September 19, 2024 • 39 mins
What happens when a young troublemaker with a love for computers and cars finds himself at the forefront of the robotics and machine vision industries? Nikki and Courtney chat with Erick Collins, owner of Rockport Integration and Automation.
Through a significant change in career direction and the influence of pivotal figures, Erick's path was anything but ordinary. Discover how a friend's advice led him from auto mechanics to computer science and ultimately into the captivating world of automation.
Disclaimer: This episode was cut short due to an interrupted upload via Riverside.
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Co-Hosts are Alicia Gilpin Director of Engineering at Process and Controls Engineering LLC, Nikki Gonzales Director of Business Development at Weintek USA, and Courtney Fernandez Robot Master at FAST One Solutions.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey guys, thanks for joining us today on another
episode of Automation Ladies.
I'm Courtney Fernandez withUnited Robotics Group and today
we've got our usual NikkiGonzalez.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey everyone Nikki from Clicking here.
I told Courtney, since she'shere and she knows Eric, that
she should run the show today,so let's see how it goes.
Not that it's her first time orthat I should expect anything
less than excellent.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah well, we're really excited to entertain Eric
Collins, a longtime friend ofmine.
Eric, I'll let you introduceyourself.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, my name is Eric Collins and my business is
Rockport Integration andAutomation, and we focus
primarily on robotics andmachine vision, and I myself
have I think I'm coming up on 24years of experience here with
the latter, but also controls,and I could basically build a
(01:03):
machine myself from the groundup.
That's my experience.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
All right, custom machine builder.
And where are you, eric?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Well, rockport is located in Marietta and I live
in Temecula, the little area atthe very edge of Riverside
County and San Diego County.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
All right, you have nice weather.
It looks sunny where you are.
So right now, for those of youbecause you're listening on the
audio podcast, eric is pulledover in his car after a meeting
customer meeting, I, I think itwas, but he's got his lights
shades on and the sun is shiningand, yeah, I guess san diego
fashion, I can imagine it beingaround between 70 and 80 degrees
(01:40):
, right 73 yeah southerncalifornia.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So we usually start the episodes with the same
question most of the time, whichis how did you get into
automation in the first place?
Did you wake up one day, andjust you know?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I kind of figured this question would come up.
This is this is my secondpodcast, I think, and I always
struggle on what to say becauseit's such a long story, uh, but
I'll try to keep it briefessentially what happened?
we're good it kind of is like ablend of of a bunch of
happenings.
(02:19):
When I was young I was a bit ofa troublemaker.
I was a big troublemaker and mymom had a boyfriend who was a
bit of a troublemaker.
I was a big troublemaker and mymom had a boyfriend who was a
computer science major and hesaw potential in me and at 14,
he bought me my first computer.
Obviously I didn't know I was abit of a nerd back then, I just
(02:39):
figured I was having fun withthis computer so I learned
computers.
That was that.
In high school I studied automechanics.
I was top of my class, wassupposed to go to auto mechanics
school.
I had a deal with BMW, wassupposed to get a shop.
All these promises were madeand about a week or two before I
started school for automechanics, bmw kind of backed
(03:04):
off on their deal a little bitand at that moment one of my
good friends, tim, was like hey,man, you're good with computers
, you should be doing computerstuff, not auto mechanics.
He's like you'll make way moremoney.
And I was like okay, good point, sure.
So I dropped out of school,canceled my contract and started
going to school for computerscience, and not even like two
(03:27):
semesters.
One semester in my car blew upon me and I had no ride to
school, no ride to work, so Ispent my time.
My friend worked at Best Buy atthe time in Rancho Cucamonga
and I would just ride to workwith him and go next door to
Barnes and Noble and I wouldjust read books on computers and
study for certifications likeINET plus, network plus, ccna,
(03:51):
mcse, inet plus all of thosethings Studied.
Those spent a lot of time atBarnes and Noble.
I had no money, so I was justthere all day reading books
About the time I was about to gotake the tests.
I just didn't have the moneybecause I had no job.
So I was just there all dayreading books About the time I
was about to go take the tests.
I just didn't have the moneybecause I had no job.
So things just weren't panningout for me and I was getting
(04:12):
frustrated and my friend calledme.
He worked at Circuit City.
You guys probably don't evenknow what that is anymore.
Me too.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I'm not stuck at Circuit City.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
My husband worked at Best Buy when we met, I think,
or no shortly after, but anyway,that was the time that was a
big electronics store.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
So my friend at the time was a manager at Circuit
City.
You know really big deal.
And this guy came in andCourtney actually probably knows
who this guy is, but I won'tsay his name for a lot of
reasons he came in to CircuitCity and he purposely messed up
his electronics in his truck tofind somebody who could fix it
so he could offer them a job.
So he did that.
He purposely messed up hisalarm.
(04:52):
My friend fixed it.
He's like hey, you're smart,you should come work for me.
We do robots and stuff.
My friend was like shit, dude,I'm a manager at Circuit City,
so I'm going gonna have to pass.
It's kind of a big deal.
And he's like well, damn man.
He's like do you know anybody?
He's like you know, this is myfriend, eric, he's super smart.
And by do I?
At this time I didn't know Iwas smart, right.
I had no idea.
(05:13):
I just wanted to be asnowboarder and cause trouble.
That was my plans in life andso he calls me.
He's like hey, this guy'soffered me a job.
I told him about you.
He's like I know you need toget a job.
I was like what is it?
He's like I don't know.
It's like manufacturing androbots and stuff.
I was like, okay, well, whatdoes it pay?
(05:34):
He's like it's 12 bucks an hour.
I was like I'm in 12 bucks anhour back.
Then.
You know this is 2000, yeah.
So I was like, oh my gosh, so Iclean myself up.
You know, put on nice clothes.
I drive down the yorba lindamaybe courtney's doing the math
here, who this person is or not,I don't know but drive down the
yorba linda.
Hand this guy my applicationand he looks at he's like listen
(05:56):
, man, I don't really care aboutyour resume or even how you're
dressed, I don't care about anyof that.
He's like there's a robotdownstairs, here's the manual.
If you can make that robot, howyou're dressed, I don't care
about any of that.
He's like there's a robotdownstairs, here's the manual.
If you can make that robot move, you're hired.
I was like okay.
So I grabbed the manual, rundownstairs and I'm reading it.
And I'm not going to use theterm that we used to define how
(06:17):
the language was written in thismanual.
That was a Japanese robot, butit was very bad English.
Anyways, I spent about he'slike you got till five o'clock,
so take your time.
About three hours later I hadalready read the manual, I had
wrote a program and I had therobot moving and executing the
movements and doing you knowstuff.
And he came downstairs.
He's like you already, youalready wrote a program.
(06:39):
I was like, yeah, he's likeokay, you're hired.
So the rest is history.
I'm self-taught with everythingand that was, kind of by design
, the person I worked for.
I thought he was testing me atthe time, but it turns out he
just didn't know and he washoping I would figure it out and
I did.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I'm in.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
PLC programming I learned how to use SOLIDWORKS
(07:21):
no-transcript other choice somoved with my friend's
grandmother, worked there forabout seven years and I was
riding dirt bikes with my friend.
He's like hey, this guy,because I was, I showed him a
denso robot.
This is a long time ago.
Hey, this guy, he works forthis company I can't say the
company name, but they userobots and they're looking to
(07:42):
hire a programmer and they paylike $90,000 a year and keep in
mind, this is like 2005.
And I was like what People getpaid $90,000 a year to program
robots?
I'm making $15 an hour.
So he's like I'll set you up aninterview.
(08:04):
So he sets up the interview andthis company that I went
interviewed with, courtney knows, knows 100%.
She knows because she's workedwith this company and this
company is, was the biggest oris the biggest automation house
in Southern California by far.
So I went interviewed with thisguy with when the business was
not that big and he's like youmissed the robot programming job
.
I've already filled that, he'slike, but I need a controls guy
(08:26):
and that's $50,000 a year.
I was like that's more than $15an hour.
So he tried to get me to sign acontract right there on the
spot and I was really nervousbecause I was living in San
Dimas, working in Yerba Linda,and this guy is out in Simi
Valley, thousand Oaks.
You know way out there and I'msure Courtney knows exactly what
(08:48):
I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I know exactly what you're talking about now.
I made that drive a few times.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah so, and this guy that was offering the job is a
great guy, I mean obviously asuccessful guy.
But I was like I can't signthis right now, man.
He's like I don't want you togo back and take my offer to
your boss and, just you know,have him match my offer.
I was like that's a good idea.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I should do this.
So I declined the offer.
I said I'm sorry I can't makethat kind of commitment and I'm
glad I did.
You know, it's one of thosethings in life where that was a
major fork in the road for meand maybe it would have worked
out better, maybe not, I don'tknow.
Went back to my boss, told himhe offered me, he matched the
offer and reduced it a littlebit because he's like you don't
(09:32):
have to drive, you know, tofreaking thousand oaks.
I was like okay, so I workedthere for a couple more years.
The relationship between thisperson and I was not going very
well and, um, one of theCognizant guys, matt Remnick,
who's a really dear friend ofmine and a huge mentor in my
life, and you know I've beenworking with Matt Remnick since
(09:54):
before Matt Remnick.
I mean before I would beworking with Cognizant since
before Matt Remnick even workedat Cognizant.
But when Matt got hired weworked together.
Anyways, strong bond with thisguy.
Matt's a great guy.
Matt was like dude, you couldbe doing better.
I'm like what do you mean?
He's like I can't say anything.
He's like because I'm not goingto violate this trust I have
with your boss, but you could bedoing better.
(10:15):
One day I got into a disputewith my boss and I walked out
and had no plans.
I'm just, you know, I had ashort temper, I was young and
dumb, but it worked out.
So I called Matt, I was likeyou said, I can do better,
what's better and he's like.
I got this company in Temecula.
I won't say their name either.
(10:36):
You can go work for them.
And what's the pay?
The pay was great, so left, youknow.
After I quit that job, leftGreat, so left, you know.
After I quit that job, left,started working in Temecula,
ended up moving to Temecula,which is where I am now, because
I absolutely love the place.
It's beautiful, it's small,it's quiet, it was affordable
and I worked at this company fora few years but anyways, so
(10:59):
continued to build my skill,build my craft, and I started to
realize that you know I shouldbe running a business.
And I offered these people torun their business.
I was like, hey, if you guyswant to go hang out in Cabo for
the rest of your life and let merun this business, do it.
Just pay me.
Well, and you know, whateverthey declined.
So I do love them on a personallevel, but maybe on business
(11:20):
level we don't see eye to eye.
But, um, I had, my wife waspregnant and there were some
promises made that weren'tfulfilled.
I fulfilled my end of thebargain.
Um, I learned how to do sqldatabases, I learned how to
program plc, alan bradley, andso they gave me a one percent
raise and cut my car allowance.
And this was about two weeksbefore I had my baby, two weeks,
(11:42):
yeah.
So we weren't doing just okayto we're in the red and this is
a problem.
So I told my wife I was likeyou're going to think I'm crazy
or you already know I'm crazy,but I'm going to quit my job and
start my own business.
She's like okay, I was like soafter my daughter Evie's born,
I'm going to go quit.
(12:02):
So once the word got around thefamily and friends, they are
like you're fucking crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Sorry, I don't know if I can cuss in that you won't
be the last mark as explicit,although not all of our episodes
are, so it's okay we're all.
We already earned our advisory.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, we've already got our little explicit e on it,
yeah so everyone in the worldthought I was crazy and they're
probably right.
But I believed in myself.
I always have.
And I told my wife.
I was like hey, we may lose myhouse, we may lose these cars,
we may have to live with yourmom and dad, but I promise you
I'll make it.
I will make it.
I promise you, and this is whyI love my wife.
(12:41):
Um, she never doubted me.
She's's like OK, let's do this.
And so I did, and through thehelp of my friends Matt Remnick
and Greg Wolf at Sobel, theyhelped me get my first business
off the ground.
And you know there's a lot morestories to that too, but I
don't, you know, we can alwaysmove past it.
But I just wanted to mentiontheir names because they were
(13:03):
really helpful in my career andI always like to give them
credit where I can and shoutthem out, because Greg Wolf and
Matt Remnick are just reallygood people.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Especially in the machine vision community.
You know, I feel like, at leastin Southern California, all of
us that do integrations withmachine vision know those two
names, you know especially ifyou've done Cognix integrations,
like you definitely know MattRemnick and you definitely know
Greg Wolf.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, yeah, and you know the goal is it's already
happening.
But my name should besynonymous with those names,
because I've been working withCogniz longer than they have.
I've been programming Cognizcameras before they were even
around.
Now that's not to say they'renot talented, because Greg Wolf
is extremely talented, but yeah,so that's what I'm known for is
machine vision and robotics,specifically machine vision, but
(13:51):
that's all I got in theautomation.
It was just kind of like a lotof things happen in my life and
it's you know.
I don't know if people believein destiny, but I think at this
point I do, after dealing withthat, going through what I've
gone through and succeeding.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
So what does that success look like for you today?
Because I know you mentionedbefore we started recording that
you're really busy.
You have a lot of projects andthat's a good problem to have.
Yeah, you know, growth can behard just as much as it is
rewarding.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat story of growth between
(14:26):
when you started and now?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, so it's a great question, because this is my
second business.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, I was hoping you would talk about the first
one a little bit.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah, my first business is my first business.
I was young, my ego was waybigger than it is already and I
was out there running andgunning.
I thought I was unstoppable andI was, for the most,
unstoppable.
I believe in my technicalexpertise and growth is the
perfect word for thisconversation because I grew too
(14:58):
fast, I did too much, I went toofast and I didn't learn hard,
valuable lessons.
I just relied on my ability toadapt and overcome and it ended
up costing me my business.
I didn't ever despite what therumors may be or may have been
passed around by crappy people Inever banked up to that
(15:20):
business and I don't know.
I don't owe anybody money andevery employee that walked in
for my business loves me andalways says good things about me
.
In fact, I rehired one of them.
But it's a lesson in owning abusiness is growth and learning
how to manage that and not beingblinded by success and the
perceived success that you'rehaving, and keep staying
(15:43):
grounded, staying focused andhaving a plan is like the most
important thing.
To be successful and successful.
Being successful doesn't meangrowth.
It means sustainability, right,it means being able to weather
storms, and I think the mostimportant lesson that I learned
is that I need to be Eric andRockport needs to be Rockport,
(16:07):
and they're not the same thing.
They're separate entities andthey're not tied together, other
than I own the business and myname's on all the checks.
I try to treat my business as abusiness and not as my personal
toy that I can do whatever Iwant with, and that's if there's
anybody out there starting abusiness or growing a business.
(16:27):
I hope you hear those wordsbecause they're so important.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I think that we know people out there too that have
had that same other people thatyou know had a really good year.
They grew really, really,really fast.
And then you know somethinghappens.
Employees didn't you know isright.
It's a lot of things, the mainthings, that once you start to
(16:50):
scale, if you haven't done it ina very deliberate process way,
that can crumble at anydifferent time, right.
So deliberate.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Deliberate, that's a great word.
It needs to be deliberate.
You need to have contracts, youneed to have things in writing,
you need to have a scope, youneed to have milestones, you
need to have everything on paper.
I tell my employees that youcan.
They'll tell you this right now.
No meeting is off the record.
No conversation is off therecord.
No email is off the record.
(17:16):
It's all on the record.
Everything is documented,everything is archived,
everything is written down andit's just for our protection and
for our own ability to keeptrack of our projects, stay on
top of them and be effective andnot just kind of dangling with
the wind like I was.
You know like I'll figure itout and I do figure it out.
(17:37):
But you know what?
Figuring it out is not enough.
It needs to be deliberate.
Like you said, it needs to beplanned and it needs to be
executed without fail, andsometimes people don't get that.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Well, I was going to say it's easy to ride the waves
of like.
You know, you have this networkin California that all talks to
each other.
So you do good work forsomebody and they all talk to
each other, and this influx ofwork comes in and it's really
easy to kind of start feelinglike, hey, I'm just going to
ride this wave, as opposed toI'm going to build a pyramid
(18:10):
with a big solid base andactually build this pyramid.
I'm just like, oh, the piecesare falling and they happen to
be building a shape.
Yay, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
It's like you're running around with a basket
trying to catch all the apples.
You know You've got to say no.
It's like playing Tetris onpurpose.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I'm liking it to playing Tetris on purpose and
you start clearing rows andstuff and you have a purpose to
it, versus now you have all thisshape that's just fallen out of
control and you've got theseholes that you can't clear out
now, and now you're just kind ofstuck with having let gravity
do all the work.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
And it's so important in integration and machine
building, because we don't havewidgets, we're not selling
widgets, we can't project, wecan't make plans.
All we can do is budget, budget, budget and charge the right
amount.
And that's another thing too.
Is important for business isknowing your value and knowing
your worth in your business andnot letting people, and
(19:06):
specifically customers, talk outof your worth because those
business, and not letting people, and specifically customers,
talk out of your worth becausethose aren't people that you
want to work with anyways, youknow.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Right?
When did you, when and how didyou learn that lesson, and do
you have any suggestions orresources for other people that
may be trying to figure out howthe heck do they actually
properly know their worth?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Well, this is going to sound horribly egotistical.
I don't read books, I don'twatch YouTube videos.
I don't like motivationalquotes.
I don't like any of that.
I think it's all nonsense.
It's just people marketingstuff to you to cater to your
heartstrings, like work hard,and they show a picture of a
(19:47):
lion and they saw a guy gettingoff a jet.
It's like it's all bullshit.
The reality is is you have topay attention to the lessons
that are being taught to you,and you may not realize it's a
lesson, but it's important to beaware of what's happening in
your life and how things aretranspiring.
I learned these lessons thehard way.
I lost the business, I gotviolated by a customer for a lot
(20:13):
of money and I had attorneysthat were like you have a case,
you could win, but it'll takethree years, it'll take hundreds
of thousands of dollars and inthe end they have more money
than you do and you lose.
So those are mistakes that Ilearned the hard way and it hurt
me for a long time.
It really did.
It really hurt me internally asa person, as a business owner.
(20:35):
You know I doubted myself for along time, but you know there's
people that take thoseexperiences and blame it on
someone else.
Or there's people like me thatsay I could blame the customer
all day long, but I didn't getthings in writing.
I trusted people's word, Itrusted someone's handshake and
(20:55):
I let people promise me things.
If they give them discounts nowand things like that, and I
mean the only way I could say is, if you have a business that's
growing, you need to find otherindividuals who are growing a
business.
Or for people like me, I havefriends that are in a higher
position than I am, that arefurther along in life than I am.
(21:17):
I have people that are not asfar along in life as I am, and I
have these people as a counselof my life that I talk to,
because sometimes the personthat's below me not that in a
bad way, but that's not whereI'm at now they may have a
perspective that I wasn'tthinking of, and the people that
have been there already havethis perspective of like Eric,
(21:37):
don't make that mistake.
So I think it's important to toput down the books and turn off
YouTube and talk to some peoplethat you know are successful.
If you don't have anybody, man,contact me.
You know I don't care.
There's enough meat on the bonefor all of us to eat.
There's enough business outthere for all of us to be
successful.
There's no need to hoardinformation.
There's no need for us not tostick together and work together
(21:58):
.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
So anybody that owned a business that knows me knows
I'm very open and very willingto help out, give advice and
help out wherever I can withinreason, and I think and I may be
wrong about this, but I thinkmost people that genuinely have
built a business and they'veusually stumbled along the way,
whether it's in that business orwith prior businesses.
Like most successfulentrepreneurs, it's not their
first go around.
(22:18):
That is the big success.
Because you can't learneverything from a book or you
can't follow somebody else'sblueprint and immediately be a
wild success.
Like I hate those.
Oh, I figured out the systemand now I'm going to teach it to
you, so you can, you know, takeall the shortcuts and become a
millionaire overnight, or even amore reasonable promise,
because so much of what happensin business that succeeds is a
(22:41):
combination of timing, luck,your relationships your skills
your ability to execute things,and sometimes there's things out
of your control.
But like saying someone oh, youfigured out the magic formula
and as long as you follow mysystem, you'll be successful.
I am always like bullshit thosepeople.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Those people are the people that are selling you
snake oil, and if you really, ifyou're a smart business person,
you should be able to look atthe other side of the fence and
say, if this guy was successful,he wouldn't need to do this.
He wouldn't need he or shesorry, they wouldn't need to do
this, they wouldn't need to sellthis pamphlet of success,
(23:23):
because if that was the case,this pamphlet would have been
circulated around and peoplewould be following it and
everyone would be successful.
The reality is, owning abusiness is not easy.
There's a high chance offailure, it's a high risk
proposition and if you're notborderline insane, you're
probably not cut out to own abusiness.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Well said, well said.
I'm going to make this ashameless plug for OTScapeCon.
I don't know why we call it aconference, right, colin?
But it's meant to be parttraining.
I mean mostly networking also.
But the idea is to have mosttopics that are in, you know,
(24:06):
under that OT SCADA, you know,machine building type of
umbrella, have a little bit ofpractical information and
theoretical information abouteach topic, inputs from various
different people that actuallywork in these fields, but then
most, I think, most importantly,the ability to get to know and
(24:26):
network with and follow up withthose people, both the ones that
are teaching those particularsubjects and then the other
people that are there to learn.
Yep, and at first I was like,okay, how are you gonna?
How are you gonna cover 23topics with only 30 minutes on
each topic and anybody get anyvalue out of it?
uh, you can do a training on anyone of these topics and you're
(24:48):
still only scratching thesurface.
But then the reason we thoughtof this.
So we, ali and I, both went toa OT network training at Trace
Route in Dallas, taught by JoshVarghese, who is, just, you know
, a practicing subject matterexpert in that area.
It's what he works on and itwas probably one of the best
(25:11):
industry events I've ever beento.
It was about 40 people.
It was a very specific topicthat we were getting, you know,
kind of a deep dive training onfor the two days.
But, like for me, I don't needto know all that much about
industrial networking, I want toknow enough to be able to point
people in the right direction,to know when things are fishy,
to know, you know, like that'sthe reason I wanted to go and
(25:33):
learn that.
But then the big value for mewas I got to meet 40 other
people in that room that touchedthat technology area for some
reason and want to know moreabout it, and that's both
systems integrators there werecontrols engineers from you know
end users there.
There were people from themanufacturers that are working
on those product lines and beingable to be in the room with
(25:56):
those people, make thoseconnections, and it's not, you
know, two, three thousand peopleat a conference where, yeah,
you like, scan your badge ahundred times and then just get
spammed by oh my gosh peopletrying to like around with it
like flip the other way, likeplease don't scan my code.
Yeah, I don't want, and so justnow, even as we're like just the
speakers in this session, we'vebeen talking One of the topics
(26:20):
right 30 minutes.
Every single one of thespeakers has different
experiences with that topic.
What were we talking aboutearlier in the chat?
Courtney, virtual machines orremote access, and you've got
like five different integrators.
They're like, oh yeah, I liketo use this, or oh, I use that,
and this is how we do it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Here's the way I do it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And that's essentially kind of what we want
to try to do.
Is everybody that attends thatshould be able to plug into kind
of what you have in a way, eric, with your little network there
in Southern California.
It's just sometimes all youneed is to know somebody to call
to ask the question, to getsome advice or to collaborate on
the project or pass on thebusiness or whatever that is.
(26:59):
Would you say that that'splayed a big you know role in
your success or do you thinkthat without you know those
people around you as a network,you probably would have still
made it right?
You're that type of person.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
You're being stopped by that, but yeah, I think
everyone's different and I thinkeverything you said has like
the utmost of value.
I mean, it's so important youknow how many of my competitors
I'm friends with and talk to youknow like there's just no need
to be hostile but my growth, mypath, was just different from
(27:30):
everybody's, unfortunately, andmaybe fortunately, I don't know.
I don't want to say too muchbecause I have to disparage
people to say some of thesethings and I don't like to do
that, but I had to fight reallyhard to get where I'm at.
Really really, really hard.
A lot of adversity, A lot ofdeceit, a lot of lies.
I always tell people my career,the reason why I'm so good at
(27:52):
what I do, is because I workedwith all the wrong people and
learned how to do things all thewrong way.
My whole career was justworking with the wrong people
and doing things the wrong way,and me starting my business was
my way of saying I think that'sall shady, I think that's wrong,
this is the way I want to do it.
And so to your point.
I spend a lot of time nowmeeting with my competitors,
(28:16):
talking with my competitors,being friends with my
competitors, because we all know, may the best person win, may
the best business win.
You know what I mean.
There's a lot of business outthere and you know we'll ask
each other hey, do you knowsomeone, do you know anybody
that's looking for a job?
Or hey, maybe we cancollaborate on this project.
You know things of that nature.
(28:37):
I don't think there's a need tobe hostile or not talk, and I
think networking especially likewhen you have a similar
business in another state likethat's really helpful, because
now you have all, like thegloves are off, you feel
comfortable, you can speakcandidly because you know that
there is no direct competition.
There's no, you know,possibility of going up against
(28:59):
each other.
And now you can share somereally important advice to help
grow each other's business.
Show where we've learned things, show where they've learned
things.
And I'm in the process ofexpanding my business to another
state.
Texas was the original thought.
I may be changing that, I don'tknow.
There's just a lot of things.
Right now my business isgrowing really fast, like I said
(29:20):
, and instead of me, just like Isaid, running around the basket
and trying to catch all theapples, I took a step back and
let the apples fall and I'llfind the right one.
So the original plan was Texasand I networked with a lot of
people in Texas.
I flew out there, met with alot of people you are, you know,
(29:41):
olympus Controls and some otherpeople but I think that in
talking to these people, Irealized maybe Texas is not the
move for me, you know, and thatwas through networking and
talking to people in my industryand like-minded individuals.
So, yeah, I think to answeryour question in the longest way
possible, like I just did, yeah, I think it's important.
(30:02):
I think it's important to talkto people.
It really, is it really?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
is yeah, and overthinking and overstudying
sometimes.
I mean, some people are likethat they don't want to do
anything until you're fullyprepared.
I would say this type of worldtoo, like there isn't really
much that you can do to be fullyprepared no, that's impossible.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
It's literally impossible.
I, I tell people all the time,like I tell my employees and I
tell my customers and I tellpeople that want to invest in my
business I'm like I one don'tever call me a startup, I'll
lose my effing mind if you callme a startup I have nobody's
money.
This is all my money.
I have no debt, um, but anyways, if you call me a startup, I
have nobody's money.
This is all my money.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I have no debt.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
But anyways, if you could just try and adapt, that's
like the best you can do Otherthan that, like if I try and
take someone's money or I makesome deal or I do something.
I'm a human being that operateson honesty as much as I can and
I will quite literally losesleep much as I can.
(30:59):
And I will quite literally losesleep if I feel like there's a
potential for someone losing outon the investment in me or my
business, or if there's apotential that I sell this to a
customer and it becomes aheartache for them or a pain.
I won't be able to sleep atnight and that's like the
reality of owning a business.
If you care because some peopledon't care.
That's like the reality ofowning a business.
(31:20):
If you care because some peopledon't care is the stress is
never ending.
And the way I equate it is Itell people you don't know what
love is until you have a kid andyou don't know what stress is
until you own a business.
You just don't know.
They're not the same thing,they're just it's another level.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I'll never forget Alicia basically saying that,
like the way she saw things youknow, when things started
growing for her and she startedbringing on employees is now
she's seeing all those employees, babies, and she's like this is
how many babies I have to feednow, you know that's like.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
That's where my mind goes as well.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
If I'm bringing on people, there's like mouths that
we have to feed.
We have to succeed at this.
Yeah, I've got five families tohelp you know and how many
babies total is that you know?
Speaker 3 (32:00):
you know, and it's something that, if you're not
unless you're like a psychopath,like that's something that I
live with every day.
Every time I see my bankaccount go down even a little
bit, I'm like am I doing theright thing?
Am I spending my money in theright places?
Am I budgeting properly?
Am I deceiving these people?
Am I like you?
All these things race throughyour head constantly and you
(32:22):
just got to learn One.
You got to learn to one.
Like again stick to the plan,make a plan, stick to the plan,
make a budget, stick to thebudget, make a decision, stick
to the decision.
Because if you, if you doubtyourself too much, it's a
paralysis by analysis, like yousaid, and you know you can't
plan for this, you just can't.
You can set a goal, and I hopeit's not a monthly goal.
(32:45):
You better set a five-year goal, you better set a two-year goal
and you better be prepared fora roller coaster in between.
You know no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
It means you redefine the relationship.
Have you learned anything?
Or uh, how deep, oh, uh-oh Ithink, see if he manages to find
his way back in.
We just lost Eric.
Well, let me point thisquestion at you, courtney yeah,
since we're still recording andlet's see if Eric comes back.
Is this something?
Do you have any insight?
(33:46):
Like you've been in years ofdoing business as yourself,
working with other smallbusinesses, working at large
companies how do you figure outwho you can trust and can you
ever Do you learn to have asixth sense about these things?
Do you learn that there'scertain things that you actually
try to make a point, to verifyas a process, or is it just you
(34:07):
have to feel people out?
You know, how do you, as youstart to realize that you are
not an island, right?
Um, select people that youthink you can trust?
And I'll point back to theearlier example of the lawsuit
type situation.
You know, customer doesn't pay.
Yeah, you can take them tocourt.
You can be right all day longand it'll still cost you way
(34:30):
more than you can afford.
And so, you know, go takingsomebody to court isn't an
option for most people, smallbusinesses especially, and I
don't think many of us don'tunderstand how cost prohibitive
it is to have the courts youknow, settle our disputes.
Oftentimes it has to come downto trust.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah, that's actually kind of the hard thing, I think
as a small business, or that Ididn't realize.
As a small business is like sayyou put you know net 15 in your
estimate.
And then now suddenly they'vegot you on net 60 and you can't,
yeah, yeah, like you're stucksaying, hey, I need you to pay
me, but you, you're kind ofpowerless to do anything.
As a small company against abig company, you could sit there
and say you said 15 days andthat's basically all you can do.
But aside from having actuallylike been burnt by people in the
(35:19):
past and knowing, like, whatthat feels like or what's coming
, and, like you said, that sixthsense of hey, I've been burnt
like this before I kind of feellike it's coming again.
Hey guys, thanks for joining us today on another
episode of Automation Ladies.
I'm Courtney Fernandez withUnited Robotics Group and today
we've got our usual NikkiGonzalez.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hey everyone Nikki from Clicking here.
I told Courtney, since she'shere and she knows Eric, that
she should run the show today,so let's see how it goes.
Not that it's her first time orthat I should expect anything
less than excellent.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Yeah well, we're really excited to entertain Eric
Collins, a longtime friend ofmine.
Eric, I'll let you introduceyourself.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Yeah, my name is Eric Collins and my business is
Rockport Integration andAutomation, and we focus
primarily on robotics andmachine vision, and I myself
have I think I'm coming up on 24years of experience here with
the latter, but also controls,and I could basically build a
(01:03):
machine myself from the groundup.
That's my experience.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
All right, custom machine builder.
And where are you, eric?
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Well, rockport is located in Marietta and I live
in Temecula, the little area atthe very edge of Riverside
County and San Diego County.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
All right, you have nice weather.
It looks sunny where you are.
So right now, for those of youbecause you're listening on the
audio podcast, eric is pulledover in his car after a meeting
customer meeting, I, I think itwas, but he's got his lights
shades on and the sun is shiningand, yeah, I guess san diego
fashion, I can imagine it beingaround between 70 and 80 degrees
(01:40):
, right 73 yeah southerncalifornia.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
So we usually start the episodes with the same
question most of the time, whichis how did you get into
automation in the first place?
Did you wake up one day, andjust you know?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
I kind of figured this question would come up.
This is this is my secondpodcast, I think, and I always
struggle on what to say becauseit's such a long story, uh, but
I'll try to keep it briefessentially what happened?
we're good it kind of is like ablend of of a bunch of
happenings.
(02:19):
When I was young I was a bit ofa troublemaker.
I was a big troublemaker and mymom had a boyfriend who was a
bit of a troublemaker.
I was a big troublemaker and mymom had a boyfriend who was a
computer science major and hesaw potential in me and at 14,
he bought me my first computer.
Obviously I didn't know I was abit of a nerd back then, I just
(02:39):
figured I was having fun withthis computer so I learned
computers.
That was that.
In high school I studied automechanics.
I was top of my class, wassupposed to go to auto mechanics
school.
I had a deal with BMW, wassupposed to get a shop.
All these promises were madeand about a week or two before I
started school for automechanics, bmw kind of backed
(03:04):
off on their deal a little bitand at that moment one of my
good friends, tim, was like hey,man, you're good with computers
, you should be doing computerstuff, not auto mechanics.
He's like you'll make way moremoney.
And I was like okay, good point, sure.
So I dropped out of school,canceled my contract and started
going to school for computerscience, and not even like two
(03:27):
semesters.
One semester in my car blew upon me and I had no ride to
school, no ride to work, so Ispent my time.
My friend worked at Best Buy atthe time in Rancho Cucamonga
and I would just ride to workwith him and go next door to
Barnes and Noble and I wouldjust read books on computers and
study for certifications likeINET plus, network plus, ccna,
(03:51):
mcse, inet plus all of thosethings Studied.
Those spent a lot of time atBarnes and Noble.
I had no money, so I was justthere all day reading books
About the time I was about to gotake the tests.
I just didn't have the moneybecause I had no job.
So I was just there all dayreading books About the time I
was about to go take the tests.
I just didn't have the moneybecause I had no job.
So things just weren't panningout for me and I was getting
(04:12):
frustrated and my friend calledme.
He worked at Circuit City.
You guys probably don't evenknow what that is anymore.
Me too.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
I'm not stuck at Circuit City.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
My husband worked at Best Buy when we met, I think,
or no shortly after, but anyway,that was the time that was a
big electronics store.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
So my friend at the time was a manager at Circuit
City.
You know really big deal.
And this guy came in andCourtney actually probably knows
who this guy is, but I won'tsay his name for a lot of
reasons he came in to CircuitCity and he purposely messed up
his electronics in his truck tofind somebody who could fix it
so he could offer them a job.
So he did that.
He purposely messed up hisalarm.
(04:52):
My friend fixed it.
He's like hey, you're smart,you should come work for me.
We do robots and stuff.
My friend was like shit, dude,I'm a manager at Circuit City,
so I'm going gonna have to pass.
It's kind of a big deal.
And he's like well, damn man.
He's like do you know anybody?
He's like you know, this is myfriend, eric, he's super smart.
And by do I?
At this time I didn't know Iwas smart, right.
I had no idea.
(05:13):
I just wanted to be asnowboarder and cause trouble.
That was my plans in life andso he calls me.
He's like hey, this guy'soffered me a job.
I told him about you.
He's like I know you need toget a job.
I was like what is it?
He's like I don't know.
It's like manufacturing androbots and stuff.
I was like, okay, well, whatdoes it pay?
(05:34):
He's like it's 12 bucks an hour.
I was like I'm in 12 bucks anhour back.
Then.
You know this is 2000, yeah.
So I was like, oh my gosh, so Iclean myself up.
You know, put on nice clothes.
I drive down the yorba lindamaybe courtney's doing the math
here, who this person is or not,I don't know but drive down the
yorba linda.
Hand this guy my applicationand he looks at he's like listen
(05:56):
, man, I don't really care aboutyour resume or even how you're
dressed, I don't care about anyof that.
He's like there's a robotdownstairs, here's the manual.
If you can make that robot, howyou're dressed, I don't care
about any of that.
He's like there's a robotdownstairs, here's the manual.
If you can make that robot move, you're hired.
I was like okay.
So I grabbed the manual, rundownstairs and I'm reading it.
And I'm not going to use theterm that we used to define how
(06:17):
the language was written in thismanual.
That was a Japanese robot, butit was very bad English.
Anyways, I spent about he'slike you got till five o'clock,
so take your time.
About three hours later I hadalready read the manual, I had
wrote a program and I had therobot moving and executing the
movements and doing you knowstuff.
And he came downstairs.
He's like you already, youalready wrote a program.
(06:39):
I was like, yeah, he's likeokay, you're hired.
So the rest is history.
I'm self-taught with everythingand that was, kind of by design
, the person I worked for.
I thought he was testing me atthe time, but it turns out he
just didn't know and he washoping I would figure it out and
I did.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
I'm in.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
PLC programming I learned how to use SOLIDWORKS
(07:21):
no-transcript other choice somoved with my friend's
grandmother, worked there forabout seven years and I was
riding dirt bikes with my friend.
He's like hey, this guy,because I was, I showed him a
denso robot.
This is a long time ago.
Hey, this guy, he works forthis company I can't say the
company name, but they userobots and they're looking to
(07:42):
hire a programmer and they paylike $90,000 a year and keep in
mind, this is like 2005.
And I was like what People getpaid $90,000 a year to program
robots?
I'm making $15 an hour.
So he's like I'll set you up aninterview.
(08:04):
So he sets up the interview andthis company that I went
interviewed with, courtney knows, knows 100%.
She knows because she's workedwith this company and this
company is, was the biggest oris the biggest automation house
in Southern California by far.
So I went interviewed with thisguy with when the business was
not that big and he's like youmissed the robot programming job
.
I've already filled that, he'slike, but I need a controls guy
(08:26):
and that's $50,000 a year.
I was like that's more than $15an hour.
So he tried to get me to sign acontract right there on the
spot and I was really nervousbecause I was living in San
Dimas, working in Yerba Linda,and this guy is out in Simi
Valley, thousand Oaks.
You know way out there and I'msure Courtney knows exactly what
(08:48):
I'm talking about.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
I know exactly what you're talking about now.
I made that drive a few times.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yeah so, and this guy that was offering the job is a
great guy, I mean obviously asuccessful guy.
But I was like I can't signthis right now, man.
He's like I don't want you togo back and take my offer to
your boss and, just you know,have him match my offer.
I was like that's a good idea.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (09:11):
I should do this.
So I declined the offer.
I said I'm sorry I can't makethat kind of commitment and I'm
glad I did.
You know, it's one of thosethings in life where that was a
major fork in the road for meand maybe it would have worked
out better, maybe not, I don'tknow.
Went back to my boss, told himhe offered me, he matched the
offer and reduced it a littlebit because he's like you don't
(09:32):
have to drive, you know, tofreaking thousand oaks.
I was like okay, so I workedthere for a couple more years.
The relationship between thisperson and I was not going very
well and, um, one of theCognizant guys, matt Remnick,
who's a really dear friend ofmine and a huge mentor in my
life, and you know I've beenworking with Matt Remnick since
(09:54):
before Matt Remnick.
I mean before I would beworking with Cognizant since
before Matt Remnick even workedat Cognizant.
But when Matt got hired weworked together.
Anyways, strong bond with thisguy.
Matt's a great guy.
Matt was like dude, you couldbe doing better.
I'm like what do you mean?
He's like I can't say anything.
He's like because I'm not goingto violate this trust I have
with your boss, but you could bedoing better.
(10:15):
One day I got into a disputewith my boss and I walked out
and had no plans.
I'm just, you know, I had ashort temper, I was young and
dumb, but it worked out.
So I called Matt, I was likeyou said, I can do better,
what's better and he's like.
I got this company in Temecula.
I won't say their name either.
(10:36):
You can go work for them.
And what's the pay?
The pay was great, so left, youknow.
After I quit that job, leftGreat, so left, you know.
After I quit that job, left,started working in Temecula,
ended up moving to Temecula,which is where I am now, because
I absolutely love the place.
It's beautiful, it's small,it's quiet, it was affordable
and I worked at this company fora few years but anyways, so
(10:59):
continued to build my skill,build my craft, and I started to
realize that you know I shouldbe running a business.
And I offered these people torun their business.
I was like, hey, if you guyswant to go hang out in Cabo for
the rest of your life and let merun this business, do it.
Just pay me.
Well, and you know, whateverthey declined.
So I do love them on a personallevel, but maybe on business
(11:20):
level we don't see eye to eye.
But, um, I had, my wife waspregnant and there were some
promises made that weren'tfulfilled.
I fulfilled my end of thebargain.
Um, I learned how to do sqldatabases, I learned how to
program plc, alan bradley, andso they gave me a one percent
raise and cut my car allowance.
And this was about two weeksbefore I had my baby, two weeks,
(11:42):
yeah.
So we weren't doing just okayto we're in the red and this is
a problem.
So I told my wife I was likeyou're going to think I'm crazy
or you already know I'm crazy,but I'm going to quit my job and
start my own business.
She's like okay, I was like soafter my daughter Evie's born,
I'm going to go quit.
(12:02):
So once the word got around thefamily and friends, they are
like you're fucking crazy.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
Sorry, I don't know if I can cuss in that you won't
be the last mark as explicit,although not all of our episodes
are, so it's okay we're all.
We already earned our advisory.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Yeah, we've already got our little explicit e on it,
yeah so everyone in the worldthought I was crazy and they're
probably right.
But I believed in myself.
I always have.
And I told my wife.
I was like hey, we may lose myhouse, we may lose these cars,
we may have to live with yourmom and dad, but I promise you
I'll make it.
I will make it.
I promise you, and this is whyI love my wife.
(12:41):
Um, she never doubted me.
She's's like OK, let's do this.
And so I did, and through thehelp of my friends Matt Remnick
and Greg Wolf at Sobel, theyhelped me get my first business
off the ground.
And you know there's a lot morestories to that too, but I
don't, you know, we can alwaysmove past it.
But I just wanted to mentiontheir names because they were
(13:03):
really helpful in my career andI always like to give them
credit where I can and shoutthem out, because Greg Wolf and
Matt Remnick are just reallygood people.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Especially in the machine vision community.
You know, I feel like, at leastin Southern California, all of
us that do integrations withmachine vision know those two
names, you know especially ifyou've done Cognix integrations,
like you definitely know MattRemnick and you definitely know
Greg Wolf.
Speaker 3 (13:30):
Yeah, yeah, and you know the goal is it's already
happening.
But my name should besynonymous with those names,
because I've been working withCogniz longer than they have.
I've been programming Cognizcameras before they were even
around.
Now that's not to say they'renot talented, because Greg Wolf
is extremely talented, but yeah,so that's what I'm known for is
machine vision and robotics,specifically machine vision, but
(13:51):
that's all I got in theautomation.
It was just kind of like a lotof things happen in my life and
it's you know.
I don't know if people believein destiny, but I think at this
point I do, after dealing withthat, going through what I've
gone through and succeeding.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
So what does that success look like for you today?
Because I know you mentionedbefore we started recording that
you're really busy.
You have a lot of projects andthat's a good problem to have.
Yeah, you know, growth can behard just as much as it is
rewarding.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat story of growth between
(14:26):
when you started and now?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Yeah, so it's a great question, because this is my
second business.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
Yeah, I was hoping you would talk about the first
one a little bit.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah, my first business is my first business.
I was young, my ego was waybigger than it is already and I
was out there running andgunning.
I thought I was unstoppable andI was, for the most,
unstoppable.
I believe in my technicalexpertise and growth is the
perfect word for thisconversation because I grew too
(14:58):
fast, I did too much, I went toofast and I didn't learn hard,
valuable lessons.
I just relied on my ability toadapt and overcome and it ended
up costing me my business.
I didn't ever despite what therumors may be or may have been
passed around by crappy people Inever banked up to that
(15:20):
business and I don't know.
I don't owe anybody money andevery employee that walked in
for my business loves me andalways says good things about me
.
In fact, I rehired one of them.
But it's a lesson in owning abusiness is growth and learning
how to manage that and not beingblinded by success and the
perceived success that you'rehaving, and keep staying
(15:43):
grounded, staying focused andhaving a plan is like the most
important thing.
To be successful and successful.
Being successful doesn't meangrowth.
It means sustainability, right,it means being able to weather
storms, and I think the mostimportant lesson that I learned
is that I need to be Eric andRockport needs to be Rockport,
(16:07):
and they're not the same thing.
They're separate entities andthey're not tied together, other
than I own the business and myname's on all the checks.
I try to treat my business as abusiness and not as my personal
toy that I can do whatever Iwant with, and that's if there's
anybody out there starting abusiness or growing a business.
(16:27):
I hope you hear those wordsbecause they're so important.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
I think that we know people out there too that have
had that same other people thatyou know had a really good year.
They grew really, really,really fast.
And then you know somethinghappens.
Employees didn't you know isright.
It's a lot of things, the mainthings, that once you start to
(16:50):
scale, if you haven't done it ina very deliberate process way,
that can crumble at anydifferent time, right.
So deliberate.
Speaker 3 (16:56):
Deliberate, that's a great word.
It needs to be deliberate.
You need to have contracts, youneed to have things in writing,
you need to have a scope, youneed to have milestones, you
need to have everything on paper.
I tell my employees that youcan.
They'll tell you this right now.
No meeting is off the record.
No conversation is off therecord.
No email is off the record.
(17:16):
It's all on the record.
Everything is documented,everything is archived,
everything is written down andit's just for our protection and
for our own ability to keeptrack of our projects, stay on
top of them and be effective andnot just kind of dangling with
the wind like I was.
You know like I'll figure itout and I do figure it out.
(17:37):
But you know what?
Figuring it out is not enough.
It needs to be deliberate.
Like you said, it needs to beplanned and it needs to be
executed without fail, andsometimes people don't get that.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
Well, I was going to say it's easy to ride the waves
of like.
You know, you have this networkin California that all talks to
each other.
So you do good work forsomebody and they all talk to
each other, and this influx ofwork comes in and it's really
easy to kind of start feelinglike, hey, I'm just going to
ride this wave, as opposed toI'm going to build a pyramid
(18:10):
with a big solid base andactually build this pyramid.
I'm just like, oh, the piecesare falling and they happen to
be building a shape.
Yay, you know.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
It's like you're running around with a basket
trying to catch all the apples.
You know You've got to say no.
It's like playing Tetris onpurpose.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I'm liking it to playing Tetris on purpose and
you start clearing rows andstuff and you have a purpose to
it, versus now you have all thisshape that's just fallen out of
control and you've got theseholes that you can't clear out
now, and now you're just kind ofstuck with having let gravity
do all the work.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
And it's so important in integration and machine
building, because we don't havewidgets, we're not selling
widgets, we can't project, wecan't make plans.
All we can do is budget, budget, budget and charge the right
amount.
And that's another thing too.
Is important for business isknowing your value and knowing
your worth in your business andnot letting people, and
(19:06):
specifically customers, talk outof your worth because those
business, and not letting people, and specifically customers,
talk out of your worth becausethose aren't people that you
want to work with anyways, youknow.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
Right?
When did you, when and how didyou learn that lesson, and do
you have any suggestions orresources for other people that
may be trying to figure out howthe heck do they actually
properly know their worth?
Speaker 3 (19:26):
Well, this is going to sound horribly egotistical.
I don't read books, I don'twatch YouTube videos.
I don't like motivationalquotes.
I don't like any of that.
I think it's all nonsense.
It's just people marketingstuff to you to cater to your
heartstrings, like work hard,and they show a picture of a
(19:47):
lion and they saw a guy gettingoff a jet.
It's like it's all bullshit.
The reality is is you have topay attention to the lessons
that are being taught to you,and you may not realize it's a
lesson, but it's important to beaware of what's happening in
your life and how things aretranspiring.
I learned these lessons thehard way.
I lost the business, I gotviolated by a customer for a lot
(20:13):
of money and I had attorneysthat were like you have a case,
you could win, but it'll takethree years, it'll take hundreds
of thousands of dollars and inthe end they have more money
than you do and you lose.
So those are mistakes that Ilearned the hard way and it hurt
me for a long time.
It really did.
It really hurt me internally asa person, as a business owner.
(20:35):
You know I doubted myself for along time, but you know there's
people that take thoseexperiences and blame it on
someone else.
Or there's people like me thatsay I could blame the customer
all day long, but I didn't getthings in writing.
I trusted people's word, Itrusted someone's handshake and
(20:55):
I let people promise me things.
If they give them discounts nowand things like that, and I
mean the only way I could say is, if you have a business that's
growing, you need to find otherindividuals who are growing a
business.
Or for people like me, I havefriends that are in a higher
position than I am, that arefurther along in life than I am.
(21:17):
I have people that are not asfar along in life as I am, and I
have these people as a counselof my life that I talk to,
because sometimes the personthat's below me not that in a
bad way, but that's not whereI'm at now they may have a
perspective that I wasn'tthinking of, and the people that
have been there already havethis perspective of like Eric,
(21:37):
don't make that mistake.
So I think it's important to toput down the books and turn off
YouTube and talk to some peoplethat you know are successful.
If you don't have anybody, man,contact me.
You know I don't care.
There's enough meat on the bonefor all of us to eat.
There's enough business outthere for all of us to be
successful.
There's no need to hoardinformation.
There's no need for us not tostick together and work together
(21:58):
.
Speaker 2 (21:58):
So anybody that owned a business that knows me knows
I'm very open and very willingto help out, give advice and
help out wherever I can withinreason, and I think and I may be
wrong about this, but I thinkmost people that genuinely have
built a business and they'veusually stumbled along the way,
whether it's in that business orwith prior businesses.
Like most successfulentrepreneurs, it's not their
first go around.
(22:18):
That is the big success.
Because you can't learneverything from a book or you
can't follow somebody else'sblueprint and immediately be a
wild success.
Like I hate those.
Oh, I figured out the systemand now I'm going to teach it to
you, so you can, you know, takeall the shortcuts and become a
millionaire overnight, or even amore reasonable promise,
because so much of what happensin business that succeeds is a
(22:41):
combination of timing, luck,your relationships your skills
your ability to execute things,and sometimes there's things out
of your control.
But like saying someone oh, youfigured out the magic formula
and as long as you follow mysystem, you'll be successful.
I am always like bullshit thosepeople.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
Those people are the people that are selling you
snake oil, and if you really, ifyou're a smart business person,
you should be able to look atthe other side of the fence and
say, if this guy was successful,he wouldn't need to do this.
He wouldn't need he or shesorry, they wouldn't need to do
this, they wouldn't need to sellthis pamphlet of success,
(23:23):
because if that was the case,this pamphlet would have been
circulated around and peoplewould be following it and
everyone would be successful.
The reality is, owning abusiness is not easy.
There's a high chance offailure, it's a high risk
proposition and if you're notborderline insane, you're
probably not cut out to own abusiness.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
Well said, well said.
I'm going to make this ashameless plug for OTScapeCon.
I don't know why we call it aconference, right, colin?
But it's meant to be parttraining.
I mean mostly networking also.
But the idea is to have mosttopics that are in, you know,
(24:06):
under that OT SCADA, you know,machine building type of
umbrella, have a little bit ofpractical information and
theoretical information abouteach topic, inputs from various
different people that actuallywork in these fields, but then
most, I think, most importantly,the ability to get to know and
(24:26):
network with and follow up withthose people, both the ones that
are teaching those particularsubjects and then the other
people that are there to learn.
Yep, and at first I was like,okay, how are you gonna?
How are you gonna cover 23topics with only 30 minutes on
each topic and anybody get anyvalue out of it?
uh, you can do a training on anyone of these topics and you're
(24:48):
still only scratching thesurface.
But then the reason we thoughtof this.
So we, ali and I, both went toa OT network training at Trace
Route in Dallas, taught by JoshVarghese, who is, just, you know
, a practicing subject matterexpert in that area.
It's what he works on and itwas probably one of the best
(25:11):
industry events I've ever beento.
It was about 40 people.
It was a very specific topicthat we were getting, you know,
kind of a deep dive training onfor the two days.
But, like for me, I don't needto know all that much about
industrial networking, I want toknow enough to be able to point
people in the right direction,to know when things are fishy,
to know, you know, like that'sthe reason I wanted to go and
(25:33):
learn that.
But then the big value for mewas I got to meet 40 other
people in that room that touchedthat technology area for some
reason and want to know moreabout it, and that's both
systems integrators there werecontrols engineers from you know
end users there.
There were people from themanufacturers that are working
on those product lines and beingable to be in the room with
(25:56):
those people, make thoseconnections, and it's not, you
know, two, three thousand peopleat a conference where, yeah,
you like, scan your badge ahundred times and then just get
spammed by oh my gosh peopletrying to like around with it
like flip the other way, likeplease don't scan my code.
Yeah, I don't want, and so justnow, even as we're like just the
speakers in this session, we'vebeen talking One of the topics
(26:20):
right 30 minutes.
Every single one of thespeakers has different
experiences with that topic.
What were we talking aboutearlier in the chat?
Courtney, virtual machines orremote access, and you've got
like five different integrators.
They're like, oh yeah, I liketo use this, or oh, I use that,
and this is how we do it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Here's the way I do it, yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:37):
And that's essentially kind of what we want
to try to do.
Is everybody that attends thatshould be able to plug into kind
of what you have in a way, eric, with your little network there
in Southern California.
It's just sometimes all youneed is to know somebody to call
to ask the question, to getsome advice or to collaborate on
the project or pass on thebusiness or whatever that is.
(26:59):
Would you say that that'splayed a big you know role in
your success or do you thinkthat without you know those
people around you as a network,you probably would have still
made it right?
You're that type of person.
Speaker 3 (27:09):
You're being stopped by that, but yeah, I think
everyone's different and I thinkeverything you said has like
the utmost of value.
I mean, it's so important youknow how many of my competitors
I'm friends with and talk to youknow like there's just no need
to be hostile but my growth, mypath, was just different from
(27:30):
everybody's, unfortunately, andmaybe fortunately, I don't know.
I don't want to say too muchbecause I have to disparage
people to say some of thesethings and I don't like to do
that, but I had to fight reallyhard to get where I'm at.
Really really, really hard.
A lot of adversity, A lot ofdeceit, a lot of lies.
I always tell people my career,the reason why I'm so good at
(27:52):
what I do, is because I workedwith all the wrong people and
learned how to do things all thewrong way.
My whole career was justworking with the wrong people
and doing things the wrong way,and me starting my business was
my way of saying I think that'sall shady, I think that's wrong,
this is the way I want to do it.
And so to your point.
I spend a lot of time nowmeeting with my competitors,
(28:16):
talking with my competitors,being friends with my
competitors, because we all know, may the best person win, may
the best business win.
You know what I mean.
There's a lot of business outthere and you know we'll ask
each other hey, do you knowsomeone, do you know anybody
that's looking for a job?
Or hey, maybe we cancollaborate on this project.
You know things of that nature.
(28:37):
I don't think there's a need tobe hostile or not talk, and I
think networking especially likewhen you have a similar
business in another state likethat's really helpful, because
now you have all, like thegloves are off, you feel
comfortable, you can speakcandidly because you know that
there is no direct competition.
There's no, you know,possibility of going up against
(28:59):
each other.
And now you can share somereally important advice to help
grow each other's business.
Show where we've learned things, show where they've learned
things.
And I'm in the process ofexpanding my business to another
state.
Texas was the original thought.
I may be changing that, I don'tknow.
There's just a lot of things.
Right now my business isgrowing really fast, like I said
(29:20):
, and instead of me, just like Isaid, running around the basket
and trying to catch all theapples, I took a step back and
let the apples fall and I'llfind the right one.
So the original plan was Texasand I networked with a lot of
people in Texas.
I flew out there, met with alot of people you are, you know,
(29:41):
olympus Controls and some otherpeople but I think that in
talking to these people, Irealized maybe Texas is not the
move for me, you know, and thatwas through networking and
talking to people in my industryand like-minded individuals.
So, yeah, I think to answeryour question in the longest way
possible, like I just did, yeah, I think it's important.
(30:02):
I think it's important to talkto people.
It really, is it really?
Speaker 2 (30:05):
is yeah, and overthinking and overstudying
sometimes.
I mean, some people are likethat they don't want to do
anything until you're fullyprepared.
I would say this type of worldtoo, like there isn't really
much that you can do to be fullyprepared no, that's impossible.
Speaker 3 (30:19):
It's literally impossible.
I, I tell people all the time,like I tell my employees and I
tell my customers and I tellpeople that want to invest in my
business I'm like I one don'tever call me a startup, I'll
lose my effing mind if you callme a startup I have nobody's
money.
This is all my money.
I have no debt, um, but anyways, if you call me a startup, I
have nobody's money.
This is all my money.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I have no debt.
Speaker 3 (30:38):
But anyways, if you could just try and adapt, that's
like the best you can do Otherthan that, like if I try and
take someone's money or I makesome deal or I do something.
I'm a human being that operateson honesty as much as I can and
I will quite literally losesleep much as I can.
(30:59):
And I will quite literally losesleep if I feel like there's a
potential for someone losing outon the investment in me or my
business, or if there's apotential that I sell this to a
customer and it becomes aheartache for them or a pain.
I won't be able to sleep atnight and that's like the
reality of owning a business.
If you care because some peopledon't care.
That's like the reality ofowning a business.
(31:20):
If you care because some peopledon't care is the stress is
never ending.
And the way I equate it is Itell people you don't know what
love is until you have a kid andyou don't know what stress is
until you own a business.
You just don't know.
They're not the same thing,they're just it's another level.
Speaker 1 (31:32):
I'll never forget Alicia basically saying that,
like the way she saw things youknow, when things started
growing for her and she startedbringing on employees is now
she's seeing all those employees, babies, and she's like this is
how many babies I have to feednow, you know that's like.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
That's where my mind goes as well.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
If I'm bringing on people, there's like mouths that
we have to feed.
We have to succeed at this.
Yeah, I've got five families tohelp you know and how many
babies total is that you know?
Speaker 3 (32:00):
you know, and it's something that, if you're not
unless you're like a psychopath,like that's something that I
live with every day.
Every time I see my bankaccount go down even a little
bit, I'm like am I doing theright thing?
Am I spending my money in theright places?
Am I budgeting properly?
Am I deceiving these people?
Am I like you?
All these things race throughyour head constantly and you
(32:22):
just got to learn One.
You got to learn to one.
Like again stick to the plan,make a plan, stick to the plan,
make a budget, stick to thebudget, make a decision, stick
to the decision.
Because if you, if you doubtyourself too much, it's a
paralysis by analysis, like yousaid, and you know you can't
plan for this, you just can't.
You can set a goal, and I hopeit's not a monthly goal.
(32:45):
You better set a five-year goal, you better set a two-year goal
and you better be prepared fora roller coaster in between.
You know no-transcript.
Speaker 2 (33:26):
It means you redefine the relationship.
Have you learned anything?
Or uh, how deep, oh, uh-oh Ithink, see if he manages to find
his way back in.
We just lost Eric.
Well, let me point thisquestion at you, courtney yeah,
since we're still recording andlet's see if Eric comes back.
Is this something?
Do you have any insight?
(33:46):
Like you've been in years ofdoing business as yourself,
working with other smallbusinesses, working at large
companies how do you figure outwho you can trust and can you
ever Do you learn to have asixth sense about these things?
Do you learn that there'scertain things that you actually
try to make a point, to verifyas a process, or is it just you
(34:07):
have to feel people out?
You know, how do you, as youstart to realize that you are
not an island, right?
Um, select people that youthink you can trust?
And I'll point back to theearlier example of the lawsuit
type situation.
You know, customer doesn't pay.
Yeah, you can take them tocourt.
You can be right all day longand it'll still cost you way
(34:30):
more than you can afford.
And so, you know, go takingsomebody to court isn't an
option for most people, smallbusinesses especially, and I
don't think many of us don'tunderstand how cost prohibitive
it is to have the courts youknow, settle our disputes.
Oftentimes it has to come downto trust.
Speaker 1 (34:59):
Yeah, that's actually kind of the hard thing, I think
as a small business, or that Ididn't realize.
As a small business is like sayyou put you know net 15 in your
estimate.
And then now suddenly they'vegot you on net 60 and you can't,
yeah, yeah, like you're stucksaying, hey, I need you to pay
me, but you, you're kind ofpowerless to do anything.
As a small company against abig company, you could sit there
and say you said 15 days andthat's basically all you can do.
But aside from having actuallylike been burnt by people in the
(35:19):
past and knowing, like, whatthat feels like or what's coming
, and, like you said, that sixthsense of hey, I've been burnt
like this before I kind of feellike it's coming again.
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