Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: What does it take to break away from the safe path and build something bigger on the other side, ramping up your business? The time is near. You've given it hard. Now get it in gear.
It's Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. I'm Richard Gearhart.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: I'm Elizabeth Gearhart, and we're your host.
[00:00:22] Speaker A: Welcome to the Passage to Profit show, the Road to Entrepreneurship podcast. Elizabeth, what's been going on with you?
[00:00:29] Speaker B: Well, we spent Fourth of July weekend at a friend's beach house with her and another couple, and she and I both had the same Kindle.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: And are we going there?
[00:00:38] Speaker B: I'm going there.
I could not find my Kindle, so I asked her, I said, emmy, did you pick up my Kindle? And she's like, oh, I probably did. I probably thought it was mine. And she's like, yeah, I really like the book.
I couldn't remember if I bought that book, but it seemed like when I would buy some, really enjoying reading it.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: But, I mean, that's happened to me. I've picked up Kindle and I just start reading, and it's like, where does this come from? So that was fun. Yeah. So this year, Gerhard law celebrated its 20th anniversary, and we've been in business now 20 years. And we had a really super cool party last week. We invited a lot of clients and, of course, our team and a lot of friends, and it was just a really great celebration. We did have a psychic at the party, and I didn't really have the courage to go in there and ask him what the future held for the law firm, but I heard from a lot of other people that his readings were not so accurate, so.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Right. And I do want to give a shout out to my dear friend Marcella Giancarelli here. She helped us get this party at Calandra's in Fairfield, New Jersey, and that restaurant was absolutely gorgeous.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: It was absolutely perfect.
[00:01:53] Speaker B: The owner and the owner's son and the staff, everybody. It was fabulous. So big shout out to Marcela and Calandras.
[00:02:00] Speaker A: Absolutely. So I guess we're going to have to do it again when we hit 25 years. I don't know if we're going to last another 20 years, but we'll do our.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: I might, but I won't be doing this.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: I bet we'll do our best.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: I'll have my AI Clone doing this for me.
[00:02:14] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Also, as part of the 20th anniversary celebration, Gearhart Law has people all over the world, really. And so we brought people from other states, from other countries. That work with the law firm. And we had a day where we did videos. So I do marketing, and videos are super important for your marketing. And we have this video studio in the top floor of Gearhart Law called Gear Media Studios. So we spent an entire day doing videos. It was great. We got a lot of great content. And we had our interns here, and they were hilarious because they were doing TikTok videos.
They had this video where they take the stuffed animal and throw it at somebody who just falls over.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Right. So as part of the serious part of the week, we did have a team meeting, and one of the team members brought a penguin that they passed around the table as we talked through some processes. His name was Pat the Penguin. And they started throwing Pat around. It was kind of cute.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, interns got some great shorts. They did, like, TikTok and YouTube shorts videos. So very productive video day.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: And speaking of anniversaries, we were down at the shore this weekend, like Elizabeth mentioned, and we were on the beach and we just saw these helicopters flying by, more helicopters than I'd ever seen in my life. And the whole experience went on for probably a good 45 minutes or an hour. It turns out that they were coming from the Sail 4th 250 celebration in New York Harbor. And if you've had a chance to see that or check out any of the photos, it was just an amazing experience. They had tall ships from all over the world, including the Eagle, which led the parade. And they had Navy ships and they had the Blue Angels, and it was really just an amazing spectacle. And the helicopters were really just coming back from doing their tour of duty, I guess, you know, participating in the whole show. But it caught a lot of people's attention. And I don't know whether we were under attack or what, but it was the helicopter highway.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: So we were under attack by bugs on the beach. These little tiny bugs kept fighting us.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: Well, joining us today is Leah Sullivan, the founder of TaskRabbit, whose bold vision helped redefine how millions of people find work and get things done.
[00:04:33] Speaker B: And then we have two amazing presenters as well. Two more amazing presenters. We have Nate Amadon. He turned down a $300,000 airline career to build a thriving seven figure consulting company while continuing to serve as a lieutenant colonel in the US Air Force Reserve. That is the heart and soul of
[00:04:53] Speaker A: an entrepreneur, I gotta say, fighting on two fronts simultaneously.
[00:04:59] Speaker B: Also, Lauren Hidalgo, founder of awarehouse. She's building this marketplace that is really innovative and it's connecting shoppers with independent makers. I know there are some that exist, but hers is different. And she's going to tell us how.
[00:05:13] Speaker A: Absolutely. And coming up, we have secrets of the entrepreneurial mind. But before that, it's time for your new business journey.
I'd like to ask our panel, when you look back at your career, what decision did you make that changed the trajectory of your business, and what did it cost you? So, welcome again, Leah, to the show. Nice to have you here. What was the one decision that you made that changed the trajectory of your business?
[00:05:40] Speaker C: Well, thanks so much for having me on. When I think about that question, I immediately think about my time at IBM. I was a software engineer. I worked there for eight years as a programmer. And when I decided to leave IBM and founded my company, TaskRabbit, I decided to cash out my pension, which was $27,000. I took a penalty on it because I wasn't yet old enough to cash it out. But that's what I use to fund the initial versions of the TaskRabbit app.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: It literally costs you, what, $27,000 plus a penalty?
[00:06:19] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: And plus the penalty.
[00:06:21] Speaker C: Exactly. Exactly.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: I mean, how would you coach other entrepreneurs who are sort of in that position where they have this great idea. Stable job.
[00:06:29] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:06:29] Speaker A: $27,000. What. What do you say to them?
[00:06:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, it also cost me the stable job, but I also felt like I could always go back. So I would say, one, you know, it's not a bad idea to have a safety net. I did feel like I could go back, that I'd be supported if this startup idea didn't work out. And I think two was I had vetted the idea along the way for four or five months before I actually got up the nerve to walk into the IBM office that day and give my notice. And so, you know, try to vet the idea a bit before you make that major leap.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: That's great advice, Nate. When you look back at your career, what decision did you make that changed the trajectory of your business, and what did it cost you?
[00:07:15] Speaker D: For me, when I got out of active duty, so I was a cargo pilot in the Air Force, and basically everyone goes into the airlines because that's what you do. You just go fly for the airlines because it's a great job, it pays really well, and. And so I just decided not to. And I didn't jump out deciding I wanted to start a business, but I knew I wanted to do something different.
And for me, that was really the trajectory that brought me into entrepreneurship. And so when I look at that decision, it was really, I mean, it was really scary because you're doing a path that nobody else in that situation does. And for me, it was really like I had to not leave that as an option because there's always just this draw that you can just go back and do the easy path.
So that decision was really the hardest one and probably the most pivotal to where I am today.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Great. And we look forward to hearing more about that later. Lauren, welcome to the show. What was the decision that changed the trajectory of your business?
[00:08:21] Speaker E: Mine was actually something more personal that kind of coincided with a series of events. But I was long distance in a long distance relationship with my boyfriend at the time and working a 9 to 5 while working on this business as a sort of side project for a couple years.
And when we got married, I had to make the decision to move or not. And I could have actually moved and got a job at the same company in the place where I was moving to. But I decided to, with the change of getting married, also make the change in terms of the career and give the business which had been a project right already for a while my a hundred percent and just kind of take the risk full time.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well, thanks for sharing, Elizabeth.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Well, even though I can learn how to do almost anything, I had to, not everything okay. So I'm never going to learn how to anyway.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: You can do it. You can do anything. I'll support you on that.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: Well, there are things I'm better at. I had to realize that even if I could do something, it didn't mean that it was natural for me or I could do it well or I was the best person to do it. So I finally had to admit I'm thinking of the studio here that we have. I can set up the equipment. Richard showed me how to run the equipment, but it's not really my thing. And when something gets screwed up, I have to holler for Richard. So I finally just realized that that is not something I'm going to be doing. I'm going to have somebody else do that for me.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: Well, and I mean that, you know, obviously makes sense, but I think it's a good lesson for everybody. Kind of when you're starting out, you kind of do have to do everything. But the sooner you can play to your strengths, I think the better off you are. Rather than talk about a trajectory this week, I'm going to talk a little bit about an insight that I recently had that I think will be helpful. Gearhar Laws fortunately, as intellectual property firm has been growing over the last 20 years. It took us that long to get to this point or whatever that point is.
And it's funny, we do a lot of different types of intellectual property work. We've been doing a lot more litigation over the last five or six years, but it really hadn't been reflected in our branding. And so my insight is that sometimes branding leads the work. How you present yourself drives the types of customers that you get, but sometimes the customers drive the branding. Right. So we've been doing the litigation. Now we're going to be updating a lot of our content and our marketing
[00:10:48] Speaker B: materials and our expertise in AI patents
[00:10:51] Speaker A: and our expertise in AI patents. Can't, can't forget that in order to, to further emphasize this growth area. So I just thought that that was something interesting to share. So what does it take to create a company that changes the way millions of people live and work? Well, Leah Sullivan answered that question when she founded TaskRabbit, building one of the most influential technology marketplaces of the past decade and helping shape the future of work. Today she's investing in the next generation of entrepreneurs, exploring the impact of AI and challenging people to rethink the assumptions that limit innovation and success. So how did it feel to walk into that office at IBM and tell them that you were leaving and starting a new company in a market that really nobody had ever even heard of before?
[00:11:45] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I gotta tell you, it felt pretty good. And the context behind that was that, you know, I had spent eight years years there. I started out as a quality engineer, but I had a background and skillset as a programmer, as a developer, C Java programming.
And you know, I felt like at IBM I was being pushed towards this more managerial track and not a technical track which I wanted to be on. I think honestly they thought I would be good at managing people, which is like, could not be further from the truth. I'll tell you. Okay, I'm actually a much better engineer than I am at managing people. But when I had the idea for TaskRabbit, you know, I had sort of been talking to my boss and kind of pushing my way at IBM to do more technical skills, development, programming. I was really interested in the emerging technologies at the time, which is really what enabled TaskRabbit to be successful. Social technology. Facebook was emerging location based awareness through, you know, the iPhone. Everyone suddenly had a Device on them 24,7 that was this mini computer. And, and so I was just really passionate about these emerging technologies and I saw a future where real people in the real world could be connected in real time to get real things done. And so I was really, really excited about making that leap and, you know, felt very supported when I walked in that day and, and said, I'm. I'm ready to do something different.
[00:13:16] Speaker B: So I have a question for you. I read your story on your website. I thought it was pretty funny that, what was it, 80 or 90% of the people wanted IKEA furniture.
[00:13:26] Speaker C: I know. It was a constant foreshadowing, I tell you, from day one, IKEA furniture assembly was always kind of the largest category of jobs posted on the TaskRabbit website. And I'm not very good at assembling IKEA furniture. But in the early days, I was one of the original taskrabbits. So I assembled some IKEA furniture in my day, and I can tell you, it's not easy.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: So the question I have for you then, that was a brilliant move. Then you sold TaskRabbit to.
[00:13:57] Speaker C: To IKEA. Exactly. Exactly, yeah. So many years later.
[00:14:01] Speaker B: So did you plan, were you thinking of the exit when you started TaskRabbit, that you were gonna plan to sell it someday?
[00:14:07] Speaker C: I think as a founder, I always knew that I wanted to create something that was going to live beyond me. I knew that I wanted to have a product in the market, in innovation, that was a legacy that didn't need me to exist.
So that is how I was thinking about it. The idea of the exit in the particulars around it were not something that I had deeply thought about or planned.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: How long have you been sort of outside the organization and what are you doing with yourself these days?
[00:14:42] Speaker C: So I started the company in 2008. I sold it to Ikea in 2017.
At that point I jumped over to the investing side full time. So I'm a venture capital investor. I've been a fund called Fuel Capital where we invest in early stage tech companies across all kinds of different categories. Consumer software as a service dev, tools, infrastructure. And now I'm actually launching my own fund, my own firm called Precedent vc, which is focused on this next generation of companies that many of them are AI native, that are really building new consumer experiences. So this next fund and this next iteration of my investing career will be focused in that arena.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: That's interesting. How do you see AI influencing the future of work? Since you are an expert in labor and also an expert in software and AI, what do you see as the future of AI and employment?
[00:15:44] Speaker C: I mean, we are sitting on the precipice of a massive disruption that is happening in real time. I think that we'll look back on this short amount of years, this three to five year period and, you know, we'll look back on it like we do the Industrial Revolution or, you know, the Renaissance. It's going to be a massive, massive shift in humans and how we work in the future of work. I can tell you, you know, I, I am an expert in outsourcing things. That's why I founded TaskRabbit. And you know, I see the parallels with AI as well.
The way I work today is very different than the way I worked a year ago. I am outsourcing things in my own work and career to agents, AI agents all the time. As I'm doing this interview right now, I have five AI agents that are, you know, working on research for me and spreadsheets and modeling and, you know, writing emails. An AI agent is, you can think about it, I think about it actually as like a little bottle, a little bot you can give some commands to, they're called prompts. You can prompt them, you give them some instructions and then you tell them to, to go off into the world, into the Internet world and do some things for you. So it could be, hey, I need you to go into my email and create drafts for all the messages that are waiting for me to respond to right now. So that's an example of, you know, a very basic AI agent that people would be using today. And so the technology that we have available to us today with AI is just at the very beginning. I will tell you there are products out there today and I'll promote one here because I just love it, which is a company called Town.
So if you look up a Town Assistant, you can go to the website, you can go on their app on your mobile device, but if you, if you download Town and you sign up for Town, it's basically takes care of everything for you. You just connect your email, you connect your Google Drive, whatever you want to connect. It has all these integrations built in and just with a couple clicks in the Interface, literally my 4 year old could probably do it.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: I'm going to look into that. That's awesome. Yeah, we had looked into OpenCLA, which would be totally amazing, but I was really worried about the security concerns. Yeah, and what I've heard some people saying is that they have two computers, so if they're going to use something online that's some sort of AI agent or something, that they'll do it on a computer that doesn't have sensitive data like your bank account number and stuff on it. Right. Your passwords.
[00:18:25] Speaker C: And you can also set up enterprise accounts with Gemini and Claude and others that, you know, have more privacy and protections built in.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Well, I have to say, working in a service business, I am certainly intrigued with the idea of having somebody draft emails for me.
You know, software do that. On the other hand, I do have sort of my own style of communicating is probably grammatically not perfect, but when people receive an email from me who. Who know me, they know it's from me. Right. And. And that's my thinking and not somebody else's.
[00:19:04] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:19:04] Speaker A: So trying to kind of take advantage of the systems that are out there, yet also maintain that personal peace, which I think is important for the relationship, is kind of a challenge. Do you have any thoughts on that?
[00:19:17] Speaker C: Yeah, I do. I mean, I think that it's kind of analogous to handwriting a note in my mind versus typing it out. It's like when the invention of the typewriter, the invention of the computer, like, all of these inventions and new technologies make us more efficient and change the way we interact with people. Like, when's the last time you sent a handwritten note to someone? I mean, I do it from time to time, but it's a very special, very special case and thing. Right.
[00:19:48] Speaker B: Well, nobody can read his handwriting, so
[00:19:51] Speaker C: that's also a problem.
[00:19:52] Speaker A: But I love the analogy. That's a perfect analogy. Yeah.
[00:19:55] Speaker C: Yeah. So I think, you know, I agree with you that we don't want to lose the personal relationship aspect of communications, but I think there are ways that AI can make us more efficient and more effective and still allow us to layer on top. Go in. I go in and edit all my drafts. Right. And add the things and. And then send it off. And then maybe instead of taking me 10 minutes to write the same email, maybe it takes me 60 seconds to tweak it and then send it. So I think it's pretty powerful, and I remain open to the evolution and, you know, things that can drive efficiency. Obviously, with TaskRabbit, it's. That's something I really love.
[00:20:38] Speaker B: And that's interesting that we're talking so much about AI, but TaskRabbit, for those who don't know what TaskRabbit is, people come to your house and put furniture together or do other things. Like you expanded. Right.
[00:20:49] Speaker E: Anything.
[00:20:49] Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. You can outsource any small task or job to anyone. That's right.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: And we used it. We've used it a couple times.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Yeah, we've.
For plumbing, electrical.
There's just really, I think almost any Job that you can imagine, there's probably somebody on TaskRabbit who can do it for you. And I think, as I recall, there's reviews too. Right. So if you're thinking about hiring somebody, you can look at the reviews. They have a reputational score, and that can help you make the decision about whether this person's a good fit or not. Right.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: But you still need humans. I mean, maybe someday robots will be able to get. I kind of doubt it because I
[00:21:29] Speaker C: use pretty far off.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: Well, and they break and they, you know, they screw up all the time.
[00:21:36] Speaker A: I want a robot that goes to the refrigerator, gets me a water, and then brings it over to the sofa.
[00:21:41] Speaker B: No, you want a robot that gets
[00:21:43] Speaker A: you chocolates and chocolate and water.
[00:21:47] Speaker C: You could probably train a dog to do that too.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Say we have cats. Can we train a cat?
[00:21:52] Speaker F: Yeah.
[00:21:52] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: So what kind of companies are you investing? And when you look into your crystal ball, that's what investors do, Right.
You maybe invest in 10, and maybe you hope one of them really hits. As a unicorn, what are you investing in? What do you see happening?
[00:22:06] Speaker C: Well, you're right. It is a hits business. So you make a lot of bets, and then you hope that a few of them pay off. So it's high risk, high reward. It's something I actually do really love about the industry.
And what I'm seeing right now is, you know, this disruption happening across all consumer experiences and categories. But I am seeing a lot in the healthcare space.
So the first two deals in my fund have both been in health and wellness. One is in mental health and therapy, utilizing an AI native messaging layer on the back end to aid in therapy situations and communications. And then the other one is in the women's health space, a company called Conceive, which is a telehealth service that partners with fertility clinics, IVF clinics, and postpartum care centers to help patients and new moms have additional support. And that telehealth service utilizes AI on the back end as well, just to be more efficient. They have a human in the loop, of course, but it just helps with efficiency.
[00:23:11] Speaker A: Yeah. I would be interesting if some of these systems were able to elevate and alert your awareness around communications where maybe a more human intervention is appropriate.
[00:23:23] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: And where it's not so necessary, maybe fall back on, you know, more standard AI types of communications that are created by a computer. Because it kind of does go both ways. I mean, I have to say, in my experience, there are times, times when I should have intervened personally, but I didn't as opposed to just making everything sort of an AI communication.
But if there were ways to help point some of those things out, I think that could be a way to sort of integrate the human and the AI workflow.
[00:23:57] Speaker C: Well, what's interesting too about the space is I don't know if you all are familiar with the Gottman Institute up in Seattle. The Gottmans. It's this therapy center, a famous therapy center.
They can tell with over 95% accuracy whether or not a couple will stay married or not based on how they communicate with each other. And this research has been done over the course of decades and it's been hand coded, handwritten, you know, manually created. And so now imagine taking all of that research from the Gottman Institute and applying it to an LLM, a large language model, which is what that AI uses to learn and to interact and, and then in real time, maybe over text message, maybe it's over email, maybe it's over voice over the phone. The AI is, is detecting. Hey, maybe these two are not communicating. Well, maybe we should.
[00:24:54] Speaker D: Why?
[00:24:54] Speaker A: I'm in trouble now. That's all I have to say that
[00:24:56] Speaker C: I. I'm just throwing it out there. It may be something to look into. I don't know.
[00:25:00] Speaker A: Are you suggesting that for us?
[00:25:02] Speaker C: I would never. I would not.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: I would not. No, it was.
[00:25:08] Speaker A: I wasn't sure where going with that. I thought you were maybe dropping a hint or something
[00:25:15] Speaker B: on how to communicate better. Well, you know.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: No, you tell me.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: It depends on which Richard I'm talking to. There's nice Richard and Grouchy Richard, and I never know which one's showing up on any given day.
[00:25:27] Speaker A: Well, don't tell the institute because it's going to come back to me in some AI text.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:25:32] Speaker A: You know, so.
[00:25:33] Speaker B: So that's detecting a problem, but then I'm assuming that they give them tools to fix the problem.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: Absolutely, absolutely. Yes, yes, yes.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: I mean, it's kind of freaky to get a message from the Gottman Institute. Your marriage is doomed, you know, and it was like I was having a good time, you know.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Well, I'm gonna tell AI on you if you don't behave.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: No, that's great. So of the companies you invested in, which one's your favorite?
[00:26:00] Speaker C: You know, a parent never has a favorite child, so let me start there. But let me say there are companies that I think have been highly impact and you know, are doing amazing things. One company I'm very excited about is called Misalud Health. My father's Puerto Rican I am Latina and this company basically goes into employers that have large Spanish speaking populations and offers them telehealth services through their platform. The employers are paying for this on behalf of their employees and it's made such a massive impact as far as quality of health services, patient care and delivery.
And so I think that's just an amazing company. It's an amazing business for one, but it's also doing great in the world.
And so I like companies that have that what I would call maybe a double bottom line profit angled to them.
[00:26:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I saw on one of your podcasts where it was either you or one of your guests commented that the U.S. health system is on the one hand the most highly skilled and you know, really is has so much to offer on the one hand, but on the other hand it's really screwed up. And you know, that's been my experience. I mean the science and the technology are amazing but on the just on the operational level, so often things could be done so much better. So maybe AI is a solution to this. So we are with Leah Sullivan, founder of TaskRabbit, the amazing find your worker software program and app and we'll be back after this.
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[00:29:41] Speaker A: Now back to passage to property profit Once again, Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart and
[00:29:46] Speaker B: our special guest, Leah Sullivan. And Leah, you have a podcast and a book coming out called Breaking Precedent. Curious to know what that's all about.
[00:29:55] Speaker C: Yeah, so I started with the podcast a couple years ago. Now I became sort of obsessed with people just across industries, across categories that were doing things differently, that were setting new precedents in their fields.
So the podcast is not just business and tech people, but it's artists and activists and politicians. And from there it evolved into a book proposal. So the book will be out next summer. It's called Breaking Precedent. And part of the book is my TaskRabbit story. You know, how we shifted the future of work, helped create the gig economy.
It folds in other people's stories as well. And then it gives readers a framework, a framework that I call Rebel Logic. If they're trying to break through something, how they can apply Rebel Logic to their thinking and build up a toolkit to break through and set new precedents in their own field.
[00:30:49] Speaker B: Sounds really good. Do you interview people on your podcast then?
[00:30:52] Speaker C: I do, yes. I've interviewed retired Supreme Court justice. I've interviewed an astronaut who went to space on a blue origin rocket. I've interviewed the artistic director of the San Francisco Ballet and then many, many business and tech people as well.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: What do you talk about with them? Do you try to get down to the nitty gritty of how they think? What do you guys talk about?
[00:31:15] Speaker C: I really am. I'm looking for stories of what was their path that led them to break that precedent and set a new one. And oftentimes it starts very early in childhood and there's moments that they can pick out from the very beginning or influences they had around them that really shaped their thinking early on.
And other times it's, you know, just a massive pivot, a massive career Change a massive path that really leads them to the new way of thinking. So it's. It's really interesting to hear all the different stories and the different paths along the way.
[00:31:55] Speaker A: In your experience, are there commonalities in what motivates people to, you know, take a different path? Because it takes a lot of energy and it involves a lot of risk.
And depending what you want out of life, I guess sometimes it can be easier just to kind of go with the flow. Some people just seem really motivated to chart a new course.
[00:32:16] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, I think when I think back to. To my own life and to all the people I've interviewed, I think, you know, there's. There's no precedent that's too large or too small. And I'll give you an example. You know, I was the first woman in my family to go to college. That was a new precedent in my family to break through. You know, also founding TaskRabbit and helping shape the gig economy. Obviously a big precedent there as well, of impact.
So, you know, I think that depending on people's circumstances, they have built in their DNA. Some of the traits and some of the criteria and some of the patterns that I see that enable them to break through some of those things are having an outsider mindset, outsider thinking. Now, do you have to be an outsider to think that way? No, but you may have to actively shift your thinking to become an outsider if you want to look at things with a different lens.
[00:33:08] Speaker A: So were you an outsider? Did you feel like an outsider when you were. Were growing up, you know, joining IBM, is they. They. They have a conformist culture, right?
[00:33:18] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:33:19] Speaker C: Yeah. No, that's true. And I was one of the few women, right, technical women on my team and being Latina as well. My father's from Puerto Rico, and so, you know, there weren't a lot of other people that looked like me or, you know, had a similar upbringing in the environments, in the rooms that I was in.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: So did you feel that they treated you differently or reacted to you differently? Did you feel like you saw things differently than the way they saw things?
[00:33:49] Speaker C: I definitely saw things differently. I wasn't always treated differently, but sometimes I was. You know, as an example, I can, you know, share. When I was at IBM, I remember being given this project. There was this big chunk of code that I had to deliver, and I was really, really proud of the clever way I had built it and how I had delivered it. And, you know, I walked into my boss's office who was highly technical, and I was really excited to walk him through all the things that I had done.
And so I did that and I showed him. And the first thing he said to me, kind of pushed back his chair and he said, wow, Leah, you're really ambitious. And I thought, well, that's great, like having ambition's a good thing. Right. But he just kind of paused and the longer he paused, realized it was not a compliment. As you said, IBM can be kind of a conformist culture. And I think what he was saying to me was like, don't stand out, don't try so hard, you know, you don't need to do things differently.
So yeah, I think that was a moment at least at IBM where I realized, you know, maybe I didn't fit in there and maybe I was using some outsider thinking or a different lens to accomplish solutions.
And maybe that wasn't, maybe that wasn't the pattern that they were looking for there.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: Yeah, well, can you think of anything in your childhood that may have influenced you to be outside the box and be this forward thinker? Or was it just the culture you grew up in, the family dynamics? Like, what do you, why do you think you're so out there and so different?
[00:35:27] Speaker C: I'm not sure. There was no one else in my family that, you know, was an entrepreneur, had started their own businesses and you know, as I said, I was the first woman in my family to go to college. My father was in the air Force for 35 years. My mom was a stay at home mom. But I do remember a moment where my father came home from work one night. I was eight years old. And I remember asking him what the highest role in a company was. And he told me it was being a CEO, a chief executive officer. And he explained to me what that meant and I thought that sounded pretty cool. And so I started my first company at 8 years old. It was a recycling program at my school called, called Pollution Solutions.
And so I think I just liked being the boss, Honestly, I think I liked being the boss. And, and so maybe that was the drive from the young age is like I just wanted to be the boss and I, I had ideas, I wanted to be the leader. And you know, I think my parents supported that and sort of egged me on. So that was a good thing.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Well, one thing I think that Leah, for our listeners, is pointing out is that, that if you are working in a corporation and you do make the move to entrepreneurship, you may already have been influenced by some conformity and some conformist ways of thinking. And so one of the challenges I think entrepreneurs can face if they're coming from a corporate environment, which is you can get a lot of really good training in a corporate environment.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Right.
[00:36:54] Speaker A: And work with. With good people, but you're also kind of taught to think in certain narrow pathways because that's what the company needs to be successful. And then when you go to the entrepreneurial world, you have to shift your thinking and you have to really do consider a lot more factors or different types of factors that you might, you know, have to consider when you're in a corporate environment and sometimes meeting with a lot of entrepreneurs, I sometimes see some that are still kind of struggling with that transition a little bit. And so I think it's just, if you're in that situation, I just think it's something to be aware of. Right. And, you know, hopefully you can make the transition to entrepreneurship a little bit more smoothly.
[00:37:39] Speaker B: Yeah, some people can't really, and they do end up going back into corporate. I do agree with you. I think it's kind of in your blood. Like some people just know from a young age that they want to run things themselves and they have a lot of creative ideas and they want to start a company. Or maybe not a young age, but maybe youngish age.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I mean, I was, when I was growing up to be become a leader in a big company was like in my family, the only real career path. I mean, nobody ever really thought about trying to start your own thing or that was crazy. Why would you do that?
And I ended up doing that anyway. But. And ultimately, though, I think it was to my benefit.
[00:38:23] Speaker B: Well, there are intrapreneurs in corporations, but it's very hard to innovate inside the corporate structure, I think. And I mean, I, I have this story where I was working at this company and they had this problem they couldn't solve. And I solved it the first time I heard it just because I had the right knowledge. And then the guy that had had the problem kept coming to my office asking me to redesign his instrument for him and his partner that he worked closely with kept telling me that I needed to quit work and stay at home with my children.
[00:38:50] Speaker A: Not very helpful.
[00:38:50] Speaker B: That was the corporate culture I left.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: But anyway, I think, you know, this has been great. Leah, how can people reach you and find out about your book and your other activities?
[00:39:02] Speaker C: Yeah, everything's on my website, leasolyvon.com and on Instagram at Liasolovan.
[00:39:09] Speaker A: Yeah, and speaking of innovation, it's time
[00:39:12] Speaker B: for, oh, real AI use cases. Business owners roundtable Celia Sullivan I know that we have already talked quite a bit about AI, but what is maybe their favorite way that you're using AI or what you used it for this morning? Or just one way that you're using AI that you want to tell people about and then we'll have a chance to discuss it more after we give everybody a turn.
[00:39:33] Speaker C: I would say this Town Assistant app that I'm using, but specifically it has basically automated just everything from researching spreadsheets, automating emails, prepping for podcasts, whatever it is, it's been really, really helpful to integrate into all of my workflows.
[00:39:59] Speaker B: Can you give it confidential information? Does it go out into the Internet, into the sphere and pull data? Because I'm thinking like there are some confidential things I would have it do, but I don't want to open myself up up.
[00:40:12] Speaker C: Yes, you would. You would probably need to make sure you're set up with an enterprise account. And so the way I'm using it is not with confidential information. It's more for everyday workflows.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Okay, so Nate Amadon, what is one way you're using AI in your business?
[00:40:28] Speaker D: So I'm doing some of the stuff. Leah is probably not to the level as far as automating workflows, and there's a ton of benefit to doing that. I'll also say, just on a side note, even your enterprise accounts have some AI capabilities. So if you're on a Microsoft shop, like you can use Copilot's internal capabilities and that should stay all within the firewall so you have the same security you would have if you were sending an email. I really use a lot of it as a thought partner, though. I'm not a huge fan of just letting AI write it and then post it. Like, I think that keeping your personal voice is really important, but that doesn't mean you can't use it at all. You can use it as something that can really help just accelerate and be way more efficient and honestly deliver higher quality.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: Excellent. And Lauren Hidalgo, what's one way you're using AI?
[00:41:16] Speaker E: One way is through research. I mean, I use it in a million different ways like everybody here, but for my industry, since I work in retail and I work with a lot of small businesses who make textiles, different textile products, ceramics, maybe beauty items, makeup. If I'm trying to write a piece on them and I need to understand their industry or supply chain better or just gain more knowledge around a certain subject, that then that's when I'll go to AI. A lot of Times or for example, I'll kind of draft an article, a very rough draft, and then I'll put it into AI and it will create something and then using the AI, I'll develop that further and help it again find research. If I'm trying to get, for example, numbers, statistics on a certain industry or supply chain, that can be really helpful because otherwise manually doing that research is just going to take me forever.
[00:42:10] Speaker B: Absolutely. Richard Gearhart, what's one way you're using AI?
[00:42:14] Speaker A: Well, I'll go back to branding. The law firm's practice has evolved quite a bit over the last four or five years. We're taking on different types of projects and our content and our branding haven't reflected that. And So I asked ChatGPT to come up with a strategy for us. And it came up with something that I thought was really, really good, good. And we presented it to the management team and we're going to be implementing it. So it was able to take a higher level look and pull together different things, disparate, disparate practices and bring them together in a way that it all made sense. And we would have paid a marketing agency a lot of money to come up with that strategy. And ChatGPT did that in about three minutes.
[00:43:03] Speaker B: So, so for the last, I guess it's almost three years now, ever since I went on ChatGPT and asked a question and saw somebody's company come up as the answer and somebody's video come up, I was like, okay, I've gotta make that be Gearhart Law. So I've been researching and at first it was really hard to get an answer.
Now it's, I'm getting more and more answers and it's better and better. But I, this week, I don't know, a couple days ago, we are consistently getting leads and clients from the large language models, ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, not so much. Copilot, perplexity. So we got a client from ChatGPT, a lead who turned into a client just this week. And So I asked ChatGPT, I said, how did they find us? How come you told them that we would be a good fit for them and it wouldn't tell me.
[00:43:54] Speaker A: It wouldn't tell you?
[00:43:55] Speaker B: It wouldn't tell me any specifics.
It was just kind of like, well, because you've got, you know, you've been working on it so hard and you've got this high level presence and Richard's an authority and it told me to ask the person what prompt they used.
[00:44:10] Speaker E: Yeah.
[00:44:11] Speaker B: And I'm like, well, shouldn't you know? But they're giving me a lot more information than they did three years ago and I'm using it for deep research. But other things too. Real AI Use Cases Business Owners Roundtable it's been edited, but if you want to hear the full discussion, you can listen to our podcast, Real AI Use Business Owners Roundtable on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.
[00:44:34] Speaker A: Passage to Profit with Richard and Elizabeth Gerhardt.
[00:44:37] Speaker B: Coming up, two more entrepreneur interviews and secrets of the entrepreneurial mind. Stay tuned.
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[00:46:41] Speaker A: Passage to profit continues with Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart. Quick shout out to our friends at WGNC 1450am and 1O1FM in Charlotte, NC. Thanks for listening and if you're new here, Passage to Profit is a top ranked entrepreneurship podcast and radio show heard on 39 stations. It's a place where founders share what really works.
Now time for Intellectual Property News. Here's what caught my eye in Intellectual property News. This week Congress held a hearing with a very interesting title, a midlife crisis IP and the Internet after 40. And that title really says it all. The Internet is no longer a teenager. It's not even a young adult. It's been around long enough that Congress is now asking whether our intellectual property laws still work in the online world. The most interesting issue was something called site blocking. Now that may sound technical, but the idea is pretty simple. Today, if a website is selling counterfeit goods, pirated movies, stolen software, or illegal copies of creative content, the usual approach is often notice and takedown down. That is, the rights owner complains, a listing comes down, then another one just like it pops up someplace else, and then another. It becomes a game of whack a mole. Site blocking would be different. Instead of chasing every infringing listing one by one, court could order Internet service providers or other intermediaries to block access to foreign rogue websites that routinely infringe. Supporters say this is necessary because many of these sites are overseas and they're anonymous and effectively beyond the reach of normal U.S. lawsuits. Steve Francis of IP House told Congress that more than 40 countries already use some form of judicial site blocking, and he cited data showing major drops in traffic to block blocked infringing sites in the United Kingdom, Portugal, and Australia.
But here is why this matters for entrepreneurs.
IP theft online is no longer just about someone copying a song or knocking off a handbag. It affects software companies, inventors, designers, authors, filmmakers, brands, and small businesses.
If you build value around a product, a brand, content, code, or a Persona, the Internet can help you scale. But it can also help counterfeiters and pirates scale against you. The hearing also tied this issue to AI deepfakes and the no Fakes act, which would create federal protections against unauthorized AI generated replicas of a person's voice or lightning.
That means IP law is now moving into a world where your face, your voice, your brand, your content, and your products can all be copied at scale. The big takeaway is this. The next phase of IP protection may not be just about registering patents, trademarks and copyrights. It may also be about whether the legal system system can actually stop online infringement fast enough to make it matter and for entrepreneurs, that is the key point. Your intellectual property is only as valuable as your ability to protect it. The Internet made it easier than ever to build a business, but it also made it easier than ever for bad actors to copy1. That's IP news. And if you have an idea or invention you want to protect, the team at Gerhart Law helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into protected assets. You can visit learnmoreaboutpatents.com or learn more about trademarks.com for a free consultation and practical guides to get you started later. We have secrets of the entrepreneurial what successful founders think about that most people never see.
[00:51:01] Speaker B: Now is time to interview our other two entrepreneurs on here. I'm going to start with Nate Amadot with Form 100 Consulting.
Nate, tell us all about your company, how you got started.
[00:51:13] Speaker D: We're a premium staffing and execution partner for technology organizations. And so we operate in the contingent workforce staffing realm and we really focus on large enterprises that use contractors and vendors as a strategy. And what makes us unique in premium is that we only source from a pool of veterans, people who are former military leaders, so officers and senior NCOs.
And so we try to find people who have led teams and programs in very dynamic military environments. And then we bring them in to technology organizations to drive alignment, communication, instill some process discipline and really just get everybody on the same page so we know what's going on in a technology organization.
[00:52:00] Speaker A: That's great. Who are your major customers? Who's your target market market?
[00:52:05] Speaker D: We actually really love non tech first companies. So these are large brand names that you know of and heard of, but they don't really realize that they're a technology organization yet. And so they operate software development and building of products and data and all the things that that a modern company needs to run, but they're doing it still in, in a culture of manufacturing or services. And so those things really start to clash and there can be a lot of dysfunction between and how we actually get technical work done and how it gets funded and how it gets reported.
So we act a lot like that middle layer doing program management and project management and really helping everybody stay aligned so the organizations can deliver value. It's amazing how expensive technology and software development actually is for large enterprises. I mean a software development team typically is going to cost an organization two to three million dollars a year just for one team. And these big organizations can have hundreds of these teams and oftentimes it's so confusing and they don't really know what they're working on, which sounds crazy to say, but it's true. If you've ever worked in a large enterprise, they can almost be not delivering anything. Right. These organizations are just kind of flushing that down the toilet. And so we come in to really make sure everyone's aligned. And on the same page stage, you
[00:53:27] Speaker A: mentioned that the manufacturing side and the IT sometimes clash.
Can you give an example of that? Maybe explain it a little bit more for our audience?
[00:53:39] Speaker D: Yeah. So if you, if you started in a manufacturing or let's just say services, you build a product that's physical and you can go onto the factory floor and you can see how that widget's being built, right? You can, you can look at it. You can see where there's bottlenecks, you can see where there's issues. It's more visible than if you're trying to do the same thing except for technology, because they could be on an engineer's computer or in one of a bunch of different technology environments that are being run. What happens a lot of times is there's really just a lack of clarity on what's going on and the status and what's blocking things from actually being delivered.
And then the executive culture that's used to having more visibility doesn't have that.
And so there becomes a clash because you get a lot of like, well, you said it was going to be done in three weeks or six weeks or six months. And it. And it ends up always being delayed. We try to put in the right type of processes and bring in leaders who know how to operate in these kind of dynamic environments to make sure that leaders in the technology world can see, we say lower the water level so we can see where all the rocks are are. And that's really how to provide for technology organizations.
[00:54:54] Speaker B: And that's really important because things do always seem to take longer. We're working with somebody who's implementing some AI in the law firm and it's like, well, can we just use it? Well, it's almost done. Well, can't we just use it? It looks like it's done to me. Can't we just use it? Oh, well, you know, a couple things aren't quite working and it's just like been going on and on that way. So you bring in leaders, so we. What characteristics do they have that really helps solve this problem? Because I think it's a problem for a lot of companies.
[00:55:24] Speaker D: I started this because I started leaving the Air Force, not going the flying route and trying to get a job somewhere. And I Had a bunch of experience. I had a lot of education, but on my resume, it basically just said pilot. And so when I would go into interviews, I would continually get passed over because I didn't have enough experience. And so I found my way into a large technology company as a vendor. And I realized when I got in there that the skills I learned in the military as an officer and a pilot were really, really valuable in the private sector.
The ability to make decisions without all the information, to really focus on the mission and what's the goal, and to just have some of the basic communication and processes in place.
And so I actually tried to get other military veterans that were coming out with similar experience hired.
And my consulting firm wouldn't do it. The organizations wouldn't really do it. And so there was just this gap that I saw between an untapped talent pool coming out of the military and technology organizations that really needed that type of skill set. And so that's really what we look for. When someone's been in the military as a. A senior NCO or an officer, they've gone through a ton of leadership training. They've gone through the trials of failing at leadership and how to work on a team, how to work with a team, and then really how to execute to accomplish the mission. That's what we look for. And from a recruiting standpoint, it's great because we just have a really high trust with the people we're bringing in. We already know that those people are going to show up on time.
You know, they're not going to complain. They have high integrity. And so that mix has really been good for us.
[00:57:12] Speaker A: Pretend I'm an IT executive and you're pitching me on the need for leadership in my organization. What kinds of things would you tell me that somebody trained in the military services, that their skill set is something that could help my organization.
[00:57:31] Speaker D: So most likely, you've already been using some sort of staffing companies. You have a pool of different companies that you use that will bring in, like, technical program managers and project managers and scrum masters. And most of the time, they're kind of hit or miss. It's almost like you're just rolling the dice, hoping that you get somebody that's good, and the more experience that you look for on a resume doesn't equate to better performance once they get on your team.
And so there's a lot of frustration you're probably feeling, and most executives are feeling in that realm. Realm. And so we bring a higher trust level when someone on our team comes in and works with an inside of an organization. We're really focused on building high performing teams and programs and providing the visibility to know what's going on. And so a lot of our clients are really frustrated. You know, I have a lot of empathy for IT executives because they're the ones that always have to see, always give the bad news to the board or always give the bad news because things are always delayed is because they don't, they can't see what's going on with enough Runway to actually fix it. And so that's what we bring to someone like you or someone that's in an, you know, an executive position. Understanding how you can help and where you can, you can make things better so you can improve delivery.
[00:58:49] Speaker B: So how long do you work with the company then? Do you go in and fix everything and then leave or do you keep working with them for a long time?
[00:58:56] Speaker D: So we'll do both. We'll come in and do transformations of organizations when things are just completely falling apart. A lot of times when there's large mergers and acquisitions, when you have, let's say a company that starts with two or three teams and then gets a huge influx of capital or they merge with another team that has, or another organization that has an additional five or 10 teams. Now the stuff that you were doing in two to three software development teams doesn't scale to 10 or 12.
And so we'll come in and help build that program and build the processes and the communications and all the things that help make delivery possible. And then we'll a lot of times just come in as augmented staff, as contractors and vendors. And in those scenarios, you know, once we get in with clients, they don't really let us go. And so we have longevity. We can be on accounts for three to five to 10 years.
[00:59:50] Speaker B: I see Leah thinking, you look like you're thinking really hard. Did you have a comment or question?
[00:59:56] Speaker C: Well, I'm interested, Nate, just with your military background, so my father and grandfather also were in the service and I know it's kind of a particular framework that you all use. And you know, I had growing up as well, just like a lot of discipline, a lot of focus and so I can see how that would be highly impactful to organizations. And as you, you meet with organizations both sort of large and small, do you see opportunities where that framework comes into play and how you incorporate it into your value add as well?
[01:00:30] Speaker D: Absolutely. And I, I am so optimistic about this idea and about the model of bringing in military leaders into organizations. Especially with AI coming out, because we talk about all the benefits and we have a good conversation about all the amazing things you can do with AI. But it can be a double edged sword, large organizations, because now you're moving four or five times faster and if you're not aligned on where to go, that's a problem. Right. I mean if you fly faster in the wrong direction, that's not good.
[01:01:05] Speaker C: I also think, I also think Nate too, just from my experience growing up with, you know, sort of this military family, there's something here too around I think, integrity and ethics that come into play that's, that's at a different level. I mean, I do think you're operating at a different level in those areas as well. And like with AI, I think that's also an incredibly important aspect.
[01:01:27] Speaker D: Absolutely. So we're. Trust is going to be at a premium and you're not going to be able to monitor everything that's going on with the speed of things that are happening. And so trust and alignment and I keep talking a lot about alignment because it's so important for leaders to have a vision and have everyone on that team understand that vision. When you're moving slower, you can course correct more. But if you're misaligned and things are moving faster now, all of a sudden you can go astray really quickly. You know, you could even make catastrophic decisions in those environments. And so making sure that there's a tight communication loop, feedback loops are going to be really important. And I could, you know, talk, talk for hours about that. But yes, I think to, to your point Leah, that integrity and trust and the ability to have confidence that everyone on your team is marching to the same beat.
[01:02:23] Speaker A: It's interesting because over the last 20 years or so there's been a lot of different philosophies around management and some of, I think in some ways people have almost moved a little bit away from sort of the military model or what we think of as the military model where there's a lot of top down as opposed to bottom up management or are leading from behind management.
What's your opinion on how sort of the military approach sort of works with some of these other management theories that seem to be less top down focused and more maybe bottom up or group oriented.
[01:03:05] Speaker D: So I think about this as on a spectrum. Let's say if you have total top down, command and control type of management style, you're not going to be effective. But if you just throw everybody in a room and see what comes out, kind of no structure at all that's also chaos. And I don't the military is as top down command and control, it looks that way, but in execution it's really not. And so from my experience in the Air Force and flying is, we had this idea of centralized command, decentralized execution. And I really like that idea because at some point we need a direction for the organization to make sure we're all aligned on what it is we're going after. Like who's our customer, right? Why does our team exist, why does our program exist, why does our organization exist? And then what are we trying to gain? What's the opportunity in the market?
Should be pretty centralized, right? I mean we should have a pretty good idea from the C suite down what our objective is as a company. But then when it comes to execution it should be a lot more decentralized. Meaning teams should go off and experiment, they should try different things, they should do whatever it takes to complete the mission. And the military actually operates a lot like that. So when I would fly a mission, they would say hey, you have to bring cargo or troops or whatever from this point to that point and they'd provide some guidelines, guidance. But then when it came to execution, I made decisions, I did what I needed to do to execute towards the mission. And that distinction is something that is really missing. I think in technology organizations. They either have way too much of the command and control, do everything exactly how we're supposed to do it.
There's this idea of waterfall project management that is very much like, hey, here's everything we're going to do. And then on the other side there's this idea of like agile project management where you just are constantly iterating to figure things out out and you can go too far that direction too. And so how you mix those two things together is really how organizations turn into high performing teams.
[01:05:01] Speaker A: Speaking for entrepreneurs, how big should an organization be before they consider bringing in somebody, maybe from the military who has those levels of skill? I mean you work with larger companies, big companies. A lot of people in our audience are entrepreneurs. They don't have these large teams. But when is that kind of structure appropriate? When would somebody bring somebody in who has those skills? Or is it really up to the CEO and management team? You know, up to a certain point
[01:05:32] Speaker D: I'm a huge proponent of hiring veterans across the board and the veteran community is a cross section of our society. But I do think whether you're just starting to hire your first person or you're looking for a partner in your your 100,000 person organization. You should give a veteran resume a second look because at the core there's just some fundamentals, what I call foundational skills that you're going to have. Like if you've gone through basic training, you understand how to work on a team, you know how to communicate effectively. There are just some of these intangibles, high integrity, you have more grit. There's just some of those things that I think are really valuable to any organization at any level. That's an important distinction. And I would go in and say not all veterans are going to work out for your specific need or what you're looking for, but I think you should give them a second look because it reduces the risk of hiring someone that doesn't have those foundational skills.
[01:06:31] Speaker B: Nate Don with Form 100 Consulting. Go look at his website. It's really very cool. I went there and thank you, Nate. Now we're on to Lauren Hidalgo with Aware House Shop and she's going to talk about how her company is different than some that we already know about and all the really cool things she has on her site. So welcome Lauren.
[01:06:54] Speaker E: Thank you for having me. So my company is called awarehouse. It's awarehouseshop.com we are a retail marketplace dedicated to supporting small businesses in the US the US primarily. Not all of our products are strictly 100% made in the USA, but we do work with mostly American small businesses and some of them, for example, are producing abroad and the majority are producing locally. So how we are different as a marketplace, a retail marketplace, compared to maybe some of the bigger ones that you know, is that we are curated. So we basically vet every single vendor that we work with. We actually have conversations with them. Them.
I personally know all of them we're working with. I think it's about close to 200 at this point. And it's really kind of grown into something that I didn't expect. And one of the things that I think really brings value to it for our customers is firstly the curation. So you're not having to sift through millions of products, right, which is just exhausting mentally. And people, you know, they have enough decisions to make every day. So we kind of cur and refine the product selection to begin with. But also for me, what I'm really passionate about, not only supporting people with local businesses in the us, but also supporting transparent supply chains and, you know, product integrity, product quality, so retail waste and, you know, pollution. Everyone loves to talk about like global warming and these sorts of things, but no one Actually talks about retail pollution. For example, in a lot of supply chains, products that are produced overseas, there is a lot of waste, manufacturing waste associated with those products. So most of our suppliers, they're producing in ways, for example, made to order blankets. So when you place the order, the blanket is domestically woven on the east coast using high quality cotton wool and it's made for you. So there aren't, you know, a hundred other of the same blankets that are getting manufactured but then getting disposed of because the vendor doesn't want to, you know, have excess supply available. So they'll dispose of that alternatively if they can't sell it. We avoid all of that just because of the model that all of our vendors work with. And then for our vendors as well, it's great for them because they basically have a marketplace where they can be discovered. It's so difficult as a creator to get somebody's attention nowadays. It's basically next to impossible. And I really empathize with all creators and all vendors and everybody who has a business in general because marketing nowadays is just extremely difficult. It feels like it's impossible for a lot of people.
So having a marketplace that kind of unites people within a certain criteria really helps vendors get discovered and just makes the shopping experience also more enjoyable for a customer base that is looking for a certain caliber of quality.
[01:09:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I noticed the items on your site were really high quality. And so I did notice there was a link to a website. I know Amazon does that too. I think it was Farmhouse. So that's very supportive of them. So we could buy either through you or through Farmhouse. And then also I saw something on there that I don't think I've seen anywhere else. And it was a pebbled copper mixing bowl for a stand mixer.
[01:10:14] Speaker E: Can you put it somewhere else?
Probably not. Yeah, that's the KitchenAid copper mixing bowl. So that's actually an Austin, Texas based company that manufactures between Mexico and the U.S. but they're using traditional artisanal old school processes. So you probably can't get that anywhere else. I don't know. That actually was one of our best sellers last holiday season.
And the thing about our marketplace also that makes it different from other similar curated marketplaces is that we are not strictly, you know, every product has to be 100% made in the USA, like that bowl that's actually made in Mexico. Or for example, we work with some women who have various women who have businesses either in Los Angeles or Boston, but they are originally from India and they actually have their own textile businesses. And they frequently go back to India. They work with cooperatives in India to produce these products and bring them to the US markets. So I say it's about 75% of products are made domestically. But sourcing materials may not be 100% local because that could literally be impossible.
You know, we don't have all of the supply chain available for some products.
But then also I'm actually, I'm half American, half Spanish, so I. I didn't move to the US until I was 18.
And there are so many great things from abroad, right. And so many, you know, ancient practices.
Copper, ceramics, textiles, all of these different things that we can bring to the US market that I think just have a lot more like character and value compared to maybe something you would find at like, Target. No offense to Target, but, you know, it's nice for customers to have alternatives.
[01:11:58] Speaker A: So, Lauren, how did you get into this business?
[01:12:01] Speaker E: So I started this business as a side project. I was working at a 9 to 5 and my first day at that job was the first day back in office from the pandemic. So the work situation was hybrid work. And I was new. I was living in Texas, in Houston. I was new to Houston.
I was only going into the office like two days a week. So I just had no friends and a lot of free time.
So I kind of started thinking about, you know, what could I do with this free time.
And there's a website called Huckberry. It's the one stop mentioning shop. And my now husband, who was my boyfriend, I. I noticed that he liked that store a lot. And I just thought that that idea of a marketplace was very cool. But Huckberry in itself, it's built for male, like, men's taste. So there weren't things on there that I really liked, but they have a high quality caliber overall. So I was. That kind of started the whole idea. And then I did more research and I thought, oh, it would be really cool if we could come kind of make this more vetted in terms of supporting more made in the USA production or, you know, just looking at the supply chains. I have a background in supply chain. I was working actually in my nine to five in supply chain. So that's also where that part came in. And then it kind of snowballed into this. It was never like my. It was never a plan. It just kind of happened. And I remember having to think a lot about, like, what am I doing? Like, what am I building?
And I redid the website many times to get it to where it is. Now, but now I'm finally at the point, or for the maybe past year, where I've had a product that I think has a very much clearer identity, not only maybe to the customers, but also to me as a creator.
[01:13:50] Speaker B: Yeah, your website's gorgeous. So, Leah, do you have a question or comment?
[01:13:54] Speaker C: I mean, I'm shopping right now, Lauren. I'm on the website.
I'm looking for the copper bowl. It sounds. I mean, it's incredible.
Yeah, I think one thing that's really interesting just about your model in general, too, and your approach back to the topic around authenticity.
I think that particularly in this day and age, the consumer is looking not just to buy a product, but is looking to connect with a brand in an authentic way.
And with someone like Lauren, who obviously has incredible taste. Right. And an ability to curate, you know, a marketplace, I think consumers are able to find people, influencers that they trust to make those buying decisions and just shop easier and faster. So I love it. I'm on here right now. I'm going to do some shopping.
[01:14:46] Speaker E: Thank you so much.
[01:14:49] Speaker A: So, Lauren, you know, it's interesting. Are you planning to scale, and if so, so kind of. How would you approach that, given the high personal touch that you give to your vendors in your business?
[01:15:03] Speaker E: Yeah, I've thought a lot about this. It's a difficult question to answer because I don't ever want to close doors to an opportunity. So I'm always open, you know, and that's why I like to do things like podcasts or just go to sort of networking events to meet people, because you never know, like, what opportunity life will present. But. But there is something for me about scaling slowly and organically. So last year, I invested a lot of money in paid ads, meta ads, Google Ads, podcast ads, all of the ads. I wanted to try everything, basically, and see what worked and what I liked and what wasn't working. And then this year I was like, okay, now I'm gonna do the opposite. I'm just gonna go 100% organic. And this year, we've actually had better results, I think, because going full organic, you know, not running all these ads made me really focus on all the little details of the website, of the marketing of the customer service, everything, refining everything, so that I was really making sure that the entire process for the customer or, you know, the way that the social media presents itself was 100% optimized. I think before it was not. And I was kind of using something like paid ads, which obviously they cost a lot of money to kind of COVID up little holes that needed to be fixed. So when it comes to scaling, that is my apprehension, right. I don't want to throw money at something. And then all of a sudden kind of holes or gaps start to form and I am not really noticing them because, you know, the money is basically generating sales regardless. Right. It's harder to kind of pinpoint those things. Sometimes it depends on the firm or, you know, who the investors are, what they would want you to do. I know that there are a lot more firms now that are a lot more kind of mission oriented, right? More values driven. So something like that could work. But if it were to be a firm that's like, okay, we want you to reach X figures and then go public, that wouldn't work for me. Just because at the end of the day, you know, I tell my customers, I'm like, I have had phone calls with my customers about, you know, orders before and I love that part of the business. It's not something that I'll do forever and it's not something I do as much as I used to.
But that, you know, process of trust. I think, as I mentioned before, I think it's just going to become more valuable.
But I would obviously be open to anybody who understands that because for me, that's basically the fundamentals of it.
[01:17:33] Speaker A: So how do you find the products and the vendors and the makers for your website? Do you look for them or do they find you?
[01:17:40] Speaker E: So now it's a mix of both. Both. So we have a vendor application form on the website and a lot of people will find us from social media and things like that. Before I actually started this, I just purchased some products from five, I think it was about five vendors. I bought them wholesale and then I started this website and that was it. But now as we've scaled, we've switched to a consignment model where the products ship from the vendors houses so, so that they can list also a lot more items. So we don't have also those financial constraints when it comes to buying wholesale. So now it's kind of a mix of both. We work on Shopify and Shopify, they launched an app called Shopify Collective which essentially connects retailers and suppliers like us. So we can kind of become friends and sync our stores and then orders just process through like that. So that's also been really great. In terms of terms of scaling.
[01:18:37] Speaker B: Are there any products you really prefer to add to your site or do you just take about any kind of consumer good?
[01:18:44] Speaker E: I don't want to get to A million products, for example, like you know, Etsy, I think they have like 80 million. I don't know how many millions Amazon has. I don't want to get to a point where it's too many products but I do want to get to a point where it's very cohesive. So generally whatever you're looking for for you can hopefully find within, you know, general home goods, makeup, beauty, some clothing, things like that. We're not going to add on every single product ever and we're not going to say yes to every single person that wants to work with us because otherwise that would negate the curation aspect and value of it. But yeah, I do think. Well, one of the areas that I'm really excited about is the Aware Junior section that we launched towards the end of Q1.1 this year. So that's kids and baby products. Because actually my niece is now about 1 years old and I remember when she was born my brother in law was just like, what is up with all of these baby products? They're so expensive. You know, they were all, you know, made in China, all of them. And so going into Aware Juniors it unveiled a whole world of made in the USA baby supplies that are really high quality. They're sold at a very good price point. So I think that's one of the, I don't have a baby yet. But you know, I think that's one of the areas of the website that I'm most excited for because now a lot of my friends and stuff are starting to have kids. So yeah, I think we'll just see where it goes.
[01:20:12] Speaker B: I'm gonna go have to look at that because we have grandkids and I order bamboo clothing from England because I can't find it here. But I'm, I'm excited to see what you have on your site. Site. The name of your site is Aware House Shop. Yes, Aware is Aware House Shop. So you're looking for vendors, you're looking for buyers, everything, right?
[01:20:32] Speaker E: Yes. And any feedback if you're a customer and there's something that you would like, we, you know, made by a small business, please let us know and we'll, we'll look for it. Or if you have a, a brand that you think would be a good fit also please send it because we're always looking for new suppliers to work with.
[01:20:51] Speaker B: Excellent. Thank you. So listeners, you're listening to the Passage to Profit show and don't go away because we'll have Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind coming right up.
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[01:21:59] Speaker A: It's passage to Profit. Now it's time for Noah's retrospective.
[01:22:04] Speaker B: Noah Fleishman is our producer here at Passage to Profit, and he never stops trying to make sense of the future by looking at the past.
[01:22:13] Speaker D: When I was 11 years old, what did I want more than anything? One of those consumer VCRs, video cassette recorders with the great big camera pack. The things that look like those television news units. Remember those with the big microphone? In those days, those things cost literally over a thousand dollars. We didn't have that kind of money.
But I sure did dream. Let me tell you, the movies I would make, the television shows I would create, of course, it didn't occur to me that in order to do those things, you needed a crew, you needed a cast, you needed writers, you needed people to help you make it happen.
Well, none of it ever did actually happen. But many years later, when I got online and looked on the Internet, I started seeing all of these things that looked like theatrical trailers and promotional films and movie. You know what those were? Those were people creating those things on their home computer software. People as young as 15, 14 creating things that looked like genuine movie trailers that you would see in a theater. How much of a crew and cast did they have? Probably not too much. With less and less effort, technology is allowing us to create our dream. Isn't that amazing? Sometimes at this point I think to myself, wow, with less and less effort and more and more dreams. Available, available. Keep dreaming and technology will just make the dream come true.
[01:23:28] Speaker A: Now More with Richard and Elizabeth Passage to profit.
[01:23:32] Speaker B: Now it is time for Secrets of the Entrepreneurial Mind. So I'm going to ask Leah Sullivan with Leah Sullivan.com what is a secret you can share with our listeners?
[01:23:42] Speaker C: Okay, My secret is that you think people in a leadership role like mine have everything figured out out. And the truth is we do not.
So everyone you're talking to actually has really no idea what they're doing. And if you can approach every conversation, I think with that humility and curiosity, that's when you can make real connections with people. I think a lot of times it can feel intimidating to talk to, you know, leaders that have been really successful. I've certainly been in that position as well. But over time, I've learned everyone is making things up as they go along.
[01:24:24] Speaker B: Okay, wait a minute.
[01:24:27] Speaker A: Have I been making things up as I've been going along? Oh, my gosh.
[01:24:32] Speaker B: Nate Amadon with Form 100 Consulting. What's a secret you could share?
[01:24:37] Speaker D: If you're going to start your own company, you're going to need a crazy amount of grit. From my experience, it's just a series and series of things not going right, failures times when you just think it's not going to work and you just have to have the ability to keep going.
[01:24:55] Speaker E: For me, in building this business, the secret was actually doing a lot of very mundane and pretty somewhat boring tasks. But I just do them every single day consistently. And unfortunately, no matter the industry or the company, that's probably going to be your life for at least two or three years until you get to a place where maybe you can spend more time doing more of the fun tasks. But yeah, I guess maybe a secret would be that behind the scenes, a lot of it is not so enthusing or not so interesting. It's a lot of administrative, a lot of day in, day out. Make sure that you get these things done so that you make progress slowly, even if it doesn't feel like it because it probably won't a lot of the time.
[01:25:41] Speaker B: Yeah, that is so true.
[01:25:43] Speaker A: What a bunch of authentic responses.
[01:25:45] Speaker B: I know. So, Richard Gearhart with Gearhart Law. What's the secret you can share?
[01:25:49] Speaker A: Well, I'm going to go with, you know, expertise is not enough, especially if you're on the service side of things, especially if you've worked in larger organizations. You may have professional skills in one area, but that doesn't necessarily completely translate into skills in all areas. And so, so, you know, when I left corporate and started Gearhart Law along with Elizabeth, you know, I had to learn about marketing, finance, it. There's a whole range of things out there that were just sort of taken care of for me that I didn't really appreciate I had to learn about. And so, you know, even though I was confident with my legal skills, there was still a big learning curve there. And so if you're going to step into that void, you know, just be aware of that and get as much information and as much support and as many conversations around those things that you don't know about, because that's just as important as the things that you do.
[01:26:43] Speaker B: Very well said. And for me, Elizabeth Gearhart with Geremedia Studios. I was going to say ride the wave. I think Nate kind of took care of that one. Right.
But no, honestly. And I changed it, actually, while Richard and I were practicing for the show because we always go through the notes and rehearse. Believe it or not, it doesn't sound like it, but we do.
But. But his phone kept ringing, and it's like, who keeps calling you? Oh, it's my friend. Potential spam.
[01:27:13] Speaker A: Likely spam.
[01:27:14] Speaker B: Likely spam. And so it really made me think, put yourself in your customer or client's shoes. Like, I can guarantee that Richard will never buy something from somebody who calls him up out of the blue with a spam call.
And so how is really the best way to reach him? But I. I think.
[01:27:32] Speaker A: And how are they. I mean, they're wasting a lot of money, right, on these shows.
[01:27:37] Speaker B: They're wasting a lot of money on this. And I think everybody hit on this in their own way during this show, but really, you really have to think about not just why you're doing it, but what do people want and how do they want to be treated. So that's my two cents.
[01:27:49] Speaker A: I think that's an amazing point. And that's all for today's Passage to Profit show. If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe to the podcast and leave a quick review. Also, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and X and subscribe to our YouTube channel for bonus content. Tune in next week for another episode of Passage to Profit.
