Brock Weatherup. Secrets of Successful Sequels
Episode - 41
Brock Weatherup. Secrets of Successful Sequels
Ten years ago, Brock Weatherup sold his first company, Pet360.com, to PetSmart for $160 million. It took under five years to build.
Since then, he’s had two more successful exits, but two years ago, his journey took an unexpected turn when a life-changing medical diagnosis reshaped his entire outlook.
In this episode, Brock talks about the secrets behind his consistent success, what keeps him optimistic and gives him a sense of purpose, and how he cultivates relationships in both business and private life.
What We Discussed:
00:00:00: Introduction
00:01:17: Brock's first company exit experience
00:03:02: Transition challenges after the exit
00:03:31: Acquisition by PetSmart and transition experience
00:06:00: Acquisition of PetCoach
00:07:45: Brock's role and relationship with PetCoach team
00:08:59: Insights on being a startup to grown-up stage founder
00:09:41: Brock's involvement in subsequent businesses
00:11:00: Selling Great Pet Care due to MS diagnosis
00:11:56: Diagnosis impact on priorities and motivations
00:13:09: Adjusting to life with MS
00:14:38: Post-exit reflections and personal journey
00:15:41: Engaging with the business community in new ways
00:16:27: Realignment of life and business perspectives
00:21:47: Reflections on Sharing Knowledge and Purpose
00:22:08: Importance of Meaningful Involvement and Family Time in Purpose
00:22:26: Daily Approach to Living Purposefully
00:24:10: Impact of Diagnosis on Relationships and Support System
00:26:07: Friends' Support During a Difficult Time
00:26:54: Tracing the Evolution from First Business to Present
00:27:03: Story of the First Business Failure
00:30:02: Lessons Learned from Business Failures
00:31:15: The Role of Investors and Ethics
00:35:59: Challenges of Transitioning from Owner to Employee Mentality
00:38:24: Celebrating Failures and Learning from Them
00:40:52: Keeping Perspective in Business Ventures
00:41:14: Adapting and Learning in New Environments
00:42:48: Introduction to the CEO’s vision
00:44:09: Staying humble and continuing to learn
00:51:22: Balancing experience and youthful energy
00:52:06: The importance of continuous learning
00:54:01: Past performance vs future success
00:56:15: Building successful teams
00:59:55: The value of the cap table and smart investment decisions
01:02:22: Financial considerations and risk profiles
01:03:27: Final advice for building a new business after an exit
01:02:50: Being intentional in business and personal life
01:03:11: Setting personal intentions and accountability
01:04:25: Specific goals and realistic expectations
01:06:00: Applying business discipline to personal life
01:07:15: Correlation between personal and professional success
01:08:08: Open communication and its importance
01:09:19: Achieving balance and happiness
01:09:22: How to be remembered
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Anastasia Koroleva: [00:00:00 - 00:00:16]
Welcome to the Exit Paradox podcast, where we discuss how to build a fulfilling and meaningful life after selling a business. I'm Anastasia Koroleva, an exited founder who spent the last 13 years researching and collecting stories about life after a successful business sale.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:00:17 - 00:00:30]
How important are you? Are predicated on what is your headcount? What's your budget size, and what's your title? Okay, those are three things. As an owner are irrelevant, as an employee are everything.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:00:33 - 00:01:13]
Ten years ago, he sold his first company, pet three petSmart, for 160,000,000. It took under five years to build. Since then, he's had two more successful exits. But two years ago, his journey took an unexpected turn when a life changing medical diagnosis reshaped his entire outlook. In this episode, Brock talks about the secrets behind his exceptionally consistent entrepreneurial success, how he stays so driven and optimistic, and what gives him a sense of purpose. Hello, Brock.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:01:13 - 00:01:14]
Hello.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:14 - 00:01:16]
Thank you so much for joining me today.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:01:16 - 00:01:17]
Happy to be here.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:17 - 00:01:30]
Seven years ago, you sold your company in a very successful exit for 160 million. And how old were you at the time?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:01:30 - 00:01:38]
Gosh, I guess I was in my late thirties when that happened. So I think 37, 38, something like that.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:01:38 - 00:01:43]
Okay. How did you feel right after the exit?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:01:44 - 00:03:08]
I think, you know, when you go through an event like that, it was also, it was a like, like every exit story, there's a huge amount of ups and downs that go along with it. I would describe myself as a. As a. As a very active people leader. I love to do what I do because I can build great teams and have great people and enjoy the collective, both ups and downs and successes and failures and opportunities and everything else, all that collectively together. And to go through that rollercoaster of building a company, getting it to the point of exit. And again, the exit was not happening, and then it was happening. And so that went from this incredible potential success moment to a moment wherever you feel like you're a total failure, because that's when it went away. We were a bit, I'd say, out over our skis on. Once you get to the sale and you come out and it's exciting and wonderful and great and everything, then you go through a pretty heavy bit of change management, both individually and personally, because all of a sudden, you go from it being your company and this thing that you've built to handing it off to somebody else, and how do you bring what you have built into that and make that work? And that's a pretty heavy duty transition effort. Again, that's collectively for the organization as well as what one goes through individually.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:03:08 - 00:03:42]
So that first exhibit of yours was from the company called Pet three. It took you five years to build it, and then for nine months, you stayed with PetSmart, the acquirer, to help in that transition. So you mentioned that it was a bit tricky for you to feel as an employee again after you own the company. So can you elaborate a little bit on that?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:03:43 - 00:05:41]
We sold to PetSmart. That had been talked about while we were going through the sale process, which created some complexities and our acquisition process was an activist investor in the middle of our process with PetSmart, had taken an interest in Petsmarts. But once we were acquired, we were then an important equation in Petsmart's process, which was underway behind the scenes, unbeknownst to me and to our team, of taking PetSmart private. And so one of the. So, again, while there's a change in transition of having your company and now becoming part of a much, much, much larger organization, again, things that you learn, this is the first time you go through an exit. You learn a whole lot. What? I didn't realize something, that when we had gone through the negotiation of selling the company, we had a change of control thing that Petsmart tried to remove from some of the earn out dynamics. And we were like, well, why would they be taking this out? Again, we didn't know they were going to be taken private or going through that process. So we're like, well, no, of course the change of control is going to stay in there. So what ended up happening was our team, and which was sort of a wonderful double dip for our group, was that nine months after we sold to PetSmart, our earn out things that were kind of two year, four year sort of things, basically all vested because of the take private. So which kind of removed kind of the golden handcuffs, a whole bunch of other things, which then presented the opportunity of, okay, well, is this where I want to stay? And this is where I want to do? And I will say the. The transition to going private and going into large private equity and that sort of thing was not the most enjoyable experience, I will say. And so once that was completed, I decided to opt out and suggest that there was. I didn't want to do that anymore.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:05:41 - 00:05:47]
So by that time, you've been in that business for six years, right?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:05:47 - 00:05:48]
Correct.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:05:48 - 00:05:59]
Just a few months after that final exit, after you left the acquirer, you bought another company in the same space, didn't you?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:05:59 - 00:06:00]
Correct.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:06:00 - 00:06:03]
Why? And how did that happen and what was your thinking?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:06:03 - 00:07:11]
So we had known the group called. It was called Petcoat so telemedicine for pets. We had actually, at pet 360 pre the sale to pet spart, had made a kind of an agreement with this company called Pet Coach, because one of the brands within our Pet 360 world was PetMD. So a content site about web for pets. And we had created this relationship with a couple great entrepreneurs and a small team that were coming out of, I think, called Dream Adventures. And we basically made an investment in them, a small scale investment in pet coach because we wanted to bring telemedicine into our world and we had, our deal with them was they would come to us. We had basically an option at twelve months later to buy the company out of. I felt the relationship there had a lot of very positive, complementary kind of skill sets, what they were very good at, to David and Fernando and myself. And so I decided to kind of basically invest and buy that business and try and figure out what we could do with it.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:07:11 - 00:07:14]
So how was the whole power dynamics?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:07:14 - 00:08:12]
Well, I think it'd be, well, it'd be a good question to ask them, but I think the reality was they were a younger company and they were younger entrepreneurs for me, and so hadn't had as many bruises, maybe, that I had had so, or learnings and, you know, the type of, I'd like to say the type of leader that I am, and I think they would say the exact same thing was, you know, I came in and I brought skill sets that they didn't have and they had skill sets that I didn't have. And it was a very mutually respectful kind of opportunity on how we would go about it. And I was, I was able to help them become a more mature scaling business as they were incredible technical and product and strategy folks. And we just, I don't end up being pretty, pretty fantastic and, well, I still do a bunch of things with them to this day. So we have a, we had then and we still have now a very, very positive relationship. So.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:08:13 - 00:08:29]
So what did you learn about yourself in the process? Because you were a zero to one founder before and now you were a scaler, which hat felt more natural and comfortable for you.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:08:31 - 00:09:40]
I've always kind of described my sort of sweet spot, and sort of what I've learned about myself is that my skill set is really what I'll call in the startup to grown up stage, so not the zero to one stage. So pet coach being a perfect example, like David and Fernando started that at zero, that part of it. I think I am a lot more, you know, I create a lot more value in feel a lot more comfortable in. And I'd say the foundational piece of that. And I've said it a few times, but like, it's like I. Great businesses are built because of people. People a little bit more about people, and then people a little bit more. And then you can get to strategy, pricing and process and everything else you want to go with it. But great people make a great business. I've seen endless examples of what I would describe as not really a great business or not really a great product, being incredibly successful because they have an amazing team to it. And then you'd see something else that could be an amazing business or amazing product that is, oh, by the way, not successful because they didn't have a really good team.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:09:41 - 00:10:01]
So from that point on, you've been involved in many businesses. You had two exits after that point. Have you tried to build a business from scratch again or all of these businesses were already you scaling them or investing in them?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:10:01 - 00:11:56]
Well, so after we built pet coach in that example, and then we sold that to Petco, and then I left that and started a new business at zero. And so great pet care that we built was zero on the first day. And that was actually, it was me kind of, I'd say, putting my money where my mouth is. I'm believing in people. Like, I wanted to work with people that I really liked working with, that I thought were incredibly talented and go after an industry that we knew pretty well. And so we knew the pet industry I knew, and, you know, the pet industry pretty well. And I then, you know, kind of reached out to a small handful of people, most of whom had worked for me twice before, some who had worked for me once before. And so day one for us was seven of us. And I was lucky enough to be in a position to personally fund it. And the reality was we didn't know what business we were building. It was just, okay, we got a smart group of people that are really capable and complementary with one another. Let's go build a business. So we then built what ended up being greatpecare.com, which was a website. So an Amazon reseller business, a media business, content business, product business, a retail business that we had, like, all of these kind of, you know, built, built together. And, you know, that, that came together in a very short period of time. And because we had really, really talented people. You know, two years in, you know, I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And that, you know, created a, a moment in time where my ability to be the all in leader that I like to be was challenged because of my personal health and in the relationship with my team and saying, hey, like what we're going to do. The right answer that we collectively agreed on as a team to balance all of that and put them in a good position for continuing their success, allowing me to step out of it, was to sell the business, and we were able to do that very successfully.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:11:56 - 00:12:04]
I imagine a diagnosis like this would completely change your priorities and motivations at that time.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:12:04 - 00:12:05]
Absolutely.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:12:05 - 00:12:14]
Could we talk about that, how it affected your thinking at that time and up to today?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:12:15 - 00:17:13]
Yeah, well, it was. Look, it's been a very interesting and complex journey since then, which is exactly, basically three years ago, actually, September 15, which is a few days from now on the calendar. But September 15, three years ago was exactly when I was diagnosed. And look, it was a wicked curveball out of left field and needed to learn what this MS, neurological degenerative disease in your brain and spinal cord that doesn't have a cure, what is that going to do and what do you do about that? The journey that it led it on, first and foremost was able to go into it because I was lucky enough to have an incredible partner in my life, and my wife, Mary, who was incredible with me and my family and friends there to support through what this is and what that looks like. I knew I needed to get out of the business because the intensity of being a startup entrepreneur and CEO, and if you're going to be the leader that I think is a great leader, I want to be like, it requires an enormous amount of energy. And while stress isn't good for anybody, it's particularly bad for someone with a neurodegenerative disease like Ms. And so the right answer is for me to exit that. But look, I was terrified the day that we closed selling great pet care to Covetris. I was terrified because all of a sudden, the thing that I built my personality on, or not personality, wrong word. My, I had built my identity on of, and had, you know, spent the prior, basically 25 years, you know, perfecting things that I liked to do that I also found I was good at, which was being a startup growth CEO. I couldn't do it anymore. My body was not going to allow that to happen. And that's a very hard thing to take, as my wife described as a forced midlife crisis. And so, you know, kind of came into that. I was like, okay, what am I going to do? And, and part of the deal of selling the business to go veteras was that I needed to be out. And so the day we closed, like, my job was over, right? Like, I didn't have a new boss. I didn't have anything else going on. My team was now gone. So nobody was reporting to me and I wasn't reporting to anyone. So, you know, which is a very, very different place to be. But, you know, I needed to, I needed to prioritize kind of how I was dealing and what I needed to do around my health and kind of understand what that is. And then started on a journey from then till now. So that was two and a half ish years ago that kind of started this sort of further in that journey. And, you know, I've, I don't know the way I've done businesses and where you kind of a b test things and you put things next to one another and see what works and do more of the things that work and stop doing the things that don't. Like, I've been basically a b testing life in some respects of, like, okay, like, what do I do? What do I like to do? Where do I find success with it? And, you know, been, you know, I get to do all of this in a very lucky place because I am, I've been able to be financially successful and thus financially secure, which gives you a huge advantage in figuring this out. You know, I found that, like, you know, I've been able to do some things in the classroom. So as a graduate at University of Colorado at Boulder and I, I've been out to the Leeds School of Business there a number of times. And, you know, being able to go into those classrooms and talk with students and talk with, you know, MBA fellows and other things just, hey, how to, how to do business and how to think about life and how to think about priorities and how to think about building their business. Like, that's really fun to me. And I love, I love that sort of engagement. And I get a lot of, I get an enormous amount of energy out of that. And, oh, by the way, it works within my health. So I'm trying to facilitate more opportunities to do that. You got to picture, you got to figure out where your place is in, you know, what that looks like in life. And I just, you know, I had a very unique circumstance. If something forced me to take a step back and look at things very differently in a very kind of unusually quick and unusually an unusually tense moment, an intense moment because normally people do it when they started getting towards, quote unquote, retirement and they're figuring out their path at that point. Well, okay, like, I'm, I was kind of put into retirement ish sort of things, but at 50 instead of at 65. And, you know, I've got a lot more that I still want to do, and I have a lot of energy and I have a lot of enthusiasm, and I, I'd like to think I have a lot of experiences that are also highly valuable to other people and companies, and it's also what I like a lot of purpose that I really like to engage in, and so I want to do more of that.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:17:13 - 00:17:33]
So I find it absolutely fascinating that you decided to continue working so actively and not taking a break. Is it because you really wanted to have that sense of purpose and being helpful to others, or what do you think motivated you most to do that?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:17:33 - 00:19:59]
Business is what I love. Like, yes, it's been my job, but more importantly, like, I love it. Like, I just love it. Like, I don't, I don't really have hobbies. I don't really have a situation where, like, I'm not, you know, I'm not, I don't, I don't tinker in the basement. I don't. But I love reading the newspaper and learning about businesses and studying things and learning about stuff. And I just find business endlessly fascinating. And I, and, and that, you know, that doesn't change. And just because I physically can't put the same level of energy at the same level of intensity for the periods of time that it requires to be full time and all that, my brain, my heart, my soul, my passion, like, I love seeing people be successful. I love seeing businesses grow. I love people finding new paths to things. I love this dynamic of just watching success happen. And that sort of dynamic is very rewarding to me. And I just, I just wanted to do more of that. And it's not the, and again, this is a very, very privileged thing to be able to say. But, like, it's not about making more money, though. I would like to make more money. Of course, everybody would like to make more money. But, but honestly, like, it, you know, I'm in a position where I'm able to, like, hey, like, what do I really love to do and what do I really love to engage with? And, you know, that's where it is. At the same time, like, I'm not remotely working as hard as I used to. I'm not remotely engaged at a level like I used to. I mean, like, you know, when, when you're, when you're startup CEO, like, it's 24 7365, and that puts pressure and challenges on your partners in your life, like my wife picking up a lot of that or kind of things that I would like to do more of as a friend and as a father and as a husband and as a son to my parents. Like, all these sorts of things are things that you want to do more of. And I can do that now, and I am doing that now, and I am taking the time so that my body doesn't break down in the way that it would if I stayed fully intense. But, and when I have the mindset of doing that, then I can be that much more valuable and that much more impactful to the companies that I'm engaged with.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:19:59 - 00:20:18]
So by removing stress from your life, you probably also removed quite a lot of adrenaline that was rewarding you for that stress. How did that feel, the transition into this quieter, slower life?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:20:19 - 00:22:02]
It's been fantastic. Like, you know, the reality is, like I've talked about, you know, Ms. Kind of forced me off of the treadmill, and that was a pretty good thing because I could, oh, it's kind of a cliche, right? But, like, you know, you can, like, it force you to kind of stop and smell the roses and stop and look around a little bit more. And I think I, you know, I've, I think it's actually made me, when I have reengaged in businesses and been involved, I think I've actually been even that much more productive and that much more successful because I've had clarity. I don't, there aren't as many things because of my intensity and activity the most that I used to be. Like, I actually have more time to reflect, you know, but I don't, I don't miss either. At the same time, like, it's fun to wake up in the morning like I did this morning, like, hey, what day of the week is it? Like, that's kind of a fun, like, you know, because you're not, you're not on this sort of restriction or not restriction. Wrong. You're not on the structure of. Oh, yeah. Like, I've got this today and it's Tuesday and it's Monday. And what's Saturday and Sunday like? Yeah, kind of in a very different place. And it's a very lucky thing to have and enjoy, but I, and I try and make sure that I really appreciate it. But I also know that, you know, I don't know. I think I've been given some skills and I think I've been given some tools and I think I've given a lot of experiences and I've earned and worked hard for a lot of those things. And, you know, if. If and when people can find value in me sharing it with them, I'd like to be able to do that more and more.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:22:02 - 00:22:25]
So you mentioned a few things that I assume give you this sense of purpose. Your continuing involvement in businesses that you find meaningful, you teach, you spend time with the family. Anything else that you would say gives you a sense of purpose in life?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:22:26 - 00:24:10]
Well, I just. Yeah, I think it's kind of the how to live every day of just being. That sounds like a weird thing, but, like, just be a good person. Like, just show up for your friends, be there for your family, like, you know, help the little old lady across the street. Like, I don't know, just, like, you know, kind of just, you know, do that and take the time to do it. Because when you take the time to do it, you actually gain a whole lot more time to do a whole bunch of other things. Even better afterwards, it feels like you're taking time out to do something when actually taking the time out to do something gives you weirdly more time because you're just more focused, you're more effective. You're more engaged when you get back to, say, work things, and you're just that much more effective with it. But you got to give yourself the time to balance between those two things. But that's the fun of being able to have time to step back and again see the world for what it is and be able to digest it without the intensity of input. And, you know, and again, like, I just, you know, again, I feel. I feel lucky to be able to do all of that. And, you know, again, a lot of that is, you know, having built what I would, what I would say, and I've invested in the team around me. And by the team, I mean my personal team, meaning my wife, my kids, my parents, my friends. Like, you know, like, look, you've got to invest in those people because they are the ones who are then there for you to help you on the way back and help you whenever you need them and whenever you want to kind of talk about it like that, it's a great situation to be in.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:24:10 - 00:24:19]
So how did all that affect your thinking of whom you want to have around you?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:24:19 - 00:26:36]
So when I got diagnosed and it was September, and there's a medicine that I'm on that's kind of at least kept it from getting worse, and it's via infusion, so they literally put it straight into your vein, and it's like, it's terrifying. The first half of the first infusion was seven days before my 50th birthday. And the second half of that medication was gonna happen a week after my 50th birthday. So a 50th birthday is a big birthday in somebody's life, right? So I was turning 50. I had been diagnosed with Ms, basically, what was six weeks prior. And so I called. There's a group of friends, a group of buddies of mine that there's a group of six of them that are some very close friends and have been for a long time. That's when I told them I had Ms. It's the first time I'd kinda shared with anybody outside of my direct family that this is what it was. And I wanted them to know because of. I was. I had great fear. I was like, if something happens to me, these are people that I want to make sure are around to be supportive of my wife and my kids, which sounds like a crazy thing, and maybe, but, like. And I told them that, and they were, as you'd expect of being amazing, incredible men and friends. They said, okay, you know, and then two weeks later, they surprised me by flying to San Diego to celebrate my. To surprise me for my 50th birthday. So this is, again, 510 days after I told them. And they were coming for, I think three were coming from Toronto, one was coming from Philadelphia, one was coming from Spokane, Washington, like, and this is, you know, Covid ish sort of period towards the middle end of it, like, but, you know, they had to get through borders, and there was all sorts of things to make that really difficult to do. And yet, you know, they showed up for me. My team showed up. Like, it made what was a horrible, horrible day happening to be something incredibly spectacular that didn't happen that day. That happened because the prior 1015 years, we'd put time into one another as friends, and we'd been around one another, and we've been committed to one another, and we've done things for one another. And then somebody in the group, in that case me, like, you know, had a. Had a difficult moment. And guess what? My team showed up.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:26:37 - 00:26:40]
I'm sure it was absolutely incredible for you.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:26:41 - 00:26:44]
It was amazing. Amazing.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:26:44 - 00:27:03]
So, Brock, can we go back to that moment when you just started your first business and trace the evolution of your motivation from that moment to today? So what was the reason for you to start your first business?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:27:03 - 00:30:01]
Well, the first business I failed. So which was. Or I personally did. I thought the business was good, but we built a company called Fathead, which was in the sports memorabilia, so kind of large wall graphics of your favorite sports stars. If you. If you're a huge fan of LeBron James, do you want to basically a poster of a life fly as LeBron James on your wall? And that business. And that was my desire, my interest in getting into something where it was, I'm a big fan of sports, and it was kind of a fun thing to go in, and this seemed like a really unique opportunity and a lot of fun, something I was excited about. You know, combination of circumstances allowed me to say, okay, let's create this and be a part of the initial stages of that business and really grow it. And I feel incredibly proud about the brand that we built there that still lives today. And this is from 20 years ago. And the reality is, at the end of the day, I got fired from that job. Now, part of it, I pushed myself to get fired. There were a lot of issues between me and the. The capital that was behind the business. Things I learned, you learn in your first business, a whole lot of things about, like, okay, what does the cap table look like? Who is actually the decision maker, who can make the decision that you need? And I didn't have any capital, so I needed other people's capital, which meant I did not have control, which meant I was responsible to somebody else. And at the end of the day, the investors in that business I didn't have, I found to not particularly like and not believe that they had the best morals and ethics as a core of them, which is where I then fought for a few different things. And it's a long story for another day. But, you know, I forced a situation that, at the end of the day, yes, got me fired, but I thought it was for all of the right reasons. And. But so I went from something where I put a whole lot of my personal money on a percentage wise, like, probably 50% of my personal capital, accessible capital into the business, and I lost all of it, you know, got nothing for it. And it was a disaster. At the same time, it was one of the. One of. One of the great motivators to what's kind of created the next business and the next business after that and the next business after that. So, you know, this terrible failure in some respects. And, oh, by the way, that all happened, it was February of 2009. So if you remember, March of 2009 was the bottom of the market and kind of one of the worst times in our lifetime in my cohort age group. And I was a fired CEO of a startup business looking for a job in the worst economy. That's been in my lifetime. Okay, great time to be looking for a job.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:30:02 - 00:30:11]
So that created a motivation for you to succeed. That's what you mean, that the failure was useful.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:30:11 - 00:31:15]
And anytime we fortunately learn more from our failures than our successes because they jar a little bit more and they scar a little bit deeper. But, yeah, the outcome of it, again was like, okay, all the things they need to know about, how do you structure it? How do you create great teams? How do you create a great motivation? How do you align incentives? How do you pull all of those things together? And, you know, the reality is, you know, all of those things came together. Who are your investors? Not just that they are able to write checks, but who are they to you? Who are they as people? How do they operate in business? How what, you know, are you, are you doing the right sort of background checks on them? They do it on you or you do it on them. And your versus, like, hey, it's great that you're writing a $5 million check, but, okay, but, and it's all wonderful when things are great, but when things get challenged, that's when generally people's true colors show up and, you know, folks who aren't good people will show up as aren't good people when the things are difficult. And that's what happened to me.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:31:15 - 00:31:19]
How important the financial motivation was for you early on?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:31:19 - 00:33:13]
I've been lucky enough. My first job, which was my first kind of real big job, was kind of working for what has become interactive corp. So the early days of Ticketmaster online, Cityserps is 99, 2000, and I did okay that a good salary was able to save. I've always lived well within my means, and so I kind of always had kind of enough. And I'm not saying money wasn't a motivation, but like, I wanted to build something, I wanted to create something, I wanted to and have fun doing it. And I believed that money would be an outcome of that, but not the why of doing it. I'm sure I could have put more money in my bank account if I was, let's say, more selfish and more greedy and those sorts of things. But I, conversely, believed it was really important to share equity across people who were doing things because it created a more ownership mentality. And I believe that's why we created success in the way that we did was because the people who joined my teams earned by and were collectively motivated to create an outcome together. Versus, hey, Brock owns this business and we're going to make him wealthy. That feels like such a horrible motivation. I've tried to live my life, that if today happened to me, my last day, that I would go happy. Don't leave regrets, but just have fun doing it and have a great time with it. And we'll see what tomorrow brings. But let's do it right today and let's see where it goes. And I've been lucky enough that has continued to work for me and continue to fill me with rewards on many facets.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:33:14 - 00:33:22]
So all the three businesses that you sold, you had partners in them, correct. For this very reason that you described.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:33:22 - 00:35:59]
It was interesting. You know, I had this sort of dramatic experience where when I sold, when we sold pet coach to Petco, and then I, and I had learned a lot from my experience at PetSmart and the senior team and what to do there. So I thought I had a playbook on how to be better inside Petco. And, you know, the reality was, it was, it was fascinating to kind of get in there. And I really struggled the first six months there. And I think one of the biggest reasons why I struggled there was I was operating as an owner in Petco, not as an employee of Petco. And that small sounds like a small difference, but, like, I was sitting in our board meetings, and again, like, I was one of the top couple people in this, you know, multi billion dollar organization. And, like, you know, if you're in a corporation and you've grown up in a corporation and that's where you've built your career, you know, power and value and all the things of kind of like, how important are you are predicated on what is your head count, what's your budget size and what's your title? Okay, those are, and three things as an owner are irrelevant. As an employee are everything. And so we'd sit in our board meeting, especially early, and it would be like, I'd be sitting there, oh, well, Rebecca over there, she needs more people and John needs more capital. And I'm like, well, I've got some extra headcount and I've got some extra things. And I think the best thing for our business is John should get more capital and Rebecca should get more people because that's where the opportunities are. And I would do that and would be okay with that. And I got these sort of looks from them being like, okay, what's your angle? What are you trying to get done? Are you trying to become CEO? Are you trying to step over me? Are you trying to. Because that's what somebody who was used to working in a corporate sort of scenario and was a career employee would never do unless there was a subtext. So there was some other reason for it. And I just wanted to be successful because when we had sold the company, I took a big chunk of what we sold in equity in the petco. And so I was an owner, and that dynamic was really hard and took me a while to see and finally did five, six months in that, like, oh, okay. Like, I got to figure out how to approach this differently because I was not being as successful as I should have been, because I was not operating in the way everybody else was thinking about it.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:35:59 - 00:36:20]
Fascinating. I really like this distinction between a founder mentality and an employee mentality. I can absolutely see that. So your only failure in business was that first business, or did you have other failed businesses later on?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:36:20 - 00:38:33]
Well, to say that that's my only failure is an absolute gross understatement of what happens, actually. So within all of those are massive failures in all sorts of things in all sorts of different ways. Like fathead. At the end of the day, I would say I get more accolades, more follow up, more excitement, more credit for building fathead than I do any of my other businesses. And yet it's the one that was financially a disaster for me. It's where I got fired from. But it was a great brand. It has a lot of following, and people are excited about it. So my failure is what most people remember that I did not because it was a failure, but because they liked the brand and the company. But underneath that, within every one of those businesses are lots and lots and lots and lots of failures. But, you know, one of the things that I always made foundational within my teams and then with everyone that I would talk to was like, you know, we didn't actively pursue failing, but we celebrated failure. Because if you didn't celebrate failure and you weren't open and honest about failure, then people were scared to fail. And people didn't try as hard as they should, and people didn't discuss problems as openly as they should. When we wanted to tackle the next challenging things, I always had volunteers. It was always like, I want to go do that. I want to go. And guess what? People were willing to take that risk. Because if you took a risk and went after it really well, worked really hard with it, executed it exceptionally, you would end up in a position where, okay, you know what? I want to do this, and we're going to go figure it out. And we would find more successful things because you tried more things, and you tried things that were a little bit riskier, but you put more effort into it and just created this positive cycle of trying and failing and growing and trying and failing and growing and being okay with all of that and celebrating all that. I think that's foundational to what is. And so the failure is not a failure. Failure is a great opportunity to learn and move on and figure out the next thing.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:38:33 - 00:38:50]
I think it's so absolutely brilliant. It's kind of counterintuitive to so proactively celebrating failure, not just embracing it, but celebrating it. But I can absolutely see how it would have a very positive long term effect on the team.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:38:50 - 00:39:12]
Yeah, I mean. I mean, don't get me wrong. You celebrate the successes also. Right. But. But it's easy for everyone to celebrate and see the successes, but the successes don't happen if you're not making a whole bunch of failures along the way to that success, because otherwise the success is not going to be as grand as what it can be because you didn't try hard enough along the way. So you got to find that balance all the way through to create that outcome. At the end of the day.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:39:13 - 00:39:35]
Well, lots of us forget to celebrate successes, too. I actually talked to someone yesterday who said their biggest regret, the whole long career for building businesses was not celebrating every small occasion they could. And they look back and there is not much of that joy in their memory, which I found very interesting.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:39:36 - 00:40:53]
My wife has described with me as relentlessly optimistic, and that hasn't necessarily been the most positive thing sometimes. And the reality is, yeah, okay, we can wallow in what went wrong, and I would get very upset and not be in a good place if we repeated a mistake again. That absolutely intolerable. You cannot let that happen. Doing the same thing wrong twice, that's not okay. Doing it wrong once, learning and doing something different next time, great, do that every day. Do that all the time. Make that part of what your DNA is and, you know, kind of keep having fun with it and bring energy to it and, you know, keep figuring it out. Like, yeah, that can be a lot of fun. But no, I think I've. I think I've been able to have a lot of fun along the way. It's been really hard and really difficult, and you have to put a huge amount of effort into it. But, you know, it's still, you know, at the end of the day, my whole thing was like, okay, like, I'm selling a giant image of LeBron James on my wall or I'm selling dog food or a leash. Like, with all due respect, like, nobody's, nobody's you know, nobody's dying on our watch because of this. Like, it's just not that. Like, let's not take ourselves that seriously. We're building businesses.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:40:53 - 00:41:16]
So, okay, you were talking about a failure for very rational business reasons. The business model was not good enough. How about failures when you didn't manage yourself or your personality well enough and that resulted in a business failure? Have you ever experienced that?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:41:16 - 00:44:30]
Yeah, well, I think the, you know, well, a little bit my example. So kind of go back to it. The first six months of my time at Petco, and I was, and the owner, the owner thing versus the employee thing, it doesn't mean that being an owner mentality is better than a employee mentality. It was total and complete obliviousness and being completely unaware by me of not spending the time to learn and see and understand. I thought I came in as this founder who had sold his businesses and was so smart and all these, I knew all these on how to do it and where to go and what to do. The reality was I knew a lot for sure, but I didn't spend the time to see what was actually going on and learn how it had worked so that I could then take the right steps of moving it, maybe some direction that I thought it should go. Instead, I was like, yeah, we should go here. And everybody else is like, well, I'm not going there. Versus I should have spent the time, especially early, to be like, okay, like, spend a lot more time learning and frankly, a lot less time talking and a lot more time listening early on in that process to be like, okay, like, I'm the newbie in here who doesn't know anything, versus I came in being like. And part of it, I was brought in, the CEO wanted me to be a change agent, wanted me to be all these things, you know, that I was excited to do. And so I was like, well, yeah, I'm coming in. The CEO says I'm going to be a change agent. I'm the innovation guy. I'm changing this place, and I'm going to make 30,000 people operate differently in a week. You know, like, it just doesn't, it just doesn't happen that way. And kind of the, I think my blindness of being able to see that I had a massive gap of both knowledge, skill and awareness didn't allow me to get there. I eventually caught up to that, but it should have taken weeks, not six months to figure that out. And those sorts of things, you know, I think those are kind of growth things as a leader that I could point to 50 of them along the way of just, okay, tried, didn't need to. And you just got to build a lot more of your capacity and capability and just be more aware and, you know, kind of, I've learned over time to just be, like, to just, you know, have an insatiable appetite to learn and don't let that cloud that. You actually don't know very much. You know a lot, everyone knows a lot, but you also gotta, like, show up to everything. Like, I don't know what this is. I might have experience of what this looks like in somewhere else, but I've never been to this moment. This moment right now has never happened before. Okay? We can't say it has because it hasn't, because today is a new day. It's not yesterday. And we can't, we don't know what tomorrow is gonna be. We can try and optimize for tomorrow, but you gotta stay learning and stay aware. And that I had to get caught up in and kind of, you know, had me stumbling and falling on my face in a pretty bad way right out of the gate being able to do that.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:44:30 - 00:44:34]
So, so it's, it sounds like a lesson in humility.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:44:34 - 00:45:58]
You know, you're. Especially when you're succeeding. Right. And I'd had a lot of success prior to that point, like, and you're getting promotions and you're getting raises and you're getting, you're starting new companies and people are joining you and people make you feel good and you're raising capital, and then you sell a business and then you start another one. And, like, it's easy to tell your really positive story about how great you are. Right. Because there's also a lot of people telling you that, which is really nice, and it feels really good. And in many ways, yeah, I think I am pretty good, but I also have a huge amount of things I'm not very good at, and I got to figure out how to always manage that. And it's hard to find that sort of balance between those two things. And that's where, again, you need the great people around you to, again, help you continue to be great at what you're good at and hopefully minimize your weaknesses. Like, I always talk about people, like, look, you can't make your weaknesses your strengths. A lot of people try and kind of go through, well, I'm not good at this, so I'm going to get. Make that my strength. Like, don't do that. You're never going to take your weakness and make it a strength. You just can't. Now, can you make your weakness a neutral so that it doesn't hold you back? You bethe right. And how do you stay aware of what are your pluses, and how do you do more of those? Amplify your pluses, because you can do that. But you can't take your minuses and make them pluses. You can make them neutral. Right. Or make them as least impactful as possible, but, okay, you got to figure out how to do that.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:45:58 - 00:46:48]
Yeah, that requires quite a lot of introspection and the critical looking at yourself to understand what you're good at. You know, Steve Jobs talked about it quite a bit about this overconfidence we have when we, when we succeeded in building a product. And then next time we just assume it's going to succeed automatically. And what I see a lot in the post exit community is that when that is fueled by money after a liquidity event, it can become very dangerous very fast, and people get burned very quickly, and then it's a long way to climb out of that situation.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:46:49 - 00:51:21]
I would agree 100%, because the reality is, again, I think I learned a lot by some success and a whole lot of failures in all that time, too. When I created my last business in great pet care, the thing that I was incredibly proud about was, okay, I've learned all this stuff. What can I do? And the reality was, you need a really talented group of people that, oh, by the way, are not like me. Meaning. So when we got our initial team together, like, there's a thing called enneagram, which is a sort of personal, kind of like your, kind of your style sort of thing. I think it's a great test that helps people be very introspective and knowing what they are. Like. I made everybody in our team take the enneagram so that we could work better on day one. And I was really, really proud that of the seven of us, there's nine types of enneagrams. Out of the seven of us, there was one overlapping type. Like, everybody had a very different style and personality about how they thought, what was their. Like, what they. And that made me feel really, really proud because. And that, to me, was a lot of lessons learned over time that you have to have a. And diversity gets kind of overused and made, but different diversity of perspective coming into it. And there's a lot of things about background, a lot of things about kind of culture, a lot of things that all kind of lead into what. But diversity of thought and perspective and dynamics come to the same. That's how you create great outcomes, because you have different ways that people are trying to attack the same problem. We're going to try and create and do this. Well, this requires, I have my thought about what that is, and I can guarantee you it's not right. There's a lot of elements to where I think it should happen that are probably are right and will make it successful, but they're not all of the reasons why, because I need five other perspectives to say, no, we got to do this, this, this, and then you end up with a great outcome. And again, when you look at what the next thing would be, it's going to dramatically be different because it requires another iteration of what it is. And look, you know, people who fill their bank accounts and put things, you know, kind of this all, you know, people think money is the reason why, is a demonstration of why they are successful. And the reality is like, okay, maybe you were, maybe you weren't, but there's, God knows there's, you have to work really, really hard to get lucky, but you also have to get lucky. And people think, well, oh, I just worked hard, and I'm so smart, and that's why I was successful. You know what? No, you just happen to be working really hard and being successful, and it fit the moment in time, in life where that was valued because if you had done it five years prior, five years later, you would have missed the boat. Right. It doesn't mean anything else. And I think people don't get, don't either. Don't have people around them to say, hey, like, hey, ego, check it at the door, because you're, you know, you're getting a, you know, way too inflated for what you actually are. And, you know, on the other hand, like, how do you kind of fulfill what, what those things are? And I think that's especially true, you know, in, with youth, right? And we were all that way when we were young because we didn't know enough, and so we thought we were, look, everybody's invincible when they're 25, right? Like, you can go, you can do anything, you can go anywhere, you know, nothing's going to hurt you. Like, you're good, you know everything. You know, and you don't, you know a lot, and you have a whole lot of value and unique value of energy. You have unique value of not being encumbered by experience. So you think more broadly and more clearly because you don't have things that have taught you not to do this and not to do that, which older people need to recognize just because you've learned not to do this and not to do that, that does not mean that you shouldn't try again in a different way. And so that's the balance of the sort of thing. But there's a lot of youth that would say, I know everything, and the old people are dumb. Okay, well, part of that's true because there's experience that holds you back. On the other hand, like, if you're old, doesn't mean that young people are dumb and naive, either. Just, you got it. Like, what are the strengths of each of those dynamics and allow that to happen? But, you know, people can get, you know, can get out ahead of themselves and think that they are much more capable and much smarter and far more of an expert because something happened, and the reality is it's just nothing.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:51:22 - 00:51:48]
So we talked about the importance of having a good incentive system and sharing equity with your partners. We talked about humility lessons and understanding your strengths and weaknesses. Anything else you think is very important to avoid a failure after success?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:51:48 - 00:54:01]
Well, I think you said it, and just going a little deeper into it is to just not have the belief or more importantly, not think it's just true because you did it before this way, that that will work today because the. The market has changed, the people have changed, the execution of it is different. Like, again, you have to. You have to stay in the. I got to keep learning. Now, are there dynamics around what I would describe, what I would put in the leadership category that are repeatable? Absolutely right. That you can get better and being a leader of people and how do you build culture and those sorts of things, like the fundamentals of how you do that, you can definitely build and get better and better and better and do more of that. But you also have to be very aware that the situation is different, and you gotta just. You gotta optimize to the situation. Even though you may start with a set of rules that you think are how you're gonna solve it, the odds of it being how you're gonna solve it are likely not true. And it. Because it's. But there's gonna be a version of that that if you edit and, you know, rough around the edges and do something, it'll probably be, at the core, similar, but that's not gonna get you great success. That's gonna get you out the. Out of the gate of. But to create great success, you got to take whatever you've learned, refine it, learn, test, improve, make it something better, different that works for that moment, that's different than the prior moment. And that gap of perspective, I don't know if I put it really necessarily as humility or any sort of, like, it's just a, like, just learn because you aren't your, what was it that, you know, youre a future investment results will not be the same as what they were, whatever, the sort of caveat that everyone else, which is just true. Right. Just because it happened before doesn't mean it will happen tomorrow. And so how do you make sure that you continue to stay learning, continue to stay active, continue to stay and stay in this sort of progressive, figure it out sort of mentality, because that's how you'll find a way to get from here to there.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:54:01 - 00:54:07]
Yeah, it's like with the stock market, past performance doesn't guarantee future success.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:54:07 - 00:54:09]
Exactly. Exactly.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:54:11 - 00:54:35]
So you also stayed in the same industry, you kept the same team, which I assume were fantastic risk management tools, whether intentional for that purpose or not. Do you think, looking back, that that was part of your continuing success?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:54:35 - 00:57:05]
You know, look, I absolutely know that my success is because of the people that I've had around me and been lucky enough to, you know, kind of both be with me and then come work with me again and kind of that, you know, that builds, you know, many. So going back to the Petco example, the first six months, what I did not understand, but one of the things that I did, did do in that first six months that I, that did pay off really well, was I recruited a whole lot of people into Petco, and by recruiting them and, oh, by the way, they weren't necessarily working for me, it was like, okay, I helped recruit somebody into the business strategy team and somebody into the tech team and somebody in the merchandising team and helping them. But they were people who understood me, my language, even though I was not being particularly capable articulating what I felt I needed to, if they were in their groups and I was talking some, they would help translate what I was saying ineffectively into their groups in the way that work for their groups. And that was really helpful to what it is. And again, just, you know, the people dynamics of that, you know, is absolutely where the, you know, success dynamics were for me. And it, and I would say it still happens to today when I'm working with a company or on a board, like, we need to find somebody. Like, okay, like, you know, I'm gonna call somebody who's gonna find somebody, and that, that feels, you know, and, and you can get amazing people to do amazing things in that sort of dynamic, which is, which is just a very, very special thing when it, when it, when it works and people are willing to do that and, you know, that's a two way street, right? Somebody doesn't come work for you again because it was a crappy first experience. Like, nobody goes, oh, I hated working for that guy, but I'm going to go do it again, says no one ever. Right? But if somebody does that and it gets them up to speed much quicker. Again, when we built great pet care and I brought that team together because everybody had worked for me before, the how and why and the words I used, the style that I was was already given. Like, our ability to have a quote unquote culture on day one was instantaneous because we'd done it. Now we made a new culture. But the foundational elements of it, of like, oh, okay, yeah, because we know how Brock leads and we know what he expects and we know what we do, and we know when we say this, this is what it means. And that just got us going much faster, much quicker than we would have in any other scenario if everybody was new. And so how do you kind of keep, keep building that?
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:57:05 - 00:57:18]
But I think you got very lucky there as well, because you could actually have the same team, because more often than nothing, you would have to restrict your hiring attempts from the previous company.
Brock Wheatherup: [00:57:18 - 00:59:43]
One of the guys that was in the last name was Nick Rosenthal. He hadn't worked for me in a pet company. He worked for a company that I was an advisor to, that I had worked for that was totally outside of the pet industry. But I had gotten to know him and he had gotten to know me. I tried to hire him a couple times before, but I was unsuccessful for what was ever going on in life, in his life, our life, whatever else. And this time it worked out. And it was an unbelievable hire. Another guy who I had worked with at, you know, at Ticketmaster 1520 years prior, who I'd stayed in touch with, was impressed with him. Then we'd stayed in touch and like, okay, well, that was another person. Like, like, those happen because you just see them over time. It's not because they were pet industry experts. They were really talented people who were doing lots of things that I just stayed aware of as they did their things in life. It's the beautiful thing about LinkedIn, it's a beautiful thing about social media, if you pay attention to it in the right way. And I needed talents and these sorts of things, and it was like, oh, fantastic. Like, like the one guy was at Ticketmaster, I brought him into Petco, and he had gone from Ticketmaster, and then he'd gone to Nike and had done a bunch. He'd been insanely successful, but he knew how to operate in a large corporation. So going back to my challenges at Petco, I brought him in. His name was Bob Bennett. And, like, he was every reason why I had almost any success inside Petco, because he knew how to translate. He jokingly said, like, we'd go into a meeting to talk about something, I would break everything, and I would get us going the direction we needed to go, but I would leave a train wreck. I'd leave a mess because I didn't know how to get the corporate culture behind that. And then Bob would come in next to me as my right hand and would organize everybody behind me after I left a mess, because he knew how to get everyone organized, put it together, create an outcome, and create something fantastic. And, like, we worked really, really, really well together because I had a skill he didn't have, and he had a skill that I didn't have, and the two of them together worked incredibly well. But you got to find those people. So it's not necessarily inside the industry. It's just more of, like, who are skill sets that you pay attention to and you follow over time.
Anastasia Koroleva: [00:59:43 - 00:59:56]
So, Brock, in your second company, you brought investors in right away. You raised 2 million in seed financing. Do you think that was a good idea? Why did you decide to do that?
Brock Wheatherup: [00:59:56 - 01:02:27]
Well, you know, what people don't have really understand, right. Is, you know, the value of the cap table. Right. Of what you have. Right. I, I personally made more money selling a company for $30 million than I did selling a company for $200 million. Okay. Well, it depends what the cap table looks like. Depends whether, you know, things like preference stacks and other things that people learn along the way that are just, you just don't understand on the first time around. And you're like, oh, yeah, well, oh, great. Thanks for the $10 million check. And, oh, you mean it's got a two times pref and this and a guaranteed that. And you're like, all of a sudden, when you get to the outcome, you're like, well, wait a second. Why? Why did this all happen? And you just learn, you learn to figure that out. You know? Look, there are important things to bring in, to bring in money, because money can be helpful, mostly because who is bringing in the money? Not necessarily even the money. So when I was in the kind of later companies, like the money that I brought in was helpful, knowledgeable money that brought a person, brought a company, brought an experience, brought a connection, brought a customer into the conversation versus just the money. First company, I was like, I needed money. I just wanted money. I needed. And that was a mistake. I should say. That's wrong. It worked for what it was at the time. I could have been much smarter about it if I knew what I know now and gone back and done that. And look, and the reality is you put things together and how you manage what's going on in your life and how you are thinking about your investments, where you are with your family, where you are in your personal finance. That balances your risk profile. Right. I mean, there's a reason why people who are younger start businesses more frequently. They're, I'll call it, their family burn rate is very low. Right. If you're 23 years old and you're sharing an apartment in, you know, in St. Louis, Missouri, like, your. Your burn rate is very low. Right. You don't need a lot of income to be stay alive. Right. If you're living in New York City and you have two kids and you're married, like, your burn rate is dramatically higher. You need to earn a certain amount on any given year to not go into the red. So those are the dynamics that also then affect how much you personally invest into the next thing.
Anastasia Koroleva: [01:02:27 - 01:02:50]
So, Brock, is there anything else you feel would be helpful to know for someone who recently exited and is thinking of doing what you did, which is building the next business and maybe main businesses, again and again, be intentional.
Brock Wheatherup: [01:02:50 - 01:06:45]
And what I mean by being intentional is, like, we put all this planning into our businesses about where do you allocate capital? Where do you allocate time? Where do you allocate resources? What's the market you're going after? What do you want? How do you measure what that success looks like? But we don't do much of that into our personal lives. And so for somebody, like, especially in times of big transition, like after an exit or anything else, like, sit down and spend the time, and you got to write it down and you got to share it with somebody that's important to you, that will hold you accountable to it. But, like, what are your intentions for you as a person? In my case, what is it for me as an individual? What is it for me as a husband? What is it for me as a father? What is it for me as a son? What do those things look look like? And you have to put the same discipline that you put into your business, me as an individual, it's not get in better shape. That's a goal that you would never accept in business. Make more money. You'd be like, what's the worst goal on the planet for the business? Yes, that's what we're trying to do. But no, like, how exactly are you going to do that? What are the, like, I'm going to do it this way. And so, okay, if that means, okay, well, you're going to get, you know, an hour's worth of cardio exercise four times a day. Four times a week. Okay, great. If you think that's reasonable and make sure the person you're sharing it with is going to go, yeah, great, Brock, but not a chance you're going to do it that often. That's not how life is working for you. Okay, fine. But, but like, how do you put in what those things are? If, if volunteering is important to you, that, okay, like, you know, okay, yeah, we all want to volunteer once a week, but it's probably not going to happen once a week, but, okay, maybe make it once a month. Right. And, okay, where are you going to do that? What, like, who are you going to want to do with it? What, what volunteering are you excited about? Like, like, just be specific about what you want to do in life. Right. And be intentional about it. And if you, if you create that on a sheet of paper and actually write it down and have to present it to somebody, whether it's a parent, a spouse, a good friend, but, like, share it written down, you will be so much more focused about what that is. And it will help you then define does this next startup or this next thing I'm going to do fulfill against those goals that I am setting out that are important to me in this basket of intentions. And it gives you a way to measure whether what you're choosing to go do fulfills where you want to go and what you want to do or doesn't. And look, and it's fine if the answer is like, I want to make a lot of money. There's no, there's nothing wrong with that being an intention. But what does that mean? And when does a lot mean a lot? And what does that look like and what are you aiming to do? What, are you going to take a risk to try and create a billion dollar company? Or are you really happy making $10 million? Okay, like, or maybe a million, whatever it is. But like, what are those sorts of things and how do you get intentional about it? So I just would always encourage to folks to do this just in life. And whether you do it every year or do it during every couple years or whenever, you have big moments where you're thinking about what should I, or where do I want to go? Where do I want to move? What does that look like? I mean, spending that time to be that sort of intentional, like, I did it right after I got diagnosed with Ms. We've done it as we became empty nesters as a couple. You know, like, what is our intentions? Okay, well, guess what? We were living in San Diego. We now live in Connecticut because we made the choice to be intentional. One of the things on our intentions as a couple was being closer to family. And our family is more on the east coast, the northeast, than it is in southern California, as much as we love living in San Diego, but we made that choice because that was in our intentions. And we were able to say, this is what we wanted to go do, and that's what we're doing, and now we feel better about it. So, like, getting in, spending the time to be, to put that same planning into your personal life and activity that you do in business, that we spend so much time training ourselves out.
Anastasia Koroleva: [01:06:46 - 01:06:55]
Would you say that being intentional in your personal life also increases the chances of your success in business?
Brock Wheatherup: [01:06:56 - 01:07:14]
There is 100% correlation between those two things. Because if you're lost personally, how are you going to figure out what you want to do professionally? If you're not sure what you want to do professionally, you're never going to be happy personally. So those things are inextricably tied and they are 100% overlap with one another.
Anastasia Koroleva: [01:07:14 - 01:07:30]
Yeah. You know what I see a lot in the community of exited founders is people jump straight into a new business in a way to escape dealing with personal issues that are triggered by success.
Brock Wheatherup: [01:07:30 - 01:07:31]
Very likely.
Anastasia Koroleva: [01:07:32 - 01:07:48]
And then I see this pattern. Then a few years later, businesses fail because there were all these personal issues that were not properly addressed. How did you, how did you avoid that?
Brock Wheatherup: [01:07:48 - 01:09:19]
Well, I think on a personal level, I've just always, a, I found an incredible partner on the personal side of my wife. And I think, b, we've always been very, we have a very open dialogue and goes back to a little bit of, again, what came first, the, but the celebrating failures in business. I don't know if that became for before or after how to work on a successful relationship which has successfuls and failures. But if you're not actively talking about why is it working in a relationship, then you're not going to improve what you have in a relationship. Much like if you're not talking about what isn't working in business, you're not going to improve what's happening in business. And so, again, I don't know if I'm going to be totally honest with you, what came first, but it was always a part of things in my personal life and in my professional life, we just always talked about whatever was going on. The hard stuff went on the table first. You don't talk about the easy stuff on the table first. You talk about the hard stuff. And if you work through that, then the easy stuff is easier and you solve the things that really matter, which is the hard stuff. And so, again, whether that's your personal life or your professional life, I think it's critical that you bring those two things together. And thus one allows you to be happier. I mean, look, there are people who found great success in their business or just, I would put in the unhappy category. And that's unfortunate, you know, like at the same sort of thing, because they have not spent the time to be happy in their personal life and vice versa. Right. And so you got to find that balance between those two because they are completely and inextricably tied.
Anastasia Koroleva: [01:09:19 - 01:09:22]
So how do you want to be remembered?
Brock Wheatherup: [01:09:22 - 01:09:25]
A person who cared about other people and backed up what he said.
Anastasia Koroleva: [01:09:25 - 01:09:31]
This is wonderful, Brooke. I so much enjoyed our conversation. I could continue for hours.
Brock Wheatherup: [01:09:31 - 01:09:31]
That was great.
Anastasia Koroleva: [01:09:31 - 01:09:33]
But I know I need to.
Brock Wheatherup: [01:09:33 - 01:09:36]
I think we could go for a bit longer. This was. This was fantastic, enjoyable.
