The Accidental Entrepreneurs
Two different innovators that stumbled on ideas in the veterinary field, built a company, then sold for millions........ without having any idea what they were doing.
Each week, Ira and Stacee will spin the wheel of start-up questions and share the knowledge they wish they had back then.
The Accidental Entrepreneurs
Ep 17: When did you "know"?
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There comes a time in every successful entrepreneur's life when they just "know" (hopefully). It might be a key event, your inner voice or a gut feeling but some where along the journey, something happened that clued you in that you were really on to something. This week, Stacee and Ira share their special moment.
Special mentions this week:
Adam Little
Elizabeth Green
Ed Catmull
Amy Wallace
What's happening Ira ?
IraHey , it's been a little while how you been Stacee ?
StaceeGood , it has been a while We've
Recap of interviews with Dr. Adam Little and Beth Green
Staceebeen off interviewing other entrepreneurs .
IraWe opened our relationship for a couple of episodes .
StaceeSo you had the opportunity to interview Dr . Adam Little and I had the opportunity to interview Beth Green and I just have to say I listened to your interview with Adam and I thought , wow , it was so good .
StaceeI didn't actually know his story that deeply and I know Adam , but he talked about his journey of starting a company and then ultimately having it fail and wind down , and he did it with such honesty and integrity and genuineness . I just found myself becoming more of an Adam Little fan now , because you really can see what a good person he is .
IraJust appreciation for his really mature perspective on everything that happened along the way , and I think it takes an uncanny degree of acceptance and coming to terms with the things that went wrong and to hear him tell the story like he does it , from both this kind of like really detached and deeply analytical mindset , but clearly very attached and , you know , cared a lot about what he was doing and disappointed about the things that you know didn't go as well as he hoped it would . what do you think's gonna happen to adam ?
IraI mean , the easy answer is he will be incredibly successful at building something awesome sooner than later , and I think that's right .
StaceeI think he's gonna come in like now . The most uh powerful lessons you learn are the ones when you fail right yeah , he . He's going to come in like a Harry Potter . It's going to be like a wizard of magical sorts that's going to do something , and I don't want to put pressure on him if he's listening , but I just I feel like that's going to happen .
IraYeah , there's all sorts of ways to measure success . Sorts of ways to measure success and I know we've talked about this before , but so much of how I've evolved to think about success is to feel like you did things the right way along your journey .
IraI was recently talking to an entrepreneur whose business recently shut down and it just sort of shared my perspective , like you know , really it was a five-year run like congratulations on just like doing everything the right way and and being grounded in the passion for what you're doing . But you know , kind of doing it with integrity and you know , in this case , sort of you know really sort of focusing on on the science of what you're doing was was the right way to do it , and you know , in this case , sort of you know really sort of focusing on the science of what you're doing was the right way to do it , and you know the fact that things didn't work out was not your fault , right . And yeah , I think to apply that like he's been very successful , even though the thing he was trying to build ultimately did fail , and he will continue to be successful .
StaceeThat's really , yeah , that's really insightful . And I think too I mean , now that I'm over the hump , over 50 years old , and I'm , you know , my parents are in their seventies now and I talk to them a lot and you look back and you think , man , when I was 20 , 30 , 40 , it's way way better to take a shot and fail than to wonder what would have happened if you had tried this thing that required you to bet on yourself . And I feel like a lot of people are stuck in that dilemma and they are in a job that they don't really love . They're making possibly a lot of money or they're just making enough to get by , but they wish they , their passion is to do something else , and I am like I'm going to just say double down on yourself and do the something else . At least try .
StaceeEven if you try it and you fail , give yourself some guardrails , like , if I lose this much money or whatever , I mean , do make sure first you have a home and food and for your family . So you can't , like , just live in a tent ? Well , I suppose you could , but we don't recommend this . But there's a lot of things people can downgrade in their life to take a chance and I think you'll feel so much better when you're on the other side of 50 . To say I did try this thing . It didn't work out , but now I know that's different than saying I wish . I wonder what my life would have been like had I done this .
IraI think , especially when thinking about you know professionals , like people that have , you know , extensive credentials in education , were really important and made me the happiest , I sort of look back and say those really weren't the things . It was different things . And even now , as I sort of look ahead , I struggle to sort of answer that question for myself , like what are the things that you know ? I will look back on , you know , 20 years from now and feel the way I feel now about the things I did 10 , 20 years ago Right .
StaceeYeah , so crazy . And then Beth's interview was .
IraWhat a powerhouse man . I mean .
StaceeShe is just , you know , amazingly , you know insightful , you , you know passionate as well , and um and a pretty wild story and now I can't drive by an in-and-out burger store with a burger restaurant without thinking of her , because we were talking about staying in your lane and how . There's one restaurant I have in my town and they serve , you know , pizza , burgers , pasta , like all the stuff , and it's such a great metaphor for being an entrepreneur of a startup . Because you want to solve all these problems , you get out of your lane . Just In-n-O ut an ut burger . Just do the one thing , really , really , really well . Or a Chick-fil-A , like , just do that . And so I think- .
IraEverybody really wants and they will line up for hours to wait for right .
StaceeIt is crazy , the lines at the in and out burger and the lines at the Chick-fil-A every day , all day .
IraIt's been that way for years .
StaceeIt's crazy , and I've eaten there , obviously at both of them . To be honest , it's not earth shattering to me . I don't really feel like , oh my God , I could never get this flavor anywhere else on the planet . So I think they're a master genius at what they've done .
Question of the day: Ira's answer
StaceeOkay , so let's dig into the question of the day , which is when did you know ? When did you know you were on to something , or when did you know your company was going to take off ? There are many times that this question could apply in your journey , so tell us about one of them .
IraIt is really hard because I would say , in some , some ways , I never really felt that way until the very , very end , in terms of , you know , just because you had a good year doesn't mean next year is going to be a good year , and always sort of had nerves about trying to continue to grow and , you know , have a product that people liked and we also started with pretty modest goals of like .
IraYou know , it would just be cool if a handful of people found this , used it and benefited from it .
IraBut I think , you know , the first time that I really feel like we knew was related to this issue , that this would have been back in like 2006 , and at the time , you know , there wasn't like an amazon where you kept all of your servers and the like .
IraWe actually had , you know , built a server and it lived in the closet where you could take care of it and upgrade it , and our head of technology had built it for what we told him to build it for , which was , you know , like , I don't know , like maybe , if we do really well , we might have like a hundred users trying to access information at a time and , um , within a few months of launching the product and a few months before board exams were like everybody was on there and studying and we had 16 , 1700 people that had signed up for our course in that first year , which was completely unexpected , and so , of course , the server wasn't very happy about this , right Like it started slowing down and having problems and we started to get a bunch of complaints from people like what's going on here and on the one hand like it was great .
IraPeople were trying to use it and were actually upset that they couldn't access this tool that we had created for them . But of course , the reality was this was terrible . People were counting on us and they were paying us to help them and they were not having a good experience during these days . And I got a really angry call from our head of developer and it's like what's going on here . I was like why is the server having so much activity ? You had told me to build it for X and we're experiencing Y .
IraAnd I think that was when we first realized like oh my gosh , like not only are people signing up , but like everybody's actually using it so much so that it's kind of crashing our server and we need to , on the fly , figure out how to upgrade our server , improve sort of the way data is being accessed so that it's not slowing things down as much , and do all this immediately . And fortunately , you know we had a lot of wonderful help to get this done pretty quickly and everybody ended up being happy , ultimately , that you know we weren't slowed down indefinitely leading up to boards , but you know we had to send out a big letter to everybody saying we're really sorry . The last couple of days have been , you know , slow , especially at peak times , but we've made some upgrades and we expect that this is going to make things better and please let us know if anybody's experiencing any problems .
IraWe appreciate your patience during this moment and I think that was when we really realized , oh , everybody's actually using this and counting on us and they're mad at us all at the same time .
StaceeYeah , it's so funny . You're hoping for nice steady clips of growth and then you open the floodgates and I wonder if that's a lot . How many of the telemedicine companies felt when COVID hit ? Can you imagine like you're not having a ton of traction and then some inflection point hits , COVID and suddenly you have hundreds of people signing up that have no idea what they are doing .
IraWell
Question of the day: Stacee's answer
Iraabout you . When did you know ?
StaceeWell for me . I remember this funny story . So I had this idea that I wanted to put a loyalty program in the app . I just had this thing at my practice . I hadn't really not thought a lot at all about building it for anybody else but myself , and so I was in need of an oil change . You might have heard me tell this story before .
StaceeI was in need of an oil change for my car and , working at a vet hospital on the floor and managing I was literally working 60 to 70 hours a week , I would imagine and so on my one day off I went to get my oil changed , which sounds okay , not whatever . But I drove way far away to get my oil changed because I wanted to go to the Jiffy Lube , because I had this like stamp card , and when you got six oil changes , you got the seventh free , got the seventh free , and ironically there is a place to change your oil like literally next door to my practice . But I didn't go to that , like a normal person would have dropped their car off before work and picked it up after , but not me . I wasted like two hours of my one day off to drive there , sit there , do that , and I started recognizing this and I thought what's wrong with me ? Why would I do such a thing to save you know , $60 and maybe in about three years ? And I realized that it was a stamp card .
StaceeI had succumbed to this , you know , hopeful idea that I was investing in myself , and so I started to put this into my app . I thought , okay , this could work . I would give clients a stamp , if you will , for every $100 they spent , and then when they got 12 stamps , they get $100 credit at the account . And I thought it was a good idea . But I did zero A-B testing , I just did it and I thought , well , I'll see what happens . And right off the bat , I had to see one of the most difficult clients at the practice . I mean , you have some of these , right ?
IraI might have had a few in my time , yeah .
StaceeYeah , yeah , yeah , and this was a a husband wife duo that you know . The wife was super nice and the husband , who will call Bob , was difficult , so difficult that only I could see him , cause he raised so much hell and you know he was a good pet owner , but he was a difficult guy . So , anyways , he brings his dog in one day and he's always complaining about money . This guy , the wife doesn't , but this guy , he's always making snide comments and jabbing me a little bit about our fees and how he owns the wing of the practice and all this stuff . So he brings his dog in and I tell him all right , you know , she's sick enough , we're going to have to do some tests on her and I need to do some lab work and some x-rays . He's like well , how much is that going to cost ? So I tell him it's going to .
StaceeI threw some . I'm notorious for just throwing numbers off my head so I said oh , it's going to be about , you know , $500 . Yeah , he's like fine , I'll go . You know , wait in the lobby and while you do all your fancy tests on the dog . And so I go do it and I put the charges in and and it's more than $500 . It comes to like 580 or something , and I know Bob's going to blow a gasket because he is always on me about money and so I feel bad about this . But I was trying to avoid the situation , so I sent one of my technicians out to check them out and deliver the bad news .
IraWay to go .
StaceeI'm really popular among technicians for this reason and I was off to my next appointment and Cynthia , my technician she comes and knocks on the door and she's like "Dr Santi , can I speak to you for just a second ? We have a question about Bob's invoice . I'm like , oh , of course you do . And I step out in the hall and I'm racing for what she's going to say and then she kind of blows my mind and she goes Dr Stacey , bob's invoice is $580 . And he wants to get another loyalty stamp and he knows he has to spend $20 more . So I was wondering what else could he ? He would it be okay for his dog to have some fish oil ? Or he wants to know what else could he buy . And I thought I have hit it . This is like if this idea can make someone like Bob be viewing the way he spends money in a more positive light , I thought I think I'm onto something . I think that's kind of when I knew this was a not your average idea .
IraYeah , people get so competitive about about those types of things , right , my wife's a reporter and so she travels a lot with with a press pool and so they all have , you know , their airline loyalty programs and their hotel loyalty programs and they're like super competitive about it and they're so proud when they reach like the ultra tungsten status or whatever , right , and and if you ever travel with those people outside of work , like you best be staying with like the hotel chain that they have that status with , or they are going to be very , very unhappy .
IraAnd it just cracks me up like I don't really get it . I mean , I sort of get it , but it seems comical to me that they go out of their way to make their lives more difficult , to make sure that everything they do is sort of associated with this program that I'm sure they get some cool benefits from . Don't get me wrong , but you know , ultimately , um , you know , they end up spending more money and or undergoing more hardship in order to sort of continue to accumulate that and like it doesn't always make sense to me kind of like your extra long trip to jiffy lube exactly .
StaceeDid you ever see that episode of seinfeld where elaine has the punch card for a free sub sandwich ?
Irathat's been a lot it's so funny .
Ira's tip of the week: "Creativity Inc" by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
IraA book I read a while ago that I really liked , that I'd share . It is written by a guy named Ed Catmull I probably mispronounced his name and he was the president of Pixar wrote this book called, Creativity Inc . And it is sort of a book describing their process and secrets for how they encouraged everybody at Pixar to utilize and maximize their creativity and to create hit after hit after hit in the early days of Pixar . They had no failures for a long time . Um , based on , you know , their , their process for developing really interesting creative ideas for animated movies and the ideas that , um , you know , these insights can be used to kind of build a more creative culture in any type of organization , and I really liked it .
StaceeOh , awesome . Well , one thing I've been doing on LinkedIn is , when we mention a book , if you like our post , I'm gonna send a random . We'll pick a random winner and we'll send you a copy of the book . So let's do that for this one too
Stacee's tip of the week: Know when to stop
Stacee.
IraSounds great .
StaceeOkay , my tip of the week is it's just a basic tip going to be no one to stop . You know what I mean . Like like I'm kind of a bulldog . If you give me a problem , I'm not going to quit . Like , if you give me the give me the Christmas lights that are all tangled up and make you want to punch a hole in the wall , give them to me , because I'm not going to stop until they're untangled and they're all working . But there is a time for people like me to stop . And when you're hitting a wall and you're pushing , pushing like , the best thing you can do is just walk away for a while , because you need to let your subconscious work a little bit and kind of take the pressure off yourself . And then , almost always , you'll be amazed at what ideas surface . It's like your brain wants to help you , but you're suppressing the creativity when you're in that zone too long . Does that make sense ?
IraVery much so . I think that people with an entrepreneurial spirit and drive , I think , often struggle with this notion of you really need to have a you know , never give up attitude to be a successful entrepreneur , because there are , you know , big time ups and downs along the way and to be successful you need to be able to persevere through those downs and at the same time , you also need to be smart and detached enough to know when you're chasing a bad idea and you need to think about something differently . And I think the perfect step is an intermediate one , as you described Take a pause right , give yourself again sort of time to maybe think about things a little bit more creatively or differently , and I think if you keep arriving at the same result that this just isn't working then that may be sort of the really the clue that you need to consider a bigger pivot or that you're barking up the wrong tree , so to speak .
StaceePerfect analogy for us . Well , let's pull up our special wheel of questions and see what we've got coming our way for next week . What was your most challenging firing ? Yeah , that's a good one . I hate firing people , like I'm sure everyone does , unless you're a total jerk , but it is so important to get rid of bad apples when you can .
IraSo , yeah , yeah , it's going to be a little traumatic for me to tell this story , but I will look forward to sharing it with folks nonetheless .
StaceeYeah , sounds good . Okay , I'll see you soon . Thanks for listening to the show today .
