Paul M. Caffrey (00:01)
Welcome to the 50th episode of the Work Before the Work podcast. Today we're going to get into the top sales strategies of elite founders. And I couldn't think of any better guest than Gary Fox, host of the entrepreneur experiment to join us. Gary, how's it going? How are you?
Gary (00:19)
Paul, how are you? Thanks for having me on.
Paul M. Caffrey (00:21)
I'm really, really good. Yeah. And I'm excited for this conversation. You obviously you focus on business. You focus on the brain body of the three hundred and sixty four episodes with the most incredible guests. mean, like Owen Hinchley, co -founder of Tynes, Oisin Hanrahan, who is founder of Keychain in the News today. Again, as it happens, Tom Höglund. I saw you interview Tom at Dublin Tech some of the few years back.
And again, another person on the verge of absolutely colossal IPO. So you are being speaking to some of the biggest and brightest minds when it comes to tech sales and the tech world in general. So I'm real excited just to get get into things. But I guess first, before we jump into that, what was the catalyst for you to start start the podcast, the entrepreneur experiment?
Gary (01:17)
It was mentors. It was, I needed to connect with great mentors. I've had mentors growing up, but I found as I was running through my last business, I was getting quite siloed because the busier you get, the less opportunities you have to meet these people. And I always say like, the mentors you want shouldn't have time to meet you because they're the people that were actually at the coal face. You should always be very careful about who you choose to take advice from and get mentorship from because it can be one of the most destructive things you can bring into your business.
So I wanted mentors, wanted fresh ideas, and I wanted... I always knew the last business wasn't going to be the business, and I kind of wanted to be exposed to all these great minds. I learn very much one -to -one. I'm a constant reader, like books are my number one teacher, but I learn really, really well from one -to -one. I definitely struggle in like conference environments and kind of group learnings. I definitely don't thrive there. And I've been...
listening to podcasts for the last couple of years, but they're off in the States and I couldn't relate to them. They're all very kind of like, yeah, we raised 50 million and off we went. I'm like, yeah, that doesn't teach me anything. It's entertaining and it's fun to listen to. So that was why, and I was like, Ireland is full of incredible entrepreneurs, the most entrepreneurial country in the world. And I wanted to become part of that by learning from all of them.
Paul M. Caffrey (02:37)
It's definitely a great way to go about it. And what I really like about your approach is, you know, sometimes you nearly feel like you're the third person sitting at a table in a pub. I don't mean that in any respect. mean, as in it's a casual, it's a direct, it's a real conversation. I mean, what do you credit your ability down to to be able to get people to open up in the way that you do?
Gary (03:03)
It's funny you say that because that's what I say to guests. I'm like, look, this is just your story. I want you to tell me this as if you're telling to me Oprah coffee. So it's remarkable you picked up on that. And that's what I want. I want it. I don't want it to feel forced or the number one thing it can't be is a radio interview because they're so cringe and the producer hands them a list of questions. Paul does not have a clue who Gary is or why he's even sitting in front of them. OK, so tell me about insert name.
And it's just the worst. So I was like, it'll never be that. And I was like, this is my thing. I can do whatever I want with it. I want to learn. And I think people will be curious. And to be honest, I've completely changed how I communicate. I've completely changed how I communicate with people. I was immensely shy. I would struggle to communicate well with people. And it's completely changed me as a person being able to actually talk to people.
properly. And that sounds weird, right? But have a proper conversation. Like this morning, was randomly getting my hair cut in this... I randomly walked into a barber, my other barber couldn't do it, I randomly walked in. I just had this like amazing conversation with this incredible person. She had flown on her holidays to Egypt from Ukraine seven days before the war began. They were flying back the night the war began. She never had to fly home.
She literally was stuck in Egypt for three weeks and she told me this amazing story about how she ended up here. Like those conversations are immense and I would never have had those five years ago. So I wasn't able.
Paul M. Caffrey (04:35)
Wow.
Yeah, and it is key because. So often we stay surface level and getting your hair cut is a pretty good barometer of this, you know, have you just spoken about where you're going on holidays with somebody and it hasn't went anywhere else? Then you haven't really had a real conversation, whereas if you found out about the family, kids and things that are going on again, it can be very, very different.
I guess, I mean, this is the sort of thing which I would see, you know, founders maybe struggle with a little bit at the beginning, you know, because they can get a lot of meetings with companies or even sales professionals that are selling these products that first meeting. But then they stay at that surface level. Well, you've obviously spoken to people who've made, you know, millions, tens of millions, probably hundreds of millions in sales, looking at their sales teams and everything that's been done globally. What have you seen founders share with you, particularly in those early days, which
has helped them in their sales journey.
Gary (05:42)
Just to kind of close off that previous question, I think how you should think about it is, are you listening to reply or are you listening to listen? Too many people are listening to reply. Too many people are, they think a conversation is, Paul tells me a story about the struggles he's having with HR. I'll then launch into a diatribe about how HR screwed me over three years ago and I'll never trust him ever again. That's not a conversation. That's just like.
throwing stuff over and back. So it's going deeper. Like be interested and be interesting. You have to listen to what the person is saying and don't just parrot back something similar. Actually have a proper conversation and ask them questions about how did that happen? Why did that happen? You know, go deeper. Don't just like that. People think commonly the conversation has to be like, now I'll tell you a similar story. That's not how conversations go. You have to be able to go a little bit deeper. So what have I seen?
from early stage founders. So yeah, you touched on it there. A lot of founders are so eager to tell you about their business that they forget to ask the person in the room what they need. That they're so, it's always on broadcast, not on receive. So that's the biggest tip is to switch that around first thing. Talk a little, listen a lot. That's the biggest thing as a founder because this thing of pitching, pitching, pitching. I think we've just,
up by osmosis from the states. I think we've just gotten into this mentality of like, I must be pitching all the time. There's nothing that turns me off more than when a startup founder won't shut up about their idea. And after 60 seconds, I can tell it's all nonsense and everyone else can too. That's the secret. It's the authenticity that will set you apart from everybody. You do not have to have all the answers. If you say this is what we're thinking about.
This is what we've done. What do you think? Instead of, and we're going to do this and this feature and this, and don't forget the AI and da da da da da. And they're sitting there going.
how did I end up here? Instead of kind of going, this is really interesting. I bet we could work together. I bet I could help Paul on this idea. They forget just to switch on my dollars too. I was watching this like Mr. Rachel video and it's like listening ears time. And I was like, that's what founders need. They need the Mr. Rachel listening ears because too much of it is just, look, think it comes from the pitching thing of accelerators and pitching for money and pitching for this and pitching for that.
Paul M. Caffrey (08:18)
Yeah.
Gary (08:21)
That's okay in the first 12 months, but beyond that you need to be able to have a grown up conversation with people and actually see, and you'll know this as an expert salesperson, what's their problem? Why are they talking to you in the first place? Because something has brought them to you. What is their problem? And if you walk away not knowing that, you've inherently failed.
Paul M. Caffrey (08:41)
Yeah, and I mean, there's so much stuff there. I mean.
Yeah, replacing your happy years with listening ears. they have a problem. We have a bit of a solution. This could be fantastic. And to your point, the best salespeople, they have those conversations. They add in three, four five layers of curiosity into it. you know, very rarely will they speak about themselves or their solution in the first couple of conversations, not until it actually makes sense at a later stage. And with that, actually, my co -author, Phil Jones,
a fantastic book on sales conversations called Exactly What To Say. And what that does is it gives you these. It's not it's not a recipe, it's kind of like a pantry of ingredients that you can use to actually pepper into your conversations to improve them. And one of one of the 23 phrases in that book is what makes you say that? Just that phrase, someone said, I'm having a problem, whatever they say.
Well, let me say that. what do you think is causing that? And you haven't tried to fix it. Or what have you done as opposed to, as you say, launching into the other piece? When I guess when you when you're chatting to people, they're probably always interested in sharing a positive spin on things. And there's obviously been some very vulnerable moments shared on the show as well.
But if there's any, let's say any fans or any salespeople listening who are maybe having a tough time selling because although it looked like 2024 was going to pick up, hasn't still hasn't quite gotten back to what it was a few years back. What what what comes to mind from some of the conversations that you've had that people could potentially use or take solace in?
Gary (10:32)
Yeah, and the best conversations I had are the honest open ones because sometimes people can put the rose tinted glasses on and skip from here to there. I'll always try to bring them back. Bring me back 15 years ago because it didn't just happen in a straight line. There's two things there. Number one, luck will play a huge part in your career and you just got to stay alive to get lucky. That's always my big one when I'm chatting to entrepreneurs is that survive to thrive.
That's the kind of lesson. I do a lot of teaching in Trinity and that's the big one I try to give very early stage entrepreneurs because especially if they're working in an area that might be slightly altruistic or social or, you know, trying to make like an impact. There can be a tendency to think too grand too soon. I bring it right back to the micro level is how I always try to get them going right. Let's break this back to the very micro level. How much you need to earn in a day to have a reasonable income of living and just
always bring it back to the present and the real. I think that's very, important for salespeople to do as well. Number two is to reset. I think often we can keep doing the same thing over and over and over the definition of malice, just doing the same thing because, you know, if you're sending 200 emails, you think the answer might be sent 400. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it's to send 100. Just really done way better. Reset, like I literally did this yesterday. I was kind of...
scrambling to kind of get everything done before my holidays and the previous day I'd like scramble, scramble, scramble all day and just the end of the day I was like you've done nothing today. So literally stopped, reset everything yesterday morning, prioritization, what must get done for this to be a success, start there. It's always resetting. I reset every day because you have to reset otherwise you get into this frenzy mode and if you get into a frenzy mode it's like desperation when you're dating.
people can just sense it off you straight away. So it's all about resetting and going back to your centre and going, right, what has to be true here? What do I know to be true for sure? And then starting at the end, going, right, what do I need to do for this year or this month or whatever way you're looking at your sales process for this to be a success? Okay, let's just start there and work our way backwards.
Paul M. Caffrey (12:48)
Yeah, I there are so many different avenues to go down there. The big news comes out of me is, you know, is doing the basics to a high standard consistently and like closing that big deal, closing Coca Cola, whatever it might be. You know, it's yeah, great. And if it happens and you get there, super. But as you say, staying in the game and.
Again, I guess one thing is if you're working in South or if you can close the smaller deals or get to run the smaller deals happening, that gives you the right to go after them. As I say, the key deals are the slightly larger deals. And then once you've got that cadence going, OK, we can start focusing on some of these whales that we want to go after as well as opposed to.
Gary (13:30)
Be consistently
good, not occasionally great. That is the motto I think about all the time. Be consistently good, not occasionally great. Turn up every day and be an eight out of 10. And then some days you're going to be a 10. If you're turning up at a 10 on a Tuesday and then Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you're at a one, the average is over the year, you're going to be way, way, way down. It's just a simple art of compounding.
Paul M. Caffrey (13:54)
Yeah, absolutely. And look, let's face it in sales, your number will reflect that at the end of the year. What did you land on? And it is it is a lot of activity. And I do like the idea of doing less to do more. So instead of going out and doing your 400 emails or whatever, like if you will let this down to 50 who are really better suited towards your ICP within the past or territory that you're working and actually you go and find a relevant trigger, a little bit of personalization and go that route.
you will increase your your chance of response. And I suppose it's nearly like a spectrum. Really, you know, one that ends up here. You know, if you told the entire world about all your stuff, yeah, you'd find business. But again, if you found the people with the exact, exact pain and needed your solution right that moment, you find it too. We'll never be able to get the extremes of both. So we're always balancing. So when what what's what's jumped out at you at from from all the interviews and all the people that you've spoken to, mentored, helped.
And when it came to people doing things wrong, like what have you noticed or what have you been told when it comes to, know, we were doing this thing and we shouldn't have.
Gary (15:05)
broad questions, there's a lot of things like what do people do wrong? Generally, it goes back to the thing of lack of self -awareness, lack of kind of understanding yourself. Why are doing this? I see a lot of founders build, they're building features, not products. They're building features, not companies. They're building one little tiny thing, but the market has told them over and over again, that's not what's wanted. Or the big one, and probably this is the one we'll talk about is they build in isolation.
They have this idea, I'm going to build an app for X. They go off, try raise money, build, build, build, build, build. And the first contact with the customer is too late. They're afraid of no. They're afraid of that's not what I wanted. They're just afraid so they will spend two years of their life building as opposed to spending two years of their life testing, iterating. I had a great, credible entrepreneur on the podcast called Charlie Butler from Bounce Insights and his motto.
was listen, sell, build. So listen first, hear what people want to buy, then sell it to them and then build it. And no way, nine times out of 10 do ever people do that. They never do that. One in 10 will do it. Charlie's one of the one in tens because it's hard to hear no. And as a salesperson, you have to hear no all the time. So if you are not willing to
Park your ego, get rid of the emotion out of it because it's not personal, it's business. It's both, it's highly personal, but you have to park the ego. Yes, you take it personally, you turn up every day, it's your baby, but if you take it personally and every single thing is a dent to your ego, you'll never get past, you'll never actually build anything of value because you'd be so afraid that it's not what, you know, I'd rather hear no 50 times and hear one monstrous yes on the 51st time.
Because that is the only way, you talk about commonalities, you talk about traits of great founders, that is the one thing they are not afraid to hear.
Paul M. Caffrey (17:13)
I like that. Yeah. And I guess this I suppose it kind of comes across the analogy that you mentioned from time to time of, you know, back in the jockey or the horse. And I guess that makes it pretty clear which one there that that you're backing for sure. And what I mean, I guess some other questions that kind of get bounced around is and this is a little bit tangential, but when it comes to founding teens, like
Gary (17:27)
always.
Paul M. Caffrey (17:42)
Is there any kind of right way or wrong way like the individual founders, are they putting themselves at massive disadvantage? They always look to find a couple of co -founders. And, you know, what have you seen work particularly well in the Irish ecosystem?
Gary (17:55)
It seems to be co -founders, like anecdotally, but there's no one rule because everyone's different. If you're an absolute lone wolf, if you have an absolute drive and you feel that this is something you can only do alone, do it alone. Whereas a lot of people will find comfort in a co -founder. And look, it definitely lightens the load. There's absolutely no doubt about that. I think it brings in another skill set, it brings in more expertise, it probably brings in more money. does, you know, gives you more time.
but it's personal, specific, like it really depends. Are you going to be good as a co -founder? And secondly, only find the very best because this is a marriage. Take no bones about it. It always terrifies me when I'm like, yeah, we met at a weekend co -founder thing. I'm like, that's like marrying someone after your first date. Like it's insanity to me. You are rolling the dice in a massive way with your life.
Paul M. Caffrey (18:49)
Yeah.
Gary (18:56)
This should be, and I think people need to hear this, this should be the next 10 to 20 years of your life. Are you willing to see this person every single day for 10 years? And most importantly, are you willing to put your future in their hands? That's what it comes down to because I have seen this so many times and I've been told this story more times than I can count is that, well, we started off pretty well, but we never had a hard conversation.
And we never really discussed what would happen if. So my number one advice to any early stage founders, and I teach this in my courses, is that get a document signed that maps out your partnership. And this sounds like basic 101, they're like, what a revelation. No one does this. Very few founders will do it because it's awkward. It's like signing a prenup. It's like turning up at the chapel on the wedding day going, darling, I need you to sign all this.
If you walk, you get nothing. And it's the same with a founder. You need to have that pre -nup conversation and you need to say, if this, then that, if this, then that, if this, then that, because I've seen so many times the first flush of the founding journey, six months, perfect. This is great crack. We're all having bit of fun. First year, okay, we've met it. Second year starts to get tough and then money's getting tight. I actually even offered this job over here. okay. So you're leaving. Yeah.
But what about your shares? I'm seeing keeping the shares, you know? And it's amazing. This sounds so simple, but like, if you have a conversation going, okay, if you leave it in three years and this happens, you vest your shares or you leave it in three years, you look at nothing or you're bought out at the set figure of 50 grand or whatever it is. That is the secret to success when it comes to a good partnership. And then beyond that, you're into the world of psychology. You're into the world of finding the perfect person to match you.
what I have seen that works really well as yin and yang. Definitely the opposites. Don't partner up with yourself because that's what the temptation is. you're just like me. That shouldn't be your founder. Your founder should be like, well, we're like Jock and Cheese. All the great founders I've met are like, well, she's very numbers driven. I'm very ideas driven. And they have their own two worlds. And it's never even really a conversation of going, what are you doing in the business? What are you doing in the business?
Clearly I handle all the sales and they handle all the operations because that's just how we're built. That's the dream.
Paul M. Caffrey (21:27)
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And I mean, there's so much there. Yeah, I mean, the founder, Prinoff, I'm sure that phrase has been banded about. But yeah, mean, as you speak it through, it makes so much sense. And when I guess when you've seen some of these companies kind of get through that, I suppose the first few years and then they they reach a point where it looks like things are going to go big.
What trends have you noticed when it comes to selling their product that, you know, maybe people mightn't expect?
Gary (22:02)
What trends when it comes to selling their product?
They are willing to kill their darlings. They're willing to not be wedded to one product. They're willing to let the market decide. As they're tending to get bigger and bigger, they're willing to double down on the one thing that's working. A lot of companies start out for loads of products. You kind of have to because you've got to test. But when they start to scale, they really go hard at it. And I think there's one thing in Ireland that we lack.
is big ambition. I think that's something we're only starting to see come true now. There's certain outliers that really, really have it. Barry Napier, who I interviewed recently, really has it. The Colison lads definitely have it. I think it's something that's coming through in the younger generation definitely. I think COVID has had been a really weird time, but I think it was coming anyway. The internet has leveled the playing field a lot. Younger entrepreneurs I speak to now in their early 20s, they think...
of global market, they think of this, they think of the online market as opposed to Ireland, which is good. But you also have to be, yeah, it's brilliant, it's brilliant, but you also have to be very, survive to thrive, right? Don't get overwhelmed, don't get overawed, because when your customer is everybody, your customer is nobody.
Paul M. Caffrey (23:15)
great.
Yeah, so true. And I mean, it is interesting because people do feel that they need to have multiple different products. They need to go really wide and serve a lot of different people. And even then, salespeople, they can be the same. might have like I spent a bit of time with Salesforce a long time ago now, but even back then, they had 46 different services that you could actually sell to somebody, even though like it's CRM software. So if you didn't place your bets and pick the ones that you're going to back the best
suited the territory or the customers that you were looking after. You were at nothing because, you know, there's there's so much so wide there. So to focus on the one piece. And I think the global market is interesting because I've definitely heard that come through in some of your podcasts recently where people are realizing that they can, I guess, achieve a lot more here. I think you were saying maybe Stripe, if it started today, it maybe doesn't go on that San Francisco journey.
Perhaps it still does again, again, there is now certainly a theory that you may maybe that will be delayed. If we look forward into the next kind of, let's say, 10 years or so, you know, what what do you think you might see happen in the startup ecosystem, particularly from an Irish perspective? there any big change that you think could be on the horizon?
Gary (24:49)
Yeah, I think it's going to be far more flexible, far more mobile. I think like a hybrid startup, essentially. think you, where you're based will become a bit of a loose term. I think it's starting to happen already. Like smart companies have been doing this for very long time. You know, they headed off to America. It's not the Faminship days. Like you can meet an American in the morning if you have to be. things are so much quicker now, so much easier, so much cheaper. We can do this interview online. Whereas...
10 years ago when I had a podcast, but also would have needed a studio and a big TV crew and all this kind of mad stuff. Whereas now it can be done online, no problem. That's the same with business. think it's going to become more of a hybrid thing whereby where you're based isn't going to have a defining factor. Definitely in tech. I think where you're based isn't going to be the defining factor. I think people will temporarily locate in certain places. This is kind of trend on bullish on is that people will kind of have hybrid lives. They might spend three months of the year in San Francisco.
but then it's been nine months here. They might build a product in Lithuania, but actually be based in Sweden. And I think the founder will move to wherever they're treated best. I think you'll see that a lot more in terms of, you know, there's an anchoring we tend to do sometimes in our head of like, I must stay here. Whereas I think people have seen after COVID going, the cell door is open here and I have the keys in my hand. So I can always walk back through it.
Paul M. Caffrey (26:06)
Yeah.
Gary (26:12)
So like it's never be afraid of walking through the door. You can walk back through. Like you can be anywhere in the world in a couple of days. I think people are now suddenly realizing going, we have the technology to do this. And people aren't as wedded to it. People had a mistrust, I think a little bit online of the online world. Even before COVID, I think there was still a bit of a hesitancy. But I think COVID just burst that psychology in people's heads of like, you know, the old phrase, that's not how we do it around here anymore. that's...
That doesn't exist anymore because COVID showed us you can do anything if you have to.
Paul M. Caffrey (26:48)
Yeah, and it's I mean, point the point you make about the world getting smaller is so so key as well. I remember I was in Lithuania last year speaking at a gig there. And there is a good tech scene building there. You there is a lot of exciting companies starting and there's a lot of talent, particularly. And as like as you say.
I remember 12 years ago, I had a football podcast and we had to go to RTE every week. We had to go into the studio and the headphones on and it was great. And don't get me wrong, I loved those days. They were super fun. But I do remember being in Chicago and having to come on and do an episode. And it was the amount of prep and organization needed just to have me come on for a few minutes to have a chat with somebody. I was just like madness. Whereas today, jeez, you could probably just.
Gary (27:15)
There you go.
Paul M. Caffrey (27:38)
Well, maybe not a coffee shop, but not far removed the hotel lobby with soundproof headphones. You're away. You can just do business. So no, it is. It is really, really exciting. But yeah, I guess I guess that embracing embracing it and yeah.
Gary (27:50)
I think the people
who embrace that mentality will win. I think the people who were, do believe we are entering a new phase in the world whereby the people adopt this mentality will win. I've been shocked by how many companies have tried to like put the genie back in the bottle. It shocks me, like very smart, very astute companies and they're trying to go back to the old way because that's what they're comfortable with. And either through fear or through lack of ability or through lack of skill, they're not willing to push forward.
leave the good for the great.
Paul M. Caffrey (28:22)
Yeah, it's it's really interesting the way it's going. like particularly like it's a double edged sword from a sales perspective, right? Because there is nothing better than overhearing conversation of a tenured rep or a VP who is chatting with a customer and you just happen to be in the office and that's how you're kind of and then you can have a conversation and then it's the random conversation. So that part is is absolutely crucial. But then the other side of it is to assume that you're going to have the best talent.
within a commute distance of your office. mean, that's another assumption. So you're kind of going, which way is it? But I think and this is a question I haven't really answered, but it is it is an interesting one is there is a lack of resilience in the newer generation in sales at the moment. And it's it's a bit of a challenge. And we're trying to trying to figure out how to bring it back. And I like I do wonder, is it the
Is it the case that people like, let's get people to the office, let's try to build up resiliency that way, or is it just, we've got this great office and let's use it. And you can work from home one day a week because we don't have enough space for you to be here five days a week. That's the real reason. But again, it is something where I think there are definitely is work needed to improve resilience. And I'm not too sure what the answer to that is, but we'll see now over the next few years how it transpires.
Gary (29:49)
There's clarity needed. I agree with you. I love being in the studio with people. I love it. I get such a buzz off it and it's a very different experience. But equally, if I can only do it online, I'm going to do it online. And I think it's a blend, right? I think clarity is what's missing. think companies are afraid to nail their colours to the mast and as a result, you're stuck in the messy middle.
you're stuck in either one or the other. Cause I always ask and I pro, cause I'm trying to learn. I'm trying to see which way the wind is going to like synthesize this and kind of create an analysis in my own head. And companies are kind like, we do a bit of this, a bit of that, a bit of the other. It's no wonder people aren't resilient because people have gone through a trauma of essentially a two year war, which essentially what COVID was, you know, restricted to your house, 5k. I mean, the trauma of that has not been processed by anybody. If you've been 18,
and you've gone through the last two years from 18 to 20, your formative years, how could you have resilience? You're just afraid of the next thing that's gonna happen. So I completely understand what they're going through and why they would have that hesitancy because how could you? You've missed out on all those formative years of sitting in an office with people like you going, well, this is how Paul does it. Okay. And the conversations with you, the training rooms are great, but the conversations they'll have with you at lunch or...
going for a stroll or having a coffee, you're getting to know, you're talking about football. That's when you really start to develop your skills as a human and as an adult and as a salesperson. It's those soft conversations where it's not just like, okay, at nine to 9 .45, I have a Zoom with Paul. You're in a different world there. So you do need both, but what companies need to do is get clarity on that. Going on Tuesday and Thursday, we're in the office. Job, done. And we're in the office for collaboration. We're not in the office just sitting in your laptop with your headphones on.
We're in the office and we're going to take the lead and show you, we're going to have these collaboration sessions with Paul, we're going to do sales 101, we're going to do intensive three hour sales sessions. But instead, we're still applying this broken model of like nine to five, working in an office to a hybrid world. Not going to work.
Paul M. Caffrey (31:58)
Yeah, that's one of these really, really will be interesting to see, think, transpire. And on our rapid fire podcast, which we were doing, we spoke about who will be the one person or the one company that you would give one million euros to. You defer to answer. I'm going to push you for an answer now, Gary, who's going to get it?
Gary (32:22)
OK, well, I had to be a little bit strategic about this. If I'm high class investor with a million to throw around, I can't just throw the first name because into my head, I would not be good investment. So I'm going to be very strategic here. going to pick an incredible entrepreneur who's relatively early in her journey. And I think she is going to go to the very top. And that is Áine Kennedy from Smooth.
Paul M. Caffrey (32:43)
Excellent. And what does the company do?
Gary (32:48)
So essentially, I'm going to butcher her product. I do not need it. This the smoothing stick. Actually, sorry, I do need it. You can tame down your eyebrows and you can tame down the side of your hair. So it's a smooth stick. A smooth stick. So the female listeners in the audience or anyone with a ponytail will understand, like when they type the ponytail, there's like these little flyaway hairs. And this little smooth stick, which she invented herself, you take it out, it smooths down, and it is absolutely flying. She was in Vogue a couple of days ago.
Paul M. Caffrey (32:57)
I'm scared. They're getting out control for me now as I'm getting older, you know.
Gary (33:17)
She is taking the world by storm and she's doing it through graft, through ingenuity and through just being a good person. She is everything I look for in a founder. She takes every single box.
Paul M. Caffrey (33:17)
Thank you.
Excellent. Well, that is super to hear. I'll look out for it. I'll no doubt. look no doubt it will be everywhere and will force its way into into my world somehow. Yes. Yeah, no, absolutely. And.
Gary (33:41)
tag her and we'll get her on the algorithm for this and then she'll see.
Paul M. Caffrey (33:48)
I guess if I was going to answer that question, there's a buddy of mine I worked with a long time ago called Rob Halligan, and he's about to level the playing field for investors when it comes to getting access to companies before they IPO. So his company is called Pitchtip with his co -founder Scott. I think they're in the middle of a rebrand, but yeah.
Gary (34:05)
I've heard of this, yeah.
Paul M. Caffrey (34:10)
Yeah, it's they've been going on a long journey for the last couple of years to get to regulation sources, get everything that's needed to operate in the financial field. They're very close to being there. So, yeah, that will be where it's going. So if people want to find out more about you, Gary, more about the podcast, the entrepreneur experiment, how can they do that?
Gary (34:32)
Yeah, so we're on every single social channel, so wherever you are at the Entrepreneur Experimental, we'll be there. on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and then if you go to Mr. Gary Fox .com, you'll find the website.
Paul M. Caffrey (34:42)
Great. Well, Gary, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on and for being the 50th guest. And I look forward to the next time we speak.
Gary (34:50)
Paul, pleasure. Thank you for having me on. Look forward to the next 50 episodes.
Paul M. Caffrey (34:54)
Thank you.
