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you've gotta get up all right Crockett in so quick show of hands how many of you want more success in your lives hold it up high how many more want more happiness awesome well unfortunately I can deliver neither of those but if I know anything when you bring like-minded people together great things will happen so you guys are in the right place before I get going too much further I'm going to ask you guys got one of these in your pockets pull it out an android device iOS if you have a blackberry sorry to hear hold it up high what I'm going to ask is for the next 25 30 minutes it's for your divided attention so it's okay to blue face a little bit if you hear anything interesting find that I look funnier that my hair is a little too spiky take a picture put it on Instagram hashtag is big Casey I think the best thing we can do for community building is tell their stories so what I'm going to do today is I'm going to talk about kind of some beliefs I have as an entrepreneur oh there we go some beliefs that have guided my life around getting and staying motivated how to create a support network and finally I'm going to end with a very personal story of one of the best entrepreneurs I've ever met so as Jason mentioned I'm Canadian so can you guys help me if I say things like about or a or unfortunately sorry could you please not laugh or snicker because it really throws me off so I've been fortunate enough over the past few years to live in San Francisco built companies raise venture capital had a couple exits invested in other amazing passionate entrepreneurs and now i'm working on new startup called clarity that helps business owners and professionals find schedule and pay for expert advice to grow their business and we launched it about 11 months ago and we've already completed 13 thousand calls across 50 different countries and we're just getting started i also want to thank i want to start off by thanking Jeff and Caleb and Reagan and dusty and all the sponsors for putting this great event together let's give a big round of applause so one of my first beliefs is don't listen to your parents it's funny every time I my dad hears about my talks he's like I don't like that one that's hot and I'm like but you know it's funny because like I think a lot of people starting off they don't get the support that they want from their parents or their friends are really you know anybody and here's what I learned it's actually really normal and and what I realized was the you know as as a person trying to do something somebody that they care about the last thing they want to c is for you to fall down and hurt yourself right when you're a kid in their teaching how to ride your bike you know they're holding on to that back seat they don't want to let go and what they're thinking about and it's not that they're trying to push down your dreams they're essentially trying to give you guidance to hopefully you don't fall and you know when I graduated college I got my first job it's a person only job I ever had when I was about 19 and I worked there for 11 months but something one day I remember going into work and just realizing like holy if I keep doing this i'm going to wake up in like 20 years and wonder where my lifeline so I got inspired that night and the next day I went into work and I decided to quit but I was gonna be a good employee and give them a month's notice and my boss is like okay so you're gonna be does like I just got to go out west i got to go see what else this world holds you know might hold for me and i just got to go I hope you're okay with that my boss is cool so that night I went home next day I come back to work and HR pulls me into the office and pretty much says on fire so short short lesson there is don't resign until you're actually ready to do it because they might decide against your your will that they don't need you but I slowly convinced them that that I was just I had lots of judgment that wasn't the case I still want to work there i had to pay off my line of credit my student loan and all these other things i was planning on doing so they let me stay and two weeks later I resigned but I didn't tell my dad until that last day work and remember calling up my bad and saying you know dad I really want see what the world has for me I think you know going out west this is September or no august of two thousand one and he's on the other line the phone he's listening my dad's very patient doesn't say a whole lot and all of a sudden it comes up with that is the worst thing you've ever done in your life and you don't understand the kind of stuff I did as a young kid so I was like holy crap that must have been you know he had some pretty strong feelings about that but I told my had to go had to go see and September eight 2001 I decided to drive across West like I sold everything in my apartment paid off my line of credit my credit cards and packed up my 1987 volkswagen jetta full to the trunk with two mountain bikes on the roof and made my way out west and halfway across you know before i left there's all these opportunities and technology and halfway across driving across the part of the country 911 happened and i and i end up in calgary and the whole market anybody in the technology space in 2001 everything just froze all the opportunities i have for employment all the opportunities I had you know in that city essentially dried up and I started I had to eventually couch surf amongst all my friends and I did that for three months I was determined there's no freaking way that I'm gonna call up my dad and ask him for any money so here's a here's a quick lesson there is always asked for money when you don't need it because I thought I was really smart buy paint off my line of credit and student loans and all of a sudden when I needed the money I didn't have a job and nobody want to give it to me luckily I had some very supportive friends and one day I get a call from this recruiter and they're like hey I have a client that this looking for somebody with your skills it happened that the job I had that only one job they set me on some training and I was like this only guy in Canada that new this technology and they said you know they're looking for somebody to go live up north like way up north like where the Sun doesn't set in the summertime like really really up in the province in its place called Fort McMurray they said they looking for somebody to run their technical team I was 21 I was like yeah I could do that so she makes the introduction over email we schedule a call and I'm talking to the hiring manager darcy and Darcy's asking you these really technical questions I just happened had the good answer and he really liked the interview and I get a call back from the curtain says you got the job and I was like amazed like I was like so happy because I'd been unemployed for three months and about a week away from going back home so two weeks later I fly up to this place and you got to understand I wasn't like back in the day I was kind of like an introverted geek I didn't really talk to many people so I was like dressing like khakis with a plaid shirt you know hung out and you know Chuck sneakers and I they were doing this off-site with their whole technical team at this big oil company and they said to meet there and when I show up I kind of knock on the door and this guy Darcy comes in he looks at me and I could just tell his face something was wrong and he introduces me to the group there's about 30 people in this room and I sit down and at the break he pulls me aside and he and he starts to say danna I've got to apologize I didn't realize at the time I should have but I didn't I didn't realize how young you were I never asked and honestly like as you can see everybody else in this room is 20 30 years old and we're looking for somebody to lead the team and he goes I don't want to send you home today but the best thing I can say is you've got two weeks to prove yourself so so I did the first the first thing I think I thought I could do was get a library card does anybody know that library when's the last time anybody seen a library card so I got a library card and quickly started learning things like project management and technical architecture and all these things creating a Gantt chart does anybody know what a Gantt chart is exactly like i haven't done one since that job but i needed to learn these things to prove myself and after two weeks i thought for sure I was getting fired there's no way that he would keep me around and Darcy came in my office shut the door and said I'm really impressed let's keep let's keep this going and that job changed my life because they weren't hiring people full time they're only looking for contractors I ended up being a contractor for two years saving every penny that they paid me and living off of only what I needed and that that money that I saved that was the seed capital that I use to start my next venture sphere technologies and it's funny because like even today when my dad sees me in the news and stuff he still kind of shakes his head and smiles he goes I'm really glad you didn't listen to me I said I don't but I love you and I know why you do it so hopefully you guys can understand when your parents are giving you a hard time it's not because they don't believe in your dreams there's someone to see you screw up and hurt yourself so it comes from a good place so before let's even get the audio on my slides but there's this thing that people talk about passionate entrepreneurship you have to have passion I totally agree with that but nobody ever explained it like this next guy probably one the best entrepreneurs in my view in the world and I'll let him explain it vexed wondering what would be the single most valuable piece of advice you give us to even attempt to create some of the value that you guys have done in both your very impressive companies people say you you have to have a lot of passion for what you're doing and it's totally true and the reason is is because it's so hard that if you don't any rational person would give up it's really hard and you have to do it over a sustained period of time so if you don't love it if you're not having fun doing it you don't really love it you're going to give up and that's what happens to most people actually if you really look at the ones that ended up you know being successful unquote the eyes of society and the ones that didn't oftentimes it's the ones that are successful love what they did so they could persevere well you know when it got really tough and and the ones that didn't love it quit because they're saying right who would want to put up with this stuff if you don't love it so it's a lot of hard work and and it's a lot of worrying constantly and if you don't love it you're going to fail so you got to love it you got to have passion so how many insane people in this room lots good awesome so another belief that I've have is that motivation Trump's knowledge you know I used to openly admit that I'm a pretty lazy person I pretty much don't like to do anything that is directly related to stuff I enjoy so I love what I do so I love to work I love hanging out my friends family I hate mowing my lawn cleaning my driveway in Canada even my laundry I mean I just don't do anything but the motivation side you know a lot of people when they're starting companies they talk about well I want to go get experience first they want to you know get an education or whatnot and you know a few years ago I realize that out of everything that you can do to be successful that motivation to be successful is probably the most important after I saved all my money and move back home to start spheric technologies I had 70 grand in the bank and I thought go big or go home you know because I tried smaller companies in the past but never really commit and I figure if I put all my money into it that I know I'm going to be committed so day one I hired three guys two guys I work with before I pretty much called them up they were still working at that first company I used to work at and said you guys want to come work with me they both said yes they're like 23 and then I said well who is the smartest guy at the company I need I need a third they say well this guy Andrew I said cool make the intro I'll meet with Andrew and we'll see if he's interested so we sit down I meet this guy Andrew we have coffee super sharp and I offer him the job and he says yes so I was like awesome three people new company two weeks later I call up and room going over to his house to drop off the HR you know the paperwork that he has to sign because he resigned and I go up the driveway knock on the door and you know I really when you start a company at that 80 is 24 I thought you know at the end of the day these guys are all young who cares you know like i'd love for it to work out obviously i'm investing my own money and time I think there's an idea here but if it doesn't work out it's not the end of the world we're all young we've got years to make it up so I knocked on the door of andrew's house and all of a sudden this three year old blonde girl pulls the door open and I was like is Andrew here and she screams out daddy I was like okay so Andrew comes up from downstairs like hey dan how's it going did you meet my little girl ray and I'm like yeah I didn't know you were married let alone had kiss he goes yeah I want you to meet Jill my wife and she walks up from the kitchen on the stairs and here's this woman that's six months pregnant and I was like oh I cool yeah yeah okay here's the paperwork I'm excited and I can't tell you as soon as I drove out of his driveway this sense of I need to make this work not only for the other guys that hired not only for myself and obviously don't wanna lose my money but here's a guy that just quit his job at the best company in the city to work with somebody he didn't know because for some reason he believed in my vision and I you know there was this a sense of like commitment to Andrew that motivation so the company starts we actually had customers we started doing work and three months into it I run into a wall what happened was is we did work so essentially a higher all these employees i buy them hardware we travel we do work with clients it was a service company we had companies like Procter & Gamble and dole foods as customers and I thought we were on top of the world we were doing the work invoicing signing contracts and one day I look at my bank account and essentially had no money to make payroll I learned this lesson that my dad I would never admit to him in person my dad always told me about cash flow and I was like what's what's cash flow you know I've got revenue and sales and and what happened was in a service company you essentially work with the client you invoice so maybe you work for 30 days 45 days you invoice then they have 30 days to pay you if they decide to be on time most times they'll take 60 days and then in my case I was working with these US companies that once I got the check in the mail I go to the bank and they would freeze it for 20 business days and I was like this is gonna suck like we're doing good we have retinue we have customers and I can't make payroll and I was stressing out and it was that commitment to knowing that I you know the other guys were young they were going to make it okay but knowing that Andrew had to feed you know a young girl had a wife and you know and he took a chance on me I felt committed and I did what I suggest every entrepreneur do I picked up the phone and called anybody and I said hey man here's this issue and one of my advisors I John gave me some great advice which I didn't even know exists he says why don't you factor the receivables so there's this industry which I think they're absolutely brilliant for doing this because it's quite interesting there's this industry called factoring where you can actually get them to buy your invoices your receivables you still guarantee them but they'll essentially take fifteen percent give you the money today it's kind of like a business version of you know payday loan right and I got over the hump because I got this guy that bought my receivables and the guise of my team never knew I think that's one thing most entrepreneurs have to do essentially you have to take it for the team they never need to know how bad it got because that's not what they signed up for they look up to you as the leader and you're supposed to bring that certainty even though you're like screaming let's run into battle and you know damn well a heart is going to be that's not your job to tell them it's to make sure that they feel confident about what you're about to do so the company kept going that was that was roadblock one and we did really well we grew one hundred fifty percent for the first two years and then one day I took the vacation I took the vacation I took a weekend off and on Monday I checked my voicemail can I get this I guess this voicemail from the vice president of one of our companies pretty much telling me this guy Nick that was working with him was caught by security this is one of those days where I'm like why did I sign up for this then Nick no longer works here we discovered that he was distributing really inappropriate content on our network and we lost one of our customers due to that and we are going to be suing for retribution or whatever and I'm like what are you talking I was I just couldn't believe it and I call up Nick and I was like do before I call back this customer what happened he goes man i screwed up i'm so sorry i was like what happened he's like it was friday i was talking to my friend on IM we were talking about going to the strip clubs and what we were going to do and whatever and then he asked me about my team i might have said some inappropriate things about the manager and I guess I T picked it up and report it to the vice president so I was like ah dude two years of crazy investment trying to make the company work and I'm suit essentially they were going to kill the company and I was walking around the mall just thinking about what I was going to do and I was like just pissed off because I'd worked so hard to build this company I felt Lee just flipping the table and calling it a day like why why is it that this person essentially controlled or controlling the outcome and I call up another mentor I asked him what do you think I should do and he gave me the best advice I ever got which was get your best suit on and show up on that that clients doorstep tomorrow morning and I was like what are you talking about there in New Jersey he said exactly get on the plane show up 830am sit in the lobby and tell him this I'm Dan Martel the CEO of the company and I'm here to make it right and I did that and you wouldn't believe the guy's face he was like well I have meetings I can't meet with you what do you were you from you just flew here from Canada and I said look we screwed up I want to make it right and they ended up it did cost us a lot of money cost me about 300 grand but we didn't get sued we made it right and the company eventually got acquired for two years later but what I realize out of all of that is sometimes you have to put that personal motivation on yourself to actually overcome it some people call it burning the bridges right or essentially making a commitment declaring to your friends that this is what i'm going to do but nothing is more important than that motivation you don't need to know how to do anything the first time you do it you're just going to be motivated to kind of get through it so another belief i have is your the average of the five people you spend the most time with right think about that think about the people around you if you're here with your coworkers are thinking about the people you spend your weekends with if you're still hanging around with your stoner drunken barbecue party and friends on weekends and you're not getting the kind of success you would hope for what can I say it's really that simple when I was doing that company spirit you know after I dealt with that near-death experience there's this moment every year in a service company that pretty much a December first nothing gets done till about march right like everybody goes on vacation your customers aren't signing any purchase orders because they haven't gotten their budgets figured out all the people that work for you are essentially partying and enjoying the holidays or your customers and for me I'm looking at this spreadsheet of our pipeline going I just hired these four new guys because my goal was growth and I don't have any work for them and I would stress out and to make it even worse for me my birthday so the end of the year you've got new year's eve which is always that point in your life where you get to reflect on the past year and my birthday is December 26 another point nearly that year that you get to reflect to see if anything you were doing and I'm looking at essentially another catastrophe right but it was my fault I was like oh my gosh I did it again I I play I made that decision I went too far and this time is going to blow up in my face and out of desperation because you understand I grew up in a town of a hundred thousand people I didn't have a friend like me I didn't know anybody that built a tech company or build any interesting company at that age I was 26 and I thought who cares if I die obviously my parents will not die die but the company who cares if I don't make it through it and I realize that the minister cuz I've create a bunch of jobs I had 12 13 people working for me I figure the minister is going to care if I don't make it through side cold email on a Saturday night like one in the morning this guy named Frank McKenna arguably one of the best ministers today I had to google who he was I don't even know who he was and I just email them and say Frank I'm a young entrepreneur I have employees we've built a pretty interesting business but i'm having some real issues and i don't know how to get through it is there anybody like me in the province that you could suggest and within 45 minutes and i thought for sure he's you know enjoying the holiday spirits and there was no way to respond and within 45 minutes i get an email back from frank and he says you got to meet these three people and i was like wow that's cool so I google their names the first guy is the ex-ceo of the telco of the province old guys 70 years old I don't know if it's just me but most seven year olds online look really grumpy you don't I mean like you know you had this picture and he's like and I was like I'm not calling this guy he's gonna rip my head off but I knew had to put my ego out of the way and not act on fear so I email every one of them and you'd be surprised within a day most of them had responded this guy Jerry pond who was the ex-ceo actually gave me a cell phone and said call him right away it was almost like they knew and I don't know in your business or as an entrepreneur if you've ever talked to somebody just felt like there was something where they needed to talk to somebody and you had to be there for them they did and they were instrumental I can't tell you how much I like I owe them everything over the next two years my company grew another one hundred fifty percent year-over-year got acquired in 2008 and then I called up Jerry and asked them I really think I should maybe go and see what Silicon Valley is all about and I was worried because I built this company in the province we want some awards and I didn't want anybody think i was turning my back on this this city in this part of the world that was really passionate about and he said the best thing you could ever do for this area is go to San Francisco learn and bring it back and that's what I did five years later with my new company clarity I actually raised a bunch of money from investors and gave them a Canadian wire account and they all ask you that like where the hell is this place I was like just send the money and I'll circle back but the five people you spend the most time with you become that average right think about that you know it's okay to spend less time with your family if they don't support you or your high school friends and try to reach out to those entrepreneurs in the community that are doing well or that are doing things that you find interesting hustle the help there's guys like me ha and others like Scott from cherry water that absolutely embraced this concept that you you get what you put out there you can only keep what you give away there's a quote by Zig Ziglar that you can accomplish anything in life if you're willing to help others achieve what they're trying to accomplish and I believe this to the nth degree and you do it without ever expecting anything back it's just funny how it just kind of works out you know in the magical were a sentence that I like to ask and if you've never whispered these words especially while you're at this conference you meet somebody in their super interesting and you love what they're doing if you don't ask them how can I be helpful then you just don't get it because that to me is what it's all about it's helping other people without ever expecting thing anything in return and in 2007 I was speaking at this conference and there was one of what I think one of the top on traversing Canada this guy named mike mcdermott who's the founder and CEO freshbooks was speaking there and as we were walking between sessions you know I say hey Mike you know big fan I'm a customer I really enjoyed your talk you know what to do what's interesting what's exciting at freshbooks and he starts telling me about this new platform they're working on I said oh that's pretty awesome he's like yeah I'm having a bit difficult trying to figure out all the different mechanics and I said well actually I have two friends that have built marketplaces you want it need to make an intro and he said that'd be great dan thanks so I made the intro six months later he's putting together a conference and he's involved in it and he emails me out of the blue and says Dan we have this conference coming up in four months we'd love to have you speak there I was blown away I said absolutely Mike I'll be there and so a few weeks prior to the conference I'm tweeting that I'm going to be there and if anybody's in the city you know hit me up I want to meet in person and out of nowhere is this tweet from this beautiful blonde woman comes across my screen and she's like hey Dan I know it's just being at the conference I'd love to sit down and pick your brain and I was like yeah right I'm single absolutely something weighs the day the conference comes by and we see each other in passing but there's a lot of people and I had to go do my thing and then we said we'd meet up later and we're at this the night event and I see her kind of walking around the room and I just really impressed with her energy and at the end when she was about to leave you know she said it's really too bad we didn't get a chance to sit down and talk but let me know next time you're in town I would definitely love to kind of talk about what you spoke about and I said well I'm in town for a couple more days how have dinner and she said absolutely so that was cool dinner turned into a long-distance relationship that lasted for months until I convinced her to move to San Francisco we lived in San Francisco for the last two years and in the same month my company flow town got acquired and I asked Rene to be my wife and she said yes but wait the coolest thing that happened is on august seventeenth of last year when my son was born max and that's him Thanks crazy part is a week after something happens and now we're expecting our second two weeks before his first birthday so i used to say we don't around but Renee Renee said yes we do so you know that's just an example of how you don't know how the world is going to end up connecting all these things but all I know from experience is you have to go out of your way to try to be super helpful especially to people that inspire you if you're talking to somebody and what they're working on if somebody is on stage today and you found whether they're speaking about inspiring ask them how you can be helpful because you'd be surprised how things come back so I'm going to end on this story I told you it's a very personal story of one of the best entrepreneurs I ever met and it's about my brother Pierre and this is pierre he's actually my younger brother although most people think he's older because he's missing a bit of hair and when the day i took this photo he actually he made me promise I'd never put on the internet this was taking like six years ago and the reason why i care is one of the most interesting entrepreneurs is you know when I was growing up Kier wood was arguably in our family a lot more entrepreneurial than I you know I always joke that I started building tree forts when I was eight and charged people to get into them so I was kind of in real estate a very young age but Pierre actually made some real money when he was like 11 and 12 at flea markets and by tommy was 13 he bought his first car thinking that he was going to fix it up over a couple years and have it ready for when he turned 16 turns out six months later he sells it makes a profit buys another car by the time you turn 16 he's driving a brand-new Mustang 5.000% you know but he always had this aspiration that somebody would own his own shop so he goes to college gets his paper and I always found weird like as a mechanic you go to college and it's actually a lot harder than becoming a computer programmer so I'm it's like I can go to school and get a comp sci degree and then work on like NASA space ships but he has to like go to college for like three years then do an apprenticeship and like get trained and tested I always thought that was funny but pure ends up being a mechanic at this place called ralphs and you know I always asked here I was like you're going to own your own shop and he said well you know I talked to Ralph when i first started interning there and he said someday he was going to retire and there's a real good opportunity that i can buy it i was like cool ones i can have he said i'll probably in about four years awesome so the next year rolled around and peers working there he's kill himself he's making things happen the shop actually grows by double and peer goes to Ralph Lisa's hey Ralph you know we talked about putting something on paper it's been two years I'd love to kind of figure out what that would look like and Ralph's like you know I'm really busy with the holidays let's talk about it afterwards twelve months go by and Pierre doesn't to be too pushy but he goes hey Ralph you know we talked about putting this together the paperwork I actually talked to my lawyer I have a draft and Ralph's like well let's you know let's talk about in a few more months like it's like there's a lot of stuff going on my personal my wife etc etc let's put it off for now I really appreciate everything you're doing here and you know gave them a bonus a year goes by and Pierre finally goes the Ralph and says dude it's been four years now I've got the paperwork with me we need to figure this out and Ralph looks at them and with the low voice essentially says I feel really horrible but things are going so well I just don't see myself retiring soon and Pierre goes I quit that was the night that I got a call from my brother and he says dan I need to talk and I was like all right this is weird never calls so meet me at my house he says so I drive to his house pulling his backyard he's standing there on his patio and I'm like dude what's going on he goes I just quit my job and I was blown away I was like weren't you supposed to buy that shop he goes yeah it's a long story anyways Ralph do one sign the paperwork so I quit and I was like oh cool so what do you do now by your own mechanic shop he goes I actually don't like Dina mechanic I was like it's a good lesson to learn earlier in your career before he almost bought a shop I said what are you going to do right it's like the best question asked an entrepreneur that just recently got free it's a what are you gonna do he goes I don't know man and I was like why don't you work what would you know what would what's the most interesting thing you've done recently you're super passionate about that you woul want to do and he goes well I recently helped my friend for the last six seven weeks every weekend my friend was building a new house and he would pay me in beer and I would work helping him build his house and it took us you know seven eight weeks and at the end of it he goes I really thought it was neat that I helped him build his home right the place where he knew he's gonna raise his family I say well that's that's awesome while she started home building company he goes I don't know anything about building homes and I go who gives a and nobody does when they start and that was the de Martel home builders was born so he said I have no money and I I went in to my laptop bag and wrote a check for everything I had in my bank account because to me nothing would have been more exciting to seeing him go after his goals so I wrote him a check wished him good luck and said I gotta get back to work and Pierre started and for the next four months he learned as fast as he could he found a lot he put a foundation in and decides to build four houses Pierre wanted to compete against the market by building the most cost-effective house ever and he did a good job at that the thing what he didn't realize in the industry is this thing called curb appeal which essentially is no matter how cheap the house if you have a spouse or partner and they don't fall in love with jewel aspect of the house there's no way you're going to buy it like there's no way that you can convince your partner to buy a house it looks like crap this is what he actually built so I get a call from Kier and he goes we need to talk and I'm like oh what's I know that voice and I go to his house and I and I walk into his back of the house has a kitchen I walk in the kitchen there's no furniture I was like okay on the right house and then kind of like Gary you hear he's like yeah I'm back in my office so I walked through the kitchen into the living room I look around no furniture no nothing no sofa and ice cream out here i think somebody broke in your house install your he goes I don't he's like just come to the office I don't want to talk about it I was like that's weird so I walked down the hallway I see pure I take that photo and I look into his room and there's nothing in there except for an air mattress in a sleeping bag I say dude what's going on and he starts to tell me how bad things had got he built these houses with no curb appeal and couldn't make the mortgage payments anymore and had to remortgage his own house and out of desperation a real estate agent said to him you know you might be able to sell these faster if you staged it and he took everything out of his own house and put it in these model homes and I didn't know what the heck to do but at that moment was the time that I realized that you could never ask for a better entrepreneur because he was going to do whatever it took to make it right so I did the first thing I thought I could do and convince my littlest brother to buy the first house true story I gave him five grand I convinced them that home ownership was a good idea and yeah and he bought that one and then we ended up figuring out how to sell the other ones but what we did is we essentially asked you know I asked it was like what's the problem he tells me about the fact that nobody wants to buy its homes because they're ugly and I said well what why you build ugly house he goes well I don't what to build and I thought from like customer experience in Lean Startup like why don't you learn from the customer so what period is he came up with this really neat idea where he got a bunch of women together put him in a van drove them around on a Sunday to all his competitors homes and asked him to take notes and take photos and at the end of the day he took all those women put them in one of the model homes gave them cocktails and he called a customer cocktail hour and then brought the architect in and they essentially design the perfect home and within a few months he had built this now you got to understand as a home builder the market on average in North America the average home builder builds for homes a year within the first year after building four houses didn't sell and figuring out the right product pierre went on to sell 16 houses in his first year he really understood who his customer was he took that even further and said you know like what are the other things that women want he understands customers so well that at the trade show the home show that year this is his slogan he understood that women made the decisions about what house they would build he started talking them and try to understand what are the other frustrations and buying a home with the contractor he said well most people don't understand where their contractors they're not answering their phone so he decided to build this thing called where's my contractor no Joe real-time GPS and video tracking for everybody that works at his company you can go on their website and see that in real time he then said well buying a house is the largest financial decision you'll ever make instead of getting you a basket of flowers or some fruit and wine when you move into your new house why don't we give you two tickets to jump out of a plane it turns out that most people talking about it would never do it so from a marketing point of you it works really well and then he went even further when I remember I called him up and I said pierre i just saw the coolest thing in san francisco so what's that I said Pete mustaches for your car it's like what would we do with that I say you should add them to the front of all your trucks he said dude I love you bro but there's no freaking way because you don't understand man these guys are manly men that swinging hammers they're not going to put big pink mustaches and I said why don't we do it for charity and it worked and to this date tears raised tens of thousands of dollars for Run for the Cure and he's now in his second year first year we built 16 houses second year he built 36 houses the third year 50 he's now building six years later over a hundred in some homes a year and every time I see that picture tell this story it reminds me that it's never an overnight success and nobody he has never told the story I just told you guys because he feels ashamed about it and I can't tell you how proud I am of my brother so with that I want to ask one thing from everybody in this room as an entrepreneur as a leader in the community is a commitment to make no small plans thanks for having me today Oh you