 I'm just kidding, I don't have the fucking story for you. What I'm going to talk about is advice. I remember when Chris hit me up and he's like, hey man, you want to talk to San Diego? I'm like, oh, what are you going to talk about? And he goes, I'll tell you what to talk about. Three weeks ago he sent me a note and he says, I want you to talk about how do I count for advice. And I looked at it kind of like, are you messing with me? How many times have we had this conversation? How come out of the beginning of that discussion? And then we were talking earlier that I think it's what he's looking for, my personal insights and how I've analyzed it. So those are not aware, I worked for a company called Sikuti as you mentioned, we're a website security company and five years ago, funny enough, I would have never expected to meet what we're at as an organization, right? With a little over 90 employees in 23 different countries managing close to 50 to 60 million pages a month to our network, right? It's a pretty interesting experience and through the experience we've learned a lot. The one thing we've always had though is constant advice. What we shouldn't be doing, what we shouldn't be doing, how we should be doing it, it seems everybody knew how to do it, yet we ourselves who are running the company had no idea, yet we got to where we were. And it's not to say that advice is bad, it's not the case, it's just, it's usually out of context, it's usually not in the right perspective and it's how you manage that. As I started preparing for this conversation I started kind of thinking through the evolution we've been through and at the time, my four-year-old daughter was sitting next to me, harassing me and I was like, when is she going to grow out of this space? And it kind of hit me, right? As people, professionals, I'm going to focus on professional business life and as businesses, we evolve and we evolve in a very similar pattern. Professionally, we're in an infancy, right? At some point, we're coming into the workforce we don't know how to engage with people, how to interact, how to say things. Some of us are just natural about it, right? Some of us have been running businesses for a long time and we started multiple businesses but maybe we started in a new environment and so our business may be an infancy in a specific industry, right? I was in a technology called GIS before I came here to security so geospatial mapping, things like that. Five years ago I moved over to website security. Starting with website security, I was in my infancy. Right? And starting with business, I was in my infancy. So professionally, I was in my infancy and as a business, I was in my infancy. And so naturally, there's a lot of insecurities with that. A lot of imposter syndrome. Do I know what I don't know? That guy sounds like he knows who he's talking about so he must know more than I do. I don't know this shit about marketing or sales. There must be something to it. Everybody else is doing it. Right? Look at all these unit companies. This is how you hire. Right? In my mind, we thought, hey, we have an idea of how we want our personal business. It seems right. It feels right. But everybody else is saying something contrary. Should I be listening to them? And for a while in our early phases, we struggled with that. We struggled with it a lot. We started looking at how everybody else was doing it. But we started chasing that. And what we learned is that as long as we're looking at how someone else is doing it and what someone else is coming up to do, we will never be fully invested in it. It will never be our journey. We need to go in the direction that we need to go as an organization because we are on our own journey. We are on our own game. It's interesting if you think about it if we develop the best business plan and we give it to two identical people. We say, hey, here's a business. Here's your business plan. Hey, here's the same business. Here's your business plan. Why is it that if we know that that business plan succeeds, there's no guarantee that those individuals will succeed? The advice is solid. You should actually shoot the water. You should do zero. This is how businesses are starting in this specific industry. Because every business is a unique organization. I'll give you a few examples that we've gone to. Who has it here heard about this idea that it should always increase prices? You're undermining yourself. It's very common. You sell yourself too short. You should be charging yourself more. In the security space, we suffer from that. In security, when we were trying to bring security to the website, to the everyday consumers, it was coming from a space where it was 10, 20 times what the costs were for the webmaster. It was a completely different market. We said, hey, you should be able to increase prices. You're undervalued. You should be this. You should be that. The problem is that that advice was too open. We didn't fully understand what we were trying to achieve as an organization and the same as you as an organization. What are you trying to achieve? What are you happy with? What are you trying to service? Price change. But this price change didn't happen overnight. This price change, if you would have talked to someone, you would have changed your price right now. And you're like, crap, I should change my prices right now. But in reality, this price change happened over 5 years. And you think you have yourself packed or used a lot of lost opportunity. Well, not necessarily. As an organization, we were not ready for those price changes. As an organization, we were not ready for that price change. Maybe as an organization, we wanted to be at that lower level. And some people say, no, that doesn't make any sense. Well, it made a lot of sense for us. For us, there was an opportunity for us to grow as opposed to having an organization to get the exposure that we need. Maybe that's you, maybe it's not. So I'm not saying the price change is bad, but it's never a simple quote. Just go in and multiply by 20%. You're going to go into another market and it's going to be great. A year ago, when we were at phase 3, when we made that price change, we actually dropped signups by 40%. How do we do that? Three years earlier, we were in another market. We would have failed as an organization. And we had to reach really deep for about three weeks for the market to normalize and for us to be introduced into a new market. Right? But when you read these articles, it's usually completely out of context. Right? We suffer from too much information and as we learn it, we're like, you'll just naturally know this. But what they don't do is like, yeah, I took us five years to get what we were at. This is the journey that we went on. This is the thought process through that. And what I've learned is that when we talk about advice, it's not necessarily the specific advice that what gives you, but more how they got to it. Tell me about your journey. Acquire your moments. Right? Invest in marketing. Acquisitions, ads, it's like that. At the time we weren't ready for it. It sounds great. It sounds like, yeah, we should be doing that. You're absolutely right. But we had no skills in-house. Most of us were technical. We were working on a server level. We had no idea how to work with ads, how to work with marketing. We didn't even know we were doing marketing. We wanted to share information. This is a new malware trend. This is a new attack. We never thought about it in context of marketing. We just thought we always got to know people who would like it. Venture people now sitting in bars and says, hey, you guys have a great content marketing strategy. I'm like, I have no idea what you're talking about. They're like, yeah, you guys have great content marketing. I was like, what is that? Oh, the blog articles you put on. I came back home and I was like, we have a content marketing strategy. They're like, what is that? We write articles. I was so happy about that epiphany I had. But that's just natural. We do what we're basically willing to do. Some people, there's all these things you can do in marketing. For us, what works well is to continue to stay ahead and push out content and that's who's made us who we are. Today, we do acquisition, but we're finally at a size of an organization where we can invest in those things and we can bring the right people in. Don't do the things that we're not comfortable with. Just because somebody else said we should be doing that, it may not fit our model. Because it works for someone else, invest in acquisition. I think everyone here probably understands this. You're talking to somebody who says, you know what you should be doing? You should be doing this. Stop everything you're doing and do this. And in that game, you can feel it. You can feel the hairs coming in. Man, I just invested two people on that for six months. You're talking to a drop down, like for real. And you get very anxious and now you find yourself in this situation and you're like, shit. You know what I feel comfortable doing or what I do, what this guy told me. And you feel very conflicted. And we've had those instances where we started to steer away from what made us who we were. And every single time we did what somebody else told us or should be doing, we smoked out as an organization. Every time we went back to what we were comfortable with and what we're at the root of what we call the flywheel, we would improve as an organization. And so over time, this is what Chris was alluding to, over time, we've become a little bit more resistant to advice. We take the advice, we listen to the advice and we pull the pieces that are valuable to us. For instance, there's always something you should be doing. And it kind of makes you wonder, how do they always know what we should be working on? You know what I mean? Like, have they taken into consideration every other thing that we have going on as an organization? Yet somehow, without any of that context, they're able to come in and prioritize what you should be doing. Doesn't that feel weird to somebody? It feels really weird to me. Right? And so when you talk to somebody, somebody just wanted to give you that advice, without understanding that context, that's usually where I start shutting you off. And I'm like, if you haven't any time to understand how it is that I've gone to or I'm at, or the things that I'm working on or the things that we've already invested, then you're advised to be of no value to me because if you don't care, you just want to push your ideas up top. That's just me. The thing about advice is that everyone has advice. That's the more PC way of saying it. Same as opinions, right? And as we go through our faith, our evolution, our infancy, you talk to people and you have this great idea, they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's nice. That's cool, right? Maybe you get a little bit of advice here, yeah, yeah, you should invest in this, you're adolescent and you've got a young adult face. Depending on where you're at, whether it's large, big, whatever, all of a sudden everybody's got advice. Everybody's a friend, everybody's got an input. Everybody wants to give you that shining idea that's going to get you to the next level. Whether they're investors, whether they're bored, whether they're your own employees. You bring people in, they look two seconds in and all of a sudden they have input into how everything's messed up. You should look at this, you should be doing that. No context at all on how you got that. And it just gets worse and worse. And as you get bigger and your organization gets bigger and you get more awareness, it becomes more challenging. And then at some point, you get to this adulthood where people kind of look at you like, I don't know, I can talk to that guy. He's a little abrasive, you know what I mean? And then the advice kind of slows down and it's more kind of tuned in. It's more like you're bored you're Peter's and other industries and you're like, this is what you should be doing. But this is kind of like the bell curve as I see the world when it comes to advice. So I want to give you some thoughts and I already talked to some of them on how to specifically manage the advice. The first one is filter rules. There's advice everywhere. Every single time you talk to somebody somebody will have an input into what to do. If you're working on initiative, feel confident in that. Maybe take their ideas and say, okay, no problem. You cannot act on every piece of advice that someone gives you. It's practically impossible. I can probably execute one or two things really, really well. And when you talk to my teams, you'll notice I always do that to them. They're like, I got this great idea that is so cool, I love the idea. But where are we on this initiative? Oh no, no, this is so much better, awesome. But I want that initiative. It could be better, but I want it to finish that and I want to see what's going to happen. Don't take it a face nod. Too often someone says, raise prices. You're like, I'm going to raise prices today and you're in company co-ops. Raise prices. Okay, I'll raise prices. But help me understand your job. How did you raise prices? What were the things that you stumbled on? Why did you raise prices? Can you tell me more about your market? How does that compare to my market? Are we in the same market? Right? I sell puppy food and I sell security. Dogs need to eat. They would only secure you to their hand. And I'm not saying that, I'm just saying that's the perspective, right? That's what people think. It's fundamentally different. You're selling something very, very different. So you have to understand what the connecting points are. Listen to people. Listen to people's advice. But pull the pieces that make the most sense for you. Right? Not everything that they offer is a value. Sometimes they might be something completely unrelated to the advice they started with. They started with you should be doing X but before that you had a 15 minute conversation and in that 15 minute conversation you had more value and more advice than the actual advice you provided to them. Yeah, oh shoot. That last 15 minutes was really good. Focus on the context. What do we discuss? How did we even get to this point that you provided this advice? What do you know about my challenges? Have we had an engaging conversation? Have you asked me the problems that I'm having or did you just offer me advice without taking that into consideration? This is an interesting point. The best advice I've ever received and continue to receive is more often advice that comes from people that didn't know they were giving me advice. Have you ever thought about that? You're listening to somebody talk about an interesting idea and it's one of 12 ideas but that one's stuck. Maybe in the phase that we were at as individuals, as an organization we were finally ready for that piece of advice. It finally fit our problems. We've finally got to the point where we can apply what's being discussed. If you're not ready to apply it you will just shut it off naturally. But if you're ready and you're looking for solutions already just imagine it. You will apply it and you will take ownership of that. Don't be afraid to question it. Just because someone sounds like they know what they're talking about. Just because somebody's always referencing like that guy knows or he has a successful company or whatever doesn't mean that he's right or she or they. Ask them. Question their logic. See what they come up with. And remember that you are ultimately responsive. There's a saying I think Mark Hewlett says from Shark Tech you guys never take advice from someone that doesn't have to live with the consequences of it. A bit dire. A bit severe. Probably wouldn't go in that direction. But there's a good context in that which is you will live with every decision. It's the easiest thing in the world to give so many advice. I can sit here and I can talk to every one of you and I will have some advice to give you. I will understand nothing that you're going through. Personal, professional, the whole nine yards. But it will be based on my biases. And the other thing, I won't have to live with the decision. If you do it and it succeeds, I'll give that idea. If you do it and you fail, I'll be like, you executed it wrong. It still works. It's the curse of knowledge. So with that, my name is Tony. This is my thoughts on advice. If you have any questions just let me know. The key here is have confidence in yourself. We don't all get to where we're at without having some level of confidence in what we're doing. And we all suffer from imposter syndrome. We all don't believe that we're heading in the right direction. We all fear the decisions that we're making. We all fear that we're going to do the wrong decision. And so it's very natural for us to look and ask other people or look and see what other people are doing and try to copycat what they're doing thinking that it's us. But it's usually not. Usually if we're making progress it's usually not us. So that's it. Cool. How do you draw the line between listening to advice from people saying they're much smarter and more successful than you? How do you draw the line between like I'm going to filter that advice I'm going to do what I want to do because I know my company. Am I just being a stubborn jackass or not listening to smarter people than me? How do I draw the line? The first question is how do you draw the line between what you perceive to be smarter people and more successful people and what you're doing? I mean I guess the first thing is there really aren't smarter people, right? People are only as smart as we perceive them to be. Just because someone gets up and writes a great article or can get up and deliver a message really well doesn't mean that they're smarter, right? It just means that they're better at delivering some message. And I think that's the first piece. When we start looking and thinking that person is smarter or more successful we're already putting ourselves down, right? We have a business for some reason it is working and your level of knowledge and your marketing will see what that smart successful person will have to your specific domain. So I guess that's the first piece to your question. The second piece is how do you draw the line and at what point am I being too stubborn? Things like that. I think that's a very good question. You can become too stubborn. You can't become to a point where and I've suffered this as well or you just shut people out so much that you do miss good opportunities. That is likely going to happen. And there is a balance. I didn't quite figure out what that good balance is. Usually what I do is in those situations it's about context and discussion, right? If I feel someone is really smart and not an ideal I challenge myself to ask engaging questions to understand what that decision was and then I challenge myself can I do this? Is it feasible? Is it feasible at this point in where I am professionally and where my organization is at? Just because you have a great idea if I can't execute it it won't matter. This is something I always tell folks you can have as many ideas. My issue is in ideas I will share with you anything we have on how the business runs because it's not the idea itself it's how we execute right? So if you talk to someone and they have a good advice you have to force yourself to listen and when you engage with them you have to force yourself to ask the right questions and then force yourself to regurgitate that information and say does that make sense? Am I being a jackass here? And there may be instances where the answer is yes you are and that's okay. How long were you willing to be that stubborn? We were willing to be five years stubborn with our crisis and it worked out really well for us with incremental changes we worked our way to where we needed to be to the point that we feel confident if you take some of these advice even if you convince yourself not to be stubborn if you're not fully bought in and you're not confident in that you'll never be invested in it you'll never be your idea the only way you can execute that idea is yours so you have to reach that point regardless of who the person is Any other questions? The question is when you're working internally how do you deal with advice? You're a team leader you have a team of people you're engaging with they're coming at you with ideas another very good question I've dealt with this a lot so before my time here at Sepudia I was a defense contractor at one point I had about 60 people spread across two different countries and I was building capital asset systems for the government of Afghanistan and it wasn't just about the advice but about cultural issues geographical cultural issues somebody comes in with this perspective things like that and they have certain biases and experiences what has worked in the past I've gotten the route of being very abrasive where no, your idea sucks don't do that that's way too abrasive people just don't actually respond to that to evolving more to where I'm at today which is more along the lines of love the idea what do you do so all of a sudden you turn it back around and one of the things we talk to our teams about our sales and marketing and business stuff like that is if you're going to come to us with an idea come to us with a solution how are we going to execute against that make them owners of that idea because too many people can come up with problems and solutions like hey, you should be doing this you should not leave the dashboard oh well, I can't great, guess what we can't either and it's not a matter of making them feel stupid I try to help them understand prioritization if everything is a priority then nothing is a priority and at some point somebody has to make a decision it's one of the reasons that I don't necessarily believe in a final organization we'll have to talk about it for another day but somebody has to make that decision so the goal is to help them feel as they're being heard and one of the big things I've been trying to do a lot lately is to provide more context I really like that idea this is why we can't or help them understand the nature of what's happening this is what's going on in the marketplace this is what's happening this is how we're going to approach them oh, this is a great idea, awesome here's 50, give me one we had a company meeting a few weeks back where a dev came in we had 50 slides and a slide deck with ideas and every slide deck was an idea and my partner looks at it and he goes go ahead and start so we need to improve the dashboard with XPRIZE and other stuff and he goes, great, stop no, no, no, I have 49 more slides he said, no, you have 4 more slides and you have 30 days to execute on that and he goes just as blank stare and you do it again, stop we'll have another conversation and we'll go to slide 2 we had the 30 days but all of a sudden they take ownership and now when they come out with ideas they're like Tony Daniel we have an idea there's a solution you can take ownership of it same thing with sales, same thing with marketing I want to do this initiative 3 months later when we have a slide deck with educational blocks what happened? oh, okay okay, cool got it so hopefully that can provide some context and I am done