099: How to Find Your Perfect Problem with Jim McKelvey (Part Two)

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The perfect problem, by definition, could be solved if you did it the right way. You are capable of solving this problem. Now, that doesn't mean you're guaranteed to solve it. There's no guarantee of success. But if you look at it from that perspective, then the question is, well, why haven't other people solved this problem? Like there were smart people who've seen this problem through history or for at least years or months or some period of time before me. Why didn't they fix it? And the answer is partially that every day you get a new set of tools.

This is your time. How can we earn twice as much in half the time with joy and ease while serving the highest good? That is our guiding question here at the Freetime Cafe, your home for heart based business. I'm your host, Jenny Blake. Join me for conversations with authors, friends and fellow business owners as we explore ways to free your mind, time and team to do your best work. Now onto today's show.

Hello. Hello my friends. Welcome back. This is part two of the conversation with Jim McElvey. We just had such a blast recording in person. I highly recommend his book, the Innovation Stack. It is so hilarious. If you haven't already listened to part one, I encourage you to do that first. And if you're all caught up, then please enjoy part two.

You don't get to choose who you fall in love with, right? So those of you who have been in love know that you ain't in control.

That's so true. Always train is on the tracks.

You ain't in control of that. It's not your choice, right? So be humble and understand that the problems you might want to be in cryptocurrency because you think it's going to be a big moneymaker or you may think that's the place that the interest is, but if you don't care about it that much, you're not going to do anything that's not your perfect problem. So you have to let the problem somehow choose you. And you have to be aware enough of your process to recognize when a problem is calling you. Like I Got called with a problem about six months ago and I'm now obsessed with diapers.

Really? I didn't see that coming.

Oh, my God, neither did I. I did not see this coming at all. And I'm psyched because we're on 39th street in New York City and it's like the fashion area. And I passed four fabric stores. And soon as this thing's over, I'm gonna go back and like, buy spandex and like gonna go diaper material shopping because I think it's possible for the world to make a biodegradable diaper. I just don't think anyone's put proper engineering into this. And I want to fix the landfill problem on diapers because, I mean, got some kids and I've offended the earth enough with my kids diapers that I want something better. Can I build it? I don't know. Can I create that thing? I don't know. I think I can. And I'm obsessed with it. And I bought a sewing machine and my apartment is a God awful mess. And I actually had a meeting with Madonna's seamstress. It's not actually a seamstress, it's a seamster is a guy. Like I'm supposed to meet with him and he designs Madonna's costumes. And I'm like, good, you could maybe get me to fix this leg cuff on this kid. Again, I'm not recommending people do this, but I'm just saying that if you want to be highly, highly motivated, which really helps if you're doing something that's riddled with failure, then.

A great way to be motivated is to let the problem choose you. Find something you care about. And it turns out I care a lot about filling up the world with plastics, which is what diapers are. Every diaper in the world is like, plastic, plastic, plastic, plastic, plastic.

It's surprising that that hasn't been solved yet.

Yeah, it turns out it's a really tough problem.

So is your approach when a problem like this chooses you, are you going to tinker solo for a while and you are going to use your skills to build a prototype and then possibly hire and replace yourself? Like, I'm just curious about your process.

Yeah, my process is very personal because I have not figured out how to use money like I thought being rich would help. Okay. I just thought, oh, cool, now I'm rich. I can actually hire people who are really smart and diligent. And I've hired a lot of people like that. They've never gotten a solution that was anything more than derivative. And I know this because I wrote the book on this stupid thing and I should read my own damn book.

And even this was your process with the book of trying to hire ghostwriters? Yeah.

Yes, totally. Like, I keep thinking that there's some easy out and I keep trying to do it. You know, I'm looking for that magic pill or that magic person or that check you can write and the problem just goes away. I want a Mr. Wolf in my wife. Damn.

That's maybe not.

There's a Freudian slip that I hope they'll kill in editing. Oh, leave it in there, it'll be better. No, I want Mr. Wolf. I want the guy who comes in and brings a drop cloth and the bleach and cleans up all the brains splattered all over the back of the car.

Who's Mr. Wolf? Sorry.

Oh, sorry, obscure reference from Pulp Fiction. Oh, okay, yes, But I want Mr. Wolfe.

I know I should know who it is.

No, I want somebody like that, but I don't want that person. So, yeah, I tried to hire a bunch of diaper experts and we went to the diaper trade show and I walked around and I was like, just. I set out the design creature. I specced exactly what I wanted, and they handed me exactly what the industry has already built. I was like, wait, no, no, no, no. We just discussed this. You can't use these materials here because they don't biodegrade and they're toxic and they're, you know, get the polyacrylate super absorbents out of my face.

That's the problem with expertise. I hire really, really knowledgeable experts.

Well, what are they knowledgeable about? They're knowledgeable about how the world makes diapers. They already know that they've got this down.

So what are they going to build me? They're going to build me exactly what the world has today. If Elon Musk decided to build Tesla by hiring a bunch of engineers for Detroit, you know what they'd be giving him? A gas powered car, you know, with green paint. You know, wow, that's an innovative color, Elon. No, like, you don't do it that way. You can't do innovation that way and I can't. So at least for me, I don't have the luxury of buying my way out of this. It's all very personal. I bought a Singer sewing machine. It's sitting in my bedroom. Like, I don't even have to leave the room that I sleep in to. Now start sewing something.

Do you Ever get discouraged when there's this learning curve? Do you enjoy the learning curve of, let's say, learning to use the sewing machine because you know what it's for, or do you sit there kind of frustrated because your mind knows what it wants to create and yet your hands have to catch up?

It's both. It's both. I mean, there's little moments of joy. When I learn how to thread the needle.

Yes.

I mean, literally, in this case, thread the needle because I've got so metaphoric.

Your next book is writing itself.

I got 50 year old eyes. You know how threading the needle is for me, it's like playing the lotto. I finally figured out how to thread the damn thing. It's frustrating because I know it can be done. And I think, oh, if I just had somebody like Madonna's seamster, Right. Standing by me at all times. But first of all, quite expensive on a daily rate. And it's weird for me to have this super talented person next to me and I'm doing something so basic and so experimental that it's not worth his time. So I believe I've just got to learn.

Well, it's interesting, even the outsider's perspective. It's sort of encouraging that you talk about people feeling unqualified to be an entrepreneur or for the industry or the problem they want to solve. And yet you had the skills of a glassblower to make Square's first payment processor prototype, which I used, by the way, back in 2011. Thank you. I was so delighted when it came through the mail, just like you described.

Yes.

And so it's like your aesthetic mind and engineering mind helped create that. But you had this background as a glassblower. Nobody would put those two things together. Glassblower, tech widget.

No, but I mean, you know the glassblower label. Yes, I was a professional glassblower. I still am. I'm actually now the largest importer of crystal to the United States. Like, I import more raw sand. If you want to melt really good sand, you should call us at 3rd Degree Glass Factory. No. We make this phenomenal Swedish crystal and bring it in. And yeah, I'm super into glass. I love it, but it's this weird label. So, for instance, in the intro, you left out the fact that I'm the chair of the St. Louis Federal Reserve. So, like. Right.

I'm not gonna leave that out.

It's okay. Leave it out. Cause it's not really me, but I mean, it is me. Next Thursday. Yeah, next Thursday I will be in A suit at a board of governor's meeting in Washington D.C. i think it's Thursday. God, when is it? It's Wednesday. I'll check that. If you're listening, I will be there.

It's gonna be long since published, don't worry.

But, you know, we'll be Fed building in Washington D.C. with all the other chairs and governors, and we will be making economic policy now. Is that me? Well, it will be for that day. But the next day, I could be blowing glass or doing something else, or maybe running a sewing machine needle through my left thumb.

So then, do you believe we all have a unique zone of genius, as Gang Hendricks would call it, or in strategic Coach Prylan's unique ability?

I don't think so.

Do you think you have a unique ability, a meta skill or talent that transcends all the different things we've already mentioned?

No, I don't. I don't. I don't. Because that would imply that you're looking for your gift. I think you have. As a human, you're given a range of gifts in a bunch of areas, and you get to mix and match, Right? So are you anxious? Well, that can be good or it can be terrible, right? Are you calm under pressure? That can be good or it can be terrible. You are who you are. You get to move the needle a little bit. But really, the interesting thing that I found in my research was that the folks who were super successful, they were, like, super normal, too. Now they tend to get these superlatives tacked onto their bio at the end by history. Because we don't want to tell stories about boring people. We want to put the hero in a cape and put him on this mountain. And, I mean, I'm looking at my comic book as we say this, but, like, this guy looks a total badass, but did he look that way when he woke up this morning? Probably not. So don't buy into the hero myth, okay? Because the hero myth is excluding you because you're not a hero. You don't have superpowers. You don't regenerate from a lost limb. You're not some sort of human starfish or something like that. It's just not going to happen. What you do have, which is the equivalent of a superpower, is this ability to walk across to that other side of the line in this very uncomfortable world. And then you build this innovation stack, and then you have. You're sort of like the Batman superhero, because Batman's just a rich dude with, like, a throat condition. Batman, you know, like, I guess I could be Batman.

That's true.

Yeah. Actually, I just realized I'm actually digging a foundation in one of my places. One of our houses. We're actually digging a new basement. So I should just keep digging. Yeah.

And you just got into F1, so now you can get one of their cast off vehicles and that can be.

No, no, no. It's even better than that because I know the boring company CEO.

There you go.

Okay. I can borrow one of his tunneling machines. Yeah.

And then you can work on teleporting.

I could have an underground labyrinth.

Yeah.

Oh, and the city of St. Louis, if you don't know, has a ton of caves because we're on a river, so a lot of natural caves. Oh, it would be. Yeah.

Just don't let the pythons down there.

God, I would be single in a.

Week if you built this.

We'll be right back just after this.

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Appreciate.

Speaking of rich guys, you mentioned a couple times that there's this notion that, oh, when you have money, when you have all the money in the world, problems will be solved. And I love it. In the book you say, on November 19, 2015, Square got listed as a stock on the New York Stock Exchange and you said, and I was suddenly taller and more interesting than I had ever been.

Yes.

And I'm wondering if you can tell us, like when you sort of break through the stratosphere and you become part of the public eye. I'm just so curious. Your view from the quote top, shall we say, like, did it get overwhelming, the number of people asking you for things or asking you to invest in things like. Just tell us about your experience of that and how you've had to adapt of being at this stage of your career where money was no longer the limiting factor.

So my adaptation has been mostly denial. I mean, look at me. I'm wearing a free T shirt. This is a Uniqlo cheap ass sweater. These jeans I had forever, and somebody gave me the shoes.

Amazing.

Okay, so I'm cheaped out here. Nice heather gray sweater, and I'm a lousy rich person. And I realized this too late.

What do you mean by that?

I don't have the ego. I do not have the ego.

Well, that's why we enjoy your company.

Oh, well, thank you.

So, in a way, you're a great.

Rig, but I'm very disappointed. I was like, well, I'm gonna hang out with a billionaire this week. And he's washing his own car and making diapers. Cars at 97 Acura Integra. I'm sorry. It's a 95 Acura Integra. It's got rust bits on it, and.

You don't have the urge to just, like, indulge.

Yeah.

So was it ever car fantasies?

I was in the F1 race the other day, and we passed by a McLaren, which is a really cool car, and I've driven one once, and it's got the doors that go like this.

And I thought. I thought it'd be cool to drive for about 20 minutes. Where are you going to park it? You frigging go over a speed bump, which we have all over the place, and you bottom the thing out. I would feel so guilty. Yeah.

Then you have the responsibility of all those things.

Yeah. I think the ownership arrow has to point towards the object, like, you own the object. The object shouldn't own you. And so I don't have a lot of precious objects. I've had a couple in my life. My two most precious objects have been stolen from me.

Can you say what they were?

So I had a bunch of glass tools that were made by this Dino Tedeschi, who was a legendary tool maker. I mean, in the very, very small world of glassblowing, there is this very, very small world of people who make tools for people who blow glass. And the best one in the world is this old Italian dude who will only sell you tools if he likes you. And the only way to get him to like you is to physically go to him in Venice, which has no maps, or it had no maps at the time, and visit with this guy. And I didn't speak Italian. I went to his house and I hung out with him and I visited him. And he's super nice and we talked about stuff. And then he agreed to sell me his tools. And I had this set of tools and I left it in a toolbox. And I live in a bad part of town and somebody came in and stole my toolbox. They broke in and they stole my tools. And the heartbreak was that these were completely useless to anybody else. So I literally crawled through dumpsters, all the dumpsters around my neighborhood. I physically got into probably six or seven dumpsters just trying to find my tools. Trying to find my tools. That was heartbreaking. Then my mother bought a VW Beetle in 1974, and when she died, we didn't know what to do with it, but I decided to keep it. And I kept it in storage for 15 years. And then my brother, he needed a car, he needed to borrow a car. So he's like, can I take the Beetle? And I was like, yeah, sure. So he took the Beetle and it got stolen. That was the other material object. And so I don't think there's any other thing you could take from me right now that I would care that much. I mean, if you took all my kids pictures, I would be pretty pissed. But they're all in the cloud. And I've got a pack of cigarettes from Herb Kelleher because I had him sign a pack after we met. That would be pretty hard to lose. It would be hard for me to lose the original copies of my father's textbooks on polymer processing. But I can't read them because I don't have the math training that my dad had. So that would be kind of heartbreaking. Aside from that you want to steal from me, go at it and good luck. Like, you will see a very disappointed fence when you rob me.

So that's kind of the money and possessions piece. What about time? I would imagine that as you grow in visibility, you have so many requests for your time and good ones. You know, it's like there's probably more good things than you could say yes to, let alone the truly exceptional. Or like the diaper problem that could be all consuming of your time. Just the diaper problem and your family, you know, just a few core things. So how has your relationship evolved to choosing, let's say, external requests, like people who are asking you for things. Would you have a philosophy on how you handle all that?

Not only do I have a philosophy, I have a new product coming out. Literally, as I was walking down here, we Were discussing Mailwall, which is my new product, which is a paywall for your email. And this will sound stupid, but it's awesome. And I'm the only user in the world right now of this product, but it's a paywall that charges you, in my case, a nickel. I'll probably raise that to a buck, but that's only because people think a nickel is too little to talk to me. It basically forces everybody who's going to send you an email to pay you a tiny, tiny amount of money, and it wipes out all of those stupid spam bot things that make it into your inbox. I'm not talking about spam. I'm talking about. So, like, email used to be great, and then the spammers got us, and it was terrible. And then Gmail came along, and Gmail had a good spam filter, and all the spammers went away. And that was 15 years ago. And in those last 15 years, all the people have figured out how to get around the Gmail spam filters. And so now stuff's coming into my inbox to the tune of about 75 messages a day that are garbage. But I still have to see them, and I have to delete them, and some of them make me angry, and I just hated that. So I put in mailwall, and it's beautiful. And I'm going to be sharing this with the world soon. So the way to get mailwall is just try to email me in a month, just good luck. And it'll say, if you want to email Jimmy, you got to pay a buck. And then, turns out we'll actually give you $5 when you sign up, because I want everyone using it.

So let's say of Those, you know, 50%, if not 80%, are truly still. They're gonna get through, but they're nothing you would even look twice at.

Right?

What I'm curious about is what do you do when they're people from your friends of friends of friends who are asking you for things? Hey, Jim, I'd love to pick your brain. Hey, Jim. Our friend so and so mentioned I should reach out to you. Hey, I'm just starting to build this. Can I get your advice? There must be way more of that than you.

I get hundreds, so I have a monthly event at my glass studio called Third Friday. So the third Friday every month in St. Louis, Missouri, there's a big free party, and I usually show up to that. So I just tell everyone, come to Third Friday.

And do you get overwhelmed at third Friday?

Sometimes but usually people like that are so lazy, they don't even show up. And then it's kind of hard to find me because we have about a thousand people at these things, and so you have to make a little bit of effort. Even asking somebody to do, like, the most minimal amount of effort winnows down the population of annoying folks. And then another great thing is I make people write what they want to do. You want to hang out about what? Like, tell me what we're talking about. Yeah, so that helps a little bit. But the other thing I've learned to do is just be a little less polite. Unfortunately, I was raised to be super polite.

Raised in the Midwest, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It might not be obvious from this interview, but I used to have really good manners.

I like it. So maybe that speaks to dropping the need to be nice.

I hope that's not the case because I don't want that to be the universal solution. I think more so yesterday we were at this Formula one race, and my son got to meet one of the very, very famous drivers. And I said, only if you're invited. You can tell him you're a big fan. You can ask him to sign your hat or something like that. That's okay. And it's okay because you're 11 years old. But don't ever interrupt. These people are working today. Like, you think it's fun. These people are trying to drive really, really fast, and that takes, like, 200 people working together. So don't bother them. I think people are. There's a sort of a disrespect. There's a familiarity that social media has created that I think would be terrible if you were famous. But I'm not fortunate.

Yeah, well, we've talked about that before, too. Someone was telling me that he's an agent in la, that people now just take photos of celebrities as if they're zoo animals and.

Oh, God.

And they feel entitled. You see it on TV on reality shows of them falling with their camera as if it's an animal in a zoo.

I have got a friend. He's a dear, dear friend and he played for the NBA. And you might imagine that he is taller than I am just by all of that.

Okay.

So he was just inducted into the hall of Fame. Okay. And when we go out, you know, we walk around. Like, he does not have to press walk signs. When you get up to the corner, like, everyone has to press the walk sign. Get a little walk guy. He doesn't have to do that because the traffic just Stops in both directions and people lean out of the car and yell at him. You know, sometimes they all nice stuff. And I was like, what do you do, man? Like, what do you do? And he's like, I don't go out much.

I just. I feel so sorry for him.

Yeah.

I mean, he's a superstar, but still.

You realize there are so many people who've said, if you can at all be wealthy without fame, go that route first.

Yeah, yeah. And I'm trying to be unwealthy.

And money isn't even everything. Right. Like cited before too, on the show. The Jim Carrey line of just, I wish everybody could get everything they ever wanted so they realized it's not it.

Yeah. Stuff doesn't. You know what? I'm not gonna say anything. Cause I just sound like a jerk. Right. I don't get to opine on these topics anymore because I'm too.

But no, I think it's the opposite. I think it's helpful to hear from people who say yes on some level. I don't think it's a jerk thing to say. Listen, I have more money than I can count, and that's not it. We know that a certain amount of money is necessary to live and sort of take care of basic needs. But it is helpful, I do think.

I wish I had more of an ego to play with the bucks better because I think I'm very disappointing to people who expect me to be doing way cooler stuff.

But who does? Because I actually think you're more entertaining because your personality is so entertaining. I don't think anybody cares about the things.

Oh, no. Lots of people want to hear this story. But I mean, I don't have good stories. Like, I don't hang out with rich folks too much. And I don't have too many sort of excessive stories. As a matter of fact, if I want to go do something wild, I have to basically subcontract that to one of my friends who just have outrageous tastes. And then I might underwrite the expedition, I might fund the expedition, but I'm not the leader.

Well, I also think from a business perspective, a lot of entrepreneurs, or let's just say and business owners, because they're two different things as you define it. But a lot of business owners think if only my revenue were higher, I could hire the expert or I could solve certain problems. And it's interesting that even as a business use case, you've said even hiring all the experts or just isn't always the answer.

And I almost killed one of My companies by overfunding it, like Invisibly, the firm that I've been sort of working on for five years now, I put too much money into that initially. Like I just threw too much money into it.

We see that in startups where they get too much funding.

That's normal. And I was such an idiot. I was like, I had this method that worked perfectly at Square and should have just done that. And I was like, but now I can afford this.

So why do you think that is? Because the underlying architecture and the process isn't there. So you pour money on the problem instead of pouring money onto the solution. Why do you think that that was risky for Invisibly?

I think it attracted the wrong sort of people. I know some of the people that were attracted, were attracted to the fact that this was a company that had, I mean there were two billionaires in the cap table, right?

So it was a pretty big like it was clear that we weren't going to run out of money. So that's kind of cool. And people will join companies more readily I guess, if they think their paycheck's going to clear. So that was kind of cool. But the downside of that was it attracted people who were interested in that money as opposed to if we just kept it on a shoestring, they would have been more interested in the problems that we were focused on. And of course these are all very, very smart people. So they don't say, hey Jim, God love working for a rich guy. They sit there and say, geez, I love this problem and I'm fooled easily. So I couldn't tell. I mean, you tell over time. I could tell over time the people who were working for the right reasons and the ones who weren't. And I spent five years paring down the team and getting the folks right who I now think are right. But it's been sort of terrible and it was my own fault. I broke one of the basic rules of at least my version of entrepreneurship, which is start small and start cheap.

Reminds me of my dad's advice for running a marathon. Start slow and taper off.

Yeah, there you go.

It's probably the opposite though. It's like, start slow with a startup and then almost like I can imagine that people are less scrappy. When I was at Google in from 06 to 11 and at that time it wasn't this like gajillionaire company. So we were really scrappy. Like everybody was doing more with less doing things, creatively launching and iterate, you know, really buggy software and also like a really interesting culture. Whereas when companies grow you have so much regulation in place and just a lot of bureaucracy. Like it's necessary at a certain size.

Yeah, it's an appropriate transition, but it's not good to start off.

We'll be right back just after this.

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So are you actively running all these companies? Are you on the board of these companies? Like you have so many awesome companies.

And I don't run anything. I'm not good at running stuff. I run from.

That's a great mantra. That's your motto. That's your bumper sticker.

I run from companies.

That's going to be your bumper sticker on the Batman.

Yes.

Batmobile. But you're still involved like let's say with Invisibly in Cash app. What's your role? Are you on the board? Are you?

So I'm on the board advisor. Board advisor shill when they need it. Like I'm still available to any company that I've founded as a resource.

Yeah.

And it doesn't matter if they want me to make a sales call or build a new product or I'm not a very good coder so I probably shouldn't be doing that anymore. But no, it doesn't matter what they need. I'll do it. Right now I'm building two new products for Invisibly and I'm super excited about it because I think I bring a sort of naivete to the solution that it's hard to hire that in a consultant. Right. You're not going to get that out of McKinsey. So I have this sort of precious ignorance that I can bring in and I'm pretty useful when the problem hasn't been solved. Because I'm so familiar with what it's like to be in that space. I don't freak out as much as I used to. That's a good time to get me into the project. I'm doing two of those right now at Invisibly. Got the diver thing. Doing a bunch of other stuff as well. But in all cases, I think my best use is to make something new.

I love it. I love it. Last question and then we'll wrap up. Let's talk about something like crypto and NFTs. This is now a selfish question because I'm noticing. I love emerging tech. I love it. I love getting in. I'm never the pioneer, but I'll be the next wave. So I might not have been the first one with the square reader, but I'll be close.

Yeah.

And what do you advise? For someone like me who's in the position where I'm compelled, I feel the magnet, my inner magnet. My intuition is pointing me that way. Am I uniquely poised to do anything in crypto and NFTs? Not at all. I mean, my husband's an NFT artist, and yet I'm drawn like, I want to go to NFT nyc. I don't know why and I don't know. So what do you say? What's an entry point for someone who, like, it's not really unique to me in any way.

I wouldn't look at it that way. I would look at a problem and ask yourself, is the NFT or crypto a way of solving this problem because it's a new tool? So this is the thing about. And we'll get back to perfect problems because it was a good way to start if you're trying to solve a perfect problem. Let's go back to the definition. Is it solvable? The perfect problem, by definition, could be solved if you did it the right way. You are capable of solving this problem. Now, that doesn't mean you're guaranteed to solve it. There's no guarantee of success. But if you look at it from that perspective, then the question is, well, why haven't other people solved this problem? Like, there have been smart people who've seen this problem through history or for at least years or months or some period of time before me. Why didn't they fix it? Why didn't they make this biodegradable diaper? And the answer is partially that every day you get a new set of tools.

Yes.

So the nft, which is pretty cool, is just a new tool. And I don't own any I don't know what they're good for because I've never needed to do something that required an nft. Now there may be one day when I go, oh, an NFT would be perfect. Or it might be a situation where, well, we need this thing and the thing doesn't exist, so we have to create the next thing that is an nft. I hope that you will work on problems you care about and not focus on the tool set. It would be like going to the gym and saying, well, I want to lift the shiny weights. I only want to work out with the chrome plated dumbbells because they look cooler or the purple ones or whatever. Do you need to lift weights at all or should you be stretching? What's the need? Because I think if you start focusing on the tool set, even though some of these tools are really fun, it leads you into this world of what do I do with this thing? And I think in the world of NFTs, what I would do with NFTs is really sort of just pump and dump, right? I would just try to promote them. I mean, I wouldn't do this, but I think the best use of NFT right now is to create something overly promote it, sell it to some idiot and then get out. Right? That's how I'd be using them. So now that's very cynical and I am not doing that. But if somebody forced me to play with NFTs, that's probably what I do, is I just try to.

Well, I love what you're saying about focus on the problem you want to solve. And what I love about technology is that the solutions sort of emerge in perfect timing because it takes this unique mix of audacity and humility and as you say, stubbornness. Because it's so rare that I would ever think I'm the perfect person to solve any kind of problem. I just don't think about myself that way. However, sometimes the new tool comes in at just the perfect time and I'm perfectly positioned in a moment of time to solve it. Whereas people five years ago, 10 years ago, didn't even have access to the same tools. That's what I'm loving about a lot of no code software that exists.

You're very empowering to solve the problem, but that doesn't mean you can't solve it. I mean, let's finish with this thought because it's a super important thought. You're not qualified to do something that has never been done before. Therefore you're not the perfect person. How many People on the planet could fix that problem. Maybe over a million, maybe at least a thousand, maybe 20 people in this building. Who cares? Most of those people will get up to that line where they have to go from what they know how to copy to what they have to invent, and they stop at that line. And the whole reason I spent four years of my life pushing this book out is because I don't want all of our talent stopping at that line. So, yeah, you're not the perfect person and you're, by the way, not qualified. Right. Nobody's qualified to do something the first time if it's been done before. That is the only way we get qualifications. So I flew home last night on a 737 Max. A. Right. The plane that crashed and crashed. Right. The plane that was grounded. I was not worried at all because I'm a pilot and I know how they train. And I'm like, I could have turned the trim system off on that plane. That's how much that problem's been solved. It's been solved. Don't worry about it. But don't disqualify yourself from picking up this amazingly powerful tool. So that's what the Innovation stack is. It's this thing that gives you those superpowers. So, yeah, you're not qualified, but, like, Batman wouldn't be any good without his stuff. Iron man wouldn't be any good without his suit. Like, you need to have these tools, but these tools unfortunately exist on the other side of the line. But they are there.

Yes.

And so that's what I do in the Innovation Stack. I'm like, okay, here's the tool set and here's how other people have used it. Now, I'm not giving you a checklist because you don't get to use their tools, but I'm showing you what it's like in that world and hopefully more people will join us.

So, well said. The book is incredible and hilarious. I highly recommend everybody read it. It's called the Innovation Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time. Jim, the very last question is, if you could give fellow business owners permission to do something differently or drop something altogether, what would it be?

Do something differently or drop something altogether. Wow. Do something differently. I'll combine them.

Great.

I think you should charge for your time. I think you should bill for your attention. I think you should do it for your email. I mean, you use Mailwall, I'll give it to you for free. Fantastic tool. I love it. But beyond that, I think you should monetize what you do. You seem like sort of a jerk. I charge people to meet with me. Now, I started doing this when I was at Square because all these wealth managers were calling me, and they're like, can I take you out to lunch? And I was like, oh, cool. Free food. And then after a while, I was like, wait a second. I just gave this guy two hours of my life for a $4 burrito. And then it dawned on me that I should be a good economist and charge a amount of money for that. So I started charging people to meet with me, and they would call me up, and it was fun. You should do this.

Are we talking, like, how do you even price?

Oh, so that's a good question. Like, how do you do price discovery? And the answer is, I started off at, like, a couple hundred bucks, and the guy paid. And of course, I take credit cards, so it was easy. And then next I was like, oh, crap. So I charged 500 bucks, and the guy paid, and I was like, wow. So the next guy, I charged 1,000 bucks, and they paid. And at about 1,000 bucks I was getting, half of the people would pay, and half the people would drive out. Now, here's what happened. Someone would call and ask me to take me to lunch to tell me how they can help me, because that's always how the sales pitch. I can really help you. Your family's gonna need to do this. And I'm like, okay, if you want to talk to me, it's a thousand bucks. Do you still want to talk to me? And they'd say, well, I'm helping you. And I was like, be that as it may.

I'm going to charge you 1000 bucks. And if you don't believe your product is so valuable that it's worth $1,000 investment, I mean, I'm going to give the money to a charity, but you're still going to cough it up. And he's like, can I give it to the charity? No, no, no. You're going to give it to me. And then I am at some point going to choose some random charity that I want, and I'm going to give it to them and just listen to them squirm. Listen to them squirm and tell you how valuable their thing is. And I was like, well, you clearly don't believe it's valuable enough for you to pay for my attention, so you're not gonna get any more clicked. And that is fun. And it's clarifying, and it's sort of a jerk move. But I encourage you to go get a square reader or get a cash app and make people pay you. Like sell it and don't apologize. Tell them Jim sent you.

I love it. Bam. Mic drop. Thank you so much Jim. This is a true delight. I'm so happy you said yes to this, Jenny.

This is so much fun.

And it's in person this time.

It's in person. It's in person. The first real podcast. Me too.

This is my first one. Shout out to Gotham Podcast Studio in Midtown. As you said.

Awesome.

Hey Gotham Podcast Studio, you're well on your way to your Batman dreams.

There you go. I just need more black.

Amazing. Thank you so much Tim. Thanks everybody for listening.

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