August 3, 2025 • 19 mins
Cut The Tie Podcast with Marc Perea
What do you do when the six-figure salary, the house, and the retirement plan still leave you unfulfilled? In this episode of Cut The Tie, Thomas Helfrich sits down with Marc Perea—CEO of Thaea and founder of the MikroTik management platform—to explore the journey from comfortably miserable to purposefully aligned.
Marc shares how a racquetball friendship turned into an entrepreneurial deep-dive, how Tim Ferriss’s 4-Hour Workweek shook his mindset, and why scaling prematurely nearly broke his company. If you’ve ever hit a career milestone only to feel disconnected from the work, this episode is your invitation to rethink success on your terms—and take the leap.
About Marc Perea
Marc Perea is the founder and CEO of Thaea, a software company that helps teams manage large MikroTik network deployments with ease. His platform empowers lean IT teams to monitor, automate, and operate at scale—without relying on a single technical gatekeeper. A former high-achiever in corporate and military environments, Marc now builds tools that simplify infrastructure and free up human potential.
In this episode, Thomas and Marc discuss:
- Redefining success after six figures
Marc reflects on how childhood goals shaped his early success—and why financial milestones eventually stopped motivating him. - The moment Tim Ferriss changed everything
The 4-Hour Workweek introduced Marc to the idea of being “comfortably miserable”—and helped him define success through intentional use of time, not just money. - The big scaling mistake
A bold decision to hire, raise salaries, and offer 100% health coverage—based on projections—taught Marc the danger of building on assumptions, not revenue. - Creating a business that runs without you
Marc explains how Thaea helps small IT teams manage massive router fleets with less stress and more automation, removing single points of failure. - Why relationships and culture matter in downturns
When things went sideways, the team didn’t quit. Marc reflects on why honesty, flexibility, and shared mission kept the business intact.
Key Takeaways:
- Comfortable can still be miserable
Don’t wait until you're completely stuck—evaluate your fulfillment even when things seem "fine." - Define success for you
Whether it's money, time, or purpose—only you can decide what truly matters. - Scale based on real traction
Projected revenue doesn’t pay the bills. Grow when the numbers prove it's time. - You’re either winning or learning
Setbacks are only losses if you refuse to learn from them. - Simple solutions win in complex environments
Not every team has a full NOC. Thaea empowers lean teams to operate like giants.
Connect with Marc Perea:
💼 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcperea/
🌐 Website: https://www.thaea.com
📧 Email: marc@thaea.com
Connect with Thomas Helfrich:
🐦 Twitter: @thelfrich
📘 Facebook: Cut the Tie Group
💼 LinkedIn: Thomas Helfrich
🌐 Website: https://www.cutthetie.com
📧 Email: t@instantlyrelevant.com
🚀 https://www.instantlyrelevant.com
Serious about LinkedIn Lead Generation? Stop Guessing what to do on LinkedIn and ignite revenue from relevance with Instantly Relevant Lead System
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Cut the Tide podcast.
Hi, I'm your host, thomasHelfrich.
I'm here to help you cut thetide of whatever it is holding
you back from success, and I dohope you've defined that success
yourself, because, I've saidbefore, you're on someone else's
journey If you haven't today.
I am joined by Mr Mark Paria.
Mark, how are you?
I'm great.
How are you doing, thomas?
(00:21):
So Mark and I both are here inAtlanta.
We play racquetball togetherand, as we've known each other
for a long time, I discoveredthat he's actually an
entrepreneur, because that'swhat men do they hang out with
each other and don't actuallyask any meaningful questions at
any point.
I just know he has new racketsfrom 1980.
Anyway, mark, take a minute,introduce yourself and what it
is you do.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hey guys, so my name is Mark Perea.
They call me Microtik Mark, andthe reason for that is because
I have a software company formanaging microtik routers,
firewalls and switches.
We help customers all over theworld manage their microtik
networks so that they can getmore done with their small teams
.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Do the people have to be like little people, like
four foot tall, or do you meanlike just numbers of teams?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Smaller teams.
So what's typical on a microtiknetwork is to have like one guy
that knows everything andeverybody else is kind of just
along for the ride.
So our customers really aren'tsmall physically but as much as
small teams that you know need.
Here's a good, great example.
(01:27):
You know you got the one guy.
You want to be able to knowwhether the network is healthy
or unhealthy.
We make it so that the customerservice team can help, the
operations team can help theknock and help.
You don't need that one supertechie engineer to be the one to
take a look at it all.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Those are not in the tech world generally, there's
this like the technology personais paranoia and everything
close to the chest and that'slike the 80s, 90s, early 2000s
tech and MicroTik is an actualtype of router, specifically
right, Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, so MicroTik is a company out of Latvia which is
a European company, and theymake hundreds of different
models of access points routers,switches, firewalls, big guys,
little guys, everything in therange from 10 bucks all the way
up to thousands of bucks,different speeds and
capabilities, indoor, outdoor,and so they made a great
(02:24):
software for managing one at atime.
But if you've got dozens,hundreds, thousands, tens of
thousands of them, that's whereI come in.
I make it easy to automate,remote access, manage, monitor,
get alerts and notifications onhow healthy the network is.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Oh wow, so you well, one, it's something you de-risk
a company who has them from thebeer truck rule happens to the
tech guy that knows everything.
That's one.
And then two, uh, just just thecost avoidance of having to
have a dozen people manage abunch of stuff, right, does that
?
Does that fair, like you kindof put that over that little
wrapper layer over all that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Absolutely yeah.
So what we found is thatthere's kind of two schools of
micro tick users.
One is the guy who sees theSwiss Army knife that is a
microtech and says, oh wow, Ican do all this cool stuff and
they love spending days, weeks,months tinkering and figuring
things out on their own and kindof building their own stuff.
(03:20):
They get into servers andsoftware and scripts and all
kinds of stuff.
That's not our customer.
Our customer is the guys andgals that want to go hey, five
minutes from now, I want to havea fully working solution and
I'm great with that being in thecloud.
Take my money and give meaccess to this thing that will
have me running and takingbackups, doing all my
(03:43):
automations, giving me all of myaccess that I need five minutes
from now, and just want to getstarted right away without
having to be a server admin andall the other stuff that goes
along with it.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So before we get into your journey here, a little bit
how do you define success?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
God, that's very individual.
So I think in the past growingup, that's very individual.
So I think in the past growingup, I just had this vision of
being success in the amount ofmoney that you can make, and so
I think, for the first 20 yearsof my life was all about making
more money than my parents made,which means that I was shooting
for six figures.
(04:20):
And so I achieved that and,just like everyone does, once
you achieve a goal right, yougot to set a new one.
So at that point I went well,what is the next journey?
And I think at that point it'skind of when I shifted into
entrepreneurism where I said Iwant to spend my time doing
(04:47):
things that I enjoy.
I really, I really want workcan go along with that.
Work could be unbundled fromthat, but I really want to be
intentional with my time and dothings that that make me happy.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I love that.
The um.
You know, when I've hit sixpack, shown I can't.
There's not an eight to have.
Apparently I can't go afterthat new goal.
I was so excited to go for aneight pack and I only can have a
six.
It's so frustrating.
I'm just hey, if I don't putthe humor in, you won't.
Okay, I'm just going to be done.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That's not true.
I mean I tried to, I tried tofeel up your I mean all over it
was.
It's almost like you getgrillgasms meat first.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Grillgasms, google it guys, anyway.
So all right, I love thatbecause the definition of
success definitely changes andmost people's it's like it
started off as something thatwas related to a parent, what
they wanted for you, or somementor, and it evolves.
I think what happens to a lotof people?
It becomes flat but they don'treally have a definition and I
(05:47):
think defining that as a bigpiece of kind of owning your own
world, time of well, am Isuccessful?
Do I have time with my kids?
No, is that important to me?
Yes, okay, whatever it is, andI love the fact that yours has
evolved over time.
Talk to me about how youstarted a little bit to start
chasing that.
So dive into the journey a bit.
And what was kind of that firstbig metaphor to tell you how to
(06:09):
cut to?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
do it.
Yeah, I think right along thelines of what you're talking
about.
As I was kind of wrapping up mycorporate journey, I was
listening to Tim Ferriss andfour hour work week and that was
like a pivotal book forchanging my mindset.
I've read lots of good books.
I've got tons ofrecommendations on, you know,
(06:30):
different business strategy.
You know, good for personalgrowth, good for professional
growth.
But that one in particular wasalmost required reading for me
to kind of shift that idea thatyou can either spend your time
and so four hour week quicksynopsis for anybody who hasn't
read it yet Hopefully you have.
But it's basically, if youdon't enjoy doing your work,
(06:54):
what it takes to make you money.
Get that down to a reduced setof time and maybe your target
could be four hours a week.
What I took out of the book wasnot necessarily that you want
to do that.
It was that if you don't enjoyyour work, do that.
If you do enjoy your work,spend as much time working as
you'd like to, but at the end ofthe day, just make sure that
(07:15):
you're spending your time on thethings that you find enjoyable.
And to me that again comes backto the definition of success.
That's exactly where it is, andso I'm listening to this
four-hour week-week audiobookand that was really the pivot
for me was hearing that I thinkin his words it was you can be
(07:37):
comfortably miserable, if Iremember correctly, and the idea
there is that you'recomfortable right, I was making
six figures by all rights, myretirement was growing, I had
the money, I had the great house, I had all the things that I
thought that I wanted to pursuefinancially, and yet I was not
(08:00):
feeling the passion that I feeltoday.
I was not engaged in the waythat I am today with being able
to say, hey, I'm excited to getup every day, I want to pursue
the things I want to pursue andI want to keep growing and going
all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, I love that because you're taking the depth
of success and then you'rereevaluating it.
And I do this all the time,like every year or so I'm like,
what can I do this year to getbetter?
And what really matters?
And it's the Home Depot bucketanalogy I think I've discussed
(08:39):
before where happiness pours in.
The holes are unhappiness, andevery time the hole sometimes it
creates two or three more holes, right, and you're like, well,
maybe I should just close thathole and those other ones close
too.
And then I need less to go intomy bucket.
And I think if you're not doingthis practically, you take
anything from anything we'resaying today.
Just do that, go and find yourown success of what that means.
And are you on a path to do it?
(08:59):
Um, it's funny how thefinancial one, uh, when you kind
of hit some level of comfort,just kind of dissipates.
Um, I think to get to the like100 million dollar level
something, you just have to bejust relentless.
You have to be such anunsatisfiable person to get
there.
I just don't.
If your eyes want to get to amillion and quit, you'll never
(09:20):
get to a million.
You say I'm going to get to abillion.
You'll stop at 250, maybe Idon't know.
I love that Along the way.
There's one thing to knowthat's success.
There's another thing to havethe journey and start cutting
ties.
But tell me about the how.
Can you remember a moment whereyou're like I'm doing that
(09:42):
right now, like the absolute,like you know, recall the moment
and what the how was to getthere, achieve it?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah, I guess.
I mean, it's not one singlemoment for me, it was just kind
of stacking up over time withwith all the different things.
And so, you know, I had a, avision for where the corporation
that I was in could go to,because I was, you know, always
been a high achiever, always,you know, kind of on the fast
(10:12):
track, regardless of whether itwas in school and the military,
in the corporate world, incollege, like always, I follow
the motto of do your best.
So always trying to, you know,advance and do better today than
yesterday and tomorrow thantoday, and so I saw a vision for
where the company could go, andI remember just throwing that
(10:35):
idea out into the company, andnot for me personally, but just,
you know, ideas that that, hey,I think this could do better
and this could do better, thiscould do better.
And, as you know, right, like inthe corporate world, there's
many times I've seen your cutthe tie, parodies, right, and
and uh, you know you talking toyour business boss self.
(10:55):
You know exactly what it's like.
There's times where your goodideas are just they don't, they
don't resonate, for whateverreason.
And you know when you're a highachiever and you really feel
like you can create a betterworld.
Um's hard to say no.
That's not worth investing timeand effort and money into yeah
(11:19):
Well, have you gone through theexercise yet?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
where every business does this, where they maybe if
you've read the book or not, butyou know 10x is easier than 2x
where you just realize I need tofocus on this one thing?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
That's probably my next book and I understand the
idea behind it right, I think,is that if you're thinking in a
2x mindset way, you think whatyou're doing today, but better,
but a little more, when youthink about things in a 10x way
and I haven't read the book, soI'm totally guessing here- but
(11:53):
just put in GP, gpt, you'll geta great summary like got it.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Next, I'll read 100 books in a day.
Um, that's it.
No, you get.
You got the gist like just youknow it's easier to go 10x than
it is 2x, and so you've had somefocus, free shifts though, in
your business, right, like whereyou've had some opportunity,
did it and maybe talk about thata little bit where opportunity
presented itself, and I thinkthat triggered you just because
(12:17):
you know I'm teasing a littlebit, just because I know a
little bit but it triggered youto go.
Maybe we really should focus onthat.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, I mean there's been a couple of different times
where we've had to pivot andadjust.
I mean there's been a couple ofdifferent times where we've had
to pivot and adjust.
You know, I'll share one storythat I think relates to failure
that turns into success.
You know, at one point we hadsome great traction and things
were looking good.
We've got our sales kind ofdoing well, our marketing is
(12:50):
kind of locked in, at least asfar as we were to that point.
So this was probably two yearsago, maybe a little bit longer,
and we went you know, things aregoing great, let's hire a
full-time salesperson, because I, as the CEO, I invest maybe 10,
20% of my time it should be 30,40, 50% on the sales and
marketing aspect.
But you know, as a bootstrapcompany we only have so many
(13:12):
resources and so much time inthe day, so there's just too
many things to do.
So we thought, hey, if we canhire a full-time salesperson man
, that guy should be able to atleast do as much as Mark can do
on his 10% time.
Right, that seems like areasonable thought.
So we did some modeling andprojections and we went hey, you
(13:32):
know, if we hit our salestargets times two, we'll be able
to give everybody raises, we'llhire this new person and we'll
be able to cover healthinsurance at 100%, because,
that's, you know, one of thegoals for our company is to make
our employees' lives better.
Company is to make ouremployees' lives better.
So we did all those things.
It was a triple whammy andunfortunately, our sales did not
(13:59):
meet up with our expectationsand our projections, and there
was plenty of reasons for that.
We don't need to go deep inthat.
But it was a big failure thatwe did all that and one of the
hardest things we had to do.
We ended up letting a couple ofpeople go.
We had to reduce wages afteryou know increasing wages, which
is always hard to tell youremployees that, hey, you're
going to do the same work, butbut get paid less.
(14:21):
And that was, that was a really, really, probably the toughest
scenario that I've been in.
But on the other side of that,now we've turned things around
and we're back on the growthjourney and everything's going
great at this point.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I've been through it, where you're like I need you to
stay, but for a lot less.
And I know I promised you we'regoing to raise money too.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
And.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
I know everything's more expensive.
This is actually, I think, agood moment, though.
When people stay through thatand they it's a, it's a measure
of your character and cultureyou've built, where, if people
can't stay cause it's just astoo much, then you understand
and you're like, if, when wereturn, I will, I will be
reaching back out.
Some people who stay choose youover finding more money because
(15:08):
they appreciate you and whatyou're doing and your honesty,
and they feel like that hasvalue over money, and I think
that sometimes I think, whenpeople have to go through that,
that's a really big reflectivepiece is that you know they stay
.
Sometimes they stay becausethey just got nowhere to go and
you probably should have firedthem, but I don't think that was
the case.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
No, our team's incredibly talented.
I have no doubt that all of ourfolks could go somewhere else
and make more money, but we'vebeen 100 percent work from home
the whole time.
So you know, even before, covidwas no big deal that that
things were no travel, becauseas a software company, if you
have Internet you can do yourwork, and so we're.
(15:45):
We're very flexible in that way.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Now, if you could go back in time at any point in
your life, when would you goback and what would you do
differently?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Probably that triple whammy scenario that I just
talked about.
That was really a bad businessdecision to make projections on
things that we didn't know wouldbe true.
Didn't know would be true, andso, going back, the thing I
would do differently would be tobase all of those decisions on
revenue generation instead of onprojected revenue, because I
(16:18):
think, had we done it that wayit would have been we'd still
got to today where things arelooking good, but we'd have done
so in a way where, instead ofgoing straight from, you know,
20 miles an hour to 100 miles anhour, you know we would have
went 20, 30, 40, 50.
And I think we'd still get to100 miles an hour, but it would
have done in a way that was notso stressful and difficult for
(16:42):
you know, me personally andprobably everyone on the team.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, If there's a question I should ask you.
Dan, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
What's that question?
Probably when you're going tolose to me at racquetball.
And so the answer is soon,because I'm a firm believer that
you're either winning or you'relearning.
There's no losing unless youquit.
So until I quit, quit.
You can't, you can't finishbeating me well, what if I've
quit and you've?
Never, beaten me but then soyou know that that means I win
(17:19):
because you forfeited to be fair.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I thought when you're gonna concede then, then I I'll
take it.
I was thinking you're gonna goback in time to when you learn
how to hit a backhand and wouldhave done it right.
That's what I thought you weregoing to say that hurts me.
You can't do it now.
You can't go back to any othertime.
You know, the best answer tothat question that I actually
had was the guy was like I wouldhave ordered a black coffee
(17:43):
instead of this latte.
That was his answer.
I was like that's great of thislatte.
That was his answer.
I was like that's great.
He's like I would have goneback like two minutes ago.
He's like I'm going to fix thatright after this, though, so
it's all good.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Sounds like he follows the Ted Lasso be a
goldfish, because that's verylike all the other.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Maybe the last question I get asked is this who
should get a hold of you andwhy should they get a hold of
you?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Well.
So obviously my softwareparticularly runs just for
managing microtics.
80, 90% over what I'm currentlypaying for Cisco, juniper,
brocade, other manufacturers forrouters, firewall switches.
Microtik's not always a fit,but I'd say 90% of the time
there are ways to make it workfor most networks and that cost
(18:44):
savings is really, reallyincredible.
So whether you've got MicroTikor are interested in MicroTix, I
can be reached at mark atadmiralplatformcom by email.
Our website isadmiralplatformcom.
Like everyone, we've gotYouTube, linkedin, facebook.
You can find us on the things.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
You guys even have an OnlyFans account, which is
really weird for a MicroTixplace, but you'll have to search
that one, guys.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
It's a different style.
Routers are sexy man.
They are so hot.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I mean they can.
If they're not wired right,they can get really warm.
Thank you, mark, for joining metoday.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
All right, Thomas.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
For those still listening, I hope if this was
your first time here, you comeback many times time.
Here you come back many times.
If you've been here before,thank you, Get out there, Go cut
a tie to something holding youback.
But first to find that successon your terms so you can chase
the right things to make ithappen.
Welcome to the Cut the Tide podcast.
Hi, I'm your host, thomasHelfrich.
I'm here to help you cut thetide of whatever it is holding
you back from success, and I dohope you've defined that success
yourself, because, I've saidbefore, you're on someone else's
journey If you haven't today.
I am joined by Mr Mark Paria.
Mark, how are you?
I'm great.
How are you doing, thomas?
(00:21):
So Mark and I both are here inAtlanta.
We play racquetball togetherand, as we've known each other
for a long time, I discoveredthat he's actually an
entrepreneur, because that'swhat men do they hang out with
each other and don't actuallyask any meaningful questions at
any point.
I just know he has new racketsfrom 1980.
Anyway, mark, take a minute,introduce yourself and what it
is you do.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Hey guys, so my name is Mark Perea.
They call me Microtik Mark, andthe reason for that is because
I have a software company formanaging microtik routers,
firewalls and switches.
We help customers all over theworld manage their microtik
networks so that they can getmore done with their small teams
.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Do the people have to be like little people, like
four foot tall, or do you meanlike just numbers of teams?
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Smaller teams.
So what's typical on a microtiknetwork is to have like one guy
that knows everything andeverybody else is kind of just
along for the ride.
So our customers really aren'tsmall physically but as much as
small teams that you know need.
Here's a good, great example.
(01:27):
You know you got the one guy.
You want to be able to knowwhether the network is healthy
or unhealthy.
We make it so that the customerservice team can help, the
operations team can help theknock and help.
You don't need that one supertechie engineer to be the one to
take a look at it all.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Those are not in the tech world generally, there's
this like the technology personais paranoia and everything
close to the chest and that'slike the 80s, 90s, early 2000s
tech and MicroTik is an actualtype of router, specifically
right, Is that correct?
Speaker 2 (02:02):
Yeah, so MicroTik is a company out of Latvia which is
a European company, and theymake hundreds of different
models of access points routers,switches, firewalls, big guys,
little guys, everything in therange from 10 bucks all the way
up to thousands of bucks,different speeds and
capabilities, indoor, outdoor,and so they made a great
(02:24):
software for managing one at atime.
But if you've got dozens,hundreds, thousands, tens of
thousands of them, that's whereI come in.
I make it easy to automate,remote access, manage, monitor,
get alerts and notifications onhow healthy the network is.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Oh wow, so you well, one, it's something you de-risk
a company who has them from thebeer truck rule happens to the
tech guy that knows everything.
That's one.
And then two, uh, just just thecost avoidance of having to
have a dozen people manage abunch of stuff, right, does that
?
Does that fair, like you kindof put that over that little
wrapper layer over all that.
Speaker 2 (03:00):
Absolutely yeah.
So what we found is thatthere's kind of two schools of
micro tick users.
One is the guy who sees theSwiss Army knife that is a
microtech and says, oh wow, Ican do all this cool stuff and
they love spending days, weeks,months tinkering and figuring
things out on their own and kindof building their own stuff.
(03:20):
They get into servers andsoftware and scripts and all
kinds of stuff.
That's not our customer.
Our customer is the guys andgals that want to go hey, five
minutes from now, I want to havea fully working solution and
I'm great with that being in thecloud.
Take my money and give meaccess to this thing that will
have me running and takingbackups, doing all my
(03:43):
automations, giving me all of myaccess that I need five minutes
from now, and just want to getstarted right away without
having to be a server admin andall the other stuff that goes
along with it.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
So before we get into your journey here, a little bit
how do you define success?
Speaker 2 (04:00):
God, that's very individual.
So I think in the past growingup, that's very individual.
So I think in the past growingup, I just had this vision of
being success in the amount ofmoney that you can make, and so
I think, for the first 20 yearsof my life was all about making
more money than my parents made,which means that I was shooting
for six figures.
(04:20):
And so I achieved that and,just like everyone does, once
you achieve a goal right, yougot to set a new one.
So at that point I went well,what is the next journey?
And I think at that point it'skind of when I shifted into
entrepreneurism where I said Iwant to spend my time doing
(04:47):
things that I enjoy.
I really, I really want workcan go along with that.
Work could be unbundled fromthat, but I really want to be
intentional with my time and dothings that that make me happy.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
I love that.
The um.
You know, when I've hit sixpack, shown I can't.
There's not an eight to have.
Apparently I can't go afterthat new goal.
I was so excited to go for aneight pack and I only can have a
six.
It's so frustrating.
I'm just hey, if I don't putthe humor in, you won't.
Okay, I'm just going to be done.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
That's not true.
I mean I tried to, I tried tofeel up your I mean all over it
was.
It's almost like you getgrillgasms meat first.
That's right.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
Grillgasms, google it guys, anyway.
So all right, I love thatbecause the definition of
success definitely changes andmost people's it's like it
started off as something thatwas related to a parent, what
they wanted for you, or somementor, and it evolves.
I think what happens to a lotof people?
It becomes flat but they don'treally have a definition and I
(05:47):
think defining that as a bigpiece of kind of owning your own
world, time of well, am Isuccessful?
Do I have time with my kids?
No, is that important to me?
Yes, okay, whatever it is, andI love the fact that yours has
evolved over time.
Talk to me about how youstarted a little bit to start
chasing that.
So dive into the journey a bit.
And what was kind of that firstbig metaphor to tell you how to
(06:09):
cut to?
Speaker 2 (06:09):
do it.
Yeah, I think right along thelines of what you're talking
about.
As I was kind of wrapping up mycorporate journey, I was
listening to Tim Ferriss andfour hour work week and that was
like a pivotal book forchanging my mindset.
I've read lots of good books.
I've got tons ofrecommendations on, you know,
(06:30):
different business strategy.
You know, good for personalgrowth, good for professional
growth.
But that one in particular wasalmost required reading for me
to kind of shift that idea thatyou can either spend your time
and so four hour week quicksynopsis for anybody who hasn't
read it yet Hopefully you have.
But it's basically, if youdon't enjoy doing your work,
(06:54):
what it takes to make you money.
Get that down to a reduced setof time and maybe your target
could be four hours a week.
What I took out of the book wasnot necessarily that you want
to do that.
It was that if you don't enjoyyour work, do that.
If you do enjoy your work,spend as much time working as
you'd like to, but at the end ofthe day, just make sure that
(07:15):
you're spending your time on thethings that you find enjoyable.
And to me that again comes backto the definition of success.
That's exactly where it is, andso I'm listening to this
four-hour week-week audiobookand that was really the pivot
for me was hearing that I thinkin his words it was you can be
(07:37):
comfortably miserable, if Iremember correctly, and the idea
there is that you'recomfortable right, I was making
six figures by all rights, myretirement was growing, I had
the money, I had the great house, I had all the things that I
thought that I wanted to pursuefinancially, and yet I was not
(08:00):
feeling the passion that I feeltoday.
I was not engaged in the waythat I am today with being able
to say, hey, I'm excited to getup every day, I want to pursue
the things I want to pursue andI want to keep growing and going
all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yeah, I love that because you're taking the depth
of success and then you'rereevaluating it.
And I do this all the time,like every year or so I'm like,
what can I do this year to getbetter?
And what really matters?
And it's the Home Depot bucketanalogy I think I've discussed
(08:39):
before where happiness pours in.
The holes are unhappiness, andevery time the hole sometimes it
creates two or three more holes, right, and you're like, well,
maybe I should just close thathole and those other ones close
too.
And then I need less to go intomy bucket.
And I think if you're not doingthis practically, you take
anything from anything we'resaying today.
Just do that, go and find yourown success of what that means.
And are you on a path to do it?
(08:59):
Um, it's funny how thefinancial one, uh, when you kind
of hit some level of comfort,just kind of dissipates.
Um, I think to get to the like100 million dollar level
something, you just have to bejust relentless.
You have to be such anunsatisfiable person to get
there.
I just don't.
If your eyes want to get to amillion and quit, you'll never
(09:20):
get to a million.
You say I'm going to get to abillion.
You'll stop at 250, maybe Idon't know.
I love that Along the way.
There's one thing to knowthat's success.
There's another thing to havethe journey and start cutting
ties.
But tell me about the how.
Can you remember a moment whereyou're like I'm doing that
(09:42):
right now, like the absolute,like you know, recall the moment
and what the how was to getthere, achieve it?
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Yeah, I guess.
I mean, it's not one singlemoment for me, it was just kind
of stacking up over time withwith all the different things.
And so, you know, I had a, avision for where the corporation
that I was in could go to,because I was, you know, always
been a high achiever, always,you know, kind of on the fast
(10:12):
track, regardless of whether itwas in school and the military,
in the corporate world, incollege, like always, I follow
the motto of do your best.
So always trying to, you know,advance and do better today than
yesterday and tomorrow thantoday, and so I saw a vision for
where the company could go, andI remember just throwing that
(10:35):
idea out into the company, andnot for me personally, but just,
you know, ideas that that, hey,I think this could do better
and this could do better, thiscould do better.
And, as you know, right, like inthe corporate world, there's
many times I've seen your cutthe tie, parodies, right, and
and uh, you know you talking toyour business boss self.
(10:55):
You know exactly what it's like.
There's times where your goodideas are just they don't, they
don't resonate, for whateverreason.
And you know when you're a highachiever and you really feel
like you can create a betterworld.
Um's hard to say no.
That's not worth investing timeand effort and money into yeah
(11:19):
Well, have you gone through theexercise yet?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
where every business does this, where they maybe if
you've read the book or not, butyou know 10x is easier than 2x
where you just realize I need tofocus on this one thing?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
That's probably my next book and I understand the
idea behind it right, I think,is that if you're thinking in a
2x mindset way, you think whatyou're doing today, but better,
but a little more, when youthink about things in a 10x way
and I haven't read the book, soI'm totally guessing here- but
(11:53):
just put in GP, gpt, you'll geta great summary like got it.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Next, I'll read 100 books in a day.
Um, that's it.
No, you get.
You got the gist like just youknow it's easier to go 10x than
it is 2x, and so you've had somefocus, free shifts though, in
your business, right, like whereyou've had some opportunity,
did it and maybe talk about thata little bit where opportunity
presented itself, and I thinkthat triggered you just because
(12:17):
you know I'm teasing a littlebit, just because I know a
little bit but it triggered youto go.
Maybe we really should focus onthat.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Yeah, I mean there's been a couple of different times
where we've had to pivot andadjust.
I mean there's been a couple ofdifferent times where we've had
to pivot and adjust.
You know, I'll share one storythat I think relates to failure
that turns into success.
You know, at one point we hadsome great traction and things
were looking good.
We've got our sales kind ofdoing well, our marketing is
(12:50):
kind of locked in, at least asfar as we were to that point.
So this was probably two yearsago, maybe a little bit longer,
and we went you know, things aregoing great, let's hire a
full-time salesperson, because I, as the CEO, I invest maybe 10,
20% of my time it should be 30,40, 50% on the sales and
marketing aspect.
But you know, as a bootstrapcompany we only have so many
(13:12):
resources and so much time inthe day, so there's just too
many things to do.
So we thought, hey, if we canhire a full-time salesperson man
, that guy should be able to atleast do as much as Mark can do
on his 10% time.
Right, that seems like areasonable thought.
So we did some modeling andprojections and we went hey, you
(13:32):
know, if we hit our salestargets times two, we'll be able
to give everybody raises, we'llhire this new person and we'll
be able to cover healthinsurance at 100%, because,
that's, you know, one of thegoals for our company is to make
our employees' lives better.
Company is to make ouremployees' lives better.
So we did all those things.
It was a triple whammy andunfortunately, our sales did not
(13:59):
meet up with our expectationsand our projections, and there
was plenty of reasons for that.
We don't need to go deep inthat.
But it was a big failure thatwe did all that and one of the
hardest things we had to do.
We ended up letting a couple ofpeople go.
We had to reduce wages afteryou know increasing wages, which
is always hard to tell youremployees that, hey, you're
going to do the same work, butbut get paid less.
(14:21):
And that was, that was a really, really, probably the toughest
scenario that I've been in.
But on the other side of that,now we've turned things around
and we're back on the growthjourney and everything's going
great at this point.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I've been through it, where you're like I need you to
stay, but for a lot less.
And I know I promised you we'regoing to raise money too.
Speaker 2 (14:45):
And.
Speaker 1 (14:45):
I know everything's more expensive.
This is actually, I think, agood moment, though.
When people stay through thatand they it's a, it's a measure
of your character and cultureyou've built, where, if people
can't stay cause it's just astoo much, then you understand
and you're like, if, when wereturn, I will, I will be
reaching back out.
Some people who stay choose youover finding more money because
(15:08):
they appreciate you and whatyou're doing and your honesty,
and they feel like that hasvalue over money, and I think
that sometimes I think, whenpeople have to go through that,
that's a really big reflectivepiece is that you know they stay
.
Sometimes they stay becausethey just got nowhere to go and
you probably should have firedthem, but I don't think that was
the case.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
No, our team's incredibly talented.
I have no doubt that all of ourfolks could go somewhere else
and make more money, but we'vebeen 100 percent work from home
the whole time.
So you know, even before, covidwas no big deal that that
things were no travel, becauseas a software company, if you
have Internet you can do yourwork, and so we're.
(15:45):
We're very flexible in that way.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Now, if you could go back in time at any point in
your life, when would you goback and what would you do
differently?
Speaker 2 (15:54):
Probably that triple whammy scenario that I just
talked about.
That was really a bad businessdecision to make projections on
things that we didn't know wouldbe true.
Didn't know would be true, andso, going back, the thing I
would do differently would be tobase all of those decisions on
revenue generation instead of onprojected revenue, because I
(16:18):
think, had we done it that wayit would have been we'd still
got to today where things arelooking good, but we'd have done
so in a way where, instead ofgoing straight from, you know,
20 miles an hour to 100 miles anhour, you know we would have
went 20, 30, 40, 50.
And I think we'd still get to100 miles an hour, but it would
have done in a way that was notso stressful and difficult for
(16:42):
you know, me personally andprobably everyone on the team.
Speaker 1 (16:46):
Yeah, If there's a question I should ask you.
Dan, I didn't.
Speaker 2 (16:56):
What's that question?
Probably when you're going tolose to me at racquetball.
And so the answer is soon,because I'm a firm believer that
you're either winning or you'relearning.
There's no losing unless youquit.
So until I quit, quit.
You can't, you can't finishbeating me well, what if I've
quit and you've?
Never, beaten me but then soyou know that that means I win
(17:19):
because you forfeited to be fair.
Speaker 1 (17:21):
I thought when you're gonna concede then, then I I'll
take it.
I was thinking you're gonna goback in time to when you learn
how to hit a backhand and wouldhave done it right.
That's what I thought you weregoing to say that hurts me.
You can't do it now.
You can't go back to any othertime.
You know, the best answer tothat question that I actually
had was the guy was like I wouldhave ordered a black coffee
(17:43):
instead of this latte.
That was his answer.
I was like that's great of thislatte.
That was his answer.
I was like that's great.
He's like I would have goneback like two minutes ago.
He's like I'm going to fix thatright after this, though, so
it's all good.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Sounds like he follows the Ted Lasso be a
goldfish, because that's verylike all the other.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
Maybe the last question I get asked is this who
should get a hold of you andwhy should they get a hold of
you?
Speaker 2 (18:21):
Well.
So obviously my softwareparticularly runs just for
managing microtics.
80, 90% over what I'm currentlypaying for Cisco, juniper,
brocade, other manufacturers forrouters, firewall switches.
Microtik's not always a fit,but I'd say 90% of the time
there are ways to make it workfor most networks and that cost
(18:44):
savings is really, reallyincredible.
So whether you've got MicroTikor are interested in MicroTix, I
can be reached at mark atadmiralplatformcom by email.
Our website isadmiralplatformcom.
Like everyone, we've gotYouTube, linkedin, facebook.
You can find us on the things.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
You guys even have an OnlyFans account, which is
really weird for a MicroTixplace, but you'll have to search
that one, guys.
Speaker 2 (19:10):
It's a different style.
Routers are sexy man.
They are so hot.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
I mean they can.
If they're not wired right,they can get really warm.
Thank you, mark, for joining metoday.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
All right, Thomas.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
For those still listening, I hope if this was
your first time here, you comeback many times time.
Here you come back many times.
If you've been here before,thank you, Get out there, Go cut
a tie to something holding youback.
But first to find that successon your terms so you can chase
the right things to make ithappen.
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