Jeffery: Welcome to Impact Investing, brought to you by the Supporters Fund from the most multicultural city in the world, Toronto, Canada. I’m your host, Jeffrey “JP” Potvin. And let’s please welcome from the largest exporter of raspberries in the world, Belgrade, Serbia. Keo Sar from Mattar Product Studios. Welcome, Keo. It’s a real pleasure having you join us today.

Keo: Thanks JP. It’s my pleasure to be here and really great to reconnect with you.

Jeffery: Likewise, man, I’m pretty excited about the conversation today, and not only because you’re all the way in Serbia, which I’m a big fan of. I did enjoy traveling Serbia, but because we got to connect on the other side of the world and of course all the great things that you’ve done. But I was so excited about your background because it’s almost like you were meant to just be a rockstar, because all of the things you’ve got to be part of, it’s been pretty exciting from an operational standpoint, and you’ve got to be part of some really cool exits and some great businesses. So I think a lot of people are going to learn a lot today from our conversation. Me included. So I’m pretty excited to dive in. So the way we like to, to jump into our show is we want to give you kind of a quick overview of where you’ve come from, all the great things you’ve done from your days in San Francisco all the way through, all the companies that you’ve participated in. And of course, one thing about you that nobody would know.

Keo: All right. Well, again, thanks for thanks for having me. Yeah. Like I said, like you mentioned, it’s been a long time since we connected. And, you know, I remember from the first time we met, it was just a vibe, as the cool kids call it these days. So, you know, really great to to be on the podcast and hopefully can share some, some things I’ve done and, you know, help people learn some things. And I, you know, also looking forward to learning some things as well. My but my story, really begins in a refugee camp in Thailand. So culturally, my background is Cambodian. Which I’m actually going back in a couple of weeks, actually, on Sunday, I’m flying back to Cambodia to do two weeks of work in ecosystems. So pretty excited about that. And we can chat a little bit about that later on in the podcast. But, My story starts in a refugee camp. So my, my parents, they escaped the the genocide and the war that was happening in Cambodia in the mid to late 70s. And you’re talking about because when I bring it up, a lot of people don’t know about what happened there. And without getting into too much of the details, there is a genocide that wiped out anywhere from a fourth to a third of the country over a four and a half year period. One of the consequences of that was people, you know, fleeing the country into Red cross camps in Thailand. And that’s where my, my parents fled to. My mom escaped first. My dad, because during that time, they were also splitting, you know, up families and men and women into different camps. He was actually scheduled to be executed the day that he escaped. The Vietnamese army invaded. Rescue you, depending on who you ask. But the point is, you know, they came all hell broke loose at the camp, and my dad was at. And that’s how he escaped. And somehow, amongst hundreds of thousands of refugees found my mom in a refugee camp in Thailand, which is, which is where I was born. So that’s where my life began. From there, you know, we spent a year in the Philippines, in the Bataan province, where there was a refugee processing center. We got sponsored by a family in the US, specifically in San Diego, California, where I grew up. So, you know, after we got the sponsorship paperwork, they sent us to this processing center to help us learn the language, get acclimated. And then, yeah, we moved to, San Diego after that, where I grew up. I still think it’s the best city in the world, weather wise, all year round on average. A little San Diego plug there. And then from from San Diego moved up to San Francisco to really just expand my wings, but also, start university. So I was my undergrad, was in creative writing. A lot of people actually don’t know that, because I’ve been working in tech for, for a very long time there, like, but, but I’ve always enjoyed love reading and writing. I try to write my first book in second grade, and then, after getting my degree in writing, I pursued my Masters in finance. And then my career started with two fortune 100 companies. One was one of the largest, the largest electronics retailer in the world at the time. Best buy. From there, I went to one of the largest financial institutions in the world, and quickly found that I’m just not a corporate person. And that’s when my startup career, really kicked off, first company. I was at a company called Learning Club of the senior manager there. Manage a team of, you know, at any given point, 150 to 200 people with 10 or 15 direct reports, we IPO this was in the fintech space. After that, I really wanted to get my hands dirty because when I joined Lending Club, we were at a later stage and, you know, the company was at that time, probably a year and a half, two years away from IPO. And when we did IPO, just as an aside, I was actually at the New York Stock Exchange for that, one of the coolest experiences in my life. What would love to to do that again at some point? But, but I really wanted to get the experience of building something from, you know, the ground up. So to, to, series a company, company called lender, we were to another fintech focus on mortgage, where I had headed sales and operations. Their company eventually got acquired. Which led me to, company called octane, another fintech building marketplace, lending platform, for Power Sports, which I did not know anything about when they approached me to to come help build out their customer success practice. And I also did not have a customer success background. So the first time I’m meeting, you know, the founders there and they’re describing to me what they want me to do. I’m like, you do realize I’ve never been involved in any sort of customer success, you know, mechanism practice, you name it. But they’re like, but you come highly recommended. So we, we trust that you’ll you’ll figure it out. So I took a job. The company was based in New York, so I got to spend a lot of time there, which is great. And, you know, grew the team from, you know, three to 4 to 25. By the time I love the company is now a unicorn, doing extremely well. And yeah, I, I hope to go public, because I still have equity in the company. And then this the Serbia story. So after after octane, I got approached by a company called shift and Building Technology for, you know, in a moving logistics based, and that’s the company that actually moved me to Serbia. And it’s been four and a half years now as chief revenue officer there. We grew revenue enough over two year period to, to raise, a sizable series B, and then I left the company to start just working on ecosystem building and doing as you work. Being an angel investor and getting, you know, more involved, in the venture and investing side of the ecosystem. And that’s what I’ve been doing the last, couple of years until I joined a product studio. And, you know, we we do digital transformation, for mid-market and enterprise, AI driven, with the goal of, as quickly as possible, helping them realize ROI on their tech spend. And then. Yeah. And and that’s, that’s where we are. That’s that’s the journey, done a lot of different things. And been fortunate and really grateful every day for, for the journey. Some parts of it have been really tough. But it’s also kind of shape, you know, the, the person I am now and as, as well as how I view the world and, and how I approach, my care around the things that I do. And at that point is that I put the things I love.

Jeffery: It’s a fantastic story. And and before we unpack some of that one thing about you that nobody would know.

Keo: One thing about me that no one would know. So my my first name is actually my last name. So my my father, he, he passed away a little bit over nine years ago. Before he passed away, I was visiting him in San Diego because I was living in the San Francisco Bay area at the time. He said I needed to do something, and I have a request that’s like, okay. Yeah, shoot. He said, well, our last names isn’t actually sa. He said, our last name is Kayo and requested that, you know, we all change our last names to our first names. And I was a bit shocked. And then after thinking about how to tell him I can’t do this, you know, the the the nightmare, I would have to go through the change, all the paperwork and the legal fees around that. I was like, no, sorry, dad. This is one request I can’t fulfill for you.

Jeffery: And what was the what’s the reason that the name swap, what was, what was the reason behind that?

Keo: Yeah. So it’s interesting because if you go, if you go to places like Cambodia, they start with the last name first and then the first name. So my, my cousins in Cambodia, for example, the, you know, I went to the wedding at the beginning of June, you know, their last names are Kayo, which is my first name, which is supposed to be my last name. So that’s that’s the reason. So, I don’t know why and how we came up with SA, but that’s still a mystery to me that I need to find out. So yeah. So when when they.

Jeffery: So the other people in your family how how were what’s their what’s their like. Just say your brother some like what’s their name. How do they. Are they using SA as their last name.

Keo: Yeah. Everyone is using SA as as their last name. And then the other unique thing about places like Cambodia and even Thailand and I think Laos, more than Thailand is, you know, you, you say like there’s a first part of your name, and then there’s a second half of your name. So for, for example, like my name is Kevin cough. Right. My sister’s Calcutta t my brother’s with so like our first part is the same. And then there’s, you know, a different called middle part, if you will.

Jeffery: Okay. So you wouldn’t all end up with the same name if you did. What? Ask Woody. Would he ask you to do? Would everybody end up with the same?

Keo: Oh, well, I mean, our last names would be Co, and then we’d have to either take that that middle part and take that as our first name or come up with a different name. It’s partly.

Jeffery: That’s interesting. Well, either way, I guess it could have been a fascinating, work effort of putting together your new names and, IDs, but, yeah, it’s, I guess you kind of have a short, abbreviated cool name, so you don’t really have to go far. And I guess I can understand your, like, the way that I can change this. This is me. I’m happy with these names. Yeah. So it’s it’s pretty cool.

Keo: Yeah. And then I think people would think like, I’m in some secret agent or a witness protection or something. Why are you changing your name? Well, you know, when.

Jeffery: You when you go back to, you know, your upbringing and the things that, you learned about and you’re kind of talking about the refugee camp and how you guys. So, moved from there. I had the opportunity, a long time ago, and I’m going to say it was 15 plus years ago that I spent some time going through Cambodia, so backpacking through there. So I got to learn quite a bit about, the people and of course, the, the background, the culture and, you know, it’s, it’s pretty fascinating on where and how things have changed since Pol Pot days. And thank God it’s, it’s shifted a lot if you take kind of that learning. And would I know that you were obviously quite an infant at that time and or just coming of, to be, born at that time? So as you kind of, started to move through your childhood in these different countries, in the Philippines and then, obviously moving into the US, I’m sure there was a cultural shift for your parents, and maybe not so much for yourself because you were quite young. And your you’re going through and and growing up in San Diego. You obviously have this strong drive, and push to, to be great at things and to make sure you put everything into behind everything you do. So you, you jumped into university, you, obviously got through, your writing, degree and which is really cool. And you can tell that because I see a lot of the things you write. So you’re kind of building this, persona, and then you jump in, you do your your finance. And I was always curious what drove you into the finance side of, the companies that you were getting behind? What was the mechanism that really lured you into it? Was it because you did your MBA in finance, or was it just a keen interest that this was a moving space and that you wanted to be there?

Keo: Good question. I’ll, I’ll start with I, I’ve always been good at math. My, my my dad, it’s a funny story. So, in elementary school, he would never let me use a calculator. He’d make me do everything longhand. And, you know, I, I at that point, I didn’t really understand it because I’m, like, all these other kids are using calculators. Why can’t I use calculators? But he wanted me to think through it and problem solve it and write it out by hand, which, you know, in retrospect helped me remember it better. Like whether they’re the formulas or how to solve a problem and how to approach a problem. You know, as he goes back, I was doing eighth grade math in fourth grade I by my teacher at the time, Mr. Pesta. He came up to me one time. He’s just like, how come you never pay attention to math class? I’m like, I already know all this stuff. I get 100% on every single test. And he’s like, I did not connect that. So, you know, from from that point forward, he had his teachers, a would teach me higher level math than the rest of the class, while they’re going through their regular studies. So I’ve always enjoyed it because, like, I11 of the things that I’m keen on is being a problem solver. And that’s really what math is to me. It’s like, figure out how to solve an equation or whatever it is. So, so that was really my, my interest in, in finance because even in my, during my undergrad, I was taking finance and economic classes because those are things that I also enjoy. So it almost made sense to actually do it formally, at the grad school level. And then, you know, fintech naturally just made sense to me because, if I think about, you know, the levers and the leverages that we have in the world, finance is one of them. Right. And finance specifically, that solves problems for normal, everyday people. So like Lending Club, what was attractive was they they built one of the first, if not the first like marketplace where they allowed individual investors to invest small notes. You know, you’re talking about 100 and $200, into an asset class that previously was only for, institutional investors and, you know, banks that had hundreds of millions, not billions of dollars to invest. So that was really cool for me. I’m like, oh, I can also, you know, take part in this, this economy, and help drive that. And that’s always been something that’s continue to drive me when I think about being involved, whether it’s a company or a project or, a partnership. It’s like, how does this impact the world and create a more fair and equal, equal world?

Jeffery: I love the idea and the that you push around the fair side and of course, of, the impact that it’s going to take on everybody else so that you’re not just going and working for a company that’s polluting through chemicals or whatever. You’re kind of analyzing and saying, what I jump into today of what’s that? Could it change if, this company is successful or will it build value for other people? You mentioned a few times throughout our conversations, but, through other things I’ve read too, is that, you’re you wanted to build, get into and build an economy, like, build out, a way of community, like, tie that around everything that you worked on. Was that also impactful for you? And you were choosing to go into this space? Was it that you could be part of a different community, that you could build into this community? And was that were you cognizant of that at the time, or was it more learned as you went through that? Hey, there’s actually a whole group of people here. There’s a whole ecosystem here that’s being built out, and it’s really helping these people, and there’s a lot of passionate people doing this. You know, maybe I can build different economies later or build into these different, communities as I start to grow in my field as well. Yeah. Great question. That is definitely a learned experience. And learned exposure, where, you know, when when I initially joined these companies, the assessment was around, you know, what is the experience that I would get? Obviously there’s like the compensation factor. And then also the learning factor, like how how am I going to be charged and what are the opportunities for, for me to grow within this organization and as a professional?

Keo: And then as I’ve gone through this journey, I’ve become more conscientious of, okay, like what’s what’s the impact that this company, you know, is making? And how do I get myself involved in that outside of just being an employee and, you know, executing my role really well? And what what does that look like? What how do you how do we best serve the community that we say we’re trying to serve? Right. So, you know, for me and I don’t talk a lot about this volunteer activities, but, that’s something I’m always conscientious of. So when I was living in the Bay area, I would volunteer my weekends to, teach at a Cambodian school. I would, you know, donate and things. And this is just stuff like, I just keep on at the demo because, for me, it’s it’s important. But I didn’t feel like that. Needed to, like, shout it from the rooftops, so to speak. But yeah, that’s a more specifically answer the question, being able to be involved in building a community, community, was also connected to, like, my, my father as well, because he, he was the president of the Cambodians and Buddhist Society in San Diego for a number of years, and being able to watch him. And this is all volunteer, volunteer work. You know, he helped expand the temple. He helped turn it into a community center where events were hosted, Cambodian school, where both adults and kids, would come to learn over the weekend. And I just remember, you know, he would make us go to to to Cambodian school. And I hated it at the time because I’m like, I’m ten years old. What do I want to do on the weekends? After a whole week of school, I want to wake up and watch cartoons and go play. Right. But every Saturday and Sunday morning, you know, we get up dressed in my white shirt and, blue or khakis or, blue pants and go to the temple, to the Cambodian school. And, you know, there’s a lot of things I didn’t understand at the time. But I’m extremely appreciative of that experience now because, like, I, you know, I speak the language, I would say better than most of you who grew up in the US. And you can also read and write it, and those things wouldn’t have happened without that experience of my dad effectively forcing me to to go there to, school. But it also made me very conscientious of the impact that we can have on communities, even if we just stick with one person because he was one person. But, I mean, he made a heck of an impact.

Jeffery: Now I love that. And what’s there’s a few pieces there that, are impactful to that. I grew up learning kind of the same scenario. My father was that we’re Catholic, so same thing, doing a lot of events with the churches on weekends. My father was, Knights of Columbus. So he would bring us to all these events and we would have to work the gambling halls, and we do all these things. But to your point, it’s all about communities. So when we would go set up bingo night, it was because you were trying to get people to come out and participate together, or when you were doing a charity event at the school playground for the weekend, where it was fun and games. It was all about building that community and, and the impact to make. And, you know, to your point, when you were kind of going on your fingers there, what I loved about what you shared there is, you know, an engagement I always shared to people that there’s three things that you need to get out of every engagement. Who will I meet? What will I learn, and how much money will I make? And I think you just expanded that into a fourth. And maybe a fifth is, who will benefit from my engagement? And what community can I build while I’m here? So if you expand those three things because they’re more about I getting something out of this engagement, those other ones are, what am I giving back to this engagement? And I would always tell students this is that when you’re looking at something, you have to figure out what is most important to you. And for me, the most important was not about making money. That was last. What was most important was who am I? What am I going to learn? I just want to learn. That’s all I care about. And then secondarily is I have to meet people because I’m terrible at it. So I have to put myself into the scenario where I will meet people because I’m forced to. I’m there and I cannot get away from it, so I’ll meet them. So those to me became a really important factor. So it built you up as a person. And it sounds like if you add in these community pieces, you’re kind of, well, grounding yourself into being able to be more objective, to take these experiences further by learning what other people are going through, because you may have not had to go through that. Know you experience what you did as a child. But now as you’ve grown and built all of these characteristics, maybe there was, you don’t have those anymore, but those other people that are around you are going through those, and you can kind of figure out, how can I filter that? How can I help them? And now you have some wins that you’re going to gain from that. I help the community grow. I help them gain some better value. So it’s kind of fascinating how you grow through these things over time.

Keo: Yeah, absolutely. And I, I will have to say, I’m really surprised to hear about you being shy about meeting people.

Jeffery: Yeah. It’s, it runs.

Keo: That’s not the person I got that.

Jeffery: No, it it’s you become very, I guess, you know, I read this podcast through the read the podcast and there’s this podcast once, and it was, interviewing them. It was a famous person. I don’t remember who the person was. And they ask them, you know, when you’re going through this, this is, you know, what do you think about it? And he said, you know, it’s the scariest thing in the world for me. And I said, well, why is it so scary? It was what I’m introverted person and I have to put myself out there. And it’s the most stressful thing in the world, but it’s the best feeling at the end. But you metamorphosis size yourself every day to be able to be part of something so that everybody else is at a comfort level so they feel comfortable. And, it’s fascinating that you find the mechanisms that allow you to blend in and help everybody else feel comfortable, even if it’s something that you’re not and you’re not really at that stage for. So you have to work extra hard at it, but no one will ever notice because it’s not something that you want people to perceive or even to see from you. Right? So it’s it’s pretty fascinating.

Keo: Yeah. I think it’s the concept of doing things that scare you because that’s, you know, that’s where the growth is. Right?

Jeffery: 100%.

Keo: Or, you know, the, there’s that other thing. And I’m probably watching this is the, you know, the treasure you seek is in a cave that you don’t want to enter.

Jeffery: I like that that’s a good line. Yes. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. I think the fear of everything. We all have fears. But fears hold us back. And because you and I have a lot of similarities, like, I’m going to say way more than, that I’ve met and other people. And the reason, I think that that, you know, you’re a traveler, you have no fear when you travel, which is the same, you know myself as well. And what I find is that once the first time I did it, it was scary. But I did it myself, by myself, because I didn’t want to show up. Maybe in your mind you don’t want to show weakness. So your weakness would be shown because people could see it on your face like, oh, I got deer headlights. So you go and do it yourself. You’re like, I’m gonna go to the movies by myself. I’m going to go here by myself. Yeah. Once you’ve accomplished it once, it’s just then it’s like, this thing’s easy. Why did I do this all the time? So then you start to think about it as you travel, you’re like, well, I got to challenge myself. So when I go through x ray scanners at the airport, I’m trying to figure out what things can I get by here that they’re not going to catch because I got to challenge myself. This is boring. So you start to challenge everything you’re doing. And I think that once you have that mindset, there’s no fear. There is fear, but it’s the cave. You’re like cave. That’s nothing. If there’s a waterfall, that’ll be cool in there. I gotta find this thing. So your brain starts to change. What? The challenges even know to everybody else. That cave is a challenge. Your challenge is in the cave anymore. It’s something further on that you haven’t even come across. Because your brain has already said that’s easy. I can do that. No problem.

Keo: Yeah. No, I, I agree with you. And, you know, most of the things that I’ve come across in my life that have not been remotely as scary as I thought they were, you know, and then the other fact, I mean, the other thing is, like, you’ve you’ve survived your worst day.

Jeffery: That’s true. And there’s way more coming. So, you know, it’s way more common. And maybe this is good or bad, but then it’s also how do you reflect on it. And this kind of goes back to the next question I had is that when in your business, when you were operating, you were running 150 to 200 people? That’s incredible. Scale on how you are managing teams. And we were talking earlier about talent and we’ll kind of dive into that. But one, how did you manage 150 to 200 people? I think that’s a skill set that not a lot of people, that I’m aware of have, because typically that’s broken down into many managers and many, people supporting people. But, how did you find one, the hiring side to that and to managing outcomes that everybody could get behind because you become that leader for them. How do you get people to roll and, and, get behind you when you have that many people working for you? And would you have any say, top 2 or 3 things that you would tell people like, hey, when you’re growing teams focus on these things?

Keo: Yeah. Well, the first question in terms of the the hiring part, it’s being, extremely clear on who you think is going to be successful in your program. Right? Because you have, you know, as a manager and a leader, I have a very different style than probably you do with many other people. Right. So understanding, the people that are going to operate well under you both from a cohesion perspective, but also a, a healthy, disagreement perspective where, you know, you’re not going to necessarily agree on everything, but, you’ve built a good enough culture where you can disagree, come to a decision and move forward together, because I think that’s, that’s like hypercritical. And when I interview people for, for management roles, I I’ll, I’ll spend less time on the functional aspects of it and more time on the, their personal, views on how they manage and lead and just how they approach dealing with people. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, if I hire a manager, a supervisor, I’m asking them to lead another team of 10 or 15 people. And that’s how it was like I had a team of 10 to 15. The record ports, they had a team of 10 or 15 people under them. And I would tend to ask questions like, well, going back to, the comment or discussing about things that scare you, that’s actually one of the things I would ask people like, what are the things that scare you? Like, what are you scared to do? Right. So that’s one, like two like, what do you actually want to learn? And then three, I was like, and this was always an interesting question because I got so many different answers. I was like, why are you doing this? What do you want to do this? Like, how is this person personally meaningful for you? And then sometimes I’ll throw some like goofball questions like, for example, and this is, you know, because we didn’t talk about favorite books and movies, I think later on. But, you know, I, I was like, I’ll ask someone like, why? Why do you think Forrest Gump isn’t or is the, you know, the best movie in the world? And it’s more just like to just to take down the veil and have some fun during the interview and see how they react. Another question I like that sometimes is, you know, what do you think happens when, an immovable object meets an unstoppable force and it’s really just to see how they’re thinking about these things and how they approach the answer. Because there isn’t really a wrong or right answer. Right. It’s just like, what’s your personal view? And then after that, it’s it’s really having clear expectations. So, at, at and I’ll use shift as an example. One of the things I’d love to do was do a cultural orientation. So we would hire batches of people. And this, you know, typically you leave this to the HR or some other function. I did it myself as a chief revenue officer. And like managing a majority of the business where I’m like, I get this batch in a room, I I’ve got this deck that I walk into that outlines my cultural expectation of the team and like, how do we need to conduct business? How do we need to enact with each other? What are the expectations from, my leadership team, including myself and what’s the expectation from the team? Right. Because you can talk about metrics and KPIs and all of that things, which is all great. And, you know, critical to to the business. But understanding how you do, how you do that and how you act, as, as you do that is also really critical. So that that helped with alignment. In a way that I’ve seen it be successful over and over again because I really started this practice at Lending Club. Like, you know, I’d get a team, I’d get assigned a new team to go through this whole, like, cultural integration, as I call it. And then I did like, oh, this is really work. So I’m just keep doing that and it’s evolved and I’m not doing it. And that’s worked really well for me. And then what one of the other things I do is try to get silent voices out into the open. And what I mean by that is you will be in a room with five supervisors and, you know, typical of any room, there are people who are going to speak more than others. will purposely call out people who aren’t speaking, and more often than not, they’re dropping like nuggets of wisdom and, knowledge and their own experience from like, wow, like you need to speak up more. And it also got people comfortable just talking about it and bringing up topics, especially if like first time managers.

Jeffery: I like that, and I think there’s a there’s certainly a lot to unpack there. But I like the fact that, you know, you created you create a version of what are these people’s expectations, what are they going to get from this role? And then how can I coach you throughout this role at the time that you’re here, so that you can integrate and be inclusive or included in all of these pieces that we’re working on and bring the most of the game and be the best that you can be. And it sounds like you’ve kind of broken through all these little barriers to help people better adjust, but also feel like they’re part of this team. And instead of just being a number inside of 200 people, they’re actually feeling like they’re 200 people inside of one. So I it’s the reverse psychology of it. And I love that you take the approach of what scares you. Why do you do this? Why do you want to be part of this and you’re getting them to articulate it? Maybe you record it and share it with them a year later and say, hey, remember when we were interviewing you said these things, are you hitting this? Did you do what you said you were going to do to this? Feel part of what you were trying to achieve? I love the idea of the Forrest Gump movie. Hopefully everybody’s watched it, but I do like the quirky side because you’re also trying to find out is one, how do they think? And two, are they have some humor into themselves. And do they. Can they find an argument that maybe isn’t worth fighting and is it, you know, worth watching and seeing this happen? And I think, you know, the last part to it and I think you talk about this in some other podcast was about, being very strategic strategy and like what that strategy looks like. And you have a strategy where you’re trying to go with that. So if that sets your expectations, that’s kind of mirroring into this overall strategy of what are we trying to do here? Not as just as a business, but what are you doing as an individual? Where are you trying to achieve in this engagement that you have with us today? And obviously the last part, I love this, trying to get everybody feeling like they’re part of the system, which is that getting people that aren’t talking to start talking and opening themselves up to vulnerability, which is sharing and expressing their opinions in, in a management meeting, which is always going to be scary.

Keo: Yeah. And, you know, and it’s one of those things pushing people in a positive way to get them comfortable doing it. Right. Because, oftentimes they don’t know how this connects to later on in their career. Because the last year or so, I’ve had a lot of like, former direct reports that have reached out to me and said, hey, you remember like that thing you taught me, like I still do the thing. I just got promoted at work. I’m like, that’s freaking amazing. I love it. Yeah, pass it on.

Jeffery: That is that that’s that’s exciting. And this kind of lightens up to, you know, kind of how you are with people, right? You’re very, calming and easy to work with and allow people that the platform to move forward and grow, which is really exciting. So now and you’ve taken on this role of CRO, my, my question is that because every startup probably wants to be able to have these types of roles, the big title roles that that drive the business, can you share a bit more about what a CRO really does? Because to me, when you look at the divide of CEO and CFO and now you have a CRO, it’s all money, all of these are about driving financial value for the company. Is there a should startups start looking at a CRO CRO role and saying, our goal is to have this type of role in our company because we really need to be all about making money and figuring out all the different avenues to do this. And maybe you can share a bit about what that looks like, because in my brain, I’m now thinking, man, I got to get everybody to be, just like this, because I think this is what’s going to drive a lot of value in a company.

Keo: Yeah. Great questions. And I, I would start with it. It depends. Right. I think at some point having a CRO, within your organization, is, is critical. But, you know, some of the factors you think about is it, you know, a product like that growth or are you dependent on having like a large sales team? What’s your go to market? Right. Like those things that you have to understand, but I’ll go further than that and say at an early stage. Especially if you’re just launching the company. I, I very much believe in founder led sales, right. You, as the founder or founders of the company, have to be able to to sell the product, talk to your customers on the ground and be able to get that feedback to to build the best, to continue to build the best product and understand how to sell that product. Because when you make your first hire, let’s say if it’s a chief revenue officer, you have to be able to transfer that that wisdom, and all the things that you’ve collected as the founder and say, hey, we’ve gotten it this far. And I would say, you know, series eight companies are probably a prime, to start thinking about a CRO. But ideally before that, you’ve got sales processes in place, you’ve got, sales playbook, all these other things in place. And bringing in a CRO is really to take those things away from you as a founder, start juicing the revenue, right? Whether that’s like building an official revenue operations, whether that’s upskilling your sales team, looking at your technology stack and figuring out which, technology to implement to, accelerate your sales. So those are the things that I would take into consideration, from a chief revenue officer perspective. And then and I would say it’s different at different companies as well. Right. So when I was at shift, I, I did the strategic and operational part, of the revenue. But I was also doing business development as well. And I would say that was probably 10 to 15% of my time because, you know, we were often dealing with very large customers, you know, like we had Google, ERP, Amazon, and these required myself as an executive at the company, especially like the one responsible for, you know, revenue to be in those meetings.

Jeffery: I think that’s a great breakout of how and where you should start planning this CRO. And I think you phrased it perfectly by saying it’s taking the revenue processes, and, and how you’ve streamlined the SEO, the CEO’s, sales book or playbook into someone else’s role. And putting that into the CIO roles of the founder can focus on strategy and growth of the business, and allow this new role is crucial to focus on the revenue streams, on scaling the sales team and all of the facets that would tie into that. I think that that is, a very smart way of looking at it, and I would think most companies should have a CRO level, and I don’t see that as as often as it should, because it makes a lot of sense that if you want things to be accountable and responsible, that the CRO level would really make a big difference in a business, and that doesn’t fall under the CFO or the CEO any longer. It needs to fall under its own direct, reporting side because the CFO is is financially making the whole business sound and cash flows and everything else that’s going on inside the business. And the CRO is just heavily focused on. Yeah. What are these levels of revenues that we need to gather while the CEO can be working on raising money, working on other pieces of the business that are crucial, that whatever that might be with the CFO, like you’re you’re blending rate roles. But at the end of the day, having one person accountable, I think makes a big difference to that.

Keo: Yeah. Like I 100% agree with that. And, you know, it doesn’t necessarily have to be a CRO, but someone has to be in charge of taking care of the revenue. And you know this, you’ve invested in companies, you’ve built companies. Most important thing is to continue to generate revenue and ideally to, you know, grow your revenue over time. And if you’re a venture backed business like you’re talking about, you need to figure out how to do this exponentially.

Jeffery: The correct exponential is the key there, especially if you’re venture back to to your point, it’s difficult to do that with outside. This kind of generates the the last question before we kind of move on to our, 62nd spot. And this is when you went IPO. So you kind of have this progression, right? You’re moving through, you become the the CRO, you’re generating all these types of revenue, and now you’re getting into the IPO space. And this is probably every founder’s dream that as they’ve kind of built companies work through the, the slogging along and working through this whole process. And now you get to the spot where you’re going to go IPO and and to your point where you’re, at the stock exchange and you’re excited to launch and kick this off. What were the learnings that you took from making that switch? Let’s we’ve had a few companies that have gone public, over the years, and I think it’s pretty exciting. But where did you see the big change occur? Was it, a couple of years prior when that decision was made? We talked earlier where, you know, one of the companies you’ve been with came to you and said, hey, we’re going to sell ourselves. And, you know, it’s a bit of a shock. Everybody’s like, wait a second. I was loving it here, and now you’re going to sell it or now you’re going to go IPO. Like, what does that change from my role? And does that mean I got to work more? Does that mean I got to do 10,000 more things? You know what’s in it for me? What do I gain from this? So what did you find was that transition from being this private company that you were working hard, love what you’re doing to now and two years were going public. And these are the things that are going to change. What were the things that changed and what would you do differently? Or what do you think could be done differently while working through that type of process?

Keo: Great. Great questions. Well specifically at Lending Club, you know we started having that discussion, I would say probably about 18 months before the company actually went public. And you know, when I think about what, what changed during that time, a lot of it was governance, right? So, you know, we we got tighter with how we structured the board and making sure we had the right, board together. We had to reassess the, the organization as well as, like, okay, if we’re transitioning from a public company to a private company, do we have the right people in place, to manage a public business? Internally, in terms of operations, we there was, a very long period of just heavy audits, right? Like, you know, taking a, you know, fine tooth comb and really looking at every single thing that we were doing and making sure it was up to standard, to the investment banks that we were, we’re talking to that were going to help us go public. Right. And the other thing was just around communications. Right. The there were things that we couldn’t say publicly and it was very clear to us, like, okay, like, if this is the path that we’re going, these are things that we we can’t disclose, these things that we can’t disclose. And it was also very, you know, tiered by level if you’re at the exact level, you were privy to information that the rest of the company, you know, wasn’t. So, there’s this very careful filtering down process of information so that nothing, nothing could get out. And. But the other aspect of it that I also want to make sure that we call out, it was also built a lot of excitement for the company. You know, there were many people who had been in a company for years. And now seeing this, I’m not going to call it the end because I’ve seen that too. I’m like, no, this is just a big milestone. You get, you know, getting to an IPO is amazing. You still have a business to run after that. So that’s something people have to keep in mind. It’s like amazing milestone. Obviously I know, you know, a lot of companies want to get there, but it’s just that it’s a milestone. You should celebrate it. But you know, being able to quickly pivot back into like, okay, now that we’re a public company, all these things have changed. How do we continue to build a really sound business? That continues to provide for all our stakeholders. And you know that customers, employees, you know, investors, all of that? Yeah. Because, you know, after we IPO, a lot of the, you know, complaints or negative feedback from employees was we became more corporate. But that’s what we needed to do to be a public company. So, you know, the things that for people to, to think about because, you know, there is more scrutiny involved, as you’re looking to go public.

Jeffery: The interesting part, of course, all of that, the excitement and the build up, the extra work that goes into supporting, going public. And of course, you mentioned the big one, which is, you know, you’re shifting the people that are operating, public companies. As you mentioned, there’s a governance perspective. There’s a lot more information being shared, opened up. And you need the right people to support that. And we found that as well that, a lot of them say it’s it’s the talent that you have at that point that makes a big difference when you’re going public, because public means it’s public facing. They’re being invested by the public now, and the public wants to see that. You know, the CFO has ten years of public experience, not ten years of startup experience. It makes a big difference if you’re going to try to gain dollars from bankers and institutional investors that are going to come in and invest in your IPO or into your company post IPO. So it is fascinating to shift. They have to go through to go into the policy side and the governance. Is there one thing that you would say that could have changed or been better if they would have done this at the start? And I’ll just preempt that by saying you mentioned governance and making it more corporate. Do you think there’s a time when you make it more corporate, or do you think you structure that right from the get go? And the reason I say that is when the bankers were going through and you were like, oh my God, we got to go through this whole change and all this stuff. This is ridiculous. And if you would have done it at the beginning and had all the data correctly managed and all the years of your, filings done properly, and you didn’t have to go back and correct and clean up all that stuff, do you think it would have made the business, more palatable at that time and easier to transition to IPO, or do you think, you know what it all happened at the right time, and it didn’t matter that, you know, these things were screwed up in the past. We corrected them at the time we needed to instead of trying to do it when we didn’t have the money. As a startup.

Keo: Yeah, that’s amazing question. I’ll I’ll start with I don’t know if the company IPOs if that were the case. And I say that, with the intent of expressing how, you know, startups are a run, how they’re operated versus more established companies that have this governance and all these, you know, rules and regulations and compliance in place. Right? Because there’s just things that you can’t do as a public company, that you can’t do as a private entity, like experimenting with, you know, a lot of like the process procedures and, experimenting with, you know, the platform and like, with the exposure, you know, to, in this case, that pending clawback exposure that a investor would get, to certain asset classes. Right. And these were things that we could do as private companies and, you know, as a startup, because that’s kind of part of the ethos of the startup is being able to experiment with things, to get it right. Right. And when you get it right, that’s when you start seeing this growth. And that leads to, a new IPO. So I, I would say, no, I think, you know, if we were to try to do that beforehand, I don’t think we would have IPO. That’s my opinion, because it would have blocked a lot of things that we were able to to, to do, as a private company.

Jeffery: I love that it’s so true that the autonomy you have as a startup allows you to be aggressive, challenge, and do things completely off the cuff in order to react, to get something further ahead and move it forward. And if you had added too much governance into it at the beginning, those things may never have happened, and the company may never even got to the point of being successful enough to even drive an IPO.

Keo: Yep. Yeah.

Jeffery: So I almost wonder why bother even going IPO? Because then you go back to that governance side and has the business got to a point where it’s passed the scale up? It’s obviously scaling, but it’s got into the process where it’s such a refined cookie cutter process, meaning that every IPO or every company that is on the stock exchange should be in a cookie cutter position where it’s with isolated sales down to, three days of, conversion. And we can do it in seconds. This whatever it is. And that’s why we’re going because more money, more exposure, we’re just cookie cutter in this process.

Keo: Yeah. I think there’s a big caveat there to, which is, you know, we were in a financial services space which is heavily regulated, almost everywhere. Right? So, you know, it’s not like we were just building software. And that was, I think, a major consideration in terms of the, the preparation, and the execution of, the IPO as it relates to, you know, becoming more, as we put it, corporate.

Jeffery: Yeah. I love that that that makes sense. And it’s no matter how you approach this, I think it’s that last minute decision, the creates the energy to get it over the line for the next time. I think if you plan too much of this, there energy and the processes would just annoy everybody to the point where they wouldn’t want to do it, because people do want the randomness of life. And I think when you put that, hey, I got to get this done, everybody wants that challenge. Oh my God, that’s the next stage, you know? And if you call it the phases, you created that phase, you’re like, this is just the next milestone in this business. And we all have to tackle this today and we’ll be done in 18 months. And then I think the energy that people put behind that 18 months would be exciting into your, your final point on this is celebrate the win. You know, go out and enjoy or whatever it is that you as a team, you worked hard and that’s what got you there. It wasn’t all the other stuff that you avoided, the things that you blew up and all the things you screwed up. It’s all about what you did to get to that IPO. And I think that’s exciting. So very cool.

Keo: Blood, sweat and tears.

Jeffery: Exactly. Well, we’re going to transition into our 62nd spot. So the way this.

Keo: Works man.

Jeffery: You have 60s to rant about anything that you want on a topic that is passionate for you. And I will try my best in rebuttal. So I will set the timer. I know we talked about this. It’s never been 60s, but I will turn it over to you when you’re ready to go. And You’re on.

Keo: My rant, I wish the world would figure out how to communicate better. I mean, it’s it’s a really screwed up world right now. And I think a lot of, issues can be solved if we actually communicate with each other. And be clear and transparent. What I, what I see a lot of right now is there isn’t a lot of civil discourse happening. It’s typically my view and my view and my view is right. And you’re completely wrong. And that is leading to, you know, conflicts, whether it’s personal conflicts with, you know, individuals or larger groups or regional groups. And it’s just, quite frankly, this for me, it’s just like really sad to to see how the world is, is operating in that manner. And, you know, if you take a step back and think about just communication in general amongst those closest to you, you know, your friends and family and being able to to practice. Having hard conversations where, you know, people are taking, offense. At each other and with each other, that doesn’t lead to conflict. And conflict is okay. Right. You know, one of the things my, my father, taught me early on and, among many things is, you know, he said, people are typically afraid of conflict, but they shouldn’t be, he said. And I was like, tell me more like what? People don’t like confrontation. But he’s like, confrontation. And conflict is usually the first step to a resolution, assuming that you’re able to to talk about it and then again, have a dialog about it and coming to some sort of, conclusion, because we don’t necessarily need to agree on everything, we should. I don’t think that’s how the world should operate. But we should be able to have cordial disagreements is how I would put it without it escalating into, major conflicts and war damaging relationships.

Jeffery: I love it. That was, a great 62nd spot. So I’m going to unpack this. I’m supposed to be the opposite side of this, but I have never the opposite side, so I don’t even know how to rebuttal against anything anybody shares. But in this case, I 100% agree with you. The communication skills need to go all the way back to childhood and taught in school. Now, I think the world’s And I’m going to say the world has, come to this problem of trying to understand what is real versus what has been made up by business to sell more product. And it’s becoming so prevalent that the world has used this communication mechanism to generate value. As an example, one of the things that, I was learning about, I was in, in 20 1315 area, I was, fighting for the bees. So against Monsanto, so etc. so, the number one growing plant group based in the world right now is honey.

Keo: So,

Jeffery: They came up with this whole strategy to fight for the bees because they were saying that the bees, the pollinators were all dying off, and they were being killed, but it was actually incorrect. It was all about generating sales and revenue and building up an industry. So the whole world was fighting for something that didn’t really need to be fought for, but we never could understand because we didn’t go through the facts and try to get the facts because the facts weren’t there. So this happened so prevalently throughout the market everywhere. So it happens in individuals, it happens in business. It happens in corporate, happens everywhere, where we try to push our own envelope by sharing anecdotal information that doesn’t really align to something. So how do we better educate people to do their research so that they’re not fighting a battle? That’s incorrect, or fighting for a cause that is been muddied by corporations or generating sales? And then how do we take that down to the people side, where people can start to be questioning what’s going on and not taking offense, which means that you have to go one layer deeper, which is how do I teach people to take information? And I think the loss in communication is that I’m easy to output, but I’m not very good at taking information in. How do I better receive this information and allow myself a few minutes to breathe? Think about it and have a rebuttal or regroup another time? Because I think the loss here is that we’re all good at spouting, but we’re all very weak, receiving that information. And how do I do something with this information? And I take offense because it’s not offensive. It’s information. And then how.

Keo: Do I.

Jeffery: Triangulate this into something better to move forward with so that we all can grow and move on and we all will grow. If, like you said, you talked about this earlier. I talked to the people that aren’t talking in the room. How do I get those people to share? And when I do, they have nuggets of great information. Well, that’s the same thing, isn’t it? You’ve brought them to receive. They’ve been receiving it. They listened the whole time, and now they’re being able to translate that and triangulate back to giving out great insight to the rest of the meeting. So how do you go about doing that?

Keo: Man, that’s a lot to unpack. A miracle, I don’t know, I, I would start with, it’s it takes practice, right? I think most people are aren’t taught to to listen. And, you know, when we’re having a conversation, most people are in that mode of, like, I need to respond to this versus actually listen, like actively listening and letting that that information process, you know, going back to the things that my, my dad taught me, it’s like not everything needs a response. And then I would add to that not everything needs a response right away. Sometimes it’s actually best to to take a step back, and assess the, the information that that you, you’ve just been given. Yeah. Because when people are talking, you’re listening. It’s just data. Right. And you have to be able to to process that, that data in a way where you know it is, is this acrimonious? Are what they’re saying actually true? Like, is this a personal attack? I think there’s just a series of questions that you have to go through. Right. But ultimately for me, it’s like it’s it’s practice and having that awareness, which is difficult because to your point, you know, when when you started, your rebuttal was like, we have to go back to our childhood. And that’s one of the things that should be taught is like actually, you know, actual communication. So I don’t I don’t think there’s necessarily an easy answer outside of like building awareness, building some, some education mechanisms. And encouraging people to, to, to do their, their research because, you know, to your point, there is a lot of, misinformation out there and then also information that, is, is geared towards pushing us in one direction or another and having the the ability to question that and critically think through it, is going to, to help us, communicate with each other other better and not be reactive, to the things that that we’re hearing from people and the conversations that we have and the things that we see on TV and you name it. So, yeah, I wish I could say there was a an easy and short solution, but I don’t think there is.

Jeffery: Well, I think that’s it.

Keo: We just have to keep fighting the battle. No.

Jeffery: Totally agree. I think that’s a great way of of sharing it in the fact that you’re you’re taking it in, you’re letting yourself think about it. And I think it’s that receiving the information and understanding, what can I do with this? And to your point earlier is that once you start to understand and what you bring and what you can share in this conversation, or what you can bring to the conversation is that as this process is going forward, yeah, you’re going to have incorrect information learning all these things, but it’s also about controlling your emotion. So how do I control that emotion. And I would share two people treat it like here at the office someone just shared something with you. Do a snap on them, you know, right on the blackboard and tell them off, not you. Take a second. You think about it, you articulate yourself either on your notes or you say, I’m going to get back to you and you make that an objective to get back to them. You write it down in your book, your calendar, and you literally give back to them on an answer for that system because their whole all those people are now accounting to you. So I know this sounds process, but until you become good at it, you have to process it.

Keo: Yeah.

Jeffery: So take your time, figure it out and come back. But make sure you come back, because if you don’t come back, then you just literally let something that was maybe of importance fall away because you didn’t want your motion to get into it. Emotion can come into something, but let yourself articulate it in a more calm fashion and you’ll get further along with all your communication. But to your point, I think communication is, paramount to everything in life. And I think that there’s times for motion, there’s time for not, and there’s time for articulating and all these things, and they come with experience, but they also come with questioning, learning and all of those great skills. So maybe we just all need to take a pause so that we can start to learn together how to communicate so that in the next 10 to 15 years, if we start today, we’ll all be that much better at it, and then no one will get offended when you tell them, whatever that might be. That could be hurtful. They’ll take it as a way that you’re trying to help instead of taking it as, insulting. Right?

Keo: Yeah. I, 100% and yeah, I think a good kind of tagline is the, you know, the power of the pause to process.

Jeffery: I love that think twice, speak once.

Keo: Yeah.

Jeffery: All right, well, we’re almost there. We’re, been great conversation. So we’re going to we’re going to get really close here to the end. So we’re going to jump into some rapid fire questions and, pick one or the other from your investors. Two point.

Keo: Yeah.

Jeffery: All right, rapid fire. Let’s do this. Would you invest in a founder or co-founder?

Keo: Founder

Jeffery: unicorn or a four year, ten x exit?

Keo: Give me a four year, ten x exit.

Jeffery: In AI or blockchain.

Keo: AI

Jeffery: first money in or series A.

Keo: First money in.

Jeffery: Board. Cedar observer.

Keo: Board seat.

Jeffery: Safer. Convertible Note.

Keo: Say

Jeffery: Lead or. Follow.

Keo: Follow.

Jeffery: Favorite part of investing.

Keo: Founders.

Jeffery: Number of number of companies invested per year.

Keo: I typically do 4 to 6.

Jeffery: Of IT verticals to focus.

Keo: Fintech, education and health care under the brella of, quality of ordinary life.

Jeffery: Two qualities for a startup to stand out to you.

Keo: The problem they’re solving and the people involved.

Jeffery: Do you have a philosophy or any rules that you stand behind?

Keo: Get to know the team that you’re investing in really well. Understand their problem and how, by solving that problem, the potential to change the world.

Jeffery: Perfect. What piece of advice would you give founders nine out of ten times?

Keo: Just build, build and sell.

Jeffery: Building. So I love that. Who is your hero mentor and why?

Keo: It’s easy. My my dad, he is taught me so many things that I. Yeah. At some point, I’d love to write a book about, but just in, in innumerable, and, invaluable advice. Ever since I was a kid, even though many aspects of it I didn’t understand till I got older.

Jeffery: There. I think those come in time. And what tech do you think will define the world in the next five years?

Keo: That’s easy. I mean, I think everyone’s going to say I. And I think they’re they’re right. I mean, it bleeds into everything, every industry, that that we’re doing.

Jeffery: What is your favorite investment you’ve made?

Keo: Probably the, the the most recent one because of the founders, patients, and ability to, to take feedback. It’s, a company called Valley, and they’re building in the, the blockchain, crypto space. But it took me 18 months to come to the decision on them because I didn’t initially like their idea. But they kept following up, kept updating me, kept asking questions, which I really appreciate. Founders, and, you know, when they started getting some, some traction, that’s when it became attractive for me. You know, they didn’t give up. It’s because it’s, Yeah. The numbers tell you, very starkly that, you know, most startups fail, early on in the process. And it takes, I think, a certain, amount of, grit, perseverance to be able to, to keep going, despite all the odds stacked against you.

Jeffery: I love it. Toughest lesson you’ve learned as an investor?

Keo: Due diligence on the co-founder. All right. Yeah. Don’t, don’t don’t just fall in love with the founder. You have to do your diligence on the co-founder as well.

Jeffery: Fair. Yes, I agree with that on everybody. Everything that’s going on fast moving ship.

Keo: You’re absolutely.

Jeffery: Favorite movie. And what character we’re going to move the personal segment which we’ve shortened. So for this case it’s shortened to yeah. Three powerful questions okay. What is your favorite movie and what character would you play?

Keo: Favorite movies? Forrest Gump. And, the character I would play, and they’re not actually, you know, Tom Hanks character. It’s Lieutenant Dan’s lieutenant Dan. Lieutenant Dan. Yeah.

Jeffery: I’m going to watch that movie again tonight because I haven’t seen it in so long. I can’t remember every single piece about it, but I’m going to dive into that.

Keo: It’s such a great movie.

Jeffery: All right. Favorite book?

Keo: Favorite book? It’s, Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway. It was a nonfiction piece that he wrote, and it wasn’t released until after his death, and I found it. I used to love when I had time, going to old, used bookstores, and little would spend hours there, like, I just love the smell of old books. And I was in the fiction section, because I was a huge Hemingway fan. What a gift that I got for my birthday. Probably one of my favorite gifts ever was, my second, third grade teacher. She knew I was a big Hemingway fan. So one of my birthday, she got a, the same typewriter that he used to write old man in, and c got it restored, and I was like, my birthday gift. I still have it. And, but, you know, the book is fascinating in a sense that it’s about his, formative years as a writer in Paris and, in the 20s and 30s and it’s just, you know, adventures and a transition that he went through as a, as a writer.

Jeffery: I love it. I actually just read that book again, like, really, really has like, probably finished that maybe two months ago. So. Yeah.

Keo: Wow.

Jeffery: Yeah. It’s good. Honestly. Well, of course it’s good. Yeah. Book. Yeah. Yeah. We have so many. There was some other things I was going to pop in. You shared when you were two years old. You wrote a book, Or a Greek?

Keo: Yes.

Jeffery: I wrote a book in grade two as well. And, I was trying to remember what it was about. So while we were talking, my brain was like. What was the book you wrote? And it was, because we used to read Choose Your Own Ending stories. You know, those books where you got okay, you’re the light. Yeah. So the book was made the same way I wrote it like that. And because I was, Hardy Boys, you remember the Hardy Boys? I used to read the Hardy Boys, and there was another one, the choose your own ending with those. So it’s a combination of the Hardy Boys and, two zero and ending story kind of combined together. So that was what I did. And Mike read too. So yeah, so I like.

Keo: I, my mind was about penguins. So we, our class had just read Mr. Popper’s Penguins, and I was, influence and then motivated to to write, competing book. So I wrote a book called Penguin City, and, you know, I was. I can’t draw to save my life. It’s not a talent that I have. And but the girl that was sitting next to me in class, she was a great artist. So, you know, after I wrote the book, I went to her. I said, hey, I have a proposition for you. She’s like, okay, what? It’s like, well, I wrote a book. It’s like, you did what? It’s like I wrote a book. She’s like, all right. I was like, but I can’t draw. Can you illustrated? And she’s just like, can I read it first? I’m like, yeah, of course. Take it home, you know? No, no rush, take your time. Came back the next day. She’s like, this is cool. I illustrate your book sales broking deals. You know, in second grade.

Jeffery: That’s awesome. That that’s fantastic. Best story I love that. So you’re already hustling and working out book deals in grade two. So that’s brilliant. I always I love it. All right. Last question man. What is your superpower.

Keo: Learning I will say learning. I, I, you know I when I go do talks and go to events whether it’s an event or, you know, just like a more intimate group. One of the questions I often get is like how I’ve been able to do everything that I’ve done. And I go back to my ability to just learn, and my dedication to learning and betting on myself that, you know, go back to the story about octane, where the like, oh, yeah. Like, we need you to build customer success. I’m like, I’ve never done it like. But I figured it out. And, you know, we built a really great team. And the 18 months that I was there, we never miss goal. And that’s it. You just have to keep, you know, trusting yourself to and betting on yourself to, to to learn. And I think that, you know, what will lead you to, amazing places.

Jeffery: Yeah. I love that bet on yourself. It’s, strong. I also believe that, you’re very you’re very engaging. You’re good at getting people to communally come together. So I think that’s pretty huge. So another great, asset that you have. Of course. So, I love it. It’s a great superpower. So I want to say it was fantastic getting the opportunity to chat with you today. Okay, so it’s, a lot of learning, a lot of notes. And, we may have broke the barrier on the longest podcast, and, we didn’t break the longest 60s, but we certainly did break the other ones. But I’m going to say it was a real pleasure getting to chat with you today and learn more about you. And, hopefully the audience. It’s just as excited as I have. And I want to appreciate, okay, on all your time and the way we like to end our show is, we want to give you the last word. So anything that you want to share with, the investors of the startup community, I turn it over to you and a please share how people can find you as well. But thank you.

Keo: Yeah. Now, well, I’ll start with you. Thank you. Man. It’s really great to to reconnect with you after, so many months. I, you know, I think it was January that we met and, you know, there’s been a bunch of things that have happened, between then, but. Yeah, really, really great to to be able to jump on your podcast and, share my story. And, you know, also, you know, hear more of your thoughts. And I really appreciate the questions. In terms of the, the last, last word, with, you know, investors and founders, it’s really for me to come back to my my rant about communicating, being transparent with, you know, what you’re doing and not being afraid to reach out and connect, whether it’s with other founders or, investors. Because that’s the other thing that I’ve found really valuable in my life is just building that network. And, you know, the worst anyone can say to you is no. Whether you’re a founder that’s looking to to raise money from an investor or if you’re an investor looking to raise money from an LP. If you really, you know, believe in the work that you’re doing and the impact that you’re seeking, it’s got to keep going.

Jeffery: I love it. Yeah, you’re a good man. Thank you very much. Stay amazing. And thank you for sharing today.

Keo: Thank you man. Appreciate it.

Jeffery: Okay. That was a great conversation with kale. We actually just spent the last two hours, going in and outside the podcast with lots of great conversation and talking about a lot of cool things, which I, obviously I’m a big fan of violet kale, sun, and, all the information he shared and a couple of things that will we’ll talk better or talk to, I guess, and share is, you know, keep in mind how to communicate better. You know, he really emphasized the whole communication in his, 62nd rant. And, you know, some of the things you could tie into that is, you know, conflict is good not creating it, but working through conflict, which goes back to how you communicate and how you receive information and then how you pass that information back. Everything is about learning. So we should be able to share all of our thoughts and feelings, throughout anything that we do, especially in person, will end in business. Being transparent, I think a lot of, things he talked about when working with founders, the key is to be transparent. It’s learning. And that goes back to the communication side, sharing all that great information that’s going to help people. When working with large teams or building your teams, it’s setting clear expectations, KPIs, things that we can all try to achieve and what we can grow towards. And then, of course, you know, some of the things that about these, systems and the teams that he was building and how he interviewed and how he was able to build teams up to 150, 200 people and, you know, building that culture and how we interviewed and, you know, what scares you? What scares you to be here or what things are you feeling challenged, you know, why do you want to do this? The forest Gump movie thing, which I really liked. The quirky question just to find out the way people think. And then I guess I’ll, I’ll leave it at the, you know, the three things that, I would always ask, anybody or shared anybody that any engagement from meetings to personal to anything, you know, what will I learn? Who will I meet? And what will I be paid, you know, and you pick which one means the most to you at the time. And what? The one that’s going to bring the most value out. And I think from chaos standpoint, it’s adding in, can I affect the community and who’s going to benefit from this engagement? So I think you can start to make this about five things and really add that in. And I think that’s awesome. So really great sharing that. Kale brought to the, to us today. And hopefully everybody learned a lot of great things. So thank you for joining us today. If if you enjoyed this conversation, please feel free to share with your friends, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and or please follow us on Spotify, Amazon or Apple. You can find us on all social platforms, including LinkedIn at supporters Fun. Your support and comments are truly appreciated. Please visit us at supporter, Swanscombe and or startup events and open people network.com. Thank you and have a fantastic day.