February 13, 2024 • 42 mins
Picture this: a high schooler with a lawnmower turns his grass-cutting gig into a landscaping empire, only to sell it all and jump headfirst into the tech ocean, without even a floatie of coding knowledge. That's the story of Bryan Clayton, CEO and co-founder of GreenPal, who joins us to share the gripping tale of his entrepreneurial metamorphosis. Bryan's journey echoes the audacious spirit of the startup pioneers before him, and in this episode, we trek alongside him as he recounts the early, hand-cranked days of GreenPal, paralleling the grit shown by the likes of DoorDash and Instacart founders. It's a narrative that reverberates with the heart-pounding excitement of embracing the unknown and the sheer tenacity needed to transform a vision into a viable tech enterprise.
Ever heard of someone teaching themselves to swim by jumping into the deep end? That's precisely what Bryan did in the tech world's vast coding pool. We peel back the curtain on the struggle of being a non-technical founder in the tech space, where outsourcing development led to more headaches than solutions. Bryan's frank account of these challenges underscores a pivotal moment: the decision to learn to code and rebuild the GreenPal platform personally. His story is a powerful reminder of how perseverance and a willingness to take control can catalyze growth, from a mere 10 users to over 300,000. It's an episode brimming with valuable insights into the transformative power of rolling up your sleeves and learning by doing.
As Bryan transitions from the nitty-gritty of coding to the strategic vistas of CEO, he emphasizes the harmony between delegation and understanding the core of web development. We explore the nuances of front-end and back-end work, and why grasping these concepts is crucial for quality control and effective leadership. Bryan's narrative is an inspirational rallying cry, highlighting the builder's mindset as the cornerstone for any entrepreneur. We dissect the Lean Startup methodology and the sometimes counterintuitive lessons that come with it, providing an unvarnished look at the importance of validating your business idea through real-world customer interactions and the iterative learning that underpins the startup odyssey. Join us for a session that is as much a masterclass in startup resilience as it is a heartening story of entrepreneurial pluck.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Bryan Clayton (00:00):
Oh, I gotta like onboard all this supply and I
gotta get like the interfacesand the onboarding processes for
supply and I gotta go to tradenetworks or trade groups for
supply and bring them on and I'mlike, dude, no, just just hard
code.
Three suppliers that you don'tneed any of.
That is hard code.
Three supplier profiles You'reone of them, by the way.
(00:22):
You know you're gonna be selffulfilling one of them and two
others, and then go figure outhow to get a hundred consumers
and it's like, well, no, no, no,no, no, I don't want to do any
of that.
I don't want to do any of that.
I don't want to deliver fastfood.
I don't want to go delivergroceries, I don't want to.
You know, whatever it is they'retrying to do, and you know
(00:45):
there's countless stories of thesuccessful founders that you
know that have hand cranked thestuff.
The founders of DoorDash theydelivered the Chinese food.
The founders of Instacart theybought one of every item in the
grocery store and hauled allthat back to their little
apartment and took pictures ofall of it and then would go
(01:05):
deliver the stuff as peopleordered it.
So you got a hand crank it inthe early days, and so usually
the advice is always likebeating that into somebody's
head.
Tim Bourguignon (01:15):
Hello and welcome to Devilpuss Journey,
the podcast bringing you themaking of stories of successful
software developers to help youon your upcoming journey.
I'm your host, tim Boulgigno.
On this episode I receivedBrian Clayton.
Brian is a CEO and co-founderof GreenPal.
His background was inlandscaping and before GreenPal
(01:36):
he had no experience in softwaredevelopment.
But that was before, andactually I'll stop right there
because that's the story we wantto hear directly from him.
So, brian, a warm welcome toDevilpuss Journey.
Bryan Clayton (01:48):
Tim, it's great to be here.
Thanks for having me on oh it'smy pleasure.
Tim Bourguignon (01:51):
I'm really looking forward to that story.
But before we come to yourstory, I want to thank the
terrific listeners who supportthe show.
Every month.
You are keeping the DevilpussJourney lights up.
If you would like to join thisfine crew and help me spend more
time on finding phenomenalguests than editing audio tracks
(02:12):
, please go to our website,devjourneyinfo and click on the
support me on Patreon button.
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable dev journey Journey.
Thank you, and now back totoday's guest, brian.
As you know, the show exists tohelp the listeners understand
(02:32):
what your story looked like andimagine how to shape their own
future.
So, as is usual on the show,let's go back to your beginnings
.
Can you tell us the story thatled to that start of your dev
journey?
Bryan Clayton (02:45):
Yeah, well, so GreenPal is an app that works
like Uber or Instacart orDoorDash, but for lawn care
services.
So if you're a homeowner, youneed to get a grass cutting
service.
You just download GreenPal, popyour address in.
Someone comes out, takes careof you.
And the reason why I mentionedthat is because I guess the
journey started 25 years ago,when I started mowing yards in
(03:07):
high school as a way to makeextra cash.
I wanted a pair of soccercleats that were 150 bucks and
my parents said no, we're goingto buy you the $20 soccer cleats
.
And I didn't want the $20soccer cleats.
And so I found out that myneighbor wanted their grass cut
and so I mowed the neighbor'sgrass, got paid $20.
(03:28):
And I did that about six moretimes and I got the money for
the cleats and so I didn't haveto wear the cheap cleats.
It didn't make me any better ofa football player, but I found
out something really early onthat maybe my lane in life was
having my own little business,and so I stuck with that
(03:49):
lawnmowing business all throughhigh school, all through college
, and when I graduated college Ididn't really want to go get a
job.
I liked having my own littlebusiness.
So I made a little businessplan and ended up building that
lawnmowing business into a realcompany, growing it little by
little, year over year over a 15year period of time to around
(04:10):
150 employees, eight figures inrevenue eventually, and then it
was acquired.
I sold it in 2013 to a bignational company that operates
thousands of employeesthroughout the country, and so
after that, I took some time offand I started observing what
was happening in 2013 in themobile revolution, and
(04:36):
marketplaces were emerging andmaking real world experiences
happen.
You know, up until then,technology was very much.
It was very much bits.
It wasn't Adams, it was.
It was screens that you wouldinteract with and and bits would
move.
But you started seeingmarketplaces come about, like
(04:57):
Airbnb and Uber and Amazon, to adegree where you could interact
with a screen and things wouldhappen in the real world.
You could interact with us witha interface on your phone and a
car would pick you up or apackage would show up, and so I
thought I thought, man, somebodyis going to build a marketplace
to make this industry that Iknow work smooth and seamless.
(05:20):
And and why can't that be me?
The movie, the social network,made it look really easy.
And so I watched that and theybuilt a.
They built a Billion dollarempire in two hours.
So so that was.
That looked really easy.
So why can't I do that?
(05:41):
I never I had never built awebsite or even knew what HTML
was or anything like that.
And so I thought, well, howhard could it be?
I'll just pay some developersand you know, we'll build this
app, I will call it GreenPow andand and we'll see if we can do
it.
And so I did that, recruitedtwo co-founders and we set out
(06:04):
to build the Uber for lawn care.
And we didn't let the.
We didn't let it stop us thatwe didn't know how to code,
never knew, never had tried tobuild any software before.
And so the first thing we did iswe paid a development shop all
of our money we had we pulledtogether $150,000 between the
three of us and we paid a devshop to build what we thought
GreenPow should be.
(06:24):
And it was a total failure.
It was a disaster, but we wereable to get like 10 customers
and we thought, well, 10 peoplewant to use it, and, and, and,
maybe we can turn that into 100.
And so we taught ourselves howto code, taught ourselves how to
build software, and and now, 10years later, greenpow is an
(06:46):
overnight success around 300,000people using the app every week
for lawnmowing, ten year long,overnight success.
Tim Bourguignon (06:52):
Yeah, yeah, about three of that, about three
or four of that was justfiguring out what the hell we
were doing.
Bryan Clayton (06:57):
But that was part of the journey.
It was indeed.
Do you mind coming back?
Tim Bourguignon (07:02):
to this, which you described as a disaster.
Yeah, what did you?
What did you do?
What happened and what did youlearn out of this earlier phase?
Yeah, big disaster.
Bryan Clayton (07:13):
So so I really thought that we could pay a dev
shop, that we could pay a devshop to do all the tech and that
we could do the sales andmarketing piece.
Because I knew the sales andmarketing piece.
I had built a eight figurelandscaping company, so I knew a
little bit about how to do that.
I didn't know any of the techside and so I thought, well, we
(07:35):
can just outsource that and andthen that we can work in harmony
with them.
And and after the first sixmonths I realized there's just
no way these guys are going tochange, order me to death.
We're just so far off from what, the what, where we're trying
to go that I really, lookingback, it was kind of like I'm
(07:57):
from Nashville, tennessee, andso Nashville is the home of
country music.
I'm not a musician, but it'skind of like saying I have an
idea for a song, I just need tohire a musician to write it,
compose it and perform it.
And that's how silly the ideaof wanting to start a tech
company is without having someacumen, some core competency on
(08:22):
the founding team.
And or it's kind of like sayingI want to open a five star
restaurant but I don't have anyrecipes and I've never cooked
before and I don't have a chefand I, you know, will outsource
the chef.
You know, it just doesn't work.
And so it was dead.
It was dead on arrival and ittook them nine months to build
(08:44):
it.
And it really wasn't all theirfault, because we didn't know,
you know, we didn't know how todelegate or coach or tell them
what we wanted.
And so we launched this thingand and we passed out a, we
passed out a bunch of doorhangers all over middle
Tennessee, where I live, and wepassed out like a hundred
thousand of these things to tryto beg people to use this crappy
(09:05):
app that we just launched.
And people would use it andthey would try it, and they
would.
And then, and then we werefollowing the lean startup
methodology, and so the leanstartup tells you get out of the
building and go talk to thesepeople.
So at least we were doing that.
Right, we were, we knew to dothat.
I knew the inside of everycoffee shop in Nashville,
tennessee, because I would meetthese people and I would meet
(09:27):
them at their kitchen counterand and I would try to like get
feedback from them, and theywould always tell me the same
thing like well, it didn't work,it was clunky, I had bugs, or I
hired a guy and he didn't showup, or I hired a guy and he
didn't have the right equipment,or I hired a guy and he never
called me back, or you know, andit's like it was the same
problems over and over again andthey would tell me everywhere
(09:49):
the app sucked and everywhere Iwas a terrible founder.
But they never said.
They never said I don't needthis.
They never said.
They never said they werepissed off, let down,
disheartened, that this thingdidn't work.
Because what if it did work?
What if you could push a buttonand a guy actually show up and
(10:11):
take this chore off of yourplate?
Wouldn't that be magical?
And so I thought, man, you know, yeah, we suck, we're terrible,
we don't know what we did, whatwe're doing.
But what if it did work?
You know we could buildsomething, and so I use that as
validation that it was worthworth it to keep going.
(10:34):
And so we still kept making themistakes of trying to out sort
of like I did not want to learnto code.
I did because I'm not wiredthat way.
My brain is wired the other way.
I'm not wired to want to stareat spreadsheets and data and
numbers and lines on a screen.
I'm wired to want to, like,pick up a phone and talk to
(10:55):
somebody and sell somebody, orI'm wired for the other stuff.
And so I came into this worldkicking and screaming and so we
made, we kept making themistakes.
We would go to Upwork orwhatever platform we could and
try to hire some, some offshoredevelopers.
We did that for a while.
I'll never forget there was oneday I was talking to a developer
(11:18):
and and he was here at Pakistanor India and and, and it was
like three in the morning onSkype, and because that was the
only time I could get him andbecause of the time change, and
so I'm half asleep and he's, andso I'm trying to explain to him
what we're trying to build.
And and first, he doesn't knowwhat a lawn is, like he, he has
(11:41):
never seen grass, he doesn't,he's never heard of a lawnmower
and he doesn't know what a lawnis.
And I'm like, I'm like damn man, like this dude.
This dude is probably a reallygood engineer, but he has no, he
has no context to understandwhat it is we're trying to
actually solve in the world here, and so I don't know if this is
going to work.
(12:01):
And then and then and then.
So we're talking, the meetingthis is going on by another hour
and we're looking at, lookingat different screens and stuff,
and then he says Can I ask you aquestion?
And I said sure, he spokepretty good English.
He goes cash you, he goes.
Yet he says Do you beat yourwife?
And I this is a weird question.
(12:23):
I'm like, I'm like no, no, no,I don't beat my wife.
And he said yeah, I said to youhe goes no, I don't either.
But there's something on mymind and I'm thinking about
starting.
Man, I don't know if this isgonna work out.
I don't know if this is gonnawork out.
I got I gotta learn how to code.
(12:44):
So that was like the momentwhere I decided man trying to
outsource this, it's just notgonna work.
I gotta learn how to do it.
Cuz, cuz, it's four in themorning, I'm talking to a dude
who wants to beat his wife andhe's never seen a lawnmower.
And I this ain't gonna work.
So it was like the next day Ijust started like going to
Envato, tuts, youtube University, taking online classes, and man
(13:07):
, like I, I decided I was gonnabecome the world's worst
front-end engineer and and like,and I learned everything I
could about just basic launchingof views and in JavaScript and
just getting like the front-endworking of this damn thing.
And then my co-founder Signedup.
He got the last slot of asoftware boot camp that they
(13:30):
were having in Nashville calledNashville Software School and he
put 12 grand on his credit cardfor the tuition and he went.
He went like the.
The following Week he startedand it was full-time and he went
every day for nine hours a day.
And then we rebuilt the wholedamn thing just by learning,
doing, learning, doing, learningdoing, and and we with it took
(13:53):
us a year but we rebuilt thewhole platform on the web, fully
functional and look pretty damngood, and and then and then use
that foundation to to thenbegin to build a team around us
and and we went from 10customers to 100, 100 to 200,
200 to 500 and 500 to a thousand.
And it kept going, little bylittle, making little small
(14:15):
goals.
It was probably four yearsbefore we could pay ourselves a
salary, but we keep.
But it kept snow-blowing and itkept growing and I and I knew
that if we could keep growingthe transactions that were
happening every week, that thatwas the main active metric
Transactions on the platformevery week, and if we could keep
growing that it would begin tocompound and and the snowball
(14:37):
would begin to take effect.
And so now you know, we're 10years in, it's still day one,
but we're at 300,000 peopleusing it and we want to get to a
million.
We want to get to a millionpeople using this thing to get
this chore done.
Tim Bourguignon (14:51):
Amen to that.
This, this is the journey.
Bryan Clayton (14:55):
Yeah, man, that was that.
It was not, it was not fun, butyou know, that's where the good
stories come from indeed,indeed.
Tim Bourguignon (15:02):
Would you mind coming back to?
So that day when you said, okay, enough is enough, don't want
to have to do it with with guywho Say they're gonna be deal
with their wife itself by thismorning I'm gonna go to YouTube
University.
What did you search for?
How do you decide on where tostart that journey?
Bryan Clayton (15:21):
Well, I had made enough mistakes To know a couple
of the buzzwords and, and so Ihad made enough mistakes and
knew enough About what, what itwas we were trying to do.
I mean, I had already spentnine months in 150 grand with a
dev shop.
I had already hired, tried tohire, six developers off of
Upwork, and so I knew that.
(15:42):
You know, I knew kind of howthis stuff stacked a little bit.
I knew, I knew that the view, Iknew that you had a, you had an
app, and then you and then, andthen, and then your app would
could develop what you wouldhave views on top of that, and
then and then you have to mark,you would have to mark up views
and so.
So I knew what HTML and CS iskind of work, and I knew what
(16:06):
JavaScript kind of was, and so Iknew I need to start searching
for this shit and I was like,okay, well, and my, my
co-founder was like we'll justsplit it in half, I'll do the
back of the house and you do thefront.
That was all we knew.
He didn't know he picked up theharder piece of the journey.
He didn't know.
You know, he didn't know.
Like he's like, I'll do the,the, the back end, and you do
(16:29):
the front end.
That was all we knew, becausewe knew that we're back in
developers and front-enddevelopers, and and that was it.
And we weren't even thinkingmobile app.
We were just like let's justget a damn website launched.
And so he didn't know that hegot the short end of the stick
and had to, and had to take onthe harder piece of the burden.
And at the time the nationalsoftware school was was the only
(16:53):
language they taught forback-end programming was Ruby on
Rails.
And so that was what we had topick.
So take your pick.
Well, it's pretty easy.
There's only one, there's onlyone set of curriculum, and it's
Ruby on Rails.
And so, okay, I guess that'swhat we're gonna build this
whole thing on.
And so he was learning that,and Then, and then I was just
taking every course that I couldtake on just basic markup, just
(17:17):
learning the basics of HTML,and then, and then getting into
bootstrap, and then getting intolike we were using foundation
for a while and and and likethat stuff made my life a lot
easier and then getting into thebasics of of JavaScript, and
then get the basics of rails andhow to wire that stuff up to To
what my partner was was servingup to me and and having to put
(17:39):
a little bit of rails on thepage.
I understand a little bit abouthow that stuff work and then,
and then enough to know that ifI get a PSD Now, I can at least
take that PSD and give it to afront-end developer and at least
they can, they can code it upin HTML For me and save me some
time and I can take that andthen I can integrate that into
(18:01):
the Rails app.
And then so that was the firstkind of like force multiplier
where where I could take thisPSD and get somebody to do the
HTML and CSS and and then Icould like plug that in and Then
and then so that we were doingthat for a year and we're moving
pretty quick.
And then and I thought, okay,now I'm gonna hire our first
(18:21):
like First developer, who'sgonna who's full stack, who's
gonna help my partner on the theback end, and he was also gonna
build the views and Take it allthe way through.
And that was probably a yearand a half.
But I wouldn't have been ableto do that.
How do I not been doing thebasics myself, because other
than, if not, then you're kindof staring at a black box,
(18:42):
you're staring into the abyss,you don't even know.
So it's so, and then, and then Ialso kind of knew, I kind of
had a wet finger in the air toknow what good, clean code
looked like, what, what successlooked like, what quality looked
like, how long things shouldtake, and what sloppiness looked
like, and and, and so I kind ofwas able to delegate.
(19:05):
It's kind of like.
It's kind of like if you wantedto to be a music, if you wanted
to be a country music star, andit's like you may not ever be a
star, you may not ever get arecord deal, you may not ever
get on stage, but at least ifyou try to learn how to play the
guitar, try to write a song,try to sing a song, then at
least you're like well, likefive steps closer and you're, at
(19:26):
least you're in the game.
That's kind of how I was withdevelopment and, and it wasn't
until I tried to do those thingsand did them terribly.
Could I then begin to delegatethem?
Tim Bourguignon (19:37):
Mm-hmm.
That makes a lot of sense.
Do you still code or do youstill have an active part in
building this product or morningMarketing sales, etc.
That you described?
Bryan Clayton (19:48):
so the hats our team today is around 40 and and
so my hats today that I wear isis more around growth and
product management.
So I knew the productmanagement hat.
You know, I'm overseeing thedevelopment team and I'm kind of
prioritizing what we're workingon and I am looking at code, I
am looking at at what they'reworking on, I am, I am also Q a
(20:11):
and using the app I.
I believe that as part of theCEO's job, you should be doing
no matter how big you get, youshould be doing at least an hour
of your own customer supportevery day, because it kind of
keeps you Focused on on whatcustomers are saying, and then
you should also be doingbusiness with yourself.
You should be dog food in yourown product.
You should be testing your ownproduct.
(20:32):
You should be signing up for itevery single week.
You should be using it and, andI have a a little small
portfolio of Real estate that Ibought after I sold my first
company, and so I use greenpower to manage the, the, the
properties, and so I'm alwaysfinding stuff, always.
You know I'm the CEO and butI'm still I'm Q a.
(20:53):
I'm hey, this looks, this fontlooks a little off.
The litter spacing looks alittle off.
The line height looks a littleoff.
I know what good quality designlooks like.
I I know how that that lineheights off, because I've coded
up and CSS a million times and Iknow that that's off.
I know that letter spacings off, I've done it and and so I know
(21:15):
that's not pixel perfect and soI'm I'm, you know, even using
it.
You know, on a daily basis I'mseeing stuff and I'll put a,
I'll put a ticket for adeveloper to work on, and so
that's a hat that I'm wearing.
Am I laying down code anymore?
No, maybe I should, but, butbut I haven't done that in a
couple of years.
Tim Bourguignon (21:36):
There's two directions.
I want to go with this,although we'll go one and we'll
see if they're for the other.
If you, if you had the chance,or off you had to do a rematch.
You know what you know.
You you've been developing.
Now you know what you know.
You're starting company fromscratch now and you have to
create an app.
Would you go the same route ofhiring people now that you have
(22:01):
an understanding of what it isto to manage with air quotes and
manage developers and and maybegive them the right
instructions, maybe in boardthem way better on the product
side and really tell what, whatyour vision is?
Or would you develop again thebasics yourself and then slowly
and gradually hire people inyour team?
How would you approach that?
Bryan Clayton (22:22):
Yeah, it's so.
I guess the way I'll answerthat question is it's.
It's hard because, because Inow know everything.
I know all the mistakes and noteverything, but I know
everything about my specificlittle journey, right, and so I
know all the mistakes that Imade.
I don't want them.
It's okay to make mistakes, butit's not okay to make them
twice, and so I don't want toMake those same mistakes, so I
(22:43):
wouldn't.
We we didn't raise any capitalfor this business because we we
just well one.
We couldn't.
We were in Nashville Nashville,tennessee is not a lot of
venture capital here, and and sowe had to bootstrap and self
fund the business.
But if, if, if, doc from backto the future rolls up in the
DeLorean and he says, hey, wegot to go back to to 2013, you
(23:06):
got to start all over again.
And no, you can't buy Bitcoin,amazon, tesla and Apple.
You have to do this, thisshitty lawnmowing app over again
.
And so, okay, all right.
Well, the first thing I would dobecause I now know all this
stuff I would raise a bunch ofmoney and I would build out a
team and we would just, we wouldjust hit the ground running,
(23:29):
but that's not a good way toanswer that question.
Let's let's answer the questionand say no, you don't know how
to develop, you don't know howto write code, you'd never done
any of that stuff.
You got to do.
So now, how would you do it?
I still I Don't know a world inwhich I could have helped, lead
and guide us where we are today, where I didn't know the basics
(23:49):
of how this stuff works and I,you know, I think you got to
kind of have to do that stuff.
I think you kind of have tohave to get the scars, and so I
don't know how I could have doneit any other way.
And I think this stuff, thisstuff applies to pretty much
everything in life.
It's like my girlfriend she's aclub, she's Colombian and she
(24:13):
loves a salsa dance, and Iwanted to surprise her by
learning how to salsa dance, andso I took a bunch of classes
and and took a bunch of YouTubevideos and and spent like two
months learning how to salsadance, and so the first time I
want to surprise her and salsadancing it's my first time on a
dance floor and I'm dancing withher I realized I suck All this
(24:38):
stuff that I just spent learningin like theory and in a
classroom stuff.
None of this applies.
Like she, this is terrible.
And then I realized no, theonly way you really learn how to
salsa dance is to get out thereon the dance floor and do it
and To do it terribly, andthat's the only way you really
learn.
And and so that that's reallymuch.
(24:59):
Pretty much you can apply thisto boxing, mma fighting.
You know, you don't learn howto box until you spar.
You can watch a million YouTubevideos, you can go to a million
classes.
Until you get up there and sparand get punched in the face.
You don't know how to box.
You don't know how to fight.
And that's the same way withrunning a tech startup.
I you really don't know whatthe hell it is you're doing
(25:20):
until you get in there and tryto build something, and build it
with your own hands and getpeople to use it, do you learn
what it is, how it works and howto, how to do, how to scale it
and how to build it right.
Tim Bourguignon (25:33):
I mentioned that again.
Now I want to go with the olderroute, meaning you, you know
how to code, you've been doingthis, you did all the mistakes
as you did and and you reallylearn from that.
Can that be a disservice to thenext steps of really knowing
how the, the, the usage is made,how the software is made, and
(25:56):
not being Maybe it's not theright word impartial when you
think about the business, aboutthe marketing, sales, where
you're pushing, and with thisI'm really very much thinking
about the dichotomy between CEOand CTO, what you often see in
startups.
I have a CTO very much deep inthe tech and really has made all
(26:16):
the mistakes and knows what'swhat's what's happening and can
really dwell into that, but alsoa CEO that is not necessarily
in tech and can think with adifferent brain.
How would you react to that?
Bryan Clayton (26:27):
yeah it.
Sometimes knowledge can, can beDehabilitating and you know,
you kind of kind of saw thiswith Uber.
You know Travis Kalanek, youknow he, he, he was probably, I
think he dabbled as a coder, buthe was never an engineer and
and so and so maybe the abilityto not know what was possible
(26:52):
and what was impossible kind ofhelped him Make magic happen.
Where you push a car, you pusha button in the car comes and,
and he didn't really care aboutall of the other things that
that you know all the othertechnical reasons why it
shouldn't work and why itwouldn't work, and so maybe that
helped him.
Now he had also built and soldlike two other companies, so he
(27:13):
is kind of starting on thirdbase.
As a first time founder, youreally kind of have to be a
builder.
You really kind of need to beable to build your way out of
problems.
If you've done this a couple oftimes and maybe you've built
and sold a company or two, thenmaybe you can get.
You can, you know, get awayfrom that and just focus on,
(27:34):
like, the business side of itand the vision and then hire the
builders.
But as a first time founder, Ithink you kind of need to be
able to build your way out ofproblems.
I think you gotta kind of beable to work your way out of
problems.
So so for me, I don't know thatI could have done it any other
way, and and there might besituations where where the
(27:56):
knowledge and understanding thetechnical limitations is
limiting, but most of the time,as a first time founder, have
the skills to be a builder.
If, if I'm looking for twopeople and we want to build a
house, the first thing I'mlooking for somebody knows how
to lay brick and somebody knowshow to lay concrete.
I'm not looking for a designer,I'm not.
(28:17):
I'm not looking for somebodywho, who, who loves what great
homes look like and has an ideafor a home.
You know, I'm looking for a guywho knows how to use a hammer,
who knows how to use a level andknows how to lay brick.
That's what I'm looking for,because that's the only way
we're going to get this damnhouse built.
And so I think softwaredevelopment is much like that.
(28:37):
Become a builder.
Look for builders to found thebusiness with.
If you're a first time founderNow, if you've done this a
couple of times and you've beenon a rocket ship and you've got
an exit under your belt.
Maybe you don't need to followthat advice, but if you're a
first time founder, be a builder.
Tim Bourguignon (28:54):
Very, very in line with this.
Not to come back to one thingyou mentioned in passing, you
were using the lean startupmodel or approach very early on.
How did you stumble in that?
Bryan Clayton (29:06):
I was terrified because here I am, I just built
and sold a company, and, and butit was a blue collar company,
was a landscaping business,construction business, and and
so I come to the starting block,thinking, oh yeah, man, this,
this is going to be a techbusiness, is going to be easier.
And because I don't have allthese damn employees, I don't
(29:28):
have all these trucks, I don'thave all these lawnmowers, I
don't have all this equipment, Idon't have all these nagging
customers, this is just tech.
Social network made it lookeasy, it's just going to be
easier.
And, like, I just got knockedon my ass very quickly within
like two or three weeks or amonth.
That, no, this is actually 10times harder.
(29:48):
And and so you better start reeducating yourself Is in.
And so I started picking upevery book I could get my hands
on about this stuff, and thiswas 2013.
There wasn't a whole lot.
I mean, nowadays it's almosttoo much, but back then, 10
years ago, there wasn't a wholelot.
(30:10):
And so, and so, first thing wasuse Google how to build a
startup.
I mean, you're going to comeacross the lean startup.
And so read that and like, onlyabout half of it made sense.
And then and then I, and then I, then I learned that actually
Eric Reese's mentor was a guynamed Steve blank, and this guy
(30:30):
wrote a book called the startupowners manual and he also wrote
another book called Four Stepsto the Epiphany, and so I read
both of those and then I wentback and read the lean startup
again and then it started tomake more sense and and what
these books tell you they beatinto your head in a thousand
pages or 2000 pages of text isthat is that all of these
(30:52):
assumptions that you think youhave about about this idea and
how it's going to work or mostof them are wrong, and the only
way to know what's true andwhat's not is to get people to
use the product that you havebrought to market and to study
their use and to talk to themand to look at them using the
(31:12):
product and and to let that beyour free R&D, to let that guide
you.
This stuff seems like painfullyobvious, but the reality is,
none of us want to do that.
We just want to code, we wantto build screens, we want to
build, we want to build stuff.
We we don't want to do any ofthat stuff.
That's not fun.
That wasn't in the socialnetwork.
You never saw one usabilitytest.
(31:33):
That's true in the socialnetwork and I'm sure Mark
Zuckerberg and all those guysdid a ton of those.
I'm sure they did, they had to,but you never saw somebody
slipping down to a Starbucks oryou know and like saying, oh,
what do you wish it would do?
What did you expect wouldhappen when you push that button
?
Where are you let down by this?
What, what, what is the onething it could do that would
(31:56):
make you delighted that itdoesn't do right just yet.
Like you never see that, likethat stuff's all set to like a,
like a, like a music montage andso and so.
But those books like be in yourhead.
Get out of the building, get outfrom behind the laptop and
you've got 10 customers.
Go talk to them.
Or you don't even have 10customers.
(32:17):
What the hell are you doing?
Get five customers.
And there's a famous story withPaul Graham and the and the
founders of Airbnb where they'relike you know, it's just not
working.
And he's like how manycustomers you got?
And they're like well, we got,we got 10 people using it.
Where are they at?
They're all in New York.
Well, what the hell are youdoing in San Francisco?
(32:38):
Get on a plane, go to New York,go talk to them, and so that's
like we all need to hear that.
Tim Bourguignon (32:46):
Indeed, you said.
You said that it didn't makesense in the first reading.
You remember what, what, whatdidn't make sense and what came
after, once it finally clicked.
Bryan Clayton (32:54):
Yeah, it just.
It just seemed.
The first reading just seemedto painfully obvious that I
couldn't grasp it.
And and and what I mean by that?
It's like he talks about Like abuild measure, learn feedback.
Like you build, you throw itout there, you figure out what
(33:16):
worked, did it not work, andthen you measure it and then you
learn, and then you let thatiterate, you let that, you let
that inform what you, what youbuild, and like that just seemed
too obvious to me.
But while I was reading it, wewere doing the opposite of all
of that.
We were like we, we had allthese specs and all of this
stuff that we had this dev shopbuilding and like what they were
(33:39):
building was all wrong.
And so it's like I had to makethe mistake while lit lark,
reading the book and then read,read the startup owners manual,
then come back and read the bookagain.
It's like no, this is how youdo it and the only reason you,
the only way you can do it thisway, is if you know how to code.
You cannot work with a dev shopand Run the lean startup
(34:00):
methodology at the same time.
Those two things are at oddswith each other, because the
whole way a dev shop is is likegive us a complete scope of work
, a complete spec, end-to-end,and we will build that.
They're not like saying, ohyeah, let's just try a few
things, let's experiment, let'sjust, you know, it's not how it
works, that's not how they makemoney and so and so.
That's that's why I didn't makesense, because I was doing the
(34:22):
exact opposite Of what you weretelling me to do.
Tim Bourguignon (34:24):
Mm-hmm, yeah, makes it, makes sense.
And I find it funny because Ihad the same, the same
experience with the, the leanstartup, but with a different
reasoning.
I was a builder before and tome it was okay let's build,
measure, learn, so let's build.
And and I didn't buildsomething in in two hours, I
built something in three months.
Yeah, and, and that's not thelean startup either.
(34:44):
It's way too big.
You have to start with paper,with explaining your idea, with
just drawing stuff, and that'sright, that's right building.
So it's exactly the opposite,but same problem.
Bryan Clayton (34:56):
That's exactly right.
I'll tell you a quick story, a22nd story, maybe a maybe a
one-minute story about, about aguy that I thought had a
conversation with a week ago.
He, I do a little.
I do a little bit of coachingand mentoring for other startup
founders.
They were building marketplacesfor fun, as a hobby, and and he
comes to me and he says, hey,man, I, I got an idea for a
(35:16):
marketplace that I want to buildand and.
And I'm like okay, what is it?
He's like well, you know how Ijust built a house, right, and I
said, yeah, man, he goes.
Well, dude, I saved so muchmoney Because I got a.
I got a $10,000 front door forlike $300.
I got like a set of windowsthat were like five grand.
I got them for like 800 bucks.
I'm like how did you do that?
(35:37):
He said, well, the supply yards,all of them, have all of this
stuff in the back that theyeither special ordered, or it
was bought but never picked up,or they special ordered, never
sold it.
And like they want to get ridof this stuff and you can buy
this stuff for super cheap.
And he said I think amarketplace should exist where
you should be able to point andclick and tap and just buy this
(35:58):
stuff, like you can.
You know, on on Home Depot comm, I said man, that's a great
idea.
He goes, yeah, and they allhave it.
Like all three of these, allthe three supply yards have this
up.
They want to get rid of it.
I think that's a great idea.
He goes, yeah, I'm working onthe inventory system right now.
I'm working on the landingpages.
I got my marketing strategyfigured out.
I'm designing it.
(36:18):
I'm meeting with the designer,got the logo made up like hold
on, hold on, hold on, pump yourbrakes, pump your brakes.
Dog.
He's like what I said.
Man, before he, please stop,before you do any of this, do me
a favor.
I Said man, go to that onesupply yard and say and talk to
the manager and say listen, Iwant to sit in the back office
(36:40):
of this place and I want to sellall this crap you got and I
will only take 10% of theproceeds and you can have the
rest.
He goes, why am I gonna do that?
I said I gotta build all thisstuff and I'm like just hold on,
just, just, please, sell allthat crap.
Sell it on craigslist, offer upFacebook marketplace, any means
necessary, sell that crap.
(37:02):
He goes why am I gonna do that?
I got, I got all this work todo and I said just do, just do
it.
And Like, I talked to him acouple days later, he's like
dude, I'm not gonna do that.
I said, dude, if you want me togive you any more advice, you
will do this, because I willnever help you again.
He goes, okay, begrudgingly,begrudgingly.
He goes and he sets up in thisdank office and starts selling
(37:22):
this crap.
Two days goes by, he calls me.
I actually call him like man,how's it going?
Like, how much of that stuffhave you sold?
He goes there's no businesshere.
Tim Bourguignon (37:38):
Is this painfully funny.
Bryan Clayton (37:40):
There's no business here.
And I'm like, I'm like what'sup, dude?
He's like dude, all of thisstuff is just just not sellable.
Consume, like the people I'mtrying to sell this crap, to
have all of these weirdmismanaged expectations.
I Did sell some stuff but thenI had to take it back because it
had a ding on it.
Um, all of these problems.
(38:03):
He said no, no, screw, noscreen is gonna fix all these
problems.
I said.
I said now you understand?
Well, now you understand whythat stuff's just sitting there
and and.
And I said that's.
And I said, dude, this is leanstartup.
That's lean startup.
Before we lay down a line ofcode, let's just, let's just
(38:24):
hand crank this make, see ifthere's a business.
So that's lean startup.
Tim Bourguignon (38:28):
Even to that.
Is there a piece of that youmentioned?
You mentioned coaching andmentoring New founders, so I'm
gonna piggyback on that.
Is there a piece of advice?
You tell all those personsagain and again and again,
something that that they have tohear.
Maybe it's what you just said,maybe it's something else.
Bryan Clayton (38:45):
Yeah, it's always , it's all.
If, when it's people in thezero to one phase, they're just
trying to, they got an idea andthey're and they're trying to
Manifest that idea, it's alwaysback to we need 10 credit cards,
dude, and we need, we need, weneed, we need 10 credit cards on
file.
We need and we need a hundredtransactions like we don't need
(39:05):
anything.
Until that, none of thismatters, until we get 10, 20, 30
, 40 people to use this thing.
And then let's study that use.
And, and especially when itcomes to marketplaces, I've been
guilty of this before myself.
Marketplace founders alwayswant to think about oh, I got to
like onboard all this supplyand I got to get like the
(39:26):
interfaces and the onboardingprocesses for supply and I Got
to go to trade networks or tradegroups for supply and bring
them on and I'm like dude, no,just just hard code three
suppliers that you don't needany of that.
It's hard code three supplierprofiles.
You're one of them, by the way,you know you're gonna be
(39:48):
self-fulfilling one of them andtwo others and then go figure
out how to get a hundredconsumers and it's like well, no
, no, no, no, no, I don't wantto do any of that I Don't want
to do any of that.
I don't want to deliver fastfood.
I don't want to go delivergroceries, I don't want to.
You know, whatever it is they'retrying to do and you know
(40:08):
there's countless stories of thesuccessful founders that you
know that that have hand crankedthe stuff.
The founders of DoorDash they,they delivered the Chinese food.
The founders of Instacart they,they took pictures of, they
bought one of every item in thegrocery store and hauled all
that back to their littleapartment and took pictures of
all of it and then would godeliver the stuff as people
(40:28):
ordered it.
So you got a hand crank it inthe interrogation.
So usually the advice is alwayslike beating that into
somebody's head.
Tim Bourguignon (40:38):
And it makes so much sense it's.
It's really important to hearthis.
I fully agree, brian.
It's been fantastic listeningto your story.
That was the time all time boxalready.
Bryan Clayton (40:50):
Well, tim, I appreciate it.
Man, this was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun.
It was therapeutic for me.
I'm glad it was.
Tim Bourguignon (40:58):
Where would be the best place to continue
discussion with you?
Yeah, anybody want to hit me?
Bryan Clayton (41:01):
up, find me on LinkedIn or actually hang out on
Instagram a lot.
Brian M Clayton Just dropped mea DM there and anybody in the
United States wants to check outgreen pal.
Let's go to green pal, calm andwell.
Add all this in the show notes.
Tim Bourguignon (41:14):
Just have to scroll down and click and
everything will be there.
Anything else you want to plugin?
Bryan Clayton (41:18):
you know, anybody that's hearing this is like man
, I should I do that, should Inot?
You know, I hope what you gotit got from me is that if that
guy can do it, you can too.
There's nothing special aboutme.
I'm not particularly smart orbrilliant.
I just picked one idea andstuck with it for a decade.
So so pick an idea you'repassionate about, that you want
(41:39):
to see exist in the world, andspend 10 years on it, and and
good things will happen, amen.
Tim Bourguignon (41:45):
Brian, thank you.
Thank you Tim and this has beenanother episode of Delper's
journey.
I will see each other next week, bye, bye.
Thanks a lot for tuning in.
I hope you have enjoyed thisweek's episode.
If you like the show, pleaseshare, rate and review.
It helps more listenersdiscover those stories.
You can find the links to allthe platforms the show appears
(42:08):
on on our website devjourneyinfoslash subscribe.
Talk to you soon.
Oh, I gotta like onboard all this supply and I
gotta get like the interfacesand the onboarding processes for
supply and I gotta go to tradenetworks or trade groups for
supply and bring them on and I'mlike, dude, no, just just hard
code.
Three suppliers that you don'tneed any of.
That is hard code.
Three supplier profiles You'reone of them, by the way.
(00:22):
You know you're gonna be selffulfilling one of them and two
others, and then go figure outhow to get a hundred consumers
and it's like, well, no, no, no,no, no, I don't want to do any
of that.
I don't want to do any of that.
I don't want to deliver fastfood.
I don't want to go delivergroceries, I don't want to.
You know, whatever it is they'retrying to do, and you know
(00:45):
there's countless stories of thesuccessful founders that you
know that have hand cranked thestuff.
The founders of DoorDash theydelivered the Chinese food.
The founders of Instacart theybought one of every item in the
grocery store and hauled allthat back to their little
apartment and took pictures ofall of it and then would go
(01:05):
deliver the stuff as peopleordered it.
So you got a hand crank it inthe early days, and so usually
the advice is always likebeating that into somebody's
head.
Tim Bourguignon (01:15):
Hello and welcome to Devilpuss Journey,
the podcast bringing you themaking of stories of successful
software developers to help youon your upcoming journey.
I'm your host, tim Boulgigno.
On this episode I receivedBrian Clayton.
Brian is a CEO and co-founderof GreenPal.
His background was inlandscaping and before GreenPal
(01:36):
he had no experience in softwaredevelopment.
But that was before, andactually I'll stop right there
because that's the story we wantto hear directly from him.
So, brian, a warm welcome toDevilpuss Journey.
Bryan Clayton (01:48):
Tim, it's great to be here.
Thanks for having me on oh it'smy pleasure.
Tim Bourguignon (01:51):
I'm really looking forward to that story.
But before we come to yourstory, I want to thank the
terrific listeners who supportthe show.
Every month.
You are keeping the DevilpussJourney lights up.
If you would like to join thisfine crew and help me spend more
time on finding phenomenalguests than editing audio tracks
(02:12):
, please go to our website,devjourneyinfo and click on the
support me on Patreon button.
Even the smallest contributionsare giant steps toward a
sustainable dev journey Journey.
Thank you, and now back totoday's guest, brian.
As you know, the show exists tohelp the listeners understand
(02:32):
what your story looked like andimagine how to shape their own
future.
So, as is usual on the show,let's go back to your beginnings
.
Can you tell us the story thatled to that start of your dev
journey?
Bryan Clayton (02:45):
Yeah, well, so GreenPal is an app that works
like Uber or Instacart orDoorDash, but for lawn care
services.
So if you're a homeowner, youneed to get a grass cutting
service.
You just download GreenPal, popyour address in.
Someone comes out, takes careof you.
And the reason why I mentionedthat is because I guess the
journey started 25 years ago,when I started mowing yards in
(03:07):
high school as a way to makeextra cash.
I wanted a pair of soccercleats that were 150 bucks and
my parents said no, we're goingto buy you the $20 soccer cleats
.
And I didn't want the $20soccer cleats.
And so I found out that myneighbor wanted their grass cut
and so I mowed the neighbor'sgrass, got paid $20.
(03:28):
And I did that about six moretimes and I got the money for
the cleats and so I didn't haveto wear the cheap cleats.
It didn't make me any better ofa football player, but I found
out something really early onthat maybe my lane in life was
having my own little business,and so I stuck with that
(03:49):
lawnmowing business all throughhigh school, all through college
, and when I graduated college Ididn't really want to go get a
job.
I liked having my own littlebusiness.
So I made a little businessplan and ended up building that
lawnmowing business into a realcompany, growing it little by
little, year over year over a 15year period of time to around
(04:10):
150 employees, eight figures inrevenue eventually, and then it
was acquired.
I sold it in 2013 to a bignational company that operates
thousands of employeesthroughout the country, and so
after that, I took some time offand I started observing what
was happening in 2013 in themobile revolution, and
(04:36):
marketplaces were emerging andmaking real world experiences
happen.
You know, up until then,technology was very much.
It was very much bits.
It wasn't Adams, it was.
It was screens that you wouldinteract with and and bits would
move.
But you started seeingmarketplaces come about, like
(04:57):
Airbnb and Uber and Amazon, to adegree where you could interact
with a screen and things wouldhappen in the real world.
You could interact with us witha interface on your phone and a
car would pick you up or apackage would show up, and so I
thought I thought, man, somebodyis going to build a marketplace
to make this industry that Iknow work smooth and seamless.
(05:20):
And and why can't that be me?
The movie, the social network,made it look really easy.
And so I watched that and theybuilt a.
They built a Billion dollarempire in two hours.
So so that was.
That looked really easy.
So why can't I do that?
(05:41):
I never I had never built awebsite or even knew what HTML
was or anything like that.
And so I thought, well, howhard could it be?
I'll just pay some developersand you know, we'll build this
app, I will call it GreenPow andand and we'll see if we can do
it.
And so I did that, recruitedtwo co-founders and we set out
(06:04):
to build the Uber for lawn care.
And we didn't let the.
We didn't let it stop us thatwe didn't know how to code,
never knew, never had tried tobuild any software before.
And so the first thing we did iswe paid a development shop all
of our money we had we pulledtogether $150,000 between the
three of us and we paid a devshop to build what we thought
GreenPow should be.
(06:24):
And it was a total failure.
It was a disaster, but we wereable to get like 10 customers
and we thought, well, 10 peoplewant to use it, and, and, and,
maybe we can turn that into 100.
And so we taught ourselves howto code, taught ourselves how to
build software, and and now, 10years later, greenpow is an
(06:46):
overnight success around 300,000people using the app every week
for lawnmowing, ten year long,overnight success.
Tim Bourguignon (06:52):
Yeah, yeah, about three of that, about three
or four of that was justfiguring out what the hell we
were doing.
Bryan Clayton (06:57):
But that was part of the journey.
It was indeed.
Do you mind coming back?
Tim Bourguignon (07:02):
to this, which you described as a disaster.
Yeah, what did you?
What did you do?
What happened and what did youlearn out of this earlier phase?
Yeah, big disaster.
Bryan Clayton (07:13):
So so I really thought that we could pay a dev
shop, that we could pay a devshop to do all the tech and that
we could do the sales andmarketing piece.
Because I knew the sales andmarketing piece.
I had built a eight figurelandscaping company, so I knew a
little bit about how to do that.
I didn't know any of the techside and so I thought, well, we
(07:35):
can just outsource that and andthen that we can work in harmony
with them.
And and after the first sixmonths I realized there's just
no way these guys are going tochange, order me to death.
We're just so far off from what, the what, where we're trying
to go that I really, lookingback, it was kind of like I'm
(07:57):
from Nashville, tennessee, andso Nashville is the home of
country music.
I'm not a musician, but it'skind of like saying I have an
idea for a song, I just need tohire a musician to write it,
compose it and perform it.
And that's how silly the ideaof wanting to start a tech
company is without having someacumen, some core competency on
(08:22):
the founding team.
And or it's kind of like sayingI want to open a five star
restaurant but I don't have anyrecipes and I've never cooked
before and I don't have a chefand I, you know, will outsource
the chef.
You know, it just doesn't work.
And so it was dead.
It was dead on arrival and ittook them nine months to build
(08:44):
it.
And it really wasn't all theirfault, because we didn't know,
you know, we didn't know how todelegate or coach or tell them
what we wanted.
And so we launched this thingand and we passed out a, we
passed out a bunch of doorhangers all over middle
Tennessee, where I live, and wepassed out like a hundred
thousand of these things to tryto beg people to use this crappy
(09:05):
app that we just launched.
And people would use it andthey would try it, and they
would.
And then, and then we werefollowing the lean startup
methodology, and so the leanstartup tells you get out of the
building and go talk to thesepeople.
So at least we were doing that.
Right, we were, we knew to dothat.
I knew the inside of everycoffee shop in Nashville,
tennessee, because I would meetthese people and I would meet
(09:27):
them at their kitchen counterand and I would try to like get
feedback from them, and theywould always tell me the same
thing like well, it didn't work,it was clunky, I had bugs, or I
hired a guy and he didn't showup, or I hired a guy and he
didn't have the right equipment,or I hired a guy and he never
called me back, or you know, andit's like it was the same
problems over and over again andthey would tell me everywhere
(09:49):
the app sucked and everywhere Iwas a terrible founder.
But they never said.
They never said I don't needthis.
They never said.
They never said they werepissed off, let down,
disheartened, that this thingdidn't work.
Because what if it did work?
What if you could push a buttonand a guy actually show up and
(10:11):
take this chore off of yourplate?
Wouldn't that be magical?
And so I thought, man, you know, yeah, we suck, we're terrible,
we don't know what we did, whatwe're doing.
But what if it did work?
You know we could buildsomething, and so I use that as
validation that it was worthworth it to keep going.
(10:34):
And so we still kept making themistakes of trying to out sort
of like I did not want to learnto code.
I did because I'm not wiredthat way.
My brain is wired the other way.
I'm not wired to want to stareat spreadsheets and data and
numbers and lines on a screen.
I'm wired to want to, like,pick up a phone and talk to
(10:55):
somebody and sell somebody, orI'm wired for the other stuff.
And so I came into this worldkicking and screaming and so we
made, we kept making themistakes.
We would go to Upwork orwhatever platform we could and
try to hire some, some offshoredevelopers.
We did that for a while.
I'll never forget there was oneday I was talking to a developer
(11:18):
and and he was here at Pakistanor India and and, and it was
like three in the morning onSkype, and because that was the
only time I could get him andbecause of the time change, and
so I'm half asleep and he's, andso I'm trying to explain to him
what we're trying to build.
And and first, he doesn't knowwhat a lawn is, like he, he has
(11:41):
never seen grass, he doesn't,he's never heard of a lawnmower
and he doesn't know what a lawnis.
And I'm like, I'm like damn man, like this dude.
This dude is probably a reallygood engineer, but he has no, he
has no context to understandwhat it is we're trying to
actually solve in the world here, and so I don't know if this is
going to work.
(12:01):
And then and then and then.
So we're talking, the meetingthis is going on by another hour
and we're looking at, lookingat different screens and stuff,
and then he says Can I ask you aquestion?
And I said sure, he spokepretty good English.
He goes cash you, he goes.
Yet he says Do you beat yourwife?
And I this is a weird question.
(12:23):
I'm like, I'm like no, no, no,I don't beat my wife.
And he said yeah, I said to youhe goes no, I don't either.
But there's something on mymind and I'm thinking about
starting.
Man, I don't know if this isgonna work out.
I don't know if this is gonnawork out.
I got I gotta learn how to code.
(12:44):
So that was like the momentwhere I decided man trying to
outsource this, it's just notgonna work.
I gotta learn how to do it.
Cuz, cuz, it's four in themorning, I'm talking to a dude
who wants to beat his wife andhe's never seen a lawnmower.
And I this ain't gonna work.
So it was like the next day Ijust started like going to
Envato, tuts, youtube University, taking online classes, and man
(13:07):
, like I, I decided I was gonnabecome the world's worst
front-end engineer and and like,and I learned everything I
could about just basic launchingof views and in JavaScript and
just getting like the front-endworking of this damn thing.
And then my co-founder Signedup.
He got the last slot of asoftware boot camp that they
(13:30):
were having in Nashville calledNashville Software School and he
put 12 grand on his credit cardfor the tuition and he went.
He went like the.
The following Week he startedand it was full-time and he went
every day for nine hours a day.
And then we rebuilt the wholedamn thing just by learning,
doing, learning, doing, learningdoing, and and we with it took
(13:53):
us a year but we rebuilt thewhole platform on the web, fully
functional and look pretty damngood, and and then and then use
that foundation to to thenbegin to build a team around us
and and we went from 10customers to 100, 100 to 200,
200 to 500 and 500 to a thousand.
And it kept going, little bylittle, making little small
(14:15):
goals.
It was probably four yearsbefore we could pay ourselves a
salary, but we keep.
But it kept snow-blowing and itkept growing and I and I knew
that if we could keep growingthe transactions that were
happening every week, that thatwas the main active metric
Transactions on the platformevery week, and if we could keep
growing that it would begin tocompound and and the snowball
(14:37):
would begin to take effect.
And so now you know, we're 10years in, it's still day one,
but we're at 300,000 peopleusing it and we want to get to a
million.
We want to get to a millionpeople using this thing to get
this chore done.
Tim Bourguignon (14:51):
Amen to that.
This, this is the journey.
Bryan Clayton (14:55):
Yeah, man, that was that.
It was not, it was not fun, butyou know, that's where the good
stories come from indeed,indeed.
Tim Bourguignon (15:02):
Would you mind coming back to?
So that day when you said, okay, enough is enough, don't want
to have to do it with with guywho Say they're gonna be deal
with their wife itself by thismorning I'm gonna go to YouTube
University.
What did you search for?
How do you decide on where tostart that journey?
Bryan Clayton (15:21):
Well, I had made enough mistakes To know a couple
of the buzzwords and, and so Ihad made enough mistakes and
knew enough About what, what itwas we were trying to do.
I mean, I had already spentnine months in 150 grand with a
dev shop.
I had already hired, tried tohire, six developers off of
Upwork, and so I knew that.
(15:42):
You know, I knew kind of howthis stuff stacked a little bit.
I knew, I knew that the view, Iknew that you had a, you had an
app, and then you and then, andthen, and then your app would
could develop what you wouldhave views on top of that, and
then and then you have to mark,you would have to mark up views
and so.
So I knew what HTML and CS iskind of work, and I knew what
(16:06):
JavaScript kind of was, and so Iknew I need to start searching
for this shit and I was like,okay, well, and my, my
co-founder was like we'll justsplit it in half, I'll do the
back of the house and you do thefront.
That was all we knew.
He didn't know he picked up theharder piece of the journey.
He didn't know.
You know, he didn't know.
Like he's like, I'll do the,the, the back end, and you do
(16:29):
the front end.
That was all we knew, becausewe knew that we're back in
developers and front-enddevelopers, and and that was it.
And we weren't even thinkingmobile app.
We were just like let's justget a damn website launched.
And so he didn't know that hegot the short end of the stick
and had to, and had to take onthe harder piece of the burden.
And at the time the nationalsoftware school was was the only
(16:53):
language they taught forback-end programming was Ruby on
Rails.
And so that was what we had topick.
So take your pick.
Well, it's pretty easy.
There's only one, there's onlyone set of curriculum, and it's
Ruby on Rails.
And so, okay, I guess that'swhat we're gonna build this
whole thing on.
And so he was learning that,and Then, and then I was just
taking every course that I couldtake on just basic markup, just
(17:17):
learning the basics of HTML,and then, and then getting into
bootstrap, and then getting intolike we were using foundation
for a while and and and likethat stuff made my life a lot
easier and then getting into thebasics of of JavaScript, and
then get the basics of rails andhow to wire that stuff up to To
what my partner was was servingup to me and and having to put
(17:39):
a little bit of rails on thepage.
I understand a little bit abouthow that stuff work and then,
and then enough to know that ifI get a PSD Now, I can at least
take that PSD and give it to afront-end developer and at least
they can, they can code it upin HTML For me and save me some
time and I can take that andthen I can integrate that into
(18:01):
the Rails app.
And then so that was the firstkind of like force multiplier
where where I could take thisPSD and get somebody to do the
HTML and CSS and and then Icould like plug that in and Then
and then so that we were doingthat for a year and we're moving
pretty quick.
And then and I thought, okay,now I'm gonna hire our first
(18:21):
like First developer, who'sgonna who's full stack, who's
gonna help my partner on the theback end, and he was also gonna
build the views and Take it allthe way through.
And that was probably a yearand a half.
But I wouldn't have been ableto do that.
How do I not been doing thebasics myself, because other
than, if not, then you're kindof staring at a black box,
(18:42):
you're staring into the abyss,you don't even know.
So it's so, and then, and then Ialso kind of knew, I kind of
had a wet finger in the air toknow what good, clean code
looked like, what, what successlooked like, what quality looked
like, how long things shouldtake, and what sloppiness looked
like, and and, and so I kind ofwas able to delegate.
(19:05):
It's kind of like.
It's kind of like if you wantedto to be a music, if you wanted
to be a country music star, andit's like you may not ever be a
star, you may not ever get arecord deal, you may not ever
get on stage, but at least ifyou try to learn how to play the
guitar, try to write a song,try to sing a song, then at
least you're like well, likefive steps closer and you're, at
(19:26):
least you're in the game.
That's kind of how I was withdevelopment and, and it wasn't
until I tried to do those thingsand did them terribly.
Could I then begin to delegatethem?
Tim Bourguignon (19:37):
Mm-hmm.
That makes a lot of sense.
Do you still code or do youstill have an active part in
building this product or morningMarketing sales, etc.
That you described?
Bryan Clayton (19:48):
so the hats our team today is around 40 and and
so my hats today that I wear isis more around growth and
product management.
So I knew the productmanagement hat.
You know, I'm overseeing thedevelopment team and I'm kind of
prioritizing what we're workingon and I am looking at code, I
am looking at at what they'reworking on, I am, I am also Q a
(20:11):
and using the app I.
I believe that as part of theCEO's job, you should be doing
no matter how big you get, youshould be doing at least an hour
of your own customer supportevery day, because it kind of
keeps you Focused on on whatcustomers are saying, and then
you should also be doingbusiness with yourself.
You should be dog food in yourown product.
You should be testing your ownproduct.
(20:32):
You should be signing up for itevery single week.
You should be using it and, andI have a a little small
portfolio of Real estate that Ibought after I sold my first
company, and so I use greenpower to manage the, the, the
properties, and so I'm alwaysfinding stuff, always.
You know I'm the CEO and butI'm still I'm Q a.
(20:53):
I'm hey, this looks, this fontlooks a little off.
The litter spacing looks alittle off.
The line height looks a littleoff.
I know what good quality designlooks like.
I I know how that that lineheights off, because I've coded
up and CSS a million times and Iknow that that's off.
I know that letter spacings off, I've done it and and so I know
(21:15):
that's not pixel perfect and soI'm I'm, you know, even using
it.
You know, on a daily basis I'mseeing stuff and I'll put a,
I'll put a ticket for adeveloper to work on, and so
that's a hat that I'm wearing.
Am I laying down code anymore?
No, maybe I should, but, butbut I haven't done that in a
couple of years.
Tim Bourguignon (21:36):
There's two directions.
I want to go with this,although we'll go one and we'll
see if they're for the other.
If you, if you had the chance,or off you had to do a rematch.
You know what you know.
You you've been developing.
Now you know what you know.
You're starting company fromscratch now and you have to
create an app.
Would you go the same route ofhiring people now that you have
(22:01):
an understanding of what it isto to manage with air quotes and
manage developers and and maybegive them the right
instructions, maybe in boardthem way better on the product
side and really tell what, whatyour vision is?
Or would you develop again thebasics yourself and then slowly
and gradually hire people inyour team?
How would you approach that?
Bryan Clayton (22:22):
Yeah, it's so.
I guess the way I'll answerthat question is it's.
It's hard because, because Inow know everything.
I know all the mistakes and noteverything, but I know
everything about my specificlittle journey, right, and so I
know all the mistakes that Imade.
I don't want them.
It's okay to make mistakes, butit's not okay to make them
twice, and so I don't want toMake those same mistakes, so I
(22:43):
wouldn't.
We we didn't raise any capitalfor this business because we we
just well one.
We couldn't.
We were in Nashville Nashville,tennessee is not a lot of
venture capital here, and and sowe had to bootstrap and self
fund the business.
But if, if, if, doc from backto the future rolls up in the
DeLorean and he says, hey, wegot to go back to to 2013, you
(23:06):
got to start all over again.
And no, you can't buy Bitcoin,amazon, tesla and Apple.
You have to do this, thisshitty lawnmowing app over again
.
And so, okay, all right.
Well, the first thing I would dobecause I now know all this
stuff I would raise a bunch ofmoney and I would build out a
team and we would just, we wouldjust hit the ground running,
(23:29):
but that's not a good way toanswer that question.
Let's let's answer the questionand say no, you don't know how
to develop, you don't know howto write code, you'd never done
any of that stuff.
You got to do.
So now, how would you do it?
I still I Don't know a world inwhich I could have helped, lead
and guide us where we are today, where I didn't know the basics
(23:49):
of how this stuff works and I,you know, I think you got to
kind of have to do that stuff.
I think you kind of have tohave to get the scars, and so I
don't know how I could have doneit any other way.
And I think this stuff, thisstuff applies to pretty much
everything in life.
It's like my girlfriend she's aclub, she's Colombian and she
(24:13):
loves a salsa dance, and Iwanted to surprise her by
learning how to salsa dance, andso I took a bunch of classes
and and took a bunch of YouTubevideos and and spent like two
months learning how to salsadance, and so the first time I
want to surprise her and salsadancing it's my first time on a
dance floor and I'm dancing withher I realized I suck All this
(24:38):
stuff that I just spent learningin like theory and in a
classroom stuff.
None of this applies.
Like she, this is terrible.
And then I realized no, theonly way you really learn how to
salsa dance is to get out thereon the dance floor and do it
and To do it terribly, andthat's the only way you really
learn.
And and so that that's reallymuch.
(24:59):
Pretty much you can apply thisto boxing, mma fighting.
You know, you don't learn howto box until you spar.
You can watch a million YouTubevideos, you can go to a million
classes.
Until you get up there and sparand get punched in the face.
You don't know how to box.
You don't know how to fight.
And that's the same way withrunning a tech startup.
I you really don't know whatthe hell it is you're doing
(25:20):
until you get in there and tryto build something, and build it
with your own hands and getpeople to use it, do you learn
what it is, how it works and howto, how to do, how to scale it
and how to build it right.
Tim Bourguignon (25:33):
I mentioned that again.
Now I want to go with the olderroute, meaning you, you know
how to code, you've been doingthis, you did all the mistakes
as you did and and you reallylearn from that.
Can that be a disservice to thenext steps of really knowing
how the, the, the usage is made,how the software is made, and
(25:56):
not being Maybe it's not theright word impartial when you
think about the business, aboutthe marketing, sales, where
you're pushing, and with thisI'm really very much thinking
about the dichotomy between CEOand CTO, what you often see in
startups.
I have a CTO very much deep inthe tech and really has made all
(26:16):
the mistakes and knows what'swhat's what's happening and can
really dwell into that, but alsoa CEO that is not necessarily
in tech and can think with adifferent brain.
How would you react to that?
Bryan Clayton (26:27):
yeah it.
Sometimes knowledge can, can beDehabilitating and you know,
you kind of kind of saw thiswith Uber.
You know Travis Kalanek, youknow he, he, he was probably, I
think he dabbled as a coder, buthe was never an engineer and
and so and so maybe the abilityto not know what was possible
(26:52):
and what was impossible kind ofhelped him Make magic happen.
Where you push a car, you pusha button in the car comes and,
and he didn't really care aboutall of the other things that
that you know all the othertechnical reasons why it
shouldn't work and why itwouldn't work, and so maybe that
helped him.
Now he had also built and soldlike two other companies, so he
(27:13):
is kind of starting on thirdbase.
As a first time founder, youreally kind of have to be a
builder.
You really kind of need to beable to build your way out of
problems.
If you've done this a couple oftimes and maybe you've built
and sold a company or two, thenmaybe you can get.
You can, you know, get awayfrom that and just focus on,
(27:34):
like, the business side of itand the vision and then hire the
builders.
But as a first time founder, Ithink you kind of need to be
able to build your way out ofproblems.
I think you gotta kind of beable to work your way out of
problems.
So so for me, I don't know thatI could have done it any other
way, and and there might besituations where where the
(27:56):
knowledge and understanding thetechnical limitations is
limiting, but most of the time,as a first time founder, have
the skills to be a builder.
If, if I'm looking for twopeople and we want to build a
house, the first thing I'mlooking for somebody knows how
to lay brick and somebody knowshow to lay concrete.
I'm not looking for a designer,I'm not.
(28:17):
I'm not looking for somebodywho, who, who loves what great
homes look like and has an ideafor a home.
You know, I'm looking for a guywho knows how to use a hammer,
who knows how to use a level andknows how to lay brick.
That's what I'm looking for,because that's the only way
we're going to get this damnhouse built.
And so I think softwaredevelopment is much like that.
(28:37):
Become a builder.
Look for builders to found thebusiness with.
If you're a first time founderNow, if you've done this a
couple of times and you've beenon a rocket ship and you've got
an exit under your belt.
Maybe you don't need to followthat advice, but if you're a
first time founder, be a builder.
Tim Bourguignon (28:54):
Very, very in line with this.
Not to come back to one thingyou mentioned in passing, you
were using the lean startupmodel or approach very early on.
How did you stumble in that?
Bryan Clayton (29:06):
I was terrified because here I am, I just built
and sold a company, and, and butit was a blue collar company,
was a landscaping business,construction business, and and
so I come to the starting block,thinking, oh yeah, man, this,
this is going to be a techbusiness, is going to be easier.
And because I don't have allthese damn employees, I don't
(29:28):
have all these trucks, I don'thave all these lawnmowers, I
don't have all this equipment, Idon't have all these nagging
customers, this is just tech.
Social network made it lookeasy, it's just going to be
easier.
And, like, I just got knockedon my ass very quickly within
like two or three weeks or amonth.
That, no, this is actually 10times harder.
(29:48):
And and so you better start reeducating yourself Is in.
And so I started picking upevery book I could get my hands
on about this stuff, and thiswas 2013.
There wasn't a whole lot.
I mean, nowadays it's almosttoo much, but back then, 10
years ago, there wasn't a wholelot.
(30:10):
And so, and so, first thing wasuse Google how to build a
startup.
I mean, you're going to comeacross the lean startup.
And so read that and like, onlyabout half of it made sense.
And then and then I, and then I, then I learned that actually
Eric Reese's mentor was a guynamed Steve blank, and this guy
(30:30):
wrote a book called the startupowners manual and he also wrote
another book called Four Stepsto the Epiphany, and so I read
both of those and then I wentback and read the lean startup
again and then it started tomake more sense and and what
these books tell you they beatinto your head in a thousand
pages or 2000 pages of text isthat is that all of these
(30:52):
assumptions that you think youhave about about this idea and
how it's going to work or mostof them are wrong, and the only
way to know what's true andwhat's not is to get people to
use the product that you havebrought to market and to study
their use and to talk to themand to look at them using the
(31:12):
product and and to let that beyour free R&D, to let that guide
you.
This stuff seems like painfullyobvious, but the reality is,
none of us want to do that.
We just want to code, we wantto build screens, we want to
build, we want to build stuff.
We we don't want to do any ofthat stuff.
That's not fun.
That wasn't in the socialnetwork.
You never saw one usabilitytest.
(31:33):
That's true in the socialnetwork and I'm sure Mark
Zuckerberg and all those guysdid a ton of those.
I'm sure they did, they had to,but you never saw somebody
slipping down to a Starbucks oryou know and like saying, oh,
what do you wish it would do?
What did you expect wouldhappen when you push that button
?
Where are you let down by this?
What, what, what is the onething it could do that would
(31:56):
make you delighted that itdoesn't do right just yet.
Like you never see that, likethat stuff's all set to like a,
like a, like a music montage andso and so.
But those books like be in yourhead.
Get out of the building, get outfrom behind the laptop and
you've got 10 customers.
Go talk to them.
Or you don't even have 10customers.
(32:17):
What the hell are you doing?
Get five customers.
And there's a famous story withPaul Graham and the and the
founders of Airbnb where they'relike you know, it's just not
working.
And he's like how manycustomers you got?
And they're like well, we got,we got 10 people using it.
Where are they at?
They're all in New York.
Well, what the hell are youdoing in San Francisco?
(32:38):
Get on a plane, go to New York,go talk to them, and so that's
like we all need to hear that.
Tim Bourguignon (32:46):
Indeed, you said.
You said that it didn't makesense in the first reading.
You remember what, what, whatdidn't make sense and what came
after, once it finally clicked.
Bryan Clayton (32:54):
Yeah, it just.
It just seemed.
The first reading just seemedto painfully obvious that I
couldn't grasp it.
And and and what I mean by that?
It's like he talks about Like abuild measure, learn feedback.
Like you build, you throw itout there, you figure out what
(33:16):
worked, did it not work, andthen you measure it and then you
learn, and then you let thatiterate, you let that, you let
that inform what you, what youbuild, and like that just seemed
too obvious to me.
But while I was reading it, wewere doing the opposite of all
of that.
We were like we, we had allthese specs and all of this
stuff that we had this dev shopbuilding and like what they were
(33:39):
building was all wrong.
And so it's like I had to makethe mistake while lit lark,
reading the book and then read,read the startup owners manual,
then come back and read the bookagain.
It's like no, this is how youdo it and the only reason you,
the only way you can do it thisway, is if you know how to code.
You cannot work with a dev shopand Run the lean startup
(34:00):
methodology at the same time.
Those two things are at oddswith each other, because the
whole way a dev shop is is likegive us a complete scope of work
, a complete spec, end-to-end,and we will build that.
They're not like saying, ohyeah, let's just try a few
things, let's experiment, let'sjust, you know, it's not how it
works, that's not how they makemoney and so and so.
That's that's why I didn't makesense, because I was doing the
(34:22):
exact opposite Of what you weretelling me to do.
Tim Bourguignon (34:24):
Mm-hmm, yeah, makes it, makes sense.
And I find it funny because Ihad the same, the same
experience with the, the leanstartup, but with a different
reasoning.
I was a builder before and tome it was okay let's build,
measure, learn, so let's build.
And and I didn't buildsomething in in two hours, I
built something in three months.
Yeah, and, and that's not thelean startup either.
(34:44):
It's way too big.
You have to start with paper,with explaining your idea, with
just drawing stuff, and that'sright, that's right building.
So it's exactly the opposite,but same problem.
Bryan Clayton (34:56):
That's exactly right.
I'll tell you a quick story, a22nd story, maybe a maybe a
one-minute story about, about aguy that I thought had a
conversation with a week ago.
He, I do a little.
I do a little bit of coachingand mentoring for other startup
founders.
They were building marketplacesfor fun, as a hobby, and and he
comes to me and he says, hey,man, I, I got an idea for a
(35:16):
marketplace that I want to buildand and.
And I'm like okay, what is it?
He's like well, you know how Ijust built a house, right, and I
said, yeah, man, he goes.
Well, dude, I saved so muchmoney Because I got a.
I got a $10,000 front door forlike $300.
I got like a set of windowsthat were like five grand.
I got them for like 800 bucks.
I'm like how did you do that?
(35:37):
He said, well, the supply yards,all of them, have all of this
stuff in the back that theyeither special ordered, or it
was bought but never picked up,or they special ordered, never
sold it.
And like they want to get ridof this stuff and you can buy
this stuff for super cheap.
And he said I think amarketplace should exist where
you should be able to point andclick and tap and just buy this
(35:58):
stuff, like you can.
You know, on on Home Depot comm, I said man, that's a great
idea.
He goes, yeah, and they allhave it.
Like all three of these, allthe three supply yards have this
up.
They want to get rid of it.
I think that's a great idea.
He goes, yeah, I'm working onthe inventory system right now.
I'm working on the landingpages.
I got my marketing strategyfigured out.
I'm designing it.
(36:18):
I'm meeting with the designer,got the logo made up like hold
on, hold on, hold on, pump yourbrakes, pump your brakes.
Dog.
He's like what I said.
Man, before he, please stop,before you do any of this, do me
a favor.
I Said man, go to that onesupply yard and say and talk to
the manager and say listen, Iwant to sit in the back office
(36:40):
of this place and I want to sellall this crap you got and I
will only take 10% of theproceeds and you can have the
rest.
He goes, why am I gonna do that?
I said I gotta build all thisstuff and I'm like just hold on,
just, just, please, sell allthat crap.
Sell it on craigslist, offer upFacebook marketplace, any means
necessary, sell that crap.
(37:02):
He goes why am I gonna do that?
I got, I got all this work todo and I said just do, just do
it.
And Like, I talked to him acouple days later, he's like
dude, I'm not gonna do that.
I said, dude, if you want me togive you any more advice, you
will do this, because I willnever help you again.
He goes, okay, begrudgingly,begrudgingly.
He goes and he sets up in thisdank office and starts selling
(37:22):
this crap.
Two days goes by, he calls me.
I actually call him like man,how's it going?
Like, how much of that stuffhave you sold?
He goes there's no businesshere.
Tim Bourguignon (37:38):
Is this painfully funny.
Bryan Clayton (37:40):
There's no business here.
And I'm like, I'm like what'sup, dude?
He's like dude, all of thisstuff is just just not sellable.
Consume, like the people I'mtrying to sell this crap, to
have all of these weirdmismanaged expectations.
I Did sell some stuff but thenI had to take it back because it
had a ding on it.
Um, all of these problems.
(38:03):
He said no, no, screw, noscreen is gonna fix all these
problems.
I said.
I said now you understand?
Well, now you understand whythat stuff's just sitting there
and and.
And I said that's.
And I said, dude, this is leanstartup.
That's lean startup.
Before we lay down a line ofcode, let's just, let's just
(38:24):
hand crank this make, see ifthere's a business.
So that's lean startup.
Tim Bourguignon (38:28):
Even to that.
Is there a piece of that youmentioned?
You mentioned coaching andmentoring New founders, so I'm
gonna piggyback on that.
Is there a piece of advice?
You tell all those personsagain and again and again,
something that that they have tohear.
Maybe it's what you just said,maybe it's something else.
Bryan Clayton (38:45):
Yeah, it's always , it's all.
If, when it's people in thezero to one phase, they're just
trying to, they got an idea andthey're and they're trying to
Manifest that idea, it's alwaysback to we need 10 credit cards,
dude, and we need, we need, weneed, we need 10 credit cards on
file.
We need and we need a hundredtransactions like we don't need
(39:05):
anything.
Until that, none of thismatters, until we get 10, 20, 30
, 40 people to use this thing.
And then let's study that use.
And, and especially when itcomes to marketplaces, I've been
guilty of this before myself.
Marketplace founders alwayswant to think about oh, I got to
like onboard all this supplyand I got to get like the
(39:26):
interfaces and the onboardingprocesses for supply and I Got
to go to trade networks or tradegroups for supply and bring
them on and I'm like dude, no,just just hard code three
suppliers that you don't needany of that.
It's hard code three supplierprofiles.
You're one of them, by the way,you know you're gonna be
(39:48):
self-fulfilling one of them andtwo others and then go figure
out how to get a hundredconsumers and it's like well, no
, no, no, no, no, I don't wantto do any of that I Don't want
to do any of that.
I don't want to deliver fastfood.
I don't want to go delivergroceries, I don't want to.
You know, whatever it is they'retrying to do and you know
(40:08):
there's countless stories of thesuccessful founders that you
know that that have hand crankedthe stuff.
The founders of DoorDash they,they delivered the Chinese food.
The founders of Instacart they,they took pictures of, they
bought one of every item in thegrocery store and hauled all
that back to their littleapartment and took pictures of
all of it and then would godeliver the stuff as people
(40:28):
ordered it.
So you got a hand crank it inthe interrogation.
So usually the advice is alwayslike beating that into
somebody's head.
Tim Bourguignon (40:38):
And it makes so much sense it's.
It's really important to hearthis.
I fully agree, brian.
It's been fantastic listeningto your story.
That was the time all time boxalready.
Bryan Clayton (40:50):
Well, tim, I appreciate it.
Man, this was a lot of fun.
It was a lot of fun.
It was therapeutic for me.
I'm glad it was.
Tim Bourguignon (40:58):
Where would be the best place to continue
discussion with you?
Yeah, anybody want to hit me?
Bryan Clayton (41:01):
up, find me on LinkedIn or actually hang out on
Instagram a lot.
Brian M Clayton Just dropped mea DM there and anybody in the
United States wants to check outgreen pal.
Let's go to green pal, calm andwell.
Add all this in the show notes.
Tim Bourguignon (41:14):
Just have to scroll down and click and
everything will be there.
Anything else you want to plugin?
Bryan Clayton (41:18):
you know, anybody that's hearing this is like man
, I should I do that, should Inot?
You know, I hope what you gotit got from me is that if that
guy can do it, you can too.
There's nothing special aboutme.
I'm not particularly smart orbrilliant.
I just picked one idea andstuck with it for a decade.
So so pick an idea you'repassionate about, that you want
(41:39):
to see exist in the world, andspend 10 years on it, and and
good things will happen, amen.
Tim Bourguignon (41:45):
Brian, thank you.
Thank you Tim and this has beenanother episode of Delper's
journey.
I will see each other next week, bye, bye.
Thanks a lot for tuning in.
I hope you have enjoyed thisweek's episode.
If you like the show, pleaseshare, rate and review.
It helps more listenersdiscover those stories.
You can find the links to allthe platforms the show appears
(42:08):
on on our website devjourneyinfoslash subscribe.
Talk to you soon.
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