The Uber for Homeowners

Dallin (00:02):

Hey, everyone. Welcome to Visionaries, Content Supply, where we believe your powerful message is the best way to grow a visionary business and impact the world we have on, uh, an incredible guest today. Bryan Clayton. Uh, let's bring him on. So what's up, Bryan? How are you doing?

Bryan (00:21):

Hey, what's up, man? It's good to be here!

Dallin (00:23):

Here too, with you. I'm excited to do this. I mean, I, I was looking up stuff about you before this. And one thing that jumped out to me was this idea of being in an adventure. And I, and I, a lot of people say I'm a serial entrepreneur, but you're that, but you're also a serial adventure. So tell us a little bit more about how you've been able to create that kind of lifestyle.

Bryan (00:44):

Yeah. So I came to learn this about two years ago. That for me, travel is, is a part of passion of life for me. Like I, it's just part of why I do what I do now. And it wasn't always that way. Uh, bef about two years ago, my cofounder in GreenPal said, you know what? We've had a great year. Let's just go on like a one month or a two-month trip somewhere. We can still work. We can still do everything we need to do. Uh, but let's just go see Australia and let's just go see what's going on down there. And so I said, you know what? I had never been out of the country. I said, I said, this is crazy. Uh, but you know what we did, we, we doubled that year and we've, we've doubled every year since then, but like the idea of just going on this adventure appeal to me.

Bryan (01:29):

And so we did, we went down to Australia and New Zealand and, and just had a, had a blast. We were still working every day. We were still getting things done, but it was just awesome being in a different culture, a different environment. And, uh, ever since then, I've just been hooked on, on the lifestyle of traveling. I now travel probably half of the year. Um, and I'm always going somewhere and I'm always trying to experience new cultures and new places I've never seen. And so now being at the helm of a digital business, it kind of enables me to do that, enables me to, to go. I just actually got back from Mexico. Uh, I was there for five weeks and, you know, I was still working every day, but, uh, but I, I, I was able, I'm able to see things and enjoy different experiences in different cultures because I'm not chained to a desk.

Bryan (02:15):

Um, and my life hasn't always been that way. The first 15 years of, of, of business, I built a traditional landscaping business, uh, from scratch, uh, just from, from myself in a push mower to over 150 employees. Wow. And that was the type of company that if I went away for longer than a week, I would come back and it wouldn't be there. Like I had to be there every single day, wrangling that business. Uh, but now GreenPal's a much different type of business. It's a digital business, it's a digital platform and I can run it from anywhere. And so, uh, to your point, uh, now becoming like an adventurer to, you know, I'm using air quotes here and just seeing as much of the world as I can and spending as much time out there as I can. It's just a part of my passion life and why I do what I do.

Dallin (03:01):

Oh, I love that. Um, I want to dig into that, but before I want to, I'm going to pull up nuggets from the time B, between you having 150 employees, you know, having that business in place where you guys were cutting grass, essentially, almost everywhere. It sounds like. I mean, that's a lot, that's a lot of, uh, that's a big company, 150 people, um, into getting into the digital space. Like what, what was that catalyst that caused you be like, we got to build a digital platform. We got to make these adjustments. And then, um, what kind of shifts did you see have like needed to happen in order for you to, um, begin to step out of the business more and to feel like, Hey, I can't start traveling and I can do more of these, these things beyond the business.

Bryan (03:47):

Yeah, man, that's, that's a great question. And I'll try to answer it from a highest level as I can. So 15 year, period of time building the first company from zero to 150 people over $10 million a year in revenue, um, running that business was like organized chaos every day. It was very asset intense, very people heavy. Uh, every day there was a hundred problems. Um, and I almost to a degree enjoyed it, uh, because it was just fun, like solving problems on an hourly basis because in every day was different. Um, but I had taken that company as far as I could. I, this was one of the largest landscaping companies in the state of Tennessee. Uh, for me, the next step was going to be to like franchise it or, or, or build a new branch in another major market. And I just didn't have the appetite personally to do that.

Bryan (04:37):

I felt like I had taken the business as far as I could. And so I decided, okay, it's time to start exploring an exit for this company. And from the time I had that notion in my head to the time I actually sold the business was two years. It took two years to get that business sold, but one of the largest landscaping businesses in the United States ended up buying it and kind of putting it into their umbrella, putting it into their organization. And then after that, I kinda, I took some time off and I came to realize something very important about myself was that for me, my business is the forcing function for me to level up in life. It is the thing that causes me to constantly be getting smarter, constantly, uh, be getting to like growing new skills. It's the thing that, that quite honestly offers me humility.

Bryan (05:25):

Um, because growing a business from scratch is one of the most humbling things you can do. Uh, it just makes me a better person. And so I decided, okay, it's time to start the next thing, what should I do? And that was really kind of obvious to me. I saw what Uber and Lyft and Airbnb were doing for analog style, traditional transactions, uh, with ride sharing and accommodations. I thought, okay, this, this platform needs to exist. There needs to be an easier way for homeowners that just need to get a basic lawn mowing service to hire a good local lawn care guy, girl. And I thought, okay, let's just, I'm going to have to recruit two cofounders. Let's go to work, let's start building this thing. As it turned out, uh, if I had known how hard it was going to be, I'd never done it.

Bryan (06:09):

Uh, so, so luckily we all would think that with whatever we're building. Yeah. Luckily for me, I was naive and my two cofounders were naive as well. We, we, uh, we spent like 150, $180,000 paying a local development shop in Nashville to build the first version of GreenPal. And we genuinely believed, we thought that we were going to launch this thing, and then we were going to like market it. And then we would just be off to the races. And that's not how it turned out. Uh, we launched in the summer of launched in the summer of 2013 and, uh, it was crickets. Uh, we, we couldn't get anybody to try to use it. We, we, we had to resort to passing out door hangers all over middle Tennessee, just to beg people to try to use the thing. I think in all, we, we passed that at least a hundred thousand door hangers all over Nashville.

Bryan (07:00):

And even to this day, I could hang one of these door hangers with my eyes closed. I just know, like I have the muscle memory, I've done some of these damn things. And so, and so, uh, we, luckily we were able to get enough people to try to use the platform, to get some early feedback, to understand that, okay, we actually are solving a problem. We are fulfilling a need in the marketplace. Let's keep doing this. And we had to retool as entrepreneurs, as business owners, teaching ourselves the actual skills that we were going to need to design build and distribute software. I didn't know how to do any of this stuff. I spent the last 15 years, uh, building a landscaping business. I mean, if you need me to change a transmission in a truck, I could do that. Like, if you need me to go run a lawnmower, I could do that.

Bryan (07:45):

Uh, I know how to run teams that are doing physical labor, but I don't know the first thing about writing code. I don't know the first thing about, about designing software. And I sure as hell don't know this first thing about digital marketing. And so it took myself and my two cofounders, like two or three years to like learn this stuff. And so we just got in the trenches and started, one of my cofounders, went to software school, uh, my other cofounder. And I studied product and distribution and marketing and PR and all of these like tangible skills that we needed to acquire to like breathe life into this thing. And we just didn't give up. We just kept hacking on it, kept working on it. And I'm talking about six, seven days a week, sometimes a hundred hour weeks. Um, just grinding out those early days to go from zero to one to, to manufacture that momentum was just excruciatingly difficult. But now here we are in year seven, we're doing good. We've, we've got some momentum going we're, we're, we're nationwide. Now. Uh, we have hundreds of thousands of users. Uh, we're going to do $20 million in revenue this year. So things are going well now, but for the first three, five years, it was very much an exercise of faith.

Dallin (08:59):

Yeah. Well, and that's, I mean, I think that's a perfect example of the entrepreneur growth aspect, right? Like, I'm sure there are days you wanted to quit, you know, like I can completely resonate with this story around, like I have experienced in the past coding. And that was part of my major in college. You go, I grew up like you mowing lawns. And so, you know, I know the manual labor side of it, but I'm also in the modem. And now, you know, where I, I also know online business, I tell my wife all the time. I was like, I, I spent a good 10 plus years of my life, um, doing so much manual labor and maintenance. And I appreciate that hard work I put in, but I was like for the rest of my life, I don't need to go buy a lawnmower.

Dallin (09:42):

You know, I don't need to invest in those, those personal assets when, you know, the cost of labor is not super high, uh, let alone, you know, like oftentimes, um, you know, at least I'm sure when you, when I was hired, when we were young and in do mowing lawns doing this service, it was like, I'm asking a local neighbor friend, a kid, right. To, to go do it. And, you know, versus, you know, go hopping on the app, going online and booking someone, right. And the transaction happens all digitally. And it's just a matter, like it's clockwork that you're able to get that kind of thing taken care of, and you don't have to think about it. Um, and especially like, you know, it's interesting, not only, uh, not only do, uh, do you fit so well within this, uh, this online entrepreneur space, obviously with what you built, which is incredible, but also many of us are the ideal client or at least user right. Of wanting to get this service, because we don't want to be the ones necessarily mowing our lawns, you know, or doing that kind of work because we want to either reinvest our time with more growth opportunities in our business or just, you know, family or personal time, like you've done with, uh, the traveling.

Bryan (11:02):

So exactly at the end of the day.

Dallin (11:05):

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah.

Bryan (11:07):

And, uh, to your point, w uh, when we first launched the platform we had, uh, we had, uh, we thought that our ideal homeowner that was going to use it was on the higher end was upper-class was, you know, a million dollar plus homes, uh, the types of people that, that had the disposable income to hire a lawn mowing service. And so when we started passing out flyers, we were hitting these higher end neighborhoods up. What we had to learn the hard way was that that was not our target user. Our target user is a working class. People, people that are working 70, 80 hours a week, uh, just to make ends meet. They don't have time to mow their own yard. And so giving them the access and making it more cost effective for them to hire a lawnmowing service to come every week or every weeks for 30 bucks, that was the inch that we were scratching.

Bryan (11:56):

That was the problem that we were solving. And even to this day, more than half of our users are, are more on the, on the working class side of, of folks. The people that, that don't necessarily have like, you know, a million dollar house, but they have a house with a yard and they realize that they would rather pay somebody $30 to go cut the grass than do it themselves. And also understand that by the time you buy a lawn mower, maintain it, you know, store it, uh, take three hours to mow your own yard. You're actually making less than minimum wage. And so we free them up to do whatever it is they want to do, or whatever is a higher and better use of their time. That is the, the value proposition for GreenPal. And we didn't know that when we first got started.

Bryan (12:38):

And so, like, that's an important lesson for anybody getting started in any business is you start off with a set of assumptions, but you have to validate those and you have to test those and you have to like, prove yourself wrong. And it, and if we hadn't gone through the effort of passing out a hundred thousand door hangers in middle Tennessee, we had never known that. Sadly, we had to go through that pain to learn that, no, this is not our user. This is actually our user it's on this side of town. It's not on this side of town. And so we don't pass out door hangers anymore, but that's something we had to do in the early days to get the momentum going and to start learning, not necessarily, not only getting a few hundred people to use the platform, but learning about who they are, what problem is, is it that they're looking to solve?

Bryan (13:21):

What problems did we think they had, but they actually don't. There was another key lesson that we learned in those early days was we thought we, our value proposition was to be the cheapest grass cutting service that you can hire. Uh, because in my, in my tenure, in the landscaping business, you look at it from a contractor side, you're thinking, Oh man, it's just all about price. Everybody just wants the cheapest service. They can get. What we actually learned was after talking to the first hundred, 200 people that use the platform was that they just wanted somebody to come out fast and reliably. They didn't necessarily want the cheapest when they, when they are looking for a lawnmower service it's because the grass is four feet tall. They just want somebody to come today or latest tomorrow morning, mow the grass, get it under control and do it, and actually show up. That's the problem that we were solving. And still to this day, reliability and speed are, are a bigger thrust for our value proposition than the price necessarily is.

Dallin (14:16):

Yeah. Well, and I would say most businesses, it would be the case, right? Because value versus price is so subjective where people are going to value the convenience. I mean, I look at that, you know, I think, I think GreenPal's has been compared to like the Uber for home service, professional homeowners and home homeless service professionals and, and Uber is kind of that same experience where you want to pay for the convenience of not having certain assets or having certain worries. Um, and, uh, and so for you, what the, um, what was the moment they're like, okay, this is starting to catch on, we're seeing this momentum, like what kind of a shift, um, and, and even like, thought process, I think you hinted at it right with the mindset change around like, Oh, we're not solving this problem. We're solving this problem, but what would you say? Like, what was that, uh, when did momentum start to have,

Bryan (15:10):

You know, so there's these little glimmers of hope as you, as you start one of these things from scratch, you know, my first business, traditional landscaping company, there was a, a proven, uh, I guess, playbook that I could follow. You know, I could look at bigger companies, see what they were doing. In fact, I even traveled to other major markets. Uh, one thing I would do is I would, I would go to trade shows and I would look at the biggest landscaping company in that town. And I would look at their systems and processes. Then I would take them back to Nashville and I would put them in my business. So I was able to look at other big companies, look at what they were doing, improve on those things. And so that was how I grew that first business. Now, the second businessGreenPal, it's, we're at like, and I don't like we're at the outer edge of like what anybody's tried before in terms of like, push a button, get the yard mowed.

Bryan (15:57):

There is no like analog for this. There is nobody's ever tried this before. There is no, there is no playbook. We're, we're literally inventing it as we go. And so a lot of that is trial and error and you're in the darkness and you're, and you're trying to figure out is this thing when I work or not. And so there's, there was key moments over the last seven years, uh, where, where, you know, you're, you're reinforced to keep going forward. One was like, I think in year two, maybe year three, it was a Saturday and we were all working. And I think like 30 people signed up for it that day. And I didn't know who these 30 people were, so,

Dallin (16:32):

Which is big, right. It's no longer like Joe and Jane down the street, or, you know, my friends over here. Yeah. That's powerful.

Bryan (16:41):

It's huge. It was a Saturday 30, some odd people had signed up that day. It was the biggest day we had ever had. And I, I couldn't tell you why it was that we had 30, some odd people, and now we have thousands a day, but, but, but then it was 30 people. And, uh, and I didn't know any of their names. So that was a key moment for me that like, Oh, okay. Yeah. This could become a self-serve platform that we can market and distribute. And I mean, was that gonna ride any paychecks? No, but it was still a moment. Um, and then, and then, you know, fast forward another two or three years, you know, we, we did 5,000,001 year and then 10 million, the next, uh, that was another moment where it's like, okay, yeah, we can build an actual business. Cause because when you're starting, one of these tech startups from scratch, you're like trying to just like build something that works, something that solves a problem for people that want to use it. And then you have to shift to, can I build an actual, like, profitable concern around this thing? And so it was at that moment that I realized, yeah, we can build an actual profitable business just doing this one thing, making lawnmowing is easy as possible. And like building the push of button, get the grass cut service. So those two moments stand out in the last six, seven years is key moments that reinforced me and my team to keep pushing forward.

Dallin (18:02):

Yeah. Well, and that's, that's so powerful too, you know, for those listening who are on the journey, like all of us are right. We're just different levels with facing similar, maybe pain points. Right. Um, recognizing that a great deal of patience and perseverance, it was required, uh, to hit different, you know, levels of momentum. Uh, and so I love hearing this too, because not only, uh, you didn't anticipate the amount of struggle, especially early on when building this, but you already had successfully built and sold the previous business. Right. So it's like, you know, you're, you're starting this whole new business. And even if you've built and sold before and had that success, you know, you still have to go through, uh, the growing pains in that.

Bryan (18:51):

Absolutely so humbling. And it really did make me a better person because here I went from having, you know, a successful contracting business, $10 million a year in revenue sold it, the biggest, it was the biggest acquisition in the industry, I think for 10 years. Um, and, and so like starting over again and going from, uh, running a business with hundreds of employees, being the man of my, of my little circle to, Hey, will you please try to use this thing to, so we can cut your grass for $30 please, like going through that was so humbling. And it just made me a better person. So like, for me, my businesses are always an extension, like scaffolding around me as a person to help me grow and level up and, and just, and just become just more humble, smarter, uh, just a better leader. It just helps me in so many ways.

Bryan (19:49):

And so for me, like the second business, uh, I literally like burned the boats, starting it. Like, I knew that I was going to see this thing to the end and, and that I was just going to like take it as far as I could. And so, no matter how difficult it got and how hard the slaw was, this was it. I didn't have a better idea and I wasn't going to give up. And so like, it made that daily conversation in my head, uh, just really a lot easier and a lot clearer. It's like, okay, you, you, you are going to be working on something. You're going to be growing something. You don't have any other better ideas. This is what you're working on. And, and that, and luckily my two co founders and I stuck with it because there were many years that it was very much an exercise of faith.

Dallin (20:34):

Oh yeah. Well, and, and what, so who, where are you built at now? Uh, what's your vision moving forward? Um, where do you see this going, uh, with the platform you have?

Bryan (20:44):

Yeah. So we're just at a now where we have good momentum behind us. We have what, uh, what Jim Collins calls the flywheel effect. So it's like Jim Collins, good to great. He talks about the flywheel effect and every great business has a little flywheel humming on the inside of it. That makes it prosper. It makes it grow, uh, like Uber, for example, Uber, like the more raw, the more drivers they have, the lower the fares, the lower the fares, the more riders, the more riders, uh, the more drivers, the more drivers, the decreased wait times the decreased wait times more, more dry, more riders. And so it's like, it's this, it's this, it's this flywheel, this reinforcing flywheel that causes it to grow and causes it to prosper. We just started tapping into that to understand that, okay, the more homeowners that sign up to use the platform, uh, the quicker that the more vendors that want to use it, the more vendors that want to use it, the quicker, their bids, the quicker, their bids, the more people that hire more people that hire, uh, the more vendors that want to use it more, doesn't want to use it.

Bryan (21:49):

The price goes down a little bit. And so like re like creating this flywheel is, is something that's taken us seven years to do. And so that's where we're at now. We're just now where we have an engine at the core of this thing. And we have some defensibility and L like a little shallow moat around the platform that enables us to now look at, okay, where are we going next? And for us, like, we still have so much further to go with the United States in terms of going deep and, and every nook and cranny in the country. And until like GreenPal's in the lexicon of the English language, like Uber is in terms of like, you know, somebody might say, how are you going to get to the, to the party? Well, I'm going to Uber there. Um, you know, until GreenPal is like, okay, the grass is four feet tall. I'll just get a GreenPal. Like, until people just say that we're not done. Uh, so we have a long way to go. Uh, we're still at like day one of this thing. Um, and, and it's, and it's actually starting to become fun because now we have, we have momentum behind us. Whereas the first five years was, was excruciating.

Bryan (22:53):

Yeah.

Dallin (22:54):

Well, now you have the foundation built. Now it's just, it's mass-market appeal, right. Where you're saying it, you want it like Uber or, or even brands like bandaid, right. It's, it's not necessarily the product itself versus the brand becoming synonymous to the language that's being used.

Bryan (23:13):

That's where we go next. That's where we have to go next. Yeah.

Dallin (23:17):

Wow. I love it. So let's shift a little bit back to this idea of being a serial adventure. Um, so you, you already talked about it early on a little bit, uh, now that you have this momentum, what have you done inside the business to free up or allow you to have time to, to now do more of these trips and adventure around the country, in the world?

Bryan (23:40):

Yeah. Yeah. So it's tough because I coach entrepreneurs and business owners in Nashville for free, just for fun. And, and so I, like, I, I get people to ask me all the time was like, well, I just want to live your lifestyle. And I, and I, I want to be able to have the freedom that you have, and that's why I want to start a business. And I'm like, okay, that's awesome. Um, but you need to know, like, it's going to be like five years, uh, in the, in the trenches before you can get to a point where you can step away. And, and so that's, that's what I constantly have to like, like the little Astros I put, I put by like the lifestyle I live now. I mean, now I travel half of the year. I like, I, I try to see five or 10 countries a year.

Bryan (24:23):

This year's a little different, but, but, uh, it wasn't always that way in the early years, it was, it was very much six, seven days a week in the office hours. Like, but now we've got some momentum going where I'm able to, from a position of, of, uh, strength, delegate a lot of the things that need to be done on a daily basis and not, and not delegation through like, Oh, go handle this it's delegation from like, no, I did this for two years. I know how to, I know how to write code. I know how to do the front end. I know how our front end framework goes. Therefore I know how to, I know how to hire a good front-end engineer. Um, so like being able to delegate from a position of, okay, I've done these things for years, and I know what our system is, and I know what our processes are, and that's how I'm going to put this person in our process.

Bryan (25:10):

And so I've, I've built a really good team around me now to where I can, I can delegate a lot of the things that need to be done to where I can focus on like the high leverage activities, like the things that, uh, that, uh, Stephen Covey, the author of seven habits of highly effective people, the things that he calls that are important, but not necessarily urgent. So it's things like strategy planning, like product development, like all of these things that go into like longterm success building like that longterm momentum and that long-term defensibility. That's where I live now. I no longer have to focus on the things that are urgent and not important. And, and so it's taken me years to get to that point. Now, now that I'm there, I'm able to like work from anywhere in the world. Uh, my team is all digital, all remote.

Bryan (25:59):

Uh, and so I can check in with my team on a daily basis, anywhere with an internet connection, which, which is insanely almost everywhere now. And, uh, and so now travel is like part of like my little flywheel. Like it reinforces why I do what I do. I have a real passion for seeing new countries, new cultures, uh, new, interesting places I've never been. Uh, and it really almost reinforces for me a passion for business. Cause it's like, okay, business is the engine behind this thing that you love to do. And so I just man, like the last two or three years of my life had completely changed because I've, I've discovered travel and I've discovered, uh, adventure as, as kind of the essence of life. Now, all that to say like you really, if you just are getting started and like you're working on a side hustle right now and you really want to get it to a million dollars a year in revenue, you kind of have to put those things on pause for a few years until you get your little flywheel going until you get some momentum going, because it's, I don't think it's possible to do both at once.

Dallin (27:02):

Yeah. At least at least sustainable, right. To actually build up the business and to travel that much. Um, where, where I, I think I, I think it's also being realistic around, um, how maybe how large you want to grow your business. I know a lot of business owners who, you know, there may be a team of one or a team of few with ambitions, but not ambitions to say have, um, a multimillion dollar business that requires a, maybe a lot more from them initially or longterm, you know, it starts like, Hey, I'm good with just, you know, with this space. Um, absolutely. So it's, it's even coming down to like what type of business, how large a business, uh, do I want to build as well?

Bryan (27:48):

Definitely does. And, and, um, see your point, my first company, 150 and 150 people. Like I told you, if I went, if I went away for a week or two I'd come back and it would not be there. It required me

Dallin (28:02):

Just quick question on that too. So required you. Is it because there were a lack of systems say that you've put in place with GreenPal allow you to step away? Yeah. Yeah.

Bryan (28:12):

Lack of systems. Uh, it was, it was something different on a daily basis every day. It was just more hand to hand combat, um, asset, intense trucks, physically moving everywhere. Uh, things would go wrong. No, the chief would need to be there to handle these problems. Now, uh, you know, we're fast forwarding into my second business. It's, it's harder in one sense because it's hard to distribute a digital product. Um, and, and also there is no playbook for what we do, but in another sense, it's easier because there is a technological solution to almost every single problem you face. So if something goes wrong, uh, in the book, uh, uh, lean startup, uh, Eric Reese talks about asking, asking why five times. So it's a fun little heuristic. It doesn't matter what business you're in. If you have a problem, you can ask why five times to get to the essence of that problem.

Bryan (29:08):

So for like, for example, in our business, uh, this homeowner is upset because nobody's showed up to mow their yard. Well, why didn't anybody show up to mow yard? Well, uh, the vendor got busy and he, and he didn't, uh, he didn't have time to fit it in his schedule. Well, why did he get busy and why did he place other clients over this client? Well, it's because he only has, uh, two, two other GreenPal customers. So he doesn't really care about this person cause they're on GreenPal well, well, why does he not care? Well, it's because, uh, as it turns out, we're only driving him leads that are, uh, 20 miles away from him. Okay. Well, we'll, we'll why are we driving them leads they're 20 minute miles away from it. Well, cause we're not doing any marketing in the town that he lives in.

Bryan (29:50):

Okay. So the problem is actually a marketing problem and it's not an operational problem is that we need to drive more marketing in the town. He lives in. Cause as it turns out, he only has like a little five mile service radius. So like that's just one example into like the window of asking why five times to get to the essence of problems that you're dealing with. And so there is a technological solution for almost every problem you face in a tech business. And so that in a way that makes it a little easier to where you can develop systems on top of systems on top of systems to where you can then, you know, do the things that you want to do and not be like wrangling people every day.

Dallin (30:27):

Oh yeah. The power in that is, is incredible. And, and, and to me I'm a huge believer and I'm massively in this process right now, right? I'm sure many of us are, you know, if we truly want that freedom based business that allows us to travel, uh, especially building, you know, our business to certain level, uh, systems are a vehicle by which we can actually that, you know, and that's busy people as well, but, but systems are built. Tools are plugged in. People are plugged into those systems and it allows that autonomy to happen.

Bryan (31:03):

The Bible for this mindset is the four hour work week. And a lot of people, um, may have skimmed through that book and didn't really get the essence of that book. And the title really almost has nothing to do with the actual essence of the book. He's not talking about only working four hours a week. What he is talking about in the book is building these systems and delegating with authority and delegating the right way and building something around you that doesn't require you to work 20 hours a day. And, and, uh, the title was misleading. And I think a lot of, a lot of entrepreneurs take away from it like, Oh, I don't have to like kill myself in the first few years. No you're going to, you're going to work really hard if you're going to be successful. Um, but this is kind of a framework for how to create leverage around yourself and how to delegate and how to build systems around yourself. I love that book.

Dallin (31:52):

Yeah. Well, and I feel like that that came, that book came early on to really the growth of what we see in the last five to 10 years. And it's only going to pick up, especially now with how business is shifting to more virtual and it's going to cause us a more, I, I believe to step into solutions like GreenPal, um, or to build solutions like GreenPal that support the lifestyle and the economy that we're in now. And I think there's incredible opportunity in a future with, uh, with businesses like this, whether we are the consumers of it or the producers of it.

Bryan (32:31):

Yeah. I think you're right. I think at a macro level where like in minute, one of day, one of a lot of traditional stuff porting online. And if you can position yourself to help be like part of the infrastructure around that, um, it may take you 10 years to build something successful, but at least you have the wind at your back.

Dallin (32:48):

Yeah. Well, that's a powerful message to leave off on. Uh, are, are there, uh, say, uh, there's one other question I have, uh, before we do wrap up Bryan, um, if you could give, uh, the entrepreneurs and aspiring visionaries listening, um, one action item to implement into their business, um, based on what you've learned, uh, what would that be as far as a next right step with where they're at?

Bryan (33:17):

Yeah. You know, I guess I'll, I'll, uh, I'll focus that on somebody who's just getting started and this is, this is something that I come across quite a bit with with people that, that are, I guess you're like our dreamers and they're kind of between like dream phase and actual having a business phase. And the one thing I would like one little piece of advice that I could give that almost applies to everybody is do things that don't scale. So do the things like that are hard to do that seem tedious. That seem pointless. Um, but like you have to like do them to then understand how you're going to scale them. And so for us, like an example would be passing out door hangers in their early days. It didn't scale, but damn it got us our first 200 people to use the platform to where we could like meet with them and every coffee shop around Nashville, Tennessee, to talk to them to then understand, okay, this is what we need to be focusing on.

Bryan (34:07):

This is what we're doing, right. This is what we're doing wrong. So like doing those things that don't scale in the early days to me is table stakes to like going from zero to one, to like manufacturing that early momentum. And it's something that I think a lot of a budding entrepreneurs like gloss over and they want to just like fast forward to like the sexy part of like just sitting at the helm and watching like the trains run on time. And th the fact of the matter is you can't skip that part. Uh, you have to like grind out the first six months, a year, two years, three years, however long it takes to then understand, okay, this is how I build processes around these things I'm doing and make them scale.

Dallin (34:47):

That's powerful. And, you know, and I, and I'm glad that you, uh, pointed that out. Uh, you know, I think a lot of us do want to avoid that hustle phase, that hard work phase, but it often is essential, especially if we are the ones building the thing, right. Building the business. Well, Bryan this has been incredible. Uh, where can people are more about, uh, what you're building, obviously your platform.

Bryan (35:12):

Yeah. So anybody that's listening to this that doesn't want to spend their weekends cutting their yard, they can just download GreenPal and the app store or the play store, or go to your yourgreenpal.com And they can get somebody hooked up the mow their yard in less than a minute. Uh, anybody that wants to reach me, you can just email me Bryan bryan@yourgreenpal.com. If you email me and you have a business question and try to put me on second or third base with what you're working on and what your specific issue is, and I can try to help

Dallin (35:38):

You love it. What, and you're saying you were giving out, uh, basically free consulting, uh, in your area. So hopefully demand does inc. I mean, or hopefully, right. I mean, you are a successful businessman, so you can definitely, um, you know, anybody that's hustling, uh, here, here's what happens, anybody that's, that's, that's hustling and trying to build a business. And I, if I can help them in some way, um, it makes me feel good. And it also, it surrounds me with winners. And so when I'm surrounded by winners, then, um, then it helps me win. So it's, it's, I get more out of it than they do, actually. Yeah. Well, they, Hey, this is incredible. I appreciate your time, Bryan.

Bryan (36:15):

Hey, I had a great time. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 3 (36:17):

Thanks so much for listening. Once again, if you would like to learn more about how you can use your unique message to share with the world through video and create videos that actually are professional and perform bring you money and all of the results and influence that you want to make. Then I invite you to learn more by going to contentsupply.com. Thanks again for listening. And we'll talk to you very soon.

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