What The Funk?

0:00 back here on what the funk, we've got Sean Martin's the man over at iron site, building something big, one of the faster growing oil and gas tech companies, Sean showed me a demo of his product

0:13 when I first launched funk futures about two and a half years ago, I was impressed. And certainly their trajectory and growth has spiked even since then. So

0:23 we'll get into all of the iron site stuff. But most importantly, here on what the funk we talk about the personalities within the oil and gas base, Sean, you've got a big one. And I want to

0:32 introduce you to the audience. So I'll just pose the question to you. Like I posed just about every guest I have. Who are you, Sean Martins? Yeah, so a couple of things I want to start out of

0:43 the bag. The man over there and say, you know, I have partner Adam who you'll get to know my personality. We're ying and yang. So I am this. He's the complete opposite. And that's why we've

0:54 been great partners and and just a great team so I just had to clarify that. Who the F is Sean Martin as well?

1:05 Yeah, I'm an electrician by trade, born and raised in a small oil field town. Shout out to the guys in Cold Lake, all my buddies. And I

1:16 had the probably typical small town kind of upbringing, you know, played hockey, played baseball, you know, a decent athlete growing up. You know, you graduate high school and you're like,

1:26 okay, who am I? Well, I went and got a trade. So did the electrical business for, you know, four, five, six, seven, eight years. I worked for, you know, what they called PTW, or Pyramid

1:38 back at the time. And then they worked for Conoco Phillips for about seven years. So I grew up kind of working for the supply side. Then I went to work for the demand side, you know, had a really

1:49 good job, working two weeks on, two weeks off, up in Northern Alberta. Yeah

1:55 you know, so that kind of bringing. You know, who else about me? You

2:00 know, I'm definitely a people person. I love being around, you know, the team and making these tough decisions and, you know, the challenges that come together. So I truly

2:12 love that. Personally, I got two little boys. So Luke and Levi, I've been on some other podcasts and said one of their names and maybe not the other. And so they'll, they'll take this. So yeah,

2:23 yeah, just, yeah,

2:26 try to be a dad first and then, you know, trying to be a bit of an entrepreneur and trying to grow iron sight. So that'd be secondly, yep. That's a, that's a tough balance. And I know I, I

2:38 have three young kids. I guess I should say their names. Since you said Luke and Levi, I've got Ezra, who's five. I've got Sydney, who's 11 and Julia, who's 13. I'm not sure what you know

2:47 about, about Judaism, but I'm Jewish and my 13 year old daughter, Julia. She's having her Bob Mitzvah this weekend. I got all my family in town, my wife's family in town. She's going to read

2:59 from the Torah. She's going to give like a speech. She's going to have 140 person party tomorrow. So this is like my last bit of work. If you even call podcasting work, I don't - before it gets

3:11 really, really deep with the family stuff. But I'm with you, man. I'm a family man first. I think I say that so that I can believe it. But it feels like sometimes I'm actually a family man

3:21 second, just because of all of the demands of entrepreneurship and running my own business, and the case of where I'm at right now, business is, which kind of irks at me a little bit, sort of

3:32 feel like if I had no kids or even wasn't married. What would I care? What would an 80-hour workweek be then? It would just be fine. What else am I supposed to do? But with kids, there's always

3:45 sort of that pole. And I know you travel a lot, right? Are you based in Edmonton today? Yeah, I'm in Edmonton today. That's where home base is. I spend about, you know, 50, 60 of my time

3:57 kind of all over as we've grown out the team. It's, it's shrinking and it will a little bit more, but yeah, I could touch on like how I see with my kids and, you know, we've been, you know,

4:08 charity, my ex and I, we were really great relationship and we, you know, we're great co-parents, but we've been honest with our boys and just said, you know, this is what we need to do and,

4:18 you know, this is what I enjoy and I love it, but I find, you know, for me, the kids have given me kind of purpose So when it is tough times and when it is, you know, like it gives me the drive,

4:30 the purpose of like, okay, this is why I'm doing this. Not only I do it for my teammates and, you know, our employees and our clients, you know, I have a very big bias to our clients, but yeah,

4:41 first and foremost, I kind of, you know, I get to think about Luke and Levi and the boys and, you know, I do work very hard for them. So that, hey, one day, you know, they at least they

4:51 could have something to admire to. Yeah, yeah, dad's, dad's doing something big out here. You know, and that's - Yeah, there's not a great big risk. Definitely, definitely that too. And your

5:01 risk is starting to pay off. We'll get into that. Luke and Levi, right? So how old are they? Yeah, Luke is 11 and Levi is nine. Yeah, two boys. So they must love, you know, Connor McDavid,

5:15 playing hockey and all that, all the stuff that you did growing up too. But for you, was it Gretzky and Messier or were you a little bit too young for that? Yeah, I was a little bit too young. I

5:24 mean, they're like Gretzky's, I think a God to all of us up here in the North. Yeah,

5:30 I was more of like Doug Waits, if there's some oiler fans out there back in the day. Yeah, big fan, but yeah, Luke and Levi, they love Connor and Leon and all the fellows up here. I love Canada.

5:47 I like Western Canada a lot, you know, little bit about me that you might not know. I'm actually from New Hampshire. So, I grew up just a little bit south of the Canadian border onto Quebec.

6:00 Montreal, for me, was only about two hours and 45 minutes, whereas Boston was about two hours. So, sometimes when you'd be listening to like a Bruins game or something, you'd be getting like the

6:11 French feed from Montreal and the radio, because it would come in more clearly. So, I grew up, you know, definitely hating the Canadians, not really particularly enjoying the way I was treated

6:22 when I would go up to Quebec. So, my view of Canada was a little bit skewed. I'm like, Well, they don't like us here. Then you'd go to Alberta, right? I went to Calgary for the first time in

6:31 2009, and man, everybody was so warm. It felt a little bit like Denver. I got to go to the saddle dome, which is just a weird place for a hockey game. I have a hockey team too, so.

6:46 A little bit. But it was awesome It was really fun and definitely a different type of. want. So I have a kinship, I think, with Canadians, in part, where I grew up, it was very cold. A lot of

6:57 people played hockey. There was a bog right behind my house that was basically a mini pond that froze. And the locals would bring down their, you know, their skates and their goals and actually

7:06 skate on the pond and play hockey, which I'm sure you can relate to. But there's a work ethic, I think, that comes from people who grow up in a cold place, like you do, right? You're, you're

7:18 just not in the house all day, you just sort of get up, you pull yourselves up by your bootstraps and you get moving. And I don't think that's personified anywhere more than being an oil and gas.

7:28 So, so talk to me a little bit about what it was like being electrician, going out in some brutally cold climates and actually having to like operate machinery, like in the field, like what, what

7:39 an indoctrination into like blue collar work. Talk about what that was like at a young age when you're doing like real work out in the field in the freezing cold.

7:50 Yeah, I'll probably start with like, if I was the world's best electrician, I'd probably still be doing that. I would have figured out something there. The path is taking me to here. So yeah,

7:58 like, I always had a good work ethic and you know, I was a good body. I was always, you know, but maybe I wasn't the world's best electrician and I'm okay with that. Got the job done. Yeah,

8:09 like, I started a snowballing business when I was like 15, went and snowballed driveways and I just, I just enjoyed it I, you know, I enjoyed being outside in the, and then I upped ball in the

8:23 summertime. So I always kind of was always doing something. Yeah, I would tend to agree. There's a different lifestyle, you know, working, being able to work outside and using your hands and

8:33 figuring all that stuff out. So yeah, I, it was different, but yeah, I think takes me back to my roots all the time. And I think, you know, when we talk about iron sight, that's usually like

8:44 our roots are that. So we understand a bit of the problem.

8:50 Yeah, I don't regret it one bit. Working minus 30 Celsius, you know, you're out changing a SCADA pack. It's not the funnest thing in the world, but hey, it got me to where I am today, and it's

9:05 maybe fairly rounded, I have a diverse background, and yeah, fun to apply it here at Arndtite. I think you probably have a different appreciation for the supplier side of your platform, right?

9:21 Definitely saying, well, I've done this before. And then you worked on the operator side, so you know what some of the pains are for that. So talk to me a little bit about the idea of Arndtite

9:30 and where that came from. I think you said you're an electrician for, I don't know, five, six, seven, eight years, and then you started working for conical Phillips, I guess, on the operator

9:40 side. When did you get this idea? Was this, while you were working at conical Phillips, and you're like, you know, I think that there's something here that's missing. Bring me through the

9:50 genesis a little bit of where the iron site idea came from and then how you turned idea into practice and execution. Sure, yeah, so, yeah, you're right. I

10:02 was like on the electrician tools for about eight years. I worked for, like I said, Pyramid PTW or as some people in the industry would know them. And then, you know, went to work for Chronicle

10:14 Phillips up at their Cermont asset, their big SAGD and stuff up in Northern Alberta, Canada. And then, yeah, you're right. So I moved into the offices, like they called it like a maintenance

10:24 planner coordinator. So what did I do? I just looked after, you know, work that needed to be done. I was kind of the, you know, the interface between operations. So we got to learn a lot about

10:33 that side and learn a lot about the maintenance side. And then you get into a bit more budgeting and some costs. And yeah, so you learn that. Anyways, it was probably, I'm gonna paint the

10:42 pictures. Like always a, you know, a minus 40 evening, Friday night, sitting up at Sermon to camp and. boom, it came to me, not really, but, you know, it kind of, yeah, it came from that.

10:53 We spent, you know, we implemented a big ERP system. I was still finding like we spent, you know, 10, 15 of our budget just administrating our budget, if that makes sense. So again, that

11:05 didn't make sense to me, but, you know, that's what needed to be done and, you know, we learned a lot. And then, yeah, I said, like, man, we spent a lot of time just calling and guessing,

11:14 hey, I think that back truck's going to show up or, hey, that maintenance crew, I think you're going to be there. Or, hey, what did you do over there? Did you write it down? Yeah, well, I

11:21 can't even read your handwriting. So there's that thought, let's keep that in our mind. And then the other part was like Uber came out, right? So a lot of our thesis was off of Uber. So a 10 cab

11:30 ride, you could order, track, pay, seamless, great experience. You know, when demand came up, they're like, so it worked on both sides of the equation.

11:40 Yeah. And then how did we apply it? Well, Adam and I, so this is when we came together in 2015, till the end. we started a service company. So they got entrepreneurial guys and we wanted to do

11:54 that, but before we even bought a truck or any kind of asset, we actually built an app for our own internal company. So fast forward today, that's what they did, but then that's just how it

12:03 started. So we wanted our clients, and this is how we were gonna gain market share, and eventually we did a bit. So they could go on to our app, order us. We could easily dispatch, take the job,

12:14 drag it onto the truck that the workers would get it We streamlined communication, you know, you could put a, at the time, take a picture of a ticket on there. So it's like really simple. Our

12:24 clients were happy, they had a good experience, and then we went. So we did that for three, four years. And then a couple of our clients just said, Hey, we like your service, but we actually

12:33 like your software more.

12:36 So we're like, Okay, well, we looked into it. We kind of looked into the market. And there was, you know, there's a million field ticketing software out there. We don't disagree, and there's

12:43 good product out there. there's a lot of ERP system. So on the demand side, there's a big systems that they need to use, there's payment stuff, but there was nothing really connecting demand and

12:52 supply for field execution. You know, fast forward here today. And that's what we're focused on, Jeremy. And yeah, we've focused in even more on like specific five points of the workflow that

13:06 we're really good at, and then we can integrate into these other systems, so. Do I have so many questions? That was a really good high level explanation, but I want to pull it back even a little

13:17 bit more. So within Ironsight, which is an app that basically people can download onto their phones, right? You got Android, you got Apple, is it a computer like web app as well? Yeah, so it's

13:32 a platform is what we call it. And it's got web capability for all your scheduling and all that. And yeah, of course, like all the, it's available on iOS or Android in the basic native app, yep.

13:44 You've built a marketplace and a marketplace, of course, by nature means that you have multiple sides to it, which makes it even a little bit harder to then sell to the market. So who do you sell

13:55 your product to? Do you sell this to operators and say, Hey, we've got the service companies. We can easily onboard them. We sell this to you and you guys use this as your sort of tool of needs

14:07 when you need something in the field. Or do you sell it to the field services company and say, Hey, here's an app where you can start to digitize your field tickets and send that over to the

14:17 operators. Or is it, yes, like it's all of that? Yeah, no, no, it's noted a lot of that, but then we'll lead it into it. So, we sell to the operators, first and foremost,

14:30 that was always been our strategy. So to be very, very clear, they tell us who to onboard. So that's a misconception, I think, that people say like, Oh, well, I can go get iron sight, get a

14:41 bunch more work Well, yeah. you can in the future, and this is, I'll tell you about that. But yeah, first and foremost, operator, they tell us, what we sell to them is eight, we're not

14:51 replacing anything, you're not doing anything different. You're still gonna need to request services, you schedule them, you execute it, you need to document, field ticket, disposal, whatever,

15:00 whatever, and then you need to get that data and integrate it into like all these end systems. So we now provide that platform that connects your input systems to your output systems. And we do

15:10 that by implementing our request schedule, execute, document, and integrate workflow. So workflow, that's what we sell, that's what we do. Now, again, we've been on the demand side. Now,

15:22 over the last couple of years, we figured out, and we'll say, hey, we want to give something to the supply side. So they come on for free by the demand, but now we're able to go and say, hey,

15:32 do you need an integration out of Ironsight into this? Hey, do you want to use Ironsight for non-operators that who aren't our clients? Do you want to still dispatch and have one platform? Yeah,

15:44 we would love that. So Jeremy, that's what we're doing now. So once we're monetizing and also bringing value, so you come on for free, but you're gonna get, if you wanna use it for more, you

15:57 can. And yeah, heavily focused on bringing those two together. That's really cool. And I think it's a sound model. And I wanna talk sort of about some of the consortium plays that you've made,

16:08 which to me are really interesting that Ben Shimer and others described around produced water and how you guys handle that. I think that's potentially very disruptive. And it's really forward

16:19 thinking and tells me that you listen to your customers. So do you have clients? I get fundamentally how your product works for oil and gas. You have the operator, you have your service provider.

16:31 Operator puts a job out on the platform. Service company grabs it. And then you can track everything related to that if you're the operator, makes perfect sense to me. Do you also have like

16:43 non-oiling gas clients? 'Cause it seems like there's other municipalities, industries where they say, okay, I got a job, I need help. They could still use iron site, right? Like you're not

16:54 just confined to the oil field. Yeah, definitely not. Like we definitely see the, since it is everything we do is based on a workflow. Like you're right, in a municipality, they need to order a

17:08 load of gravel to go build a road. Like it's no different.

17:12 I would say that Ironsight, we're very focused on energy, oil and gas. It's our background. So, we don't wanna be that company, look fast forward two years that tried to do everything. And like,

17:25 yeah,

17:28 there's a big market there for us. We're based out of Canada, but we've grown into the US. We have some major operators in the Permian and and Bakken the the DJUs in Ironsight So yeah. Though we

17:43 maybe will get there, the next couple of years, Jeremy, we're really focused on energy, oil and gas, and connecting demand and supply, so yeah. Because you've really just started tapping into

17:55 that, right? I mean, how many thousands of oil and gas companies are there versus how many customers you guys have? There's so much more that you guys could do, and I think your momentum is

18:04 growing. I want to peel it back a little bit on the last guest that I had on the show was, well, I'm not sure what are these going to be released, but Jimmy Sebastian, who is the chief product

18:14 officer at Seven Lakes Technologies, where I worked for about four years and really got my first exposure to selling products to the field. We had an iPad-based field data capture product for lease

18:26 operators for pumpers, and the best sales that we used to get was you'd have a couple of these pumpers, literally, going out to a well, and then taking a break, and on their break, the guy's

18:36 inputting information into the iPad and another pumper sees him and says, hey, what are you doing? I just write this stuff down and then I drop it off at the doghouse at the end of the day. Like,

18:46 I don't understand, what is that? Yeah, it's like the Seven Lakes thing or VPA production said that we should use it. And it's actually pretty cool. Like this is the Skate of stuff. So then they

18:55 come to us and they're like, Hey, I'd like to order your FDG product. I'm

19:00 like, No one's ever actually done that before, but okay, you just wanna order it? Like, they're like, No, I already got it. Like I could demo it to my team today. Fundamentally, I get it.

19:09 I'm like, Oh shit, okay So, maybe we need to be selling this more in the field. Have you guys seen that happen a little bit where people are literally using Ironsight in the field and then

19:18 somebody from a different company hanging out at a bar or restaurant or diner says, Hey, what is that? And then all of a sudden you get a call from them. Yeah, I'll give you our best example of

19:31 that, for sure. So, like I said, we onboard demand, they bring on supply, supplies. We work really hard for them to like it It's like it's changed. So there's always a bit of hesitation, but

19:43 we're seeing about 70 of those, you know, supply coming on saying, yeah, I'm excited for this and I want to do it. So they, and I'm saying they as suppliers and fluid haulers and water haulers,

19:55 like they are going to the demand to these producers and saying, hey, you should, like we do this old school, these guys are digitizing us for X, Y, Z, oil, co. And like all we have to do is

20:06 push submit and they're doing it. Now they're going to selling it for us So we actually, we actually work with them being supply and say, hey, you know, for doing that, we'll give you an

20:15 integration into your QuickBooks account for free. If you help us, you know, we'll close this account. So we're not hiding that. That's the, we believe, why is that good? Because it just

20:24 brings value on both sides. And if they see it, like who's a better salesperson, Sean, who, yeah, he's from Canada, talks like a goof and the, okay, he's another slick sales guy, guy, or

20:35 like, you know, the owner of a trucking company in Carlsbad who does all of their food water hauling and he like I think there's some validation there. So we see that's kind of our strategy go

20:46 forward. We're early stages for that strategy, but the flywheel effect, we kind of call it and we'll open it. The flywheel effect. And to me, that is like, if that started to happen for you,

20:59 you're at an inflection point. 'Cause like how many nights did you go to bed saying, Man, we're gonna get to the point where people out in the field are gonna start recommending us. And now it's

21:07 happening, right? So it's sort of like you should take a moment to appreciate that, Sean. That's a big deal and it takes time to get there from when you built the product, got your first clients

21:18 using it, got multiple people using it, and now all of a sudden you've got like a real sense of adoption on the field as these people are, you know, they're recommending to their friends but

21:26 they're also leaving companies going to a new company and saying, Hey, we're gonna bring this on. This is not a part of my toolkit. Like I did with Salesforce, like I first used Salesforce, do

21:35 you guys use Salesforce or HubSpot or Dynamics? Yeah.

21:40 HubSpot, which has made a pretty good dent in the market. For me, it was Salesforce. My first day in an office doing an inside sales job when I was making 85 phone calls a day, they're like, Hey,

21:49 here's Salesforce. Log in here and track all your calls. Like, that's what I was indoctrinated into as a 23 year old sales guy in 2003. And then I got to the point where I'd be brought on to lead

22:02 sales at companies and be the first sales guy. The first call that I made was to Salesforce because that's how I knew how to run my business, right? And I think that that type of growth is what you

22:13 need. It's less of the push and more of the. It's coming, I think it's coming in our space, like that field execution, you know, that digital, there's so much buzz around it, but like, it's

22:27 coming over the next three, four, five, 10 years. I believe it's gonna take a bit of time to do it. But yeah, I think we position ourselves decently well out. There's always struggles and you

22:37 want to build more and you got to do more with like.

22:40 But yeah, I know, I believe that and

22:45 it is a good feeling for sure, we're early innings of it, but excited about it, yeah. Even just the digitization part of the process, I've had Steven Tubes from Ironsight and Spirit Data Guys and

22:57 people who play less with the operators more on the traditional field ticketing side with service companies. Those guys have come on and said, what percentage of field tickets alone are even

23:09 digitized and it's probably like 25, 30, which tells me like, yes, we're in like the top of the second inning right now, even just for digitization of the field. And if you're getting this level

23:21 of demand and people buying from you now, the future does look right. Talk to me a little bit about two things. One, are you just North America focus? Like you've got the Canadian market, you've

23:32 come down here into the US. And what is this whole like water consortium that's gonna bring full basins together on your platform? Yeah, let's talk about that first. So we call it water

23:43 CNX. If you didn't hear the first part of the podcast, you understand that we go for demand and supply and they can interact and we have this collaborative future. Well, when we were building this

23:53 out for the last couple years, so, you know, Adam's been really focused on that. Well, it came to us that like, why can't an operator so demand talk to another demand? And we said, yeah, no

24:04 problem. Honestly, it's like a line of code, flip it, and they can interact and share. We always thought there'd be a different way to apply it, but like sharing, you know, water trucks or

24:14 sharing, you know, logistics and like, you know, tubing, hauling and hot shots, which is coming. And we're excited about that. But this water consortium, a couple of our clients came to us

24:25 and said, well, why can't we just post something and say, hey, I got a million extra barrels for, you know, a produced water. I need to get rid of it while, you know, operator down the street

24:34 I need that. and they can just go on and it's pretty simple. So we get, they being the consortium, we're working with, they call it the Craigslist of water. We call it, obviously, water, CNX,

24:45 but it is that simple. So, hey, I gotta get, I got excess capacity for disposal, post it. Hey, I got, I got extra water for frack, post it. Hey, I need water up in this county, in the

24:57 Permian, post it. Now they don't need to call, like this was happening, carry me like by email and calls and spreadsheets. And now they just go on to our insight onto what we call our field view.

25:09 So it's like a map of everything and they right click, they post and Craigslist of water, if you might. And now it's evolving into, you know, even more and more, but you know, imagine tying

25:19 that into your trucking and disposals and locations. So like we're creating that digital, you know, marketplace out there. Yeah. Really good idea. Is anybody else doing that? I know there's

25:30 lots of ticketing and dispatching, bidding companies out there, but is anybody else doing this water type consortium thing? So this consortium that we're worked with with a bunch of operators, I

25:40 think in the past, they've approached companies with similar functionality. What, to our knowledge, no, there might be somebody out there working on it behind. We don't know, but we have some

25:51 pretty big operators and bring it on more and more midstream and bring it on some more folks there. So not to my knowledge. And at the core of what all of our, this consortium and all the groups

26:03 have said to us is like, hey, make it simple. Make it easy for us to use because you're competing against like a spreadsheet which we don't like. We obviously want to do something. So yeah,

26:13 that's what I'd say our differentiator is. Well, kudos to you. This is interesting stuff to me because if I think about an oil and gas company and what's important to them, it's, this isn't their

26:26 secret sauce, right? They're gonna end up with produced water no matter what. They're gonna need that water to inject down whole for fracks. This is, it's not threatening to them, right?

26:38 Sometimes they want to keep things secret from other operators. This is not one of those things. So I think you've kind of cracked the code on that. I'm curious to see what else you do from a

26:46 consortium standpoint, but that's sort of like a basin-by-basin approach, right? You don't just get one or two in the Bakken and say, all right, now we're going to the Permian. You got to get

26:55 everybody in the Bakken. You got to get everybody in the Eagleford. You got to make sure that these companies are really talking to each other and using it to the point that, all right, it's not

27:02 just two posts on Craigslist It doesn't. That's right, yep. So we're heavily focused, Permian, Midland, and Delaware. You're right. I won't lie, I've been pretty impressed and blown away that

27:15 these big operators are all willing to do it. It's because you're right. Like it's not a hidden secret. It's not anything like it's better for the industry. And if you talk to a few of the folks

27:25 that have been working with, this is the right thing to do for the industry, where we don't - If we can share and dispose of produced water. then we'll do it together and reuse it. So, yeah,

27:36 super excited. It's, yeah, I'm, I've been impressed. But yeah, no, you're right. We'll be rolling it out to Eagle fern in the Bakken and DJ, but heavily focused in the Permian. That's where,

27:48 you know, the biggest problem lies. So, and just kind of the regulations allowed to happen. So, yeah. Well, speaking of regulations, that's actually, I'm glad you mentioned that word, 'cause

27:56 that's a fairly good segue.

27:59 Do you guys get involved in the idea around, like ESG, is that a question that comes up with you guys? How does your app make companies more sustainable? Like, I fundamentally get how, if you

28:11 route a service worker more efficiently, then you are creating less emissions. I think there's something behind that. But is like, do you get questions around how is this ESG friendly, especially

28:24 as you work with these larger companies? Yeah, for sure. I think if we stick to what we're, like the core, of what we are, it's just, again, a byproduct and a great byproduct, so I'll tell

28:36 you that. If we make things more efficient, both on the demand and supply, you're gonna ultimately have, and it's proven, you're gonna have a lot of people out there. So we really focus on like

28:46 scope three emissions. So, you know, truck moving around, we can, we know how many miles they've traveled and our kilometers and whatever country we're in. And then you can convert that to like,

28:57 okay, we've had this much emissions today, you benchmark it, and then you can tell over time, you know, what the difference is. Yeah, we're so, we're starting to get into that world. But just,

29:07 I think being more sustainable, like we all know that it's a tough world out there. Even that, you know, what are we at today? 80 oil, like it's still a very difficult market out there. And,

29:18 you know, utilization for us is the name of the game. So better utilizing the assets you have will in turn make you more sustainable, longer future, less emissions So let's, we don't try to

29:30 pretend that we're just. big ESG buzz company, we're focused on what we are core we do. A byproduct of what we do is making it more sustainable and lower emissions. Yeah, it's within the margins.

29:44 It's part of what you do. I think the main thing of what you do is helping companies reduce lifting costs and create more efficiency and really create some competition within the field. Who's going

29:55 to be the service company that wants this job the most because now it's more publicly facing. It fundamentally makes a lot of sense to me. When you think about three, four, five years from now,

30:08 what does that look like for iron sight? And maybe that's a tough question to answer, but maybe you didn't have this water, CNX idea in

30:20 your head or in the app until recently, but where do you kind of see things going without revealing your secret sauce. What does your company look like in five years? Yeah, I mean, we have to

30:33 wave a wand and say, Where do we want to be? I think, you know, we want to be the de facto, this is how you actually work in the future. It's clean, it's simple, you can use it as a portal

30:44 into your other end systems, you're counting, right, the payment per se. So yeah, like that's really where we see ourselves going.

30:54 Do I see ourselves uberizing the Permian, potentially? I think having a world where you have demand and supply onto it, now, we're also very, very well aware how oil and gas works and you got to

31:07 have contracts, you have MSAs or safety regulators, so we're all into that. But we're looking at ways how that can happen and

31:16 again, without revealing too much, we really do see an opportunity where you could just go on to a platform and your approved vendors are there, drop a job onto them, they go to work and the

31:29 payment processing is just and it ends up with your SAPs or ends into whatever end systems those clients use and the suppliers are getting paid quicker and probably most importantly, like it's not as

31:41 administrative as it is today. So that's - Yeah, so you're saying on both sides of the platform, companies will come for the utility and then eventually they'll stay for the network, they'll stay

31:54 for the marketplace because there's benefit for them beyond what the initial scope of why they bought it was there for, it's really neat. And I think that's admirable, right? You're giving some of

32:07 these companies ideas and for those that had ideas, you're actually giving them a platform to execute on this. Talk a little bit about what it's like selling to a mom and pop shop versus what it's

32:18 like selling to a major. Like you're dealing with everybody, right? This is not just majors. I know that you guys have kind of waved the flag around some of the majors you've done work with,

32:28 which is awesome But what does that like in terms of - length of sales process, going through some of the red tape versus what it's like for a mom and pop, or is it surprisingly similar?

32:39 Yeah, it's been interesting. Like we've seen, like he said, we work with some of the biggest oil companies in the world. And you know what? I don't sit here and complain about a sales process.

32:52 It's actually making it better. So they make sure you can show value and not just talk about it, but demonstrate it and proof of concepts in endless conversations. So yeah, it can be challenging

33:06 and you got to wear with all and you got to have the process. Super excited that we're bringing on good people over the last, you know, we've had good people and we've moved on from some people,

33:14 but you know, we've learned from everything over the last couple of years. So yeah, excited about that on the big, you know, the bigger oil company side. And then the mom and pops. Yeah, like,

33:27 I'll give you a good story It's minus.

33:31 35 again in the winter time a couple of years ago and We went to an outfit a mom and pop kind of owner operator trucking company We had to go on board them and then they wanted actually like they use

33:42 QuickBooks They want to take their tickets out of iron site put into QuickBooks This is early days when we were doing that so we went out and talked to them and they had two massive massive

33:53 Like great Dane dogs that we had to go do this Emo and training to and they're like we're in the kitchen of this mom and they got the trucks like outside idling It's the end of the day. So they're

34:03 like it was it was interesting now That poses challenge as well because you know change and you know, oh our clients are making us do this So we don't really want to do it. Well. Yeah, like we try

34:15 to go there show value That hey, you know, we're not replacing any kind of workflow. We're actually just gonna put it on a platform And but yeah, we and we've seen a couple flip phones out there.

34:25 So that's interesting, you know time to download map when they're doing that All of that in between, Jerry. So we've been in the high rises of Houston and the in Hinton, Alberta, but I honestly

34:37 can tell you and anybody that knows me, like I love that. I love being able to work doing that. And that's the challenges. And as we grow at our team, and we are definitely adding some quality

34:46 people, we're gonna have to

34:50 specialize a bit more, but that's what gets me up out of bed for sure is those challenges set. That's awesome In terms of like, I mean, you mentioned like some turnover. And candidly, like a lot

35:04 of that is just startup life, man. Like there's a pace to a startup and the demands, especially from investors early on and from the leadership like you and Adam, that everything needs to happen,

35:15 it has to happen fast. And that's just not how it works. You can be like a cog in a wheel at a bigger company. That's not how it goes in a startup. There's all eyes are on you. And I think that

35:26 requires just a certain type. person certain type of mindset that that's willing to take ownership in what they're doing. It's an ownership mindset that helps these startups get to the next level.

35:38 And I think candidly it's why some companies fail. Like you have to have lived it. And you guys are living it. You've lived it since 2015. Good on you for that. All right, I'm going to put you

35:47 on the spot real quick. I like to do this. I didn't prep you for this and any of the questions, but I like to put you on the hot seat, ask some questions, have some fun here. And I want your

35:56 kind of quick, real quick response on this. All right. Who wins the Stanley Cup in 2024? Emmage, really? Okay. If gold standing holds up, if gold standing holds up, I think we're in a really

36:11 good spot. It feels like it's their time or their time is coming. And it also feels like somebody from Canada is supposed to win soon too.

36:19 Yeah, let's hope. Yeah, right. Who, Who's the greatest hockey player of all time?

36:26 I think the right answer is Wayne Gretzky, my favorite is Bobby Orr for sure, or Gordy Apple even. I think they all bring different something different. You know, I asked the same question to

36:36 Paul Richie of Asperity at a Calgary and he said Bobby Orr no hesitation. So that makes me feel good. You see what's behind me with all the Boston stuff. So you're getting into my heart, you're

36:46 selling me now, Sean, like

36:49 another question. So let's talk Fahrenheit, right? Do you prefer 50 below in Red Lake Alberta or Cold Lake. Cold Lake. Cold. Okay. Cold Lake. Let's see. 40 below in Cold Lake, Alberta or

37:08 140 degrees in Picos, New Mexico. Oh, yeah. It's end of August. I was just down there and like this. It's,

37:18 I take the cold. The humidity kills the guy. If you're not around it a lot, I guess I'm used to the cold. So I, I can survive in there, but man, oh man, that's humidity. It's, uh, it used

37:30 it, especially, but I say, you said, in New Mexico, I, yeah, it would be cold over hot for me. Yeah, me too. I was just talking about this to some people around here the other day. Like I

37:41 grew up in extreme cold. So I'm always good with putting on more layers. You get to the point with the heat. You don't have any more layers to take off. Exactly. Exactly I'm gonna take the

37:52 extreme cold, if I could. Let me ask

37:58 you one more, right? In terms of your growth path, your next five, 10 hires, are they gonna be in the United States? Are they gonna be overseas? Are they gonna be in Canada? Where's your next

38:09 hire set of hires gonna be living?

38:14 Phew. We have a

38:17 plan, definitely I would say we just recent hired somebody yesterday in the US. Congrats.

38:28 a two-thirds US focusing a bit more on some customer success and you know account people and then Canada overseas we have we're looking at some partnerships and we're working at two fairly large deals

38:48 that would you know change it a bit so yeah if I had to break it down percentage-wise that'd be easier for me so it's go 60 US 20 Canada and then

39:02 20 unknown or other

39:06 well that's that's pretty cool showing growth and now just like on a personal level right I mean I know you work a lot you spend time with the boys what do you like to do when you're not working

39:18 you're not hanging out with kids what what floats your boat

39:22 ah yeah like a huge sports guy like love ball played up, growing ball, love watching ball. So do a lot of that with my sons. And then just also internally, kind of on the MLB side. Golf, used

39:37 to golf a lot before kids, you know, you can't do everything. So that was probably one thing that dropped. Started to get back into it a little bit. Don't mind swinging the sticks.

39:48 Yeah, like probably lost touch with some key friends and just trying to, you know, get back into that. And it's nothing in the

39:55 bad way Just life. So I've been focusing on that this summer

40:01 and, you know, trying to get grounded a bit and miss some of the guys I grew up with and spend the time with them. So yeah, sports, friends, family, it's a pretty typical guy that way. Yeah,

40:06 and

40:13 a lot of work. I get it, man, work in. Yeah, and I love what I do. So like, you know, people's fun on a Tuesday night when they put the kids to bed is, you know, do whatever I really enjoy

40:24 going. thinking about our next steps and prepping for the next big call. And so it's my passion and I love it. So no regrets. There's like, I was talking to my wife about this. There's like

40:37 three things that I really like to do, right? And I'll just be very general about it. I like to work, right? I like to build businesses. I like to spend time with my family. And then I like to

40:48 do something sports related. We'll call it golf. There's simply not enough time to do all three. You kind of have to pick two of the three, right? So you see a lot of people that are, like,

40:56 really good at golf. It's like, well, to me, you're probably sacrificing one of the two other things. That's right. And if I'm going to sacrifice something at this stage, it's probably going to

41:05 be the sport. It's like it's going to be golf. It's going to be softball that gets put to the side because my kids and family need me and my businesses need me. And there's really just not a lot of

41:13 room for everything else. Like, you can't do everything, I guess, unless you only sleep like 40 hours a week, which -

41:20 Yeah. So I guess I live now. I'm okay with not being a scratch golfer. I'll go out and, you know, I'll shoot whatever. And, and I, and I actually enjoy golf, like being out there, not even

41:31 so much like the competition anymore. And, uh, yeah, it's just, you can't do it all and got to be okay with it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, of those three, right? You pick two and then maybe that

41:41 shifts, maybe you sell your company and make 100 million one day or something. You don't play as much scratch in

41:47 your family. The final question I have for you, Sean, and this is one thing that I really like to ask entrepreneurs and one thing I think about a lot is like, what advice would you have for your

41:59 younger self? Like you at 21, 22 years old, anything that stands out, like what you would tell, what would you recommend to Sean Martin as a 21, 22 year old guy.

42:12 Yeah, like I would say, if

42:16 you make a decision, do it, like it's your final one.

42:22 So, you know, we've been kind of, for a while there, you know, it's very uncertain. And we had to balance 'cause we had kids in life. But the incident, Adam and I, you know, come 2017, 18,

42:31 like committed into this, it just, it becomes your passion and your love and it just can't fail. So yeah, I'd say like, if you're gonna make a decision, think about it thoroughly. And when you

42:42 do make it, like make it, think about it like it's gonna be your last decision. So that's what I would say. I love it I do think that's a big thing. And frankly, that's a big thing with people

42:51 in podcasts too. I can't tell you how many people have started podcasts and done eight, 10, 12 episodes, and they just stopped doing it 'cause they expect some sort of like immediate results from

43:01 it. It's gonna help me get sales, it's gonna help me get exposure. I'm gonna grow my follower count by a thousand. Well, when that doesn't happen, then what, right? I kind of set my mind to it.

43:10 Like, I'm gonna do this at all costs. I'm gonna set things aside. I'm gonna do this an hour, two hours a week and continue doing it because I know that the value will be there. sort of in the,

43:20 in the long run, but it takes commitment. And people will ask me, they say, hey, you like to podcast, you put out 140 episodes or whatever you've done. Like what advice do you have? And I just

43:29 say, like, like make a commitment to it the same way you commit to anything else that you're going to do. Take a shower, brush your teeth, eat lunch, like this is now part of your life and this

43:40 is part of your job. And you're gonna set aside an hour a week. And if that's something you can't do, don't do it. 'Cause then you're gonna do what everybody else does. Yeah, and I think it's

43:47 important to adjust So like we've adjusted and you gotta pivot. But like commit to the concept, like - Totally. Look yourself in the mirror and say, yeah, I gave it my all and if it doesn't work,

43:58 that's fine. I think failure is like, it's not a bad thing. Just being able to, how do you get there? Great, great point, right? I mean, it's, it's, and that is part of why you're

44:09 successful, Sean, is because you can accept that. Like what is failure in this case? Is it not being the biggest, you know, dispatching, you know, Pitting, field ticketing, operator,

44:22 supplier company in the world. Yeah, I mean, if that's failure, that's failure. But you know what, like you've already succeeded in a lot of people's eyes. So it's important for you to remind

44:30 yourself that and just not rest on your laurels, but keep going with with what you got. You're setting a good example for, for young entrepreneurs. Sean, before we jump, where can people find

44:40 you? Where can they find iron site like the LinkedIn? So yeah, LinkedIn Yeah, LinkedIn was trying to be much a bit more active, show the value prop. So, you know, it's go type in iron site,

44:54 iron site is I R O N S I G H T. So iron site and then website. Yeah, yeah, it's a great avenue. You'll be able to get us into and connect with us. So iron site, I R O N S I G H T dot app that

45:10 APP.

45:12 And if anybody owns Ironsightcom, the guy we've been trying to negotiate with him forever. So Ironsightapp is where you can go find us. As your company becomes more and more valuable, that price

45:23 point for getting Ironsightcom He knows

45:27 that there's a construction guy in Missouri that we're, yeah, that he's sitting on his best asset right now. That's hilarious. And if you personally, Sean Martin's, you're on LinkedIn, you're

45:36 out there, people can find you. Yeah And Martin's, Martin's is M-A-R-T-E-N-S. Awesome. Well, for everybody listening on what the funk, this is Sean Martin's, he's a beast doing great things

45:50 with, with iron sight. That's I-R-O-N-S-I-G-H-T dot app, dot APP, you should check them out. They're doing great work in various different basins in the U S. Sean, we greatly appreciate your

46:00 time on that. Yeah, thank you.