---
title: "He Fired a $500K Client Right After a Layoff — Then Went $8M to $42M"
episode: 134
podcast: "The LeanScale Podcast"
publisher: "LeanScale"
guest: "Kevin Rice"
guest_title: "Co-Founder and former President & CMO, Hathway"
date_published: 2026-10-07
date_modified: 2026-10-21
duration: 01:03:51
word_count: 10644
topics: ["gtm-strategy", "brand-positioning", "mergers-acquisitions", "forecasting", "sales-leadership"]
canonical_url: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/kevin-rice-hathway-fired-a-500k-client-after-a-layoff/
source: "LeanScale Knowledge Hub — https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge"
license: "Free to quote and cite with attribution to The LeanScale Podcast."
---

# He Fired a $500K Client Right After a Layoff — Then Went $8M to $42M — Full Transcript

> Episode 134 of The LeanScale Podcast, with Kevin Rice.
> Published October 7, 2026 · 01:03:51 · 10644 words.
> Machine-transcribed and **not diarized** — speaker attribution is inferred, so verify
> attribution against the audio before quoting a specific person.
> Structured breakdown: https://www.leanscale.team/knowledge/podcast/kevin-rice-hathway-fired-a-500k-client-after-a-layoff/

## 00:00 — Cold open + intro

**[0:00]** We're not going to have work-life balance if you are somebody that's ambitious and wants

**[0:04]** to build a company or wants to be in the C-suite at a Fortune 500 company.

**[0:09]** You don't get eight hours for work and eight hours with your kids.

**[0:13]** You're not going to achieve what you want to achieve if you have big goals.

**[0:17]** My guest today is Kevin Rice, the co-founder and former president and CMO of Halfway,

**[0:22]** the digital agency he and a partner started in a garage out of Cal Poly and scaled to 250 people

**[0:29]** and over $40 million in revenue before selling for nine figures in 2021.

**[0:36]** Were you thinking you would be able to make it through or were you concerned that

**[0:39]** maybe it would potentially go to zero after that point?

**[0:43]** Yeah, I didn't know. Absolutely worst case scenario was we had to scale all the way down.

**[0:50]** She was like, whatever you think you need to cut, you need to double that cut.

**[0:55]** I think a lot of people see this as a zero sums game or were there ways you could have balanced both?

**[1:01]** No, I wouldn't have worked any less hard. I was working 12, 14 hour days. I was working my ass off.

**[1:10]** What I would have done differently is in the time I had with my kids,

**[1:14]** I would have been more intentional about it.

**[1:16]** Those are some of the details. I also love how some things on the surface that look like they're

**[1:22]** going to be negative or challenges end up being massive opportunities.

## 01:39 — 2016: the layoff nobody saw coming

**[1:39]** Kevin, take me back to the start of 2016. You just had laid people off because a bunch of projects

**[1:46]** all wrapped up at the same time. What was actually going through your head in that moment before any

**[1:51]** of it became the turning point that we know it is now?

**[1:54]** Well, first of all, thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. That was a wonderful

**[1:58]** introduction. Thank you for all the kind words. 2016 was a very tough year for me. It was a tough

**[2:04]** year for our company. If I were to take a few steps back, just to kind of say how we got there

**[2:10]** was I started this company with my co-founder, best friend in college, straight after graduation

**[2:18]** and in a garage. And then like a lot of startup stories, we went from a garage into a small office,

**[2:23]** hired a few employees, and then just kind of started growing organically from there.

**[2:29]** Originally, we were just kind of like a web design app development firm. And we kind of did anything

**[2:36]** and everything for any industry like we would take on any kind of work we could get. And that's really

**[2:43]** difficult to manage and really difficult to scale for a lot of reasons. You're constantly learning

**[2:49]** new industries, new consumers or customers. You're learning new technologies. And so there's

**[2:55]** always all this overhead and ramp up time. And it just really wasn't something that we could grow,

**[3:02]** like scale consistently. And so we ended up getting these like really big enterprise tech projects.

**[3:09]** Like our first Fortune 500 client was Applied Materials, a huge semiconductor company, right?

**[3:16]** We started managing their Drupal website. And that was like a million dollar a year client.

**[3:21]** And then we had a couple others like that. And so in 2015, we had been doing this for about six years.

**[3:28]** We were probably at like 50 employees, something like that, doing about, I think we closed out

**[3:34]** 2015 at like 8 million in revenue. Now, the problem was is all of that 8 million in revenue

**[3:41]** came from projects. So it wasn't a going concern for our clients. They would sign off on a capital

**[3:48]** expenditure of $2 million. We'd launch a new website or a new app, but at the end of like

**[3:53]** eight to 12 months, that project was done. And so we had to figure out where did these staff

**[3:58]** roll onto? What's the next project? And unfortunately, at the end of 2015, after our best year ever,

**[4:05]** right? Like we did 8 million in revenue. That was pretty amazing. We were in Q4 staring down

**[4:10]** the barrel of just a massive cliff. Our revenue was, I forget the exact numbers, but probably

## 04:13 — Why $8M of revenue was the problem, not the win

**[4:16]** dropping 40% within six weeks. And we didn't have the financial reserves to keep people on staff.

**[4:24]** It just wasn't, we didn't have that option. We didn't have that luxury. We weren't being like,

**[4:28]** you know, greedy like you see in some of the headlines of corporations today where they're

**[4:32]** doing cost cutting, but their profit is skyrocketing. This was an essential,

**[4:38]** very tough decision that we had to make to reduce our staff. And so what you asked,

**[4:44]** what was going through my mind? It was terrible. We had a very strong family culture, which actually,

**[4:51]** I don't really recommend for business. I don't think family cultures make the most sense. And

**[4:55]** maybe I'll get to that later, but that's the way we were, right? Like it was a family. I knew

**[5:00]** everybody. I knew all their, their spouses, even some of their kids and having to walk in the door

**[5:08]** that morning and go tell a handful of people on my team directly, while the other leadership had to

**[5:13]** do the same for their team and sit them down and say, like, you know, I appreciate all of the hard

**[5:20]** work because everybody was grinding really hard. Um, but after today, you no longer have a job.

**[5:28]** That was a really painful moment for me. Um, one of the most difficult in my professional career.

**[5:35]** So unfortunately, what like the results of that was like, we had to figure out how do we climb out

**[5:42]** of this? Like, how do we like, this isn't the end of our story. We just need to figure out how do we

**[5:49]** change direction? How do we make the right moves? How do we make the right shifts to get us back on

**[5:54]** track so that, you know, we could rebound from this really like difficult, painful, uh, disastrous

**[6:04]** situation that I couldn't blame anybody for, but myself, right? Like my heads were so far in the

**[6:10]** weeds that had I just kind of seen the forest through the trees three months before, maybe we

**[6:18]** could have done something sooner, you know? And so at the end of the day, I had to take full

**[6:22]** accountability. Same with the rest of our executive team. There was nobody to blame but ourselves and

**[6:27]** that sucked. I have a lot of questions, but was this before we fully unpack, was this the first

**[6:36]** time you had to do something like that? Did you have many riffs before or was everything pretty

**[6:41]** much going well up until that point? I had learned how to manage out under performers and there were

**[6:46]** certainly times where I had to let team members go, but this was the one and only

**[6:52]** layoff that we had to do in the company's tenure over the course of 13 years.

**[6:59]** Were you thinking you would be able to make it through or were you concerned that

**[7:03]** maybe it would potentially go to zero after that point?

**[7:06]** Yeah, I didn't know. I absolutely, worst case scenario was we had to scale all the way down

**[7:14]** and when you have advice from financial team members, like we had a VP of finance at the time,

**[7:21]** she was like, "Whatever you think you need to cut, you need to double that cut."

**[7:26]** And that's really painful because you're like, "No, no, no, we can do it with this. We'll be

**[7:30]** all right." And she's like, "No, you need to cut deeper." I think we kind of split the difference.

**[7:35]** I don't think we went as deep as she wanted to and we went deeper than we wanted to

**[7:42]** as an executive team. But yeah, it was just a necessary... We had to make the decision or

**[7:50]** yeah, for sure, we could have gone out of business. I mean, in this kind of enterprise

**[7:57]** tech consulting landscape, you've got payment terms, right? Net 45, net 90 in some cases,

**[8:05]** and you got to pay employees right away. So it was a really tricky kind of six-month period

**[8:11]** where we had to manage things very tightly because one miss and a payment that wasn't

**[8:17]** going to come for six months could have plummeted the company.

**[8:22]** Yes, I can definitely empathize with that and it makes growth a little bit riskier and trickier.

**[8:30]** A big question I have is after this, one, what were the moves you started to make?

**[8:37]** But what I'm most curious about, how did you keep the team that stayed motivated? Because I've seen

**[8:43]** this part handled so poorly, so many times. I've been in a company where there had been

**[8:49]** a company they laid off half the team I was still left on, but immediately after that,

**[8:55]** I was looking and I left probably in the next three months.

**[8:58]** Yeah, and you had to deal with the survivor's guilt of being one of the few who did survive.

**[9:06]** That's a difficult place to be in too, but of course you started looking because if there's

**[9:10]** one round, chances are there's going to be another round. Okay, so two parts to that answer. One is

**[9:17]** we made about four very strategic moves that changed the direction of the company. And at

**[9:24]** the same time, we had to be very transparent with the team. So the day of, we brought all

**[9:31]** people in individually, sat them down one-on-one, the layoff happened, and people left the office.

**[9:39]** And then once we were done around mid-morning, we brought everybody in for an all-hands meeting.

**[9:47]** And we took accountability. We said this is our responsibility. We didn't meet it,

**[9:55]** and we're making these cuts because we have to. And we told them we cut as deep as we thought

**[10:02]** we needed to in order to keep the company going and give us a chance to rebound and didn't make

**[10:10]** any false promises because we couldn't guarantee that there weren't going to be future rounds of

**[10:14]** layoffs. We told them we were going to do everything we possibly could. It started with how we carried

**[10:19]** ourselves. There's some level of accountability and confidence of how are we going to get through

**[10:26]** this. And then there's also just showing up and being visible around the team, being not going off

**[10:35]** in a closed door, trying to solve it on your own, but interacting with team members more consistently.

**[10:43]** And yeah, so it was kind of like all of that change management and the way that we had to

**[10:51]** carry ourselves to help the team be inspired and feel at least some level of confidence

**[10:58]** that we're going to get through this. And the way we did get through it was I mentioned there was

## 11:03 — Bet \#1: narrow the whole firm to one industry

**[11:03]** about four or so very deliberate changes we made to the company. The first was leading up to this,

**[11:11]** we worked in every industry, financial services, B2B tech, healthcare, consumer retail, like all

**[11:19]** over the place. And it's really hard to become proficient or it was really hard to become like

**[11:26]** a master of something, let alone proficient if you're doing something new every project.

**[11:33]** So we had just finished a project with Jamba Juice and we launched their first online ordering

**[11:40]** and loyalty application. That was one of those just sheer luck type of bluebirds. I met their

**[11:47]** CMO at a conference, we hit it off. She said, "Hey, we're going to do this new app project."

**[11:53]** And nobody had really made the name for themselves in the restaurant industry. So we were invited

**[11:58]** along with all the other usual suspects of agencies that do that kind of work. And thankfully I built

**[12:03]** enough relationship and credibility that I think that kind of won us over. And we won that even

**[12:08]** though we had no experience. And sometimes that's what it takes, right? Like getting lucky and then

**[12:15]** taking a step back and realizing like there might be something more to this, meaning this is one

**[12:20]** client that's investing in digital in an industry that is very legacy, very far behind. At that

**[12:28]** point in 2015, when we did that project for Jamba Juice before the layoff, we were looking around

**[12:36]** the restaurant industry and it was like Starbucks and Domino's were the only companies that had

**[12:40]** invested in digital. Every other restaurant did not have online ordering. They had like

**[12:47]** no real version of a digital loyalty program, no real CRM capabilities. Marketing was very limited

**[12:54]** to just batch and blast. As we looked at it, we were like, "This industry has to catch up.

**[13:01]** They don't have an option." We saw it in like travel and hospitality back in the mid to late

**[13:08]** 2000s, like everybody digitalized. And then we saw it in retail around like 2010, 2012. Everybody

**[13:14]** started shifting to these more elaborate e-commerce experiences. So we just, we looked at it and we

**[13:20]** said, "Okay, they have to make this investment." And we're going to be getting in early. Thankfully,

**[13:26]** we just got some experience on this project and it was a beautiful like application that went to

**[13:31]** market. So it's something we were very proud of, but we made the decision to focus purely on one

**[13:38]** industry. And that wasn't necessarily something that like was an immediate cutoff, but it did

**[13:44]** happen pretty quickly because we shifted all of our marketing efforts towards the restaurant industry.

**[13:50]** We started talking to some of our legacy, like our clients that had been around for a while,

**[13:55]** like within a year, we had kind of passed the torch of our client applied materials to another

**[14:03]** agency. We kind of told them like, "We're not doing this work anymore. We're going to need to

**[14:09]** help you find another agency." And they were fine with that, but that was half a million dollars of

**[14:13]** revenue annually that was going to be off of our books. And this was just after we had done a layoff.

**[14:21]** So not everybody agreed with that decision. We felt like enough confidence and certainty that like

**[14:30]** just this industry has to make investments in digital. Like we've seen it from other industries

**[14:35]** before. And so that was the first move. And that was a pretty big move, especially when

**[14:42]** we put all of our marketing and sales efforts into a new industry that we had one client in.

## 14:48 — Bet \#2: only take revenue that can be a going concern

**[14:48]** The second thing we did kind of tied to that was we shifted from working on project-based engagements

**[14:55]** to only engagements that could be a going concern. So with the restaurant industry,

**[15:02]** our new types of work, we're going to be online ordering, CRM, loyalty, revenue driving digital

**[15:08]** experiences and programs, because we figured if it's generating revenue and they can look at their

**[15:15]** costs and the revenue, well, we can help them financially model that this investment with us,

**[15:20]** if they spend a million dollars a year, it's going to generate 30 million in incremental revenue.

**[15:27]** Then we can justify spending 2 million. We can justify spending 5 million a year.

**[15:32]** And they're going to keep investing as long as they see the return on that investment.

**[15:37]** If a brand came to us and said, "Hey, we need you to build this corporate website,"

**[15:42]** we would just not entertain it. We'd pass it immediately. Didn't waste any time despite

**[15:47]** knowing that we needed revenue, but more importantly, we needed the right kind of revenue,

**[15:52]** the kind of revenue that could be stacked and scaled sustainably over time without leading us

**[15:59]** towards another cliff. So that was the second move, was focusing on revenue generating solutions for

## 16:07 — Bet \#3: two developers, a code library, and Nom Nom

**[16:07]** our clients. The third thing was, despite not having much capital, we did invest a little bit

**[16:15]** in creating IP. We took two of our full-time developers and we wrote a reference architecture

**[16:25]** code library that was essentially our baseline code that every time a new client came to us,

**[16:32]** we could start with that code, we could deploy it, and then we could spend all of our effort

**[16:38]** for the next six months customizing it for that specific brand. So where is there other alternatives,

**[16:45]** like if we were in an RFP against Deloitte or Accenture, some of the big publicist agencies,

**[16:52]** they would have to start from scratch every time. So their timelines were 12 months, 18 months,

**[16:58]** sometimes longer to do the same kind of work that after we had built this IP, we could do in six

**[17:02]** months consistently. So now we have IP that we invested in, and to my business partner,

**[17:12]** Jesse's credit, who was just like brilliant with this sort of stuff, he structured our contracts

**[17:19]** in a way that when we did time and material services for clients, we would license them,

**[17:27]** our reference architecture, for a one-time perpetual license. So we still owned the core code. They got

**[17:34]** a lifetime license to it. They could do anything they wanted with it, bring it in-house, they just

**[17:38]** couldn't sell it. And then when they paid us time and materials to customize it, to create a more

**[17:45]** bespoke, unique experience for their brand, we actually retained the rights to those customizations.

**[17:52]** So one brand might say, "We need you to integrate with our Salesforce Marketing Cloud." And we'd say,

**[17:58]** "Oh, well, we haven't done that before. That's going to cost X." Or this is where, like we typically

**[18:04]** were more like roadmap modeled. So it wasn't like, "Oh, we'll do that for X amount of dollars." It

**[18:09]** was more of like, "Okay, that'll be our focus for this sprint or this quarter." And once we built it,

**[18:15]** we would take that code and bring it back into our core repository. And so now our IP was expanding

**[18:20]** based on our clients investing in it. So that IP, we called it Nom Nom, which was just for an

**[18:30]** agency. So I think Jesse or somebody came up with the idea. The original logo was like a cookie

**[18:36]** monster kind of character. It was fun. But for me, like running sales marketing at the time,

**[18:48]** I had to figure out how do I sell this? Because it's literally code. It's files of code. Like how

**[18:53]** do I sell this to a marketer? And the way that actually like eventually the rubber met the road

**[19:01]** was in our proposals, right? We would be pitching the same kind of work as other vendors, but we'd

**[19:09]** be pitching it in six months. And we could very clearly rationalize that because we were starting

**[19:15]** with a volume of code that would have taken us six months to write if we started from zero.

**[19:22]** And so then something that felt very hard to sell and very ethereal became very tangible. And

**[19:31]** although Nom Nom's revenue was maybe five, 10% of our revenue at any given time or year,

**[19:38]** because it was a one-time fee, wasn't that substantial, but what Nom Nom did was it allowed

## 19:45 — Bet \#4: stop selling the agency, start selling speed

**[19:45]** us to change our sales narrative. And that was kind of like the fourth thing that's kind of

**[19:52]** tied into like go to market. By creating IP, this tied into our new go to market strategy.

**[20:01]** Go to market really started with what is our differentiator? Because in the consulting

**[20:07]** agency space, everybody says the same things. We have the best people. We have great culture.

**[20:14]** We win these awards, best places to work. Look at our processes, our methodologies. I'll show you

**[20:22]** 80 pages of a keynote deck describing our unique methodology when in reality, every agency has the

**[20:31]** same thing and they say the same things. So now we had something that was truly differentiated.

**[20:39]** We had something that nobody else had in the market and it made us faster. So we didn't always

**[20:45]** come in as the cheapest provider. Oftentimes we were about the same price, maybe slightly cheaper,

**[20:51]** but not much, like more cost effective, but like in the same range as like the bigger players.

**[20:57]** But what it did was our one competitive advantage was we had this IP that could help us get you to

**[21:04]** market in six months instead of 12 months or 18 months. So now instead of selling Hathaway,

**[21:11]** instead of selling Nom Nom, we were selling speed to market. So our entire sales narrative changed

**[21:19]** because now instead of saying like, here's our features, here's like what this is going to look

**[21:24]** like. Here's our credentials and our case studies and our processes. Look at us. Now all of a sudden

**[21:32]** our sales narrative completely changed to be fully about the brand and what's happening

**[21:38]** in their industry. So now it would start something like everybody in the restaurant industry has now

**[21:44]** started to invest. Here's all the stats showing the tens of fifties of millions of dollars that

**[21:50]** all the big restaurant chains are investing in digital and technology. Here's your competitors.

**[21:56]** Here's what they're doing. And we kind of had a behind the scenes view. So we knew like,

**[21:59]** okay, this brand is working with this agency and they're investing this and they're going to launch

**[22:04]** here. And so we kind of show them like a maturity model of here's where you are. Here's where your

**[22:11]** next competitors are in their digital maturity kind of path. And so we would create this narrative of

**[22:17]** saying the only thing that matters for your brand right now is that you get something to market

**[22:24]** and then you iterate on it over time. Because if you wait two years to get something live,

**[22:30]** like I'm sure other proposals are coming in at, you're dead in the water. Everything's already

**[22:35]** going to be changed in two years. And so we changed the buyer's criteria around what they

**[22:43]** were looking for in a vendor partner. Like no longer was it about who had the best creative.

**[22:49]** No longer was it about who's the cheapest or who has the best reputation or who has the most case

**[22:55]** studies. Now all of a sudden, all they were thinking was who can get me to market fast enough.

**[23:00]** And we knew by the time we sent them a proposal, we were going to be that person or that company

**[23:06]** because we had nom nom. I think a lot of people underestimate the value of speed and the magnitude

**[23:14]** at which people will pay for speed. And if anybody's thinking about it, you know, how much more do you

**[23:20]** have to spend for DoorDash than going at yourself and getting it, but the speed and convenience

**[23:26]** people will pay a premium for. And even if you price it similar, it's unbelievably more competitive.

**[23:31]** And I think even same exact offer, but if you can focus on that access of value,

**[23:39]** you can be extremely competitive.

**[23:41]** I totally agree. And I appreciate the DoorDash reference since I just spent like 20 minutes

**[23:45]** talking about the restaurant industry. And personally is on food now. So exactly.

**[23:51]** I just had an Instacart delivery for a bottle of shampoo because my cat got into something and I

**[23:56]** have no idea what it is and he's covered and there was no way I was going to be able to get

**[24:00]** to PetSmart today. So like I bought a $15 bottle of shampoo, probably paid $12 in delivery fees,

**[24:08]** but it needed to happen and I wasn't going to be able to do it.

**[24:12]** Yeah. And I think if you find those opportunities where in almost anything times of the essence,

**[24:17]** so I think for most services, products, anything that you're bringing to market

**[24:23]** speed is going to be a big factor. I want to go back. If you don't mind to when you made the

**[24:30]** decision to go into restaurants, one thing I always struggle with. I know a lot of companies

**[24:36]** struggle with is how niche is niche enough? How did you know that it wasn't, oh, just anybody who

**[24:46]** needed to create an online experience for their consumers. And how did you know, oh no, it needs

**[24:53]** to be food service industry that does mainly drinks or has a drive-through or is like quick serve.

**[25:04]** When do you know you're niche enough to be focused, but not too niche to where you're

**[25:09]** cutting out market that you should be going after?

**[25:11]** I don't know if you can ever be too niched because you can always expand later, right?

**[25:15]** Like in 2020, we expanded into the convenience store industry because it was very,

**[25:21]** there's very like, it was very adjacent. A lot of similar use cases, consumer tendencies, right?

**[25:27]** But had we gone into C store and restaurants back in 2016, we would have been spread too thin.

**[25:36]** It's about understanding where you can reach your addressable audience.

**[25:40]** And for us, like we, this is probably the other part of that go-to-market topic. Our go-to-market

**[25:47]** got built around restaurant industry trade shows and conferences and strategic partners.

**[25:54]** So when we started working with Jamba Juice, we had the opportunity to work with this up and coming

## 26:00 — The Olo partnership, Ferraris, and yacht cruises

**[26:00]** tech platform that would later really run the entire restaurant industry. And that company's

**[26:06]** called Olo. Olo is the e-commerce platform and kind of backend for pretty much every like major

**[26:14]** restaurant chain. And at the time they were, you know, kind of early in market and we had helped

**[26:20]** them launch a custom like app experience for Jamba Juice. And, you know, we integrated our

**[26:27]** front end into their backend. And it was one of those things where there was this really

**[26:32]** beautiful natural kind of partnership dynamic that emerged out of it because they were a

**[26:38]** backend provider. We were a front end provider in order for them to win big chains and go up market.

**[26:47]** They needed a great front end provider. And in order for us to win big chains, our front end

**[26:54]** did nothing on its own. It couldn't take a transaction, right? It was just a, you know,

**[27:00]** headless front end and we needed them. And so we could go to market together. And what that would

**[27:08]** look like is we would go to conferences together. We would speak on stage with a client together.

**[27:15]** We would host really unique, like we call them activations, but we'd go to a trade show

**[27:23]** and all the other vendors would be like inviting perspective clients or clients out to like a

**[27:29]** steak dinner or like wine tasting. And it'd be like 30 of these in one night that you could

**[27:35]** potentially go to. So what we did is we started doing some really unique stuff. Like we'd take

**[27:40]** clients and prospects out to a racetrack and go drive Ferraris and Lamborghinis.

**[27:46]** Or we'd put them on a yacht and we'd do like an even a yacht cruise with photographers. And it

**[27:51]** feel like they were at this like really fancy like Hollywood style party. And so we always did these

**[27:58]** things with our partners that like kind of created the brand persona in the industry for us that we

**[28:05]** wanted, right? Like we were edgy. We were kind of, you know, the cool kids in the space. And then

**[28:14]** we would also produce content together. So if we were speaking on stage together, we would have a

**[28:20]** white paper that people could download or we'd print them out and put them on the chairs. We do

**[28:25]** branded swag together. So it was Hathaway plus Olo. And what this allowed us to do was really

**[28:32]** tighten our companies. Our sales reps were tied to the hip with Olo and Salesforce reps. They were

**[28:40]** daily texting about, Hey, did you hear that Burger King's going to do this? Or did you hear that

**[28:46]** Dairy Queen's going to do that? And we were always like communicating to understand the landscape and

**[28:52]** what was happening and making introductions for each other. So it'd be like, okay, Hey, we just

**[28:57]** signed Arby's to do this. Let us introduce you to do that. And it just really brought our teams

**[29:04]** together. And obviously a few like good early wins helped out a lot too. But back to your

**[29:10]** original question of like, how do we know we were niching enough? We got very narrowly focused.

**[29:16]** And then part of the answer to that is, is where do we want to go to get in front of our clients?

**[29:21]** And I had a limited budget. So it was like, I had to make sure it was pointed at the right places.

**[29:27]** And I knew that we would have spread ourselves too thin if we would have been like,

**[29:31]** it would have been easy to say, Oh, we also work in the beverage industry because that's

**[29:35]** kind of related or like I said, convenience or like retail, right? Retail is fairly similar to

**[29:40]** like us are like different backend workflows and stuff, but there's similarities. But then

**[29:46]** I would have had to go to very different events to get in front of my audiences. And I really wanted

**[29:51]** to like double down and make the most impact in one industry, build a reputation, and then we

**[29:58]** could grow into adjacencies from there. I like that as a heuristic of where are the events,

**[30:04]** where are the people going? Okay. Maybe if all of those events, there were some beverage companies

**[30:09]** there and although partnered with them as well, then maybe you keep that in the Venn diagram of

**[30:13]** your universe of what your niche is. But I think lining it up with that marketing budget,

**[30:18]** I think makes a ton of sense because yeah, you're splitting conferences,

**[30:22]** you're not getting the virtuous cycles of your partners, bringing you more deals and doubling

**[30:26]** down. I have a question on the partnerships though, because I've worked in a few companies

**[30:32]** where we've had a tremendous partner motion. One of them, almost half the revenue came through

**[30:38]** partnerships. I also noticed there were quite a bit of challenges managing that, especially with

**[30:46]** channel conflict. If there's deals coming direct, I don't know what the relationship you had with

**[30:50]** Olo was, but were there competitors to Olo where you had to manage who you're going to market within

**[30:56]** a particular deal or how you priced or how you navigated direct deals? Did you have any of those

**[31:02]** channel column conflicts going on? For sure. It's complicated for a lot of reasons. And it gets very

**[31:10]** nuanced with Olo. No, they were like the 1200 pound gorilla in the room. We just aligned with them

**[31:17]** and there wasn't really a lot of competition. There was a little bit, but nobody that was really

**[31:23]** stacking up. But in other like CRM or loyalty platforms, there were, there were two or three

**[31:30]** like big players. Because we were the consultant, after a few years of working in the industry,

**[31:37]** our clients started relying on us, not to just build the tech, but even help them select their

**[31:41]** backend. So we would run RFPs and we would run an RFP and give it to three companies that we had

**[31:48]** partnerships with. Now we never took any sort of commissions or referral fees from any of our

**[31:56]** partners, because in that case, if we were hired by a client, we would go tell all of those partners,

**[32:01]** say, look, our responsibility is to the client, right? We're not playing any games. There's no

**[32:09]** back channel. Like we're running a formal RFP. And if you guys can't handle that, and if you're

**[32:13]** going to like get pissy about it, then you're not going to be part of this. And so we'd get

**[32:18]** hired by a client, we would draft their requirements, we would formalize an RFP, we would put it out,

**[32:26]** we'd review responses, and we'd make a formal recommendation on the back ends that are going

**[32:32]** to sit behind the consumer experience that we were creating. So we had to manage that.

**[32:39]** And there was definitely some people that were kind of pissy about it. But what we found was

**[32:44]** every brand was unique. And with the exception of like Olo and e-commerce, like, you know,

**[32:50]** there are three or four CDPs. And sometimes one of them would be a really good fit for one brand.

**[32:56]** But not a good fit for another. And so we just tried to get very clear on

**[33:00]** what our criteria was and, and help them get the right partner. On one hand, we became really

**[33:06]** important to the vendors to the other partners, because they knew we had a hand in picking who

**[33:12]** was going to get these big brands, because we're talking about huge companies, right? This is like

**[33:16]** Panda Express and Burger King and, you know, like large chain restaurants, these are clients that

**[33:23]** they all wanted. And so it kind of like put us in that position of power. But we also had to like

**[33:30]** play Switzerland and, and kind of appease everybody. For partnership strategy, we would kind of tier

**[33:37]** them, we would say tier one, tier two, tier three, tier one, we go to market together, we make big

**[33:45]** investments and conferences. Tier two, we do like quarterly business reviews, we do account planning,

**[33:51]** our sales teams are close, but we don't make a lot of investments. And then tier three was just kind

**[33:56]** of like utility tools that like, it'd be nice to throw that in. This would be a helpful tool,

**[34:01]** but it's not really a strategic enough platform to be considered for tier one or tier two. And so we

**[34:08]** always thought about it like that too. And we do quarterly business reviews with tier one and tier

**[34:13]** two. Yeah, you know, we were very closely tied together. We had, we eventually hired a strategic

**[34:19]** like alliances director to help oversee all of this. Well, and I think it tees up so many things

**[34:27]** when you can run a partner channel really well. I am curious because this is similar business I'm

**[34:34]** building over here at LeanScale. What I'm hearing too is a lot of complexity on building the team

**[34:43]** and the promises that you're making in delivery. I mean, I'm assuming you recruited certain people

**[34:48]** that have certain skillsets, then you're graduating into things like running strategic RFPs for your

**[34:53]** clients and doing different things, working through partners. I would love to hear what was

**[34:59]** the talent management strategy, the recruitment strategy. How did you, cause this isn't really

**[35:06]** that long of a timeframe. And I'm hearing a lot of change on the delivery side that had to take place

**[35:14]** in a pretty short period of time. How did you manage that? And I want to clarify,

**[35:20]** this whole run was bootstrapped, correct? Correct. Yeah, we never took any funding.

**[35:24]** So you didn't really have much room for error to say, okay, well, let's raise a little bit. Let's

**[35:28]** throw a bunch of enablement people in here and spend over there and let's recruit ahead of the

**[35:33]** curve of demand and just make sure we have people ready to do all this real time. We had to figure

**[35:38]** it out, right? Jesse and I started right out of college. We didn't go off and work at an agency

**[35:44]** or consulting firm for a handful of years and then go decide to do this. We had no idea what

**[35:49]** we were doing when we started like nothing. Uh, and we had certainly had a lot of misses early on

**[35:56]** that were just like our first big agency pitch was with Taylor made golf. It was a freaking disaster.

**[36:03]** Like I don't even know how we got into it. They're like director of marketing found us online. The

**[36:09]** nicest guy ever. I had a phone call with him. I had no idea what he was talking about, but we

**[36:15]** got us into the room. We showed up. They're expecting us to do like a traditional capabilities

**[36:20]** presentation. We don't have that. We didn't even know that was a thing. Um, they asked us if we,

**[36:25]** if we have any questions for them, didn't come prepared. It was like the worst experience ever.

**[36:33]** So, you know, we, we had to like figure it out and we hired consultants and we hired executive

**[36:38]** coaches. And eventually when we could afford it, we would hire from other agencies and other

**[36:43]** consultancies and then like learn as much as we possibly could from people who have actually

**[36:48]** done it in a like proper place. Um, but yeah, like it's a really complicated business.

**[36:56]** And there were so many times that Jesse and I were like, why did we choose this? Why? Like

**[37:02]** what masochistic tendencies were like, what were you thinking? Cause it's one thing to

## 37:11 — Utilization, fungible teams, and five years of forecast data

**[37:11]** bring in the revenue. It's another to deliver on it. And then it's another to line up your like

**[37:19]** demand and your supply so perfectly that you don't have people sitting on the bench or you don't have

**[37:25]** two little people that you can't deliver on the work. It's a constant, like looking at how does

**[37:33]** our pipeline play out? If we close everything that's in 80%, if we close everything that's in 50%,

**[37:39]** by the end of 2021, when we were acquired our sales, like conversion rates were like 80%,

**[37:48]** like crazy for this industry. And so we were very strict about managing our salesforce instance.

**[37:57]** And for the first couple of years, that didn't really help us. But after like five years of data,

**[38:03]** we got really good at forecasting and we could look at our pipeline and know pretty well how much

**[38:11]** demand we had and then how much supply of resources, but it was constantly a juggling exercise of

**[38:18]** like, how do we hit? Cause the number one metric in this kind of business is utilization. Are your

**[38:24]** teams utilizing? Everything flows from there. Like if, if you have high utilization, you probably got

**[38:31]** good like profit EBITDA downstream. That was the one thing that I was always looking at was,

**[38:38]** is our utilization like at the target or above? And it was a constant effort.

**[38:44]** And yeah, it was just, it was like very tricky. One of the things that helped with that was

**[38:51]** building our own IP. When we had a reference architecture and code libraries that we would

**[38:57]** literally start with every project or every engagement. And we'd start with that. And then

**[39:03]** we'd custom customize it for each brand. Now, all of a sudden our teams were only working in one

**[39:09]** industry. They were working on one core code base and writing custom code constantly, like from

**[39:15]** there, new integrations all the time. There was tons of complicated stuff we were doing,

**[39:21]** but at least there was a foundation. So now all of a sudden our team members became much more

**[39:25]** fungible and we would staff core teams per client. So there'd probably be 12 people working on a

**[39:33]** client team. Well, if they had a slow week, because a client was slow on a review cycle,

**[39:40]** we could transition people off, get them billable on another account. And so that fungibility of

**[39:47]** having consistent industries, consistent platforms, consistent, you know, like strategic partners.

**[39:55]** Now all of a sudden everything was a lot more fungible and we could really push on hitting

**[39:59]** utilization targets. It makes a ton of sense. I'm over here taking notes. I think LeanScale

**[40:07]** or Focus, B2B, SaaS and AI, all VC backed or growth equity backed. So very similar things,

**[40:14]** similar tech stack at Salesforce HubSpot, Clay, Gong. And I have noticed that, but there are some,

**[40:22]** I have a lot of questions sometimes. I'm like, are we niche enough? Should it be like B2B SaaS,

**[40:26]** maybe a particular industry? Should we stay with a certain firm a graphic where like, wait till

**[40:31]** they're scaled out to a certain point? We're taking on two people too early, too late. And I think

**[40:35]** all of it comes down to that, that calculus is extremely hard. And I had the benefit before

**[40:43]** starting Lean Scale. I ran RevOps for three companies. So I did forecasting. I ran the

**[40:48]** sales forecast. I knew in theory how to do it. This is like the most advanced forecasting needed

**[40:55]** because if you miss it, then all the wheels fall off. So you have to be tight on both sides.

**[41:02]** Absolutely. Right. And that's where like dialed pipeline forecasting, tying into your operations

**[41:11]** and all the levels of detail that you go down to like, how long does it take to hire a new employee?

**[41:16]** How long does it take to onboard them? At what point are they actually up to speed enough to

**[41:20]** put them on a billable client engagement? So we're constantly looking at the forecast of

**[41:26]** what happens if we close 80% of our deals? What happens if we only close 50% of our deals? How

**[41:31]** quickly can we spend teams up? And thankfully we had really strong client retention, again,

**[41:37]** because we had IP and we did good work, but that meant we could always be kind of looking at adding

**[41:44]** instead of backfilling because clients weren't going away and I didn't have to like backfill new

**[41:49]** clients to do that work, to like to staff that team on. So for like 2018 to end of 2021,

**[41:59]** it was just constant growth. We went from in that year where we did 8 million in 2015,

**[42:07]** dropped down to 6 million, then we got it back up to like 8 million and then we finally broke 10

**[42:15]** and then it was like 15, 22, 20, and 42. And so it was just like, you know, that's like going from

**[42:23]** 30 people at the bottom to 250 in five years. And you know, there's like big tech companies

**[42:30]** that go grow a lot faster than that. But as you mentioned earlier, we were bootstrapped

**[42:34]** and this was a, you know, time and materials style agency. So any, you know, every 25 grand a month

**[42:41]** and new revenue was a new head count. Well, and also yes, those tech companies run up, but they

**[42:49]** also, when they bring on that level of investment, like the founder equity, you can see these

**[42:55]** companies like, Oh, we're valued at a billion dollars as same as like, Oh, we did like a

**[42:59]** $50 million exit. Like the founder equivalent can be really similar. Oh, absolutely. I mean,

**[43:05]** you see stories where founders end up getting nothing, right? Like I saw the founders of

**[43:10]** Fandool, right? Like billion dollar valuation exit founders walk away with nothing because

**[43:17]** of where they're at in the waterfall and preference treatments and how much they fundraise. And like,

**[43:21]** you know, you have to be wary of taking these massive valuations because then you got to get

**[43:26]** a bigger valuation next time. And sometimes that doesn't always happen. And as a founder,

**[43:30]** if you're diluted too much, like you get very little. And so thankfully, like we never took

**[43:37]** any funding. We just bootstrapped it and grinded it out. And so when we sold, you know, our team

**[43:43]** was able to participate in that payout because, you know, we set aside a portion of our ownership

**[43:50]** that Jesse and I had, because it was just the two of us who own the company, but we put aside a

**[43:55]** portion and everybody has, you know, a type of stock options. And so when we sold, we had

**[44:03]** engineers who weren't even like managers, but they had been with us for so long that, you know,

**[44:10]** they had enough money to buy a house and it was like a life changing thing, right? Like

**[44:14]** these are people who, you know, they're not directors or executives, but they, you know,

**[44:19]** worked really hard and they've been with us for a long time. And overnight, like their entire life

**[44:24]** changed. Well, I had a life changing exit. I was one of those employees in a company. I still have

**[44:31]** the deal trophy right here from it too. And it was, yeah, in that realm of like enough to buy a house,

**[44:38]** enough to like not have stress, take some bigger bets on your career, take some bigger bets. I

**[44:43]** don't know if I would have had the confidence to go start something on my own without having that,

**[44:51]** especially like having my family and everything going on at the same time. So it's huge. And we

**[44:56]** absolutely did the same thing here at Lean Scale because I was like, that was so important to me.

**[44:59]** I also feel like I put in more effort knowing like, Hey, I'm yeah, I'm an owner too. Like I,

**[45:05]** if, if this pays off, um, I'm going to benefit as well. I, I would love, I would love to kind of

## 45:13 — The run-up to the exit and the fundless sponsor

**[45:13]** hear the run up to the exit. I think a lot of people have that as the end goal. A lot of people

**[45:21]** have that on their mind. I know it's not super linear, like ABC get here, but are there certain

**[45:27]** things that you did or certain dynamics that were at play that made that possible? And what advice

**[45:35]** would you give to anybody kind of going through a similar run? Yeah. Uh, running a process to sell

**[45:41]** your company is a second job. So expect to be working two full-time jobs during that time.

**[45:48]** It's a lot, it's a lot of work. Um, we actually started in 20, 2019, entertaining a acquisition

**[45:59]** and it was something that we got connected with somebody. He was putting together like a rollup

**[46:05]** strategy. Um, he was what's called a fundless sponsor, meaning that he was putting together

**[46:10]** the deal and then he had some private equity firms that were going to essentially invest in the

**[46:15]** deal of multiple companies that got complicated. It got further complicated because COVID happened.

**[46:24]** And as we were close to selling the company, we were in New York, we were doing meetings.

**[46:30]** We were in New York like three days before meeting with private equity firms before the entire,

**[46:37]** like the country just shut down. It was like, you know, the first week of March in 2020,

**[46:43]** I was flying back from New York and like noticing people were kind of sick and hearing about this

**[46:48]** thing called COVID and then like three days later, New York is shut down. So COVID happened

**[46:56]** and they were like, Oh, we don't know what's going to happen with this COVID thing. Like,

**[47:01]** let's just like tap the brakes here. I didn't know what was going to happen with this COVID thing

**[47:06]** because all of our restaurants were mandated to shut their doors. I didn't know, like, does that

**[47:14]** mean Burger King goes out of business and they have to fire us? Thankfully, that's not the way

## 47:20 — COVID shuts the restaurants and becomes a tailwind

**[47:20]** it turned out. And, um, what actually happened was is we became the lifeblood of all of our clients.

**[47:29]** They had to shut their doors, but the only way that they could keep getting sales and revenue

**[47:34]** was through online ordering. And they had to do it in new ways. Nobody was doing curbside pickup.

**[47:41]** Nobody was doing cashless payments. Nobody was doing all the things that you needed to have done,

**[47:47]** let alone did they have the foundation to actually add those features. So most, there was a run

**[47:53]** on the kind of work that we did both from our current clients and new clients. And like

**[48:00]** in April, after like in the very beginning of COVID, like we had one brand come in

**[48:06]** and we signed a multimillion dollar deal in five business days that normally would have taken six

**[48:12]** months because of COVID. They were like, we were behind. We want to do all these things to support

**[48:20]** our guests during COVID. We can't because we're on this like templated out of the box solution

**[48:27]** that we literally don't know the code to. We can't do anything with it. So like we need you

**[48:31]** to get us to market as quickly as possible. So COVID actually like was a boon for us.

**[48:38]** And when these brands were shedding vendors left and right, we were the one vendor that was left

**[48:45]** because we were the only one that was actually bringing sales in their virtual doors. This

**[48:51]** company that was going to acquire us, tap the brakes, and they eventually circled back around

**[48:54]** when they saw like, Oh, this is actually going really well for you. We're like, yeah, it is like

**[48:58]** you're going to need to increase that price. That's right. And so they did a few times.

**[49:04]** And at the end of 2020, we almost consummated an acquisition, but in the

**[49:14]** like, I mean, it's hard to even say 12th hour because it was like literally the night before

**[49:19]** it was like December 22nd. And we were supposed to sign the definitive paperwork on December 23rd.

**[49:25]** The deal fell through. And what had happened was is midway through the deal, they brought in a new

**[49:31]** like managing partner who took over the deal. And he was really just like cutting like, you know,

**[49:39]** terms of the contract that would cut a hundred grand here, half a million here. Oh, they're

**[49:45]** going to get to keep cash reserves of 2 million. We're like, Oh, like that's not how this works.

**[49:50]** Like we had to keep the cash reserves. So then we had to go back to the company because we had

**[49:55]** been pretty transparent that we're like entertaining offers and we're exploring different

**[49:58]** possibilities. And we were expecting to announce it at our holiday party, which was supposed to be

**[50:06]** in the beginning of December and then kept getting pushed and pushed and pushed. And so then like,

**[50:12]** this was virtual, right? Our holiday party was virtual during COVID. So our holiday party's like,

**[50:17]** you know, the 23rd, we're supposed to announce this deal fell through the night before.

**[50:23]** And we're like, well, what do we do now? Like, so again, we had to kind of regroup. And thankfully,

## 50:30 — Canaccord, 50 companies, and 3–4x the price

**[50:34]** Jesse was smart enough to say, okay, we're going to do it again, but we're going to do it with a

**[50:37]** banking partner. And we went out and hired Canikor Genuity and they're the best in the business. And

**[50:44]** they took us through a 12 month process. And in that 12 months, we met with 50 different company.

**[50:49]** We put together our SIM. We met with 50 different companies. We narrowed the pool. They helped us

**[50:54]** find the right partner for us. And eventually they got us acquired for three to four times more than

**[51:04]** what we were about to sign a deal for less than 12 months earlier. Wow. That's incredible. That's

**[51:13]** incredible. That's a lot more than your initial question. Oh, I assumed it was a story. I didn't

**[51:18]** think it just happened overnight. And no, those are some of the details. I also love how some

**[51:25]** things on the surface that look like they're going to be negative or challenges end up being massive

**[51:30]** opportunities. Like that deal, not getting signed COVID happening and like, Oh, looks bad on the

**[51:36]** surface, but it ends up being a massive tailwind. Well, you had such an amazing run and it's very

**[51:47]** impressive to be doing this right out of school. Like, like you said, Hey, you didn't even work at

**[51:52]** any other business or agency or anything before. And to be able to bring it all the way over the

**[51:57]** finish line like that. I know at the same time, these are very challenging things to do as you're

## 52:03 — Robot mode

**[52:03]** building a family. And how do you juxtapose the career with what was happening at home?

**[52:13]** And is there anything you think you could have done different to where you could have

**[52:18]** saved both? Yeah, it's a great question. Somebody actually asked me recently and before I answer

**[52:24]** that, I'll kind of share what was happening with me personally, because as you can surmise with all

**[52:29]** of the changes in growth in the company, like there was a lot of pressure. It was a lot of stress.

**[52:33]** Like one day I'd be dealing with a client who's maybe threatening to, you know, terminate a

**[52:38]** contract, or I'd be dealing with a client who, um, you know, wants to increase their velocity

**[52:44]** and we don't have the staff for it or like, you know, there's always the day to day stuff,

**[52:49]** but it was always very stressful. Well, at the same time, personally, at the beginning of 2020,

**[52:55]** before COVID happened, I had to make the difficult decision in my personal life to file for divorce

**[53:02]** because my ex wife was struggling with alcoholism. And she had just given birth to my second son,

**[53:09]** a few weeks prior. And then unfortunately, she kind of fell back into her alcoholism. And so

**[53:18]** for safety reasons, I had to take my kids and I had to, uh, basically leave the house and move

**[53:24]** in with my parents for a little while. And, you know, I overnight became a single solo full-time

**[53:32]** father of a three and a half year old and a three week old. So I've got work stress. I've got the

**[53:39]** responsibility of now solely taking care of these kids. Um, and then yeah, like two months later,

**[53:45]** COVID happens. So it's like the pressure of the world. I felt like the pressure of the world was

**[53:49]** on me and there certainly was a lot of pressure and the way that I dealt with that personally,

**[53:56]** I don't recommend this, but the way that I dealt with that personally was I just disconnected

**[54:02]** from everything emotionally, just completely shoved everything down, disconnected from myself

**[54:09]** emotionally, which in turn has consequences. Like if you're disconnected from yourself,

**[54:15]** it's kind of hard to be connected with your kids or your friends or your colleagues. So I was very

**[54:19]** like robotic. And that's what I refer to as robot mode, where I was performing at the highest level,

**[54:27]** crushing it productivity wise, but then I was completely disconnected from all of the emotions

**[54:33]** that, you know, make this experience of life worth living. Um, so I was in robot mode for a while

**[54:41]** until I started to realize that like, I could see behavioral stuff with my kids. I could see

**[54:48]** the gap growing. Like as I was getting closer to the finish line in my career,

**[54:54]** the gap between me and my kids was growing. And I just, a number of things happened that I knew

**[55:00]** like I had to make a big change, um, because I was effectively sacrificing my kids for my career

**[55:08]** success. Um, and you know, a lot of things needed to happen for that to change. And that's kind of

**[55:16]** what I'm much more intentional about today. And that's, you know, where I've started my own

**[55:20]** podcast, CEOs and ABCs to talk about that, like very specific topic of like, how do we grow in

**[55:26]** our careers and still show up at home and still have energy, like still have gas in the tank to,

**[55:32]** you know, be there for our kids, be present, be intentional. Um, you know, like family is

**[55:40]** another organization, probably the most important organization in your life. And, um,

**[55:46]** so I had to figure out like, how can I take all these leadership skills that I've been building

**[55:50]** for 15 years? How can I apply them to being a better parent? Because parenting didn't really

**[55:55]** come naturally for me. And, um, once I started doing that and I started looking at like,

**[56:01]** all right, how do I do performance reviews with an employee? Now, how can I translate that in a

**[56:06]** very caring, loving and nuanced way to, you know, working with my kids? How do I build systems at

**[56:14]** work? And how can I apply that at home? Not making my kids, my employees, because that wasn't the

**[56:21]** intention. The intention was to just use what I knew, the language, the frameworks, and apply it

**[56:26]** in an area that just didn't come naturally, naturally to me. And that's where I started

**[56:32]** to show up better. And that's where I started to become, I believe, a better father and leader at

**[56:38]** work. Do you think going back, there would have been ways to have it all, or do you think you

## 56:48 — Would you have worked less? No.

**[56:48]** would have had to give up some career opportunities in order to make that investment? I think a lot

**[56:55]** of people see this as a zero sums game or were there ways you could have balanced both? Yeah.

**[57:02]** So I should have answered your question earlier, right? Would I have done anything differently?

**[57:06]** I was at a conference, uh, maybe eight months ago and somebody who was, uh, you know, building a

**[57:11]** company had young kids asked me the same question. And after thinking about it, no, I wouldn't have

**[57:20]** worked any less hard. I was working 12, 14 hour days. I was working my ass off. Um, what I would

**[57:29]** have done differently is in the time I had with my kids, I would have been more intentional about it,

**[57:35]** meaning I would have thought through how am I going to spend my time with my kids? You know,

**[57:39]** what are we going to do today that builds connection that teaches them values feels meaningful,

**[57:46]** right? Instead of just kind of coming home and just being default dad. Um, and the second

**[57:52]** thing is I would have been more present. I was still reading the bedtime stories every

**[57:56]** night. I was cooking and breakfast. I was making dinner, right? Like I was physically there,

**[58:01]** but I was not emotionally or mentally present. So that's the second thing is, you know, if I

**[58:07]** could have gone back or if I could, I would, I would have been more present in the moment.

**[58:11]** Like I would have actually been there reading those bedtime stories instead of thinking about

**[58:16]** my next sales pitch or leadership meeting. Um, and I think those two things, like more

**[58:22]** intentionality and more presence, that's really the answer. It's not work-life balance. We're

**[58:30]** not going to have work-life balance. If you are somebody that's ambitious and wants to build a

**[58:34]** company or wants to be in the C-suite at a fortune 500 company, you don't get eight hours

**[58:40]** for work in eight hours with your kids. You're, you're not going to be, you're not going to

**[58:44]** achieve what you want to achieve if you have big goals. Um, but what you can do is if you're

**[58:50]** working 12 hours and then you've got, you know, two or three hours with your kids,

**[58:56]** make sure you think about how you're going to spend that time.

**[59:00]** Right? Like you wouldn't go into a work week without having everything planned down to 30

**[59:05]** minutes color-coded calendars, right? But I came home every day drained from work in decision

**[59:12]** fatigue, not wanting to make another damn decision. Cause I was just totally drained from making too

**[59:18]** many in one day. And then I wouldn't, I just, you know, just kind of be, I just exist and just kind

**[59:25]** of like go around the house with the kids interact, but no real intention, no real plan. And so,

**[59:32]** you know, now like when I'm with my kids, like I've got a pretty good plan going into the week

**[59:37]** of like how we're going to spend our time together. I've got certain themes that I'm working on,

**[59:42]** whether it's like there was a period where I was working on just like

**[59:49]** brotherly connection between my two oldest boys, cause they were fighting a lot. And,

**[59:54]** and right now I'm kind of more focused on like resilience and grit. Um, and so just thinking

**[1:00:00]** about how to like, you know, disciple my kids and teach them and help them inherit values that

**[1:00:09]** I think are important. So there's just a lot of forethought that goes into it. And then obviously

**[1:00:14]** when you are in those moments, being fully present. Do you think it was simply just a

**[1:00:21]** choice to be present or were there things that you needed to do for yourself that gave you the

**[1:00:27]** capacity and energy to be present? It starts with a choice and then it's finding ways to not have to

**[1:00:34]** rely on discipline. I'll give you an example, right? It's like putting systems in place that

**[1:00:41]** become a forcing function so that you don't have to like always remember or be disciplined about it.

**[1:00:48]** Right. So in order to transition from business mode or over to family mode, like I would purposely

**[1:00:58]** bring a change of clothes change at the office. And then I was changing from like, you know,

**[1:01:04]** semi-formal business attire, my, you know, president mode, and then putting on casual

**[1:01:10]** clothes and going home to be in parent mode. And then as I walked in the door, like, you know,

**[1:01:17]** my oldest son and I have a secret handshake that we do. And that's our reconnection ritual. And

**[1:01:23]** after a long day at school and for me a long day at work, it's like, this is how we reconnect.

**[1:01:28]** And then, you know, there's certain things like put the phone away. You're never going to be

**[1:01:33]** present if your phone is in your pocket and you're getting Slack messages and emails and

**[1:01:37]** text messages. So you just got to put that thing away. It's just full stop. And so yeah,

**[1:01:44]** it's building in like systems just like you would in your career. You know, if you hate cold calling,

**[1:01:49]** you got to figure out a way to make sure you cold call. And that might be, you know, doing it with

**[1:01:54]** a buddy or it might be bookending it with things that you do want to do, or it might be like

**[1:02:00]** having somebody hold you accountable and making sure that you're doing it. It's the same thing

**[1:02:05]** at home. It's like having systems, rituals, routines, just little like tools that force you

**[1:02:12]** to not have to rely on discipline. Well, personally, as a father of three,

## 01:02:22 — Wrap

**[1:02:22]** of two girls, a boy, I have another boy on the way in a couple of months, also building a business

**[1:02:30]** and scaling and dealing with everything that comes with running this type of company as well.

**[1:02:35]** There's just pressure on all sides. I really, really appreciate you going deep on that topic.

**[1:02:41]** And also I'm happy I have someone to bounce ideas off of and empathize with what we're

**[1:02:47]** going through because it's a very, very challenging combination of things all happening at once.

**[1:02:52]** And I just really appreciate everything you shared going through how you built the business,

**[1:02:59]** the authenticity through the struggles that you had, the decisions and bets you made during that

**[1:03:05]** pivot, I think required a lot of bravery. And I love that it worked out and you had a successful

**[1:03:15]** exit through it all and then created the time to be intentional for your family. So Kevin, I just

**[1:03:21]** big fan of what you've done and what you're doing. And I appreciate so much

**[1:03:26]** that you're on our podcast. Thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.

**[1:03:32]** At this point, I just hope that the message resonated with somebody and helps them grow

**[1:03:41]** in their careers, grow their business and still show up at home for their families. I'm sure it will.