What The Funk?

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0:50 Chase, no, y'all. See, you probably don't get to hear that accent nearly as much now that you're not in Texas anymore. not as much as I once did for sure. Although, I've heard a few people drop

1:02 y'all's up here, and it's a welcome sound to my ears. I'd probably know all y'all's? I had to explain, it's funny, I had to explain to my coworkers the other day, the difference between y'all

1:14 and that it can encompass, you know, like two people, maybe up to like eight people, and then for a group of eight or bigger, it's all y'all. And they were flabbergasted, they were like, but

1:26 you understand that you're saying all you all. And I'm like, yeah, 100 understand, I get it, but that's the way it works, is y'all could be just two people, it could be up to a semi, you know,

1:37 semi-sizable group. But once you get big, it's all y'all. Well, I was, Jeremy and I used to work for a company that was based in Calgary and I was up for one of our corporate meetings. We went

1:48 out for Appys and we're sitting at the bar, and the lady looks at me and she goes, all right, Tim, listen, I need you to explain to me between y'all and all y'all. And so I tried unsuccessfully,

2:00 not nearly as cleanly as you did, and then I used it accidentally, not on purpose, I used it in the conversation, not more than five minutes later, and she said, okay, now I get it. Now I get

2:10 it. Yeah, there's some overlap there, but I feel like you have poetic license if you're a Texan. Absolutely. Kind of when to use y'all versus all y'all, and then you get into fixing to go to the

2:23 store, all that stuff, and you don't hear any of that up here But I'll hear y'all every once in a while. This is good. We've talked to Texan, thank you. Thank you Jeremy for letting us go down

2:33 that path. If your last name's Naul, and you're from Texas, I mean, it's Naul y'all, right? Naul y'all, Naul's. All y'all, Naul, that is very good use of all y'all. Thank you. So funny

2:46 enough, we keep a personal family gmail account and there's a y'all and a Naul play on words in the gmail account. Clearly we've heard it. No Texans, no Texans and clearly you're a Texan. So

3:01 Chase, no, and Tim, I love when we have these episodes when it's somebody that I'm just getting to know, have sort of been tangentially aware of his success at drilling info and his path, but

3:12 didn't know on a personal basis. And you've never really met him at all, but had a chance when we came on. And I think this is a really nice episode for us to have because you're sort of in, we

3:23 got the Super Bowl in a week, let's think about like coaching trees, right? Like I view you as part of the Matt Wilcox and tree. Like for better or worse, like you're a younger guy that had a

3:31 path at DI. So

3:34 I want to understand like learn a little bit about you, you know, as a kid growing up into college and then tell me a little bit about your, your business side too. Yeah, sure. So Chase and all

3:46 born and raised in Austin, Texas and was born, both of my parents were the Marine Corps, that's where they met So son of two Marines born in Austin. And lived all over Austin, was really

3:59 fortunate that my mom was in real estate and got to live in a bunch of cool different spots in Austin, really got to know that city.

4:09 Went to a bunch of different schools and ended up graduating from McCallum High School and went on to Texas State University where I played lacrosse So, studied for four years at Texas State, had a,

4:24 you know, graduated with an international business degree.

4:29 And kind of had an interesting and meandering path. I actually moved to Japan for a little bit to go teach English that didn't work out for a number of reasons.

4:39 Ended up coming back, kind of got into like the startup game did that for a few years ended up moving to Denver Spinning here in Denver

4:49 bartending at a great a great restaurant called Lola that unfortunately just closed stores this past year. Where was that? I've heard that. It's over by like in the lower highlands, so you know

4:60 where Linger is? Of course, yeah. Yeah, so I remember when Linger was still only in the mortuary, Lolo was like two blocks down the hill from Linger. I think I've been there. Yeah. They used

5:14 to have, well, they always had a great patio, but they used to have this really incredible view of downtown because the lot next to them was just a vacant parking lot. A developer came in and

5:24 bought it and put in apartments, so then you lost the view. But when I was there, you had this great view. So anyway, I was there for about a year and then decided that I wanted to go do

5:37 something different. So I thought I was going to go to law school. Took the LSAT, was going to go to DU for law school, had a really,

5:46 I don't know, fateful meeting with a bunch of drunk attorneys at the bar, but I did not to go to law

5:52 school. It's all takes.

5:55 It was a really, like, life-altering conversation, habitat, all that story too, if we get to it. Anyway, what I ended up doing was going back to Austin and getting my MBA. I got an MBA in

6:05 entrepreneurship, and one of the teachers at the MBA program is a man named Ed Perry. And Ed Perry at the time was the president and COO of Drilling Info. Right. And so Ed recruited me to join

6:19 Drilling Info, and that kind of kicked off what I'll call my, like SaaS tech sales career, where I had a really fantastic eight year run with Drilling Info and now called Embarrassed, but I won't

6:32 call it that 'cause I was Drilling Info, not Embarrassed.

6:38 And yeah, I was really fortunate to then move on and run sales for a startup in Austin, Texas. And then my wife's originally from the Pacific Northwest. And so when we were looking for kind of our

6:50 next adventure, that led us up here And now I live in Seattle area and I work at a venture. capital firm and startup studio called Pioneer Square Labs. Just as funny, you mentioned not calling it

7:01 Envirus, calling it is always drilling info to you. You mentioned you went to Texas State. Well, my brother went to Southwest and refuses to call it Texas State. So there you go. So funny fact,

7:14 I was the I was the last class to go to Southwest Texas State University. My freshman year, the first semester of my freshman year, I went to Southwest Texas, the second semester of my freshman

7:25 year, I went to Texas State. So they actually gave us the option on our diploma to pick Texas State or Southwest Texas. Nice. I picked Texas State. But yeah, I can say I attended Southwest Texas

7:39 University. There you go. So, I mean, you just, I didn't even know about the Denver thing, but you just you bit off a lot right there. To bring it back to me, because of course, this This is

7:50 my podcast. It's all about you always. I actually had a similar. though process you know a little you know twenty two years old I took the alsace and was pretty certain that I was going to be a

8:02 lawyer and it wasn't a drunken fateful night talking to a bunch of lawyers it was really seeing people that I thought were more similar to me in terms of like skill -sets may be being outgoing not

8:15 necessarily being the strongest finance type guys but what are you good at while people seem to like me so there's that and those those dudes got into sales I mean like early two thousands getting

8:26 into technology sales and that's kind of what did it for me so did you have an inkling once you decided it's not going to be law it's going to be business were you thinking sales are you thinking I'm

8:36 going to do this start my own company and take over the World Yeah So I was really Fortunate Excuse Me and both my parents were in sales so they were both in the Marine Corps they met in the Marine

8:49 Corps My Mom went on to and still does have a very successful career real estate My Dad was the VP of sales for a number of different startups in the Austin area and so I think by virtue of just being

9:05 around salespeople my whole life if you don't you don't realize how much of the craft you just kind of pick up absalom and so anywhere you know I I waited tables which I think is a very good proxy for

9:16 sales I had waited tables in highschool and really been in the restaurant industry industry since I was fourteen through high school I actually sold bows like you know the headphones in the surround

9:29 sounds and the speakers i sold both speakers to get through college and did that for a couple of years in college and was always you know in the top three in sales for the store and anyway so where

9:41 sales kind of gets more interesting when I went to Japan and it didn't work out I came back and I had like literally seven dollars and thirty five cents

9:50 I had stayed in Japan I had calculated that I either needed to leave by this date so I could still afford a plane ticket. Or if I stayed beyond that date, I wouldn't be able to afford a plane ticket

10:00 and I would be like literally stuck in Japan homeless. Amazing. And so I bought the plane ticket, came back home, had735 and

10:09 I remember my dad picked me up from the airport and he was like, what happened to you? Like you're like, you know, you like had dropped like 25 pounds and at the time I didn't have 25 pounds to

10:20 lose

10:22 Anyway, and so I was kind of like, it was this really interesting point in my life where I thought I was going to have this grand adventure in Japan, didn't work out.

10:33 And it was like, it was a very humbling thing for me and I remember sitting there thinking like, okay, now what? And my dad said, you know, hey, you need to get interviewing experience. I'm

10:44 going to connect you with a couple of my buddies just to kind of do like mock interviews. Like I don't think they actually will hire you. I don't think they even have spots, but just to get the

10:51 interview and practice And so he, you can. connecting me with one of his friends named Tori Upchurch, who's a wonderful man. And I went and had lunch with Tori. And we did the interview thing,

11:03 and he even said, like, hey, I wanna just kinda help you get a couple interviews under your belt.

11:10 And so the interview went really well. I felt really accomplished that, wow, I thought I did well there. And do this. Yeah, exactly. And it was like, one in the afternoon, I went to Boulevard

11:23 Barring Grill in Austin, Texas, how far it was Boulevard. And I bought a beer with my735, right? So like I was proud of myself and I was drinking a beer and my phone rang and I was halfway

11:34 through the beer. And so phone rang and it was Tory Upchurch. And he was like, hey man, I actually just got done talking with our CEO. I'd like for you actually to come in and meet him. Can you

11:44 come in right now? Yeah, oh. And you know, like remember, this is back when you could get a beer for three bucks. So let's just call it 350. so half of my Net worth was the only drank half of

11:57 it so a quarter of my net worth was sitting at the bar and the Nasal I thought well shit alright let's do this so I left the beer went in and got a startup job in sales just banging phones and anyways

12:10 I did that for a couple of years before Denver and then when I joined drilling info I joined as an analyst and helping with him and a and financial diligence stuff like that

12:20 and I remember I was at a like sales kickoff just you know as an analyst at a sales kickoff and watching colin Westmoreland and matt Wilcoxon like talk about what they were going to accomplish with

12:31 the sales team and you know like I can go do that and there's more money in it and I knew I I could be successful and so I after about ten months of being in was drawing info I joined the sales team

12:43 and that kind of continued my tech sales career and still do that today so when you are grown up son of Marine Corps and to sales to salespeople the obviously you you had an appreciation for what

12:58 salespeople do more than what most people do but did you have a

13:03 any kind of a negative I don't want to go into sales when you were younger or was it always you can always had an idea that you would go on to do that and while I'll say a couple of things in response

13:14 to that I didn't ever think I would go be in sales I thought I was good at talking to people and and I thought that I was convincing meaning that I could like you know get people to think that My Way

13:29 or I was good in arguments stuff like that which you know that's not what sales is but it's not announced yet have your say when did you find out that wasn't the case then okay but but I mean you said

13:40 there are certainly excuse me parts of it where you are getting people aligned to the story you're telling so you know I I kind of knew I had a knack for that

13:52 I never instilled never I I Here's my stance on sales when done correctly I think sales is one of the most noble professions in the world now because when done correctly you are helping to identify a

14:06 problem and if you can solve that problem you are helping somebody solve it the fact that you're doing an exchange for money doesn't make it like a you know a bad game right like money is just a

14:18 medium of exchange it's just a highly transferable medium of exchange so Yeah I would happily sell someone something in exchange for Barter if I needed their services and I do that all the time but I

14:31 think sales win again when done correctly is incredibly noble I think the problem is that there is a lot of shitty salespeople in the world and therefore most of us as buyers have had a shitty

14:40 experience and like therein lies the problem with sales the first car that you buy they flock to you right away the guys got sack hair cheap suit smells like cologne your whole perception of sales is

14:54 formed. Like I even, there are still some of my friends who are now early 40s and partners at law firm that don't believe that this is like a profession. That sales is truly, like it's, you

15:05 didn't get an advanced degree Jeremy, you're therefore short of us, I don't care that you make the same or more money, what you're doing is not a professional thing to do. You didn't need college

15:14 experience to do it. And I'm like, at one point, I probably would have wanted to tackle that person Now I just sort of smile and feel bad for their negligence. Yeah, I think just like any

15:29 profession, well, most professions, it's a craft, right? And I have spent 20 years learning it. And I still learn things about it. And by no means the world's greatest salesperson, like far

15:43 from it. But yeah, I mean, I think that's why when you see people who are really like kind of in the at the height of their power it's a really like amazing thing to witness because it's not you

15:56 know doing a slick presentation in a board room although that's what a lot of people think it's really listening and it's really seeking to understand if there's a set of problems that you can go help

16:06 somebody solve as I love everything you just add because it's been I've been kind of preaching that forever that you know I'm an engineer so gone through school immediately everybody says you know you

16:20 it's always salespeople are bad you know it even if you're not driving a calculator or something then that's not good and so I resisted it forever but I kept getting drawn in peep other people would

16:32 kind of see something and want to stick me in and of course most of the time it's for the wrong reasons that it was Hey you're good at talking with a bunch of people and and you don't mind getting up

16:42 and and really talking and thinking that that was what makes a great sales person I've never been more annoyed When some Guy comes up to me says I'm a great sales person I can sell you anything give

16:53 me your watch and I'll sell it to your God and just like oh that's that's absolutely right away hours and that's not the Guy I want on my team cause you know and when when you and I I guess I'll go

17:07 back to this when you have been effectively sold to you are happy just to have met the guy because he is solved he or she has solved my problem yet you're you're not only happy you're Thankful Yeah

17:22 right and you're thankful that you had that encounter because a problem you are facing whether that'd be a business problem a personal problem whatever it is like that promise an assault or or spore

17:32 should be salt and like you know absolutely one of the best sales experiences I ever had was at Disney and they they train their people so well wherever you know all these different and I kept

17:45 presenting all these problems have had a rental car had to return and how was I going to get back and all this and they just immediately they had a service for everything that I wanted which was

17:56 fantastic and I became so happy with the Disney employees that basically if they ever had a suggestion I just pay the monies that Okay I'll take that I'll I'm doing that and there were always right

18:06 and I it was just to see such a highly trained group of people solving problems and not even neither one of US realize the sales was taking place yet absolutely one hundred percent I want to I want to

18:23 pivot this a little bit and I've I've been just waiting to get to get to this part because I'm Super excited about it Chris Tinkler second episode and row Christine Claire Chief Revenue Officer and

18:32 various gets gets a mention but I was struggling a little bit my career this must have been late to mid twenty eighteen and and I sat down with Chris in the office and in Denver and we're sort of

18:45 talking about is there a right opportunity for me and Chris kind of paused and looked at me and said you know I could really see you sort of being like chase now over here you know kind of a young guy

18:56 that that really makes a difference that has a seat at the table and I was so offended cause like I viewed myself as that seriously I viewed myself as like I'm Matt Wilcox what do you mean like I'm

19:09 the Oh Gee I've been in this game I've taken small companies Baba Me Me Me Me Me and made a judgment about you that maybe you were just lucky because you're at DEA with the right people at the right

19:20 time which is horrendous but I think people do make those sorts of judgments about people and individuals it took me all of thirty seconds and talking to you to be like this guy would be successful

19:30 anywhere he just realized there was a good situation for him and took that you know and sort of made it his own same thing could be said for people like Matt So A i did apologize to you in our first

19:40 conversation for passing a judgment about you that if I didn't see your social media stuff I'd probably still have but also let's talk a little bit about the Lucky vs good because I know every sales

19:50 person there isn't good and some of them get to stay whereas there are some that are truly great and may be told because they're part of a brand yet you know the lucky very good Thing I talked with a

20:02 lot of people about this and credit to one of the managing directors at Pioneer square labs where I'm at now his name is T a mcCann he was the first person who really crystallized this for me and was

20:14 like oh Okay Yeah that makes sense but Yeah I mean I think that the lucky very good thing is you can be you can be good at what you do but if you're lucky to be at a brand like drilling info at the

20:27 time and I won't speak on embarrassed for no other reason than I am not in the game anymore and I don't know So I'd be ignorant to talk through it now but at the time Drilling info had a platform that

20:41 legitimately made it possible for little guys to compete with big eyes and literally made it possible for someone to have as much information as possible at their fingertips to make a really important

20:56 decision around you know oil and gas exploration and it was an awesome company with awesome people we threw good parties and we did good work and you know I I knew at the time I was very aware that

21:14 like man I'm lucky to be here but I think where you where you can get hung up is if if you don't if you don't realize that part of it is luck and you just think you're a bad ass and then you go

21:26 somewhere where you don't have that same coverage in in the world can of punches you in the face a little bit and you go wow this is actually you know quite a bit harder than I thought because I don't

21:35 have this This brand this experience that you know like these tailwinds and and that happened to me read I love drawing and fell at inner end by the Way I went into this eyes wide open but I joined a

21:50 startup in Austin that I didn't enjoy the same you know benefits the drilling info did and that was a different type of fight and we didn't have product market fit in the way that I think anybody

22:01 wanted Vs drawing info having super tight product market fit right and so I think as you look at your career there are times when you know make hay when the Sun shines because you're lucky to be in a

22:13 good spot and then there are times when you know like you Gotta you Gotta pull out your tool chest and sharpen your tools and and so anyway that that that the genesis of this was was you and I talking

22:24 through kind of Lucky was good but Yeah I mean I think that's one of the things you have to figure out as you go to your career is AM I Lucky or AM I Good or AM I A bit of both Yeah Yeah and You Know

22:36 I think fantasy sports real quick fantasy sports especially football like I have no doubt that there are really good players on bad teams but if they just simply don't have the opportunity right they

22:46 don't have the team around them they're not going to be any good and then the judgments made about how good of a player they are not entirely fair because we can only judge what happens on the field

22:55 right what the what the stats say or whatever but I mean very similar to me that hey somebody gets hurt now this guy steps in well there's an opportunity he was probably always good he just never had

23:05 the opportunity yeah well I was just gonna dovetail on that and say that you know I don't know who coined the quote but you know luck is where preparation meets opportunity right I mean so there are a

23:19 lot of people who probably joined drilling info and coattailed the brand a little bit and were able to kind of move along but I think even within I don't want to I'm not going to throw anyone out of

23:28 the bus but even within the organization I'm certain that those people who weren't good were recognized as probably not being good

23:38 So I think, you know, lucky, I've always, I've always resisted lucky as, you know, I was, I, this opportunity was presented to me and I was ready for it. And it was fortunate for me or

23:51 whatever. And it's worked out well. So I think, you know, I'm certain that there was so much preparation that made you be successful with the brand drilling info, which presented you with that

24:04 opportunity kind of move forward Yeah, no doubt. I mean, we worked hard. And I will never, you'll never hear me say anything bad about drilling info or the people. That is a, that is a class

24:15 act organization that always took care of me and my family. And I really credit for investing in me as a salesperson. And what I mean by that is every Tuesday for however long, I mean, years, I

24:29 went to sales training on their time where professionals would teach me. The craft of Salesmanship right and and Yeah like I you know that I wouldn't be where I am today from a career standpoint

24:43 without that investment where the initial kind of lucky very good thing came up is that same managing director and I were talking about an up here in seattle that you know there's a couple of big

24:55 companies that everybody's heard of right there's obviously Microsoft Amazon there's a big google presence and there's boeing and so that the initial conversation was talking about somebody that

25:06 managing director worked at Microsoft for three years and I said How'd you like that he said he was like getting an MBA was incredible and I said why'd you leave he said because I was starting to blur

25:15 the lines of lucky verse good was I really good product manager or was I lucky from the fact that when you can throw the name Microsoft around people listen and that's where the lucky very good Thing

25:27 really like I was like Okay Yeah I get apply that to sales in a big way but not to discredit any of the work that we did and to your point yes there were some really talented people who walk through

25:38 those doors and then there were some people who maybe weren't as talented or weren't willing to put in the work and you know that the one the best things about drawing info at the time was just the

25:47 culture we had and if you weren't willing to put in the work and you didn't last long and so we we had a high bar of expectation you're wondering we had that while we've got a long history of having

25:58 Julia drunk and four alumni on our show but we had Allen gilmer casual and he recounted a story and I think it was ed who is ER met you mentioned earlier now standing in over the parking garage

26:14 overlooking the parking garage and I believe it was ed who said allen look at all of the lives we have impacted just by just looking at the cars these cars are people we've impacted look at all the

26:28 cars drilling info has bought for the people that they've invested in and I thought that was an interesting perspective from a COO and a CEO to be staying there chatting about the impact they've had

26:43 on the individuals within the company? Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. I have not heard that story, but that doesn't surprise me. Ed is a great mentor of mine. And one of the things I still do

26:54 this is day is I keep account of how many families and children are members of the team. So, you know, like if I have a 20 person sales team, I know that I have 20 salespeople, I have 18

27:07 marriages, and I have, you know, 28 kids or whatever the count is. And like, that's a really important thing to keep in mind because by virtue of the work you're doing, you're not only helping

27:17 people grow their careers, but you're literally helping provide for families. And I think that that is, if you're not thinking about that, I think you should, 'cause it's really important. Man,

27:26 I love that perspective. Kind of wanna come work for you now. Yeah, that's such an evolved way of thinking. And it's part of the reason that I, you know, I've been so impressed with you and our

27:34 minimal. and engagements you also recommended a book that I'm a few chapters into right now atomic habits by James Clear which is obviously Super motivational it's it's kind of an app that a little

27:47 bit of an Ego check right to hear what this guy had been through and what he's able to accomplish in sort of the humility by which it's presented but to bring it back to sort of like you know patterns

27:58 and you know sort of the recognition because so much of life is about that and you know recently that the Hoffman Institute retreat I went on was really about understanding and learning about all of

28:09 your patterns to talk a little bit about that the emphasis you like to put on creating positive habits and patterns like even for the teams that you work with Yeah you know my I'll Butcher this but

28:22 one of my favorite kind of themes from that book is that you know you are literally a collection of your habits right the things you do on a consistent basis yield results and those results kind of

28:35 become You know, you as an individual and tell your story and you know, I think it's so easy that you can have so many patterns and so many habits and good habits, bad habits, habits you're not

28:48 even aware of.

28:51 And I think when you when you really sit down and try and think through the types of habits that as a person you want to keep the types of habits as an employer you want to reward that you know the

29:01 type of culture you want to create all that stuff

29:06 Those are all threads in that tapestry right and so, you know for me personally I try to keep a consistent set of habits that they work for me. And I don't believe that there's like, you know,

29:19 some people are like oh yeah get up at 4am and take a cold shower and go work out and then do that you know, and that doesn't work for everybody right that works for some people At the same time,

29:30 you know, some people are night owls and it's like oh man I can do my best work from midnight to 2am. you know, that doesn't work for other people. So I do, I am a big believer in finding the

29:40 habits and the routine that works for you. And then just being super devoted to it and the fautical to it and,

29:50 you know, the grass is greener where you water it, right? So if you invest in those habits, you're gonna invest in your rewards. Yeah, no, I mean, tremendous, tremendous. So to jump back to

29:60 career a little bit. Yeah, sure. So you left the eye, you had a run at a startup that you scaled pretty quickly, and then decided it's time to move to the Pacific Northwest. Tell the audience a

30:13 little bit about your experience. It's Pioneer Square Labs, right? So you're kind of on the investment side, but doing some management things. It's a unique role. Why don't you tell us about it

30:20 a little bit? Yeah, absolutely. So Pioneer Square Labs, kind of otherwise known as PSL, so I'll call it PSL, 'cause it's easier to say. PSL is a, well, first of all, Pioneer Square There is

30:32 a neighborhood to see the. I think the first neighborhood in Seattle and it's like Downtown Seattle right on the water and in it's a very well -known area town so Pinus where labs is located in

30:44 Pioneer Square and P S L is an interesting model and it's one that I'm I'm a huge fan of so there's really kind of two legs to the business there's PS adventures which is run by two managing directors

30:58 named Julie Sandler and Ben Gilbert Ironically Ben Gilbert has actually be co -host of the acquire podcast which was the acting I dunno was or is or has been at one point the number one tech podcast

31:10 on wow so Super competition item we got to catch up then we made the list once one week we made the day we made some iced Yeah what was at the top top hundred or something in in careers something like

31:24 the ice for anyway PS adventures is a more kind of standard venture capital and play right we raise a venture fund we go offer term sheets to companies that we think have a lot of promise and they

31:39 take that capital and deploy it to grow and expand and scale and you know all the things that come with it so that's that's one side of the business the other side of the businesses pierce our studios

31:49 and if you're not aware a venture studio is a little bit different of a beast so whereas a traditional venture fund goes and invest in existing businesses to help him get from point a to point B a

32:01 venture studio actually partners with entrepreneurs from the onset and actually founds the business alongside of them and then the entrepreneur gets to leverage the talent the experience of the

32:14 processes the systems that the studio has built and refined over time so you know in the past five years PSR the studio side of the house has spun out I think thirty different businesses across all

32:28 different verticals solving all kinds of problems it's a really cool model to help entrepreneurs and you know right from the onset just partner with them as early as possible so my role as I run our

32:43 go to market efforts and so I kind of span between the venture portfolio as well as a studio for olio and I assist our founders and entrepreneurs with pretty much anything and everything go to market

32:54 related and as early as validating an idea location we potentially start a business out of this idea alongside an entrepreneur all the way to working with a scale of venture backed company that has a

33:09 sales team and is figuring out how to grow and you know want advice or guidance on you know maybe a particular part of their go to market motion and everything in between so it's a really cool role

33:21 that I'm really fortunate to have because it allows me to see a bunch of businesses and explore a bunch of different go to market models and frankly just learn I'm learning a ton and Um, that's in my

33:33 opinion, one of the, the top three things you need in any opportunity. Sounds like a great, a great position for someone with ADD to be able to just stick into a whole bunch of different types of

33:44 companies, different kinds of ventures. And, and really, you know, you get the best out of all of those and then really, you know, populate around. So that, that sounds like a lot of fun.

33:53 Yeah, it's like, it's like a dream job is cool. It's, it's really fun. It's, um, you know, there aren't many jobs like it There, there are a number of studios kind of in the world. Pioneer

34:04 Square Labs is, is definitely, you know, at the top of, of that list. Um, so I'm really thankful to have the job and the best part, man is, uh, man, the people are wonderful. They're just

34:14 so smart and everybody is, you know, there's no sloshes, right? Everybody is really talented at what they do. Um, and it feels good to be in a role surrounded by people where you're constantly

34:26 going, like, I'm pretty sure I'm the dumbest person in this room. Love that. You know, like that's incredible. so you've got like so there's thirty of companies all told her these all size

34:37 companies and yet I would say the majority of them and to be clear there's thirty on the studio side of a country portfolio has quite a number as well I'm actually don't know the exact number off the

34:50 top of my head but I would say our businesses skew mostly sas and probably eighty per cent be to be twenty per cent B to see but you know the one kind of thread of commonality as almost all of them

35:03 are Pacific northwest based sure we really focus in our backyard and that's one of the values we bring us in a week we know our backyard really really well and but Yeah we're we're pretty agnostic

35:15 when it comes to industry or vertical we we play in all of them into a mac for for our listeners in oil and gas you know we are there any brands or names then we would recognize that you've you guys

35:31 have your fingers into that we would kind of recognize, you think? Um, man, that's a good question. I would say maybe, maybe not a lot of our, a lot of the companies we work with are pretty

35:44 early stage. We have some super cool companies. On the venture side, a couple that come to mind is boundless. Boundless's goal is to be like the TurboTax for immigration. The immigration process

35:57 is really complex And so boundless aims to help individuals who are going through a really taxing immigration process do that much more fluidly and easily. Another one would be copper, which is like

36:12 banking for teens. So giving plans, a debit card, and starting to teach the fundamentals of personal finance. On green light, would green light be like a competitor to that? Green light would be

36:25 a competitor to copper. I mean, that's an emerging spit.

36:29 We use that for our kids but it's like I mean that the scale there is is enormous and I think there's huge value in it to like them to put my nine year old or a girl puts her thing in the that that

36:37 you know and then it comes back and it's like okay well here's your thing to sign like I I didn't do that until I was like eighteen or nineteen and it was kind of scary you know Yeah I think that's

36:48 actually a huge failure of our educational system you know you learn about a lot of stuff in school but one thing you don't learn about is money to ride it's like it's like a faux pas talkers and

36:57 finance sales like gammage like you know a lot of US are taught that it's rude to talk about money and that's a shame because no one explains credit to you and funny enough add mohawk and and who was

37:08 one of my college professors who taught political science brilliant man

37:14 and he felt so passionately about this that he devoted an entire political science classroom lesson to help credit cards work which he didn't have to do but I remember him saying like hey it

37:26 infuriates me that when I walked through the closet it's a state there's a bunch of people hawking credit cards to students talking about hey here's a couple of grand you can go buy that new TV or

37:37 like some shitty thing you don't need and I remember he took an hour and walked us through like here's how credit cards work and here's why you need to be really careful and no one ever taught me that

37:47 I am you know like we it's hard to learn that and so I think that particular opportunity is is a really special one to help you know I have kids right I want my kids to understand a lot in a lot more

37:59 detail than I did how you know financial markets work and how credit works is all that stuff I think it's super important

38:07 incredibly important yet no this is so of the thirty or so within the lab bread and yet do you manage all thirty or are you sliced off like a quarter of them or something like that Yeah I would say I

38:20 have the capacity to work with all thirty if if needed I typically work with two to three at a time

38:28 and work with them kind of in in varying varying levels of depth right so it's impossible to work with like thirty at a time and keep it straight and so I divide my my time into kind of two buckets

38:41 there's like advice and action I give a lot of advice right so I would say from an advice standpoint a lot of companies but time on my calendar we have a conversation whether it's about hiring or a

38:52 can you listen to my pitch and like Gimme you know some suggestions or whatever it might be and then on the action bucket that's where you can really only work with can have two to three at a time

39:01 just because that's where you're rolling up your sleeves and actually like crafting a go to market or actually doing you know cause like for example my my heart stopped at the top of the hour is as a

39:11 sales call from one of those companies was so kind of depends on on the company and in the stage they're at so what is A I you know i guess we have an understanding of go to market we have a lot of

39:25 guys from oil companies as what Is go-to-market strategy, just to kind of dumb it down for us. Yeah, sure, yeah, it's funny. I had never really heard go-to-market as like a encapsulating term

39:37 when I was in tech sales, like, you know, as an operator. And then you move over to like the venture side and it's a term that gets thrown out a lot. It's everything, yeah. Yeah, go-to-market

39:47 is simply the umbrella that a lot of things fit underneath, but really what it boils down to is pretty much anything in everything that involve going to market with your product or service. So like

40:01 some more traditional schools of

40:05 thought or whatever would be like marketing, sales, lead generation, business development, partnerships, kind of all that fits under go-to-market. Product-led growth, account-based marketing,

40:17 like all these things fit under go-to-market. It's basically just anything and everything around going to a market with your offering.

40:29 So you have to find product market fit and then it's the next step more towards the execution of it Yeah I think so I mean a lot of times you're involved in helping seek out and understand product

40:38 market fit just because like he got to have the conversation but Yeah typically once there's at least an inkling of product market fit or a thought around here's the consistent probably can go help

40:49 the market solve then go to market is you know taking founder lead sales right that hero sales where that one person is out there doing the doing the deeds and taking that too how do you make a

41:02 scalable repeatable predictable motion by which you can attract and and and when customers I guess some of the decisions that you're making are is this something where we hire a sales force and we do

41:15 it all internally do we partner with some other group do we hire on futures to you know be our sales wing or marry US up with other people in their portfolio there's a lot of different decisions to be

41:28 made about how you go to market and of course the product that you have helps you determine how you're going to go do that absolutely and that's the cool thing about it is every every and every

41:39 approach is different so like right now I'm working on one that is very much a like you know enterprise sales type of motion that I'm working on another one that is certainly tech sales but it's not

41:51 enterprise tech sales it's a much more kind of transactional type of engagement and then I'm working on another one where we're not quite sure but we think it's probably like probably going to be a

42:02 big part of it is is product growth and how can you build a product that actually builds your growth engine for you and so you get to kind of navigate a bunch of different approaches and that's that's

42:12 probably the coolest part is I never had I hadn't had a lot of experience with product growth as an example and I just didn't happen to work at a company that really employed that tactic now you know

42:24 people are realizing like Oh my Gosh what a capital efficient way to Go your top line revenue and so a lot of people are exploring it so I get to explore that and it's like it's like a you know a

42:33 frequent be a product that growth is it's really the the setup you have is is is unique because as a W two you have to inherently act sort of a certain way to maintain your employment status within an

42:48 organization you're almost getting to live and you are probably W two but you're living as a consultant where you can really tell these guys how it is and what they need to do with little concern over

42:60 well if these guys don't like to hear it then that's really on them records you're being brought into to provide that level of of an expertise and consulting so do you feel that somewhat freeing and

43:11 that you can just be like listen dude what you've been doing doesn't work you Gotta do it this way maybe it's harsh to hear that but we've got to make this pivot like like do you feel there's more of

43:20 an empowerment in the role you have versus kind of traditionally as W two or just open -ended Yeah Yeah good Question

43:28 so nod to another one of my best mentors who is the current CEO of Embarrass man named Jeff Hughes jet as a as a a like a library of awesome quotes he keeps a running document of 'Em but I'll never

43:41 forget he he was a he is an incredible man and has had a huge impact on my life but I'll never forget one of the things I don't remember all the details there was some sort of difficult conversation

43:51 we had an all hands and like I dunno I honestly don't remember the specifics of it but I remember Jeff saying the best answer is always the honest one and and and I'd like they just clicked in My Head

44:04 instead of going back to your question is I don't care if I'm W two or if I'm a Consultant I like firmly believe the best answers the honest one even if that's not what you want to hear like my job is

44:16 to is to you know be honest and candid about what I'm seeing but the the the thing I will tell you is like my success is tied to the success of the portfolio like I Want every single one of those

44:29 companies to win and the cool thing about them is we get to look at a lot of companies so we've we've spun out thirty we've killed like two hundred and fifty PSI look at a lot of stuff before deciding

44:43 what to do what to spin up like my my first month in the job I was looking at one that bike I made a kill decision hey this isn't gonna work and so that the cool thing is the stuff that ends up do the

44:55 ends up to working or ends up becoming a spin -out it's the stuff you want to work on right and they're typically cool companies and so while I may not be a W two for that company I very I mean I'm

45:08 working my ASS off to make these that make his company be successful so you know again like the better the portfolio does the better that chasing others and so there is actually a really high level of

45:19 care there in making sure that hey let's figure out how to make this company win now there certainly is an aspect where I get to come in and say like hey this isn't my baby I'm not in the details sure

45:32 every single day So I have a different perspective and I'm going to like shoot straight on what I think that is

45:39 but Yeah man it's you know it's it's a cool experience for sure now this is Great tim we didn't talk about oil and gas at all so I didn't and we can we got like three minutes before both you guys have

45:49 heart stops though so I do want to jump in just to this and this is a prominent put you on the spot this now that you've been exposed I mean truly outside of your eight years you've you've been in the

46:01 true SAS startup game can you see yourself going back to oil and gas Tech oh sure absolutely and you know I never thought I'd be in venture capital ever and here I am and I have a lot of respect and

46:21 admiration for the whip men and women in the oil and gas industry some of my best friends. So like I know you had Wilcox in on. Like he was in my wedding, right? Like Wilcox will forever be one of

46:33 my very best friends. He's an oil and gas. Dinkler who you mentioned, I like his wife better than I like him, but I like Dinkler. Most, yeah. Julie's great. His kid too, his kids. Yeah, his

46:42 kids too. You know I don't know his kids as well. His wife's incredible. Dinkler's all right. No, I mean, I think there are, man, what wonderful people in oil and gas My dad was an oil and gas

46:53 for a number of years. Later on, not when I was a kid, but yeah, I mean, I would never shut the door on any opportunity, right? Like if there's a compelling oil and gas tech opportunity where I

47:04 think I can go make a difference, then I'm certain I have no beef with it. I don't think that'll happen. Not because I have any, like I said, any like ill will or like think poorly of oil and gas.

47:16 It's more of like a locational thing. I'm gonna say, you're a Seattle It'll just come back in on your door, but yeah, like, no, I have I have no problem with it in and if there was a a good you

47:27 know a great company solving a great problem then I'd be happy to jump back into either real or the lighter side questions you've lived in Austin Japan Seattle Denver was was the biggest misconception

47:42 of Seattle for US for Guys down here in Texas or in Denver that's easy and so Yeah I live in a bunch of places right within Austin Houston for four years Denver Japan San Marcus Seattle and the one

47:59 Thing I'll say about living a bunch places is everyone should do it and and they all have pros and cons right but the biggest misconception about seattle that everybody talks about is like Oh My Gosh

48:10 it's so rainy and grey and Writing and Dreary and Here's what I'll say like Yes it is a different climate and there are days where it is Foggy you know at the other day was so foggy That You know,

48:22 it's hard to drive down the street. You get those like fuzzy, dreary, rainy days.

48:28 But on, like you also get your fair share of bright, clear, crisp, beautiful, sunny days.

48:35 Just like in Texas, you get days that are like scorchingly hot. And then you have like beautiful October afternoons. So, you know, for anybody who says like the weather in Seattle sucks, I would

48:47 disagree. Like get you a good pair of boots and a good rain jacket. There are gonna be some rainy days, but man, there are some glorious days as well. It's an awesome place to live, man. Like

48:58 the Pacific Northwest is, I wouldn't live here if I didn't love it. I'll put it that way. Right. I've never been out. I'm gonna visit, I'm gonna start stalking you even more. Chase, now you

49:07 crushed this, man. Thank you so much for shedding so much light from your awesome career and best of luck with everything going for it, my man. Guys, really appreciate the opportunity. I had a

49:17 ton of fun talking with you

49:20 Yeah, I wish you guys the best of luck thanks for having me and and I'm I'm now a dedicated listener nice nice to meet you