EXPERIENCE 25 | Every Business is the People Business with Peter Melby of Greystone Technology

Welcome to the LOCO Experience Podcast with LOCO Think Tank Founder Kurt Bear. Listen in as Kurt digs deep into the business and life stories of business owners and thought leaders at different stages of growth from all walks of life. Launching and growing anything can be a crazy experience, so expand your thinking and level up your understanding of what it takes to find success in the world of free enterprise. Welcome back to the LOCO Experience Podcast. This is your host Kurt Bear and I'm here today with Peter Melby and Peter is the founder and CEO president and all the things at Greystone Technologies. And Peter let's just get started by you know sharing with people who you are, what you do at a day-to-day basis and what Greystone is all about. Yeah so the question of who am I is? I guess Deep one. Deep one. Or not depending on you know I don't know if I get to decide that but so yeah I'm the CEO of Greystone Technology and that's where IT services organization. Denver, Fort Collins, Boulder. I'm a little bit on the East Coast and then we have clients really all over the country you know and outside but largely clients that are connected back to Colorado in some way. So we're an IT services firm which you know I've been told and I've experienced is the easiest way to kill a conversation is to say that that's what you do and actually I had a friend one time who told me he's like yeah if you go to a party don't tell people you're an IT just tell them you're a bike messenger or something like that because no one wants to hear about IT and it's very true I mean if we want to kill a conversation. The best I have to think about it the better. Exactly right I guess a great industry to be in is not a great industry you know to have a conversation about but you know our goal in IT has been to be a very people focused you know in human you know focused organization and what most people don't realize especially IT service providers is that it's actually a people focused industry we don't really get to choose that you know it's a lot of people go into it thinking that IT is all about technology and all about computers but it's actually about how humans use those things and so because of that there's a lot of incongruencies in the way that the industry is built you know and so that's actually the fun part for me so if I look at why I do this and and where I've really worked you know to build my space in this it's it's the idea that it really needs to be reframed and it's needed to be reframed for a long time so Grayson's 20 years old last week. Congratulations and happy anniversary. Yeah thanks and we're almost a hundred staff were like I said Denver Boulder Fort Collins a little bit on the east coast so I grew up in Fort Collins I love it here I was in Denver to start the business and then came back up here after having a couple of kids and still spend a fair amount at least you know pre-COVID time in Denver so I've slipped my week between Denver and Fort Collins. We're good a lot of highway time probably but uh or it was more. Yeah you know I'm getting back to it now and drove it today and realized oh yeah traffic. I haven't missed this in a year um but uh So where's your offices in these various geographies are you one big office in Denver? So one big office in in Denver we get about maybe about 65 people that are in that office or war in that office. I'm gonna go now back there for you know a few uh um a couple of months uh but we don't have many people in the office so it's just this big open space that's you know less distracting than my basement. But you're not shrinking it uh necessarily at this point. No and you know for a couple of reasons one is lease reasons um right my ladder would never live the other way. A lot of people are experiencing that there there might be something to be said for organizations that are really believing in the working from home thing uh and organizations that want to be back in the office that's connected to how long their lease is um that that they're committed to but uh actually we're pretty at the front end of all of our leases so but at the same time we've never been a big everybody in the office company because we we work so much with our clients at their sites so we don't have an office that fits very comfortably everybody at once even though everybody has their their space um so yeah endeavor we're we're south of downtown kind of I-25 call it a boulevard area um that we've been in the same building you know for for 15 years um in I think seven different configurations you know of offices and different floors and all that and then uh when I moved back up here uh 10 plus years ago um opened you know started building out you know our our service offerings here and um our office now is right about Panera in front of my village you know those offices that most people don't know exist because you have to get in from the back yeah but they're super nice when you go up there hey yeah they I think the value of that office space increased exponentially when Panera launched their coffee subscription so nine dollars a month unlimited coffee oh well you know four times a day if I go downstairs um then the the the cost per cop is pretty smart yeah I actually yeah actually a tip well though I I dip well I also know them you know now because I see them on the days that I'm I'm here and so I asked the general manager what I'm gonna say is this annoying that I should oh no no we throw so much coffee away just please you know all right so part of the kind of part of the burn like the electricity bill is exactly yeah so let's get into like the parts and pieces of an IT services you don't have 65 people doing the same thing but probably have a lot of people that are a kind of generally generalist in the IT or a lot of different specialists you want to lose lose the listeners right away and to dig into the material just a little bit yeah yeah no no um stick around I promise if I get interesting or you know at least I intend that no so we we have you know 65 in Denver um about 18 Fort Collins Boulder um is the office I didn't talk about because I don't really ever go there um it's nothing necessarily against Boulder it's just it's more of a satellite office for our remote team and yeah it's connected to upslope brewing so I think they they prefer that I don't come check in on what's happening in that office um yeah a lot of meetings over at the brewery um but we uh you know so we're basically an outsourced IT provider you know at our course so you know a lot of organizations that need you know the that need an IT department don't want to hire themselves yeah they shouldn't hire themselves until they get to the point where they can hire three or four individual skill sets that was the bank organizations where I worked they typically had like three IT guys that were overstressed and overstretched and they didn't always know the best practices and stuff because they were so internal focused yep anyway so I can see the value of having a services firm that can just really gather best practices and learn from all these other customers needs and applying to each other and my favorite part of it is the fact that we we get to build a culture around client service which typically doesn't happen inside of a an IT department um and so we also get to build a a culture that the types of people that excel in those spaces can find camaraderie and that doesn't happen in an internal IT department and so what uh we've we've built a pretty unique model that if you look at at IT service companies most of them across the board if they get to you know the size of scale even even 20 employees they reorient to create conveniences for themselves you know what I mean by that is if you think about just the your typical help desk call center type service organization it's it's all about how do I make things efficient but it's not necessarily effective and so I think a help desk is the perfect example you put the how do I make them go away yeah well and you put the people on the front lines of a help desk who are the least experienced you know so that you are protecting the people who are most experienced to only deal with the issues that they need to deal with it makes sense until you realize that from the other side of it the people who need help are right the people who need the most help when somebody kills it like in a minute when I'm calling for service for my credit card or my flight booking or whatever that's great it's great you know the number of times you have to ask for escalation or you know or have something be escalated is not not not effective the other problem is that people who who are solving problems need a lot more information than people are typically giving them like hey my printer doesn't work okay what were you trying to print what are you doing what's the real business case here you know all of those different matters actually not working right now you think you can help me yeah yeah we'll see if I have run out of time no I'm picking up what you're laying down oh yeah and so the whole thing that we've learned over time is that actually learned pretty quickly at the beginning is that the context and having a relationship with somebody knowing them them knowing you opens up bigger channels of communication and understanding and we actually solve problems better so one of the things that we say is that a good IT person solves problems a great IT person knows what problem they're solving and the so the the result of that is obviously with almost a hundred staff we have to build truly a you know still a sophisticated operation so we work in small teams you know in those small teams really bring that that you know internal IT relationship feel but then we've built all of the layers around I mean a shared services team to you know for overflow services and after hour services you know subject matter experts you know you know in different areas with security or this of that a security team we have a development team that's focused on just highly technical you know web development application development because those are key parts of IT in a lot of spaces that people don't necessarily realize and now does that mean you build a website for somebody and manage it yeah okay you know and and we're not we're not a marketing company you know we're not you know look it and and there's a lot of history in that we tried you know and kind of trying to be everything to everybody which I think a lot of entrepreneurs suffer from but recognizing that so great example is we build you know and manage the majority of the back end of the UC health website fair so the big chunky heavy do you think there's a lot of things has to be secure has to be you know it's it's highly technical we have great design experience and design you know ideas and and all that but we're not going to come brand your company and it's actually a lot of it they might hire a branding agency or a digital marketing firm to do those specific tactics and in a lot of cases the marketing agency or a brandy agency will be the ones to hire us you know to say we don't have the deducted jobs we're over our heads yeah the needs of the customer yeah we still want to keep them as marketing client exactly and and so we we sit in that niche you know in that space where you know it's it's 10% of our business you know the 8% of our business but it's a really really critical you know it's the cornerstone yeah right and so recognizing that when you start looking at IT is this it's more than fixing computers it's actually a pretty broad ecosystem and so having this scale now to be able to to do all of that so yeah you talk about the the you know demographic of people yeah the most common roles that we have are our technical consultants and technical engineers I think that that is probably two thirds of our staff yeah computers yeah exactly you know we have our version of that in the sense that you know we we're proud of the fact that we have more more psychology and sociology education in our company that we actually have pure like systems integration and things like that yeah it wasn't on purpose it was kind of a natural outflow in terms of the types of people that we really you know recognize could connect well to problems and solve problems well you know in bigger spaces than just looking at a screen and then so we have a client success team that's really focused on connecting the business aspects and the business needs you know for the customers and then we have you know we we have those specialty groups and we have our leadership groups and you've got like a CFO I imagine and chief marketing officer for your own team or whatever too and yeah you know and we've got the equivalent the the equivalent use funny names for your teams or anything no we don't and part of it is because I think it's cheesy and and that's not a knock to anybody who does it I think it got trained you know you know Zappos was such a you know a pioneer in some of the the cultural spaces yeah I remember spending some time there and thinking yeah it's cute but like I like substance well and people want to know what job they're applying for and stuff yeah I uh I just shared a picture of a early business card from actually my first failed business enterprise uh natural boring griller was my title that's see the solar partners can get away with it solar partners and and actually I like that better than like you're the CEO of a one-person organization that's I think if you talk about the substance realm I did that you know or I was a president you know before I had was any you know any employees like president I'm also the one who's gonna do everything so um so before we get into the business story of a bunch I want to talk about also your customers so we can kind of understand um who you serve or is there certain big broad demographics that are standards or is it just kind of all the everybody that uses computers and yeah you know it's funny I mentioned UC Health and that's obviously such a substantial organization our core client set is you know about 200 organizations that you know that range from 25 to a thousand employees you know and so that's there are definitely some some industry demographics that we slant towards but there's a lot of commonalities across those things so healthcare manufacturing nonprofits financial services you know and and the the larger more you know mature nonprofits yeah a lot of data a lot of importance around keeping it safe and separated and sorted properly and whatever yeah and so you know a lot of compliance you know whether it's whether it's HIPAA or CMMC or you know all the fun acronyms that are you know so confusing yeah we we spend a lot of time sorting through that and you know well it's another like if you sort through it for somebody then you've already sorted through it for somebody else kind of right it's true yeah and and in a lot of it we've had a sort through it for ourselves I mean we have to have higher security than any of our clients do um and so that's that's been just this necessity that's come through you know over the years and um so yeah we uh you know that there's we have we have we have fun clients you know we we talked to someone today that um as a potential client that their entire business is paying bills for celebrities oh yeah yeah so they have I think 50 uh 15 plays um you know a lot of it's out in Beverly Hills but the core office here um and that's I guess that makes sense that that's right if I was a celebrity I wouldn't want to pay my own bills yeah you know and why wouldn't I hire the people that are best at it right it's it's true and so it's you know places like like uh you know um dumb friends league in in Denver um you know and uh learner he made society you know up here those are always fun ones for our our team you know to to get engaged with and um you know some some really great startups we have a um a client that uh that does um manufacturing of like pre-made meals but that kind of high end you know pre-made meals so there's always a you know organic bakeries you know things like that there's always clients that um we look at and say yeah can we stop by it and it's like can we stop by there and just get a case of help in your poppers yeah and that's one thing we noticed that the local think tank you know there's so many different kinds of business enterprises in the world you know we do think about like the core of economics or old villages of date you had the baker and the cobbler and the window pain maker or whatever there's a lot of stuff these days it's a complex economy um some of my favorite you know things are the creative spaces that people have figured out how to how to provide value you know and and I I love that um some of it's you know and created that their own space some of it like like for media it was taking a space that I've been in you know for 25 years and you know as long as I've really been working um but I I didn't create it but I recognize that there are major problems yeah there was opportunities to do it a different way let's jump into the business story shall we so you said you were at Fort Collins native is that right so grew up here what's what was your elementary school middle school high school thing so it's kind of popular for people to share when their townies yeah which is funny because that's like I don't remember more or less blocked out um the the the era but uh no I moved to where I was in fourth grade my dad's a college professor and a scientist which is a good part of the story later on but uh uh he he taught it Purdue um in Indiana and then we moved Colorado he he and my mom both uh our CSU alums and really wanted to get back here um as a nine year old I was really bummed that we were leaving leaving Indiana for Colorado because you were not anything you know except my friends and um lightning bugs we had lightning bugs in yeah Indiana I do miss lightning bugs yeah um so came out here went to Riffenburg elementary school uh for your winter middle school at Heritage Christian school um school and then started high school there and then went and finished at Fort Collins high school cool so um I know lambkins well yeah the lambkins which is you know I won't say I had much school spirit I don't know that anyone from my graduating class or members or really knew who I was um I uh I do where you kind of nerdy or I was quiet I think you know I think if I think and I don't think about it much um but I I had a speech impediment through I still still do which now on that I say everybody make it worse everybody more whiskey and no so funny funny side note because we are enjoying the glass of whiskey um yeah definitely so you short-port me I think yeah probably did um uh the uh see if I can pour and talk at the same time yeah yeah nice so I think these two career my next career bartender um I don't beat somewhere yeah that that could work two days a week that could work um so I the speech impediment yeah so basically oh the the side note is that um one drink speech impediment gets worse two drinks it gets even worse three drinks it gets a little bit better in four drinks it goes away um yeah so right um I that maybe was a story of its uh a chapter of its own in this story there are a few stories the yeah later on but uh no so I was pretty um I was pretty invisible you know as I I enjoyed computers I enjoyed you know I was once I got comfortable I was I was pretty outgoing but I I was just quiet if I wasn't comfortable which was a large part of my school experience and um so I wasn't I was just pretty content good to do my own thing good student um until actually last semester of my senior year I made you know I kind of I got a speech therapy I kind of broke out of my shell and and just realized that oh wait there's more fun things than just getting grades um so I uh 4.0 student until middle of my senior year and then I got a 2.0 to finish so yeah I decided that if I was gonna lose my val valedictorian status that I'd do with the bang um and uh were you like partying or just not it was giving school I mean it's hard to imagine you just all my friends at that point were I admit friends that were older so they're you know early years in college and and it wasn't actually as much about partying as it was just the fact that I didn't want to be in high school anymore and so I didn't I didn't go yeah right I remember I was I prided myself and this is a terrible thing to admit um because my kids might hear this but other people will be inspired yeah so from the time that I from from sixth grade until the end of my high school experience I did not read a complete book well so for you know of those seven years for six and a half of them I got straight as yeah and that was kind of my blessing and my curse was that I could figure out how to get the grades without really diving into I've always been a really good test taker too yeah it's kind of obvious what the right answer is sometimes exactly well my my favorite was like joining classroom discussions about books that I hadn't read at all just based on what other people were saying you know and so what I called this like I can I can be us my way through this and then it just kind of became a game um in banking which is what I got into you can just keep that up yeah it's true yeah hey I tease a little bit a little bit like that too especially in the early days it was like yeah let me just make up some words while I you know I then I'll figure it out yeah so when I was this is my my neighbor um was 14 a baby sat a little bit I really wanted to make money um he bought the rights to a few stores of Mary's Mountain cookies from Holland's institution uh and so when I was 14 and a half and could legally be a payrolled employee I went to work for him um 425 an hour is more than you make babysitting yeah and uh and I had a real job and I would ride my bike over to campus west you know and largely it was baking and packaging wholesale cookies yeah uh and but it taught me responsibility and I took it extremely seriously and it was way more fun to me than school um but around the same time you know computers were starting you know this is you know mid mid the late 90s computers were we're becoming much more prevalent at work when does 95 come out uh and it was normal for everyone to have a computer on the desk for the first time and we had always we had computers at home for a while because my dad's a professor who would get them at you know at the university and my room doubled as the office you know so I just had the you know the the ability to to use that relatively at will sometimes um when you were in trouble when I was free yeah exactly that was before the internet before it is like you play organ trail and right kermits indiego and you know yeah learn to use docks you couldn't like look up how to bail a fertilizer bomb no I could not do that I couldn't even yeah yeah I couldn't really learn anything except what was pre-programmed into some of these things that you know kids died of typhoid you know when they were crossing the US in a covered wagon you know right on the organ trail so yeah can you sing this song I won't so I I got this yeah I had a friend that started working yet you know an IT support company and he he was a little older than I was but I just started going to work with him at night and again like looking back none of this was okay um because uh I would go to work at at organizations that would need to have security and had no security at that point because IT you know technology was so new um so you weren't getting paid you were paid I was showing around in people's computers with them I would go install install uh software and I won't tell you exactly where because some of that stuff still exists uh but I just I enjoyed I enjoyed hanging out you know it and became a passion so finally I said why don't you just go apply for a job at this company I'm like okay you know and so I I went and applied it you know for an IT job I showed up the house was literally behind my parents house you know cross the lamay so I had to jump the fence in the back walk across the street and a war baseball cap and tennis shoes and shorts um and I got the job and I remember thinking I had a they they really see something in me and um they offered me a job for six dollars an hour which is a big raise right and my my boss you know the cookie baker he was you know a friend you know family firm was was bummed to see me go and that was that meant a lot to me too like oh I'm providing value here so I got to the IT company realized the reason that they really works out to hire me was I would work for six dollars an hour right they had most everybody else at 15 yeah yeah 15 20 um 20 was kind of the going right at that point you know and uh so I would I would go to school in the mornings um and this is my junior year of of high school I'd go to school in the mornings and then in the afternoons I would go and work you know at various places I started just going into the you know the the IT service company's office but we had we had we had clients everywhere the biggest client was the city of Fort Collins so did your folks know you had this job they did know yeah yeah all right so the job itself was very above board I mean I think they they told me I wasn't allowed to wear or had and wasn't allowed to wear shorts you know and um but it was this weird kind of skill economy where all of a sudden experience didn't matter that much because everything was new so being able to figure it out was a great equalizer and um what I I learned a lot uh I came into it to work one day and there was this kind of prestigious on-site position at city hall you know in human resources um you know for the city of Fort Collins and there were a couple of times where like oh you might have to go fill in there and it was like this kind of exciting nerve-wracking thing that's like oh yeah I can you know this it's it's the big time and one day I came in and said yeah we need you to go to city hall so okay um so yeah we we fire we we had to fire Sean we don't have anyone to fill that contract uh and so we need you to be there for a couple weeks that said great I'm in I said don't touch anything hmm say really says like we had a contract we had to be their first shirt amount of time right so I was literally a seat filler like let's not bridge our contract we're gonna put a 16-year-old kid over here um and I wasn't fooling anybody I mean I looked like I was 12 right and but I went in I was supposed to be there for two weeks and I was there until I left for college you touched some stuff two years yeah I did touch some stuff um but what I learned and what happened was that I just started like I didn't know what I was doing and I wasn't supposed to do anything I had people that were supposed to call you know to figure these things out and they they would ask me here I just had to ask questions I had to get to know the people you know so the city clerk's office you know the city manager you know the um and and the the HR team and so when they would have problems this kid running around I was like I'm just asking questions and and I endeared myself to them I think probably because I was a kid you know in some ways and also because I learned later like they had an IT department at the city of Fort Collins then they outsourced to us because those people truly hated the IT department and the IT department actually just hated them too like they kind of just like the IT department was managing the mainframe systems and I honestly thought that desktop computers would be a fad right and so there is this thing where this you know the the city hall went and said okay we're gonna outsource you know this user support elsewhere and so I would just connect with these people you know that you know have these conversations you know and probably where I really got what are simple problems to them yeah or to you but to them they're really complicated and new and I learned how to talk my way into where you're saying a little bit and say oh yeah let so you have this problem tell me about this you know tell them about what you were doing tell me about all this context around it both so I could so I could get my head around it but also so I could just stall you know and by time so I could go Google or what wasn't Google at time it was next day yeah whatever ask jeez was that a thing um yes I go look it up you know back in in my office and uh we didn't know how to say anything together to Google it I know it's true yeah it's it's so true and and even that like back in the you wouldn't use that as a verb you know you wouldn't say you y'all who did no you just search yeah you searched it yeah so I go look it up yeah it's all the problem I come back and it's all the problems and and I was so intent on taking care of them that they that they just it just clicked well people like to be taking care and then my company loved me because they were still paying me six bucks I got to raise like eight bucks at one point which to me was like you know yeah I didn't know anybody you didn't know until much later that you probably could have asked for 12 bucks an hour early on I probably didn't know that I could ask for I definitely knew what other people were making but I I still had you know a fair amount of imposter syndrome um so yeah I had these relationships you know at the city of Fort Collins and I was a 16 year old kid and one day I learned that I had more access with my badge in the city of Fort Collins than the mayor did and again these are not things that are okay not things that would happen now if it was bear Doug it was probably appropriate so we you know it's so it was a great experience I also taught myself how to build websites you know in the downtime because there was a lot of downtime at that job too and so when I graduated high school and went to college that was a I started a web development company um largely focused on underground punk rock bands um which learned a lot about economics all right start with customers that have money yeah you know and you know the free punk rock band tickets you could handle though I didn't I made some lifelong friends and you know it's I I learned a lot you know but like I said yeah mostly how to not financially run run a business did you go to CSU no so um I went to to maintain a state oh uh talked about that you know my lifelong goals MIT Stanford um those were kind of the two that I would talk about with my dad a lot and my parents were pretty adamant that I should go out of state they they went out of state when they came to CSU and they they learned a lot of life lessons so it's the opposite of most parents who were saying please stay home right we want the affordable state education right here parents like get the hell out yeah do you siblings they wouldn't ever say get the hell out um so I have two sisters uh one younger one older okay um we'll get more to that later but so they said get out of here MIT and Stanford said nah no actually I so I talked about that that last semester you know or that kind of the the leaning the valetorian turn deliquent yes so I remember at one point my my parents like any you need to try to get a scholarship because that's pay for for school and uh so I still remember the Stanford application was 15 pages plus and this is before everything is typed up you know so right 15 pages plus then I had to attach essays um and my mom you know learn a little bit about like other places that were like for Collins because I I learned to enjoy for Collins I was like yeah both Montana yeah that can be fun I like the snowboard and then I looked at the college application and I was sold it was one page front and back including the spaces for essays um so not only that but there was another like front sheet you know one page and attach it you know a high school transcript which was still good at the time right and I got almost a full-ride scholarship you know to go there which lasted um a year okay my mom I turned 40 last week or two ECM my mom um pulled out some you know mementos yeah of course I know so yeah and somehow in there like at the top of the stack was the letter from Montana State University revoking my scholarship um what was your GPA I don't even know um it was not good uh but because you were I started a business out of my dorm room and that was a great excuse to not go to class and not do these things because I was doing things that were quote unquote more important yeah um and part of it was the fact that I mean it was an extension of the fact that I had lost a passion for academics and I was impatient and I wanted to build something and all of that and that's pretty natural you know if you look at my personality and things like that but another big part of it was the fact that I was going to school for business and and computers and it was at the time where they're like the curriculum around technology at the time is now the curriculum around technology was 20 years old oh gosh you know and so I said okay the computers are like two years old in terms of what I want to do and I've already done this you know commercially and then I went to my business classes and I'm like do I want to write a business plan for the fake company or do I want to go do my real company and and I say real company also probably I should put some pretty you know heavy quotes around that because that's it wasn't a real company it was I was a freelancer you know and um but it it worked and so the birth of Greystone happened uh I quit I quit college um that was fun conversation with my college professor father after the revocation or did you struggle on for a little while I think it was the same conversation with them so the revocation letter came to me um so I think I told him about that and the fact that I was going to take a break you know at the same time yeah and my dad knew what a break meant I've been around when he came to that stuff and so didn't love it I didn't have much of a vision I just didn't have a vision for academics either and I still remember he told me he said I have a lot of students that are in college or that they come because their parents make them they said and they don't get their value out and they don't learn anything and they get a degree and they go on and they don't really know how to impact you know and provide value in all these things I said my dad's a scientist he hates business I don't know if I've ever met anyone that cares about money less in my dad right um and so it it was this thing where I I knew that I was disappointing and I knew I wasn't making the right decision it wasn't it wasn't this you know I mean it's easy to glorify it now but certainly wasn't the thing where you look at it and say yeah I I weighed this up and down I did my best I did my best you know I or or I have this amazing opportunity I really knows but know what I'm doing the success of Greystone really in the first probably five to eight years was really a just a brute force effort trying to not make that turn out to be a bad decision even though I knew it was I coined the it wasn't then not a bad decision well I don't know I mean that's a big philosophical challenge I think 19 times out of 20 doesn't turn out this way right um and so in that you know I coined the phrase and I've said a thousand times and sometimes you know I make good decisions and sometimes I need to make my decisions good yeah you know and that's that's ultimately what it was you know at that point I grew up through that process um there there's irony in the sense that my parents told me I had to go out of state like I said for at least a year I could come back after that but they needed me to leave for a year to experience what it's like on my own so I was like oh jokes on you I went as I quit school after a year but I stayed up there oh so I was a Greystone was started and I mean it wasn't it wasn't Greystone was a Greystone yet it was just just a web development company called Netfire Designs yeah that's a that would be my business card that I could post right well that didn't fail though right it just kind of evolved it kind of evolved in disintegrators and time yeah um so what happened and how I got back here was that um I came back to Fort Collins to visit my family and I met a girl and you were still sold for nearing it you didn't have a office I had an office because in most of Montana I could have an office and an apartment for a grand total of four hundred dollars a month right at that time at that time I bet it's different now it's very different now um and so I was I was official I had an office I had my logo on the door uh but I would so I I came back here I met a girl we started dating um it fell apart long distanceing didn't work after a while but I wasn't really ready to to be done with it you know and so I also wasn't ready to move back to Fort Collins um even though she lived here I was just like I needed I just need one of these clothes sir but when the closer I wanted to be in a bigger city and wanted to but still keep a distance from the the youth that I was still kind of working to outgrow yeah um and so I moved to Denver and reconnected with one of the um the guys that I knew it who helped hire me you know at the IT services company in Fort Collins he had become a small partner in that company and then split off when he you know graduate college and left and went to Denver so he had a few IT clients um I had some web clients and we brought them together and that's what Greystone was okay his name his company name survived because his oh you're not the founder right exactly it's really it's it's one of those things that yeah it's uh we we laugh a lot that we've very much simplified the but since we this is an extended partner is still there still there and what's his name is Jesse Armstrong okay he went to CSU we uh it was funny he called me you know wanted to do this because he had these IT clients but he was leaving like he wasn't going to do it anymore because he had gotten a job basically commuting from Denver to Kansas City for a software company okay and so he said do you want to put this together you know me this company you can run it and we'll do it you know and I said no I really want to do the website thing and and then I I think it was probably like 12 hours later I looked at my bank account and I told them back I was like yeah I should probably do it right I was not a good web developer project manager you know all those things it was just yeah and we don't really know what you're good at when you're 20 years old no good at much and uh so but I was I was good at fixing people's problems and it it was a huge turning point to me to realize that I can fix a computer issue and they pay me for that time and I don't have the project manager anything I don't care it doesn't matter if they like the design it doesn't matter if I care about their company it doesn't matter you know wait different yeah yeah I've I've had people build websites for me and I'm a pain in the ass like they're waiting for content yes this and that yeah for sure they want this little change and that little change and I mean what I'm going to talk about myself even and I'm not a pain in the ass compared to a lot of people yeah I bet but but it's very much that like you know it's it's that idea that I needed accountability you know I needed I needed structure you know and that's what the business for telling what do you want to do it yeah it's like oh working during during normal business hours because that's when people are calling to have out their their IT problem solved so that that was the birth of it and it wasn't something that we looked at and said let's build this into something big let's build this into yeah really anything it was just year after year can we accomplish what we want to keep this thing moving and so what does that look like the first couple few years like when were those first hires yeah so like that three years in made it first hire and then three point one years in made our first fire same person yeah just realizing that it didn't work out you know that didn't really know how to hire I didn't really know how to fire I didn't know I just needed help right you know so and then it's not you yeah you know enjoy being that person just kidding so I was thinking for them either I mean I was right you know and they are done to take your dumb job yeah the second person hired someone that ended up firing through the phone in the jail okay were you in jail or they were okay good less of a story some good foreshadowing the then eventually found someone that really understood what you know what did happen how things worked and you know I had built up enough business that it was it worked well and and one of the best things about the early years of that is that I was was young I had very little responsibility I had this girl that I moved back here for and we you know eventually got married she loves to remind me of the same same real oh really okay so she loves to remind me of the eventually part because it took a while but part of the reason why it took a while was I was working all the time like I didn't know how to stop I didn't know so I'd work if eighty hundred hours a week and I needed to make twelve hundred dollars a month and so when people ask how we got over some of those initial hurdles you know of growing a business and bootstrapping it the answer is simple like you work for three bucks an hour you know and it's not you know right it's not that hard to put this if you can afford that well and you have to eventually not spend every dollar that you earn exactly exactly it means you can either spend way less or earn way more and I had to build up the point that there's enough business that then I could hire and pay someone an appropriate wage while you know so I'd be so overworked that I could bring someone in and then we could try to get right you can't pay them what the what you pay yourself yeah not an hourly basis yeah and so all of those kind of those things were were not easy to get through with with very little experience but much easier to get through with very little financial need and so we we built it you know we we eventually hired you know a few more people and in those early years you know look back and financially we were growing you know between forty and sixty percent a year which is that's a pretty good pace after ten years it's big yeah you know and and that's it we actually did that we did that for thirteen years wow and so after thirteen years during like oh wow we didn't really realize we're growing fast because it was just this clip that we had been on since the beginning but you probably hadn't really developed the systems that you really needed to be not at all yeah and so fraud risk and yeah I mean see a full stuff and whatnot all the things I didn't know I think I'm still looking at my plans you know we we we took on some some growth equity you know in 2016 I'm sorry some growth capital non equity growth capital in 2016 and then we took on an equity investment partner just this past year and it's funny because you go through due diligence and that stuff and you realize I was like what why is this this way I mean I don't know I was 20 like I don't number one I don't remember number two I wasn't that smart like I don't you know and uh so and then you realize not like a business there's not a plan like when you build a building like there's this plan and you use these kind of steel plates here and you use this kind of materials there and stuff but with a business it's like it's moving it's shaking it's creating revenues paying people firing them let them go clients are joining and there is no plan that's necessarily like you can look at the paper and be like I mean you can do strategic planning and stuff but you can make that say whatever you want to but even that I remember I had a friend that was uh starting a sub shop and he had an MBA from uh from USC and was getting it out of the corporate world and I was so proud of him you know and an excited for him and doing this he's been very successful uh but there are two things that stuck out to that you're that really one is he put together the 75 page business plan and he gave it to me and I read it and I asked him a couple years later I was like how often have you looked at that business plan it's like never right and I remember thinking that as I read it I was like this is so much busy work I was like it's like a college assignment to the month and a half to do this business plan and how much does it actually look like that you know now it was great to go through the paces of understanding like how much a slice of turkey costs and you know and all that and customers and and all those things but but you can also say the average turkey margin in the country is this and so therefore well and and and I can't knock how we ended up doing it I just remember thinking like this is overkill for the planning and you really got to get in and kind of just like there's so much you know got feeling and and and and being able to to react and respond to more about riding the waves and it is about planning the waves it is very true you don't get to plan your waves very well and uh the other thing that really stood out we we played hockey together um and he's he's a long time friend and I remember after hockey one time explained it to him how to read a balance sheet which I had had to learn you know but I didn't know where I learned it I knew we had one and over time it just kind of like you have an MBA from USC it's like I don't but I haven't been done anything in 15 years right it's like and at that time I was 26 27 yeah and uh and I was like I don't know if that makes me feel really good or really kind of like it's it's how I started to get over that imposter syndrome I had for a long time yeah yeah oh it's actually like these people who went through the the normal channels or the the structured channels yeah they go to Stanford yeah then they come back and start a business and and that's great success you know I knew so many people who went to you know Stanford undergrad hard you know Harvard Business School and then they became consultants and they became consultants I've actually kind of got more college dropout successful founder CEO stories than you would expect I think and yeah it's funny I think that there there there is a pretty high percentage of that that's a college I don't think there's a high percentage of college dropouts that become successful CEOs I don't think it's the same ratio college give-ups we'll say college give-ups or or or even that you know I think that um you know it's it's one of those things that that again wasn't statistically speaking it wasn't a great decision fair so all you could stay in school get your degree yeah get a good job even if you're gonna do something yeah or just you know be more responsible than I was well and and well and you were lucky that you were at the frontier of a new technology and so you could add value at that young age frankly that hasn't been that much new stuff and you know for the first 10 years of my career after five years of banking I was like oh I'm gonna know this pretty good and then after 10 years I was like I didn't know crap after five years yeah and that's kind of the way of the world whether you're doing marketing or legal stuff or education even or things like that like sorry but you don't know everything yet when you're three or five or seven years in and that's where where I think that you know that obviously the birth of an entire industry at that point was pivotal for me but I also learned over time that I have a unique a unique I'll call it it's a strength it's also a weakness you know but that I have both a very strong technical understanding I'm a numbers person I'm a technology yet but a strong um ability to perceive and connect you know with with people and so and and a and an insatiable desire to build you know and that was the the whole thing is that I wanted to build something I didn't care if I was profitable I needed to be profitable enough to keep building and what I realized over time is that I was building with people you know service company doesn't have assets and so I'm not making a widget I'm not you know drawing blueprints I'm not doing all the stuff I'm putting this I'm constructing an experience you know and it's service methodology and model and a culture inside of it coming in all of those things yeah have to do with how the human brain works that's so smart because I think a lot of times business owners imagine building their cost their business with customers yeah and then we'll add more employees to get to serve these more customers and that'll be how we grow but ultimately that that's kind of that next level turn is frankly where you're like no how I get more customers is to have more really good people on my team right and have a know what the hell they're doing yeah and that's that's the you know it took a few things I always had a knack for understanding connecting with people scaling that and building that institutionally is a completely different thing yeah and so that's actually been you know as we look you know we people will talk about you know I mean you can go to our website look at the logos and you have various things in terms of of you know the ink five thousand got some very prestigious clients and whatnot if you yeah and actually it's funny we we've got the point where we have to be discrete about our client based just because of how crazy cyber security is right you know we can't really name a bunch of names right you put a target on your back yeah well they'll call people will find that out and call our clients and say hey I'm so-and-so with Graystone can have your password right you know so that's that's the level that we're at you know when it comes to these things but I you know ink five thousand fastest growing companies you know we did that you know for six years in a row we you know top workplaces you know this is our seventh year you know as a Denver post-top workplace in the top IT workplace and those things are all very meaningful but the root of it is recognizing that I'm not going to grow at all unless there are people who can carry this forward and so well and I suspect that you're a charisma guy and so like that first three five seven nine even employees and stuff but then to scale beyond that you're just like I can't like quite figure it out yeah institutionalize this a little more so so what did you do like how did that um what what was it that caused that pivot in your thinking or what did you first start investing intentionally like in the the Graystone way or maybe call it something else so we we you're exactly right you know up to eight people that's pretty easy to keep tabs on them like a new I can listen to them and I knew I was going on and I could I wasn't a micromanager but I was definitely aware of everything that was happening in the organization yeah um and once that change I was like all right I'm really gonna invest in people I've got great people and a few of them left you know and they didn't just leave in a way that was was oh found something better like they left because they were legitimately disenfranchised with the way things were going and that was not only felt like a betrayal to me but it was just baffling because the things I said in my face didn't match the things I said to each other and there's whole things started to unwind you you realize that you know oh wait this is hard circuit me a little bit this is like 2010 or something maybe yeah probably about a late maybe 20 yeah 2009 2008 to 2010 really that that era um and so I I really yeah I proud of myself on the fact that we were a people focused company we're a great culture you know people wanted to work here all these things and I realized it really quick is like that wasn't true and not only that they really doubted my intentions like they built this story about me you know and what I wanted and I remember you know me hearing things about like how much money I took out of the company and all of the things meanwhile I was taking almost nothing out of it right I was in debt I was you know it really owed you back pay for like seven years of underpaying you besides well you know in we were pouring everything we I was pouring everything I had into these people and they didn't they didn't notice that didn't realize and and I got a little bit you've fallen in love yet yeah so I was married okay at time you know and it was one of those things where again probably that shift of like oh I get it also grow up you know in some of these things and so I the relationship dynamics also changed a lot of how I looked at people during during that time coming to a quick love story like you were chasing and chasing and then she was pushing she was giving you the stiff arm and stuff like that no no not that it was that so we I moved back we started dating again um but I live in Denver she lived here and I was so busy and you were married to your business already yeah and and she was ready you know she was in that place of like all right I made my decision like let's do this and I was in this place like I don't know what decisions I made ever or if I'm qualified to ever make a decision again right based on how the the previous one and we haven't conquered your imposter syndrome exactly absolutely white as this beautiful woman even want me I'm such a loser yeah and even that like not a loser but like I was in my early early 20s I didn't feel the rush you know and um but I recognize you know so yeah we we went through I I was I wanted to be so careful which is ironic and she reminds me of this too because every other decision in my life I've made I haven't been that careful yeah but what's her name uh Amanda oh man I do know her name I I believe you yeah it's the speech impediment yeah also I've needed more whiskey yeah yeah I don't know that I'm gonna get to four I know anyone wants to hear the stories after four we'll call you to Uber there's a I'll buy to that anyway but um the uh so we we dated you know and finally I said yeah let's do this I I asked for marry me right as she was about to give up you know and uh so we're sorry about that but she moved to Denver a month before we got married it's first time that we had like so getting married was the first time we'd ever lived lived in the same city together much less the same house interesting um she's you know she was a few years older than me she still is yeah yeah despite the fact that my kids ask when they're younger than I say once that gonna catch up and uh um so she you know they're my kids and all that stuff and everything kind of our our nature is all right let's plan it out and then before we plan it out it's like yeah maybe we should talk about doing that a little sooner and then we landed and that then it's like ten minutes later it's done you know and so that was kids it was like well we had a couple years you know and yeah yeah it was kind of like that was like oh you know maybe we should think about doing that sooner and then it was we never finished the conversation but we had to get yeah um and it had another one within 13 months I see uh working mom stay at home mom while you're slaving at this young business so she was um a an operations manager you know it just takes like the you know we're very different in the way that we approach you know I mean just you know skills you know and things like that she's she gets shit done and I you know think about how not to over here yeah and you know and so um always you get shit done yeah I always admired you know what she what you know could accomplish you know and um so but we had a kid we couldn't afford for her to stay home you know so she took she took our dollar to work you know and um if she's an operations manager for a diaper bag company and uh then had another kid uh our our son 13 months later which was not the plan because we're not really good at the plans um and couldn't really manage them both at work and but we still couldn't afford for to stay home so you took one and she took one said no okay no we just bit the bullet and we said all right we're gonna we're gonna have to do this um and you know go to dad or we'll like I remember thinking like I don't know that we're baking on the right things when it comes to the finances here and uh um tried to pair down down our lifestyle and which was already pretty simple yeah and um then moved to Fort Collins a couple you know a year later um which was nice I mean it started to give me structure so were you not like charging enough if you had like six rate employees and stuff it seems like you should have been able to have kind of enough so juice flowing to have a decent salary by that point the biggest challenge that we had it how says at a decent salary not support two kids you know in a wife salary um at that point I was you know we bought a house you know we're you know paying a mortgage um things like that but the the biggest problem was that all I ever want all I ever saw was the next growth yeah and part of it was that I knew that if we grow this point it gets you know then I can afford this scale and it gets easier gets more stable and balanced and so I'd I'd push for that next thing so I was always hiring a head so you know it's like that that I'm actually I'm you know speaking at an event in things next week on the topic of how do you grow your business and remain profitable at the same time and I had to learn how to do that you know in ways that like I've gone both ways you know and and I recognize that yeah the like being able to balance those is such a key aspect of business that I had no idea how to do it that point yeah yeah and so I was always willing to sacrifice myself the conflict then was like oh I have a wife I have two kids you know so I'm sacrificing them as well but you're like if I just pay myself a little less I can get this better person do this thing and then I'll pay myself more later and that's the part about it that I think 19 times out of 20 doesn't necessarily work out that way because it did pay off you know and it did get to a point and it does you know at this point but not because I I knew exactly what I was doing them but because of a lot of the brute force and honestly the stakes were so high at that point that I just I had to push through so tell me about some of those major growth moments on the way to a secondary office and and you know some developing portions of the business stuff like that like where they're big bursts or was it just that that pushing just that 40% growth per year kind of thing or 40 to 60 whatever and just kind of helping it out so you know we uh over the real moments that when you change something it got better you were starting to lead us toward that kind of defector of a couple of people and that kind of really so the thing that I learned just philosophically was that people don't naturally tell the truth at work um and that when specifically when stakes are high um people just don't naturally you mean that that's not a common human thing is you know the the the joke that I make is that the entire employment process is based on lies you know you sit across the interview table from you know an interviewer and an interviewer and you're both sharing the side of the story that's gonna get you what you want um and and work operates like that a lot and so there's a natural distrust of leadership there's a natural fracture you know in these spaces but I have a problem because I don't want a micromanage I'm not good at it you know and I know that that doesn't build good culture so how do I build you know how do I get truth flowing through my company you know there's uh you know so 10 years ago I started talking about the concept of psychological safety and some of these things that have become more more trendy you know over time and I learned a few things and one of them was that I was so hellbent on on autonomy in my company like ownership you know accountability like you take ownership your account all the things are great but I didn't give much direction because I I felt like that was the antithesis of giving autonomy right and what I learned um and uh is is the fact that autonomy is actually enabled by direction you know like people want um that they really need that structure most of them aren't wired like us in the entrepreneurial way and so the more you give them a safety that the more you give them that structure that it actually allows them to be autonomous and to feel comfortable making decisions and taking ownership inside of a confined space so I needed to build that so we we talk about directed autonomy a lot um and then the second thing I realized is that like psychological safety inside the workforce also is very unnatural because of what I just said you want to protect you know it's very natural whether we don't even realize we're doing it you know oh I'm not going to tell this person how I really feel because that's going to be detrimental to me yeah so you end up it's how politics happen inside of organizations it's how you know all this stuff just doesn't work the way that that that we feel like it's supposed to as humans and intentions don't matter anymore yeah um and so I I realized I was like oh I have to stop trusting people I went the wrong way first and I just stopped trusting people yeah and I realized that doesn't work either that's not big enough it's not really to make sure that they're never trustworthy is to not trust them and so but the lesson that I learned is that it's actually there there's a very different relationship with employees that creates the ability to connect you know and to build at least significantly more authenticity you know at work and I say authenticity and not transparency for a reason that I'll get back to but the idea is that you know if I want truth if I want to know where someone sits it's about how my behavior as a leader and so the first thing I have to do is understand how they feel about themselves and self-reflection you know is this big untapped you know pool of knowledge you know inside organizations because as leaders we typically like to call it how we see it yeah but it's like how would you how do you feel if you would like this task or this kind of thing or enjoy this kind of a role or even just like the question of what do you wish you're better at yeah where do you think you're struggling you know in this in this role you know or what are you working to improve on so if I ask someone what they're working to improve on there you know that's a much more natural you know stream back to say oh it's this instead of I say well you need to work on this and then this and no I don't don't I'm good I'm good you know and I mean that that defensiveness and that shutdown is so much so that's really a lesson that we can pull out here is that that kind of psychological safety can be enabled if you will through just questions and questions yeah absolutely and and the right questions I say a lot of times it's not trying to trick people into being vulnerable but it's trying to set up that set a process for for vulnerability in a vulnerable you know communication inside of an organization the other piece of that that I learned much later even than that is that direct criticism and very clear criticism is the other side that has to happen and it sounds counterintuitive in a lot of ways but if I want someone to trust me they can't you know if only if I only ever say you're doing great you know then what happened a few things happen but one of them that happens they don't actually believe that yeah you know most people are pretty self-critical and so so they're still criticizing themselves they're still but they're basically either personifying me as they're doing it you know in my voice inside their own head or they're telling me I'm full shit because I I won't tell them the truth yeah and so then that degrades my credibility across the board and this is all mostly subconscious people aren't actually saying yeah I'm not even aware of it oftentimes yeah but we all know that we criticize ourselves and people want to know where they stand like almost above everything else yeah in that is like so much of the insecurity you know millennials and the other generations get such a you know I have such a reputation for being brash and being demanding and being entitled and all of these things and I look at it I think managing you know being of a generation and also managing you know in a lot of that space we've learned to project you know up here yeah but we feel down here you know and the mistake that most leaders make including me for a lot a long time and I still do sometimes is like I see someone projecting this confidence that isn't earned and it's not deserved because they're not they're struggling and so I need I need to take them down a notch I need to put them in their place and when I do that and they're actually already down here there's projecting up here and I'm just pushing them further and further down and sometimes they're just projecting more and more and more you know confidence and defensiveness and all these things it's like oh yeah this entire generation is you know is poor screwed you know is that like some people do yeah yeah around here we use the term grace like when you make a mistake and you mess it up well there's grace yeah don't do it that way again but and it's like that lifting thing right for sure and that's that's been such a good point for me is to recognize that if I put those things the other funny how someone's truly feeling about themselves their own strengths their own challenges their own desires and then also being really clear about how I see things you know we built the process you know that's it's a monthly just one-on-one and it's very simple it's half an hour and but it it really cuts through that and it's the questions that you mentioned so I feel out like hey how are you doing you know what what are you working to improve where are you succeeding how you know what can I do do for you you know the same questions every month it is yeah new stuff comes up yeah I have to answer the question about everyone in my employees like are you are you media expectations in your job yeah and that's a daunting question right to answer when you've got a hundred and I didn't want to do it you know because but I was I didn't want I didn't want to put that in there because they want to yeah well that's one thing I want to come back to two things that you mentioned that we're intriguing to me that directed autonomy and I'm particularly thinking about my own business and growing local think tank and and like sometimes it's like I don't know what to do and so I don't know what to have you do and and and I just this was Roy's last nace he's been a key employee for me for two years nearly and I remember what one point she said you know just tell me what to do and I'll do it and I was like I was trying to have her help me figure out what to do but as a leader you just have to figure it out even if you're faking it kind of yeah and or at least paint those paint the vision right people that aren't those visionary you know like it's like I've learned that I'm not a great doer you know and I like to to do things but I'm not great at the follow-through because I'm my heads in all these spaces it doesn't mean that I do nothing and I only think I'm always doing something yeah and it means I got to carry the water you know when it comes to a lot of this stuff and I got to lead by example and I have to do these things but I also have to recognize in respect I respect the lot of people in my company who get you can move the needle so much faster than I once they have that clarity I'm recognizing that when I can set that clarity about how they're feeling about their position how I'm feeling about their position and where we're going yeah then it changes everything it totally does yeah no and I you know frankly have some regrets yeah that happens and then the other thing you said you were going to come back to authenticity not transparency so it's one of these we talk about a lot is that I don't need my employees to be transparent right I don't need to know every detail of everything to me the difference between authenticity and transparency is that transparency is sharing everything authenticity is what your sharing is real yeah and so for me it even goes into how I engage I don't ask many people what they did over the weekend on Monday and here's and the brutal truth is because I don't care and I don't mean it because I don't care about them I honestly like I would love to talk about the things that connect us rather than some frivolous right you know thing and so I don't have to make it a point is ahead I don't care about what you did this begin you know it's irrelevant to the discussion but I'm not going to ask about things that don't actually push us towards a more constructive you know relationship now I love social time with employees and you know having those conversations about interests and all that stuff but not walking to the office on Monday morning right walking to the office on Monday morning like hi hope you had a great weekend yeah you know how's the whole contract going yeah let's engage on the real stuff you know and very cool well what else you mentioned the the growth capital and some non equity some how much of that stuff are you comfortable talking about or do you want to talk about is there some business lessons in there all of it all the time we've got the closing segments yeah I know you told me about some of the closing segments I definitely want to make sure we'll leave some time so I learned a lot about money and money and business and things like that so we took some some growth capital in 2016 where we recognized and you pointed it out we built the business that just had a lot of foundational cracks because it was really it was you know brute force by you know you know or in their early 20s not really knowing what to do you know and just kind of in and pushing forward as best we could and realizing that if we're going to scale it we got to short the foundation yeah so took on some some growth capital is more expensive than you know secure debt but it wasn't secured it wasn't personal guaranteed it wasn't you know and it was cheaper than giving up equity yeah it didn't give up control and I'll say this I'll shortcut that you know lengthy story by saying if I knew everything that I knew after I used that money before I got the money I wouldn't have needed the money but in the reality of business and all that stuff I didn't so I look back and I'm like yeah that was a wise decision because it got us to where we're at and it got us to but it was you know I look back I was like oh yeah it wasn't it was as exact it was not you know straight lines and a lot of it was simplifying the vision of what we wanted for the organization learning like some of the decisions that I made over the years did not make well and that was part of that maybe some acquisitions and yeah that was so we we acquired when it moved up here we acquired a small IT company and we required a web development company and yeah we we talked about that a little bit before because we have a lot of common connections you know in that space and you know the the web company was also a marketing company and you know brought on a partner Derek who you know and let people know and and it's so much fun you know for if you you know for for a number of years but we never hit our stride and we never got to a play kit we were always in this conflict between our you know we're an IT company and then there's also this marketing thing that wants to create their own identity and I I felt so much pressure you know engagement and he was really only focused on that aspect of the organization yeah all the people's IT cars just go yeah exactly and and recognizing that two things we were talking you know we've talked about it at after the fact when we divested the the marketing stuff and and he yeah Derek's a member now yeah that's right and he he took that you know and and really built it as number one just because we really enjoy working together doesn't mean they were great partners yeah and two that it was really important for us to refine what we wanted in our business and so what was that like a 17 that was 17 okay that was 17 that was my least favorite year in business because there's just a lot of emotion and personal business divorce and personal yeah and and personal failure you know or like professional failure and personal failure and various impressions and you know people let down in the process because we built this this vision that we honestly couldn't live into because we were too fragmented in how we looked at it you know and we really were finding what we were doing around the fact that it was you know and an IT operation you know and I didn't it couldn't pretend to be everything for everybody and that did really really you know it hurt during that year and it was costly it was distraction to the business it was but so did you shrink a little bit when you did that and then you grew again or how's that I guess I guess if you look at the piano we did you know we definitely I think we you're yeah from so 17 and 18 were you know they're we've grown every year but the eight you know 2018 uh over 2017 was like uh I think we grew 4% you know instead of 40% and so you look at it and it's like oh we had a flat year and it's like no we didn't yeah we took it we dropped out a cliff compared to what we've already you know yeah we we took a one and a half million dollar you know revenue whole out of the company and refilled it right because you were leading into your staffing probably yeah yeah and so you know is just that that was one of those things that I'm not that the other night with my wife just learned so much you know and it was so humbling yeah right to be you know in that space and recognize well because you were the golden boy at all these prizes for fast and throw well that's a good place to work and that's the part of it that like it's like yeah I was you know uh it's marketing stuff but and it does makes it feel good you know but it's pretty but it's it's not real when it comes to those situations you know I'm gonna think that that's been you know well just because you had a good day or a good season or a good year doesn't mean you're not gonna have a bad one you know that absolutely in my banking history that's one of the big blessings of that 15-year career is that I saw that some really outstanding wealthy capable business people sometimes got caught in their back foot and they had a loss here we all do right we all have those times and it's funny because that's where you look at a company and yeah so we've grown every year for the last 17 out of 20 right you know and we um look as like that's but some great track record it looks like everything smooth it's like but but the reality is I mean it is such all the hard decisions and heartache between here and there and all the stupid things that we did and all the you know like I and I have a lot of nostalgia for those times still because the daily stuff was still fulfilling you know I'm still really working through challenges all this effort recognizing that I can't I can't fix everything yeah I can't solve every challenge that was the humbling part you know because I would look at it and say yeah these things fit together absolutely we'll make it happen and then it was out of my reach or it was out of my capabilities you know and and but I had made promises to people I had enrolled them in this vision that all of a sudden is saying oh yeah we're not gonna do that anymore yeah yeah um and so the financial side of that was you know it was a part of that whole zigzag thing and was there like a conversation or a time when you had to like bring the team together and some passion or something be like okay here's kind of the new vision we've been kind of doing this and doing that but we've done some things and here they are and I mean start with one of the hardest conversations was to bring a segment of the people to say in to say we're not doing this anymore and unfortunately that means you yeah and you know obviously with the way we're doing it they had other opportunities and brilliant people you know so I didn't actually look at it from the standpoint that I'm wrecking their careers but it but it was seen as a betrayal you know in a number of ways and I think that you know honestly I look back I'm like I get it you know and yeah and I've done that you know I I over-promise and under deliver because I promise a lot because my brain thinks I can pull off everything that's I mean and that's I think that's the thing that's been slowly and maybe not so slowly you know in that case beat out of me yeah and I'm still that way I'm still an optimist I'm still aggressive and you know in in what I think and what I know but I don't need need it to be you know yeah it's a good sound so you refill yeah you know it's it's I I don't have the I don't have the pain when I look back on it that I did for a couple years after that because I do have great memories you know of some of those times and honestly I mean right at point now or I think people are better off like it wasn't going the way that I needed to go yeah yeah and I think everybody you know in those situations is largely better it seems like your whole organization frankly it doesn't have this kind of distraction to the core thing that we are and can be yeah I think the combination of simplifying and you know and really you know clarifying that vision as well as the lessons that we learned in leadership as we went through it is really what propelled us to the the next thing so we we took actually right in the middle of covid which is an odd situation you know we'd worked with a group that was investing in in you know IT service companies and then still running independently still keeping everything you know the same but building you know you know interactivity between your consortium of yeah yeah and so we you know we were company number six you know in the portfolio there's 10 now and uh you know we're the largest by quite a bit and I have a lot of peers you know that are in that so it's a really good opportunity to diversify to basically mitigate risk they just took a minority piece of you know they so they have a they actually the the way that it works is a little bit you know different is that they they part they acquire the entity and then we reinvest you know oh sure so it's this thing you know where where it gets a little bit complicated in terms of of where all that sits but really nothing's changed the operation of the organization and so for for us it's not it wasn't about caching out it wasn't about leaving it was about how do we do this in a way that mitigates risk right especially cyber security and things like that I don't I realize that I was so stressed I feel like right you know we're you know 13 million dollar company trying to figure out how to be you know I still make every decision based on the fact that if I screw this up I'm losing my house right you know or you know how do I stay connected to you know these these pieces and you know in places and yeah yeah so you know this opportunity presented itself people have known for a while and I have an inherent distrust of you know private equity and things like that as you should yeah exactly and I it's a scene a lot of it so being able to to maintain the autonomy and but that doesn't mean it's not super useful and it doesn't mean that it's not necessary to have the right you know in the right situation so it's been it's been really really healthy for us you know because it's allowed me to recognize that I have backing that's more than just what what I have you know it's like you know and and and what I've done personally what and what I'm able to tolerate personally yeah at the same time is given myself and a number our team members new opportunity because there's these other organizations that were the most most mature yeah group and so yeah share some of your thing we do it's it's like a peer group but it's but we actually have a vested in financial interest in each other's success and so it's a little bit like that role updated with the insurance agency read Miller Shrazi Shrazi kind of thing like that very much yeah yeah yeah they do our benefits so yeah yeah so anyway I digress but yeah that sounds like a smart way to take you know and and add resources right um you know Doug Collins and avid product development you know those guys yeah you know they sold the lubricant last year which is a is a what's his name the Oracle of Omaha oh yeah above it more about it uh Berkshire Halfway and and he didn't do it because he wanted to take chips off the table and things like that as much as it was like with all of their capital and resources and all of my kind of leading edge thoughts in this industry and stuff we can do a lot more than if I just organically grow this thing through the profits and reinvesting and things like that and so I'm sure that's part of it too it's not just taking chips or taking risk off but it's like all these resources all these connections that are part of this thing and I don't care that much about money anyway I just want to grow this thing right well and the the fear around a lot of that is very real because when money overrides everything in the vision and the mission and all of that that is it is very painful when you recognize it and the biggest thing for me is that when private equity comes into the it space or any service industry space that so relationship driven and doesn't recognize the importance of those relationships then look at it and say well we can just add cash and make more cash and that doesn't work in space right right so for me it was actually about how the how the investment was structured how the group you know how the returns you know we're being generated how how much credit for my own growth do I get compared to everybody else and how much do they understand how growth in this or you know in this business actually works right and so I looked at it you know the growth goals that they have for us are 30% of what the growth goals are that we have for ourselves right so like I can stomach this I can I can be in and what's transpired from it is actually the fact that just a strong connection with these you know people who are not partners in mind in the sense that I've been a 50-50 partner in my business you know in the beginning like I never had had control I always had to earn my influence yeah and this is this is no different you know and what's Jesse's role been along this whole way I'm going to do another podcast and he but he he has been so he came back into the company full-time and if we talk about inflection points you know so he came back five years ago and three years ago took on overseeing service operations and things like that we're very different personalities we're good for each other it's not always fun in terms of that we think very well when iron sharpeners iron it you know we get a better result yeah no but that said you know 20 you know we know each other for 25 years we've been partners for 20 it's it's very like it's a great partnership and it's a hard one to replicate um and so he's much more operationally minded grounded you know yeah he he definitely you know puts on the ground guy here's how we do this yeah and and he's a visionary too just in a very different you know structure of the organization so yeah right I could imagine the org part in a process guideline just like this took us 17 years to find our dynamic but that's really when things started taking off was that when I stopped managing service delivery which was a big part of you know some of those transitions right those changes is that oh I need to be the one who's because you just want to know like your brain didn't have enough space like you're dropping the ball and whatever and I was trying to take two and things on myself yeah you know where he's in he's a true facilitator he can bring people together and do things you know in a way that they'll continue to go that way rather than just you know getting it done that first you know that that first time okay we got it done this time then we don't have to go do I'm just don't have to do it next time that kind of thing well let's jump into the obligatory phase family politics haha what which one you prepared I'm assuming your Christian heritage at least we haven't talked about it you went to heritage christian academy so uh so let's there those three are phenomenally intertwined and you do you want to just answer them all in one big question you did hint at that so I'm going to try and be succinct you know that this would be a question and so I grew up in a you know dedicated Christian home and had a very very healthy view you know of faith and religion and all that because it wasn't it wasn't a punitive type thing at all it wasn't a a fear based thing it was it was truly you know the concepts of redemption and grace and and all of this that were you know that were were taught you know and lived out and demonstrated I mean that it was it was so so great my dad's a scientist which was also such a funny thing because it's very incongruent you know especially in the academic one of the lay pastors of our church is also a scientist at CDC it's like yeah exactly and but it taught me it's like oh wait there's a lot of there's a lot of you know predisposition you know around some of these things that truly isn't it isn't real and so it did it really you know showed me the the the true value you know of of faith you know and in that relationship and and all of those things and as I got older you know I I recognized that if I didn't grow disenfranchised I got to a point where I there are some incongruencies based on what I had had had grown up with and a lot of it was in the cultural application of how a lot of that stuff you know has has played out and so I had a few just fundamental you know challenges with the way that a lot of of Christianity and specifically I'll just explain it you know or try to try to be be brief in it but I started to recognize that I struggle with the idea of you declare your membership in a club and then you learn about the club you know and and that's an oversimplified kind of even I don't mean to be derogatory in that way at all but the idea of if I'm going to decide you know and you know the thing that is unchangeable in my life because this is the begin of everything and and then I'm going to use that as the focus of everything you know all of my knowledge you know and all of the the transition you know around that then how do I also still question you know and banter and and understand you know these things and understanding that to me the core of influence is that if I'm going to talk to somebody who's you know I want to change their mind about something then I have to come into the conversation willing to have my mind be changed otherwise it's it's a manipulative conversation sure you know and and so with that you have this thing to say all right I'm playing the stick in the ground it's unmovable everything else we can we can you know you know just kind of orbits around around this stick and the same time that I recognize that I do believe there is a truth you know and so but I don't know that we've that that the way that we've applied and I think that the the fallout of that to me has been some of the aspects of that we see in the political realm oh gosh yeah the fusion of these things that they should every Christian loves Donald Trump right yeah and and so I look at it and and even the you know the the idea of you know yeah Christian nationalism and how the fusion of those things come together which I look at and they know that's a cultural thing right that's a cultural thing it's not you know it's certainly not a biblical thing right and it's certainly you know there's there's a lot of different aspects to it and so when you when you build those cultural you know connections that way and they play out that way then I look at and say okay well then what parts of this do I discard and what parts of this do I not and I've gone to a place where I'm just I'm not an agnostic by any means because I deeply care you know and I'm certainly you know you're pretty disposed to think Jesus was pretty cool yeah and and honestly those ideas are are are such a you know the the idea of of redemption of the gospel and broken human nature and you know and all of that stuff like that's the fabric of of how I think you know and and and that makes so much sense to me the application of it and the you know cultural the cultural institution of it and even how that played out you know in a number of different spaces is not and so it's it's that that space where I used to get so you know debate heavy and you know pushing like oh I got you know I need to understand all this stuff and over time I realized like the the other challenge that I have with it is that is there's this eternal consequence piece which right which naturally if we look at the human nature aspect of it whether that's you know exactly how we've you know we've portrayed it or not you know in these spaces right it inherently drives the division kind of thing and a fear response all right you know it's like oh it's eternal like turn or burn you know every conversation has to be around this because then because this is what else is more important than that nothing matters except for this thing yeah and I think it's it's it's unfortunately played out in the sense that a lot of Christians in my mind there's there's a void of social responsibility you know that's come through a lot of different aspects you know of the the you know kind of that Christian nationalist you know the extremist you know well I had a story from this fall no I guess the summer must have been June July all you know the lady that I kind of have mentored over the years and she's a friend and we she was processing some stuff and she was telling me her kid was friends with the neighbors and they were Christians and racists and I was like what yeah ladies there shouldn't be any Christian races like that's kind of contrary to my knowledge of the way Christians are supposed to be but frankly the both the statistics and the narrative would bear out that there's too much linkage between racism and Christianity and that white nationalism kind of notion yeah um and I think that's where where a lot of it you know in unwinding that I'm not at a place where I think that that makes those pieces untrue you know but it does unwind the cultural influence to the draw toward being a part of those things yeah yeah so even though I mean I so that's that's I think you know the the place that as I've I've let go of the idea of fear around some of those things even with the understanding of the eternal consequences can't drive every aspect of everything because it manipulates the way that I think about it it's it's certainly changed how I view the dynamics of American Christianity now I was I was 15 the first time that I heard it was you know and youth group was that was my thing like that's what I was doing you know and the most important thing in my life but I listen to punk rock music all the time and I heard the song you know American Jesus by bad religion for the first time in the logo and the bad religion CDs like a a cross with an extra you know right and so I'm supposed to hear that but but it was good I just you know I hid that city you know and and but I couldn't believe I mean I couldn't agree more with the idea you know it's basically panning the idea of that we've created this American institution right of Jesus and used it in all of these commercial rounds yeah beat people with a stick with this and all of a sudden the tradition and the connection to you know military history sure well where it's gone over the last so I was not raising a Christian environment but I came to faith after a lot of investigation of lots of different options and things whatever we can talk about that another time but at the time that I came to faith culturally it was like the thing that good kids did in a way and now culturally it's kind of like the thing weird people do to a certain extent and it's definitely a different kind of place so so faith great discussion on that thanks for sharing family name those kids and give me a one word description for them so let's see Addy is the loyal she's our 13 year old Eli is a creator he's our 12 year old and Nora's our seven year old she loves everything and everyone and yeah they you know my wife Amanda were we're very fortunate he's spent the last year together more so than before because I travel and I go Denver a lot and all that and so family bond is strong yeah yeah I think ready for you know a little break but you know we're so fortunate that we have people that we enjoy being with yeah yeah yeah for sure that's why I felt the worst for during the some of the lockdowns and things was you know single people depressed single people you know I was blessed to be with my wife who I love to spend time with too and whatever but definitely a hard thing we don't have time to get into the whole thing yeah exactly so faith family politics I'll give you a couple minutes for politics I'm far more liberal than most business owners yeah and part of it is that is the social aspect of that and starting to unwind where all those fusions you know I think are not entirely yeah where they're supposed to be there's fighting lines kind of yeah asserted but that's dumb so I don't I don't love a two party system I don't love institutional politics and general I definitely recognize the need for it but I tend to be you know more and I think it comes out of this I don't mind paying higher taxes for the benefit of others you know I don't need everything to benefit just the economics in the situation yeah I mean at the same time that I trust myself more than I you know to to be able to manage resources more than I trust the institution of the government yeah but I also don't know that that's a widespread thing you know yeah that's you know I think that's the so I consider myself a libertarian of sorts which JP series that it is said that just means you're a conservative but you're square to tell people but but honestly it's true I think that to for me government tends to have more unintended consequences that cause harm than they do successful applications of bending society to their big better and so that's my big concern is like we can tax all this money and spend all this and then we'll make it worse than it was and we have less money right so anyway I digress but uh and then last the local experience the craziest experience that you're willing to share from your entire lifetime in a public forum all right so I gotta tell us relatively fast um so I talked about those those awards you know that we've gotten you know in 8000 things like that when I was in my early 30s I was I was a very privileged to be named Debra Business Journalist 40 under 40 and I went to the the ceremony you know it was an evening thing it was the St. Patrick's Day and I was you know the governor was there you know went through a lot of different it was it was big celebration a lot of people from work yeah and I am pretty sure that I'm the only person not just that time but in the history of the ward that went to that having woken up in jail the morning of so I've never told the story publicly but I've told it openly um you know I I went out with the front I'm not a like you know I I drank too much I drove a mile home I got in an accident you know I you know I made it was the worst out of my life terrible decision and I don't want it you know I don't want to under my already you know uh be at all there's no glorification here no yeah I learned so much in not just that night but the the years that came the consequences after your painful I was that person that you know everybody all my friends you know of all of my friends like yeah they're the least one right right for that to happen to and uh by happen to I mean like I did it you know I I learned through you know the classes that I took after that and all that that that yeah if if you get caught driving driving drunk it's typically like the hundredth time you've done it you know and I was like it might have been the second you know really and uh so but yeah it was it was that thing where I I had to you kind of you know in and and Colin Uper you know which is brand new at the time right and they drove me around like the guy had to take me home you know my wife is out of town with the kids take me home you know get on all of these things um you know that or I had to go like do all his paperwork and and and and then he had to take me to pick up my suit at the dry cleaners right home to take a shower and I took a box to oh yeah because you were already out of a driver's license they kept that and I you know I damaged my car and so I sat there like it's the most visceral memory that I will ever have probably is being at this event like I didn't sleep the night before I was like what have I done you know and and and it is it's that redemption you know idea and the ideas of grace yeah to forgive yourself eventually for some of these for sure and and and a lot of it at the same time that recognizing the the repercussions you know are real yeah and and I'm thankful that it wasn't that the impact wasn't worse right but it is so like you know the the remorse the you know they just the contrast between this idea being celebrated as a person right knowing that this is you're feeling like such a that's that's that's the thing you were talking about with when you're talking to your staff and they're trying to project that they're way up here but really inside they're feeling way down here you had a wide gap at that time yeah I broke down you know it with my team you know finally it's had to explain what happened you know about halfway through the night you know and yeah said you know I I learned through the process like I didn't have a problem with alcohol I had a problem with you know assume that I was always in control yeah you know and worked through a lot of that stuff that you know that not invincible but that you know I could I should you know be in that and so definitely learned a lot more about responsibility you know and that was not it's not fun but it's it's definitely the craziest thing that you know if I look at the just how all of those things connect yeah yeah so well it's such a high and low so hey Peter you're really a recent acquaintance like we've met five six years ago and just got reacquainted lately and I'm really thankful that you could be on the local experience podcast and I look forward to our next time together it's awesome they started it's great great being great getting to know you and I uh I appreciate it are you leaving the rest of that okay I'm so glad thank you absolutely it's for you all right thank you for listening to today's episode of the local experience podcast this is Kurt Bear founder of the local think tank and host of the local experience and I'm here with Rory Sharer local business developer and host of the local shorts episodes we hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode our mission and all that we do including this podcast is to share a collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community subscribe and follow us for you listen to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released curious about logo you can learn more about us at localthinktakes.com where you'll find more information about our chapters business resources and events for business owners and teachers if you're looking for perspective accountability and encouragement along your business journey why not apply for a chapter near you today why not why not why not we'll catch you next time on in-depth local experience podcast with me Kurt and with me Rory for bite-sized business lessons in the local shorts bye