What The Funk?

0:00 All right, we are back on what the funk it's been a while since I've recorded lots of travel February is a big travel month. You got nape and I went down for the rodeo Danny happened to go to Hawaii

0:14 for two weeks. So we had to push this podcast Okay. All

0:21 right. Well, that's it's sort of like an appropriate counterbalance, right? It's like I want to say heaven and hell, but you know, it's it's a counterbalance Hawaii and Midland are very

0:31 different places. We'll get into all that. Um, and it's funny, you know, so I've called you Danny Fallagint and I'm sorry for doing that. I've been wrong the whole time. It's Danny Fallagint is

0:46 the way that it's pronounced or as I like to say when we don't always talk to each other. Danny

0:55 Fallagint. Yeah, but yeah,

0:59 but yeah, it's, it's, It's fun to have you on Danny. I guess this is your first podcast. I do think you have a decent profile out there. People kind of know you as like the go-to land guy and

1:09 expert in the land business development document management space. You've got adaptive edge. We're going to talk about all that stuff. But I want to go back, right? I want to kind of get the full

1:20 Danny Falcon story. So I'll hit you with the question that I hit all my guests out of the gate. Who are you, man? Who's Danny Falcon? Yeah, man

1:29 So I was, like I was first and foremost, I'm a husband and a father. I've got two young boys, four and almost seven. But I'm the youngest of three. I've got an older sister and she's a law

1:40 school professor in Oregon. And my brother is, he just moved to Denver last week actually. Wow. Yeah. So we've got to have him here with us. He's down in Cherry Creek. So he has his own company

1:52 as well, running e-discovery and whatnot for a lot of law firms So, and.

1:58 Yeah, so I was in Chicago for the first, probably eight years of my life, and then moved to Houston around that time, where I stayed until went to college. Applied to UT, didn't get in. I got

2:08 put on the not good enough list. Went to UTSA, which is great though, because I think, you know, I'm one of those guys who believes that everything happens for a reason, and I wouldn't be where

2:19 I am, you know, without anything that's happened in my life, right? So, went to UTSA, and then I ended up, double majoring in finance and construction management. Oh, huh, different, right?

2:33 Yeah, I know. You don't get it, I wouldn't have guessed that. I would have thought, like, I mean, I don't know if they have like an oil and gas track or a land track, but construction,

2:43 finance, I get. Like, construction, but though, did you think you wanted to run like large construction projects or something like that? Yeah, I kind of ended this weird job in college, right

2:54 was It? kind of a, the department complex, worked out. They offered. at a job as assistant manager and there were four of us guys. And basically you did maintenance during the day when you

3:02 weren't in class. And then you were on call, you know, every the weekend. Like I learned a lot about how to fix things and do things and watch the guys in that job or do the same major. So I said,

3:12 I'd try it and actually enjoyed it. So I did an internship at a commercial GC for about a year running project. And then when I was graduating the market, I was starting to go down and low place

3:24 we're hiring And I got two offers from commercial guys, but I didn't really like it. And then one of my friends said, How did you go to job at PEP? You should really try to interview. So I did

3:37 after probably, I don't know, three or four rounds of interviews. I got hired on in 2007 and never looked back. Good, good time to get hired on. My oil and gas journey started at the very end of

3:48 2007. I've said this on this podcast before and like to, I feel like it's an important part but this isn't my story, this is your, I mean, it's my podcast, so it's about me. Let's be honest,

3:59 it's always about me. That's why I have a podcast. But no, I mean,

4:04 2007, especially at the end of the year, it was a great time to get into oil and gas. I like to tell people my first day on the job, I could probably look back, it must, maybe it was some time

4:13 in the first week, but I on the job, oil was138 day wanna say my first

4:19 a barrel and natural gas was like14 in MCF So I come in and I'm selling Bolo at that point. And I'm like, this is the easiest job ever. I make like 10 phone calls, I get like four callbacks,

4:35 couple meetings, and then one of them turns into a significant business deal with like pretty substantial operators too, 'cause all this, you know, horizontal drilling and fracking and permitting

4:46 was going crazy, and the price of the pump was like5 a gallon, which if you think back, like with inflation is pretty insane. But it was just gangbusters, right? I'm like, wow, this is cool.

4:59 So I'm guessing too for you, like when in 2007, did you star? What was the job? And was the vibe like amazing when you got there? 'Cause prices were through the roof? It was pretty great. I'm

5:09 not gonna lie. So yeah, I started in 2007. I was hard on it as a lease analyst and land. Okay. And it like every, they paid it in breakfast, lunch, and you name it, and there are parties for

5:20 every celebration you can imagine You know, we had, we call it a BT prom for the holiday party. It's like everyone dresses to the nines. You got limos and, you know, wow. That all went down

5:31 pretty quick, though. Yeah,

5:34 I did. So

5:37 you were, yeah, go ahead. I had a series of jobs at BP between like 2007 and probably 2014, but it was great. I mean, it was a great time to really be there and experience it all. What does a

5:51 lease analyst do?

5:54 Well, that's a loaded question. So at the time I was working in New Mexico and there's a lot of federal units and mostly HPP stuff. So there's a lot of non up AFI tracking.

6:08 There's very little title to be done. So it's a little bit different for me and that role 'cause it was so unique as compared to maybe a traditional lease analyst but long and short they're tracking

6:20 lease obligations, interpreting lease provisions, right? Making sure obligations, rentals, expressions are being met,

6:28 kind of the sky's the limit and it really depends on the company if it's small or large and determines your scope of what you're focused on. Yeah, has the role changed? Do you think in the last 15,

6:40 whatever, 17 years, 15 years? The way I see it, yes. Because when I, I mean, lease my experience and what I'm seeing now, it was very much kind of here is your task you're responsible for?

6:54 Whereas now it's more a holistic approach and you could be in, you know, you could have remit over 10 times the amount of work or even things that are beyond traditional lease analysts work, right?

7:03 But

7:06 then I went from lease analysts to visionary analysts in 2009, then I got put on the Quorum implementation project where we went from Tobin land to Quorum in 2009 or 10 And

7:21 then from there, I became a team leader and then I became the contract compliance manager and then became the director of land and real estate for the US onshore in 2014. And those around the time

7:31 when Dave Lawler came on board to run kind of the BP onshore group. And I'm assuming in this time you were in Houston, right? I wasn't in Houston, yeah, funny enough. So that was 2014 and then

7:45 around 2016, I got a meeting invite from David Lawler had me or head of HR on general counsel on it. And it said mandatory meeting, nothing else. I was like, I'm getting fired. Cool. So this is

7:59 how it ends.

8:01 So I go to the meeting, nervous as hell. And he's like, he wanted to announce, he wanted us to help open an office in Denver. I was like, oh, okay, let's do better. So, you know? So I got

8:11 put on that project and we came out here to Denver, look at office space and you look at architects and the space selected and get it built out So, and then 2018, my wife and I moved here. So. So

8:25 was it the same location where BPX is now? That amazing, oh, good choice. Sounds like street, yeah. 'Cause you could have picked, you know, the traditional high rise, right? 50 second floor

8:36 of a skyscraper in downtown Denver, which is probably what most operators do. And don't get me wrong, there's some awesome offices up there too. The BP had that super, unique. It's like where

8:48 the we work is too, or was, I'm not sure if it still is, but that location is awesome. It's right near my brother's bar, which I'm sure. Well, not my brother. My brother's mom. Oh, yes. Yes.

9:01 Have you been for lunch or burgers? Yeah. That's the

9:06 spot that I go. If I take anybody who's like based in the highlands, which there's a few oil and gas companies over there now, but the most prominent one is BPX, which is the onshore of BP. But

9:17 yeah, great location, hip spot, and it was really becoming more and more hip at around the time that you picked it. Probably a little bit easier for parking. That's fun. So you kind of knew in

9:30 2016 that you were going to end up moving to Denver. You sort of helped pick the office. You work with, you know, it brings you back to your college days with, okay, now I got to do like GC work

9:41 basically. You build out the office, like an awesome location. And your wife had some time to digest the idea as well. Was she cool with the ways? You know, excited, man. I mean, she was

9:51 native, you know, if Houston, you know, born and raised up in Cyprus,

9:57 especially met through a, one of our co-worker at MPP with mutual friends. And anyway, see, she was ready to get out. She wanted something different, you know, some mountains and, you know,

10:08 traffic, et cetera, right? You name it. Yeah. The one thing we missed though is the food It is part of eating Houston, but there's some good spots here too. There are, and it's gotten a lot

10:20 better. I mean, I actually remember, it started to shift maybe 2011, 2012, and I moved out here in 2003. There wasn't a lot of great food options, even in Denver. Boulder's always kind of been

10:30 a foodie place, but, you know, a little bit off the beaten path, I think, if you're in Denver. But yeah, it's gotten a lot better here. It's not Houston, the Houston food scene, any type of

10:40 food you could possibly want top notch everywhere you go. It's a little bit cheaper. Yeah, the trade-off down there, of course, is everything else, but food is incredible and Houston. So you

10:54 came out here, 2018, did you have kids yet? No, actually, my wife is actually pregnant. She was, it turned to me. We moved here, February 1st, 2018, and our first son was born April 10th,

11:07 2018, so yeah. She's like, I'm moving up here seven months pregnant, dude, this better work Right.

11:16 We're figuring it out. So your first child was actually born in Colorado, and you'd only lived here for two months, that's right. And what's funny is two days before he was born, you put it off

11:28 our house. And Alice in the middle of doing an executive kind of program at Harvard at the time, Harvard Business School. And so we're on this thing where you're gonna take calls at like two AM

11:38 'cause you have to get calls of like people in Australia or China And I'm up at all hours of the night. And my, when my son was born, we're faced with my family. And I was like, listen, you look

11:52 great. Didn't you click shit? You know, I'm so tired and worn out.

11:58 So I was like, thanks dad, appreciate it, you know? It's really, really, really nice, thank you. Well, yeah, I just moved the family up here and I had to lift everything 'cause my wife can't

12:06 lift more than 10 pounds being pregnant. So you got here, you made an offer on a house like two days before your kids show up You know that like in, I've heard this, I haven't read it, but I've

12:17 heard it numerous times. There's like three significantly stressful events three or of the most stressful events in your life. I think one is getting married, you know, one is moving and then

12:30 another one is taking a new job and you throw in having a kid there as well. And you basically covered like almost all of these things in one fell swoop. Sure, we'll move in, have a kid and work

12:42 in a new office at the same company at the same time. Your wife is saying, I need to meet your wife sounds like she's awesome. Obviously, if she, uh, she stayed with you through all of that. So,

12:52 so that's cool. And so you settled in, you settled into Colorado seven, seven years ago. You, are you still in the same place? I think you're on the West side of town. Yeah. Yeah, we are.

12:60 We'd love it. Uh, we're right on, on Green Mountain. So our, yeah, we have no backyards. I mean, no back neighbors to our yard as green mountains. So we can, we have gates. We can hike up

13:08 and go up if we want to. And it's beautiful. Yeah. On the West side too. You ski I do, not as much as I'd like to. Um. Probably like three or four times a year, maybe I can make it. So that's

13:21 kind of where we're at. I mean, you're on the West side. So it's a little bit easier to get up there. But now this is, this is fun. So, so how big was that? Like were you like one of the

13:30 people that helped kind of hire out and bring people on recruit people into BPX Denver? Did they just move people up? Like what was, what was that like? Yeah. So we did a relocation program for

13:40 the majority of the staff And then for those that we couldn't, that didn't want to move or, you know, couldn't. we hired locally. So I didn't have a big hand in that as more HR and kind of the

13:51 teams that needed to fill for the most part. But yeah.

13:55 And you stayed there. I think so if my numbers are right, you started in 2007 and you were there in various different roles. The last one was land and real estate, which you've told me this before,

14:07 but it's like maybe the first time I've heard somebody with a real estate title in in oil and gas. And the customer has it too, actually, if you don't take it. Really? Yeah. Nice. So you stayed

14:18 there, what, a dozen years or maybe more and then and then COVID hits. Right. Yeah.

14:27 It's one of those those things where had COVID not happened, it was a table for thousands of reasons, but it was one of those things for our family that had it not happened, I'd probably still be a

14:39 DV. Right. Yeah. I didn't realize that I would I wasn't being the kind of father I wanted to be or the kind of husband I wanted to be, right? Every morning I'd leave around 630 am. before my

14:52 kids woke up. I'd come home around 7730 if I didn't have to go to dinner, right? Yeah. And I was traveling probably twice a month for a week at a time. And so I took a hard look at this. This is

15:05 not who I am. And I loved BP. I love what they did for me and helped me grow as a professional

15:13 But I realized I just couldn't do it anymore. So around June, they offered up. You know, they did two waves of severance, one for a decade, which was in June that I was in, and then one, I

15:22 think in August. But I thought about it for like two weeks, I don't know. And every day, I have a different thought. Do I take it or not? You know, I've been there for 14 years. I'm scared to

15:30 leave.

15:33 And so we're about to head to the mountains for a week in a house And

15:40 the computer is up, and I hit the button saying, I want to leave. And we just left and went for mountains for me because it's great.

15:49 So yeah, because, because you knew at that time, there was no other jobs, right? It's not like, okay, well, cool. Like I'll just take a little break and like start looking for jobs. There

15:58 was no clear line of sight in that moment on, on where you could go, right? So you decide, all right, 14 years, they're putting this severance package in front of me. I'm going to take it. All

16:08 I know professionally is, is BP and then subsequently BPX It's like ingrained in your DNA, it's in your blood. But, you know, you started when you were a kid effectively and then things

16:22 transition, you got married while you worked there. You bought your first house, you sat a kid, you had another kid, you got promoted, you shifted roles, you moved. Well, now here you are.

16:34 It's like literally the height, the height of COVID. What was your plan? It's not like you were going to retire. Right So at the time, I thought about changing industries altogether. I was like,

16:47 you know, I've heard great things about healthcare, right? You know, who knows? Didn't really know where I wanted to go, but I knew I needed a break.

16:57 And I figured, yeah, this is a chance to kind of reset myself and rethink what's right for us. So I took about a month off of not doing anything. Like, you know, I just didn't think about it,

17:07 didn't want to touch it And as time went on, talking a lot of my friends across the industry and even past coworkers and employees,

17:18 they said, You should do this. You should try this out. So I thought about it. I was like, Well, what would I offer? And

17:25 thinking about it, I've done a number of talks across the industry at different conferences and events around what I help build a VP or digital transformation and what works, what doesn't work And

17:37 so I, November 2nd, 2020,

17:40 I founded Adaptive Edge and from there. We got our first plan about two months later, and it's going to go in a percents, so. Absolutely the worst time starting company.

17:54 Maybe it would have been worse if you started it when oil prices were in the negatives, but you weren't too far off. I mean, that was still sort of like, there was hope that maybe

18:06 things would start to die down. Maybe you could open up a little bit more, 25 to 50 in

18:13 restaurants and in public spaces. And then we started to do that. And then COVID started to run rampant again. I remember this distinctly because we had a trip. 2020 was obviously just a tough and

18:25 stressful year. But I remember shortly into COVID, I talked to my wife and like, we've got this timeshare and I don't know. Cobb is somewhere in Mexico. Cabo, Cancun, Parlair, you can sort of

18:35 shift around where you go. And we have like a week, a year type of thing So I was like, this has been such a miserable year. but at least we have this shining light of like going to Cabo or

18:47 whatever it was toward the end of the year. And COVID had spiked like so significantly at that point that just to even be able to go, it was like they needed tasks and it just seemed like a lot. It

19:01 was like a big lift to even be able to go. And then it's like, we're probably gonna get COVID if we do this trip too. And even the resorts in Mexico weren't like full capacity at that point. So my

19:13 wife is like, I just don't think it's a good idea. We have like young kids. My son must have been like two at that point. My daughters were in like fourth and second grade. It just didn't make

19:24 sense. And I remember just, it was crushing when we had to like, you know, postpone the trip and cancel our flights. So you were still like in the middle of all of the chaos and launching your

19:34 own company. Has the ethos of, so you're like, Oh, four and a half years into it right now, is the ethos or the strategy around adaptive edge changed since you started? What did you think it was

19:48 going to be versus what it is now?

19:51 Yeah, it's healthy enough. When I first started, my focus really wanted to be around strategy, right, helping leaders create the strategy to adopt and adapt to the digital way. I can afford

20:06 thinking. My first client turns out what didn't need that, they really needed document management, and then I was like, Sure, I can do this for you, right? And that turned into a lot more, and

20:20 then my second client ended up meeting strategy work, and then that opened the door to a lot of other projects, right, thinking about document management and also thinking about, you know,

20:30 analytics and you name it. So I think it's evolved quite a bit from my initial But you kind of play it to what. where the need is, right?

20:40 And all the things that people need are things that, at least in the, you know, in the land space and all the guests, I've seen it all, right? And so I know for the most part, you know, where

20:52 people should go in as far as direction and what works well. Land is tricky, at least from my perspective as a sales guy, you know, you sort of stack rank the departments and who's the easiest to

21:07 sell to. Like field ops, operations, asset manager types, it's sort of like whatever they need, they're gonna be able to justify it and get it. They might even be able to roll some of what they

21:19 buy into the AFE of the well. There's a lot that they can do. And I would say production is in the mix with that too, right? It's in good times or bad. You always need to optimize what you have

21:32 of a product And then production optimization, you know, you'll get budget for that. You need your core financial system, you need basic accounting stuff, the engineering groups are always gonna

21:45 be there because you have to sort of forecast where your production will look like.

21:51 But then, you know, you kind of start moving down the scale a little bit and it's like land. All right, so just go like find us some land and sign us some leases and you should be good.

22:03 The innovation hasn't really been there quite as much In my opinion, and maybe you disagree with this, on the land side, it's always sort of felt like, all right, well, we don't want the land

22:13 group spending too much money. Like we want you pouring through leases, we want you letting us know if we're drilling on our land and finding leases that are nearby and running title on it. But

22:26 from a true technology perspective, it's like, yeah, you got a map. How many dashboards do you need? Like you're not looking at like AFE variants or at least operating statements. We need you to

22:37 like really just figure out your land stuff. So just show us on a map where all of this stuff is. But then I think, you know, at least in my eyes, whether it's 2016, '17, '18, you started to

22:50 see more, I guess at that time people were calling it OCR, now a little bit more AI around eliminating a manual task of a human to review all of these laborious documents and allow a bot to do it So

23:04 then you started to see some innovation happen with that.

23:08 How are you able to kind of take a position of bringing innovation into land groups when, historically, they've probably shied away from doing that? That's a

23:19 great question. I would say your spot on, right? I mean, land has always been a cross-center. Granted, some of the costs go into capital S overhead, and you can put me to really a well, but

23:29 for the most part, the value is really on subsurface For the most part, it's for us, I completely see it.

23:36 So it's hard to justify it, but I think what you've got to do is, you know, prove the RIs there and show, okay, you're spending X amount today, but you know, you've got a two or three or payoff.

23:46 What is that going to be? And if it means you can do it with less people, you can do it with, you know, fewer tasks that are meaningless and maybe you spend your time on more value creative things,

23:57 that's great too. It's really about showing what's the problem you're facing, how can we help you solve that, and then show just what that cost-benefit analysis is. And really, you know, part of

24:10 the challenge is there's things that happen in the land silo that's fine. We think about it on the broader kind of the, we'll call it the well-hand-off process end-to-end, right? Yeah. How can we

24:20 affect the entire thing as opposed to just what land does and make it, you know, make other people, other groups, feel the impact of how we're going to improve. And that's where we see the

24:27 biggest, the biggest kind of attraction Which, which makes sense. I mean, you and I actually first met back in, in Boston at the AAPL conference and that's you're like hey, I'm actually in

24:40 Colorado Maybe we should play golf sometimes saw you again at another event checked out your website. I'm like, okay Well, this is this got to be a tough business man He's focusing on land groups,

24:50 you know, land doesn't spend and then as I've dug in and learned a little bit more It really does bring a lot of technology elements into it, right? Like you're there to either a help make a

25:01 selection or or optimize technology that they're already using Affordably provide options for document scanning Do some data warehousing, right? And sort of bring the land departments and business

25:15 development groups into an area where a lot of their colleagues already are but to go back to something that you said, yeah, you're you're optimizing for a segment of the industry and a segment of

25:30 of a company itself But I think fundamentally you're trying to break down some of the silos that exist, which will inevitably see land more as a value provider than just a true cost center. Thank

25:45 you. And it's all about data and information, right? That's what everything thrives on. And you've got data upstream, you've got data downstream. And how do you make that flow of seamlessly

25:54 across different groups? And that's one of our biggest areas we're focusing on now is really, you know, in the cloud space, AI space, you know, how do you

26:06 make things faster and also more accessible across the board? Yeah, because the use case for AI, while it might still be somewhat ubiquitous in oil and gas, I think it's pretty straightforward in

26:18 the document management and land space. You wanna leverage the capabilities that have been around for a long time and change the role from a human reviewing every document a human looking out the

26:29 outlier documents and having the AI or the pod. you know, take care of 80 plus percent of it, which could save a substantial amount of time and money. Walk me through it like a typical engagement

26:39 looks like, or is there even a typical engagement? Do you feel like there's like a variety? 'Cause I know you're going to Midland all the time and it seems like your team is like the land

26:47 department for a small oil and gas company, but then you've also got these groups that are bigger oil and gas companies that have full blown land groups and they want you to come in and help a vendor

26:57 selection or implement some AI or document management Like, what does a standard engagement look like for your company?

27:09 Well, they are similar. They're all very different. And while we think we can take learnings from one client to another one, it's not the case usually, right? Politics are different, dynamics

27:18 are different, everything's different, right? Technology's a different, but, you know, by and large, you know, on the strategy side,

27:26 that's more when a company or a group is saying, but we know we need to change We don't know where our problems are. right, come in and help us see. That's usually about a two to three month

27:34 engagement and we'll come in, we'll go through staff interviews, can I hear from them, their point of view, will document kind of the core processes that we know exist in a given land apartment.

27:44 Go through technology roadmap, figure out what versions are they on, are they missing on a function that they should have or they don't realize they have. And then we'll present kind of a series of

27:54 recommendations based on our findings for that, right? And then we'll think about like a three year roadmap of a gate. Here's where you are now Here's where you could be in three years if we do X,

28:03 Y, and Z, right? It could be two years, it could be five years, who knows? But it depends on the company, depends on the budget, depends on everything else, a lot of factors. Yeah, you're

28:12 not. Sorry, go ahead. So on the flip side of that, we really focus around, call it, you can debit digital transformation, which is kind of overuse term at now. But really things around whether

28:24 it's not get management, if you've got files that are digital or their physical files, getting into one repository,

28:31 with the data that's in those documents. And then number two is around business process engineering, again, rethinking through handouts between departments and also within land. And then as you

28:42 mentioned before, kind of the data integration, the data warehousing component. How do you make a data accessible in one location? And so you are no longer having the key data in to multiple

28:53 places. You enter it once, your single source of truth, and it flows upstream downstream as you need to, right?

29:01 Makes sense. Yeah, so I mean, I do think that means it's different in every engagement, but, and I have to ask you this too. Do you have a preference though? Like, do you like coming into a

29:10 smaller company where it's like blank canvas? Or do you like when it's like, hey, big company, big project, but just one project and then that silo? Or are you still kind of at the point where

29:20 like, it's all fun and exciting 'cause you're running your own company and it's a unique challenge? What do you like more?

29:27 I'm making the generic answer and so, I like them both a lot.

29:32 Because the smaller ones are a blank canvas, I think it's harder because to an extent they're kind of anti-processed, right? Because they're so small and new. And so you have to work with them and

29:43 balance them, okay, we're not gonna create a crazy process, but we need to have something that we can work with, right? What is a framework? Whereas the larger ones, I think it's

29:53 to an extent, it's a lot more involved and you've gotta peel back the layers and you have to know where your limits are, what you can and can't touch. Sacred cows, right? Things they've been

30:01 doing for 30 years and you can't touch.

30:05 So they're both fun, just very different animals to play with. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, just different types of chaos, but either way chaos, right? That's why a company brings a

30:15 consultant in. Yeah, you know, full disclosure adaptive edge is a funk futures client. It's been a ton of fun working with you. I've learned a lot in this time, primarily around the scanning

30:26 side of things because what's really stood out to me is, You think about a scanner and we even talk with companies like this today. I think the first thought that any oil and gas company has is like,

30:37 well, why don't we just buy a scanner in our office and we can just have some intern come in and scan stuff. It comes off the scanner and then they put it in a SharePoint folder and we're good to go.

30:49 And maybe that works for a really small company, but there's definitely a point where that doesn't make sense. And then you reach out to a scanning company And the prices for scanning projects per

31:02 box are way across the board. I mean, you know, and I almost look at this

31:10 like windshields. I actually used to be a part owner in a windshield repair and replacement company. You can't walk into a store and buy a windshield and also have the equipment to be able to put it

31:21 on yourself. So you have no idea what it costs. So you're sort of at the whim of like, well, you tell me what it costs And it's like, well, that's a nice situation for the - the vendor. Like,

31:32 you know, people would say it would with Jiffy Auto glass when I was when I was, you know, a part owner in that, people would be like, wow, it's only 450 bucks. Like I went to SafeLight and

31:44 they said it was 850 bucks. And my response would be like, I mean, they don't need to know what the margin is that it would only cost us like100 for that piece of glass and60 for the installer.

31:56 Margins were crazy. But for SafeLight or Elite, it's like, well, what you're paying for is like commercials on TV and the radio

32:07 and their logo on the wall at at course field and at Denver International Airport. Right. But it's crazy that the scanning space, you'd think that there would be like a little bit more semblance of

32:18 sanity to it. But I feel like that's actually a part of your job to be like, well, you know what, like the service may effectively be the same in some cases, but somebody might

32:29 1, 000 for a box, I made my charge100,

32:32 right? It depends on who you call. It's everywhere, right? Yeah,

32:38 and it was funny, there aren't a ton of companies that do it, it's a pretty small population, right? And at least in the oil and gas space, right? You can find a scanning group that does

32:47 healthcare, but are they gonna know anything about oil and gas, probably not, but yeah, it varies broadly. And I think that what sound like it's easy to do, you know, you can get, open a file,

32:60 scan a piece of paper, and then drag and drop it into a folder and show a point. Some of these documents are over 100 years old, right?

33:08 Some are staple paper clips. You gotta go through the process of undoing those and it's the handling. And then you get these giant wall logs that are 50 feet long. And most companies don't have a

33:17 log scanner. So, you know, going through that, you gotta go buy one of those or rent one. You've got an element of quality control and the scanning which come across, right? It would take years.

33:29 you know, to go through that process in-house and probably at least double the cost if, you know, if not more.

33:35 And I know this because we did this when I was at BP. In 2008, we, we scanned everything we had. We hired a team of probably 50 or 100 contract staff and

33:46 ran probably almost four years. It costs a lot of money. It costs a lot of money. Like, I know what it takes. But you were like, well, this is, you know, you're like, put your foot down. We

33:59 need to be a digital first company or somebody in the organization said that. So let's go pursue this. And maybe there weren't the same options for touts or something like that back then. But

34:08 nonetheless, once you start doing it, you're like, oh my god, okay, this isn't just like scanning some expense reports. Like this is actually legit. And then you've got some handwritten stuff

34:18 on there too. It's like, well, yeah, I

34:22 mean, like you said, stuff that's 100 years old, which is wild. And then that sort of leads into the. the technology piece beyond that, like what happens when it comes off the scanner. Now you

34:33 have all these amazing tools that are like, we'll run it through our AI and we'll read it and we'll digest it and our model will start to categorize it and make it searchable. So you can go in and

34:45 say, all right, I'm looking for something with a Pew clause in the state of Oklahoma from 1986 and you pull up the document quickly. Whereas if that's not scanned and then indexed, you're probably

34:59 literally looking through like a file folder. Exactly. And the amount of times that I tell you both, you know, in my own experience, but people I know, agreements they found they didn't know

35:11 they had until they scared them, right? Because it's sitting in a box somewhere in storage, offsite, and they come across leases or contracts or assignments that didn't, they didn't know existed

35:20 because of that. Yeah, no, and that's how you end up drilling, a well on somebody else's lease or somebody where you're like, wait a second, Newfield just drilled a well on our lease. That's

35:29 our well. That's our well. By the way, you owe us money. I've heard this. I've seen this. It's

35:36 actually kind of unbelievable. But when you're blowing and going in oil and gas, it's just drilled baby drill. And I think we're kind of heading into that part of the market right now. Another

35:45 question just about the transition, like, you know, I'm an entrepreneur. I run a small consulting firm just like you do I never worked at a company as big as BP. So I think for me, and I'm in

35:56 sales. So in some ways, like the transition to running my company was not like, I mean, it was, of course, it's hard. There's just different challenges that you have to deal with. But I mean,

36:07 it made sense. I was used to expense reports and having to be accountable and very quantitative type analysis. Is there anything that you miss about the big company where you could maybe hide a

36:18 little bit more, whereas in your job, like you got to be on all the time. What are some of the pros and cons you think about, about this? Do you ever think you'd go back and work at a big company

36:28 again?

36:30 Yeah.

36:32 Check it

36:38 out. I'll tell you, when I was a BP, there were good days and bad days. And I said, I was thinking as long as the good days I'll outweigh the bad days, right? Yeah.

36:49 And doing this for an American company has been largely 99 great. Yeah. There are days when I am stressed to the max or I like about to break.

37:03 That you think, why am I doing this? This is stupid, right? Yeah, it's insane. But then you work through it. You've got to work through it. And I found if I reached that point, I've got to go

37:13 exercise, I go walk around the block or just get out and do something I think as I miss about being in a big company is. People, obviously, number one, a lot of friendships I haven't made, and

37:26 what's different about us, too, is we're all remote, which is great, but also you lose the connectivity to a degree, right? Yeah. And I'll tell you, when I was, I think I missed the insurance

37:41 policy of knowing it's big BP, right? So it's, we're now, it's us and we're not small, but we're not huge, right? And so it's anything can happen any day. So I missed that security, but I

37:56 love what we do and how we do it. And, you know, one of the secrets to our sauce is a good portion of our team is mostly young mothers who've left the workforce and wanted to come back and work,

38:08 but didn't want to commit 40 hours if we get an office. Perfect. And so they can work 20 to 30 hours a week and break out just as much work as someone could, 40 hours if we get an office, right?

38:18 And whether they work at night when their kids get to sleep, or they, you know. between school to drop off in thick up, you know, they knock it out pretty quick and it's great. And they, you

38:27 know, they contribute a ton to who we are. So I really like that. And I think that, I mean, I've worked remotely since about 2010, right? So this is just sort of what I do. Yeah, I think in

38:40 sales, it started to become a thing a little bit earlier. I had one job where I actually had to go into an office. I was there for like nine months. And I was like, this sucks. First, it's like

38:52 just going into the bathroom after somebody takes a shit. Like, I don't have to deal with that here, right? I got all the bathrooms in my house available to me. I can wear a hat. I can take a

39:01 shower whenever I want. I can go out and go for a walk. Nobody asked me where I went. What'd you have for lunch? I don't really want to talk to you about what I had for lunch. I really want to

39:08 get back for two minutes so I can check ESPNcom and then get on this call at one o'clock, right? Nobody's looking over your shoulder and I think that's a good idea. But I do think like, I noticed

39:18 this too, like when I go to Houston, I go to the Digital Wildcatters office or stop by it. I'm like, oh yeah, like there's like an energy that you get. And I think you work a little bit

39:27 differently what you get at home as you work undistracted. And it sounds like because there are so many distractions inherent to a new mother, when they have their time to be productive, they're

39:38 probably like really productive in that time. Right? I mean, it just makes sense. Like your day is condensed. That's okay, yeah But I would agree though, I think it's like, you know,

39:49 during COVID and even the first two years of running this company, all of our work was never met. We didn't travel once to a client site. Yeah. And we got a client that wanted us to come on site.

39:59 And I remember the first day, after first day I was like, this sucks. I am white. I can't do this every day. It's exhausting, totally, totally. I guess you just get in the routine of it though.

40:13 My wife, she's always gone into the office. She can work from home, but I think she actually likes going into the office and the productivity and if she's here, she's probably gonna start doing

40:22 everything 'cause she runs the house. It's gonna be dishes and laundry and oh, somebody needs me to go drop them off their water bottle 'cause they forgot it. It's optional. She's like, no, they

40:32 need it, right? So I think, but it's interesting. I'm like, God, I'd be so exhausted 'cause she probably gets up at like five. It does some work, works out, and then takes a while to get

40:43 ready for work and drops the kids off and goes in. And then doesn't, I'm like, see, that to me feels exhausting, but at the same time, I think once you're in that routine, you can do it. But

40:54 I'm like you, man, when I do go into an office for a day or two in a row, I'm like, I guess I just couldn't, I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it, but I guess you could. Humans adapt. I used to

41:04 be an extrovert up until probably a couple years ago I just like flip like a switch and just like. I gotta have my downtime to just chill the beans, you know? Interesting, yeah, I mean, I've

41:15 talked a lot to my friend, Marcia Vihill, she works at Quorum about this, that if you, when you do work from home and you don't get human interaction, and some days you don't even leave your

41:25 house for like an extended period of time, yeah. You could kind of become more of an introvert, like you become a little bit of a hermit, and then all of a sudden, noises are louder and people

41:37 are more annoying, and just the lines suck. And things that you take for granted when you're just like doing things in the world become like more difficult and more annoying. So I am like kind of

41:49 conscious of that. Like I think with advice I give to people who do work from home is like just now you have to find ways to schedule things in. So like I mentioned, I'm going to dinner with

41:57 Stephen Hatcher tonight, shout out Minerals Guy. And that's good, right? because I haven't had interaction with adults. like it's just me fighting with my kids all week and Alexa being too loud

42:14 that it's like probably gonna be good to like be around another adult and in public and like actually have to get dressed. So pros and cons. We've gone down a bunch of rabbit holes and

42:27 I want to shift topics a little bit here real quick too and that's to like some of the deeper stuff. I know I put you on the spot with the question around big company, small company, what kind of

42:38 projects you like. I think you're pretty diplomatic. I don't think you're a super controversial guy. I like that. But I want to dig into to you. Like what advice would you give to to young Danny

42:52 Falcon to the Kenyo Danny Farahinte

42:57 and it doesn't I mean maybe the 18 year old version the 23 year old version of you Like what would you tell that kid now is the the the most salient advice you could give. Well, number one would be

43:10 don't try and do a stage dive off doing karaoke barefoot about me for the rest of my life.

43:19 But,

43:22 you know, I don't, I kind of held this in the beginning. It's one of those things where I feel like everything that's happened good or bad has led me to where I am now, whether that's meeting my

43:31 wife or, you know,

43:34 not to get too deep, like, you know, my wife and I struggle with fertility for several years and our first form was done through IVF, right? Yeah. It's like, do you wish she didn't have to go

43:44 through that, but had we not, we wouldn't have our son who is two years today. So it's, I don't know. I think, I made some oopsies in my career,

43:54 but I think for the most part, I'm grateful for all, you know. So then maybe it's, maybe the advice would be like, just embrace it, right? I mean, I think that that - Yeah, right, and I

44:08 think that's actually important, 'cause I think that where I've gotten caught and people have even asked me, I think it's a hard question to answer, but I don't know, I always felt like I wasn't

44:21 where I was supposed to be. Like, I should be further along in my life or financially or in relationships or not even necessarily comparing myself to others. I think more so comparing myself to

44:33 what the younger version of me thought I should be at a certain stage in life. And I think that prevented me from having like finding true happiness. And at some point, it was probably around COVID,

44:44 honestly, where I was just like, you know what? Like, just appreciate what you have 'cause it's better than what 999 of the world has, right? You just get stuck in this lens of like, well,

44:56 maybe it's not where I thought it would be. And I didn't think I'd still be a sales guy. I thought I'd be a chief something officer at this point I'm not. I don't have the path to get there.

45:07 But it's tough to think that way when you're younger. We have the benefit of hindsight and experience, which is certainly the great teacher. Yeah, I'll tell you one thing that I thought about what

45:19 you're saying that is confidence. And it's because I think I felt like I was relatively young to be in a role in a role that I was at BP, right? Yeah. And I felt like I didn't belong 'cause

45:33 looking around the room, I was the youngest person in the room So even though they had a confidence in me to be there, I didn't believe in myself. And it took a while to do that, right? But it's

45:43 one of those things where you have to trust to keep

45:49 it long, so. Somebody trusted you to be long. I mean, I actually take it. I appreciate you sharing that, as well as the IBM thing. I mean, that's certainly something I think a lot of people go

45:57 through and maybe just don't talk about. But on the confidence piece, like that is kind of a big deal But I even go back to high school with this too. where I was class president and captain of the

46:10 basketball team and the track team. And my parents or people ask me, they're like, did you vote for yourself? And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, wow, really? 'Cause I feel like a lot of

46:20 people actually didn't. Maybe it was like a humility thing, but I'm like, but if I don't vote for myself, like why would I expect anybody else to vote for me? Fair point. Right? Which I thought

46:31 was kind of an important mindset, but then you get out in the real world, and like, oh, nobody's voting for me, this sucks. I'm here voting for myself, nobody else is voting for me. You know,

46:42 pivoting back to adaptive edge, you've got a couple minutes left here. Like, what do you think the business is gonna look like in a few more years? Like, you've already seen some pivots, right?

46:50 You thought it would be a strategy-centric group. You've become pretty hands-on with building out land departments, with taking on some large-scale projects, in some cases for majors. Where do you

47:03 see it pivoting to? other industries where you're helping optimize, you know, document management, creating more digital transformation opportunities is it leaning more into other departments and

47:13 oil and gas? Or is there just so much runway with what you do now that you're just going to continue to kind of master what you do now?

47:21 Probably all the above to degree, right? But I think the key is at grow a scale in a pace, right? One of the things I don't want to jeopardize is the work left balance that we have all achieved

47:33 And so I want to maintain that, and I don't mind traveling, that's fine, but at the same time, you know, when my kids are from school, I have, I don't have about an hour left, and then I go up

47:41 to the time of them. We help my dinner together, we do the dishes and, you know, do bedtime, and then if I need to work later, I'll work later, but yeah, I'm not going to make everyone suffer

47:50 through that, just the sake of growth.

47:54 As far as, you know, do we pivot doing, I think, you know, we actually have a client,

47:59 believe it or not, it's actually a port Oh, yeah. because they own land around the port that they have to manage, and lease out to shippers or whatever you call it. So how do you manage that?

48:11 Because they're a government entity, you've got to track a lot of the lease terms and financial obligations. And so there's things that are deal with in land that are not just, well, I guess,

48:21 even getting renewables EV charging stations that they've got leases on grocery store parking lots, gas stations, you name it. All those are leases on land. And they work just like, well, I

48:33 guess there's royalty rates for throughput and capacity. So kind of the sky is a limit. I'd say we're trying to get into renewables as much as we can. It's a little bit hard to crack because the

48:46 network I have is in a strong in that area But I

48:52 think as long as we have the expertise in the now, we're happy to be involved. Yeah, I mean, I think it'll be fun to see how that evolves because there is for.

49:02 For oil and gas as a whole, a lot of it is niche where there's just absolutely no crossover into other industries. I think where you're playing, there's a lot, all right? I mean, you're talking

49:10 about documents, you're talking about real estate, you're talking about locations on a map. Yeah, like you're just fundamentally gonna be able to break into other things like this government port

49:20 project that you're talking about. There's probably a million of those. The challenge is like, you know, you spent your entire career effectively in a niche, which is good, it helps you kind of

49:30 get to where you are It's the sort of same challenge I have too. Like, I think that I built a company that has a scalable, like duplicatable model into other industries, but I'm not gonna be the

49:39 one to pursue it because I don't have the confidence in it. Like, you tell me what your product is in oil and gas, and I can either tell you if it's sellable or not, and who on my team should be

49:48 involved in it, and who I know, and that like gives me the comfort that it can be a successful engagement, which of course then leads to continuity customer retention and all the things that you

50:00 need to. have a successful company, is the model scalable? Yeah, I mean, it'll be interesting to see how you and I should touch base on this in like two, three years to see where we've gone,

50:10 'cause maybe it is like, well, there's still so much in this industry that we haven't had time to focus on growing into other things, or is it you get pulled into another project or you hire

50:20 somebody that finds you in other projects? They'll be fascinating to see, but I like that about your business, it doesn't have to be limited to oil and gas, or it could just live in oil and gas,

50:32 you'll be fine with it. And I think what you said too is one of the cool things is the industry is so small, right? Yeah. Just because, whether you have a client now that you lose as a client to

50:43 yours on the road, they could be somewhere else at a new company and you work with them there again, so. Yeah, yes. You know, you're gonna work with it again. That's a very real thing, right?

50:52 And my theory on burning bridges is, you should burn bridges if it's with somebody absolutely sucks and that everybody hates because then you can bond over your shared hatred of that person. But if

51:04 anybody's a decent person, you should not burn that bridge. That's my two cents on it. What do you like to do outside of work?

51:12 Well, so in the summertime, my wife looked at guard a lot. We are beginning to guard this. Going hikes, I play golf, not very well, but I play I get my oldest in the golf camp. Nice. And then

51:27 I like to read a lot. Whether it's

51:31 books around business, strategy, or self-help, or even

51:35 my bookshelf behind me, I've got one half as World War II, this half is around business. So if they turn 30, you go to smoking meats or World War II. So I went World War II. I've gone smoking

51:47 meats, but I was also a history major in college. So there's elements of World War II I can pull out. You and I can have a lot of conversations, but yeah, I've got the smoker out there. It

51:57 hasn't been used enough. The weather's getting nice enough now to be able to do it. So it's going to get used. And golf, I know that you do like golf. I think you've made that part of your, you

52:07 know, who you are and what you do, even though you probably only played like twice this year. Maybe you haven't played at all. So yes, I've played twice last year total. No, maybe three times

52:18 or three times. And this year I haven't played at all because that's my ankle thing, so. Well, it's tough. You have to pick two of the three If it's either work, family, golf. So depending on,

52:29 you know, if you don't have a family and you have a job, you should play golf. If you actually like your family, then you got to pick between work and golf. I don't know about you, I have to

52:38 work. You have to build some. I mean, but you know, I have friends who don't really have jobs. They just golf and hang out with their family. So you really can't have all three. You've got to

52:49 pick two. If you find somebody that's mastered being able to put time

52:55 He probably walks in the water. Yeah.

52:59 Final question, second to last question. What are your favorite restaurants? Either in

53:05 Denver or when you go on the road, but any places that stand out to you? Oh, man. Denver, there's a place you probably wouldn't know about St. Cherry Creek. It's called Fortune Walk to Table,

53:17 Chinese. If there's like five things in the 90s, but the dumplings. Love it. And the B Street duels, it's incredible We go probably like one step of the week if we can. Nice. Angelos, how did

53:28 you been to Angelos? It's pretty good.

53:31 In Denver? Yeah, there's like two, there's one little, one in Boulder, I think, maybe. All right, I got a little, I mean, it sounds, I mean, it's such a generic name, right? But I need

53:43 to, it sounds like. Good, yeah. How about on the road? Anything on the road when you go to Midland, when you're in Houston, any faves? And so in Houston, Tex-Mex, LTM was my favorite. I

53:54 don't know what it is, but that's my go-to when I was there. Midland, they see you on the sound dumb and stupid, but actually it's in Houston too, but double Dave's. And I say that because when

54:04 we lived in Houston, we get it all the time. We don't have it here. Double Dave's been there. So I'll go there and get some,

54:13 but also Opel's table in Midland's pretty good too. So I'll do that. Nice. Yeah, garlic press in Midland stood out to me as excellent. Last time I went there was probably eight years ago, but

54:24 yeah, when you go out garlic press, it seemed more like a big city type of restaurant, good vibes and really good food. I enjoyed that. Last question, where can people find you? Where can they

54:37 find more about your company websites, things like that? Yeah, man. So LinkedIn, obviously, Danny Falcon website is adaptiveedgeio and then I'll be around pretty much every conference you can

54:51 expect. when they go to you here this summer.

54:55 Where is it this year? Kansas City, right? Yeah, that's what I thought. I was like middle of the country. I wish it was in Boston again. That was awesome. It was so fun in Boston, yeah. It

55:04 was when the Celtics parade was going on too. For me being like a New England kid, it was like heaven. Somebody just paid for me to go out here and I went to a parade. Also that Friday session was

55:14 super light 'cause I think a lot of people were like, Well, it's a nice day out. There's a parade. I think we'll just start it I hope that whoever was gonna present and I was like, No, it's

55:24 gonna be pretty light. It was light. It was light. I came in after the parade with like a jersey on and stuff like that. I'm people like, Yeah, let's see what you did. Danny, really appreciate

55:34 having you. It's been great to get to know you. I think, you know, I'd love to see you continue to lean more into your authenticity. I think you offer a lot to the industry. Hopefully you get a

55:43 more podcast after this and keep staying focused on keeping your customers happy and delivering 'cause I think One thing I've seen in the time that we've gotten to know each other and work together is

55:54 you're not going to let projects fail. And that is admirable. The challenge then becomes scaling and also not letting projects

56:04 fail. Yeah. Appreciate you brother.