to be a theme that, that we'll dive into, and I find that That has helped people understand whether they should come or not. There's a purpose for this trip. There's a thing we're gonna be learning about. I've also found, by the way, that everyone who thinks they're ready to go on this isn't really ready. Like, you don't realize how hard it is to walk or hike for 5 straight days. The first couple times we found people were hitchhiking, like, they'd already break down. They're like, I can't, I can't do it anymore, even though we don't even have a bag. You're not even carrying a pack, but they'd still break down and hitchhike. So now what we do is 2 days of hiking, 1 day off, and then 2 days of hiking. And that 1 day off, we really get into like long conversations about professional development and our leadership growth. But I think people who—

I had that insight as well. Like some people didn't even wanna step on an electric bike and go mountain biking, you know, an electric bike for an hour.

Yeah, where it does most of the work. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah. It's just like, and some people would quit on some activities while they pre-committed to it, right? And then came the question, do I want to get myself in that business? Right? Because I'm an ultra runner, I'm a super high performer, and I don't understand like normal people. Right? So it's like probably some tweaks, some tweaks around it for sure. Probably hire someone to manage it. Right? Because I'm not a hand holder. You know? To me, it's like, hey, you jump in the cold water with me or you don't. You get out. You know? It's like. And I don't have patience, and I'm not like, um, I don't have a nurturer type of personality. What do you have to say about these things? Should I just hire someone to run it, or—

Well, I think a couple things. Like, I found it's really important for me to set expectations that the part of this is to push yourself to do something that's a bit challenging and rely on the group to do it. But invariably, there are reasons why people are like, I'm not, I can't do it today. So you have to find a way to like accommodate those who are pushing themselves, but it's beyond their their physical limit. In this case, the whole point of this is to get away from the typical day-to-day experience. So I have found people tend to bond better and they get to know each other better when they are walking and accomplishing something together, as opposed to sitting behind a desk or on Zoom. But even so, even when you prepare, there's still— it's still a physical activity that can be pretty daunting, especially when I'm talking about Patagonia or the Alps. Like, these are not easy places to go for a hike. So we found it good to have that day off, but also you have to accommodate for the fact that some people will just realize they've, you know, they're punching above their weight. It's going to be harder than they want. But we try to be very upfront about it and be like, this is not going to be easy. Like, the whole point of it is that it's not that easy, and you're going to push yourself to accomplish something, and you need to rely on each other to get it done. But it's hard because when, I mean, you were much more an athlete than I am. So like, for me, I'm like, I have sympathy for people that can't quite pull it off, but I also help them kind of prepare the fact that they can get it.

Yeah.

They can do it if they want. Just requires some effort and some training.

The human spirit is capable of pushing the body to 10x what we think, right? It's just that most people haven't got that insight yet, right? I mean, I target CEOs and founders as well, so I would expect these guys to know, but I've also got the feedback in the last years that most CEOs and founders aren't CEOs and founders, or the ones that I think are like super high performer, I don't know, the Travis Kalanick type of, founder, right? Like, most of them just are okay with running a lifestyle business and not pushing their limits too much. I think that's something I need to come, uh, to, to peace with. But yeah, and, uh, what do you do in these scenarios when someone just breaks down? Like, what's your, what's your process for that?

Well, so it's interesting, when we had, um, because we were, we were hiking through the Alps, it was rough, it rained For 4 of the 5 days. It was not a pleasant experience. And it was interesting, that was the time that we were really leaning into this idea of StrengthsFinder. So it was interesting when you're met with that much adversity where it's, it's cold, you're wet, you've got 6 more hours of hiking in front of you, your feet hurt. It's just not a pleasant experience. And so what's interesting is people started using their natural strengths without even realizing it. So the person who had a very, very high empathy score always made sure that the person who was slowest was never walking by themselves. The person who had a really high Activator score was the one who was like always making sure they knew exactly when the next bus would be coming around. So if they ever needed to get off and they needed to stop walking, people would know when they could make a break for a shuttle that would get them, you know, most of the way home. And it was fun in those moments. I was able to pull people aside and tell them like, you're using your strengths right now. You might not realize it, but you're falling back on your core strengths. This is just how you show up when you're met with difficulty. And people start really learning, learn to trust their natural leadership strengths. For us, we found that when you're there and you're really struggling with something, that's when the community, generally speaking, takes care of its own and helps people to get there. And so it was nice when people were— and I actually, several times, I was the one at the back of the pack struggling because it was hard and wet and gross. And people made sure I had, you know, someone was at my side making sure there was someone to help me kind of figure out how to get to the top. And there's nothing like that sense of accomplishment when you do pull off something like that and you look back at the map and you realize you just hiked across Switzerland. You know, that's incredible. Um, but you need this.

It's filtering again, right? Uh, that's something I didn't filter for. I thought most people would show up with grit, right, for simple stuff like that. But it's like filtering for their grits. Like, yeah, what— I was very much caught off guard by that. Um, what do you think? I mean, I'm in Mexico, right? Uh, Pico de Orizaba is like the highest mountain. Uh, It's very hard. I don't think we can even speak. I mean, I could speak, but like most people with no cardio couldn't speak to go up there. Is that a good bonding activity, even if you don't speak for like 7 hours?

I mean, yeah, probably not. I mean, I, I like finding something that's a little bit more achievable than that. But I mean, even so, we have found that like when the trail is really wide, you've got a good group conversation. Sometimes the trail gets really narrow and you kind of pair up more one-on-one. And then sometimes you're like, I just need to focus. I can't, I can't talk right now. I'm running out of steam or running out of breath. So we always try to cultivate some group time in the mornings and then reflection and conversation in the evenings, because there are times when you're on the trail where it just doesn't lend itself towards group dialogue, which is totally fine. But that's why we try to, you know, plan around that. The challenge, of course, is when you're outside, Mother Nature has her own ideas, right? Sometimes it rains, sometimes it pours. Like, you Facilitation outdoors is its own unique challenge, and so you gotta, you gotta cater for that somehow.

Yeah, another good one for you is like, uh, Ultra Mont Blanc, right? Ultra Mont Blanc is like a nice trail to run and to stop at hostels and cabins. That would be a good one to do next for your CLs. It goes through France, Italy, and Switzerland. Have you heard about that one?

I know it. It books up really fast. You gotta plan for that almost like 2 years in advance. Yeah, that one is— it's on my bucket list for sure. I love the idea of starting off in France and ending the day in Italy and the next day being in Switzerland. Like, that idea would be really fun.

Yeah, it's ultra trails, not ultra, right? It's, um, or yeah, it's Mont Blanc itself. It's not ultra.

The Mont Blanc hike.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mont Blanc. There you go. Um, is there something to be said as well to not talk but just to observe and/or accomplish very hard shit together? Isn't there more value than talking for 8 hours? There is value with talking to people. Sometimes when it's cardio, you even forget you're running, right? It's cool. But also, isn't there value like in silence and just suffering solo and accomplishing something in group? And after that, remember your full life, like, hey, we've done that.

I think there's a lot to be gained by having the time and space just to think and to reflect. Uh, Doing something when you're also accomplishing something physical is nice, but this is— I found myself open to new ideas when I am moving, when I'm walking, I'm open to different ideas than when I'm very sedentary and sitting. And I find that I'm more open to reflect when I'm outdoors and in nature than I'm, again, when I'm bouncing between emails or on Slack or something. So I do think it's nice when there's both time to engage in conversation and time to reflect. And I think if you can do that when your body is physically moving, you will have different ideas than you will when you're sitting and typing all day. So I think just as a break from the routine, I have found this to be a really productive way to change and pursue my own career. But as you say, you meet people and you bond differently when you do these kinds of things. And so I have found that the community around Walkshop has been really strong. I've got people from— I mean, this year in Argentina, we've got people to go to Patagonia from Spain, Switzerland, France, US, UK, Uruguay, Argentina, and Costa Rica all coming together. They never would have met otherwise, and they're all going to go on this experience to learn from each other about a different aspect of leadership. That's an incredible gift, and they'll bond in a way that they would not over a Zoom call.

I love it. Sign me up if you have like a CEO or founder one. Where can people find out more about you, Mark?

So as I said, I'm on LinkedIn. We'll talk a lot about these kinds of things. For TXI, it's pretty easy to find, just TXI.com. That's what we talk a lot about. how we're leveraging data and AI to change business. And then on the Walkshop side, you can go to walkshop.io. We're actually just planning the next year's experience. We're going to flip the script going from south, south, south Argentina, like Patagonia area, to go other end of the planet, north, north, north Sweden. We're gonna go see the Northern Lights and go for a long-distance hike in the middle of nowhere in the Swedish Lapland. That'll be— that'll be a challenge. So that'll be fun. I'm looking forward to that. That'll be next year's.

Go, Mark and Charles, for another CEO wisdom.