Such a fun, dynamic, and multi-faceted discussion with Johnathan Tebeau of TebeauGroup. John and I discuss a number of very fun and interesting topics, ranging from starting his first business at an early age and growing that business successfully. We then pivoted into his involvement in the restaurant industry and dive into topics related to going above and beyond for customers and how to remedy a poor experience. We then explored a variety of career-level topics and business topics related to customer satisfaction, overcoming challenges, and continuously striving for excellence with an insatiable appetite to learn. Incredible conversation!
AUTO-TRANSCRIBED – PLEASE FORGIVE ANY ERRORS OR TYPOS
Aaron Spatz 00:05
You’re listening to America’s entrepreneur, the podcast designed to educate, entertain, and inspire you in your personal professional journey. I’m your host, Aaron Spatz. And on the podcast, I interview entrepreneurs, industry experts, and other high achievers that detail their personal and professional journeys in business. My goal is to glean their experiences into actionable insights that you can apply to your own journey. If you’re new to the show, we’ve spoken with successful entrepreneurs, Grammy Award winning artists, best selling authors, chief executives, and other fascinating minds with unique experiences. We’ve covered topics such as how to achieve breakthrough and business, growing startups, effective leadership techniques, and much more. If you strive for continuous self improvement, and enjoy fascinating and insightful conversation, if the subscribe button, you’ll love it here at America’s entrepreneur. I’m incredibly grateful for you. And I’m incredibly grateful to invite our guests on the show today with Jonathan T. Bo. John comes to us from a whole variety of different backgrounds. He started integrity design solutions, back in the day, and he’s worked his way through a whole bunch of other ventures. Taking up to present day he was the founder of t bo group, also the senior staff or a senior staff UI engineer at Blackhawk network. John, I just want to welcome man, thank you so much for being here this morning.
John Tebeau 01:30
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. It’s a pleasure to be on your show. And thank you for inviting me.
Aaron Spatz 01:34
Absolutely. So great. Like just helped me understand again, this is like one of my one of my favorite lead off questions here is, you know, are you DFW native? And if not, where the heck are you from?
John Tebeau 01:45
So I am not originally I’m from St. Louis, Missouri, born and raised. Well, I say raised, I left early, I was 10 years old when my dad came to us and said, Hey, guys, we’re moving. He worked for at&t Southwestern Bell at the time. And they did a big migration of people from Chicago and St. Louis, down to Dallas. And this was circa 1998. And so we packed up our bags, and we came down to Dallas. So I really was raised in Dallas, you know, you’re 10 years old. You only live so much. So it was it was nice to get here though. I love Dallas.
Aaron Spatz 02:21
Wow. Yeah. So I can’t imagine all that you’ve seen change and all that all the growth that’s happening? Because it’s been? And I don’t, it’s been crazy. And I don’t see any signs of it slowing down, which is nuts to me. I mean, there’s companies moving here, all over the place. There’s people I mean, I feel like every time I talk to somebody, they’re like, oh, yeah, just just barely moved here. And in the US, it’s, it’s a rapidly growing place.
John Tebeau 02:45
I absolutely couldn’t agree more I see it. You know, in my restaurant business, I see it growth all the time. There’s like another restaurant popping up every day. And even in just the development, the business development side of things with office buildings popping up on every quarter. And it’s Dallas is just a fun city because of that reason,
Aaron Spatz 03:04
girl. Man, that’s crazy. So you so you do a whole bunch of different things that I didn’t I didn’t mention, I didn’t mention a restaurant business actually, on the on the intro. But let’s, so let’s, let’s take a quick tour. And I guess we could go well, let’s start back at the beginning, actually, it’s probably the best place to start. So give me a rundown of integrity design solutions. What What was that all about? How did you start it? When did you exit all I could stuff.
John Tebeau 03:30
So interior design solutions was really a a means to put food on the table during college. It was, you know, something that I started hacking out even as a little kid, I always wanted to do web stuff. I loved making websites and stuff growing up. That’s kind of weird. But I was a typical nerd kid growing up. So I just I always had a passion for business. I knew I wanted to do that. And I took what I love computers and websites, and I put them together. I just started doing little mom and pop, you know, like an electric company. I I did Plumbing Companies website, I you know, and I would just call these people like cold calling. Can I do your website. And but But out of that came a whole host of things that kind of took on their own paths. And one of those was my love for, you know, sar software architecture, software design, and designing systems and eventually led to our acquisition in 2012 when I sold interior design solutions.
Aaron Spatz 04:26
Wow. So what was that? What was that? What was that experience? Like?
John Tebeau 04:31
That was that was a ride. I mean, that was a it felt like a lot longer than than what it was. But along the way, I got two other business partners that came along with me and just the experience of starting something from from nothing. Like I started at my mom and dad’s house. My senior year, my dad buys me a desk, you know, and he’s like, this is your office. And it just felt so cool. You know, I was like this is awesome. And then I went from that to a small little office to a bigger office to a lot bigger office. And it was just a a neat ride, where I learned a lot of things that helped me in my career path where I am today. So, you know, it’s just, it was a cool experience. We got to create a software, and was so excited to to find a company interested in it. And then it was the most humbling thing in the world, because we’re so proud of the software, you know, it’s our baby, we worked on it, like, you know, for years straight, just pouring our every moment into it. And we didn’t get any funding for this. We did it all on her own sweat and tears. And on the back of website development, project money. So we were we were kind of self funding this venture. But when we got to the end, and we looked at what the company used for our software, they scrapped the whole thing except for our reporting module. And it was like, Hey, you didn’t like the other pieces. They didn’t care about anything else except the reporting module. So it was like, it was a cool, exciting thing. But then it was like a humbling thing to to say. Maybe you just developed a really cool reporting module, and they didn’t really care about the rest of the stuff,
Aaron Spatz 06:09
man. Dang, that’s crazy. But I still was happy. Yeah, no, I mean, well, it’s it’s cool being able to create something that somebody else is using Yes. Like that. And I, and, obviously, you’re a super creative guy, right? So like you enjoy, you enjoy building enjoy Creation. So it’s like even even if there’s just a little bit of it being used, it’s still it just, there’s an immense amount of satisfaction that comes from them. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, we’ll then take us through then what you know what happened next, what like after you sold, what was your next move? Well,
John Tebeau 06:45
my next move at that time, I’d been married for several years. And I got married to my childhood, sweetheart. And I met her actually, which is kind of ties into all this. But I met her at a restaurant that I got a job at when I was 16. And it was right up the street from my house. And I didn’t know that her dad was the owner of the restaurant. And so as we developed a relationship, she was my best friend growing up, I mean, anything and everything that you did with the best friend growing up, that was me and her, Maryland, and that. But anyway, her dad was the owner of the restaurant and long story short, over time, we’ve we’ve become business partners, I’m invested in that as a, at least an owner in the terms of non operational things, I do a lot of the marketing the technology, and a lot of what’s involved in the restaurant Planning and Zoning of new restaurants. So we’re actually in the process of creating a couple of new restaurants in Dallas, during a pandemic. If you can imagine that. Amazing. It’s amazing, but it’s also a nightmare. Yeah, it’s like, in our whole thing is every time we’ve done a venture, I mean, we’ve launched with my father in law, you know, at the helm. I mean, he’s this is his business, that I’m kind of a partner in. But he’s launched seven restaurants over the last 30 years that he’s been in business. Wow. And it’s been it’s been a wild ride of its own. So a lot of a lot of helping out where needed cleaning, cleaning off tables. I’m a, I tell people as a busboy slash developer slash, I’ll put on whatever hat I need to at the moment. You go where you’re needed.
Aaron Spatz 08:20
Yeah, see, so you’ve been able to see you’ve been able to join forces there be a bit of an investor, but also, you’re just helping helping grow the business and helping you fill in very specific needs and very specific gaps, whether it’s through technology, I’m sure, as you’re looking at it, I mean, there’s there’s all sorts of technology now that that that powers restaurants, and that’s become so much more critical for for not only for like online presence, but just the internal operations of the restaurant itself. Like, what, what have you seen there?
John Tebeau 08:53
Well, I tell you what, during a pandemic, when, at the beginning of all of it when it started, I just remember, you know, I just remember two things that were said to me from a mentor. He told me right at the beginning of all this, how you treat people in your business right now, you will be known for it, and years to come, how you’re how you’re treating people during this pandemic. And that’s stuck with me, that was really a pivotal moment for me to say, I know, we have to change our concept, because we’re, you know, basically about at that time, we’re probably 80% Diamond, right? And we’re having to shift now to I mean, we even closed our diamond for a couple of months from the city mandate, that was put into Allen, and we’re down to one location at the moment, we’ve sold off some of our other locations. But now we have two more concepts that are in the process. So we’ll be up to three again. But anyhow, long story short on that. I have so much history, but I just remember thinking we’ve got a pivot, we’ve got a shift on an online model. And we really didn’t have the setup for it. We didn’t have the POS system. We didn’t have we had kind of an older one. And so we shifted over to a new POS system that was cloud based, we got an online ordering system in place, we shifted all of our UberEATS. And stuff, we almost pause those for the moment because we we, you know, the 30% markup on those is great when businesses rockin but you can’t really take that hit. And I even renegotiated some of our contracts with like UberEATS, who about cry, get in trouble for saying this on the air, but they just were very, they would not budge on their rates. And as soon as the pandemic hit, they helped out, they stood up and said, Hey, no, no more fees for you for the interim, you know, we’re not going to charge any percent fees on your orders coming in to you guys. And a lot of these companies were really responsive and helping us to not suffer during during this hard time. And so, you know, I think that moment that technology shift that we did going into online ordering, it really kept the business alive. In a moment where we were, we were concerned, in the 30 years of our business, we had never had a shake up like that in our business sales.
Aaron Spatz 11:02
Yeah. I can’t imagine I mean, because there’s I mean, you’re you’re so I mean, if, if you don’t mind, I’d like to park here for just a minute and just talk, talk a little bit more detail about this, because this is really, really fascinating, because there’s so many businesses, and I and my heart goes out to them, because there’s so many businesses that either they just they cannot adapt fast enough, or there’s other factors at play. And they were leveraged out of their situations, and they just, you know, they had no choice. But then there’s a lot of folks. And like, there’s, there’s even places that I didn’t expect to do well. And they’re in they’ve done incredibly well. Because they just hustled their face off, man, like they were, they were rushing orders out into the parking lot. I mean, like throwing food at people and like, okay, like, let let’s go, let’s make let’s make this happen. And and there’s there’s been a lot of really neat stories about that. So how I’m curious. And again, we don’t, we’ll only go as deep here as you feel comfortable going, and then we can move on. So but But how, how quickly, were you guys able to implement new technology solutions so that you could you could stay stay up to date stay current.
John Tebeau 12:09
So I talked about getting in there and grinding and busting your butt my, we had one day of when when we were told that we had to close we had one day of oh my gosh, what are we going to do? panic mode. And then and then I just said, Hey, let’s we got to start acting let’s let’s be responsive. And so I literally, I went to Google had this like open API ordering system that would allow you to process because we didn’t have a POS system. And I had to implement something right now. And switching POS systems isn’t super fast, right? There’s a lot of work that’s involved. And I knew that was gonna be about a month and we couldn’t wait a month. So I went to this Google API, this ordering system, and I started hacking away at it. And I basically created with their API, a way for us to start in taking orders online and actually processing the receipts, the payments, everything and having it go into an API like a database, a CRM, if you will, for us to intake all the orders online, and have some sort of way of record keeping. So it was a really hacky thing. And ironically, out of that I, I started working on it. And Google the company that was acquired by Google called ordering.co, or I think is wearing that company or something that they took note of it, and they loved it. They were like looking at my friend and and they’re like, Hey, this is really cool. And so I started to kind of work with him and do a work share where I was creating stuff. And they were helping me with other stuff that they were working on in the backend. And so in about a, I’d say about a week’s time, I was able to get a fully functioning order online system set up. And they thought this was super cool. So they still to this day are actually working with me on on some of that front end implementation, and then Google bought them. So, so that was pretty cool. I like to think I had some part in that. No, I’m just kidding. When I find out in business, yeah, actually, yeah. Maybe when I found out in business, though, in life in general, from some mentors in my life is it just really comes down to it’s less about me, a lot of the time, I think that I try to make it about me at the end of the day. It’s not it’s really not, I’m an instrument I can I can do things but at the end of the day, it’s it’s less about me and more about just the greater good and helping and so we started involving ourselves in the community and started outreach things like doing things that we’ve never done before. And we didn’t have a ton of capital to really do these things. So my father in law, who’s my business partner looked at me like, What are you talking about? We started blessing hospitals. We started going and just taking food to local hospitals and we partner with a couple of organizations that were raising money to do that. And I think we fed just about every single er in the DFW Metroplex. I mean, we literally went to every single one of them and delivered food and I can’t Have a funny quick story that we’ll get into and this ties into the pandemic stuff but one of the things we did I had a mariachi guy come into our restaurant and he’s sitting there down on his luck and he’s telling me man, we were doing shows on TV we were we were super successful very achi group. And and now we’re, you know I mean we don’t have any business and I just some clicked and I said hey I got a coworker at Blackhawk is Bert. He’s an executive over there and his birthday is coming up. Would you guys like to go out to his house and play on the curb like curbside mariachi did not have a video of this. It was it was terrible. And so we went out there and I tell you what, after we aired that on our Facebook, we dropped it on social media. I had I kid you not 10,000 calls 10,000 people were like, we want that. We have a birthday coming up next week. We probably booked out of those. I mean, there’s no way we could have done all of those. But we started like a trend during COVID So we were doing mariachi delivery with food. We had a package where you could pay it was like we were entertaining people at poolside curbside Ginoza it was a riot but it ended up working and for our business it was great because we got a ton of business out of that. That’s we’re featured on the news.
Aaron Spatz 16:11
That’s genius. Genius marketing move right there because you’re you’re getting you’re getting a lot a lot of eyeballs on something like your you are you you’re utilizing something that makes sense for the for the space you’re in. And I bet people are probably like, what is the freaking restaurant like? What What is it alright, so what’s in it cuz I we haven’t even talked about that. What what’s true why? What’s the name? What’s in the restaurants.
John Tebeau 16:35
This must have been a meant to be thing because we didn’t plan on talking about this but magazine magazine Go me exci geo.com Mexico restaurant. And it was my father in law started it 30 years ago he came here from Mexico didn’t have a lot of have anything behind him, you know, finance wise, but he got an opportunity of a lifetime from a woman who Who let him take over a shop she was she owned a little cakes, stores, ice cream store, whatever. And she just gave him an opportunity of a lifetime to start his own taco place. And that’s the name Mexico but it just kind of stuck in this restaurant. Great margaritas.
Aaron Spatz 17:11
Awesome. Well, that’s that’s a that’s a really, really cool, really, really cool story of how you’re able to take what how you’re able to help somebody else, just kind of like to your point a few minutes ago and making it not about you like you were able, you won, you made it about your customer, right? So you’re like, Okay, how can we bring a little bit of joy, a little bit of humor, a little bit of fun, into an otherwise somewhat crappy situation that we’re all having to go through right now. And then you’re also able to help this guy who’s really like really having a hard time because now he hasn’t been able to work. And so and then on the same time, then that ultimately ends up helping you help helping helping the restaurant. So that that is that’s really, really, really awesome. And so all this to say, one, I think it’s incredible how quick, I mean, it’s really, really fast, how fast like you were able to get technology solutions in place, and really shift your business so that you were able to deal with the influx of demand and the reality that hey, dining rooms are closed right now, man, like we’ve got to go online. And so you saw that it did not take very long at all to to pivot to that. And so there’s a lot of companies that struggled I think with that, that process, they, I there’s several I think that were like, Hey, why don’t we just wait this out. So we’ll return back to normal about four weeks sucks, but we can probably make make it happen. And, and then it just kept me you know, it’s like, like, I was joking with you earlier. Like it was the spring break that never ended. Right? It just really was it just kept going. You know, and so hats off to you on that. That’s I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s an incredible, incredible story. So before we move on from that, actually, and I don’t know what you said, that mainly made me think of this. So this is we’re going to go backwards ever so slightly because there’s a question I wanted to ask you about integrative design solutions. So I apologize that we’re all all over the map. But you’d mentioned how you’ve gone from you know, like basically like your, your, your bedroom office to a larger office to slightly larger and just kept growing so and that was a that was a very sort like that’s a very service driven business that you’re in so you’re doing you’re doing a lot of development work, but a lot of like website, website design work. And so this is a fascinating topic for a lot of people what I’m personally interested in for for very obvious reasons, but two, there’s there’s there’s a lot of service related businesses out there that are that are run on the backs of like one person, right and so they have difficult time achieving any type of scale. And so what what did that for you like what, how are you able to take something and and grow it knowing that you’re like, Okay, I’m going to lose control over certain aspects of this business because I cannot physically do everything. So how did you make that mental adjustment? And then how were you able to grow it?
John Tebeau 20:09
Yeah, I tell you what I there was not an it was I think it was just a overtime process, right. I think what ultimately led to us growing and scaling was was that we started to take on client projects as our own company, almost we were so invested in. And so we did less projects. But we in turn made more out of it. And we’re able to, to start to scale some of those things, and see the bigger picture behind them. So we, we, we, when we started, it was all about, get as many website projects in as we possibly can. And let’s just get them all done and get them out the door. And we’re done. And unfortunately, websites, as you I’m sure are aware of, they just don’t work like that there’s so much into a website for any company that you create, if your focus is to really grow their business, there’s so much behind the scenes, and especially when companies started coming to us about software. And so a lot of these ideas that we had, were later, pivots are turning points that we A client came along with an idea and it was like, Oh my gosh, we’re working on this, let’s just adapt it to do this, you know, and then and then that’s what led to our acquisition. So we had a guy come to us that owned a volleyball club company, and Texas volleyball company, or so I forget what the name was. But he came to us and was like, hey, I want this like scheduling app that basically will will keep track of all of my club members and will process like Team rosters, and we’ll let them sign up and all that stuff, right? There was pre like a lot of these active networks and these other companies that exist. And so we just started hacking away at it. But we already had a solution similar. So we just we had a foundation a base for what he was wanting. And we pivoted that we right, labeled it into what he wanted. And we just started thinking out of the box. And that and that’s sort of a way that thinking about it in terms of how can we most help our clients and focus on just a couple as opposed to, you know, the masses?
Aaron Spatz 22:10
Yeah, well, it’s like, what I think I hear you saying is it was it was very demand driven. So as you were, as you’re bringing on more projects, these weren’t necessarily projects that were going to take you to like two weeks to deal with. It was like, multi month, multi phased it needed needed a lot of hands, just the necessity of the scope and scale of the project you like literally impossible for you to do all by yourself.
John Tebeau 22:33
Yeah, that’s exactly right. And, you know, when we started to scale applications like that, one of them was ultimately, the one that we just said, Hey, we’re going all in we’re making a company around this project. So we partnered with the guy who brought us the idea. And we for four years, we sat there and we cranked this thing out. And yeah, so ultimately, one project became our whole pressure. Yeah, right. Back in the bedroom wasn’t out of my office. Full circle here. Circle.
Aaron Spatz 23:04
That’s awesome. Well, I appreciate you going backwards there with me for a minute. It was just it was a it was a random thought that I thought a lot of people may have that question. So I just wanted to want to jump into that real quick. And then I mean, again, the the entire restaurant story, that that’s incredible. You’re still the I mean, that’s still alive. And well, you guys had to for what it sounded like you guys, you guys did sell off some of some some of the properties. But you’re you’ve got a couple of core locations. And now you’re looking to re expand into the into local market. Is that right? Yeah,
John Tebeau 23:38
that’s correct. Yeah, we’re buying a place in Addison right now. And we have a building that we’ve already invested in bought into and developing it, maybe sometime in June will be opening.
Aaron Spatz 23:48
So Wow. Okay, awesome. Well, that’s exciting. So then take us through then. So you’ve got that on the side, you’re doing that. So like, what? When you when you finished with integrity, design solutions, and you moved on. So take me a little bit on your journey outside of the restaurant, as you kind of headed headed down a certain path.
John Tebeau 24:08
Yeah, so my my heart My love has always been in technology and software. And so I joke with people all the time, I found my second love when when I found my wife at a restaurant, I started really engaging in loving restaurant. But technology was always my passion, my core of what I wanted to do in my life. And so throughout the time when I sold the company, I had a decision to make where do I want to go and rehash what I’ve done for the last seven years? Or do I want to try to do something else? You know, I’d never really worked for another company before. And somebody said to me one time a pastor mentor mindset, you know, you got to learn how to to serve others before you lead others. And so here I was the CEO at the time trying to lead a bunch of kids from basically kids in college, and I didn’t really have the greatest leadership qualities. And so I started working at As a contract developer engineer, the Watch Company fossil group, and learned a ton and got to work on some really cool projects. When I got there, I questioned, they had these like things they called lookbooks. Were had a catalogue of all their watches. Now, I saw them printing them out, and then putting this together to go to like Neiman Marcus and do sales. And I said, What the hell am I sorry, Peck is that and the guy started laughing, you know? And he goes, Well, you know, this is how we do. And I said, What is his name, you know, 1990 call and they want their process back, you know, I said, Come on, we got to take this into like a mobile app or something. And so we started to develop this thing called the toolbox they gave me me and my team, Jeff Byers led this team, they gave us a certain amount of money, pretty larger budget and said, Go make this. And so we started hacking out an online version of this lookbook that would catalog and categorize all their watches so that when they go out, they could have a tablet would show them. Hey, here’s the new watches coming out instead of printing something that was crazy to me. So, so that was kind of the cool, but whenever. And this is what, I don’t know how sometimes leaders and companies handle me, because they look at me in one case, and they’re like, I love your work ethic. I love how, but then on another case, they’re like, Who are you I go in and I just treat it like, like I treated my fossil job is like my own company. Like I just I went to work every day and I love my job, but I treated it like it was just mine. And it’s not I was nobody I was a contractor I wasn’t even employed by fossil. And so but I the work ethic and the love that I put into stuff is not for the company necessarily. It’s to honor in my in my faith, it’s honor GOD IT’S i God gave me these abilities, these talents and here I am trying to honor Him and do what I love to do. And so I’m giving my very best my all every day. And so I think I just weird a lot of leadership out at companies when they deal with me. They just don’t know how to deal with me, but they they love me anyway because I’m working hard,
Aaron Spatz 26:58
right? Oh, yeah, go ahead.
John Tebeau 27:02
I was just gonna say that. Eventually, that led me to Perego and pear. Perego was kind of where I am today, but it’s a different name. So Perego was acquired by Blackhawk network, I think Matt Frey little shout out to Matt for you had him on your show. I watched episode. And he kind of alluded to a little bit of this, but Perego was one of their acquisitions is about 300 and something million dollar acquisition. And Perego came from the ground up. So I started Aperio. And was I think my title was WordPress developer. I don’t I didn’t know that was the title of the company. But I inherited that. But we were very small, small business field, you know, like almost startup feeling company. It was very seasoned company. They’ve been around for years before I joined. Wow. And so I just I, I got on the I got on at the greatest time. And I think that goes back to just God’s God’s got a plan for us. And, and it shouldn’t be difficult, right. So it was just an easy transition into the company. And then when they were acquired, it was an easy transition into Blackhawk. And I’ve just made some made some great friends and contacts along the way at Blackhawk network in my time, and then we just went through another acquisition, and they still keep me around. So I’m doing something good, I guess anyway, right? I’m doing something positive. For sure. Get I am blessed and happy to be there. And I really love the work that we’re outputting. And the Silverlight company that acquired us, they wouldn’t have acquired us if they didn’t see a bigger vision for for the work that I’m doing. I love working on things that matter. If I’m ever working on a project, and I feel like this is just mundane, and we’re doing this, this thing that I don’t I’ll sit up and say hey, this, you know what, why I’ll question things all the time. And I think that’s where sometimes the leadership of a company is like, hey, you know, I’m always respectful. And we’ll follow directions from leadership, no problem, but I’m going to be the guy questioning why are we doing this? If it’s that there’s no rhyme or reason to it?
Aaron Spatz 28:53
Yeah. Right. And staying status quo is just one of the it’s one of the biggest killers, right to a to company success and growth as well. This is what we’ve always done, right? So just keep doing what we’ve always done. But why is that? Okay? Yeah, ask it. That’s like, you know, someone’s got to ask it. So it may as well be you. Right?
John Tebeau 29:15
Yeah. And if they can explain something to me, that makes somewhat sense. I’ll never question it again. I would just, you know, okay, great. But if they don’t give me a good answer, I’m gonna be harping on. Why are we doing this?
Aaron Spatz 29:26
Yeah. Yeah. I totally, I totally get it. So you’ve been? So you’ve been you’ve been with those guys for a while, and then you’ve been eating. That’s, that’s pretty cool. And then while you’re doing that, then you then you’re also founder of TiVo group. And that’s been like your own freelance putting up like project type work, right. So tell me tell me little bit about that.
John Tebeau 29:46
Yeah. So TiVo group is really just an outlet for me. Everybody has their own outlets and wherever you put you know, when you need a place to go, you know, you need this is the TiVo group and I over the years Even though I’ve been a full time employer, an employee of someone doing my passion and what I love to do, I’ve, I’ve just maintained relationships with people, right? I’ve developed, you know, lots of client relationships with people over the years with IDs when I started in 2005. And so from those connections, I, you know, people come to me and say, Hey, I’ve got this project I’ve got, I’ve got x y&z to do. I’m on a board of directors for an organization called the DFW veterans, Dallas DFW veterans Chamber of Commerce. And so just having those kind of places, I’m a part of the Chamber of Commerce and Alan, I have a lot of access to a lot of different businesses. And so people come to me all the time knowing my technology background, and they’ll say, hey, what about this idea? And nine times out of 10? I’ll say, Yeah, that’s a great idea. You know, and I won’t offer my help. Because I can’t write you, you can only everyone has the same 24 hours in their day, you can only take on so much work. But every once in a while, there’ll be a really cool project that will come along, and I needed a place to run those projects through. And I don’t always do the coding anymore. Again, I’m a full time employee, I work but I have engineers on my my staff at Timo group who are coding and developing work for me, and during the day times, and then I’ll do code reviews. And I’ll have meetings with them in the evenings. And I also have an India team that I’m setting up over in India. And so that’s been a great thing for me to just get some engineers working on projects that that I want to take on that I think matter. And yeah, so one of those just throw a name out there. We’re doing the greater New York Chamber of Commerce’s website. And this is like 30,000 member chamber. I mean, it’s a huge outlet. And so they chose us, they could have chosen anyone in the world. And it’s just, you know, I just have great connections, great relationships with people. And I’ve always delivered on the projects I’ve worked on. And so I think part of that comes full circle, right, that comes around when you do good for others, and you’re out there blessing people. That comes back to you. So yeah, but the passion behind TiVo group is to do custom software development projects, custom website development projects, CRM integration, API development, for people that have products and services already existing. That was the idea behind it, just a shell company where I can have as an outlet to go and do what I love doing. Because when you’re working for a company, let’s be honest, and sorry, if I’m talking way too much, but I love this stuff. I’m very passionate,
Aaron Spatz 32:36
you’re great, man. This is great. This is great. But when you
John Tebeau 32:39
work at a company, you get very siloed into a technology stack, right? You Blackhawk in my eight years there. I work in like very circular stacks where I’m only doing this and TiVo group is like an educational outlet for me to just go take on projects, yeah, get some money, but do it in my free time. Right? When it’s when it’s an I started, I didn’t have the money to be hiring people. Now I have resources that I can hire on people. But the idea was to be able to do new projects, learn new technologies, and be able to do this stuff is like an educational thing and get paid for it. So I thought, I got to do this. And it’s been burning in my heart for probably three or four years. And I just started this at the beginning of this this year in January.
Aaron Spatz 33:25
Wow. Yeah. That’s super cool. So I mean, there’s, there’s just there’s a lot, there’s a lot there. And you’ve learned I like it’s neat because you’re you’re you have this outlet, like you said, you have this outlet, we’re able to take things that intrigues you that interest you that could challenge you offer great opportunity for you to learn and explore different things and try different things out. And so it’s, it’s a, it’s a neat little place for you to obviously get get paid a little bit for what you’re doing. But also to really just continue to scratch that creativity itch that you have of like, being able to find another you know, something else to work on or something new to, to explore. So that’s, that’s really cool. That’s a really cool really, really cool opportunity that you’ve kind of created for yourself and so and incredible, incredible story with the with with the greater New York chamber in terms of what you’re doing there. So that’s, that’s nuts because there’s like I I’m aware of like, there’s several several companies out there that develop software specific for Chambers of Commerce. Yeah, like in like alumni networks and a whole bunch of things like that. Right. There’s a ton of those out there. And so I like it’s just it’s intriguing to me that you like you stood out from all of those things as a different option. And they’re like, Hey, we’re like we’re gonna go with you.
John Tebeau 34:49
I feel I feel like in my lifetime, more often than not, I’m the least qualified person but for some out it’s not for some I’ll just I’ll say what I believe but For God, I think he always takes the person that maybe isn’t fully qualified to do it. And he puts them up on a pedestal, and he allows them to do it. And I think he gets the credit in the end, right? John TiVo couldn’t do that on his own, there’s no way. And that’s, I feel that way. I feel genuinely that, that I, I probably don’t belong in a lot of positions I’ve been able to walk into, but I’ve been there. And I’m probably the least qualified guy. Like you said, there’s tons of companies that they could have went with in New York, you know, I’m sure even maybe members of theirs. And, but the fact that I was chosen is a really cool testament to just a lot of great resources and connections I’ve been able to have, and then just favor, you know, to be able to watch it and do that. Yeah.
Aaron Spatz 35:43
100%, I learned I couldn’t agree with everything you just said, I could not agree with that more. I think that’s yeah, I think you summed that up really, really well. So look, looking at the macro of your career, like a couple a couple other things I’d like to like, kind of explore with you. So I’d like to understand, like, and we may have already covered it. So if we did that’s okay. But like, what’s what’s been one of the greatest challenges that you’ve had to overcome over your career? And how did you get through that? So whether I guess we go back to the restaurant, or you go back to earlier in your software development career, or even somewhat recently, like, what’s, what’s what’s something that was that you felt like was almost insurmountable, and you’re able to, you’re able to get through that?
John Tebeau 36:29
Yeah, I, I mean, two, after 2008. So, I officially started my company, in 2005. But I was doing work in 2001. When 911 happened, and I will, I will never forget that I incurred a lot of had an office space. And I was doing website projects. And I just remember, when that happened, it really affected a lot of my progress. And, and I had a lot of things like finance, like computers from Dell, and you know, I was doing a bunch of stuff. And I just remember sending out invoices to clients, and they would always pay on time, you know, never had an issue with that. And then all of a sudden, the economy and everything started to kind of freeze up. And that was a big challenge. And even for the restaurant, that was a big challenge. People weren’t going out and spending, you know, the extra 30 bucks a week on a meal out. And so I think that was a big challenge for us was was learning that no matter how successful you’re rocking and rolling, there’s life’s a series of, of ups and downs. And in those downtimes, we got to, we got to not feel sorry for ourselves or think oh, my gosh, how are we going to get out of this, but we need to plan for those actually. And to understand those will come you will have moments in your business that are here. And you will have moments of your business that are here. You know, and you have to account for that. And so, out of that struggle, I think even going into like when the COVID hit, we were already almost mentally in our heads like we’ve done this before, not in the sense or we didn’t even know what we didn’t know at the time. We thought you know, this will be three weeks, it ends up being that we’re still going on today. And but I think that challenge was pivotal for me to to understand that at any given moment. You can go from doing great to not so great, and you need to conserve and you need to be mindful that you’re not invincible. No matter who you are, what company you are, how long your brand’s been in business, you’re not susceptible to failure. Yeah, yeah.
Aaron Spatz 38:44
Yeah. That’s I mean, that’s, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of wisdom in that, you know, and so like wisdom, wisdom might say, you know, a good for businesses, especially, you know, having some cash reserves on hand, maybe a good idea, right. Having having all these different risk mitigation plans or contingency plans for whatever, whatever could happen. I mean, again, it’s not not not a bulletproof solution, but you’ve been been able to kind of at least think about a plan for the I mean, it’s but let’s be honest, I mean, how many people really how many people really planned for this pandemic to impact the way did I you know, the way the I mean, if we’d be lucky if it was a you know, a 10th of a 10th of a 10th of a percent of people that had some type of plan in place. Right, not to say that they weren’t able to quickly adjust like on the fly and they were able to like okay, hey, you know, we had this sitting around for this reason, but you know, what, this has now been, this has now been re re designated as the as our own little COVID Relief Fund for our for a company so that’s really cool.
John Tebeau 39:51
Another another quick challenge that I can throw in that journey, something that you know, I think really affected me was just mentally anyway was When you’re grinding, and you’re working on something like we were with a software company, and when I had it, yes, and, and you get a million knows, I think that we’re like, like, we would go out to San Francisco. And we would just show up at like Peter TEALS office, you know, hey, I’m John, TiVo, you don’t know me. And they’re like, You need a meeting? And I’m like, Yeah, but you know, I’m here. You know, like, that’s how bowled me and my business partner, Jed at the time. That’s how bold we were. We were like, we wanted it. We were hungry. We’re passionate. But there’s a million of us, right? There’s a million people passionate and hungry. And, and don’t get a meeting with with that kind of a resource. And we went out there and just hearing No, over and over again, like hearing people be like, No, we’re good. Like, we don’t want to invest in you. We we don’t, you know, there’s a million ideas just like yours. And we were trying to find our uniqueness. But we didn’t let it get us down. I think that’s the biggest thing is how do you handle failure? How do you handle No, when someone tells you no, I look at as, okay, well, then how do I modify and come back to you? How do I change it to get you to say yes. And so I think Persistence is key during those challenging moments of any business owner. Yeah, you’re how you handle it.
Aaron Spatz 41:06
Yeah. You’re, you’re you’re hitting something here. So I think this, I think a lot of people can relate to that. So how do you like how do you continue to persist in the face of extreme adversity? Like, how are you able to? How are you able to continue to move forward? Because like you said, you heard no, a million times. So what what’s going on? What’s going on through your head? Every time that you hear? No, is it like, because there’s, there’s a lot of different ways that people handle this. I’m curious how you handle that.
John Tebeau 41:37
I knew that there was one yes, I can, I could have a million in a nose. And I was determined, because I said one person, we’re gonna find one person that loves this. And that’s going to be our, our next step. And so it was just a almost, I don’t know, call it being young and just ignorant or whatever. But I was just like, I’m gonna make this happen like that. Yeah, there’s a, I gotta make it to make it, you know, I gotta make it or make it, there’s no other option, you know, like, there. I think for us, it was like, we were all in anyway. So we’re just gonna keep going and go and but I also know now as a little bit older, and a little bit more, I’m starting to get some some great mentors in my life. Pastor Conway, great buddy of mine, but also an amazing leader, leading a big church here in Plano. And he’s been a big mentor figure in my life, and somebody who’s really spoken and kind of brought that leader out of out of me in a better way. But he said, you know, that there’s always those series, there’s always those peak moments in your life where you’re doing really well. And then there’s those Valley moments where things are a mess. And then, but I always know that if we’re in a valley moment, I need to learn right now, this is what I put on my learning hat. And then I stopped thinking that I’ve got everything figured out and, and I start changing things and modifying things and growing. And so I just knew what I didn’t know, then what I know now is that when I’m in one of those valleys, I can recognize that now, and I can say, but it will get better, it will go up again. And I just have to figure out how do I get it there? You determined?
Aaron Spatz 43:13
You know? So there’s a there’s a core belief so there’s there’s several things that you just said, I’m going to try to dissect all these real quick. So you were determined, regardless of the quantity, the quantity and the delivery of a no, you knew that? Hey, I just got to keep going. Because there is a yes out there somewhere. If it’s if it’s gonna take 10 100 A million noes to get there. I know I’m on my way to a yes, it’s just hasn’t happened yet. So there’s that then there’s the realization and acknowledgement that life whether it’s business, whether it’s your personal life, whether it’s just life, from a from from a holistic level is full of valleys and peaks. And so there’s gonna be there’s gonna be some great successes, some great victories, some things that are just awesome to celebrate, and you’re continuing to move forward in a direction. That’s awesome. And then there’s other times where you’re just like, man, what the heck is going on right now? I don’t understand. And so for you, again, you can correct me if I’m if I’m paraphrasing this incorrectly, but as you’ve experienced these different valleys, going through some of the things that you’ve gone through, you’ve looked at as an opportunity, okay, what do I need to learn? How do I how do I need to better myself? How do I need to what what am I not seeing that I need to see? Or? Or it’s simply just a PERT like a perseverance thing of just knowing like, Hey, we’re, we’re on the right path. I know we’re on the right path. We just we just have to keep moving through this. And I think one thing that you said, and I think this is probably the biggest the biggest takeaway from this is knowing like, is going to come to an end at some point, like, you’re not going to stay in a crappy situation forever. If it may feel like you’re going to stay that crappy situation forever. But you’re you’re gonna pull out of it at some point.
John Tebeau 45:04
Agreed completely agree. I think just just being cognizant that that the, in the valley situations that, that there’s a lot of pain sometimes to, you know, it’s not it’s not just like oh well, you know, you just kind of skirt through those moments or they’re short lived No, sometimes it can be a while that you’re down. But I think another little takeaway mentor thing that was told to me I just missed the last thing I’ll share. But one of the things that pestered me is kind of mentor with me and some other business owners as well along the way, but is, is in, in any time that you find yourself in this comfortable, comfortable place. Like if, if everything’s just perfect, you know, and oftentimes, you’re not growing, you’re there’s, there’s something that if you know, you’re just floating by and you’re, you’re in your job, and, and life’s easy, and you’re just, you know, everything’s a breeze, then you need to often move yourself to some where anyway, and this is, for me, this is my personal kind of idiom that I’ve made. But if I’m ever super comfortable with where I’m at, that’s fine. But make yourself uncomfortable in some way, form or facet, so that you can continue to grow. And so that if that starting Tchibo group in January, I mean, this is an uncomfortable thing for me, because I’m already working a lot. Blackhawk is a great, great job, but it does take a lot of time, and I’m not doing the eight to five, you know, sometimes, um, sometimes I just, I will work all day. Now, is that a requirement for the job? No, but it’s because I, I’m involved in it, I, I take on Black Hawk as not just my job, but almost like, my, my company. You know, like, I’ve always been that though, that’s a thing for me. But uncomfortability breeds growth. In my opinion, whenever you get outside of your comfort zone, you start to grow, whether that’s in your personal life, or whether that’s in your company, that’s up to you. But I tend to do both to challenge myself.
Aaron Spatz 47:00
Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So I mean, it’s a great. That’s I mean, that’s, that’s a whole nother slew. Yeah. Like, is like just trying to understand that no, because there’s a there’s a phrase that that it’s kind of popular within within the military community. I know, this isn’t a military show, I’ve got to get a separate podcast, free plug to that one right now veterans was the podcast. But the but we talked about, we’ve talked about being comfortable being uncomfortable, right. And so there’s so many times where there’s things that you’re going to go through and you know, it’s going to be uncomfortable, you just got to try to get used to that feeling of being uncomfortable. And oftentimes, when you’re able to relax, you’re able to keep your your mental composure, in that really uncomfortable situation. It gives you exactly what you need to get through and then to be able to break out of that. So that that’s kind of the visual I had when you were when you’re sharing that about like, Man, I feel like I’m getting too comfortable here. I’ve got to get uncomfortable again. And so whether so like you you just you just love a challenge man like you love you love. You, I get the sense, you’ve never shied away from a really, really hefty challenge.
John Tebeau 48:11
When when I see value behind it, and I like the end game. I’m all in. I’m going for it.
Aaron Spatz 48:18
That’s awesome, man. Well, that’s great. In the you’ve got you got such a you’ve got such a passion for everything that you do like in so I think I think that is infectious. And I’m sure it’s, it’s really it’s really bettered. And I think, and I think that’s why a lot of companies are willing to probably deal with your aggressiveness. But it’s like, yeah, what can we do this? Because man, because you you come off is so authentic and genuine, like you really do care. And I think, I think that comes through. And I think that’s another great lesson learned. And I think it goes back to, we could tie this all the way back to the example with the restaurant, you know, getting creative with with the with the mariachi situation of like, This is just This is another example of how, when you’re putting others ahead of yourself, it doesn’t, it doesn’t mean that you’re completely abandoning yourself either, right? Like, you’ve got to take care of yourself, you know, and so, but at the same time, you’re focused on other people as well. And so it’s a great, it’s a great example of like how you have such a passion and it’s very clear that you care for people. I think that’s the biggest in for a lot of people I share when it comes to like marketing work. It’s like, that’s one of the number one ways to just connect with your customer. In fact, it is my in my opinion, it is the number one best way is care if what you’re doing comes off as genuine, it’s authentic. It’s not this. It’s not this manufactured and engineered and focus groups, care sequence of things to happen. And there’s value in some of that stuff. I’m sure I’m making fun of it. But the whole point is when you really care. Like I like I get the sense that you really do. It comes through like we can all sniff BS from a mile away. I mean, every one of us can, right? And so it’s like, and I cannot imagine all the like all the different things that you’ve seen through business of people who pretended to care, but they really didn’t. And I really do feel like that was such a huge, huge differentiator. I know it sounds so stupid and so simple. But like, I really, I really believe that, like, what, what’s your, what’s your feedback on that?
John Tebeau 50:25
I, I couldn’t agree more I am, I agree with you. 110%. I think that throughout my time, and even, like, when I had my company with clients, you come along some people, and they’re just gonna be there, you know, sometimes there’s just bad clients, you know, the customer’s always right thing. I mean, that’s, that’s true in some cases, but not so much in all cases. And, and so, and even in the restaurants, when it comes to, you know, customers, I, I empower each of our employees with a budget, each of them have the waiters, each of them have a budget each month, and I learned this from a leadership training program that I went through with the Ritz Carlton, and it was about service and serving others. And this was a fantastic training course. But it, it taught me a lot of things that I still implement in my own life and in my companies that I help invest or run. And, and it’s the dynamic of, of when a guest has a poor experience, your job is to, to change that mindset before they leave the building. So if they come in, and they say something like, I don’t like this food, well, you know, 90 guests might have come in before them and loved it, and this person doesn’t. And we’re in a business, unfortunately, that is what it is. So, so But your job, your task as an employer, as a waiter is to go and change that mindset so that when they leave, there’s a positive vibe between them in your establishment. So if that’s gifting them the meal, if that’s you make the call, you know, you you assess the situation, you but you ultimately are the one that has the authority to make that decision. Well, hey, let me give you a $10 gift card, you know, I’m so sorry that you had that poor experience. But the idea is, is that you just kind of take a situation or a bad client, and maybe you just say, you know, hey, I’m sorry, you know, you have a remaining balance on this project. We’ve done everything up to date, we have three requirements for you. But maybe this relationship just isn’t gonna work. So after this project, you know, we’ll go ahead and part ways but just recognizing, like you said, sniffing out the BS, if you will, and just determining what you can do to make the situation better. But I completely agree with what you said.
Aaron Spatz 52:33
Yeah, well, no, in that example, that you gave from Ritz Carlton, I’ve read that I cannot read I’m trying to as you’re saying something, we’re
John Tebeau 52:41
working together. Of course, Schultz was the guy behind that is a German German guy, but he had the Ritz Carlton leadership group. Yeah,
Aaron Spatz 52:49
yeah, well, there why but somebody wants to paraphrase that whole experience into a different business books I’ve read, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve read I read too many of them. But uh, it’s all it’s all great learning. But no, I mean, talking about how you’re able to change the perception is like, but there’s a very, I mean, there’s, it’s, it’s almost magical man. Like, I don’t know how else to say it of like, there’s there’s ways, there’s ways to try to remedy a situation. And you as a customer are still bitter and irritated about it all. And there’s other ways where you look at the person you’re like, I don’t know what you just did, but it works. And because I’m still maybe a little frustrated, but I’m starting to forget all about that now, because you’re just such an awesome person. Like, this is a wow, okay. And like, you almost find yourself apologizing to them. But it’s like this. It’s like this massive Jedi mind trick. That’s right. Yeah, there’s a and I’ll share, I’ll share as I don’t I don’t normally share a ton on these. But you made a great point when it comes to the restaurant business, because so we had an experience very recently at a restaurant, and it was actually an exceptional experience, like so. And there’s a point to me sharing this. So it was gonna take, it’s gonna take me a second, but it’s just another great example. And so we were being waited on by this guy. And I’m telling you, man, and I’ve traveled I’ve literally I’ve traveled the world several several times. I’ve been all over the United States I’ve been I’ve said in 1000s of restaurants probably at this point. This dude No joke, top 1% of all servers I have ever encountered and it was it was mind blowing to me. He made like my entire family and I feel like we were really special. We weren’t we were like in this we’re in this. We’re in this big chain restaurant really nice food but like, everybody knows this place. Right? And so but he went he went above and beyond literally at every chance he could to make to make you as a guest feel special. To to free for you to know that he was paying it. Attention. And then but he, but he also got out of the way, too. So he wasn’t all those guys who was like, Okay, I’m gonna do all these different cool things for you and then I like, like, here Hi, you know, like watch me he would he would just disappear. Right but that but then he was very attentive to what she needed and so I could go into a lot of little micro examples that so it right at the end of it all I’m just because I’m so moved by this guy I’m like man, this is like some amazing how, how well he’s like he’s doing this I’m like he’s, he’s had I’ve had a ton of training on this. He’s obviously he’s obviously really seasoned. He’s got been doing this for 1520 years, and he just, he handles it all like a pro talk talk to the dude, no joke, he just started like, wow, so ago, three, three or four months ago, he had done he had he worked as a cook. Prior to that in this restaurant, he moved out into the into the service. And I told him like, Dude, I said, you don’t realize, like, you’ve got a gift, whether it’s in the hospitality industry, food and beverage, but you’ve got an enormous gift of of being able to use like so he wasn’t spending a ton of the company’s money. But he was doing a bunch of these little extra extra things. They really were they were no cost add to the to the restaurant right there. There was there was an additional resources being used,
John Tebeau 56:12
but made your experience incredible, dude,
Aaron Spatz 56:14
it was it was love it absolutely insane. Absolutely insane. And I like I can share it the offline the specific thing that would bore people to tears because it, it’s like, it’s very, very little things. And I think that’s the best way to say it’s like, it was a ton of little touches. And it was like these little surprise, I think I think I read this in a in like a in a Disney World Business Case, or a book that talks about their customers are kinda like the Ritz Carlton group, right. So it’s just very different ways to delight your customer. And and to make them feel, make them feel different things. And so anyway, I talked to him about I talked, I talked to the manager about him after after the fact. And it’s just a really neat experience. So I’m saying a lot to say, there’s so many different things that you can do. And that, that, like that example of care that really came through, right. And so like, just like your example of empowering your employees, like you’ve empowered your employees to be able to remedy situations, and to foster goodwill between your restaurant in your customers. That that goes a long way in it. And I’m sure there have been a lot of people impacted by those little by those little acts of kindness and like, what what have you seen as a result of that, like, have you seen Have you seen people respond to that?
John Tebeau 57:29
I have I I’ve seen lifetime customers. I’ve seen I’ve seen kids who were kids grew up in my restaurant, and I own it again, I’m saying my, it’s my father in law’s restaurant, I’m a partner. Let’s just get that clear. But what I mean is, I always say my so but in my restaurant, I have people that come in, and, you know, brought their kids and now their kids are bringing in their kids. And I think I think that is a direct correlation of great service first, and then good food second, you know, and that’s in Dallas. that’s paramount. I mean, you you will not be in business as a restaurant, if that’s not your mentality. And so kudos to whoever that young man gentleman was, I would love to know if he’s looking for a job at this. I would like to hire him and a lot of Yeah, no, I love I love people who have a gift of service that are working in their, you know, even if it’s not their, their long term, obviously that that man was probably long gone out of the restaurant and doing something he’s probably leading a company or something right now you know that the people that have those gifts, and then don’t know it or just doing it naturally. That’s so awesome. Because if they focus and harbor that over time, it can take them a long way.
Aaron Spatz 58:41
Right? Well, so me being somewhat cynical, right? I was like, Okay, this has got to be a big act or, or whatever. And so I’d like I watched him do the very same thing for other people. And so I hear him talk to people. I’m like, like, Dude, this is so this is fun, man. I’m like, I’m like, just sit back and like, watch because I, I like to watch the people’s reaction. Like I like to see how they’re responding to that kind of service. Because it’s, it’s not, it’s not common. It’s like this really bad joke, and I don’t and I’m I’ll save it. Actually, we don’t have time. I was gonna I was gonna I was gonna make a fast food correlation here. We don’t we don’t have time for it. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll save that. But I want to hear it later. Well, John, how can people how can people get in touch with you? What’s what’s the best way for people to be connected to you?
John Tebeau 59:26
So offer this connect with me through going to t bo group.com t bo group.com. And there’s a calendar. It’s not a website. People always asked me why don’t you have a website? Well, I just started in January. But more importantly, I want to get to know you. I want to get to see what you’re doing what you’re all about. And even if it’s just a I have a mark on there, so please sign up for that one. But there’s a 15 minute meet up. And it’s just to get to, you know, Introduction Hi, how you doing? What’s your business? And just tell me what you’re working on and how you think I might be able to help you and You know, it’s almost a way for me to just meet cool people and be able to if I could share something with them in 15 minutes that helps them with a hard, difficult problem they’re working on then great, and then feel free, when when you know, for me to get to meet somebody new, and then we’re gonna get something out of it. And if it’s if if not, you know, if we get on the call, and I say, Well, you know that that’s something that time coded wise, I wouldn’t be able to do for you, maybe I could refer you to somebody else. But the point is, TiVo, guru.com books, a calendar meeting on my calendar, it only shows my open available times on my calendar. So when you select a date and time, I’m free that time, and it sends you a zoom link automatically. So that’s cool.
Aaron Spatz 1:00:35
That’s cool. And I think it just, it’s another testament to who you are, because I think that’s been one of the, like, if I’m taking notes of this show, one of the big takeaways that I’m learning from you, John, is the value of relationships and networking. And these are, these are like, way overused terms, right, like we love, we love to say network network network, but I, but I think you’re a great, great model of this in terms of, and like I’m trying to, just trying to grow the amount of people that that know me, and I know them and just fostering great relationships. And if in showing people that I care for them, we’ll see, you know, see what comes of it and but trusting that again, that there there there will be a great outcome to that in some way. Whether it’s you helping direct them to another resource, or they’re or they’re able to direct you to another resource, or you guys are able to do something, you know, as as as a business transaction or or friendship. I mean, who Who the heck knows. But I think the point is, with what you’ve done is like you continue to build and foster cultivate relationships.
John Tebeau 1:01:37
Well, I couldn’t agree more. And thank you so much for having me on the show. It’s been a great pleasure. Just getting to talk with you and I hope to join your veterans podcast maybe in talking about the DFW veterans Chamber of Commerce. That’d be fun.
Aaron Spatz 1:01:51
Yeah, it’s been it’s been an absolute blast, John. I really I really do really appreciate you spending some time with me this morning. It’s been it’s been a it’s been a lot of fun. Thank you. Yes, sir. Thanks for listening to America’s entrepreneur. If you enjoyed the show, please leave a review or comment on your preferred social media platform. share it out with friends, family, coworkers, others in your network. And of course, you can write me directly at Erin at Bold media.us. That’s a Ron at Bold media.us Till next time