In this podcast episode, David and Gary speak with the CEO and Founder of Aim4Hire, Chase Kocher. They chat about all things diversification and the state of the workforce both remote and in office.
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chase-kocher/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/aim4hire/
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OR comment on our YouTube videos! - Big Pixel, LLC - YouTube
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David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel
Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel
The Podcast
David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.
In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.
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Music by: BLXRR
In this podcast episode, David and Gary speak with the CEO and Founder of Aim4Hire, Chase Kocher. They chat about all things diversification and the state of the workforce both remote and in office.
Links:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chase-kocher/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/aim4hire/
___________________________________
Submit Your Questions to:
hello@thebigpixel.net
OR comment on our YouTube videos! - Big Pixel, LLC - YouTube
Our Hosts
David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel
Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel
The Podcast
David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.
In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.
Contact Us
hello@thebigpixel.net
919-275-0646
FB | IG | LI | TW | TT : @bigpixelNC
Big Pixel
1772 Heritage Center Dr
Suite 201
Wake Forest, NC 27587
Music by: BLXRR
Hi everyone, welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host and I'm joined per usual by Gary Voigt, who's joining us today from the Fraser set. 1987. Well done, man.
Gary:Great reference for anybody who's gonna get that Frasier. Man,
David:you look like you're in your grandfather's basement. What is happening? Is this great radio, by the way, because most people don't watch the video. So this is fabulous content. But
Gary:it's a podcast, but between your references and then radio. Yeah.
David:All right, Gramps, where are you? Why are you in such a different place?
Gary:Now, we're redoing the way the office space looks. And so it's like in transition right now.
David:There was too cool. So you want to get really really ugly.
Gary:It's really cool. It was but wanted to change.
David:Nice. Yeah, that lamp is is crying.
Gary:Okay, square box behind you. That square box is
David:quality target material there, buddy. You back off of my target.
Gary:Google turn on his lights. Oh, rude. She
David:can't hear your microphones. Ah. All right. More importantly, we are joined by Chase ko her who is the CEO at AIM for higher welcome Chase. Sorry, you have to deal with Grandpa over?
Chase:Oh, no, it's an honor. Man. It's an honor to be here. Excited to see all these backgrounds and kinda target shopping and old school shop and I appreciate the diversity of it. If
David:you're looking for some really bad Ikea furniture or something Gary's me your man. Apparently,
Chase:this is your podcast. Yeah, target. Or
Gary:wherever I am. At least it's not as lame as some weird virtual background of like a waterfall or something.
David:Yeah, I give props for anyone who is not blurring their background. I don't know. What is gonna get on my soapbox for a second. What is up with it? It mean, there's two people and I this is an interviews which I'm sure what we'll talk about your company interviews. I don't know what it is. But everyone looks like they're in one of those rooms that they've been captured by terrorists that have no nothing on the back of their wall. And it's so it doesn't show any location or time or anything. And then these white walls and you're like, Who hurt you man, because dude, a little color is not going to kill you they or they'll put themselves in like a fake bedroom that's at the top of a mountain or in a high rise over city
Gary:conference table with glass window, glass walls or whatever,
David:when they're on the 87th floor in New York City. Of course.
Gary:The funny thing is when someone uses a virtual background, at least for me, my immediate response is how bad is the real background? Yeah,
David:I'm immediately judging you. Well, I love it also that we're headsets like real headphones and they'll have a gap between their head and the hood so you'll see their real house we had a guy I will not mention names it was not Gary though.
Gary:We are attending and I'm sorry chase but it will get to it eventually let it
Chase:rip let it rest join we had
David:a guy who he meant he talked this game I'm not Gary knows exactly who I'm talking about. He taught this game like he was amazing and knew all things and He had behind him he was in this you know, smelt like Sweden or Icelandic apartment with all the you know natural wood and a volcano behind it was this beautiful serene scene and then somehow he moved in such a way that the real background Shut up. And it was like covered and close and he was clearly in a hallway of someone's apartment.
Gary:It looks like crashing in like a friend of a friend's like spare bedroom with two other dudes.
Unknown:Yeah, and he was talking like he was this mogul anyway.
Chase:Compensating I feel like
Unknown:it's a bit it's yeah,
Gary:in this fifth.
David:I don't want to blur I don't want to do something blurred. blurred. Fine. But I was I was blurry and then someone walks by and you have this blur thing one. Let's talk about you chase where were we let's get the focus. You run game for hire. Tell me what that means.
Chase:Yeah, lifestyle brand, as you can tell, obviously hires H ire. So we're in the recruiting space here in Austin, Texas. So we pretty much represent and recruit some of the top tech startups here in town. They're looking to scale up higher, kind of across the board. I mean, mostly it's tech in product type hire and like skill sets that are in demand. But obviously a lot has changed in the last 12 months. So you know, whether it be tech and even some companies that are non tech, I think we were just a boutique recruiting type company that works with like very selective hiring as far as these companies that have 15 million boxes they need to check when they hire somebody. You know, that's kind of RM Oh, and where we really specialize in. So in a lot of cases in Austin, it's tech startups. But it's not always Tech, I mean, frankly, you can kind of make an argument that everyone needs to make the right hire, especially at early stages in the company. So that's kind of where we would come in and, and support that.
David:So you are talking about startups that probably have been funded. They're doing a massive hire for scale. And so they're constantly looking for new people. That is exactly. Bread and butter. Okay.
Chase:Yeah. And I mean, shoot the first four years in this business, you know, Tech was booming. So there were there was so much capital going around that these companies, in a lot of cases, they were all competing with each other for talent. But also you add in Google, Facebook, Amazon, who are throwing, you know, a quarter million dollars base salary at these, these people that had one or two years of experience. I mean, it's an interesting landscape to compete for talent. And so that that was really where like, the need arose. Now, the past year, obviously, tech spin down, there's been a lot of layoffs by the Facebook's and Googles of the world. So things have changed pretty dramatically. But in the first four years, yeah, the idea was that to try to add a competitive advantage to startups that were trying to get a chance to speak with, and, you know, quote, unquote, sell that talent on, like, what they were doing, why their opportunity, or why their company was going to be the next big thing. So that that was kind of really where we focused the majority of our recruitment efforts.
David:So let me, me, I have some questions that might be uncomfortable, so let me know. So I run a dev company. So I get recruiters talking to me all the time. And I know most of them either will hire you give you a dev, or you know, they've got a guy they're trying to place which is not all that common anymore, simply because most of them are taken. But they either charge a extra hourly rate on top of their hours, or if they're hourly, and for the first year, or if their salary, they take a chunk, whatever their salary is, you add 15 or 20%. And that's for that first year, and that's how they make their money is that generally speaking, how you guys work?
Chase:I'd say generally, that's how the industry works. I'd say we, we were pretty creative, especially when you start a new company, obviously, in a very saturated landscape. As you mentioned, there are million recruiting companies and recruiters out there. So for us to really like get a grasp and kind of get in with some of these companies, you know, the trade off was sometimes like cutting our costs, or cutting our fees by half of maybe what our competitors were doing. In other cases, we took stock options. Now, are those ever going to be worth anything? Maybe, maybe not. But really, that wasn't the play for us, it was more so like, Hey, we got skin in the game now. Like we're giving up cash for stock and your company. So like, we're not going to be sending you people that we don't believe in because obviously, we want the stock options to become something you know, down the road. So that was a bit of like, you know, you've got skin in the game, I've got skin in the game, like we can actually have a partnership here, as opposed to the typical recruiter relationship, which is I'll send you resumes you interview and let me know when you hire one, and I'll send you an invoice for 30 or 40. Grand. That was not our strategy from the get go. But yeah, there's different ways to get it done. But I'd say honestly, we got to get pretty creative on the fee structure side to compete.
David:So that means you guys have little bits of equity of lots of different companies that may or may not be worth anything, how do you pay your rent?
Chase:enough cash. I mean, as I mentioned, those were the early days of the business, we didn't have a lot of overhead at that time. Now, we'll still kind of have those conversations now. But I think we're probably a little more now that we have salaries to cover, you know, 1015 people, you have to start accounting more for the cash than the stock option long term plays. So yeah, usually it's a mix, but I think there's a lot of room there. You know, a big recruiting company has so much overhead that they charge these really high fees, your small boutique, you don't have a lot of overhead, you can get away with charging lower percentages and still make money now usually have to do higher you're gonna have to do at higher scale of hires to make up for that kind of lower fee. But then you start kind of looking at are you sacrificing quality by doing a lower price and like I feel like that's what every startup usually kind of deals with when you're trying to go into a space and be competitive but also now be considered like this dumpster fire garbage resume center that charges five grand for hire compared to 30. But you know, the resumes and the candidates suck. So
David:my uncomfortable question is this. You started your company four years ago, when the world was on fire was stupid money as you were talking about earlier, people could raise money doing anything, because people interest rates were low. And I guess if you don't know not that I'm an expert, but if you don't know how investments work When it comes to startups, it might not make any sense to you. But if you have a stock market that is volatile, but it's not great, you got a bond market that's paying you nothing. And you want some big returns. You you go into in you invest in companies. That's a very common thing, though, you know, real estate was kind of weird four years ago, there was not a lot of places to put your money if you were rich. So a lot of them just said, Hey, I'm going to be an investor. They don't know what they're necessarily doing. And so they hear Ooh, crypto, that sounds cool. Let's throw money at it. Right? NFT magic. So they have this and they're throwing money at it. And so raising capital as a startup, for, I'd say, five years, six years was stupid, easy, comparatively, it's never easy, but it was easier. And so I always liken that to a good time in the real estate market. When you see all the realtors show up, right? Everyone wants to be a realtor when the markets on fire. And then they real, they don't realize that the market is going to tank because it's just what it happens. And they all run away. And the real realtors are still there. Yeah, recruiters are kind of the same way in a certain way. So I'm curious now that you your world has changed dramatically. Interest rates have gone skyrocketed. bond markets are sweet, so I got a safe place to land. I don't need to do this crypto is a joke. So now they do AI I get it. But there's always something right. But always, how have you weathered the storm? Because I would imagine a lot of your competitors who started up when you did, or dying or pretending they're not dying, but they're, they're on their last legs. How have you succeeded in this much more difficult market?
Chase:Yeah, I mean, disclaimer, like we certainly haven't come out unscathed. I'd say it's been this year has been our greatest test by far and in great is my my greatest test in my career. I mean, having been in the space for a decade, but like you mentioned, I mean, we've never seen the Fed rate this level, we've never seen venture capital funding down as low as it is right now. So I'd say diversification of where you're getting your money, you know, where how are you funding your business is one, you cannot, you know, I think like you mentioned a lot of recruiting companies that maybe were banking on that one big like Dell, or Google or whoever it was that they were staffing for, you know, if you're getting 50 or more percent of your revenue from one client, and then all of a sudden, you know, that client goes not belly up, and maybe just stopped hiring completely, you're screwed. So I think for us, by the nature of our client base, by working with startups, we never really had this one big company that gave us all these roles at once, it was always this very diversified kind of portfolio of startups, that we'd be recruiting maybe like two or three roles for each. Now, it's a lot harder from a sales perspective, because you have to constantly be refilling the funnel with startups that are actually hiring. But it enabled us to not kind of just sync overnight, because all our revenue is coming from one place. Now, we were working with tech startups, which as a whole really got smacked. So in a lot of cases, we had to all of a sudden kind of flip the switch on what companies are actually going to be hiring in this market. And a lot of cases those are like very safe, like, you know, almost recession proof type industries, and what kind of talent pools do they live? What kind of talent do they need, and we found a lot of cases like accounting, finance, kind of some digital marketing, like those types of skill sets. were important to those companies. So and a lot of them were private equity owned, or maybe they were just independent, they didn't rely on funding. And then that's where we had to pivot. A lot of our efforts were like, all of a sudden, we got to find companies like that, to keep us afloat. So we still have tech startups, but you know, probably one of every 10 that was hiring last year is is either paused or laying people off right now. So it was a yeah, you kind of you realize what kind of team you have. I mean, you go from like you said real estate's like things are hot, things are hot. And all of a sudden, like you see a flip and now you really need to find out who the true players are in that space that can sell and recruit and whatever else in the industry when your backs against the wall. So yeah, for us really is diversifying and we were already fairly diversified, but I feel like you always in a cyclical business, you always have to be ready for when that cycle is going to reap recycle. So that was kind of our thoughts. Income
David:hides all sorts of problems for sure. For
Gary:positions like designer or developer, which which positions do you see are harder to place
Chase:two very different personalities for one from a recruiting from a recruiting
Gary:designer. The other ones just you know not worth talking to one can
Chase:be a little easier to have a phone call with the other you know,
David:I think you got one pre Madonna on one board. That's what you
Chase:I, honestly, it's weird because I mean, for the first couple of years, it was it was back in dev DevOps infrastructure type hires. And then the next two years is like a lot of these product designers and in front end developers of all kinds. So we you always see like peaks and valleys of different demands. But I'd say the designer side is such a unique one, because these companies are looking at your portfolio. So it doesn't even really, it depends on every startup we've worked with has kind of a different taste of art or design. And I think much like, you know, you see these artists that sell their paintings for trillions of dollars, and others are selling for 50 bucks. It's like, you know, Apple is in the eye of the beholder, like, some people find that artwork, very impressive, whereas others are like, that's not my style, I don't find that attractive. So I think placing designers can be difficult unless you really understand what that company wants. from a visual perspective. So I'd say those are tricky, but uh, between the two, I mean, they're both can be harder to find, but definitely have different personalities and communicating communication skills, if you will. What's
Gary:the temperature like now with remote versus an officer hybrid? Like, as far as conditions go? I noticed you guys do? Yeah, a lot of some
Chase:of my clients may hate me saying, Yeah, I'd say the shift undoubtably has been since the last year and a half has been at least hybrid. Frankly, I've seen a lot of companies that go full five days a week. And it's in office. Yeah, in office. And, and it's tough. Because for us, you know, overnight, when COVID happened, we went from like our competitive advantages, having this local skill set, or low local talent pool skills to companies like oh, I don't care where they sit, they can be in Utah, they can be in New York. And so we went from a local to a quote unquote, national recruiting company, like within 24 hours. Now, it's, you know, because of LinkedIn, and other tools, you can virtually recruit anywhere. But I think you really start to kind of, you know, when things have shifted back to this hybrid model, it's actually benefited probably more of the local recruiting companies, because they can kind of, they don't have to cover the entire United States for their recruitment efforts, they can really kind of silo on their local area. But I'd say overall, like, yeah, probably 75 80% of startups that we talked to, or at least hybrid, if not five days a week in office, which is interesting, because it is and, and, and to some, like, they don't care. And for those, you know, they have a competitive advantage, because you get more of a larger pool of talent to choose from if you're fully remote. And I think a lot of engineers and technical talent got used to working from home, and won't entertain going into an office. Whereas others are, you know, still stuck to the idea of you need to be here from nine to five, I won't offer my opinion on what that is. A, we're a fully remote recruiting company. Now most of us are in the same city. So we get together quite a bit. But we've been able to make it work. But it is difficult to keep everybody on the same page and communication and creativity and kind of brainstorming, I get the I get the benefits of being in person. But I think for different departments, it's tough, because you can't just force the marketing and sales team to come in, but everybody else can be remote, otherwise, they'll get pissed off. So it's like, you know, if you're going based off talent, like you probably offer the fully remote jobs to the most in demand talent, because you want to obviously be able to secure that talent, your company. But it's kind of hard to do that if you only force it upon 50% of the company to come into office. What are your thoughts on these things? I mean, you guys are interfacing with some I'd imagine offering customers and seeing your customer base probably change quite a bit with the economic or not,
David:no, we are very blessed in that our clients generally stay for a long period of time. We don't have much churn knock on wood. Our talent, or our clients have been very stable. For the most part. I mean, we have some of course, but we have been very blessed in that once they joined, generally our clients last minimum, a year or two, but most of them are four or five. So we don't have to worry about that. Too much. I mean, we do work with startups, and those do come and go. But ours are even pre ours or pre revenue generally when they come to us. So very different kind of startup than what you're talking about.
Unknown:What we have this agency so yeah, we're
David:100% remote. And I every single one of my devs would quit tomorrow if I ever told them to come in for sure. Yep. That's just that's what and I would imagine any company in today's world, and you would know better than me, but any company in today's world that said, hey, Dev, you have to be at the office. nine to five, five days a week has a tremendously hard time hiring anyone? Because
Chase:that's the only way to go. Can
David:you find those people? I can't imagine any dev that I've spoken to in the last year, who'd be totally fine with that. Unless you are working on something super exciting, like just the work is super rewarding in and of itself, where like, you're like building Tesla's, you know, software, or you're building NASA stuff. Sure. Okay, fun.
Gary:Who, if you're joining a team of other devs that you know of, and you can learn from, you know what I mean? Like, if there's a little bit of like a mentoring value there, I
Chase:do think it benefits the more junior or it's easier to attract more than Junior up and coming to, especially if they can make you know, for one, if they're laid off and really need work, then then, yeah, they got to decide between what their options are at that point. I do think some juniors and mid levels are open to the idea of going into office, if they do get to work with some architect or high level leader that they could learn from. Now that does not go for every junior mid level engineer. I'm just listing off like one of the reasons you could do that, besides like working on the most cutting edge bleeding edge cool product would be that
David:that architect doesn't want to come in. So what's that?
Chase:Valid point? Yeah, it's sometimes I mean, with a startup more often than not that architect is the founder. And then since they're, they have skin in the game as the founder, like they are going into office, because it's their baby is their company. But no, it's a great question. And I think they exist, but it certainly is not a widespread like I could find a million architects here in town that will go into Office five days a week. I mean, that's a steep ask. location of your office would be the other thing. I mean, depending on what city you're in. I mean, in a city like Austin, it's so expensive to live near downtown, that most people buy houses, probably 45 minutes to an hour drive. So if you're going after someone that has kids and a family and a house out in the suburbs, you're asking them to drive in five days a week. Yeah, that that's steep. Unless you're paying him just out the wazoo. But even then, you know, it's a challenge to answer your question. And I try to work with startups and advise them on the best ways to get certain talent. But I think some of them, you know, I think everybody suffers from that. Well, I know this other startup, and they have their Debs in the office three days a week, so why won't they come in to the office at my startup? So I think sometimes there's a lack of creativity and might have more of a following. When it comes to those things. Or like Google's doing a Google forces people in the office. So why can't we? And I'm like, Well, you're not Google.
David:You're not paying Google dropping that kind of money. Yeah,
Chase:exactly. You're not offering, you know, free breakfast lunch or dinner catered by chefs in the office. But you know, so it's always interesting having these conversations, because I think, ideally, they want them in office. But you know, sometimes you have to accept the reality that you might not get what you want.
David:I mean, I've started my company wanting everybody in the office. And this was seven years ago. So way before this was normal, we had to become remote, just by the nature of what happened. We need a talent, we couldn't find it, but but we have a flow now that I enjoy that we are remote, and it works. We get together sometimes, you know, once like we had our 10 year anniversary party had everybody up, that was very fun. We had our leadership guys, a couple of weeks ago come in. And we all talked There is something magical about everyone having everyone around. I worked in that old environment where you went in and sat at the feet of your architect and learned. And it's interesting, I've heard stats, that the junior devs. And this is specifically speaking of devs, because I know that world but but I would imagine this is true across a lot of industries. junior devs are getting really, really tough. They're not as good, because they don't have that mentorship, because that that architect isn't coming. I mean, you're right startup founders, they're coming in, but you know, you're you're in a normal software environment. Doctors didn't You didn't want to come in this team leads don't want to come in, they don't need to anymore, and remote work. I've seen the studies that say, you know, if you're senior and you know what you're doing, it doesn't really affect you all that much. You can still be productive. If you're Junior and you're just wandering around bumping into walls. This it just crushes you, because you don't have that guy that you can look over your shoulder or just turn over in your desk and be like, Hey, dude, I'm stuck here, right? Yeah. That's really, really hard. One of the things that I was going to ask if you've noticed this, so we hired our last guy. Three months ago. We put out a job post And I've mentioned this in previous episodes, but put out a job post, we had 1000 applicants in less than 48 hours for dev just front end Dev. Now a lot of those through LinkedIn we better you know, I was I was willing to pay for a job. But I did. I think I ended up paying, I think on LinkedIn, you can do it for free, but they say, Hey, you should boost this. Okay, so I boosted it, it was $50 a day. I turned it on one day. turned it off the next day, I had 1000 applicants. Like it was so funny to me, because my $50, my little budget that I had set up was gone in three seconds. Like, I pushed go, I refresh the screen, it was gone like it was I'm not even exaggerating. So I'm like, Well, this budgets weird unless you have a lot of money, it's gone. And so we had 1000 applicants now to be fair, probably at least half of them didn't meet our requirements. So they were weeded out immediately. And then we weeded through probably 200 People who check the boxes. And then we whittled it down from there. But when we did the same exercise a year and a half ago, we had 100. So to me, I mean, as a recruiter is probably a sweet time on that side of the fence. On the other side of the fence, no one's hiring, right, which is why there's 1000 people applying, especially this we're 100% remote. So we're, you know, all these devs are yes, I don't want to go to the office. And so in their employer, their old employers like no, you have to like I'm out. So yeah, I mean, are you seeing that? Do you seen ridiculous numbers of people knocking on your door trying to place them?
Chase:It's amazing. Yeah, I mean, for seven or eight years, it was a complete waste of time for a senior level engineering product design, to post the senior level role and expect to actually fill the job by whoever applied it, at least from my perspective, and this is more Austin centric, it was a complete waste of time, because you are getting applicants from all different varies that rarely had the experience you wanted. And the market was so hot at that point, that anybody that did apply, if you didn't get back to them within 24 hours, interview them and give them an offer within a week, like they were off the market already. So So to answer your question, this is a complete, complete reversal of what's been going on in the last decade. It's fascinating really to see 1000s of applicants to one job. And it's raised new challenges, especially for startups. I mean, you got you got companies and CTOs and whatever, that they already have a trillion things to do. And now they got to go through 1000 applicants. Sometimes we'll even get paid just to go through the people they have that applied, and pick out the top five or 10 screening them and and get them in the interview process. So but yeah, it is night and day difference. In the fully remote jobs, like undoubtably get the most applicants, a lot of the in office ones, like you still get a good amount, but it doesn't even compare. So it is definitely still the attractive option for the vast majority of the talent pool.
David:So I want to take a hard turn. You've been in the recruiting business for a long time. A relatively speaking, give or take. Yeah. But I mean, this isn't your first foray into that before you did aim for higher you worked as a talent agent for other people for years. So what is it that made you think four years ago the markets on fire? Right, it's a hot market, though, you know, this is gonna last forever, which is what I'm sure you thought when you started the business. What is it that made you leave your previous employer for startup land? Like what where's that entrepreneurial spirit coming from? Because that's a scary thing, right? You're making probably a sweet paycheck at your other place. Right? The good recruiters, let me rephrase that very specifically, good recruiters make a lot of money. Bad recruiters make nothing. So I'm assuming you were a good one. Otherwise, you would not have felt confident enough to go out on your own. So you're making a sweet living. Your wife's probably happy. Life is good. You got a mortgage got kiddos, everybody's good. You're like, you know what I'm gonna do I'm gonna change all this throw it all down toilet and start from nothing. Yeah, how'd that go? You're
Chase:making me sound cooler than I am. I swear this is awesome. You know, I was always very set in my career of like, I wanted to move up faster than anybody I've ever and I saw the recruiting space is one where like, what you put in is what you get out much like any services industry, to a to a level. But you know, I did one year the big recruiting company got recruited away to launch an office for a mid cap recruiting company, did that for three years and was like what's next? And frankly, like the only job above where I was at was started my own company. So in my mind, like, I guess, I was always ambitious enough that I thought it'd be cool to have my own company, it came, the opportunity came sooner than I expected, partly from what you said, the market was so hot that I'm like, you know, if I'm going to do this, like now's the time to get in. So the writing was kind of on the wall. And the last company I was with, you know, in my appreciation of it, I mean, they, they gave me an opportunity when I was 24, to launch an office and build out a team. And so I was drastically under qualified for that, but also worked harder than anybody that they would have hired to do that job. For that reason, but, you know, they were really, as you see it, a lot of these recruiting companies, they, they shift towards recurring revenue and less risk, which in that case, was working for bigger companies and recruiting for bigger companies. And that was never really my passion. So to you know, getting to work with startups excited me was like a short basketball player growing up, I like had a massive chip on my shoulder since like the day I was like, five. So I've always kind of like wanted to be a part of and like, fight for the little guy in some ways. So I got to recruit for some startups in my last job. And I was like, man, there's like no other recruiting firms that are trying to trying to work with just startups, partly because they're so picky, they can't pay as much. But in my mind, I was like, I can create this boutique firm, like really specialized in that underserved area, and then decide from there once I have enough capital to kind of either hire more or diversify our business. So to be frank, man, it was always in the back of my mind as far as like, you know, having my own company. But the timing, certainly the way Tech was, it was kind of just like, you know, the opportunity presented itself, and the timing was just elite. So I was, I was pretty fortunate. So
David:how was that first year?
Chase:As I'm sure it was for your in your first year of business, it was live and breathe? I mean, it was all I did.
David:Did you were you able to find clients easily starting out? Because most people, I like to ask that question to startup or to founders in general. Because a lot of people who have ideas of wanting to start their own business, or people who have just done it, they think they're struggling and they think they're alone? And the answer is no, everyone goes through that. It's horrible. Unless you're just super duper lucky, which some people are. So were you one of those super duper lucky guys. It's like, bam, I got some clients, let's go, or were you struggling in barely paying the bills for a while?
Chase:Yeah, I'd say in most founders, like I was calculating that I knew, probably would like, within six months of my last job, like I had this idea that this is something that I might want to pursue. So while it was a risk, it was a pretty calculated risk. At that point, it wasn't like, you know, I decided, like I was gonna leave and start my own company, like, this was something that in the back of my mind, you know, I prepared for. Now to get those first clients, man, like you said, it's, I mean, you live and die by getting that first customer. And then obviously, like knocking the ball out of the park, and then having that customer, hopefully spread the word or let you use them as a testimonial, or put their logo on your website. You know, like, those first couple customers are so critical that, you know, it's almost even worth doing the work for free, just so you can kind of like build a sample of work that you can then sell to other companies. So for me, yeah, it was, we found there were so many startups hiring them, and honestly, it wasn't that difficult. But I went, I went door to door sales, and, you know, got the meeting with the CEO and was just like, you know, I will do whatever it takes to deliver on this. So there were certainly some denials. But once you get into that one or two first customers, and then you're knocked out of the park, I mean, I feel like that's probably the most pivotal part of a new company is like that first one or two. But I'd say we probably didn't make money for three or four months when I started the company. So I had some savings, but certainly, you know, ate more fast food than I probably care to admit. But after that, man, honestly, it was you know, I offered companies really low rates just get an opportunity, enough to pay my bills, but not really enough to make a lot of money. But I use those as kind of the foundation to then build upward from there is how you guys went about doing it.
David:It was just me. I've told this story before but I was working for a company doing something similar to what big pixel ended up doing. But I like you wanted to do startups. And I, I saw there was no real room for me to grow where I was. And so I decided to go out on my own and I I had the hubris which I believe all founders at some point have to have hubris to make the plunge. My hubris was I got them really busy. And then I left such a jerk and And I, in my hubris, I thought, well, they're so busy. They didn't have any designers which I was doing the design work at the time, designer and development, and I figured they have to hire me. Yeah, that didn't work out though. Yeah, that I got a cease and desist pretty quick, which they had no teeth, it didn't have any teeth. There's nothing they could do. But I promised them I would never steal a client. And I didn't. And so our our blessing was that we had a client that I was working with there, who found out I had left and wanted to work with me personally, and didn't want to work with the old company. And I was like, okay, but I can't steal you. So I made a deal with my old company that I bought them. Their rule was you have to pay us all the profit we would have gotten plus a punitive amount that I got to choose. So pretty. So by that my company is three months old at the time, and I basically signed a way that I would pay them $5,000 a month for the next six months. I was making no money. And I but I, we were able to we went to lunch with those guys who wanted to hire me and was like, Dude, this is it. My whole mortgage everything I got kids, this is all on you. I need you to pay me on time. And I need to make sure this your we're going to do this and they're like we got you. So for nine months, I worked for them and then the rest is history. I've told that story a couple of times I think at this point, but it was a that first year was interesting. I almost lost the business after that first year, because I was working so hard on them I didn't find enough customers. Yeah, so don't do that for everybody who's listening
Chase:that has been tricked man because you want to go all out for that one customer but you also have to somehow keep the visitor machine going you have to keep going and hire behind that in case you do get land another two or three clients all of a sudden you don't have the ability to do it.
David:It's funny you when we started this podcast was me and Gary we didn't have guests for the first eight for six months in
Gary:my background was much worse back then to
David:literally 40s flapper apartment. So yeah, no, that's true. At the first episodes, he was recording on an ironing board. We didn't do video podcast love that
Gary:it was just the only like, sound. Only decent room with acoustics in.
Unknown:That's right.
David:He was in a closet and I had a really bad mic. And so we sound wonderful. But so we we started this podcast because we I have done every bad thing you can do as a leader. And I don't believe I didn't believe and I'm pretty sure I'm right. That I was alone. I'm not alone in doing bad things. As a leader. I was a bad leader. And I wanted to start this podcast to tell everyone one, they're not alone. There are lots of other bad leaders. But too, you can get better. You can become a student of it, you can become a student of business, you can become a student of leadership itself. And you can become better. And that's where I mean, I have horror story after horror story of things that I did that no one should do. And I'm sure most founders have this because there's no like I was a good Dev. I was a good designer. I wasn't great, Gary good. But I was good. I could get it done. And I thought that was enough. And that's the kicker, you, no one teaches you how to be a business person. They teach you how to do your trade. If they teach you how to do business and you don't have a trade. It's kind of a weird mix. Right? So I was good at what I did. But I had no idea how to do it on any sort of scale. And so I learned and so me and Gary would talk for an hour a week about how stupid I am. And
Chase:and then it's embarrassing man. It
Gary:was just that it was like it was tribulations of just trying to grow a small business. Sure, for sure. But
David:then we decided we wanted to see what other people thought so we started bringing guests and here we are, but I think
Chase:it's brilliant and I know to verbalize I sometimes I wish I would have documented more about what was I thinking you know when I made that decision four years ago three years ago as you know, you get in the world of startup and services industry you just days flybys. Sometimes they don't, for the most part for me, like the last five years have just flown by despite the fact that you know, I've been probably working like 1012 hour days for like five years. They flew by because it's just it's just constant out stimulation, chaos, you know, a million things going through your head and then you have a minute to reflect on like maybe I made a bad decision there but to like now, gotta go fix it.
David:Regret serves zero purpose. You can't change it. Just keep moving. Yeah, do it better next time and just keep going forward. People get paralyzed in the past it means you can't do anything about it. Just keep moving. Who cares? We're all idiots again. I got a horror story after horror So I'm gonna hire Gary, for goodness sakes.
Unknown:I mean, yeah.
Chase:I was about to say you said you weren't a great leader, but I was like, but you brought but the sign of great leadership is the ability to bring on someone that's a superstar and getting Gary, it sounds like I mean that that demonstrates your expertise. Thank
Gary:you for that.
David:For that, now, I can actually have to pay him What are you talking
Unknown:about? What is this? No, don't
Gary:worry. This is the part where he's gonna tell the editor just cut that out.
David:Just cut Yep. Are we do not compliment that is rule number one. You're not getting Gary,
Chase:Gary and I connected on LinkedIn, even though it'd be like 100 bucks earlier to say that. But
Gary:that part we can cut out
David:the truth, the truth shall set you free, Gary. All right. Well, on that note, I'm going to ask our one question I'm taking this from Gary normal he has is called No problem. If, if you were talking to not you, but someone and you probably do this now, because considering who you focus on, but if someone came to you, and they're wanting to start their own business, recruiting or otherwise, what three parts of advice would you give to that person?
Chase:Yeah, I could give them 50. But I think I think for one, you got to be prepared to, to dedicate a lot of your life and a lot of your, you know, personal time outside of work to either thinking about or working or doing your business. I mean, frankly, if you're not willing to put in that kind of effort, more often than not, you're gonna struggle. So I think for one, it's got to be a willingness to kind of dedicate the majority of your time and prioritize the business almost over everything. Maybe not over your family. But friend time, hangout time, hobbies, like those tend to go out the door pretty quick. If you're really bought in to be utilizing your network, man, I think, you know, the whole like, it's not what you know, it's who you know, like, I don't know if I 100% agree with that statement. But there is something to be said, for having people that have either run a business before. Or someone you know, that that could help you in some kind of way. I think you've got to be willing to utilize the connections you have, if you have any. If not, you have to be willing to go out and really try to build some relationships with people that are connectors. Yeah, I think you have to be willing to kind of like check your pride at the door sometimes and ask somebody like, can I just pick your brain? Or can you give me advice? I think that's just an invaluable part. Hmm. Why Yeah, I think last thing is adaptability, man, like, I think you just have to be willing, willing to have a plan. But know that everything is not going to go according to plan. So I think if you're, if you're the type of person that can change directions, pivot, kind of be thinking about ways to adapt to an environment. If you're in the services space, like you almost have to be adaptive. Or you're gonna get killed. I mean, if you just stick to one thing, and you're just gonna live and die by that, you might end up dying by it. If you're in a cyclical business that's going to go up and down and up and down. So those would be my three, three things would just be like dedicating your life to it. Utilize the connections you have. And then be willing to, to adapt and think about alternative ways to do what you do.
Gary:Yeah, thank you. Appreciate you sharing your story with us, man.
Chase:Yeah, I appreciate you guys having me on.
David:So if anybody wanted to get in touch with you, how would they do that?
Chase:LinkedIn probably be the best bet. Chase and then K O ch. Er, hit me up on LinkedIn. Obviously, you can find name for hire tag on LinkedIn as well. So that'd be the best way to go.
Gary:We'll put those links in the show notes, the LinkedIn, the website.
David:That'd be awesome. Well, man, there's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much for joining us. Appreciate
Chase:the time, fellas.
Gary:Thank you for pointing out that I am the superstar
Chase:I appreciate that. Superstock Gosh, I don't you ever forget it?
David:It's never gonna end. The only worst thing you could have said is that you also like Wu Tang Clan.
Chase:Well as Hartley I
Unknown:also say it's too young for that, dude.
Chase:I know a little bit. Oh, come on. No, I did also say that, that it takes an excellent entrepreneur and leader to recognize top talent and then get them to join. So it was a dual compliment. I mean, it just depends on what angle you look at it from. Well,
David:that's because you've got a very low bar as to what
Chase:I do for a living, if anything, it should mean the most for me. He's got an eye
Unknown:for David. Oh, man. Yeah, he's got beds when he's talking to that bed. I
David:don't know. All right. On that note, we are out. Thank you guys very much. We will talk to you next week.
Christie:Hi, I'm Christy Bronto, Content Marketing Director here at Big pixel. Thank you for listening to this This episode of the biz dev podcast, we'd love to hear from you shoot us an email Hello at Doug big pixel.net the biz dev podcast is produced and presented by big pixel. See you next week. Until then, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook threads, YouTube and LinkedIn