Building a Network & Betting on Yourself w/Co-Founder Dee Murthy

I love it. I love it. All right, y'all, good afternoon. Special edition Guidance Counselor 2.0 West Coast. I always have like a West Coast time for friends. Dee's obviously very busy, um, but I always have like a West Coast time, and that is usually lunchtime or at the end of the day Central. Um, so, uh, pumped for everybody to be here. I know no one's here yet. It takes, it takes a second to hit the interwebs anyways. Um, Dee, I wanted to ask, I wanted to kick it off with one question while people are tuning in.

Yeah.

Um, what's— I obviously listen to your podcast and I'll get you to introduce yourself here in a second. What's the hottest brand you're watching right now? Um, just either just any founder brand that you're pretty pumped about that's up and coming?

Um, a brand that I'm always checking is a UK brand called Represent.

Oh yeah, I follow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

George, George has become a friend and I've been watching their business grow and I'm curious to see how he scales. He launched women's footwear.

Cadence.

Yeah, he's really growing, so that's really exciting. I'm into running, so I'm always watching running brands. One of the brands is Anta, which is a brand that launched the Kyrie Irving shoe.

Yeah, you mentioned that on the pod. I have not heard about that.

Yeah, they're growing fast and they're— they've launched a running product that I started running in. Phenomenal. Um, there's another running brand called Satisfye. Okay, it's a French running brand. They just launched the shoe, which I have not tried yet, but okay, curious. It's like a luxury kind of price point, but it's cool. There's— there's always exciting brands. It's the best.

I love it. That's awesome. Well, for those who tune in, again, welcome. I'm pumped for this. If you're tuning in and, and, you know, if you happen to get caught up in one of these networks, like, why is D on some dude's podcast in Nashville? So Guidance Counselor 2.0, again, just a podcast, a live show to really help individuals kind of level up their careers in whatever stage they're at. I've been following Dee for a long time and actually pumped that he even responded to me, which again, for those of you who tune in and know my spiel, I fire off DMs all the time to people who I never think would respond to me. And somebody finally did. So obviously pumped to have Dee on. First off, as always, I'm an Appwrite hero. So if you wanna check out Appwrite doing really cool stuff at backend as a service technology, go check them out. Also check out Torque Community. We're building something special over at Torque Community. Again, really just want it to be a place to help people level up their career wherever they are at. So go check us out, torque.community. Jump in the Discord. We got 4,000 members in there doing a lot of things. We're about to do a lot of, believe it or not, brand partnerships with some companies and just helping people level up their careers. And if you want to get text messages, obviously when I go live, shoot me a text, 615-235-5650. Um, and, uh, you know, again, I don't spam you, I just let you know who I'm chatting with. So D, as the people tune in again, we have Ricardo and Daniel starting to, uh, come in here this afternoon. Want to give the people obviously a little bit of your backstory and who you are, so go ahead.

Yeah, so I've been an entrepreneur for like 20-some-odd years. Uh, started in fashion in 2002 as a senior at USC in Los Angeles and, um, co-founded a bunch of brands One called Five Four, one called Young and Reckless, a subscription box called Menlo Club, and a shoe brand called New Republic. And for like almost 20 years launched all these brands and became like a real expert in everything from manufacturing to distribution to sales to warehousing and learned everything the really hard way on how to make a brand and build it up and, you know, really scale. And In that I experienced so much and learned so much and felt a lot of pain. And out of that was one of the big challenges in retail, as a lot of people are now coming aware of, is excess inventory is like a mega problem. And it affects the profitability, sustainability, so many impacts, secondary impacts of having all this excess inventory. So We started building a business a few years ago called Ghost, and it is kind of one of its kind. Now there's obviously a lot of copycats in the space today, but we started to be a one-stop distribution platform for the world's best brands.

That's awesome.

And we started with excess inventory, and now it's moved into international distribution, wholesale distribution. It's kind of an easy way for brands and retailers to expand where they sell their products.

I love that. So those people tuning in, you're probably like, I don't know anything about warehousing. We're not going to dig into warehousing side because to be honest with you, that's way out of my realm of expertise. But D, if you ever need software engineers, let me know. But what I do want to talk about is kind of your journey, right? I mean, I think you and your brother graduated from— so I graduated from South Carolina, which is the real USC. And obviously kind of hearing y'all's journey kind of through this, I, I, I want to start really by, by just talking about building your network, right? And I think one of the things I want to dig in on too, specifically, if I get some people tuned in, those after-hours times for me is like, you— why— well, let's even start even further earlier, is that you just, I feel like, are now starting to do podcasts.

Yeah, I would say a little bit more. Yeah, I mean, like, obviously we've done our own for the last 8, 9 years. Sure. Generally, uh, I wanted to save the time for when we were going to talk about Ghost. I think what we're doing is extremely special and transformational, but it had to be ready.

Yeah, absolutely. So talk about— you're at— you actually weren't a build-in-public guy, which I think is really kind of interesting. I'm, I'm like, document all the things. I mean, I got the vlog. I mean, I've actually really followed George at Represent and also Ross at Cadence and emulate that kind of style. What kind of caused you, I mean, really kind of more kind of second, third layer, what caused you to not really kind of do is build in public?

Yeah, I think the first was you have to be ready to explain to the world what you're doing when you decide to go public. And in many cases, like, we didn't know specifically what we were doing. We were in a learning phase. And in that learning phase, you're going to keep pivoting, keep shifting to how you build a business. And we weren't ready. Second, I felt it was important to keep our heads down, stay focused, and actually create value for our customers. And if we do that, our business will grow. So 20 years ago, we built in private with our apparel brands, right? No option to build it.

Yeah.

And it worked out pretty well. Like, we really scaled some incredible businesses. So there's something to be said about, like, you know, you can build in private and build an incredible business. And, you know, it is not meant for everyone.

Sure.

There's a lot of criticism that comes with building in public. There's a lot of attention that comes with building in public. Some of it's good, some of it not good. Some of it's copycats. And sometimes, you know, If I became a public figure, like in terms of putting myself out there when I was 25, I don't know if I could handle it as I can now as a 44-year-old person.

That's fair.

As an adult, I'm mature and I can handle feedback and like not be affected by it. You could say anything about me, I'm gonna go to sleep fine. Whereas a lot of— if you had told me that at 25, I might not have been able to take it. Yeah. And I would have been insecure about how I felt. So I, I think there's, you know, you have to have the personality for it.

Sure.

First and foremost, and you'd be ready for the criticism. And I also wasn't— didn't want to tell anyone what I was doing because I think it's so special that I don't— I wasn't looking for competition.

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes sense. So going— I actually want to just ask you that selfishly. I do have another agenda, but definitely want to ask that selfishly because I've always been curious. Um, talk about networking. I think one of the things you and your brother said on your podcast that really resonated with me was many episodes ago It's about just showing up.

Yep.

You guys were talking about showing up to birthday parties or whatever. And just a lot, I think your brother was like, half the time I didn't even wanna go, but I knew I just needed to be in the room.

Yeah.

I think, I don't know. So I would put my network up against a lot of people in the tech industry just 'cause that's all I've been doing. Your network is nuts. Can you talk about how you just have built such an incredible network? And if you wanna name drop, you can, but you don't have to.

Yeah, I mean, I think the key was we talked about the rule of propagation. which is being next to the people, right? And like, when you start building incredible, um, businesses, uh, you wanna be surrounded by other people building incredible businesses, but everyone wants to be in the room, right? The room, right? And there's, there's only so many the rooms in the world.

Yeah.

You don't just get to show up. There's a lot of work that goes to get to the point where you get to be in the room. And part of it is, you know, one of the things we've been talking about a lot lately, just even in my own house, I have 2 young children, is with technology going the pace it's going, IQ is going to become commoditized, right? Like intelligence. And we're all going to get access to the same thing. So we're all going to know if we choose to. Some people will choose not to, but we'll all have everything at our fingertip. If that's the case, then EQ, emotional intelligence, becomes extremely important. And the only way you get that is by being around a lot of people. And so my, my kind of way of throwing myself in the fire was when I was 18 years old in college, I started going to events by myself.

That's terrifying to me. Yeah.

And I didn't want the crutch of another human being.

Yeah.

Like, I didn't want my friends there because if my friends came, I wouldn't talk to anyone. So I would awkwardly go up to people and go, hey, my name is D. I go to USC. I'm a freshman.

Oh, fuck off.

Like, no one cares about it. 18-year-old kid from the US.

Yeah.

And so, but I think that gave me a lot of confidence to be able to communicate, to be able to take rejection. Like, I, I, my first business was a fashion business. Like, I used to walk up to the most famous people in the world and ask them, can I give you clothes? And it's not always very nice responses.

Sure.

Um, but I would— it didn't affect me. And I think You know, everyone likes to look at my network today and be like, damn, he knows.

Yeah, I mean, it's incredible.

But that's from like 20 years of putting in the work. A lot of these people I knew 15 years, 15 years ago when they were, you know, a barista. Yeah, I didn't know them when they were the CEO of, you know, whatever company. And so I think like that just has to be a long-term horizon thinking. And that like, there's this urgency today of networking where like you have to meet someone today and then tomorrow you have to add value to them. And then the next day they're gonna, you're gonna make a million dollars together. That's not how it works. There's people that I would see at like Coachella, then at a conference, then at dinner, 5 years later. I'm like, what do you do? I don't even know what you do.

Yeah.

I see you everywhere. And I think there's just like today when a college kid walks into my office, oh, I wanna add value to you. I'm like, well, leaving would add value so I can get back to work. So is that adding value? No. Like patient, like get, just say hi, nice to meet you. This is who I am. And then look out for me. I'm doing these types of things or whatever. Like I think there's too much of an urgency right now.

Well, and I agree. I mean, so everybody tuned in is in the software space, other community builders. And one of the things that I do a lot on is like, going to conferences, right? I mean, I just went on a string of 2 conferences in a row. Definitely want to talk to you about that. Some of your recent pods talk about the importance of just being in the room at conferences. But I feel like what I try to tell people is like, hey, just, you don't always have to come up with— I mean, I talked to one guy who was like, yeah, I came up with like a 30-minute elevator pitch. I said, the elevator broken? Like, no one wants to talk to you for 30 minutes. Like, what are you doing?

Yeah.

So I feel like there's just such this pressure to go up to conferences and be like, Hi, my name's Taylor. I do this. What do you do? And it's just a lot of times it's making a joke and leaving the room.

Leave on a high note. Seinfeld reference. Um, the key to it is leave an impression.

Yeah.

And move on. And, you know, we did an event years ago in LA for all our podcast listeners, and we said the one thing that we recommend is Introduce yourself, make an impression, and keep it moving. Don't get stuck in a long conversation with people because you don't know the other person well enough to have that conversation yet.

No.

And you don't want to be like a burden where they remember like, oh, that guy really talks too much. Like, it's, it's like, you know, kind of read the room and know that like, hey, love to meet you, this is what I do, leave an impression, move on. And I think that's how you truly do network in real life, right? Like you can't like talk someone's ear off and think they're gonna call you the next day.

No, not at all. Talk about, I kinda wanna segue into conferences and we're gonna come back to kind of your risk-taking and kind of some of the failures in your career that have kind of made you who you are. Talk about the importance of conferences, right? You go to a lot of conferences, you go to the cool ones I feel like where there's like a lot of cool stuff happening. I go to nerd conferences, they're very, very different. But talk about just the importance of actually just being, going to conferences. I know that was a recent kind of episode with Y'all's Pod?

Yeah, I mean, I think there's a couple things that happen by going to a conference. One, you get to be with your peers. You get to be with people in your industry. You get to be with people that think like you, have probably same interests as you. And so like, you're with like-minded people, which is very, very, very special.

Yeah.

Second, you get to get the pulse of your industry really, really fast. Like, I go to a wide variety of conferences. Like, I went to Expo West, which is the organic food show, but then we'll also go to, we'll also go to like consumer electronics shows, CES.

Yeah.

And so like we'll, we'll go to everything and we'll get a sense of like where the trends are going, where people are going. And then more importantly, getting face time with your customers, your vendors, the people you work with, and having that drink, sharing that joke, ending up at a party with them.

It—

that is important, right? Like, ultimately, like, whether people realize it or not, a lot of people are just optimizing for fun and having a great life.

Yeah.

And so yes, you are laser-focused on building your company or becoming a leader and building your career. The guy across from you just may want to have fun, and that's okay. Like, you should want to embrace that too.

Yeah.

And conferences is a boondoggle. Yeah, people want the break. Yes, these are people that are married with kids and they, they want to come over here and be like, I want to, I want to learn, I want to talk, I want to be with my peers, but I also want to maybe get drunk and have a nice meal.

I mean, that's a vibe for sure. I'm about it.

Yeah, and I think, I think like that's the— that's why conferences are so successful. Yeah, because it kind of feeds every need, which is you want to learn, you want to progress your career, progress your business, And then you want to have a good time.

Yeah.

And you do that when you go to Vegas or Nashville or Miami or New York for a conference.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, and talk about, you know, you've built an amazing Discord. I can't even keep up, to be totally frank. Like, it's just, I hop in, I maybe say a word or two. I'm like, I think I just commented like, what happened now? I think on a recent political thing. Uh, talk about y'all's kind of thought around— I mean, to be totally frank with you, I've definitely, uh, looked at what you guys are doing, you know, building a directory for us, something that you guys have done. Um, I think the engagement is, is killer. What do you think makes a really successful community? Um, because what's crazy is that there's some topics that are talked about in that Discord that are wild, and everybody remains really respectful, which is, uh, pretty impressive. So talk about how you guys have built this and, and, and what do you think makes it special?

Yeah, I think anything with community, it has to be slow. It has to be a slow burn and take its time. I think if you launch a community tomorrow with 100,000 people, it won't work.

No.

Everyone's intention is not the same. Our Discord is, is for a podcast that's been around for 8 years. And in those, many of the people in there have been listening for 8 years. They know the temperament of, uh, other listeners. They know the temperament of myself, my brother, and our, uh, our other host, Drama. And we've come to, uh, display how we act and talk, and the community respects that.

Yeah.

And so like, yes, my brother and I go off the rails and fight and yell at each other, but like, we still every week sit across from each other and do the podcast, right? And I think the community respects that, and we're able to have that kind of civil discourse on everything, whether it's sports, whether it's technology, whether it's the future, whether it's politics. And I think if you do it slowly and thoughtfully, that will happen.

Yeah, absolutely. Jason, he's on my team. He's giving me heck.

Talk about—

I am curious. I haven't heard you talk about this. You may have. What are your thoughts on community-focused companies? Obviously, a lot of the brands these days are very community-heavy. You're in a little bit more of a marketplace side of things. I don't know if I don't know if there's a community that can be built in the marketplace side, kind of what you do, but what's just your general thoughts on like community-first companies, uh, moving forward?

Yeah, I look, I, I think you have to do it in today's age, um, because like there's so many people doing the same exact thing. Why do I work with someone over someone else? It's just, that's the, that's the only moat you have. And so if that's the only moat you have, it's, it's giving people a sense of belonging. Like, think about it, consumer brands do that. Like, look at like my experience with Nike in the '90s when I was growing up is Nike was worn by winners. Michael Jordan wore Nike.

Right.

Kobe Bryant wore Nike. You know, the winners wore Nike. And so that's their community. They created a community of people that wanted to win. Yeah, that's what Nike was always about. Today, no matter what you're doing, you're able to create a community because the beauty— beautiful thing about LinkedIn and just the internet broadly is you can find your tribe. Like, if you're a software engineer that's into the Lakers that lives in Nashville, there's probably 50 of you.

Yeah, exactly.

So I think like, and I think that power is so important in building a business. Because there's a lot of loyalty in community.

Yes.

A ton of loyalty in community.

Yeah.

And so I think you should take advantage of that and find a way to do it, but it has to be an authentic way, right? Like, you know, Ghost does— our community is not done publicly. It's done extremely privately. It's done very much one-on-one in small group settings. We want to intimately know our customers.

That's awesome.

We don't want 1,000 people in a room raw riding. That's not our business. We have very deep relationships with the people we work with. One of our biggest suppliers is in town today. That's who I was meeting with when you were here. We're going to the Dodger game tonight. We'll go to dinner. We're gonna spend 12 hours together. That's my community. Like, I, I, I'm— we're a little bit more hand-to-hand because we're a B2B distribution platform.

Sure, sure.

But, you know, if you're a consumer, you could do bigger things, but building community is incredibly important.

I love that. Um, thank you for teeing that up as well. That's gonna go great for a clip. Um, uh, talk about, you know, you've kind of been on this crazy journey. You've had businesses fail. Um, honestly, your last, uh, podcast with Open Residency and Mark was incredible. Just a killer job by him and his team.

Yeah.

And, you know, I didn't realize this about that investment falling through. Um, you know, and then essentially, you know, you've kind of built up another business. I mean, Talk, talk about just, if you're open to it, talk about your failures at a super high level. Um, I feel like everybody talks about successes these days, but I feel like you learn from your failures the most.

Yeah, I mean, look, starting a business is impossible. Having a business last its first year is impossible. Having a business have employees and pay them on time, impossible. Having a business that actually grows and makes money It's fucking virtually impossible. Like, it's all impossible, right?

Yeah.

So, you know, people who have the courage to even step and do it, you should be proud of yourself because you've taken a leap that most, that most don't. I think what I realized in, in, in, in, in business, I used to be extremely fear— fearful of failure. And today I am, I embrace it.

Yeah.

Because I learn from it. And so instead of, I used to feel very much— it's, it's definitely like a younger version of me where I'd be like, uh, someone screwed me, someone, something did something to me and that's why I failed.

Yeah.

Where I never took accountability to maybe it was my fault. Maybe I led us down this direction, right? Like, I've always been CEO. My brother always says like, you've been CEO your whole life. Yeah, you never had even— just, that's my frame of mind.

Yeah.

And so like ultimately if something fails, it falls on me, right? And I think that's what I learned through these failures. Like, what did I do wrong in this instance to end up in this situation? It's a really hard thing to look at because we're all egomaniacs and we all think our shit don't stink. And then when you actually get to the point where, um, you— it could be because you made a wrong decision or you created a wrong culture. That's a hard thing to swallow. Yeah, but it's very important to get to that point.

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I— you, uh, Ghost is scaling like crazy, um, you know, and, and I mean, you guys have— you always have open roles. Um, you guys are on-site, correct?

Yeah.

So, uh, talk about the decision with that, because obviously I deal a lot of remote roles in the engineering space. I'm curious why in-person.

So, so we have an office in LA, we have an office in New York, and we have a handful of remote roles. I believe the greatest companies that have ever been built were built in person. Okay, and let's take— forget my, my background, retail. Let's talk technology.

Sure.

Amazon, Facebook, Google— what, where they started and where they are today is a function of people being in the trenches together.

Yep.

And it's been spoken about to death of why people should work in office together. And it's been spoken about to death on why remote is better for certain types of people. And I think I could be proven wrong over time that remote ends up being the winner of this competition. My belief is that running and starting a business is incredibly difficult and building anything, whether it's technical, a sales team, a product team, The, the immediate impact of speaking and spending time together and understanding how we all think is priceless. And so I believe that that was best for our company to do this in person, build it together, and we've had the results. So for me, it was the right decision. Other people will get the results building completely remote.

Sure.

Our business is really hard. Really hard and it's extremely complex. And even the engineering piece to this business requires you to have very deep understanding in our business. And that happens by spending time together.

Yeah. Yeah. It says any hardline stance on remote versus in-person doesn't make sense to me. And at least one person likes what you're saying, Dee, which is great. So you're doing a lot of hiring. Talk about from a hiring perspective, this is a lot of what my podcast entails, what you look for when you hire, Where are people missing the mark? How do you like to be approached just by somebody kind of off the street, if that's even a thing? Kind of just gimme a little bit of background, just like put on your hiring manager hat for a second.

Yeah, so, you know, if I look at our company into 2 functions, like call it EPD, engineering product design, and then revenue.

Yep.

Very different characteristics of people, right, in those 2 groups. On the engineering and product side, I would say that we, We are, we're over-indexing people that have had exposure and experience to our business. So have you worked at a marketplace?

Yeah.

A distribution platform? Do you understand the nuances of that type of business? Any type of B2B marketplace or B2B type experience has a huge impact on like how we think about how you can add value and impact.

Sure.

So if you look at the people, you know, like our CTO Marco, He was at Goat, which is a consumer marketplace.

Yeah.

He was at Network, which was a livestreamer. So like he has very specific experience and that's part of the reason why we thought he was such a good fit for this company is because he's kind of seen it from a startup level to a scaled level. We love when people have been a part of the growth. We are not, you know, at the end state of what our business will look like. We are figuring it out along the way. We're building the plane while we're flying it. So we need true builders, people who were at a company like— Uber is an interesting example that people like to use. It's like they love Uber people. It does matter when you worked at Uber.

Yeah, I have worked with some people at Uber. I've not been impressed because of where they were at.

Yeah, it matters at what stage of that company were you there. Were you there when they were trying to figure out how to launch surge pricing and they did it for the first time and it was a manual process? Were you there and then they automated it, or were you there just at the point where you just, oh, instead of 3x, let's do 5x? Like, very different time of day. So I think it matters what part of the company's journey were you a part of. And for startups, which is we are, we are a 3-year-old business, we are looking for people that want early-stage exposure.

Yes.

Like, it is a cultural mismatch when you find people that come from the really big companies?

I have realized that I am a startup guy for life. Yeah, I mean, Torc is very unique where we operate as our own entity within the confines of Ronstadt, but the speed at which I like to go, I—

Yeah, yeah, you know, if you're used to the Google, Netflix, Microsoft type lifestyle, it's a very different speed. And there's a lot of bureaucracy that goes on to making a decision. Here at a startup, you wanna do it, you text someone, you're like, yeah, can I do this? Go do it, figure it out. Like, we don't have—

we don't—

by the way, we don't even have time to even have that discussion. Just go do it.

Yeah, yeah.

So I think like speed is an important thing. And I think of people at large companies, and we've interviewed a lot of people at large companies, they're really frustrated that Their work is not being impacted right away.

I love it. Dan was supposed to join us today. He's a big fan of your pod, but he had a client dinner tonight, so, uh, getting business is more important.

Yeah, yeah.

Um, where, where do you see candidates missing the mark right now who are interviewing with you guys? Uh, you know, practical experience— do they just— is it just, just a bunch of fluff in their resume? Like, where are people just really missing the mark?

I would say, like, do your homework. I'm actually quite surprised how many people don't do homework.

Yes.

I also am surprised at how many people, when we say, hey, we really enjoy spending time with you, and you may not be the right fit right now, and the— it's really important how you respond to that question. Because I said right now, I didn't say forever. And I think if you know how to communicate, you can leave the door open for the future.

Yeah.

And if you— what you say in that response keeps you in a pile of resumes that says, you know what, that person was great. It just wasn't the right fit right now.

Yeah.

That's all the difference is. And the reason being is You know, we had a data, a data scientist that we hired early on in our company, but we had no data infrastructure. So they were like, what the hell am I supposed to do all day? Yep, they left. Full circle, we have an open role and they're interested. Yeah. And we're interested because it's the right time.

Correct.

And we kept a very good rapport with that person. She kept a good rapport with us. We feel great. So it's like, these are things that, like, um, I think it's important to do your homework, be prepared, try to give insight onto what you would, you know, ask the right questions in terms of, like, what my day-to-day would be and how I can, you know, uh, be a part of the team. But, like, those are all the basics. The main is, like, how you communicate, how you kind of, you know, hold yourself, and then, like, how you respond to the process. Like, if you're a pain in the process, they're like, if this is painful scheduling with you, we're never gonna hire you.

Never.

You know, it's like the most basic fundamental things, both boxes have to be checked.

Well, I think you guys talked about one of your recent pods, like, at the end of the day, whether you like it or not, people just wanna work with people who they like.

Yeah. I mean, it's so simple. Like, we work with some of the biggest brands, biggest retailers in the world, biggest e-commerce companies. So many of those people work with us because they love us.

That's it.

And but I mean, that's sales though, right? Like, think about how many cloud providers there are. Yeah. Why do you pick AWS over Google over Azure over— they like the sales guy.

That's it.

Took me to a, you know, good concert or whatever, and they had a good time.

Hey, if you even want to consider using Torque, I'll take you to a concert.

We do actually have a lot of open product roles at the moment.

We can help with that.

And so we're always looking for smart, talented, hungry people that have really, um, exposed, you know, have exposure to the startup world.

I'll, I'll, um, I'll get your roles. We'll do, uh, we'll do a Torque special. We'll just post them in the Discord. Just tell, just, just tell Dee that You saw the pod. Um, D, as we wrap up, uh, I want to be respectful of your time and get— try to get out a little early. Um, got some questions for you. Yeah, kind of a hot take, uh, a little hot take. All right, this was off— I think this was my original DM. Um, Zoom calls or phone calls?

It's a tough one. I think if it's a first conversation, Zoom is important.

Okay.

Um, I think if it's an existing recurring relationship, a phone call will suffice.

Okay.

Um, I'm an in-person person. I— my stack is in-person, you know, Zoom, then phone call. That'd be my preference.

Uh, Dan throwing up here, people do business with people they like and buy from people they can share more about why they do it or not just what they sell. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Um, uh, talk, uh, running. So you're a big running guy. Uh, I can't run at all. Um, I got bad feet. That's neither here nor there. Um, what is your favorite running shoe right now? And then what shoe do you want to try?

Um, the shoe that I've been running in the last 3 months is Anta. It's, uh, it's a brand that I think I told you just recently. Yeah, yeah, from Asia. And then the one I want to try is Satisfye, which is a French running brand, and I've been seeing a lot of the— a lot of French runners post it. It's a very expensive shoe, so I gotta convince myself to spend the money.

That checks out. Luke in here in person. Person, yes. Um, uh, uh, I know we asked about this in the beginning, um, so I'm gonna change that right now. I know I said hottest brand. What about— what about founder, any specific founder outside of George with 24/7? Just like anybody who you're a big fan of what they're doing.

Who am I a big fan of? I'm, I'm really fascinated with all of the kind of public-facing AI founders.

Yeah.

Because I think the risk— it's such an interesting game to play. They are talking about everything they're building in public. And a week later, the world gets completely flipped upside down. What they said is completely irrelevant.

Yeah.

And watching them kind of all compete against each other—it's the biggest nerd-off ever.

It's wild.

Yeah. And and it's it's it's very exciting, right? Because it's like these guys are putting their money where their mouth is and saying we just built the best blah blah blah. And then a week later, a Chinese company said we not only built it better; it's free. Here, take it.

Seriously. Nuts. Absolutely nuts. The last question I always end guests with. Again, thank you for coming on. For those of you who are tuned in, I'll drop Dee's LinkedIn in the show notes after this, but please go connect with him. But Dee, the show's called Guidance Counselor 2.0 because we had guidance counselors in middle school, high school, and college, but now as adults, we don't necessarily have anybody to turn to necessarily and ask for general career advice. If you could go back in time and tell Dee something, young Dee, What would be the biggest piece of career advice that you give them?

Uh, that's a great question. I would say be patient, number one. Your time will come. I think I was too, like, dying to get out of college, dying to become successful. I just had to put my head down and work and learn. So patience is number one. Number two, I would say, um, you can move fast But when you're wrong, you got to move on. And I think that, that was an incredible learning lesson where sometimes I knew I was in the wrong place or the wrong situation, but I did not take the effort to move on.

Yeah.

And, you know, it's a very, you know, important lesson to learn. And the last is, if you're a really good communicator and you're a real personable person, And you're around all these great people, the, the single worst thing that can happen is you could drown in opportunity. Too much opportunity is equally as bad.

Have you seen that?

Yeah, me.

Oh, nice.

So like, for me, I'm, I'm very much out there in my industry. Yeah, all day, every day, people are giving me opportunities, which is amazing. Sure, beautiful thing. Sure. But have the ability to say no And focus is the most powerful thing I can do for myself. So focus is an incredible, important key component to, um, success.

I love that. That's awesome. Well, y'all, thank you again for tuning in. D, stay on so I can say bye to you backstage, but y'all have a great one. Again, like I said, I'll drop D's LinkedIn. Feel free to connect with him. Go check out his podcast Group Chat, which is fantastic. Uh, I'm a big fan, and we'll fly out the next meetup that happens in LA and turn into a business trip. But y'all have a great one. Uh, tomorrow morning, 9 AM, I'm back— 9 AM, 9:30 AM. Uh, I'm back with my guy Demetrius Clark, uh, the head of DevRel at Netlify. Uh, so super excited to talk with Dom tomorrow. So we'll see y'all. Have a great rest of your Tuesday evening, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. Peace.