Brandon Bruce: Co-Founder Of Cirrus Insight

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Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Brandon Bruce with us. He is the co-founder of Cirrus Insight, a plugin for Gmail and Outlook that integrates with Salesforce to help salespeople save time. So welcome to the show, man.

Thanks so much, Tyler Wagner.

Of course. We'll dive into the first one. The first question I have for you, Brandon, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?

You know, I think one of my favorite stories and one that's been meaningful to me is years ago I read about a bicycle race through Death Valley. It was 508 miles long, single single stage. You just start and then you go as fast as you can until you finish. It took me 35 hours and 7 minutes. And, when I was about halfway, maybe two-thirds of the way done, biking along through the desert and there happened to be a road sign there that said, "No stopping anytime." And, in part because I was relatively fatigued and starting to have some minor hallucinations, but it was meaningful to me because it was like, "Well, I'm not done yet." So I don't want to stop just out here in the middle of the desert. And here's this sign telling me no stopping anytime. Doesn't matter if you're tired, doesn't matter if you need a little bit more water or some more fuel. You just got to keep going until you hit the finish. And I think that's been a good lesson for me, not only of course in cycling, but also in business and most other things in life. Hmm.

And what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?

You know, years ago, and my kids are still young, but when they were really little, they would ask, you know, well, what do you do for your job? You know, when you go to work, what do you do? And the easiest way and the most accurate way I could explain it is I talk for a living. And so I think one of the most valuable pieces of information that's within my expertise or industry is that, you know, we sell sales software to salespeople. And sales, I think, has always been, and certainly is today, an industry that's dominated by communication, meeting with people in person and connecting with them through calendars, through email, on the phone. And so it's learning and developing your own, your own language, your own way of presenting yourself, your own way of connecting with others and talking.

And what's your best piece of overall business advice, not necessarily industry-specific?

This came from one of the original founders of Cisco, and she gave an interview once And she said, "The first rule of playing a game is to know that you're playing a game." And I love that one, in part because my dad always said, whether it was weeding outside or repairing fences or anything, if my brother and I got discouraged doing it, he would say, "Well, make it into a game. Compete with yourself, compete with your brother, try to make it fun and interesting, keep track of the score, have fun with it." And so, yeah.

And if you could give your—

knowing that you're playing the game.

Yeah, no, actually I've never heard that quote, but I really like it. Um, and if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?

I think it's that the biggest decision is really the decision to start. Not an easy one to make. It's easy to postpone that, to procrastinate, to do more research, to really study it because you don't want to, you know, make a mistake. But it's okay to make some mistakes. And so Really, the biggest decision is the decision to start. And so, giving myself a piece of advice when I was younger, I would simply tell myself, "It's time to start." And in your opinion, what is the key to happiness? I think it's kinship. I love the books by Greg Boyle. He's the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles, the biggest gang intervention program in the world. And he's written some books, Tattoos on the Heart. His first bestseller where he talks about the meaning of kinship. And one of the stories he tells is a reporter went to César Chávez in California when he was doing a lot of work on behalf of agricultural workers and said, you know, these workers really seem to love you. And his response was, it's mutual. You know, we love each other. And it's that kinship, I think, that's meaningful and that leads to not only happiness but also kind of a sense of meaning and fulfillment.

And, what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?

Well, I guess I already kind of mentioned it, but most recently that book has made the biggest difference in my current thought process and how I'm evaluating success and significance is this idea of kinship. I think it's a great word. It's a great concept. I definitely recommend to everybody, Tattoos on the Heart. The author is Greg Boyle.

What is your favorite quote and why?

One that I saw just the other day as I went and watched the movie Won't You Be My Neighbor about Mr. Rogers. He, in the movie, has a little phrase that comes from the Jewish tradition called tikkun olam, which means We are the repairers of creation. And I love that concept. As soon as I heard it and I looked it up to see exactly what that meant, but the sense that, okay, we're in this creation, but that it needs constant repair. And that's our job, not just maintenance, but actual repair. And there's a lot of work to do there. And I think that's, I don't know, in a lot of ways, I think it's very inspiring.

Yeah. Dude, thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is where is the best place for people to find you online?

Our website is cirrusinsight.com, so C-I-R-R-U-S insight.com. And certainly we're largely an email company, so brandon@cirrusinsight.com or Brandon Bruce on LinkedIn. And I'd love to be in touch.

Perfect, man. Thanks again for joining us. We really appreciate it.

You got it. Thanks, Tyler.