From Passion to Purpose, Navigating Through Career Changes & Growth w/Alex Pool

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Hey, welcome back to another episode of Automation Ladies.

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I am one of your hosts, nikki Gonzalez.

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I feel weird introducing myself every time, but I realized that my favorite creators do that in every video.

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Like, I guess, just in case it's somebody's first time watching and I shouldn't be full of myself and think everybody knows who we are.

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So, yeah, I'll say that my name is Nikki and thank you for joining us today, and my co-host, allie G, is here with me.

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Allie, you want to say hi, hi guys Great week?

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Actually it's not.

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There's not enough sun, Seattle sucks.

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Otherwise great week, I'm assuming, also great week work-wise and lots of other things.

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I got a little bit of sun this morning here in Houston.

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I'll be grateful for that.

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And then we have our guest today is Alex Poole from Mast Owl Technologies.

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Alex, welcome to Automation Ladies.

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Thank you, thanks for having me.

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Absolutely.

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We're very stoked to have you on.

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We had a minute to chat before we got on air and we have a lot of sort of connections in common and have been in some of the same circles over the last couple of years but haven't actually met before.

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So this is exciting.

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We get to know Alex on the show and I will give a shout out to Michael Weta, who is with Mastow that came to OT Skatecon and a longtime supporter of the show, as well as our mutual friend Sam Janes.

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Shout out to sam, if you listen, uh it's a fun music that gets us pumped up for every episode.

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That's sam.

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So yeah, uh, alex, this has been a little time coming.

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I appreciate you guys uh, reaching out after ot skater con and we are just kind of getting back to recording now for season five.

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So we're super stoked to have you here, and I guess I'll just start with our first standard question Can you tell us your story?

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How the heck did you get to be here with Masked Owl Technologies?

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Thank you.

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Yeah, that's a good question and I definitely appreciate Mike and the work he does for us and what he did kind of moving this forward.

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So Mike and I have known each other for a couple of years now.

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I hired him over at Gray and he came to follow me here.

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So my story how I got into industrial automation I was talking to Ali a minute ago.

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I grew up in southwestern Michigan.

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I got into programming young.

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I hated winter, I hated cold, and so getting inside and being able to do something to keep my brain stimulated with programming was kind of what started my programming journey.

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Now, back then we didn't have computer science majors.

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They weren't necessarily as prevalent as they are now.

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So I got a degree in electrical engineering.

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As part of that I worked in an automotive industrial manufacturer.

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We made interior parts for cars.

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So I had this industrial manufacturing background with an electrical engineering degree but a love for programming.

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And that's really what led me into industrial automation was combining all those things.

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I knew I wasn't going to go work at Microsoft or Google and sit in a cubicle and write code for hours.

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That wasn't me.

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The industrial manufacturing piece was a huge draw for me.

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So being able to combine those things is what got me into industrial automation a long time ago.

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Spent the first half of my career in automotive, moving around michigan.

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Got to tennessee for a little bit um, doing industrial industrial manufacturing for automotive paint assembly, body weld, just whatever happens to make a car.

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That was my first half of my career.

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I got into material handling when I worked for Domatic.

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Got into food when I went out to FMC Food Tech in California.

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Started my own company once before that's what got me to Central Kentucky, started Blue Star Automation back in the late 2000s, 2008, 2009 and uh, that's what got me to central kentucky, where I am now, and that that company closed.

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We couldn't quite make it and got into a project here destroying chemical weapons, which was pretty interesting.

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Yeah, it was.

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There's some talk about safety requirements, right.

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So that project was closing.

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It was a 15, 20 year project and they were about done.

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They destroyed all the weapons here in central Kentucky, but my wife and I wanted to stay.

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That's when I went to work for Gray Ray Solutions, worked there for a little while and then decided that it was time for me to move out on my own, went back to some of the same investors we had used when I started up the first time.

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They had been a little more successful, pockets were a little deeper and we've got MOT rolling.

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So yeah, I guess that's the highlights, the quick version of how I got where I am.

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Yeah, very cool.

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I love the fact that A you went out on your own and then you know, situations change, companies don't always make it.

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Even if they make it, sometimes they continue.

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Or you know, circumstances change or people's uh priorities change.

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We just saw a post this morning from one of our ot skater con attendees.

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He, you know, had bought a kit and all these things and and then he just said, hey, I need to sell this kit, I'm selling my house.

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Change of priorities.

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So I don't know what the situation in there is, but life is complicated and you never know what business life right.

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And I love hearing the fact that you kind of did that.

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You went and worked for Gray and then now you're doing it again and some of those same relationships they carry right.

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I think if you carry yourself with integrity, success doesn't necessarily mean, oh, you succeeded at that one thing and became a millionaire or whatever.

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That goal is that people see as success being able to go back to the same group of people and work with them again.

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To me personally, that's a huge sign of success.

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Whatever?

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other things people want to measure the contacts I've made over the years, and we talked about Mike, we talked about Sam, but you know I've made a lot of good, not just friends but professional contacts just to great solutions.

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There's some great engineers that are great people to work with there, but this investment team that I'm working with here I've known one of these guys, for I met him in my first job out of college and so it's it's been 30 years In fact.

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His daughter, who I've known him longer than his daughter has known him, works for us now.

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So you know, it's, it's kind of cool how that kind of stuff all goes.

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Like I remember when she was born and now she's leading my marketing department.

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So it's kind of cool, that kind of stuff's cool.

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That's really cool.

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We actually met also Sarah Larson.

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She works at Rockwell, but we met her last year when she was at Eplan.

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She's an engineer that grew up to be a marketer, if I can put it that way, but she also one of the marketing folks over at Gray.

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She remembers from when you know she was a little girl and it's a small world and in a way, right within automation in particular and the systems integrators community, if I can call it that right, we now have, like you have, industry associations, um, and you mentioned a little bit before the recording started that you know, one of the things that you've seen change maybe in the last five to ten years is sort of that networking within the integrator community.

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Yeah, um, you want to tell us a little bit more about that.

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I think that's forced it's forced I think that's forced by the boomers retire.

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We have no choice.

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The boomers are gone do you think it's by choice, or by force, or what?

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What's your take on it, alex?

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I think that it's.

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I think it's a little both, and I'm not hedging that answer because I think the technology expands so fast.

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There's so much new stuff out there.

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You can't keep up, so you have to.

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You're forced to talk to others and lean on others, because you know, what I might be good at isn't necessarily what somebody else is good at obviously right.

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And so we have to talk to each other and I think the need for automation is so great that it cuts down that competitive wall Like nobody's losing.

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Yeah, we might bid against each other on certain projects, but you know and we talked about this with the conversation with Walker a little bit Tomorrow we could be bidding together on something Right.

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We could go into a project.

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When I was at Dramatic, we bid a project with the US government that they wanted to award.

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It was two sites and basically they needed one company's conveyor experience and our ASRS experience.

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So they had.

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We took the lead on one project and subbed the conveyor to the other company, and then on the other project they took the lead and subbed the ASRS to us.

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And that was 20 years ago.

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But that was so unheard of and it was so difficult because we were competitors.

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We only thought of the other team as a competitor.

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And now that's all gone away, or a lot of it's gone away.

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You still run into it, but I think the fact that there's so much work out there, even in a slow time, like some might say right now, is that it eliminates that real, real, hard-fought bitterness that I think we used to see.

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So I think it's forced because you have to.

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there's so much to learn and so much to know that it's really hard to to know it all and To be the best at every single thing.

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Yeah, you, you can't, you can't cyber security versus.

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And then you get into some um different communication protocols or you get into, yeah, some instrumentation that there's one person that's the expert on it and you kind of got to work with that guy you don't have to, but working with him is going to be the most profitable way forward.

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Like you can go ahead and like struggle it on your own, but you're not going to make the money that you could right, you just just hand it to him, have it done, give up a little bit of the short-term profit or a little bit of the, but you're out of there faster and you're on to the next thing faster.

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Customers, happier things like that yeah, and you're moving more projects through.

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You're you're getting more goals hit with the customer, which probably means more jobs with that customer on both sides of the aisle, right, depending on it just looks better, yeah.

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So, allie, you've been doing a little bit of Happy customers.

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You've had a couple of like full.

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No, I've been doing it entirely Like my company.

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I wouldn't say I would say my company does more than half of the work outsourced.

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We can't do it.

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We have a lot of it, but I can't afford.

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We can't do it.

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Uh, we have a lot of it, uh, but I can't afford.

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Um, I can't afford 20 people on a W2 because of the payroll, taxes and the everything else I need.

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So do I need 20 people to do what I'm doing right now?

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Yes, I do.

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My company does need 20 different people to be doing, cause we have a lot of projects and, uh, it's government work, a state government work, um, and yeah, so, as much as I want, people come to me and they're like you know, you're, you could be making more money, and I'm like I know, I know, but like I also like it's not as simple as that, and so we were trying to do a game plan so that over time, you know when it makes sense, we can start adding those other people.

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But I only have two employees.

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I'm an employee of PCE and I have two other employees that are engineers and that's it All of my finance stuff, accounting, hr, even the subject matter experts that are helping my engineers are outsourced, so, and then there's other engineers that are outsourced.

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Sometimes I'll just give another company an entire work order and just say go ahead and work this um, and then we just make some money on it, but they need to close it out, um, and so I like that more because that's faster.

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But at the same time, I want to develop my people, so I do a little bit of halfsies, where I'll pay someone to mentor them on their work, so like they'll do the bulk of the work, but I'll give some subject matter expert some bulk of hours to make sure that what they produce doesn't suck not that they suck or anything, but uh, it's just yeah, uh.

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So you can't be good.

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Sometimes, um, I can afford to have help.

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Yeah, sometimes I can afford someone to help me, and sometimes I just have I'll help them myself.

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But if I want to, you know I want to not do engineering as much as I need to be doing, and so in order to do that, yeah, I need to have like help from everywhere and like I don't have super experienced engineers, but I have really good help to build them up over time and then eventually add like those key players that I need because I can't afford the cream of the crop, right?

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Uh, controls, people are not cheap.

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Uh, good ones, good ones aren't, um, and then, yeah, you're gonna have to spend money to get them to be better over time.

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Um, so that's kind of yeah, I've been, I've been struggling there, but yeah, I've been using the, the.

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Since conception of pce, we have been been almost entirely subbing it out.

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Yes, contract work has been a massive part of us getting anything done for the last two years and probably for the next couple of years it's going to be the same until we're all internal, which I don't foresee that for a while, more than five years before, all of the people that work for PCE actually work for PCE and not contractors.

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So, alex, having done this a couple times now, is the work that you're doing now similar to your past company or is it like completely different?

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What are you guys focusing on now?

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What's Mast Owl?

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If I were to ask kind of like, what's your calling card for?

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Well, that's a great question.

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So, to tack on a little bit of what Allie was saying, I mean that was one of the challenges with the first time we did this was we couldn't afford to hire what we needed.

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The industry wasn't, as I mean, the tools didn't exist to share information as well.

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The internet was there, but it wasn't what it is, you know, 15 years later, like SharePoint, yeah, or LinkedIn or you know just any way to reach out for help, and so being able to build out a team was one challenge.

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Now, so, to answer that question, what I tried to do the first time around and what I'm really trying to do here, is lean into the fact that we're good at automation now and a lot of systems integrators we want to talk about.

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We do distillery, we do pet food, we do material handling, we do cosmetics, whatever.

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What industry, what vertical?

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Like my marketing team, it took a lot for me to finally get to understand.

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I don't want to talk about verticals, because what we do is write code, design panels, build panels, install panels, commission code.

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That's what we do.

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The model for this started way back when I was in Tennessee.

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One of the first jobs they gave me was to take this.

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It was a front bumper for a Chevy van that they've been making forever.

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It's just this gray, simple utilitarian van, utilitarian fascia, not the bumper, the fascia and this guy had been hand painting it for 20 years and they wanted to put a robot in the painting.

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I said okay.

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So I went and grabbed him.

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I said, hey, you got to show me, you got to help me.

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He's like I don't know anything about painting.

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Let's work together and figure this out.

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And we did.

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We got through it very quickly.

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We got a good program and now that guy's still at a job.

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We didn't eliminate his job, he just had to push a button now and said stand all day, breathe and paint.

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So that model is what I try to do.

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Going forward, we've built out a team we call it our solution success team, and their job is so go interview them and understand how they do, what they do, translate that into words that my poor engineers can understand, and then we'll go design a panel, whatever we got to do to to emulate that process.

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Um, that's, that's why that question is it makes me laugh a little bit because it's such a long answer to a verse it's not food and beverage like.

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It's not the two-word answer that most people expect when they ask me that question, but we're programmed.

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It's what we are, it's what we do, it's where our we're.

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We most of us have spent a lot of time in plants.

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We know how to walk through a plant, we know how to identify where we can help with the process, but what we don't know is how the specifics of their process, the details of their process.

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So we built a team to help us and we've seen every factory.

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We go to the same hardware.

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Yeah yeah we see the same controllers, the same crap inside of it.

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We're like that's why, that's why verticals don't make sense, and like I've never liked that question, cause they're like what's your niche, though?

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Like what are you good at?

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And I'm like, uh, plcs.

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And they're like no, but like what industry?

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And I'm like I don't know, like six different industries, it doesn't matter, they're exactly the same.

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Like the way that I do the work, that I do like take, take a IO list and turn it into a control panel and turn it into commissioning.

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That doesn't change from industry to industry at all, and so it's just like a lot of plug and play.

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So it's like why are you making me tell you what my niche is?

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It's an old school way of thinking, I think.

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And I think that there's yeah, at least for our industry, just because of the nature of so much overlap, because every industry didn't doesn't have its own Alan Bradley.

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Alan Bradley, is it for all the industries?

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Um, yeah, or maybe in some cases they use a little more or little less of something, but like across the board, they don't care where the power supply comes from.

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There isn't a power supply for food and bed.

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That's different from a 24 volt DC power supply for any other possible.

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It's all the same crap.

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So when I started seeing it I was like, oh my god, I will food and bed.

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That's different from a 24 volt DC power supply for any other possible.

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It's all the same crap.

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So when I started seeing it, I was like, oh my God, I will have a job forever.

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Once I started seeing the same things in the panels in different places, I was like, oh my God, I'm so good, like cause, I could just see things that I was like, okay, I know, I've seen this stuff before.

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I know what that is, I know what the terminal blocks are, I know what relays are, I know what contactors are, um, and all that crap is used all across the board.

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The only time that that's not true is like uh, intrinsically safe or explosion proof shit.

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Or like burner controls.

00:17:59.170 --> 00:18:13.624
Like yeah, there's some places where you you don't use a, a, a safety burner controller, in outside of, if you don't use a, a safety burner controller in outside of, if you don't have a burner, so you may have never seen that and so maybe you've never seen that type of controller before outside of that.

00:18:13.663 --> 00:18:18.233
Like they're just hooking up plcs and io it's the same, io it's the same.

00:18:18.233 --> 00:18:22.494
Controllers all across everything like yeah, even, yeah everything.

00:18:22.494 --> 00:18:27.209
Everything in the panel and even in the field, the sensors themselves are the same and the motors.

00:18:27.209 --> 00:18:39.703
All of that crap is just spray it all across every single manufacturer and not just manufacturing uh, infrastructure utilities and municipal everything, all of that uses all the same crap.

00:18:39.723 --> 00:18:43.028
So we have jobs forever, which is a faller well, it's, it's.

00:18:43.148 --> 00:18:44.411
I use this a lot.

00:18:44.411 --> 00:18:49.627
My valve doesn't know what's going through it like in general.

00:18:49.627 --> 00:18:52.338
As a general statement, I'm opening, closing a valve.

00:18:52.338 --> 00:18:55.669
I don't know if it's dog food, coffee, fluid water.

00:18:55.669 --> 00:19:05.352
I don't know, I don't, I don't, I don't know dust, right, do you just tell me when you want that valve open, when you ask this question a lot too what's it doing that when we're troubleshooting, what's it doing that it's not supposed to?

00:19:05.352 --> 00:19:07.060
What's it not doing that it's supposed to?

00:19:07.060 --> 00:19:08.266
That's really what you have to answer.

00:19:08.266 --> 00:19:08.847
I don't, I don't.

00:19:08.847 --> 00:19:12.221
You know well, the, the xyz isn't getting where I.

00:19:12.221 --> 00:19:13.605
What's it doing that's not supposed to?

00:19:13.605 --> 00:19:17.021
What's it doing and it's not supposed like we can fix it?

00:19:17.021 --> 00:19:18.804
It's the same question every time.

00:19:19.605 --> 00:19:22.929
And I'm not to say that every process is the same, not to say.

00:19:22.929 --> 00:19:28.036
But when you break it down to the finite elements that you have to to get into automation, you get right down to it.

00:19:28.036 --> 00:19:30.545
I used to say this a lot to the poor process.

00:19:30.545 --> 00:19:32.269
Engineers at Gray Solutions didn't like this.

00:19:32.269 --> 00:19:35.743
But I can't program TBD Like when we're writing code.

00:19:35.743 --> 00:19:38.211
There has to be an answer to every question.

00:19:38.211 --> 00:19:40.586
Well, I don't know what that timer needs to be.

00:19:40.586 --> 00:19:41.269
Well, me neither.

00:19:41.269 --> 00:19:42.861
So you're the process guy.

00:19:42.861 --> 00:19:43.882
Tell me, give me a number.

00:19:43.882 --> 00:19:45.523
You can fix it in the field.

00:19:45.523 --> 00:19:47.105
But I can't leave it blank now.

00:19:47.787 --> 00:19:48.386
Pick something.

00:19:48.406 --> 00:19:51.730
Pick something, or I'll put 10 million in there because I don't know.

00:19:51.730 --> 00:19:56.776
And when you get down to that level of finding it's 10 seconds right.

00:19:56.817 --> 00:20:16.150
Right, when you get to that level of finding detail, or 10 hours, 10 million, but yeah, when you get to that level of financial detail a lot of the big picture stuff goes away, like a lot of the big picture stuff, which is what 90 of the plant is worried about, 95 the automation engineers.

00:20:16.150 --> 00:20:17.434
We're down in that level going.

00:20:17.434 --> 00:20:20.490
Look, I just I need to know when and how to open and close this valve.

00:20:20.490 --> 00:20:21.396
That's what I need you know.

00:20:21.396 --> 00:20:27.551
I know you need to know when this photo I turns on what you want me to do with it, when you break it down.

00:20:27.551 --> 00:20:31.510
That simple it does mean you can fit into almost any industry.

00:20:31.510 --> 00:20:34.864
You just really have to know how to do the interview and get the information out of the process.

00:20:34.964 --> 00:20:37.906
Experts, like you're saying there's a job.

00:20:37.906 --> 00:20:43.728
My team, half the team that works at MassHouse Technology, did not come from industrial automation.

00:20:43.728 --> 00:20:47.451
I half the team that works at Mass Outlook Technology did not come from industrial automation.

00:20:47.451 --> 00:20:51.625
I did that on purpose and when I tell them it's on track to become a $400 billion industry, they're like that's huge.

00:20:51.625 --> 00:20:54.204
I'm like right, I just want one, four hundredth of it and we're good.

00:20:54.204 --> 00:20:55.809
And that's what I mean.

00:20:55.809 --> 00:20:56.731
There's so much work.

00:20:56.731 --> 00:21:00.265
It's like throw a dart, go 10 miles around and you can find plenty of work.

00:21:05.019 --> 00:21:07.047
To your point it's just everywhere and it's just going to get bigger.

00:21:07.047 --> 00:21:17.784
Yeah, it continues to surprise me when people kind of carry that scarcity mindset in the in the industry that there isn't enough work and of course it is cyclical and there are, you know, invest there's more investments in some cycles than others.

00:21:17.784 --> 00:21:33.263
But I don't know what sets apart those that just see all the work all around them and are willing to go after it versus those that think, oh, you know, if I don't get this contract there's not going to be another job, or if you get this contract I'm not going to get a job.

00:21:33.263 --> 00:21:34.287
You know that sort of thing.

00:21:35.190 --> 00:21:35.451
Well.

00:21:35.451 --> 00:21:43.602
So I struggle with a behavior in the in the business development side of what I call order takers.

00:21:43.602 --> 00:21:43.821
If and it.

00:21:43.821 --> 00:21:46.982
If you're in the business development side of what I call order takers and it starts with marketing.

00:21:46.982 --> 00:21:48.243
But the second phase is business development.

00:21:48.243 --> 00:21:59.750
If your B&E team just wants to sit around and answer the phone and take orders, then they're going to feel there's a scarcity Because 90% of the people that really need automation help are so busy they don't have time to sit at the desk and start calling.

00:21:59.750 --> 00:22:07.213
So if you're and I'm not saying everybody that's seeing a downturn in the market or saying that there's a downturn in the market is this way.

00:22:07.213 --> 00:22:21.288
But if you want your phone to ring and you're just going to sit here and answer the phone and then think you've got work, yeah, your phone might stop ringing, but if you're out, there looking for work.

00:22:21.308 --> 00:22:21.931
You're out there.

00:22:21.951 --> 00:22:26.228
The first person I heard Asking everybody yeah, and the first person I heard at mass teletechnology was marketing.

00:22:26.228 --> 00:22:27.673
The second person I heard was bd, for for a handful reason.

00:22:27.673 --> 00:22:29.761
One, I'm the engineer, so I was comfortable doing engineering.

00:22:29.761 --> 00:22:33.028
But and I'm not a salesperson, I'm not marketing.

00:22:33.028 --> 00:22:36.046
But also because the first thing I do is go find the work.

00:22:36.046 --> 00:22:40.624
Because you're not looking to find it, then you're right, you won't see it in that 10 mile radius.

00:22:40.624 --> 00:22:46.541
You won't see that there's a, there's a manufacturer right there, on point Adam, that I'm sure has automation in their house.

00:22:46.541 --> 00:22:54.630
Now we haven't even gone and knocked on their door yet because we're targeting other areas, but it doesn't mean you can't and it doesn't mean it's not there.

00:22:54.630 --> 00:23:01.141
So that's, that was, that's my opinion, and why I think people view the market different is they're not willing to find it.

00:23:01.501 --> 00:23:05.631
It's there, it's out there yeah, but you bring up a good point, though.

00:23:05.631 --> 00:23:11.441
You do have to have a sales and marketing function if you don't want to be just at the mercy of whatever projects are brought to you.

00:23:11.441 --> 00:23:28.301
And I think some people, if they start their business based on existing demand from past customers or connections, they don't have that muscle to go out there and market themselves or to sell, and then it can be tricky if you don't think that your company needs that as an investment.

00:23:28.301 --> 00:23:36.930
I have seen or feel like in the industry, some companies they don't really see marketing as the function that it should be.

00:23:36.930 --> 00:23:51.189
They often have a head of sales and marketing and they really overload that person with way too much, or those couple people they expect them to go to, like you know tons of trade shows every year and also be able to effectively you know, market themselves.

00:23:51.189 --> 00:23:58.026
And I mean trade shows are great and it's part of you know both the marketing and the networking side.

00:23:58.066 --> 00:24:10.490
I think even today, even more so than just marketing yourself, it's all about kind of strengthening those industry connections, both from marketing yourself as an employer, right, marketing yourself as a potential partner to other companies.

00:24:10.490 --> 00:24:20.615
But I love to see that one sales and marketing person at a company that I know should have the budget to pay for actually to actually be marketing themselves, not just you know?

00:24:20.615 --> 00:24:24.265
Oh, here's our latest white paper, or data sheet.

00:24:24.265 --> 00:24:27.309
Um, so is that something?

00:24:27.309 --> 00:24:33.321
Have you always had that mindset, or is that something that changed with your second time around, that you thought that that was important to do early on?

00:24:34.526 --> 00:24:37.602
so one of my best friends growing up.

00:24:37.602 --> 00:24:39.385
He went into industrial automation.

00:24:39.385 --> 00:24:43.664
He went out on his own and he was a one-man show and he didn't.

00:24:43.664 --> 00:24:47.553
He wasn't doing what you were doing, ali, with subbing out work because this was back.

00:24:47.553 --> 00:24:51.455
But when it was a little harder to do that again competition I was in junk about.

00:24:51.717 --> 00:24:54.104
But he came to me one time he said here's the biggest problem I have, alex.

00:24:54.104 --> 00:25:00.547
I'll do a project, I'll be on the site for three months and then that's done, and next thing now I gotta put on my marketing sales hat and go find more work.

00:25:00.547 --> 00:25:02.560
So that started the spark of.

00:25:02.560 --> 00:25:11.307
I'm like, oh, if to really do this at scale, you've got to have focused marketing and bd people so the engineers can go out and do the work.

00:25:11.307 --> 00:25:27.172
And then and you don't have that lull when we were, when we did it the first time around, um, a good friend of mine, there were three of us and I was the engineering arm and so the guy was doing the marketing and sales arm and he admits freely, he wasn't very good at.

00:25:28.762 --> 00:25:39.461
Unfortunately, we realized this and hired a very good salesperson as we ran out of money and we just started getting some traction.

00:25:39.461 --> 00:25:40.542
In fact I remember the call.

00:25:40.542 --> 00:25:45.989
We had an opportunity to do this one project, but we were so upside down.

00:25:45.989 --> 00:25:57.705
Our concern was, if we took the down payment from that guy, we were going to use it to finish other projects and we would be what I would consider being very close to fraud.

00:25:57.705 --> 00:26:11.144
We were getting very close to taking people's month down payment to work on other projects, knowing we couldn't finish the original project right I've had that happen to me on a contractor, uh, business like residentially uh, and it is, yeah, a good call I guess.

00:26:11.486 --> 00:26:12.406
And we couldn't do that.

00:26:12.406 --> 00:26:13.607
Yeah, I said we couldn't do that.

00:26:13.607 --> 00:26:15.430
Yeah, I said we can't do that, we can't.

00:26:15.430 --> 00:26:19.434
And but what we realized there was the strength of a good sales team.

00:26:19.434 --> 00:26:20.635
What a good.

00:26:20.635 --> 00:26:25.523
So that's why we've done what we did, and that was that.

00:26:25.523 --> 00:26:30.153
That partner of mine then is one of the major investors now and that's what I told him.

00:26:30.153 --> 00:26:39.269
I said look, finances, we got to go at this different and we've got our largest budget right now because of the size of us is our marketing budget.

00:26:39.269 --> 00:26:41.236
Um, we're targeting a lot of shows.

00:26:41.236 --> 00:26:42.380
We go to a lot of shows.

00:26:42.380 --> 00:26:46.170
We we have two booths that we fly around and put a different shows around the country.

00:26:46.170 --> 00:26:48.203
Like we are heavily invested in marketing.

00:26:48.203 --> 00:26:51.231
Part of us get our name out, like people need to recognize our name.

00:26:51.231 --> 00:26:53.125
I tell marketing soften the ground.

00:26:53.125 --> 00:26:59.150
When our BD team starts calling, I want people to say, oh, we've heard you, we've seen that name before.

00:26:59.279 --> 00:27:02.608
It can make a huge difference and that does take a little bit of time.

00:27:02.608 --> 00:27:05.022
So you can't expect that, you know, your first time around.

00:27:05.022 --> 00:27:08.080
People immediately are going to you know, send you a PO, right.

00:27:08.080 --> 00:27:32.961
But all of that work it builds up to A both people thinking of you next time they have a project because they remember you, and or when you do call right because you want to be pushing, you want to be, you know, in front of people's uh, have some mind share right when these projects come along, then having that name recognition uh can be really, really helpful and I think that's something that ali's done a really good job of.

00:27:33.582 --> 00:27:40.861
Um, way more people have heard of PCE, or Process and Controls Engineering, or herself than I would say.

00:27:40.861 --> 00:27:47.583
You know most companies her size, especially because she's not you know the industry that she's in.

00:27:47.583 --> 00:27:55.683
That sort of thing like that could be completely quiet, like and that's a tricky thing that we have in our industry as well right, not being able to talk about our customers.

00:27:55.683 --> 00:27:58.430
We have ndas with a lot of projects that we work on.

00:27:58.430 --> 00:28:11.913
So even if you have all those wonderful case studies in your, you know, in your toolbox, a lot of times they don't pack as much of a punch when you have to redact half the information right we have that.

00:28:11.952 --> 00:28:17.112
We have a customer that we're talking to right now and he wants references and I'm like, well, I'll see what I can do.

00:28:17.112 --> 00:28:20.420
But you know, part of it is there's some NDA there.

00:28:20.420 --> 00:28:27.753
Or you know, one of the other challenges big picture with engineering is, once you solve the problem, it doesn't seem like it was that big of a problem.

00:28:27.753 --> 00:28:35.395
So you have this wonderful case study that the person came to you with a problem and you're like, oh man, think about all the work we did to solve that problem.

00:28:35.395 --> 00:28:38.557
Then, when you'd explain the solution, I'm like, oh, that seems like it was pretty easy.

00:28:39.238 --> 00:28:41.637
And so again back to losing that punch.

00:28:41.637 --> 00:28:45.265
Not having that punch oh no, this was a phenomenal thing my team did.

00:28:45.265 --> 00:28:49.875
But it, once it solves, it seems easier.

00:28:49.875 --> 00:28:56.211
Right when, when you're building the hoover dam, there's this huge thing at the end that everybody looks at and goes look at how much it worked that way.

00:28:56.211 --> 00:29:07.316
When you're writing code, you don't really get into the details of that microsecond decision that has to be made consistently every time in order for this facility to run right.

00:29:07.316 --> 00:29:13.911
Yeah, it just lacks the punch sometimes, but that's part of the job.

00:29:14.839 --> 00:29:17.566
Yeah, I mean that's kind of like the the hell the sausage is made.

00:29:17.566 --> 00:29:20.618
I found that I found this out the hard way, with podcasting too.

00:29:20.618 --> 00:29:21.781
I thought this would be easy.

00:29:22.383 --> 00:29:27.982
Uh, it's definitely not and there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that I never knew about.

00:29:27.982 --> 00:29:32.218
And now when we talk to people about you know, they want us to come out.

00:29:32.218 --> 00:29:34.928
They're like, hey, can you come do something with us?

00:29:34.928 --> 00:29:37.497
And we're like, yes, okay, here's everything that's going to be involved.

00:29:37.497 --> 00:29:43.191
People are surprised because they say, oh well, you make it look easy or it just, isn't it simple.

00:29:43.191 --> 00:30:02.377
You just show up and you record something and it's like, no, all the work that went into that behind the scenes, you, you don't really know because it you know you're not talking about that in the, in the final content, but that's what enables it to get done it's anybody that starts their own, anything, podcast, business, anything.

00:30:02.417 --> 00:30:08.643
Again, having gone through it, I've been through a handful of startups outside of the two that I was directly primary on.

00:30:08.643 --> 00:30:13.490
There's a lot, yeah, and there's just a lot I know, know that.

00:30:13.550 --> 00:30:18.970
But like so I've worked, for I started out working for my dad in his small business.

00:30:18.970 --> 00:30:35.127
So I saw that from like the inside and from the family of the founder side and I really am surprised I didn't turn myself off from the whole entrepreneurship thing altogether, because I know it's not easy and sometimes it's not successful.

00:30:35.127 --> 00:30:38.707
Sometimes you don't end up walking away with some sort of big success, right?

00:30:38.707 --> 00:30:48.468
Sometimes your success is being able to get out from under it intact or, you know, not to mention the impacts it can have on your family, on your health.

00:30:48.468 --> 00:31:01.605
But I also I guess I have that trait that makes me also perpetually be able to be optimistic about being able to be optimistic about being able to do things, because I think also that if you can't do that, if you can't gloss over a little bit, that it's going to be really hard.

00:31:01.605 --> 00:31:04.240
You probably won't do a lot of those hard things.

00:31:05.363 --> 00:31:06.805
I think so.

00:31:06.805 --> 00:31:15.970
Recently I brought on a guy to lead our business development team and I made a point to him at one point when we were interviewing somebody.

00:31:15.970 --> 00:31:37.704
I said look, it's a different beast to interview somebody to come into a startup because it's startup and some people love it and some people hate it, some people don't have an opinion, but when you tell them it's hard, I think what goes through their head is oh well, I've done hard things before, but it's hard in a very different way Because to that it's the mental piece, it's the you had a bad day.

00:31:37.704 --> 00:31:46.445
That doesn't mean you're going to fail and being able to walk through that and get to the other side of it and not have it affect your outlook, not spiral.

00:31:46.586 --> 00:31:46.866
Yeah.

00:31:46.886 --> 00:31:50.240
Yeah Right, I'm going to say this.

00:31:50.240 --> 00:31:56.211
You know, my wife and I were married the first time I started business and she's the hardest part was closing it.

00:31:56.211 --> 00:31:59.315
It was, it was devastating to close that business.

00:31:59.315 --> 00:32:07.034
And when I came to her and said I was going to do it again, she was a hundred percent of all like there was no, there was no walking, there was no.

00:32:07.034 --> 00:32:07.717
Are you sure?

00:32:07.717 --> 00:32:09.701
It was like okay, whatever you're going to do, let's do this.

00:32:09.701 --> 00:32:14.509
And I think that's a huge piece that entrepreneurs specifically miss.

00:32:14.951 --> 00:32:16.874
Is you talk about family?

00:32:16.874 --> 00:32:22.826
It's hard on the family, it's a big deal to the family and you've got to have that support.

00:32:22.826 --> 00:32:26.327
You can't, like I can't walk out of this room frustrated and have everyone.

00:32:26.327 --> 00:32:28.051
I told you so I knew it was going to be hard.

00:32:28.051 --> 00:32:28.823
What do you like?

00:32:28.823 --> 00:32:30.269
That's just.

00:32:30.269 --> 00:32:32.319
That's what leads to real success.

00:32:32.319 --> 00:32:34.406
You talked about success is measured in a lot of different ways.

00:32:34.406 --> 00:32:35.992
That's what leads to real success.

00:32:35.992 --> 00:32:40.102
You talked about success is measured in a lot of different ways, but that part of it is I don't know.

00:32:40.102 --> 00:32:41.046
I don't know how anybody does it.

00:32:41.623 --> 00:32:42.619
That's mental torture.

00:32:42.619 --> 00:32:44.868
If your family's telling you that you yeah.

00:32:45.319 --> 00:32:46.665
I don't know how you do it Right.

00:32:46.665 --> 00:32:49.686
It's hard in ways you never thought it was going to be hard.

00:32:49.686 --> 00:32:50.809
I'll say that Like it's.

00:32:50.809 --> 00:33:00.218
Just when we closed that first one, I went and worked at this project here in Richmond, kentucky, destroying chemical weapons and I told everybody it was semi-retirement.

00:33:00.218 --> 00:33:08.330
It had some challenges, but I was not initially, even at the end.

00:33:08.330 --> 00:33:11.275
I wasn't primary on anything.

00:33:11.275 --> 00:33:12.905
I led a small team.

00:33:12.905 --> 00:33:22.633
I was responsible for some very, very life altering decisions, but compared to running a business, it wasn't hard and I spent.

00:33:22.633 --> 00:33:31.865
That was the longest job I've ever had, cause it took me that long to get my head back into jumping in and doing leadership again.

00:33:31.865 --> 00:33:34.851
Like it, it, it, it it was.

00:33:34.851 --> 00:33:41.305
It was pretty, pretty hard, but I'm back at it again, so whatever that means, about resilience.

00:33:42.165 --> 00:33:49.355
Have you, have you taken some steps, um, or is there anything that's different in your life now about, like you said, taking on a leadership position?

00:33:49.355 --> 00:34:05.771
Is there anything that you feel like you've learned as a leader that you could either give tips to other people or just from a perspective of like, do you do more leadership training or, you know, is there anything that, yeah, changes your perspective on being a leader now versus back then, the first time around?

00:34:06.642 --> 00:34:07.624
yeah, I mean.

00:34:07.624 --> 00:34:12.152
So, simon Sinek, he's got a lot of stuff on YouTube and he talks about finding your why.

00:34:12.152 --> 00:34:19.186
And honestly, when I, when I started MOT this buddy of mine that I've known forever, he asked me why.

00:34:19.186 --> 00:34:21.009
He's like, why, why are you doing?

00:34:21.009 --> 00:34:22.650
Because he knew I didn't want to.

00:34:22.650 --> 00:34:24.291
He knew for 15 years.

00:34:24.291 --> 00:34:25.253
I said I'm not doing that.

00:34:25.253 --> 00:34:27.376
I told Walker Walker asked me one time you want my job?

00:34:27.376 --> 00:34:27.876
I said no.

00:34:27.876 --> 00:34:33.382
So you know this guy's like why then, if you've saved her forever, you're never doing it again.

00:34:33.382 --> 00:34:34.403
Why are we talking about this?

00:34:35.065 --> 00:34:40.472
I think that's a big one, because there's a book out there called turn the ship around and it talks about middle management.

00:34:40.472 --> 00:34:52.485
I started reading it when I was a gray to help with some of the struggles I was having with my supervisor, and one of the things that calls out in there is as a leader, you're going to pour your heart and soul into people and they're going to hate you for it.

00:34:52.485 --> 00:34:54.869
And it goes back to that's the.

00:34:54.869 --> 00:34:56.271
You know.

00:34:56.271 --> 00:34:57.775
Still, find your why.

00:34:57.775 --> 00:35:13.059
And again, not to overquote, simon, but if you, if you're not doing it for the reward of whatever, if you do, if you know why you're doing it, just keep running into that, keep grabbing that.

00:35:13.119 --> 00:35:16.090
I'm not doing this because I want so-and-so to think I'm a great boss.

00:35:16.090 --> 00:35:18.088
I'm not doing this for the money.

00:35:18.088 --> 00:35:18.922
I'm not.

00:35:18.922 --> 00:35:24.400
Anybody that's come to me in the last five years and said they want it Cause we promoted a lot of people to managers when I was at Gray Solutions.

00:35:24.400 --> 00:35:28.050
We grew so fast I had to build managers and I always asked them why?

00:35:28.050 --> 00:35:29.822
And I always like why do you want to do this?

00:35:29.822 --> 00:35:31.965
Because if it's well, I think it's just next to my career.

00:35:31.965 --> 00:35:33.730
That's not going to get you through.

00:35:33.730 --> 00:35:34.931
If it's well, I want more money.

00:35:34.931 --> 00:35:36.594
That's not going to get you through.

00:35:36.594 --> 00:35:49.541
And so that would be my first and kind of core piece of advice is know why you're doing it and keep leaning into that, and if you're doing it for the wrong reasons, it's just not going to happen Like you're not going to be.

00:35:49.541 --> 00:35:52.121
It's not going to be what you want.

00:35:52.181 --> 00:36:05.911
Yeah it's something that, as I've matured in my career and gotten to know more about myself, I've started to you can be more clear on your why and really realistic about whether something really fits your why or not.

00:36:05.911 --> 00:36:11.715
I think early on in your career, like you said, you're kind of conditioned to just that's the next step, that's the next thing I should be doing.

00:36:11.715 --> 00:36:12.916
That's what you know.

00:36:12.916 --> 00:36:19.563
Everybody and my parents and you know think that I should do next, like for me it was people management.

00:36:19.563 --> 00:36:24.527
I've had so many people tell me over there oh, you'd make so much more money if you're a manager, like, why aren't you managing people yet?

00:36:24.527 --> 00:36:30.248
You know, it's like I'm in my late 30s now and I've held those positions and I just didn't feel like I was.

00:36:30.248 --> 00:36:32.012
It wasn't what I wanted at the time.

00:36:32.012 --> 00:36:33.295
I wasn't ready, I was still.

00:36:33.295 --> 00:36:34.356
I felt this.

00:36:34.356 --> 00:36:40.911
I feel this pull to be an individual contributor, like I just want to do my thing and like add my value.

00:36:42.380 --> 00:36:44.148
But that's because we're not bossy people.

00:36:44.148 --> 00:36:48.110
We don't want to tell everybody what to do, we just want them to do it.

00:36:49.041 --> 00:36:50.565
Right, well, there's that, that's.

00:36:50.565 --> 00:36:51.588
I tell people this too.

00:36:51.588 --> 00:36:56.429
The biggest transition from moving from programming to human beings is when I find a bug in software.

00:36:56.429 --> 00:36:59.583
It's done Fixed 85% of the time.

00:36:59.583 --> 00:37:00.728
Once I find the bug, I can fix it.

00:37:00.728 --> 00:37:06.489
Sometimes it takes a little bit of tweaking to make sure, but with human beings, once you figure out the problem, you just get started.

00:37:06.489 --> 00:37:10.391
Now it's constant coaching and reinforcement and adjustment.

00:37:10.391 --> 00:37:16.907
I told you not to do that anymore, but it's a different challenge.

00:37:17.119 --> 00:37:21.606
It's not like giving the machine instructions and then the machine changes on your instruction.

00:37:21.606 --> 00:37:24.827
There's a new support group for us.

00:37:26.300 --> 00:37:27.967
There was something else that came up in that conversation.

00:37:28.360 --> 00:37:29.766
I would join a support group with you.

00:37:30.239 --> 00:37:31.322
Leadership support groups.

00:37:31.322 --> 00:37:37.141
Yeah Well, one of the things again, Walker did a lot of good things, great solutions.

00:37:37.141 --> 00:37:41.304
I know we talked a little bit about this but and I've, I've kind of we started this there.

00:37:41.304 --> 00:37:54.572
I don't know where they've gone with it, but I've done it in MOT, a version of it, and it's that there is a development path after a certain point that leads into people management or IC, individual contributor, and the salary ranges are equivalent.

00:37:56.480 --> 00:38:06.606
Because what I really want people to realize is there's value in being an individual contributor, there's value in moving up and becoming an SME and being an expert in your field and bringing that to the company.

00:38:06.606 --> 00:38:11.385
And I want to reduce that stigma of, well, that must be the next step.

00:38:11.385 --> 00:38:17.851
Right, you don't have to manage people if it's not where you're drawn to, if that's not your, why, if that doesn't fulfill you're not how?

00:38:17.851 --> 00:38:22.329
It's not beneficial for the company for people to be in a position that don't like it.

00:38:22.329 --> 00:38:27.123
So, um, I want to give credit where credit is due is a conversation I had with walker.

00:38:27.123 --> 00:38:28.909
I know he started down that path.

00:38:28.909 --> 00:38:34.487
I don't know where that ended at gray solutions, because I left before that happened, but I took a version of that and built it out at MOT.

00:38:34.789 --> 00:38:37.554
And you know, again people came to me and were like why are we doing it?

00:38:37.554 --> 00:38:38.295
We're four people.

00:38:38.295 --> 00:38:39.525
Why are we worrying about this?

00:38:39.525 --> 00:38:41.867
And I said because it's going to be important.

00:38:41.867 --> 00:38:46.063
One of the people we interviewed said what's my progression, what's my path?

00:38:46.063 --> 00:38:46.706
Look like here.

00:38:46.706 --> 00:38:49.902
And we had it all built out and we were able to display it.

00:38:49.902 --> 00:38:54.025
So I think Nikki mentioned individual contribution.

00:38:54.025 --> 00:39:00.130
I think it's important that, especially when you're dealing with engineers like engineers don't want to think they have to manage people.

00:39:00.130 --> 00:39:05.413
Some of them aren't very good at managing people and it's okay to be an SME.

00:39:05.413 --> 00:39:07.914
Managing people is hard.

00:39:07.914 --> 00:39:08.795
It's a hard thing.

00:39:08.876 --> 00:39:11.077
I like people, but that's part of the problem.

00:39:11.297 --> 00:39:13.099
Yeah, and.

00:39:13.161 --> 00:39:14.405
I think that's interesting.

00:39:14.527 --> 00:39:16.777
Because I want people to like me.

00:39:16.777 --> 00:39:23.925
My wife corrects me me, but I say this a lot I don't like people and and I think I'm decent at managing people because again, they can hate me.

00:39:23.925 --> 00:39:25.849
I've said this, I've used this as motivation.

00:39:25.849 --> 00:39:27.822
I'm like you all have to get along with each other.

00:39:27.822 --> 00:39:36.983
You, if the only thing you bond on is that I'm a jerk, then bond on that, like if the only thing you guys have in common is that I'm a pain in the butt to work for the great.

00:39:36.983 --> 00:39:40.552
Have that in common, bond on it and get to be a team and go get the job done.

00:39:41.463 --> 00:39:48.507
But yeah, I don't worry too much about people liking me because that's my biggest problem is like I want them to and like I need to let that go completely.

00:39:49.409 --> 00:39:58.534
Um, yeah, I'm working on it yeah, it's harder yeah, and I would recommend that book turn the ship around.

00:39:58.534 --> 00:40:00.246
It gets a little flow in the back half.

00:40:00.246 --> 00:40:05.063
But he's right, you know your job is to care about everybody that works for you.

00:40:05.063 --> 00:40:06.186
I had a.

00:40:06.186 --> 00:40:09.780
I had a someone in a leadership role at a specific company one time.

00:40:09.780 --> 00:40:14.556
Say to me he said on a leadership meeting Paul, he goes, yeah, we have to act like we care about those people.

00:40:14.556 --> 00:40:15.943
And I was like no, no, no, no, we have to act like we care about those people.

00:40:15.943 --> 00:40:17.750
And I was like no, no, no, no, no, we have to care about these people.

00:40:17.750 --> 00:40:20.760
Like there's a difference between acting like we care about them and caring about them.

00:40:20.800 --> 00:40:22.106
They're going to know you don't actually?

00:40:22.106 --> 00:40:22.286
Yeah.

00:40:23.940 --> 00:40:25.327
And it led to some problems.

00:40:26.460 --> 00:40:29.550
So what is your why with MOT now?

00:40:31.519 --> 00:40:33.865
This sounds all fluffy, but I will answer it.

00:40:33.865 --> 00:40:45.204
So I think that there's a lot of really really smart good and by good I mean morally strong, morally correct people in the industrial automation space.

00:40:45.204 --> 00:40:47.253
I think there's some good salespeople.

00:40:47.253 --> 00:40:49.141
I think there's good operational people.

00:40:49.141 --> 00:40:55.340
I think there's good HR people and I want to build a place where they can come, do a very good job and be comfortable doing.

00:40:55.340 --> 00:40:59.304
That's why I'm doing this and follow their values.

00:40:59.463 --> 00:41:09.871
Yeah, we have a set of what I call foundational tenants at MassTowel and every time I send out any type of direction, it starts with you will follow the tenants first.

00:41:09.871 --> 00:41:17.817
Anything else that we do from there is based I say this two in the morning you're trying to get a machine running.

00:41:17.817 --> 00:41:19.858
If you follow the tenants, you don't get fired.

00:41:19.858 --> 00:41:28.793
We may talk about a better way to do it tomorrow, but if you have to make a decision in the middle of the night and you can't get advice, follow the tenants, you'll be fine.

00:41:28.793 --> 00:41:41.617
They will put you in a position and I was tired of seeing stuff in the industry where it was work 100 hours.

00:41:41.617 --> 00:41:46.690
Here's your $200 bonus and be glad you have a job.

00:41:47.112 --> 00:41:47.353
Yeah.

00:41:47.659 --> 00:41:50.268
I don't think that industrial automation needs to run that way.

00:41:52.141 --> 00:42:02.010
I could be wrong, but I'm probably not so if you're wrong, we're wrong, we'll all be wrong, but I'm probably not so if you're wrong, we're wrong, we'll all be wrong.

00:42:02.010 --> 00:42:03.195
Together we can uh, there you go in the wrong together club.

00:42:03.215 --> 00:42:05.061
I mean, we've heard this right take care of the people.

00:42:05.061 --> 00:42:06.224
They'll take care of the customers.

00:42:06.224 --> 00:42:09.842
That people, it's been said, it's it's people build companies on it.

00:42:09.842 --> 00:42:13.769
Heck, great construction, the original great company was built on that.

00:42:13.769 --> 00:42:21.010
Those that great families very much fans of, take care of people in their core values.

00:42:21.010 --> 00:42:24.061
They don't talk about profit, they talk about taking care of each other.

00:42:24.061 --> 00:42:28.349
And I said we can build that, we can do that.

00:42:28.349 --> 00:42:40.527
So that's why that's why I do, that's why I, every morning, no matter how frustrated in fact, 90 of the times I'm frustrated is because I'm like look, I'm trying to help you get past this Like you're looking at this problem right here.

00:42:40.527 --> 00:42:45.838
But if you look past it, you'll see that there's a future, there's a solution that's bigger.

00:42:46.360 --> 00:42:54.893
I think that's a hallmark of some good leadership, because, yeah, you know, people bring a lot of baggage with them if they've been around a while.

00:42:55.494 --> 00:42:55.655
Yep.

00:42:56.300 --> 00:43:01.172
Whether that's organizational culture they've gotten used to elsewhere or ways of working.

00:43:01.172 --> 00:43:05.110
I think also before we were all connected, like you were saying earlier on in the in.

00:43:05.110 --> 00:43:15.143
You know, there there just weren't all the tools to network with other integrators and find out who's good at what and, you know, reach out real quick to see who has availability and all those sorts of things.

00:43:15.143 --> 00:43:19.253
Like you would have had to kind of be local or part of some sort of chamber.

00:43:19.253 --> 00:43:25.646
You know network back then and now you can do that on LinkedIn or you can do that through CSIA or you can do that through.

00:43:25.646 --> 00:43:36.034
You know there's a number of different, whether it's industry associations or you know we've got SMEs that you know we can reach by Teams or Slack or WhatsApp or whatever.

00:43:36.034 --> 00:43:40.007
For us, otcatacon is one of those communities that has.

00:43:40.007 --> 00:43:45.884
You know we've been able to pull resources from and vice versa, and I had actually an outsider.

00:43:45.884 --> 00:43:53.315
But we were a little bit surprised that people not that we should have been, but that people that didn't know us at all bought tickets to this thing.

00:43:53.315 --> 00:44:04.992
But that people that didn't know us at all bought tickets to this thing, and one of them I had a meeting with him afterwards and he said, yeah, it was really good, but I kind of noticed that it seemed and he used this word incestuous.

00:44:04.992 --> 00:44:09.476
He's like like all the speakers, they all do business together all of the time already.

00:44:09.476 --> 00:44:23.213
And I was like, well, to a point, that is true, all the speakers were part of our network somehow, but most of them actually didn't know each other at all, except for, I'd say, like Josh and Caleb, a couple people had worked together in the past.

00:44:23.213 --> 00:44:34.000
But what did happen is we put them together in a group chat, like maybe three or four months before the event, and they did business together on their own ahead of time before ever meeting.

00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:40.932
They did business together on their own ahead of time before ever meeting, because one of those things again, it was an avenue where they got to introduce themselves to other systems integrators.

00:44:40.932 --> 00:44:41.914
They're still doing it.

00:44:41.914 --> 00:44:42.961
They're still.

00:44:42.961 --> 00:44:43.664
They're still doing it.

00:44:43.704 --> 00:44:45.289
Yeah, they found out who does what.

00:44:45.289 --> 00:44:51.329
And you know, hey, I have this project, I I can't take it or I don't want it or I don't have the expertise, do you?

00:44:51.329 --> 00:45:01.588
And we sort of sort of saw that unfold in in real time, um, and I, I think that that's, uh, really cool, but those have changed.

00:45:01.588 --> 00:45:08.351
So do you find that it's, you know, maybe mindsets that you're having to change from, just like the industry used to be?

00:45:08.351 --> 00:45:10.920
Or is that more yeah, now anything?

00:45:12.003 --> 00:45:13.106
we call it unlearning.

00:45:13.106 --> 00:45:15.532
We talk about about that specifically, the more experienced.

00:45:15.532 --> 00:45:19.630
Like we're interviewing a person right now and I talked to the hiring manager.

00:45:19.630 --> 00:45:24.802
I said, hey, the thing I'm worried about is this person walking in the door and thinking we're going to do things the way we've always done.

00:45:24.802 --> 00:45:28.472
And the thing is, you know, you talk to people, you interview them.

00:45:28.599 --> 00:45:39.210
Well, mike White is a great example and you know, I talked to him before I had him interview with the rest of the team to come on board and I said, mike, we're doing things a little bit differently here.

00:45:39.210 --> 00:45:40.592
We're structuring things a little bit.

00:45:40.592 --> 00:45:44.755
There's stuff that is traditionally in the automation engineer scope that we're moving into a different department.

00:45:44.755 --> 00:45:45.936
He said, great, I love it.

00:45:45.936 --> 00:45:51.409
I agree there's a problem there, but when you're in the meet, when you're there, it's still hard to remember.

00:45:51.409 --> 00:45:53.494
Oh, that's somebody else's job.

00:45:53.494 --> 00:45:55.137
I need to go talk to that person.

00:45:55.137 --> 00:46:01.233
I've got a bigger team, I've got to lean on and so, yeah, it's a constant.

00:46:01.233 --> 00:46:22.744
Again, the word term unlearning is what we use, but it's, and it doesn't matter if it's the automation engineer, the marketing team, the BD team, the HR team I'm talking to Sydney I'm like, hey, yeah, that's not how we're going to do this and she's like okay, okay, and she's open to learning, but it takes some conscious, focused.

00:46:23.686 --> 00:46:25.795
One of our foundational tenants be intentional.

00:46:25.795 --> 00:46:28.302
It takes being intentional about your decisions every day.

00:46:28.302 --> 00:46:29.204
What are you doing?

00:46:29.204 --> 00:46:30.248
Why are you doing it?

00:46:30.248 --> 00:46:34.389
And just because we've always done it that way isn't an answer.

00:46:34.389 --> 00:46:39.684
And uh, yeah, it's, it's a thing, it's, it's something we have to focus on every day.

00:46:39.684 --> 00:46:45.123
Um, but that's okay, like that, we're going to embrace that, we're going to accept it, we're going to do it.

00:46:45.123 --> 00:46:48.512
Um, we're not going to run away from it.

00:46:48.512 --> 00:46:53.161
We're going to say this is worth the ask, it's the juice is worth the squeezy, whatever you want to call it.

00:46:53.161 --> 00:46:55.889
It's worth working hard to do it this way.

00:46:55.889 --> 00:46:57.235
So that's what we're going to do.

00:46:57.255 --> 00:46:59.260
You mentioned the tenants and I really like this.

00:46:59.260 --> 00:47:05.373
We're kind of as we scale or as PCE scales, and I say we because I'm on the board.

00:47:05.373 --> 00:47:19.260
You got to get some process and you got to start to get that message, those core values, out to the employees right, or the contractors, basically anybody that comes in touch with the company to understand the why, to be able to steer the ship together in the same direction.

00:47:19.260 --> 00:47:21.204
You kind of got to understand that.

00:47:21.204 --> 00:47:27.322
Um, can you tell us what this, what your tenants are, and where did you come up with that idea is?

00:47:27.322 --> 00:47:32.583
Is it like a specific framework that you use, or operating system, or that one's a little.

00:47:33.403 --> 00:47:34.545
That's a little harder.

00:47:34.545 --> 00:47:39.141
The how or the where it came up, so I'll first I'll tell you what they are.

00:47:39.141 --> 00:47:40.326
They start with be safe.

00:47:40.326 --> 00:47:40.867
You know that's.

00:47:40.867 --> 00:47:43.021
Be safe is the one that everybody.

00:47:43.041 --> 00:47:49.981
Thank you like uh, I don't know why that's a surprise, but good job, thank you, that's oh and.

00:47:50.202 --> 00:47:53.628
But when we talk about is it's not just hey, hey, you got to wear your PPE.

00:47:53.628 --> 00:47:56.353
Yeah, it's emotional safety.

00:47:56.353 --> 00:48:01.893
One of the things we do as we do one-on-one check-ins with the team is when's your last vacation, when's your next vacation?

00:48:01.893 --> 00:48:05.592
Just simple things of because, again, I don't want you working.

00:48:05.592 --> 00:48:08.768
There is going to be days where I have to tell people they have to work an 80-hour week.

00:48:08.768 --> 00:48:09.630
It's going to happen.

00:48:09.630 --> 00:48:11.032
You go to a job site, you site.

00:48:11.032 --> 00:48:12.474
You're not going home that night anyway.

00:48:12.474 --> 00:48:14.134
You might as well work and get the project.

00:48:14.134 --> 00:48:14.574
I get it.

00:48:14.675 --> 00:48:19.217
Automation engineers work a lot of hours, but that doesn't mean that that's the expectation every day of your life.

00:48:19.217 --> 00:48:23.818
It might be the expectation periodically, but the flip side of that is true.

00:48:23.818 --> 00:48:30.784
I also embrace the idea that we're souring, which means you get paid for 40 hours, whether you work 40 hours, 30 hours or 50 hours.

00:48:30.784 --> 00:48:33.829
So I'm okay with people taking off.

00:48:33.829 --> 00:48:35.652
I'm way sidetracking.

00:48:35.652 --> 00:48:40.266
But part of this be safe is you're not allowed to take a half day vacation.

00:48:40.266 --> 00:48:44.846
If you need a half day, just don't come to work for that period, like you don't have to take vacation.

00:48:44.846 --> 00:48:46.751
When I first people, what do you mean?

00:48:46.751 --> 00:48:47.501
I can't take a half day.

00:48:47.501 --> 00:48:49.663
Don't take vacation your salary.

00:48:49.663 --> 00:48:51.744
If you need to take off at noon, take off at noon.

00:48:51.744 --> 00:48:53.246
I don't Did your work get done.

00:48:53.246 --> 00:48:57.188
Yes, I promise you there will come a day where you make up those hours.

00:48:57.188 --> 00:49:05.916
There will come a day in the automation industry where you have to work 44 hours in a week, like it's going to happen, so take off, I don't care.

00:49:07.760 --> 00:49:08.802
That's all part of being safe, make this even longer.

00:49:08.802 --> 00:49:22.952
That was one of the things about my first job that really turned me off was it didn't matter if I was there until midnight the night before and on the weekend, if I was one minute late on the Monday morning for that 7 30 start time.

00:49:22.952 --> 00:49:25.324
That's what came up on my performance review.

00:49:25.324 --> 00:49:28.170
Yeah, and it just well we don't have.

00:49:29.052 --> 00:49:34.132
We don't do performance reviews either, but we have ways of giving feedback.

00:49:34.132 --> 00:49:40.050
The challenge I have is because you probably got talked to about it that day and then it also came up on your performance review.

00:49:40.050 --> 00:49:41.943
I'm like, wait a minute, they only messed up once.

00:49:41.943 --> 00:49:42.905
Why are we talking about it twice?

00:49:42.905 --> 00:49:46.483
So we have some things in place to have that conversation now.

00:49:46.483 --> 00:49:48.889
If you do something good, I'm okay with talking about it.

00:49:48.889 --> 00:49:53.246
You did a good job, well done and then we'll bring it up in front of the company later and talk about the good job you did too.

00:49:53.246 --> 00:49:54.228
I'm okay with that.

00:49:54.228 --> 00:49:57.474
But we don't need to beat people up.

00:49:57.474 --> 00:50:00.166
But we'll come to that because that's part of a tenant.

00:50:00.266 --> 00:50:00.768
Yeah, okay.

00:50:00.820 --> 00:50:04.751
Okay, so be safe is more than physical safety, and it also is part of how we do design.

00:50:04.871 --> 00:50:05.032
Yeah.

00:50:05.461 --> 00:50:06.818
Our designs have to be safe.

00:50:06.818 --> 00:50:12.764
Again, it's a simple thing, but e-stop rules, intrinsic safety.

00:50:12.764 --> 00:50:15.947
These are things that have to be part of the design.

00:50:15.947 --> 00:50:16.447
They have to be.

00:50:16.447 --> 00:50:21.612
So let's be safe, Be respectful Again, it falls into safety.

00:50:21.612 --> 00:50:29.760
But it's be on time for meetings communicating if you're not going to be in meetings, you know what.

00:50:29.780 --> 00:50:32.282
Another thing that people really struggle with when we talk about unlearning Disagreement is respectful.

00:50:32.282 --> 00:50:37.608
If I trust you and I respect you, I can tell you when I think you're wrong and we're going to be fine.

00:50:37.608 --> 00:50:41.512
We respect each other enough to know that it's okay to disagree.

00:50:41.512 --> 00:50:43.434
There's depth to each of these.

00:50:43.434 --> 00:50:53.360
It expands, but that's be respectful and it's everything from no-transcript.

00:50:53.360 --> 00:51:08.240
We don't have a bereavement policy because if you tell me that your great, great grandmother passed away and you need to take time off, but I only say it's got to be immediate family, who am I to get into with that relationship?

00:51:08.240 --> 00:51:17.505
If I trust you to run a $10 million project, I can trust you to manage when you need to take bereavement, like these are all levels of respect.

00:51:17.505 --> 00:51:27.235
These are all things where, now again, if there's repeated problems, if it's, you've got 14,000 relatives that all pass away and you have to take a week off.

00:51:27.235 --> 00:51:34.416
Every time you gotta have a conversation, but that person's probably got problems in other areas of their performance.

00:51:34.416 --> 00:51:42.878
Like there's other things you have to do, and that's my problem with we're one of the things we're struggling as mass doll scales is.

00:51:44.201 --> 00:51:52.233
We want people are tending to want to write policies and procedures for the lowest common denominator and I'm like no, the lowest common denominator can't work here.

00:51:52.233 --> 00:51:57.393
Let's write a like just because a person is doing something, we talk to them with corrective behavior.

00:51:57.393 --> 00:51:59.619
If they continue to do it, they don't work here.

00:51:59.619 --> 00:52:04.096
We don't have to write a bereavement policy that says it's got to be X, y and Z person.

00:52:04.096 --> 00:52:07.143
Will that work when we're 5,000 people?

00:52:07.143 --> 00:52:07.931
I don't know.

00:52:07.931 --> 00:52:09.416
But that's where we're starting.

00:52:09.958 --> 00:52:12.588
So be respectful, be intentional.

00:52:12.588 --> 00:52:13.590
I mentioned that one.

00:52:13.590 --> 00:52:17.998
This was the one I was called the quiet tenant, because you can't be safe if you're not intentional.

00:52:17.998 --> 00:52:19.681
You can't be respectful if you're not intentional.

00:52:19.681 --> 00:52:25.731
If you walk into a meeting to provide correction and you aren't intentional about it, you're going to lose your time.

00:52:25.731 --> 00:52:26.773
I will lose my time.

00:52:26.773 --> 00:52:28.115
Be intentional.

00:52:28.115 --> 00:52:35.135
It supports the other tenants and it's again, it allows you to do your job.

00:52:35.516 --> 00:52:38.844
The last one, the fourth one, is the one that's pretty interesting and it's be bold.

00:52:38.844 --> 00:52:43.581
It follows up with you're allowed to make mistakes, try something new.

00:52:43.581 --> 00:52:47.500
The only wrong decision is to not make one.

00:52:47.500 --> 00:52:57.702
I say that a lot Doing the wrong thing is way better than doing nothing, being in control even if it's wrong, because we can fix that.

00:52:57.702 --> 00:53:04.936
We can fix a mistake Also if we embrace it, if we talk about it, if we allow you to make mistakes, then you raise your hand and you go.

00:53:04.936 --> 00:53:05.518
I screwed that up.

00:53:05.518 --> 00:53:08.190
I need help, rather than sweep it under the rug.

00:53:08.190 --> 00:53:11.418
Six weeks later we find out something was broken.

00:53:11.418 --> 00:53:12.722
Then you fix whatever it is.

00:53:12.722 --> 00:53:18.260
And be bold is not reckless.

00:53:18.260 --> 00:53:20.786
That's where, again, intentionality falls into it.

00:53:20.786 --> 00:53:29.313
If you have a plan, if you think about the risks, if you accept the risks and mitigate the risks, own the risk, but you're intentional about how you're being bold.

00:53:29.313 --> 00:53:31.179
So that's what we built that.

00:53:31.179 --> 00:53:36.757
Those are our four foundational tenets safety, respectfulness, intentionality and and boldness.

00:53:36.757 --> 00:53:41.324
It's what our and that's what built our company.

00:53:42.510 --> 00:53:43.896
Man, you're making me want to come work for you.

00:53:43.896 --> 00:53:48.219
So you said this may not work with 5,000 people.

00:53:48.219 --> 00:54:00.762
What is your goal in terms of and you've said scale as well before, which I think is important to note that not everybody wants to scale and be a large company.

00:54:00.762 --> 00:54:07.976
We work some of the SMEs that we work with at PCE and some of the companies like partners that I partner with at QuoteBeam.

00:54:07.976 --> 00:54:15.130
They intentionally want to stay small because they have a certain lifestyle that their family you know.

00:54:15.130 --> 00:54:20.333
They're not in that entrepreneurial journey, the same way that some people want to grow a billion dollar business.

00:54:20.333 --> 00:54:30.001
What does success look like for Masked Owl and where are you at now in terms of, you know, size and things like that?

00:54:31.349 --> 00:54:40.574
So I don't have a number for how big I want to be, from number of people or sales, dollars, revenue, whatever all those things.

00:54:40.574 --> 00:54:45.742
I really the whole nother conversation we'd have is my problem with the word revenue.

00:54:45.742 --> 00:54:57.213
But I want to build a company where good people could come work and be challenged and have fun and be safe and do what they want to do, whatever size.

00:54:57.213 --> 00:54:58.538
That is what size it is.

00:54:58.538 --> 00:55:10.181
I believe that means we're going to continually grow, because I don't think that the people that will come work here will be attracted to MOT, will be happy in a steady state.

00:55:10.181 --> 00:55:12.717
Yeah, yeah, always going to try something new.

00:55:12.717 --> 00:55:15.960
We have our vision statement.

00:55:15.960 --> 00:55:23.192
Part of it includes innovation and I have a department called emerging technologies.

00:55:23.192 --> 00:55:38.891
Their job, one of her kpis, is a new product every year doesn't mean we have taken a market we want right now, with the size we are, I want a new idea of something and like one that she's running down that we just briefly talked about today is more of an internal.

00:55:38.891 --> 00:55:50.594
I call it a product, but it would be an internal tool that we could use to help our project management team, but something like we're always got to be trying to find a new, whatever it is, we've stood up an ai team.

00:55:50.594 --> 00:55:57.916
We right now it's two people, but ai is something that's out there, that's coming, it's going to affect industrial automation.

00:55:57.916 --> 00:56:00.856
So let's be there, let's see what it is, let's understand it.

00:56:00.856 --> 00:56:05.335
Even if it's nothing, we need to be in front of it.

00:56:05.496 --> 00:56:07.782
I don't want to be the systems integrator.

00:56:07.782 --> 00:56:12.090
I don't, like, I don't know that we fit in that squarely, but I don't want to be systems integrator.

00:56:12.090 --> 00:56:16.293
That's 10 years behind on AI, like, and my investors don't either.

00:56:16.293 --> 00:56:17.315
We were talking about it.

00:56:17.315 --> 00:56:19.556
My investors yeah, go hire what you need, stand that team up.

00:56:19.556 --> 00:56:22.860
So we've got this young lady from.

00:56:22.860 --> 00:56:24.260
She lives in Boston, I think.

00:56:24.260 --> 00:56:28.603
She went to Boston University master's in AI and she's brilliant.

00:56:28.603 --> 00:56:31.246
So we're working with her.

00:56:31.246 --> 00:56:31.766
We've stood up.

00:56:31.766 --> 00:56:43.161
She's got an engineer, a product manager counterpart to help keep the scientist and the brilliant mind a little grounded.

00:56:43.161 --> 00:56:44.284
Yeah, but that's what I mean.

00:56:44.284 --> 00:56:45.547
But I don't know what we're going to look like.

00:56:45.547 --> 00:56:49.599
I don't know how big is big, I don't know when done is, I don't know what success is.

00:56:49.599 --> 00:56:58.125
A group of people that are working really hard and are happy, and I don't know what that looks like 10 years from now.

00:56:59.007 --> 00:57:02.112
I love listening to your answers because it just sounds like me talking.

00:57:03.916 --> 00:57:06.561
I'm like I must be doing shit right.

00:57:06.561 --> 00:57:08.123
Well, you know that's.

00:57:08.123 --> 00:57:09.012
I don't have a.

00:57:09.012 --> 00:57:11.038
I don't have a self-confidence problem very often.

00:57:11.038 --> 00:57:16.500
But there are days, back to the ownership piece, where I'm like, man, this is not the world I grew up in.

00:57:16.500 --> 00:57:17.623
Am I doing this right?

00:57:17.623 --> 00:57:21.619
So I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only person thinking like no, it really won't.

00:57:21.619 --> 00:57:22.362
I love it.

00:57:22.402 --> 00:57:25.494
I'm like don't make me answer things like I don't know how big pce is going to be.

00:57:25.494 --> 00:57:33.500
It's going to be as big as it's going to be, like you know, and we're going to keep growing it and we're not going to do it too fast because I don't want to kill it, um.

00:57:33.500 --> 00:57:54.773
But yeah, there is no I don't know greed ulterior motive, like I need to make a billion dollars, um, and that's probably why you actually will make a billion dollars I hope so, um not for me, but again I'm rooting for you yeah, there's a woman downstairs who deserves whatever reward we can give her because she puts up with.

00:57:55.135 --> 00:57:55.434
I have a.

00:57:55.434 --> 00:57:59.443
I have a 12 year old son who is identical to me.

00:57:59.443 --> 00:58:02.798
Like I started program very young.

00:58:02.798 --> 00:58:04.123
He started programming at six.

00:58:04.123 --> 00:58:10.938
Like he's, he's pushing bug fixes to reddit, no discord.

00:58:10.938 --> 00:58:12.340
He's talking to discord.

00:58:12.340 --> 00:58:13.963
He's like, oh, hey, here I found a bug.

00:58:13.963 --> 00:58:14.331
He's pushing.

00:58:14.331 --> 00:58:17.682
But so this kid, and it's funny.

00:58:17.682 --> 00:58:20.070
He's like, well, well, I take over mot.

00:58:20.070 --> 00:58:24.201
I'm like, oh no, I have no one because he has worse people skills than me at some point.

00:58:24.201 --> 00:58:25.731
He's got it often.

00:58:25.731 --> 00:58:29.038
But she puts up with it.

00:58:29.038 --> 00:58:30.800
Like she chose to marry me.

00:58:30.800 --> 00:58:32.423
She did not choose to have another one.

00:58:32.423 --> 00:58:34.273
Like she chose that other child, but not one.

00:58:34.273 --> 00:58:36.677
Just like so that she's a saint.

00:58:36.677 --> 00:58:44.596
But so financially, they'd be great to be able to reward people affected by these decisions in my life.

00:58:44.596 --> 00:58:45.619
But yeah, I don't.

00:58:46.420 --> 00:58:51.780
I yeah definitely yes, and we would probably have a whole nother episode about this, because you you kind of touched on that.

00:58:51.780 --> 00:59:05.650
Revenue isn't everything right and you can have an extremely profitable but relatively small company that is technically more successful than a huge multi-hundred person company.

00:59:05.650 --> 00:59:07.617
That has revenue.

00:59:07.717 --> 00:59:16.534
You know a lot of revenue, massive revenue, yeah we touched on the merger that Grace Solutions went through and I don't want to go too far into that.

00:59:16.534 --> 00:59:33.123
But I remember a very explicit conversation where you take a privately held company who is worried about cash flow and merge it with a company who is held by a larger entity Gray Solutions, owned by Gray Inc and their concern is more about return on investment.

00:59:33.123 --> 00:59:37.382
Right Gray Inc puts money into Gray Solutions and expects a certain number to come back.

00:59:37.382 --> 00:59:39.295
Right gray puts money into gray solutions and expects a certain number to come back.

00:59:39.295 --> 00:59:44.329
Those are very different financial conversations yeah cash flow versus your return on investment.

00:59:44.891 --> 00:59:50.001
Neither of them really are worried about how much money you made, like your revenue.

00:59:50.001 --> 00:59:52.856
Um, this was an area walker and I talked about a little bit.

00:59:52.856 --> 00:59:54.965
At one point he sold a job.

00:59:54.965 --> 00:59:57.878
It was three million dollars but it was at a 10 margin.

00:59:57.878 --> 00:59:58.440
It was all.

00:59:58.440 --> 00:59:59.414
It was all equipment.

00:59:59.414 --> 01:00:03.610
It was a bunch of servers that we were buying and selling to curie pepper.

01:00:03.610 --> 01:00:05.273
It was just easier for them to go through us.

01:00:06.076 --> 01:00:09.692
I'm like but, walker, our target is higher than 10 for revenue.

01:00:09.692 --> 01:00:18.827
Or our roi, our margin was higher than 10, so you brought our margin down because 10% is lower than the target.

01:00:18.827 --> 01:00:22.297
So now we have to sell more work higher than that to hit that target.

01:00:22.297 --> 01:00:32.882
And that's why, when you really start thinking about, like, I tell everybody, I don't care what you sell it for, I care how much money we're going to make, how much money goes in the bank, that's what matters.

01:00:32.882 --> 01:00:48.097
Again, this BD guy we brought in on learning he was very much wanted to set up sales targets for a sales team on revenue I said no, no, no, I'm not going to incentivize people to send a 10 sell a 10 million dollar project with 9.8 million worth of buyout.

01:00:48.097 --> 01:00:58.489
That doesn't help me and in fact it makes it worse, because I got to go borrow 9.8 million dollars worth of cash somewhere to float that or work out favorable terms with the vendor, whatever.

01:00:58.489 --> 01:01:10.898
So again, we could have a whole conversation on my my opinions on revenue and how specifically privately held companies fall down a trap by looking at that.

01:01:10.998 --> 01:01:12.623
But back to your question.

01:01:12.623 --> 01:01:14.432
We have 18 people right now.

01:01:14.432 --> 01:01:16.938
Um, we are at 18 people.

01:01:16.938 --> 01:01:24.427
Um, like I said, we invested heavily in bd and marketing, yeah, um, and then our emerging tech group that's over half the company is bd.

01:01:24.427 --> 01:01:26.153
Marketing and emerging tech.

01:01:26.153 --> 01:01:47.655
Engineering is not very big a, we could afford it, but kind of the point ali was making, if you bring them in and you got pam and b one of the areas we're lagging look, we don't have the sales dollars I want, we don't have the sales volume I would like to see, and so we can keep the engineering team we have busy, yep, but if I brought in too many more, they'd start getting bored and high performance Don't want to be bored.

01:01:47.795 --> 01:01:48.858
Nope, so they do not.

01:01:50.280 --> 01:02:00.922
Yeah, it's, and and I think we alluded to this earlier we've got some pretty exciting large projects out in mid-phase.

01:02:00.922 --> 01:02:02.664
People are, for whatever reason.

01:02:03.351 --> 01:02:04.436
They're waiting for next year.

01:02:05.512 --> 01:02:06.114
They're waiting for?

01:02:06.114 --> 01:02:08.233
Well, one of them.

01:02:08.233 --> 01:02:09.496
I don't know what he's waiting for.

01:02:09.536 --> 01:02:18.117
You're making decisions by not doing anything Lack of is also action.

01:02:18.117 --> 01:02:24.541
Well, this is about our time, and not because I wouldn't want to continue.

01:02:24.541 --> 01:02:39.197
We do long episodes sometimes, but my laptop is literally about to shut down here in a few minutes, so I think it's time for our wrap-up question, which is what should we see, if there's anything that we should be looking forward to seeing from mass doll technologies?

01:02:39.197 --> 01:02:48.731
Uh, and where can people follow you and or reach out to you guys if a they're interested in maybe working for you or collaborate on projects, or if they're a potential customer?

01:02:48.731 --> 01:02:53.750
Uh, where should people go to find all things alex pool and mass doll technologies?

01:02:55.054 --> 01:02:59.775
well, obviously the first one is I will come back to answer the first part of that question last.

01:03:00.056 --> 01:03:05.416
Sorry, I ask a lot of compound questions wwwmasthowelltechnologiescom.

01:03:05.436 --> 01:03:07.969
That's our website, One of the things you can be looking for.

01:03:07.969 --> 01:03:10.076
We are doing a revamp on the website.

01:03:10.076 --> 01:03:11.478
We rolled that out.

01:03:11.478 --> 01:03:19.483
The existing one's fine, no hard burn with it, but we're rolling out a new one, hopefully the end of the year, maybe early next year.

01:03:19.483 --> 01:03:23.858
Markets have been working really hard slightly modifying our messaging a little bit.

01:03:23.858 --> 01:03:26.583
That's the first place.

01:03:26.583 --> 01:03:28.376
Linkedin's an easy place to find us.

01:03:28.376 --> 01:03:30.253
Massdial Technologies, Alex Poole.

01:03:30.253 --> 01:03:31.496
No, E-P-O-O-L.

01:03:31.496 --> 01:03:34.123
Reach me there.

01:03:34.123 --> 01:03:36.251
That's the easy places to reach me.

01:03:36.251 --> 01:03:42.554
We do have booths at a lot of shows, but they're not the automation shows.

01:03:42.554 --> 01:03:45.577
Typically, we're doing a booth at food and beverage right now.

01:03:45.577 --> 01:03:46.438
That's the vertical.

01:03:46.438 --> 01:03:57.023
We just talked about why I don't like vertical, but we are targeting Marketing needs some place to focus, Fortunately, you can't be in all the places all at the same time, so pick one, yeah, yeah.

01:03:57.864 --> 01:04:01.487
So we will have some boosts at some food and beverage shows in 2025.

01:04:01.487 --> 01:04:02.867
In fact, I think the target is one a month.

01:04:02.867 --> 01:04:06.414
All right, now the exciting things that are coming.

01:04:06.414 --> 01:04:13.364
We do have some products, some ways for recurring revenue, which is a problem with most product-based businesses.

01:04:13.364 --> 01:04:20.130
Yeah, businesses.

01:04:20.130 --> 01:04:31.702
So yeah, and I don't want to talk too much about them yet because but the target is for a beta by the end of this year and then early next year, emerging tech will be rolling out some products, a specific product related to ai and how it can help the industrial automation space.

01:04:31.809 --> 01:04:36.393
that's really exciting um, I would love to potentially have your ai expert on sometime, either as a standalone episode or maybe part of a panel, because I think you might be time for us to.

01:04:36.393 --> 01:04:37.074
That's really exciting.

01:04:37.074 --> 01:04:43.380
I would love to potentially have your AI expert on sometime, either as a standalone episode or maybe part of a panel, because I think it might be time for us to do a panel on AI.

01:04:43.380 --> 01:04:45.402
It's not, you know, I didn't want to do.

01:04:45.402 --> 01:04:50.806
I don't like to talk about hype stuff, things that don't have real applications, things that people aren't really doing.

01:04:50.806 --> 01:05:08.737
But Brandon Peters from Shockwave Automation has also been working on something with one of his customers AI application so we can probably pull now enough people from our network that have real experiences, real stories to share that we'd love to do something like that.

01:05:08.737 --> 01:05:11.219
So we will definitely be paying attention to your updates.

01:05:11.219 --> 01:05:13.436
We'd love to do an update with you guys.

01:05:14.059 --> 01:05:22.295
Yeah, and yeah, just I'm a big fan of MassDoll and everything that you've said today, so really appreciate you spending the time with us.

01:05:22.295 --> 01:05:23.860
I think our audience is going to love this.

01:05:23.860 --> 01:05:25.833
A lot of great tidbits as well.

01:05:25.833 --> 01:05:53.974
Um, we do have a lot of kind of small business owners or people that are, you know, have thought about going out on their own and I I love to get them the real kind of war stories and, you know, not just the shiny, but it is for some people it's kind of inevitable and, and it really is what you know, kind of keeps your curiosity going and, and you know, can answer that, why for you, uh, but like you've, you know, shown us there's also seasons to that right, it doesn't mean it has to be right now.

01:05:53.974 --> 01:06:00.525
Yeah, so, uh, that is all I have to say, ali, any parting words or questions.

01:06:01.110 --> 01:06:09.606
No, it's great to meet you nice to meet you yeah, thank you so much for being a part of our community and we look forward to seeing you around more often awesome.

01:06:09.686 --> 01:06:10.148
I appreciate.

01:06:10.148 --> 01:06:10.771
It was a great time.

01:06:10.771 --> 01:06:11.554
It was a.

01:06:11.554 --> 01:06:12.822
I really enjoyed this last time.

01:06:12.842 --> 01:06:13.545
So thank you very much.

01:06:13.545 --> 01:06:14.429
All right, thanks everyone.

01:06:14.429 --> 01:06:15.253
See you next time.

01:06:15.253 --> 01:06:15.614
Bye.