The Elevator Pitch That Saved His Company—Literally - Tyler Hall's Playbook

But I also think the word fulfillment is intentionally meant to be vague, because I think if you ask 10 people what their definition of fulfillment is, you'll get 10 different answers. You know? So for me, the way that I think about it is this. I think about our hearts, okay? And if our heart is fully filled, then we are fulfilled. Now, what does the heart represent? I want you to take your heart. I want you to carve it up into a pie chart.

Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here, Tyler. And you're actually the owner of this studio, so it's been great to get to know you, and I'm excited to hear your journey.

Thank you for having me on. It's been fun to watch you start this thing and grow this thing, and it's your future in this is very bright, as I've told you, from the day I met you.

So thanks, Tyler. I wish I was as good an interviewer as you are. You make people cry, like on the opening sentence. So I'm not there yet. But anyway. But yeah. So for those of you who don't know, Tyler hall, the. Tyler hall, the man, the myth, the legend, he's just such an amazing human. He's so kind and has such a big heart and really exuberates empathy and love and compassion just in. Just in your energy and your voice. And you're such an accomplished entrepreneur. I. I didn't know how successful you were because you don't talk about it. You're just nice. You're just a nice guy and. But you've. You know, Tyler's built and sold multiple companies in the technology space and was an executive for a large technology company that was bought, or rather sold for a very large sum of money. And then he went to. Found his own company called Drivably and raised venture capital for that and sold that company just a few years later. It was, yeah, I'll let you talk about it. But ultimately, you're amazing. Now you sit on the board of directors for multiple different other tech companies, you run this media and podcast studio, and you're the host of the Roller Coaster podcast, which talks about the roller coaster of entrepreneurship and of life and how we overcome all of the. The highs and the lows. So I'm super honored to have you.

Thank you. Yeah. Excited to dig in.

Yeah. So obviously today you're very successful. I'm somebody that wants to build scale, sell a large company. So I'm selfishly excited to learn how you did that, and I'd like to kind of go Back to the beginning on your origin story, and some of those. That journey that, you know, led you on the path to entrepreneurship and then getting into technology. You don't seem like a technology tech person to me. And. Yeah, what. What's that story of what got you here today?

Yeah, it's a good question. So I think, you know, not to sidetrack the actual question that you're asking, but, you know, I think one of the. One of the areas that I spend a lot of time on now that I care deeply about is identity. Right. So, like, who. Who is this person actually? Right. So before I tell you about what I've done or what I did or what I'm doing, you know, I would describe myself as somebody who's a child of God. Describe myself as a husband and a father to four children. These. These little minions are everything to me. You know, I think about those things, you know, being a child of God and my relationship with my family more than anything professionally at this stage of my career. But it hasn't always been that way. And so I'm excited to share some of the evolution that I've been through where entrepreneurship and chasing the next coin was really how I spent majority of my adult life up until just a few years ago. And there was an experience that my family went through that was the catalyst for me really changing a lot. Like, not just my behaviors, but physiologically, I'm different now today than I was before. So excited to dig into that more with you and really help you and the audience understand at my core who I am and what I care about above and beyond the name and the recognition and. And the accolades. You know, my entrepreneur journey is I was one of those kids that, from a super young age, was pretty fascinated by money. Right. And so I would do pretty much whatever it took to make a few bucks. And that, when I was young, was lemonade stands, and it was going to the grocery store and buying candy and selling it to my friends at school. And it was trading baseball cards and Pokemon cards when those came out and things like that. And so I think I've always just been hardwired as an entrepreneur, somebody that loved the exchange of value and being able to generate income and work hard to make your money. And it was also raised by parents, specifically a father who was pretty unwilling to do the handout thing. Right. So he. While he was a successful man himself, you know, he was pretty against, like, giving us handouts. Right. So he always taught us the value of money and the value of hard work. And things like that. So that led to me, you know, spending the majority of my 20s, went to Stanford, dropped out, which was really controversial at the time because it's an institution that's not particularly easy to get into. So I'm a junior, I drop out. I'm married at this point, by the way. Got married at 21 to my high school sweetheart. And you know, I just knew that my ability as a person was going to far surpass any piece of paper that was going to allow me to do what I wanted to do in my career. Right. So I think I had a pretty good understanding of my ability and capabilities. And because I knew that, I said, you know, I think I'm going to be okay without wasting the next few years of my life finishing school. So dropped out, joined a startup. First company, you know, 22 years old at this time, was called Domo, was an early employee there. We went on to raise $900 million of venture capital, which was actually the highest funded SaaS company in history at that time. So this was 2010, 2011, and that was a wild ride. When you have a billion dollars on the balance sheet, you do, you can almost do whatever you want, right? So this was one of those cultures early on in the tech culture. Days of breakfast, lunch and dinner were catered and huge parties and events all the time and overspending on marketing and billboards and everything you could to just create a name for yourself. And that company went on to go public a few years later. Shortly after that, I joined another startup called HireVue, which was AI for video interviewing. Before, you know, AI and facial recognition was really on the map. And we had raised about 70 or 80 million of venture capital at that company. Was a 24, 25 year old exec at this time, you know, had a big role and we grew that business to about 65 million of revenue. And that one was acquired for over a half a billion by a private equity group called the Carlyle Group. And so, you know, in my 20s I just, I had these opportunities to go join two companies that happened to both be these rocket ships. And so I got to learn, really know, got my master's and PhD learning inside of companies versus going the traditional education route. And then at 27, I left hire View and I founded Drivably. And that's, you know, it's a whole other roller coaster journey of, of entrepreneurship when you go start your first one. So.

And how did you get into tech? Was that inspired by your parents or did you just have an interest in it.

Yeah. You know, I think I like in high school, I took coding classes and was, you know, these were some of the first online coding courses that you could take back in like 2006, 2007. And really just loved computer software. I studied on technology, entrepreneurship and management, which tem program is what Stanford calls it. And really just, yeah, I always loved it. You know, I was kid that had the computer, one of the first kind of computers that you could play video games on. When I was young was really into video games. So anything technology for me while I was like on the surface, like a jock and an athlete and these sort of things, like deep down I'm a nerd. And you know, it was probably mostly inspired. The career path was probably mostly inspired by my older brother who saw this boom happening in Utah, which is now they call the Silicon Slopes, right. Which is, you know, I think potentially the second biggest now tech ecosystem outside of San Francisco is now in Utah. And I got to be a part of that early on. And so he introduced me to his friend Josh James, who founded Shadow. Josh founded Omniture, that was acquired for 1.8 billion by Adobe. It's the biggest acquisition in Utah history. He went on to found Domo. So I met with Josh when we were new and on the spot he offered me a job. So.

Wow.

Yeah.

And is that what led to you dropping out of Stanford or did you already have that opportunity lined up?

Yeah, so I had that opportunity lined up and it was, you know, it became pretty evident to me that like a lot of the smartest people that I knew and that I aspired to become like, were not educated the traditional way. Right. And so, you know, you could look at a list of like the top sort of hundred founders by net worth and most of them don't have a traditional education background. Many of them don't even have a bachelor's degree. Right. And so I think that was telling to me. I also just, you know, felt like at the rate at which technology was advancing, knowing that I wanted to spend my career in tech, the advancement of technology even at that time, and it's, it's way different now was so fast that curriculum could not keep up. Right. And so it was like the things I was learning were already outdated. And so the best way to learn for me was through mentorship with really smart people, was through my own research online was through things like YouTube. Right. It's like every single day something new comes out, specifically with this AI revolution that's happening. And so I just realized that the learning was always going to be dated. And at that point, it just became a waste of time. So.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

And were you. Were your parents very heavy on school and education, traditional education, growing up, or were you just an overachiever?

Yes, I think they were. I mean, they both had their bachelor's degrees. I think my dad actually went on to do a. To do a master's as well. And they were. But they were also parents that. I probably didn't realize it at the time, but that were just incredibly supportive. And so they were more like. And I think they also understood, like, I did my own capabilities. And so they were super supportive of, like, yeah, we, we know you're going to be successful, so whatever you want to go and pursue, that's all good. I. I think my wife's parents, candidly, were much more traditional in that sense, and so it was pretty shocking to them and at that stage of my life to not pursue education, more traditional education. So the. The battle I had to fight was more on proving to them that their daughter was going to be okay. Married to a college dropout. Right?

Yeah.

And now. Now they're, you know, now they're good.

So I'm sure. Yeah. And so are you still married to the same person, your high school sweetheart?

Y.

That's amazing.

Four kids later and 13 years of marriage.

So I'll. I will want to dive into the relationship thing next, because that's pretty incredible that you guys are high school sweethearts and still together. I can't seem to make it past 18 months in any of my relationships. But anyway. So when you exited, what was that transition into true entrepreneurship? I guess it sounds like, you know, as an executive, these companies, you're. What do they call that when you're an entrepreneur within a company? But. But then you left and you, you know, the startup world is a whole different thing when you're just doing it on your own. So what was that transition for you? Was it as easy as you thought it would be? And. And what was your. What do you believe was your key to success in starting a company from scratch and then having a successful exit in three and a half years?

Oh, yeah. I mean, it was hardest. The hardest thing I've ever done in my life, for sure, was founding a tech startup. You know, outside looking in, it looks pretty sexy, you know, because you're. If you're lucky enough, if you're part of the 1%, you raise a bunch of money, you know, you're spending a lot of time with Venture capitalists, which outside looking in is a sexy thing. You know, you're. You're. You have the ability to create something from scratch that the world finds valuable. That's sexy. You've got autonomy, you've got freedom. You know, you're like the. The face of an organization, right? So all those things look sexy, but they're not. Like, most of these things are really not glamorous, right? Like behind. Behind closed doors. And, you know, I had to learn that pretty quickly where went out, raised a couple million bucks pre product, pre revenue. This is like a pre seed round is what they'd call it in. In the tech ecosphere and tried to build the first version of the platform. And nine months later, we'd burned through all of our cash, and we had literally nothing to show for it. And so I had to. I had a decision to make. It was either shut the company down and go, this just isn't me. I guess I can't hack it. Or it was go convince my investors to double down on me and convince them that I'd learned some incredibly valuable lessons that I wouldn't repeat. Right. And fortunate enough, they did that, and the same existing investors put more money into the company. We started to figure some things out. And then. And by the way, Hannah, like, some of the things that happened in the first year, which I have realized since, are normal, but when you're in it, you're like, I must be the only person in the world that's going through this.

Like what?

Like your best friend, who's one of your early team members, who takes a company car with your assistant out to drinks, who are both married and gets drunk and proceeds to have sex with her in his truck, then proceeds to get pulled over and arrested for a DUI and put in jail with the company truck with open alcohol in the car and lies to you about the entire situation. And you have to find out all the details in a really difficult way and then have a conversation with them and move them out and get security involved in the whole deal. Right? So, by the way, we had, like, four or five of those huge bombs that could cripple a business happen in our first year. Wow. And so for most people who ask me, like, you know, hey, I'm an aspiring entrepreneur. I want to start a company. My typical advice is don't do it like it's a bad idea. Specifically in tech. Like, you know, people get pretty mesmerized by tech because the valuations are so insane, Right? So if you go build, like, a $10 million a year company in tech, it's not uncommon that that thing is worth 100 million plus top line revenue, right? So like top line, top line revenue multiples are 10x in many cases in tech. And so that's, that's sexy. But gosh, are the odds against you, right? Like the majority of companies that ever even raise venture capital is like 3%. And then of the 3% that are left, so you have 100 companies to start, 3% of them get funded. Out of those three companies, it's like 10% of those will get to over a million of ARR. And then out of those ones that are left, it's like 10% of those will get to 10 million of error. So it's like a 1/100th of 1% of tech companies ever get to 10 million of ARR, which is a really important milestone right in, in sort of our space.

And for those of who don't know.

What ARR is, annual recurring revenue. Yeah. So it's like, it doesn't make sense, right? It's like, first what you're signing up for is. And I would actually do this when I interviewed people that wanted to join the company, they'd go through a series of interviews and then they'd get to me and I'd be like the final gatekeeper. And they'd come in and they'd be all excited. Drivably is amazing. And the culture and I've heard so many good things about you and the team and Porsche is an investor and all this stuff. And by the time they got to me, my role was to convince them not to join the company. So be like, hey, I also hear you're amazing. That's why we're sitting here together, right? And it would go something like this. I'd be like, so, Hannah, you want to join the company? Yeah. Great. Love your enthusiasm. Do you have a. Do you have friends today? Like, yeah. Why? Do you like to spend time with them? Yeah, I love it. You know, like, what are you doing here? You know, I'm like, okay, do you. What do you do on the weekends? Like, what do you do on Saturday and Sunday for fun? You'd be like, oh, I'd love to go to the lake and I love to exercise and I love to, you know, they'd name their list of things, say goodbye, Mother. And I'd be like, okay, cool. Like, do you. How's your financial situation? Like, are you pretty good right now? Like, you have money coming in every month, you know, like, is it Good. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Like, I make 150 grand a year. Okay, great. Do you, do you have quite a bit of freedom financially right now? Okay, cool. What about your physical health? Like, seem to take care of yourself? Like, do you like to exercise, go to the gym, you know, do you eat well, the whole deal, you know? What time do you get off work every day? Oh, like 4 or 5pm okay, cool. So I'd ask them all these questions about their life, and then I'd be like, are you prepared for your marriage or relationship to potentially go to shit? You prepared to never see your friends and not have a life? Like, are you prepared for your physical and mental health to be, like, in shambles? You know, And I'd sort of go through the list of, like, what it's really like doing a startup. And if there was any, like, body language telling me like, oh, that one hurt, you know, then I'd be like, you probably shouldn't do this. Like, this is going to be really hard. But if, you know, the few that were like, I get it, I 100% know what I'm signing up for and I'm here for it and I want to do it, those were the ones that I'd be like, yeah, you probably make sense. Like, let's do this, you know? So again, it's, it's a hardcore example, but really the, the idea there was doing a startup is, is not for everybody. In fact, I don't know what the percentage, but 99% of people should never try to go do that because it's. There is a price that you pay that if you're not careful, can be catastrophic to your life. And I would say specifically in your health and in your relationships.

So I agree. And I know, I'm actually listening to Cody Sanchez's book right now, Main Street Millionaire, about acquiring companies instead of building them. And, you know, it's like, why not buy something that's already been built? And there's so many baby boomers that are retiring and they don't even know how to sell a company and they don't think it's sellable and they're. They're too busy to even think about it. But if, you know, most of them had the right offer in terms, they'd probably sell and a lot of times for very little money down and where they could keep their cash flow. So it's interesting because I'm a founder, you know, I've just been scrappy and resourceful, and I never had any money to buy a company or resources to even know how to do that. And so that's the first. This is the first time in my life where I'm like, oh, I actually could buy a company. Like, should I go build this thing from scratch again? Because that's all I know. Or does it make more sense to buy a small company and then scale it? And you already have a reputation, already have systems, already have staff, already have all that. So it's definitely a difficult decision to make because you could also get really screwed when you buy a company and, you know, lose it all. But I guess it might be a little bit bigger of a loss, but it'll happen faster, most likely, than, you know, working years to get your company off the ground. I mean, with my debt fund that I'm scaling, you know, building and scaling, right now I'm a year in and a couple hundred thousand just in attorney fees for PM and SEC crap. And I haven't even been able to launch. I'm still waiting on licensing and I'm still waiting on all these things. And, you know, I can still do loans in certain states and all that stuff, but I haven't been able to launch it on the level that my vision is to launch it. So it's. It's a lot. And you could go and just buy something that's already existing and could have saved all that time and headache. So. So you people believed in you enough to double down on their investment. Was this one investor? Was this multiple small investors? How many people were you dealing with?

Yeah, so I had a friend write the initial check into the company. And after that high net worth came in, it was all institutional capital. So VCs, venture capitalists, and there's like a high concentration of venture capital in San Francisco on Sand Hill Road, right? So San Francisco, Silicon Valley is where the majority of these funds are. So I went out and pitched 75 investors before I got my first. Yes. And that's also like, you know, that's part of the game. That's really difficult. Right? Like, have you ever, you know, think of, like, people listening? You think of, like, a boy or a girl that you were interested in, and you pursued them and like, you had good, you know, camaraderie and chemistry. You went on a first date, you like each other, and you're like, yeah, you want to go on another date? And they're like, no. And you're like, damn, like that. Oh, that hurts. And then you do a second person and they're like, no, you do a third and they're like, no, right? Like, after, like a few, you're just like, okay, I'm next person. I'm not for this dating thing. Like, I. Like, at some point, you're just like, yeah, I'm never gonna go on a date again because nobody wants to talk to me after the first date, right? That's how it is. Like pitching BCS on backing your company, right? Like, you sit down with them, you do your spiel. The first, like 10 or 15 are just horrible. And so you're just kind of refining your pitch, right? Then eventually you get really good at doing this pitch where, like, with your arms tied behind your back and your eyes closed, like, you can do this pitch in your sleep sort of thing. And then it's just, no, no, no, no. 75 times. And then all of a sudden, one of them goes, yeah, yeah, that does make sense. And, yeah, we're going to write a check. And by the way, we're going to do it fast because we don't want anybody else to get in here. And we're going to wire the funds tomorrow. And you just go. And by the way, when I got that. Yes. So it's three months into fundraising, several trips back and forth from San Francisco. I mean, you do these all day where you're. You're bouncing around downtown San Francisco Between VCs, you're doing all these meetings. Like, they make. It makes you physically sick doing these trips because you're just like, you have to be on the whole time. You're talking the whole time, okay? So several of those trips. And I have $40,000 in the bank and my payroll is 50 grand, and I'm. I'm days away from being out of money. And it's my last, like, book a flight, go to San Francisco. I've got like seven or eight meetings, and I sit down in front of this VC who's like, a dream VC. Streamline Capital, Ulas, Nike. He's backed 400 companies, like, just one of the greatest early stage investors in history. And I'm like, there's no way. Like, all these other guys said, no, there's no way, right? So I meet with, like, one of his partners, and I have, like, the most atrocious pitch ever. Like, it went so bad, like, so bad that I was, like, sweating, you know, and he had to tell me, like, hey, it's cool, dude. Like, calm down. I can tell you're, like, frazzled. He's pressing me with all these hard questions. I go through the pitch, I'm like, At the end, I literally, like, apologized. I'm like, dude, I'm sorry for wasting your time. Like, no, no, it's all good. Like, let me get back to you. And I'm like, okay, that's A no, right? 30 minutes later, I'm in another building right next door, pitching another vc. I get a text from him. He says, hey, Ulas wants to meet with you. Who's the gp Founder of the fund? Just iconic guy, right? He's like, can you come back over here, like, right away? He's leaving in 30 minutes. I'm like. So I literally tell him, hey, I'm so sorry to do this, but I've gotta go. It's like, I leave, go next door, sit down again. Hundreds of hours of prep, hundreds of hours of pitching up to this point. No, no, no, no, no. I sit down, I share my vision. Ulasko, you know, doesn't really even ask many questions. I'm there for 15 minutes. He goes, hey, will you step outside, Tyler, just for a sec, Step outside. Comes out. Thirty seconds later, I walk in. He's like, hey, we want to do this and we're going to write a check. We're going to lead this round. We're going to help you get the rest of your investor, rest of the investors on board, and we're going to wire funds tomorrow. Wow. And I was like, whoa. And. And I was. I was days away from shutting the company down. So, you know, I share that for a few reasons. One, again, like, founding a company is not for the faint of heart. It's really hard. The Ulas later told me, I said, why did you back me? And he goes. He goes, because there's one thing that stood out about you above everything else. Because I don't think you're the most technical. I don't think you're the most strategic or the most savvy or the most educated. He goes, you were clearly the most resilient. Like, you were the one that I knew when things got really hard, when you were a week away from running out of money, like, you were going to be the one to figure it out. And those are the kind of founders that we back, you know, and so that's always stuck with me. And when I look at investing in companies or I look at getting involved in companies, my. The biggest weighting of what am I analyzing in this founder is like, grit and resilience. When things get really, really hard, like, you're out of money and you got to figure something out. Are you going to go Figure it out and fight or you're going to fold, right? That would happen again. Fast forward, you know, we get this second round of money, start building a product. It's going really well. We go to this big national automotive conference, 60,000 people there, this big coming out party. This is early 2020, signing tons of customers, things are looking bright. Two weeks later, this is February of 2020. Covid happens, boom. Shuts the whole industry down again. We, at this time we were, we had a company that was so interested in our technology, they were looking at acquiring us at that time, right? Not for, not, not for a lot of money, but like it was hard and I was open to it. And joining this company would have been super interesting. We're getting really close to doing a deal. Covid happens, whole deal falls apart. Oh, and by the way, I'm out of money again. And so I have to again basically fire my whole team, take us down to four people. At that time we were 20 people or so, and it wasn't clear that we were going to make it through Covid. And then all of a sudden, the automotive industry took a turn and it actually created a perfect storm for us for what we did. Porsche came in in the middle of COVID two days after they shut down their German factory, their main factory for the first time in history because of COVID Two days later, they write a check into my company. Was a miracle. Like shouldn't have happened at all, but it did because again they, they just knew that like I was going to figure this out no matter what. Like if it wasn't you, I was going to, I was going to find the money, I was going to figure out how to make the company live. They came in and, and then the industry turned and we had vertical growth for the next year. And fast Forward to early 2021. We had several large companies, many of them public companies, coming after us because again, we just became the hot ticket in automotive. And what it is that we did is we helped car dealerships acquire consumer vehicles as a source of sustainable supply for their lots. And when you remember Covid, you had an all time high demand, consumer demand for vehicle purchases because the government was paying us, paying everybody money. And you had an all time low supply of inventory because manufacturers had shut down. So like you had about 20% of new vehicles being produced as you typically had. And so because that all time high consumer demand, all time low supply, we came in and we said to dealers, we said, you can actually acquire vehicles that no longer you could get from the OEMs from the auctions, from the fleet companies, you can acquire them from consumers. And that worked incredibly well. And yeah, ran a process. The next year it was either go raise like 25 million Series A funding or it was. Or sell the whole company. And we sold the whole company.

And so who. I'm not in the venture capital space, but actually one of my mentors is very, very, very successful older multi centi millionaire guy and was telling me, well, why don't you just go raise 10 million bucks, you know, for your company? And I'm, I'm always like, that's not, I've never done that. I've never, I've founded, I've, you know, funded everything myself and finance everything. Never had any debt on anything as far as companies go. So how did you go out for someone who's looking to raise venture capital? How do they go out and find people to pitch and what are those structures normally look like? Is it, you know, what's like a fair percent of equity that they want and like are. I don't, that's not my world. So I'd love to learn about that.

Yeah, yeah, it's a good question and happy to get a little more tactical here. So there's a, you know, there's different types of funding structures, right? So venture capital are typically firm institutional firms that raise money from LPs. Right. So you could have a $100 million fund. I've raised that from 100 LPs. They each put a million dollars in and then I manage that as a fund and VCs. Venture capitalists tend to invest in software businesses or high growth businesses with high margins, which is an investment class that's much riskier but has higher return opportunities than say real estate. Right. Where private equity, a lot of private equity is focused on sort of profitable businesses. Real estate, lower growth, lower multiple businesses. You know, you're seeing, you're seeing private equity play a lot in home services right now. It's a really hot category. So, so you know, for. If you were going to go raise a debt fund in this case and you were going to sell some equity in the business, venture capital is probably not the place you'd want to go. It'd be more family office or private equity, I think, or ones that would know this category well and invest in this type of category. When it comes to valuation, the earlier stage the company is, the more art is involved in the valuation of the company. Because you don't have years of financial history, there's not much Science to it. A lot of it is like, who are the founders? Is it a really big market category? Are they solving a really big problem? You know, those tend to be like the three. Do they have some sort of competitive moat against their competition? Like these are more the questions that are asked at the early stage. And then typically the valuation is set by the lead investor. So lead investor says, you know, and a lot of, a lot of times early on, you're not actually setting a real valuation. You're setting what's called a cap on a convertible note or a safe, which are, you know, more debt vehicles that convert into equity. Right. So for example, you'd say we're going to raise a million dollars. Okay. The cap in this round is 10 million. You get paid 8% interest on this note every year at a 20% discount into the next round. Anything above 10 million, okay. So what they're banking on is it's an, it's a note, there's debt here. I get paid back money, $80,000 a year. And when they go raise the series A or they price this round at 30 million, then I get a huge discount. My note now rolls into equity and I get a huge discount on that next round as you raise. So it's like sort of pre seed is the earliest stage seed series A, series B, series C, series D and keeps going up. The later stage you get, the bigger the rounds are, the more science is involved. Right. It's really looking at your financials. Like have you built a business that scales now? You just need to pour fuel on the fire. Which also means you're buying typically much less percentages of these companies while deploying more capital. And so it's, it's a lot of this is stage specific. And early on the characteristics are founding team, market size, problem you're solving in moat. Right. So that's the cursory understanding of how venture capital works.

And then how did you. What was the most effective way to find the right talent? Yeah, as you start, you know, started and scaled a company because that's same thing with my startup right now is like your first hires are so critical to the company and I, I struggle with this. Right. It's like what's the right comp plan? Do I give them equity? Do I not give them equity? Do I pay a high salary or do I bring in a partner or do I do a profit share or revenue share? Like there's so many ways to skin a cat. I was talking about that yesterday and, and it's, I struggle with that I struggle with all so many options. And then how do you find those right players and how did you know that those are the right players? Like, did you. What kind of testing did you do? Like the guy my mentor was talking about, he does all the personality tests, you know, culture index, desk assessment, plum test, all these things.

Qiq. Yeah, yeah.

To really make sure this is the specific person for the role. But like, how did you go about that?

So the way that I went about is probably not the way I would advise somebody goes about it. Right. So for me it was more who are the smartest people that are crazy enough to come and do this at this stage? Right. So it was like that was my analysis. And it didn't go much deeper than that. Right. Because to convince somebody to come and do a really early stage company and make virtually no money for a long period of time, it's, you know, you got to have the right person. So it takes a lot of swings to, you know, sort of identify the right people there.

How did you identify those people? How did you find them?

Well, some of them it took. So. So when I think about like the really early founding team, so I was the founder, basically, a year in, I brought on a co founder. So I was like scrapping this together alone with contractors and things like that for about the first year. And one of the R D projects I did around this, I actually built a car dealership and I built drivably our software company inside of a car dealership because I knew the car dealership was going to be our end customer. And I wanted to know exactly what it was like to operate and own a car dealership. So this is like a unique hack that we had that ended up paying dividends when we went to raise capital. Because I could look the investor in the eye and said, I know our customer intimately. Well, I am one. Like, I own a car dealership. Right. So about a year in, I, I recruited a guy named Andrew. Sweet shout out. Who's amazing. Still with the parent company today. And again looking back and if he listens to this, I'm sorry, but looking back, he is not the co founder I would have brought on board because the two of us were way too similar. And I think if you're going to go give up a chunk of equity, which is, again, I didn't know this at the time, but the most valuable thing in your business to me is that equity. It's precious. Like you can't just divvy it out. Yeah.

Because it's gone Immediately. It's gone so fast. So even if you give 1% equity, that's a hundred people, and you're out of equity, you know?

Yeah, I mean, yes and yes and no. Like, you know, the way that you put equity structures together are on what's called vesting schedules, right? And so people actually have to earn that equity over a period of time. And sometimes they're, they're, they're also attached to performance and different milestones and things like that. But it's really expensive, especially if you're planning on building this thing to sell it for 50 or 100 million or 500 million. It's like, dude, every, every percent of equity costs you a lot of money. So my main advice would be like, cherish that as much as you can for founders that don't have to go raise capital. Don't go raise capital like VCs again. I love my venture capital partners, I love my friends that are in venture. They're not going to add that much value to your business outside of writing a check. Okay? So you need, if you need to go raise money, then it's a necessary evil. You got to do it. If you don't, man, bootstrap that baby as long as you can. And never take a dollar of outside capital and hold onto that equity for dear life. Because if and when you go build something really valuable, it's, you know, it just ends up costing you so much money to give up equity. So I know we talked a lot about there, but. But again, for me, early on, it was. I don't think I did a lot of these things the right way around talent acquisition. I think I found people that I knew had grit that wouldn't give up when things were hard. I set really clear boundaries and expectations. So if and when we fired a lot of people too, by the way, because pretty quickly, a month, two months, three months in, we realized like, this isn't, this isn't the right fit for the business. And so we had to move on. And again, I don't think you want to have to do that, but you sort of have to do that, you know, to protect the other shareholders and people inside of the company.

And how did you know, shifting gears a little bit into your relationship and the sacrifices that you had to make as a founder, as I know those are great. I've sacrificed health, relationships, sanity, mental health, physical health, all the things. How was that process for you? And I know you always talk about a rock bottom with your guests in their life. What a rock bottom moment. Was in their life. And whether this was during that time or not during that time, what, what was a very pivotal or rock bottom moment in your life that you had to overcome?

Yeah, it's a great question. So, you know, we end up selling the company October of 2021. So here I am, 30 years old, rich, three kids, marriage was great. Like I sort of like overnight woke up and was like, I can't believe this is my life. Like I spent so much time just like facing the floor, running out of money. No personal finance. Like just like to overnight it all being different. And you know, it seems like God has a, has a sense of humor and just the way that he can pull us back down to earth. And you know, for me, four months after the acquisition, just to set up this story, I'm in Houston on business. I'm staying in a Marriott hotel. I jump on my elevator to go up to my room. As the elevator doors are closing, a man sticks his arm in the elevator to get on and he jumps on the elevator. And I routinely, out of curti, out of courtesy, just say, hey man, how you doing? And you expect to get the same response a hundred times out of 100, which is, I'm good, how are you? Right? Then you move on with your day. And this guy took that question to heart and he looked at me and he said, today has been the worst day of my life. He said I had to bury my 26 year old son today and it's, it was really hard. And here I am speechless, like, literally don't know what to say. And he says, you know, we start going up and we get to the 10th floor and his door, the doors open up and he just looks at me and he goes, man, I don't know you, I don't know if you have a family, kids. He goes, but if you do, just hold them really, really close because you never know when it's going to be their last day. And I hug the guy and turns around, he leaves, the doors close. And I, you know, I, at this stage, like, yeah, we had sort of made it financially, but I was always traveling. I didn't see my kids a lot for those my 20s, you know, 10 years of like startups and businesses. And I remember I go up to my hotel room, I call my wife, I'm like super emotional about it. I'm like, hey, I'm so sorry that I haven't been there more for you and the kids. I just had this experience with this man on an elevator and, and she's given me a ton of grace, right? And this is like point number one is, man, choose the right partner. If you're going to be in entrepreneurship, like, you got to have a ride or die. You got to have somebody that's like totally supportive even when you have nothing. Late nights, you're traveling all the time. Your physical health is going to like, you want somebody that's just like, I get it and I'm here for you and I got, I got this. You go take care of that. You know, gives me a ton of grace. And exactly one month later, I find myself again traveling. I'm in New York City, we're doing a thing at nasdaq. So the parent company CEO and myself are going on CNBC to present this acquisition. This is like a big deal, right? Like founders dream of this. It's like ringing the bell or going on CNBC and talking about your company being sold, right? We do a dry run on a Monday, March 1, 2022. I wake up, it's a phone call from my mother in law and it's 5am Arizona time. And when I saw her name on my phone, I knew something was wrong, right? And so instead of saying hello, when I answered the phone, I, I picked it up and I said, hey, what happened? And she said, brooklyn, which is my wife, her daughter, something's happened and she's being rushed to the hospital right now. We, we don't know what's going on, but you should probably get home. So I text my assistant, I'm trying to frantically, yeah, I'm in the middle of New York City in the morning, right? It's like 8:00am East coast time. And I'm like, I need the next plane out of here, I gotta get home. Something's happened to my wife. So then I'm, you know, over the next several hours I'm getting text message updates from my father in law and I'm calling him like every five minutes and he's not picking up. But he's sending me these little text updates and you know, they read, hey, I'm following the ambulance to the hospital. Hey, just got to the hospital. They checked her into triage. They're doing an ultrasound. The next one says they found two liters of blood her abdomen. And by the way, the body has 5 liters, so that's 40% of the blood in her body had bled out. And the next text is a, it's a photo of the dry erase board in the hospital and it says ruptured ectopic pregnancy. And it was what they had diagnosed had happened. So I go to Google, I look this up, and I find out that in the majority of cases where this happens in the home, it's lethal to the mother and the baby. And I thought, you know, so I went from like, bad things happen all the time and they just get better. Like life just has this beautiful way of making hard situations better. And in this case, it was, it was the opposite. It was like something really bad happened. And I got this text and I was sure my wife was going to die. And so I get on the plane, I can remember vividly. I'm, I'm, I start taking notes on the plane. I'm documenting just my feelings. I'm like flipping through these stages of grief real time on the plane. The guy sitting next to me several times was like, hey, do you want me to call like a flight attendant? Are you okay? Because I, I would go from like chatting with him to like, like quietly nervous to like crying hysterically, right?

Yeah.

And I wasn't really that aware that I was doing that, but I'm just like going through all these emotions and all these thoughts, thinking that my, the love of my life is, is going to die and get a message that says, hey. They rushed her in for an emergency surgery. And then for the next almost four hours. Still in surgery. Still in surgery. Still in surgery. You know, we had delivered three babies at this time. And that process, the OB is typically in the room for five, 10, 30 minutes kind of thing. So for her to be under the knife for that long was super concerning knowing how much blood she lost. And then I get a text message as the plane is descending from my father in law that basically says something to the effect of brace yourself. She's, she's not going to make it. Just talk to the surgeon, you know, and then it was like another level of just grief, just like, just, just disbelief. Like this can't, this can't be happening to me. Like this must be some crazy dream that I'm in. Like, I've got to wake up from this, right? And I read that message as she's gone, but I'm gonna wait till you get to the hospital to tell you from her father, right? And so plane lands like you'd see in the movies. I'm sprinting through the airport. Everybody's probably like, what, where is this guy going? You know what, what sort of hurry is he in? I get in the Uber, I'm like yelling at the Uber driver. To just like, just go, just go as fast as you can, please. Like, my wife's dying, but I'm like hopeless. Like I don't actually think she is alive. So I don't know why I'm yelling, right? And we get to the hospital and I run again. Like I'm running past the reception desk. The lady's like, wait, where are you going? And I know what room she's in. So I, you know, I go up to the second floor and remember walking in the room and the first thing that I realize is that audibly the heart rate monitor is still beeping. And so I just have this like flood of gratitude come over me, which is like, just get one more moment together, you know, before she's gone. And I remember, I sit, I sit down at her bedside and look at my father in law, who man like again, just so much, like so much guilt, you know, for he had, he had to go through what he had to go through. It wasn't me, it was him. And Covid restrictions at the time only allowed one person to be in the hospital. So it was only him, right? And I'd say, hey, how's she doing? And not even like the. Couldn't even get those words out. By the time my wife goes into this seizure, like episode, super scary. And again, like you'd see in the movies, I'm running into the halls and I'm trying, I'm yelling for doctors and nurses to please come in and help. Something's happening. So I come in and eventually they get her calmed down and you know, it's. It's not a good scene. I mean, double blood transfusion and all kinds of wires and just lifeless looking body, like the love of my life. And you know, and so the next that night I just remember like, I remember like being scared to blink because I was so fixated on the heart rate monitor that I felt like if I close my eyes it would flatline. And I like even was like hallucinating that night that this thing had flatlined. But I'm just watching this heart rate monitors, thinking, please God, like just, Just. Just a little longer, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't even like savor at this point because I was convinced like she wasn't gonna make it. Doctors were telling us like there's. There's no way, right? So the whole night I'm staring. The next day we get there and one night turns into a second and a third and you know, we actually, on this, on the first or second day we did this 24 hour isn't the second day, this 24 hour fast, which is like a Christian ritual or ceremony where you give up food for 24 hours and you show your sacrifice to the Lord. Right? And so I invited everybody who I could think of in my phone to please just join us in this fast. Like, we need to call on heaven for some help here. And. But at the same time, Hannah, I had, I had. I really think I had come to a place where I had accepted whatever God's will was going to be, it was going to be. Right? So. Not even an hour after we ended that fast, my wife wakes up from like this coma type thing, and you slowly starts communicating. And I remember asking her that day, this is like the third or fourth day, said, hey, do you remember this seizure that you had a couple days ago? Like, what happened there? Do you remember that at all? And she said, yeah, when I heard your voice, it gave me life.

Wow.

So, you know, when it comes to relationships, it's. Man, I mean, I just can't, I can't overemphasize how important that dynamic is for somebody's life to find the person that they want to spend the rest of their life and eternity with and, and become so connected that you're almost one that just the, the words of your voice could actually bring them back to life. I mean, that's, that's what you want, right? And so anyways, the silver lining here is not without a lot of complications, but she ends up recovering fully. And fast forward 18 months after that, we end up having another child, which was against the odds.

And so she lost that baby.

Yeah, but she's perfectly healthy now. And so, yeah, that's. That is the, the catalyst for. I'll forever describe my life as the 31 years before my wife's accident and then everything after, because just fundamentally, I am a different person.

What changed the most for you moving forward once you had her back?

Yeah, a lot of things. The number one for sure is how I prioritize my life. Right. What is truly most important. Where if I look back before the accident, the most important thing was company building and money and success, whatever that even means, whatever I thought it meant. And today that ranks really low on my list, you know, And I think some people would be like, well, yeah, money guy. Easy for you to say. Like, you have your basis covered. And it's like, no, I. I could lose it all tomorrow. And if I still have certain things, like a relationship with God, that's good, that's aligned. A relationship with my wife, that's Good. That's aligned and good relationship with my kids and good health, then I'd be good. I can say that confidently.

And how do you maintain balance? You know, as an entrepreneur? I know me, I've tried to not be an entrepreneur, try to focus more in this area or this area. This area. And I have to keep measures in place. Otherwise I, you know, I dribble the ball out of bounds and I'm back 90% into business as well, my focus. So like what, how do you kind of stay keep yourself in check of health, family relationships over financial wealth?

Yeah, you know, I think I've just, it's now hard coded in me that the work call can wait. That nothing is that important as it pertains to my professional life. Like nothing. I can't think of a meeting I could be in where if my wife called, I wouldn't answer it. Sorry, whoever's on the under end, like it can wait. And, and so, you know, tactically it's still hard, but how do you do that? Right. You, you. For some it might be scheduling time in for working out.

That's me.

For eating. Right. For your relationships. For self improvement. Whether it's physically or mentally or otherwise. So I think for a lot of people you've got to schedule it in and yeah, I just think it's. Again, one of the reasons you don't see me talking about business online is I've, in a lot of ways I've just lost the. I just have this relationship now with it that it's so unimportant that I almost just like, yeah, I still do it and I still love it and I still get energy from it and I love the, the pursuit of the game. I love the game of wealth. That's fun. But I'm not like, I don't take it too seriously because it's not, it's all kind of like a game.

Yeah, that's good, that's. I think that's what we all strive for is to have that balance and fulfillment and still have drive. And it's funny because I, I always thought, and I think a lot of us because we're taught this, always thought that the pursuit of excellence feeds the pursuit of fulfillment. Right. It's like I'm going to strive to be excellent so I feel fulfilled and then I'm going to feel fulfilled so I'm going to strive for more excellence. And what it ends up being is you, your lack of fulfillment pushes you to accomplishment. But then once you have accomplishment and once you feel fulfilled you're like, oh, this feels pretty good. You know, I don't have such a drive for this incessant need of more, more, more, more from the standards of excellence. Like, it might be, you know, watching your wife have a baby or watching your child take his first steps, or teaching your son how to throw a. You know, hit a baseball. Like, things that are fulfilling, but they're not necessarily excellent. Like, the world doesn't care about your baby's first steps or your baby's first words, right? And so realizing that fulfillment and excellence are two separate pursuits and they don't actually drive each other at all. And, yeah, when I learned that when somebody was teaching a class and one of my masterminds about that, it just clicked in my head, like, oh, my God, I am. The pursuit of excellence is never going to fulfill me. That's a whole separate pursuit that I've been starving. And that's when I started to pursue that. And the success was my own bucket of. Of joy and fun and excellence and whatever. But I started to focus my energy on all the things that actually were fulfilling to me. And that was a piece of it, but not all of it.

I think that framing is really nice. I think the word that everybody should strive to achieve is fulfillment, for sure. But I also think the word fulfillment is intentionally meant to be vague because I think if you ask 10 people what their definition of fulfillment is, you'll get 10 different answers. And, you know, so for me, the way that I think about it is this. I think about our hearts, okay? And if our heart is fully filled, then we are fulfilled. Now, what does the heart represent? I want you to take your heart, and I want you to carve it up into a pie chart, okay? And in the pie chart, I want you to ask the question, what are the. What are the areas of my life that are most important or that matter the most? They have the most meaning, right? And some would say happiness is an area. Or health, mental health, physical health, our relationships, spirituality, business, finance. Right? Making money. So I think you could sort of sit down and write down. Here are, like, the six or seven things that matter the most to me. And that makes up the pie in the heart. And then you have to do an inventory regularly, let's call it once a month, where you say, how optimized are each of these slivers of the pie? Because I'll tell you what, Hannah, if you take. Let's say that I won the money game, and my money game was maxed out. It was 100% in this piece, but my relationships were at 20% and my physical health was at 30% and my spirituality was at 10%, and the list goes on. How full is that heart going to be? Not very full, but if you could get each of them to say 80%, how full does that heart? Well, it looks pretty full. There's not much left in there to fill in. And so for me, it's about finding the right balance between the things that matter the most in life and doing them all the best that we can. They're not all going to be maxed out, but you better believe with this kind of focus that they're not all going to be empty as well.

That's such a great way of explaining it. And it's. It's so true because it's all of those things I always say, family, health and wealth and, you know, it just as an easy way to remember it. But yeah. And even maintaining big entrepreneurial goals now it's, I want to continue to grow the entrepreneurial part of the bucket, but. Or the pie chart, rather, while I'm growing all the other things. And I won't grow this and sacrifice the other things. And so as big as I can, as much as I can continue to grow everything that's important to me, then I will continue to do so, but not at the cost of something else. Just keeping sight of that. But. Well, thank you, Tyler. I appreciate you being here and thank you for sharing your story and hopefully I'll have you on again and we could dive more into all of the good things.

Awesome. Thanks, Hannah.