James Wu

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[00:00] SPEAKER_01: It's Toronto's podcast on the Canada's podcast network.
[00:05] SPEAKER_01: Hi everyone, I'm Phil Bliss, a business visionary and welcome to Toronto's podcast.
[00:10] SPEAKER_01: Part of the Canada's podcast network, your source of the great insights from entrepreneurs
[00:15] SPEAKER_01: across Canada.
[00:17] SPEAKER_01: Today we're with James Wu, CEO and founder of Interstate Technology.
[00:23] SPEAKER_01: James is an experienced startup veteran with the keen understanding of what it takes to
[00:28] SPEAKER_01: develop a team, product and company from zero to whatever.
[00:35] SPEAKER_01: So James, as I said, welcome to Canada's podcast.
[00:38] SPEAKER_01: Why don't we kick off by you telling us just a little bit about who James Wu is and where
[00:47] SPEAKER_01: in the spaces and then we'll move on to other things.
[00:49] SPEAKER_01: Okay, sure.
[00:50] SPEAKER_00: Well, thanks for inviting me to be here today.
[00:55] SPEAKER_00: So I'm James Wu, I'm the CEO and one of the founders at Interstate, where a Toronto-based
[01:03] SPEAKER_00: indoor location company, which means for people who don't.
[01:08] SPEAKER_00: The easiest way to understand indoor location is trying to bring to the indoors what GPS
[01:12] SPEAKER_00: has brought to the outdoors, all the experiences and all of the information and all of the business
[01:18] SPEAKER_00: possibilities that GPS has enabled outdoors.
[01:21] SPEAKER_00: We're trying to build for the indoors.
[01:24] SPEAKER_00: So that's the company.
[01:27] SPEAKER_00: Me, I am, I wouldn't say a serial entrepreneur, but I am a serial problem solver, serial,
[01:34] SPEAKER_00: do it myself or I started, well, I mean, my education was in computer science.
[01:41] SPEAKER_00: I did a PhD, which I think doing a PhD is the kind of thing you only do if you are
[01:49] SPEAKER_00: really motivated to solve problems that other people haven't solved before because there isn't
[01:53] SPEAKER_00: really great value in doing it otherwise.
[01:55] SPEAKER_00: It's not like you're, you roll out into a six-figure job.
[01:59] SPEAKER_00: So it comes from that same kind of personal motivation that drives someone to be an entrepreneur.
[02:05] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, solving problems that nobody else has solved and the belief that you can be
[02:10] SPEAKER_00: the person that can solve it.
[02:12] SPEAKER_00: So I did that.
[02:12] SPEAKER_01: That's good because, you know, I, you know, using entrepreneurs a wired differently,
[02:19] SPEAKER_01: you've met enough of them by now in your life.
[02:22] SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, versus others.
[02:25] SPEAKER_01: I mean, is this something different about us?
[02:27] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm on as well.
[02:28] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I don't know if there are necessarily wired so differently such that nobody can become
[02:33] SPEAKER_00: an entrepreneur.
[02:34] SPEAKER_00: I think at some point people have a light turns on and you recognize like all the things
[02:40] SPEAKER_00: that have been done, all the companies that have been built, somebody recognized that,
[02:44] SPEAKER_00: hey, I could do that, right?
[02:47] SPEAKER_00: In the same way, like, I do a lot of woodworking and I do a lot of, you know, as downtime, I
[02:53] SPEAKER_00: try, I like to just build stuff or fix stuff.
[02:56] SPEAKER_00: And at some point in my life, I recognize like, I can probably do that.
[02:59] SPEAKER_00: I just have to figure out how.
[03:01] SPEAKER_00: And then you start, you know, doing, you start doing renovations or you start making
[03:06] SPEAKER_00: things.
[03:06] SPEAKER_00: And it's the same making a bowl or making a light is no different than making a company.
[03:12] SPEAKER_00: It's just a matter of sort of scale.
[03:14] SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I, I mean, you, of the beliefs that most entrepreneurs are kind of outcasts from
[03:20] SPEAKER_01: the large corporate system because they ask too many questions.
[03:24] SPEAKER_01: I think they're outcasts.
[03:26] SPEAKER_00: They're not necessarily, I mean, I, maybe not outcasts.
[03:29] SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's right.
[03:29] SPEAKER_00: I get that.
[03:30] SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's the wrong word.
[03:31] SPEAKER_00: I think they don't fit in as well because what works in a large corporate system is you
[03:37] SPEAKER_00: doing the job that you are given and, you know, being, being that cog that you need to
[03:42] SPEAKER_00: be in order for the big machine to work.
[03:45] SPEAKER_00: I'm not sure that being confined to that way is something that that suits entrepreneurs
[03:52] SPEAKER_00: well.
[03:53] SPEAKER_01: I mean, I look to your background.
[03:55] SPEAKER_01: You mean, you spent a fair amount of time as, as I could argue, say, a cog in a big
[04:00] SPEAKER_01: machine, certainly sounds like interesting work.
[04:04] SPEAKER_01: So I think you managed to do that.
[04:06] SPEAKER_01: So what made you shift from that and say, no, no, I want to do this on my own kind of thing?
[04:13] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think most of my, most of my professional career has been with relatively
[04:18] SPEAKER_00: small companies and I've had the fortune to spend time in companies where I was given a lot
[04:23] SPEAKER_00: of latitude and to really express some of the, you know, the creativity that I have and also
[04:31] SPEAKER_00: get that satisfaction of being able to drive and build things.
[04:36] SPEAKER_00: I mean, if I spend a lot of time at Cobo, which, you know, I joined Cobo when it was a very,
[04:41] SPEAKER_00: very small company, we all fit into one room.
[04:44] SPEAKER_00: I left it to start interspace when it was a four or 500 person company and owned by a
[04:51] SPEAKER_00: multi-billion dollar global company.
[04:54] SPEAKER_00: So the experience at Cobo was actually one of the defining experiences that I had that made me
[05:00] SPEAKER_00: believe like I can do something like interspace because I'd watched that company be built.
[05:06] SPEAKER_00: I had been given a lot of to to figure out a lot of the stuff that I need to figure, or they
[05:12] SPEAKER_00: needed me to figure out.
[05:13] SPEAKER_00: And it was, it was a, it was an educational experience that led me to where I am.
[05:18] SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, what would you say is your real area of expertise?
[05:24] SPEAKER_01: Apart from the business side of it and, you know, the solving problems and building things,
[05:30] SPEAKER_01: I mean, what's your discipline?
[05:32] SPEAKER_01: You talk about doing a PhD, but, you know, I think we're both done doing a PhD.
[05:38] SPEAKER_01: There's a particular focus on a particular time because you got into it, kind of thing.
[05:42] SPEAKER_01: Yep, but coming out of that, where, where, you know, what's taking you to where you are today?
[05:49] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think I'm good at a lot of things. I'm not, I'm not, the one thing I would say
[05:56] SPEAKER_00: I'm exceptionally good at is being able to focus my attention and become good enough at almost
[06:02] SPEAKER_00: anything. And that as an entrepreneur or somebody who is building a business, you need to be
[06:08] SPEAKER_00: able to do that, right? So, I mean, my career has been around product strategy and figuring out
[06:13] SPEAKER_00: what kind of experiences and what kind of products can you build and how do you have to build
[06:18] SPEAKER_00: those products in order for them to be engaging and, and, and sell well. And so that's obviously
[06:22] SPEAKER_00: something that is part of just my character. I have, I have a nut for it, but I think more
[06:31] SPEAKER_00: importantly, when you to go from, from that and doing that for somebody to I'm going to start a
[06:37] SPEAKER_00: business, you need to be able to do so many things well enough to get the business off the ground
[06:45] SPEAKER_00: right where you can hand those functions off to somebody who's actually an expert in them.
[06:50] SPEAKER_00: And whether it's, you know, figuring out what our product is going to look like or figuring out how
[06:55] SPEAKER_00: you, you know, do a financial forecast, they're both problems that need to get solved and they're
[07:01] SPEAKER_00: only on you to solve them. So you having that ability to just quickly become good enough at something
[07:07] SPEAKER_00: so that you can do it and move on to the next thing. So, you know, let's move on to the now
[07:12] SPEAKER_01: situation. I mean, here we are, you know, Toronto's podcast. For you, what are the benefits of doing
[07:17] SPEAKER_00: business in Toronto? Well, I mean, I am, I'm Canadian. So the one of the benefits of doing business
[07:25] SPEAKER_00: in Toronto is I like Canada and I like, same and I'm Canadian. Me too. Yeah. Yeah. There are so much
[07:32] SPEAKER_00: attention in the US. There's so much activity in the US. I've spent a lot of time in Silicon Valley
[07:36] SPEAKER_00: and there's a lot of great stuff happening down there. I'm not, I'm not trying to dismiss it in
[07:40] SPEAKER_00: any way. I'm just, it doesn't, it doesn't suit my personality and it doesn't suit my, you know,
[07:47] SPEAKER_00: my Canadian pride. But I think there are a lot of more tangible and probably more practical
[07:52] SPEAKER_00: benefits of being in Toronto. One, there's a great source of really smart, really driven
[08:00] SPEAKER_00: employees and people to sort of recruit and bring into your business to help you do really hard
[08:07] SPEAKER_00: and amazing things, particularly in the tech space, you know, being right between Waterloo and
[08:13] SPEAKER_00: and McGill and University of Toronto. We have a lot, we have a pool of amazing engineers that you
[08:19] SPEAKER_00: can draw, but also Canada has some really amazing programs that help financially, right? Whether it's
[08:26] SPEAKER_00: a tie-wrap or shred or any of those other programs that can help your your limited dollars go further.
[08:34] SPEAKER_00: That's it, that's a massive advantage of building a company in Toronto or in Canada in general.
[08:39] SPEAKER_00: But, you know, Toronto as far as as far as access to customers, I mean, the other thing that people
[08:44] SPEAKER_00: always tell you is you should build your business where your customers are. Increasingly,
[08:49] SPEAKER_00: customers are everywhere and the internet enables that, but Toronto is kind of the financial center
[08:55] SPEAKER_00: of Canada for the most part, so it makes sense. You know, if someone's listening in Silicon Valley
[09:01] SPEAKER_01: or Boston or Virginia, all of which are great places, and that's as they're offering, and I love them,
[09:08] SPEAKER_01: you know, what would make you recommend Toronto to other entrepreneurs that might be growing,
[09:14] SPEAKER_01: you know, struggling with finding the talent of being used, we said that's one, but definitely one
[09:24] SPEAKER_00: in Silicon Valley, right? Yeah. I mean, Silicon Valley, it's just because the contrast is so much
[09:31] SPEAKER_00: more stark between Toronto and Silicon Valley. Toronto has some of the most talented engineers
[09:37] SPEAKER_00: that are being produced today. So, you know, and many of those engineers are being drawn to Silicon
[09:45] SPEAKER_00: Valley because of the tremendous salaries that they can command down there. I think just the general
[09:53] SPEAKER_00: aura and the general, you know, that feeling of, but I mean, a salary, an engineer's salary,
[10:00] SPEAKER_00: but that same engineer's salary from a business perspective is half here what it is there, which
[10:06] SPEAKER_00: means I can hire twice as many engineers for the same money as I could down there. And that's,
[10:14] SPEAKER_00: you know, especially in early days, that's tremendously important because you don't have a lot of
[10:18] SPEAKER_00: dollars to spend on building your product and building out the road map. I think the traffic's
[10:24] SPEAKER_00: about as bad in each place, but that's about it. Well, the weather's a lot better down there too.
[10:31] SPEAKER_00: The traffic is definitely bad in both cases, but I think it's for, in terms of capital efficiency,
[10:41] SPEAKER_00: Toronto is a much better, is a much better bet. So, with the city in mind, you know, some of our
[10:47] SPEAKER_01: best ideas come on the least expect them. Now, how do you disconnect, reach out, get inspired
[10:54] SPEAKER_01: within the GTA, even Europe and new markets? So, you really end the GTA like me.
[11:00] SPEAKER_00: I mean, inspiration comes where you least expect it and it comes from the sources of sources that
[11:05] SPEAKER_00: you'd never, ever think might be inspiring to you. So, whether I'm in new market or, you know,
[11:11] SPEAKER_00: our office is downtown or if I'm traveling or if I'm talking to my kids or my nephews,
[11:17] SPEAKER_00: you never know where, not only do you never know where it's going to come from, but you never
[11:22] SPEAKER_00: really know why that particular experience you had, the idea that you had, right? So, I think
[11:29] SPEAKER_00: it is really about making sure you lift your head up long enough out of your laptop or out of your
[11:36] SPEAKER_00: research or whatever it is you're really, really focused on. Have those experiences that can,
[11:41] SPEAKER_00: you know, spark the other neurons in your brain that aren't necessarily activated while you're doing
[11:46] SPEAKER_01: that your day-to-day. So, thinking about the interspace side of things, what are you most excited
[11:52] SPEAKER_00: about in business these days? I guess I'm most excited about how, about, you know, we're on the cusp
[11:59] SPEAKER_00: of growth, of real growth, right? The indoor location has been a market that's been around for a while
[12:06] SPEAKER_00: and it's kind of sputtered, you know, if you've looked back five, seven years, the first,
[12:13] SPEAKER_00: go around kind of sputtered because nobody could really figure out one technology that could really
[12:19] SPEAKER_00: solve the problems, but two, what are the problems that can be solved that drive value for people
[12:27] SPEAKER_00: indoors? And there was a lot of talk about, well, you know, retail and you'll walk into your store
[12:32] SPEAKER_00: and people will know where you are and they'll push you coupons and things like that. And that was,
[12:37] SPEAKER_00: that's never been a particularly compelling use case to me. It's never been, it clearly was never
[12:42] SPEAKER_00: particularly compelling use case to most people because that never took off. So, where we have
[12:48] SPEAKER_00: spent our time, both on the technology side, on the technology side is trying to solve that problem
[12:52] SPEAKER_00: in a way that hasn't been solved before, but on a business development side and on a customer side,
[12:57] SPEAKER_00: really learning about interesting things that can be done with this technology that can, that can
[13:04] SPEAKER_00: be valuable at scale. And we found that in, you know, for example, public safety and first
[13:12] SPEAKER_00: responder, first responders, right? It was not something that I had even considered as a target for
[13:19] SPEAKER_00: us, but we've been working with folks in the US, and particularly in the US government, who have
[13:27] SPEAKER_00: made us realize like, first responders put their lives on the line to try and deliver public safety
[13:33] SPEAKER_00: in tremendously challenging situations. And they are hampered with some of the most basic tools
[13:40] SPEAKER_00: on earth, like for the most part, communicating and understanding if you're a fireman and you're,
[13:44] SPEAKER_00: or a team of fireman trying to respond to a situation, you're only linked to your outside
[13:50] SPEAKER_00: command and control, you're only linked to the other, the other first response teams who might
[13:54] SPEAKER_00: also be on site is, is a radio. And hearing that and, and seeing like, well, hold on, we can,
[14:01] SPEAKER_00: what we have can provide this, this real-time visibility into what's going on in the space.
[14:06] SPEAKER_00: It can provide real-time tracking on these, on these first responders to help the, the teams
[14:12] SPEAKER_00: coordinate and respond better. Like, that's, that's massive. And it's also a really interesting and
[14:19] SPEAKER_00: valuable, not just on a monetary scale, but valuable on a, on a, on a sort of a human scale
[14:24] SPEAKER_00: that that I had never, certainly never thought of. And it just, it has made me realize
[14:32] SPEAKER_00: the opportunities that exist that I haven't even considered yet.
[14:37] SPEAKER_01: What are the top three things on your, on your visionless bucket list, whatever the heck you want to
[14:41] SPEAKER_01: call it? For, for, personally or for,
[14:45] SPEAKER_01: I can, can you separate the two? I mean, they're all a lot more, okay?
[14:50] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it is hard to separate the two. I tried to separate them increasingly because otherwise,
[14:56] SPEAKER_00: you, you kind of lose yourself a little bit. You know, certainly for interspace, I am, I'm
[15:02] SPEAKER_00: bound and determined to, to, to see this, to see this growth actually happen. You know, where I
[15:08] SPEAKER_00: feel like we are, you know, to use the analogy of starting, starting your car on a cold morning,
[15:14] SPEAKER_00: like it's, it's just catching and it's a bit about to go. So where, and, you know, that's,
[15:19] SPEAKER_00: definitely one of them. You know, I think on a, on a personal side, I am keen to, I'm keen to,
[15:28] SPEAKER_00: to start actually being a little bit more intentional about, about the separation of my,
[15:35] SPEAKER_00: of business and, you know, of business and personal because it can be, it can be, particularly,
[15:41] SPEAKER_00: if you are the personality type to become an entrepreneur, it can become all encompassing and it can be,
[15:47] SPEAKER_00: it can be something that doesn't just consume you but can start to consume like your, your,
[15:52] SPEAKER_00: your family and your kids and, you know, so you, you need to be intentional sometimes with
[15:57] SPEAKER_00: protecting at least a piece of it. It never, you cannot walk, you can't, you can't be nine to five,
[16:02] SPEAKER_00: you can't turn it off, but you can be, you can recognize that that piece is as important a
[16:09] SPEAKER_00: piece of your life as all of the business pieces as well. And that you can't turn it off, but it's
[16:14] SPEAKER_01: really hard. You can turn it off for a period. Okay, you may not turn it off, but you can block it off.
[16:20] SPEAKER_00: If you see it. Yeah, it is very, it's very hard. What I found, so over over the Christmas break,
[16:26] SPEAKER_00: I took, I took the opportunity to take one of those, you know, those quick sort of trips to,
[16:35] SPEAKER_00: to Cuba just to get away. And what was interesting was that Cuba doesn't really have great internet
[16:42] SPEAKER_00: coverage. I know that I got a pot of that right now. So it was very, it was very, first of all,
[16:51] SPEAKER_00: stressful to, to do it and not be able to necessarily get your email and check your slack and
[16:57] SPEAKER_00: do those things, but it was also to be forced to just stop. It was probably good.
[17:05] SPEAKER_01: What's the great, greatest challenges you've faced in your business today that you've learned
[17:11] SPEAKER_00: the most from? I mean, not all, not all businesses are like mine. We are venture funded and we,
[17:19] SPEAKER_00: you know, which means we've had to invest very early on in scaling and a technology team in order
[17:25] SPEAKER_00: to solve a deep engineering problem that hasn't been solved before. And so it's one thing to try
[17:32] SPEAKER_00: and convince a customer that you have that you have a product that can solve their problem even though
[17:36] SPEAKER_00: in a lot of cases in the early days of the market, the customer doesn't even realize that they have
[17:41] SPEAKER_00: that problem and they don't even realize that there's a technology out there that can solve it.
[17:46] SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's part of the challenge, but the other part is trying to convince, you know,
[17:50] SPEAKER_00: investors and backers that this is a vision worth backing and that, you know, we're the team that
[17:55] SPEAKER_00: can solve this problem that other people have been trying to solve and been unable to do. So
[18:01] SPEAKER_00: it's, you know, any business has to convince a customer that their solution is worth paying money for.
[18:07] SPEAKER_00: A venture backed business has to kind of double that and say, I have to convince investors that
[18:12] SPEAKER_00: are team and you've got two sales fields. Exactly. And so try to do both at the same time
[18:19] SPEAKER_00: is certainly challenging, but when you make it happen, it's also very, very rewarding.
[18:25] SPEAKER_01: If you could go back in time, what advice would you give your 20 year old self?
[18:31] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sort of this way. And I think this is advice I give my 19 year old daughter. So it's
[18:36] SPEAKER_00: probably, it's probably only fair that I would give it to myself as well. You turn 18 or you turn 20
[18:43] SPEAKER_00: and you are told that you're an adult and that you should have figured it all out and you're no
[18:49] SPEAKER_00: longer a child in a way you go. And I think I realize in hindsight that at 18, 20, you are still,
[18:56] SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're not a child, but you're definitely not an adult. You definitely, there's so much more
[19:02] SPEAKER_00: still that you can learn and should learn and you shouldn't, you shouldn't one, beat yourself up
[19:08] SPEAKER_00: for not knowing them, but you shouldn't sort of suddenly turn into a, you know, start living the
[19:15] SPEAKER_00: life of a 60 year old or, or, or, you know, of a much, much older person just because that, that
[19:21] SPEAKER_00: term adult is now placed on you. You know, I, I, at some point in my career, I walked away from,
[19:28] SPEAKER_00: from a role that I had that wasn't that was just not aligning with who I wanted to be. And I took
[19:34] SPEAKER_00: four months off and that those four months I looked back, I realized those were the first four
[19:40] SPEAKER_00: months that I had taken as a off since, since my summer of after graduating high school.
[19:49] SPEAKER_00: So it was probably been, you know, at that point, it had probably been 15 years, just constant,
[19:54] SPEAKER_00: constant, constant. It's something I regret it. It's just that you realize like, well, those are,
[20:00] SPEAKER_00: you don't, you can't get that part of your life back. And so as much as being an entrepreneur is
[20:06] SPEAKER_00: about hustling and going and going and being really driven and motivated, you've got one life,
[20:11] SPEAKER_00: you got to look around and enjoy it because you can't, you can't hit rewind.
[20:17] SPEAKER_01: This is, this is one of my favorite questions actually. What's the best piece of advice that you've
[20:22] SPEAKER_00: ever received? I received a lot of really good advice. I think, I mean, from a professional
[20:28] SPEAKER_00: perspective and I, the best piece of advice that I ever received and it was, it was less about,
[20:35] SPEAKER_00: I would say it's less, it was less advice. It was less given in the spirit of advice and more
[20:39] SPEAKER_00: given in the spirit of admonishment, but it has, it has turned into something that has been very
[20:49] SPEAKER_00: valuable to me. And it was really about the difference between identifying problems has, is
[20:58] SPEAKER_00: valuable in, in to a degree, but solving those problems and coming up with just being the guy
[21:05] SPEAKER_00: says that won't work, that won't work, that won't work. And here's why is really of the very
[21:10] SPEAKER_00: limited value. Being the person that goes, well, you know, I've run into a problem, but here's,
[21:16] SPEAKER_00: here's three ways that I see around it. That is far more valuable because the problem is,
[21:22] SPEAKER_00: the problem is what the problem is that you're not going to get any further with that. So what else
[21:27] SPEAKER_00: can you do? And I think that attitude is one of the differences between, you know, somebody who will
[21:35] SPEAKER_00: forever maybe be about that cog in a business versus somebody who is going to be successful in
[21:42] SPEAKER_00: being an entrepreneur because starting a business and being an entrepreneur is very much like,
[21:47] SPEAKER_00: I forget who described who said this to me, but it's like having a thousand closed doors in front of
[21:53] SPEAKER_00: and you're going to, you have to be, success is on the other side of all thousand of those doors.
[21:59] SPEAKER_00: And you got to figure out how to, how to get there and some of the doors are locked and some of the
[22:04] SPEAKER_00: doors are made of concrete, some of the doors you can blow right through, but you're either getting
[22:09] SPEAKER_00: through them around them, bashing them down, burning them down, whatever it is you have to do,
[22:14] SPEAKER_00: or you're not going to be successful. So, you know, the, the advice was, you know, bring it back to
[22:19] SPEAKER_00: your question, what's the best piece of advice? Like, it isn't good enough to go, well, I can't be
[22:23] SPEAKER_00: successful. There's a thousand doors here. To be successful, it's like, here are five thousand
[22:29] SPEAKER_00: solutions to get around each one of those doors. It's never stopped thinking kind of.
[22:34] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's never stopped believing that the problems are, are solvable. Yeah, because the
[22:39] SPEAKER_00: second you say, this is a problem and I can't figure it out, well, then, then you're done.
[22:44] SPEAKER_01: So just some, what retail item rapid fire questions, just don't know, it's contemplative as
[22:49] SPEAKER_01: a one, we've been doing it. If you weren't doing what you're doing now, what would you be doing
[22:55] SPEAKER_00: instead? I'm always very tempted. So, you know, on days of less, you know, when things are a little
[23:01] SPEAKER_00: bit harder, I'm always tempted to stop all of this and become a woodworker. You're pretty passionate
[23:07] SPEAKER_00: about that. I really, I enjoy it because it tickles the right parts of my of my brain, but it's
[23:13] SPEAKER_00: with my hands and it's it's it's very soothing. What book you currently reading, listening to,
[23:20] SPEAKER_01: doesn't really matter. And what book or books would you recommend to the audience here?
[23:28] SPEAKER_00: I would have to, I mean, I am more of a an audiobook type person. Let me just see what my last
[23:33] SPEAKER_00: audio, the last audiobook that I have what I have, what I have, I'm in the middle of a podcast
[23:37] SPEAKER_00: series at the moment. So the reason I'm a more of an audiobook, a more of an audiobook person
[23:44] SPEAKER_00: is simply because of the amount of time that it takes. Well, not the not not the amount of time
[23:49] SPEAKER_00: it takes to consume a book, but the amount of I can multitask while reading a lot of books.
[23:55] SPEAKER_01: You know, it's funny. I do both and I have to say there's nothing wrong with audiobooks,
[24:00] SPEAKER_01: but when I when I read, I find that it sort of sparks and it's more reaction than the audio ones.
[24:08] SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's just it's a different experience. I agree. Yeah, I agree. And I it's one of the
[24:16] SPEAKER_00: things I almost miss. I do miss reading actual books. And I even feel inauthentic. If you,
[24:24] SPEAKER_00: if I've consumed an audiobook, I feel inauthentic telling somebody I read it, but the reality is,
[24:30] SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's not like I obviously we were all intelligent people we can read. So the the value
[24:37] SPEAKER_01: when a book isn't consuming it, but the listing is is is always been a massive deal. So I don't
[24:42] SPEAKER_01: I don't think audiobooks make all kinds of sense. Okay, moving on. Are you a morning or a night person?
[24:47] SPEAKER_01: Oh, I'm I am not a morning person. That's interesting. Most just, you know, I would say that of the
[24:53] SPEAKER_01: the people I've interviewed, you know, 40 or 50 people on canvas podcast, you're you're like
[25:00] SPEAKER_00: maybe five who said that they're not more than three. I mean, it may be because I I'm not sure why
[25:07] SPEAKER_00: it is I find more inspiration strikes later at night. I find myself able to as as the world gets
[25:14] SPEAKER_00: quieter and and that gets quieter. I find myself able to focus a lot more. And then, you know,
[25:21] SPEAKER_00: morning comes and and it could be because I've got kids and and household and we're using and
[25:27] SPEAKER_00: all that where it's just it's very difficult to to really focus in the morning.
[25:34] SPEAKER_01: If you had to put one word to describe yourself, what would it be and why?
[25:40] SPEAKER_00: Would it be I think this is this is not the most positive word, but I try I believe it's a valuable
[25:48] SPEAKER_00: characteristic for for certainly for a discussion on entrepreneurship. I am I'm very stubborn
[25:56] SPEAKER_00: and I am not stubborn in I'm not necessarily I'm a belligerent or at least I hope I'm not,
[26:01] SPEAKER_00: but I am stubborn in in the beliefs that I hold up until I can be convinced otherwise. And it's
[26:10] SPEAKER_00: not that I'm not open to be convinced. I think I think people successful people and smart people
[26:15] SPEAKER_00: change their minds a lot, but only as and when they they see sufficient evidence that their
[26:21] SPEAKER_00: current thinking was was either under informed or just just outright wrong. My my my was persistent
[26:28] SPEAKER_01: which yeah, you know, some part the same stuff. You know, they're they're they're definitely adjacent,
[26:34] SPEAKER_00: right? It's keeping you what's keeping you up at night?
[26:39] SPEAKER_00: Keeping well, I think for most for most VC funded founders, what keeps me up at night is is fundraising
[26:45] SPEAKER_00: and runway and figuring out figuring out how do you how do you keep how you keep the the lights on
[26:52] SPEAKER_00: while you while you chase after this this vision that you've got recognizing that you can't pay
[26:59] SPEAKER_00: your team with stubbornness and you can't capture that vision without your team.
[27:05] SPEAKER_01: Any non negotiables that have to happen in your daily routine?
[27:10] SPEAKER_00: I mean, I this is a weird one. I feel like if if I don't get up and have a really hot shower as
[27:17] SPEAKER_00: the first thing I do, I feel like I'm even if I get dressed, brush my teeth and do all that kind of
[27:22] SPEAKER_00: stuff, yeah, feel feel like I'm lounging around in my pajamas. I do I've got to do that otherwise
[27:29] SPEAKER_01: the day may as well not count. Here's our final question which you ask everybody. So unless you
[27:35] SPEAKER_01: listen to a podcast at the end of it, you didn't hear it, but there's a small drop of the
[27:39] SPEAKER_01: line in the middle of the ocean with only one phone booth and no internet. We drop you off there
[27:45] SPEAKER_01: with no technology. At any time you can use the phone on the island to call the boat to come pick you
[27:51] SPEAKER_01: up. How long would you last before making a phone call? And what would you do?
[27:56] SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, let's let's assume for a second I'm not I'm not worried about like my business
[28:01] SPEAKER_00: and or my children. If we assume that I could last a while. I enjoy time on my own a lot.
[28:12] SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not somebody who needs a lot of social kind of interaction a lot of people around me
[28:18] SPEAKER_00: all the time. I mean, I'm not I'm not saying I'm a loner, but I don't I don't need it. I'm some of
[28:24] SPEAKER_00: my favorite times that come home to an empty house. Yeah, I don't mean exactly. So depending on the
[28:31] SPEAKER_00: level of you know, if there was trees and and stuff that I could start trying to figure out how
[28:38] SPEAKER_00: to be creative with those things, I could I could be there a while. So James, that's it for the
[28:43] SPEAKER_01: for the interviews. There's some really really good perceptions in there. And I always like to kind
[28:49] SPEAKER_01: of finish this work and our listeners find you online, you know, because these things spot things
[28:55] SPEAKER_01: people want to interact, you know, I mean, how can they get you online? Yeah, I mean, I'm not a
[29:04] SPEAKER_00: much as the same way I don't need to surround myself with people all the time. I'm not hugely active
[29:09] SPEAKER_00: on social media, but I can be reached on Twitter at that WUJ3888 if people want to ask me a question
[29:19] SPEAKER_00: and certainly I if you want to go to interspace.io and you can reach me there as well.
[29:27] SPEAKER_01: Well, once again, thanks James and thanks everyone that's listening or viewing. Thanks for having me.
[29:32] SPEAKER_01: So until next time, be sure to list, make sure you sign up for a news tab or write a review for
[29:37] SPEAKER_01: us on iTunes. You can connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn or at canvisbodcast.com
[29:44] SPEAKER_01: where you can listen, discover and engage. You can also check out what other entrepreneurs
[29:49] SPEAKER_01: are doing across the country. I'll see you next time.