“I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.” ― Thomas A. Edison Most startups fail. We all know this as much as we try to forget it. The absolute hardest, hardest question an entrepreneur can ask themselves is: When do you know it’s over? In the first of two conversations in this episode, we are joined by Derek Bereit, CEO and Co-Founder of Symptomly, who is staring down the end of his runway and wrestling with this very question. In a second conversation we hear from Beth McKeon, Founder and CEO of Kids Calendar, who is dealing with another common challenge: How do you find, recruit and hire the right person for your startup at the stage that it’s in? As always we’d love to hear feedback from you either on our website or on twitter @reboothq. Now on with to the conversations.

1. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 1 of 17
Welcome to the Reboot podcast. I'm Dan Putt, one of the partners here at Reboot and I could not
be more excited about this conversation. We're here to showcase the heart and soul of authentic
leadership, to inspire more open conversations around what we consider the most important part
of entrepreneurship, the emotional struggle and hopefully, we open up some hearts along the
way. We are extremely grateful that you have taken the time to be with us and look forward to
this journey ahead with you. Now, on with our conversation.
We were fortunate to co-produce this conversation with the Global Accelerator Network. GAN
is a network of 70 accelerators worldwide that help streamline the process of setting up and
running accelerators. You can find more about then at Gan.co.
"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work." - Thomas Edison. Most
startups fail, we all know this as much as we try to forget it. The absolute hardest, hardest
question an entrepreneur can ask themselves is, "When do you know it's over?" In the first of the
two conversations in this episode, we are joined by Derek Bereit, CEO and founder of
Symptomly who is staring down at the end of his runway and wrestling with this very question.
In the second conversation, we hear from Beth McKeon, founder and CEO of Kids Calendar
who is dealing with another common challenge. How do you find, recruit, and hire the right
person for your startup?
As always, we'd love to hear feedback from you either on our website at Reboot.io/podcast or on
Twitter @RebootHQ. Now, on with the conversations.
Conversation with Derek Bereit
Derek Bereit: Yes, we started a company about 18 months ago, focused on pediatric asthma
and we went to the Spring Mobile [Unclear 0:02:15] accelerator powered by
Techstars as well as Healthbox. So we've been through two accelerators. Our
big challenge is that we are about 60 days out from running out of money.
We haven't found a product market fit, specifically revenue that's scalable and
supports operations and that our customer approvals take too long. We are in
the middle of a fundraise however, these revenue and customer issues are
huge towards making their decision and if the investors don’t double down
then we fail and then the real question is, look we got our gas-pedal to the
floor, we're headed for a brick wall, but at the end of that day – or end of that
month, it feels like if we hit that brick wall, there's a strong sense of personal
failure. How do you find the next role, how do you recover and while we
have all of our focus on the fundraising, you're really just ignoring an 800-
pound gorilla of failure.
Jerry Colonna: So Derek, I just want to – I want to acknowledge that what you just rattled off
in this kind of beautifully flat, neutral tone is actually quite challenging and I
heard you laugh a little bit and so you know what I mean.
Derek: Yes.

2. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 2 of 17
Jerry: What you just described is probably one of the most difficult situations facing
an entrepreneur and that is being 60 days out from a complete failure. Have
you listened to my coaching sessions or participated in anything that I have
done before?
Derek: No, I have not.
Jerry: Okay. So, I have to warn you is that the big joke is I have a superpower and
the superpower is that I make people cry.
Derek: [Laughs]
Jerry: So, I also have X-ray vision and I take notes and I heard that the point of this
company was to deal with pediatric asthma.
Derek: Right.
Jerry: And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that pediatric asthma is
important to you personally; isn’t that right?
Derek: Yes.
Jerry: And that's an issue here as well; isn’t it?
Derek: Yes, definitely.
Jerry: All right, so just pause on that. Did you hear that breath, that intake? I
promised to not purposefully make you cry okay?
Derek: [Laughs]
Jerry: But if we are going to get you through this period, it's really important that we
acknowledge everything that's on the table for you right now and one of the
things that's on the table for you is not just the company failing, but in your
mind, the mission failing. And again, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist here to
figure out how important this mission is. So, if you don’t mind, before we go
into sort of a pragmatic discussion, could you share with us why this is so
important to you? Why did you start this business?
Derek: I think pediatric asthma is a big problem; I think the real reason I started this
business is, I really always wanted to do startups. I had been in law and I had
been in the military and so, I was helping out with the license deal and this
was the deal. And as it took life, they put me in charge of it. This was my
first opportunity to run with the startup, first opportunity to build a team, raise

3. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 3 of 17
money, go to some accelerators – and I come from a world in military and law
where failure is not celebrated.
Jerry: Right. So, we are not going to – don’t worry about the celebrating failure,
we'll deal with that in a second but – so there's no one in your life that has or
been touched with pediatric asthma; is that right?
Derek: Yes, not in my life but we've done hundreds of customer interview and talked
to doctors so you definitely you take on your customers.
Jerry: Well, I'll tell you as a father of three, including two kids who had asthma,
including one who I would regularly be called into the Emergency Room for
an asthma attack, I can attest to the important of what you are trying to do
here. So, I hear you on that. So you've got 60 days of funding left?
Derek: Yes.
Jerry: What's the situation with the current investors?
Derek: So, they are actually the inventor of the product and they use it. The big deal
is that while they find it valuable, at the end of the day, they don’t pay for it
and so now they are putting on their 'Investor' hat versus their 'User' hat. The
product is simple and it works incredibly well but again, is anyone willing to
pay for it? We have just struggled to find that and now, despite their huge fan
of really the team and the product, based on their internal use, they are starting
to see that there may not be a scalable revenue model.
Jerry: What if there isn’t?
Derek: Well, they won't invest. I mentioned a major pivot; that is actually the major
pivot. We said, look, mobile health is in its infancy so let's get out there and
sign up children's hospitals. We have customers out there, we have pilots and
let's pawn 18 months and see if we can get the word out there, grab some
market-share, get a reputation that this thing works and that's sort of the last
minute pivot is let's roll out under a freemium model.
Jerry: And to see if that works?
Derek: Right.
Jerry: And working would be defined as customer acceptance at this point?
Derek: Yes absolutely; creating customer value, letting them see the value of the
product, engaging other patients outside the hospital.

4. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 4 of 17
Jerry: So, in my notes here from – in the advance of the call, I see one sort of
implicit question which was – and this is my interpretation of what I am
reading here and that is, how do you focus on the upside while simultaneously
being prepared for failure? Is that a question?
Derek: Yes, that is THE question.
Jerry: So, one of the hardest parts about being in a startup is the fact that failure is
actually the norm. It's not only an option; it’s the norm and there is a mindset,
which – I have never been in the military so correct me if I am wrong here,
but there is a mindset that exists in the society which is that if we allow the
possibility of failure, then we sort of defeat ourselves before we even take the
field and I get that mindset. Is that something that you may have been taught
in the military? That kind of mindset?
Derek: I think it's even bigger. I mean, failure wasn’t an option I think in the military
and law. I think, you actually doubled down to avoid failure in a startup. You
do absolutely everything to avoid a failure; it's really the mentality that I have
been around.
Jerry: So, the thing that gets missed with that is something that I often referred to
around the engineering mindset. Now, do you have a technical background,
Derek?
Derek: No.
Jerry: So, one of the things I love about working with engineers is more often than
not, they have been trained differently and the way they think of failure is as
experiments that give them data or experiments that produce unexpected
outcomes. And the truths is, you guys were probably right about some things
and probably wrong about others and the struggle is how to shift the mindset
from this being a failure and therefore what – 'you suck as a CEO' or you –
'everybody are losers' into something that is more of like, 'okay, well that
didn’t work' and that's a hard shift. So if the question is, 'how do you focus on
the upside while preparing for failure' I think one of the things that you have
to do is take a look at what does it really mean to fail in this regard. In this
case, there was an effort and the effort was – tell me what Symptomly – what
the product does.
Derek: It's real simple; it basically tracks parents' and their kids' symptoms, patient
[Unclear 0:11:24] data outside the hospital and it feeds back to a Physician
Population Health Management at the ER in the hospital.
Jerry: Uh-huh. If you were to start today, and start the company – how long have
you been involved in the company?

5. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 5 of 17
Derek: 18 months.
Jerry: All right, so if you were to start the company today, knowing what you have
learnt over the last 18 months, what would you have done differently aside
from raising more capital?
Derek: No, I wouldn’t have raised more capital – I mean, to a certain extent, I
wouldn’t have done it with this product. I think we started with the product
and a license, we didn’t go out and talk to customers about what they wanted.
So, I wouldn’t say I wouldn’t have done this company because that's crazy, I
have learnt a thousand lessons but one of those lessons is don’t start with a
product, start with customers and start with paying customers.
Jerry: Or even start with the customer's problem.
Derek: Yes, exactly.
Jerry: Right. So – did you go to business school?
Derek: Yes.
Jerry: Did they teach you what you just learned in business school?
Derek: No.
Jerry: Isn’t that interesting? Probably the most important business lesson that you
have experienced in your career, you didn’t learn in business school. So I just
want to pull that out and recognize that this is one of the reasons why the CEO
of a failed company can be a really important person or a really profitable
person to back later on. It's because they have learnt stuff that they are never
going to learn else wise. I think you’ve got a near-term issue though; which
is, how do I stay positive so I can continue the process of fundraising while I
know that the likelihood is that we are going to fail? Is that sort of what
you're sitting there with?
Derek: Yes, exactly. You put a hundred percent or a hundred and ten percent on the
upside but at the end of the day, you can't ignore it. Like, it's there.
Jerry: And my instinct, and this is going to sound somewhat defeatist but my instinct
is that I don’t know that I can advise you to do that because I think that what
you are talking about is kind of selling in-authentically.
Derek: [Laughs]
Jerry: Let me ask you something Derek; do you believe that the current product has
a market fit?

6. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 6 of 17
Derek: No, I think it's too soon.
Jerry: Too soon?
Derek: Yes, there are just hospitals and insurance companies don’t really have a
financial incentive to keep kids out of the hospital which is what our product
does. Just a real tiny example is, our product is actually working, it's
identifying some sick kids and they call the doctors and they say, "Hey, this
kid's sick." And they say, "What? What are you talking about? How do you
know that? Where did you find that? What do you want me to do?" And it's
just something we did not anticipate.
Jerry: All right. So, this is not going to be a very upbeat thing that I am about to say
but I'm not sure you should go a thousand percent for success in fundraising
because the fact is internally, you don’t believe it and even if you manage to
scrape up another couple of hundred thousand dollars – you know, one of our
hardest, hardest questions I think entrepreneurs have to deal with is, "When do
you know it's over?" If I were an entrepreneur calling you Derek, what would
you say to me to that question?
Derek: Life is short, go do something you can make money at.
Jerry: You don’t need to coach; you need to listen to yourself.
Derek: [Laughs]
Jerry: Okay, now I think it's a shame if you walk away from this experience and
walk away from being an entrepreneur because man to man, you've learnt a
shit load, excuse my expressions. You've learnt a lot and the health
marketplace is really important and pediatric health is really important and
there's an asthma epidemic in little kids that is ignored in this country. And I
would love to see parents have the capacity – because I remember what it was
like to get a phone call that my kid was having an asthma attack away at
camp, and he's five years old for the first week he's away and I can tell you
what that drive was like for three hours upstate New York. I know what that's
like and anything that can lessen the severity of that and save lives – we often
joke about changing the world but that's really changing the world. But I
don’t know, when I say this to you, when I call forth what you already know,
how does it feel? How do you feel?
Derek: It feels good, it was even harder to write out the notes to tell you because I get
a lot of advice from everybody and not to sound – it is what it is but whenever
someone says that, I say, 'Oh, I knew that already.' I didn’t listen to myself,
and I'm not saying that I know everything but when people say stuff and I can

7. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 7 of 17
think about, I always think about someone asking me the same question I
generally have the answer; but yes, just trusting yourself.
Jerry: I do these first-time-CEO bootcamps and the first evening, we tend to be
dedicated to a Zen aphorism I use which is, 'This being so, so what?' and it
often feels like it is what it is. But that to me is the defeatist attitude; it is what
it is and then people shrug their shoulders and they use it as an excuse actually
not to take any action. That's not what I am suggesting; 'This being so, so
what?' is something that I think is really important and what that means is not
bullshitting yourself about the reality of the situation that you are in. There's
no little magic-wand I can pull out here and I've got a whole boatload of
magic wands but none for this situation that can get you funding in 60 days
especially – and this is the key, when the CEO doesn’t believe. And so, my
advice at this point is, do this as professionally, as humanely, as cleanly, as
thoughtfully as possible and get yourself into a good emotional and economic
- financial position so that you can take another run at it.
Derek: Yes, that's a huge component of it. I have some killer, very valuable
connections and mentors and teammates and network and to shut this down
the wrong way or to "give up" in the wrong way, just puts 18 months of work
–
Jerry: All right, so I just want to bring attention to something that you just did. You
just merged shutting this down in the right way with giving up and it's not the
same thing my friend. It is stupid to continue a fight that you have already
lost. Boy, I never like using the word "Stupid," I apologize. It's fruitless –
Derek: [Laughs]
Jerry: – to use the word – to continue a fight that you have already given up.
Preserve those resources, preserve those relationships – as an investor, I have
had countless companies fail and I – most of the folks that I have backed, who
failed well, I backed again. Fail well.
Derek: What does that mean from your perspective or –
Jerry: I mean, fail with honor. As a military man, you know what that means. Hold
your head up with pride, treat people well, be honest, no delusion, no lying, no
spinning, get the houses in order; the financial house in order, pay your taxes,
pay your bills and quietly live to fight another day. Boy, we've got all these
military metaphors going on here.
Derek: [Laughs]

8. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 8 of 17
Jerry: I feel bad here, I really wish I could pull some magic line out of the air that
would just make this easier but I think you've said it, I think you know what
you've got.
Derek: I really appreciate that.
Jerry: Will you do me a favor and will you email me and keep me up-to-date about
what's going on?
Derek: Yes, absolutely.
Jerry: I think that there's a lot of lessons – also, take a look at – do you know Chris
Poole is?
Derek: No.
Jerry: So he was a – I think the founder of – geez, I'm blanking – 4chan I think.
Anyway, he had a brilliant blog post about his failure a few months ago, really
worth reading. Take a look at that and lastly, I just want to say thank you
again. It takes a lot of courage to get on here in front of all these people and
talk about this in this way and that's an undervalued character trait. You have
got a lot of bravery my friend.
Derek: Yes, I figured, if whatever your worst problems, then it's definitely better to
throw it out there for people who don’t just struggle in silence.
Jerry: You got it; it's the struggling in silence that causes the most problems for us in
the end.
Conversation with Beth McKeon
Jerry Colonna: Hey Beth, how are you?
Beth McKeon: Thank you so much for having me on here, this is amazing.
Jerry: Sure.
Beth: I just recently graduated from the Iowa Startup Accelerator and I started the
Kids Calendar as a solo founder and about a year ago, started to build a team.
I would say that the team that I have formed has been sort of in transition as I
get better at figuring out what I am looking for in a team. But it's still like a
big grey area for me. It's my first time really in that role of hiring people and
yes, so I'd say that's been one of my bigger challenges and just to give you a
little bit of a perspective, I joined the accelerator with two technical co-
founders. They were a couple and they did not move to Iowa with me to be a

9. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 9 of 17
part of the program. They were just going to be supporting the process
remotely and in the course of the program, it became clear to all of us that
they just weren’t committed to seeing the startup go. They had other side-
projects they were working on, they had a fulltime job and when I needed
them to be working on the Kids Calendar, they just couldn’t step up and so we
– we had a very candid conversation about it, we worked through everything
and decided to split ways. And then after that, I also have other support
members on the team and the piece of this that I feel responsible for is in the
story that I tell when I introduce people to Kids Calendar, because we have a
really loyal audience. So I can always find people that want to be a part of
this but they don’t necessarily understand how working for the Kids Calendar
is different because it's a startup compared to just having like a part-time job
or being a contractor for an established company. And so, I lost a contractor
this month to solve the changes that were coming because of some pivots that
happened during the accelerator just really didn’t like the direction that her job
position was going to be going in the coming months. And so I feel like there
is a piece of that that's mine to own in terms of setting the expectations for the
team and guiding us towards a common goal. But I don’t really know how to
go about that process of finding the right people that can kind of understand
the difference in this kind of a job compared to maybe what they are used to in
the past.
Jerry: Thank you for the extra context of the situation and I recognize that thing's not
working out with the technical cofounders was difficult. Just to clarify, are
you in Iowa?
Beth: Yes, mostly. I'm actually – the Kids Calendar was based in Kansas and I'll be
moving the company to Iowa in the coming months so I'm sort of going back
and forth between Kansas and Iowa right now.
Jerry: Okay, so you're like on some highway somewhere – just kidding.
Beth: Yes. Actually I am. [Laughs]
Jerry: You're in Nebraska.
Beth: [Laughs]
Jerry: Okay, so it feels like there are two questions implicit in here so let me give
them back to you and see if we are getting them. One is the sort of more
theoretical but pragmatic, that is how does one go about building a team and
the second is a little bit more specific which is culturally, how does one attract
to a team, people who are culturally accepting of life in a startup generally?
Do I have that right?
Beth: You totally do. That was a great job [Laughter]

10. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 10 of 17
Jerry: I take a lot of notes. [Laughs] Okay so on the first question, which is really
about building a team, there is an important metaphor that I want to hold on to
or important distinction that I want you to hold on to which is that even
though right now, the work of the company is still about building a product or
service, you are the CEO; correct?
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: Remember, you have three tasks as the CEO and I forgive – forgive me
everyone who's ever heard me say this before because I say this so often that it
feels relentless even to me; but you have three jobs. The first is to hold the
vision of the company; that means the mission, the purpose, the vision, the
values. Why are we doing what we are doing and what is it what we are
doing. The second is to build and maintain the team which is what you are
struggling with right now and the third is to give that team what it needs to
succeed. Those are the steps necessary not to build a product or service but to
build a company.
Beth: Okay.
Jerry: And the thing that you have to remember and it gets confusing because you
are still in the process of building the product or service as an individual, is
you are in the company building business. So building this team is your job.
Beth: Right.
Jerry: And here's the really, really bad news; when you are finished building the
team, you're going to have to do it all over again and again and again and
again. It's kind of like painting a bridge; the apocryphal story where you
finish painting the bridge and then you have to start all over again because the
first end started rusting?
Beth: [Laughs]
Jerry: It's looking back after the team. Okay?
Beth: Okay.
Jerry: So, this core question that you are asking, this is your work, this is your job,
all right? So let's go back to it for a moment. If you are in the business-
building process, then what you want to do is to begin to identify the functions
that create the most leverage as quickly as possible; often times that means the
technical co-founder because guess what; they are the ones who actually go
out and build the damn product or service. How many individuals do you
have working for you right now? Any?

11. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 11 of 17
Beth: Yes, I have three contractors.
Jerry: Three contractors.
Beth: Mm-hmm.
Jerry: Okay, what roles are they playing?
Beth: So, they are all doing content-curation right now.
Jerry: Okay and how much money have you raised so far?
Beth: So far, just the 20,000 from the accelerator.
Jerry: Okay so given this, what we want to do is prioritize where your effort is going
to be –
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: – and you need at least one thought partner [Unclear 0:28:51]
Beth: Yes. [Laughs]
Jerry: You can feel the relief even just envisioning actually having somebody else
that's fulltime working on this?
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: And that thought partner is going to be a co-founder.
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: Even though they are joining relatively late which means that you are going to
give up a big piece of not only the equity but you are going to give up a big
piece of the control?
Beth: Right.
Jerry: Yes, I heard the air come out of your lungs in that one.
Beth: [Laughs]
Jerry: Okay?
Beth: Yes –

12. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 12 of 17
Jerry: Go ahead there.
Beth: It's not so much the control piece that I think is tricky, it's that there's just a lot
of knowledge about the business that I am not sure how to even like share that
with somebody in a deep way. I can piece all the systems that we have in
place and the manual process of it but –
Jerry: Beth?
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: Go back to the first thing; what's the first thing that your job is? What's the
first job?
Beth: To hold the vision. [Laughs]
Jerry: Okay, so implicit in that statement is developing the skill to constantly and
constantly, with energy, articulate the why's and wherefore's of your company
–
Beth: Okay.
Jerry: – in such a way that you inspire normally radisson mid-westerners –
Beth: [Laughs]
Jerry: – to take a risk, work without salary, give up the job at the post office – I'm
teasing and come take a flyer on this belief.
Beth: Right.
Jerry: And the reason that this is a really important skill set is you will never ever,
ever, ever stop being required to do that. Just like you never stop painting the
bridge and building a team, you never ever, ever, ever, ever stop getting
people to believe in the company.
Beth: Right.
Jerry: Jeff Bezos today, running Amazon just announced "354-450 million dollar
shortfall" he is still trying to get people to believe in Amazon every day. So
what I just said is hard.
Beth: Yes, I mean it's great though; like I can make that a bigger part of
conversations as a team for sure.

13. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 13 of 17
Jerry: All right, so sell me; why should I come work for you?
Beth: So, what we are doing right now is going into these communities that there are
all these local businesses that –
Jerry: No, you telling me what you are doing.
Beth: [Laughs]
Jerry: Why should I come work for you?
Beth: Because we are building something that's going to be enormous –
Jerry: Why?
Beth: – but right now it's tiny. Why is it going to be enormous?
Jerry: Yes.
Beth: Because the problem we have solved and we have already proven that we can
solve it, exist in every city, in every town in the U.S.
Jerry: Okay, so for me, one of the most telling moments, and John Scully describes
this in his autobiography about the time he was recruited by Steve Jobs to
come run Apple. Leave aside whether or not he was successful or all that
stuff, it's the famous "sugared-water" moment. Have you ever heard of this?
Beth: No.
Jerry: Okay, so Steve Jobs apparently takes him out into his back deck or his
backyard and he's been trying to sell John Scully, who was the head of
marketing at Pepsi, for years and years; a very successful executive, why he
should take a flier on this crazy idea called Apple Computers. And he turns to
him and he says to him, very manipulatively, "What do you want to do; sell
sugared-water for the rest of your life?"
Beth: [Laughs]
Jerry: Yes, so you got to come up with your sugar-water line.
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: Okay? You got to come up with – and you got to do it from your heart not
from a manipulative sales perspective. You got to convince people and by the
way, doing this for the team, means you also do it for the investors which

14. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 14 of 17
means you do it for the customers. You got to – let me ask you something
Beth; do you believe in this company?
Beth: Absolutely. One hundred percent.
Jerry: Why?
Beth: Because I have seen the power of what we do in a one-city level and –
Jerry: What does it do?
Beth: In terms of connecting the community, it took a city that – we curate events
and programs in the community. So, it took a city with the prevailing notion
was that it was not a friendly place for families and two years later, we are
showing that there are 50-60 things happening every week and now the story
is –
Jerry: Why is that important?
Beth: Now the story is that people can't even choose between all of the amazing
options.
Jerry: Why is that important?
Beth: It completely transformed the way that families are connecting with their
[Unclear 0:34:01]
Jerry: Why, why is that important? One level deeper, speak from your heart.
Beth: [Laughs]
Jerry: Yes, speak from your heart. Why are family-friendly communities important?
Beth: I mean, the way I view it is that we've got all of these people providing value
in terms of these small businesses and they were completely blocked before
we started offering this service. They had no way to communicate what they
were doing other than things like flyers and now these business-owners, are
successful and not just successful but like selling out what they are doing. So
they are providing the value that they set out to provide because now they
have a venue for reaching their audience and that's possible because of what
we do.
Jerry: I want to challenge you one step deeper because you keep going into your
head.
Beth: [Laughs]

15. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 15 of 17
Jerry: You keep giving me the business reason and that’s an important thing to stay
in touch with but the fact of the matter is – and people who have heard me
before know that I speak about this all the time, there is a reason that your
company exists and if you are going to convince people to take a flier on your
business to leave a safe, comfortable job, if you are going to convince people
to take a risk, you're going to sell them on your heart because that's where the
vision lies. The truth is, there is something in this notion of family-friendly
community for you; tell a story, tell an anecdote, tell me why joining your
company is a good idea for me. I'm speaking rhetorically at this point because
I want to address some of the issues but do you understand the point I'm
making here?
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: And I want to explain; I apologize for interrupting you so much, I was really
deep into a coaching mode. When we interrupt as coaches, what I am trying
to do is break through the story-making that we all get into. So in our fear,
and you tell me if this resonates with you, in a fearful position, what it felt like
to me was that you wanted to explain to me why this was a good business
idea; is that right?
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: Right. So I understand that that's an important data point but what you'll find
is that employees are motivated; Daniel Pink writing in Drive does a really
great job of describing this; "Employees are not necessarily motivated by
good business ideas."
Beth: Okay, sure. [Laughs]
Jerry: Think about it yourself.
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: What was your last job?
Beth: I was a – I had my own business as a private special-education teacher.
Jerry: Okay, so you were making a living.
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: Right and then you gave that up and you are living off savings and you are
driving on a highway between Iowa and Kansas; right, because you believe in
something?

16. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 16 of 17
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: Not because it makes good business decision.
Beth: Right.
Jerry: In fact, it's probably a terrible financial decision.
Beth: [Laughs]
Jerry: So, you got to reach into that heart and Daniel Pink talks about three things
that people look for that motivate them; autonomy, mastery and purpose, A-
M-P. This is what the startup offers in place; autonomy, the freedom to really
create a magnificent job on your own; mastery, the ability to learn and grow in
a job in ways they never would have been challenged before. Like, I don’t
know if year heard Derek's conversation but Derek learnt more or learnt some
very important lessons in the 18 months that he was CEO that he never learnt
in business school; that's mastery.
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: And then lastly, purpose; without purpose, it's all stress. With purpose, it just
becomes hard work. So, you got to sell AMP. If you are going to convince
people to take a drastically reduced salary, a risky situation, you're right, it's
not just another part-time job.
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: And if you are hiring people – let's talk about culture for a moment; if you are
hiring people just because it's another part time job, you might as well light
your money on fire.
Beth: Right.
Jerry: Okay?
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: So you got to sell and this goes back to that first thing; what is the vision,
what is the purpose – if I join your company, will I have more funds? Will
have more meaning? Will I grow? Will I impact the world in ways that are
important to me?
Beth: Yes.

17. Reboot010-Fail_With_Honor
Page 17 of 17
Jerry: Because if I don’t have those things, I'm not going to take a risk.
Beth: It's just too hard otherwise.
Jerry: It's just too hard.
Beth: Yes.
Jerry: And be leery of recruiting people because it'll make them rich because guess
what you'll create; let's imagine that for a moment you can convince people
that joining your crazy little company is going to make them rich, you'll create
a bunch of people who are driven by money.
Beth: Right.
Jerry: They tend to bail at the first sign of trouble. Can we just wrap on this? So, I
just want to make sure you got where you're going right now. Yes?
Beth: Yes, no this is great, thank you so much.
Jerry: All right, thank you.
So that’s it for our conversation today. You know, a lot was covered in this episode from links,
to books, to quotes, to images. So, we went ahead and compiled all that and put it on our site at
Reboot.io/podcast. If you would like to be a guest on the show, you can find out about that on
our site as well.
I’m really grateful that you took the time to listen. If you enjoyed the show and you want to get
all the latest episodes as we release them, head over to iTunes and subscribe and while you’re
there, it would be great if you could leave us a review letting us know how the show affected
you. So, thank you again for listening and I really look forward to future conversations together.
[Singing] "How long till my soul gets it right?
Did any human being ever reach that kind of light?
I call on the resting soul of Galileo,
King of night-vision, King of insight."
[End of audio 0:41:35]
[End of transcript]