What The Funk?

0:00 My ears, my ears. So Ian, I told you, we got Ian Myers on the podcast. What the funk love about it? Anyways, Ian, the first time that you and I spoke, I was like, I got to tell you this.

0:12 Anytime I see the last name Myers. So you see behind me, people already know this about me. I'm a diehard Boston Red Sox fan. 2013, I went back for some of their opening round playoff games in

0:26 October against Tampa Bay, their right fielder, his last name was Myers. And he sort of made a play where he like hesitated to go and catch a fly ball. And some miscommunication, fly ball drops.

0:41 It bounces over ground rule double. And I'm in like the right field bleachers at this point and just cascading down. Right. It was just my years, which then needed to happen. Like any time a ball

0:54 was hit to him or he was at the plate I felt bad, he was a rookie, he was like 22. but just like absolutely hilarious. So of course, anytime I see the name Myers, I think back to that wonderful

1:05 moment, but. I mean, he sounds like Keith and me playing teen or league baseball back in Pennsylvania, you know, similar out-fielding skills by the sounds of it. You guys were better engineers

1:17 than ball players? We were better tacklers and hitters and, you know, brute force than like hand-eye coordination Yeah, yeah, classic oil and gas guys. It seems like at least the first like

1:32 dozen podcasts or so that stories were all up the same. There was Chad Frazier and a few others where it was like, well, my dreams of being a professional football player died at some point, like

1:43 my sophomore year of college when I got hurt. And that's when I found the oil field and probably worked out for a lot of those guys. Hopefully for Chad, I worked out great. He's that endeavor and

1:52 they just sold the Diamondbacks was probably a good week for him Yeah, no, I mean, it's funny you say that. I was getting recruited by some D2 schools for football. I went to this one buck now,

2:02 overnight visit. I don't know where this dude is. I don't remember his name. I need to track him down and send him a bottle of wine or something. But I might have this overnight at this little

2:13 party in Bucknell, or drink it in high life or something, because they're trying to impress me. And he's like, what are you thinking, dude? And I'm like, well, I'm either going to come here

2:22 and play football, or I'm going to go to Penn State, study engineering, and just be a normal student. And not play football. Yeah, and he was like, I'll never forget. He looked at me and he's

2:32 like, dude, don't come here. No one comes to our games, no one cares, no one goes E-N-F-L. And I was like, thanks man, I appreciate that. And I went to Penn State and did engineering. So

2:46 somewhere I need to go thank that guy with a bottle of whiskey or something. That's amazing. Yeah, I mean, for all we know, Bucknell's a pretty good school, if I recall, like that's

2:56 Pennsylvania, right? It is, it is, it's in Lewisburg, it is a good school,

3:02 but I wouldn't trade by Penn State experience for anybody. Yeah, you went to the big state school and then you got your elite MBA later on, but we'll talk about that. One quick story before I let

3:12 you introduce yourself and talk a little bit more about pre-buck, pre-penn state, pre-potential buck now, and then everything you've done since then. So this is just funny and I have to tell this

3:23 story. So, you know, I'm on a bunch of different podcasts that people see my face. I'm always posting stuff on LinkedIn and I'm oftentimes wearing this hat, right? It's a funk futures hat. I

3:33 just gave you and your brother Keith one. You got that cute one, really looking hat. Thanks, I know your haircut's too sharp to wear one today. I'm not offended, you got a clean cut, but I like

3:44 to wear mine, I don't know, it's just sort of like a comfort thing. People even see me when I come on these calls and they're like, where's your hat? I'm like, oh yeah, so it's become a thing.

3:53 It shows you how much things have changed, right? Imagine wearing hats and like a big business meeting. or even just five years ago. But anyway, so on the Funkfutures website, right? You can

4:04 send a message, right? So I get a message and I get tons of spam, just like people like find me a job with like a fake name, like

4:15 XXYhotmailcom. You know, and I'm just like this delete, delete, delete. I get this message, so I'm just like spam, spam, spam. And the message was hello. I'd like to order one of those

4:26 Funkfutures hats that you wear on a podcast that I just saw. My name is Jeremy Funk.

4:34 And I'm like, this is definitely not real, right? So I'm like, all right, so I respond back through the website, I go, prove it.

4:43 He sends me, he's like, I just added you. I'm like, then sure enough, there's a guy named Jeremy Funk who's in Minnesota, and I'm like, seriously, you wanna hat? Like, I don't, I usually

4:52 just give him out to like business partners, clients, friends and stuff. He's like, dude, I'll pay you for a hat. Okay, I'm about to put it in order for some more hats. He's like, do you have

5:03 a preference? Like, you know, you wanted to snap back. I like the stretch fit that it's, he's like, yeah, just the one that you're wearing on the podcast is great. So I'm like, all right,

5:14 dude, send me a, send me your email. There's, send me your address, send me a 30 bucks, right? Basically just covered my cost of, I might have even lost money out to be honest, but I'm like,

5:24 well, you know what? I got a Jeremy Funk in Minnesota asking me for a hat. So anyways, I go to the post office, I take a picture of their seat. I'm like, all right, I'm sending it, you send

5:32 me the money. Like, there's a lot of trust in play here, fine. And I get a message a few days later, like, dude, the hat came in. I was like, I need a picture. Dude takes a picture. He

5:42 looks like me. He's like a doppelganger, same kind of build. If I'm ever in Minnesota, which I probably never will be, I got to reach out to Jeremy Funk. But anyways, that kind of made my week.

5:53 And I was like, oh, I want to see where this goes. So I've been sharing the story a little bit. I love it, man. Just like the small, fun things like that, that sort of make your week here and

6:02 there. I think of the TV show Fargo, of just some dude walking around Minnesota with the future side on, just owning it. That's just go to hat every day. I know it brings enjoy every morning,

6:15 putting that hat on. Dude, he looks in the mirror, he's like, This is me, I'm funk futures. It's like right on Jeremy Funk, like, Yes, you are, yes, I am But yes, super funny, super small

6:26 world stuff, and then to make it even worse. So, yeah, we're Google yourself, Google your name. I think I have a couple of times. I tried to stay away from that. It's like the most, I

6:38 actually Googled your name last night. There's a few other Ian Myers too, as you can imagine, but I think it's like the number one thing people actually Google is their own name. One of my buddies

6:48 told me that a few years ago, I have no stats to back it up, but since my buddy told me a few years ago, I'm gonna say that it's true. But I've googled myself. or Googled the name Jeremy Funk.

6:58 It ain't pretty. There was a Jeremy Funk who was in Utah about 20 years ago who was convicted of a double murder and then died in jail. Damn it. I had somebody reach out to me on Facebook, like

7:12 somebody from high school that I haven't seen in a long time. They're like, Hey, are you in jail? I'm like, Yeah, dude. I'm responding on Facebook Messenger from my jail cell. Like, you see

7:21 the pictures of me and my family that were posted yesterday? No, I'm not in jail Other people happen to share the same name. So I kind of went down the rabbit hole of that and then Googling you,

7:30 Googling Keith Myers, and it's hilarious, you know? But nonetheless, enough about Jeremy Funk's and the various different Funk's that exist all over the world. Ian Myers, who are you, man? Who

7:43 am I? That's a great question. I think about that every day, who am I? Now, I'm a central PA boy at heart, grew up right outside state college where Penn State is. called Pencil Tucky, right?

7:58 Amish Country in middle of nowhere.

8:01 Grew up there, you know, and work like hell for a variety of reasons to get the hell out of there. That's why me and my brother are so close. We were really tight knit and like, we want to get

8:13 out of here for a variety of reasons. Yeah, and engineering was the ticket. Like we had done good in school and we were poor kids who needed scholarships. So we got him, went and did that And it

8:26 really started my oil field career. I was telling someone this. Part of the reason I got into the oil field was the scholarship money. Part of it too was it was right around the time there will be

8:37 blood came out, right? With Daniel Day at the list. Grant just loved that movie in college, like the epitome of him. I've abandoned my boy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I once was gonna get a tattoo of

8:50 him drinking a milkshake on my leg, but I did, but like, you know. I love that movie. And so I started my career at ExxonMobil, did all kinds of cool drilling completion stuff, deep water,

9:03 offshore California. Knew I wanted to be there three years and go do something more entrepreneurial. So basically moved to Denver, what, 13 years ago, took a bigger rule of smaller companies,

9:17 ultimately culminated with me and some other guys starting clear, great resource partners, feedback, DJ player. That was like, and when you, I mean, you notice Jeremy, when you start your own

9:29 thing, you call and hire people you trust and my brother was like, the dude. So that's the first place we got working and learn we love to work together. And so it's kind of been from that point

9:42 on, like how can me and Keith keep working together and build cool stuff. So. Yeah, which led to your MBA, We'll jump into. to that and mainline ventures and our partnership as well, which I'm

9:54 super excited about. So, central Pennsylvania, my wife is from York. I think I told you that. So I've spent a little bit of time in that part of the world. Definitely pencil tucky, for sure.

10:06 You see a lot of like Hillary for prison. Yes. You know, like

10:11 stakes in the ground. Like you definitely feel like you're not just in like old Yankee Northeast. It's very, very different Did you grow up near where there was actually drilling going on? Because

10:24 if my timing adds up here when you were in high school college, like the Appalachia and the Marcellus Shale was actually starting to blow up a little bit. Yeah, it was really starting to blow up

10:35 when I was in college, if I remember it, right? So I didn't really have much, you know, of a look into it. Honestly, when I started school, I was chemical engineering, biomedical focused. my

10:50 engineering degree and go be a doctor. I always wondered like how that would have played out, but honestly, we weren't really around it. I mean, you know, the thing about central

11:02 PAs, it's great people. I'm so glad I got raised there, but it's a lot of like drinking and working at the prison and everyone stays there. Like, I remember my dad did like a 23 and me and

11:15 basically like Keith and me were the first version of the Myers like to ever leave central Pennsylvania. So it's like,

11:24 yeah, so it just like, I'm glad to grow up there, but you know, for a variety of reasons, me and Keith wanted to get the heck out and I just realized like, all right, school is going to have to

11:34 be the ticket. Like, if we're going to get out of there, school is going to be the ticket. So, so the importance of education more so than the industry that you got into was was the most

11:44 important. That's interesting. I didn't I didn't know that about you, but it makes sense and similar to central. New Hampshire, where I'm from. I like to refer to it as a great place to be from.

11:54 I've developed more of an appreciation for it as I've gotten older. My parents are still there at the same house that I grew up in and the area is beautiful and especially, well, the area is

12:06 beautiful when it's not like this time of year. I finally encourage them to be like a little bit more, go to Florida for a couple months or North Carolina in the winter, I don't know why you're

12:15 still there. It's gray, it's dark, it's cold There's definitely a lot of drinking. And then there's like these occasional small universities which is why I ended up there. But like you, like I

12:26 knew I was gonna get out and I agree that that education was part of the ticket 'cause there weren't like a lot of the, like say you grew up in Midland, right? Like look at Collin at Digital

12:36 Logcatters. Like he had the opportunity to go on the oil field. There were no jobs like that where I was that would have paid you that way. I guess if you went a couple hours away and you wanted to

12:43 go out and like lobster boats or something but I didn't wanna like drive a snow plot. you know, like those were the options. There wasn't a lot. Yeah, no, I mean, for us, it was like, you

12:53 work at the prison, maybe you're the Penn State job, you go into the military, which is all fine and great jobs. It just was, you know, I don't know, we just wanted to get the heck out of it.

13:05 I mean, you know, our, like, home life was not great growing. I tell people this a lot, like, I feel like up to 18, you get in all your trauma, all your BS, all the things, then in your 20s

13:17 is like setting the world on fire because of it, right? It's like, you're fueled by it, you're angry, you're like, and then you're like, your 30s is like, all right, unpacking it, it's a

13:27 little more nuanced. I have a little more appreciation. I have a little more empathy. Like you said, now you can reflect back and be like, it's a great place to be from. Like, that's kind of,

13:37 I mean, that's kind of how it was. And so I think I'm glad to grow up there, but I'm never gonna move back to PA Yeah, I bet if you asked me in my 20s. about New Hampshire, it was fucking boring,

13:50 fucking suck, right? You got really cold boards, no jobs, but obviously different, different kind of appreciation for now. And you also started to just start to learn, like, I don't know,

14:01 it's very easy to compare yourself to what others have. Maybe they live in a place that has better weather, more wealth or more girls or prettier girls or whatever it is, whatever you're into.

14:11 But ultimately everybody's experience in high schools, like kind of the same, you like you develop like, in my case, maybe like three or four close friends and those are the people that you still

14:22 stay friends with later on and everything else is just kind of noise. Yep. No, 100. I agree with that. So you said it was either work at state pen or Penn State. If I go. Yeah. Yeah. It's

14:34 like the biggie layer. 100.

14:37 Yeah They're

14:39 still greater claim the fame than that line to any, any Penn State or when you're at Penn State like that in state college in general like. that is what we, everyone wants on their tombstone is

14:51 that big equal because he talks about Penn State. Nice. Well, the nitney negotiators is what you guys are now, but we're not going to jump ahead that far yet. So we didn't meet when you were at

15:04 Emerald. We didn't meet when you were at CCRP, but you were a pretty young COO,

15:10 I should say, at CCRP. What was that like? You were still in your 20s, and then you get tabbed to run operations for a DJ basin oil and gas company. Did you feel ready? Were you nervous about

15:26 that? Was it crazy? Tell me a little bit about that experience. Most COs that come on here are in their 50s. No, I wasn't ready. I got really fortunate. There was a guy or CEO, Keith Engler at

15:39 Clear Creek. He was a special advisor at Emerald and I kind of came in in this wave of people that were trying to like write that ship. and Keith was tasked with a lot of things. So he came up with

15:50 these ideas and then I would go execute them. And so we built this rapport and he had like a great fondness for people who could do the high end, like executive stuff, but also like roll up the

16:00 sleeves and do the work. Totally. And he called me, he's like, Hey, I want to go start somethingI want you to run their operations. And I'm like, Okay, sure. Would love to. I'm just not

16:11 lucky. And man, I would be lying to you if I felt like I was ready to do it. But in hindsight, like I'll give you an example, right? So we get our acre's position. We're about to go do our

16:27 first well, refrac our first well. Keith is on my team, so it's basically me and Keith planning the whole thing, right? The

16:34 challenge when you're that small is getting good service personnel to come to location. It's getting good consultants. Like I'm not running a full year program I can get people. So me and Keith are

16:45 literally like planning everything. We have consultants, but we're gonna spend, we spend every day on every well that we drill at a clear degree. So I'm driving out to the first well and I am like

16:56 sick to my stomach. Like, what am I doing? I shouldn't be like, there's a hundred gonna be a hundred people I hear tomorrow. I don't know what the heck I'm doing. I pull over on the side of

17:07 location. I literally throw up 'cause I'm so

17:11 nervous. I get the location. It's 11 o'clock at night. This is a true story. I check in with the consultants It's the first time I'm meeting 'em. And at the time, they were putting the facility

17:22 in and they were doing some trench work and we had it extra. Well, this service provider, I won't say the service company's name. I'll take it to my grave. Comes driving up, okay? And runs past

17:34 the area that was blocked off, like it's blocked off a tape, and drives into the trench, oh my God, gets out, tries to go get into the

17:45 crane I'm like, what is going on? come out, this guy was wasted, beyond that. And he was the HSE director for this company. I was like, so I'm like, this is my first well ever, right? I come

18:00 from Exxon where like, everything is buttoned up through a T and we got some guy driving on location, like crashing into it, like it was insane. So that's how it started. I did not feel ready,

18:12 but I think what I learned most through that is I leaned a lot on like my oil and gas network. Like me and Keith were always asking questions to other people like, what do you guys do? And we never

18:23 got too like rooted in what we thought. And so we just leveraged that. And then

18:31 I think it was just like being out there, like we really were out in the front. I think that's the, like last thing I'll say is, I think when you're young in leadership, you have to lead from the

18:41 front. Like you have to be rolling up your sleeves getting out there with people. You don't have 30 years experience for people. to just say, hey, we trust you, you know what you're doing. You

18:51 have to be like, you know, just grinding it out out there. And you know, that's what we did. And I think that gave me a lot of confidence to do a lot of things I've done since Clear Creek. Yeah.

19:03 But no, I was already, I was not ready. I mean, I like that, that answer. And I think the contrast of a CCRP versus Exxon Mobil, obviously is stark, right? Because Exxon Mobil, like you said,

19:18 they've got a playbook, and everything's gonna happen a certain way, and there's gonna be these people on site, and they're using all the top tier blue chip partners, right, in the most expensive

19:29 products. And it's been methodically planned out well in advance to meet corporate guidance and guidelines. And then you're literally in the wild west, right? As a young COO, and that's, that

19:41 story to me is like a great visual, I can totally picture it. So, so CCRP, right? you and your brother have a chance to work together. You're effectively running, drilling and operations. You

19:51 guys drill some good wells, some probably not good wells. But nonetheless, you've got a great experience from that. That took you, I think, into like around COVID times where I believe there was

20:02 some sort of exit you guys ended up selling the company. And then you went to get your MBA as did your brother. So tell me a little bit about that, like the exit of an oil and gas company and then

20:12 deciding you wanted to pursue something else and going back to school Yeah, I don't know that I've ever really like told exactly the story that got me to go get my MBA. But I would say when I moved

20:23 here to Denver, I was 26. And I was very much gonna like spend a year here and go get my MBA full time. I had a couple buddies at Exxon, one with the Harvard, they kind of went all over, one

20:35 went to MIT, like that was the plan. Well, you know, like - Dummies, just dummies. Yeah, yeah, dummies, right? Life hits you I end up having kids very early and, you know, It was not the

20:47 planned situation. And so just, prayer took off and started running that route. COVID happened. I don't know if you ever know, share me, but I have hearing aids, right? Like, so COVID happens,

20:60 people start wearing masks. I can't hear anything. Oh my God. And I go to the audiologist, I'm like, what is going on? Well, I have this, you know, disease called autoscorosis, the bones

21:12 calcify. It's so slow over time That's not like you wake up, I become a lip reader, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it was kind of like my first like real moment of like, oh, you're not this

21:24 invincible, you know, 20 year old kid anymore. And there were all these things that kind of percolated, like not that I was gonna die over it. But it was like, hey, there's still things that

21:36 you want to accomplish on the list. And I think going and getting my MBA was one of them. And so that in conjunction with, you know, I kind of saw the consolidation coming in the DJ in Denver. I

21:49 want to stay in Denver. So I wanted to broaden out, too. Yeah, so kind of all those things went into

21:57 going back and getting my MBA. And you're right, like me and my brother, we're not just business partners, we're like best friends. And we're very, we're going on these packs of things. And so

22:07 we both had always said, you know, let's go get our MBAs. And so I went and did mine at Kellogg He went and did his a Berkeley. But that's kind of like what got me going doing that. Yeah, I

22:21 didn't know all of that. And I appreciate the insight. Fascinating. And you know, I guess why Kellogg, was it like something specific about the Northwestern MBA program? Was it just this is the

22:33 top tier school that I'm interested in? Was it that I think in your case it was located in Miami? Like why Kellogg and not Denver or somewhere else? Yeah, I'll be honest that it was, is a brand

22:47 thing. Like all these schools are really expensive. And so in my mind, and I don't know that this is like in hindsight, is it right or wrong? But it was, hey, if I'm gonna spend all this money,

22:59 I'm gonna go do it at the top five school and get the network. I tell everyone this. Do I think I learned anything at Kellogg that I wouldn't have learned at DU or somewhere else? Probably not,

23:11 maybe a little bit, right? Like Kellogg is the world's most pronounced marketing MBA school. So they're really good at marketing and that type of thing. So maybe there's some things I learned

23:22 there that are different, but it was really just, what could I do and still be working and being a good dad in that type of thing and what would be a big school? And Keith and me kind of did it

23:36 strategically saying, like, I'll go to one, you know, you go to another, That way we can kind of overlap the networks. And so I think it's worked out, it's worked out good. I mean, I

23:47 appreciate the candor and I wish more people would say that. I mean, the reason I went to Brandeis is 'cause it was the best school I got into. I didn't like have a plan at 18 years old. You at

23:57 least had a plan at whatever 30 years old when you decided to do this and that plan was met by going to the best MBA program you possibly could. So kudos to you on that. And Heath went to Haas

24:08 Berkeley, which is also great. So he was going west, you're flying east, right? You guys are building these awesome networks. Were there any oil and gas people in the Kellogg program? I had one

24:19 who was a CFO

24:23 for like a family office backed company in Dallas. But there really wasn't. No, there really wasn't, which I think was - honestly, it was part of appeal for me. I'm a big connected dots person,

24:40 meaning - I think there's a lot you can learn by looking outside of. just the industry you're in and like pattern match and say this and so, yeah, there really wasn't. You know, I know some like,

24:52 I had some buddies who were in the oil and gas that kind of went through cohorts after me, but that were in the oil and gas. But you know, I think they're like, they tried to be particularly like

25:01 this guy from here and this on the industry will take this person from here. They try to like be strategic in like crafting these cohorts and so, I think about like the oil and gas, you know, guys.

25:14 Check that box, right? Oh, cool. We've got an executive from the oil and gas industry. He's in Denver, awesome. And you met a lot of people that, you know, then moved on to take like big jobs

25:26 and you decided to go into the field of negotiation. Like that's sort of where you decided to lean into first and talk to me a little bit about that. Like I've already learned a lot in our brief

25:37 time, you know, working together and partnering between mainline ventures and funk futures But talk about some of what you - kind of love and appreciate in terms of the art andor the science behind

25:48 negotiation, your experience is there. Yeah, so, you know, I think my interest started at a really early age in that, like my parents and my grandparents tell the story of like me being eight

25:60 years old being like, I'm a business man. So I was very curious, always psychology and like how people, like my mom will tell you, I was reading like the seven healthy habits as like a seventh

26:14 grade or like I was just a weird like into like that type of psychology stuff. And so a couple of that with a common, the energy industry and what I see is like, and I think this is true,

26:27 is especially at Clear Creek, it's like they were like two or three deals as an EMP that you make that really like lock in what you are going to like potentially do. It's like, what do you buy your

26:38 acreage for? What kind of midstream agreement can you strike? what kind of deals can you strike on your AFE and then what do you sell for? So like, I, and I've done a lot of negotiation on

26:48 procurement and like land buys and acquisitions. And so I've just was like, man, this skill kind of sets the stage for everything. It doesn't matter how good of a well I drill if we don't buy the

26:59 acres for the right price and structure the right deal. And so we were halfway through Clear Creek was done. I didn't know like what industry I've flirted with tech for a little while. And I'm like,

27:10 hey, I have this unique opportunity Let me go rep this skill across a bunch of different industries and kind of scratch that itch. And so that's really what kind of got me going in that direction.

27:23 Yeah. And now I thought it was really interesting. Justin Gauthier, Wicked Energy, connected us. I pride myself on being a connector. I think you're a connector. He's definitely a connector,

27:38 one of the best, I think, in the space. And he just - You know, I did a podcast and we're just kind of. rapping afterwards. And he's like, I don't know how this is going to work or even what

27:47 will come with it. But like, you got to meet these guys. You got to meet these guys. Ian's and Denver Keith is down here. He's like, these are, these are some of my guys from when I was in

27:56 school in Denver that I really like, I don't know where this is going to go, but you should meet with him. And I remember you telling me this must have been like November, right? It's something

28:05 like October, November, we met in right near where you used to work down in Cherry Creek. And at North Italia, by the way, which is freaking outstanding. My favorites. Every lunch spot in the

28:16 whole city, honestly. It's way up there. So we, we meet up and we start talking and, and you talked to, but you were talking a lot about negotiation. You wanted to do like negotiation,

28:26 consulting and helping companies would go to market. And I hadn't even really heard this, right? I'm like, what do you mean by negotiation? You're like, well, think about it from an operator's

28:35 perspective, right? They typically think of like one lever to pull, which is just like price, right? respond to that if you are the vendor that's trying to sell something, because there should

28:46 always be some level of give and take. And it's typically something that's learned, it's not totally innate in people. And there are some people in business that have to win every negotiation. And

28:57 those are generally people that at some point, I'm like, I can't, I can't work with you. Like there has to be some, I need to win some two, I'm not saying I need to win every one, but there has

29:04 to be some give and take in this. And I thought it was pretty, pretty fascinating the way that you in particular looked at negotiation, then you launched Mainline, you showed me your side, I'm

29:14 like, okay, this is not just negotiation, you got so much going on here, a lot of this go to market strategy, even a little bit of marketing kind of brand creation. I think that it's, it's cool,

29:26 and naturally a really good compliment as we've figured out, the funk futures, which focuses a little bit more on the sales execution and lead generation business development stuff. But Truth be

29:39 told, companies work with us. They kind of already feel like they have their value prop and their personas and their product market fit and their plan figured out. Honestly, most of them don't,

29:51 right? Which is where you guys come in and effectively can work with these companies to say, like truly, like, what is your pricing? What is your pricing? What should it look like? Who should

30:02 you be selling to? And how do you sell to each of these various different personas and what should your brand look like and sound like? And do these kind of short and sometimes longer-term

30:11 engagements? And then you hand them to me and my team. And we've got like a playbook that we can execute on versus us. Like, how power has really taken 30 minutes to effectively put together a

30:22 half-baked playbook and just go to market with it and hope that it hits, right? So to me, it's very logical. And I also think it can go in the other direction, too, where we start working with a

30:32 client and realize, oh, actually, they could leverage some of what Mainline is doing So talk to me a little bit about some of your objectives. in terms of mainline and your focus on industries and

30:46 at what stage should a company engage you guys? And all those sorts of things that are making you guys kind of a hot emerging entity right now. Yeah, it's a great lead in. You know, to me, I

31:01 think you ask 100 people what negotiations means, you're gonna get 100 different answers. It's like a mystical thing that's kind of up here In my mind, what we do through, and there are science

31:13 around it, in behavioral science, that kind of underpin, that's why you can take them to different industries and use them. It's all about connecting your strategy and your differentiation, right?

31:25 Everyone has a strategy, every company, or they wouldn't be around. They have differentiation. It's connecting that through the business. It's connecting it through sales. It's connecting it.

31:36 We work a lot with procurement groups. It's connecting it through procurement groups It's directly through MA.

31:42 And so we can work with any different size company. And when I say to folks is, you know, let's look at the sales side. Everyone's under pressure to hit their revenue targets right now, right?

31:55 What, you know, Jeremy, you've been sales. What, you're off track, what are the common remedies folks,

32:03 folks do to kind of get back on track? Well, they might hire, they might do a sales summit, maybe they bring in a new VP, maybe they overhaul a new CRM 'cause they think it's gonna, you know,

32:13 ours is a very succinct playbook that is minimally invasive. What I mean is we can come meet with you, take it through one deal, and you can take it, you don't have to change people, you don't

32:25 have to change CRMs, and can systematically give you better deals. We can do it on the procurement side too. And so, you know, it's really anyone looking to really optimize their deal And you're

32:38 right, it's even, it's best on when we can connect it to a great fractional sales group that can go maximize it on the ground. So that's why I say, I think go to the market. The nice thing about

32:53 go to the market, if you're an existing company, you already have your go to market. We're kind of weeding through where you're at and saying, let me connect your most important strategy to your

33:04 commercial offering. Go to market, the slate is blank. It's a week of work with you and say, all right, here's exactly how we're gonna position your firm. Here's how we're gonna carry it through

33:14 the offer. I mean, you know, like a lot of what we do is move you from talking about what makes your company different to putting it on paper so you get recognized value for it. And I mean, yeah,

33:27 that's a long winded answer, but that's really what we're trying to do. I mean, I teed you off with a long winded comment and just totally stole your thunder. So don't worry about that I also

33:38 think, like, let's use tech. as an example, it doesn't have to be oil and gas tech energy tech, just tech as a whole. Think about who generally starts tech companies, well, it's technical

33:47 resources. For the most part, these are not strong negotiators and they're not good at go-to-market, so they start bringing in other resources there. And I think there's a real opportunity for you

33:57 guys, I always see, okay, well, these are technical founders, technical people that built a good product, we'll go sell it. There's like a big gap in between there that I think you guys fill

34:08 that makes just a ton of sense and I also see the negotiation consulting where the go-to-market strategy that you guys execute typically in a pretty short period of time being crucial at any price

34:22 point, right? So, I mean, if I look at my portfolio of companies, I was just talking to one of my clients about this today. One of them wants us to do outbound for a product that's2, 000 a year

34:34 and they want us to hit thousands of different people and go sell this one little niche product. and it's gonna be a quick yes or it's gonna be a quick no. On the other hand, we have some large

34:43 scale enterprise solutions that we offer that the minimum starting price for some of them is 250, 300K and could end up being a total contract value in the tens of millions, right? But I think what

34:56 you guys are doing, the same principles generally apply

35:04 with how are you positioning this within an organization then how are you able to come up with a way to structure a deal that an executive is able to sign off on, right? So talk to me a little bit

35:13 about some of that like small price point, high price point. Do you guys generally take like the same kind of approach if

35:21 it's a repeatable tactical sale versus a large scale enterprise strategic sale? Like are the underpinnings the same? Or do you feel like it's sort of a case by case basis? The underpinnings are the

35:29 same. We have a very straightforward playbook and I'll just like simply say, it's about finding your leverage, about analyzing your leverage. It's about, yo. then crafting the deal, deploying

35:40 the deal and closing the deal. Like those are the five things. And we have various tools and processes that kind of carry that through. It's going to be different. It's just the amount of scale.

35:51 So if they're smaller price point, we're building probably more, you know, maybe three or four different kind of execution toolkits. So what I mean by that's like a pitch deck and offer like talk

36:05 track. Like Jeremy, here's what you're going to go say And we're probably building that off of three or four broader personas of target companies. And the kind of mass doing that, if it's a very

36:17 big enterprise deal, we're doing that very, very, very custom. I mean, we're even like analyzing what we can for each person, any organization you're going to talk to, what research can we find

36:28 about them? Like, here's how we're going to articulate it. But the playbook is the same It's just like, how are you going? You have to scale with the lower price. to do that, you gotta build

36:40 your top three personas, crafted around that, and then just execute it. Do you guys get involved in the actual negotiation of deals themselves? Like, will a company say, hey, we've got this

36:53 deal in the pipeline, we've had this in the pipeline for a while. Can you help us extract maximum value out of this thing? Like, you do it, you're better than me at this. Does that happen? Is

37:02 that a thing? It happens. We've sat at the table with folks I would say folks don't really like that because they're gonna explain like who is this person coming in and then folks might like

37:14 research and find out, you know, and it kind of, what typically we'll do is like say, funk features, crush in it. We're helping you sell the company. We'll like work with you. Here's the pitch

37:27 Jeremy. Here's the talk track. You meal get on and practice. I'll even like give you objections. But we will sit at the table And sometimes honestly, we'll be like in the background. listening

37:40 and taking notes of like, you know, what was said or somebody will do an author transcript and send it to us and we'll listen. Well, it kind of varies. I mean,

37:49 I do really believe this. Like I tell anyone, 'cause they do a lot of personal negotiation stuff, right? Folks who are gonna go try to get more salary or seller uncomfortable an. It's that like

37:56 something or company, feeling to

38:01 hear no.

38:03 And one of our things being Keith always says, like we want to hear no Like if I give you a price and a package and you say yes, on the first time. I want something on the table. That's on the

38:16 table. It's uncomfortable, especially when it's yourself hearing that, right? And so I tell people like, go rep it. Like ask for a discount on the sweater in Nordstroms when you go buy it. Like

38:28 just get used to like asking because that's gonna prep you best when you're at the table. And we'll get people as prepped as we can, but it's almost like a muscle you have to rest. Yeah. Yeah. I

38:40 like that. And it makes plenty of sense to me because people are uncomfortable in negotiations. I think it's just human nature. It's conflict. And for the most part, humans like to avoid conflict.

38:53 Want to talk a little bit more about what it's like working with your brother. So I've seen you guys kind of ham and egg. You seem very different. You guys look different. You sort of have

39:03 different skill sets with some similar background But what's it like on a day-to-day basis working with your brother? Because I feel like if I was working with my siblings, they would just start to

39:13 hate me every single day. But what's it like? How do your personalities balance each other? What are some of the strengths and weaknesses that some of you guys compliment each other with? Yeah,

39:24 it's a great question. People always ask that. Because we're always together. What do you want me to say? I hate working with my brother when I'm right next to him. No, but I mean, it's

39:37 honestly We think about things from a business perspective very similarly. So what is nice about that is we can like hand tasks off and kind of rub with things pretty well. We also can like have

39:50 really hard conversations that I think people shy away from at other places. Keith is definitely like more laid back. Like all my, we have a lot of similar friends. Keith would be your preferred

40:02 roommate. He's like the more laid back, go with the flow Very like methodical. I think he's very well-spoken. He's a great debater, but just a little bit more laid back.

40:15 You know, and we have a great dynamic. I think the key thing is, is we're like very clear, 'cause he's my best friend too, right? And there's times where like, I think we have to be candid with

40:26 one another. Like, hey, I need best friend Keith right now. I don't need, I don't need business Keith. And he could do the same thing or inevitably like, Hey. I'm the pessimist today and you

40:38 to be the optimist or we're not gonna get through through the day. And so I think we just like hand that off and it's interesting because our relationships really grown. Like I was very much the

40:51 father like figure for Keith really until probably 32. And then, you know, I had some things in my life that kind of went sideways, right? Like divorce and things like that. And it like really

41:04 brought us closer because for once, like I was turning to him for help and guidance. And like I think what is beautiful about that is it's like even that this relationship where we feel like really,

41:17 I don't know that we can count on one another and lean on each other more. And I think that's been really important as we get going on on Mainline, you know? Yeah, man. I mean, that's awesome.

41:28 And I appreciate you sharing some of that personal detail. I told Keith like we were out to lunch I don't know how old you guys were at the time. I know how old you are now. And Keith's like, How

41:36 old are you? I'm like, I'm 44. He's like, I'm 32. I'm like, You're 32, dude. When I was your age, like, I didn't have a clue. And you're in here, like, negotiating, teaching people how

41:46 to negotiate, coming in, proposing some of these high dollars. And, you know, you've got your MBA. You've got a family. I'm like, Dude, you're with it, man. Like, good on you. So I think

41:58 that, you know, it probably helped him coming after you. You probably made some mistakes that he could then avoid himself, right? And then in some ways, like, be a good compliment to what

42:09 you've been able to bring to the table. But he's a good dude. And I'm sure at some point we'll have him on the podcast too. He's in Houston, you're in Denver. Like, how did that all end up? He

42:20 was in Denver for a while, of course, with CCRP, right? Yeah, yeah, that's a great question. It's funny you bring this up today because I got him like this close to moving back to Denver. I

42:31 got him really, 'cause they're about to have the third baby. And so I'm like, how am I gonna get him to get back here? And our parents are here now.

42:38 At the time he had taken a new opportunity as like director of sales for Evolution, an E-Fract company, his wife is from South Texas. And I think they thought, you know, they'd move down there

42:50 and be closer to them. And there was some stuff going on with our parents at the time and he just, I think he just wanted a fresh, you know, start And so they decided to move back to Houston, but

43:03 I'm like this close to getting him back to that, which I think would be great 'cause he's got kids the same age as my kids. They're like thickest thieves. And, you know, like from a business

43:12 standpoint, I love to have an office space that we're working, we're working in. Yeah, because then I could crash it. Yeah, in the three of us can like, you know, we have to find a location

43:23 that is suitable for us, but yeah, no, I would love it, you know? I'm always having a lot of time.

43:32 You know, so you get, I appreciate that, that insight. So, and I hope he comes back to it because he's just a cool guy and we can hang out like outside of work too. But, you know, I wanna talk

43:40 a little bit about your career decision post MBA. Like I'm sure coming out of Kellogg MBA, you get people that are going like big time, sea level roles at various different types of companies,

43:52 which surely were available to you, but you've decided you really wanna kind of launch your own thing and go off on your own. Like, why? You know what I mean? Like, I just have to ask. Like,

44:03 people ask me, they're like, why did you start your own company? And my answer, although it's changed over time, was I just didn't wanna have one job. You know, like, I wanted every single day

44:15 to be different. And also to make the most of a Rolodex that I'd built over time, but why did you, I didn't go to Kellogg either, though. But why did you decide not to take some high paying job

44:26 in some big city and instead start this firm with your brother? Ask your question. Um, you know, in fact, I did, I'm still an advisor and co-founder of the company, this company called Miradore

44:39 that I started with an MBA class of me in the mind, who is like super successful, built basically what's the Chipotle of India and sold it, like super good. Um, and that was a goal. Like I was

44:52 going to go launch that. We had already raised our seed round. Um, and just things like in my life, you know, but divorce was finalizing. It wasn't the right It was not the right time for that.

45:03 I needed to kind of get my, I just graduated. I need to get my feet under me. Um, and so, you know, like, I think you go through something like that and I'm like, what do I want, like life to

45:13 be like, um, and I step back and I'm like, man, I love working with Keith. Like Keith worked it with me at the consulting firm. We worked clear Creek. I love building. Like I love, and I

45:25 wonder if you can appreciate this like as crazy as this time is like starting a company I love like kind of building and. creating, like it's creative for my end. And then, you know, I think as

45:37 I've gotten older, like things have changed in priorities. Like I want to have flexibility to work at the house. I want to stay in Denver. I want to be able to pick the kids up when I have them.

45:48 I want to work with people I want to work with. And so I just think like it naturally kind of realized like once the mirror door thing just wasn't going to work out for timing and then this

46:02 opportunity with Keith and I came up, it was like, let's go do it. Like, and frankly, like now is the time to go try it. And so I don't know. I think I've just realized like, I'm not going to

46:14 be a corporate guy. I like that I have my hands and a lot of things. And yeah, so that was kind of the decision making. I love it, I love it. And easier said than done, but we talked about this

46:26 over a lunch at Garden Grace There's literally only like two of us there in the whole restaurant. on a Monday or whatever it was and we sat down, but you echoed something that I said early on in my

46:38 business and now I'm three plus years into the business, I still say the same thing. Like what's the worst thing that could happen? Well, you just go and get a job. Well, that's not any

46:49 different than how things had been to this point. So I can, if that's failure, I can accept that as failure. And I think that mindset, of course, it's easier than done, but if the worst thing

47:00 that could happen is my business doesn't work and it fails. And I have to go get a job. I can live with that being the outcome. And I know that that's how you're thinking about things too. Like,

47:12 it's not gonna fail, but you know what? Like, if it does, you'd be all right getting a job. Of course you don't wanna do it, but you would. You put food on the table for your family and you'd

47:22 still find balance, right? Yeah, for sure 100 I agree with that.

47:27 So where can people find more about you? You've been putting some pretty cool posts out on LinkedIn lately with a lot of detail, even like I'd say tactical level insights, negotiation related.

47:41 Talk about like, where can people find your website? Where can they find you on social and all that good stuff? Yeah, I mean, the best place, and you're right, but my focus right now from a

47:51 content perspective is really building out LinkedIn content So I would say that's the first place I would look to. We're about to start a newsletter through the website, mainmind-bencherscom,

48:05 another great place, but those are probably the two places I would go to find and connect. And I'm definitely gonna be, I have a lot of good content coming down the pipeline to put on LinkedIn, so

48:19 I would definitely be checking there. Yeah, you are putting out good stuff, And I think - You know, you've even kicked around the idea of possibly a podcast. I've been pretty fortunate in that I

48:30 started it during COVID, like at a point when I didn't have any of that outreach and then just started to really like it. Obviously it was terrible for me to lose Tim as a, as a partner and as a

48:40 friend, a little bit like, you know, losing a brother that you met when you were 30 something years old, but, um, I had to step back and take a break once I lost him and realized that I actually

48:50 missed doing this, that this human authentic connection. Of course, it's good for business. You build credibility as a thought leader in certain areas. But most importantly, you get to have real

49:00 genuine conversations with people like you, um, that offer services that may be complimentary to my business that you could do business for me, that I could buy something from you, whatever it is,

49:10 there, there's a lot that, that could be done. So I really appreciate you coming on today. Ian, um, you're a good one. I think we've got a really logical partnership where the handoffs are

49:20 supernatural. So, You want to learn more about mainline ventures? You can always hit me up. I'll put you in touch with Ian or his brother. And then of course, you guys know about funk futures.

49:29 So I appreciate you coming on today, my brother. Yeah, man, it's been great. Thank you for having me.