Andrew Warner 0:04
Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of mixergy, where I interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses for an audience of entrepreneurs who let’s be honest, I feel like a lot of us have been a little arrogant. We have the sense that, hey, we’re entrepreneurs, we’re running startups, we know so much more than these bigger dinosaurs that we’re going to take over. Well, Joining me today is an entrepreneur who started several companies did really well for himself and said, You know, these bigger companies, they want a piece of this startup action to they get that there’s innovation happening at the smaller scale. And so David kidder, that’s the person you’re going to get to know today, created to be co founded, I’ve got such a big note that he does not want all the credit for creating this company on his own. He is the co founder of bionic, they seed and launch startups. And I invited him here to talk a little bit about that to talk a lot also about the companies that he’s built leading up to this. He’s also an author of a few books that I’ve read. Seen, actually, it’s it’s a devotional book, the intellectual devotional that has been especially big and he also hasn’t started playbook. I invited him to talk about all of this to learn from his experience to hear his stories, and we can do it. Thanks to two phenomenal sponsors. The first will host your website, right? It’s called hostgator. The second if you’re hiring developers, you need to know them. It’s called top towel. David, before we get into all of this, how did you hear still so freakin perfect when I know what you’re going through today.
David Kidder 1:27
That’s why I have I don’t have height or any other superpowers other than the fact that I sold my hair but now I don’t know I just maybe it’s the it’s the air now where as you know, I’m always careful not to sort of timestamp these these conversations but this one is such a big deal that it is that we’re going through a coronal madness for sure. And yeah, so we were home today. We have a big beautiful office in the city in New York City in Union Square, but we’re about I think to move to a stage where we need to do what’s right and lower the the infection Right around all of us and just five, five miles up the road is the National Guard locking down New Rochelle and I would have arrived but it’s and we’re gonna go through an unprecedented moment in history because there’s so many Coronavirus virus cases in New Rochelle. Yeah, it’s actually one of the densest areas in the country kind of epicenter of it right now and sort of tracking very closely and try to restrict movement and they’re using you know, all the tools available.
Andrew Warner 2:27
So in all seriousness, how do you deal with it on a personal level with the stress of this and we should get into how you sold your company. There’s so many great stories here, but I feel like I’m catching you in a moment where there is a little bit of stress and it’s an opportunity to get into your mindset how you dealing with stress.
David Kidder 2:42
Um, you know, I try to
I live in abundance, not fear, honestly, I respect fear is a good motivating force in your life. It can you know, instinctually keep you alive I guess it’s, it’s a it’s it’s very important quality, but it also it’s really hard. To perform and think clearly through a lens of fear and so you can’t let it get inside you can look at it and respect it but you have a lot more control and usually that you have on him managing yourself your emotions, your emotions and planning for that and so I try to focus on the things that I can control but and staring at the truth but not letting it get inside the company or myself. And David you mean physically like in your mind, you might see a thought that says, Oh, my kids are not gonna be able to go to school for a few days What if one of them gets Corona? What if I get it and so on? You just have to say to yourself mentally not paying attention to that recognize it it exists in your head focus on this other thing
Andrew Warner 3:38
I think I just lost you do to draw do as you said something,
David Kidder 3:41
I’m right here. Sorry. I because I’m home as I have three sons, they’re active to say the least.
Andrew Warner 3:47
You got it Mike, don’t worry about it.
David Kidder 3:48
Great. I am I absolute real time voracious input reader. You know, I’m just I’ve read as much as Anyone I think right now that has at least is in my small life of, you know, 50 person company in my awareness, and I also kind of participate in a couple communities, who are also founders, and they’re talking about this topic. And so my general awareness of what’s happening is pretty high. And I’m sort of helping leadership team, my management team, I’m considering when to make a set of cascading decisions right now. And so I’m following the partners lead, but I’m also following the things I think culturally important for us, right, our safety.
Andrew Warner 4:33
All right. I had a question that I wrote down for you months ago, when we first talked to ask you as the first question. It was about smart Ray. You started it, you sold it, and then the day the wire went through, do you remember that? I do. Yes. What happened?
David Kidder 4:48
So we, we’ve been going covered for about two years raised about 5 million capital, about 30 people, lots of engineering, building waste, basically an alert platform on top of a company called TIBCO, which was at a big huge database back in the.com. Boom, the power like Yahoo, and internet, Reuters and NASDAQ and others, a case of how you get information to your mobile device back then which barely existed was hard because you have atomic levels of data firehose data and you’re picking out one specific event out of a universe of data and applying it to send it to the devices. So we can, so we built that and we hadn’t we end up having effectively a deal for the company. It was a little under 80 million and we had no revenue, it was phenomenal. And we, we we end up like having a purchase point adjustment in that that, that contract for closing, the set of we became greater than 10% of the market share of the company acquiring us which we thought was impossible because it was worth billions and we were small by comparison. They could get out of it. Of course, right in the middle of our closing or the last five inches of it. The market started to crash The first ceiling tiles sort of fall in for the.com. Boom and that company of exercising that right and we had like a month to scramble and we have selling the company for a little little over half as much but but I remember taking the ride the elevator down to the bottom floor. You know, I told anybody buy the deal. But you know, seeing 10s of millions not a person but for the company just evaporate in things you don’t control was just one of those almost unstoppable moments because the decade ahead of your life would be either really good or completely turning over after spending a decade killing myself to get there. So it was a really one or zero moment and we had to hustle but we got through it. It taught me a lesson on control what you can do, and also how much you can affect when you go all in. You acquired by life minders. Yeah, it was a company it was doing basically email marketing before that was a Fang. they’ve raised a lot of money. They’re about 1,000,000,005 billion. value. They were the second part of wave. And there’s a very famous portal that was in the first wave called about calm. And so it was based in New York. And I was actually ironically, still very close friends with the founders and CEOs. That company today
Andrew Warner 7:11
is about that had an opportunity to buy you. Yeah. And it was like minders, it did. By the way life minders was my biggest sponsor back in when they were around millions of dollars in checks from them, because it was Did you know that they know that it was a company that would do they wanted to acquire new email subscribers, I would acquire email subscribers for them at a price of a buck to $5 per they would then go public, at least that’s that was the model at the time at like, they were a valuation of $10 per subscriber $20 per subscribers, how the market value them and so it was a no brainer for them to buy from us. And the first check that came to me from them was for $300,000. And I couldn’t believe that they would actually send so much money I kept calling them up I interrupted a board meeting to make sure that I was really going to get paid.
David Kidder 8:00
Yeah, they’re good guys. I was very grateful. I mean I said we were very fortunate but you know that was a different era on perception was reality back then and now it’s we’re going back but I mean, so we have to sell to them for I think it was just a
Andrew Warner 8:14
lot under 4040 and then how much of that did you get to keep back then do you get anything?
David Kidder 8:18
Yeah, we actually I was actually able to collar quite a bit of it so I was able to get it out. We you know, I have two other co founders but you know, we’re a little bit of money, but it was, it was it was good
Unknown Speaker 8:27
outcome and we you got it what you end up with what let’s say $5 million is what you ended up in stock.
David Kidder 8:33
It’s not public but it was enough but that way and then you got
Andrew Warner 8:37
college for it which means what you bought because you weren’t allowed to sell
David Kidder 8:40
yeah collar is is a is a transaction process. A lot of traders will use that rap a stock and its value high and low right. So you can it will you that trade will take a risk that if it drops below a place after above price, they’ll take At the risk of losing money, but you won’t lose money, but they’ll also take the upside, which is if it goes up, you won’t receive a certain amount above a certain upside. So you get a window, a trading window of value. And then they can get the they can get the downside upside based on the vehicles of trading so they could short or go long or flip the script depending on what they believe the future is for that company. But they trade that risk and you get your you get the rest. And so that’s an example of that. And so, you know, we’re able to able to kind of preserve, even during the crash about how that how that played out. So it’s a good thing for me.
Andrew Warner 9:34
I’m often traveling, why did you Why did you do it? Were you worried that this whole thing that you spent how long you spend building it?
David Kidder 9:41
Why I mean, I was about 26 27th time and I had been It was my second company i’d founded and I kept kind of rolling the dice you know, taking me when I made Sally company put it into another one so you know it 2728 and with one of the great runs at the market history Which we just ended today, by the way, today’s officially a bear market 11 years that case it was seven, you know, at some point you got to take money off the table, and you have to secure some part of your future. And so it’s critical to get those things right when you have because honestly, exits are rare. People have this perception you build a solid company, companies are bought, they’re not sold. And it’s very rare that it actually happens. And so you’re good at being on the right side of the curve of that in timing and creating market demand for what you’re doing which is as much a skill as is building a company and then making sure that you capture when it happens because it’s it’s it’s it’s easy to to lose flues, both the transaction will lose the value there.
Andrew Warner 10:44
How do you find a second acquire and then
David Kidder 10:47
we worked with a couple we worked with a bank of estimate called Broadview back then, it was a technology bank. So we had really good advice and banking to some extent a bankers It’s like, most perfectly priced product in the world, right? You you buy every time but you hate writing the check because it’s insurance against leaving money on the table or not getting a deal done. But the the their job really is relationship. So what appears to be not a lot of work on their part is really you know, you know, decades in many cases of relatability and trust, they are the insurance and you have to be willing to pay that to make sure that you match or guarantee something, it’s closed.
Andrew Warner 11:31
Okay, so I’m gonna want to get a sense of where you were to get there. I read that your first tennis racket you bought on layaway, you ended up with a paper route. You worked as a lifeguard to make even more money. Is this because your parents were trying to teach you the value of hard work or because you needed the money?
David Kidder 11:51
As far as you’re pulling from some good research. There’s a lot of interviews. Well then No, I mean, listen, I my bias family for my parents. My dad was a as a word for the state of psychologists when I was a writer. We didn’t have a lot but we had we had a happy home. And but yeah, so whenever I wanted, I had to earn and so art is I grew up in upstate New York we had like, like effects. No. So a paper out in upstate New York is not like a paper out anywhere else. Like you might still be in Wisconsin, it’s like six, seven days a week. You know, up at five in the morning on your little BMX bike carrying big thick papers, you know, 2030 papers houses, and then every you know, once a month or once every two weeks you go and collect and you’re getting paid in quarters, you know, for this delivery service, you had to click the buy the papers deliver them so it’s it’s a it was a tough, it was freezing because you’d get dumped on by snow and you know, they have to get there so you’d be applied there. So that was when I first jobs and learn taught me a lot of lessons about getting up early and working hard and works you know as a farmhand and and then I was like, This is too hard. So I gotta I gotta learn how to swim and became a lifeguard for summer. And then I worked in a sports store and then I just kind of turn a leveled up trying to figure out how to maximize my time and energy and yeah, so after during college I went to, I studied enough for design at RMIT. And it was a really interesting into the interdisciplinary school and engineering and science and art and design and, and I was awarded this word called back that it’s called the ID magazine, which is kind of famous kind of architectural II for design and won a student world international design competition. I got an opportunity to work at Kodak for the summer. And it was awesome, but it was like the beginning of the end for Kodak where they were designing digital cameras, which is the first generation and then I realized that I didn’t I very quickly knew I did not want to work in a large organization like a little veal cube. I started working there next summer, actually, almost immediately. After for a company called the idea group, which was using technology like pro engineering in Silicon Graphics boxes to do design insurance. So that was my first bite at the startup. And that helped me get connected to SGI when they got into the web for space with the box, the serving boxes for the web. When I first began, and we built a service and technology company for agencies, way back in the beginning 9596 and we sold that and then did a roll badasses become.
Andrew Warner 14:30
Yeah. What was next?
David Kidder 14:33
Your first company I was 20 years old was 1996. And we just started building tools and services for people who are required to build web based interfaces back when the internet just started.
Andrew Warner 14:48
You couldn’t the software that companies like Xerox and and Bausch and Lomb and others use to create websites
David Kidder 14:55
in this context it was with the agencies it was with wide our was with Rubicon O’Connor was really the tools were there when the digital agencies went into the space, they had nothing. And so we became there something software that they use to create what this the services and the tools to do web based advertising back where first came out
Andrew Warner 15:19
banners largely,
David Kidder 15:20
no, it’s really the websites themselves. It was, you know, it really big manifest it was almost like prior to, you know, the services, the technology like, you know, Microsoft front page, you know, like the drag and drop type of tools, but it was really, you know, it was a small business and we kept getting across the finish line. And then I helped do a roll up I joined a team back by Omnicom, we took public which was called Victor ideas that did a roll up of all internet digital service companies and through that emphasis very close with a friend who’s both started it but also scaled it as there for about three or four years and then I began my my next company called Smart ray which is where we kind of began the story
Andrew Warner 16:00
How big of an exit was an edX?
David Kidder 16:03
Small in the single digit millions
Andrew Warner 16:05
shares about 2122. And did you end up with shares of thinking new ideas?
David Kidder 16:11
No, I actually joined the team to that took it public. So I was part of the leadership team that scaled it. And I was my first that’s my first like, real kind of startup job. And it was it was a very interesting company for a variety of reasons. But inside that company, I built some that I sold my, a couple of my closest friends of the world who are part of my life now who I met in the trenches there for years. And, and then I started Before we continue,
Andrew Warner 16:43
but you were with them till just before the.com bubble burst, right?
David Kidder 16:49
No, I left in within like January 99. Yeah, two years probably because we sold smart Ray in 2001. I actually have on my wall here. 2000 So I left in late 98, early 99. So January, so let’s call January 19. And look at the wall by this History Day here. So it was about about a year and a half to two years before out. So the real kind of crash.
Andrew Warner 17:17
thing that I’m trying to understand is, how did you become a guy who did well and still understood I better have a color for the shares that I sold, because this is not going to last forever. How did you have the foresight to do that?
David Kidder 17:29
Oh, no, I was it was I was in it. I was like it was it was happening. Well, you know what, while we went through these transactions, it was the beginning of the end. And it was, at that point, you were kind of just trying to secure an outcome. You know, you knew that the the sort of if, honestly, it would be equivalent to today, even you know, in the last like week, you’d be like, right, this is this is we’re now on the other side of a historic curve. And we I don’t know if that’s going to take five years could take 10 but you know, it’s not going Be a year,
Andrew Warner 18:01
you know, so lock it down when you see that it’s going downhill, just lock it down before you fall all the way down that hill. And that’s what you were thinking,
David Kidder 18:08
yeah, secure what you have, you know, even today I have a, you know, biotech as a, you know, 55 person company and bootstrapped and no investors and growing and, you know, I feel very strong about our offering the world and but the world’s changed and I ironically even the last week it feels like it’s, there’s even more demand for what we do. Because it kind of works in good and bad times when you throw the cards in the air. You know, they resettle, it’s really you got to rediscover where your growth is gonna come from and biotech solves that problem. So I feel very bullish about our position, the problem we’re solving, but also equally You know, you’re you’re in for a very different chapter with wind at your back versus You know, when your face is a marketplace.
Andrew Warner 18:54
Okay, so, you’re saying that you soldier you sold smart, right and then you took off What did you do?
David Kidder 19:01
I went I started in Tibet, and I traveled to a couple dozen countries the next year and a half, two years in LAO. Yeah. Did in most of the Serengeti, migration. Most of India, most of China. It was really Southeast Asia was really incredible. It’s just got a chance to really unwind but also see the world and knowing that I probably would never get the chance to do that. Again, it was really just the fact that he had no mobile phone. He just you just you just went and so you go to the internet cafe for every, you know, week or two. And you were alone with yourself. In many cases. It was just awesome to, you know, stare that down and experience things and let it let it really affect you. You did this on your own. Yeah, I did a lot of my own but I also had some of that professionally planned because you don’t just show up in Burma, right. Or Laos. You actually you you gotta have people who know the area. You can’t just show up in in Lhasa or Tibet without, you know, visas and special passes even back then. So yet so how to be freshly planted some not and then what type of places you stand. You know, I had a very I had a backpack but it was sort of the top of it was could you could travel anywhere and so I could, you know kind of imagine look like a classic sort of backpacker with the bottom, you know, had a bunch of product stuff in it. So what I would do is I go away for a couple weeks and rough and then I you know, I got chest so the best hotels in the world, I just stay for three or four to five days and you know, recover, so to speak and really enjoy, you know, first world experience that the real country that I’d get back on the road, so is this
Andrew Warner 20:43
same thing. I didn’t go away to college, I never had this like fun experience and I said you know, I have an opportunity to go to stay at hostels. So I took my backpack and I would stay at hostels, and it was great. And then I would have enough of that and I’d go spend a few days in the nicest hotel. I could get where bathroom was clean, and I could have a little bit of space and be pampered, and then go back. I didn’t do it quite as long as you did, I did find my now find myself I lost myself there, this whole anxiety that I had around the stuff that I didn’t get to do because I sacrificed it for work when away by the end of that trip, what happened to you? How did you come out differently at the end of this?
David Kidder 21:23
Well, you I realized a couple things. One is the world is really small and as deeply interconnected. I mean, you’re seeing this today with the virality of you know, disease, quite frankly, the world’s tiny, you know, you think it’s big and it’s things are far away, but the knock on effect of policy and decisions from the top, all the way down to the local communities has effects that we feel. And even you know, leaders have personality conflicts, you’re seeing this to the oil markets today can reshape the whole world. And so there the whole concept of like, anti fragile versus fragile I think I learned way Way, the world was much more fragile than you believe it is.
Unknown Speaker 22:05
I think that,
David Kidder 22:08
um well decisions I mean, if you look at the 10 year, multiple decade, generational effects of war, for example, and landmines and policy decisions that the the people pay the price of that today, like as as if you, you know, it happened yesterday. So there’s, there’s a short term versus short termism versus the long term view of the world on decision making that you have to balance your understanding of how much effect you actually have and your decisions and how much effect little decisions have and I think that was a huge awakening for me was both velocity, speed and interconnectedness of the world that we feel today but I think I’ve realized throughout my, my life after going through these experiences,
Andrew Warner 22:55
All right, let me take a moment talk about my first sponsor, then we’ll come back and see what you did after this trip. My first sponsor is Hostgator I’m gonna actually ask you if if you were to start today or build a business today with nothing but a hosting package, what would you recommend?
David Kidder 23:11
As a hosting package?
Andrew Warner 23:12
Nothing but a hosting package, you start right now we’re going into recession, the economy’s bad. What What if I gave you nothing but a hosting package and said, Now you’ve got to start your life over? What would you do? I’ll tell you what I would do.
David Kidder 23:24
Just Well, I would I would I, you know, I can just tell you this is very macro, but it’s um, I have always been the most successful in wherever my obsession was, whatever it was deeply cared about. And so that’s one second is what are your ideas to solve that problem, right that need and, you know, my book series or bionic was a company’s have always been really kind of original inventions. And so the answer the question is really, what do you most deeply care about and valuing your solution to it because wherever your that, you know, you whole mind is where that 10 hours feels like one hour. Well that truth is, I think people don’t realize that it’s not just the hours is that working hard. If you need the whole person that’s conscious subconscious of sleeping, waking hours to break through to create value. So I don’t care if it’s a website or a service or an outcome, you have to tap into that type of energy from you in the need to unlock something that can that can be successful. It’s not about chasing whitespace or making dollars of money, it’s if you’re going to build a business and light up a website, it has to be something that unlocks that proprietary gift that you have.
Andrew Warner 24:37
For me, my, my wife saw that I had a book on my book stand last night because I was preparing for an interview. And so I’m constantly thinking about it. But for me to figure out that this was going to be the thing that I was excited about, or to figure out my previous business that that was gonna be the thing that I was excited about. I had to just try a bunch of things like mixergy wasn’t. I have a passion for interviews. I’m gonna start with anything I would have thought this would make no sense for me. But I tried a bunch of different things. And this just I fell in love with it largely by interviewing people I used to do business with and being fascinated by the stuff I didn’t know about them. And so if anyone out there is listening to us, and you don’t know what your passion is, right now, I’d suggest that one of the first things you do is get a hosting package that allows you to build lots of different sites so that you can explore and experiment and find the thing that gets you and if you need a thing to start with, especially right now I say your personal reputation and your name is the most important thing to start off with. If you just build a website that says nothing but here’s my face, here’s who I am, and your links out. You’ve started your reputation you’ve given people like me who are researching you something to grab hold of and get to know you. And now if you’ve given yourself in addition to that, a way of creating other websites, you could explore other ideas and feel free to delete them. It’s not a failure. It’s just another experiment. Alright, if you want to get started with Hostgator, go to hostgator.com slash mixergy. They’ll give you the lowest price that they have and a great hosting package. You Can Count On super low, easy way of starting a business and expanding your reputation hostgator.com slash mixergy and of course you get $100 in advertising from them. Go look at that offer@hostgator.com slash mixergy. Alright, you come back what’s what do you do next? How do you get back into the world of business?
David Kidder 26:18
You know, I am, I mean my wife, which was life changing, of course, and I was ready to like, start the chapter of my life and our life has been a complete, you know, spread. It’s amazing from dogs and kids and homes and companies. And you know, you guys got together. Yeah, yeah, 18 years now three boys 912 and sorry, 912 and 14, okay, and our life is a kind of a wild big life. It’s we travel or a time we she has. She’s the co founder and CEO of a company called gender fair that uses data to show equality in large organizations relative to the Millennium goals for women. And so she’s very active and passionate that and then I do a lot of traveling for work. And so when our boys are very active, it’s like three big line club clubs. So it’s a kind of a crazy life. And so from there and did a bunch of investments help get some company off the ground. And then I got the band back together from from the smart way days and started clickable, which was really around the idea of something called an act engine, which was actual analytics back when that was sort of a thing in 2007. So back then Google was there was an arms race of Google and Yahoo and Microsoft to win the search engine wars and Google obviously won the grand majority of that but back then there was a lot of friction across the network senate social media coming on women
Andrew Warner 27:47
across the network,
David Kidder 27:49
just everybody had a different tool set so to get good at one you had to be good at three tools so be like for advertising on them.
Andrew Warner 27:55
Yes, correct. Cuz Yahoo had just bought goto.com which was the impetus for Google’s AdWords. And so if anyone was going to advertise and those two platforms and then throw in a third one, which was Microsoft, which seemed to have an A, seem to have a chance, it was learn each one of their interfaces. And then from what I remember to having interviewed people who’ve been in the space, who was getting the data back from all those interfaces in a way that allowed you to do something with it, and that’s what
David Kidder 28:25
we’re solving that and also the recommendations of like what to do. So how does that you know, how you’re doing what you need to do to improve every single day across the platforms regardless of the tool set and the data. So it was very early we built we patented that it was actually worked out quite well. And does that mean are you
Unknown Speaker 28:45
what does that cover? I apologize.
Unknown Speaker 28:49
I don’t even recognize that beeping.
Unknown Speaker 28:51
I don’t either.
Andrew Warner 28:54
Oh, no, I hope it’s not like a no, no, no.
Unknown Speaker 28:56
Apologize. What is it?
David Kidder 29:00
It’s my surge suppressor.
Oh, I had it. I was thinking maybe it was a bigger issue than that I read. So we just to back up. So our our clickable was building an interface with an actual recommendation engine across the search networks when it was when they were complex. And it turned out to be a monopoly. And so for Google, in a way, and so it was very
Andrew Warner 29:25
painful to get into that. How did you know Sorry to keep slowing you down? Dude, I’m fascinated by your life. You know, the other thing that I like about you? We’ve talked a couple of times under like stressful situations where you had something else going on. We couldn’t record the interview. No, I could see in you how stressed you were. And then I don’t think I’ve seen this in anyone else to your degree. You said, well, stop. Andrew, tell me a little bit about how you’re doing right now. A good dude, you just told me you got a crisis. I said we can reschedule. You said I just want to check in with you. Does that
David Kidder 29:56
your your founder on screen this year, the same journey. So everybody has moments, you know.
Andrew Warner 30:02
So thank you, by the way for even being with me here today, considering it feels like every time we talk, there’s something going on.
David Kidder 30:07
Funny. I mean, it’s funny because I’ve had a very last six years like very easy, right? I mean, my this has been a bliss cup has been a breeze. And then I think because of the last year, I think people were starting to build in acceptance that the bull run was over or conditions around it. And then we now legitimately have the probably the first black swan event of our lifetimes or second at least, I think the home mortgage crisis of 2008 are real, but this is a very unusual events. So the conditions around this are something that’s there’s a lot of unknown unknowns and all of us that I think that’s very disruptive.
Andrew Warner 30:45
Yeah, it is. And even though I know I’m going to be okay, no matter what happens, I do find myself getting stressed a little bit about it. And there’s nothing that like what I could see a few bad things happening, but I know intellectually, it’s not and still I’m finding myself with a low level. level of stress, even my wife saying that her friends cancel down her Friday night dinner because they can’t get together in person is adding the level of stress to me.
David Kidder 31:07
I think you have to take this very seriously. I think this is one of those cases where you can’t assume it’s like anything else that you’ve experienced in your life. So it’s it’s absolutely new information, fundamentally new information. And so your assumption set right about what it’s like to be ill or manage illness or, you know, you know, your awareness of just day to day in infection, so to speak, has to change. And I don’t think that you people will recognize that that is required. And so you do can be on the side of, Oh, it’s no big deal and nothing and then be on the negative side of that or accept it knowledgeably for what it is the rest and then make the changes because it’s all a question of like, what state of preparedness Do you want to be it and do you want to be right or wrong? So I think this is a case where it’s like it’s true for business. Which is a weirdest thing we use called pre mortems. And pre mortems are tools that imagine a really catastrophic outcome. And the reason why you want to do that is because insurance against decision making. I just learned this at a keynote, we had a biotech summit last week around a concept called tilt. And when you look at particular poker or other types of game theory, when you have asymmetrical information, you know, a lot I know a little I know a lot, you know, little or you and I both know a little and there’s a lot that’s out there that’s unknown. One of the things that leads to catastrophic Lee bad decision making is something called tilt and then tilt has two qualities. The first quality is optimism. And secondly is overconfidence. So overconfidence and optimism, lead to really bad out bad results when you are dealing with with challenging moments. And so,
Andrew Warner 32:58
go ahead
David Kidder 32:59
and so You have to be very careful in these moments to make decisions with clarity. A pre mortem is a really good tool to stop and say, how bad could this be? Or how or how good it is with this case how bad is because if you can imagine a future where it goes really, really bad, then you can fix it. You know how to fix it, you know how to deal with it, how to repair for it, it’s no longer an unknowable fear. you’ve imagined it. Okay, great. Now let’s solve it. And that’s empowering away like, Okay, well, that’s the worst that can happen. It never happens as bad as you think it is. But you can actually have a lot of control in what you do right now. That’s why it’s so important to be balanced in this moment. When you’re dealing with these situations. I think being prepared is a huge advantage in your mindset, this business or you know, in our in our sort of public and personal lives in these type of moments.
Andrew Warner 33:53
All right, I hate to go back to the story, but I want something that will live outlive this situation. And so what I was wondering was Don’t know why
Unknown Speaker 34:00
that’s going again, we fix that.
Andrew Warner 34:02
How did you know that this was an issue? You’re a guy coming off of this long disconnect from the world where you have to go into an internet cafe to even get internet access? How did you know that there’s such a problem that you need to connect all these different platforms together into one ad buying place and one data and all that had you know, was an issue.
David Kidder 34:24
Um, I stay close to the advertising role. I’ve friends, I’m in New York, it’s one of the it’s a big industry here. And back that ad tech and Mark tech were hot, and now they’re not but back then it was.
It was a pretty big opportunity. So I don’t know I just stay close to it. And listen, I mean, it’s one of those things, I also realized that it was accessible for me part of part of getting the secrets in business is because you’re part of a an ecosystem where the secrets live. So if you have friends, in my case, who know a lot of the agency people who are using those tool sets, you’re just happened to be a place where you’re like, Oh, I realized that It takes so many people to do that job. You’re like, wow, yeah. Are the API’s are coming out and API complexity is an arms race and all the API’s, everyone’s spending, you know, the same dollars to build the same tools over and over and over again. So you have 100 agencies who quote unquote, off takedown writing and doing the same thing. And did you
Andrew Warner 35:19
intentionally where you were talking to your friends with an idea to start a business or we just listened to see what they were complaining about?
David Kidder 35:25
Pretty much the latter, which was listening, listening to the pain. All right, I think you’re starting to tell us that the eventual winner of this whole race was Google and how did that affect your business? Um, well, not it wasn’t great. I mean, one of the things we we got to about 180 people and we raised about 34 million we building a basically two companies at once. And you know, it also inspired what became the star playbook, which is I went out during those those those years and started interviewing my friends and their friends on how to bet there Life. And it really for me how to think about none of my business back then but also today. And so it was one of the great learning experiences of my life to go through the scaling of that and then we end up selling it part of it too back to our partner and Amex and part of it we we built, we’ve merged with another company, because it’s really hard to build a company when in someone else’s monopoly, you really have to own almost all of your revenue, all of your destiny, all of your relation to your customers to make a business work because it’s really ultimately their need that you’re serving. And so when you get you know, infrastructural blocks between you and the customer, it’s your sort of listening through a wall, right? Yeah, listening to the customer through a wall and and that’s almost impossible to solve for. So we did a couple of successful and we split the company. And then I was sort of done and I had read I wrote I did these interviews and create this book called The startup playbook which was what came out of that were this concept of the five lenses. So when I asked you know Ilan or Sara Blakely, or you know
Andrew Warner 37:11
wasn’t Reed Hoffman
David Kidder 37:12
Reed, Reed Hoffman who wrote the for the book, you know how you bet your life effectively all said within the first two or three years of a startup passes through these five lenses these five area they all become successful and it’s basically this. The first is proprietary gift which is what is the unfair advantage? What do you have that no one The world has no idea which is a solution to a problem and the question of why you that successfully passes through it. You haven’t you have something actually least unfair advantage, which is what you need to survive to is extreme focus. How does the team skill energy focus on a single customer problem and not multiple problems? You know, optionality to ways your enemy when you’re doing too much, you only have certain resources. The third was you got to build painkillers and that vitamins chronic lifelong million pain How does you know because you want to be solving. So someone picks up and tries and uses and then picks it up again and again and again. So the more it’s a vitamin, they should use it, but they don’t in such a huge signal. The fourth ones, the 10. x factor, which is most companies go to an asset sale, most startup role. So if you still get all the revenue and all the value, is there an element to the business that’s impossible. Because that’s really what you want to asymmetrically invest in that 10 X Factor so that when it when you tear it when it looked when the dust settles, you have something that’s so distinct, it’s not one or two times better that can be copied but 10 X and lastly is permanence which is can you both by intention and value, you know, build a monopoly Can you be you know, in the life of a customer for at least three or four years. If both by execution strategy and outcome, you can survive those lenses you can build a company, a solution to a customer problem through those. You have a very, very good shot at building a big company and have anyone that’s sustainable and successful for a long period of time. So it’s an incredibly powerful experience that it’s one now I’m building back through. But it’s also the same sort of mindset and systems mechanics that are we’re working with, you know, directly the leadership teams of p&g and city and General Mills and Nike and others who are also going through kind of the great refounding of their organizations as they try to disrupt themselves and be more competitive in this era.
Andrew Warner 39:28
And level of interviews that you did in this book is amazing. Elon Musk, as you mentioned, Ben Horowitz from Andreessen Horowitz, Tony Shea J. Walker, who never talks anymore. He’s the guy who created Priceline, incredibly brilliant. I think people completely forgot how brilliant he is because other people have talked louder than him. But Wow, what he was, how do you get all these people? How do you connect with them?
David Kidder 39:56
Um, I have a very good network and I’ve built I believe that like deep authentic relationships for a long period of time.
Also, one of the great sort of, like, life hacks for
creating value is to actually ask for things. I mean, a lot of people don’t understand that in relation to people. And I’m guilty of this, which is, if you don’t ask somebody to do something, they can’t feel valued, and they want to be valued. And so, when you ask them for something, the chances are they’re going to say yes, and so, but I think people don’t understand that that’s where that relational value can be formed because no one wants to ask you to do things or, or they feel like it’s, um, they don’t deserve it. And so we get through those things, you can get very good at helping people need people because you capitalize an outcome for each other.
Andrew Warner 40:51
You know, that’s, that’s a, that’s the thing that’s gonna stay with me. That in the end, the way that you were with me when you were in difficult to If you needed to postpone, but I don’t ask for things. And you’re right when someone asks me for something, especially somebody who I care about, I feel more valued more connected to them or invested in their success and, and I hesitate to ask I hate it.
David Kidder 41:16
Yeah. Well, the other side of not asking is that it leads to relationship isolation. So as a CEO, or a husband or a father, if you if I don’t ask the most important in my life for anything, how you ever be known, how will they ever feel needed, how they ever feel part of your success or not? And when it doesn’t work, by the way, when because very often you go through chapters where he’s working and then it doesn’t you know, they also be angry at you because you didn’t ask when it was good. Like how can we didn’t help me solve that problem? I didn’t know I you needed this and you’re late and and that’s by pride or stupidity or fear you you you didn’t want to you wanted to hold all the The struggle you want to hold all of the pain or and quite frankly, sometimes the success and that separates you. And so you this is a you know asking for things as an iconic idea that everyone needs, but it’s really, it’s, it’s what you need. And it creates the tensile strength to actually take on great challenges and do it together.
Andrew Warner 42:23
I’m gonna talk about my second sponsor, and then we’ll see what happened. You took another break, and then you came back again, refreshing life change, too. I’ll first tell you, my second sponsor is a company called top towel. Great place to hire developers. You know, just a little while ago, I interviewed an entrepreneur who created a mZ tracker. And I said, How did you get this thing to a place where you could sell for $11.5 million? You’re a guy who was selling like pills before, you know, supplements. You’re just getting started in entrepreneurship. How’d you build a software company that you’re able to sell so fast that I found the right developer? The guy coded the whole thing up by himself. You won’t believe it, Andrew, you think we had a whole team? It’s just him. I said, Well, what was it about him, he said, there’s some people who just want to solve the problem. Some people who just have that gift he said before, then if you would have said 10 x developer would have said, it’s another one of these Silicon Valley phrases that really don’t mean anything, but help justify a culture of, of San Francisco. But he said, I saw him, he built this whole business. And now they’re still co founders and other businesses investing together. The reason that I bring them up in top talent is because as we’re building up our companies, we are going to be ready for these developers who can have that kind of an impact on our business. Those developers don’t come from going to cheap freelance sites, those developers do come from long term relationships, a lot of prep, a lot of searching. And if you don’t have time to do that, you should know that the top towel people, that’s all they do. And if you go to top towel, comm slash mixergy, you could press a button, schedule a call with one of their manager and managers. And then they’ll set you up with the call zoom like we’re doing right now, where you can talk to a developer who fits your exact needs and will either blow your mind and you can get started with them or doesn’t and then you We’ll move on, you haven’t lost anything, but your mind will be blown. And one of the things that they’re offering mixergy people is 80 hours of top towel developer credit when you pay for your first 80 hours, in addition to a no risk trial period, because they’re so convinced that this will change your business and that mixergy people keep signing up for long term agreements with their developers, that they just want to keep fostering the relationship they have with my audience. So if you want to get started with them, go to top and top of your head talent talent, top Tao comm slash mixergy TLP TL comm slash MIXE rG How long do you take off? What type of vacation How long did you stay away from work?
David Kidder 44:38
I about a year 10 a month book came out and so a little under a year and I one of my close friends and most admired people I have in the world is a woman named Beth Comstock and she was the vice chairman of GE she went on global innovation. And so she This is now this is now seven eight years ago. So the book came out and she invited me to come join a panel at her global leadership team meeting in Boca Raton. They called the GLM conference, I had no idea what this was. And it turned out when I showed up in flip flops, it was a lot bigger deal. And I realized those 800 people there Geez, at the time had like 90 billion in the bank and 300,000 boys huge, like bigger the GDP of South Africa at the time. And so I’m going to panel at the end of this talk, she buys 100 copies of book, which is great. And she asked me, she says, what are your big questions as an outsider? And so at the time, Jeff Immelt, the CEO, and I kind of pointed out to Jeff, I said, Jeff, you know, how many $50 million that you launched last year? And I said, I bet the answer is,
Andrew Warner 45:40
Can you can you repeat that question? Because we lost the connection for a sec.
David Kidder 45:43
I said, like I said to the CEO of GE at the time, I said, How many $50 million companies did you launch last year? I said, I bet the answer is zero. And if that’s true, I would be totally terrified. Like how is that possible? The amount of capital in the bank and these 3000 boys How come it doesn’t happen all the time. So of course, it’s like totally dead. And that says, you know, tell us how you really feel and people never see laugh and I got off stage. And you know, to his credit, Jeff got out of the seat. He came backstage and said, fix this. And he went back on stage. And he said, that’s the most important question. 37 years since jack welch. So now late, jack welch started this conference. And two months later, he wrote to all 980,000 shareholders that he’s, you know, based on the lean startup and star playbook. I’m inspiring this change. And so, for the next year, I just travel the world doing growth mindset, keynotes, then doing Lean Startup with Eric and it was really Eric show a lot of ways. But what I learned was is that you know, these leaders were thinking that they had an employee problem, we need to go get people to do lean startup and become entrepreneurs. But when you went into the organization with the with employee said is like, you know, we don’t have an employee problems like it’s, it’s the mindset leaders, the permission is not here. It’s the addiction being right. It’s imperialism. And so it’s really a very unique kind of single meeting moment with now the CEO Baker Hughes started to frame up what now is bionic, which is the idea that venture capital and entrepreneurship are forms of management. And so we built growth boards that used large companies seek leadership with the mindset mechanics, as in the stages of venture seed ABC, to become the funding architecture that allowed them to go from Mark a view a view of the world that was, I call it Tap to tap from a total addressable marketplace view the world where share and behavior lives and budget to portfolio theory, toddlers have problems and needs and instead of doing five big bets a year that McKinsey teaches you, you do 100 that, you know, with a 90% failure rate. And the reason why this is so important is not only do you need to get to commercial truth, which most large organizations employees don’t say the truth because the cost of failure is too high. But you got to get used portfolio theory, which means you make all of your money for the future. as number of bets, and when you go back to the beginning and you say how do we make all our money? Each of those decisions have two qualities, one high conviction, why us why now? And number two is non consensus. You make all of your money from that highest disagreement rate because new you. So conversely, consensus is a growth killer. So all solves that both in capability and an added model.
Andrew Warner 48:24
Let me go back to the first thing that you said you asked him how many $50 million startups did you create last year? Why is it a big deal that he created? None. I mean, he’s got he’s got a huge bank account, great reputation, you can go and acquire the companies that make it to $500 million.
David Kidder 48:39
Well, the reason why it’s so important is that those little $50 million companies are not worth 50. They’re worth an order of magnitude more. They’re the new oxygen. If that new oxygen is just acquired, just brought in from the outset and in most cases, the company is late to doing it. So its balance sheet disruption the secretary They don’t know why they actually don’t, they’re not changing the genetics of the company. the genetics of a company aren’t learning. It’s they’re not learning organizations and in the marketplace with as much disruption as we see going on. And, you know, who knows, Eric often says, Whoever learns the fastest wins, that speed that velocity is, is really what should shape all decision making every single day. So it’s sort of like Jeff Bezos talks about the day one mindset where the energy and structure you know, is the most, you know, powerful in the first day, you know, a lot, you know, the top seven companies in the world today, with the exception of one, or all software companies, all led by the founders, and the only one that’s not is led by Satya Nadella, which is the growth mindset leader in the world. So there’s got to be something in that. And the answer is there is there. We have a completely different operating system running those companies then the top five conglomerates of the world that were most valued in the last 2030 years that efficiency and optimization was it’s been solved. It’s the big bigger Guess what, it’s also defeated growth. It’s destroyed growth. And so you have to be able to do both create and operate to create success in this era.
Andrew Warner 50:08
Okay, but by the way, Apple is also not create not a software company and also not run by the top by the founder. Right.
David Kidder 50:16
Well, it’s a I would say that it’s still a scaled startup. It’s really it’s, it’s, I think that the, you have a founder led company now that is read by led by the scalar. In this case, Tim Cook. Not unlike, you know, the the the Microsoft era, which was gates, the founder, the scalar was was Steve Ballmer and he missed to the most despite the fact that 30 to 80 billion which was incredibly successful, they also missed two of the biggest disruptions in computing history, cloud and mobile so you can be winning and losing and that’s the big question which is is Apple winning but losing? The refounding job is really getting back to the you know that that outside end customer problem to the world As opposed to maximizing gains,
Andrew Warner 51:01
okay, so I get now you’re going out and you’re giving talks, you’re helping people see how they could read how they could breed the startup mindset into their organization Portfolio Theory means you’re showing them how to create multiple startup. I see that you may be getting some of this wrong. I’ll tell you what I’m getting at is
David Kidder 51:18
that I happen to evangelize the company that way. But But bionic does is has the system, we’ll
Andrew Warner 51:24
get to At what point did you start to sell something beyond you on stage telling them they should do different?
David Kidder 51:30
Yeah, there’s a reason why it’s called bionic and doesn’t have any of myself founders name on it, it really is by his company, and that manifests that these these components is four and seven growth OS do the job of that new to big that zero hundred million dollar job and most large organizations have eradicated we’re installing it as a as a service or coaching model that creates the capability. It has four components, our portfolios, we call it discovery. The scale of you know, we can’t validate but lean entrepreneurship So building your special forces for growth. This third is the growth board, which is the funding model which replicates a venture model of funding both mindset mechanics and allow leadership to invest in non consensus high conviction portfolio theory. And then third, the fourth element is just the capability which is how do you go fast like in functions you need the policy you need, you need the communication all the kind of guts of the machine to set down the the would pick up the fight, so to speak, right and to stop being at war with growth and pick up the fight to put the company on offense. That capability is that four piece those four things represent the opposite. Last conceptually, and then an operating rhythm today. It’s scaled across some of the biggest companies in the world. I mean, they’re these these organizations are watching dozens and sometimes hundreds of startups as a way of working for solutions in new needs and design one
Andrew Warner 52:58
can do you find one coming And say I’m going to come in here my company will come in here and we’re going to create one startup and then we’ll expand that to a portfolio or something else.
David Kidder 53:07
It’s not about the startup it’s the it’s the capability it’s the it’s the organizational capability the model that goes and unlocks organization to go take on customer needs and problems using the funding model both minds mechanics and the skill entrepreneurship as a way of working what happens is is they don’t watch one startup they watch hundreds and they literally your first
Andrew Warner 53:32
the first person who bought into this month hundred
David Kidder 53:37
three at scale after three or four years Yes.
Andrew Warner 53:40
Wow. And then your part in it bionics part I mean was what to teach them how to
David Kidder 53:47
sell. Yeah, we bring all the IP all the tools, the the the models, the coaching to create as a permanent capability. That sounds like it’s like we were the spine of the ribs that a couple of the organs that Put the muscle on the skin on it. So it’s called, you know, grow growth for PNG D TEDx at Citi group Valley labs at Nike
Andrew Warner 54:08
cx ventures, Anheuser Busch. Yeah, exactly. They all have their own names. Why? Why are they creating their own organization that’s separate
David Kidder 54:15
honestly, if they’re the hero of the journey, like, you have to have to have ownership this stuff you can’t be
Andrew Warner 54:23
in its own branch. It seems like maybe what they’re doing is creating almost like an accelerator within their company. The accelerator gets its own name like dx dy 10. x at Citi group, is that right? And then you go,
David Kidder 54:34
that’s just so accelerate. There’s a lot of language I heard. It’s kind of complex. So there’s accelerators, incubators, there’s venture groups. This is really how do you organize all of those things as a capability? So how do we think how do we fund how do we do the work and how do we go, how to create the organization capability become permanent, so those elements have been placed. So whether you have accelerated you have labs, you do better Without the context of like, why are we investing? What’s the need in the world we’re solving for, you know, you know, what is the grand challenge or something without that context and a funding model? You feel like you’re looking, you’re got 100 things going on. And you’re asking why why am I spending less money? Or why is nothing dying? Right? Why am I letting my money on fire? And so do the one as consultants and and
Andrew Warner 55:24
teach them this? Do you have your own team that works with them? Yeah, I mean, we
David Kidder 55:28
think of ourselves as a kind of a product enabled service company. And so consulting to my my view is like, my friend Vanessa says all the time, it’s like, that’s like theoretical physics. It’s like, you know, it’s like, you show up with a bunch of physics they kind of would like to do but they can’t understand. This is just applied physics. It’s like, it’s the people it’s the tools. It’s the operator them it’s the radical outsiders that drive have a process that helps them do this work is what unlocks the organization. So you can have you get it even better. about growth mindset, in spite of all day long, it’s the systems that actually make the change because they happen as a skill and a muscle because they’re doing it.
Andrew Warner 56:09
Okay, is there one concrete example that you can point to and say, because of this mindset, because of the system? Here’s a big company that people will know. And here’s what they came up with.
David Kidder 56:20
Well, it’s now public, but I mean, zx is a great example. I mean, we’ve been on them for five years, one of the greatest efficiency organizations in the world, right. And they knew they’re being disrupted both in the world of beer, but also the needs of their customers. And we help join them in standing up XP ventures when the early days and, you know, they went from sort of 12 to a couple thousand people, and they just publicly announced they crossed a billion dollars in revenue. So, you know, the difference is that that revenue is kind of new oxygen, right versus the oxygen of breathing so as different value, but it’s put the whole organization on offense. So the other the other thing is done is and this is true, I think for a lot of our partners is If they spent their lifetime, you know, building a mountain of customers solving a problem, and when that mountain of customer starts to die, right, it’s scary, right? You’re such a shrink and you work harder, plan harder. You market harder. Everything’s harder, right? And the reason why they do that is because that’s what they know. They know operating. They know, they know, they know efficiency. And the challenges is that the reason why it doesn’t work is because the customers are leaving their mountain and they’re blind to it. They don’t have the capability to discover it. They don’t know where the need went, or the behavior went, because they have a view of the world that actually limits the permission to go answer. What is the need? What was the need change? to do that? You have to look outside forces? What are the outside forces that change the need the world that my customer left me from to, if I don’t have a capability like z x or D 10. x to go do the work of discovery. All I have is my big to bigger planning skill. And that’s a map of liability when there’s changing the world,
Andrew Warner 58:02
okay. And so z x ventures is from Anheuser Busch InBev. What they do is they’ve got a portfolio of products that are almost the opposite of everything that Anheuser Busch is known for. They’ve got a portfolio of products that includes craft beer companies that have the reputation that it takes to sell a craft beer. I think they’ve got a hard seltzer brand in there or highball energy, which is which does hard alcohol is different. All that stuff. Yeah. Babe Rosie. And so that’s what it is, by working through this organization. They could come up with new ideas that don’t replace what they’ve got, oh, maybe I guess at some point, replace it. But they’re thinking differently and creating things that are outside of what they what got them where they are now.
David Kidder 58:45
Yeah, I mean, what you’re doing is is that you’re creating the model of permission where the leadership can invest in funding needs the world without having to know all the answers it breaks the addiction to being right, because you have to be questioned driven leadership when you’re doing small little things that you value because it’s like raising a child, you know, it’s like zero to, you know, zygo to five year old to 10 year old and ugly teenager that’s like a seed a VC round. Every one of those stages is a completely different set of questions. But they’re not coming in answers other questions, because you can’t ask a little kid, how fast can you run? That’s like saying, What’s your IRR? What’s your marketplace? value? What’s your, you know, what are your metrics? You know, and nor can you give them you know, even worse, which is, you know, I’ll feed you if you can promise to be an Olympian, which is ridiculous, right? It’s a it’s a novel. So, you know, you have to create a model allows you to run a very large experiments, a lot of failure, productive failure, so you get to the truth, to answer questions. Should we do this? That’s not planning and so that skill, the mindset mechanics, the blends I talked about earlier, you’re looking through a complete different set of lenses and a different questions will answer the question, how big could this be? What surprised her gift and Should we do it and that’s what the model does.
Andrew Warner 1:00:00
All right, the website if anyone wants to go follow up with ionic it’s on by ionic.com.
David Kidder 1:00:07
Yeah, so that’s the one for the company. If you want to see my speaking it’s David escolar, calm and then there’s all the books have different websites read the title, but those are the primary ones. And, you know, I’m happy to share the story to the top of anybody’s needs. There’s a lot of people this goes transcends even business. I think there’s a lot of work we’re doing about igniting growth is really about the interior life of the leader. It’s not just the money in the startups, it’s really about themselves. They are the ceiling. They are the permission of change. And I think that’s a human thing. It’s a human experiment as much as an economic one.
Andrew Warner 1:00:41
The book where you get into that it I feel like the one that I first found out about you because of is the intellectual devotional? Right, right. Is that the one that puts you on the map that got you in people’s heads?
David Kidder 1:00:55
That was it. That was for me, it was a really proved the That eye opener because it was very, it still is very, very successful book. It’s an 18 languages, it’s what literally looks last year 10 years later, the first ones in the top books in all of Japan. We did five of them and they’re really five minute day readings, you know, so every Monday was history, Tuesday’s literature, Wednesday, philosophy, science, math. And I wrote the book because I needed it, like, you know, that was listening to your ideas because of your need. And so I wrote it with a with a co author and who I love and illustrated it spent a year in my basement trying all the images got me back to the design Fine Arts after being away for a long time. And, you know, it was like literally number one for a while. So it’s really a critical success. And it really taught me the value that voice value what you deeply care about value your needs, and you’re probably not alone in the world that need and you know, what success favors those who act and so most so many people literally just don’t act. And so, the dog what You know, sell yourself to the dog that caught the car, go get the contract, force yourself to do it commit, creates extraordinary outcomes. And that book really taught me how to value that, but also to lead myself and how to commit and get back to the things that I cared about.
Andrew Warner 1:02:16
And the premise of the book is, religious people have some devotional that they read every day, a couple of pages that give that we connect them with their spiritual selves. You say somebody who wants on an intellectual level to to work on themselves should have something similar. And so that’s what you did. And it covers I see history, science. Religion, is this Noah? Yeah. from the book of Genesis, all right, that’s where I first found out about you and I had no idea there was so much more behind the man who wrote the book.
David Kidder 1:02:48
Well, I think that I think that book is in more bathrooms than you know, most books of the world today. It’s kind of hilarious. It’s a great tool. I love it and people teach to it. I was at a dinner party. Tad 12 was really 10 years ago, and I was at a dinner party with a bunch of like 10 people, and one of them was a very famous actress. And she said, she said, Did you know like, Steven Spielberg gives this book out as his holiday gift every year. Wow. And my response was, how would I ever know that? Like if I asked you to Spielberg’s holiday list, so it has this very interesting funny called following and just karmic connection, the world that I get a chance to run into periodically, which always amuses me.
Andrew Warner 1:03:26
But yeah, it’s good. It’s fun. The book is the intellectual devotional. It’s available everywhere. I want to thank you so much for being here. Thanks, David. I know you’ve got so much to take care of right now. We’re going to figure out what’s going to happen to the economy now.
David Kidder 1:03:39
I know it’s a normal thing. But if it does, I think that the with abundance mindset, you can use a lot of choices that there’s a lot of opportunity, and we have to like, we got to solve it. So it’s gonna be good words for a new era. So I hope this era is good for you and good for all of your listeners, and it certainly will be for us. So thank you. Thank you.
Andrew Warner 1:04:00
Thanks. Thank you, everyone. Bye
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
