January 27, 2026 • 65 mins
Joe Wilson, Chief Evangelist at Bunq, examines how real startups are built through honest problem definition, relentless iteration, and a builder’s mindset instead of one-off heroic moments. Joe Wilson traces his path from a dorm-room company started to pay for college to a career of stacking small wins into durable results, sharing why most founders oversell themselves and how five hard questions can pressure-test any idea.
Book mentioned: Razors Edge by Somerset Maugham
Connect with host James Mackey on LinkedIn!
Thank you to our sponsor, SecureVision, for making this show possible!
Follow us:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/82436841/
SecureVision: #1 Rated Embedded Recruitment Firm on G2!
https://www.g2.com/products/securevision/reviews
Thanks for listening!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:46):
Hey everyone, we got Joe Wilson with us today.
Joe is a serial entrepreneur andinvestor, and he's done all
sorts of really cool thingspersonally and professionally.
Joe, I really enjoyed our prepcall and getting to know you a
little bit.
So definitely looking forward totoday.
SPEAKER_03 (01:01):
Well, good morning, James.
Yeah, look, um, and as everybodycan see this big, beautiful
rainbow logo behind me in caseyou missed it.
So, in addition to the theaforementioned wonderful stuff,
I guess I'm also the chiefevangelist at Bunk.
Um, and we'll talk a little bitabout Bunk as we go along.
But look, uh it's honor,pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
Yeah, so let's do it.
To start us off, where are youfrom?
SPEAKER_03 (01:23):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Let's put it this way uh I'm anAmerican, you can tell by my
accent, although sometimespeople can't tell.
I'm from the deep south in theU.S., actually.
Like I was born in Alabama andraised in Mississippi and
Tennessee.
And that's from, you know, ifyou want that short story, it
was a family of modest means,and you had to kind of work your
(01:43):
way through everything.
So I think the work ethic startsall the way back then.
But that's that's the coreplaces.
Like I'm from the South in theUS.
SPEAKER_00 (01:51):
Alabama.
So how long did you live there?
Was it like your entirechildhood or?
SPEAKER_03 (01:56):
Yeah, man.
Yeah.
So all the way through to like Iwent to university in Memphis,
Tennessee, home of the blues andall that.
Made my way west to uh Colorado.
That's where I met and marriedmy wife and did our first few
startups.
So I did five of my own company.
So the first two were out ofTennessee.
The last three were out ofColorado.
That was awesome.
SPEAKER_00 (02:14):
Nice.
What were you like as a kid?
SPEAKER_03 (02:17):
Yeah, what was I like?
Um, let's ask my mom.
I think she'd be the bestanswer.
And she she does it throughstories.
I was incredibly restless.
I was one of those kids thatdrove parents crazy.
And I'm sure I was on a spectrumof any sort you can imagine, and
that like I had more energy, andI like to say brain power, but
that's more self-effacing ismaybe reality.
(02:38):
So, like, my mom tells lots ofstories of like she's my mom was
the manager of a donut shop,right?
So she was running a donut shopand she would be there kind of
doing her review with her bossand find me climbing in the
shelves where all they store allthe flour and stuff like that.
So that's me as a kid.
I think it's a summary of me asa kid, is like more energy than
common sense.
SPEAKER_00 (02:57):
So, is it did that mean you were like the most
popular kid in school since yourmom worked at a uh managing a
donut shop?
SPEAKER_03 (03:03):
Yeah, man, one would think, right?
But no, no, it wasn't like that.
I was kind of a uh a music nerd,a small set of friends, and just
I was really into both music tolisten, but also I was learning
to play and differentinstruments, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00 (03:17):
Nice, nice.
So what what instruments did youplay?
SPEAKER_03 (03:20):
So I played uh guitar and I played the trumpet,
and which led me towards theblues coronet, which would take
us into the nuances of playingthe horn section, but we
probably don't have time forthat.
SPEAKER_00 (03:33):
Yeah, okay, gotcha.
That's great.
So were you in a band oranything like that?
SPEAKER_03 (03:37):
Or so there was always bands at school, but
yeah, we had a couple things onthe side.
We believed ourselves to bebrilliant.
Let's just say that.
SPEAKER_00 (03:44):
Yeah, well, great.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (03:46):
Yeah.
I was kind of born with an extraset of batteries and a little
more confidence than commonsense.
So those things have served mewell.
SPEAKER_00 (03:52):
Nice, nice.
And um, so when you were in inschool growing up, what did you
like studying the most?
It sounds like music was a bigdeal.
SPEAKER_03 (03:59):
Well, I mean, so I had this fascination with
literature.
I think I was as, you know, Idon't know if I was an escapist
in in stories took yousomewhere.
Like you hear these stuff, youknow, if you go back to read
anybody who likes to write, theyalways talk about their love of
literature.
But I always loved stories.
So I found myself, weirdlyenough, like paying attention to
grammar because it was kind ofunlocking your ability to
(04:22):
understand stories and phrasingsand things like that.
So I found English as a topicreally fascinating.
But then, you know, frankly,mathematics as well.
So I had this weird right brain,left brain thing where I was in
love with anything that wasfiction and then anything that
had an absolute resolute answer.
So both of those things were mymy favorite.
That actually continued up touniversity.
(04:42):
Like I I ended and doublemajored in uh creative writing
and calculus.
SPEAKER_00 (04:47):
So that's awesome.
SPEAKER_03 (04:50):
Yeah, well, weird also.
SPEAKER_00 (04:51):
So yeah, weird, weird can be awesome.
SPEAKER_03 (04:54):
Yeah, that's true.
I think for me, I lovecharacters, I love people that
are just kind of who they are intheir own skin.
And I think that's this I'vetried to sort of live that too.
SPEAKER_00 (05:02):
Yeah, I love that, man.
Yeah, it's so when you weregrowing up, did you always know
you wanted to be anentrepreneur?
SPEAKER_03 (05:10):
Um, no, I think entrepreneur, I was maybe I'm a
reluctant entrepreneur in a way,like it was born out of
necessity rather than um, youknow, this great beautiful
dream.
Uh so like again, I mentioned wewere sort of modest means.
So I was like the first kid outof my family in my side of the
family to be able to go touniversity, meaning qualified
(05:32):
and could go because the familycould never assume they could do
it.
I mean, nobody could pay for it.
So then it was up to me.
I had to pay for it myself.
So I had to find a way if Iwanted to do that.
Most of our guys are like, go tothe factory, work in the factory
10 years, and you'll have a goodlife or something, right?
And I was like, no, I gotta dosomething different.
So I was kind of like the one ofthe breakout kids in the family
that way.
I say that as if we had a lot ofkids in our family.
(05:54):
We don't, it was just me and mysister.
But yeah, so to do it, I had tofind a way.
So I started my first companywhen I was in high school, uh,
doing home repairs andimprovements so that I could pay
for for college, so that I couldafford to go.
Um, I had to find a way to makea revenue, make money so I could
pay for it.
And that's that's kind of how itall started, out of necessity.
SPEAKER_00 (06:16):
That's that's great.
And so, did you end up trying togrow that business?
SPEAKER_03 (06:19):
So was that one more of contracting or yeah, I think
if you talk about you, you know,people have their stories,
right?
And then you should be carefulthat your stories don't become
the ones you tell yourselfversus the ones that existed in
the reality.
But I'd say this one tends tostay in the reality, which is
it's probably the most importantcompany that I've ever run.
I've run a few now, and I thinkthis was one that fundamentally,
(06:42):
and I hope every anybody listensto this, anybody who's thinking
about being an entrepreneur,like you're gonna have this
moment where can I do this?
Is it possible?
And sitting in a dorm room witha cell phone, like booking jobs
to do home repairs andimprovements, became this thing
that told me, hey, maybe this ispossible.
(07:04):
Maybe I'm not like gonna work ina factory and I'm not limited to
just whatever this degree isgonna give me, but I could kind
of do anything.
And it was the ceiling breaker,right?
That was the thing that broke,like it's literally.
I say this because I had thisvisualization where I felt like
there was a stopping point andsuddenly there wasn't.
So this company is the mostimportant because it cracked
open my brain and it said, heyman, just keep going.
(07:27):
Like you don't know what'spossible unless you just get out
there and try it.
I ran this for the entire time Iwas in university.
I sold it for about 300K, whichsounds like an amazing success
story, except I at the time mybusiness acumen was modest as
well.
So I probably owed 290,000.
Uh, you know, and then of the10K profit, like 5K paid for me
(07:48):
and a bunch of friends to go toFlorida.
So it was one of those storieswhere the most important part of
it was where your brain ends upand what your possibilities are.
SPEAKER_00 (07:58):
Well, it's uh it sounds like it was yeah, it's
open these doors ofpossibilities.
It's like also this confidencebuilder where you're like, Well,
wait a second, maybe I can dothis, right?
Test I mean, everybody has tohave their moment, right?
SPEAKER_03 (08:10):
You had to have your moment.
You had to go through this atsome point where you're like,
Oh, maybe I'll do this thingrather than that traditional
path.
And you don't know if you can doit.
And and you realize maybe takinga chance is okay.
And then at some point, if itstarts to work out, you're like,
Oh, maybe okay.
Yeah, and then if I could dothat, oh well, maybe the next
(08:31):
well, so you just keep beingable to dream up, right?
SPEAKER_00 (08:34):
Yeah, exactly.
I think for me it was uh gettingout of high school, moving out
on my own, is really where Istarted to, I guess, start to
believe more in my potential,believe it or not, at a at a
boxing gym.
SPEAKER_02 (08:47):
Nice.
No, I but you do mue thai,right?
I thought I saw that in yourbackground.
SPEAKER_00 (08:51):
So I yeah, it's literally how I made a living
for many years.
Uh yeah, and it was also to dolike personal training, so
teaching people, and I got I wasreally hustling.
I was at one point literallyliving in the gym.
Yeah, of course.
Uh it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03 (09:05):
I mean, I say that because it makes common sense to
me.
Like, you probably had a couchin that gym, and life was 24-7,
and you were gonna make thatthing work.
SPEAKER_00 (09:12):
There is there was like a little office off to the
side, and I would ridiculous athindsight.
I would take the cushions offthe couch when the gym was
closed at night and put them inthe little office and create
like a makeshift bed.
SPEAKER_03 (09:27):
Oh man, I could, you know, my wife would tell you
stories about when we first gotmarried and you were running our
companies.
You know, we started thecompany, and we have like you
can't get anything on creditbecause you don't have it, and
so you have to assign your bankaccount to payroll, right?
And she calls me up and she'slike, We have no money.
I'm like, what do you mean?
Well, we didn't make sales thatmonth, and the rollover happened
(09:48):
and it wiped out everything wehad personally.
So we're living off credit cardsfor like four months in order to
get it all back on top, becausethat's what entrepreneurs have
to do.
You're sleeping on the office inthe storage room, I mean on the
floor of the storage room.
SPEAKER_00 (10:00):
Storage room, the storage room was taken by one of
the other coaches.
So he turned that it washilarious.
And like they, I don't know howthe the owner of the I mean, he
he was a cool guy, uh, the theowner.
Um, but he my buddy who was likemy first coach, actually.
This was the guy that signed myprincipal signature so I could
start fighting at 17.
SPEAKER_01 (10:22):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:22):
Um so uh but he so he took over the storage closet.
So like it was funny though,because he would he would walk
in and out of there and closethe door behind him like during
gym hours when people werethere.
So they'd be like, Why why isthis guy?
Why does he keep going backthere and shutting the door?
SPEAKER_03 (10:38):
It's like he's like the strange, the strange, weird
guy that lives in the storageroom, and you're like, just
don't pay attention, man, focuson your finding.
Yeah, man.
Yeah, I mean, we all have thesestories, right?
We all have these origin storieswhere somewhere, somehow,
somebody rolled the dice.
And I think that's how thiscompany was called Fix It.
That's how fix it was for me.
And it led to many other things,but it was instrumentally, I
(11:00):
think.
And I talk about like to thisday, I still think if I hadn't
done that, I never would havedone anything, yeah, like like
this.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:08):
So so you were like in the earlier days, so you and
your wife started a companytogether.
SPEAKER_03 (11:13):
This was later.
The first company was fix it wason my own.
That was during university.
Um, and then later she would beinvolved in a way not
necessarily we did a companylater together, but she was we
were married while some of theother startups were going on.
SPEAKER_01 (11:27):
That's how I referenced the no money thing
because I had to put my money onit um in order to do it.
So that's how that comes tocomes to probably a little less
interesting, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:35):
Well, no, I'm so curious, though, like so just
kind of talking about thepsychology at that point, right?
Where I mean, look at where youare today and like everything
that you've accomplished, andand there's those formative
experiences too, whereparticularly in the early days,
where sometimes you have tofully leverage yourself, take
big risks, and you have to beable to manage that one way or
another.
And sometimes it's not as prettyas we hope it will be.
It's really challenging andhard.
(11:57):
I'm curious, like, what was yourI want to get into like
reflecting what it means to you,but at the time, what what was
your state of mind?
What did you think about whatyou were going through and how'd
you get through it?
SPEAKER_03 (12:08):
So I'd say there's two kind of interesting stories
or so that would illustratethis.
Um, in the earliest days, whereyou're kind of in survival mode.
Like you think, you know, Iguess I don't know if I had the
like we have a world right nowwhere we everybody has this in
their head, like a bunch of techguys get together and they come
up with an idea and they go geta bunch of money out of Silicon
(12:30):
Valley, and that becomessomething, and they're
billionaires at some point, andthat's this kind of dream.
But the majority, 90%, 99% ofall actual startups, they land
somewhere at the bottom orsomewhere in the middle, right?
They don't all land in the superstory.
I I had two out of the five thatlanded on the upper side, but
not at the super.
Now, I'm not a multi-billionairefrom that, but you know,
(12:52):
multimillionaire out exits, andpeople got paid back and people
made money.
Those are crazy great successstories.
But the mindset at the time isthat you're like, this is what I
do.
This is, you know, I inventthings, I create things, I find
a way to make things happen.
My energy and ability was informulating an idea, taking it
down to its granular level oflike, what could we do with it?
(13:15):
And then stacking little tinypebbles on top of it until it
became kind of a small rock thatyou could go throw at something.
So that was sort of my mindsetwas whatever I'm gonna work on,
whatever I'm gonna do, had tohave a worth in the world.
And I don't know I'm not tryingto say hard string save the
world, but like it had to have areason to exist, it had to be
(13:36):
useful.
And so normally I'm like tryingto solve a problem, something
that irritates me, right?
So there's this thing.
One of the companies I wasinvolved with did uh 3D on the
web, right?
And and the idea then was likewe had this wonderful,
incredible visual 2D world, butwhy couldn't we do 3D?
The technology was there.
Long story short, we were aheadof our time, but like it was an
(13:57):
irritation.
So my mindset was often infrustration, irritation, and the
fact that something should existthat doesn't, or problem should
be fixed that's not gettingfixed.
All right, I'm gonna do it.
That's kind of the way themind's long story short, long
story to get around to likethat's the mindset.
It's like I gotta fix this, Igotta make it, I have to will it
to live.
SPEAKER_00 (14:16):
So it's it's when you're going through those
really challenging times, itsounds like that really the the
standout is like you're kind ofimmediately going into problem
solving mode, right?
You're just yeah, I meanobsessive and yeah, finding that
solution.
SPEAKER_03 (14:30):
It's like a warm coat, right?
You can fall back on fixingsomething.
If when the world falls downaround you in the entrepreneur
space, you can go down to theproblem you set out to solve and
feel pretty good that you'restill doing okay.
SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
Yeah, no, for real.
And I like asking people, it'slike when you're when you're
going through those times you'restretching yourself, like yeah,
and and you it can beoverwhelming.
It's like, how do you navigatethat?
I was actually speaking with theum VP of town acquisition over
at Zapier, and the very firstthing is just diving into the
solution, just attaching totaking steps and also just
(15:07):
accepting the uncertainty,right?
But focusing on despiteuncertainty, coming up with a
plan and just tackling it,taking action, like strong uh
bias for action.
I think to me, I I suppose thatthat makes sense because it's
when you're in those chapters,if you're idle and your brain
isn't actively focused on thesolution, your brain wanders and
it almost gets harder to thosetimes.
SPEAKER_03 (15:30):
Yeah, if you're not in that kind of solution zone.
I mean, we're we're talkingquite we're kind of abstract in
a sense, right?
If you're not in like solutionzone, you're probably in the
weight of the problem zone,right?
So you're trying to go into theother piece.
And I would say, like, I doagree with one thing you said,
which is the action component.
I forget who said this.
Um, it was a quote that kind oflanded with me a long time ago,
which was action carries with itits own authority.
(15:53):
So the movement, the thing, thedoing of something actually will
carry an authority with it tolike try and get things done.
And I always found that superuseful.
Like, I'm inaction feels likeidiocy.
And so I always wanted to belike, you know, something had to
happen.
So doing something was alwaysbetter than doing nothing.
Um, but if we come out of theabstract, because I think
(16:14):
sometimes you have to becareful, like people will look
back on their careers andthey'll have these lovely
nostalgic views of how cool itwas when we couldn't eat or
something, right?
But most of that's not cool,most of it's like pain and
difficulty, and you'refrustrated.
But when it works out or itsolves the food, you're like,
you're happy about it.
And I think of five differentcompanies I started and ran, um
(16:38):
three of them failed miserably.
I could probably look back nowand figure out whether to get in
or not get out.
Two of them had exits whichwould sort of set us up for
everything else we wanted to do.
And you know, the problem is asan entrepreneur, when you have a
success, you're like, look whatI can do with this money.
I can start another company.
I think it's just important tokeep that reality-based view.
(16:58):
Um, I know a lot of people go ontalk shows and they do these
things and they just like alwayshave these lovely memories.
My memories were wonderful andthey made me who I am, but I'm
not gonna pretend they weren'thard.
And I'm not gonna pretend thatthey weren't real, and I'm not
gonna pretend that I didn'tscrew up 80% of what I was
trying to do.
And I got lucky sometimes, but Ialso maybe had a 10% smart
(17:19):
streak where I could getthrough.
SPEAKER_00 (17:21):
So when you're like in a position now where you're
clearly in your prime, you'vehad a lot of success.
When you're like mentoringpeople uh more so starting out,
starting your own company or orreally trying to accomplish any
kind of big dreams or somethingthat's really hard, right?
Yeah, yeah.
What advice do you share?
SPEAKER_03 (17:40):
I think the the starting point is always like,
what are you trying to solve?
This is the old what's theproblem?
What's the problem you're tryingto solve?
Does anybody care?
Like there's kind of researchproblems out there where we're
trying to advance a field ofstudy, and those are, I think,
admirable and noble and thingsthat need to be done, and they
should will should and will sitin academia for a long time.
And then there's just problemsin the world that need to be
(18:01):
solved, and I don't necessarilymean again, world hunger, as
much as like high speed, thenext level speed internet or
something, right?
Something very tactical.
And I just want to make surethat everybody that they
understand the problem thatthey're trying to solve and they
have a general understanding ofwho who needs it.
Those are the most importantquestions for anybody for me.
And I know it's so basic, right?
(18:21):
But the basic is what is it?
What's it do?
Who wants it?
How would you convince them theydid to try it?
And will they actually pay forit?
Get through those like on asolid ground foundation of
facts, and you can probablybuild almost anything off of
those.
And then it all becomesoperations, right?
Which we can talk about that atsome point because I have a deep
(18:42):
view on the role of operationsin a company.
But my advice is always to getinto those questions in a super
hard way.
The biggest problem I run intois most first-time
entrepreneurs, you know, we welie to ourselves a lot.
Like we are self-selling, likewe convince ourselves how great
something is.
We won't see, you know, how howugly the baby is, if you know
(19:04):
what I mean.
We won't look at it and be like,oh, yeah, well, I know it's my
baby, but probably not going tobe a model.
You know, we won't, we won't dothat.
Uh and and the what I find isthat my technical friends, my
people who grow up as engineers,and then they tend to be far
more honest about this stuff andthe business development
entrepreneurs.
So they tend to go look at thosethings in an honest way.
(19:26):
And I think that's a skill youbetter have from day one, is to
just be frankly brutally honestabout something.
SPEAKER_00 (19:31):
So to develop these insights, right?
I'd be curious to dive into acouple some breakthrough moments
in your career.
Like you've been around for alittle bit and some just
perspective altering experiencesthat stand out to you.
SPEAKER_03 (19:46):
There's a couple, like we're together in a company
called Anarch uh back in theearly 2000s, and we're doing
this 3D thing.
And so it's me and a few otherpeople, and they're super smart.
And um, you know, we're going atthis thing where we are
convinced, right, that the worldneeds 3D.
Like we have the technology wecan run.
And for anybody who's technical,uh, 3D graphics are
(20:09):
fundamentally at a mathematicallevel far more complicated than
vector-based graphics for all mygraphic nerds that are turning
tuning in right now.
Like um, this is you know, it'sreally interesting how much
different it is.
So we were able to build like aplug-in on a web browser that's
only a couple megabytes thatwould give you the quality that
you might see in the movies,just to give you a sense.
And it's interactive, like fullyinteractive.
(20:29):
It's this is super cool, likegaming, but you could do it on
the web and you could do it foradvertising and everything else.
Um and what happens, weirdlyenough, is that we're going
after this thing.
We're raised money.
I think we're up to like 65million that we've raised, which
is really big back then.
And The market somewhere alongthe way just sort of goes, I
(20:51):
don't I don't I don't need this.
Like I don't, I I 2D will beokay for a long time.
And you don't realize it, right?
You think, oh, uh your plan isstill good, but you're not
listening.
And you realize at some pointyou come to the realization that
the market has decided itdoesn't need you and you're
still doing the same thing.
And when you do that, you sortof like someone has stolen all
(21:12):
your dreams, right?
And you have to have this superhard conversation.
That company ultimately pivotedinto the CAD CAM space.
So if you understand where I'mgoing, that's 3D.
But the way you go fromglamorous ad-based web
advertising agencies, everydesign agency in the world, over
to let me build you a washingmachine or a building 3D, is
(21:34):
that you go back to thefundamental question of who's
going to pay for this?
So when the world came down tothe question who's going to pay
for 3D, it was in a differentplace than when we were selling.
And that was hard.
And it was probably one of themost difficult pivot
conversations I've ever seen,but it had to be done or you
would be dead.
You know, and if you rewind thatsame company, there was a whole
(21:55):
platform decision where we hadto lay off half the company and
things like that.
So those are like big momentswhere you learn to be honest
with yourself.
Um, so that's an example.
Like, I don't know if that's abreakthrough, like, oh wow, look
how successful it is.
But it's a moment where youbecome fundamentally smarter
because of something that you'reexperiencing.
So that's that's an example,maybe as as one.
SPEAKER_00 (22:18):
Yeah, it's a questioning potential biases or
questioning your line ofthinking.
And it's like uh one of the, Idon't know, just little quotes
that's always stuck with me.
And I I can't even rememberexactly where I heard it.
But in order to prove yourselfright, try to prove yourself
wrong.
unknown (22:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:33):
Just question your line of thinking and and try to
poke holes in it.
SPEAKER_03 (22:36):
Prove yourself wrong first, right?
Right.
And then and then at least youwould know the problem to solve.
Yeah, I agree with that.
I think that one's that samecompany, I will say, had a lot
of lessons.
You know, another one that, andI'll keep this in the abstract
and keep the names out of it,but like I remember being in
charge of all the revenue andeverything that's going on, and
we're failing because of thesituation I just described.
(22:58):
And we're going into a boardmeeting, and we have a chairman
who's extremely experienced, andwe're getting ready for this
board meeting, and he sort ofsees me, and I'm probably wound
tight, man.
I'm wound, I'm a very differentleader manager today than I was
then, and I'm wound tight, andI'm like getting ready to go do
battle with the board, right?
This is you can see probablyphysically, this is where I'm
(23:19):
coming from.
And he's like, he decides todelay the board meeting by an
hour, and he takes me for awalk, right?
We're in Boulder, Colorado, andhe takes me for a walk, and
we're walking around the city.
Um, yeah, it's a kind of amountain town, and he's like,
What's going on with you?
And I start to explain why thisis like, look, man, look, look
(23:41):
this is software, this is IT,this is technology, this is
online.
He's like, You're not savingbabies in the emergency room.
Like, get this shit inperspective.
If you're calm and you'rebalanced, you can perform at an
extremely elite level.
But if you're like this, you'rebasically playing the junior
game the rest of your life.
(24:01):
Do you understand what I'mtelling you?
And I was like, what?
And and I think somewhere overthe course of six months after
that conversation, it finallylocked into me what he was
saying, and how to like kind ofclock that information into
performance and considering howto make decisions and how to go
at things.
(24:22):
And I think it was one of thegreatest lessons that I ever got
in the heat of a moment wheresomebody took the time to sort
of say, Look, you might be good,you might even be great, but not
like this.
SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
Okay, so so let's just I'd like to slow down on
this for a minute becausefrankly, sometimes this is
something that I struggle with,right?
Where it's like I attach myselfso much to the outcome that I
want to achieve that it becomeslike yeah, sometimes it's almost
like life or death feeling,right?
SPEAKER_03 (24:52):
Where yeah, you're you're you you're measuring
everything by this outcome,right?
In a way, it's like you'reattached.
Yeah, you said it right.
SPEAKER_00 (25:01):
Well, so like how do you I do have this, and maybe
this is something you have somefeedback on, but I I think I
have this completely obsessivemindset when it comes to growing
my company and making it acategory leading.
Yep, yeah.
And so it's it's like how do youbalance that level of obsession
with is it is it almost likeletting go or or no?
(25:22):
I mean, how do you actuallyimplement this as an
entrepreneur?
Because I struggle with this.
SPEAKER_03 (25:27):
We are who we are, right?
Like that's that we kind of andand whatever it is about us um
that got us to this point is iswhat it is.
You feed that energy because itgot you this far, right?
Nothing's wrong about that.
Um, I also have always talkedabout ego as this wonderful
double-edged sword, right?
Probably the majority of jobsthat I've ever gotten or things
that I've ever done, I wasrelatively unqualified for, but
(25:48):
I talked myself and other peopleinto it to let me do it.
So, in a sense, I wasoverselling, but because I
oversold and I was a fastlearner, I actually got these
step-up opportunities.
So these are all good things.
The lesson inside of what thisguy was telling me was there are
very, very few one and donemoments in your life.
(26:09):
You normally have multiplepoints that you're building
towards something.
And there's very, there'sthere's not these like magic
movie moments, right?
So if you can basically takeyourself out of the one final
shot of the ball game mentalityand think in the systemic
building mentality, then youwill balance your effort and
energy and accomplishment acrossthat structure, and you'll
(26:32):
probably make calmer, smarter,better decisions than you will
if everything is wound up intothis moment that you put in your
head.
And so he's basically telling meat the time to put a fine point
on it like, you think we'regoing into a board meeting and
your job is on the line.
That's what you think.
So you're in ready to defendyourself.
But the truth is, we want you todo this because you're probably
(26:54):
one of the only people that can,but we need you to do it better.
Let's talk about this problemand solving it rather than being
on the defense mode, and you canprobably get more done.
So he's kind of twisting it, youknow, so that I understand that
I need to balance and play,relax and play my game rather
(27:16):
than be wrapped in a singlemoment as if it's life or death.
Because then I will be aperformer rather than this kind
of warrior that I turned into.
SPEAKER_00 (27:24):
Like this overemphasis on these.
And it's really it's like amillion moments, right?
SPEAKER_03 (27:33):
Over a period of not very few things that you do, and
again, anybody who's anentrepreneur knows this, very
few things that you do will haveany single moment.
You might have a moment whereyou remember, oh, that's where
it turned, but it won't be likea thing you landed, and you
know, like it would be a thingwhere you kind of did 75 things
(27:53):
60 right, and they've they kindof collected on top of each
other, then finally somethingbegan to go your way, and you
could start to build somemomentum, and you were smart
enough to keep it going.
It's usually like that more thanit is we did everything, we
built it out, we landed, andboom, it took off.
It's rarely like that.
SPEAKER_00 (28:11):
So that was was that a challenging transition for you
to change your philosophy towardmoments and pressure and yeah,
it's to say the least, it wassuper challenging for me.
SPEAKER_03 (28:21):
So intellectually, I was kind of born, raised, grew
myself into this like aperformance mentality of
crossing a finish line orthrowing the touchdown in an
American analogy or somethinglike that, right?
We're gonna have this giantcelebration moment and we're
gonna we're gonna be heroes.
You know, it's this kind of herothing that we we stories that we
tell ourselves.
(28:42):
Um, and I had to shift it tolike the builder mentality,
which is I'm gonna buildsomething in a direction.
And the belief in that systemand the belief in that effort,
well, the belief in thatdelivery will yield the greatest
results, more so than theamazing one-time super duper
(29:03):
thing that I was gonna pull off.
So when you move out of the heromentality and into the builder
mentality, you start to make, Ithink, balanced, smart decisions
that take you somewhere.
I'll give you an example.
Um, you know, at Bunk, and Ijust I'm not trying to tang it
into bunk, but like at Bunk,there is a very distinct
cultural component of solvingthe long-term problem rather
(29:25):
than the short-term issue.
So when we, you know, if I wereto like do a proposal and
somebody was gonna review it andit was really about just fixing
something that's happening rightnow, culturally the company
would kind of go, come on, man.
Right?
Like we that's gonna come upagain, right?
Three times, five.
Let's why don't we solve it forgood rather than to solve it for
now?
And that was one of the things Ithink you got to make that
(29:47):
shift.
And it wasn't easy for mebecause I don't think I'm wired
that way naturally.
I had to, I had to adapt.
SPEAKER_00 (29:53):
I wonder too, if it it's maybe the why that's a
challenging shift, at least likeI'll speak for myself as an
entrepreneur.
It's because when you'restarting back and you go back to
those stories of like whenyou're living off credit cards,
right?
And and you're in the earlydays, uh, there's like whiplash
sometimes, right?
With growth and churn orwhatever it might be while
(30:13):
you're establishing a productmarket fit or a consistent
customer base or whatever itmight be, it feels very much so
in your face, like survivalmode.
I gotta figure out how to do it.
SPEAKER_03 (30:26):
Failure's real, right?
Failure will be real.
It could be failure isfinancially crushing.
So it's not like it's not real.
SPEAKER_00 (30:33):
So is it like, do you feel like there's also maybe
this like stage appropriatemindset where it's like, you
know, those early days, well,maybe not because it's like you
always want to be long-termfocused to take some of the
pressure off.
SPEAKER_03 (30:43):
But yeah.
I mean, this is you what we arehaving right now is the
classically good discussionabout the false narrative of
being an entrepreneur and theactual narrative of being an
entrepreneur, right?
Because the false narrative isit was hard times, it was
difficult, we slip on the couch,but this cool thing happened and
they found us and they gave usmoney, and boom, it worked out.
(31:04):
And look at what we've done now.
That's the false narrativebecause it happens 0.001% of the
time, and it's great what itdoes for somebody.
The true narrative is like wegrind it out, right?
We grind it out like actors whowaited 10 years to find the good
gig.
We grind it out and we keepgoing because we believe in it.
And in this case, failure iscostly.
It will ruin you financially inthe US.
(31:25):
Um, but somehow you still can'troll the dice.
And if you can, in thosemoments, take a little bit of
the air out of the balloon andfind that center point, I think
you just make better decisions.
SPEAKER_00 (31:38):
Yeah, yeah.
An episode you might actuallyenjoy is we recently did an
episode with uh Reese.
And Reese is on the foundingtalent team at a hyper-growth
startup called Dust.
And previous to being in townacquisition, he was actually a
professional soccer player.
Oh, yeah.
And he talks a lot about likepressure and how to kind of
psychologically go through theups and downs and stay in the
(32:02):
middle, essentially.
SPEAKER_03 (32:04):
That's exactly what I'm trying to say.
Maybe Reese says it betterbecause it's like how do you how
do you take that path throughthe center of the sorrow and the
chaos to get where you want toget, right?
SPEAKER_00 (32:16):
Yeah, it's like saying mentally leveled, right?
Yeah, well, that's that's cool.
That's something that I'm gonnathink a lot more about too, just
like going into 2026.
I mean, like just trying to bethe best version of myself too.
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (32:31):
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think um, you know, thesebreakthrough moments are things
that come slow and they comequieter than most people think.
And I know that's not whateverybody wants to hear, but uh
for me, that's just the reality.
Like we've had in the differentcompanies, you know, I think a
single account was never reallythe answer because you can lose
it just as fast as you can getit.
Like if you're doing anenterprise side.
(32:52):
Um, but whatever we got did toget that one, we kept trying and
we were able to get four, five,six more and suddenly diversify.
You know, that was that was abetter answer than the one big
win.
Um, or on the consumer salesside, you know, the change,
change, change, right?
Try and change, try and change.
Like run a hundred versionsuntil something clicks.
(33:15):
And the funny thing is that oneword in your, you know, whatever
you're doing with Google to gameGoogle might have made a
difference.
And then you just run that thinguntil it starts to drop off, and
then you innovate on top of itagain.
Those are the grinders that makemassive success.
We succeed better through thoselenses.
And I don't have a business Ican point to that I was in where
(33:36):
that wasn't the case.
I didn't, I was, you know, luckis great, but I'd rather have
process.
SPEAKER_00 (33:43):
Yeah.
Hey everyone, we got Joe Wilson with us today.
Joe is a serial entrepreneur andinvestor, and he's done all
sorts of really cool thingspersonally and professionally.
Joe, I really enjoyed our prepcall and getting to know you a
little bit.
So definitely looking forward totoday.
SPEAKER_03 (01:01):
Well, good morning, James.
Yeah, look, um, and as everybodycan see this big, beautiful
rainbow logo behind me in caseyou missed it.
So, in addition to the theaforementioned wonderful stuff,
I guess I'm also the chiefevangelist at Bunk.
Um, and we'll talk a little bitabout Bunk as we go along.
But look, uh it's honor,pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00 (01:19):
Yeah, so let's do it.
To start us off, where are youfrom?
SPEAKER_03 (01:23):
Yeah, that's a great question.
Let's put it this way uh I'm anAmerican, you can tell by my
accent, although sometimespeople can't tell.
I'm from the deep south in theU.S., actually.
Like I was born in Alabama andraised in Mississippi and
Tennessee.
And that's from, you know, ifyou want that short story, it
was a family of modest means,and you had to kind of work your
(01:43):
way through everything.
So I think the work ethic startsall the way back then.
But that's that's the coreplaces.
Like I'm from the South in theUS.
SPEAKER_00 (01:51):
Alabama.
So how long did you live there?
Was it like your entirechildhood or?
SPEAKER_03 (01:56):
Yeah, man.
Yeah.
So all the way through to like Iwent to university in Memphis,
Tennessee, home of the blues andall that.
Made my way west to uh Colorado.
That's where I met and marriedmy wife and did our first few
startups.
So I did five of my own company.
So the first two were out ofTennessee.
The last three were out ofColorado.
That was awesome.
SPEAKER_00 (02:14):
Nice.
What were you like as a kid?
SPEAKER_03 (02:17):
Yeah, what was I like?
Um, let's ask my mom.
I think she'd be the bestanswer.
And she she does it throughstories.
I was incredibly restless.
I was one of those kids thatdrove parents crazy.
And I'm sure I was on a spectrumof any sort you can imagine, and
that like I had more energy, andI like to say brain power, but
that's more self-effacing ismaybe reality.
(02:38):
So, like, my mom tells lots ofstories of like she's my mom was
the manager of a donut shop,right?
So she was running a donut shopand she would be there kind of
doing her review with her bossand find me climbing in the
shelves where all they store allthe flour and stuff like that.
So that's me as a kid.
I think it's a summary of me asa kid, is like more energy than
common sense.
SPEAKER_00 (02:57):
So, is it did that mean you were like the most
popular kid in school since yourmom worked at a uh managing a
donut shop?
SPEAKER_03 (03:03):
Yeah, man, one would think, right?
But no, no, it wasn't like that.
I was kind of a uh a music nerd,a small set of friends, and just
I was really into both music tolisten, but also I was learning
to play and differentinstruments, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_00 (03:17):
Nice, nice.
So what what instruments did youplay?
SPEAKER_03 (03:20):
So I played uh guitar and I played the trumpet,
and which led me towards theblues coronet, which would take
us into the nuances of playingthe horn section, but we
probably don't have time forthat.
SPEAKER_00 (03:33):
Yeah, okay, gotcha.
That's great.
So were you in a band oranything like that?
SPEAKER_03 (03:37):
Or so there was always bands at school, but
yeah, we had a couple things onthe side.
We believed ourselves to bebrilliant.
Let's just say that.
SPEAKER_00 (03:44):
Yeah, well, great.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (03:46):
Yeah.
I was kind of born with an extraset of batteries and a little
more confidence than commonsense.
So those things have served mewell.
SPEAKER_00 (03:52):
Nice, nice.
And um, so when you were in inschool growing up, what did you
like studying the most?
It sounds like music was a bigdeal.
SPEAKER_03 (03:59):
Well, I mean, so I had this fascination with
literature.
I think I was as, you know, Idon't know if I was an escapist
in in stories took yousomewhere.
Like you hear these stuff, youknow, if you go back to read
anybody who likes to write, theyalways talk about their love of
literature.
But I always loved stories.
So I found myself, weirdlyenough, like paying attention to
grammar because it was kind ofunlocking your ability to
(04:22):
understand stories and phrasingsand things like that.
So I found English as a topicreally fascinating.
But then, you know, frankly,mathematics as well.
So I had this weird right brain,left brain thing where I was in
love with anything that wasfiction and then anything that
had an absolute resolute answer.
So both of those things were mymy favorite.
That actually continued up touniversity.
(04:42):
Like I I ended and doublemajored in uh creative writing
and calculus.
SPEAKER_00 (04:47):
So that's awesome.
SPEAKER_03 (04:50):
Yeah, well, weird also.
SPEAKER_00 (04:51):
So yeah, weird, weird can be awesome.
SPEAKER_03 (04:54):
Yeah, that's true.
I think for me, I lovecharacters, I love people that
are just kind of who they are intheir own skin.
And I think that's this I'vetried to sort of live that too.
SPEAKER_00 (05:02):
Yeah, I love that, man.
Yeah, it's so when you weregrowing up, did you always know
you wanted to be anentrepreneur?
SPEAKER_03 (05:10):
Um, no, I think entrepreneur, I was maybe I'm a
reluctant entrepreneur in a way,like it was born out of
necessity rather than um, youknow, this great beautiful
dream.
Uh so like again, I mentioned wewere sort of modest means.
So I was like the first kid outof my family in my side of the
family to be able to go touniversity, meaning qualified
(05:32):
and could go because the familycould never assume they could do
it.
I mean, nobody could pay for it.
So then it was up to me.
I had to pay for it myself.
So I had to find a way if Iwanted to do that.
Most of our guys are like, go tothe factory, work in the factory
10 years, and you'll have a goodlife or something, right?
And I was like, no, I gotta dosomething different.
So I was kind of like the one ofthe breakout kids in the family
that way.
I say that as if we had a lot ofkids in our family.
(05:54):
We don't, it was just me and mysister.
But yeah, so to do it, I had tofind a way.
So I started my first companywhen I was in high school, uh,
doing home repairs andimprovements so that I could pay
for for college, so that I couldafford to go.
Um, I had to find a way to makea revenue, make money so I could
pay for it.
And that's that's kind of how itall started, out of necessity.
SPEAKER_00 (06:16):
That's that's great.
And so, did you end up trying togrow that business?
SPEAKER_03 (06:19):
So was that one more of contracting or yeah, I think
if you talk about you, you know,people have their stories,
right?
And then you should be carefulthat your stories don't become
the ones you tell yourselfversus the ones that existed in
the reality.
But I'd say this one tends tostay in the reality, which is
it's probably the most importantcompany that I've ever run.
I've run a few now, and I thinkthis was one that fundamentally,
(06:42):
and I hope every anybody listensto this, anybody who's thinking
about being an entrepreneur,like you're gonna have this
moment where can I do this?
Is it possible?
And sitting in a dorm room witha cell phone, like booking jobs
to do home repairs andimprovements, became this thing
that told me, hey, maybe this ispossible.
(07:04):
Maybe I'm not like gonna work ina factory and I'm not limited to
just whatever this degree isgonna give me, but I could kind
of do anything.
And it was the ceiling breaker,right?
That was the thing that broke,like it's literally.
I say this because I had thisvisualization where I felt like
there was a stopping point andsuddenly there wasn't.
So this company is the mostimportant because it cracked
open my brain and it said, heyman, just keep going.
(07:27):
Like you don't know what'spossible unless you just get out
there and try it.
I ran this for the entire time Iwas in university.
I sold it for about 300K, whichsounds like an amazing success
story, except I at the time mybusiness acumen was modest as
well.
So I probably owed 290,000.
Uh, you know, and then of the10K profit, like 5K paid for me
(07:48):
and a bunch of friends to go toFlorida.
So it was one of those storieswhere the most important part of
it was where your brain ends upand what your possibilities are.
SPEAKER_00 (07:58):
Well, it's uh it sounds like it was yeah, it's
open these doors ofpossibilities.
It's like also this confidencebuilder where you're like, Well,
wait a second, maybe I can dothis, right?
Test I mean, everybody has tohave their moment, right?
SPEAKER_03 (08:10):
You had to have your moment.
You had to go through this atsome point where you're like,
Oh, maybe I'll do this thingrather than that traditional
path.
And you don't know if you can doit.
And and you realize maybe takinga chance is okay.
And then at some point, if itstarts to work out, you're like,
Oh, maybe okay.
Yeah, and then if I could dothat, oh well, maybe the next
(08:31):
well, so you just keep beingable to dream up, right?
SPEAKER_00 (08:34):
Yeah, exactly.
I think for me it was uh gettingout of high school, moving out
on my own, is really where Istarted to, I guess, start to
believe more in my potential,believe it or not, at a at a
boxing gym.
SPEAKER_02 (08:47):
Nice.
No, I but you do mue thai,right?
I thought I saw that in yourbackground.
SPEAKER_00 (08:51):
So I yeah, it's literally how I made a living
for many years.
Uh yeah, and it was also to dolike personal training, so
teaching people, and I got I wasreally hustling.
I was at one point literallyliving in the gym.
Yeah, of course.
Uh it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_03 (09:05):
I mean, I say that because it makes common sense to
me.
Like, you probably had a couchin that gym, and life was 24-7,
and you were gonna make thatthing work.
SPEAKER_00 (09:12):
There is there was like a little office off to the
side, and I would ridiculous athindsight.
I would take the cushions offthe couch when the gym was
closed at night and put them inthe little office and create
like a makeshift bed.
SPEAKER_03 (09:27):
Oh man, I could, you know, my wife would tell you
stories about when we first gotmarried and you were running our
companies.
You know, we started thecompany, and we have like you
can't get anything on creditbecause you don't have it, and
so you have to assign your bankaccount to payroll, right?
And she calls me up and she'slike, We have no money.
I'm like, what do you mean?
Well, we didn't make sales thatmonth, and the rollover happened
(09:48):
and it wiped out everything wehad personally.
So we're living off credit cardsfor like four months in order to
get it all back on top, becausethat's what entrepreneurs have
to do.
You're sleeping on the office inthe storage room, I mean on the
floor of the storage room.
SPEAKER_00 (10:00):
Storage room, the storage room was taken by one of
the other coaches.
So he turned that it washilarious.
And like they, I don't know howthe the owner of the I mean, he
he was a cool guy, uh, the theowner.
Um, but he my buddy who was likemy first coach, actually.
This was the guy that signed myprincipal signature so I could
start fighting at 17.
SPEAKER_01 (10:22):
Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (10:22):
Um so uh but he so he took over the storage closet.
So like it was funny though,because he would he would walk
in and out of there and closethe door behind him like during
gym hours when people werethere.
So they'd be like, Why why isthis guy?
Why does he keep going backthere and shutting the door?
SPEAKER_03 (10:38):
It's like he's like the strange, the strange, weird
guy that lives in the storageroom, and you're like, just
don't pay attention, man, focuson your finding.
Yeah, man.
Yeah, I mean, we all have thesestories, right?
We all have these origin storieswhere somewhere, somehow,
somebody rolled the dice.
And I think that's how thiscompany was called Fix It.
That's how fix it was for me.
And it led to many other things,but it was instrumentally, I
(11:00):
think.
And I talk about like to thisday, I still think if I hadn't
done that, I never would havedone anything, yeah, like like
this.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:08):
So so you were like in the earlier days, so you and
your wife started a companytogether.
SPEAKER_03 (11:13):
This was later.
The first company was fix it wason my own.
That was during university.
Um, and then later she would beinvolved in a way not
necessarily we did a companylater together, but she was we
were married while some of theother startups were going on.
SPEAKER_01 (11:27):
That's how I referenced the no money thing
because I had to put my money onit um in order to do it.
So that's how that comes tocomes to probably a little less
interesting, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (11:35):
Well, no, I'm so curious, though, like so just
kind of talking about thepsychology at that point, right?
Where I mean, look at where youare today and like everything
that you've accomplished, andand there's those formative
experiences too, whereparticularly in the early days,
where sometimes you have tofully leverage yourself, take
big risks, and you have to beable to manage that one way or
another.
And sometimes it's not as prettyas we hope it will be.
It's really challenging andhard.
(11:57):
I'm curious, like, what was yourI want to get into like
reflecting what it means to you,but at the time, what what was
your state of mind?
What did you think about whatyou were going through and how'd
you get through it?
SPEAKER_03 (12:08):
So I'd say there's two kind of interesting stories
or so that would illustratethis.
Um, in the earliest days, whereyou're kind of in survival mode.
Like you think, you know, Iguess I don't know if I had the
like we have a world right nowwhere we everybody has this in
their head, like a bunch of techguys get together and they come
up with an idea and they go geta bunch of money out of Silicon
(12:30):
Valley, and that becomessomething, and they're
billionaires at some point, andthat's this kind of dream.
But the majority, 90%, 99% ofall actual startups, they land
somewhere at the bottom orsomewhere in the middle, right?
They don't all land in the superstory.
I I had two out of the five thatlanded on the upper side, but
not at the super.
Now, I'm not a multi-billionairefrom that, but you know,
(12:52):
multimillionaire out exits, andpeople got paid back and people
made money.
Those are crazy great successstories.
But the mindset at the time isthat you're like, this is what I
do.
This is, you know, I inventthings, I create things, I find
a way to make things happen.
My energy and ability was informulating an idea, taking it
down to its granular level oflike, what could we do with it?
(13:15):
And then stacking little tinypebbles on top of it until it
became kind of a small rock thatyou could go throw at something.
So that was sort of my mindsetwas whatever I'm gonna work on,
whatever I'm gonna do, had tohave a worth in the world.
And I don't know I'm not tryingto say hard string save the
world, but like it had to have areason to exist, it had to be
(13:36):
useful.
And so normally I'm like tryingto solve a problem, something
that irritates me, right?
So there's this thing.
One of the companies I wasinvolved with did uh 3D on the
web, right?
And and the idea then was likewe had this wonderful,
incredible visual 2D world, butwhy couldn't we do 3D?
The technology was there.
Long story short, we were aheadof our time, but like it was an
(13:57):
irritation.
So my mindset was often infrustration, irritation, and the
fact that something should existthat doesn't, or problem should
be fixed that's not gettingfixed.
All right, I'm gonna do it.
That's kind of the way themind's long story short, long
story to get around to likethat's the mindset.
It's like I gotta fix this, Igotta make it, I have to will it
to live.
SPEAKER_00 (14:16):
So it's it's when you're going through those
really challenging times, itsounds like that really the the
standout is like you're kind ofimmediately going into problem
solving mode, right?
You're just yeah, I meanobsessive and yeah, finding that
solution.
SPEAKER_03 (14:30):
It's like a warm coat, right?
You can fall back on fixingsomething.
If when the world falls downaround you in the entrepreneur
space, you can go down to theproblem you set out to solve and
feel pretty good that you'restill doing okay.
SPEAKER_00 (14:43):
Yeah, no, for real.
And I like asking people, it'slike when you're when you're
going through those times you'restretching yourself, like yeah,
and and you it can beoverwhelming.
It's like, how do you navigatethat?
I was actually speaking with theum VP of town acquisition over
at Zapier, and the very firstthing is just diving into the
solution, just attaching totaking steps and also just
(15:07):
accepting the uncertainty,right?
But focusing on despiteuncertainty, coming up with a
plan and just tackling it,taking action, like strong uh
bias for action.
I think to me, I I suppose thatthat makes sense because it's
when you're in those chapters,if you're idle and your brain
isn't actively focused on thesolution, your brain wanders and
it almost gets harder to thosetimes.
SPEAKER_03 (15:30):
Yeah, if you're not in that kind of solution zone.
I mean, we're we're talkingquite we're kind of abstract in
a sense, right?
If you're not in like solutionzone, you're probably in the
weight of the problem zone,right?
So you're trying to go into theother piece.
And I would say, like, I doagree with one thing you said,
which is the action component.
I forget who said this.
Um, it was a quote that kind oflanded with me a long time ago,
which was action carries with itits own authority.
(15:53):
So the movement, the thing, thedoing of something actually will
carry an authority with it tolike try and get things done.
And I always found that superuseful.
Like, I'm inaction feels likeidiocy.
And so I always wanted to belike, you know, something had to
happen.
So doing something was alwaysbetter than doing nothing.
Um, but if we come out of theabstract, because I think
(16:14):
sometimes you have to becareful, like people will look
back on their careers andthey'll have these lovely
nostalgic views of how cool itwas when we couldn't eat or
something, right?
But most of that's not cool,most of it's like pain and
difficulty, and you'refrustrated.
But when it works out or itsolves the food, you're like,
you're happy about it.
And I think of five differentcompanies I started and ran, um
(16:38):
three of them failed miserably.
I could probably look back nowand figure out whether to get in
or not get out.
Two of them had exits whichwould sort of set us up for
everything else we wanted to do.
And you know, the problem is asan entrepreneur, when you have a
success, you're like, look whatI can do with this money.
I can start another company.
I think it's just important tokeep that reality-based view.
(16:58):
Um, I know a lot of people go ontalk shows and they do these
things and they just like alwayshave these lovely memories.
My memories were wonderful andthey made me who I am, but I'm
not gonna pretend they weren'thard.
And I'm not gonna pretend thatthey weren't real, and I'm not
gonna pretend that I didn'tscrew up 80% of what I was
trying to do.
And I got lucky sometimes, but Ialso maybe had a 10% smart
(17:19):
streak where I could getthrough.
SPEAKER_00 (17:21):
So when you're like in a position now where you're
clearly in your prime, you'vehad a lot of success.
When you're like mentoringpeople uh more so starting out,
starting your own company or orreally trying to accomplish any
kind of big dreams or somethingthat's really hard, right?
Yeah, yeah.
What advice do you share?
SPEAKER_03 (17:40):
I think the the starting point is always like,
what are you trying to solve?
This is the old what's theproblem?
What's the problem you're tryingto solve?
Does anybody care?
Like there's kind of researchproblems out there where we're
trying to advance a field ofstudy, and those are, I think,
admirable and noble and thingsthat need to be done, and they
should will should and will sitin academia for a long time.
And then there's just problemsin the world that need to be
(18:01):
solved, and I don't necessarilymean again, world hunger, as
much as like high speed, thenext level speed internet or
something, right?
Something very tactical.
And I just want to make surethat everybody that they
understand the problem thatthey're trying to solve and they
have a general understanding ofwho who needs it.
Those are the most importantquestions for anybody for me.
And I know it's so basic, right?
(18:21):
But the basic is what is it?
What's it do?
Who wants it?
How would you convince them theydid to try it?
And will they actually pay forit?
Get through those like on asolid ground foundation of
facts, and you can probablybuild almost anything off of
those.
And then it all becomesoperations, right?
Which we can talk about that atsome point because I have a deep
(18:42):
view on the role of operationsin a company.
But my advice is always to getinto those questions in a super
hard way.
The biggest problem I run intois most first-time
entrepreneurs, you know, we welie to ourselves a lot.
Like we are self-selling, likewe convince ourselves how great
something is.
We won't see, you know, how howugly the baby is, if you know
(19:04):
what I mean.
We won't look at it and be like,oh, yeah, well, I know it's my
baby, but probably not going tobe a model.
You know, we won't, we won't dothat.
Uh and and the what I find isthat my technical friends, my
people who grow up as engineers,and then they tend to be far
more honest about this stuff andthe business development
entrepreneurs.
So they tend to go look at thosethings in an honest way.
(19:26):
And I think that's a skill youbetter have from day one, is to
just be frankly brutally honestabout something.
SPEAKER_00 (19:31):
So to develop these insights, right?
I'd be curious to dive into acouple some breakthrough moments
in your career.
Like you've been around for alittle bit and some just
perspective altering experiencesthat stand out to you.
SPEAKER_03 (19:46):
There's a couple, like we're together in a company
called Anarch uh back in theearly 2000s, and we're doing
this 3D thing.
And so it's me and a few otherpeople, and they're super smart.
And um, you know, we're going atthis thing where we are
convinced, right, that the worldneeds 3D.
Like we have the technology wecan run.
And for anybody who's technical,uh, 3D graphics are
(20:09):
fundamentally at a mathematicallevel far more complicated than
vector-based graphics for all mygraphic nerds that are turning
tuning in right now.
Like um, this is you know, it'sreally interesting how much
different it is.
So we were able to build like aplug-in on a web browser that's
only a couple megabytes thatwould give you the quality that
you might see in the movies,just to give you a sense.
And it's interactive, like fullyinteractive.
(20:29):
It's this is super cool, likegaming, but you could do it on
the web and you could do it foradvertising and everything else.
Um and what happens, weirdlyenough, is that we're going
after this thing.
We're raised money.
I think we're up to like 65million that we've raised, which
is really big back then.
And The market somewhere alongthe way just sort of goes, I
(20:51):
don't I don't I don't need this.
Like I don't, I I 2D will beokay for a long time.
And you don't realize it, right?
You think, oh, uh your plan isstill good, but you're not
listening.
And you realize at some pointyou come to the realization that
the market has decided itdoesn't need you and you're
still doing the same thing.
And when you do that, you sortof like someone has stolen all
(21:12):
your dreams, right?
And you have to have this superhard conversation.
That company ultimately pivotedinto the CAD CAM space.
So if you understand where I'mgoing, that's 3D.
But the way you go fromglamorous ad-based web
advertising agencies, everydesign agency in the world, over
to let me build you a washingmachine or a building 3D, is
(21:34):
that you go back to thefundamental question of who's
going to pay for this?
So when the world came down tothe question who's going to pay
for 3D, it was in a differentplace than when we were selling.
And that was hard.
And it was probably one of themost difficult pivot
conversations I've ever seen,but it had to be done or you
would be dead.
You know, and if you rewind thatsame company, there was a whole
(21:55):
platform decision where we hadto lay off half the company and
things like that.
So those are like big momentswhere you learn to be honest
with yourself.
Um, so that's an example.
Like, I don't know if that's abreakthrough, like, oh wow, look
how successful it is.
But it's a moment where youbecome fundamentally smarter
because of something that you'reexperiencing.
So that's that's an example,maybe as as one.
SPEAKER_00 (22:18):
Yeah, it's a questioning potential biases or
questioning your line ofthinking.
And it's like uh one of the, Idon't know, just little quotes
that's always stuck with me.
And I I can't even rememberexactly where I heard it.
But in order to prove yourselfright, try to prove yourself
wrong.
unknown (22:33):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (22:33):
Just question your line of thinking and and try to
poke holes in it.
SPEAKER_03 (22:36):
Prove yourself wrong first, right?
Right.
And then and then at least youwould know the problem to solve.
Yeah, I agree with that.
I think that one's that samecompany, I will say, had a lot
of lessons.
You know, another one that, andI'll keep this in the abstract
and keep the names out of it,but like I remember being in
charge of all the revenue andeverything that's going on, and
we're failing because of thesituation I just described.
(22:58):
And we're going into a boardmeeting, and we have a chairman
who's extremely experienced, andwe're getting ready for this
board meeting, and he sort ofsees me, and I'm probably wound
tight, man.
I'm wound, I'm a very differentleader manager today than I was
then, and I'm wound tight, andI'm like getting ready to go do
battle with the board, right?
This is you can see probablyphysically, this is where I'm
(23:19):
coming from.
And he's like, he decides todelay the board meeting by an
hour, and he takes me for awalk, right?
We're in Boulder, Colorado, andhe takes me for a walk, and
we're walking around the city.
Um, yeah, it's a kind of amountain town, and he's like,
What's going on with you?
And I start to explain why thisis like, look, man, look, look
(23:41):
this is software, this is IT,this is technology, this is
online.
He's like, You're not savingbabies in the emergency room.
Like, get this shit inperspective.
If you're calm and you'rebalanced, you can perform at an
extremely elite level.
But if you're like this, you'rebasically playing the junior
game the rest of your life.
(24:01):
Do you understand what I'mtelling you?
And I was like, what?
And and I think somewhere overthe course of six months after
that conversation, it finallylocked into me what he was
saying, and how to like kind ofclock that information into
performance and considering howto make decisions and how to go
at things.
(24:22):
And I think it was one of thegreatest lessons that I ever got
in the heat of a moment wheresomebody took the time to sort
of say, Look, you might be good,you might even be great, but not
like this.
SPEAKER_00 (24:34):
Okay, so so let's just I'd like to slow down on
this for a minute becausefrankly, sometimes this is
something that I struggle with,right?
Where it's like I attach myselfso much to the outcome that I
want to achieve that it becomeslike yeah, sometimes it's almost
like life or death feeling,right?
SPEAKER_03 (24:52):
Where yeah, you're you're you you're measuring
everything by this outcome,right?
In a way, it's like you'reattached.
Yeah, you said it right.
SPEAKER_00 (25:01):
Well, so like how do you I do have this, and maybe
this is something you have somefeedback on, but I I think I
have this completely obsessivemindset when it comes to growing
my company and making it acategory leading.
Yep, yeah.
And so it's it's like how do youbalance that level of obsession
with is it is it almost likeletting go or or no?
(25:22):
I mean, how do you actuallyimplement this as an
entrepreneur?
Because I struggle with this.
SPEAKER_03 (25:27):
We are who we are, right?
Like that's that we kind of andand whatever it is about us um
that got us to this point is iswhat it is.
You feed that energy because itgot you this far, right?
Nothing's wrong about that.
Um, I also have always talkedabout ego as this wonderful
double-edged sword, right?
Probably the majority of jobsthat I've ever gotten or things
that I've ever done, I wasrelatively unqualified for, but
(25:48):
I talked myself and other peopleinto it to let me do it.
So, in a sense, I wasoverselling, but because I
oversold and I was a fastlearner, I actually got these
step-up opportunities.
So these are all good things.
The lesson inside of what thisguy was telling me was there are
very, very few one and donemoments in your life.
(26:09):
You normally have multiplepoints that you're building
towards something.
And there's very, there'sthere's not these like magic
movie moments, right?
So if you can basically takeyourself out of the one final
shot of the ball game mentalityand think in the systemic
building mentality, then youwill balance your effort and
energy and accomplishment acrossthat structure, and you'll
(26:32):
probably make calmer, smarter,better decisions than you will
if everything is wound up intothis moment that you put in your
head.
And so he's basically telling meat the time to put a fine point
on it like, you think we'regoing into a board meeting and
your job is on the line.
That's what you think.
So you're in ready to defendyourself.
But the truth is, we want you todo this because you're probably
(26:54):
one of the only people that can,but we need you to do it better.
Let's talk about this problemand solving it rather than being
on the defense mode, and you canprobably get more done.
So he's kind of twisting it, youknow, so that I understand that
I need to balance and play,relax and play my game rather
(27:16):
than be wrapped in a singlemoment as if it's life or death.
Because then I will be aperformer rather than this kind
of warrior that I turned into.
SPEAKER_00 (27:24):
Like this overemphasis on these.
And it's really it's like amillion moments, right?
SPEAKER_03 (27:33):
Over a period of not very few things that you do, and
again, anybody who's anentrepreneur knows this, very
few things that you do will haveany single moment.
You might have a moment whereyou remember, oh, that's where
it turned, but it won't be likea thing you landed, and you
know, like it would be a thingwhere you kind of did 75 things
(27:53):
60 right, and they've they kindof collected on top of each
other, then finally somethingbegan to go your way, and you
could start to build somemomentum, and you were smart
enough to keep it going.
It's usually like that more thanit is we did everything, we
built it out, we landed, andboom, it took off.
It's rarely like that.
SPEAKER_00 (28:11):
So that was was that a challenging transition for you
to change your philosophy towardmoments and pressure and yeah,
it's to say the least, it wassuper challenging for me.
SPEAKER_03 (28:21):
So intellectually, I was kind of born, raised, grew
myself into this like aperformance mentality of
crossing a finish line orthrowing the touchdown in an
American analogy or somethinglike that, right?
We're gonna have this giantcelebration moment and we're
gonna we're gonna be heroes.
You know, it's this kind of herothing that we we stories that we
tell ourselves.
(28:42):
Um, and I had to shift it tolike the builder mentality,
which is I'm gonna buildsomething in a direction.
And the belief in that systemand the belief in that effort,
well, the belief in thatdelivery will yield the greatest
results, more so than theamazing one-time super duper
(29:03):
thing that I was gonna pull off.
So when you move out of the heromentality and into the builder
mentality, you start to make, Ithink, balanced, smart decisions
that take you somewhere.
I'll give you an example.
Um, you know, at Bunk, and Ijust I'm not trying to tang it
into bunk, but like at Bunk,there is a very distinct
cultural component of solvingthe long-term problem rather
(29:25):
than the short-term issue.
So when we, you know, if I wereto like do a proposal and
somebody was gonna review it andit was really about just fixing
something that's happening rightnow, culturally the company
would kind of go, come on, man.
Right?
Like we that's gonna come upagain, right?
Three times, five.
Let's why don't we solve it forgood rather than to solve it for
now?
And that was one of the things Ithink you got to make that
(29:47):
shift.
And it wasn't easy for mebecause I don't think I'm wired
that way naturally.
I had to, I had to adapt.
SPEAKER_00 (29:53):
I wonder too, if it it's maybe the why that's a
challenging shift, at least likeI'll speak for myself as an
entrepreneur.
It's because when you'restarting back and you go back to
those stories of like whenyou're living off credit cards,
right?
And and you're in the earlydays, uh, there's like whiplash
sometimes, right?
With growth and churn orwhatever it might be while
(30:13):
you're establishing a productmarket fit or a consistent
customer base or whatever itmight be, it feels very much so
in your face, like survivalmode.
I gotta figure out how to do it.
SPEAKER_03 (30:26):
Failure's real, right?
Failure will be real.
It could be failure isfinancially crushing.
So it's not like it's not real.
SPEAKER_00 (30:33):
So is it like, do you feel like there's also maybe
this like stage appropriatemindset where it's like, you
know, those early days, well,maybe not because it's like you
always want to be long-termfocused to take some of the
pressure off.
SPEAKER_03 (30:43):
But yeah.
I mean, this is you what we arehaving right now is the
classically good discussionabout the false narrative of
being an entrepreneur and theactual narrative of being an
entrepreneur, right?
Because the false narrative isit was hard times, it was
difficult, we slip on the couch,but this cool thing happened and
they found us and they gave usmoney, and boom, it worked out.
(31:04):
And look at what we've done now.
That's the false narrativebecause it happens 0.001% of the
time, and it's great what itdoes for somebody.
The true narrative is like wegrind it out, right?
We grind it out like actors whowaited 10 years to find the good
gig.
We grind it out and we keepgoing because we believe in it.
And in this case, failure iscostly.
It will ruin you financially inthe US.
(31:25):
Um, but somehow you still can'troll the dice.
And if you can, in thosemoments, take a little bit of
the air out of the balloon andfind that center point, I think
you just make better decisions.
SPEAKER_00 (31:38):
Yeah, yeah.
An episode you might actuallyenjoy is we recently did an
episode with uh Reese.
And Reese is on the foundingtalent team at a hyper-growth
startup called Dust.
And previous to being in townacquisition, he was actually a
professional soccer player.
Oh, yeah.
And he talks a lot about likepressure and how to kind of
psychologically go through theups and downs and stay in the
(32:02):
middle, essentially.
SPEAKER_03 (32:04):
That's exactly what I'm trying to say.
Maybe Reese says it betterbecause it's like how do you how
do you take that path throughthe center of the sorrow and the
chaos to get where you want toget, right?
SPEAKER_00 (32:16):
Yeah, it's like saying mentally leveled, right?
Yeah, well, that's that's cool.
That's something that I'm gonnathink a lot more about too, just
like going into 2026.
I mean, like just trying to bethe best version of myself too.
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (32:31):
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
And I think um, you know, thesebreakthrough moments are things
that come slow and they comequieter than most people think.
And I know that's not whateverybody wants to hear, but uh
for me, that's just the reality.
Like we've had in the differentcompanies, you know, I think a
single account was never reallythe answer because you can lose
it just as fast as you can getit.
Like if you're doing anenterprise side.
(32:52):
Um, but whatever we got did toget that one, we kept trying and
we were able to get four, five,six more and suddenly diversify.
You know, that was that was abetter answer than the one big
win.
Um, or on the consumer salesside, you know, the change,
change, change, right?
Try and change, try and change.
Like run a hundred versionsuntil something clicks.
(33:15):
And the funny thing is that oneword in your, you know, whatever
you're doing with Google to gameGoogle might have made a
difference.
And then you just run that thinguntil it starts to drop off, and
then you innovate on top of itagain.
Those are the grinders that makemassive success.
We succeed better through thoselenses.
And I don't have a business Ican point to that I was in where
(33:36):
that wasn't the case.
I didn't, I was, you know, luckis great, but I'd rather have
process.
SPEAKER_00 (33:43):
Yeah.
Popular Podcasts
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com