A Founder's Life
Join me as I explore the powerful intersection of entrepreneurship, health & wellness, and parenthood. In each episode, I’ll be interviewing inspiring individuals who excel in one or more of these areas, sharing their stories, insights, and lessons. My goal is to provide valuable takeaways that can help you thrive both personally and professionally.
A Founder's Life
Why I Don’t Want an Easy Life - Richard Crane - S6 - E8
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What does it take to build a company from two people in a room to hundreds across the world?
In this episode, Richard Crane, Founder, CTO, and CAIO of MILL5, shares his journey from engineer to entrepreneur, building a global tech company while embracing difficulty instead of comfort.
Richard talks about scaling a business, the importance of continuously learning (especially with AI), and why many people fall behind by not investing in themselves. He also shares a deeply personal story from his childhood that shaped his work ethic and relentless drive.
What you’ll learn:
- Why comfort limits growth
- How AI is reshaping careers and productivity
- The importance of continuous self-investment
- How early experiences shape entrepreneurs
- Why keeping your circle small matters
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Welcome to a founder's life. I'm your host, Leo Gastetna. On this show, we dive into the real stories behind the highs and lows of entrepreneurship and how we pursue a more balanced and meaningful life along the way. This podcast is sponsored by Thanks, helping founders like us scale with reliable remote talent. I'm excited today to be joined by Richard Crane. Richard, thank you for joining us. Would you like to introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Happy to do so. So my name is Richard Crane. I'm an entrepreneur. I am the founder, CTO, CAIO of MIL5. We are a 10 plus year old company. We turned 10 just last August, which was great. What can I say? I am your typical entrepreneur as far as everything goes. You know, business, life, health, fitness, you know, fashion. Yeah, I see it all, right? You know, I always say, I don't want to be comfortable as an entrepreneur. I want it difficult, right? So I can succeed. And that's me in a nutshell. And, you know, I started off with uh my business partner, Sri Bhubati. He's a great guy. He's my brother from another mother. Uh, it's hard to find that, by the way. It's hard to find good people that you think you can have a business journey with for as long as we've had. And we started off with two people in a room. Now we're 350 people in seven countries.
SPEAKER_01I didn't know there was such a thing, by the way, as being an easy as an easy entrepreneurial journey.
SPEAKER_00But you know, it's funny. I was talking to um one of my employees actually, I think it was either yesterday. Uh yeah, it was yesterday. And they're like, oh, well, you know, I wanted to do this because it makes your life easier. And I'm thinking to myself, well, that's nice, but I don't need my life easier. What I need is you to do this, that, and other thing. Right. And um, they were like, oh, okay. And um, you're right, an entrepreneur, our life is not easy.
SPEAKER_01Or my favorite on uh on employees is uh one of our employees chatted to me today who in one of our one of my startups, and she was asking for a pay rise because she's doing more things now. And I'm like, yeah, that's the pleasure of a startup journey. Let's make some money and then we can talk about a pay rise. But like I I always love people who are like, I'm still working 40 hours a week, but because you've asked me to do more things, I should get paid more. You're like, okay, but you're it's not like I'm asking you to work more hours. You're working the same number of hours anyway.
SPEAKER_00Well, well, so so hold on, right? It's an interesting point you make because like I'm an AI, right? And we're software developers, right? You know, that's what we are, right, as a whole. But I give my software developers AI and they're able to do 10 times more with AI, right? They still need it. I still need them because they know what they're doing. AI doesn't mean AI, I mean, it's great, but you know, so a lot of times it doesn't know what to do until a human tells it, right? And it just happens that that human can produce 10 times more output. I'm not gonna pay them 10 times more, right? In fact, it costs me money to give them the AI.
SPEAKER_01But the good news is, as I said to my development team, this must have been about nine months ago, sometime last year, I said to my development team, you need to embrace AI to a level of not only will you not be working for us if you're not truly fully embracing AI and if it's not part of your full workflow, you'll be unemployable in two years. So you may not pay them ten times, but they've got a job, and at some point they'll actually earn more. But yeah, I mean, those who do not, in every type of job, you know, it I I keep talking to my team. I was a project manager of it working for me again. I said to her, you know, in two years, you know, we'll teach you AI. So you can learn it with us, but in two years you'll be unemployable if you're not fully integrated with AI.
SPEAKER_00I hate to say it. I sent that message to my staff. I told my staff to learn AI, required them to learn AI in 2019, January 2019, right? This was about five months before we had a really robust solution that we had done for a customer of ours. It's a public case study, so I'll mention it, Olympus. Microsoft had highlighted it in the keynote of their worldwide developer conference, Microsoft built. But about five months before that actual event happened, I said everybody needs to be certified in AI. Now, the sad part. Recently we had one of our employees, a customer was like, Yeah, we're not really happy with this person. You know, we're gonna replace them with somebody internally. And that was a little bit of okay, you know, it was a bummer, but they didn't learn AI. And, you know, we decided that we were gonna let them go because they didn't invest back in themselves as far as their skills. They were, what's the, you know, well, they they only knew one trick, right? They didn't know 10 tricks, you know. So they were a one-trick pony. And and I remember we called them into the office and he's sitting there with his laptop and he's like, Oh, I'm learning AI. And I'm thinking in my head, too late, right? And we let them go that day. And the challenge is, I personally really like this person. They're one of my favorite people. They're funny as all get out, but they didn't invest in themselves, and we had to let them go. Unfortunately, this was our oldest tenured employee.
SPEAKER_01I can't hear you, buddy. I get that because we had our second oldest employee who had worked for me for about 11 years. Um, I had the same thing last year, which he actually a fantastic developer. Truly, like a genius developer. But he just couldn't embrace AI to the level that he needed to. And he was like, it's so funny. He was like, Oh, it's like having a whole new wife, and he was complaining about like having to learn a whole new. And I'm like, but at some point he's gonna have to. But he was like, There isn't a role here if you can't embrace it. Like he just thought he could do everything himself, and it's a shame. You know, my business partner is probably developing at the speed of 20 plus developers these days. Yeah, you know, it's unbelievable what you can do.
SPEAKER_00I'm developing two products a week. Two products a week. In fact, just before this, I was demoing two products in our conference room next door to my entire senior staff, and they were like, whoa.
SPEAKER_01So it was crazy. I c I completely get it. I it it's uh it's unbelievable what you can do now. Anyway, so we actually completely diverged on how I normally do the podcast. It's okay, it's always fine. You and I are geeks. I'm a recovering geek. I used to be, but uh I still enjoy it all. So talk to us a little bit about your work journey that took you to where you are today and then what your business is doing now.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so short answer is uh education-wise, I'm uh electrical and computer engineer. Grad uh went to Drexel University. Interestingly enough, I I was like a 2.4 GPA student in high school. When I was in college, I graduated Summa Kumblati. My freshman year, I had a hundred average in like chemistry, physics, a whole bunch of subjects. You know, I had a 4.0 GPA. I really focused and I love learning, right? And you know, it's funny. I was at a startup outside of Philadelphia. And at the same time, I had stayed on, done some master's work at Drexel. I was also an adjunct professor at Drexel, but I had that startup bent, and a friend of mine, college roommate, was like, Hey, do you know anybody with these skills? And I'm like, duh, me. He goes, Oh, yeah. So I went down to Atlanta. I was there for a couple of years. One thing I realized about Atlanta is it's hot, right? And and we were tra uh my my ex-wife and I were traveling all over the place and not staying in Atlanta. So I ended up during the dot-com days, I ended up coming back up to the Northeast where I am now, and went for the IPO internet startup. That lasted a few years. I did amazingly well there, right? Not money-wise, but technology-wise. Uh, there were some crazy things that I had done. So the the company was called Dash.com, and I was the lead uh developer architect on the product. And um, it was an amazing product, but it folded because all the investors were like, we don't want to have anything to do with duck comms. And I was looking around, did some stints in the another startup in the gaming industry. That was really cool. I got to go to the game developer conference, met with Sony and Disney and Microsoft and a few others demoing our products in a from a hotel room. So typical startup stuff, right? Um, that gaming startups are just are worse than dot-coms. They fold quickly. And I decided to go to Microsoft. And I was there for 10 years. And what I realized is I was making a lot of Microsoft customers extremely wealthy. I mean, I saw so many different companies, HR Block, Associated Press, um, you know, a lot of healthcare companies. And I worked on some amazing things, NASDAQ, MathWorks, you know, you name it. I would see 60 customers a year, and I was always helping them with the highest risk items. So I eventually got pulled out of Microsoft from a former boss of mine at Microsoft and went into consulting, bounced around for a little bit because uh I got burnt out with consulting, but then finally decided, you know what, it's time to go on my own. And I met my business partner. He and I met at Microsoft in 2001. He was chief architect at State Street at the time. And we knew we were gonna do something big one day. And in 2015, we started it. It's great. Wait, my only regret is not doing it sooner. That's my only regret, right?
SPEAKER_01My only regret. So but you know, maybe it wouldn't be what it is today if you'd have done it sooner. Maybe, you know, it was the right time.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, maybe it was. You know, uh maybe it was. And you know, there are days when um being an entrepreneur and owning a company and having um customers and employees and everything else, I'm like, oh, this is difficult. But I wouldn't have it any other way.
SPEAKER_01Agreed. Although only days. I mean, yes, I always say to people, if you want the easy option, if you want to, especially young entrepreneurs or or or or you know, aspiring entrepreneurs, I'm like, if you want to make money, go get a job. Long term, there's nothing quite like being an entrepreneur, but don't think it's an easy option. It's it's definitely not. And I wouldn't do anything else.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So what's interesting about that is um, because I know we talk about a lot of different things. I'll I'll highlight something to you. Given everything I do during my day, my number one task of anybody I have a relationship with is don't create any drama. Right. And uh it's funny, I was out for Valentine's Day with my girlfriend, and uh, she's like, Hey, what can I do for you? Right. And I'm like, I'm like, babe. I said, thanks for asking about that. I said, I have big things to do this year. I said, I just want two things from you peace and joy. And that's it. She goes, I can do that. So I'm like, done. Perfect. Yeah, perfect.
SPEAKER_01I was like, yeah, do talk to us about how family looks for you.
SPEAKER_00So, you know, let me preface this. I was married for 24 years. Um uh my ex-wife and I are divorced. So we have two adult kids. Uh, they're great kids. I have a son who's in his um almost mid-20s. I have a daughter who's in her early 20s. Uh he does amazing stuff. He's an aerospace engineer and a computer science major, and now he's doing some crazy stuff that I can't talk about. My daughter is a biomedical engineering major, wants to uh and is pre-med to be a uh cardiothoracic surgeon. Okay, so really smart kids. My ex-wife is really smart. I'm really smart. Um, it only makes sense that they're doing amazing things. I'm happy for them. I do have a girlfriend now. You know, we're going on six, seven months, which is great. So family life for me is whenever I can spending time with my kids. My son is coming up next week. We're going to a game developer conference here in Boston. He's bringing his girlfriend, and it's also a conference I give tickets to my employees quite often, right? So they get to go. And then um, I'll see him again in a month. It's his birthday. We're gonna travel and go to a concert and things like that. And so we're looking forward to that. But otherwise, it's me very focused on, you know, myself, you know, making carving out time. I don't see my kids and uh because they're living their own lives, right? I mean, I talk to them, I see them at the holidays, we make time to spend together. But otherwise, it's me and my girlfriend. And my girlfriend, she gets it, she knows I have to do big things. I see her about once, maybe twice a week. Either I go to her place or she comes to my place and we spend the weekend together. And that's life for me, right? And even when I'm at her place, you know, if she's sleeping, I'm piling away at the computer doing work. And um the entrepreneurial, uh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that that's essentially my well, that's essentially what it is. But, you know, the one person that I didn't mention is me, right? And, you know, my biggest thing right now is I have to invest in myself. And, you know, so, you know, I consider myself a part of that. Part of me taking a trip with my son is me. Part of me, I have a trip beginning of April where I'm going to Southern California and I'm riding motorcycles with like 30 guys. I haven't ridden a motorcycle since I was like 16, but I'm taking a four-day trek on a motorcycle.
SPEAKER_01That probably leads into a couple of the next questions I've got. But the next one is how does health look for you?
SPEAKER_00So maybe I should send you a picture of how I looked years ago. So I mean, listen, health is something that is so uber important for an entrepreneur, okay? And if I go back about three and a half years ago, uh, I was very unhealthy, extremely unhealthy. I was like 300 pounds. I had two doctors independently tell me I was going to die within a month, okay? And uh I'm type two diabetic. And you know, I was I was going through the divorce, everything else. It takes a toll on you. You can if you don't have good health, it takes a toll on you, and you can't be there for yourself or anybody else. So I got to work and I dropped the weight. I continued to drop the weight and I put in the time. And you gotta figure out a time for a balance of both. And um, you know, I was just on a workation where I was focused on my company and and strategy efforts and and things that we needed to get done, but I needed to isolate myself. So I went to Bali and every day I would wake up early, I'd walk down to the gym, I would work out for 45 minutes. And this this was my like one of these retreat for men things. So, and then I would have breakfast. And of course, it was all like man food, right? High protein, low carb, vegetables, that type of stuff. And then I would go up and it would work, and I would work for four hours, and I would take a quick nap. Wake up, maybe work for a little bit more, and then I would go work out again and do another 45 minutes. And then I would um take time to relax. I would do a cold plunge, sauna, sit by the fire. Now that is not something I can do every day. What I try to do is work out, you know, three to five times a week, more like five times a week. I used to work out seven times a week, but that's that's a lot. And uh I do other things, you know, like part of me doing the motorcycle trip in April is hey, it's it's not gonna be easy. And you know, I I I I keep thinking, is it gonna be it's not gonna be easy, it's gonna be difficult. But I don't want that. I want my personal life to reflect health and fitness and everything else. I have a trainer. I can't afford to have him every day or anything like that. He's a professional MMA fighter. You know, I'll actually give him a shout out. His name is Vinicius Jesus, the Brazilian bad boy, right? He used to fight fight for Bellator and he comes up and we trained five hours straight. Five hours straight. He's trying to enter the UFC. Um, and I think he'll do it, right? And I told him if he enters the UFC, we're gonna go to Bali. Him and I, we're gonna go do that same thing I did. But I came back from Bali and he came to visit me for our training, and he was like, whoa. And I was like, Yeah, right. In fact, I need to go back to Bali because I'm back here. I'm not doing the same rituals that I was doing in Bali and I'm in America. Sorry, Americans, right? Our food here sucks. It's not the healthiest thing. And, you know, the 15 pounds I lost while I was in Bali, I've gained probably half of it back at least. And I'm not happy about that. But, you know, it's a constant struggle. But it's a struggle that if you don't put up, it's a problem, especially for entrepreneurs.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, a friend of mine said to me last night, uh, we were talking about something, and she said, I didn't realize you were vain. And she wasn't being she wasn't being particularly negative. She was just saying, you know, and I'm like, yeah, I'm vain. I'm not massively vain, but like that's why I'm not 95 pounds heavier than I am now, like I was 20 years ago. As in, some vainess is why last night I shared a burger with her because that was enough food. You know, that's why I'm not eating desserts every meal. That's why I'm not do you know what I mean? Like the easy option. So there is an amount of vain, whether it's uh it's not a vain that I'm staring in the mirror. But yeah, it's health is important to me. And do you know what? I like looking good. And by the way, that is both vain, but it's also what will allow me to live a healthier, happy life long term.
SPEAKER_00So I and we'll have to highlight something here. You talk about health. I got the whoop, I got the aura ring, I had to take the Apple Watch off because it was going nuts, right? It was like notifying me of like 50 things. I'm like, no, I'm in the middle of a podcast, but I also have uh this, which is for my glucose. And so I often refer to myself as I'm my own internet of things. I'm more connected to the internet than anybody out there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. No, I get it. And it's all uh, you know, I've got a smart scale I step on in the mornings. I've got, you know, yeah, yeah. Um, and um, what do you, apart from going for four-day motorbikes, what do you like to do for fun?
SPEAKER_00You know, I actually like to travel. And fortunately, I'm stepping back into a thought leadership role in my company. It's what helps start the company. And because I'm stepping back into that thought leadership role, I'm putting myself back out there. And because I'm putting myself back out there, I'm able to travel. Next week, I'm gonna be in Redmond, Washington. The beginning of April, I'll be in New York. Second week of April, I'll be in Southern California. Uh, I'm gonna be in Amsterdam in May. I'll be in San Francisco in June. I love to travel. In fact, uh, you know, what I'm doing now is um I'm rekindling my thought leadership brand, and I am building content, and as a part of that, I get to figure out what makes sense for travel and go do that. And I enjoy travel, so that's what happens, all right? Yeah, that being said, that's work, right? Of course, I love to travel for personal reasons, you know. Um in December I traveled to Quebec with my trainer, my girlfriend, and my videographer, photographer guy, and we hired a private chef. Okay, we did that. Yeah, why did we do that? Well, I have content that I'm creating for my my podcast, and we're doing a whole bunch of stuff, but I'm not gonna let that be the only thing I did, right? I went skiing, enjoyed that, trained, you know. We filmed a Rocky montage of me training in the middle of winter, you know, kind of like the Rocky Four, you know, goes to Russia type thing. So um so I don't know, you know, I I like doing so many things. I like music and concerts, I like traveling, I like going to the beaches, I like skiing. You know what it is? If I were to do the same thing over and over and over and over and over again, I'd get bored. That's what I do.
SPEAKER_01So that is what part that's I think that's probably part of the entrepreneurial journey as well. We like variation. What um so what for you has been a pivotal moment in your life?
SPEAKER_00Okay. I'm gonna share with you a story that that I think influenced me being an entrepreneur. So my father passed away when I was three. My mom raised my brother and I as a single mom. She uh ended up with her high school boyfriend for about five years. He was not a nice man. Okay, so she got rid of him when I was about ten, which meant life was difficult for her again, but she had to get rid of him. He was not a nice man, he was an abusive man. And um, I remember when I was that age, like a year later, I was eleven, and I would walk home from school by myself. I came in the back door, and my mom was sitting at the kitchen table, and she was crying, and she was drunk, and she was miserable. And she's like, I don't know how I'm gonna put food on the table. Okay. And boys and their mothers, boys and their mothers. I saw this. I was eleven years old. The very next day I got a job. The very next day, and I became a paper boy. And the guy comes to our house and he's sitting on our steps talking to me. And it was interesting because in New Jersey, where we were living, you had to be 13 in order to have a job. And he asked me, he's like, What's your age? I'd said 11, right? He goes, what's your age? Thinking that me as an 11-year-old understands what he's trying to get me to say, right? And he goes, You're 13, right? And I'm like, no, I'm 11. He goes, You're 13, right? No, I'm 11. And then he goes to ask me again. And before he asked me, my mom puts her hand on my shoulder, right? Just like this. And says, You're 13, right? And I'm like, uh-huh. And I've been working ever since. And so there are things, and I don't know if these were good decisions. I've worked, I've been working since I was 11. Just means that there are things that I didn't get to experience as a kid. So when I had kids, I didn't want them to go through that. Part of me, I don't regret the decision, but part of me wonders whether that was the right thing to do. Is they didn't want, they didn't need. I wanted them to just be kids. My son and daughter did amazing things when they were in middle and high school. My son was the number one swimmer in all of New England. He's ranked nationally. He went to Florida to swim in a national meet, and he was swimming against swimmers like Ryan Lati at 14. 14. I couldn't deny him of something like that. My daughter was the lead programmer for the first robotics competition for high school. I can't deny them of those type of experiences. But at the same time, it begs the question are they learning the life skills that I learned? I think in some cases, yes, and in some cases, no. So yeah.
SPEAKER_01And uh what what is uh one piece of advice that you would give to an sparring entrepreneur?
SPEAKER_00You know, it's it's the one I think that's come top to mind recently. I'm I sort of mentioned it a little earlier, is you know, I I already mentioned it. I I'm gonna basically say this keep your circle small, okay? You have big things to do, don't let others dissuade you from doing them. That journey is not gonna be easy. There are gonna people tell you, oh, that's not possible, or why are you doing that? They they don't understand, right? And the best entrepreneurs are the ones that don't listen to the negativity and just go ahead and do. And um, the one I was gonna mention from earlier was comfort is your enemy. You know, listen, I make some money, and I don't make the money I need to make or want to make, but I make some money, I have a good apartment, I have good food, I can go out to dinner, you know, I can go on a couple of trips here and there, that type of thing. Otherwise, nothing, right? I do not want comfort because it fuels my drive to do amazing things. And many of the times people have told me, oh, you can't do that. That's my company, right? I remember there was probably a handful of people who said, Oh, you're never gonna survive. Oh, you're never gonna do that. Oh, really? Right. And here we are. How many companies succeed and die within the first year, three years, five years? We're a 10-plus-year-old company. There you go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, thank you. I really appreciated uh, you know, hearing some of your views on these things. And how can people find you?
SPEAKER_00So I have a podcast, Inventing Fire with AI. Um, so you can find it on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, that type of stuff. You can also visit our company website at mil5.com. I'm also on Instagram, so you can ping me there. And uh, I'm pretty much on every social media platform out there because I'm reinvigorating my thought leadership brand. So you'll see me out there. So easy to find, right?
SPEAKER_01Excellent. Well, thank you. Uh it's good good to chat and good to uh to hear all of your views and your journey. Thank you, Leo. I really appreciate being here. Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you enjoyed the conversation, don't forget to subscribe to the channel, tell your friends, and leave a review.