Partner Corner with Jake Summers: Bootstrapping, Growth, Reflections and Looking Ahead

How did Tripp trick Jake into starting two companies at once (while running a third?) The partners discuss why they’re choosing to bet on themselves and how increased credibility gives them the confidence to do so. 

In the final episode of season one, Tripp sits down with Jake to discuss the growth rollercoaster they’ve been riding. This is one of those glimpses into the “sausage-making” process that is social entrepreneurship. This episode is a behind-the-scenes look at the challenges entrepreneurs face when they decide to bootstrap growth and shows how they’ve gotten comfortable knowing there isn’t one “right way” to do things. 

How do you go from a startup where its “all hands on deck” to a mature organization? In the early days of a company, there is always too much work and not enough time–everyone pitches in to knock out the most pressing items. As a company matures, leaders must carve out specific roles and responsibilities to provide clarity to team members. This process repeats itself over and over as the organization grows. It’s an imperfect process that can feel chaotic and overwhelming. In this episode Jake and Tripp discuss how they are running a mature organization, Green Hill, and a startup organization, AIM: Advaita Integrated Medicine, while all the while trying to launch a much, much larger company.

Here’s a glimpse at what we covered in the Partner Corner Episodes of season one. 

• Fundraising versus bootstrapping
• Bootstrapping a new company from existing infrastructure (and the associated growing pains)
• Why can’t Jake seem credible to mentors because of how he’s running the finance department? 
• How credibility decreases the riskiness of financial decisions 
• The importance of building a network of partners -- bankers, advisors, accountants -- to help make better decisions
• Which business functions are being moved from Green Hill up to the parent company, Advaita Health Ventures?
• The importance of leaving ego at the door

Green Hill Recovery: www.greenhillrecovery.com 

AIM: Advaita Integrated Medicine: www.aimwellbeing.com 

Advaita Health Ventures: www.advaitaventures.com  

Find us on the web:

• Advaita Integrated Medicine
• Green Hill Recovery

Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):

What'd you do that? Welcome to partner corner.

Speaker 2 (00:09):

The last episode. Oh, that's the part I'm sorry. I don't know. I mean, there's not really parts, you know, like most things I've got a good vision for it, but execution's a little shaky.

Speaker 1 (00:19):

It gets a little murky and the

Speaker 2 (00:20):

Details add not my thing. Well, how are you? I'm doing well. We just did a fun values, vision, culture, onboarding. I feel like that's always a fun way to start the day.

Speaker 1 (00:34):

Yeah. I like to tell you ended that, um, with the idea that like this, this might be more helpful to you and Nick and myself than it is for the employee. Who's going through the cultural onboarding. Um, and I love that. It's just like a good reset for us to think about what matters.

Speaker 2 (00:52):

Yeah. So what are we going to talk about today? What do you want to talk about? We've got a lot going on.

Speaker 1 (00:58):

We have way too much going on. Um, and we can chat about that. And, uh, and I think the other goal is to kind of wrap up. So I like that you've done this idea of your podcast and seasons and kind of having, you know, larger themes and putting a wrap and a close on things and kind of launching, um, I think that's cool when I was doing a podcast, it was just like, we just recorded every week and it had no beginning or end or, or theme. Um,

Speaker 2 (01:27):

Yeah. And I think we'll keep the partner coroner going. I think that's the, uh, I think my parents listen to every episode, but other than that, I think people only listen to the partner corner sometimes. So

Speaker 1 (01:37):

Yeah, I haven't gotten a lot of people say they have been listening to it, which means I have to behave a little more on here.

Speaker 2 (01:44):

Thanks, Joanne. If you're listening, we're going to try and leave any, uh, genitalia references out today.

Speaker 1 (01:50):

I think that's smart.

Speaker 2 (01:54):

Oh man. So where are we going to jump off?

Speaker 1 (01:57):

Um, why don't we talk a little bit about what's going on right now, um, with kind of our staffing and, and how we're all living in startup mode, but also running a company at the same time.

Speaker 2 (02:08):

Yeah, it's a, it's a little confusing. I feel a lot better than I did, you know, three and four years ago when Greenhill was starting, because at least we have something going, but it is back to the days of all hands on deck at the new company aim, which we talked about a couple episodes ago.

Speaker 1 (02:29):

Yeah. So we're basically on the goal line here trying to do everything that we need to get aim ready to launch in a couple of weeks. And it's, it's funny. I think I'd mentioned this last time, but when, when you start a business, you forget about all the boring stuff that you have to do, but it's, uh, uh, it's, it's a huge pile of tasks.

Speaker 2 (02:47):

It's been a real slop.

Speaker 1 (02:49):

Yeah. So getting like you finishing the website and ordering business cards and ordering signage and getting a phone number and setting up a phone system and getting a phone to ring in the office, um, all these furnishing the office, all these little things that you kind of take for granted when you're starting something we've been stuck in that mode. Um, and I think on a more macro scale, it's interesting to see the interaction with that pile of tasks and no real natural owners when you're in startup mode and kind of running a mature business where people have their own day to day jobs and daily responsibilities. So when you hear it, when you hear the startup grind and startup culture, it's, it's very much this utility player world where people get brought into a company and they're just, you know, everybody's just pushing the organization forward and it's not really clear what their role is necessarily, but everybody just has to do things to get the company going. Um, so we have that going on in one building with the same people that are also, uh, have a whole host of responsibilities over at Greenhill. So that's been a unique tension to live in and I think, uh, it's been fun. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:04):

I think it's been for us really interesting because the iterations as we've talked about in the past is with Greenhill, we really were operating somewhat strict on the entrepreneurial operating system or EOS and, you know, everyone knew kind of what they were accountable for. And as you start a new company, if you're involving some of the same team members, all of those lines get blurry, communication gets lost. And you know, there is that utility player mindset, but it's not easy to feel grounded in that. And I think our, our work over the next couple of months is just to get everyone in the right seat and feeling grounded about what their day to day responsibilities are.

Speaker 1 (04:48):

Yeah. And I think this came to me when we were doing the, um, Greenhill culture presentation, but I think what's interesting on a human level is so when you look at a, uh, a mature organization like green hill, um, it's about making the organization more vertical and like adding management and reporting and lines of accountability. So over there we have a very clear hierarchy. And then when you're in the startup world, like people don't really outrank one another, it's just everybody has to produce. Um, so literally with the, with the same people in two different buildings right now, we have people whose, you know, they might have their boss in, in the green hill world, but over here everybody's kind of equal and just running things. So it's been, uh, it's been interesting to see how quickly within our culture egos get put aside, and everybody's willing to listen to everybody in one world, but also respect the hierarchy and reporting and roles and responsibilities and the other world. Um, so I think that's been a cool reflection of the culture that you've built here.

Speaker 2 (05:53):

Yeah. It's been fun. I'm looking back at notes on the partner corners we've done so far. So I'm just going to run you through kind of a non-sequitur, but run you through the kind of titles of those and then discuss kind of what we're up to right now. So we started out the foundations of a great business partnership when we really just talked about how we work well together, probably in that startup environment, especially then it was growth fundraising and general update, which was we, we were on the road five months ago, thinking we were going to go raise one to $5 million to start edgy care. Uh, then we talked about, you know, partnering with someone you don't mind spending the night with in an airport. And then the next episode was not taking an investor. So a full pivot away from the fundraising and growth episode. And then we talked about introducing aims. So we, instead of fundraising, we just launched a company. And that was interesting. And you accused me of some trickery. I did. Would you like to elaborate? How did I trick you? Come on. I'm very transparent. We talked about that. Sinbeck culture onboarding. I'm transparent with everything I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (07:09):

So if we go all the way back to January, I trip had me put together my personal professional development plan. And when I talked about my professional goals, it was very like blinders on. I just wanted to get Educare funded and off the ground. Um, so we, we started doing that and it's, it's, you know, it's never a linear path, but we definitely, you started moving the needle on Educare, but, um, I was sort of laser focused on that being the one thing that we couldn't couldn't mess up this year. And I always accused you of kind of sticking things in front of the line, like triple X to cut the line with new ideas. Um, and I've been sitting on this notion that like the psychiatry practice in aim was that that was like, what you were, you were like, well, we gotta do this first.

Speaker 1 (07:55):

It, it doesn't, I know it might not make sense to you right now, but this has to be the priority. Um, and then as that sort of, you kind of got me to commit to that. And then we reached this point where you started selling aim as, as really the pilot for Educare. And I didn't really see it at first, but the idea was that, you know, educator was primarily going to be a mental health. You know, it's, it's more mental health and substance use because that's what's needed in college right now. Um, it's more psychiatric care than addiction treatment, which is what we do over at Greenhill. And it would also be a platform that we could directly serve colleges on. Um, it wasn't, you know, it's not large enough to support a university like UNC, but it certainly, um, you know, can be bent in a way that it can serve smaller colleges.

Speaker 1 (08:45):

And then sure enough, we had this day of sex Mokena event where every, every time we went to do a pitch, people are like start smaller and use the existing you have. Um, so I, we were trick was kind of proven right, in the sense that like, it did make sense to start aim. And that was definitely our, a better proof of concept than Greenhill was for Educare. Um, but coincidentally enough, we've actually started receiving direct university referrals to aim. So, so the, the pilot version of Educare was not intended to replace college counseling departments. It was intended to supplement them and be more of a, um, you know, w one larger referral partner instead of a, a network of referral partners. So we are just in that network of referral partners, but the fact that colleges are comfortable directly referring clients from their counseling departments to aim. That's how he tricked me. Wow. So what he did was he convinced me to start aim and, and I got my, I got my way at the same time by like, we actually did start educator. Like we, we started a company that is directly receiving, you know, outpatient level of care referrals from large division one universities. So we don't have a contract with UNC, but we are receiving referrals.

Speaker 2 (10:11):

Yeah. I think it's exciting. I think it was all unknown to us. We had this kind of thesis and we were using Greenhill as the initial proof of concept for why we would be effective at working with college students and really working with universities to better serve the students. Um, but Greenhill, we knew wasn't what they were looking for. I mean, even the higher levels of care, um, that's just not really what we're hoping to accomplish. I mean, we, we don't want people to be in treatment ultimately, like we want to provide good treatment when it's needed, but if we can keep people from needing that that's even better, and that is the premise behind Educare and how were going to help save, you know, the healthcare system money by providing the resources in a timely fashion. So it's been, um, it's interesting. I mean, we've got, you know, we're two weeks out from the official launch of aim, but we've already got about 30 clients, 30 patients, depending on how you want to say it. And, uh, we're getting to test all the systems. And I think what's been interesting to me is this the tension between the fundraising kind of model and the bootstrapping model. And we are so firmly in the bootstrapping model that it is, you know, kind of scary as. A lot of times, like we were trying to launch a company from one other company's excess cash, which isn't that much excess cash. Sometimes

Speaker 1 (11:45):

It's very scary and it's, it's tough being, uh, in the CFO seat during this cause think like a lot of the, um, a lot of the responsibility falls on me cause I'm the one looking and projecting and figuring out like, you know, are we gonna run out of money? Does the math work? And, uh, and then having to report on that. But I think that you, you do a really good job of just trusting that, you know, what I like, what I say is going to work and you feel comfortable plowing ahead. Um, but yeah, it's, it's, it's very stressful to, to fund a company out of another company. And I think like, you know, sort of in the staffing conversation I had earlier, it's like, when you have competing priorities, it's like, what if an air conditioning unit goes out there, but that cash was allocated to hire a medical scheduler at aim? Like what do you do? Um, so I think, uh, yeah, it's, it's just living in that uncertainty and being comfortable that like, it's not competing priorities. It's just, you know, moving this finance department together as one, and we're all in the same boat. Um,

Speaker 2 (12:53):

But it's, it's tough. One thing we talked about you, or you mentioned to me, because I was encouraging you to talk to maybe other CFOs or people who are managing finance departments in general, and you push back on me saying like that, that's not a good idea because everyone's going to tell me where

Speaker 1 (13:09):

Yeah, you, you always talk about like when we go to mentors and we go to people outside of our organization, it's about establishing credibility and then building on that. Um, and, and, and what I said to you in a candid way was like, I will lose credit if I go and, and explain to my mentors, how we're running this finance department, like right now I will lose credibility. Um, and I think that's just the dance you have to do is, is just, you know, we, we use the phrase a lot, but it's just betting on ourselves. So you have to know that, like, you know, we can thread the needle in these moments and we'll, and we have to trust ourselves and we'll come out of it. Um, cause yeah, I mean most, most generic advice we get is always like, you know, do things slow, don't mess things up, don't get yourself overextended.

Speaker 1 (13:59):

But, but every, you know, major entrepreneurial success story always has that moment where, you know, the founder looked at at his advisors and not, and said, yeah, I hear you, but I'm going to do it anyway. Um, so, so yeah, and anybody that's had success in building a real sustainable enterprise they've w when they had these moments where they had to bet on themselves, they, they doubled down and they went all in and were for the second time in our partnership, we're in this moment where we're, we're running the tank dry and, and we're, we're doubling down and we're going all in and it's, it's the right move.

Speaker 2 (14:37):

Yeah. And I think like one of the things that things that gives me confidence from, especially from a few years ago is I do think we actually have a lot of credibility. Like when we talk about, you know, any sort of threading the needle, right. That's, that's true, but it's a totally different type of threading the needle than when we were frantically transferring money into, to make payroll. Like now we have lines of credit. We have people that are interested in investing. And the only reason we haven't taken investment, like we could have a lot more cushion right now, but we're not willing to part with any sort of equity or control at the current kind of valuation or, you know, where we see it. So this is just us, you know, betting on ourselves. But also it's a very strategic, like we have a lot more infrastructure today than we had a month ago and a month from now our entire organization, you know, the parent from the parent company level will look very different. And I think we've invested in a lot of that infrastructure from the beginning. I mean, probably because I read too many, you know, Jim Collins and Patrick Lencioni books that I think I'm running a fortune 500 company, but it's much more like I'm running a lemonade stand and I

Speaker 1 (15:54):

Remind you of that from time to time.

Speaker 2 (15:56):

But I think in some ways that's been good, you know, it's helped us mature in some areas without, uh, and, and the only people who've really, I think, suffered from that are ourselves and our significant others financially. But I think it's the right call, I think 10 years from now, 15 years from now, we'll be looking back saying, man, I'm really, you know, we're really glad we didn't, we didn't panic. And we bet on ourselves. This was very, I mean, when we think about our projections, everything we're doing to give ourselves comfort into build credibility. I mean, this is way more buttoned up than it was a couple of years ago.

Speaker 1 (16:34):

Yeah. A hundred percent. Um, and you know, just like you touched on just building those meaningful relationships outside of the, like, um, like our, you know, our bankers, a close friend of mine, and we had our accountants in yesterday and you're tight with lawyers and just building like that, um, you know, the, the partners in the organism, in the community, there are gonna give you that the scaffolding and the comfort that, you know, you have people and allies in your corner as you navigate these kind of pinch points. Um, so they become cheerleaders for us, which is comforting. It's like, you know, w we're we're worried about our cash situation. And we have our banker telling us that we're doing the right thing and a great thing, and he's got our back. So it's like, you know, stuff like that, it takes a while to build, but yeah, that's where the credibility shows up, um, in these types of situations.

Speaker 2 (17:25):

And I think that's why I always go back to just like building our network is so important because if we have a network that understands success, they're not going to let us fail. And that's what gives me the ultimate, you know, the confidence at the end of the day to make these decisions is we can explain why we made them. It's very well-reasoned and we can reach back to them and say, Hey, like, we're, you know, we're scared about this situation. And, and we have plenty of golden parachutes. So that's been the kind of cool thing to me that we, while we're taking a lot of risks, we also have accumulated a lot of, kind of like get out of jail free cards.

Speaker 1 (18:03):

Yeah. That's

Speaker 2 (18:03):

Nice. So two things I wanna talk about one, you know, we kind of talked about the operating, you know, one company starting another, uh, and then we've, we've been hinting around EDU care, but I want to talk about some of the first one, the sausage being made, how we, I think what we've recently landed on that isn't final, but the kind of idea of Greenhill versus AME versus a parent company and how we're kind of conceptualizing that, how we really want to add some stability in Greenhill. Uh, and so that, uh, organization we're actually going to strip away some of the, you know, functions that have had to be housed internally, because that was the only operating company, or now we're going to kind of move up to an administrative parent company. Um, so I want to talk about that and then kind of segue from that eventually into our upcoming board of advisors meeting. Cause I think they were related. So making the sausage, how do you go from one organization that has a very clear and distinct mission to having kind of a parent company and the iterations we went through in that?

Speaker 1 (19:16):

Well, in a very basic sense, it's, it's difficult because there isn't a right answer. Um, and it's like, we, you can, you can sit in this space where you play around and move things around endlessly. So there isn't a right answer to start. And it's, it's also, it's, it's hard to think through these things while they're not actually happening. So like right when you're running at that at a parent company level or doing anything in any company, like until it is really moving along, you don't know the problems. Um, so we're trying to forecast problems in different scenarios that are just based on our imagination. Um, so, so it's, it's tough and, and really one of the, so in a more businessy language, hence what we're attempting to do is when you, when you merge organizations, you often hear of people getting laid off because of redundancy, right? So we're trying to eliminate redundancy and create the term is economies of scale, where you're getting like, you know, one finance department can serve two companies and therefore you don't need to have two finance departments. Um, so we've been trying to figure out what elements of Greenhill are special and need to remain at Greenhill and what elements are sort of commoditized and would make sense to let them serve to organizations and, and give us that instant economies of sale of scale. Um,

Speaker 2 (20:42):

So could you give some examples of that? Yeah,

Speaker 1 (20:44):

So, so when we look at, uh, you know, EOS describes the three core functions of businesses, sales and marketing operations and finance. So I think at, and those are basically our departments within green hill. Um, and then it can sort of break out from there. Like for example, we consider clinical and our nonclinical programming, or, you know, more of the residential side of our program. Those are two kind of departments within the ops wing. Um, so basically what we did is we started by looking at those three core functions and seeing, you know, what, what feels like a commodity and what feels special. And, uh, I think the first two things that popped out to us are, you know, finance is very generic, right? Like, and that's sort of the department I run, but that that's the most obvious thing to move up. It doesn't have any unique and like numbers are as like, you know, people say like math is the universal language of the world.

Speaker 1 (21:38):

Like nothing bridges gaps more than, than the cold logic of numbers. Um, so I think that was the first, uh, position that moved up. And that was kind of what we had talked about last time with this chief investment, you know, larger chief finance role, where it's easy for me to kind of sit at that level and oversee both departments, um, and both have insurance billing, you know, responsibilities. So that that component gets moved up as well. Um, any interactions with billing and insurance? Um, then I would say that the second department that is obvious to move up, but has a little more nuance to it is, is marketing and in our world admissions, which is kind of falls in that sales and marketing bucket. Um, and it's, it's tough because in a general sense, like, you know, marketing, being able to market two things with one person is, is, you know, people do it all the time.

Speaker 1 (22:35):

Like I I've used the example of pharmaceutical sales reps. They, they walk into a doctor's office and they're selling five different drugs at the same time. Um, and while Benadryl and Tylenol and some, you know, they might have different brands and slightly different nuances. Like you're getting, you know, one sales guys is doing all of that. Um, so I think what we've been able to definitely move up as digital marketing because our digital strategies is, again, it's, it's more like finance, like digital is, is a style and a language. And it's, it's more of a strategy that doesn't, uh, isn't tied to one brand. Um, but on a human level, like that's where it gets tough as in, in the marketing emissions is cause marketing, you know, we're, we're running very distinctly different brands that serve as different demographics and have different needs. So trying to figure out what the right way to do that, it's like, you, you don't want to lose the special nuances of a marketing strategy that, that really bring home a brand, but you want to, um, but they are things that like, you know, one guy, like I just used the drug example, but, but you can definitely have sales and marketing serve multiple organizations.

Speaker 1 (23:46):

Um,

Speaker 2 (23:48):

And then we kind of landed on not bringing all of that up. Like maybe like you said, that digital marketing versus business development, two separate functions. So

Speaker 1 (23:56):

Yeah, so, so I think kind of a very high level, uh, um, very high level, like strategic stuff can happen to the parent company level, but really how you do the marketing and who does the marketing and what that brand and messaging more specifically has to live at the, um, the organizational level. And, and I think one of the more nuanced pieces of it is that we primarily run a referral based marketing strategy. And it's, um, one of the reasons we have these different brands is that people don't like the big corporate man. They don't want to know that they're, they want to get to know somebody in the brand that they're referring to. Um, so having more of that outreach and business develop development contains to the brand itself and not, um, forcing people to have to run two separate brands is, is, uh, is wonderful. Um, and then we got

Speaker 2 (24:53):

Some of the less sexy stuff. So those are at least cool, but then he got like that it, the facilities insurance contracting. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:02):

And, and, and some real estate functions. Um, so, so those are all the kinds of things we're moving up. And then I think where we're really struggling right now is, and it's interesting because we attempted to solve this problem before, and it never really got solved, but it's so aim will have a clinical component to it. Um, but similar to everything I said with the marketing, but it's like, how do you create clinical economies of scale when you're serving different populations and doing different styles of treatment? Um, but you know, as we mentioned with the marketing, there are certain elements of, of a clinical department that can get moved up. So we're, we're basically figuring out if there's a way to carve out and we keep throwing around this term internally, but like, it's more of a hospital administrator role. Like there's, you know, there's the, the actual clinical work that gets done within our organizations, but then there's things like HIPAA and joint commission, commission compliance and, um, auditing notes and making sure the notes are good and treatment plans are aligned with, um, clinical notes and all that good stuff that, that is very generic and commoditized.

Speaker 1 (26:13):

That's kind of the infrastructure within a clinical program. Um, so that's kind of the big unsolvable problem we've been trying to solve for is like, how do you, when you can't move a whole department up and it's not as obvious as finance, are there any elements and what kind of load that puts on your team to, to kind of strip certain things out of a department and leave things in an apartment in one company, and it's tough, any problem you're solving it doesn't have a right answer. Somebody hasn't solved it before. It's, it's very difficult.

Speaker 2 (26:45):

Yeah. It's been fun. I mean, it's, it's been the most challenging thing. And I think our, the mantra we've been going with to try and wrap up this year is kind of do less but better. And I think that's one of the things we overstretched some of the infrastructure at Greenhill and launching aim. And now we're reeling that back in trying to contain what is unique to Greenhill within Greenhill. And then again, like you said, pulling certain functions up and often what this is going to be is removing certain responsibilities that, you know, someone at Greenhill may have had like our executive director, we're going to take some of his current responsibilities and just take them off his plate because we need him to own what's going on at Greenhill. And like, he doesn't need to be worried about HR and making sure everyone's paperwork is done when they're brought on board. He doesn't have to worry about updating CAQ H for, for every provider, that kind of thing that we can, I say outsource, but big shout out Kelsey for a, to my wife, more fulfilling in his era as our HR consultant and making sure that we are compliant with everything we need.

Speaker 1 (27:55):

Sometimes people ask me why Kelsey's on the website. Like, isn't she in a PhD program? I'm like, Halsey works her off behind the scenes. Like she takes these huge, it's like every three months Kelsey's working on some big project that like nobody even knows is going on. Um, and it's just wonderful. So yeah. Big shout outs. We appreciate you, Kelsey.

Speaker 2 (28:15):

She doesn't listen. She has no interest in this. Well, though. So shout out. Love. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:20):

Shout out Lynn and Lynn, thanks for housing me the other day in Florida and bill.

Speaker 2 (28:28):

Um, cool. Well, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (28:31):

Uh, there's one more thing I want to highlight. I brought it up, but I think I'm realizing it more in the moment here is that like the only way any of this works is because you've created this culture and you've attracted people where ego doesn't matter. Like I've been sitting in meetings the last couple of days and like, we're, we're talking about, you know, like in some ways it's a huge promotion, right? To get moved from one organization to an organization that oversees two and nobody cares. Nobody cares what their title is. Nobody cares what organization they're working for. Like everybody just keeps everybody that's working kind of in this leadership levels, startup multi-company, mish-mash like, they just want to see things succeed. They don't care how things, um, you know, look on the outside of them. They don't care if they're on a website, they don't care if their title has vice or executive in it.

Speaker 1 (29:25):

And you don't have as much experience in the civilian corporate world as I do, but this really matters to people like I've seen, you know, I can count on probably two hands, not just one, like people that have left organizations over a title. Um, so it's, it's, it's really cool to see. And I, I think that's like a Testament to the culture we've built it. And the only reason we can do this stuff is because ego is not muddying the waters. And we can have very candid, transparent conversations with all the people that, that are involved in this, where we don't have to make these decisions alone. And we can bring the people in the room and say like, what if we rip this out of your job and gave it to this person, how would you feel? They're like, I would love it or I'd hate it.

Speaker 1 (30:09):

And here's why, um, so being able to have the people that these decisions impact in the room, having that decision, like that's our super power as an organization where most, most organizations have to have these kind of quiet, closed door conversations and they make a decision and they, they hope that it lands well. And we just, we don't have to deal with that tension. Um, so that being removed from the equation, as I think, what, what really helps us be able to, to sustain this pace and sustain, you know, this organization and the way we do.

Speaker 2 (30:41):

Yeah. It's, uh, I feel lucky and fortunate that culture, our culture has evolved to the point. It is so quickly. And I do think, you know, it's not all rosy. So we talked about some really good things going on. Some of our only struggles are around ego though, and we're not going to get into that now. But I do think that when we talk about, um, ego, like it is really the enemy when we're, when we're trying to do something new and different. Because, um, if, if you're coming in with that ego around your title, or exactly who, who's your boss, who are you in charge of? It makes it really difficult because these are all new challenges and situations for us. So, yeah, I feel I'm super, super lucky that, that our culture has evolved that far. The board of advisors, you know, are quick jumping to board of advisors. We have put together, I mean, an absolute all star board of advisors, that's going to help us understand how to manage a growing portfolio of companies. And, uh, we're not going to go into depth. We're going to do a series on this podcast interviewing each one of them. But I mean, we've got to prepare for our first board meeting. So talk about not being in a new situation, totally unknown quality board, and

Speaker 1 (32:08):

Probably made like $10 million a year. They're like C-suite dream team and, and they're coming to oversee the lemonade stand. They're like, I haven't switched to crystal light. It's it's cheaper. Um, so it's, it's remarkable. And I, I, uh, I think one of the things that we have to figure out is like, you put together a board of advisors, but you have to figure out what to ask them. And I think that's like, you know, one of the things we're trying to figure out is, you know, these, people's, time's very valuable and like, they, they, they can solve, help us solve a lot of big problems and it's asking the right questions and, and asking questions on the right scale. Um, and I, and I think one of the difficulties is like they might unlock or give us very practical advice that would help us in the moment and, you know, at the lower level of an organization, but they're also the ones that, um, can help us think larger in a way that you mentioned, like, should we be forward-looking and talking about the big stuff, cause those are problems that they have solved in the past, or should we be leaning on their business experience to solve problems in the moment?

Speaker 1 (33:18):

Um, so again, it's just one of those things that we've never done before and there isn't a right answer. And, um, and, and I think one of the cool things is that to lean in on the credibility idea again, is that like the, this board of advisors, they're not coming to tell us what to do. They, they want us to tell us what we need help with. Um, so it's not just like, you know, we're, we're lost. And like, they believe enough in us that like, they're not just showing up and telling us, do this, do that, do that. And getting back on their private plane. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:50):

That's going to be fun. I mean, I'm like totally intimidated and overwhelmed by the amount of work we've got to do over the next week to really be prepared because it's been tough to, you know, like what we're looking at from my Greenhill edgy care aim, parent company level has changed significantly over the past couple of weeks. It's, we've had a couple of different iterations and we want to be able to present to them, Hey, this is what's going on. And here are the questions we need help with. And those questions seem to change every few days. Uh, but it's going to be a lot of fun and I I'm, I'm positive. We're going to come out of it, uh, feeling like we obviously learned a lot and probably have a lot more to do.

Speaker 1 (34:34):

Um, we'll be stressed about that to-do list after the board of advisors meeting.

Speaker 2 (34:38):

Yeah. Well, when are we not stressed about it to do list, just to kind of bring this first season of the business of human flourishing podcast to a wrap I'd like to ask a few questions, you know, what do you think our biggest difficulty during our partnership over the past few months has been?

Speaker 1 (35:00):

Um, that's a tough one. Um, yeah, I, I think it's just been the, uh, like trying to stay tight and making the big decisions decisions together. Um, we're, we we've had to make a lot of big difficult decisions. Um, and I think, uh, I think just the sheer scale of that is always going to be a challenge on any partnership, but I think that we've made a lot of good decisions and, uh, and, and I think where I'm struggling to this question is because a lot of these things that they turn out well, um, but, but the hardest thing is honestly just been trust, right? Like you and I have like ventured into another, like you're giving me a ton of trust on the finance side of things, and I'm giving you a ton of trust on the, um, you know, prioritizing of your time and setting the right priorities to kind of navigate us through these moments where we have so much going on. Um, so I, I think just us continually trusting each other is always our biggest difficulty.

Speaker 2 (36:09):

I don't know I'm going to push back on that. I actually think like, I think theoretically, that is true. I think we would just like now I, yeah, I saw this question and I was like, this is a weird one. We, I think we talked about this more in the beginning of this season that like you were pulled between making sure renovations were done and this and that. But I think like, I don't want to say there aren't any different, I think there were just like personal difficulties and difficulties, but as far as like that actual partnership goes, it feels like we've, you know, ironed out so much of it again. And not that it was bad before. I mean, that's how we kicked off this partner corner was talking about what a great partnership is to us. But I think like, I think we've added more communication around like really what's going on.

Speaker 2 (36:58):

Like really, what do you have to do today? Or you picked up something, you know, picked up some clothes from the tailor yesterday for me. And I want to make sure that you're, you know, you've got a wedding coming up in a week and I'm like, dude, I, I just need to know how invested in time you can be. And like, we're just, and there's, I think it just back to that ego thing, I think we used to, but I think because we each have a little bit of a chip on our shoulder that we can outwork people and we don't want to be seen as lazy. And we always say that we're going to screw each other for ourselves before screwing each other. Um, but I think we've taken a really big step forward in just making sure we're communicating really well ahead of time about this. So like, you know, there there's been less. Gotcha. I think for me, I've done a lot less like, and I think you've learned that if I am asking a question, you know, like we've just, we've navigated that. Well,

Speaker 1 (37:55):

Um, yeah, it's, it's funny because a lot of the work you do in 12 step communities and in recovery is like, you know, so much of, of using is, is a symptom you're reacting to something. So it's like it's doing this giant move from not reacting, but being, you know, more in that foresight space where I think that's how our communication style has gotten. Like we're a lot more predictive where we know how the other will react in certain situations. So we use it a lot of priming phrase it like, you always like tell me like, like suspend disbelief. You just have to trust me on this, where it's like, that gets me in a, in a space of curiosity where it's like, okay, I'm going to like, let my down and, and try to try to listen to what he's saying in a curious way.

Speaker 1 (38:40):

Um, um, and, and I've gotten a little better at setting boundaries where like, I can't do this right now. I just need, I need time. I need head space. Like I can't spin around in the, uh, hamster wheel of ideas. I just need to get done. Um, so, so I think like we've gotten better at, at not like laying landmines for the partnership to run into and to your point, like, we haven't had a lot of issues cause that's, that's been going really well. Um, and I think most importantly we're having fun, right? Like in a very, like, I, I used to hate it when I was a kid, but like, they tell you, like, at the end of the day you play your sports and if you just have fun at success and like you and I are Uber competitive people and it's like, that's not good enough.

Speaker 1 (39:22):

Um, but that's really, what has been allowing me to sleep at night is like I go to bed reviewing my day and I'm thinking about like, we, we've had a lot of fun moments and I've set up this office and Nick comes over here and hangs out and we all kind of just like sit on the couch and chat. And we've been, been laughing a ton over the last month. Um, so I think at the end of the day, in a very basic sense, like our partnership and our friendship and kind of lumping those two things together, it's just been really fun lately.

Speaker 2 (39:54):

What is our biggest wind do you think during the past few months,

Speaker 1 (39:58):

Everything we just described and