What He Learned From Successful Startups with Ace Lane

Welcome to this episode of the Million Dollar Mastermind. I'm Larry Weddell and let's get started. I am with Ace Lane and excited to get his insights about startups. I mean, Aces is someone who has been involved in many startups in his life in sports, in growing up and you know, having injuries right from the beginning, you know, running into things that knocked him down and then he had to get back to his, you know, being knocked out of circulation for a year because of health things, having to restart his life, get back in the game, overcome those reservations and fears you have of like, will I be able to do it again? But then entering into different sports, entering into different areas of, you know, from ski racing to the soccer to starting his own business and then he's been able to get involved because of that success in helping other businesses start up. So he's, he's a real innovator. He's someone who likes to make new things happen and set the pattern of success in there, get traction and not just do something, but do it at the highest level. So welcome Ace.

Thanks. It's be hard for me to live up to that introduction, but yeah, I appreciate that.

Well, if you, boy, if your boys ever listen to this, we want them to know how special you are.

Well, you know, my boys are my heroes. I, I want to be like them. I don't want them to be like me. I love who they are and what they're about. Yeah, they're awesome.

There's a famous comedian one time they said, who in the world would you like most to be? And they said his response was my oldest son.

Yeah. I have to say all three of my boys.

Yeah. Because it's like nobody's got it better than him, you know. And anyway, let's talk about those startups you said in 2005, you know, you started up your business, you obviously know how to make things happen and build an environment. People, you need more people involved, but they high quality people want to join. One thing we need to get on the table that you said, I'm a great manager of people. You know, I've discovered over the years, I'm a great coach and a great manager for people who don't need a lot of coaching and a lot of supervision. But to get those kind of high caliber, highly motivated, highly capable people, you've got to have something special going on because those people kind of have a pick of where they can go and they're looking if they're going to make a special effort. They have special Abilities they want to get involved with a place where they know it's, there's going to be rewards, things, exciting things are going to happen. You know, they'll have it inside them where, you know, the kind of thing where I know I'm not strong enough to win a national championship myself, but I want to be, you know, I can be a team, I can be on a team, I can make a contribution to where, you know, our team can be a big success. And I want to be a part of something great. I think people want to be a part of something great. And you've shown that you're able to do that. And it goes back to a lot of times how you start is how you finish. But you took that, you started your, you took your business to California, then you got involved, you said, in energy startups. So what did you, what would you say is some of the principles that you tried to get in place to where you would feel comfortable that this new game plan, new team, new organization could be a success?

Well, that's a big group of questions. I guess part of it I go back to my dad and watch it. He was a great entrepreneur. He was also phenom athlete. But I watched him, you know, doing his business dealings and he was never about the dollars. He's always, he had so much fun making the deal, which made it fun for everybody else involved in the deal, that big fun deals kept, kept happening. So he wasn't chasing the dollars, he was chasing the ideas. And so I did learn that from him. And for me it is fun. It's. And I feel like I've had a lot of mentors, a lot of people. I look up to where I've, I keep learning. And the guy who introduced me to startups is, he's an Australian guy, great guy. His name is Steve Bilotti and he was always jumping into a variety of startups. We became friends and so I joined them on some of those adventures. One of them we had extraordinary success. And then I started moving more into where my passion was and that's into sustainable energies. And so I got involved as an angel investor, quite a number of them. And part of it happened from great success we had on one earlier which allowed me then to spread out to other variety of startups. And it's super fun to be around these energized groups of people, like three or four or five. And you have all kinds of economic challenges going on in the world, but they're not thinking about that. They're thinking about this Cool idea. They want to bring out, demonstrate for the world and for themselves. And super high energy and strong, strong, good, good characters almost always. And yet the ones that would, that were flexible and can see things shifting on the horizon and moving with it, those are the ones that generally I have seen had success, but they also have a very fun, inspired workplace.

Yeah. And you take it beyond that. The deal is that you got to have a focus to your fun and excitement and you got to make it happen piece by piece. And that icebreaker success, early on you said, like, open the door to all these others. Right. And, and so people, you know, it's like athletes, like, if that first thing had been kind of a flop or kind of left a bad taste in your mouth, you probably wouldn't have had the real excitement about pursuing other ones, would you?

I think that's, there's a lot of truth in that. We had so much success in that. In that one. Yeah, it was, it was very inspiring and it allowed me to go into areas that I was, as I said earlier, I was really passionate about love and which. Well, I feel like. Go ahead.

No, go ahead.

I feel like if you can bring people together in something that you all love, are passionate about, it's amazing the things that people can get done, especially as a team, just incredible.

And achieving success is like peeling an onion. You got all these unknowns in front of you, you know what you want to make happen, but standing between where you are today and where you want to go, you have all these unknowns and all you can do is peel them back one by one. But there's got to be a purpose for this thing. Do you feel like, did you have. When you look back on that first success, I know you, you kind of, you know, go right by it, but do you feel like you just won the lottery and it just happened to be a successful one, or were you able to make a contribution that was a little, at least a little bit of a difference maker in that first situation?

Well, I'd like to say I've made a difference, but part of the huge attraction I had to that group was I went there for sort of an interview on their process. I met their team. I was so, you know, once in a while you meet a team like, whoa, you know, this is the Kansas City Chiefs. You know, they have some weapons they have and they have this tech, this amazing technology and they've been able to demonstrate it at some low levels. But so a big ingredient for me in working with startups is I try to look at the character of the team and then other. And generally I go in there with other, other groups and they have a lot of talents that I rely on. They have a lot of strengths and finance and, you know, just across the board. But for me, I was trying to look at the team and what they're, what, what kind of character they had. Like, can they dig deep? Do they really love this? You know, what can they do? Do they know how to shift? Do they support each other? Are they inspiring? Are they fun? Is it, is it kind of a goofy environment where you can grow? So those are the things I looked at. And you know, I continue to always look at those things. No matter what kind of work I'm with or who I'm working with, I look for those types of qualities. Because when things, if you're working really hard and you're getting whooped on, but you're having fun, then that's pretty cool. Because then when you're having success, then it's like super fun.

But when you, to keep that fun going and keep the motivation going and the confidence up, nothing feeds that like achievements. You know, you solve problems, you unravel mysteries. Things that were, you know, total deal killers. A month ago you figured out you got it. Yeah, that's in the rearview mirror. And now what were some of the things that made a difference? Where were they at that point and what allowed. Were they already successful? You know, you obviously, when you joined the party, a lot of this was theory and they were working on it and they did not make the breakthrough. When you say we had a success, the first one was a big success. They probably had some breakthroughs after you got involved and while you were involved with them. And again, you can't take over all the credit for it. But what kind of contributions do you think you made to make that happen? Because everybody involved in a team or a program is either going to add or they're going to detract. You know, either going to do it with a little bit of help, a little boost, or you're going to have to overcome the negative drag. And a lot of the venture capital people turn into a negative drag because they're poking their nose in where they don't belong. They're only pointing out what's missing and they're not giving you room. You know, they're like sucking the life out of you. Although they did bring some dollars. You know, they're not really adding to the energy. And so if nothing else, I'm sure you added to the Energy and an outside voice, experienced outside voice like yourself. I would guess if I was looking on that said, you probably had a great value in encouraging them on the things they were doing right and helping them stay on track with those things.

Well, I can't. I have to give all that group, like almost they get all the credit. So I went out and I checked it out and I was like, oh, this is the Kansas City Chiefs. And I came back home and I scraped every dollar I could and I put it in there as an angel investor. And I say if the contribution I made is kind of like what I was talking about earlier, and I don't know how much it did or didn't do, but I was very inspired by what they're putting together and with their team. And so I guess this would be part of the coaching part of me. Although I was not coaching them, I was very supportive and enthusiastic about what they were doing and how they were doing it. And I didn't shy away from sharing how I felt about that. So I think if I did contribute anything to it, it was probably just that they felt supported and believed in and. And that I saw who they were and what they were trying to achieve. So if I did, if I did offer anything for them, I guess it might be that. But I'm not sure I can take much credit at all for that first one. I was very.

Yeah, it's not a matter. Yeah, it's not a matter of forcing you to take credit that you don't feel like you deserve. But I will tell you, Ace, that when you have someone you respect that is impressed and inspired by what you're doing and giving you feedback on the positives that they notice about what you're doing, it does help you keep your energy at a. It helps you. Gives you strength for when things go wrong or you wake up and just things are not working, you know, you're out of your zone for some kind of reason. But when you have that presence and that assurance that other super successful people believe in you and are telling you you're on the right track, that allows you not only to just stay on track, but to do it with maximum energy. And that's really the difference maker, you know, that's where the fun keeps you from getting overwhelmed and losing the fun positive environment where magic can happen. And so when you go. So I think you made. There's no question that you made that kind of contribution. And maybe that's all they needed, you know, because it's hard for success to happen. In a vacuum. And we're finding in sports right now this, this parallels out to sports where, you know, you got teams out there trying to knock themselves out and play at the highest level and there's nobody in the stands.

Right, right, right.

You know what I'm saying? There's no question the energy level is higher when you have 50,000 people in the stands and then. Or you have nobody in the stands, you know, just coaches on the sidelines, you know.

Yeah, it's unusual world right now.

Yeah, but I mean that, that's part of the thing of having. You know, one of the things about being in a startup and staying on track is being able to have people you can bounce ideas off of because, you know, when you move forward, you're starting something up, obviously by definition has never been done before. Sounds good. Feel like, you know, you got the right people and, and you're, you know, you feel out, you find out if you're on the right track or not by whether or not you get the results. But while you're going through it and you're, you're sorting through ideas, just like you sorted through things, of ideas of what to do about your future when you left racing and sports is like, you know, you bounce these ideas off the people around here. You're like a bat. You know, bats supposedly have no eyesight. They do everything with sonar. You know, they send out these sound waves and they bounce that back and that's how they can fly like lightning through the dark, you know, and not. Not fly into walls. So the thing is that feedback can make a huge difference. And how did you, what did you take from that first one, that experience that you've taken into your other startups?

You know, it's, it's a furthering of, you know, of looking at the players on the team and what they bring and how well they work together. I mean, to me, it all boils down to what I heard in a movie called Invincible and the coach said, characters, everything. I was like, oh, that guy is spot on. And so I keep, I keep going deeper and further with that. It's actually becomes, it's become spiritual. I feel like all those qualities that you're looking for in people are pretty spiritual to me. You know, strength, courage of love, perseverance, digging deep compassion, empathy, work ethic, charging ahead, shifting, having fun. You know, that joy factor I think is hugely spiritual. I learned a lot from my golden retriever. He's pretty happy. So he's a mentor of mine.

So the first thing you do when you get involved with a new startup is you buy them all. A dog, golden retriever.

Yeah, you're right to coach him.

And when you, you know, people might be listening to this and say, where's the formula? Dadgummit. All this chitchat, where's the darn formula? But the deal is successful businesses, successes in life comes down to the people involved, their character and their passion for a legitimate idea. You know, you got to come down to something rational that makes sense. But the idea of taking that and doing something amazing with it, that's where the drive and the grinding out. You don't have a successful startup without, with a whole lot of grinding. And for people, you got to have the right people with the right guts and determination where they're not going to, you know, expect, expect it to be easy, you know, expect it a couple of days and then, oh, this is taking too long. And that they love it. And they keep, they also will keep improving. Where you can solve those problems, the unknown problems are going to come up. That's what you got to make your mind up before you get involved with any kind of idea. Could be you could have the greatest idea in the world, but if you got mediocre people pushing it, it's not going to happen. And I'm sure you've seen that play out in your experience with startups.

Yeah, I think to me, especially in this world now, you can just get buried in data. And the more if you get too much data for me, you start to lose your feel because you're sort of have all this data on your shoulders. And it's really important to me that you keep your feel. And I feel like that crosses over to sports. Just that the feel that ski in the snow or the feel of that turf underneath your feet or whatever it may be. It doesn't have to be a physical feel. It could be an emotional feel, which is, I mean, which is huge. So, yeah, I think you do need people that are good at data and you do need people that know how to feel their way, you know, like, what's the right move here? This feels good to me. I don't have mountains of data for it, but this is, this is what feels good. Kind of like a football player running down the field. He's like, okay, I got to make a shift here. This feels like the move. And he makes it. And sometimes it's tremendously awesome. Sometimes it's not, not a good idea. But they don't have time out there to like collect a bunch of data. They have to move. And I kind of feel like startups have to be very nimble, very agile, and good, good feel and enough data to make thoughtful decisions. Yeah, but I'm still learning. I'm still learning.

Well, that's, that's the whole thing. I mean, it's not, you know, you got to go by what works. And, you know, it's like steering your car down the road. You know, am I doing a good job? Yes, you. You're in the middle of the road, you're doing all the steering you need to do right now. But if a truck comes out from the side or a car in front of you stops, now, you've got to do something else. You know, you got to stay in control and react to what's in front of you. And if you're the kind of person that dozes or gets daydreams or you let yourself get interested in other things, then maybe you're not paying attention to something that comes up because you, the quicker you can recognize it, you know, you can keep your eye on the most important things and make adjustments from that. It allows you to stay on top of the thing. And so what, what would you. To wrap this thing up on startups, what is the biggest lesson you've learned and the most biggest takeaway you continue to bring back into your own business?

Well, you've got to be, you've got to be okay with them failing. If you get stuck with one failing because you knew it had all this greatness to it. I mean, you do have your moments where you're like, ah, what could we have done? We should have done, done, done this. But then the best thing I found is to like, okay, there's other adventures out there. Go. Pursue and charge. Charge ahead. Take what you've learned from that and bring that toolbox to the next group. And your toolbox is bigger. I think that's probably one of the, the biggest things I've, I've learned is, okay, stop worrying about what happened. You know, then you're now, you're here, now let's go. For me.

Yeah. Yeah. It's kind of, you know, if it's, if it's dead, it's dead. You can't, you know, as we, we had a, A saying came up earlier this week, like, you can't do anything about the dead. But, uh, you, you can, you can do something about just about everything else, you know, and so if a project's dead, what are you going to do? You know, let's, let's throw our attention on something we can do something about, you know, and that also opens up the door to a question I want to ask you and kind of get your opinion on evaluating people. Because if you're going to be successful startups, this, that the other people, one thing that's come out of this is the people and the passion are the key. And so what are things to evaluate? I'm going to give you my opinion on where I think they go wrong on the pro draft and something they need to add into their evaluation process. Maybe they do, but you never hear about it. And so I can't wait to ask you that the next time we talk. So thanks so much Ace, and these insights on successful companies and successful startups.

Thank you, Larry. I appreciate being on the show.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Million Dollar Mastermind with me, Larry Wydell. If I've helped you in any way, leave us a five star rating and review on Apple Podcasts. For more information like this, listen to our other Million Dollar Mastermind episodes and check out my Wydell Academy YouTube channel and visit us on widelawnwinning.com I'm the million Dollar Mastermind. And until next time, go, go, go.