Most companies do not stall because strategy suddenly stops working.
They stall because the organization that built the business can no longer support the next stage of growth.
That transition is difficult for CEOs because the symptoms rarely appear organizational at first. Product launches underperform. Engineering timelines slip. Sales execution becomes inconsistent. Key leaders become overloaded. Teams start reacting instead of operating deliberately.
The instinct is to treat those as execution problems.
Drew Allen, CEO of Grace Technologies, argues they are often leadership capacity problems instead.
His conversation on The Breakout CEO is ultimately about organizational transformation under pressure. Not theoretical transformation. Operational transformation that required rebuilding leadership depth, redefining standards, and making personnel decisions that carried real emotional weight.
The central insight running through the episode is straightforward but difficult to act on:
Scaling often requires rebuilding the team that originally built the company.
That forces CEOs into a category of decisions many delay too long — separating loyalty to individuals from responsibility to the long-term health of the organization.
Early-stage companies can often compensate for weak structure.
Founders carry more context personally. Teams communicate informally. Strong effort can temporarily offset weak systems. Organizations survive through intensity.
Scale changes the economics of mistakes.
As organizations grow, leadership weaknesses begin compounding operationally across product development, recruiting, customer execution, and internal coordination. Small inefficiencies become structural drag.
When Drew stepped into the CEO role in 2021, Grace Technologies was already dealing with those pressures. COVID had destabilized operating conditions while the company was simultaneously trying to strengthen engineering capability, expand leadership depth, and position the business for future growth.
The company still had opportunity.
What it lacked was enough organizational capacity to support the opportunity consistently.
Drew describes the senior leadership team at the time as thin and insufficiently developed for the next stage of growth. Some leaders were overloaded. Others simply were not the right fit for where the company needed to go.
That distinction matters.
Many scaling CEOs continue treating organizational strain as temporary execution friction long after it has become structural. They assume more effort, tighter management, or additional accountability will solve the issue.
Sometimes the issue is that the company itself has outgrown the operating capacity of the existing team.
Once that becomes clear, the CEO’s role changes.
The work is no longer simply growing the business. The work becomes rebuilding the organization underneath the growth.
One of the more revealing moments in the episode comes from Drew’s description of a failed product launch earlier in his career.
Confident in both the product and his own judgment, he pushed aggressively into development without sufficient market validation. Engineering resources were committed. Inventory was built. Internal confidence remained high.
The market response was effectively nonexistent.
What makes the story important is not the failed launch itself. Failed launches happen inside growing companies.
What changed Drew’s leadership philosophy was recognizing how much of the failure was tied to his own assumptions.
“I failed here,” he says during the episode. “I was too proud.”
The operational mistake was bypassing customer validation. The deeper leadership mistake was assuming conviction could replace disciplined process.
He ignored feedback loops. He skipped broader customer testing. He assumed he already understood the market response before collecting enough evidence.
That type of overconfidence is not unusual in founder-led environments.
Smaller companies often reward speed, instinct, and aggressive decision-making. Founder conviction can create momentum when organizations are still compact and flexible.
Scale changes the consequences.
Once larger engineering investments, longer sales cycles, and broader organizational commitments become involved, unmanaged assumptions become expensive. Drew explains that the failed launch did not create a short-term problem alone. It disrupted the company’s development pipeline for years because resources had already been committed.
The experience forced a different operating discipline.
Less certainty. More validation. More structured decision-making.
Most importantly, it forced a shift from asking what everyone else did wrong toward examining his own role in the outcome.
That perspective becomes foundational to the rest of the episode because it reframes leadership accountability around decision quality rather than confidence.
Most CEOs understand intellectually that scaling eventually requires stronger leadership.
Fewer are prepared for what that means operationally.
The most difficult personnel decisions are rarely about obvious incompetence or misconduct. More often, they involve capable, loyal people whose performance ceiling no longer matches the company’s needs.
That creates hesitation, especially inside founder-led businesses where many early employees helped carry the company through difficult stages.
Drew speaks directly to that tension.
“You can’t harm the whole thing,” he says while describing leadership transition decisions inside the company.
The statement is blunt because the tradeoff itself is blunt.
At some point, CEOs have to decide whether preserving comfort for individuals is worth slowing the organization’s ability to execute.
Drew describes reaching the conclusion that protecting the broader organization had to outweigh preserving existing structures that were no longer working.
That decision reshaped how Grace Technologies approached recruiting, leadership expectations, engineering culture, and organizational pace.
“We’re going to optimize for people who want to be involved in a high-growth business.”
That shift did not happen overnight.
The company raised standards incrementally. Leadership expectations changed first. Recruiting standards tightened. Bottleneck functions received disproportionate attention. Some employees adapted successfully. Others did not.
Drew describes the process as gradual but unavoidable.
That pacing matters because organizational transformation is rarely clean. Companies attempting wholesale cultural replacement too quickly often create instability rather than improvement.
Grace Technologies instead rebuilt capability one constraint at a time.
The process took years.
One of the clearest operating principles in the episode is Drew’s focus on identifying the constraint limiting progress at a given stage.
“Focus on the bottleneck.”
The principle sounds simple.
Applying it consistently inside a scaling organization is not.
Growing companies usually experience multiple visible problems simultaneously. Product development slows. Recruiting struggles. Revenue targets become inconsistent. Communication degrades. Leaders become reactive.
Without discipline, organizations start treating everything as equally urgent.
Drew instead describes concentrating organizational energy around the function most limiting growth at that moment.
At one stage, engineering recruitment became the bottleneck. Grace Technologies needed stronger technical capability to support product development, but hiring electrical engineering and firmware talent in Davenport proved difficult.
The result was predictable.
Senior leaders became overloaded because too much work concentrated around too few experienced contributors. Project timelines slipped. Pressure accumulated.
The company responded by aggressively expanding engineering recruiting efforts, strengthening university internship pipelines, and clarifying the type of engineering environment they wanted to build.
That last piece mattered.
Drew specifically describes attracting engineers who wanted ownership over complete products rather than narrow specialization inside a large corporate environment. The recruiting strategy aligned directly with the kind of organization the company was trying to become.
As engineering capability improved, the bottleneck shifted toward sales leadership and commercial execution.
The principle stayed the same.
Identify the constraint limiting progress. Direct disproportionate attention toward removing it.
That approach prevented the organization from diffusing energy across too many simultaneous initiatives.
Toward the end of the conversation, Drew describes ownership culture as “really rare and unique.”
The observation is useful because ownership is discussed casually inside many organizations while very little changes operationally.
Most companies say they want ownership.
Far fewer distribute the authority, responsibility, and accountability required to create it.
Drew’s framing is more practical.
Ownership is not motivational language. It is an operating model.
When leaders genuinely own outcomes, they solve problems differently. They protect standards more aggressively. They continue pushing initiatives forward without requiring constant executive intervention.
That becomes increasingly important as organizational complexity grows.
A scaling CEO cannot personally carry every strategic initiative, operational issue, or execution priority. At some point, the organization either develops distributed ownership or leadership itself becomes the bottleneck.
Drew explains this directly. A CEO balancing twelve competing priorities simultaneously can only devote limited attention to each one. Organizations scale when capable leaders begin carrying those priorities independently.
That requires trust.
It also requires hiring people energized by challenge rather than stability.
Earlier in the episode, Drew makes the observation that companies focused on “easy, boring stuff” eventually attract people who want easy, boring work.
The inverse matters just as much.
Organizations pursuing ambitious growth tend to attract stronger operators when the culture genuinely supports responsibility, challenge, and meaningful ownership.
One of the more understated aspects of Drew’s conversation is how much of the transformation was personal before it became organizational.
The failed product launch forced humility. Leadership turnover required emotional discipline. Recruiting struggles demanded patience. Organizational rebuilding forced clearer standards.
Those experiences changed how he evaluated decisions.
Earlier in the episode, Drew references Shane Parrish’s observation that “you can only make bad decisions” when operating from a constrained position.
The idea connects directly to the broader organizational discussion.
Scaling companies gradually lose optionality when leadership capacity fails to keep pace with growth. Weak structures create reactive environments. Delayed personnel decisions compound operational drag. Overloaded leaders narrow the organization’s ability to think strategically.
Rebuilding organizational capacity restores optionality.
Stronger leadership teams create room for better decisions. Distributed ownership reduces operational bottlenecks. Better alignment allows CEOs to focus on higher-order problems instead of constant intervention.
But getting there requires confronting issues many leaders postpone.
That is what gives the episode weight.
Drew does not frame transformation as a clean leadership framework or a founder success story. He describes it as a long sequence of difficult decisions that gradually reshaped both the company and his own leadership posture.
For scaling CEOs, that may be the most important insight in the conversation.
The hardest part of growth is often not market opportunity, product strategy, or capital access.
It is building an organization capable of carrying the next stage of the business without breaking under the pressure of it.
Drew Allen is the CEO of Grace Technologies, an industrial safety and electrical solutions company serving industrial and data center markets globally. His experience centers on organizational transformation, rebuilding executive capacity, and scaling operational systems under pressure.
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Jeff Holman is a CEO advisor, legal strategist, and founder of Intellectual Strategies. With years of experience guiding leaders through complex business and legal challenges, Jeff equips CEOs to scale with confidence by blending legal expertise with strategic foresight. Connect with him on LinkedIn.
Intellectual Strategies provides innovative legal solutions for CEOs and founders through its fractional legal team model. By offering proactive, integrated legal support at predictable costs, the firm helps leaders protect their businesses, manage risk, and focus on growth with confidence.
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The Breakout CEO podcast brings you inside the pivotal moments of scaling leaders. Each week, host Jeff Holman spotlights breakout stories of scaling CEOs—showing how resilience, insight, and strategy create pivotal inflection points and lasting growth.
Listen and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform:
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Want to be a guest—or know a scaling CEO with a breakout story to share? Apply directly at go.intellectualstrategies.com.
TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY:
1:00 - Welcome: Drew Allen of Grace Technologies
2:07 - Trekking the Camino de Santiago
4:00 - Walking Through Life's Big Questions
6:19 - Travel, Adventure & Business Mindset
8:04 - Growing Up with a Risk-Taking Dad
13:35 - Drew's Unconventional Path: College at 16, Hong Kong at 20
17:42 - Making It on His Own & Lessons from 3M
20:14 - Joining the Family Business & a $400K Mistake
29:29 - Taking Over as CEO in 2021
32:07 - Rebuilding the Leadership Team
39:00 - The Three Support Systems That Made It Work (Board, YPO, Coaching)
48:57 - Targeting $100M & Grace Technologies' Mission: Zero Harm, Zero Downtime
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Drew Allen (00:00)
I can't harm the the whole thing. I failed here. I was too proud. I'm a big proponent of like focusing on the bottleneck. You attract people who wanna do easy, boring stuff. I thought I knew everything.
Jeff Holman (00:11)
Welcome back, everybody, to the Breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host, Jeff Holman. I'm with a small law firm called Intellectual Strategies. And since I can't tell you all my clients' secrets, I invite guests out who are running businesses and we have frank discussions about some of the things they're doing in their businesses. Because I know that just seeing CEOs at different levels, ⁓ there's a lot to process. And a lot of times it feels like you're doing things on your own. But I know you're not, because I've seen
those things going on behind closed doors. And so I'm so grateful to guests who come on the show to share some of their experiences and insights and how they, you know, not only ran into problems but overcame those problems. So it's it's a great venue. And today we've got a great guest joining us, Drew Allen. ⁓ Drew, thanks so much for coming onto the show.
Drew Allen (01:00)
Hey, thank you so much for having me, Jeff. I appreciate it.
Jeff Holman (01:02)
Yeah, I'm I'm really excited. We had we had some fun fun short discussion on the icebreaker questions beforehand. So if anybody listening to this full episode wants to go back and hear those, you know, go look at our LinkedIn page and you can see those icebreaker questions on there and get to know Drew a little bit more, ⁓ maybe call it outside of work, if we will. So well, Dr Drew, you run a company called Drace called I Just Renamed Your Company. Is that okay?
Drew Allen (01:29)
Great. The marketing team's not gonna like that.
Jeff Holman (01:32)
Grace technology. So I tried to say something else. But ⁓ I want to get into where you've where you've been, how you've built that up, and you know, some of the things you've run into along the way. ⁓ so I think that's gonna be really interesting for the audience. Before that though, I want to do a little bit of follow up because I am intrigued now by some of the stuff that we just talked about before before starting this full recording here. If that's okay. Okay. Okay. You mentioned trekking and you mentioned
Drew Allen (01:56)
No, go for it.
Jeff Holman (02:00)
The Camino de Santiago, right? And some I think I might have cut you off when you were saying others. Where where have you done this trekking at?
Drew Allen (02:07)
So Camino de Santiago, we've done the Salcante. I usually, you know, I've done additional stuff in Colorado, ⁓ but always looking for various treks to do. ⁓ I know I have another CEO buddy who's doing a big long one in Switzerland this summer. I'm not gonna be able to join him, but I found ⁓ that it is quite the experience and incredibly difficult. ⁓ on the Camino, we were going about twenty five miles a day, ⁓ which was brutal.
And you know, there there's
Jeff Holman (02:39)
And that's like isn't that like the full, full is like ⁓ eight hundred kilometers? You did a s but still there's there's endless walking. You walk as long as you want to pretty much, right?
Drew Allen (02:44)
We did not do the full. ⁓
Yeah, you so we walked from Porto. So we walked from Porto to Santiago in northern Spain. ⁓ and you know, on the back half of that trip it was a monsoon. It doesn't matter how waterproof your boots are, if like y you know, it just you know, they they say that there's no such thing as bad weather, there's just bad gear.
I don't think when you're going through, you know, you're you're walking up a mountain trail and it's actually a creek. I just don't think you're like totally prepared, you know. Yeah. I don't think you're totally prepared for that. ⁓ it was it was really, really challenging though. That was my first one. ⁓ and doing the the extent of what we were doing per day was just way, way difficult. And
You know, and so you're you're you know, you start off with your buddies, right? And you know, kinda by the end of day one you've lost you know, you've you've kind of burned through all the topics that you needed to catch up with them on. Right. So by day two
Jeff Holman (03:46)
Because
walking twenty five miles, you're I mean, you what do you if you're walking, you're going call it three miles an hour, maybe, ⁓ maybe slower depending on the the weather conditions. That's so that's a long that's a lot of walking and talking.
Drew Allen (04:00)
Yeah, a lot of talking. and so you you know, so eventually you just kind of get alone with your thoughts, right? And you start kind of examining your life and you know, there there's there's some beauty to putting your body into pain and suffering to really like reveal your heart, define your intentions, ⁓ understand the plan of kind of where you want to go. And you know, my my mom had a lot of health issues. she ended up passing away from ovarian cancer about two years ago. Sorry for that. And
And so I did the trek in the fall before she passed away. And I w at that point, I I can't remember if she was in remission or not, but you know, there this had been a recurring thing for like the last thirteen years. And so I was dealing with a lot of that. And at the time, you know, I I wasn't quite happy with maybe the level level of fatherhood that I was providing. And, you know, my my marriage was fine, but not great. And so, you know, as you're just reflecting on all these things and and the business was kind of in a tough position and
You know, and and so you you're you're just walking and you're chewing on these issues and you're going, okay, well, what do I have to change? You know, you can you're you're only in control of what you can control. And, you know, it you're sitting there and you're you're putting your body through misery and you realize, you know, you you're responsible for taking that next step forward. And, you know, and I think that that really translates into business and life, especially when you don't feel like it, hey, it's just one more step.
And just continuing to have that perseverance to move forward, that idea that, hey, you've you've got a community of people there kind of rooting you on. Cause the community is kind of a special place where everyone's super friendly and, you know, more than willing to support you and give you stuff you need. Right. And ⁓ share a beer with you at the end of the day. And I I just it's a really cool thing. There's a I I got onto this through one of my friends in Hong Kong. ⁓ and then there's a guy actually that I used to live with in ⁓ in Hong Kong ⁓ in our
Housing development. Mm-hmm. And he's done I d like all the treks you can think of. He's done the coast to coast in the UK. He's done the via Ferregina all the way from the coast of France all the way to Rome. Really? You know, and it's just like the breakthroughs that he's really had in his life and the peace and tranquility that I think he brings to life post those trips is really special.
Jeff Holman (06:19)
Yeah. Have have you done any I mean, this is amazing and I'm really glad you're sharing it. And and there are, you know, not to be trite, there are all sorts of parallels between these types of trekking experiences and and business, ⁓ for sure. have you done is it mostly ⁓ these kind of point to point things that you've done? Have you done it have you done anything like Everest Base Camp or ⁓ some of those mountain mountainous treks?
Drew Allen (06:46)
I I've done some mountainous trucks in Colorado, ⁓ but I've not done Everest Base Camp. I I I think I prefer the altitude under, you know, under 10,000 feet. ⁓ oxygen is really nice. In fact, actually on on the on the Saucente trek, we have to spend a night up at ⁓ 11,500 feet.
And it was rough. I mean, sleeping at that elevation, ⁓ and then having, you know, well, you don't sleep. I mean, your heart's just beating so fast you can't, you know, you can't sleep. Yeah. but being up at that elevation trying to sleep and then go for a massive trek the next day is really, really challenging. It would have been probably better if we wouldn't have slept at elevation and just gotten over the mountain because on the other side I think we got down to like eighty five hundred or something, ⁓ which is a little bit more doable.
Jeff Holman (07:35)
Minimize a time at at elevation. That makes sense. Well, what what a great experience. And and that's sounds like that's paired up with or maybe related to the fact that you that you travel so much. You mentioned Hong Kong, you mentioned Asia before when were talking and taking your your family over to Asia for a trip and ⁓ where does travel play into kind of your I don't want to say your work schedule because travel is never really convenient, but where does travel play into ⁓ your your mindset and you know, the way you think about life and business?
Drew Allen (08:04)
My dad started taking me to China when I was 13. ⁓ and that just opened up an entire world for me. And just ever since those trips, all I can remember is the fact that I wanted to lead a life of adventure. ⁓ and so if I think about kind of some of my own personal core values, you know, freedom and adventure and you know, taking responsibility and and things like this, I I I think.
You know, exploring the world has always been a part of that adventure. And my wife is from Brazil. so my kids are dual citizens. ⁓ you know, we just we we just have a passion for exploration and trying new things. And I I've always found in life that saying yes to things, I know it's very fashionable to like say no. Right. Like, like I think a lot of people like give this advice. you gotta say no more, you know.
Right, right. I've always found that saying yes leads to like the most incredible experiences that you never knew existed. And especially if you don't become too analytical about it. And so I usually if there's an adventure that's getting presented, I'm usually first one to say, Yeah, let's do it. ⁓ and I I think I think that's also important in business though. ⁓ I think you want to do something that seems adventurous to you. So if you're an entrepreneur.
One of the one of the things that really defines an entrepreneurial led business as opposed to a publicly traded corporation or some, you know, megacorp is the fact that you get to define your own adventure. Yeah. And hopefully you find a tribe of people between your customers and your your team members who are excited to join you on that journey. And oftentimes it's easier to do the most exciting thing.
Than to do the boring safe thing, because the type of people that come into your organization that want to do something exciting and worthwhile are often the best people that give you a higher hit rate or chance of success. Right. Like if you just do easy, boring stuff, what kind of people do you attract into the organization? You attract people who want to do easy, boring stuff.
Jeff Holman (10:13)
Yeah, interesting. So so you get a you know, I i i it you get a you get an organization of average, it sounds like. You know, you get the people who aren't I mean, maybe there's maybe there are other issues with some of the extremes in, you know, from an HR perspective, but I don't want to go there like make it sound legal, but but but you have different it's certainly different culture.
Drew Allen (10:36)
Yeah, absolutely. I I it it's and you can tell this when you're in other founder led businesses that have a really distinct personality. And it it's like there's a tribe of people around them with very similar personalities of of go gettingness or whatever, right? I mean, we we do a lot of work with SpaceX and Tesla and Boring Company. All of these people are like some at least mini version of Elon, right? Like at heart.
Like just absolutely like wild thinkers and extraordinary talent and engineer. I think Mark Andreessen sums it up best. When you step into SpaceX, you step into this bizarre land of complete competence. Like everyone, everyone is like highly competent and like knows their stuff. And so I I think it it's incumbent on entrepreneurs to shape the business and the identity of the business about something that, you know, is really you at your core and about.
⁓ you know that that's aspirational and exciting and adventurous.
Jeff Holman (11:35)
Yeah. Man, I feel like we just wrapped up an episode ⁓ with with all this stuff. We haven't even talked to you about your business yet, but this is this is fantastic. I love how you're I I really do ⁓ like sincerely love how w you know, you're taking these topics about trekking and travel and and you know, they they apply back to life, they apply back to business and you know and as a maybe that's not much of a surprise if you're an entrepreneur
at heart that like everything relates back to life and business, right? At some level. So ⁓ but but I love it. You're you're clearly a very thoughtful person and looking to both explore and improve. And and I love that. And the rest of this episode's gonna be awesome to talk about how you've done that in your business.
Drew Allen (12:21)
And I I love to surround myself with curious people. You know, I I I I think I I I don't know if I was born with the gift or my dad instilled it in me, but like we just were always like we are always asking questions about how things work or why are things so and I think that just that innate curiosity is so important in entrepreneurship and life and creativity and innovation. It's like it all starts kind of with a why question and really like curious, like you know.
Why does that person operate that way? And if you can kind of come at curiosity with a non-judgmental angle and really try to understand, you know, I I I read a lot. I read a lot because I'm curious. And because I'm curious, I get to learn more and I get to share more and I get to impact more people. And I think I think, you know, like figure out what really piques your curiosity and lead into that is is a is a critical ⁓ critical item and in just developing yourself.
Jeff Holman (13:18)
Yeah. You you've brought up your dad a few times now. ⁓ I'm curious what what did he do and you know, 'cause it sounds like a lot of this has has I don't know, rubbed off or, you know, you've you've taken away some positive traits from what he's done. What what what was your dad into?
Drew Allen (13:35)
so my my my dad was ⁓ I I think he's still a bigger risk taker than I am, to be honest. yeah.
Jeff Holman (13:42)
Is
it like skydiving risk type risk or business?
Drew Allen (13:45)
Like business risk. ⁓ you know, he left ⁓ Rockwell Automation, so a Fortune one hundred business, I think. ⁓ when I was six months old and started up his own business. I mean, can you imagine going to your wife with like a six month old at the house and being like, hey, I I quit my super safe corporate job and I'm gonna start up a system integration business in Davenport, Iowa. You know, it just doesn't like it
Jeff Holman (14:13)
Wait,
did they have to move too? Like
Drew Allen (14:15)
No, no, actually, so my dad grew up in Pasadena, California. Okay. ⁓ he met my mom in Milwaukee on the sales trading program. And then they got they got married, moved to Portland, Maine, ⁓ and a job opportunity came up because he kind of was an expert on this one kind of new piece of technology. And the largest customer for that piece of technology was in the Quad Cities and and and so he settled in Davenport. My mom was happy to be
a little bit closer to Milwaukee and seeing her family a little bit more frequently. We did a lot of trips to Milwaukee, a lot of a lot of driving by Rockford, ⁓ on the way up, but Milwaukee's a great town, kinda my second home.
Jeff Holman (14:54)
Awesome. But but he's like, Hey, we're gonna you know, baby's doing well, you look like you've recovered pretty well. I think I'm gonna start a new business.
Drew Allen (15:02)
Yeah. And now my my dad also, it wasn't the first business he had started. He like he did you know, he put himself through college ⁓ making cabinets and you know and doing that and would hire all kind of his buddies. So he was he was like a really a carpenter up until he got his first quote unquote real job. Right. ⁓ and you know, and then he continued to just take risks, you know, eventually sold off that system integration business, took our product side of the business.
continue to expand it, try new products, not everything worked. You know, he he he just he just is like one that just keeps on doubling down. His risk tolerance, it just seems like there there's there's never too big of a risk for if he if he can afford to take it, he takes it.
Jeff Holman (15:43)
Were you drawn to this? Is this something like, did you work with your dad at a time? Or was this something where you're like, you know what? I'm gonna like this looks really interesting, but not not my
Drew Allen (15:52)
Actually
quite the contrary. ⁓ I walked ⁓ so so I took a little bit of a non traditional route. I left high school at sixteen and I started ⁓ started college at sixteen. ⁓ and so I graduated at nineteen and I walk into my dad's office kind of close to graduation and I go, Hey dad, what you built here is really great, but it's way too boring for a twenty something. And and I promptly left and ⁓
Promptly left for Hong Kong and landed in Hong Kong three weeks before my 20th birthday. And with my wife, I got married very young because we were on vacation and I proposed, ⁓ well, we I proposed in December, we went on vacation. Then I decided I should call my attorney and see how the green card mechanics work. and he informed me that we needed this was like we got engaged December 10th.
Jeff Holman (16:26)
Just by yourself?
Drew Allen (16:45)
And he informed me we needed to get married before March fourth. so no no baby or anything, but it was ⁓ it was the with the visa expirations, or otherwise she was gonna have to go back to Brazil to get the fiance visa and yada yada yada. And we're like, okay, let's do it. So we did it again. risk, you know, I guess I take my own fair share of risks. but yeah, we moved to we moved to Hong Kong and ⁓ eventually took a position with ⁓ 3M there doing business development for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. ⁓ and then, you know, and just
It was what was really cool about that experience, besides all the travel and learning the business skills, was I got to make it on my own. You know, I you know, when when you have a when you have a family business, there's this like family business curse. All the success I'll ever have is because of my dad. And all of the failure is my own fault, right?
Jeff Holman (17:38)
Yeah. Whatever was working is not working now. ⁓ you caused that.
Drew Allen (17:42)
Right. It's all it it all all good is someone else's success and all bad is my failure. ⁓ and so it was just good to be able to do that in Hong Kong and know, hey, I can make it on my own. And like, you know, not that I was perfect and not that like not everything was super easy. ⁓ but you know, we went from living in a four hundred and fifty square foot apartment, you know, to, you know, in three years being able to go on trips and live comfortably and it, you know, and as you're when I'm twenty three, it was just it was a great.
great experience. And I learned all sorts of business lessons as well. I mean
Jeff Holman (18:15)
Well, Hong Kong's full of full of all sorts of businesses and people coming from every I like I love I love Hong Kong. I've been there, you know, maybe six or eight times and it's just one of my favorite places, partly because it's so you know, it's it's pretty foreign, but not all the way foreign. And it's and it's just got such a mix of everything going on all at once.
Drew Allen (18:36)
Well, and when I was there, I was there from twenty ten to twenty thirteen. And so, like, if you really talk to people, like that was like the golden zone of like Hong Kong, right? It was like golden time. Yeah. And it was before the protests started and before all the crackdowns and yada yada yada. So all the world's best companies were sending their best people to Hong Kong. You know, and the expat community in Hong Kong is large but still very small. It's like a small town.
Yeah. And so you get to meet these like incredible people and just like open your horizons of all sorts of new ideas and concepts. And like, you know, I I I we don't we don't have private equity as an investor or anything, but you know, I learned all about private equity models and how they work, you know, and I like I would have never learned that in Iowa. And so it was just it was really, really cool to be able to brush shoulders with ⁓ brush elbows with all sorts of interesting folks and and learn from them.
⁓ and you know, have people take me under their wing and give me advice in my career and and you know, show me new ways of doing things.
Jeff Holman (19:39)
That's that's fantastic. ⁓ and you're right. I think it has changed a little bit since the protest. What that was like twenty nineteen or so, right? When the everything started to kind of shift over there. what were the major milestones from Hong Kong and working at three ⁓ with with you know your your newer wife and your newer baby did you have a baby over there? Or there. So kept it simple. So wha what were the major milestones or or kind of
Drew Allen (20:01)
No we have.
Jeff Holman (20:08)
stopping points from your journey in Hong Kong to to where you are today with grace technologies.
Drew Allen (20:14)
So I I I I've shared I've shared this one before. ⁓ so I my my mom got sick, ⁓ which kind of shortened, you know, our stay in Hong Kong. It was time to move back home into the family business. Right. And we so we moved back home, we're living with my parents, and the, you know, while our while we're getting a house remodeled, which is like the worst thing ever. ⁓ you know, so
You know, we're we're we're we're doing this. I'm under a lot of stress to to try to perform, not because my dad's putting me under stress, but because I put it on myself. I didn't have any of those skill sets, those soft skill sets to be able to really manage the conflict well. ⁓ you know, we didn't have the family business structures in place to be able to do that, you know. And so I'm hard charging and, you know, think I know it all. And I end up getting an opportunity with a very, very large
customer in the consumer package goods space. And we we come up with this new product, right? And I am I'm convinced that this product is like the B's needs. Like, I mean, this is gonna sell like hotcakes.
Jeff Holman (21:25)
Pause everything, put all the we gotta we gotta put an investment into this product line.
Drew Allen (21:30)
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ you know, so I I I s I take about, I don't know, nine to twelve months of engineering time. ⁓ you know, without the engineering investment, let you know, all in probably with inventory, all the tooling, the certifications, we're at four hundred, five hundred thousand dollars, right? And I'm like twenty-five.
Jeff Holman (21:51)
Yeah. And your d and your dad's running the business, he's just like, Okay, you know, Drew, just take this and let's see where it goes.
Drew Allen (22:00)
My dad, you know, he he could have stepped in. ⁓ but one, he's a risk taker and I also think he knows the value of me learning my own lessons.
And he ⁓ so anyways, I I go ahead and yeah, so I go ahead and I launch the the product and guess what? Crickets. Absolute crickets. In fact, the customer that I developed it with, they they went through some sort of reorganization and there was approvals that didn't happen. And so even they didn't buy it.
Jeff Holman (22:20)
Shadowing, wasn't it? Yeah.
Drew Allen (22:39)
Right. And so I'm stuck with all this inventory, you know, as like like the with all this egg on my face, right? And everything, you know, and so I'm just so stressed out. You know, the team's mad with me. I'm mad with the team. I, you know, I'm I angry at the salespeople not selling the product. And I I I'm like I I eventually I just step back and I'm like, what did I miss? Right? Like what did not what did everyone else do wrong?
Jeff Holman (23:04)
Yeah.
Drew Allen (23:08)
What did I drew do wrong? Right? So I started looking at okay. First, I didn't have the right engineering team in place to be able to quickly iterate on on new products.
Jeff Holman (23:24)
Full scale development rather than validation.
Drew Allen (23:27)
Right. So so we we had to use some outside firm to be able to help develop the thing, which meant that we weren't able to like there wasn't as many prototype iterations and we could we could have we could have gotten a lot more product feedback earlier on that maybe would have you know would have been able to get us to change things. Second thing is I refused to take it to other customers to validate the idea. Okay. Right. I think I was afraid I think I was afraid that they weren't I that
That they weren't going to see the value in it because I maybe I had some grandiose idea of you know the iPhone of like, you know, if you ask, you know, Henry Ford says, like, if you ask what people want, they would tell you a faster buggy, you know, a faster horse. Yeah, right. And and so I I just completely shortchanged that step. And I probably could have avoided, you if I would have gone to just even 10 customers and I would have saw that they didn't have any interest in it, you know, I
Jeff Holman (24:07)
Horse.
Screen some pause. Yeah.
Drew Allen (24:24)
it would have created some pause or a way for me to adjust down the inventory orders or take less risk or do something, right? And and so that was a big humbling experience of like, wow, I don't know what I'm doing. You know? And I think a lot of people don't ⁓ I I think a lot of people maybe ⁓ get get an experience like that. But for me, it was so crystal clear. Yeah. That it was like, no, I I
I failed here. I was too proud and I should, you know, I I should have followed what really best processes were, best practices, ⁓ for new product creation. And I just didn't. I thought I knew everything. And so that humbling really took a, you know, kind of took a toll on me. And I I don't think I really came out of that like experience for probably about nine or twelve months ⁓ like later before I was able to really like.
reflect, learn the lessons, change my mindset, ⁓ and you know, become a little bit more teachable. Yeah. and that that was I I think that that that was one of those kind of those defining moments of my career where it was like it was just so you you you blew $400,000. Like you blew a
Jeff Holman (25:38)
And and eighteen and eighteen months or something.
Drew Allen (25:41)
Right. I mean then and then and then I got by the way, because we have nine to twelve month sales cycles and obviously development cycles, that meant that the the sales kind of piece of things sucked for the next two years. So I got to live with that. I got to live with that, not just past that nine to twelve months. I got to live with that for like two additional years before we could get other new products out to be able to take to to take the sales plan.
Jeff Holman (26:05)
Because the pipeline. man. You know, reminds me on a I'm gonna call it a smaller scale, only 'cause I don't think the numbers were quite as big, but I had a I had a team come to me in maybe two thousand nine and they said, Hey, we're gonna develop this product. I don't remember what the original product was. They went and pitched it to a hospital. The hospital came back and said, Yeah, we're not gonna buy that. But we really like your team. Would you w would you mind developing this this other product that ⁓ that one of our doctors made in the
in the labs and he uses it, you know, with his own neonatal patients. And we'd love to see it commercialized. And we're like, that sounds good. You know, built in demand. The hospital wants us to make it. The hospital turn around and buy it. And so I helped him with some of the legal side of that and ⁓ and all of this. And and we had a great team and it was going really well. And we went back and we said, okay, we've made it. We've, you know, we've got the chemistry down and we've got everything, we've got the packaging, like everything's done. We, you know, we're ready to take your PO. And they go, well, yeah.
I mean you have to talk you have to talk to the purchasing department for that. You know, we're the legal department. And so we're like, Okay, well just put us in touch with purchasing. And we go to purchasing and purchasing says, ⁓ w we're not buying that. And we're like, wait a second, this is it felt like I mean, if to to because it if you look at it from one perspective, you say, Well, this feels like a bait and switch, like like you guys wanted this and now you're not doing it. And then and then if you stop, like you mentioned, and you ref reflect on it.
Which one of our founders, you know, really reflected on it, to the point that he now is a is a a university professor teaching business strategy classes. And he says, Jeff, this is like this is like the classic story that I tell everyone of what not to do because we because we missed some th certain things, right? Like we made assumptions as to what was gonna work and who would buy and how much and all these things without even asking the questions of the people that were
available to us all along. So
Drew Allen (28:05)
recently had a also a similar experience. Uh-huh. ⁓ but we caught it. So like learnings, hello. Exactly. ⁓ so we were talking with a large train cut customer. Okay. And they were asking for some kind of custom, ⁓ custom product development. ⁓ and and we have this like hour and a half call with them and they want us to go off and do this development and da-da-da-da-da.
And towards the end the call, actually my dad was on the call and he goes, Yeah, so do you guys have budget for this? And they go, no, no, no. We we just we just really like the idea. Okay. Right. And you know
Jeff Holman (28:47)
It's just You'll love it. It's gonna it's gonna be awesome. Just let us know when you finish paying for it, huh?
Drew Allen (28:52)
Right. And and so, you know, I I think it's ⁓ it it's always tricky to to work with, you know, work with doing kind of custom development for other companies. ⁓ but I would I would recommend you making sure they have budget, making sure that you're talking to the people who can actually make the purchase decision if you're making it for get some like pre commitment pre orders. It's really, really helpful if you can do that before investing in all of your R and D.
Jeff Holman (29:16)
Yeah. Yeah. Man. Wild story. So so how did that so that was early on when you had returned. where have you where have you gone from that point?
Drew Allen (29:29)
Yeah, so I took over as CEO in January of twenty one. I figured nothing could be as bad as twenty twenty. So it was a good time to take over. was it true?
Jeff Holman (29:41)
like a lope low I mean, did the business ⁓ have hard times through through twenty twenty in the sense that, you know, it was became a natural transition point for you guys?
Drew Allen (29:51)
I think, you know, I think the business, I mean, in in April of twenty twenty, our business was down about thirty percent month on month. ⁓ and I think that's about as bad as it ⁓ I I think total year we ended off maybe we ended down fifteen percent, probably. so all in all, it could have been a lot worse, right? And then there was the PPP money that came in, but there was a lot of other stuff going on in the company at that time.
We were trying to hire a engineering team. We made some bad hires that it ended up, you know, costing us. ⁓ you know, there was all of just the personal turmoil and all of the rigmarole of trying to adjust to this new, you know, new virus and and all of the, you know, all the new regulations and people freaking out. It was just, you know, it was just this like incredibly chaotic time. ⁓ you know, it felt like, the business is actually okay.
⁓ and it turns out that, you know, oftentimes in life, you know, ⁓ you know, the stoics say that, you know, the obstacle is the way. ⁓ you know, and you know, fortunately we were able to do some acquisitions towards the tail end of 2020 because the sales volumes dipped, which actually made us ⁓ gave us the ability to purchase ⁓ certain companies in a much, you know, a much more ⁓ financially beneficial way. Yeah. ⁓
But, you know, that so we we came at you know, we came out of, you know, so we came out of all that chaos and and of my mom's health was back being on the table. And so, you know, and my my dad at that point, he kind of looked at me and our COO at the time, ⁓ during COVID and he goes, Hey, look, I lived through you know, the dot com bust two thousand eight, two thousand nine, and this is your guys' crisis. So have fun, you know, and kind of, you know, signed off and
And so yeah, I took over in twenty twenty one. I
Jeff Holman (31:54)
What's the team look like at that point?
Drew Allen (31:56)
So Finn senior leadership team, not a lot of experience. ⁓
Jeff Holman (32:02)
A lot of it was your dad carrying he was the kind of the l linchpin of the system?
Drew Allen (32:07)
Yeah, d and it even the people that we had in the positions were definitely not gonna be the right people to carry the business forward. ⁓ and so
Jeff Holman (32:17)
Why do you why do you say that?
Drew Allen (32:19)
You know, our sales leadership was not strong at the time. even our operation, you know, I had to let go of our COO ⁓ within three months of me taking over. ⁓ what we you know, even my CTO who's still with us today, you know, we were still in an immature kind of engineering ⁓ management structure discussion. I mean, there was
It just I didn't have the team. And and so then I'm I am kind of forced with like trying to grow the business with the team I have as I'm you know, as I'm trying to get people slotted in, my my board is telling me, you know, ⁓ you know, that I that I gotta step up the team members and trying to attack attract the right talent to a small business, that, you know, while I have big I big had big aspirations, you know, we didn't have the results yet.
And it was just kind of a a super stressful period to get that team. And it wasn't until about the late second year or early third year that I felt like, I've got a good team in place. Like I know that if I put things in front of them, I know that they can execute them. ⁓ and I think that that's a I think that a lot of people really underestimate the the the the
Team how how important your team capacity is and the leadership in those roles. ⁓ and it's really, really hard to depart those team members if you it you know, it especially if you came up before being CEO and you worked with these people and they were your colleagues. And so it really it's really hard because you feel like you owe them something.
Jeff Holman (34:06)
Yeah. We you know, we talked earlier about ⁓ building the right teams, ⁓ the culture of teams, finding the right players, you know, everybody everybody at at Tesla is like a mini Elon Musk or whatever, right? And were you conscious of kind of that philosophy as you were rebuilding? Like you knew who you were looking for, or you did you just know that the or was it more of the performance isn't happening the way I think I want it to, so I gotta make a change, but y where do I turn?
Drew Allen (34:35)
One one it was making a decision that so there there was a realization I had that if so I'm responsible for the outcomes here. And those outcomes are responsible for the success of all of the families and the team members involved in the business. And so I have to I have to protect that at all costs. And so
I mean I I had to kind of separate that thought from like letting go of and causing like one person harm. Right. And it was like I can't harm I can't harm the the the whole thing. You know, it's much better to let one person go to keep this thing safe than to ⁓ you know, continue to harm this and put everyone in jeopardy by having the wrong leader or the wrong employee on the boat. Right. And so Yeah, and when you say
Jeff Holman (35:25)
And
maintaining the same l call it lower level of performance, is that is that the type of harm you're ⁓ talking about?
Drew Allen (35:48)
Yeah, I mean it's usually not so right. Yeah, it's not usually bl it's actually the blatant stuff is the easiest stuff to let people go for. It's the it's the person who's like the good dude who's trying his best, but it's just the best is just not what the expectation is. Yeah. Right. And that's the hard ones to let go. So it was like, okay, there there's there's that piece. Second
Jeff Holman (35:51)
It's not blatant.
Drew Allen (36:14)
We're going to put a stake in the ground of an excellence level of performance. Right. We're we're not we we wanna have a high growth business and we're gonna optimize for people who wanna be involved in a high growth business. And we wanna be a rocket ship. ⁓ because ultimately if you have more energy, ⁓ if you if you're coming out with new products, it's just better to have people who are energized by that vision because you attract much, much better people.
And so, you know, we put the stake in the ground and we started to attract that type of talent. And every time that we would hire someone, we kind of like step it up a little bit and then step it up a little bit and step it up a little bit. ⁓ and now, you know, really, really incredibly happy with where the team's at. But that took years. And and it's it starts at the leadership team, but then it it trickles down to all the rest of the organization, right? You've got to get, you know, your engineering teams on board, your production teams on board, you got to get your sales and your BDs on board, you got to get your customer service team.
I mean, when you're when you're rolling through a transformation, a lot of the people that you selected, you know, in the past, pre-transformation, would now have to re-enter through a different selection criteria, if that makes sense. Right. And so if if those people can't make the selection criteria today, then they're not gonna be able to kind of tran not be able to go through the transformation. And so
I think it's pretty typical when you're transforming a business that you're gonna you're gonna lose a, you know, a a relatively high percentage of your of your individuals. ⁓ and I think you need to make you need to be damn sure that before you embark on that transformation journey, that that is what you're prepared to do. I'm a big proponent of like, you know, making sure that you know why you're making the choice and knowing that.
You made that choice and that this is part of that choice. Some people like just act like, I'm gonna make a choice and it's not on me. Like if this stuff th now life is happening to me. Like I didn't I didn't sign up for this. And it's like, no, if you if you make this transformation choice, this is what you're signing up for.
Jeff Holman (38:24)
You sign up for the you sign up for the the action and the consequences of the action, right? Hey, w we're I'm really curious. ⁓ were you did you have a team around you to help with this? Or was this something it w so it's so it wasn't something where you went into this saying, ⁓ my gosh, I'm kinda I kind of feel like I'm surrounded by people that aren't the right people and I'm all in actuality alone in in the purpose. That you you didn't go through that type of
type of thing where you felt like you were the one having to carry this burden to make the full transition. Who was around you?
Drew Allen (39:00)
So I've I have three independent groups that have all played a role in this. Number one are board of directors. So I have an outside fiduciary. I'm, you know, I'm the majority own owner, family family owned business, but I hired a fiduciary board of directors to be able to push me and refine my ideas and my concepts. And they're highly qualified.
Jeff Holman (39:22)
So so these aren't like VC investors or or outside these are these are just hired or or engaged, we'll call engaged, whether they're paid or not. They're engaged to help you perceive how the business is doing and ⁓ implement these types of changes.
Drew Allen (39:37)
Yep. And we pay them. ⁓ and and you know, actively recruit for the best that we can get. Yeah. ⁓ second is I have a ⁓ I joined YPO ⁓ right after I became CEO ⁓ in twenty twenty-one. And with YPO, there always comes a forum. ⁓ and so
⁓ we we meet on a monthly basis. And so I've got like, let's call them my own personal board of directors, but they know everything about me and the business and they speak into my life and challenge me. ⁓ and you know, really, you know, help me through any sort of these difficult times and choices because we all come from things with different experiences and we've all had different experiences, and so we get to share from that. ⁓ highly recommend if your business qualifies get into YPO.
I'm currently the learning officer, so I'm planning all the stuff for next year. so it's been that's been a huge part of my life and the connections I've made through IPO, not just not just in my forum, but in my chapter and on the international level, is you know, I I can I can literally put out a post with some problem I'm having and I'll have five people answer me in five minutes. Hey, I had I this happened to me last year, would love to help on the phone call, let you know what happened.
You know, so that's an incredible community, right? So community is kind of number two. Number three is I also hired an executive coaching team. And so ⁓ we've got a I I started off with looking for an executive coach actually for my CTO. And then as I got into the process, I said, Well, I think I need a coach. And I think why is it just gonna be me and my CTO with the coach? We should I should have the whole leadership team coached.
So we make a substantial investment every year into leadership coaching, a, you know, yearly off sites with personal development. I, you know, I'm constantly I'm always willing to send people onto ⁓ things that I think are going to develop them. I sent our sales director off to one of Jocko's programs recently. And so he was getting to wake up at four thirty and go do PT with them. ⁓ you know, and and those I I really think that those have been three major keys in kind of our development as a company and me as a leader.
Jeff Holman (41:49)
Yeah. And so those helped you ⁓ with perspectives and approaches and maybe even some language at times to to address this this whole leadership change. It's interesting though that you know, that you're able to go outside the business to help I always find this interesting, right? You go outside the business to find the help that you need inside the business because it's hard sometimes to go inside the business to the people who are already so close around you that
you would hope to be able to rely on, but in in some cases they're they're just not the right fit, right? Or or the issues are kind of not their issues and so
Drew Allen (42:28)
Right. And they're they're just they're they're they're seeing it from their own perspective inside. Yeah. Right. And they and if if they knew how to have solved the problem, like if they had already seen the problem solved, they would have let you know. Right. You know, it's like it wouldn't be a problem that's bubbling up. But usually when you have a problem that's you you can't resolve in your company, it's because no one's had experience dealing with that problem yet.
Jeff Holman (42:42)
Yeah, yeah.
It's i the unknown unknown because of the people that you've got on your team, whereas the people outside have seen it and they're like, Well, no, I that's not an unknown. That's that's a known. You just your team just isn't isn't qualified or hasn't seen that issue before. What's the biggest what was kind of the biggest obstacle as you transitioned your team? ⁓ because I think there's a lot of this is a issue that a lot of companies go through at some stage, either that's because they've performance has faltered or the markets have shifted or
Drew Allen (43:07)
Yeah, exactly.
Jeff Holman (43:20)
You know, d different different ⁓ call it investors or influential, you know, people in the business have come in and said, Hey, we gotta we gotta shake this up or in your case, you know, maybe part of it is transition, you know, ⁓ succession transitions happen. What when you when you did this, was it just generally the the issue was, hey, we gotta do it right, or were there any specific obstacles that you ran into? And if so, how did you manage those?
Drew Allen (43:48)
Really hard to find the we we run a really sophisticated sales operation. and I came up through the sales operation and you know I I put in kind of that level of sophistication. And it was one of the most challenging pieces to to get right was actually hiring people to manage that. ⁓ and partly because salespeople are really good at interviewing.
Mm-hmm. Right. And so just because they're good at interviewing does not mean that they're going to be ⁓ you know, ⁓ a great sales leader. Yeah. Execution. And and at the time we didn't have the internal folks ⁓ mature enough to be able to take over the sales leadership. And so we we went to kind of some outside parties and it just didn't it just did not work for for
you know, a a lack of attention to detail, lack of inf you know, enforcing kind of the sales process or knowing how to use the tools, you know, an understanding of the complexity of our sales environment. You know, there was just a lot of r you know, and so I ended up promoting someone internally to take over that, which has now been a great move, but we're continuing to kind of, you know, bolster his leadership ability as well. ⁓ so that
Jeff Holman (45:07)
It's the coaching team for for all of the leaders.
Drew Allen (45:09)
Right, right. ⁓ and so that that was a really that was one of the strongest challenges. Then then building out a a engineering team here in Davenport, especially electrical engineering and firmware was incredibly challenging. ⁓ and and so what would happen is is as we have projects come on and we need engineering talent, well, my CTO would continue to drop in as an individual contributor, you know, and he was getting he was just getting buried.
And his anxiety was through the roof, which, you know, you know, and it we just weren't able to hire. ⁓ especially in 21 and 22, it was really, really hard to get technical talent. and so so that just led to a ton of stress and you know, missed missed project deadlines and and things like that. And so, you know, that's part of our move to Austin is we we want to be able to have a secondary talent hub.
⁓ for engineering and ⁓ sales talent down there. ⁓ and you know, we're gonna continue to produce here in Iowa and we'll continue to hire in both locations. but ultimately we'll we'll probably have, you know, two kind of engineering centers and sales areas. ⁓ so I th those were like the two biggest ones that that that took the most amount of most amount of effort and just felt like for ages we weren't getting right. Yeah. You know, and it was like it was like
Jeff Holman (46:34)
Yeah.
Drew Allen (46:36)
Just having that vision of like, okay, it's we're gonna get there, we're gonna get there. And then eventually a piece falls in, you know, one piece falls into place and then the next piece, and then all of a sudden you're like, ⁓
Jeff Holman (46:46)
What what was one of those pieces, for example, with with one of these two like like how did you did you r like view the problem from a different angle after one of your, you know, thinking walks or did you like like or was it just a matter of time and you had to wait until wait until i the right thing came along and and then it worked?
Drew Allen (47:05)
We we aggressively recruited. Okay. we aggressively recruited in the in the engineering piece. And then we also aggressively expand our internship program ⁓ at Iowa State, which gave us a lot of way more talented than you would think college students. Because they because these the the type of people that we want to create into the or attract into the engineering environment are creators. Are people who they don't want to go work at the
big company and only work on this like one little finite little piece of something, right? We want someone who wants to come work on a whole product. And so these people came in with a lot of energy and we've had some, and and so while the team was incredibly junior, they were actually really good. ⁓ and then we got a couple senior leaders hired as well in the engineering department that just changed the game. And that was, you know, through really aggressive recruiting. And so
I'm a big proponent of like focusing on the bottleneck. And at that point in the company's history, the bottleneck was engineering development. Right. And and what why was engineering development bottleneck? Because my engineering recruiting sucked. Yeah. Right. So I put really a ton of energy into engineering recruiting to get that unlocked so that we had the right products to be able to go out and sell and be able to bliss the market. And then, you know, obviously then sales kind of became the bottleneck. And so really focusing in on the talent.
⁓ the the talent there and the leadership and making sure that, you know, we're running, you know, running the right kind of channel programs and sales processes and all that kind of stuff. I mean, sales is always a work in progress, but we're in a much better position than we used to be.
Jeff Holman (48:43)
Yeah. Well well, I mean it's exciting to come up with solutions for these types of things and and see the the incremental steps as you as you go. ⁓ where do you think that these types of moves are gonna put your company in the next three to five years?
Drew Allen (48:57)
Yeah. So we have been aggressively expanding into the data center space. ⁓ and the data center space is probably multiples of our existing business. Yeah. and so, you know, in the next three years, I put the challenge as the team, we want to hit a hundred million dollars. ⁓ and you know, a hundred million dollars though is a result. ⁓ you know, ultimately we're after zero harm, zero downtime.
And facilities. And we you know, we think if we enable that and and really get our technology deployed at a lot of places, ⁓ that we can, you know, that a hundred million dollars is an easy result of us meeting our goals on enabling zero harm and zero down time across industrial and data center facilities. And
Jeff Holman (49:45)
Interesting.
And and with that field growing so fast as it is, you know, that's a that's that's a real positive for the for the goal too.
Drew Allen (49:54)
Yeah, I mean and and and the safety issues are real. ⁓ and and so at our company, it's really cool that like we actually save people's lives. Like not every company can say that. So our products, ⁓ some of our main product lines actually prevent people from getting ⁓ electrocuted or by ⁓ getting kind of blown apart by a thing called arc flash. So arc flash is a electrical explosion.
Jeff Holman (50:05)
What do you what do you mean by that?
Drew Allen (50:22)
you know, with like liquid plasma and and shrapnel and I mean it's like a bomb goes off in a substation or swish gear ⁓ as people are working in there. And so we we create solutions that keep people away from all that harm and hazard.
Jeff Holman (50:35)
Well. So there's there's real direct impact there in addition to the in addition to running the business and all doing all the other things.
Drew Allen (50:43)
Yeah. And so it's like, yeah, we want people to like go home at the end of the day. And so it's really it's really easy to keep a team energized when you have that as like your guiding star of like, hey, these devices get installed, risk goes down, people go home at the end of the day. Like everyone's behind that.
Jeff Holman (50:59)
That's fantastic. Well, ⁓ Drew, this has been this has been really interesting talking with you. I'm taking away a bunch of nuggets of of insights for myself, and I'm sure our audience is is doing the same thing. what would you say you're leaning into to achieve that hundred billion dollar goal over the next, you know, f three to five years or whatever timeline that I think you said three years maybe, but what would what what are you leaning into as a leader that other people might want to think about in their own businesses?
Drew Allen (51:28)
Ownership. ⁓ you know, I I I I want I want to have people empowered and feel like they own this thing. and, you know, I I think Jocko's book is fantastic, kind of on that subject. ⁓ and you know, really like what what does it mean to take ownership? It means like, no, this is this is my baby and I'm I'm gonna do everything. I'm gonna bleed to make sure that this thing goes well. And having a team that operates with extreme ownership, I think is
⁓ is really rare and unique. ⁓ and I I've been really impressed with how the team has taken it. And when when people take ownership of things, they take it a lot further than you would have to ever taken it your yourself. Right. Because you're you're always if if you're sitting in my seat, you've always got 12 different priorities underneath you, right? And so I can't devote all the time that one person could to that one priority. But if I can get one person to vote their full time.
focus to one priority, ultimately it's a lot better than a twelfth of my focus and attention span. Right. And and so I think like that's really the trick in leadership. ⁓ you know, I also want to we have been in a really, really busy season of product development. ⁓ and so we've got a lot of new product development projects that have either wrapped earlier this year or are going to wrap by the fall. And so it's
Great because we got all this new product coming out and you know, we're going out and selling it and it's scaling and that's really cool. But we actually get to for the first time kind of sit down with like an empty sheet of paper and be like, how do we want to create the future? Like, what's the future that we want to create? What is the product offerings? Like we we have amazing engineering teams that want to work on stuff. What excites them to work on? You know, and and we haven't had that moment for a a ⁓ large number of years.
Jeff Holman (53:19)
Yeah.
Drew Allen (53:25)
And you know, so I really enjoy these like long form kind of I I wouldn't call them brainstorming ideas. I would call them like engineering sessions. Like let's engineer a solution together. And that's been really, really fun. And I think we're gonna have some cool stuff coming out, not not this year from that, but probably next year, ⁓ that will really set us on a different gross trajectory.
Jeff Holman (53:48)
that's cool. Fun fun times ahead. That that's what that sounds like to me.
Drew Allen (53:54)
Yeah, I know it's it's it's it's always you gotta keep it interesting. Keep it interesting, keep it fun.
Jeff Holman (53:59)
Very cool. Well, thank you so much for coming onto the show, ⁓ sharing your experiences and insights. It really has been a pleasure ⁓ listening to the stuff you've shared. And I'm sure there's ⁓ many, many, many other stories behind those too.
Drew Allen (54:13)
More than I wish to more than I wish to talk.
Jeff Holman (54:17)
Maybe another episode. Absolutely. Well, and thanks to our our audience out there listening to this episode. ⁓ we're always glad that you that you listen, that you come and hear what's being shared, and ⁓ hope you can take away some things to apply to your own businesses and ⁓ understand that you're not alone in the journey, you're just ⁓ maybe at a different stage than somebody else. So thanks for joining us again on the breakout CEO. Be sure to follow or subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And if you enjoy the show.
A rating or a review goes a long way. Our mission is to promote the stories of breakout CEOs in scaling SaaS, e-commerce, and tech companies, to equip peer CEOs with valuable perspectives and confidence. Thanks again for joining us on this episode of the Breakout CEO. I'm Jeff Holman, and I'll see you next time.
