The Owner's Odyssey
The Owner's Odyssey is a business podcast focused on exploring the unique journeys of real business owners co-hosted by Brook Gratia, Paul McCoy, and Zach Jones.
The Owner's Odyssey
The Resilient Journey to Create a Support Empire with Aimee Kandrac
When the going gets tough, they say, the tough get going. Amy Kandrac embodies this adage, turning a deeply personal challenge into 'What Friends Do', a robust support network born from the chaos of a health crisis. Join us as Amy takes us through her entrepreneurial odyssey, from the platform's early days before smartphone ubiquity to its transformation into a sustainable modern business model. Her journey is a heartfelt testament to the resilience required in the startup world, especially within the software industry in the Midwest. As she shares the hurdles of growth, funding, and the switch from nonprofit fundraising, Amy's story offers a candid look into the adaptability needed when your venture is as personal as it is professional.
Navigating the waters of a family-run business has its unique trials and triumphs, as Amy deftly illustrates. The blending of personal connections into professional ones can either be a recipe for success or a potential minefield. This episode peels back the layers of this delicate dynamic, discussing the challenges of managing relationships and the subtle art of maintaining friendships and family amidst business pressures. Additionally, we delve into the world of venture funding from a female entrepreneur's perspective, celebrating Amy's status as the first woman in Indiana to secure such funding and discussing how she managed to break through barriers that many women in business face today.
The conversation doesn't shy away from the leadership labyrinth—balancing the need for confidence with the humility of seeking support. Amy's insight into fostering a culture of compassion within her company and the broader business community sets an example for all leaders. Coupled with her vision to extend 'What Friends Do' on a global scale and the introduction of a new concierge service, Amy's drive to innovate support networks has the potential to revolutionize how we help each other through life's toughest challenges. So, tune in to hear how one woman's mission to provide a lifeline for those in need has blossomed into a life-changing enterprise for many.
Hello and welcome to the Owner's Odyssey, the podcast where we delve deep into the transformative stories of courageous business owners who have embarked on an extraordinary adventure. I'm Zach Jones and I'm Brooke Gattia. We're here to explore the real life experiences of entrepreneurs.
Brook:Each episode, we'll embark on a quest to uncover the trials, triumphs and transformations of remarkable individuals who dared to answer the call of entrepreneurship.
Zach:Like all adventurers, our guests have faced their fair share of challenges, vanquished formidable foes and braved the unknown.
Brook:Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a seasoned business owner or simply an avid listener hungry for captivating stories the Owner's Odyssey is here to help you level up.
Zach:So join us as we embark on this epic expedition. This is the Owner's Odyssey. Let's start our adventure.
Zach:I was waving to you for the intro. You're going to edit this out.
Brook:It's okay. Well, sorry, I'm going to be really bad for this and all your editing side of things. So, amy Kendrick, I have known for oh gosh, I want to say 10, 12 years.
Aimee:Kind of close to that yeah.
Brook:And so I had known you after you started your business what Friends Do or the app for what Friends Do. So I have gotten to see a lot of the journey you have gone through, the ups and downs and all of that, that piece of it. But I would love for you to tell us what is what led you to wanting to start this business, to engage in that entrepreneurial side of things. How did you get to? Hey, I have this business that I have here.
Aimee:Right? Well, thanks for having me on, and I will say there was no part of me that had any idea whatsoever that I was going to start a business or, even as I was starting it, that that's what I was doing. I had two small kids, my husband was in medical school, I was working full time and my sister's very, very best friend, who was like a little sister to me, was diagnosed with brain cancer when she was 25. And my family was kind of the first in line to check in on the family at the hospital and then share that information with everyone else. And what we found as, and then share that information with everyone else, and what we found as we were sharing that information with all of the friends, was the response was always twofold. The first was please tell the family that I love them and I'm thinking of them. And the second was and let them know. Let me know if there's anything I can do.
Aimee:And it was a lot to manage. It was a lot to try to remember who all wants to say hi, who all wants to have their well wishes said, and how can we as the intermediary not that it was necessarily our responsibility, but we were looking for something to do, because when there's a major life event that happens, people really, really want the opportunity to connect and to help and feel like they're doing something, even in these unimaginable situations. So my mom called me one night. I can really clearly remember sitting on, you know, like our most hammy-downed, nasty sofa, and she called me and she's like Amy, I think we need to figure out how to create something specifically online to help more people than just Laura. So then we created an online consumer software called what friends do, and it was just that fast. Then we just created it and it was ready to go.
Zach:So but the idea was an app or something.
Aimee:Well, this was before apps, but yes, oh, okay, that was my kind of.
Zach:I was trying to place it in the timeline, of like, so you needed a resource.
Aimee:Yeah, so this was, you know, 15, 16 years ago, and apps didn't exist, got it. So we were strictly online consumer software and our initial business model we were strictly B2C and we were looking for affiliate revenue. Wow, yeah, yeah. And so we had all of the models put together, we had all of the affiliate links in, because then it was, and it still is now, when you're helping someone through any kind of crisis, you need to buy them things right, like whether it's the food to make a meal, or supplies for them, or just something to make them smile, and so we were getting small amounts of affiliate revenue, but you have to have a really, really large consumer base in order to make any money on that?
Zach:Did you have any kind of background in that sort of fundraising partnership?
Aimee:Well, so my background professionally was a fundraiser for nonprofits. Okay, there you go, but that wasn't necessarily the same. Gotcha my mom had a background in actually in a lot of production, and so she had a really good idea of how to Gotcha.
Brook:How did you know what to do first in the midst of all of that? Was it storyboard of it out? Was it finding money to raise to do stuff? Were you self-funding it? How did you guys choose? Okay, I have this great idea Now what do I? Do with it.
Aimee:Right. So it started because we had another friend who just helped us put together a small website for our friend, laura, and we kind of just were thinking through what else do we need and then looking at how do we make this available for others. And then we were really really self-funded for quite some time but also went to a couple of friends who were able to give us a little bit of seed funding to kind of just pay the developers to get it out there and to get things going. And we were self-funded for a lot of years until we kind of got to a point where we were like this is not.
Aimee:This B2C market was not sustainable and we weren't growing fast enough and especially located here in the Midwest B2C software there's not a lot of people who do it and there were not many people at all who were doing it 10 years ago and kind of restructured the business and the business relationship with my mom and myself. So I kind of took over most of the business actually all of the business and also pivoted in do you have a bingo card, by the way? Like all of the entrepreneurial words that people will say.
Zach:Like I said, no, we'll dev out one we don't, but I can picture it in my head the second you say it. That's funny, Sorry.
Paul:That's funny, I like that.
Aimee:So so we we did, we pivoted and made it a a B to C or a B to, from B to C to B to B, Okay, and looked at how do we get to the people who need us first, and that was going to where they were being diagnosed, so healthcare. And we were able to land a pretty big healthcare company like a healthcare institution and white labeled our software for them to give to their patients.
Zach:Very interesting.
Brook:So what was it one? What is it like working with family to get something started? I'm going to ask vulnerable questions in the midst of this. Was that journey for you something that it was an inspiration to like build off of? Was it like I don't know, just like was part of the getting started? Was that an emotional journey of doing that with your mom and kind of working through all of that?
Aimee:It was an emotional journey and I am really happy that right now she and I are still best friends and everything is great. I think one of the reasons that we stopped working together was because it was not going very well. Yeah, um, and for us the relationship that we had as family was more important than the relationship that we had as business partners. But it took a really it wasn't pretty for a while. Um, I will say, at first it was kind of exciting. Um, we knew we were both like diving head in, ready to go. We knew we were both super, super committed to it. But there's just different dynamics that happen in a family relationship when you're working together.
Zach:Do you feel like those dynamics were unexpected or expected, but palpable?
Aimee:In hindsight they were not unexpected at all. I was enough younger that I don't know that I saw it and I think I was so excited about what we were creating rose-tinted, uh-huh, but I was like oh, we'll make it work. It'll be fine, but it wasn't great for a while.
Zach:And then, as you're navigating that, the trickiness of that, what kind of tools or what helped you untie that knot eventually with her?
Aimee:I haven't thought about this in a while. It was hard. She put in a lot and she put in far more of the seed money financial seed money than I did. Um, because I just didn't have it. And you know it took a lot of of consulting with other people who knew the business, knew our relationships, knew and like advice. How do we untangle this? Other people who had been in the business world for a while and had worked with either one of us in different ways. Gosh, I don't. It wasn't great Again. I'm really happy that where we are now, but it was.
Zach:And is that a product of just time?
Aimee:I think it's a lot of time. I think it's because we do actually have a really great relationship as family and if we didn't have that dynamic and for us our family is the most important, and if we didn't have that dynamic and for us our family is the most important, and if we didn't have that, I don't think we would be where we are right now.
Paul:What were the main sticking points that you found? Was it personality, was it business differences?
Aimee:What were the real issues that you had to overcome. Well, this might be a surprise to some of you Maybe not Brooke, who's known me but we're both pretty strong-willed. But we also just work differently, and I think that that's something that neither one of us was good at. So I think a lot of it was because we were so close. Right, you can see the potential that the other person has, um, and you can push them in different ways than you can if it's strictly a working relationship, um, and then you can get irritated with them in different ways.
Brook:But uh, we probably bring old baggage to the table, like my mom. When I was a teenager, she told me to do this and it made me mad. And now she's telling me to do this and I'm an adult and I don't really like it. That dynamic of going from parent to mutual adult and in a working environment that just has to be hard. I'm very impressed with many family-owned businesses that can. They've had to have overcome some dynamic of that growth or they're probably sitting in some bent up like stuff to it. So I think it's really admirable that one you engaged in hey, we have a vision together, let's do this, let's work through this. And then, of course, with anyone, you have conflict and you're going all right. This conflict is building to the point that I don't want it to burn our relationship as family and we are going to choose that over this business every day and I think that is way admirable.
Brook:I don't think it's surprising that it would go through and that's part of why asking like this has got to be something many people deal with of like, hey, I come up with an idea, I'm talking to my brother about it, like this is a great idea, and you kind of implement it and then, as time goes on, you change, and that change both internally to you and to the other person. It, it, it rubs against each other and sometimes it just doesn't. Partnership is hard, and I don't think there's any. I think it's admirable to say this isn't working, or it is working or you know, I don't. I don't think there's any piece of that.
Brook:So I I totally get, I totally get all of that from that aspect of things, and you probably had friends that came in and did this too. Like lots of them, I would imagine a lot of this is. I mean, it's not like you went out and got corporate sponsors right off the bat Like you're going, hey Joe, you're my friends here, like would you be my, like customer service person or like whatever from from that aspect, was that also hard to let go. I'm not only bringing in family, I'm bringing in friends. And that dynamic of like I don't have enough money to get a professional, skilled ex, I'm lumping this together as I'm going along how, how did that work for you too in that?
Aimee:Um, we did that a lot and I would say a lot of them were professional skilled ex but we weren't engaging them in that way and I think that was a problem, because you couldn't pay them because we couldn't pay them um, so they were doing it kind of as volunteer time when they had, is that?
Aimee:yeah and and like, because they believed in the concept, they believed in the mission um wanted to see it succeed. But I think one of the like lessons that I am learning now and I didn't know at the time, but when we were so excited at the beginning we didn't like differentiate who's good at what, who is going to be overseeing which part, and because of that it got so murky and it it burned a lot of relationships as well with some of the other people who were volunteering time right, and they maybe didn't have the same type of commitment that we did and either me or my mom, one of us, would not appreciate the way they were working. The relationship was different if it was my friend versus her friend and we didn't like what they were doing. But because they weren't a contractual employee, it was really hard to manage those relationships.
Brook:Over the years, do you feel like you've spent more time developing the software, managing the relationships? Where do you think most of your time has Like over?
Aimee:all the years. I really don't want to think about how much time I have wasted on probably managing all of the relationships.
Brook:How do you feel like you've developed in that, like how you manage them?
Aimee:Not as well as I should have probably. Well, let's let's point out some other vulnerabilities. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Zach:I you get fluffy on the back half. Is this the back?
Aimee:half. I hope so. That would be fantastic If I had to like quantify. So I've spent more dollars on software development, but I've spent more dollars on software development also because of not great people management. This sounds kind of crappy, but I think I was just a little too nice.
Paul:What about the specification for the software? I'm picking this up with quite a few other clients. They're putting software out there, they're overrunning and I've had that development myself. If it's not defined well, you can spend a lot of money going nowhere.
Aimee:You can spend a lot of money going nowhere. I would say I was maybe the opposite of that. I think we were so specific in our design requirements that when it wasn't attained and it wasn't meeting exactly what we had specified, we ran into lots of problems then. Okay, so for us we were maybe the other side of that, which is also a problem, right, because it could have been good enough. If we had been good enough, get out there with 90% of it, get it started, we wouldn't have wasted 90% of the dollars on the last 10% and or pissing off one of our developers and having to find somebody new.
Paul:You're trying to get it for perfection.
Brook:Right. I've heard that many times with software people. They're doing the software and they're trying to get it perfect and they're like, no, you need to put it out there in that beta format and just get it out there so that you can start building all this other stuff around it or determining what's really worth spending the money on. I feel like I've heard that story numerous times especially now that everything can be updated instantaneously.
Zach:It's like there's, there's never, there's never the final version of something, or there's never a need for the final version and things will break instantaneously.
Aimee:Like I am seriously queen of like, give me your beta and I will break it faster than anybody else. I'll find it I am really good at that that's a valuable skill. And I will say people laughed about it at first and now they're like oh no, really, If you want to find your first bug, Amy will find it really fast. My poor kids, they're so used to it. I'm really good at finding breaks. My husband's job is to tell people what's wrong with them. They're doomed. Really good at finding breaks.
Brook:My husband's job is to tell people what's wrong with them. They're doomed. What do you feel like you were able to successfully overcome in the midst of all of that growth? Because it's been how many years since you deployed this?
Aimee:So, with the new version of the business, we closed venture funding in 2017.
Brook:How was that? How was your venture capital raising journey for you? Did you freak out? Were you loving?
Aimee:it. So I had no idea what I was doing at all. I had a mentor who I loved dearly, but she was 23 years old and she was the person kind of guiding me and telling me I would call her. I'm like I don't know what's on the term sheet. What's the term sheet? Do we have a term sheet? We didn't have a term sheet yet I couldn't tell people what the terms were, so I really went in completely unaware and clueless of what to do.
Brook:Do you wish you had known, or are you glad you didn't?
Aimee:I think I could have saved myself a lot of time with some pretty quick and easy like okay, these are the things you need to know. That said, for me I do a better job of learning as I'm going. So even if you had sat down and told me how to negotiate all of the terms and everything that I needed to know, as far as that goes, it wouldn't have clicked until I was actually doing it.
Zach:It can be dangerous. Yeah, it can be dangerous when you have your style of approach as well, when you want to do everything 100%, because when you start learning about it without the practical application, you're like I don't know what of this information is relevant. So I'm going to pick all of it up, and probably more than I need and things that don't pertain.
Aimee:But there were some things. So I was the first female in the state of Indiana to close venture funding. That's awesome. Well, thank you. I say that because there have been only a handful who have closed venture funding in the state since then. That's sad Because Indiana ranks, I think, number 48 or 49th in venture funding for female entrepreneurs, and the venture funding for females is less than 2% of all venture funding.
Zach:Is there any kind of understanding of what the yeah?
Aimee:Well, it's very clear Venture capitalists give to people they know and things that they know, and so women? Well, in all honesty, women are usually creating products where they've seen a need, and they're often not in the same space. I had men look at me and say do you think that there's money in taking food to people when they're sick? I don't understand. Does this something people do, Right Um?
Aimee:no frame of reference none at all, you know, and I I asked him flat out. It was like so you have a wife. Has she ever taken a meal to anyone? Oh, yeah, she does that all the time. I said, okay, so if you, and to put a dollar amount on her hourly wage, which I guarantee you this man would never consider doing. But she spent probably an hour going to the store, two hours making food, an hour dropping it off, because honestly, that's how long it really is going to take once you go round trip and do all of these things. She spent at least $200 at the grocery because she's also making a meal for you and your family. Let's pretend you are willing to say your wife is worth $25 an hour, like let's go real low ball here, and so now you've got four hours of her time, so we've got $100 plus $200 in food. Pretend we're saying 300 bucks here. That's one person taking one meal to one family.
Aimee:There's money around this and men not all men, I really don't mean that, but a lot of the men in the VC world, specifically in the Midwest. This is just not something that they do. Indiana, indianapolis specifically really, really loves B2B SaaS marketing. That's all they invest in. That's where people have made money, so they know how to do it and so that's what they invest in. And if you aren't doing B2B SaaS marketing, there aren't a whole lot of investors who are looking for that. That is changing now. Healthcare is getting really big. Healthcare innovation in Indiana is a really fast-growing thing, but it's still nothing consumer and it's still very tech-focused and pretty specific.
Brook:So why do you think you were able to get through that barrier?
Paul:Should I grab some more thread? Grab some more thread, or are you just not sure? Think you were able to get through that?
Brook:barrier. She grabbed some Listerine. She grabbed some Listerine.
Aimee:Or are you just not sure. I think I'm really good at pitching and it only takes a few people who can believe in this product and I really, really firmly believe that my company changes people's lives. Not everyone needs it, not everyone uses it, but those who do use it, we really help them through their journey and, for people who have been in this situation, they get it. So I think that I was and I had a lot of friends and family. I did take on some VC money, but I also had nine females of friends who invested. So those investors that was also apparently not newsworthy that they had nine investors that were female.
Brook:Uh huh, that's interesting what do you mean?
Zach:not newsworthy?
Aimee:I mean media outlets said that that wasn't something that they would even mention.
Zach:That's wild.
Brook:So you threw it out on like some PR things and they were like nope, we're going to cut that part out.
Aimee:I had a reporter in town specifically say oh well, but you only raised a half a million dollars. We really don't mention anything. At this low amount I was like I'm the first female to close venture funding.
Paul:And most of my funding came from female investors.
Aimee:Oh well, that's just not really newsworthy. Is that a male or female journalist? I'll let you guess, can you? Can you tell me the female journalists covering business in the city?
Paul:I don't really know that many journalists. I honestly don't.
Aimee:Well, the answer is it was not female.
Zach:I've got the Jeopardy music program in here somewhere.
Aimee:Let me be clear I don't want to be male bashing. I really, really that's not my intention here. My intention, though, is to and again, it's not yay, Amy, good job being the first female to do this, it's. I think people need to know that this is real. This is happening right here, right now. We have a lot of really amazing women who have scalable ideas, and I say that because there's a lot of women and there are a lot of organizations in town that are good at helping women get their businesses started, but they're not helping them think about scalable businesses.
Paul:I've got a connection for you I'll hook you up with. He's an angel investor, oscar Morales.
Aimee:Oh, he and I had lunch at Starbucks last week. Yeah, I know him. Thank you.
Paul:I've known him for 20 years. Oh good, he's a really good guy.
Aimee:Yeah, and Vision Tech is great.
Paul:In the healthcare business as well.
Aimee:In the healthcare business as well. Right and well, we can talk more on that. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Brook:So you said that part of why you're able to well, part of your sight of the vision capital is that you really have this deep passion for this and it really hits you. I'm also hearing you say it was hard to come up with the software that is present for it, to manage the people that are present for it, and that's part of the journey. Like, okay, I'm super excited about something, but how do you maintain? How did you maintain in the midst of this journey of like I'm exhausted by all of these different pieces, but this vision is still something that is more powerful. I mean, you talked about it. It's just more powerful than the problems that are going on. Like what was that? Are you still in that? Do you ever hit that? Like, where are you?
Aimee:I think that's yes.
Brook:Of like, just keep with the passion of your thought pattern in the midst of the hardness of running a business.
Aimee:Oh gosh, it is so hard, right? Yeah, thing that keeps me going is seeing the end users and seeing or being out in the community, and someone gives me a story of when they've used my site and how they were able to. It just allowed them to help their friend in a little bit easier way and I'm like, okay, then I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. That's really what keeps me going with it, and there have been a lot of times when I am like, all right, I'm, I'm done. This is not worth it.
Brook:What pulls you?
Aimee:out of those moments?
Brook:I'm not sure yet.
Aimee:Do you have an idea for today? Because, um so, 2020 was the best year we ever had. We, I mean- it was needing support Um 2021, 2022,.
Aimee:We lost all of our clients because, um, we had started a new channel partner we were selling into pharmaceutical. Uh, they write fantastic checks. We do a lot, we were doing a lot of great stuff. We launched with them on March 9th of 2020, um, getting utilization yeah, that was not uh-huh, uh-huh. And then utilization did not really pick up and then by the end of 2021, they actually went out of business. They lost their FDA approval.
Aimee:We lost our healthcare clients during that time, um, because we had not figured out in healthcare how to be um. We were-to-have, not a need-to-have, and any nice-to-haves got cut Like 100% when you were in healthcare. They had no capacity for anything else. It didn't matter that we could help everyone else, it was just like no, we're talking about syringes and gloves and masks, we don't need anything else. So we lost it all. Essentially, and I have been looking for the past nine months for a buyer to see where we can plug in as an add-on software for somebody else, because it's a really heavy lift to bring a company back out from, and over the past few years, we really haven't spent any time or energy on our consumer facing site everything that was.
Aimee:My next question was if there was any attempt to kind of create a resurgence into that b2c space, given kind of technological upgrades and the changes in our climate and right and uh, oh, I mean we can do a whole nother episode on technological upgrades and the fact that I have two code bases, because one is consumer and one is enterprise, and some issues that we had in the tech builds and I say that as a plural builds, and anyway I don't this very. Second, I don't know. I I've been in a really bad headspace for a year with the company, and I say that because it is a lot of headspace when you're running a company and not knowing how to kind of lift it. I was teaching a class at the business school in the spring and I can't, like I can kind of remember the moment, but not exactly what we were talking about, in the sense that all of a sudden I was like, oh, I know what makes things work in my company and what we're missing.
Aimee:And the funny thing is it was a question that almost every customer asked me at the very first meeting and I blew off for years. Everybody said now, do you have a call center or do you have someone who can handle this for us? And I was like, no, no, no, you don't need that because our software is built in such a way that it's, you know your patient or their primary caregiver is going to take care of it. And all of a sudden I was like, oh, but the teams and the like people who use our site, who either engage in our free customer support or have a really great person to manage this, they do great. And so I was like, why don't I have a person that you can pay to do this?
Aimee:So this was at the end of April, early May, that I had this kind of aha, and we're the middle of July right now, as we're recording this. You can take that out if you need. It's all good and I've had a lot of stuff going on, so I haven't done a whole lot with that. Yet I've got three proposals out to healthcare spaces saying what if you hire my concierge to come in and manage these support pages for your patients? So this is my long-winded way of saying, okay, I've got a new idea. This is giving me a little bit new energy. It's giving a little bit more life.
Zach:Yeah. So let's kind of extrapolate on that a little bit, because it is. I kind of want to shift into a little bit of what you see ahead of you now. So let's play pretend that the hurdles are gone for a moment.
Aimee:Can we, can you tell me where this is, Because I really really want to go there.
Zach:So we'll play pretend that they're gone or that you know they're. They're more of a bullet point, right that you just this gets fixed is the thing. So walk us through, kind of um, those bullet points of where, in a perfect scenario, what are the next steps and what kind of things do you see on the horizon? Uh, whether that be these things resolved or new things, you know, kind of planted and growing.
Aimee:Um well, I think one of the problems that I have as an entrepreneur is that I see all the possibilities ahead of me right now and that really can be a huge Paralyzing.
Aimee:Paralyzing, because I'm like well, if somebody wants to acquire us, great, I'm all on board for that. If someone just wants the tech, great. If I get 15 new clients in health care and I can do this concierge service, fantastic. If I can, as simple as like, redo my homepage such that I can just go strictly to consumers and do a $50 a month thing, that might be the quickest and easiest. But I'm at one of the inflection points with all these forks in the road and one of my problems is I usually go about like an eighth of the way into all of those and I never dive straight in for one. Um, I can understand that for sure. So I don't know. I'd love to listen to another one of your podcasts that's going to give me the advice on like, okay, how do I? How do I like dive all the way in and trust that that's the thing that I should be doing and really make that happen? So I don't have that answer for you. I really.
Brook:I would love someone to tell me which one I should do.
Aimee:Which one of those can you control? Well, I mean, I can give you the reasons why I can and can't control each one of them right? Yeah, yeah, I don't have like I don't know right now, and so part of my problem as an entrepreneur is that I kind of like have little things and little like fishing lines in most of those right now, kind of waiting to see which one bites yeah.
Brook:And sometimes it's a waiting game. You're like, okay, I sometimes coming back to a little bit of things of like how do you get yourself out of those headspace things? And maybe this is me, but it it comes a lot to inspiration. So, whether it's talking to someone that gives you a vision, whether it's hearing someone say this really worked for me and it made all the difference in the world, and it makes you go, okay, I get my back to my inspiration again. So my headspace of being exhausted kind of goes to the side because I there's an inspirational moment.
Brook:What really, really hard, when you're the, the owner, is you're the catalyst for all of the inspiration. And if you were trying to go, where is my inspiration in the midst of it, that is that's sometimes that's just feels impossible to get to, but yet you have to fight for it. Whether it's like all right, these are the people I need to go have coffee with, because and we've done that where we're like right, I'm not in a great space, let's's sit down, let's talk, we talk through things, and at the end of it we're like oh, okay, let's go. Or listening to a podcast, or doing a book or an audio, like in something, or going to a retreat, something that goes my brain, my headspace isn't great and I need to shift it, whereas those underneath are looking up to the person who's in charge going. You have to create that vision and that inspiration, and there's that expectation, that for a second yeah.
Brook:And so that's just hard, just hard, and it's very intentional to walk through. And then you sit and going all right, I don't have my inspiration completely aligned, and so now I have these options and all of them I'm okay with, but which one is going to bite? So I need to wait until next month to know which one to bite is going to like.
Aimee:Say yes or no, just tell me yes or no so that I know which way to go Like if one of these proposals would click, that would be a huge inspiration, right, like, okay, great, then I'm going to head this way. But one of the other things I'm sorry I completely interrupted, but one of the other things that like going back to what have I learned? This was a much earlier question, but when I show that little bit of lack of vision, that little bit of lack of inspiration, my employees fall. I mean, they are, they are jumping ship really, really fast. And I don't I mean like getting lunch with fellow business owners who understand and you can just like let's dive right into. Okay, what are our business problems that we're really struggling with right now? That helps me a lot. I'm a verbalizer and so that's good. But the second I try to do that with my employees.
Brook:They go. Oh crap, she doesn't know what she's doing.
Aimee:They're like oh, I got to find something else. Like this is if she's worried, then I'm really worried, Because they know what's they know right, and yet I wish and I don't know how to engage with.
Brook:But what does it look like to be very vulnerable with your people too, and that naked perception of like we're together as a team and guys like I don't know what the next step should be. Here are all of the puzzles. Help me out, because there's so much in it. They can have that advice that needs to be given. And how do you cultivate that vulnerable, strong, vulnerable, yet strong space to say there's an unknown here and I need your help? And maybe it's the difference between I'm asking you like to get help me with my emotional space versus a tactical thing, but I I also get in that space of like I want, I want to be very vulnerable. I don't know how to not be crap, I'm having a crappy day, like sort of thing.
Zach:It's interesting too when you speak with people that are business owners versus people that are employees, and business owners are like it's a ship and I've got the most in the pot, so I'm going to make the most decisions, but other than that, we're all kind of in this. And then you speak to employees and it's almost more of a parent child sort of thing, where it's like I'll be part of the team and collaborate, but you have additional responsibilities as the parent of knowing what direction we're headed in and or you know, knowing that the security is there, like if you're you know voicing things that are a concern from like a is my next paycheck going to be there, or those kinds of things. Then all of a sudden you've breached this kind of parent child relationship in their eyes.
Aimee:Oh, and when you're working with your mother, that doesn't work out very well, yes, you've got another dynamic Parent-child, parent-child, parent-child relationship.
Paul:You've got the other dynamic where the job market is very, very volatile. People will jump ship for 50 cents a dollar, $2, $10, $50,000, whatever. So that's another dynamic. They smell blood, they're off.
Aimee:And that's been like that for a long time. In tech, at least People can go find another, at least in indie, and most of my team has been remote for a really long time. I haven't cared where they're based, but they can find another remote tech job doing any of these things, which is where culture comes into play and building relationships with people, where they are seen.
Brook:And that is also exhausting because you're going. I'm trying to make sure I have money and I'm also trying to be emotionally present so that people enjoy working here and aren't feeling like I'm leaving them hanging to dry somewhere in there and so, but yeah, that cultural aspect is a really big piece. So, but yeah, that cultural aspect is a really big piece.
Aimee:But then if you have such a strong culture and they're not pulling their weight and they're not doing their job and this is something that I struggled with for a long time Like I can pinpoint a couple of employees and even contract workers who I was like but they're fun in the office, we really enjoy them, but they're just bleeding us dry and they're not doing anything. But because we've created these relationships, Now you feel bad letting them go.
Brook:I feel bad letting them go, but it's saying the kind hard truth, like how do you say the truth, the hard truth, in a kind, respectful manner? It doesn't mean they won't walk away being hurt, it doesn't mean they won't not be mad at you, but you still said the kind hard truth and that's not easy.
Aimee:And one lesson I did learn multiple times, so didn't clearly learn it the first few times.
Brook:It's amazing how we have to go through the iterations.
Zach:They don't stick the first time around.
Aimee:But the rest of the organization would have been so much better off if I had let those people go much, much earlier, because I didn't always see how toxic it was for everything else. Because, while the responsibility is on that parent, that business owner running the ship, everybody else knows what the hell's going on Like. They know the person who is sitting on their computer online shopping the whole time or working for other side gigs and not prioritizing ours. So it and you?
Paul:you allowed that. Therefore, it's good for them to do that as well.
Aimee:I let, well and I um, and you allowed that. Therefore, it's good for them to do that as well. I let, well and I um, I allowed everyone there to just like see that I, I was trying to just be a little too nice to that one person, um and I, and it just ruins everybody, right? They're like well, okay right.
Zach:it kind of sets off the chain reaction of okay, well, I'll grab as much as I can grab for me then, because that's what that person's doing and that seems to be working out.
Aimee:So, and then Well, and I that one, in all honesty, that didn't. I haven't had that. That's good, but I have had, but I have had people just really angry that they're not working. Everybody else is working, we are all in this, and why can't Amy see how hard we are working and this other person is like pulling one over on her.
Zach:I would have to imagine that, based on the nature of your work, that if you were to survey your employees, the value of your actual mission would be extremely high for them. So to have somebody on the team that's not paying into that pot.
Aimee:Exactly, and because of that, employees who haven't gone through something before and they don't understand on the same level.
Aimee:And for me specifically, specifically my developers, who have never been through something um, and this is like, okay, let's just talk about tech, but, um, building software for people who are going through a really high crisis, high stress time, is very different than building software for enterprise employees who are pushed and you have to use this and it doesn't matter if it doesn't work. There's just a different level of compassion and understanding that has to go into that. That's been a huge breaking point, also because my developers are like nope, we're going to use this because this is this brand new, fancy little tech thing I'm like, but no one understands it and we can't be the ones who have to teach them how to do this because they are in such a bad mental space.
Zach:They need it to be simple A to B. That makes sense.
Brook:What has been your favorite part of running this company?
Aimee:Meeting all the people I've gotten to meet. I'm a people person. I have had opportunities to meet people all over the country and learn so much from all of them. I think if you had told me the kinds of people that I would have met when I started this and all of the new knowledge like if you had told me that I was going to be able to teach entrepreneurship when this started, because of all of the things that I had learned along the way, I was like it would not have occurred to me that that would happen. Entrepreneurship, when this started, because of all of the things that I had learned along the way, I was like I would not have occurred to me that that would happen and I never was like, oh, I'm a lifelong learner. That was not like a label that I would have put on myself, but it has been really, really fun and, again, it's all of the relationships with people everywhere that I've gotten to make. I think that's the best and my podcast has been so fun.
Brook:I was. I was actually thinking about your podcast as I'm saying the statement to you of, like I and I probably say this from a space of knowing you um, what I love and I'm so impressed by is that you have taken an edge. You've educated so many people on the journey of how to support people when they're going through hard, hard times. I think and I think this is a part about social media that is actually really good is when I sit there and I follow people who are talking about disabledness or something that they have and like a reality that's there and like, hey, do you realize that you were talking? You're not getting the pieces of this puzzle and it's just that education that goes around people with different life events that happen to them and how those events are hard. And you have come around and said, hey, guys, there are people in our world who are going through hard times and they're sometimes your neighbors and they're trying to be strong and all of this stuff. But sometimes you need to ask them how are you doing? And step into their pain in supporting them, and you've kind of educated and created this compassion around it.
Brook:Slash connected people.
Brook:You are a connector of people, which is really awesome, and I think, if nothing else within your platform of things, it has given you this space because you are an advocate for it to go talk to people and say, hey, this is something that's important, even if you're sitting in front of a bunch of venture capitalists who are just about, hey, I need my bottom line and my SaaS model and all of this stuff.
Brook:Let me educate you that there's this whole world out here that desperately needs what you can't see, like you are bringing light to something that is kind of often hidden and that is beautiful, and you're not only doing that in just a kind of you could have lots of organizations out there that are nonprofit or like they go around this mission, which is cool and awesome, but you're also trying to do it in a platform that hopefully can sustain that piece and build something that is sustainable. And you sit back and go. This is hard, like it's hard to put that emotion out there. It's beautiful, I'm inspired by it, which is way cool, but it's hard. It's hard because when you hit these things, you hit things with your friends and you hit things with your family and you hit things with your coworkers.
Aimee:Yes, and that's something that I think that business owners sometimes forget Venture capitalists sometimes forget, when you are sitting in a room of venture capitalists, when you're sitting in pretty much any room that you're walking into in a business meeting, somebody's got something going on. Yes, it's not just your neighbor, right, it might be your coworker whose mom fell last night and now they are kind of in the meeting for the most part, but every time their phone buzzes and their watch vibrates it's like, oh shit, what's going on with mom now? And their head's not always there. And if you as a business owner, as a coworker, can remember, they're people.
Aimee:We've all gone through something. I guarantee we've all gone through something and we continue to do that. It's not going to change. People are going to have babies, they're going to get hurt, they're going to get sick, people die. I wish that wasn't the case, but we're all going to experience it at some point and remembering as we go into the workplace that we're all humans and the more we can support each other and create that culture of support as well, the better that's going to be.
Brook:And you even put that out when you get back to your mother's side of things and you're going I'm going to value the person more than this company.
Brook:I'm going to value the people that I'm touching more than the company that I'm building. To say I finally see that really to get people don't just need a platform, they need someone to be their intermediary. So I'm going to bring a concierge to come in and see the person and not just put the application in front of them. It always is coming back to you, to the people, which is beautiful and I think that is a good concept for business owners as a whole to go. It always comes back to the people somehow or another, and if you're not serving people somehow, I mean you could probably be successful without it. But I think leaps go on when you can try to put that mentality into place and figure out how to deal with your own trauma as you're dealing with people and all of that aspect of it. But yeah, I think that's rather awesome of what you're going through is to kind of see that component of it, and it's no easy feat to make that into a business model by any means.
Aimee:Well, thanks. Well, if anyone has other suggestions to make this wildly successful, I'm all ears.
Paul:I'm ready to go you want a ninth and tenth avenue to go to yes, gotcha because but but here's like this is not going to go away.
Aimee:People have been supporting each other for centuries, like that's the only way that human exists. Humans exist that's. One of the biggest differentiators of the human species is because we can support each other. I am not doing anything new. What I am trying to do is create a platform that just makes it a little bit easier, because we are spread out so far. Right now, right, like as a kid, we went to church and so there was a you know bulletin board with a piece of paper and you signed up to bring stuff that doesn't happen now, or the prayer chain, or the prayer chain, or the phone tree that like okay, well, I'm in charge of calling these three people now to tell them what this is, you know, like so, so I'm just trying to modernize that.
Aimee:Modernize that.
Brook:Which is awesome. Yeah, Great so oh sorry, go ahead.
Zach:I was just going to kind of last. We have some kind of once off questions that are a fun thing, but before we get into that kind of last question to build out the arc here, happily. Last question, to build out the arc here, Um, happily ever after. What does that look like for the company and for yourself?
Aimee:Happily ever after. Um, I really want everyone who is going through something to have a support network that is easy to use. I can't do that by myself, I know that I can't do it from Indianapolis easily. We're just not willing to promote this type of thing at this point. If somebody is willing to, that'd be fantastic, but it's not. So looking for partners who are willing to move this so that everyone around the country and it's really global right, like because our friends are global, but who can help put this in the hands of people when they need it, that's my happily ever after. I would like to just be the face of this and chatting with people on a regular basis about let's talk about supporting our coworkers. Let's talk about supporting our neighbors. Let's talk about what that really looks like and what is vulnerability. What does it mean to ask for help? Like?
Aimee:that's the biggest thing I want my Ted talk to be, you know, asking for help as a sign of strength and changing those dynamics, um, and somebody who wants to come in and help me run this, because I've been doing it for a long time and I think it's ready for a little bit of fresh strength.
Brook:That's a beautiful way of saying it. Like, not just at the fresh strength. Yeah, that's different, I like it. Okay. Random questions.
Zach:Oh, ready, we've got a sort of inside the actor's studio type, you know quick quick round for you.
Brook:So you're at a business meeting. What drink are you drinking?
Aimee:What time of?
Brook:day.
Aimee:Can you tell me Before five before noon I'm drinking coffee. Noon to five I'm drinking iced tea. After that probably a glass of wine.
Brook:Perfect. What's your favorite person to follow? Podcast Instagram books.
Aimee:I'm not very exciting and I am still trying to learn all of the Brene Brown lessons. I think that's awesome, I don't know. So I am like every time she puts something out, I'm like, oh shit, I saw this two years ago and I need it again. And then my favorite podcast I really like America's test kitchen, which is kind of silly, but that's my go-to when I'm like working in the garden. What do they do? I haven't heard of America's test kitchen. America's test kitchen, um oh, it's fabulous. So it's going to tell me all of the ways to like make the best pie crust.
Aimee:We've tested these four different ingredients and these four different methods and so like a scientific method approach, so it's a scientific method approach of cooking and they'll go through and say you know, okay, and this is the best recipe for mashed potatoes, and sometimes they'll do like really complex things, but that's probably my.
Brook:They learned on the last podcast that Zach's next goals for his life was to become a cook chef sort of thing.
Zach:Learned how to do that, so now you're figuring out how to not give you a hot guy In my, in my empty nesting.
Aimee:I'm a. I'm a huge gardener, Nice, I picked seven cucumbers yesterday.
Zach:Nice.
Aimee:And so I'm. This summer is the summer of pickling.
Brook:So I'm learning.
Aimee:They're pretty good.
Brook:I'll bring you some. Okay, maybe I'll just come over for the last one.
Aimee:How late is fashionably late For a business meeting or social Both. Business meeting five minutes, social probably 30. But also I just feel like that's super dependent. I say it's probably how long it takes me to get there. Well, but I also think, like on Zoom, one minute Interesting, like if I am on a Zoom meeting and someone is not there a minute after it starts, I will give them like three or four minutes until I'm like, all right, we're rolling Like this is not that is true.
Zach:Just based on the fact that you could be doing it from anywhere, so you should be.
Aimee:Yes, that is exactly right, and if you're having technology issues you can text, then you should have texted someone to say so so zoom, I give, or any online meeting platform I. I don't have a lot of leniency on that one.
Zach:Um, I never thought of it like that big, big on the heads up on that I'm being cool with whatever as long as you know, just tell me a little bit ahead of time, like I don't ever want to be just twiddling your thumbs, doing nothing, waiting on another person.
Aimee:Right, but then if it's like only two or three people and it's like a small gathering of people, again like 10 minutes maybe. Anyway, Biggest pet peeve when people say the word anyways plural instead of anyway. That's a new one, Okay. And the second one is what I can hear people chew.
Brook:I have a thing with that.
Aimee:That's a new one, okay, and um. The second one is, uh what. I can hear people chew like I have. I have a thing with that the opposite of asmr reaction yeah, no, like I can't in my and my my poor husband is the worst. Like he'll come over and stand over me he doesn't intentionally does me well, sometimes he'll do it intentionally. Usually it's not, but he's just a loud chewer and if we're the only two and he's standing over me, I'm like you're going to have to walk away. This is not okay.
Paul:Are you goading him by pickling stuff Right Crunchy, exactly.
Zach:Perfect ammunition.
Brook:Personal motto.
Aimee:I don't know that I have one. Is there I?
Brook:probably should. I think we probably have fundamental things we do but we don't even realize that they're fundamental to us until we hit that like aha moment.
Aimee:So I wish the one I wish that I had as my personal motto is that everybody's doing the best they can.
Brook:I think, but that's a fair one.
Zach:That's a totally. That seems like a motto with a low bar too. Like you don't. Well, I did think, not like get up and attack every day, like that that's a big commitment, but just everybody do right by each other, that feels well, I'm not saying I live by it really well like okay I was reminded of it as I was driving up here and some idiot didn't put their flip and turn signal on, and then I was like you know what?
Aimee:we're all just doing the best we can. Maybe they're having a bad morning, but sorry, that's fine. That makes me think of that, have you?
Zach:seen the image of the man saving the woman on the cliff, but the man is being crushed by a boulder and it's like the whole thing of she can't see that he's being crushed by a boulder and he can't see that she's falling. But they are trying to help each other out of this, out of each other's predicament, and it's this notion of you know. You don't know what the other person is going through at any point in time, right.
Brook:compassion, which comes back to your business thing of caring about people and like how you never know what they're going through and so with love on them, however, that looks like, which is kind of cool.
Aimee:I do try to remember that every time I sit down, especially in a business meeting and with people who I've never met before and even people who I like in a social group, I'm like everybody's got something. And if you don't, then I mean one congratulations. And two, do you need the number of a therapist? Because probably something is happening that you are really just not like.
Zach:therefore, and it's almost its own. I mean, that's almost its own unique thing to be somebody that's not had those hardships like those are defining moments as a person, so it's its own kind of way of separating yourself into this unique category to be somebody that doesn't understand those things and hasn't had those.
Aimee:And it's super fortunate. But if you, if you actually start to dig into some of that they probably have.
Brook:They've just blocked it out. It's their trauma dealings. We're a world of trauma. Last question what color do you think of when you think of a business owner? First thing pops into mind Black, interesting. Now I want to know the why. I'm not sure if there's a why, it's just a color, is it?
Aimee:the professional factor. Um well, it's my favorite color, um, and I think it is a super strong color. I was trying to decide between navy blue and black. I actually feel pretty strong about this. Those are they're clean colors, they're strong colors, they are just, they stand the test of time colors. And yet there's also so much variation in these colors.
Brook:That is true. I can wear totally different black colors and they look weird together because they're totally in these colors. That is true, I mean totally different black colors and they look weird together because it's different black colors. So, yeah, I get it.
Aimee:But, um, I mean, when in doubt, I just always buy black. It's kind of unusual that I'm not in black today. Um, it's just so versatile.
Brook:Okay, Um so the camera's battery has died, oh, is that what that was?
Aimee:Well, that's probably our cue to be like.
Zach:all right, wrap it up, amy we did have two other questions that we wanted to add to that reel, if you've got the extra couple minutes.
Aimee:I am fine with time.
Zach:What would you say is your superpower if you had one?
Aimee:I think people talk to me a lot and there is something like I I find out pretty quickly and easily what's going on in people's lives and I don't mean to do it. It's not like I'm trying to poke and prod. Maybe it's my company Um, but I do think I'm pretty good at that Um, at that Um, and I think I'm also pretty good at like coming in and getting a lay of the land.
Brook:I would agree with you on your superpower of uh, getting people comfortable and willing to open up. Uh, and I do think there's an art to that. Uh, and I, I think you do. I would agree with you on that being a superpower for you.
Zach:And last question, I won't in I'll being a superpower for you. And last question, I'll edit so that this isn't the last question because it's a weird note to end on but define failure.
Aimee:For me, failure is when you give up. Oh, it makes me a little sad, yeah, because that's not failure for everyone else, but for me it's like okay, giving up, um. Oh, it makes me a little sad, yeah, Because that's not failure for everyone else, but for me it's like okay giving up that means I failed. Like if I, um, if I make a meal but my one of my love languages is cooking for people, um, and giving food to like anyone who walks in my house, I'm like no, no, no, no, you have to eat this that I've just made. I just made cookies, I just made a cake. You have to eat all of these things.
Aimee:If it flops, it doesn't bother me too much, but if I'm like screwed, I'm never going to learn how to do that, that to me is a failure, not the fact that I still have brown stuff in my oven right now. So on the flip side of that, is success just keeping going. Well, I don't know, cause, I'm not sure that that's where I would put myself with it right now. Cause sometimes, like, as, as I'm thinking that through like maybe it's the headspace of I'm deciding to stop versus I've given up.
Zach:I also. What do you think about the? Is there a difference between saying I'm stopping? What I'm doing and I'm giving up, like the difference in that internalization of like I did not accomplish this versus like I'm I finished the journey. It makes sense for me to choose to stop it.
Aimee:I think there is a difference. I'm not sure that I have achieved that difference, but theoretically, yes, there is a difference on that, and that's where I would put it.
Paul:But are you taking a new direction?
Aimee:I am always open to new directions, and that doesn't seem like failure to me. That just seems like growth.
Paul:Make a decision.
Aimee:Yeah, probably failure for me is also the fact that, like I've just been beating my head against the wall and not changing direction fast enough. But we'll just let that stay with me. We don't need to dive into that. We're about out of time, right?
Zach:Oh, no, oh, and the camera battery died as a as a wrap up here, is there anything that you would like to plug, anything that you are working on, anything that listeners can tune into or log on to? That sort of thing.
Aimee:Yes, there are two things.
Zach:Follow along.
Aimee:The first is my podcast, which is called Kitchen Chats. So, as we've mentioned, I love my kitchen, but the bigger thing is when something major in life happens for me, my family and friends we gather in the kitchen and we figure out the next steps, and so my podcast is all about diving into those things in life and how we support each other, and most of those conversations happen in the kitchen, so I record in my kitchen. So I would love for people to follow us on all the places.
Zach:That's just everywhere that you could typically find a podcast.
Aimee:It's everywhere you can typically find a podcast what friends do all one word, kitchen chats. And then the second is that if you're going through something in life or you have a friend who is going through something medical any time that they could need support. I'm testing this new concierge service and I would love to help people through this support journey. We help hundreds of thousands of people. I actually do know some pretty basic like let's just get started with these few things. You might not have any idea what you need, but we kind of have some places to start for you.
Zach:And how do they reach out and engage on that side of things?
Aimee:If they go to whatfriendsdocom and we have a live support agent and as of this very second, that's the best way to do it or they can send a message directly to info at whatfriendsdocom and we will get them set up and started. And, even better, if you are in a position in your business where you think that having a private concierge to help your constituents, your patients, your employees any constituent let me know we would love to provide that for you.
Zach:Excellent. Well, thank you so much for being with us here on the Owner's Odyssey. We appreciate you sharing your journey with us. That was all excellent. Does anybody have any other last minute? No, just thank you, thank you.
