William Ward | On the Homefront with Jeff Dudan #40

In my journey as an intrapreneur, talking to investors and other people and they see what I'm doing and they say this can never be done. That's not how I'm here to prove them wrong. It's not because it has been done a certain way that it cannot be done, you know, differently. I love building things. I can build anything when it comes to technology. Right. And so that's my God given gift that I want to use to change changed the world through intrapreneurship. Never give up on yourself. Everything is possible if you believe.

Hello everyone and welcome to on the Home Front. I'm Jeff Duden. Today we have an inspiring story of grit and determination from refugee to CEO. We're talking to William Ward about his journey fleeing Liberia during a civil war, putting himself through college and leaving corporate America to become the powerful CEO and founder of God, Joe Flexi. Join us as we dive into his story and his passion of helping others reach their true potential. And oh, by the way, if you like what you hear today, leave a like comment or subscribe to see all the content we have coming your way. We'd really appreciate it. If you have any questions regarding business franchising or just about the show, use the link in the description below and we'll get right back to you. Thanks for listening. William Ward, welcome to the home front.

Thank you, Jeff. It's an honor to, to be on the show today. Appreciate it.

Yeah. Excited to have you on. We recently met at an event where I was speaking at Liberty University and you were there. I'm interested to know what you were doing there when we get to it. But we had a conversation and I was just really intrigued with your story and with your journey and how you grew up in Liberia and migrated to the United States, put yourself through school, great career, and now you're an entrepreneur. And I really wanted to learn more about that and share that with our audience. So thank you so much for being on today. Would you mind sharing with us what it was like growing up in Liberia?

Yeah. Thank you, Jeff. I, I'll do my best to, to, to abbreviate that. Yeah. But it's been such a journey. So for those in the audience that might not know about Liberia, just to give a brief history and where it's geographically located. So Liberia is in West Africa is. It's one of the few countries in Africa that was not colonized during the slave era. However, the history of Liberia is deeply tied with the US because free slaves from here went back to Liberia after the abolition of slavery and, and formed Liberia. And that's how it came to being. And so my, I, I was born and raised in Liberia. I grew up, had a very beautiful start of my childhood up to the time I was about six or seven years old. And that's where things started to go headwind. So I'm a survivor of the civil war in Liberia. I survived several outbreaks of that civil war, and my family had a terrible experience with the various outbreaks of war in Liberia even before I was five or six years old. Earlier on, I think it was in 1985, I lost one of my uncles in the war who was one of the most permanent journalists in Liberia. So he got killed for apparently reporting something against the sitting government. And due to that, my grandparents and some of my uncles and aunts immigrated to the U.S. you know, as political Salis, fleeing that situation with my uncle. And that was how my grandmother, my grandfather, and a few of my aunts and uncles came and settled here in Charlotte. So fast forward. The most brutal war that I went through was around 1989, 1990, when there was a huge civil unrest to unseat the sitting president. At the time, that war was very brutal. Saw a lot of bad things, saw a lot of children my age, 6, 7, 8 years old, bearing arms and doing bad things. My family nearly got killed. I, you know, went days without eating, went days being homeless, went days walking miles and miles fleeing the, the fighting. And after the outbreak of that war, there was a little, you know, bit of stability, and then things, you know, got unsettled again. That's when I had the opportunity to go to Ghana, another country, Africa, as, as a refugee, lived on the refugee camp for a bit, and then got the opportunity to come to the US as a refugee around 1999, early 2000.

Liberia is a, by all accounts, a beautiful country. It is a large coastline. It's bordered by guinea and Sierra Leone. And it, the history that I read, yes, it was, it was definitely a, an extreme time when you were a child growing up there with a coup, right, and, and a murder. And then you even had some bordering countries send in some, some forces and some troops. And it just, it's, it's easy to find, you know, on the Internet. And I can only imagine what it was like for you and your family as you're going through that. When did immigrating to somewhere else start to manifest as an idea for you? And why did you pick the United States?

Yeah, so I picked the United States because I said earlier, my grandparents were here, my auntie to uncles were here and they were connected with the Catholic Church and through the Catholic Relief Services. That's how come we came to the States. One part of the story that I didn't tell was what really drove us to Ghana. So my father was also targeted because he was working at the oil refinery company at the time, which was associated with the government. And so there was an incident where our house was set ablaze, you know, targeting my father. And we were again blessed to flee that, that, that situation. But my dad wasn't as lucky. He survived it, but he had like third degree birds, you know, because he, he wanted to see that everyone was safe and he was like one of the last people. So I was through that. That was the straw that grew the count us back for us to go to, to Ghana and then my grandparents, you know, set up for us. And that's how, you know, the connection with the US came into play.

William, you've shared with me previously that you lost a sister a year ago. How many children in your family?

Yeah, so I lost my sister yesterday. Yesterday. That's when it happened, right?

Yesterday, yes.

So we have a big family. So between my mom and my dad before they got married. So my dad had three before he got married. My mom had two and they had three together. So together it's like seven. Seven kids. Yeah. So yeah. So grew up with a lot of siblings. I'm the second youngest of my of my siblings.

Okay. And then do many of them still live back in Africa?

Yeah. So two of my siblings were in Africa up to yesterday. So one passed away and so there's one still in Africa today.

Yeah. We're very sorry for your loss.

Thank you.

Yes. What's it like in Liberia today?

It's, it's interesting. So there's no war right now, but there's a lot of impoverished situation. There is a huge wealth gap between the have and the have not. And that kind of makes me nervous because based on my own research with what caused the war in Liberia, that was one of the reasons the huge wealth gap between people that have access to resources and people that didn't. And so that is still the case today. There is a huge illiteracy rate in Liberia. It has a big youth population, but almost half of the youth population don't have access to, you know, education as we know it. But in this flip side of it, it's a place that when you go, you know, it's peaceful, there's no stress, you know, get to connect with, you know, people from your past. There are a lot of beaches and stuff because it's located on the coastline. But I wish there was, you know, more access to opportunities for young people to better off themselves.

Right, so you came to the United States in 1999 or 2000?

Yeah.

Okay, so what was it like for you establishing yourself here at the States?

Yeah, it was a journey. So when I came to the States, it was right around the time where I'm transitioning from high school to college. I tried to go to the community college here in Charlotte, Central Piedmont, and that was tough. It took me almost five years to complete my community college degree because of one degrees and access to, you know, the financial capital to take me through college and, you know, the time because I needed to support myself and go to school. So no money and that flexibility was in there. And so it took me up to five years to complete my community college degree. But anyway, I went on to get my bachelor's. I got my master's in information technology as well as an MBA from Northeastern University. And, you know, through persevering and, you know, connections and opportunities, I was able to work at great companies like United Technologies and Honeywell before I transitioned to becoming a full time intrapreneur.

That's an incredible testament to really your persistence and your grit in pursuing your degree. And then I've got your LinkedIn profile right here. You've had an incredible career in the aerospace industry, project management, supply chain. How did those experiences, having those jobs prepare you to be an entrepreneur? And when did entrepreneurship first pop into your head?

Yeah, so you know, Jeff, it has been like a breadcrumbs, a breadcrumb of, you know, activities. I kid you not, every, every role I got in, into corporate, it was either something brand new that I either had to start or become part of a team that started that, you know, that journey.

So, so you had, you had entrepreneurial experiences inside of these companies, correct?

Yeah, so had an entrepreneurial experience. Even before my professional experience, I just had a knack for creating things. Whether it was putting a group of people together, you know, to start a cause, or looking for a specific problem in the community that needed to be solved either through a specific process or technology. I was always a part of something like that. And then when I went into corporate, it was always me coming up with some kind of original idea to solve a problem. Whether it was like a global project that I'm part of or it was like an inter department need, I would always come up with Ideas that I would drive for inception to completion. And you know, and that's how I think it got started. So my career started in deep technology stuff, so playing with routers and switches and you know, and systems administration type of work. And then I started to fall in love with project management and one of my managers assigned me to a project and that's how I gradually went into leading application projects for line of businesses and then eventually started to lead global projects throughout my career.

That's incredible. I find it interesting that you use the word intrapreneurship because at Homefront Brands we are launching an entrepreneurship program. One of my favorite sayings is you have to water what you want to grow. And what that means is you have to invest in the things that you want to see happen and you have to give people the tools and the resources and the know how to be able to execute on whatever it is. And being entrepreneurial inside of an organization, when you have so many departments, every department should know what are the goals? How, how are what we do here aligned to the overall goals of the organization? How can we do it faster, more efficiently? Or maybe an even more important question, do we need to be doing this at all? And those are the questions that entrepreneurs wake up in the middle of the night thinking about, you know, I mean, are we, are we wasting time, energy or money? Are we, are we solving the right problems? These types of questions I think people need to be given permission to ask. And did you find in these entrepreneurial pockets that you were able to find in Honeywell and UTC and these other places, were you encouraged to do that? Was, did they, did they set the, the table for you to be successful in solving problems creatively? Or was it something that you did that kind of went against the grain or against management?

Yeah, it was mixed back. You know, some people in, in leadership encourage those types of things. Other were more status quo and, and legacy, you know, driven. But most of the time it was based upon my own intellectual and you know, being intellectually inquisitive, being a little bit of a rebel, challenging the status quo. It can be done other ways. It doesn't have to be done this way. And it was me being adept with what was going on in the technology world and finding new ways of doing things. Some were discouraged until they saw the fruitful reward of it and then it was embraced eventually. So yeah, so it was a mixpatch of those things. Things.

Isn't it funny how people, and I'm making an assumption here that, that you didn't land in the United States with big bags of money strapped to you, you were, you, you needed to be resourceful to put yourself through school, build a life here in the United States. And I just continue to find that people that started in that condition are less fearful of challenging the status quo. They don't seem to have time to worry about someone else being right as opposed to what's true and what's best in the moment. And once you see it, William, you were probably like, this is clearly the way that this needs to happen. And I don't, you know, I really don't care if it's the way we've always done it or not. Is that fair?

Yeah, that's, that's, that's fair. Yeah. And even as my, my in my journey as an entrepreneur, like, talking to investors and other people, you know, with resources, and they see what I'm doing and they say, oh, this can never be done. That's not how, you know, it has been done traditionally, and I'm here to prove them wrong. It's not because it has been done a certain way that it cannot be done, you know, differently. Yeah, yeah.

Why don't we pause for a second because we're going to get into your entrepreneurial journey now, but I'd love to hear a little bit about Smile Liberia International and what that is and what your involvement with that organization was.

Right? Yeah. So Smile Ibere is near and dear to, to my heart. And so when I came to the States after I got myself settled, got a job at United Technology, it was Goodrich at the time, before the merge with United Technology. And I look back, one thing, I never forget where I come from. So I look back and I asked myself, how can I contribute to the country that I came from, you know, Liberia, and did some deep research, I got to know that the, the, the war in Liberia that I went through, it was mainly caused by the high level of illiteracy, the high level of wealth gap between, you know, people that had and people that didn't have. And my. Just my drive to help the future generation to circumvent that situation. That's how come I formed Smile Liberia and Smile Liberia. Overall goal was to use education to better off the generation that is here now. And so we were able to impact over 5,000 kids that didn't have the resources to go to school. And even if they went to school, Liberia does not have anything such as free education. So even the government institutions, people had to buy uniforms, they had to buy textbooks, you know, Those types of things. And I kid you not, there were a lot of people over. Over 80% of the population cannot afford those bare necessities. And so that's what Smart Liberia did. We look for the most impoverished communities and we impacted them with scholarships, school supplies, and, you know, giving them all of the essentials that they needed to go to school. My big goal for that was to build an institution which I'm going to get back to once, you know, I get to the place of success with my journey. So to create a school that would teach these children skills, life skills, that they will become entrepreneurs, that they will learn sustainable skills to provide for themselves and create businesses so that the middle class is bigger in Liberia.

That is a worthwhile vision and I applaud you doing it.

Thank you.

Yeah, that's great. And let me know if I can help you with that in any way. All right. So at some point you've been entrepreneurial in all these companies and you've got ideas popping into your head and you see problems that you'd like to help solve for people. How did you transition to full time entrepreneur?

Yeah, so I, I transitioned a full time intrapreneur in 2021, June 2021, when I was at Honeywell. First of all, the thing that, the thing that really propelled me was the fact that I could not think about anything else but working on my company at the time. And so it was right before I launched Petty Gigs at the time. So Flexi started as Petty Gigs at the time. And the goal behind Flexi and Petty Gigs still the same, to empower this generation to succeed and thrive financially through giving them opportunities to work and make money and then turn that money worthwhile by saving and investing and becoming financially responsible. So, you know, that's the goal behind it and the reason why I want to do that again. Jeff, When I look back at my childhood and how I saw an entire nation devastated because of the wealth gap between the haves and have not that propels me as an intrapreneur. So I love building things. I can build anything when it comes to technology. Right. And so that's my God given gift that I think I want, want to use to, to change the world through intrapreneurship.

So it's really a two prong approach. Number one, connect high school and college students with gigs that they can make money and then to educate them in terms of which we do a horrible job of in schools, is, is teaching people how to set just basic budgeting, saving, investing, these types of Things aren't really taught early enough or often enough in our schools today. So that's, that was the concept of it. You started in 2021. At some point you got connected with Techstars. Can you tell us how that happened?

Yeah. So when we started Petty Gigs, we had some early success with the user signups. So we launched the app. And that app helped kids to find jobs in their neighborhood. So it was like a Uber for finding jobs for, for young people. So if Jeff needed his lawn mold, he will get in the app and say, okay, I need my lawnmower. And then a kid in the neighborhood that have subscribed to that type of service would get notified and they will come and work and, you know, get paid in the app. And then we had integrated investing so that they, they would be able to save a portion of that money that they made. So we started on that journey. We were able, in a short time, in less than a year, we were able to get over 13,000 users on the platform. And so when we applied to techstars, they accepted us into the program because of our early traction. But then we had the opportunity to go and deep dive and just look deeper into the business model. One challenge that we had, even though the young people were flocking to the app, people like neighbors were not putting in enough work. And we knew that that wasn't a sustainable model over time. And so we saw a bigger issue in the labor shortage arena. And we started to have companies come up to us and say, oh, I need help with my business, even though I don't have a personal need. And so we were able to modify that business model coming out of techstars and turning it into something that will provide services to two companies. And that's when we changed the name to Flexi and transition to more of a B2B business model.

Okay, so you flip, you use the same concept, but you basically flip the customer, right. And can you share a little bit about what techstars is?

Yeah. So techstars is one of the largest incubators for early stage startups in the world because they're global, they're not only in the US So they are a peer organization with the likes of Y Combinator and you know, those big incubators for early stage startups. So they take you through, they invest $120,000 in early stage startups and take you through a three months training to prepare you for growth and fundraising through their program and connect you to their network of mentors and advisors and businesses that you could eventually work with. And so they invest in tech and tech enabled promising tech and tech enabled companies worldwide.

Is anybody that we might know behind techstars or affiliated with it?

Yeah, so yeah, I have a brand freeze here with the founders. But yeah, yeah. But I'll speak more specifically with Amos. Amos SAS Park. He was, he's the one that invited me, accepted my company into his program. And Amos is super focused on looking at talent and looking at the, you know, not only what the company is at the moment, but what that leader can become eventually. He is big on grit and resilience and perseverance. More future focus rather than fast growth. And Emmaus, he has written some books on growth. One is Sell More Faster and another one is Levers. You know, those two books, like really kind of. He takes his classes through the framework from the, from those books and really prepare people to succeed. So Amos was one of the people that saw the potential of our company and invited us into his program.

During that three months. Is there a co working space that you go to? I know of some incubators that are really local or regional and they have a building where they give everybody space so that people can collaborate together. Is it similar with techstars or is it a remote organization?

It is similar to techstars. Because of the Corvette, some of their programs became virtual. But historically is, you know, what you described. They have like a co working space where companies go, you know, together, build together, go through curriculums that would drive different stages of your business in different parts of your business, from organizing pieces to fundraising to how you even built your board of directors as a company. Right. So they prepare you for that. I had to move to Austin, Texas for three months. Yeah. To attend the Tech Stars program. And it was one of the best experiences I had since I've been, you know, in the history of my business.

That's fantastic. And then did the $120,000 go into the company and then the company supported you and, and moving and all of that stuff. So that's. So it, it wouldn't work if they didn't. They couldn't get people to do it if they didn't have the resources allocated to do it. So I. Right, that, that makes a lot of sense. And then now you've got this incubator of entrepreneurs that are probably working day and night because they're out of town, they got nothing else to do. They're excited, they're passionate about what's going on. And I can only imagine the ideas that come out of such a place like that. So from a techstars perspective, or from an investor's perspective, you're sitting there just watching the ideas come out and watching people try things. And I'm sure that there's some pretty good early stage investments that they take advantage of in those situations.

Yeah. So at the end of the program, there is something called demo day where all of the companies in the cohort, you know, go and present their businesses to, to investors. Yeah. At the time with ours, like it was after the COVID we came out right when it was before Thanksgiving and Christmas and then there was an economic downturn. So you know, that made it more challenging for companies to raise coming out of those programs. But you know, apart from it, from all of that, the experience was just great. Yeah.

Let's talk about Flexi. Flexi is having success in markets where you have signed up some national brands to use the app and then use the app for staffing into certain situations and events and things like that. So where is Flexi today and what's next?

Yes. Yeah. So when we came out of techstars, you know, we started to pilot Flexi with the business to business model. We had the opportunity to partner with one local Chick Fil a that really had a pressing need for staff. And that Chick Fil A happens to be at the Charlotte Spectrum Arena.

Is that the one that Rob Rogers is affiliated with?

Yes, that's the one. Robert.

Rob, if you're listening out there, I'll drop you a copy. That is a fine man right there. I've known him for many years. He was a consultant to me back in the early mid 2000s and he is just a, a giving, thoughtful servant leader. Yeah, I, I was. When I heard that he was affiliated with you, I just, it reminded me that I need to reconnect with him.

Yeah, Rob Rogers is awesome. He's a trailblazer. He's very innovative. He saw the opportunity that Flexi could, the value that Flexi could provide for his business and he was the first one to raise his hand to pilot with Flexi. We started with 10 high school students with the pilot. Over time, through word of mouth, we have recruited over 150 high school students. We help that Chick Fil a location fill 100% of their roles for big games and events. Last NBA season and you know, they started to spread the world to other Chick Fil A owners. And so right now we have about four other Chick Fil A in, in the pipeline. And during the pilot we have had to work with about 10 to 12 local companies filling over 900 rows and giving over 150 students access to opportunity. So we saw that it worked. We were scrappy during the time of the pilot using spreadsheets and manual invoicing until we recently built the technology around Flexi to, you know, to, to expand and scale. And so we are in the fundraising space phase right now after testing out the pilot, after having early success with the, with the pilot. And so we're raising money now to, to grow and scale to reach other businesses and eventually be nationwide.

Well, let's get, let's get. Talk about the money while we're, while we're on it and let's start at the app level. So Chick Fil A or anybody else that's looking to staff, they're a customer and they pay for access to the site and maybe a fee for associated with placements, right?

Yeah. So we at the core of Flexi, we study the youth and we know what, you know, what the, you know, what they want in terms of how they want to work. Some of these students, high school students, they are in after school activities. They are in, they're committed to other things within school. So they cannot work a regular job part time or full time. So the Flexi platform helps them to get access to both flexible gigs and traditional jobs part time, full time internships.

Right.

All on one platform. Now companies looking to get access to the young talent, they can either do a pay as you go model using to either find people to interview you or find people that can come and do one one off shifts at their location. If they use that model, they pay a $20 fee every time someone shows up to work or every time they get connected to someone to interview. Or they can pay a $400 of subscription for unlimited matches or unlimited shifts.

And that's monthly.

That's how it works. Monthly. That's.

That's monthly. Okay, got it. Okay, so you can pay as you go or you can get a, get a subscription base to it. And then for the, what do you call the workers? Flexors.

We call you name for them Flexors.

You do, you do call them Flexors, correct? Okay, I made that up. But I guess you beat me to it. So. All right, so what are the, what are. I've done a lot of Flexors. I don't like it when they do it. Now what are they charged as well?

No, they are not, they are not charged. The platform is free for them to use. However, we, we have an embedded digital wallet that we use in flexi, especially for the ones that do flexible ships, if they want immediate access to their funds, they pay a small fee to get immediate access to their funds. And we're big about quality and, you know, and reliability. So we have this thing called reliability score. If they fall below a certain threshold, they pay a higher percentage to get immediate access to their funds. If they are like a higher reliability rating, they get, you know, so it's 2.5% if they have a low reliability score, and it's 1.5% if they have a higher reliability score.

What activities and behaviors make up the reliability score?

So we look at four general factors. One is their overall performance rating. That is, so if someone came to do work for Jeff after that shift, Jeff can review them. So we look at that review rating, we look at the number of call outs, we look at the number of tardiness, and we look at the number of no shows. So we have an algorithm that look at all of those factors and provide a reliability score for them. And.

Yeah, and is that rating then visible to the companies that are looking to hire people? Okay, so it's very uber like, how quickly does somebody get their money when they've. How quickly does a flexor get their money after working?

Yeah, so it's either three business days if they wait for their money or is instantly if the. Okay, yeah. If the deal want access to it right away.

Okay. And then I guess there's some float opportunities inside of that depending on where that money comes from and, and all that. So. So creating transactions on this platform, there's lots of different ways to monetize it while providing great value to both parties inside of the equation.

Correct.

All parties, I would say. Okay, well, fantastic. And as far as capital race, how have you gotten to where you are and what do you need to go forward?

Yeah, so it's mostly bootstrapping. So we had, when I left my corporate role, I put a little bit of capital infusion to get the software to where it was with 30 gigs. And then we raised some money from friends and family and then the Techstars investment. So that's the only capital, about 200,000 since we started that got us this far. And, you know, mostly. But if we need to scale quickly, we need some more capital infusion for sales, marketing, enhancing the technology, bringing on the team for full time. I'm the only full time, you know, person right now wearing a lot of different hats. And so if we can raise between 750 to 2 million, that could take us between 12 to 18 months, up to 36 months, you know, of really execution.

Do you have a capital raise formally put together or is this something that.

You'Re.

Just starting to conceptualize?

Yeah, so we have that put together. We just kicked it off and we are actively fundraising right now. So my goal is to, I have, I have four people that are executive leaders of Flexi but they cannot afford to leave their full time jobs right now. They are not as crazy as I am. Yeah, but yeah. So once we fundraise we will bring them on full time. We'll spend a lot of that money with marketing. I want to eventually get every school in Charlotte, every high school in Charlotte on, on the platform. We're targeting to get all of the food services, retail events and entertainment companies on the platform. That's the go to market for flexi. So all of the companies you can think about that usually hire high school students and college students and youth, we want to bring them on the platform. Now the longer term goal for Flexi once we fundraise because we don't only want to look at youth, know those types of jobs, we want to introduce students to career and technical education. So we want to pair them up with companies that will provide an engineering skills, solar energy, those high tech skills and stuff so that they will have livable earnings when they, you know, finish with school and you know, I'll pause here and later on I'll tell you the reason why, you know, we're doing all of that. But yeah, but pertaining to the race, that's where we are.

AI, particularly with coding, has come a long way in 2023. If people aren't paying attention to the efficiencies that some of these early tools have provided, then they're really not paying attention. Do you perceive you will get a lift from using some of these tools as you. There's a lot of coding that's going to have to go on as, as you build this app, do you incorporate those tools and has that changed your technology roadmap or your technology investment thesis?

Yeah, so we are using AI right now within Plexi. You know, we try to stay ahead of the curve. So we use AI to do automatic matching of the, you know, ships or interview. So if you're competing and you require a certain skill and we use AI to match them with, you know, people that have those skills and so you know, they have instant access to, to talents. We also use AI for skills, skills gap analysis. Say if a young person wants to move from food service to retail, we look at the skills required for retail and, you know, food service and say, okay, you have these skills. These are the skills required in retail. These are things you can do to develop the skills as you move into, into retail. Right. So, yeah, so we are using, you know, some generative AI, using open AI as the back end right now, and we will just keep enhancing that as we grow.

William, you clearly care a lot about people getting opportunities that need them, young people in particular, and taking whatever it is you've learned and sharing it with others so that they can improve their lives. What advice would you give to somebody that is starting their very first business today?

Yeah, so, right. I mean, obviously everybody is, you know, not, you know, like, like me, but I would say care deeply about what you want to do. That is the thing that's going to keep you going when you enter a desert of resources, when you don't have any resources, when you don't have, you know, the money and, you know, the things to keep going. If you deeply care about that thing, if you're deeply passionate about what you're doing, eventually that is going to keep you going. So it's the first advice. I would say care deeply about what you're doing. I would say test the market a lot. A lot, you know, because if you don't test the market enough, you could, you could run into Sears Roadblocks. We had that problem starting up. So, you know, we knew how to build technology. So we built the technology and we thought that's what the market wanted. And we found out that, okay, you know, this is, I mean, the market doesn't really want this. And so we had to pivot and start over and rebuild. It was a tedious task, but it was a great learning experience. So I'd say do a lot of customer discovery. Do a lot of testing out the market before committing to, especially if you're a technology company, before committing to build a technology. And be patient because things really never turn out the way you plan. There's always going to be something that coming through a curveball. So don't be, don't, you know, be stuck on the product or whatever, but be stuck on the mission. Your overall goal, what you're trying to achieve.

It'S. That is such a great answer because as you were speaking earlier, I made some notes and I just really wanted to point it out to all the entrepreneurs or people thinking about being entrepreneurs or starting a franchise, whatever, whatever it is people are doing. I wrote, purpose first, top of the house. You know, you, you, you come from this country, you escape a civil war. You, you come over here and have to establish yourself. It takes you five years to get a two year degree.

You're working.

Do you have a family now?

Yes, I do. I have a beautiful wife and four children.

Okay, you're. And, and you're building a family. Yes, over here with four children. So you're, but you're, but you're. But then you take time inside of all of this back in 2008 to create Smile Liberia International and impact 5,000 kids, you know, thousand on the other side of the world where you came from because you're purpose driven. So when you say care deeply about what you're doing, it that aligns perfectly because then the second thing I wrote was passionate. You've got to be passionate enough about something not to quit when there are no resources or when you're the only one that had the courage to quit your job and to commit to this. So the passion is what carries us through and what gets us, keeps us going. And, and oh by the way, most businesses need more than one person. So your passion is what attracts other people to your vision and your purpose. And if you're not passionate, then you're probably going to have a hard time getting other people to jump on board or invest in your business. The third thing I had was alignment. You've aligned everything in your life from 7 years old and everything that happened to you into a business that really solves the problem that you saw created issues in your country growing up, which was the widening wealth gap, lack of education, lack of basic financial tools and all of that. And then connecting people with opportunities and then intensely focused, you're just intensely focused on doing it. That's a recipe for success and very, so impressed with, with what you've done and you know, really thankful to get to hear your journey today. You said there was something else you wanted to chat about a few minutes ago.

Yeah, so two things. You know, you talk about team you, you know, and yeah, so again that's one, that one thing is, that is very important when you're building the, the company. Make sure that you align yourself with, with people that share, you know, your vision. And it's one mistake that I, I made earlier too coming starting this company. So I've had to part with a co founder who was like very well intent with the, you know, with, with the business but he had his focus on, you know, something else that, that was equally, you know, aligned to our, our background and our, you know, struggle. Coming from a War, tone, country. So he was more involved and passionate about politics and um, I didn't see figure that out until late and it cost a lot of something. And as somebody that was close to me, really close to me, he was a blended sibling, right. And we had to make the decision to part ways. But you know, that didn't deter me. The team that I have now, I really hand pick them because all of them have been through some kind of adversity. Like David, who is my head of tech, he came from the Philippines, you know, impoverished situation as well, with a single mom who had to come to this country with him not speaking any English. But David persevered, started coding when he was 13 years of age and now got a senior programming role at a great company here in Charlotte. The guy who runs my operations, Emmanuel, he, he's from Liberia as well, suffered from epilepsy growing up. And his teachers told him that he, you know, they all almost removed him from the school because of the, his epilepsy attacks. And you know, they wrote off and said that he wasn't going to amount to nothing. But Emmanuel now came and got his MBA here in the States. He got the 20 under 20 degree, I mean award at UNCC, work at great companies. And then Arma Alma is my head of growth ama. He came to the States, he couldn't speak any English and he got bullied in all of the whole nine yard. Now AMA is a writer, he got awarded for being one of the, the, the upcoming speakers in, in the space top high school business and you know, just really great guys that, you know, surrounded myself with and hope to see what we build today.

Yeah, William, it's not a mistake that somebody doesn't work out. It's just part of the process. And we start with this in our training. If, if you do the people piece well and you care for and nurture and treat fairly and create opportunity, then you'll have the right kind of people because you've set the game up for them to have success for whatever it is they need in their life. Right. And you've, you've created the conditions where they can align what they need personally with what the company needs. And when you get the people piece right, everything seems to go bigger, better, faster.

Right.

And when you don't have the people piece right, and there's something missing, then the, the friction which leads to entropy, which, you know, leads to cultural issues and, and all this other stuff. So it's, and it's just part of the process because it, they might Be the right person, but just not the right person right now.

Right.

There might be something going on in their life that, you know, had it been three years ago, it would have been the perfect three years that they could have spent on the team. But so it's just, that's, that's the art of, of building teams and we, I'm very interested in that. That's a big thing that I spent a lot of my time thinking about. And, you know, I do have a passion for other people and hoping, you know, I really, it means a lot to me to see people succeed and, you know, find a way to win while we're winning here. I mean, that's really what it's all about at the end of the day, because that's, that's the impact that, that we want to make in the world. And I can tell that you do as well. William, is there anything else that you would like to cover while we're on the home front here today?

Yeah, so there's a, there's a bigger, on a macro level, what we're doing, how it could, how it could contribute to the overall economy, you know, later on. And that's the big picture aspect of Flexi. So if you look at the labor shortage issue in the US it's not lack of people to do stuff, is the lack of skills in key areas. And that's what Flexi is helping to do here, cultivate key skills so that the future of work is better than it looks now. Because if you look at things as it is right now, the school system, the college system is actually filling the young people of today. You, you learn by doing, you know, you learn by gaining hands on experience, you know, from a lot of things. When I got my mba, for example, like things that I'm learning now, running my business, I didn't learn half of it in my MBA program. And so these are the key skills that we're trying to cultivate from young people so that the future workforce is more prepared. Excuse me, is more prepared to do things that matter for companies. Right. So Flexi is right now cultivating that talent to help the young people to be better workers tomorrow. And also, if you kind of look at the way things are set up right now, it's like you really need a college degree to be successful in the US but then people are graduating from college without the necessary skills to, you know, to do the work that they need to do, especially black and brown and low income, you know, whites that settle to go into certain kinds of schools. Because they don't have the skills. They go to low paying jobs and now they get stuck with student loans, they get stuck with know those things. And all of those things are broadening the wealth gap, you know, in the US So a platform like Flexi is trying to close that gap by providing the key skills that people need, getting them access to opportunities to build those skills and so that even if they don't go to college after high school, they can become entrepreneurs because they have learned some kind of career and technical education with a local company and they have led some kind of vocational training and now they can form their own businesses and make meaningful living. So that's like the grand picture of Flexi and that's what we're trying to do.

Creating opportunity and impacting lives through closing the skills gap in this country and many others.

Right.

One last question for you. If you had one sentence to make an impact in someone else's life, what's your go to sentence? What would that be?

Never give up on yourself. Everything is possible if you believe.

I love it. That's brilliant. I have nothing to add to that. Never give up on yourself. Everything is possible if you believe.

Yes.

Awesome. William, it's been a pleasure to have you on here today. How can people reach you if they're interested in maybe talking to you about investing in Flexi or perhaps using Flexi to help them staff their businesses?

Yes. So I'll share my email so I can be reached@williamoflexi.com that's William at G O F L e x I e.com or let's connect on LinkedIn. I'm very active on LinkedIn or you can visit our website@goflexi.com and you can send a message from there. We're very interested in talking to you. And Jeff, I just want to say I've got a lot of respect for you and I'm glad that we connected. I'm glad that you gave me the time of the day, you know, when you meet a lot of people and they're sketchy, people that, you know, promise to get in contact and never do, you know. And that's the expectation, to be honest, that I set with a lot of people, especially people with resources nowadays because of the experience I've had. But you're one of the few folks that are true to your word and you follow up on what you say. Just very. I'm blessed that I met you and I'm happy to be on the podcast. And one last thing, I'll give a shout out to John Bingley. That's another super beautiful him of being, you know, great friend and mentor. And it was even through him that I. I met you. So I'm appreciated. Appreciative for you guys.

William Ward, thank you for being on the home front today.

Thank you, Jeff.