Speaker 0 Hi. This is Shauna, the CEO and founder of Fuel Talent. 1 of the things I have loved most in my 25 year recruiting career has always been the stories that people tell. Stories of leadership, career choices, company ideas, and team building. My inspiration for starting the what fuels you podcast came from being curious about people's lives and wanting to help share their stories.
Speaker 0 What path brought them to this place? What decisions did they make that led to failures and successes? Who influenced those decisions, and what lessons were learned along the way? I hope you enjoy the what fuels you podcast. Today's guest on the what fuels you podcast is Rob Elveld.
Speaker 0 Rob is the CEO of Icada Inc, where he leads the charge in Icada's continued growth and global expansion. He previously was the CEO of White Pages Inc and has served as the CEO of other Seattle tech firms, including OptifAI and Vicor. He started his business career in enterprise software sales at Onyx Software Corporation and has grown from there. Rob is a proud veteran as an officer in the United States Navy, where he served aboard a fast attack nuclear submarine. He has a BA in engineering sciences from Dartmouth College and an MSC and MBA from Stanford University.
Speaker 0 Welcome, Rob.
Speaker 1 Thank you, Shauna. Happy to be here.
Speaker 0 Good to see you. Okay. We're gonna start with some rapid fire.
Speaker 1 Okay.
Speaker 0 I think this is a good question. I was kinda proud of this question. What has prepared you more for your role as a CEO, the Navy or Stanford MBA?
Speaker 1 The Navy.
Speaker 0 I knew you were gonna say that. Everyone I know that has served, and it makes me wanna hire vets because I'm like, everyone who has served is such a discipline and rigor, and I wanna get into that.
Speaker 1 You should wanna hire vets.
Speaker 0 I do. And I wanna talk to you more about it.
Speaker 1 Okay.
Speaker 0 I I really do. It's a huge goal of ours. Okay. What was your favorite thing to eat while you were on the submarine?
Speaker 1 I used to I used to bring on cans of tuna fish. And after 3 weeks at after 3 days at sea, everything fresh is gone. There's no fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, anything. And you get sick of some of the food there, so I would have cans of tuna fish in my locker. I'd open a can of tuna fish and eat it.
Speaker 1 No. Just just a can of tuna fish and water. No mayonnaise or lemon or anything, and and that was, you know, was kinda was light. Didn't have a lot of fat.
Speaker 0 Healthy. I have to say super healthy. But I'm sure your your, friends on the submarine with you weren't so psyched. That's like bringing it out on Yeah. It's like
Speaker 1 that's like the smell with it, so you have to get rid of it after that.
Speaker 0 I know. I sometimes I sometimes I bring a hard boiled egg on the airplane. I'm like, this might not be the right move for the other passengers. Okay. So are you beach or mountains?
Speaker 1 I'm a water guy, so a little bit less laying on the beach. But if you had to say, would you rather live near the water, or would you rather live near mountains? I grew up in Michigan, near Lake Michigan, and so big body of water. And now I live out here in Seattle and really like the access to the water all around. I love the mountains out here too.
Speaker 1 It's a great combination, Seattle. But
Speaker 0 Seattle is the best like that. Yeah.
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 0 I know you're a big traveler. International travel is a big passion of yours. So what's your favorite city you've ever visited?
Speaker 1 Wow. That is a good question. I really like London. There's tons of museums. I I really like the pubs.
Speaker 1 I like the dark wood pubs and that facilitate talking to people as opposed to blinking lights and and so forth. I, spent a a summer working in Bangkok, Thailand on the other side of the world and really enjoyed the Thai culture and and and food and and and learning about Southeast Asia.
Speaker 0 Right. You Kap Kung Ka.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Exactly. So, anyway, those would be a couple that'd be high on the list.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And okay. So if there was a book that was written about your life, what would it be called?
Speaker 1 Well, I think a lot of people often enjoy the journey.
Speaker 0 I love that. That's a good 1. That's a really good 1. Okay. Final question.
Speaker 0 If you can have any superpower, which 1 would you choose?
Speaker 1 I don't spend a lot of time thinking about superpowers. Boy, reading people's minds.
Speaker 0 Okay. So you grew up in Michigan.
Speaker 1 Yep.
Speaker 0 Are yeah. Is that how you identify yourself? Like, is that a big part of your identity?
Speaker 1 Still today. I mean, I've lived in Seattle for over 20 years now, but I still think of myself a lot as a midwesterner, and I I have a Michigan baseball cap that I wear a lot even though I didn't go to school there. I'm a big Michigan fan.
Speaker 0 Fantastic school. So what were you into as a kid? Like, what fueled you back then?
Speaker 1 Well, I for a sport, I played football. I played a I was a okay football player on a really good program. My football coach is probably the second most important influence, male influence in my life, which is my dad. I spent a lot of time in the summers, in and around Lake Michigan, so I swam, water skied, stuff like that, and just spent time in the open water. And, you know, I skied in the winter.
Speaker 0 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Cold. It wasn't nearly as good as skiing as here, frankly.
Speaker 0 Yeah. What what what lessons did you learn, Rob, from your you talked about your football coach. Like, that's a big that's a big job to be the 2nd top 2 kind of biggest influence.
Speaker 1 Yeah. His name was George Barcheski. Everyone called him Barr. He, was very colorful, and a different football coach than probably many of these days. He taught us to work really hard.
Speaker 1 He was the winningest football coach in the state of Michigan when I played for him. And, you know, you learn to work really hard. You learn that, it's it's hard as you had to practice and be focused. You also had to perform at game time. You learn to rely on the person on your right and left.
Speaker 1 You know, 1 of the things I really like about football is you you really have to trust your team. There's no 1 person that can win a football game. And and we we really we were in a program where we're expected to win, and so you learn to deal with pressure. And Yeah. You know, you don't deal with it perfectly all the time, but you you learn to deal with pressure.
Speaker 1 And, that was that was helpful.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And so, were you a good student? I'm assuming so, because you're
Speaker 1 I was pretty good student. I worked I worked hard. I don't you know, I was pretty self motivated to study hard.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And who motivated that? Was that kind of a value in your home? Like, was it your your parents?
Speaker 1 Both my parents. My my dad was a lawyer. My mom had a master's in social work. They were both, academically focused, and I always I always, you know, worked hard at school even though I already get good grades. Like, even though it was it was not hard for me, I always worked a little harder than Yeah.
Speaker 1 You know?
Speaker 0 That's great. And you've got you've got 3 kids. Right?
Speaker 1 I've got 3 kids. 15, 17, and 19.
Speaker 0 Oh my goodness. Any boys?
Speaker 1 2 boys. 2 older boys and a younger daughter. It's great to experience, you know, raising both, boys and girls.
Speaker 0 My wife and I Football players.
Speaker 1 Keep us on our toes. Mhmm. You know, the middle 1 is a football player, and, I didn't push them to be football players. I just wanted each of them to have a team sport experience. I thought that was much more important than playing the sport I liked.
Speaker 1 And he came to football relatively late. He started playing as a sophomore, but he really enjoyed it. So it it makes me happy, but my older son really loved ultimate Frisbee and was probably gonna play that in college. And and my daughter, really likes lacrosse. She also sports competitively.
Speaker 1 So it
Speaker 0 would big, lacrosse family. I love that. That's awesome.
Speaker 1 It's a great sport. I really I've learned a lot just watching her and her coaches and so forth. So
Speaker 0 Yeah. My son plays lacrosse and, was playing football, and I kind of became the wimpy mom who made him quit football. And he's he's not thrilled, so I'm always asking smarter people than I am, like, so, football? And it sounds like you're on board. It's it's gotten so crazy these days.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. It's 1 of those things where I I played. There's there's always some risk to anything you do.
Speaker 0 Yeah. No. That makes sense. So you've gotta, I read that you have a high school teacher who inspired you to pursue engineering because he was coding at the time.
Speaker 1 I had I had a high school teacher who was, I I had I was lucky to have a couple of really good high school teachers, but 1 of them was, mister Kemp. He was a, he was a, yeah, we we didn't really call it computer science at the time, but he was he was the teach teacher that taught me how to code. And so when I went up to college, I took a couple of in of coding classes, but I really kinda got burned out on software, honestly. But my the first person I met in college, the first, RA was an engineering major, and I spent a night with them and, because I didn't have a room yet. And he's like, you should think about being an engines major.
Speaker 1 At Dartmouth, it was called an engines. You know, you should think about being that was the short for it. You should be an engine
Speaker 0 major. Engines.
Speaker 1 So I just signed up for a bunch of prereqs, math and physics prereqs. And, you know, next thing I know, I'm 2 years into this thing buried in thermodynamics classes or whatever. And so it wasn't like there was a huge thought process around. It just sorta happened.
Speaker 0 Yeah. I actually love the part of that part of the podcast and just general, conversations I have with people the most when, like, their life is determined by or dictated by kind of a haphazard way of kind of going into something. Like, I don't know. My friend did it, so I showed up 1 day, and next thing you know, like and then it's great. It's like it's good for our kids to hear this too because they're kind of over programmed, overthinking, and over orchestrated.
Speaker 0 So it's great. So you chose Dartmouth. Was that, like, who was guiding you through this whole process? Such a great school.
Speaker 1 My dad was an alum, and I'd always wanted to go there. And I didn't apply anywhere else. I didn't have a plan b. I probably my plan b was probably to apply to University of Michigan. I never I had never visited any colleges, none of the stuff that you do a lot of today.
Speaker 1 I just always I used to watch the football scores come in, with my dad, and I always kinda wanted to go there. And I was lucky enough to apply and get in.
Speaker 0 Yeah. That's awesome. And so have you stayed in touch with some of your college friends? I know we talked about friends.
Speaker 1 Yeah.
Speaker 0 Does are those is that your crew? Is that your kind of, like, core kind of in your wedding type of people?
Speaker 1 You know, I've got a core group of, 10, 12 college friends I do a pretty good job of keeping in touch with. I'm I'm really I feel, lucky and blessed. I've got, you know, about that same number of high school friends, and I've got a couple friends from the navy. And, and and I've got a couple friends from grad school too. So, you know, you read a lot.
Speaker 1 I'm now scarily over 50. I'm not gonna tell you how far over 50 I am.
Speaker 0 Already know because I did
Speaker 1 your research. Anyways so, you know, you'd realize things about, you know, men and their, you know, age 50 or whatever, you know, midlife, and how hard it is to make friends for men specifically. And, I just I've been really lucky to have a good core group of friends from a couple different phases in my life.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And so how have those, friendships coming out of such a great school and then obviously Stanford MBA impacted, you know, your life and also your career? Like, I guess the value of a network and of relationships.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, you know, I, you mentioned Brent. I mean, I'm in Seattle because Brent Fry, he he recruited me to a startup. He was run it wasn't a startup anymore by the time I went. It was about a 120 people when I when I started working for Onyx.
Speaker 1 I I I talked my way. I he recruited me to a marketing role, for a summer as an internship. And then I sort of realized at the time that the marketing team didn't really know what was going on, and the I was always asking the salespeople what was going on. So I figured the salespeople were the only ones were touching the customers and really knew what was going on. So I talked myself into an entry level sales position for Onyx down in the Bay Area, and I was probably the lowest paid person graduating from my business school class, honestly.
Speaker 1 I'm not kidding. It was an entry level sales position. The fact that I had a graduate degree didn't matter at all. The fact that I was an engineer didn't matter at all. All all that mattered is could I make my number selling or not.
Speaker 1 And so, and things went you know, I had a couple deals go my way the Q1 and kinda grew from there and ended up Yeah. Having doing okay as a salesperson enterprise salesperson.
Speaker 0 That's awesome. That's a tough job, I gotta say. And so when you say you were the lowest paid, wasn't there a recruiting on campus that you were looking into? Like, how come you didn't pursue something, you know, right away?
Speaker 1 That's a good question. I I had I had seen 1 of the cool things about business schools, we had a ton of speakers come. Mhmm. And, a number of the executives and CEOs that came and talked, started in sales. And they usually either started in sales, or they started in product or engineering.
Speaker 1 And I felt like there were kinda 3 areas to get some core knowledge. 1 would be sales. Another 1 would be finance, or or the third would be sort of engineering, coding, that sort of thing. And I was kinda you know, I was all 30 coming out of business school or something like that. I was kinda past,
Speaker 0 the fact of of
Speaker 1 starting to be a coder at that point. You know? I've been in the navy, and I managed a lot of people and and and, you know, made life and death decisions on a day to day basis for a while. And, and and then and and finance was something where I just I I was more interested in the market and the customers. And so but I I knew that sales was 1 of those things that you couldn't sort of fake it.
Speaker 1 You either had to sort of roll up your sleeves and be a professional salesperson for a while or not, and you kinda gotta pay your dues in sales.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And it's measurable. It's like either you're successful That
Speaker 1 is true.
Speaker 0 Or you're not. Like, then then then the numbers don't lie for sure.
Speaker 1 Very
Speaker 0 good. Recruited you into the Navy? What an interesting decision. Like, how did that come to be? Was your dad in the navy?
Speaker 1 My parents were not in the navy, or the military. My My dad was not. He I he he was he was a a a a JAG officer, a legal officer for an air force reserve just because back then, there was a draft and everyone had to do something. So but, I I spent, a quarter in in language study abroad in Germany in college, and I traveled with some friends of mine, before that. And 1 of the places I went was the Normandy beaches.
Speaker 1 And, I don't know if you've ever seen Saving Private Ryan, but there's a beginning scene where the the the kind of the 1 of the main characters is walking along, you know, 30 eyed, 40 years later, at at the American Military Cemetery there, and I literally when I saw that movie came out in 1995, I'd done that walk 7 or 8 years before 1987, and I knew exactly where it was. And I you you sort of stood there, and you look out on this beach. It's 3 quarters of a mile of beach flat on this big bluff. It's a 100 feet up, and you stand there and say, gosh. You know?
Speaker 1 The only way to take this beach is to send so many people running up that you the Germans couldn't shoot them all. Literally, it's a shooting gallery. And so I I remember my hands were shaking, and I just decided that I should do something in my generation to serve my time, give something back for all the people that did that. So, very self motivated, and it took me, like, kind of a year to sort of decide after I stood there. May maybe maybe half year to a year, I kinda looked around for a program, and then I applied to the Navy.
Speaker 0 And was that I mean, was that scary? Like, especially for did you have it sounds like you didn't have family or friends who served before you. And so was that something you went into kind of, scared, I guess, as far as the remedy?
Speaker 1 With it a little bit. You know? You you take an oath to protect and defend the constitution of the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic, and what you're early deciding is what what's worth dying for.
Speaker 0 Right.
Speaker 1 And and so you you wrestle with your own mortality at age 20 taking that oath. So, at least I did. And, and so it it I didn't do it overnight, and I didn't do it, I didn't do it on a whim, but but I never had any regrets either. Yeah. And I was always very proud to serve.
Speaker 1 And it was hard. It was hard.
Speaker 0 So what was what was the scariest thing that you experienced?
Speaker 1 Well, aboard a submarine, you know, there are 2 things that are are very scary. One's a fire, and the other's flooding. And at some level, I experienced both of those. But, well, I did experience both of them, but flooding was was was a little bit less. So.
Speaker 1 But there was a, there was a it's a it's a little bit of a hard to describe, but when you're submerged, there's, a bunch of air regeneration systems actually that were developed by NASA. And so because you're sort of fine tuning how much oxygen and CO twos in the air because you're breathing in. It's gotta be replenished and so forth. And there's a lot of fans blowing to to move the air around. And so you can you can smell a change in the air very quickly.
Speaker 1 You can smell smoke very quickly. And I was, it was about midnight, and I was in a t shirt and shorts, and I had just gotten finished. It was in the engine room. I had just gotten finished doing a workout. We used to do pull ups near the main engines, and it was always hot back there, and you do push ups on the deck plates.
Speaker 1 And and there was a guy on watch, and I was about 20 feet from him. He was an another officer like I was, and I was about to go to bed. And I looked at him and our eyes met, and we smelled smoke at the same time. And I ran aft. He he was on watch, so we went in, called away a fire alarm.
Speaker 1 There's about a 100 feet I ran. It was 1 of those things where you've been on so long. I knew where to duck. Yeah. I covered that ground so fast, dropped down to lower level, ran forward.
Speaker 1 I ran into him coming forward, and I knocked him over because we were both coming through the same hatch. I got in this room. I said, it's here. It's it's it's it's it's it's engine room lower level. There was smoke everywhere.
Speaker 1 We had people pouring down. We're all taught to attack a fire. And there was smoke everywhere, and you couldn't figure out where it was coming from. And so I immediately let the this mister Alleville and man in charge an interim lower level. And I was I had machinist mates that used to report to me, and I was telling them I thought that there was some oil spray in somewhere that was smoking.
Speaker 1 We didn't want it to fire. If oil lights, it's really hard to get out. And so I had all sorts of people around me, and then, basically, this this big lube oil pump that's sort of, like, bigger than I am shot fight a a big fireball out. And
Speaker 0 Oh my god.
Speaker 1 And it was short circuiting, and this guy named Petty Officer Miller, who was an electrician's mate, big guy, bigger than me, probably £220, elbowed me out of the way and sprayed that thing down with a c o 2 extinguisher. And, anyway, we, you know, we got it out. And, there was smoke everywhere and you know? So, yeah, you have a lot of paperwork to do and and and so forth. And 4 hours later, we were finishing up the paperwork.
Speaker 1 Everybody in the boat was awake. You know, it's like 4 in the morning. And, you know, the captain had interviewed both of us and stuff like that. So, Miller comes up to me, and he goes, hey, mister e. Hold out your hand.
Speaker 1 They actually call me mister e. Hold out your hand. So I held out my hand and my hand it's 4 hours later, my hand's shaking. He held out his hand. His hand was shaking.
Speaker 0 Well, how could it not be? I'm I'm shaking just listening to this story. Is there, I guess, meditation or some sort of way to calm your energy? Because I get claustrophobic thinking about it. I guess you can't really have that.
Speaker 1 You don't really have that. You're sort of trained to deal with, you know, you're you're you're in a lot of expectations. There's, you know, a couple years of training before you get on your boat. Certainly, there were a few people that ultimately, you know, sort of exited the boat, put up their hands, said I can't take it. I'm leaving.
Speaker 0 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Because it was all volunteer on purpose. You didn't want someone down there who didn't wanna be.
Speaker 0 So what was the longest period of time that you were on the submarine without coming up?
Speaker 1 6 weeks. And, you know, a long time to be submerged. But I'll tell you today, you know, I've I've actually got a friend from Dartmouth who, is the CFO of a company that operates, liquefied natural gas ships around the world. And they've got all sorts of crews that literally can't come ashore right now. So they've got crews that
Speaker 0 have been on their I've read about that.
Speaker 1 Ships for 6 months or a year not being able to come shore because all these countries won't let them they don't want anybody, spreading COVID. It's terrible. Yeah. So so my 6 weeks isn't that long in the scheme of things right now.
Speaker 0 Well, it it's all hindsight's 2020, of course. So you so you did this whole crazy experience in the Navy. And when you, ended that, is that when you went and got your MBA at Stanford?
Speaker 1 Yeah. The I I I I applied to a dual masters in in business, masters course. Yeah.
Speaker 0 Was was that kind of 1 of those things that you felt you needed in order to have success in the in the business world?
Speaker 1 It was a good transition time, number 1. Number 2 is I I sort of had wanted to go to graduate school, and I you know, the Navy is very focused, and, it was it was nice to have kind of to be able to go back to an epic academic experience. I don't think I would have appreciated it very much coming right out of college. And Yeah. You know, I had some friends that, like, went straight into law school or something.
Speaker 1 They didn't really wanna be in law school. They didn't really think about it. It's just like they were kinda programmed to keep doing something. And so I I I always counsel to take a year or a couple years before you go back to grad school just because you'll appreciate it more, and you'll know a little bit more what you wanna do and that sort of Yeah.
Speaker 0 I've heard that wisdom dropped by several people that have said, just take a little break, make sure that that's what you wanna do. What's your take on, like, an MBA versus no MBA?
Speaker 1 I think real world experience is far more important to be super clear. And, you know, we spend a lot of time training our people, and I I give them a lot of the wisdom I've got from a little bit of MBA and a lot of real world experience. Right? Yeah. And so I think, you know, what any what any school experience does is it it gives you a a little bit of a broader range of information, but it doesn't it doesn't, take it down to something tangible very well.
Speaker 1 Right? And so what's tangible is when you're working. And, what was helpful for me, for for an MBA is coming out of the Navy. You know, I had sort of no exposure to business at all. And so it was more the whole experience of meeting people and seeing speakers and taking classes Mhmm.
Speaker 1 As opposed to any 1 thing. And and and and and just allow me a little bit of time to think about where to where to where to, you know, start somewhere.
Speaker 0 Yeah. So so what launched your career? Like, you said that you didn't have a lot of exposure, and then you launched this crazy crazy successful awesome. I'm sure you've had some peaks and valleys, but, you know, career in career in tech.
Speaker 1 Well, I thought I was gonna go back to Michigan and sort of I I applied to this dual master's program that was was engineering and business, and it was specifically designed around manufacturing sort of, you know, creating building manufacturing leaders, and to keep manufacturing in in the in the US. And and, I just I got to the West Coast. I actually met my wife on the West Coast, and I'm sure she was thrilled to go out to Michigan. I really didn't ask her. I mean, we we did but, met my wife at at graduate school, and, she was in my class.
Speaker 1 But, you know, you're you're at Stanford. This was the late nineties. Tech was all around us. And and then Brent and and I I took 1 summer and did an internship in Thailand just to check out Southeast Asia and travel a little bit, and then I had a second summer because I was doing 2 masters, and Brent asked me to you know, recruited me up to to to do a marketing internship. And then I ended up staying for a couple years and and learning about tech and specifically b to b software.
Speaker 1 I mean, if you really wanna be specific about it. I'm not a consumer guy, really. I'm a I'm a b to b person. Right. Business to business.
Speaker 1 And and, so I kinda started there with sales and learned a lot about how to work with customers and and, you know, you know, what what what's selling is about, not used car selling, but selling and, guiding people on decisions. You don't You can't make the decision for them, but you can influence them, and, that sort of thing.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And so, so all of these experiences, I mean, I guess, out of all of them within your career, where did you learn the most as far as preparing you for your role at White Pages and then ultimately, Acata?
Speaker 1 I so after Onyx, I wrote a business plan and started a company. I cofounded a company. I recruited executive out of Boeing as a cofounder. He I got introduced to him through a navy buddy of mine who worked for him, and that was how I got to Seattle. I wrote this business plan, and it was it was focused on the heavy manufacturing supply chain, which I'd studied some of at Stanford.
Speaker 1 And, it was it was really software as a service before its time. I was a big believer in software as a service because I'd sold enterprise software, and there were just some real disincentives with the customer base, with enterprise software. I could talk about it if you want, but I was a big believer in software as a service. It was much more transparent. You had to earn your way every month with the customer.
Speaker 1 And I've I've I've cofounded this company. We licensed some technology out of Boeing. It wasn't really the the technology wasn't worth very much, but it was worth not having Boeing trying to sue us because we recruited some people out of there.
Speaker 0 Right.
Speaker 1 And and I ran it for 6 years, and, it was incredibly hard. It was, I founded that company after the tech bubble burst. The tech bubble burst in, like, March 2000. The first money I raised for the company was sort of angel investors and and and friends and and and and and and family, and that was in, you know, mid 2000. The first venture round I raised was in 2,001.
Speaker 1 The venture capital industry had never gone through a downturn that point, really, the modern venture capital industry. And they they were in a bunker. I can tell you. No 1 knew what to do. And the hardest thing ever did did was raise a series a round in 2,000 and 1, $6,000,000 round.
Speaker 1 And I ran it for 6 years, and, you know, we sold the Boeing and Lockheed and GE Aircraft Engines. I mean, these are extraordinarily hard customers to deal with. And, we were a little 30 person company, and everything we did, we were sailing upwind against a freaking gale force wind. I mean, everything we did was a push. And, ultimately, it didn't work.
Speaker 1 It failed. And it wasn't like it wasn't like, oh, you know, we sold it and, you know, it wasn't great, but we sold it. Like, a lot of people say, well, we sold this or we got this or, you know, people say, like, oh, we had fun. We're having fun. We're having fun.
Speaker 1 It was not fun. It was a freaking grind every day. And, people would ask me, what's it like being a CEO? And, you know, I was in my mid thirties at the time. I said, you know what?
Speaker 1 The CEO is taking bad news every day and not showing how bad it hurts. That's what being a CEO is about because you just can't panic. And I learned in the Navy, never panic. Never ever ever panic. You gotta keep thinking about what what you're gonna do.
Speaker 1 And so, but but, anyway, I learned a ton. And, like, of the stuff that I'm dealing with today at Arcata, most of the lessons, not all of them, but most of the hard lessons I learned in 6 years trying to sort of carry that business, Vicor, on my shoulders. And some of the things I learned is I shouldn't try and carry it all on my shoulders. Right? I need to I need to rely on a team, but also hold a team accountable.
Speaker 0 Mhmm. Is that I mean, not to be, like, deep shrinky, but I'm just curious. Is that, like, trust issues or problems delegating or, like, control issues? Like, we all have our I'm actually, like, love to delegate, but I know that I do talk to a lot of people who have trouble letting go. They wanna touch everything.
Speaker 1 You know, leadership was always something that that was sort of I I felt was important, and I put a lot of time and effort into. I I had done all the research on this business. I had led the first customer efforts. You know, I I actually recruited someone out of Boeing, but he was barred from selling to Boeing for a year. I mean, you can imagine why.
Speaker 1 You know, they they they had a rule that once you'd left, you you couldn't literally enter the property for a year. So, you know, the first customer was Boeing. Who sold it? Me. It was, like, 34 years old, had no experience in aerospace, but I had to sell that deal.
Speaker 1 And, Lockheed was our second customer who sold Lockheed me. So I I like you know, I I started to know these accounts better than anybody else. Yeah. That makes sense. And and the the the challenge was well, I to cut to the chase, I I 1 of the things that's important when especially when you're small, but anytime is you need 1 or more thought partners.
Speaker 1 And you couldn't call them business partners, but, I mean, you should really think of them as thought partner more than anything else. And, you know, it it it, Vicor, I had at various times in that company's evolutions, 3 different ones. But the last 2 years, I had my thought partner was our chief operating officer, Carla Corcoran. And, she's great. She's been a CEO here in town, super, person, and now leads a couple of Vistage CEO groups and is CEO coach and a good friend of mine.
Speaker 1 But, at the time, you know, she said to me, Rob, you know, every time someone comes to you with something, you're super quick. I I'm not I'm not like you, Rob. I can't process things really quickly. I gotta, like, sort of sleep on them for a night, but you're super fast. If someone comes out of a meet a customer meeting or some sends an update or talks on the phone, you got an idea what to do all the time.
Speaker 1 And the problem with you having an idea and processing really quickly is it doesn't give them time to think about what to do. And so what I do is I just ask them, you know, hey. What do you think we should do? Because then, you know, you train them.
Speaker 0 You're getting all the best thinking. Yeah.
Speaker 1 Exactly. Train them to bring you, you know, solutions, not problems. And I, like, sat there I, like, I sat there, like, the I replay that in my mind, like, for a week. You're, like,
Speaker 0 just such an moments.
Speaker 1 Because I was like, every every problem I've had for the past 4 years is and partly self induced because, you know, whenever there was a problem, it was kinda like, I'll I'll shoulder it. I'll take it. Yeah. And in reality, what I should have been doing is saying, hey. What would you do?
Speaker 1 And let why don't you you take it? So we have a very specific training at Acata that I tell all the new line managers. The first question you should be asking everybody that reports to you when they bring you something is, what do you think we should do? Because for 2 reasons. 1 is, it it trains them all that they need to bring you solutions, not problems, because anybody can point out a problem.
Speaker 1 That's that's, not not not not terribly helpful. Right? Finding a solution to a problem, that's super helpful. Yeah. But, secondly, you know, usually, what we should do on any given thing is a little bit gray.
Speaker 1 It's not like this is for sure the right way to turn. It's we could go this way. We could go this way. And if so when someone comes to you and says, hey, Rob. I think we should go this way.
Speaker 1 Unless I've, like, seen that movie, and I know it ends in just blood and gore and tears, you know, We should definitely just let them do that even though I might think it might be a better idea to go here.
Speaker 0 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Yeah. Because most of what makes the decision of which way to go successful is how committed the implementation is. And that person who's gotta go execute it, if it's their idea, they are gonna be so much more motivated to make it work, and they're gonna put so much more emphasis into it. And, by the way, it it's gray which way would've worked anyway. So let them do that.
Speaker 1 It empowers them, and it keeps them more engaged. And even if it doesn't work, guess what? They learned. Because Totally. Heaven knows every every learning I have is from a mistake I made.
Speaker 1 And believe me, I've made a longer list than most people.
Speaker 0 They they do say you learn the most from your mistakes. Yeah. So my my question to you is, looks like you took the job as VP of sales at White Pages when you had been on this, like, CEO c suite almost all of your career. How did you know that how did your ego allow you to say, you know, no problem. I'm asking from a recruiter's perspective.
Speaker 0 Yeah. Because sometimes candidates come in and they're very limited by title.
Speaker 1 Well, number 1, I'd already made that mistake. So after I shut Vicor down, I was kind of like you know, I I I I had felt like I'd heard learned a lot of hard lessons, and I and I sort of was just in a in a bad market. I picked a bad market, and I and I really felt like I, you know, wanted to be CEO again. And I basically should have just backed off that ego and I would have made a better choice, but I didn't. And so I was CEO again, but it was anyway, if I had just been more flexible, I probably woulda ended up with a better experience somewhere else, honestly.
Speaker 1 That second 1 after Vicor. But, you know, by the time, I was recruited, there was a recruiting agency of, you know, Spencer Stewart retained search, and and they approached me. And and I met Alex Algar, who was the prime CEO of White Pages, now chairman of White Pages and Acata, so my boss still. But, the time he was CEO of White Pages, and he was starting this, little business. You know?
Speaker 1 Well, it was it was there, but it was a little tiny 10 person business unit called White Pages Pro. And he wanted a VP of sales. And I came in, and I talked to him. I talked to a lot of other people, and they they they tried to hire this role once or twice before and it hadn't worked out. So, like, I went through a immense number of interview loops, 5 or 6.
Speaker 1 I talked to, I don't know, 30 people. And, I I had a you know, I got to know Alex. It was over a period of time. I was, I was kinda exiting a different kind of selling some assets of a different company I'd been parachuted into. We've tried to turn around.
Speaker 1 It just didn't really quite work. And I was doing some consulting. I wasn't in a big rush to find something new. And, I got to know Alex, and he really felt like he's an entrepreneur's entrepreneur, and he started 3 business. He's like Brent.
Speaker 1 You know? There's there's relatively few in Seattle that have started more than 1 business. So Alex is the CEO of Haia. He started White Pages. Now, Lee McMillan runs White Pages, who you know, great CEO.
Speaker 1 And and I run, CADA, which was spun out of White Pages. And so, but, Alex Elgar is an entrepreneur entrepreneur, and he really felt like, hey. We got all these leads. If we just had a VP of sales, it would sort of sort itself out.
Speaker 0 Kinda like the CEO of the business went through the sales perspective.
Speaker 1 Yeah. And I and I and I said to Alex, I said, you know, if you really want this business unit to grow, you're gonna need a general manager. It's it's more than just closing deals. I can just tell you it's it's it's a it's a bigger effort than that from a go to market standpoint. But so we we basically kinda came to an agreement that I would be it wasn't my sort of career objective to go be a VP of sales because I could do that at bigger companies than this 1.
Speaker 1 Right? If I if that was so we just kinda had a handshake that was like, look. I'll be your VP of sales for a year, and I'll effectively do the general manager role of this business unit on the side. And if in a year's time, you don't feel like this this, business unit needs a GM or I'm not it, either 1 of those, it's fine. No harm, no foul, but I'll leave.
Speaker 1 And, but if if you if you do want me to stay, you know, I'm gonna be a you know, I think it's it's gonna warrant being a GM here. So that was the agreement we had, and and we you know, I executed the VP of sales role, and he executed on the agreement we had given my performance. So it worked out fine. Awesome.
Speaker 0 That's great. So how do how come they needed to spin out Acata instead of just keeping it, like, White Pages Pro, you know, like a product with it?
Speaker 1 Well, it was a progression of things in 2016. We spun out this business unit. It's now Hiya, basically, because Samsung came. And Hiya has a real focus on mobile phone numbers. And it's, I won't go into that, but but Alex was moving to London with his family for a couple years.
Speaker 1 He was he wanted to be the CEO of Hiya, and so he asked me to be the CEO of White Pages, which after we spun out was White Pages, the consumer business, the traditional white pages dotcom that he had founded in 1997, and White Pages Pro, the b to b business, the API focused business. Mhmm. And so and and I was the GM of of of White Pages Pro. So at the time, in in in mid 2016, we spun out Hyatt, and, I assume the position of, a CEO of White Pages and ran those 2 business units. And over 6 months or something, I I I recruited Denley McMillan initially as the VP of marketing for White Pages, consumer business and then promoted her to GM.
Speaker 1 And then in 2000 and late 2,000 and 18, early 2019, White Pages Pro was global. We were just opening an office in Amsterdam. We had a bunch of global customers. It was more of a global focused business, and it was it was growing at a 50% rate. It was a pretty aggressive growth business, and White Pages consumer was growing sort of mid teens.
Speaker 1 It was super profitable. It was more US focused, and sort of the strategy were were were, not not as aligned as they were Yeah. Previously. And so it was just an agreement at the board level that we separate those 2 businesses, and Lee would be the CEO of White Pages, and I would be the CEO of Acata. So that's what we did.
Speaker 0 That's great. And so for our listeners who don't know Akata, what does Akata do?
Speaker 1 Akata, provides identity verification data to, ecommerce merchants and payment providers and financial services companies to basically identify, you know, is this Rob Elleveld online on my website, either trying to make a transaction or applying for a new a loan or a new bank account or something. Mhmm. Or is this someone with some of Rob Elleveld's information? Maybe they purchased my credit card on the dark web with my address and my name associated with it, but they don't have my mobile phone number or they don't have my email address. So they're they've got some pieces of my identity, but not all of them.
Speaker 0 Yeah.
Speaker 1 And, you know, does this look like a real real person doing a legit transaction, or is this someone who's got some bad intent or is a fraudster that's impersonating Rob Bell? Yeah. So that's what all of our customers are trying to decide, and we provide data around names, addresses, phone numbers, emails, and IP addresses, that help paint a picture of whether this looks like enough data that makes sense together that's Rob Elleville. We there's other things out there that we don't do. We don't have Social Security numbers or things associated with credit risk like the credit bureaus do, and we we don't have device IDs like, you know, something that's on your browser, on your mobile phone that says you've used this before, things like that.
Speaker 0 Yeah. So what is the business model as far as how you make money? And how and how has that, I guess, how has your business been impacted through COVID?
Speaker 1 Well, we we we license our data products our data products. About 80% of our revenue is API driven application programming interface. So if someone's directly connecting to pull data on a transaction by transaction basis, 20%. We also have a web portal, so 20% of our customers are using some of our data through a web portal for what's called manual review where I'm actually looking at 1 particular transaction trying to decide for some reason is this fraudulent or good. And but most of our data is used in in rules basis rules platforms or in machine learning models that basically come up with a decision on whether this is good or bad.
Speaker 1 And, we we charge on a per query basis. So every time someone pings our API, we charge anywhere from, you know, 20¢ a query on down, depending on volume and and and commitment. We do a lot of data testing with with product managers. Our customers, at the at the at the business contact level, usually product managers or data scientists Mhmm. Around the world.
Speaker 1 So we we work with, you know, Amazon and Apple and and and and big ecommerce companies, Walmart. We we work with, you know, Stripe and and, Adyen and and, big, big companies and so, know, around the world.
Speaker 0 Yeah. And so how has this past year been during the pandemic?
Speaker 1 Well, we feel really lucky. We a part of our business was impacted because we also serve the travel industry. So, you know, we it's Expedia, Booking dotcom, a number of airlines are customer error. That was way down. It's coming back now.
Speaker 1 But, we have ecommerce really took off, as you know. More more people are in their homes. Instead of going retail shopping at the mall, they're doing things online. So, our our top line revenue, we were about 10% behind plan, last year. We had a 50% growth target.
Speaker 1 It wasn't quite 50%, but, you know, in the pandemic, the growth we had was I feel really good about. But we also, pulled back a little bit on our hiring because we were unsure how our customer base would do. I'd managed more tenuous companies through both the 2,001 downturn as I mentioned and also 2,008. And so we were conservative on our hiring, and so we were super profitable last year. Like, it's the only time in my entire career where we were too profitable and my board was pushing me to invest more.
Speaker 0 Yeah.
Speaker 1 Let's
Speaker 0 call Do something, Evan.
Speaker 1 Always something. So, anyway, we're we're hiring aggressively. We feel really good. We we opened it off in Singapore last year. We've got, you know, 200 people.
Speaker 1 70 of them are in either Budapest, Amsterdam or or Singapore, so we're managing big distributed global business. And it's it's fun.
Speaker 0 Yeah. I'm I know. It's incredible. And so tell me, you said you're growing. Tell me about why Ikata, somebody is listening and potentially wants to apply for a job.
Speaker 1 Well, we have a couple of we have 7 operating imperatives on our website, and we we wrote those when we separated from White Pages, but the number of them were kind of how we operated before, which is why we call them operating imperatives. We we did a look at values around different companies, and if you did a Venn diagram mix of all of the values of tech companies in the area or in San Francisco, like, 70% of them are the same 5 things. So we didn't wanna do that. We did something separate different. So we have 7 operating imperatives.
Speaker 1 I'll call out a couple of them. 1 is we build enduring customer relationships. And so we touch the customer. It's very unique for us to be shut in our houses, but we travel. Our product managers go out and meet customers.
Speaker 1 Our product marketers go out and meet customers. We we we we travel to see customers. We travel around our various offices around the world to to be, work together in cross functional teams. So we're very focused on, being out there in the market and touching the market. And that's, if if you've been in b to b for a while, there's a lot of companies where no 1 ever touches a customer, and they're just sort of in this bureaucracy, and they you know, we we're not that.
Speaker 1 So that's that's 1 thing. We we really center around the market and the customers. I I talked about this idea of what do you think we should do. That's embedded in our operating imperatives in in 2 things. 1 of our operating imperatives is bring a point of view.
Speaker 1 So we ask everybody like, hey. If if you got an idea, bring it. You know? Bring a point of view. Don't just sit there and be passive.
Speaker 1 And that's really encouraged our company. And then the other 1 is is is the other operating imperative is called push accountability to the edge. The edge is very you know, it's kinda a little bit of a software term. Okay? Edge servers and so forth.
Speaker 1 But people ask me where the edge is, and I say, well, you know, the edge is a lot of places, but there's 1 place the edge is not. It's not my desk. Okay? It's way far away from my desk because I don't have enough context to make the decisions. We want people making decisions out there when they're in a customer meeting.
Speaker 1 We want we want people in power. We want product managers to make a decision real time in a stand up on a Tuesday morning with with 4 software engineers, on the daily stand ups. So we really focus on empowering people to to to to make decisions at the edge, and we understand they're gonna make mistakes. So we try and create what I call operating envelopes so that a mistake isn't catastrophic in 1 way or another.
Speaker 0 Mhmm.
Speaker 1 And so we don't set them up for failure by just saying, hey. Go do it. You know? But but we we we really do, focus on, engaging people and empowering people, that way. And we we we've focus on, trust and transparency.
Speaker 1 That's another that's another another operating imperative. So
Speaker 0 Yeah. I love those. And so as you're scaling this year and we're in a global pandemic, are you guys still a 100% remote? And if so, how has that, I guess, impacted your recruiting strategy?
Speaker 1 We've added 30% of our workforce since the pandemic started, and I worry about it every day. Yeah. Every day. Because
Speaker 0 makes you a great leader, Rob. It's good that you're worrying about this. People CEOs who are not worried about their culture, especially if you're the type who's like, you know, you want them to know you, know your people.
Speaker 1 It's hard. It's hard to transfer that culture, on an on a virtual basis, when you can't touch people and meet people. I was I was talking to him. I I've got a great chief of staff. We have an 18 month chief of staff rotation that works for me, and we pick out people that are high performers, and then we put them back in the company, the Google goal.
Speaker 1 And and so I've got a great chief of staff. Her name's, Stacy Guillenace. And, I was talking to her about it today, and I was saying, like, you know, every experience I have, if you let the culture just sort of organically evolve, it goes a bad way somehow. You've gotta be very intentional about the culture, and you still can't control everything. Right?
Speaker 1 But but you can be intentional about it. And, and so we're trying to be intentional about the culture, even during the pandemic. I'm sure we will be making mistakes along the way and already have made some. But, we we are we are going to go back to the office, and the end state is still to operate like we did before the pandemic at the end state. Whether that end state is, I don't quite know.
Speaker 1 It's probably some time q 4 or something.
Speaker 0 Yeah.
Speaker 1 In between now and then, it's a very flabby muscle going back to the office. So we're gonna have to develop that muscle over time and, you know, go in once or twice a week and have reasons to go in. I had a friend of mine I I swim on a master's team and and, 1 1 of a 1 of my friends swam for for Stanford, and she's she's, she's a coach now in the area. And we were talking about, you know, the vaccines rolling out, and it's the the start the days are getting longer, and there's sunshine. And she said, we're getting there, Rob.
Speaker 1 And I thought to myself, yeah. We're getting there. A year, you know, a year later, we're getting there. That's that's kind of a great little microcosm of my mindset right now. We're getting there.
Speaker 0 Where do you swim?
Speaker 1 I swim at I swim in the Masters team at Sandpoint Country Club, and then I your saddle. I yeah. And then then and then I swim in the swim across America open water, swim event every year, and and we do some open water swimming in Lake Washington too.
Speaker 0 You're you're hardcore. You're a whole another level. Like and so we talked about, like, why why Icada? But what about, I guess, what attributes are you looking for as far as someone who makes a great culture ad for a CADA?
Speaker 1 We we look for people with intellectual curiosity because, you know, tech changes so fast. Our business has changed so much since I started there in 2013 to where we are today. And people that are intellectually curious, number 1, they they they make their they they bring a point of view. They they think about stuff. They don't just sort of do what you tell them all the time.
Speaker 1 Sometimes it drives me berserk, but most of the time, you know, they're they're they're trying to think hard about, hey. Is there a different way we could be doing this better? And that's what we
Speaker 0 want. Yeah.
Speaker 1 And so, intellectual curiosity is an important 1. They've gotta have a level of aptitude for a technical product. It's quite a technical product that we sell.
Speaker 0 Yes. It is.
Speaker 1 Data is hard for for a lot of people to grasp, and and an API is very intangible relative that I've sold, you know, basically, you know, something on a screen before where you can actually
Speaker 0 see. Yeah.
Speaker 1 So so those are pieces of it. And then, you know, we we we we want people that are motivated to do right by the customer, and and and and and and that fuels them, you know, to the point of this this podcast. And, and and you you can figure that out pretty quickly with most people, what what they're driven by and what motivates them. And then our our 1 of our operating imperatives is embrace the grind. And that is more it's not like we grind every day.
Speaker 1 It's more like everything that's worth doing is hard and takes time.
Speaker 0 And that's okay.
Speaker 1 Yeah. It's okay. And so if you just embrace that and say it's hard and it's gonna take time, but we're gonna get there. We're getting there. You know, back to my back to Susan.
Speaker 1 We're we're getting there. You know, that's that's what I believe, and that's what the team believes in. So we we work along every day, and we try and do a little better every day. 1% better every day.
Speaker 0 That's great. And so what are your big picture plans or goals for the company, you know, 3, 5 years from now?
Speaker 1 Well, we're we're we're really focused today at at 200 people and, you know, about, $200,000,000, 600 person business, even more globally distributed than we are today Yeah. In about 3 years' time. And we've got that. We got a pretty good plan to get there. We got a lot of execution between now and then.
Speaker 1 But, you know, unfortunately, for the world, online fraud and cyber theft is is growing in, massively.
Speaker 0 Massively. Right? I mean, it's like a huge
Speaker 1 sponsored. It's it's very low risk. I mean, you can sit behind a server firm in Russia, and there's no risk the FBI is ever gonna break down your door or whatever. The way I say it is, you know, your worst week, you can work a lot of long hours and drink a lot of coffee and not break in somewhere. That's your worst week.
Speaker 1 You know? But and then at times, you're gonna, you know, figure out that, you know, like, my my ID and my identity and 86 others 86,000 other Washingtonians were stolen from the from the employment security department. Right? Yeah. And all that money got funneled over to some Nigerian fraud ring, and it didn't go to the people that needed it for unemployment.
Speaker 1 And, so that's what's going on today, in fraud. It is a global market. I I really look at it like the financial market except it's an illegal instead of a legal market, but, you know, the financial markets focus on arbitrage opportunities where you there's high reward for for less risk. The risk reward trade off is enough that you can make a lot of money fast. And fraud right now is just probing out there anywhere in the world where there's a weak point, where there's an arbitrage opportunity to make a lot of money fast, and then, you know, the the screws getting tightened down, the security gets tightened down, and they move to the next weak point.
Speaker 1 And it is a global market, and so we're trying to support our customers globally to to to to to defend against that.
Speaker 0 Yeah. Well, you're doing it, and I'm sure that they're all super grateful because imagine like, what else are you gonna do? You have to partner with a company like yours. We all do. I wish there was something.
Speaker 0 I mean, we're not taking we're not selling products and so we're not ecommerce, but I always get scared of that. Constantly of getting, and getting hacked into. I'm like, that's super scary. Okay. So you're doing your swimming, you're running your company, you've got your 3 kids, you've got your dog, Your dog Indigo.
Speaker 0 Right?
Speaker 1 Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 0 Are you proud of me? I did my research.
Speaker 1 You really did your research. Amazing. Yes.
Speaker 0 So how do you set yourself up for, you know, a balanced life, a good week, kind of a week where you look back and go, I I feel like I'm kind of on my I like to say, like, on my feet, not on my toes and not on my heels.
Speaker 1 Yeah. That's a
Speaker 0 good plan too.
Speaker 1 Way to say it. I try and take a little quiet time in the morning. I really like walking the dog in the morning and just breathe in the air, saying a prayer, just, you know, being out and and and and, kinda happy with the day. You know? So so that whether it's raining or shining, I try and go for a walk in the morning.
Speaker 1 It's not a long walk, but it's 20 minutes or something to get centered a little bit.
Speaker 0 Mhmm.
Speaker 1 You know, boy, I do my best to, you know, make sure I'm there time wise for when when my kids want me to be there. You know, kids, as they get older, they don't need as much of your time, but you gotta be available for them when they're ready because they're not ready very often. So
Speaker 0 Exactly. And so put stuff
Speaker 1 away if they wanna do something as silly as watch a TV show with me or my daughter's wanting to drive right now. So when she says she wants to drive, we're driving. Like, I'm not. There's nothing that's gonna get in the way of that To try and do a little bit of that, my wife and I do our best to get away once or twice a year, and, you know, just enjoy the small things. I I I'm I I I do my best to take, joy out of, out of small things and not big things.
Speaker 1 And so that's why Yeah. My the book name was enjoy the journey.
Speaker 0 Yeah. I like it. Well, as we get older, and I'm hitting 50 this year, so I get it. We're actually very close in age. It it's true that you do start to appreciate the little things more and try to remind yourself.
Speaker 0 You have so much more perspective. You're like, don't sweat don't sweat the small stuff. So what is your, like, ultimate fuel?
Speaker 1 My ultimate fuel. Yeah. You know, my ultimate fuel at this point is, teaching other people a little bit of what I've learned. And, today, I do that at work. I try to do that a little bit with my kids, but, frankly, they they don't have a lot of time for getting wisdom from their their dad.
Speaker 1 But, you know, I I get a lot of energy out of the t the people I work with, the team I work with growing their careers. I've I've I've raised a you know, I've I've promoted a lot of them from within. I've got a really motivated team, very talented, and I've taught them a lot, I think. And Yeah. Whether it's here or or or wherever else over, you know, the coming you know, hopefully be around a little bit longer.
Speaker 1 You know, I'll I'll be trying to do that somewhere, I guess, is what I would say.
Speaker 0 Thank you for listening to the what fuels you podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and review on Itunes, Google Podcasts, or Spotify, and follow us on social media to keep up with the latest news and episodes. You can also contact us at podcast at fuel talent dot com to provide feedback, ask questions, and share topics or guests you would like us to cover in the future. We hope you feel inspired by our guests and that we have helped fuel your day. Join us next time for another episode of what fuels you.