Cydni Tetro

Today we have an amazing guest, Sid Tetro, who is an amazing entrepreneur, a legend. >> Disney had a group when I was there called the Blue Sky Group. And the Blue Skies group was always to think about what could be possible if this were true with no constraints. What happens if we make this experience? And let's go actually build it in a test scenario and try it. We did these R&D open houses where 40 to 60 innovations would get showcased. You will never see almost any of them. 5% of them might have made them to productization, but we had rides we built in the back lots. We had experiences that were created that the public will never see. Facebook barely had released their Facebook API and at the time you could build on it. Now today like Facebook's still the same that it eventually became which is do not build on Facebook because they're going to take businesses to zero really really quick. >> If you're dependent on another platform for your business, you better be careful. >> It's happening today with like Open AI and at a flip of a switch they could literally steal or take your whole business. [music] Rock next to Rock. [music] >> Welcome to the Startup Ignition podcast. Thank you so much for watching the last episodes. This is episode 39. Just 39. 39. Yeah. And today we have an amazing guest who I have an amazing bio for that was written by AI. So hopefully it's correct. See if it's good. >> Yeah. So we'll see. Did it hallucinate? >> Hopefully not. If it did then Sid's going to have to correct us on the fly. But today I am your host. Obviously Tyler Richards. You know me by now. This is John Richards, my father, my mentor, and also partner in almost everything we do in Startup Ignition. But today we have Sid Tetro. Sydney Tetro. I call you Sid. Hopefully that's okay. >> Yep. Sid Tetro who is an amazing entrepreneur and has done so much in her long career and I have a bio for you so let's read it. >> I just got to say a legend we don't throw that around lightly here that's in women in entrepreneurship tech executive her background education everything she's done it's we we could be here for five hours >> you guys come as my hype crew [laughter] >> just kidding we we'll follow you around and just hype you up all day. So Sid Tetro is a serial entrepreneur, innovator, and tech leader right here in Utah. She is a three-time CEO, EY entrepreneur of the year winner. Sydney has an incredible background in technology. You are CS grad, correct? I Yes. So a CS grad, spent years at Disney, working in tech and AI, robotics. Um, you have founded and sold multiple startups. uh and even led e-commerce brands recently called Brandless here as CEO raising hundreds of millions of dollars building revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars. You lead women tech council and she tech really pushing forward women in entrepreneurship and women in STEM and technology across the state and nationally. We were just talking pre-podcast about how she's trying to impact nationally here with the new pendulum swing in DEI and the national the new administration and just being a force of technology women in entrepreneurship and mentor to many. I know you're mentoring hundreds of people. Um and I can't wait to dive into your story because I haven't really caught up with you. I was talking to you preod since kind of your CEO Brandless stint and what you've done since then. So I'm really really excited. one I just got thrown one of the favorite mentors I've ever called whenever I go Sid this person really needs your mentorship. She always says yes and always does it. >> Huge supporter of what we've done here at Startup Ignition over the last 10 15 years. I I was talking to Sid just pre-podcast. I remember your children being like 3 years old and now they're out of high school and in high school. So we've been around Sydney for a long time and she's been a huge supporter and we support everything she's doing. >> Your sister was our nanny one time. >> Yep. Yes, that is true too. But welcome to the show, Sydney. So, thank you for coming on and we are thrilled to have you here, of course. But before we get into your amazing story and before we get into anything tech, anything startups, anything entrepreneurship, we always do an icebreaker. So, I'm going to spring an icebreaker on you, Sydney. And we're here to loosen up and get into the flow of the show and kind of get more acquainted with one another. And I'm going to do a rapid fire this or that with you. Okay? So, I just want to know what do you prefer out of everything that I'm rapidly firing at you. And you can participate too, okay? Cuz these are new. Yeah, these are new ones. And funny enough, I already told you what this first [laughter] one is. I had no idea that Sid was involved with Coke distribution, huge company here locally and across the whole Western United States as a CIO. And our first question is about Coke. So, here we go. Okay, rapid fire. This or that. First one, normal Coke, Coke Zero, or Diet Coke? >> Oh, 100% Diet Coke. And also, there was only Coke Zero in the fridge and I did not grab it. >> Oh. I'm 100% [laughter] Coke Zero. I call it the nectar of the god. >> Well, you won't even no >> you won't even drink a a Coke Zero. >> I will. Like if I'm like grab it and for me it's opposite. I will not drink a Diet Coke, but I will grab a Coke Zero. >> You know what Diet Coke people see this on here and then one of the guests came and gave me an entire case of Coke Zero. >> It was Ryan Westwood. So, shout out to Ryan. He was so funny about it. >> Should have done Diet Coke. >> He's like, I watch all your episodes. You always have a diet uh Coke Zero on on the >> That's cuz there's not a Diet Coke in the fridge. I know, right? So, if it was diet coke, then Sydney would have grabbed a diet coke. All right, next time we'll have diet coke. Okay. Early bird or night owl. Sid. >> Night owl. >> Night owl. >> I'm a night owl. >> Night owl as well. Equity or salary? Sydney? Are you What do you prefer? >> You know, my answer to that is dependent on stage of your life. >> Okay. Yeah. So, like riskreward, right? [clears throat] >> Okay. So, explain that a little bit deeper. So, when are you taking equity? When are you taking salary? I mean, you know, when you're when you're young, you're coming out of school, you can take all the risk that you want, and you should. Yeah. >> Like jump into that. I mean, you guys talk about this. >> You can sleep under the desk and eat Top Ramen. >> Exactly. You don't have any obligations. I think as you grow in your career and get older, your riskreward equation changes, >> right? Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to be 35 and jump off and not take a salary. Yeah. >> Yeah. Obviously, for me, the answer is equity, but that's because I'm in a position in life where it's like, okay, I don't need the salary. >> That's me, too. I just been It's equity for me only because I can afford to do that. The best way to grow wealth and actually get ahead is obviously being an owner and and hold shares, hold stock, hold equity, hold a piece of the rock and that's how you get ahead. I mean, you could work 10 years and make what you can make with equity in one year. Then what what can happen if you join a I just love this. We can do teaching moments here. If you join, if you're out there and want to get into entrepreneurship, maybe you don't have an idea and you're not going to be the actual founder, but go find a startup that's right before the inflection point and they'll give you a salary plus a little chunk of equity and you still have a living wage, but all a sudden 8 years later that little piece of equity gives you 10 years worth of salary. That happens that happened by the way to Matson, >> which I think is awesome. And and I think that's exactly right where equity is the equity is the driver of wealth and um I think it's always opportunity cost right like you just said if you can find that inflection point of a startup and jump them >> yeah because you know when you start something new you're also looking at a forecast of 7 to 10 years most likely on your your time frame. So you're always balancing all of those things. I hate to spend so much time on just this one line of [laughter] this or that. We're so sorry. But but honestly, for budding entrepreneurs or people who are looking to get into startups, I think that's the best first move before becoming a founder or trying to own a business and do your own thing and really dive head first in. Go to a startup company that's about to make it or that is going to hit that inflection point. Go offer your services. Go offer your help and be just >> clean the toilets. Give me 0.25%. >> Yeah. And we all know we all know the story about the Facebook uh janitor or the the Facebook artist that painted their walls and got a little spiff of equity and became a a deca million. >> So I have a I have a friend who when Microsoft in we're back to 198485 and they built their first buildings in Belleview, Washington and they had to have a landscape guy to take care of the grounds. He got hired as the landscape guy. Fast forward 14 years he retired with $40 million. That's insanity. [laughter] >> That's awesome. I know. I mean, obviously that's not an everyday scenario, but >> that's no joke. >> Okay, I'm moving [laughter] on. I'm moving on. Here we go. Ready? Grandio launch party or quiet stealth building? What are you doing? If you're working on something new, >> I like the start in stealth, get it to validation, and then launch then launch so that people know who you are so you can grow because if you do it too early, all that momentum doesn't help you. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And you spend a ton of money to >> because you still might have a major pivot left in your journey. >> Exactly. because you don't know exactly who's buying. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. Mentoring founders or building your own thing. What do you like to spend your time doing? >> Oh, that's a great question. Mentoring founders or building my own thing. Oh, I like I probably equally like doing both. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Like I really do like um the opportunity like don't make the same mistakes I made. Like go do this thing that you know >> get from point A to point B easier, faster, and more efficiently. >> Exactly. And I do love building stuff. >> Yeah. >> Just always have. >> Yeah. Yeah. And and I'm probably mentoring just because of the stage of life. I don't want to work that hard in [laughter] an operating company. Yeah. He's >> And if you right now, what's fun is we're making mentoring our operating company. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's true. >> Yeah. See, you guys blended both, too. >> Yeah. [laughter] There we go. Okay. Here we go. Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings. >> Okay. Do you want to know what's so funny about those four? What is I had an agreement with all four of them. >> Really? >> Yeah. Yeah. I knew about obviously Disney, Star Wars, Marvel, >> but I also had Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Really? Okay. So, all four of those. Let's see. I I think I'll anchor Star Wars first only because I got to build the carbon freezing chamber on a stage in Hollywood Studios for Star Wars weekends in Walt Disney World for like four years running and it was really incredible. So, we were like I loved that brand and I love Marvel. Actually, if you still go to marvel.com, there's an entire video on Marvel.com's YouTube channel about what we built with them. >> That's so cool. That's awesome. >> Okay. So then after that, is it Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings? >> Harry Potter. >> Yeah. Yeah. I I'm doing that exact same order. I'm doing Star Wars, Marvel, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings. I I just never got into Lord of the Rings. I'm sorry. >> Yeah. But Lord of the Rings is great, but they're all great. I mean, they're all >> Put yours in order. >> The same. It's the basically the same order. >> Same. Same order. Okay. We're all the same there. All right. In-person meetings or Zoom meetings? >> Oh, it depends on who I'm meeting with. [laughter] if she wants to be close parameters with someone >> if they have bad breath or not. >> Do I need efficiency or do I need relationship? >> Yeah, that's true. Okay. I honestly it's been so funny over the last like five years. Obviously, everything's really turned to Zoom, right? COVID, postcoid, even a little bit pre-COVID, everything was moving Zoom. >> And then it was like we kind of want to get back and, you know, meet in real life and, you know, shake hands and do stuff. But now I feel like it's swinging even back more to Zoom. I'm way more efficient in my meetings with Zoom. I can pull up my screen. I can talk about things. I can look at a deck or whatever. And it's just way easier. >> With Zoom and AI, too, you get the history of the meeting. >> You get the record from the conversation. But >> Tyler and I also when you really want to get something really done, you go to lunch even with the person and the bonding that happens does not happen on Zoom. >> Yeah. You can't replicate that on Zoom. I also think that in Zoom I like I love the meetings, but I also think sometimes people are distracted with their other things. Oh yeah. So you don't necessarily get like if you're going to go do a brainstorm, I don't think you get the same amount of engagement. >> Their videos off and they're muted. Are you there? Are you there? [laughter] >> Yeah. >> Like you want people in certain situations to be heavily engaged. Other ones you're >> like and you're not getting it's back to what you know you've been trained. Yeah. She not only see she has an MBA been top executive. So she's getting exposed to all these principles but the principle of communication. Humans do 70% of their communication visually, about 20% from our facial gestures and and uh body language and and all that and only about 10% from the actual words. >> Yep. >> I mean, so when we're talking like this, we see their eyes, their face, and there's so much and you can't see everything. >> That's right. You can't read the room. >> Definitely. >> That's why I'm also an office worker, not a remote worker. Like I I like to be in office, have team in office, have people in office, collaborate in office, too. So, it's just those little nuances. So, >> okay, I have so many more, but I think I'm going to do like one or two more and then we're going to call it quits, okay? Cuz I want to get into Sid's story really bad. I want to hear what you're up to and what what your past has been like. But here we go. Tenacity or talent? What's the founder trait that's more important? >> Oh, I'm going to actually say tenacity. >> Okay. Yeah, I agree. >> Because um there's a lot of time I look at people and I'm like, yeah, they're not the smartest person in the room, but they went after it. They're going to win so well. >> Yeah. No, if you look at it's tenacity. I mean, you can hire talent, you can partner with talent, but tenacity and hard work is just that's either there or not there. >> And what I for the listeners and viewers of the podcast, like I think this is so encouraging because I feel like tenacity is a trait that is built relatively quickly. It's like just flip the switch and go out there and do it. Get out of the building, talk to people, build something, and push forward rather than like a lot of talent skills. It's kind of hard to learn a lot of like you know hard skills and a lot of startups literally in my career I've seen >> they're going along and some people saying well it's time to give up it's not working no just hang in a little longer try a little harder and then all a sudden it takes off and if they had given up at that point where it was kind of the trough they would have not had the success. >> Yeah I call it activation the ability to take strategy and turn it into execution because there's everyone all the ideas we all have someone else has had. Yes. >> Right. So, it's really about who gets to win at execution. Like, how much are you willing to lean in? >> 1% idea, 99% execution. >> I love it. Okay, last one. And I'm going to cut it, but here we go. Bootstrapped or venturebacked? What are you like, if you were to start something tomorrow, what are you doing? You bootstrapping or are you going out VC? >> Well, if you can bootstrap, you should definitely do that. >> Okay. I love it >> because, you know, I mean, both both of them have trade-offs, right? and different types of business. But if you can bootstrap and you can pull it off, you should do it. >> You heard it here first, folks. And we say this every podcast. I feel like bootstrap. And we are VCs. And she is an angel investor. We are investing in startups. But we even tell you right here, bootstrap, bootstrap, bootstrap, >> bootstrap until it's choking your growth. You bootstrap as long as you can, but once if you say, "Oh, your slope could change to this kind of growth because you you go get a little money." That's when you get it. And I I do think that a lot of entrepreneurs, early stage entrepreneurs that they think VC like right off the bat. And I think it's actually really unhealthy because why are you going to VCs if you haven't really vetted out things or validated things or really worked through the business model or really vetted the idea or the customer base and customer? >> That's a whole another podcast. >> Grow big, >> grow fast is one path, but it's not the only path. Yeah. >> Okay. Well, thank you for playing. That was cool. [laughter] That was fun. Yeah. I love that. This or that. I'm not really good at this or that. >> I know. I know. It was like four things or 10 things. So, but yeah. Okay. So, now I want to get into your background like take us back to that CS degree or take us back to the MBA or take us back to >> where you grew up. >> Yeah. Where who's Sid? So, tell us and let's start there and then let's work our way through current to modern day to >> who? That's a forever question I'm always asking myself. Also, [clears throat] >> that was a deep [laughter] question. I'm sorry to bring up the deepness. >> A deep question. You know, when I think about my career, I found myself always at that intersection of innovation and customer experience because I think deeply about if you're going to build something, how do you know that someone's going to use it? >> Right? Because building something no one uses doesn't make any sense. And so, I've had this unique opportunity to across all sorts of experiences building my own, working for companies, do that thing where it's like how do you focus on the customer and build something that's interesting and validate that you can actually scale it. >> Like YC says, build something that people want, right? Y commentator. That's like their whole motto is just build something that people will actually want and actually buy. >> That's right. And if you stay on that path and then you figure out how to scale it. So, you know, I did I was lucky enough to be a software tester in high school. >> And so when I was in high school, I was a software tester and I already knew that I was like going to do something with business and math was kind of my thing. But when I took that job and started working in a software company, I was like, "Oh, this is the path that I want." Which really set me going into technology and computers. Yeah. >> And so I went from there. And then when I went to college, I went on an electrical engineering scholarship originally, but then I switched over to computer science. >> Double ECS. Listen to this, [laughter] >> right? I was like, I think I'm going to go to CS. So I went over to computer science. And then I knew when I came out of my undergrad that I really wanted to go to grad school, but I actually really didn't know what I wanted to do at the time. I put my resume in with every company that was possibly like hiring someone with a CS degree, which also they interview all women coming to tech still today and back then. So, I did a 100 job interviews and I applied to the GRE and the GMAT and I let all of those things play out at the exact same like four months. >> Wow. >> And I ended up getting accepted to BYU's daytime NBA program and getting an offer from Noville to go work for them the same week. And I went to and I had like interview >> and where was this you grew up? >> Um I grew up in Utah. I was born in Chicago. >> Okay. But grew up in Utah. [clears throat] Went to high school in Utah. >> I went to high school in Utah. >> Nice. >> And then college here in Utah. >> Yeah. I've kind of anchored my entire career being based here even though I've worked for other companies. >> Oh yeah. You had a big reach. Yeah. Okay. So that noll versus >> grad school. >> Yeah. Grad school. >> Yeah. So I I'm I had got both of those offers and actually went to Noville and I said, "Hey, if I work for you full-time, will you pay for my grad school and let and let me go to grad school?" And they said yes. >> Yeah. >> Really? >> Mhm. >> So in the daytime program, not the executive night program. >> Nowadays they make you sign something. They did not make you sign anything back then. Oh, really? >> And so I'm like, "Okay, great. I'm going to do that." And so I took a job I there was a bunch of groups I had interviewed with, but I took a job in advanced technical support, which was basically hex editing networks of all the largest Fortune 500 companies as when they messed them up. >> Wow. >> And um the nicest part about that is it wasn't just 8 to 5 like that department ran all of the time because of its international reach. So I would go to school 8 to noon, do my group study noon to 4:00, and then I would work 5 to like midnight, seven days, six days a week. >> Wow. And I did that through all of my grad school. >> Wow. >> Really? >> And I It was a great It was a great >> What were you doing over at Noville? What like what was your role? >> I started doing um advanced [clears throat] technical support >> um which literally is like you name a large company. Someone messes up their infrastructure and we fixed it. >> Yes. >> So we would dial in and we would basically edit those databases, fix them, deploy them. About six months in I moved to the escalation team and then I actually started training internationally all over the world. So I started Netware >> at Noville >> but Netware software is what you I mean and just for our viewers and listeners need to understand the history of Noville in the history of this tech hub we know is Utah which is so on fire a lot of it started with novel right and so much >> yeah and noll um netware was so dominant people don't realize how dominant was worldwide in networking and what it did for business worldwide and even to this day there's massive organizations that have not gotten off netware >> I It's crazy. >> It's wild. So when I was there, you obvious became a CNE, right? A certified network engineer >> and then you had all this networking and Microsoft wasn't even in the space yet. No. >> So during my time there, you had the networking site and then directory services really ramped up. So today, most people still use Active Directory. At the time, Novell actually built the a billion object tree, which was the first of its kind. while because eventually I became a the head of product management over directory services but at the time people had only built 10 million object trees. This sounds ridiculous today who's anyone who you know because we have trillion object devices today but at the time no one had gone to a billion objects and so I had this opportunity to really rapidly move up novel and then start going to every one of their brain shares training all over the world um and doing that while I was in my graduate program. >> Wow. So how long were you at novel for? So I ended up staying at Noville just about five years because when I came out of well I thought I was going to be a management consultant. So when I came out of when I finished my degree I was like president of the management consulting club at BYU my NBA program like I had interviewed all over the world for that >> and I had these offers and I was like I actually don't know if I want to go on the road for every day of the rest of my life. >> Yeah. And so um I went to Noville and there was an opening on the product management team and so I ended up staying at Noville and switching over to go run product management while I was there which turned out to be a fabulous decision. >> Yeah. So you moved into the product management role at Noville, the same company. >> It did. >> What took you finally away from Noville? So when I was at Nova and it was such a phenomenal experience in running product like I became a really had this amazing exposure to what it meant to create great products get people to use them millions and millions of people were already using the platform and now you're developing product to do that. I would say that set my product course saying I'm gonna go become really great at building product. And then at the time as Noville was like growing competing head-on with Microsoft, all of my friends were leaving to go to startups. And I'm like, I should leave and go to a startup. Like that's the thing everyone's doing. >> And so I jumped into a startup called Next Page at the time that had just raised 60 million. >> Yeah. And I think I that's the history. I actually I'm trying to remember if I remembered you at Noville, but Nextpage is where I pick up and I know your history for >> What was Next Page? I'm not familiar with this. >> So, it was a document management platform. We originally um acquired some uh search technology. Eventually, we sold this part of the search business to a company called Fast Search and Transfer, which was bought by Microsoft, which is the reason for Microsoft's office here in the state of Utah. >> Yeah. >> They wouldn't have existed without that. So, >> and that was a Utah based company then? >> Uhhuh. >> Uhhuh. >> Yep. You know, the eventually [clears throat] Next Page sold to Proof Point. >> Yeah. >> And Proof Point has a massive presence here in Utah, just around the point of the mountain. >> Oh, wow. >> So, yeah. How did you meet her at at Next [clears throat] Page? >> Well, sure. When I came down, >> well, if this is when you guys meet, tell me about that. >> I knew of the next page history. I'm not sure if it was right after you were finished with Next Page whenever, but you s I was introduced I came down from Seattle to head up the center for eBus at BYU and because I mean >> I'm just going to say it straight up. I mean a woman tech executive who has a CS degree and MBA degree and is involved in startups and she's unicorn hitting [laughter] >> yeah there's not many >> this is like literally hitting >> all the points that is so valuable for us to have in the education world because we needed that and all the time and she was just the perfect person to be on our advisory board to mentor students and to inspire young women because I back in even the 2002 period women you know it they it was hard for them to stick in the hard sciences, the tech and the engineering because it it just and it's not I also believe a our culture in Utah for a long time women self- selected out of that. They just they self- selected out. It wasn't they weren't being pushed out necessarily. It was just self- selected out. So you were just super inspiring and then she's razor sharp smart. I mean you you just you can tell already in this podcast in the first few minutes you just have incredible intellect and you really process information fast. You know how to talk well and speak well. You're just she was perfect advisory board member and we were really growing this. We had received $5 million from or3 to 5 million from Kevin Rollins at the time when I came down and we were forming the advisor board and she was one of the first people we went to. >> Were you on the advisory board of the very first met? Yeah. and we were doing and doing lots of great work and she was just was super influential, helped us do a lot of things. She was always productive in the meetings and then that's and ever since then we've done so many different things together and uh even [laughter] Were you at Next Page when you got on that advisory board too? Yeah. >> How long were you at Next Page for then? >> I was at Next Page for seven years. >> Oh wow. >> So I spent a fair chunk of my time there. I actually had all my kids when I was at Next Page. >> Oh dang. And met and even while I was there I was like oh we've got to do more in the community and so started getting involved in that. So funny. I'm sitting here today. I couldn't remember the novel background on you because next page was the one where I think it picked you up. >> Yeah. >> And I had just gone before that. Well, and I think what you just said, John, that really became part of my for so much work I've been able to do at the business school, which I have loved really since that time. >> Yeah. Exactly. And because but and that and you and literally when you form advisory boards like this, some people just show up and are a presence, but Sid literally did work. She would take on a project, get it done, and whip smarts super fast. Just get students organized or do a new project we're working on. It was really good. >> Yeah, >> it was really fun. >> Yeah. You like all this praise? >> Yeah. [laughter] >> Well, I I don't give it lightly either. If it's real, it's real. >> Okay. So, how do you get to the Disney phase of your life? Because I know that was a a while ago, too. So, how do you get from Next Pages? Where do you go after that? So, >> there's a lot in between there, I Is there >> there? Well, so you know, I I've been at Next Page and I was there for quite a while and I really had a phenomenal like Darren Lee was the CEO of that and I really could not have asked for a a better mentor and advocate for me through all of that early stage of my career. Like every opportunity I asked for, he helped me get like every piece of feedback. And even being um a working mom at the time, like I went to him and I'm like, "Can I work from home on Fridays when my first son was born?" And he was like, "Absolutely." And this didn't exist back then. Like people didn't do that. And so he gave me this amazing foundation of like what it meant to build and also be like a working mom along the way >> and we had acquired some companies. So, a good friend of mine, we had bought his company, Tom No, and he um had he had left and actually headed over to Disney. And I found myself in this place where I'd done kind of like asked all these things. My very last kind of year and a half at X Page went to Darren. I'm like, can I be on the fundraising committee? Because we were raising money and he's like absolutely. So, I got to learn everything that I could possibly want there. And then I found myself at this point where I'm like, I want to be pushed more. I want to go do something in addition. And so I actually jumped over um to Family Link at the time. >> Yeah. Let me I'm going to interject an important story because teaching just to bring it up because one of the things you said to me in that period from next page to Family Link is you literally were teaching the students and this is for everybody to hear when you get a CS degree or a hard science but especially like CS and and um and then you got your MBA. you told me how that combination when there's a meeting in a corporate environment the CEO will say okay we're going to the next meeting it's on this topic and a lot of people that just have business or administrative don't get invited to stay at the meetings and you taught and we're telling students and the experience you taught me was with your combination of your background you got to stay in all the meetings and the CEO said no Sid you stay for this meeting yep >> and then that helped your career big time I remember you teaching that and that and that's important. So people, I I'm just going to say it again. There's very few degrees that have a positive ROI anymore. And if you're in a university, you should be in a degree that has returnability of value. Like CS is a good one or the sciences. >> I mean, that is kind of changing. I'm teaching a class right now at the CS >> building. Did you know that now? He's awesome. >> Yeah. [laughter] And it's just I think these kids are really scared about the future of CS and what you know AI is doing and what's happening and >> you know how junior [snorts] developers is kind of looked at as like almost like a throwaway job now you know it's not there yet but I think that's what they're seeing and there it there's a lot of the point is though your background whether it's your degree or what experience you've had if you're a technical background your whole career you will be involved in more things and have more opportunities because in the meetings in a business a lot are just business administrative and then there's technical meetings that are quasi business quasi technical and with that technical background Sid got invited and this is the teaching she shared with everybody she got invited to stay in all the meetings and be a part of all these things because you had that background >> right and I don't think it's because you know how to code I think what the technical disciplines give you is the a critical analytical way of thinking and knowing how stuff is built >> so when I think about all the time because I didn't spend my career going to be developer, right? But I did my computer science degree and what I know is how to build stuff. >> And so you can put me in any technical room with anyone who wants to go up and down the stack and I know the theory of how things build. I know why they're built. I know how things are constructed. And that in and of itself opens up really interesting doors. And even if you go into the world of AI, you still have people inventing AI, right? We're evolving very rapidly what it means to be a product manager, right? As you go from vibe coding now all of the way into early stage dev. But then I watch, you know, people like my son who's in the masters of information systems at the Y. >> Yeah. >> And his ability to not just understand but to also accelerate so quickly the build of applications. >> Now I would say so far this year he's probably built like six fullblown applications, frontend, backends, um, administrative portals of all types of ideas he's had. >> And that ability to rapidly do that and he's using AI to do that and it's making him so much faster and more sophisticated than anyone else. One of the things you have too with this background you had again a lot of this emanates from you and what I saw you do in the 2000s as you mentored at BYU and helped so much is that you also a very important trait of a business executive that doesn't have the um you know is not an actual coder so to speak but when you have that technical background you understand how to build product and how it works you're able to actually call baloney for your developers and [clears throat] say like you go why are we three months late >> and then they make up some you know reason and That's baloney. >> Yep. >> Here's the I want to get to the real cut through all this baloney. And that's like what like a lot of people go a lot of business startup guys go, "How do I know when my when my tech guy says he can't do it or it's going to take three more months?" >> I don't know what to say to them. And I said, "Well, that's you got to either have a Sid Tetro on your team or you better learn some technical things because that happens all the time. If you don't know what your developers, whether it's software coding or a double E or whoever is working on a firmware on a circuit board and they give you these excuses is and you're the one responsible for delivery. You have to be able to call them on their baloney, right? And you were always excellent at that. >> Well, and I actually love that I think that one skill. It's really the ability to help people make trade-offs, too. Yeah. Because what happens is when you build something, people think about the end number of scenarios that they're building for, but that's not usually necessary in product. And so you need the dialogue in the room that says, "Okay, wait. You're going this way, but I just need this experience. What if we don't do XY and those conversations I think have been really anchored in all of that?" >> Yep. >> That's amazing. >> Okay. I can't even remember where we went [laughter] before we got sidetracked. Next page, Family Link. Okay. Back to Family Link. >> That's right. So, so Family Link was being a company getting basically building the largest family graph >> and connections in the world on the Facebook API. So, Facebook barely had released their Facebook API and at the time you could build on it. Now today, like Facebook's still the same that it eventually became, which is do not build on Facebook because they're going to like take businesses to zero really really quickly. >> Yeah, this is such an important point you're saying and I want you to explain that more. I I tell people if you're dependent on another platform for your business, you better be careful, right? Explain that a little more. What happened happening today with like Open AI and all these other AI models that you're building on top of it. Hey, at a flip of a switch, they could literally still take your whole business model. >> Well, and because they're evolving to figure out their revenue models, right, and their [clears throat] own privacy and their own security and their own like expansion for growth. So, in Facebook's case, that's exactly what happened. All these companies started building on the Facebook API. >> They were called Facebook apps. >> Called Facebook apps. And they you could use Facebook's viral coefficients very effectively. So you could use and companies soared hundreds of millions of dollars of >> Family Link became one of the top ones. >> Yeah, Family Link became one of the top ones and very very quickly and so it was really cool. We had at the time um 23 million monthly active users on the >> I I think at one time this I'm just going to say my memory of it I think you hit I don't know about active users but total users 90 million I think >> I think it actually hit more than 250 >> really and 650 million in the maybe it was yeah either way they're still bigove 100 million and we had more than like 650 million connections in the graph of what that is eventually it sold to ancestry >> because it was in that family space but it was a really amazing ride basically at the very foundation of social media. >> Who who were you at with that? Who was >> So Paul Allen who founder of that and Jason McGowan who crumble >> Jason McGowan owns Crumble. Yep. He was there and then also uh Paul Brockbank came in too. >> Paul Brock came in Yep. towards the end of that and then there was we had another developer named Alan Carroll who was on like the anchor of that team. Really brilliant people. We had lots of brilliant people. >> Jason McGowan who was very instrumental in saving coach Satake for BYU. We'll give him a shout out. [laughter] >> Good job Jason. >> I remember Jason McGowan about that time too brought me an idea. I just loved uh and uh all that and it's so funny to see where his career's gone and then he's such a tech guy and now he does cookies. [laughter] >> Well, and I think the one of the cool no shade on cookies. Cookies are great. >> Yeah, no shade on cookies. >> Mrs. Fields, >> I would say one of the coolest things about the Family Link startup was the number of amazing entrepreneurs who came through that. Yeah. So, a bunch of the founders of um >> Vid Angel Yes. >> came through. Angel Studios came through there. Yep. The Harmon Brothers came through there. um >> who just went public. >> who just went public. There's a guy named Ricky Ray Butler who also started a big like content network. He came through there. All of these amazing people who have gone on and who have stayed connected. >> It was a it was a really cool, >> you know, the animal farm controversy for Angel with all the attention they got. We were in the room with Paul Olstrom recently who's very involved with Angel. I was their first investor, by the way. Um, and they uh, but Paul Olstrom was getting texts while we were having a meeting with them when it blew up last week about Animal Farm and they're got a movie coming out, Animal Farm, that they're distributing and it's got an incredible cast in it, but it's so, you know, that's a controversial story, right? Because it's capitalism versus socialism and all that. And it just it's interesting, but it's kind of funny. That's they got so many millions upon millions of hits over this controversy last week. It's >> any press is good press. I especially in the media industry. >> What a story that is, right? To build a content company that's been able to do what they've done. It's outside of Utah. >> Phenomenal. >> It is. >> I mean, outside that that interwoven community of Utah, I that's very prominent here in Utah. I feel like everybody's connected in some way. All the shakers and movers have been on teams. If you really peel back the layers, it's like, whoa, they were doing a startup 20 years ago and they were all on the same team and now they're all doing billion dollar startups. >> That goes back to Noville. And I feel like so Startup Ignition, we we have we run a boot camp where people from out of state come here and I I think they feel that like when they come here they're like, "Wow, everybody here in Utah is very willing to help each other. They're all connected and everybody doing big things here." Do you know that some people come from out of state attend our boot camp for entrepreneurs and they go, I like this ecosystem. And they move here and they stay here. >> That's fantastic. And I agree with you. I think that's one of the special things of Utah which I hope as we're growing maintains of like not just the willingness to support but the connectivity like you can look back in your career and say yeah I've I've interacted with all these people and maybe I don't do my next deal but you stay connected and those ecosystems help you they help you build >> yeah yeah exactly okay family link you were there soul ancestry >> soul ancestry and I actually transitioned to Disney right after that so as when I decided to when I left I was like I don't know what to with my life. And so Tom, who had been with me at Nextpage, had headed over a couple years prior to go run up a new arm of R&D inside of Imaginering. Um, when Disney acquired Pixar Ed decided that Disney needed a focus of innovation that would disrupt the company over the next decade. And so they had formed all of these relationships with labs like at Carnegie Melon and ETH in Switzerland and internal into the ecosystem. Brilliant PhDs and postocs solving robotics, AI, 3D, machine learning, anything you can imagine. they were thinking about that would affect any Disney company. So you're thinking ESPN studios, consumer products, theme parks, and the parks. >> Any innovation, >> any innovation. Yeah. I mean, you could go from like black, how does black light paint have color? Yeah. >> To rides >> to IR technology to 3D mapping. So huge. >> They still got to be doing that today. >> They are. It doesn't look the same as it did. This was a really brand new effort. Tom had gone in to help anchor that. And then I was like, I don't know what to do with what I should I do next. Come on over. Tom's like, "Come fly down and have an interview." >> So, I flew down to Glendel and I interviewed with the team and I came back and Tom said, "Okay, here's the deal, Sid. We have never hired anyone for this job before. I have no idea how it looks." And I don't really know if this is a three-month job, a six-month job, or longer, but you should come do it. >> Yeah. >> And I just found myself at a point where I'm like, Disney's never making this call again, and I'm just going to go do it. I'm gonna jump in and go take the job of figuring out how to make businesses out of this innovation and spin them internal to Disney. when you when you shared it with me, I thought it sound like you were kind of almost like a um you know like a mash unit when you do triage and you were saying, "Oh, here's some idea coming out of Disney. This should be an independent business. This should go into here, go in here." You were kind of doing triage for them with all their imagineering. Right. >> Exactly. And all of these innovations and really brilliant people like the guys over in Switzerland, they're doing all of this 3D work and all of this and you're like, [clears throat] is that a idea? Can we actually make a business out of it or is it just an innovation that's going into some animation? >> Yeah. >> And so you got that exact ability to basically take ideas, validate them, build get funding for them, build them, test them at Disney. It's called play test and then launch them into >> and this function exists at universities too like their tech transfer office. >> Tech transfer office has to say is this something we sell as an IP product to a Fortune 500 company or should this be spun out by entrepreneurs into a separate company? And that's what you were doing at Disney. How fun is that? I know. >> It is amazing. >> I mean, what Tell me some cool stories from that time in your life. Like what was when you think back of that stint with Disney, what was the coolest thing >> or story that's like you wouldn't believe this? >> Yeah. Yeah. And I also ended >> I'm sure you get asked this question all the time. >> I ended up staying there for almost for over five years. Oh wow. >> So I started with like I don't know if this still exists to but I should take this call and take this job. >> Is the mouse nice or does the mouse bite sometimes? I actually loved every part of the company, right? It's a corporate company, but we had this unique function because we served the entire platform, not just theme parks. So, our we didn't quite fit in like their normal hierarchy, which for me was also really fun to be able to do that. So, coolest things that I learned there. So, one of the things I will tell you is um Disney had a group when I was there called the Blue Sky Group. And the blue skies group was always to think about what could be possible if this were true with no constraints. What happens if we made this ride? What happens if we make this experience? And let's go actually build it in a test scenario and try it. >> You were like a moonshot group within Disney. >> It was so amazing. Like we did these R&D open houses in the fall where 40 to 60 innovations would get showcased. You will never see any almost any of them. 5% of them might have made them to productization. But we had rides we built in the back lots. We had experiences that were created that the public will never see. And the opportunity to see at the level of Disney where customer experience has an intersection with technology and on a platform where the storytelling is so profound. You never have any other place in the world that does that because storytelling people come out of college or come out of experiences and think about it as marketing. I think about as who's my customer and what's the message but that's not what it is. the world of story in a place like Disney and really what should be for any company is like how are you emotionally connecting with someone and transforming their life because they work with your product. >> Yeah. >> And the opportunity to like sit at at the feet of people who did that every day and then weave that into every project that I ever did what really was amazing. I got to be involved in at the R&D openhouse. One of the things that we showcased were these um Mickey ears that would glow with the show and Bob Iger came through. He puts them on and I remember him saying to the team like, "We should do this with the launch of Cars Land >> and we were only seven months away." Also, Disney is a corp a corporation. They do things on long time frames, right? Like people like have ideas and then seven years later, the new park comes out. Like that's like they're that's how their DNA is built. And in this case, we're like, we have to go pull this off in seven months and invent things like a flexible PCB in an ear hat and integrate an entire IR system, an infrared system into an entertainment system and like have hats manufacture it out of China and get them all here in six months. >> Yeah. >> And we we we did it. We launched it over the course of seven months at this global stage. And I was sitting on the bridge overlooking World of Color um at the opening of Cars Land and we have 3,500 PR people in these Mickey ear hats. you would and it gave you chills to like watch because our goal was usually in a nighttime spectacular everyone watches they're not active participants in a story and when you make story you want someone as an active participant I want you to be transformed to Iron Man I want you to be transformed into the story and be part of it >> and you put those hats on people and you watch that and no longer are they just watching a screen >> they're in it >> they're now in the story >> and for me that was one of the coolest things I learned at Disney is how do you make sure everyone's part of the story of what you're building even when it's technical Even if it's not entertainment, you're still doing something to change a customer experience, internal customers, external customers, operating growth, whatever it is. And if you don't anchor on that, you're very rarely successful in acquisition. >> Very applicable to business, entrepreneurship, startups, tech, anything, right? >> And I got to do so many cool things at Disney. I mean, we launched that same product on cruise lines. So, we took him to like if you have ever been on a Disney cruise at Pirate Nights at Sea, everyone had a Mickey ear hat and it synced to the entire show and the fireworks. Like the whole thing was just so magical. >> Um, so what pulled you away from Disney >> before it was now Disney's headquarters is it in California or Florida today? >> California. >> Okay. And so the Imaginarian is mostly out of California then. >> So Imaginarian is also anchored with every theme park in addition to a big entertainment and imaginary. >> Is that the division you were in called Imaginarian? We're in that R&D and all that. So but you California is I I felt California is kind of more of a headquarters. Is that right? >> Yeah. So, our um in Glendelle, Disney owns Flower Street and all the buildings off of it. And then they also have the studio lot in Burbank and then obviously you have the theme parks, but everyone works mostly out of Glendel and Burbank. >> And did you commute? How did you >> I did. So, >> the coolest part about my department was it was very distributed. So, we had a lab at Carnegie Melon, a lab in Switzerland at ETH. Eventually, we created a lab between MIT and Harvard. And then we had labs at Pixar and animation and ESPN and ESPN's in Connecticut and Pixar's in San Francisco. So our team was very unique and very distributed. So it was totally fine. I could live wherever I wanted and commute in. So I did a ton of commuting between there and Florida because I launched a ton of stuff in theme parks. >> So there was a period where tech stars assisted Disney like with an internal accelerator where they came after they they were after that. Okay. So, so they they they learned from you some principles of how to >> do this triage and test and all that and then they built that inside because that was after your time. Okay. >> It was after we were we did all this work for probably five or six years and then Tech Stars and some of the Disney accelerator the fund they created initially and then Tech Stars came after that was all an evolution of >> and then one more thing since we're on an entrepreneur uh venture podcast here is Steamboat Ventures. What did you ever interact with them at all or and I knew the Steamboat very well. >> Yeah. Tell us about what a lot of people might know that Disney has this thing called Steamboat Ventures which actually has had some major investments here in Utah. >> That's just what I was going to say. I moved networks. They anchored here too. Yeah. >> Yeah. I became really good friends with all of the Steamboat Ventures guys. Ironically, not originally through working at Disney, but because they had been anchored here and I had been helping some people fundra. And so, you know, Disney, I will say they continue, they've continued to evolve and figuring out how you should put money into things that both serve them and serve the community in common ways. They have Steamboat Ventures. They've done accelerators. They've done the Y Combinator because they really have a vested interest of owning innovation that disrupts themselves. There and Disney is so massive. I mean, I remember working on um innovation for fireworks. Yeah. >> Like, how do you make sure fireworks sync up with all the music? And so this the whole early world of putting sensors on those or getting the right shape that you want out of a firework like no one thinks of that. There's massive testing of that that happens in Florida. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> And so all sorts of just cool stuff like that. >> Yeah. Bringing full circle your experience a little bit. Go back to Noville. One of the top three or so people I think was Drew Major, right? So Drew Majors at Noville is actually when they almost went out of business and they decided to follow Drew Major's project which was networking and he's the guy years later he develops a protocol for video on the internet and I think it was a business here in Utah. I think it was wasn't it move >> is it move is that yeah move networks and steamboat I put 40 million plus into that right and so but I just for people to hear on this it's just fun history that the earth the the way to um uh compress and be able to show video on the internet has a lot to do with what Drew Major is one of the innovators of networking at noville invented a lot of that right and then move networks and Disney goes we got to be part of this because this could disrupt the entire industry >> which it did >> yep >> changed everything >> isn't that cool Yeah. Yeah. >> That it's also everything's so interconnected. Yeah. In the ecosystems. >> So after Disney, what pulled you away from Disney? That was my question. Like that's such a cool job and you're having a great time. You're working with a ton of cool innovative products, cool people, cool ecosystems, cool environments. What took you away? >> You know, speaking of like the entrepreneur kind of journey, we did so many I loved that job and we did so many cool things, but everything it also became really clear everything Disney was going to do was spinning it internal. And so you weren't going to participate in the upside of any of that. >> Did you not really spend anything out outside? >> Nope. No. >> And when it very first started, it was like unclear, but it became really clear over the course of that time. >> How did Tech Stars do that then? It's >> Well, so ultimately tech stars wasn't incubating the IP coming from research. >> They were taking other companies who might influence the Disney ecosystem and then bringing them as a partnership into Disney. >> So Disney got to take an early look at stuff they might be interested in. Exactly. Okay, got it. That makes sense. the the two worlds were just so different. I mean, one of the patents I have is because of my work at Disney because we had so many brilliant PhDs and they're presenting at Sigraph and they're doing, you know, innovation like one of Disney's pat or IPS, I think it's even patented. If you ever watch Tangled and you know when they cut her hair and it goes from blonde to the brown, there's this photo beam that rises up if you ever watch it. That is a specific piece of research innovation that Disney owns in the IP that creates that visual effect in animation. And so IP like that, so it's very it's a very different type of IP. It very much looks like technology transfer kind of commercialization versus the partnerships of other people's idea. And so that became Disney holds, I think, the largest IP portfolio in the world. >> I was going to say, did you ever see anything that was like this has to go external? Like this has to go somewhere. >> For sure you did. And the ecosystem just isn't designed that way. >> So you realized, okay, you're doing all this work, creating all this value, but you're not getting the upside. >> Yeah. And I was like, >> you had you had a nice salary, nice pay, but >> yeah. And you were like, oh wait, should I go participate in the upside? Which really then, you know, and I've done all these other series of startups. I'm like, I should go, you know, take the experience that I learned around how do you make people part of stories? How do you create that opportunity? Which was what led to the building of 3D plus me? >> Oh. Oh, that's when you went did you identify that that technology inside of the Disney? We didn't use the Disney technology, but we saw things that were in the 3D printing space that had >> I remember that startup which you eventually sold, right? Or >> Yeah, eventually we sold it. I I took some investment from Strategics in the 3D printing space and then we eventually sold it to >> Tell everybody what that explain that set the table a little bit. >> Yeah. So 3D Plus Me was we could literally make you Iron Man. So, we built a software platform that would scan your face and that would basically take that 3D model, combine it with another 3D model, and then you could buy yourself as a 3D printed collectible. Eventually, Hasbro built a toy line. So, they built poseable action figures in both Star Wars and Marvel, and you could buy yourself as a 10-in poseable action figure that we launched through Walmarts and Targets, had a permanent install in Toys R Us. But at the time when we built that, I really wanted deals with entertainment, which I had come out of Disney. So I had great um knowledge of that, sports and gaming. And so I we went after all of them. We ended up with a part uh partnership with Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, we did the Super Bowl at the NFL, we did Assassin's Creed, we did Halo, and then we did all the other IPs that we were talking about. And we it it was a I'll probably never be in all those same stages again from like a startup that I built. But the coolest part about it is you were transforming someone into their favorite storyline that meant something to them. Like you stepped behind that scanner and then you saw yourself transform into Iron Man and that like people have strong association with brands they like you can be a Stormtrooper. That Stormtrooper's helmet comes off. It's super cool. It's a big [laughter] stormtrooper. Yeah. >> So, so who did So, the your co-founders were from Disney or >> No, they weren't from Disney. Yeah. Tell >> Well, actually that's not true. Tom was Tom No, who was the guy who took me to Disney was one of our co-founders and then Chris Kudson. >> Oh, okay. Awesome. Cool. Cool. That's very awesome. >> So, what what gave you the confidence to be like, "Okay, I'm I'm leaving Disney. I'm going to go to 3D this 3D venture and I'm going to go this way." Was it just like you saw the writing on the wall with that market, with the disruption, with the innovation, with the product? >> I think so. 3D printing, if you remember, what when was this? Just over 10 years ago, was at this perfect inflection point where it was a new innovation that had never been commercialized. And I had the opportunity to be on like the very early stages of commercializing fullcolor 3D printing, which had never before happened. The innovation came out of MIT. It had been developed for 20 years. And um Zcorp had been bought, had spun out of MIT, and for the very first time they had never thought about printing at scale in full color and we're like, well, we should print at scale. the whole 3D printing market was exploding. Yeah. >> Massive explosions and >> now you can buy one on Amazon and have it at your home, right? >> It's just not the consu like the like the production grade kind of stuff. But yes, all none of that existed prior to that. Yeah. >> And so we took the very first fullcolor 3D printer and then started making products. >> How I may this maybe this is not the right place. You can just say that for another time, but I don't understand color 3D printing. How did they achieve that? So the the printer that we used, which were these Zcor printers, they they work just like your HP inkjet. They lay and most of your 3D printers you have at home, you see when you build something, they have structure, like they'll build like little like lines around them to hold up the figure. >> In this print bed, it's powder based, so it uses a gypsum. >> Okay. >> And so when it lays down a layer of gypsum, it also lays down um basically like super glue and color at the same time. And it builds it up in the bed. >> Oh wow. >> And so when you pull it out of the bed, you just eliminate all of the powder. There's no structure around it. There's no filing and it's full color as it comes out of that print. And then all you do is put like a binder on it that seals it. >> Much more expensive than the home 3D printers. >> Much more expensive. And in that print bed, you could print depending on the size of your objects, you know, 20 or so at a time. But that also means if you're going to go to scale, you have to think about the optimization of those print beds, the optimization of objects. We built entire algorithms to optimize how you would print at scale, which is eventually when we built action figures with Hasbro. We ended up creating a whole IP around Face Pancakes. So they built a special toy line out of China where we could reduce the footprint of the printer to print thousands at a time. >> Wow. That's >> okay. >> So basically, you go from Disney to 3D printing. How does that 3D printing end up? You you sold it. Who did you sell it to? >> So we sold it actually to a company up in Ogden called White Clouds. >> Oh wow. We had built a really awesome software system underneath it because the the crazy thing about building a system like that is you have to make sure that every individual thing you print is uniquely identified and makes it to the right customer. I cannot send you the wrong face. >> Yeah. >> And so we built a whole system that tracked IP from the very moment it was scanning all the way through to delivery. >> And that was the technology that was the IP really the secret sauce behind that. >> We had the IP and a scanning system. So, we actually used the one of the versions of the Connect, Microsoft's Connect, because it had a 3D scanner inside of it. Eventually, um, Apple bought it. It became what the the chipset that's in your phone today and the advancements of that. But that chipset had the ability to capture in 3D your face and eventually it's gone to mobile, but at the time, nothing existed. >> Wow. We Let's keep going because I She's got a lot of career. >> I know. I know. I want to get I want to get to mo to current [laughter] day. >> Yeah. Okay. So let's take it to wherever you want to take it to. So I where where should we go? What did you have in mind? >> No, I'm just saying I know that you sold another [laughter] after that was over then where did you go? What did you And by the way at this time by then you had started some of the charity or nonprofit things you've done too right? >> I started women tech council when I was at novel. >> Yeah. So women in >> tech sorry when I was that next page >> for those that don't know and if you're our listeners and subscribers that are te in the ex tech world and you have a management executive position there's an organization that you started called women in tech council that helps women network connect and improve their careers and advance and do lots of things that is still going to this day that you were the founder of >> what was the genesis of that and why did you do that at next page >> well so you know one of the few women in tech and we just saw this interesting opportunity to say we, you know, your workforce is 50% women. How do you make sure that 50% that's represented in technology exists? Because it's less, it was at the time less than 20%. We're still only like 24%. Um, and we really wanted to think about the economic impact of women in tech. Tech even today even more so with AI like you need men and women solving those biggest problems in order to get solve the best problems with the best minds. So we really anchored that organization on economic impact of women in tech. that mission's never changed. And then we've built programs from high school to the boardroom. Um, our high school programs had 40,000 high school girls go through it, of which today 400 girls graduate with STEM degrees from college because they came through sheet, which roughly equates to like $32 million of earning impacts in the state of Utah because of that program. >> Oh, that's that's just in Utah. >> Just in Utah. >> Oh, wow. No, she and she does it's such a good organization and I've helped and been a part of a little bit and it's just fun. It's just and it's it's just so inspiring. That's it. Um >> I also So that's great. Let's take what hap what happened the next after the 3D printing company. >> Yeah. So after we sold 3D printing and I kind of stayed through a transition, I really like it really anchored for me this idea of storytelling, digital transformation and innovation. So we ended up creating another company called Forge DX and this entire idea cloud platform which was how do you go help companies who are selling technology into any company under how do you help those companies understand not just digital transformation but how it actually changes their customer experience and aligns with their business outcomes. So, we built this digital storytelling platform that basically, you know, we would we would go sit down with a Fortune like 500 company because we had a really big partnership with Verizon at the time and they were trying to sell pipes. But you can't go sell pipes in technology. You actually have to sell the outcome. You have to say like why in the world do I go implement 5G in a factory? Um, I can't do that just for fun. It actually has to have demonstrable impact. So, we built a platform that would show that impact, the front end, the back end, and the technology necessary. It was was actually a really cool story-driven platform. Eventually, it rolled through all of Verizon. Adobe installed it for every one of their sales team members, all of their executive briefing centers, and it became the platform that drove enterprise software sales. Microsoft, Dell, Adobe, >> was a software. >> It was a software platform. >> And you sold it to Fortune 500 companies to help them. It was a sales enablement or what was it? >> Basically. >> Yeah. >> Yep. Like if you went to at the actually still today if you go into some of Verizon's executive briefing center it sits there because we built this whole trigger system. We actually have a patent on it. Um where you could have a threec screen display that interacted with each other based on triggers. So if I wanted to walk you through the story of how the retail experience is going to change or how you're going to impact loss prevention inside of retail, you could actually have a mobile device like I did a wayfinding one going into retail. You still can't do this today, but imagine you walk into a Walmart and you could just say to your phone like, "Tell me where the brown sugar is." And it would wayfind you directly to the store and then it would allow you to like add stuff to your basket and then drive that to checkout. Like all we you could visually see that we built the wayfinding on a screen. It would trigger that. It would show the tech stack in the back end. It would show the lift for customers, the entire kind of dashboard and ultimately close sales for enterprise software companies. >> How did you get into that one from the 3D printing gig? um >> just random collisions or >> random collisions. I started doing a bunch of like design thinking workshops for Verizon actually to transform their entire sales team to become innovation solution sellers. >> I was doing it for hundreds of people and what I started and then they're like Sid can you come in and help pitch to this company and so we we go in and we do a pitch to one of the Fortune 10 for with them and I built this entire plat this entire visualization for them. Like wait if I'm building this once I'm going to bet this is true for every customer they have to pitch to. >> Yeah. And so my mind always thinks like if I have to do it once and I think it's interesting, someone's going to ask me again. Yeah. And so we started building a software platform. Yeah. And we built this entire platform out from that one experience and then started scaling it across other enterprises. >> Wow. That's super cool. >> And then next, where'd you go? Let's keep going. So I I when I so we in 2020 we merged that company with an operating company and I um stepped out after that transaction and then I ended up jumping into brandless which um kind of like originally it was going to be one thing and then it morphed into this acquisition strategy where we said okay how do we use that brandless name to basically acquire other companies that are in the consumer space that are trying to um provide clean good solutions. So we had a targeted system of those. We ended up building an acquisition strategy. Basically raised a bunch of capital for that on debt and equity. >> I remember that. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> We we built a really cool M&A engine. We were sourcing about a thousand leads a month and we had an entire pipeline where we would source leads, go through deal qualified leads all of the way into closing those. And we acquired six companies over the course of 12 months or over 18 months. We grew the companies that we acquired on average of 47% growth year-over-year. And we ended up with really brilliant philosophies in our acquisition strategy around like bolster don't break and all of these deal criteria for what it would take to have them come on board and build synergistic scale assets. >> I find that really interesting like what what did you learn from all of that? Like what what were the criteria or what did what what were the takeaways from that whole those 18 months of acquisitions? >> Yeah, it I mean it was a wild ride, let's be clear. And you know at the time there was a company called Thorasio who was doing basically financial arbitrage. They were acquiring a consumer products company like 1.5 1.8 a day. >> Yeah. >> Like massive. And they took in all of this debt. >> The entire thing did not last in case you were wondering because you in financial arbitrage you're assuming that you can do the same repeatable thing in every asset. And what you find is that you need some common set of conditions um that lean into your strengths. But you know, you guys know this when software when startups are successful there's some secret sauce the entrepreneur is doing that makes it successful. Yes. And until they get more scale, that thing's hard to repeat. >> Yeah. >> And so we were, you know, we targeted companies that were roughly like eight to 20 million in revenue. Um, we wanted founders who wanted to stay and take a second bite of the apple so that we could leverage their scales, but we also wanted to be able to say we can stack them into one of our channels to drive growth because we built out a DTC arm, a retail arm, and an Amazon arm. >> So, and this was focused on kind of homebased products or what what consumer products. >> Consumer products. So it was either in health and nutrition. Okay. >> Or clean beauty or green clean. Yeah. >> We actually didn't we did do one acquisition that had both um kind of some home kind of elements but they all had to have kind of our underlying premise of being better for you. >> Okay. Got it. Cleaner cleaner better more. >> Yeah. And so where is Brandless today? What's the status of it? Um so since then with all of that growth all the all the companies have been sold off with the growth that they were okay yeah they had >> was was uh kind of like going from the go- go 2021 years till now and some of the struggles in ventures and startups in the last few years is did that hit brandless hard a little bit? You know, I think that, you know, one of the things when you when you do those, you're doing a lots of financial engineering along the way in order to make that go and you have to have the entire infrastructure including like alignment across boards and um your executive team in order to make sure that >> you like create all of that acceleration especially to drive growth. Y >> because the one thing that's true about consumer products companies is you have inventory which takes capital. >> Yeah. Y >> and in order to have in in order to have that capital you have to create strongly and they look very different from technology companies. Technology companies don't have the inventory demands and so eventually it was it was for sure the right thing to happen. >> Yeah it but it definitely I mean part of the lesson too is like 2021 was an extreme bubble in the worlds you and I and Tyler run in right extreme bubble territory. And it doesn't matter how good you are and what happens if you don't make it out of that bubble you're going to pay the price. Like let's take here Divvy. Perfect timing. >> Sold at the top of the bubble. But we also have other great companies that didn't make it out in 2021 and they've had 2022 to 2025 to kind of nurse themselves back to health and see if they can survive. Right. It's not anything about the founders, the people. It's the cyclical nature of the economy. That's right. And >> you start those companies at a different point in the cycle and the whole experience is different. Right. >> So was the whole strategy behind brandless from the get-go? Was that acquisition strategy? The con you know the consolidation strategy, the rollup strategy and were you consolidating a lot to save costs and you know >> you know share expenses and costs across the board and that was the play right >> that was the play [clears throat] so when I originally joined Brandless to be fair I had a different strategy >> like I thought I was going in to do one thing and the deal that that I thought was happening didn't happen yeah >> and so then a couple months in I'm like okay am I staying to play this like where are we going >> and so it morphed into us saying okay well if we can raise the capital let's see if we can acquire like-minded organizations to drive synergies. So, we ended up creating a centralized accounting team, a centralized inventory team, centralized DTC, centralized Amazon organization so that we could get those efficiencies, which we did see. DTC is probably the hardest one to completely be common in its acquisition strategies. >> But all of those GNA functions, you for sure can consolidate. And to be fair, it's a ton of work to go consolidate financials of small startups who don't have pristine financial It was an ambitious I mean uh you know it was an ambitious project and really tough but also you caught it at a weird time in the cycle too. I mean you raised $118 million in debt and equity and you grew revenues on the thing it says for likeund hund00 million. So it's like you guys the strategy was plain. I think you did just run into the economic factors of 2022 and 2023. >> So what so what's after Brandless? Yeah. So, um, while I was at Brandless, I was also on the board of one of the local Coca-Cola bottlers, SWire Coca-Cola, and I was on helping them with digital transformation. And when I came up Brandless, there were some changes happening there. And so, he asked me to come in and come lead AI. >> For our viewers and listen, I'd like to explain this in case they don't know. Coca-Cola is this massive company, but they're super dependent on local bottlers because they're not shipping Coca-Cola across the world, right? They have the formula and those formulas get light the bottlers get licensed for the formula and they put it locally in the bottles for local distribution and then so every major metro area yeah being a Coca-Cola bottler separate from Coca-Cola is a huge great business you know >> it's a it's a fantastic business >> and it's probably one of the the most unique and coolest business models that I've been a part of >> because Coca-Cola so has amazing governance around the their entire ecosystem. So, you know, Swire Coca-Cola, it's a massive multi-billion dollar um organization, and I got to go in and run the entire team around technology to them [laughter] >> and AI, which was really >> what are they doing with technology and AI? Like, like go a little bit into that. Like, what did they have you do or what were you what was your fill bottles with Coke? What's what more is there? I'm just I'm just interested because it's like you know every company is getting into AI but it's like what what is CO doing in >> so we had some really cool AI initiatives and I think that this what's cool is I think AI starts to disrupt spaces like this like we see it in tech companies they add it as features so think about like things in in a manufacturing ecosystem where you have production lines >> the greatest risk you have on production lines is how do you reduce unplanned downtime and how do you handle predictive maintenance which is a very heavy data problem and the better you can predict what might go wrong, the more likely you are to have your line [clears throat] stay up because you have lines in manufacturing that produce 2,000 cans a minute. So, what happens if that goes down for any amount of time? Think about how that affects your production. And so there's a company Microsoft back called site machine that is all about putting AI on manufacturing lines which includes sensors at every point in the oper in the OT network tracking everything that's going on and then using that data to help you figure out what deviations might occur that will impact your manufacturing. >> I was way off base. Yeah, of course you're utilizing AI [laughter] in that in that infrastructure. >> You see it there. You see it a ton in demand planning in manufacturing companies because you know you take companies who have tens of thousands of SKUs um multiple you know seven to 10 manufacturing facilities. Yeah. Like 50 plus lines and and like 57 distribution centers. How do you make sure that that Coke Zero ends up in the right place so it never goes out of stock? >> You're right. >> So much AI. >> So are you still doing this today? Are you with them today? >> I stepped out of them recently. >> Recently? >> Uhhuh. And I um stepped into actually got a couple things I'm doing. One of which is um working with a growth portfolio on a whole series of companies that are everything across real estate all of the way into technology and even some consumer products. Um and I'm actually working right now with some guys on their second um fund and a venture fund they haven't really rolled out but yeah >> really cool. That's awesome. Uh I have a a question I want to get to before we run time and I know we're really close. just with your background and everything you've done, I'd love you just to comment on the current state of of uh this the current state of women in entrepreneurship and what tips you'd have for women in entrepreneurship in Utah, the world, the United States, wherever just what do you feel how far has it come in your career? Because I mean like you said years ago, nobody let a woman take Friday off because she had a baby. Yep. Right. And work from home, right? But you had a great boss who did that and now it's such a different environment. But where is it at right now? Tell us like what do you think? Is it good, bad or we still have work to do? What's >> Oh, we have plenty of work to do. Let's be very clear. Okay. [laughter] >> Yeah. So, just kind of give a one minute overview. >> You know, I the environment today is far better than it was when I started my career. There's no doubt about it. And I mean, my first piece of advice is anyone who has an idea and wants to start it is, you should just do it. Like, don't let your fear of failure hold you back. They're not going to all be perfect. Yeah. But the things that you learn by trying and doing far outweigh anything else that happens. So you have an idea, you should go for it. Right >> now, do we still have a bunch of work to help women entrepreneurs? Yes. Um women entrepreneurs also tend to not make the technology companies. That's where we're, you know, severely like have fewer of them. And I think it's mostly because funding's been so hard. Like I even know myself if I go out and fund for a company, my chance of getting capital is far less than my male counterparts even still today. And so that is naturally taking women entrepreneurs into other spaces. Um the last couple of years have also not been really great for women both in the workplace and entrepreneurial. As you mentioned, we've we've seen a pullback. We've kind of had recessionary conditions. We've also had VCs not writing checks or not able to raise their next >> even though they have money in the bank. >> Yeah. Even though they have money in the bank, they haven't been writing checks. So you have this whole funny dynamic for how you capitalize depending on the type of business that you're in. And because you don't have a ton of women VCs, you don't naturally have a ton of um women who are then baking the companies that are venture-backable. So they tend to build companies that aren't the venturebacked ones, which means they bootstrap them and build them. And they're doing a phenomenal job at that. The thing I do think that we we still have plenty of work to go to on how do we create the the support networks and the relationships between female entrepreneurs and and people who open doors and found and fund companies because those are more complicated. Most deals are not done around a boardroom. They're done because you know you you go on a trip together or you go to the basketball game together or you go have an experience together. that is >> like entrepreneurs need to understand cold calling an institutional investor or a professional angel investor just cold call them out of the blue >> very low chance of being funded most of the fundings and I think it's probably more than 95% of the fundings are from a w a warm introduction that turns into a relationship and that ecosystem is still complicated when you know like if I have two jazz tickets I don't call you to go with me right and so but those relationships are the things that are forming deals. So, we have a fair amount of work still to create an ecosystem that let lets that become easier. I mean, every woman I know that's raising capital, >> most of I get the call from most of them, right? And we we're always trying to figure out how do we navigate that? What relationships can we introduce you to? What rooms can we bring you into to make that just a little bit easier so that it is a warm introduction so that you are in those networking rooms that do that? I mean, just an interesting observation. One of the things KO is fantastic at is this networking far more than I've actually seen in the tech ecosystem. Like they are so intentional about making sure that in any place where they're bringing people together, it's very focused on the relationship and networking in every environment, which I think is fascinating because you don't they pull you know the CEOs of all the bottlers together and then like I sat on one of their boards with the CIOS of every other bottler in the country and there's all of these boards but those meetings are not just a meeting. They're very specific around, hey, we're going to go to dinner with that group. We're going to go to this excursion with this group. We're going to build relationships so that the business work gets done at better. >> And that's and that's how you create a mode around a I mean, carbonated water with some flavoring, very low cost, selling it for a massive margin. How do you stay a leader for a hundred years? Relationships. In other words, they've got a dialed in Coca-Cola with these bottlers and their distribution network and they've got to have relationships because the product itself is very easy to duplicate. Maybe not the exact formula which they're famous for. You know what I'm saying? But soft drinks are not that hard to create, right? But >> what they've built over a hundred years, the way you maintain that is through what you're saying. That's very interesting. >> And and I think the thing the same thing is true in our startups, right? people, people figuring out that game harder. >> We literally just had that at our we do an big annual meeting every year for our venture fund, for our boot camp alum, just getting all of our community together and we had Stephen Mr. Cvy talk, the speed of trust. He literally just went over that last week and it was amazing. Yeah. Talking about >> he applied deals are done when when trust is there, right? >> Yeah. He's a friend. and he was he came and did it for us and it's you know the pressure in a startup founding team is immense. When the temperature gets turned up you can easily have greed, envy, distrust creep in right and so he talked about the speed of trust and why it's not just a good feeling situation. It's got real financial and economic impact if you increase your trust in your founding team. It was a really good thing. >> I actually love his book trust and inspire. his um son-in-law played soccer with my son. Oh, cool. So, he used to travel with us to all of the kids. >> He's just the nicest guy, too, isn't he? >> Yeah. Shout out to Shout out to Steve. >> Yeah. So, we were we were uh in our Mormon mission, LDS mission. Uh that's where we met we served together. Yeah. And in the jungles of Paraguay and he's just been a friend ever since. But I'm so pleased with what he's developed because it's as I listen to him the other day, I go this is so important to today's world, what we need. Right. >> I love that. I'm not in the command and control bucket or the inline command and control. I prefer his trust and inspire. >> That's a good one, too. Um, okay, Sid, in closing, I want to ask you one more question. Out of all of this, from, you know, your MBAs and CS degrees to novel to tech startups to Disney to Coke to Brandless to CPG e-commerce. What is the one thing you're leaving this podcast and our listeners and viewers, these budding early stage entrepreneurs and those that are even building and currently running and operating startups like what's the overall piece of advice that you could leave like what's the one thing that's like this? >> I mean that's a tough question. >> That is a tough question because your mind goes to like a million different types of um answers. I I actually I'm going to hearken back to what we were just talking about, which is you're going to over the course of your career, like first of all, I'm going to echo what we said at the beginning. You have to have grit and you have to have the ability to activate and go >> tenacity over talent. Okay? >> Every time. But I um I also think that you have to heavily lean in to leaving places better than when you arrived. Like not everyone's going to like you. Some people are going to hate you along the way. That's okay. But the thing you ultimately are building are what we just talked about. You're building relationships. You're building an ecosystem where people come to trust you. They want to work with you. And because they want to work with you, new opportunities come to you. Whether that's a deal that you're going to close that accelerate your startup, whether it's funding that comes into it, whether it's something that someone taps you to go do next, like your ecosystem for your whole career is interconnected. And the more you are willing to understand the importance of relationships and people to your success, I think the better you leave the world. I think the better you leave the teams that you're on. And I think the more opportunities you have to navigate in the future. >> Yeah. Okay. That's very similar to something that David Bradford came on our podcast. You know, David and and obviously your days probably back at Noville as him being there, but he literally said the same. Just be a good human. Yep. >> It's like just be a good person and like be curious and interested and truly interested in other people and build those relationships and that'll just get you ahead cuz David David Bradford is like one of the best networkers I've ever met. >> I've ever met. you are as well and it's just interesting that you both are connecting on that one piece of advice of like just be a good person and be >> sometimes I say well I don't know if you guys say swears I'm like just don't be an stop doing that right like and we will we have all had those people in our career >> and even for myself personally like I know everyone won't love me but I try when I show up in those companies and I have this barometer I sometimes say is if I walk away from this company if I do something else will will these people want to work for me again will I have leveraged like their talent their time to help me build something and lean into that. And if I do that, I think in general that's the place that >> and that's that's general business, too. That's not even entrepreneur. It's just like in any team, in any atmosphere, any environment, wherever you're working, just are you a good person that people want to be around? >> See what I get out of you and I I'm I have a lot of radical cander style, too. And I think you have radical cander, but you do it with you back it up with knowledge. Yeah. >> You back it up with specificity. And you back it up with true care and concern. and matterof factness that helps. And what I've felt over the years, there's some people that don't like hearing the truth and they don't like matter of fact. And I say it's about 3%. But most of them come back and say, "I knew where I stood with you. I knew what you meant and I understood it and it was clear communication instead of just trying to please in the moment and, you know, pat people on the head and make things feel good when there's really problems we need to address." That's right. And you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And that's that's that's needed. And I that I've I've seen your leadership style. I've seen you in front of so many groups talking and teaching and and leading that I can see how there's a certain sliver that will say, "Man, she's just, you know, telling it like it is, you know, and and all that." But that's what's needed. We need more communication. >> I think more people appreciate that than you both think. So I think that's why it's a testimony to your guys' careers and where you >> sometimes I get surprised seven years later and I I you know you're a lot younger than me and you know but you've got a lot of sage wisdom as well and they come in and say you know back then sometimes I wasn't sure why you were so blunt with me but you were right and that really helped me. Yeah. [laughter] So >> it's interesting you say that just as kind of one closing that I've been been helping an organization in a little bit of a turnaround and I brought all the leaders into the room over the last 3 months as they're doing working on 2026 plan and what was fascinating to me is in all the history of the company they'd never been brought into the room to create accountability and ownership of the domain that they had and yesterday I had a conversation with a gentleman as we were wrapping up and he's like no one ever forced me to do these things or told me the exact things that have to be true in order for us to fix this function. And I was never in the conversation. And you're like, well, how does anyone know how to fix anything if you're not willing to have a conversation of like, hey, if this isn't true, we're going to have to make a different decision. If [clears throat] you don't step into this, you we can't fix it. >> Tyler's co-founder at Dev Mountain, you know, Tyler's Dev Mountain. It was so funny. He was a student. He had this idea. He comes to me. I said, "That's the worst idea I've heard in my entire time at BYU. And here's the five reasons why." I told him why. This, this, this, the he goes, "I need to hang around you more." He hangs around me, meets Totter, they start Dev Mountain, he's now a multi-millionaire. >> Fantastic. [laughter] >> Right. I mean, a lot more steps in there, but yeah, summarized. >> I think that's how you go. [laughter] >> Sid, I want to thank Sid for coming in today. This I think this is going to be an awesome episode. >> Yeah. So, Sid, thank you. It's been an absolute pleasure learning from Disney magic to coke bottling AI to founding startups to acquisition to CPG everything to women in tech. We can't leave out the women in tech. Okay. Um, thank you for coming on the podcast. It's been an an absolute pleasure, an amazing conversation. Hope you guys all liked it, too. Thank you so much. We're going to sign off. This has been it for this episode. Okay. John wants us to leave you with a subscribe, like, share, whatever it is that you are, whatever platform you're on, give us some love. And we already see the love. So, thank you so much for that. Until next time, Startup Ignition podcast, we are out. [music] Rock it back. X2 rock next to Rock. [music]