Hi, everyone. My name is Jay Aigner. Welcome to the first episode of the first customer. Today, I'm lucky enough to be joined by my Air Force cybersecurity badass buddy, Tyler Wood. He runs an awesome company called CSG Cyber. So if you've ever wanted to know how to start your own cyber security firm, boy, do we. We have a show for you. Let's get started. 3s This is the first customer hosted by Jay Agner. Episode One of the First Customer All right. So we're going to keep it cordial in life because I'm going to do heavy editing at the end because I'm sure I'm going to mess up a lot. Anyway. Anyway, so Tyler Ward. Hello, my friend. How are you? Hello. I'm doing well. Pleasure to be your very first guest on this extravagan show. My very first guest. All right. So 1s you and some other of my friends run successful agencies and businesses, and it made a lot of sense for me to talk to those people about how they did it in different places than I did, because I get a lot of questions from people about how they can apply some of the stuff that I've done to my world. And I've met a lot of people who do it differently. And you've got a really cool, interesting story. We're talking a bit yesterday about it. So let's start at the beginning, 2s where the actual fire for cybersecurity came from with Tyler Ward down. And I think it was. It in Tampa, Florida. Where you grew up originally? No, originally I grew up in Syracuse, New York. So upstate. 1s So the exact opposite of what I thought. 3s Slightly different. So your parents are entrepreneurs. 2s And you mentioned that you kind of followed in their footsteps a little, even the same type of business, the asphalt business. I was super interested about that. So tell me, tell me about your parents, 1s what the business was like, seeing them run that as a kid and what you can't learned from them. Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely the editor share of ups and downs for a lot of people who watch their parents become entrepreneurs or they were born into it. That was kind of my thing is I was born into that kind of entrepreneurial lifestyle with them. Both my parents owning an asphalt chemical manufacturing operation. My father is now passing past in 2017, and my mother is running it herself right now. So she's the head of the company and just doing amazing. So it's interesting. It's interesting to watch businesses develop when you have no idea what business is when you're a kid. So you're seeing the very inside core of what entrepreneurial life actually looks like. So it's a little bit different than coming through college and hearing about entrepreneurial stories, people telling you what it's like, and then it's a whole world of difference when you're sitting at the dinner table listening to your parents talk about the ups and downs of business every night. So we'll watch them go through all the financial crisis, the recessions, everything like that, watch the industry crumble, watch the price of their materials increase with the price of oil and huge fluctuation. So it was always interesting to watch a lot of good times, a lot of bad times as well. So got a real good taste of that. Growing up as a kid, I would say that one of the most valuable things that I did grow up with was I used to sit there and listen to my father talk with business associates and 1s salespeople customers on a regular basis daily. Right. We knew the drill when he was standing there on the phone. We all were very quiet, let him do his thing and listen to him and my mother just doing business as a kid growing up, so that really stuck with me. And I think that was one of the that is still the biggest thing. And I know everybody beats that drum all the time, but knowing how to talk to people and how to relate with them, at the end of the day, all these other business owners, they are people, and they go home to their families, and they have the same things that they like to do as many other people. So it was interesting to watch those relationships be cultivated by my parents with their customers and they're employees and things like that. So really cool. And you like that so much that you went out and tried to start either. So tell me about it. 3s I love that you told me that you have two failed companies, because I really want to drill into those because I'm dying to see 1s how you would take the Tyler of today and kind of apply that. If that business fell back on your lap today, how would you make that successful? So I would love to know, but tell me about you saw mom and dad doing that and then you went off and did it yourself. What did that look like? It was super interesting. 2s I was 17 years old and I was graduating from high school. I was in my senior year working for my father during the summer. So we would go out on the road together, and they had these really large jobs that we would do. I did a whole lot of manual labor for his company, very dirty work working with Corrosive Asphalt Chemicals. Right. So gas, mass, and sometimes not. Right. So it was interesting to work those jobs, especially over the summer, very hot, humid summers up in upstate New York. So we did a lot of traveling, and I saved up a bunch of money. When I say a bunch, I saved up about $4,500. It was the most money that I'd ever had in my entire life at that point. So it was a lot of money. It still is a lot of money, right? Sure. So I saved up that money, and my goal was to buy my own car. I wanted to buy my first car. I didn't want my parents to buy it for me. I didn't want to go that route. So I really didn't want to purchase my own car. So it was funny the way it went down. This segues into how I got into cybersecurity or one of the underlying catalysts to that. I went out on ebay, and this was when ebay was kind of young still. It was like 20 03, 20 04. It was just starting to come around. The web development was very basic, all that. So I went out to ebay. I found the car that I liked on ebay. And I remember vividly it was a Toyota Celica because those were really cool back then. I have one of those. What year was it? I want to say it was probably like a 2001, around that time. Oh, come on, man. 2s I lost my license at like 17 was. I had to have their car, and I got it. 2s So tell me about it. So was it the S model? Was it the fancy stick shift where you love the okay, and the big attractor to that car was it had Lamborghini doors on it. Beautiful. So now here's the kicker on the story. I go out to ebay. I find the car in the listing. Click on the link, go to the page where the car is at. And I'm reading through the instructions. All good. I'm messaging the seller and things like that. And he instructs me to go to Western Union and to wire the money to Western Union, the money to so I did that. I go out, I go to Western Union. You're 17, right? Yeah, I'm 17. So at this time, I know nothing about security. I don't even know these things exist. 3s This was a good a very valuable life lesson, right? So I go to Western Union. I sent the money out. Come back home because we didn't have cell phones back then. They were really bad. They were like flip phones being before flip phones. At that point, actually, I got home, I'm sitting there. I go on ebay on our family computer, which was AOL, I believe, at the time, we use for the Internet and go to ebay, and I'm the screen refreshing. The screen contacted seller looking for, like, the shipping confirmation, and nothing. It just completely blank. Nothing. No communication. Excommunicado, right? So I kind of mold that over for about 10 hours before I go to my dad, and I'm like, hey, do you think this is normal? I give him the situation, and I can tell that he knew at that point in time, and he was pretty easy on me. 2s I think it could work out okay. Just keep an eye on it. Long story short, that money that I sent out, it went to a Romanian cybercrime gang in Romania. So I watched the money to the country of Romania. It should have been a larger red flag for me. Never saw the money again. The FBI, at that point in time, they said, hey, this is something that's common. And once you send out Western Union money, it's gone. I mean, it's like, you know, especially in a different country. So it was a valuable lesson. But coming out of that, it piqued my interest in security. It piqued my interest in technology even more. So I've always been really close to technology. Even growing up as a kid, I always loved it. But that was something that hit me so close to home. It made me really think of, how did that happen? How did I fall victim to that? What did I do wrong? How did they do it, though? You know, what did they do? Like, this is a viable business model for people, and it seems to be working for the criminal underground, so I wanted to know more about it. So, you know, I didn't know the reason why I wanted to know more about it. I was just curious. I was just curious and wanted to dig in. So with that digging, you find certain places on the Internet in the underground at that age, which is always interesting places to explore. But I was definitely interested. And it was kind of around that time, when I was 17, going on 18, that I thought to myself, hey, I may not want to continue on with my family's business. All well and good. I knew it really well by that time, but I wanted to do something different. I wanted to do something maybe a little bit more exciting. I didn't know what. So I went to a community college for, I don't know, let's say three semesters, maybe. I had probably under 1.5 GPA. And I dropped out. I dropped out completely. My major was in something I don't even remember. I'm not sure I think the general studies is my major. So I dropped out and I sat around for a year, working for my dad's, coming again, thinking about what I wanted to do. So it was about a year and a half, and then I finally made my decision to go into the Air Force to do to do what I do now. Or at least get close to it, to get close to technology. That's when I enlisted. 2s So tell me about the 1s spin off of your dad or your parents company that you said you're in, and it flopped. Yes. So that comes later in my life around, let's say it was about 22,014, I believe that was about the time where I started that it was what I knew at that point. I had already been through the Air Force. I was working in technology. I was moving around the country, and I knew technically really well, and I had a lot of experience, a lot of real world experience in technology, It, and cybersecurity. But still, even the skills in my hand at that time with technology, they still didn't materialize in my brain that I could form a business around those things. It never occurred to me. I always thought, no, that's my nine to five job, and if I want to have something of my own, I've got to get creative. I've got to start a business of something different. So I tried to do that. I tried to create an asphalt chemical distribution company 2s twice. Started them up. Started up the LLCs. I'm pretty sure I still have the business cards, and one of them has, I think, a picture of a car falling into a pothole. It was like the cheesiest business card that you could ever think of. It was very bad. 2s I looked at other times, too. You should bring it back. It was like a throwback. I should. It was funny because I think I had my personal email on that, so it was just kind of unprofessional. But I went through that process. I did it in Virginia once when I was living up there working for the intelligence community, and then when I moved down to Augusta, Georgia, again, working for the what were you doing? So you started this business. Do you like, hey, my dad and mom, 1s I know stuff about asphalt because it's in my weirdly enough my veins, I guess. It's just weird thing to have in your veins. 4s What do you do with it? You said, I can't do anything else. My text skills aren't good enough, because that's somebody else who's good enough to kind of go out and do that. That's not me. I'm not that type of person. You are that type of person now, but you didn't realize you were then. Yeah. 1s So you kind of took something that was familiar to you and tried to start a business, which is, like, honestly, 2s probably a really important part in your journey that you may not even give yourself enough credit for it. 2s That's a huge thing to go from, kind of fumbling around and go, okay, I'm just going to try to start my own thing, emulate somebody who's successful and your parents. So what did you do with it? What is the asphalt chemical distribution? I'm sure nobody on Earth, other than you and your mom and dad and maybe like, 50 other people know what's that means, right? 1s It was. 2s Yeah, you said something important there. It was a lack of trust in myself about my skills. I just lack there were a couple of different parts of why I did it. If I think back to it, I think the main reason why I did it was that was a point in time to where my parents business was going through big time. Low point. They were going through a very hard time in business, 1s and they just didn't have a lot of cash flow in their business line. It's so heavy on the capital expenditures all the time. We're talking lots and lots of money being thrown out to get inventory and material. And sometimes all of your revenue is chewed up in inventory a lot of times. So I remember that year, they had some mishaps with the chemicals where there were polluted chemicals that they had toss out, and they lost a lot of money. So I wanted to help out. I saw what was going on with my family, and I was distance from them physically. So I wanted to see if I could maybe start an offshoot and using that offshoot business through a distribution network, I could create more manufacturing revenue for them. So if I got customers in the state that I was living in or around those states to buy large quantities of these chemicals, then it would help them out with manufacturing. So I tried to do that, but my passion just wasn't there. I had a lot of conversations with my wife about that during that time, and she knew why I was doing it, but she knew that my passion just wasn't there. Right. And she never tried to talk me out of it, but she was always letting me know, like, hey, these are good business training wheels, but you should probably go with something that your desire burns for. Right, right. 2s Just to back up. So we did the Air Force stuff. How much do we skip between there and when you start the asphalt business? And then what was the next? You did two iterations of that. You did two iterations of 1s asphalt chemical distribution, which is so exciting 2s to see why you're so passionate about it. The thing you've got to be interested about it. I mean, your parents found something that they enjoyed about selling the shit for however many years. So whatever. Some people enjoy stuff some people don't. Exactly. 1s So tell me about for the sake of just our insanity, because I could talk to you for about 15 hours. 3s Where did you make the switch from kind of fumbling around with the asphalt business that wasn't successful to realizing that either you did or you could. Or you could. There's some way to apply. Was it somebody told you, did you see an ad on something where you like, how do I do this stuff in the Air Force? Give me the Air Force cybersecurity. Tyler background. 1s I know what stemmed it, but how do we get to where we are today? Yes. So we definitely skipped a bunch of meet in the middle, for sure, and I'll run over that real quick. So I went into the Air Force. I only did four years in the Air Force, but I was deployed for a lot of it. Spent almost a year in Afghanistan at a little outpost out there, which was lots of fun. 2s So that was fun. I can't really say a whole lot more beyond that. I wish I could. And then I spent some time in Eastern Africa. So right near Somalia, I spent about eight months in a little country called Yebudi. So it was interesting. It was an interesting career. Got to work with all sorts of, like, technology and security. It was awesome. It was an awesome experience. But I knew that there was something there beyond that. Afterwards, I had ambitions to complete my bachelor's degree. That was a big thing for me. And then go on to a master's degree. Those are in my sights. And the military, the benefits for veterans paid for all of that. So I did my four years in the Air Force, and then I got out. As soon as I got out, I went to and I was stationed down in Florida with the Air Force. And then I went to work for the intelligence community out of the DC. Area. So I bounced around between various three letter agencies and Army Department of Intelligence, military intelligence departments, and it was a lot of fun. We were building security tools and platforms and all kinds of really cool stuff that affected hundreds of thousands of people across the globe in the defense networks. So that was fun. When I was in the DC. Area, Northern Virginia, that's where I started the first offshoot of that business. And I was so wrapped up in my job up there, my actual day job, that pretty soon it just fizzled out because I couldn't maintain it. The areas that I was working in there were top secret areas. I could never have a cell phone with me during my work hours. So it was really tough to try to maintain any kind of, like, business communications when you're off the grid all day. 1s So that was cool. I had enough of the Beltway area, and they offered to move me down to Augusta, Georgia, to the Cyber Center of Excellence out of Fort Coordinates. The military. It's an army intelligence base. It's an army signal command base. Really, and I jumped on it. They gave me a pay raise to go from the most expensive one of the most expensive areas in the United States down to one of the best cost living in Augusta, Georgia. I had friends down there, so we moved and helped to build up the Cyber Center of Excellence for the military intelligence community. 1s So that was a lot of fun. 1s It was around that time to where I knew that we were getting ready to move back up to New York. We were doing it for a couple of different reasons. I saw issues happening with my parents business again to where they have low points. And I knew that I should probably be close was if I needed to support anybody as they came through these hard times. And then second of all, my parents were both up there, so I wanted my daughter to see them. So that's kind of where we are. That's kind of where we're at. As I made that transition back up to the New York area. Now, your question about when did I realize that I could start my own business in the field that I do in the field that I'm good at? There wasn't any AHA moment. I think a lot of entrepreneurs or a lot of people, they're constantly seeking that AHA moment through their career where they're like, I got it. That's the moment. That's the defining time right there. The writing is on the wall. It's beautiful, and there's like violins playing. And then you just walk into a business. It doesn't happen like that. It happens by happenstance a lot of the time. For me, it was because after my military and intelligence department career, I had made a purposeful transition to switch over to the private sector. I wanted to go and work for security companies who did this all day long. I wanted to get exposure to tons of different clients. And my goals were stalling, really being a consultant and having a wide skill area, I knew I wanted to learn a wide skill area because I knew that that was valuable. That's what was valuable. In my military career. I continued to develop all my skills across various technologies in various areas of expertise, and it opened up the doors to my job perspective wide open for me all the time. So I figured, hey, that's probably a good idea if I continue on with that path. And I started with a couple of I worked for a couple of companies up in New York building cyber security teams for them and just doing it day in and day out. And honestly, I got to one day working within these companies, both great companies, nothing against them or anything like that, good people to work with. But I realized that, hey, I've gone from implementing client solutions to figuring out some of the billing aspects, writing contracts, writing statements, work following the entire sales, like all the way through selling my own clients and then delivering on the work. And that was kind of, I guess if there's an AHA moment to where I said to myself, this looks like just about everything, I just need to know the more business nuanced pieces of this and I think I can do this myself, right? It became not a mystery to me. And I think that that's where a lot of people who become entrepreneurs, a lot of them not all, but they get to upper echelons with companies. And at that time, I was a vice president of a security company in New York. And I got to that up restaurant to where I said, hey, this isn't a mystery. Wait a second. There's no magic happening at the top to where somebody's like, 2s Yeah, there's less magic at the top. There's less magic at the top. And once I realized that, it became not a mystery to me anymore. And all of the things that everybody had ever told me about entrepreneurship, about, you know, it's not that hard. You just have to dedicate yourself to it. It's all those, like, empty words that were empty before, and they seemed like blah blah before to me. They all made sense to me now, to where people would say, you just have to start a business, do something you're good at, make sure you got all the business stuff squared away and press on. None of that made sense to me. And at that point, it really did. And that's when I jumped off, and I took a year to write a book, which was really which is really a lot of fun. And I started my own business. So I started this business creating solutions group. CFC cyber. When did you guys when is that formed? When was the actual year of formation? 2017. So we started in 2017. It's funny. Initially, I started the business to do government contractor work, right? So it's a disabled, veteran owned small business. I started that business I started this business to do predominantly government contracting work. Today, if I flash forward today, the vast majority of our clients are commercial. So really, it's interesting how that happened. Well, I think I mean, it's funny because. 4s I am probably in the same place that you are with describing my first customer. It's hard to do. It's hard to go back and say, oh, yeah, this was the first customer. I thought when I was going to do this podcast, it was going to be more of that, but you're kind of highlighting the fact that 2s the first customer is more of a process, almost, or more of like a transition, and you kind of just end up with this. 2s But there is some actual literal meaning to it as well. Right. I mean, do have to 3s you and I both, I think, have a lot that we take for granted sometimes just 2s how lucky we are. Man, 4s your background reads like a superhero and you run a successful business and you've got a happy family. Tell me, what is Tyler Ward do when he's not the CEO of CSG, 1s a badass cybersecurity company. Right on. I like that. 2s I guess my professional aspirations are I would love to write books professionally. That's really what I like to do, just full time. 2s Well, 2s full time is what anything, as much as anything can be full time for us. I think my aspirations are definitely to continue. I love my field. I love my field of work, but I also love writing. I love writing, so that's a big passion of mine. You know, I like hanging out with my family. I like doing yoga. Kind of big into yoga. I'm not very flexible, but I'm getting there. So I enjoy those things. I like shooting, so shooting is a really nice hobby of mine that I love to do. I try to get out to the range at least once a week and go shoot some guns. I find that to be a lot of fun. But building a business for me is fun, and I think that 2s when I look at successful entrepreneurs and ones that came into the game failed, and then they go back to their day job, I think there's one common difference. And everybody says, well, you have to love it. You have to, like, live it, though. You have to live it, and your whole family has to be all in on it. They have to understand. And my family is awesome. And I'm sure yours is the same way. They understand. They understand that what we're doing, we are making a sacrifice on something so that we can build something better for them. We can build maybe a future for them that 1s they may not have so many financial worries or they'll have a job to come into if they want to. It was like, one of the greatest things when I was growing up as a kid was I had really two distinct past. I had my path. Door number one that I could walk through, which was go and work for my family's company. It was secure. It seemed secure. It was kind of right there. It was easy to transition to or door number two. I could go on my walkabout, right? I could walk off into the desert, and I could figure out my own life, and I chose door number two. But I would love to give my children that's that same option. It real quick. It was funny. 1s So if I flash back to, like, one of the other reasons why I joined the military is I was sitting there, and I was looking through an old photo album of my dad, and my dad was in med school when he was in college. He dropped out of med school, I think in his third year of med school, and he was a brilliant guy. He dropped out of med school to go over to Saudi Arabia and work for a land surveying company, making more money than he had ever seen before in his life. And I was looking through pictures of that, of him standing next to Camels and people in Saudi Arabia and building up a military I think it was called the King Colleague Military City. And I was like, My life is boring, man. So I looked at that, and I was like, I got to do something. I have to go. And, like, I have to one up my dad. And we always had this thing with each other where he would tell me a story, and then I would try to one up mine. And I think that was a healthy form of competition, and I seek that in my business now, and that's why I have close people like yourself and others that in business. We're silently competing with each other, even though we're deep partners and we share with each other, but there's an energy you feed off of with other entrepreneurs, and I just love that to keep really great people in your circle that inspire you. And that's the biggest thing out of any long term entrepreneur. One of the biggest mistakes that I've ever seen is isolationism, and entrepreneurship is a death sentence. You've got to get around people who are doing things greater than you so you can look at that and realize that there's, like, another run on this ladder. Like, you're not at the top. As soon as you think you're plateau, you meet somebody and you're like, Whoa, this is different. You're at a different level. Right? It's like the mini yacht next to the super yacht picture, right? The memes 6s that's the exciting thing, is when you see people kind of realize that they have a very specific talent that they've acquired over their career, that maybe they can apply in a completely different way, and just, like. 1s I mean, I think you could probably agree that making money is kind of easy once you figure it out. Like, I'm not necessarily worried about making money for my family, which hasn't always been the case, obviously, I mean, the majority of my life in my career. So 1s taking that step out and really just being like, we're going to do it and it's going to work. 1s Like you said, 2s the how is a lot of the problem. So you say step out and meet. That's something I always hear, too. Like, you surround yourself with really good people. So how have you done that? 1s They say you're the sum of your top five friends. How have you made sure to kind of integrate with not in ethereal, like, kind of floaty terms. What have you done? How have you gone from this guy who didn't really have a business with one who did? How did you network? How did you build that brand? How did you start to kind of get out of your shell a little bit? Because I think everybody is a little bit of an issue, even if they say they're not everybody's little bit insecure. Yep. So one of the things that's really funny is one of my friends and clients is 1s I was introduced to them through my seven year old daughter, who was five at the time. My daughter and his daughter went to kindergarten together, and I used to see him when I was dropping her off and we would shake hands every once in a while when we saw each other. And then I got to know more about his business, he got to know more about mine, and he found a need in my company and I found a need in his company. And that's how simple it happens sometimes, but you have to open yourself up to it. And I'm traditionally, I'm very guarded. I'm a security guy. I'm always paranoid, so I hardly ever let people in. And really my better half was the one to say, like, hey, these are nice people. They're nice people and they're like minded. You should probably open up a little bit more to these people. And that's one way that I've been doing things, is through my child's relationship, right? So that's been a big thing, but it's been also 1s it has to be purposeful. It has to be perfect. I know with you, Jay, you took the first step with me to where it's like, hey, you think like me, you're doing really cool stuff. Let's talk more often because we can learn things from each other. And it's purposeful. You have to be purposeful. It doesn't just happen with magic. Sometimes it has to be you that initiates, and sometimes it's the other person who initiates. But somebody has to be purposeful and say, like, hey, we're going to meet up once in a while. Like, we're just going to talk about stuff. I want to know more about your business. I don't have a need for your business right now. But I want to know more about it. And that's sometimes what happens. I feel like the new, not the new. I'm new to the scene, so everything is going to be but I think I hear it over and over again. 2s It's almost a cliche now to say and to hear that 2s you can't be sales at these places, right? Like, everybody knows that, but, like, everybody says that and now that sentiment has even become fake. 1s So, yeah, you just have to have to know before let's say you're going to a chamber event, right? I'm trying to think here from tactical terms. Again, we're just winging it in this podcast and we're figuring it out as we go. But I'm trying to think in actual tactical terms from somebody who has an idea like yours, 2s I would assume chambers of commerce, business groups doing the LinkedIn thing, somebody's sitting there going, man, I really have an interest in cyber security and I love it. I think I downloaded a Wasp and I'm messing around with and that's something I want to do. 1s They're not going to 1s get the tips on how to start that from here, but they should at least hear, hey, here's a guy like Tyler who had some really good ideas, got a great background stuff, and if you build up your experience in some things, here's how you can apply it. So you figure it out. You got your first dish and a few clients who are building a business. How did you actually physically start to network? Where did you go? What did you look for? Who are you talking to? Great question. Obviously, and you live in, like, a bizarre cybersecurity world or anything, there's an obvious understanding that there is no complete anonymity and I'm not expecting anything other than that, but just in general terms, yeah, definitely. The cyber community, I love them, love all of them. They're very bizarre, very interesting people, for sure. I find that networking with other cybersecurity professionals is very difficult because a lot of them are very closed off. However, the steps that I took and I've moved around a lot, so I've had to do a lot of networking of like, I don't know anybody here. When I moved to Tampa, I didn't know anybody. So what I did was I went on Google and I look for local business networking events in my area. I went to probably 20 of them over the course of 30 days and I was just driving. So you're going there, so you're going to these places and I'm still dealing with this too, so I want to talk to this a little bit. How do you go in there and not feel like the biggest nerd on Earth? Because everybody else there is feeling like the biggest nerd on Earth as well. 1s Some are better at playing it off than other ones. What is your strategy when you walk into this place of a bunch of strangers where myself included, I literally have to talk myself into doing? As I'm sitting in the car, I'm going, I'm going to meet ten people, I'm going to go walk around, I'm going to shake hands, I'm going to do whatever. How do you do that? 2s So that's a good question. Man 3s I have to talk myself into it as well. And I think what you said was, like, the kind of the biggest realization. Public speaking has always been a really big thing of mine, and I found that public speaking has been just a phenomenal way to meet people. And that was the I would say if I look back and say, how did I grow my network? How did I introduce myself to people in a wide scope? The public speaking was it I would look for public speaking events and get on stage right and talk and whether those were at different types of industry conferences, non industry. You did that. When in your career did you do that? It's super interesting. Yes, I still strive to do it. I have less time to do public speaking now, but I did a lot of public speaking when I was up in New York when I was up in New York and working and starting my business. I did a lot of that up there. Did stuff at state colleges up there, went to conferences and spoke. So you shot that out, though. You were like you were like, I'm a cybersecurity guy. I have some shit to talk about. I do. And you Googled or whatever, and you found public speaking because that's like Tim Ferris Four Hour Work Week talks about that being a real action. I agree with that. But even as somebody who is like a little micro inspirational person like I am, I would love to figure out how to actually get. The public speaking thing moving. So you just kind of looked up for place in your area. They were looking for public speakers with your expertise. Yes. I did a bunch of different stuff, man. I looked at local conferences. So if you went to Google and you said local conferences in Tampa, Florida, then you find the eventbrite page or the as. I have a web page, and you can apply to become a speaker. Toss your topic and apply to become a speaker. The other thing I did was I joined up with different industry communities for Manufacturers association, so I did a lot of speaking for them and then just trying to get exposure through different events and applying for them and reaching out to event coordinators and saying, hey, here's what I'm good at. Here's where my expertise lies. I'm a professional hacker, and people love that. They wanted to hear about how do you break into companies? Like, it's cool stuff. So if you have a good story to tell, if you have cool stories and got some expertise, you can find speaking events. It's just a matter of where do you look for them? And you may have to start small. You may be talking to a group of five people to start, but you've got to start somewhere with it. That was purposeful. That was purposeful. I knew I had to build my brand. I had no brand. You couldn't find me. I was working for years within intelligence communities in dark rooms with no windows, like I was a nobody. I didn't have when I was getting out of the military, I didn't even have a LinkedIn account. I had nothing. 1s I was in the shadows. And I knew that in order to grow myself professionally, grow business, I had to get exposure. And that was a good way. Looking for local events, networking with people, tossing your name and a hat and not being afraid to get up on stage and speak. 2s Wow. 1s I might do that right after this, because I've been thinking about it. 2s If I can tell you one more thing. Please do. Please do. Yeah. And there's also professional speakers and presenter websites out there to where you can and set up a profile and conferences and organizations and industries who are looking for speakers they can go through. Kind of like a contractor list or just a menu of people. Read your background, read your bio, and you might get picked to do a paid speaking event. Sometimes you're not paid, which is fine. It's good exposure. Right. 5s It's very interesting. 5s I think today 4s you have been project based. You've been very hands with a lot of stuff 1s from a tactical perspective in five years. 3s Is CSG more of an organization that is a machine with you as the conductor or with you as a passenger? That's a great question, man. I mean, that's a great question. I just made that up, like, on the spot. I think I should do it professionally. That was really good. Yeah, no, you're doing you're doing well. That's a very well placed question. 2s I've been thinking about that a lot. It's kind of that five year plan. I think five years is a long time. I do. I can probably say generally where I would like our company to be at. 1s We're in a great transition period, and I think a lot of companies go through to where the owner, who's been traditionally doing everything, is starting to move roles to different people and starting to delegate more of the stuff so that the company is sustainable without that person. And it's not really I'm getting ready to jump off the boat type thing if something happens to me. People's livelihoods are at stake, and I need to create contingencies for that. So I'm constantly working with that. My father passed in 2017. Was he was running? Almost all aspects of the business. My mother was handling the kind of the billing aspects, but everything operational. My father was handling the chemicals, the additives, the formulas for the proprietary stuff. And he suddenly died while he was on a work trip. And I remember vividly the first month that we were all supposed to be grieving his loss. I was scrambling, driving around the country, making contacts with people, trying to look through his notebooks and refigure out how he was operating his business because he had it on his head. 1s It was like Chris Farley, you're like black sheep or whatever you're like. 1s It was 100% just like it. Man. 2s I look at life as like, yeah, that's unfortunate. But man, what a learning experience that was for me. And owning a business, it sounds like it scared the shit out of you in a good way. It still does. I mean, it still does because I know how hard that is on a family. First of all, to have to do that, but second of all, to figure out how to operate their business when it's all been in their head. So back to your question. The five year plan systematically makes the business continuity completely functioning. Whether or not I am directly involved with day to day operations, I love what I do. So in five years, I don't see myself stepping it far away from any of the operational stuff because I really love it. And I'm young and energized about my business, but where personally I would like to be is creating more space for me to do more philanthropy and authoring of novels and books and content and then my business. I don't have the drive to turn my company into a thousand British company. I've been there before. I've been in large organizations before. I like to think of my company as more along the lines of kind of the special operations unit of Cybersecurity. You have your deloitte. You have the big four that are out there, but there's a lot of customers in between that. They need immediate results. They can't wait. They don't need all the paperwork. They need boots on the ground, and they need help. We're dealing with those cases right now. Large scale ransomware attacks, large scale data breaches. These companies have no lifeline. They're waving a white flag in the air. And our company has been there to take care of those clients and those kinds of needs. And that's what's so gratifying about our jobs. That's why we love what we do more so than working for a very large company, because we're seeing direct impact on clients, and we like to continue that. So growth of the company for sure. Growth of headcount, for sure. But really staying true to our roots of immediate action, defining results for clients, I think that's important for our brand and our names. 2s Yeah, it's so. 3s It's a constant thing. I hear from every single person that runs a company and gets it to a certain point, the same story. How do I remove myself? How do I keep myself involved enough that, you know, it's still my company, it's still represent since me as a person and what I've built over the years, how do I free myself up somewhere to spend more time with my family? Whatever. 4s And it's weird because then now you're going to go from, you know, at some point it's going to happen. 1s The cybersecurity guy to Tyler, the cybersecurity business owner guy. Right. And you have to make that switch if you want to take the next year. Everybody's going through that, and I'm doing the same thing. I talk to guys who have six or 10 million revenue businesses. Same thing. They're like, I'm trying to set up the delegation. Wow. So, like, me, where I'm at, have not completely figured it out, but I've got a lot of it delegated. I'm not as far off as I thought I was 1s anyway. 1s So we're getting close, I guess, to the 45 minutes mark. I'm bye. I want to. So you mentioned yoga. 1s Give me three tips, three things, even if you're not doing them that you want to be doing, that you're trying to be doing health wise. I mean, yoga is a perfect one because I think people 1s stretching, yoga, meditation, 1s it's not like this, like, hippie bullshit. It's like real stuff that really, really successful people do for me. And like, you connect the body and the mind. And I'm sure we'll have episodes and talks that I probably have you on just to talk about forever. But anyway, what are you doing right now to try to be more healthy than entrepreneurs so you can live longer and be a better person for your family and for your business? 2s Stress management. Top one, no doubt. Stress management all the time. Love that. That's the biggest thing, man. That's the biggest thing. I find I'm super unproductive when I'm stressed out. And what I mean by stress management is, first of all, good sleep. Good sleep, man. Good sleep is so important. I don't care if you need 5 hours or 6 hours or 8 hours or 12 hours. However many hours you need, make sure you're getting quality sleep. Make sure you've got a routine. That's been my one thing that's, you know, that's changed my life is putting myself on a pretty stringent bedtime routine, right? To wind down the mind after being inundated with calls and emails and texts and all things throughout the day in meetings, stress management has been number one, and sleep is the top of that. Tier number two on that is putting yourself on a morning regimen, right? So I know that you work out early in the morning. Kudos to you for doing it so early. I don't do it nearly that early, but in the mornings, I take an hour for myself to do yoga. 1s I do a lot of flow. Yoga is really good for it's good for stretching. It's good for movement, mobility and stuff like that. I've got injuries, I've got persistent injuries from my time in the military, so that's big for me as well. Because pain, if you're in pain physically, your mind is not focused. So if you have stress and pain, your mind isn't focused. And then 1s let's see what else around the health side. 2s What are you meaning days? 2s Yeah, I eat pretty clean. My wife has done a rather clean diet. She goes to the gym pretty hard, so we generally eat the same things. You know, kind of high protein type diets. Not a whole lot of refined carbs and stuff like that. I don't drink anymore, so I haven't drunk a long time. It's just not my my thing. I'm not a recovering alcoholic or anything like that. But I have found that drinking clouds my thought and it makes me feel awful the next day. So I try to keep really toxic things. 4s This will never be anything we talk about on this podcast. 1s Maybe it is, but my wife could drink in like three years ago because she was an alcoholic and I was right there with her, I think. And then I kind of didn't quit. And then probably about eight or nine months ago, 2s I didn't have a big issue, but I was drinking too much. And talk about a night and day, man. 1s The funny part is though, I used to hate hearing how great people felt they didn't drink because I was drinking. So I'm like, so I'll never end my entire life be the guy who's like, trying to make somebody feel bad or trying to convince anybody who is you're like, go do your thing and live your life absolutely just for me anymore. Like you said, I could not wake up at 05:00 a.m. Workout if I was pounding a six pack of IPAs every couple of days like I was before. So 1s I think it's part of being successful is like kind of getting the toxic stuff out. So I like the three. Yeah, you notice these things all start to make sense as you like, you get more into business and get a little older and things a little more mature. But I was always asking myself, like, why do all these super successful CEOs? Why are they, like, running marathons? 1s Why are they in good shape 1s and gas these ladies and gents who are running triathlons and swimming a mile in Seattle? 2s It was crazy to me. But now you realize, like, okay, I get it. Like, you're doing scratch management and you're keeping your body sharp so that your mind can be sharp. And you look at these ladies and these guys who are just powerhouses in business and their fitness is always right at the top. They're always posting on LinkedIn of them running miles through canyons in Utah and stuff, and you're like, okay, it makes sense. 2s I think the one of the most important things, too, is just to not be fake about it in general. If you're going to try to be healthy, go be healthy and live that life. If you're going to be meditative, then go actually do that. I don't have the same struggle. I want to do stuff. I want to be a type person, and I'm working towards it, but you just gotta keep kind of doing that stuff every day. All right, last question I want to ask you. 2s Send this book. I think I got it from Five Below and I got it for my wife, but then she didn't want to do it and so I started doing it. So that's a free plug for all the listeners that are going to be watching this to go pick this book up. There's one question that's really been messing with me, not messing with me. 9s What would you attempt if you knew you couldn't fail? Because right now, I'm sure as an entrepreneur, you feel like you probably can't fail because you know what success feels like. What would you do out of all the things that could be done if you knew you couldn't fail? 4s Are we talking business wise or anything? We're talking life, baby, business wise. Life wise. What is something 2s that fear or failure of it is keeping you from? And maybe the answer is nothing. 3s I would love to jump I would love to jump out of a plane, but I'm pretty sure that my fear would not let me do that. So maybe that's one for me. I don't have a great answer. 2s That's why I asked a question. I don't know if you had a better answer. 3s Yeah, man. Wow. That's a good question. What would I do if I knew I couldn't fail? I guess I have to think of what I really want to do, but I'm too afraid to do it because I know I'm going to fail. 2s I think one of my biggest things is just being a good dad, being a good husband, and my wife being a good 1s leader to my family. Like, that's always the number one for me. I'm always very afraid of failing that, so I think that's part of it. But I think if I knew I couldn't fail 4s that's a great question. 1s It's a good question, man. 4s I think it's almost indicative of 1s who I'm talking to to the feeling that I've kind of gotten with myself. 1s If there were something that you wanted to do, you would do it. 2s Right? Yeah, totally. I think if I were 1s five years ago, if I would have answered that question, then it would have been quit my job to start my business. Right? Sure. It would have been that because I was at that point. Now that's a really good point. If I knew I couldn't want I think I do know sort of what that would look like if I knew I couldn't fail. But it would probably be around. We started a for profit the Nightlife Foundation. And the whole mission of it is to combat child exploitation and child sex trafficking. That's our mission in that. That's what my book is about. 1s So if I knew I couldn't fail, I would go headfirst into that pool. Headfirst into that pool. But there's a lot of potholes in the road. It's a very shaky trail. It could be a dangerous trail. Right. So I think that I do have apprehension on that. We pulled something out. That's the point of that question. Because I didn't even know, I had no expectations. That makes me think about it a little bit on a different level myself, 1s which is super helpful. 1s Right. Because I kind of had to look at like, what have I been apprehensive on? And like, the foundation is what I've been apprehensive on. I've used tools to delay movement on that. Like my book. I say to myself. Hey. As soon as my book get published and the DoD and the intelligence community took 14 months to review this thing before giving it back to me and letting me know that I can say these things publicly. I use that as like my timeline of like. Well. I can't make too many inroads yet because I have to do this first. And anytime I start to even in business, if I say to myself like, no, this needs to come before this and this needs to come before this, 7s the thing that you're putting off is typically the most important thing to do 1s and it's easy to do. So it's a good question and I appreciate that. $5 book from the Five Below store. 3s Actually, I want to ask you one more thing. So outside of networking, outside of 3s finding people in your area, area that you can talk to and trying to do public speaking, have some background in cybersecurity, if somebody's kind of sitting there today and going, alright, 2s How the hell do I how do I start? Who is my first customer? How do I get somebody to pay me for my skills? I would suggest that anybody who ask me for anything technical, quite honestly, to go to Upwork or go to Five or Come or go to one of these sites that allows you to be a freelancer answer very quickly and it kind of unlocks that mode real quick where you go, oh, so I read up a good contract. I say, I'm going to do this, I go do it, and this guy gives me $1,000. I think that would be my suggestion. Now, is there an analog for that in your just that I'm not going to get into it. But now I'm switching to a different 1s funnel for my business. So I'm not doing that funnel anymore. I'm doing another funnel. So I am curious, do you execute on 1s marketing campaigns as far as email campaigns? Or is it all just kind of shaking hands and kissing babies? Or like, is there some other place online that people, if they have an interest in cybersecurity, could go to start picking up contracts, could start piecing together a career of consultancy to build into like you built? 2s Yeah, man, absolutely. 3s So I will say this. That what I see a lot when I talk to budding entrepreneurs. And I myself, I still am one, and I will probably always be one of my career. But when I see a lot is people are looking for these, like like monster contracts when they first started, and they're like, Well, I've been working on this federal contract with a DoD for a year and a half and plugging away and plugging away, and it's multimillion. And I'm like, Step back and get out of your own way. Find a client that's going to pay you $300. My first client paid me $25 to write a cyber security article. Oh, look, we got to it. We don't even mean to get to it. We got to it. Like it's like in that family, that Family guy. Look, they said the name of the movie. We got to the first customer. It took us 55 minutes and 55 seconds, but so your first page was to write an article for $25. $25, man. 1000 word article. $25, right? And that was my first gig. And those were many of my first gigs. I was writing cybersecurity content, and that's how I got exposed. And you know what? That first client is one of our biggest clients, too. You know why? Because you had everything riding on it. It was a $25 article. But, like, that was everything to you back then. And I think I lose that sometimes, and then I regret it and I kind of ratchet it up. But that's important to not lose that once you have. 3s It's exactly important. Like, I've taken so many lessons from my dad, and watching I distinctly remember many conversations that I had with him when he was still alive, and he you know, when they were going through hard times in business, I watched him go from a multi million dollar business operator to one year you're going and filling potholes with asphalt materials out of the back of his truck. And it was surprising because I had known a life of growing up with decent money. And he said to me, you know what? If you're not willing to put your pride aside in business, you will almost certainly fail. You'll never be able to make it through the hard times. I was like, huh, that's really interesting. So if you're starting on entrepreneurship, put your pride aside, find contract opportunities. If you're specifically in my sector or in the tech sector, I can tell you that one of the easiest routes is to find technology companies like managed service providers and managed security providers and ask them, are you willing to use my services for contracting? Can I help you with some client work? Not as an employee, but can you know, that's a great idea. 2s Maybe it's small, but once you start to get in those networks, as soon as you learn how to do these things and learn that it doesn't always have to be WT is coming to you. You can do work for people that's meaningful under contract. Once that lane is clear for you, then you can start to expand. You can use these freelancing platforms, and you can even use those before it's a great way to do it, but just meet people within different companies who are already servicing the clients that you would like to go after. 1s That's a great well, now you make your own version of Upwork. You'll have, like, ward work. It'll be just for cybersecurity contracting. I love that, though. That's really good. That is really good advice. 2s Talking to successful cyber securitycurity firms of a certain size 3s to kind of solicit your services as a potential contractor, I think it's not annoying. It's not intrusive. It's not. 2s It's a good idea. That's a great idea. So I think we're going to end on that. It's 59 minutes in. 1s My house has remained somewhat quiet, which is crazy. There's like, five kids in there about the tackle. When I walk out. 4s This is awesome, dude. I hope some people found some stuff. I'm going to put this up, and we'll see what kind of traction we get. We'll go from there. But you enjoy the rest of your summer. I'm going to come down to tampa for the next one of these, and we're going to drink a nice club soda together. 6s I drink it all time. It's like all I drink it nonstop. And liquid death, too. I get a free plug for liquid death. I'm a big fan. Right, buddy. Be good. And I will see you soon. Okay? Thanks, buddy.