Let's Ride w/ Paul Estrada

Startup Founder: The Art of Deliberate Career Building

• Paul Estrada • Season 1 • Episode 21

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Ever wondered how some people build extraordinary careers without following conventional paths? In this eye-opening conversation, we meet someone who crafted an impressive career journey—from trading floors to entrepreneurship—without ever formally submitting a job application.

Growing up in tiny Gallup, New Mexico, where opportunities were scarce, our guest developed remarkable resourcefulness from an early age. Rather than seeing limitations, he cultivated a deliberate approach to career building that focused on continuously acquiring new skills. "What is the piece of the puzzle that I'm missing in my own skillset?" became his guiding question when evaluating each potential career move. This methodical strategy—treating professional development like assembling a toolkit—eventually positioned him perfectly for entrepreneurial success.

The conversation reveals powerful insights about mentorship that challenge common assumptions. While many professionals hesitate to reach out to potential mentors, our guest demonstrates how straightforward the process can be: engage genuinely with people whose knowledge you value, ask thoughtful questions, and follow through. "The answer to every unasked question is always no," he reminds us—a simple but profound perspective that has opened countless doors throughout his career. His approach to relationship-building extended to LinkedIn, where he strategically built a following by sharing industry insights, effectively testing business concepts and building a client pipeline before launching his venture.

Whether you're early in your career journey, contemplating a shift to entrepreneurship, or simply looking for a fresh perspective on professional growth, this episode offers practical wisdom you can implement immediately. The message is clear and empowering: with curiosity, deliberate skill-building, and the courage to reach out, you can create extraordinary opportunities regardless of where you start.

Adrian:

Check one two, check one, two hey.

Paul:

Adrian. Hey, how's it going? It's been a long time. I know what you been up to lately.

Adrian:

I've been having fun, been gone for about a week. Yeah, I haven't done the podcast in a long time, so happy to get back.

Paul:

Well, there's been a lot of stuff going on and I think I have a couple questions for you.

Adrian:

America? And did you know that I'm actually a Mexican, cuban American?

Paul:

Yes, I knew that because you're my son, I know, yeah. So what's interesting is, you've been on summer vacation for a couple weeks and did you think like, oh, it's summer, like I'm not going to, like I only learn stuff in school, and so did you think that. Or do you think you learn stuff outside of school too?

Adrian:

I think I learned stuff. I learned a lot of stuff outside of school.

Paul:

Yeah, what else? Yeah, exactly. So what else do you think you learn outside of school?

Adrian:

How to do new things.

Paul:

Yeah, like. What else can you think about?

Adrian:

I learned how to do not only fingers crossed on one hand, but like double fingers crossed on one hand. Okay, that's what I learned.

Paul:

That's pretty good. I think you're learning a new skill by learning how to tie your shoes. You almost figured that out. You're getting pretty close.

Adrian:

Do you want to know why I can't do it? Why? Because I need a lefty to teach me.

Paul:

Okay.

Adrian:

Last thing that I know big thing you're learning is you're learning how to take care of a little baby. So I'll tell you one thing my sister likes. I was there and when she was crying I just put my finger right there next to her hand and then she literally grabbed my finger and she had a really good grip.

Paul:

Super strong, huh, yeah, yeah. So you didn't know how to like calm a baby down and like get it to stop crying, and now you don't know how to do that. So that's a skill, right. Yeah, yeah, so you didn't know how to like calm a baby down and like get it to stop crying, and now you don't know how to do that. So that's a skill, right.

Adrian:

Yeah, sometimes I teach myself skills.

Paul:

That's what I'm saying. So, basically, you're always learning new stuff, and that's pretty cool, right? You always? Even when, like you're out of school, even like me, where I'm out of college, I still learn stuff. I'm learning, and let's ride.

Paul:

Our guest today built a career, one deliberate career, step at a time, without ever formally applying for a job. Today's guest went from growing up in a tiny New Mexico town where opportunity was scarce to landing on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange before switching industries and climbing the ranks in supply chain, ultimately becoming an entrepreneur, reshaping how the industry operates. Along the way, he mastered the art of mentorship, leveraged LinkedIn to build a powerful personal brand and develop a step-by-step approach to skill building that anyone can follow. If you've ever wondered about how to turn resourcefulness into results, this conversation is for you. Start with this today, because this may be a first for me. I want to say you might be the first person that I know that was born and raised in the state of New Mexico. So one, can you validate that that is, in fact, true? And two, what's New Mexico like other than UFOs and aliens?

Eric:

Paul, it is an accurate statement. I grew up in New Mexico. I'm definitely the only one you know from Gallup, new Mexico. Like other than UFOs and aliens, paul, it is an accurate statement. I grew up in New Mexico. I'm definitely the only one you know from Gallup, new Mexico.

Paul:

So I grew up in.

Eric:

It's kind of in the Four Corners area, 30 miles west or east of the Arizona border, on I-40 and historic Route 66. I'm smack dab in the middle of Indian reservations. And then I went to high school in Roswell so you mentioned UFOs, so that's where the UFO crash was. I went to New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell for high school. New Mexico is a very big state with no people. I think there's 2 million people in total.

Paul:

And I know you live in Denver now and maybe you've moved around a little bit but, having lived in a couple of different places, what are some of the nuances that are just very specific to New Mexico that, if you haven't been there again, if you're just like me, where you're? You just talk about? You think of New Mexico, you think of aliens. What's it all about? What are we missing?

Eric:

Yeah, well, it's known as the uh, the land of enchantment, and I think when I was growing up it was more the land of entrapment, as it were. I think all of my friends and I all wanted to get out when we could. New Mexico is interesting because you can ride for hours and not hit a town. In some parts of the state it's very beautiful now, but growing up I just kind of saw it as a lot of dirt, not all that's going on.

Paul:

Yeah, well. So now I'm thinking too of the show and I don't know why I'm drawing a blank. But Walter White, the drug lord In Albuquerque, yeah, that was New Mexico, right? So for those of us that don't get around the country very much other than the major cities, that's it right. It's like, okay, breaking Bad and Aliens, so is that?

Eric:

Breaking Bad and Aliens yeah. And then my hometown was famous. I can't remember what news program it was, but I think it was like USA Today or something like that. In the late 80s we were known as Drunk Town USA. So that's our claim to fame.

Paul:

Yeah, and was there anything like growing up there? So you did briefly mention this, but you said it was the land of entrapment. Was that the sentiment Like, just always in the back, you're going to school and everyone's just like contemplating how the heck am I going to get out of here? Was it really that? Was it that extreme, or what was it? There wasn't a whole lot of opportunity, so how did your family end up there then? If that's the case, Interesting story.

Eric:

So my parents were both school teachers and they did that for a very, very long time. They both grew up in the state of Oklahoma and when they got married and they were looking for work, there was an opportunity for teachers in a little town called Tohatchee, new Mexico, which is part of the Navajo Indian Reservation, and they were hiring for teachers because the US government was starting to build schools. They went and my parents were both kind of very old school and they just kind of made the best of it. That's where they were. They worked really hard, they put down roots and made a life and I don't think there was ever a question of them leaving.

Paul:

My mom now lives in Dallas, my father's in Albuquerque, okay, so now that I know you were the son to two teachers, is it like kind of a prerequisite that like straight A's was just like part of the program, or was there some wiggle room there?

Eric:

No, so I got good grades. I was not a good student. I was smart, but I was incredibly bored. I was one of those kids that could finish their homework very early, and then I would kind of sit in the classroom and be bored.

Adrian:

Think about your escape. Yeah.

Eric:

Yeah exactly A lot of days keeping going on as a kid.

Paul:

Yeah, and what was it like? Was there a lot, I'm assuming, just a pretty clear emphasis on the educational component, and that being something that was driving you, at least early on.

Eric:

Yeah, that was so. My father was also a coach. My mom did a little coaching too, but he's actually in the National High School Coach's Hall of Fame. He had some incredible cross-country teams. At one point, I think, he won 12 state titles in a row with his boys. And then when his boys program kind of was less competitive, they still did really well 12 state titles in a row with his boys. And then when his boys program kind of was less competitive, they still did really well. Then he went on a run with his girls and I think they put eight and nine in a row together. So he's kind of known around the state.

Eric:

So in a small town I was like William's kid, so everybody knew who we were. My brother and I couldn't get away with a whole lot because of that, because dad was in a small town. So I'm kind of focused on school, but very much focused on sports. So I was a three sport letterman in high school football, basketball and red track. And on my mom's side of the family her father and brother and uncles were and uncles were were all in the uh the military, um enlisted folks like um my grandfather fought in uh World War II and and Korea, um, my uncle um in Vietnam, so that was always kind of like a, an influence, um.

Eric:

And then I found out about the service academies at very young age, like eight, nine years old, um, and I think. Somewhere in my early teen years I knew we didn't have a whole lot of money as a family so I didn't know how I was going to pay for college. But I found out that if you go to the service academies it's a full ride scholarship. So made that a goal, went to New Mexico Military Institute and then ended up going to West Point. Unfortunately I had several injuries. My plebe years kind of made it a terrible year for me, but finished up. My plebe year is kind of a terrible year for me, but I finished up my plebe year and decided to leave the academy. So it took some time to think through and maybe recover from a little bit.

Paul:

Yeah, well, we need to talk about that because I do know. So I went to an all-boys Catholic high school and it was interesting, and the only reason why I mentioned that to you is because we had typically an appointment to West Point if not every year, every other year, and my understanding was that for most high schools that you get maybe one student that gets an appointment once a decade. It's basically just for people that aren't aware of just the rarity of somebody getting into a prestigious academy like that. So clearly that's very telling about you as a person, and so you know. You said you were there for a year, but still nonetheless, like you, going there period is a testament to maybe who you were, even early on as a kid. So when did that become a goal for you? And then how did you make that a reality?

Eric:

I mean definitely by the time I was 10 or 11 or 12, I knew that that was what I wanted to do.

Eric:

I didn't know I was going to get there and my high school was not a place where anybody ever got into a service academy, right. So I started looking around at options and New Mexico Military Institute has been able to send quite a few folks to the academy. They're actually their junior college is a prep school for the Air Force Academy and West Point, so they've got an ROTC program there. But I started talking to my parents about it and they're like, well, we can't afford to do that. So I found out that there was a scholarship program and it was. You had to have a minimum GPA and it was at county level. So I figured out how to get the scholarship, was able to go and we're not talking a lot of money Like I'm in state tuition because of things like I think in state tuition was like $6,000 a year for your first year and that was half that went buying your uniforms. So you know, I was able to get this scholarship and made that a reality and went to do all of those things.

Paul:

Yeah, I'm getting the sense and we're going to get into it. I'm skipping ahead a tiny bit, but I'm just getting a sense in you telling the story that you're a very resourceful person, you're a very deliberate person, and now I'm just fascinated and I was going to talk about that as we got into your career, but I'm mentioning it now because I'm basically hearing like that sounds like that's just been Eric Williams since the day he was born, cause you're talking about being this person from 10, 11 years old. So that just feels like that's not something a lot of people have. I'm just curious if you have kind of thought about or know where that trait comes from, how you develop it.

Eric:

I mean, both my parents were kind of like workers and my dad I got to see somebody win a lot and see kind of what goes into that, the kind of dedication and work around it. I wouldn't say that the home environment was all that fun, but there was always a goal like if you want to go win, go win, and you figure out how to do that and you put in whatever it takes. So I think that was kind of instilled in me and then there I think there's probably a little bit of uh delusion there, paul. Okay, maybe it was. Maybe it was because I I grew up in in such a a small area where you know the skies are bigger than the town and you start looking around and maybe that afforded me this uh ability to kind of create um stories in my head. And I think if you keep telling yourself the same story over and over and over, you start moving a little bit closer to it every day.

Paul:

That's fascinating, right? Because, yeah, it sounds like you had to really rely on your imagination, because there probably was this is kind of I know the internet was around and things like that. But we're talking, I think we're relatively the same age and that was kind of at the beginning stages of that, so I'm assuming the other was probably a lot of you having to find things to do and keep your mind active, and it sounds like that included a lot of daydreaming and plotting and figuring things out. Huh.

Eric:

Yeah for sure things out, huh, um, yeah for sure. You think I remember the internet, maybe freshman, sophomore year in in school and I was part of the um. You know, schools had like gifted and talented programs, um so we were the first people that, uh, that got to use internet. Um so I think that four computers and and modem hooked up to it, um so, and I think, if I recall, like we just used it for like internet chat rooms, um so it wasn't really anything out there, it was just like, oh, you can talk to people in parts of the country, but that was about it.

Eric:

But I remember like when I moved to Chicago after school, I didn't know what a banker was and you know, I got a job on the floor of the Chicago American Tile Exchange. I thought of somebody that worked at a bank as like the local branch, like a teller, thought of somebody that worked at a bank as like the local branch, like a teller. These ideas of having all of these people that were doing these massive deals and investment bankers and things like that, completely foreign to me. I just didn't know.

Paul:

Right, well, that's actually so. We talk about that a lot is this idea that a lot of us grow up and don't have access or exposure to the different types of careers that exist, and so I'm almost hearing like that might've been even to the extreme. For you, if you're growing up in this really small town where there's maybe just obviously you have school teachers, you got kind of the basic occupation that every city has to have right, like the standard ones that everybody knows about.

Paul:

But, as we know now, there's so many different paths and industries that you could get into, but you had no exposure to that whatsoever. And now you find yourself as an entrepreneur, but prior to that, various types of supply chain jobs and things like that. Yeah, I think that story you just told is fascinating, illustrating that, okay, you kind of started from ground zero, you didn't know anything about anything, and so in those early days of trying to figure out a career path, how did you do that with what seems to be limited context?

Eric:

So when I moved to Chicago I had a roommate in college. When I left West Point and went back to University of New Mexico, I think I pretty much slept through college. I was a poli-sci major, so we just have to go to class, read books, write papers and maybe get a class 40, 50% of the time. But I had a roommate that was from Chicago and I didn't know what I wanted to do. You know, I'd always thought like, oh, I'll go to law school, and I didn't necessarily want to do that. So he's like well, you know, why don't you move out here, check it out? You can stay with me, get a job and if you decide you want to go to law school, there's great law schools here. So I did that, moved in, slept on his couch for probably five or six months.

Eric:

I met a I'll still remember this interaction forever. Like we went downtown it was the first time I'd ever been in a high rise and we were going to visit his friend named David Duran and Dave's dad, rich. Duran, was a member in the Eurodollar options pit. He's a filling broker and I didn't know what any of that meant. I just knew that it was like a big deal. So I'm meeting Dave for the first time and he's like you know, bobby tells me that you might be looking to try to get some work on the floor. And I was like, yeah, you know, I don't know how that would work. And he's like, well, here's how it works and this is how everybody gets a job. I'll have my dad sign you onto the floor and then you're going to walk around and you're going to ask anybody in a colored jacket that has a badge if they need somebody to help. And I did that for four or five days. I found a guy named Jeff Hubel who gave me an opportunity and I think I started on the floor.

Eric:

Your job is to run forwards out of the pit. So you're filling brokers. There's trades that come in from the desk, they fill them with the local traders there, they line it up on a floor and then you have to take the cover back up to the desk, and that was my job. And then there were certain trades that would take place, that were large, that you needed to let people know at the desk. So I was always writing down what were called player cards.

Eric:

So who did it, how many times it traded, et cetera. So these orange cards and I would walk around and I think I'd probably walk seven or eight miles a day on the trading floor just eating off cards to people Ended up being able to get on a on a Telex line. So I was, I was a clerk and then got put on a on a seat shortly thereafter. But that was just part of the world, right? Like you see what's going on. You learn the game, you talk to people who you think are doing it better than others and then you just apply your own brand of it. But I was very engaged with people, found a couple of mentors and I think when you get on the trading floor there's a lot of opportunity.

Paul:

That's what I'm saying, though You're making it sound very simple and maybe or that's just my interpretation of it, but I just don't see a lot of people today looking for mentors, for example. Right, and it just seems like that came second nature. I'll give you an example. So I give you know I like to talk. I like to talk or I shouldn't say that I like to when I'm given an opportunity to talk to younger kids. I love taking that opportunity because I remember myself being younger and just kind of not really having direction on what I wanted to do and feeling lost a lot of the times when it came to career path and just understanding areas of interest. So that's kind of been something I've been passionate about for the last decade or so, now that I've been well-established as a professional. So I take those opportunities, whether it's career day at my high school or my former high school, the college that I went to, even within the organizations that I work for, I just I love. That's something I feel very passionately about and one of the things I always do is I talk about networking and I talk about mentorship and I talk about it in the context of guys.

Paul:

Here's my contact information If you liked anything I had to say, then reach out. Send me an email, text message, whatever. Give me a call. I'm happy to meet with you at any time to answer any questions you have or provide any direction that you want. So that happens maybe one out of a hundred students, kids, that I talk to. So one of two things is true I'm either a terrible speaker and no one is interested in the things that I have to say, or two these kids, or any young professionals, just don't understand the value of mentorship and things. So for the purposes of my ego, I'm going to say that it's primarily the second. But what are your thoughts?

Eric:

For me finding a mentor, I think, came natural.

Eric:

I saw people that were doing things and I'm pretty outgoing, pretty gregarious, so I like to interact with people and I would just ask people questions and everyone has a story and people want to tell you their story, and then I would get curious and I would ask follow-up questions.

Eric:

Want to tell you their story, and then I would get curious and I would ask follow-up questions and as I learned more I would start looking for maybe somebody else that had a piece of knowledge that I might want. I did this with you, by the way, so I don't know if you remember, but I was sitting at US Foods first shipper roll that I had and I reached out to ask you about how you had established your pricing program at Niagara, because I thought it was unique and different where you kind of split the line all in half and add a kind of flat rate to that to change some of the variability, and so that's kind of just who I am. If there's somebody out there that knows something that I don't and want to learn more about it, I just kind of ask questions.

Paul:

I remember that, maybe because this is so rare. It doesn't happen often. So when somebody like you reaches out or anybody for that matter that I know or don't know, I'm going to respond almost every single time, and if I have the time, I'm going to give you the time to talk to you simply because you actually put yourself out there and did it, and that's.

Paul:

I find that pretty rare and I respect the heck out of that, and so I just think you know, for those that are like, hey, I don't know what I want to do and so, like, if you just go on LinkedIn and just reach out to me, I think people would be surprised at the responses they would get from people that are probably well established, people that they maybe look up to or just admire their career path of like you'll probably get a response more than you think. I mean, I know you're active on LinkedIn, would you?

Eric:

agree with that. I completely agree with you. I know that, uh, that when I've reached out to people, um, people make time for you. You have to be respectful and you kind of have to know where you're at in your own journey. Um, if you're on peer level, um, I think the it's a lot easier to get somebody's time If you're on kind of this mentor-mentee level and it's very clear like fresh out of school. You have to be respectful of people's time.

Eric:

And when I tell people that have asked me before hey, can I get some training, some coaching and some mentoring Because I like doing it, I'm very similar to you and I always approach that with, obviously, an introduction and what are you trying to get out of this? And I'll tell you if that's something that I think that I can actually help you with or not. And then if we are going to actually work together, then we need to take it very seriously. But since they're asking for help, I always ask them put together all the things that you want, come with questions and I will make sure that I give you the time and if I can't answer that question there, then I'll take it serious enough to come back to you, and that you know, for the most part is has worked really well. But to your point, right, like you, have a couple of these conversations and people are like, oh, the work involves the thing that kind of breaks down.

Eric:

Yeah, and I don't know if that's a time thing or they didn't like the cut of my jib when we were sitting there talking, or I don't know. But I don't have many of those that have lasted a long time.

Paul:

Yeah, I think it's a huge missed opportunity. Hopefully people look into that more. I will ask one last question on this topic and that is this seems to like you said this comes naturally to you From what I understand, what I see. See, it just doesn't for the vast majority of people, for whatever reason. So for those that are just hesitant they're listening to this and they're just hesitant, do it, would you, do you have any piece of advice that you would give them to just get them to just take one step forward?

Eric:

Yeah. So the first part to kind of lower the threshold or take the temperature down, if you will, whatever you want to call that is, the answer to every unasked question is always no. And if you get told no after you ask the question, okay, well, maybe that wasn't the right person for you. But if I was pursuing a mentor and I still do to this day, I still try to find people that can help me in my own journey is I would be thinking about something very specific. I need to learn something, and these are the types of people that I think have that experience.

Eric:

And when I approach them, obviously there's you know the relationship building and you tell the story similar how we started this conversation, when are you from? What do you do? How'd you get here? And I think that can kind of bring the temperature down. The conversation takes everyone's guard down, because now we're just two humans having a conversation and then from there you start asking your questions and you find out if that person is somebody that has that knowledge and then, if there's a piece where you're like not sure I got the full answer from them, you just kind of keep looking in your network to see who might have that. You have to be curious, you have to be curious.

Paul:

And I don't know if I've told people this before, but I've never I formally applied for a job in the traditional sense where you go on a job site, put your resume in there, hope a recruiter calls you back, go through that whole process. Every job that I've gotten professionally actually, now that I think about it, even when I was in college and things like that I'll talk about my very first job I got because a friend of mine in high school was a bagger at Vons. I said, hey, can you get me a job there? He said yeah. When I was in college, my friend was working at a restaurant. I said, hey, can you get me a job there? He said yeah. When I got to Niagara, I happened to meet the founder and owner of Niagara at the time. He gave me his business card, I emailed him, he emailed me back within a couple hours, I had a job the next day, and so on.

Paul:

I've never gone through the traditional process and I just especially in today's job environment, which is tough, right, and there's limited jobs out there and literally people are getting a hundred resumes for every opening it's hard to stand out in a stack of papers If you're not on LinkedIn and doing this outreach that we're talking about and taking maybe what would be considered, quote unquote, a non-traditional method towards trying to get a job, then you're one, you're not, you're probably not going to get the job that you really want and two, it's probably going to take a lot longer than it could. If you just really start messaging people, like being very deliberate, right, not just maybe blasting out generic, you know uh texts to people, but like being very specific about it, I don't think people understand the power of taking that sort of method. That's my two cents.

Eric:

So, similar to you, I've never applied for a job in the traditional sense.

Eric:

So it's all been through network and every single place like Target. Larry Singleton pinged me and said that he saw a post from Jeff Amble and he connected the two of us and Jeff and I connected and he had seen some podcast I had done for DAT on pricing and he wanted to have a conversation with me about it and ended up leading to that. So I'm saying never throw myself into that. So I don't know how to give people advice there. I do know that the best way is to be invited in. That's right.

Paul:

All right, so that's good, so I'm not alone in that and that's awesome. And so that kind of leads me to where I wanted to go next, and that is if we were to look at your resume, it appears to be a very winding road. You've been at a number of different companies and, for those of you that aren't watching this, he's got his pen and he's making a snake river kind of pattern there. But yeah, he's been on a very winding road and somehow, eric, it feels very deliberate to me and based on just what we've been talking about today, is that I think some people kind of meander around from place to place with, no, maybe North Star or maybe not necessarily an end state, but this is the next level I want to get to, and when I look at yours, while I see a lot of different movement, I see a very deliberate and clear path that you're taking. Am I giving you too much credit or was there something to that?

Eric:

I think there was. But so coming off the trading floor, in my mind it was always very deliberate and it was always about when I was looking at the next role. What is the piece of the puzzle that I'm missing in my own skillset? That's going to get me kind of to the next place.

Paul:

You stole the words right out of my mouth, because that's exactly what I was going to say. That's what it sounded like to me, where you took a role. You said, okay, I need this tool in my tool belt. You acquired that tool and then you said, okay, and you start pondering looking around, okay, you know what, I need this tool. Then you went over there, you got that tool, and so on down the line right Until you filled your tool belt and then you said, okay, I got a tool, what am I going to build? Now I got the tool belt, what am I going to build?

Paul:

I think it's a very uncommon way of thinking about things, because I just feel like today there's this thought of immediacy, of the here and now. What can I get today? What can I get now? What kind of title can I get? How much money can I maximize today, not tomorrow? And so they're not thinking about these moves with that long-term picture in mind, but rather just the short-term benefits that you can get. And I mean, I think you're a clear example of you know what you kind of have to delay maybe the long-term gratification, but it's going to set you on this path to where you're going to probably exceed whatever could have been possible otherwise.

Eric:

Fingers crossed, and if it doesn't work out, I've got a skill set that I can go back and deploy it to one of my customers.

Eric:

So, but that's exactly it, right, paul, like you said, in the corporate role, and you start looking, okay, what's my path? And there's somebody above you that has been there for a while. There's 17 other of them waiting for that role to change, leave the company, get promoted off and then you're in competition with them and it just continues to be that as you're moving up the ladder. And that's really difficult. And I wasn't somebody you know. I started my career in something completely different. Coming into this, I always felt like I had to go fast and I never wanted to like put my roots down, because I didn't feel like what I was doing was where I wanted to have my interest.

Paul:

Right.

Eric:

Like in the back of my head. I was always like, well, I kind of want to have this for myself. So I kept getting to a point where I was gaining the confidence to do that. My best friend in the world he's like dude, you should have done this six, seven years ago. I was like, no, no, I didn't know anybody. Who was I going to sell to. Nobody would take my call.

Paul:

Yeah, I'm thinking about how deliberate you've been and so I'm not going to say the last piece, but the next piece of the puzzle that I saw. Okay, I'm giving you my third party perspective, but I think I seem to be catching on to you, eric. I'm catching on to your strategy. I'm not as dumb as I look, I think, and that was a couple of years. So, again, we talked about the tool belt. You're building that, putting your tools in there.

Paul:

The next thing I saw was maybe a couple of years ago. I mean, I kind of knew who you were. And then you start posting on LinkedIn like religiously every day or a couple of times a week at least, and I'm like this guy's got a lot to say. And I remember early on you're getting some traction, but not a ton. And then, to be honest, I kind of went dark on LinkedIn for like over a year, didn't come on at all. That's pretty deliberate on my part. But I come back and this guy, eric Williams, has got dozens, if not 100, reactions on every post. He's got dozens of comments and I'm like what in the world has this guy been doing? He's been busy and I feel like that was a plan. But again, something that I don't think a lot of people take advantage of was you become a leader, your expertise in something, and then you start putting those things out there and just kind of see where that starts taking you.

Eric:

You broke up a little bit there, but I think I followed you well enough. So, like, the initial posting on LinkedIn was probably me more of having something to say and didn't want to say it to my coworkers because it would be annoying. If you recall, it was a lot of kind of streamed consciousness and I think I remember the first post where I realized like, oh, people are paying attention to what I'm doing and I was at DAT and I made a post about the market in general and I went and I filled up my gas tank and I was headed to work. I made a post about the market in general and I went and I filled up my gas tank and I was headed to work. I made the post before I left the house and I looked down at my phone and I used to keep my notifications on LinkedIn. I've turned them off, it's just, it's too much and I probably need to protect my peace a little bit more.

Eric:

But I had like 70 reactions from the drive to the gas station filling up and then getting back on the high and they just kept coming and I was like, um, this is stuff that people clearly want to talk about. So I started talking about that more because I'm engaged with it. I like it, I like talking about the uh markets in general and the freight market specifically. And then I started um, I think at that point you know might have got to like 4,000 followers and I was like, oh wow, I've got a lot of people that are following me.

Paul:

No I think and you know part of it is, I think, at least the stats I've read is that there's a lot of people active on social media LinkedIn, everything else Only 1% of the people that are actually on there are actually creating content. So there has to be somebody I mean, not everybody could just be scrolling there has to be people like you that are actually posting and delivering the content that people can read. So to me it makes perfect sense. People are hesitant to interact, either because they're private people, they don't want to share things, or that maybe they just feel like, hey, what I have to say is not that interesting and they don't even give it a shot. But you found, like you said pretty early on, that you know there's something to this. What I really wanted to talk to you about was, I'm assuming targets like a Fortune 500, publicly traded. Everybody knows who they are right.

Paul:

So you've got this brand behind you and you know, you think about, like the entrepreneurship journey that is maybe glorified in movies and that people think about, which is, hey, there's this guy in his garage that's bootstrapping this business and he takes this massive risk. And I'm not saying you didn't do those things, but I think what's fascinating about what you were doing is you were doing your day job and I'm sure you're doing a fantastic job at it. In the meantime, you're like, hey, long term, I want to be an entrepreneur, this is what I want to do. I don't want to leave a job and maybe start from scratch. So can I start building a pipeline? Can I start building a foundation that will give me maybe a little bit of a head start when I go into this? So it's not just the complete extreme of, hey, this is going to sink or fail. I'm going to give myself a better odds of succeeding because I'm doing this. Is that how you thought about it?

Eric:

Like on the social media thing, I will add I had been a, I'd had a social media presence before. There used to be kind of this financial Twitter universe creators. So from probably like 2011 to 2013, I was on Twitter and everybody had the anonymized profiles. I worked my way up into five 6,000 followers, so I was pretty active on there. So I was familiar with sharing thoughts online and I was relatively comfortable with it.

Eric:

When I got to the point where I had met my partners and we started talking about doing the build and started thinking about deal flow, that was when I started getting a little bit more deliberate, to kind of test the waters. So put this type of post out there. How many people like it, go through your likes? How many of these people are actually decision makers inside of their organizations or would be adjacent to a decision maker? And I saw that my eyes opened. These are people that I'm engaging with on a regular basis anyway, so it wouldn't be weird for me to drop a line to them in a direct message, because we're already connected, we already kind of know each other and if they're not a decision maker, they know who the person is. So that gave me a lot of confidence that I didn't have to worry about deal flow, and I think that was the last thing that I needed to be able to say I like our chances of being able to do this.

Paul:

Yeah, there's a viable thing here. But again, it's because you almost kind of did some testing ahead of time, I'm sure you were. As you're posting things, you're like almost product testing in a way, right, because you're putting out ideas and, like you said, seeing what they call impressions, right, how many people are looking at it then how many people are reacting to it then how many people are commenting to it. So in a way, you can kind of like float ideas out there and say, okay, yeah, they're really interested in this. Okay, not so much interest in this, and you can kind of then tweak your messaging and you can probably start tweaking your product and how you're developing things, right, like, so I just I don't know, I guess people don't understand. I certainly I'm barely kind of learning that piece of it to be. It's so much more powerful than people realize and it's being underutilized by, I'm going to say, 99% of people out there.

Paul:

And when did you kind of come to the? So, okay, you're building this momentum, you're building this online presence, you're starting to get, you're honing in on maybe where there's a gap in the industry, being super deliberate. And then what was the moment that you're? And then previous that I heard you kind of already had an idea for some software or product that you wanted to develop. So I see all these things kind of slowly coming together. And then at what point was there a specific moment in time or just what was the thought process around? Okay, I got to go, it's time to go for this now.

Eric:

It was when I realized how talented my two partners are. Okay, and so we put together an MVPvp, and, and we were just for people that don't know, that's called a minimum viable product so basically like.

Eric:

So the skeleton of of the idea that you have sorry absolutely, and I had built a lot of this stuff out in instances of excel or power bi and things like that and to to see it was nothing like compared to where the product is five, six months later nothing. And I was showing it to people and they're like dude, this is really cool. And I think they were just being nice. Um, cause, you get a lot of bad feedback. Now I think after COVID, everyone got like super nice, and nobody tells you that something sucks. I was like, okay, well, would you like to use it? And somebody said that, uh, that they would, and then they would give me some feedback. And then when we got a little bit of feedback, I handed that off to my developer and he came back and it was all brand new three, four days later and I was like, oh, we're doing this. I've got a really talented team with me and I think we got the right idea and I don't think we have to worry about deal flow. We're gonna go do it.

Paul:

Eric, I'm just so you have now I'm hearing you you built your own tool belt. Then you identified maybe some tools that you still didn't have. Then you're just like you know what? I'm just going to go, let me take the shortcut here and let me go find people that have those tools in their tool belt already. Let's put our collective tool belts together and let's go do this. So I just I don't know, eric, it's just really impressive. I think in just like the steps that you've taken, it all makes perfect, like you make it sound pretty easy, right?

Eric:

You just did this, you did this.

Paul:

It's almost like step one, step two, step three, step four right, I know it's not, but at the same time it doesn't feel impossible, the way that you're describing. There's nothing, particularly nothing, against you, eric.

Eric:

You're a great guy, but there's nothing particularly astounding that you did. What my point is that anybody literally could follow what you did. Is that right 100? I think it helps this. This cuts both ways but I think it helps to sometimes have an incredibly negative view of who you are and what your capabilities are and where you fit in the world and have that be completely the polar opposite of what you want to be or who you want to be. It becomes this motivating factor and you just get out there and you just keep trying. But if you keep thinking that you really suck as things are going well, I think it keeps you wanting to improve. So I'm that guy. Okay, when I see something, I was like, oh, this is cool and I get excited about it.

Paul:

And then I'm immediately right onto the next thing how do we make it better? How do we make it better? Okay, fair enough. I may have went a little bit overboard and this is not necessarily for everybody, but I think you laid a very, very important caveat, which is, yes, you clearly had a certain personality type, certain skills and traits about yourself that allowed that journey to be possible, and not everybody is built the same way as you, for sure.

Paul:

So and maybe I'm just connected with cause I think this is the way I would approach it if I were doing it. So I'm just like I'm excited about it Cause I'm like, hey, this really meshes well with, I feel like, my skill sets and how I would feel comfortable approaching things. And look, you do have the other guy out there that just kind of goes balls to the wall and they risk it all and they hit. And that's not me. I certainly would not take that approach. But I guess the point is there's a lot of different ways to cut this and make it happen. This just happens to be yours, but what I'm hearing is, hey, before you do this and get too excited like I just got excited about it, you kind of have to know who you are and the right approach for you.

Eric:

No, but to your point, I believe that anybody can do these things, and I don't think these things are all that difficult, right, like? You have to have a good idea, you have to have a good team, or you have to just be incredibly talented. I think you probably need a good team around you to do these sorts of things. People have to know who you are, and you have to be able to speak their language, and what you are doing has to solve a problem that they know that they have, that they don't want to solve on their own, and I think that's the recipe.

Paul:

What I just I'm simplifying for my keep it simple, stupid for me. And that is just, but literally, just put one foot in front of the other one and just keep walking until you strike wherever you're trying to get to.

Eric:

Yeah, there's no silver bullet, there's no magic formula, it's just work. Firmosey, alex Firmosey, he makes this. There's a video that I saw of this and it just really resonated. I've tried to adopt it. And he said when he was a young man playing video games, there was one game where he figured out a cheat where you could just kind of sit in the corner and the monsters would come to you and if you killed the monsters, you got all the mana and you were able to build up your character. And he would log on every day. He would sit there for an hour or two hours in that one spot just getting all of his points for his character, and then he could go build the biggest, baddest character ever. And I think that's what a lot of entrepreneurship is is find something that works and just sit there and just keep doing it and keep doing it and keep doing it.

Paul:

I love it, Eric. Well, hey, thanks so much for sharing your journey. I'm certainly inspired. I hope others are as well. Entrepreneurships in reach for those. You can go a number of different ways. Eric just shared his story with you and we really appreciate it, Eric.

Eric:

If I can do it, anybody can do it If you want to.

Paul:

Right on, alright, thanks. Thanks, Paul the Rockies ain't too far from here if we drive all night, the cold.

Adrian:

That will do you well in the mountain morning light. So let's ride. Let's ride on through the rain. Come on and take me anywhere that you wanna be. Let's ride and let's ride. Let's follow the skyline. And when we make it to the other side We'll find all the bluest guys.