March 11, 2024 • 22 mins
This week, Stacee and Ira talk about where they found their first employee and discuss what type of person can you attract when you can't pay well and don't offer any benefits....yet!
Tip of the week:
Ira: You can find employees that actually care more about the business than yourself
Stacee: The importance of holding in-person team meetings early on (and some great locations to do this).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ira (00:04):
Hello and welcome.
I am Ira Gordon and, along withStacee Santi, the host of The
Accidental Entrepreneurs podcast.
We each previously foundedsuccessful companies Along the
way.
We became business owners andeventually sold those businesses
despite us having no realbackground in business or ever
even planning to becomeentrepreneurs.
In other words, we did this alldespite originally having no
(00:25):
idea what we were doing orgetting ourselves into.
In each episode of this podcast, we will share stories and tips
from our journey and we'llanswer a randomly chosen
question about our experience.
Let's jump right into the show.
Stacee (00:41):
Good morning Ira.
How's it going?
Ira (00:43):
It's going quite well.
How are you doing Stacee?
Stacee (00:46):
I'm doing good, doing good
Ira (00:48):
Excellent.
What is new with you?
Stacee (00:51):
Well, I have to say, a bit of decision making going on
over here.
I think I've decided to stopriding horses.
Not that I was ever very goodat it, but it was one of my
goals after I sold the companyto learn how to ride the horse
(01:12):
better and how to lope and go ona trail ride, and I envisioned
myself of being this amazinghorsewoman.
But fortunately it's just notreally working out and I think
it's time to pull the plug.
Ira (01:29):
It wasn't meant to be, but did something happen?
Is there a near injury orsomething like this that has
prompted this?
Stacee (01:37):
Well, you know, what happened is I was, I have this
horse, the Walrus he's called,and he is a great horse.
He is so chill and so mellowand nice and really a great
horse.
He's a total kid's horse and Iwas riding him and I mean he got
(01:58):
spooked about something andhe'd rarely get spooked and then
he sort of darted across thearena and it's not the first
time it's happened.
I mean, you're on the back of agiant animal and they have
feelings and they're like anormal being.
They get nervous and the properaction for the rider is
(02:18):
swimming, calm and help theanimal calm down, which I can
totally do with like a viciouschihuahua or a rottweiler
But I just freak out and I thinkI tense up and I hold on for
dear life and I and I pull backand I'm like pull back on the
reins, like whoa, let's stop andreassess the situation.
(02:39):
But that's actually the wrongthing to do with a horse.
When they're freaking out,you've got to relax yourself and
redirect their energy and movethem forward so they don't get
more nervous.
And after contemplating thisquite a bit, I realized like I
just don't think I'm capable ofthat, like I'm not a calm,
(03:02):
collected person like that.
I'm kind of tense and I guessthe horse just senses that about
me.
He knows me better than myself.
Ira (03:12):
I am keen to follow this story, but I will throw out
there that I am going to bet onthe fact that you have not
ridden your last horse.
Stacee (03:24):
Maybe, but I got to thinking about.
I feel the same exact way aboutdiving, Like I used to do a lot
of diving and one of the keyskills to be a good diver and to
be a good horse rider is theability to remain calm in
stressful situations.
And I just got to where I don'tthink I could remain calm if my
(03:48):
regulator failed at 60 feet.
And once I had that realization, I'm like okay, I've done it,
I've seen it, I think I'm done.
So anyway, that's what's goingon over here.
Life contemplations of whatbigger meaning this might have
about my stress level as aninternal person.
Ira (04:09):
Yeah, I do think the whole idea of riding a horse is, in
part, supposed to be a relief ofstress, as opposed to a creator
of it, and so if it's havingthe opposite effect, maybe it's
a good decision.
Stacee (04:24):
Yeah, that's what I told my husband last night.
He's a very good horse riderand I'm like you know what
everyone, I think things you doin life are supposed to.
You're supposed to be veryhappy while doing them and
you're not supposed to be sohappy when it's over.
There's a lot of things I feelthat way about them.
Ira (04:45):
All right let's get into our question for today, which
was who was your first hire?
Stacee (04:52):
Okay, that's a good one.
I'm going to talk about myfirst hire and maybe a first
batch of hiring I did.
How about that?
Ira (05:02):
Sounds good, maybe I'll do the same.
Stacee (05:04):
So my very first hire was easy.
It was a girl named Karyn Ekolaand I knew her for a very long
time because we worked togetherat the animal hospital and I ran
the hospital and she was myright hand there.
She was the manager and weworked together for I don't know
(05:25):
10 years, maybe longer, I can'tremember.
We had a really good workingstyle.
We were, you know, like shecould ride a horse I bet she's
so calm and chill and then whenI'm tense and stressed and like
go, go, go, she kind of couldbalance me and vice versa.
And we communicated really well.
(05:47):
So I brought her on just as soonas I could and she helped me
with the organization of thebusiness, you know, setting up a
CRM, getting our books in order, getting just a lot of
structure set up for thebusiness.
And it was someone for me tocollaborate with and think about
(06:09):
things and talk through things.
And we had a really greatability to talk through things
and kill ideas and promote ideas.
So she was a great hire easy.
The next few hires were alittle harder because I didn't
really know who to hire and forwhat position.
Ira (06:29):
How did you find that first person?
Stacee (06:31):
Well, Karyn was easy because I was leaving the
practice and she was like I'mnot staying here without you, I
don't want to be here.
And, like she won, she believedin the vision of that to pet so
much as well.
She's like I want to be a partof that.
In fact, she was so funny.
She's like I'm going to giveyou some of my 401k for this
(06:54):
project and I'm like, oh no, Icannot take that, Like I cannot
be responsible, this idea is sorolling up the dice right now,
but I ended up giving her likefake equity.
So when I saw the company, Ijust paid her out at fake equity
because I didn't want to riskit for her.
(07:14):
She's younger than me and haskids and all that, but I didn't
know who to hire next andlooking back, I think what I
should have done was hiresomeone to grow the sales side.
I waited a long time to do that, I just thought I could.
I mean there weren't that manydemos coming in so it was easy
(07:36):
for Karyn or I to hop on and doa demo.
But we definitely could haveused someone with a sell mindset
, like we didn't know how tosell and close deals and all
that stuff.
So I think that would have beenwhat I would have done
differently.
How about you?
Ira (07:56):
We had to make our first hire after, sort of unexpectedly
, everybody just started signingup for vet prep after we put it
out there and we had like 1700users in our first six months
and that meant emails coming inall the time that me and my
partners were responding to, andso I wanted to bring somebody
on to answer emails.
And it was tough because wewanted to be pretty responsive.
(08:19):
But how many emails were wereally getting?
Like you know, maybe it wasfive to 10 a day, right, it
wasn't like full time work, butwe also didn't want somebody
that was just going to beworking like a few hours of the
day, right.
And we ended up hiring mybrother-in-law Donovan, so my
wife's brother.
(08:39):
He was actually a strugglingactor at the time I don't think
he might be calling him that andso he, you know, he had random
things all the time auditions oryou know, things he was going
to be in.
So he had a kind of aninconsistent schedule.
That wasn't really a problemfor us and he was super
technology savvy.
He had a lot of experience morein like 3D animation and those
(09:03):
areas.
But we knew he'd be able toanswer some of the technical
like why is my browser doingsomething weird?
Right, and, and it was awesome,Like everybody loved Donovan
super smart, super funny and hefit great with the team and
actually kind of grew myrelationship with him, which was
sort of not as deep at the time, and he did that for us for a
(09:24):
couple of years.
He ended up getting an actingjob that required him to
literally travel around theworld and he probably stopped in
probably a dozen differentlocations and had like a plane
ticket that you could just keepgoing as long as you were going
one direction around the worldhim and the person filming the
movie and and so he would justfind like an internet cafe
(09:48):
because at the time internet wasnot as ubiquitous, and and he
would answer support emails, youknow, once at the beginning of
the day, once at the end of theday, and kept up with it all
while he was doing somethinglike that.
And this is, of course, waybefore remote work was common,
and so we all thought it was thecoolest thing that Donovan
could do his job for us whilefilming this, this movie project
(10:10):
that most normal peoplewouldn't be able to say us to if
they had a new job.
Stacee (10:14):
That is cool and so, like, what's the movie, can we
watch it?
Ira (10:20):
Oh my gosh, I need to find it.
I'm gonna text him.
Stacee (10:23):
So how did your employee feel about the fact that, of
course, they didn't have healthinsurance and they're working
for a pretty iffy situationright?
There's certainly no long termjob security in this role.
How did you navigate that?
Ira (10:42):
It was fine for him at that time.
He was already sort of cobblingthose things together as a
struggling actor and itfortunately didn't end up being
too big of an issue.
It became a bigger issue when,ultimately, he decided it was
time to get a real job and toldus he needed to leave us.
(11:05):
We were very sad andfortunately he introduced us to
his friend that had been seeinghim do this job for the last
couple of years and was alsoextremely overqualified to be
doing something like this, butthought it would be a good thing
to add to her plate, and so webrought on Alana and actually
it's now.
She's probably been with thecompany close to 10 years and
(11:29):
she now runs all of the softwaredevelopment and product
management for the company.
She's doing incredible thingsand is an awesome person, and so
that was probably around thetime we had to figure out
setting up benefits and allthose things, which was a lot of
fun.
Stacee (11:46):
So that's funny, say, alana is still with the company,
Karyn's still sheperdingVet2Pet through the acquisition,
like she's still there.
She's working for the companythat acquired us and she has
really developed some crazyskills.
You know, she can run a productroadmap, she can build apps,
like with the Google and Apple.
(12:07):
She knows so many technicalthings now and it's been amazing
to watch her grow.
We started working togetherwhen she was 19 and she
interviewed this is kind of afunny story.
She interviewed for a job atthe clinic to clean cages and
you know, 19,.
We hired her and she did that.
Ira (12:29):
We've all done that job.
Stacee (12:30):
We've all done that.
And she did that job for abouta year and at the time my boss
there, the head vet, the ownerof the clinic he set her down
and he told her we laugh aboutthis story and she set her down
and he told her she just wasn'treally cutting it as a kennel
(12:51):
person, like her cleaning skillswere a little subpar and
whenever I took over the clinicI found this performance review
in her employee file and.
I showed it to her and we aredying laughing.
So she really sucked atcleaning.
But in Dr.
Parkinson was asking me, youknow what do I think?
(13:12):
And I'm like well, she sucks atcleaning, but the girls always
at a spreadsheet man, she canwhip out an excel document for
us faster than anyone else.
So maybe we move her to thefront desk.
So we moved her over there,although the natural progression
from kennel cleaning was toanesthesia to become a
technician and we put her inthat role and she, she hated it.
(13:36):
It was very similar to my horseexperience.
So we got her on the front deskand this gal started just
ruling it and overhaulingeverything and automating
everything and she found herlane and I think that's such a
good story for when you havegood people.
But maybe they're just notcrushing it in the way you saw
(13:58):
it, but it might be they're notin the right seat.
I found that to be a case witha lot of people as I was growing
that to pet.
Ira (14:07):
Yeah, that's always exciting to see people sort of
figure out there their niche andgrow and really cool that your
first early employees you knowstill there after all these
years.
I was thinking about one of ourvery early employees, katie,
who we brought in to just kindof help us run those day to day
operations and she was fresh outof having getting a business
(14:29):
and marketing degree and hadjoined our company and did a
great job.
I've also got along, you know,swimmingly with the whole team
and she is still there running,you know, several of the test
prep assets you know for ourcurrent owners and, I think,
(14:51):
doing doing a great job andcontinuing to do awesome things.
It's neat to see.
Stacee (14:57):
So that's the pitch right.
When you're looking at yourfirst few hires, it's like do
you want to get in on the groundfloor and be a critical asset
to this thing growing?
And you could.
You could be there for thewhole ride.
And I think there are so manypeople out there that like the
idea of that, that want to be apart of that that they're.
(15:19):
They like it so much they'rewilling to not have any benefits
and not have any job securityfor a shot at something that
might be unique and amazing.
Ira (15:29):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more .
You get to be part of part ofthe whole journey, and those
early employees tend to be theleaders of the future.
Stacee (15:48):
So now it's the time of the show.
We're going to share ourfavorite tip, trick, tool,
person quote what you got.
Ira (15:58):
So we're just talking about Katie, and she was one of our
first hires.
Someone shared something that Ilearned from her that I just
never could have even imaginedwhen I was starting a company,
which was after she'd beenworking with us for a year and
two.
Like she was in charge of doingthings like scheduling all our
(16:18):
travel and handling a bunch oflogistics, and just remember how
, how frugal she would be intrying to like do things like
find the least expensive hoteland flight and things like that
for everybody.
And at some point it's sort ofdawned on me that like in some
ways, like she is taking bettercare and cares more about
(16:41):
aspects of the company than evenI did or my partners did, and
we just never really dawned onus that you could hire somebody
that would care about thebusiness as much as you do.
And I remember being completelyblown away by that about Katie,
and I think I felt that wayabout numerous other people that
I've worked with over the yearsand it no longer surprises me,
(17:05):
but it still really impresses me.
Stacee (17:07):
Yeah, it is crazy you can do that.
People want to believe insomething and they want to be a
part of it.
Ira (17:16):
Yeah.
Stacee (17:17):
Yeah.
Ira (17:18):
How about you?
What's your nugget of wisdomfor today?
Stacee (17:22):
I'm going to share the importance of having team in
person.
Get togethers and doing that asearly as you possibly can is a
really, really good use of moneythat you don't want to spend
Because in the beginning youdon't have very much money.
(17:44):
Like you're saying, katie wasso good at keeping you in line.
And the thought of spendingthousands of dollars to fly
people to a central location tostay in everyone's day in their
own hotel room and you have tofeed them all and you still have
(18:04):
to pay their salaries and youdon't really know exactly what
you're gonna accomplish in atwo-day retreat Like it just
seems, like you're just gonna behanging out in socializing.
It's easy to think that youdon't want to do that and to not
spend your money that way, butI will tell you that is probably
one of the most important waysto spend your money because your
(18:27):
team can really start tosynergize and click and see that
each other's real people andyou start to get exponential
Value of your team that way,yeah.
Ira (18:42):
I love that advice.
I have to credit my partner,Mauricio, with really sort of
enforcing that aspect of of thatprep and wanting us to always
try to get our virtual teamtogether for offsite meetings.
We would, you know, alsoinclude travel for people's
spouses or significant others,because we thought it was
important for you know us to youknow kind of bring everybody
(19:03):
together and get to knoweverybody and and yes, it was
invaluable from a just acultural and having people like
working together.
But we also always accomplishedmore in four or five hours of
just getting together in a roomand talking about things than we
would in Weeks and weeks andweeks of doing things, you know,
(19:26):
on calls and by email and andeverything else.
Totally, totally agree withthat piece of advice and have to
credit my partner for being theone that made that happen at
our company.
Stacee (19:38):
Do you have any good location spots for entrepreneurs
that need to have a teammeeting but don't have a huge
budget?
Ira (19:47):
We would try to pick places that everybody could fly to
directly, because connectingflights make everything terrible
, and so we had more meetingsthan I care to admit in Las
Vegas, I think you know, SaltLake City, Atlanta, Chicago,
also sort of major kind ofairport hubs for a variety of
(20:10):
airlines, and people cangenerally get too easily.
But yeah, that was, that washow we tried to prioritize that
you know.
Stacee (20:19):
I did a meeting with a veterinary group in the Dallas
airport and I Wish I would haveknown about that place, because
there is a hotel attached to theDallas airport and it's so easy
to get in and out of there andthey have a hotel bar and easy
(20:40):
to get to a restaurant and it'sthat's a pretty good one too.
Yeah, I think I think that'sright.
You got to get centralized andand you don't have to make it
doesn't have to be like the Ubermeetings where it's like a
five-day fancy party thing.
It can be just low-key.
Everyone realizes you're on abudget.
(21:01):
In fact, it probably should bethat way, because nobody likes
to see the company spending lotsof money when you aren't, you
know, getting possibly topsalary at this point.
Ira (21:13):
One of our best meetings, although potentially with some
ill-fated results for a fewpeople, is in New Orleans as
well.
Stacee (21:21):
Yeah, that's be careful.
Have fun, but be careful don'toverdo it.
Don't overdo it.
All right, here we go.
Let's spin the wheel of namesand see what we'll be talking
about next time.
Ira (21:42):
What have you learned about working with engineers?
Stacee (21:45):
okay, that's a good one.
Ira (21:49):
Couple of tough lessons, but they're pretty cool people
overall.
Stacee (21:54):
All right, we'll answer that next week.
See you guys soon.
Hello and welcome.
I am Ira Gordon and, along withStacee Santi, the host of The
Accidental Entrepreneurs podcast.
We each previously foundedsuccessful companies Along the
way.
We became business owners andeventually sold those businesses
despite us having no realbackground in business or ever
even planning to becomeentrepreneurs.
In other words, we did this alldespite originally having no
(00:25):
idea what we were doing orgetting ourselves into.
In each episode of this podcast, we will share stories and tips
from our journey and we'llanswer a randomly chosen
question about our experience.
Let's jump right into the show.
Stacee (00:41):
Good morning Ira.
How's it going?
Ira (00:43):
It's going quite well.
How are you doing Stacee?
Stacee (00:46):
I'm doing good, doing good
Ira (00:48):
Excellent.
What is new with you?
Stacee (00:51):
Well, I have to say, a bit of decision making going on
over here.
I think I've decided to stopriding horses.
Not that I was ever very goodat it, but it was one of my
goals after I sold the companyto learn how to ride the horse
(01:12):
better and how to lope and go ona trail ride, and I envisioned
myself of being this amazinghorsewoman.
But fortunately it's just notreally working out and I think
it's time to pull the plug.
Ira (01:29):
It wasn't meant to be, but did something happen?
Is there a near injury orsomething like this that has
prompted this?
Stacee (01:37):
Well, you know, what happened is I was, I have this
horse, the Walrus he's called,and he is a great horse.
He is so chill and so mellowand nice and really a great
horse.
He's a total kid's horse and Iwas riding him and I mean he got
(01:58):
spooked about something andhe'd rarely get spooked and then
he sort of darted across thearena and it's not the first
time it's happened.
I mean, you're on the back of agiant animal and they have
feelings and they're like anormal being.
They get nervous and the properaction for the rider is
(02:18):
swimming, calm and help theanimal calm down, which I can
totally do with like a viciouschihuahua or a rottweiler
But I just freak out and I thinkI tense up and I hold on for
dear life and I and I pull backand I'm like pull back on the
reins, like whoa, let's stop andreassess the situation.
(02:39):
But that's actually the wrongthing to do with a horse.
When they're freaking out,you've got to relax yourself and
redirect their energy and movethem forward so they don't get
more nervous.
And after contemplating thisquite a bit, I realized like I
just don't think I'm capable ofthat, like I'm not a calm,
(03:02):
collected person like that.
I'm kind of tense and I guessthe horse just senses that about
me.
He knows me better than myself.
Ira (03:12):
I am keen to follow this story, but I will throw out
there that I am going to bet onthe fact that you have not
ridden your last horse.
Stacee (03:24):
Maybe, but I got to thinking about.
I feel the same exact way aboutdiving, Like I used to do a lot
of diving and one of the keyskills to be a good diver and to
be a good horse rider is theability to remain calm in
stressful situations.
And I just got to where I don'tthink I could remain calm if my
(03:48):
regulator failed at 60 feet.
And once I had that realization, I'm like okay, I've done it,
I've seen it, I think I'm done.
So anyway, that's what's goingon over here.
Life contemplations of whatbigger meaning this might have
about my stress level as aninternal person.
Ira (04:09):
Yeah, I do think the whole idea of riding a horse is, in
part, supposed to be a relief ofstress, as opposed to a creator
of it, and so if it's havingthe opposite effect, maybe it's
a good decision.
Stacee (04:24):
Yeah, that's what I told my husband last night.
He's a very good horse riderand I'm like you know what
everyone, I think things you doin life are supposed to.
You're supposed to be veryhappy while doing them and
you're not supposed to be sohappy when it's over.
There's a lot of things I feelthat way about them.
Ira (04:45):
All right let's get into our question for today, which
was who was your first hire?
Stacee (04:52):
Okay, that's a good one.
I'm going to talk about myfirst hire and maybe a first
batch of hiring I did.
How about that?
Ira (05:02):
Sounds good, maybe I'll do the same.
Stacee (05:04):
So my very first hire was easy.
It was a girl named Karyn Ekolaand I knew her for a very long
time because we worked togetherat the animal hospital and I ran
the hospital and she was myright hand there.
She was the manager and weworked together for I don't know
(05:25):
10 years, maybe longer, I can'tremember.
We had a really good workingstyle.
We were, you know, like shecould ride a horse I bet she's
so calm and chill and then whenI'm tense and stressed and like
go, go, go, she kind of couldbalance me and vice versa.
And we communicated really well.
(05:47):
So I brought her on just as soonas I could and she helped me
with the organization of thebusiness, you know, setting up a
CRM, getting our books in order, getting just a lot of
structure set up for thebusiness.
And it was someone for me tocollaborate with and think about
(06:09):
things and talk through things.
And we had a really greatability to talk through things
and kill ideas and promote ideas.
So she was a great hire easy.
The next few hires were alittle harder because I didn't
really know who to hire and forwhat position.
Ira (06:29):
How did you find that first person?
Stacee (06:31):
Well, Karyn was easy because I was leaving the
practice and she was like I'mnot staying here without you, I
don't want to be here.
And, like she won, she believedin the vision of that to pet so
much as well.
She's like I want to be a partof that.
In fact, she was so funny.
She's like I'm going to giveyou some of my 401k for this
(06:54):
project and I'm like, oh no, Icannot take that, Like I cannot
be responsible, this idea is sorolling up the dice right now,
but I ended up giving her likefake equity.
So when I saw the company, Ijust paid her out at fake equity
because I didn't want to riskit for her.
(07:14):
She's younger than me and haskids and all that, but I didn't
know who to hire next andlooking back, I think what I
should have done was hiresomeone to grow the sales side.
I waited a long time to do that, I just thought I could.
I mean there weren't that manydemos coming in so it was easy
(07:36):
for Karyn or I to hop on and doa demo.
But we definitely could haveused someone with a sell mindset
, like we didn't know how tosell and close deals and all
that stuff.
So I think that would have beenwhat I would have done
differently.
How about you?
Ira (07:56):
We had to make our first hire after, sort of unexpectedly
, everybody just started signingup for vet prep after we put it
out there and we had like 1700users in our first six months
and that meant emails coming inall the time that me and my
partners were responding to, andso I wanted to bring somebody
on to answer emails.
And it was tough because wewanted to be pretty responsive.
(08:19):
But how many emails were wereally getting?
Like you know, maybe it wasfive to 10 a day, right, it
wasn't like full time work, butwe also didn't want somebody
that was just going to beworking like a few hours of the
day, right.
And we ended up hiring mybrother-in-law Donovan, so my
wife's brother.
(08:39):
He was actually a strugglingactor at the time I don't think
he might be calling him that andso he, you know, he had random
things all the time auditions oryou know, things he was going
to be in.
So he had a kind of aninconsistent schedule.
That wasn't really a problemfor us and he was super
technology savvy.
He had a lot of experience morein like 3D animation and those
(09:03):
areas.
But we knew he'd be able toanswer some of the technical
like why is my browser doingsomething weird?
Right, and, and it was awesome,Like everybody loved Donovan
super smart, super funny and hefit great with the team and
actually kind of grew myrelationship with him, which was
sort of not as deep at the time, and he did that for us for a
(09:24):
couple of years.
He ended up getting an actingjob that required him to
literally travel around theworld and he probably stopped in
probably a dozen differentlocations and had like a plane
ticket that you could just keepgoing as long as you were going
one direction around the worldhim and the person filming the
movie and and so he would justfind like an internet cafe
(09:48):
because at the time internet wasnot as ubiquitous, and and he
would answer support emails, youknow, once at the beginning of
the day, once at the end of theday, and kept up with it all
while he was doing somethinglike that.
And this is, of course, waybefore remote work was common,
and so we all thought it was thecoolest thing that Donovan
could do his job for us whilefilming this, this movie project
(10:10):
that most normal peoplewouldn't be able to say us to if
they had a new job.
Stacee (10:14):
That is cool and so, like, what's the movie, can we
watch it?
Ira (10:20):
Oh my gosh, I need to find it.
I'm gonna text him.
Stacee (10:23):
So how did your employee feel about the fact that, of
course, they didn't have healthinsurance and they're working
for a pretty iffy situationright?
There's certainly no long termjob security in this role.
How did you navigate that?
Ira (10:42):
It was fine for him at that time.
He was already sort of cobblingthose things together as a
struggling actor and itfortunately didn't end up being
too big of an issue.
It became a bigger issue when,ultimately, he decided it was
time to get a real job and toldus he needed to leave us.
(11:05):
We were very sad andfortunately he introduced us to
his friend that had been seeinghim do this job for the last
couple of years and was alsoextremely overqualified to be
doing something like this, butthought it would be a good thing
to add to her plate, and so webrought on Alana and actually
it's now.
She's probably been with thecompany close to 10 years and
(11:29):
she now runs all of the softwaredevelopment and product
management for the company.
She's doing incredible thingsand is an awesome person, and so
that was probably around thetime we had to figure out
setting up benefits and allthose things, which was a lot of
fun.
Stacee (11:46):
So that's funny, say, alana is still with the company,
Karyn's still sheperdingVet2Pet through the acquisition,
like she's still there.
She's working for the companythat acquired us and she has
really developed some crazyskills.
You know, she can run a productroadmap, she can build apps,
like with the Google and Apple.
(12:07):
She knows so many technicalthings now and it's been amazing
to watch her grow.
We started working togetherwhen she was 19 and she
interviewed this is kind of afunny story.
She interviewed for a job atthe clinic to clean cages and
you know, 19,.
We hired her and she did that.
Ira (12:29):
We've all done that job.
Stacee (12:30):
We've all done that.
And she did that job for abouta year and at the time my boss
there, the head vet, the ownerof the clinic he set her down
and he told her we laugh aboutthis story and she set her down
and he told her she just wasn'treally cutting it as a kennel
(12:51):
person, like her cleaning skillswere a little subpar and
whenever I took over the clinicI found this performance review
in her employee file and.
I showed it to her and we aredying laughing.
So she really sucked atcleaning.
But in Dr.
Parkinson was asking me, youknow what do I think?
(13:12):
And I'm like well, she sucks atcleaning, but the girls always
at a spreadsheet man, she canwhip out an excel document for
us faster than anyone else.
So maybe we move her to thefront desk.
So we moved her over there,although the natural progression
from kennel cleaning was toanesthesia to become a
technician and we put her inthat role and she, she hated it.
(13:36):
It was very similar to my horseexperience.
So we got her on the front deskand this gal started just
ruling it and overhaulingeverything and automating
everything and she found herlane and I think that's such a
good story for when you havegood people.
But maybe they're just notcrushing it in the way you saw
(13:58):
it, but it might be they're notin the right seat.
I found that to be a case witha lot of people as I was growing
that to pet.
Ira (14:07):
Yeah, that's always exciting to see people sort of
figure out there their niche andgrow and really cool that your
first early employees you knowstill there after all these
years.
I was thinking about one of ourvery early employees, katie,
who we brought in to just kindof help us run those day to day
operations and she was fresh outof having getting a business
(14:29):
and marketing degree and hadjoined our company and did a
great job.
I've also got along, you know,swimmingly with the whole team
and she is still there running,you know, several of the test
prep assets you know for ourcurrent owners and, I think,
(14:51):
doing doing a great job andcontinuing to do awesome things.
It's neat to see.
Stacee (14:57):
So that's the pitch right.
When you're looking at yourfirst few hires, it's like do
you want to get in on the groundfloor and be a critical asset
to this thing growing?
And you could.
You could be there for thewhole ride.
And I think there are so manypeople out there that like the
idea of that, that want to be apart of that that they're.
(15:19):
They like it so much they'rewilling to not have any benefits
and not have any job securityfor a shot at something that
might be unique and amazing.
Ira (15:29):
Yeah, I couldn't agree more .
You get to be part of part ofthe whole journey, and those
early employees tend to be theleaders of the future.
Stacee (15:48):
So now it's the time of the show.
We're going to share ourfavorite tip, trick, tool,
person quote what you got.
Ira (15:58):
So we're just talking about Katie, and she was one of our
first hires.
Someone shared something that Ilearned from her that I just
never could have even imaginedwhen I was starting a company,
which was after she'd beenworking with us for a year and
two.
Like she was in charge of doingthings like scheduling all our
(16:18):
travel and handling a bunch oflogistics, and just remember how
, how frugal she would be intrying to like do things like
find the least expensive hoteland flight and things like that
for everybody.
And at some point it's sort ofdawned on me that like in some
ways, like she is taking bettercare and cares more about
(16:41):
aspects of the company than evenI did or my partners did, and
we just never really dawned onus that you could hire somebody
that would care about thebusiness as much as you do.
And I remember being completelyblown away by that about Katie,
and I think I felt that wayabout numerous other people that
I've worked with over the yearsand it no longer surprises me,
(17:05):
but it still really impresses me.
Stacee (17:07):
Yeah, it is crazy you can do that.
People want to believe insomething and they want to be a
part of it.
Ira (17:16):
Yeah.
Stacee (17:17):
Yeah.
Ira (17:18):
How about you?
What's your nugget of wisdomfor today?
Stacee (17:22):
I'm going to share the importance of having team in
person.
Get togethers and doing that asearly as you possibly can is a
really, really good use of moneythat you don't want to spend
Because in the beginning youdon't have very much money.
(17:44):
Like you're saying, katie wasso good at keeping you in line.
And the thought of spendingthousands of dollars to fly
people to a central location tostay in everyone's day in their
own hotel room and you have tofeed them all and you still have
(18:04):
to pay their salaries and youdon't really know exactly what
you're gonna accomplish in atwo-day retreat Like it just
seems, like you're just gonna behanging out in socializing.
It's easy to think that youdon't want to do that and to not
spend your money that way, butI will tell you that is probably
one of the most important waysto spend your money because your
(18:27):
team can really start tosynergize and click and see that
each other's real people andyou start to get exponential
Value of your team that way,yeah.
Ira (18:42):
I love that advice.
I have to credit my partner,Mauricio, with really sort of
enforcing that aspect of of thatprep and wanting us to always
try to get our virtual teamtogether for offsite meetings.
We would, you know, alsoinclude travel for people's
spouses or significant others,because we thought it was
important for you know us to youknow kind of bring everybody
(19:03):
together and get to knoweverybody and and yes, it was
invaluable from a just acultural and having people like
working together.
But we also always accomplishedmore in four or five hours of
just getting together in a roomand talking about things than we
would in Weeks and weeks andweeks of doing things, you know,
(19:26):
on calls and by email and andeverything else.
Totally, totally agree withthat piece of advice and have to
credit my partner for being theone that made that happen at
our company.
Stacee (19:38):
Do you have any good location spots for entrepreneurs
that need to have a teammeeting but don't have a huge
budget?
Ira (19:47):
We would try to pick places that everybody could fly to
directly, because connectingflights make everything terrible
, and so we had more meetingsthan I care to admit in Las
Vegas, I think you know, SaltLake City, Atlanta, Chicago,
also sort of major kind ofairport hubs for a variety of
(20:10):
airlines, and people cangenerally get too easily.
But yeah, that was, that washow we tried to prioritize that
you know.
Stacee (20:19):
I did a meeting with a veterinary group in the Dallas
airport and I Wish I would haveknown about that place, because
there is a hotel attached to theDallas airport and it's so easy
to get in and out of there andthey have a hotel bar and easy
(20:40):
to get to a restaurant and it'sthat's a pretty good one too.
Yeah, I think I think that'sright.
You got to get centralized andand you don't have to make it
doesn't have to be like the Ubermeetings where it's like a
five-day fancy party thing.
It can be just low-key.
Everyone realizes you're on abudget.
(21:01):
In fact, it probably should bethat way, because nobody likes
to see the company spending lotsof money when you aren't, you
know, getting possibly topsalary at this point.
Ira (21:13):
One of our best meetings, although potentially with some
ill-fated results for a fewpeople, is in New Orleans as
well.
Stacee (21:21):
Yeah, that's be careful.
Have fun, but be careful don'toverdo it.
Don't overdo it.
All right, here we go.
Let's spin the wheel of namesand see what we'll be talking
about next time.
Ira (21:42):
What have you learned about working with engineers?
Stacee (21:45):
okay, that's a good one.
Ira (21:49):
Couple of tough lessons, but they're pretty cool people
overall.
Stacee (21:54):
All right, we'll answer that next week.
See you guys soon.
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