Ep. #51: David Bell, CEO & Founder of CloneOps.ai

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey listeners, before we get started today, I want to
give a quick shout out and wordto our sponsor, our very first
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These guys know what they'redoing.

(00:23):
I'm excited to be partneringwith them to give you a little
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(00:46):
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(01:08):
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So check them out atgorapidocom and thank you again
for being a sponsor to our show,a great partner.
We look forward to working withyou To our listeners.
That's it.
Let's get the show on the road.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Freight Pod.

(01:46):
I'm your host, andrew Silver,and I am joined today by a good
friend of mine, a mentor of mine, someone who has been there for
me through the early days of myentrepreneurial journey I don't
like saying entrepreneurialjourney, but through the early
days of me starting a businessMr David Bell bell.
Welcome to the show, sir howare you?

Speaker 2 (02:07):
thank you, man.
Thank you.
What early days were fun, man.
I miss those days, every tradeshow and every trade show.
Now it's not the same.
We had a cool little group.
You know what I'm saying?
We had a cool little group that, uh, made trade shows fun.
I gotta, I gotta figure out andnow that I'm getting back into
the trade shows I gotta figureout a way to get a little group
back together or something soit's fine.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
I was gonna say that maybe just a personal reference
because, like that was 2018,2019 and maybe it's just you
haven't been in the day-to-daygrind of running a business and
now that you're back in it, Ithink you'll find that that
group naturally creates itselffor you.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
It does it's crazy because I didn't realize what it
was to start a business fromscratch, like from nothing.
You know, I mean when, whenit's just like even logistics.
I got logistics in 1995 andjust kind of morphed and you
have customers, you know youwork for somebody and then you
go out they, they do somethingabout a business, whatever you

(03:01):
go do yourself.
And then so in 1997 I went intobusiness for 1995.
I went into business for myself.
I got into logistics in 93 insouth florida.
In 1995 I went into businessfor myself because the company I
was working for was a husbandand wife and got divorced and
and it was just, everything wasstill there.
You know I'm saying like youjust had to move shit, like,
okay, here's a business, let'smove it.
And and then you know, lean isanother story.

(03:22):
That just easily morphed into abusiness.
But starting this business hadto do everything, like we'd have
a phone number.
Somebody's like, okay, what'sour phone number?
I'm like shit, we have, peoplehave phone numbers anymore.
You used to have to call thephone company, get your phones
turned on.
You know I'm saying like it'slike shit, we have phones, we
don't have a phone number forthe website.
So like everything from market,from website to accounting to,

(03:43):
I mean, just every little thingyou have to start.
It's like building a house right, you've got you, don't?
You don't just walk in and putthe floors in and it's there.
So it's pretty crazy.
What's a?
And I didn't have all thoseskills to like, do that, like.
I never started a business fromday one, scratch myself and
have to lay out everything.
So it's been, it's been prettyinteresting.
It's uh, I don't know that I'dsay it's I don't know.
I'd say it's a like all funbecause it's a lot of work.

(04:05):
Man, you don't realizeeverything you got to do.
I mean it's, you know, like evenyour podcast, you have to, even
when you get your podcast upand do it from scratch, like you
have to do everything, like.
So it's been crazy, it's beengreat, but but it's exciting,
man, it's.
I think feel like I missed alot of opportunities along the
way.
You know, on the dot coms andthe cryptos and all that.
I think AI is one of thosethings that everybody didn't get

(04:27):
into it early.
It's going to look back and atleast at least learn it and
understand it and do it andimplement it in your daily life
and use it.
It's kind of like the peoplethat hesitated to switch to the
iPhone, you know.
It's like when they finally did, they're like, why did I wait
this long?
So it's pretty cool.
I'm so.
It's pretty cool.
I need to do something, man.
I can't just vacation all overthe world.

Speaker 1 (04:46):
I know that about you .
Yeah, I have to do something.
Let's take it back a step,though, because I know you well
and so it's easy for you and Ito sit here and just get right
into it.
But I've got to introduce youto the audience a bit, because
you've been a part of a bigbusiness two businesses, and
we're very involved in leanstaffing, but you weren't
exactly like kind of the face ofit outwardly, um and so.

(05:11):
So you know my audience maybedoesn't know you, and so let's,
let's introduce them, let's takethem back.
You said you got into the spacein 1993.
Yeah, um, what, what?
What brought you into the space?
What?
What were you doing?
Was that as a brokerage, an ltlcompany?
What?
What were you into the space?
Was that as a brokerage, an LTLcompany?

Speaker 2 (05:26):
It was kind of a crazy little story, man.
I was always in phone sales,like from when I sold the
newspaper door to door when Iwas 12 years old, so I was
always in sales.
I got into phone sales sellingmagazine subscriptions, bacteria
for septic tanks, like you nameit.
I was selling it on the phoneand so I was going to go be a
stockbroker and in 1987, you hadto be 18 to be a stockbroker.

(05:48):
So I was going to, I wasstudying for my series seven and
they said go get, go get, uh,go do some more telemarketing.
But find something in like this, this sales.
And I forget what they told me,kind of geared on.
So I opened the paper and Ilook and and I see these ads
that say make two, threethousand a week if you like
sports, it's great.
So so I called up and, and andthe first call there was two ads

(06:09):
in the paper I never forget.
I called the first one.
He says all right, what do youknow about sports?
I'm like I play sports, I'm anathlete.
I golf, I play baseball likeI'm an athlete, I know
everything about sports.
Goes all right, what's a parlay?
And I'm like fuck, what's aparlay?
I'm like, does that have to dowith golf.
He goes it's not for you.
And he hangs up on me.
It's like a rough New Yorker.
He hangs up on me, bam.
And so I go.
Okay, well, I blew that one.

(06:30):
Let me figure out what the hella parlay is.
So I asked around a couplepeople.
I called my dad what's a parlay?
He goes I think that'ssomething In one aspect I'm 17.
It was a sports touting service.

(06:56):
So so I call up the next one,and so he says all right, come
on in.
So I come in.
I never forget I go in.
I sit down, he goes.
I thought I'm interviewing.
He goes.
No, he's like get on the phone,let's see what you could do.
So he puts a script in front ofme.
I get on the phone and I wasrelentless in phone sales Like
you couldn't stop.
You know how it is.
You I mean the sales, you.
You have to be relentless, andat an early age I just was.
And so the first day I get in Istarted.
I made a couple of sales.

(07:25):
So I worked three days the firstweek and I made $3,500.
I'm like the hell am I going tobe a stockbroker for?
So I started doing thisbusiness.
And then we were getting leadsout of Western Union and Western
Union.
So I ended up becoming apartner in a phone room at 18
years old and we had 30 peopleon the phone.
We were getting leads out ofWestern Union and then, like
anytime, anybody would sendmoney to a sports touting
service, western Union wouldshow who it was named phone

(07:46):
number, so the leads were likegold.
And then all of a sudden,western union changed their
whole system and the leads driedup.
So um so from there.
So I made a lot of money there.
I was making 50,000 a week at18 years old.
It was insane.
I mean, I had a Ferrari africking.
Yeah, I was going to Atlantis,bahamas, with a fake ID gambling
every other weekend.
So it was just insane.
I mean you know, look how bigsports betting is now.

(08:06):
I mean it's crazy, right, likewhen you look at the sports
touting, it's, it's, it's huge,so so from there.
So so I had to figure out whatI'm going to do because the
leads dried up and you know, yougo from making that kind of
money, making nothing andstruggling and having to recycle
leads.
So I got an opportunity to geta Cellular One franchise.
It was Bell South and CellularOne and I was big into car

(08:26):
stereos.
We were building car stereosand there was a guy that worked
for a company called AudioAdvisors.
He says, hey, we're buildingthese crazy, crazy mini trucks
and car stereos andsimultaneously it's like weird
in life, everything kind ofhappens.
And then you get somethinghappens.
It's like the butterfly effect,right.
So I go in to get my cars washedat this exotic car wash place
and he's got room.
He's got room, he's got twobays.

(08:47):
So I asked him one day I go in.
I go, hey, can I put a?
Can I start building new carstereos and stuff here?
He's like, yeah, no problem.
I don't use those bays.
Why don't you do that?
So I gave me a South.
They want nothing to do with me.
You have to have a business andyou have to have like all this.
So I call up Cellular One andthey're like yeah, you got a

(09:08):
good site.
The guy comes out.
He goes this is a great site,let's put Cellular One here.
So I was one of the firstCellular One franchises in
Lighthouse Point, florida andYou're saying you know you
forget, I'm 34 years old.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
I have no idea what you're talking about, I mean I
think I've seen it in Scarface,I think they had one of those.
I know you do.
I got a kid your age.

Speaker 2 (09:31):
I just had my fifth grandkid.
By the way, hunter just had hissecond baby two weeks ago, did
he really?
Yeah, he actually had it on hisbirthday.
So in the old days the cellphones used to be installed in
the car and they were like ahandset that would be in the
glove box or set up next to itand you'd pick it up and you'd
be on the phone cruising likelooking cool.
So I started doing that in carstereos and uh and.
And then all of a sudden thisguy that used to work for me in

(09:54):
my sports touting room comes in.
Um, I know him.
He come in to uh to get a carstereo and I said what are you
doing?
He goes you're not're not goingto believe it.
Man, I got.
You know, I was working for thistrucking company who's out of
business back then and you won'teven remember him, so I won't
even bring up their name.
But I was working for thistrucking company and I decided
I'm going to take all mycustomers and I'm going to go to

(10:14):
Carolina Freight and CF Freightand I'm going to see which.
Carolina gave me a discount.
And I took all the biggestshippers in Miami ship with me
and all I do is put third partybill to my company on the on the
bill and all the bills come tome, I rebuild them and I make
20%.
I'm like what?
He's like, yeah, they get a 50%discount, I get a 60 and I just

(10:37):
print money like magic beans.
They just come in the mail, Irebuild them and the check come.
I'm like, fuck, this guy's,this guy's, uh, not that sharp,
if he could do this shit, Icould do it.
So I go, let me see what you'redoing, man Shit.
So I went and I saw what he wasdoing and I and I realized this
freight business.
Like I had no exposure tofreight whatsoever.
I said so, let me understandthis.
I can go to a dock on Miami, Ican jump on the dock.

(10:58):
I could tell the guy hey, Ijust saw ABF pull out of here.
I'll tell you what.
What's your discount?
45%.
I'll give you 50%.
And we use Carolina.
And, by the way, let's go tolunch.
And oh, you like the Marlins,we can go see a Marlins game, no
problem.
And it was shooting fish in abarrel, like it was like boom,
boom, boom, boom.
There was nobody.
You're talking about 1993.

(11:19):
And so I just started buildingthe business and I realized what
brokering was and and I'm like,why don't we do truckloads?
He's like, ah, it's too big,you built 2000.
You only make 400.
It's too risky.
I'm like what's risky aboutthat?
It's one shipment instead of 10.
It's like one bill instead of10.
So I, I got the license and andthen we started making so much

(11:41):
money he started cheating on hiswife.
I had three girlfriends and hiswife was his wife was in the
business, so she's, she's, youknow, take the money out of the
bank.
And so he, they were ruiningthe business.
So I had one big customer and Istill remember I'm still
friends with this guy today andI tell the story and so I call
this guy.
His name's Bill Bailey it was.
He was with a company calledprecision delivery systems in
Miami and circuit city was mybiggest account.

(12:02):
I did all of the distributionfor South Florida, for circuit
city, and he did it for me.
So I call a bill and I saidbill, this is a shit show here.
I think this company is likegoing under, like I don't want
to see you get burnt, like likeI don't know, I don't know
what's going on.
So he.
And so he says uh, man, I go, Igo.
What do you want to do?

(12:27):
Get, get burnt, man.
He goes.
He goes well, what are yougonna do?
I don't know, man, I think I'mgonna do it myself.
I don't know, I gotta decide.
So I go home that day and Itell my soon-to-be ex, my wife.
Then I tell her what, uh, whatwas going on.
She goes you could do it, justopen it up, you.
What's the problem?
I'm surprised that you had anykind of angst about doing that,

(12:48):
because it seems like you'resuch a go-getter.
No, but it was different.

Speaker 1 (12:51):
Every part of it from the gambling service to the car
stereos.
It's like you were just jumpingin.
It was a different business.
Like.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
I needed a real accountant.
You needed accounts, receivable, accounts payable.
Like I needed a real accountant, you need an account receivable
, accounts payable.
Like I didn't know anythingreally much about accounting and
you had to go get it.
You had to go get an office.
The other ones kind of justcame together.
You know what I'm saying.
Like it was just I was there, Idid it, boom, this I had to,
like the one you were doing outof a car wash, yeah, so I had to

(13:20):
figure it out.
You know what?
I'm only 23 years old, so I'myou know, I'm young, and so so I
go back and I tell Bill I go,bill, I'm going to, I'm going to
open my own business.
I go, I got to tell you what,hold the billing, let's see what
this company does If they gounder.

(13:41):
I'm going to, I'm going to openmy business.
So, sure enough, the company,boom, um, they split, they have
a nasty divorce, they tear eachother apart.
So I leave, I open up, open upmy own company.
And he says, dave, you buildcircuit city with your new
company and go in for a couplemonths, get your, get your
company up and running and takeas long as you need to pay me.

(14:03):
I'm like what he said, yeah,like listen, if it wasn't for
you I would've got, I would'vegot burnt like three months.
So I I'm okay, like like howmuch time do you need?
So I said, and I had like twomonths of billing.
At that point it was like 78,70 or $80,000.
And uh, I said, I don't knowBill, okay, so I bill them, I
get the 80,000 the next day, 70,$80,000 next day.

(14:23):
I go get the office, I go getfurniture, I go get phones, I
get everything and I get set up.
And a couple people had, youknow, uh were with the company,
came with me, uh, and I buildthem and I think three months
later I paid them.
And that's how I started inlogistics is because of him.
If he didn't do that for me, Idon't know if I would money to
go get everything, because bythe time it was all said and
done, like I was out of themoney.

(14:44):
I went through the money fast.
By the time you get an office.
I mean I had an office with, Ihad big ambition.
So I was thinking, you know, Ihad an office with 15 desks.
I had two people, you know,four offices and 15 desks.
So like I wanted to go big andand I've always just gone big,
like, and even in logistics like, like I bootstrapped it the
entire time I went through boot,you know, bootstrapped it the
entire time.
I bootstrapped it the entiretime, never got a loan, always

(15:05):
managed payables, hustlingpayables.
I said I'll pay you this week,help me out, and it's just.

Speaker 1 (15:11):
Was this a brokerage?
Yeah, like an LTL brokerage.
Essentially, it was a LTLbrokerage.
Yeah, yep.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
How long were you in that business?
How big did?

Speaker 1 (15:19):
you get how many?
How long were you in thatbusiness?
How big did you get, like, howmany people did you get it to?
What did that?

Speaker 2 (15:24):
mean, I mean I grew it.
I grew it that I made a, I dida merger with an actual trucking
company in 2000, in 1997.
So it gave me like 30 trucksthat ran the East Coast only,
which is still running today.
What company is that?
A company called Gold EagleLogistics, okay, and they still
do all the Northeast businesstoday, back and forth.
It was part of what.
When I sold in 2018, when I soldSmith, they were an agent of

(15:48):
mine, like a partner agent ofmine, and a guy named Andy
Mendoza ran it and and when Isold, he didn't want to be a
part of it and they didn't wantassets.
You know, people don't want tobuy assets, so they want assets.
So I spun them out.
I said, listen, don't worryabout it, just go, I won't make
you part of the sale.
I mean I was only taking 5%,you know, as an agent fee.
So it wasn't like a huge partof what we were doing and they
didn't really like.
You know, they didn't likeassets and they didn't want to.

(16:10):
They didn't want to buildsomething.
They didn't want to.
They didn't like the agents.
As a matter of fact, when I Ithink, I think they did, but, um
, it's still running and I.
So I had that and I thought if Ihad trucks like those, 30
trucks were in every shipper inMiami with assets.
I'm like, okay, if I can get inthere, I can go in there.

(16:32):
They're only doing New York, Ican expand and do everywhere
else with all these customers.
So I opened up.
I ended up putting on 30 trucks.
I went everywhere else too.
We built it to like right away.
We got like 60 trucks and andwent everywhere.
We were hauling for everyfreight forwarder panopina,
eagle like every freightforwarder.
Miami was using us and I justbuilt.
I went from like I went fromdoing like six million a year to
doing like 40 million a year inlike a year and a half like

(16:55):
like finished a year and then atthe end of the year, the next
year, I was on a run rate forover 40 million and uh, and just
grew it and then continue togrow it and grow it and, you
know, just went through all thepains and ups and downs of of
freight and then in 2012, I own,by the way, robert Cadena
worked for me during that period.

(17:15):
That's how I met Robert.
Robert came to work for me atthat trucking company, and so
hold on.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
When, when did you get involved with Smith
transport, so that became.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Smith transport, that that company became Smith
Transport.
We threw some mergers.
So in comes Lee Futernick, mypartner on FTS, who sold to CH
Robinson in 2002.
We ended up merging, beingpartners because we were the two
largest in Miami and we wenthead to head.
So one day I meet up with himand we were battling over all

(17:43):
the business and he says let'sdo a deal.
And my and at that time myfather-in-law was working for me
and he got prostate cancer.
So he was kind of like my, youknow, my, my partner, so to
speak.
I started the business but Ibrought him in and he was a
partner but he got prostatecancer and he was wanting to
retire.
So I said, I don't, we dosomething together.
He had sold to CH Robinson, hewas looking to get back in the

(18:04):
business and he goes I'm goingto put the gang back together.
But you know, what do you wantto do?
And I said, well, let's dosomething.
So we put it together.
We rebranded.
It was called CargoTransportation, we rebranded it
Smith Car Miami and then hestarted Smith Terminal Warehouse

(18:26):
.
He made the brokerage FTSFuneric Transportation Services,
and so we became partners andhe came in and we built the
company and in 2012, we, robertCadena.
I ran into Robert Cadena, whichis a crazy story.
I never should have been.
I shouldn't have run into him,but I did run into him.
It's like bizarre.

(18:46):
So I run into him like, hey,robert, what are you doing?
Oh, good to see you, dave.
And he worked for me in thenineties.
So I'm like, what are you doing?
How's everything?
And I knew he had a companybecause I hauled for him.
He had a company called chainexpress and I he would use me

(19:09):
cause I did always knew he wasthere.
I would periodically like, likeyou know, hear from him, but I
never saw him.
I haven't seen him in six,seven years.
And he says, hey, can I comesee you tomorrow?
So he comes.
So he comes to my office, seesme and says we had a huge
customer, me and my partner.
We lost it.
It was like 70% of our business.
You got anything I can do.
You got any ideas Like, whatcan we do together?
So it was during a time when itwas very difficult to get
people.
So I'm like how many people doyou have?
And he's like I got four people, but they're all in Columbia.

(19:29):
And I'm like Columbia, how am Igoing to do it?
People in Columbia what I don'tneed?

Speaker 1 (19:34):
people in Columbia.
I need people here.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
I need real people here.
What is people in Columbia?
What is that?
So, uh, so he picks up thephone and dials the girl and he
tells the media.
He goes I'm with a customer, soshe speaks perfect English and
he starts talking about ashipment that when LTL that had
to be pulled off and expeditedand she was handling it, she did
a perfect job.
And I'm like man, how much areyou paying her, what?
And I had like 30 people doingthis LTL brokerage and and I was
barely making money because LTLBrokerage is a crappy business,
man, if you ever did it, it'slike very difficult.

(20:05):
It's very difficult becausethere's always relays and claims
.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
Talk about that for a minute because I haven't gotten
into LTL a lot in this podcast.
I mean, there's an opportunityfor you to educate our audience.
What are the challenges of?

Speaker 2 (20:15):
LTL Brokerage.
So LTL Brokerage's challengesis the archaic measuring system
in which they classify stuff.
So everything is classed andeverything's reclassed and
reweighed, and this dimensionprograms and shippers are always
trying to scan the classes.
So they're you know it's justand there is always.
You know it's, it's alwaysdelays and damages no-transcript

(20:49):
to.
Then you got to call them andfigure out why they're short,
paying you $30 and argue withthe carrier.
And I'll tell you a story One Iended up talking to XPO.
I emailed Bradley Jacobs.
He actually talked to me aboutit.
This was back when he wasmaking acquisitions and I'm like
the smc3 decide that they'regoing to get rid of a class.
Okay, they're just going to getrid of this class.
No, we don't want it to existanymore.
We're going to get rid of it,okay.

(21:10):
Well, all my shippers that usethat class ship for six more
months under that class.
So they keep, they keep billingfor the new class, which is
more money, obviously.
They keep billing for it.
So I'm getting these bills.
All of a sudden it's also nowXPO like $180,000 of this, of
this new class.
I'm like I don't understand this, what, what is so?
When they finally explained tome, I understand.
And I'm like, so you mean totell me, you all get together,

(21:33):
you change class, you don't tellanybody.
And then you just you expect usbecause, and then you do it
until we cry and scream and youcut our account off.
How does you do business likethat?
So I emailed Brad Jacobs.
I'm like this is absurd, like.
And so he ended up gettinginvolved.
I got it settled and uh, andthen I realized okay, not got me
once, don't get me again.
And uh, so just like littlenuances, like that it's, it's

(21:58):
crazy.
And you have to go to SMC three.
They're like the, they're likethe LTL rate mafia, so it's, I
mean it's, it's just a.
I mean, listen, in the end,when you look at the global
trends and the worldwideexpresses and the echoes that do
a ton of this LTL stuff.
And I had to do it because Iconsolidated LTL.
So I would put a trailer.
I had a.
You know, I had a big uh whenWatkins sold the FedEx I I hired
like 27 of their sales reps inFlorida and all this LTL

(22:19):
business came.
So I would put a trailer intoan account and pick up all the
freight, bring it back to thedock, peel off all the good
stuff that I wanted going tocalifornia, chicago and the good
areas three pallets or more andI give all the ones two pallets
going to the shitty areas tothe lta carriers, and so that
business was lost.
Leader, I'd lose money on it,and so when I moved that
operation, down the lost.
The lost leader was the one, two, three pallet stuff, yeah, but

(22:42):
the, the, the good stuff.

Speaker 1 (22:43):
How did that pan out for it?

Speaker 2 (22:45):
it's.
I would, I would consolidate,I'd build trucks, put four or
five stops on a truck and havefour dollars a mile going out of
florida.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
So I mean that's, it's crazy I'd have, I'd have
crazy you're making two, threethousand bucks a load, and then
I would get a load out.

Speaker 2 (22:58):
I would go to chicago final in chicago or minnesota
and I get a load from ch or echo, command or Coyote or any of
those guys back to Florida.
One pick, one drop, right backto Florida, because that was
easy, you know, to find a truckin Chicago or Minnesota that's
begging you for a load toFlorida, you know it doesn't
really exist.
So I would put all and I had150 company trucks, so I would
send all my trucks out with hugerevenue load to ride and I

(23:19):
bring them back with a one pick,one drop.
And I did business with all thebrokers in the country because
when I'm talking to them aboutgetting a load to floor back in
the floor, I'm like, hey, yougot any LTL, you got any LTL,
where do you go?
And I had California, northeastand Florida, so I started doing
their LTL out there.
I mean, that's how, I don'tknow, do you ever you had to
hear the story of how I met Mattat arrive?
No, no, tell me, you never heardthat okay, so fast forward,

(23:43):
because we only got a shortperiod of time.
If I keep rambling on, we'll behere for like two days no,
you're doing great, it's sowonderful.
So jeff maser of courseeverybody knows the legend jeff
maser.
So jeff maser gets on a grouptext in ohio and says hey, my
rough life, I gotta go back downto columbia for work.
This is brutal and he's beingyou know, he's being sarcastic.
You know another three days ofknow drinking and partying and

(24:03):
rough business.
So this got.
So everybody starts chiming inthis group chat and Facebook,
going ah, when are you going totake me, when am I going?
And it turns out Jeff's bestfriend, rod's son, is best
friends with Matt Pye and MattPye is in the group for some
reason.
So Matt chimes in.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
What's the timeline of this?
This is 2017.
He's at arrive at this point,or he?
Yeah, he started arrive.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
This has to be 2013.
When did he?

Speaker 1 (24:30):
start arrive.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
I think was 2014.
Okay, so it had to be 2015.
It was when he had just, he wasonly he was, he had just
started arriving.
He's like eight months inbusiness, seven months in
business.
So he.
So he uh chimes in what's,what's the business you got to
be in?
To go to columbia.
You know, I'm sure, I'm sureMatt liked Columbia so he wanted
to go to Columbia.
He's like what business you gotto be in?
So Jeff goes the logisticsbusiness.
So Matt writes back in the chatI want to see if Jeff has that

(24:54):
still today, because that'd bepretty cool.
He writes back in the chat I'mgoing to be the fastest growing
logistics company ever.
You need to take me to Columbia.

Speaker 1 (25:02):
So Jeff's like what.
I think I've sent a text likethat before, Not about Columbia,
but just about the areaAggressive.
I'm going to be the best.
I probably sent that text tohim.

Speaker 2 (25:16):
Yeah, he probably recycled that text, re-gifted it
.
So Jeff ends up on a call withhim.
It just so happens he's comingto Florida that weekend to come
down and see a customer who's inMiami.
So Jeff tells me who it is.
So of course I look it up andI'm doing business with him.
I'm like, oh, we have to arriveout of, out of California.
And then I look at what we'redoing and it's one of my direct

(25:36):
customers that he stole from me.
And I'm like, look at thiscompany called Leonard Parker.
I'm like, why is he gettingLeonard Parker and Lee?
My partner is best friends withthe owner of Leonard Parker and
I go into Lee.
I go how much are free to abroker?
This is your best friend.
He goes I don't know, dave, I'min the accounting side, you run
sales.
So of course Matt flies in.

(25:56):
So I tell him I go.
I go yeah, you know you'rehauling my customers, you're
giving me my customers freight.
He goes what?
I go?
Yeah, but I go keep it whatever, I don't care.
Like you can have it, itdoesn't matter.
So we start talking to him andwe hit it off and he goes.
I tell him what we're doing inColumbia.
He goes man, I'm going to growlike crazy.
Like you, you need me as acustomer.

(26:17):
So we plan a trip, we go downto Columbia, show him the
operations and he immediatelybecame our first biggest
customer.
And then from there it justfelt like dominoes everywhere we
went and that's how?

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Just for those that aren't familiar, because you're
new to the podcast game, we gotto make sure the audience you
and I are friends.
You and I are friends, so itfeels like we're just catching
up, but the audience has to stayup with us.
So what you're talking about islean staffing, what's known as
lean Solutions.

Speaker 2 (26:42):
Now, sorry, lean.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
Solutions.
What was once Lean Staffing nowLean Solutions, the largest
near-shore staffing business inthe industry, which was started
by yourself, dave, and RobertCadena, who you?
Mentioned before.
And yes, Pyatt and Arrive wereyour first big customers.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
They were the first big one, Like ARL was one of our
first customers.
Yeah, they were the first one tosay give me 100 people.
We used to put on five people,10 people.
We thought we were king of theworld, ringing the gong like
it's going no tomorrow.
And Pat and Pi is like give me100 people and I'm going to grow
to 500.
We're like what?
So we went out and get bigoffices and so he was the first
one.
I think when he came on we hadmaybe had 100 employees total.

(27:24):
When he came on, like we juststarted really going hard in 14,
15 and 16.
I told Robert, this is a realbusiness, get out of this
logistics thing, because Robertran the LTL brokerage portion.
He ran that in Columbia.
So I said listen, we bought himout of that.
We gave him a nice severancepackage and said go be the CEO
and start this company.
I did the business plan.

(27:45):
I laid it out.
I went down to Columbia.
I had a friend who was in thecall center business.
He went to Columbia with me.
He said, dave, I think this isan opportunity.
He gave me the financial proforma which was what made me do
Lean Solutions, lean Staffingback then.
I'll never forget it was aspreadsheet he sent to me.
It has all the costs plugged in, it has revenue per seat
plugged in and it has EBITDAplugged in here, so I start
plugging in.

(28:06):
Okay, what am I going to bill?
Back then we were billing$1,500 a seat.
I mean it's crazy.
Back then I think it's $2,600,$2,700 a seat now because the FX
and inflation and everythingit's doubled.

Speaker 1 (28:20):
So I plug in $1,500 a seat and I plug in $100 and I
plug in that's $1,500 a seat amonth.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Gross a month yeah, that's the cost of what Lean was
billing a customer back thenper person, all included,
everything included and, like Isaid, now it's like $2,500 to
$2,700.
So I go plug it in.
I plug in one seat of $1,500,10 seats of $1,500, 100 seats,
1,000 seats, and I'm watchingEBITDA, ebitda and 10,000 seats,
and so I just decided to put anenterprise value there,
conservative, like like 10 XEBITDA, and at 10,000 seats it

(28:49):
got to over a billion dollars ofvalue.
And I'm like what?
So I call up Ed, I go, ed, I go, is this right, he goes, all
right, run through, he goes,yeah, he goes.
You can you think you get10,000 seats?
I go, I think I can.
Man, like it's's logistics, likeit's huge.
I'm more, I'm worried.
I got 50 people down theremyself.
I got customers coming andthey're dying, they're begging
me, give me people.

(29:09):
Set up my satellite office.
Like was what we coined theterm set up your satellite
office.
I said I think I can get, likeI'm just doing the math, like it
might take five years but Ithink I can.
And uh, they, they.
You know we're over 10 000seats down there now.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
so, uh, so it's pretty crazy it's cool because
you you were telling the storyof meeting robert cadena again
and how he had you get on thephone with one of his employees
who was in columbia.
That's the whole genesis forstarting lean staffing, the
whole thing.
Like you and robert get on thephone with one of his current

(29:41):
ltl employees that happen to beworking in one more step.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
That happened that made the light bulb come on.
So at that moment I didn'tthink about lean staffing, it
wasn't even a thought.
I thought about me, I thoughtabout Smith.

Speaker 1 (29:49):
You were just like I should put some employees down
there, because 30 people inTampa.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
I'm losing 500,000 a year on this lost leader
business of these one and twopallet LTL brokerages.
Robert here saying, listen, Ijust lost my biggest customer.
I can handle all that, all thatbusiness and we could grow it
and I can make money with itbecause I'm staffing for that.
He was paying people $400 amonth so like I mean, he was
paying people way less.
So when I had, when I went,when I had the office, then we

(30:14):
were paying $400 a month, yeah,so that was reasonable for in.
Columbia Over 10 years ago.
Like I said, it's double, it'sover double now.
I mean, I think the average islike 900 plus taxes, plus you
know everything.
So that's why it's up as highas it is.
So it, so I started running it,we moved people down there, it

(30:35):
started going, and then and thenand then we started getting
like hey, is that person inColumbia?
Like that's that's interesting?
So we, so then I went and madea sales call.
I went, I went on a call on afriend of mine who had a food
business, shipper business thatI didn't do business with.
And it's another thing.
Like my kids played lacrosse.
So I'm at the lacrosse game,his wife's there and he's not
there and I'm like, hey, where'sTodd?
They're like, oh, our logisticsmanager quit.
And I'm not the kind of guy Inever asked friends for business
, like if you're my neighbor,i'm't.

(30:56):
I just wasn't my style.
So I said, oh, he's in.
He lost his logistics manager.
Well, if I can help, let meknow.
You know, I, that's what I'm,that's what I do, let me know.
And so he immediately, likefour minutes later, text me.
You can help me with mylogistics problem.
I lost my logistics manager.

(31:16):
I have nobody.
It's a shit show.
Can you help me go to hisoffice Monday and I bring Robert
with me and Mazer and we'resitting there and I'm looking
and this guy's doing everythingon spreadsheets and paper and
this guy just up and left them.
So all these loads, and he wasdelivering to municipalities,
prisons, schools, frozen andrefrigerated LTL.
It was a shit show.
So I'm like I don't think I, Idon't think I want this freight.

(31:36):
But I like I said what if Igive you Mercurygate, I have
Mercurygate back, then you canwhite back, then you could white
label it.
I said I'll give you Mercurygate.
You'll put all your, all yourloads of Mercury gate.
So at least see what you have.
I'll see your carriers whenwe'll have a and then I'll give
you a couple of people inColumbia because I have an
office in Columbia.
I'll give you a couple of mypeople to manage it all and do
it and do all the work, and theyknow Mercury gate, so there'll
be able to get in.
And so he goes just let's go,let's do it, I don't care.

(32:02):
And he gives it to me.
So I go okay, robert, give melike two really good people down
there that could do this.
So he gave me two people and Imarked it up like 3X.
I think I was charging him like$2,500, $2,800.
We were paying nothing, so thatwas the first indication for me
.
I walked out and I said, wow,this is crazy, that guy.
When you're jumping in my lapand giving me the business and
signing the signing the deal,I'm like that's what I want to

(32:25):
sell and you're creating valuetoo, so it's not like you're
just charging a bunch of moneyand not doing anything.
No, I've always in sales.
I can never sell anything thatdoesn't create value.
Like you know, if you give me aproduct that is good and a
customer needs, I'll sell theshit out of it, but if you give
me something they don't need andcan't use, I I can't sell it.
Man, I don't want to sellsomebody something they can't

(32:45):
need, and it's just I can't.
So this was something I knew,this was something I knew I
could sell like crazy.
I knew it so, um.
So then two things happen.
So that happens Robert goes tothe Mercury gate conference in
Las Vegas they had a conferenceevery year and he's talking to
the guys at AIT and AIT iscomplaining about Mercurygate

(33:06):
because it's miserable.
You've got to wait months to getthe updates and customization.
And so Robert says the guy oh,we have our own Mercurygate
super user.
He goes what he goes yeah, wehave a and we have our own
Mercurygate super user down inColumbia.
We got a couple of them becausewe know we don't want to go to
Mercurygate to get shit done.
So we got our own super user.
He goes can I use them?
And Robert's like yeah, noproblem.
So he calls me and goes hey,our guy, can we like, use our

(33:28):
super user and do that, I go,he's begging you for a super
user at Columbia too.
So like within the span of aweek two people are begging us
for people in Columbia.
I'm like Robert, I think thisis a business.
So I went and wrote the businessplan and then I called Ed and
said, hey, how do I do this callcenter type business?
I want to do like a 50 seatpilot to see what it does and
sell it.
And then I just started goingto all of the people I knew and

(33:49):
like ARL and all these guys I dobusiness with and saying, hey,
you know you're talking to toJolene, put four people in
Columbia.
And then you know, you use themoney you're saving to boost up
sales.
So everybody bought it and wejust started getting like little

(34:10):
itty bitty customers three andfour people, three and four
people.
And then Piat comes along andyou know he's the whale of the
century.
I want off 400 people.
Give them all so.
And then it just morphed.
It just morphed into this crazybusiness.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Just for context, because I think it could.
It could sound bad, but I don'tthink, knowing it because I've
been part of it, it's not bad.
These are people who, withoutjobs like these in columbia,
would not have jobs to workright.
I mean, like there's not like aton of opportunity down there
that they'd be like.
It's not like you're takingadvantage of these people down,
no, no not at all.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
it's different today than it was then, because back
then there were no jobs.
Today Columbia is on fire.
Columbia is a hot LatinAmerican country that there's a
lot of work down there, so it'sway more competitive.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
now Is the work down there all the same type of work.
It's like everyone's caught onto this idea and it's call
center type work.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
No, no, no, there's a lot of call centers down there
but there's big companies downthere.
A lot of the work was inhospitality before, like you
know, before you know last sixyears, when, when it took off.
But these are, these areeducated kids like they're young
kids that they have.
They have a lot of americanizedschools down there.
So columbia is like the most,most like america in latin

(35:22):
america.
They study in english, like.
So there's a lot of englishinfluence and american influence
in colombia.
And so we tapped into that androbert knew it because his dad
ran, his dad's a retired admiralin the navy, ran.
He ran all the cruise shipsinto cartagena.
So we, we opened in cartagena.
Robert had this pool of likealready english-speaking
hospitality people that we wereable to tap into so like.

(35:43):
So for those people there's job.
For majority of the people inthese third world countries in
Latin America there's not a lotof jobs.
You know their poverty level.
But for this class of peoplethat are working in the
hospitality industry but they'renot, they're getting paid
peanuts.
So when we came along, we werepaying twice the average wage to
these hospitality workers andand it was amazing for them Like
that's what I wanted to clarify, Because when you're like we're

(36:04):
paying them nothing, it couldsound like you're taking
advantage, but you're not.
I mean it's relative to no.
No, no, robert, yeah, he's thething about Go ahead.
I was just going to say thething about this type of
business because we used youguys.
It was great and you guys.

(36:24):
We had some other competitorsthat we didn't get along with
and didn't like very much, butthe Rapido guys are really good
dudes, man, really good guys.
They have a good product.
Being in Mexico, they didn'treally step into our area.
We didn't step into theirs.
I like those guys a lot, man.
I saw them at your wedding so Iknow they're good friends of
yours and anything I could everdo for those guys happy to do it

(36:44):
.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
But what I was going to say is, when I looked at this
business I was trying tounderstand why does this make
sense?
And then you realize that Icouldn't get the kids I hired
out of Indiana and MichiganState and wherever these Big Ten
schools.
For one, they demanded at least40 something thousand dollars a
year, and two, they didn't wantto do the job of calling and

(37:12):
tracking a load or even three.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
As soon as they learned that job, they were gone
to someone else.
So you invest in them and thenthey're gone, like you put money
and time and then they're likethank you for the experience,
I'm gonna go use you to getanother job so.

Speaker 1 (37:25):
So the alternative is individuals in Columbia, where
there's not as many good jobsand, yeah, I'm paying a fraction
now of what I would be payingto someone here and they
actually maybe enjoy the workit's at least more enjoyable
than what they otherwise wouldbe doing.
So, like it's just theopportunity available in both
countries that makes it veryattractive to want to use
companies like lean, because,like, it's just a a very

(37:48):
different opportunity availableto these individuals versus
what's funny too, because whenwe first started it was uh, it
was nick, ryan and hunter.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
They were the first one.
They were in a little office inthe back of my logistics
company selling lean.
It was like a closet they werein and I used to walk in in
there hey guys, what's going on?
And one day I walk in and Nickis someone that slams the phone
and they go man, this is toughman.
I'm like what's so tough aboutit?
Nick, tell me he goes.
This guy just hung up the phoneand said putting people in
Colombia, that's un-American.

(38:16):
Bam, he's like all email.
Yeah, send him a brochure andsay listen.
So one of our partners back thenhe wrote a paper on why
nearshoring is patriotic and thepaper I don't know, I have to
see if we even still have it butit basically said that people

(38:37):
don't want these jobs.
It's like trying to say oh, youknow, all these jobs that we
want Americans to have, theydon't want to do and companies
are investing into them and thenthey're leaving and they have
to replace them and it's mundane, low-level back-office jobs.
Put those there.
Use the savings you have toinvest in real jobs.
People want sales and good jobsand use that in your business

(38:59):
to grow your business.
For every two people you havedown there, if you can hire one
salesperson here, you're doingAmerica a favor.
You're creating jobs that couldactually pay the bills.
And so he wrote a paper on itand we started and we gave it to
them to like send out.
When anytime somebody says thatand you know it's Nick was the
funniest ever.
So I told I told these guys,listen, I'm too busy, I don't
have time to teach you how tosell.

(39:19):
These are young guys You'retalking about.
I think Nick was 24, hunter was19, 20, and Ryan was 25, 24, 25
.
And they had really no salesexperience.
So I'm like I don't have timeto cheat, you Go get a.
So they went on Jordan Belfortstraight line hiring and took
the course and so I would getthe calls in and I would laugh.
I mean, hunter and Ryan werepretty much steady, average

(39:41):
salespeople, to be clear theseare your children we're talking
about.

Speaker 1 (39:44):
Yeah, Ryan, again, the audience doesn't know this,
but Hunter and Ryan are two ofyour kids Ryan's my oldest son,
hunter's my youngest son.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Ryan's given me three grandkids already.
Hunter just gave me my secondgrandkid to make five, his
second, so I have five.
And then Nick is like anadopted kid with me.
I kind of adopted Nick and tookhim out of college in Minnesota
from a friend.
So I get this call and it'slike it's Nick and Nick.
If anybody I want to know,people that know Nick, could
laugh about this.
If you don't know Nick, it'shard to laugh about it.
But I'm listening to this calland it's like hey, joe, yeah,

(40:14):
hey, it's Nick, it's Nick, deadsilence, okay, nick, nick says
nothing for like eight seconds,awkward as hell.
He's like, yeah, it's nick,from, from lean.
And he's like nick, what do youwant?
Like spit it out.
Oh yo, we're near story, haveyou heard of us?

(40:34):
And he ends up closing the guyand I'm like nick, you're so
freaking, weird and awkward,it's different.
Just keep doing it.
Keep doing it because like it'slike if this awkwardness is
creating you're not just theaverage, go right, and how you
doing, how's the weather, whatyou're doing, this bullshit, you
know pitch that everybody does.
And so it worked for him.
And and then he got sodiscouraged because it was very
tough to sell lean man for thefirst two years it was.

(40:57):
It was hard and nick wasthinking he was going to fail
and he was going to move home toMinnesota.
I believed in lean so much.
I go, nick, and what happenedis Nick's apartment was up his
lease where he was staying.
He had to go get a new place,he had to buy furniture and do
all that and he was strapped forcash.
And I go, listen, nick, Ibelieve so much.
I went and bought a townhouse, Ifurnished it and I put him in

(41:19):
there.
I said, listen, you can rent itfor the next six months and if
it doesn't work then I'll keepit as an investment property.
I'll rent it out.
And I put him in a nicetownhouse right next to the
office and I said you stay hereand do this.
I promise you it's going towork, man, I know it works, I
know it does.
It worked for me.
I got 50 people Works for me.
It'll work for every logisticscompany, I promise you.

(41:47):
So he got back in and he justgrinded.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Then we started doing the TIA trade shows and the
freight waves, and and thenRobert spun out and so he stayed
and and he's crushed it, he's,he, he's done amazing, yeah, all
of them have done amazing.
Yeah, Hunter closed me I.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
Hunter got my business.
I'll never forget that.
He was up in college, he wasworking out, he was an intern.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
He was an intern.
You know, I get a lot ofLinkedIn messages from people
selling me.
I get a lot of emails frompeople selling me and there was
something about getting aLinkedIn message.
Oh yeah, of course I break alot of people's balls.
I got to mess with people alittle bit, you did.
Especially once I know I likesomeone and I know I'm going to
give them business, that's whenwith them a little bit more but
something about the fact thatthe intern had the kind of uh,

(42:24):
the gusto to just get right intothe ceo's inbox and be like,
hey, I want to talk to you, likeI love that.
I mean, I, I am probably morelikely to take a call from an
intern than I am a salesperson.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
I, I'm the one who did that.
I coined that.
I said listen, nobody wants tohear from fucking sales jerks
like they don't have no time.
I get them all day long.
I don't want to hear from.
I give them two seconds, I'mlike thank you anyway, and I
don't want to be have bad saleskarma.
I go listen, tell me you're anintern, you're cutting your
teeth, you're getting your feet.
Everybody wants to help the kidtrying to get, trying to cut his

(42:59):
teeth and get and.
And we did it, and Nick did it,Ryan did it, Hunter did it.
Nick's still doing it today.
Nick's still saying, hey, I'man intern.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
No, see that I don't agree with.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
No but all my guys did that, so we used that and it
fucking worked.
Man, it worked great.

Speaker 1 (43:12):
So finish your story with Hunter, because I think I
fucking love that story hereached out and I he was an
intern and I was like you knowwhat, I'll give him the time of
day and uh, and, and that wasthe beginning of a long, really
strong relationship.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
Because then he turned it over to Ryan and Ryan
closed you and got the deal andthen you said, no, no, no, I
don't want Ryan.
Nick the Hunter's my guy andRyan's like I'm not giving it to
Hunter and I'm like, dude, hewants Hunter.
And I'm like, because Hunterwent from being an intern in
college, he came home and nowhe's working, he's like, well,
it was mine.
And Ryan's like, no, he's not,I closed it.
I'm like Ryan I meantechnically, hunter got in, he's
here because of Hunter and I'mlike just split it whatever.

(43:48):
I mean I got two kids arguingover this account.
Yeah, you know what I wasthinking at that time I think it
was you got the businessbecause of Hunter.
No, but that's what I was goingto say.

Speaker 1 (44:03):
I always thought that the hardest part in sales and
brokerage is just gettingsomebody to give you the damn
time of day and getting somebodyto give you the opportunity.
For me, it's like Hunter gotthe door open.
I wanted him to get credit forthat opportunity.
Sorry, Ryan, he did Listen.
Anybody that has for thatopportunity.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Sorry, ryan, no, I just yeah, listen, it's just,
you know, when you have anybodythat has kids and sons and
actually as old as me and hasn'tbeen in business with them and
all that, like anybody like youhelped my kids, you helped
Hunter and you helped Ryan, likeI'll forever be grateful for
that, like when people help yourkids in business and like do
something like as a father, likethere's nothing that replaces

(44:43):
that.
So you did that and I'llforever be grateful and you were
a great account for them andMola still is, and Art Best.
So I appreciate that man andthey're doing great.
The best thing as a father is Ihave four great kids, three
boys and a girl.
Taylor also does some stuff forLane and trade shows and to

(45:03):
have great kids turn out.
I'm know your parents feel thesame way about you and I don't
think I've.
I met your other siblings, uh,at your wedding, I think.

Speaker 1 (45:09):
But I think I only know, matt, really I really only
know matt and uh, to have goodkids.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
Man, it's just like you the day you realize your
kids are okay and they havecareers and they're doing good,
it's like such a, it's such afeeling as a father.
So hopefully one day you get to, you get to feel that.
I know you're married now,hopefully you'll be having kids
soon and you know and you'llfeel that, but that's a great
feeling.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Talk a little bit about working with your kids,
like how do you think aboutraising kids in a way that
doesn't you know you?
You know, by the time your kidswere old enough to be certainly
influenced, you had some money.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
So, like you know, there was an opportunity to
screw them up with money.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
Yeah, no, I'm just curious.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
I don't know how it happened.
I don't know how it happened,man it's.
And people talk to me on Plisten.
I again every single personthat's ever met my kids, has
come back and told me I gotgreat kids Like and to me that's
the biggest accomplishment inthe world Like there's nothing
better than that.
I can make, sell companies andmake millions and do land big
customers.
There's nothing better feelingthan when somebody tells you

(46:11):
your kids are great and I, Idon't know why.
I mean, listen, their motherwas a big influence on them.
She was a stay at home mom.
She was, she was a great mom.
Every.
It was always a party at ourhouse.
It was always kids at our house.
Um, I don't know.
I don't know what it is thatmade them good and how they
turned out.
I mean, they lived the lifelike you know we lived.
We lived upper class life.

(46:32):
They had everything they wanted.
They never anything they wantedthey got.
Our toy room was a closed inthree car garage.
We had so many toys.
When kids came over we wouldgive them brand new toys and
games that were never opened asparting gifts to leave, just for
coming over.
We had a candy closet, not acandy drawer.
The neighbors would just wanderin our house and get candy and
cookies and leave.
I'd be in the kitchen and I'dsee somebody come in and go in

(46:54):
the candy and then just leave.
I'm like what?
That kid just, oh, he just cameand got some candy, so the
whole neighborhood had access toour candy cabinet.
So, like they grew up, you wouldwant to say they grew up
spoiled, rotten kids.
But they're not man, they'rehumble, they're good kids.
They work hard.
And I don't know.
I don't know what I did.
If I could figure out thatexact recipe of how I did that,
I could write a bestselling bookand crush it, but I don't know

(47:16):
what it is.
Man, I just worked hard.
I never listen, I never.
We, me and me and my ex neverwent out, we never party, we
never like when.
We never had date night, neverwent out on saturday nights,
never took vacations without thekids.
I just worked.
I worked 70 hours a week for 30years, yeah I just worked,
that's it.

Speaker 1 (47:32):
I was gonna say two things I know about you is one
you're a grinder, you work yourbutt off and still, even today,
as like an 80 year old man wholooks 50, I'm just kidding you
don't look 50, 72.
Just kidding.
That's the stem cell stuff wecan talk about that later.
Yeah, but as as as a matureadult, you've worked your butt

(47:52):
off and I think one of thethings I've always really
appreciated about you is youreally take care of people.
You know and I don't know thisfrom the perspective of people
who work for you, I can assumeyou take great care of people
who work for you, but you takegreat care of people anybody who
you really come across.
And when you and I first cameacross each other again, I guess
part of it was through Hunter,your son, but I've asked you for

(48:16):
favors before, I've asked youfor advice before and you've
never batted an eye from sayingyou've always tried to be there.
And it's one of the things I'vealways really appreciated about
you.
And even as I hear you kind oftell stories, it's clear that
you're a grinder, but you'realso somebody who takes care of
people and I think that's likesuch a great thing, a lesson for
a kid to learn Like.
One of the greatest lessonsI've learned from my own father

(48:39):
was essentially to like anytimesomeone asks you for help, try
to help them.
Like you can't lose in thosescenarios.
Like worst case, if you everneed help you can maybe ask for
it, but like it just feels goodto help people.
And um well, some people sayit's selfish.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
Some people say it's selfish.
What would I do Like?
Because I love helping people.
I mean I love like.
You know I've sold severalcompanies and when I write I've
made many millionaires and itmakes me happier to see them win
than myself win.
And I think a couple things Ireally instilled in my kids
growing up is a couple things isone don't fuck with other
people's shit.
People care about their shit.

(49:15):
Don't use it, don't break it,don't disrespect it.
Two, don't ever lie or stealLike.
That's the two things that, no,you can't.
Once you do that, you're done.
And the third is be the be thefriend in your friend group that
everybody counts on withoutfail.
You're on time.
If somebody gives you something, if somebody says, hey, we need
somebody to handle this, you,you need to be the nominee.

(49:36):
If you do that stuff, sky's thelimit, you'll never have a
problem.
And over and over, and, overand over again, it's my values I
instilled in them and told themthat's what you need to do to
be successful.
You don't need to go be adoctor or a lawyer or all that
bullshit and go to college andall that nonsense.
You need to be this person andyou'll succeed, and you also got
to have half a brain too.
I mean intelligence.
It starts with averageintelligence.

(49:57):
If you're below averageintelligence, I can't help you.
Like someone says, you can'tfix stupid things.

Speaker 1 (50:02):
Average isn't asking much.

Speaker 2 (50:04):
It's 50%.
If you're average and aboveintelligence, then you have a
chance.
And I said, if you do thosethings, if your friends look at
you as the one friend they cancount on, no matter what and
trustworthy, you'll get whateveryou want in life.
And I think they did that.
I think anybody that knows mykids know they'll drop
everything and help you.
You can trust them and count onthem.
They'll you know they're alwaysgoing to tell you the truth.

(50:25):
They're never going to lie orsteal from you and I think those
just core values right, likethose just simple core values.
And then everybody else asked meabout raising kids.
I'm like, just do what he sayshe's going to do.

(50:45):
And I always did that.
I just did If I said, hey,we're going to turn this car
around.
Boom, car got turned around andthey didn't stop and and and I
never had a problem with my kids, ever.
My kids were great, I kids infour years and we'd be at a

(51:05):
restaurant and they would belike your kids are the most
well-behaved kids I've ever seen.
Like, yeah, because that theyno doubt kicked their ass, we
will go to the bathroom.
So I never had to.
I don't know if I ever wouldhave.
But like, because you know Ilove my kids and nothing hurts a
parent more than discipliningyour kids.
But, um, but they knew likethey didn't, they didn't do that
.
They had great kids and stillgreat kids today.
Thank you, and hopefully, youknow, I have grandkids the same
way, because the generationstend to do things different.
But I think I think thoseunderstanding those core values

(51:27):
is is all it.
All it takes, and if you're aperson that has those values and
listen, like I told you, Iwould have done anything for you
because you helped my kids, youget.
You were a ceo that talked toan intern, that talked to ryan
and gave us business and like tome, if somebody always does a
little something for me, I do alot for them something back, and
that's that's always been myrecipe for for friendships and
and and having great people andI got.

(51:48):
I mean, I have people thatworked for me for 20 plus years.
You know, and you can't take mypeople.
If you're in business andnon-competes and all that, go
ahead, try.
You cannot touch my people.
My people love me because Ilove them.
You can't take them.
You're probably the same wayyour people kill for you and go
through a wall, like, like,because you'll do that for them
and if you do that, you know you, you're, you're, invincible

(52:09):
yeah, it's great.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
I mean, that was.
That was a great littlemonologue I was.
Thank you we're gonna probablymarket some of that clip on
linkedin for you, um, but it'strue.
I mean I I agree people on itand it's funny because I've seen
both sides of myself withpeople and I've seen points
where I've had an immense kindof love frankly is probably the
word trust and loyalty betweenmyself and people that I work

(52:32):
with.
And then I've also seen theother side of it, when I've not
been at my best and and it hurtsand it hurts to see how you can
impact people negatively ifyou're not being the best
version of yourself.
Anybody that knows you andknows that knows, you knows the
real.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
You too, you know, listen, we all go, we all do
shit and shit happens and thingshappen.
But like you're a great guy,man, everybody knows you.
I never heard anybody say a badword about you and you too go
out of your way to help peoplein the same way.
And you just, you know, listen,you're just young, you know,
you're young man.
We all, when we're young, weall do shit.
Like, everybody does differentshit, you know, just matter what
it is, but everybody does shit.

(53:05):
Nobody goes through the youthwithout doing shit.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Yeah, I mean, it's part of how you grow.
You have to do some reversionin life and that's how you grow
from it.

Speaker 2 (53:13):
Exactly and who you become, and all the people that
went through this stuff with yousee who you become and then
that's it.
They know who you are, man.
It's, it's and that's how youbuild.
You're only 30.
I'm 24 years, almost 25 years,older than you, and that's all
that's.
The only thing I have is 25years.
It's same shit like, and you'regonna, you're.
You're starting, you know,early.

(53:33):
You have the luxury.
A lot, of, a lot of peoplearen't where they, where you're
at, at 30.
You know, I'm saying like youknow, to I'm saying Like you
know to be where you're at at 34, but they're not where you're
at at 34.
They're still out doing stuffand haven't got their life
together yet.
So you know you're going to beway ahead of everybody when
you're my age, you're going tobe doing the same shit to
34-year-olds.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
I can only hope so.
Well, listen, let's use thisopportunity to get about your
new business phone ops ai.
What prompted you wanting toget so for one, I mean, as we've
talked about, I appreciate howtransparent you are and
hopefully that doesn't come offto people as a negative that

(54:11):
you're so honest about.
Like some of the success you'vehad, um, I've had failures too,
man it's.

Speaker 2 (54:16):
You know I'm not.

Speaker 1 (54:17):
You know I've had lots of fail ups and downs and
and failures, but we don't wantto talk about those, but yeah,
so what I was going to say isyou've had a ton of success.
You've had a ton of success.
You don't exactly need to getback into grinding a new
business at 55, 54 years old.

(54:37):
What's inspiring this?
Why are you wanting to start anew business now?

Speaker 2 (54:43):
So I mean hopefully just keep trying to shorten the
story down.
So the evolution of Lean wecame in, we me and Robert built
it.
We got great private equitypartners FTV, lead, edge,
capital, great partners and wegrew the business and with any
business it grows, it outgrowsthe founders and needs to get to
the next level.
So we started transforming leanabout a year and a half, two

(55:05):
years ago and bringing in higherlevel c-suite.
You know, roberts never ran abillion-dollar company and it's
miraculous where we got to whereyou are.
I've.
You know the lean was the firstbillion dollar company I was
ever involved in.
So they started bringing inhigher level c-suites, stacking
the c-suite, stacking it to be aprofessional company, to go to
the next level, and Lean shouldbe a $5 or $10 billion company
in the next three to five years.
So they start stacking it.

(55:25):
So we started getting kind ofpushed out a little bit and a
little bit less important.
These really smart people comein and transform the business.
And so I was really the firstto take a big step back because
I ran sales.
So I basically ran sales and Ioversaw finance and Robert
oversaw operations.
In Columbia.
We brought in a high level CFOfrom Pepsi, the Ivy Leaguer, and

(55:48):
he's smarter than everybodycombined.
And so he took the finance overand kicked me out and said I
don't need your help, I knowmore than you.
And I'm like, okay, go ahead.
And so it got me out of thefinance.
So I just focused on sales andthen about a year later, as I
look for a CRO to replace me inthe sales which is a tough thing
to do because pretty much allthe sales guys at Lean grew up
in my house.
If you go to David, bowen andDrew and Kevin, these are all

(56:10):
poor groups that grew up in myhouse.
These are all like my kids, soI can't just turn my kids over
to any CRO that comes in becauseI have to find the right person
.
So they were breaking my ballsto bring in a CRO because I'm
not a CRO.
Cro comes in and writes astrategy and does all this shit.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
I just go get business, let's talk about what
you need and I'll make sure it'staken care of you.
Tell me exactly what you need.
I will make sure you get it.
That's how you sell, that's howI sell.

Speaker 2 (56:38):
I'm with you, yeah, yeah, but private equity wants
structure and presentation and40-page PowerPoints and $300,000
consultants to come in andwrite playbooks.

Speaker 1 (56:49):
So that's what a CR does $3 million.

Speaker 2 (56:50):
Consultants $3 million.
Yeah, I remember when you toldme you were paying like $250,000
or $400,000 to get a logo.

Speaker 1 (56:57):
I'm like what $250,000 for the logo six months
after I got our old logotattooed on my ass.
Yeah, that was great.
I do love the new logo we gotyeah, no logo.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
New logo was good, but I'm like what?
What did you pay 250 for?
a logo and then all of a suddenthey're paying 250 for some
study.
I'm like, okay, I guess I'msame idiots.
But whatever it worked, theywrote a great playbook, and so I
.
So they were breaking my balls,we need a new seat.
You got to get a cra becausethey want to go through another
transaction, do a liquidityevent.
We've had three liquidityevents at lean, so they want to
do another one and and cash out,because lean grew like six, x

(57:25):
in like two years.
Like I mean, it was crazy theirgrowth.
So so I meet.
So I finally say, listen, I'mlooking, man, I'm just don't see
anybody.
So I need the right guy.
It works so, so, so.
So they tell me in February,two years ago, listen, you got
to tell me to hire a CRO.
I'm like, okay.

(57:49):
So so April comes and I don'thave no prospects and I'm like,
listen, I don't care, man, youguys can kick and scream all you
want doing it.
This is my, this is like mymulti-generational wealth.
I'm not jeopardizing and I'mnot taking these kids and
putting them in the hands ofsome moron not happening.
So incomes, chris Strambiello,first time I sit down with Chris

(58:11):
, I go what's the most importantthing with you?
I got.
We have a bunch of kids herethat are working and they're
under 30.
How do you feel about that?
He goes, I can't wait to mentorhim.
Like I love mentoring youngkids.
Like like I want to take thesekids under my wing, I want to
teach them, I want to build, Iwant to, I go, I, and that he
just had me from that, becausethat's what I was looking for.
I was looking for somebody totake my kids off of me and like,

(58:33):
make sure they were in goodhands.
And we talked and talk, talk,and I loved him and I, so I
didn't say anything and then Iknew they were going to press me
.
They're like what are you doingabout the CRO?
This guy, chris, I'm like I'm,I'm, I'm thinking about it.
I was hiring him the moment Imet him.
So I finally back to all right,I'll hire him.
I didn't want to go too fastand give up too easy.

(58:58):
So I hired him and he, chris,has been amazing.
Chris is, he would have been agreat sales rep.
Down and dirty, go get it.
He's learned process and scaleand like he's learned all the
shit that they teach you, likein school and big companies that
I don't know, I don't know.
You know I can't do that shitand and he's learned it.
He's going to, he's going to.

(59:23):
He's like he has got the skill.
Like he in his phone heprobably has 150 CEOs of
logistics companies.
He could text and go what's up.
And they're like, how dare,what's up?
I mean, who has that at 27years old?
Like he's done incredible andand and Ryan and Nick are the

(59:44):
same way, drew and tyler and andI mean kevin burger like all of
these guys have just done crazygood under chris.
So I'm super blessed that christook over my, took that over
from me, you know.
And then uh, and then uh, kindof early middle last year, they
brought in uh jack frecker.
They took uh robert, made himexecutive chairman and brought
in jack, who's a high level ceo,great guy.
Like he's amazing, heunderstands how to take a
business from a billion to 5billion.
So like he knows what to do andseasoned and everybody loves

(01:00:07):
them, he sees it, he's peoplealready bought into him.
So they have a really greatteam there.
So I was sitting there like inFebruary, march of last year and
I'm like I'm worthless man I'm,I don't need me, like they
don't ask me.
They have meetings.
They don't call me.
Like they have, you know theydo events and I'm not invited.
They don't ask me to go.
It's like I'm not, I'm nobody.
I'm waking up like depressedand I got.

(01:00:27):
You know I have other ventures.
I do.
I, you know.
You know I have the stem cellcenter down in Antigua which I'm
very passionate about.
I mean, we've we like a projectfor me that I love and wait,
what is that?

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
hold on hit me on that for a second.
You've treated kids with autism.
What does that mean?

Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
to treat so kids that have autism in the earlier
stages, like 6 to 12 years old,before puberty, they'll get stem
cell treatments and havemiraculous results, like we have
kids.
Sergio, that works for lane.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
An example of a miraculous uh.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
So sergio alvarez at lane has uh, has two twins and
his uh eight-year-old son hasautism and Sergio is another one
that I've known 20 years.
It's worked for me.
So his son went down and gotstem cells.
When they took him down, theybasically have to sedate him on
the plane Can't be in anenvironment with noise like
can't sit, still doesn't reallyspeak and they went down and got

(01:01:18):
him stem cells and then wenthome.
The next day got on the plane,watched his iPad, no problem.
Went to school the next day theteacher said who's this kid?
Like they've had miraculousresults, like insane, and they
treated multiple people afterthat Is cure the word.
I don't know if it cures, but itbasically reduces the
challenges.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How does that work?

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
It's stem cells.
So if you know the history of astem cell, your body starts as
one stem cell.
Your stem cell creates yourwhole body.
Stem cells deploy and buildyour whole entire body,
everything about it.
So stem cells basically go inand it's regenerative medicine.
Um matter of fact, I, I did, uh, I got this book that our
doctor that's involved with.
He just asked me hey, my newbook just came over.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
I can't see it lifespan decoded how to hack
your biology for a longer,healthier life by pradeep albert
and so pradeep albert is one ofthe most amazing humans on the
planet ever.

Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
He's our partner and runs the stem cell center.
He's, he's incredible.
So, like he wrote a.
He also has a textbook onamazon, uh, stem cells.
And so if you go to our stemcell center, uh,
wwwstemcell123.com, and and it'sit's, it's a pretty simple
website.
It's a pretty simple website.
I was pretty came up with that,so pretty great.
So like, if you anything on, dothat like it's it's.

(01:02:31):
You don't need it yet Causeyou're only 30, but like it's
been life changing for me, likeI have no aches and pains and
back on track.
So Chris comes in.
Chris has done an amazing job.
So I find myself just You'refeeling less valuable.

Speaker 1 (01:02:47):
I'm not happy.
I feel like I'm worthless.

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
I feel like I'm not helping anybody, I'm not adding
value anywhere and they'repaying me.
I'm getting paid, nice, andthey're basically paying me to
do nothing.
And I still own a piece of thecompany.
I'm still a stockholder.
But I want to add value and itjust appears like they don't
want me to add value.
They just want me to stay awayand let the new team take over,
which is normal it happens in abusiness.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
That's what they do.
Yeah, you know it's hard,especially when you have people
who are.
A challenge for someone likeyou is people will be loyal to
you and so like it's hard whensomeone new wants to come in and
exert or have influence and italmost feels like there's
there's a, there's astranglehold or like a friction,
because people are like, do wego to the new guy?

(01:03:30):
Or but like we love Dave andlike he's always steered us the
right way, so I understand whythere would be kind of a
challenge there, right?

Speaker 2 (01:03:37):
Yeah, well, plus two, you know, they still want to be
connected to you.
So so you know I took it well.
I think I handled it well.
I think I did.
I think I transitioned it goodand I kind of stepped out.
And it wasn't easy, man.
It was emotionally draining,and especially when I'm working
with my kids, right, like I'm.
I'm in there every day workingwith these guys and motivating
them and I they were doing AI.
So I heard, I looked onLinkedIn, I saw one of the posts

(01:04:04):
I won't mention any of thenames because they're
competitors now but I saw thisvoice, ai, and I'm like wow,
that's interesting.
But it didn't sound that great,it sounded a little robot-y.
And so I called up my guys thatdo the social media because
they were doing chatting with AI, they were doing a content
creation with AI.
I mean, basically, they couldtake you and make you do
something and and show you in a,you know, on a beach surfing

(01:04:25):
and just with your image.
So I called him up.
I said, hey, what's this newvoice?

Speaker 1 (01:04:29):
AI is going to go back.

Speaker 2 (01:04:30):
They could give you that.
That's easy.
You can do that.
You can do that with yourself.
What do you want?
Bud Light, niccolo, what?

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
do you want?

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
No a six pack on my mind, obviously I know I'm
saying I can give you something.
So I called them up.
I said what's this voice agentstuff going on?
They go that's the LLM.
I go are we doing any of that?
They go yeah, we actually are.
We just started.
I go can you build me a?
Can you build me a one of these, whatever you call it they were
calling it voice agents backthen Can you build me one of

(01:04:59):
these voice agents that canbasically book a truck?
And so I sent them a fewrecordings of booking trucks and
they go yeah, it's not a bigdeal, we can do that.
So they sent it to me and I'mlike shit, this is pretty good
man, what can it do?
So I started looking.
Then I started really digginginto it.
Then I discovered there waslike a couple other people doing
it and they were like going,getting ready to go big in the

(01:05:19):
market and they raise money anddo all this.
So I said, shit, I need to movefast because this is going
somewhere.
Um, and I wasn't even sure whatI was going to do.
I just knew that something wasgoing to happen here and I
wanted to be involved in it andI didn't know what I was going
to do so I basically resignedfrom lean.
I flew up and told my privateequity partners listen, I want
to, I want to go do this aithing.
You, you know, lean is lean isdoing great, you don't need me.

(01:05:42):
And uh, uh, let me figure outwhat I'm gonna do with this AI
and come circle back to you andand I think it could be good for
lean, good for everybody and,and you know, I think I could do
something with it.
And so I went out, I puttogether a whole plan.
Um, I got, I got a, I got a uh,sample demo done.
We basically made a dashboard,basically so I could go out and

(01:06:03):
hustle up some investmentcapital.
And then I called with it.
I called our good friend, kevinNolan and I said, hey, I'd love
for you to be a partner in thisbusiness.
I think it's great.
And I've done a couple otherthings with Kevin.
We've had some success.
And you know Silk Creek Capital.
And he said so.
He said I sent, I gave him aquick demo.

(01:06:25):
He goes, let's do it.
So I said, all right, you know,I just I think we need 500K to
basically bootstrap and get itoff the ground, get a good
investment deck, get a reallygood dashboard and a demo and go
out and raise some real moneyto go put this, put this in the
market.
I'm like you know we can put inthe money, but like I don't
want to.
I don't want to put in my moneyand you know, anybody knows
knows me.
I'm in the middle of a divorcefour years now, pretty

(01:06:46):
contentious, so anything I do,they're up, you know, they're up
my ass.
So I'm like I don't really wantto use my money because I
should be trying to claim it.
So I need investment capital.
So I gave him the opportunity topeople he loves and cares about
and got them in on the 500.
So we basically went and did.

(01:07:06):
I got the demo, got thedashboard, I put together a
great team by, just by luck,like I had guys for ai and I
mean just, I just reached outand just so happens they're
perfect, perfect and we went to,we started building it and we
went and raised money and, uh,soap creek put together an
insane cap table.
We got 25 strategic people onthe cap table and we have all
freight people.
Like I don't want to.
I don't know who I can say andwho I can't say don't say any

(01:07:28):
names, it's fine, yeah, yeah,but everybody who's anybody that
is excited about ai.
And we're already got pilots offthe ground.
Pilots are up and running andwe should have we should have
that.
We should have back from thepilots in the next two weeks,
hopefully before, before BGSAand definitely before manifest.
We should have 10 workingpilots with good feedback and
have it ready to go to marketright before manifest.

(01:07:49):
And I have a saying and justlike in lean, I always had a
vision and and even in a freight, I always had a vision because
I used to say if I get ashipment today and a shipment
tomorrow, I should be the nextday and I and I always had so
lean.
It was 10,000 employees was mywhat.
I went, I woke up, went tosleep, I always said 10,000
employees.
I put it in everybody's head.
So I want to get to a billiontalking minutes, because that's
how you bill AI is, by talkingminutes.

(01:08:10):
I want to get to a billiontalking minutes within the next
three years and if I could dothat you know the average
billing talking minutes about 18cents, you can do the math I
think I'll build anotherbillion-dollar company and I'm
excited about it and it's notjust AI, because anybody can
build.
You could go learn and buildyou a voice agent to take your
calls and sound like you woulddo that.
But it's the actual experienceof a dashboard that makes it

(01:08:33):
effective for an employee.
That makes us different, andour dashboard will allow an
employee to just multitask andbe two or three, four times more
productive than normal, andthat's, I think, where we'll win
the day.
It doesn't just take a call andget a lot of the little
nonsense out of the way and thentransfer it to somebody that
can actually do something.
It actually allows the personthat can actually do something,

(01:08:53):
watch this stuff go on and theninteract in real time and take
it over.
So I think that's what willmake us different and make us
better at what we're doing isthe ability to understand what
employees need.
Because I've done every job inlogistics and having 10,000
employees doing every job inColumbia, I know what needs to
be done in every aspect, frompayables, receivables, pod
retrieval, tracking, tracingevery job.

(01:09:16):
I know how to do it and whatneeds to be done, and so we've
created a dashboard that theaverage employee at a company
like lean or anywhere can use.
That makes them more productive, um, in their daily work.
An example is if you're havingaccounts receivable rep calling
on accounts receivable, they'remaking, they're, they're picking
the phone and maybe 20% arecalls.
The rest is email and nonsense.

(01:09:38):
But you're calling to see whereyour money is.
They can make one phone call ata time, one pick it up dial ask
for the person.
Well, this dashboard allows theAI.
They're making 10 calls at atime, getting the people on the
phone, talking to them aboutthem, sending them their AR,
sending them invoices thatthey're missing, and if somebody
has an issue, the person canjust take the call over.
They can pick it up, click onthe box and pick the call up and

(01:10:01):
say, hey, I notice you'restruggling with my AI, let me
see if I can help you with this.
Instead of saying, transfer meto an agent, agent
representative, and trying toget the AI to get you to a
person, the person can actuallytake it over and it highlights
escalation words and so you cansee the person working, can see
these five or eight, 10conversations going on at once.
It can't be too many becausethen if they got to take over

(01:10:25):
five, then defeats the purpose.
But there'll be a number thatthey'll get to that says this is
how many calls I can manage.
And now they can watch it.
And then escalation words gethighlighted and yellow and red
and the success of the calls are.
You know, smiley faces, regularfaces, frown.
You know simple stuff thatmakes it interactive.
And so now, if an accountsreceiver person can have five or
six phone calls going on at onetime and then picking one up
and getting it real effective,they're using their time for the

(01:10:46):
real stuff instead of wastingtime, and things like that are
what's going to make AI moreeffective.
Ai is not going to replacepeople and do the job from start
to finish with no audit, notrail, no human making sure it
was done right and anytime soonthat I can see in logistics.
It's going to take time, youknow, a few years, but now it
can make people more effectiveand better.
If you could take a call centeremployee at lean that, you're

(01:11:07):
saving money already and nowmake them twice as productive.
It's just more value, more ROI.

Speaker 1 (01:11:13):
A hundred percent.
I mean I'm curious, can youkind of help me understand?
So like the name is clone ops,so in essence you know stand.
So like the name is clone ops,so in essence you know the
concept is to clone theoperation, clone your best
people, yeah, yep.
And like how far does this go?
Like what functions in thebusiness, like you mentioned, ar
what other?

(01:11:33):
Functions in the business.
Does this make sense to workwith?

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
so I mean we're, we're tackling all kinds of use
cases.
So a lot of the use cases are,you know, the pod retrievals,
the document retrieval, um, youknow, accounts payable, carrier
sales, like inbound carriersales is the biggest one
everybody's tackling becausethat's where the money is for
people.
Like people are looking at like, okay, where, where can I make
the biggest impact in logisticsand reduce, reduce their cost

(01:12:00):
per load?
It's in carrier sales, right?
So most and you know you were abig volume broker you know that
your inbound calls likesomewhere between 20 and 40% of
your calls go unanswered, lefton hold.
You pick it up and it's, it's atire kicker.
You don't even want to talk tothe person but you got to give
them the time of day and 30seconds where you can get them
off the phone.
So what ours is doing is youknow it's taking that inbound

(01:12:20):
call, it's identifying who it is.
It's saying, okay, this is a,this is a high value asset or
low value asset, no value asset.
That's on the phone.
What attention does it need?
And it it?
It it?
Um, kevin Nolan calling me.
Should I take the call duringthe podcast?

Speaker 1 (01:12:37):
No, no, I'll probably screw up your recording.

Speaker 2 (01:12:42):
Oh well, okay, or whatever.
So these inbound calls don'tget vetted.
They sit on hold.
You don't know who's in holdand what queue.
So what this will do is it'lltake the inbound call and it'll
prioritize it and categorize itso people can see these are the
people in the queue talking toAI.
Do I want to grab one of these?
If you have your big carrier onyour hottest load for your
customer and he's and he'stalking to your ai, you want to
take.
You want to pick that callright up so, like it's, as soon

(01:13:03):
as that call rings it getsanswered by ai and if that's who
it is, immediately what it is.
It matches to your system, say,is it a one truck guy, is it a
hundred truck guy, like it kindof like sizes it up in a
priority and now allows yourpeople to already have that
knowledge when they're you know,before they get the phone call
to find out who it is.
And so, like those inboundcalls are a big tackle because
you don't want to lose a carrier.

(01:13:24):
If a carrier calls in for aload, he's on hold and he hangs
up, you still want to know wherehis truck is and what's
available and who he is and gethim logged in some sort of
system so you have it in thefuture.
So that's a big one thateverybody's tackling.
That's a pretty easy one totackle, then you've.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
Well, hold on.
Before you go into outbound.
Let me just say one thing onthe inbound that is a massive
unlock.
People who have not run abrokerage or been active high
enough up in a brokerage do notunderstand that being able to
answer every call has, to thisdate, been an impossible thing

(01:13:58):
to solve.
And the abandonment rate, whichis the percent of calls that go
unanswered, is way too high.
And any broker that wants tocreate a quality experience for
their carriers cannot saythey're doing so well honestly
if they have a high abandonmentrate.

(01:14:18):
And it's just a really hardthing to staff because of the
way that the volume of callswork.
We're, on certain times,certain prices, certain days,
you're going to see way morecalls than others and you just
the the.
The number of people you haveto answer the, the calls to this
date is, is a finite number.
That is not going up and downevery day, but the number of

(01:14:40):
calls coming in is, and so justto be able to have a support
system through AI that can takethose calls is a massive unlock?

Speaker 2 (01:14:49):
Yeah, no, it is.
And you know I wasn't reallyaware.
I know I always knew there werecalls on hold but I never
narrowed it down to percentage.
And during the raise we'retalking about use cases and, the
most important part, we got tohit with these.
You know smart logistics people.
They said like these inboundphone calls are insane, like
people sit on hold forever andit's like we get tackled this.
And I said that's easy, likethat's one of the easiest things

(01:15:09):
to do.
And then we came up with let'stackle it, let's find out who it
is and prioritize the call too.
Because one guy with the owneroperator, with a truck that
doesn't need anything, is wayless important than the hundred
truck guy that's done five hotloads for you but you still want
to talk to the one guy.
But if you have to take yourbusiness and you have to say
what's more important right Atthis moment if you have a, if
you have a, uh, if you have areceptionist taking these calls

(01:15:31):
and answering every call, right,she's going to prioritize.
She's going to tell hey, andrew, you want to take this call.
The other guy get right after.
Like, you have to prioritize.
It's just the nature of thenature of the business.
I don't want to make it seemlike the one truck guy is not
important because he is but he'syour customer.
Your customer is the mostimportant right, because your
customer is a customer of thatone truck guy and the hundred
truck guy and that.
So everybody wants you to takecare of the customer first.

(01:15:52):
So you have to prioritize andmake sure you take care of the
customer first on those callsand that's what it'll do.
And so you want to get.
But you don't want to lose theone truck guy either.
You want to take care of him.
So if you can have an AI agent,speak to the one truck guy and
he's happy speaking to him andgiving the information and he
actually gets somewhere bygiving that information because
it's being logged now andsomebody gets back to him.
It's a win-win for everybody.
Instead of just being left onhold and left on hold and picked

(01:16:14):
up, oh you're held.

Speaker 1 (01:16:17):
Everybody somebody in that one truck guy can end up
being a hundred truck guy downthe road and he's going to
remember where he was treated,that's true, and the other thing
that you're now jogging mymemory about that I've seen
before in recordings is for oneI wanted our carry reps to be
the best of the best and Iwanted them to do things the

(01:16:40):
right way every time.
But with people you're notperfect and your team's not
perfect and sometimes people aregoing to do you know people are
going to do their.
People are emotional, they'reemotional.
People are emotional, butthere's also, people are going
to do whatever they are mostincentivized to do and in a
situation where a carrier reppicks up a call and has to put

(01:17:03):
it on hold for a second toanswer another call if the first
call is someone who's lookingfor information or doesn't seem
likely to be a load that's goingto get booked.
But the second call is someonecalling in on a big
money-winning load for you.
You're going to sit there anddeal with that guy all day and
let the other guy just sit onhold and marinate, and it's not

(01:17:23):
creating a good experience.
And the beauty at least what Ibelieve in if you can get the AI
recording to do exactly whatyou want, because there is no
emotion involved, because thereis no incentive to make more
money or anything like that thenyou can get rid of some of the
subjectivity.
You can get rid of some of thekind of poor decision making
that some of the reps happen tomake yeah, well, the reps are

(01:17:47):
busy too.

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
We used to have three phones on every desk.
You know, I'm saying like youhad.
You had two phones on hold, onephone here, one phone here,
your cell phone in the middle,like you were hustling.
And this does that because it'seasy too.
It's.
It's basically voice attendanton steroids.
That's as close to a human asyou can get.
It's not a human, but it's asclose as you can get, so
somebody can actually speak tothem.
It's not frustrating.
You have a conversation.
It's conversational.

(01:18:08):
It's a conversational voiceattendant instead of just the
typical.
Here's what I'm going to saynot interrupt me, and we can
make the voice soothing.
We can make it anything we wantto make.
We can make it your voice, likeyou can make it you.
You can create a style of voiceno, well, yours not but.
I said soothing then I said yourvoice.

(01:18:28):
I wasn't clarifying two separatethings but at the end of the
day, like, make the experienceand and I'm also promoting too
with all of the people we'retalking to I'm like let people
know it's ai to test it, try it.
Don't don't shove it on themlike they have to use it.
Let them want to use it.
So even in outbound sales right, we're creating outbound sales
programs.
That it's not a typical pitch.

(01:18:48):
It's hey, I'm AI, you believeme?
I'm AI for Molo Transport.
I'm in sales.
They got rid of all thesalespeople and it's just me.
Do you believe me?
Ask me a question, somethingthat's other than hey, I'm
calling with Molo.
The standard sales pitches aredead.
Nobody's listening to that.
If I hear somebody coming, hey,is this David Bell?
No, click, no, it's not me,click, definitely not me.

(01:19:09):
Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
So we're creating AI that makesit creative, because people are
curious about AI now and if youcould take that curiosity and
turn it into a door opener, like, it's great.
And we're building some reallycool shit because AI is going to
evolve and eventually I'll havean avatar of me on my website
that you can just click on andhave a full-blown conversation,

(01:19:30):
just like this, and it'lldownload all of me.
It'll know my voice, it'll knowme and you could literally have
this conversation with me as myAI and it'll look just like
this, just like me.
Just literally have thisconversation with me as my AI
and it'll look just like this,just like me, just like we're
doing this today, and it'll bemy AI.
So if I could do that on mywebsite and do a presentation
and do a demo right with anybody, anybody that wants an AI sales
pitch, I could do it like thisand hit it and give them the

(01:19:51):
sales pitch and ask questions.
I just 100Xed my ability toreach out to people because, to
schedule a discovery call, toget them immediately, they can
have their discovery call rightnow.
Let's schedule a discovery call.
No, let's do it right now.
You got three minutes, justclick there, boom, and you do it

(01:20:13):
instead of scheduling and doingall that Like if I can
transform sales to be able to dothat and have people accept
that form and be curious aboutit and test it.
Now sales just got put onmassive steroids, which
companies will massively scalebetter now, which means more
people, which means more AI.
So I think AI is going topromote and help companies grow
and help them, add people andadd opportunities for people in

(01:20:36):
the beginning stages of it tothe middle stages of it, before
it actually does somethingdrastic for people.
And in this business not inevery business, right, I mean,
some businesses are just goingto get rid of the people and
have AI and it's going to bewhat it's going to be.
But in logistics, I think it'sgoing to evolve.
And if we can use it and tapinto that curiosity and the

(01:20:56):
creativity of AI to help opendoors and be the ones who do it
with logistics companies, then Ithink it's a benefit.
I think it's something cool.

Speaker 1 (01:21:05):
So you mentioned being able to build.
Today, the average is, I guess,18 cents per minute, and my
question is as you described, itdoesn't take a lot to get this
kind of product up and running.
It takes intelligent people whounderstand how to build AI

(01:21:27):
tools.
It takes a little bit ofcapital, Not a ton though it's
not like it takes 10.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
But you didn't raise 10 million bucks to get this
going.
It's under a million dollars tohave a platform, fully up and
running, robust platform to doit.
You could get it done for undera million dollars.
You could get it built.

Speaker 1 (01:21:45):
So my question is there's a hype cycle right now
around AI.
Yeah, for sure, and there willbe benefits and value add.
We've already talked about it.
Just one exact example of theunlock with being able to get
rid of the abandonment calls.
But my question or concernwould be how do you make sure 18
cents doesn't become 17, become15, become 12, become 10,

(01:22:06):
become 8, become 5?
It will.

Speaker 2 (01:22:08):
It's going to be like the cell phones when cell
phones were $3,000 a month thephone bill and now they're 300 a
month.
It's going to be the same exactthing.
That's what I'm saying.
Like, the AI voice itself isnot exciting and that's that's
not where the value is going tobe created.
It's in.
It's in the, the dashboard, theintegrations, the partnerships,
creating the, the, the perfectprompt scripts, the perfect

(01:22:28):
database of 10 million callswith best practices, best
prompts, data, all the data.
Eventually it's going to becomeso.
We have we have basically whatyou know.
Most most people are using API.
We're using AI API.
Eventually, our agents willtalk AI API.
Is that something different?
Yeah, that's what we're workingon to come out in the future to

(01:22:48):
hopefully like be similar tothe next API.
Because if I have a voice agentthat's at a broker calling a
carrier, right, and now thesecarriers, now everybody has
these voice agents calling thesecarriers.
These carriers are going to betired talking to voice agents.
They're going to pick upanother voice agent, pick up.
So what I'm creating both waysis now, when I get a carrier,
now when I get a broker on board, we're looking at all the top

(01:23:09):
carriers they're using and we'reconnecting with those carriers
say, hey, we're going to createan agent for you, so our agents
talk to each other andcommunicate and both parties can
watch this communication go onand eventually that's like API.
You know what I'm saying?
It's basically what load do youhave, what load do you want?
Here it is, but there's so manyarchaic, you know,
non-technology companies thatare in this space.

(01:23:31):
There's very you know, it's anunsophisticated group of space
logistics and everybody doesn'thave the APIs and TMSs and
everybody.
There's a lot of small tomedium-sized companies that
don't invest in the technology,which is what holds up the
industry from being, you know,pure technology.
So what we're doing is we'regoing to create an AI for the
carriers and we're going tosimultaneously go down both

(01:23:53):
paths to get them both talkingto each other with AI and if we
can accomplish that, two yearsdown the road we'll just have AI
talking to AI and there'll onlybe exception handling what the
people are doing Village, ourfavorite Chicago-based area for
booking loads.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
I'm looking for four bucks a mile and I'm sitting
there and I'm not answering asingle phone call.
I'm talking to my girlfriendand I'm looking at my screen and
I'm on the Clonob's dashboardand I see 40 different calls
going on at the same time whereall I'm looking for is Probably
won't be able to hit 40, butfigure 10.
Call it 10.
I'm watching 10 calls go on atthe same time and all I'm
looking for is Probably won't beable to have 40, but figure 10,

(01:24:32):
you can reach it.
I'm watching 10 calls go on atthe same time and all I'm
looking at is the one columnthat has a dollar sign.
And as soon as that call getsto the point where your AI talks
to, I guess, your other AIabout the rate and it plugs that
rate in and the first one saystwo bucks, it turns red.
The second one says $2, itturns red.
The second one says $2.25, itturns red.

(01:24:53):
The third one says $4.10 a mileBoom, it turns green.
Now I tell my girlfriend holdon, let me look at this.
I look at it, I say, okay, Ilike that, I like that, I like
that, and I either can just bookit or I can jump into the call
and say, hey, this is Vlad.

Speaker 2 (01:25:12):
I want take it, or the broker will say, okay, let's
do it, but let me talk to Vlad.
You know you want to make sure.
Listen, I'm going to give you$4 a mile, but your ass better
have the driver there on time,he better have a clean trailer,
he better be good, he bettermake it overnight here, and
that's why I'm paying your assso much money and it better not

(01:25:32):
go able to get across.
So you're going to your, yourAI is going to want to talk to
Vlad and maybe the brokercarrier rep on the broker side
will want to talk to Vlad.
So and confirm it.
So you don't say, but you'renever putting that in AI's hands
only and then let it happen.

Speaker 1 (01:25:45):
In a lot of ways, what your dashboard and the AI
will do is just cut a lot of thenoise.
That is ineffective for me todeal with as a rep.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
Wasted noise and time , even to the fact where it's
like hey, andrew, how's thefamily?
What'd you do this weekend?
You have four lines holding butyou don't want to be rude and
like you're like oh,everything's great.
You know, last week how'd thatgo?
And you know you have the smalltalkers Like you want to do
that because you don't want todo it all day long while you got
people holding and so like, ifyou can just socialize when
you're ready and you have timeand you want to do that, you put
in your socializing time tomake, keep the relationships and
still seem human.
But you still got this work youwant to get done in a in a, you

(01:26:20):
know, a rapid fashion to moveon because it's the world's
moving faster and faster, it'snot going to slow down.
So you know that's basicallywhat we're trying to accomplish
with the dashboard and and Ithink we can do it I think it's
going to take time and adoptionand and it could do it for the,
for the guys that don't have thetechnology because all he has
to do is upload a CSV of histrucks and where they are and
the agent can go.

(01:26:41):
He don't have to be in his team, he don't have to be in any
system for a carrier, he couldjust have a CSV of his available
trucks and the rate targetrates that he wants and his
dispatcher can negotiate withthe broker calling, just like
you just described.
And it's a simple upload youravailable trucks and where you
want to go, where you're lookingto go, and what the rates you
want, and let it negotiate everybroker that calls in for your
trucks.
So like there's so many thingswe could do that we're building

(01:27:03):
and going to do, and that's myvision of it and and eventually
there's going to be just thisbig ai community that's moving
freight and the human communitythat's watching it happen and
handling exceptions is what Isee and I think that I actually
think some crazy shit's going tohappen.
I think sometime in the nextfuture three to five to ten
years, I think we're going to goto like a three-day work week

(01:27:25):
or a four-hour work day, becauseI think things are going to get
done so much faster and so muchmore productive and so much
quicker.
Because, again, ar making onephone call a day, not one phone
call at a time now can make 10,that guy booking trucks one
truck at a time can now book 10.
So I think it's going to get.
I think we're going to I don'tthink we're going to get rid of
massive people.
I think we're going to go toshorter work weeks and shorter
work days because people afterCOVID, people don't want to go

(01:27:46):
into office.
They want flexibility, theywant a job that they can have
more personal time.
That's evolving Like my olddinosaur generation of the
40-hour, 80-hour work weeks inthe office, grinding, doing
nothing.
I don't think that's in thenext generation.
My kids don't look at it thatway.
You don't look at it that way.
You want to have freedom,flexibility, time.
And I think we're going toevolve as AI does more work and

(01:28:09):
people do less.
I don't think people are goingto be gone.
I think they're just going to.
Companies are going to short.
You're going to go to work fora company that says we only work
eight to 12 and we get all thework done.
You want to work for us or youwant to go work over there,
where you got to work eight tofive and we're going to pay you
the same.

(01:28:30):
So, like that, I it's going togo to that, to working less, to
getting you know what I'm saying.
I think that's what it's goingto evolve to in my crazy
thinking.

Speaker 1 (01:28:37):
So I've heard crazier .
I've talked to this guy.
I was talking to this guy at a.
I was at a holiday party and hehas a business like yours.
He's.
He's a.
He's a few years ahead of you.
He's been doing this for.
He's been in ai for a while andhis business is the same thing
voice ai sales agents but it'snot in our industry like I think
he does a lot of the stuff for,uh, the nfl, like when they're

(01:28:58):
connected to me.

Speaker 2 (01:28:59):
Because we can, I will.
We can partner in this industry.

Speaker 1 (01:29:02):
Yeah, I'd be happy to connect you but let me tell you
what he's selling me on.
So for one, um he he believeswhat you just said will be
basically times 100, in that wewill actually get to a point
where most people are notactually doing any real work.

Speaker 2 (01:29:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:29:19):
The AI will become so proficient and so inexpensive
that it will do 99% of the work.
And he said, I think, what hisnumber was for one.
This was a kind of fascinatingnumber, but I think it's 11% of
the workforce today is incontent creation of some fashion

(01:29:39):
, and content creation can be abroad term here in terms of I
guess this would be consideredcontent creation and he thinks
that in, I think, 15 years thatnumber will be 60% and people
will make way less money.
Percent and people will makeway less money but people will
need way less money everythingwill be way less be in abundance
.

Speaker 2 (01:29:58):
Resources are going to be in abundance it's hard for
me to.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
I can't get, I can't wrap my brain around what that
looks like so.

Speaker 2 (01:30:06):
When I was, when we were looking for manufacturers
for our stem cells and sourcingfor stem cells, we went and met
with a bunch of differentcompanies and scientists and
what was funny is that that'slike the question what happens
when people live to be 200 yearsold?
Like, how does that happen?
Like if, if, if this really islongevity, what happens?
And their, their reasoning wasthis there's going to be way

(01:30:27):
more resource.
You have plant-based proteinnow that can be made in
abundance.
You don't have to put cows in afield anymore to get meat
protein.
They got plant-based protein.
Resources are going to becomeabundance.
Power is going to be comingfrom so many sources that it's
going to be cheap.
Everything is going to be somuch less expensive that you
have to work less.
People will do less, but theresources will be in abundance.

(01:30:48):
So there'll be countries likethe us will just have stipends.
Your food will basically befree if you want it, and it'll
be good.
Your, your electricity willbasically be free if you want it
and it'll be good.
They say it's going to evolve tolike all resources for required
for basic necessities, just toget by, are basically going to
be free.
And then the people that wantto go do something, there's
going to be more creative stuff.
That's going to happen becausewe're humans.

(01:31:09):
We're always going to evolveand create and go forward.
Those people that are creativeand want to do that will have
the opportunities to go do thatand build new things and new
ideas.
And I mean, if you imagine,before electricity was made,
nobody thought that we would bein a house with bathrooms and
lights and you look, then peoplewould have thought you were
crazy, but it seems likeeverything futuristic that comes

(01:31:30):
out of movies like 30 yearsbefore all of a sudden starts
evolving, right.
So I think that's what it is.
But I think that resources andAI is similar, like it's just
going to be very, veryinexpensive and in abundance.
And if that's the case, peoplearen't going to have to go work
crazy jobs, unless it actuallyis something that requires your
physical hands that a robotcan't do.

(01:31:51):
But I mean, almost everythingwill be able to be done and then
life is people are going tohave their basic needs in
abundance.
I mean that's what they that'sit's hard to imagine, but that's
that's how they painted it andI'm like, yeah, maybe a hundred
years from now.
But but it was crazy too, theythere were three different
scientists that told me becauseI the first one said he said he

(01:32:12):
thinks there's somebody livingtoday that lived to be 500 years
old.
So I took that and the nextscientist we met I'm like what
do you think the oldest personliving today could be over 500?
What do you think the oldestperson living today could be
over 500?
I'm like what All of themthought?
That there was somebodyactually living today that would
live to be over 500 years old.
By the time of the way healthand longevity and the way you're
mapping dna and pulling outmarkers for diseases, like they

(01:32:36):
think that that that can happen,which is crazy to think.
Like you think about that.
It's nuts.
I thought they're nuts.
I still think they're a littlenuts, but they have phds.

Speaker 1 (01:32:44):
They're doctors, what do I know I yeah, I mean, I'm a
freak guy.
Maybe we're getting too far outof our wheelhouse here, but
it's hard for me to imagine anyof this.
Back to AI.

Speaker 2 (01:32:55):
I got one more question AI is cool, man, ai is
cool and I'm happy to be in it.
So it goes back to like Ireally got into it because I
just needed to get back in thegame and do something and feel
needed and productive again.
And I do, man, I'm excited, I'mexcited.
I wake up every day, I'mexcited and doing some cool
stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:33:12):
My last question for you.
Maybe we'll have more, but mylast one.
We're at an hour and a half,which is usually when I start to
try to cut it off.
People get bored.
They won't get bored with this.
They don't get bored.
It's a long time to sit andlisten to my nasally voice?
Am I sniffling?

Speaker 2 (01:33:33):
You got a cold or something?
I got a cold.
Yeah, I had a cold.
I can't see my grandbabybecause I have a cold really
yeah, we've been sick for thelast two weeks in the house, so
yeah, it's going around.

Speaker 1 (01:33:41):
Yeah, um, in any case , what, what?
Like?
Why should someone like there'sgoing to be a lot of these
companies popping up they'realready our number there's.
There's a few that have raiseda bunch of money and like why
should people choose clone ops?
Why should people choose topartner with you versus some of
these other guys that arestarting?
So?

Speaker 2 (01:34:01):
I think that it's.
I think I think one of the mostcompelling things is I know
freight over these guys.
There's a bunch of guys raisingmoney and throwing money out of
their tech guys and and theydon't really know freight.
I know freight as good asanybody I'm selling to.
There's nobody that you couldput on the phone with me that I
can't go toe to toe with onfreight anyway.
Any zip code to zip code, miles, whatever it is, I can.

(01:34:21):
I know freight inside and out.
I think is one and my whole, mywhole cap table, my whole team.
We're all freight experts and Ihave really good tech guys, so
we have a combination ofknowledge and tech.
I think the second thing is iscredibility.
I mean, when you look at when Iwas a, when I was in freight, I
hauled for every broker andwhether it was a truckload
backhaul or it was, and backhaulobviously truckload backhaul,
or it was a or it was an LTL,they trusted me right.

(01:34:45):
I would get a call from fivebrokers for the same shippers
load and I would quote them allthe same price and I would never
even think of calling thatshipper and getting the freight
direct.
I mean, I dealt with for 20years I hauled freight for
brokers and never had onescenario not even one scenario
where anybody called me and saidyou called my shipper, not one.
And I made sure of that becauseand so when I went into lean, I
did the same thing.
Like I, I have competitorsright next to each other in

(01:35:06):
every single building.
We never let anybody takeanybody's employees.
We made sure we were secure anddata secure, like.
There's not any incidences atlean, with over 700 customers
and 10,000 employees where,where people are saying they're
shady, they used our informationand they didn't do the right
thing.
So I've always done the rightthing.
My credibility and integrity isat the highest level and it's

(01:35:27):
going to stay there and I so, Ithink, going into this like,
data protection, data security,what are you going to do with my
information?
Who are you going to put itwith?
Like, where are you going withthis?
I think the trustworthiness andcredibility is what sets us
apart from everybody too.
There's a bunch of tech guysthat raise a bunch of money.
I don't know what they're goingto do with the money.
Everybody says marketing orwhatever.

(01:35:53):
I don't need that much money togrow the company Like.
It doesn't take that much.
So I don't know what they'regoing to do with all the money,
but at the end of the day,what's going to win the day is I
know what needs to be done tomake it effective and work and
easy and deployable to where itgets right in.
It starts producing an ROI andworking versus not because a lot
of tech gets deployed anddoesn't get used properly and
work.

(01:36:14):
And I think the credibility andpeople trust me, I mean, and I
think I've earned that trust,for you know, through the
history and so I think trust isa big thing and when I tell
somebody I'm going to dosomething and deliver it, I'm
going to not sleep till Ideliver it.
If I don't, you're not going tobe.
You know I got to pay for it.
I'm not going to.
Like, I'm going to make surethat I deliver what I say I'm
going to do, and I think that'swhere I think that's what people

(01:36:36):
are looking for, because it'sstill a no-transcript.

(01:36:59):
They're there.
I got to give credit wherecredit's due.
They've done a great job andthe competitors are out there in
the market and they're going.
Lean, did it forever and then,all of a sudden, we had no
competition for five years, likenone, nobody was.
We were the only ones doing it.
And then all of a sudden peopleare like, oh shit, this works.
And next thing you know likethere's 10 people competing with
lean now and they're stillgetting the business because

(01:37:21):
they're the experts, thetrustworthiness, they're the,
they have the history ofeverybody that's doing it and
success.
So I think that's what's goingto be the differentiator and I
hope and I'll just be gratefulfor any business I get if I can
make it a profitable businessand return some growth on
investment to my investors.
I'm happy because I can't sleepat night knowing I have

(01:37:41):
people's money, and so I got tomake sure we make this a success
.
I guess that answers yourquestion.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
It does.
I'm sitting here and I got tobe honest.
I think I regret not getting onthe cap table.
I don't think I regret it.

Speaker 2 (01:37:56):
You had a chance.
You had a chance.
I think we talked to you aboutrunning the company.
Yeah, you wanted me to be CEO.

Speaker 1 (01:38:05):
The thing was I had these other guys want me to do
it with them and I'd beentalking to them.
I don't think it's the spacefor me, it just it's.
It doesn't feel like it iswhere I should be investing my,
my time as like a CEO or anexecutive in the business, but
I'm, I'm, I'm on your team andand you've always been man.

Speaker 2 (01:38:23):
I appreciate that.

Speaker 1 (01:38:24):
I'm giving you some cash when I had the chance.
So if that, if that door opensback up, let me know, because I
want to, I want to get in on it.
So, um, I appreciate.

Speaker 2 (01:38:31):
I love to have you in man and uh and you know thanks
for thanks for having me on thisman.
It's uh, you know I appreciateit, you know you're doing great
with it.
I'm so happy for you, man,because I know you're enjoying
it and and you know it's gettingyou.
It's your, it's your foundationfor where you're going, man,
and I like to see that Iappreciate it, brother.

Speaker 1 (01:38:49):
Well listen, I hope you enjoyed the episode.
It was great.
I mean everything from allaround.
You're a great storyteller, sothis was fun.
I had to remind you, you're ona podcast so it's not just you
and your buddy catching up, buta lot of people struggle with
that so it's hard.
When you know someone so well,it's so easy to get it.
It's like you're sitting at thebar having a drink, just
talking war stories, but I thinkthat's more interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:39:09):
I did a podcast um like two or three weeks ago.
My marketing team said how'd itgo?
I go, it's some.
It felt so self-promoting man, Ihated it like I don't like to
be self-promoting, like it'sjust not me like I, and it just
felt like it was allself-promoting and and so I told
myself, when I get on yourpodcast, I don't want to be
self-promoting, I just want toshoot the shit and tell people
some stories and history andmake it interesting, because the

(01:39:31):
worst thing is just to keephearing over and over about
somebody talking aboutthemselves.
So I was hoping that it wouldit would, you know, be be better
and turn out this way.
So hopefully people, people,enjoy it.
Man, I think they will.
Yeah, cool man, thank you somuch and uh, we'll catch up.
For sure, don't forget toconnect me to your buddy if you
said you would in the AI.
Yeah, I will.
I got you Cool and you can seeit.

(01:39:53):
Brother, thank you, have a goodone.
Have a good one.
Have a good one, you.

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