Episode 26: Life in the Fast Lane

When does failure turn around into success? How does a failing business go to an exit with one of the largest car manufacturers in the world? How does a person rebound from personal tragedy and almost losing a spouse to create a thriving life style and business? Tune in to hear the Founders talk with Tyler hall and go through his harrowing story.

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Every once in a while, wedecided to dust off the mics and get
back in for a pertinent Founders therapyepisode. Every once in a while,
we dust off the mine. Everyonce in a while. Should be more
frequent. That kind of stung,actually a little bit. The very regular,
the very warn the very battle tread. It's the mileage, of course,

(00:32):
right, yeah, boy, Andas you can tell, the whole
cruise here, the whole crew,plus the real star of the show,
the real reason for the season,so to SPEAKM Tyler right here. We
wait, you didn't You didn't introduceCraig and I that's the staple, that's
like a staple of the show.You're supposed to say, handsome Craig and

(00:54):
to my right, which I'm alwayshe always says something different. Well I'm
saying, and you usually say,you know, this other guy happens to
be named Matt on the other sideof your you know, the other side
of you. So all those thingsare true. You didn't that this time.
Yeah, but you didn't see Craig'sface when I implied that. It
had been a bit and so Iwas just like, we're just going to

(01:15):
coast right through. We're not gonnadivert in any way. We're just going
to start making this happen well,as you said, just to kind of
get back on track. Here.We're the real reason we're here. It's
because we've got I've got some legendaryfor real status in here. Tyler Hall,
Tyler and I we go back andyou and Craig sort of go back
in directly a little bit too,through mutual friends and you know, friends

(01:37):
with his wife and growing up inthe same neighborhood or was it, no,
you grew up with Adam Webster.Yeah, yeah, oh, cousin
in law. And I don't rememberhow we got connected, but I got
connected a few years ago talking aboutyour Morning, your Team book that you
had been working on at the time. Who introduced us? Adam did?
Adam? Did? Adam put usin touch? And I was about writing

(02:00):
a book because I was twenty Idon't know, twenty eight and feeling like
jaded that the whole world was againstmillennials. And I thought, I'm gonna
go interview. I'm gonna prove notnineteen ninety so I'm thirty two. Okay,
so you just missed out on theexennial. No, No, I
think it's like seven like seven yearsor something. Five years. Yeah,

(02:24):
Um, you're true millennials. No, I'm a true I'm right right in
the middle somewhere right. And soyou know, I had this idea.
I was like, you know what, screw this, I'm gonna show everybody
how amazing millennials are. There's there'ssome amazing entrepreneurs out there. So I
put a feeler out there, like, who are the best entrepreneurs that are
part of the millennial generation? Andyou, my friend, were one of

(02:47):
the best in the world for thetime. Maybe right, Like, I
think I've gone down a few notches. I can I could buy it,
do that, I could mind that. Actually, I'm also like in that
analog millennial status. Yeah, exennial. And I also will say that good

(03:10):
news to you. Millennials are nolonger the maligned generation. Now everybody just
wants to pick on gen Z.Yeah, so you're good, right,
So the book would no longer berelevant, didn't didn't produce an interview.
You can still write it fifty five. I've never never published it, never
published it. Maybe I will,like in forty years when it's totally irrelevant.

(03:30):
But can I talk about something that'sbothering me. Please. You guys
have these coasters in here. Okay, they say the podmill on them,
that's correct. And they're made outof a horrible material because every time I
set my drink down, it makesthat noise. I mean you can not
necessarily cling. Spenser's like just softerreally just it's like diffusing a bomb to

(03:53):
get it to really code as onereally says. I think Tyler only has
one speed. He just true,Tago, I say it all the time.
Thank you. I only have onespeed too. You and I are
very similar that way. But Tylerand I we go back to Desert Digital
Media, and then after that weworked at Demo together as well. We

(04:15):
worked together together. No, wedidn't totally. I moved back from Los
Angeles, was at NBC, movedback to their affiliate KSL, which is
DDM essentially, and you and Iwere there together, and I think that's
what got you into cars. Maybeyou were always a car guy, but
you were heavily into the classifieds,you know, selling ad spaces cars.
Yeah, that's exacting and what youjust exited. We'll get into that in

(04:39):
a minute, drivably. But youand I moved on to demo together selling
business intelligence software, right yeah,and that intense as awesome, and then
we both on our separate ways,and I've only been in touch with you
via social media, watching your awesomesuccesses so drivably it was the most recent.
But let's go back even further.Why don't you talk about because you're

(05:00):
very entrepreneurial you always have been.You've what what you you bought a food
truck, really own or something orinvest in some other small things that come
into big stuff and I mean snowball, No, most of them failed.
Like I just want to be superforthcoming about most of us. You're not.
You're not like that. This umno, like our like the recent

(05:24):
one was was obviously really good.But prior to that, UM, I
was like a you know, Iwas batting like two hundred, right,
So it wasn't like I was aspecial entrepreneur. I was taking every dollar
I would make and I was tryingto invest it in different things and writing
small checks. And come to find, like when you when you put a
bunch of your life earnings and otherpeople, it typically doesn't go super well.

(05:48):
Like so like the first main lessonI think I learned in life is
like I'm going to invest, likejust invest in yourself. It's a very
simple concept. Sounds cliche, butit wasn't. Uns how I started doing
that that it was like, ohthis this might actually work out. So
but yeah, we met it.Uh. I think it was probably two
thousand and twelve, twelve you movedback from LA we met it Desert Management

(06:15):
Corporation and ddm um, good times, man, those are great times.
Those were those were great times.We'll just leave it at that. Yeah,
he was trying to look for ita different adjective than great. Those
were times. Those were times.Those were times. But you know,
you're this serial entrepreneur and you,like you said, you've talked, you

(06:39):
talk about these what you call failures, how you failed many times. You're
you're not batting two hundred. You'rebatting much higher than that, I'd say,
but based on the averages. Butthat's because you just kept going.
You know, you don't lose unlessyou quit. And that's what you told
me outside and the four here outhere before I started recording, we're talking

(07:00):
about, Look, if you quit, that's when you lose, you know
what I meant. And the challengeswhen you invest in other people, you
don't know their tolerance for pain,so you don't know when they're going to
quit. And most businesses don't succeedbecause they were amazing out of the gate,
or they had perfect product, marketfit or access to tons of capital.
Like every business is the same earlyon. It's a slog and if

(07:24):
you if you don't just push throughthe massive pile of shit, it's not
going to work, right. Andso when you invest in other people,
if you don't know, like ifthey don't have a track record of being
able to like work through the slog, jump on the roller coaster every day,
do the crazy topsy turvy thing.It's just it's unknown. And so
the one thing I knew about myselfis like I might not be the smartest

(07:46):
guy, I might not be themost educate whatever, But the one thing
I am is like, I'm nota quitter. And so that ended up
working out one of the better salespeopleI've ever met. And I'm in a
very bad way. I'm just saying, you know, because it's sales can
sometimes have a negative connotation sometimes,but like not at all, but you

(08:07):
have this uncanny ability to really diveinto value that you're offering and dive into
the pain that you're that's the personyou're talking to and selling to. That's
that's a very unique trait. Younot everybody. You can go and sell
just about anything to anybody like youcan. I think there's a handful of
salespeople in my life that I know, and I think Europe at the top,

(08:31):
thank you, which is really impressive. So I mean, talk about
that, because you're not a technicalfounder unless you learn some you know,
how to develop or code. Inthe last few years since we've talked,
m and non technical founders nowadays seemto be getting all the love. So
how do you get around that?And how does that sales background play into
it? Yeah, maybe start bytelling us what you did most recently,

(08:56):
your exit right, and then howthose sales getting drivably. Let's go back
to that, yes, talk aboutand how those skills and how that skills
out that. Yes, I thinkyou're right correct, we haven't really heard
about you yet. Right, Yeah, let let me give the maybe two
minute version that puts a bow onhow Matt and I met at KSL and
while I got into cars and allthese things. So you know, we

(09:18):
meet at KSL, entails and twelve, I'm I'm poor, college full time
student, full time also getting marriedkis from twenty one. Getting married to
my wife is twenty insane things wedo in Utah, right, And um.
I get this job at KSL sellingdigital advertising space, and I was
selling predominantly to car dealerships on thecars classified. So all day, every

(09:41):
day I just looked at cars.End up buying my first car, and
I'm at the office the next dayrealized I got a great deal on this
car. Some BMW, wasn't it? It was an Audi? Actually,
do you remember that? I doremember that Matt is a big Audi guy.
You said, BMW, Well,sorry, it was a little OUTI
a four. I realized I gota great deal. So I listed it

(10:03):
on our classified platform and I soldit. I made a thousand bucks and
a thousand dollars. At this time, was like a lot of money,
Like I was rich. I waslike, WHOA, where are we going
to dinner night? It was likethere's a lot of money, and so
still need a car. Bought anothercar. I'm at the office next day
another great deal, listed it onour classified sold it made two thousand dollars

(10:26):
and so I got smart. Inthe next ninety days, I'd bought and
sold like twenty cars. Okay,so think about that volume. And I'm
in the DMV this one day andthis lady's like, hey again, Tyler.
We're on a first name basis now. Like she's like, do you
have a dealer license that you wantto put on file with us? I'm
like, what is that? Youknow? She's like, do you have
a wholesale license or you're a broker. I'm like, nope, no idea

(10:52):
what you're talking about. Worried,like report me, and so she goes
and I actually had no idea thatthis is illegal. She goes in the
city of Utah, you can onlylegally register three cars in a calendar year,
and according to my records, you'vedone twenty. And I'm like whoa.
So she's like, get flagged inmy system, and I'm like crap,
you know, but at this timeI'm balling. I have like all

(11:13):
this cash money. So I'm like, okay, what do you want you
want to find me? I don'tcare, Yeah, I said, do
I need to pay a fee righthere? Right now? I've got like
ten grand in my pocket cash rightAnd she's like no, this is actually
a Class B misdemeanor, and I'msupposed to report you to the police and
you'll go to jail. Right,So I'm thinking I'm slick. I'm a
young college kid. I'm hustling.I'm making money. Next thing, you

(11:37):
know, like I could be gettinghandcuffed. So I start crying. Right,
I'm still like a kid. Istart crying. They're talking to her.
They're talking to her, and sherealizes, Okay, this was a
big mistake. He had no idea. She's like, you can't do this
anymore. Here's this packet, right, go follow these instructions. You could
apply to be a dealer. Readthrough it. I'm like, I'm not

(11:58):
a car dealer, like partiers aregross and I'm a student and I can't
I don't have the time and whatever. Anyways, hung it up. A
week goes by didn't flip a car. I missed the itch. So I
went knocked down a bunch of dealerdoors right to Matt's sales point and I
said, can I use your license? I want to buy and sell cars

(12:18):
on your license, And finally Igot a guy to say yes. And
anyways, to make a really longstory short, ended up buying and selling
about two hundred cars in the nexttwo years, so like several a week,
two three, four a week onaverage. And I got really good
at flipping cars, and that waskind of like my foundation for building a
little bit of wealth, like alittle bit of liquid that I could start

(12:39):
investing. And so I became aninvestor in a car dealership. In fact,
the one of the only great investmentsI made was in a buy here,
pay here car dealership because he couldn'tget banks to lend him money.
And I ended up knowing the carbusiness fairly well at this time, and
I had cash and I didn't knowhow to deploy it, and so I
said, hey, I'll be yourlender. You can use my money to

(13:01):
buy cars and just pay me interestevery time you sell the vehicle. So
at twenty two, you know,I'm like investing in this car dealer,
and that one actually worked out reallywell. But because of that experience,
I got a really inside look athow the car business worked, and I
realized that car dealerships were really behindthe times on pretty much everything. I

(13:24):
was like, there's a lot ofroom for disruption an opportunity here, and
I was pretty passionate about solving itand I wanted to. And I had
a mentor say, hey, gogo join an early stage tech company.
First learn what they're doing, andthen go do your own company. Be
patient. Takes some time. SoI joined Domo. This was a learning
experience for me. Nobody a DOMAknows this, right, Like, I

(13:45):
joined that to like learn really wechanged even Tomo yea my Amelian like going
through letters in my keeping in mymind, I'm like, oh, don't
say that one zoo. I guessyeah, we don't want to anyone to
know. It's a very different organizationnow than it was when we were there.
So I think, yeah, Ithink you're fine. Yeah, so

(14:07):
it's uh yeah, So I soI joined. He joined Domo, did
his learning opportunity. Ended up doingwell there though, Like start out in
very entry level sales and you know, learned a ton and I would join
product meetings and any any time theywould let me in the room, I
would be there just like curious.They're like, what does the sales get

(14:28):
doing in the corner. It's like, oh, he's just learning, and
you know, learned a lot there. And then I felt like it was
appropriate to I had an opportunity togo take on a bigger role at another
software company called higher View Domo asyou guys know IPOT eventually. You know,
higher View was a relatively small company, about a twelve or fifteen million
dollar year company when I joined,and grew that over three years till over

(14:52):
fifty million, and had a biggerrole there, and so learned again just
more learning. So I spent sevenyears after I learned this problem in college,
flipping cars and being an investor ina car dealer. Seven years like
learning how to build an enterprise softwareorganization. And then January twenty eighteen,
I start a car dealership. Andso instead of like building and testing products

(15:15):
with other dealers and getting feedback,I just said, I'm just going to
be my own dealer. So Istart a car dealership with some of the
money I'd made from Higher View,and we incubated Drivably there, and then
January twenty nineteen we started Drivably.So, so tell us a little bit
about what Drivably does. Yeah,so initially, right, we pivoted a

(15:37):
few times, but initially we werea pricing engine for car dealerships to price
vehicles. So car dealers have areally hard time understanding three things, what
cars do I buy, where doI buy them from? And how much
money do I pay to maximize profitmargins. And for the most part,
up until that time, they werereally using their gut, like, oh,

(15:58):
I'm a great buyer, can goto the auction and I'm everything I
touched turns to gold. That waskind of the nature of the industry though,
and the industry started compressing to whereit was getting more competitive, less
inventory, and so Cardios had toget really smart with Halley bock Car.
So we started out as a asa pricing engine. You know, that
went relatively well. We raised aboutlike in sort of preset and seat funding,

(16:21):
about three million dollars, and thatbusiness was a slog for the first
nine months. In fact, wecan talk about some of the very depressing
times of the first nine months beinga first time founder. Having the weight
of the world on your shoulders wasn'ta lot of money, but for me
it was a lot of money andjust failing completely and blowing through all that

(16:44):
capital and then eventually basically firing ourentire engineering team nine months in and starting
over from scratch, and then onthe second go round, you know,
we got some things right. Businesswas doing well, and then COVID happened,
and that's when things got really interestingin the company. When car prices

(17:06):
exploded, you're saying, or negativeinterest. Yeah, so it was it
was both, right. I mean, when COVID first happened, dealerships across
North America were shut down. Theyweren't quote unquote essential businesses, which still
boggles my mind, but maybe I'ma bit bias. And so all of

(17:27):
our customers canceled at the beginning ofCOVID, and we're out of money.
We had I had one hundred grandin the bank and my burn my expenses
every month were eighty thousand, andwe had zero revenue. Right, we
went from about forty thousand of MRRto zero and company was growing going into

(17:47):
that, right, And so unfortunatelyI had to lay off basically my whole
staff. We went from sixteen peopleto four people during that time. This
was an incredibly depressing time, andI think COVID. I got COVID,
and I don't know if any ofyou had this, but COVID actually really

(18:07):
like can I swear on this?It might it like fucked my mind up
really bad. Covid um and Ithink it was like everything, like I
had the brain fog, brain fog, memory retention. Yeah, dude,
I started having like very depressed thoughts. Um, it's not like me to

(18:32):
be that way. And I hadsome thoughts that you guys don't even want
to know about, right, um. And I was really confused as to
why. And I thought it wasjust the pressure of the company and all
the stuff. But I think itwas a combination of this this virus and
um, you know, what wasgoing on in the company. So that
was an incredibly hard time. Umdidn't sleep for a week probably during that

(18:55):
I was a mess and had tolet all my friends go. Basically that
I convinced to come and do thisride with me. You sound like Michael
Scott working with your friends. Ijust had to make that office plug in.
But I truly want to know.Are they were they friends of yours
or do they become friends after youhired them? So what were what were

(19:15):
you looking for in that regard asan early stage startup? One one out
of twelve was an actual friend thatI went to high school, that Connor
Hyde. Uh. The other elevenwere uh, you know, had become
friends. Right when you're doing astartup, it's like everybody's like family because

(19:37):
you just spend all day every daytogether. Um, and it's difficult,
right when you convinced somebody like ofthis dream and they come along for the
ride and they sacrifice and they gothrough the muck and they're there and they're
they're willing to like keep going,and you have to tell them like,
this is it. What did youdo to to track them? First of
all, because it's hard? Andwhy why the friends? Because that's also

(20:03):
hard to work with friends. It'slike in family, of course. Yeah,
and what did you do to keepthem there? Yeah? I mean,
I think to your sales point,right, I think I wasn't good
at many things the CEO, butthere was like a couple that I was.
And it was really everything revolved aroundmy ability to sell. So it

(20:23):
was selling investors on why they shouldinvest, making sure we had money in
the bank, and reinvest when theyprobably shouldn't have right when things were tough.
It was convincing and selling people thatI wanted to join the team,
to come join the team. Andthen it was convincing the entire company that
of our vision and this thing's gonnawork and it's going to keep going and

(20:45):
so because and then obviously like sellinginto actual customers and setting up partnerships and
things like that. So that wasthat was all I did, really was
those those things. But all ofit revolves around this ability to sell.
So you would you say that youjust a side note here, maybe a
little tangent, but curious, isanyone looking to start a business or build

(21:11):
out from early stage? You geta lot of technical love, of course,
technical co founder or founder love.You know where you're the CTO slash
CEO. You know how to builda product. I'm going to invest in
you. On the flip side ofthe soft skills in the soft sciences,
I guess would you argue, well, what what what do you argue is

(21:32):
the best soft skill to start abusiness as a founder? Would that be
sales? I know my answer?I probably no, Craig's answer too.
I don't know, Oh, thebest soft skill? I mean, because
you got a lot of a lotof people out there we're going to start
a business and they need a technicalco founder. But if you don't,
how do you start the business anyway? What what skill do you need?

(21:53):
Yeah? No, Look, Ithink my bias immediately in my gut immediately
goes to sales. Right Like ifyou if you have the gift of gab,
if you have the ability to convincepeople to do things, that goes
a long way. But there's anothersoft skill that I think is underspoken,
which is which is the the abilityto maintain poise even when things are going

(22:22):
horribly wrong or very right. Right, So as we go through this up
and down, if you can bepoised through that, which I don't know
if you consider that a soft skill, I don't know what that is.
More of a consider that emotional intelligence, which characteristic number one. They have
resilience, right, I mean beingable to go into a challenge standing in

(22:44):
that storm Lieutenant Dan style and belike, hey, I'm here, we're
doing this. The problem is ifyou're if you're dumb, and you have
resilience, doesn't matter if you can'tsell. If you can't you know,
it's like that that's an after factof a couple of other things you have
to have foundationally, and in mycase it was sales. I do feel
like I was also a bit poised. That EQ then is is is kind

(23:08):
of byproduct or gravy or cherry ontop. It's not a core thing you
need to start. Obviously, peopledon't want to stay with you if you're
not very well tempered. Yeah,but I think is that what you're saying,
then you can get your core skill. I should be able to sell,
even if I'm not a sales guy. You should learn how to sell
people, how to persuade people,how to convince. Right, that's what

(23:32):
the most important one hundred percent,and technical founders don't can't get away with
not being able to sell. Evenif you're the best you know, hacker
count or CTO, ever you're all, you're still going to be in the
line of fire. You still haveto go raise the money. It's not
going to be your number two.Investors don't want to talk to the co
founder guy. Okay, sorry,Andrew, Right, it's just the way

(23:55):
it goes. They want to talkto the CEO. And so if you're
technical and you're CEO, you haveto know how to sell, have to
nobody's gonna do it for you.I want to hear the rest of this
story. I'm on like pins andneedles. So you let go of a
bunch of the staff. This istwenty twenty twenty one. This is now,
this is twenty twenty, this isApril of twenty twenty. Okay,

(24:15):
so right, is the shutdown happened? You're in a low spot. What
comes next? What happened? Yeah, we're out of money. What had
happened was I should have been raisingcapital much sooner, forecasting this. But
we we had a company one yearin that was looking to acquire us,

(24:38):
and it was really we think thatif we bring your product and team underneath
our umbrella, this is much moreinteresting than you trying to do it yourself.
Right. Wouldn't have been a greatoutcome, but would have been a
decent outcome. And you know,we were We're running out of money,
and it was tough, right,So this founder was like, maybe that's

(25:00):
an option. We get all theway to basically signing term sheets, and
then the announcement of COVID happens andgoes on pause and then quickly unravels and
that deals off the table, andI'm out of money, right, basically
I've got five weeks left. Youknow. Luckily I had kept conversations going

(25:23):
with one investor that was Porsche,and they had never done a deal in
North America and German come very Germanby the way, love them, Okay,
let me be clear. I loveyou guys, but like very German,
and so I'm not sure. Notthat means, just to know it's

(25:45):
they're very thorough, very patient,sometimes difficult in negotiation. They take a
long time, right. US investorsmove very fast, abnormally fast. You
go to Europe, you go toGermany, it's it's slow. But we
had engaged them the previous December.So we'd been conversations four or five months,

(26:07):
and we're running out of money andI'm at my lowest low and I
get an email and I'm basically talkingabout co founder like we might be winding
the sitting down. I get anemail from them saying, hey, we
want to get on a call.We get on a call, they say
we want to invest. And initiallywe had talked about like them coming in

(26:30):
on our previous terms because things weretough, and bringing maybe a million to
a million five and they didn't dothat, but they brought five hundred k.
They about half a million bucks,which at that time was like,
okay, this seems like a lotof money. We had. Yeah,
we had really scaled things back andso portion invested in the middle of COVID
and it was a It was amiracle, truly. It was like,

(26:55):
I don't know how that happened,why that happened, but it happened,
and that gave us the ability tocome poke our heads up and say,
all right, what do we wantto do. We made a big,
big move. We went and acquireda company in an all stock deal based
in Canada opportunistically during COVID we integratedthat company and then we made a huge

(27:17):
pivot. And our pivot was wewent from being a pricing tool for dealers
to being a marketplace where consumers couldsell their vehicle directly to a car dealership.
And we're the first one basically inthe world to do this. And
all of the sudden things turned around. So it went from like we're screwed,

(27:41):
dealerships are shut down to all timehigh consumer demand for vehicles and an
all time low supply. And thishappened within like two months. Okay,
So all of a sudden, theautomotive industry just started on this trajectory and
we're like, whoa if this keepsgoing for six months, a year or
two years, like we're going tomake hay for a while, right,

(28:04):
And so like nobody had inventory tooffer these dealers. We were the only
ones that had a unique way togo acquire cars, and that was from
consumer driveways. We basically consumer wouldgive us their vin we'd make an offer.
If they liked it, they'd selfschedule an inspection. We'd send an
inspector inspect the car to their house, and then we'd auction it to our
network of dealers right there from theirhouse, and they'd watch dealers bid and

(28:27):
get more money. And eventually,like consumers be able to watch that,
yeah, they were part of thisprocess. They'd sign on the down a
line, we'd take the car andthat was it. And so we had
unlocked this unique source of supply.We had dealer inquiries and sign ups backlog
for six months within a month,right, So, like things got really

(28:48):
right for us, we start hiringas fast as we can. Can't keep
up with that growth, and webasically spend the next fourteen months in like
hair on fire mode through growth.And so you know, we went from
like catching our stride COVID straight tothe bottom, almost died, to straight
up vertical growth for fourteen months andyou know at that time, now we

(29:12):
had these we had this story,we had these economics that were like really
enticing to investors. So I wentout in Q one of twenty one to
raise the Series A. We're goingto raise twenty million dollars. And we
had we had the economics to doit, and we had the story,
and we had we had everything,and we had a ton of investor interest.

(29:34):
And at the same time, wehad a couple of inbounds. We
had a couple of companies coming toapproaches and say we want to look at
acquiring the entire company. And sotalked to the board and we felt like
this is a window of opportunity thatmay not exist forever, this might close
soon, and so opportunistically we engagedin a process isn't your traditional cell process.

(30:02):
I pretty much rand the process onmy own, with sort of legal
counsel and banker in the background insteadof on the forefront. And I did
that strategically, and I called fiveCEOs, four public companies, one private
company but a big company, andsaid we're entertaining selling the entire company.
And we were just the talk ofthe industry at this point, and so
like everybody was like, yep,we want to talk. We had within

(30:26):
three months, we had three termsheets and we ended up signing a term
sheet with one in July of thatyear and an l o I. Right.
That was that sort of bound usto no shop, no solicitations,
no longer can we go talk toany other parties. And then things got

(30:48):
really wild and so I'm happy tojust keep going if you guys want me
to. Yeah, that's why you'rehere. I think that we're all like
dialed in. So it was agreat story. So we a salesman,
Yeah, this locked in. Sowe signed this l I with this company,
and you know, that was thebest day of my life the day

(31:12):
up until that point other than likesorry baby, like my merriage, like
getting married and kids. Right,there's like the best for sure career day
of my life. Signed this lI. I see the zeros and I'm
just like whoa. And I callmy co founder as I'm signing it,
and I'm face and I'm like checkit out, dude, Like we're rich,

(31:33):
we made it, we got itright. And then the due diligence
starts happening, the deeper due diligence, and at the time I didn't realize
this was the standard. That's whathappens in like most of these transactions.
We start going through due diligence,things are going pretty well, and then
one day out of the blue,I get a call from the head of

(31:55):
legal and corporate development and he says, hey, man, are you do
you have a minute? And hegoes. I remember him saying like something
like are you sitting down? AndI was like, oh shit, what's
going on? And he goes.He goes, this is this is the
worst part about my job. Hesaid, we found some things during due

(32:17):
diligence that we can't get comfortable withUM, and we're gonna we're gonna release
you from the exclusivity clause and we'regonna keep digging in. But it's this
isn't probably this probably isn't gonna happen. There's that decay on the roller coaster,
right, You're like, yeah,oh crap, Yeah, But I

(32:38):
mean, I'm just curious and youprobably aren't going to tell us. But
I got to ask one of thosediscrepancies they're looking for really saw or noticed.
Yeah, no, I can talkabout it. It's um. I
pretty much talked about everything. Bythe way, and I just asked for
forgiving somebody's upset, right, perfect, guest, it is what it is.
Yeah, I mean you guys,As I keep telling my story,

(33:01):
I haven't always been this way,but I've gotten to a place in my
life where it's like, I think, I believe you have to live this
way. You have to have yourcar down, you have to be willing
to speak. So the thing waswhen we would source consumer vehicles, okay,
on the supply side of our marketplace, we had built bots that would

(33:23):
go and scrape Craigslist, ksl eBay, car Guru's, Facebook, every classified
and then these bots would scrape them. We would set a criteria, here's
the cars you need to go find, and then it would automatically message them.
So we had built bots that wouldget through capshows and like it was
very sophisticated. Craigslist has terms ofservice that are pretty bulletproof to not allow

(33:51):
you to do this, right,and TCPA is a fine line, right,
which is like you can't text orsolicit somebody without approval or opt in.
Anyways, it was that. Sothey said their legal counsel shared it
with another their outside counsel, andthey were like, absolutely not we can't

(34:12):
source customers that way. We're apublic company that's going to put us in
crazy amount of exposure. And thatwas like seventy percent of our revenue came
from these types of customers. Soall of a sudden, are like,
yeah, this business isn't that interestingto us anymore, right, And I
was just like totally taken aback.I remember. I remember hanging up the

(34:37):
phone and sitting in my office andputting my face in my hands like this,
and the only thing I was thinkingwas what am I going to tell
my wife? Right? Because thelast month since we signed the l OI,
I mean, it was like we'replanning everything right, and we hadn't

(34:58):
like we hadn't gotten that far towhere we are she's spending money, But
it was like so we were,we had some plans. That's all we
did for that previous month. Again, first time found her, like I
didn't know. I just thought,oh, I like this is good.
We're done. And so I rememberI remember leaving my office and my wife's
in the next room over and I'mlike, hey, honey, the deal's

(35:24):
off. It's not gonna happen,and I'm like crying. I'm like a
mess. And I remember her likeputting her hand on my shoulder like this
and looking at me and going,so what. And I'm like it sounds
like sounds like my wife tea.So what. I'm like, what do

(35:45):
you mean? So what? Likeyou know all these plans we had,
did you hear me clearly? Likethey're not gonna happen? She goes,
so what. That doesn't change theway that I think about you or feel
about you, doesn't change the wayour kids feel about you. It's all
I'm like, how are you this? Calm right? I'm like, I'm
like losing my mind over here.And that moment was like a moment where

(36:09):
um our relationship went to the nextlevel like we were good. But that
was like, Okay, we cango through anything and she's gonna be there.
She's gonna have my back. Inthat moment meant a lot. Eventually,
we get the deal back on therails with the same company and UM

(36:32):
and three months later we close adeal. We're done, We're in New
York, we're in the office,Penn and Pad signing on the dotted line,
the whole thing. Um that wasprobably the next best day of my
life. It's like Okay, thisactually happened. It's behind us, the
same company. Funds are wiring samecompany. Yeah, you're probably wondering,

(36:52):
how did we get it back?Yeah, I mean, do you want
to talk about macro anyway? Becausehe's at no. No, I'm I'm
good. I'm good if you guysare good. Um, I just yeah,
briefly walk through that. It's interesting. It's hard to do it briefly.
But again there's some potocra sales guyright, got the CEO on the

(37:14):
phone, said listen, we canwe can make this work. We we
have a really good business outside ofthat's seventy percent. The other thirty is
really unique and with the right strategy, like, we can, you know,
we can really app that up.Uh. Convinced him to fly out
to La to meet with the chairmanof our board and me for a like

(37:36):
late night dinner. So we metfrom like eight pm to two or three
in the morning. Um, it'svery very light dinner for sure. Yeah.
Yeah, and yeah, and webasically just worked through here's all the
ways that this can still work.Um. Yeah, without going into too

(37:57):
much more boring detail. We adjustedthe terms of the deal a little bit.
Not crazy. They de risked ita little bit, like, hey,
we're you know, it's not asobvious that this is going to work
now, and we kept it togetherand we did it. We signed a
deal. So so we closed thatdeal in October seventh of Is that a

(38:19):
sales deal? Is that the cellof the company, cell of the company.
Okay, so the rebuying, there interested in purchasing, you acquiring,
acquiring, thank you? Yeah,so we this is twenty one October
twenty one October twenty one, sellthe company. And five months later,
I'm asked to go to New YorkCity to be a part of a investor

(38:45):
and analyst presentation. It was gonnabe live live broadcasted at NASDAC and I'm
like cool, cool, Right.It's like me and the CEO of the
parent company and the CFO and yeah, so you guys are a subsidiary at
that point and you're still running it. Yeah, I'm still running that business.
It was their entry into consumer,so they were a B to B
business before that. So I'm runningour whole consumer operation now, which we

(39:09):
forecast it would be a couple billiondollar business within like a couple of years.
It was a big It was abig business and I met Nasdak we
prep on Monday. Tuesday, Iwake up in the morning from a phone
call from my mother in law andshe says, when I saw the call,

(39:34):
it was very concerned. It's fiveo'clock in the morning, Arizona time,
and my mother in law and Iare close, but not We don't
talk on the phone, let aloneat that hour, right, So I
answered the phone. She says,Hey, Tyler Brooklyn, who's my wife?
Is being rushed to the hospital inan ambulance. And I said,

(39:54):
what's going on? Said, wedon't know, but she keeps passing out.
She can't maintain consciousness. You shouldprobably get home. I'm like,
Rennee, and what's what's going on? Like, we have no idea.
So as soon as I hang up, I text my assistant. I say,
hey, can you get me agive me out of New York.
I gotta get home and I getin the uber and my father in law

(40:20):
follows her to the hospital and he'stexting me updates. You know, and
generally, when like at least mylife experience up to that time was when
really bad things happen, like lifetends to sort them out and they just
start to get better. That wasmy experience, and in this case it
wasn't that way. I get astring string of texts from the time I'm

(40:43):
in the uber to the time thatI board my plane that are basically,
hey, Tyler, just arrived atthe hospital. Hey Tyler. They just
did an ultrasound and they found twoleaders of blood in her abdomen, which
is forty percent of the blood inthe body, just bleeding out, right,

(41:04):
Hey Tyler. They just rushed herin to the front of the line
for an emergency surgery. Hey Tyler, here's a picture from the doctor.
And there's a picture of the whiteboard in the doctor's office and it read
ruptured ectopic pregnancy. And so Ididn't know what this was. I went

(41:24):
and googled it and and I foundout that in most cases, when this
happens in the home, which itdid, it leads to death. Right.
So I'm at this point, I'mstill like, I'm like, Okay,
I'm reading these texts, but likethey're not it's not registering that like

(41:47):
she might die, right. AndI'm standing in the airport, I'm getting
ready to board the plane, andI see that text, and it was
tough and I get on the plane. I have WiFi, so I'm texting
and it's like a five hour flight, which felt like forever forever. I

(42:07):
can't. I mean, I hadevery thought you could possibly have in the
world there in that five hours.Real quick, how many kids do you
have at the time? We havethree kids, six, four and one
okay at this time, and thenext string of texts are still in surgery,
still in surgery, still in surgery. They're about an hour apart.

(42:30):
And you know, we have deliveredthree kids at this time, and so
the doctors in the doctor's office duringa delivery for like ten minutes. It's
not that long, and I'm like, whoa like three hours? So at
this point I'm just thinking, likeis there a complication? This is not
I'm thinking, this is not isnot going to go my way? Right?

(42:54):
And the last text I get fromhim, as the plane is now
descending, as the doctor just cameand talked to me and it's not looking
good, like basically brace yourself formy father in law. And that was
like all the emotions of just likeher dad is the one telling me this,

(43:20):
I'm not there, tons of guiltfor that, feelings of like my
wife's probably not thinking about herself atthis moment, if she is conscious at
all, She's thinking about like thekids and me and the fact that I'm
not going to get to be thereto be a part of her last moments.
Right, I have all these thoughts. Am I being a good husband

(43:44):
and being a good father? Like? Am I fulfilled? I have purpose?
What am I doing with my life? Just everything right? And I
run through the airport, I getin the uber. We rushed to the
hospital like you see in the movies. I run past the reception desk,
you know, she's like yelling atme, sir, and I'm just like
nope. Straight to the elevator,get up to the second floor, walk

(44:06):
in the room and my wife isin there, not conscious, but it
has a heartbeat. And her dadis sitting next to the bed. And
I say, I walked up tothe bedside and I just say, how's
she doing? And as soon asthose words came out of my mouth,

(44:27):
she had this intense reaction of likeit was really scary. Doctors had to
come in, they had to calmher down, they had to put her
on something. It was really scary, and eventually they got her calm down,
and I remember just feeling like,I'm really grateful that I get one
more opportunity with her, you know, like just one more chance to feel

(44:58):
her heartbeat and and like I putmy hand by her mouth to feel her
breathing, and you know, andthen that one opportunity turned into her making
it through the first night, andthen making it through a second night,
and then a third, and onthat day she started to really come back
to health and was looking better.And I remember I remember sitting at her

(45:21):
bedside and saying, do you rememberwhen you had that reaction when I walked
into the room and she said that, she said, when I heard your
voice, it gave me life.And that was like, you know that

(45:45):
that meant a lot to me,because it felt like, in some small
way, just me getting back homehelped, right, And yeah, the
silver lining here is like we wentthrough that and the next month or so
it was really challenging with doctors andhospitals and things like that. But she

(46:07):
she she's a fighter and she madeit through. And but that experience like
really changed my life because I wentfrom really the highest of highs and it
was focused on career and money andthese kind of things to having that nearly
ripped away from me in everything,really facing the the lowest of lows,

(46:30):
if you will, and then avoidingtragedy. And since then I made a
lot of changes to make sure thatI'm never the person I was before that
happened. So that's a that's afascinating journey. Thanks for sharing that with
us. But you know, I'mreally curious, excuse me. I've noticed

(46:52):
as you've discussed this roller coaster fromstarting out as a young, incompetent twenty
something girl trying to else some carsillegally, now that we find out,
So thanks for for mentioning that,hope the statute of limitations is up and
that you're not going to get anymore trouble by admitting that publicly. But

(47:12):
you know, then you go onto high, been another with drivable,
then another low with drivably, andthen high again. And then as I've
noticed that as you discussed this rollercoaster, the highs and lows, they
get closer together as you go on. I mean at the time that is,
between each high and low, overtime it starts to get they get

(47:35):
closer together. Have you noticed that, I mean, if you when you
go back to where you started todaytelling us your story. You're twenty one,
and that goes to You're like,it goes a whole year or more,
and then the drops for a coupleof years, and then back up
again for a couple of years.But they almost like to get closer together
within months towards the end that interval, yeah, or the interval shortens.

(48:00):
I haven't noticed that candidly the thingthat I but I'm wondering what if if,
I mean wondering why that might beit. You know, whenever you
hit a high, is the universesaying you're already too high. Let's bring
it down to humility a little bit, or help you reprioritize yourself in your
life. Because that's what I'm gettingat it. It's like you really reprioritized
what matters most and your wife,your children, your family, your health,

(48:22):
her health, their health, andthe fact that you got home quickly
was like, Hey, forget allthis that I'm doing to New York is
cool stuff for me, and that'sa derivative for them as a family,
but primarily it's for me. Tyler. That selfishness really kind of knocked you
well, that what happened to yourwife knocked you off that selfish, selfish

(48:43):
perch more or less. I mean, do you see that similarly? I
mean I feel like there's there's there'salways an opposite reaction. Um, I
haven't seen it exactly that way.Man. The thing that the thing that
I've focused on, I think isand that I believe to be true,

(49:05):
is like, as we go throughlife, we develop repetition. And so
the best analogy is, you know, I talk about the roller coaster.
It's the best like single word thatI can use to describe doing a startup,
starting a company. But like,have you guys been to Disney before
you guys taking your Vami, yougets familiar with Space Mountain obviously, So

(49:29):
for those who don't know, Yeah, for those who don't know, Space
Mountain is the fastest ride in Disneyland. It's blast but it's pitch black.
And so the first time you goon Space Mountain, you don't really know
what to expect, and all ofa sudden you enter this dark room and
you're like whoa, And then allof a sudden, the roller coaster starts
going and it's whipping you around andit's crazy and you're feeling sick, and

(49:52):
it's like you're not You're like,this is I don't know about this right,
And you get done, You're like, WHOA, what the hell?
What was that? But then youdo it a second time, and the
second time you do it, youknow it's going to be pitch black,
you know it's going to be topsyturvy, you know it's going to happen,
and so you're like a little moreprepared. And then you do it

(50:12):
again and you start to memorize theway it's going to go, and so
you can like brace yourself as yougo into these turns and these dives,
and then imagine like the lights comeon and you can see exactly where it's
going to go. That's the wayI think about as we get older and
we have more experience, and we'reable to forecast what's going to come because

(50:39):
we've already been there and we've doneit and the lights flip on. You
know. I think it took learninga lot of lessons to get to this
place where I feel like I'm actuallyfulfilled and I'm actually doing the right things
and actually prioritizing my family and actuallyspending meaningful time with my kids and my

(51:00):
wife and having deep relationships and notcaring what other people think about me and
all these things. But it tooka lot of repetition and a lot of
not doing that to get there.So you talk about that a lot,
this roller coaster, and you've actuallyembarked on your own journey with publishing content

(51:21):
about this roller coaster, your experience, and not only not only that,
starting your own podcast and talking aboutthat, which is great. I want
to get into that for a second, but before we go there, you're
now really helping to coach and mentorup and coming entrepreneurs. I guess it.
Upcoming can mean relatively any age,but I'm assuming they're mostly twenty thirty

(51:42):
year old entrepreneurs that are looking toreally get in, get in for the
first time, to get their feetwet, and looking to you for for
what exactly. Yeah, doing again, building a company is like an impossible,
exhausting, stressful depress It's all thewords. It's really tough. And

(52:05):
for the first two years at Tribably, I didn't have a coach. I
didn't have a CEO coach. Ididn't even really know what it was.
And the board, my board basicallywas like you suck at being a CEO.
You need a coach, right,And I'm like, all right,
whatever that means. So I endup interviewing a couple of coaches and I
hired one, and I worked withthis guy for about two years and like
it changed my life. It wasthe one call per week for one hour

(52:28):
that I was most excited about everyweek. And so I what I work
with CEOs on is the I wantto know one key thing you took away
from your coach and had that influenceinto being a coach yourself, and not
only that one step further, didit affect how you mitigate and deal with

(52:49):
your mental health challenges as a founderand going up recovering from these lows on
the roller coaster? What was theone key thing from him or hurt him
him? Yeah, Jeff, justone, Tyler. I know there's like
seven, but just one, Yeah, I think. I think the one
that stands out to me is thisthis this idea or framework or principle that's

(53:12):
called wear no masks, which isyou know, founders CEOs are the center
of a wheel of constituents. Okay, nobody else, it's the founder CEO
is right in the center and theirconstituents could be any of the following could
be their their spouse, their girlfriend, their boyfriend, their their co founder,

(53:38):
and their team, their customers,their prospects, their board, their
investors, their advisors, the pub. I mean, the list goes on
and there's about ten or twelve mainconstituents, and for each one we have
a different mask that we put on. So I'm gonna do investor meetings today.
I'm gonna put on that mask andI'm gonna bullshit my way through a

(53:59):
bunch of pitches. Oh, I'mgoing to talk to the team today.
I'm I'm amazing, I'm perfectly happy. Nothing's wrong in my life. I'm
perfect right. I want to talkto my spouse and I'm gonna tell her
some things, but not everything aboutthe company. And I think the moment
that you realize that there is thereis no mask, there should be no
masks, and you figure out howto be yourself only one hundred percent at

(54:22):
the time, that's that's the unlock. That's the moment where everything starts working
better. Everybody else that wants tocontinue to maintain a relationship with you,
because by the way, you're gonnalose a lot of relationships when you put
the mask aside, because people aregonna go no, no, no.
I wanted that other version. Iwanted those to do. What's what's the

(54:45):
better of two evils here? Right? Yeah? Having the authenticity and having
close, qualitative friends over a quantityfor sure, right for that's why you
do it. So you're gonna washout when you start doing this and you
start going truly, I'm only goingto be myself and it doesn't matter how

(55:05):
people are going to perceive that orthink about me. That's the unlock.
But half of your quote unquote friendsor relationships are going to go away.
But the ones that stick, allof a sudden, they're going to remove
the mass too. They're going toreciprocate it because they're gonna go, Okay,
you have trials, you have problems, you have things you deal with.
You're very open about them. Thankyou. Let me tell you about

(55:25):
some of mine. And that's howrelationships go really deep. And I think
like the one of the main keys, maybe one of two or three main
keys to building great companies having deeprelationships, actually just to navigating life and
finding fulfillment is having deep relationships.So I think that him working with through

(55:45):
that with me. It didn't happenovernight. It was like we were talking
about this. He was holding meaccountable to it if he felt like I
had a mask, and he's like, nope, stop, let's try that
again. Right. And so that'sone example of things that I really try
to help CEOs because everybody struggles withit, is how you build your curriculum?
Could you call it that curriculum?Yeah, it's a good question that

(56:07):
the curriculum. Actually the foundation ofthe curriculum comes from stems from a book
that I read that was the singlemost important book in my journey as an
entrepreneur, which is called The GreatCEO Within and it was written by again
named Matt Mochari. Matt has coachedi don't know, something like forty percent

(56:28):
of the unicorns that have come outof Silicon Belley in the last twenty five
years. Right, one of thebest CEO coaches ever former operators, sold
a company for half a billion dollarsand now coaches CEOs and then wrote a
book about it, and it distillsit down and really helps CEOs. Like,
if you're CEO, go buy thisbook right now. In fact,
it's open source it's free. Justgoogle it and you'll find a pdf on

(56:50):
Google Docs. What's it called again, the Great CEO Within? And so
I reached out to Matt when Idecided I was gonna start coaching CEOs.
He said, Matt, most ofwhat I believe is an operation. The
CEO is your material, it's yourmethod. It's called the Mochari method.
I said, I'd like to useit my coaching and he said, one
hundred percent, here's the whole thing, no questions asked. And that meant

(57:15):
a lot to me. And sothe foundation of my coaching is Matt stuff.
And I've really just as i've gotteninto this last six months or so,
I've really just been building on itand making some of it my own.
And so that's the foundation for theframework that I use. What are
some of the results you've seen sofar? How long you've been after this,
Yeah, I've been coaching CEOs nowfor about four months is when I

(57:38):
took on my first CEO. Soit's really early, but it's I think
it's been pretty life changing for people. I think the some of the like
maybe more tangible business results, it'stoo early to tell. I think we're
moving in the right direction. ButI think if you asked the clients that

(57:59):
I work with about like, dodo you feel more balanced? Do you
feel happier, do you feel lessdepressed? Do you feel like you've removed
the mask? Do you feel likeyou have more energy? I feel like
your relationships are getting deeper. Doyou feel like your ability to be a
professional CEO and like navigate our challengesis better? I think they would all

(58:22):
say yes. So a lot ofit's pretty anecdotal today, but I think
we'll have some good data, youknow, by the end of this year.
I think having that qualitative data isreally valuable though, right, I
mean because even though you can't necessarilysay, hey, that's a tangible change
in the business, that's a tangiblechange in their life, which is huge,

(58:42):
right, especially as an entrepreneur.Like you've stated, it's a roller
coaster, and if you are improvingthe quality of that of their life,
it's going to change that roller coaster. Right. Yeah, it's like you
said, like it goes from beingin the dark first time to being able
to maybe anticipate some things. Yemove your mask or masks? How'd you
do it? What a take?How long do you have man. I

(59:07):
mean, I don't know if you'vefelt it with me. I don't remember,
if you sort of remember the wayI used to be, but hopefully
you feel like I've authentic now.Man, I would have to actually agree
that you're much more authentic and visceralthan before, for sure. But that's

(59:30):
the whole point of experiences. Imean, you're not gonna be born without
any masks. You're gonna be maskless, right, you were just chameleons by
nature, and we try to adaptand and please others. I mean most
of us. Obviously there's exceptions tothe rule, but I think that experience
is what drives all of us tochange. If you're not changing and becoming

(59:54):
more and more humble, if if, if you can use that word for
just as one example, and downto earth and authentic, then you're not
learning. You're not doing it right. In my opinion, I don't.
I it really takes experience to becomewise, right. It takes You can
become intellectual through knowledge, but thewisdom is through experience. You know.

(01:00:15):
I used to say, hey,I applied knowledge is wisdom. I don't
believe that. I think applied knowledgeis is intellect and intelligence but experience is
the key ingredient there for that wisdom, and I think over time, these
experiences on that roller coaster have reallyshaped who you are as a leader,
a mentor, founder, and husband, father, whatever it is. And

(01:00:37):
that's odd, that authenticity it's comingthrough, absolutely, and I appreciate you
sharing those stories. I mean,that's that's deep, it's dark, it's
hard, but the vulnerability, thefact that you're willing to do that shows
that wisdom and that experience has reallyshaped you. The answer is like that,
Craig, was that that was deepenough. Thank you. I don't

(01:01:00):
think I have like a great answer. I think that I was like ninety
percent of the way there. Mostof my masks were off. There was
one that wasn't off, and itwas the one with my spouse. There
were certain things in my life thatI wasn't comfortable sharing with my spouse.
Believe it or not. Oh,I believe it. Craig and I talked
about that all the time. Youknow, it's especially from my own personal

(01:01:22):
point of view. We also hadan atopic pregnancy. It didn't rupture,
fortunately for us, and so Iknow what that is like to a certain
degree. It's very scary. Iwas in London when it happened to my
wife. I can get home fortwo days. But luckily, like I
said, it didn't rupture. Itwas a little bit different, but very
similar, very worrying, very concerning. And I've been in that situation and

(01:01:44):
I know what those downs are like. But it really comes back to how
how you act and react to that. How are you what are you going
to do about it? And Ithink, just like Matt west on a
previous episode was like, for me, it's really just getting down, pulling
my laces up and pulling myself upand get my boots on and going to

(01:02:06):
work. You just got to buckup and go to work. Now,
for someone else that may not bethe thing. What is it for you?
It might be maybe just meditation,or it might be just going to
work or losing yourself in work.But for Tyler Hall, what is that?
Like, what's the exact question?Well, how do you? How
do you overcome that? How doyou overcome your mental health challenges or those
lows? Right? Like what's yourwhat are your best practices? What do

(01:02:30):
you go to self help or therapists? And the and the point of that
was it stemmed from you know,when you go home to your wife and
say, look, I've got thisstill got a mask on. How do
you I don't share everything with herlike I showed about my company, Why
do we do that? And thenhow do you how do you overcome that?
What are you doing? One ofthe things that enabled me to do

(01:02:52):
this was going through that trauma,that really difficult life event, and I'm
still trying to figure out. Iwish I had a better answer for like,
here's how you radically change yourself andyour adjust your priorities to be right
in life and find balance. Ibelieve in balance. A lot of these

(01:03:15):
gurus that don't that say it's bullshit. It's like, no, it's not.
Trust me. Mister Wonderful rights allof them, one of them,
Andy for Sella, I'll call Icall them all out right now and hopefully
they hear it. It's like,come on, we're tagging mister Wonderful on
this um. But but it requiredthat, it required that experience for me

(01:03:35):
to go okay, I'm not goingto hide anything anymore. And it wasn't
just company stuff, by the way, it was very personal things to me
that I was doing that I knewshe didn't know about that. I knew
she would be questionable, and Ijust said, you know what, No,
I'm gonna be fully forthcoming. She'sgoing to know everything about my life.
Right, And you might be puzzledby like ten years of marriage and

(01:03:57):
you weren't totally honest with your wife. It's like, sorry, yeah,
I wasn't. I wasn't. Ihad a mask on. And so some
of the like practices that I dois I think one of the first ones
is just realizing that, like thephrase I've used is that your company's never
going to love you back. Realizingthat like work and money and career and

(01:04:24):
all this stuff, it's actually justnot that important. It's more of a
game than anything. Right, Sodon't take it too seriously, don't get
too worked up, been out ofshape. Whether you're CEO or your salesperson
or a software develop it doesn't matter, Like, don't take that too seriously.
Calm down, it's going to beokay. Right. I do do

(01:04:45):
a lot of things, though,practices in my life that I think helped
me stay calm. And that's oneway that I've been described a lot in
the last year is that people whohave known me for a long time.
They say, man, you seemreally calm. How do you get to

(01:05:06):
that zen state all the time?And I feel calm, and I think
it's because it's because I do putin the work right. I do.
I care about mindfulness, I domeditate, I do go on walks,
I do do cold plunges. Imean, I exercise, I eat relatively

(01:05:28):
healthy. Right, all of thesethings compounding together put us in the best
physical and mental state and allow usto handle hard things better. It's science,
it's proven, and so you know, that's not everything that I work
on with CEOs as a coach,but it is certainly a part of Like,
you got to first sight, getyour take care of yourself body right,

(01:05:50):
you gotta get your mind right,You got to take care of yourself
before you could start. You canbe like the most effective leader and husband
and friend. And I'm just fascinatedby the way that you've handled at least
roller coaster. That's great. Imean, you've seen some tremendous success,

(01:06:11):
but you've also experienced those really lowlows. And you know there's been a
conversation largely dominated by you, obviously, and we wanted that, but your
story is just so engaging. Sofirst of all, thank you for sharing
that. It's awesome. Glad youcame came on today and shared those experiences
with us. Tyler Halls in townswith Salt Lake from Arizona. You're down
to Phoenix now the full time?Yeah, okay, Now what's your next?

(01:06:34):
What's next on your roadmap? Here? Just coaching? Are you fully
retired? No? No, Imean I'm really enjoying this. I'm finding
more purpose in my career than Iever have, way more than when I
was CEO, and I enjoy helpingstartup founders navigate this impossible roller coaster of

(01:06:57):
a journey. And I think thereare ways, there are things you can
do to make the odds swing inyour favor of having a successful outcome.
And that's what I hope to beable to provide. Not because I was
the best CEO, not because Iwas a perfect operator by any means,
but maybe more because, like I'vemessed up a lot of stuff and I've
sort of started to figure out someof the trends and normalities of how to

(01:07:19):
do it right. So my wholelife, Matt today, to your question,
revolves around that revolves around helping startof founder. So I produce a
newsletter weekly. It's supposed to beweekly. I don't take it too seriously.
It's like, where can they findyou every couple of weeks? How
do they get that? Everything's onLinkedIn right now? So call me what
you want to call me. Idon't do a lot of Twitter. I

(01:07:40):
don't do a lot of Instagram.At some point probably will, but yeah,
I produced newsletter. I have apodcast called The Rollercoaster where interview founders
who've exited companies. We talk aboutinception to exit and how impossibly hard it
is, and we get pretty ronvulnerable on there. I forced my guests

(01:08:00):
to get a little uncomfortable, sortof the way I did today to demonstrate
on your podcast. You know.I coach. I coach CEOs one on
one. I'm an advisor to severalearly stage software companies. I'm doing a
couple of board roles. I'm doingsome early stage investing. So it's kind
of like my whole world now.I do a CEO dinner at my house

(01:08:23):
once a quarter where invite fifteen CEOsto my home and we have a really
intimate dinner cater in a chef Andnow I'm doing these an other cities.
So I have one in Austin nextweek. I'm doing one in New York
City in two weeks, and I'lldo Miami and San Francisco in LA this
year. But all of it isthe same purpose from a career standpoints,

(01:08:43):
just to help startup founders and earlystage dot companies grow. So if someone's
interested as an entrepreneur, I wantedto getting hold of you and participate in
any of these things. Are goingto find you on LinkedIn, Tyler Hall.
Yeah, find me on LinkedIn.Feel free to send me a no.
My website too, It's Tyler Christenhalldot com. You can apply to
work with me um in different fashions. I don't unfortunately, I don't like

(01:09:06):
just take anybody. It's got tobe the right thing or chemistry. There's
some there's some things I think aboutto make sure it's the right thing.
But yeah, either LinkedIn or mywebsite. That's good. Thanks, geez
it amazing. I'm I love Ilove the journey took. It's great.
Thanks, and it's a fun oneto listen to. What's awesome is to

(01:09:26):
see how you came out with theother side, right, what you are
like the transformation that you've experienced gettingoff the roller coaster, right or at
least that roller coaster, and justthe positive impacts that it had on your
life, and then how that's goingon to snowball into the lives of your
family and those around man. Congrats, thank you, it's awesome. Thanks

(01:09:49):
Tyler good having me on next timeyou're in town. Sushi and Craig perfect
I love that. Thanks guys,