Balance is about cutting out the noise | Kyle Clements | S7 E1

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👤 Connect with Today’s Guest – Kyle Clements
Website: https://quipli.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kyleclements/

What does it take to build a company without facing burnout?

In this episode, Kyle Clements, Founder and CEO of Quipli, shares how experiences at Uber and other venture-backed startups improved his mindset and prepared him to launch his own company and why he believes entrepreneurship should be sustainable, not exhausting.

Kyle discusses building Quipli during the pandemic, raising three young daughters while running a startup, and how marathon training has shaped his philosophy on balance. Instead of sprinting through entrepreneurship, he compares building a business to staying in Zone 2: a pace you can maintain for the long run and avoid burnout.

We also talk about focus, delegation, family, parenthood, health, and the courage required to become a founder.

What you’ll learn:

• Why sustainable success beats constant hustle
• How running shaped Kyle’s leadership philosophy and nurtured his resilience
• The importance of focus and eliminating distractions for personal development and businesses
• Why founders must learn to delegate and trust their teams
• How family influences better decisions and thriving in business
• Burnout is not a requirement

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Transcript

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ultimately balance is getting to a point where I think there's no, there's no clock. How long can you do it? I can do this forever because it's sort of like when you're running, right? And you can do that zone to run and you effectively just can keep going because the oxygen you're bringing in can kind of sustain you. If you start sprinting in the zone, three, four or five, there's a shelf life to how long you can run. And I think ultimately balance is staying in that zone two heart rate where you effectively could go forever, right? If you had enough fuel Welcome to A Founder's Life. I'm your host, Leo Kastetna. 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. Email founders at thanks.com, that's T-H-A-N-K-Z.com with the subject line, A Founder's Life, and you'll receive preferred pricing. I'm excited today to be joined by Carl Clements. Carl, thank you for joining. Would you like to introduce yourself to the audience? Sure, well thanks for having me Leo. It's good to talk to another founder. It's a lonely world out there. and lows. But I'm Kyle, live in Atlanta, Georgia. I've got three daughters under five, got a dog. And I'm the founder and CEO of Quipley. We are an equipment rental software serving the 10,000 independent equipment rental companies in the US and Canada. Been running the about five years and moving more into AI now. And it's been awesome. My background before this, I've been part of other startups, three other startups as an early employee, all three exited. Zuby, Clutch and Uber. So I've been part of the startup ecosystem for 15 years and wanted to start my own five years ago after taking all those lessons myself. So I've got the bug, I'm addicted to it. For better or worse, this is my life. Love that. And talk to us a little more about that journey. So you mentioned some of the companies that you worked with, but talk to us a little more about that journey that brought you to where you are today. Yeah. When I was in college, I was studying civil engineering. did an internship and I was like, man, I do not want to be a civil engineer. And it was kind of like a existential crisis of like, what am going to do with my life? And I spent another summer interning with a small business owner and he had a kayak company and he was throwing all this excess kayak material away in the trash. And I asked him on my first day, said, Hey, can I take some of this material and recycle it and start building some product lines? So we've built some dog collars, wallets, and that first week. me working there, we started a company called Reboat. And that company lasted less than nine months, the not generate a lot of revenue, we were not profitable, we shut the company down. But I loved it. And I said, this is what I want to do with my life. want to build companies. And for me at 22 years old, you know, you can start a company at any age, I felt like I wanted to go learn as an apprentice. So I just spent the next eight or nine years doing working for three venture backed companies, all three of them were in the automotive space. So Zuby was a telematics company that was acquired by TSD. I worked at clutch as a vehicle subscription service rather than buying or leasing a car. could subscribe to a fleet of cars and that company was acquired by Cox automotive. And then I went to Uber right before the IPO was there for about a year and a half. So all three were in the automotive tech space. And, you know, was 29 years old and I was like, I don't know if there's ever a good time to start a company COVID was happening. And I tried to rent something online from a equipment rental national company. And it was a terrible experience. And I said, man, if these guys can't do it, what are the independence doing? So we started building online renting websites for rental companies. And that turned into, Hey, can you build us the full software? And we, don't know if we were smart enough or stupid enough to do that. So that's how we kind of got into building the full ERP system we've been doing now for several years. So, um, it's kind of just one thing left to another. And I think ultimately I knew at 22 years old, what I wanted to do. And I wanted to do it and learn it the right way. think the biggest jump and the biggest scary part was saying, All right. It's been eight years. I've been learning now. When are you going to be the founder to take the jump? Right. And that was the part of like no return. You know, that was, that was a scary point. Wow, sounds like a great story, a great journey, and you managed to make some of the mistakes in other people's times. And so then talk to us about family. So three daughters under five, that's a handful. Yes. Yeah. Full life. you know, I've had all three, all three, all three girls are younger than quickly somehow, which still feels like, my original baby and still very young itself. but you know, family is super important and more important than work is as important work is to me. Family is the most important thing. And I didn't want to have the trade off of, can I start a company or can I have a family? And I think if you do it right and you're a patient, you can do both. And that's what I prioritize. So I'm not trying to be, be Elon Musk and work 30 hours a day and go crazy. I mean, I work hard, but like family is a part of that. One thing that I've done that's helped is, you we started the company during COVID, so everybody was remote, but we stayed remote and not everybody likes that. And it's hard to get the right people. But part of that is I get to be around my kids. So I've seen all three of them take their first steps at home. And some of those are during the workday. You go in at 12 o'clock, you lunch with my family. So I'm in my back house here where I work, but I think that work-life balance, I think more of it about as an integrated life. I ultimately want to be the same person at work as I am with my family. And they are very intertwined. It's hard to separate the two sometimes. But for me, one of the practical things is being able to work remote, work from home. the main reason I do that is to be around my family. Yeah, had nothing quite like that, spending the time with the kids. Talk to us about health. So, you know, again, I often talk about mental health, physical health, nutrition, sleep, however it looks for you. Talk to us about sort of how your health journey is. Yeah, I think I think we've talked previously, I think you're another marathon runner doing the global marathons. I mean, for me, like, if you think about the big rocks, like, I think family is important. Honestly, I would say maybe even more important in a weird way is your own health. Because if you can't, you're not a full cup and rested and your best self, you can't serve other people well, right? I think you got to take care of yourself before you can take care of your family. And then you can take care of your employees, and then you can take care of your community and then and then the world that you got to do that right. I think I do for me ultimately starts with my my health and I sleep eight hours every single night. I exercise every day. I eat okay. But for me like health is if you're not balanced in your health, then I have not been my best self when I'm when I'm not that. So for me, I really like to run. I'm not the best one running the world, but I run six days a week. No phone, no headphones use about 45 minutes or an hour. And that's my time where I can be alone. You know, the world can't reach me. I can get my physical health, but the number one benefit for me is the mental side of things. And I think my doctor told me, she was like, if you weren't running every day, you'd be on 10 different medicines for anxiety and depression and all these things. like exercise to me really is the miracle drug. And I start every day with that. I'll try to meditate for 10 minutes in the mornings as well. So I spend a lot of time before I even get to work, making sure I'm showing up properly, which with getting the sleep, getting the exercise, the meditation, and when I'm ready to start working, I start working. And I think, you know, Jeff Bezos talks about, he doesn't start work till 10 AM. He won't take meetings before 10. And I've taken that approach too, not cause I'm trying to be like Jeff Bezos, but because I need a lot of time to think and be ready for the world. Right. Cause once you start work, you're slaying dragons, right? And you're not on at your top shape, you're gonna, you're gonna pay the price later. Yeah, and seem to remember you've done an Iron Man as well as you're running. That was more than a 45 minute morning commitment. actually got my, so I did the iron man, seven years ago, actually as a way, my mom was sick and that was my way to sort of process a hard season for me. And I'd sort of put all of that energy into an iron man. I don't aspire to do another one, but actually, I don't have to tell you this two weeks ago, I got my iron man tattoo. So I got my first tattoo two weeks ago on my calf. So, That was sort of, yeah, I had turned 35 and I was like, not that that's old, but I'd always wanted to get one and I'm like, what am I waiting for? So I, it's now permanent. Nice, does that mean you're gonna do another Iron Man? That's what my wife asked. And I said, no, I have no plans to, but, not, not while I'm running quickly, maybe after quickly, I'll have more energy or time, but, I'll stick to my writing for now. for us, a big dying commitment. I think I definitely agree with you. The one thing I always like from Jeff Bezos, I mean, I don't sleep eight hours a night, I'd love to. I'd have no problem with sleeping that beyond the fact that my body wakes up and says, let's get stuff done. But I've always loved the fact that he is someone who says, he sleeps eight hours a night. There's none of this crap that people are like, oh, I sleep four hours a night. Well, okay, that's just not healthy. And I think... One of things I also grew with what you're talking about is running. mean, you know, I'm a big runner. do listen when I'm running. I do have headphones and things, but I still, find it very meditative. I mean, you know, people who aren't runners never quite understand that, but it is actually, when you're in the zone and you're out there running, it's meditative, it's peaceful. It's, yeah, I mean, you can just quite happily carry on going. don't know if you find it for yourself, but for me, like people ask me how many hours I work. I'm like, would you count my running? And they're like, that's actually when I'm running for whatever it is, six hours a week, I'm almost always thinking and working through a problem. And when you're no cell phone, no distractions, you just kind of force yourself to wrestle with whatever you're dealing with for an hour. Right. And for me, that is work for sure. And I think part of the iron man is you're not allowed to listen to anything during the race. So I was forced in my training. It's like, well, I'm going to learn. to be by myself. And I felt, I don't know if you feel like with running, but I certainly do is that the hardest part of running, it's not the physical part. It's the mental side of being alone, getting out there. The running itself is just one step after another. That's not the hard part. It's the mental side, right? And I don't know if you find the same for you. Yeah, I mean I definitely get that one I think but I do need my phone number one I do like listening to things I know when I was doing triathlons you can't with triathlons, but with marathons you can and and I do enjoy listening I also have a really bad memory so I need to write stuff down So like you're talking about thinking through that business problem Yeah, I'm thinking through things all the time, but I got to write down the solutions. Otherwise, I've forgotten it. But someone get back agree with that. I know for sure. I've probably forgotten dozens of things, but the way I've thought about it is if it's important enough, I will remember it when I get back. And maybe that's my wishful thinking of pretending I have a better memory than I have, but there's certainly things I'm like, I have this great insight and I'm sure I've forgotten it by the time I get home. It's fair enough, you probably do have a better memory. You also have the advantage of little less grey hair. So one request for the audience, if you're enjoying these conversations, please do click subscribe. then Kyle, the next thing is talk just little bit about what you like to do for fun. What do like to do for fun? Well, working and being with my family and running is fun to me. I like the sense of achievement and that's what that is my life. I don't have a lot of space outside of that. However, I like to golf. It's been less often lately. I'm lucky if I get four or five times, four or five rounds a year. I've recently got into, not recently, they've been my team for a while, but the last five years I've been watching them more often is Arsenal Premier League soccer. It's perfect because it's on. At 8am, 9am in the morning. So I'm kind of around with the kids. I'm a early bird. watching them has been fun. They won the premier league this week. So I was very happy to see that. so yeah, that's that. mean, work is fun to me. My being with my family is fun. Running is fun. You know, I like to do rate different races. you know, I know you like to do the major marathons. I've been trying to do one a year. Last year we did New York city this year. I'm doing Berlin. So part of that trip, my wife and I will go, we'll do 10 days and do sort of a trip around the race. So. Travel is a big part, golf, and watching Arsenal. Those are the things I like to do. Sound like good activities. I'm not sure I'd choose Arsenal, but know, each to their own. I'm not sure, you know, I don't have a direct team. My closest would be, would have to be Brighton. But that's because the family have been involved in a long time and yeah, so sort of spent the last 25 years a lot around Brighton. appreciate you didn't pick a like a major big 16 like all the other Americans here who all like Chelsea and Man City and the big ones you picked a mean it helps that I'm not American, So looking at that and we started talking about balanced integration, have you ever looked at it live? So how do you define that for you? How do I define balance? mean, I think, I just, it's family and work and community, it's all these things together. And I sort of had this view that you don't actually have to choose if you're patient. You can build these things simultaneously. So for me, I just ultimately want to be proud of the life that I'm living. And I think I want to be proud. I wanna be a father, I wanna be a proud business owner, I be a proud athlete. And I think for me, I choose the things that are most important and cut out the rest. So 10 years ago, I played a lot of golf. I was really good at golf. I'm not good at golf anymore. And I tried to cut some of that stuff out. I used to watch every single sporting event ever on TV. I cut a lot of that out, right? So I think for me, balance is really around choosing the most important things in your life. And for me, it's my family, it's my work, it's my health. And if I have... The time around that I'll watch Arsenal and I will play some golf and things. I think for me it's focus and you kind of cut out lot of the noise. I got rid of social media a year ago, sort of that sort of stuff to prioritize the big rocks. And I think the big rocks for me can be, it's different, it's very personal thing. Someone else may have a different list of things. But I think one of the dangers is you try to do too many things. I'm gonna have 10 big rocks and I think that's where you can fall short. But I think if you have a few things and you make those the most important things, that ultimately gives me balance in my life. I love that. I think that definition of balance is almost being the cutting out the noise and deciding what's important. think that's a great definition. founder, I would just say like, that is like, as a, as a, have to do that, right? You have to say, no, that's the superpower is focus. And a lot of your listeners, all your founders know that you know this, right? I think the danger would just say, yes, I like it. You can do this. You can do this. You can do anything you can't, but you can't do everything. And I think that's the hard part is, um, when there was 22 as an aspirational founder, I'm going to do all these, I'm going to do 10 businesses at once. Right. And like, you're lucky if you could do one thing well. Right. So I think the focus part is super important. It's very true. I remember my first business that I had employees, a long time ago, in fact I was 22, 21, 22, and the first piece of advice someone ever gave me is, you know, you need to hire people and you need to let them make mistakes because you can't do everything yourself. Yeah, you can't grow a business. a founder last week, we were sort of started at the same time, we've been peers and our styles are very different. I'm very hands off and I have a team and trust the team and I expect and want them to make mistakes. And he asked me, like, how do you, how do you deal with your team making mistakes? I'm like, what do mean? They've like, they have to make mistakes. If they're not making mistakes, then they're not pushing, right? And he's now learning that process, the white knuckle, I'm going to do every single job my way. I'm going to do everything. that can work, but you're not going to scale that. The size of the company is directly limited to how many hours you can work, right? If we go back to the balance perspective, how do you build a company and run marathons and watch soccer and have a family? Well, you have to let go of stuff because if I was going to be do every single sale and every single engineering line, I mean, your company is going to be very small compared to what it could be. If you build the team and it's part of building that team, letting them fail, right? That's hard though. Letting go is hard. agreed. he probably does not have a very balanced life. He's probably pretty stressed a lot of the time. he's like, I'm white knuckling. I I've got another six to 12 months of this left. And I'm like, that's not great for his company, right? Um, ultimately balance is getting to a point where I think there's no, there's no clock. How long can you do it? I can do this forever because it's sort of like when you're running, right? And you can do that zone to run and you effectively just can keep going because the oxygen you're bringing in can kind of sustain you. If you start sprinting in the zone, three, four or five, there's a shelf life to how long you can run. And I think ultimately balance is staying in that zone two heart rate where you effectively could go forever, right? If you had enough fuel and I look at him and I'm go, he's in zone five and that's gonna blow up at some point, right? Yep, that makes lot of sense. So talk to us a little bit about what's been a pivotal moment in your life. Pivotal moment for me, I mean, it was that 2019, 2020 years. You know, I think a lot of times pivotal moments are not fun moments, at least for me, it's usually something hard happened. I got a course rectum. For me, was, you know, I was married. We got married in 2018. Four months later, my mom was diagnosed with stage four brain cancer at 56. She had less than a year to live. So we went to DC. We moved to DC, worked at Uber for a year. I did the Ironman. I was kind of like, Just kind of live in life. Uh, the pandemic happened and, our whole team was laid off from Uber at that time. And, know, just kind of the series of events in the last, in the 12 month period, I was married, I did an Ironman, I moved, started a job, laid off and my mom passed away. And it was like, that is like, talk about the 29, why did I ultimately decide to start the company? Well, I just kind of got to this perspective of life is going really fast and life is short. And if you have dreams in life, you got to go forward. So all of those things together. set me up to say, okay, I'm ready to go. And I rented that piece of equipment at that time. And so everything came together and I made the leap to start quickly. but it was that series of things where, for the first time in my life, I dealt with a series of setbacks. That was really hard. And I think you kind of have to choose how you react to it. And there was a period of depression and just really hard, you know, thoughts about, you know, just being in a hard space. But I think ultimately inspired me to go for these goals. Right. And also it took that really hard season and made it something. Beautiful, honestly, it's something that I can be proud of. I love that. And what is one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring entrepreneur? One piece of advice. I I could have known as you know, there's a thousand things you could say. I think for me, like we talked about for my family, we're talking about our kids are learning to swim right now. They're just swimming. They don't want to go. They don't like it. They're scared to put their head in the water. And I told them the same thing. My dad told me growing up, there are three things, do your best, do what's right and treat others the way you want to be treated. And I think ultimately that's how I think about life and swimming and whatever. So for the kids, I told them this morning, like, gotta do your best. I don't care if you're the best swimmer or the worst swimmer, but show up and do your best. do it the right way and treat other people with respect. I don't know, that's not specific business advice for a founder, but that's how I like to live my life. And that's probably what I would say. Good advice. And flashback to me teaching my kids to swim many, years ago. Like, it's, man, it's tough. They don't like the water. They don't, it's, it is pretty scary though. You think about it as a kid, jumping underwater for the first time, putting your face in the water. It's not like a natural thing. And, you know, three years old, you gotta be brave. Yep. And as an entrepreneur, you've got to be brave. It's not very different to learn to swim is, you know, that same sort of mindset is not very different than starting a company, right? It's you're jumping into the unknown. Very, very true. So, well, thank you for joining us today. How can people find you? I'm on LinkedIn, Kyle Clements. You can look me up on LinkedIn. That is the social media I do have. Our company is Quipley. Q-U-I-P-L-I. Go to quipley.com to learn more about us. Well, thank you. Great to have you on the show. Thanks having me, Leo. And thank you 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.