WSO Podcast | E67: James McKinney and The Startup Story
About
In this episode, James McKinney, host of the super-popular podcast The Startup Story joins us to talk about his winding path and current success. From a finance and accounting major in undergrad at a non-target to losing it all, James shares some of the highs and lows along his journey as well as this one career tip he'd give his younger self.
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WSO Podcast (Episode 67) Transcript:
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:00:06] Hello and welcome. I'm Patrick Curtis, your host and chief monkey, and this is the Wall Street Oasis podcast. Join me as I talk to some of the community's most successful and inspirational members to gain valuable insight into different career paths and life in general. Let's get to it. In this episode, James McKinney, host of the super popular podcast The Start-up Story, joins us to talk about his winding path and current success from a finance and accounting major in undergrad and a non target to losing it all. James shares some of the highs and lows along his journey, as well as this one career tip he'd give his younger self enjoy. James McKinney, thanks so much for joining the Wall Street Voices podcast.
James McKinney: [00:00:58] Oh, man, I'm so excited to be here. This is incredible. So it'd be great if you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:01:01] Could just give the listeners a quick summary of your background. Wow. You know, just recently, a couple of weeks ago, I launched my own episode of my start up story. So as of right now, I'm a creator and host of the startup story, similar to what you're doing for those in the finance industry, but really around entrepreneurship and startups and small businesses. My background is rooted in accounting and finance, so it's kind of funny that where I'm at today comes through the same journey that a lot of your listeners are at now. And so, yeah, undergrad accounting and Cal State Fullerton, you know, I took an accounting 101 course in junior college and I thought, Well, this is stupid, easy. And so I immediately started selling bookkeeping services off of an accounting 101 course. So for all the CPA is out there, you're probably just cringing
James McKinney [00:01:46] Right now, but. And so, yeah, so I had a few bookkeeping clients based on that, and I thought, Man, if I'm going to, I'm going to actually have people pay me for this. I should probably know a little bit more than accounting 101. And so at that point, I shifted gears and I wanted to be a teacher most of my life. I shifted gears completely and pursued accounting and that last semester of school. And, you know, I put my way through school. I was in the Marine Corps. They helped pay for it. I was working daytime go school at night. But last semester, I'll never forget sitting in one class that was by twenty one units and last semester I want to be done. I was over. It was like a six year journey for me. And I remember thinking, I don't want to do this anymore, and I wish I was a teacher, but I was too close to being done, so I just had to finish it. So I finished an accounting degree and at that time I was working for a homebuilder in finance. Homebuilding was huge in the early 2000s. I mean, it was the heyday of homebuilding and then from there I was with a real estate investment firm. And from the real estate and again accounting as well from the real estate investment firm launched, my first business failed miserably, which is a great story in and of itself about endurance and perseverance and just the how to handle how to finance deals. Really, what that's a story about. And then as I was licking my wounds for that, I went to Disney and Disney hired me operational finance and as an entrepreneur, my genetically wired to not sit still for too long. After a few years with Disney, I started working on a mobile app left there, and that was in 2015. And so that was probably my last accounting and finance gig.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:35] Ok, so you've been kind of out on your own now for four plus years? Yeah. So sales was my first transition out of Disney, right? Because of what I had done in Disney. I was hired by a company called Vision Media that services all the Hollywood studios and what I had done in Disney. I was hired. This is interesting. What's actually?
James McKinney [00:03:54] Let's go back further. Let's go back.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:03:55] Let's go back all the way down to grad. So like accounting finance major. It's it sounds like by the time you finished, you said, I don't really want to do this, but I'm graduating. This is what's going to pay the bills. So I got I got to do it. So tell me about that. When that first week on the job kind of coming out, was it just like
James McKinney: [00:04:12] You're just down
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:04:13] Depressed or where you were? You're like, Hey, at least I have a job. What was the thought process where you did? You at least have time to go out because I know a lot of the users, they go into these high finance careers or a lot of listeners, and they don't even have time to enjoy their lives outside of work. Did you at least have some stuff you would do? So, so I went to the Marine Corps to pay for college, right? So my college years were not the typical college years I was, you know, working 40 50 hours a week and going to school at night. Take a quick 20 minute power nap in the parking lot before you go into the evening classes and I was ready to roll. That was my those are my college years power napping. And so, so I had a job at the end of it within the homebuilding industry, and I loved
James McKinney: [00:04:56] The job because I loved the company. And that's really what it was. It wasn't the fighting.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:05:02] You love the company. I mean, that's
James McKinney: [00:05:04] Kind of an odd thing to say. Oh man, the company was Pulte Homes at the time. They were the nation's largest homebuilder. And really? It was the heyday of homebuilding like you couldn't. It was exciting because there's a couple of things, right? Operationally, we were supporting know a homebuilder by these lots of land, right acres, you know, hundreds of acres and you'd put up 500 homes, right? Well, in the whole building industry. You are managing all construction costs and labor applications down to a house level. And so it's it was fascinating to see how this massive organization can manage. I think at the time was like thirty five thousand homes a year across the nation and getting everything down to a house level to know exactly what was the profitability of the house and because it was the Wild West back then. Like, you know, the moment a model is now open sign went up in the track, like people were lining up and, you know, 80 people deep in line, just willing to take whatever house they could because they knew the phases were just going to sell like that fast. I mean, the early 2000s were just super hot for homebuilding, so the parties were outrageous. I mean, it was I'm not saying it's like Wolf of Wall Street. When you watch that, it's not like that at all. But it was it was an incredible time. It was an incredible time. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:06:22] Ok, so was it tough to even get this job where they were just hiring bodies at that point, like you had accounting finance, they were just like, come on in? Or was the interview tough at all? You know, that's an interesting night. Now you're stretching over here. I remember. So that job,
James McKinney: [00:06:36] So again, was not my first accounting job. I was in accounts receivable. Yeah, rep for rep or clerk wasn't a manager by any means. I think it might have been in a title account receivable manager, but there's no people. It was just me as small company and that really was like Wolf of Wall Street, man. I was just like, That was a crazy environment. Anyway, so homebuilding was really my first what I call my legit, my first grown up job, if you will.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:01] So how do you transition from that? Are to the to that job? Like, how did you actually, you know, if there's anything I'm really good at it's wordsmithing, you know, I don't I do not lie. But a janitor is a sanitation engineer. Got it.. And my resume was very well wordsmith. That got me the interview. You know, in college very much. I had my target date on there. So it's like they knew I wasn't finished yet. But it was. It was in the last year or so they saw the horizon, but they also at that time, I had had my bookkeeping business. I had
James McKinney: [00:07:34] Experience with the accounts receivable gig I had experience with. So they just saw the years within it. Yeah. And then the interview, you know, the interview is so critical. And so that's how tell me about
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:07:46] What was interview tough. Was it just the typical behavioural interview questions like Tell me about yourself, tell me weakness, that type of thing? Exactly typical behavioural stuff. And you know what? What's your weakness? What's your strength? And obviously having those canned answers is key.
James McKinney: [00:08:00] But the thing for me, and I think part of it has to do with the fact that I am an extrovert right on every single personality test. I am one hundred percent extrovert. I love people. I love their stories. And there's a book called Strength Finders 2.0. And if your listeners haven't, haven't, read it, I highly advise reading it because it'll help you understand the things that you are great at. Therefore, you can you bring people around you to fill in the weaknesses. But one of the things that I'm really good at is winning people over. There's just because I think it's because I authentically care about people. So my interviews are very much, you know, them asking me these behavioral questions. But the whole time I'm sitting here thinking, Well, how can I best serve them? I mean, ultimately, like, they're wanting someone for this role. So a lot of my answers would come back with a question like, Well, as you're evaluating for your hiring for this role, how does this person you hire bring the most value to you? Mm hmm. And immediately, they're about to disclose exactly what it is they're looking for, and you start using those words back in your language. Right? We're looking for someone who's a team player and someone who's willing to.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:09:10] Did those skills come naturally to you, though? That sounds like sales, right? It's also about you. Tell me about your pain points and then you're like, Yeah, well, this product solves all of those or this service. So that's something natural that you picked up or did you take any course? So my dad is an entrepreneur, right? So I was raised in an entrepreneurial environment. There are certain things that are genetic, and you can't make a person
James McKinney: [00:09:35] Care about people naturally, like, you know, for some people, it is exhausting to be around other people. Yeah, that's not the case for me, right? But being raised by an entrepreneur, you know, one of the things that I tell my kids all the time now, words matter. So I'm super intentional on word choice and listener. Your listeners should be intentional on word choice as well. I just don't go into any interview thinking that you can't allow for a nice breathing pause before you answer and process the words you're about to say, right? I mean, so many times someone has questions. So explain the weakness. Well, one of the things and they go back into this canned response, and it's like you just disregarded the first five minutes where they told you exactly what they were looking for as you fill that role, right? And just being it's just being a listener, and so many people just are not good listeners.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:10:26] Yeah, they have a canned response. They go into it and they basically aren't actually taking any input or any feedback from the person across the room. It's literally just, OK, I'm going to get through my perfect, my quote, perfect answers, which don't exist. And I actually think what's important about the practicing in the mock interviews is not the getting the canned response right. I think when you get confident and comfortable enough where you can take those pauses and so that you're focusing on the delivery and not so much on the words, you know, the words that are around what the words are that are going to come out. It's really about the pauses, the connection, the eye contact, all that stuff that's critical for actually interview. One hundred percent. And the other thing too. You know, man, like it's funny. Like, so I haven't I haven't interviewed for a job for a long time, a long time. I mean, I mean, think here, I mean, I think Disney was twenty ten. So it's been nine years since I've actually interviewed for a job. I think longer for me, man. Yeah. You know what's interesting about it, like I remember at the time saying to myself, like, man, if being a professional interviewee was a thing, that's what the job I would want. You'd be amazing because my mind is just like, I'm meeting people and hearing
James McKinney: [00:11:39] Their stories and the reason being if there's any interview tips and I apologize if this is not what you were, you know, no, no, I love what we're seeking out for me, but there's any interview tips that I can give to someone listening. The idea should be about conversation. Do not go into an interview thinking, I hope I get the questions right. It should be about how can I engage the person that I'm talking with? Because if you leave a memory at the end of that conversation as well, I enjoyed being with that person. That interviewer automatically is going to look back on their experience with you fondly, and that is what matters. You know, I always I always shot for it. If I can make them laugh once great, like, Oh, there's a certain things I look for, like, can I make them laugh? Can I keep them smiling? Can I get them to answer a question that was that was friendly, not adversarial, right? You know, again, the weakness one is a great one, you know, have a good answer for that. But then in turn, say, you know, well, that's one of my weaknesses, one of my strengths about delivering value to my bosses. And so, you know, what do you look for in your team members, you know, right? And then having them deliver that to you. So seek the conversation. Don't just go in thinking that the guys have been cast and you're just going to get whatever you get.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:02] No, I agree. A hundred percent. I think it's critical to try and turn it into a conversation, try to make that personal connection, not just get through the answers correctly or I think people get really nervous about the technical portion of the investment banking interviews. Oh, of course, today it's funny because they get the course and then they focus on the technical module and they're just drooling on the accounting questions. And then they get in there and they're asked. They're asked to walk, walk me through your resume or like, tell me weakness. And they like they think these canned responses
James McKinney: [00:13:31] Are good or good enough,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:13:32] And it's like they're missing this huge opportunity to actually set themselves apart because everyone else is getting the technical right, too. So. And let me ask you for someone who's been in the high finance world. Mm hmm. The technical is sometimes very different than the practical. Yeah, oh, absolutely, yeah. Sometimes it's just to see if they've done their homework. Yeah. You know, and I think and I think it's important to understand that you can have all the technical you want, but there's also the practical.
James McKinney: [00:14:02] So even though you may know all the technical, understand, the person you're talking with wants to know that you're a student because they're going to want to bring the practical. Yeah. No, absolutely.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:14:10] And I think it's important to know that investment banking at its core is a sales job too, especially as you get more senior. It's, you know, now you're telling me I'm an investment banker. Hey, if you could get through the rungs of if you could survive through the analysts and associate years, yeah, you'd be great. I saw a wolf of Wall Street. I know how great it is just. So I guess. Let's go back. So Disney, what was that like? And that was a great time. One. There is a dopamine hit that just comes from working with one of the
James McKinney: [00:14:42] Arguably one of the two or three. Globally known brands, right? You know, Coca-Cola probably being number one, Disney being up there. And so that's just cool to say. I mean, my kids were excited to say their dad works for Disney. And so I mean, that was an awesome experience, but I was hired. It's interesting. I was hired again, coming off of a failed business that I had. Entrepreneurs are really the least desirable hire for enterprise companies or worse, really batch right and in total flight risk, you know? But I was again back to the interview. I was just I was candid, you know, I shared the challenges that my family was going through because of it. And that
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:15:28] Did you have to take out a lot of debt? Were you in the hole? I lost everything. I mean, I had the loss of what was the startup. Talk to me about that. that business was a printing and promotional product brokerage. And so as companies
James McKinney: [00:15:41] Like Disney needed branded product, it was my job to source it and I was the middleman. I'd get margin on top of that. I was one of 12 that were that were able to participate in a $100 million contract with L.A. County. And so I started this at age 30. I think it was and I had good success fairly early on. And obviously, there's a lot of arrogance and pride that come with that. And I didn't have mentors most of my life, my entire life, my story. And maybe you can include a link to my start up story episode. Unpack this in greater detail. But most of my life is defined by just trying to figure it out. I didn't have mentors. What about your dad? Well, my. I'm a child of a divorce, so my dad was part time right. Like, I got to visit him on the weekends and be around him, so I got to see what he did. There wasn't. That wasn't the dialogue right? There wasn't the conversation of how do you finance this deal? What are some creative ways to finance a deal like, you know, purchase order, lending, things like that? Like, I didn't know any of those things, right? And so I got this. I got this deal that was a $600000 in purchase order. I had 50 percent margin on it like it was a healthy, healthy deal. But in my mind, I needed the cash to fund it. So I, you know, I had drained the four one k. I had maxed out the credit cards, I had leveraged the house. I had it all end to fund three hundred thousand. And in all government contracts, there is a clause that is a cancellation without cause clause. And again, in my mind as a young person thinking that what government agents is going to cancel a contract, this is crazy like this. This is not the contract that gets cancelled, like maybe a freeway construction or something like that, right? And so, you know, I'm getting product made in China had to send a 50 percent deposit. So one hundred fifty k goes out ready products ready. The final payment goes out three days after that final payment goes out. I get a letter in the mail within the 10 seconds it took to open that letter, saying Newell is on the other side. I lost everything and there was no recovering it. China wasn't giving the money back. No, I couldn't talk to L.A. County, and they kept referring back to the cancellation clause. And there’s a whole other side story as to why that cancelled, but again, just completely overleveraged myself, not seeking mentorship to understand, like what are some ways that creatively finance this, you know, at the time, the idea of just
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:18:13] You still probably would have been on the hook, though even, you know, now if I were to ever get that, that deal, I could I could think of. Three immediate ways in which I would finance that without leveraging anything that I had, right, obviously. First receivable financing is the first thing. so tell me about that. That's interesting. So receivable financing. Just you have an invoice or a purchase order from a client. There are companies out there that will lend mostly up to 80 percent.
James McKinney: [00:18:44] That seems to be 80 percent. Seems to be like the industry average. Some are less. But it all has to do with what is their safety net, right? And so, you know, L.A. County would have would have been a fairly safe safety net. Right. The cancellation clause probably would have gone to 80 percent financing down to maybe 60 percent financing that would
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:02] Cover three to three hundred K. You need it. Exactly that would have covered it. Right. So. So that's part of it. But again,
James McKinney: [00:19:09] There's you know, they make good
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:19:10] Margins. It's pretty expensive, right? It's not. It's not cheap, right? But again, I had $300000 on the deal, which I would have been totally fine. I didn't know about this at all at the time. I'm taking two 50 or whatever, exactly. The other thing, too, is like there are high net worth individuals out there that are just looking for the easy deals, you know, within the space I was playing with, I'll never forget it. A government was what I focus on at the time. And so in the government space, I started seeing the same people over and over again. Well, one guy that was winning these deals that I couldn't touch because sometimes his is selling price was what my costs were and what he was doing. He was I was based in Southern California at the time, and he was this this elderly Jewish guy down at Lake Forest and all he was doing, he didn't have he didn't invest anything into stocks or anything like that. His retirement was simply turning deals like this, so he would take a $3 million deal on a five percent margin and turn it within 90 days. And maybe that's good money in 90 days. Yeah. So he would just do these and again, as someone who's trying to, you know, support a family, build a business, not just can I fund this year. Right? Just couldn't compete with those things. So but let's say there are people out there like that that just have money like, hey, well, if in 90 days I can get a 10 percent return, which then take that out across the year you're looking at, you know, 30 or 40 percent return, like they'll do that all day long.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:20:41] Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it's tough to compete there. It's hard. It's hard. But again, at 30, the things you don't know are the things that can hurt you, which is why I'm all about. It's why I love what you're doing is with Wall Street is that the idea of just mentorship and information like mentorship is so critical.
James McKinney: [00:20:59] Yeah. So you're basically
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:21:02] You lick your you're licking your wounds, trying to get out from under this. Yes. What was the product that you were getting made? First of all, what was it, USB drives? So for L.A. County, you have a USB drives, so you visualize the L.A. County Sheriff on them. That's all I said. It's all of us. Gosh. So they get sent, they get sent to you or like where you got sent to me. I don't have them now. They got sent to me and they weren't even. So this is man, this is going to make this is going to make. It makes me feel old saying it, but it's definitely make some people like. So now you can buy like a 16 or you buy a thirty two gig USB drive for like sixteen dollars, right? Right. Right now. I mean,
James McKinney: [00:21:40] Storage is a commodity. back then, to get a one gig USB drive was going to cost you about $30. Right. So this was an imprinted USB drive that wasn't even a gig. It was like five hundred k or something like it was, you know, it was it was crazy. So, yeah, so no, I had a I had a very large supply of USB drives for quite a while. Yes. And what did you do with those? I mean, you know, tried to sell somebody at eBay, you know? You know, it was just it was a slow process. I couldn't get rid of all of them. It reached the point where it was donation. So yeah, OK.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:22:17] So you had a lot of USB drives. Yeah. You basically start interviewing right away. What was the thought right away? So once I told my wife we were losing everything, she was a stay at home mom. You know, once I told my wife we were losing everything, that was a hard conversation nonetheless. But immediately I knew I had to get back on the horse and provide for my family. And so it was just about going to my business now. At that
James McKinney: [00:22:40] Time, two kids, two kids and still two kids. By the time we get the, you know, Emilio went to my through my LinkedIn profile and just started like seeing everyone I was connected with on what relationships were there and just started and reaching out to them and saying, Hey, Shutting down the business, looking for something for the next couple of months. And it was the next couple of months I wasn't looking for something long term. Partially, I believe the next couple of months. Sometimes the temp hire is a lot easier than getting a full time gig. And at the time it was the latter part of the year. So the holidays were coming up. So it was just it was kind of a good positioning. So, you know, I'm all about connections and networking. So my first stop was not the open market. It was all about who do I know? And from there I got that job and I was miserable at it. I hated it, not Disney. This was with a semiconductor company. I hated the culture was toxic. It was it was an absolute horrible experience. and somehow some way I couldn't tell you how it was an opportunity that Disney came across my desk and I submitted for it. And Disney is one of those places where if you don't know someone like, don't even apply, don't even bother. But you've got you've got to know someone and knowing someone can simply be being connected to one of their recruiters on LinkedIn. But I didn't know anybody. I just submitted for it. And sure enough, I got an interview and I was like, This is unbelievable. Yeah. And yeah, and in the interview was meet with an executive. And he said, So you know, I see you had your business and you know what happened there? And I explained it to him and he's like, So where do you see yourself in 10 years? And I was like, Well, to be honest, I said 10 years, I couldn't tell you. I said, But you know, I can definitely tell you three years, I'm here, you know, like, I was just candid, you know, because again, the idea for a recruiters, recruiters even say, we'll tell you in enterprise companies that they aren't keen on hiring people that had passed businesses because they again, they just know there's an itch that has to be scratched. And I don't care what you do in an enterprise company, it's not going to do. So you
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:24:46] Were there for
James McKinney: [00:24:47] A while, though. I was there five years. You kept your word. I did. Well, three years. I kid was about keeping my word for the fourth and fifth year. I stayed on because around that fourth year, I is where this idea for my next startup started percolating. And because of what I had taken my family through at that time, just four years before, I wasn't about to just jump ship and here a little trigger shy you. Exactly. I was just like, let me figure this out and let me let me find different ways to finance it, and so that's where I started. Friends and family, fundraising and things like that. And so but my gig at Disney was amazing. I got hired to oversee the revenue operations for the Disneyland Resort. So really, it was about the reconciliation of what the POS terminals say. What is the currency vault receive? Where is the reconciliation of the cash management? And that was my gig for about 90 days. And then at the ninety first day, my executive calls me in his office like, so you used to run your own business, right? I said, Yeah, It's like, how would you like to start a brand new business inside of Disney? I'm like, Oh, yeah, like, yes, that sounds awesome. And sure enough, so I got to I got to build an entirely new profit center inside Disney, where as the company specifically parks and resorts didn't need assets anymore. So right vehicles, animatronic figures, signage, branded assets as they didn't need things anymore. I got to work. I got to build an infrastructure that had appropriate handling with high net worth individuals, internal secured auction sites. I got to build an entire profit center around selling Disney highly, highly sought after Disney assets.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:26:32] Interesting. So you were you were basically almost like having an internal eBay for Disney signage and all that stuff, which I'm sure it's super high demand built. Oh dude, like the man for Disney branded things, it's crazy. This is how this is how crazy it is. Yeah. John Stamos For those that may know him as Uncle Jesse from Full House, and I'm sure he's done more recent stuff, but he'll always be Uncle Jesse. John Stamos is a huge Disney guy. Yeah, he paid one hundred again. Some of these stories are creepy.
James McKinney: [00:27:04] This is just on the verge of creepy and weird at the same time. But if he had one hundred thousand dollars to have a WDI, which is the Imagineering arm of Disney build a replica doll of the small world dolls. So you're going into small world and those creepy little dolls that are singing to you and get the song stuck in your head that will never go away, which would be funny if you if you lay that track on the background. So they get second, people said. But you know those dolls, right? It wasn't even one that was used in the park. It was just a replica paid $100000 for it. Like a whole set of dolls, I hope just one doll. No way. So wait,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:39] So you guys were doing more
James McKinney: [00:27:40] Than just selling what was
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:27:41] Old or use. You were actually doing like special orders and stuff that didn't go through me. That was he happened to know, like, not Bob Iger, the CEO, but he like, knew that echelon of people.
James McKinney: [00:27:52] And so it was that was like one of those weird requests that he just made direct the things that went through me or like the Matterhorn bobsled vehicles or the hitchhiking ghost at the end of the Haunted Mansion tour. Like those things working with, you know, high net worth individuals at LA that, you know, paid forty five thousand dollars for those, you know. Got it. Yeah, that was my gig. It was awesome. I loved it. And it really, it's just building something out of nothing. One, it restored me as a person to know that I still have the ability to do something. It gave me a chance to get my feet grounded again for my family. And then lastly, it allowed me to see my employer as really that first investor to help me start saving up, you know, time and money for what would ultimately be my next venture. So that's really.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:28:43] How did you feel safe with to kind of go out on and you had you said you started raising friends and family around for your next thing, but you still got to be scary after losing everything? Was your wife on board? Yeah. Well, let me think about this one. This is five years now. I would say she's on board five years. The only thing here, but she fully on board. Yeah, she was comfortable because I had raised about one hundred and forty thousand. Friends and family again, I don't come from money,
James McKinney: [00:29:11] So some friends and family rounds are in the millions. That's not my story. And so, you know, my next. The reason I left Disney was to work for information media to help do what I was doing for Disney, for all the studios. Well, the founder of Vision media was one of my advisors to the mobile app technology. And so part of the agreement was I help build this business inside of his business as well as working on mobile apps. So it's kind of like it was had a salary with him. I had friends and family around and I had more freedom to continue to work on my things. Yes, my wife was on board because of what that arrangement was. Yeah.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:29:50] Yeah, that sounds like a great arrangement, so you kind of like you. How did that come about, where you found another opportunity to actually was it you going so taking what you did at Disney and taking it to the other? so that's interesting, right? Were you like, were you the one looking for that or was it something? No, this is this is one of those one of those serendipitous moments. I was so again, I built this business inside of Disney parks and resorts was the first with the revenue was over all of that. Yeah, by the time I left, it was four million a year, just one business entity. Yeah, I don't I don't get to see ESPN numbers so like right, as I helped with ESPN, with a Jimmy V auction that that revenue went to ESPN.
James McKinney: [00:30:34] So I don't get preview to those numbers, right? Disney ABC Group was another. I never got to work within Marvel. Marvel was wrote like they did their own thing. They did their thing, which pissed me off a ton of time because they would just sell Iron Man suits when it's like, Wait, a second, dude, you can't just be selling Iron Man suits. We got to talk about this. So. Yeah, yeah. Kevin Figi was he's a road warrior, but at any rate, so while he's building some kind of parks, a Disney ABC television group reached out to me and said, Hey, you're the only one doing this and Disney, can you help us sell stuff? I'm thinking myself like, maybe like a set from a show. No, no, no. They had like sixty thousand square feet of a warehouse of just stuff they'd been storing for years. Oh my gosh. So I go out to the warehouse. The warehouse was owned by Vision Media. They were just the vendor storing everything. And there is where I met the founder and CEO of Vision Media and Michael Alvarez, and the introduction was made. And he comes down an hour and a half away to Orange County and we get lunch and he's like, Just so you know, you're the only one doing this inside of all Hollywood. I was like, what? I can't be the case. And so, sure enough, Disney, I was the only One doing it. So he hired me to help him build it. I mean,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:31:49] In his warehouse, Disney was this part of Disney? This is not so. Abc was part of Disney. Yes. Ok, OK. Vision media was not. And so when he invited me
James McKinney: [00:31:58] Over to do it for his business, I mean, the things He had in his warehouse were unbelievable. The Twilight movie series he had all the assets from Twilight, the warehouse, the original Batman Bat mobile. He had done this. Oh my gosh, he had so many bats. I mean, there were so many assets he had from every single studio. So I left Disney to help them build that instead of all the movie studios.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:32:22] And we never think to ask, Did you ever think of a. An ask of like, Hey, I'll take a percentage of whatever I sell, You know, at the time. No, and the reason being was for my next pursuit was the mobile app. Was this mobile technology I was building. And so this was really just a conduit to get there. Got it. It was. It was not something I was looking at long term, Neal say. I was there for a year. We couldn't get. The closest I got was for another studio was paramount. A new Ninja Turtle movie was coming out and they were doing some really cool in theater marketing stuff that was a close to that guy, but they just were gun shy about it. You know, people kept telling me, Well, we're not Disney. People don't want it. I know you're crazy. But people want all of your DC stuff. People want ninja turtle stuff. People want Top Gun paramount. I mean, there was so many
James McKinney: [00:33:11] Brands and You know this Disney has done a really great job of building up how significant their brand is that I truly believe the other studios have forgotten how significant their brand is.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:33:22] Yeah, that's a good point. Ok, so you're so you're there. You're kind of in this middle transition period. Tell me what this mobile tech and kind of. What was the evolution of it? So, yeah, so the mobile, the mobile tech, I was convinced that people were tired of using their camera for identification purposes like...
James McKinney: [00:33:42] Augmented reality, right? If you At the Time and Yelp instead of just what's around me kind of thing, you can open up a camera feature and identify the restaurant. Yeah, right? The idea of using a camera to identify something is super clunky. Like, I just I still don't understand the appeal for it, but I was convinced that the technology existed where you could use your phone like a television remote, like you simply point your phone at it and push a button and it will tell you everything about that location. Ultimately, that object that you're pointing at. So picture yourself down on Main Street USA, Wherever you're living and there's a restaurant, you want to know what the wait time is. Just point your phone, push a button, you'll see menus, see photos from Instagram on it, you'll see a wait time. Maybe some current reviews from Google because I hate Yelp as the double for small businesses. And so I would never I would never have integrated with Yelp, but just Google. But again, with a push of a button, you see it. No use of camera, right? Imagine yourself on vacation. You're like, Hey, there's the Eiffel Tower. Push a button and you see historical information on the Eiffel Tower construction, whatever the case may be. It was all the idea was getting the information you want with a single push of a button. None of this around me is filtering through list, and it is
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:34:58] What it would. It need an app? Would you have to open an app to get there? Exactly. None of the none of the. Cell phone providers would make it native, right, I mean, Apple. Apple controls everything that that at the time of the home button did. Now there's no home button anymore, you know? And in fact, all of the most of the phones now don't even have a home button. So yes, it did reside in an app, and that's where I had
James McKinney: [00:35:22] To build an app. The challenge with mobile technology one, we were able to build out the first concept of It. We were able to really nail out the user experience of pushing a button. So we were able to get to that. The challenge comes in the monetization side of it, and this just has to do with market research, which I didn't do well enough. You know, I started with restaurants because when you think about how you use your phone, most people listening are like, Well, yeah, I'm always looking for a place to eat. Yeah, that's just a use case of what people are using phones for picture taking and food, and sometimes it's paid taking up food. So, yeah, and so I was going after restaurants first. I mean, provide restaurant information because they don't get users to use the app and giving them great stuff. Well, the I still need money in that right. It's one thing to say you have users, but gone are the venture capital days where they're just going to give you money because you have users. Those days are that ship has sailed.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:36:19] They don't think nowadays it's about, you know, like now, even still even inside of like, you know, obviously Snapchat, right? That was probably a couple of years ago. So that's a little dated. Brex is a new credit card for startups, right? They are the belle of the ball with what they're doing inside of fintech. And what they're doing is amazing, but they're also monetizing, you know, and one of the things that they'll say from the get go is the idea of users is great. But can you monetize your user base unit economics specifically? There at least has to be a path toward? Yeah. I mean, look
James McKinney: [00:36:59] At foursquare, right? The guys, the founder, his name used to be the tip of my tongue I can't think of anymore. You know, he raised one hundred and seventy five million dollars before they ever saw a dollar. And last I checked and again dated information. As of last year, they weren't profitable. So I mean, it's just, you know, the VC is just not going to keep throwing that money at things. And then again, of course, look at the. Oh, what was the name of that Palo Alto made a fraud?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:27] Oh yeah, I saw the thoroughness there knows. Yes, thank you. I mean, again, you know, they've got to see your ability as a founder to be able to execute, monetize.
James McKinney: [00:37:37] That's the biggest thing.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:37:38] So, so tell me. So how long did that go before friends and family around ran out? And you said, OK, I'm back to what was the next step? You said, I'm back to Disney. What was the thought? So it lasted about a year. Yeah. The after vision media I then the software development company that was building my app again.
James McKinney: [00:37:58] It's just it's. If there's anything I could point to as far as why I'm not homeless on the street somewhere, it's it goes back to likability like wherever you are for all your listeners, what job you have. No matter who you interact with, you have to maintain likability. Yeah, you just you can't treat people as a commodity. And I see I see too many people doing that right. They will. They're in a company for, say, five years and then they have great relationships and then they jump ship and it's like, Oh, those people don't matter to me anymore. It's like, No, no, you have got to maintain relationships because these are people. They're not Parcells like you. Just you have to treat.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:38:40] That reminds me of a meme I think I saw yesterday of it was an investment banking meme, and it had an MD saying. What's wrong with them, the doctor says he's in a coma. Ok, well, let me know when he wakes up, so we need this pitch deck out by midnight. Exactly, exactly right. Like you, you just you have to you have to maintain relationships and keep those bridges open. And so
James McKinney: [00:39:06] All that to say is my development firm. They really like me and they were developers, right? So they're not people, they're not people that they like to deal with. Sales, if you will. So they were like, Hey, we're building your app. You really like dealing with people and sales. Why don't you come and do that for us? And I was like, Oh, that's kind of a cool idea. And so. So then that helped extend the development of my app, as well as providing income for the family while doing it. and that lasted for about two and a half years. The me working for them last for two and half years. The app died within. I will say 10 months of me working just because there reached a point where you have to call the bleeding, you've just got to shut it out at some point and I couldn't keep dumping money back into it because I, well, I visually saw how to monetize. I couldn't execute. I couldn't get to the restaurants there. I couldn't get the partnerships that I had been working for so long to commit. I even tried to negotiate an acquisition of a technology that couldn't get that down and just had to shut it down. That's tough. That's tough to let go. It is. And again, for, you know, not. Maybe there are some listeners that are have contemplated all kinds of different mobile. The app, the app business is dead. Like just don't build a mobile app for the sake of a mobile app. If you have another business and an app complements it, then building up, don't build an app thinking that is your business. that ship has sailed.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:40:38] Yeah. So we after clamoring for, I don't know, probably a decade, our members were clamoring for a mobile app. We finally released one and we have about 10000 thousand downloads within a few months. So I'm like, Oh, right on that five years ago. Yeah, right. And it's a compliment to what you're doing, and that's It makes me happy. That's the that's the reason for apps these days. It complements an existing business. Yeah. So OK, so you're kind of your acting is you're back and you're in sales, you're in your natural element. Why? Why leave this development shop? So when I was with the development shop, they'd been around for nine years prior to me. So still
James McKinney: [00:41:17] A new small business, great people, great founders, everything they'd been in their region, their valley for the entire time. They had been there for 15 years prior to starting the business, but they were not the name within the valley for technology. If someone were to think of software development, they were not the name for it and I didn't understand why, because they were really good developers and really great people. And so I thought, Well, let's start making a name and start making it a brand for you to be the technology hub of Santa Clarita Valley. And so I started doing these live events where we would feature founders, big name founders. Yeah, Rahul Sinha from Tesla. He was trying to create a really a point to point transit line using Tesla's incredible, incredible company. Barry Baron Davis, founder of Black Santa, a former NBA all star. Just Larry Namur from entertainment television. Rachel Hollis is a big deal now. Just tremendous. Founders would come and unpack their story, and so we'd have you know about a hundred people showing up in our office to just hear these stories. So we were we were slowly becoming that. And I loved it. I mean, again, being a people person love a storytelling. You love hearing the journey again. The mentorship that comes with those conversations is awesome. And so about 10 years or 10 months in or 10 events in, I'm sorry, nine events in the founder of the software development company said, Hey, shut it down. We're not seeing revenue from it again. I'm in sales and I said, I know, but this is the long game this is. this is not. We're not trying to do something quick. This is the long game. It's like, No, no, shut it down. So 10th event happened. We shut it down. And I it just it bummed me out to no end. I love doing it. I loved every bit about it and it
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:43:06] Lasted. How much was it costing per event to put on? Oh, the events were profitable. So just not just not I mean, profitable, meaning it didn't cost the company anything. It wasn't like we were making anything. Yes, anything significant whatsoever. I mean, you know, your salary? No, no, no, no, no, no. Ok. So but I was doing sales as well, right? And so it wasn't that it's just certain people. I just have short term thinking and this was one of those short term thinking mind-sets. It was I don't see an invoice within six months. Let's cancel it. Got it. And all that to say, two months after we canceled it. A relationship that I developed because of it, I close half a million dollars in business, so again, long term thinking it pays off.
James McKinney: [00:43:49] It would have paid off. Yeah, completely. So anyways, the last event, three people came up to me and said, Hey, do you have a podcast? If you did a podcast, I'd listen to it like, Oh, that's interesting. I knew the event was shutting down. I had this need to keep it going. So I told my founders, I said, Hey, I'm going to do a pot. If you're shutting this down, I'm gonna do a podcast. And they were like they were fully supportive of it. My God, you do a podcast. I even helped the founder set up a podcast for he and his son about gaming because he's in the EA sports and so fully supportive. And I was doing this just to fill a need, right? Yeah, I created the Startup Story podcast is Fill A Need of This Me meeting with founders, and so I'm still doing sales for the company. And about six months in, so June of this year, June of twenty nineteen, I get an email from a UK listener says, Hey, just so you know you're number 11 in the UK and I'm like, what? Like, I tracked no data on anything. It was just I was doing this because I love to sit with founders and. And so sure enough, I find a third party service that can tell me where I'm at across the platforms. And I was number three in the UK and I was approaching top 100 in Australia and us. Those are my most significant ones. I was like at the time, I was like, you know, number two hundred in Kazakhstan. Not sure why, but nevertheless so. So I create a little social graphic. And if I'm going too far down the rabbit hole, I don't know. I like this. You know, I create this little social graphic just talking about the success of the show first time I ever saw ratings, and I get word that there's some murmurings in the office. I'm in Texas. At this time I had moved my family. I was tired of California and the company still in California. So I get some murmurings at the head office that they're bothered by the success of the show. Again, I'm in sales. You can tell if I'm distracted or not. I'm either delivering or I'm not right. So and so. Then a publicist reaches out to me and says, Hey, I just saw your post. I would love to represent you. And it's a publicist I've worked with since my mobile days, and her name is Monique. I call her mo. I'm like, No, I can't pay you. I'm bootstrapping this thing. No, no, I'll find you sponsors until the percentage of sponsors. I've done anything great. So we start creating our sponsorship kit. August comes around now. Two months later, she's like, Hey, I need updated numbers and rankings for the kit. So I go, Look, and now I find out a number three in the U.K. and I'm top 10 in the U.S., in Australia. It's awesome. Like what is happening here again? All of this is just organic. And so and so I create a new graphic promoting it well within a week of that graphic going live. I get a call from the head office that you know we need. We need to chat. And so what's interesting about that? After I heard murmurings in from June, I tell my wife, Right, we're coming on the 10th. This November was a ten year anniversary of us losing everything. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's one of those things you just never forget. And so I asked her in early August, I said if they ever asked me to give up the podcast, what would you? What would you say? And she just looked at me like, No, you can't give them the podcast. I'm like, OK, I'll make sure we're on the same page because you know she's happening. Yeah, and she's like, No, why would they ask? I don't know. I just I feel like there might be some resentment towards just the success of the show going back to the live events, right, 10 months and want to...
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:26] Count? Yeah, I don't. I don't get it. I don't get it. Because what was the show ever bringing in them, bringing them any business like through your connections?
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:47:34] And now so is your own thing. It was your own side project is my own thing completely. But again, I was selling right. So and so August comes around. They call, they're like, Hey, we feel like you're distracted because the podcast.
James McKinney: [00:47:47] And I said, Well, if you remove podcasts from the conversation, do you feel like I'm distracted? And instead of answering the question, I simply said, if we asked you to give it the podcast, would you? I said, no. So, OK, well, we think we know what next steps are. What's funny about it? The short term thinking. And they simply said, We think you should include ads for our company. I'm like, Oh, that makes sense. Sure. Yeah. Just to keep it going a little bit longer. But nevertheless, that was I’ve been full time on the startup story now for since September of this year, and it's been tremendous. We're now in live event planning mode and there's lots of things in the works, so I get to meet great people like yourself now.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:48:26] It's exciting, man. It's exciting. It's scary and exciting at the same time. I think hats off to you. I think ideally you can do stuff like you did the first time around where you're bridging. I kind of did the same thing where I was building a Wall Street oasis during
James McKinney: [00:48:41] While I was working in private equity and it wasn't bringing in any money or very little in it. And I knew when I went to business school, I had a very kind of short window of time to figure out, OK, am I going to go back to work or am I going to kind of just try and roll the dice with this where I was bringing in enough revenue. I was like, OK, I'm not going to starve again. I can survive all of this and then have freedom. So I think it's exciting. You were you were kind of ahead of your time, too, because the idea of providing value content as a business model like that online, especially like it was new, right? Again, this is what I'm doing now within entrepreneurship, but you were doing it for Wall Street. I love your adventure.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:28] It's really a platform, though it wasn't even me. Providing a lot of value is really the users themselves providing a lot of value. So, like better? Yeah. So I mean, well, the good part about that is you don't have to hire a team of writers. Like when you're when you're only bringing in a thousand dollars a month, you can't hire a team at the beginning. So, you know, it's been a really interesting evolution of the business. And as we professionalize in this, the business has grown. It's I think it's great for your story.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:49:54] I mean, I can't believe that after kind of going through what you went through, you still wrote Roll the dice. Yeah, and I love it. It's almost like you can't help. You can't help but do it. You have something that's unique. You know your strengths really well. And maybe that book what was the name of that book again, that you recommended strength finders to point out really recommended strength finders. Yeah, it's it is one of the most transformational books I've ever read because it shifts the focus. All too often you hear about what are you weak at and train that right? Like, think about physical training like, Oh, you know, I'm really I have weekly, I've chicken legs. I got to do squats all day and like presses, right? You look at your weak points and you focus on straight flips the script and says, No, no, what? What are you great at? Continue to be great at those things and then understand the people that you're working with are hiring to find the people that are great at the things.
James McKinney: [00:50:48] You're weak at, right? You know, and it's just it's it really is about celebrating the things that were independently great. But I love it. But yeah, it's you know, it's. As I tell my story more and more, and again, in my episode, you'll hear the great detail of the pain and suffering that came from losing everything in the conversation with my wife and everything. But as I tell that story more and more, I realize that. There is a part of us that we are. Innately created to create, you know, it's various degrees, right, even inside of, you know, when I was when I didn't think I wanted to be an entrepreneur, I was just accounting like I was constantly trying to create new processes, trying to create some levels of improvement for things. I was trying to create dashboards that had greater visibility for executives were we're wanting to create something. And then as for myself, it was there is a level of comfort that comes with the instability that is entrepreneurship. Yeah. And that's why it resonates.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:51:53] There is and I think, well, for me, it's the freedom to, yeah, the biggest waking up. And then the challenge is that the variety of challenges that you face today are really interesting. Whereas if you're coming into the office every day doing the same type of work year after year after year, it can get really hard. Yet it can be tough if you're dreading Mondays. It's a tough life. There's there are too many great things out there that if you wake up and your soul is already sucked, like you have got to find something else. And I mean it like this is not I'm not mocking the individual that that, you know, it has a nine to five and they're providing for the family. I love that. But if you if you hate what you're doing, figure something else out. Either turn that opportunity into something great or go find something better for you. I think it's hard because a lot of people that come into these high, highly competitive careers, they've followed a path for their whole life. So it's very different from you. It's they've they're on the path at the top, you know, valedictorian of their high school or near the top of their high school. Then they're going to a target school or semi target school. They're having to get near the top of their class, getting a three five three seven GPA. And they're prepping for interviews, they're doing the modelling, you know, they're driving and driving and driving. Then they get there and they're like, I made it and they didn't sit in the seat. And then they're like, Wait a second, I'm working 80 hours a week. I'm sleeping at my desk. What's the meaning of all this? Yeah. And especially at that age, it's like a quarter life crisis, age you don't really know, like. So I had this conversation once with just a local friend, and they were. There used to be a time when people would get out of college, and they would have that one career for 30 40 years. I mean, my best friend has been with Boeing since. It's his only professional job he's had outside of college and he loves it, and he gets to work on some really cool things, but none of which I can speak to about on this. But those are those are the anomalies, right? But we look at it with such a steam as though like, that's the way to go about it. But here's the part that
James McKinney: [00:54:03] I get hung up on and I and I hope that your listeners will process this this picture for a moment here. If are thirty five or forty years old. Are you going to leave your future up to the knowledge and experience of a twenty two year old? No, you're not. But that's the reality of what we do most times when we when we allow whatever our trajectory is coming out of college at twenty two to be the single lane in which we drive for the rest of our life, that twenty two year old doesn't have the knowledge and awareness or nor the network, nor the perspective of economics at a macro level, you know or understand a self-awareness of what it is you want to do with your life. At twenty two, they just don't have that. And yet we stay on that same train the whole time. There is. It is perfectly OK to revaluate every few years,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:54:59] And I think that's more common nowadays. I think people are doing that. I think the banks don't like it. They have an attrition problem and everyone jumping from, well, people still following the Path I to private equity or hedge funds. Yeah, but it's been it's been really interesting to hear your story. I think I think it'll be different. It's a different type of episode for everybody to hear that there are other ways to success and there's other ways. There are a million ways. Again, you know, I go I mentioned this type of this person all the time, but there are people on Etsy that are probably investment bankers that are making another
James McKinney: [00:55:35] $200000 selling etched yetis. Ok, so I'm just saying like, like if you're miserable at your job, like there are ways to find fulfilment and make a crap ton of money.
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:55:46] I just talked to a guy today that was massive banking private equity left after 10 months, and he sells like shoelaces, like a custom custom-made shoe laces. I'm like, That's amazing. It's amazing. I love stories like that. Stories like that. Maybe he'll be a podcast guest in the future, but maybe so. Watch out for that one. Listen, James,
Patrick (CEO of WSO): [00:56:07] Really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your story with everybody. It was fun. My absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me. And thanks to you, my listeners at Wall Street Oasis. If you have any suggestions whatsoever, please don't hesitate to send them my way. Patrick at Wall Street Oasis. And till next time.
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