A lot of companies when they get money in the bank, they kind of forget those bootstrapping kind of mindset and and I think that's something that I've tried and really keep first, like top of Top of Mind
is the entrepreneur way with Neil Ball, unlocking the secrets of successful entrepreneurs seven days a week and subscribe to our podcast and follow us on Twitter at Neil de Boer, Napoleon Hill, that the power of the mastermind is the driving force to discover how you can unlock the potential in your business using the power of a mastermind, go to mastermind, unlimited.com. And now, here is your host, Neil Ball.
Hello, it's Neil Ball here. Thank you so much for joining me today on the entrepreneur way. The entrepreneur way is about the entrepreneurs journey, the vision, the mindset, the commitment, the sacrifice, failures, and successes. I am so excited to bring you our special guest today, Kirk Marple. But before we introduce it to Kirk, I have a quote for you by Joan Rivers. I was smart enough to go through any door that opened the entrepreneur way smaller questions. So we all get the insight, inspiration and ideas to apply in our businesses. Kurt, welcome to the show. Are you ready to share your version of the entrepreneur way with us?
I am and I'm very excited to be here. Thanks for the opportunity.
You are very welcome. It's great to have you here really looking forward to find you know about what you think it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. So thank you for being on the show today.
You're very welcome. Former Microsoft
General Motors and stats leader Kirk Marple is the CEO and founder of unstruck data. A company this is building the industry's leading unstructured data warehouse for automating data preparation via metadata enrichment, integrated compute, and graph based search. On stroke day data has raised $3.5 million in seed funding. Kirk, can you provide us with some more insight into your business and personal life. So when I was to get to know more about who you are, and what you do,
for sure, so I've been a career software developer went to grad school ended up at Microsoft and ended up starting multiple companies after that I have a family of three kids are all a bit older now out of high school. But really they've as a kind of grown up with me with with startup companies really have seen the growth from a bootstrap company to now having a seed funded company and, and my son actually works for me now at the at the new company. So it's it's been a really exciting journey. Well, thank
you for giving us that quick overview of what you've been doing. So far. You've talked about having multiple companies and startups and bootstrapping all of these magic words, can you take us back in time and just talk us through some of those events and so we can get some more of a history of how you've got to where you are,
for sure. So I was at Microsoft work in Microsoft Research started to get the itch a little bit of really being closer in touch to customers, I was working at the at the very end of Microsoft in the Windows Media Group and the consumer kind of be able to talk to customers started I mean, as an engineer, it's not something you normally get to do so I ended up leaving and starting a company with a with a colleague at a startup but I joined after that and really just started to learn the the other side of the business, which was really interesting of how sales works, how marketing works, and I'd never been exposed to any of that. So the bootstrapping side of it I mean we we grounded out and I mean had a ton of pain through the years but was finally able to sell it almost about 10 years later. So we wrote it through the the economic crash, I guess around 2008 and I feel that I've kind of learned through osmosis over the years and learn through pain but kind of come out the other side is I mean a experienced CEO now that i can i mean now having some money in the bank, but it's not my own and and having a team behind me it's it's a really exciting journey to kind of do recall those learnings and move forward?
And how have you found your past experiences have contributed to creating your latest company have as it? Is it always different? Or do you see lots of similarities? Or have you seen that?
I think it's I mean, as a manager, I've learned a lot. I mean, I've made a lot of mistakes of kind of taking on too much myself and not delegating well. And it's something I've learned over the years even I mean, I worked for, for other people for about five years, since I sold my company and trying to apply a lot of those learnings was really key. And even now, just making sure that I'm delegating the right things, having a good team around us, all the folks that are at my, my current company, we've all worked together, some of us, it's our fourth company. And so I had kind of brought them along, I had been a VP or CTO at a few different places and brought them along with me. And so it's, I think, I mean, that kind of community, where everybody's kind of rowing in the same direction is so key. And and trust is really important when knowing people and knowing their strengths, knowing their weaknesses is super important.
And when you work for someone else having sold your company was that because you did you have to go and work in the company that you sold your company to, or was that just you went off and doing?
I did that at first. And so I worked for them for about three years, we basically just kept kept rolling with the product, doing pretty much the same thing we were doing on premise video transcoding software, and I really wanted to learn more about the cloud services that were starting to become more commonplace. And that was one of the reasons that I actually started a little, a little company, for a year, just self funded just to really learn about the cloud services space. And it just, I mean, was hard to do without funding. And so I ended up taking a job at General Motors, actually. And then that's where I really got to see kind of the other side of the world of kind of what was happening in big data, what was happening in cloud services and things like that.
So what's it like having had your own business? Because that because I've never done this? I don't know, what's it like having had your own company, going working for someone else?
It's difficult, it's difficult. And I think I mean, I've really enjoyed my experience of the places I worked, but it is, I mean, when it's not your I mean, your vision can be difficult. And even just I mean, decision making can be tough. I mean, if if your product direction, kind of how you want things to work, usually, I mean, it's something where I was coming in it is as an executive, so I was able to give my input. But in terms of the product, it's it's, I love the product building process and be able to be the vision of that company, as well as I'm still hands on developer, so I like kind of doing it all. And it's it's just difficult to do when you're working for someone else. So I love also just being able to develop the company culture myself. And that's a lot of fun.
What do you enjoy most about what you do?
I think the creation process, I mean, I almost look at it as an artistic process. And I kind of use the sculpting metaphor a lot with my team where you kind of have the rough piece of granite or whatever you use and can start carving it away at the at the rough edges, and then kind of get down to the sort of the finer details and I kind of see product building the same way. And I think going to be able to do that and have a something in your head that now people can use. I love that part of it.
Can you tell us more about what your existing business does on stroke data?
Yeah, so in the past, I'd worked with a lot of broadcasters and studios and kind of the media entertainment space. And I learned a lot about the tools they use for media management and getting their media ready for distribution. And then the last few years I've been exposed to industrial use cases of media as you could say. So how is video used by a power plant or a chemical company. And so unstruck data is really taking a lot of the learnings from the the media entertainment side of the world and applying them to sort of heavier industry. And so we're building a media management application for industrial customers. So like a port, or a pulp and paper plant that they're going around taking hundreds and 1000s of images and videos for you can kind of call it visual inspection. And there just aren't good tools out there for dealing with this type of media at scale. So that's the core of it. And then we're applying machine learning computer vision to automatically analyze all that data and provide them insights for organization and triage. seeing a lot of that data
will drive you to do what you do.
I think curiosity in a lot of ways. I'm always learning always reading, trying to figure out kind of what is the next thing out there. I mean, I think it's it's that it is a hobby and a business for me. And so it's a it's a little difficult to separate those two things. But I think there's, there's always something new to do something new to learn. And that really keeps me going.
How do you relax when you're not working in your business?
I saw that question. It's a good it's a funny one for me, because it's, it's when you start a company, we're only three months in, there's not a lot of time for relaxation right now. But I think I mean, cooking for me has always been my my kind of go to, I actually wanted to be a chef, and go to culinary school if I didn't go to for computer science. So that's that kind of goes back and just cooking for my family is probably the main way that I can kind of spend time with them as well as, as have a way to relax.
Do you have any entrepreneurial role models?
I mean, I think being at Microsoft, I mean, Bill Gates was always I mean, somebody I kind of looked up to, in terms of that kind of drive and creativity. And there's been some really good books recently about I mean, that I mean, the Microsoft experience, and I think, I mean, for all Bill's kind of positives and negatives, I think he really had a great way to put the big picture together and see a vision that was bigger than than other people could see. And so I try to kind of look to that as a sort of touch point.
Folks, Kirk has told us about his business and his personal life. Now what we're going to do is go back in time and talk about the time before he was an entrepreneur. What difficulties did you have to overcome when you started your business?
I think a lot of it was really not knowing what I didn't know. I mean, I'd read a lot of books at the time, just about I mean, startup culture. And I mean, what was it a, like a seven day MBA book and things like that. But it it really is such a learning experience when when you really, you think you know, part of it, but then you realize you were only touching the tip of the iceberg. So I think it's, there was just so much to learn around sales and marketing, and the other side from being a career engineer.
So what would you say? I mean, not knowing what you don't know, that's a, that's a bit of a challenge, isn't it? Really, because you've got to go and learn something that you don't know, you don't know, that might be useful in the future? How could you maybe be more prepared for what you didn't know you didn't know?
I think having a having a community of people is important. And I really didn't back then. I mean, all my peers were were engineers, and I hadn't really been exposed to the product side as much. And I honestly love that site just as much as coding. I think really, I mean, now I look at I mean, there's so many more opportunities. And obviously, the internet was young, when I first started when I started my first company, but not having that community of peers and community of even just strangers, slack groups and things like that I enjoy now just to get get exposed to other other sides of the business, other viewpoints and things like that. So, I mean, if I were doing it today, I think it'd be a much easier job just because getting information about things you don't know, is just so much more at your fingertips today.
Did you have any doubts that delayed you starting your business?
Not really, it was it was an interesting time where I started the first company, I guess, in spring of 2001. And it was right when I mean the stock market was kind of crashing and there was I mean, transition Microsoft the DOJ trial it just happened so I was leaving there kind of right after that. So it was kind of a chaotic period. So I really just dove in with two feet and just said look at me this is what I'm gonna do. I luckily had a little bit of a buffer but not not a huge buffer to work from and it was something where Yeah, I mean, I just, I mean decided this is what I'm going to do and I actually had to go back and contract back at Microsoft again when we ran out of money for a while and then we actually got a good contract was able to kind of bring it back to life. So I mean really it was it was a fight. And I mean but I learned a lot through it
is incredible when you do something like that there isn't when you think back on it, because it's sort of, I don't know, something satisfying about being able to win through that those tough times and you sort of look back at them with great fondness and I always do
both for sure. And even we got like some magazine covers with, like our product user interface on it. And this is the kind of things I look at that I mean make it all worth it. I mean it's it's not really just the money at the end of the day, it's knowing you achieve something and it wasn't all for naught. It was actually a good idea in the first place.
What mistakes did you make that slowed your journey?
I mean, there was so many I mean it's I mean I definitely Learn from so many, I mean failures along the way. But I think I mean not delegating properly. I mean, trying to put too much on my own back, I think that I mean that To be honest, affected, I mean, the the personal relationships and the family of just, I mean, really getting getting underwater with, I mean, putting too much on on me versus trying to delegate to the team. I mean, I think that slowed things down. And if I had had a better sort of core group of founding team, a bigger founding team, it would have made it a lot easier for my first company at least.
But that's a difficult call, isn't it, because when you first start, you don't know what's going to be successful. So you perhaps trying to just conserve cash. But now, once you know what it's become, it's become so when you quit, when you know it has been successful, you can always look back at it and say, I wish we could have throw more people at our but at the time, you didn't know that you were going to be successful at it potentially.
And we never thought it was going to be that long of progress. I mean, it was it ended up being about a 10 year cycle. And we kind of went through two iterations of the company having to kind of restarted in the middle with a little bit of a different set of people. And I mean, I thought it was going to be like a three to five year plan. And it ended up being a 10 year plan. And so that that affected a lot of sides of the equation. So it's 10
years. So over that 10 year cycle, at what point did you know that it was actually going to work, or it was working.
Um, I mean, after the first year or two, we had customers and we had in namebrand customers, may all you're familiar broadcasters or studios so that that was a really positive feedback point. And we ended up getting a huge contract with a major broadcaster that I mean, had almost 200 sites around the country. And that was probably one of the high points of that experience when you knew that software you'd written is basically being used every day by everybody watching video around, I mean, around the site, so but it's, I mean, there's so many other parts to it have, we had been in some really interesting projects that look great, and then just were literally killed. The they decided to kill the project, we had invested a lot of time and effort on paid. And we just had to pivot and figure out okay, we've just invested six months for no mean value, we gotta go figure out another way to I mean, to make something out of those.
So how could you have done that differently? So that you didn't end up in that position? Is there a way you could have done that?
Some of them are really difficult. I mean, it's I mean, we had a, we had a project that I mean, look great. And I was with I mean, name brand companies that, I mean, you'd never expect them to change. But it's some of the ones you'll just never know. I mean, I honestly can't think of this one project, I'm thinking of that I mean, how we would have ever known upfront. And even the other companies, I mean, they are people they're got had to move jobs and change jobs, it was just an industry wind had changed. And there's honestly not a lot you can do about that other than sort of playing defense. I mean, protecting yourself honestly, from maybe not putting all your eggs in the basket, that metaphor, I think that's probably the only thing you can you can really protect yourself in that way.
What are some of the things that you did before you started your business that will be helpful tips to some of the listeners who haven't yet taken the first step on the entrepreneur way?
I think the biggest thing is looking at ways to compliment your own skill set. I mean, I've been a career software engineer had never really been exposed to sales or marketing or the business side of it. I've never took a business class before starting my company. I mean, just things like budgeting. I mean, and like I'm pretty detail oriented. So I mean, I could use spreadsheets, and I was pretty, I mean, fiddly with the numbers. So that bar came easy to me. But just when what does it mean to sell? What does it mean to get your name out there on a website and market? I think I did a lot of reading early on just to kind of fill out the gaps. And I think being self aware, I guess is another point of knowing what you aren't good at and trying to fill in, either with knowledge or with people around the edges.
So you're you're working for having words for different people? How has that contributed quite a quite a lot to you. You've been able to do what you do now. I mean, you obviously mentioned that before in terms of finding out about big data and things as as as over over experiences along the way helped you like that.
Yeah, I mean, I was on an incredible team at Microsoft, where pretty much every one of the people I work with went on to be a CTO, VP, I mean, just everybody it was an incredible skill set there and I learned a ton when I was at Microsoft Research and so I think, I mean, you kind of have to pull from the right pieces of I would look at Some of these folks that I've worked with before as a sort of prototype for, for who I'd want to be in this area, especially like I don't the the management side for me doesn't come as, as easily, I'm a little more of a kind of extroverted introvert. And so it's a bit of a stretch to deal with all the people side of it and all that, and I have friends that are way, way better at that than I am. So I try and kind of emulate them and learn from how well they do their job in those areas.
Folks are now going to jump forward in time and learn about Kirk's journey from when he became an entrepreneur up to more present times. Do you think culture is important from the beginning in business?
I think it really is. Because it's it's hard to change later. I think it's it's an area where I mean, we we try to have a bit of a casual culture of just coming in every it's a very flat organization. I try not put too many politics or too many layers in and, and really just keep it very sort of collegial culture at my new startup. And I think it's, I mean, there's also a balance, I mean, some there has to be a separation of management from the people, I mean, doing the job as well. But I mean, I try and minimize that. And also make everybody feel empowered. I think that's the biggest thing is everybody, I mean, obviously, everybody has different roles. But if everybody feels they can make an impact and what are supported in those roles. It's, it's super important. So I think you can instill that very early on at a company,
I would give How do you keep that startup culture that innovation, that sort of sense of we're all in it together, as you begin to scale the business.
It's a difficult one, I mean, I'm, I'm much more experienced with kind of zero to one the early stages. And, but as you as you do grow, I think it's almost like you want to have the players become manager, or sorry, players become coaches. And if you can get them to be good coaches, and then as you bring on new people, it becomes this sort of this cyclical thing where they start instilling the culture in their teams. And so I think that is, I mean, hiring people that can scale and want to grow, they may not be ready for it today, or maybe they are, but we just don't have the people yet. But once we scale, we're ready to grow and kind of bring people into that culture is what I'm trying to do.
Yeah. And that's the other challenge, isn't it? As you scale, the people that you had at the beginning may not be, they may not scale with the business, or in the roles that they originally came in for.
Exactly. And hiring is a whole other can of worms, it's difficult to predict. I mean, you hire for skill set. Hiring for something that may not happen for a year or two, is, can be difficult. And I mean, we've all had many, many kind of startup founders had trouble with with hiring. And I mean, that's why I love my team now is I mean, it's it's folks that I've worked with and can trust. And I know, I mean, I've seen them scale with with their experience. So
how do you make sure that you hire the right people, so that they fit with the culture in your business?
It's I mean, I think it's, it's a personal part to have, I think personalities are important. But also just I mean, people that will, will be honest and upfront and not be kind of scared to talk to you and then say, when when I'm doing something wrong, I think that's, I mean, trying to develop that kind of open culture is, is really probably the hardest thing to do. And, and it's honestly with, I mean, just hiring off a LinkedIn profile or something can be difficult. So I definitely try and I mean, do some exploration have some discussions and and I think just having talked to so many people over time, you can you can kind of get a feel for it. But it's I mean, it's it's honestly not one of the easiest parts of the I mean, the process
knowing what you know, now, is there anything that if you had known it, when you started out, that would have helped you to shortcut the learning curve?
I mean, I think from looking at the, at the financial side of it, the fundraising side of it, that we recently went through, I think a lot of it is who you know, and having a good set of contacts. And I think that's, I think, if I had known that maybe a little better and my first company and we did I mean we struggled with, we looked for money, but ended up just continuing to bootstrap. It really is having a good set of contacts, a good network around you. LinkedIn obviously makes it so much easier these days. And back, I mean, almost, I guess 20 years ago, it was not not as existant but it's, that is such a key. I mean, having a good network to pull from is such an accelerant. And I mean, if there's if there's some problem I run into, I usually Just kind of find some people that I think can can help and assist and, and, and usually get unblocked.
Yeah. Because I've heard from when I've talked to other entrepreneurs, sometimes that some of them have talked to me about the amount of time it can take for fundraising. And it's sort of this dilemma. Have you ever run your business? Are you run? Are you trying to raise funds, but it's difficult to do both at the same time, sometimes.
It really, and I mean, and I raise money during the Xoom fundraising era, which is its own, I mean, very different thing. And maybe it's, it probably was actually more efficient, just because of, I mean, nobody's spending time traveling. I mean, I'm in LA, I'm not in the Bay Area. It's a it was a very unique experience. But I mean, we were, I mean, I think it actually went easier than I expected. It was a little of a slow start, but I think that's a that's an area that it really is, I mean, contacts and contacts of contacts. And that's that it's just makes it a lot easier that way.
I almost as good feeling influential decisions in your business.
For me, personally, I think it does a lot. And I think I've learned to kind of own that, over time, where my instincts of just mean, having been through the Wars of so many years, I've really learned to trust it, trust my gut. I mean, it hasn't burned me, I mean, very often, so I continue to do so. But it's, I think it's I mean, to me, it's it's really an instinctual thing that's sort of derivative of just all your learnings over your life. And all your experience kind of turns into that feeling. And even with hiring, I mean, I've ended up I mean, just kind of talking to people for a little while and realizing, okay, like, I'm hearing the right things, I like the personality, I think there's, they seem to just be kind of on the same wavelength, as our as our team. And I just went with a gut feeling. And I mean, it typically works out.
What makes you uncomfortable as an entrepreneur.
I think it's, I mean, wanting to do everything, but not being able to, I mean, I actually really enjoy talking to customers, I mean, I would love to be I mean, out there doing the product planning, doing the sales exploration myself, because I think there's so much that I typically can get out of a sales conversation just because of, I'm already thinking five steps ahead for the product vision and the company vision. But it's really mean you have to set up a process and delegate properly. And so we have five people that are, I mean, out there kind of gathering those conversations up. But I tried to insert myself into the, I mean, the most important ones. And I usually end up thinking of like three or four more product ideas, just from every discussion. And if we kind of had a more, I guess, more process oriented approach where somebody takes notes, and we review them. And I mean, I'm not literally on those calls, I think it would, it would slow down the process, and we wouldn't move as fast. But on the flip side, it ends up taking a lot more of my time. So it's a it's really a balance, where I mean, it's you I try and prevent myself from trying to get overwhelmed and try and do everything.
What do you think are some of the secrets to success?
Persistence is I mean, has always been mine? I think not I mean, getting kicked in not I mean, totally being down. I think that's the number one thing and creativity and just really just looking for, I mean, I, I sort of think I'm good at looking for patterns, and sort of seeing I mean, learning through osmosis. And so I try and just be a sponge for all kinds of information that I try and learn from. So I think, I mean, those are, those are probably my top ones.
Life is made of constant change, whether we like it or not. Many people say that the only constant in life is change. How do you try to keep up with change?
I think being very flexible. I'm not somebody that sort of plans ahead for I mean, getting off the highway three stops ahead. So I'm, I'm very adaptable. I mean, it's I think that is probably the number one thing of not getting stressed out when things don't go exactly to plan. I think it's just kind of my personality. And I think it makes it I mean, I'll be able to adapt to that change very easily. But also trying to be exposed to a lot of different viewpoints and information and kind of anticipating that change a little bit. And I think that's why I started to I wanted to go work for some different companies, just to learn what I didn't know. I mean, try to get exposed to different things that I hadn't touched before. So I think you can kind of anticipate that change a bit.
What is your favorite book on entrepreneurial ism business, personal development, leadership or motivation? Can you tell us why you have chosen it
Yeah, I mean, I, I tend to these days, I mean, listen to a lot of podcasts and more audio books and written books. But I really enjoyed the ROB walling thing, it's called to start small, stay small, and it's a little tiny seed movement. I think that's been a I mean, coming from a bootstrapper mentality, I kind of training sort of inject that that kind of bootstrapper mindset, even though we do have money in the bank now. So I think there's there's a lot of takeaways from kind of solopreneurs and very small companies that I think personally, I believe most startups can learn from. And a lot of companies when they get money in the bank, they kind of forget those bootstrapping kind of mindset. And and I think that's something that I try and really keep first, like, top of top of mind,
for each of your startups if you're always gone and raised money at some point on that journey, or have you bootstrapped some some of them to the end?
Yeah, my first one that I ended up selling was completely bootstrapped. Really, I had injected a little bit of money at the start. And then I actually did some consulting on the side to keep money flowing. But yeah, we never took in, took in any money the entire 10 years.
So when you I mean, there's a dilemma there, though, isn't there, if you, if you bootstrap it, then you have potentially more control of your business. But if you forget for external funding, then you may be giving up some of that control to allow you to grow the business quicker. How do you reconcile that in your mind as you as you do that, because it can be quite difficult to?
It really is. And I mean, it's, I kind of see it both ways of what I mean, like the watershed it could have, what we should have done is, I think part of it, it was an interesting timeframe in the video industry. I mean, now there's companies coming out, kind of doing what we did, I mean, 20 years later that are getting, I mean, gobs of money. And we were just a bit early in a lot of ways. So I think a lot of the people we talked to just didn't get it. I mean, there it wasn't the I mean, YouTube hadn't been launched yet. There just wasn't it wasn't commonplace. But the and broadcast the broadcast industry was kind of a small industry, really. So I think I mean, in one way, we definitely could have scaled on the engineering side. We ended up selling mostly because we wanted exposure to other sales areas. And we were doing pretty well in the United States. But we hadn't touched I mean, global sales at all. And so who we sold to as a company, we thought Canada could get us there. I mean, it ended up not going as well as I expected. And it really wasn't I mean, the, the sort of opposite to the right curve after we sold. But, I mean, it's a living learn. I mean, if we had taken in money, instead of selling and maybe kind of lived through a bit of that. I mean, it might have been a different outcome. But I mean, it's not something I mean, I lost sleep over it after I like it early on. But I mean, these days, I don't lose sleep over that.
Folks, when you have a busy life, listening to audiobooks is a great way to expand your knowledge in the time when you may be doing other things, such as driving, or when you are at the gym, we have a special offer for you of a free audio book of your choosing. To choose your free audio book, go to www dot free audiobook offer.com as long as you've not already signed up, then you will qualify. Kirk, are you ready to speculate about the future? Sure. What one thing would you do with your business if you knew that you could not fail?
I think for us it's I mean there's so much potential globally that I would I mean really double down and explore the requirements of I mean what we're trying to achieve with media management for industries in other countries. I mean we're still I mean the people we've talked to are mostly domestic in the United States and Canada today but I really truly believe I mean this is a global product and I would love to invest in that area and even just get exposure to potential customers in other countries and I think that's an area that we could we could really push a lot harder on and invest in but it's we have to find the right time to do that and it's it's it's risky
what skill if you were excellent at it would help you the most to double your business
I think understanding marketing and sales to some extent I think it's it's an area that's very interesting I mean there's there's a data side to it there's a kind of social side to it of understanding I mean how people find products I'm always interested in i mean is does everybody just googled to find new products or is there I mean, is it really podcast or I mean, how do you find people to sell to and I'm sure I mean I could probably go get an MBA and learn all that stuff, but that's an area that I'm just really curious about I try and read up on and and I think there's there's so much to be done. There. But I mean, that we can we can anticipate,
in five years from now, if a well known business publication was publishing an article on your business after talking to your customers and suppliers, what would you like it to say?
For me, I mean, we're really trying to take a big swing. So I would like it to be said that we're we invented a new market segment. We call it an unstructured data warehouse, which is not a term. I mean, there. As far as we know, there are no other I mean, products of that kind of type out there today. And we're really trying to invent something that doesn't exist in this in this segment. And as computer vision and AI become more commonplace and commoditized, we want to be right there as their data management solution. So I think, for me, it's it's it's really being shown as someone that was a leader in that space, and really became a mainstay
is no time for three golden nuggets. Kirk, what is your favorite quotes? And how have you applied it?
Yeah, for me, it's a hope is not a strategy. If I'm paraphrasing that correctly, it's a it's something I've made the mistake and it might start up. So let me just hoping that I mean, things would get better at it, but not doing anything about it to make it better is, is really a painful lesson that I've learned, and it's something I keep in mind often.
Do you have any favorite online resources you can share with us that will be useful for other entrepreneurs?
Yeah, I mean, there's the obvious kind of leaked in Twitter, which I use for the business a lot. I really enjoy Reddit a lot, too, because it's, it's a little more of a, I guess you'd say just collaborative effort of I mean, to people discussing things. It's not, there's no real business tone to it. But I ended up really learning some interesting things where I mean, the discussions get kind of free flowing. on Reddit, as well as just I mean, the classic blogs, I subscribe to a lot of RSS feeds that I skim before bed and end up learning a time and just kind of fill in some details that I didn't know before.
What is your best advice to other entrepreneurs?
I think just keep at it. grit persistence, and all those kind of common terms now, I think are really so key. I mean, knowledge, I mean, going to the best school, I mean, all those kind of things matter to some extent, but I mean, I didn't come from a name brand school, I didn't have the same kind of background as a lot of the people that I mean, I've worked with in recent years, but it's, I kept at it. And I think that's the that's the differentiator is not giving up. And and just continually learning and be able to apply that learning is key.
Folks, if you didn't manage to get an audit of Kirk's favorite resources, or his favorite book, you can find the links on Kirk's show notes page, just go to the entrepreneur Wade comm and search for Kirk or Kirk Marple in the search box. Kirk, is there anything else that you would like to add about your business?
Yeah, I mean, I think I mean, we're, we're trying to address a problem that really is is kind of under the radar. I mean, we've talked to a lot of people where they have these problems, they don't know what tools to go go by. And so we're really trying to expose these types of industries to a new way to manage their medium. So it's something we're super excited about. We're very early on, and we'll be launching later this year. And I really appreciate it.
Well, thank you for telling us that kirkin awesome, sharing that with us. And thank you for coming on the show today and telling us about how you've got to where you are right now, as an entrepreneur. During our conversation, you've reflected back on that journey. And you've shared some of your insight, your perspective as some of your philosophy on what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. And you've also given us some great advice as well. So thank you very much for coming on the show today.
Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity.
You're very welcome. It's been great chatting with you. And you're welcome. Thank you, folks, You have been listening to Neil Ball chatting with Kirk Marple on the entrepreneur way. If you have enjoyed the show, please share it on social media, and subscribe to our email on the entrepreneur way website. Also, please add your comments on Kirk's show notes page on the entrepreneur way website, www dot, the entrepreneur way.com and search for Kirk Marple in the search box. Thank you for listening. And Until the next episode tomorrow. Goodbye.
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