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 19: Who was your biggest competitor?
In our latest discussion, we unpack the tango of competition and innovation in the business world. Ira and Stacee share their stories of discomfort of encountering their rivals and the subsequent appreciation for the diversity and drive it brings to the market.
Ira's tip of the week: Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup by Bill Aulet
Stacee's tip of the week: Radical Candor podcast
Hello and welcome. I am Ira Gordon and, along with Stacey Santee, the host of the Accidental Entrepreneurs Podcast. We each previously founded successful companies Along the way. We became business owners and eventually sold those businesses despite us having no real background in business or ever even planning to become entrepreneurs. In other words, we did this all despite originally having no idea what we were doing or getting ourselves into. In each episode of this podcast, we will share stories and tips from our journey and we'll answer a randomly chosen question about our experience. Let's jump right into the show.
Stacee:Good day Ira. How are you doing? What's going on over there?
Ira:I'm doing pretty well. I've been a little bit tied up with working on some budgets for a nonprofit that I work with, but also what's made me a little more exciting is my son has been learning to play guitar for the last I don't know six months or so, and now he's in a kind of an introductory band, if you will. So I took him to band practice yesterday. He's, I think, he's the youngest kid in the band. He's 11 and I think it ranges from like 10 to 18 and he's he's the youngest one but he's learning to play a couple of Blink 182 songs which he's a little bit into. He's actually like more of like a heavy rocker than Blink 182, so he doesn't love it, but he's, uh, he's getting into it, which is fun to see
Stacee:our youngest, was in a little five boy ensemble band and they play the little local sites and so I have some videos. It's one of our most fun things to watch when they're trying to play Metallica.
Ira:That's the tag. You live vicariously through them. Yeah, I guess I still play guitar a little bit, not that I'm any good, but back back in the day, like back when I was an intern, one of the residents and I would play together, went to like a few open mic nights and did that kind of thing and, yeah, it's always just kind of fun to see somebody else doing it that you know and you're like, oh yeah, I sort of remember when I was a wannabe one of those and they're way better at it than I was, and it's a good good thing. I pursued a different thing in my life.
Stacee:What's your best song you and your bandmates played?
Ira:What were we the best at? That's a good question. So I think the song we were best at was there's a song by the Barenaked Ladies called "If I had a Million Dollars.
Stacee:Oh yeah, I know that.
Ira:So we used to play that and it was pretty good.
Stacee:Which is funny.
Ira:We wrote a few songs as well, which was fun.
Stacee:Well, now you have a million dollars, so that's good, All right. Well, let's hop into our question. This week it is when did you first meet your competitor?
Ira:All right. So, just as a reminder, my business was the sort of first of its kind online board preparation for veterinarians. But not too long after we launched our company, a second company started doing prep for the for the same exam, and we met our competitor for the first time at the student American Veterinary Medical Association meeting, because we both were there to talk to students about our new products and how we could help them. And it was super interesting and super awkward, I guess I would say, at least from my perspective. I mean, he's a nice guy, smart guy, but we came to find out that, oddly enough, he was working on building his company and product the same time that we were building ours. And then, from his perspective, out of nowhere, this product doing almost exactly what he wanted to build a product to do, just came on the market a year before he was ready to launch his business.
Ira:And I think he had left a job at, like the CDC he was also a veterinarian and you know to basically dive headfirst into this company. And yeah, like out of nowhere, like we kind of unintentionally gave him this big kind of punch in the stomach of like, oh, I thought I had, you know, this opportunity with no competition, just like we did. And all of a sudden, like there we were, and so it was, yeah, sort of awkward to sort of realize that we had kind of gotten maybe in the way of his plans and dreams. I think, you know, ultimately, like we all learned that there was room for both businesses to be successful and do great things and, I think, in the long term, pushed us both to, you know, innovate and continually improve our products and all those things. But when you actually, you know, sort of put a face and a person to those things, you realize that you know what, like we're actually just all trying to do something really good and we're good people.
Stacee:What do you think about having competitors in general? Because you always wish you didn't have any competitors, right? But if you look at all the great things out there there's Uber and there's Lyft, there's iPhone and there's Android there's, like, always, a competitor, even in the most excellent things. Is that good, or are you looking for the sweetest of spots when there's no competitor?
Ira:I think, ultimately, show me a business that has no competitor and I'll show you a business that has almost no market. I think if there's a good opportunity to help people and to make a difference and people are willing to pay for that, I think there's going to be more than one individual that identifies that, as you know, a place that they want to build a product or a service and they're going to compete. We sort of took it, as you know, a form of flattery to have, you know, a competitor doing the same things we were doing. And, you know, from our perspective at least, we oftentimes felt like, you know, there was, there was sometimes some adopting of, you know, ideas that we'd come up with, or you know, models and pricing, like all those things that somebody was copying, and I'm sure from his perspective he'd say something different.
Ira:I guess ultimately say you know, like that, that's reinforcing that we're doing something good if somebody else thinks so and wants to do something very similar.
Stacee:Yeah, that's a good point. If you have no competitors, you probably are in a spot that you should think twice about. Well, for me, okay, I'm just going to tell you what happened with my competitor, because I don't even know if anyone's really listening to this podcast, so I feel like I can tell you the truth.
Ira:Safe space. Nobody's listening nyway, It's a safe space here
Stacee:you know I started Vet2Pet. It's very small and I got wind that there was, right at the same time as it goes, another emerging company doing similar things called PetDesk, and I can't remember exactly how I found them, but I was looking in the app store and I downloaded their app and then you can see all the vets in your area. You put your zip code in and you can see all the practices, whether or not they're using PetDesk or not. This was just one of their parts of their platform. So I actually saw my practice in there and I saw other clinics in my area. But I saw my friend Ben Huffnagle in there. He's my classmate from CSU and he's an equine practitioner out there where I live in Bayfield, colorado, and his name came up. But as a small animal provider like I could book a dog spay with him.
Ira:So you did.
Stacee:He's my friend and I had built him an app for his equine practice just in my early stages here. And so I'm like, all right, I'm going to book a dog spay with Ben and just see where this takes me. And I did it. And then shortly thereafter, within like five minutes, I get a call from Ben and he's like hey, some company just called me, called Petd esk or something, and they said you wanted me to spay your dog and he goes. Of course he knows that's not true. I'm like, oh no, what'd you say? What did you say? And he goes. "Oh, I told him I don't do that. And then they asked me if I wanted an app and I said, oh God, what'd you say? He goes. I told him I didn't need one because I already had one with you and that to pet. I'm like, oh no, totally.
Ira:You did this to yourself.
Stacee:I know. And then, Ira, this is so funny and I actually think, a really classy move. About five minutes after this my phone rang and it was Taylor cavanaugh, the ceo Cavanaugh of and this Petdesk P is I met Taylor.
Stacee:He's like "um, yeah, it looks like you know we had you try to book a spay through our platform and I realize you're building apps too. So I just wanted to reach out and say hi, I was so embarrassed, I had to really come clean and say Taylor, I was trolling on you. I mean, that's exactly what I was doing, trying to see what your platform was like. They ended up being a very tough competitor and we are always neck and neck with them and you know, I don't know if this is kosher or not, but they're all guys from California.
Stacee:And our team is all girls, pretty much from Colorado, so we will call them the "bro desk. That's what we always call them. Is the bros. What are the bros up to now?
Ira:What do you think they call you girls?
Stacee:Yeah, I don't want to know. It was always a friendly competition I guess you would say a friendly sparring of sorts and we get along with them pretty good.
Ira:That's good.
Ira:That's good, yeah, I think, uh, yeah, definitely some ups and downs maybe over the years in our relationship with our competitors.
Ira:I think, you know, there would just always be things that I don't know like. Usually, like somebody would decide to do something, um, and the competitor would sort of catch wind of it and think like, oh, like I can't believe, like my competitor is doing this or saying this, and get super offended and, you know, ultimately come to find out it's like it was just like some somebody did, did something stupid, like unintentionally, and then we don't really talk until somebody gets mad and reaches out to say why'd you do this? Right? And yeah, I think that it took a while and some some maturity because we were really young when we first started and met each other to sort of say, you know what, like you know there's, there's room for all of us and, yes, like it's a rivalry and we want to win the competition, if you will. But, um, you know, ultimately it's probably for the best that we're both out there and neither one of us is going anyplace. It's not, you know, may as well, just accept it.
Stacee:Oh yeah, and there are certainly times where I just very much dislike them. And I was hanging out at some vet meeting thing and Julian Renard was there, who's a founder of Vetstoria and he's a buddy of mine, and I was telling him oh, brodesk, oh, I'm so sick of them. They're always copying our stuff and they're jerks. And he's like have "you ever met them, spent time with them? Because a couple of the guys are here they're not jerks at all. And I'm like, oh, julie, and he goes, come over here and meet them. I'm like, no, no way. He's like, stacy, come on now, you're not being very professional here, come on, you need to meet him face to face. And so I did. And of course they were super nice and really cool guys.
Stacee:So disappointing, so disappointing. But I know what you mean. Sometimes you feel like people are stealing your ideas, but probably if you step back a little, there's like just obvious ideas there for the picking.
Ira:There's so many ways to go about X, y or Z right.
Stacee:Yeah, no one's really stealing your idea, because you're not the only one that has the idea. I think that's fair all right, well, um, let's move to the part of the program where we're going to share our favorite tip trick tool quote I, a number of years ago, did something that I really enjoyed.
Ira:It was really awesome. It was a week-long healthcare innovation boot camp that was put on by MIT and by Harvard Medical School. So you can go up there and for a week you put in 20-hour days working on a healthcare project on a team and have classes during the day to talk about the things that you're working on. And I thought one of the really interesting and sort of valuable pieces of that came from this book called Disciplined Entrepreneurship" by Bill Aulet, and it kind of outlines like all of the steps I think there's like 24 steps of building a successful startup. And yeah, it was really valuable and I find it to be certainly not the only, but a really helpful framework for thinking about the various things that you need to figure out and do successfully in building a startup.
Stacee:Oh, that's really cool. It's funny you say that because I've been thinking a lot lately about what are like the key elements of building a startup and kind of what order they're in. And I don't have 20, how many did he have 24?
Ira:Yes, I believe. I believe it's 24. I somewhere I have a poster of like the 24 steps, but it's folded up. It's not like on my wall, so I'd have to find it for you.
Stacee:I must not be thinking big enough, because I only have five.
Ira:I think there's like five categories they all fall into, or something like that oh, I'll have to go see if my categories match his category.
Stacee:So my first one was you have to have like you don't have to have all of these, but the more you have, the more successful you're going to be, is my thinking. So the first one is you have to have a product or service that solves a real pain point. The second is you have to have really good technology and infrastructure of your product. Number three is you have to have a really strong idea or deliverable. The product itself has to be dressed up nice and functional, with the UI, ux and all of this. And then the fourth is branding the UI, ux and all of this. And then the fourth is branding, so you have a strong messaging, so your customers know exactly what problem you're solving, so they can buy from you. And then the fifth is marketing, so people know that you exist. Those are kind of my big five I've been thinking about.
Ira:Very cool. Well, this will probably be entirely unhelpful for a podcast, but I'm sharing the screen of the 20, it was right, it's 24 Steps of Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill and, yeah, sort of covers. You're pretty close right, like the blue section here. I don't know what the blues is coded to, but there's market segmentation, beachhead, market end user profile, total addressable market and the persona of that buyer and then your first 10 customers and anyway it goes all along. But yeah, I think it is not as maybe marketing focused as your steps are. You know, I think the later steps here you know more along the lines of, you know, looking at the business model and pricing framework and lifetime value and some of those things. But I think I think you're on the right track and here's another framework for you to consider.
Stacee:Awesome. I'm going to post this in the notes for the podcast.
Ira:Sounds good.
Stacee:Okay, sure.
Ira:My my poor reading of the map was not helpful to anybody.
Stacee:I like that map. My tip of the week is this podcast called Radical Candor and you know, when I was building Vet2Pet, one of the things I was really passionate about since it was my company was that we were going to have a great culture and we had to say what great culture meant to us and for me. One of my love languages or core values is like brutal honesty, just being honest, and I hate it when you work at a company and people think things or say things to other people about either you or the things you're working on, because they can't say them to you directly, because they feel maybe they don't want to hurt your feelings or whatever.
Stacee:It's really quite hard to be candid with someone and so early on, that was what I hired for. That was one of the big core values is we're not going to talk about each other, we're going to talk to each other, and I found we had to get some skills around this and that podcast was amazing. So the whole team what we would do is we would listen to an episode once a week and then we have a meeting about it and think about how we could implement that lesson of the week in our real work life. And it even came to the point where we could say things like I've got to share some radical candor with you. Like we could reference the podcast as a lead in to being candid and it really helped us be honest and truthful with one another and you know, when you feel that way, you feel very respected, even if people don't like what you're doing. Someone telling you that they don't like what you're doing feels a lot better than them telling somebody else. So I really love that podcast.
Ira:Yeah, no, that's great. I think I'm sure it comes from sort of a book of the same title that's oftentimes referenced and has, I think, great advice about sort of building the type of culture you just referenced. I saw it must've been a LinkedIn post a week or two ago where I kind of didn't really like it but I disagreed with it. But it said that maybe I don't, I just don't know but it said that there is also, like, I guess, this group of people that use that phrase radical candor as sort of just like an excuse to be a dick.
Stacee:Don't do that.
Ira:Which is like the complete opposite of the intent of of the book and sort of all the messages within the book and the podcast. So I thought I just thought that was sort of interesting. I saw that the other day. I had a sort of a negative reaction to the comment and and then you brought it up here.
Stacee:Oh, they're listening, I know they are. Well, and you know, being candid with someone is kind of a superpower and you have to be like Spider-Man there, because with great power comes great responsibility, so you can hurt people's feelings still. So you have to learn how to do it, and that's what the podcast teaches you.
Ira:I mean, ultimately, it's about people knowing that you genuinely care about them. And I oftentimes think to myself, like I I usually don't criticize people I don't like, because I don't view it as my job to help people that I don't like to get better. Um and so if I am critical of you or what you're doing and I'm sharing that with you like it's because I care about you, that I, that I want to do that. Like I, I tend to instinctively have a desire to avoid conflict, which I know is often not healthy. And so when I, when I pursue it, it's it's because I care about the person and or care about the outcome, but usually it's because I care about the person.
Stacee:Yeah, that's so good. All right, well, let's spin the wheel and we'll see what we've got coming up for next time. What we've got coming up for next time, oh, this is fitting. What was the leadership style at your company?
Ira:Interesting, interesting. We had several leaders and we all had a different style, but I think we definitely had some things in common, so that'll be good to talk about.
Stacee:All right, I'll see you guys next time. Thanks for listening to the show today.
