March 25, 2025 • 21 mins
The difference between business survival and failure often comes down to one thing: the people you hire. In this candid conversation, we dive into why grit beats impressive resumes every time.
Our guest, who built and sold two companies before 40, shares how their hiring philosophy evolved through both wins and hard lessons. "I'd rather hire someone who never says, ‘That’s not my job’ than a billion-dollar executive who won’t roll up their sleeves," they explain, recalling hires who looked great on paper but crumbled under pressure.
This mindset became crucial in their latest venture—a "COVID baby" launched in late 2020. What started as a freemium product backed by venture capital had to pivot fast when economic shifts hit. Converting free users to paying customers and downsizing twice in a year were tough calls, but they stabilized the business and kept the vision alive.
Perhaps most revealing is their take on life post-exit. Despite financial freedom, early retirement felt empty while friends kept working. That restlessness pulled them back to entrepreneurship, scouring forums for real problems to solve. Three years and $12 million later, they’ve built a solution tackling industry-wide challenges—proving that persistence, adaptability, and the right team can conquer even the toughest business hurdles.
Colin Knox on LinkedIn:
https://ca.linkedin.com/in/realityknox
Gradient MSP:
https://www.meetgradient.com
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Hi, I’m Marc Thomas, Founder and CEO of Current TEK Solutions and CYBER GUARDIANS. If you or someone you know could benefit from our cutting-edge IT and cybersecurity services, we’d love to help. Reach out to us today to learn how we can secure and elevate your business. https://www.currentTEKsolutions.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
you know, hiring somebody from their accolades of
previous accomplishments, or oryou know things that had
allegedly been accomplished orwhatever, both in this business
and in the last one, you know,and and realizing that, oh,
that's a person that just comesin to manage and isn't willing
to get their hands dirty andisn't willing to to actually run
(00:20):
like they.
They could manage a team justfine, but hopefully this thing
is all just rolling Right, um,and so, yeah, I mean it's, it's
come down to that.
I think, at any point in anybusiness I have now or in the
future and it doesn't matter howbig it is I will always, always
go for grit now and andwillingness to dive in and do
(00:42):
anything, and willingness todive in and do anything.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm impressed.
It sounds remarkable and, likeI said, just trying to imagine
you're talking about the peoplethat really said this is kind of
like their first full-timeposition working for your
organization.
And you say A players.
I'm thinking about what historywe're using to identify them as
an A player, when you broughtthem in.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I was cheap, seriously right.
Identify them as an airplayplayer.
When you brought them in, I wascheap, seriously right.
Everybody, even where we live,right, so I'm, I'm in western
canada and in alberta and a verypredominant oil and gas
economic environment here right,it's, it's you.
Calgary is called Cowtown, it'sfarmers and oil and gas, right,
(01:26):
like, that's what it is.
So I mean, to find somebodythat builds software and wants
to join a software companythat's not in that industry was
difficult, and so you had to goto young, you know fairly new
grad, dynamic people that justhad that twinkle in their eye of
, and and almost that confidenceof, I can build anything you
(01:48):
asked me to build, but alsoenough, I wouldn't call it
immaturity, but I guessgreenness to them that their
salary expectations weren't outlandish, right, and so.
So, yeah, I mean, that's that'sreally.
What it came down to was wasbeing gritty and cheap and
cheerful and and finding peoplethat came in and just love what
(02:11):
they did.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
And so you're painting this picture.
You mentioned Calgary and Ihave actually just booked my
flights yesterday or yesterdayfor a trip to Banff to do some
backpacking in.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
September for a trip to Banff to do some backpacking
in.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
September, nice, amazing.
So you're painting this picturewhere you're talking about this
cow town, of what's theexperience when I get there.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
In September?
I mean it won't be.
I mean we've moved along ingeneral, but if you came in July
, next month, I mean we've gotour Calgary Stampede, which is
all just it's rodeo and carnivaland everything all just
intertwined and it's 10 days ofinsanity every year Insanity.
(02:50):
But yeah, I mean there's stilla lot of farming.
When you drive out from Calgaryyou'll see tons of farmland,
heading out to the mountains andthe indigenous lands and stuff
along the way there and stuff.
But yeah, you still see somepeople walking around with their
cowboy hats, or maybe not, andthe indigenous lands and stuff
along the way there and stuff.
But, um, yeah, you still seesome people walking around with
their cowboy hats, or maybe notin the hats but walking around
in boots.
But there's still modern,modern people too and young
(03:13):
people that dress hip and andwear normal clothes.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So I know I'm excited to, uh, check out the beauty of
Banff once again, and that's myescape and one way of usually
trying to do it annually gettogether with some former
MSP-ers, in a sense, and somethat are still in the business
today, and get together and go,yeah, down a 40-pound pack and
go out and live the free lifefor a week.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, absolutely, it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
And the fact you took chances on.
I guess you took chance onpeople.
Right, you give peopleopportunity.
You said those who were beingcheap, but you also gave these
individuals opportunities thatthey might not have had
otherwise.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, I think everybody deserves an
opportunity to do stuff right.
I think lots of people tookchances on me.
I mean, when I moved to beingthe head of service delivery for
the MSP I was at, so that waswell.
Again, it wasn't really an MSPbut the IT company.
They were almost a $5 millionshop.
You know 30, some employees, Ithink I was 26, 25 years old, so
(04:20):
I was probably younger than,and significantly younger than,
90% of my team.
Like that's a bold move for abusiness to take at that time.
So they took a chance on me andwhen I started you know the
partnership MSP and then even myown a lot of people gave me a
(04:40):
chance and gave me a shot andgave me the benefit of the doubt
.
People gave me a chance andgave me a shot and gave me the
benefit of the doubt, and evenone of our clients that you know
, when it was my MSP that I hadtaken on one of those two.
They came to a point where theyacquired a massive, they did a
reverse takeover of a massiveorganization and I was sure that
was the end of the road for meand that that company had a full
(05:01):
IT department and their CFOcame in and said you tell us
what you need and what help youneed.
Do we need to keep this ITdepartment or can you guys take
on everything?
And they gave us the chance andwe said we'll take on
everything.
They let go of that ITdepartment, everybody else, they
gave us the full shot and wewere probably six, seven people
(05:22):
at the time.
So, yeah, I've always been abeliever in that.
Everybody deserves anopportunity, doesn't matter what
their background is, where theycame from, what challenges they
have, what it looks like theycan't do, if they have the right
traits of you know, grit anddetermination.
(05:42):
And you can just, you can justsee it in people's eyes.
I like, I still feel that is,you can meet somebody and be
like that person could doanything, whether they believe
it or not, or whether they'vedone anything or not.
You can just tell.
And so those are the peoplethat you know I'd rather be with
.
I don't want to be working withsomebody when some time is
(06:05):
tough and they're like all right, well, this isn't as cushy as I
hoped, I'm going to see youlater, right?
Or hey, we're in a crisisperiod and they're like yeah,
but my wife just cooked dinnerand I'm going to go sit down and
eat it, right, yeah, by allmeans, I want people to have
that as their regular every day,but when it's crisis mode, I
want the people that are like,whether I own this or not, I'm,
(06:28):
I'm at war for this company, um,and, and those are the people
that I'd rather have on my teamno.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I can appreciate that and I've through that process.
Um, you said you can kind ofsee it in their eye and they
have that grit.
Um, or the first talking aboutthe, about the first two
companies, did you make any badhires?
When you look back at themyou're like, oh my goodness,
what the hell was I thinking?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Oh, tons, tons of bad hires, right, I think in some
cases it was getting away fromlooking for the grit and hiring
and getting out over our skis onstuff.
Right, hiring before a businesswas ready for a certain role,
or even not even necessarilythat the business was ready for
that role.
But just again, you know,hiring somebody from their
(07:15):
accolades of previousaccomplishments or you know
things that had allegedly beenaccomplished or whatever, both
in this business and in the lastone you know, and and realizing
that, oh, that's a person thatjust comes in to manage and
isn't willing to get their handsdirty and isn't willing to
actually run it Like they.
(07:36):
They could manage a team justfine, but hopefully this thing
is all just rolling Right and so, yeah, I mean it's, it's come
down to that.
I think, at any point in anybusiness I have now or in the
future and it doesn't matter howbig it is I will always, always
go for grit now and andwillingness to, to dive in and
(07:56):
do anything.
I, you know, I will alwayschoose the person that will
never say that's not my jobversus the one that has built a
billion dollar, whatever, youknow, I don't care if you've
built all that stuff, or orhaven't.
If, if you start telling mewhat your job is and what your
job isn't, there's no path foryou with me, um, and, and that's
(08:20):
just for me the way that itneeds to be.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Now with, obviously we know, post-pandemic, and we
had a couple of years therewhere things were kind of dicey
in regards to when it came topeople.
What kind of challenges did youface during that time?
I mean, we know what our peershave faced and how did you
overcome those when it comes topeople and hiring for grit.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, I think so we had scaled up.
I mean, this business was thiscurrent one?
Was so we had scaled up.
I mean this business was thiscurrent one?
Was it's a COVID baby?
Okay, and it was started duringCOVID in late 2020.
And you know, I think we did alot of the right things and we
(09:02):
were forced and wanted to befully remote, fully distributed
and stuff like that.
We saw some really great earlysuccess.
We, with that success, coupledwith, you know, past exits and
success, became very attractiveduring an investment bubble and
venture capital bubble.
(09:23):
So we raised, you know, asignificant amount of money and
we scaled up big and we hired aton of people and you know, some
of those were the absoluteright people and some of them
were the absolute wrong people.
Um, but when all the economicheadwinds came in after the
recession, when there was this,or after the pandemic story and
(09:46):
there was this massive loomingrecession, everything changed
economically globally in theinvestment world and venture
capital world.
As much of a darling as we werebased on, how many free
customers we were getting andthe technology we were building
and the opportunity and the pacethat we were running at, it
wasn't the same investablebusiness running at it wasn't
(10:12):
the same investable business.
So we had to pivot hard as acompany and protect the company
so that we had the runway andsurvivability and sustainability
.
And so, you know, we had to letgo a lot of the people, some of
the ones that made a lot ofsense to let go and probably
never should have been hiredanyways and a lot of that I, to
this day, wish that they werestill on this team and able to
contribute the way that onlythey can contribute.
(10:34):
But there's a number of otherbusinesses now that have the the
fortune of having those peopleum driving their companies and
stuff too.
But, yeah, we I mean no secretwe have the company um in
november of 2022 and we halvedthe company again in a year ago,
(10:55):
july last year um, just, youknow, sheer, sheer necessity.
I mean, it was the right thingto do, it's what we absolutely
had to do, um, but uh, you knowit's.
It's one of those things nowwhere you know we leaned out the
business, we stabilized thebusiness, we're, we're in a good
position now and moving forwardand and growth is is coming
(11:16):
along very nicely.
But, yeah, you, you definitelylearn a lot around um growing a
business or or making decisionsin the business based on the
merit of what the business isand what the current situation
is, and not ever being Iwouldn't say we were
(11:37):
irresponsible, but less diligentwith capital.
I think you decide to make hiresearlier than planned because
the right person maybe appeared,and stuff like that
Opportunistically.
I think there's stillconsiderations for that, but in
most cases, unless I can justifythat role at this point in time
(11:59):
, I will not make that hireagain, type of thing.
So yeah, I think, a lot moreappreciation for recognizing
where a business is and what abusiness needs at any point in
time and focusing on that andjust running, always running a
good, viable business by adefinition of what a good,
strong business is, not by whata business could be so help me
(12:21):
understand a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So you said you've had to pivot.
Um what indication to you?
Um that I guess the mechanismor trigger to say I've got to
pivot.
What was that?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah, so we were a freemium product, right, we had
no monetization.
It was a thing of we were afree product to get customers on
the platform, using theplatform, and to be able to
leverage what they wereessentially feeding into the
platform.
And to be able to leverage whatthey were essentially feeding
into the platform to create aproduct they could, we could,
sell to those same people, right.
(12:56):
So they were using and gettingvalue from us for free, but they
were essentially paying us withinformation about their
business.
Now it's all de-identified andall aggregated, so you couldn't
tell who anybody is.
But with a plan to be able tosell them a product in the
future that gave them thebenefit of that broader, broader
knowledge set, right, um, in afashion that could really impact
(13:19):
their business.
And so at that time, I meanwe're, we're and we're very
public about our plans to dothat and what we could build as
an intelligence system for, youknow, an MSP based on that total
aggregate data set.
And a lot of companies werecoming in and they were bought
into that.
And, hey, it's a free producttoo.
(13:40):
So I'm going to take it wheneconomic headwinds come in and
you're burning capital at anincredible pace to build a
product, to build technology, tocontinue to go out and acquire
these customers for no revenue.
That's not sustainable, right?
And if nobody is stepping up tosay, yeah, I want to keep
funding that, then you need tomake a change.
(14:02):
So that's where we had to pivotis.
We had to pivot to a solutionthat we could monetize, that we
could sell to customers, that wecould convert, and we
essentially had to get away fromour freemium offering and go to
everybody and say we need tostart charging you now.
This is not a bait and switch.
If you don't pay us or nobodypays us, you got no solution to
(14:25):
use here.
We can't sustain it.
And and yeah.
So we went and and sure, welost a lot, of a lot of
companies that just didn't wantto pay for the solution or
whatever else.
But we got a bunch that did,and you know we had to fight
with the legacy information outon the internet that you can
never delete.
Out there that says, hey, it'sfree.
(14:46):
And some people come in like,hey, I want to use it.
No, you got to pay.
Well, it says it's free here.
Well, that was before.
And here's what we've had tochange.
Right, things change, so we hadto change that.
But we had to pivot and improveand change the solution from
what people were willing to usefor free versus what it needs to
be for them to pay for it, andso that took a lot of work and a
(15:11):
lot of effort to get it there.
And, you know, fortunately wedid and fortunately, with the
amount of people that havestayed, we've now gotten to a
place where we can offer thatbroader product to people, which
is a big part of what welaunched back in April and that
was part of the, when you weretalking about reading the book
and then applying thosemarketing techniques in regards
to rolling out in.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
April was all part of that.
So you sold Passportal and thenyou started the company that
you are leading today.
Yep, how much time gap was inthere.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So we sold in April of 2019.
I left the acquiring businessin August of 2020.
And this business we pulledtogether in november of 2020.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Okay, just trying to get an understanding going.
Hey, you know what did colin dowith himself?
You know like he sold thisbusiness.
Obviously he stayed on for awhile, right, yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:11):
colin, tried to retire a bit, but, um, you know,
it goes back to a whole bunchof different things about you
know, you're you maybe lose somefriends over that period of
time, you lose somerelationships and stuff over
time.
Um, but I mean I was wasrelatively young.
(16:32):
I mean we had built, you know,founded, built and exited two
companies in the course of 10years, um, before I was 40.
And so when you try to retireat that stage, I mean it, none
of your friends are retired,right, they're all working.
Um, you know, I was in arelationship at the time where
(16:54):
it was not a codependentrelationship by any means.
So, um, my partner at the timewas not going to retire, um, and
yeah, it came down to well, doI hang out with my parents all
the time because they're retired?
Um, or what do I do?
And so I tried to fill my timeand do other things and and have
(17:15):
fun and do stuff.
But you know, at the end of theday it was like you're this
lone wolf, soldier, doing yourown stuff all the time and and
then coming back to do otherthings.
Or, you know, maybe at that too, people can't justify a certain
level of expenditure for sometype of activity or or getaway
(17:36):
and stuff.
So, yeah, I mean it's it's.
It's a condition whereeverybody thinks, oh, if you
have a lot of money, do anythingyou want to do and you've got
all this and life is awesome.
It can be awesome, but, butmoney is not everything, right,
and and at the same time, I feltmyself being in a predicament
where I wasn't contributing toanything.
(17:58):
I had no passion, like well, Ihad passion for things, but
there was nothing that I couldput or direct my passion to that
actually felt productive, right, and and so that's what it came
to is is sitting and siftingthrough the subreddit and
reading what people were asking,reading what people wanted,
(18:20):
what they were trying to do,what they were challenged, and
and, uh, yeah, deciding to, tostart something up that could
answer to that someday, uh, andand put towards it.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
So so that's how you came up with the idea of
starting the business you wererunning today was by going out
there and looking for theproblem that you could solve.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It was a, you know, a conditionof you know the again, people
are only willing to pay forsomething that solves a problem
or a challenge that they haveand one that's large enough that
they're willing to pay for todo it.
And when we came out, ourambitions were very, very clear
in what we shared and we werevery open and transparent about
(19:14):
it.
The byproduct of where westarted with a billing
reconciliation product, we werenever expecting to rest our
laurels on doing billingreconciliation.
There's other companies that doit.
It's not a business ofconsequences.
I would call it to just do thatone thing, and so that was a
(19:37):
means to where we wanted to getto as a business and so, yeah,
that to where we wanted to getto as a business.
And so, yeah, that's that'swhere we landed and that's
something we were able to sellto get people to.
You know, help us sustain thebusiness and and afford to
continue building to what we'rebuilding.
But yeah, I mean we're, we'revery excited right now with with
(19:58):
the things that we're buildingand what we're putting out to
market.
And you know, I'd say it's stuffthat has been long sought and
long desired and you know, it'sone of those things that people
are like oh wow, like how longdid it take you to build that
thing?
Or how long have you beenworking on that?
Well, you know, on the productitself and fashioning the things
probably a year, oh, you buildall.
(20:19):
No, it's been three and a halfyears and we've spent probably
$12 million to build it right.
Like it's not a situation of ohyeah, hey, we just wrote some
code and tossed this out and,wow, boom, all this stuff's
happening.
Right, it's everything inbehind that's gone into it.
We knew it was an ambitious andaudacious journey when we set
(20:43):
out on it and we knew it was ajourney that may end in great
defeat or failure.
But you know, right now wecontinue to persevere and we'll
keep doing whatever it is weneed to do to protect this
opportunity and preserve, yeah,our chance to ultimately have
the impact that we look to have.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Hi, I'm Mark Thomas, founder and CEO of Current Tech
Solutions and CyberGuardians.
We know business owners likeyou want to focus on growing
your company, not worrying aboutIT problems or security threats
.
That's where we come in.
Our team uses AI to protectyour business from cyber risks
and keep everything runningsmoothly.
If you're ready for peace ofmind and a stronger future,
(21:27):
reach out to us today.
Let's secure and elevate yourbusiness together.
Oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
you know, hiring somebody from their accolades of
previous accomplishments, or oryou know things that had
allegedly been accomplished orwhatever, both in this business
and in the last one, you know,and and realizing that, oh,
that's a person that just comesin to manage and isn't willing
to get their hands dirty andisn't willing to to actually run
(00:20):
like they.
They could manage a team justfine, but hopefully this thing
is all just rolling Right, um,and so, yeah, I mean it's, it's
come down to that.
I think, at any point in anybusiness I have now or in the
future and it doesn't matter howbig it is I will always, always
go for grit now and andwillingness to dive in and do
(00:42):
anything, and willingness todive in and do anything.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I'm impressed.
It sounds remarkable and, likeI said, just trying to imagine
you're talking about the peoplethat really said this is kind of
like their first full-timeposition working for your
organization.
And you say A players.
I'm thinking about what historywe're using to identify them as
an A player, when you broughtthem in.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
I was cheap, seriously right.
Identify them as an airplayplayer.
When you brought them in, I wascheap, seriously right.
Everybody, even where we live,right, so I'm, I'm in western
canada and in alberta and a verypredominant oil and gas
economic environment here right,it's, it's you.
Calgary is called Cowtown, it'sfarmers and oil and gas, right,
(01:26):
like, that's what it is.
So I mean, to find somebodythat builds software and wants
to join a software companythat's not in that industry was
difficult, and so you had to goto young, you know fairly new
grad, dynamic people that justhad that twinkle in their eye of
, and and almost that confidenceof, I can build anything you
(01:48):
asked me to build, but alsoenough, I wouldn't call it
immaturity, but I guessgreenness to them that their
salary expectations weren't outlandish, right, and so.
So, yeah, I mean, that's that'sreally.
What it came down to was wasbeing gritty and cheap and
cheerful and and finding peoplethat came in and just love what
(02:11):
they did.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
And so you're painting this picture.
You mentioned Calgary and Ihave actually just booked my
flights yesterday or yesterdayfor a trip to Banff to do some
backpacking in.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
September for a trip to Banff to do some backpacking
in.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
September, nice, amazing.
So you're painting this picturewhere you're talking about this
cow town, of what's theexperience when I get there.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
In September?
I mean it won't be.
I mean we've moved along ingeneral, but if you came in July
, next month, I mean we've gotour Calgary Stampede, which is
all just it's rodeo and carnivaland everything all just
intertwined and it's 10 days ofinsanity every year Insanity.
(02:50):
But yeah, I mean there's stilla lot of farming.
When you drive out from Calgaryyou'll see tons of farmland,
heading out to the mountains andthe indigenous lands and stuff
along the way there and stuff.
But yeah, you still see somepeople walking around with their
cowboy hats, or maybe not, andthe indigenous lands and stuff
along the way there and stuff.
But, um, yeah, you still seesome people walking around with
their cowboy hats, or maybe notin the hats but walking around
in boots.
But there's still modern,modern people too and young
(03:13):
people that dress hip and andwear normal clothes.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
So I know I'm excited to, uh, check out the beauty of
Banff once again, and that's myescape and one way of usually
trying to do it annually gettogether with some former
MSP-ers, in a sense, and somethat are still in the business
today, and get together and go,yeah, down a 40-pound pack and
go out and live the free lifefor a week.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, absolutely, it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
And the fact you took chances on.
I guess you took chance onpeople.
Right, you give peopleopportunity.
You said those who were beingcheap, but you also gave these
individuals opportunities thatthey might not have had
otherwise.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, I think everybody deserves an
opportunity to do stuff right.
I think lots of people tookchances on me.
I mean, when I moved to beingthe head of service delivery for
the MSP I was at, so that waswell.
Again, it wasn't really an MSPbut the IT company.
They were almost a $5 millionshop.
You know 30, some employees, Ithink I was 26, 25 years old, so
(04:20):
I was probably younger than,and significantly younger than,
90% of my team.
Like that's a bold move for abusiness to take at that time.
So they took a chance on me andwhen I started you know the
partnership MSP and then even myown a lot of people gave me a
(04:40):
chance and gave me a shot andgave me the benefit of the doubt
.
People gave me a chance andgave me a shot and gave me the
benefit of the doubt, and evenone of our clients that you know
, when it was my MSP that I hadtaken on one of those two.
They came to a point where theyacquired a massive, they did a
reverse takeover of a massiveorganization and I was sure that
was the end of the road for meand that that company had a full
(05:01):
IT department and their CFOcame in and said you tell us
what you need and what help youneed.
Do we need to keep this ITdepartment or can you guys take
on everything?
And they gave us the chance andwe said we'll take on
everything.
They let go of that ITdepartment, everybody else, they
gave us the full shot and wewere probably six, seven people
(05:22):
at the time.
So, yeah, I've always been abeliever in that.
Everybody deserves anopportunity, doesn't matter what
their background is, where theycame from, what challenges they
have, what it looks like theycan't do, if they have the right
traits of you know, grit anddetermination.
(05:42):
And you can just, you can justsee it in people's eyes.
I like, I still feel that is,you can meet somebody and be
like that person could doanything, whether they believe
it or not, or whether they'vedone anything or not.
You can just tell.
And so those are the peoplethat you know I'd rather be with
.
I don't want to be working withsomebody when some time is
(06:05):
tough and they're like all right, well, this isn't as cushy as I
hoped, I'm going to see youlater, right?
Or hey, we're in a crisisperiod and they're like yeah,
but my wife just cooked dinnerand I'm going to go sit down and
eat it, right, yeah, by allmeans, I want people to have
that as their regular every day,but when it's crisis mode, I
want the people that are like,whether I own this or not, I'm,
(06:28):
I'm at war for this company, um,and, and those are the people
that I'd rather have on my teamno.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
I can appreciate that and I've through that process.
Um, you said you can kind ofsee it in their eye and they
have that grit.
Um, or the first talking aboutthe, about the first two
companies, did you make any badhires?
When you look back at themyou're like, oh my goodness,
what the hell was I thinking?
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Oh, tons, tons of bad hires, right, I think in some
cases it was getting away fromlooking for the grit and hiring
and getting out over our skis onstuff.
Right, hiring before a businesswas ready for a certain role,
or even not even necessarilythat the business was ready for
that role.
But just again, you know,hiring somebody from their
(07:15):
accolades of previousaccomplishments or you know
things that had allegedly beenaccomplished or whatever, both
in this business and in the lastone you know, and and realizing
that, oh, that's a person thatjust comes in to manage and
isn't willing to get their handsdirty and isn't willing to
actually run it Like they.
(07:36):
They could manage a team justfine, but hopefully this thing
is all just rolling Right and so, yeah, I mean it's, it's come
down to that.
I think, at any point in anybusiness I have now or in the
future and it doesn't matter howbig it is I will always, always
go for grit now and andwillingness to, to dive in and
(07:56):
do anything.
I, you know, I will alwayschoose the person that will
never say that's not my jobversus the one that has built a
billion dollar, whatever, youknow, I don't care if you've
built all that stuff, or orhaven't.
If, if you start telling mewhat your job is and what your
job isn't, there's no path foryou with me, um, and, and that's
(08:20):
just for me the way that itneeds to be.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Now with, obviously we know, post-pandemic, and we
had a couple of years therewhere things were kind of dicey
in regards to when it came topeople.
What kind of challenges did youface during that time?
I mean, we know what our peershave faced and how did you
overcome those when it comes topeople and hiring for grit.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, I think so we had scaled up.
I mean, this business was thiscurrent one?
Was so we had scaled up.
I mean this business was thiscurrent one?
Was it's a COVID baby?
Okay, and it was started duringCOVID in late 2020.
And you know, I think we did alot of the right things and we
(09:02):
were forced and wanted to befully remote, fully distributed
and stuff like that.
We saw some really great earlysuccess.
We, with that success, coupledwith, you know, past exits and
success, became very attractiveduring an investment bubble and
venture capital bubble.
(09:23):
So we raised, you know, asignificant amount of money and
we scaled up big and we hired aton of people and you know, some
of those were the absoluteright people and some of them
were the absolute wrong people.
Um, but when all the economicheadwinds came in after the
recession, when there was this,or after the pandemic story and
(09:46):
there was this massive loomingrecession, everything changed
economically globally in theinvestment world and venture
capital world.
As much of a darling as we werebased on, how many free
customers we were getting andthe technology we were building
and the opportunity and the pacethat we were running at, it
wasn't the same investablebusiness running at it wasn't
(10:12):
the same investable business.
So we had to pivot hard as acompany and protect the company
so that we had the runway andsurvivability and sustainability
.
And so, you know, we had to letgo a lot of the people, some of
the ones that made a lot ofsense to let go and probably
never should have been hiredanyways and a lot of that I, to
this day, wish that they werestill on this team and able to
contribute the way that onlythey can contribute.
(10:34):
But there's a number of otherbusinesses now that have the the
fortune of having those peopleum driving their companies and
stuff too.
But, yeah, we I mean no secretwe have the company um in
november of 2022 and we halvedthe company again in a year ago,
(10:55):
july last year um, just, youknow, sheer, sheer necessity.
I mean, it was the right thingto do, it's what we absolutely
had to do, um, but uh, you knowit's.
It's one of those things nowwhere you know we leaned out the
business, we stabilized thebusiness, we're, we're in a good
position now and moving forwardand and growth is is coming
(11:16):
along very nicely.
But, yeah, you, you definitelylearn a lot around um growing a
business or or making decisionsin the business based on the
merit of what the business isand what the current situation
is, and not ever being Iwouldn't say we were
(11:37):
irresponsible, but less diligentwith capital.
I think you decide to make hiresearlier than planned because
the right person maybe appeared,and stuff like that
Opportunistically.
I think there's stillconsiderations for that, but in
most cases, unless I can justifythat role at this point in time
(11:59):
, I will not make that hireagain, type of thing.
So yeah, I think, a lot moreappreciation for recognizing
where a business is and what abusiness needs at any point in
time and focusing on that andjust running, always running a
good, viable business by adefinition of what a good,
strong business is, not by whata business could be so help me
(12:21):
understand a little bit.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
So you said you've had to pivot.
Um what indication to you?
Um that I guess the mechanismor trigger to say I've got to
pivot.
What was that?
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Yeah, so we were a freemium product, right, we had
no monetization.
It was a thing of we were afree product to get customers on
the platform, using theplatform, and to be able to
leverage what they wereessentially feeding into the
platform.
And to be able to leverage whatthey were essentially feeding
into the platform to create aproduct they could, we could,
sell to those same people, right.
(12:56):
So they were using and gettingvalue from us for free, but they
were essentially paying us withinformation about their
business.
Now it's all de-identified andall aggregated, so you couldn't
tell who anybody is.
But with a plan to be able tosell them a product in the
future that gave them thebenefit of that broader, broader
knowledge set, right, um, in afashion that could really impact
(13:19):
their business.
And so at that time, I meanwe're, we're and we're very
public about our plans to dothat and what we could build as
an intelligence system for, youknow, an MSP based on that total
aggregate data set.
And a lot of companies werecoming in and they were bought
into that.
And, hey, it's a free producttoo.
(13:40):
So I'm going to take it wheneconomic headwinds come in and
you're burning capital at anincredible pace to build a
product, to build technology, tocontinue to go out and acquire
these customers for no revenue.
That's not sustainable, right?
And if nobody is stepping up tosay, yeah, I want to keep
funding that, then you need tomake a change.
(14:02):
So that's where we had to pivotis.
We had to pivot to a solutionthat we could monetize, that we
could sell to customers, that wecould convert, and we
essentially had to get away fromour freemium offering and go to
everybody and say we need tostart charging you now.
This is not a bait and switch.
If you don't pay us or nobodypays us, you got no solution to
(14:25):
use here.
We can't sustain it.
And and yeah.
So we went and and sure, welost a lot, of a lot of
companies that just didn't wantto pay for the solution or
whatever else.
But we got a bunch that did,and you know we had to fight
with the legacy information outon the internet that you can
never delete.
Out there that says, hey, it'sfree.
(14:46):
And some people come in like,hey, I want to use it.
No, you got to pay.
Well, it says it's free here.
Well, that was before.
And here's what we've had tochange.
Right, things change, so we hadto change that.
But we had to pivot and improveand change the solution from
what people were willing to usefor free versus what it needs to
be for them to pay for it, andso that took a lot of work and a
(15:11):
lot of effort to get it there.
And, you know, fortunately wedid and fortunately, with the
amount of people that havestayed, we've now gotten to a
place where we can offer thatbroader product to people, which
is a big part of what welaunched back in April and that
was part of the, when you weretalking about reading the book
and then applying thosemarketing techniques in regards
to rolling out in.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
April was all part of that.
So you sold Passportal and thenyou started the company that
you are leading today.
Yep, how much time gap was inthere.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
So we sold in April of 2019.
I left the acquiring businessin August of 2020.
And this business we pulledtogether in november of 2020.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Okay, just trying to get an understanding going.
Hey, you know what did colin dowith himself?
You know like he sold thisbusiness.
Obviously he stayed on for awhile, right, yeah?
Speaker 1 (16:11):
colin, tried to retire a bit, but, um, you know,
it goes back to a whole bunchof different things about you
know, you're you maybe lose somefriends over that period of
time, you lose somerelationships and stuff over
time.
Um, but I mean I was wasrelatively young.
(16:32):
I mean we had built, you know,founded, built and exited two
companies in the course of 10years, um, before I was 40.
And so when you try to retireat that stage, I mean it, none
of your friends are retired,right, they're all working.
Um, you know, I was in arelationship at the time where
(16:54):
it was not a codependentrelationship by any means.
So, um, my partner at the timewas not going to retire, um, and
yeah, it came down to well, doI hang out with my parents all
the time because they're retired?
Um, or what do I do?
And so I tried to fill my timeand do other things and and have
(17:15):
fun and do stuff.
But you know, at the end of theday it was like you're this
lone wolf, soldier, doing yourown stuff all the time and and
then coming back to do otherthings.
Or, you know, maybe at that too, people can't justify a certain
level of expenditure for sometype of activity or or getaway
(17:36):
and stuff.
So, yeah, I mean it's it's.
It's a condition whereeverybody thinks, oh, if you
have a lot of money, do anythingyou want to do and you've got
all this and life is awesome.
It can be awesome, but, butmoney is not everything, right,
and and at the same time, I feltmyself being in a predicament
where I wasn't contributing toanything.
(17:58):
I had no passion, like well, Ihad passion for things, but
there was nothing that I couldput or direct my passion to that
actually felt productive, right, and and so that's what it came
to is is sitting and siftingthrough the subreddit and
reading what people were asking,reading what people wanted,
(18:20):
what they were trying to do,what they were challenged, and
and, uh, yeah, deciding to, tostart something up that could
answer to that someday, uh, andand put towards it.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
So so that's how you came up with the idea of
starting the business you wererunning today was by going out
there and looking for theproblem that you could solve.
Speaker 1 (18:53):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It was a, you know, a conditionof you know the again, people
are only willing to pay forsomething that solves a problem
or a challenge that they haveand one that's large enough that
they're willing to pay for todo it.
And when we came out, ourambitions were very, very clear
in what we shared and we werevery open and transparent about
(19:14):
it.
The byproduct of where westarted with a billing
reconciliation product, we werenever expecting to rest our
laurels on doing billingreconciliation.
There's other companies that doit.
It's not a business ofconsequences.
I would call it to just do thatone thing, and so that was a
(19:37):
means to where we wanted to getto as a business and so, yeah,
that to where we wanted to getto as a business.
And so, yeah, that's that'swhere we landed and that's
something we were able to sellto get people to.
You know, help us sustain thebusiness and and afford to
continue building to what we'rebuilding.
But yeah, I mean we're, we'revery excited right now with with
(19:58):
the things that we're buildingand what we're putting out to
market.
And you know, I'd say it's stuffthat has been long sought and
long desired and you know, it'sone of those things that people
are like oh wow, like how longdid it take you to build that
thing?
Or how long have you beenworking on that?
Well, you know, on the productitself and fashioning the things
probably a year, oh, you buildall.
(20:19):
No, it's been three and a halfyears and we've spent probably
$12 million to build it right.
Like it's not a situation of ohyeah, hey, we just wrote some
code and tossed this out and,wow, boom, all this stuff's
happening.
Right, it's everything inbehind that's gone into it.
We knew it was an ambitious andaudacious journey when we set
(20:43):
out on it and we knew it was ajourney that may end in great
defeat or failure.
But you know, right now wecontinue to persevere and we'll
keep doing whatever it is weneed to do to protect this
opportunity and preserve, yeah,our chance to ultimately have
the impact that we look to have.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Hi, I'm Mark Thomas, founder and CEO of Current Tech
Solutions and CyberGuardians.
We know business owners likeyou want to focus on growing
your company, not worrying aboutIT problems or security threats
.
That's where we come in.
Our team uses AI to protectyour business from cyber risks
and keep everything runningsmoothly.
If you're ready for peace ofmind and a stronger future,
(21:27):
reach out to us today.
Let's secure and elevate yourbusiness together.
Oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
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