The Prophet w/ Courtney Tellefsen | Ep. 90

In this podcast episode, David and Gary speak with Founder and prophet Courtney Tellefsen about doing what's right, finding solutions and ensuring that you are learning every day in your startup.

Links:

www.theproducebox.com

Courtney LinkedIn

Produce Box LinkedIn

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Our Hosts

David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel

Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel

The Podcast

David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

David: 0:05

Hi, everyone. Welcome to the biz dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, and I'm joined per usual by Gary Voight, who is modeling his new line of metal earmuffs. I look nice.

Gary: 0:20

Fancy look good. The old, the old the air pods are starting to fall apart in my ears. They're stopped boards stopped working. But

David: 0:30

more importantly, we are joined today by Courtney Tillotson who is the CEO of the produce box, and owner of several meals. So welcome, Courtney, thank you so much for joining us.

Courtney: 0:41

Thank you.

David: 0:43

Now you I have known you in full disclosure, I have known you now almost as long as I have run big pixel, many years ago, I chatted with you about building your technology. And so back then, so that was close to probably eight years ago, if I were to guess. So you've been around a little while you guys are 15 years old. So you want a brand new company. But if I remember correctly, and from watching you LinkedIn, and you're somewhat of a celebrity on the startup world here. Watching you from afar, your business was much, much smaller back then. But if you only had one little warehouse that you gave me a tour of which was super cool. Oh, that's right. And now you guys are quite a bit bigger now.

Courtney: 1:22

Yeah, so we ramped up during COVID. For sure. At one point, I think it was March 24. We had a 5000 person waitlist. And we had 6000 members. So we cleared that 5000 waitlist within two weeks, I think and we were delivering 12,000 boxes a week. At the time, everybody said, Oh, you're a genius, you know, because you have this delivery service doing COVID. And I said, Well, we'll see we'll see. Just because, you know, it's everybody's worried. And then you just wait to see what the behavior is afterwards. And our goal is to support our local farmers. So the good news was, during that time that we were able to replace some of that restaurant revenue that farmers have lost, which I was excited about, but I just wasn't sure it was going to continue, because it's easy to go back to what you were doing. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. So we ramped way up in 2020. But back down to our normal month numbers by now 2023. So

Gary: 2:23

just because our listeners probably don't know exactly what your business does, by now. But it's a food delivery service, if you could just give us a short explanation of exactly. So

Courtney: 2:34

the produce box, we deliver local foods to families across the state, using an army of stay at home moms and some dads and college kids. So those people who deliver your produce meat, dairy and artisan items from North Carolina producers, those delivers live in your neighborhood and deliver to their neighbors. So we've been doing it for about 15 years.

David: 3:01

So you mentioned something interesting there because there have been so many companies and you're hearing about even more of them now that ramped up huge during the pandemic. peloton being a great example, any of the work out at home companies are classic examples at this point, where they ramped up thinking that, that the world had changed forever. And so they they invested, they raised money, they thought this is the future, we are now going to be this big forever. And you guys sound like you had a similar you did grow very big. But it sounds like you guys manage that a lot better, because they're all suffering massively because now people you know, went back outside and went to the gym and all of those things and those strange predictions that they thought that this was now the future did not stay that way people went back to normal. So how did you avoid that? How did you grow and be able to take on all those new people without having to invest a ton of infrastructure, and then be able to let them go? Because they go back outside lack of better word. And you're not suffering? How did you manage that?

Courtney: 4:08

Okay, yeah, so I wouldn't say I'm not suffering. Because we would like to have more orders than we do, obviously, and our farmers would like us to have more orders. But I did not make huge investments because I didn't have the money. So I've never accepted funding from outside and so we didn't have the money truthfully. And we are because we're mission driven. And we're it's really about supporting those local farmers and there was a whole lot of push around that. How can we support these farmers who've lost their you know, restaurant revenue and that kind of thing. We we had people come out of the woodwork to work with us. So we had a bazillion college kids and some high school kids who you know, needed work and we're bored. We had a lot of older, not older, but you know I'm 54 So my age and older. or who, you know, we're working at home where we have an open air, almost an open air warehouse. So the safety, there was everybody felt a little safer here. And so we had a bunch of people that came to work, just because they didn't have anything else to do. You know, we paid them. And, and because they were bored, you know, and then we had a lot of people in the neighborhoods that, you know, sort of came out of the woodwork and said, I'd be willing to deliver. And then we doubled up on truck stops. So we had a truck that would go to the stop, and then we had another truck, follow it. And so we just sort of made it up as we went along. And everybody worked together to get it done. And then when some of that revenue came in, then I spent it the next year. So last year, I spent$100,000, on air conditioning for the warehouse. Because it was the right thing to do. I mean, it gets hot in here. And it's just it's hard to work in a hot hot warehouse. I did that. And I've done some other things since then.

David: 6:00

Man, I tell you, that is so I'm trying to think of the right word. Awesome. It's not the right word, but that's what's gonna come up. Okay, so I know a lot of business owners, and I know, several of them who are making money hand over fist, lots millions of dollars. And they still don't have air conditioning in their warehouse. I just and I'm like, come on, like, it is known that their warehouse is hot and nasty and sweaty. And they're like, Yeah, you come to work here. This is just how it is. And he's like, I'm not air conditioning, that's too much money. So I love the fact that you've been a smaller business, I mean, smaller than him. And this is a big company. The fact that you said, you know, this is the right thing to do that just that's heartwarming. I know, that sounds so silly, but it's really, it's really great to see someone investing in their workers. I mean, there's so much about your story that I think is so great, because you don't take money. So you're a classic example of bootstrap the, you know, get it done kind of thing that we talked about a lot here on the show and with our clients, because a lot of people just want to raise money and go that route. And there's nothing wrong with that route. But it is only a route. There are other ways to do it. And you're a good example of another way. And so that's very cool. I'm just throwing that out as a side. Thank

Courtney: 7:22

you so much. I appreciate that. Well, I mean, that's a I've told you about the lesson wall that's, that's on my wall. Here. I

David: 7:30

have the picture of it right in front of me. So that's coming.

Courtney: 7:33

Yeah, so you can see, it's very clear, oh, it's front and center, what's the right thing to do? So when we are, you know, in a leadership team meeting, and somebody brings a difficult question, and and, and they present the question, and we all sort of stare at each other, because we don't know what what we should do. One of us will usually say, well, what's the right thing to do? And then we all kind of stare at each other. And then somebody will say, well, the right thing to do is this. And we usually do it.

David: 8:03

I find with business. Most difficult questions, the right thing to do is not a MBA kind of question. It's not it doesn't require much more than just the smell test. Right? It's, it's pretty clear, what's the right thing to do? Sometimes that's not the right business decision, right? Like putting air conditioning in your spending $100,000 of air conditioning, maybe that does turn out to be a good business decision. But that's not why you did it is my hunch. It's the right thing to do. Right? You, Man, it's hot in here. Right? So and it's better for the workers. And whether or not that's a good business decision. It was not the forefront and I think a lot of owners kind of missed that they think the right thing to do is always from the business perspective. And that's just not true. I think taking care of your workers, whatever your workers are, in my case, they're developers and, and, you know, very cerebral kind of people and yours are more physical. Regardless, they all have needs and putting those first I think in the long run, even if your company maybe doesn't grow as fast because of it. I think in the long run, man, you got a better business. It's one you can be proud of rather than just rich. I don't know. That's one of my little soapboxes.

Courtney: 9:16

That's exactly right. I feel exactly the same way. There's a quote that I put on my Facebook page a long time ago. And it was doing the right thing is always the right thing, I think is what it says. Even if you lose, it feels like you won. Because you did something like that. It was really good. I loved it. Well, I think

David: 9:38

I would challenge business owners and potential business owners, people who listen to this podcast, I would challenge them that even if your business failed, but you did the right thing. You're gonna feel better about it than if you're running a soulless business that is just about the cash. I mean, cash is nice, don't get me wrong profits great. We all need it. It's the oxygen in which we we live on I get that, but it should not be in I'm totally on my soapbox now. But it should not be why we do this. Right. And that gets lost a lot. And I think that that's a shame. So I'm going to reference your wall, I'm gonna change direction, because some of these really caught my eye. So we will put the picture of this up in the show notes, because it's lovely. And it's all these quotes and stuff that kind of show who you are. And I know that you speak about these kinds of things quite a bit, the one that and Gary, I'd love to know which one stuck out to you. But the one that stuck out to me now I gotta find it. Fabulous. I'm gonna look. Oh, here it is. Don't start something new on a Tuesday. I like that. But there's that one, that one I didn't. A lot of these are very common sense. And they make sense right off the bat. But that one I want. I'd love to hear more about that. What is what is that philosophy there?

Courtney: 10:51

Well, so it's a little bit of an inside joke. And that one, and this wall has built has been built over 15 years. So I added I added one yesterday, you know, I've added one added 110 years ago, whatever. So don't start something on a Tuesday, it was a really around in the small version of it around the fact that we started we deliver on Tuesdays. And so don't start something on a on a delivery day, like because you're rushing to get it done. But the really the bigger lesson is, don't be so reactive, you know, and, and when you come up with a great idea, you don't have to get it all done today or tomorrow in order to get it out for next Tuesday, around our business, you know what I'm saying? And we have a really bad habit of that we've had it for years of being reactive to big ideas, because I'm sure you can imagine I have a million of them. And so as a business owner, and Laurel, Laurel is the same way, because she's kind of my right hand, man, you know, everybody wants to listen to us, right? And so it's hard for them to say, Can we slow down, because because I'm the owner, first of all, they don't want to dispute the owner, and my enthusiasm is contagious. That's usually the case with business leaders, right. And we want to just run roughshod over everything, and not really listen to other people. And so having that and this wall is such a huge visual cue for me, I have to have things on the wall. And so that is right, almost at my eyeline. And it's just that reminder, to think things through and create a plan of execution using the team that I have. That's good at execution, rather than saying, This is my idea on Thursday, and we're gonna start a Tuesday on delivery day, because then it creates all sorts of pain points for people that I haven't even thought about, it ends up affecting those ladies and guys who are delivering, usually, if I just make a decision, and we try to rush it through on Tuesday. So that's the minutia of my business. But the bigger picture is everything that I just said,

Gary: 13:03

the one that I picked out, is very close to what you just explained, I like the one kind of top left to the center, right, not rushed. That's my fit.

Courtney: 13:13

Yes. That one is 12 years old. So you can see how well we learn that message. If you looked at those, if you look at those lessons, there's probably some repeats, and there

David: 13:30

was sometimes they need to be repeated. I want to back up for a second. And you mentioned something that that we at Big pixel have been struggling with, or I and me as a leader have been struggling with is the power of my voice is in an inordinately strong for exactly what you said, when the boss speaks people listen, even when that's a bad idea. Maybe that needs to be on my board. Because it's if we find like if, if I call someone in, and I want to have a conversation with them, let's say they're underperforming or something, it immediately gets scary for that person. Because now it's higher fire time. Right, rather than I just want to have a conversation. And that to me is and that can be deadlines that can be ideas like you're talking about, hey, I have a crazy idea. And when I say it, suddenly it has to it's it's concrete that just fell out of my head. Right? It's not I just want to chat. And that's one of the reasons I appreciate Gary, don't tell him I said that. But is he doesn't take me too seriously. A lot of times when I do have an idea, because there's some

Gary: 14:45

pushback.

David: 14:46

There's pushback there and in the further in it now our company is small and there's not a lot of levels, but I know that the more levels the more vertically separated you are, the more strong your voice is if I'm For levels up, and we don't have that many levels, but I'm at a big company, and your boss's boss's boss says something to you. I mean, it might as well be a gold ingot. Right? Yeah. And that's not how probably that guy came across that lady just trying, she's just giving you advice. But now you've just been crushed. Because they are criticizing you. I'm using big air quotes. But all they're doing is trying to give you advice. And that advice now is an albatross. And now you feel bad, because they noticed something bad about you. And that is something one I have to be very mindful of, because a lot of times, I mean, I have a big personality. And I talked too much. That gets me in trouble. Because my people will be like, well, he's just said this. And they're like, but that was just kind of brainstorming. We're just talking. And that's something that I have to work

Courtney: 15:48

on. Yeah, I have two comments to say about that. Cuz you talked about two different things. The first thing you said was, you know, I haven't, I'm brainstorming, and I have these ideas. And it might be a bad idea, or it's a bad idea. So one of the things I think is on the wall is every good idea leads to a better one. And it's also every bad idea leads to a better one. So I don't know that there is a bad idea for sure. I think it just, you need to allow IT room to lead to a better one, right? And so. So using the having that sentence on the wall gives everybody permission to do that in theory, right? But, but really, it does it because even with that sign on the wall, and even though I say it all the time, people still feel that way that what I say is the Bible. And so here's what Laurel and Adrienne did for me. Because it had been happening a lot like, you know, people, they're down reports would come to them saying, are we doing this? And they're like, No, I mean, we're not doing it tomorrow. And so they created a Google Doc, for me, an idea is Google Doc, and it's a form I fill out, literally. And so whenever I have an idea, I fill out this little Google form, it populates to the Google Sheet, and then they look over it. And then it gets disseminated down. And then they report back to me on what they want to do, or we have a conversation about it for it to be a better idea. Or they say, for God's sake, Courtney, you've given us 10 ideas, we can't do it right now. But it created some structure for me so that I don't go to the down reports anymore, I just go straight through Laurel and Adrian. And that was hugely helpful. So that's the first thing. The second thing is you say that when you give somebody feedback, it sounds scary to them. And I out, here's what I want to say, I want to say that you're not responsible for how they receive your message. I don't think we can debate it. But you know, and there probably are differing thoughts. But you got to, you've got to get the message out. You can, you know, be careful about how you say it, but you still have to share that message. Do you know what I mean? So maybe there's a grain of salt, salt, and what I've said, you know, you aren't really responsible for how they receive it, you can be as careful and put thought into how you present it. But really, you've got to get the message out and they need to be professional, I guess. I don't know, what do you guys think,

Gary: 18:13

to your first point about having the the form to put your ideas in, and then they can get lumped later? That's a great idea. And it made me think of something that you don't have to add it to your wall. But it'd be really cool if you did just one that says solutions evolve. Solution, even though that's good, even though you have the right idea to fix this. A lot of times I'll notice that if there is a question or something presented to quote unquote, leadership, almost the expectation is, okay, well, we need the answer. And then that is the answer. And then we move forward. So it's like you're attempting to solve something immediately, instead of just spitballing, the ideas like you were saying, and then eventually you can have the solution. And then that solution is probably going to evolve over time to actually be the right solution. But at least it's a start, you know what I mean? So it's kind of to what you were saying, and the other point about the messaging and getting your message across. It made me immediately think of being a parent, and the difference between trying to be your kid's friend versus trying to be your kid's parent and the balance between the two. So you know, you do have to have representation of an authority, but you don't want to be too harsh. And at the same time, you want to be friendly enough to have an open conversation that's not guarded. So. Yeah. Now defer to David contradict that.

David: 19:34

No, I'm going to add to your first part, the first parts now I forgot your first part,

Courtney: 19:39

solutions about

David: 19:40

the the, the problem that I have with leadership and I'm using again, air quotes around that is that oftentimes the non leadership whatever you want to call the regular people, the plebes, they use it as a crutch. I have a pro problem, I'm going to kick it to leadership. And now I don't have to think about it anymore. It's not my problem anymore. I'm done, leadership is gonna magically solve it, man, we're not anything special. We're just people. Sometimes we have good ideas, a lot of times don't. And that to me, you kick it up to leadership doesn't mean you're off the hook. It's still a problem. And so I think that was something I thought was just added on there. But I wanted to loop back one of the things you said, it's not my responsibility to, to what what they hear is not my responsibility, something like that, how they react, how they react is not is not up to me, the way that I I agree with that on principle, especially with kids, I definitely grew that when I one of the things that I just did, there's human nature, again, the vertically, the further away that so the way I try and I've mentioned this before some time on the podcast, but the way I tried to mitigate that is that needs to be said, like you said this, this, this feedback needs to be given. So what I'll do is I will go down a level and tell their direct reports and ours that we have no more than two levels. So I'll tell their PM, this feedback needs to be given here. And then that becomes easier for them to hear rather than me saying it right. And so that as that's helped a lot, it takes it like that, we've kind of created a thing that the PMs they manage the devs directly. And because of that they almost become therapists. And and that's great to a point. And I love the fact that they will confide in the PMs and whine about me and all of that. They were joking that there was a Slack channel dedicated to just complaining about me. And I was like I absolutely approve that. I would I encourage that, in fact, but I just think that that's something because you're right. I don't control how you receive that. But if I can try to mitigate that human nature of being nervous, I mean, if Jeff Bezos, and that's a bad exam, because he doesn't work at Amazon anymore, but go with it. If he walks up to a guy on in the factory. I mean, there's nothing you can do. What I says is law and, and that's extreme, but it proves the point. But I just I love that.

Courtney: 22:15

Yeah, yeah. And definitely Adrienne and Laura want me to go through them rather than going direct. Because it's such a stronger, it feels so much more strong, a stronger statement, if I were to go to right, my partner, former partner used to do that he would go direct out there, and go straight to the person on the line versus working through the, you know, know the channel, talking about the hierarchy.

David: 22:39

Now the flip side of that, though, if you can pray someone, it has the same power, if you go straight to that person, and you say, man, you're awesome, you did an awesome job. That is for the exact same reason is 10 times more powerful. So you I will thoroughly encourage that if I can give someone an attaboy as it were, publicly, then I tried to do that rather than going down the channel because that means a lot more when it's I noticed because it like depending on like some of our contractors, I never speak to just I don't need to. And so if I'm like, Hey, you did a great job. They're like, wow, that was really cool. Rather than just their pm saying it. So it goes both ways. That's

Gary: 23:23

actually on her board.

Courtney: 23:25

Yeah, it is. Yeah, you can create oh, about people being recognized

Gary: 23:28

praise in public criticize in private.

David: 23:31

Oh, yeah. That one? That's a big one. Because you never I mean, I've had bosses to come out of their door, you know, good grand gesture. And like, point you there, you are not doing any favors there. You're just gonna make them cry. And you're not going to get what you want anyways, they're probably going to quit. But I've had bosses like that for sure.

Courtney: 23:53

Yeah, I was going to say the other prays that you can get is to you can create some structure around that by asking your direct reports to send you little notes about things that people are doing so that you can reference that specifically when you talk to that person. So I have a boomerang, a revolving boomerang that hits and says, Who can I Who should I recognize and what have they done in the last couple of weeks. So that's one thing. The other thing is you can remind your direct reports to recognize them. They're people to you. So grab you, when you're walking grab me when I'm walking around the warehouse and say, Hey, do you have a second coordinate? Can I can I, I just want to make a point. You know, Mary has done a great job, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then I'm listening. And then I go, Mary, thanks. Thank you so much. That's really great. And I'm so glad you're part of the team. So it can either be a recognition where you just say you're doing good, it can be a recognition where they tell you ahead of time something to recognize or it can be a recognition where they bring you to that person and talk about that person in front of them to you. And depending on you know, the situation either of those are good Uh,

David: 25:00

we have a thing and our slack because we're remote, so we don't get to see everybody. But we kind of adopted this thing is called kudos, we pay for this plugin. I think the company is called mater if anybody wants to look it up. And what it allows us to do is every Friday is Koodo day, and everyone gets points for just calling out something someone did that was good. And it's generally I mean, everyone's half the team gets involved with every week, the same guy always wins, which is just now has become a joke, but

Gary: 25:33

Matt's awesome. It's really,

David: 25:35

it's hats off to Matt. What is really great about it, though, is I don't know all the cool things that happen in the company. And this allows like the devs to say, Dude, Ryan, you were really instrumental in helping me get this through this week. Thank you so much, Matt, you're a workhorse, man, you did blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that I didn't know any of that had happened. And so that lets me know, you know, who's rising, right, who's taking a step forward in the kind of a leadership role that's totally organic, which is very powerful. As opposed to just guessing. Right? I get to see that. And I, we I really enjoyed that. At first people really kind of were hesitant, because it like it's cheesy, it's dumb. I don't know why we're doing this. And like, because, and I explained exactly that. And then they kind of got into it. Like, it's pretty neat to see them diving in and giving the peers you know, props. No one talks about Gary, because he doesn't do anything good. But generally speaking, the other people on my team are very successful.

Gary: 26:38

Every now and then they'll just feel bad because I haven't been mentioned in like months. And they'll be like, Oh, yeah. Don't forget Gary still works here. Here's they're still here.

David: 26:47

Yeah, it's a pity Kudo that we call that pity. So how you started this 15 years ago? How has it changed? How is leadership? Right? Well, let me back up. Have you had you had leadership positions before this? Before the bucks? No. So this was your first week and it was mine, too. So how has your leadership style evolved? I mean, you've got your board. It's very cool. And that shows some of the growth and changes that you have done over time and learn. But what inspired that? What do you think? Let me ask it a different way. What is the biggest change that you have seen in yourself as a leader? Now that you've done it for 15? years?

Courtney: 27:35

Hmm, yeah. So letting go. It was a huge one, and it has two parts. So part of it is letting go of control. Right. And then the second one, I was gonna say, letting go of ideas, but it's really letting go of my ego that one I'm still working on. And Laurel and Adrian would probably say, I'm still working on control to a little bit. And, and that that's what I would say, I you know, when you first start out, you you're, you know, everything Oh, and also letting control of knowing God, that's a huge one. Like, when you first start out, you know, everything, you control everything, you know, and you're in charge of everything. And then you have you start hiring people. And first of all, you have to let go of some control so that they can do what they need to do. And you have to trust them to do it. And also be okay, if they don't do whatever it is you wanted him to do. Exactly right. And so I constantly have to ask myself, Is this something I wouldn't really want to die on a hill I want to die on? Does it really matter? If the produce box logo is here on the menu, email or here? You know. And so that's, I would say those, those are the big things. As far as ego, it's about listening to other people's ideas. And not, you know, not that I totally do this, but not shooting down everyone and giving all the reasons why it might not work. So allowing people to try an idea and sometimes even an idea that in the back of your mind, you're not sure is going to work, but you let it go. Because it's not, you know, you have to give people that opportunity to learn. And also, sometimes you're like, I don't know if that's gonna work, okay, it's not a hill I'm gonna die at and then it ends up going crazy, like that bundle thing. It's bananas. I was telling you, we thought we were up to selling 112 100 bundles in a week. You know, just different combinations of things that we sell. And there's no way I could have done that by myself. And there's no way I would have come up with all those ideas. So it's, it's still hard, you know, and I went what A farmer on one side as far as letting go of the knowing, you know, and I'll give you an example of that. So I used to talk to every farmer, I used to have conversation with every farmer, I was part of all the ordering and all of that, and then I backed off, you know, let people do it. And then I backed off and off and off, almost to the point now, you know, and I actually just had that conversation today where I was like, I don't feel like I'm as involved in who were buying from. And it doesn't mean that I don't trust the team. I just don't know about it. And so some of it is also that balance of letting go completely. So I'm trying to kind of slide back in a little bit, even if it's in it's on my board. Informed not involved. You know, I really liked that. So that one. Yeah, so now I'm coaching myself right now. And so I'm saying that may coordinate you could be informed about farmers and informed about the vendors but not involved in the way that we're going to execute that because we were talking through it today, is that up into my man at purchasing manager will talk to me about the farmers and who we're working with. But I'm not going to be involved in the conversations, but at least I know about it. And now we have a structure. Every Tuesday morning, she and I are going to just spend 15 minutes together on who we're buying from and what's going on. Is that

Gary: 31:19

the letting go part. Yeah, I mean, that's come up many, many, many times. And that's the hardest thing, I think every entrepreneur or, you know, leader that we've had in here on this show has brought that up.

David: 31:33

We don't segment for like five weeks about hiring and letting go was kind of mixed up. Because I said several times, and I still believe it is the founder and the leaders job is the only job I can think of that your job is to give away your job. You at the end of the day, you you technically own the company. So if you don't have a job, you can't still get fired. It's kind of a weird thing. Like, what other job can you be, theoretically do nothing and still not get fired. And what as as I've talked about that with other entrepreneurs over the months now, I guess, that we've been doing this, one of the things that I have found is first you give away the things you hate. And that's easy, I don't like accounting here go away, where where the rubber meets the road is when you start to give away the things you're really good at. Right. And that's really hard. That's really hard. And the in the knowing is, that's a good way of putting it because a lot of times, I don't need to know. And this is it's hard to for both sides, like I asked how's this project going. And we have a problem where they will the PMS or whoever will go into great detail as to what is happening. And I don't have the heart to tell them. I don't need to know any of this. I just need to know the 30,000 foot view, give me the one minute version. But they still want to Okay, well, we're running into this problem. And now we had this, the server blew. Ultimately, that's the informed but now you're getting me involved, and I don't I had another business leaders say, the best leaders, when someone brings you the problem, they don't leave it there. They take it back with them. That's somewhere that needs to be on the wall there. But I thought that was interesting. Because Boy, that's powerful is that because I have that tendency is like, give me your problem, I will take care of it for you. But if you're empowering your people, right, then you help them you advise them, and then they take the problem back with them and go and solve it. If you've done your job, right and creating the next generation of leaders, that's how you do it. But that's really again, now we're talking about ego, again, we're talking about all the things that we don't want to let go because we're good at it. This is why we're leading.

Courtney: 33:45

Yeah, for a while I had the words, what's your plan on my computer screen? You know, because again, that visual cue, so that when someone would bring me a problem, I'd say, Okay, what, what do you think you should do next? Or what's your plan, and then it gives them time to think about it, and then you've got to shut up? Like you can't go? What's your plan? And then there's silence. And then you go, I mean, I think you should like you've got to allow that silence. There's a book about monkeys if you guys do remember, I'm gonna see if I can find it. So you can put it in the show notes. But there's a book about monkeys and it's all about monkey on your back and somebody brings you a monkey and if you accept the monkey, then now it's on your back when really it should be on theirs. And there's also some information about there in there about don't bring me a monkey that you haven't at least spent 15 or 20 minutes on, you know, like you need to think about the problem before you just run to me on it. You know,

David: 34:41

man, I will tell you this is probably too much information. But when I was early in my career, I got laid off in 2003 it was the.com Bust it happened. And the reason I got laid off 100% True story. I was known I was a junior developer at the time. I was Known as the guy who would ask the questions all the time, dozens of questions emailed as email that and they would start the team, the seniors who were in charge of me would start start ignoring those emails, at least for 30 minutes, because they knew I'd figure it out, if I just stopped and I had this tendency, and to me, that was lack of confidence. And I talked when I talked to the junior devs, I talked about confidence a lot. But that was, that's why I got laid off, I was just so annoying. And but we're on the same side, there's a flip side of that we have a problem with big pixel it with developers in general. And for those of you listening, you know, this is a problem they have, they have a problem, something they can't figure out. And they will not ask for help. It's been hours, 5682 days, they're just slogging on it. And they don't want to ask for help. And we have a rule at Big pixel is if you're beating your head against the wall for one hour, call call for help. Because there's probably someone else on the team who's done it before and can probably figure it out really quickly. If it's been more than an hour, raise the flag, if it hasn't been, you got more head beating to do because you got to you got to give it your college shot. Like Shane, you got to at least talk to the monkey for a little while before you hand it off. But we try to encourage that. But that's an ego thing that everyone's responsible for. I don't want to admit weakness. So therefore I'm not going to call but now the project is behind because of your pride. Right? That's the God's honest truth. And whether you like it or not, that's what's happening. And we've got to fix that. So that's our rule. And hopefully someone will stick to that.

Gary: 36:38

It's also developers, their job is to solve problems, you know, and build things and create solutions. So when they're presented with one of these challenges, it's like candy form sometimes. And, you know, it's not an ego thing. If it's gone two hours, two and a half, three hours, they're probably not even noticing. They're probably just like, okay, they're enjoying answer. I'm learning. So I'm almost there. I'm almost there. And then so yeah, but again, the flip side is that now that's time taken away from the I guess you could say the the project time that we needed to use to meet deadlines and stuff. So

David: 37:17

we the company cannot afford your candy habit is really, right. I mean, that's, that's what it is. You're I get it, you're loving this, you're enjoying this, because I've always defined a developer as someone who beats their head against the wall, and builds up that frustration. And then when they get through it that release that satisfaction that I did it, that's their drug. And if you're a real developer, that's what you live on. It's build it up, build it up, boom, I'm through Yeah, on the best ever. Where's my next one? That is who they are. And so if I take that away from them, that's what Gary's saying, if I take that away from them, I'm kind of robbing them of their candy. But ultimately, I got to deliver this thing. I'm not here to play in your candy drawer. Right. So anyway,

Gary: 38:02

yeah, there's one question that we asked, like, we sent you show notes. And I don't think we asked any of the questions that were on there, because not a single one. Not your fault. Great compensation. But there is one question that we do fall back to for every guest. What are your top three pieces of advice for any entrepreneur, new business or startup?

Courtney: 38:23

Or, you know, I'm gonna look at my wall. Well, first of all, I well. Number one is get a coach. So, you know, this whole wall, a lot of it came from, because we talked about accountability and how owners are not accountable to anyone. Well, I'm accountable to my coach. So I've been working with John Hallberg for five years now. And it's really helpful, because not that he came up with these but but he helped me to, to walk through that. So I would say definitely get a coach. And when I first started working with John, I think I worked with him like once a month, and I went through once every two weeks. And then when I started having issues in 2018, you know, I ended up buying out my partner and there was some drama there. I worked with him every week during that time, then I went to every month again, and I went to every week during COVID. Because so many things were happening, and now I'm back to once a month. But however you do it, whether you work with CD or an entrepreneur group, or you have your own coach, I would definitely recommend that. So that would be the one thing and then the second thing is that there is a lesson almost every day or at least every week, a lesson that you learn. And so we're so in the habit now of identifying those, like even in our conversation right now, you said here's two things you can write on your wall, right? And so just being aware of the fact that there is a lesson pretty much in every week and then writing them down somewhere and which lessons have you learned that you can apply to your home Little Company and start having that be part of your culture. Right. So a lot of the things that are on this wall right now is for me, and it's my visual cue, but it's also part of the culture of the company, if that makes sense. Yeah. So that's the first two. And the third one, I guess, would probably be that what's the right thing to do? And that's huge for us. And it comes up every day, you know that. And that's how I run my company.

Gary: 40:28

solid pieces of advice. Love it.

David: 40:32

Well, love it.

Gary: 40:34

We're kind of at the end of the conversation now. But if anybody wants to learn anything more about you, or produce box, how would they get in touch?

Courtney: 40:43

Our website is the produce box.com. So you can go there. And it is a membership based organization. But it is not subscriptions are not required. There's a little bit of a break if you subscribe to something, but you don't have to subscribe so you can order when you want. And, of course, we want to encourage you to support our local growers out there and our local food makers because they need our support. And we saw that with the food supply and how the food chain was so disrupted during COVID, it's important to continue that support.

Gary: 41:17

Well, we'll put those links in the show notes. There's also the link for your LinkedIn page and for the company's LinkedIn page that will add to that. And if anybody wants to get in touch with us, or ask us ask us any questions, you can email us at Hello at the big pixel that net or you can leave a comment below this video or reach out to us on any of our social media channels.

David: 41:38

Coordinate. Thank you so much. This has been so much fun.

Courtney: 41:40

This was fun. I appreciate it.

Gary: 41:42

I learned a lot on this one.

David: 41:45

Well, it's good because normally it's just me blowing smoke. All right. Well, thank you again so much for joining us and we will see you guys next week.