00;02;09;21 - 00;02;15;02
Brexton Bennett
So we want to first welcome to the show, Sean Clark. Sean, thanks so much for being here today. Man, it's such a delight to have you.

00;02;15;03 - 00;02;16;07
Shaun clark
Absolutely, man. Thanks for.

00;02;16;07 - 00;02;29;29
Brexton Bennett
Having me. Yeah. Sean, I want to start by asking you about where a lot of our listeners currently are at. Is your experience in in college, your undergrad, kind of how you started it, what your goal was going into it and where it took you?

00;02;29;29 - 00;02;48;24
Shaun clark
Yeah, sure. So I got into college maybe a little a little differently, mentally speaking, than some other people. So I'd already been working in industry before I went in. I was a software engineer. I knew that's what I wanted to do. I knew the type of work I wanted to do. I really spent a lot of time prior to college trying to do a lot of job shadows.

00;02;48;24 - 00;02;53;17
Shaun clark
I'd worked as a software engineer for a couple of companies, so kind of had a lot of background.

00;02;54;00 - 00;02;56;27
Brexton Bennett
Tell us a little bit more like what kind of work were you doing in high school?

00;02;57;01 - 00;03;16;22
Shaun clark
Oh, sure, yeah. So I worked for Intel for a while and then I got a really cool job at a it was like a basically a big marketing agency, but they were doing websites for like Oracle and IBM and really big companies. And so to go along with some of the marketing stuff they were doing and they were expanding Mail House, but they were basically pairing up these pieces of mail with with websites.

00;03;16;22 - 00;03;23;08
Shaun clark
So anyways, I got a chance to do all that is like a 17 year old kid or whatever. And so sort of like day, what.

00;03;23;11 - 00;03;29;09
Brexton Bennett
Would you say? Would you say that was more out of necessity or just like it was what you wanted to be doing? You were so excited about it.

00;03;29;09 - 00;03;39;17
Shaun clark
I always wanted to work. I mean, I wanted to I wanted to be a software engineer, right? So I was just going around like saying like, who the heck is going to pay me money to do this? And so, you know, that was my thing. I was always looking.

00;03;39;20 - 00;03;45;12
Brexton Bennett
So how did you first find like what was what was the first moment when you're like, oh, man, I am all about this software stuff.

00;03;45;17 - 00;03;58;16
Shaun clark
Oh, gosh. Many years prior to that, just like when I was a kid, I grew up with computers and I love them. And it was actually really hard for a while because I knew I wanted to write code, but I couldn't figure out like I like I couldn't get my brain to wrap around it. It was really, really tough.

00;03;58;16 - 00;04;12;08
Shaun clark
I remember like, I would buy these really thick books. Yeah, because that's how you could. There's like, the Internet was I don't even know if they existed at the time or limited. And so you had like, you know, you want to learn Java, you got to go like buy a book that's like 60 boxes like that thing, right?

00;04;12;16 - 00;04;29;24
Shaun clark
And I would start to read the book and I just like couldn't get it took a long time. But then eventually, like, I don't know, I think my brain just kept sort of grew and then I really loved it. So I started write code like for myself, but it's, I'm not a very creative person. So I was always like, I really want to work with some someone to help, you know, to give me a problem to solve.

00;04;30;05 - 00;04;32;16
Shaun clark
And so I was always looking for a way to make that happen.

00;04;32;27 - 00;04;45;10
Brexton Bennett
I still can't figure out where they. So when I was in high school, I took a coding class like, oh, this, you know, everyone needs a coder. It seemed like a good idea. I took a coding class and the same thing. Like I could not get the coding mindset to go into my brain no matter how I tried.

00;04;45;10 - 00;04;45;17
Brexton Bennett
Yeah.

00;04;45;29 - 00;04;47;17
Shaun clark
And it is really funny like.

00;04;47;20 - 00;04;56;29
Brexton Bennett
But, so Shaun, I finished that class and said, well, I will never touch coding with a 50 foot pole like it's not for me. I was just like, I want you to do go. So drawing to you.

00;04;57;01 - 00;05;14;25
Shaun clark
Well, I saw the power of software to change the world and and I wasn't athletic, I wasn't social, you know, I didn't have any of those skills. And so I still had to figure out something I was terrible at at yeah. You know, and so, you know, and I liked video games just fine. I played lots of them, but I sort of didn't.

00;05;14;25 - 00;05;41;12
Shaun clark
I just didn't see that as like I wasn't creating anything right. And so I really loved this. But I look out in the world, I would see other people. In fact, I heard that this older guy, he's like, whatever he was two years older than me. And I remember he like showed off his like game he had made and it, it was like halfway decent, like, you know, it wasn't like the most amazing people have a decent and I was just like, oh my gosh, it's like, like and it wasn't so much the game, but it was just the fact that he could, he could sort of proffer up into the world from nothing, sort

00;05;41;12 - 00;05;59;22
Shaun clark
of something that was sort of cool and useful and fun and interesting. And I thought, Wow, if that guy can do it, I mean, just imagine, you know, he was right. Smart, like, if I could just be, like, half as smart as that dude, just imagine what I could do. I just sort of saw the dawning of the Internet era and the power of software to to really reach out and make meaningful change in the world.

00;05;59;22 - 00;06;09;00
Shaun clark
And I thought, what a great way to create stuff. So I just sort of said, That's it, I'm going to figure it out. Like, I may not be that smart, but I'll stay at it till I get it. And, you know, eventually it just clicked.

00;06;09;02 - 00;06;14;02
Brexton Bennett
That's cool. So you're going to college and it's crystal clear in your mind I'm going to do software development.

00;06;14;10 - 00;06;26;10
Shaun clark
Yeah, yeah. In fact, I was sort of like already doing what? I was like doing it. And then it was like, Oh, crap, you know what? I got to I got to go to college to get this degree thing so I can, you know, get up the ladder. Sure. You know, I can work for it or whatever. Do you think.

00;06;26;10 - 00;06;29;24
Brexton Bennett
That was mostly from your parents, from your boss, or just kind of in general?

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Shaun clark
And my mom.

00;06;31;02 - 00;06;31;22
Brexton Bennett
Was a big gift for your.

00;06;31;22 - 00;06;55;07
Shaun clark
Mom. Yeah, she yeah, she had a degree. And so I just sort of knew that. Yeah, absolutely. And and honestly, I sort of understood sort of a little bit how big corporations worked and how they really, you know, they sort of used the degree as sort of like, you know, as a as a like a, you know, a thumb sign that you're decent and you're worthy and all that.

00;06;55;07 - 00;06;59;22
Shaun clark
So I just sort of knew it was something I had to get. I had to get out of the way. So that's sort of how I got to college. Yeah.

00;07;00;05 - 00;07;08;08
Brexton Bennett
Interesting. Okay, so you're working through your undergrad and does it feel like it's like contributing to your long term goal? Like you're like you're learning and growing?

00;07;08;10 - 00;07;27;09
Shaun clark
Oh, no, no, no, no. Well, I mean, yes and no. I love it because it forced me to like instead of just sort of like focusing on solving the problem, it forced me to think like more globally, more holistically about what I was doing and really look at the math and the logic and a lot of the underpinnings of computer science.

00;07;27;09 - 00;07;50;00
Shaun clark
And so it made me think a lot harder than I ever thought before. And so in that sense, I really loved it. It it helped me sort of expand my mind. But, you know, I was never as smart as the other kids. Like I remember for me, it was like and I'm sure they still do this, but then like they had like pro school and you have like get into it and, and then I'd watch like subsequent, like these waves of older kids like, you know, sort of crash up against it where they like they couldn't, they didn't make the mark or whatever.

00;07;50;00 - 00;08;05;04
Shaun clark
And so they had to, like leave and go find some other college or whatever, like, oh, my God. Yeah. So I remember like originally I was all gung ho. I think I took like, you know, whatever way too many credits. My first right. We've all been there now and all this. But then I was like, You know what?

00;08;05;04 - 00;08;17;10
Shaun clark
I've got to cut back. So then I like did like three classes and every other kid was doing four or whatever, but it was just because I was like, This is it. I'm going to hack pro school. Like, I refuse to be that guy who's like crying as he, like, walks away from college because.

00;08;17;10 - 00;08;22;15
Brexton Bennett
Yeah, so it's pro school, maybe I'm just preschool is like the program you were trying to get into basically.

00;08;22;15 - 00;08;31;29
Shaun clark
Yes, it was like so I was like, oh, welcome to you know, I went to Oregon State. Sure. Welcome to Oregon State. But, you know, but Mr. Future Computer Science dude. But you aren't in computer science.

00;08;32;09 - 00;08;34;06
Brexton Bennett
You're just doing the pretty stuff, right?

00;08;34;14 - 00;08;38;16
Shaun clark
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you're not in in. You got to get in still. Right, right.

00;08;38;19 - 00;08;40;23
Brexton Bennett
What I thought I heard. Got it.

00;08;41;06 - 00;08;57;23
Shaun clark
And I'm like, how does that work? And then it gets really simple. You know, we got X number of slots, a term, whatever, semester or whatever they call it. And, you know, we just take the GPAs and means work by, you know, the high at the we walked down that number of slots and and we you know and that's the line and that's it and that's who gets and the rest don't.

00;08;58;01 - 00;08;59;09
Shaun clark
And I'm like, oh, okay.

00;09;00;12 - 00;09;02;29
Brexton Bennett
Someone should have told me before I signed up for this. Yeah. Okay.

00;09;03;04 - 00;09;19;23
Shaun clark
Yeah, I felt that and she did, but yeah. But, you know, I was like, All right, fine, you got to play that game. I'm going to play my game. Yeah, I'll take I'll take way less classes than everybody else. So I guarantee that my is getting. Then as soon as I get in your stupid prose. Cool, I'm just going to rack up all my classes and I'm going to I'm going to get CS and all of them just I can get by right with this, correct?

00;09;19;23 - 00;09;22;25
Shaun clark
Yeah. Right. Like I was, I was intent on winning the game.

00;09;22;25 - 00;09;27;08
Brexton Bennett
Yeah, I like that. So did you do it? You got into pro school, you graduated in.

00;09;27;12 - 00;09;27;22
Shaun clark
Oh.

00;09;28;01 - 00;09;28;17
Brexton Bennett
Okay. Well, I happened.

00;09;28;17 - 00;09;44;14
Shaun clark
To get in the principal and I did get into it. Yes, absolutely. No, I did not graduate. I dropped out. So I got all the way to my junior year and I started one of my first businesses with a business partner. And initially it was like a summer thing and it was going really well. And I was doing it sort of like at college.

00;09;44;14 - 00;09;59;21
Shaun clark
And I remember I lived about an hour and a half from where this person's office was, and so I would drive up every weekend and we'd work every Saturday and Sunday, and the business just kept growing and growing and growing. And at some point it was like, oh, like it sort of made sense. Like I was either going to leave college and focus on it full time, see what happens.

00;09;59;21 - 00;10;14;23
Shaun clark
But I remember really being freaked out about it at the time. But, you know, my mom gave me stellar advice, which was she said, you know, look, you can always go back, huh? And I think she fully expect that to happen like she expected a year later. The thing would blow up and all that. But, you know, I left in my junior year and things went really well.

00;10;14;23 - 00;10;28;09
Brexton Bennett
So I want to spend a little time on this. I think this is because this is right where a lot of our listeners are are at in this moment, like trying to figure out how to make this step. So I guess same question. Was this also just out of a passion for wanting to program or was this out of necessity?

00;10;28;14 - 00;10;28;20
Brexton Bennett
Oh, no.

00;10;28;22 - 00;10;46;19
Shaun clark
I always want to be a business owner. So this is the funny part about me. So I I'm not a traditional engineer, so I write software to change the world. But I didn't. But the change the world part was the important thing to me. So like a lot of engineers that I know and who are the best engineers I know, they love they love software for the sake of software.

00;10;46;19 - 00;10;49;06
Shaun clark
They love code, write code. But, you know, they sort of like.

00;10;49;07 - 00;10;51;16
Brexton Bennett
They don't want to worry about the managerial side.

00;10;51;19 - 00;11;11;07
Shaun clark
Yeah. Or just like what, what's the world impact? I don't know. I'm like, oh, wow, I'm going to go right, right. That's a more traditional stance. I love the idea of like, I want to write just enough to, like, really focus on making that impact, whatever it is. And I always want to know what the heck it is that I'm doing because I want that impact not and the code is just like a means to an end, right?

00;11;11;07 - 00;11;25;13
Shaun clark
And so that's what I how I always thought about it. And so as a business owner, I always thought, you know, that's how you really sort of control what your impact is going to be, right? You can decide, hey, this is what I want to focus on and nobody can tell, you know, get back to work or write this code that does this other thing.

00;11;25;18 - 00;11;26;09
Shaun clark
You choose.

00;11;26;09 - 00;11;35;18
Brexton Bennett
Yeah. So I guess help me understand a little bit more what this seems like kind of a drastic shift, right, to go from. It's a big priority for my mom. I need to finish. I got I got four years. Yeah.

00;11;35;21 - 00;11;47;17
Shaun clark
And then for me, I actually had a whole plan. I was like taking Japanese. I was going to move to Japan, I was going to work for a consulting firm so I could get more exposure on the business side. I had like this all thing mapped. No way yeah. Is a big.

00;11;48;14 - 00;11;55;05
Brexton Bennett
So was it just suddenly like the idea of popping your head I could be a business owner instead? Or was it like give us a little more like what prompted that big change?

00;11;55;07 - 00;12;11;14
Shaun clark
I guess I had this like really long plan. I had a plan. I had a plan. Sure. And at the end, I just sort of thought, you know, the best I could. I didn't have a lot of I didn't know entrepreneurs in my family, no business owners and so I just like didn't know. So I was like, okay, how can I get to the place where I would have enough information and knowledge to sort of do this right?

00;12;11;14 - 00;12;29;20
Shaun clark
And what had never occurred to hit is I didn't need to go nearly as far out with all of these items in order to get the sort of knowledge that I needed to to do what I wanted to do ultimately. And so what really truly happened in this scenario is I was given an opportunity at the time, which I thought was was amazing, although retrospectively it wasn't quite as amazing as I thought.

00;12;29;20 - 00;12;36;00
Shaun clark
But I thought at the time, like I got like sort of this like jump to the end kind of thing, right? Like it's like, you know, it's like pass go, right?

00;12;36;00 - 00;12;37;05
Brexton Bennett
So what.

00;12;37;09 - 00;12;48;16
Shaun clark
Was it? It was it was working. So what happened was I went to go work for this guy during summer, because what had happened is this is back when the dotcom crash happened and all the internships vanished and my job initially said stuff anyway.

00;12;48;25 - 00;12;50;23
Brexton Bennett
So your plan was kind of falling apart at this point?

00;12;50;25 - 00;13;08;27
Shaun clark
Oh, well, yeah. So. Well, kind of. It was like. It was like, oh, no, summer job. That sucks. I might have to work at McDonald's, which really didn't pan out because I love McDonald's, but I was like, Well, I'd still like to write some code for the summer. But what happened was I was walking around trying to find a job is literally going door to door to door with my resume, like, Hey, do you need to be like, Hey, I'm techie, I can do it.

00;13;09;05 - 00;13;10;20
Shaun clark
I don't know. You got something for me?

00;13;10;21 - 00;13;12;19
Brexton Bennett
You're just knocking on business businesses.

00;13;12;26 - 00;13;27;27
Shaun clark
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Because I get to help is sitting on my hands for the summer. I was right. I have, you know, I have things to do. Like I want to learn more. I wanted to do more, but like, I'm serious. Like adults were all out of work, so the college kids were like.

00;13;28;05 - 00;13;29;07
Brexton Bennett
What year was this then?

00;13;29;12 - 00;13;31;29
Shaun clark
2001 to.

00;13;32;01 - 00;13;33;15
Brexton Bennett
Dotcom bubble burst. Got it.

00;13;33;15 - 00;13;34;19
Shaun clark
Oh, look at Pets.com.

00;13;35;03 - 00;13;37;02
Brexton Bennett
All right, got it. Got it.

00;13;37;18 - 00;13;58;04
Shaun clark
Not that era. So, anyhow, so I walk into the door of this guy, and he is. He's in a residential long distance business, which is gone now, basically, but basically at the time is a big deal because, a, there are no cell phones or very few. They're big bricks and expensive. Nobody had them. And then on top of it, there was a federal law that restricted your ability to buy long distance service from your local carrier.

00;13;58;04 - 00;14;14;13
Shaun clark
And it was like a it was it was for monopoly practices and breaking up Ma Bell back in the day, all this other stuff. But basically it just meant that when you moved into your apartment, you would call the local phone company, you get a local phone number. But if you wanted to call grandma across state lines, you had to buy long distance from it, from a separate company.

00;14;14;22 - 00;14;26;06
Shaun clark
And so he had figured this. He'd figured out how to build this long distance company. But anyways, he was smart enough to know that those days were going to come to an end. So he's like, Oh crap, whatever I do, right? He was he was sort of struggling in that moment and he decided.

00;14;26;06 - 00;14;28;00
Brexton Bennett
So you walked into his office, this guy.

00;14;28;07 - 00;14;41;26
Shaun clark
Okay. I went to his office that I know him. And I just sort of like, you know, and he sort of recognized that I was a pretty smart guy and he just sort of sat down. He's like, Well, who are you? And he talked for a couple of minutes. And and so he just sort of said, Well, why don't you come work for me for the summer?

00;14;41;26 - 00;15;01;26
Shaun clark
He had ten employees or something just doing I.T. work or something. And I was like, Great, that's cool. But really what ended up happening was he transitioned from long distance to the answering service business, which is really weird. But the big thing you have to realize sort of historically, it's all about history here. So at the time, the answering service business, this is literally inbound phone calls for doctors, dentists, lawyers, that kind of thing.

00;15;01;26 - 00;15;20;29
Shaun clark
Right. Super antiquated. All business spread out across the country. All these little answering services all over the place. But so then what do we do? So we take the long distance business, which is all about bringing calls from across state lines. So we centralize the business. So you don't no longer need to hire an answering service in your local area.

00;15;20;29 - 00;15;38;15
Shaun clark
You can hire one anywhere a.k.a like in our case in Oregon. Got it. And I'd worked at a marketing agency who was using the power of the Internet. And Google AdWords comes out about the same time. So you take websites yet Google AdWords and you take what was a distributed business and you centralize it. You put those together and magic happens.

00;15;38;15 - 00;15;53;22
Shaun clark
And so what happened is basically over 12 years, we built a business that served 5000 small businesses, answering inbound phone calls from people, calling to say, hey, my, you know, I need a plumber or I need a lawyer, I need a doctor, I need a dentist helping those small businesses grow and make a lot of money.

00;15;53;24 - 00;15;54;20
Brexton Bennett
What was the name of the business?

00;15;55;07 - 00;16;01;23
Shaun clark
Well, we had a bunch of entrepreneurs, but Answer Connect was the big the big brand. It's still there today. They're still there, still operate, cancer, connect.

00;16;01;23 - 00;16;09;14
Brexton Bennett
So at what point at what point during the course of that summer did you realize there's no reason for me to go back to school? This is more than just a summer job.

00;16;09;14 - 00;16;24;07
Shaun clark
I mean, it was just you know, it was literally I don't know, like like that last month of the summer, I think things started to get going and well, I think and then once we started running, like we had the website live and then we started and then and then Google AdWords came out and I started seeing like, you know, four, five, $0.05 a click.

00;16;24;07 - 00;16;38;17
Shaun clark
And people are I mean, this is all like no doubt now. But right then it was like, wow, people are people are on the Internet. They're using Google. They're they're searching this word all across the country and they're clicking our ad and they're signing up and they're paying us money like, holy crap, that's amazing. That's a business, right?

00;16;38;17 - 00;16;44;25
Shaun clark
Yeah. And we, we wrote all of our own tech and so at the time, so there's a lot of coding to go, you know, to do.

00;16;44;26 - 00;16;46;16
Brexton Bennett
And you were the one doing the coding at this point.

00;16;46;22 - 00;17;03;14
Shaun clark
Yeah, absolutely. Initially it was just me. And so what I did and so to the outcome, what I was seeing is the power of this service. As lame as it is to describe to people. The power of this service was immense for small businesses. Right. You know, the number of small businesses who missed phone calls even to this day is radically high.

00;17;03;27 - 00;17;24;23
Shaun clark
So but if you're a small business owner, you miss that phone call. Nobody calls the small businesses like for phone or chat. They probably give them money. Right. But these business owners are also tend to be operators. So the roofing business, the roofer, roofing business owner is also the roofer. So when the roofing business owner is being the roofer, he or she is not taking those calls and they're missing tons of business.

00;17;25;02 - 00;17;40;13
Shaun clark
And so you put the answering service in there, which, by the way, is very cheap. It's $100, $200, $3 a month. All of a sudden magic happens because all these calls get answered and they turn into a lot more roofing jobs and boom. You have a small business owner who is now thriving, whereas 5 minutes ago they were, you know, sort of on the brink of bankruptcy.

00;17;40;19 - 00;17;42;20
Brexton Bennett
Right. That's really cool.

00;17;43;03 - 00;17;56;20
Shaun clark
Huh? Yeah, it was of. And so, you know, we wrote all all kinds of code around it and we ended up with hundreds of agents and then we put them all at home, which was really cool, which at the time was very innovative. And so we wrote all the tech to put them at home and.

00;17;56;20 - 00;18;02;00
Brexton Bennett
All your people answering calls were just answering from home. And at that time it was probably unheard of.

00;18;02;09 - 00;18;16;09
Shaun clark
We had a building initially and you know, we were hiring staff and all that. But we got to this point where there's a lot of people in the building and it's just it's it's just not fun. Like it's just going around. We looked at other people who are bigger than us and was like, Oh my God, this just gets worse.

00;18;16;15 - 00;18;37;09
Shaun clark
Yeah. So, like, what do we do? So we just decided, like, we were we read an article at the time about Jet Blue who, what, who is in Utah. And what JetBlue had figured out was that there were all of these at the time, very much a female population, primarily of Mormon religion, all sitting at home every day.

00;18;37;09 - 00;18;53;01
Shaun clark
And the JetBlue CEO had figured out, you know what, a lot of these ladies are wicked smart and they're just being wasted sitting there. What if we could figure out how to get them to pick up JetBlue calls? And that's exactly what he did. And so we were like, Oh, my God, what if we do that for our business?

00;18;53;01 - 00;19;17;06
Shaun clark
And so that's exactly what we did. Now, first, we were more diverse population, right? But it didn't matter the fact there's just so many people sitting at home with no opportunity to do any kind of real work who had who are sort of wasting away. And, you know, we created really flexible scenarios. So, yeah, like a parent who would, you know, take the child to school, work for 4 hours, quit, you know, stop work, go pick the child up and maybe work for 2 hours in the evening or something like that.

00;19;17;06 - 00;19;20;09
Shaun clark
So. Right, a lot of really interesting. So to me.

00;19;20;29 - 00;19;31;03
Brexton Bennett
You're the one at this point. I mean, doing that for some of the ones in their writing code. But did you eventually evolve to a were you also part of the management making calls like this, like coming up with ideas like this and stuff?

00;19;31;03 - 00;19;34;02
Shaun clark
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Super high. Everything that the CEO pretty.

00;19;34;02 - 00;19;41;03
Brexton Bennett
Much was that I mean, did you kind of have a a position like that from the beginning since you got in on it from.

00;19;41;04 - 00;19;42;03
Shaun clark
Yeah. I mean that was always.

00;19;42;03 - 00;19;42;20
Brexton Bennett
The ground level.

00;19;42;21 - 00;19;45;28
Shaun clark
Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Hmm.

00;19;46;14 - 00;19;59;23
Brexton Bennett
And is that something you just kind of, like, surprised to find within yourself to have a knack for? Or was that really what you wanted to be doing? You know, I mean, like like you were you were kind of playing a role that a lot of social developer or excuse me, software developers don't want to play. And I guess you already talked about that.

00;19;59;23 - 00;20;13;08
Shaun clark
Well, that's why I'm not I always say I'm not a very good software developer, because that's the point. Right. But no, I think what it was is that's exactly what I wanted to do. And I sort of felt like I was almost going to college version too. But it was like the College of Hard Knocks, right? Like it was real world learning.

00;20;13;08 - 00;20;34;21
Shaun clark
Everything I was doing. I felt like really excited to be on the ground. Although for me what the big mistake I made was, I really undervalued myself. I, I underestimated myself. Yeah. I certainly learned a lot and had a lot of exposure that just money can't buy. But there was also a time where that started to switch to where I, I should have gone out a lot earlier.

00;20;34;21 - 00;20;43;11
Shaun clark
I mean, the big lesson I would go back and tell myself is, you know, like, like you're good, you're done now. Like you need to go and do this on your own like that.

00;20;43;11 - 00;20;47;17
Brexton Bennett
How did you finally you don't need to learn that. Like like what changed for you to finally believe that?

00;20;48;12 - 00;21;07;28
Shaun clark
Oh, I met my wife. Really? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I, I was working, you know, whatever, 12 hours a day, seven days a week. And eventually I just got lonely. And I didn't have a lot of friends because I worked all the time, and I certainly didn't have any, you know, I wasn't dating or anything. And so eventually I got to Match.com and this was again, early days, but the right thing to do.

00;21;08;24 - 00;21;28;20
Shaun clark
And, you know, and I, you know, I went on a couple of dates and that was right at the time. But, you know, I eventually I met my wife and, you know, she came into my life. She just started asking really good questions and saying like, gosh, this seems funny that, you know, you work as much as you do and you don't have, you know, and you're not, you know, you don't have what it is.

00;21;28;21 - 00;21;44;03
Shaun clark
You know, you don't really you don't really own the business in this and that. And so over time, she just sort of, you know, and it was painful at first I was saying because was I'm very defensive person. So yeah, I was very much like, oh, you're wrong, you know, this is great. Sure. I realize, you know, actually, no, you're right.

00;21;44;04 - 00;21;48;09
Shaun clark
This is weird. Something's going on here. I need to change the situation, so.

00;21;48;12 - 00;22;05;15
Brexton Bennett
Wow, that's cool. That's cool. Sean, did you meet your wife on Match.com then? That's awesome. Yeah. Huh. Wow. Really cool. So I feel like there's a lot of takeaways from that. I'm wondering if you had to turn around now, what advice do you give to kids in college or maybe to your own kids who are getting ready to or going through college?

00;22;06;02 - 00;22;11;21
Brexton Bennett
How can you approach college? In a way, I'll just leave it at that. Like, how would you approach college now then from what you've experienced?

00;22;11;21 - 00;22;26;10
Shaun clark
Well, I mean, I would I would for first I would say, you know, when I was going through college, I used to think, you know, worst case scenario, you can go get a business degree and probably do fine. I really believe that. I mean, I would sort of I would meet people in computer science who really struggle with the math or really struggled with that.

00;22;26;10 - 00;22;37;18
Shaun clark
It just really wasn't their passion, quite frankly. And, you know, they just sort of had started it because they thought it was a good idea. And I would just sort of say like, hey, why don't you just, like, go to general business and like kind of figure it out. And worst case scenario, you get a general business degree.

00;22;37;18 - 00;23;01;05
Shaun clark
You can use that in lots of places. I think less of that today, I would say. I think it's more that's more dubious advice. I feel like hard core science and math is really important. And if you don't have a hard core science and math sort of focus, I think it's going to be tough to come out on the other side financially in a place where you feel like that was a good trade of money and time for what you got out of the deal.

00;23;01;09 - 00;23;19;15
Shaun clark
I would I would say there are very few other non science and math related things that I would go to school for personally, but that would be my advice. And then the other thing is I, I, I, looking back, I would say it's all of the experience I had in industry really helped me in dramatic way that I think money can't buy.

00;23;19;28 - 00;23;40;12
Shaun clark
So I also think like if I was like if I was in school today, I almost would pause and like go out and and just try to work in the job that I thought I wanted. Because that's the other thing I think is very difficult for people is that ultimately, you know, you think you want something, you have an idea, but when you really get out there, it's totally different and you may hate it.

00;23;40;18 - 00;23;42;11
Shaun clark
So the sooner you learn that, the better.

00;23;42;20 - 00;24;01;05
Brexton Bennett
Yeah, that's really good advice. I couldn't agree more, so I'm trying to think of where to go with this last little bit of time that we have, and I think I'll be sure and insert kind of a I'll, I'll add an introduction at the beginning before our interview. I'll talk a little bit about high level and what you're up to right now so our listeners can can learn more about it.

00;24;01;05 - 00;24;33;09
Brexton Bennett
And I think we could spend another 30 minutes talking about the mission of high level and how it's evolved into a powerful machine for serving the customers that you serve, which are small business owners, but through in an indirect way, by serving agency owners. And it's fascinating. I mean, that was really the reason at the beginning why I reached out to you and wanted to chat, because I think just that approach to business, looking at it as how can I better change myself to serve my customer rather than how can I forces customer to receive what I have to offer is so powerful.

00;24;33;13 - 00;24;43;22
Shaun clark
Yeah, I think I think of it as how can I make someone else money? And if I can do that, I suspect there's going to. I suspect I'll do just fine. Yeah, that's actually. I think about it.

00;24;43;28 - 00;25;03;12
Brexton Bennett
Yeah. Why don't more people think that way? I think it's powerful. I want to I came across just recently actually this quote by Clayton Christensen and he talks about the role of a manager. And I really want to hear your thoughts from your experience as a manager and also as a business that serves a lot of people in the business world.

00;25;03;13 - 00;25;18;16
Brexton Bennett
This is what he says. He says management is the most noble of professions. If it's practiced well, no other occupation offers as many ways to help others learn and grow, take responsibility and be recognized for achievement and contribute to the success of the team. More and more MBA students come to school thinking that a career in business means buying, selling, investing in companies.

00;25;18;16 - 00;25;31;27
Brexton Bennett
That's unfortunate. Doing deals doesn't yield the deep rewards that come from building up people. So I'd love to end today just hearing your thoughts. How have you found managing a large company to be about more than just buying, selling, creating a product? Does that make sense?

00;25;32;06 - 00;25;32;28
Shaun clark
Oh, absolutely.

00;25;32;28 - 00;25;33;27
Brexton Bennett
Yeah. I want to hear your thoughts.

00;25;33;29 - 00;25;53;19
Shaun clark
I didn't even know how to do big deals, to be honest. I don't even they tend not to work out very well, but I would say, yeah, I mean, I am not so first and foremost, I am not the best manager. I know far better managers than me. What I would say, though, is that when you find that so, first of all, finding people who you want to work with is the most important thing.

00;25;53;19 - 00;26;17;16
Shaun clark
And the easiest way to do that is just in whatever it is that you hope for. I hope for them to do be sure that you hire people who are absolutely smarter than you and better than you at it. And and be okay with that. Be B be proud of that. You know, my, the people that I have the honor of working with in my organization, I, they just crush me in their subject matter.

00;26;17;16 - 00;26;38;12
Shaun clark
And it's and I enjoy it. I love to challenge them sometimes just, just so that they can put me in my place because they're so good at what they do, because it fundamentally changes the game. Because then what my job is, is like I just have to figure out, like, how can I help this person in everything that they need to just sort of stay in their lane and just trust what they do?

00;26;38;12 - 00;26;56;12
Shaun clark
And you just do that over and over and over again. Very difficult to do because there's lots of people who sort of sign up and or raise their hand and say, like, I am this person, I do this job, but they're not very good at it. But once you find a stellar person like that, they're phenomenal. You just are almost like step back and just like watch them work.

00;26;56;12 - 00;26;57;12
Shaun clark
It's really, really stay.

00;26;57;12 - 00;26;58;20
Brexton Bennett
Out of their way, huh?

00;26;59;01 - 00;26;59;19
Shaun clark
Absolutely.

00;26;59;28 - 00;27;20;23
Brexton Bennett
Yeah. That's cool. I don't know how you feel about this question. This might be a hard one to answer, but I high level is is growing fast and it's huge. And as I I've done some research watching a lot of different interviews of you talking about high level, talking more specifically about the growth that it's experience. And I'm just struck by how you're able to stay very humble, frankly.

00;27;21;19 - 00;27;28;03
Brexton Bennett
How do you I mean, how do you stay humble when when things around you are going really, really well? Because it seems to be a strength of yours.

00;27;28;07 - 00;27;57;10
Shaun clark
I mean, I, I remember many times when things weren't going well. I remember many times when I was when I was losing, when I lost, when I had no idea, when I thought failure was around the corner. And I remember those times and I inescapable. They haunt me every day. And so as a result, it keeps it reminds me that you know how you know how you get to this places is absolutely about work and determination and about all of those things.

00;27;57;10 - 00;28;16;21
Shaun clark
It's also about luck. It's also about timing. It's also about knowing amazing people and having great connections and and all of those things. I mean, my, my, my business is not me. You know, I like out of the gate, I had two of the most amazing co-founders you could ever find. And and I have and those. And that was just all luck.

00;28;16;21 - 00;28;35;15
Shaun clark
And had I not have those two co-founders, I would absolutely not be here to this day as we grow and as we expand and as we do better, they're still right there every day doing amazing, the same amazing things that they've always done. So it's really about figuring out, you know, realizing that all of those things factor into your success.

00;28;35;26 - 00;28;46;17
Shaun clark
So it's not your success. At the end of the day, you're part of it, but so are so many other people and so you got to remember that it's not it's not it's not like you did it all. That's nonsense.

00;28;46;19 - 00;28;51;27
Brexton Bennett
Sure. And it seems like being able to instead choose to be grateful for the chance to be a part of it.

00;28;52;07 - 00;28;54;12
Shaun clark
That's. That's my thing. I just feel lucky to be here.

00;28;54;12 - 00;28;55;13
Brexton Bennett
Yeah, I could tell.

00;28;55;23 - 00;29;09;23
Shaun clark
Like, wondering a lottery or something, right? I just. I feel like I, you know, I bought the right scratch off thing, know, and so it's, you know, if you sort of think about it that way, it's really hard to just sort of like get up in your head about it and think, sure, I want to take or you bought the right scratch off ticket.

00;29;09;23 - 00;29;23;22
Shaun clark
You're a genius. Like, no, you had just walked away at the right time. And that's sort of how I think about it. It doesn't mean there's not a lot of hard work and all that, but there's lots of people work really hard and fail. And I've been one of those people. So yeah, I know what it's like. So I always try to respect that.

00;29;23;23 - 00;29;29;21
Brexton Bennett
Yeah. And I think people can feel that when, when you adopt the attitude of I'm just grateful to be a part of this and more people want to be a part of it and then it grows.

00;29;29;26 - 00;29;32;21
Shaun clark
Yeah, absolutely not. And that's exactly how I think.

00;29;33;21 - 00;29;43;05
Brexton Bennett
John, some awesome takeaways. Thanks so much for sharing your time with us today, man. I really, really appreciate it. It was great to be here. That was really fun. I love hearing the stories and likewise, I appreciate your example. Okay.

00;29;43;11 - 00;29;43;27
Shaun clark
All right.