Business Innovators Radio - Navigating Dual Ventures: Morgan Hoogvelt’s Journey with Gohfr and Morgan Human Capital Management

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you build a better life right now. Welcome to Business Innovators Radio, featuring industry influencers and trendsetters, sharing proven strategies to help you live a better life right now. And now your host, Marco Salinas. Welcome back to another episode of Business Ineanor. Innovators podcast. I'm your host, Marco Salinas. Joining me today, a buddy of mine, Mr. Morgan, Hulkfelt. Did I get that right, Morgan? You got it right. Close enough. All right. That's enough, yep. All right. Good stuff. Morgan has a extensive background in the HR and recruiting space. And today we're going to talk about him and get to know

Starting point is 00:01:05 him a little bit better and learn a little bit more about his journey as a business innovator. And he's also got a new venture that he's been working on here in recent years that is pretty cool and pretty exciting. And so we're going to talk a little bit about that as well. But overall, Morgan's a cool guy. He's got a cool story. And this is our opportunity to get to know him a little bit better. And as usual, we love to learn about business owners and we love to hear their stories. And we love to learn about entrepreneurs and everything they've been through because every entrepreneur has a different story.

Starting point is 00:01:38 and every entrepreneur has gone through some form of setback, some form of difficulty. It's never perfect. It's never rosy. And a lot of times when you talk to entrepreneurs, you see the end result of the fruits of all their hard work and all their labors. But you don't see all that they went through to get there. And so today we're going to talk to Morgan about his journey and all that he went through to get where he is today. So Morgan, welcome to the podcast, my friend. Thanks, Mark.

Starting point is 00:02:10 I appreciate you having me here. Really gloatly. Absolutely. Yeah. So like I said, I for one, personally, I really love networking with other business owners and entrepreneurs because I love to hear about that journey. And I love to hear about how this all began and, you know, and some of the things that you had to go through to get to where you are today. That being said, let's go back in time. Let's take the DeLorean and let's go back to the beginning of the process, right?

Starting point is 00:02:40 Tell me a little bit about your early, you know, the early part of your journey. How did you get into the HR space? Let's start with that. How did you, because this is what you've been doing the longest. How did you enter into that world? Tell me a little bit about what made you decide to go that route and how that kind of came about. Yeah, absolutely. So a little bit of an interesting journey there.

Starting point is 00:03:02 I was actually right out of high school. I joined the military. I was lucky enough to get put through college through an RTC program. I ended up being active duty in the military and I got out and I had no clue what I wanted to do. And I always thought I wanted to be in some kind of finance. And so I joined this finance company down in Florida. And it really wasn't what I thought it was going to be. It's not what they kind of like told you at first in the interviews.

Starting point is 00:03:29 It was really more just like a smile and dial job and just really wasn't for me. So really the long story short, Marko, is I saw an ad in the newspaper one day. I don't know most of the audience knows what newspapers are, but we used to read those back in the day. Right. Yeah. I was like how old I am. But I answered an ad in the newspaper. It was just a simple ad.

Starting point is 00:03:51 It was about a company there down in Sarasota, Florida that was helping veterans transition from the military into corporate America helping them find jobs. I had done it myself. And I was like, wow, I could do that. And so I called up. I spoke to a sales manager and he invited me for an interview and hired me right on the spot. And so that was literally my start and how what catapulted me into the quote unquote HR space. Now, the first job wasn't technically HR, but that's kind of like launched my taste of helping people find jobs, getting them prepared.

Starting point is 00:04:21 You know, kind of like a quintessential, a little bit of recruiting. And so got into that space. I did that for about a year. Got a bigger job in recruiting. I did that for about three or four years here in San Antonio. And then, you know, I really, I think I struck gold where I was working with this company at the time. And they were, it's all trivial now, but at the time they were teaching companies, like how to do recruiting and how to do recruitment communications. And they were doing like Facebook branded recruiting pages and stuff.

Starting point is 00:04:53 At the time, this was cutting edge. Now everyone does it, knows how to do it. But anyway, I was doing a project for a very large radio company here in San Antonio for the VP of talent management. He really liked my work, really like what I was doing. And he offered me a position and he really just catapulted me into a very large company to a big position. And I've never looked back. Wow. Man, that is cool.

Starting point is 00:05:16 And so what branch of military did you, were you a part of? I was in the Navy. You were in the Navy. Okay, got you. And what was your, like, what kind of work did you do in the Navy? Were you on a vessel of some sort? Yeah, I was on an aircraft carrier. I was on a USS John F. Kennedy for most of my time.

Starting point is 00:05:34 CV-67 down out of Mayport, Florida. It's mothballed right now. It's retired and sitting in the shipyards up in Philadelphia. But I was on an aircraft carrier for about two years. And it was a great time, a lot of hard work, but a great time. Yeah, definitely, definitely. And you were in the military for about how long? About eight years.

Starting point is 00:05:53 Okay, got you. So you definitely, you got your fair share of military time before you switched over to doing everything that you're doing now, but I'm sure it gave you that foundation that you needed to learn how to work and have a great work ethic and all that straight out of high school, you said, right? So that was a pretty quick transition for you, right into adult life. Oh, yeah, yeah. Again, that's the only experience I've had, so I can't say it was the greatest compared to other people's, but for me it was the greatest. It was literally, you went from being 17 years old, graduating high school, turning 18 to going through

Starting point is 00:06:29 boot camp to landing on this, you know, your touch school to landing on this ship where there's grown men that are strangers, grown women that are strangers that, yeah, they kind of care for your well-being, but they're there to kick your butt and do work, get you do the mission, right? And that's what it's about. And yeah, you learn a lot about yourself and how much you can handle what you can take, especially being on a ship. It's a whole different lifestyle. It's not living in an apartment down the street and going into a base every day.

Starting point is 00:06:56 I mean, you're living in the middle of the ocean. And even during peacetime, you're in the middle of the ocean. And you miss birthdays, you miss family gatherings, you miss fun, you miss nights out, you miss all that stuff. All your buddies are living it up and partying in the college or doing whatever they're doing. And you're out in the middle of the ocean floating around. Right. Yeah, no joke.

Starting point is 00:07:16 Yeah, no, that's a good point. It is a sacrifice indeed. No question about it. But it shapes, you know, obviously it shapes a big part of who you become and, you know, it stays with you, you kind of never lose a lot of that, you know, a lot of those principles and those things that you learn when you were doing that stuff. So that's why I like to point that out. Now, this was probably in the 90s, right, Morgan? Yeah, I joined in 1995 and I got out in about 2000, the end of 2004. Okay, got you. So early 2000s is when you made your exit out of the military and

Starting point is 00:07:49 into that transition that you were just talking about. And so then what year did you start your own entity doing this. I think I'm looking at your LinkedIn Morgan Human Capital Management. Is that right? Right. Yep. So I started that in never forget the date November of 2013. Okay, got you. So then you had done it for a while. You were working at the radio station. You were doing things for other people. And then you basically made that decision that, hey, you know what? I know what I'm doing. I do it pretty well. Why don't I do this for myself? Is that kind of the mindset that you went through that process, that thought process? Kind of, kind of.

Starting point is 00:08:28 You know, I'm not afraid to say the story. Yeah, not afraid to tell the story. I actually didn't make the decision for myself. It was made for me. Yeah, so I was working in that radio company. I thought I was doing really well. And it was a great job. I really loved it.

Starting point is 00:08:44 And they decided they didn't need me anymore. And it was October of 2013. and my wife was 9 and 3 quarters months pregnant, or I'm sorry, 8 and 3 quarters months pregnant, about to have the baby. And I got laid off and I didn't know what else to do. And, you know, it was tough to find a job right away is making, you know, decent money at the time.

Starting point is 00:09:08 And I didn't really want to relocate, leave San Antonio, leave Texas. And so I just did the quickest thing that I could to make money that's most legal. And that was recruiting. And I started my own little business and I think I made my first placement about a month later around the Christmas time frame. And just kind of never looked back. And I've been doing some consulting and even had some gigs with some companies in between them that just either they ran into me or they liked what I've done in my work. And so I've always had my business going and always just, you know, continue from that first day.

Starting point is 00:09:46 Yeah, I know. That's awesome. So it was one of those back against the wall. scenarios, right? And you just had to make a quick decision and act, you know, act swiftly, right? Absolutely. And dive in head first is what it sounds like you really did. Now, once you got that first transaction there around Christmas time,

Starting point is 00:10:06 did it just kind of start snowballing really quickly or did it still kind of take a little while before it got some real traction? Tell me about, you know, like that first year, I like to emphasize when somebody starts a new business. A lot of them don't realize what they're getting their hands into, right? Like the first year, the first two years sometimes can be absolutely brutal. Talk to me about that first year. What was that like? Was it all perfect and smooth? Or did you have some pretty heavy-duty obstacles to overcome?

Starting point is 00:10:36 No, I wish it was smooth. It was not. It was tough. It still is tough every single day. It's never easy. But I think when you start off, it's tougher because I think people sometimes in these entities like the SBA and these different programs, they make it sound like, hey, you know, this is what you need to do, start a business

Starting point is 00:10:53 and get your business plan and just go out and do it. And I think, you know, fact of matter is you could have like the greatest website in the world. You can have, you know, a budget for marketing or in all this other stuff. But the reality is like 99. Probably 99% of times like no one's just going to come to you. Right? Like you got to go out and talk to people and you got to go find the business.

Starting point is 00:11:18 And so, yeah, it's, it's, tough and you know you wish you're the only person out there but there's a lot of competition as well and so it's it was tough it took me a little bit to get going i think in other three or four months there's the uh i think you you fight through the self-doubt you fight through the is this what i really want to do you fight through the uh the times where you're you know you're not eating as good as you were when you maybe had a corporate job and you had the paycheck just coming in yeah it's right you know you see all those things i mean i think it's just human nature you see your buddies or your family families on vacation. You're like, oh, I used to go with them. Now I can't. And so, right.

Starting point is 00:11:55 I think there's a lot of sacrifices to be made and things like that. And then you're just your own family situation, you know, as well. But I think, you know, it just boils down to what you at the end and what's important to you. And sometimes there's sacrifices to be made. And sometimes that there's always, in my opinion, there's always a light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes it's just hard to get to. Sometimes it's blurry. Sometimes it may be very dim and you can't see it, but there's always a light. You just got to find out what that light looks like to you and just get yourself there. That's right. Now, you said it perfectly. And also, you know, there's no reward without the risk, right? And so if you want to have that reward,

Starting point is 00:12:35 you're going to have to take some type of a risk. And let's be honest, I mean, if you've got a nice little comfy government job or corporate job, you're probably making a comfortable salary. you can do pretty well for yourself, but you're never going to earn the type of revenue opportunities that somebody that's self-employed and taking big risks has the potential to make, right? It's just a different ballgame. It's a totally different ball game.

Starting point is 00:13:00 You know, the funny thing is, like, I've heard along the way, like people sometimes will either talk to me or people that I know that worked in the same companies that are still there or maybe not there. And they always tell me they're like, well, I couldn't do what you do. I just, I need a stability. And there's nothing wrong with having a corporate job. There's nothing at all.

Starting point is 00:13:21 I've had them myself. Sure. You've probably had them. Right. We've all had them, right? There's absolutely nothing wrong with it. I just want to make that clear. Sure.

Starting point is 00:13:28 Entrepreneurship is not for everybody. But fact of matter is there's no stability in corporate America. I mean, you work there. Nothing's guaranteed unless you've got a contract. And typically those are reserved for executives. And, you know, you're at the whim of the corporation. One day they can just come in and say, hey, Morgan, like they did, right? I mean, it's happened to me a couple of times.

Starting point is 00:13:49 Hey, everything's been great. We love you. You're awesome. Don't need you anymore. Have a nice life. Sure. Yeah, 100%. No matter what you're doing, no matter how safe or stable you think it is, it's not necessarily

Starting point is 00:14:03 going to be as safe or stable as you'd like to think. There's always a possibility that a memo can come down the line. And then that's it. And so in a way, that's kind of a misconception, I think, about that world. But again, you know, either way, though, you know, it's pretty likely that you can jump into another job afterwards. And then it's like, all right, I got my stability and safety back. Right.

Starting point is 00:14:28 And like you said, entrepreneurship's not for everybody because you're going to have to take some pretty heavy-duty punches to the gut. And you're going to have to be able to withstand those things because they come at you a lot more often than they ever would if you were, you know, working at working for somebody else. Because as an employee, it's not your problem. You don't have to worry about that stuff. Yep. Absolutely. When you're running your own thing, you're basically, you know, you're, you're, you're in charge of every category for that business. Yeah. So you've got to be able to stomach that stuff. And let's just be honest, the great majority of people are not going to be up for that, you know,

Starting point is 00:15:03 because it is tough. Yeah. It is brutal, actually, at times. Yeah. Yeah, it is tough. I have one of my best friends he tells me the time is like man I wish I could do what you do and it's and it's not like I'm Jeff Bezos right where I've got like this trillion dollar company you know that's that's that's that's that he launched and started I mean I'm still a small business small businesses right he just tells me I wish I had the nerve to do what you do and I'm thinking like man like yeah it's I guess it is nerve wrecking but not everyone can do it but it's also um sometimes sometimes I wish I don't know I don't know if I wish I was here or not here, but I like what I do and I just continue to do it. Right, right, yeah.

Starting point is 00:15:43 We don't necessarily always have a ton of options on that, so we just got to keep charging forward. Right. All right. Well, tell me, Morgan, about your other business venture. You've got another company called Gofer, and Gofer has a really cool, unique spelling. It's G-O-H-R, Gofer. Yep.

Starting point is 00:16:01 And my understanding is this is a on-demand delivery platform that you started shortly after the pandemic basically is what you were telling me you and I were talking on a previous conversation. So tell me a little bit about gopher. What exactly does that service entail? And then tell me also that origin story. Yeah. So gopher for lack of a better term, we're like Uber except we don't deliver people. We deliver packages.

Starting point is 00:16:26 So for those that don't know about the courier industry, it's really archaic. And I'm not talking about like delivery for like, you know, DoorDash and Uber Eats and things like that. I'm talking about like your traditional career that services businesses. It's very, very archaic. And so I just had an idea back in 2015 of creating this platform for businesses where they can utilize smart technology on their smart devices and be able to just put in orders and have this network of drivers that be able to be available to, you know, pick up their items versus like this old traditional archaic career model. I also thought a lot about. around, you know, just simplicity and price transparency. Again, for those I don't know the career business or, you know, industry, not all couriers are built this way, but the high majority of them, it's really hard to decipher a bill and get a right price on something. And with all these extra charges that they throw in and throw on top, you a lot of

Starting point is 00:17:26 companies that I find, a lot of businesses just don't like it. They like simplicity and transparency. So those are kind of my general ideas. I see. The way it got started, kind of funny stuff. story, it actually, it got started from me doing recruiting. I actually went to work in between my own company. This company hired me and it was a really good opportunity. They were going to go, you know, they're going to go in public, all this other stuff. So there was a lot,

Starting point is 00:17:51 lot going on. I was doing a lot of work from them in my recruiting job. And then they hired me to come and get them in shape and take over their recruiting. And so I did. I said yes. And anyway, the launch story short, Marco, is one of the businesses that I helped, one of the internal business units, they just had a lot, they had a lot of use to courier, but they always had significant problems with these couriers and getting something delivered. They're like their packages and their items to their consumers. And so, literally the way it started is this. One day I was sitting in my desk and an HR business partner called and she says, hey, I need someone to be available next Wednesday. I need you to

Starting point is 00:18:30 hire me for someone. Hire me someone could be available next Wednesday. I can't pay them. I just need them to be available in case we call them. And I said, well, Cheryl, like, no one's going to, no one's going to be around and just sit around and not getting paid. I said, there's nothing I can do for you. Good luck. Hung up the phone. And I just said, you know, I think she would, she would, she would do well. That business would do well if they had a taxi cab for their service. And that was kind of like the idea. So from there, I just went to work, put ideas on paper and start building the blueprint for it, man. Nice, nice. Yeah. And so it's kind of interesting, though, because you did launch this thing in 2020.

Starting point is 00:19:09 I think just a couple of months after COVID started. So tell me what was that like. Did that affect your business anyway with the shutdowns and everything that was going on at that time? Did it help it? Was it more of a boost to it or did it make things a little more challenging? You know, that's interesting because I think I was kind of like everybody thought, right? Hey, this COVID thing, what is this? What's going on?

Starting point is 00:19:31 What's going to happen? You know, we all went through the lockdowns, so forth and so on. And those are kind of tough times to remember for a lot of people. I really didn't know what to think it was going through this. And here I am, like, going to start this business. Thank you like, geez, it's like the worst time in my lifetime to start this business during this pandemic. But you know what I found was actually the exact opposite. I found that a lot of these other businesses in the similar same space, they pulled back.

Starting point is 00:20:01 And they didn't want to do anything. They didn't want to go to a hospital. They didn't want to, and I'm not kidding when I say this. They didn't want to go knock on someone's door or ring a doorbell because that's how much the public was thinking about COVID, right? And how it could be spread. Like, we just didn't know. We were just knew what we were being told.

Starting point is 00:20:21 And so anyway, I just said, I said, hey, you know, I found a group of people that said, hey, hey, we'll, we need to work. We're going to go and work and we'll do whatever is necessary to work. And, of course, we'll be safe and take precautions and all those. other things and follow, you know, all the rules and the regulations that were out. And we did. And a lot of these customers, they were grateful for that because if you think about it, they're their businesses. They needed still to get whatever their product was, they needed to get it out. And so, yeah, like during the height of COVID, we were going into hospitals. We were

Starting point is 00:20:52 going into nursing homes. We were going to people's homes for all kinds of different products, medical device, food, documents, whatever people needed to get out and to get, we were delivering it. That's how it started. And it started well for us when people were pulling back. And I think a lot of our customers still remember that. Yeah. So again, another kind of blessing in disguise in many ways for you during that time period because I think your services were actually very much needed probably more than ever at that time. And so that gave you that opportunity to kind of jumpstart that thing when others were kind of sitting on the sidelines and just like, I don't know what we're going to do here. But you guys were out there doing it, you know, so that's pretty awesome. Yeah. So you've, you've had this, you've had Gopher for about about four years.

Starting point is 00:21:40 You've been running that officially, right? Yes. And then you've had your HR business for, you know, over a decade now. So, you know, you've got a pretty good amount of time here in this world, in this space. of being self-employed and entrepreneur. So here's a question that I like to ask. So with all of this experience and given all your success that you've had, what challenges, though, are you working to overcome in those businesses today at this point?

Starting point is 00:22:07 What kind of challenges do you see in this crazy economic climate? You know, it's just, it's a crazy world that we're living in right now. And it's made things even more difficult for the small business owner. So what are you seeing? What challenges are you working towards right now overcoming? I think for me, speaking only for myself, there's a couple different challenges. There's like your personal challenges and then there's like what the world gives you those challenges, right? So personal challenges for me, Morgan, number one is time.

Starting point is 00:22:41 I think that's probably a big one for everybody, right? It's just, I'm no different than anybody else. It's probably time, right? I don't wish, but I guess as a business owner, you wish it just, it was just you. and that's it, then you can dedicate all your time and do whatever you needed. But the reality is, I'm still husband, I'm still dad. I still got these other things, you know, to take care of. I still have a family and you can't just get swamped down into your works. I mean, some people can, and that's what they want, and that's fine. That's not what I want for myself and my family.

Starting point is 00:23:10 So I try to have that time balance, but there's always time. It's a limited factor. I think the second challenge for me, Morgan, is I'm not a control freak, but, man, you know, when it's your business, it's hard to let go. It really is. I found it. I find it, not found it. I find it still hard to let go on certain things. And it's, it's hard to find good people sometimes that really have the say, that care about your business the same way you do and the care way clients the same way you do. And so I find myself trying to do everything, trying to be the CEO, trying to be the CFO, the CFO, the CLO, the delivery guy, the sales guy, the accountant, the, the, the, the, the web guy. I mean, it's just like, you know, the marketing guy. And you only have so many hours and so many days and you can't do it all. And at the same time, you're dealing with, you know, then those economic challenges that come in, like on the outside. So those are my two big ones for myself. But then there's the economic challenges, right? I mean, we've had some customers that, you know, a year ago, two years ago, they were blowing and going where we were doing, you know, hundreds of deliveries a week for them. And they've scaled way back because of their own economic challenges, right? That kind of trickles down to, you know,

Starting point is 00:24:22 us. So, you know, yeah, I can go out and find somebody or I can go out and find vendors, but as you know, vendors aren't cheap. They, everybody wants, you know, a year's agreement or to have some kind of longevity. And sometimes it's expensive. So those are the big challenges for me, Marcos, really just trying to, you know, balance my life, let go of some stuff to, you know, when I can, but also then just make sure it's the right people. And then at the same time, just really continue to grow the business and really partner with my customers through their economic challenges as well with, you know, being a good partner for them. Absolutely, man.

Starting point is 00:24:56 Now, I think everything that you brought up, Morgan, is very relatable to the majority of business owners. We tend to want to hold onto control of things because we know that others are just not going to put the same level of dedication or effort into it typically, you know, and so sometimes it's challenging to say, well, let me go ahead and let go of that and let somebody else do it. And then you see that it's not being done quite the way that you wanted to. and you're like, oh, you know what, let me just take that back.

Starting point is 00:25:24 Yeah. So, but then that cycle kind of continues, right? Because a big part of our goal here is a big part of the reason why most people become business owners is that they crave that freedom. They want freedom. They want flexibility with their time. Yeah. And so as a general rule, we do get that.

Starting point is 00:25:40 We are given that as a big gift as far as all this that we go through and everything that we're doing. If we need to stop and we need to spend time with the kids or we need to go check out one of their events or what have you. usually you can make that happen, right? But the key is to be able to get to a point where maybe you can actually step away for a longer periods of time and then be able to walk back and then the machine is still running. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:26:05 And also to be able to have it where you're not getting bugged or text message by people on your team or what have you, the whole time that you're trying to enjoy, you know, time with your family or what have you, right? You want to be able to turn it off from time to time. And that's one of the more challenging things as business owners, you know, because of the fact that we want to, we feel like we sometimes need to retain control on a lot of those things. So definitely relate to that, Morgan, no question about that. And it's one of the biggest, I think, obstacles for any business to overcome. And so it's something that just has to be kind of worked through. But it's definitely possible.

Starting point is 00:26:43 I mean, we see it happening. You get the right person on your team and they can make a big difference. And those people, hard as they may be to come across, they're out there. Oh, yeah. And so, absolutely. No question about that. Now, here's another one that I think is really important question. Did you along this pathway?

Starting point is 00:27:04 I mean, you could go back to even when you were a kid, but what was, I guess you could say, the best advice that you ever received from someone? Maybe, or even if you have to share one or two things, that somebody told you a mentor, a leader, it could be your own parent, a friend, doesn't matter. What advice were you given in life that you think kind of you still think about to this day or maybe you still live and try to implement that advice to this day? Is there anything that you were given any kind of golden nugget like that at any point in time? There's a couple things that stand out to me. So the first one, it was visual advice, if that makes sense. This man never said a word to me about, you know, how to run a business or what to do.

Starting point is 00:27:52 He just always let me find my way, but that's my dad. So my dad, my dad actually immigrated this country when he was about, I think, 11 years old. And he started working. He was living in Los Angeles and he started working for the California gas company. And he did that for about two years. At 20 years old, he decided to go on his own. The man's 76 years old and he's never worked for anybody else in his life. Nice.

Starting point is 00:28:19 Never. Yeah. He never sat there and talked to me about entrepreneurship. He just wasn't, he just, you know, he's a great father. He was. He still is. But that's just, you know, it's just nothing that he just always preached. Hey, you know, go get a college education.

Starting point is 00:28:34 Go do something, you know, different than I do. So you don't have to, like, work as hard as he does every single day, right? So he was in the construction business. And, man, you know, it was a great life for him. He always took care of us financially and everything we needed. Right. But, you know, the visual advice that he gave. gave me just, I think back on it. I'm like, man, you know, this, this man never worked for a person

Starting point is 00:28:54 in his entire life starting at 20 years old. And he's always hustled the streets. He's always did whatever he's needed to do to get jobs. I mean, you know, one example is when I moved here, I moved to Texas in 2006. And my dad moved out with us. And he left his whole business behind and the area that he knew and all this other stuff. And I was like, well, what's he going to do? You know, this is kind of odd for him. And I'll tell, I tell you what, you know, within a week he was ready. I'd go outside, he's working on the neighbor's house. And then it was the next neighbor's house.

Starting point is 00:29:30 Then it was the next neighbor's house. And now I wake up every single day since for the last 20 years and his trucks at different houses in all the different neighborhoods. I got you. You know, that visual advice just tells me, hey, you know, you got to go out and talk to people. You got to introduce yourself. And that's what my dad is. He just goes out. He's approachable.

Starting point is 00:29:52 He has conversations. He's nice and he's friendly. And people trust him. And, you know, they trust him a little bit different than me just selling him something. They trust him to come into their homes. They trust him to fix things in their homes. They can have kids in there. They can have their personal items, all that stuff.

Starting point is 00:30:07 And so, you know, he does all that stuff. And to me, just visually seen it and thinking about it is always just, it's just mind-blowing to me. Because, you know, he's not a millionaire. He's not, you know, like an Amazon or something like that. He's comfortable what he's always done. But to me, he's just always done it really well and just survived anywhere and worked hard. So those are the things I visually took away from him. You just got to be in the effort.

Starting point is 00:30:31 You got to go out and talk to people. And you got to be my dad with that little red truck everywhere in the neighborhood. And the word just spreads, right? Sure. Sure. And the second piece of advice, you know, it came me via Inc. magazine. No one ever told me this.

Starting point is 00:30:49 but those aren't familiar. I think magazine, it's an entrepreneur's magazine. And somebody turned me on to it years ago and I subscribe to it. And I think one of the first magazines that I got and talked about this concept, it was called a minimal viable product MVP. And I always had that thought in my mind,

Starting point is 00:31:10 but I didn't truly understand like what it meant until this article summed it up for me. So I think, you know, one of the biggest things that I try to share other people. And I just shared it with another friend of ours who's on my son's soccer team. She wanted to start her own little business. And she heard I was a business owner. She's asking me for advice.

Starting point is 00:31:28 And so I started mentoring and coaching her along. Just kind of things that I've done and how to start the business, how to register it, all those other good things. But I showed her the MVP concept. And, you know, it's people have this, when they start a business, they have this mindset where they want to go out and they want to spend $10,000 on a website. And they want to spend, you know, $20,000 or more on a new car. and they want to spend, I got to have office space and all this other stuff. And, you know, the reality, Marco is like, your customers don't care about that. Like, nobody cares about where you're working.

Starting point is 00:32:01 Nobody cares about your website. Nobody cares about, you know, the car that you're driving and all that stuff. What your customers care about is, hey, like, you know, you told me you're going to do a job. This is the service that you offer. Are you going to do it for me? I've never, you know, I have, you know, luckily and blessed, I have. couple clients that are household names in the United States. And not one time has any of them ever come to me and said, hey, where's your office?

Starting point is 00:32:29 I want to see it. Right. What's up with your website? Like, this is a mid-grade. I need to see a high-grade. Like, they don't care. They just love service and we execute every single day for them. So those are the two pieces of advice.

Starting point is 00:32:41 The visual advice is, hey, man, go out and get it. The second piece is that minimal viable concept, you know, just, um, I love that Go with the very basics to get going so you don't go broke yourself and then see where it goes. Yeah. No, man, those are two huge golden nuggets

Starting point is 00:33:03 that you just dropped. Dad is all about, you know, taking action. I can summarize your dad as actions speak louder than words, basically, you know, rather than sitting there and telling you, the guy just does it. And you saw,

Starting point is 00:33:20 and you continue to see it. And it's kind of like, you know, guys like him, especially, man, I love especially talking with immigrants. Oh, my God. I mean, these people have zero excuses, Matt. Zero excuses. Whereas the more, the longer that you've been in the U.S., the more comfortable are, the bigger your list of excuses, you know?

Starting point is 00:33:39 Yeah. And so these people will come and just work circles around, you know, the majority of people. So that's always, well, I may have to have your dad on the podcast one day, In addition to that, you've also got, you know, this MVP, man. I mean, that's just really sharp. It's just like focus on the meat and potatoes of this thing. Get it done.

Starting point is 00:34:00 Get what people need. And don't get so caught up in all the little trivial things. People are like, oh, I got to get the logo just right. And I got to make sure I got this registered with the secretaries. You know, again, those things are necessary at some point. But people tend to get too wrapped up in it. Too wrapped up. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:34:18 And instead they should just be focusing on providing a quality service or product that meets the needs of their end user, right? And that's basically what you're, that's what you were explaining with the MVP concept. So really good stuff. And I really appreciate everything that you've shared, Morgan. As we get ready here to start winding down this podcast episode, I want to kind of transition over to a lighter subject matter. So when you're not out of your hustling and you're not out of your grinding, what does your downtime look like? What do you do for fun?

Starting point is 00:34:54 And who do you spend that with typically? Yeah, I know. Thanks for asking that. Oh, man, you know, I think fun. Morgan's fun is selfishly for myself. I love to play golf. You know, I try to go out there and play golf as much as I can. As much as I can, seems like it's once a month.

Starting point is 00:35:13 But I'll take anything that I can get, right? I just love to go out and play anytime I can. I love to go and I shoot a lot too. So I love to go out and exercise the Second Amendment and get out there in a safe environment, like in a target area or something, you know, a shooting range and shoot. And just, you know, it's always fun to go out there and just challenge yourself to be accurate. I love to do that. Away from my own personal things that I like.

Starting point is 00:35:43 I've got a wife and three boys. I've got one out the house now, but still a big part of our lives, obviously. And so it's cool just to spend time. We try to get out. He's actually in the Space Force, and he's stationed out in Los Angeles right now. So we get out to Los Angeles about once a quarter to visit him and spend time. You know, eat some good food and take into sites and all that other stuff. And we still have a lot of family out there.

Starting point is 00:36:03 That's where we're originally from as well. So we got out there and visit them and lucky enough for him to be stationed there with everybody. And then locally, it's just, you know, I got 10-year-old and a 2-year-old. And so they take up a lot of time as well. And, you know, we're summer camps. We're trying to give them their life experiences, whether it's, you know, small parks or small trips, the state parks, local parks, to the rivers. We take in a lot. So we just try to do a lot of family stuff as well and just keep active and give them good experiences so they can grow their little lives and see some different things.

Starting point is 00:36:37 Yeah, that is awesome, man. That is so cool. Morgan, it's been great getting to know you better. you've got a really amazing story, man, really impressive, both of these companies that you're running. You're still definitely, you know, you're still in the trenches, man. I mean, you're going through it every single day. You're running it, the highs and the lows, which is what that entrepreneurial spirit is all about. And that's what we do.

Starting point is 00:37:01 We continue on and try to make it work. And, you know, each day is a new day. But the cool thing about what we do is also each day kind of brings a unique challenge and a unique opportunity to us, right? So that's a big part of what keeps us going is the excitement of those opportunities that are there. Sometimes it's something really good. Sometimes it's a setback.

Starting point is 00:37:23 But you know what? We're just built to keep going and we keep rolling. And that's what we do as business innovators. So thanks again, Morgan, so much for being a part of this. How can our listeners and viewers learn more about you if they want to follow your journey? So I think, you know, I'm always available on LinkedIn to answer questions. to give advice or my own, you know, learning experiences and failures and all those other good things. So I'm always on LinkedIn. You can catch me there. It's a Morgan-H-Felt-H-O-O-G-V-E-L-T.

Starting point is 00:37:53 You can also go to MorganH-C-M.com or you can also go to go for G-O-H-F-R-R-com as well. Good stuff. Oh, and I'm going to give you a quick plug. About a little over a decade ago, you had your own radio show on Terrestrial Radio. and I listened to a clip of it, man, and it was a really cool, exciting, fun format that you had set up there. But you have recently decided to kind of resurrect that in a sense, but now more so as a podcast. So that's something that people should look out for as well, right?

Starting point is 00:38:25 It's something that you're working on behind the scenes right now. Yeah, it's behind the scenes. And also, you know, thank you for that plug. But I have to thank you, you know, for the advice, for the listening to that episode and giving me the feedback. It's, I guess, again, sometimes you spend so long, you doubt yourself a little bit and think about, hey, you know, can I do it? Will anybody find this interesting? So I appreciate the feedback.

Starting point is 00:38:46 And yes, I'm going to, we're working on it behind the scenes. And hopefully, for the next couple weeks, we can get one and two episodes live and just kind of take it from there. So we're excited. That's awesome. That's absolutely awesome. Well, I think your future definitely looks bright. Morgan. Keep at it.

Starting point is 00:39:00 Keep doing what you're doing. And keep on innovating. And thanks so much again for being on our podcast today. Okay, thank you, Marco. Appreciate the time. Absolutely. And that does it, guys, for another episode of Business Innovators Podcast. We will catch you here next time.

Starting point is 00:39:16 Thanks for listening to Business Innovators podcast with Marco Salinas. To hear all episodes featuring leading industry innovators and trendsetters, visit us online at businessinnovators radio.com today. Thanks for listening to Business Innovators Radio. To hear all episodes featuring leading industry influencers and trendsetters, and trendsetters, visit us online at businessinnovators radio.com today.

Business Innovators Radio - Navigating Dual Ventures: Morgan Hoogvelt’s Journey with Gohfr and Morgan Human Capital Management

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.