What The Funk?

0:00 And we are back on the what the funk podcast and I'm really excited about this episode. To be honest, I feel like I say that every single time. So hopefully it doesn't get trite, but I am excited

0:11 about this episode one. We have a woman. I'd say like 10 of our podcast recordings. We have a woman shows you how kind of male dominated the oil and gas industry is, but nonetheless, really,

0:25 really fortunate to have Rachel Collins on this podcast. Rachel is the CEO of W Energy Software, a place where I worked during COVID for about a year. I've seen some changes and now Rachel's

0:37 leading the show over there taking the company to the next stage of its evolution. So going to have some fun today with Rachel on the podcast, get to know her how she ended up in oil and gas, some

0:49 of the plans she has for W, some of the things that she's seeing within the oil and gas industry. So Rachel, welcome to what the fuck? Okay. Thank you. Thank you so much, Jeremy, for inviting

1:01 me. These are a lot of fun. This is only my, I think the third podcast I've done. So thrilled to be here and really excited that I'm one of the few women that you have interviewed. So we got to,

1:13 we got to make sure we get more ladies on here. That'll be a goal of mine going forward. Yeah. If you, if you have some send to my way after this, we'll definitely, definitely want some more.

1:23 So Rachel,

1:27 tell me a little bit about yourself. The question that I always ask all of our guests and it's, the answer requires nuance, but who is Rachel Collins? Who are you?

1:38 Yeah, that's a, you know, it's an interesting loaded question, right? That's a big one. Um, well, right now, you know, I would say I'm the CEO of W Energy, but at my core, I'm a mom, I'm

1:52 a wife, I'm a sister, I'm a daughter.

1:56 You know, I have two beautiful girls that are, one is college age. She's a sophomore at LSU. And I have a senior in high school that she's heading to LSU here in this late summer. And then we

2:11 have our caboost, a little nine year old boy on the weekends, he plays every sport imaginable. So I spend my weekends like every other mom of a young boy, attending his basketball games, his

2:25 football games, my husband coaches for his football and basketball games. So just kind of a normal, busy family and I'm part of it. I've got two brothers. I'm the only girl, older brother,

2:38 younger brother. I like to say I'm the favorite, but I believe I really am the favorite. And my parents just live a couple of miles down the road. So very, very family oriented and that's who I

2:52 am and in Texas for 85 of my life, so I'd say I'm a Texan. even though I wasn't born here, I still consider myself a native and definitely a southern or a southern or not hard. Wow, okay. Well,

3:07 we're already finding some common ground here. So I have three kids. My daughters are 13 and 11 and arkaboos. My son is six. So I'll sort of be where you are in a few years with the girls going

3:22 off to college and the son loves playing sports. He just can't get enough It's like soccer and rugby. And then he comes home and he wants to play basketball or watch sports. It's like never ending

3:34 with him. And you can speak to this too. The contrast between having girls and then having a boy. Like it really stood out to me, right? They're so much different. They're all their own

3:45 individual person but the girls that could put more in sort of a box together. Like they like TikTok. They like some of the social media stuff. They listen to some of the same music. My son is

3:54 just like, where did this guy come from? It's, they're very different. When my husband and I, you know, we decided we're gonna start over in our 40s. We were like, whoa, we're having a baby

4:06 here. And I have to tell you, we really wanted a boy, just to experience a boy, you know, having two girls. We thought, hey, that'd be amazing. And so when we were waiting to find out, are

4:16 we having a boy or a girl? We cheered probably a little too loudly when we found out we were having a boy because, you know, I thought, what's the alternative that we would be sad with a girl?

4:26 That's not the truth, but we just, you're right. Like, we wanted to experience the difference, and he's been amazing. We kind of laugh. There's a nine-year difference between a middle daughter

4:35 and Henry, and we say that he has three moms. He is King Henry. He's adored by his sisters, and so you're right. Something else, completely different, and yet he's really the glue of our family.

4:48 We're just trying hard not to create a narcissist and, you know, have to have a little bit of his spoiled It is so easy to overspend. boil the baby, especially when it's a boy, like, we have a

5:01 gap. It's not nine years. It's about six, but it's enough where you like, you've kind of created a life with your family of four. And you're like, well, I guess this is it, right? This is our

5:10 family. And then, you know, my wife was, I think, about 40 when she had, um, Ezra. And yeah, I sort of resigned myself to that point of probably just going to have another girl, like this is

5:24 the reality. And when she told me it was a boy, I'm like, come on Like you're, you're not telling me the truth, but, but indeed it's a boy. And he is absolutely spoiled, his sisters. Oh,

5:36 you're so cute. And they want to put makeup on him and do all of the fun girl things. I mean, he gets everything. The way that you parent to, at least the way I think I parent is so much

5:48 different, like helicopter parenting, big time for the first one, the second one, relatively close and age, okay, we sort of know what we're doing Then the third one, it's like, how about it,

5:56 kid? just come back alive. It's so true, it's so true. And yeah, it's fun to see though. I think also I'm just so happy to see how close they are. You know, you worry that with an age gap,

6:08 are they gonna go their separate ways? And, you know, my oldest daughter, for instance, Shida, she likes TikTok, she's on social media, and her brother is featured in a lot of these, you know,

6:19 recordings that you ask. It's her little brother or our French bulldog. So, you know, they find ways to connect and it's really sweet to see their relationship as well. In fact, when she was

6:30 heading off to college, she really had a hard time deciding, am I gonna go all the way to Ella? She was only five hours away, but nonetheless, she said, I'm just afraid to be that farbecause I'm

6:40 afraid I won't be part of Henry's life. And I was like, That's heartbreaking. Of course you will. You know, you'll come home, you're not that far, but that was a big factor in her decisionas to

6:50 where she was gonna go to school. So, I think it's been really sweet to see just the age gap and the fact that it hasn't necessarily made them distanced, it's brought them closer together. Yeah,

7:02 yeah, a lot of really relatable stuff. And I think you also said, you're the middle child. I am. I am too, and you have two brothers. I have two sisters. So can definitely relate, I think,

7:15 in some ways to where you are coming from. Take me back to sort of the beginning. So you're not born in Texas, I don't think So where did you grow up? Like, where'd you go to school, college,

7:27 all that? Let's get into some career stuff, too. Sure, it's funny. We moved around a lot, and people ask, Where's your dad military? And I said, No, he was a school teacher of all things.

7:31 But I was born in South Bend, Indiana. Both my parents are from Northern Indiana. It's crazy.

7:45 And they're from very, very small towns. Big Notre Dame fans in my family My dad went to IU. And they moved us to the South when we were very young. My dad started teaching. He also was a coach.

8:01 He coached high school football, high school basketball. And we didn't have a lot of money. My mom stayed at home. She would work part-time every now and then. And we couldn't afford to go on

8:11 vacation. So we'd move. My dad would just take another job in another place and we would move. So I think, you know, I went to 11 schools over, you know,

8:21 12 years, and we lived, we actually, we lived in Colorado for a while. We were in, then we moved south. We lived several places in South Georgia and then we moved to Texas, spent time in Texas

8:34 and I went to college in Louisiana. So, you know, a lot of Southern in me. And it's funny because in our family, my parents have that Northern accent. They say, we're gonna do the wash. We try

8:44 to pop, you know, they see you guys And I was raised for the most part, you know, Georgia, Texas, Louisiana. where I'm like, Hey y'all, turn off the light. I'm gonna go have my old changed.

8:58 And like, just very different. So it's funny how my brothers and I, definitely Southerners and my parents are Yankees here. See, but that's good for you because then you can always just put on

9:10 whatever accent you need to put on depending on the person that you're talking to, right? You're dealing with somebody from Chicago or Wisconsin, you talk one way. You're dealing with a hardcore

9:19 Southerner, you put it on the other way You know, I'm a Yankee, I'm a New Hampshire kid and grew up in New England. And also my parents were teachers. So again, we have more commonality. Also

9:30 wild to hear you say South Bend, the guests that we had on last week, Marty Dietrich, went to Notre Dame, huge South Bend guy. So, you know, I've recorded 140-something episodes and nobody had

9:46 been in the Notre Dame South Bend community and now we have two in a row So this is just the way that the world works universe works. So you moved a lot.

9:57 For me, I lived in the same house that I was born in New Hampshire. To

10:04 me, I think part of why I hesitate to move now, because my experience was just being in one place. Was that hard as a kid, kind of leaving friends and finding new groups of friends? The social,

10:18 emotional aspect. Was that difficult for you? Like, how did you manage that? Yeah, super difficult. And it's one of the reasons I'll tell you, I've been professionally headquartered in a lot of

10:32 cities, but my kids have always, I mean, we've been in our house 23 years. Every one of them has come home to this house. So definitely changed the way that we approached our family. But yeah,

10:43 it was hard. You know, it's funny. A lot of people don't believe me when I say this, that I'm definitely more introverted and extroverted. They're like, what? You know, you kind of learn that

10:51 behavior. But I was the shyest kid in school. I was a very shy, quiet kid. And I think that part of moving around a lot was, if you don't learn to make friends and get outside your comfort zone,

11:07 then you're not gonna have any. That's just something that, well, I was constantly the new kid. And so by the time you're in first, second grade, you already have these social groups that are

11:17 formed and it's really hard to penetrate that So, you know, and especially, I moved in middle school and those are some of the hardest and most formative times. So yeah, that was tough, but I

11:30 also think that it helped me to build some of the skills that I needed that aren't necessarily natural tendencies for me. Yeah, that's cool. And I think that's a, it's easier to reflect on that

11:43 now, but I'm sure at the time, like you said, it was difficult Did you go to the same high school at least all four years? Or did you switch high schools too? So my brother and I actually, we

11:55 went to the same high school. That was one thing my mom finally said, hey, enough, right? Like, we gotta keep these kids here at the same high school. So we moved to a small town, and it's

12:06 just south of Fort Worth, Texas, called Cleburne. People who've heard of it, they've heard of it otherwise. No one's that's like, what is that place? But a small little cow town. And so we

12:16 ended up staying there. We moved right before high school, and he and I both went our high school years there. I worked at the John Deere tractor company, answered phones, like, definitely,

12:28 when I say cow town, I'm not kidding. Like, I think we had about 20, 000 people. And it was a small little community, but a lot of fun, great place to finally kind of grow up and plant some

12:40 roots. And yeah, so that's where I went to high school. And then shortly thereafter, headed Louisiana for my, I'd say, social renaissance. At the time, Cleaver in Texas was in a dry county.

12:56 We went to church three times a week. Our hometown actually banned the

13:02 movieDirty Dancing. It was too risque, so they wouldn't allow it to come to the movie theater. I mean, it was like that kind of, I'm not even kidding. It was that kind of community. So funny

13:12 story about where I was deciding to go to school. I had a few academic scholarships, and so my parents took me on a road trip to check out like UT and Ole Miss, and I had no interest in LSU. And

13:24 they said, Well, we're driving through batoners, just stop and check it out. And this is how old I am, Jeremy. The drinking age was still 18. Oh!

13:33 That's how old I am. And so we stopped by, there were a couple kids from my hometown that I knew, and I went out for my first time ever, went to my first bar, and someone there said, Hey, do

13:45 you want a shot? And I'm not kidding. I didn't know what they were talking about had no idea, introduced me to that.

13:52 I never went to Oxford, Mississippi to check out Ole Miss. I was like, I'm right here. And not that I have some problem, right? But I just, I think that's what I needed, is that I needed,

14:02 like, just to see a different, I needed to let loose a little bit, and have, like I mentioned, it's more of a social renaissance, and having fun in school. So getting an education, but also

14:14 having a good time, and really meeting a lot of friends, and Ella, she was a great experience for me, and then lo and behold, my two daughters are gonna go there And I did not push them towards

14:22 it, but just beautiful people in Louisiana that they've never met a stranger and, so a lot of my closest friends still remain there. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah, I've had really good experiences

14:36 with anybody who goes to LSU. Like growing up in the Northeast, it's more professional sports, so you don't really have a college team that you root for unless you went to one of the bigger

14:48 colleges out there, like Boston College or Sarah. or something like that. So I just sort of root for the colleges of like people that I like, where they went. And I have a bunch of friends who

15:01 went to LSU. So, you know, go Tigers. I've got nothing but love for the Tigers. And it does. It seems like a really good vibe at LSU in general and put out some good people that eventually ended

15:14 up in the oil and gas. What was your major? It was statistics or at the time, quantitative business analysis. So when I went to college, I loved mathematics and I wanted to be a math major and my

15:29 dad said, You're never gonna get a job as a math major. So he said, Find something in the school of business. And that was the closest thing I could find. So it was before they really had a

15:41 formalized IT

15:44 or MIS program. And so that was kind of the foray into that But yeah, that was it. And then that started morphing into, we started having more computer programming courses. By the time I

15:54 graduated, I had taken PowerBuilder and VB, you know, Visual Basic and. NET, like one two0 classes. And that ended up being how I started my career. And I loved computer programming, but my

16:07 degree was actually more statistics oriented. Yeah, which fits pretty nicely into what you're doing now. If you have experience in a passion for tech, but also like numbers, working for an ERP

16:21 centric tech company makes a lot of sense. So you graduate school, you've got some sort of technical type degree, then what'd you do? Yeah,

16:33 I did not plan my career. There are some people that were so intentional about their careers I say mine's a little more meandering. But when I graduated, there were a lot of big consulting

16:47 companies that were recruiting, one of them at the time was Accenture, and I had the option of working in industry for what is now Kinder Morgan, or going to Accenture, and everybody is going to

16:59 Accenture. And I

17:03 was heavily recruited by a group of alums that were at this Kinder Morgan pipeline. And I said, I think I'm going to go there. And so I actually started my career in industry, again,

17:15 demonstrating how old I am, back when we were starting to require that gas transportation pipelines and nominations were online. You can fax them anymore. And so people were coming up with these

17:30 new electronic bulletin boards. That was a thing, EVVs. And so I started my career during that time where they were building a lot of technology within gas transportation or mid-stream companies.

17:41 And so I came to Houston and that's how I started mid-stream.

17:47 Wow, okay, I didn't realize that you had the industry background. So that took you to Houston, right? And have you been in Houston ever since? 28 years, yes, 28 years. So my career has taken

18:00 me different places, but we've called Houston our home base from that time forward. Nice. So you start at Kinder Morgan, you're in the oil and gas industry. See, I thought of you as somebody who

18:15 came from like the private equity side, right? Because, you know, there was this big change over at W Energy Software, not to skip too far ahead. And then you end up there. I'm like, okay,

18:24 well, this is a person that worked in private equity and finance, and now ends up taking this role. But you had oil and gas experience. So what did you do after Kinder Morgan that eventually led

18:34 you to the like finance side of things? Well, like I said, meandering here. You know, you could say I was fearless or dumb, but in my mid 20s. After having some experience in building software

18:50 for midstream, I decided to start my own company. And so that's what I did. And started my own software consulting company, kind of had a niche skill set where I was a Java developer and we were

19:04 implementing a lot of middleware. So at the time it was TIPCO. Everybody was buying, you know, licensing TIPCO, but they didn't know what to do with it. So I started working with energy

19:13 companies building out mostly trading systems So a lot of custom development working on trading systems. I worked with DynaG, Reliant, a lot of different companies on their trading systems. And I

19:26 was independent for about seven years. Screwed that business to, I mean, it was small. I was 25. So I had about a dozen people working for me, a couple million in revenue. Our largest account

19:40 was in Canada. So I spent about a year and a half working up in Calgary. It was a great ride, I was a hands-on keyboard developer but also being a business owner and learned everything about, I

19:54 was having to sell. I had to manage employees and contractors and projects and customers. Having customers in Canada had to learn about international taxes, so it was just a great experience at

20:06 that point in my life that really kind of opened my eyes and kind of led me a little more into, I say, like management and the business side and not just being an individual contributor. That's

20:19 really cool. Yeah, I'm sure you learned a ton as I have. I'm three years into my entrepreneurial journey right now and you mentioned taxes, like still learning things about that, where my CPA is

20:32 like, oh, by the way, you needed to pay these like unemployment taxes last year. They didn't get to them like, great. It's never like a good thing when it comes to taxes, which is why you

20:40 really sort of need to know about it figure it out, but just in general, like managing. you know, not just the business and the clients, but the people and the personalities, right? And I think

20:52 that probably positioned you nicely to run this company. So did you end up exiting? Did you end up selling that company at some point? It's funny, Jeremy, I get that question all the time. I was

21:03 about 30, people ask, what'd you do? And why did you wind it down? I didn't even know about exits. I was so young, I didn't know, you know, people are like, hey, did you get access to

21:14 capital? Did you sell it? I was like, I didn't know you could do that. So it took me a while to get my team hired by our customers and get them to their contracts to run out. It took me a couple

21:29 of years to wind it down, but I just ended up letting the contracts run out or having customers take on my employees because I had - that's when I started my family. I had two daughters, they're 18

21:39 months apart, and I was like, I can't do it all anymore. So that's kind of how it happened. But yeah, I wish I would have known a little more about how I think that I didn't know. You wouldn't

21:51 be talking to me today, be kicking your feet up in Cabo or something like that. Right, I know. If I could go back and educate myself at that point in time, but here we are. Well, that's, I

22:01 mean, that is a huge learning lesson. And my daughters are 21 and a half months apart, and I'm the dad. I think the lift on the mom at that point is so much greater I can only imagine you were

22:13 having these come to Jesus or in my religion, as we say, come to Moses moments, where you're like, what do I do, right? I've got people, I really wanna take care of them. They're smart, I've

22:24 got this business. And now I got these two babies. 'Cause let's be honest, an 18 month old is still a baby. They still need the same level of attention that a newborn infant does. So that must

22:34 have been like a challenge for you because your business is your baby. And then you have these real physical, real life babies.

22:43 Like, how did you come to that decision of like, I've got to prioritize family? Is that just sort of like the way that you're wired?

22:50 Like, go through that process 'cause I think it's so much different for the mom than it would be for the dad. Well, I mean, just being a parent, I'm sure you went through this too. Like the

22:60 first 31 years of my life, I thought about me, my career, what I wanted, right? Where am I going with this? And as soon as I had my daughter, nothing else mattered I didn't have to have a big

23:14 career. I didn't care what happened to my, I mean, that was it. I felt like I kind of fulfilled my purpose here, right? And it's just changed everything. And so I think it, that's what changed

23:27 my mindset. I actually think it made me such a better people manager, a better leader. I was gonna tell you, like in hindsight, I cringe to think about, I just didn't understand working parents.

23:40 I was like, why can't you work late tonight? You know, like we got, we got stuff to do. I was such a jerk. And now, you know, I think having children, I realize, yeah, you have a life and

23:52 you have to balance. And that's just more important. And I think in general, it just gave me the perspective I needed, you know, looking forward to be just a better, whether I was gonna be an

24:03 entrepreneur, a business owner, a leader in a business, just in general, gave me the perspective I needed. So it was hard, but it's, I didn't wanna miss out on those years too. I mean, I

24:15 definitely knew women that I'd worked with that were older than me that had given up their family life for their career. It was so binary, it was like you had to choose. And I thought, that's so

24:30 antiquated, that's dumb. Like, I don't, I'm not gonna choose. I'm gonna put my family first, but I think I can still probably stay current. in my skill set and do some things that interest me.

24:44 'Cause the truth is I love technology and why do I have to give that up? Makes me a better mom too. So yeah, I mean, it was just a pivotal time becoming a parent, but I think in general made me

24:55 more mature, less selfish and in the long run, probably much better leader. Yeah, I mean, the themes that I'm hearing here are empathy, selflessness 'Cause everything you're saying resonates

25:10 with me when I was in my 20s and in individual contributor sales jobs, I would see the people who like had to leave and go pick up their kids and I'm like, pathetic. Yeah. You're never gonna get

25:21 anywhere in your career, dude. You know what I mean? And God, what a loser. And like, then I have my own kids. And truly, like, when, at least for me, when I became a parent, it shifted to

25:33 like, all I really care about is my kids being happy and living a good life. it completely shifted and you realize how selfish you were. And it's not your fault. It's you're here to take care of

25:47 yourself and financially you're there to support yourself. And I still have some challenges with this, with business partners too, who don't have kids. It's like, no, I know you have a family.

25:56 I'm like, yeah, but you don't though, right? Like you think you do, but you don't know. A kid could come down here and say, hey, Julia's throwing up upstairs and like, I've got to pause this

26:05 podcast and go take care of that, right? 'Cause I'm at home. And the development of empathy, definitely I'm sure has made you a better leader 'cause now you manage a team of over 100 people or

26:19 something like that and a lot of them have families. I would think the level of technical acumen that most of your people need to have there of the age where they would have families. So at least

26:30 you're able to see through the perspective of what they need to do And what they need to do is not just work all the time. And I think back to like the -

26:42 leadership that I'd experienced throughout my career, the worst leaders were the ones who didn't have empathy. The best leaders were the ones who really understood, and even if it annoyed them,

26:50 they were able to put to the side and say, You know what, take care of what matters to you. And for me as a leader, I will always make sure that family comes first for people 'cause at the end of

27:00 the day, that's really all we're gonna have at the end of this. You'll probably work at a different company besides W. I probably won't have funk futures forever We're gonna have our families, you

27:09 know? So that's what we got. And we're gonna have the impact that we made on other people that are gonna remember us for the way that we treated them, right? And I think that's important. I

27:19 really believe in just more of a progressive leadership style where to point, I mean, you are empathetic. We're just businesses or just groups of people. It's all it is. And it's about being

27:29 respectful and kind and gracious to them. And I think, you know, when we talk about it, W. Culture, we mean it. We're not just saying that 'cause it's popular we talk about? No. We're like.

27:39 We really value culture, and when you talk about your good bosses and your bad bosses, my husband and I talk about this a lot, and I've asked him, Who's your favorite boss? He said, I'm not sure

27:51 I've ever really had a good

27:53 boss, and I said, That's the sad. I think about my daughter's entering the working force soon, and I think about, Am I the kind of leader I want my daughters to work for, or are my son, not

28:06 just my daughters, it's my children? Am I being helpful? Am I coaching them? Am I educating them? Am I being gracious and kind and being fair? So all those things, I also am very careful, you

28:20 know, we're building our office here in Houston. It's not, it'll be done in September, but for now, I'm in the front of the house and I make sure I leave the door open most of the time because if

28:30 my kids hear me speaking to someone, I I never want them to say, whoa, who was she talking to? I don't ever want to be ashamed of the way that I speak with people, when I say to them, I think

28:42 that stuff's important. And so anyway, I think you just learn, you mature, and you figure out, well, it's not rocket science here, you know, it's about the way we treat each other and the

28:55 longer, and to your point, we're renting everything, you're not gonna take it with you. And then in the end, what we're here for is really our impact on each other. Yeah, no, very well said

29:05 And I'm excited to talk about W here in a minute, but I still wanna cover that gap between you becoming a mom, and then what happens in the 20-ish years or whatever before you then end up on the PE

29:19 side and running W? Well, so ultimately, with one night kind of wound down my business, I said, I wanna go back to work, but I don't wanna be, I can't run a business right. like I don't want

29:35 to have everything on me. So I ended up working with some investors and just through my network and they were Austin based and they were running some role of strategies. We're buying a lot of

29:49 companies and I started learning these integration playbooks and how to buy companies and I was really more on the helping with integration. I was doing all the financial reporting So kind of taking

30:04 a step back so that I could find a little bit of work-life balance and then I found myself running one of these companies and we ended up getting acquired by an Austin based PE firm that was much much

30:19 larger. I don't know if you've ever heard trilogy, it also became known as ESW Capital. There were about three billion assets under management and over the course of that business. I think they

30:32 had over 300 acquisitions of software companies. but I kind of got folded into their portfolio as part of the growth portfolio and I worked for a CEO named Scott Brighton and I was there almost seven

30:46 years and I learned so much. I took on six different acquisitions and I learned all of these playbooks and really kind of learned these PE playbooks. It was the same as the VISTA playbook and you

30:58 know you kind of learned the good market playbook. You learned the integration playbooks and it was a really

31:07 it was a great time in my career to learn kind of how you scale right. I hadn't I knew startups I knew building software and I love tech but I did not have a scale of business and so that's where I

31:20 learned to do that over that seven eight year period.

31:25 So anyway that's kind of bridging the gap then I went on to run a strategic software company that was acquired by a public company. It was a strategic buy, and they were doing an IPO, and I just

31:39 wanted to experience the IPO. That was another thing. I didn't plan my career. I just said, that sounds really fun and fascinating. Let me go to that for three and a half years. And then I was

31:49 approached about W. And so I thought, hey, W is everything I love. It's deep vertical market software. It's growth equity, it's a move fast, but also the board was very much focused on finding

32:05 a leader who culture was important. They didn't want to bring in somebody that wouldn't fit in with the culture. So all these things I felt like came together

32:14 that I say that my career was knee-endering and somehow it perfectly all came together where I kind of check their boxes and they check mine. Well, I love your background. Like, you know, you

32:27 make assumptions, I think, about people based on what you read on their LinkedIn profile, right? So my guess about you is, all right, like I said, this is somebody who came from the capital

32:36 side, but there's just so much here and so much reflection that I'm hearing that is awesome and invaluable. And to go back a little bit to the roll up strategy, I can only imagine what that's like,

32:51 because yeah, I understand the roll up and integration of technology. To me, that doesn't seem as complicated as managing the humans that come into the fold, because you're taking founders, or

33:04 leaders, and then having to put them in different roles. And now all of a sudden, there's somebody that had a level of autonomy that doesn't. So you're learning how to incorporate new acquisitions

33:16 and making these people still feel wanted versus just waiting for the clock to tick out on whatever their exit compensation is.

33:25 How did you deal with that mesh of personalities when you're rolling six, seven different companies together machine. That was the hardest part. I mean, it always is, right? The people's side is

33:37 always the hardest part. But, you know, I kind of feel like different businesses have different personalities and they have different cultures. And sometimes those things just, you know, they

33:47 don't come together. So it might look good on paper. You can have an investment thesis and you can say these companies just seem to really be complementary. This isn't a creative acquisition and

33:56 it's going to be great. But then culturally, there's huge conflict. And I've experienced a lot of that. So I would say that was the hardest part about the roll-up strategies or just the fast, you

34:10 know, acquisitions and integrations that I experienced. Oftentimes, you know, you would have founders or leadership teams that they thought, Hey, this is going to provide capital to take us to

34:25 the next level. But oftentimes it meant you're probably not going to be around. That's the hard part, you know, because it's a different book and unless you're really careful, you know, and

34:35 you're with like a founder-friendly place, oftentimes it's just a different stage where they say, I need a different profile of a leader, and there can be a lot of tension, and I saw a lot of that.

34:46 So what I learned is a lot of things not to do, a lot of things I didn't want, to be honest with you I felt

34:55 that some of my time in that just crazy, inorganic PE world, prior to now, is a little bit callous towards people. And I think sometimes investors feel like I bought the asset, not the people.

35:11 And so I want that software IP, but the people, they can come, take it or leave it, and that bothered me So it's one of the things when I met the true wind team, I was very clear. I was like,

35:25 I'm getting older, and I want to make sure that my values are aligned with the investors. Like I don't wanna do that again. I'm not into squeezing a business for profit and being calloused towards

35:39 people. I don't wanna, you know, I value my reputation and that's just not fun. And so I was just really fortunate to meet people that I think are like-minded who also value the people because

35:52 that is the most valuable asset. It's not the software, it's the people. That's right,

35:58 that's right Anyway, that's kind of what I learned through all that. Learned a lot of cool playbooks and a lot of things, but I learned a lot of the things that I didn't want to emulate as well.

36:07 Yeah, I think that's what I talked a little bit earlier about bad bosses. I think I learn more about what not to do than what to do just by experiencing some things that were negative for me. And

36:23 being, I like to consider myself a relatively, you know, authentic, sensitive person. And I just assume that others are like that as well. So I just don't want people to have to feel the way

36:36 that I felt at low points because of how a boss or a manager or a company made me feel. But with W, I think W had a pretty good culture when you came in. And in the brief period of time that I was

36:50 there, I thought that Pete did a nice job of building a company where people wanted to work. And I think it was people-friendly So I think you were stepping into a place where you saw, okay,

37:02 there's like good bones here, but now the company needs to take the next step in scale. And I believe when you came in, there were a few recent acquisitions. Like seven lakes had just happened and

37:12 there was some other acquisitions. Chorus had gotten rolled in. So you had this new logistics thing. Now you're branching out more into the field with some operate by exception with join and field

37:22 data capture stuff. And you've got this robust portfolio products, but now you need to turn this into like an integrated company, right? So talk to me about like, what is the first six months,

37:38 12 months like as a CEO of an established player that's looking to take the next step? Like what did you do and what was really important for you to put in place as a leader to not fully like disrupt

37:51 everything, but also keep the company on the, on the tracks So I'd say here, first of all, there's no play. You can't comment and say, this is my playbook. There's no such thing. You have to

38:02 really just come and learn about the business and the people.

38:07 And so some, you know, the first 30 days, it's just listening and learning and understanding what's going on here. I would say first and foremost, you mentioned it, when I came in, there had

38:20 been a lot of complexity created in the year before I joined So, to your point. Pete founded this business, it's the hardest thing to do. You know, the bravest thing to do, to found a business

38:31 and create something from nothing. And he did create a very customer centric, like people-oriented business. But then, we talked about it. You start layering on acquisitions and you get all these

38:44 different cultures coming together and it takes some deliberate thoughtfulness to really bring that together so that we have one W So I think when I came in, I felt, it was a little bit fragmented.

38:59 You kind of had a core W and then you had some of these new acquisitions that felt completely independent. They hadn't really been integrated. There was a lot of complexity because we had completely

39:13 different tech stacks. So, you know, you got all this - A full stack developer was impossible to find 'cause you got that, no, like, every tech stack imaginable. then also if you tried to

39:27 rationalize your customers, the Seven Lakes acquisition, they were super majors and like really up market. And W was like really middle market, will lower market. So there's just a lot of

39:41 rationalization that needed to happen. And so that was number one, that I knew we have to rationalize this because if we keep layering on, we keep

39:54 buying companies and not taking the time to make sense of what we have, we're gonna run this into the ground. It's happened time and time again, I've seen it happen. So we gotta take the time to

40:02 figure out what we have. And then the second thing, if we wanna scale, seeing it, you often have companies that get to about that 20, 30 million, and then they kinda hit a ceiling and have a

40:13 hard time breaking through. To scale beyond that, pretty much it's a different way of managing, it's a different way of looking at things. So, everything that you did as a. venture like a

40:25 startup. Hey, do whatever it takes for the customer. Say yes to everything, like. Right. Like, you can't do that. So it's teaching the team, hey, everything that you did when you were a sub

40:38 10 million dollar business, you got to learn a new way. You got to almost do it completely opposite. And that's hard to teach them. Oh my God, Rachel, that is like, like for me, that like cuts

40:51 to my soul, right? Because what I hear, if I'm one of the people that built that business, is like, you're doing it wrong, right? And it's like, well, what do you mean? I built this company

40:59 to get it to the point where it's awesome. And that's why you're even here, right? But what you're saying is, no, this is how we evolve and grow. But I could see people feeling like, like let's

41:10 look at Harrison, right? Like a long-tenured guy who's been a sales engineer and worked in a number of different roles. Like if I were him and I heard that, I'd be like, what do you mean I did

41:20 everything wrong? Or I have to do things different. I've got my way and it works And I've done great here. So then you're dealing with the personality side of like, well, this is how we're going

41:29 to get to the next step. Like, how do you do that? 'Cause to me, that is like, I've struggled with that being on the early team side and the growth side and then a new group coming in and saying

41:39 you have to do it this way. I'm like, well, why do I have to do it that way? My way works, right? What do you know? So then you're dealing with some of that. Like, how do you manage that?

41:48 That's a great question, Jeremy. I mean, some of it is the delivery. You can't say, hey, you did everything wrong 'cause you didn't, you didn't do anything wrong. You did everything right.

41:58 You got, you created something from nothing and you got it to, you know, this sizable, meaningful business that is here today that has so much value.

42:08 So it's not that, it's more, it's like, this is so cliche, but you know that book, what got you here won't get you there? Yeah. It's just saying that the next step, we can either stay where we

42:21 are, We can say where we are and we can keep doing what we've been doing. And there's nothing wrong with that. But if we want to double or triple in size, we do have to create more process and

42:33 structure and discipline. And what that means is actually, we have to simplify some things. And it's not saying no to customers, but we have to have some guardrails, right? That's all we're

42:47 saying. It's not, nothing's wrong I just wanna teach you some new, some new things, some new ways of doing things. And as long as you've got people that are open to change, that are curious,

42:59 inquisitive, they wanna learn new things, then you're fine. Everything goes well. When you have instances where people are very resistant, they want to go back to the old days that we're not,

43:13 it's not gonna happen, right? So that's where you get that friction sometimes Hey, we were like a family. because you were 15 people, but guess what? We're 150 now, you know, and so that's the

43:26 hard stuff, but no one's wrong in that. It's just we're different now and we have to embrace that and we have to change the way that we look at ourselves and we have to change the way we operate.

43:36 And the only way you can do that is the way you communicate and it's showing people, you can tell them, like I can talk to people all day and they can check their heads. No, that doesn't do

43:46 anything. You have to show people. Let me show you what I mean by this. Let me give you an example Let me show you the model I'm talking about. Let me give you a spreadsheet. Let me draw what I'm

43:56 talking about and that's the hardest part is taking the time to kind of teach the team what you mean. It's like a bit of like business therapy in addition to like executive leadership. I think when

44:10 you are incorporating a change in CEO and there were a lot of changes, right? You go from founder led and you get one, you know, private equity firm. And then there's another private equity group

44:21 and new leadership comes in and it's a lot, right? And people's livelihoods are at stake. Oh my God, am I gonna lose my job? It's like you're then interviewing or re-interviewing for a job that

44:33 you think you kicked ass in for eight years. And that's hard, right? So I think, I like the fact that you're talking about having a level of empathy and listening to what that could be like for

44:44 them. 'Cause I think that's important and that's missing in leadership today a lot. But you know what Jeremy, I'll tell you the other thing. I've had this conversation with a few people. There's

44:53 also just, hey, let's be a community of adults and let's have a mature conversation because I had a guy work for me here at W. And when we bought Seven Lakes, a lot of our leadership roles

45:03 suddenly became global because Seven Lakes, 90 of their business is in India. And these are a whole time employees. Like we're, you know, so we're a global company, even though 100 of our

45:12 customers are in North America. And so I had a guy working for me And I was like, Hey, you're a global executive. now. And so we got to look at things differently. We've got to operate the team

45:24 differently now. And so we can't have command and control. You know, we've got to have a little more progressive style and you got to have bidirectional feedback. So we talked about some of the

45:36 things that we needed to change. He said, let me think on this. I'll come back to you. Okay, came back and he said, you know what, Rachel, I don't think I want to be a global executive. Yeah.

45:46 And I said, you know what, that's fair. And I said, thank you for being a mature adult and telling me that so that we can, I said, and by the way, that's not going to work for us. I mean, we

45:56 are, we have a team in India and, you know, it is what it is. But it's okay to say, I just prefer that 25 person startup company. I like the chaos of it. I like the lack of structure. It's

46:10 okay. But that's not where we are anymore. And so when you get the friction sometimes is when people are like, I want to do it the same way.

46:47 but we're not the same thing, you know? Yeah, I really like that level of insight and I wish, I don't know, I'm thinking back to some of my earlier career and even some of my time at Seven Lakes

46:47 where it was very fast and loose and revenue grew like crazy in a short period of time and then raised 20 million bucks and now you have all this leadership coming in and my immediate, I was young

46:47 and I just pushed back. I just pushed back on it You know, the way that I do it has been great and it probably hurt myself in the company and what I really just should have done is say, actually,

46:54 I'm kind of out of my comfort zone here. Like, I like the chaos. Like, that's what I thrive in and that's what I'm doing today and it works for me. And I probably should have just had that heart

47:04 to heart with saying, I don't want to be like this individual contributor, I want to be a lot of different things, right? I want to do this and I want to be a podcaster and I want to be a

47:13 go-to-market person in relationship builder. I don't want like a small territory where I can't talk to my friends who are in Oklahoma who I have stakes with every time I go down there. That doesn't

47:24 work for me, right? And those realizations are it comes with time, it comes with maturity and it comes with like open and important communication. So I'm really enjoying this conversation, Rachel.

47:36 I want to shift a little bit to like what's next, right? So let me give you my perspective on it. So I see W and where you guys play in the whole ecosystem I think that the tech is really nice.

47:48 It's strong. You've got the quorums, you've got P2s, right? You've got inertia, you've got some of these other players. How do you

47:56 find ways to continue to differentiate from your competition? And what is the avenue and path forward for W? Is it like we're going to grow organically? We're going to do a ton of acquisitions.

48:08 Like without revealing all of your corporate strategies and plans, like where does W go from here now that you are kind of in this next stage of. established evolution as a, as a player in the

48:20 space. Yeah. Well, you know, I'll tell you one thing, my team says, if there's anything that, any way you'll describe me, it's transparent. It can be overly transparent at times. But I mean,

48:33 I share with our team, this is what we're doing. The reality is we are owned by investors. We are going to grow. That's the expectation. So we've got to find a path of growth. Okay. And it's

48:43 going to be both, it will be organic, first and foremost. And then once we've earned the right for inorganic growth, we'll take a look at that. But we're not going to do it prematurely, right?

48:53 So we're going to be bigger, right? We're trying to double triple the size of the company over the next several years. But we're not going to do it recklessly. The fastest way that you can grow is

49:04 with your existing customers. So fast way to grow. And so what we do first is we try to make sure that our existing customers are successful. And I'll tell you,

49:15 I mean, we've had growing pains, and so what we're really doing right now is we are doubling down on how do we make sure that the customers that we have under contract, how do we make sure that

49:26 we're delivering value to them? And the other thing we're seeing is a lot of our large customers, they're growing quickly, and we have to prove to them that we can handle their growth, right? So

49:36 we have to prove that scale in our product.

49:39 So that's just a focus on existing customers. It's a big focus of ours How do we differentiate? You named a lot of our competitors. So I would say the biggest difference in the way that I see this

49:55 business, and I've been here 18 months, is that all of the competition that I've seen, they have a lot of monolithic architectures, right? 100. Solutions that were built over 25, 30 years,

50:14 What happens is they might work, they might be stable, they might be mature, and that's great. But they're expensive and they're gonna be brittle. There's not a ton of investment going into those.

50:27 So I think what we have is we have an opportunity to be disruptive because we have been building composable services, this microservices architecture. And so we are truly building a platform What

50:43 that means to us is that we have these modular services that can integrate. And that means we can actually give the market attorney case solution, what we can coexist with, if we go up market,

50:54 you're not gonna rip out SAP, but we can actually live next to SAP. We can, we can pull exist in these complex ecosystems. I think that makes us very different than our competitors. And so as we

51:07 build out all these complimentary capabilities we're very composable in as far as our services. I think the other thing, we talk about it a lot, but we are cloud native. Our solutions were born in

51:20 the cloud. And so what does that really mean?

51:26 It doesn't mean that we don't have technical debt every software company. As soon as you write code, you have technical debt. But what it actually means is we are less expensive. We can be so much

51:36 more economical. And the reason is because we have been designing to take advantage of all the cloud capabilities Whereas when you've been designed to live on-prem and in a licensed on-prem model,

51:48 you've had to adapt your software to be hosted or put in the cloud. But that's very expensive. And so I think we have the best of both worlds that we have a modern platform. And because we're cloud

52:02 native, we can offer a more modern scalable solution at a more economical price. Yeah, yeah And going back to my early days in oil and

52:12 gas you know, BOLO is based on a unidata database, which even in

52:19 2008 was super like, what is uni, what? What is uni, and I remember like the intense conversations we had with really smart technical people saying, should we look to move this to Microsoft?

52:31 Should we look at a more modern stack? And part of the hesitation in doing it was, but if we do that, or we then opening this up to a competition, since we're basically moving them to a completely

52:43 new product, well, now are they gonna look at some of the other competitors too? Because they're like, well, we're not on the same old thing. Why don't we look and see what else is out there?

52:52 So there's risk for some of those companies that have the monolithic technologies to make that move. There's no secret there. So I think the positioning of W is interesting because you are cloud

53:04 native. And I think that a lighter footprint technology is going to appeal to the next generation this great crew change of of leaders and oil and gas so. I think you're well positioned. I think

53:16 that it's gonna be fun to watch the company grow. I just have one more question for you and I want you to lean into this one is like,

53:26 well, two questions. One, what is it like being a female leader in a male dominated industry?

53:35 Yeah, Jeremy, it's not the first time I've gotten this question, obviously. I think it's kind of a bummer that it's even a thing You know, I mean, I think what does that have to do with my

53:48 skillset and capabilities? It doesn't, but at the same time, the truth is, a lot of women have had to make, I told you, like this binary choice between, do I have a family, do I chase my

53:59 career? So, what is it like?

54:04 I do feel sometimes some pressure, like all eyes on me, like some other women, hey, don't screw it up for us, right? Um, so. you know, there's a little bit of that. And there's a little bit

54:18 of just, hey, I hope that by the time my daughters are in the workforce, this isn't even a thing. Like, you know, I mean, I hope that I can be a role model, not just to women, but to my, you

54:30 know, to just the next generation. My son included, so, you know, that's part of it. But I don't know, I also, I don't really think it's that different I think by the time you start to get to

54:44 know people, that disappears. And once you have intelligent conversations and you build that credibility and there's respect there, just doesn't matter. It's just more of that split, you know,

54:57 people make assumptions and have natural perceptions and reactions when they first meet people. But I think if you can build relationships, all that goes away. And so, I don't know if that

55:11 answered it very well, No, I don't think it could go that much. I think it does, and I also think, Elizabeth Gerbal came on this podcast, she's probably about three and a half years ago, and

55:22 said something that always resonated, 'cause I asked her a similar question, and she said in some ways, she's viewed this as an advantage, because she'll go into a business meeting where it's all

55:35 men, old rich white men in the C-suite, right? And she goes in and gives a strong presentation, and then one of the executives might pull her aside and say, Hey, I really like what you're doing.

55:46 My daughter's a senior at Texas Tech right now, and I'd really like her to have an internship, and I think you're somebody that she could learn from. So in some ways, it can actually be spun in

55:57 the other direction. It's not just another dude coming in. You've got a differentiator, which is silly to say, and hopefully this is not the case when your daughters are in the workforce are minor,

56:07 but nonetheless, it could be spun potentially as positive Last question I wanna ask you. What advice would you give to your younger self? And maybe it's even a question of like, what advice do you

56:18 give to your daughters as they're about to go out in the world themselves? But if you're to sit down with yourself across the table at 21, 22, 25 years old, what do you tell yourself?

56:30 Yeah, I kind of said it earlier, maybe two things. Number one, you will be remembered because of the way you make people feel, right? The way that you treat people So just always keep that in

56:43 mind, don't be in a hole. Like really value your reputation, that is so important. And I think the second thing, this is really cliche, but be your authentic self. Do not try to be someone else.

56:56 So I took this leadership course a few years ago and it was so dumb. It said for women to try to show like their authority and gain respect, you had to sit back in your chair and meeting and not say

57:08 much to show that you had command of the room and just silly things and ah! And I was like, no, you don't have to do that. The soap are caved. And I actually wrote this down for you. I read a

57:22 book, and it was called Women in Power, and it said, If women are not perceived to be fullywithin the structure of power, surely it is powerthat we need to redefine, not women, right? So, like

57:36 just be yourself. You don't have to try to be more masculinebecause you're in a male-dominated fieldJust be who you are because the truth iswhen we start embracing the differencesin perspective and

57:48 diversity, you actually elevate the thinkingand the decision-making and the ideas. So, I think that's what I would encourage my daughtersis not to be told that there's some personathat you have to

57:60 fit into in order to be successful. Just be you. Love it, love it. Yeah, authenticity, right? Owning your true self is fantastic Rachel, where can people find you? Where can they find.

58:14 information about W energy software. I know you guys are a bit loud on on social, but you know, websites and LinkedIn, where can you guys be found? Okay, we're on LinkedIn. You you've said it.

58:24 We have a new marketing team and we're out there. Our website is w energy softwarecom.

58:30 You can reach us through the website. We're actually building our office here in Houston. We will be in city center. We'll be in the building right next to the Microsoft building and we have

58:41 several customers there. So lots of ways to get in touch with us. You can guess our email addresses so I mean we're very easily accessible. We believe, look, we've grown but we're still a small

58:54 company and we still believe in talking to each other and talking to our customers. So we would love to hear from anybody who's interested in learning more. Well, that's great. Rachel, thank you

59:04 so much for your wisdom, for your time. I'm sure you're getting blown up all over the place. You gave me a full hour so I'm appreciative of that and I'm looking forward to listening. this one,

59:13 but Rachel Collins, W Energy Software.