The Path to Making Billions: Mastering Private Equity Turnarounds for Startup Founders and Investors

Ian Parker is the Chairman and CEO of Healixa, a publicly traded Technology company that focuses on building jaw-dropping technologies in the Sustainability and Quality of Life Sectors.

What this means is that Ian understands private equity so well, that he agreed to come on the show to share with us some of his cheat codes when buying a business or rolling out a turnaround strategy in your pursuit of Making Billions.

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Website: pentiumcapitalpartners.com

[THE GUEST]:  Ian Parker has extensive experience leading strategic and capital-raising transactions and is a tried and true innovator with a background in pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, software development, machinery manufacturing, and more. Most recently, he has turned his efforts towards Healixa’s Global AquaDuct which can harness the latest in atmospheric water harvesting technology to develop new sustainable water supplies. Just last year they secured $15,000,000 in order indications for their Global AquaDuct™ Units.
 

[THE HOST]: Ryan is a Venture Capital & Angel investor in technology and energy. He achieved market-beating placement growth in his first 5 years in the industry.

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Transcript

Ryan Miller  
My name is Ryan Miller and for the past 15 years have helped hundreds of people to raise millions of dollars for their funds and for their startups. If you're serious about raising money, launching your business or taking your life to the next level, and the show will give you the answers, so that you too can enjoy your pursuit of making billions. Let's get into it. 

As an entrepreneur or private equity carnivore, you will be faced with the reality of saving a business one day, join my friend and turnaround expert Ian Parker and I as we chop it up and cover the cheat codes to make this happen. Let's get into it. 

Hey, welcome to another episode of making billions. I'm your host, Ryan Miller. And today I have my dear friend Ian Parker, he is the chairman and CEO of Alexa, a publicly traded technology company that focuses on building jaw dropping technologies in the sustainability and the quality of life sectors. So what this means is Ian understands private equity so well that he's agreed to come on the show and share with us some of his cheat codes when buying a business or rolling out a turnaround strategy. So Ian, welcome to the show, man. 

Ian Parker  
Thank you. Thank you, Ryan, thank you for having me on the show today. I really love the show, what you're doing is super important to be able to learn from from all the these these incredible people you have on the show is really great.

Ryan Miller  
Yeah, and you're certainly one of them. So thank you, you're very kind, you know, we've It's truly been rated in the top 2% in the world on the show did very fortunate to be in over 100 countries. But we're not here to talk about me, we're here to talk about you. And so thank you very much for that. Let's talk about all the exciting stuff that you want to tune in, in the end, where Ian starts coming up with some of these cheat codes that are really going to help you and open your eyes in private equity sector, whether you're starting a business, buying a business, or even turning one around. But before we get into that, maybe you can help me understand how did you even become an expert in this industry?

Ian Parker  
Sure. So I've had a career in turnarounds. I've been fortunate to work in a lot of different businesses, not not by virtue of choosing those businesses, most of them chose me we were a group of people that that worked with family offices, private equity groups, specific LPs and private equity groups to go turn companies around when they had issues been involved in upwards of a billion dollars worth of financings and exits in 2019. We took this company public, we did it through a reverse merger team, April 4 2019, we've been focusing on sustainability technologies and Quality of Life Technologies ever since.

Ryan Miller  
Man, what a cool career. I'm sure we could spend a whole episode just talking about that. But we got a lot of ground to cover today with that. So now you're focusing on these different technologies, maybe you could walk me through a little bit on Healixa and what it is and what you guys are focusing on, maybe chop it up. And if she didn't feel free to talk about all the cool tech that you're doing, because I'll look, I'll geek out with you, brother. So what kind of trouble you getting yourself into these days,

Ian Parker  
I only speak about trouble i We live through COVID. Right, we started a company right at the right at Reddit COVID, which was incredibly interesting. The initially, what we were going to do was use nutraceuticals to earn revenue from nutraceuticals to support all of our technology development, sometimes you just need to stay in power. And you know that we spent the better part of 2019 developing a CBD vitamin, you know, brands got it into a whole bunch of resets and in 2020, and then COVID and wiped up all that work, we were able to pivot very quickly and move towards health care. And then we found the water technology down in Mexico. And that is by far going to be one of the most impactful technologies you'll see coming to market in 2000 to 2024.

Ryan Miller  
Yeah, maybe you can unpack that a little bit for us and talk about that technology that pulls water from the air. Now, those of the follow me that you know that I invest in clean energy and biotech. So we actually have very similar interest in the kind of technologies and our view of the future and what needs society needs to do to get there. I think we're very aligned on that. But I love this technology is is phenomenal. I've heard people talk about it, you're actually doing it, can you walk us through a little bit of this water technology and help us understand the value that it can bring.

Ian Parker  
So the technology itself, think about do a something that looks like a refrigerator, and it's producing 200 litres of water a day right out of the atmosphere in any condition, almost any condition. The only place we're not going to be able to do it is the top of Mount Everest, but there's not too many people there. We're not we're not too concerned about that marketplace. But everywhere else in the world we're going to be able to produce water constantly and consistently and the way it works everybody so the the industry this air to water or air air to water industry has always chased condensation as a way to collect atmospheric water vapor. There's always tremendous amounts of water vapor around us all the time. You know, even when even when it's 2% relative humidity. There's still a tremendous amount of absolute humidity in the air. So figuring out how to access that has been a goal of a lot of people over the years and they've all tried to use condensation to do it. Think of dehumidification. Think about what comes out of your your air conditioner when you know the that little drip line starts dripping. That little pan gets full right. That's condensation. We went the other way. We decided we're going to freeze it out of the air. And that's why we have the world's first and only deposition water harvester. We patented that in 132 countries filing additional patents, things patent filing I've ever been involved in. That was a bear, but we were able to make it through that. And what the technology allows us to do is with very little energy be put on the ground. It's going to it's going to run constantly and consistently for 10 years, maybe upwards of 10 years with proper maintenance and it will just produce 200 liters of water a day. right out of the atmosphere,

Ryan Miller  
wow, that's phenomenal in the implications to emerging markets or third world countries, whatever you want to call it, the implications to those alone are powerful, but not just emerging markets. But any market that struggles with water issues and finding water, this company is able to take it out of the air, we don't have an air issue. So in these areas, you're able to produce this value. Where are you rolling these things out? Now,

Ian Parker  
we're going to roll them out initially in the United States, one of the things I've learned in my life is not to try to bite off more than I can chew. I think there's plenty of we have a lot of professionals here at this company that would agree with that. So as a group, we've decided we're going to start with the US because that's where that's where home base is. And that's where our manufacturing is. And we want to keep it close to home. When we when we launched the beta in September and October, into the into the field, we just were looking at different climates here in the US. So Arizona, Nevada, Delaware, Oklahoma, Texas, those are initial places, we also have, we're going to watch some in St. Maarten too. Because it's an island country. No lack of volunteers for that one, by the way. So the implementations can be easy, they're easy to recruit people internally here for that one, one of the things we're looking at is atmospheric water generation has always been limited by relative humidity, it's going to be as relative humidity changes for yield and atmospheric autogenerated changes all the time. Well, deposition water harvesting, that's not true. So having different reasons, shows and will prove out all of the things that we've been that we've been that we already know to be true. But now we're gonna have field data to show it.

Ryan Miller  
And and with that field data, the investors floods behind if they if that's you, that's what we're doing. And so what Ian's doing, and this is a very good discipline, it's a discipline of all successful entrepreneurs, if you want to test your market, right? This this old school way, like back in the 80s, and 90s, if you build it, they will come and hey, I got this great idea. And I'm gonna raise money to build this idea. And then the last thing I'm going to do is test the market. But what he is doing is exactly what successful founders and entrepreneurs do is they're saying, Well, hey, before we get carried away and plow a ton of capital into this thing, let's test our market. Let's see, is it some people want a check? Is it something that works in the field, okay, check. And you just go and little by little you, you get that feedback, we call those feedback loops. You generate these feedback loops with data, imagine that a startup that makes decisions off of data, that's kind of what businesses do. So Ian's out there, he's got this new technology that's gonna pull water from the air, if you notice, there's a lot of very arid climates that he's doing it in these people need this technology, he's able to do that, and how he's doing it, how he's developing this product is exactly what the best entrepreneurs do, are they test their market first. And from that feedback, the results of that test will determine version two, three and beyond until you've got a commercially viable product, you know, that he and I know that and now 100 countries now know from your example.

Ian Parker  
That's right. I completely agree with with everything you just said. It's that it's so easy to get out over your skis, and be so confident in what you have. The best way to do it is to leg into it and leg into it carefully, you're going to work and we're going to discover things in the field about these betas that we didn't think about, or we didn't anticipate. And if you just start ramping down the throttle on commercialization, it's a good way to have a whole lot of things go wrong. Patience is key here, patience and making sure that you know we do this in a way that that is smart and meticulous. That's what we're doing right now. And we're in the process of executing that. So you'll see, you'll see announcements coming out about betas in the field. And those are that's a big deal for us.

Ryan Miller  
That's right in the announcements are under what ticker now that your publicly traded, what's your ticker? Where if people want to follow this technology and the development and all things that are coming, what's the ticker,

Ian Parker  
the ticker is E M. O R, then we trade on the Pink Sheets, but I always tell people, we trade on the Pink Sheets. Well, we are not a pink sheet company the type of people that are around this company, you've got a former Secretary of Defense, and you've got you know, a former congressman, former state senators, former fortune 500 executives, this is not your typical thing she company. So when you see OTC Pink Sheets, just know, we don't plan on staying in that neighborhood.

Ryan Miller  
Yeah, there's a lot of muscle behind that. All right, that's, that's powerful. This is one of the lessons that you do. So for those of you who are just starting a business, or maybe you're an emerging fund manager, whatever that is, you're starting out in whatever it is, in the private markets. One of the things that Ian does is one of the best secrets that are out there, there's a lot but this is a good one. Often when people ask my advice to say, I don't really have the track record or the experience, but I've got a brilliant idea. And I know I can pull it off. I'm really smart. But are investors gonna listen to me? Are people going to support me? Well, if that's you and do what he did, is you can actually stack your board of directors or even have an advisory board. It's not even that serious compared to a board of directors, if you have an advisory board, and you stack it like he did was senators and all these people, I don't know, maybe got Navy SEAL commanders, you got all kinds of cool people on there. And what that does is that allow that further strengthens your offering, as it relates to the team as it relates to the human capital as it relates to the wisdom and the knowledge in his brain trust we call a company so what he did is exactly once again, what some of the best founders and entrepreneurs do is they not only are they good at what they do, but they make sure that investors and other people around understand that it's not just me look at the bench depth on this company. It's phenomenal. You're not going to find it anywhere else. Not only we have a great company, but we got some of the best eyeballs in the business on this company on this technology in his investment, we're not going to lose. And so right. And so when and investors agree, they're like, Yeah, with that team, I mean, you're kind of slate, it's amazing. So stacking your board, especially if you're starting out, that's not the end. But if you're starting out, it's even more important even even with all his experience is still doing this discipline, this one thing that further strengthens his offer to the market. And so collectively, as the proverb goes, if you want to go fast, go alone, if you want to go far go together. And so Ian has done that. And he's going very, very far and rolling out in multiple states. I know, this is not easy, but he's pulling it off. So that being said, what are some of those things, you've had this, we talked about your experience, and all these cool things that you're doing right now you're getting me excited, man. So all of these things that you're doing right, you're doing well, and you're kicking blood, you're rolling out your beta tests, and everything, even more than that, all that experience that you've done in private equity, and you've had a great career and turnarounds, I'm curious about the cheat codes. And so I'm wondering if there are, you know, three or so things just to summarize, let's spend some time talking about the cheat codes. And I would love for you to teach our audience around the world, some of those most valuable things that you found when working in turnarounds in private equity.

Ian Parker  
Sure, the first thing I would say, and this is this would be the number one thing that I would, I would say to people, anybody going into a crisis situation, that turnaround situation, or any any new position into a corporation, where you're going to take a leadership position is walk the line, put a hard hat on, if you get if you're in a manufacturing interest, for example, put a hard hat on, don't show up in a suit, put some jeans on, put on some work boots, wear a normal shirt, put a hard hat on Walk the Line, talk to the people that are that are there to talk to the people that have been there for 20 years, there is so much institutional knowledge in each one of them that you're not going to get that from a supervisor meeting in a boardroom, you're not going to get the pulse of that company from, you know, a supervisor meeting in a boardroom with coffee and donuts, you're gonna get it from the people that are doing the work. And you can later take that and compare that to what you're hearing from the supervisors in middle management, but you need a baseline for that. And you need to be able to draw your own conclusions. And the only way to do that is to actually walk the line, great little things you can do to really change morale, and get people to really just just buy in to you as being one of them and in the trenches with them. Have a barbecue flip hamburgers for him, right? Make Hotdogs for him be be you know, serve them for a day, right? And you'll be amazed by how much information comes out. And you know, other little things you can do to really grab that information, suggestion boxes, old school, right? Hey, listen, I'm the only one with a key around my neck. When you put something in that suggestion box, you're talking to me, you know, if either you have a criticism about anything, including me, let me know, right, you're not gonna get in trouble it make it make it easy for that information to flow from where all that work is getting done into your office. And if you do that, you'll be surprised how much you learn and how quickly you learn it.

Ryan Miller  
Man, that is brilliant. You're absolutely right, getting out there talking to the frontline workers, because who better to know the ways that the company is broken, but also the best solutions are the people that live and breathe it every single day. And so talking to these people, maybe they've got some issue with the manager and they didn't want to talk maybe they just are shocked. But given that personal touch that he is talking about, it allows people to open up but it also sets a very good precedent in your leadership. Jack Welch did this right, wander and ask questions. He was famous for that he just walk around the company. So the best CEO in America, arguably, and Ian as well, wonderful CEOs that are wandering and asking questions, it's probably good advice. So whether it's your company or company you're buying, and you want it to be your company, wander and ask questions. I love that advice. What else? What else? Have you seen? Is it helpful cheat code when doing a turnaround?

Ian Parker  
So from a turnaround perspective, I always looked at when I was analyzing a company as to whether or not a rescue finance packages is warranted or not, I would always look at it. And I think about it as a patient in the end and or right, that's my operating room right now. Are we gonna put the time in? Or do we call it right? And the three things I look for to make sure it's a patient I can save. First one is, look, you're gonna have cut, it's painful, right, and you got to cut the heels, but you're gonna have to make cuts. And that's something that has to happen. A lot of times, that's going to be primarily people, people are going to be number one on that. It's going to be where your biggest expenses, and you're going to have to make those cuts. The other one is processes, but people is the first one, right. The other thing you need to look for, if you're if you're going to make a successful turnaround, because you got to do at least two or three of these right? is can I increase my margins, and that comes down to maybe negotiating with new vendors or, you know, looking and exploring, you know, how you can, how you can reduce, you know, your fixed costs, right, all those things need to be analyzed. And for the most part, there's always ways to pick up margin, right? I would I would also say small cheat code here. Get your own purchasing manager like the whoever was there before. That's got to be your person. Either move that person somewhere else or send them home but put your own person in place because you need a person there.

Ryan Miller  
It's interesting before we move on, I'm curious why why purchasing manager Out of all the people why purchasing managers are like, wait, you tell? Why do you put Why do you cast the gaze onto the purchasing manager?

Ian Parker  
Yes, experience. So you know, if you have a purchasing manager, what you'll find, and this is not always true, but it's true enough where it should be a rule, right? It's true most of the time, or at least a majority of the time. So don't take the chance. But purchasing managers over time, especially if they've been there for a long time, they tend to build up cozy relationships with vendors, and those cozy relationships, you know, smart vendors, look, if you're on the other side, your vendor, you're going to take purchasing out purchasing manager at the dinner, and then I'm going to get them a you know, a trip to the Bahamas, and then you know what, they're going to get a really nice gift on Christmas, right? And all of a sudden, you know, over the years, their point of view gets skewed, right? It's not just hey, you know, well, he's charging me an extra two points, but he's a really nice guy. Right, you lose that you lose that that objectivity that you once had starting as a purchasing manager, I always start there, if if I'm going to do a workforce reduction, that jobs always on the list that one is that one is one that it's got to be my person, it's going to be a new person, and we're going to come at it from a completely new perspective. And yes, that is gonna strain some of those vendor relationships, right, we're gonna have to rebuild them, but it's worth it. That might be.

Ryan Miller  
Right, those vendors. So from your experience, you've seen that these employees in purchasing, they can can end up costing money, because they've built cozy relationships, and that objectivity is lost. And so picking up margin, when you're doing it, this is great. These are the cheat codes. So when you're doing it, you're looking for more margin. And you're saying I have a pretty good sense for my experience, where I could start picking up a couple points from margin, I'm going to focus on all the vendor activities and purchasing and all that stuff, if that's your company. That's what he does. And sounds like that's a true formula for you.

Ian Parker  
Absolutely. And just, you know, to go a little deeper, right, if they have a cozy relationship with that vendor, and that vendor makes them feel really comfortable, well, there's they they're probably not going to work as hard to triple quadruple, you know, source, the material you're getting from that vendor, they're they're going to get a little complacent in that regard. And that's look on the vendor side, I understand that part. I get it, you know, if we're on the vendor side, we do the same thing, right? So you have to walk in and sort of looking at it from that side of the table and go, Okay, I got to make sure that I got a really good purchasing manager.

Ryan Miller  
Man. Brilliant. So we talked about cutting costs and people and fixing your process, we've talked about picking up margins and focusing on those margins, specifically in the purchasing and vendor activities a great place to start, what else have you found that are super helpful when rolling out a turnaround?

Ian Parker  
Well, we covered cutting costs, that's number one, right? You gotta be we have to, we have to cut costs, we have increased margins, this one is the one that you know, tends to be forgotten here, but we gotta increase revenue to right. And that is, you know, if I could do all three of those things, I'm saving the patient, if I can do two of the three might be a long recovery, but the patient's gonna live, if I can only do one, it's questionable. They gotta, you know, you can't just cut your way out of a turnaround, you have to grow your revenue. To do that, you need to look at everything you need to look at your marketing budget, am I talking to the right people? Do I have the right message my doing the things that is my marketing dollars being spent in a way that is really effective. And with marketing dollars, that's one that you can't change real fast, right, because there's so many variables there, what I would do is start immediately prioritizing, you know, all the pieces to your marketing budget, and then chain one, and I would say increase it first. See if it makes a difference, right, don't decrease it, because it might result in them, it might get the wrong result. But if you increase it, and that one doesn't do anything, then try to decrease it, B go one by one and start pulling those levers to see you know, which one is going to actually you know, which one of those you can actually tweak and get more more effective at

Ryan Miller  
I love that. So here you are, let's let's assume you've done that you've you've cut the fat, not the muscle or the bone in the company. So you've right size, as we like to say, then you've increased margins, and now you're growing those fat margins to even greater proportions. So when doing that often what I've seen when I've done it is you want to this is my advice, not the ends necessarily, but we're here to chop up different philosophies. One of the things that I've found in is one of the key metrics for the interchange between two metrics is your cost per acquisition, your customer acquisition costs such as account CPA, as long as that's less than your LTV, which is not loan to value it's actually lifetime value of the total say a client is usually with us for eight years on average, how much can we get them to purchase or to buy or whatever that is, and boosting reducing your customer acquisition costs but and as well as boosting your lifetime value either retaining them longer or getting them to buy more products or at least more part of their discretionary income, whatever that is. And that ties into a little bit into channel strategy. So now you got those metrics right? And your your lifetime value is five times what the acquisition cost is. We're doing good the numbers are looking good the turnaround is working. But we're not done yet. Are we? What is your opinion on say exploring channel strategies when growing revenue,

Ian Parker  
especially if you're in a in a consumer product area? Me channel strategy is important anywhere because channel friction is a real thing but channel strategies make an end up costing you a lot of money if you do them improperly. So let's just take an example. You have this magical bottle of stuff, I don't know what the stuff is, but you got this magical bottle of stuff. And you take it to a specialty grocer or a specialty store. And that person puts it on the shelf, and they're selling it for 4995. And then all of a sudden, your sales manager goes, Hey, TJ Maxx wants this stuff too. And they want to put it on the shelf, then you go, wow, nationwide distribution with TJ Maxx phenomenal, and you do a deal with TJ Maxx and you put it in there. And now TJ Maxx, you get a phone call from that, that other buyer, that other buyer goes, Hey, TJ Maxx is selling the stuff that I'm buying from you for $25 and absolutely crushed my inventory, not gonna be happy with you, and you're probably going to destroy that relationship. So you took that really high margin business, that elite product that, you know, that now allows you to do other things with and you've put it into a channel that has absolutely destroyed the other channels, right. So looking at those things is very, very key. Sometimes you have to give up some of those channels, those lower margin channels, and focus and redouble your efforts on those higher margin channels in a turnaround where you're, you're gonna be cutting back on some revenue to redouble your efforts on higher margin business. Those are always challenging six, you know, challenging decisions, but you have to be prepared to make them

Ryan Miller  
man. That's brilliant. So we talked about margins, getting your market budget in line, I'm assuming you do comps on your industry just to figure out a baseline like how do you know how to right size.

Ian Parker  
So I would do that I would take comps I would pick I would pick a public market comp that I think is a well run company looks like it has a strong bottom line, I would use the ratios that I see there as a good starting place, it doesn't mean it has to be exactly the same, you know, the it'll just give you an idea of where you want to go. Those things will evolve with your you know, your real institutional knowledge that you're gathering on the ground. So you'll you'll get a better feel for where those those targets will move over time. But it'll give you an idea in the beginning where you need to end up and that's a great place to start is look at some cups, get some ratios. Okay, I have my targets, at least we got a place to start.

Ryan Miller  
That's brilliant. So what he is talking about here, you obviously know this right, but what he is talking to you for the rest of you out there sign about a operational discipline called benchmarking. And so benchmarking is some companies do it every year, they'll do they'll sit down, the executives say, Okay, what's the industry want to understand our competitors are doing so go out, they'll take a pulse of all their competition in the market and establish averages, what's the average percentage of labor costs for all of our OpEx? What's the average profit margins? So what he does is, once again, one more time, a lot, a lot of love that you send in your way you're doing amazing things, I can see why you're doing so well. But one of the things is establishing those benchmarks and at least you know, hey, maybe we can go cheaper on this or maybe spend a little bit more on that. But at least we understand how do we I guess evolved for how do we rotate around the orbit of this market? And how close are we to average? And do we even want to be close to average on certain areas? And so doing that benchmarking is wonderful. Now, one of those questions while we're still on this topic of treating the dying patient, so to speak, and you mentioned you got to cut in order to feel like any good surgeon or doctor speaking of cuts, what about product lines? Like when you come in? Do you ever look at product lines? This is assuming it is a product based business? I guess you could do that service businesses? Like how important is the product ladder? Do you do you make cuts to product lines? Or do you even examine that dimension?

Ian Parker  
You have to look at the product line? Yeah, and that I'm not a huge fan of loss leaders, right, just just generally speaking, it doesn't mean that you know, there's not a place for them and you don't use them in some of your marketing budget. But I'm not a big fan of loss leaders right. So if you see a place where you have a product that is underperforming, and you have a product that is is doing well or it looks like it has has a lot more opportunity in a turnaround situation, even in a any business, right, you're going to you should be looking at those product lines regularly and going Okay, should I should I stay in this product? Is there a reason to be in this product? If there isn't right? Or do you think your resources are going to be better spent driving money to sales and that higher margin product can you make that pivot and you do it quickly? You don't want to stay in products that are taking away from your focus on higher margin concerns.

Ryan Miller  
Perfect I'm just curious so with all this turnaround X expertise that you have kind of funny My impression is that Healixa your company that you run is not a turnaround company. We are not we are not run by a turnaround expert i love it just means you can you can handle it but if things get hard you know what to do this that's a very valuable skill in business for sure all you turn around I call you guys carnivores a private equity carnivores you just do deals and you kick ass. It's amazing to watch. So one of those things talking about kicking butt in the in these areas. How important is it whether it's in your company, or maybe one that you're helping to turn around or acquire? Where does culture fit into all this in Ian's world,

Ian Parker  
your culture is crucial. It's crucial. So Felix, uh, you know, being a startup, you know, four years ago, and now being you know, a growth company. You know, culture was a big part of that. It's a big part of doing turnarounds. It's also a big part of, of driving a growth company. I'll give you examples of things that are important to me. I don't want to have an organization where people are afraid to tell me they made a mistake. That's a problem, right? it stifles creativity and innovation, right if people are afraid of making a mistake, I don't mind people making mistakes. It's something that's going to happen. But when you do, you don't want to create an environment where everybody's pointing fingers. No, no, it wasn't me, wasn't me, it was it was him. You don't want that problem, right? You want to be able to say, okay, look, what alright, it was a mistake, no problem, come into my office, let's fix it together. And you need to have that that culture. And that's that's what that's what successful growth companies have. That's, that's what made the turnarounds that were involved in that turned into growth companies, that's what made them successful is that type of culture, I say this to our employees all the time, if you see your player fall down on the ground, you don't run over their tail, you pick up your player, right, pick up your teammate, help them up off the off the turf, and you start moving down the field together again, right? That's the kind of that's the kind of culture that that we want to have. That's the kind of culture that we drive here. And Alexa. And I think it's incredibly important, especially if you have a business that's dependent upon creativity, that's dependent on innovation, it's incredibly important that people are able to do that they have the courage to make mistakes. But they also understand that when they do, raise your hand, ask for help, and we will and your teammates will help you that's brilliant

Ryan Miller  
in that what a great culture. I mean, who wouldn't want to work there? You know, it's interesting, I just read an article, I think it was by Harvard Business Review, I could be wrong. And it says like, speaking of culture, and usually culture exists, but it's experienced by the staff, by the employees, by the owners by every all the people experienced the culture and drive that in whatever whether it's up or down, they are the drivers of the culture. There was a there was an article I put out that actually said, and I think our audience would appreciate this, maybe more than they should, is that common in workplace workplace bullying. So let's talk about culture gone wrong in workplace bullying, which can erode value, revenue, customers, and worst of all shareholder valuation, all from crappy culture. And Peter Drucker famously said, one of the CEOs famously said that culture eats strategy for breakfast. Now, what I think he meant by that is exactly what you talked about to say, look, everyone's gonna make a mistake, you have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. And in this article that we read, I said, people who are subjected to most workplace bullying and that doesn't mean physical bullying, like maybe in grade school, but it could just be they mock you, or that you like, in your example, the kicker teammate when he's down, and so in that culture, the people get a lot of this, the people they found who are most subjected to the worst side of a company's culture are A-players. Oh, any CEO loves their A players, because they're getting 10 to one or 100 to one return on investment of the off of these men and women. And yet, the team, the culture, if it's not properly managed by middle management, and executives, some of the best, most independent people that you just obviously kind of do is get out of their way. And they will make the company a ton of money. And yet those are the people that get targeted the most unfortunately, you think they're celebrated. They're not that was mind blowing to me. And I was like, what kind of companies were you serving? Because that is horrible. These people, because usually A-players know, they're a players, and yet they work for these companies, and they get kicked in the teeth, because they're just so dang good. And so I would challenge many of people, and I can't speak for him. But I think I might on this one, I would challenge you. If If that's you, and you're in a position that I'm in or in is in or you run companies, I would challenge you to really listen to Ian's words and follow the importance of culture. And just because you have a players doesn't mean they're not dying out there. Stay close to your A players, all of your team, as part of your job as a leader. The way I see it is often as Gary Vee likes to explain it, you work for them, not the other way around. And so as if you're a middle manager or director or something like that, or whatever and a company just treat it like you work for them wander around, ask questions and just do you can do what I do is to say how can I serve you? Do you have? What do you need to be successful in your job? Think of leadership, especially driving culture as someone that provides air support. It's not your not your job to do that. But if you can provide air support to your A players who are good, according I've heard that they might be having few more headwinds than you even know about work with them, keep them close and build your culture and who better to have than your top performers on board. So with all of those things that we've done, we've talked about many things. Is there anything else before we wrap things up? Is there anything else you'd want our fans around the world to know?

Ian Parker  
Well, you mentioned Jack Walsh before so I'll leave you with one of my favorite Jack Welch moments. He was on a panel and one of the reporters from CNBC was moderating this panel. And she asked him, she said, Jack, you know, you're considered one of the best pickers of managers and corporate history. So how did you do it? Did you did you look at well, Ian got it right. 70% of the time, and Ryan got it right. 80% of the time. So you you took Ryan instead, because he had a better batting average. And he just sat back and he said, No, no, no, not at all. He was, in fact, I probably only got it right 51% of the time, it's more important to me what you do when you get it wrong, as opposed to how many times you get it right. And those words are you mentioned Jack Welch. Those are those are words to remember. And they certainly had a profound impact on the way I approach things. You know, as I went through my career,

Ryan Miller  
that's brilliant. You know, I tell my children the same thing. So now I'm telling the world it's okay to make a mistake, but it's what you do next that matters. And I think that echoes that same me on the fatherly advice, but it's the principles the same when you're trying to help somebody. It's okay so okay to make a mistake, and as Ian talked about before, and driving the culture is to say, look, if I berated people, every time they made a mistake, they'd be afraid to take a chance. And if that's the culture you create, because you just have a crappy attitude as a leader. So don't be surprised if innovation dries up in your competition, who does not innovate, who doesn't beat people up when they when they take a chance and fail. So it's okay to make a mistake. It's what you do next, that matters. And sometimes that means pivot. Other times, it just means persevere, just like any other startup. So just to summarize everything that we talked about listening to Ian's advice, roll up your sleeves, talk to the frontline workers understand what's going on in the company, and better yet, listen to them. The second thing that we talked about, is learn to cut costs focus on on those increasing margins, growing your revenue and following those lessons that he talked about. And finally, just remember, culture eats strategy for breakfast, you follow Ian's advice, and you too will be well on your way in your pursuit of making billions.

Wow, what a show. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did. Now, if you haven't done so already, be sure to leave a comment and review on new ideas and guests you want me to bring on for future episodes. Plus, why don't you head over to YouTube and see extra takes while you get to know our guests even better. And make sure to come back for our next episode where we dive even deeper into the people the process and the perspectives of both investors and founders. Until then, my friends stay hungry. Focus on your goals and keep grinding towards your dream of making billions