The Dos Equis marketing department misfired when they chose someone else for their Most Interesting Man in World campaign. Coming from a family with humble beginnings and developing a distaste for formal education throughout childhood, Scott Klososky blazed his own trail with entrepreneurship that includes a $115M exit, a unicorn IPO, a joint-venture with the Soviet Union, and an internationally acclaimed speaking and consulting program centered on futurism. You might expect Scott to spend half the year on a yacht in the Mediterranean, but instead, he continues to spend his free time tinkering with the latest AI tools and scheming about pathways to success in the age of automation.
Transcript:
00:00:00:00 – 00:00:25:07
V.O.
In a world where talent is evenly distributed, the venture capital is concentrated in coastal silos. Smart startup money is heading for the Midcon. Welcome to the Midcon Markup. A podcast that uncovers the inspiring stories of our visionary tech entrepreneurs and the investors who believe in them. I’m your host, Cody Merrill, with Cortado Ventures. Listen, learn, and make your Midcon markup.
00:00:25:09 – 00:00:42:00
Cody Merrill
Everybody, welcome to another episode of the Midcon VC podcast. Today, we are very fortunate to have an Oklahoma startup, OG Legend, with us, Scott Klososky. Scott, thank you for joining us today.
00:00:42:03 – 00:00:56:20
Scott Klososky
I’m glad to be here, Cody. But I have to say: All morning I’ve been thinking about the OG thing. Since I woke up knowing that we were going to be doing this. How did I ever become OG? And then the sad thing is, I have to admit I am.
00:00:56:22 – 00:01:11:10
Cody Merrill
Well, why don’t you walk us back just through some of the professional achievements that you’ve had? And then later, we’re going to go even further back and see what was your inspiration in childhood.
00:01:11:12 – 00:01:44:18
Scott Klososky
Well, you know, professionally, let’s start with, I worked my way up with a company for seven years because I didn’t go to college, right? So I worked my way up through a company, and then I bought away a computer division. And that was really my first kind of entrepreneurial thing, was I bought that away, started opening computer stores. And, you know, learned a lot of lessons and, you know, was fairly successful with that, grew way too fast, got into a lot of financial issues with that from growing too fast.
00:01:44:20 – 00:02:16:07
Scott Klososky
and then I ended up, you know, shutting down some of those, selling off a part of it. But at the same time, I had started to go to the Soviet Union and decided that I wanted to, you know, build a company in the Soviet Union, which that’s a whole story in itself. And I was lucky enough to be able to put together a company where the Soviet government was a partner of mine.
00:02:16:07 – 00:02:39:03
Scott Klososky
And that company was called ‘Paragraph.’ And that was really the first time that I ever venture-funded anything. And some guys from Colorado put some venture money into that. They ended up buying the whole company from me, and then they ended up selling. They broke it in two and sold it for millions of dollars each half some years later.
00:02:39:05 – 00:03:13:25
Scott Klososky
So that was probably one of the craziest startups if you could ever see the history of that one, you know, that was just off the chain, you know. And so I went from that, too. I had gotten to be friends with H.R. Haldeman, who was Nixon’s chief of staff, and I helped him write his diaries. And while I was doing that, I started another company that was a digital marketing company back before, really, the Internet was even out.
00:03:13:27 – 00:03:31:27
Scott Klososky
And so I was sitting there with a digital marketing company. We had a lot of big clients in Washington, DC, including a small startup that had been building called AOL. And so I kind of grew up a bit with AOL doing a lot of digital marketing for them. And then there we were when the Internet came out.
00:03:31:29 – 00:03:51:02
Scott Klososky
and then that basically morphed into we, we pivoted, if we would –That’s what we would say today, right? We pivoted that company, that was doing pretty well, into Webcast.com. And then built Webcast.com and venture funded that, here in Oklahoma. And then we…
00:03:51:02 – 00:03:52:14
Cody Merrill
What was that era?
00:03:52:16 – 00:03:59:25
Scott Klososky
That was from about 1996/7 to 2001.
00:03:59:27 – 00:04:00:17
Cody Merrill
Okay.
00:04:00:19 – 00:04:28:20
Scott Klososky
And we sold that, you know, right at the beginning, I think, in 2001, as I recall, in the 2000. We sold that to a company in Silicon Valley. And so, you know, then –After that, I spent a year with the company that acquired left that and was asked to do a turnaround by the venture capital fund that, that had put money into Webcast.
00:04:28:23 – 00:04:53:25
Scott Klososky
And so I did a turnaround for three years on a company called Critical Technologies, which then eventually sold to General Electric. So, my one and only experience with doing a turnaround, maybe ever in my life, which would be okay. And then, you know, I just went on to play around with other startups, and of course, you know, I started our… the consulting firm we still have today, which is Future Point Of View.
00:04:53:28 – 00:05:23:28
Scott Klososky
But in 2007, I had the idea of starting an online banking firm, and we started two or three other people along with me, you know, Gary Nelson, Steve Meston. We started Alkami. And then, of course, Alkami grew, we venture funded it again here with some different sources. But it ended up going public last year. And so that’s, that’s kind of a quick story, and I left out a few startup things here and there.
00:05:24:01 – 00:05:54:10
Cody Merrill
Wow. So, I have a ton of questions about all the eclectic interests that led to all these different types of relationships and business units. But before that, can we take a step back and look at like, what was your childhood like? What were your inspirations? Did you have any sense that a career would unfold in such unique ways?
00:05:54:12 – 00:06:22:02
Scott Klososky
No. I came from a broken home. You know, my dad had MS and died young. You know, we were on Social Security for my whole high school years. I worked full-time from the time I was 15 years old on. And I when I was working as a junior and senior in high school, I worked for a company where the son of the founder wanted to start a small company from scratch.
00:06:22:04 – 00:06:44:04
Scott Klososky
And he asked if I would go to work for him and bring two of my friends, and we were just manufacturing something for him, you know, in the back of his dad’s warehouses. And I got to watch him start this company. I’d never seen anything like that before. My parents, you know, no one in my family had ever done anything like that before.
00:06:44:07 – 00:07:06:04
Scott Klososky
But I thought, you know, that’s really interesting that you could have an idea and just start a company from ground up. And I just got to watch this guy do it. And you know, I was his first employee because he needed somebody to manufacture some things. And so I hated school. So, I had scholarships to go to college for sports. I could have gone and…
00:07:06:04 – 00:07:07:16
Cody Merrill
Did you play a sport?
00:07:07:18 – 00:07:30:28
Scott Klososky
I played soccer all through high school. And, you know, it was recruited by some of the Ohio colleges. But I hated school so much that there was no way I was going to go to college. And so I thought, you know, why wouldn’t I just go to work for a company and try to work my way up and then try to do what I saw this guy do and just, you know, build my own company.
00:07:30:28 – 00:07:55:18
Scott Klososky
When I figure out something that I want to build, and so, that, you know, that was it. I don’t have, you know, the classic thing of I had parents or relatives and I, you know, they were entrepreneurial, so I followed them. It really was a confluence of –In 1980, you know, when I was 18 years old, I think I made a couple of decisions.
00:07:55:18 – 00:08:17:17
Scott Klososky
One decision was someday, I wanted to build my own company or have my own company. And the other decision was I think I want to learn technology. Because I didn’t have to go to college to learn how to program, I could just sit down and teach myself how to program and build computers. And I did. And the company I worked for eventually put me in their new computer department.
00:08:17:20 – 00:08:33:09
Scott Klososky
And so, you know, those two things came together, right? Me thinking someday I’d like to build my own company and me learning how to program and how to build computers. You know, that kind of led me to the first step into being an entrepreneur.
00:08:33:16 – 00:09:04:24
Cody Merrill
I feel like many want-to-be entrepreneurs need to realize that it’s not just about identifying the market opportunity. It’s also about making yourself the perfect person to build that business and acquiring the necessary skills and network to realistically be able to execute. Was that just clear to you from the get-go? Because it was a ground-up approach and you didn’t have any sort of delusion, you just knew that you had to get your hands dirty to make anything happen.
00:09:04:25 – 00:09:33:00
Scott Klososky
Your point is really well taken, Cody. And I, we shouldn’t jump past that. I do think –When I see younger people now, they are way too dependent on the idea, you know, or in love with the idea that they have, and they don’t understand what it takes from them personally. You know, as a person, as a human being, to be able to get something built.
00:09:33:02 – 00:09:58:15
Scott Klososky
I think like I had the advantage of I came from nothing, you know, and when I say that that isn’t really true, my mom was great, and my mom, you know, gave me a lot of love and inspiration, right? But I financially came from nothing. And when you come from nothing, you know, then it’s a little easier to go build something because, you know, I love technology, and I was just trying to think, what is it that people will buy?
00:09:58:16 – 00:10:21:23
Scott Klososky
You know, they’ll buy computers. Okay, well, let’s go sell computers, you know, and then, they’ll buy this kind of software. Okay, well, let’s go sell that kind of software. So it wasn’t fancy for me. I wasn’t trying to, you know, build some patentable thing or try to exploit some giant hole in the market. You know, for me, it was just what can I go build that people will buy that, you know, that I enjoy doing?
00:10:21:23 – 00:10:36:05
Scott Klososky
You know, that’s kind of fun and that I have some skill for. It was really that simple. And then I probably was a hustle. I was always willing to hustle because I didn’t come from anything. So, for me, everything that I was able to accomplish was a good day.
00:10:36:07 – 00:10:56:00
Cody Merrill
That’s incredibly inspiring. And not many people really do have the rags to riches story. Usually, most successful tech startups come from founders who have a comfortable enough financial situation that they can go sleep on mom’s couch if they need to.
00:10:56:03 – 00:10:56:23
Scott Klososky
Yeah.
00:10:56:25 – 00:10:59:06
Cody Merrill
There’s a safety net for most people.
00:10:59:09 – 00:11:21:26
Scott Klososky
Yeah, that is true, and that’s great. I mean, if you come from having a family who can really support you or you come from an environment where, you know, you have a bunch of fraternity brothers, you know, who are all successful, you know, who will help fund you, you know, I think that’s fantastic. You know, that’s just a leg up.
00:11:21:29 – 00:11:41:06
Scott Klososky
You know, I just didn’t happen to have that. And so I just had to kind of work through that and get over that piece. But I think that there is people who have a better environment to build something. I think that’s you should feel blessed, like feel blessed. Know that you’re a step ahead of some people, you know, and don’t waste that.
00:11:41:08 – 00:11:48:12
Cody Merrill
You’re right, and in your heart of hearts, wouldn’t you rather have the sharper spirit that you have from having to have overcome everything?
00:11:48:14 – 00:11:50:00
Scott Klososky
Yes. Now…
00:11:50:00 – 00:11:51:01
Cody Merrill
Yeah.
00:11:51:04 – 00:12:13:08
Scott Klososky
Yes… You know, there was a guy I never forget: there was a guy who is older than me who I, I did a lot of business with for years, who was, he was a horse trader, right? And I, I trained horses and showed horses for a while. And I’ll never forget when I went, when I just said I wanted to go to the Soviet Union and build a business there.
00:12:13:10 – 00:12:36:09
Scott Klososky
He looked at me and he said, Son, you’re just too dumb to know any better. And he meant it as a compliment. And there is, you know, there is the wisdom in that, yeah. You know, when you don’t come from anything, and you’re willing to try, you know, anything to succeed or work through anything or take any failure. Yes, I’m glad that I had that road now.
00:12:36:11 – 00:12:56:17
Cody Merrill
Can you tell us a little bit about your relationship to the state of Oklahoma? So you had mentioned Ohio earlier, but like chronologically, like where did you grow up? When did you come here? What businesses have you built here? And then, just historically, what have you seen in terms of growth startup ecosystem?
00:12:56:19 – 00:13:16:29
Scott Klososky
Well, I mean, I grew up mostly in Cleveland. You know, my dad was a programmer for Boeing before he got sick and kind of passed on. And he was one of the original programmers: he programmed the guidance system on the Minuteman missiles. And I didn’t know any of that until after he died because he was security-cleared.
00:13:17:04 – 00:13:39:08
Scott Klososky
I knew he was a programmer. That was all I knew. And I didn’t follow in his footsteps. Like, it wasn’t like I said, I want to get into technology because my dad got it in technology. It really didn’t have anything to do with that. But we moved around a lot. We ended up in Cleveland, and so I kind of grew up there from school, but when I was 18, I didn’t want to stay in Cleveland and go to work for one of my dad’s friends or friend’s dads or something like that.
00:13:39:11 – 00:13:59:04
Scott Klososky
And I knew one guy in Oklahoma, and I kind of liked it out west. That was enough. So I had, you know when I got out of high school, I just jumped in a truck and drove to Oklahoma and started up here. So, I was in Oklahoma from the time I just turned 18. And so I’ve been here, you know, my entire adult life.
00:13:59:04 – 00:14:09:22
Scott Klososky
I’ve built –All the startups that I’ve done I’ve built from here. Now, we’ve had offices in other cities, but they’ve all been incorporated here and still are.
00:14:09:24 – 00:14:12:22
Cody Merrill
And so you live in Oklahoma City?
00:14:12:24 – 00:14:14:00
Scott Klososky
Yes, I live in Edmond.
00:14:14:02 – 00:14:34:00
Cody Merrill
Okay. Very cool. And so, in terms of funding, back in 90s, 2000s, compared with today, what is the market like? Like, the startup founders today have no idea what it was like back then. All we’ve heard is bad things.
00:14:34:02 – 00:15:07:08
Scott Klososky
Yeah, you know, back. I mean, the venture capital, the angel, the PE, none of those were as developed, you know, back in the, you know, the eighties and nineties I first venture funded in 88. Just right. I mean so, I mean I have done venture funding across multiple companies for three decades. Very different in the eighties. So, in the eighties you didn’t have the big sandhill road firms. I mean, you didn’t have that kind of stuff.
00:15:07:11 – 00:15:30:03
Scott Klososky
So venture funds were usually wealthy families, right? Or wealthy people that you went to for, you know, what we would call today venture fund for angel. And so the first thing that I ever did, it was a couple of lawyers who made investments and I took, I think, a quarter million dollars from them. Like that was the first thing I ever did in ’89, I think.
00:15:30:05 – 00:15:48:27
Scott Klososky
And that was the company I was building in the Soviet Union, you know. And so, you know, then… and that was –They were in Colorado. I mean, just because you asked about Oklahoma, they were in Colorado. The first time a venture funded in Oklahoma would have been in the late nineties. And so that was Chisholm, right?
00:15:48:27 – 00:16:19:09
Scott Klososky
So when Chisholm and John Fricke and, you know, when they had the Chisholm Fund, that was the first time I venture funded here, in Oklahoma. And then, you know, I, you know, I also –We worked with the venture funds with I2E. They put money in Alkami. So, but when we built Webcast, you know, that was a different kind of situation, right?
00:16:19:09 – 00:16:42:29
Scott Klososky
And so when we built Webcast, again, Chisholm put money in that, but we ended up taking a lot more money from funds around the country. So we took, we ended up raising over $30 million for Webcast and then ended up not taking it. We didn’t close because after we raised it all right before we closed, we were able to sell the company.
00:16:43:01 – 00:17:00:22
Scott Klososky
So, you know, and then I went on to raise money again, you know, in Oklahoma, when we were doing the turnaround on critical technologies. And then we raised money again, you know when we did Alkami. So I’ve had a lot of experience over three decades raising money. I think your question was, how has it changed?
00:17:00:22 – 00:17:32:29
Scott Klososky
It’s changed a lot. The kinds of contracts in term sheets that you got in ’88 were different than ’98, different than 2008, you know, so the people who now provide money, the term sheets are they’re… they have many more interesting things in them, and are much more dangerous now to sign. You know, you have to be very careful as an entrepreneur what you’re signing away. So it’s evolve
00:17:33:02 – 00:17:39:04
Cody Merrill
Fascinating. Can you share more about what you’re currently working on with Future Point Of View?
00:17:39:06 – 00:17:56:11
Scott Klososky
Well, the entrepreneurial thing that we’ve done with Future Point Of View. Future Point Of View is a 20-year-old digital strategy firm now, right? And so it’s a consulting firm that my wife and I started 20 years ago, and we’ve had it all along, and it’s a great boutique digital strategy firm with clients all around the country.
00:17:56:11 – 00:18:27:07
Scott Klososky
A lot of fun. We love it, and it just continues to grow. Well, the intriguing thing is I wasn’t sure I was going to do another startup ever again, but we got hired by a client at FPOV to build an entity in the payroll benefits space around cybersecurity. And we built the entity for them. And then we thought, wait a minute, we could build this entity in other industries, so we spun that company out of FPOV.
00:18:27:09 – 00:18:41:29
Scott Klososky
So now I’m back, you know, doing another quote-unquote startup with what’s called industry defenders. So it’s like building NATO-like organizations inside of industries to help the whole industry protect itself from on-cyber.
00:18:42:02 – 00:18:49:25
Cody Merrill
The entrepreneur in me would be remiss not to ask some just basic questions from you about how to be a great entrepreneur.
00:18:49:25 – 00:18:51:00
Scott Klososky
Sure.
00:18:51:00 – 00:18:55:09
Cody Merrill
How do you hire?
00:18:55:15 – 00:19:17:12
Scott Klososky
We, I mean, we ask, you know, probably some of the normal questions that you would need to ask to see if somebody has got the skills for what they do. What might be unique about us is we ask some pretty interesting questions that are riddles to see how people think. And so, you know, this is something that, you know, Google has done, or Apple does.
00:19:17:15 – 00:19:35:14
Scott Klososky
So it’s not like we’re magically doing it. We have our own set of questions that we’ve kind of invented that we ask that are difficult riddles to solve necessarily for some people. And we just see what people’s reactions are and how well they can think through solving these riddles. I think that’s one thing I would tell you.
00:19:35:14 – 00:19:57:23
Scott Klososky
The other thing I would tell you is we try to be really close observers of who people are, not just their skills. DNA. I’m never been a big mission-vision-values person. I am huge on DNA. Like when we build an organization, what is the DNA of that organization, and what is the DNA of the people we need to work there.
00:19:57:26 – 00:20:22:28
Scott Klososky
And so, we’re really big on evaluating people from are they a fit from a DNA standpoint. And so, you know, that’s something that took me a long time to learn. Building startups is, hey, like in the early days, now a building industry defenders, there’s a certain type of person with a certain type of DNA we need. Hard worker, very multiple use, you know, can do many different things, very humble.
00:20:22:28 – 00:20:46:26
Scott Klososky
You know, they don’t need a parking lot out front. They’re willing to do anything it takes to succeed. Very good problem solvers, very high IQ, right? Ability to handle themselves well under stress. So, in the early days of a startup, there’s a certain type of psychological profile that we’re probably hiring for. As the company goes through stages, that DNA changes.
00:20:46:26 – 00:21:16:06
Scott Klososky
Right? And the profile that we would hire for starts to change. And so, you know, we could talk for a long time about hiring, but that’s something that at this stage of being, you know, doing entrepreneurism after decades of it, hiring is a big thing I’ve made. There was one company I started. I hired the wrong people and ended up shutting it down and losing a quarter million dollars on it out of my own pocket.
00:21:16:08 – 00:21:39:26
Scott Klososky
One of my failures, one that, you know, my wife and I talked about for years, you know, because it was it was my fault. It was a decent idea for a business, but I didn’t hire the right people for it. It’s a quarter-million-dollar lesson. So, you know, I think hiring is absolutely critical. You can have the best idea in the world. You can have the best founder, and then the founder surrounds themselves with the wrong team. It’s going to fail.
00:21:46:18 – 00:22:10:14
Cody Merrill
Something that will always stand out to me about our interaction today was something that happened on the way to the studio from the front door where you were asking me. You had seen on LinkedIn that I knew somebody who had applied for an internship with your company, and you wanted like an analysis of what I thought about them. And it just really struck me that somebody at your stature, at your point in your career, takes that level of interest of who was summer intern us.
00:22:23:19 – 00:22:48:24
Scott Klososky
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I –That’s probably indicative of how important I think the team is to getting something off the ground. I’ve done it well, and I’ve done it poorly. You know, the nice thing about being a repeat entrepreneur who’s failed at some things and done well at some things is you can’t help but learn some lessons.
00:22:48:24 – 00:23:10:21
Scott Klososky
And team is important. And I mean all the way up and down, team is important. I don’t care whether it’s an intern or whether it’s the CFO. I mean, everybody on the team, to me is equal importance. You know, I’m not a –I don’t believe in higher hierarchy. I believe in holacracy. So I don’t believe in org charts, you know, that are pyramid org charts.
00:23:10:21 – 00:23:31:15
Scott Klososky
I never do one. All my org charts are round, you know. So, you know, I believe the team is an absolutely critical component. And as an investor, I mean, you’re Cortado, you know. I know you all feel the same way that it isn’t just about your plan, your business plan, you know, all that is your technology.
00:23:31:18 – 00:23:49:24
Scott Klososky
I know you feel the same way that you believe in things like Hey, we’ve been on the jockey, not the horse. That means hiring becomes absolutely critical. I mean, if we hire the wrong people, they’re just distracting; it wastes time, they drag other people down. If we hire the right people, we can completely focus on the mission.
00:23:49:26 – 00:23:58:28
Cody Merrill
Over the course of your career, what are the best ways that you have spent money, and what are the worst ways that you have spent money?
00:23:59:00 – 00:24:07:14
Scott Klososky
Oh, great question. I think the best way we spent money is bringing in the right people. I mean, sometimes I’ve been…
00:24:07:14- 00:24:08:28
Cody Merrill
So, paying.
00:24:08:28 – 00:24:28:14
Scott Klososky
Yeah, I’ve overpaid. I say overpaid. I’ve overpaid in my grew up poor. That is… right? I’m sure that, no, they didn’t think they were overpaid, right? But part of the problem when you grow up poor is, you know it when somebody says they want, you know, a six-digit number like, my gosh, that’s so much money.
00:24:28:16 – 00:24:48:20
Scott Klososky
I think I think some of the best things we ever did with investment was some of the people that we brought in who we probably paid more than we thought, but they were really good at what they did, you know? And I think some of the worse things we did with money were probably a combination of mis-hiring, right?
00:24:48:20 – 00:25:11:13
Scott Klososky
You know, hiring too fast and getting sloppy, right? And bringing in people that we were that were soaking up salary and weren’t really doing a whole lot. But then also I would just say we probably burned a lot of money in marketing or branding and not doing it right, you know like we just didn’t really have a good sense of the brand and didn’t have a good sense of what the best marketing was.
00:25:11:16 – 00:25:36:18
Scott Klososky
So we put, you know, we would put a decent amount of money and effort into outreach, you know, or demand generation. And do, did that wrong. And I think that’s something that now, much later in my career, having learned a lot of lessons, I’m a lot better at not wasting money on how to do demand generation. But I think that’s probably where I have wasted money before.
00:25:36:20 – 00:25:43:19
Cody Merrill
What do you know now about demand generation that just dramatically solves the problem?
00:25:43:21 – 00:26:06:23
Scott Klososky
I think, you know, finding better, faster, inexpensive ways to build relationships, you know, for example, I’m on the speaker circuit. There’s nothing better to create demand than speaking. When you get up in front of an audience, and you’ve got 200 people, and you’re the expert at something that is the best inexpensive way, in fact, I get paid to create demand, right?
00:26:06:23 – 00:26:34:02
Scott Klososky
So, you know, I’ve learned things like, well, speaking in front of an audience is the absolute most cost-effective, best way to create demand, you know, because it’s the fastest way to build relationships and to build authority in a space or, you know, around an idea. You know, and I’ve also learned a lot, like, don’t spend tons of money on your look and feel and logo and, you know, building, you know, the world’s best website.
00:26:34:02 – 00:26:57:18
Scott Klososky
And, you know, you don’t have to spend a ton of money on that kind of thing to build your brand. And I think I’ve also learned that your brand isn’t what you say you are. Your brand is what you show people you are. And so I’ve just learned lessons like that about demand generation. At the end of the day, you generate demand because of the relationships that you build with and customers. If you’re B2C or with other companies, if you’re B2B, it’s a lot about how can I build really good relationships as fast as possible and build trust for what I do.
00:27:08:07 – 00:27:37:24
Cody Merrill
In the early days of a startup, there’s a critical period where if you get the foundation wrong, then even a good idea, a good team pretty much are going to be doomed for failure. How do you think about getting all of the early things right, dividing the equity accurately, the capital constraint in the early days with those early hires, who’s a co-founder, who’s not a co-founder?
00:27:37:27 – 00:28:00:13
Cody Merrill
And then, in terms of seniority, from my experience, it’s like you need those early people to be senior because you don’t –Because you can’t pay to train them. And then you can get by with some lower-level talent that can be overseen by more experienced people down the line. But to get those senior people up front, you have to pay for it. They have lots of other –There’s a high opportunity cost. How do you navigate all those little things to make sure it’s lined up and has a good chance for long-term success?
00:28:13:20 – 00:28:40:02
Scott Klososky
Well, complex question because as soon as you said you have to build a foundation, I, I’m agree with you completely is no one’s ever built a successful organization without building a really good foundation. And you crossed a few topics. You talked about people, right? So, building a foundation with the right people, you talked about incentives, like do they get ownership?
00:28:40:02 – 00:29:12:13
Scott Klososky
Do they get equity? You know, what’s their incentive, you know, to help build this thing? That’s a piece of a foundation. The legal structure is a piece of the foundation. How you fund something is a huge part of the foundation, whether that’s angel or venture or your own credit cards. When we build Webcast, I’ll just tell you, I’ve got so many stories I could tell you, but when we were building Webcast, we brought in a CFO, and he was a very professional CFO who is older than me.
00:29:12:15 – 00:29:28:01
Scott Klososky
And when I was young, I did that. I mean, that was a good match. Is bringing an older CFO keep me under control. We would always talk about the tail and the kite. Right? I was the kite. He was the tail. And neither of us could get along without each other. Without him, I would fly high and crash.
00:29:28:01 – 00:29:51:08
Scott Klososky
Without me, he couldn’t get off the ground. So we were, you know, it’s always a great match for me to have an older conservative CFO, right? But I will never forget when we were building Webcast, it started to take off and like we needed a lot of capital, and we weren’t generating as much revenue, and we had to buy, one day, we had to buy some racks of computers.
00:29:51:08 – 00:30:05:22
Scott Klososky
And he says, okay, I figured out how to buy it. I’m like, Well, how did you figure out how to buy those? And he goes, Well, I put them on your credit card. And I said, Really? Well, that was a lot of money to put on my credit card. Like which credit card? He goes, Well, these are credit cards you don’t know about.
00:30:05:24 – 00:30:26:12
Scott Klososky
Like, these are all credit cards that you have. They’re in your name, you know, but you don’t have them in your hand. And I said, well, how many of these credit cards do you have? And he said, about 40 of them. So he had funded a chunk of the company growth on 40 credit cards that were all in my name, by the way.
00:30:26:14 – 00:30:55:12
Scott Klososky
And I’m not that I’m saying we should do that. I’m just trying to tell you, like, foundation-wise, you know, you have to have your capital structure in place of, okay, well, how am I even going to fund, you know, this growth? So there’s a lot to building a foundation well. And when you say how, you need to have some really good advice, like if you’re a young entrepreneur, you need some really good advice, like get a board around you as fast as possible that knows what they’re doing.
00:30:55:15 – 00:31:10:16
Scott Klososky
You know, don’t wait too long. I find young people sometimes wait way too long to put an advisory board together. It’s like you need to get an advisory board together as fast as you can of some people older who have been around. You can help you build that foundation right.
00:31:10:18 – 00:31:18:04
Cody Merrill
Should those be compensated? Advisory positions? What’s your opinion on advisory shares?
00:31:18:06 – 00:31:35:10
Scott Klososky
You know, I think you can go either way. I mean, you can give people 2% of your organization if they stay for three years. I mean, you can do that kind of model. People have done that with me, and it’s –I’ve made this amount of money when people give me equity in being on their board for a little while. That’s a model.
00:31:35:12 – 00:31:51:25
Scott Klososky
But there’s also models where you just pay them because you don’t want to give the equity away. Your deal is too good, and you have cash, and so you just want to pay for that advice. So you just pay them per board meeting. Great. Or it’s a combination of those two things. I think it just depends on where you are with capital.
00:31:51:27 – 00:32:06:19
Scott Klososky
If you don’t have any capital, and that’s part of what you’re trying to build as a foundation, then you have to give these people equity but make them earn it over three years. Make them attend the meetings. If they don’t attend the meetings, then you cut them off and they don’t get all the equity.
00:32:06:21 – 00:32:11:02
Cody Merrill
So, I have a very clear agreement with deliverables and expectations.
00:32:11:02 – 00:32:25:28
Scott Klososky
A clear written agreement. Don’t set up an advisory board without a signed agreement of what it is to be on that board to be an advisor. If you miss X amount of meetings a year, you’re automatically off like. Just have some rules.
00:32:26:00 – 00:32:40:04
Cody Merrill
What’s the archetype of a perfect early, early-stage startup board member? Do you want a founder? Do you want one of your investors? Do you want somebody who’s rich? What do you want?
00:32:40:07 – 00:32:59:07
Scott Klososky
Well, I mean, those things are nice. I guess what I would say the profile it depends on the industry you’re in. It depends on how much you need some industry expertise, you know, versus just need money. But if you’re going to put three together, I always think in terms of three, like I want three outside board members, right to be advisors.
00:32:59:09 – 00:33:23:16
Scott Klososky
I would like one person who could be helpful with money. I would like one person who could be helpful with whatever we’re building, the industry, the technology. And then I’d like one person who might have some other skill like it’s a lawyer, right? Or it’s an accountant, or it’s a, you know, somebody else that has built or seen things be built, and they have some other skill that could be useful.
00:33:23:19 – 00:33:34:24
Scott Klososky
So I just think in terms of three, like give me three. I don’t want five; I don’t want ten. Just give me three in the early days who have a mix of skills like that. And that’s that’s a good advisory board.
00:33:34:24 – 00:33:38:00
Cody Merrill
But okay, advisory board or board of directors.
00:33:38:05 – 00:33:53:27
Scott Klososky
It just depends on what I’m doing. Generally, I’m going to start with just an advisory board, not a true board of directors, because I probably started the company as an LLC. And so I don’t need a board board right yet. I just need an advisory board.
00:33:54:01 – 00:33:57:15
Cody Merrill
And a functional capacity. Someone who can help you win.
00:33:57:16 – 00:34:08:21
Scott Klososky
Yeah. I don’t want to buy DNO for him. I don’t want to do any of that, so I just want to early advisory board. Later, it might become a much more formal board, but not in the first few years.
00:34:08:24 – 00:34:32:28
Cody Merrill
Right. So, going forward, what are the types of things that need to happen in Oklahoma startup ecosystem to launch us to prominence in the discussion of non-coastal VC in general? Then, like, Hey, this is a hotspot. Stuff is happening here.
00:34:33:00 – 00:34:59:16
Scott Klososky
I’m going to give you two answers to that question. One that won’t surprise you, one that might, you know. Obviously, having a good capital path, you know, that entrepreneurs can walk is something that is needed. I mean, there has to be, there has to be incubator money, there has to be startup money. You know, there’s got to be, you know, A round.
00:34:59:16 – 00:35:19:17
Scott Klososky
I mean, there has to be this path that can allow somebody who wants to be an entrepreneur, you know, to come up that path or somebody who already is an entrepreneur or maybe a repeater to jump in in the middle of that path and get what they want. In ’88, there weren’t people here that I could work with.
00:35:19:18 – 00:36:01:22
Scott Klososky
All right? Now there are. In 2010, my issue was there wasn’t the amount of money here I needed. So with Alkami, we needed –I mean; eventually, there was $200 billion put into Alkami before it went public, right? We didn’t have that mezzanine kind of financing capability here in Oklahoma. So the money is a side of this. We’ve always known that, and we all talk about that. And really, like, thank the Lord Cortado is here and thank the Lord that you all are here and that you’re doing what you’re doing and that you’re playing the role that you’re and you’re good at what you do. Like, that is fantastic for the ecosystem.
00:36:01:25 – 00:36:29:07
Scott Klososky
So, about the other thing. What we need to do a better job of here is how to grow entrepreneurs as human beings. You know, you asked some questions early on about who am I, you know, and how did I came up and how did I become who the OG, you know, the peak person that I am. I’ve taught courses on entrepreneurism.
00:36:29:09 – 00:36:53:11
Scott Klososky
When I taught those courses, the first thing that I taught was what it takes from a human level to be an entrepreneur. As a human being. We don’t talk about that enough, and we don’t teach that enough, and we don’t help young entrepreneurs enough with the human side of it. Building a company is one of the most brutal emotional experiences that there are.
00:36:53:13 – 00:37:22:09
Scott Klososky
I think you probably know this. There are more divorces in entrepreneurs than just about anything else. And it’s because either you are successful, but you completely bailed on your family and your wife or husband. And so then you go on to marry somebody else, or you fail, and your spouse leaves you because you’re a failure. So, the divorce rate of entrepreneurs is unbelievable.
00:37:22:12 – 00:37:51:05
Scott Klososky
The depression rates, the alcohol and drugs. Like if you look at the mental health issues that entrepreneurs have, it’s incredible. And I’m talking about whether they succeed or don’t succeed. So, the path of building a company, I always try to explain it to people like this. I talk to young entrepreneurs, and they act to me like they’re going to play golf for hours out in the sun with my friends dressed nice at a country club.
00:37:51:08 – 00:38:11:19
Scott Klososky
This is what building a company is like. And what I have to say is, no, it’s like bull riding or rugby, which I’ve done both. When you do bullriding or rugby, you get hurt every time you do it. You could ride for eight seconds and win the money. You get hurt riding that eight seconds. When you play rugby, I don’t care whether you win or lose. You are bruised when you’re done with that game.
00:38:11:22 – 00:38:53:12
Scott Klososky
That’s what being an entrepreneur is like. It is tough. It is a difficult mental and emotional ride. It breaks people. Most people that fail at the first one can’t come back, and we don’t talk about this a whole lot, and we don’t have a lot of resources to help young entrepreneurs understand the mental and emotional game. In a world now where we have the highest mental health issues we ever had, highest amount of suicides that we’ve ever had, we have more people committing suicide than being murdered or killed in wars right now. In this environment going forward, Cody, I think we have to do a better job in Oklahoma of serving both of these things.
00:38:53:12 – 00:39:21:16
Scott Klososky
We need Cortado to do what you’re doing with capital. We need that badly, and we need the state to help, and we need others to help. If we don’t deal with how to help entrepreneurs with the mental and emotional game, we won’t grow successful entrepreneurs. And now we can look at the coasts. When you said the coasts, I can look at Silicon Valley and let’s go look at how mentally healthy, you know, some of these entrepreneurs are.
00:39:21:19 – 00:39:42:21
Scott Klososky
Let’s go look at how strong they are mentally and emotionally. And what you’re going to see is a few, right? A few that are able to have that strength to get their emotions under control, to do what they need to do. And then you’re going to see a lot of broken people. You’re going to see a lot of successful entrepreneurs who become broken people. So there’s my second piece.
00:39:44:22 – 00:39:47:20
Cody Merrill
Do you make angel investments?
00:39:47:22 – 00:40:09:18
Scott Klososky
Generally, no. My wife and I decided –I mean, I’m 61 now, and my wife and I decided, I don’t know, a few years back, probably when, you know, when Alkami was starting to do real well, we’re like, we’re just going to invest in our own things. We’ll help other people. I’m glad to help somebody else. I would be okay sitting on somebody’s board.
00:40:09:20 – 00:40:25:26
Scott Klososky
But I think we only want to put money into our own things and just bet on ourselves. And it’s nothing personal to anybody else. It has nothing to do with how much money we make, you know? I mean, it isn’t about we could put money into something else and make a whole bunch because people will pitch that to us.
00:40:25:28 – 00:40:44:12
Scott Klososky
It isn’t about making money now for us. We’ve made what we need. So, you know, if we’re going to put money to work, we only put it to work on our own things. But I don’t want to say that like, you know, we don’t care about other people generally. It’s just a business decision for she and I at the moment.
00:40:44:15 – 00:40:53:07
Cody Merrill
Okay, but an investment of your time is arguably more valuable to an entrepreneur than the capital.
00:40:53:13 – 00:40:54:13
Scott Klososky
Exactly.
00:40:54:15 – 00:41:05:12
Cody Merrill
How do you decide? What do you look for in an entrepreneur that tells you this is a worthwhile investment of your time?
00:41:05:14 – 00:41:30:09
Scott Klososky
A business that I think has the, you know, the potential to really be successful and somebody who is open to feedback. In an industry, if it is also in an industry where the thing that they’re doing is going to be helpful to the world, that’s a bit of a bonus, you know, because the businesses we build, they’ll make a lot of money, but they’re not going to help the human race.
00:41:30:11 – 00:41:51:28
Scott Klososky
You know, the, the Startup Industry defender’s obviously part of the reason I came off the bench is that’s building defenses that help the world, that help different industries. And that’s what attracted me to that. So, it’s the same thing with entrepreneurs. If you’re building something that I think could help the world, you know, you actually are open to feedback. You know, and I like the plan, you know, then that’s something I’m interested in getting involved in.
00:41:56:23 – 00:42:21:25
Cody Merrill
On a tactical level, you’re in the heat of battle in business. You’re trying to get a customer to reply to your email. Once you’ve had some level of dialog, you’re trying to get a response; you’re trying to get an investor to give you a response. How do you tactfully manage a follow-up to motivate somebody to do what you need them to do?
00:42:21:27 – 00:42:37:17
Scott Klososky
I do something different than everybody else does. I stand out. So if I really wanted to get somebody’s attention, I’m going to mail something to their house, like I’m going to mail something interesting to their house, I’m going to do something that nobody else does to get that person’s attention.
00:42:37:17 – 00:42:40:17
Cody Merrill
And how often do you go to that level?
00:42:40:19 – 00:43:03:05
Scott Klososky
I don’t have to now that much in my career, but I have a much better network now, and I have more authority now that if I reach out to somebody, they look online like I notice on LinkedIn, I talk to I, I, I’m trying to partner with a CEO of a $150 billion bank or a very large bank.
00:43:03:07 – 00:43:22:27
Scott Klososky
And I was able to go have a meeting with him in Denver, and I noticed that he went over my website, he went over my LinkedIn profile. I mean, I saw him go to everything after that and maybe did it before, I don’t know. But I’m just in a different place now. But when I was younger, I had to do that a lot.
00:43:23:00 – 00:43:41:21
Scott Klososky
You know, where I would try to say, this person’s not responding to me, all right, I’m going to send something to their house. Like an interesting gift, something that relates to what I’m trying to accomplish, and just put a handwritten note in it and just say, Hey, I’m trying to get your attention because I want to talk to you about such and such.
00:43:41:24 – 00:44:01:04
Scott Klososky
You know, please, you know, see this gift as, you know, just sharing with you, you know, how much I would like to talk with you. You know, when I don’t send something goofy, like I send something intriguing to them. But every once in a while, now, all I have to do is find somebody to introduce me to that person.
00:44:01:06 – 00:44:12:19
Scott Klososky
And so that’s how I would do it: you either get on LinkedIn, or I would find somebody who might be able to introduce me to that person. And then, I try to have them do a warm introduction.
00:44:12:22 – 00:44:24:22
Cody Merrill
What would your teammates over the years say would be your superpower or superpowers as a founder and operator?
00:44:24:24 – 00:44:42:07
Scott Klososky
Scott Klososky
I’ll say some really basic, like hard work. I mean, I work really hard. I do what I say I’m going to do. I mean, I meet commitments. I mean, people who work for me, if you ask anyone, they’re going to say, Yeah, he works really hard. He does what he says he’s going to do, and he’s kind of clever. Like he’s clever.
00:44:42:07 – 00:45:05:08
Scott Klososky
I will come up with solutions or come up with directions that most normal human beings don’t. And that’s –I know my team at Future Point Of View. If you ask them, they’d say, yeah, he’s a great speaker and some things like that. I can communicate well. But it’s all about the dude works hard, you know, he does everything he says he’s going to do.
00:45:05:11 – 00:45:34:05
Scott Klososky
You know, you can trust him, but also, like, he’s clever, like he is. He goes and does things other people don’t do. Like right now, I can do things with AI that most humans can’t do with my own hands. And you know, I don’t know if people notice that about, you know. All right, well, your solution to that problem is something I’ve never seen before, or you’re able –I’m able to think in white space better than a lot of other people are.
00:45:34:07 – 00:45:54:24
Cody Merrill
With all of these talents, how do you spend your time? Roughly how many hours a week do you work? How do you allocate them across all the different types of businesses’ functional capacity? And then what are the best hours that you spend? What are the highest returning hours you spend professionally?
00:45:54:27 – 00:46:26:11
Scott Klososky
I probably work 50 hours. It depends on what you call work, right? I probably work 50 hours. Just work like meetings, speaking, you know, client work. You know, work. I probably spend another 20 hours a week learning, and I don’t know whether you want to call that work or not, but learning and some of that learning about business things, some of that growing as a human being.
00:46:26:14 – 00:46:51:21
Scott Klososky
So, I have a river of information into my brain. It’s about half personal growth and half business growth. So right now, it’s heavy on a lot of AI, a lot of quantum computing, a lot of digital risk management, right? So, my river changes all the time, but I have a heavy amount that I read on those topics to keep me where I want to be and what I’m doing right now.
00:46:51:24 – 00:47:15:01
Scott Klososky
And then the other half is more all personal growth, like just how to be a better human being, how to be more enlightened, you know, a lot of philosophy, a lot of religion, right? So I have a river divided in half, half personal half business, and that’s 20 hours a week. And then I would say, you know, the rest of the time is exercising, spending time with family.
00:47:15:03 – 00:47:42:21
Scott Klososky
You know, there’s other things I can do, and off and on I might do them. I love music. You know, I make fountain pens by hand, like there are other things I do, but it just depends on where I am. And right now, I’m busy building, you know, Future Point Of View. But now also Industry Defenders. So I don’t have like hobbies at the moment, right? This I, I do those things I learn spend time with my family and you know, be healthy, exercise. That’s it.
00:47:42:23 – 00:48:18:14
Cody Merrill
And then, when you’re at work working with your team, what are the most impactful hours that you spend? Is it the Whiteboarding sessions where you get everybody together, and you’re the maestro and kind of orchestrate the conversation, and then the end product is greater than the sum of the parts? Is it the way that you delegate to the team they report to you? And is it the managerial meetings, or I guess you have sort of a flat organization, but how do you think about it? Is it documents you’re putting together? What are the best hours?
00:48:18:14 – 00:48:43:11
Scott Klososky
So you hit it. It’s absolutely not having meetings. For me, it’s the two things I love the most of working with the team are doing creative things. So, at the whiteboard, trying to figure things out that other people have never figured out or trying to develop intellectual property that is not been developed before. I love creating something that’s never been done before or creating intellectual property that’s not really out there.
00:48:43:13 – 00:49:04:00
Scott Klososky
I love that. And then physically creating the delivery of the whatever it is, whether those are slides or recording videos in our studio, podcasts, right? So, creating the intellectual property and then delivering the intellectual property are the two things I absolutely love.
00:49:04:03 – 00:49:12:27
Cody Merrill
For founders that you work with or just advice in general, what would you say spend more time doing this, less time doing that?
00:49:12:29 – 00:49:41:03
Scott Klososky
I would spend more time growing yourself personally and growing your capabilities as a human being. Absolutely spend more time doing that. There will be tough days. What’s your capacity to get over the tough days? There will be tough problems to solve. Tough economies, tough people issues. What is your ability to survive and to get past those? That’s a human thing, like building your resilience up, building your knowledge level.
00:49:41:06 – 00:50:02:27
Scott Klososky
That’s number one. That I would say. And people just don’t pay enough attention to those things. So when the hard days come, or the hard problems have to be solved, they crumble. You know, they just don’t have the internal capabilities to win the game, right? So that’s number one for me of what you should do. Number two is capital.
00:50:02:27 – 00:50:54:10
Scott Klososky
You better have the money around that you need, right? You just got to have the capital. That’s the number one reason bankruptcy attorneys tell you that people fail is they don’t have the capital. So you got to have those two things. The thing that I would say don’t spend as much money time on, I think sometimes people spend way too much time overthinking their business plan or too many meetings, you know, making some decisions like marketing decisions, you know, or outreach decisions or, you know, sometimes people burn a lot of energy on things on that side as opposed to these critical things of building yourself up, having capital, hiring the right people. That’s where you got to focus. A lot of these other things aren’t as critical.
00:50:54:12 – 00:51:03:28
Cody Merrill
How have you pulled yourself up out of your lowest emotional points over your entrepreneurial journey?
00:51:04:00 – 00:51:34:14
Scott Klososky
Well, that’s a great question. I’ve thought so much about the low days, and how did I bounce back or how did I survive? And honestly, there were sometimes ways that I got through bad days that were unhealthy. So when I was young, you know, I drank a lot, for example. So, in the early days, when things were painful or I was under a high amount of stress, I might try to numb it in some way, right?
00:51:34:14 – 00:51:57:17
Scott Klososky
So there were the unhealthy ways. But if you want me to tell you the more healthy ways, I don’t know. On really bad days, I think I have always been able to say to myself, You have to keep your head down and keep hustling, right? I mean, if I don’t keep my head down and keep hustling, I certainly will die.
00:51:57:20 – 00:52:40:25
Scott Klososky
And so I know it looks bleak right now. I know it looks dark. Not hustling and just curling up in a corner. Ain’t going to do it. So what can you go hustle and do right now? And the sun will come out like, you know, the sun will come out. But there were times, I mean, where I might go through a whole year that was dark, I guess a whole year of darkness. I mean, I spent a whole year in lawsuits one time, you know, that where I was sued, you know, companies were trying to bankrupt me. I mean, it was. And I was 30 years old. I mean, and, you know, that was one of those times where I just kept getting up every day. And I just said I’m not going to quit.
00:52:40:25 – 00:52:58:02
Scott Klososky
I’m just not going to do it. And it’s funny because once you do that once, it builds up resilience. You know that, okay, now when I hit the bad time again, I know. All right. Well, I got through that last one. I can get through this one. But there is a certain amount of just don’t quit of just hustle.
00:52:58:04 – 00:53:20:04
Scott Klososky
And that’s kind of, I guess, how home wired is, no matter how dark and how bleak it is, I just refuse to kind of quit and give up because I don’t see how that’s going to help me ever. Is ever going to help get better. I just –You know, the Bible has the passage about if you’re going through the valley of the shadow of the death, you’re like, keep going. I think that’s how I feel.
00:53:20:06 – 00:53:51:03
Cody Merrill
So how would you prescriptively advise other entrepreneurs who may not have the same self-confidence, who may not have the track record that you developed over the course of your career that you can fall back on to know that you are a confident, competent, successful person? Like, how does the first-time founder who hasn’t really made it yet find solace in the fact that they are worthy of their journey?
00:53:51:06 – 00:54:08:20
Scott Klososky
I’ll take a quick story, and I’ll answer that question. One time, when I was teaching a course on entrepreneurship, the first day I had everybody, we went around the room and I asked everybody, What is it you need most? What is it that you need most to succeed? Just tell me. Get across the table. I’ll never forget this.
00:54:08:20 – 00:54:35:03
Scott Klososky
There’s a gentleman and he looks at me, and he starts to cry and he said, I just need my wife to love me. I’ll never forget that. He just needed somebody to believe in him and somebody to love him. Whether he succeeded or failed. For an entrepreneur to get through dark days, you need to have somebody around you, you know, or somebodies around you who will lift you up no matter what.
00:54:35:05 – 00:54:56:12
Scott Klososky
You know, somebody who will love you no matter what. You have to have that because sometimes you can’t just do it yourself. You do need somebody else. I don’t care whether it’s a mentor or a spouse, or a family member. You know, you’ve got to have somebody who will love you and believe in you whether you succeed or fail. And if you have that, I think it helps.
00:54:56:14 – 00:55:34:25
Cody Merrill
Okay. Last question for you. How do you maintain objectivity when, as an entrepreneur, inherently you have rose-colored glasses, and you think you can achieve anything or else you would have gone a more conventional path, but you don’t want to delude yourself because then you’re not giving your self the best chance of winning. How do you hold yourself accountable day in and day out to loving the truth, pursuing the truth, and not being in love with the fact that it was your idea you had yesterday?
00:55:34:27 – 00:55:55:09
Scott Klososky
Again, you know, it’s such a good question. I mean, I’ve done it all right. I’ve deluded myself and been over in love with my ideas before. And then they didn’t work, you know? And then I’ve been in love with some ideas that were way out of their time. And I was like, too early, you know, into things.
00:55:55:12 – 00:56:35:17
Scott Klososky
I think this is where having sounding boards around you, you know, that, that you can listen to. But I don’t advise that you just do what everybody tells you. You know, I’m not that kind of person. I mean, if I believe I should go right, and everyone else tells me, go left, I still will be okay going right, you know, But I think I’m more willing now to go, okay, wait a minute. Why are all these people telling me right now to go left? I’m more willing to look now in the mirror and go, okay, well, maybe I started down the road, and now I’m so in love with the road, but, you know, I’m getting a lot of feedback that I’m doing this wrong or the wrong road. Maybe I should listen a little more.
00:56:35:19 – 00:57:11:03
Scott Klososky
So I think, you know, but who you’re getting that feedback from is really, really important. You know, I mean: make sure when you’re getting feedback, you have a level of trust for who you’re getting that feedback from. And then the only other thing I would say is just be willing to admit that you’re wrong sometimes, even if you’ve gone seven steps down the road. You know, you hear so much now about people pivoting, and what I like about a pivot is that somebody starts down the road and then, you know, figures out that, hey, maybe we should tweak this and go a different direction, and it’s okay to do that.
00:57:11:07 – 00:57:33:14
Scott Klososky
It’s okay to you believe in something, but now you’re going to slide it over into something else. I mean, we have so much history of that. You know, the guys that built Twitter, they had gotten, what, $50 Million or something to build a podcast platform and it wasn’t going well. And they built Twitter as just an internal tool for them to talk to each other because they were in different cities.
00:57:33:16 – 00:57:55:15
Scott Klososky
And then they eventually just said, This podcast platform isn’t going to work. And then they pivoted to this technology that no one had ever seen before and 140 characters or whatever. And, you know, and then that’s born. So I think you just have to have a willingness sometimes to look in the mirror and go, okay, well, maybe it’s time to try something else.
00:57:55:17 – 00:58:12:19
Cody Merrill
Wow. Thank you so much to this guy for this incredible conversation. I know that all the founders in Oklahoma look up to you and what you’ve been able to achieve here. And it’s just so great that we’re able to benefit from your wisdom.
00:58:12:19 – 00:58:19:03
Scott Klososky
Cody, I enjoyed all the questions. It was fun talking to you. And again, I love what Cortado is doing and so. Just keep doing more of it.
00:58:19:06 – 00:58:20:15
Cody Merrill
All right? Absolutely. Thank you.
00:58:20:22 – 00:58:21:01
Scott Klososky
All right.