Full Transcript for Why It’s Faster and Easier Than Ever to Start a New Company

in 2007. 54 00:05:10.841 --> 00:05:12.823 And just as you said, lots of friction. 55 00:05:12.843 --> 00:05:18.326 I had to change my initial name of my business like four times because the state didn't like it. 56 00:05:18.886 --> 00:05:24.530 It was just very manual, very laborious, lots of friction to start it. 57 00:05:25.390 --> 00:05:37.714 But at the same time, it's interesting, one of my mentors early on, Louis Schiff, who I think you know, he said, hey, you know, the best entrepreneurs have this blend of ignorance and ego. 58 00:05:38.514 --> 00:05:40.095 You have the ego to believe. 59 00:05:40.115 --> 00:05:41.155 I call it excitement. 60 00:05:41.255 --> 00:05:43.656 But he's just like, hey. 61 00:05:44.344 --> 00:05:46.885 You've got to have the ego to believe that you can do it. 62 00:05:46.985 --> 00:05:51.347 And you're so ignorant, you still think you can, even though the odds are against you. 63 00:05:52.148 --> 00:06:13.498 That was kind of me when I started, which kind of makes me think about since we're removing the friction, since the technological advances of AI are really lowering those barriers, removing friction where the crucible that you have to go through, the grit and perseverance is really being removed. 64 00:06:14.668 --> 00:06:24.674 It makes me wonder if while we see a massive increase in the number of new business formation, if we'll just see the opposite on the other side, just a massive number of business failures. 65 00:06:24.794 --> 00:06:24.934 Yeah. 66 00:06:24.974 --> 00:06:25.094 Yeah. 67 00:06:25.823 --> 00:06:35.328 Now, do you think that the people who are not hardwired to be an entrepreneur, they're going to start businesses and they're going to fail? 68 00:06:36.089 --> 00:06:43.112 Or do you think it's more along the lines of pre-industrial age where everyone sort of worked for themselves? 69 00:06:43.132 --> 00:06:53.418 You had your own farm, you had your own trade, and you could work for multiple customers applying that trade as opposed to the idea of a company coming together and growing and scaling. 70 00:06:54.234 --> 00:07:07.099 First of all, I think it's going to be very, very complicated to get a handle on what's actually happening, because my sense is that the basis for ambition is actually you have some sort of capability already. 71 00:07:07.699 --> 00:07:13.802 So if you have someone who's 12, 13, 14 years old who got involved with AI technology, 72 00:07:14.382 --> 00:07:15.523 really, really early. 73 00:07:15.543 --> 00:07:20.327 They're probably meeting adults that say, hey, can you do this for me? 74 00:07:20.727 --> 00:07:23.930 And my feeling is that it's very low grade to start with. 75 00:07:24.510 --> 00:07:26.052 It's a very low grade activity. 76 00:07:26.112 --> 00:07:26.952 It's extra money. 77 00:07:27.233 --> 00:07:28.013 They're getting paid. 78 00:07:28.033 --> 00:07:29.695 It's probably cash. 79 00:07:29.775 --> 00:07:31.516 It's probably a cash economy. 80 00:07:32.137 --> 00:07:34.799 No checks written, no digital transfers. 81 00:07:34.919 --> 00:07:36.000 It's actually cash. 82 00:07:36.340 --> 00:07:37.681 And they're getting used to 83 00:07:38.622 --> 00:07:44.305 just being in the marketplace and, first of all, gaining more capabilities of what they can do. 84 00:07:45.125 --> 00:07:51.928 But the other thing about it is that they're getting used to this transaction that doesn't require a job. 85 00:07:52.529 --> 00:07:53.769 They're being entrepreneurs. 86 00:07:53.889 --> 00:07:55.930 I mean, I was cutting lawns. 87 00:07:56.070 --> 00:07:56.971 I was a caddy. 88 00:07:57.291 --> 00:07:59.932 I was doing all sorts of things at 10, 11, 12 years old. 89 00:08:01.473 --> 00:08:02.553 And it was extra cash. 90 00:08:02.573 --> 00:08:12.056 I remember once on a weekend, I caddied 36 holes double bag on Saturday and 36 holes double bag on Sunday. 91 00:08:12.616 --> 00:08:17.357 And that weekend, I made more money than my father had ever made in a week. 92 00:08:18.997 --> 00:08:19.578 Something there. 93 00:08:20.118 --> 00:08:21.298 Something there, you know. 94 00:08:21.418 --> 00:08:23.759 Of course, I blew it all within about two weeks. 95 00:08:23.859 --> 00:08:27.500 I mean, baseball cards are just really attractive things to buy when you're 12. 96 00:08:27.540 --> 00:08:28.680 Yeah, yeah. 97 00:08:29.946 --> 00:08:34.312 But my sense is that there's a great complication going on. 98 00:08:35.033 --> 00:08:44.365 For example, Wall Street's really, really worried about the huge amount of money that's being spent on AI where they're not seeing a return. 99 00:08:44.385 --> 00:08:44.505 Right. 100 00:08:45.723 --> 00:08:55.258 And yet, when I talk to strategic coach clients, and I'm sure you're talking to the entire EOS population, it's very, very positive with AI. 101 00:08:55.819 --> 00:09:00.166 At the FreeZone Summit that we had in California in February, 102 00:09:00.967 --> 00:09:04.168 I did a survey and I said, how many of you are using AI? 103 00:09:04.328 --> 00:09:05.708 Every hand in the room went up. 104 00:09:05.748 --> 00:09:06.548 There's about 130. 105 00:09:06.588 --> 00:09:19.550 And I said, how many of you, just in terms of yourself, can see the basis or you're already having evidence that you're becoming more productive personally because of the AI, all the hands went up. 106 00:09:20.110 --> 00:09:25.051 And how many of you can see it spreading to your team and all the hands went up? 107 00:09:25.571 --> 00:09:29.672 So my sense is that it's a consumer breakthrough right now. 108 00:09:30.532 --> 00:09:40.077 that it's actually individuals, entrepreneurs, but other individuals who are falling in love with these new capabilities they have. 109 00:09:40.537 --> 00:09:42.959 But I think mostly it's not detectable. 110 00:09:43.019 --> 00:09:47.741 I don't think from a media standpoint, you can detect this growth. 111 00:09:47.861 --> 00:09:54.405 As a matter of fact, I

think the media would probably be negative because they're being bypassed by the technology. 112 00:09:54.425 --> 00:09:55.726 And all the scare 113 00:10:00.508 --> 00:10:00.648 Right. 114 00:10:01.389 --> 00:10:08.312 Probably when printing started, you know, in the 1400s, all of a sudden people were reading, they were getting eyeglasses. 115 00:10:08.352 --> 00:10:14.235 They found out that most Europeans were farsighted and they couldn't really concentrate. 116 00:10:14.315 --> 00:10:16.916 So the eyeglass industry went through the roof. 117 00:10:17.576 --> 00:10:27.581 But it seems to me that it's a hard technology to get a big picture view of what's happening, because I think millions of people are doing millions of different things with it. 118 00:10:28.648 --> 00:10:29.529 Yeah, that's right. 119 00:10:30.109 --> 00:10:32.651 Well, what I like is it's a great way to experiment. 120 00:10:32.931 --> 00:10:35.353 It's low stakes with great speed. 121 00:10:36.094 --> 00:10:42.719 And we even see that at EOS and just in terms of things that we would IDS, identify, discuss, and solve and think about. 122 00:10:43.099 --> 00:10:44.140 We can do the research. 123 00:10:44.260 --> 00:10:45.421 We can do an experiment. 124 00:10:45.481 --> 00:10:47.743 We can look at things so much faster. 125 00:10:47.803 --> 00:10:56.550 So what we might have taken a whole 90-day, a whole entire quarter to do, we're doing literally sometimes in weeks or even minutes or hours. 126 00:10:56.570 --> 00:10:56.670 So... 127 00:10:57.911 --> 00:11:01.574 What does that mean for capabilities with entrepreneurs? 128 00:11:01.654 --> 00:11:05.438 I think it means we can experiment and try and win and fail faster. 129 00:11:05.458 --> 00:11:07.419 You know, the jury is out on that. 130 00:11:07.459 --> 00:11:11.283 But I think that's what the early stage, I mean, here the last couple of years, that's what we're seeing. 131 00:11:12.283 --> 00:11:17.268 I think it's the speed of either success or failure, which is highly attractive. 132 00:11:17.928 --> 00:11:20.409 I kind of treat it like a game of tennis. 133 00:11:21.229 --> 00:11:23.450 So I never ask it to do a big thing. 134 00:11:23.510 --> 00:11:27.811 I just serve and the volley comes back to me and I feel good. 135 00:11:27.831 --> 00:11:30.031 I get a dopamine hit, I guess. 136 00:11:30.711 --> 00:11:32.052 And it's very addictive. 137 00:11:32.392 --> 00:11:35.493 I'll ask it to do this and it comes back in 15 seconds. 138 00:11:36.113 --> 00:11:36.453 Okay. 139 00:11:36.493 --> 00:11:39.654 And then I say, oh, yeah, now let's fine tune this. 140 00:11:39.674 --> 00:11:40.614 And then it comes back. 141 00:11:40.654 --> 00:11:43.595 And I think it's the speed of interchange of coming back. 142 00:11:44.315 --> 00:11:46.598 You know, I'm highly distractible. 143 00:11:47.159 --> 00:11:50.263 I'm clinically diagnosed with ADD. 144 00:11:50.303 --> 00:11:55.291 And if it doesn't happen fast, my resolve and my commitment disappears really quickly. 145 00:11:55.811 --> 00:12:01.039 And I think it's that speed of response that I really love so much about it. 146 00:12:02.157 --> 00:12:02.497 I agree. 147 00:12:02.537 --> 00:12:05.698 And Mark, you were saying earlier about friction, reducing friction. 148 00:12:06.298 --> 00:12:09.639 Well, when we reduce friction, we also reduce frustration. 149 00:12:10.579 --> 00:12:14.540 And so for entrepreneurs, sometimes it is that speed and the energy around it. 150 00:12:14.600 --> 00:12:21.121 So if we can reduce that, I think that just gives us more energy towards, you know, the greater good of what we're trying to do too. 151 00:12:32.123 --> 00:12:34.244 that that's reducing frustration too. 152 00:12:35.484 --> 00:12:39.425 The big threat, you know, and this is sort of the high level of threat. 153 00:12:39.445 --> 00:12:43.827 This is Sam Altman and the other tech clients are doing this. 154 00:12:43.867 --> 00:12:46.307 They say, well, it's just going to destroy all jobs. 155 00:12:46.407 --> 00:12:48.528 I see no evidence of that whatsoever. 156 00:12:49.548 --> 00:12:52.129 As a matter of fact, most of our clients are hiring. 157 00:12:52.649 --> 00:12:54.950 Most of the entrepreneurs are actually hiring and, 158 00:12:55.950 --> 00:13:03.619 But I think at the corporate level, they're taking great risks of firing people and then finding that it's destroyed their culture. 159 00:13:04.220 --> 00:13:08.525 There's nothing that destroys a culture as the threat of execution. 160 00:13:10.590 --> 00:13:12.091 Yes, that is true. 161 00:13:12.391 --> 00:13:13.032 That is true. 162 00:13:13.312 --> 00:13:13.532 Yeah. 163 00:13:13.953 --> 00:13:15.454 So I asked people about that. 164 00:13:15.554 --> 00:13:20.338 I said, is your mind going that you're going to be replacing jobs with it? 165 00:13:20.498 --> 00:13:21.659 And I don't see anybody. 166 00:13:22.499 --> 00:13:29.345 There's a couple, you know, have done it very extensively for very specific reasons, because it was mostly... 167 00:13:30.005 --> 00:13:31.527 communication replacement. 168 00:13:31.547 --> 00:13:36.414 They could do the communication much faster and they were paying people for the communication. 169 00:13:36.995 --> 00:13:38.837 But what about in EOS? 170 00:13:39.158 --> 00:13:41.401 I mean, is this a topic that's being talked about? 171 00:13:41.521 --> 00:13:42.222 I'm sure it is. 172 00:13:43.253 --> 00:13:54.000 Yeah, it's definitely a topic that we are talking about and what we're seeing with clients is I wouldn't call it a massive hiring boom. 173 00:13:54.681 --> 00:13:59.724 I would call it more of a pause and then an expansion. 174 00:14:00.785 --> 00:14:17.216 So what we're seeing is that once AI tools start getting used, the capacity to do more, to grow and knock things off the list that they were just hanging around, they just couldn't get to, one person is able to do multiple jobs at once. 175 00:14:17.696 -->

00:14:19.838 They're able to think through things faster. 176 00:14:20.918 --> 00:14:24.799 And that just frees up overall capacity for them to grow. 177 00:14:25.199 --> 00:14:34.703 As Kelly said, you know, what used to take a 90-day rock to go complete and execute on this project, that project is now a massive project. 178 00:14:35.363 --> 00:14:38.824 And some of those things require people and some of them don't. 179 00:14:39.504 --> 00:14:51.781 And it's always an interesting way people are negotiating that jagged edge or that jagged frontier of what is uniquely human versus what the machines can do better. 180 00:14:52.302 --> 00:14:54.705 And I just see them negotiating this. 181 00:14:55.686 --> 00:15:05.352 And as models change, as the capabilities of what AI can do changes, they are really looking for nimble thinkers. 182 00:15:05.753 --> 00:15:08.194 They're looking for people who can jump in. 183 00:15:09.075 --> 00:15:15.799 And while the quality of the answer is related to the quality of the question, you kind of don't even have to have that. 184 00:15:15.859 --> 00:15:20.022 You just really have to have a clear view of what the job to be done is. 185 00:15:20.222 --> 00:15:21.043 And then you ask questions. 186 00:15:21.523 --> 00:15:23.766 AI, what the question is I should be asking. 187 00:15:24.347 --> 00:15:35.524 So you start metaprompting and the employees who are able to think at that level and get really, really clear on what it is they want. 188 00:15:35.744 --> 00:15:36.085 Mm-hmm. 189 00:15:36.525 --> 00:15:39.748 They can use the tools to achieve that at a much higher degree. 190 00:15:39.828 --> 00:15:49.578 So I do see people hiring in relational sales roles, in starting new businesses and new geographies. 191 00:15:50.499 --> 00:15:56.104 And the investment to support those geographic expansions are... 192 00:15:56.845 --> 00:16:11.802 much lower because I don't need to hire the business developer, the sales person who can, I need to hire them as the relationship lead, but I don't need to go and hire administrative support and data people and all those different types of things. 193 00:16:11.822 --> 00:16:12.703 Yeah. 194 00:16:12.743 --> 00:16:13.684 Yeah. 195 00:16:13.864 --> 00:16:16.647 They just do more because it's all relationship based. 196 00:16:16.887 --> 00:16:17.147 Yeah. 197 00:16:17.568 --> 00:16:18.088 Expansion. 198 00:16:18.709 --> 00:16:18.929 Yeah. 199 00:16:19.350 --> 00:16:29.980 Well, it's an interesting thing that I'm talking to the two of you, because first of all, you've had, you know, from our previous podcast, this has been a really huge growth period. 200 00:16:30.100 --> 00:16:32.943 What's the total number of implementers now? 201 00:16:33.544 --> 00:16:35.546 If it's a state secret, I won't... 202 00:16:35.566 --> 00:16:36.707 It's not a state secret. 203 00:16:36.747 --> 00:16:37.488 It is not. 204 00:16:38.841 --> 00:16:41.123 It's just over 900 right now, Dan. 205 00:16:41.143 --> 00:16:41.404 Yeah. 206 00:16:41.644 --> 00:16:45.267 And we've got almost 50 more coming in here in the next couple of months. 207 00:16:45.467 --> 00:16:49.471 And so we'll be over a thousand early part of next year. 208 00:16:49.611 --> 00:16:51.954 So what a change has occurred over the years. 209 00:16:51.974 --> 00:16:53.555 That's a real threshold number. 210 00:16:53.595 --> 00:16:54.736 I think that's a really great. 211 00:16:54.917 --> 00:16:55.257 It is. 212 00:16:55.637 --> 00:16:55.878 Yeah. 213 00:16:55.898 --> 00:16:57.819 That's like your muscles grew. 214 00:16:57.839 --> 00:16:58.340 Yeah. 215 00:16:58.600 --> 00:17:07.828 But the big thing is it's happening right now with what I think is certainly one of the great technological breakthroughs, certainly in my lifetime. 216 00:17:08.248 --> 00:17:17.977 I think the personal computer was a really huge breakthrough, especially when it got supported by software and you had the Internet and everything else. 217 00:17:17.997 --> 00:17:20.879 But this one has many, many more dimensions. 218 00:17:20.899 --> 00:17:21.440 Wow. 219 00:17:21.740 --> 00:17:34.355 But it'd be interesting, having gone through this growth period, but this revolution is happening right now as you're, you know, you've been amazing at simplifying your model by going to the franchise model. 220 00:17:34.975 --> 00:17:36.657 I can see if this had hit you. 221 00:17:36.677 --> 00:17:37.258 Yeah. 222 00:17:38.419 --> 00:17:53.122 You know, when you took over and everybody was tempted to do their own version of the EOS program and there wasn't uniformity and there wasn't agreement on it, this could have amplified the complications tremendously. 223 00:17:53.973 --> 00:18:12.368 And I think amplifier is the perfect word for it, because if you take an organization, a community, a company, a team who is 100% on the same page with their vision, where they're going, how they're going to get there, all that human energy, all those arrows pointing in the same direction and you add AI to it. 224 00:18:13.269 --> 00:18:16.290 It's a 10x, 100x result quite easily. 225 00:18:16.970 --> 00:18:31.136 But if you have a business model, an organization, a team that is a little bit disjointed, a little bit complex, a little bit chaotic, and you add AI to it, you just end up with 10x, 100x chaos. 226 00:18:31.396 --> 00:18:33.537 And it could destroy the business. 227 00:18:34.537 --> 00:18:46.563 I think most companies don't have that level of clarity and organization where they are fully able to take advantage of the technological age that we exist in. 228 00:18:46.643 --> 00:18:50.304 So they use the tools and they win on the edges. 229 00:18:50.644 --> 00:18:51.985 They just don't win big. 230 00:18:52.589 --> 00:18:52.789 Yeah. 231 00:18:53.909 --> 00:18:57.991 I mean, because we've been in conversation pretty well since the start of it. 232 00:18:58.591 --> 00:19:08.754 And it's almost looking back, it was like you were beating

the train to the intersection and you got across before the train came by. 233 00:19:08.774 --> 00:19:10.494 You planned it exactly that way. 234 00:19:10.974 --> 00:19:12.495 Time means everything, Dan. 235 00:19:12.635 --> 00:19:12.895 Yeah. 236 00:19:14.235 --> 00:19:18.779 It just seemed to be that you weren't as scared as you should have been. 237 00:19:18.799 --> 00:19:20.561 Yeah. 238 00:19:20.601 --> 00:19:22.403 That's not the case all the time. 239 00:19:22.663 --> 00:19:26.846 Maybe that's that intelligence comment from earlier, Mark, with your mentor. 240 00:19:26.947 --> 00:19:28.528 Maybe we're in that same boat. 241 00:19:28.608 --> 00:19:29.589 But yeah. 242 00:19:29.929 --> 00:19:32.011 Well, the harder you work, the luckier you get. 243 00:19:32.111 --> 00:19:34.014 And it is timing to a certain degree. 244 00:19:34.094 --> 00:19:39.820 But, you know, with AI, I find it's really interesting because people want to be connected to vision. 245 00:19:39.840 --> 00:19:42.202 They want to see where they fit in the equation. 246 00:19:42.222 --> 00:19:51.592 So whether you're the entrepreneur or team members, leadership team members, you want to see how what your contribution fits in to that vision. 247 00:19:52.433 --> 00:19:57.074 the standards get higher and higher all the time on ambitious driven organizations. 248 00:19:57.174 --> 00:20:06.976 So really the differentiator is that how am I going to take whatever tools that I have right now, the big one that everyone's talking about is AI, but use it to my advantage. 249 00:20:06.996 --> 00:20:09.817 How do I differentiate my organization? 250 00:20:10.297 --> 00:20:16.718 How do I differentiate for some people who look at competitors, for people that want to differentiate what they do in their seat? 251 00:20:17.478 --> 00:20:20.639 It really is to the degree that you can master. 252 00:20:22.059 --> 00:20:26.764 your tools and capabilities is to the degree that you'll master getting what you want. 253 00:20:27.623 --> 00:20:36.366 Yeah, it was really interesting when John Bowen and I, as we were finishing up the Greater Game Book, we were just talking about what goes on the cover. 254 00:20:37.007 --> 00:20:40.728 In Coach, I mean, we were out there talking about 10 times. 255 00:20:41.528 --> 00:20:47.451 The most successful of the three books, the early books, was 10 times as easier than two times. 256 00:20:48.031 --> 00:20:49.471 We were playing with some numbers. 257 00:20:49.612 --> 00:20:51.852 I said, why don't we talk about 100 times now? 258 00:20:52.553 --> 00:20:54.794 John said, that's really, really interesting. 259 00:20:54.834 --> 00:20:56.054 I said, well, I'm going to talk 260 00:20:56.254 --> 00:21:09.045 I think the internal basics of going 10 times, you know, that you're clear-minded, that you are thinking in terms of who, not how, and you're thinking in terms of unique ability, I says, I think it all applies. 261 00:21:09.085 --> 00:21:11.287 But I think there's a multiplier out there now. 262 00:21:11.707 --> 00:21:14.229 Plus, we're also talking about 25 years. 263 00:21:14.950 --> 00:21:19.173 Think in 25 years, you know, if you get real clear at the beginning, you know, 264 00:21:19.713 --> 00:21:20.894 25 years is reasonable. 265 00:21:20.914 --> 00:21:24.416 If it's going to be more complexity and everything, then it's silly. 266 00:21:25.016 --> 00:21:26.157 And that really hit home. 267 00:21:26.717 --> 00:21:33.061 I'm talking about it at 82, but we're talking about people who are 35, 40, 20-year-olds. 268 00:21:33.702 --> 00:21:34.382 They're hopeless. 269 00:21:34.462 --> 00:21:36.223 They can't think in those terms, you know. 270 00:21:36.683 --> 00:21:40.746 They don't know what 25 years is because they haven't been conscious for 25 years. 271 00:21:44.868 --> 00:21:47.170 You know, for 25 years. 272 00:21:48.230 --> 00:21:49.611 Plus, they think they're immortal. 273 00:21:50.072 --> 00:21:54.195 They don't realize there's a wear and tear basis to some of this. 274 00:21:54.595 --> 00:22:00.099 But my sense is that the simplicity of your model and the clarity of your focus 275 00:22:00.879 --> 00:22:08.809 that you can approach AI for let's let AI prove itself and you don't have to rush into it. 276 00:22:09.249 --> 00:22:16.618 I was just thinking of your software because the SAS companies are really, really being threatened with AI. 277 00:22:19.201 --> 00:22:24.188 Some 18 year old just figured a way to bypass Salesforce, you know, or something like that. 278 00:22:24.589 --> 00:22:27.533 I think there's nervous nights in that industry right now. 279 00:22:28.134 --> 00:22:28.615 Certainly. 280 00:22:28.635 --> 00:22:34.824 Well, we divested of our software, talk about beating the train to the crossroads. 281 00:22:35.778 --> 00:22:49.305 We divested our software and it's now a licensed partner of ours back in 2025, in the summer of 25, really right before the most advanced models were able to replicate software. 282 00:22:50.005 --> 00:23:02.932 So we have five or six licensed software providers, and we are just focused on the human parts of implementers and what they do with clients in session rooms. 283 00:23:03.752 --> 00:23:11.060 And I think there is a difference between vibe coding Salesforce and being able to use it for individual use. 284 00:23:11.500 --> 00:23:19.228 But I think it's a whole other world to replicate enterprise-level software, maintain it, update it. 285 00:23:20.329 --> 00:23:26.774 And you see the light at the end of the tunnel, like you start going through those adjacent possibles and you're like, oh, I'm here, I'm here. 286 00:23:27.375 --> 00:23:39.363 But let's face it, the 18-year-old kid or 19-year-old kid who replicates Salesforce cannot serve millions of small businesses and keep the servers running and they just can't do it. 287 00:23:40.104 --> 00:23:40.864 At least not yet. 288 00:23:40.904 --> 00:23:42.846 Maybe they can relieve the agents

to do it. 289 00:23:43.186 --> 00:23:44.807 But they can't create the data centers. 290 00:23:44.847 --> 00:23:48.548 They can't invest $100 billion in a data center to keep it rolling. 291 00:23:49.268 --> 00:23:51.488 So I think it makes for really great headlines. 292 00:23:52.229 --> 00:23:55.830 But I think much of it is, I always call it smoke and hopium. 293 00:23:56.550 --> 00:23:59.051 We all hope that this is true because would that be cool? 294 00:23:59.071 --> 00:24:02.812 But the reality is I don't think we're there yet, if ever. 295 00:24:03.741 --> 00:24:11.488 But there is still some hesitation from an investment point of view into SaaS businesses to start a SaaS company. 296 00:24:12.368 --> 00:24:18.274 We see the one-person billion-dollar valuation company, but you turn out that it's not really one person. 297 00:24:18.294 --> 00:24:18.994 It's lots of people. 298 00:24:19.575 --> 00:24:20.896 Just as subcontractors. 299 00:24:21.656 --> 00:24:23.418 Besides, they don't have any free days. 300 00:24:24.038 --> 00:24:26.140 They definitely don't have any free days. 301 00:24:26.160 --> 00:24:28.883 And they definitely have subcontractors who are doing the work. 302 00:24:30.064 --> 00:24:34.147 I think that AI is definitely changing the way we think. 303 00:24:34.207 --> 00:24:41.213 It's allowing people to think in much bigger futures than before because you're moving through these adjacent possibles. 304 00:24:41.273 --> 00:24:45.116 It's giving a lot of people hope that they could be an entrepreneur too. 305 00:24:45.857 --> 00:24:53.504 It's democratizing access to knowledge and information in ways that Google attempted to do but didn't quite get there. 306 00:24:54.713 --> 00:25:00.881 It turns out they kind of invented the technology that did get there just used by somebody else first and faster. 307 00:25:02.121 --> 00:25:06.765 I think that's why you just see this massive increase in business formation. 308 00:25:06.785 --> 00:25:13.471 I don't know if you saw the 30 X increase in books published in 2026 compared to any other year. 309 00:25:14.591 --> 00:25:21.297 So the friction to write a book, as you know, having written lots of books without the assistance of AI, lots of friction there. 310 00:25:21.918 --> 00:25:24.700 Now you remove the friction 38 times. 311 00:25:25.421 --> 00:25:30.625 And it kind of makes me think about from a coaching perspective from both of our businesses, right? 312 00:25:30.845 --> 00:25:45.421 Coaching entrepreneurs, our model is obviously different, but from a coach perspective, you have these high-quality in-person experiences where I could listen to a podcast and go through a McDonald's drive-thru. 313 00:25:47.733 --> 00:26:00.020 Or I could go to one of the coach locations, be with high end people, having a high end experience with great lunch and great teaching. 314 00:26:00.040 --> 00:26:09.304 And I think there's an ever increasing need and a premium on those types of experiences

and that humanness of that. 315 00:26:09.625 --> 00:26:13.246 But yes, I can get the information, you know, and I can eat a fast lunch. 316 00:26:14.829 --> 00:26:15.149 Yeah. 317 00:26:15.910 --> 00:26:27.059 Our book, Casting Not Hiring, which is just going to the publisher for November, it took about two years to get the whole thing fleshed out and get it written. 318 00:26:27.099 --> 00:26:34.645 Lots of interviews with people who are approaching entrepreneurism as a theater-based enterprise. 319 00:26:35.386 --> 00:26:41.451 But one of the things is that we're noticing certain trends that live entertainment is through the roof. 320 00:26:42.152 --> 00:26:44.474 Live anything is through the roof right now. 321 00:26:44.574 --> 00:26:47.656 So my sense is that people like personal. 322 00:26:48.297 --> 00:26:54.882 My sense about it is that in the best possible way, AI is freeing us up to be more human. 323 00:26:55.823 --> 00:26:57.044 if we have that ambition. 324 00:26:57.064 --> 00:27:09.134 Because not everybody's got the ambition, but the people who have the ambition to have things more human, I think are experiencing that there's a real desire for this. 325 00:27:10.115 --> 00:27:20.442 And I think that small companies, small to medium companies, you know, not more than 150 people, there's a real craving that you get to know the people that you're working with. 326 00:27:21.022 --> 00:27:25.445 There's a certain level of efficiency that you want from your organization. 327 00:27:26.165 --> 00:27:28.767 But I don't think it's an optimization thing. 328 00:27:29.207 --> 00:27:32.790 There's a point where optimization becomes inhuman. 329 00:27:33.870 --> 00:27:36.452 And I think people say we don't want to go that far. 330 00:27:36.472 --> 00:27:38.693 Okay, we want to be profitable. 331 00:27:38.753 --> 00:27:40.054 We want to be productive. 332 00:27:40.154 --> 00:27:42.236 We want to have energy. 333 00:27:42.316 --> 00:27:43.477 We want to have mission. 334 00:27:43.837 --> 00:27:45.398 But those are human qualities. 335 00:27:45.418 --> 00:27:47.259 They're not technological qualities. 336 00:27:47.919 --> 00:27:48.440 That's right. 337 00:27:48.880 --> 00:27:50.421 The human connection is real. 338 00:27:50.601 --> 00:27:58.087 And sometimes we forget that that is aligning human energy towards something, a common purpose, mission, cause, whatever that might be. 339 00:27:58.388 --> 00:28:05.513 And I mean, people love to be lit up inside with something that they couldn't recognize on their own was their capability. 340 00:28:05.553 --> 00:28:07.054 And so that's sort of part of... 341 00:28:07.935 --> 00:28:19.041 Founders, entrepreneurs, visionaries, integrators, leadership teams is helping to curate the best out of people and combine that with the greatest capabilities that we have through technology. 342 00:28:19.081 --> 00:28:25.164 And so there's a real excitement behind that because people don't really always want to go it alone. 343 00:28:25.484 --> 00:28:31.708 You want to be in it together and have that connection, that truly human connection that makes life worth living. 344 00:28:32.728 --> 00:28:34.649 It's not just the outcome of what we're building. 345 00:28:34.949 --> 00:28:36.310 Well, that also is exciting. 346 00:28:36.450 --> 00:28:36.830 Yeah. 347 00:28:37.390 --> 00:28:46.374 One of the things that we had to overcome over the last year and a half is that AI is doing strange things to digital marketing. 348 00:28:47.194 --> 00:28:53.917 Things are just getting eliminated at your first attempt to send out emails and everything like that. 349 00:28:54.017 --> 00:28:57.499 So this has been a bit of a slowdown period for us. 350 00:28:58.179 --> 00:29:01.980 for about six months, just that our communications are not going through. 351 00:29:02.680 --> 00:29:03.861 We're being spam-ified. 352 00:29:05.821 --> 00:29:07.262 Right, right. 353 00:29:07.682 --> 00:29:23.487 We are experiencing pretty much the same thing, not necessarily in terms of our email deliverability, but at the beginning of 24 going into 25, we saw a massive drop-off in website traffic, 354 00:29:24.307 --> 00:29:28.209 really the way people are interacting with our content. 355 00:29:28.489 --> 00:29:37.994 We just like you do lots and lots of video content and podcasts like this one and the ability to drive traffic to them. 356 00:29:38.074 --> 00:29:40.875 People are just going to AI and saying, oh, this is the answer. 357 00:29:40.895 --> 00:29:42.016 And then they kind of move on. 358 00:29:42.856 --> 00:29:45.478 So I think we have not quite yet figured out. 359 00:29:46.058 --> 00:29:53.162 We still do live in an attention economy, but the old ways of garnering that attention are changing. 360 00:29:53.985 --> 00:30:01.487 Yeah, there was a great guy at Genius Network about five months ago, and he's quite young. 361 00:30:02.167 --> 00:30:07.848 I think he's late 20s or something, but he's been at this for mid-teens onward. 362 00:30:08.588 --> 00:30:14.169 And he says he effectively thinks that search engine has reached the end of its lifetime. 363 00:30:14.189 --> 00:30:21.771 And he says it's not SEO anymore, it's AEO, it's Answer Engine, that you have to put out your answer. 364 00:30:22.711 --> 00:30:27.796 so that it attracts a certain number of people who have questions about it, you know. 365 00:30:28.196 --> 00:30:33.401 So I wrote a book, Who We're Looking For, and we just laid out, this is who we're looking for. 366 00:30:33.481 --> 00:30:35.143 We're looking for this type of person. 367 00:30:35.943 --> 00:30:38.266 Our team was kind of surprised by it. 368 00:30:38.606 --> 00:30:40.768 They said, well, you're kind of narrowing the market. 369 00:30:40.828 --> 00:30:43.570 I said, I want the market down to this size. 370 00:30:44.211 --> 00:30:47.212 Yeah, I said the smaller the niche, the bigger the market. 371 00:30:47.512 --> 00:30:57.495 If you tell somebody we're

looking for you and you already are this type of person and you already have these qualities and you're already doing this and this and you're very successful. 372 00:30:58.236 --> 00:31:03.498 And the only reason why you'd be interested in us is that you're lonely. 373 00:31:05.461 --> 00:31:06.302 You're on your own. 374 00:31:06.603 --> 00:31:09.486 You've done all this, but who are you telling? 375 00:31:09.627 --> 00:31:10.728 Who are you talking to? 376 00:31:11.369 --> 00:31:14.634 And so we say that's stage one of your entrepreneurial life. 377 00:31:14.674 --> 00:31:19.080 Stage two is now you're in a community where everybody is like you. 378 00:31:21.045 --> 00:31:28.249 And Dan, how is that informing how you find that small niche, that target market that you're looking for? 379 00:31:28.309 --> 00:31:32.792 Where are you finding them outside of all the referrals that you get from your own? 380 00:31:32.812 --> 00:31:34.633 Yeah, I think it's still a referral business. 381 00:31:34.853 --> 00:31:35.133 Yeah. 382 00:31:35.494 --> 00:31:41.997 But what we did is we found that people would take five or ten of these books, you know, and we'd give them five or ten of the books. 383 00:31:42.398 --> 00:31:45.039 And they'd say, I got a whole bunch of people who would like to read this. 384 00:31:45.559 --> 00:31:47.561 So we're going right back to... 385 00:31:48.281 --> 00:31:52.382 The greatest marketing is the people who are entrepreneurs in the program. 386 00:31:53.322 --> 00:31:53.543 Right. 387 00:31:53.683 --> 00:31:54.463 One hundred percent. 388 00:31:54.483 --> 00:32:03.725 And those that are check writers who have gained the four C's and have that freedom and capability to be able to speak with that real world experience. 389 00:32:03.805 --> 00:32:12.328 And that's some of what we're working on to in the U.S. is how do we find more that are like those that are the best implementers inside our own community? 390 00:32:12.828 --> 00:32:16.489 But your book is a great way to do that because you're being very clear about it. 391 00:32:17.190 --> 00:32:29.083 In all the noise that could be whether it's search engine or Claude or whatever AI you're using, there's nothing like that personal touch of handing someone a book that says precisely what this thing is. 392 00:32:29.344 --> 00:32:36.171 So we shouldn't forget about some of the tried and true methods in which everyone has been able to share their value. 393 00:32:36.932 --> 00:32:37.252 Yeah. 394 00:32:37.293 --> 00:32:49.004 So what I'm getting out of our conversation today is that the proper way to look at AI is that you want to use AI to make your organization more human. 395 00:32:49.825 --> 00:32:55.090 So free them up from machine work and have them more and more involved in human work. 396 00:32:55.790 --> 00:32:56.271 That's right. 397 00:32:56.711 --> 00:32:57.932 The reverse industrial age. 398 00:33:00.612 --> 00:33:02.334 Yeah, I saw YouTube. 399 00:33:02.474 --> 00:33:06.337 They have some great AI historical depictions now. 400 00:33:06.517 --> 00:33:12.803 I mean, they picture a scene in Manchester, England in the 1830s and 1840s. 401 00:33:12.883 --> 00:33:18.408 And it's amazing how real, I mean, it's all created AI characters and everything else. 402 00:33:18.508 --> 00:33:19.188 But... 403 00:33:20.335 --> 00:33:23.016 I'd rather be living today than living back then. 404 00:33:24.037 --> 00:33:30.039 But, you know, there was a writer here in Canada, very left wing, Naomi Klein. 405 00:33:30.600 --> 00:33:36.502 She was on this real rant about what happens in the Nike factories in China. 406 00:33:36.963 --> 00:33:38.763 They're mostly women for the most part. 407 00:33:38.823 --> 00:33:41.685 That's one of China's really big problems. 408 00:33:42.525 --> 00:33:46.668 is that the women and men are actually separated in the economic realm. 409 00:33:47.189 --> 00:33:49.350 Women are the ones who are at Qualcomm. 410 00:33:49.791 --> 00:33:52.032 They're doing the chip designs, not the men. 411 00:33:52.072 --> 00:33:54.114 The men are 100 miles away. 412 00:33:54.134 --> 00:33:57.456 And she was talking about how terrible it is. 413 00:33:57.677 --> 00:34:03.421 Eight women are in a very, very small apartment, you know, and they have long work hours. 414 00:34:03.521 --> 00:34:04.982 They have everything like this. 415 00:34:05.682 --> 00:34:08.344 Somebody answered her book, and he says, 416 00:34:09.465 --> 00:34:10.726 You know why they're doing this? 417 00:34:10.806 --> 00:34:13.567 Because it's 100 times better than where they came from. 418 00:34:13.587 --> 00:34:22.029 And I think this industrial revolution, as bad as we would think it would be, it was actually a huge improvement in their lives. 419 00:34:22.650 --> 00:34:23.890 Yeah, absolutely. 420 00:34:23.910 --> 00:34:25.251 Absolutely. 421 00:34:25.291 --> 00:34:25.631 All right. 422 00:34:25.771 --> 00:34:26.371 What'd you get? 423 00:34:26.851 --> 00:34:29.292 Anything you're going to think more deeply about? 424 00:34:30.009 --> 00:34:38.153 For me, it's that AI and technology, it really frees us to become the best that we can be, to be the most human that we can be where it matters most. 425 00:34:38.253 --> 00:34:42.174 So being relational, being connected, being related and relatable. 426 00:34:42.574 --> 00:34:43.235 Being funny. 427 00:34:43.655 --> 00:34:46.536 Being funny, having fun, all of those things. 428 00:34:46.656 --> 00:34:50.078 It sets us free to be more of who we are, where it matters most. 429 00:34:51.683 --> 00:34:54.925 For me, technology is an accelerator. 430 00:34:55.105 --> 00:34:56.826 It always been an accelerator. 431 00:34:56.846 --> 00:35:10.231 I think people make the mistake of thinking and using the technology for technology's sake, and they lose sight of what they're trying to accomplish, what it is that they want. 432 00:35:10.251 --> 00:35:13.733 And as we're saying is we're built for relationship. 433 00:35:14.273 --> 00:35:15.173 And I think as we go forward, 434 00:35:16.954 --> 00:35:28.585 coaching entrepreneurs, building relationships with them, helping them get clear on what it is that they want and how to go execute on that and make it a reality. 435 00:35:29.166 --> 00:35:32.289 AI is just a really great tool to do that. 436 00:35:33.982 --> 00:35:35.383 And there's going to be more of them. 437 00:35:35.883 --> 00:35:36.104 Yeah. 438 00:35:36.924 --> 00:35:45.029 The three of us are all in the right industry because I think coaching is to the 21st century what management was to the 20th century. 439 00:35:45.730 --> 00:35:49.072 And the reason is because technology does not coach itself. 440 00:35:49.852 --> 00:35:50.032 No. 441 00:35:51.013 --> 00:35:54.155 Although now everyone's going to try to prompt itself to coach itself. 442 00:35:55.836 --> 00:35:56.517 Good luck. 443 00:35:57.657 --> 00:35:58.358 Have fun. 444 00:35:59.726 --> 00:36:01.307 Tell you when it's sufficiently coached. 445 00:36:01.648 --> 00:36:02.288 Yeah, good luck. 446 00:36:02.368 --> 00:36:03.029 Train's coming. 447 00:36:03.709 --> 00:36:07.933 Yeah. 448 00:36:08.233 --> 00:36:09.334 Anyway, real pleasure. 449 00:36:09.554 --> 00:36:21.785 And I just want you to know that I have a special paragraph in my acknowledgement section for the book, where I talk about people who allow me to endlessly explore entrepreneurism. 450 00:36:21.805 --> 00:36:25.768 And Kelly Knight and Mark O'Donnell are prominently mentioned. 451 00:36:26.891 --> 00:36:27.392 Thank you. 452 00:36:27.412 --> 00:36:30.559 That's a huge honor, Dan, and always a pleasure to be with you. 453 00:36:31.060 --> 00:36:34.547 Good time today, and we'll be seeing you soon in Chicago. 454 00:36:34.567 --> 00:36:35.609 Yeah, good. 455 00:36:35.869 --> 00:36:36.090 See you.