SPEAKER_03 0:05

You ever notice the people doing the most aren't asking for advice? This is built without permission. I'm Matthew Mack. Before I ever drew a blueprint or signed a business deal, I was folding suits, hauling snow, and washing glasses until 2 a.m. Then came architecture, tow trucks, and a built business from the ground up with my partner. No blueprint, no safety net, no approval. Just real stories, hard pivots, and what it actually takes to build something from nothing. Let's get to work.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Stress, the heartache, the joy, the triumph, every single bit of it already today.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

Awesome, man. Awesome. I love the uh artwork in the back. That's that's cool on the wall. Yeah, it's nice. I guess it tells its own story, eh?

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Yeah, it's the it's the doodles of a madman for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:00

Yeah, that's awesome, man. Awesome. Thank you for taking the time. Really appreciate it. That's that's that's cool.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

I'm so excited for this.

SPEAKER_03 1:10

Yeah, slowly but surely, you know, connecting with uh the elites uh one by one, you know, and getting to know everyone.

SPEAKER_02 1:17

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:18

Uh, how many how many other elites have you connected with? So uh I had a couple already. Um I got some more coming down the pipeline. You know what? I'll be honest, it's it's more so for me that I gotta start sending out the calendar invites because I'm trying to work around my current schedule, which is my my so my current business is um uh uh equipment rentals. So I'm working on the operations, getting my team set up, all this stuff. So there's been a lot of a little bit of a delay on some personal side of things that now I'm just trying to catch up on there, get the team going for the season, and then I'm like all full throttle on on this, getting into coaching, all this fun stuff, right? There's there's lots of things down in the pipeline for from for myself, which is absolutely I'm super excited for, but uh today's not about me.

SPEAKER_02 2:08

Well, sequencing matters, and actually, I'm interested. I've I looked at buying an equipment rental business in the last probably nine months, and it's a really interesting space to me. Uh actually I've I've looked at multiple now that I think about it. Um, it's an interesting space to me that I don't have any experience in, but I would love to like at some point in the in the near future pick your brain on, here, hear your reactions as someone that's in in the trenches, and yeah, that would be super cool.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Absolutely, yeah. We can definitely go go into dive into a lot of details and in and around that.

unknown 2:40

Love it.

SPEAKER_03 2:41

Yeah, yeah. So, but now tell me, David, how are you? What are you up to? What are you doing?

SPEAKER_00 2:51

I'm great.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

I am I guess the the short answer is I am settling into a sustainable pattern for pat for business acquisitions. I've been in the business of buying businesses nearly full time for about two years, and it's been like a pure sprint, just like really focused on buying businesses, um, the due diligence, all of that. And I've been advised by multiple mentors, including Dan, yeah to start coaching business owners that I'm already working with and then helping for free, just getting paid for it and formalizing it. And so in the last month, after over a year and a half of people beating me alongside the head with like you should absolutely do this, I'm I'm doing that as well.

SPEAKER_03 3:39

Awesome. Good for you, man. And now prior to uh prior to all this, right? Like uh what um like if you give me like let's say the the 60 second version of you know who you are and how you built it, and prior to to where you are now. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Let me see which of those I can unpack.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

So in the last 10 years, I have been primarily in the world of VC funded startups. And um God bless me tremendously in that of those three startups, of the founders that I've had the opportunity to work with, all three of those have exited via acquisition. And so I got the experiences of building from the the ground up all the way through acquisition, and the last one was was bought by Toyota, and so I got to transition things into a Japan-based company, tremendous learning. And what I discovered was that I love building businesses and really building them aggressively, and I was done building for other people, and I want to do it for myself.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

That's what brings us to today.

SPEAKER_03 4:44

Cool. Cool, that's that's that's awesome. Yeah. And and that's what pretty much uh like so now for you, like uh was there was there a point like that uh I guess that was that that 10 years ago, that was the point where you felt like like you were kind of smashing there that that was your breaking point that you had to do what you had to do. Like this is like you're gonna do what you're gonna do without without the permission of anything, you're just gonna go freaking full throttle in it, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Yeah, you know, I my career started in big corporates. Think one of the largest global law firms in the world, one of uh, you know, Microsoft. And you know, the philosophy of asking for forgiveness, not permission, is not well accepted there. Yeah. And I realized that um innovation, agility, impact, those things were actually critical to me feeling like I was going to be able to have a career in business. And that was one of those breaking points where I'm just like, I gotta get out of here. I gotta go where ideas are are not just accepted, but welcome, where you know, we're we're we're able to move with with throughput and velocity. And um, you know, I didn't care that, you know, jumping into a VC funded startup was probably at the time the riskiest thing I could do is leaving big secure corporate, but I would never go back.

SPEAKER_03 6:11

Yeah, absolutely. So now would would you say that was pretty much like the big jump that you made at that point? And that was kind of like the scare one of the scariest moves you did. But then, like you said, you wouldn't look back at it, right? Like it must have been terrifying at the in in the moment, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Yeah, um, it was terrifying, you know. Mostly I I think this is probably something that's not talked about a lot, but for for my wife, right? Yeah, she was the one that was like loved the big, you know, security blanket of big corporates, the stability, the benefits, you know, like six weeks of paid vacation, all of that stuff. She really liked. And I could see what what I was gaining by taking the plunge, right? Um and that was less in focus for her. And and that's something that that absolutely has to be considered if you're thinking about making the plunge, jumping into entrepreneurship, those kinds of things for sure. I think the scarier one, honestly, was though taking everything that I made from the from the exit to Toyota and putting that all on me again. So again, like with the BC funded startups, yes, it's risky, but you have millions of investor dollars to play with. Now it's every dollar that goes out is mine.

SPEAKER_03 7:21

Yeah, it's yours and it counts, and it's yeah, you you have somewhat a more controlled budget. Yes, indeed. Yeah, to be uh aware about, yeah, because as as we all know, it's always easier to spend the money than than collect.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

100%.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

100%, right? Yeah, it's it's it's fun spending, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 7:42

It is, it's inspiring and it makes you feel like you're doing something, and then you realize they're an ROI and you become acutely aware of that.

SPEAKER_03 7:50

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And then now what are there like let's say things that you like know like now today that you wish you knew then that would have definitely saved you a lot of money? There must be, of course, tons, right? Tons tons and tons and tons. How much time do we have? As much, as much time as you want, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

Yeah. The the value of a few things books, mentorship, investing in um uh coaching groups, then getting and investing relationships with with it with peers that are in that same kind of uh stage as you, building stage, figuring it out, failing, and then comparing notes, being really intentional about cultivating relationships with those people. Yes, and then finding um and and actually utilizing mentors. For a long time, I was like, ah, I just everybody seems to have a mentor. I don't have one, like a like a somebody that is just investing in me, not because I'm paying them, right? Like, yes. Um, and what I realized is like there were multiple people along my path that was like, hey, if you ever want me to look at this business, send it my way. I'm I'm always happy to look at a business. I'll I'll tell you what I think. Yeah, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but they're busy, or yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm busy and I I forgot to send it to them, right? Yeah, and I just never took advantage of it.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

Yeah, so that was kind of like your subconscious, you know, the take taking control of your thoughts during that time. And like you said, you didn't you didn't um make it real of taking advantage of that, right? Yeah, so and then that's what I find well that's wild too, like from the things that we're learning as well, uh is that about the whole thing about our subconscious, how it plays pretty much tricks on us because it's not real unless you make it real. Yeah, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Well, and that's the thing about fear too, is is like the fear of something that appears to be real, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:51

And then now, so um now, like advice is stuff that you would say for for others, right? When when you're starting from your experience, like starting from scratch, you're starting like your entrepreneurship on your own. What are things that you uh that other people that haven't done it yet or taking the plunge, you know, would fear from and not know that really what it truly takes, you know what I mean? So like some uh I I would say most people for me up front may think that oh you need to have a lot of money to start something, right? As as a as a pointer there. So like what are your thoughts in and around that and and whatnot?

SPEAKER_00 10:33

So you think it takes much to start?

SPEAKER_02 10:35

It doesn't take any money, it does not take any money. That said, I actually strongly suggest if you have a job, a stable job, a W-2 or whatever, a source of income, to hang on to that as long as you can. Yeah, not because entrepreneurship requires a lot of money, but because um I've seen so many people jump in and burn the boats that needed, you know, months sometimes of more time to like figure it out or make the mistakes or whatever it is that a W-2 would have supported. And now they're having to make some some trade-offs that are less optimal down the road, including myself. This is a personal mistake that I've made multiple times actually, because I'm always like, no, I'm going all in. I'm burning the boats. Yeah, yeah. And I'm gonna be motivated to make this work. Motivation is not the problem, it's literally like the learnings, because it is impossible to avoid failure. And some of those failures, um, all those failures require time. And when you when you burn the boats, time is something you don't have or absolutely. And there are, if you're thinking about making the plunge, there are experiments that you can run in tandem with having a source of income that will pay you. Not just there's it doesn't have to be like, okay, I'm gonna stop making money for a little while because I'm doing this entrepreneur thing. You can absolutely do things starting today, wherever you're at, that will pay you or give you the experience that's going to make that learning shorter.

SPEAKER_03 12:05

Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, no, for sure, for sure, right? Like, and you know, for um, in relation to that, like it's the same. Like, so prior to what I'm doing now, I was actually an art, I was an architect for 10 years, and I was designing residential homes. That was my dream job when I was a kid. I knew what I wanted, right? Uh, to be in my life, and uh now I'm doing what I'm doing. So, like when I was seven years in, that's where I kept that still that job to to test the waters of what I'm doing now, and then three years in, I went full throttle. I let go of the that career and I'm doing what I'm doing now.

SPEAKER_02 12:41

So, like, do you want to be my mentor?

SPEAKER_03 12:45

Hey, listen, we could be each other's mentors, I don't mind, man. Yeah, there's a lot of things. Well, and and and it's cool because, like, you know, um, I I really do love this one-on-one and this real talk because now there's there's so much you learn from from others out there that you would never know unless you speak to the person on their experiences, nor will you would know unless that person, or whoever it may be, shares it with you, right? Because no one ever sees the challenges behind us, no one ever sees the the things that we have to deal deal with on a day-to-day basis, right? To get to where we are in the moment that we are, right? And would you say, like, um, and I'm a I'm a big believer of this, is that you know, you can't look at regret for the failures that we go through, but it's a matter of whatever we have failed at before made us who we are today.

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yeah. I tell my daughter at least weekly, if yeah, you know, nearly daily.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

Yeah, somebody that hangs on to like, oh, I wish I hadn't made that mistake. The only reason we look behind us is to learn from when are we learn? Yeah. That's it. And so, yeah, are there things I would do differently? Absolutely, but that's the value of it. Is now I can carry that forward and not.

SPEAKER_03 14:06

Yeah, to not do the same mistake, yeah, exactly. And and and just like actually on that point about history, right? And then it's it's interesting because so I have um I have three young ones, nine, seven, and four. My oldest nine, he loves history and all, but I'm looking at it and it's like why even like learn history, like it to a certain extent, yeah. When you see history keeps repeating itself and mistakes in the world, not like personal matter uh for you know, anyways, my train of thought there, it just went like this. But what I mean is it's like you know, you're teaching the history of you know the wars and everything, and and it seems like those same repeated things happen over and over again. It's like for me, wherever I'm achieving and pushing through and surrounding myself with the right people around me, same level, higher level than me, and whatnot in life, it's I don't like looking back anymore. It happened, I can't control it, gotta move forward, you know. So, like now, my my um, I guess to my point is when I think of history now, I just don't put time towards it anymore. Yeah, you know, I I steer my lane. Like this is my this is my focus, like the race horse.

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Yeah, focus, focus forward, focus on where you're headed.

SPEAKER_03 15:21

Yeah, yeah. And um, and uh yeah. By the way, whereabouts are you from? I am in the Boise, Idaho area. Technically Meridian, but Boise Idaho is where cool, cool. Yeah, that's another cool thing I I I love too is that you're connecting with pretty much anyone around the world.

SPEAKER_02 15:41

Absolutely, and your east coast times are like Wisconsin or no, I'm I'm in so I'm up in uh I'm in Toronto.

SPEAKER_03 15:49

Okay, up in Canada, up on the Canadians, yeah. But uh uh let's see here. Uh nine of five. Would you ever go back to that?

SPEAKER_02 16:08

You know, I'm careful about never saying never. Yeah. And I do think that I am unemployable, to be honest. You know, there was a season where after I burned the boats, I was like, well, and I also ran out of money. And so I started, you know, applying to jobs and things like that. And even like the interviews, it was tough for me to to turn it on because it just felt so out of place and out of alignment with what I knew brings me life. Yes. So I I do think that I am unemployable regards.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Hey, that's fantastic, right? Like, and it it that shows like you you know your true value. Yeah, right. You know your your your your your value, your worth, right? Yeah, definitely I could never do it.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

And so now, like time at a place, you know, I see people that retire and go, you know, be um a greeter at Walmart because they like talking to people and things like that. So I won't say never, because I'm always going to be working.

SPEAKER_03 17:08

I'm not somebody that that can just you can't just sit there and retire, yeah. Absolutely. Just keep keep yourself busy. Yeah, yes, build build for you 100%. And um, so now like uh in terms of like things that you're working on currently, like I know you mentioned like acquisitions and things like that. So, like um and and building certain businesses, so like what are other things um uh that you have done in and around that? Like, is it just any kind of business or specific businesses that you're focused on?

SPEAKER_02 17:40

Yep. So I will look at any business that comes to me through my network. So if you know a business owner that's selling, uh, I will look at it. Yeah. But I personally invest my marketing dollars in two searches. One is e-commerce and people that are selling physical products online. I don't deal with like digital things or purely um like I want to I want a physical product that I can understand. I need I need small, easy industries. The other one is completely on the other end of the spectrum. It's related to the trades, and it is water. Think well drilling, think pumps, think filtration and treatment, but digging holes in the waterproofing buying water and getting water to where you need it to go is the other one that I've made a tremendous investment in. Okay. Cool.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

Uh like even like I guess uh like up here, there's a lot of uh because of the winters and stuff like that, uh, get a lot of the water buildup in the homes and all the waterproofing guys, like those kind of there's pretty big trades up here for that, right? Um, dig in the basements and stuff uh outside the foundation and putting waterproofing around the homes. Um interesting. Um, and now like what is it that now when you're looking at um these businesses, what are like the key things that you're looking for that would kind of direct you? You don't have to give the full detail, but like what are the quick key points that you're looking for that make would make you interested in taking them on andor investing in?

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Yeah, so one thing is I have to see regardless of what industry it's in, that I have some kind of theory or hypothesis around how do I add value, specifically me. Beyond that, then I'm looking at to what degree uh is the business relying on the owner, relying on the owner.

SPEAKER_03 19:28

So um like the whole bottleneck thing, making sure it's not all in them.

SPEAKER_02 19:31

Yeah. Yeah, not especially specifically not all in their head. Yeah. We can do things to slowly transition business owners out of their business, but you know, transitioning them out and trying to document everything um and hire the people and all that is just way too much. So the dependency on owners big. Um some kind of financial trend line. What I don't like is like up and down, up and down, up and down. Like it can be all going down, it can all be going up, but that loneliness is pretty scary and difficult to like connect to why is that happening. Yeah. Um and then you know, I think the other thing is just like to the degree again that that things are repeatable. There's systems, there's processes, it's documented, those kinds of things. Those are three big pillars that really underscore is there an opportunity for me to explore further or not.

SPEAKER_03 20:24

Yeah, so making sure that the uh SOPs are in place for whatever it is in in those businesses. Right. Kind of like uh it was it was really interesting uh about the you know the whole McDonald's theory. How um when it just started off as that one restaurant and then seeing how they operate and how fast they made the process work, and all they did was just copy and multiply exact measurements, exact positions in place, like everything, and like where look where they are now, right?

SPEAKER_02 20:56

I text a business owner every month who has zero employees. Generally, I'm looking for you know companies that have eight or more employees because I don't want to run the business myself from day one. Yeah, I don't want it all on my shoulders. Yeah, but he has zero employees, but what he does have is uh a well-defined product and a repeatable process that literally just about anybody could run. That makes it really easy for me to offer him a ton of money uh for his business because I can go and easily find not just one, but dozens of people that could run that business for me um from day one.

SPEAKER_03 21:34

Yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. So it's like in a way, brokering. In a way, like so to speak, in a way, it's like you you know, you you're you're putting the pieces in play, right? You're setting up the chess pieces.

unknown 21:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:49

And that's a lot of what what these conversations come to. It's like I don't end up buying the business, but I connect them with somebody that helps them on their journey or introduce them to an investor or Source of capital or whatever that looks like, or a lot, you know, now coach them. It's like, gosh, why are you selling? All the hard yards are behind you, you're just stuck. Let's let's work together on getting you unstuck and getting to where you want to be.

SPEAKER_03 22:12

Want to be, yeah, no, for sure. And then so now, like, um, have you ever uh come across where let's say you know a business of interest um that you ended up keeping yourself part of it, or no? Or you just literally just say found this cool. I want you, found uh someone that would take you on and buy you out, and here you go, and then that's it, one and done. Or is there other ones that you say, you know what, I can keep this as a recurring, but without having to be involved? That is fully involved.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

North Star buy and hold and grow buy and hold. Okay, I'm looking to grow businesses, but like I think it's very in vogue to go and buy a business, grow it artificially as much as you can, and then sell it to a bigger fish upstream. And I think that's tremendously short-sighted and destructive to our economy and communities. Yeah, I'm more of a buy and hold person. Um, and that's that's that's the driver. And I talk to business owners where that's important to them. You know, I literally was talking to a business owner within the last couple of months, and he was like, You buy my business, you do what you want with them, you can fire them all the next day. I don't care if they'll land on their feet. That's not the business owner I'm that's the old school mentality.

SPEAKER_03 23:29

Take it off my shoulders and do whatever you want, you know?

SPEAKER_02 23:32

Yeah, means to an end. I'm very long-term vision.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

Okay, okay, and then like, and then when when you do like decide, because I'm very interested to understand this, right? So, like, let's say you know you find a certain business, you um you want to invest into it, and now um when you come to uh making agreements with like the the owner of that business, is it like you're you so you're drawing, you know, documenting, you're drawing the line saying, like, listen, this is like my role, and this is your role, and this is how it's gonna be kind of thing. So you do you you define roles, right?

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Yes. I mean, there are so many different paths to buying a business. I actually do a weekly webinar on this every Thursday, um, to help enlighten and and and shine light on what is involved in actually selling a business for business owners. And most of them think in terms of like a full sale hundred percent, and on you know, the moment the ink's dry on the purchase agreement, they're off, you know, golfing. Yeah, it that is that happens, and that's right for a very small percentage of owners, but there are so many different nuanced op options. And what I found is that like many of these business owners are like, wait a second, I've been wearing all these hats I hate, five or six hats. And if I brought you in as a partner, I could just focus on the one thing that I really enjoy about my business. Well, then I don't want to sell, I'll just stay for years. Yeah, that is a really interesting thing to explore and structure. And you have to have a really solid purchase agreement, to your point, getting very clear and specific on what are their contributions and outcomes that they're accountable for, and what am I accountable for, or any other partners that are involved? And sometimes you can involve a key employee in that conversation. You know, they have a GM that's been running things for a long time. Uh it's me. It you know, it it all the spectrum is wide.

SPEAKER_03 25:23

Yeah, nice. And uh so do you yourself, because I've actually been sitting on this for a while, and I uh and I know I do need to find myself an EA, do you yourself have an EA or no?

SPEAKER_02 25:37

I do, yes, and absolutely you should talk to JP Forno, uh, who's also in Dan's group. Um, I have hired hundreds of people myself, and I have yet to find somebody that has as thorough and efficient of a process for hiring specifically EAs as JP. So if you're open to somebody um they're that's um near shore uh in the same time zone as you, you have to talk to him. But yeah, I mean the level of rigor that he brings is truly impressive. But yes, that is uh one hill that I will die on. I have seen it at every level. I have seen, you know, world-class CEOs, tech founders, serial entrepreneurs all do this wrong, where they wait to hire the EEA until after they've hired sales, after they hired marketing, after they hired customer service. Guilty. Or insane, right? Company. You are in the company of the elite. Every single one of them waited way too long. And here's the thing when you're just starting, every single person you hire has admin needs. So, like the the the mindset blocker that every entrepreneur has is like, I don't know if I have enough to keep. You do, I promise you do. You just you just like have no idea what it's like to not handle your inbox, your calendaring, all of that. Like my calendar, we have a context placeholder with a PDF where I can just open it up and like, what am I doing right now? And this is what I'm doing. I don't have to remember like what how is how am I connected with Matthew? What are we gonna talk about? You know, like all those things, or go find it. It's all right there. It's all right there. Yeah, nice. So um, hiring an admin first is the is the absolutely the first domino that has to go in into place.

SPEAKER_03 27:20

Yeah, so I'm I'm behind five years. You know, the best I can start now.

SPEAKER_02 27:27

It was 25 years ago. Yes, yeah. Next best day is today.

SPEAKER_03 27:33

Absolutely, absolutely, right? Uh yeah, we'll we'll um I'll I'll touch base with you after on on that. Um the gentleman that you were uh mentioning, but I know that also Dan did mention about um he was using is it Jackie Serves, but uh I I guess there's a couple of options there and seeing, right?

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Jackie is I've connected with her, she's tremendous. She hires specifically executives. If you need to hire a VP or a GM or a CEO, Jackie is your person. If you need an EA, JP. That's what he needs to do.

SPEAKER_03 28:02

JP. Okay. Sounds good. JP it is. Yeah, yeah, because I need that in person. I I can't do the virtual thing right now. It does it doesn't suit my needs. The in-person is what really I need because just to do a lot of running around, right? There's a lot of things, a lot of multiple pieces in play.

SPEAKER_01 28:18

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

Yeah, he he will help you with somebody that's virtual, but um uh, you know, he probably knows who who we could hire locally for you.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

Yeah, yeah, no, for sure. Yeah, man. So like um it seems like then like calendar-wise into for yourself, like so it sounds like everything you kind of got it pretty locked down good.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

I mean, he's only been I've only been working with this VA for I don't know, two or three months now, but yeah, tremendous. He's he's finding podcast appearances for me. He's you know, my calendar and inbox are his to own. A lot of the metrics that I track for my dashboards, are he's populating. Yeah, tremendous.

SPEAKER_03 28:57

And like now, like for for uh talking about dashboards and stuff, and then this is something that's been resonating on me to start doing. Um, so like obviously you started using a bit of AI here and there to help you build all this stuff so you can like a vision board, visually seeing your dashboard, seeing what's going on, right? Like how's that um helped you uh I guess go further in what you're doing a lot?

SPEAKER_02 29:23

It's tough to quantify, and I'm really hard on myself too because I hope I wanna I wanna make money using AI, not just like you know, save a little bit of time or make it you know incrementally better. Yeah. And that's kind of where I'm at right now, right? Like I I was late to the game with AI and I started, you know, using it to write better emails and you know, like it's very been a very gradual process. Yeah. So now I built my first tool in using AI uh quad quad code. Yeah um and it's literally to help me track metrics that that underpin my success and then where I need to go. And it's you know, rewriting my webinar, it's you know, it's elevating to my awareness and keeping track of my data rooms, right? There's so much information that goes into buying a business, and it's like hard to remember like, do we have the 2025 tax returns yet or not? Um it's uh it's like a central repository for the deal. Like there's just so many different ways to slice and dice it.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

Yeah. We can we can on another day, we can go through a lot of stuff. Because uh by that I mean I can hopefully also help you out on there if you ever need it too. Because uh myself, I dipped into um uh before Claude, uh, I was using I'm using Manis, and I've actually built myself my own software for my equipment rental company.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

I love it.

SPEAKER_03 30:45

So I yeah, so there's a lot to it. Yes, awesome, and like you said, it's never too late today, you know? Today, today's the day.

SPEAKER_02 30:59

Literally, I've been like trying to drag my wife into using AI, and she's very resistant to it. She thinks it's cheating, is you know, all this stuff. Not cheating, the thin edge of the wedge that I got for her. I showed her, you know, we were in Palm Springs for vacation.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, and um she was like, Hey, uh, where should we eat? My wife has a very specific face. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Claude, where should we eat? My wife will not look at anything that has four stars or below. We need gluten for like I just like listed it off, and she'd been like looking for 35 minutes already, like googling, you know, stuff. And like the the the responses that Claude elevated to her awareness and the quality of them, yes, um, was just she was blown away. Well, maybe, maybe I'll use it for restaurants and that nice, you know, like literally it just takes that little step.

SPEAKER_03 31:51

Yeah, absolutely. 100%, man. 100%. Oh, that's awesome. Well, uh uh Dave, um, so tell me, like, what is it that you think uh so and and I the reason why I came up with the name Built Without Permission, I feel like it really resonates with a lot of people.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_02 32:19

It is really the driving force behind many of the biggest decisions of my life, right? Again, I wanted to go somewhere where I could have impact and move quickly and innovate, and I found a flavor of that in startups because we were just so busy and growing so fast that nobody's looking over my shoulder. I found that it was even more accessible to me through betting everything on my my own you know abilities and it continues, right? Like I literally yesterday reached out to my marketing partner and said, Hey, I'm thinking about doing this thing. What do you think? They haven't answered me. I'm shipping it today, right? Like, I'm going, like who knows? You're not holding by I might be breaking international law. I don't know, but I'm gonna ask for for forgiveness and I'm gonna, you know, like learn from the mistakes and or have to walk it back. I don't know, but I'm doing it.

SPEAKER_03 33:15

I'm not gonna sit around and wait. That's it. That's awesome. That's that's what makes it the execution. You got to execute, right? 100%. And and that's where I see that a lot of people that we surround ourselves with, great people that we are where we are today because of that. That we're all have that in us, that we're all built without that permission, that we just we're not gonna wait for that permission, we're just gonna do it, right? Whatever happens, happens. Anything happens, just keep going forward, figure it out, fix it, move forward.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

When I onboard a new team member, I tell them we are going to win because we move faster than everybody else. When they think in terms of weeks and months, we're thinking in terms of minutes and hours. Hours, yeah. Then it's gonna be because people like and trust us. Those are the two speed, like, and trust, we're gonna win.

SPEAKER_03 34:02

100%. I love that. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, Dave, well, I really do appreciate you joining me on this. Uh, I'm would love to have you again. So let's let's do it again like sometime because we'll we'll talk more and more and dive into other things. But uh, thank you for your time, dude. Um, uh, where whereabouts we're gonna find you? Instagram. We got top line operators at uh David Hori. The David Hori is my the David Hori. All right, at the David Hori. Check him out, follow him, like everything about him, because what's there not to like?

SPEAKER_02 34:38

Matthew, thank you so much for sharing your platform with me today. I so appreciate it. And likewise, anytime you want to have me back, I will clear my calendar.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

Fantastic. Awesome, brother. Have a good one. Ciao, buddy. See you, man. If you're waiting for permission, you're already behind. The life you're building starts with the decisions you make today. So stop thinking and start moving. Subscribe, share this with someone still thinking about it, and start building something of your own. No blueprint, no approval, no excuses. I'm Matthew Mack. This is Built Without Permission.