Founding a Business Fresh out of College with Alex Thompson

Alex Thompson founded Amano, a device made for the pool industry.

Join me in listening to Alex share his journey and address some of the challenges one faces developing and launching a product as a recent college graduate. Enjoy this episode!

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

Dale Majors: 0:00

In this episode of the Builder Podcast, I get to share with you the conversation I had with Alex Thompson. Alex has a company called Amano, and they make product for the pool industry. And I'll let him explain a little bit more. But I love this kid. And I say, kid, because he's a lot younger than me, I think he's only 27 or something. But he's so impressive. And it was fun to break down kind of what he's done to get where he is, and his mindset. And just another really cool profile of an entrepreneur that we can learn a lot from. So without further ado, here's the interview.

VA Intro: 0:40

Welcome to the Venture Anyway Builder Podcast. Insights from the trenches by those who are busy building. When I finally embraced what I was really good at, it kind of felt like an adventure. Oh, yeah, I really would have done a lot differently.

Dale Majors: 1:02

Hello, Hello, Alex. I'm excited to have this conversation with you today. And let's just jump right in. Can you begin by telling us a little bit about yourself?

Alex Thompson: 1:12

Yeah, so I grew up, I spent some of my time growing up in a small town in Arkansas. It's called Hazen, there's about 1600 people there. It's kind of a farm town. And then I graduated high school, and I went and served a two year mission for my church in California with people in a much higher income level so that was quite the contrast of experiences that I had. Came home from my mission and I've always, like said, been interested in entrepreneurship. I enrolled at BYU Idaho. But I had an accident, got a brain injury, and took me a few years to recover and that's actually where I met Dale, and learned his kind of passion for entrepreneurship but since then, came back - came to BYU, started a business that did not go well, and then we started another one and we've been at that for about two years, and it's been a good ride.

Dale Majors: 2:08

What was your business that didn't go well?

Alex Thompson: 2:11

That was, we launched an Amazon business. In fact, Dale was my first investor. And it was selling letter boards on Amazon and what we did was we did what a lot of people were doing is kind of a, it's almost like the gold rush of trying to sell on Amazon back in 2017, 2018. And we did a lot of research and use of software and found a product that we thought would do well in the market. But unfortunately, everyone else must have seen that same product. Because by the time we got there, the competition was just so crazy. In fact, I think the the one of the biggest, like Amazon launch companies in the industry back in 2019, did their 2019 launch strategy session for everyone on how to launch our product, a felt letter board on Amazon. So competition went crazy. And that pretty much obviously dropped the prices, margins, went out the window and really hard to advertise and do anything profitable. So did not end up working out but Dale was patient with us. It was a good time.

Dale Majors: 3:17

So have you I'm just curious, have you looked at that product since to see how it went with the new because and kind of an aggregator bought it right, someone who had a lot of different listings?

Alex Thompson: 3:27

Yeah, so we did have some reach out and bought by it. I did look a look at it on Amazon. I didn't see much improvement. I think it was for a little bit. And then I think they probably came to the same conclusions that we did. So they may have had some other outlets. So I'm sure they I would guess they understood some of that risk. And so they may be, yeah, you know, using them elsewhere.

Dale Majors: 3:50

Love it. So what what was one of the main lessons you took away from that? Because you had worked, you had worked for a company that helped other people launch brands on Amazon. So you knew you had a great strategy, and you did exactly what everyone on YouTube and everywhere else was saying to do. Right, you followed the playbook. But what did you learn from that experience?

Alex Thompson: 4:12

Yeah, you're exactly right. That was crazy. We really did follow the playbook. One crucial thing that went wrong that I left out was essentially, when you're launching on Amazon, the goal is to get people to buy a certain amount per day over a course of eight days, or that's what it was when we were there. And if people do that, theoretically, you'd get on page one of a certain keyword you're targeting. And so we partnered with a launch company assured us they were the best in the industry. And we said okay, here's these you know, 350 letter boards that you need to give out over a certain amount of time, and people would buy them, but it would just be heavily discounted. And anyways, these guys went in and instead of giving them out over eight days, it gave them out over just three days. And what happened was the product did get on page one, but it fell off immediately. And because we've given out so many, it was pretty much impossible to be able to sustain that. So that was one thing that also led to this not working, because it's kind of a big upfront investment, to be able to, you know, rank on page one. So yeah, I think what I've learned from that is you've got to be differentiated in some way, like you really do, you have to be offering something that other people are not offering. And I think when, if there's a massive Gold Rush, everybody sell on Amazon, or everybody do this, and everyone's doing it all at the same time. In some regard, that can be a good opportunity if you get there in time. But it should also be maybe a moment of pause, and just kind of think, what might happen in six months, if everyone's doing the same thing. What will happen to the market, so try to differentiate yourself and come up with something new, a different product, a new innovative idea that maybe is a lot harder to come up with, but that maybe can bring a lot more of a business, I guess to you.

Dale Majors: 5:59

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Very cool. And did you? What mentors did you have? You said, you know, you went on your mission, you were around a lot more affluent people. And then you came back went to school, you had your brain injury, during that time before you went on your church mission after - Who, who are your mentors?

Alex Thompson: 6:23

I'd say before my mission, it was primarily my aunt DeAnna, which is just awesome. She runs a company called People Acuity. And I think they've rebranded to a company called Thriven. And they're, they help kind of people discover their strengths. What are they good at, what are they not good at, how can they you know, work with other people in a way that allows them to, I think get more results faster. So I'd say she was probably number one before my mission. I'd say after for quite some time, it was it was actually Dale. So Dale is probably one of our my, my key mentors after my mission. fact, I remember one time Dale called me and asked about a potential investment and what what I thought of it, and some of those just like brand new out of school, or you know, just actually at this time, I wasn't even in school, I was going through this brain injury thing. I think that meant a lot. I was like, oh, somebody trust me and trust my opinion in something with entrepreneurship. So I'd say Dale and Deanna, were my probably earliest mentors, and both have provided, I think, a lot of value in me in how I see the world, specifically, from like, a value standpoint, how I work with other people. So until I started this recent business, I'd say those two probably, you know, have had the biggest impact.

Dale Majors: 7:37

Well, I am honored, Alex, thanks, man. You know, it's interesting, it's that's really flattering to be on the same level, or next to DeAnna. Because you're right, she, she's amazing. And I went through one of her trainings, where for nine months, we focused, we learned about the Clifton Strengths Finder content and everything she's built to the side of that, and about learning what you're great at how to be, you know, confidently vulnerable, and those other things. She was really key in a lot of the different mindsets that that I had. So yeah, I can't say enough about continued education in that way. But you're a great networker, Alex. So and I want to get into that a little bit more in the podcast when we talk about. I'll leave that for a little bit later. But I think one thing that I've always been impressed with about you is you, you meet a lot of people, and you put yourself out there. Can you tell us? You know, let's actually just talk about that. Now. Can you tell us a bit about that? How have you always been pretty outgoing? And in meeting new people? Or is that something that you developed later in life?

Alex Thompson: 8:49

Yeah, that's a good question. I'm not even sure if I think about that a ton. So I appreciate the compliment. I'm not sure I think just when, when opportunities there to meet with someone that there's potential synergy, or even if you could just help them out, or they can help you out. I think that only provides value to everyone. So it's, it's worth it. I think, you know, I served to your mission for my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as I mentioned, and our mission was primarily talking to people that, you know, a lot of missions, sometimes they'll have you knocking doors, and that's one thing but for us, there are people outside all the time. And so we would just randomly approach people and kind of you know, no matter what they're doing, and start talking to them, so maybe that was a little bit of a bedrock I've probably been a little outgoing always. But yeah, I think if there's just any opportunity for some synergy, whether that's you helping someone else, or they're helping you, I, I think that's a great thing. And it's yes, worth every effort to to learn who people are and learn from you.

Dale Majors: 9:55

Awesome. Well, you need to own that because you are really good at it. And I and I meet a lot of people and I'm always impressed by - and I've heard from others too, like, oh, Alex, he knows everybody. Oh, you know, Alex? It's yeah. So that's, that's a really cool skill that you have. Well, if you could, so I kind of skipped past. Tell us a little bit about your business. The current business.

Alex Thompson: 10:17

Yeah. So we've, we're launching here in October. And we've basically, following this, this Amazon business where we realized we had to create something, you know, differentiated. And that first strategy of doing what everyone else is doing just didn't really work. I joined a program. It's called the Crocker Fellowship, and it's here at BYU. And it's been a completely different experience. But it's the same program that felt founded our baby monitors. And basically, they bring together students from an interdisciplinary background. So you've got mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, industrial designers, computer science majors, entrepreneur major, and then they'll usually have kind of a wild card they throw in there. And it was just experience I think, I've learned so much from because they put you on a team. And then they basically have an entrepreneur, ship Professor kind of mentor you and give you access to professors from these different disciplines. And have you go out and find a pain and build a solution to solve that pain. And so since then, we've yeah, we've we're in the swimming pool, industry, swimming pool and spa, really in the, into the water industry. And we found a significant pain among pool and spa owners. And we've surveyed 1000s of them and tried to find out the very specific features that they need in our product, how much they'll pay for it. We've done a lot of work, it's been two years serving 1000s of pool owners meeting with people from some pretty big companies. And now we've kind of put that into a product that we're hoping to go to market with here in October. And as a contrast, you know, from the past versus whoever else was doing the same thing. This is extremely hard to build. And it took a lot of work just talking with with customers. I mean, I knew nothing about the pool and spa industry before this, really, and having to get to know them, get to know the industry, make sure that we're actually solving pain with this device that we're working on. And so it's been interesting. So that's what I've been working on for the last two years. And it's been a completely eye opening experience to dive into hardware and software and networking and raising money and trying to figure all that out. First time and pretty much of it. Yeah. So.

Dale Majors: 12:25

So how have you financed yourself to this point?

Alex Thompson: 12:29

Yeah. So at first we actually and BYU does a great job of funding student startups by basically money from donors. So we started out in this Crocker Fellowship, they give you funds. And then we graduated from that and won some BYU competitions. And so we had a little bit of money there. And then we got some backing from a well a fund called Campus Founders Fund. They're kind of a offshoot of kickstart, which is a seed fund in Salt Lake. And then since then we'd we raised a pre seed round from some great investors here in Utah. And they're the ones funding all that so far, pretty much everyone is paid, but me. So we're, you know, sometimes we're starving. But but that's how we're getting some of the good talent that we have is from that investment.

Dale Majors: 13:16

Love it, and how many are on the team now?

Alex Thompson: 13:19

Well, it's actually just me and my co-founder, as far as like, well, actually, so we have a few interns as well. But other than that, it's been my co, co-founder and then I think we have 10 to 11 different engineers that we're working with as contractors, as well as with engineering firms. Those are mechanical engineer electrical firmware. We've got a great designer from GoPro we've got software engineers. So it's been really interesting, just because someone like like me, I've never managed that before, let alone do I only, I mean, I know 5% Of what someone should ever know about software development, right. And here we are trying to figure this out. It's been good.

Dale Majors: 13:59

So, so you're creating a product that has some engineering and technology right? geared towards the pool industry?

Alex Thompson: 14:07

Yep.

Dale Majors: 14:09

Can we say all those things?

Alex Thompson: 14:10

Yep, that's perfect.

Dale Majors: 14:12

Okay. And you've been doing that for two years. You've mostly bootstrapped? You've, you've raised some money, won some competitions? What if you could go back to yourself, you know, two years ago, what are some of the lessons that you would share? The that you've learned, you know, like to possibly accelerate? Or, or make the path easier, right, like, What things do you know, now that you would have benefited from two years ago?

Alex Thompson: 14:44

Wow, that's a great question. The... I think at any new industry, you know, there's a lot of different categories, I think of entrepreneurship. And I think the category that we're specifically in at this time is this category we call like, entrepreneurial innovation. Innovation is kind of a buzzword right now. But it's really like finding an underserved market and a new market and kind of creating that market. And what you find is I think that the the engineering has to go side by side with the validation, meaning, I need to go out and talk to customers and find their features before I go tell the engineers to put these features into this device. And we spent a really long time on that. And I think that that was valuable, infinitely valuable, because as long as you know, the features and the market, your assumptions about the market stay the same, you'll still be able to launch. But what's taken, I think, more time than expected, was actually the engineering. And so I think what I have a great advisor has advised a lot of just different different startups, summon hardware and software and all over the place. And what he said to me is, when it comes to physical products, things are typically going to take three times longer than you think. And they're going to cost 10 times more when it's, you know, this new product category here. And I think that I'd say that it's not only taken three times more, but it's probably costed over 10 times more than we originally anticipated. Yeah, yeah. And so I think what, what I would say is, first, if once you get to that point where you're like, Okay, these are the features that the market needs, I think it's helpful immediately to go try to hire the right talent to build it. And to really be honest with yourself, a lot of companies that are in this hardware software space, where they're combining these, they struggle a lot with the engineering because they use kind of almost student level talent to try to build a scalable product. And it doesn't work a lot. And you see that a lot on Kickstarter campaigns, and, you know, follow up with those companies. And it doesn't work all the time. So I just say, grabbing that engineering talent sooner will enable you to get to market sooner and learn even more about your customers. And so the only way to do that would be you know, to fundraise, but those are things I think I do differently.

Dale Majors: 17:04

Okay, awesome. And how do you feel in a lot of times, I think when you're starting a business, it's interesting how you feel about the whole process versus how other people see, you know, people see you from the outside, like, I have a perspective watching you from the outside. And then you have your internal perspective as the business owner, that's doing it. How do you feel about how you're doing?

Alex Thompson: 17:30

I love that you just brought this up? What a great question. Because I've sometimes, you know, some professors at BYU the last minute, come back and teach us a little bit about validation and innovation, some of the processes that we've gone through. And it seems like these students are just like, wow, I was in a class of the day and this guy raised his hand, he says, you're pretty much in the ideal scenario. And I thought to myself, like, as I'm thinking now, too, it's just like, What did I say wrong here that I gave off this impression that we're in an ideal scenario, you know, what it feels like is getting up every day and completely exhausted. Like I said, I've been at this for two years, we've got people that are paid 150 $200 an hour. And you know, sometimes I can barely afford lunch, right? So that's the that's a scenario that we're in. And that's a choice that I've made, obviously, I didn't have to do that. But it's, it's tiring. It's exhausting. It's kind of like riding a lion. I think Jeff Bezos said this once. It's like riding a lion in the jungle, but I think I would add, it's like riding a lion in Antarctica in the cold. And there may be glaciers that you're just gonna jump off of, and you just really don't know. So that's kind of how it feels. Yeah, that's, that's yeah, that's I don't know if that answers your question. But yeah, you just say,

Dale Majors: 18:45

Well, I need I need to start sending you like gift cards. Or when I'm down in Provo, I need to take you to lunch.

Alex Thompson: 18:52

Well, you already did. We went to Costa Vita last year. So don't worry, we are, we are good. Oh, say we go

Dale Majors: 18:58

well, we're gonna do that again. So Well, I really I appreciate you saying that. Because even in my case, right, like, I have a pretty great life. And a lot of times, I, I think oh, I really want to get this done. I really want to get that done. It's so easy for us to get so focused on what, where we need to go and what we needed to change. And instead of focusing on where we've come from, and what we actually have and just being grateful. So yes, from the outside and Alex I think you're totally killing it. And, and you're in such a cool situation. You've you have you know, created a product, you have a company, you found investors, you're doing things that have a really great potential impact, right. You're you're you're doing it where But I know how you feel because I've been in the same place that yeah, you know, it's so easy to just feel like oh, you know, it's so hard and, and and not even so hard like, Oh, poor me. But wow, like, there's all these things that are wrong that I that I don't have figured out that I'm still just working on and I've nowhere near arrived.

Alex Thompson: 20:18

Yeah, no, absolutely I was talking with one of our one of our investors the other day as well as a few weeks ago. And he says, and you know, he was he's asking me to do stuff he was just trying to explain like, yeah, I just feel like there's there's a lot coming at me, you know, and that is, I mean, I wake up, and sometimes they'll have like 20 texts or emails, and I'm like, gosh, it's been like, eight hours since I've put or seven hours since I put my head down, you know. And then it just goes, goes goes all day, and it kind of like it's all coming at you. And he said, Well, you got to get to the point, it's just gonna be like that, nothing's gonna change. There's nothing you can do at this stage so early with so many different things that you're trying to build and validate and all that to change that. But he says you kind of want to get to a point where it's like a metronome, you know, you walk in, and you can kind of create a process with stuff, just like Tick, tock, tick tock, and you've kind of got okay, we've got orders coming in, you know, we can estimate this and estimate this. And I can put key people over here and over here. She says he's really early stages, I think. I think it just it, I think it has to be like that. I wonder if it has to be like that. Because some things you just can't outsource at this at this stage. So luckily, I have a great view, though. So go, Yeah,

Dale Majors: 21:27

Can I give you some unsolicited advice?

Alex Thompson: 21:30

please do.

Dale Majors: 21:33

If you could take 30 to 60 minutes every single day before you look at your phone and do like personal things, like go on a walk and think about your day and read something good and, you know, pray or meditate or whatever, before you let the world like attack you. I've done that for a couple years now and can't speak more highly of it.

Alex Thompson: 22:00

Well, I love that idea. And I think part of the challenge is I've got my phone as my alarm. And so my alarm goes off, and you've got all the notifications there. And you're like, oh, man, I've got to get out this. So that might be my solution.

Dale Majors: 22:11

You don't look at him.

Alex Thompson: 22:13

Yeah, I just shut it off.

Dale Majors: 22:14

Just own at least - try even try even keeping taking 15 minutes to yourself.

Alex Thompson: 22:20

Mm hmm. Well, I think that's great. And I think I do I do do that. But the challenge is I have my phone with me while I'm doing that, right? And so it's like, yeah, I'm acting like, I'm not I focusing on something like scriptures or something. But you know, then you get a notification. So, yeah, I am a big fan.

Dale Majors: 22:38

There are technological ways to get over that. And I challenge you to find some of them.

Alex Thompson: 22:42

I will accept that challenge.

Dale Majors: 22:45

That would be great. I love it. So you've also, I think it's really important to point out you, you spent a lot of time on validation, and didn't just jump into your business. And I think, you know, do you want to can you spend a minute talking about the benefit of your education? And that, and that validation work? You did?

Alex Thompson: 23:04

Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think that's really important with hardware companies specifically, where you've got kind of a really high upfront cost, especially if you're a startup. Just because just because there's so many things, you know, if you, if you you're wrong on two features that your customers want, it might cost you 100,000 Plus, to go fix that. And while you're a big company, big company could be fine doing that a young company with a limited amount of funding, and is going to struggle there. And so there's been some research done, and I don't remember where it was. But instead of entrepreneurs go through a mentored guided process, that actually have better outcomes than entrepreneurs who just kind of winging it, and just go for it. And I think that as you look at that, well, I don't think that we're the perfect example. But what we learned was every week, we'd have someone meet with us, and they'd ask us questions, and they drill us on, you know, engineering, or entrepreneurship every week, every other week. And so we had to go out and really figure out what the features were on our product, we had to go out and analyze our competitors and actually prove objectively that what we were building was superior. And it was superior for XYZ reason, price features and all that. And I I'm just grateful for that experience. Now, there's people though, that that somehow can just do it, they just go they kind of throw a Hail Mary and maybe that's just what it looks like on the outside to me, right. But they can just do that and go with an idea and run and and maybe they burn $10 million, but they finally get to product market fit and they can go and that's, that's a via, that's a you know, that's a way you can do it. I think the way we've learned is just more iterative. And there's just two different styles. I'm not sure what's good or bad. It probably depends on the entrepreneur, their comfort level, you know, their their risk, and, and maybe this experience that we had deals with this first business that didn't work out maybe kind of forced me a little bit more to focus more on validation, so...

Dale Majors: 24:57

Mm hmm. I love it. You know Thank you for that. Because a lot of people will say like, oh, you know, what's I've seen in your journey, I've seen a lot of the value of education and the network that you created at school, and impact you in such a powerful way. And it's, I think, a lot of times, there's plenty of people that say, oh, college, school, you know, whatever, I'll just go and work in the job. I think I think there needs to be other voices. And this is coming from a guy that didn't finish college, you know, I still have seven classes left. I think I'm a junior. In college, I didn't even finish. But I think there was so much value that I got from going to school, too. So.

Alex Thompson: 25:36

Yeah, no, I think I come from a town we're only a few of us graduated, I really believe that I think my education has meant everything. To me, I think it's changed how I've been able to think. And I'm still learning every day, you know, just assumptions that I have that I later find out were completely wrong. Or, as Deanna, my aunt would put it, I had some blind spots up or you know, there's just things that that you learn, and I think education is a perfect opportunity to challenge that. And especially though an entrepreneurship, where you look at, you know, some estimates of 90% failure rate of new startups, I think it's important, at least a little bit to have someone say, how do you know that that's true? You know, or have you thought about this? Rather than being like, Yeah, I'm going to be the hero here. Because it's just probably not how it is. So yeah, good point.

Dale Majors: 26:24

Yeah. No, and you're a great example of putting yourself out there and, and sharing those ideas and getting feedback. Going back to what you talked about before, like, wow, yeah, the college the kid in the one of the classes you presented to seems like you're in the perfect situation, like, wow, how did I mislead you? There were cars. So Kyle Ivins, he runs a company called Monumetric, and he was telling me the other day, a group of us that in one of the volley groups I have, he says, you know, he had a talk with the founder of Dropbox and he was saying that it always felt like, you know, that the business was a stack of cards and everything was on fire, and that things could go wrong and break at any moment. And Earl Foote, also in that group, this is in response to one of his presentations is, as a business owner, you have to get used to everything always being on fire, and never being figured out. And be because you'll put one fire out, but then two others will start. And I think it's from a perspective, that's really what where I am in my journey, trying to figure out and just become completely okay, with the role of problem solver firefighter. And not that in the day to day, I'm always going to be fighting fires, but just realizing that there's always stuff that's not figured out how it's going to be for the rest of our lives. And I don't and I think that if we can become okay with that, and just be grateful that we get to work on different problems, different new problems, we can week out that I that I think our entrepreneurial entrepreneurial journey will be a lot more enjoyable. And it's and I've had things figured out in my life before. And I don't even really like that, you know, when I sold my company, I kind of didn't have any problems to work on. And I just started sleeping in. I didn't like myself as much. I didn't like my life as much as when I got to solve problems every day. So yeah, just wanted to explore that a little bit. But let's, uh, okay, so let's see, to going back a little bit to your, so two last questions before we wrap up? What's your superpower? And in your words, and we talked about this a little bit before, but and maybe just forget the conversation I had, if I if I hadn't mentioned your networking ability? What would you say is your superpower?

Alex Thompson: 28:58

That's a good question. I don't know I so much we're working on here. Say I, I will say I'm not sure what my superpower is. But I'm starting to learn that I'm not as much of an operations guy as I am a strategy guy and maybe more of a sales guy. And I think there's value in that. And startups like my co founder is just so good with that stuff. He's so good with the details zooming in and zooming out on the on all operations. So I think that and is probably some strategy, maybe some networking, I would say would be at. Thanks for pointing that out too so...

Dale Majors: 29:44

Cool. Well, I think it's so important for people to realize what brings them when they're great at naturally and what brings them energy and what they love to do, because you can do a lot of things, but they don't all speak to your soul in the way In the same way, as those things you do that you're naturally great at.

Alex Thompson: 30:04

I think you're exactly right. And what's really important too is and this be if anyone's listening to is, I don't know, you may have recommended this book Dale range. It's one of my favorite books now. And he kind of just talks about how it may not be quite the linear path to find out what you're good at. That's okay, if it takes time to figure it out. And you'll learn things along the way. But you'll get there. And I think by the time you get there, you'll just be so much better for all the different experiences that you had. So for me, I'm okay kind of take your time. I mean, it was just yesterday that I sat down and I was in a meeting with someone, or actually, I was sending some volleys out. And I thought, this is like energizing to me, like this might be it this is this is what I like to do. Okay, so now in the future, these other things that might be more draining, there's people that what's draining to me is energizing to them. So I've got to go find those people. And yeah, I think that's such a good point.

Dale Majors: 30:56

I love it. Awesome. And yeah, I think that is cool to have permission to take time to know what your superpower is, I like that. And, and to take time to, I think, just being okay, with all of these things taking time. And, you know, I'm a real fan of just always remembering the law of the harvest that, that you can't just, you know, weeds grow over, you know, over a week, but real, real plants, and, you know, solid structures are slow and steady. So, just be okay, with that growth process.

Alex Thompson: 31:34

Well, I just have to say, I love that as one of the things that I've loved about I think knowing you specifically, there's so many, especially in entrepreneurship, you just have to be careful, there's so many short term things. And that's, that's one thing you can do. But, man, some of these things they take time, you know, they're very hard, takes a long time to figure out. And like we said, that's okay, you know, some things just take time, and learning and getting a little bit better at things just every day. Over time. I think that leads to good results. So we just live in, I think the society where there's so much instantaneous things, and it's okay to step back and say, I don't really know what I'm that good at right now. Or, but I am learning, I'm learning that I'm I like this part. I like this part, maybe in five or six or seven years, I'll kind of start figuring that out and forming my path. But you don't need to rush into that prematurely, I think.

Dale Majors: 32:26

I love that. And I always read the book, The Alchemist, when I want to slow down and think about life as a big picture that or how will you measure your life? But I like those. I like the alchemist story because it's just, you know, it's set in a pre-technology day. And yeah, that's, that's awesome. Okay, last question. What does your well, what is your perfect hire look like? Like your next hire? Sorry, your perfect next hire?

Alex Thompson: 33:00

Yeah, no, that's a good question. I think I I've been thinking about this a lot. And I think, again, we're so young and early, like we we just don't know this stuff. There's someone else you might be on here that have so much experience hiring people, right? So take anything I say here with a grain of salt? Well, actually not not totally, I'll say that there's two things that we're looking for. And then I'm always looking for in the first is, are they trustworthy? And I really mean that. And I don't just mean that for employees, it's investors that I've met with, I have to be able to know that. They're, they're telling me the truth, and that they will tell me the truth 100% of the time. And of course, there's going to be times, you know, especially in a job where there's pressure, and they may make things look better than their that's just gonna happen, but, but really just someone that's trustworthy and honorable person, and then to just, they're competent, as well. And I guess I'd say, and I'd say that competence is equally as important, but I'm going to choose trustworthy every time, I think we're finding people that are both. And when I find someone that's both man, that's like, that's like a, that's a gold thing for us, because it takes stress off of me, because I know, I can, you know, do have them do some responsibility, and that they're good people. But what I've learned, and this is, I think, really important with this, again, new innovation, where you have to constantly be figure things out is that if you have someone that's not fully truthful with you, whether that's an investor and to be clear, we have some of the best investors, I think, like we are only grateful we really got lucky early on. But sometimes you can get someone that knows more than you do, and act like they're being trustworthy. But really, they can take advantage of you. And, and they'll lead you along and you won't find that out for several years until you know something happens and you realize that and I think you just got to be careful with that. And then on the flip side, if you're working with contractors, they may promise the world but they're not completely honest with you. It's very likely they won't be able to deliver that and then you're in the hole there. So that's why I think I say those two things.

Dale Majors: 34:57

Absolutely.

Alex Thompson: 34:58

Yeah.

Dale Majors: 34:59

The guy, yeah, we're buying a building now, I was telling you before the call, and one of the guys that the contractor that we partnered with, had worked with me on a lot of other buildings, and had an opportunity on another project to kind of screw me over. And, and not even. And he just took the highest road that he could have. And, and didn't, and I and I didn't really know what to expect. I thought that oh, you know, I can see how he would maybe keep that money or, you know, wait until the you know, until this reconciles whatever, he just took the highest road. And that's that was why I was so confident in presenting him to our new team, because he'd had the opportunity to treat me legally and even ethically, in a certain way. But then he chose to do the right thing based on the spirit of the agreement and the relationship. And that's awesome. So what you're saying reminds me a lot of a quote by Dee Hock. And I think Dee Hock was the CEO of Visa for a long time, and it says, "Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience. Without integrity, motivation is dangerous; without motivation, capacity is impotent; without capacity, understanding is limited; without understanding, knowledge is meaningless; without knowledge, experience is blind. Experience is easy to provide and quickly put to good use by people with all the other qualities." And that just aligns really well with yours up they need to have, you know, honest, honesty, integrity. And then you know, I think the third one I think he said was capacity. So he might have snuck motivation in there before you but you pretty much were in on track with this quote that I really love.

Alex Thompson: 36:56

Well, I love that quote that - I've got to get that somewhere. That kind of blew me away. I think I think yeah, I think naturally we probably find people that that they'll always appear to be motivated. So only because that's just we're at this stage right now. You know, they're going to work with us they you got to really be motivated just because we're just so early. But wow, that's a great point. I love that quote. I would love an email of that. So...

Dale Majors: 37:23

Awesome. Yeah, Dee Hock from Visa - hire and promote on the basis of integrity. You google that and you'll find it. So how can people how can people connect with you, Alex?

Alex Thompson: 37:35

Yeah, just send me a message on LinkedIn. It's just Alex Thompson. And it should say Anano by my name. So that's it.

Dale Majors: 37:44

Amana an A-M-A-N-A?

Alex Thompson: 37:46

Oh, sorry, Amano A-M-A-N-O or you can send me an email at alex@amanocare.com so A-M-A-N-O-C-A-R-E.com.

Dale Majors: 37:57

Awesome. I love it. Well, that was really, really cool. Appreciate your story, Alex, I'm excited for everybody else to to be able to learn from it. And we're excited to see where where everything goes with. Yeah.

Alex Thompson: 38:12

Perfect. Hey, thanks, Dale. And hope I see, see anyone on here on Volley.

Dale Majors: 38:17

Awesome. Okay, thanks, everybody. That is a wrap and we will see you on the next episode. Hey, thanks again for listening. If there's anything I can do to be helpful to you, then you can email me at dale@ventureanyway.com. Also, if you know someone I should interview, or if you have any suggestions on how I should change the podcast then I would love to hear them. If you want to learn more about my coaching group, you can learn more at ventureanyway.com. And if you'd like to hear baby screaming in the background, then this is the podcast for you.