Lunch & Learn - Session 15

Foreign. Well, hello everyone. Tom Powell with the Founder's office and our lunch and learn. Joining me today is Candice Powell and Jackie Kuiper, also from our Founder's office. And imagine it's 3am in the morning and most of the founders in the world don't have to actually imagine this because it's something that we live with often. But it's 3am in the morning and you're thinking about the end of the world, at least your world, because so many of us have that company as our own heart and soul is going to potentially have to go into bankruptcy the next morning because you're just not sure the world has collapsed around you and you go just a short period of time together. And by the way, it's you and your spouse which so often happens and it's something we describe as the founders isolation paradox. Well, I'm unbelievably pleased to have join us today. Ivan and Mariana. Polish. I'm not gonna say it right, I get it. Close. Polish. Polish. Very close. So you guys aren't just founders, you're founders that have a successful exit. And when 80% of the founders don't have successful exits because as I think as we were pre talking about this, they end up having exits on others terms, not on their terms. So you guys were able to have an exit. And it's an unbelievable process. And not only is it about your story, but you help help other founders. You have a brand new book out that's talking through that pathway and also where you guys are implementing your thing. I'm so excited to have you both on here. And you're in Europe right now, right?

Yes, we are in Europe. Great to be with you. This is the kind of conversation we love and we are, you know, we love what you're doing, helping people go through these stages and transitions. It's not an easy process. And having someone like you in your, in their corner is a huge, huge help.

Wow. We appreciate that. And it is, it is something that we have come into in our own growth stages of saying where is it that we can make the maximum impact? And it's getting them through there. And it's so many players that we bring into that puzzle because it's usually we, you know, it's getting the founders ready to be ready for an exit because like you guys right now you said you're on a farm, you're having some relaxation, but of course you've already started another business which we'll have to talk about. You wrote a book which we'll have to talk about. So but do you mind going back? I think Candace asked that question. Can ask the question again how you were talking about being a spouse.

Yeah.

Founder together, team in there.

Yeah. So I think a lot of people can relate and the thing I relate to my, my spouse and I have started and sold businesses. Some have been great, some have been not great, less than ideal. And so the first thing that I, when I started and I didn't. I haven't had the chance to, to meet you guys yet but I was researching you guys for this lunch and learn and I thought wow, this is such a great perspective from the relationship side of things that I think so many of our founders can relate to. Whether your spouse is in the business or not. Like whether you've, you've done the business together or you're kind of keeping it siloed. There's almost no silo of it when you are in a relationship. Right. And so I just want to ask you guys to like start off if you could give that little teaser from, from your book and talk a little bit about that and to any of our founders listening today or on the recording, I think some of them will relate to this experience.

And just a question on that. So I think there is, there's as much almost of a silo because you're actually not in the silo together because you can't understand what your spouse is thinking. Even as they're laying there, even as you're talking to each other, you still don't know what's going on inside their head. You're trying to, to figure that out. So I don't know. I. Ivan, Mariana, what are your guys thoughts on this?

Yes, well, the, the opening story of the book is at 3am Moment when I am looking at the ceiling and I'm. I'm trying to figure, looking at those same seven spots on the ceiling, trying to solve a puzzle that's unsolvable. Trying to go over the numbers again, trying to see how long, how much oxygen do we have. Trying to solve something that just isn't, isn't getting solved. This was during the 2008 financial collapse. Our whole industry was in shock. There were no orders. There was, it was, it was a really dark time. We went from 527,000 of revenue down to 37,000 of revenue. 97% drop from one month to the next one month.

That's one month's revenue for everybody. To put that in perspective, that's one month's revenue of which you have all the overhead, buildings, employees, debt, everything that goes on, they're paying yourselves, your houses. Because of course, you got to be able to do that, right? I mean, the pain of that is crazy.

It was really, really, really no way, no way out kind of situation. Many businesses in our space didn't make it. It was really, really dark. And what really made a huge difference for us is an experienced group of advisors that really supported us at that time because we've never been in such a crisis like that. So, you know, I was. I was doing that thing up in the ceiling and Mariana would turn over and see me staring at the ceiling again. And, you know, what was going on. 301.

Well, I'm. I'm. I'm an action girl and a very direct person and I can't stand my. When somebody around me is in pain and I can't help. And I want to know the details. I want to know what is going on. I mean, I have an idea. We're already in business. I have an idea. My department, my realm is different, but it is also connected to what is happening. And seeing your spouse and your partner suffer is never an easy thing to go through and especially if you not fully aware. And that's why some relationships are, you know, get broken and suffer because you want to help and you're there, but you don't know that because they're not sharing. And some of the reasons why they're not sharing is because they don't want to bother their spouse. They also, you know, there's too much uncertainty. They don't know how the spouse is going to take it, you know, and things like that. So, you know, luckily we liked each other and we still like each other, so we can, you know, share stuff. That is hard to hear.

Well, you know, as a, as a man, when you kind of got all the eggs in that one basket and you've. You've actually put the whole family at risk because you, you've leveraged everything in this direction and now it's not going well. It doesn't matter that it's not going well. Not because of your fault. It's just not going well. And it's enough if I'm freaking out, but if I gonna get her to freak out too. I mean, I just. It's not a kind of thing.

It's.

It's a. It's a really tight spot. But this one, this one is not taking no for an answer. So she.

I don't stay in the car. You know, like in movies, when they Say stay in the car. I don't stay in the car. No, I go same.

I. Yeah, I get that.

Yeah.

So she. She sat me down the following day, and then we had to have a come to Jesus moment.

What's going on?

You mentioned that you were relied on advisors. Did you have those advisors in place already or did you have a conversation and then go say, okay, who do we go find to support us?

We were really, really lucky. I made a. I made a really good decision to join.

Oh, we just lost them. I bet they'll jump back on.

All right, well, I gotta tell you, for, for our founders out there right now until they come back on. So they had, you know, just. This is an unbelievable conversation. And we were introduced through another friend. But if you and Angela, I don't know if you've got their book ready to go on a QR code, but we can pop that up and you can go get their book on. I think it's on audible now. It's definitely on Kindle and it's definitely on a hardback book that you can order through variety of different places at this point. But I got introduced to them because of the work that we're doing, and a good friend, Charles Birds, had made an introduction. And for those of you that don't know Charles, I got to tell you, he's probably one of the best connectors there are. Is in the world. And he's just phenomenal. And he said, you guys really need to meet because these are the people that you're helping. And they have a consulting coaching business that has taken the lessons they've learned and from the advisors that they had in past years and be able to get that done. And so Ivan and Mariana, we had the conversation, this was probably sometime early last year and have watched them and participated as they were reading the book. I got an early pre release on the book and was reading the chapters as they were producing them out there. So I had an opportunity to share those conversations as we're waiting for them. Jackie, how often do we hear people that are at the edge, they wait too long to call us in? How often is that?

I would say it's close to a hundred percent, unfortunately. And that's the nature of it, right? It is you. And that's. I. I'm that way. When things are going swimmingly, I'm good. Like, I'm just gonna keep trucking along. It's. It's very. You have to be very intentional to what I would say, like, hope for the best, but plan for the worst. And if you make the plan for the worst and you're covered, then you can go back to just, like, enjoying when things are going swimmingly. And I think there's a lot of. There's a mentality that we hope and think it may not happen to us. We hear the horror stories, we know better, we just don't always do better. And so it's, it's very much human nature to react. And people call us when something has happened, something bad, something scary, something like they're on the edge, they're staring at the ceiling. Although, if, if we can nudge people to get with us sooner than that point in time, there's. What's your fit? You're. You're saying, Tom, about the tree. Best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. Second best time is today.

Yeah, no, it really is. It's always the scenario of, I mean, we're even talking to somebody right now about, you know, a capital raise and such, and they're like, oh, gosh, we just don't know. We're going to wait a little bit longer and then what ends up happening even in that scenario? Candace, what happens when they're like, oh, no, we don't quite need you now yet. I mean, shut up.

Yeah. I think people tend to call us too late. I think of the people who are. A lot of times we get called in mid, mid growth, right? Like, they're in the middle of a capital raise, they're in the middle of a strategic partnership. They're in the middle of potentially an exit or they just got an offer on their business. And all of these things are like, they're. We're. We are limited, and they are limited on what they can do, the value they can get, and, and pathways for them to proceed. Every single time we get on a call, I'm like, gosh, I wish they had called us three years ago.

Well, we had this even one year ago, even, even six months ago, at times implemented what we were saying. So it is interesting because. Let's talk about the due diligence, which hopefully they're able to get back on. I know we're having a challenge on their connection side. They're out on a farm and so they're enjoying their lives and I appreciate that they're coming. You know, they will get back on. Otherwise, we'll continue on this pathway.

Where are you calling in from today, sir?

I am on a farm as well.

Are you a little farm with skis?

Yeah, it's. It's a Little ski resort up in Truckee, California, at Lake Tahoe called North Star. It's a just, you know, it's just an old little sawmill. So. Enjoying that out here.

Was it actually a former sawmill, Tom?

Yeah, that's why it's. Yeah, that's, that's even our logo.

That's so cool. I didn't know it was a repurposed sawmill. That's some cool history.

Now owned by Vale. Just think of their, their business trajectory.

Well, you know, at some point we should probably have Rob Katz on here, who is the, the person that took Vail from essentially bankruptcy through to being the most powerful behemoth in the world as far as the ski industry, good or bad or whichever way you look at it. But yes, as a former Vail employee, I'd be glad to chat with that through Apollo. Nonetheless, what ends up happening is, is, is even if you're able to secure there, let's say. So we're chatting with somebody and they're like, you know, my revenue is at $20 million. And they're like, hey, we love the space. We love what you're doing. And they make an offer based off of just that back of the napkin. Not unusual that we would even do that, right, Candace? And we'd be like, oh, okay, fundamentals. You're talking to people and then you get into. And they call. You know, in the churning world, we have people that say, oh, this is private equity being jerks. It's not private equity being jerks. It's about that the house doesn't have a good foundation. So you go to buy the house and it's a million dollar house and you find out that you're going to have to put a million and a half into it to actually bring it up. The code, right? So it's no longer a million dollar house. It's a negative half million dollar house. And by the way, for many of the founders and I think if we get them back on, they'll talk about this, that the scenario that they have is the business was almost worth nothing without the founder actually staying in there. Which when that happens, you don't have a business value. What you have is you're going to get paid a retention check like a professional baseball player. But you're going to have to perform, and if you don't perform, you don't get the rest of the money. Right. Hi, guys. Hey.

Sorry about that. I was just texting our Internet guy. I was like, what is happening?

Perfect. It's not like we don't have these things, and we're all founders, so this is great. We all.

Who remembers where we left off?

Yes. I remember you asked about the advisory board.

Yeah.

And so thank you.

Mariana and I, both trainers for Tony Robbins, and that's where we met Keith Cunningham. So we joined the Keith Cunningham board of directors program, which is kind of peer advisory situation. And in our first year of that experience, we almost went bankrupt. So, you know, not. Keith Cunningham was a huge help in that regard because he pretty much said, you only have two months of Runway. You will be bankrupt in two months. And if you want to give yourself a chance, you're gonna have to do something drastic here, and you're gonna have to cut into the muscle and fat muscle and probably some bone. So what we did is we did what we had to do. It was. It was excruciating, but we. We made really deep cuts, and we. We let go of 75% of staff. It was. It was really, really rough. And that gave us nine months of. Nine months of oxygen. And in month seven, we were able to get some traction in the customer. That gave us life. And so it was a really. We had to go in deep in the tank. And the people that stayed behind, we were preparing and working and organizing for the work we didn't have.

Right.

That. That eventually came.

What industry were you in? Just so the audience understands, when you say you Let go of 75%, what industry were you in?

We were cutting metal to less than a hair's tolerance. We made the parts for the commercial airliners and military applications. So when people. Right now there's millions of parts in the sky carrying people through the air over hours. So that's the kind of really precision and stress that we were under. And we had a 247 operation, meaning every morning you woke up, something happened overnight that was not good.

So you're firefighters, and you made airline parts.

It was really rough. And from 24 7, we went down to one shift three times a week. That's how. That's how ugly it was.

Well, and I think you talk about founder dependence, Capital. Founder capital dependence. Talk about that term or that phraseology and what that meant for you guys and what that looked like for you at the time, and then how you shifted out of that.

Well, we think that found the dependence is the ugliest, biggest, most expensive problem in business.

What happened with that? So go through that with. You got an offer, you're ready. You think you guys are going to close. And that's the found. That's when it really shows up because it's checkbook time. It's not just the health that you invest. It's not the lack of fund that you invest. It's not going to your kids sports game and you're still always on the phone. That's what most people think. Founders dependence, it shows up in the checkbook when the private equity or other firms come in the strategic and they're like, we'll buy you. And then they do the due diligence and they're like, and it's not worth anything without you. So you now are a prize pitcher that you either come with it and you have a job or there's no value. That's. Did that, did that hit you?

That's absolutely, that's. That was devastating for me. After making all the effort and thinking that we did it right, we found out, no, there's a whole nother level. And the reason why we say that it's the ugliest, most expensive problem is because it costs you in your health, in your stress, in the working hours, in your lifestyle is horrible. You're running everywhere, putting out all the fires cost you. You're missing your kids, you're not with them, you're missing your spouse. Your whole personal life and relationships are struggling because of it. But then not only that, you cannot grow more because it's. Everything's tied to your nervous system. So once you max out your nervous system, there's no. You cannot grow any further because you, you cannot take on another customer.

So we hear about these things, like a heroin addiction. Founders we just were like, absolutely.

And so. And what I said was that. Go ahead.

No, I was gonna say so, but you've got these heroes like Elon Musk that just sleep on the manufacturing floor, right? I mean, isn't that what it takes just to become a billionaire, you know, types? Isn't it just like that? I mean, even that model, even that model says it's broken. Right?

Right. But there's also one of the horror story. We came across the company that was offered to be sold to us. And the problem with it was that the founder, kind of on the older side, he was controlling everything. Everything was in his name. All the licenses, all the certificates, all the bank accounts, everything in his name. There was no leader in the company that made any kind of decision but him. Well, unfortunately, he passed away suddenly and left behind all these. So everything was blocked for about a year and a half because nobody was able to get into the, all the security, you know, firewalls and all of that to understand back in the name. And he was left, you know, his wife with three kids, very young and, you know, she just did not know what to do. She was devastated. And that's, I know that's a kind of a drastic example, but this is the significant founder dependence problem that we're talking about. And you never know, we never know what may happen.

There's more than one type of exit. And I think as founders we, we can neglect to see that. We think, we're thinking and we're working towards maybe this potential. Or sometimes we're like, I don't want to exit. I love what I'm doing. I love being in charge. I like being in this spot. And so we're not planning for maybe the day we make the choice to, to exit. And oftentimes there are a lot of exits that aren't necessarily by choice. They are by force or completely accidental. And so we run into way too many scenarios over our years where unfortunately the exit exits weren't by choice. And it's, it's painful for more than just the, the primary person or primary people involved.

Yes. You know, we like to say that there's going to be a transition at some point. You know, father is undefeated. And it will happen. It's just whether will happen with your conscious intention and can you design it and create it or will you be at the effect of it when it does eventually happen through illness? What's the difference?

What's that difference, Ivan, on likely exit value to your family and the people that you believe and told yourself you're doing this for?

Yeah. So you will exit for a lot less than, than the potential of the business. And not only that, you will have to take orders from someone. You know, you may have run this business for several decades and made it what it is, but now you're an employee all of a sudden because no one will take it off your hands unless you do become that employee. So we always say, hey, this is going to happen one way or the other. You might as well do it yourself early so that when you eventually exit, you can exit free and clear. This is a independent business of me and you can run it really well and the buyers can see that or it's not, it's dependent on you. And then you have to stay and become an employee and take orders from someone who has no clue about your industry or about your business.

And I tell them, you wish then that you called us and that we work together.

It's overwhelming. I think the last statistic I saw from a data set was over 70% of founders that do successfully exit. So there's only 20% that exit. And then when you get those that successfully exit, over 70% of those wish they didn't exit it. And the reason is exactly that they had some type of handcuffs that come into that scenario. Right. And I've got to imagine neither of you are great employees. You can be great employees, but you're not great employees for your own heart. Right? I'm not. I'm a horrible employee.

We get some of those calls too. I mean, I'm sure you guys do as well. It's. They've already exited and they're calling us because now they're handcuffed and they're like, can you help? And I'm like, I mean it. This would have been a much better scenario had you called us, you know, lease with some Runway before this deal happens.

Helping them. Yeah, you helping them. They're trying to hire you, but you're not working with the buyer. And that's, you know, no matter what you tell them, you can just help them cope. Literally nothing else.

That's it. Well, I do have a friend that years ago. Hang on a second, Jack. I'm sorry. So I have a friend that's a great. I love the story. So he had a company, he got bought by Microsoft and then he got a five year sentence with Microsoft and while he's there and then he exits and then he goes, starts another company and this time, once again, Microsoft wants to buy his company. And he negotiates this time and he's like, but he got a two year trailing on revenue, so still not great. Right. But he was a very smart person and he recognized that Microsoft buys companies, that's how they grow. Right. He's like, okay, so my business model is now we leave and we build companies from the beginning to be sold, even if we never sell. And he sold three more companies to Microsoft, never having to have a tie to them again. Right. So that's success and it's the learning pathway that a lot of us, you know, unfortunately, the first one was when he was young, so not when he was 55 or 60. Right. So he was able to build those along the line. So sorry, Jackie, you were going to ask or I think bring on one.

Of our questions, what we were talking about. I wanted to jump into the questions. We've got a good question and I'd love to take a crack at answering it, but I'd be really interested. Ivan and Mariana, what you Guys would, how you would advise this person as well. The question is, what do you do when people are too insecure to commit all the way or move as quickly as you on a decision? And he says data is in black and white, white space is there. An existing company is in place for a couple years and they contacted scale, strategy was given and advised, and then they've just been lingering and losing more time after two years. I'd love to hear your take on that, going from potential bankruptcy to massive success. And I want you to talk about your exit because I think it was, you said six days from the time you started, the close to when you finished. So I want to hear about that, but would also love your take on this. Mine is what do you do when people are too insecure to commit all the way or move as quickly as you let them? It's not your job to make somebody else more secure. If it's the ideal buyer for you, you can ask, okay, is it my due diligence? Is it my data room? Is it something on my end that is causing their insecurity? Other than that, if they don't want to move quickly on a decision, you have to let them. It's, I think, forcing someone else's pace. You can control your own pace, right? You can't force someone else's pace. But I'm curious what you guys would say to that.

Well, you know, building as much value in your business as possible and then potentially running a process where you have multiple interested parties. You know, that would be the textbook best practice that you can, you can do. And you know, a lot of times it's not possible. And so putting your business in a position that is a, it's attractive and that you can, you can enhance the value part as much as possible so that people are looking, looking for you, people are wanting, wanting you. You know, getting help from people who are, who have a lot of deal flow, who have a lot of relationships, who have a lot of people that buy businesses on a regular basis so that they can make introductions and feature you. If you would, those will all be. If you increase, increase demand, you, you're probably going to get a deal done and a good deal done. If you only have one interested party, you're, you're not really maximizing the exit potential. And because of that, you're probably not going to be happy and you're going to be at the effect of their pace and their process and their everything. So you probably want to have multiple interested parties, you know, in a, in.

A best case scenario, I would also look into. Sorry, Thomas. I would also look deeper. What's behind the curtains of their insecurity. Is this their insecurity in general? Maybe they're just insecure buyer or. And they're projecting on you or is this something valid that they're bringing to the point that I as a seller would have to address so that it doesn't happen again with a, with this buyer and the next buyer? So there is a, there is a difference in, you know, their insecurity, that it has merit and that I need to address. And their insecurity, just because it's up, they're part of the process. They go into any deal like that.

Is it something that they're seeing? Is it some kind of risk that you can address? That's, that's what, that's everything. Buyers wear the risk glasses and so they do.

And that's, that's the clarity. So the founders see the future and they think things are running. They don't even see their own piece within there of how they're sometimes the bottlenecks or whatever else. And I talk from my own standpoint, even in that it's like I can't see it, but they're coming in from the outside and they're looking for is there consistency in the story that's being told? And when they talk to your floor, like in your manufacturing side, they're talking to your floor manager, are they saying the same thing you guys see, or do they have a totally different story? Because there's a disconnect somewhere within that conversation that's part of the due diligence. So it wasn't six days. It wasn't six days. It was 16 years and six days. Right. Because it was getting ready. It was getting ready. It's the preparedness meets opportunity. Right. And so if the opportunity showed up and you weren't prepared, it just makes you look like a fool. But you guys were prepared. So it was preparedness met opportunity. You had the opportunity of six days. Tell us about that story. Yeah.

So to clarify, you know, it wasn't the six day process, it was the six day transition.

Yeah.

Meaning it took took a few months to get the deal done, but when the deal was closing, they said, you know, yes. You know, you're telling us that business doesn't need you, you're working two hours a week. That is true.

It's amazing.

You know, team looks good, everything looks good. But you know, we're, we're, we don't. We want to have access to the seller and we need you to stay for six months. We said, absolutely not. We're not, we're not doing it. We're not doing it. They said, you know what, maybe we don't have a deal. And I said, well, you know, maybe we can stay a little bit, you know, so.

Advisory basis.

So we said, how about two days a week? We'll give you two days a week for six months. But you don't need us, you don't need it. You don't want to pay us, you don't need us. Said, okay, well we'll do that. We'll do the six, six months for two days per week. In the third week, they brought us over into the boardroom and they said, you were right, you were right, we don't need you. Thank you very much. We'll call you if something comes up. That was four years ago. We've talked to them once.

Wow, congratulations. Okay, so let's transition because we don't have enough time. We could talk for hours. Kind of like the first time we met, I think it was a 15 minute call. We talked like an hour and a half, which is phenomenal. And the way I love that. And again, I was doing a shout out to Charles Bird because, you know, it's that scenario. He's like, he can just pick people and say, I know you got to be able to, you're going to get along great. And we did. Which I love the venture and the book. Let's talk about the book first because that's the immediate access that people have. We put up while you guys were off in no wi fi land. We put up the QR code so people could see that and you could get a Kindle, you can get an audible, you can get the hardback book. Right. So let's talk about that. How did you come out to the book?

Well, the book. The book. We, we knew we had a lot of deep, deep experience and wisdom that developed through all the trials and tribulations and for us to achieve this kind of result. And we didn't know exactly how, what the format is going to be, but we knew we wanted to share and we settled to make the book a storytelling book, meaning real case study in the trench. What was going on? What were the emotions, what were the situations, what were the key inflection points across our journey? And we sprinkled in several of the, several of our clients journeys. And then each chapter opens with a story out of which lessons pour out and out of which practices fall out. For the reader that they can apply in their business. And we finish each chapter with a famous founder story. Someone that they know that they went through this thing really in a deep way. Book is organized through four sections. The first section is about operating system shift. How do we shift the things of how the operations run, what is happening with the team, the key leadership group, the systems, the communication, the decision making, the authority, all of those pieces. And what is the founder's role and how we can decentralize that. And we cover that through several very heart wrenching stories.

Can I stop you there? Can I stop you there just for a second? Because you said something when we were off, off camera that I think was critical for many founders that go through all these EOS's and everything else out there in the world. You created SOPs, you had operating procedures and yet even through all of that you came to find out because you created them and you were still the mastermind behind all that. You didn't separate the actual business from you. You were still part of that, integrated. So now you talk also about the process of how it's not you setting up the SOPs and everything else, right?

Yes. So when we failed due diligence the second time, we had all of that by the book. We had three people around the clock doing compliance around the quality system that you know is needed in the aerospace industry. So it was very frustrating that even having all of that. Every system in the book that you can imagine, every tracking thing and delegation and map and all this jazz, all the things, there's, there's a little bit of system. I don't know, I don't say porn out there like system, system. If we have the system, you know, you know it's all gonna work out amazing.

And I just need the system. I just need the app, I just need the software.

Yes, it all gonna work out from there. And we found out that no, that's not the case. Really like much deeper work on building the capacity of your team, building the leadership capacity, building trust and transferring trust from the founder to the team and then transferring trust from the founder to the organization. When it comes to the outside, that's the marketplace shift. That is second part of the book. How do we. When the trust is with the founder and the customers and clients, believe in the founder and believe from the early stages of, oh, I'm going to call John right now because John's going to deliver for me. How do we transfer that trust to the trust, to the organization, to the team? That's that's handling things and supporting things. And as long as you are getting the calls, that means that your business still depends on you, right? You are getting those critical calls. That means that you are, you are still it.

And these. So that doesn't happen overnight though. You can't just go, I'm passing. It took you guys 16 years. It's a process, make that transition. So that's why it's what you said. It's. People typically are calling for this guidance when they're ready to move to exit. And it's like, this is a, this is a long game.

Your book is called Shift Intelligence, End Founder Dependence and Build a Business that Stands on Its Own. Is it fair to say then that this, this shift is like that this approach is both a mindset and an approach. How would you describe it? What, what is, what does it mean to shift intelligence?

It's a capacity to be able to make change and not to get stuck along the way in any one point of view. So to continue to be able to pivot and pivot and pivot and continue to open your perspective and continue to bring in resources and people and capacities. And we like to say that most founders are unicorns. So most founders are unicorns means that there is not probably multi dimensionally talented people usually are the founders. And so those multi dimensionally talented people aren't going to get replaced by one person. That's the primary myth that founders fall prey to because they're saying, well, there's not one more another person. And they're not gonna have the engineering mind but the sales mind at the same time. And they're not going to be able to, to, you know, put together strategy like I do. But there's not, there's not another human like me out there. And that is the truth. You are right. There isn't another human like you out there. But that doesn't mean that you should not do this. What it means is that you should build. Probably 3 to 5 people are needed for your one multi talented ass to be replaced.

And then this is. Candace and Tom both insist that as part of our value system, the founder's office, we, we don't care to work with founders that aren't coachable. Right? They're period, end of sentence.

Doesn't work. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. They aren't coachable. They've got to be able to retain their talent, they've got to be able to be good coaches, but they also have to be coachable themselves. Right? I mean that's critically important.

Especially in those moments when the business is not doing well. When the business is doing well and they hire you to help them grow and kind of address some minor issues and smooth out, you know, rough edges and things like that. Yeah, it's. Everything is hunky dory and then you. But, but when the business is struggling, it's not doing good. You're cutting cost, you, you are not sleeping. Same like what happened with us. It was Ivan's wisdom to join the board of directors so that we can get help and plan for the worst and actually come out at best. Whereas a lot of people have a perception that they need to cut cost and they need to hunker down and they need to again rely on their wisdom and experience in order to ride out the crisis. And you know, usually when they cut out the cost, who, what goes first? The nice to haves which is, you know, there's. And coaches and things like that. Whereas actually that's when you need somebody to hold your hand through crisis.

None of us are as smart as all of us. And smart people that have been in these situations before multiple times are really needed in those crisis moments. And that's why I love what you guys are doing, because you've seen this over and over again. You know, when you're a founder, you probably. It's your first rodeo. So you know, when it's your first rodeo, you don't know a lot of things.

You're just happily marching down, getting your entity, looking for a lease. You and your spouse have dreams of how well it's gonna go and how amazing your life is gonna be.

Yeah.

And yeah, I mean even after as many roller coasters in business that we've been on, I still think there is that excitement of a new venture every time we've acquired something new or started something new. And it's a sickness.

It's a sickness, but I love it.

Described it pretty, pretty well. It sounded pretty similar to a drug addiction in some ways. The sacrifices you make, your health, your family or well being, people around you question if you're okay. But you know, it's also, it's also incredible. And it is how it is how the world continues to turn. Right. It's because of founders. We're founders office because we are founder forward. We really care deeply. We, we, we do care about health, we do care about your wellness. We, we are that, that, you know, extra, extra voice at the table with you. We've got a lot of founders on and there's a Lot of founders who watch the recordings of the.

This.

What, what like one nugget can you, can you leave them with. If they could take like if they're deep in this, if they're, if they had the 3am last night and they are, they, they. It's time for them to have that coming to Jesus, maybe with their spouse or maybe they're not right there, but they're definitely not prepared for a, you know, an exit. What is one piece of info of information you can give them right now that would be valuable?

Earlier stage companies, maybe it's okay to be a little bit closer held kind of business where you are as the founder, very influential and you're touching many things and you need to validate, validate the idea, the market, the pricing, the you. You're doing a lot of early stage validation and that is probably when some of this kind of hero posture makes some sense. But if you're in your like 8th year of operation and you're still hero balling it, it's probably, you need to probably look at how can you get enough help to start letting go of a few things. And you probably want to start in reverse order. What is that part of the business that you really dislike? That you dislike being involved, that you. That is kind of driving you crazy? Maybe for some people it's accounting, you know that oh my God, don't show me the thing again, I don't want to touch that. I lie. So you start in reverse orders. You start with the things you really dislike and maybe you're not good at it, maybe you're not interested in it, maybe it's, it's struggle for you. You start there and you start to see how can you handle that thing with a, with a team, with a person with who can handle that piece that could free up a few hours in a some aggravation. And then I got a question for.

You there Ivan though, because I see this a lot because you pick the one that most founders, unless they are from accounting don't. And a lot of times the accounting then falls on the spouse because they're like no, we got to make sure we got the right amount of money. I don't trust somebody's going to be doing this. And so when they finally do bring in somebody, the worst thing that they do is they don't stay involved, they go hands off. So they do the exact opposite. They're like, oh God, somebody else is going to take care. And you can't do that. Right. You've got to actually unfortunately, still stay in that for a while to get the processes and systems and make sure that it's going, especially in that one area.

Yes.

I don't know. So sorry to take you off guide there.

But yeah, you need to keep, keep your finger on the pulse. Obviously you don't have to be doing the chart of accounts and doing the.

True general journal entries.

Hopefully, hopefully you can let those things go.

Isn't it just an app? We had one founder that said you could buy an app. It was a software and a Monkey and a 99 cent pen. And we're like, no, it's not. You end up bankrupt like that.

Yeah, you, you wanna, you wanna do it. Have someone observe you doing it. Then you want to have them do it and observe them doing it. And then you want to check in and see things. And obviously the, all the finance disciplines we had to have because we almost went under. So for the 13 years after our crisis, we ran a catastrophe budget along with our growth and probable budget for 13 years because we were one catastrophe away still of going under.

Yeah, it's a depression baby. You become a depression baby. Which is always funny as you look at it. And we like to tell people we can see around corners because we've gotten hit so many times by two by fours or businesses or we've been inventors or we've dug somebody out. So it's seeing all those things. I know we're running up against time. I want to make sure that we cover your new venture where you're paying this forward and it's a real business for you guys as well. But it's also something that is critically important. And Mariana, you said it. You guys paid for coaching when you didn't have the money to pay for coaching. You found the right coaching, you brought them in, you got involved with that and that was the change for you. But can you share with what your company is? And while you're doing that, I also want to be able to get Angela to get your QR codes back up on the, on the page up there. But can you talk about the program? And coaching is probably not the right way because it's a much more interactive. You have to show up. It's not something that's passive, right?

Yes, definitely. We like to call it advising, but also hands on when we need to. We do travel to our clients, if we need to, for a couple of days to assess the team and the company and everything. And for us it was a journey in developing ourselves as leaders, as humans, as partners and as parents. And we also made sure that we did that with our employees as well, to educate them, to raise them up and raise the level of human consciousness, if you will. And as we were developing ourselves through various programs and with various, you know, masterclasses and leaders, we realized that that is actually, you know, our passion, that we would like to not only help, you know, impact. Help our employees and have the impact in the company, but have a broader impact. And also we had kind of like a confirmation from the outside where people will ask us, hey, you know, we see that you're doing great in terms of your culture and the company and everything. Why don't you come speak on that? And, you know, then we wrote our very first book on family business. And so we said, okay, well, maybe this is what we are meant to do and not wake up in the morning seeing what happened last night, you know, on the tolerance that went off and the machine broke down and what. Who do we need to call to repair?

So.

And, you know, and that's what we started, you know, speaking and advising, you know, some seven years ago. So we kind of did that in parallel, and that helped us a great deal because we could not, you know, preach, you know, and not do what we preach. So that was kind of supplemental to running the manufacturing company. So once we sold, we said, okay, we're going to hit the ground running, you know, with our advising company. We're just going to continue and all of that. But it wasn't that like that. We actually had to take a sabbatical for a few months. I haven't even went to silent retreats up in Spirit Rock, you know, above San Francisco, so that release all the patterns that did not serve us, you know, and that we were actually still holding and, you know, think about dynamics, deeper dynamics and patterns is running the business and being founders and transform them through that sabbatical in actual, actual wisdom and experience that can help our clients and not being entangled, you know, because a lot of times, you know, they said your clients come to you that, you know, that they relate because they. They see something of you in them and vice versa. And that is usually not a good role for advisors. So we had to kind of come clean and, you know, get ourselves out of all of those and, you know, and then start, you know, hit the ground running then after that, and we've been doing it ever since, and we are absolutely loving it.

That is so awesome. Well, I love the work you're doing. I am so pleased that we were introduced and that I will say I had the pleasure of the early release of your book and being able to give a little bit of feedback on there. There's so little feedback because it was just so well written and from the heart. And so I encourage every found founder that is out there or if you know a founder or if you're the spouse of a founder, so you're being dragged along in this scenario. Grab your book. It's shift Intelligence. Jackie, I loved how you phrased it. It really is that it's got to be the name, the shifting of intelligence, of what you're focused on and how you're looking at this. And congratulations on a great exit. Congratulations on the freedom that you have from that. But more so that it's not just an economic freedom that you're in that small minority of founders that have had an exit that and then taken that exit and are actually enjoying life and have found your, your next purpose and what you guys are building out there. Thank you so much for joining us here at our lunch and learn, sponsored by the Founder's Office. Jackie, as always, it's, it's such a pleasure to be working with you and Candace and Angela in the background running this and making it all happen to my team, thank you so much. And for our founders out there, if you are struggling, please reach out to Ivan and Mariana. They have a great plan that gets you there. You do have to show up, you have to be coachable and you have to be honest of where you are and that like AA is probably very difficult to do sometimes for founders, but it will definitely get you onto a pathway that life is much better. Thank you all. Ivan, Ariana, get back. It's the evening there, so enjoy your evening together. Thanks for taking time to join us and I appreciate you.

Thank you so much. Happy to.

Thank you.

Thank you.

We'll see you next week on let's Learn. Thank you.