What The Funk?

0:00 We're back

0:02 after a long or tech week, and Jason Webster, and even longer week for you. I can't wait for you to get into the story about putting water in your gas tank and all of the fun that that may cause

0:17 PSA to anybody listening, don't put water in your gas tank, not that it was Jason's fault. We'll jump into all that and much more with the spirit data team that we have going on here Jason Webster

0:30 had come on tripping over the barrel. He was our last guest, actually, just a couple of weeks before Tim passed away. We recorded an episode that I've listened to probably four or five times just

0:40 because of when it was recorded and a meaningful one for me and I think for Jason and I know for Tim as well that we were able to squeeze him in as our 97th recording of tripping over the barrel and

0:54 Kevin Ludbrook, kind of your typical long-time listener, first-time caller. coming into this call that Kevin heads up, Spirit Data out of Calgary, where I think you're the CEO and Jason's the

1:06 president, right, Kevin? That's the correction. Awesome. So, you know, Jason, we'll get to you in just a minute. We wanna put the focus on Kevin today. Jason's stepping in as like a guest

1:18 co-host and think these I 'cause daughters my in asked best question a probably? Well, man, you are Who? fuck the what of audience the tell you don't why, Kevin, Ludbrook. Mr. So friends are

1:19 dudes two

1:33 they'd give you this straight shot. There we go.

1:37 Yeah, who am I? Warden raised in Alberta.

1:43 I'm treated from outside of Edmonton, kinda born in the middle of the oil field up there. And grew up in the country. Dad was a mechanic. We had a couple of shops at tow trucks or tow cars for

1:59 lifts. and I could move, you know, pumped gas, delivered gas, drove buggy, building lease roads. That's kind of how I grew up. It was great. It was a great place to be from, great growing up

2:15 in the country. Lots of motorcycles and dune buggies and hiking in the bush and floating down the river and

2:26 all that stuff, so it was a great way to be raised Then, yeah, I left there, went to Southern Alberta to go to university in Lethbridge. And again,

2:39 kind of a small field there, maybe, but what was great is all the folks that I met. And our first company, this company was born out of those relationships, long-term friendships,

2:54 landed in Calgary, After New Jersey.

2:59 near almost school so it's stint in EC in the mining business, stint out east in Ottawa for a while with co-op and we've been work out there for years but primarily here in Calgary for a long time.

3:15 Canada all the way through, I love it. Jason, I need you to give the audience the Cliff's notes on you. I'm talking 30, 45 seconds. Who is Jason Webster in the most truncated version that you

3:28 can possibly do?

3:30 Perfect. Let's see, truncated version. You know, a software guy through, grew up

3:38 with the school, thought I wanted to do another program,

3:42 got to where I really enjoyed working with people more than keyboards and so kind of pivoted a bit into work man can roll and he really spent my career fostering relationships and helping put the

3:57 right storage using for alpamis to make your businesses run better. How did you guys meet? What's the genesis of this relationship?

4:03 Well, we spent a bit of time in, in, in, juvie together, and.

4:12 We, we met when we were both working at Corom, and, you know, rifrally I, guess, early on, right? And, you know, we, they bring the Canadians down to, to have meetings and whatnot. So we

4:26 got to know each other there, you know, through projects, a lot of the Corom team worked throughout together, depending on the systems that we were implementing. And, it asked so often on, I

4:38 guess, user conferences.

4:43 You know, around here, Corom is a core letter word.

4:49 I don't know, I don't even know what that means, but I just came up with it on the spot. It's my podcast, so I get to say stupid stuff like that. Kevin, I want to go back to, something that you

4:58 said, and this is, I've found this fascinating in my life, so I'm a little bit younger than you, I think, at this point. A lot. Yeah. Okay, a lot, fine, I'm 43. I grew up in really small

5:12 town, Plymouth, New Hampshire, population, I don't know, when the school's in session, when college is in session, maybe 5, 000. But in the surrounding towns, you're talking, some of them

5:25 have 400, 800, 1200. And I just, I couldn't wait to get out when I was younger. I just wanted to leave. I'm gonna officially start my life when I get the hell out of Northern New Hampshire. And

5:37 that's when everything's gonna be great. And I've had this crazy thing that's happened as I get older, that I really actually appreciate and love the fact that I grew up in a small town in the

5:48 middle of nowhere. And I'm curious, you said you're from a small town in what, just outside of Edmonton, Way out there, Canadian Rockies, right? You said, Doom buggies, motorcycles. I can

6:01 sort of picture it. Do you have some of that with you as well where you've been in the city now? I'm in the burbs, but 20 minutes from downtown Denver. Do you have some of that kind of nostalgia

6:13 and appreciation for that small town life now that you have lived in the city for so long? Absolutely, I mean, you know, and it's top of mind right now I guess if you're watching the news, we're

6:27 on fire here, literally, everything's ablaze. One of my best friends from growing up,

6:35 the house is no longer with its family. They sold it, but it was on the news recently and there's nothing but cinder blocks from the basement. And so it is top of mind, right? We're talking to

6:49 some friends that I was

6:56 raised with whose places have been hurt. you know, there's a lot of folks that are still out there. I know it, but oh, absolutely.

7:04 If I look back kind of at my career path, how I ended up going to the University of Lethbridge was a couple of bunnies from home, we landed down there. And then, you know, from there, I can

7:19 connect all the dots for you for all the people that I met, but that comes from that And

7:26 as recently as my young daughter's graduation, we were sitting at the table with some folks. And one of the ladies said, well, I worked for,

7:37 you know, JIKL. components. And she goes, you probably never heard of it. It's a small, you know, field valve company, et cetera. And I said, actually, I do, but I had a friend of mine,

7:49 Keith Bart's death that I was raised with was, uh, had a jack, low components and brought it into, uh, you know, in the Houston.

7:58 And that's it. And for such a small town, I was full of folk, but it was

8:04 probably about 800 people, and Evansburg was just cost some river, and it was 1, 500 to 1, 800 people at times. Metropolis. Yeah, no, exactly. But it was awesome.

8:17 And the fun growing up, the fun going to school grad class, I think high school was 38 kids. Oh, wow. I'm not gonna tell you where I ranked those 38 kids, you can just go with that, but. I

8:32 mean, you got into college, so I'm guessing it wasn't 37th or 38th, but, you know, 36th or higher, we would allow. You know, my high school is actually a regional high school, so it was big.

8:44 I mean, it was probably 800. My graduating class was about 170, I think the high school as a whole was about 800. But the, if you were to like, you know, kind of draw a circle around how far

8:57 people drove. It was a ways, man, you know, it was the high school sort of in an area and a regional high school. And and sort of gives you like, you know, there's probably eight or nine

9:11 different towns that fed into it. And they each had their own kind of culture and personality, despite the fact that it was so small, and even names, right? People who had lived in certain towns,

9:23 like that's where their family had lived for years and years and years. And I said, there's no way that's going to be me. And it won't be me. I'll never go back there. There's just not as much

9:32 opportunity. But with COVID and the shift toward remote work, I could actually see spending a little bit more time in the middle of nowhere in New Hampshire, in the summers than I ever could have

9:44 before. Because now you can stay connected, basically, anywhere and they have cell towers, which they didn't have in the

9:52 90s when I was there. Jason, as well, right? I think you're from Dallas, Texas. Yeah, it's pretty small. I think there's, I don't know, maybe a couple million people now, but yeah, I know.

10:04 It's funny, like, here you guys talk about this all the time, like, it's almost like, you know, on the opposite, like, you grew up a city kid. Back to, you know, I were talking, you

10:13 decided to go full cowboy wedding last week. Yeah, dude. Nominated Texas, and I don't own the pair of boots nor a cowboy hat. So it's, you know, between San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas, you

10:26 know, it's a pretty city, but, you know, it's sort of going the opposite way. I enjoy getting out, you know, at the lake, there's not a whole lot of people at the town we live in, or how

10:35 about the lake is, I think, operation of 1500 maybe. And so it's sort of the opposite of seeking that out after growing up in the city, my whole act to be able to handle a little bit of less

10:47 paradise and peace be quiet at times Yeah, I mean, of course, you know, when all of your toys like your car and your mode are actually working. I'm sure that's when things are nice being

10:58 embarrassed in the middle of nowhere, when they're not. You told me a funny story about that actually kind of riding shotgun with the tow truck guy this week. And we'll get into all that in just a

11:10 minute. I want to go back to so you guys met in juvie slash quorum probably going back away. It's like Jason, you were a quorum for 16 and a half years. And I know Kevin, you've been doing the

11:23 spirit thing for a while. So you guys worked together. Jason stayed at quorum. Kevin, what happened with you? You you branched off and kind of did this whole spirit data thing. Give me sort of

11:35 that evolution. Yeah, we so spear was bored out of a company actually was friends and I from university. We started this call or the focus, which was the previous coffee and my brother was in

11:53 there as well. great company, we had a nine-year run. And we separated this spirit out from there. This is part of, to experience, I stayed with Focus. Focus was subsequently sold. And a

12:09 friend of mine from the university, Roland LaBoum, was heading up to Canadian office for him. And he said, Yeah, you got to come over here and give us a hand. So I went over there

12:20 And I probably met Webster at that first user conference, which was that 2007 thing. When, obviously, I was like 19. But yeah, and it was seven years ago, and it was fantastic. And I

12:41 really enjoyed it.

12:44 Then there were some changes here at Spira, and our board said, Hey, would you be interested in coming over here? And I thought, Yeah, you know, seven years. I

12:54 a little change and refocus. So I jumped in here, which was now nine years ago,

13:02 but yeah, so seven years there. And what's funny is LC. here at Spiero, who's our director of consulting and delivery. My first job, my first day at war, we walked over and I

13:19 started a project with LC. She's right out of the university

13:25 at

13:31 that time. So it's out of this whole group moving along with us. Small world stuff, man. So building tech in

13:38 2006, 2007, or before that, even for Spiero, you set out of university, and then scaling a company, growing the company, the tech must have changed, right? Like I get to the thesis of

13:52 handling field ticketing and being in operations, resource planning platform is still the same. But talk to me a little bit about the evolution of the technology, just to keep up, like versus when

14:04 you built it to what it is today. How different is it?

14:12 Well, that's a good question. So in some respects, it's the exact same. And I'd say the fundamental business problem and maybe this is a comment on the whole industry, but the fundamental

14:25 business problem at that time was folks were doing everything by paper. They were

14:33 transporting that paper

14:36 in a kind of a Tupperware container on the Greyhound bus from these remote areas to the head office. And what's interesting is we can cite you examples that still happen, right? through still folks

14:52 out there. they're doing it that way. And it's a combination, we get asked who's our competitor? Well, paper and Excel. And a lot of cases still, right? But from a pure technology standpoint,

15:05 I mean, Rev, one of this was built on Microsoft Access. Okay. And it

15:13 evolved through VB6, and then now we're like fully SaaS based, and it's, you know, it's real slick But in 2007, rolled out our first offline tablet version of the remote capability of our product.

15:32 And

15:34 which, you know, how long do you got? We can talk about that, you know, being

15:41 an online data store on an Apple product in 2007 was a bit of an undertaking But yeah, so technology wise, I mean, holy cow. everything's changed, you know? And the volume of data that we're

15:55 processing now versus what we were processing then, but the fundamentals of the business issue were resolved are, it's the same. Same. With a much broader footprint of course, with what we do.

16:11 Yeah, yeah, and it is a problem. Jason, we talked about this even at RTEC this week that as much as technology has evolved and shifted and improved, within at least oil and gas in the field,

16:30 it's probably what, like 70 still done via paper, and maybe 30 has been digitized to this point. And it's like, we've taken some strides and some steps, but for the most part, like we still talk

16:46 to port-a-potty companies. We'll talk to oil field services companies. with 40, 50 trucks out there. And they're still writing things down pen to paper. Like you'd be amazed, right? And it's

16:58 business is still somewhat efficient. They still get the job done. They find a way to put their accountants to work and make them the company profitable. But man, there are easier ways, right?

17:10 How do you get people, Jason? I guess this is for you to shift that kind of thinking. 'Cause you're really talking about, we've done it this way for a long time And guess what, it works. We make

17:22 a lot of money, we're profitable, we can stay in business. Why do I need to change? Like, what is kind of the general response to that?

17:33 You know, it's interesting, you know, I agree, 70 or so paper. And even part of the paper part, like, some of it's not even paper. Some of these guys want to write it down, they just pick up

17:45 their phone and call the back office. They hear it, right? It's something to be worse than having a quilt paper drill. But you know, when we talk to some of these pursuits, we go after, you

17:56 know, and I actually talked to one of the guys at Spiro a while back, and he'd say, Hey, give me one of the most technically unfriendly people you've got, and let me put it in his hands and let

18:06 him prove it out. So you send a degree, it works out in your favor, because sometimes that person, like, I'm getting tested here and actually works harder than some of the other people. But most

18:17 of them, it's like, Hey, pull your phone out And he's got a phone and I'm like, Hey, can you show me something real quick? And you watch him on his phone and he's just fine. I'm like, How is

18:23 that any different than this? Which has got less buttons than your bank app or Amazon just logged in too. You know, it's simple. And so, trying to relate them back to, Hey, you're using these

18:34 devices for the rest of your daily activity. Why not do it for here? And by the way, instead of going back to the hotel, I'm gonna have to write stuff down and see it in an hour after you're off

18:45 the clock Why not do it while you're on brewing? kind of talking to some of those, those things, I think it's these guys that kind of realize it's not as hard and, you know, changes hard for

18:55 everyone, but when you start putting it to, you're already doing it the rest of your life, you just didn't really realize it. It's, you know, cell phones, then flip phones, and now it's our

19:03 phones, like, come to be, um, it's just really kind of putting in the context of you're already doing it, um, just doing it for work as well. And it's, it's helped, but it's still hard to

19:13 kind of, you know, got people don't ask you.

19:16 Much like the bigger ERP systems, like, I'm close to kind of retirement aid. Y'all don't want to do any of this stuff anymore. I just want to get to the sunset years, but, um, you know, once

19:25 you kind of walk them through it and baby steps and they look, we're not asking you to move mountains. Let's just do a couple of fields to make your life easier and make your business more probable.

19:35 It starts to resonate a bit more

19:38 Yeah, and I think the thing that, Jay, we talked about this just this morning, as tech guys, right, we will fall in love. with the most slick, sexy features, whether that be dispatching,

19:52 mapping, real-time tracking, business intelligence, dashboards, right? Beautiful reports. But truthfully, companies might see those in a demo and say, man, that's really awesome. That's not

20:04 why they buy your product, right? They buy it to take care of the lowest hanging fruit, which is like you said, writing things down by hand, people calling into the back office, right? People

20:14 getting literally their greasy fingers on a piece of paper or a piece of paper flying out the window, right? Then actually replacing that with technology. And then the other stuff, even though we

20:26 love it and you've spent a lot of money in the tech and investment to make it look a certain way, that's not actually why people buy, right? That's where you get to once you're mature on a platform

20:37 and an application. Kevin, I want to bring this back to you a little bit, right? So, so, spirit, you guys built this. for the field to be able to first and foremost digitize electronic tickets.

20:51 And I'm guessing, at least if I were you, that if we could do this and help companies in the brutal freezing cold in Alberta, where they're out, where they don't have connectivity and they're

21:03 still able to enter data, man, we could do this anywhere. Has that sort of been how you've grown this company in terms of expansion and working where like, hey man, if we could do it here,

21:21 Yeah, it's been a factor for sure. I'd say the onset, you know, you talk about, you know, the whiz bang and the wonderful things that we can do and how sexy

21:35 it looks and everything. At the onset, it was about getting service companies in worst made and you could reduce the cycle of, you know, the days outstanding

21:44 that they had. And that's, it's still really easy to show the value there

21:50 But for the folks that we had, in most cases, and as you can imagine, like I said in

21:58 2007, an iPad tablet running on, you know, out in the field, came with its challenges. But it

22:05 really was the benefit of getting, you know, getting invoices paid. And then there's, there's magic that happened on field tickets long before technology and That was, you put your guys payroll.

22:20 on your revenue ticket, and the tickets just magically make it into the office, right? And they're correct because folks want to get paid. And to be able to do that on an electronic ticket as well

22:32 is the same magic happens. The information's good. We can do a lot through controls and rules and stuff. But at the end of the day, everybody wants to get paid, so they're going to throw the

22:43 information out and make sure the tickets get in, right?

22:47 But interestingly enough, and this kind of ties back to the small town thing, too, a lot of folks between the US and Canada in the oil field are tied. And it still amazes me if I'm down in

23:04 Oklahoma City, and I'm talking to somebody. And they go, oh, yeah, I was up on Calgary. Do you know - well, it turns out I actually do, right? Proving that all Canadians know each other Yep.

23:16 It's asking what we want, right? But it is a real small business. And what happened is we'd have people up there and they were down in the US and they'd go, Man, you got to try this because it

23:28 works. And it was really easy to minimize the ad man that folks were doing out in the field. And that's really more than anything out of the group. Yeah, to understand that the oil field here in

23:40 Canada is a 14 block radius in Calgary. I can walk down the street here and encounter so many people on any given day. And then try and string two meetings back to back in Houston in one day,

23:57 because

23:59 it's so spread out. So it's different in that regard. But yeah, it's really about people that had used the system and drawn us with the world to their into the new companies. I'd say that we're a

24:12 little more sophisticated on marketing and sales now than we were initially That's

24:18 what I'm talking about right, it's worded mouth. in so many cases.

24:22 Still is, referrals are still the best form of business. And I think there's like a tipping point, right? Once you have sort of a certain amount of customers, like the way that you've seen your

24:33 growth in Calgary, is the way that it's likely gonna happen here as well. You just get enough people talking, people leave one company, go to the next, they bring you with them. Although we have

24:43 seen a lot of sort of competitors and companies pop up to spirit data, which makes sense, right? It's an acknowledged problem that field service companies, service companies of any kind, they

24:55 just wanna get paid quicker and whoever's paying them wants transparency into the amounts that they really should be paying so that they can pay quicker. And it's something that goes well beyond just

25:07 oil and gas also. Jason wanted to go back to you, right? So you finish up your time at Quorum, right? You're probably thinking maybe I'll play a little bit. golf. I'm going to start looking for

25:20 my next gig. I want to stay in energy tech. How did that lead you back to Kevin? You

25:29 know, it's interesting because, you know, I did play a bit of golf after corps.

25:38 I'm in, you know, I wasn't sure I wanted to stay in energy tech, right? It began, you know, and then after I wore tech in general, or do I like this pure consulting? And so I'd be a lot of

25:48 soul searching. And then ultimately, you know, I like what we do with fear. I like people aspects. I like the technology aspect. And, you know, I do enjoy energy, quite a bit. And so you

26:01 just started having some conversations and some lunches and kind of going back to, you know, it's a small world, you know, in this space, you know, had lunch with a couple of people that I

26:11 really like working with at Spiro who come and gone and just reconnected us. And Santi is one of those people who.

26:18 She was at Quorum, I think until about 2010, but I worked for her early on in my career in the kind of consulting space. And she was just kind of telling her what I was looking for, what I was

26:29 interested in. And she's like, well, you should talk to Kevin. You remember Kevin? I was like, yeah, I mean, it's been a bit since we last chatted. And so, we left that lunch and I wasn't

26:39 even at home and already had an email from Santi, to Kevin, connecting us. I think the next day we had a chat is kind of like, Hey, what are you even up to? What are you guys looking for? What

26:49 am I looking for? And if it really was just sort of the networking connections and the fact that she kind of what Kevin was needing and wanting, and it kind of masked what I was looking for, it was,

27:01 again, just those relationships playing together. So, it's not just winning business. It's also how you make your network and your own career path as well. Well, there's not, and Webster's wife,

27:12 Lacey, gave me a call and said, Look, man, He's been here for a few months now. I gotta

27:19 get him out of my house. My daughters are getting sick of him. And so, I mean, Kevin, how pumped were you then to say, Hey, I got a free agent right here who I know, who I trust, who's a stud,

27:33 who I worked with before. Like, talk me through your mindset when you said, Hey, I got this guy out there. I'm not letting him get away. Well, I mean, maybe Webster should turn his speakers

27:44 off for this part, if I don't want to go on with all of himself. But two points to that. One is, Sonti is one of these gifted people that understands who's gonna get along and

27:59 who's gonna work well together. And she's just, she's that person. She hired me, you

28:08 know, that was kind of one of the final interviews that formed, to, I had to go down and he said to me, Skippy, and Scott Leeds, and Saatchy, and.

28:15 I made it through there. So if you ever get a chance to talk to her, ask her about the jackass that showed up in a double breasted suit. She didn't want to hire me. But she's one of those people.

28:27 And you can go down a list of people that are at quorum today and that are no longer a quorum, and they'll all pretty much give you the same story. And so yeah, when she said Webster was available,

28:39 I mean, we were probably not even a full week out that we had a conversation that started talking And we that, you know, try to grow

28:51 the states before. And it had different people. And it's tough, you know, remotely. You know, when you're not part of the bigger office, because I was the flip side of that here in Canada with

29:04 a quorum. And so I lived it. And, but yeah, Webster and I ran out of the gates. You know, we're car guys.

29:14 He sends emails at three in the morning, you know, like all the things that you kind of get a line on and then you realize that you're, you know, this can be a lot of fun to do it together. And

29:26 if you got somebody that gets it, it was, I mean, we got things turned around pretty quickly. I was very excited and saw that, you know, the timing was going to be good for us and what we were

29:36 trying to do with the push into the US Um, and I'll tell you what, man, it's been, it's been fantastic having went around. Um, you know, it's first thing that he did was he, uh, he didn't

29:49 implementation just so we could get an understanding of what it is, you know, cause it's a sort of side is a little bit of difference than what, you know, than what Orm has. And, uh, but you

30:03 got a, you got a, you got to dig through it to really understand what our, our footprint is big. And you can't do that by, you know, reading the path, let's you got a, if you're going to talk

30:11 to the right, if you're going to sell it, as you go on, for sure. There's a lot of moving pieces there. So yeah, it was it was fantastic. And, you know, I ever since we're just, yeah,

30:25 things are just all moving in the right direction. Webster's been a big part of that quickly after joining, you know, he moved to president role and now he's on the board. I don't know. Should I

30:37 be worried? He's on the board. Oh, I would talk to him much differently if I knew that. Geez, Jason, thanks for letting me know that part. Now, I, you know, from my perspective, and I've

30:48 talked to both of you about this, Spira was tangential. It was a company that had a footprint in Calgary that wanted to do some business in the US and had kind of dabbled, and I think the move to

30:59 bring in somebody like Jason, or Jason himself, was really where you announced we're very serious about the US. And I think there comes that point for every Company and I've seen this a lot because

31:11 a lot of the best oil and gas tech has come out of Calgary, and it's moved down here. You look at the whole kind of ossernos suite, right, with

31:22 the oversight crew and energy navigator and Peloton, right? And the spirit data isn't even Dakota analytics from the consulting side of things. It's consistent where, I don't know what it is, man.

31:34 Maybe those winners are really long, you don't wanna go outside, but you guys figure out how to build great tech, and then the challenge is, all right, see in Canada, once you build great tech,

31:44 and like you said, 14 square blocks, where it gets out in the plus 15s, people know who to buy the tech from. The US, man, it's different, right? There's much more digital. Things are very

31:56 spread out. You need territory-based reps and different geographies. You need to have a little bit more of a strategy. It's like, well, that's weird, what we did up here, even though we're

32:06 selling to the same industry that has the same operations doesn't work down there It's like, yeah, it requires a. different type of investment and mindset, the companies that do well coming down

32:17 from Calgary to the US embrace that, the companies that fail, simply keep banging their heads saying, it worked this way up here. Why is it not working down there, right? And it's been kind of

32:28 fascinating for me to observe, but I think Kevin, that was sort of your stroke of, all right, well, we're gonna push our chips in with this dude, right? And Jason, like, you know, there's a

32:38 level of risk that you take too, which is, okay, I know this is gonna have to be different. And what you're constantly gonna have to tell the people that are on the board with you and other execs,

32:48 and just teammates in general is, I know that you've done it this way, but this is a different market. We have to do it my way. And until you have enough kind of revenue, and credibility at this

32:59 company, it doesn't matter what you did at Quorum. Like, that's just sort of how it is, right? And, you know, you've built that, and it's been really cool to see what's happened for Spear in

33:08 the US and how you guys attack that market.

33:12 to jump into the say do quotient, because frankly, it's one of my favorite things that I've been exposed to business-wise over the past really two and a half years. Talk to me about the say do

33:25 quotient. Where did you come up with that? Is there a formal mathematical algorithmic answer to say do or is this based on feel? Because I feel like this should be something that should be on

33:37 bumper stickers. You guys should wear t-shirts, spirit data The say do quote. Tell our listeners about it, because it's so simple, but it's so badass. So that term say do ratio actually was from

33:54 our chair in Glenby, Scott. But it distilled down. So as a management team, as an executive here, we try to get things down to just simple clarity, right? Some tag things that we can do to make

34:08 sure that people are focused.

34:11 What we've always said here, and this goes well before, maybe back to the focus days, when we had our consulting teams, it's, we don't get ourselves in trouble at delivery. We get ourselves in

34:24 trouble at commitment. And so drive everything back there. And so conceptually, that's simple. In practice, it's hard, right? You know, schedule's go over, people get sick, stuff happens,

34:37 but it is conceptual to say, when we commit, and that's broader than work. I mean, that's your kids, that's your wife, that's your family, that's your friends. Like, if you're gonna commit,

34:49 commit, and then follow through. So your say do ratio is what I say and what I do, how closely does that get 200,

34:60 right? But this concept of, you know, well, we're late on delivery why are we laying on delivery? Well, we, we've committed to four other things, right? that we shouldn't have committed to.

35:12 Okay, well, there's a risk right at the commitment. So, and then we've been touting that forever here since the onset, well, since I've been here these last nine years. And England v said, say,

35:27 do ratio, that's it. That's the, that's the tag, because it really is. What I say and what I do, close that gap. I don't know of anybody that's

35:38 100, but we have to be conscious about it in everything because it's our, our, our credibility. And certainly as an organization, and maybe in some degree, why, why folks are, why technology

35:51 is a tough sell, in some cases and whatnot, is 'cause there were a lot of early adopters that got sold a bill of goods that never happened. They had a lot of money. And so to the extent that we

36:03 can, our business is you and what we just not more complicated than

36:09 said we were going to do, right?

36:11 So to keep that ratio closed, that's gonna be our success. Is one hundred as close to what 100 say can you ratio to the home that we can get to? And do you feel like you have a say do bullshit

36:25 radar? Because you think in these terms, like do you sort of sniff it out? Like I got a feeling this guy's got a lot more say than he does do. Whether it be in an interview process or sitting out

36:37 with a client or getting sold something Like do you feel like it's kind of tuned you into thinking in more real life situations about the say do ratio? You know, we can't claim that one. That's

36:50 actually called the Spidey sets. And you're right. No, you're exactly right. And I think the more highlights you get, the more hair you lose, the better you are at spotting that. You just see a

37:02 lot and particularly on the sales front And, you know, where we had a. situation recently where we're going in and it was a fairly substantial deal we're trying to try to get and we're excited

37:18 about it. It's in a space we want to be in and the guys that were coming up against us as competition, we're going to do it all for free

37:29 and so you're trying to

37:34 continue integrity I guess

37:38 in these situations and go uh yeah I don't know do you guys spot that? Turns out they did and and that actually undermined the competition in that situation but the size of this project there was no

37:51 way they could do it for free right they just couldn't and it was an unreasonable uh you know ask of anybody that they would expect somebody to do that for free so yeah i i think that uh you know

38:03 that's body sense you know you you get that right away and our interview process is actually really good in that regard because

38:13 The process that we go through is so in depth and I think we figure that out very early on but Tiving the seat just helps yeah, it does it does you know I think that there's a phrase that that I

38:27 heard in consulting that I really love to again very very simple and concise shout out Adam Hutchinson stone bridge on this one. You buy cheap. You buy twice Right, and I would even expand upon

38:42 that one that you buy free by a noose Like it's just it's just not gonna work But but I've thought about that a bunch. I've seen it over and over again. You buy cheap. You buy twice Right, you

38:55 can't it just generally doesn't work and if it does well, I tip my cap right wait way to go You did some some black magic that I couldn't have figured out myself But then Magno was saying a lot like

39:08 this. That's just, if you get some from us and it actually works out, good for you. Just that's not the way life works in general, not just business. Jason, I want to, I want to shift to you a

39:20 little bit about the year, what planes, trains, boats and automobiles week this week. So we were talking this morning, man, both of us are tired. Some late nights in Denver at Earth Tech. But

39:32 your week started well before that in a load of shit Talk to me about the last six, seven days in your world and planes, trains, boats, automobiles

39:44 and all that. Yeah, you know, it's funny. I was thinking, Kevin, when you were talking about, you know, growing up and the gas stations and et cetera. And like, it's funny when we think

39:53 about, I'll get to a just sec, like what I've wanted to do. But, you know, just to be able to call Kevin. He was one of the guys I called Monday morning and was like, hey, can I knock this off

40:02 of you?

40:04 I'm not sure what is going on, and so we kind of chatted through it. Yeah, so, take my dollar out fishing Friday morning, had a great time, caught some white bass, it was awesome, fired up

40:15 Friday night. Nope, engines completely stalled and seized. You know, I was able to take it apart with my uncle and my brother and found out what it was. Got a partner next morning, got a fix,

40:26 it was awesome. On the way to get said part, I went to start my car and it was just like the most wildly knocking. Like it was, it was unruly like not fun And then it wouldn't start at all after

40:38 that. So as you know, Jeremy, I get a code to the dealership, which from the lake to the woodlands, I got to sit shotgun with the tow truck guy who was definitely not expecting me to catch a ride

40:49 with

40:53 him. It was an interesting trip back in the town. But yeah, come to find out the gas station close to the lake I filled up with coming back from Houston after meeting with the customer. I had

41:02 water in her gas and so it just wrecked the car So, now it's. Now I get to battle with the gas station and figure out, you know, liability, and yeah, figuring out, you know, getting to own the

41:15 fact that they sold me an off-ability goods. And so in this case, I bought once and thank for it three times,

41:23 but yeah, it's just been a, a mechanical kind of nightmare for me and it's, you know, learning a lot and, but yeah, it's been a tough week for automobiles and boats for me. So I have to imagine

41:40 you're not the only one that got gas from this gas station that basically wrecked their car. Like this could be very bad for them. Yeah, you know, it's interesting because, you know, you do have

41:52 research, you figure out in Texas, there's a government into you does these investigations and so you get them up all old and he's like, Man, you'd be surprised how often this happens He's like,

42:01 It doesn't normally happen to a person more than once in ever, but it's free but unfortunately.

42:08 like in this remote area, you know, I don't know if this is a PSA, but if you put premium in your car and you're going to like, you know, the backwoods gas station, it might be worth putting in

42:17 the lower grade gas, because if the previous stuff sits there for a while, whether there's water or contaminants in it, you know, less than learn, but yeah, I asked them and you know, I called

42:29 all the, all the neighbors of the lake and like, hey, one, stay away from this gas station, too. If you have any samples or hear of anything, let me know. These are, I hear, I'm not the only

42:37 one. Yeah. You know, it's also worth mentioning that, you know, the Mercedes are not nearly as famous to say the BMWs. I

42:48 think a lot of the German car makers ish, right? Man, I, I've gone through this nightmare. You know, I saw my first, like, when I first really thought I was rich and I was able to afford a

43:02 lease of a three series BMW. No frills, the most basic version whatsoever. It's about 15 years ago. I made it, right? I'm an entry-level drug dealer caliber financial financially successful guy.

43:17 And man, I got it brand new 30, 000 miles. I leased it. This thing was absolutely flawless. So in my mind, BMWs, man, they are the creme de la creme. And I decided, oh, no, probably about

43:32 seven years later, I was going to buy a used five series. Only had 36, 000 miles on it when I got it. Oh my god, man. It was one thing after the next four grand here, three months later, 1,

43:46 500 bucks, two months later. What is this sound? When it performed, it was as good of a vehicle as possible. But it's going to be really hard for me to shake the fact that I could barely get to

43:55 100, 000 miles on this five series

43:60 about taking out money literally from my kids' college funds to be able to have a vehicle to drive. What an experience, but I think I should fall somewhere in between, but I don't know if there's

44:12 any in between with the German cars. It's either like, it's a great experience or it's like what I just dealt with with my five series.

44:21 Yeah, buddy, I need to come up with or see if there's an acronym for either the Bends or the BMW, right, 'cause with the bow, I'm gonna be like, you know what folks dance for, right? And I can,

44:32 you know, he's like, break out another thousand. So, I'm like that for the Mercedes with the BMW, 'cause you're right, it's a few green here, there no matter what it is.

44:43 Yeah. Does end up all being the same, but, you know, there's a few car guys in the office here, and so everybody's slanging on everybody else. When the stop goes from

44:57 on, so We're going to see the BMW guys, you know. get to the podium in Canada this week at the F1 race or not. Nice. Well, I'll tell you, BMW for me, uh, at least at the end was broke man

45:10 walking. There you go. There you go. I'm the content guy, but literally it was broke man frickin walking to the bus station. A couple, a couple more things I want to bring up and then we'll,

45:22 we'll cut this thing off. So one of the questions I like to ask here and, and Kevin, hopefully you had a chance to dig into your memory bank for this, but do you have any memories that stand out

45:33 where either a sales presentation that you sat through or that you delivered yourself was wholly unforgettable and embarrassing. And if so, give that to the audience.

45:46 Well, I'll let Webster answer the first part of this. Let's say your controller gets what?

45:56 Yeah, hit my bus.

45:60 So don't ever use, let's say you're, don't don't ever use ever use somebody gets hit by a bus. This was, this was in a, this was in focus, like the previous company and proud of man Kuber and

46:17 presenting to this, you know, this executive team and recently, wow, you know, okay, so in the event, your controller gets hit by a bus and the room goes silent. And we get this. Yeah. Our

46:32 controller stepped out of in front of a bus two weeks ago. Oh, no. Yeah. You're going. Oh my god. That column, right?

46:44 And now let's say somebody critical in your organization gets hit by the lottery.

46:51 Yeah. All right. All right. Nobody dies in that scenario. And everybody's better.

46:58 Whoa, oh my God. Take that one off the table entirely. Don't use it.

47:05 So, you know, say somebody wins the lottery and needs to go retire, right? I'm never gonna say somebody gets hit by a bus now, ever again, and I'm gonna think about this in doing so. Let's do a

47:17 quick lightning round. I'm gonna throw it to 10 things on a little bit more of an upbeat note, guys. Thank you, Kevin. You really took that in an extremely dark manner, but I'll allow it

47:27 It's a little bit of lightning round. One, I say a word or a phrase, and you guys have to say the first word or two that comes to mind. Didn't prep you for this, but we got to do it, right? So

47:40 here we go. Saddle dome.

47:44 Dead. Yeah. Breaking beer. Well, oracle, oracle. Yeah. Air on beer, there you go.

47:60 uh, career starter. Yeah, depth,

48:05 that spirit data in three years.

48:12 More awesome.

48:15 Uh, uh, grow large is, yeah, growing in large. You couldn't say acquired, Jason. That might have put you in a weird spot Yeah, it could be the case. But yeah, you know, as we like to say,

48:31 you know, we're not focused on trying to build something to be sold. We're trying to build something that's good and good for our customers. And someone will want to buy it. We're not trying to

48:39 sell it. So I say just growing in large. Yeah. And truly that's where the best customer companies come from. Like I would imagine when Jeff Bezos was building Amazon to sell books, he wasn't

48:54 thinking of getting a 50 million exit because he had the best online. library for college students to buy books from, right? And if somebody is building a company to get sold, and I've seen this

49:06 happen too, where you get to two or three million and somebody loves your concept and pays 30, not 30 million dollar exit doesn't usually turn into a massive windfall for the acquiring company.

49:20 Final questions, so tell me, where do people find spirit data? Kevin and Jason, where can they find you guys?

49:33 Yeah, so website, spiritdatacom, we've done a lot of work and we're really active now on LinkedIn compared to years past. And so, if you find Spirit Data on LinkedIn, you have all

49:49 the two easiest places to find us.

49:54 Yep

49:56 SpiritAidedcom and

49:60 Yeah, we love to hear from people, I mean, it's,

50:03 you know, the activity that Webster and Rosie have done on LinkedIn and the, you know, the number of people that we've had reaching out and even through, you know, Max and yourself, it's people

50:16 that we haven't heard from in a long time. We've been at this 19 years and it's great. Some of the folks that are just, you know, reaching out, coming out of the woodwork, hey, you guys are,

50:28 you know, I worked with you back here doing this and lots of history. And so that profile raise is really great. We love to talk to your folks. Yeah. You know, and I guess final thought on that,

50:42 funk futures and spirit data, we work with you guys now for I think about 18 months. It's really fun to work with a company that has a growth mindset yet has been around for a couple of decades.

50:57 That's a big deal. because there's just a different level of measuredness, if that's even a word. Kevin, there was a point where we were kind of struggling. I said, man, I know we wanna get you

51:09 more. And you said, peaks and valleys, right? It happens. That mindset comes from being in the game for a long time. When you work with a brand new startup, everything's life or death that day.

51:21 And it really becomes a incredibly high pressure, stressful environment where you do things differently Taking a measured approach can really allow for growth over the long term. And I admire how

51:31 you guys have done that. And it's frankly a little bit of a breath of fresh air in an environment where everything with investors and startup execs needs to happen yesterday. So it's been an honor.

51:44 And as far as content goes, I do have to say, a lot more people are looking and watching and listening than are telling you that they're doing that. That's been one of my biggest takeaways here in

51:58 the past couple of years of having a podcast is people are watching, man, they're listening just because they're not commenting or liking every one of your posts. It doesn't mean that they're not

52:08 aware of what you guys are doing. So keep it up. Keep putting the good word out there and keep growing spirit data the right way, fellas. Thank you for your time. Make sure you drop in the bottom.

52:17 Yeah.