January 23, 2026 • 27 mins
Cut The Tie Podcast with Balki Kodarapu
What happens when a company knows it needs technical leadership but does not need a four hundred thousand dollar CTO sitting in a chair full time?
In this episode of Cut The Tie, Thomas Helfrich sits down with Balki Kodarapu, a fractional CTO who helps founders and CEOs scale engineering teams without overhiring or overbuilding. Balki breaks down why most companies do not fail because of bad code, but because of poor technical leadership decisions made too early or too late.
After spending two decades in engineering and startups, Balki shares how cutting the tie to corporate roles and founder pressure led him to a model that gives companies exactly the leadership they need, when they need it. This is a conversation about clarity, leverage, and building technology that supports the business instead of slowing it down.
About Balki Kodarapu:
Balki Kodarapu is a fractional CTO based in Portland, Oregon with over twenty years of experience in software engineering and startups. He works with early and growth stage companies to professionalize engineering teams, design scalable architecture, and bridge the gap between technical execution and business strategy. Balki specializes in helping founders avoid costly technical mistakes while preparing their companies to scale.
In this episode, Thomas and Balki discuss:
- “A full time CTO is an overkill”
Why most companies do not need an expensive executive hire to get strong technical leadership. - Fractional CTOs versus full time executives
How part time leadership can outperform traditional roles when used strategically. - The two moments companies actually need a CTO
Early stage chaos and post product market fit scaling pressure. - Why engineering teams break down during growth
The hidden risks in architecture, trust, and communication. - AI, speed, and modern engineering expectations
Why engineers must now understand business context to survive. - From founder empathy to leadership leverage
How building a startup changed Balki’s approach to guiding teams. - Trust before transformation
Why engineers must trust leadership before being asked to do hard things.
Key Takeaways:
- Leadership is not about hours, it is about impact
Companies need guidance, not bodies in seats. - Technical debt is often a leadership problem
Bad decisions usually come from missing context, not bad engineers. - Business context is no longer optional for engineers
Speed without understanding breaks companies. - Fractional leadership reduces risk
You can professionalize without betting the company. - Scaling requires timing, not ego
Knowing when to build and when to wait is the real skill.
Connect with Balki Kodarapu:
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/balki/
🌐 Company Website: https://www.yourctoin.us/
Connect with Thomas Helfrich:
🐦 Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelfrich
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thelfrich/
🌐 Website: https://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
🚀 Instantly Relevant: https://instantlyrelevant.com
Serious about LinkedIn Lead Generation? Stop Guessing what to do on LinkedIn and ignite revenue from relevance with Instantly Relevant Lead System
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Welcome to the Cut the Tie Podcast.
Hello, I am your host, ThomasHelfrick.
And I'm on a mission to help youcut the tie to whatever's
holding you back from yoursuccess.
I want you to own that success.
So when you do achieve it, it isyours.
Nobody else is.
Hey, I'm joined by Bulky.
Here we go.
You got it.
It's pretty close.
SPEAKER_02 (00:18):
I would say 90% there.
Pretty close as I do it.
SPEAKER_01 (00:25):
It really is a marketing technique.
Why don't you say your name now?
Over and over and over again.
Thank you, Thomas.
Introduce yourself, please.
Who you are and what it is youdo.
SPEAKER_02 (00:36):
Thank you, Thomas.
Um, I'm Balky Kodarapu, afractional CTO based out of
Portland, Oregon.
Um fractional is a fancy termthese days, but I'll I'll share
what it is anyways in the CTOworld.
So I work uh and help multiplecompanies um ramp up their
engineering efforts.
(00:57):
You know, it's never been moreimportant for your engineering
arc to be effective with theadvent of AI.
When I started this, it wasn't abig deal, but today it's it's a
huge deal for your engineeringarc to be productive, effective,
fast-paced.
Um, and that's what I do withall my experience in the field
(01:19):
working at multiple startups.
SPEAKER_01 (01:21):
Even beyond that, right?
Where most companies are, theydon't need a full-time, you
know,$250,000 a year plus CTO.
They need maybe that indevelopment, and they need a
leader to help them fractionallythroughout the like because you
you don't need to be in there 40hours a week, you need to be in
there four and a couple for theCEO.
Like, is that a fair statement?
Like, that's when they bring youin, is when they they need the
(01:43):
leadership that to guide the thetalent.
SPEAKER_02 (01:47):
Yeah, yeah.
There there's two personas ofcompanies, if you might, that I
work with.
One is relatively early stage.
They have they have a smallteam, but not a leader.
So, you know, they're runninglike their head cut off, or the
CEO doesn't know what'shappening in the engineering
team.
I bridge the gap there.
(02:07):
And the other type of companiesI help with is um a little bit
later in in the game, they theyhave a product market fit, maybe
even the beginnings of someleadership.
Uh, but they they are worriedabout if this will architecture
and the organization hold up asthey scale.
You know, they're seeing earlysigns of success, but they're
(02:29):
worried if they'll hold up uhfor the future.
So those are the two types oforganizations.
And yes, to your point, in bothcases, uh a full-time CTO is is
an overkill.
You said upwards of 250, but theaverage for a CTO is more like
400, the loaded cost.
And that's not even consideringthe huge amounts of equity you
(02:51):
have to shell up to a CTO thatmay or may not work for you.
SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
Right.
Well, and exactly.
So the 250 mark is more of likeyour low end to get someone in
place.
Uh what and I think what one ofthe problems, people, you know,
if you're out there listening tothis, if you have someone
playing the uh Pete Rose playercoach, don't.
You need someone to focus ondevelopment or strategy, like in
and an overarching architectureand you know, organization and
(03:16):
just getting set up for AI plusyou know, a handful of
developers, some on-site, someremote, what you know, just the
whole gamut.
You can't do both and developeffectively.
Like there, there's at somepoint you got to make that.
That's an investment moment.
That's a reflection moment,right?
The we need someone to come inand professionalize this if
we're doing this.
Are you typically before a raiseor right after or or right in
(03:37):
the middle of it?
Or like a named guy on the raisebook?
SPEAKER_02 (03:41):
Uh, to be frank, you know, they they need to be able
to afford me, right?
So I'll help with guidance andyou know I'll advise them before
they raise money.
But um actually, I'll take itback.
Of the three companies I helped,two of them did not raise major
amounts of money.
(04:02):
Success came naturally to me.
I don't mind that, right?
So as long as they have cashflow to to invest in their
business, it does doesn't haveto be that they they need to
raise.
SPEAKER_01 (04:12):
In fact, one company they need to be to support it,
right?
It's not something you do andrisk your company over.
This has to be a strategic hirethat obviously if if it fails,
they're not done.
They have to replace you, butthey're not done.
Like you don't you don't go doit and say, hey, we're gonna
trade a marketing budget forthis.
Like, no, no, no, no, no.
Like, don't go do that.
Yes.
Okay, cool.
Uh well, tell me about your gointo your journey a little bit.
(04:34):
How did how did you get to thismoment in your uh career?
SPEAKER_02 (04:37):
Yeah, I'll do a condensed version.
So uh I've been in the field 20years.
Um, the first 10 years I was uhyour typical software engineer
slinging code at anything thatcame my way.
Uh the second half, uh I decidedI cut the tie once where I
didn't want to be in thecorporate world.
Um, built my own startup for ayear and a half, but the
(05:00):
realization there was uh I'm I'mmuch better being the the first
employee rather than the afounder.
Uh so you know, just the myheart wasn't engineering.
I didn't realize that until Iwent uh built a startup on my
own.
I built a lot of empathy for thebusiness side, which I've would
have not gotten anywhere else.
(05:22):
Uh, but that like shifted backto being the first engineer, the
founding engineer, theengineering leader.
Uh since then, I've worked atmultiple startups.
Um, I my heart is in startups,like where where I can touch and
feel the founder energy everyday, every second, and I can
help them guide in the rightdirections, right?
(05:44):
So um that's what I did.
Um about two years ago, Istarted to realize I built up
all the experience skills um tobe able to do this much more
effectively without beingclaiming full allegiance to a
(06:05):
company, right?
So uh that I could help multiplecompanies.
Um so I took a risk, cut the tieagain, and then um came out of a
startup and um one thing led toanother, and I'm a fractional
CTO now, loving every second ofthis journey.
SPEAKER_01 (06:22):
Yeah, it's funny how you do that.
It's just a similar route whereuh I started off as a
technologist during dot com andquickly saw that though I
enjoyed coding and patterns andall that other pieces, the guys
that really succeeded on thatwere like doing for fun on the
weekends.
Like they were getting ready togo make their own game on the
weekend.
I'm like, I am gonna go golfingand drinking.
Like, I don't know what you guysare doing.
(06:44):
And and I mean, but what I sawquickly was, you know, it just
may be another analogy, right?
Like I saw managing projects,okay, I could do that.
But I could say project manageris really studying it.
I'm like, I have no interest inthis.
Like, but what I was good at wasthis talking about technology
and consulting and the strategyadvisory.
And the point is, I think justadvice to listener is take what
you know you do well and goreally do that well.
(07:06):
Now, the experience you got frombeing a founder business side
really allows you probably to dowhat you're doing now because
you can talk that talk with someempathy and understanding that
you would never have had if youhadn't tried.
Fair enough?
Exactly.
SPEAKER_02 (07:18):
Yeah, that that gives an enormous edge to me,
right?
So most technologists have notdone that.
So I mean, one in a hundred,maybe one in a thousand who who
can understand financials, theyou know, the trade-offs of
business.
Most technologies are black andwhite.
I I'm still that way, butnaturally, if you put me in the
natural world, that's what I'lldo.
(07:40):
But you know, I can go back tomy founding days and tell here's
a trade-off.
You're making a very suboptimaltechnical decision, but here is
why.
Um, and and that's superpowerful for me, especially as a
fractional CTO.
SPEAKER_01 (07:53):
You uh do you get brought into those times where
they've built the POC or the,you know, let's prove it, make
some money on it.
And you look at it, you're like,we're trashing that whole thing.
Yes, listen, yeah, you got yourconcept, but you can't scale
that past 100 users unless youwant to put a person every time
you put 100 users on this thing,right?
So is that where you come in andgo, We're gonna here's the
(08:14):
re-architecture, here's all theactual customer requirement
needs, and here's the with thetwist, with with the with the
founder mentality twist, right?
SPEAKER_02 (08:22):
So this will not scale past 10,000 users, but
we're still going to put it inproduction and make money out of
it.
And you know, that that's myspecialty.
So, how do we get to that 10,000over time at the right stage?
That that's the like that's thedevil in the details, right?
SPEAKER_01 (08:41):
I'm not going to rewrite it today.
You're not down revenue.
And it used to be so expensiveto code, and at least my my
perception of it was it was soexpensive to build something in
parallel.
Uh, like it just was never anoption from budget.
It was like always this kind ofFranken code, Frankenstein code
that it's like, oh, we had thisand we moved over.
But now you literally can youknow set things up pretty
(09:03):
quickly and build something inparallel.
Well, at some point there's justan overnight data move and it's
over, right?
I mean, it's like, okay, we'reon.
That was not something sevenyears ago.
I think you probably could dovery easily.
Today, I think is that a fairassessment?
Today you could do more weakstuff, but like smaller, yeah,
new stuff for sure.
SPEAKER_02 (09:21):
Exactly.
Yeah, I've been talking to a lotof uh fellow CTOs about this
aspect, right?
So until like a year ago, wecould engineers could say, no,
this will take you know$100,000to build a prototype.
Today, within hours, a productmanager could build a prototype
(09:42):
and validate it with thecustomers overnight, even.
And I've seen it three times ata company I'm working.
A high school dropout uh built aprototype within a couple
months.
They we got validation.
The the pressure is on thisexperienced engineer persona
now, right?
So, how do you take this toproduction, you know, a high
(10:05):
school dropout with like thatmakes 10% of what you make has
built and validated theprototype.
It's it's a it's a tough buttough spot, but a realistic one
that's happening today, right?
So it is what you say.
SPEAKER_01 (10:20):
I still think I still believe there's a place
for the experienced developerfully.
And what I mean is the thechallenge is probably in the
actual persona of the developerto take a step back and see
where the real value is.
It's not so much in codinganymore, it's in hooking up
pieces, ensuring things arecorrectly built, tuned with a
(10:40):
business context, meaning uhjust don't code, code, code,
code.
Like tech can a lot oftechnology can do that, but you
know, let it run the marathon.
You're used to running the lastmile of that marathon.
Absolutely, yeah.
And that's where the experiencedperson should know these, you
know, the configuration, setup,cloud distribution, like
whatever you got going on fromthe harder parts to make sure it
(11:00):
really works and the securityframework, stuff's missed.
You've heard requirements,business people, whatever it is.
That's where an inexperiencedperson wouldn't know to ask
certain questions.
Uh, they probably could GPT it,but they wouldn't know it.
SPEAKER_02 (11:11):
Yeah, no, yeah.
The context is is especiallycritical.
And the word you use, thebusiness context, was a nice to
have.
Like I used to like beg and showmy engineers some metrics and
fully assume that they wouldnever care about it.
But today it's an expectation.
You will not survive as anengineer unless you seek and and
(11:32):
obtain that business context,right?
So, of the many things, youknow, you need business context,
you need to be able to movefast.
You know, today you can't say,you know, it'll take time.
In your mind, you can thinkthat, but you can't say it out
loud because there are tools anduh and the expectations where we
need to move fast.
(11:52):
In that example where wevalidated the market segment so
quickly, it's upon the engineersto take that to production as
quickly, if not quicker.
And also, you know, the to thepoint about experience, I also
expect my engineers to buildframeworks and coaching to these
(12:13):
quote unquote high schooldropouts.
So when they're building theirprototypes, uh that they follow
some of the best practices.
So when when it when the timecomes to go to production, it's
it's smoother, right?
So because it's going to fall onyou, engineer, experienced
engineer, you can be in denialtoday while that's happening uh
in the real world.
(12:33):
But sooner or later, it'll beyour responsibility to take this
shitty prototype intoproduction.
So you better be proactive andteach that high school dropout
how to do it slightly betterwithout compromising their
speed.
SPEAKER_01 (12:47):
The uh my co-founder, who is uh definitely
build it from scratch kind ofguy on the tech, and I was like,
isn't there an AI you can justlike give an example?
I was like, isn't there someshit where I can just talk to a
GPT and it immediately producesan in-brand landing page on my
WordPress website?
I feel like that should beeasily done.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Yes.
All right, I'm gonna follow upwith you, and you're gonna send
me the link to that because I'mlike, I'm sending him stuff.
(13:08):
I'm like, can't I just do this?
And then it just goes and buildsit, and then you can just tweak
it the last mile to make it moreoptimized, and you know, and so
yes, you know what?
Let's share that with you.
Who what is the technology, orunless you have an affiliate
code, then I'll put it outthere.
But what should some what shouldI go do on WordPress?
I think of our elementor, likewhatever it is.
Like, what is it that I woulduse where I could just talk to
(13:28):
GPT or whatever, and it goes andproduces the damn thing for me.
SPEAKER_02 (13:33):
Yeah, so today my um drugs of choice are bolt.new.
If you haven't come across thatbolt, you can uh give plain
English instructions, and withinminutes it'll generate beautiful
in-brand websites.
So is it bold?
B O L D B-O-L-T, as in lightningbolt.
(13:54):
Oh, bolt, gotcha.
Bolt, uh bolt.new.
There's several products similarto that.
Another popular one is lovable,L-O-V-A-B-L-E, Lovable.
Um, you know, as an engineer, Ihave to add a disclaimer.
They're very good, but not quiteready for production grade,
right?
We talked earlier about 100users, thousand users, no
(14:19):
database.
These work very well.
But once you start to build somelogic and sophistication, they
they'll still work, but peoplelike me are an experienced
engineer, um, are are stillrequired to scale them
infinitely.
But your use case work, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:36):
Not the microfiners can if I listen to this specific
episode, but um, I I thinkthat's what he's saying.
I think he uses it to advanceit.
He's saying, like, to reallyhook this stuff up to tweak it,
get your Google Analytics in, doall the things you really want
to go do.
Um, I I still feel like thatshould that should be if no
one's solving that, like for theeveryday user, that would be an
easy$100 a month.
Hey, put up a new landing pageevery time you do this content
(14:57):
play.
Like, here's the landing page.
I know.
I I'll leave it there.
In your own business, uh, whatwhat what's kind of the current
metaphoric tie you you're havingto you're struggling with?
SPEAKER_02 (15:07):
Well, I believe it or not, I'm still an engineer at
heart.
So uh that I I'm still afraid toreach out to strangers and ask
them to meet with me or give memoney.
So I I'm I'm getting better andbetter every day with that
outreach.
You know, even when I know theymay reject me or spit on me,
(15:31):
I'll I'll still ask them.
Uh I I still want to ask them.
You know, that's something I'mlearning every day.
SPEAKER_01 (15:37):
They're never gonna spit on you.
Um I mean, it's kind of harddigitally to do that.
Um it may waste your timebecause you're nice.
But uh uh, but but in your ownbusiness though, like right, you
know, like one thing I, youknow, if that's part of lead
generation, right?
This is where this is my worldnow, right?
Where you don't need it, youshouldn't probably doing it
yourself.
If you have any level of successat this point, it's like, you
(15:59):
know, I know for like a lessthan a thousand bucks a month,
you could pretty much havesomeone outsource that, have it
done well, leveragingtechnology, humans, all the
things you need to go do, putyour personal brand right, get
all your content right.
Like, give you the example, likefor like when I work with my
clients, I need maybe them twohours a month total.
Like, give me an hour to answerthese eight or nine questions,
eight or twelve questions.
(16:19):
That could that's all yourcontent for the month.
And uh, you know, let's meetwith strategy once a month about
what your lists are.
Like, and then after that, it'sjust done.
So uh there is probably betteruse of your time um for sure.
Um, but but the point is foranybody who's like that, don't
let that stop you.
Get out and go do it or go hiresomebody because if you you know
if you're just starting, yougotta do it yourself.
(16:41):
If you've got to get levels likethis, budget a thousand bucks or
whatever depends on about amonth, and have someone who do
it for you.
It's 250 bucks a week.
It's like it's a it's basicallylike an intern from the
Philippines that you know, likeyou can get it done, but costs.
Yeah, actually a Philippinesintern.
Let's be clear, the costs.
Uh anyway.
Uh what about when you werecoming up through the ranks and
(17:03):
you made the move?
Did you have to deal with uh youknow, I find people have to cut
ties usually in something aroundrelationships, finances, health,
or faith.
Typically, when you make themove from corporate over, it's
around uh relationships,specifically wives or
significant others and orparents.
Um their perception of youmaking a move from you know
(17:25):
steady W-2 to working for some,you know, yourself.
Did did you run anything likethis in your own journey?
SPEAKER_02 (17:30):
Not on the personal side.
My partner um is amazing, soshe's put up with me with all my
shenanigans through the times.
Um not not in a personalrelationship side, uh, no, uh,
but within the organizations,uh, as I switched between
various uh roles and as I wasgrowing in my career, the switch
(17:55):
and the dance between do I claimallegiance to the business side
or the engineering side, it'sbeen always top of my mind.
When I first started, I got likestarry-eyed and just went right
after that startup.
I was like in bed with marketingand sales, forgot everything
about the engineering team, andthat punched me in the face,
(18:16):
right?
So, because I didn't build thetrust uh with my engineers, I
just took it for granted.
So after that, I I have asystematic way of building trust
and credibility with my team.
And um, once I know, once Igrade that, okay, this is A or
better, then I start to likebuild my uh relationship with
(18:39):
the other side.
It's an interesting journey forme because I know um and
experience that that that trustand credibility with the team is
is quite important when I when Iask them to go through hard
times, do impossible things orsuboptimal things, they have to
trust me that I have the bestinterest about them and the
(18:59):
company in my mind.
So it's an interesting takeawaythere for me.
unknown (19:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:03):
Well, actually, I think what you described
something is you learn from it'snot a failure, just from a life
lesson, right?
Or from a life experience whereyou're like excited to be on
another side where you neverthought you'd be.
You get over there and you'relike, yeah, the grass is
greener, but it's alsodifferent.
Yeah.
And then uh I don't know how towater this grass exactly.
Um, and it's a differentlanguage.
Um, but you go back totypically, you know, your light
(19:23):
goes to where your heart is,right?
So if you know, from a personalthing, you're like, I like the
technical side.
But but you learn though, right,is that you have a skill of
translation of I can talk tothose people.
And so exactly.
And then like where you're like,you know, you're saying you're
reaching out for lead gen orwhatever else, it's kind of
like, well, the backside of thatis like, you know, all those
people who don't do it, you havean advantage over all the
(19:45):
engineers who just want to beengineers who don't ever want to
go talk, they go to you, andthat's why you're a good leader.
Like he'll deal with them.
We just want code.
So I love that.
Exactly.
Um, just just interest of timehere.
So who should get a hold of youtypically?
Like, who's your ideal clientand and how do you want them to
do that?
SPEAKER_02 (20:00):
Um my ideal clients are startup CEOs, whether
they're technical or not.
Technical CEOs get pretty uh faralone, but at some point it's a
breaking point.
It's it's the heart their heartis not there, or they don't have
the time where they need aleader to uh to lead their team
(20:21):
even on a part-time basis.
So that's technical CEOs,non-technical CEOs should reach
out to me immediately.
They don't know what they'redoing, so I I can help them.
SPEAKER_01 (20:34):
I would think to the uh the the the CEO that's come,
you know, the when uh CEOs thisis a bigger company typically.
So maybe a founder is moreproduct creative type.
Um I know there's a company,they maybe they're worth like,
you know, 10 million and they'rejust taking out VC funds, that
new CEO is coming in.
I think you'd probably be a goodperson to do the assessment
(20:54):
audit of what's what in thetechnical world.
And I would think that's areally good start for you to
establish relationship and valuequickly.
Is that is that a fair placewhere you can come in and say,
hey, you don't really you justwant to get a bead on is it
good, bad, or ugly, oreverything in between?
SPEAKER_02 (21:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Great point.
Yeah, yeah.
You you have great instincts.
In fact, I I recently built alead magnet I'm excited about.
It's called DevIQ.
Um and I work with the founder,CEO, sometimes the CTO, go
through a few checkboxes, andthat thing will give you a very
detailed analysis, uh lettergrade of where you are in each
(21:32):
pillar of the engineeringexcellence, and then a plan for
where they should invest next.
I'm I'm getting really good uhresponse on that.
SPEAKER_01 (21:40):
So are you running through like a through like a
survey app or something likethat?
SPEAKER_02 (21:45):
I built, you know, like a typical engineer, I built
it myself uh because there's somuch of this sophistication in
it.
Uh there's a lot of moving partsbehind scenes.
unknown (21:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:57):
I will tell you guys, I I know he built one.
And if you did build one, youcan sell it commercially, by the
way.
There's a thing called Score AppUm that does dynamic scoring,
and you can customize all thethings they find, and there's
all these like really cool,elaborate marketing things you
can put.
And it's very inexpensive.
It's like 300 bucks a year.
So um take a look at it.
You might be like, why'd I buildall this?
It's really good.
(22:18):
I mean, like it's full dynamic,and you can control where people
go and how it's questions theysee based on their answers and
values, and um or buy his.
I don't know.
I think he just made yourproduct, by the way.
If you build one, you know, youknow, keep them.
Uh a funnels for tech nerdfounders is what you should
probably call that, and justsell that thing for like a
(22:39):
hundred bucks a year, and you'reprobably never gonna have to go
via fractional anything.
Uh do you ever find this by theway?
Because you're technical, youbuild something, and then like a
10 years later, you're like,shit, I built eBay.
I didn't even realize it.
Have you ever done that?
You built something, you'relike, and it became like an
Amazon effectively, and you'relike, oh I I did that.
I built a Salesforce for myself.
SPEAKER_00 (23:00):
Damn it.
SPEAKER_01 (23:03):
Um, thanks by the way for coming on.
I'm I'm you know, I always askthis question, or I I will say
my last guest, I forgot to askthe first one.
If there was a question I shouldhave asked you today and I
didn't, what would that questionhave been?
SPEAKER_02 (23:16):
It's you know, fractional is a fancy title
these days.
A lot of us are going in formany reasons.
Uh, but like the the impact ofbeing fractional and having to
work on all these things, howhow does that impact personal
life, right?
So, you know, um it does, right?
(23:38):
So no matter how resilient andstrong I am, um you are uh that
it still impacts having like youalready have your personal, your
family, your health, yourfinancial.
You throw like three moreclients into the mix that that
want your attention.
So I went from four things toworry about to seven things
(23:59):
suddenly.
So um there's no easy answerthere, but you know, uh every
morning I start with a uh like adaily health tracking checklist.
By the way, you know, I'm veryfocused on my health right now
at the stage I'm in my life.
So I make sure I check off themaximum number of things on my
(24:21):
uh on my health and mentalhealth checklist.
You know, some of the thingslike have did I take 10 deep
breaths today?
Did I meditate for 15 minutestoday?
Did I get the morning sun?
Am I working?
Uh I'm sleeping without anydigital devices nearby, things
like that.
SPEAKER_01 (24:40):
You know, I like that I'm hard to do is because
you're like, oh my god beeping.
Do I get up?
SPEAKER_00 (24:46):
Do I get it?
SPEAKER_01 (24:48):
That's by way.
I uh on the days that youaccomplish it, I'm I'm gonna
probably make the poorassumption you have more
productive, happier days.
When you get the stuff yourselfand health done first, you feel
you don't feel like guilt, youdon't feel things in the
background.
SPEAKER_02 (25:00):
Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's like I scare scale on azero to ten if I'm like nine or
more.
Naturally I feel happy.
Um, I get a nine when I playtennis.
SPEAKER_01 (25:10):
Uh we're gonna take that offline because I just
started playing tennis, and holycow, and we we'll take that
offline myself.
Awesome.
I'll leave this guy's like theyou know, it I ran hundreds of I
think a thousand or sointerviews that I've done
through GPT and or through ourAI stuff.
And I said basically, what arethe themes?
Where do people cut the tie?
So as I form my book and I'mlike really trying to make value
(25:32):
out of this, it is finances,which is money you make, how you
spend it, right?
Stuff, it's relationships, it'shealth, and it's faith.
And um, you know, as I looked atthings I try to cut the tie with
or improve my life on, healthwas a big one and has been, um,
specifically mental health andphysical.
And so I applaud you for doingthat.
Because once I moved, I had thisvideo of me from the last 18
months moving from eight workingout every day, seven days a
(25:55):
week, for the most part, unlessI'm injury, I really need the
day at 8 a.m.
Just religiously be in there nomatter what.
35 minutes some days are shit,some days are great, right?
You see it, I go from this guythat's 235 with giant loaf
handles to abs in 18 months.
And I'm and I turned 15 days,they turned 50 in two months,
and I have abs again.
I was very happy.
Uh uh a friend of mine, a gayfriend of mine, said, Hey, how
(26:18):
you're doing?
I sent him back this picturebecause he knew me, I was
fatter, and he's like, Where'syour OnlyFans account?
I'm buying in.
I'm like, dude, I'll get it.
SPEAKER_00 (26:25):
I'm gonna the biggest compliment you can ask
for.
It is the big thing.
Get out of the things that'llwork out in my life.
I can at least just pretend tobe gay for a while and get hit
on something great.
SPEAKER_01 (26:35):
I'll take compliments wherever I can get
them right now.
All right.
See, you didn't see the you didyour show, it didn't you didn't
see it going this way.
You know, you never know.
Thank you for joining me today.
Uh, once again, how do you wantsomeone to get a hold of you and
who should get a hold of you?
SPEAKER_02 (26:49):
Uh I'm I'm on LinkedIn every day, so just look
me up, Balky.
I'll be the only one uh that'llcome up on LinkedIn, and I spend
unhealthy amounts of timetalking to people and sharing my
insights.
Uh, you can get 95% of what Iknow on LinkedIn.
I'm an open book, so pleaseconnect with me there.
(27:11):
You'll make my day if you sendme a connection request or a
comment on my post.
SPEAKER_01 (27:15):
Awesome.
Thank you so much for joiningtoday.
Appreciate it.
Uh listen, Bulky, thank you forcoming.
Anyone who's still here, uh,thank you for listening.
Get out there, go cut a tie towhatever's holding you back in
your success journey, but ownyour own success, define it, and
let nothing stop you for gettingit.
You get what you get one shot atthis whole deal, so go get it.
Welcome to the Cut the Tie Podcast.
Hello, I am your host, ThomasHelfrick.
And I'm on a mission to help youcut the tie to whatever's
holding you back from yoursuccess.
I want you to own that success.
So when you do achieve it, it isyours.
Nobody else is.
Hey, I'm joined by Bulky.
Here we go.
You got it.
It's pretty close.
SPEAKER_02 (00:18):
I would say 90% there.
Pretty close as I do it.
SPEAKER_01 (00:25):
It really is a marketing technique.
Why don't you say your name now?
Over and over and over again.
Thank you, Thomas.
Introduce yourself, please.
Who you are and what it is youdo.
SPEAKER_02 (00:36):
Thank you, Thomas.
Um, I'm Balky Kodarapu, afractional CTO based out of
Portland, Oregon.
Um fractional is a fancy termthese days, but I'll I'll share
what it is anyways in the CTOworld.
So I work uh and help multiplecompanies um ramp up their
engineering efforts.
(00:57):
You know, it's never been moreimportant for your engineering
arc to be effective with theadvent of AI.
When I started this, it wasn't abig deal, but today it's it's a
huge deal for your engineeringarc to be productive, effective,
fast-paced.
Um, and that's what I do withall my experience in the field
(01:19):
working at multiple startups.
SPEAKER_01 (01:21):
Even beyond that, right?
Where most companies are, theydon't need a full-time, you
know,$250,000 a year plus CTO.
They need maybe that indevelopment, and they need a
leader to help them fractionallythroughout the like because you
you don't need to be in there 40hours a week, you need to be in
there four and a couple for theCEO.
Like, is that a fair statement?
Like, that's when they bring youin, is when they they need the
(01:43):
leadership that to guide the thetalent.
SPEAKER_02 (01:47):
Yeah, yeah.
There there's two personas ofcompanies, if you might, that I
work with.
One is relatively early stage.
They have they have a smallteam, but not a leader.
So, you know, they're runninglike their head cut off, or the
CEO doesn't know what'shappening in the engineering
team.
I bridge the gap there.
(02:07):
And the other type of companiesI help with is um a little bit
later in in the game, they theyhave a product market fit, maybe
even the beginnings of someleadership.
Uh, but they they are worriedabout if this will architecture
and the organization hold up asthey scale.
You know, they're seeing earlysigns of success, but they're
(02:29):
worried if they'll hold up uhfor the future.
So those are the two types oforganizations.
And yes, to your point, in bothcases, uh a full-time CTO is is
an overkill.
You said upwards of 250, but theaverage for a CTO is more like
400, the loaded cost.
And that's not even consideringthe huge amounts of equity you
(02:51):
have to shell up to a CTO thatmay or may not work for you.
SPEAKER_01 (02:54):
Right.
Well, and exactly.
So the 250 mark is more of likeyour low end to get someone in
place.
Uh what and I think what one ofthe problems, people, you know,
if you're out there listening tothis, if you have someone
playing the uh Pete Rose playercoach, don't.
You need someone to focus ondevelopment or strategy, like in
and an overarching architectureand you know, organization and
(03:16):
just getting set up for AI plusyou know, a handful of
developers, some on-site, someremote, what you know, just the
whole gamut.
You can't do both and developeffectively.
Like there, there's at somepoint you got to make that.
That's an investment moment.
That's a reflection moment,right?
The we need someone to come inand professionalize this if
we're doing this.
Are you typically before a raiseor right after or or right in
(03:37):
the middle of it?
Or like a named guy on the raisebook?
SPEAKER_02 (03:41):
Uh, to be frank, you know, they they need to be able
to afford me, right?
So I'll help with guidance andyou know I'll advise them before
they raise money.
But um actually, I'll take itback.
Of the three companies I helped,two of them did not raise major
amounts of money.
(04:02):
Success came naturally to me.
I don't mind that, right?
So as long as they have cashflow to to invest in their
business, it does doesn't haveto be that they they need to
raise.
SPEAKER_01 (04:12):
In fact, one company they need to be to support it,
right?
It's not something you do andrisk your company over.
This has to be a strategic hirethat obviously if if it fails,
they're not done.
They have to replace you, butthey're not done.
Like you don't you don't go doit and say, hey, we're gonna
trade a marketing budget forthis.
Like, no, no, no, no, no.
Like, don't go do that.
Yes.
Okay, cool.
Uh well, tell me about your gointo your journey a little bit.
(04:34):
How did how did you get to thismoment in your uh career?
SPEAKER_02 (04:37):
Yeah, I'll do a condensed version.
So uh I've been in the field 20years.
Um, the first 10 years I was uhyour typical software engineer
slinging code at anything thatcame my way.
Uh the second half, uh I decidedI cut the tie once where I
didn't want to be in thecorporate world.
Um, built my own startup for ayear and a half, but the
(05:00):
realization there was uh I'm I'mmuch better being the the first
employee rather than the afounder.
Uh so you know, just the myheart wasn't engineering.
I didn't realize that until Iwent uh built a startup on my
own.
I built a lot of empathy for thebusiness side, which I've would
have not gotten anywhere else.
(05:22):
Uh, but that like shifted backto being the first engineer, the
founding engineer, theengineering leader.
Uh since then, I've worked atmultiple startups.
Um, I my heart is in startups,like where where I can touch and
feel the founder energy everyday, every second, and I can
help them guide in the rightdirections, right?
(05:44):
So um that's what I did.
Um about two years ago, Istarted to realize I built up
all the experience skills um tobe able to do this much more
effectively without beingclaiming full allegiance to a
(06:05):
company, right?
So uh that I could help multiplecompanies.
Um so I took a risk, cut the tieagain, and then um came out of a
startup and um one thing led toanother, and I'm a fractional
CTO now, loving every second ofthis journey.
SPEAKER_01 (06:22):
Yeah, it's funny how you do that.
It's just a similar route whereuh I started off as a
technologist during dot com andquickly saw that though I
enjoyed coding and patterns andall that other pieces, the guys
that really succeeded on thatwere like doing for fun on the
weekends.
Like they were getting ready togo make their own game on the
weekend.
I'm like, I am gonna go golfingand drinking.
Like, I don't know what you guysare doing.
(06:44):
And and I mean, but what I sawquickly was, you know, it just
may be another analogy, right?
Like I saw managing projects,okay, I could do that.
But I could say project manageris really studying it.
I'm like, I have no interest inthis.
Like, but what I was good at wasthis talking about technology
and consulting and the strategyadvisory.
And the point is, I think justadvice to listener is take what
you know you do well and goreally do that well.
(07:06):
Now, the experience you got frombeing a founder business side
really allows you probably to dowhat you're doing now because
you can talk that talk with someempathy and understanding that
you would never have had if youhadn't tried.
Fair enough?
Exactly.
SPEAKER_02 (07:18):
Yeah, that that gives an enormous edge to me,
right?
So most technologists have notdone that.
So I mean, one in a hundred,maybe one in a thousand who who
can understand financials, theyou know, the trade-offs of
business.
Most technologies are black andwhite.
I I'm still that way, butnaturally, if you put me in the
natural world, that's what I'lldo.
(07:40):
But you know, I can go back tomy founding days and tell here's
a trade-off.
You're making a very suboptimaltechnical decision, but here is
why.
Um, and and that's superpowerful for me, especially as a
fractional CTO.
SPEAKER_01 (07:53):
You uh do you get brought into those times where
they've built the POC or the,you know, let's prove it, make
some money on it.
And you look at it, you're like,we're trashing that whole thing.
Yes, listen, yeah, you got yourconcept, but you can't scale
that past 100 users unless youwant to put a person every time
you put 100 users on this thing,right?
So is that where you come in andgo, We're gonna here's the
(08:14):
re-architecture, here's all theactual customer requirement
needs, and here's the with thetwist, with with the with the
founder mentality twist, right?
SPEAKER_02 (08:22):
So this will not scale past 10,000 users, but
we're still going to put it inproduction and make money out of
it.
And you know, that that's myspecialty.
So, how do we get to that 10,000over time at the right stage?
That that's the like that's thedevil in the details, right?
SPEAKER_01 (08:41):
I'm not going to rewrite it today.
You're not down revenue.
And it used to be so expensiveto code, and at least my my
perception of it was it was soexpensive to build something in
parallel.
Uh, like it just was never anoption from budget.
It was like always this kind ofFranken code, Frankenstein code
that it's like, oh, we had thisand we moved over.
But now you literally can youknow set things up pretty
(09:03):
quickly and build something inparallel.
Well, at some point there's justan overnight data move and it's
over, right?
I mean, it's like, okay, we'reon.
That was not something sevenyears ago.
I think you probably could dovery easily.
Today, I think is that a fairassessment?
Today you could do more weakstuff, but like smaller, yeah,
new stuff for sure.
SPEAKER_02 (09:21):
Exactly.
Yeah, I've been talking to a lotof uh fellow CTOs about this
aspect, right?
So until like a year ago, wecould engineers could say, no,
this will take you know$100,000to build a prototype.
Today, within hours, a productmanager could build a prototype
(09:42):
and validate it with thecustomers overnight, even.
And I've seen it three times ata company I'm working.
A high school dropout uh built aprototype within a couple
months.
They we got validation.
The the pressure is on thisexperienced engineer persona
now, right?
So, how do you take this toproduction, you know, a high
(10:05):
school dropout with like thatmakes 10% of what you make has
built and validated theprototype.
It's it's a it's a tough buttough spot, but a realistic one
that's happening today, right?
So it is what you say.
SPEAKER_01 (10:20):
I still think I still believe there's a place
for the experienced developerfully.
And what I mean is the thechallenge is probably in the
actual persona of the developerto take a step back and see
where the real value is.
It's not so much in codinganymore, it's in hooking up
pieces, ensuring things arecorrectly built, tuned with a
(10:40):
business context, meaning uhjust don't code, code, code,
code.
Like tech can a lot oftechnology can do that, but you
know, let it run the marathon.
You're used to running the lastmile of that marathon.
Absolutely, yeah.
And that's where the experiencedperson should know these, you
know, the configuration, setup,cloud distribution, like
whatever you got going on fromthe harder parts to make sure it
(11:00):
really works and the securityframework, stuff's missed.
You've heard requirements,business people, whatever it is.
That's where an inexperiencedperson wouldn't know to ask
certain questions.
Uh, they probably could GPT it,but they wouldn't know it.
SPEAKER_02 (11:11):
Yeah, no, yeah.
The context is is especiallycritical.
And the word you use, thebusiness context, was a nice to
have.
Like I used to like beg and showmy engineers some metrics and
fully assume that they wouldnever care about it.
But today it's an expectation.
You will not survive as anengineer unless you seek and and
(11:32):
obtain that business context,right?
So, of the many things, youknow, you need business context,
you need to be able to movefast.
You know, today you can't say,you know, it'll take time.
In your mind, you can thinkthat, but you can't say it out
loud because there are tools anduh and the expectations where we
need to move fast.
(11:52):
In that example where wevalidated the market segment so
quickly, it's upon the engineersto take that to production as
quickly, if not quicker.
And also, you know, the to thepoint about experience, I also
expect my engineers to buildframeworks and coaching to these
(12:13):
quote unquote high schooldropouts.
So when they're building theirprototypes, uh that they follow
some of the best practices.
So when when it when the timecomes to go to production, it's
it's smoother, right?
So because it's going to fall onyou, engineer, experienced
engineer, you can be in denialtoday while that's happening uh
in the real world.
(12:33):
But sooner or later, it'll beyour responsibility to take this
shitty prototype intoproduction.
So you better be proactive andteach that high school dropout
how to do it slightly betterwithout compromising their
speed.
SPEAKER_01 (12:47):
The uh my co-founder, who is uh definitely
build it from scratch kind ofguy on the tech, and I was like,
isn't there an AI you can justlike give an example?
I was like, isn't there someshit where I can just talk to a
GPT and it immediately producesan in-brand landing page on my
WordPress website?
I feel like that should beeasily done.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
Yes.
All right, I'm gonna follow upwith you, and you're gonna send
me the link to that because I'mlike, I'm sending him stuff.
(13:08):
I'm like, can't I just do this?
And then it just goes and buildsit, and then you can just tweak
it the last mile to make it moreoptimized, and you know, and so
yes, you know what?
Let's share that with you.
Who what is the technology, orunless you have an affiliate
code, then I'll put it outthere.
But what should some what shouldI go do on WordPress?
I think of our elementor, likewhatever it is.
Like, what is it that I woulduse where I could just talk to
(13:28):
GPT or whatever, and it goes andproduces the damn thing for me.
SPEAKER_02 (13:33):
Yeah, so today my um drugs of choice are bolt.new.
If you haven't come across thatbolt, you can uh give plain
English instructions, and withinminutes it'll generate beautiful
in-brand websites.
So is it bold?
B O L D B-O-L-T, as in lightningbolt.
(13:54):
Oh, bolt, gotcha.
Bolt, uh bolt.new.
There's several products similarto that.
Another popular one is lovable,L-O-V-A-B-L-E, Lovable.
Um, you know, as an engineer, Ihave to add a disclaimer.
They're very good, but not quiteready for production grade,
right?
We talked earlier about 100users, thousand users, no
(14:19):
database.
These work very well.
But once you start to build somelogic and sophistication, they
they'll still work, but peoplelike me are an experienced
engineer, um, are are stillrequired to scale them
infinitely.
But your use case work, yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (14:36):
Not the microfiners can if I listen to this specific
episode, but um, I I thinkthat's what he's saying.
I think he uses it to advanceit.
He's saying, like, to reallyhook this stuff up to tweak it,
get your Google Analytics in, doall the things you really want
to go do.
Um, I I still feel like thatshould that should be if no
one's solving that, like for theeveryday user, that would be an
easy$100 a month.
Hey, put up a new landing pageevery time you do this content
(14:57):
play.
Like, here's the landing page.
I know.
I I'll leave it there.
In your own business, uh, whatwhat what's kind of the current
metaphoric tie you you're havingto you're struggling with?
SPEAKER_02 (15:07):
Well, I believe it or not, I'm still an engineer at
heart.
So uh that I I'm still afraid toreach out to strangers and ask
them to meet with me or give memoney.
So I I'm I'm getting better andbetter every day with that
outreach.
You know, even when I know theymay reject me or spit on me,
(15:31):
I'll I'll still ask them.
Uh I I still want to ask them.
You know, that's something I'mlearning every day.
SPEAKER_01 (15:37):
They're never gonna spit on you.
Um I mean, it's kind of harddigitally to do that.
Um it may waste your timebecause you're nice.
But uh uh, but but in your ownbusiness though, like right, you
know, like one thing I, youknow, if that's part of lead
generation, right?
This is where this is my worldnow, right?
Where you don't need it, youshouldn't probably doing it
yourself.
If you have any level of successat this point, it's like, you
(15:59):
know, I know for like a lessthan a thousand bucks a month,
you could pretty much havesomeone outsource that, have it
done well, leveragingtechnology, humans, all the
things you need to go do, putyour personal brand right, get
all your content right.
Like, give you the example, likefor like when I work with my
clients, I need maybe them twohours a month total.
Like, give me an hour to answerthese eight or nine questions,
eight or twelve questions.
(16:19):
That could that's all yourcontent for the month.
And uh, you know, let's meetwith strategy once a month about
what your lists are.
Like, and then after that, it'sjust done.
So uh there is probably betteruse of your time um for sure.
Um, but but the point is foranybody who's like that, don't
let that stop you.
Get out and go do it or go hiresomebody because if you you know
if you're just starting, yougotta do it yourself.
(16:41):
If you've got to get levels likethis, budget a thousand bucks or
whatever depends on about amonth, and have someone who do
it for you.
It's 250 bucks a week.
It's like it's a it's basicallylike an intern from the
Philippines that you know, likeyou can get it done, but costs.
Yeah, actually a Philippinesintern.
Let's be clear, the costs.
Uh anyway.
Uh what about when you werecoming up through the ranks and
(17:03):
you made the move?
Did you have to deal with uh youknow, I find people have to cut
ties usually in something aroundrelationships, finances, health,
or faith.
Typically, when you make themove from corporate over, it's
around uh relationships,specifically wives or
significant others and orparents.
Um their perception of youmaking a move from you know
(17:25):
steady W-2 to working for some,you know, yourself.
Did did you run anything likethis in your own journey?
SPEAKER_02 (17:30):
Not on the personal side.
My partner um is amazing, soshe's put up with me with all my
shenanigans through the times.
Um not not in a personalrelationship side, uh, no, uh,
but within the organizations,uh, as I switched between
various uh roles and as I wasgrowing in my career, the switch
(17:55):
and the dance between do I claimallegiance to the business side
or the engineering side, it'sbeen always top of my mind.
When I first started, I got likestarry-eyed and just went right
after that startup.
I was like in bed with marketingand sales, forgot everything
about the engineering team, andthat punched me in the face,
(18:16):
right?
So, because I didn't build thetrust uh with my engineers, I
just took it for granted.
So after that, I I have asystematic way of building trust
and credibility with my team.
And um, once I know, once Igrade that, okay, this is A or
better, then I start to likebuild my uh relationship with
(18:39):
the other side.
It's an interesting journey forme because I know um and
experience that that that trustand credibility with the team is
is quite important when I when Iask them to go through hard
times, do impossible things orsuboptimal things, they have to
trust me that I have the bestinterest about them and the
(18:59):
company in my mind.
So it's an interesting takeawaythere for me.
unknown (19:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (19:03):
Well, actually, I think what you described
something is you learn from it'snot a failure, just from a life
lesson, right?
Or from a life experience whereyou're like excited to be on
another side where you neverthought you'd be.
You get over there and you'relike, yeah, the grass is
greener, but it's alsodifferent.
Yeah.
And then uh I don't know how towater this grass exactly.
Um, and it's a differentlanguage.
Um, but you go back totypically, you know, your light
(19:23):
goes to where your heart is,right?
So if you know, from a personalthing, you're like, I like the
technical side.
But but you learn though, right,is that you have a skill of
translation of I can talk tothose people.
And so exactly.
And then like where you're like,you know, you're saying you're
reaching out for lead gen orwhatever else, it's kind of
like, well, the backside of thatis like, you know, all those
people who don't do it, you havean advantage over all the
(19:45):
engineers who just want to beengineers who don't ever want to
go talk, they go to you, andthat's why you're a good leader.
Like he'll deal with them.
We just want code.
So I love that.
Exactly.
Um, just just interest of timehere.
So who should get a hold of youtypically?
Like, who's your ideal clientand and how do you want them to
do that?
SPEAKER_02 (20:00):
Um my ideal clients are startup CEOs, whether
they're technical or not.
Technical CEOs get pretty uh faralone, but at some point it's a
breaking point.
It's it's the heart their heartis not there, or they don't have
the time where they need aleader to uh to lead their team
(20:21):
even on a part-time basis.
So that's technical CEOs,non-technical CEOs should reach
out to me immediately.
They don't know what they'redoing, so I I can help them.
SPEAKER_01 (20:34):
I would think to the uh the the the CEO that's come,
you know, the when uh CEOs thisis a bigger company typically.
So maybe a founder is moreproduct creative type.
Um I know there's a company,they maybe they're worth like,
you know, 10 million and they'rejust taking out VC funds, that
new CEO is coming in.
I think you'd probably be a goodperson to do the assessment
(20:54):
audit of what's what in thetechnical world.
And I would think that's areally good start for you to
establish relationship and valuequickly.
Is that is that a fair placewhere you can come in and say,
hey, you don't really you justwant to get a bead on is it
good, bad, or ugly, oreverything in between?
SPEAKER_02 (21:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Great point.
Yeah, yeah.
You you have great instincts.
In fact, I I recently built alead magnet I'm excited about.
It's called DevIQ.
Um and I work with the founder,CEO, sometimes the CTO, go
through a few checkboxes, andthat thing will give you a very
detailed analysis, uh lettergrade of where you are in each
(21:32):
pillar of the engineeringexcellence, and then a plan for
where they should invest next.
I'm I'm getting really good uhresponse on that.
SPEAKER_01 (21:40):
So are you running through like a through like a
survey app or something likethat?
SPEAKER_02 (21:45):
I built, you know, like a typical engineer, I built
it myself uh because there's somuch of this sophistication in
it.
Uh there's a lot of moving partsbehind scenes.
unknown (21:57):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (21:57):
I will tell you guys, I I know he built one.
And if you did build one, youcan sell it commercially, by the
way.
There's a thing called Score AppUm that does dynamic scoring,
and you can customize all thethings they find, and there's
all these like really cool,elaborate marketing things you
can put.
And it's very inexpensive.
It's like 300 bucks a year.
So um take a look at it.
You might be like, why'd I buildall this?
It's really good.
(22:18):
I mean, like it's full dynamic,and you can control where people
go and how it's questions theysee based on their answers and
values, and um or buy his.
I don't know.
I think he just made yourproduct, by the way.
If you build one, you know, youknow, keep them.
Uh a funnels for tech nerdfounders is what you should
probably call that, and justsell that thing for like a
(22:39):
hundred bucks a year, and you'reprobably never gonna have to go
via fractional anything.
Uh do you ever find this by theway?
Because you're technical, youbuild something, and then like a
10 years later, you're like,shit, I built eBay.
I didn't even realize it.
Have you ever done that?
You built something, you'relike, and it became like an
Amazon effectively, and you'relike, oh I I did that.
I built a Salesforce for myself.
SPEAKER_00 (23:00):
Damn it.
SPEAKER_01 (23:03):
Um, thanks by the way for coming on.
I'm I'm you know, I always askthis question, or I I will say
my last guest, I forgot to askthe first one.
If there was a question I shouldhave asked you today and I
didn't, what would that questionhave been?
SPEAKER_02 (23:16):
It's you know, fractional is a fancy title
these days.
A lot of us are going in formany reasons.
Uh, but like the the impact ofbeing fractional and having to
work on all these things, howhow does that impact personal
life, right?
So, you know, um it does, right?
(23:38):
So no matter how resilient andstrong I am, um you are uh that
it still impacts having like youalready have your personal, your
family, your health, yourfinancial.
You throw like three moreclients into the mix that that
want your attention.
So I went from four things toworry about to seven things
(23:59):
suddenly.
So um there's no easy answerthere, but you know, uh every
morning I start with a uh like adaily health tracking checklist.
By the way, you know, I'm veryfocused on my health right now
at the stage I'm in my life.
So I make sure I check off themaximum number of things on my
(24:21):
uh on my health and mentalhealth checklist.
You know, some of the thingslike have did I take 10 deep
breaths today?
Did I meditate for 15 minutestoday?
Did I get the morning sun?
Am I working?
Uh I'm sleeping without anydigital devices nearby, things
like that.
SPEAKER_01 (24:40):
You know, I like that I'm hard to do is because
you're like, oh my god beeping.
Do I get up?
SPEAKER_00 (24:46):
Do I get it?
SPEAKER_01 (24:48):
That's by way.
I uh on the days that youaccomplish it, I'm I'm gonna
probably make the poorassumption you have more
productive, happier days.
When you get the stuff yourselfand health done first, you feel
you don't feel like guilt, youdon't feel things in the
background.
SPEAKER_02 (25:00):
Absolutely.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's like I scare scale on azero to ten if I'm like nine or
more.
Naturally I feel happy.
Um, I get a nine when I playtennis.
SPEAKER_01 (25:10):
Uh we're gonna take that offline because I just
started playing tennis, and holycow, and we we'll take that
offline myself.
Awesome.
I'll leave this guy's like theyou know, it I ran hundreds of I
think a thousand or sointerviews that I've done
through GPT and or through ourAI stuff.
And I said basically, what arethe themes?
Where do people cut the tie?
So as I form my book and I'mlike really trying to make value
(25:32):
out of this, it is finances,which is money you make, how you
spend it, right?
Stuff, it's relationships, it'shealth, and it's faith.
And um, you know, as I looked atthings I try to cut the tie with
or improve my life on, healthwas a big one and has been, um,
specifically mental health andphysical.
And so I applaud you for doingthat.
Because once I moved, I had thisvideo of me from the last 18
months moving from eight workingout every day, seven days a
(25:55):
week, for the most part, unlessI'm injury, I really need the
day at 8 a.m.
Just religiously be in there nomatter what.
35 minutes some days are shit,some days are great, right?
You see it, I go from this guythat's 235 with giant loaf
handles to abs in 18 months.
And I'm and I turned 15 days,they turned 50 in two months,
and I have abs again.
I was very happy.
Uh uh a friend of mine, a gayfriend of mine, said, Hey, how
(26:18):
you're doing?
I sent him back this picturebecause he knew me, I was
fatter, and he's like, Where'syour OnlyFans account?
I'm buying in.
I'm like, dude, I'll get it.
SPEAKER_00 (26:25):
I'm gonna the biggest compliment you can ask
for.
It is the big thing.
Get out of the things that'llwork out in my life.
I can at least just pretend tobe gay for a while and get hit
on something great.
SPEAKER_01 (26:35):
I'll take compliments wherever I can get
them right now.
All right.
See, you didn't see the you didyour show, it didn't you didn't
see it going this way.
You know, you never know.
Thank you for joining me today.
Uh, once again, how do you wantsomeone to get a hold of you and
who should get a hold of you?
SPEAKER_02 (26:49):
Uh I'm I'm on LinkedIn every day, so just look
me up, Balky.
I'll be the only one uh that'llcome up on LinkedIn, and I spend
unhealthy amounts of timetalking to people and sharing my
insights.
Uh, you can get 95% of what Iknow on LinkedIn.
I'm an open book, so pleaseconnect with me there.
(27:11):
You'll make my day if you sendme a connection request or a
comment on my post.
SPEAKER_01 (27:15):
Awesome.
Thank you so much for joiningtoday.
Appreciate it.
Uh listen, Bulky, thank you forcoming.
Anyone who's still here, uh,thank you for listening.
Get out there, go cut a tie towhatever's holding you back in
your success journey, but ownyour own success, define it, and
let nothing stop you for gettingit.
You get what you get one shot atthis whole deal, so go get it.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.