June 29, 2026

#207 - AI, Delegation & Hiring: The Blueprint for Scaling a Business | Adam Spector

#207 - AI, Delegation & Hiring: The Blueprint for Scaling a Business | Adam Spector
RSS Feed podcast player badge
Apple Podcasts podcast player badge
Spotify podcast player badge
YouTube podcast player badge
RSS Feed podcast player iconApple Podcasts podcast player iconSpotify podcast player iconYouTube podcast player icon

Most entrepreneurs don't fail because they lack great ideas. They fail because they spend too much time working in their business instead of on it.

In this episode of The Necessary Entrepreneur, Mark Perkins sits down with Adam Spector, Founder and CEO of Chore, to discuss why delegation, hiring, communication, and leveraging AI have become essential skills for entrepreneurs who want to build companies that scale.

Adam shares lessons learned from building Chore, a business operations platform designed to help founders eliminate administrative bottlenecks and focus on high-value work. He explains why so many business owners become trapped by everyday tasks, how outsourcing can often outperform hiring, and why effective leadership begins with understanding your own strengths and weaknesses.

Mark and Adam also explore the rapidly changing role of artificial intelligence in business, practical ways entrepreneurs can integrate AI into their daily operations, and why the future belongs to founders who embrace technology rather than fear it.

Whether you're launching your first startup, growing a small business, or leading an established company, this conversation offers practical strategies for hiring smarter, communicating more effectively, and building systems that create long-term growth instead of constant overwhelm.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why founders get trapped doing low-value work
• The difference between hiring employees and outsourcing strategically
• How AI is transforming entrepreneurship and business operations
• Why communication is one of the most overlooked leadership skills
• Hiring slow, firing fast, and avoiding expensive hiring mistakes
• How successful entrepreneurs continue learning and adapting
• Why coaching can accelerate business growth
• The mindset required to build a scalable company
• Practical ways to automate repetitive business tasks
• Leadership lessons every entrepreneur should know before scaling

If you're an entrepreneur, founder, business owner, startup leader, or executive looking to build a business that doesn't depend entirely on you, this episode is packed with actionable insights you can implement immediately.

Subscribe for more conversations with entrepreneurs, founders, CEOs, innovators, and business leaders who are building companies, creating jobs, and sharing the lessons they've learned along the way.

📌 Connect With Us:
Website: https://www.thenecessaryentrepreneur.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thenecessaryentrepreneur
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thenecessaryentrepreneur/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheNecessaryEntrepreneurPod
X (Formerly Twitter): https://twitter.com/MPerkinsTNE
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/tnepod/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tneclips
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6xhGUE1yzy2N0AemUOlJPx?si=d1c5c316af404f15
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/no/podcast/the-necessary-entrepreneur/id1547181167

📌 Find Out More About Adam Spector & Chore:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamspector2/
https://www.hirechore.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/hirechore/

1
00:00:00,106 --> 00:00:04,391
Most founders mess up and say, Well, I have to go run the backoffs operations.

2
00:00:04,391 --> 00:00:05,473
I have to figure out payroll.

3
00:00:05,473 --> 00:00:08,356
I have to figure out finance because that's what a good CEO does.

4
00:00:08,356 --> 00:00:09,817
That is BS.

5
00:00:09,858 --> 00:00:11,590
You are stupid if you think that is true.

6
00:00:11,590 --> 00:00:13,543
And I will tell you right now, your company will fail.

7
00:00:13,543 --> 00:00:15,365
You will drown in all the admin.

8
00:00:15,365 --> 00:00:17,247
You will stop doing the thing you love.

9
00:00:17,247 --> 00:00:20,030
Your product quality will go down and your company will fail.

10
00:00:40,866 --> 00:00:42,447
Welcome back for another episode.

11
00:00:42,447 --> 00:00:43,358
We're going to get into it.

12
00:00:43,358 --> 00:00:45,129
Sometimes I start with big energy.

13
00:00:45,129 --> 00:00:46,731
Sometimes I start a little bit low.

14
00:00:46,731 --> 00:00:52,235
Today I have to start with big energy because the person on the show and the guest is
going to come even bigger than this.

15
00:00:52,235 --> 00:00:55,558
So I got to make sure I at least substantiate my role here as the host.

16
00:00:55,558 --> 00:00:58,560
Um, but today we have Adam Spectre.

17
00:00:58,560 --> 00:01:01,022
And I looked at my production team and they said, Be careful.

18
00:01:01,022 --> 00:01:04,365
His team said you should interview Adam S.

19
00:01:04,365 --> 00:01:10,956
And I went, This sounds like that combined with Spectre sounds like a James Bond podcast
episode.

20
00:01:10,956 --> 00:01:13,708
So Adam Spectrum, he's a co-founder of Chore.

21
00:01:13,708 --> 00:01:20,833
It's a platform focused on simplifying home services and making everyday home maintenance
more reliable and accessible.

22
00:01:20,833 --> 00:01:29,439
He's building in one of the most fragmented and operationally complex industries, tackling
the challenges of trust, quality, and consistency at scale.

23
00:01:29,439 --> 00:01:31,221
That's a lot to go in forty five minutes.

24
00:01:31,221 --> 00:01:33,304
But Adam, welcome to the necessary entrepreneur.

25
00:01:33,304 --> 00:01:33,674
Thank you.

26
00:01:33,674 --> 00:01:36,995
I I apologize to your your your your team there.

27
00:01:36,995 --> 00:01:38,226
They the little bit part that we're wrong.

28
00:01:38,226 --> 00:01:40,096
We don't do stuff with homes per se.

29
00:01:40,096 --> 00:01:42,437
We do we we run operations for startups.

30
00:01:42,437 --> 00:01:47,109
It or really every small business, but we we do the back office operations, right?

31
00:01:47,109 --> 00:01:51,961
So the whole thesis for every business in the world is you're a founder who has a
superpower.

32
00:01:51,961 --> 00:01:56,682
I thought if you're crazy enough to go start a business, you better have a superpower in
something.

33
00:01:56,760 --> 00:01:59,272
So why why is it crazy to start a business?

34
00:01:59,272 --> 00:02:01,995
A couple entrepreneurs are sitting here talking to each other.

35
00:02:01,995 --> 00:02:04,657
There's millions of entrepreneurs in this country.

36
00:02:04,657 --> 00:02:06,859
There's a lot of them that I want to get in this.

37
00:02:06,859 --> 00:02:08,480
I don't know if they fail.

38
00:02:08,721 --> 00:02:10,962
My mean take is they quit.

39
00:02:12,046 --> 00:02:13,046
I think that's pretty much true.

40
00:02:13,046 --> 00:02:14,507
Um, a large majority quit.

41
00:02:14,507 --> 00:02:16,308
No one knows just how hard it is.

42
00:02:16,308 --> 00:02:19,649
Like, it is really, really difficult to build a business.

43
00:02:19,649 --> 00:02:21,110
Like, that is that is hard, right?

44
00:02:21,110 --> 00:02:24,631
You need to go out there and convince someone to go buy your pen.

45
00:02:24,631 --> 00:02:28,339
Like, whatever your thing is, like, why is your pen better than anyone else's?

46
00:02:28,339 --> 00:02:29,533
How are you gonna market?

47
00:02:29,533 --> 00:02:32,244
Even if you build the best pen in the world, how are you gonna market it?

48
00:02:32,244 --> 00:02:32,994
That's really hard.

49
00:02:32,994 --> 00:02:34,795
Distribution's really freaking tough.

50
00:02:34,795 --> 00:02:40,437
Then you have to get up every day and do it over and over and over and over again, and you
cannot stop.

51
00:02:40,437 --> 00:02:42,048
And so, like, this isn't.

52
00:02:42,048 --> 00:02:45,202
Yes, you can get to a point where it's a path to freedom in some ways.

53
00:02:45,202 --> 00:02:47,625
And certainly you're your own boss, which is amazing.

54
00:02:47,706 --> 00:02:55,066
But usually when you're the boss, like let me be clear, when you're the boss, it means it
all comes back up to you and you get to deal with all the problems when things break down.

55
00:02:55,066 --> 00:02:56,808
There's no one else in the end.

56
00:02:57,144 --> 00:03:00,139
So we were talking about you threw out about pens, why your pen's better.

57
00:03:00,139 --> 00:03:09,854
So do you think it's important to develop the best pen or is it to develop one that's just
marketable and be better at branding and marketing it?

58
00:03:10,476 --> 00:03:12,909
Man, I mean, like if I have to choose, it's the marketing part.

59
00:03:12,909 --> 00:03:18,730
Like in the end, like you need to be able to sell something to anyone, and that's more
important than building the best.

60
00:03:18,730 --> 00:03:23,621
Like if you if you build the best technical pen in the world, but no one knows it exists,
like who cares?

61
00:03:23,621 --> 00:03:27,466
So like you need to be able to sell it just as well as it has to be better.

62
00:03:27,466 --> 00:03:32,370
Um, in in but I mean, you yeah, you it's the selling and marketing is more important.

63
00:03:32,478 --> 00:03:36,461
Doesn't that go back to um the moment where hey, sell me this pin?

64
00:03:37,102 --> 00:03:45,118
What what's what are they trying to teach us when the speaker is speaking to a thousand
people and he's looking at the audience who came there and learned how to do something

65
00:03:45,118 --> 00:03:51,813
better, be a salesperson, run and he said, Sell me this pin, and people keep failing and
failing and failing until someone does it right.

66
00:03:51,813 --> 00:03:53,384
What's happening there?

67
00:03:53,816 --> 00:03:56,747
What's happening is people don't know how to they they're not reading the room.

68
00:03:56,747 --> 00:04:03,650
They don't know how to understand like the psychology of the person they're talking to and
actually explain it to them like what what gets that person?

69
00:04:03,650 --> 00:04:08,072
What is the thing that makes them excited enough to give it over your hard earned money?

70
00:04:08,072 --> 00:04:13,754
Like, think about the restaurant you ate at for lunch today or the the thing you're gonna
go buy on Amazon.

71
00:04:13,754 --> 00:04:16,195
Why did you choose that item?

72
00:04:16,195 --> 00:04:17,345
Why did you choose that?

73
00:04:17,345 --> 00:04:23,128
Like there is a bunch of psychological triggers that are going into those things, many of
which you probably don't even understand.

74
00:04:23,128 --> 00:04:23,714
We don't

75
00:04:23,714 --> 00:04:24,475
In many ways.

76
00:04:24,475 --> 00:04:30,314
But what is making that decision, handing over your hard-earned cash for something is
really difficult to do.

77
00:04:30,314 --> 00:04:30,736
Right.

78
00:04:30,736 --> 00:04:38,665
That's the kind of the beauty of capitalism, is you need to work at it and you need to
build something that is superior to get people being willing to do it.

79
00:04:38,665 --> 00:04:40,436
And so why did I buy this pen as a good example?

80
00:04:40,436 --> 00:04:46,050
Like I bought this pen because I read about it on some random blog that was talking about
really cool pens.

81
00:04:46,050 --> 00:04:48,342
I like a little kind of fidget spinner to some extent.

82
00:04:48,342 --> 00:04:49,373
I thought this is cool.

83
00:04:49,373 --> 00:04:50,673
It looks cool.

84
00:04:50,954 --> 00:04:51,734
And

85
00:04:52,056 --> 00:04:55,081
I don't know, I was in the mood for some random purchase on Amazon, so I bought it.

86
00:04:55,081 --> 00:04:56,745
And it wasn't crazy expensive.

87
00:04:56,962 --> 00:05:07,188
So as busy as you are, um, we're gonna get into a bit later about being an angel investor
in multiple startups and um you said reading a blog.

88
00:05:08,748 --> 00:05:10,392
Why read blogs?

89
00:05:10,392 --> 00:05:11,403
Man, I read so much.

90
00:05:11,403 --> 00:05:18,949
I think the best entrepreneurs in the world read a ton and are deep, heavy consumers of
knowledge.

91
00:05:19,049 --> 00:05:21,141
Um, many of them read lots and lots of biographies.

92
00:05:21,141 --> 00:05:25,094
I've done a lot of that, although I haven't recently did a read to read a ton of
biographies.

93
00:05:25,164 --> 00:05:26,916
I listen to a lot of podcasts, by the way, as well.

94
00:05:26,916 --> 00:05:29,258
Um, why read blogs?

95
00:05:29,258 --> 00:05:30,679
Because I want to learn things every single day.

96
00:05:30,679 --> 00:05:32,060
I need new ideas.

97
00:05:32,060 --> 00:05:36,234
I'm always trying to stay at the edge of what the best is that's out there for my
industry.

98
00:05:36,234 --> 00:05:39,106
And not just my in I mean, obviously you need to be in your industry.

99
00:05:39,106 --> 00:05:40,517
We want to pull in ideas from other places.

100
00:05:40,517 --> 00:05:48,863
Like actually, what makes humans really good at things actually why AI, if we ever want if
we want to talk about AI at all, but like why AI is still not necessarily as good is

101
00:05:48,863 --> 00:05:51,735
humans can synthesize lots of data from places.

102
00:05:51,735 --> 00:05:52,805
You're not gonna remember it all, right?

103
00:05:52,805 --> 00:05:54,996
You and I forget lots of things every day.

104
00:05:55,217 --> 00:06:06,295
But the ability to synthesize data from different sources and then make intuitive leaps or
leaps of faith on something like, wow, I just pulled this data from I'm I saw this pen and

105
00:06:06,295 --> 00:06:08,696
I had this, you know, water bottle.

106
00:06:08,696 --> 00:06:10,848
And they're both made out of aluminum, probably.

107
00:06:10,848 --> 00:06:14,166
And what if I combined them and had like a a pen cup or something?

108
00:06:14,166 --> 00:06:16,012
And this is going too crazy with my analogy here.

109
00:06:16,012 --> 00:06:20,696
But like but you can start creating cool ideas and make it that can be really useful in
this other industry.

110
00:06:20,696 --> 00:06:22,198
And and A doesn't really do that today.

111
00:06:22,198 --> 00:06:25,510
It can answer your question specifically, but doesn't doesn't come up with new ideas.

112
00:06:25,510 --> 00:06:27,832
Do you think it would entrepreneurs do?

113
00:06:27,832 --> 00:06:28,423
Do you think it will?

114
00:06:28,423 --> 00:06:33,670
And the r the important reason for that question is aren't we supposed to interpret what
the future's gonna be?

115
00:06:33,670 --> 00:06:38,677
That's what the big that's what the big folks, that's what an Elon Musk does, that's what
a Jeff Bezos did, right?

116
00:06:38,677 --> 00:06:43,464
They're interpreting the future and everybody calls them crazy because they're not
operating now.

117
00:06:43,464 --> 00:06:45,208
They're operating where it's going.

118
00:06:45,208 --> 00:06:45,761
Correct.

119
00:06:45,761 --> 00:06:47,116
Skinny where the point is gonna be, right?

120
00:06:47,116 --> 00:06:48,150
Wayne G Wayne Grabsky.

121
00:06:48,150 --> 00:06:53,002
And so the challenge is right now is is AI going to be agentic?

122
00:06:53,826 --> 00:06:56,597
I mean a A AI, look, I'm pretty red-pilled.

123
00:06:56,597 --> 00:06:57,298
I live in San Francisco.

124
00:06:57,298 --> 00:07:00,129
I'm I'm deeply red-pilled on AI.

125
00:07:00,129 --> 00:07:05,231
I think AI is going to be able to start coming up with those intuitive ideas and new
ideas.

126
00:07:06,191 --> 00:07:08,252
It is probably going to take everyone's jobs.

127
00:07:08,882 --> 00:07:19,157
I think there's a lot of things we should be deeply concerned about, but also I also think
can be very optimistic about the future in a a massive world of abundance that we're

128
00:07:19,157 --> 00:07:19,997
heading into as well.

129
00:07:19,997 --> 00:07:23,118
So it's kind of I I personally have a combination of deep fear.

130
00:07:23,209 --> 00:07:25,767
And deep excitement.

131
00:07:25,848 --> 00:07:28,000
So if you have that, a lot of people have anxiety now.

132
00:07:28,000 --> 00:07:29,818
So you said deep fear, you invoked it.

133
00:07:29,818 --> 00:07:32,373
A lot of people have anxiety which causes depression.

134
00:07:32,373 --> 00:07:33,474
You're not talking about that.

135
00:07:33,474 --> 00:07:34,885
You're still moving forward.

136
00:07:34,885 --> 00:07:43,743
How do you how do you find this distinction in this silver lining between deep fear still
causes you to take massive action versus a lot of the world deep fear causes them to have

137
00:07:43,743 --> 00:07:45,976
anxiety, depression, and no action?

138
00:07:45,976 --> 00:07:47,016
Yeah, no, like that's a great point.

139
00:07:47,016 --> 00:07:50,748
And it and it is, I know lots of people certainly have like anxiety and it does stop them.

140
00:07:50,748 --> 00:07:56,941
Um, for me, it it and I do, like I I literally feel like I'm living in two worlds
sometimes with AI and what is happening and where it's going.

141
00:07:56,941 --> 00:08:02,573
I'm like living in the normal world, taking my kids to school, they go to normal school,
all those sorts of things.

142
00:08:02,573 --> 00:08:09,026
And then this AI world where I'm like, my gosh, everything is changing in in I'm I'm
standing on quicksand right now.

143
00:08:09,026 --> 00:08:10,557
The world is changing so fast.

144
00:08:10,557 --> 00:08:11,657
Um, how do I do it?

145
00:08:11,657 --> 00:08:13,397
Is like I feel like I don't have a choice.

146
00:08:13,538 --> 00:08:14,538
Number one.

147
00:08:14,690 --> 00:08:15,881
Like you have to keep moving forward.

148
00:08:15,881 --> 00:08:22,416
I can't just hide in a little hole and and be like uh, you know, put my head it head in
the sand and and hope nothing happens.

149
00:08:22,416 --> 00:08:28,040
I need to be I might as well be a part of it as best I can and step up and and do that.

150
00:08:28,040 --> 00:08:32,903
Then the alternative that wouldn't make my kids proud, it wouldn't make my wife proud, it
wouldn't make me proud.

151
00:08:32,903 --> 00:08:39,219
So I'm gonna get up every day and keep working hard and hopefully be a small little part
of the change that's gonna make the world a better place.

152
00:08:39,219 --> 00:08:41,830
Um I don't I don't know, I just feel like I don't have a choice otherwise.

153
00:08:41,830 --> 00:08:42,600
Yeah.

154
00:08:42,786 --> 00:08:45,630
Um, it where where do you operate from?

155
00:08:45,630 --> 00:08:51,436
You know, a lot of people will have an underlying principle or value or the thing that
drives them, right?

156
00:08:51,436 --> 00:08:57,744
Simon Senec, he's You gotta find your why and ever everybody comes up with their thing,
but do you have like an underlying purpose?

157
00:08:57,744 --> 00:08:59,904
Is that too big of an a question?

158
00:08:59,904 --> 00:09:00,614
No, not at all.

159
00:09:00,614 --> 00:09:05,426
I I think Peter D.Mainus called it's like your your it's like your massive something
purpose in life or whatever.

160
00:09:05,426 --> 00:09:07,176
he has a good statement for that that.

161
00:09:08,056 --> 00:09:10,457
You know, I I don't have a I don't probably don't have a great answer.

162
00:09:10,457 --> 00:09:17,139
I think my purpose is to my purpose is really like look, I I want to leave the world a
little bit better than I than I when I arrived.

163
00:09:17,139 --> 00:09:19,486
I kind of have had that purpose really at every place I've gone.

164
00:09:19,486 --> 00:09:25,251
I mean, I was president of the student government in college and um vice president in in
law school.

165
00:09:25,251 --> 00:09:28,852
And and for me it's always been like, Can I leave the world just a little bit better?

166
00:09:28,952 --> 00:09:29,862
Than when I got here, right?

167
00:09:29,862 --> 00:09:35,788
And that goes obviously every single day, but also like picking up trash on the street
when I see it just laying there.

168
00:09:35,788 --> 00:09:37,099
Um, doing it, and I don't always do that.

169
00:09:37,099 --> 00:09:38,210
Sometimes I just walk right over it.

170
00:09:38,210 --> 00:09:44,305
And then I think later, I'm like, hmm, I just walked over that pizza trash and I should
have just picked it up to make this place a little bit cleaner and nicer.

171
00:09:44,305 --> 00:09:47,578
Um, so I that's probably my purpose.

172
00:09:47,578 --> 00:09:49,960
Largely is like I want to make the world a little bit better.

173
00:09:49,960 --> 00:09:56,926
And if I can do that, if I can, you know, if I can create a great company, I hope we get
to be multi-billions of dollars valuation.

174
00:09:56,962 --> 00:10:04,728
But if I can make a company that just employs a lot of people, creates a great job for
them, um, and they can achieve their purpose or whatever they want for their families and

175
00:10:04,728 --> 00:10:06,720
lives, that's also something to be proud of.

176
00:10:06,720 --> 00:10:07,801
And I'm and I'm good with all this.

177
00:10:07,801 --> 00:10:09,692
But in the end, so that's the bigger one.

178
00:10:09,692 --> 00:10:11,994
The smaller one is I just want to learn new things every day.

179
00:10:12,535 --> 00:10:13,556
And I get to do that.

180
00:10:13,556 --> 00:10:15,837
I'm pulled in a lot of different directions right now.

181
00:10:15,998 --> 00:10:19,400
And it is, I was telling my coach last night about this.

182
00:10:19,400 --> 00:10:24,835
It is stressful, tiring, but also a lot of fun.

183
00:10:24,835 --> 00:10:26,296
Like I think mentally it.

184
00:10:26,296 --> 00:10:28,649
pulls your brain in so many ways to be pulled.

185
00:10:28,649 --> 00:10:31,251
I have so many different streams I'm working on right now.

186
00:10:31,372 --> 00:10:33,764
And, you know, no one on your team understands that.

187
00:10:33,764 --> 00:10:36,407
And that's sort of hard to try to be like, daddy, like I don't have time for this.

188
00:10:36,407 --> 00:10:37,558
There are other bigger things.

189
00:10:37,558 --> 00:10:45,566
Um but that's also a that the learning and education and knowledge I get from that is
pretty exciting and fun.

190
00:10:45,614 --> 00:10:51,143
With everything you've you're doing, you've accomplished, like you you know that you can
do it.

191
00:10:51,143 --> 00:10:53,826
And that's a big statement, but I'm going somewhere with this.

192
00:10:54,428 --> 00:10:55,970
But you have a coach.

193
00:10:56,932 --> 00:10:58,514
Tell me the benefit of that.

194
00:10:58,990 --> 00:11:00,030
Having a coach.

195
00:11:01,052 --> 00:11:04,902
Having someone who you can reach out to and talk to about different things that go on.

196
00:11:04,902 --> 00:11:06,776
I I've had coaches on and off.

197
00:11:06,776 --> 00:11:09,450
Um, I think some people would say they should have a coach all the time.

198
00:11:09,450 --> 00:11:16,203
I do think as a founder, especially as a solo founder, but even as a I've I've had, so
this is my fourth company, right?

199
00:11:16,343 --> 00:11:18,325
I've had co-founders for the first three.

200
00:11:18,325 --> 00:11:19,366
This one I'm a solo founder.

201
00:11:19,366 --> 00:11:25,250
So having someone you can talk to about things that you you probably don't even, I love my
executive team, but

202
00:11:25,250 --> 00:11:28,472
There's some things I probably don't want to talk with them about, or they don't even want
to hear me talk about, right?

203
00:11:28,472 --> 00:11:29,952
Like like they don't want to hear why I'm like stressed.

204
00:11:29,952 --> 00:11:31,593
Like they don't want to hear that.

205
00:11:31,593 --> 00:11:37,657
And in fact, I don't want them to know that I'm stressed because that that might create
anxiety in them.

206
00:11:37,657 --> 00:11:42,649
Um, and and so uh having a coach is sort of an outlet for some of that.

207
00:11:42,649 --> 00:11:48,332
Um, and in being able to just have someone to talk to who's been there, done there before
and and understand you.

208
00:11:48,332 --> 00:11:50,624
Yeah, so it's more than just a professional therapist.

209
00:11:50,624 --> 00:11:58,530
That's fifty percent of it, but isn't fifty percent also the person that knows how to
process and give great strategic advice from outside the bubble?

210
00:11:58,530 --> 00:11:59,110
Yeah, no, absolutely.

211
00:11:59,110 --> 00:12:02,490
I mean, my my coach has worked in industries like Chore before.

212
00:12:02,490 --> 00:12:06,879
He has good thoughts about where we're going, what we're doing things, how we're going
about it.

213
00:12:06,879 --> 00:12:08,320
Um, he gets it.

214
00:12:08,320 --> 00:12:13,225
And so that's really worthwhile to have those conversations too, to think through what
we're building and how we're building it.

215
00:12:13,225 --> 00:12:18,222
Um, and and I appreciate that aspect of him as being someone who's sort of been there,
done that.

216
00:12:18,222 --> 00:12:25,726
As we jump into chore here and really figure out what the business is and what you guys
think you're solving for, um give advice since you've you're actively engaging with a

217
00:12:25,726 --> 00:12:35,400
coach, give advice on how someone, what you've learned through your experience for them to
find a coach that fits the best for them and that's really beneficial and valuable.

218
00:12:35,544 --> 00:12:39,176
Yeah, I look, you should interview the coaches the same way you would interview an
executive team.

219
00:12:39,176 --> 00:12:44,179
Um, most coaches are gonna offer like a f a free session of some sort to talk with them
and see if there's a vibe.

220
00:12:44,179 --> 00:12:46,270
See if you get them, see if you like what they're talking about.

221
00:12:46,270 --> 00:12:52,863
Do you feel like this is someone you might want to talk to and l on a regular basis and
get advice from on a regular basis?

222
00:12:52,984 --> 00:12:54,704
if the answer is yes, then that might be the right fit.

223
00:12:54,704 --> 00:12:58,937
If the answer is like, man, like that feels really I look, most good coaches are gonna be
expensive.

224
00:12:58,937 --> 00:13:01,428
So you have to be okay with that price.

225
00:13:01,428 --> 00:13:03,609
Um, but

226
00:13:05,216 --> 00:13:09,629
Once you get over the price, can you feel like, Hey, am I gonna get the value here that's
gonna help me move to the next level?

227
00:13:09,629 --> 00:13:14,594
And that's hard to know up front, but everyone should get a coach to start with and then
see where it takes you.

228
00:13:14,594 --> 00:13:15,075
Yeah.

229
00:13:15,075 --> 00:13:16,096
So what do you guys think?

230
00:13:16,096 --> 00:13:25,506
Not to go into this big marketing deep dive about the businesses stuff, but what do you
you you starting three other businesses having co founders and Angel investing in so many

231
00:13:25,506 --> 00:13:26,327
more?

232
00:13:27,108 --> 00:13:28,059
Why chore?

233
00:13:28,059 --> 00:13:29,150
Why now?

234
00:13:30,606 --> 00:13:36,148
So, I mean, it's to be clear, chore in one version of an or another has been around for
six and half years.

235
00:13:36,148 --> 00:13:37,659
So that's sort of one thing to point.

236
00:13:37,659 --> 00:13:38,289
So why now?

237
00:13:38,289 --> 00:13:39,210
It's been around a long time.

238
00:13:39,210 --> 00:13:41,831
Um, although the current version three and a half years.

239
00:13:41,831 --> 00:13:43,661
Uh why now?

240
00:13:43,661 --> 00:13:44,752
Pretty simple.

241
00:13:44,752 --> 00:13:50,804
The the world is moving into a place where more and more entrepreneurs are starting
businesses.

242
00:13:50,804 --> 00:13:53,395
More people are starting businesses in general and becoming an entrepreneur.

243
00:13:53,395 --> 00:13:56,737
Um, all of those people, as we mentioned right when we started, right?

244
00:13:56,737 --> 00:13:59,554
You have a a purpose in the world.

245
00:13:59,554 --> 00:14:00,994
You have a superpower.

246
00:14:01,195 --> 00:14:07,398
If you have to spend any of that time doing back office chores, your company will almost
certainly fail.

247
00:14:07,398 --> 00:14:07,658
Right.

248
00:14:07,658 --> 00:14:13,642
I was talking to you about how I was spending my time today dealing with a bunch of
marketing stuff and kind of like updating passwords.

249
00:14:13,642 --> 00:14:15,643
Um, that should have happened with other people on the team.

250
00:14:15,643 --> 00:14:16,543
It didn't.

251
00:14:16,543 --> 00:14:17,804
So I'm doing it now.

252
00:14:17,804 --> 00:14:19,685
That is a bad use of my time.

253
00:14:19,685 --> 00:14:19,965
Right.

254
00:14:19,965 --> 00:14:24,007
And that is where I should be outsourcing it or delegating it to other people as much as I
can.

255
00:14:24,188 --> 00:14:28,840
The weird thing about back office work is most people think, I can go figure that, figure
that out.

256
00:14:29,132 --> 00:14:30,363
One that's like, okay, yes, I get it.

257
00:14:30,363 --> 00:14:32,344
You can go figure out how to run payroll.

258
00:14:32,886 --> 00:14:33,236
Cool.

259
00:14:33,236 --> 00:14:37,310
Like you can do it, but I can also go figure out how to do my books.

260
00:14:37,310 --> 00:14:42,054
And I can go figure out how to um build a server to run my website on it.

261
00:14:42,054 --> 00:14:43,875
And I can do all these things.

262
00:14:43,896 --> 00:14:47,339
Always the question you have to ask is that a good use of my time and a good use of my
skill set?

263
00:14:47,339 --> 00:14:50,061
You're great at real estate, you're great at podcasting.

264
00:14:50,722 --> 00:14:54,525
Are you are you the I you have you have a a team to help you make the podcast great,
right?

265
00:14:54,525 --> 00:14:55,842
You could be the editor.

266
00:14:55,842 --> 00:14:58,687
You could be the editor, you could be the poster, you could do all of those things
yourself.

267
00:14:58,687 --> 00:15:00,028
You absolutely could.

268
00:15:00,170 --> 00:15:00,741
You don't.

269
00:15:00,741 --> 00:15:02,835
So my question to you is like, why don't you do it?

270
00:15:02,835 --> 00:15:05,164
It costs you money to hand it give it to other people.

271
00:15:05,164 --> 00:15:13,436
Yeah, so I am early in my career, people didn't think I was going to be a good, I don't
even like the word delegate, but they didn't think I was gonna hand off things to other

272
00:15:13,436 --> 00:15:14,036
folks.

273
00:15:14,036 --> 00:15:18,238
And they had no idea that I was yearning and building something to be able to do it.

274
00:15:18,238 --> 00:15:28,050
But here's the challenge that I felt to really build trustworthy, credible, capable people
who have a sense of ownership who literally will take the thing and do it better than you

275
00:15:28,050 --> 00:15:28,740
would do it.

276
00:15:28,740 --> 00:15:31,061
Now you have to build that so you can scale.

277
00:15:31,061 --> 00:15:35,242
The challenge is when you're scaling at a hyper speed,

278
00:15:35,298 --> 00:15:40,958
Is finding enough capable people that want to be a part of your team that literally have
the know-how and they want to.

279
00:15:40,958 --> 00:15:42,412
It's a huge challenge right now.

280
00:15:42,412 --> 00:15:42,723
Yep.

281
00:15:42,723 --> 00:15:43,234
Y correct.

282
00:15:43,234 --> 00:15:44,647
I'm gonna talk about that, but you didn't answer my question.

283
00:15:44,647 --> 00:15:46,912
I'm gonna push you I'm gonna push you right back.

284
00:15:46,912 --> 00:15:49,618
Why why why not do this work yourself?

285
00:15:49,618 --> 00:15:49,991
Well

286
00:15:49,991 --> 00:15:52,436
all know I I can do other things, I can make a lot more per hour.

287
00:15:52,436 --> 00:15:54,200
I I I ask that's it.

288
00:15:54,200 --> 00:15:55,291
That's so there's the answer, right?

289
00:15:55,291 --> 00:15:57,432
And this is something most founders don't get through their heads.

290
00:15:57,432 --> 00:16:00,033
And and no offense to founders, this is where they're really dumb.

291
00:16:00,274 --> 00:16:02,645
They they are pennywise and pound foolish in most cases.

292
00:16:02,645 --> 00:16:10,830
And they don't realize if you are a pen maker or a pie or make pies and you make the
world's best pies or a great podcaster, right?

293
00:16:10,830 --> 00:16:13,442
Like you make more money doing the thing you love.

294
00:16:13,442 --> 00:16:14,542
You enjoy it more.

295
00:16:14,542 --> 00:16:18,285
You make more money doing it, and your business will be more successful because of it.

296
00:16:18,285 --> 00:16:20,834
And yet most founders mess up and say, well,

297
00:16:20,834 --> 00:16:22,936
I have to go run the backoffs operations.

298
00:16:22,936 --> 00:16:24,018
I have to figure out payroll.

299
00:16:24,018 --> 00:16:26,901
I have to figure out finance because that's what a good CEO does.

300
00:16:26,901 --> 00:16:28,362
That is BS.

301
00:16:28,403 --> 00:16:30,135
You are stupid if you think that is true.

302
00:16:30,135 --> 00:16:32,087
And I will tell you right now, your company will fail.

303
00:16:32,087 --> 00:16:33,909
You will drown in all the admin.

304
00:16:33,909 --> 00:16:35,771
You will stop doing the thing you love.

305
00:16:35,771 --> 00:16:38,394
Your product quality will go down and your company will fail.

306
00:16:38,394 --> 00:16:39,595
End of story.

307
00:16:40,036 --> 00:16:41,558
And that's why Tor exists, by the way.

308
00:16:41,558 --> 00:16:41,944
Yes.

309
00:16:41,944 --> 00:16:42,294
So there you go.

310
00:16:42,294 --> 00:16:44,506
That's a great that's a good that's a good marketing and sales statement.

311
00:16:44,506 --> 00:16:45,197
You need to use it.

312
00:16:45,197 --> 00:16:46,719
If you don't use chore, use something else.

313
00:16:46,719 --> 00:16:48,541
That's a great salesman that does that, right?

314
00:16:48,541 --> 00:16:50,591
Make sure you're using one of these systems.

315
00:16:52,878 --> 00:17:05,163
Go a little bit in depth on your journey and where you can help someone work through the
process of turning over the areas of your business that you shouldn't be doing.

316
00:17:05,163 --> 00:17:06,833
Because there's this argument, right?

317
00:17:06,833 --> 00:17:15,766
And getting to know Adam a little bit here is that he believes, I I think he believes that
you should hire slow and fire fast.

318
00:17:16,107 --> 00:17:16,567
Right.

319
00:17:16,567 --> 00:17:22,839
And so there's people that there's there's big brands out here that say, hire fast, fire
faster.

320
00:17:22,839 --> 00:17:24,861
There's there's people that have all these perspectives, right?

321
00:17:24,861 --> 00:17:29,637
You're like, yeah, maybe you'll disagree with it, but but hire slow, fire fast.

322
00:17:29,637 --> 00:17:38,696
Take us through that in when we're trying to scale our business and hand over something we
shouldn't be doing to someone that it appears they have the expertise to do.

323
00:17:38,764 --> 00:17:39,024
Yeah.

324
00:17:39,024 --> 00:17:39,985
So I mean a few things.

325
00:17:39,985 --> 00:17:45,899
And it's funny, I'm actually moving more into the world of like higher hire fast and fire
fast a little bit more, but it depends a little bit on the role.

326
00:17:45,899 --> 00:17:47,971
Um, but what what do you really need to do well?

327
00:17:47,971 --> 00:17:49,972
And we have some job openings right now for athor.

328
00:17:49,972 --> 00:17:57,347
And so I'm trying to get this we've hired lots of people and we've we've some of really
down pat, but other ones we're trying to get better at, which is how do we build a great

329
00:17:57,968 --> 00:17:59,428
hiring system?

330
00:17:59,569 --> 00:18:04,672
In other words, like how do you really build a good job description so you understand what
what are you hiring for?

331
00:18:04,713 --> 00:18:07,032
What what do you really want someone to do?

332
00:18:07,032 --> 00:18:10,104
So we talked a little about we're redoing our marketing at chore.

333
00:18:10,104 --> 00:18:12,266
And I'm like, what do we really need a person to do?

334
00:18:12,266 --> 00:18:13,446
What are we really looking to hire?

335
00:18:13,446 --> 00:18:14,987
And I'm not I I don't know if it's clear.

336
00:18:14,987 --> 00:18:18,550
So I might change the job description actually this afternoon on one of those roles.

337
00:18:18,550 --> 00:18:20,451
Cause I'm not sure it's totally clear to me.

338
00:18:20,451 --> 00:18:22,913
So if I don't really know what the person's gonna do, give me a break.

339
00:18:22,913 --> 00:18:26,055
We can't hire that person's we're not gonna hire the right person.

340
00:18:26,215 --> 00:18:29,958
If they come in, that person's probably gonna fail because I won't even know what to
manage them towards.

341
00:18:29,958 --> 00:18:32,219
So you need to know what you're looking for, number one.

342
00:18:32,219 --> 00:18:34,921
Um, once you do that, have a good process in place.

343
00:18:34,921 --> 00:18:36,652
What does it mean to hire like

344
00:18:36,686 --> 00:18:38,036
Create, spend a little bit of time.

345
00:18:38,036 --> 00:18:43,540
It doesn't take much time with AI, building out a whole plan of like, what does that role
look like?

346
00:18:43,540 --> 00:18:44,190
How is it going to work?

347
00:18:44,190 --> 00:18:46,411
How am I going to test for it?

348
00:18:46,652 --> 00:18:47,752
up be ahead of time.

349
00:18:47,752 --> 00:18:50,184
Maybe give someone a test case and pay them a little bit of money.

350
00:18:50,184 --> 00:18:59,519
So we actually have a new system in place where we pay, it's actually whole process where
we'll we'll pay people to do a small test, a bit of work to show us what they can do.

351
00:18:59,539 --> 00:19:02,960
But part of that is a secret part of the thing, because this is a test for us.

352
00:19:03,071 --> 00:19:05,432
so hopefully li people listening might hear this, but like.

353
00:19:05,432 --> 00:19:07,923
We want to know if you follow up to make sure you get paid.

354
00:19:08,424 --> 00:19:11,706
We'll absolutely pay you, but we're not gonna pay you right off the bat.

355
00:19:11,986 --> 00:19:15,348
I want you to hit me up again, big, hey, like you said you'd pay us.

356
00:19:15,549 --> 00:19:15,929
Pay me.

357
00:19:15,929 --> 00:19:18,096
Like, I didn't see a a notice about it.

358
00:19:18,096 --> 00:19:18,990
What's up?

359
00:19:19,271 --> 00:19:20,892
Big, great, here's here's payment.

360
00:19:20,892 --> 00:19:24,264
But I want you to I want I want to know you're proactive and we'll follow up.

361
00:19:24,638 --> 00:19:31,032
So you've identified that following up is a massive key metric in accomplishing the tasks
of these roles.

362
00:19:31,032 --> 00:19:32,863
Can't fake that with AI right now.

363
00:19:32,983 --> 00:19:39,627
I don't you can probably fake the the tests we have you do, but you can't fake the man,
like Adam said he was gonna pay me.

364
00:19:39,628 --> 00:19:40,729
He didn't.

365
00:19:40,729 --> 00:19:42,130
I'm gonna assume best intentions.

366
00:19:42,130 --> 00:19:44,601
Like maybe he he didn't forget, like, you know, maybe he forgot.

367
00:19:44,601 --> 00:19:46,072
So I'm just gonna hit him up one more time.

368
00:19:46,072 --> 00:19:47,973
Hey, like, is payment coming through?

369
00:19:48,714 --> 00:19:49,355
Cool.

370
00:19:49,355 --> 00:19:56,439
Um, with I said, when people come on board, we've gotten really good about this at shore,
and I'm I'm with some new salespeople have been really good about this.

371
00:19:56,620 --> 00:20:00,622
If within the first week or two you were not hitting certain metrics that I'm expecting
around like

372
00:20:00,622 --> 00:20:05,907
Proactivity, following up, getting we have a clear check we have a very clear checklist of
things to do.

373
00:20:05,907 --> 00:20:09,009
If you're not doing that, like I just don't have time for it.

374
00:20:09,009 --> 00:20:11,431
And it's done, you're out, we're moving on.

375
00:20:11,431 --> 00:20:12,792
No hard feelings.

376
00:20:12,792 --> 00:20:18,157
The fast you if if I know it's not gonna be a fit early on, it probably not gonna it won't
be a fit in six or twelve months either.

377
00:20:18,157 --> 00:20:19,542
oh

378
00:20:19,542 --> 00:20:21,290
Did you have to learn this?

379
00:20:21,772 --> 00:20:22,342
Yeah, for sure.

380
00:20:22,342 --> 00:20:25,674
I mean, it's hard, it's hard to fire people and it's hard to sort of trust your gut.

381
00:20:25,674 --> 00:20:27,227
And if it's like not working.

382
00:20:27,227 --> 00:20:31,950
Um, you know, you know, it w an example with a new sales guy we had.

383
00:20:32,602 --> 00:20:39,216
I I gave him a very clear to actually I fired two sales guys very recently, um, both
within the first two weeks of being with us.

384
00:20:39,216 --> 00:20:45,461
Um, in the hiring email with them, I said, here's the first four weeks, what it's gonna
look like and what the expectations are.

385
00:20:45,582 --> 00:20:50,035
Um, one guy asked in in a public forum, which we're all about public stuff.

386
00:20:50,035 --> 00:20:50,525
I don't mind it.

387
00:20:50,525 --> 00:20:51,542
He Hey, like

388
00:20:51,682 --> 00:20:56,944
I would really like to see what the plan is for my first time, my time here.

389
00:20:57,164 --> 00:20:58,693
And I wrote him back in a more private channel.

390
00:20:58,693 --> 00:21:05,468
I'm like, hey, like, do you remember the email I sent you with your offer with the full
outline of this?

391
00:21:05,468 --> 00:21:06,478
He's like, I forgot.

392
00:21:06,478 --> 00:21:11,530
It's like, man, like, I'm your C I'm your I'm the CEO and I'm your boss for this role.

393
00:21:11,831 --> 00:21:15,192
If you're forgetting that, what are you going to forget with your clients that you're
trying to sell to?

394
00:21:15,192 --> 00:21:16,013
So that was issue number one.

395
00:21:16,013 --> 00:21:18,464
The other guy, we talked with him a bunch about it.

396
00:21:18,464 --> 00:21:19,470
And like,

397
00:21:19,470 --> 00:21:24,072
the goal is like you need to start hitting target, like you need to start going do
outbound before you fully get our pitch.

398
00:21:24,072 --> 00:21:24,472
I get it.

399
00:21:24,472 --> 00:21:28,174
you need to start learning our pitch, which it asks me questions about it.

400
00:21:28,174 --> 00:21:30,425
But then two, I want you to start doing a lot of outreach.

401
00:21:30,425 --> 00:21:32,383
Just like start understanding how you're doing outreach to people.

402
00:21:32,383 --> 00:21:33,556
What does your cadence look like?

403
00:21:33,556 --> 00:21:35,297
Start hitting up a lot of folks.

404
00:21:35,897 --> 00:21:40,599
You know, you got 40 hours a week, you got 40 hours a week minimum to get stuff done.

405
00:21:41,079 --> 00:21:42,950
We don't do very few calls internally at chore.

406
00:21:42,950 --> 00:21:44,051
You're not on sales calls yet.

407
00:21:44,051 --> 00:21:47,522
So you got a lot of time to get good at this stuff and a lot of time to start doing
outreach.

408
00:21:48,310 --> 00:21:50,430
What do you do in these moments?

409
00:21:50,430 --> 00:21:52,831
Two weeks in I was like, Okay, how far have gotten?

410
00:21:52,852 --> 00:21:54,473
He'd emailed four people.

411
00:21:55,275 --> 00:21:59,528
And and the other his the other guy in the group had had put a list of twenty thousand
people.

412
00:22:00,300 --> 00:22:00,754
Yeah.

413
00:22:00,754 --> 00:22:02,621
It's probably somewhere in between, right?

414
00:22:02,818 --> 00:22:03,639
Yeah, I mean, for sure.

415
00:22:03,639 --> 00:22:06,811
But like you I need to know that you can move fast and follow these instructions.

416
00:22:06,811 --> 00:22:08,602
And if you don't, by the way, ask a lot of questions.

417
00:22:08,602 --> 00:22:10,443
This is something people mess up all the time.

418
00:22:10,743 --> 00:22:13,098
If if it's unclear, you're unsure.

419
00:22:13,098 --> 00:22:17,193
Or even if you know, ask a lot of questions because communication is so we should talk
about communication.

420
00:22:17,193 --> 00:22:17,649
It's key.

421
00:22:17,649 --> 00:22:18,432
uh

422
00:22:18,432 --> 00:22:19,623
I'll be here in a second.

423
00:22:19,623 --> 00:22:23,605
So you you touched on earlier that you're always looking to learn new things.

424
00:22:23,605 --> 00:22:24,906
You referenced that.

425
00:22:24,906 --> 00:22:35,052
So then what do you learn from failures of is it they end up being the type of employee
that's commensurate with the way that they're onboarded?

426
00:22:35,052 --> 00:22:40,675
Do you do you look back and look at all these these metrics to say, hey, what do we learn
and how do we keep this from happening?

427
00:22:40,675 --> 00:22:46,626
Because what I've told our team over the past two to three years, I said, guys, you you're
thinking about this wrong.

428
00:22:46,626 --> 00:22:49,747
You're thinking it's expensive to let people go and fire people.

429
00:22:49,747 --> 00:22:50,417
No, no, no, no.

430
00:22:50,417 --> 00:22:51,588
You're late on this.

431
00:22:51,588 --> 00:22:54,448
It's really, really expensive to hire them.

432
00:22:54,548 --> 00:23:02,071
Because if they're not hired the right way, it's already going to be really expensive and
inefficient, not accomplishing goals.

433
00:23:02,751 --> 00:23:05,332
And I'm not talking about expensive from the salary.

434
00:23:05,332 --> 00:23:06,893
You better go ahead and look down the road.

435
00:23:06,893 --> 00:23:11,744
If we don't do this right and we don't take full responsibility, I can tell you how much
it's going to cost us.

436
00:23:12,216 --> 00:23:13,406
So a few answers there.

437
00:23:13,406 --> 00:23:19,088
One, yes, it's sure we do very deep, um, we do retros on every single person who leaves
and doesn't work out.

438
00:23:19,088 --> 00:23:23,259
Um, we try to learn from it and and update and change how we're hiring, what we're looking
at, all this stuff.

439
00:23:23,259 --> 00:23:25,990
So absolutely we've gotten I think our system is really good now.

440
00:23:25,990 --> 00:23:29,311
We hire great people and most, but it's still we still mess up, to be clear.

441
00:23:29,311 --> 00:23:39,044
And that goes to the second point that you made, where people today still so I'm a huge
believer in the idea of like you want to automate out or outsource basically as many

442
00:23:39,044 --> 00:23:40,224
things as possible.

443
00:23:40,578 --> 00:23:42,739
Hire as few people as you can.

444
00:23:42,759 --> 00:23:44,941
Do not hire new people for roles.

445
00:23:44,941 --> 00:23:47,622
So where I said we're redoing a lot of things in our marketing team.

446
00:23:47,622 --> 00:23:51,404
I'm gonna do my best not to hire, rehire from most of those roles.

447
00:23:51,485 --> 00:23:57,768
Um, I'm gonna see if we can build it with AI or outsource it to to to outsource
specialists.

448
00:23:58,029 --> 00:24:01,941
What people mess up and what would a lot of people think it's like, I need to have someone
in house with me.

449
00:24:01,941 --> 00:24:04,172
I have that role in in in person.

450
00:24:04,172 --> 00:24:06,294
Well, let's pretend going back to this like pen maker.

451
00:24:06,294 --> 00:24:07,444
You're a pen maker.

452
00:24:07,884 --> 00:24:09,565
If you're a pen maker, what do you focus on?

453
00:24:09,565 --> 00:24:11,716
You probably focus on building the best pens.

454
00:24:11,877 --> 00:24:16,981
So should you hire a marketing team like internally that you're gonna manage?

455
00:24:16,981 --> 00:24:19,782
You're the world best pen PhD.

456
00:24:20,063 --> 00:24:22,995
And now you need to go figure out how to go hire for a marketer.

457
00:24:22,995 --> 00:24:25,607
You've never done that role in your life, you have no idea what to do.

458
00:24:25,607 --> 00:24:29,469
Do you actually think, like realistically, think that role is gonna work out for you?

459
00:24:29,870 --> 00:24:30,770
No.

460
00:24:30,910 --> 00:24:31,501
So guess what?

461
00:24:31,501 --> 00:24:32,822
It's not just the cost at salary.

462
00:24:32,822 --> 00:24:33,523
And I there's numbers.

463
00:24:33,523 --> 00:24:36,248
I actually posted something about this a few probably a month or two ago.

464
00:24:36,248 --> 00:24:39,660
But let's pretend the person's making a hundred K a year in that marketing role, let's
say.

465
00:24:40,300 --> 00:24:50,065
The cost actually to you as a business, if you look into the realistic amount of how often
they will fail, is something like two two and a half X their base salary.

466
00:24:50,266 --> 00:24:52,926
Cause the likelihood is within 12 months they will fail.

467
00:24:53,187 --> 00:24:54,438
Maybe that's what I think 18 months.

468
00:24:54,438 --> 00:24:55,688
Within 18 months, they will fail.

469
00:24:55,688 --> 00:25:00,531
Either they will leave because they're looking for another job, they won't be doing the
work that you expect, the outcomes will suck.

470
00:25:00,531 --> 00:25:02,402
Even more likely they might fail within six months.

471
00:25:02,402 --> 00:25:06,136
And now you have to start the whole process over again recruiting, training, managing.

472
00:25:06,136 --> 00:25:08,187
Hiring, you've lost all this time.

473
00:25:08,187 --> 00:25:12,072
Instead, just hire an outsourced partner.

474
00:25:12,072 --> 00:25:14,535
Say, Hey, your job is a great, great marketing for me.

475
00:25:14,535 --> 00:25:22,212
I get I'm gonna be paying you probably two X, but in return, you have a team who already
knows what they're doing and you're gonna get me great results.

476
00:25:22,212 --> 00:25:24,345
And if you don't, I can fire you tomorrow and not have any problem with it.

477
00:25:24,345 --> 00:25:26,046
And I'll fire someone else who jump in.

478
00:25:26,382 --> 00:25:28,489
I was just in a conference this past week in Charleston.

479
00:25:28,489 --> 00:25:31,089
I actually flew back this morning and I can't believe I'm still awake here.

480
00:25:31,089 --> 00:25:31,689
Uh

481
00:25:31,689 --> 00:25:34,030
hope I'm I hopefully keeping you awake it is.

482
00:25:34,030 --> 00:25:35,171
Right, which good conversation.

483
00:25:35,171 --> 00:25:40,926
Um so he said, Hey, anything any time he touches something three times in his business, he
automates it.

484
00:25:41,144 --> 00:25:41,538
Smart.

485
00:25:41,538 --> 00:25:43,128
He's a right smart man.

486
00:25:43,128 --> 00:25:45,011
So it's like automate and move on.

487
00:25:45,011 --> 00:25:46,547
Automate and move on.

488
00:25:47,416 --> 00:25:47,626
Smart.

489
00:25:47,626 --> 00:25:48,917
And that's and that's the right idea.

490
00:25:48,917 --> 00:25:50,409
And you should be doing that every single time.

491
00:25:50,409 --> 00:25:54,181
Once again, people too often say, I've this role is open.

492
00:25:54,181 --> 00:25:55,893
I'm going to fill it with another person.

493
00:25:55,893 --> 00:26:00,577
Um, even for get AI, that was a bad decision to make.

494
00:26:00,577 --> 00:26:04,680
Having more people, more, you know, where they say more money, more problems.

495
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:06,901
It's actually more people, more problems.

496
00:26:07,142 --> 00:26:09,454
More people, more problems every single time.

497
00:26:09,454 --> 00:26:10,515
I love working with people.

498
00:26:10,515 --> 00:26:11,866
I love having a team.

499
00:26:11,866 --> 00:26:14,298
But man, like peep people are messy.

500
00:26:14,298 --> 00:26:16,387
Like people are beautiful in this way, but people are messy, right?

501
00:26:16,387 --> 00:26:17,326
They get sick.

502
00:26:17,326 --> 00:26:18,199
They got family issues.

503
00:26:18,199 --> 00:26:21,292
They you know, you name it, things come up.

504
00:26:21,292 --> 00:26:29,989
Yeah, the re well, it well, it's not just come up, they what what we do as humans, all of
us, it's not just them, it's all we prioritize, we reprioritize throughout our lives.

505
00:26:30,710 --> 00:26:33,672
And that's almost impossible to solve for as a business.

506
00:26:33,672 --> 00:26:35,293
It's almost impossible.

507
00:26:35,414 --> 00:26:35,774
Well we

508
00:26:35,774 --> 00:26:37,836
You to carry extra capacity for everything.

509
00:26:37,836 --> 00:26:39,778
And so that's that's expensive.

510
00:26:39,778 --> 00:26:44,752
Now, the beauty of outsourcing it, and this is a little bit about chore, I suppose, but
like, why do people hire us?

511
00:26:44,752 --> 00:26:46,023
Because guess what?

512
00:26:46,023 --> 00:26:47,605
My team gets sick too.

513
00:26:47,605 --> 00:26:49,507
But what do we do in guarantee to our customers?

514
00:26:49,507 --> 00:26:51,348
We have backup for everybody.

515
00:26:51,368 --> 00:26:51,608
Right.

516
00:26:51,608 --> 00:26:57,494
Like, so if your teammate, we literally had a teammate on our on our team who was working
with a lot of his customers of ours.

517
00:26:57,494 --> 00:26:58,735
He literally got hit by a bus.

518
00:26:58,735 --> 00:26:59,536
Luckily, I can talk about it.

519
00:26:59,536 --> 00:27:02,618
He's okay, he's back with us and everything, but he got hit by a bus.

520
00:27:02,722 --> 00:27:03,452
Guess what happened now?

521
00:27:03,452 --> 00:27:11,404
If that person was working for you individually, internally, either as a sole outsource
person or internally at your company, you'd be SOL.

522
00:27:11,444 --> 00:27:14,885
You'd be like, my God, all the operations now back to me as CEO.

523
00:27:15,065 --> 00:27:15,686
Right?

524
00:27:15,686 --> 00:27:16,926
That would suck.

525
00:27:16,926 --> 00:27:20,747
With chore, that this guy was backed up the next day.

526
00:27:20,747 --> 00:27:22,607
His clients didn't miss a beat.

527
00:27:22,848 --> 00:27:23,348
Right.

528
00:27:23,348 --> 00:27:24,058
And that's a cost.

529
00:27:24,058 --> 00:27:28,089
Like we we bear that cost to have that backup capacity always ready to go.

530
00:27:28,089 --> 00:27:29,449
We don't, so we don't get sick.

531
00:27:29,449 --> 00:27:31,110
We don't go on vacation.

532
00:27:31,110 --> 00:27:31,756
Right.

533
00:27:31,756 --> 00:27:33,767
Same we don't have take holidays.

534
00:27:34,208 --> 00:27:36,849
Now of course our people do, but we back everyone up.

535
00:27:37,050 --> 00:27:39,311
Now, I view the same thing for my vendors.

536
00:27:39,311 --> 00:27:41,913
The vendors I work with, I have the same expectation.

537
00:27:41,913 --> 00:27:45,755
Just because I'm a I'm going on vacation doesn't mean you get a stop.

538
00:27:45,756 --> 00:27:49,858
I don't care how you figure out how your backups are gonna happen or if you as the founder
have to work a little bit harder.

539
00:27:49,858 --> 00:27:52,740
You told me you're gonna deliver X by Z timeline.

540
00:27:52,740 --> 00:27:53,471
You better do it.

541
00:27:53,471 --> 00:27:54,802
It's not my problem how you do it.

542
00:27:54,802 --> 00:27:55,852
Get it done.

543
00:27:55,884 --> 00:28:00,036
So I mean this leads us perfectly into you know the topic of communication.

544
00:28:00,036 --> 00:28:02,547
We could say, what do we get wrong about communication now?

545
00:28:02,547 --> 00:28:03,538
What do we get right?

546
00:28:03,538 --> 00:28:16,174
But my question is how important if we had a pie chart and the percentage of importance in
your business, what percentage of would you say communication is for the overall success

547
00:28:16,174 --> 00:28:16,804
of the business?

548
00:28:16,804 --> 00:28:21,716
We could have marketing, we could have product development, market fit, we have, but
communication.

549
00:28:21,958 --> 00:28:23,652
man, I like that's I don't know.

550
00:28:23,652 --> 00:28:27,682
I I I don't know if it's good, I probably would say like 25%, but I almost wanted to say
50%.

551
00:28:27,682 --> 00:28:30,804
I want to Yeah.

552
00:28:30,804 --> 00:28:32,245
It's so important.

553
00:28:32,445 --> 00:28:34,396
Like, and this is why I say it's so important.

554
00:28:34,396 --> 00:28:38,309
It is for us critical when you're talking to your customers.

555
00:28:38,489 --> 00:28:41,751
You need to tell them what you're doing, when you're doing it, why you're doing it, and
how.

556
00:28:41,992 --> 00:28:51,788
Don't if if you disappear in our world, like if you if your client says I need help with
X, and you don't get X done by like

557
00:28:52,236 --> 00:28:58,410
No, and then and you disappear for a week and don't communicate with your client about
doing X, the client's gonna be like, what the heck's going on?

558
00:28:58,410 --> 00:29:00,070
And then you're creating anxiety.

559
00:29:00,071 --> 00:29:02,932
But to be clear, that same thing happens with your manager.

560
00:29:02,932 --> 00:29:13,058
If you say, Hey, I'm, you know, I want X to occur and you don't acknowledge your manager,
you don't respond, and you don't follow through, or you do follow through but you just

561
00:29:13,058 --> 00:29:15,860
don't talk about it, your manager's also gonna be pissed.

562
00:29:15,860 --> 00:29:20,532
By the way, same thing happens with a spouse or a significant other or a friend.

563
00:29:20,822 --> 00:29:23,816
If you don't communicate at all, people are gonna be pissed.

564
00:29:23,816 --> 00:29:29,813
So communication is so key and yet for some reason people find it so difficult to do.

565
00:29:30,114 --> 00:29:30,775
I don't know why.

566
00:29:30,775 --> 00:29:39,796
It takes no time at all to write an extra sentence, update someone on what's going on, and
yet people struggle with it in all walks of life.

567
00:29:40,022 --> 00:29:42,625
Yeah, I mean is is that the soft skills of business?

568
00:29:42,625 --> 00:29:51,154
Cause we hear about bedside manner in physicians and we talk right, communication is the
soft skills and the bedside manner of business.

569
00:29:51,154 --> 00:29:51,744
A hundred percent.

570
00:29:51,744 --> 00:29:55,316
I once again, I am shocked by how bad most people are at this.

571
00:29:55,316 --> 00:29:57,078
They need they they it is a soft skill.

572
00:29:57,078 --> 00:30:03,381
It's like so easy to start just showing up, having conversations, being building a
relationship with people.

573
00:30:03,381 --> 00:30:06,383
That it that is how you still get things done in today's world.

574
00:30:06,383 --> 00:30:17,169
Like yes, you're influenced by marketing and digital, this or that, but like showing up
and talking with people and messaging them, um, in it is how you actually really build

575
00:30:17,189 --> 00:30:19,540
build I how you almost do anything.

576
00:30:19,726 --> 00:30:23,892
So is it just communication in general or is it the type of communication, right?

577
00:30:23,892 --> 00:30:25,413
Are we talking about Slack?

578
00:30:25,413 --> 00:30:33,924
Are we talking about email, text, voice over the phone, voice interaction, video
interaction, person to person, face to face?

579
00:30:33,924 --> 00:30:35,606
'Cause there's a lot of different types.

580
00:30:36,182 --> 00:30:36,442
It is.

581
00:30:36,442 --> 00:30:38,835
I would say it's context dependent, right?

582
00:30:38,835 --> 00:30:42,830
It really depends on the context of of the kind of conversation you're having with someone
and why and when.

583
00:30:42,830 --> 00:30:49,578
So, like, um, you know, we could do this podcast digitally like we are right now, but it
might be better in person.

584
00:30:49,578 --> 00:30:53,221
Um, and and I wonder about that many times when I'm on podcasts.

585
00:30:53,688 --> 00:30:54,235
They always are.

586
00:30:54,235 --> 00:30:55,660
They they always are.

587
00:30:55,660 --> 00:30:56,190
Right.

588
00:30:56,190 --> 00:30:59,552
And so and and but it costs money and costs time.

589
00:30:59,552 --> 00:31:01,574
And so it it has its its drawbacks.

590
00:31:01,574 --> 00:31:04,085
Um so yeah, I think it's really depends on the context.

591
00:31:04,085 --> 00:31:07,047
But look, in the end, just starting with communicating in general, right?

592
00:31:07,047 --> 00:31:09,278
Like, man, it doesn't take me a lot of time.

593
00:31:09,278 --> 00:31:10,389
I'll give you an example of someone.

594
00:31:10,389 --> 00:31:13,661
Um, a really well known kind of VC and entrepreneur.

595
00:31:13,930 --> 00:31:17,123
I I know him, I don't know him super well, but no.

596
00:31:17,383 --> 00:31:18,994
He he sent me a message.

597
00:31:18,994 --> 00:31:22,496
He was with his daughter visiting Vanderbilt where I went to college.

598
00:31:24,258 --> 00:31:26,570
He sent me a message, said, I'm at Vanderbilt right now with my daughter.

599
00:31:26,570 --> 00:31:27,280
It's awesome.

600
00:31:27,280 --> 00:31:28,341
Blah, blah, blah.

601
00:31:28,341 --> 00:31:31,903
And I was like, my gosh, like, how do you even know I went to Vanderbilt?

602
00:31:31,964 --> 00:31:33,024
He's like, I just remember it.

603
00:31:33,024 --> 00:31:36,988
I don't believe that he actually remembers that, but he probably has a really good system
for it.

604
00:31:36,988 --> 00:31:39,329
He always sends me a note on my birthday.

605
00:31:40,010 --> 00:31:40,549
And guess what?

606
00:31:40,549 --> 00:31:41,361
I noticed that stuff.

607
00:31:41,361 --> 00:31:43,472
And I'm like, man, how do I build a system like that?

608
00:31:43,472 --> 00:31:47,756
It's just the ability to follow up, stay in touch, is so impressive.

609
00:31:47,756 --> 00:31:48,966
And he made it part of his life.

610
00:31:48,966 --> 00:31:51,418
And that's, I'm sure, a huge part of his success.

611
00:31:52,044 --> 00:31:53,619
He probably has it automated.

612
00:31:53,986 --> 00:31:58,388
He he probably does, but he might also just say, I'm gonna set aside twenty minutes every
day.

613
00:31:58,388 --> 00:31:59,719
Like there are tools that do this, right?

614
00:31:59,719 --> 00:32:01,590
There are tools that we can can do that.

615
00:32:01,590 --> 00:32:07,924
But he still might go in every day and he's dedicated himself to say, you I'm gonna spend
I have a tool that does this too called Clay.

616
00:32:07,924 --> 00:32:13,897
Well or they just changed the name because it used they're competing with the the this um
data broker Clay.

617
00:32:13,897 --> 00:32:17,559
But like that it's sort of like a personal relationship manager.

618
00:32:17,579 --> 00:32:18,730
It shows me all the people.

619
00:32:18,730 --> 00:32:20,361
I think it shows me their birthdays.

620
00:32:20,361 --> 00:32:22,201
I can put notes in about people.

621
00:32:22,266 --> 00:32:23,126
I

622
00:32:23,362 --> 00:32:24,763
I don't spend time doing that though.

623
00:32:24,763 --> 00:32:29,545
Like what I should do after our our call right now, I should go in and put in information
that I learned.

624
00:32:29,545 --> 00:32:30,805
I probably won't.

625
00:32:30,805 --> 00:32:36,038
In which case, I might not remember this stuff in the future and I will be bad at
following up with you and building a relationship.

626
00:32:36,038 --> 00:32:37,799
And that's a loss to me.

627
00:32:37,799 --> 00:32:38,739
Yeah.

628
00:32:38,739 --> 00:32:40,360
Maybe loss to you, but a loss to me certainly.

629
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:40,716
Yeah.

630
00:32:40,716 --> 00:32:45,488
But I mean, is it important that we try to focus on because you know, business is we can
call it what it is.

631
00:32:45,488 --> 00:32:48,737
We can call it war, we can call whatever it is, right?

632
00:32:48,737 --> 00:32:52,051
It's very, very, very competitive and hard.

633
00:32:52,051 --> 00:32:59,404
And so should we strategically pick out the three, the five people, create those
relationships, go deep with them?

634
00:32:59,404 --> 00:33:02,795
Because to your point, we don't have time for everything.

635
00:33:02,795 --> 00:33:09,548
So should we say who are the influential people that I want to create relationships with
that I know I'm gonna have to provide value and show up first?

636
00:33:09,548 --> 00:33:11,113
Should we do that as entrepreneurs?

637
00:33:11,113 --> 00:33:13,660
Because you can't do it for everyone.

638
00:33:14,246 --> 00:33:14,817
Yeah, of course.

639
00:33:14,817 --> 00:33:20,050
I mean, yes, like you should be doing everything to prioritize the relationships with the
most important people, right?

640
00:33:20,050 --> 00:33:22,452
Why do people take out their customers to dinner?

641
00:33:22,452 --> 00:33:23,993
The customers already paying them.

642
00:33:23,993 --> 00:33:26,595
Why do you take them out to dinner anyways and build a relationship?

643
00:33:26,595 --> 00:33:28,136
Makes it harder to fire you.

644
00:33:28,136 --> 00:33:34,120
Um, why do you take your spouse out to dinner and those sorts of things and like spend
quality time with them?

645
00:33:34,280 --> 00:33:37,162
It's important to build those relationships and strengthen them.

646
00:33:37,483 --> 00:33:39,294
So yeah, like I think you do have to prioritize.

647
00:33:39,294 --> 00:33:41,535
You can't do it with everybody, but you can do the basic stuff.

648
00:33:41,535 --> 00:33:42,636
And this is where once again I

649
00:33:42,636 --> 00:33:43,386
I I fail too.

650
00:33:43,386 --> 00:33:44,967
This is not a strength of mine.

651
00:33:45,647 --> 00:33:46,727
I need to be hitting people up.

652
00:33:46,727 --> 00:33:49,408
I need to just say ten minutes a day, I'm gonna just send people a note.

653
00:33:49,408 --> 00:33:50,509
Happy birthday.

654
00:33:50,509 --> 00:33:51,309
Hope things are good.

655
00:33:51,309 --> 00:33:52,629
It's been a long time.

656
00:33:53,610 --> 00:33:54,980
Easy to do, 10 minutes a day.

657
00:33:54,980 --> 00:33:58,418
And but same way I hear people all the time like, I don't have time to work out.

658
00:33:58,418 --> 00:34:01,852
I'm like, dude, you literally there's something called a seven minute workout.

659
00:34:01,852 --> 00:34:04,913
You can do it in your living room or your hotel room.

660
00:34:05,853 --> 00:34:07,926
Get off your phone, get doing that.

661
00:34:07,926 --> 00:34:14,589
What do you do as a hard charging entrepreneur with knowing that you need to give
yourself, it's a word I'm gonna impose it here, not from like a faith perspective, but

662
00:34:14,589 --> 00:34:16,439
like to give yourself some grace, right?

663
00:34:16,439 --> 00:34:19,801
On on acknowledging the things you don't do well, but having the conversation.

664
00:34:19,801 --> 00:34:22,171
How do we do that with hard charging entrepreneurs?

665
00:34:22,171 --> 00:34:24,632
How do we give that to other people at times?

666
00:34:24,752 --> 00:34:29,334
Without Yeah, w without cannibalizing our businesses.

667
00:34:30,196 --> 00:34:37,621
Um I well I I well give me give yours uh re say that you give yourself the grace to like
be okay not being good at things or

668
00:34:37,621 --> 00:34:45,254
Yeah, and well to acknowledge it and say, Hey, listen, I'm not gonna beat myself up and
say it's the end of the day, but to acknowledge it's not okay and say, Hey, it's it's okay

669
00:34:45,254 --> 00:34:48,625
that it's not okay, but you still need to do something about it.

670
00:34:48,625 --> 00:34:49,715
How d how do we do that?

671
00:34:49,715 --> 00:34:52,792
'Cause then we need to carry that to people we lead as well, it seems.

672
00:34:52,792 --> 00:35:00,356
Yeah, I mean, look, the grace, I guess, that I give myself in those those cases are I I've
maybe come to the conclusion as I've gotten until the older or done enough startups or

673
00:35:00,356 --> 00:35:03,168
whatever it is, that in some ways don't know if it matters.

674
00:35:03,168 --> 00:35:04,148
Like this sounds weird.

675
00:35:04,148 --> 00:35:05,882
Like I have an ego.

676
00:35:05,882 --> 00:35:08,350
I have things I want to go build and get done.

677
00:35:08,651 --> 00:35:11,832
I've acknowledged in my life I'm I'm not Elon Musk.

678
00:35:11,833 --> 00:35:13,854
I'm probably for good and bad, right?

679
00:35:13,854 --> 00:35:17,015
He's he's probably not the best parent, definitely not the best spouse.

680
00:35:17,015 --> 00:35:19,537
Um, but he's an amazing entrepreneur.

681
00:35:19,537 --> 00:35:21,858
But I'm not gonna I'm I'm not gonna be someone who's

682
00:35:21,858 --> 00:35:23,979
you know, gonna be the world's richest man.

683
00:35:23,979 --> 00:35:26,140
Um, so I give myself the grace that that is okay.

684
00:35:26,140 --> 00:35:34,883
Um, I give myself the grace that every day, as long as I'm trying as hard as I can and
doing the things that I believe are right and learning a little bit every day, that's good

685
00:35:34,883 --> 00:35:35,304
enough.

686
00:35:35,304 --> 00:35:45,628
And it might it it might mean the company doesn't totally work out, but it but I don't
want to look back and say, Man, I didn't I didn't work hard enough and give it my all.

687
00:35:45,628 --> 00:35:46,538
And I wasn't proud of that.

688
00:35:46,538 --> 00:35:49,289
And and I can go to sleep every night feeling like, you know what?

689
00:35:49,289 --> 00:35:50,030
I worked hard today.

690
00:35:50,030 --> 00:35:51,222
I mean, to be clear, like,

691
00:35:51,222 --> 00:35:56,226
I work basically six like six days a week and I've done that for about fifteen or sixteen
years straight.

692
00:35:56,226 --> 00:36:01,966
So like I'm already at that level, but I need to set time aside set time aside for my kids
and family.

693
00:36:01,966 --> 00:36:05,518
So you've invested in these two hundred plus startup investments.

694
00:36:05,518 --> 00:36:07,189
And I look at something like that, right?

695
00:36:07,189 --> 00:36:08,770
As an active angel investor.

696
00:36:08,770 --> 00:36:10,951
I look at that, and that's such a big number.

697
00:36:10,951 --> 00:36:12,211
And I joke with people and stuff.

698
00:36:12,211 --> 00:36:13,572
And I mentioned before I'm like, what's he doing?

699
00:36:13,572 --> 00:36:15,123
Open eliminate stands on every quarter.

700
00:36:15,123 --> 00:36:15,933
Is that is that what it is?

701
00:36:15,933 --> 00:36:17,514
Is it two hundred corners of limited stands?

702
00:36:17,514 --> 00:36:25,138
And you have little kids that are underage, you're giving them fifty fifty like, how do
you invest in two hundred plus startups for an age as an angel investor?

703
00:36:25,432 --> 00:36:25,902
Few answers.

704
00:36:25,902 --> 00:36:29,484
One, I and some of you I wish they were lemonade stands, because a lot of those companies
are out of business now.

705
00:36:29,484 --> 00:36:31,934
So maybe lemonade stands would actually make more money.

706
00:36:32,425 --> 00:36:35,116
but but um the way you do it is a few things.

707
00:36:35,116 --> 00:36:41,588
As with all things in life, look, I I'm I'm a huge believer in what Warren Buffett talks
about being the eighth wonder of the world, compounding.

708
00:36:41,809 --> 00:36:45,470
Um, if you can let things compound, you get good at things and things build.

709
00:36:45,470 --> 00:36:49,662
So look, I've been at Angel Investing for I've been in Silicon Valley for 16 years.

710
00:36:49,662 --> 00:36:51,153
I started about a year after that.

711
00:36:51,153 --> 00:36:53,814
So about 15 years, I've been investing now.

712
00:36:54,014 --> 00:36:54,752
Um

713
00:36:54,752 --> 00:36:55,423
It builds up.

714
00:36:55,423 --> 00:36:56,854
You start, you start seeing a lot of deals.

715
00:36:56,854 --> 00:36:58,505
You get on a lot of deal lists.

716
00:36:58,645 --> 00:37:00,657
Not all of those deals are massive investments.

717
00:37:00,657 --> 00:37:02,128
Some of those are like pretty small.

718
00:37:02,128 --> 00:37:06,552
Maybe I put $2,500 in, which is a recognize for a lot of people, that's a lot of money.

719
00:37:06,552 --> 00:37:08,944
But like they're small checks relatively speaking.

720
00:37:08,944 --> 00:37:15,970
Um, some of the other investments I've done have also I can, they're on my list of 200
plus investments, but they're via a fund where I was a partner.

721
00:37:15,970 --> 00:37:18,563
So I was doing, I was doing those deals actively with my partner.

722
00:37:18,563 --> 00:37:21,962
So it was both of us, but the fund was the investor, not me individually.

723
00:37:21,962 --> 00:37:22,964
Um

724
00:37:23,234 --> 00:37:29,386
And through those, the way you do it is you just meet a lot of startups um and you start
having conversations with them and be like, This makes sense.

725
00:37:29,386 --> 00:37:30,057
This is cool.

726
00:37:30,057 --> 00:37:30,721
This is different.

727
00:37:30,721 --> 00:37:34,464
You seem like a different sort of founder who thinks in a new way.

728
00:37:36,042 --> 00:37:42,702
So th I'll answer it, I'll stop there and I can tell you kind of my philosophy's changed a
little bit in angel investing recently over the past few years, but that's the high level

729
00:37:42,702 --> 00:37:44,174
of how how do I do it?

730
00:37:44,535 --> 00:37:46,998
The same way you do everything else in life, good job.

731
00:37:47,340 --> 00:37:52,088
One foot after the n the next, day after day, and try to learn a little bit more.

732
00:37:52,088 --> 00:37:52,919
So what's changed?

733
00:37:52,919 --> 00:38:01,354
Because if if we talk about your change philosophy, if people are also trying to stand up
businesses and they're trying to have exits, if there's things you've learned, it's also

734
00:38:01,354 --> 00:38:04,817
something that founders could also take away and utilize what you've learned.

735
00:38:04,817 --> 00:38:05,687
How do you build something?

736
00:38:05,687 --> 00:38:09,986
So what have what's transitioned, what's evolved in your mind when you're when you're
angel investing?

737
00:38:09,986 --> 00:38:17,032
Well, I mean, for angel investing, what's evolved for me personally is I don't do a lot of
I I'm doing much less early stage angel investing.

738
00:38:17,032 --> 00:38:21,495
So before I would meet lots of early stage founders and I would do lots of early stage
investing.

739
00:38:21,495 --> 00:38:24,788
And if I had a crystal ball ever, which I have a good track record.

740
00:38:24,788 --> 00:38:28,240
So I probably had some sort of a um crystal ball for a while.

741
00:38:28,321 --> 00:38:30,673
Um I don't know if I have that anymore.

742
00:38:30,673 --> 00:38:35,737
Now, I don't know if that's because I've gotten older or because I don't go to as many
events anymore.

743
00:38:35,737 --> 00:38:40,050
I used to go to events nonstop in San Francisco and was just talking to tons of people and
learning a lot.

744
00:38:40,590 --> 00:38:41,991
maybe that's part of it.

745
00:38:42,212 --> 00:38:44,133
I also think a lot of it though is because of AI.

746
00:38:44,133 --> 00:38:55,382
I just I think the AI is sh flipping the world around in so many new ways where what seems
like a great good idea six months ago gets crushed by the new launch, new chat GPT or

747
00:38:55,382 --> 00:38:56,643
Claude launch.

748
00:38:56,643 --> 00:38:59,085
And it's like, I just don't know anymore.

749
00:38:59,085 --> 00:39:01,127
So what's changed is I just don't do as much early stage investing.

750
00:39:01,127 --> 00:39:02,928
I'm doing later stage investing now.

751
00:39:02,989 --> 00:39:04,400
it's a little bit more safe.

752
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:07,082
Obviously the returns might be less, but not even, right?

753
00:39:07,082 --> 00:39:10,124
And you could have invested in anthropic three months ago.

754
00:39:10,154 --> 00:39:11,976
In three extra money on paper.

755
00:39:11,976 --> 00:39:13,827
Like, so the world is also crazy.

756
00:39:13,827 --> 00:39:20,462
Um, that's probably the biggest one that's changed, but also the ability for founders to
build amazing things has changed.

757
00:39:20,462 --> 00:39:23,524
So when when I talk to founders a like, hey, like what would get you to invest?

758
00:39:23,524 --> 00:39:28,808
I'm like, look, you got to prove out now that you can get things done for very little
money, because you can.

759
00:39:28,808 --> 00:39:36,470
Like AI enables you to build an amazing website, to build an amazing MVP, to getting early
customers for a relatively low cost.

760
00:39:36,470 --> 00:39:43,099
If you were unable to do most of those things and you're like, I need a million dollars to
make that happen, you're not gonna get anywhere.

761
00:39:43,099 --> 00:39:45,682
That's a joke at this point in today's world.

762
00:39:47,042 --> 00:39:53,824
So there's some very some highly successful um seed investors and early stage investors
that I've gotten to know well.

763
00:39:53,824 --> 00:39:58,285
Not friends, but you know, as we build these networks, we get to know people and you spend
a lot of time around them.

764
00:39:58,285 --> 00:40:06,048
Um they've had huge exit, hundreds of millions of dollars in exits, probably actually at a
time, probably over a billion now.

765
00:40:06,048 --> 00:40:07,418
And they're investing at a high level.

766
00:40:07,418 --> 00:40:09,928
They're very connected throughout the country.

767
00:40:10,089 --> 00:40:14,818
And I had an event three weeks ago, my first event I've ever put on, and had some

768
00:40:14,818 --> 00:40:21,862
High quality people that came in, sold some high ticket numbers, but they keynoted it in
the end because you have to pay them 150 grand to show up.

769
00:40:21,862 --> 00:40:31,787
I've developed a relationship, but they did this no fee, no charge, but they did it
virtually on an LED wall that I just built in this new theater I built in my headquarters.

770
00:40:31,908 --> 00:40:37,671
And we were talking about growth of business and really the effect of AI since you brought
up AI.

771
00:40:37,971 --> 00:40:43,264
They said anybody who talks about their next hire.

772
00:40:43,958 --> 00:40:45,642
You need to change your mindset.

773
00:40:45,642 --> 00:40:47,065
It's a very definitive statement.

774
00:40:47,065 --> 00:40:53,428
The only person that you need to hire for every role now is an engineer of AI.

775
00:40:55,138 --> 00:40:56,439
You wanna hire sales role?

776
00:40:56,439 --> 00:40:57,099
No.

777
00:40:57,099 --> 00:40:58,500
You wanna hire an HR role?

778
00:40:58,500 --> 00:40:58,820
No.

779
00:40:58,820 --> 00:41:00,011
You don't hire anybody else.

780
00:41:00,011 --> 00:41:00,610
Your next hire.

781
00:41:00,610 --> 00:41:07,326
And what they said was the reason why is all the billionaires and multimillionaires that
they know, this is exactly what they're doing.

782
00:41:07,326 --> 00:41:14,100
They're hiring an engineer of the AI to AI their businesses for those things you thought
you needed to hire an employee for before.

783
00:41:14,274 --> 00:41:14,915
Yep.

784
00:41:14,915 --> 00:41:17,525
I I and Mark, I totally agree with that in every single way.

785
00:41:17,525 --> 00:41:27,165
I mean, like we are anybody in my team who is showing signs of being good at AI, I'm
pushing them to see where they can get to, giving them opportunities to do a lot more,

786
00:41:27,165 --> 00:41:29,987
hopefully spread their wings and keep building as quick as they can.

787
00:41:29,987 --> 00:41:31,628
Because that is exactly right.

788
00:41:31,628 --> 00:41:35,852
Um, I'm talking to some other another person about being another AI person on our team.

789
00:41:35,852 --> 00:41:37,993
And those are exactly the right questions, Mark, in every single way.

790
00:41:37,993 --> 00:41:42,677
Like, because a lot of this stuff can be replaced with AI.

791
00:41:42,677 --> 00:41:43,382
Not all of it.

792
00:41:43,382 --> 00:41:44,509
With agents, right?

793
00:41:44,652 --> 00:41:47,594
With agents, with agents or various part types of A.

794
00:41:47,594 --> 00:41:51,066
I you call it agents or not, but like, yes, with with so many different things.

795
00:41:51,066 --> 00:41:53,717
And that is changing dramatically and changes what you do and how you do it.

796
00:41:53,717 --> 00:41:58,610
And so I mean, yes, at a high level, yes, yes, that that is what the smart people are
doing.

797
00:41:58,610 --> 00:41:59,841
I like to think I'm a smart person.

798
00:41:59,841 --> 00:42:01,991
That is exactly what we're doing at my company.

799
00:42:02,032 --> 00:42:06,394
Um, I and in I uh this is the excuse everyone's gonna make.

800
00:42:06,394 --> 00:42:10,397
If you have the time, you should be c trying to build things yourself as well.

801
00:42:10,397 --> 00:42:13,408
Um, in in thinking through how do I so I have a wonderful EA.

802
00:42:13,410 --> 00:42:16,815
I've told her though, when I get the time, I'm gonna try to rebuild some of the work that
she does.

803
00:42:16,815 --> 00:42:19,760
Now, to me from my view, that does not mean I fire her.

804
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:22,444
It means I retask her to the things that I can't build.

805
00:42:22,444 --> 00:42:29,624
Um, and have her do the things that that I don't need a human to that I need a human to do
versus outsourcing the kind of automating the rest.

806
00:42:29,624 --> 00:42:32,557
So where does chore integrate with what we just said?

807
00:42:33,219 --> 00:42:40,089
For for all the businesses that we're saying, hey, this engineering of AI for your
business is very important.

808
00:42:40,089 --> 00:42:43,754
And so where does chore come and interact with the businesses for us now?

809
00:42:43,758 --> 00:42:49,021
Yeah, I mean, look, the so the the key thing though is you yes, you should hire AA
engineers to build everything you can.

810
00:42:49,302 --> 00:42:54,706
With that said, there's a lot of things that you this is where I think the narrative on AI
is a little bit messed up.

811
00:42:54,706 --> 00:42:58,553
And there was a few, probably a month ago, month and a half ago, there was sort of the
SaaS pocalypse, right?

812
00:42:58,553 --> 00:43:01,030
A lot of these SaaS companies got really hit stock wise.

813
00:43:01,030 --> 00:43:08,655
Um the one thing that I think is wrong with that narrative in many cases is like you're
not gonna really rebuild, I'm not gonna rebuild Salesforce.

814
00:43:08,735 --> 00:43:13,088
Like, could I build a CRM with AI for sure.

815
00:43:13,400 --> 00:43:20,115
But I'm but is that a good use of my time to rebuild Salesforce and then maintain my own
version of Salesforce?

816
00:43:20,115 --> 00:43:21,366
Salesforce has a lot of features.

817
00:43:21,366 --> 00:43:24,898
Some of those features I don't need, so I don't probably need to rebuild all the pieces.

818
00:43:24,958 --> 00:43:27,770
But that's a that's that's a lot of work and time.

819
00:43:27,770 --> 00:43:33,865
And for like the you know, $100 per seat I pay, probably not.

820
00:43:33,865 --> 00:43:39,819
Even for so $300 a month, like yeah, like get a clawed code, you know, account for a
hundred bucks a month.

821
00:43:39,819 --> 00:43:40,509
So maybe.

822
00:43:40,509 --> 00:43:41,770
But like once again,

823
00:43:42,338 --> 00:43:51,217
I think this is where most companies, if you're great at what you do and the price point
is fair, it doesn't make sense to rebuild it because that is still that's more work you're

824
00:43:51,217 --> 00:43:52,044
taking on.

825
00:43:52,044 --> 00:43:52,355
Yeah.

826
00:43:52,355 --> 00:43:56,342
Yeah, we don't whoever's using Salesforce doesn't need just a replacement for Salesforce.

827
00:43:56,342 --> 00:43:59,326
You have to be thinking, what are they going to need in three years and build that?

828
00:43:59,490 --> 00:43:59,760
Right.

829
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:01,111
I which once again, like it's hard now.

830
00:44:01,111 --> 00:44:03,713
If you're building it for yourself, you can go do that.

831
00:44:03,713 --> 00:44:05,505
But also, like, once again, you have to now maintain that.

832
00:44:05,505 --> 00:44:07,186
There's all these things you need to maintain.

833
00:44:07,186 --> 00:44:09,518
I'm like, I don't I don't want to go do that.

834
00:44:09,518 --> 00:44:12,860
So, you know, I mentioned like we're we're revamping a lot of our marketing.

835
00:44:13,922 --> 00:44:15,786
This is an opportunity for us to rethink things.

836
00:44:15,786 --> 00:44:21,027
So I'm talking with three different groups right now about AIing a large majority of our
marketing.

837
00:44:22,148 --> 00:44:23,559
And so we're gonna find out if that's possible.

838
00:44:23,559 --> 00:44:24,820
It may not be fully.

839
00:44:24,990 --> 00:44:26,422
and we might not want to maintain it or build it.

840
00:44:26,422 --> 00:44:27,714
But like I I've looked at other tools.

841
00:44:27,714 --> 00:44:28,662
I'd rather hire other tools.

842
00:44:28,662 --> 00:44:34,783
We're gonna hire some contractors to do some work, but it still might make sense for us to
just build our own version.

843
00:44:34,783 --> 00:44:36,995
Cause no, I've not this is a free idea for the world.

844
00:44:36,995 --> 00:44:44,414
I've not seen a great marketing orchestrator out there that can kind of be the run your
marketing each way.

845
00:44:45,134 --> 00:44:48,277
All right, so as we wrap up here, um, what are you excited about?

846
00:44:48,277 --> 00:44:48,955
Like right now?

847
00:44:48,955 --> 00:44:55,052
It it can be around what but what do you what do you what is Adam Specter of James Bond

848
00:44:56,046 --> 00:45:00,954
Spell spelled differently, not the way they do it on James Bond, but I guess I'm happy to
be an Ebo villain any time.

849
00:45:01,176 --> 00:45:02,626
I probably am to someone.

850
00:45:02,626 --> 00:45:03,648
What are you excited about though?

851
00:45:03,648 --> 00:45:05,504
We're sitting here mid two thousand twenty six.

852
00:45:05,504 --> 00:45:07,307
Things are going so fast.

853
00:45:07,852 --> 00:45:13,106
I'm I'm make I'm excited that we're gonna be living in a sci fi future in the very near
term.

854
00:45:13,106 --> 00:45:16,568
So like literally I I I will tell you some crazy things to end this on.

855
00:45:16,568 --> 00:45:23,573
I think we are getting to longevity escape velocity where for every day that I live, I'll
be r aging in reverse or at least staying still age wise.

856
00:45:23,573 --> 00:45:25,554
We're getting the longevity escape velocity.

857
00:45:25,554 --> 00:45:27,435
You're gonna cure every single disease.

858
00:45:27,435 --> 00:45:29,857
We're gonna have like the holodeck from Star Trek.

859
00:45:29,857 --> 00:45:34,520
We're gonna have replicators so I can get any food I want, full abundance on everything.

860
00:45:35,441 --> 00:45:37,162
I'm ecstatic for that world.

861
00:45:37,162 --> 00:45:37,794
But

862
00:45:37,794 --> 00:45:47,797
I'm also very scared for the hardship it's gonna take to get there because we're also
gonna go through 50% white collar job loss and restructuring of what it means to live in a

863
00:45:47,797 --> 00:45:51,088
society where you have some haves and a lot of have nots.

864
00:45:51,088 --> 00:45:54,478
Like we already are in that world to some extent, but at least people can still get jobs.

865
00:45:54,859 --> 00:45:56,019
That scares me as well.

866
00:45:56,019 --> 00:46:02,311
But I'm ecstatic for what that f the future holds because and once again, I read a lot in
all the sci-fi things.

867
00:46:02,311 --> 00:46:07,942
You can read some dystopian sci-fi stuff, but a lot of the the the more positive sci-fi,
like Star Trek or something.

868
00:46:08,524 --> 00:46:10,709
is pretty mind blowing and amazing.

869
00:46:10,709 --> 00:46:12,562
This the stars are out there for us to explore.

870
00:46:12,562 --> 00:46:13,754
Let's go let's go do it.

871
00:46:13,754 --> 00:46:14,392
Yeah.

872
00:46:14,392 --> 00:46:14,783
Right on.

873
00:46:14,783 --> 00:46:18,432
Hey, to to wrap this up, what's your call to action for people to engage with you?

874
00:46:18,432 --> 00:46:20,697
It could be as simple as just follow me on LinkedIn.

875
00:46:20,697 --> 00:46:21,709
It could be go to a website.

876
00:46:21,709 --> 00:46:22,946
What what's your call to action?

877
00:46:22,946 --> 00:46:24,917
Yeah, follow follow me at LinkedIn for sure.

878
00:46:24,917 --> 00:46:28,919
just I think it's just Adam Specter, maybe Adam Spector too on LinkedIn, but you can find
me pretty easily.

879
00:46:28,919 --> 00:46:34,142
Uh hire chore.com, H I R E chore, C H O R E dot com.

880
00:46:34,142 --> 00:46:35,869
So hire chore dot com.

881
00:46:35,869 --> 00:46:37,374
You can find more information about us there.

882
00:46:37,374 --> 00:46:38,775
Um, and just stay in touch.

883
00:46:38,775 --> 00:46:42,457
Like if I can be helpful to every entrepreneur in general, you don't have to pay me money
for it.

884
00:46:42,457 --> 00:46:44,208
I just want to be helpful and make everyone a success.

885
00:46:44,208 --> 00:46:47,820
That that is a win for the world when there are more successful entrepreneurs.

886
00:46:47,820 --> 00:46:50,441
So I hope this was helpful and valuable them.

887
00:46:50,441 --> 00:46:50,832
Awesome.

888
00:46:50,832 --> 00:46:51,384
Thank you.

889
00:46:51,384 --> 00:46:51,775
Me.

890
00:46:51,775 --> 00:46:52,055
Yeah.

891
00:46:52,055 --> 00:46:52,536
Thank you, man.

892
00:46:52,536 --> 00:46:54,068
Thanks for giving us forty five minutes.

893
00:46:54,068 --> 00:46:56,552
time's valuable these days and we appreciate it.

894
00:46:56,856 --> 00:46:57,378
Sure.

895
00:46:57,378 --> 00:46:58,355
My pleasure.