Get ready to join Chris Burkhard as he hosts a conversation with Steven Pivnik, a total boss in both business and endurance sports. They dive into Steven's journey, where his love for adventure, hustling, and being financially independent all come together.
Steven's background as an endurance athlete paved the way for his entrepreneurial pursuits. Prepare to uncover the secret sauce that ties together his athletic feats and business ventures. It's all about pushing your limits, bouncing back from setbacks, and keeping that unbeatable drive for success alive.
But it's not all business and success. Prepare to delve into the power of laughter, relationships, and spirituality in living a truly fulfilling life. Steven shares his insights on how embracing joy paved the way for both personal and professional success.
Steven also shared how he is taking on even more endurance challenges and chasing after those unfinished goals. To learn even more pick up Steven's book "Built to Finish” and follow Steven’s adventure blog and sign up to receive book updates on www.stevenpivnik.com. "
Get ready to join Chris Burkhard as he hosts a conversation with Steven Pivnik, a total boss in both business and endurance sports. They dive into Steven's journey, where his love for adventure, hustling, and being financially independent all come together.
Steven's background as an endurance athlete paved the way for his entrepreneurial pursuits. Prepare to uncover the secret sauce that ties together his athletic feats and business ventures. It's all about pushing your limits, bouncing back from setbacks, and keeping that unbeatable drive for success alive.
But it's not all business and success. Prepare to delve into the power of laughter, relationships, and spirituality in living a truly fulfilling life. Steven shares his insights on how embracing joy paved the way for both personal and professional success.
Steven also shared how he is taking on even more endurance challenges and chasing after those unfinished goals. To learn even more pick up Steven's book "Built to Finish” and follow Steven’s adventure blog and sign up to receive book updates on www.stevenpivnik.com. "
That music was brought to you and played by Steve Miller, my brother in law and produced by Laney Miller, my niece. Well, welcome to the next episode of Outside Insights podcast. It's a community designed to help individuals bridge the gaps in their personal and professional lives, and help folks achieve their desired goals. I'm your host, Chris Burkhard. Today I'm thrilled to welcome Steven Pivnik to the show. Welcome, Steven.
Steven Pivnik:Thank you very much for having me.
Chris Burkhard:It's great to have you. Stephen is a former founder and CEO of an international technology company. What's kind of fun as we were having some preliminary dialogue about this and other things, I found out by accident, I was a service provider to that business, which just makes the world small because we're a couple states away from each other as it is. Steven grew that business to twelve countries, two hundred employees, had a very successful exit from that business. And now he's a sought after advisor and folks use his experience and unique insights to help other entrepreneurs navigate their way to success. That's a big deal. We also share something in common, although I think he's a better athlete than me. I think like Ironman distance, triathlons, marathons, ultra marathons. I did just walk the Appalachian Trail in North Georgia and that kicked my butt, so that's probably enough. It's really a pleasure to have you on the show and really I'll go with a two part kind of question. I find that people really want to know how you built your company, you know how you did it. This is always really of interest to people. But in your story, you're up to a bunch of stuff today that gives you energy and passion. So, I'll give you a lot of room to kind of work those two things out.
Steven Pivnik:Sure. So on the business front, it's an overused statement but I wholeheartedly believe in it. The harder you work, the luckier you get, you know sure, we got a lot of lucky breaks from the early days. I started the company primarily as a consulting services organization and then slowly but surely, it turned into a software company based on a custom project that we were doing for a customer. But we work crazy hours, I had a crazy work ethic instilled in me from my immigrant parents. And again, the harder we work, the luckier we got. We built it into a sizable software and professional services company, like you mentioned, that grew to over two hundred employees across twelve countries. So that was incredibly exciting, that entire journey was really exciting. Later on in my life, as you mentioned also, I got into endurance sports and I found that to be fascinating as well. So it took me up until I was forty years old to realize that I've got some really bad genes inside of here between my grandparents, my parents and other family members. There's some bad stuff brewing, so I better get into some good shape in order to fight it, if and when it comes. So I took on different sports. Triathlons, ultra marathons, and mountaineering, etc. And as I started competing and going on that journey, I found that there's a lot of similarities between building and running a company to endurance sports. All the planning, the preparation, the execution, the perseverance, the pivots, the setbacks, you name it, the list of similarities goes on and on and on. So that's a really long answer to like, what's exciting me today is a book project that I'm working on, which compares and contrasts building a business to endurance sports. All the similarities, all the challenges and I'm writing it with the hope to really motivate others to take on both journeys. I've learned a lot about myself while participating in endurance events. I've learned a lot about myself while building and later selling a company. I've documented and I want to pass on all of those lessons learned, tips and tricks, some of the do's and the not to do's on both fronts. So I'm super excited right now. I'm putting the finishing touches on the manuscript as we speak and then it should hit the publishing phase and will be released at the at the beginning of next year. So that's super exciting for me right now.
Chris Burkhard:Do you have a title picked out yet or is that a secret for now?
Steven Pivnik:No, actually I'm surprised that we picked out a title at the very beginning of the manuscript process, and it has withstood the test of time. It's called Built to Finish.
Chris Burkhard:Well, it's a great title. So it's interesting to hear, I always said folks would say business is a sprint, a series of sprints. And it can be when it comes to finishing projects and software in those things. But I've always felt that business is a marathon is a better fitting statement because of the nature of the business. So I think it fits. One of the things I'm thinking about is business is an outlet for the mind. Was the physical to challenge your body in the same way that you challenged your mind in business? What was the trigger to get in, you said genetics, I get it. Unfortunately, I think most of us have a track record of genetics. But was it some life event where you just felt like you had to do something other than business with the training?
Steven Pivnik:I mean, my business was you know, firing on all cylinders. It was really going well. I've always appreciated a good challenge. It was interesting that actually at work, at a dinner party hosted by one of my executives, another executive came to me and said, Rita just finished a triathlon last weekend and Rita was one of our employees, one of our project managers. And I mean, not that she looked unhealthy in any way, shape or form, but she was just an average human, athletic human in my mind, and at that point, this is part of my ignorance. I'm like, I thought a triathlon was an Olympic event, how does a mere mortal do a triathlon? So I was really intrigued by this, so I spoke with her on Monday morning. And she's like, oh, there's this website called beginner triathlete.com. You find a local race and you sign up. Just anybody can sign up? She said anybody can sign up. So a huge light bulb went off in my mind. I'm like, I'm going to turn forty and I'm going to become a triathlete. And so I took on that challenge. And I learned this about maybe four or five months prior to my fortieth birthday. So I trained and trained and trained.I was really a poor swimmer. oNt that became a great swimmer but I became a good enough swimmer to finish the eight hundred meter distance or whatever that sprint distance triathlon was. I mean, I knew how to ride a bike, it was only going to be a twelve mile bike portion of that race. And I figured I can speed walk the one portion which was only five a day. So I turned forty and then the weekend after I became a triathlete, which was just in my mind a huge accomplishment. And then I thanked her for the recommendation and the encouragement to get me into this. And she responded, Well, we'll see you in Kona one day, and I had no idea what that meant. So I googled Kona and triathlete and I find that about this thing called Ironman, and that's when that really, really high goal was set. I'm like, not only now that I'm a triathlete, I'm going to compete in the Ironman World Championships in Kona, Hawaii. So that's how this entire mishigos as they say in my country was born.
Chris Burkhard:And are you on that journey?
Steven Pivnik:I'm happy to say that I've completed that journey. So it took forever. Most people qualify for the World Championship by being the best in their age group. My motto was not fast, not less because I had a company to run at the time, but I did train enough in order to complete an Ironman. So Ironman has a program called the legacy lottery program, where it's like their frequent flyer club. You don't have to be the fastest but as long as you do twelve full distance Ironman races, you get a lottery ticket to go to the World Championships and compete with the best in the world. So that's how I got into the World Championship last October.
Chris Burkhard:So Steven, you'll find this interesting, my subscribers maybe not, but a board member for Placers Cares for our non profit. His name is Martin Brans. I don't know if you trained against him similar ages, but it's a very good friend who qualified in Lake Placid and then blew a knee out but finished in Kona anyway. And instead of having a really good chance to frankly place very high he was proud to be not first not last but to get into the middle. Okay, get into the fun. Harder to do your first tri or to start your business?
Steven Pivnik:Oh, the business by far. I mean, in today's day and age it's so easy, right? I'm saying this a little bit tongue in cheek. You can go to Chat GPT get a business plan, get a staffing plan. It's not that hard to raise a little bit of seed capital if you have a semi decent idea and whala, you're off to the races. I had no idea on how to raise money. I was literally just an independent consultant trading my time for dollars, and getting paid and slowly but surely turned that into a business. So obviously a lot of other things happen in between but that by far was significantly harder to do than to train for a triathalon.
Chris Burkhard:As hard as it is to believe you had to buy a physical phone system, you had to buy a physical server, you were in physical space. You know, today in an afternoon between Google and a few pieces of software. You can pretty much have connectivity setup for anything. So the barrier to entry is really kind of amazing. You talked in your opening, or actually rather casually, about the conversion from being a services business, a professional services business. Consulting to having a chance and opportunity with a customer to convert to something that was more of a managed service or a model or a product.
Steven Pivnik:Right.
Chris Burkhard:Is that interesting for you to cover? Because it's interesting for me to hear. I talked to a host of services businesses, that's like our Super Bowl, World Series and World Cup rolled into one when we can convert to that.
Steven Pivnik:Sure. No, I think it's a great opportunity for a lot of others. Obviously, there's some really, really smart people out there that are visionary and that create ideas and build software companies from the get go. Well, we didn't. We were a services company. And why do large companies hire professional services company? Typically because they wanted to do something custom for them that's unique to their requirements. In my case, the unique requirement from JP Morgan was, we were running an old email system and we were moving at a time, there's something called Lotus Notes, many of your listeners and viewers probably don't know what Lotus Notes is. It used to be the most popular enterprise email program in the nineties and JP Morgan said, we want to go on to Lotus Notes but we have all these employees that have data in other email systems. Can you please write us a utility to convert this data on to Lotus Notes, so that when our employees walk in the morning, they still have their calendar, their inbox, their context et cetera? So we looked at ourselves and said, that's probably the most boring project in the world because we were doing cooler things at the time then writing conversion utilities. But of course, we were consultants and we wanted the revenue so we wrote that program for them. And then lo and behold, there was a massive trend that presented itself with a whole bunch of other thousands of other companies adopting the same email platform and wanting to convert email data. So that was the birth of our software company and we did that we and we did it incredibly well. And we later supported the Microsoft platform, we later supported the Microsoft Cloud. So every single use case for possibly having to move you know, email data from one place to another, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, etc, you know, fueled the need for more and more software from us. So that was the genesis and I still think there's great opportunity right now for any consulting company that's working on a custom project, again, assuming that the company allows you to take that IP that you've built custom for them and to productize it so that's a whole rat's nest right there. But if it's allowed, there's opportunity there to create custom work into a software product to be utilized by others.
Chris Burkhard:So now I know what you meant by feeling that you were lucky. But it feels a bit like right place right time and then you expanded it based on a break in the marketplace.
Steven Pivnik:Yes, it definitely was right place right time. Again, we were maniacal about customer satisfaction. So we made sure that the product did what it was advertised to do and it did it well, so that employees wouldn't have any issues with like the the wrong data showing up. Can you imagine a calendar invite being converted incorrectly, and a staff meeting that's supposed to happen at nine o'clock gets moved to ten o'clock and then that executive misses a meeting. And that's just one example. So we did it incredibly well and we also, we did a really good job on the marketing front as well to continue to promote this capability that we created so that other customers would hear about it. So it was a combination of being at the right place at the right time to get it done. And then to market it globally, so that the world knows that it exists.
Chris Burkhard:So there's different phases to a business. It sounds like you went through a lot of them over twenty plus years. Startup you know, getting to some fun revenues, maybe some scaling mid size stuff, getting ready for sale or IPO or what have you. Did you have a favorite phase and do you focus with organizations today as a consultant based on that? Or how do you feel about that question?
Steven Pivnik:Yes, my favorite phase and the one that I'm specializing in right now is really the later stage growth phase. That is really like our growth from you know, zero to twenty million was really, really challenging, really tough. A lot of blood, sweat and tears went into it. Especially because we didn't have any outside funding at all, which is something I would not recommend. It's very uncommon in today's day and age for a company to be completely bootstrapped.
Chris Burkhard:You and I share that, Steven.
Steven Pivnik:Yes, that's right.
Chris Burkhard:I'm still crazy.
Steven Pivnik:There's always the exception. So you and I both prove that it is possible, but we are definitely the exceptions, because very few people want to go through that blood, sweat and tears and heartache, and sleepless nights of self funding. But yes, so that was really interesting but what I enjoyed significantly more was the latest stage growth. And again, we were still self funded but we were operating at such a higher level and from a sales buying perspective.Once we hit twenty, twenty five, thirty then thirty five and then over forty million dollars in revenue, we had a lot more resources to play with and to continue to ensure our continued growth. So that's the phase that I enjoyed the most and that I think I have the most on lessons learned from. And that's where I'm really enjoying helping other entrepreneurs go through their growth phase.
Chris Burkhard:It's kind of an incomplete quote, but one of my mentors says it all piles up at the end.
Steven Pivnik:Sure does.
Chris Burkhard:Yes, I thought that would translate for you. But you know, to get to twenty million and those years to do it, it's like all these little incremental improvements that are your strategy. But it seems like over time, if you survive all that the deals get a little larger, than one day they're all large.
Steven Pivnik:Right.
Chris Burkhard:And it makes a big difference in the business. And you know, I guess, would you say, Stephen, that's in essence, why there's a world of mergers and acquisitions? Somebody understands the blood, sweat, tears, sacrifice, time, energy, money, resources it takes to get to that spot, and they're willing to pay you for it?
Steven Pivnik:Oh, one hundred percent. I mean, I think in a lot of cases and acquisition, a new direction for a company or an additive component to a company is done by doing a buy versus build analysis. So a company XYZ says, I want to get into this space and the space can be a new product, or this space can be a new geography. Then they analyze what is it going to take to build that organically by ourselves? Again, this new product or get into this new geography? And so that turns into a number and then if they're smart, they'll say, okay, who's out there already doing this? And is it going to be easier for us just to acquire that capability or that geography? So, I know that a lot of M&A decisions are based on this build versus buy decision that companies go through.
Chris Burkhard:Most workers that listen to this or are in the community, they're trying to get ahead,and they're evaluating entrepreneurship, some sort of business startup. Would you support that today? You talked about it being easy to start but would you start a business today?
Steven Pivnik:The answer is yes. If I wake up one morning and I really haven't spent too much time thinking of like, what do I want to do next? My current next project is my book.
Chris Burkhard:And that's enough. I'm just thinking there's somebody listening is this, boy, well, debt ceiling stuff you got the economy may be coming up. Is there ever a bad time not to start a business if you have a good idea?
Steven Pivnik:No, I think all the time is a great time to start a business. And I think with all the tools available today, anybody that has an idea can really, if they're uber aggressive about it, they can. They can go after it in an aggressive way, if they're a little bit more cautious, it's relatively easy to test the waters with your idea to see if there's a market for it and to see if there's a product market fit with whatever it is you want to build. Whether it's a gadget, whether it's a product they service, a combination of some of those things. I think it's never been easier to see if there's a market fit for the idea that you have. So when that proves positive, then you can start to scale and thn you can invest some more money, some more resources, some more of your time. But I don't think it's ever been easier and I highly encourage anybody with an entrepreneurial bug to try it.
Chris Burkhard:You know, I'm seeing a lot of incubators and beehives and colleges teach that market fit exercise to non business majors, but teaching it in a way as an elective. And it makes so much sense because even if you're not going to be an entrepreneur, all of us that are entrepreneurs, and frankly most businesses today need an entrepreneurial mindset from the workforce. So, it's just as important whether you take the risk and invest in something yourself. If you reflect back on things, what are you best at?
Steven Pivnik:What am I best at personally?
Chris Burkhard:You can answer it any way you like. That's the fun part of this.
Steven Pivnik:I think I was best at promotion. I was so proud. I mean, fortunately and then once we got bigger, I stopped coding thank God. It got to a point where I wasn't allowed to code anymore. They prohibited me which was a great decision by my teammate. I was really, really good at promotion, I was so proud of my baby and like what we had created, and all the customer success stories that we executed on. And you know, I was at most trade shows, and most industry events, and trade shows that we would do. Roadshows for Microsoft or previous to Microsoft for IBM. I was front and center on stage promoting our capabilities. And it just gave me so much pride to get up there, whether it be in front of ten people, or five thousand people at a big conference and to talk about our capabilities and how we can execute successful projects for customers. So I just love the promotion aspect of our business. And so that was me personally and I think as a company, we also did a really great job on the marketing front. Most people were surprised when they found out we were a two hundred person company. You gave off the impression of a five thousand employee company is what I heard very often. So I was very proud of our marketing abilities.
Chris Burkhard:And that was when marketing was not easy. If I knew you as a ten year old or a fifteen year old, would I have said you were going to be an entrepreneur or did you know early on?
Steven Pivnik:It's interesting, probably not. I was a complete nerd, I know it comes as no surprise, my best friend was my Commodore sixty four computer. I spent Friday and Saturday nights looking at bike magazines and typing in programs to make you know, little cartoon characters.
Chris Burkhard:That was your edge. All that coding time.
Steven Pivnik:That definitely gave me an edge. But I don't think you would have said I was going to be an entrepreneur. But it's funny. I took a class once and I forget the actual terminology that they utilize. But there's events that happen in people's lives that kind of sort of dictate their future. Not that I was picked on specifically, but I was the poorest kid in my class. Immigrant family and based on an immigrant scholarship, I got into a really good school at Yeshiva in Brooklyn, New York. And one day after spring break, I came into my normal clothes, the clothes that I wore through the winter. And I guess the school quarterback or the equivalent, there wasn't a football in that school. He came to me and was like Steven, why are you wearing your winter clothes? And I looked around and you know he and all of his friends are decked out in their new pastel spring colors. And all the sudden everybody starts cracking up and I felt you know, so ridiculed and diminished. So then fast forward a couple more years after many more years, I'm a Domino delivery driver delivering pizzas on Super Bowl Sunday, and I ring a ring the doorbell and I have a whole bunch of pies and sodas with me and who opens the door, the same exact person. So here I am humiliated again by the same person and I hear all of his cronies in the back watching the game. So the psychological element to that is I think I somewhere somehow my brain said, you're never going to be at the bottom of the totem pole again. Whatever you do, you have to rise above where they perceive you to be, which is like serving them pizza and wearing last season's clothes. So I think my mind programmed itself to say, you're going to rise above the rest and be successful.
Chris Burkhard:I think wherever you find your motivation, it's right. And man, kids are mean, that's the other takeaway from that. And hopefully he was a nicer adult than he was a kid quite frankly. But for me, it was the risk of failure but I can relate in so many ways. In kind of just talking about your role today, there's probably a series of things that you assess and find with your typical customer. But talk a little bit about your work today. I think you talked about what gives you joy or why you do it, but talk about your work today and the impact it has.
Steven Pivnik:Sure. So there's definitely a methodology. I mean, no two companies are the same. Folks that I've worked with, you know, come to me with different types of challenges. But you know, one thing that I find very common across the board, is management teams and leadership teams. And a company is really only as good as its leadership team, because they're the ones that are tasked with obviously the leadership and management of the company to get it to the next level. I find that especially working with companies that have been around for a while, that there's a lot of people in leadership positions, just because they've been there from day one. And they definitely they become really friendly with the CEO, they've almost become like family, and the CEO has a really hard time upgrading that position. And it's no fault to the individual that's in that role. It's just he or she has just never been at a company at that level before and it's both unfair to the individual. And it's unfair to the company and to the CEO. So you know, one of my biggest pieces of advice is really to take a look at the leadership team and the management team. And just to make sure that you have the right players in the right positions in order to bring a company to the next level. And on the hiring front, my my advice is always and let's just pick a number. If you're at ten million dollars in sales, and you're looking for a new head of sales, don't hire a head of sales that has experienced running a ten million dollar organization. Hire a head of sales that has experienced running a twenty million dollar organization because he or she is going to easily be able to take what you currently have, and bring it up to the next level. Whereas somebody that doesn't have that experience is going to struggle. So always hire a couple of clubs higher than then you normally would is my advice.
Chris Burkhard:I love your story and impact on the management team. I certainly, as I was getting going was collecting interesting one that team, folks that might not even have viewed themselves as leaders, even though they were in a leadership team. They certainly were more technical experts or kind of just grew up with me. And it takes a lot to make those changes and get it right. Do you also focus on the team dynamic of the teams themselves as much as getting the right people in the seat? Or do you leave that up to the president or CEO of the business for the health of the team?
Steven Pivnik:Now that dynamic really important. We've gone through a lot of different exercises over the many years of my company, Myers Briggs and similar type tests and that's really important. Like the seven dysfunctions of a team. I love that exercise. Patrick Lencioni, those exercises I think are incredibly important to do because you want to make sure that whatever boxes you define that are important, the idea generator, the executor, the communicator, the relationship builder, you need those ingredients. If your entire team is in one area, you're not going to get anywhere. If you have nothing but relationship builders, nobody's going to execute on any of the ideas because you don't have an idea builder. So every quadrant is really important to be filled in.
Chris Burkhard:Oh, so many painful lessons learned and all of that Steven and I think it makes Steven an expert. You have to do it and live through it and try all those exercises and see some of them go so amazingly well and others just flop so
Steven Pivnik:Exactly and right now I mean there's so many poorly. things like right now I'm having this conversation with you and I guarantee my phone is going to serve up five different Myers Briggs competitors to me. Some of them really work and some of them don't. So it's really important to pick out the ones that other folks have had success with.
Chris Burkhard:So, obviously audience we plan questions. I want to warn Steven, that this is an unplanned question. But I think it's important, it seems like you really have worked hard to know who you are, really know who you are. And that that's helped. Was that a part of your journey in building a business and being a founder in those things and along that way, that the hard thing is we don't often really know who the heck we are and you learn it through journeys like this?
Steven Pivnik:Oh, this is probably the only way. You have to go through the journey to really experience it and to learn. I mean, I figured out a lot of things about myself. I figured out that I probably stayed hands on much longer than I should have. I could have worked on the business more than in the business. And I've remained as hands on as my company would let me. Obviously, they stopped letting me code but they didn't stop letting me go onto projects and be like a project manager or an executive sponsor on projects. So I really enjoy being on site. I just love the interaction with customers and I love seeing the success that our products and services we're creating for customers. So I just learned that I personally at the time, enjoyed being more hands on than in the boardroom. And later on as my career evolved, that is when I started realizing how much value I would add in the boardroom versus on the court. So later on in my professional career, I actually promoted myself to executive chairman and I brought on a CEO to run the day to day activities of the company. Because I felt that I'd be doing a better job as an executive chairman only focusing a hundred percent on the business while letting everybody else operate in the business all day.
Chris Burkhard:I think unless you try on each of those roles along the way, coder, promoter, project lead inserting themselves everywhere, and then strategists in the boardroom. And I think it's hard to hard to grasp that evolution. I know for me, I had a similar pattern, not quite at the chairmanship yet. But for me, it's like I was really good at the promotion and I wasn't sure I was going to be really good at the strategist. So I stayed there you know, because it was comfortable and I knew I was adding value. I think there's just proof that there's risks so your business goes through phases, requires different things. There's a great book called The Second Decision. Your first decision is to be founder, your second decision is to be CEO of that business. But I think there's more decisions than two, quite frankly.
Steven Pivnik:Oh, a hundred percent. There's many, many decisions and for every CEO out there, that is thinking that there's nobody on this planet that can run this baby better than I can. My advice is you're wrong. Those individuals are out there. You know, from a staffing perspective, I'm not belittling how easy it's going to be to find that individual. But that individual is out there. And when you find them, it's going to be a blessing. In my specific case and you don't need to jump into that pool right away either. And the route I went was I decided that I wanted to get a CEO eventually. So I started with hiring a COO. So I hired the gentleman as a COO and I was going to give him a year to see how happy I was with him in that position. And it only took me three months to figure out that he'd be a better CEO than I would. So that year long experiment was condensed into three months and then I got my promotion, he got his and I did more Ironman races.
Chris Burkhard:Well, the vulnerability in that is fantastic. Because I mean you tried something and learn something. And, you know, it takes such grit and balls to start a business and get it to a point and I think it took more to make that decision even though you knew it was right. I don't know if any of us wants the life of birthing a company. We survived you know. I can't look back on it and say I want to do that again. I don't think anyway. You only have the energy for it once or twice that whole bootstrapping thing but I knew we had that connection from the first time we were talking. so you know, knowing that people listen to this are like at crossroads in their and career, any difficult moments of your career you want to highlight?
Steven Pivnik:Yes, I mean, you know building a company totally bootstrapped, we had a ton of challenges. Cash flow was always a challenge especially in the early days and then before you have a real credit line, the amount of sleep I've lost over not being able to make payroll is countless.
Chris Burkhard:Steven, can you imagine I mean I say all the time, like how did we make it? We had no value proposition, there was so much risk of everything.
Steven Pivnik:Yes, there was a ton of risk but some how, some way never missed a payroll. Made every single one of them even though some of them were literally down to the hour. So there was challenges with cash flow of course. There were definitely challenges with people. I established really good relationships with most of the folks that worked for me and when it came time to make a really hard decision, those kept me up at night. Most leaders, most founders are guilty of waiting way too long when they know in their heart that a certain individual just needs to needs to go. They waited too long in order to make that move. And when they do they are like, oh my God what took me so long. This happens one percent of the time, unless you're an experienced CEO, you've been there done that then then you'll learn a lesson. So that was always tough. Pivoting when technology was changing in the nineties, early two thousands, the vast majority of our revenue came from IBM. We had an incredible relationship with IBM executives and then the technology tide started turning and we needed to adopt the Microsoft platform. And obviously, Microsoft to IBM was the evil empire. And from a business perspective, we had no choice but to pivot but that meant all of these relationships were going to be hurt. And I'll never forget this meeting where I went to West Chester where IBM was headquartered and they saw how bad I felt about the news I was delivering about our new relationship with Microsoft. And he said, Steven, relax. Every relationship has a beginning, a middle and an end. If this relationship is at an end, we get it. And so I'm like, thank you. Thank you for letting me off the hook.
Chris Burkhard:Well, it's another lesson and you know, I think I always thought business would be bad when it was bad, Steven and I always thought business would always be good when it was good. You know what I mean. Oh, it's just gonna keep
Steven Pivnik:Right. happening And it's hard even though you know better, my learns. How do you keep learning today? What are your habits there? I love learning. I train a lot for a lot of my adventures so I'm running and biking countless hours every single week. So I always have an audiobook on so I'm always listening to something whether it's self help, whether it's how to. Most of the time, it's not sports related because I'm actually doing a sport. I don't need to be listening about the sports. And sometimes I just pick up completely random titles. I think last month I picked up on like how to be a stand up comic. I have no intention of ever being a stand up comic, but I'm fascinated by other trades. I read a book on cattle ranching, or listened to a book on cattle ranch. I have no intention of ever getting a farm or ranch in cattle, but just a totally random topic is fascinating. And guess what it helps a hundred mile bike ride go by a lot quicker.
Chris Burkhard:And it broadens your perspective and makes you a great dinner party guest too, I think.
Steven Pivnik:Exactly.
Chris Burkhard:You know, one thing remind me to show you, but I'm in a couple of book clubs that are electronic with other big readers. And it's really interesting because you see what other people are reading and you get their recommendations. And it's neat that it's online. So we started one with the our company and I pay people to read and that's been kind of a neat thing because I'm also a big book fan and in the spirit of where you are with things. So I think it's terrific. So obviously you're taking care of yourself. There is a lot of discussion and thoughts and blogs and articles about you know, your morning routine and that kind of stuff. I know that you torture yourself with business in the early stages but how are you recovering today with taking care of yourself?
Steven Pivnik:Just the standard stuff, nothing earth shattering. I eat as healthy as I possibly can so that helps tremendously. Obviously I worked out a ton. I think my biggest life hack that I've taken on is I recently read a book on The Wim Hof Method which is pretty popular these days. The Wim Hof Method, it basically teaches a variety of breathing techniques, as well as cold water immersion, I've become a huge fan of that and actually do feel a difference. Like I don't remember the last time I took a hot shower. I only take cold shower. It's scientifically proven to make a huge, physiological difference in your body, in your day, in your mental attitude for the day. So cold showers and a good diet with a ton of exercise is how I take care of myself these days.
Chris Burkhard:Do the cold showers help with recovery? I'm out of my league on this one but I feel like they might.
Steven Pivnik:Oh, definitely. I mean, the reason like athletes take these now ice baths after every single game, it helps with muscle recovery tremendously.
Chris Burkhard:If you could give advice to your twenty one year old self, what would it be?
Steven Pivnik:Invest in real estate. And again, we came from an immigrant mentality, right? Coming into a new country where there was so much opportunity it was unfortunately, I saw a lot of keeping up with the Joneses and I had some of that in my early life. I definitely would have traded attempting to keep up with the Joneses, to real estate investment. And we also had kids really young. So I was I was twenty two when we had our first child. So my advice would be Steven get your kids into the outdoors much more. I have fantastic children. I love them to death but they will never go camping, they'll never go mountaineering. They can't stand bugs.
Chris Burkhard:Maybe they will because you did. So the real estate comment is that a rich dad poor dad comment? Some people buy furs for their wife, some people buy an apartment complex, right? It's by assets or is it more of not run a business with as many people?
Steven Pivnik:It's a combination of both. It's more rich dad, poor dad. It's by assets and especially by revenue producing assets. One of the great examples I've heard recently. And it's gonna drive you crazy that I don't remember
Chris Burkhard:I'll tell you what. Give your story but we'll the name of the book. put it in in the show notes.
Steven Pivnik:Okay, perfect. The example he gives and the with the way he taught his children on how to appreciate buying assets was he gave his daughter an allowance. So after she saved up, instead of spending the money on dolls, which is what she used to do, he goes, Why don't you save up your allowance and then buy this toaster from me? She said, what do you mean by the toaster from me and every time I use it, I'm going to pay you for the use of this toaster. She's like, that's a silly idea. But after a couple of times of trying this, he finally convinced her and then she realized that owning something that somebody else is going to pay for is a wonderful thing. And that her her little piggy bank kept increasing in size. And then he did the same thing with the refrigerator. He did it with a microwave. So by the time she was seven years old, she owned all the appliances in the kitchen and she was being paid for their use. So she's barely twelve and she already has real estate.
Chris Burkhard:That's a heck of a story. Pease let me know the book title because it's not one I'm familiar with but I'm going to read it the second I get it. You know, we all could use a dose of that. And it's you know, it's hard to imagine because cars need breaks and kids get sick and we need to buy fridges, but that's the only real way to get ahead, I perceive. So you're a smart man, experienced man, what other things do you feel like we want to weave in the dialogue that I haven't touched on?
Steven Pivnik:I mean, we talked about a whole broad variety of things. You know, one thing that I also advise everybody on is just having fun and laughing. This is also scientifically proven. You know, a lot of the communities out there that live past the past a hundred, I think what they're called are the blue zones or I forget the name.
Chris Burkhard:I think that's right. Isn't that the blue zones? I think you've got it right.
Steven Pivnik:So one of the many ingredients to their longevity is the fact that they have a lot of friends and they have a lot of great relationships and that they laugh a lot. You know, I think laughing is fantastic and having fun needs to be a priority in people's lives. And I'm all for working hard on trust me, you know, I've proven that I can work around the clock. I can definitely race around the clock. I proven that as well but you know, laughing around the clock is what really adds a lot of years which I believe in. And I also think spirituality. Even though I went to a Hebrew school growing up, it was always my spirituality was left at school and when I came home, we really weren't super practicing Jews. I mean, we celebrated the High Holidays and all, but nothing uber religious. Ever since my father passed, I got reacquainted with my rabbi and I reintroduced spirituality into my life. And I feel that that gives me a big boost in the morning. So after my cold shower in the morning, five to ten minutes of prayer really sets me up for success for the day. So I'm a big fan of that.
Chris Burkhard:Steven, I think that is a really, really strong addition to what we've been talking about. If you've ever been a bootstrapped entrepreneur, it's hard to find joy. It gets mind numbing you know, and it may seem as if we're exaggerating the point about happy but it is a choice. And your spirituality comment hits just at the right time for a lot of us coming off the pandemic. It's just hard not to think that way than not to have something like that to count on each day. So I think that's just terrific. What's your next big race? Speaking of happy, what's the next big or mountain you're climbing?
Steven Pivnik:So, I have a little bit of unfinished business. So actually next three in a row three big ones is the only Ironman. I never finished it because I dropped out in the middle of it was Ironman Cozumel, so I'm signed up for Ironman Cozumel. There was also a crazy triathlon that I attempted earlier this year, which I did not finish, which I'll do again, it's called Ultraman. The distances sound ridiculous. It's a three day triathlon. The first day is a six and a half mile swim, followed by a ninety mile bike. The second day is a hundred seventy mile bike and the third day is a fifty two mile run.
Chris Burkhard:You are twisted, my friend.
Steven Pivnik:I wrote a big blog post about the details. I did most of the pieces, but I didn't finish every piece. Therefore it's considered a DNF, did not finish so in my mind, that's unfinished business. And I attempted to submit Denali in Alaska. Twice and unsuccessfully, due to weather due to various conditions and some of the conditions being myself and unlack of proper training as well. So that's in my book that's unfinished business. So the three big things coming up in the next twelve months are those three with a whole bunch of smaller easier races in between.
Chris Burkhard:So Steven, I think you'll know what I'm going to talk about. We'll wrap on this if it makes sense. I wrote a blog post many years ago talking about the McKinley Effect. McKinley is Denali, but McKinley being do you have enough left in the tank to go at over a hundred pecent capacity to save your life? So I've always wanted to do Denali. Ranier, lots of other fourteen thousan footers, but you know, never that one. And I give you credit. And I think, is that two weeks to get to the approach, is that right? Or is it three weeks?
Steven Pivnik:The entire trip is three weeks.
Chris Burkhard:That's what I thought.
Steven Pivnik:It takes just over two weeks, it's almost three weeks up and two days down. That's so that's the position you need to do on the way up, and then just raced down. Because with every single air, there's more with everything with every single step down, there's more oxygen in the air. So you literally go faster, faster, faster and faster as you go down.
Chris Burkhard:Well Steven, if you're willing as you finish that insane four days or Denali, I'd love to have you back just to talk about the physical and mental journey of one of those.
Steven Pivnik:Oh, happy to. I love doing it and I love talking about doing it after after I'm done.
Chris Burkhard:You know, we share that in common and I haven't done as much as that but my sixty miles on the AT is my version of that at this point.
Steven Pivnik:That's a huge accomplishment right there and then so congratulations on that. That's on my bucket list.
Chris Burkhard:Any last advice for sixty three thousand people that are hanging on your every word?
Steven Pivnik:If you have an idea if you have something interesting that you're thinking about whether it's a career change or a new product idea that you know you want to potentially try your entrepreneurship on, I'd say stop waiting and go for it. You know what life is too short. So if there's an opportunity to go do something interesting don't
Chris Burkhard:So what we'll do is, in the body of this when hesitate. it's released, we'll list your book title, if that's okay, so that, you know, a little bit of a call to action here. So we'll list Steven's, that and maybe some of the races and then the book that he referenced about selling toasters and refrigerators. And if you're listening to this and you need help thinking through some of this stuff, just a reminder that my company Placers is there to assist you. If you need hands on help with career or if you're thinking about your next move, or just need some tools or techniques to figure out what you want to do next. But Steven, thank you for being a great guest.
Steven Pivnik:It's been totally great, Chris. Thank's so much for having me. I really enjoyed it.