Noob School - Founderville and Beyond: Shay Houser’s Vision for Entrepreneurial Growth

Episode Date: October 18, 2024

Today on Noob School, we're joined by Shay Houser, a remarkable entrepreneur whose journey is a testament to resilience and innovation. We delve into Shay's early days, exploring how his passion and drive propelled him into the business world. He shares candid insights about a devastating loss that could have derailed his career, but instead became a catalyst for growth and renewal. Shay’s tenure at YouTurn Health is a significant highlight, where his dedication transformed the company and made a lasting impact on countless lives affected by addiction and substance use disorder. He discusses the profound lessons learned during this time and how YouTurn Health not only shaped his professional path but also enriched his personal journey. Now, Shay is channeling his experience into his latest venture, Founderville, based in Greenville, SC. This innovative initiative adopts a hyper-local, hands-on approach to support entrepreneurs. Shay explains how Founderville is designed to cultivate connections among leaders and innovators, fostering creativity and collaboration in a face-to-face environment. Rather than being just another accelerator or venture studio, Founderville embodies a community-centric ethos that empowers entrepreneurs to thrive. Join us for an inspiring conversation that underscores the power of resilience, community, and the relentless pursuit of success. Get your sales in rhythm with The Sterling Method: https://SterlingSales.co I'm going to be sharing my secrets on all my social channels, but if you want them all at your fingertips, start with my book, Sales for Noobs: https://amzn.to/3tiaxsL Subscribe to our newsletter today: https://bit.ly/3Ned5kL #SalesTraining #B2BSales #SalesExcellence #SalesStrategy #BusinessGrowth #SalesLeadership #SalesSuccess #SalesCoaching #SalesSkills #SalesInnovation #SalesTips #SalesPerformance #SalesTransformation #SalesTeamDevelopment #SalesMotivation #SalesEnablement #SalesGoals #SalesExpertise #SalesInsights #SalesTrends

New School. All right, welcome back to Noob School. Today I've got a repeat customer. Mr. Shea Hauser, welcome back, Shay. It's good to be here, John. Yeah, man. She and I go back to college. I don't want to say that was back in the 2002.

No, 1982. I was 91 grad. Okay. Okay. Okay. You were 91? 91. Okay, I was 83.

Okay. So it makes you older. I suppose so. I suppose so. Yeah. Well, it was interesting. I was thinking about this. You know, I know from the Citadel, really. I know we were from Greenville, too, but I really knew you at the Citadel or got to know you because of that. You know, I was looking at other schools that were more national schools, you know, way out of state. And one of the things my, I guess my dad asked me is, where do you think you want to live? I'm like, well, I probably live, you know, I like the South. I'll probably live here. I'd like to travel around a little bit. But he goes, well, if you're going to live here, you know, there's an advantage to go into a school around here. You meet all these people that are also going to live here. And I, you know, might not know you or Charles or Charlie or Missy or, you know, all these different people. Something got going to a good local school, I think.

Yeah. You agree with that? You have a lot of friends from Citadel? Well, yeah, absolutely. It's interesting. I mean, I was at a meeting this morning, and there was a Citadel guy who happened to be in India Company, which I was in the company. He got out, I think he said, 2006 or seven.

You know, and it's just random. We meet, and there's that thing where we pick up immediately. Yeah. What company? You know, who do you know, that type of stuff? And I think that's part of the power of the Citadel. I thought about state schools, too. Uh-huh.

And I think we even paid housing at Clemson, like, for first semester. Yeah. And, of course, my best friend, who you knew, Russell Powell, was planning to go. He was going to be multi-generational, I think, like your family, right? And he said, Shea, look, Citadel starts a week before Clemson. Just go to Citadel. If you don't like it after a week and get Clemson. What a salesman.

That's a good idea. I think I'll do that. That was kind of how that worked out. So would you say Russell was a natural salesman? Because that's the foot in the door closed right there. That was it. That was it. The presumptive clothes.

and his strength was rapport. You know, he was just as good as a got a rapport in making somebody feel immediately connected. He did it so well. Yeah. There was no even hint of, this isn't real, this is an act. Yeah.

And I think it's just because he genuinely, like, loved to meet me. He's actually like that. He really, that's how he was. Yeah. That's pretty cool, yeah. Yeah. I learned a lot from him.

Yeah, we all did. That's for sure. Again, we both went to the Citadel 91. He graduated. Tell us, tell us what you did next. I got super lucky to begin with. I mean, I got incredibly lucky because the year before I graduated, a guy named Layton Cubbage and started a telecommunications company. And had asked my father to get involved. And Russell and I were graduating together. We had already started one company. at the Citadel selling T-shirts and had a lot of fun with that and found out that you're supposed to pay sales tax, which, I mean, we didn't know. It's ridiculous.

It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous. I felt like that. So we, of course, did not do that. Statute of limitations expired, so I'm not worried. But he now were trying to figure out what do we do together. We wanted to work together. And at about that same time, there was a job opening in sales support for corporate telemanagement for CTG.

Yeah. And so Russ and I were number 10 and number 11. They went to work for Layton, essentially, and never forget the first day of work. And this is no exaggeration. We get there and kind of get our coffee and they sort of show us around. Layton takes us both into the conference room. And he sits across from us. And, you know, Layton's your side.

He's a big dude. And I'm kind of hanging out. And he's like, I don't care who your daddy is. if you do not do a good job for me, I will throw you through that wall. He didn't crack a smile. I was just like, I think real life sucks. Yeah, yeah.

But that was, you know, that was sort of, that was it. That was the beginning. Which became a wildly successful telecom company on the, I guess on the end of the AT&T breakup, right? Yeah, I mean, it came off. the AT&T breakup, and it was sort of back when we had to pay 15 or 20 cents a minute for long distance, and the 30-year-old's watching, we'll have no clue what that is, right? Yeah.

But pre-internet as well, right? Pre-internet. And they just did an unbelievable job building the company organically and then bringing acquisitions and learning how to, you know, pull out cost. Yeah. And, you know, what was cool about it, John, is it was 100% channel. The services were sold through a network. of channel partners.

Right. And so by the time CTG was ending, that's all I knew. Yeah. That's the only thing I knew. And Layton was a pro and methodical about teaching us how to take care of that channel. Yeah. How do you get them to sell when they don't work for you? They're not on quota.

Yeah. And really helping figure that piece out along with helping them understand how to, how to settle the client, how to ultimately get to the end user. So for anyone, we're mostly, our audience is mostly salespeople. And if they're trying to sell through a dealer channel, what are the top couple of things that work across the board? It's without doubt understanding their business. Okay. I mean, truly learning how their business operates, the tendency, I think, at least it was for me,

and I believe it is for a lot of salespeople early going through a channel is that whatever product or service you're selling is crucially important to that channel partner. Right. It ain't. Right. Right. It's not. I mean, they've got tons of services, tons of products. They have a core business as well.

Right. And that's the core business. So one is like understanding that. I think the second thing is being in person and building that rapport, building the trust. If they don't trust you, they're never going to give your service a chance. The way they think about it is they're introducing you to their lifeblood, to their customer. And they're not going to connect you with that customer unless they totally trust you. They can handle mistakes, right things happen.

Yeah. But building that trust so that they. can feel comfortable introducing you. That's key. Those are the, I think, from my perspective, the two most, most important aspects of it. Interesting. So really understanding there, because I was going to say, like, attention, just showing up a lot.

Yeah. I mean, I suppose that's part of it. Yeah. I mean, it's part of building the trust. I think they just have to, over time, really believe in what you're saying. You have to be there, though. There's no way around that. Yeah.

A little harder nowadays, you know. I mean, you're not hopping on planes as much and technology. makes a little, you know, easier for us now. Right. I think. Yeah, I mean, it's funny. You know, I coach particularly younger salespeople and they'll have a deal and they'll say, what should I do? Like this guy had this great deal in Atlanta and he lives in Greenville because what should

I do? They told me they're going to make a decision in three weeks. And I said, you get in your car and you go down there every week and you tell them you're in town for a couple of days. Can you take him for a call? You know, and that kind of stuff. And that's what he did and he won the deal, right? Now, what would I do?

Probably not do that because I'm lazy, right? I mean, I know better, but I probably wouldn't do it. Yeah. Probably say, oh, send you a 10-a-text, do you want to do it or don't you, you know? We hit different points in our career. The energy is a little lacking. I know. But I said, you go every week, just show up.

Yeah. Anyway. I remember a story about Ted Hassel. He was having trouble. getting in the door with this particular channel partner. And he kept calling this guy and the guy, you know, he couldn't even get through the assistant to get to the guy. And one day, Ted, apparently, they had, like, assigned parking.

Ted goes to the guy's office early in the morning and puts a beach chair in the guy's parking spot and lays in the beach chair until the guy pulls up. That's unreal. Guy saw him. Creativity. Yeah, that's unreal. It's a good.

Tia, I could get away with that, too, that'd be a little smile. He knows I'd do it. Okay, so CTG, you all sold in what year? That was 95 that the company sold. Okay. Late 94, yeah, closing 95. You know, and people started to kind of go their own ways. Late and left pretty quick.

Russell, you know, Dan, a group of people stayed on for quite a while through that run. I left probably. maybe six months into it. It just didn't, you know, it was a big company, it was public and it was clear that that, for me, wasn't what I was going to do at that point. Okay. And then what happened?

I went back to the founders of the company, so Bill Rogers, my dad, Leighton, a couple of the other larger investors and pitched them on starting a venture fund that was focused on telecommunication services. And, you know, I was like, we know so much about telecommunication, now with all my four years experience.

Right. But, you know, for them, it was like, all right, this is cool. We're not going to start another company, really. And this is a good way to do it. And so did that for a couple of years. And, you know, again, got lucky, you know, sort of hit the beginning of the dot-com boom, which turned out to be some good investments for the fund. And through that, I also learned, like, venture capital is not for me.

This is not what I want to do. And that kind of led to creating, what I guess is like my first company, my first real company. Let's stop for a second. Okay. So I think it's a good lesson for people if they're watching closely. I mean, you're 25 years old and you're pitching these guys on doing a, you're going to run an venture fund.

Yeah, yeah. You haven't been to business school. Right. You didn't even major in business. You imagine political science like I did. I mean, good Lord. So here's the lesson that, that first of all, if you just, go for it, you have a chance. Nobody was going to come around to Shea and say, hey, Shay,

we were thinking, could you run a venture fund for us? That was not happening. So you have to go for it. But also, kind of what we're talking about a minute ago about being lazy, those guys had just made a lot of money. And they could all run a venture fund, but nobody wanted to. That's right. Right? Because it's like a lot of work. Yeah. So sometimes if you're just young and hungry and know something, and you attach yourself to smart, wealthy people they want someone to do the work that they can trust. So anyway, that's a, and what a great experience. You learned so much and it didn't, you know, it didn't give you the home run in that instance that you wanted, but you learned.

I learned a ton. I mean, I learned a lot through that. And it also helped me realize that was not the direction I wanted to take at that time in my career. Right. It was just not it. It was the entrepreneurial, you know, sort of flame was burning. Yeah. And I had no option.

I had to go do it. I wasn't going to go work for anybody. So, yeah, so I started my first company, and it was, it was freaking crazy. It was, I was naive. Now, which company is this? With the time, it was called state communications. Safe, yes. Which we rebranded as triburgent.

Okay. And then, of course, became NuVox Communications, so a lot of different deals. Yeah. It, uh, it was funny, John, because I, I had gotten a little lick from CTG. Yeah. And at the time for me, for 25, it was a lot of money. Yeah. And I, when I started, and I put a little bit in the venture fund.

And when I started state communications, I was like, well, I guess I just go to the bank and get the LLC papers or whatever it was done. And I just opened an account. And I wrote this check for pretty big amount of money and deposited. I just started hiring people. Yeah. No idea what I was doing. Right. No whatsoever.

Right. You know, so just sheer, maybe arrogance, naivety, confidence. Yeah. And I think the ability to, like, in an early age, tell the story to get people excited. Yeah. Because I don't know why they quit their jobs and came to work with me for zero, you know, zero revenue. I know why. I mean, people want to follow something, right?

They want to be part of something. And just going to work at XYZ normal company is boring. But you're following something. We're going to try something. We're doing something new. Let's try it. Yeah. I mean, I love it.

And I think, you know, in a perfect world, we watch people like Naval, Roba Kant, and these really super smart Silicon people. And they think it all through, you know. And I'm not going to do that. I can't do that. Yeah, I can't do it either. You just got to have the idea. make your bet, right?

Place your bat. Yeah. And then adjust. Yeah. Yeah. You go all in and then you just have to adjust as whatever hits. Yeah. I mean, that's just what we do.

Some people think we're crazy. Yeah. That's true. We have no choice. No. We have no choice. No. Absolutely.

I mean, I'm unemployable now. I'm what? I'm 55. Right. I've been through the ringer. You know, I can't work for anybody. Right. There's no way.

That would be bad. You got to make sure. I've tried. I've been fired. Make sure you're not late to the staff meetings. Yeah. Right. Exactly.

God. Well, okay, so State became a great company, and you went through lots of different innovations. You merged. You bought people. Yeah. I mean, it was a crazy run. I mean, it was truly, I think, when the dot-com boom was really exploding.

And we shifted a number of times from telephony services to high-speed internet, which was one bag of data for. $1,500 a month. That's great. But raised a ton of money and filed to go public. And, you know, naturally we filed to go public on April 14, 2000, which was the biggest one-day drop in the history of the NASDAQ. So that was kind of a sign that things probably weren't going to go swimmingly. And, yeah, we merged the company that November with an out-of-market pier where they had just raised a bunch of equity.

And we had a lot more network built, a lot more people, a lot more. revenue so on paper it made a you know it made a good match and frankly you know going through the transaction and a year later it was a good match it worked out well if i was watching i'd be asking how in the world would you know who this out-of-state person was to merge with how would you have developed that relationship in that case it was the investment bankers it really was i mean we knew of each other but we didn't have really a relationship since we were out of market we didn't really compete. They were not one of my peers that I would talk to frequently the way there was some others. But as the IPO stalled out, our bankers had relationship with their bankers. They were

going through the same issue just different in that. They raised money. And Goldman Sachs was saying, you're not growing. You've got to grow. So it just, you know, that's how that thing really came about. Now, after that, it was the search for deals. We did some deals pre-IPO. I mean, I think we probably bought, I'll say five companies, I can't really remember now, and integrated those. Those were big sales prospects for me. That's what those were. Right, right, right. You know, it's a different kind of sell. But I was, I mean, in many cases, I was cold calling these business owners in Wilmington, North Carolina, or Atlanta, and checking in and introducing myself and talking about my business and asking about theirs and planning that seed

of, who knows, you know, that type of thing. So it would be kind of under the guise of, you know, I run, I started state communications in Greenville. I know you've got so-and-so. I thought we should just know each other. I've heard a lot about your company. You know, some of my channel partners have talked about you. You guys have an unbelievable reputation.

Congratulations on what you've built. Like, that's amazing. you know and and sort of working at that angle which is you know we're still pretty early and we're still trying to grow and I sure don't have it figured out you know and and just trying to build some type of relationship that way yeah getting back to the channel partner of how do we how do we begin to trust each other yeah because in those instances the currency wasn't cash it was stock so I'm selling you on our business and when I buy you you're getting a you're getting stock not cash so there had to be true belief in the big picture in the story you're hitching your wagon right to a faster moving train yeah and together we can build something special yeah interesting yeah when did that conclude when did you sell to get out of that yeah I mean that that that ended up being a really difficult I think stage in my life

and a process for a lot of us because even after merging with the that had plenty of cash. You know, we were burning probably $5 million a month, building out network and infrastructure. And the board were the, you know, sort of the biggest Wall Street names there were. And we hit a point. We had a board meeting in St. Louis.

I'll never forget. And this is probably mid-2001. Yeah. And the chairman said, you know, we talked about raising some more money. I think we're going to raise like $50 million. And sounds like we got it teed up. And I'm sitting there thinking,

And this is easy. This is great. You know, I'm kind of like, and he said, let's go around the room just to kind of make sure I know where everybody is. And the guy from Goldman's like, we're in for 10 and more capital's in for five and Chase is in for five. And all of a certain is 50, 55 million wrapped up. Yeah. And this is, you know, and he said, well, you know, the market's changed and the valuations are down. And to facilitate this, we're going to do a one for 100 reverse stocks.

I kind of sat there and I was like, I remember being faint, being nauseous and sweating. And I said, hey, David, hang on, hang on, wait a minute. I don't understand. And the guy from Goldman or Chase looks at me, he said, hey, you're more than welcome to go raise the money instead of us. And that was the moment. I'm like, I just died.

So it was like 2.7 million shares at 12 bucks when we were filing for the IPO to 27,000 shares at a dollar and married with, you know, three kids and really essentially bankrupt at that point. I mean, I, you know, I rolled everything. Yeah. Except a little bit in the fund. Yeah. And spent like a lunatic because I was rich. Just look. Yeah.

And then I wouldn't. You know, it's, that was a tough one because three of the founders, committed suicide and you know and it just it unwound and a couple of us went up in mental institutions and you know it's uh i don't recommend it yeah but that's you know that's kind of real life too that's the that's the part of entrepreneurship i think that you sort of hear about occasionally it's it's certainly more talked about nowadays than it ever was you know back then right and there's a little more focus on mental health thank goodness because this stuff is super super hard and stressful.

Right. Not just on the individual doing it, you know, the whole team, but the family. I think that's where I did the most damage. Yeah. It was with the family through the process.

Yeah. Got, you know, I fortunately kept a really good relationship with the management team. And I knew that we had acquired what was then a non-core asset into the company. And pitched the CFO. I'm like, hey, I'd be interested in buying that asset.

And they were like, okay, this sounds pretty interesting. And we sort of cut a deal. And then it was like, well, I have no money. And I went around Greenville. It hit a small group of individuals and raised 400,000 in equity in Carolina First Bank, gave me like a, I don't know, called a million a dollar line of credit off of that and was able to buy the company. And it was super, I think one thing I learned at that time was humility.

probably in a way that I certainly needed it, but I think, I think I believed that people thought I was still really wealthy from building this huge company that had a thousand people, and I was broke. And I had to go out and essentially go collect 400 grand from individuals in Greenville, and thank goodness they still believed in me. But that, you know, that turned out to be a good deal, and I sold it five years later to a public health company. And it got me back on my feet.

What was that company called? The company I started was UCI Communications. And then I sold it to Black Box Network Services in April 4th, 2008. Right about the same time, Bear Stearns was filing bankruptcy and Lehman had blown up. And my line with Carolina First matured at May 30, and there was 0% chance. I was petrified, man. I really thought. So you sold it just in the nick of time?

I thought this, I'm literally going to lose everything again. Like, I don't know if I can live through it. I don't know if I can do it. Oh, my God. Yeah, it was. Well, I mean, on a important salient point there, thank you for sharing that moment,

you know, when you go from two and a half million shares at 20-something bucks, I mean, I know at that number, it comes out to a 50-something, 50-to-100, somewhere around there, you know. It's a big number. It doesn't matter over a certain amount, but a big number to essentially nothing.

But, you know, some other people didn't handle it the way you did, which was you found, you found out where the pony was, right? There's a little pony over here, and we're going to, I don't like it. I'd rather have this thing over here, but I'm going to get this pony, and we're going to make something out of it. Yeah. And we're going to figure out a way to get the money, and we're going to do this, we're going to do that and so-and-so, and it worked. Yeah. If that's how I felt like I had nothing, I had nothing else to do, that was it. I wasn't going to get a work for anybody.

I'd already quit slash fired before. And there was no option. I was going to figure out how to make something happen. And that was, in my mind, the low-hanging fruit. Yeah. It's just, you know, I was the only one that knew about it. Right. I knew it was there.

Right. And I cut the deal and then I found the money. Yeah. I like it. I like it. And that takes you to, say, 2008? Yeah, that was 2008. I had employment contract.

that was tied to an earn out on the sale of that business. And so stuck around through that. And the last year of that was noodling on what's next. And, you know, I was reaching out to some of my former partners, Keith Coker and, of course, my brother and your brother and some others. And it was sort of like there's something here. We didn't know what it was going to be. But the thesis very early was recurring-based revenue, B-to-B selling through a channel.

Now what are we going to sell? Yeah. And that was the creation of green cloud technologies, which we kicked off in September of 2011. Yeah. And, you know, that was a heck of a run and a lot of fun. 100% channel, you know, and built that up to, let's see, when I left, we were probably around, I don't know,

20-ish-million in revenues. And I think when it was sold in 2021, around 30 million in revenues, making good cash flow and whatnot. That's amazing because I remember being one of your first guinea pigs when y'all were trying to sell me. And I kept saying, what is it again? Yeah. And Charles would try to tell me, and I'm like, tell me again what it is.

I couldn't understand. But I mean, at the beginning it was a duplicate instance of all of your software, I suppose, data in the cloud somewhere, right? Or maybe in two places. I don't know, but it was somewhere else in case something happened. Yeah. Is that essentially what it? That's what it was.

That's how it started. I mean, we were doing telephony services, but the telephony services really caused a challenge inside of sales in that the sales reps that we hired were traditional telecom sales reps. And we were trying to sell cloud plus telecom. And naturally, they went to what they knew, right? Which, God, in hindsight, like, duh, right? But I had to learn the hard way that that's what was going to happen. happened. So we ultimately had to shift to where it was, it was cloud only. And honestly,

the only way that happened was through pain. And the story that I remembered more than anything else, I heard Reed Hastings from Netflix speak at a conference. And, you know, this was the early 2000s. Maybe I'll call it 2004 or five, you know, I was doing UCI. And he was talking about how Netflix went from the DVDs to the broadband. And he knew fundamentally he and his partner like, the DVD business is not a business long term. We have to change. And he knew that the only way to do that

was focus the business entirely on that. He went to the board and basically said, this is the vision, this is what we're going to do. They said, what do you need? And he said, I'm going to fire 75% of the workforce, and I'm going to go hire a ton of engineers are going to build out broadband. And we're going to focus on that.

And that's exactly what they did. Now, they maintained the DVD business in reality up until 2022, believe it or not. But there was no marketing whatsoever. If you still went to the website through the portal, you could still get a DVD. Of course, nobody did it, but they had it. But they went all in. And I thought about that a lot when we hit this challenge of teleconverse cloud, knowing the future was the cloud.

And that's the exact same step I took. It was identical. And it was brutal, but it was like we do this and then we focus and we've got an opportunity to win. If we keep doing both these things, we ain't got a chance. And I don't know where I was going with that other than to say, yes, that was the idea was we're going to back up your premise-based servers and we're going to protect it. And this was at that point kind of 2020, 2012, 2013. There was no such thing as Amazon Web Services publicly. There was no Microsoft Azure, no Google Cloud, and AWS was not a thing yet.

They were operating, but nobody knew anything about it. So you had to use private servers, right? Private service. Secure private servers. We would build out inside of an existing data center. We would put a cage up and then put our equipment in it. And then it was essentially shared among all of our clients. Well, that focus thing, I mean, you have always been, with all my friends,

more strategic, strategically oriented than the rest of us. I mean, you're very good at figuring that stuff out, like how you should position the company, and we're probably more sales, you know, like whatever it is, just give it to him and we'll sell you. Yes. And, you know, we saw that at our company,

our previous company, we had, you know, traditional enterprise software and we would sell it for a license fee and get a big license fee. And the whole company revolved around how much license did we sell this quarter, $7 million this quarter, $4 million, $6 million, whatever it was. We didn't care about services. We didn't care about recurring revenue. We didn't care about the maintenance contracts.

That was somebody down the cellar dealing with that stuff. I got it. Yeah. And, you know, around 2000 people were talking about, you know, subscription and whatever and hosting. And we were like, because it was like this. much. We're like, well, okay, maybe later, but right now, this is the way people like to buy. They like to buy this way.

And we were so stupid. And we finally sold a company, and the people just, just like that, just switched it all to recurring revenue. And they doubled, they doubled revenue. What do they know? Yeah. They were, of course, they were pretty smart. But they just said, oh, no, we're going to switch it immediately. And the customer's just like, okay.

Yeah. Okay. It's fascinating the way that can happen too. Yeah. I remember there was this time Larry Ellison, this is probably 2012-ish or so. He came out and it's like on CNBC, they're asking about cloud. He's like, the cloud is nothing. The cloud is a, it's fake. It's not even real.

Nobody's going to use this. Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow. I mean, he's a visionary, right? He, you know, he's number six or seven wealthiest person on the plane. it and he missed it that much. Yeah.

They were able to obviously catch up and do really well, but yeah, I mean, he was so focused on his core business that he could not see out. Right. This sea change that was occurring. Yeah. So it's, I mean, I think it happens all the time. Well, it does happen. We don't, we're not always right all the time, that's for sure.

Definitely. I got to a, you know, when I was younger and had this partner, this, he was the CEO. So we were partners in the business. He was a senior partner. We used to fight all the time, all the time. Should it be red? I don't think red. I think orange, you know, that kind of stuff, stupid stuff.

We finally brought in an intermediary, Bill Lee. Okay. Kind of trying to, you know. So Bill just one-on-on with me, he says, he goes, well, John, he goes, you and Larry, you all kind of argue a little bit about him. Like, yeah, yeah. He goes, well, you and Larry kind of want the same thing, right? And like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we both want the company to do well.

He's okay. And he goes, and when you argue with Larry, he goes, are you always right? I was like, no, no. And he said, okay, okay, so he kind of took that one down. He goes, in the hierarchy around here, is, are you the boss or is, are you the boss? or is he the boss. I'm just, I'm like,

he is. I'm like, okay, I got it. I got it. Going forward, I now understand how this works.

I get my opinion out, right? You get my opinion out, right? Sure. But you don't get to decide. Yeah, yeah. You know, you do now.

Maybe deliver the opinion a little bit differently. I know. I know. I know. Well, let's talk about, before we get to

what you're doing now, Founderville, let's talk about U-Turn. Sure. So, I'll tell you what, I understand you turned, you helped it turn into a company, but it was a nonprofit that helped individuals and companies with any type of substance abuse issues.

Yeah. Right? Yeah. I mean, through my entire career, you know, alcoholic, equal opportunity drug user and, you know, work hard, play hard, sort of mentality. And, you know, just over time, it. progressed and progressed and finally in 2010 right before starting Green Cloud went to treatment for the first time and you know it was a light bulb moment it was it was my

the month before my mom was diagnosed with cancer and I went to treatment one year in a day after my best friend killed himself and I was just coming off a really difficult time and treatment made sense. And, you know, that turned into years of sobriety and building green cloud and in a really good spot. I relapsed. Relapse is not an event. It's process. Right. It's a process of a slow unwind, at least for me. And it culminated with a number of additional treatments. it's just really, really bad time. Just terrible mistakes and a lot of things that I regretted doing. I'm through that now.

The last, sort of the last, the coupé, if you will, was a two-day bender and a loaded gun and plenty of cocaine and alcohol and probably needed to kill myself at the time is what I thought. you know that just made the most sense. I got helped and went to treatment for three months. And, you know, I got fired along the way and my wife told me she was going to divorce me and the company was not going to honor my employment contract and my daughter wouldn't let me come home for Christmas. And it was really kind of a low point.

Yeah, yeah. But it turned out to be great in that when I left treatment and, in front of. February of 2018, I didn't know what I was going to do. Yeah. And I contacted Rich Jones, who was the CEO of a nonprofit called Favor Greenville. Yeah. Faces and Voices of Recovery. And they were doing really good work here in Greenville.

And I was like, yo, what's up? I don't have a lot to do. At the same time, I think the nonprofit had grown so rapidly that Rich as a clinician recognized I really don't know what to do next. Yeah. And we just started kind of hanging out working together. Yeah. Really in short order, you know, what I noticed was everybody, the majority of the people coming in were not, they were not the alcoholic.

They were not the addict. It was mom, dad, brother, sister, spouse, employer, you know, where they were court over. And all of the work, all the effort was focused on me, focused on the individual. And I said, well, gosh, Rich, you know, what do we do for the family? And it turned into, well, we, you know, we do some groups. And I said, well, what type of content you have? And it really just started this idea of what can we do that's different. And the difference turned into, you know, creating essentially a learning management system,

an online platform, a Netflix for addiction is what, in my mind, it was. And we're able to use Rich's clinical expertise sort of with my technology background. And let's go do this. No different than any of the other companies. It was like there's this seed. Yeah. And then let's go do it. And then just in a action.

And you sell these short videos, instructional videos to companies. And they provide it? It's evolved. You know, when we first started the company, it was truly an adjunct to the employee assistance program. It was an employee benefit. Yeah. The idea being that, you know, a, large company, we knew 25 to 30% of the employees were struggling with drugs and alcohol.

When you include the family members, it's over 50%. And what I mean by that is, you know, if you're working for XYZ company and your 18-year-old daughter hadn't been home in two days and she's struggling with opioids, like, you're impacted. You're not fully productive at work clearly. So how do we help you? We know you're not going to go talk to HR about your daughter. Right. Right.

So we felt like there was this gap in the services. And that was really the value proposition initially. So we said, look, we'll help do this. We'll educate. It's a confidential platform. Nobody has to know. And we got some traction. We got some head nodding.

But the sales, I was making every sales call along with my partner, Elizabeth at the time. And we were trying and trying. And something wasn't working. And then I met with the CEO of a construction company here in town, a big one, probably 13, 1400 employees and kind of talking. He's like, hey, what do you have for like risk? And I said, what do you mean? He said, you know, I've got people driving some really big trucks and tractors.

And that was like light bulb moment. Okay, there's something there tied to workers' comp, all that. And so there was a shift. That was kind of a pivot period where we added content and a programming around that. And as the company began to grow and get some track. we found a channel partner that we started working with. And that channel partner and our company started going to Washington. And 50 plus meetings with Congress and Senate.

Wow. And the Army and like you name it and getting a lot of traction there. And that turned into a contract with the South Carolina VA and then a contract with DeHEC and then a lot of different jails and prisons for reentry work. And then a couple of years ago we got a ago we got about an eight point I guess it was four million dollar contract from the federal bureau of prisons and that was really that was when the company really shifted more towards public sector and it was truly an individual have been in you know jail or prison for five or

10 or 20 years and what what the system knows is that getting out and not having support was going to lead to disaster right that there's still a lot of drug abuse and in the jail in the prison and how do we support them so you know it's like anything a shift and a pivot but it's certainly the only company I've done that I'm proud of you know what I mean like everything else was a run for the money yeah and this was not a run for the money it was you know maybe we can make an impact here maybe we can do something well you are making an impact it is now move is it a part of a bigger company it's part of a bigger company and like I said they're doing really good work and Blue Cross Blue Shields South Carolina's

customer and you know I'm not involved I've been going for a couple of years and well I mean you're you kind of make things happen and just keep moving. I try. I try. I got, you know. Like you move town to town. That's it.

Well, let's back up on the, on the, on the, thanks for sharing your story there. But, you know, I, Shay's been mostly a CEO. I've been mostly like I had a VP of sales kind of guy. And, you know, the whole thing with alcohol and salespeople, I think it's important to talk about because we've got salespeople watching. I think it's just people think it's normal or even like supposed to. Like if you're a sales guy, you go out drinking with the customer. drinking with the prospect, drinking at the trade show, drinking after work, talking about your deals.

And what you said, work hard, play hard. I think that's one of the worst phrases ever. It's terrible. Because you think, you hear it and think, oh, that means I'm going to work hard, then go get drunk. Yeah, I deserve it. I deserve it. I'm supposed to. And play hard could be, you know, playing golf, playing tennis, going for a run, going fishing.

I mean, playing can be so many things. It doesn't have to be getting boozed up. I didn't know that. Yes. You know, I don't, you know, we, I didn't help building these companies with the culture. Uh-huh. Meaning, I was part of the problem. You know, I was, I was center of the problem and did not hide the fact that I like to go out and party or drink or however you want to characterize it.

Because you're going to work hard tomorrow. That's it. So it, it was also a different time at that point. I mean, unfortunately, the opioid, you know, whatever you want to call it, epidemic or not, has. has brought this to the surface so much, as did COVID, as has a real challenge with, you know, women under 18 and the struggles and the anxieties and 65% of them now going to college with antidepressants, among other drugs. And it's just such a known issue now that there's a lot more focus on it, which is a good thing.

But you're right. I mean, it's, I mean, so many times that it was just absolute ridiculous drunken behavior. And I remember the other phrase people talk about or often, and I've thought about this a lot, is the functional alcoholic. That's so fake in that when I was hung over, I was not 100%. I was present. I was at my desk. Doing something. I was doing something.

But creating value in really leading the company, absolutely not. Right. So that phrase is silly. I mean, it's just a silly phrase. And if I were to do that now, then I'm taking, right? I'm taking. I'm not giving. And I think the more we can sort of beat that drum and help people see that, the better.

I mean, it's a hard, you know, it's not just alcohol. I mean, it's everything, you know, it's, it's mood altering. Yeah. Alter my mood because I don't feel good about something. Instead of doing it the hard way. You know, there's so many ways to do it. Exercising. Yeah.

A lot of us do it the hard way. Get to sleep. Yeah. You and I have both seen so many different types of, let's just say, drinkers, okay? But, you know, there's the spike drinker. Like, if anyone out there is a spike drinker, meaning you like, you don't drink much, but when you do, you're off to the races, you got to stop. Yeah. Because those people get DUIs.

They kill people accidentally. And they don't get promoted or get fired. They'll get fired. They'll get fired. tell you why you don't get promoted. Yeah. They just know. They just know.

Crazy drinker. Yeah. So, yeah, there's, there are people out there who can have a couple of drinks. Sure. I don't know many of them. Yeah. Not me and you. No, it's gotten a lot.

Yeah. There's a lot more, I think, challenge with it and a battle with it now more than, more than ever. And it's everywhere. Yeah. I mean, it's everywhere. I think that U-turn's helping. And there's a lot of things that are helping where people are understanding that, you know, we have been given these these sayings like work hard play hard and you know those kinds of things

and all this advertising where if you win the race you're supposed to drink champagne aren't you yeah I mean that's a deal come on it said right there oh yeah you know so there's so much of that in our brains that they're they're starting to fight back and tell people it's not good for yeah yeah I mean if if you can I think if the way I've tried to frame it up more in my life now is I want to live. Yeah. I want to live a healthy life. I don't want to be, you know, God willing, I make it to 80.

I don't want to be 80 and be in horrible health. Right. That doesn't necessarily mean I'll never drink, but it's at least some seed, something I can hold on to. Yeah. To go, if I do drink and I wake up the next day, it's not necessarily beating myself up. It's a reminder that it's one day.

And everybody goes through this, I think. It's one day you move forward. You focus on what matters. And whether that's your family or your health or your career, it ultimately has to be right here, right? I got to feel good about myself. I got to live with myself. I got to take care of myself.

If I can't be the best I can be, then I cannot be that for my children. Right. Right. And I think that's the thing. that's resonated with me. Yeah. Over the years of destruction is I've seen the impact it's made on my children.

I mean, my youngest daughter went to a, you know, a dry college. Uh-huh. Wow. You know, she made a conscious decision not to go to a state school. She went to a private college, Christian-based college, no alcohol. And that is, you know, that's a part of what she grew up with. She watched and she saw it. So, you know, and they were in.

Both of my kids were in high school when dad was in rehab. Yeah. You know, your dad's drunk. Your dad's in rehab. And so I think they're stronger for it. I'm closer with them than I ever have been. But certainly, I can't imagine going through that meat grinder in high school. High school is hard enough.

Yeah. You don't need your dad, like, in a mental institution too. Right. Well, we're here now. That's a good news. Here now, we can be helpful. So let's talk about Founderville. So all of this work you've done and all these things you've seen

leads you to start Founderville with Scott Millwood. That's right. Tell us about Founderville. So Founderville is a, called a micro fund. It's a small venture capital fund here in Greenville, where we invest in Greenville-based B-to-B sulfur companies. And, you know, we started a couple years ago. It's probably right at two years now.

and it really started with the idea that Greenville needed an accelerator. We needed a way to help early stage founders learn how to scale. And it wasn't like, hey, we're the smartest guys in the room. It's like we're knuckleheads that have made a lot of mistakes. And we see these potholes and you don't see them yet. So we're going to help guide you so you don't step in those same potholes we stepped in. And by doing that, we'll help accelerate the growth of the company. So we have the idea to begin the accelerator, which we did.

And as we were building the accelerator, we were also seeing opportunities to both personally invest and in companies that needed an investment. Of course, for years, many of us, you included, we'd make $25,000 investments here and there, and we wouldn't pay attention. And seven years later, we couldn't remember if we invested in the company. And we certainly didn't add any value along the way in the founder's struggle and they grow slow. So part of it was this is this is a challenge meaning there's an opportunity there and Bo Russell, our mutual friend and great attorney here in town said, why don't you all just raise a fund? Okay, duh, you know. So that's sort of what, that's what Scott and I did in the fall of 2022. And the thesis was former Greenville founders investing in the next crop of founders.

That was really it. Yeah. And we were quickly able to get, you know, 45 folks. with a Greenville address to commit six and a half million bucks to the fund. And then Scott and I started working with companies and putting the money to work. And he and I are, we see eye to eye in terms of what we're looking for, meaning we're both focused on software. We're both focused on B2B.

We have very different skill sets. Scott is significantly more technical than I am. He understands software development, code, and he understands, enterprise sales. I've never done enterprise sales. I mean, I've never been in sales. I have in that. I've sold investors on me and I've sold companies on merging, but I'm more finance and sort of structure and marketing and strategy. So together, it's a really good mix. And that allows us to invest in companies and try to bring that experience to bear to help them scale. So it's really cool. We've invested in seven companies, 2.8 million in equity so far.

Do you have a favorite so far? They're like my children. You tell me later? Yeah, I'll tell you later. Okay. You know, I will say this, they're all growing exceptionally fast. Good. I think the slowest growing one right now is about 75% year of year.

Wow. So, you know, we'll take lucky over smart any day, right? Well, you guys both know what you're doing. And I think I love the fact that it's just, Greenville. It's just Greenville. You're not like, I've got to go to Atlanta tomorrow. You know, it's like, you can really get your hands around. No, we want to, we want to build here. I mean, this is, this is about Greenville. It's about the upstate. And it's really about how can we do something different here? We love the tourism. We love manufacturing, but there has to be more. There has to be

technology to build a long-term ecosystem for, you know, I think just for startups and for young kids to have a place to be. And we've got too many Clemson computer science. grads leaving the state. We have a, you know, a massive influx of 65 and older. Yeah. And, you know, they're going to go to the restaurants and they'll stay at hotels and they'll go shop. Yeah. What they ain't going to do is start a company. Right. Right. And as the median age creeps up to 42 years old in the upstate, you know, so if you're 42 working a mission with two kids, again, probably not going to quit and start a company. So we, so we have Scott and I believe a gap, which again is that opportunity, which is how do we create something unique here to where we have

startups? And that's why we started it really. But what we see long term is, hey, Greenville Special, we all know that. Now let's go out. Let's go throughout the Carolinas and Georgia and wherever, and let's recruit them here. And the vision has been expanded to where we want to recruit 80 software companies to Greenville over the next decade. And we're going to guarantee an investment and the city's behind it. And it's just, it's like anything. It's evolving. We started the company kind of this way,

and it's growing based on market need. And, man, it's meaningful. I mean, it really is. People, are those companies, do they have fiscal offices? Actually, they all have physical offices here in Greenville. And what's been cool, too, John, is we've invested 2.8, but as we put money in companies, other money comes alongside us, right? They see us, I'll give you an example, digital sitebox is one of our investments.

And we invested $350,000 in the company. But that same round, which we closed in about 60 days, turned out to be over $800,000. So there's now been $4.8 million in fresh equity poured into seven startups in Greenville, and that money is flowing through the ecosystem. Right? Everybody's getting a piece of it, and it truly is high tide lifts all boats. and everybody's seeing it now. It's like starting to connect that the lawyers are getting business.

I don't know if they need anymore. The accounts are getting business. The digital marketing companies, the software companies, everybody's winning from this. And of course, these companies are hiring employees. So it's a, you know, I believe it's the very core of economic development in this city. And it's what has to happen. Yeah.

Well, yeah, those wins like Digital SiteBox. I mean, it might be one of those things where they're doing great now, but 15 years from now, they could have 500 people. There's no telling. There's no telling. I mean, Greenville's got a history of it, right? I mean, you go all the way back to, you know, Daniel construction. Right?

And there was one time the largest construction company in the world and Buildermarts of America and, of course, you're a company and Data Stream and just go on. I mean, there's so many great entrepreneurial stories here that I don't think it's celebrated enough. And I think that's what we're going to try to change is trying to celebrate these things. I love that. I love that. Okay, just a few more questions and we can finish up.

I know I've asked you this before, but it's been over a year, so I'm going to ask him again. Favorite all-time book? Man search for meaning. Oh, yeah. It's simply so good. Victor Frankel? Victor Frank. It puts everything in a perspective, you know, and it's one I'll pick up, and I've got highlighted, and it's moving.

Okay. Favorite word? Resilient. Resilience. It is definitely my favorite word. I use it a lot and I believe in it. Favorite band. Again, this kind of gets back to favorite chilt.

Who's your favorite child, right? I mean, if I've, it's hard to pick one, so I usually will go with the Led Zeppelin, ACDC Leonard Skinner type, you know, sort of of, you know, those three bands that are all, and Kiss, people laugh, but Kiss. I was six or seven years old, and my cousin Mike introduced me to Kiss

alive to and to A.m. ACDC powerage and that like it changed my life. Yeah. It just changed it. I mean, I love all those bands, but ACDC is just so hard to beat with that, just the power. It's unbelievable. It's just so strong. How they do it.

Listen to it over and over again. I know. It's constant. Always fires me up. Yeah, it does. I was devastated when Malcolm Young died because Angus gets all the credit in Angus as a showman, right? But Malcolm is like he was the driver. There's licks that he created and the rhythm.

It's just, yeah, what a band. Unbelievable. Yeah. All right, is there anything else you want to promote today? Well, I'm excited about Founderville. And on October 23rd, we will be announcing publicly a new program. It's called the Residence Program. And without sharing too much, it ties back to what I mentioned earlier, which is we're

going to recruit 80 companies to Greenville over the next decade. Great. More to come on that. We're super fired up about it. And there'll be some, hopefully, some nice. press about it. Well, you want, whatever you want, just tell us if you want to come back and talk about anything new and we'll get the word out. Absolutely. I appreciate that. Like you, you man. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.