April 29, 2025 • 39 mins
The principal focus of this podcast episode revolves around the insights shared by Aj, the CEO of Market Circle, as he delineates his journey in establishing the innovative CRM software, Daylight. Throughout our discourse, we delve into the transformative experiences that have shaped his leadership philosophy, particularly emphasizing the importance of empathy and respect in managing personnel transitions. We explore the challenges faced during pivotal moments, such as navigating the dot-com bubble and the subsequent evolution of his business model from consulting to product development. Aj articulates the significance of acknowledging mistakes within a leadership context, advocating for a culture where team members feel empowered to admit errors and learn from them collaboratively. This episode serves as a profound reminder of the intricate balance between strategic decision-making and the human elements that underpin effective leadership.
Takeaways:
- The inception of Market Circle was driven by the necessity to pivot from a failed venture during the dot-com bubble, showcasing resilience in the face of adversity.
- Aj's journey emphasizes the critical importance of empathy and respect in leadership, particularly when managing difficult personnel decisions.
- The evolution of Daylight from a personal project to a full-fledged software solution illustrates the significance of adaptability in a rapidly changing business landscape.
- The podcast highlights the transformative power of emotional intelligence in leadership, particularly in fostering a supportive and respectful work environment.
- Aj's insights into the challenges of scaling a business reveal the nuanced phases of growth that entrepreneurs often navigate throughout their journey.
- The discussion underscores the vital role of customer feedback in product development, advocating for a balanced approach between data analysis and direct customer engagement.
The Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast showcases the remarkable journey of Aj, the CEO of Market Circle, who has pioneered the development of Daylight, a cutting-edge CRM software tailored for small businesses. The conversation delves into Aj's transition from a consulting background to entrepreneurship, ignited by the pivotal moment when internal company politics led to his departure from a previous role. This turning point compelled him to explore innovative solutions for business management, culminating in the inception of Market Circle. As the dialogue unfolds, Aj recounts the challenges and milestones encountered during this transformative journey, including the dot-com bubble's impact on his initial fundraising efforts and the strategic pivots that shaped the trajectory of his company. The episode encapsulates the essence of resilience in leadership, emphasizing the importance of empathy and respect when navigating difficult personnel decisions, and highlights the critical role of emotional intelligence in fostering a positive work environment. Ultimately, the discussion serves as an enlightening resource for aspiring leaders, illustrating key principles of adaptability, strategic thinking, and the importance of aligning personal values with corporate culture.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:56):
Well, hello everybody andwelcome to another amazing episode
of the Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast. I am your host,
Jaclyn Strominger. And onthis podcast we hear from amazing
influential leaders, theirgame changing insights and what has
helped them to become thegreat leaders that they are and to
help you become an unstoppableleader today. So today I want to
(01:21):
welcome to the show aj. He isthe CEO, right, and of Market Circle.
And they have an amazingproduct called Daylight, which is
a CRM. You do sales and you doproject management on that software
as well. And I cannot wait foryou guys to hear his insights. He
has an interesting journey ofhow he got to Canada. I'll let you
(01:45):
check out his LinkedIn profileto read some of that if you have
something about bugs, becausehe's got a little story about cockroaches,
but. Aj, welcome to theUnstoppable Leadership Spotlight.
Thank you for having me on.I'm excited to be here.
Oh, I'm so glad. So, so firstand foremost, you, you know, you're,
(02:06):
you're in Canada. Whatcompelled you to start Market Circle
in Daylight?
So the, the root of that isthat the previous job that I had,
I got walked out politely and,you know, just various political
(02:27):
things or whatever, likeinternal company politics. And so
I got walked out and, youknow, I had a nice package. So it
wasn't like they walked me outfor nothing. And so I decided to
start a consulting gig and Idid consulting for a little while.
And while I was doing theconsulting, I saw this, this thing
(02:49):
on, on ebay about ebay. This,you know, one of these shows about
ebay, and I go, well, youknow, who does auctions? Like, you
know, real businessesnegotiate. So I decided that, you
know, how hard could that be?Make a website that, where you can
put something up for sale andyou can ask a price and somebody
could counteroffer a differentprice and you can negotiate. After
(03:12):
a certain number ofnegotiations, if it's great, the,
you know, the deal is made andyou move on. And so that's, you know,
I was naive. I was very naiveand I decided that, you know, I'll,
how hard could this be? So letme do it. So I started that, you
know, the next day I startedafter looking at that show and I
decided, like, I got to dosomething like this is, this has
(03:33):
got. Can't be that hard. Sothat's how Market Circle started.
It's not what we do today. Wehad to pivot a number of times, but
that's how it started.
So you Started. So that's, soit was a marketplace.
Yeah, at Market Circle. That'swhy, you know, we could get, we couldn't
get Market Square orMarketplace because the domains were
taken. But Market Circle wasavailable, so I, I grabbed it.
(03:56):
Okay, so you, your company isgoing, going along. So tell me a
little bit about thetrajectory of going from, you know,
Market Circle to Daylight.
So what happened was as wewere building up Market Circle, I
raised some friends and familymoney for that particular thing and
(04:17):
we built a system, we hadtransactions, and then I was going
out there to find VC money totake it to the next level. And I
managed to get to the very,very top VCs in the valley through
hook and, you know, hook andcrook. So I got there, I was supposed
to do a presentation, but theday I got there was when the dot
(04:39):
com bubble burst. So I nevergot to make my presentation. I was,
again walked out. And so wewere, we were now stuck with the
situation. We've built thisthing. We have this. Do we close
the company and of coursefriends and family money would be
lost or do we do somethingelse? So myself and, and Mike, who
was with me at the time, he'sstill with me as our coo, he said,
(05:04):
well, you know, why don't wejust do consulting again like we
did before and you know, payback or like you did before and,
and pay back the, theinvestors. And I said, you know what,
that's probably the rightthing to do. So we did consulting
again. So we went back toconsulting. And during that process,
I was a sales guy, you know,I, I, but I was also coding, so I
(05:29):
had to wear multiple hats. Andwhat would happen is I would forget
to follow up when I wassupposed to follow up. And when I
did follow up, I'd forgetwhere I left off, which is, you know,
doesn't look professional atall. Right, so you're not, I'm not
going to close any deals likethis. So, so what happened was we
had to do something and wewere on this esoteric developer,
(05:49):
you know, Apple developerplatform, and there was no applications
for it for, for managing thatkind of thing. So we decided, you
know, again, how hard could itbe? We made our own. And that was
the birth of Daylight. SoDaylight was to help me not lose
track of when I had to followup. And then when I did follow up,
(06:10):
not lose track of where thehell I left. I left off with these
people. So that's how Daylightwas born.
And now how long has Daylightbeen running?
So Daylight, the applicationwe started in 2000, in late 2000
for ourselves. And then in2001 some people at Apple got wind
(06:38):
of it and convinced me to sellit as a product. So I started selling
it as a product in 2002. Therewas not enough money coming from
it to replace the consultingmoney. So, so it took till 2007 for
us to be able to replace theconsulting revenue. So in 2007 we
(07:01):
became a product company andat that time it was a license based
on premise. So you know, youhad to buy your own server, you have
to put the software on theserver and you have to manage your
own network and so forth. Andso that was the pivot. And then the
next pivot was in like 2013,2014 is when we started our cloud
(07:23):
backend based system. So wemoved to the cloud and then we became
a software in 2018 we became aproper software as a service business.
So Apple pushed you. So you'renot, you're not. I mean I see online
that you are a Apple. Itobviously works on Apple and Mac
(07:47):
products will also work on. Isit something that you're also putting
together for non Apple products?
So we do integrate with othersystems via, you know, the server
side stuff in the back end.But, but not specifically. Maybe
in the future, but not at themoment. Right now it's all Apple
(08:09):
ecosystem.
Okay, so how many people workat Daylight? How many employees?
So we, you know, it ebbs andflows. We've had, you know, if we
were to look at the totalnumber of employees plus contractors
that are basically workingfull time, but they're in different
(08:30):
countries and whatnot, we'relooking approximately 50 people.
Okay. Oh, that's, you know,it's a, it's a good size. Not too
crazy. Here's, here's a,here's something that's kind of been
ruminating in the back of mymind. You know, the idea of, of the
sales, you know, sales and,and leading people. Right. You know,
(08:52):
how were the times that yougot walked out?
Yes.
How have those timesinfluenced you as a leader in running
now the company that you havewith 50 employees?
So you know, it, what, what ittaught me is, you know, you may have
(09:17):
disagreements, but you'rehuman and you have to, you know,
you want to be treated withrespect and you should therefore
treat people with respect. Youknow, so it goes both ways. So that's,
you know, and, and thankfullyeach time it was a case of, you know,
it was polite, it was not, youknow, bad or anything like that.
But I do remember verydistinctly Saying, thinking to myself,
(09:39):
well, thank God it wasn't bad.And, and remembering that, you know,
I would not want to dosomething like that to other people
because we've had thesituation where we've had to ask
people to leave. Right. It'shappened a few times. And so you
want to do it respectfully.And, and, and really, sometimes it's
(10:01):
the best decision for, forthem and for you. Right. Because
they're not. Whoever it is.You know, we've had people that have
been with us and they're notdoing well, and we're not doing like
that part of, you know, andit's impacting us because they're
not doing well, but they're,they're in the wrong. They're in
the wrong situation. So I had.It took me a while to remember to,
(10:24):
to have the perspective ifthey're not doing well, then, you
know, they're not in theright. And, sorry, they're not in
the right environment, sothey're not doing well. That's not
right for them. It's not rightfor us. It's not just about us. It's
about them, too. So, so, youknow, you, you kind of build up this
idea of empathy andunderstanding the other person's
(10:45):
perspective, so that when youhave to make these difficult kinds
of things, whether you beingwalked out or you walking somebody
else out, that you do it respectfully.
So that's really cool. So. So,listeners, I really want you to kind
of take note to this because Ithink this is really, really important.
I mean, what we're talkingabout here actually is a part of
it is the emotionalintelligence and values, right? So
(11:07):
making sure that the values ofthe people that are in your fold
or that if you're the leaderor if you are part of a team or part
of a company, that your valuesare aligned. And if you are, if you
can use, you know, empathy orthe emotional intelligence to share
(11:28):
with somebody that eithermaybe they're not in the right position
or it's not. It's not theright fit. Not because they've done
something wrong. It's justbecause it's not the right fit.
Yeah, that's right. That'sright. It's not. They're not able
to excel and, and it, youknow, it affects them negatively
because they know they're notable to. They're not excelling. Right,
(11:51):
right. But they're, they're,you know, they're stuck. And so the
best thing is sometimes, andit's harsh at the time, it appears
harsh at the Time. But thenlater when you know, you, you, you
know, we, we stay in contactwith people whatnot. They, they end
up finding a good job andthey're happy. Right. Because they've
found a better, a betterenvironment for them.
(12:12):
Right. And it's actually, andit's not burning the bridge. It's
basically almost like sayingthank you to the person who, almost
like, you know, you saying tothe person who watched you out, you
know, almost like thank youvery much for opening the future
for me. Right? Yeah. Andopening up the future. Like, you
know, a door closing meansanother one gets to open.
That's right.
That's right. And as a leader,we have to remind the people in our
(12:35):
charge that just becausethey're not a right fit for our company
or our team, there may beanother place. There's probably,
there's a better place outthere for them.
Correct.
And that's a great key thingfor leadership.
Yeah. And, and you know,there's, there's there. This is when,
when it's really diff, youknow, you're in a predicament, you
(12:58):
know, you know, these are,it's a good person, it's not a good
fit. And you have to kind ofwork up to the, in your mind that,
you know, I have to do this.Right. It's very easy when somebody
is a total jerk and totallydoing the wrong thing. Because that's
easy. Right. Like, you know,that's, it's, it's the ones that
they're trying is just notworking. Right. And you, and you
(13:21):
in fact to like them aspeople. Right. But, but nonetheless,
even the jerks, you walk themout nicely, politely, you never know
when you'll, you'll run intothem again or you know, they can
refer somebody. That's greatas well. Right. That's happened too.
We, we've had situations wheresomebody didn't work out for us at
all. We walked them out and itwas at the very beginning. Like,
(13:44):
you know, we realized early onthat this wasn't going to be a fit
and they referred somebodythat ended up working out great for
us.
So that's actually really,that's really, really great. So what
part, you know, as a, as theleader you are, I mean, you got,
you, you've, you've been ableto see when you've needed to pivot
right. In your business. Sowhat were some of those signs? You
(14:09):
know, I mean, obviously, youknow, obviously walking at the dot
com, you're like, okay, now Igotta do.
Yeah, yeah, that was, thatwas, that was pretty you know, that
was pretty.
Right? That was like a cut anddry. Yeah. But have there been other
points in your, you know, inyour leadership and in the journey
where you've even been like,you know what, there's something
(14:31):
going on where you've almostlike you, you realize there may be
in a blind, there may havebeen a blind spot or something that
you didn't see.
Yeah. So that happens all thetime. Unfortunately, you know, this
is the, this is the reality.Right. You don't know what you don't
know. Yeah.
Right.
And, and so, or there's asaying, you know, you are where you
are because you don't knowwhat you don't know.
(14:52):
Yeah.
And, and so then how do you,you know, so what happens in that
situation is that yousometimes something, you know, talking
to customers or, or just theplain realizations when you're not
hitting the metrics that youset for yourself, like, you know,
you're expecting X number ofsignups. It's just not happening.
Why? Why? When you dig into itand then you look at other companies,
(15:16):
what have they done, what arethey doing different, etc. Something
will illuminate, likesomething will come up and says,
okay, well, this. And so thenyou have to kind of make, take some
decisive actions when you,when, when, you know, that gets highlighted
and you validate that. That'strue. And then you got to act decisively
(15:37):
to then make the change sothat you can either adjust or pivot.
Like in some cases it's anadjustment. But an adjustment would
be a pretty, you know, canhave a pretty big impact by other
cases you're pivotingaltogether. Right. Because the market
situation has changed so that,you know, your old offering is just
not going to cut it.
Right, Right. So somethingthat, you know, I'm a Mac user, I
(16:03):
love my Mac. So, you know, Iguess a couple kind of questions
that are kind of coming to mybrain are, you know, you've got,
you have daylight, you know,what made you pick Mac? Sort of number,
sort of question, number one.And number two is how are you marketing
(16:23):
it now? I mean, is it, youknow, and how are you promoting?
So, so there, so there's. Sothose two, two good questions and
two separate. Yeah, let's,let's, let's answer the first one
first, which is the, you know,why Apple. Right. So when, when,
when I kind of imagineddaylight way back in the day, the
(16:47):
idea was then it still is tohelp small businesses grow. Right.
The idea of, you know, you'restarting perhaps by yourself and
you have, you're ambitious andyou want to grow a business to 5,
10, 15 people in size or, orwhat have you. And when you're, when
you're in there, you're doingeverything, you're, you're, you know,
(17:10):
especially at the beginning,you're wearing 10 hats. And at the
time, you know, runningWindows computers and all this kind
of stuff was a headache. Like,you know, you needed an IT person
to, to keep systems running.So for us it was an easy decision
to say, okay, well the, theMac is easier to, you know, manage
and easier, easier with theuser. So that's why we gravitated
(17:32):
that way and we built anapplication that is native. Like
it's not, you know, browserbased or anything like that. It's
a native application. Sothat's why we chose to first on the
Mac and then we stayed therebecause it kind of re, you know,
it kept getting reinforcedthat it was easier to run stuff.
(17:53):
You know, Macs are easier thanWindows. We know that. Everybody
kind of knows this. Right. Sothat's the, that's the reason for
that. Then the second one ishow do we market? So in the past,
so word of mouth has alwaysbeen there. Word of mouth is still
there and was there from thebeginning. What we do in the past
(18:14):
was first we would beadvertising or talked about on various
Mac sites. So a bunch of Macpeople would learn about us. So that
worked until a while, thenthat kind of went away. And then
it was all about AdWords.Right. So AdWords is, was, was a
big thing. Now AdWords are,you know, on the dwindle for us.
(18:38):
And so what's changing now?Now it's more social media, podcasts,
et cetera, which is why I'm,you know, doing podcasting. Right.
So, so, so it, it's changingand we have to adapt to change. But
word of mouth is still astrong element in terms of how we
get new customers.
Yeah. And so did you see ashift in your business or have you
(19:01):
seen a shift in your business?You know, with, you know, was it
Covid? Did Covid have a hugeimpact as people are doing more work
from home or you know, whathas been something that has been
like. Well, that really.
I'll give you one example thatwhere we made the wrong decision.
So.
(19:21):
Okay, yeah, that's wrongdecisions are always good decisions.
Yeah, yeah. In, in 2023. So wehave. Part of our, our system is
we integrate with Apple Mailand then in Apple Mail you, you know,
you can see all this daylightstuff in Apple Mail. And then you
can link things and we copythe email in. It's part of the history,
(19:41):
et cetera. Right. So it'spretty involved in integration. And
in 2023, Apple said, you knowwhat, we're closing that door because
of security reasons and here'san alternative that, that we're giving
you so that you can continueto integrate. It was, you know, we're
not the only ones thatintegrate with Apple Mail. There
(20:02):
are other applications that doso as well. And so, you know, we
had this idea in the pastthat, you know, this day could come
and we, you know, the idea wasthat we would add mail capabilities
in daylight. That was like ourkind of plan in terms of, you know,
(20:24):
if this falls apart, then wehave this plan. And so on the, on
the, on iOS, on the phone andon the iPad, we have mail working.
And so the idea was, was thatwhen this hammer would drop, we would
then bring that to the Mac.But wrong decision. When we looked
(20:45):
at the extension thing thatthey gave us and we looked at the
data, you know, we had a fewpeople on staff that were very data
driven. Like, you know,they're making their decisions with
data as opposed to perhapstalking with the customer and data.
Right. Or, you know, if you'reonly talking to the customer, you
also don't have the wholepicture. If you're looking only at
(21:06):
data, you don't have the whole.
Right, you really need tomarry the two together.
Right, well that's the lesson.But, but at that time it was, you
know, data, data, data. So welooked at the data, but we happen
to look at the wrong data to,to see that, okay, you know, these
many customers will beimpacted, therefore let's go with
the extension idea as opposedto the built in mail capability.
(21:32):
We went with that. It took usquite a bit of time, but we got something
out. It's working, it'scurrently working, et cetera. But
customers don't love it. Theyin fact hate it. The wrong decision
there was to go through thisroundabout way to get the functionality
(21:53):
as opposed to just bucklingdown and putting the mail client,
the mail functionality rightinto daily. And so that, that, you
know, we, we lost a number ofcustomers because of that. And, and,
and that, that had asignificant impact on our business.
So now we're, you know, we're,we're righting the wrong.
(22:15):
Right.
And mail is coming indaylight, like it's an early access,
we have customers using it, etcetera. And that's the right decision.
So you know, the, the moral ofthe Story here is don't just look
at data, data, data. Don'tjust look at customer, customer,
customer. Just because at thetime when we were making this decision,
you know, whenever I'd betalking to customers, they'd be like,
(22:37):
you know, that's one of yourunique differentiating factors. And
then the data was like notlining up. And so, you know, in that
case, you should go with the customer.
Right, right. What's, what'sdifferentiating you is really huge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So nowwe'll get that back. But, you know,
now we've had this lull inbetween and some pissed off customers.
(22:58):
Well, hopefully you'll getthem, get them back.
I mean, because we will getthem back. I mean, the ones that
are looking at it that haveearly access are real. There's a
lot of positive, very positive comments.
So that's, that's really,that's really, really great. You
know, and I, and I love thisbecause, you know, it's, it's, I
love how humbled you are aboutthat too. It's, you know, because,
(23:23):
you know, it was, it's a blip.It was a lesson learned, you know,
mistake maybe, I don't know.But, but learned lesson to then say,
okay, now this is how we needto go forward. And I think it's a
key leadership process andtactic too to share with your team
(23:46):
and to others that, you knowwhat, we're not always right, but
we can acknowledge that whenwe made a decision that wasn't the
right decision and we can fixit and fix it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And thefirst part is acknowledging the fact
that the decision was wrong.Right. And that what I hope to accomplish
(24:11):
with that in terms of the teamis that when at different layers,
when a decision is wrong, thatthey're not afraid to come to me
and say, hey, we made thewrong decision here and I'm not going
to freak out. Right. Because Imade the wrong decision too. So,
so, so if I can make wrongdecisions, so can you. It's okay.
(24:33):
We can figure it out. Right?Don't be sloppy in the first place.
But you know, if it happensthat, you know, we made the wrong
decision, that's fine, let'sfix it.
Right? And, and I think that'sa, again, I just, I really want leaders
to understand that this isactually just a really key leadership
lesson is that when weacknowledge the fact that we've made
(24:53):
a mistake, it's not, you know,there's always a way to fix something
if you acknowledge it, ifright, if you acknowledge It, Right?
Yeah, like in. Or, you know,I'll share something that happened
the other day. I have a VAthat sent out that was putting together
(25:15):
a, an email for me and she'snew and she thought hitting schedule
was going to alert me to proofsomething. It ended up going out.
It went out to a thousandpeople. It was completely wrong.
Right.
But I was like, okay, well welearned obviously nothing we can
(25:38):
do about it. But it was forme. I was like, okay, you know what?
Hey, guess what? This is whatwe need to do. It's not a freak out.
Don't get angry and upsetabout it because there's not. Because
it's a. We can learn from it.We learn and can go move beyond.
It's not gonna. Didn't changeanything crazy, you know.
Right, right.
But we can always learn fromthings. We can't acknowledge it.
(26:00):
Acknowledge the people. And ifthe person and, and if the person
or if there's some group or aperson who's made a mistake to acknowledge
it. When you hide things, itdoesn't. It gets worse. Right?
It gets worse. The, the. Onthe flip side, you know, if they
make the same mistake twice,that's a red flag.
Yes. Right, right, right.
(26:20):
So, so, so, so, yeah, so. Soacknowledging the mistakes is, is
important and the fact thatmistakes can be made. Okay. We can
fix it, right. This, this, youknow, it. And it's going to become
more and more common in myestimation because there's so much
information now and, and it'svery easy to get caught in, in a
(26:43):
rabbit hole of information inthe, in an echo chamber that you
make this decision and thenyou turn out, it turns out to be
wrong. Because when, you know,when it meets the market, it's going
to be different.
Right.
So, so it's important torecognize that and a. Get early feedback
so that you can change it assoon as possible.
(27:07):
Yeah, early feedback is reallycool and really important to have
so that you can get thecustomer's feedback because they're
the ultimate end user. Right.Whether they like it or not like
it. And finding those keypeople to interview and to have on
your, you know.
As you're sounding like anadvisory. Yeah, you have some trusted.
(27:31):
Some trusted. So what we do,what we do about this is, is, you
know, there are, there are aset of customers that are like trusted
customers that we, you know, Ican call up anytime and, and just
ask them and whatnot. And thenwhat we also do is we always try
to get some new ones, newcustomers because the, the older
customers, they're they'vealready figured it out, right? Versus
(27:54):
the newer ones and thesituation changes, right? That's
kind of like a leadingindicator on various markets when
you're talking about newcustomers starting new businesses,
right?
So speaking of new business,so as you're thinking about, as you,
as you started this, if thereis somebody who's starting in the
(28:16):
throes of starting a newbusiness, what is like one of the
biggest tips that you, orinsights that you could share? You
know, your business has nowbeen going and you've had a couple
different businesses, right?So something that you could share.
So the, the one thing I liketo say is that starting a business
is like a rocket off thelaunch pad. So if you look at, you
(28:39):
know, to start a business andget it going, it takes a lot of energy,
right? Once you get it going,it's, it's much easier to maintain,
right? But at the beginning,you know, you have to put all the
full thrusters and, and gofull, you know, expend like 90 of
your fuel just to get to, youknow, low, low parts of the atmosphere,
(29:04):
right? So, or high parts ofthe atmosphere. So it's the same
thing in a business, right? Atthe beginning, it takes a lot of
effort. There's a lot of, alot of things you don't know. You're
gonna have to spend that extratime figuring the stuff out. You're
gonna have to humble yourselfand, and, and call people and talk
to people and, and whatnot.So, so that you can kind of, you
know, that, that takes a lotof energy. That's like, you know,
(29:25):
12 hour days, 14 hour dayssometimes until you get to a certain
point. Then at that certainpoint you can, you know, you have
enough money coming in, youfigured out your business, you can
scale it now and then you can scale.
Yeah, so that's true. And whenyou're talking about scaling, is
there, is there a point intime when you're like, okay, now,
(29:47):
you know, we've been here, nowwe're ready to scale. Is there like.
So, you know, we have theluxury or we have the luxury of seeing
many businesses, right? Wehave lots of customers, thousands
of customers around the world.And so I see three kinds of key phases.
The first phase is what I calla leap phase. You know, you're leaping
into business, you're leapingoff a cliff, maybe in your mind,
(30:10):
right? You're like, I don'tknow what I'm doing. And so you're
figuring stuff out. And thenthe next stage, I call the growth
stage, and the, and the growthstage is you're still, you know,
you're figuring out yourrepeatable income, kind of like,
like how your repeatable salesprocess, your repeatable execution
process. And then the thirdone is scaling where you're basically
(30:31):
throwing more resourcesbecause you're just duplicating that,
that, that system that youhave. Right. So that's the kind of
three phases that I see. Andof course, in the scaling one, there's,
you know, that there's a lotof sub phases there because, you
know, when you're adding, whenyou have 10 people, it's different
than managing a company of 20 people.
(30:55):
Right.
Or 25 people. So for us, wehad these plateaus. Five, then 10
to 12 was another plateau, andthen 25 was another plateau. Right
now we're this, you know,another, yet another plateau. So,
so there are these, you know,within the scaling part, there's
these plateaus that you hitand you have, you have to kind of
(31:16):
break through.
Yeah, I love it. So, so tellme a little bit about obviously the
software and how much, becauseobviously it, it's something that
you obviously worked with. Howmuch did it change? Because you were
used, you started it for yourself.
Yes.
Right. So how much did the,did Daylight change your, that, that
(31:37):
consulting business?
So it, at the, at thebeginning it was, you know, we were
selling, we would do customdevelopment work, custom software
development work. And so eachkind of deal was between 50 and 100,
$120,000, that kind of size.Right. So the, the sales cycle was
(31:59):
longer. It's not a quick salescycle. Right. The sales cycle was
longer. And what it kind oftaught us was, or taught me or, you
know, was that we were able tokind of more, you know, we were able
to kind of have a repeatablekind of pattern. Right. And so that's,
(32:21):
that's what it taught me isthat ultimately like, if, if we were
to scale, you know, if westayed in the consulting business,
it would have, we would havejust basically scaled out these little
pods like, okay, you know, youneed to, you need, you, you have
a few people working for acustomer. They're doing some custom
development work. This is thekind of patterns that we follow.
And, and then this is how youdeliver and then this is how you
verify and this, etc. Right.And so there is that, that pipeline
(32:45):
of, of, of of of things. Sothen you're just repeating that what
we did was we, we did that,but then we pivoted to being a product
company. So it changed in, itchanged how we, it changed Our business
fundamentally because we wereable to get enough revenue so that
we could build a product. Andthen the product, we build it up
(33:08):
enough so that we didn't needthis, this first revenue.
Yep. So now daylight, we, youknow, as a company, you do sales,
you know, so CRM.
So, so let me explain. So we,what we did is a little bit different
than what your typical quoteunquote CRM thing. Right. So when,
when. The very first thingthat I remember looking, when I was
(33:30):
looking at this is why do CRMsfail? A lot of CRMs used to fail
back then, and they failedbecause they approach things from
the top down, meaningmanagement down. Right. So management
wanted these kinds of reportsor whatever, and then people downstream
had to kind of put the data inso that the report could be true.
Yeah.
And so I was like, I don'twant to do that. Right. So. And also
(33:54):
not only I don't want to dothat, but that's one of the reasons
it was failing because peopleweren't putting the data in and therefore
the report would not be true.
Yeah.
So instead we flipped itaround and we built productivity
stuff like, you know, propercalendar, task management, and so
forth. And we call that ourbase layer. Right. These are these,
these things, you know, that,that is part of this general productivity
(34:17):
like task management, calendarmanagement, contact management, and
then we put another layer ontop of it. So not contact management,
but notes and stuff like that.Then the next layer is contacts,
people, companies and users.And on top of that is the first part
of it is you have to get newbusiness. Right. As a, as a company,
(34:37):
you can't exist withoutcustomers. So getting new business.
We called it that becausepeople had an aversion to the term
sales. When we said sales,they would be like, they would, they
would associate that word withdirty car salesman.
Right?
No, I don't do sales. Like,I'd be talking to customers and they'd
(34:58):
be like, I don't do sales.Like, what are you talking about?
Like, how are you making moneyif you don't do sales? Of course
you do sales. You just, you'rejust offering a service. Right. And
what you're doing. So then wecame to the term getting new business.
You know, you get new business development.
Right?
Right. Yeah. Which is sales.Right, it's sales. So you have to
do that. And then finally whenyou do that, you've made some promises.
(35:20):
Right. When they've signed onthat dotted line on the agreement,
you've made some promises. Sothe next part is you got to deliver
on Those promises, which iswhere the project stuff comes in.
Again, these all sit on top oftasks, notes and meetings and appointments,
etc. That, that is our baselayer. So that's what makes us different
(35:40):
than all the other things outthere, is that we have all of this
in, in kind of like one placeand you don't have to, you know,
integrate with five differentsystems, etc. It's all in one.
It's all in one, which isactually really fantastic. Absolutely
love it. So what is next forwhat's, what's next in your business?
So what's next for us is, youknow, the, the again, you know, the
(36:04):
male thing that we spokeabout, that's the current, you know,
main focus. And then afterthat it will be more integrations
with, with things like GoogleCalendar and, and so forth and figuring
out how we can leverage AI tohelp small businesses. Kind of like,
you know, again, same thing.How do they grow?
(36:26):
Right.
And how can we leverage AI ina reasonable, with a reasonable cost
as opposed to crazy costs?Because then.
No, well, I absolutely lovethis and you know, as a, as a Mac
user, I love it. And so areyou. Do you. Just because I'm, as
a curiosity, do you. I sawonline that you integrate with HubSpot.
(36:53):
Is it something that you alsointegrate with something like a GHL
or ghl go high level.
So, so we have, we have likean API and some people, including
the HubSpot one for example.Other people did the integration,
we didn't do the integrations,but we have, we have an API so, so
programmers can, can, youknow, talk to our back end and so
(37:16):
forth. So that's how thathappens. So we have a few of those.
We have one very strongpartner that does a whole bunch of
integrations including in theapp itself. Like, like they, you
know, we have a pluginmechanism and they're able to kind
of get in there and add somefunctionality that perhaps we haven't
gotten to or, or is very specialized.
Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. Sowhat's next for you aj?
(37:41):
So for me, you know, the, theI'm, I'm enjoying what I'm doing
now. Yeah. And I have, I havetwo kids. I have a 17 year old daughter
and a 21 year old son. Soright now my focus is kind of making
sure that, you know, that,that that phase of life for them
is critical and, and to mefamily is very important. So that,
(38:03):
that's my main focus rightnow. Run, run the business. Making
sure that it remainscompetitive, that customers are happy
with what we have that theword of mouth continues. And then
secondly, making sure that thefamily's all right. So that's my
main focuses. And then at somepoint, you know, maybe I'll. And
in the meantime, you know, Ido take vacations and stuff like
that, so.
(38:24):
All right, so any particulartrip that you got planned coming
up?
So we have a trip to Turkeycoming up. And, and, and then also
a trip to Dubai. So a familytrip. So we do these family trips
where, where we go, all fourof us, rent a car, drive around,
(38:46):
you know, it's. It's a lot of fun.
I love it. Oh, my God. Well,aj, I could talk to you forever.
How can people connect with you?
Two easy ways. Number one isour website, Daylight app. D A Y
L I T E app. That's whereyou'll see our application and you
can try it out. There's a 14day free trial. And of course, you
(39:08):
can also connect with ouradvisors. They're happy to talk to
you. They're not salespeople,but they're, you know, they'll advise
you and, and then on LinkedIn.So on LinkedIn, it's my full name.
It's Ali Khan. A L Y K H A NJetta J E T H A as you just find
me on LinkedIn, connect withme and I'm there. I'm not on other
(39:30):
social media as much I'm. ButI am on LinkedIn and you can find
us through, through my.Through our website.
Oh, well, fantastic. Well, Iwill have all those in the show notes
too. So people, but pleasereach out and if you have any business
questions, I mean, aj, you'vebeen so successful and I, I have
(39:50):
to tell you, I think at somepoint I may have actually tried Daylight
and I'm actually thinkinglike, oh, now I gotta come back and
really look at it again. SoI'm gonna be doing that.
We'd be happy to help you with that.
Yeah. But seriously, guestlisteners, please connect with aj.
Check out Daylight, because itis really, really robust. I was on
(40:15):
there, looking at it today andI'm like, oh my God, this is really
fantastic. So connect withhim. And if you have found listeners,
if you have found thispodcast, which I hope you have educational,
or you've gotten some tidbitsand snippets that you have written
down, please share the podcastwith your friends and colleagues.
This is the UnstoppableLeadership Spotlight podcast. We
(40:36):
want to make great leaders outthere, great leaders, make great,
happy employees, and thatmakes a happier world. So I'm Jaclyn
Strominger, and I thank youall for listening, and thank you,
AJ for being a great guest.
Thank you for having me on. Itwas really good, and I love I could
talk to you forever as well.
Thank you.
Well, hello everybody andwelcome to another amazing episode
of the Unstoppable LeadershipSpotlight podcast. I am your host,
Jaclyn Strominger. And onthis podcast we hear from amazing
influential leaders, theirgame changing insights and what has
helped them to become thegreat leaders that they are and to
help you become an unstoppableleader today. So today I want to
(01:21):
welcome to the show aj. He isthe CEO, right, and of Market Circle.
And they have an amazingproduct called Daylight, which is
a CRM. You do sales and you doproject management on that software
as well. And I cannot wait foryou guys to hear his insights. He
has an interesting journey ofhow he got to Canada. I'll let you
(01:45):
check out his LinkedIn profileto read some of that if you have
something about bugs, becausehe's got a little story about cockroaches,
but. Aj, welcome to theUnstoppable Leadership Spotlight.
Thank you for having me on.I'm excited to be here.
Oh, I'm so glad. So, so firstand foremost, you, you know, you're,
(02:06):
you're in Canada. Whatcompelled you to start Market Circle
in Daylight?
So the, the root of that isthat the previous job that I had,
I got walked out politely and,you know, just various political
(02:27):
things or whatever, likeinternal company politics. And so
I got walked out and, youknow, I had a nice package. So it
wasn't like they walked me outfor nothing. And so I decided to
start a consulting gig and Idid consulting for a little while.
And while I was doing theconsulting, I saw this, this thing
(02:49):
on, on ebay about ebay. This,you know, one of these shows about
ebay, and I go, well, youknow, who does auctions? Like, you
know, real businessesnegotiate. So I decided that, you
know, how hard could that be?Make a website that, where you can
put something up for sale andyou can ask a price and somebody
could counteroffer a differentprice and you can negotiate. After
(03:12):
a certain number ofnegotiations, if it's great, the,
you know, the deal is made andyou move on. And so that's, you know,
I was naive. I was very naiveand I decided that, you know, I'll,
how hard could this be? So letme do it. So I started that, you
know, the next day I startedafter looking at that show and I
decided, like, I got to dosomething like this is, this has
(03:33):
got. Can't be that hard. Sothat's how Market Circle started.
It's not what we do today. Wehad to pivot a number of times, but
that's how it started.
So you Started. So that's, soit was a marketplace.
Yeah, at Market Circle. That'swhy, you know, we could get, we couldn't
get Market Square orMarketplace because the domains were
taken. But Market Circle wasavailable, so I, I grabbed it.
(03:56):
Okay, so you, your company isgoing, going along. So tell me a
little bit about thetrajectory of going from, you know,
Market Circle to Daylight.
So what happened was as wewere building up Market Circle, I
raised some friends and familymoney for that particular thing and
(04:17):
we built a system, we hadtransactions, and then I was going
out there to find VC money totake it to the next level. And I
managed to get to the very,very top VCs in the valley through
hook and, you know, hook andcrook. So I got there, I was supposed
to do a presentation, but theday I got there was when the dot
(04:39):
com bubble burst. So I nevergot to make my presentation. I was,
again walked out. And so wewere, we were now stuck with the
situation. We've built thisthing. We have this. Do we close
the company and of coursefriends and family money would be
lost or do we do somethingelse? So myself and, and Mike, who
was with me at the time, he'sstill with me as our coo, he said,
(05:04):
well, you know, why don't wejust do consulting again like we
did before and you know, payback or like you did before and,
and pay back the, theinvestors. And I said, you know what,
that's probably the rightthing to do. So we did consulting
again. So we went back toconsulting. And during that process,
I was a sales guy, you know,I, I, but I was also coding, so I
(05:29):
had to wear multiple hats. Andwhat would happen is I would forget
to follow up when I wassupposed to follow up. And when I
did follow up, I'd forgetwhere I left off, which is, you know,
doesn't look professional atall. Right, so you're not, I'm not
going to close any deals likethis. So, so what happened was we
had to do something and wewere on this esoteric developer,
(05:49):
you know, Apple developerplatform, and there was no applications
for it for, for managing thatkind of thing. So we decided, you
know, again, how hard could itbe? We made our own. And that was
the birth of Daylight. SoDaylight was to help me not lose
track of when I had to followup. And then when I did follow up,
(06:10):
not lose track of where thehell I left. I left off with these
people. So that's how Daylightwas born.
And now how long has Daylightbeen running?
So Daylight, the applicationwe started in 2000, in late 2000
for ourselves. And then in2001 some people at Apple got wind
(06:38):
of it and convinced me to sellit as a product. So I started selling
it as a product in 2002. Therewas not enough money coming from
it to replace the consultingmoney. So, so it took till 2007 for
us to be able to replace theconsulting revenue. So in 2007 we
(07:01):
became a product company andat that time it was a license based
on premise. So you know, youhad to buy your own server, you have
to put the software on theserver and you have to manage your
own network and so forth. Andso that was the pivot. And then the
next pivot was in like 2013,2014 is when we started our cloud
(07:23):
backend based system. So wemoved to the cloud and then we became
a software in 2018 we became aproper software as a service business.
So Apple pushed you. So you'renot, you're not. I mean I see online
that you are a Apple. Itobviously works on Apple and Mac
(07:47):
products will also work on. Isit something that you're also putting
together for non Apple products?
So we do integrate with othersystems via, you know, the server
side stuff in the back end.But, but not specifically. Maybe
in the future, but not at themoment. Right now it's all Apple
(08:09):
ecosystem.
Okay, so how many people workat Daylight? How many employees?
So we, you know, it ebbs andflows. We've had, you know, if we
were to look at the totalnumber of employees plus contractors
that are basically workingfull time, but they're in different
(08:30):
countries and whatnot, we'relooking approximately 50 people.
Okay. Oh, that's, you know,it's a, it's a good size. Not too
crazy. Here's, here's a,here's something that's kind of been
ruminating in the back of mymind. You know, the idea of, of the
sales, you know, sales and,and leading people. Right. You know,
(08:52):
how were the times that yougot walked out?
Yes.
How have those timesinfluenced you as a leader in running
now the company that you havewith 50 employees?
So you know, it, what, what ittaught me is, you know, you may have
(09:17):
disagreements, but you'rehuman and you have to, you know,
you want to be treated withrespect and you should therefore
treat people with respect. Youknow, so it goes both ways. So that's,
you know, and, and thankfullyeach time it was a case of, you know,
it was polite, it was not, youknow, bad or anything like that.
But I do remember verydistinctly Saying, thinking to myself,
(09:39):
well, thank God it wasn't bad.And, and remembering that, you know,
I would not want to dosomething like that to other people
because we've had thesituation where we've had to ask
people to leave. Right. It'shappened a few times. And so you
want to do it respectfully.And, and, and really, sometimes it's
(10:01):
the best decision for, forthem and for you. Right. Because
they're not. Whoever it is.You know, we've had people that have
been with us and they're notdoing well, and we're not doing like
that part of, you know, andit's impacting us because they're
not doing well, but they're,they're in the wrong. They're in
the wrong situation. So I had.It took me a while to remember to,
(10:24):
to have the perspective ifthey're not doing well, then, you
know, they're not in theright. And, sorry, they're not in
the right environment, sothey're not doing well. That's not
right for them. It's not rightfor us. It's not just about us. It's
about them, too. So, so, youknow, you, you kind of build up this
idea of empathy andunderstanding the other person's
(10:45):
perspective, so that when youhave to make these difficult kinds
of things, whether you beingwalked out or you walking somebody
else out, that you do it respectfully.
So that's really cool. So. So,listeners, I really want you to kind
of take note to this because Ithink this is really, really important.
I mean, what we're talkingabout here actually is a part of
it is the emotionalintelligence and values, right? So
(11:07):
making sure that the values ofthe people that are in your fold
or that if you're the leaderor if you are part of a team or part
of a company, that your valuesare aligned. And if you are, if you
can use, you know, empathy orthe emotional intelligence to share
(11:28):
with somebody that eithermaybe they're not in the right position
or it's not. It's not theright fit. Not because they've done
something wrong. It's justbecause it's not the right fit.
Yeah, that's right. That'sright. It's not. They're not able
to excel and, and it, youknow, it affects them negatively
because they know they're notable to. They're not excelling. Right,
(11:51):
right. But they're, they're,you know, they're stuck. And so the
best thing is sometimes, andit's harsh at the time, it appears
harsh at the Time. But thenlater when you know, you, you, you
know, we, we stay in contactwith people whatnot. They, they end
up finding a good job andthey're happy. Right. Because they've
found a better, a betterenvironment for them.
(12:12):
Right. And it's actually, andit's not burning the bridge. It's
basically almost like sayingthank you to the person who, almost
like, you know, you saying tothe person who watched you out, you
know, almost like thank youvery much for opening the future
for me. Right? Yeah. Andopening up the future. Like, you
know, a door closing meansanother one gets to open.
That's right.
That's right. And as a leader,we have to remind the people in our
(12:35):
charge that just becausethey're not a right fit for our company
or our team, there may beanother place. There's probably,
there's a better place outthere for them.
Correct.
And that's a great key thingfor leadership.
Yeah. And, and you know,there's, there's there. This is when,
when it's really diff, youknow, you're in a predicament, you
(12:58):
know, you know, these are,it's a good person, it's not a good
fit. And you have to kind ofwork up to the, in your mind that,
you know, I have to do this.Right. It's very easy when somebody
is a total jerk and totallydoing the wrong thing. Because that's
easy. Right. Like, you know,that's, it's, it's the ones that
they're trying is just notworking. Right. And you, and you
(13:21):
in fact to like them aspeople. Right. But, but nonetheless,
even the jerks, you walk themout nicely, politely, you never know
when you'll, you'll run intothem again or you know, they can
refer somebody. That's greatas well. Right. That's happened too.
We, we've had situations wheresomebody didn't work out for us at
all. We walked them out and itwas at the very beginning. Like,
(13:44):
you know, we realized early onthat this wasn't going to be a fit
and they referred somebodythat ended up working out great for
us.
So that's actually really,that's really, really great. So what
part, you know, as a, as theleader you are, I mean, you got,
you, you've, you've been ableto see when you've needed to pivot
right. In your business. Sowhat were some of those signs? You
(14:09):
know, I mean, obviously, youknow, obviously walking at the dot
com, you're like, okay, now Igotta do.
Yeah, yeah, that was, thatwas, that was pretty you know, that
was pretty.
Right? That was like a cut anddry. Yeah. But have there been other
points in your, you know, inyour leadership and in the journey
where you've even been like,you know what, there's something
(14:31):
going on where you've almostlike you, you realize there may be
in a blind, there may havebeen a blind spot or something that
you didn't see.
Yeah. So that happens all thetime. Unfortunately, you know, this
is the, this is the reality.Right. You don't know what you don't
know. Yeah.
Right.
And, and so, or there's asaying, you know, you are where you
are because you don't knowwhat you don't know.
(14:52):
Yeah.
And, and so then how do you,you know, so what happens in that
situation is that yousometimes something, you know, talking
to customers or, or just theplain realizations when you're not
hitting the metrics that youset for yourself, like, you know,
you're expecting X number ofsignups. It's just not happening.
Why? Why? When you dig into itand then you look at other companies,
(15:16):
what have they done, what arethey doing different, etc. Something
will illuminate, likesomething will come up and says,
okay, well, this. And so thenyou have to kind of make, take some
decisive actions when you,when, when, you know, that gets highlighted
and you validate that. That'strue. And then you got to act decisively
(15:37):
to then make the change sothat you can either adjust or pivot.
Like in some cases it's anadjustment. But an adjustment would
be a pretty, you know, canhave a pretty big impact by other
cases you're pivotingaltogether. Right. Because the market
situation has changed so that,you know, your old offering is just
not going to cut it.
Right, Right. So somethingthat, you know, I'm a Mac user, I
(16:03):
love my Mac. So, you know, Iguess a couple kind of questions
that are kind of coming to mybrain are, you know, you've got,
you have daylight, you know,what made you pick Mac? Sort of number,
sort of question, number one.And number two is how are you marketing
(16:23):
it now? I mean, is it, youknow, and how are you promoting?
So, so there, so there's. Sothose two, two good questions and
two separate. Yeah, let's,let's, let's answer the first one
first, which is the, you know,why Apple. Right. So when, when,
when I kind of imagineddaylight way back in the day, the
(16:47):
idea was then it still is tohelp small businesses grow. Right.
The idea of, you know, you'restarting perhaps by yourself and
you have, you're ambitious andyou want to grow a business to 5,
10, 15 people in size or, orwhat have you. And when you're, when
you're in there, you're doingeverything, you're, you're, you know,
(17:10):
especially at the beginning,you're wearing 10 hats. And at the
time, you know, runningWindows computers and all this kind
of stuff was a headache. Like,you know, you needed an IT person
to, to keep systems running.So for us it was an easy decision
to say, okay, well the, theMac is easier to, you know, manage
and easier, easier with theuser. So that's why we gravitated
(17:32):
that way and we built anapplication that is native. Like
it's not, you know, browserbased or anything like that. It's
a native application. Sothat's why we chose to first on the
Mac and then we stayed therebecause it kind of re, you know,
it kept getting reinforcedthat it was easier to run stuff.
(17:53):
You know, Macs are easier thanWindows. We know that. Everybody
kind of knows this. Right. Sothat's the, that's the reason for
that. Then the second one ishow do we market? So in the past,
so word of mouth has alwaysbeen there. Word of mouth is still
there and was there from thebeginning. What we do in the past
(18:14):
was first we would beadvertising or talked about on various
Mac sites. So a bunch of Macpeople would learn about us. So that
worked until a while, thenthat kind of went away. And then
it was all about AdWords.Right. So AdWords is, was, was a
big thing. Now AdWords are,you know, on the dwindle for us.
(18:38):
And so what's changing now?Now it's more social media, podcasts,
et cetera, which is why I'm,you know, doing podcasting. Right.
So, so, so it, it's changingand we have to adapt to change. But
word of mouth is still astrong element in terms of how we
get new customers.
Yeah. And so did you see ashift in your business or have you
(19:01):
seen a shift in your business?You know, with, you know, was it
Covid? Did Covid have a hugeimpact as people are doing more work
from home or you know, whathas been something that has been
like. Well, that really.
I'll give you one example thatwhere we made the wrong decision.
So.
(19:21):
Okay, yeah, that's wrongdecisions are always good decisions.
Yeah, yeah. In, in 2023. So wehave. Part of our, our system is
we integrate with Apple Mailand then in Apple Mail you, you know,
you can see all this daylightstuff in Apple Mail. And then you
can link things and we copythe email in. It's part of the history,
(19:41):
et cetera. Right. So it'spretty involved in integration. And
in 2023, Apple said, you knowwhat, we're closing that door because
of security reasons and here'san alternative that, that we're giving
you so that you can continueto integrate. It was, you know, we're
not the only ones thatintegrate with Apple Mail. There
(20:02):
are other applications that doso as well. And so, you know, we
had this idea in the pastthat, you know, this day could come
and we, you know, the idea wasthat we would add mail capabilities
in daylight. That was like ourkind of plan in terms of, you know,
(20:24):
if this falls apart, then wehave this plan. And so on the, on
the, on iOS, on the phone andon the iPad, we have mail working.
And so the idea was, was thatwhen this hammer would drop, we would
then bring that to the Mac.But wrong decision. When we looked
(20:45):
at the extension thing thatthey gave us and we looked at the
data, you know, we had a fewpeople on staff that were very data
driven. Like, you know,they're making their decisions with
data as opposed to perhapstalking with the customer and data.
Right. Or, you know, if you'reonly talking to the customer, you
also don't have the wholepicture. If you're looking only at
(21:06):
data, you don't have the whole.
Right, you really need tomarry the two together.
Right, well that's the lesson.But, but at that time it was, you
know, data, data, data. So welooked at the data, but we happen
to look at the wrong data to,to see that, okay, you know, these
many customers will beimpacted, therefore let's go with
the extension idea as opposedto the built in mail capability.
(21:32):
We went with that. It took usquite a bit of time, but we got something
out. It's working, it'scurrently working, et cetera. But
customers don't love it. Theyin fact hate it. The wrong decision
there was to go through thisroundabout way to get the functionality
(21:53):
as opposed to just bucklingdown and putting the mail client,
the mail functionality rightinto daily. And so that, that, you
know, we, we lost a number ofcustomers because of that. And, and,
and that, that had asignificant impact on our business.
So now we're, you know, we're,we're righting the wrong.
(22:15):
Right.
And mail is coming indaylight, like it's an early access,
we have customers using it, etcetera. And that's the right decision.
So you know, the, the moral ofthe Story here is don't just look
at data, data, data. Don'tjust look at customer, customer,
customer. Just because at thetime when we were making this decision,
you know, whenever I'd betalking to customers, they'd be like,
(22:37):
you know, that's one of yourunique differentiating factors. And
then the data was like notlining up. And so, you know, in that
case, you should go with the customer.
Right, right. What's, what'sdifferentiating you is really huge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So nowwe'll get that back. But, you know,
now we've had this lull inbetween and some pissed off customers.
(22:58):
Well, hopefully you'll getthem, get them back.
I mean, because we will getthem back. I mean, the ones that
are looking at it that haveearly access are real. There's a
lot of positive, very positive comments.
So that's, that's really,that's really, really great. You
know, and I, and I love thisbecause, you know, it's, it's, I
love how humbled you are aboutthat too. It's, you know, because,
(23:23):
you know, it was, it's a blip.It was a lesson learned, you know,
mistake maybe, I don't know.But, but learned lesson to then say,
okay, now this is how we needto go forward. And I think it's a
key leadership process andtactic too to share with your team
(23:46):
and to others that, you knowwhat, we're not always right, but
we can acknowledge that whenwe made a decision that wasn't the
right decision and we can fixit and fix it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And thefirst part is acknowledging the fact
that the decision was wrong.Right. And that what I hope to accomplish
(24:11):
with that in terms of the teamis that when at different layers,
when a decision is wrong, thatthey're not afraid to come to me
and say, hey, we made thewrong decision here and I'm not going
to freak out. Right. Because Imade the wrong decision too. So,
so, so if I can make wrongdecisions, so can you. It's okay.
(24:33):
We can figure it out. Right?Don't be sloppy in the first place.
But you know, if it happensthat, you know, we made the wrong
decision, that's fine, let'sfix it.
Right? And, and I think that'sa, again, I just, I really want leaders
to understand that this isactually just a really key leadership
lesson is that when weacknowledge the fact that we've made
(24:53):
a mistake, it's not, you know,there's always a way to fix something
if you acknowledge it, ifright, if you acknowledge It, Right?
Yeah, like in. Or, you know,I'll share something that happened
the other day. I have a VAthat sent out that was putting together
(25:15):
a, an email for me and she'snew and she thought hitting schedule
was going to alert me to proofsomething. It ended up going out.
It went out to a thousandpeople. It was completely wrong.
Right.
But I was like, okay, well welearned obviously nothing we can
(25:38):
do about it. But it was forme. I was like, okay, you know what?
Hey, guess what? This is whatwe need to do. It's not a freak out.
Don't get angry and upsetabout it because there's not. Because
it's a. We can learn from it.We learn and can go move beyond.
It's not gonna. Didn't changeanything crazy, you know.
Right, right.
But we can always learn fromthings. We can't acknowledge it.
(26:00):
Acknowledge the people. And ifthe person and, and if the person
or if there's some group or aperson who's made a mistake to acknowledge
it. When you hide things, itdoesn't. It gets worse. Right?
It gets worse. The, the. Onthe flip side, you know, if they
make the same mistake twice,that's a red flag.
Yes. Right, right, right.
(26:20):
So, so, so, so, yeah, so. Soacknowledging the mistakes is, is
important and the fact thatmistakes can be made. Okay. We can
fix it, right. This, this, youknow, it. And it's going to become
more and more common in myestimation because there's so much
information now and, and it'svery easy to get caught in, in a
(26:43):
rabbit hole of information inthe, in an echo chamber that you
make this decision and thenyou turn out, it turns out to be
wrong. Because when, you know,when it meets the market, it's going
to be different.
Right.
So, so it's important torecognize that and a. Get early feedback
so that you can change it assoon as possible.
(27:07):
Yeah, early feedback is reallycool and really important to have
so that you can get thecustomer's feedback because they're
the ultimate end user. Right.Whether they like it or not like
it. And finding those keypeople to interview and to have on
your, you know.
As you're sounding like anadvisory. Yeah, you have some trusted.
(27:31):
Some trusted. So what we do,what we do about this is, is, you
know, there are, there are aset of customers that are like trusted
customers that we, you know, Ican call up anytime and, and just
ask them and whatnot. And thenwhat we also do is we always try
to get some new ones, newcustomers because the, the older
customers, they're they'vealready figured it out, right? Versus
(27:54):
the newer ones and thesituation changes, right? That's
kind of like a leadingindicator on various markets when
you're talking about newcustomers starting new businesses,
right?
So speaking of new business,so as you're thinking about, as you,
as you started this, if thereis somebody who's starting in the
(28:16):
throes of starting a newbusiness, what is like one of the
biggest tips that you, orinsights that you could share? You
know, your business has nowbeen going and you've had a couple
different businesses, right?So something that you could share.
So the, the one thing I liketo say is that starting a business
is like a rocket off thelaunch pad. So if you look at, you
(28:39):
know, to start a business andget it going, it takes a lot of energy,
right? Once you get it going,it's, it's much easier to maintain,
right? But at the beginning,you know, you have to put all the
full thrusters and, and gofull, you know, expend like 90 of
your fuel just to get to, youknow, low, low parts of the atmosphere,
(29:04):
right? So, or high parts ofthe atmosphere. So it's the same
thing in a business, right? Atthe beginning, it takes a lot of
effort. There's a lot of, alot of things you don't know. You're
gonna have to spend that extratime figuring the stuff out. You're
gonna have to humble yourselfand, and, and call people and talk
to people and, and whatnot.So, so that you can kind of, you
know, that, that takes a lotof energy. That's like, you know,
(29:25):
12 hour days, 14 hour dayssometimes until you get to a certain
point. Then at that certainpoint you can, you know, you have
enough money coming in, youfigured out your business, you can
scale it now and then you can scale.
Yeah, so that's true. And whenyou're talking about scaling, is
there, is there a point intime when you're like, okay, now,
(29:47):
you know, we've been here, nowwe're ready to scale. Is there like.
So, you know, we have theluxury or we have the luxury of seeing
many businesses, right? Wehave lots of customers, thousands
of customers around the world.And so I see three kinds of key phases.
The first phase is what I calla leap phase. You know, you're leaping
into business, you're leapingoff a cliff, maybe in your mind,
(30:10):
right? You're like, I don'tknow what I'm doing. And so you're
figuring stuff out. And thenthe next stage, I call the growth
stage, and the, and the growthstage is you're still, you know,
you're figuring out yourrepeatable income, kind of like,
like how your repeatable salesprocess, your repeatable execution
process. And then the thirdone is scaling where you're basically
(30:31):
throwing more resourcesbecause you're just duplicating that,
that, that system that youhave. Right. So that's the kind of
three phases that I see. Andof course, in the scaling one, there's,
you know, that there's a lotof sub phases there because, you
know, when you're adding, whenyou have 10 people, it's different
than managing a company of 20 people.
(30:55):
Right.
Or 25 people. So for us, wehad these plateaus. Five, then 10
to 12 was another plateau, andthen 25 was another plateau. Right
now we're this, you know,another, yet another plateau. So,
so there are these, you know,within the scaling part, there's
these plateaus that you hitand you have, you have to kind of
(31:16):
break through.
Yeah, I love it. So, so tellme a little bit about obviously the
software and how much, becauseobviously it, it's something that
you obviously worked with. Howmuch did it change? Because you were
used, you started it for yourself.
Yes.
Right. So how much did the,did Daylight change your, that, that
(31:37):
consulting business?
So it, at the, at thebeginning it was, you know, we were
selling, we would do customdevelopment work, custom software
development work. And so eachkind of deal was between 50 and 100,
$120,000, that kind of size.Right. So the, the sales cycle was
(31:59):
longer. It's not a quick salescycle. Right. The sales cycle was
longer. And what it kind oftaught us was, or taught me or, you
know, was that we were able tokind of more, you know, we were able
to kind of have a repeatablekind of pattern. Right. And so that's,
(32:21):
that's what it taught me isthat ultimately like, if, if we were
to scale, you know, if westayed in the consulting business,
it would have, we would havejust basically scaled out these little
pods like, okay, you know, youneed to, you need, you, you have
a few people working for acustomer. They're doing some custom
development work. This is thekind of patterns that we follow.
And, and then this is how youdeliver and then this is how you
verify and this, etc. Right.And so there is that, that pipeline
(32:45):
of, of, of of of things. Sothen you're just repeating that what
we did was we, we did that,but then we pivoted to being a product
company. So it changed in, itchanged how we, it changed Our business
fundamentally because we wereable to get enough revenue so that
we could build a product. Andthen the product, we build it up
(33:08):
enough so that we didn't needthis, this first revenue.
Yep. So now daylight, we, youknow, as a company, you do sales,
you know, so CRM.
So, so let me explain. So we,what we did is a little bit different
than what your typical quoteunquote CRM thing. Right. So when,
when. The very first thingthat I remember looking, when I was
(33:30):
looking at this is why do CRMsfail? A lot of CRMs used to fail
back then, and they failedbecause they approach things from
the top down, meaningmanagement down. Right. So management
wanted these kinds of reportsor whatever, and then people downstream
had to kind of put the data inso that the report could be true.
Yeah.
And so I was like, I don'twant to do that. Right. So. And also
(33:54):
not only I don't want to dothat, but that's one of the reasons
it was failing because peopleweren't putting the data in and therefore
the report would not be true.
Yeah.
So instead we flipped itaround and we built productivity
stuff like, you know, propercalendar, task management, and so
forth. And we call that ourbase layer. Right. These are these,
these things, you know, that,that is part of this general productivity
(34:17):
like task management, calendarmanagement, contact management, and
then we put another layer ontop of it. So not contact management,
but notes and stuff like that.Then the next layer is contacts,
people, companies and users.And on top of that is the first part
of it is you have to get newbusiness. Right. As a, as a company,
(34:37):
you can't exist withoutcustomers. So getting new business.
We called it that becausepeople had an aversion to the term
sales. When we said sales,they would be like, they would, they
would associate that word withdirty car salesman.
Right?
No, I don't do sales. Like,I'd be talking to customers and they'd
(34:58):
be like, I don't do sales.Like, what are you talking about?
Like, how are you making moneyif you don't do sales? Of course
you do sales. You just, you'rejust offering a service. Right. And
what you're doing. So then wecame to the term getting new business.
You know, you get new business development.
Right?
Right. Yeah. Which is sales.Right, it's sales. So you have to
do that. And then finally whenyou do that, you've made some promises.
(35:20):
Right. When they've signed onthat dotted line on the agreement,
you've made some promises. Sothe next part is you got to deliver
on Those promises, which iswhere the project stuff comes in.
Again, these all sit on top oftasks, notes and meetings and appointments,
etc. That, that is our baselayer. So that's what makes us different
(35:40):
than all the other things outthere, is that we have all of this
in, in kind of like one placeand you don't have to, you know,
integrate with five differentsystems, etc. It's all in one.
It's all in one, which isactually really fantastic. Absolutely
love it. So what is next forwhat's, what's next in your business?
So what's next for us is, youknow, the, the again, you know, the
(36:04):
male thing that we spokeabout, that's the current, you know,
main focus. And then afterthat it will be more integrations
with, with things like GoogleCalendar and, and so forth and figuring
out how we can leverage AI tohelp small businesses. Kind of like,
you know, again, same thing.How do they grow?
(36:26):
Right.
And how can we leverage AI ina reasonable, with a reasonable cost
as opposed to crazy costs?Because then.
No, well, I absolutely lovethis and you know, as a, as a Mac
user, I love it. And so areyou. Do you. Just because I'm, as
a curiosity, do you. I sawonline that you integrate with HubSpot.
(36:53):
Is it something that you alsointegrate with something like a GHL
or ghl go high level.
So, so we have, we have likean API and some people, including
the HubSpot one for example.Other people did the integration,
we didn't do the integrations,but we have, we have an API so, so
programmers can, can, youknow, talk to our back end and so
(37:16):
forth. So that's how thathappens. So we have a few of those.
We have one very strongpartner that does a whole bunch of
integrations including in theapp itself. Like, like they, you
know, we have a pluginmechanism and they're able to kind
of get in there and add somefunctionality that perhaps we haven't
gotten to or, or is very specialized.
Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. Sowhat's next for you aj?
(37:41):
So for me, you know, the, theI'm, I'm enjoying what I'm doing
now. Yeah. And I have, I havetwo kids. I have a 17 year old daughter
and a 21 year old son. Soright now my focus is kind of making
sure that, you know, that,that that phase of life for them
is critical and, and to mefamily is very important. So that,
(38:03):
that's my main focus rightnow. Run, run the business. Making
sure that it remainscompetitive, that customers are happy
with what we have that theword of mouth continues. And then
secondly, making sure that thefamily's all right. So that's my
main focuses. And then at somepoint, you know, maybe I'll. And
in the meantime, you know, Ido take vacations and stuff like
that, so.
(38:24):
All right, so any particulartrip that you got planned coming
up?
So we have a trip to Turkeycoming up. And, and, and then also
a trip to Dubai. So a familytrip. So we do these family trips
where, where we go, all fourof us, rent a car, drive around,
(38:46):
you know, it's. It's a lot of fun.
I love it. Oh, my God. Well,aj, I could talk to you forever.
How can people connect with you?
Two easy ways. Number one isour website, Daylight app. D A Y
L I T E app. That's whereyou'll see our application and you
can try it out. There's a 14day free trial. And of course, you
(39:08):
can also connect with ouradvisors. They're happy to talk to
you. They're not salespeople,but they're, you know, they'll advise
you and, and then on LinkedIn.So on LinkedIn, it's my full name.
It's Ali Khan. A L Y K H A NJetta J E T H A as you just find
me on LinkedIn, connect withme and I'm there. I'm not on other
(39:30):
social media as much I'm. ButI am on LinkedIn and you can find
us through, through my.Through our website.
Oh, well, fantastic. Well, Iwill have all those in the show notes
too. So people, but pleasereach out and if you have any business
questions, I mean, aj, you'vebeen so successful and I, I have
(39:50):
to tell you, I think at somepoint I may have actually tried Daylight
and I'm actually thinkinglike, oh, now I gotta come back and
really look at it again. SoI'm gonna be doing that.
We'd be happy to help you with that.
Yeah. But seriously, guestlisteners, please connect with aj.
Check out Daylight, because itis really, really robust. I was on
(40:15):
there, looking at it today andI'm like, oh my God, this is really
fantastic. So connect withhim. And if you have found listeners,
if you have found thispodcast, which I hope you have educational,
or you've gotten some tidbitsand snippets that you have written
down, please share the podcastwith your friends and colleagues.
This is the UnstoppableLeadership Spotlight podcast. We
(40:36):
want to make great leaders outthere, great leaders, make great,
happy employees, and thatmakes a happier world. So I'm Jaclyn
Strominger, and I thank youall for listening, and thank you,
AJ for being a great guest.
Thank you for having me on. Itwas really good, and I love I could
talk to you forever as well.
Thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com