Joshua 00:00
Hey. Jeff. Hold on one. Second. Let me get my camera. Up.
Joshua 00:16
Hey nice to meet you.
Jeff 00:19
Nice to meet you.
Joshua 00:20
Happy. Friday. How's your day been?
Jeff 00:22
Yeah. Busy. Yeah really busy. We're going through our employee reviews right now. So just like four reviews to do today, which is good. How about you where are you located by the way? Are you in California?
Joshua 00:34
I'm in Santa Monica, yeah, just down the street from Mark and Venice here, oh how about yourself?
Jeff 00:40
Our office is in Newport. I'm in San Clemente.
Joshua 00:43
Do you like living San Clemente? Have you been there for a while?
Jeff 00:48
Yeah, been here a year.
Jeff 00:51
Yeah, my kids are older. But we live in Michigan for forever. And then my kids moved out. We downsized, moved to Dana point and rented for a while. Data point straight, but then we're like, nah, let's go try cycle money. So now we're in cycle money and we love it. I mean, it's great little town. It's by the great restaurants. It's a great place.
Joshua 01:07
Yeah. Cool. And what are the pros I spent a lot of time from San Diego originally and so I spent a lot of time up and down the whole coast there but from a living standpoint what do you like more about being in San Clemente versus staying a point?
Jeff 01:12
Yeah. Just like there's a better vibe here. Like there's just more things to do. There's better beach access. We can like walk from our house to the pier and they've got like summer concert series and it just there's always something to do. And yeah, it's just a better vibe. I don't know. Dana points kind of sleep and then we're building out the new harbor there. And that's just going to be a mess. The traffic is a disaster. So.
Joshua 01:53
Oh. They're reconstructing everything down there at the harbor?
Jeff 01:56
Yeah wiping it out and building new hotels and which is great for the for the community, but like it's just there's like a couple arteries that get in and out of that marina and it's going to be a problem. But.
Joshua 02:08
Well that's cool I love to hear that that's that's a great move and tweet well let's get into things so we can get back get you back to your your reviews nice to meet you I'll be happy to share a little bit about just myself and I've been working with Mark for over a year now helping him with a few things getting.
Joshua 02:25
I. Have a background. In entrepreneurship as well I had a startup company of my own and then when that shut down I like cross paths with mark a perfect timing previously I was doing a lot of online course creation and development in the online education space and so I teamed up with mark to help him kind of figure out and shape how he could bring all this amazing knowledge and insight and wisdom that he has and these frameworks that he has and how to make something really practical to be able to share with other founders which is a big passion of his and kind of got looped into other things on the ground force front as well and some of his port codes also so it's been awesome working with Mark and he speaks super highly of you he says great things but that's that's backstory me. Want to hear more about you and what you're working on specifically and I believe you and Mark already have a conversation where he kind of breached you on the whole kind of incubator and what we're doing here but I'll be kind of give you an overview or answer any questions you have and then we can take next steps from there but how's it how does it sound.
Jeff 03:28
That sounds great. Yeah, so he's my background and I'll tell you a little about Ozobot and kind of where we're at. So I worked in a small private equity group. Coming out of college. Well, I worked at Disney for a little bit as an accountant, a finance guy by background. Kind of cut my chops with Disney and then worked for a small private equity group that my dad was a partner in. And that's when I moved down to orange county in 2000. So I that group was very similar to kind of what we have today in my partnership where we basically, you know, Ozobot we invested alongside Mark and then we operate the businesses. So that's what I did at this private equity group. We would invest. Typically have a controlling stake. And then I was the person that would go in and help operate the businesses or get them fixed. And stay on as a CFO type, whatever. I also was a COO for some of these companies. I did a lot of trips to China. That I'm glad to do. So really cut my teeth with a lot of different companies kind of either distressed or early stage companies through this private equity group as an operator. Right. I was never on the like the fundraising side or managing LPs or anything. I would just be like, you know diligence. And then I go in and operate and we have like a shared location at Irvine where you basically shared services. We have like three or four companies in the same building and we try to share back and systems and services. So that for a long time, excuse me. Left kind of hit the wall there. You know. As much as I could here. So let's go out to the real world and so then I got pranked three or four other positions over. Maybe 10 years after that or maybe eight years after that, a CFO and consumer product companies mainly. And then eventually teamed up with my two partners and got into Ozobot and insisted foods to help launch some foods where we acquired three different sync and so did all that network there. Josh got my background, definitely finance guy entrepreneur-ish, right? I mean like I was I never started my own business but I feel like working alongside founders I definitely know founders tendencies very well. They don't all fit in the same box. But I know I know the tendencies. I know where. Like where their strengths and areas they need help in. Because some founders didn't get all the answers. The ones that don't are the ones that succeed I think because they know when to ask for help. Very important. I think right. So then Ozobot just kind of went through a recent transition right so basically management transition CEO that was and my partner was basically removed as duties were made of disease a month ago. Businesses. So we bought the business coming out of COVID, right? A lot of companies were struggling because schools shut down and they were buying products. Mark was an investor already in the business. So was Julian motherpartner. So they were familiar obviously. So anyway bankruptcy relaunched it May 21 and at that time coming out of COVID there's a ton of money for the cares act and the SR funding for supporting schools. And so then school kids back into class and they were buying a lot of product. So coming out of COVID we ramped up pretty quickly. But then starting in 24. Things started to turn back down. Like money was drying up. We didn't do a good job of. Basically having clear strategy of like leaning into our core competency and our what what our brand is known for in classroom which is easy to use out of the box intuitive and engaging. Right. So I think that's part of the reason why we had a restructure is the strategy wasn't working because we were kind of like just following money like they had Perkins funding for high school for like CTE. So we launched a six ax robotic arm chasing that money. But we were always. Just chasing money instead of like just staying true who we are right and so that's that's the transition going through now. Now I'm present running operations and managing now the business through this transition of segmenting our product line and redefining our brand message. And staying focused on that. We were known as a K to 12 company but we decided no we're not high school. That's just not what we're known for. We don't have great products that serve that or curriculum. We're paying eight and we're going to lose. That mean time our competitors are all going into competition like zero so they'll leave the door wide open for us. So like the time strike is now and so we've emptied our sales team. We're pulling back on R&D and reality and resources to curriculum development. And so kind of looking transition right now but like the future bride we have a really good platform. Great products great team is just really focused and that's that's the goal right now.
Joshua 08:31
Yeah. Super. Cool. Thank. S for. Sharing that. And laying that out. Sounds like there's definitely a bit of an inflection point right here for this next phase that you're stepping into. And Ark is a personal investor in this right it's not their ground force it's through his whole bright okay also just sidebar before I forget I may have an intro for you to a school you work directly with the schools you sell to the schools directly okay. I'm now on the board of trustees for an independent school in in La Jolla California that I've been super involved in and they. I've been on the. Capital camp. Aign committee they just we just finished a $15 million capital campaign for a new building that's going to be finished in a few months that's going to be that's all around design innovation. Entrepreneurship I know they've got like. I don't know what they already have or don't have. Hopefully they're not working with a competitor and they can work with you but I think they got a robotics team they got like. It's a K through 12 school as well and so like there's the full length there but they're they're super bullish on on on this type of thing so before I forget we can sign here on that.
Joshua 09:48
Yeah for sure for sure. Cool okay so now tell me about so you had a conversation with Mark already what was your conversation with Mark what'd you guys go over what did you talk about.
Jeff 09:59
Well it actually was more of just an email thread back and forth except in the links. Something linked information and you know. Suggesting a lot of things you mentioned this as well. Some of those other folks in corpos have done this program or involved program. And I think for me like. Now that I'm transitioning into this present role, I just love to have more tools in my toolbox per se on developing a team. Because being a finance person I just can't help myself to like always think to the common denominator. But like I need to like I need to be more strategic. And I know that in this area of improvement that I need to work on.
Jeff 10:40
You're always working on problem solving in the trenches around ops and finance. Like you kind of get hung up in the weeds a little bit. So I think having a fresh perspective on areas where I can focus on improve the team and culture. I mean. A lot of different companies. The companies that had really rich cultures that employee retention was there and then they were able to attract talent. Very much easier at eating at like a lower comp base because they want to import something special. They're really cool. You know so like culture matters a lot. I see it live many times both good and bad.
Joshua 11:14
For sure. So love that makes sense and that's exactly this is exactly what Mark's doing through this so I'll just talk you through kind of I don't know if you've been through the the most recent update of the. Of the website page but I can just walk you through it real quickly.
Joshua 11:32
Yeah. Let me you know. In fact let me just. Share my screen. Real quick so. We can just walk. Through this together real. Quickly. Okay sweet so. Basically what we're doing here is is is really a learning lab. And an emphasis on these tools that we're providing to everyone and so there's like this kind of I'll just take you through the journey of what of what happens here so it's it's really it really is an incubator to to take you from in 90 days to have this kind of suite of tools that allow you to become that CEO that leader that you need to be to bring your business to the next level there's kind of the foundation here so once we get everybody onboarded we have this comprehensive assessment where we're able to like gather a bunch of different data on where your app personally and business because a lot of this is together with your personal self life vision values mission vision and then your business as well and how they intersect because that alignment is really key so you do that onboarding assessment there's an hour strategy session with mark and then you've got direct access mark I know obviously he's an investor as well so you have some sort of cadence with him already so but this will be like more direct within this within this container so that's kind of the pre-work and then throughout the 90 days so there's 12 weeks and each week there's a live session with with this cohort and we're capping it at 20 people max probably end up in a sweet spot around 10 ish is kind of what we're targeting but we're going to cap it hard cap and we've done we've run this program before and it's amazing to see what happens with the combination of one-on-one work with Mark and then also like this kind of group energy because you're able to learn from other people who are navigating certain things different things that all create this this shift together. So there's a there's a 90 minute weekly live session where Mark will focus on one concept one tool and one shift and then and then you have one action for the week. There's this whole backable CEO operating system so each week's lesson comes with this practical tool from we have this whole AI powered operating system that we've been building out that's absolutely stellar and it's like your own login with all of your own stuff that continues to build and refine as you go through more so you have this toolkit and real practical everything here is around real practical things around like. Okay cool how do I what does it look like to create a culture doc for my team? How do I better manage this person? How do I set the strategic vision forward? So you've got that going on and then there's bi-weekly coaching so every other week you know you're on the calendar for Ark for a check-in to be able to help continue to tailor and help troubleshoot whatever you're working through. And everything here and then at the end of the 90 days there's a final strategy session where we're able to go back and look at the measurable results and you have the operating system moving forward and so everything here is designed for ROI. Obviously mark is ROI driven guy so that's a big part of the onboarding session and the hour strategy session is to be able to really clearly define like your KPIs and what makes this an ROI and of course the whole thing comes with a 5x ROI guarantee like Mark is super bullish on working with everybody to make sure that they get 5x the return on investment here and he'll keep working with you until you do. Obviously I know there's a bit more nuance here because you know he's on the board of a company you're as well. But that's that's how this is all designed. And you know it's a 360 degree support container for these 90 days with the weekly live coaching probably the 101 direct WhatsApp access founder access to the other other CEOs going through this peer accountability and then your personal dashboard and you know a ton of live time with Mark. So you know here's some more money to go through all this but here's some more on some of the some of the shifts and some of the tools as well. But that's it at a high level. I think he shared with you in the email the investment as well to 12k investment. For the you know for the three months we break that down into you know three payments of 4k. And it's pretty straightforward from there so I know that I think there was some sort of border board approval process you were going through as well but that's it in high level pause and answer any questions you have.
Jeff 16:08
Thank you for that overview. I appreciate that. It makes a lot of sense. I think it'd be super helpful with myself. I'm curious what kind of cohorts like what other types of companies CEOs are going to be probably part of the group.
Joshua 16:21
Still shaking out the roster as we speak. It's it's honestly a range. It's a total range right now. I'm just thinking off the top of my head total range right now definitely. Some food and bev with Mark's of course bread and butter definitely some food and bath. There's also someone who's really what we're optimizing for is the person like is the founder or the CEO? So there's someone who has experience in VC in the past and he's just pre-launched for his company. There's someone who's running 20 to $50 million a year company $30 million a year company. And then there's someone I'm talking to as well that is like the CEO of like a logistics type of company. So it's not all CPG. You know there's a range which we like because that diversity.
Jeff 17:10
Good good good.
Joshua 17:14
Actually helps and like what we find is that like the CPG founder learns a lot from someone like you and you learn a lot from something like that and so it creates this kind of nice dynamic ecosystem.
Jeff 17:25
That's great yeah that's that's important to have a nice cross. Good dynamic of different you know specialties or perspectives because you know. What's happening in freight of course is going to impact probably if you're in CPG or you know so like it all it all kind of bleeds across all the different industries. So I think it's really important to get that. So that's really cool. And then when you plan to maybe kick this off is there date in mind?
Joshua 17:48
We're planning to take it off in August. We don't have the date set quite yet but sometime in August we're planning to kick this off. And then it'll run so like you know let's say it's early to mid August. To August, September, October to like you know. End of October kind of time frame. Or. Worst case you know September 1 September October through November. But that's the positioning.
Jeff 18:18
Dashboard is that so like can you tell me more about what kind of functions that does?
Joshua 18:22
Sure so one of the things that we put everybody through right away is this amazing. Assessment that Mark has actually been investing a lot into building out alongside someone else in the a space that is it's like it's it's like a personality assessment that's supercharged through like the business use case so it like you know you fill out your 50 questions or whatever and it indexes you across like all of your different. Your Myers-Briggs, your all the different like major personality assessments and it creates this like super dialed like strengths with a strengths finder all the different things and it creates like a an assessment of like your strengths, your blind spots, your weaknesses like super dialed across the board and so that kind of becomes like your code for understanding yourself. And then so that's the foundation of it and that is something that you're able to like interact with as well. And then there's also opportunity for you to be able to do that like 360 with like some of your other people. It's so valuable to be like oh cool I'm aware and this is how I work best with people so you get your little like here's how to work with Jeff like right like kind of so that's kind of the foundation and then every tool or every exercise like for example like your energy audit or your values exercise or your visioning exercise it's like that's all done through like interactive like an interactive kind of tool like web tool essentially that then pipes into your, you know.
Joshua 19:52
Your operating system. And so through these different exercises it's able to map you out in a way that is just absolutely stellar to to help you and to have that as a resource for you that you're able to with as well and to help call out your blind spots. I mean you can run everything through that and there's different ways we can you know make that practical as well like a plug into your own cloud account etc so you can be engaging with it, you can run your emails through it. It's like oh before you send this email like maybe check this or you might be emotional about you know emotional charge around this like how do we run you through the freedom key or work this. So it's a little hard to explain in theory but it makes sense when we get in there and you can start to build it out.
Jeff 20:30
Yeah it makes sense yeah we're we're looking at doing the Gallup. Self assessment for our managers.
Jeff 20:38
I think it's really important we haven't done it before we did a gallop survey like a year ago on the company like to get feedback on where the management team is not maybe doing the best job or where the employee you know so you got really good feedback there. I love that. I mean like I said to a market I want to learn. Not only more about myself. And my strength weaknesses but then also do some new tools about how to think about things right knowing that I may have a previous position about something right and so maybe that's a wise block if I already have some internal perspective in my head that really is a reality. Right like. Because that's I mean let's face it we all have voices in our head about you know may think things are a certain way but really it's not that way. This is the way it's in my head right so.
Joshua 21:22
It and even just the awareness that you have of that. Tells me that you are going to be wildly successful with this and you're going to get exactly what you need because and that's kind of why we also what we filter for and mark wouldn't have offered you the spot already without you knowing that. But it's good to see that for sure. And to be able to then have the tools to implement that and I will say too like if you're are you actively looking at the Gallup to do that now with your core team?
Jeff 21:50
So we're just finishing reviews right now so we want to get through that and then we have a couple other HR things we want to get done and then roll that out is it maybe would this tool be better and could I have my employee. S.
Joshua 22:01
I'll make sure by sync with mark on this so it's called super cues the tool that he's he's building and like it's built out I believe like ready to launch now because we're for everybody in the cohort and then it works really well for the 360 where it's just like all right you do yours your manager does theirs your direct report does theirs and it creates that kind of 360 which it's it's far far superior to the gallop or anything else. And especially because it's early on and you're obviously one of his and you know he actively involved in his company like it could be an amazing opportunity to do something there as like a you know pilot type of thing too so let me circle back with mark on that and it sounds like Tommy could work perfectly for that kind of thing. And yeah for sure so we'll keep that in mind. Yeah.
Jeff 22:47
That's great yeah excited about that. We've you know. My my goal is is aside from you know culture is the build up my team right and and if I can empower them and I also know their strengths and weaknesses and I know how to then tailor my message to them where it's going to be received right because that's all about. It's not necessarily what you say it's how you say it sometimes right so like yeah.
Joshua 23:08
Totally. One of the biggest. Breakthroughs I had. In my last business was my cousin was my co-founder and we grew pretty quickly we grew to 20 million within like a year two and a half years and so it was like we're kind of like holding on to the rocket ship and and you know there was some there were some things that we kept kind of like rubbing friction on and we did some kind of lighter version of what Mark is doing with the super queue and like for me I was like oh he's not disagreeing with me this is just the way that he processes like decision making we have different decision making tendencies the way we come to decisions differently and so like for him for me it's more of an intuitive thing and I feel it and I see the vision and like I get excited about it he views that as like a threat of like I'm trigger happy or I'm distracted and I view him slowing me down because he's like I need to do the pros and cons and process through and I'm like you're slowing us down and like just like that one thing I swear to God saved our like our relationship and partnership because then I knew now oh this is his process and this is how we communicate with him and this is how we can make decisions together and do the same thing for my you know my direct reports as well and it was like it was like my address was like. Why is this not in every single business across the board for every relationship but specifically in business it's like it's such a such a game changer so I think I think that'd be a big unlock for you guys.
Jeff 24:27
That's great yeah so I'll tell you a little bit about my partner Julian I'm not sure you met him.
Jeff 24:33
Super smart. But you know Raymond James for I don't know how many years doing transactions so investment banker right so there's transaction mind right very binary and always trying to be like three steps ahead of the person across the table on the negotiation right so. We've been partners for five years now it took me like a year and a half to like. Because I was so frustrated dealing with him because the way he would communicate and explain things simple and don't understand what he's saying so so like now I'm able like having been you know first five years I've learned how to navigate those wires but man if I had this tool you know early on I probably could have navigated more effectively you know earlier as opposed to you know taking so long but yeah it's it's it's a it's amazing when. You you work closely with someone who has a very different you know communication pattern perspective of the world how we can skew like the relationship a little bit like you think there's friction or you think there's a problem it really isn't a problem it's just a matter of communication and knowing how to.
Joshua 25:29
This is like the basic human things that we're all learning and the beautiful thing I love Mark's perspective on this too is just that business is just a mirror that holds all this up like this is playing out in all of our relationships and that's why it's like the interplay of this and there's a big focal point on not only your business but then your personal life and how these all intertwine because like it's they're two sides of the same coin and it's it's just the business arena is a is a is a spotlight that shines all of this and gives us the opportunity to work through these things in the most magical ways and the results follow.
Jeff 26:03
Yeah I always tell people like business is easy the human aspect of business is what can be challenging if you let it right if you allow it to be right but if you have a good tool trust and I'm hoping to get that here it really helps you navigate those those it makes it everything cohesive so yeah.
Jeff 26:20
All right. Well this is great Joshua is it Joshua or Joshua do you prefer.
Joshua 26:22
Joshua. Thanks for asking.
Jeff 26:23
Okay Joshua yeah so yeah I sent the request to the board haven't heard back but we'll go through some other stuff on the legal side so I will I will ping them again but I'm definitely I'm in I just got to get the approvals and look forward to talking more and getting set up for the for the launch.
Joshua 26:39
Love it. Awesome super excited to have you're gonna be an amazing fit for this I'll go ahead and send you kind of like the onboarding. Like link not the assessment we're just mentioning the assessment right now but the onboarding link for like you know the agreement the payment link and all that and then just that way you have it and then once the board approval comes through then we can get your spot locked in the way that we're doing it right now for the first people is we're gonna do the first payment now to like secure the spot and then the second payment will be 30 days after whatever the start date is let's say we start August 15th and the second date will be September 15. That's the way we're doing that that works for you and I'll send over all those details in an email. And then once board approval comes through we'll get you get your spot locked and loaded. And excited.
Jeff 27:22
All right. Thanks Joshua appreciate that good talking to you see ya bye bye.
Joshua 27:24
Thank you all right take care and email me about the the the La Jolla country day is the name of the school send me a separate ping and and I'll but we can we can sidebar that for sure.
Jeff 27:32
Okay. Thank Joshua see ya.