ISI Brotherhood Podcast

97. 3 Unsuspecting Ways to Simplify Your Life

• Aaron Walker & Kevin Wallenbeck

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"If you’re facing financial problems, relationship problems, starting your business… what do you do to simplify your life?" Charlie Cichetti shares his transformative, chaotic journey from a tech start up to a successful business exit. How did he simplify his life from starting his business to selling it? 

Key Takeaways:

  • How do you get rid of the fear that if you don't follow the next fad, you'll lose your customers? 
  • How do you let go of opportunities when you're too busy to do everything? 
  • Charlie's crucial decisions that lead to starting a business in 2008 and then trying to sell it in 2023
  • When is the right time to sell your business? 

Charlie opens up about his battles with cash flow issues and toxic partnerships, sharing how mentors and the Iron Sharpens Iron (ISI) community provided crucial support. He teaches us about resilience and the power of staying focused on our unique paths amidst FOMO.

Our discussion wraps up with insights into creating financial security, setting clear boundaries, and building a leadership team that shares your company's vision. Don't miss this episode filled with practical strategies for achieving entrepreneurial success and personal growth!

Iron Sharpens Iron Community: https://go.viewfromthetop.com/community
LinkedIn Group: https://www.viewfromthetop.com/group

Connect with Charlie Cichetti:
Green Building Matters Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-green-building-matters-podcast-with-charlie-cichetti/id1346854349
Charlie's Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charliecichetti/

Charlie advocates for LEED and the green building movement to thousands of people monthly as they tune in to listen to his weekly podcast, Green Building Matters. Charlie Cichetti is truly a green social entrepreneur who is motivated by elevating people and the industry to be the best they can be!

If you want to hear more speakers like this every month and be with the guys on the call, join the Iron Sharpens Iron Community today: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/isi-community

Connect with Big A:
View From The Top Website: https://isibrotherhood.com
The ISI Newsletter: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/newsletter
Big A’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronwalkerviewfromthetop/

Speaker 1:

Welcome to View From the Top podcast, where we help growth-minded men who desire momentum in their business, their family and their finances get through the valleys and up the mountain to their very own View From the Top. Hey, I'm so glad you are with us again today. Listening in man, I know that we are all looking for ways to simplify our life and often as business leaders, man, we just make things too complicated. So today we're going to dive into three unsuspecting ways that we can simplify our lives. But before I do, I just want to share a quick story about Joel.

Speaker 1:

Joel just recently posted about his journey in the ISI app community and man, he shared about how he was thinking he was a Christian some years ago and how that didn't make him one. And man, I tell you what Joel went through this whole list of things about how his journey through faith over time and how he's come to a place. And he posted that he got baptized with his son in there and he walked through us that whole story and we all got to congratulate him and celebrate with him. And man, joel just kind of walked away with. The takeaway was we praise God and diversity and just the other challenges that God helped him overcome prior to salvation, that God helped them overcome prior to salvation, and I think, as Joel stated it so well, too often we trust God for our eternity, but not for today.

Speaker 1:

So I'm grateful for a community of growth-minded, committed businessmen in the community, and you can check it out for yourself at viewfromthetopcom slash community and use the checkout code VPOD that's V-P-O-D, just for the pod listeners that's you and our audience and you'll be granted a 30% discount. So go check that out. All right, let's get moving in the podcast. We want to get Big A in and he's going to introduce our guest, our co-host, that's with us today as well.

Speaker 2:

Big A welcome, Wally. I hope you're doing well. We've got Charlie Cicchetti with us today. Man, I couldn't be happier. It's going to be really impactful. To be honest with you, Charlie's been a good friend of ours, Wally and mine both. Charlie's been in the community for like a decade now. I look back now and think, Charlie, this is unbelievable that you've been around for 10 years. But I think it's going to be a blast today because we've been on this entrepreneurial journey with Charlie and we've really watched how God has blessed him in immeasurable ways. He had a really successful exit not too terribly long ago. We're going to touch on that just a little bit, but at the end of the day, what we want to talk about is three different, unsuspecting ways that you can simplify your life. So, Charlie, thanks for being with us today. Man, how you been.

Speaker 3:

Gentlemen, great to see you, big A, kevin, thank you very much. Yeah, almost 10 years ago, moon River Ranch, big A, there in the middle of nowhere, texas, that first ISI retreat. And I just want to thank both of you first for always, you know, always being an encouragers. You know, kevin, it's been great to see what you're helping Big A build here in our community and our brotherhood and it just means a lot. So thank you and Big A, just you know, I love it when you randomly call me and I just needed to hear you and call me there and I hope you feel the same If I ever call you, you know. Okay, I got to answer the phone. Charlie's calling.

Speaker 2:

Oh man, I do Every time, every time.

Speaker 3:

What a wild year. First, life's about timing and after 15 years in the green building space, two small businesses, we grew them to about 75 employees. Between both, we did have a successful exit. So, I know we're going to talk about that, but I'm just excited to be here, share a little bit of my story and hopefully some others can relate to it and be encouraged.

Speaker 2:

Yeah Well, charlie, I'm really encouraged, man, first of all, that you're here, but I have to tell a quick story because you were there for the first time. I took about 50, 60 guys to Moon River Ranch in Texas and I've learned an important never take guys somewhere. You haven't been yourself right, because we're going down these dirt roads Charlie's in a BMW or something and we're going through mud holes and we're trying to get to this Moon River Ranch. But it ended up, charlie, you'll have to admit here publicly it was a phenomenal place. I mean, the place was beautiful. Just getting there was a little bit of a challenge.

Speaker 3:

I had a little business in Dallas and then it didn't dawn on me when I rented it was an Audi, I was feeling good at the rental car place and then all of a sudden I'm mapping it to Waco, texas, and I've only met these guys in January it's March, oh man, what I get myself into. But I'm so glad and I have lasting friendships from that first retreat and actually you had me do a TED talk there and that's where everybody got to see me talk about some things I'm passionate about and so glad that I was there.

Speaker 2:

You crushed it. You crushed it. That was good. Hey, man, catch us up, tell us what's been going on over the past few years and give the audience a little context of the reason that we had you on today.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, super quick. Background though Small town Georgia got a scholarship to Georgia Tech grateful for that but really got a business degree from Georgia Tech, even though it's a great construction engineering school. But I worked in commercial construction. That's where I interned, graduated and started my career. Commercial buildings, commercial construction, worked for a real estate developer and they were an early adopter of LEED and green buildings. If you guys, or any of the listeners, walk into a building that has this big plaque that says L-E-E-D, that means this has been stamped as a green building. It's better for the environment, it's better for your operating expenses, save water, save energy and so much more.

Speaker 3:

2008 happened that forced me and a couple of business partners to start our own business. No better time to start our business. I was a little worried at the time and you know what? It was a blessing in disguise, and for the last 15 plus years we built up our small businesses. One was a consulting and engineering firm that goes into all these buildings around the US, some international, and the other one's an e-learning company that I bought and we changed it to a subscription model. So I had these two companies serving the same industry and over the last three and a half four years coming out of the pandemic. Even during the pandemic, I also started.

Speaker 3:

I'm proud to have co-founded two technology startups here in Atlanta, and so that's one of my pieces of advice for someone that maybe one day wants a partial or full exit is you have to start working on your next identity I think I've heard that from both of you, gentlemen for example is, if you get a little bit of money here and you've lost that subject matter expertise, you're with the boss, you're a little bit successful as a business owner and you don't have that next thing, you know you can get pretty bummed out. So the more I heard that from circles of friends that have exited, or you guys, for example the more I knew I needed to be intentional, and so I had next to me technology startup co-founder, even though I wasn't in that business day to day, and I have my own podcast and I still love to teach in industry, and so I feel I was building up some identity along the way, and that would be my first tip that gave me confidence to maybe take a partial exit. So, really, early 2023, we had these two green building companies almost 75 employees between both of them really nailing it on our growth and our EBITDA. We really we broke through. We got into the different layers of leadership. We had a president over each company. That's my next tip is make sure you really do empower someone to really run the day-to-day operations and where are you really best going to help those businesses back? My role was more strategy, business development, travel around the world and just get awareness to not just what we do but help this industry Came really close to selling in early 2023 to a large company, blackstone, and they put together a SWAT team and a bunch of money behind it.

Speaker 3:

The multiples were going to be really good and that didn't work out. And so my wife came around the corner after they broke up with me on a Zoom call one late afternoon. That's when people break up with you and say I'm not going to buy your company and next thing, you know, she said look, we. So this was early 23,. Guys, here's my next piece of advice. My wife said look, we aren't ready to get a windfall. We need to learn a little more about money.

Speaker 3:

And at my house, you know, on the breadwinner, my wife does an amazing job with the kids volunteering. It's like a full-time job at the high school band, but she pays the bills here, and so we balance each other out, Even though I think we're pretty good with money. She was right, we needed to learn about money. And then the and then the other thing was she said I wasn't ready for someone else to cut my unlimited PTO or change some perks that I've built up, this amazing culture. And she said I'd get my you know panties in a wash, excuse me, or something like that. So for the next year we just kept running the business well and um and I worked on those two things to get ready, but we weren't for sale, um, but then we got approached by a strategic and we can pick up there later that's pretty cool, charlie.

Speaker 1:

I want to go back a little bit. Uh, you said you started uh 15 years ago, is that right?

Speaker 3:

yeah, I started our first company about 15 years ago.

Speaker 1:

Yeah so you've been married three years at that point uh, uh, that's right, you've done your research. Yeah, about three years all right, yeah, about how many. How many you're like? You're like wait a second, how long have I been married? Yeah, I saw you took a minute there. That's all good, you got it. You got it. And did you have any kids when you started the business?

Speaker 3:

Uh, yeah, it was. It was fascinating time. Uh uh, in 2008,. Tough year for a lot of people. Right, we bought our first house together in January 2008. We had our first son, blake, in June 2008. And I got laid off from a 2,000-person real estate development company in November 2008. And then, a few months after that, we started our first business. So yeah, we had Blake. He was less than a year old when we filed our first LLC which is a new hobby of mine, by the way but go ahead.

Speaker 1:

There's a lot of. So the reason I asked you that is I wasn't a hundred percent sure of the answers. Maybe it's not a great question to ask, but in your answer there are a lot of guys listening to this podcast today that are right where you were 15 years ago. They're on that cusp of like maybe they're started, so they're in the early startup stage. They haven't even got to growth stage yet. But point is is like another example of like hey, you know, you're overnight 15 years success. Right, you know how that works, yeah, so congratulations.

Speaker 3:

So our first office, it was a starter home just outside of Atlanta I'm in Atlanta, georgia and it was a three bedroomroom, two-and-a-half-bath ranch and out back it had this 300-square-foot building. You know some guys have a man cave. My wife said I had a man hut and this little hut out back and our first five employees.

Speaker 3:

That's right. Our first five employees would actually park in our driveway. Come around back, there was a and we had our first office there for our first couple of years, but there was no bathroom. So you had to come into our kitchen from the backyard and use the bathroom and make some coffee and we just had a little naked kid running around. You know, that was just the life we had at the time to get our company started.

Speaker 1:

That's so good, those are good memories. Thank you for sharing that and hopefully that can be an encouragement to guys that are in the early stages of their businesses, to guys that are in the early stages of uh of their businesses.

Speaker 2:

Charlie, we don't want to paint a picture that everything is just beautiful today, which it is good for you and you've got successful companies. I want to get into talking about schema just in a few minutes, but what? What I do want to ask is take us back about 10 years. You and I had numbers of conversations. Um, it always wasn't pretty right. There was challenges, there were some tough times early on. How did you work through those difficult things? To Kevin's point, there's people listening right now that they're alone, they're in isolation, and they have similar problems. They're facing financial challenges. They've got relationship problems. They're starting a new business challenges, they've got relationship problems, they're starting a new business. Like what would be a tip or advice to people that could help them work through those scenarios?

Speaker 1:

Life does not seem simple for them right now.

Speaker 3:

For sure, the people, human nature, we all need encouragement, but entrepreneurs need more encouragement than anybody. It's hard Two years standout big A Kevin, 2016, 2019. So 2016, I had two companies and they both, at the same time, had some cash flow issues and, man, that was stressful because, you know, llc passed their entities. That kind of put a little pressure on me and my wife financially and there were months where I skipped, you know, getting paid and I just, you know, really didn't want to do that. My wife's love language is acts of service and consistency. She loves it when I make her coffee and she didn't ask. And she loves it when I have a little money in savings. And she married the crazy entrepreneur. I'm really happy that we did have a capital event this year and I've been able to deliver back to her a little peace of mind.

Speaker 3:

And then, over here, I just had to work. I had to not just work harder In that moment, it's hard to work smarter. But I'm good at sales and I just hit the road. You guys know I spent a lot of time in New York City. I just went and that put a little pressure on the household. But you've got to over-communicate. This is a Gary Vaynerchuk thing Over-communicate, especially in your closest relationship. There is, hey, this is what I got coming up, this is what's going to be needed. Don't do it a day before or a week before, but just you know, hey, I'm taking that big trip to New York. I just want to let you know ahead of time and at least with my spouse, latrice, who's been amazing through this journey as long as I've somewhat communicated a little bit ahead of time so she can process it, it's just more accepting. I'm sure that is with your brides too, guys.

Speaker 3:

So 2016 was tough. We got through it, started growing. 2019, that's what you're talking about big A. I was ready to sell everything. I'm like just give me a million bucks, I'm done, I'll go do something else. That's not enough to network. But I just was too stressful and had a lot of business debt over here when the company I bought $32,000 a month payment. It's not for the faint of heart over here. And then I had some business partner issues over here and I had a toxic employee that I had to fire and I just had people that I trust that I could at least talk to about it, even if I'm not going to listen to their direct wisdom or advice. At least I had someone to talk to about it and I got to give it a shout out, Always been close just a couple mentors locally in Atlanta, but ISI really helped me there at the time, so stayed the course, took care of some business, got rid of that one employee that was toxic and bought out one of my business partners.

Speaker 3:

2020 rolls around. I'm feeling like, okay, I did that tough thing and the damn pandemic hits and I just learned to just be fully transparent and it really challenged my leadership with my team and luckily and I know not every business can say that a lot of restaurants, a lot of hospitality, a lot of industries were impacted. My industry guys green buildings, healthy buildings, sustainability. My phone's ringing, charlie. How do we make this a healthier building? How do I get people back to my building? Our business boomed and there was a lot more e-learning too, because these architects weren't commuting to work. They had more. They had newfound time. I can catch up on my continuing education units, so our businesses actually really grew through the pandemic.

Speaker 3:

One of your questions, guys, is you know, is there anything you know? You've done a little differently and I'd have been a little bolder sooner. I had handicapped myself because I had a business partner. There was only 15%. My mistake I treat them as if you were a 50-50 partner. That's my mistake. I shouldn't have done that. I should always have respected that person, who I still respect to the day and we have a good personal relationship, but I shouldn't have treated them as a 50-50 because they were 15%. That's a mistake I made.

Speaker 3:

Rolling into the pandemic, we did do the first batch of PPP. We were impacted, but you know what? Just having a little bit of money in the bank allowed me to go to my team more confidently and say, hey, we're okay, we also have this. I'm really grateful. We're part of the United States here on the SBA in this program and you know what it did? It allowed me not just to protect jobs but to go ahead and keep hiring. That's what it did for me. And then, man, we just blew up since 2020, and I'm grateful for that.

Speaker 2:

Charlie, you've been around a lot of very successful entrepreneurs through your journey, living there in Atlanta, the Mecca for entrepreneurs. You've been in Iron Sharpens, Iron Mastermind for a decade around a lot of very successful entrepreneurs a lot of very successful entrepreneurs. Did you ever struggle along the way with fear of missing out, what we call FOMO? How did that play into some of your decision making? Because that's one of the unsuspecting ways that we can simplify our life is not having FOMO. How did you deal with that?

Speaker 3:

FOMO. How did you deal with that? I think having adversity just in life, kind of even childhood, growing up fairly humble in the North Georgia mountains and getting a scholarship, being grateful for that. So I think some adversity here, but adversity in business like to know that I'm pretty resilient. And so the answer is, while I still need to work on big A, a little delayed gratification for some things in my life. I don't feel I truly wrestle with FOMO about when we talk in a minute hey, did I need to hurry and sell my company? Is the market going to crash? It just the answer for me is my own self confidence, my own self awareness that you know what. If I miss this one, I know that I will probably get another look, another opportunity. I'm fairly confident that you know what. While this is hard right now, that might be the easy button. Like I just have enough self-confidence in what am I capable of and in my control. That has helped me not suffer from like business FOMO, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2:

I was just going to say one more thing about that. In regards to what you mentioned earlier. You had a big number on the table with Blackstone and there had to be some FOMO going on at that time when they parted ways, Like that particular situation. How were you able to overcome that? Because you and I talked about that a number of times. It was going to be a big deal, it was going to do a lot of things for you. It would have been hard for me not to have FOMO in that situation.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'll never forget that moment Again. I was standing at this desk, the stand-up desk, right here. I'm working from home, mostly since the pandemic, going to the office kind of one-ish day a week travel a good bit. And if my wife wouldn't have come around the corner right when I hung up from that 24-minute call because I was immediately feeling I was going to be like, oh man, I missed and I don't know when will we ever get this opportunity again? You're right, big A, will it be that, that kind of valuation? And she was just right there, I didn't know it, like right here, and she just instantly said, hey, it's okay, we weren't ready. I'm not disappointed. We need to learn about money and you need to get ready that someone else one day is going to call the shots.

Speaker 3:

And man, fast forward to when we did sell our company a little over a year later. I needed that. So that helped me in that moment, you know, I think I knew that our company, it validated, our companies, were valuable in the marketplace and so, because we never still went for sale right, people had found us. We took the calls, we worked to some due diligence and we wanted to see. I just had a short list of non-negotiables and we came close, but I'm glad we didn't sell there. They're putting together amazing things with that group but they'd already bought a couple of companies like ours. We'd have been like third on the totem pole and whereas the strategic that we ended up selling to we are the SWAT team for sustainability work, for everything they do in the world and it's just different and I'm glad we waited.

Speaker 1:

Charlie, as you were building the business, though I'll give you an example of myself. So over the 18 years that I built a business, there were seasons where I would get caught up in FOMO, primarily around how I was like the activities. I was like the activity as I was actually doing inside the business. So I get concerned about market conditions, I get concerned about a competitor, right. So I started had this fear of like, oh man, if I don't do this thing right, if I don't add this feature or follow this fad, or I don't do this or I don't do that, that I'm going to miss out on something.

Speaker 1:

Did you like that was a real thing for me at different seasons? And by not doing that right as I matured over time, by not getting caught up in that FOMO, it absolutely helped to simplify right my life and just having the mental space and not doing too many things in the business at one time that that created chaos for everybody else in the organization that. Did you ever experience any of that? Or did you like have a really was it super clearly defined for you the whole time?

Speaker 3:

no, I mean, I think every entrepreneur, right kevin, has that for a certain period of time, until you just just build up that build up that school of hard knocks.

Speaker 3:

I think the one I hung on to too long was sharpening the pencil on proposals until some of my key lieutenants would come to me and say, hey, we will charge more, we're worth more. That small business mindset you're kind of like, oh man, what if we don't get that next decent proposal we sent out? So I hung on to that too long. I should have focused and focused my team on EBITDA sooner. That's one thing I would probably adjust. And so for me, I love creating jobs and I really love that we had just layers of leadership. Frankly, the company we sold to saw that Charlie was a nice-to-have, not a have-to-have, and that's the dream.

Speaker 3:

And it took a lot, but we did it. So I think once I surrounded myself with just a few others some were small equity owners and some weren't that we could actually kind of hash out some of these things. That really helped, because I would just try to observe what are they FOMO on and not me, yeah.

Speaker 2:

That's good, charlie, along the way, you're a sharp guy and I've seen the companies you've created and I've watched the ideas. You're like Wally and I we get out of the shower. We got three new ideas right. What kind of boundaries did you build for you personally and professionally, so that you didn't get sidetracked by the shiny objects?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, tremendous opportunity out there. And now, if we have time, we'll talk about the tech startups. I'm learning there's a lot of money in this world and people that will take a bet on your idea and catch this person has a little track record, let's go. That's a whole other conversation, part two of the podcast maybe. And I would say, you know, with business I just I needed early to get clear on what am I really good at in the business and what does it need for me? And and usually that was getting out as much as I'm productive at home in my home office, it's to go be in front of our customers.

Speaker 3:

I'm not always selling them, but listening to them. So I just, um, that helped me. Um, just just talking to customers helped me, just talking to customers. And then I had such a good relationship.

Speaker 3:

If we got into a new service or a new technology, I'm not going to hard sell them. I'll be like, hey, this is something else we offer. You may not know, but love to pilot with you, love to see if, because then I can help them be tech enabled or I can help them feel entrepreneurial through our relationship and so at least the companies that I've been fortunate to build a lot of those we do business with. Just what we're selling, it's just fun, it's just they like it. When we're calling upon them, no-transcript, it's just like. And so I just I always maintain that and I think guys that helped me just realize I need to somewhat stay in this box and if there's something new I kind of talk to someone I trust about it and if it just is like, no well, then I'd have to say not now, you know, I have this whole list of one day maybe.

Speaker 2:

Kind of a dream list, but these are boundaries that we're looking for that are kind of absolute right.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, that's right. I mean internally. I'm very fortunate to have both a virtual assistant in the Philippines Carla that I've worked with for almost 10 years now and she produces the podcast, helps with the customer service of our e-learning company and we meet on Mondays and Fridays via Skype and just someone there and understanding the difference between a virtual assistant and then over here a full-time executive assistant. And right now I have Jackie, who's been with me two and a half years and we just have a routine down on Mondays, wednesdays, fridays and get into it later if you want. But just that person and it helps that she's friends with my wife too can help set those additional boundaries and I'd be happy to just talk about getting that additional administrative support. I would not have been able to do what I did in the last four years without that kind of person or two people helping me and, of course, some presidents over each business unit business unit.

Speaker 1:

I wonder, does the idea of those boundaries? It doesn't always seem to me that it correlates directly to simplification, yet at the same time it's like it simplifies your ability to be able to do other things that really will have the impact and move the needle that you really want to move.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I'm a big fan of both kind of big rocks and then just visualization. So for me my routine, while I pretty much already plan my next week or two, for the most part is on a Sunday, actually usually before church, I'll just go ahead, I use Trello, I'll plan my week and really the things I've got to get done, and then I really tell myself and I tell my executive assistant, like here's the big rocks for the week. So what that does is then that Monday morning one of my hacks is the first two hours, 8 to 10 am, just my time. I call it deep work. Mark Twain, quote right, eat the frog first thing in the morning. I work Mark Twain, quote right, eat the frog first thing in the morning.

Speaker 3:

I like to do that first thing in the week and so, just once I, if we didn't get to something on Friday, I was okay to give myself permission to get back to it Monday morning. That kind of helps free up headspace for the weekend. But I just go ahead and say, look these things, no matter what I've got to find time for. So my subconscious, even if something crazy comes up, client call this employee situation. I just know without even looking at my to-do list.

Speaker 3:

I really got to get back to that thing because I've narrowed it down to three to five. Just these things will have to get done this week by me and it kind of my subconscious gets me right back on track. So so if you program in enough of that, then you have to give yourself permission to be creative. One thing I'll tell you after the sale I became more creative, if you want to go there. I didn't realize I wasn't as creative. I was very strategic up until selling our companies and I felt I made some good calls, but I wasn't as creative until after I sold the company. I didn't really realize how much it was weighing me down.

Speaker 2:

Charlie, do you think that's because of the amount of stress and you were so occupied with the strategy you didn't have time, you didn't have the space to be creative?

Speaker 3:

I think for me, big A it was a combination of yeah, I've signed up for a lot of things, some business debt which I am totally okay to leverage to scale and build the companies, but at a certain point I think it can. It's there. Even though you might not think it's there, it's there.

Speaker 3:

It was weighing on me, and then due diligence, if we have time to talk about it. You know it took six months to get our deal done and it took a lot out of me. So those things right there still made some good decisions, still took care of the team, gave out some big blessings later, but we closed our deal end of April 2024. And within two weeks, people asked me how are you feeling? And I just started feeling creative. Man. I just started getting ideas, and not even about new business stuff, just about personal stuff. So I started to feel a lot more creative and we did have a nice win.

Speaker 3:

It's not enough to go sit on the beach I wouldn't do that anyway but it's enough that we gave out a lot of blessings, paid off all the business debt we owe and I was able to make a sizable investment to the tech startup that we have 20 employees already going.

Speaker 3:

It's going places. It's amazing and that's where I am spending time and I just feel good about how the deal finally got there and it's a deal I would have done again. But you know it's not a forever capital event, but it's a capital event that I needed to get that first one put up some money to help my wife there with her peace of mind. Remember the acts of service, and I might not totally admit it, but it's kind of cool to have a little bit of money earning some interest right now. And you guys can teach me about that, because you know it's something new to me. I put all my money into my business over the years and I'm glad I did, but now I'm starting to realize, okay, you know, and I need to learn a little bit about investing and things like that.

Speaker 2:

Charlie, I'm going to use a quote on you that you've said to me for about five years, and you said it relentlessly. You said Big A, one day I'm going to take some chips off the table. You said that over and over and over. Do you think that's a way that we could put into the simplification of your life? It's given you a sense of peace, there's a little bit of security. It's okay to cash in at some point. So those that are out there today thinking about man, I'd like to stay here and run my business, but it's a great opportunity. What would you tell people about how this has simplified your life?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I do think that can help simplify. I'd rank it in this order of big A Because I didn't get to say that we were only looking to sell part of our company. I was kind of excited just to get a little capital in pay off some debt, finally have some money to like really scale. Because we had a ton of momentum and in the negotiations it was clear if we were going to work with this strategic, who's just a great company, it was going to be 100% acquisition. So I needed to kind of have that heart to heart with myself and I have business partners and I did. But taking some chips off the table, I was.

Speaker 3:

It's just selling part of your company. I think number one as entrepreneurs. It validates that hard work, that sacrifice, even if it's just selling 10% of your company. So I think that's the first thing. And then that leads to oh, we have a little bit of money. We might have deferred buying something or taking that trip, but we also just even if we just have a little bit to put up in savings you know there's a good likelihood those around you maybe your spouse would appreciate that and just a little security. And then I think it gets to the simplification. After that you have a little bit more means to maybe even hire that landscape company or that you know house cleaner or things like that that maybe you haven't yet.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's really good, charlie. Before we end today, though, I do want to talk a little bit about some of your new initiatives, and I want to be the first to tell you here today I think it's really cool how you've integrated artificial intelligence into the building information modeling. When I started really looking through that, diving in, you have really kind of disrupted that industry for the architects. You're making their workflow much easier. Instead of taking months, it's taking hours to be able to do some really creative modeling. Now Talk to us a little bit about that who's the brainchild behind that, ultimately? And tell us a little bit more about how you're disrupting this industry that ultimately and tell us a little bit more about how you're disrupting this industry.

Speaker 3:

I wish I'd have paid more attention at Georgia Tech accounting class because service-based companies are valued based on a multiple of EBITDA, usually, right, a multiple of your profits. Maybe most companies trade for between three and seven times EBITDA and a hot, growing green building movement and us scaling and a pretty damn cool team I put together amongst good friends, you know maybe we sold for something between seven and ten times EBITDA, so that's pretty cool. But over here, technology companies usually are valued on a multiple of annual recurring revenue and ARR and really can this be extrapolated? And if I open some doors for you can, and so next thing, you know the tech companies. Pretty neat how we get to talk to investors, tell them our story, talk about the team we put together, the technology we've already built and what's possible. Right, you get to think bigger, faster. Then all of a sudden you raise millions of dollars and it's like go build this thing as fast as you can. Over here it's well, we got a little profit on the service company. Let's hire that other person because we really need them. Let's get a little more profit, hire that other person. So it was the slow and steady but it worked out. Over here it's totally different. So I love learning, I love the challenge and it's a totally different way to build a company now as a tech startup. So, yeah, how Schema came together, everybody check it out Now. How Schema came together everybody checking out Schema S-K-E-M-A, dot A-I.

Speaker 3:

If I were to do a service-based company again, I would not have a 50-50 partner, and luckily I just only did that once. I would bring in smaller partners. For a tech startup it's just different. I need help. I don't know how to code, I don't know how to do this, and so just this team came together.

Speaker 3:

Some of my co-founders have been doing this for 25 years and they actually built. They were on the team that built the most successful product called Revit Autodesk. You know, you guys probably know CAD, 2d, cad. Well, they built 3D CAD and they sold it in 2002 and that kind of created this architect's drawing 3D now and they have for the last 20 years. So that team has had success in their career. Some of my co-founders guys have been CEOs of other tech startups and so we came together through mutual relationships and especially one of my mentors, errol Wolford, a man of faith, and so we just connected the right people and we happened to take over some technology from a team that had been building it in Europe but, they really hadn't made it into a product, and so, while the current version of our software is only part of that, it was nice to have a head start.

Speaker 3:

Five years in the machine learning and AI space. People with a great attitude that wanted this thing. They've been working on for so long, but they just haven't figured out how to sell it in the marketplace to architects and developers and the right people here that knew how to sell it because they've done it before. A crazy guy like me that's pretty resourceful. I can go find a little money to put behind it. I think I know how to hire some pretty cool people and say here's what we're going to do and that's what Schema is. So we've got essentially 20 employees.

Speaker 3:

It's not like we just started and so it's actually been years in development. Last year was our big ramp year, getting some additional pre-seed angel funding and then a seed round this year with some strategic investors, and so we've raised about $4 million and we are just going for it, man, and we're having fun. But it is an AI tool for architects and developers and it'll shave at least two months off of the design of every single commercial building. We're taking your greatest hits from your last few projects that were successful and we're just going to go ahead and give you a head start about a 60%, 70% head start on what you want to draw on this site. We're going to go ahead and fit it into your site. Then you pick back up and take it from there.

Speaker 2:

I like that because it can give you multiple options, and I also like it that you've really covered so many different divisions. You're in healthcare and education, hospitality, residential data centers I mean you're covering the whole market, which is really cool to see what y'all have done with that. I appreciate that and look at you, man.

Speaker 3:

You said my name right. You've been doing the research. You kind of know what I'm doing. I'm impressed. That's amazing. But thanks for the encouragement because, I don't know, if you noticed, it's the same industry that I just had a little bit of success in. So now.

Speaker 3:

I go to the architects that I did sustainability work, to the real estate developers like Heinz out of Houston Texas that hired my sustainability company for a 74-story building in Busan, south Korea, for green building and healthy building certifications, and over here I get to say, hey, here's what I'm up to now. Thank you for trusting me here. If you'd want to take a look at this, I think you might like it, because that trust transfers and so luckily I just didn't totally go to another industry. Some people do, some people can For me. I'm fortunate that my relationships and that trust is transferring and now I get to go kind of meet with customers that I've worked with for years, but with a different offer.

Speaker 2:

Charlie, thank you for being here with us today, as we've really dove into the three unsuspecting ways that all of us could simplify our lives. So I just want you to think through the listeners as you've listened to this interview. Be sure to go back and listen to it again if you need to, but it's really okay to think through FOMO and how you're going to discover that, for you, fear of missing out is not a fun thing and, as Charlie said, he's taught us how to overcome the fear of missing out. Think about the boundaries that you have. Have you created boundaries? Do you have trusted advisors? Do you have people that, on a weekly basis, that you can run these things by? Like Charlie said earlier, he had a sounding board and he had boundaries within his family and within his business.

Speaker 2:

And then, finally, the thing that I really like the most personally is how he talked about. It's okay to cash in, like we need to take some chips off the table sometimes, and that is okay because it gives our family a sense of security, it allows us to be more creative, and so I want to encourage you today to think through having FOMO, really thinking through how that you can build those boundaries to help you accomplish your goals and your dreams. And, at the end of the day, if you want to take some chips off the table, it's okay. So I just want to thank you for being here today. Remember, go to viewfromthetopcom slash community and join our ISI community. We have ongoing conversations like this each and every day. Thanks for being here. We'll see you next time.