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Why I Walked Away From the Safe Option with Joe Silva
16 Plays2 months ago
Joe Silva doesn’t do theory. He’s built his career in the real world of cybersecurity, across both defense and private sectors, where the stakes are high and the margin for error is zero. Now, as Founder & CEO of Spektion, he’s channeling that experience into building something of his own and it shows. Some people are wired to lead, to build, to take the risk. Joe is one of them.
In this episode, we get into what it actually looks like to make that jump from operator to founder and the mindset shift that comes with it. We also (of course) put HR under the microscope. Joe’s take? Let’s just say he’s got opinions. And they’re not the ones you hear in HR echo chambers.
Even though we’re building completely different products, the overlap in how we think about people, performance, and building something that actually works is real.
Tune in for this candid conversation on leadership, building in high-stakes environments, and what it really takes to scale something from the ground up.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Fractional Frequency Podcast
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Fractional Frequency, our take on talent, people trends, and the reality of building up businesses in an economy that keeps rewriting the rules.
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm Amy Crook, founder of Strativist.
00:00:21
Speaker
And I'm Erin Totis, managing
00:00:27
Speaker
the right people to make an impact for our clients fast.
00:00:30
Speaker
Around here, we talk about the real side of HR and talent, what works, what absolutely doesn't, and how to build teams that can carry a business, not drag it down.
00:00:41
Speaker
We'll break down trends, share the behind the scenes of scaling a consultancy from zero, and probably overshare a little because that's where the good lessons live.
00:00:49
Speaker
So whether you're building, hiring, leading, or just trying to keep your company profitable, you're in the right place.
00:00:55
Speaker
This is fractional frequency.
00:00:57
Speaker
Let's get to it.
Guest Introduction: Joe Silver, Cybersecurity Expert
00:01:08
Speaker
Joe Silver joining us for the podcast.
00:01:11
Speaker
And Joe is a high level expert in cybersecurity with real world experience in both the defense and private sectors.
00:01:19
Speaker
And now Joe has turned his talents towards entrepreneurship as the founder and CEO of Spectrum, a cybersecurity software firm.
00:01:29
Speaker
And as a career long fan of corporate HR, it was only natural that we would have him on to talk about all the value adds of HR.
00:01:38
Speaker
So welcome, Joe.
00:01:40
Speaker
Thanks for having me in here.
00:01:43
Speaker
Looking forward to this.
00:01:45
Speaker
Good.
00:01:46
Speaker
Joe, do you remember the first time you and I met?
00:01:50
Speaker
I believe so.
00:01:52
Speaker
I think I was railing about the lack
00:01:55
Speaker
of utility in TransUnion TA.
00:01:59
Speaker
But that, I mean, that's a wild guess, but a pretty good one because I railed about it.
00:02:04
Speaker
Yeah, it was, it was definitely my most interesting meeting when I first started at TransUnion.
00:02:11
Speaker
You essentially
00:02:13
Speaker
let me know that you weren't quite sure why I was here because you did all the hiring for your own function anyway.
00:02:21
Speaker
And talent acquisition is essentially useless.
00:02:25
Speaker
And I burst out laughing because I did not know what to say.
00:02:29
Speaker
Well, that was when I thought I was going to have to pay you a commission on the hires I was making.
00:02:34
Speaker
And then when I found out that it was essentially free from me, my attitude challenge.
00:02:40
Speaker
Then it seemed like good value at the free price tag.
00:02:44
Speaker
Yes.
00:02:46
Speaker
Talk us through like what you've been up to since those TransUnion days.
Joe's Career Transition and Entrepreneurial Journey
00:02:50
Speaker
Well, since my glorious tour of duty running cybersecurity at TransUnion, I moved over to JLL, the large global corporate commercial real estate firm.
00:03:04
Speaker
You know, I led security there for almost three years.
00:03:07
Speaker
I was the CISO there.
00:03:09
Speaker
until summer of 2024 when I joined with my co-founders who had also worked at JLL and TransUnion with me to start Spection, the company I'm CEO of now.
00:03:23
Speaker
Nice.
00:03:25
Speaker
And what was the push that made you want to go from being in a company to running your own business?
00:03:40
Speaker
Before I was at TransUnion, I had been on the vendor side.
00:03:44
Speaker
And while I was at TransUnion, I was actually entertaining a number of options to go back there.
00:03:48
Speaker
Probably at something smaller, not maybe something I'd start myself.
00:03:54
Speaker
But then a lot of conversations with my co-founders, ideas we had, just gaps we saw.
00:04:02
Speaker
in terms of what like the cybersecurity product market was offering us vis-a-vis like the challenges we dealt with every day.
00:04:08
Speaker
We thought we had some unique insights and I, you know, before the dawn of like Claudecote, I couldn't build a damn thing myself and they could essentially, they could build anything.
The Motivation Behind Entrepreneurship
00:04:22
Speaker
And, you know, but at a high level, it was, you know, I wanted to do three things.
00:04:27
Speaker
And I, when I joined JLL, I knew I was going to leave and go do something else.
00:04:31
Speaker
Uh,
00:04:34
Speaker
or that I started or another one.
00:04:38
Speaker
So I, you know, I'd kind of already mentally prepared myself, ramped up for it.
00:04:42
Speaker
But at a high level, it was, you know, I wanted a few things kind of out of, you know, like this portion of my career.
00:04:49
Speaker
I wanted to do work that I actually wanted to do.
00:04:53
Speaker
I can talk more about that, you know, in a minute.
00:04:56
Speaker
But I wanted to do it with the people I wanted to do it with, which were my co-founders and like our early hires.
00:05:04
Speaker
And I wanted to get out of it what I put into it.
00:05:07
Speaker
And that last part, I was very well compensated.
00:05:11
Speaker
There's a lot of, not a lot, but a vocal minority of CISOs who were talking about how tough the job is.
00:05:26
Speaker
that's what the money's for, right?
00:05:28
Speaker
So like, hey, if your job is to be the chief digital janitor and you're paid like seven figures for it, I think that's
Building Entrepreneurial Skills at JLL and TransUnion
00:05:36
Speaker
a pretty good gig.
00:05:36
Speaker
Just shut up and pick up the trash.
00:05:38
Speaker
Nobody wants to hear about this great gum off the floor.
00:05:41
Speaker
But
00:05:44
Speaker
I wanted to do it with the people I wanted to do it with.
00:05:46
Speaker
And I would say at both TransUnion and JLL, I had the good fortune because of the leadership of both those companies are really building teams.
00:05:54
Speaker
I was brought there to build up programs.
00:05:57
Speaker
And so there was a certain degree of entrepreneurial culture in terms of what we were doing that.
00:06:06
Speaker
We built operations that we thought needed to be built for the problems at hand.
00:06:11
Speaker
We essentially probably created
00:06:18
Speaker
make me a very good executive for having done that lesson learned, right?
00:06:23
Speaker
Especially if it's totally orthogonal to the corporate culture.
00:06:27
Speaker
But also, I just know this about myself where I'm not good at being a support person.
00:06:37
Speaker
And, you know, by that, I mean, you know, I had a career in the military and then as a civilian in the intelligence community and operations world.
00:06:44
Speaker
And I'm good at
00:06:47
Speaker
Being in the role that the organization is about.
00:06:50
Speaker
Right.
00:06:51
Speaker
I mean, I think I was mildly effective as a CISO.
00:06:54
Speaker
You know, your mileage may vary on your take.
00:06:59
Speaker
But at the end of the day, like if you're in the Air Force, if I'm in the Air Force, I need to be a pilot.
00:07:04
Speaker
Right.
00:07:05
Speaker
If I'm in the Army, I need to be an operator.
00:07:13
Speaker
I need to be an operations officer, right?
00:07:15
Speaker
I'm just best.
00:07:16
Speaker
I'm happiest when I feel like my success directly maps to the organization's mission.
00:07:22
Speaker
And obviously the easiest way to do that is to start and run your own company.
00:07:28
Speaker
Yeah, no, absolutely.
00:07:30
Speaker
Was there like a specific moment?
00:07:32
Speaker
I mean, you said that you already knew going into your CISO position that you weren't going to stay forever.
00:07:42
Speaker
But was there a specific moment or frustration that pushed you a certain time to go into your own business?
The Role of Co-founders and Startup Challenges
00:07:54
Speaker
I mean, I don't know that I had this like moment of clarity, right?
00:07:57
Speaker
Like an alcoholic hitting rock bottom or anything.
00:08:00
Speaker
There's probably a whole series of moments where, you know, like most people you say, I can't believe that I work for this person or that this is my job, or you think, am I getting dumber by doing this?
00:08:15
Speaker
Right?
00:08:17
Speaker
So I don't, you know, it's probably very incremental.
00:08:21
Speaker
I would say the moment
00:08:22
Speaker
was, and it really made it a lot easier because my co-founders were taking the leap with me when we were just talking and we realized we could actually, like, we could do this, right?
00:08:34
Speaker
You know, like I said, a lot easier.
00:08:35
Speaker
I didn't just go off on my own.
00:08:37
Speaker
You know, I went off with other people who had as much, if not more, to lose than I did.
00:08:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:08:45
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely is tough to do it alone.
00:08:50
Speaker
When I made the decision to do this, I was on my own for a whole month.
00:08:56
Speaker
It was intense, but then I was...
00:09:00
Speaker
very fortunate that erin came along with me um so you talked about going back to being um part of an organization a vendor um rather than uh your own business but what was the it was was it the decision that you guys came up with this great idea that you knew could solve a problem so it just made it simple uh even though the risk of doing your own thing is definitely higher
00:09:30
Speaker
You know, it wasn't like I felt like we had this aha moment where like we arrived at, you know, the idea to do exactly what we're doing now.
00:09:39
Speaker
I mean, you know, we thought about just big problems, you know, and probably not germane to most of your audience, but we were just thinking about real gaps and how organizations can identify and manage vulnerabilities.
00:09:54
Speaker
systems.
00:09:55
Speaker
But it was when I realized that, you know, my co-founders weren't just the folks I can build this with, but they were the people who, and I'd known like they were already like tireless workers, you know, not going to be easily demoralized, but also that they could be as flexible as we would need to be because we knew that we had an idea and where we ended up wasn't going to be where we started.
00:10:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:22
Speaker
And it was kind of when I, you know, when I did my own mental math and I did my risk model around this and I, and I realized that they're going to be able to pivot with me, you know, as much as the business requires.
00:10:36
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's super important.
00:10:38
Speaker
Going back to what you said
Employee Fit and Leadership in Startups
00:10:39
Speaker
about, you know, wanting to do, wanting to do work with people that you want to do work with.
00:10:43
Speaker
And when you go into your own business, being super flexible about what you're focused on and when, because it does, it does change.
00:10:55
Speaker
And even though it's a completely different space, we've been through that journey too of what we thought was going to be our focus and where we'd spend time.
00:11:04
Speaker
most of our time has changed significantly just in the last six months.
00:11:09
Speaker
So it's a real interesting, interesting journey.
00:11:12
Speaker
I know Erin's got some questions for you, but I just want to reassure people that perhaps were worried that Joe spent the next like three and a half years bullying me while we were at TransUnion.
00:11:26
Speaker
He did, but I am happy to say that
00:11:30
Speaker
One of my final meetings that I had with Joe, he gave me the very high praise of telling me he didn't hate working with me.
00:11:41
Speaker
And I was like, thank you.
00:11:43
Speaker
It stuck with me forever.
00:11:48
Speaker
Clearing your memory.
00:11:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:52
Speaker
I think, you know, we've lately, we've talked a lot about leadership on this podcast and, and also about what it feels like to become a founder and some of the trade-offs that people don't necessarily warn you about.
00:12:05
Speaker
And so Joe, I've got, I've got some questions for you along that vein.
00:12:09
Speaker
Is there anything to kick us off?
00:12:12
Speaker
Is there anything that you underestimated about becoming a founder?
00:12:16
Speaker
And if so, what were those things?
00:12:19
Speaker
I probably did.
00:12:20
Speaker
And I just am not introspective enough to realize it when it comes to myself, but you know, when I, I'll just kind of speak a little more broadly.
00:12:30
Speaker
Here's one of the things I just realized, right.
00:12:32
Speaker
You know, when you're leading like, you know, teams of a couple hundred folks, uh, versus starting with a smaller team, you know, and I had worked on like small teams in the military is that, um, you know, you have to be
00:12:50
Speaker
alignment or not at all.
00:12:53
Speaker
And, you know, like I'm continuously impressed at like how a lot of our early employees like, like do amazing things, right?
00:13:01
Speaker
Like you hear phrases and like tech world about 10 X engineers and things like that.
00:13:05
Speaker
But I've seen some folks who just go above and beyond it, both in terms of like what they do and like their commitment.
00:13:11
Speaker
But then I've also just seen how with some employees, you know, and
00:13:19
Speaker
You can mitigate, you know, employees, maybe, you know, having a tough time and still get the most out of them.
00:13:27
Speaker
But it's really binary in the startup world.
00:13:29
Speaker
You are either amazing or you're not a fit.
00:13:32
Speaker
And it may just be you're not a fit, you know, for me and to deal with my BS, right?
00:13:37
Speaker
No way.
00:13:39
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:13:40
Speaker
That's kind of a non-negotiable.
00:13:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:44
Speaker
Would I...
00:13:45
Speaker
What I really underestimated was the extent to which, again, some people will do amazing things and far exceed your expectations.
00:13:52
Speaker
And for other people, it's just not a good fit.
00:13:55
Speaker
And you will often recognize it before they do.
00:13:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:00
Speaker
Right.
00:14:02
Speaker
And so, you know, on that, on that topic, is there anything that you would say has changed about how you lead people after becoming a founder?
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, I probably lead people a lot more like I did when I was like earlier in my career before I was in the private sector.
00:14:22
Speaker
Right.
00:14:22
Speaker
And that like, hey, here's the mission.
00:14:24
Speaker
Here's what we have to do.
00:14:26
Speaker
Yeah, there is a lot of like accountability on you.
00:14:29
Speaker
And, you know, and you have to give people the opportunity to either, you know, crash or like reach the stratosphere very quickly.
00:14:39
Speaker
Right.
00:14:39
Speaker
And you have to be willing to call it.
00:14:40
Speaker
Right.
00:14:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:44
Speaker
very, very quickly.
00:14:46
Speaker
I think that's, that's important.
00:14:47
Speaker
And honestly, it's the most fair thing.
00:14:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:51
Speaker
Right.
00:14:51
Speaker
To the employee, because you honestly don't have the time to not go through all the administrative hurdles from HR perspective that you do.
00:15:03
Speaker
That's not really a big deal, at least if it hasn't been for us, it's more about, you don't have the time to kind of coach people along and
00:15:13
Speaker
successful yeah but uh you have to recognize one if people are going to succeed or not in the role they're in and then two is there a role like because a lot of folks maybe are just in the wrong role but could be tremendous contributors and where that is and if you can't figure it out um they're not going to figure it out without you doing it and it's just not a fit
00:15:37
Speaker
Yeah, and that's such a good point.
00:15:39
Speaker
There's just no time where you have more, like, I hate to use this term, but like more runway for things to get completed and there's more people contributing and, you know, you can have like people that are a little bit slower to move or
00:16:03
Speaker
um and not able to like fully take ownership of a decision or an action themselves they want to you know talk it through you can have that in corporate but when you're in a startup there's there's no time for for any of that it's like you have to complete x and you have to figure it out like i can't i can't sit with you and figure it out with you because i'm figuring out my own problems
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:28
Speaker
And some, and, you know, and maybe it's not necessarily fair, which is why I try to be as transparent about it, you know, in the hiring process, right?
00:16:35
Speaker
Like, Hey, the, there's no way, like we could go through a battery of like four hours of interviews and practical exercises and things like that, but that's not really going to determine whether or not you're a fit.
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:16:47
Speaker
So, you know, the first, you know, a couple of months on the job,
00:16:52
Speaker
is really the actual interview process.
00:16:56
Speaker
And some folks, they call it themselves, right?
00:16:58
Speaker
Like they're like, hey, I thought it was for me.
00:17:00
Speaker
You know, I'm introspective enough and self-aware enough that I get it.
00:17:05
Speaker
It's not for me right now.
00:17:07
Speaker
And you know, that's great.
00:17:08
Speaker
And sometimes they don't, you know, and in the corporate world, you would a lot of times try to bring them along, right?
00:17:16
Speaker
You just don't have time to do that.
00:17:22
Speaker
all in my drawer here beside me.
00:17:26
Speaker
I'll just crush it up and pull up a dollar in it.
00:17:35
Speaker
I'll make the time.
00:17:36
Speaker
It's the opportunity cost of what else you could be getting done.
00:17:41
Speaker
That's what you don't really have.
00:17:44
Speaker
And folks can sense it.
00:17:49
Speaker
And the other
00:17:55
Speaker
motivated high performers.
00:17:57
Speaker
Not to say that folks who aren't a fit aren't high performers, it's just maybe not in the context of the role of the company.
00:18:02
Speaker
But like, I worry, you know, other than deal flow, there's nothing I worry about more than the morale of like our best folks.
00:18:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
And their well-being.
00:18:12
Speaker
So yeah, and it definitely impacts people.
00:18:16
Speaker
Sorry, Aaron, I was just going to say it definitely impacts those around you.
00:18:19
Speaker
If, you know,
00:18:21
Speaker
somebody's not quite getting it at the same pace.
00:18:26
Speaker
It's really noticeable in this kind of environment.
00:18:29
Speaker
And yeah, it's everybody needs to be on the same page and pulling, pulling the same way.
00:18:36
Speaker
It's, it's tough when it's, when it doesn't, when it doesn't work out.
00:18:40
Speaker
And I'm, I'm very willing to believe there's oftentimes where like, I'm just not the right vessel to communicate what needs to be done and how and in what way, but I'm,
00:18:51
Speaker
an army of one, so to speak.
00:18:53
Speaker
So if I can't figure it out, I can't figure out how to make somebody successful.
00:18:59
Speaker
And, you know, they're either extrinsically motivated or they need that support.
00:19:03
Speaker
It's just not going to happen.
00:19:04
Speaker
That's the fairest thing for everybody is to just call it as soon as possible.
Key Traits for Startup Success
00:19:09
Speaker
Yeah, totally.
00:19:10
Speaker
I've got sort of a talent related question just creeping into my mind.
00:19:14
Speaker
And so I'll go off, off our outline for a moment here, but I feel like
00:19:18
Speaker
Amy and my journey has been a real lesson in some of the behaviors or sort of qualities that make people successful in this type of an environment.
00:19:30
Speaker
And I, for a long time, had held this belief that if you had a killer work ethic and a positive attitude, you could figure anything out, maybe outside of technology anyway.
00:19:39
Speaker
But is there anything that's changed about your beliefs in terms of
00:19:43
Speaker
critical qualities that you now see as very important or that you now prioritize over other things as you're hiring for your team?
00:19:53
Speaker
I mean, beyond the things you mentioned, right, great attitude, great work ethic, you know, I would say like a technical criteria is like, there's probably two things.
00:20:02
Speaker
One is just your willingness to like refactor your opinions and learn.
00:20:07
Speaker
That's particularly important.
00:20:10
Speaker
when it comes to like, you know, how do you get leverage out of like adopting AI, which every couple of months there's a new equation, right?
00:20:17
Speaker
Like there's a lot of people early who were, you know, rightfully kind of AI deniers.
00:20:23
Speaker
And you have to be willing to just rethink your stance on that.
00:20:28
Speaker
That's one.
00:20:28
Speaker
The other is, you know, when you're in a startup, uh,
00:20:33
Speaker
things are going to change, right?
00:20:35
Speaker
Like, hey, we thought we were going to do X. Now we're getting signals we're going to do Y. Some of it's like actual signals from the market.
00:20:40
Speaker
Some of it's intuition.
00:20:42
Speaker
And that creates like some ambiguity.
00:20:44
Speaker
So you have to have employees who have a tolerance for ambiguity.
00:20:48
Speaker
You know, they're intrinsically motivated by doing a great job because they love what they're doing.
00:20:55
Speaker
But at the same time,
00:20:57
Speaker
You know, they can be, they can have comfort with understanding that, hey, things are going to change, right?
00:21:02
Speaker
And what success looks like for the company is going to change, how that translates to what they deliver is going to change, right?
00:21:08
Speaker
They just are intrinsically motivated by doing awesome work.
00:21:13
Speaker
And if then, you know, and if the purpose of that work changes, that's fine because that's not really their focus.
00:21:18
Speaker
Yeah, now it makes a ton of sense.
00:21:22
Speaker
And everything that you're saying just rings so true, even though it's a completely different space, but the work ethic, the attitude, the operating in ambiguity, I think those are just so like a thread between all startups that you have to possess those qualities, those behaviors to be able to tolerate
00:21:47
Speaker
the working environment.
00:21:48
Speaker
Some people like really thrive off that and some people just find it way too complex to unpick and find their way through.
00:22:02
Speaker
I mean, there's also the comfort.
00:22:04
Speaker
I'm sorry to cut you off.
00:22:05
Speaker
Oh, go on.
00:22:06
Speaker
Go on.
00:22:06
Speaker
You know, another thing is just you just have to have comfort with like a ton of, I don't want to say scrutiny, but just transparency into what you're getting done every day.
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:17
Speaker
Right.
00:22:17
Speaker
Where.
00:22:19
Speaker
Yeah, like and every day is not going to be a win, right.
00:22:23
Speaker
Or you're going to do things that, you know, in retrospect, maybe didn't work out or they're just rendered obsolete by new things.
00:22:30
Speaker
You know, so you have to be very invested in the work you're doing when you're doing it.
00:22:34
Speaker
You cannot be overly emotionally invested in the work you did.
00:22:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:38
Speaker
And you have to be comfortable with being under the microscope, not because you're working for micromanagers, but just because everybody sees everything that everyone's doing.
00:22:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:22:47
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:48
Speaker
Every day is selection.
00:22:50
Speaker
Every day is a selection.
00:22:54
Speaker
That sounds so harsh, but it's so true.
00:22:57
Speaker
And I think as well, it's funny because there was a couple of things that Aaron and I kind of went through on this journey.
00:23:05
Speaker
One is that our work ethic, our attitude, our ability to operate in ambiguity is like super strong.
00:23:14
Speaker
What
00:23:17
Speaker
just came to my mind with what you just said was that bit around, you know, when something doesn't work.
00:23:25
Speaker
That was kind of a newer, like newer experience, because we're used to like going into organizations when things are really broken, making
00:23:33
Speaker
like big impacts quick quick changes getting our pat on the head and you know everybody's happy at the end of the day and it's not like that every like you say every day is a new thing and you're not going to win every day and so the resilience piece i think was was big for for us not because
00:23:56
Speaker
you know, we, we don't like feedback or we're not, we're, we do, we love that, you know, we want to get better and we want to add a ton of value to everyone that we work with, but the, the pace of how quickly we were able to make an impact in our sector, in our industry was just slower than we anticipated.
00:24:14
Speaker
I don't know.
00:24:15
Speaker
I don't want to talk for you, Aaron, but does that kind of like ring true to you?
00:24:19
Speaker
Yeah, I think that your definition of success has to change.
00:24:22
Speaker
And I think it's a lesson that you can really only learn the hard way.
00:24:26
Speaker
But I'd be curious, Joe, for your take on that, too.
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I kind of knew this going in because I had worked with so many startups and had friends that had done them before.
00:24:35
Speaker
And even the most successful ones, one, you only hear about them when they reach success, right, and everything works.
00:24:42
Speaker
you know, when the narrative ends up being everything was up and to the right.
00:24:46
Speaker
You know, so there's a huge selection bias in terms of the stories you actually hear about.
00:24:51
Speaker
True.
00:24:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:52
Speaker
But also, you know, like, I'm highly confident, you know, that you all, like, you know, Spectrum are going to be, like, very successful.
00:25:07
Speaker
Like it's not going to feel like it's even at the end when you're successful, the way there is not going to feel like, oh, it was a smooth glide path there.
00:25:17
Speaker
Right.
00:25:17
Speaker
So I had already kind of prepared myself for that.
00:25:22
Speaker
Right.
00:25:23
Speaker
And what you don't, you don't want to overprepare because then you become too accepting of defeats.
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:28
Speaker
But, you know, you have to just be comfortable being unhappy and displeased with outcomes that you heavily invested yourself.
00:25:37
Speaker
and trying to create and just move on right it's like shooting free throws you just have to like worry about the next one yep so true and yeah the fifth the fifth knock like it hurt the second one we're just like all right well can't afford to be moping around gotta gotta get on with it and now i think we're we're better better for it like better operators better humans just um valuing different things which i think um
00:26:05
Speaker
has been a pretty cool change.
00:26:09
Speaker
Has there been any moments since you moved into your own space that you had any doubts?
00:26:23
Speaker
I mean, doubts in terms of, was this the right thing to do?
00:26:28
Speaker
Yeah, like doubts that you had not met.
00:26:32
Speaker
You know, I would, I have, I don't have doubts that it was the right thing to do because I, I mean, I just think I can get anything done, right?
00:26:40
Speaker
I probably have an unrealistic assessment of my capabilities to just figure it out and get stuff done.
00:26:46
Speaker
So not really, I mean, it's, you know, so every once in a while you, like I don't get too high or too low, right?
00:26:55
Speaker
And I think sometimes as a boss, it's maybe,
00:26:59
Speaker
to the detriment of the team.
00:27:00
Speaker
Like when there's a win, like I don't really celebrate.
00:27:03
Speaker
Right.
00:27:03
Speaker
I mean, I'm happy for what we do.
00:27:07
Speaker
And I like to, you know, call out when we do something very great.
00:27:09
Speaker
But if you get too high, then you're also going to get too low.
00:27:13
Speaker
Yep.
00:27:14
Speaker
Right.
00:27:15
Speaker
So I try to stay pretty modulated on that.
00:27:18
Speaker
Now, I do think
00:27:21
Speaker
largely driven by AI, everybody needs to think about being disintermediated,
Mindset and Decision-Making in Startups
00:27:26
Speaker
right?
00:27:26
Speaker
And hey, the thing that I was thinking where I was going to bring really unique value to the market is now maybe not going to exist or be commoditized or just be rendered, you know, not very valuable.
00:27:39
Speaker
But again, I think if you have probably totally unrealistic expectations of your ability to just figure it out and succeed,
00:27:51
Speaker
you've got a fighting chance, right?
00:27:54
Speaker
And I heard a saying that sticks with me because not a lot of people probably who know me would just say, oh yeah, he's a real optimist.
00:28:03
Speaker
But here's this phrase I remember at least once a week, which is, if you want to be right most of the time, be a pessimist.
00:28:14
Speaker
But if you want to be successful, be an optimist.
00:28:17
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:28:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, I it's it's everything you're saying I'm totally in agreement with.
00:28:24
Speaker
I had a call with somebody who I had been like having some sort of like mentor relationship with a few weeks ago and it was after maybe like the first big knock.
00:28:40
Speaker
And it was just, you know, I was just not in a good frame of mind.
00:28:43
Speaker
And the person said to me, okay, like when's your cut off date?
00:28:49
Speaker
Actually, they called it a drop dead date.
00:28:51
Speaker
They're like, when's your cut off date that you're just going to like give up?
00:28:53
Speaker
And I was like, excuse me?
00:28:55
Speaker
Like, that's not even in question.
00:28:58
Speaker
You know, this is going to work.
00:29:01
Speaker
Like, I know it's going to work.
00:29:02
Speaker
And I was just like, it really shocked me out of my little funk because I was like, no, no, no.
00:29:08
Speaker
We're not going down that road.
00:29:12
Speaker
Because, yeah, I think we've just, we've had that belief from day one that we're going to be successful.
00:29:19
Speaker
It's at times obnoxious, the plans that we have for ourselves going down the line.
00:29:24
Speaker
But I think you have to have that, like, faith in yourself to keep going, especially when those knocks come.
00:29:31
Speaker
Yeah, and you know what?
00:29:32
Speaker
This is a huge character flaw, probably.
00:29:34
Speaker
Definitely.
00:29:34
Speaker
It was like a husband, father, and friend.
00:29:36
Speaker
But
00:29:37
Speaker
Like when things are really going downhill, like the job will be the lasting
00:29:49
Speaker
So far, my son doesn't hate me and my wife hasn't left me.
00:29:53
Speaker
So I haven't gotten any of those signals that things are about to come to a crashing halt yet.
00:29:58
Speaker
After those two things happen, maybe then I'll recalibrate.
00:30:05
Speaker
Yes, definitely need supportive family around you to tolerate the working hours.
00:30:10
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:30:11
Speaker
I mean, not just the hours, but it's just the, you know, the disengagement when you're not technically working.
00:30:17
Speaker
Like my wife,
00:30:29
Speaker
That's awesome.
00:30:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's a huge component.
00:30:31
Speaker
It makes it a lot easier.
00:30:33
Speaker
Yeah, 100%.
00:30:35
Speaker
You mentioned earlier about ambiguity.
00:30:38
Speaker
And so I just wonder, like, how you personally make decisions when you have incomplete information?
00:30:45
Speaker
The answer is I just make a decision.
00:30:49
Speaker
Right?
00:30:51
Speaker
Again, I mean, kind of going back towards I'll figure it out.
00:30:55
Speaker
I'll make it.
00:30:55
Speaker
We'll make a decision.
00:30:57
Speaker
maybe there's a 45% chance it's wrong.
00:31:00
Speaker
It's just about how fast we recognize it.
00:31:02
Speaker
And the longer we go, I talked to my co-founder and CTO, Josh, about this.
00:31:08
Speaker
We just iterate much more quickly through failure.
00:31:12
Speaker
And so part of that's just kind of being deprogrammed from the corporate world where you just don't have the latitude to do that.
00:31:18
Speaker
And honestly, sometimes the sense of urgency is not as great.
00:31:22
Speaker
Yeah.
00:31:23
Speaker
Right?
00:31:23
Speaker
Because the organizations themselves that you work at don't.
00:31:31
Speaker
and you're never going to have enough data points, I just say, okay, one, I have to make a decision as fast as possible so we can iterate through failure.
00:31:40
Speaker
And then two, like, is this a defensible decision, right?
00:31:45
Speaker
I was on a call today and we were talking about marketing and PR and, you know, I kind of had a hunch that something was the right thing to do.
00:31:55
Speaker
it you know i was talking through it uh with my marketing leader and just saying hey uh why is this a defensible decision if this completely fails like why was this defensible why was our rationale defensible yeah i think that is a really great tip like to ask yourself that question um i know we definitely make decisions quickly we like live with the mantra that the only bad decision is not making one at all um but yeah
00:32:25
Speaker
I think that's a good tip for people out there that are thinking about doing something similar is, you know, when you move quick, you have to just make sure that you can, you can talk to why should you need to.
00:32:37
Speaker
I think this is like a Bezos Amazon thing, but it's definitely true that very few decisions are one way doors.
00:32:43
Speaker
I mean, you need to
00:32:47
Speaker
if we make this decision right but that's very every decision you're going to make during the day is a two-way door yeah yeah it's good to remember that too so you've been going for a couple of years now so what what's harder the early days or now that you're scaling uh I definitely think
00:33:11
Speaker
It's harder in the early days because you're just not exactly sure what to do in terms of where to put your effort.
Scaling Challenges and Communication for Founders
00:33:18
Speaker
There's a lot of advice you get.
00:33:19
Speaker
You know, there's kind of, you know, when you're starting a software company, you know, what roles you bring on when it's kind of like a template of what you're expected to do.
00:33:30
Speaker
And again, I think there's a lot of selection bias in terms of you can follow that playbook perfectly.
00:33:34
Speaker
and things will still not work out.
00:33:36
Speaker
If it did, every VC would only pick winners, right?
00:33:39
Speaker
If they just had them there to keep the playbook.
00:33:43
Speaker
So, you know, there's a lot of ambiguity and it wasn't like stressful, but just, you know, there's a lot more, there's a lot more learning going on, right?
00:33:51
Speaker
Still a ton of learning now, but you're, you know, the amount of, you know, one, you become more opinionated and confident in just your gut decisions.
00:34:07
Speaker
getting people aligned.
00:34:08
Speaker
Like I find the bigger the company gets, the more comfortable I am, not because I'm like insulated from things more or have less to do, but just because you kind of have more resources to play with.
00:34:21
Speaker
Right.
00:34:23
Speaker
And you can, you can fail faster, get more data points.
00:34:28
Speaker
And like people are so much, I mean, it's one is your company grows and you have more folks.
00:34:32
Speaker
Of course you have more things you need to get done.
00:34:34
Speaker
But when you combine that with like,
00:34:40
Speaker
of the productivity boon.
00:34:42
Speaker
And so now, like something I think about is, you know, everybody is always working all the time, right?
00:34:48
Speaker
That's kind of a given.
00:34:49
Speaker
Now we have great employees work really hard.
00:34:54
Speaker
But it's also just, is it the optimal use of their time, right?
00:34:58
Speaker
Like, hey, do you have, like, do we have agents running 24-7 doing everything they can be doing for us, right?
00:35:04
Speaker
And if not, you feel like you're leaving money on the table.
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:11
Speaker
So when you think about this journey, who shouldn't become a founder of a company?
00:35:22
Speaker
Well, like all the people that don't have the traits, I guess we talked about is a given.
00:35:27
Speaker
But, you know, like I'll tell you people, people who are like, I want to be my own boss.
00:35:34
Speaker
And maybe in some context, that's true, but.
00:35:39
Speaker
know, I feel like I work for everybody now.
00:35:41
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:42
Speaker
As opposed to in the corporate world where, you know, I just had to make sure my priorities were, you know, totally aligned with my boss's priorities.
00:35:50
Speaker
Right.
00:35:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:51
Speaker
And a lot of times in the corporate world, when you feel like that isn't the case, because maybe there's, you know, kind of competing priorities among like various levels of leadership, right.
00:36:00
Speaker
I've experienced where that could be frustrating.
00:36:02
Speaker
But in general, it's pretty easy.
00:36:04
Speaker
But for folks who think like, oh, I'm just going to be my own boss,
00:36:11
Speaker
I've had a lot of conversations with folks about where it's like founder is a lifestyle brand.
00:36:15
Speaker
You know, where they're so into being a founder.
00:36:22
Speaker
It's like CrossFit or being a vegan, right?
00:36:25
Speaker
Like you hear about it all the time.
00:36:26
Speaker
Very in vogue right now, yeah.
00:36:28
Speaker
And, you know, not only is it probably not mapped to the company's success, it's also like unbelievably unfair to your employees, right?
00:36:36
Speaker
Like if they're joining you and sacrificing a ton...
00:36:41
Speaker
So again, you can have this lifestyle brand or feel a certain way.
00:36:45
Speaker
Like that's absolutely the wrong person to do it.
00:36:50
Speaker
Right.
00:36:50
Speaker
And I mean, like obviously like multitasking, right.
00:36:54
Speaker
Task switching.
00:36:55
Speaker
That's, that's a given in terms of your ability to do that.
00:37:01
Speaker
And every founder is going to do something different, but let's just assume, and you know, we're like a venture backed startup.
00:37:07
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:08
Speaker
There's,
00:37:09
Speaker
You've got to, and you know, most startups don't start with like somebody on go to market, right?
00:37:14
Speaker
So if you're the CEO, you're typically go to market, right?
00:37:18
Speaker
Founders typically go to market.
00:37:20
Speaker
So you've got to have that comfort with talking to people, you know, dealing with, you know, just dealing with rejection of some sort, right?
00:37:28
Speaker
Negative feedback.
00:37:30
Speaker
Also like dealing with investors is totally different than dealing with potential customers, right?
00:37:34
Speaker
In terms of how you have to work with them and what they want to hear.
00:37:38
Speaker
Some of them want to be baffled with bullshit because they're getting bullshit all the time.
00:37:44
Speaker
Like I said, I am genuinely actually a pretty optimistic person, but I try to stay pretty grounded in my description of things, even though to myself, I see an amazing path for our company.
00:38:03
Speaker
You have to be willing to
00:38:05
Speaker
have different versions of yourself for different audiences for the, you know, the investor community, for the market, for your team.
00:38:14
Speaker
Right.
00:38:15
Speaker
And so to try to stay like, to feel like you're always being genuine because, you know, most, I don't know very many people,
00:38:22
Speaker
that feel very good about themselves when they feel like they're being disingenuine.
00:38:26
Speaker
Right.
00:38:26
Speaker
So maybe if you have like minimal self-awareness, that's not a problem.
00:38:29
Speaker
But if you're a relatively introspective person and you still have discomfort with having to be different people, depending, you know, a different person, at least a different flavor of yourself, depending on the audience, that's going to, that's going to be tough.
00:38:45
Speaker
Like I'm fortunate where,
00:38:47
Speaker
You know, from like my time in the government, I kind of learned to be whoever the other person needed me to be.
00:38:53
Speaker
But it's still, you still have to learn how to do that.
00:38:57
Speaker
And, you know, if you just want to live your truth and be your authentic self, 100% of the time with every audience, you're, you know.
00:39:05
Speaker
This is not for you.
00:39:07
Speaker
Right.
00:39:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:08
Speaker
It's probably not.
00:39:09
Speaker
It's probably not for you.
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:11
Speaker
Now, I like to think of it more like I'm meeting my audience where they're at rather than like I have some kind of personality disorder, but it could be both.
00:39:21
Speaker
I don't know.
00:39:22
Speaker
It could be.
00:39:22
Speaker
I like to think of it like I'm three-dimensional and the part of me you see depends on like you're just seeing like you're seeing me from one angle.
00:39:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:32
Speaker
It's me.
00:39:33
Speaker
You're just not getting 360, Jeff.
00:39:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:38
Speaker
And I guess my last question is, if you had to do it all again, what would you do sooner?
Reflections and Pride in Building a Company
00:39:48
Speaker
I just would have done it sooner.
00:39:51
Speaker
I just, we, I just would have started sooner.
00:39:54
Speaker
No, there were a lot of reasons, right?
00:39:55
Speaker
There was like some economic security that I wanted to make sure I had.
00:39:58
Speaker
Yeah, that's real.
00:40:00
Speaker
We wanted to
00:40:02
Speaker
You know, it's funny, you want to have, you want to get to a point where you feel like you have such high confidence in the idea you're going to execute on, although you're going to almost always iterate through that idea.
00:40:11
Speaker
And it's, you know, two years later, you're going to be like, what were we thinking?
00:40:17
Speaker
So probably just would have done, would have done it sooner.
00:40:20
Speaker
You know, like there's micro, there's a lot of mistakes.
00:40:25
Speaker
Like I said, you know, it's failing fast and trying to fail faster.
00:40:28
Speaker
I would have failed faster almost every
00:40:31
Speaker
Every failure I had, I would have failed faster at.
00:40:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:40:37
Speaker
Well, I think we'll, we'll wrap our conversation with maybe just one more question.
00:40:42
Speaker
I'm, I, for one, I'm excited to follow Spectron and the continued growth ahead.
00:40:47
Speaker
What would you say, Joe, as you look back over the last couple of years, what are you most proud of building so far within your company?
00:40:56
Speaker
Honestly, I think we've,
00:40:59
Speaker
You know, we built a, I think, a pretty strong culture.
00:41:01
Speaker
Of course, I'm biased, right?
00:41:03
Speaker
And I could just be delusional on this.
00:41:05
Speaker
I doubt it.
00:41:07
Speaker
Your teams were always so loyal.
00:41:09
Speaker
Like, they loved you.
00:41:11
Speaker
So I'm sure it's exactly the same now.
00:41:14
Speaker
Well, I don't know that they would all say that, but I appreciate that.
00:41:17
Speaker
But honestly, I'm really proud of the trust we built with Comfort.
00:41:26
Speaker
Right.
00:41:27
Speaker
And, you know, I had good relationships with folks there, but I think that our customers really feel that we're focused on them and that, you know, typically that's something you lose at scale and we haven't lost it yet.
00:41:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:39
Speaker
As we work more and more companies.
00:41:41
Speaker
So I'm like really proud of like the trust they have, our customers have in us.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
00:41:49
Speaker
And as I think about, Joe, your brand and just our conversation today, what comes to mind first is just the sort of direct clarity and matter of fact confidence that you carry in everything that you say.
00:42:02
Speaker
And I think that probably translates to trust built fast and lasting over time with your customer base.
00:42:08
Speaker
Yeah.
00:42:09
Speaker
Or at least the facade is holding, Erin.
00:42:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:42:13
Speaker
Well, perception is reality.
00:42:14
Speaker
We're talking about that today, too.
00:42:15
Speaker
But no, I think, you know, to Amy's point, she's watched you for a long time with your teams and with customers, and it holds true.
00:42:25
Speaker
But it has been just a joy to dive into conversation with you.
00:42:30
Speaker
If listeners are interested in following your journey, Joe, or in learning more about you, where can they find out more or follow you?
00:42:39
Speaker
Uh, probably the best place to follow the company and me is LinkedIn, right?
00:42:44
Speaker
Joseph Silva, LinkedIn, Spection with a K. Um, uh, on LinkedIn and obviously, you know, spection.com, but not nearly as dynamic as probably, you know, our, our LinkedIn presence for both me and the company.
00:42:59
Speaker
Okay, perfect.
00:43:00
Speaker
Well, it's been so great to get to pick your brain, Joe.
00:43:03
Speaker
Thank you.
00:43:04
Speaker
Um, have a fantastic evening and we're looking forward to
00:43:08
Speaker
following your continued success.
00:43:10
Speaker
Thanks so much.
00:43:10
Speaker
Thank you for letting me join you both.
00:43:13
Speaker
This was great.