Each week, we interview proven leaders from our network, to learn from their experiences, and share their Talent Attraction and Candidate Experience stories with you.

• Our mission is to promote the accomplishments of our guests
• Highlight the companies where they work and the services, and products that they offer
• Share success stories from their experiences and, most importantly
• Provide strategies for job seekers and advice to talent seeking to accelerate their careers.
  

Today’s guest is Ed Kalaher, Presdient & CEO, Window Depot USA.

Ed shares his unique career journey, starting from his days as a chemistry major and NCAA All-American athlete at Case Western Reserve University, to becoming an entrepreneur in the vinyl replacement window industry. Ed’s tale weaves through his family’s history in the window manufacturing business, his transition from a large manufacturer to a startup, and the challenges he faced, including the impact of 9/11 on his business. He also discusses:

• his philosophy on servant leadership
• the importance of mastering a skill
• his passion for helping small business owners succeed.

Ed’s story is a testament to navigating nonlinear career paths and finding purpose through service.

Mastering Opportunity: A Window into the Entrepreneurship Journey of Ed Kalaher

[00:00:00] Ron Laneve: Hello and welcome to Episode 39 of the Bell Falls Search Focus on Talent podcast. I’m your host, Ron Laneve. Every episode, we share the career stories of tech experts and marketing mavens, operational gurus and sales leaders to illustrate how they have navigated the nonlinear career path. Today’s guest has been a great friend of mine for over three decades and is a fellow alumni from Case Western Reserve University, he’s an expert in the business of fenestration, which we’ll unpack here in a couple of minutes.

[00:00:31] Ron Laneve: He’s an entrepreneur and as a staunch believer in servant leadership. During his college days, he was an accomplished athlete and was recognized multiple times as a NCAA all American in both shot put in discus. To add to his aura he prides himself on being a philosopher and regularly shares his thoughts on his blog, entitled the midlife analysis.

[00:00:54] Ron Laneve: I’m very excited to introduce Ed Kalaher, president and CEO of Window Depot. Ed, thanks for being here.

[00:01:02] Ed Kalaher: Hi, Ron. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:03] Ron Laneve: As the theme of my podcast is highlighting what I described as nonlinear career paths and yours is definitely one of those in my opinion. I know you’ve got a chemistry major in college many years ago. Then you entered the window business and you’ve been in that business in lots of different roles and even recently have transformed all that experience into an entrepreneurial enterprise, a whole new business that’s related but also parlays into to marketing and technology.

[00:01:33] Ron Laneve: So can you walk us through your career journey and talk about the reasons along the way, whether they were serendipitous or planned decisions on how you got to where you are today.

[00:01:46] Ed Kalaher: Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s hard to take a quick reflection back and say, how the hell did I get here 25, 28 years after we left university? But something that not a lot of people realize when it comes to how did I get from studying chemistry being in that school and transition to a business like replacement windows. Specifically vinyl replacement windows, such a niche business.

[00:02:13] Ed Kalaher: It really starts all the way back with my grandfather on my mother’s side. He and my grandmother, they were deaf and mute basically from birth. So they had that disability. In the fifties when they were of age and looking for work and first newly married, no one was going to hire anybody that was deaf and really couldn’t speak other than signing.

[00:02:35] Ed Kalaher: They lived over in Pennsylvania. But they heard about a company It was here where I still live in this area that had hired a couple of deaf men to work in their factory. That factory was a storm window and door factory, aluminum storm windows and doors.

[00:02:57] Ed Kalaher: I’m around Youngstown, Ohio, between Cleveland, Pittsburgh the rust belt that comes from the steel industry that is now defunct. But that steel industry, it spawned a lot of ancillary, industries as well. Tool and dye being a big one of those.

[00:03:13] Ed Kalaher: Tool and die industry gave birth to a lot of aluminum extrusion businesses in this area. The aluminum being here pushing your custom shapes that gave way to windows and doors that were made of that material. My grandfather Heard about this company and they moved to Youngstown, Ohio, and he worked in essentially the window and door manufacturing space for 40 years.

[00:03:38] Ed Kalaher: During that time the aluminum window Industry transitioned to vinyl. Transition to a better, more efficient, less expensive material. He stuck with that. But more importantly, his son, my uncle started working in that factory as he was studying actually accounting at Youngstown State University.

[00:03:58] Ed Kalaher: As the story goes he kept advancing through that business. Cast aside the desire to finish his accounting degree there and ascended to leadership positions in that business. He and that business just evolved and grew over time. By the time I got the case he was the president of the manufacturing division and they were starting yet another division in vinyl siding.

[00:04:21] Ed Kalaher: They were going to extrude their own siding. When you get into extruding vinyl siding there is a lot of question about the compounding and formulation of that material. Through those conversations, I actually had three different material science courses that I had taken. I talked to the owner of the business and they decided to give me an internship that had to do with basically learning the ins and outs of that business dealing with the material suppliers Figuring out What compound we exactly wanted for our shape, our siding, et cetera. I did that for the first half of my second senior year. Came back to case finished up and by the time that was over, then they offered me a position in that space. So I went to work basically an engineering and design for a vinyl window manufacturer and I didn’t think I’d be in that game, for 28 years. But here I am.

[00:05:18] Ron Laneve: So how did your career progress from there? So you started in the large window manufacturing business. And then what happened?

[00:05:25] Ed Kalaher: Yeah, so that was 96 and I had actually worked a couple of summers during university in the window plant as well. So I was pretty in it. But 96, I started at at that manufacturing facility. Again, vinyl replacement windows, we did doors some other products related.

[00:05:42] Ed Kalaher: By about 99 into 2000 I was still searching for who I wanted to be, what I wanted to do. While I enjoyed that business and I enjoyed working with my uncle and the friends that I had there. I still had an itch to do something else. I really honestly didn’t know what. So I began to apply to different MBA programs, and that was going to be my next step.

[00:06:05] Ed Kalaher: I got the GMAT done. I got the letters of recommendation done et cetera, et cetera. I also thought, I would leave the area. So I was looking at MBA programs at different universities in different places of the country. Again, just trying to search for who the heck I wanted to be.

[00:06:21] Ed Kalaher: I Tendered my resignation to, to the company and had that long conversation with my uncle who was ultimately my boss at that business. It was emotional to do that, but, he was happy for me and, I was going to figure it out. So in true fashion, I gave myself 6 months Between that time and, when I needed to really, decide where I was going to go to school for the graduate degree. During that time my uncle and four other people from that business had been planning. Some things happened to really push them over the edge and they decided they wanted to leave that business and start their own.

[00:06:57] Ed Kalaher: So I was, I think, lucky enough to get a call about that business and a conversation got started and, I ended up getting drafted in the wings of some really talented guys into a startup called Vista Window Company. That was April of 2001 we started that business out of about 47, 000 square feet right here in Warren, Ohio.

[00:07:19] Ed Kalaher: That really started, in hindsight of course my MBA on steroids right there.

[00:07:23] Ron Laneve: So you transitioned into more of a business role, was that fair to say, operating the new startup at that point?

[00:07:30] Ed Kalaher: Yeah, the need was more from an administrative standpoint than it was from a design or testing or engineering. I was actually doing I.T. at that time at my first company. But that was so early in the days of the Internet and whatnot that the reason I became the I. T. Director there was just because I was one of the few who was Comfortable with the technology and could learn it quickly. Had some exposure through university. I knew what email was. I was accessing the Internet. Then I got into networking. But all those kind of technical aspects of the 1st job when I got to Vista, they were handy because everybody had to be all hands on deck no doubt. It’s just pure startup.

[00:08:09] Ed Kalaher: But, administration was more than need. Sales support H. R. People in the office rules and procedures lockout tag out on the floor. You name it. Anything that we needed to have done.

[00:08:21] Ron Laneve: It’s interesting if you think about that time startups were all the rage, and unfortunately late in 2001 was the dotcom bust and the startup crash. Here you are starting up a manufacturing business. Very unlike all together startups that we knew and we know of friends of ours we’re in so it was pretty fascinating at the time.

[00:08:43] Ed Kalaher: Yeah, it was not intellectual capital that we were spending to start this business. It was hard capital. Even though these numbers today sound tiny, I remember at the time it was a $1.75 million line that had to be secured. We had $1 million in equipment on the floor and we had $750,000 in operating capital.

[00:09:03] Ed Kalaher: I had no clue what that meant. Those numbers were alien to me at the time. When I started with the guys, I didn’t instantly have access to everything. I was there, but I was still learning my way. Really quickly, it got to a point where, I saw that $750,000 in operating capital dwindle to nothing and I was one of the point people on trying to figure out what we do next. Talking to banks, talking to investors meeting payroll and failing to meet payroll. It was the wild west. Part of it, of course, was the fact that we started in April of 2001. Back then 99 percent of our orders came either via fax or phone call.

[00:09:44] Ed Kalaher: Literally just transpose over the phone and that fax machine was the lifeblood of the business. It’s still ingrained to me today. We would watch that fax machine. We would watch the orders come over. Today I do the same thing, but it’s digital. But I still look at a counter.

[00:09:59] Ed Kalaher: What are the orders coming in? It’s a blessing and a curse, but that day, September 11th when that fax machine came to a screeching halt, man, I can’t even, you juggle the emotion of, Like when I was there and I’m still at the time I’m 28 years old I’m the youngest guy there. I’m still at a point where instantly I got a call from my dad, and he just said, just, you need to come home right now. I’m like why what’s going on? They didn’t have alerts on the phone. There was no TV at the office or whatever.

[00:10:31] Ed Kalaher: So I run over to Walmart into the big TV section and every TV obviously has the towers and everybody in Walmart is just fixed, silent watching those towers. I will never forget that ever.

[00:10:43] Ed Kalaher: But one thing when I look back, which is insane, is that day that fax machine stopped and we’re like balancing okay, what’s going on in our life in our home and our families with what the hell are we going to do? With no orders come with this is the world has just ended.

[00:10:59] Ed Kalaher: One thing that’s insane to me looking back is 3 days later here comes a fax with a window order on it. I still look back at that and it’s surreal. It’s one of those lessons you put away when you’re planning, especially being an entrepreneur, especially being a small business entrepreneur, you’re always thinking of what happens if the world collapses.

[00:11:20] Ed Kalaher: You think about it multiple times a day. I’m sure you’re cursed with it too. You’re like, Hey, I got some things going. What if the world blows up? The world did blow up and nowadays it gives me a little bit of, solace to think, all right, the world always goes on stuff will blow up, in the micro sense, but the world, the economy, it keeps chugging. It’s bizarre.

[00:11:42] Ron Laneve: I want to talk a lot about Window Depot because, that’s your baby and the thing you’ve created, can you bridge the gap from, the end of Vista to window depot?

[00:11:52] Ron Laneve: I know there’s a lot of gory details in there.

[00:11:54] Ed Kalaher: I think it’s pretty, pretty crazy. I’m sure people, they have their stories, but I’ll try to keep it short and succinct.

[00:12:01] Ed Kalaher: I think that’ll make the roller coasters even more dramatic. 2001, 9-11 hits. What are we going to do? Things slowly start to chug forward. Okay. Maybe there’s some light at the end of the tunnel. I’m still short on working capital, sleepless nights, renegotiating lines of credit with the bank, understanding what bank covenants mean, bringing in more investment capital, all that stuff.

[00:12:27] Ed Kalaher: We hit 2006, seven, eight, and we go from a seven, $8 million enterprise, which I still think is fairly remarkable looking back, going from zero to seven in anything you do is pretty tough. But we go from a seven or $8 million entity to a $30 million entity, at 2008, 9, 10 in that area.

[00:12:50] Ed Kalaher: We’re doing things like Inc 5000, fast growing company list, putting that nice plaque on the wall, getting a little bit of momentum. Hiring out some additional financial staff to actually, somebody that knows what they’re doing to come in and look at the books instead of just us.

[00:13:03] Ed Kalaher: It started with some energy tax credits that the business put in, but I also think it was just something where. If you get five, six years down the road and you’re manufacturing something like you’re going to hit a point where we were making damn good product word was getting out there.

[00:13:17] Ed Kalaher: So a lot of things conspired for the first time in my life to give us a little upward trajectory. That trajectory was awesome. It was fun. For the first year or two out of that phase. We saw some money go to the bottom line. I remember, it was the first time I’d ever seen what a bonus check look like, a distribution.

[00:13:35] Ed Kalaher: Then we get to 2010 and our biggest customer at the time, which again, hindsight you learn these lessons. At the time they were they were doing about $11 million out of our $30 million in revenue. They were buying from us. It was a chain of retail locations.

[00:13:52] Ed Kalaher: This will be important to my story, but it was a single payer system. So the retail locations would all pay the central office and the central office was responsible. We had one AR to that central entity. Kept it clean. I remember I got a phone call one day.

[00:14:08] Ed Kalaher: They were 42 days out on their bill to us, 42 days aged. At the time that was super acceptable. 30 day terms are normal. I don’t know about other industries, but you’re in contracting if you’re getting paid in 42 and you’re doing something right. They were 42 days out.

[00:14:24] Ed Kalaher: The balance on the books was $1. 8 million bucks. They politely called me up and said we’re going out of business. We’re declaring bankruptcy and shutting down operations effective immediately. At the time I had become actually the president of that company.

[00:14:39] Ed Kalaher: So I got the call and and that was, the top of that roller coaster and we had to scramble and figure out what the hell to do. I’ll make that part very short. You hear about these things, on TV about businesses going under and then the owner buying them back for pennies on the dollar.

[00:15:01] Ed Kalaher: I have never experienced something like that. I’ve never gone through that again. I just, you hear, and you absorb, but I witnessed it firsthand. I found out through the course of that, that these gentlemen had started another company prior to that phone call. They had started to divert assets to that company.

[00:15:17] Ed Kalaher: I believe they had purposely scuttled that business to discharge vendor debt and just simply start anew. While that was happening they went to the U. S. Bankruptcy court was in Atlanta, Georgia. We had to go there. We were a creditor, the biggest creditor. At the end of the day, the trustee of that case will try to sell any asset they can sell to get any value whatsoever for the creditors.

[00:15:43] Ed Kalaher: They have no skin in that game other than they’re being paid. So if they don’t sell something, they don’t get any money. So they’re going to sell no matter what the price is. So the assets of that business who was our biggest customer were the trademarks, their intellectual property. The control over the retail locations and essentially they went into that court and they they bid pennies on the dollar. We said, this is going to be one of those classic examples again that you’ve heard about, and they’re just going to retain the name, discharge their creditors, us being the biggest one and go on their merry way.

[00:16:16] Ed Kalaher: So we went to some people that we knew some investors that we knew and decided we’re going to go outbid them and buy that. So I had to make a decision with my partners at the time, if we took control of that retail entity. Then we wanted to keep it running because they were producing the orders that were the lifeblood to our manufacturing facility. Who’s going to run that business?

[00:16:40] Ed Kalaher: So that’s when I transitioned from wholesale manufacturing over to retail space. So I, jumped in to essentially Window Depot at the time, it was a different brand, but that’s a nuance of the story. But I’ve been in retail since 2011. Unfortunately when I left Vista there was an investment by private equity into that business. And instead of being a perfectly symbiotic relationship with me running retail, feeding the manufacturing plant it became more of a fight between me out here, entrepreneurs that were left at the startup and private equity over here and how they felt things should be run. That $30 million enterprise continued to escalate down to the point where today it doesn’t exist anymore.

[00:17:25] Ed Kalaher: That’s how I got into the retail space specifically again, vinyl replacement windows. We took over that brand, which was the banker brand was another name. We decided to go out and buy the window Depot brand because they had a good name. No bankruptcies attached, still had a little brand presence out there.

[00:17:42] Ed Kalaher: When we did that. These franchise like companies, they were all built on just low price, high volume, which is what got the other company in trouble in the first place and couldn’t pay us. That ultimately led to the demise of the manufacturing plant that we started. So we said, and I said, if we’re going to do this and be in the retail game, we can’t do it on low prices and high volume. It’s got to be a value driven system.

[00:18:06] Ed Kalaher: Now we’ve been working for 14 years to rebuild that business in the image of service and value and integrity and grow the number of franchises that are out there. Here we are today. Let’s skip that 14 years, but that’s the origin story of how I got here.

[00:18:22] Ron Laneve: So I know window Depot like you said, in the retail business, but I also say it’s different. You’ve built some models to enable. To your point, franchisees or individuals to build a business, you’re an enabler of other people. So can you talk about that? I think a lot of that came from you and your efforts and your vision and what you’ve built. So can we talk through that?

[00:18:46] Ed Kalaher: Yeah, our business model started and there were plenty of competitors who tried to do this along the way and fell by the wayside. But essentially a business like window Depot started as a buying group, plain and simple, right? Just a bunch of retailers that wanted to band together.

[00:19:02] Ed Kalaher: So instead of going down and buying through building products, distributors, they could go direct to the manufacturing sources, get some buying power in turn, be more competitive in the marketplace, et cetera. So they started as pure buying groups. But I think because I came from the other side of the fence, I came from manufacturing, in fact, was a victim of kind of that mentality.

[00:19:22] Ed Kalaher: Because when margins are razor thin it’s not sustainable for any business that you will inevitably come across a bump in the road that will make that car crash. Because I saw that side of it. Never again. We never wanted to build it that way. Instead of just thinking of being a buying group, the thought process was okay. How do we help these small business entrepreneurs to grow their business and be a sustainable buying partner for us?

[00:19:52] Ed Kalaher: That kept evolving into, all right, we can help them Incrementally improve their business. We just try to build up that what we consider a franchise like support system. When you when people think of a franchise, you expect, okay, I’m gonna go buy this franchise I should have a box that tells me how to run that business from day one all the way through. Sales, marketing operations, finance, procedurals, everything.

[00:20:18] Ed Kalaher: The mindset was just to do it better to be more sustainable. Then you get into all of the the things that you may realize up front, but you don’t really realize until you’re in it, which is, The more we shifted towards helping people grow their business, be more financially stable and sustainable and profitable. When that translates into their life, when they’re actually telling us stories of, how we’ve enabled them to have a different level of financial security and this is what it meant, then your mind gets blown and you get addicted to that process.

[00:20:51] Ron Laneve: It’s fascinating. It’s been fun to watch you help people become business owners essentially. What, in my simple way, I viewed it as, the window installer now learns how to do marketing, how to, how to sell, how to run a business operationally.

[00:21:06] Ed Kalaher: The business didn’t start that way because it was again, just a buying group. So it would be, the target would be okay Laneve windows is buying X amount. If I can shift his volume over to our buying group we can make some money, they can save some money, etc.

[00:21:22] Ed Kalaher: But the more capabilities we developed, more systems were honed, the more the confidence grew, the more reputation grew, and the brand presence. We were able to take on pure startups, absolute green, even to the point where they had no experience in our industry whatsoever.

[00:21:38] Ed Kalaher: That really that pure startup has now become more of the dominant model of people entering our network. But it’s because we’ve developed the capability and the confidence to say, Ron, I know you’re in, you’re in search and you’re in technology, whatever. But if you just tomorrow, if you wanted to say, you know what? I want to go a completely different path, but I don’t know anything about construction or windows or selling or how to generate leads or whatever. We can help you do the entire thing.

[00:22:07] Ron Laneve: It’s fascinating. That’s why I love to tell these stories about the nonlinear career path, because I’m sure when you look backwards when you were doing Q&A and IT support at the window business before Vista, there’s no way you envisioned doing what you’re doing today and being able to help people the way you are. Still leveraging your knowledge of the window business.

[00:22:27] Ed Kalaher: Oh, 100%. I think about it all the time. Maybe it’s consequence of age, but very few people I’ve ever met could predict their path necessarily. That certainly Was not me. Mine was more fueled by, both inspiration and ignorance like hand in hand for sure.

[00:22:43] Ron Laneve: So that is a good segue. I know a lot of people in my life and my network and on LinkedIn that call themselves servant leaders and really love that phrase. I know that you’re very dedicated to that. But I think it’s one of those things that mean lots of different things to lots of different people.

[00:23:01] Ron Laneve: So can you talk about what it means to be a servant leader in general? Then what it means to you to be a servant leader?

[00:23:09] Ed Kalaher: Yeah, I think obviously it’s a short question, but a super layered question, right? I know you and I had it. talked a little bit before about where does that mindset come from?

[00:23:22] Ed Kalaher: If we wanted to go into what is a servant leader, then I can hand you Robert Greenleaf’s book, Servant Leadership, the original that kind of started that thought process and we can go over the textual examples. To explain what it means to me, I think is part about why I think this way, if that makes sense, and why I think this way now.

[00:23:42] Ed Kalaher: For me, it started with my uncle, who I mentioned. He was to me the very definition of a servant leader almost to a point of self sacrifice. Almost on the brink of martyrdom. He would work hard.

[00:23:55] Ed Kalaher: He’s a smart man. But he would ratchet up that effort level intensity and passion for others more than he would ever do for himself. That I saw in my years with him creates such loyalty. There’s pros and cons. There’s always a balance to everything. But I think it starts with him. He was a person who would again sacrifice himself for the people. He would look at it more as giving them opportunity than starting a business for personal gain. I don’t know where he got that from, but I grew up with him. He’s always been a mentor and an influence on my life, but I guarantee he’s where my mindset came from.

[00:24:34] Ed Kalaher: Then, as I discovered the term servant leadership and the materials or whatever, how you do it, that’s where it comes from. I think after that, for me, I think it’s time sometimes. I’ve survived the entrepreneurial cycle for long enough that I’ve witnessed firsthand that kind of the purpose side. I’ll tell every one of our dealers purpose requires profit. Remember that phrase.

[00:25:01] Ed Kalaher: But the purpose side of it is far more gratifying. It’s really hard to filter things through a prism of servant leadership when you’re struggling financially really difficult to do that. So I think just the time and how time shapes us. That’s helped me develop this mindset and reinforce it year after year.

[00:25:19] Ed Kalaher: I think the fact that my children have grown up as I’ve grown up through business, I think that’s amplified it because that turbo charges my desire to put service right at the center of everything in our business. Not just to be an example to them but to teach them in case they’d ever want to entrepreneur and even if they wouldn’t want to be a business owner.

[00:25:44] Ed Kalaher: I personally believe that the the traits that it takes to become a successful business owner and entrepreneur, especially small businesses, I think those are the traits that all young people should aspire to because I think it prepares them for life, not only for them, for the greater good. And I actually think the world would be better if every human being had to start and run a small business for a certain time.

[00:26:07] Ed Kalaher: I don’t think you can say I started out to be a servant leader. I think that would be disingenuous. I think it’s you have influences and then just your personal story does it. But every day for me, it just makes me more and more want to think of in terms of that service mentality. It gives me a taste. Part of its selfishness, right? All the cliches, if you give, you get back, twofold, fivefold or whatever, they’re all true.

[00:26:31] Ed Kalaher: They’re just so very difficult to see when you’re a young entrepreneur because you’re going through that struggle. those things are what it means to me. I’m not talking about like the tactical sense of servant leaders do this, and this is how they conduct themselves and this is how to conduct a meeting.

[00:26:45] Ed Kalaher: I’m talking about the spirit of service. If it’s at the center of what you do, all the things you can gain back and keep paying forward.

[00:26:54] Ron Laneve: Even the phrase of being a purpose driven company or purpose driven leader is a new one to me this year, and I’ve encountered it more and more. I think those things go hand in hand pretty closely. When you’re serving others, that’s your purpose. That’s ed’s purpose in my opinion, as an outsider looking in.

[00:27:12] Ed Kalaher: No, it’s 100% the reason, but it’s disingenuous to think, all these things going into it. But it’s only because I’ve learned these lessons that you can amplify the pursuit of that purpose. You have to have profit to do it. When I think about my kids and how to say, what do you want to be when you grow up? That’s the question, which is a horrible question.

[00:27:32] Ed Kalaher: But if you try to guide them in any way to explore their interest or explore their curiosities I absolutely want them to start businesses or be involved in something like this someday, but I’ll be honest. I don’t want them to go through, the sleepless nights and the stress and the things that I went through.

[00:27:49] Ed Kalaher: So can you balance that? My answer is shifted over time as well to saying, let’s keep purpose and contribution at the center of what you want to do, because that’s ultimately going to give you the most fulfilling life. I’m talking to my son. I’m gonna say contribution is going to give you the most fulfilling life no doubt.

[00:28:08] Ed Kalaher: However, sad fact, it takes money. Okay, you got to do that. So I don’t necessarily need you to just say, all right, high school is done. It’s all risk entrepreneurialism. I think there’s a, there’s a couple of ways you could get to that path.

[00:28:24] Ron Laneve: I don’t think you could be an entrepreneur without sleepless nights. Those things go hand in hand, maybe a few people do, that’s just part of the gig. Did you always want to be an entrepreneur? Or when did you know that entrepreneurship was your calling?

[00:28:36] Ed Kalaher: When I had my first job I enjoyed it. I started saving in my 401k. I think I did all the right things. But I wasn’t ultimately satisfied. I think part of that came from the ignorance of thinking if I start a business, I’m going to make all this money. I just want to accelerate that.

[00:28:57] Ed Kalaher: Part of it is was envy of some of my classmates. So I saw, I thought we’re advancing in a more exciting and more profitable field. And part of it was just I think typical unrest of just trying to grow up and do that. I started with another friend of mine and we created a website in 1999. That was my actual first endeavor into business and being, exposed to that MBA.

[00:29:21] Ed Kalaher: So I had the seeds in there and then that was also why I said I still don’t really know what the heck I’m going to do, but I know I want to do more. Then I thought if you get your MBA, then you’re supposed to master business, right?

[00:29:32] Ed Kalaher: Don’t know exactly where it came from, but I think it’s just a combination of not knowing who you want to be. Thinking you’re going to make a ton of money and that’ll solve everything. I grew up pretty poor and that probably drove a little bit of that. God bless the ignorance of young entrepreneurs thinking that just starting a business means I make a ton of money.

[00:29:52] Ed Kalaher: Thank goodness for that. Cause that keeps the innovation engine going. If everybody really knew about the sleepless nights, I don’t think we’d have the dramatic kind of small business environment we do in this country, which again, I think is one of the most special things about it.

[00:30:08] Ron Laneve: How would you coach students in college, individuals emerging into the workforce how to think about stepping out of school and into the professional world.

[00:30:19] Ron Laneve: Anymore I’m not even sure college is the answer for everybody, but there are still fundamental building blocks and steps that, I hate to say kids should take, what’s your thought on that?

[00:30:30] Ed Kalaher: I’ve certainly hired and fired for many years. If I’m talking to a group of people that are coming into the workforce. I’m probably going to be more philosophical about it. I’m going to first, probably try to kindle their entrepreneurial spirit.

[00:30:47] Ed Kalaher: I’m going to talk to them about that. But then I would probably tell them that if I was going back and I still had that entrepreneurial desire, it was a little bit of a Little bit inside of me that I would focus more on mastery of something. I would tell him focus on being the best at something and that best doesn’t have to be what you’re passionate about. But, where do you have maybe a natural skill set or where is your path led you to this point your opportunities lie? But if you can focus on being the best at something, And creating as much value as he can in the marketplace, which is ultimately what we’re all doing and trading for money. I think during that time you’re either going to find a niche that you become passionate about, or you’ll earn enough money to go take some damn risks.

[00:31:37] Ed Kalaher: So I probably bring it back full circle to starting a damn business, which is what I believe in. The other part of that probably too. Again, if I’m counseling my own children, develop that mastery, add value, create opportunities for yourself. You don’t have to have it figured out today. That’s not how life works.

[00:31:53] Ed Kalaher: When I say maybe you find a niche, that you’re passionate about, or maybe you earn enough financial security to have a nest egg and take some risk, or you might just find yourself on that path and find fulfillment in there and stick with it. But it would start probably with mastery. Getting great, be great. If you focus on one thing, I think to be great at it, it’s going to trickle down into everything that you’re thinking about. Last thing I would say again is simply you don’t have to decide right now if you think I might want to start a business one day.

[00:32:25] Ed Kalaher: Okay, it’s one day. It can be when you’re 40 can be when you’re 30, right? If you don’t really know, you don’t have a clear and direct path, which most of us don’t, use the education you have, use the opportunity in front of you, but be great at it. That’ll open it up.

[00:32:40] Ron Laneve: That’s great advice. I think seizing the opportunity or recognizing opportunities that present themselves, even if they’re maybe not the sexiest opportunities in the world, are going to lay a foundation for other things you do in the future that you yet can’t see which, again, I think you’re the epitome of.

[00:32:58] Ron Laneve: Look at what you learned with the startup of Vista and just being forced into operating manufacturing business and learning how to deal with loans and banks, et cetera.

[00:33:08] Ed Kalaher: What requires some patience and that’s even harder for kids and young people nowadays. They’re forced to think everything has to happen overnight and instantly and they’re pressured by it and they’re envious of it and that’s just so far from reality. I don’t know how to combat that necessarily and that’s why when you said you can’t be an entrepreneur without the sleepless nights, I agree with you.

[00:33:30] Ed Kalaher: But if my Children and their classmates, any of them, if I can at least cut down on that learning curve, and accelerate that path, you’re still going to have to pay your dues.

[00:33:41] Ed Kalaher: I would do the same thing.

[00:33:42] Ron Laneve: Last topic, I know we’ve taken a bunch of your time podcasts and books. I know you’re well read. I know you have, a lot of things to share, can you share a couple of those that you find pretty valuable and that and maybe either give you inspiration or help you with your career and or books that have been, in your development.

[00:34:00] Ed Kalaher: Yeah, that’s the blessing and the curse to of where we are right now, because there’s more content than we can possibly consume. And it gets hard to pick and choose. The podcast, though, that are in my Spotify right now are, you probably predict, right? Still listening to Rogan all the time.

[00:34:18] Ed Kalaher: Been listening to Sean Ryan. I’ll listen to Tucker Carlson, but getting even, Getting away and trying to not just go on like current trends. I’ll listen to modern wisdom Chris Williamson. I’ll listen to Lex Friedman. Those, and there’s a reason they’re so popular, but they’re not nothing obscure.

[00:34:36] Ed Kalaher: That’s really all the time that I have for that, and when it comes to books can probably count, 5 books that I’ve read in the last 5 years and, with 1000 in the queue. One of them is actually give and take what you sent to me, which I loved.

[00:34:50] Ed Kalaher: But I’ve read how to win friends and influence people about six times. I keep tools of Titans with me by Tim Ferriss, because I like that where you can do a little chapter in two pages and get a little chunk out of it. Extreme ownership by Jaco. Love that book. I still have servant leadership. Robert Greenleaf’s original book on my bookshelf. I keep that around. E myth is a great book actually for small business entrepreneurs. He actually made one just for contractors called the E myth contractor. That’s a really good read again for entrepreneurs.

[00:35:25] Ed Kalaher: Ed, thank you for sharing your story. It’s been it’s been a true pleasure. Can’t wait to share it with my audience.

[00:35:31] Ron Laneve: Until next time, have a good weekend.

[00:35:32] Ed Kalaher: I hope it helps. Thanks for having me, Ron. All right, brother. Take care.

 

December 19, 2024