Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi everyone, welcome to the Juggling Entrepreneur
podcast, where we explore theart of balancing ambition,
innovation and everyday life.
Today, we are joined by KurtMoore, a seasoned product
executive and a startupstrategist who knows what it
takes to build and scale ahigh-impact businesses.
(00:25):
With decades of experienceleading product innovation at
companies like Cisco, advisingearly-stage startups and driving
growth across complex markets,kurt brings a unique blend of
his corporate savvy andentrepreneur grit.
Whether you're launching yournew venture or navigating into
(00:46):
the next big pivot, kurtinsights on leadership, product
vision and sustainable growthare the ones you won't want to
miss.
Let's dive in.
Hi Kurt Moore, welcome to theshow.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Hi, nice, to meet you , nice, to be on your show, and
I really appreciate having me ontoday, nice, I gave a little
bit of a preview.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Meet you, nice, to be on your show and I really
appreciate having me on today.
Great, I gave a little bitpreview on you.
Do you want to add anythingmore?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
No, I think you did a great job.
You know I am an entrepreneurin a pretty early stage startup.
I'm retired from a 30-yearcareer in corporate business, so
I look forward to the interviewand hopefully can share some
things for your listeners thatwill help them.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Sounds great.
Let's dig into the firstquestion.
You have worked at theintersection of corporate
innovation and startup agility.
What are some key lessons youhave learned about building
scalable products in bothenvironments?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
That's a great question.
Like I said earlier, I retiredafter 30 years in a corporate
position.
I was in the oil and gasindustry in Colorado, pretty
progressive, kind of started atthe bottom, got all the way up
to a senior vice president role.
So during that part of mycareer you certainly learn how
(02:10):
to collaborate, how to workindividually and be a
contributor as an individual.
But you also learn quickly howto be a contributor on a team.
And as you grow in those typesof careers and you go from being
an employee that's managed bysomeone and suddenly you're a
manager that's managing multiplepeople I think I had up to 45
(02:31):
people underneath me in mycareer you quickly learn that
you know you can't do everythingyourself.
You've got to delegate, you'vegot to make sure you've got the
right people at the right deskdoing the right things with with
the right tools and the rightleadership and then kind of get
out of their way and let themwork.
And you quickly learn orhopefully you quickly learn
(02:54):
there are people that work wellon teams and there are people
that are just more quiet and shyand they need to do things kind
of off on their own and you tryto blend all those pieces
together to get a collaborativeteam that works together on your
individual department goals andthen spreads out into the
bigger corporations so that yourdepartment is contributing
(03:16):
professionally.
So that's a brief, very briefoverview of what my corporate
life was like.
Again, I retired from that inSeptember of 21.
My wife and I moved fromColorado to Oklahoma to be
closer to her elderly mother, tokeep a better, closer eye on
her, and I thought you know, I'mtoo young to just quit totally.
(03:40):
So I decided to dive into anentrepreneurship opportunity,
something I have been thinkingabout for a long time.
I've got a good story aboutwhat that is all about and I can
tell you, as we go along, thedifference between working in a
corporate position everythingfrom parking in a parking garage
(04:01):
and going into a big, tallbuilding and sitting in your
office and having meetings andcalls and all the interactions
with other companies versus whatyou do with an entrepreneurship
as a startup.
It's totally different, totallydifferent, largely at least, in
my experience.
You're mostly alone.
You've got some key legalresources and accounting
resources and businessdevelopment resources that you
(04:25):
have access to, but you justdon't have all of the
administrative support andsuddenly you find yourself,
being everything from thejanitor to the secretary, to the
office manager, to thepresident and CEO.
It's just a different role, butI do enjoy it.
It is exciting.
When you have youraccomplishments, you know that's
(04:47):
mostly driven by you, and whenyou have your setbacks, you also
know that you did that andthere's no one else on the team
or in the company that can bepointed at for success and
failure.
So I would say entrepreneurshipis very exciting for people
that have passion to do it and Iwould encourage it for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Sounds good and, as you have said, corporate has its
own challenges.
So does the startups, and it'sa completely different ballgame.
You have mentioned yousometimes need to be the lower
level to the higher levelexecutor.
You are your own um leader andoperations lead and finance lead
(05:30):
and the tech lead and playingall those roles co, co, cfo, ceo
and and playing multiple rolesby the same person.
Uh, sometimes it's good becauseyou get that holistic
perspective of the vision forthe company, but sometimes it's
overwhelming and overbearing.
(05:51):
You have to handle the failuresand successes by yourself.
You have to handle thechallenges by yourself.
So I've been there, so I knowthe pain.
But most of the people thinkthat entrepreneurship journey is
(06:11):
like a movie.
It is fast-tracked.
You work hard for a little time, all of a sudden you will get a
great success.
From your experience being incorporate work for 30 years and
now being in a startup andlooking at the real world, do
(06:34):
you want to share with theaudience the harsh truth of
entrepreneurship?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Sure, I absolutely will do that.
You know, when I think of thisjourney I I'm on being an
entrepreneur for the first time,compared to my career coming
out of college and running outfor 30 years the first thing I
would say is be passionate aboutwhat it is you're doing.
You know, if you have a lot ofpassion for the business that
(06:59):
you're building, it's importantto you, it's important to you,
you believe in it.
It's a product or a service orwhatever it is that you have
high passion, that this isimportant to be done.
I think that's critical and Ithink there's a certain measure
of you know, be aware, go intothese ventures with your eyes
(07:29):
wide open.
There is a lot going on and youknow you don't.
One of the things that shocksme the most is you just don't
know what you don't know untilit comes up and knocks on your
door, whether it's a legalchallenge or just you know the
financing, you know startupcapital, you know product
development.
You know how fast are we goingto do this and I've got you know
examples, but we're currentlyin eight states.
(07:50):
We want to be in all 50 states.
It's costing, you know, severalthousand dollars in five digits
to get ourself calibrated to bein each state growing out.
Well that's, you know that's alot of money and but we want to
be in all the States.
(08:10):
But you know you have to pace,you know your availability of
capital to do that type ofdevelopment.
But again, you know if, if, ifit gets in, my opinion, it gets
in your blood and it gets in inunder your skin to where this is
important and I want to do this.
That's that's.
That's very important.
And then be aware that it's noteasy, and I'm sure there's any
number of success stories outthere that seem like, you know,
someone had an idea, they talkedto two or three people, they
(08:32):
got on a couple calls, theytalked to a bank, they started
doing something, and it was justone win after another.
I think that's probably a smallpercentage of how that really
works.
There's a lot of long days.
There's a lot of days when youdrive home from the office and
you think, wow, you know, thatwas a long day and I'm not sure
I moved forward today.
I think I might move back, andso you have to have pretty thick
(08:54):
skin and be resilient and beresolved.
But when you have your wins andyou see the growth and you see
how it starts and where it goesover some period of time.
It is very satisfying.
So I would certainly encourageit, but again, I would temper
that with be passionate about it.
You know and be aware of all ofthe ups and downs you're going
(09:16):
to face on the journey.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That's a really great , wise advice hitting the
reality of it.
Thank you again.
How do you personally jugglethe demands of executive
leadership, your startupmentorship and staying current
with the evolving technologiesin market?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, that's a great question and there's no simple
answer to that.
I think it's, at least in mycircumstances.
We've got a very detailedbusiness plan.
We work very hard to prioritizecritical steps and sequence
those steps and order ourdevelopment and for the most
(10:06):
part we stay pretty attached tothat, leaning back into my prior
career.
I was not and I'm not I'm justnot wired to just let the day
happen.
I want to plan out what needsto be done, what's, what's the
next most important thing to doright now and then, after that's
done, or, if that can only be,if we can only get half done
(10:26):
with that, when can we finishthe second half?
And I say we, it's a prettysmall team.
We really work hard to keepourselves focused on the big
goals and the big plan, knowingthat if we can make that 75% of
an average workday or workweek,the other 25% comes at us and
you just have to manage that.
(10:46):
And it's anything fromswitching phone carriers or
there's an outage on the websiteor you know.
There's just any number ofthings that happen that you
can't just ignore them.
You have to rally to it anddeal with it and get it restored
and back on track.
(11:07):
But it does take time.
So when you're balancing that,at some point you need to go
home.
You're going to harm yourwork-life balance if you're
getting in at five in themorning and leaving at eight at
night.
For week after week after weekYou're going to wear yourself
out and burn yourself up.
So I think that's important forentrepreneurs and I think it's
(11:28):
important whatever your role is,to make sure you're giving it
your all for some period of time, whether you're a 40-hour or
50-hour week or whatever yourwork week is designed to be.
But then you've got to let itgo and go home and live the
other side of your life withyour family and your friends and
kind of reset yourself just tomake sure you don't burn out.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Which comes to a very great point about.
Most of the founders are verypassionate about making a
product or a service perfect.
A product or a service perfect,and in the quest of making it
perfect, sometimes they lose alot of great opportunities,
right, or they are losing amarket opportunity.
(12:14):
What your suggestions would befor balancing or juggling the
need versus perfection?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well, that's another great question.
You know, in our circumstancesour products are legal documents
that we prepare for clients andrecord them in the public
records to protect our clientsfrom fraud.
You know those documents were.
They need to be perfect I don'tknow, perfect is the right word
but they need to be right andthey need to be.
(12:47):
They need to say what they needto say and they don't need to
say what they don't need to say,and they need to be a
recordable document.
In each state where we operatethere's a process to go through.
We've copyrighted thosedocuments to protect ourselves
and protect our enterprise, butat the same time, these are
documents that have never beenrecorded in any state before
(13:09):
until we started recording.
So we want to take thosedocuments to each state and say,
hey, look, here's our business,we're live for our license, get
herself up and running in thosebusinesses, and then share
those documents with the stateand share them with
professionals, legalprofessionals, title
professionals in each state andmake sure if we need to add
something to that document tomake it not ambiguous or
(13:36):
confusing when it's recorded ina certain state.
We don't learn that after we'verecorded a dozen or a couple
hundred of them.
So I think it's critical thatyour product or your service or
whatever it is that you'recentering your business around
is correct.
But I would hesitate to go forperfect because, you're correct,
(13:58):
perfect is a pretty high barand I think you get it right, as
right as you need it to be andyou know it to be, and then go
and if it needs to be adjustedafter the fact, because you
learn something more later onthen amend it, change it,
improve it.
I think that works if you'remaking Coca Cola or if you're
(14:18):
making Chevy pickups or ifyou're coffee, whatever you're
doing, I think we're all in somelevel of continuous improvement
and that's a function ofgetting feedback from the market
and feedback from your clients.
So we think we've got ourproducts right.
We believe they're fullyfunctional.
(14:40):
We believe we will get themcalibrated to each specific
state statutes as it relates torecording documents title.
But in the meantime, you knowwe're certainly aware that we
don't know what we don't knowand we may learn something in
the future that makes us adjustor amend or improve our
(15:01):
documents going forward and thatcarries on out into our
relationship with our clients,whether it's a business to
consumer model or the businessto business model.
We have those pretty wellpinned down.
But just in the short year thatwe've been really out and about
in the markets we've certainlylearned that there are ways to
(15:21):
improve those models markets.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
we've certainly learned that there are ways to
improve those models.
That is a very elaborated butvery complete answer and I
really hope the audienceunderstand what you're trying to
say, because it's extremely,extremely important, especially
around the perfection.
Most of the founders are stuckat that point of making the
product so perfect that theylose a lot of opportunities to
(15:51):
grow.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, and I don't want to be too wordy on all
these things, but I have seen inmy prior career and I don't
want to extrapolate that forwardinto this opportunity and
journey I'm on now People do getwrapped up and you know, and
almost hesitant to take the nextstep because they're still
designing, design, design,design.
(16:13):
And in my prior world, you know, we would design extremely
complex facilities and you'dhave, you know, different groups
from different disciplines onteams.
And there is a design stage,but there's also an
implementation stage.
Otherwise it's just a bunch ofpeople talking and it never
stops.
And you know, you see people attables and you're like, well, I
(16:33):
want to go back and rerun this.
Or, you know, talk to anothervendor about that, and at some
point you know someone at thetable myself oftentimes would
say you know, we've been throughthis, you've exhausted that,
we're going to go.
You keep looking at improvement,but that's going to be
post-construction improvements.
We've got to go.
We've made a commitment to havean installation and a facility
(16:59):
on the ground on some time frameand we can't go back to
telemanagement that we're justnever going to stop designing.
So there's a point to put yourpencil down and go and be open
to improvements later on.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you so much for makingthat very clear.
What are the biggest, some ofthe biggest operational
challenges property owners facetoday, and how can your tech
startup, or any other recenttechnologies that are in the
market, able to help with thisquest?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
That's a great question.
You know I'm a property owner.
I've been a property ownersince my mid-20s.
I've certainly witnessedsiblings and my parents own
property and sell and buy andinvest in property.
I think it's important to note.
As property owners today, youcertainly have a fair palette of
(17:54):
risk to consider, whether it'sinsurance from fire and hail and
storms and whatnot, or you'vegot to be sure you're being
mindful of your finance strategy, so your mortgage rates and
what type of mortgage you have.
One of the things that makes ourproduct a bit unique is when
(18:16):
you think about owning property.
You know when you're buying orselling property at some point
you're going to have closing andyou're going to do that at a
title company and that titlecompany is going to do all the
things that are necessary tomake sure that the title
exchange from the grantor to thegrantee is clear and if there
are some lingering easementsthat are going to carry forward
(18:40):
along the property from oneowner to the next, it's all
scheduled, it's all shown.
There's no surprises.
They do a very, very valuablejob.
But my personal take is I thinkI've been closed on six
properties in my adult life andprobably refinanced another
dozen times.
I've probably gone to somewherearound 20 closings.
(19:02):
Most people go to those closingsand they're not really sure
what on earth is going on thereother than I'm going to sign a
lot of paper and I'm eithergoing to get a check or I'm
going to get keys and garagedoor openers.
And you know, when they startshuffling the paper to you, you
know you look at the first one alittle more closely.
You know and you sign that, andhere it comes, it's just a wave
of paper.
You know and you sign that, andhere it comes, it's just a wave
(19:22):
of paper.
And by the time you know youget to the second half of the
paper.
You're not, you're justlistening to them and signing.
Listen, sign, oh you want theinitials here too and I'm sorry
I turned that off, I'm sorryit's our company phone.
So what we try to do is helppeople understand.
(19:46):
You know what is beingaccomplished in that closing and
what are you coming away with.
You're coming away with thetitle policy that protects you
up to that closing and it's back.
So if the title company missedsomething or if there was some
unrecorded document and therewas some claim against the
property, you're going to beprotected against time in time,
(20:07):
from the time you close towhat's behind you.
But going forward you know it'sup to you to protect your risk.
So that's where you know again,you put insurance on and you
maintain your property and yoube in compliance with.
You know HOAs and you knowcodes at cities and whatnot.
But here in the last few years anew problem has erupted and
(20:30):
it's called title fraud and youknow the whole basis of that is.
You know people with bad intentwill peruse through the public
records and look for generallythey'll look for more elderly
property owners with high valueproperties and they'll attempt
or they just will record a deed,a fraudulent deed, in the
(20:52):
public records and try tocatalyze that by adding a
mortgage or even reselling theproperty.
So that actually tried tohappen to my mother back in 2014
and that I'll tie that back topassion.
Why would you do this?
People say, well, kurt, youknow this kind of relates to
what you were doing as a 30-yearcareer in oil and gas, but why
this?
And then I'll tell them thestory about.
(21:13):
You know, this tried to happento my mom and she was in pretty
tough shape.
She had had some surgery.
She had been in the hospitalfor a long time.
She was very, very anxious toget home.
She's elderly, she's getting alittle mixed up and some clown
tries to record a fraudulentdeed and essentially swoop the
(21:34):
title to her home away from her.
So I do have a lot of passionabout that.
I think preying on elderlyproperty owners is about one of
the more despicable things youcan do.
So how do you protect yourselffrom that?
You can do nothing and justhope it doesn't happen to you.
(21:55):
I think that's probably most ofproperty owners are in that
boat.
Some property owners are in themonitoring your title and being
alerted If something's beenrecorded.
Give you a heads up that ifsomething got recorded and it
wasn't you recording a secondmortgage or you selling your
home.
It's something foreign to you,you at least have an opportunity
(22:15):
to rally around that, catch upand try to fix it.
Our view is to simply recordwhat we call a notice, a title
freeze, in the public records.
It puts the public on noticethat in my mother's situation
she would have just said heylook, I'm worried about title
fraud.
I'm worried about that formyself and my property.
(22:38):
I'm freezing my title.
There should be nothing elserecorded without my express
recorded consent in the form ofa release of title freeze.
We've built that to worksimilar to a credit freeze.
If you're familiar with thatand your audience is familiar
with that, such that you know ifsomeone is considering, you
know, attacking Kurt Moore'sproperty, they're going to see
(22:58):
that they're going to look inthe public records to get what
they need to get and understandwhat they need to understand to
make that attack.
But they're going to come faceto face with that notice of
title freeze and our belief isit's a more proactive defense.
They're going to see that andmore than likely it's going to
deter them and veer them off,which is a win for our client.
But if they don't see it oraren't otherwise bothered by it
(23:21):
and they still make that attack,our clients will be in a better
position to repair the attackfor having recorded that freeze.
Because, again, if I didn'tconsent to this recording, how
did it happen?
And so, again, built much likea credit freeze.
If you froze your credit andyou go apply for a loan, it's
(23:42):
going nowhere.
It's going to stop dead in itstracks.
And sometimes people do that.
You know, I froze my creditbecause I was worried about that
and then I, you know, two orthree years went by and I
decided I wanted to apply forthis credit card at the checkout
stand at some home improvementstore because they were offering
deal and boom, just stopped it.
Then they can't go, it won'twork.
So we try to make our productssimilar to that.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
So hopefully that answers your question you know
that answers the question andit's it's a complete reality
check that how much the propertythat you own or you pay
mortgage to for most of yourlifetime need to be protected
against the fraud situationslike this, and it's important
(24:28):
not only to pay the mortgage butalso protect the property
against the fraud.
So I think it's an amazing,great service and product that
you're doing, kurt, and thankyou for coming up with the idea
and providing services to thecommunity.
We will wrap up this podcastwith one last key takeaway from
you, kurt, as an entrepreneurand as an executive leadership
(24:58):
person what your suggestionwould be for people who want to
step in from the corporate worldto the startup world and build
a product or the service oftheir passion?
What are the three things thatthey need to remember in reality
check?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
That's a great question.
It's a great question, you know.
Again, I think it first andforemost would be make sure you
have passion around what you'redoing.
You know, and some people arepassionately motivated by making
money and if that's enough, Iguess that's enough.
But making money is, it's nice.
(25:31):
But I think if you're reallygoing to have a journey through
being an entrepreneur whetheryou're a clothing manufacturer
or you know, whether you're aclothing manufacturer or you
know consumer products or youknow really anything innovative,
I think passion for why am Idoing this?
When you build a business planand you take that out to
(25:52):
potential counterparties, theymay consider investing.
You know that's one of thefirst things they'll ask is well
, what are you doing?
Why are you solving thisproblem?
Is this a problem?
Why is your product going tosolve this problem that you're
describing and how passionateare you about that?
And that really resonates withme.
I think it's important that youhave some high level of
(26:16):
understanding about themechanics of what it is you're
designing.
In my circumstances, for mycareer and for Moat, I spent 30
years designing legal documentsand negotiating legal documents
and recording documents andresearching public records, and
so it's not a radical leap fromwhat I used to do to what I'm
(26:37):
doing now.
So I think you need a goodbedrock foundation of prior
knowledge and then something youwant to introduce to the
markets that is potentiallyneeded and you're passionate
about.
And the third thing I think iscritical for an entrepreneur is
just make sure you understandthe capital required to do your
(26:59):
venture.
I'm sure you know a lot moreabout it than I, but from what I
have read and over the years,some high 90% of business
ventures that don't make itgenerally just run out of
capital and they could have beena month away or six months away
from you know the next Googlefor all we know.
(27:20):
But if you don't, if you aren'tproperly capitalized to, you
know fully walk the journey,there's a lot of danger and risk
there.
So make sure that you've got acapital plan and contingencies
around that plan so whenunexpected costs pop up it's not
(27:40):
overburdening you andpreventing you from executing
your business plan.
So those would be the threethings I would throw out there.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, and those are really great points.
And again it's the real worldpoints that you're saying
Passion, having passion, makingsure you have capital to
continue to make the product andbecome the next big company
that you've worked so hard for.
So again, thank you a lot, kurt, for your wise nuggets.
(28:12):
And to the audience, kurt Moore, once again.
He was an executive leader andnow he's an entrepreneur chasing
the dream and protecting thepeople from the title fraud.
Thank you, kurt, once again tobe on our podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Thank you, I really appreciate it, really appreciate
your time.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Bye.
Hi everyone, welcome to the Juggling Entrepreneur
podcast, where we explore theart of balancing ambition,
innovation and everyday life.
Today, we are joined by KurtMoore, a seasoned product
executive and a startupstrategist who knows what it
takes to build and scale ahigh-impact businesses.
(00:25):
With decades of experienceleading product innovation at
companies like Cisco, advisingearly-stage startups and driving
growth across complex markets,kurt brings a unique blend of
his corporate savvy andentrepreneur grit.
Whether you're launching yournew venture or navigating into
(00:46):
the next big pivot, kurtinsights on leadership, product
vision and sustainable growthare the ones you won't want to
miss.
Let's dive in.
Hi Kurt Moore, welcome to theshow.
Speaker 2 (00:58):
Hi, nice, to meet you , nice, to be on your show, and
I really appreciate having me ontoday, nice, I gave a little
bit of a preview.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Meet you, nice, to be on your show and I really
appreciate having me on today.
Great, I gave a little bitpreview on you.
Do you want to add anythingmore?
Speaker 2 (01:11):
No, I think you did a great job.
You know I am an entrepreneurin a pretty early stage startup.
I'm retired from a 30-yearcareer in corporate business, so
I look forward to the interviewand hopefully can share some
things for your listeners thatwill help them.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Sounds great.
Let's dig into the firstquestion.
You have worked at theintersection of corporate
innovation and startup agility.
What are some key lessons youhave learned about building
scalable products in bothenvironments?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
That's a great question.
Like I said earlier, I retiredafter 30 years in a corporate
position.
I was in the oil and gasindustry in Colorado, pretty
progressive, kind of started atthe bottom, got all the way up
to a senior vice president role.
So during that part of mycareer you certainly learn how
(02:10):
to collaborate, how to workindividually and be a
contributor as an individual.
But you also learn quickly howto be a contributor on a team.
And as you grow in those typesof careers and you go from being
an employee that's managed bysomeone and suddenly you're a
manager that's managing multiplepeople I think I had up to 45
(02:31):
people underneath me in mycareer you quickly learn that
you know you can't do everythingyourself.
You've got to delegate, you'vegot to make sure you've got the
right people at the right deskdoing the right things with with
the right tools and the rightleadership and then kind of get
out of their way and let themwork.
And you quickly learn orhopefully you quickly learn
(02:54):
there are people that work wellon teams and there are people
that are just more quiet and shyand they need to do things kind
of off on their own and you tryto blend all those pieces
together to get a collaborativeteam that works together on your
individual department goals andthen spreads out into the
bigger corporations so that yourdepartment is contributing
(03:16):
professionally.
So that's a brief, very briefoverview of what my corporate
life was like.
Again, I retired from that inSeptember of 21.
My wife and I moved fromColorado to Oklahoma to be
closer to her elderly mother, tokeep a better, closer eye on
her, and I thought you know, I'mtoo young to just quit totally.
(03:40):
So I decided to dive into anentrepreneurship opportunity,
something I have been thinkingabout for a long time.
I've got a good story aboutwhat that is all about and I can
tell you, as we go along, thedifference between working in a
corporate position everythingfrom parking in a parking garage
(04:01):
and going into a big, tallbuilding and sitting in your
office and having meetings andcalls and all the interactions
with other companies versus whatyou do with an entrepreneurship
as a startup.
It's totally different, totallydifferent, largely at least, in
my experience.
You're mostly alone.
You've got some key legalresources and accounting
resources and businessdevelopment resources that you
(04:25):
have access to, but you justdon't have all of the
administrative support andsuddenly you find yourself,
being everything from thejanitor to the secretary, to the
office manager, to thepresident and CEO.
It's just a different role, butI do enjoy it.
It is exciting.
When you have youraccomplishments, you know that's
(04:47):
mostly driven by you, and whenyou have your setbacks, you also
know that you did that andthere's no one else on the team
or in the company that can bepointed at for success and
failure.
So I would say entrepreneurshipis very exciting for people
that have passion to do it and Iwould encourage it for sure.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
Sounds good and, as you have said, corporate has its
own challenges.
So does the startups, and it'sa completely different ballgame.
You have mentioned yousometimes need to be the lower
level to the higher levelexecutor.
You are your own um leader andoperations lead and finance lead
(05:30):
and the tech lead and playingall those roles co, co, cfo, ceo
and and playing multiple rolesby the same person.
Uh, sometimes it's good becauseyou get that holistic
perspective of the vision forthe company, but sometimes it's
overwhelming and overbearing.
(05:51):
You have to handle the failuresand successes by yourself.
You have to handle thechallenges by yourself.
So I've been there, so I knowthe pain.
But most of the people thinkthat entrepreneurship journey is
(06:11):
like a movie.
It is fast-tracked.
You work hard for a little time, all of a sudden you will get a
great success.
From your experience being incorporate work for 30 years and
now being in a startup andlooking at the real world, do
(06:34):
you want to share with theaudience the harsh truth of
entrepreneurship?
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Sure, I absolutely will do that.
You know, when I think of thisjourney I I'm on being an
entrepreneur for the first time,compared to my career coming
out of college and running outfor 30 years the first thing I
would say is be passionate aboutwhat it is you're doing.
You know, if you have a lot ofpassion for the business that
(06:59):
you're building, it's importantto you, it's important to you,
you believe in it.
It's a product or a service orwhatever it is that you have
high passion, that this isimportant to be done.
I think that's critical and Ithink there's a certain measure
of you know, be aware, go intothese ventures with your eyes
(07:29):
wide open.
There is a lot going on and youknow you don't.
One of the things that shocksme the most is you just don't
know what you don't know untilit comes up and knocks on your
door, whether it's a legalchallenge or just you know the
financing, you know startupcapital, you know product
development.
You know how fast are we goingto do this and I've got you know
examples, but we're currentlyin eight states.
(07:50):
We want to be in all 50 states.
It's costing, you know, severalthousand dollars in five digits
to get ourself calibrated to bein each state growing out.
Well that's, you know that's alot of money and but we want to
be in all the States.
(08:10):
But you know you have to pace,you know your availability of
capital to do that type ofdevelopment.
But again, you know if, if, ifit gets in, my opinion, it gets
in your blood and it gets in inunder your skin to where this is
important and I want to do this.
That's that's.
That's very important.
And then be aware that it's noteasy, and I'm sure there's any
number of success stories outthere that seem like, you know,
someone had an idea, they talkedto two or three people, they
(08:32):
got on a couple calls, theytalked to a bank, they started
doing something, and it was justone win after another.
I think that's probably a smallpercentage of how that really
works.
There's a lot of long days.
There's a lot of days when youdrive home from the office and
you think, wow, you know, thatwas a long day and I'm not sure
I moved forward today.
I think I might move back, andso you have to have pretty thick
(08:54):
skin and be resilient and beresolved.
But when you have your wins andyou see the growth and you see
how it starts and where it goesover some period of time.
It is very satisfying.
So I would certainly encourageit, but again, I would temper
that with be passionate about it.
You know and be aware of all ofthe ups and downs you're going
(09:16):
to face on the journey.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
That's a really great , wise advice hitting the
reality of it.
Thank you again.
How do you personally jugglethe demands of executive
leadership, your startupmentorship and staying current
with the evolving technologiesin market?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, that's a great question and there's no simple
answer to that.
I think it's, at least in mycircumstances.
We've got a very detailedbusiness plan.
We work very hard to prioritizecritical steps and sequence
those steps and order ourdevelopment and for the most
(10:06):
part we stay pretty attached tothat, leaning back into my prior
career.
I was not and I'm not I'm justnot wired to just let the day
happen.
I want to plan out what needsto be done, what's, what's the
next most important thing to doright now and then, after that's
done, or, if that can only be,if we can only get half done
(10:26):
with that, when can we finishthe second half?
And I say we, it's a prettysmall team.
We really work hard to keepourselves focused on the big
goals and the big plan, knowingthat if we can make that 75% of
an average workday or workweek,the other 25% comes at us and
you just have to manage that.
(10:46):
And it's anything fromswitching phone carriers or
there's an outage on the websiteor you know.
There's just any number ofthings that happen that you
can't just ignore them.
You have to rally to it anddeal with it and get it restored
and back on track.
(11:07):
But it does take time.
So when you're balancing that,at some point you need to go
home.
You're going to harm yourwork-life balance if you're
getting in at five in themorning and leaving at eight at
night.
For week after week after weekYou're going to wear yourself
out and burn yourself up.
So I think that's important forentrepreneurs and I think it's
(11:28):
important whatever your role is,to make sure you're giving it
your all for some period of time, whether you're a 40-hour or
50-hour week or whatever yourwork week is designed to be.
But then you've got to let itgo and go home and live the
other side of your life withyour family and your friends and
kind of reset yourself just tomake sure you don't burn out.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Which comes to a very great point about.
Most of the founders are verypassionate about making a
product or a service perfect.
A product or a service perfect,and in the quest of making it
perfect, sometimes they lose alot of great opportunities,
right, or they are losing amarket opportunity.
(12:14):
What your suggestions would befor balancing or juggling the
need versus perfection?
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well, that's another great question.
You know, in our circumstancesour products are legal documents
that we prepare for clients andrecord them in the public
records to protect our clientsfrom fraud.
You know those documents were.
They need to be perfect I don'tknow, perfect is the right word
but they need to be right andthey need to be.
(12:47):
They need to say what they needto say and they don't need to
say what they don't need to say,and they need to be a
recordable document.
In each state where we operatethere's a process to go through.
We've copyrighted thosedocuments to protect ourselves
and protect our enterprise, butat the same time, these are
documents that have never beenrecorded in any state before
(13:09):
until we started recording.
So we want to take thosedocuments to each state and say,
hey, look, here's our business,we're live for our license, get
herself up and running in thosebusinesses, and then share
those documents with the stateand share them with
professionals, legalprofessionals, title
professionals in each state andmake sure if we need to add
something to that document tomake it not ambiguous or
(13:36):
confusing when it's recorded ina certain state.
We don't learn that after we'verecorded a dozen or a couple
hundred of them.
So I think it's critical thatyour product or your service or
whatever it is that you'recentering your business around
is correct.
But I would hesitate to go forperfect because, you're correct,
(13:58):
perfect is a pretty high barand I think you get it right, as
right as you need it to be andyou know it to be, and then go
and if it needs to be adjustedafter the fact, because you
learn something more later onthen amend it, change it,
improve it.
I think that works if you'remaking Coca Cola or if you're
(14:18):
making Chevy pickups or ifyou're coffee, whatever you're
doing, I think we're all in somelevel of continuous improvement
and that's a function ofgetting feedback from the market
and feedback from your clients.
So we think we've got ourproducts right.
We believe they're fullyfunctional.
(14:40):
We believe we will get themcalibrated to each specific
state statutes as it relates torecording documents title.
But in the meantime, you knowwe're certainly aware that we
don't know what we don't knowand we may learn something in
the future that makes us adjustor amend or improve our
(15:01):
documents going forward and thatcarries on out into our
relationship with our clients,whether it's a business to
consumer model or the businessto business model.
We have those pretty wellpinned down.
But just in the short year thatwe've been really out and about
in the markets we've certainlylearned that there are ways to
(15:21):
improve those models markets.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
we've certainly learned that there are ways to
improve those models.
That is a very elaborated butvery complete answer and I
really hope the audienceunderstand what you're trying to
say, because it's extremely,extremely important, especially
around the perfection.
Most of the founders are stuckat that point of making the
product so perfect that theylose a lot of opportunities to
(15:51):
grow.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah, and I don't want to be too wordy on all
these things, but I have seen inmy prior career and I don't
want to extrapolate that forwardinto this opportunity and
journey I'm on now People do getwrapped up and you know, and
almost hesitant to take the nextstep because they're still
designing, design, design,design.
(16:13):
And in my prior world, you know, we would design extremely
complex facilities and you'dhave, you know, different groups
from different disciplines onteams.
And there is a design stage,but there's also an
implementation stage.
Otherwise it's just a bunch ofpeople talking and it never
stops.
And you know, you see people attables and you're like, well, I
(16:33):
want to go back and rerun this.
Or, you know, talk to anothervendor about that, and at some
point you know someone at thetable myself oftentimes would
say you know, we've been throughthis, you've exhausted that,
we're going to go.
You keep looking at improvement,but that's going to be
post-construction improvements.
We've got to go.
We've made a commitment to havean installation and a facility
(16:59):
on the ground on some time frameand we can't go back to
telemanagement that we're justnever going to stop designing.
So there's a point to put yourpencil down and go and be open
to improvements later on.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Thank you so much for makingthat very clear.
What are the biggest, some ofthe biggest operational
challenges property owners facetoday, and how can your tech
startup, or any other recenttechnologies that are in the
market, able to help with thisquest?
Speaker 2 (17:32):
That's a great question.
You know I'm a property owner.
I've been a property ownersince my mid-20s.
I've certainly witnessedsiblings and my parents own
property and sell and buy andinvest in property.
I think it's important to note.
As property owners today, youcertainly have a fair palette of
(17:54):
risk to consider, whether it'sinsurance from fire and hail and
storms and whatnot, or you'vegot to be sure you're being
mindful of your finance strategy, so your mortgage rates and
what type of mortgage you have.
One of the things that makes ourproduct a bit unique is when
(18:16):
you think about owning property.
You know when you're buying orselling property at some point
you're going to have closing andyou're going to do that at a
title company and that titlecompany is going to do all the
things that are necessary tomake sure that the title
exchange from the grantor to thegrantee is clear and if there
are some lingering easementsthat are going to carry forward
(18:40):
along the property from oneowner to the next, it's all
scheduled, it's all shown.
There's no surprises.
They do a very, very valuablejob.
But my personal take is I thinkI've been closed on six
properties in my adult life andprobably refinanced another
dozen times.
I've probably gone to somewherearound 20 closings.
(19:02):
Most people go to those closingsand they're not really sure
what on earth is going on thereother than I'm going to sign a
lot of paper and I'm eithergoing to get a check or I'm
going to get keys and garagedoor openers.
And you know, when they startshuffling the paper to you, you
know you look at the first one alittle more closely.
You know and you sign that, andhere it comes, it's just a wave
of paper.
You know and you sign that, andhere it comes, it's just a wave
(19:22):
of paper.
And by the time you know youget to the second half of the
paper.
You're not, you're justlistening to them and signing.
Listen, sign, oh you want theinitials here too and I'm sorry
I turned that off, I'm sorryit's our company phone.
So what we try to do is helppeople understand.
(19:46):
You know what is beingaccomplished in that closing and
what are you coming away with.
You're coming away with thetitle policy that protects you
up to that closing and it's back.
So if the title company missedsomething or if there was some
unrecorded document and therewas some claim against the
property, you're going to beprotected against time in time,
(20:07):
from the time you close towhat's behind you.
But going forward you know it'sup to you to protect your risk.
So that's where you know again,you put insurance on and you
maintain your property and yoube in compliance with.
You know HOAs and you knowcodes at cities and whatnot.
But here in the last few years anew problem has erupted and
(20:30):
it's called title fraud and youknow the whole basis of that is.
You know people with bad intentwill peruse through the public
records and look for generallythey'll look for more elderly
property owners with high valueproperties and they'll attempt
or they just will record a deed,a fraudulent deed, in the
(20:52):
public records and try tocatalyze that by adding a
mortgage or even reselling theproperty.
So that actually tried tohappen to my mother back in 2014
and that I'll tie that back topassion.
Why would you do this?
People say, well, kurt, youknow this kind of relates to
what you were doing as a 30-yearcareer in oil and gas, but why
this?
And then I'll tell them thestory about.
(21:13):
You know, this tried to happento my mom and she was in pretty
tough shape.
She had had some surgery.
She had been in the hospitalfor a long time.
She was very, very anxious toget home.
She's elderly, she's getting alittle mixed up and some clown
tries to record a fraudulentdeed and essentially swoop the
(21:34):
title to her home away from her.
So I do have a lot of passionabout that.
I think preying on elderlyproperty owners is about one of
the more despicable things youcan do.
So how do you protect yourselffrom that?
You can do nothing and justhope it doesn't happen to you.
(21:55):
I think that's probably most ofproperty owners are in that
boat.
Some property owners are in themonitoring your title and being
alerted If something's beenrecorded.
Give you a heads up that ifsomething got recorded and it
wasn't you recording a secondmortgage or you selling your
home.
It's something foreign to you,you at least have an opportunity
(22:15):
to rally around that, catch upand try to fix it.
Our view is to simply recordwhat we call a notice, a title
freeze, in the public records.
It puts the public on noticethat in my mother's situation
she would have just said heylook, I'm worried about title
fraud.
I'm worried about that formyself and my property.
(22:38):
I'm freezing my title.
There should be nothing elserecorded without my express
recorded consent in the form ofa release of title freeze.
We've built that to worksimilar to a credit freeze.
If you're familiar with thatand your audience is familiar
with that, such that you know ifsomeone is considering, you
know, attacking Kurt Moore'sproperty, they're going to see
(22:58):
that they're going to look inthe public records to get what
they need to get and understandwhat they need to understand to
make that attack.
But they're going to come faceto face with that notice of
title freeze and our belief isit's a more proactive defense.
They're going to see that andmore than likely it's going to
deter them and veer them off,which is a win for our client.
But if they don't see it oraren't otherwise bothered by it
(23:21):
and they still make that attack,our clients will be in a better
position to repair the attackfor having recorded that freeze.
Because, again, if I didn'tconsent to this recording, how
did it happen?
And so, again, built much likea credit freeze.
If you froze your credit andyou go apply for a loan, it's
(23:42):
going nowhere.
It's going to stop dead in itstracks.
And sometimes people do that.
You know, I froze my creditbecause I was worried about that
and then I, you know, two orthree years went by and I
decided I wanted to apply forthis credit card at the checkout
stand at some home improvementstore because they were offering
deal and boom, just stopped it.
Then they can't go, it won'twork.
So we try to make our productssimilar to that.
Speaker 1 (24:04):
So hopefully that answers your question you know
that answers the question andit's it's a complete reality
check that how much the propertythat you own or you pay
mortgage to for most of yourlifetime need to be protected
against the fraud situationslike this, and it's important
(24:28):
not only to pay the mortgage butalso protect the property
against the fraud.
So I think it's an amazing,great service and product that
you're doing, kurt, and thankyou for coming up with the idea
and providing services to thecommunity.
We will wrap up this podcastwith one last key takeaway from
you, kurt, as an entrepreneurand as an executive leadership
(24:58):
person what your suggestionwould be for people who want to
step in from the corporate worldto the startup world and build
a product or the service oftheir passion?
What are the three things thatthey need to remember in reality
check?
Speaker 2 (25:10):
That's a great question.
It's a great question, you know.
Again, I think it first andforemost would be make sure you
have passion around what you'redoing.
You know, and some people arepassionately motivated by making
money and if that's enough, Iguess that's enough.
But making money is, it's nice.
(25:31):
But I think if you're reallygoing to have a journey through
being an entrepreneur whetheryou're a clothing manufacturer
or you know, whether you're aclothing manufacturer or you
know consumer products or youknow really anything innovative,
I think passion for why am Idoing this?
When you build a business planand you take that out to
(25:52):
potential counterparties, theymay consider investing.
You know that's one of thefirst things they'll ask is well
, what are you doing?
Why are you solving thisproblem?
Is this a problem?
Why is your product going tosolve this problem that you're
describing and how passionateare you about that?
And that really resonates withme.
I think it's important that youhave some high level of
(26:16):
understanding about themechanics of what it is you're
designing.
In my circumstances, for mycareer and for Moat, I spent 30
years designing legal documentsand negotiating legal documents
and recording documents andresearching public records, and
so it's not a radical leap fromwhat I used to do to what I'm
(26:37):
doing now.
So I think you need a goodbedrock foundation of prior
knowledge and then something youwant to introduce to the
markets that is potentiallyneeded and you're passionate
about.
And the third thing I think iscritical for an entrepreneur is
just make sure you understandthe capital required to do your
(26:59):
venture.
I'm sure you know a lot moreabout it than I, but from what I
have read and over the years,some high 90% of business
ventures that don't make itgenerally just run out of
capital and they could have beena month away or six months away
from you know the next Googlefor all we know.
(27:20):
But if you don't, if you aren'tproperly capitalized to, you
know fully walk the journey,there's a lot of danger and risk
there.
So make sure that you've got acapital plan and contingencies
around that plan so whenunexpected costs pop up it's not
(27:40):
overburdening you andpreventing you from executing
your business plan.
So those would be the threethings I would throw out there.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
Yeah, and those are really great points.
And again it's the real worldpoints that you're saying
Passion, having passion, makingsure you have capital to
continue to make the product andbecome the next big company
that you've worked so hard for.
So again, thank you a lot, kurt, for your wise nuggets.
(28:12):
And to the audience, kurt Moore, once again.
He was an executive leader andnow he's an entrepreneur chasing
the dream and protecting thepeople from the title fraud.
Thank you, kurt, once again tobe on our podcast.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Thank you, I really appreciate it, really appreciate
your time.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
Bye.
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