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KP Unpacked
KP Unpacked explores the biggest ideas in AEC, AI, and innovation—unpacking the trends, technology, discussions, and strategies shaping the built environment and beyond.
KP Unpacked
Build the Rocket, But Don’t Forget the Life
This week on KP Unpacked—the number one podcast in AEC—Jeff Echols and KP Reddy unpack the Sunday Scaries post that broke the internet (or at least LinkedIn).
It all started with a Talking Heads lyric and a throwback photo… but quickly sparked a bigger conversation:
What’s your 10-year plan—for yourself, not your startup?
KP shares hard-won lessons from building (and walking away from) multimillion-dollar businesses, why too many founders confuse “in flight” with “on course,” and how to evaluate whether you're heading to Mars—or just orbiting Earth.
You’ll learn:
- Why quick exits are the exception, not the rule
- How to identify when to abort, pivot, or persevere
- The 5 elements every founder’s 10-year life plan should include
- How to separate identity from startup ego
- Why financial, health, family, and passion alignment matter more than vanity metrics
This episode isn’t just for startup founders—it’s a personal gut check for anyone on a high-stakes path.
Ignite what's next
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It’s a space for AEC forward-thinkers are reimagining what’s next. This is where the top minds in the industry are sharing ideas, leading change, and pushing the future of AEC forward.
Sounds like you? Join the waitlist at https://kpreddy.co/
Check out one of our Catalyst conversation starters, AEC Needs More High-Agency Thinkers
Hope to see you there!
Hey, welcome back to KP Unpacked. This is where the biggest ideas in AEC, ai and innovation all collide here, right here on this podcast. It's powered by KP ReadyCo and this is where we break down the trends, the technology, the discussions and the strategies that are shaping the built environment and beyond. My name is Jeff Eccles. I am the Executive Director of Catalyst, which is our online community, and, as usual for this version of the podcast, I am joined by our founder and our CEO, kp Reddy. Hi, kp.
Speaker 2:Hey, jeff, how's it going?
Speaker 1:It is going well. You've been on the road a lot the last week or so. Where have your travels taken, you?
Speaker 2:Let's see Austin, new York City. So I did a little talk at the NASDAQ in New York City, went to Austin, spent some time with our friends at Procore and then back in San Francisco and spent a couple days at the ENR Future Tech, which was, I think we were talking about a little bit. It's fun that quote unquote total strangers are like hey, love your stuff on LinkedIn, love your podcast. I'm like, okay cool, I mean, we are the number one podcast in AC. So a little bit unsurprised, but it's always grateful to get the, the positive feedback, or even the negative feedback. I love that too.
Speaker 1:Well, you know, I always think it's interesting. You go to events like that and a total stranger walks up to you and they say, hey, I listened to you all the time, or I recognize your voice, or or things like that. And then you know one of the things that goes through my mind and maybe this is just indicative of the type of movies that I watch but it's like, are they a stalker?
Speaker 2:Are they dangerous?
Speaker 1:What do you mean?
Speaker 2:You recognize yeah, no, it's great. I mean the community effect of our industry is fantastic. You know like people just kind. I mean the community effect of our industry is fantastic. You know like people just kind of salt of the earth folks, and I would say like they're, they're super normal. Right, they're super normal, which you can't say that about every industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is, this is true and and you know, before we got, before we hit record basically, we're talking about your Sunday scaries, which is a series that you publish Not coincidentally, you publish it every Sunday. Thus the name and the most recent Sunday Scaries post, which we'll unpack here today, got a lot of feedback, a lot of response to it. Basically and it may be because of the talking heads, but it's probably not We'll jump into that here as we get started. But for those of you that are listening, if you're not following KP Ready on LinkedIn, you should just go to KP, the letter K, the letter P Ready, r-e-d-d-y.
Speaker 1:You won't be able to connect with him he maxes out his LinkedIn connections there, but you can follow him. So you should follow him, and the things that will pop up in your feed will span from Sunday Scaries, obviously every week on Sundays, but also two, maybe three posts a day. There's a lot of fodder, right, that came from your travels this week. That's where a lot of the things that that came from your travels this week, uh, that's where a lot, of, a lot of the things that you talk about they come from right. You're observing things, you're talking to people.
Speaker 1:Um, maybe it's maybe it's clients of ours, maybe it's you. You know something at a conference, a talk or something like that, but it is always interesting to read what kp has to say, what he's observing as he's going around, the things that he's his takeaways, uh, from conversations and things like that, and um, so follow him, kp ready on LinkedIn Sunday scaries. This week you at least channeled the talking heads, so, um, so, as as I'll read the, I'll read the post part and then I'll read part of the Sunday scaries and we'll we'll unpack the actual article itself, but you, you stole this straight from the talking heads borrowed straight from the talking heads and you may ask yourself, how do I work this?
Speaker 1:And you may ask yourself, where is that large automobile? And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful house. And you may tell yourself, this is not my beautiful wife. So that's, that's what you posted on LinkedIn. And then, of course, the the uh. The title to the Sunday Scaries article was it's a question how are you spending the next decade of your life? And I've got to say that to me, I think the reason. I think the major driver for the amount of engagement that we received on this particular post is the then and now picks. This particular post is the then and now pics. Right, here's kp 10 years ago. It's captioned here's more than a decade different, so I don't know the actual time here. But here's young kp and here's more mature kp.
Speaker 2:Two different pictures side by side and I I really think that's where the engagement came from. I think so too. It's really about 13 years, but that was the picture I could find, so to speak. But you know, we normally don't talk about, you know, the Sunday series. We just talk about my posts, right, right, I think we decided to talk about this because it kind of broke the internet, so to speak. I mean, we, you know my, my, my weekly Sunday scaries newsletter gets a lot of engagement. It's very active, but you know the number of shares and reach. You know, like all that, like it kind of was out of this world. Um, so I was like, wow, you know, if it's that interesting, like let's talk more about it. But, um, yeah, I think the um know you always kind of ask me like what motivates me. And it's interesting because, you know, I've been doing these Sunday Scaries for almost a year and a half now and it's really, I think the Sunday Scaries idea is relevant to anyone.
Speaker 2:But I've just found that, like, startup founders really, really suffer from it. Right, it's the Sunday afternoon. They're already starting work. They're already starting work Sunday afternoon, preparing for the week, because they're always working, and that's when it's this weekly point of self-reflection of like what am I doing? What am I doing? I'm killing myself here, going broke in the process. When am I ever? Like what am I doing? Like I'm killing myself here, going broke in the process. Like when am I ever going to get product fit? When am I ever going to get the sales flywheel going? Oh my God, my co-founder's insane. Like you know, just all the things that can hit you in this blender called startup life Sundays is when they kind of manifest, manifests.
Speaker 2:right, it's that one day a week, right so, but anyway, I thought it was. This was a a fun one, and since we got so much engagement, I thought you know we said okay, let's talk about it yeah, yeah, let's talk about.
Speaker 1:Do you still have that tan suit, by the way, I think my son may have taken it that's funny. Yeah, it got passed down. I did see one of the comments too, though before we get, before we jump into this, I mean in in all in all, funny seriousness, there was a comment that said you weren't wearing the metallica shirt.
Speaker 2:So they don't believe it's real yes it is you take one picture with the metallica shirt on and put it on your linkedin profile, which now, like I, can't even take it down because people won't know what to do.
Speaker 1:Like it's like who's?
Speaker 2:that guy? They don't recognize you and so, like now, when I bump into people in travel, it's like hey man, like where's your metallica shirt? I'm like I do have other choices in my wardrobe yeah, but now?
Speaker 1:now the question is why?
Speaker 2:I will say the benefit of you know. You know I wear a lot of concert shirts. Uh, I was meeting with someone he's an old friend and we're catching up. When we did a zoom call and I had my foo fighters shirt on, he's like, oh, you're a big foo fighters fan. I'm like, yeah, he is the one with the names he's like, oh, you're a big Foo Fighters fan. I'm like, yeah, he is the one with the names.
Speaker 1:Uh, no, that's just the one, just like the big circle with the FF okay yeah, and he goes.
Speaker 2:Hey, man, like I had no idea you're such a fan. And I'm like, yeah, he's like. So my wife is very close to Dave Grohl. So next time when you're in DC he comes to DC a lot, because I guess you grew up in virginia he's like we hang out and have dinners and I'm gonna invite you and I'm like if I hadn't worn my foo fighter shirt that day, you would have never known that's right so looking forward to that one yeah, next time you wear your metallica shirt, maybe someone invites you to dinner with lars or somebody.
Speaker 1:Yeah, nice Well, you did not in the photographs. You did wear a tan suit 13 years ago, just a black shirt this time, which is I mean, frankly, it is disappointing, but it does show an evolution over time. And so you asked the question in the title how are you spending the next decade of your life, which is a really powerful question. Right, it's okay. Here I am today. What am I doing the next 10 years? So I'm going to I'm going to meat of this idea of a 10-year plan. So let me read a little bit to set it up and then we'll jump into it and discuss.
Speaker 1:Of course, you start out with the talking head lyrics and then you ask how are you spending the next decade of your life? And you say many founders are looking for the quick flip build an exit in under five years. That would be awesome if you can do it. Unfortunately, that's not the norm. I think more realistically, you're investing a decade of your life. And then you ask the question why is this important? And you start talking about the or using the analogy of a rocket. So maybe we jump in there and talk about this analogy of the the rocket, because you talk about velocity, trajectory, all the things that that any good georgia tech grad, uh, or any engineering uh school grad would talk about when they talk about a rocket. So let's, let's dig into the analogy of a rocket. If we think about our startup or whatever the context, whatever context someone's applying this message to, if we think about that like a rocket, where are you going from there? You started out talking about velocity and trajectory. I think that's obvious to a lot of us, but let's go there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think a lot of startups it's like the idea is, if I start off and it's slow, right, like I always say, like the early stages of your startup is you're building the rocket. Now, when you go to hit launch, if it's not heading to where you plan on going, it's time to abort and relaunch. And I think so much of it is like well, you know, I'm, I haven't blown up, I'm in air, so I'm winning, right, like I'm in. And it's like, yeah, but you're gonna like land on the other side of the, the pond, you can't really go to space right. And so sometimes the signal that I have built a rocket, it's had liftoff, it's in the air, that somehow that's winning.
Speaker 2:And the challenge with that is you're going to keep doing it. And next thing, you know is all you're doing is circling the Earth. You're not on your way to Mars, you're just circling the Earth, right. And so when you think about that, you have to really look at those early signals that you might think of as success. But if it's a 10 year game, you have to really think. You know, if you start off on the wrong path, in the wrong direction, with the wrong trajectory, with the wrong velocity, you'll never hit escape velocity.
Speaker 2:You just turn into like a satellite. So you go around in circles for 10 years and then eventually you like, like sky lab, you crash and into the earth google it.
Speaker 1:Boys and girls. This is every week we get to a google it moment and that was our. That was our first google it moment. Uh, maybe talking heads was the first Google it moment. Maybe Talking Heads was the first Google it moment, although it shouldn't be. We were talking about this before we hit record. If you love music, you need to go see or stream somehow. I don't know how it's available now, but you need to stream the Talking Heads concert movie Stop Making Sense, because it is the best concert movie, uh, ever made, I believe, and um, and it's, it's just wonderful, wonderful talking heads music. So if you're even if you're not familiar with talking heads, this is your opportunity. So maybe that was the first google it moment, but sky lab was was definitely a google it moment um, but I think that I just see a lot of founders right and they get.
Speaker 2:So they think that once they're in flight they can course correct.
Speaker 2:But you can't, if you don't, if you're not exiting with, you know if you're, if you're not, um, you know, hitting your escape velocity, you're not going to get there. You're just not going to get there. And some of these false, um, false signals of success keep people going and they think like, um, you know it's going to keep going and, man, in five years I'll be done, and it's like, maybe not, you're not going to be done in five years. Right, because you didn't start off on the right foot. And so you know, when we use terms like pivot and all that, I think, if we stick with the analogy, right, sometimes, if the rocket ain't ready, don't try to lift off. Right, sometimes, at launch, if it's like, hey, this is not going the right direction, just because it's in the air doesn't mean it's going in the right direction, you might need to blow it up and start over and rebuild the rocket.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, we'll jump into the 10-year plan that you shared here in a minute. But to wrap up, the analogy of the rocket you said think of a startup like a rocket the velocity and trajectory to determine where you will end up. Your early rounds are building the rocket. Series a is about adding the fuel right, which is important, right that's going to determine the. The fuel is going to determine the, the velocity and trajectory, or at least the velocity, I suppose. Um, and then you say there's a window of time, based on your takeoff, where you may want to push the abort button.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of an interesting concept. I've built this rocket, I've added the fuel, you know, I'm determining the trajectory and I launch. And, as you were saying a minute ago, just because you're flying, that doesn't necessarily indicate success or ultimate success. So maybe you do hit the abort button at some point.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think founders suffer from two things, many things. I'm just going to point out two. One is sunk cost fallacy. Right, like, I've already built it, I've already done all this customer discovery. This is my market, and what I tell them is like you're going to wake up one day and it's going to be. You're going to be five years older. You're not going to realize that five years went by and you're going to have a cute business. You're not going to have something that was worth the five years of your life was worth the five years of your life. If you take how much salary you would have made over that five years and taking that part of that invested in the S and P, and what the economics of being at it for five years are, you lost a lot of money, right, but it goes by so fast. It's very fast and the way time flies, and so I think you're better off.
Speaker 2:If you don't see the characteristics of getting to Mars from your launch, you should abort early and try to rebuild the rocket, and I think that's what's important. You know, and a lot of people are like, well, I'm already here, right, I've already built this. I mean, sometimes you have to get rid of the whole team and start over. Right, it's not, it's. You may not have the right, right team. It turns out your team doesn't know how to build a great rocket, or they can build a great rocket to launch a satellite, but that's. I'm trying to go to mars, right?
Speaker 2:And so I think, um, those early, swift decisions are really important and I think a lot of times those decisions are really tough because of kind of the sunk cost fallacy. And then I also think you know ego as well. Like you know, I think I told you years ago I started a consulting company and I got to like 5 million in revenue and then I shut it down. I shut it down, told my clients like hey, like we're shutting down, let go of a bunch of people. And people are like that's insane, why would you do that? And I was like, because getting to 10, 25, and then to a billion just didn't seem like where it was going.
Speaker 2:I felt like it was going to be at five, and then probably the next year we do 5.5, and then six and 6.5. So basically I was just going to be like circling the earth, you know with it, and and, and I was just like I'm not willing to spend the next decade of my life to build a nice little business, like that's not how I want to spend my time, and so I think it's tough, right, walking away from 5 million and consulting, but it's not trivial, right. So right.
Speaker 2:But those are tough decisions. You have to make early, not later yeah, yeah, there's a.
Speaker 1:There's a book, uh, by dan sullivan, you know, marketing guy, sales guy, that may not be necessarily on the bookshelf of startup founders. You know this might be sort of a dark horse for this particular segment, but it's called, it's easier to 10X than 2X and I, you know, when you tell them, tell me the story of you know you had $5 million in revenue in the next year. You're maybe looking at 5.5 and six and so on. It reminds me of that particular book, right?
Speaker 1:It's like okay, it's easier for me to reimagine how to do this or something else than to just keep okay, how do we tweak this? How do we make this better? How do we? How do we iterate and iterate and iterate and then, and still not get to Mars? To, I guess, to continue your analogy, you say that, as a founder, you need to continually understand that failing fast is good because you can start over. It turns out that you may have been building the wrong rocket, you may have had the wrong team, which you said earlier, or it turns out that your ambition was greater than your capability. Your destination is solving the problem that you're most passionate about, and then you go on to talk about. Your suggestion is to build a 10 year plan, not for the business, but for yourself. So I think it's really important that we unpack that idea, because that's that's a real, real meaty part of this article as well. So, a 10-year plan for yourself, let's talk about that. What does it need to include?
Speaker 2:I think you have to disconnect. Actually, I talk about this in my book. What you Know About Startups Is Wrong. I'll bring it up what I talk about because it's a little dark. But the attachment we have with our ego to being a founder of a startup, you know it's like people say, oh, my startup's my baby. I'm like, actually, your baby is your baby. Your startup is just a thing Like it's not a real thing, right?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so there's deep, deep emotional attachment. In my book I actually talk about this. Like I said, it's kind of dark. My dad's name translated translates to sour, and the reason they named him quote unquote a bad name was because the three babies before him died. Because back in India, in the villages villages back then the mortality rate was just very infant mortality, very, very high, right, so just superstitious. So they said, oh, we're not going to give this next baby a good name because all the good name babies keep dying. So we're giving a bad name because, like, we don't care about it and so if we don't care about it, maybe the universe will actually let this baby live.
Speaker 2:So, like reverse psychology on the universe. Not sure about that, I kind of feel like the universe sees through that. But that was the idea right. And I think a lot of times founders get so attached to all the time and effort they put into a logo to a company name. That's why I always tell startups do not spend time on a name. Call it a project, just call it a project. Give it a fake name. That's why I always tell startups do not spend time on a name. Call it a project, just call it a project. Give it a fake name. It's not important.
Speaker 2:And I've seen it over and over again where you know, if you pivot, if you change your mind, that there's this weird friction, like, oh, I've got to change the name of the company, but you know, these are, these are not, those are not the important things, right, those are not the important things, um. And so I think a lot of times when you start thinking about this, this attachment to the, to this startup, like, oh, I was the founder of xyz, um, and then, three years in, you're like, oh, I don't want to give up. It's like, why not shut it down, move on but I was the founder of xyz.
Speaker 1:that's why not right that, that attachment piece of it? Yeah, yeah, there are a lot of people and it's, you know, obviously extends beyond being a founder, but there are a lot of people that if they were to take a step back, you know they're. They're romanticizing the idea or they're attached to the idea of being something or being a part of something, rather than the actual, the person, the company, the whatever. I think that's pretty common. That makes a lot of sense. So, when you're talking about this 10-year plan and what it should include but not be limited to, it seems like legal maybe had a hand in that comment, but the first thing that you talk about is the problem that you want to solve, and again, this is for yourself, not for the business. So what's the distinction that you're making there in that 10-year plan, focusing on the problem that you want to solve?
Speaker 2:I think great founders obsess around problems that you're making there in that 10-year plan, focusing on the problem that you want to solve. I think great founders obsess around problems and then they obsess around problems that they've personally experienced and the way to do that can manifest in many ways. Right, why zuckerberg start facebook? Because it wasn't great at talking to girls. He needed a better way, an easier way to manage the process, right, you know? So it's. It's like these are all very personal problems and then sometimes these big personal problems are huge market problems. But it's this obsession around like the problem statement. And if you look at even how I operate, I know what my problem statement is.
Speaker 2:One. I think the AAC industry is the most noble and interesting industry in the world. We shape society, but we can do better and we're not recognized for it. So how am I solving that problem? I'm investing in startups. At Shadow Ventures, we run mastermind groups. At KP Ready. I publish books. You know I have got several solutions attacking this problem right. The problem that I care about and I think you have to kind of you know, I'm fortunate that I get to like run multiple things Right, but for most people it's that it's that one thing. So I think, uh, you know, continuing to have a deep passion for something and then, guess what You're, you're also allowed to fall out of love with it.
Speaker 2:You're also allowed to say like hey, I'm not passionate about that anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that goes to that attachment idea, right, oh, it's, it's. I've, I've romanticized this so much. I'm gonna be, I'm attached to this. I can't let go of it. But you are allowed, you have permission, the permission to let go of it. The second point in your 10-year plan, what you say should be included um, again for yourself, not for your business is your financial outcome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you have to have financial goals right. At the end of the day, you're building a business, you're not starting a hobby. The minute you take money from other people, you have, like, a responsibility to them. The minute you start hiring people, you have a responsibility to them. It's pretty interesting this idea of, like I had someone come up to me and you know, being a VC that side of my job, so to speak some people are just very negative about it. Oh, you're a VC, you just throw money at people. Look at the comments at any one of my LinkedIn posts.
Speaker 2:There's usually some criticism about you venture capitalists, and I had someone the other day. An old friend said, man, like you must be really proud of what you do. I went, maybe like, where are you going with this? Like you fund companies that turn around and employ lots of people, that fund families and fund a quality of life. Like, so how many people have you helped in your career? I was like I have never even looked at it that way. I've never even looked at like I have some great impacts. I've always found, like you know, the founders, their companies are the founders I'm here to help, right, I'm not, I don't, I don't think of them as mine, but I thought that was kind of interesting.
Speaker 2:But I think for a lot of people they're not thinking about the financial outcome. They're not thinking about because I will tell you, the friction as a founder three years in the world of being a startup founder is like 20 years in the corporate world, what you know about go-to-market technology strategy, I mean, you're just thrown into the deep end and if you're good, if you're a good learner, if you're a good listener, it's the most accelerated path of like improving your career. So what a lot of founders you know I've told actually I think this is in my book too. You know I just repeat all the stuff I've already written. But I've told founders once I think this is in my book too. I just repeat all the stuff I've already written but I've told founders, once a year you should go meet with a recruiter. Go meet with a recruiter, see what you're worth. See what you're worth.
Speaker 2:And I did that for a while when I was having my startup and I was shocked at how much I was worth. I was like, really, they're like, oh yeah, like I could totally get you this VP of strategy job and it pays 500. And I'm like I pay myself like 90 right now, like what is happening you know, but you forget, as a founder, it's not just that you're grinding it out and blah, blah, blah your vocabulary, how you think about things, the utility of your thinking right. You're not like I only do sales, I only do marketing, I only do like you're doing everything and you start to find out that some of those things you do you might be like a natural.
Speaker 2:You know, people have told me about the, about myself, that I'm like so good at sales. I'm like it's really weird, cause I've had zero sales training. I've never had a, I've never had a sales job other than being a founder. I've never had to make my mortgage by hitting my commissions. You're like, oh, you're so good at sales. I'm like I don't know how, I'm not sure how. I never trained for it right, and of course I trained as a civil engineer and I'm probably not very good at that, hence not doing it anymore. But I think people forget. So I used to give this advice like go meet with a recruiter once a year. You might be surprised at what your market value is. And if you start looking at that juxtaposed to, hey, where am I at with my startup and where am I going and what the opportunity is? You might make different decisions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, not. I mean I think related, but obviously not completely relying on your financial outcome. You also talk about your personal, your personal mental and physical health outcome. I mean there's, there are definitely links between those, but we need a separation of finances and health as well. So what's the story behind personal mental and physical health outcome?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that picture from 13 years ago. If I would have sent you a picture which I couldn't find when I was looking for one from 15 years ago, you lost the negatives.
Speaker 2:That's our second google moment, yeah if I would have looked at 15 years ago, I was about 40 pounds heavier. I'm still diabetic, I haven't been able to reverse it 100, but I was like lots of insulin. Lots of you know I was not in, I was far from peak health condition, um, but I, I, I did this weird thing where I'm like you know, I I took a couple years off my pre-tirement and took a couple years off and worked on myself and worked on my health and I had this strange goal of you know, I'm gonna fit into a banana republic medium shirt, because at that point I was like getting custom dress shirts because I was, I was fat in the wrong places, so to speak. That you know. And so I was, I'm gonna fit into a. And then I was able to get into a slim fit, banana republic medium shirt and now I'm a solid medium at my current size medium build banana republic, or have you switched brands?
Speaker 2:no, it's funny, it's. It's actually pretty funny little secret. I sometimes buy women's clothes because they fit me better well, the cat's out of the bag, that metallica t-shirts it's a women's small now t-shirts, it's a women's small T-shirts don't work that way, but other things can. But no, I mean like the, the, the wellbeing part of it, right? Like, if you're going to spend 10 years chasing something, I think you want to try to live for those 10 years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's important, certainly.
Speaker 2:And when you're healthier, you perform better, and like you, can't I. When I did my my second startup, that really wore me out. I put everything on pause. I didn't have time to work out, I didn't have time to eat, right, you know, too busy, too busy, right, and um, I think, looking at all those imbalance and getting it in, um, I think, looking at all those in balance and getting it in, I think it's like super important.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I mean, the business is whether it's going well or it's not going well in quotes is not going to provide you with the personal mental health or the physical health that's up to you. Like you said, you did the work, you did the work on yourself and that's going to be outside of the realm of the business. The business going great does not necessarily help your mental health. That's independent of that.
Speaker 2:Of course, like the mental health part, which, um, I think it's all connected, right, if you're in great physical health, it's easier to get into better mental health. If you're real with yourself, it's easier to be real with others yeah, yeah, yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 1:You know, when you're looking at your, your even like your mindset right, you've got personal and you've got relationship and you've got business. Those are at least three of the facets that all of those fall into. So from there you talk about your family outcome, your financial outcome, your personal, mental and physical health outcome, and then your family outcome. So certainly these things could be connected, but how do you unpack that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll meet a lot of founders. You know youngish founders that are unattached romantically, and you know, oh man, I'm working 15 hours a day, I'm crushing it, I'm blah, blah, blah. And then what they don't plan on is they might actually meet something, even though they're working all the time. They might actually meet something, meet someone, and when they meet someone, that's someone they probably want to spend time with them, and that person probably wants to spend time with them, right? So now, all of a sudden, you don't have 15 hours a day to work, or 18 hours a day or whatever it is you're pushing, oh, so then.
Speaker 2:So, now that time allocation towards work goes away, oh, and then you get married. Well, it's a little bit more permanent right now. You know, maybe we're having breakfast together every day. Maybe, like, one of the things is like hey, we're not, we're going to have dinner with each other every day. Like all of a sudden, you're, you know you have even less time.
Speaker 1:Prioritizing, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you buy that big house and then you fill that house with a couple of babies. And now, how much time do you have?
Speaker 1:And what would you name those babies?
Speaker 2:Right, if you're lucky you can put 40 hours in if you're lucky and those kids want to go to soccer and you're in a carpool and like it's a lot right. So what I always tell you know, it's kind of funny when I look at like startups, financial models, they'll say things like oh yeah, we're cashflow neutral and I'm like you're also paying yourself 30,000 a year. You're also working out of your house, which back in the day, like that was a bigger thing, like hey, you might have to have rent one day. Now maybe you can go virtually the whole time, but you know you're not at break even because none of it's normalized. You're not actually paying people market. You know, if I normalize your business model, you actually have to pay market to people. You're losing $100,000 a month, like sorry, you know. To people you're losing a hundred thousand a month like sorry, you know.
Speaker 2:So so I think the idea you have to look ahead. You know, whenever founders you know like oh man, I'm grinding, it's like for how long, you know for how long and I think, um, you know, not that everybody's goal oriented, but you know it at some point, if you date someone, that someone date someone, they may not understand startup life and they may say, hey, are we doing this or are we just dating? Because we're just dating, I'm ready to actually have a serious relationship. And then what? Nope, I'm sorry, I'm dating my startup. I don't have time for you. Maybe People do it Sure.
Speaker 1:Sure, sure. So those are the first four steps that you share, or points maybe that you share, from the 10 year plan that you need to develop for yourself, not your business. And the last one, and you, you preface it you say these things, but not limited to these things. But the last thing on your list is how frequent will you evaluate and pivot versus persevere? And you know you've mentioned before once, once a rocket is launched, you talked about pivoting. But this is this is different, right? This, as you have it here on the list of the 10-year plane, it's different than what you're talking about with the rocket, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think part of it is like having accountability to yourself about how I'm going to reevaluate this Right, and you know, a lot of times you might do it with your significant other. You might do it, you know, you might have an accountability coach. Whatever it is, you might have an investor. I mean it is, you might have an investor, you know. I mean it's interesting as an investor. I ask my startups all the time like, hey, it's not going that well. They're like yep, and I'm like you're gonna be at this for at least another five years. Are you sure you want to like for me? Like, yeah, I want to return on investment and all that stuff, right, but we've got a big portfolio. If I have one loss in my portfolio, I'm not that worried about it.
Speaker 2:I'm actually more worried about if the founder hangs in there and is I'd rather have a loss today than a loss in three years and watch a person go through the torment of putting another three years in and then failing right. So I always ask that question are you sure you want to keep going? And they kind of get shocked because, as an investor, they think I'm just like no, you go figure it out, grind it. I'm like sometimes the stuff's not, you can't figure it out, you just shut it down, right. But I do think it's important to have some milestone check-ins. I remember one of my startups my wife now ex-wife, so also there's that that we said, hey, we've got six months saved up, let's check in in six months. I'm going to leave you alone for six months, let's check in in six months.
Speaker 2:The unfortunate thing is it's never a binary decision. Right, you've made enough progress, but not all the progress. It's going well enough, but not amazing, right, it's always that thing and so. But you sit down and you check in and say like, hey, where are we with this? Well, I think it's going to be another six months. Okay, let's agree and we'll check in again in another six months.
Speaker 2:So I think, having great personal check-in points and having people around you that you know, I always say most founders if you're looking for me to pump you up and keep you positive, I am the wrong investor because, honestly, I think most founders great founders are self-motivated. I can't bring them down if I wanted to. I cannot bring them down if I wanted to Right. They're just absolutely optimistic, right. But where I am very valuable is giving you a dose of like hey, here's where I think we are Right. I'm very honest, what I say, like I'm critical and kind, I'm working on kind. It's my LinkedIn profile Critical and kind, but I'm working on kind when you look up KP ready on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I mean, if you can't have me in your life, have someone like me in your life. It's just going to like break this stuff down for you, right? And it's going to like differentiate progress versus luck. Look, you know Mark Cuban has this great quote. He's like if you work hard, you can be a millionaire. If you get lucky, you get to be a billionaire. Like billionaires are not, like they're not working any harder than the millionaire, they just got lucky. They're at the right place at the right time. So he's like grind it out as you know, get to be, work your butt off to become a millionaire and keep grinding. And you know, if you stand on a street corner long enough, you'll get rained on.
Speaker 1:So even the blind squirrel finds a nut right once in a while.
Speaker 2:So I do think, having people that you know, having it written down right, having it written down on a post-it note, whatever, having check-ins with someone that will you know. It's not and it's not about like beating the crap out of you. It's just like, hey, like because you're not going to meet your goals, right, that's just how it is, like that's part of ambition is you'll always fall short of your goal. It's like, let's be real. However, it's like how far short. And are you making progress? Right, are you making progress?
Speaker 2:And I think a lot of founders. Sometimes they get early um signal and those early signals are left, and then they, you know, then do you think, like you can, can you keep getting lucky? It's like I was in vegas one time uh, many times um, and I'm sitting there at a roulette table and a guy, an older guy, walks by with this younger kid and he was there for his 21st birthday. Kid puts a hundred bucks down on the number first, first roll and he hits it, and I'm this kid is screwed for the rest of his life. Yeah, like he thinks roulette is a sure thing. Now he thinks he's got something right and it's like, oh my God, it's so terrible. This kid's ruined Right.
Speaker 2:And I think there's a little bit of that. Sometimes you get lucky early on and you think you can keep hitting the number and you need someone to tell you like, hey, dude, like you happen to bump into this guy on a plane, he happened to give you a contract. Are you just going to jump on more planes and hope you run into somebody Like be grateful for? I mean, look, it's great to be lucky and we should be grateful for that, but we didn't have a hand in it and it's rarely replicatable. It's rarely replicatable. So I think having someone that will bounce that back at you and say, well, hey, I closed this big deal, great, tell me how you got there. Oh, I was on a plane and I talked to this guy. I'm like, okay, like so that's not real. You don't get credit for that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think that's a really good point and it it reminds me we'll stick on the music theme. Last year I went to see cake with my friend, terry, and Terry just sold his small business towards the end of last year, I guess it was. We used to talk business all the time and one of the things that Terry said, as we're standing there waiting for cake to come on, was that we shouldn't strive to do heroic things. Terry and I have been friends for almost two decades now and I thought well, that does not sound like Terry. Tell me more. What is it about this? We shouldn't strive to do heroic things. And what he said was if we strive to do heroic things, I mean, one of the worst things that could happen sort of like the kid at the roulette wheel is that we actually accomplish it Right. Because then the question becomes can you replicate it? And the answer is probably not. And then the next question is can you actually sustain that? And the answer is probably not. So his ultimate point was we should invest in, we should do the small things that we can do over and over, that we can replicate over and over, that may lead to an heroic outcome, and that's, in fact, more sustainable than the other. So, I think, good advice from everyone on that. And you may ask yourself, how do I work this? And you may ask yourself, where is that large automobile? And you may tell yourself this is not my beautiful house. And you may tell yourself this is not my beautiful wife. How are you spending the next decade of your life?
Speaker 1:This is from um, from KP's Sunday scaries. It starts out you know there's the, the. The lyrical part of that is is the LinkedIn post, and then it's really. Then it's a repeated in the Sunday Scaries article. But, as KP said earlier, we don't always unpack his Sunday Scaries articles. You need to go to LinkedIn and subscribe to those. But this time we did because we've got a lot of reaction to it, a lot of response to it. Maybe it's because he shared a picture of himself from 13 years ago in a tan suit, maybe it's for some other reason, but it's. It's definitely an article that's resonating with um, with startup founders. But I think even more, I think even beyond that there are a lot of good life lessons in this, uh, in this article and in this conversation as well. So the um. So think of, think of your startup. Think of your life, maybe like a rocket, and you can start to unpack it some more from there. This has been KP Unpacked. This is where KP and I get together every week to unpack one of his LinkedIn posts, or, as I said, in this case, a LinkedIn post and a Sunday Scaries article.
Speaker 1:Kp is the founder and CEO of KP ReadyCo. Also the founder of Shadow Ventures. He's mentioned that here. We've talked about mastermind groups. We have talked about Catalyst, one of the things that you may do as you listen along and go. You may go. Oh, what were they talking about? How do I find out more about that? Our production team is listening to this as they edit, of course, and they're dropping the links to everything that we talk about. That needs a link into the show notes. So, whether you're listening to this or you're watching it on YouTube or somewhere else, just go down to the show notes and there's links to find everything that we talked about here, including this article and a related article on our Substack. So go look for that If you don't know what Substack is. Again, that might be our third Google moment, but I always think of Substack sort of like old school blog platforms. Does that feel the same to you?
Speaker 2:it's funny, though, like you're talking, to say what you're telling is like the youngish folks to google talking heads and you're telling the oldish folks to go google substack I. I am not discriminating you are not making any friends here I'm making any friends.
Speaker 1:I I'm not discriminating in who should and should not be Googling, but yeah, with every one of these podcast episodes that we do, we create an accompanying and expanded version of our conversation over on our substack.
Speaker 1:So also check the show notes below for the substack article there. This is KP Impact. It's where the biggest ideas in AEC, ai and innovation they all collide right here on this podcast. It's powered by KP ReadyCo and this is where we talk about the trends, the technology, the discussions and the strategies that are shaping the built environment the places where you work, where you play, where you sleep, where you worship, where you do everything that you do. Kp said that the AEC industry, the built environment, shapes us as a society, and it does, and we talk about the things that are shaping those things right here, um on this podcast and everything we do at kp ready co. So kp thanks for joining me today. It's been fun, as always, and looking forward to unpacking another one next week all right, sounds good all right, and for those of you out there listening, we thank you.
Speaker 1:We appreciate it. We look forward to your comments and your feedback on these, whether you're watching youtube or look forward to your comments and your feedback on these, whether you're watching youtube or listening wherever you consume podcasts, and we'll be back again next week, so it'll be great to be in your ears again then. Thanks everybody, see you next week.