Are You the CEO Limiting Your Company's Growth?

TRANSCRIPT SUMMARY:

00:00:00 Introduction and CEO Journey
00:04:00 Building a Family Business
00:06:00 Founding Mint Energy
00:09:00 Leadership Lessons and Growth
00:12:00 Vision, Adaptability, and Execution
00:15:00 Customer Development Over Product
00:18:00 Creativity and Business Leadership
00:21:00 Learning From Business Mistakes
00:24:00 Family, Business, and Relationships
00:30:00 Leadership Challenges After COVID
00:38:00 Evolving Into a Better CEO
00:48:00 Personal Growth and Leadership

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Derek Hansen (00:00)

Am I the limiting factor to this company? I was questioning, I gotta go recruit a CEO, right? The breakthrough for me was recognizing that I am not a static thing. I had to become a pilot that was good at flying by instruments.

Jeff Holman (00:12)

Welcome back, everybody, to the Breakout CEO podcast. I'm your host host, Jeff Holman. I'm with Intellectual Strategies. We're a law firm who works with CEOs of cool companies, and we can't tell you their stories, although we see a lot of them behind the scenes. And so, since we you have to keep their stuff confidential, we bring you other CEOs who are willing to share some of their insights, their experiences and expertise with us and with you, and get to see a little bit behind the scenes how they think and some of the breakout moments that they've had in their business.

Today I'm excited to bring you Derek Hansen with Mint. Uh Derek, welcome to the show.

Derek Hansen (00:44)

Hey, thanks, Jeff. Pleasure to be here. Yeah.

Jeff Holman (00:46)

I am I'm so excited. We just finished our our icebreaker segment. Hopefully the audience has listened to that. Um that went a little longer than normal because you've got a ton of great stuff to say about uh about a lot of things. And a lot of it, of course, you carries into business. So I'm excited to get into some of that stuff as we go. Um, but before I jump back into it, don't let me get ahead of myself because I I really want to get back to some of that conversation. But before I jump back into that, I want to give everybody a a little bit more context around, you know, kind of who you are.

who mint is, what the business does and how you got to the point that you're at right now. So um I'll let you I'll let you start wherever you want to start with that type of information.

Derek Hansen (01:27)

Yeah, sure. I'll start at beginning. Uh as bad as far back as I can remember. Um, you know, my my my dad was entrepreneurial. Uh both parents um started a company when I was uh about a year old. Um they just had had enough of trying to y ye you know find their way through corporate, you know, America and uh Yeah. Sick.

Jeff Holman (01:47)

And they started they started together? Yeah. Yeah. that's fantastic.

Derek Hansen (01:51)

And that that'll tie into the the the future of this company as I as we get into it. Okay.

And so I grew up around business. It was a small business, um, in in a kind of a niche space and in the glazing industry. Uh, but I grew up watching my parents, you know, our our dinner conversations were yes, about my soccer game, but also I was here listening in and hearing a lot about yeah challenges and victories of of of small business. Uh and um, you know, my dad's goal was to create a lifestyle company where he could enjoy free time with myself and my brother and take us on trips when he wanted to and just do well enough to have a good life. Um

It grew to a certain extent through that mindset. Um I uh I dropped out of college my first first year. Uh just couldn't sit in class any longer. Just couldn't do it. I'm you know, now I'm now realizing, you know, that they didn't have the diagnosis as as as clearly uh back then as they do now. But it clearly ADHD and clearly it turns out I'm dyslexic. school was not the the place for me. I you know, I thrived in certain classes in certain areas, but

really just sitting still all day was not not for me. Um and so I went into business or went in you know, went out and got into the trades. I studied architecture in school and that was one of the the the the um you know one of the um classes that I really loved and and had started down that path in in college. But I had interned for an architecture firm and I it wasn't the Frank Lloyd Wright creative mm you know masterpieces that I thought it would be. It was a lot of code compliance and you know, yep all the wants and wishes of of clients and

And it just wasn't what I thought it would be. And so I left to go into the building uh industry and got into into construction. And after doing that for a while, my dad said, Hey, if you're gonna go, you know, go be out there working, you might as well come work and help us grow this company. Yeah. And he recruited me back into the the company that he he was running, that both parents were running. And um and I kind of know my dad being old school, he started me at the very bottom and I worked my way uh up over the series of, you know, uh advancements and over, you know, c almost two decades.

To where I ended up in a in a leadership role and eventually CEO of that company and my goal was to grow it significantly so that it was a sellable business. Um and uh eventually we got there. but in

Jeff Holman (04:01)

What is that company? What do they do?

Derek Hansen (04:03)

it was aftermarket coatings and and and like kind of high performance glazing technology. So looking at building envelope, it was it it did end up it didn't start this way, but it ended up becoming much more of an energy efficiency play.

reducing the thermal load on buildings, um, which then reduced the electrical consumption around HVAC um cooling. and so we began to s you know, in in the later years we were selling very heavily on on ROI and, you know, all the efficiency kind of uh components, um, which led us into working for some of the larger Esco companies, energy services companies like Chevron Energy and, you know, Trains Energy, uh you know, uh Esco Division.

Which gave me a l a a viewpoint into the broader s uh energy market, right? And and understanding that from an inside out viewpoint, because I was a component of their suite of technologies they were bringing to their clients. And so that got me thinking about where the market was headed um and what was what was coming. Um I tend to do a lot of with the weird dyslexic brain that I have, I I can, you know, take kind of disparate data points and map that into some meaningful future uh thesis and

I had one around where energy was going, and in regard to building science and and um I I began working on the business model that became this company, Mint, eventually. Um my goal was to kind of bolt on a new function for my dad's company, but it just the bones of the company wouldn't allow that kind of growth and that kind of dis uh like uh departure from their core model. Yeah, yeah. Just would have broke it. So long story short, um I eventually resigned my position as CEO there.

my brother stepped in um and I helped them sell that company while I started up Mint. Mint is focused uh as it started as a fully turnkey energy efficiency company, inclusive of renewable energy, focused on the mid market industrial space, commercial industrial space, um, which was at the time and still is the most underserved space in the market around energy efficiency, which is you've got class A buildings, you know, the Google.

campuses and Facebook and whatever that are they're all doing all the smartest stuff possible. And then yeah, down at the bottom you've got residential, which is, you know, they have a lot of information on what's possible and building code drives a lot of efficiency. And so but there's these existing building stock that is the mid mid market space that was just completely underserved. It just wasn't big enough to really have the the capex to go after, you know, ambitious clean energy projects and and also just didn't have the staffing and and and know how to get it done. And

Things have evolved a lot in the last 15 years, but that was our focus, how to bring energy services to the middle market space. Over time, uh, we realized that inside the walls versus outside the walls were two totally different business models. And so we chose to focus more heavily on what I thought was going to be the most expensive uh space, which was, you know, renewables. So ultimately solar and battery storage, some other technologies, in, you know, controls and things like that. But ultimately that's what we

didn't pivot but just kind of evolved more more heavily into. So the last, you know, the last ten, twelve years have been us be really working hard on being a vertically integrated developer, engineer, and contractor delivering turnkey clean energy projects to the uh again, that middle market industrial uh space.

Jeff Holman (07:27)

Is that a d design build model then where you you guys have the you guys have the team to to you know, plan it, develop it, uh architect it if I can use that word.

Derek Hansen (07:36)

Yeah, it yeah, it did get a little bit more nuanced in it. Like, you know, what it was is that our f everybody was out there talking to the businesses that inhabited the buildings. Here's the problem, right? They don't own the building. So you're presenting them a multi million dollar, you know, project that's gonna save them a bunch of money, but they're like, we don't own the building, so we can't, you know, we can't do that. And then, you know, there was the idea that building owners were like, Why would I invest all this capital on something that's just gonna drive savings to my tenant? You know, there's no real value in it for me.

So the real work was in figuring out how to incentivize both sides of that equation um to where the deal could get done. And so we focused very heavily on bringing clean energy as a design build function to real estate owners and investors. They have the capital, they are by nature investors, they love looking at new opportunities to juice up their their existing investments. Yeah. it just needed to be figured out how to create some value to the tenant by and also drive a really strong yield on invested capital for the

from the owners. And so that was really our focus and has been and that's led us to where we are now.

Jeff Holman (08:37)

Cool. I'm excited to get back into get into that here shortly. Uh I'm curious though, uh from your from your experience uh leading the the coatings business, the glazing coatings business as CEO, uh are there are there a few lessons from that experience that have helped define how you how how you um lead your company now?

Derek Hansen (08:59)

Yeah. a couple big ones come to mind right off the bat. One is that you gotta begin very early investing, spot the sparkles, right? The in in your teams. Look for those that have leadership quality or have the the idea or the the maybe the the willingness to to look into leadership and develop them. Really pour into them, grow them because the limiting factor to any company's growth growth is is the capacity at the leadership level, right? So if you're not creating layers of leadership.

Where there's an interdependence between teams and teammates and there's always a training and train the trainer kind of model baked in, uh, you will hit a ceiling at some point. And so looking back, we didn't do enough. I I I didn't know enough. I was young, uh, in how to invest in that next layer of leadership. and what does that look like and how to do it. Uh second lesson was, you know, you're only gonna get as big as you can imagine, you know, or as big as you intend to. Yeah. And we just had small thinking, um, or small smaller thinking.

So when we started this company, I I really sat down and said, you know, I want to begin with the end in mind. Where do I want this company to be? And I had some really big goals when we started the company. No cash. No, I mean, anybody that would have looked at those goals would have said, You're out of your mind. I've hit every one of those goals in last 15 years. wow. And it's by just just looking at where you want to, you know, begin with the end in mind means not just knowing where you want to go, uh and not necessarily worrying about how to get there, but just knowing where what winning looks like.

But then also understanding that you're gonna have to develop leadership along the way because at some point you can't get to that next level if there isn't somebody supporting how to backfill you so that you can elevate yourself as a as a leader, founder, CEO, whatever your role might be. And so um that that those two lessons I think have done well. There's many more, but those those two were really, really powerful for me.

Jeff Holman (10:48)

I I love that. And just to repeat the phrase that I think I heard, spot the sparkles, was uh developing the the next layer of leadership. when you talk about um when you talk about having the end in mind and and looking for that big vision, uh I'm curious because I I run into leaders who talk about that and they're like, hey, you gotta have the end in mind, you gotta you gotta see the big picture, you gotta have, you know, your B Hag or whatever you wanna call it. Um but getting from here to there.

is is a stepwise process, right? Wha how do you think of of of taking your your big vision and uh and developing out the first steps on that journey?

Derek Hansen (11:28)

Yeah, I think that gosh, there's a lot of techniques for this. Um mine is a little bit maybe more uh abstract or esoteric in in in I guess in that it's less so I think there's some people that start companies that have an engineering type mind and they're really gonna be granular and really break things down. Here's where we need to be in quarter of you know, first quarter of next year, here's where we need to be there. And and I'm a little bit more of

A little bit more of go with the the go with the flow a little bit, be iterative, allow for adaption, right? Allow for market change, be a be able to adjust. So stay light enough and loose enough on your feet to where you can actually f read the tea leaves a little bit about where the market's going, where the economy's going. Uh, you know, the things change that can up uh things that can impact business, changes that can impact business that are outside your control. If you can't control it, you have to be adaptable to it. And so for me, it's a little bit like.

Am I directionally on course? Does what I'm doing have an accretive value? So if if this next quarter isn't necessarily winning that goal, but it is, it is a something that I could say is a foundational piece to allow me to then re kind of reevaluate what moving into the next phase looks like, that's good enough for me. So it's a little bit of a reverse engineering of the outcome that I'm into. Um, but it's also just, am I?

If I look on the compass, am I directionally north? You know, am I headed in that direction? Uh, but yet staying adaptable enough to be able to kind of weather some of the external uh pressures that can come out of business when you're small and uh undercapitalized and understaffed and all the things that everybody in startup traditionally has to deal with at some point or another. Uh and then I will also say there's a there's a something that I remind myself of of frequently, which is nothing ever lost, only gained, is whatever I'm doing today gonna be a creative.

To whatever it is that I intend to be doing tomorrow, right? And so if if I'm looking at what we're doing today as having no real material value to where I think we need to be next year, then I'm off course. If I'm saying even though this isn't actually where we'll be next year, does this bring value with it there? Does there is there some intellectual capital that carries forward? Is there some precedence? Is there some case study? Is there some something that is bringing kind of again raising that bar towards that directional?

Jeff Holman (13:50)

Yeah, th that I mean it sounds sounds to me like it signals an action, which which when we talked earlier uh in the icebreaker segment, you mentioned just a a tendency toward action, which uh so that that that that to me um because I uh I work with a lot of innovators who come from the engineering side, and and I will say having an engineering background myself, sometimes I wonder if if in over engineering is part of the problem, right? We're like

Well, I want to see the whole picture. I want to get the whole system set up from here to, you know, exit. And and if we can't do that, we we get a little bit stalled and we're like, I don't know. I don't have the full picture. I don't want to move yet. And so

Derek Hansen (14:28)

I'll tell you a story. I I I read it's funny because you you know, there's things that we know inherently maybe, but we don't we have we really haven't contextualized them. I read this I used to read before I started the company, I was reading Inc. magazine like it was the Bible, right? Just reading stories about entrepreneurs and success and so on. And by the way, that was one of my goals was to make it to the Inc. five thousand list. Um and uh and you know, now we've been on it four or five times. Uh

Jeff Holman (14:52)

So

Derek Hansen (14:52)

but thanks.

but w what it uh w one of the stories I read was the distinction between the customer development model and the product development model. Engineers tend to look at whether even if you are a services business, they tend to look at uh at whatever they're doing as a product. We have to fully bake this thing. The idea being that like you go into the lab and you're gonna work with as many smart people as you can get to figure out what the optimum thing is that the market really needs or the space you're in. What is that thing that just crushes? And then it's a function of how do we get that out to market as quickly and as broadly as we can. Um, that's one

One model. The customer development model is to say we have an idea of what we think the market needs. Let's go out and build the customer base. Let's go get out there and start talking and give them what the a version of what we're doing, but also a version of what they want and need. And what that allows for is a lot of iteration. It's hard to do because it's it's it's very c cost intensive, right? In that you're always re-jiggering and rethinking and like innovating, you know.

Jeff Holman (15:46)

It's ambiguous. You're like, I don't know if I'm I don't know if this is the right thing. So

Derek Hansen (15:50)

Hey, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go do the right thing for this particular engagement. Yeah. Even though that may be different on the next one, right? But something in this one teaches us about the next one. And so again, it's very evolutionary and iterative and it's intense. Um, but what it allows you to do is learn from the market in real time. And so it's it it's it just having that the creating that distinction early days for me was huge. And that I've always focused on that customer development model as opposed to a product development model, in that.

Yes, we have productized our services to some extent or or to to a large extent over time. We still have that ethos here, even though we're a much larger company, in that we're always willing to say, where is the market right now? What does that customer base really need? What is it that they don't know they need? How do we bake that in and how do we bring that to market? And it may be different three years from now. And certainly we're in that right now where there's a huge shift from a need for solar being put on the grid to a need for storage of energy to be put on the grid.

In California here, we have more than enough solar on the grid in the middle of the day, and that's one of the challenges. Yeah. That it's being wasted to some extent. So how do we store that and create a a more usable uh energy source? So being able to kind of evolve or not pivot, but kind of evolve things is is really valuable. and it's served us well. but again, it's it's not for everybody. And I think to your point,

We were talking earlier in the previous segment, you know, I'm an artist and you I'm and that's the way my brain works and and I'm not necessarily an engineer. Um, not at all an engineer. And yet those two things have different approaches to market and neither one's wrong or right. It's just know which one you're you're you know, you're employing.

Jeff Holman (17:25)

I love it. You you mentioned that you as an artist that you're doing you're getting back into painting, maybe some abstract paintings, th things like that. Acrylic on canvas, if I'm if I'm not mistaken. Which makes me wonder, do you approach uh and do most artists approach their art the same way? It's kinda like, well, I have this general idea and I'm gonna start putting paint on the canvas and see what happens. Or is it, hey, I've got this idea and I I've gotta actually plan out and maybe pencil out and what I'm gonna do.

Again, neither neither one is right or wrong and I'm not an artist, so I don't know what's what's most prevalent, but i is there some analogy there?

Derek Hansen (18:01)

Yeah, there is, man. I I agree. Uh that's a great analogy. I will go do I'll have a rough idea of what I want that thing to be or what I'm intending to create. Um and I might rough it out a little bit on a pad and maybe put some marks on the canvas before I bring paint to it. But ultimately I gotta get rock and roll with that paint and see where it takes me. Um and in the thing becomes its own living, you know, breathe it's speaking to me as much as I'm kind of bringing what I my my thoughts to it. And it's this kind of uh yeah, it's a very

uh fluid kind of process for me. uh

Jeff Holman (18:33)

you're not pulling out your ruler and like getting measurements and you're not putting like uh CKMY or whatever the c color color codes on there saying well this like

Derek Hansen (18:41)

Right. No, that's not how I do it. Right. So I not to say that that I think there's probably brilliant work that's being done that way. it's more so that that that yeah, that speaks to the the dip different mindsets for sure. Um and yeah, I'm much more of like there's a big picture intention. Here's what I what I s in my mind's eye, what I see, very much what happened with this company. This is my mind's eye. I have a vision for where this company's gonna be. I can give you a rough v you know, description of that. Um I can map it forward in some milestones and things like that, but

Ultimately, I need to get in there and get to get to work and see where it takes us and see what happens and see what some of the things what are the things I don't know, you know, um, what are the things that we need to learn along the way? Uh and that in art is the same thing. Like I, you know, I just completed something the other day where it it took on a life of its own. It turned out better than I imagined it would, but it was um but it was just kind of in real time. It was just happening as I was there. And that's the experience that I really love. It's also part of building teams within business, right? Is letting

some of the energy that new life, you know, new people bring into the company and let that be part of that evolution of the company. Uh as opposed to this is the box that we need to fill. We got to find the right person to fill that box. I always spent my time looking for A plus players, figuring out where they might fit in the company and pulling them into that and then maybe adjusting their role over time to where they were spending 80% of their time living within their superpower. Yeah. you know, that really served us well.

uh two. So um again, it's a little bit more of a kind of creative abstract approach.

Jeff Holman (20:15)

With that approach, w how do you how do you view what some people might call mistakes or we'll just call it, you know, just um unexpected unexpected outcomes. You're like, Hey, I was doing this and all of a sudden it didn't work. Like what do you have a do you have a view on that or you just roll with it? Like how do you how do you look at those?

Derek Hansen (20:32)

It's a little different now than it was, but not that different. I I guess um I think I mentioned it earlier, but nothing ever lost, only gained. You know, you've got to look at for every $10,000 mistake is probably a million dollar lesson, right? What are you gonna do with that? What did you learn? How do you capitalize on it? Yeah. Uh and so I think mistakes are great because there's something to be gained there. There's something to be learned now. If you have the mindset that's like, crap, that we really effed that up, like

I don't ever want to talk about that again. Let's hide that in the closet. Forget about it. That's a wasted opportunity. Um, if you go into business knowing that all you are doing is a series of good ideas and then mitigating risk around attempting to to achieve those those those ideas, um, you you find that that mistakes or challenges or problems or breakdowns are part of the journey and you have to embrace I personally feel like you have to embrace those. I don't wanna say that I relish mistakes. Um

But I do view them from a mindset of that's an opportunity for something, right? For learning, for growth, for again, maybe what we just learned has got a lot of value somewhere down the road. Um certainly in contracting it it does. Um, you know, wherever you miss something and it costs you money, it now that goes into the next contract as some

Jeff Holman (21:48)

That doesn't that doesn't sound like a like a scarcity mindset by any means.

Derek Hansen (21:53)

That's right.

That's right. It's it's the root is the abundance mindset or I like to contextualize it as the creative mindset versus the competitive mindset. The competitive mindset says, you know, we're just fighting over a finite whatever, winning oh whatever it is that we're we're looking for. And the c the creative mindset says like, hey, let's instead of fighting over slices of of one pie, let's let's let's figure out how to build an oven and bake as many pies as we want. You know, and so to some extent that abundance mindset leads into seeing mistakes as

not uh part of it also I think is the expectation. There's gonna be mistakes every day of the week. There are, small and large. Yeah. Yes, you want to mitigate the costly mistakes, get ahead of them, but typically you're getting ahead of them by using last year's mistakes as a learning experience to getting ahead of this year's what would have been this year's mistakes.

Jeff Holman (22:40)

That makes sense. What are as you've built Mint um up and you've you've got a a uh fairly sizable team, uh imagine revenues match the team. As you've built it, what are some of the milestones that you've hit along the way? Um and and what what's a moment that you ran where you feel like you ran into a wall eventually?

Derek Hansen (22:59)

I mean, I remember a day, early days, where, you know, you just it is certainly in service based business and contracting, cash flow is king. Um, and you know, if somebody laid on a payment, you know, when you're small, it it it could be how do we make payroll? You know, and I remember a day where I was on a running I've literally, you know, I would go from developing a deal, getting the deal done in a suit, and then you know

Three weeks later you'd see me on the job site running around, you know, pointing fingers and you know, kind of project managing that that job site. And I remember running a job site for a large hotel in the in the Bay Area. Um, and I I I got a call from from my wife who's our CFO still to this day. Um and she's like, Look, we're we're we're 100K short, you know, and and it's uh you know, it's it's like today's the day. Like you go you gotta find a hundred K.

Now, normally from a business development mindset, which is where I come from, has mostly been in business business development sales. You go figure out how to shake some trees and, you know, get a get a deposit on something or whatever, you know. And but I was in the mode of running running a project like a project manager. Uh and so I had to switch gears and I ended up just having to make a phone call to to our uh our investment team. Again, small couple guys that came together and put some money in. And I was like, look, here's this deal, man. I, you know, we're we're on the

You know, we're on the doorstep of death here without, yeah, I need a hundred thousand dollars for three days. Well and and he was able to to help us with that. Um and and I guess what I learned in that is there's always somebody there to help if you have the relationships. So relationships are king or paramount, um, you know, and you have to have that network and also you've got to be providing that value to where that ask has has there's a rationale for why the the answer would be yes.

And also within that breakdown was I need to have a war chest. Yeah. I don't want to do business this way anymore. And now, you know, fast forward to where, you know, I don't know, you know, how many, you know, we're doing you know, millions a day, you know what I mean? And so a hundred thousand dollars is not a thing. But it just it just goes to show that like there is always those breakpoints and what are you gonna do? I this is a question I think is worth asking. It's not what you do when things are going well. That's what a lot of CEOs spend our time on is

How do we get bigger? How do we get more efficient? How do we get faster? How do we increase the bottom line and the top line at the same time? But I also like to ask, what does it look like at the very worst case scenario? What would I do? What is the worst case scenario? Be very well acquainted with that. And what would I do in that in that moment? Um, and I think that that resilience and that fortitude to be able to ask those hard questions of yourself really goes a long way. Yeah.

Jeff Holman (25:44)

I I've referenced before on the show the the the saying that you to to find success you've got to look for your look for your uh look for your risks and figure out how to make sure those don't happen, right? So well so uh maybe a slight tangent here. You mentioned that your your parents work together in their business. You've just mentioned that your wife is your CFO. Uh I can relate very much to that. My wife took a little coaxing to get her in, but she she loves being in the business now. She she does operations and finance better than I ever did for our for our law firm.

Uh how do you find the how do you find that spouse working relationship and the and the balance or you know, w the semblance of balance uh that that you hopefully have?

Derek Hansen (26:25)

Semblance. Yeah. The the the illusion of balance. uh

Jeff Holman (26:28)

Illusion, that's a good word.

Derek Hansen (26:30)

No, it's it's been fantastic, right? Because you have a built-in trust that's already that

Jeff Holman (26:33)

Mm-hmm.

Derek Hansen (26:35)

takes time to develop with business partners. Um and so with with your spouse it's already there. Um I think you have to have the right combination of for us, uh Karina and I are so distinctly different. Um she is much more of that engineering type mind, she's in finance, she's all about risk mitigation. I'm all about big picture.

how you know, n how do we get there? What's that look like? It's all, you know, it's two different ends of the spectrum. We sit on two different ends of the office. Um and yet we come home at night and we talk business. Um as the kids came into the picture and they got old enough, you know, we started putting some limits on how much we talked about business. Um and so what we've hit evolved to now is we have a business slash, you know, date night that is a business, it's okay for us to talk business over dinner. Yeah. And we share our challenges and

fears and so successes and wins and you know and it's a fun time. Um, but the balance is tough. It it is. It's, you know, you come to find, at least at this stage, I've come to find that our life uh together is so much about business. And we care so deeply about this company. It's an extension of ourselves and it's our life's work. Yeah. And the team here is like like family to us. And uh, you know, and how do you draw that line? Well, I just said, what if you don't need to draw that?

This is going back a few years. I said, what if there isn't what if that's a what if the thing that hurts, the pain that we experience is wishing that it should be different, that there should be this distinction between here's life and here's business. And they're two separate things and they don't commingle. I said, wait, what if you could build a business that had a culture that was life is business and business is life and it's all okay? And that has created our uh our relationship understanding that business is life to us and life is business to us, and we do it's all the same thing and and our

My oldest son works for this company now. I mean, doesn't we don't see him. He doesn't report to any he reports, you know, levels down and what but he but he's in this company. And um and so it it is this thing that is feeding our lives and and and creating all of our dreams coming true and so on. And so why make it bad that it's there's this overlap, you know? And what if you embrace that? And so we have found that by not having this black and white kind of

distinction between the two has made it much more fun. So sometimes we'll have to say, Hey, is it okay if we don't talk business tonight? You know, the other one goes, Yeah, okay. You know, or, you know, hey, let's have a date night that's all about business. Let's just be able to have a glass of wine, you know, and and and just, you know, kick up our feet and and talk about all the things we don't get a chance to talk about at the office or whatever. And so that has served us really well. Um, is to just not necessarily make it a bad thing that there's just life is is work and work is life, you know.

Jeff Holman (29:18)

Has that has that changed how you think of fulfillment either in the business or or in your in your family life?

Derek Hansen (29:24)

Yeah. Um I think we're finding now that we're getting later in our careers that we are envisioning a little bit more of an arm's length from day to day. Um, which feels good, sounds good. A little bit more strategic working on the company as opposed to in the company, you know, those kind of things.

Jeff Holman (29:40)

No more no more supervisor on the job site days? Yeah.

Derek Hansen (29:42)

Those days are long gone. But yeah, it's and so fulfillment now comes a lot in terms of we, I think, have achieved what we more than we ever imagined for ourselves. So now it's like how many other lives can we impact in a positive way, both internally and externally, with this company? you know, how many of these podcasts where some somebody might gain some value or how many of our

you know, uh employees have, you know, we celebrate like crazy when there's a new baby born, you know, amongst the team, right? Or if somebody buys a new home, you know, we celebrate like crazy because this company was a part of making that possible for them. And and so that's become a big motivator for us. Always has been, but it's more so now. Um and I think it's just now shifted a little bit more to legacy. Like what does this company mean to the world? And what are we leaving behind? What's the our little mark that we left in the world with this thing?

Uh and so it's less about survival, it's less about how do we live out our personal drains and more so about like what does it look like for as you know, the positive impact we can leave for as many people as possible.

Jeff Holman (30:45)

What what sparked that? Um because you talked about early on, you know, you're just trying to you're trying to make the business work and survive and day to day. And now you're talking, you know, l legacy, impact, uh, you know, th things that are beyond your your day to day. How did how did you navigate the transition uh of those roles and those those uh I guess outcomes that you're searching for?

Derek Hansen (31:11)

Yeah, I c I guess the the shift for us, you're asking about how do you shift. I I think for me it was more of like um this idea that like if you can my leadership style, I've I really thought long and hard about like what is what is my leadership style? Like what you know, what does that look like? And it's just simply to inspire, empower, and then support. And so for me it it's all about like how am I how am I not just leaving a legacy with the company, but the people at the company.

And so for me, it became much more about how much success can we provide that's similar to ours to those that work and have dedicated themselves to this company. Um, and so it became the mission gets much more velocity when you think that way, right? And it and you know, you go from as much as you might have the abundance mindset early days in deeply, you know, embedded within you, but you still have some level of scarcity in that you just have to survive. Yeah. Or you just need to grow, or you just need to hit this mar you know, performance marker or whatever it might be. It's always kind of

Coming from not enough. We gotta do more. That's basically

Jeff Holman (32:08)

The practical aspects of the business dev never disappear, right?

Derek Hansen (32:10)

But

yeah, and that's always gonna be there. However, for us now it's a little bit more of like, if we're already winning, what does winning look like for as many people as possible? And it just be it gives this thing a whole lot more velocity. It's just like what we're already planning like six you th when you struck it into succession planning and all that, you know, stuff, it it gets it's a lot more fun to be honest.

Jeff Holman (32:30)

Well, if I can, you mentioned in the in the icebreaker questioning that that we did earlier, you mentioned something about a leadership breakdown. It it sounds like there was there was something deeper that kinda helped you or maybe prompted this shift. W Yeah. W how that was related to COVID or I think

Derek Hansen (32:47)

Yeah,

yeah. I mean, so that you know, I'm I c I came up again around a very free spirited, like entrepreneurial, you know, uh father who I admired as a hero uh my whole life. And, you know, he did things his way. He was not a huge rule follower, you know, he was very much like and so when the when the shutdowns happened, I I'm just one of those kind of very like in you know, kind of uh individual liberty kind of people, right? I just feel like, you know, uh and and it was just like it felt like the world it was just coming down around me.

And it was really hard to do business and we survived it through some really creative uh you know things that we did. But on a personal level, I just went through a a real emotional breakdown and and coming out of COVID, I went into some real deep introspection around like, well, you know, what is it like, what does this look like for me? Am I good enough to continue to grow this company and lead this company at the size and scale that it is?

uh, you know, and am I the right guy for this job still? You know, I maybe I'm just a founder and maybe I'm not really a CEO of a you know, kind of a s a scale, you know, kind of growth company or version of that. Um and through asking those questions and getting some humility around it and and really kind of saying, What what am I good enough? Am I the right guy?

Jeff Holman (33:59)

Yeah. Those aren't typical questions for uh or or maybe they maybe they are, but people don't voice those, right? You you don't hear a lot of other CEOs saying You don't guess maybe I'm not the CEO for this.

Derek Hansen (34:09)

You

know? Yeah, I I actually did get a few of my top team together and and say, Hey, look at this is what I'm questioning. You know, am I the right guy for this job? And I need feedback. And I actually

Jeff Holman (34:18)

Three six did you uh and were they were they surprised by that type of questioning?

Derek Hansen (34:23)

No, I mean, they know me well enough to know that I'm the kind of person that would ask that kind of question. Okay. But but no, I mean, you have to have a certain amount amount of hubris and and ego to do this job, I think, to kind of put yourself out there to to try to create something big and meaningful. Um, and to go introspective and to question, Am I enough? Am I good enough? I was in a bit of a a a shaky place, you know, and I and I was asking that from a from a standpoint of a greater love for the company than I had for my own, you know, identity, I guess.

And I some of what we were talking about earlier was that I came to conclude that the break down was the world kind of crashing down around me. I did everything I could to keep the company alive through COVID shutdowns, came out of it, uh, continued to grow, and then started asking myself, wow, am I this thing is really for whatever reason, we just really hit a an inflection point in growth. And I was going through a lot of personal challenge where I was like,

Can I do this? Am I really the right guy? Am I the limiting factor to this company? And the breakthrough for me was recognizing that I am not a static thing. This identity, what got me here, may not be the very thing that gets me where I want to go. And can I change? What would it look like to go how to ask myself, how do I become the guy that is good enough for this company?

Jeff Holman (35:43)

I don't want to skip too fast over this. I wonder if some of our listeners are saying themselves, I've been asking myself these same questions. I haven't vocalized them yet, but I'm wondering if I'm the right person. I'm wondering if I like like what what comes along with that? What would somebody if somebody's thinking these things, what are they feeling?

Derek Hansen (36:01)

I think I think that there's a few things, right? You could be feeling burnout. Um, you could be feeling somewhat unfulfilled, like you've reached some level that you thought was gonna make you happy and it's not. Um I think you could be up against, um, man, I've been doing twenty years of fifteen hour days and you know, what is this really what I want for myself? Or you could be looking at the company and seeing some breakdown, you know, s within within the company and saying, Okay, is is the culture

not as good as I thought it was. Do I, you know, that's an emanation of me, you know, ultimately leader. That's what leadership is. And so, you know, it's typically the breakdown that causes you to have to look carefully at what's wrong. And I'm one of those guys that believes in taking accountability for everything in my life. Right. Yeah. Even things that you could argue aren't my I didn't have anything to do with. I still like to take accountability for that.

Jeff Holman (36:48)

Yeah, like what could I have done you know, what where where could I

Derek Hansen (36:52)

Simply

saying I'm accountable for my experience, right? And and and so uh within that, I had to say, okay, so things aren't perfect, or I'm not quite happy, or I'm not fulfilled, or I can see that there's a little bit of questioning of where am I taking the company. And uh, you know, any it's not just one of those things could be enough, but if you have a few of them all at once, you know, I think if you're wise or you know, you care at all, you're gonna ask yourself, holy crap, am I am I doing a good enough job, or am I enough to do where

what this job requires. Um and and then and then that comes out of, you know, do I really want this? And so for me, those questions were the two big questions. Do I really want to continue? Maybe I am just a startup kind of first 10 years guy or first five years guy. Uh and do I really want to grow a company with lots and lots of employees that is, you know, I I the analogy I use is this up to a certain size plane, a good pilot can fly by sight, right? By field, by sight, you know,

You get to a big enough plane, man, you have to know how to fly by instrument. You can go into clouds, it could be night out, you still fly that plane. And company gets to that same stage where it it you need to be able to fly the plane based on the instruments, not not just by feel and by sight. I was really good. I was a really good pilot at flying by sight. I grew up around business, you know. Yeah. But I had to become a pilot that was good at flying by instrument. And that was the question I was asking myself. And dude, is that what I want for myself? Is that creative enough?

is it free enough? Um and uh and then the next question is am I good enough to do that? Am I that kind of pilot that could change from being a Cessna pilot to a 747 pilot? You know, and uh and so what I came to realize within those deep questions, and it was it was rough, man. I mean, we're talking therapy and meditation practice and you know, all the things that we do. And uh uh I came to, you know, to realize that I don't have to be

A static thing. There isn't just this Derek that I see myself as. It was that I could evolve along with the company. And what would it look like? So what I did is I drew out what is the perfect CEO for this company for the next five years? What are the characteristics? What are the behaviors? What are the decision making? You know, what does that look like? What is that leadership style? And I drew that out and I said, I gotta find that candidate. And then I said, I might as well throw my hat in the ring for that candidacy of that.

Jeff Holman (39:11)

Wait, wait, so you like did like a a forecast, you said what what are the qualities for of somebody who could lead this and I'll go look for them and maybe I'll

Derek Hansen (39:20)

'cause I was questioning I gotta go recruit a CEO, right? Yeah, yeah. And and I and I said, So what does that C I I just did that kind of matrix of what does that perfect CEO look like for this company for the next five years? And as I'm doing it, I said, Well, I might as well consider myself. I have a lot of I know this company pretty well.

Jeff Holman (39:38)

I'm a pretty I'm a pretty capable guy, even though I've been questioning

Derek Hansen (39:41)

for it, but I would have to become that, I'd have to be able to fulfill that role. And so what it did is it just kind of flipped things in my head. It was like a moment in time where I just kind of flipped and went, Wait, what would I have to do to become that? I'd have to self-educate. I'd have to start learning new practices. I'd have to start to understand business. What does scale look like? What you what does growth at a much faster, bigger level look like? And and what is the decision making within that? And what does team building look like? What does culture look like? And how do I and you know how do I

Can I show up for that? And then uh I realized that not only was I a good candidate for that role, but that I decided I wanted to take that on. That was the new challenge in my life is can I become that A plus CEO for this company for its future? And then that led me down a whole road of of

Jeff Holman (40:28)

How would you quantify that change? That means this is this a hundred percent new Derek or is this like a twenty five like like what does that look like?

Derek Hansen (40:35)

I I mean you'd have to ask my team. I would say it was probably somewhere in the range of a forty to fifty percent new Derek. Yeah,

Jeff Holman (40:42)

Substantial though.

Derek Hansen (40:43)

substantial, meaningful. I think that there's a that I've been told that there's a very, very clear distinction between what was my style and how I operated before versus now. It wasn't overnight. I mean, this has been uh a three year curve here, but but it's but it what it did is again, it using the artist analogy, it allowed me to paint a picture of what not just where the company needed to be.

But also what was the leader, the CEO role need to be for that company? And then could I could I bring myself to that level? Could I could I grow into that? And would my team support me in that? And I mentioned I asked for a three sixty, was pretty brutal uh at the time, you know, because I was in the middle of some breakdown and uh and um but what I got from it was all the things that they knew I had in me, but they weren't seeing. Yeah.

And that's really what it was. It's not that I had to become a new guy. I had to dig deeper into my authentic self. I had to get a little bit more in touch with who I really am and lead with those qualities as opposed to the identity that I thought was required to be a CEO of a fast growth company. And I had to say what is it possible to lead with my a little bit more with with my I always led with my heart, but I think a little bit more soul involved, man. A little bit more like

A little bit more of just like that real authentic self that has again the ability to be vulnerable, the ability to talk about my my fears, the ability to talk about what my challenges are, the ability to ask for help, the ability to pull the team together and say, here's where I'm I'm not getting it, guys. Tell help me out here. Even getting to a leadership style where instead of thinking that I know what the answer is, asking, what do you guys think the answer is? Here's the challenge. I've a d I might be really good at this is where I come from now. I'm really good at identifying problems before they happen.

But I'm not necessarily gonna say that I unilaterally know what the d the right the right decision is anymore. I used to. And so that I go to them and I say, here's the problem, what do you or here's the the coming problem? What do you think the answer is? And now we have a lot more it's a lot more fun. Leading's a lot more fun this way. Uh and it's also for me very interesting uh in that I get to say I don't know. I realized recently, I mean it's in the last year, that I've spent

most of my m my life operating from a place of knowing that I knew what what that needed what the decision was, what needed to happen, what winning looked like, right? And now I get to say, I have an idea, but I wanna I wanna, I don't know. Let's let's explore this. Let's get it. So there's some vulnerability in that. That's a whole different leadership style than being the guy that people are like, dude, I'm following this guy through a wall. Like I will I will follow this guy wherever he's going, which is that's the first

10 years of this company. The last few have been much more of like, hey, we, you know, where do we want to go? And tell me what I'm missing. Help me understand what are you guys seeing that I'm not? And that's just it's a certain level of vulnerability. It's a it's humility. Uh, and um, it's softer, but yet the core of who I am didn't change. It's just that I am starting to pull out some of that more authentic. I think we build an identity.

in our careers to lead companies that is one way. And I just feel like we we get to ask you get to ask the question, can I be different? Do I want to be different? What does that look like? Uh and so it's been um it's given me a whole new chapter to play with here in business, right? A whole new playground uh that is um that has made this really fun. 'Cause I was kinda at the end of my road. I was like, I I don't know what to do now, you know, with with my career and

asking these questions and now I'm like I I get it now. It's a whole nother level.

Jeff Holman (44:25)

Going through this reinvention process for yourself in your in your leadership role, has it has it translated into uh any level of reinvention in the business or just reinvigoration or what what's the impact in the business?

Derek Hansen (44:38)

Yeah. I think it translates little by little, conversation to conversation. You know, culture is, as they say, kind of just a result of or emanates from those founding or leadership team, right? And and a company will take on a culture of its own over time. But it does really get birthed out of those those founders or those leaders. Um and so as we change and evolve, slowly the culture does too. And I think the culture has shifted slightly into being more open

To asking what is it that we don't know? What what is it about the unknown that's an opportunity? Um, what ifs, lots more of what ifs and not like we already need we need to get from here to there. Now it's like what if, or what would be possible to, you know, it's just more it's a it's a much more uh ah I think go with the flow vibe. And yes, you have your your goals at every business and every, you know, your performance markers that every every business should have, but how you get there can be a little different. And

sometimes we're seeing now that some of the best ideas are coming from the people that are the quietest, you know, maybe not the senior people. And they're quietly in the meeting. And if you can i get them cultivate that kind of voice, sometimes they see things in a different way that really has a big impact. Um so it's a lot more of that, I think. Just more openness, you know.

Jeff Holman (45:56)

makes me wonder 'cause you're you've you've mentioned a a little bit about the you know, at some point there'll be c there'll come a time where where you or you and your wife will say, Hey, how do we transition out of the day to day? How do we uh but and and if your if your culture is that the team is acting together, uh, helping lead the company together, you you might be cultivating your own your your your leadership transition, you know, without knowing exactly who who's who's coming up top.

Derek Hansen (46:25)

You nailed it. That's absolutely it. I don't have to know now who the successor is or the success in, you know, I we we we have our second layered leadership and they have their teams. But now it's a little bit more of letting go and letting things just organically occur. As long as the intention's pure, as long as the we're all th that's the other part of this, is it it comes from a shift from dictating, you know, what winning looks like for the company to just saying, What do we agree upon as what winning looks like as a company? What do we choose for this thing?

And what happens is you get a lot more buy-in, and with that buy-in, you it gets you you get to see a lot more ownership of roles and responsibilities and so on. And you get a little bit more of uh, you know, I've said it this way. We think of companies as uh organizations, right? And if done right, I think they can evolve into organisms where uh their every part is interconnected and is uh interdependent.

yet independent. Um and so it's it's it it it gets really interesting and it gets very dynamic. And I think that maybe I'm saying things that people have known for a long time and they're just new for me, but it sure seems like the company has taken on a velocity and the ability to perform and grow much better than it ever did when it was top down type of leadership. Whereas now leadership is more in a supportive cultivating kind of uh

Role. Yeah.

Jeff Holman (47:54)

You're you're hosting the organism more than uh more than being the the lifeblood yourself. I love

Derek Hansen (47:59)

Feeding it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Jeff Holman (48:01)

that. I love that. Well, is there a resource or um I don't know a a a book or a a topic that that you would point other CEOs to if they feel like they're um they're reaching this point in their leadership journey?

Derek Hansen (48:16)

Man, this is such a good question. I have so many books and I'm nothing's coming to mind right now of like what's the one that I would recommend. Um

Jeff Holman (48:23)

You're

like you're like, Yes, there's five years of this. It's not in a book, it's in it's in a dozen

Derek Hansen (48:28)

I wish I would've I would have uh d done some prep on that. Um

Jeff Holman (48:32)

Well, you're you're making me think of just maybe this will buy you some time if you want, but you're making me think I I'm reading ten X is easier than two X and some of this accountability and going after desires and wants is is coming up. You're making me think of five dysfunctions of a team where that's a great one. Talking about weigh in, buy in, accountability and performance. I I mean th th th the threads are there for sure.

Derek Hansen (48:53)

I'll

tell you I've gotten a lot out of and it doesn't really matter which one, but I I've gotten a lot out of B Brene Brown's work o over the last year or two. Okay. Um and she just has a very unique approach to the psychlo psychology of of leadership and and and uh organizations. Um I I think I would be a little bit more abstract, of course you you're gonna you would have guessed that, in my answer and saying go back if anybody is in that moment in time questioning, either, you know, am I enough, am I good enough?

Am do I want to do this anymore? You know, yeah,

Jeff Holman (49:25)

Yeah.

Derek Hansen (49:25)

whatever. What worked for me was to go back to almost like a childlike view of what really matters to me. Why did I want to do this to begin with? And what would it look like to tap into that? And there was this I think all of us can go back in time and look at that mo that when we were some version of ourselves that had bright starry eyes of just like anything's possible and you know

that kind of inspired vibe. And so I'd say go back to the things I went back and and started reading books I read in my twenties, you know, that inspired me. You know, uh The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace Waddles, you know, book written 1907 or something, you know? Yeah. Reread that and went into some of my, you know, spiritual uh you know kind of uh texts and things and just kind of tapped into who am I really and how do I marry

How do I bring that out and marry that to the new mission moving forward? And what that did is it gave me that again, that kind of renewed inspiration around I don't have to do it the way that I've been doing it. What if what if reinventing is just like kind of a second birth into like that leadership role? And like what is it how do I cultivate that feeling of excitement and passion and and what parts of this matter to me? And it turned out to me the p people is what matters to me and and empowering people and

And supporting people and guiding people is really what matters to me. The business is a vehicle for transformation in the marketplace, bringing new concepts, new ways of doing things to the marketplace. But it's also was born with the idea, is it possible to have the business be a vehicle for personal transformation for each and every person that joined that team? Yeah. If they wanted it, not forced upon them. It's not a cult, but like, you know, the idea that we support personal growth and transformation and that this thing is just a vehicle for positive change.

I had to get very clear with myself on what is my mission statement and it's to inspire positive change. That's it, period. And so how does this company represent a vehicle for positive change both externally and internally? And how do I double down on that and how do I lead from that perspective? That's where that's that's where I land every time.

Jeff Holman (51:36)

Do and do you see do you see th some of the results of your authenticity translating into more authentic team members?

Derek Hansen (51:45)

Oh

man, the conversations, you know, these breakout group conversations where people are doing uh what you would typically call personal work, which I call interpersonal dynamics, right? Br talking about team breakdown. How are we missing each other in communication? What where where what works as as you know a team leader is going, what what do I do that works for you? What doesn't work? Tell me, I'm here, right? That vulnerability, that that um radical candor, you know, that is something that's just been

blossoming everywhere in the company. And I think it's yeah, I think it's a result of taking a different perspective as as as a leader for sure.

Jeff Holman (52:21)

I love it. I love it. Well, Derek, this has been fa fantastic conversation and fascinating insights. And uh maybe offline I'll tell you about how much this is impacting me uh personally, the the the stuff that you're sharing. Um it's uh it sometimes I wonder if I'm doing this for the audience or for myself more 'cause I get so much out of this, but I I really do

Everything. Yes. Everything. Well well it's it it's been it's it's been sincerely a b a pleasure talking with you about this. I love it. I hope the audience is getting as much out of this as I am and really appreciate you coming and sharing your insights.

Derek Hansen (52:59)

Thank you so much for having me.

Jeff Holman (53:01)

Awesome. And thanks and thanks again to all of our listeners for joining us on another episode of 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.

Thanks again for joining us on this episode of the Breakout CEO. I'm Jeff Holman, and I'll see you next time.

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