Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Not understanding the history of manufacturing and how from the 1950s and Nike building everything overseas and taking advantage of those, everyone then following suit that we've obliterated manufacturing as even a viable career from a marketing perspective. So you couldn't even pay people to go into manufacturing. You can't convince them that it's a sexy career. No one thinks like, when I grow up, I want to be in manufacturing. And that's because we've had so much time pass where it was just this, not a career that seemed as viable.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: All right, so I want to welcome you to this week's episode of Movers and Makers. Today we're joined by Carla Trotman. She's a president and CEO of Electrosoft, which is the largest African American and women owned electronics company contract manufacturing firm in the US and she's got an excellent background in supply chain, logistics and E commerce. With degrees from Penn State and Drexel, Carla is leading Electrosoft into a new era of manufacturing. She even wrote a book about that that we're really excited to dive in. So just want to start by saying welcome and thank you to Carla for joining us.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: Thank you for having me.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: All right, maybe I thought we'd start just at the beginning of your career. You kind of, you know, it sound like you grew up in a family business that we'll talk a lot more about. But it looks like you went into like a traditional corporate world, you know, working at Gap and Ikea and Honeywell. I'm curious about maybe why you decided to do that and what you took from some of those early experiences.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Well, you talk to any child of an entrepreneur and no one wants to work for their family. I mean, let's be honest, you've seen it. It's not, it does not look cute. You know, the late nights, the weekends, using all the money to make sure that it works. And you're betting on yourself. And when you're a kid, all you want is the newest, best thing. You want to go on vacation all the time. You want your parents to be there at all things. And when you translate that onto your own life, who wants that? Like, nobody. And you got to also think about the fact that all schools teach you is do really well so you can go to a really good school, so you get a really good job to make a lot of money and you will all fight for the C suite. That is life. And what they don't tell you is that most of the companies in the country are small, mid sized businesses. They're Family owned businesses, they're privately held entities. So I started to realize like, maybe this is a corporate pipeline thing. You know, it's like from school to the C suite. And it dawned on me when I was going through that funnel and I was working in corporate America, that we were all making money for other people. And I at some point had gotten, gotten married and I had my first child and I had a very difficult pregnancy and I couldn't find products to help me. And this is during a time where you couldn't just go on Amazon and buy something, right? Or Walmart would have it. You had. I had to do research. And so with my logistics background, I was able to find people had created products. There are a lot of mompreneurs, but they didn't have distribution. So I said, oh, you know, I can create a website and I'll sell the products on there and if women need them, then just buy them and then you can ship them. So that little website ended up getting a global clientele because come to find out, pregnancy is uncomfortable all over the world. But I was working full time with my job. And that was when it dawned on me why there's so many entrepreneurs. You can take an idea and bring it to life and it's exciting to get to that point. And I realized why my parents did it, why they were so passionate about putting their money forth and doing whatever it took to make it happen. Because it's exciting to bet on yourself. And just that exercise made me realize what I was missing out on, which was a legacy that was being created. And I don't think it would have mattered if it was a beauty shop or a wig manufacturer. I would have done it because the idea of making money on your own terms is kind of cool.
[00:04:13] Speaker C: It's always fascinating to hear your story because I came from a family that like, we were not entrepreneurs. My parents, they worked nine to five jobs. I'm just curious to understand what was that revelation or your career journey like from the perspective of your parents that are like, hey, you told us you did not want to pursue something as a sole proprietor business owner, but if you're going to do this, why not carry on the family legacy? What was that conversation like with your, with your father, with your parents?
[00:04:45] Speaker A: You got to realize that I didn't say this, but I live in the same general region area that my parents grew up in. I've returned home where my parents grew up. My dad was very talented in math and science and was told the only thing a talented black man can do with a math degree is either be a teacher or join the military. So he joined the military, and no one was really pushing him to go to college. When he went overseas, he was deployed on the continent of Africa. And he met an Ethiopian electrical engineer and talked to him, said, well, the guy's like, well, you're good at math and science. Why don't you become an electrical engineer? And he's like, well, I never met an electrical engineer as a black man. And that meeting changed the entire trajectory of our family. So when my dad came back, he decided to go to school to study electrical engineering. And, you know, he had a career, corporate career, worked for a great company, but they decided to get out of instrumentation. So my father was the director of manufacturing. He would. He also had a master's degree in computer science. So he was helping design instrumentation and overseeing the manufacturing and writing software for these products. And when the company that he worked for decided to get out of instrumentation because they really weren't making money, like, they were losing money, in fact, because people and not being able to be consistent with pricing and really threw all the numbers off. My dad at one point said, hey, why don't we send some of these things out to a subcontractor so they can make them and we can kind of get that firm fixed price? And they're like, nah, because then we got to fire everyone. That would be bad. So when they decided to no longer do instrumentation, he was home trying to figure out, okay, where's my next corporate gig? He wasn't thinking, I want to start a business. Let's go bet on myself. He decided to ride his bike and go fishing for a couple of months with his package. And someone reached out and said, hey, you know how to build cables and things? Can you build these cables? So he's like, sure. And he built the cables. The guy's like, this is great. Can you build more? And so he's like, well, I'm not going to do all these by myself. So he asked one of the ladies that worked for him to come and help build the cables on the kitchen table. So for me to come to my parents and said, hey, I want to work with family business. They were like, oh, that's great, because we were going to sell it. There's no training or thought process of we're building a family generational business that's going to stand the test of time, and we want to be one of those great ones right next to, like, gm. It was just, like, something to do that's why there's no pictures in the first couple of years because my dad's like, I don't know what I want to do yet, so we'll just do this. So I think that's the beauty in my parents and my family is like, you do whatever you're driven to do. And my having my business allowed me to see like, this is what I can do. What was difficult was having worked for my parents off and on throughout my life is they treat your parents will always treat you like their child. And my parents have always said, don't ever go into business with someone who has nothing to offer. So me coming into the family business, I had to show them that I had something to offer that I wasn't just like, you know, I'm here to take over and just let things happen around me. Because I had run my business, I was able to explain to them this new inbound marketing thing that they had never heard of and make just as much money, if not more than our salespeople from sitting behind my desk. And that was because I was able to take an E Commerce, like the rules of E Commerce and translate them into electronics manufacturing more so with search engine optimization and how you market in AdWords and metadata and all those things that I learned so that it would we could make money because it was. The sales were kind of flat, they were flatlining, definitely not growing, and we were just not really marketing in the way that we needed to. So being able to show them that I was offering something of value, it was a different conversation. So that was a long story to explain, give you some historical context and show that I had to really win them over so that they could see that, yes, this is a possibility. You will not sink the company. And she might know what she's doing.
[00:08:59] Speaker C: That's amazing. And I don't know how intentional that was on their part, but it sounds like that was a winning strategy. I would love to get into some of the strategies that you've employed in building and scaling the business to take it to the next level. But maybe before we do that, I think it would be helpful for me and also for some of the people listening to understand what types of products do you make and what types of industries do those products support?
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Most people call us traditionally a job shop. So we don't have a product. What we sell is our time and expertise. What we build is. If you think of iPhone, Apple not having manufacturing facilities, but outsourcing to a manufacturer, we are the same as that manufacturer. You would outsource to we built, which is funny, it's the same thing my dad said, hey, why don't we outsource this stuff to somebody to build it? That's what we do. We are, we build what I call the brain and central nervous system of a device. The printed circuit board assemblies, cables, wiring, harnesses, box build enclosures, panels, anything that moves power within a device, we build. We're given the drawings. There was a point where we were doing the design piece and writing software, thus the name electro soft for electromechanical assembly and software. But there was a really strong demand for manufacturing, so we just focused on that manufacturing piece. What we manufacture is for industrial and defense applications. So it's pretty agnostic in a sense, because industrial goes across everything. But our top clients right now are in automated guided vehicles. We're part of the submarine industrial base. There's a company we do work for that does particle analyzing equipment. Because you think about it, a printed circuit board goes into a landmine timer and a toaster. Right. So that's why I say it's agnostic.
[00:10:46] Speaker C: I mean, in some ways they're really the same thing.
[00:10:48] Speaker A: Yes, they're just programmed, obviously, but it's the same material used to do just totally different things. But people still push like, no, like really? Do you really do this? Do you. Can you really build that? And all cable, all wires, all diodes, all capacitors, like, they're all used to do the same thing. Just so happens that that's our current industry concentration. But we've always had our foot in defense in some way, shape or form. And I mean, I think it's kind of cool, like if you're going to build something, you want to build the cool stuff, right?
[00:11:20] Speaker C: Absolutely.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: How you stayed competitive, you know, we talked a lot about the deindustrialization of the US and especially with electronics manufacturing. A lot of it happens in, in apac, you know, in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, these kind of places. And I'm curious, how have you stayed competitive in that environment and maybe how you see that evolving even in the coming years?
[00:11:43] Speaker A: So our niche is high mix, low volume. So we're not making iPhones over here or toasters. The companies that we work with do manufacturing of custom parts, custom equipment, custom devices that don't have a high run because they'll go into a facility and say, this is your issue, this is what you need, and build a custom solution around it. There's not a whole lot of standardization across what they're doing. So they're not Driving prices down due to economies of scale. Like, that's why you would take advantage of overseas manufacturing, because of the high rate of manufacturing, high rate of parts per million that you would go through. The other part of the competitiveness is that people like to be able to have flexibility with their manufacturer. And they don't want to have to wait overnight or wait a couple of hours. They want to get someone on the phone within their time zone and say, hey, I need you to change this. This needs to stop. And it not be an expensive switchover because the work that we do on the parts that are used are usually very, very expensive. If there's an entire system change, we have to be agile enough to say, okay, we're going to stop that, we're going to scrap this and the price not be so exorbitant because we have gone through hundreds of thousands of pieces of whatever it is that they can stop that and it not be so impactful. They like to be able to speak English to their partners and there not be something lost in translation or some nuanced approach to the lexicon that they don't understand. So those are just our particular clients and they are willing to pay for those types of relationships and that's value to them.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: I actually went through that. I used to source electronics in the past job. And if you did make a change, you might have two, two months of inventory or more like in transit. And so if you made a change, you might have like in some case for high volume manufacturing, we'd have millions of parts in transit that are now obsolete. And it's like the amount of flexibility you have is actually quite limited. And in that or, you know, there's benefits of cost to outsourcing, but there's, there's downsides of flexibility that you just don't get anymore.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Yeah. And then you got to think of in supply chain in general, anything that's shipped is by weight. And the cheapest way obviously is by boat. Do you really want your products sitting on the water six to eight weeks to get there? What that can sometimes do to capacitors, you have special capacitors that we order overseas that have to be baked in order to bake out the moisture that sometimes accumulates through that process. So it really, it can be like you said, there's pluses and there's minuses to it. When there was issues with the Suez Canal and people could get things out of that area, a lot of people thought differently about diversifying their supply chain. And those were the smart ones. They took advantage of those times and they don't really suffer like it makes sense. Yes. Go overseas, get things done. Higher volume, better margins. But those who thought to diversify their supply chain and have some of a supply base locally, or to at least leverage a manufacturer locally when they're working out problems on a complicated design so that they don't have to destroy or have obsolete parts because they've worked out the design on a local level.
[00:15:06] Speaker C: Absolutely. You know, you brought up some of the geopolitical and global dynamics that are playing into manufacturing. And so I have to ask, with the new administration, there's been a lot of talk about, you know, potential tariffs on neighbors in Canada and Mexico, tariffs on China, just shifting dynamics within the industry. I'm curious, how are any of those things impacting your business today or even influencing the way that you're making decisions about the business going forward?
[00:15:39] Speaker A: Well, we still have tariffs from the last time around when he was 45. So we've. It's not like we haven't experienced them. Obviously, tariffs will erode your bottom line, depending on who's going to cover those, because we turn things around rather quickly. The firm, fixed price, we're a little bit guarded against that. I mean, the thing that I do worry about is, well, what we've been going through now, company will call me up randomly and say, hey, we're trying to reshore. Can you help us? Okay, sure. Yeah. Can you do like 400,000amonth of this? And it's like, no, because like not understanding the history of manufacturing and how from the 1950s and Nike building everything overseas and taking advantage of those, everyone then following suit that we've obliterated manufacturing as an even a viable career from a marketing perspective. So you couldn't even pay people to go into manufacturing. You can't convince them that it's a sexy career. No one thinks, like, when I grow up, I want to be in manufacturing. And that's because we've had so much time pass where it was just this, not a career that seemed as viable. And what we need to do is kind of like what they. When I was in school, no one wanted to go into anything related to computers or programming. And then they're like coding. And now there's coding camps and kids want to code in high school and have you on the coding team. And it's like the best thing in the world until it wasn't. So in a way, we need the same marketing campaign to make manufacturing sexy so that people can see that it is A viable career path, whether it's from a GED to a PhD. There's so many different elements that speak to people because it's not just the. Like my book Dark, Dirty Dangerous Place. It is a vibrant future where you, I tell them you're a creator, you are bringing things into fruition. And what we do is that we take that piece, that manufacturing piece that allows companies to innovate. And yeah, I wish we, we really do need to come together as a community and change, bring sexy back to manufacturing.
[00:17:57] Speaker C: I think about this quite often, you know, just given the space that we're in. We of course are big believers in manufacturing. You know, just in my, my own family's personal background. Come from a manufacturing family. My family, we grew up on the other side of the state from you. We're Pittsburgh Ghost Steelers.
Your Eagles did already.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: You say that right after the Eagles won the Super Bowl.
[00:18:19] Speaker C: I'm going to say that right after. And now I'm going to eat my words.
But I can relate to that a lot. I mean, you have essentially an entire sector of the economy that's been gutted of not just the people, but when the jobs go away, that experience starts to age out to where the, the point where most of the people that originally worked in that manufacturing sector back in the 70s and 80s are retired now. They are no longer even able to, to train the new generation in some of the things, the skills that we had before. And so that knowledge and expertise also leaves. And with it, it seems like there's also the economic mobility that came with it. My dad was able to work in manufacturing direct out of high school and make very respectable, you know, living wages. He talks about the Cadillac that he had when he was, you know, 20 years old and how, you know, that was just like Ballin, he was falling. Yeah, don't meet him. He's like, he'll tell you, he'll tell you all the stories from back in the day. But that was, that was a thing back then. And I think that there, you know, even today I find that people want to get into manufacturing, but they're really thinking about the sexier part of it. How can I make software for manufacturing so that I can get involved but don't have to get my hands dirty? But I think that that part of, like the really hands on part of it is where the economic opportunities can be created. So, you know, given that you wrote an entire book about this that I would love to unpack. I'm just curious, like, you know, how are, how Are you optimistic about the future of manufacturing? And how do you think we're going to engage this next generation of builders to convince them that this is an industry that's worthy of getting into and which parts of it are even going to be the creators?
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we've not done a very good job as manufacturing industry opening our doors and opening the kimono to show people what we really do. We started very slow. Like we have manufacturing day throughout the entire nation. But for us to even participate in manufacturing day so people know what we are doing in this building is important and bringing in interns. So let me go back a little bit. I think states are realizing what the contribution financially manufacturing offers, and in doing that, they have created industry partnerships and they've invited manufacturers in and they are like, what is your biggest issue? What's your concerns? We tell them we can't find people. So what do they do? Okay, well, let's help. How much do you think you need to do this? And they create a budget behind that. So, you know, you can't just solve things with money. Even with the unemployment office and bringing people in and giving tax credits for those who are difficult to employ or previously unemployed on government financing, it's hard to get them trained in that way. And it's just like kind of saying like, well, we'll just take everybody and throw them into a bowl and see if it works out. And it doesn't, because you have to have a particular interest first of all. And then there is some skill involved that you can leverage to train. Well, they don't have really tech school anymore. There's no. Even the industrial arts, where you would build things with your hands, are no longer an option in many schools. So that foundational knowledge for young people coming in who've ever built something is just not there. But we're trying. In our area, they offer internships for young people who are in high school and college and they will pay the entire salary. They just ask us to open the doors. They Outside of manufacturing day, which has gotten bigger and bigger for manufacturers, we invite tech schools to come to the office. When I'm in an industry partnership in southeastern Pennsylvania and we talk about, okay, what can we do as far as inviting students to meet a bunch of us. So we did Manufest and then it turned into like Manufest and more for all the other industries. But when we were doing that, we would talk to the students who would be excited about it, but it's their parents who aren't excited about them. Going to manufacturing because they were worried about them not having a job because of what they experienced with their parents. So then that issue, it didn't matter how much marketing we did, the parents were not going to allow their kids to go into manufacturing. We started talking to guidance counselors, we started talking to schools. And even now with the tech schools, they're getting more and more popular. But when I go to visit, there's a lot of kids that are going to the manufacturing or mechatronics courses just so that it looks good on their college resume for when they go and do something else. So it is a huge crisis right now, I would think. But then something happened where a lot of people that went into software were laid off. So all of those tech jobs that people were going to school for, now the pendulum was shifting the opposite direction. And now parents are thinking, well, maybe that manufacturing thing isn't so bad because it's still around. And now we are seeing that people are more inclined to think differently about manufacturing. And maybe it's just a combination or a culmination of all the things, of just everything shifting, everything changing, thinking differently, kids going to college and either saying, this is not my thing, I don't want to do this anymore. And they're landing back at home on the sofa and parents are like, well, just do anything. The parents are thinking differently about careers that may be something that their kid can do and be good at because you want people to be fulfilled. So I don't know, honestly where we're going with this. My hope is that we can continue to build the momentum of getting people more interested in manufacturing.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: I was just going to ask you what you. Your book title is Dark, Dirty and Dangerous, and it's a very contrasting title. Well, the second, the subtitle is Building the Vibrant Future of Manufacturing and it has a picture of a robot on it. But the first question is, what do you mean by dark, dirty and dangerous? And I think maybe it's like what the old image of like working in a factory was like versus maybe what the current ones are, what the future looks like. And I do think about the Tesla factories are not perfect, but they were like pretty highly automated, you know, white floors, well lit in general, like pretty pleasant places to work and be a part. You know, it's kind of this vibrant thing to be a part of. And you could be unpacking boxes or working on a line or an engineer, engineer sat on the floor. Like Will and I were in a factory like that this week. And it just, it has this life to it, you know, it's not dark, dirty and dangerous. At least it doesn't feel like that. But I'm just curious about what you mean by it and how you see that maybe that experience is changing the paradigm for folks joining in and being a part of it.
[00:25:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's just a play on the stereotype. When you think of manufacturing, people always say to me, you work in manufacturing, like, you definitely don't look like it. And so what do you think I should look like? They're like a man. So.
And I think of the old pictures that I had seen in horror movies where people are leaving their manufacturing factory job with their blue jumpsuit on, with on their face and their tin lunchbox and they look terrible. Like they look like they had the worst day of their life. And I said, that's a shame that that's where we are. So I just wanted to kind of play on that because when you come to my factory, my factory, quote, unquote, it's not like that at all. It's quiet. People are like listening to music and podcasts. They're putting it's benchtop electronics. They're inspecting things, they're focused. When people come here, they are always so taken because it's the first manufacturing facility that they'd ever been in. But other thing about the book was that when the idea of writing a book about manufacturing came up, I was like, oh my God, that sounds terrible. Who wants to read that book? So I decided that if we're really going to talk about manufacturing, we're going to talk about it from a real perspective. I was going to talk about my family business, being a woman in manufacturing, supply chain. What's it like? That was going to be the background of what manufacturing really was like, how it is today, what it's like to exist in it. My hope is because so many people ask me, because it changes their perspective that I can hit more people with a book as opposed to just having one on one conversations.
[00:26:47] Speaker C: I have to ask because, you know, I've also gotten this in the, in the manufacturing industry that I may not be the first face that people imagine when they hear my name and, and think about what I'm doing. So, you know, I can imagine as a black woman you might get that a lot. I would love to just hear a little bit about, like, what has your experience been in the manufacturing industry? How have you just been able to navigate spaces that are typically not inhabited by people that look like you?
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Well, I think because my mother was a systems analyst for Procter and Gamble, and my father was an engineer. So we were just used to. Not like I was always in a space where no one looked like me or very few of us, but there was just such great pride in being black in general and knowing. Kind of like it's easier to lean into the curves if you know that they're coming. And like the talk that every parent gives to their child that's black about what the world is like when you're very young. I've had a long period of adjustment, and I went into a field chain logistics. Where I was there was not many or any and the management team that looked like the most of the workers. So for me, it's really been just always walk into a place like, you know, you've been there before. Like, you know, don't act brand new. And it's not you that has to get used to it. Everyone else needs to. And then once you start acting like you are supposed to be in the room because you are, everyone else really adjusts. But I think that what I've offered in most spaces is that, like, I don't tiptoe around saying, like, I'm black, or from a black woman's perspective. People almost get scared to mention race into a conversation, not acknowledging that, yeah, I do see the world differently because the world is framed differently through my lived experience. And I think that's what I offer within the community that people rather enjoy and find refreshing because they don't have to tiptoe around it. I find that sometimes when I be in a room and they're like, well, you know, he's tall and he's, you know, the heavy, sick. I'm like, oh, you mean the black guy? Like, why didn't you say he's the black guy? Like, you know, like, let's just say call a thing a thing and say what it is so we can just get to the root of it. So adding a bit of comfortability has helped with navigating and just kind of like telling people, just be cool, just be chill and just let's, you know, deal with people as people. And it takes a while to build that camaraderie, but it's been extremely useful. So I don't have a lot of stories of backlash or may have happened behind my back or behind closed doors, but it's never impacted me, thank God.
[00:29:31] Speaker C: Yeah. No, I love that. And I'll say that that was one of the refreshing things that I. I've gotten out of our conversations is that, you know, you're not someone that shies away from talking about, you know, what your lived experience is like, especially being in this industry.
And you know, just also today and this isn't everywhere, but, you know, there's a lot of talk about anti DEI rhetoric and the perception that can come with that. Sometimes, you know, I've experienced for myself as a black founder. I'm just curious for, you know, for yourself. The perception sometimes is that, you know, you've maybe gotten into these rooms or, you know, won a contract just because of, you know, your, your ethnic background and, and, you know, just like external factors. I would be curious just like, how do you, how do you respond to that? And is that something that even. Is something that you think about these days?
[00:30:31] Speaker A: I think about it often, I think because I feel that there's going to be an automatic discount or there is an assumption of it. And that's really based on the fact that most people don't have diverse circles. You ask them, like, do you have any black friends, like people in your top 10 in your phone that you call or in your neighborhood or who you choose to hang out with? Right. And I think that people don't understand that as black people in America, that we, we've lived, that's our lived experience, right. We've always had to be around people who do not look like us. We've always had to learn how to tailor who we are and how we speak. And that's why, you know, we, we have, we speak multiple languages as black people. Right. And we see the world in various. Because we were trained to do that. We were trained to survive. And that's how we live. So when I think about people thinking less because of the color of my skin, I mean, I know that, right? But I also tell them the story of how this company started. They know that my dad didn't just fall into electrical engineering, but when he was starting, sales were slow in the very beginning. And he ran into a guy that he knew that was more sales oriented, white guy. And he, they thought, okay, why don't we just join forces? And the white guy was the front of the company. He was out there like, oh, electrosoft, we can do this, that and the other. And the contracts just started flowing. And once they did and people just love the work and they would come in and they would automatically think that Frank was the guy to talk to. And he goes, oh, no, I'm the vice president, that's the president, that black guy right there.
And by then we had Built a reputation, but we didn't even have our pictures on the website for. I don't. I think I put it up on in like 28 or 2010 or something. Like, showing who we are is a relatively new thing. So this build, this business was definitely not built on DEI at all. And still to this day, there's things. I think there was one conversation I had with my mom. I was like, saying something like, I wasn't going to relax my hair anymore. And she was like, oh, my God, what's like, what about the company? Like, that was her first thought, that respectability, politics are still so ingrained in that generation. And I said, well, you know, what do you want me to be bald or natural? Like, pick one. And, you know, that was a real discussion. Like, how many people think, like, what I do to my hair might impact my business. Like, that's just not normal, right? And those are the things that we have to flex in order to. And it's stressful, quite honestly. Like, I've had to remind myself to not be stressed about certain things, even, like what I wear. There was a time where I really needed to fit in. I felt the need to fit in so people feel comfortable. But then I got out to the point where I had to do a pitch and I had this black suit hanging in my closet. I was like, I really do not want to wear that black suit. It just looks terrible. So I wore this really bright colored dress with, like poppies on it. I mean, it was definitely not business appropriate, but I felt like myself. And I went in there and I didn't care. I didn't really even need the money. I was just doing it for exercise. And I went in there and I just did me, me. And when I was done, I got the money that I didn't need in the first place. And I was told that was the best pitch I've heard in like, three years. And I was really surprised because I didn't think I really knew I was doing anyway, but I knew my stuff. Like, I knew everything. I needed to know that every question was answered. And from that point on, I made a decision that I was only going to be me in every room that I walk in. And I think my success thus far has hinged upon the different perspective, the fresh air that is often comes with being unique in your space. And I think people genuinely like doing business with Electrosoft because of that.
[00:34:40] Speaker C: I'd say, like, that comfort factor, it goes a long way. It's something that you can feel as you are pitching the business to an investor or a customer. But it's also something that people pick up on when you have that confidence. And also, you know, you're well versed in your domain expertise. You know, you've got the experience, you've got the credentials and all of that. And so I'm always a big advocate to other founders when they come to me and they ask like, you know, how should I do this? How should I dress to be as comfortable as you can possibly be in your own skin going into that room. Because there are already so many external factors that are going to be eroding at your confidence and that, you know, just as I've been, as I've experienced this too, you know, walking into pitch, the last thing you want to feel was like, okay, I going to do so good of a job at, you know, being this alternate personality that that's the person they fall in love with.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:39] Speaker C: And that's something that actually terrifies me.
[00:35:41] Speaker A: Right. Because I'm not a professional actress.
I can only like fake it for so long, eventually it's going to all fall apart.
[00:35:50] Speaker C: Yeah. So Greg, speaking of people that I know, I'm at least in Greg's top top 10 on his list will definitely.
[00:35:57] Speaker B: Help me add to the, the. Well, my best friend growing up was Indian and he, he grew up, I grew up in a small town in Canada and it definitely was not a very diverse place, but he, he was Hindu and he, we used to went to like a Catholic school and he, he stood in my wedding. He was like, I finally get to participate in Mass. You know, he basically sat on, sat on the sidelines of going to Catholic elementary school. But yeah, will is definitely helped me build out my, my friend and, and colleague network. And in that context, let me ask.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: You then Greg, how has that enhanced. Do you feel like it's been an enhancement for you as a, a founder having that like various perspectives from a cultural perspective?
[00:36:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I think to be honest, what comes to mind is like kids, like I have two little kids. I'm. My wife and I are Canadian. You know, we're immigrants, although we, we say we don't look like immigrants like, like in some contexts but you know, very much are, you know, it's a new experience living in the US and I think just meeting people of different cultures, you know, like we are. My daughter goes to school with, you know, more than half their classes, you know, non white kids and I think just the exposure to that for her growing up in, in much more culturally diverse experience is wonderful and is like one of the main reasons we, you know, it's part of one of the reasons we wanted to live here. And there is. And just getting to know Will better, it's just like there is a whole part of especially the black community, to be honest, I don't really understand, like, I don't have lived experience that you or Will have. And to be honest, it is. It's hard for me, especially in recent years to understand it and understand context and history of it. And I've. I've even experienced it once or twice through Will, traveling with him a lot and things to see how it's really subtle, but sometimes just treated a tiny bit different or something like that. And it has been very eye opening to me because most of my context is through like media, things like that. It's not part of my daily experience. And so it's been. It's been a great experience or just like an eye opening one, for sure.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: I had my young, just to give you some idea of being in America in general, my son, when he was little, he was in elementary school and I asked him about his friends and for some reason I asked, well, how many black friends do you have? Because it was very much predominantly white school. And he starts naming this for. He's like, well, Samir is my best friend. I'm like, he's Indian. He's like, he's not black.
And I just thought it was like really, really cute because I realized that I was putting that on him and asking him if he had any friends that looked like him. But for him it was just like, samir's my friend. That's my homie. And at some point later in life, he had come to the conclusion that he needed, you know, whoever he needed in his circle. Right. But I think that the world determined that for him. But I don't mean to digress from the point, but just when I think of dei, I think of a lot of it is learned and it's based on experience and how you see the world and why it's important to have different perspectives in the room and at the table. Otherwise you are creating that echo chamber. And if you are the company that is able to have so many different lived experiences, generations, people who are returning citizens, people who are differently abled around the table to give you those perspectives and you're going after a global marketplace, you can't help but win, right?
[00:39:23] Speaker C: Absolutely. And so, Carla, actually, I love this and I actually want to start incorporating this into more of our episodes. But I'm sure you have questions for us.
What do you want to know about me or Greg Diagon or anything?
[00:39:37] Speaker A: Yeah, so I'm just curious that, you know, you've had the, what people would deem dream jobs at dream companies, and then you're like, I'm going to do this by myself. I'm going to do something else by myself. I'm going to do one of the hardest things that it is, which is start a business and find money for it and hope that it succeeds. Why, like, why would you even do that to yourself?
[00:40:00] Speaker C: Why in your right mind would you ever become a founder? I asked myself that, actually. Greg and I were talking about this, like, yesterday. I think that some people are just wired differently, and I think that I'm one of those people. If I were to maybe, though, give the more nuanced answer. I was definitely raised as the kid that my parents wanted to go to school, get a good education and, and, you know, get in the, in the, in the battlefield to fight for that one CEO spot. And, you know, I think I did a really good job of just kind of following that blueprint for most of my life. I never really thought that I was going to get into entrepreneurship or become a founder in any way until much, much later in life. There are just certain things about, about my background and a lot of people like me where, you know, we. I was raised without a lot of financial stability. And so having, you know, having a stable 9 to 5 job to provide health care, you know, a steady paycheck, and all of those things were things that were values to me, and they were also kind of values that were put on me to make sure that I could, I could care for, for my family. But I would say that moving to Silicon Valley really changed me, and especially working at a place like Tesla, where I routinely would say that I had the coolest job at the company. I didn't want to be Elon. I didn't want to be any of the VPs. I got to go into work every day and see how really interesting and cool machines made some of the, you know, the highest tech vehicles in the world. And I literally did that day in and day out for, you know, over five years. But there was something about that environment that was very entrepreneurial. There were very few, I'll call them rails or train tracks that were set in place. So it wasn't like people were telling me, hey, this is the way you need to do this job. Quite often, you know, I was just kind of left to my own devices to figure things out. And in that process you start to come, you start to become very intimately familiar with the problem that you're trying to solve. And for me, the problem became I need to quickly and efficiently find the best suppliers in the world that make machines that meet my specifications for my end product. I need to get pricing, I need to get lead times. And there were just all of these things that I needed to do and there was so few, there were so few tools available for me to be able to do that. I started to feel at a certain point like, you know, maybe this incredible job is actually the thing keeping me from, from stepping out and starting something. And over time, I would say in the, in the six or seven years after I left Tesla, I started to really internalize that to where, you know, the point where it became inevitable. I was like, I know I'm just going to start something one day. I just have no idea what it's going to be yet. But the more I started to, to dig into the problem, the more I felt like, okay, there's an opportunity here to start something. And much like you, I was drawn to the, drawn to it for the problem, but also really keeping a long term view on generating like generational wealth for my family, you know, and for, you know, just thinking about all of the things that would be possible if I'm not confined in the construct of a, of a corporate job. So that was, those were some of the factors that led to me just kind of jumping off the ship and, and into entrepreneurship. I'll also give Greg a crack at this one because Greg I would say arguably had the best job in New Finland.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's similar story. I'll be honest. I think I always had a yearning from being a kid like to be an entrepreneur. But no, I'm from one of the poorest provinces in Canada and getting a good job was hard and starting a business was almost impossible. I just didn't know anybody that was an entrepreneur. So it wasn't even like I considered it and it wasn't possible. Just like literally very few people I knew were entrepreneurs. And then you know, for me it was a choice of you could either work for the government or work for an oil company or like in the oil industry. And I spent 10 years doing that and, and I think I got really good at it. Similar to Will, like going to school and getting a job and then climbing the corporate ladder through. I worked for ExxonMobil for almost 10 years and then at Tesla it was similar I do think Tesla broke. Broke a few things, probably in me in good and bad ways, probably, but it just broke.
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Companies break something in you.
[00:44:42] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. But I think it opened my aperture to what I thought was possible, like me individually and what you could with a group of energetic and smart people, what you could accomplish, and even just like Exxon really reinforced this perfection in me where you could never make mistakes. Mistakes were kind of not tolerated. And. And Tesla opened my mind to risk taking, to say, like, most of the time, like, the mistakes you make are just not that big a deal. They can be repaired, you can adjust, you can adapt. And I think it just, again, it shifted my paradigm and what I thought was possible. And then I think the other thing, Carla, that you mentioned was like, I made a lot of money for other people, you know, at different stages. Made what? Not even, like, indirectly, like, directly, like tens of millions of dollars for the companies I work for. And, you know, at some point you're just like, like, I don't even get a fraction of this, you know, in. In a raise or a bonus. And I'm like, just building a machine that can have meaningful ownership. Both. Like, there's kind of an ownership from a how it feels standpoint, but then an actual equity ownership is something that's important to me. And then there's another element of just doing something from the start, have. Starting from just an idea, and there's just something inherently satisfying about building something from. From nothing. But.
[00:45:57] Speaker A: Yeah, that's amazing. I have another question. Has nothing to do with anything. I heard it once, but I'm going to change it a little bit. If you had a choice between $5 million and a magic carpet, which one would you choose?
[00:46:08] Speaker C: I'm all in for the magic carpet, because I feel like, who wouldn't want that? You can get whisked away to wherever you want to go. But also, I think that maybe the deeper response here is getting into entrepreneurship is addictive because you always start to think of other business opportunities that you just stumble across as you're trying to solve problems in your. In your normal life. So, I mean, I just think of, like, what you could do, what kind of attraction or amusement park you could build, like, ride this magic carpet. I can make a lot more than $5 million offering that up to, you know, just the kids in my neighborhood.
So, yeah, I would say I'm. I'm always more enamored by the magic carpet than any amount of cash.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: Greg, I don't know. That feels like a Google interview question or Something, But I think money, I think I've just learned. And I think about what I want to teach my own kids is more. And maybe this is like a political not answering the question, but money does solve money problems, but it doesn't solve other problems. And I think more about resilience and adaptability, these kind of things that are more important that, like, just money, not that there's always money, but like, you know, it is sort of these other skills and attributes. I just think a lot more about than, again, money just doesn't solve a lot of those problems. And maybe that's a metaphor for what the magic carpet is.
[00:47:29] Speaker A: That's a wrong answer, Greg. No, I'm just kidding.
Well, I agree. I think I was like, the testing alone that people would, like, pay you just to, like, see it, test it, lease it, right?
[00:47:46] Speaker C: Absolutely. Like, take that magic carpet. I have maybe one. One more question for you. So, you know, Greg and I both mentioned we've got kids are actually about the same age. And I think about this sometimes. Like, you know, will my kids be interested in getting into manufacturing? And, you know, Lord willing, if diagon is a long around, long enough that when they're in their careers, um, would they want to work in it one day? How do you think about this for, you know, your child, you said you have a child. And him being the next generation, has he ever brought that up as something that he might be interested in?
[00:48:20] Speaker A: First of all, I'm a terrible mother because I have two children, so I may have only talked about one. And I have two. One's 16 and the other is 18. One thing I wish I had done was talk about family business earlier. And instead of me, like, sweating to death as a child laborer in my family business, which turned me off completely, I wish that I had my parents talk to me about the numbers and the decisions that needed to be made. And I find myself doing that now with my kids. Like, even complicated decisions where I was like, I was talking about building a team, and these are the people on the team, and this person's a B player, this one's a C. But they are this and they offer that. Like, how do you make that decision? Trying to also train them in humanity of being in a family business that has no shareholders besides yourself. You can do whatever you want, but how do you make those decisions? And that's how I introduced the concept of our board of advisors that we have and making them come to meetings or at least listen to part of meetings and write down any question that they have. And the thought is that as I have grown in this company and my network has grown and so now I'm part of networks with other family business owners and people who are advisors to family businesses. And it's allowed me to see that they don't actually have to work in the business. Right. A point where they can be business owners but not be operating and hire the president just like a public company would hire a president. And that we need to start thinking differently as this company being an asset and not like another family member. So I've changed my thinking of like my children must take over this company or, you know, it's going to be awful for our legacy, that legacy could be more than just a company. But if I get to the point where I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore and I hire somebody with vision that will come in and take it to the next level and then I sell it or the ESOP or something different where there is a moment of liquidity and we can then parlay that into another type of legacy that we've never dreamed of. So my answer honestly evolves with education and the network that I'm a part of because I was so short sighted in the beginning. But now there's so many options that I feel like there may be even more that I've just not even known about yet at this point.
[00:50:57] Speaker C: Yeah, that's fantastic. Any words of advice for Greg and I being founders with young kids?
[00:51:04] Speaker A: Well, again, start early. I would say that if you guys have a philanthropic angle to your business or your family, that you bring them in on the decision making, on how the money, who the money should go to and how you make your decisions. What we started doing was creating the culture of our family and what we believe as it pertains to the business. So that this is how what guides our decision making and where you want to be. And have them understand that definitely working in the business and paying them to the point where they can put it, you can put it in a Roth IRA or 529 for them at a young age because it allows for that for your children to glean an income as they are learning about the family business. And once they get excited and start being more knowledgeable, I would say bring them around other. There's some advisory firms that have youth education for family business and it allows your children to build a network of other children who have family businesses so they don't feel like the weirdo that their dad or mom doesn't really go to a giant company to work, you know, like, what kind of losers are your parents that they understand what it is that you're building? And that's helpful as well. I've introduced my kids to other kids that have family businesses. My kids only know successful black women. Like, they, you know, you frame the world for them by exposure.
[00:52:33] Speaker C: That's amazing. I'm going to take that back with me for sure. You know, we've got maybe different in different company structures. I mean, with ours being venture backed and we've got, you know, external board and shareholders, it's kind of. There are some differences, but I actually think that there's a lot that, you know, our kids are collectively, we've got like, I don't know, eight or so kids in the diagon. The diagon circle. Just from our founding team that there's a. There's, you know, seems to for sure be some interest there. And, you know, we try to get them engaged whenever. Whenever possible. And I think, actually Greg and I both have LLCs that are different and separate from this company that are, you know, other tools that we can use to kind of get more family involvement and especially with the upcoming generation. But I always like to ask this to people who are kind of in legacy businesses because that's not the background that I came from, and I'm new at this. So thank you now.
[00:53:30] Speaker A: You're welcome. I'm still learning, so I would say don't stop learning, especially from other families, because the drama, the drama, it gets bad sometimes. It's different.
[00:53:42] Speaker C: That's all the questions that I had. I really enjoyed this as one of my favorite episodes so far. So thank you very much for spending some time with us. Greg, do you have any other questions?
[00:53:53] Speaker B: No, I think that's great. It's great to meet you, Carla, and thanks for sharing your story with us.
[00:53:57] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you both for inviting me into your space.
[00:54:00] Speaker C: Likewise.
[00:54:01] Speaker B: All right, thanks, Carlo.
