Brek Goin w/ Hammr – DT 380

Summary

Dirt Talk by BuildWitt

Episode: Brek Goen w/ Hammr – DT 380

Date: October 9, 2025
Host: Aaron Witt (BuildWitt)
Guest: Breck Goen (CEO, Hammr)

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Aaron Witt sits down with Breck Goen, CEO of Hammr, a purpose-built construction payroll, HR, and operations platform. The two entrepreneurs trace their intersecting journeys from construction family backgrounds to tech founders focused on solving real world pains for the Dirt World. The conversation delves into the realities of entrepreneurship, the messy evolution from Instagram community-building to building software, the value and caveats of college, the importance of grit and intrinsic motivation, recruiting the next construction workforce, the social and emotional realities of jobsite life, and how serving the industry means never losing sight of the people at its center.

Insightful, raw, and peppered with humor and unfiltered realities, this episode is ideal for anyone interested in the construction industry, technology entrepreneurship, or the human side of building great things.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Shared Backgrounds and Early Days (00:00–17:00)

• Construction Roots:
  Both Aaron and Breck grew up around construction—Aaron with family friends in the industry, Breck in a family drywall business in Spokane, Washington.
  Breck: "My grandfather was a logger… then into drywall. I was showing up on jobs at six. My dad said, 'If they give you shit, they like you.'" (15:02)
• Gym Talk & Grit:
  Gym culture at big universities, being the underdog, learning discipline through fitness.

2. College: Value, Pressure, & Alternatives (17:00–29:30)

• Pressure to Attend:
  Both attended college (“like fifth to sixth grade,” Aaron), but with a sense of inevitability rather than passion.
• Benefits vs. Criticisms:
  College as time to experiment and grow, but not always for everyone—strong arguments on both sides.
  Aaron: “College gives you four years of just risk-free life…to experiment, make stupid mistakes, and to figure out who the fuck you are.” (21:45)
• Family Entrepreneurship:
  Despite degree paths, both felt pulled toward entrepreneurship due to multigenerational examples.

3. Entrepreneurship: Myth vs. Reality (29:30–46:00)

• Ownership Kool-Aid:
  The rise in glorifying entrepreneurship parallels society’s previous messaging on college, but isn’t right for everyone. Aaron: “Most people want a nice family, nice house, weekends free... That doesn’t happen here [with startups] for a very long time. And even when it does, it's kind of up.” (29:29)
• Sacrifice & Calling:
  The founders get raw about personal costs—relationships, family estrangement, apartment-living well into adulthood. Aaron: “You can’t outrun who you’re supposed to be.” (45:10)
• Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made?
  Blend of foundational personality traits and environmental exposure; execution and the pursuit of being better matter most (46:23–47:21).

4. Early Career, Social Media, and Building Community (78:08–94:09)

• Instagram Origins:
  Both started with niche construction-focused Instagram accounts (Builders of Insta for Breck, Daily Construction for Aaron).
  • Used resharing to create value and spark conversations.
  • Led to in-person events and deeper networking.
• Solving Real Industry Problems:
  Breck leveraged the following to build a job-matching platform for tradespeople—learning firsthand about platform distribution, audience overlap, and the challenge of building a business model in a fragmented industry.
  • Importance of “domain expertise” and truly understanding your end-user.

5. Pivot to Payroll & Y Combinator (106:51–116:26)

• Discovery Mode:
  Downfall of prior model led Breck and Hammr to discover payroll pain as a widespread, acute issue, surfacing during a deep dive with a contractor’s overwhelmed office manager. Breck: "One conversation kind of changed everything... She was doing prevailing wage paperwork by hand–her mom was helping weekly. I asked, ‘Do other people have this problem?’"
• Focus on Solving the Mundane:
  Transitioned Hammr to focus on streamlining payroll, prevailing wage, and the operations headaches unique to construction.
  • Pre-sold 5–7 customers before building product—vital for both YC acceptance and business validation.
• Lessons Learned:
  The value of transparency, iterative learning, and putting customer need and feedback above ego.

6. Making Construction Better (126:09–127:35)

• Unchanged Mission, Messy Methods:
  Both founders have shifted tactics and products, but maintained the core goal of improving the industry.
  • “Have we made mistakes? Sure. But we’ve always been 100% dedicated to making the world better.”
• Advice:
  Fall in love not with the product or idea, but with serving the customer and industry’s needs.

7. Jobsite Culture: Recruiting, Pride, and Mental Health (50:35–147:00)

• Work-Life Integration and Growing Up in the Trades:
  • Jobsite daycare, intergenerational pride, and how young exposure shapes future careers.
• Overthinking Recruiting:
  The industry is struggling to recruit the next generation, but Breck and Aaron recall that just getting kids around jobsites is often enough to inspire passion. Aaron: "It's not hard. That's how I got into it. That's how a lot of people got into it." (54:06)
• The “Safety Regime” and Modern Barriers:
  Societal, legal, and social trends have made it harder for kids to have the early access prior generations took for granted.
• On Tough Love Culture vs. Toxicity:
  Camaraderie and play make hard labor tolerable, but tradition can tip into destructive hazing or exclusion.
  • “Do we have to treat people like shit while doing hard work?” (61:00)
• Ownership, Humility, and Supporting Workers:
  The importance of employers addressing employees as whole humans—mental health, financial literacy, family stresses—rather than cogs on a payroll.
  • Call out to companies like K&L Industries and Sergeant for meaningful, practical support of team members.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Entrepreneurial Reality Check
  Aaron (29:29):
  “Most people want a nice family, nice house, weekends free... That doesn’t happen here [with startups] for a very long time. And even when it does, it's kind of up.”

• Pride in Hard Work
  Aaron (64:13):
  “You don’t walk into the country club and feel a sense of pride... In construction, you get it. On average. Which is amazing.”

• On Building Something Meaningful
  Breck (130:56):
  “You get an email...‘I got my nights back.’ That’s freaking cool to us.”

• On Being True to Yourself
  Aaron (35:50):
  “If you’re really behaving in accordance to who you are, it’s not a choice. You have to find it. Once you find it, you’ve got to run with it.”

• Parenting & Legacy
  Breck (50:35):
  “My dad worked weekends, still picked me up from school, never missed a basketball game. That’s something I want to carry into my future family.”

• Mental Health in Construction
  Aaron (136:32):
  “If a guy comes to the jobsite and his wife said, ‘We’re getting a divorce,’ is he in a productive, safe mental state? Probably not. Should there be room for that conversation? Absolutely.”

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:00 – Episode intro; Aaron and Breck’s backgrounds, Nashville & food talk
• 15:00 – Family construction business stories, learning the trades young
• 17:10 – Debate: College’s benefits and pitfalls, family expectations
• 29:30 – Entrepreneurship: reality vs. myth, sacrifices, and finding “your thing”
• 46:00 – Are entrepreneurs born or made?
• 78:08 – The rise of construction Instagram, networking, and real-world problem-finding
• 94:09 – Transition to Hammr: learning from failed job-matching and Instagram as distribution engine
• 106:51 – Pivot to payroll: discovering the pain point and building iterative solutions
• 126:09 – Sticking to the mission of serving the industry even as the company pivots
• 133:42 – Mental health and support: how companies can create environments where workers thrive

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Conclusion

This episode is an unvarnished deep dive into what it takes to build something that matters for the Dirt World. Breck and Aaron don’t sugarcoat the pain, loose ends, or the pressure to look the part; they focus on real service, finding your lane, and putting grit and humility to work. With plenty of laughs, stories, and practical philosophy, it's an invigorating listen for anyone wrestling with purpose and progress in the trades, construction technology, or entrepreneurial life.

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Find Breck and Hammr:

• Hammr (no "e")
• Search "Bred to Build" podcast
• @buildersofinsta

Find Aaron and BuildWitt:

• buildwitt.com
• @buildwitt on Instagram

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For more discussions like this, check out the full Dirt Talk podcast archive.

Transcript

[Aaron]

This Dirt Talk podcast episode is with Breck Goen of Hammer. Breck is the CEO of Hammer, a construction, payroll, HR and OPS platform built specifically for contractors. After spending his childhood growing up around a residential construction business, he moved to San Francisco on a whim to better serve contractors like his parents. After a few years of listening to the industry, he's honed in on payroll as a huge pain point. Breck and I first connected years ago. He was running a Instagram page for home builders. I was running an Instagram page for civil contractors. So, of course, lots in common there. We loved what each other was doing. No mention of software for either one of us at this time. Then, few years pass, we start to go off on similar but totally different paths within the technology space, within the construction industry. He has since pivoted substantially, and we have since pivoted substantially. So it was a ton of fun to sit down with him and talk. The trials, tribulations were similar age in similar industries, serving these industries in similar ways. It's just a blast to sit around and hear about what he has going on. So I. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Let's get to it. Being in Nashville has been good, too, because a lot of people, they'll bring, like, their spouse with them for the weekend. So I do a lot of. I'll do a lot of episodes on, like, Fridays, so they'll come in in the morning, and I'll go to dinner with them and their spouse, and then they go out and, you know, they'll stay downtown and have a good time away from the kids.

[Breck Goen]

That hell. It was great last night.

[Aaron]

It was really good. Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Big fan.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's some good spots. There's some good spots. Not many, but a few.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, you're not a barbecue fan of In Nashville.

[Aaron]

I think it's totally over.

[Breck Goen]

I thought that I was like, I don't know what Aaron's sipping on these.

[Aaron]

Days, but I. I gave it a shot. And then I went to, like, one of the most popular barbecue places, if not the most popular one in town. And when I finally went to it, I was like, it's not that good. I don't know. Like, it's definitely no Austin. I mean, Austin, I feel like, is just the undisputed.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

Like, I know Kansas City's known for it. Memphis is known for, like, there's other places that are known for it, but I don't think any of it comes.

[Breck Goen]

Close to one thing that I saw about Austin, too. I've only been a couple times, but they have food trucks everywhere.

[Aaron]

Everywhere.

[Breck Goen]

And it's awesome.

[Aaron]

And they're all amazing.

[Breck Goen]

Everything. Yes, it's great.

[Aaron]

Yeah. The food scene. Austin's remarkable.

[Breck Goen]

I thought it was gonna be very kind of similar to Nashville. This is my first time in Nashville, so I wasn't sure what to expect, but yeah. Yeah, the food there was great.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's. That's one of the best things about.

[Breck Goen]

Very authentic, too.

[Aaron]

Yeah. But you can also hear what's. What's. I think it's just a Southern thing, too. It's like, if I just want, like, a good meal that's not fried. Bullshit. Yeah, it's hard to find. It's either. It's either just shitty food, like, not that great for you, or it's just really dressed up and. And just too much. Like, too much. Everything here, it's either. It's either shitty or it's, like, made for Instagram. That's the best way I can explain it. Like, every restaurant in their menu and how they plate, like, it's all made.

[Breck Goen]

They got to get the photos. Aaron.

[Aaron]

It's all made for Instagram. The whole place.

[Breck Goen]

Is this how you're getting free meals?

[Aaron]

No. I don't get it. No, I don't. I don't eat out in town. The only time I eat.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, you don't even eat. Yeah. I mean, you're never even in Nashville, so.

[Aaron]

Yeah, but when I'm here, I don't want to eat out because that's all I do when I travel. Because you have to.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And so I get home and I'm like, I'm so sick of eating out. I just want to cook at home. I love cooking at home.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I love making my food. I know where it comes from. Like, I know it's good quality stuff. I'm. I'm cooking with, like, I know all the ingredients. Everything's there. There's no mystery. And it's just. It's like. It's like my one bit of relaxation for the day, cooking.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, I can see that.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Are you. Are you on the meal prep game now?

[Aaron]

Not really.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, you're running. What, you run every morning?

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll run twice today.

[Breck Goen]

Did you run before you got in today?

[Aaron]

Yeah, I've run today, and I'll run again after this.

[Breck Goen]

Fifteen miles today?

[Aaron]

No, no, no. Five this morning and four this afternoon.

[Breck Goen]

Don't undergo me like that.

[Aaron]

No, no, no, no, no, no. It's not a lot. I have. I race In a week from Saturday. So I'm actually supposed to slow down.

[Breck Goen]

Where are you racing?

[Aaron]

Chattanooga.

[Breck Goen]

Tell me more about the race.

[Aaron]

Full triathlon, Iron man, light work. Yeah. Yeah. So it should be. Yeah, it's. Yeah, it's a long day. It's.

[Breck Goen]

What, what's your strong. I would assume running's.

[Aaron]

The running.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Swimming is really not that hard either. I just don't enjoy. I like swimming. I don't like swimming in the races because it's in. In these races, it's in a river, which kind of sucks. It's just like. It's not, like, nice water, and then there's just people all over. So you.

[Breck Goen]

You can't stop swimming on top of each other.

[Aaron]

Yeah, you're bumping. You're bumping into people, and then you're. You're. You have to, you know, navigate. So you're popping your head up a lot, and it's just not. I don't enjoy it. So it's like, I just try to get it done, and then once I'm out of the water, I'm like, all right, now for the bike. The bike's not bad. I'm not that great at it. Um, but on the bike, it's like, as long as I can just make it and get to the run, like, I'm good to go.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

If I'm to. If I'm to the run, we have no problems at that point.

[Breck Goen]

Is the new bike that you just got, is that. Are you gonna be racing with it?

[Aaron]

I don't know.

[Breck Goen]

Because you gotta break that puppy in.

[Aaron]

Well, I know, and I haven't ridden it much. I'm gonna spend a lot of time on it this weekend, see how it feels. But it's also kind of dumb to do a race on a brand new bike that you haven't ridden before. That's totally different than the existing bike I have. But the first time I did a full was the first time I did over 100 miles on a bike ever. So I've done.

[Breck Goen]

How was that?

[Aaron]

I've done dumber stuff. It wasn't terrible, but at the end of it, you're like, I actually crashed, like, almost to the end.

[Breck Goen]

Your legs are probably just jello, right?

[Aaron]

I was just, like, ready to get off. I'm just like. I. I was just.

[Breck Goen]

What's the sequence? Is it swim, run, bike, or is it swim, bike, run, swim, bike, run, swim, bike, run?

[Aaron]

Yeah. So you finish on your feet, which is. That's how I like it. Like, again, it's like. Cause I did ultra marathons before this and so it's like, yeah, you're tired going into a marathon, but it's like I've done that before. Like, you know when you do a hundred mile race and you've done 70 something miles and you still have a marathon to go, it's like you're pretty fucking tired. Like you're so. It's like that's how I frame it in my head.

[Breck Goen]

I don't even have a perception of what that tired is like.

[Aaron]

Yeah, but it's like I've done it. So once, once you're there, it's like, I've done a tired marathon. I can do a tired marathon and I've done a full triathlon before, so I've done this race before.

[Breck Goen]

My, my buddy, podcast co host. Do you know Keith Jr. Over at K and L? No, he's. He's an ultra marathon runner too. I mean, he's been. He's like, you should come out, run, come out and run.

[Aaron]

The guys that really do it, like, they're hardcore, man. Like, I'm a whole.

[Breck Goen]

This is a whole nother beast. No, I'm going to walk just into that.

[Aaron]

It's. I'm a total amateur, but the guys that like do it, do it different, different world.

[Breck Goen]

They're beasts.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Yes.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Just the fortitude you got to go to. I would feel like a different place mentally too. When you're. Yeah, it's not a cakewalk.

[Aaron]

No, it's. You learn a lot every race. It's really cool because you condense like a lot of life experience in a very short time frame. Like you can go learn so much about yourself in a 12 hour, 24 hour period. It's amazing. It's so incredible. Like, I've learned so much about life within these races and a lot of it. You learn from the training process too. Like, I like the training process much more than the races.

[Breck Goen]

What's the training regimen like leading up to that workout? A lot, work out a lot, make sure you can survive that.

[Aaron]

It's not that hard. Yeah, it's just a lot of time.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. So.

[Aaron]

So it's. Yeah, it's. Right now, it's at least. Yeah, it's like, you know, hour and a half, two hours a day and then four or five hours a day on the weekends. But you can, I mean, I feel like a lot of people undersell themselves too. Like the amount of training people do for marathon, it's like, yeah, I get it. But like a lot of people can do it. They just don't think they can.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And that's part of it too is like you maybe start with a 5K and you're like, okay, all right, I did that. Maybe 10k.

[Breck Goen]

Some people would just sign up and go for it. Maybe that's how.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I started with a half marathon. Like the first triathlon I did was a full triathlon.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But I had built my confidence doing other things before that.

[Breck Goen]

100%.

[Aaron]

So it wasn't like that crazy. I don't think. But it keeps me sharp.

[Breck Goen]

You have to be.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

You can't just meander into that.

[Aaron]

No, no. Which. Yeah, it's why. And I like having something on the calendar that's a little scary.

[Breck Goen]

Like what? What's scary? That's coming up.

[Aaron]

It's probably not the full triathlons. Like, you've got to respect it.

[Breck Goen]

You've done how many so far?

[Aaron]

This will be my fourth triathlon. You have to respect it. Like even a marathon, like, you have to have respect for it because it is like once you start to go into the longer distances, like it's. And the more time you have, like the more can go wrong. So unless you're really pushing yourself, like it's, it's weird. I've, like, I've done. I don't know, we could go way into this, but that's not the point.

[Breck Goen]

I've always been like very fascinated about this area. Obviously you can tell that I'm interested in it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

It's like, do you exercise every day?

[Aaron]

What do you do?

[Breck Goen]

Lift weights and run?

[Aaron]

Oh, really?

[Breck Goen]

That's all I do.

[Aaron]

Oh, nice.

[Breck Goen]

Keep it very simple. Yeah, like the less friction that I have in the morning to do that thing.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Sets my day up for everything. I really. My process has been very much like you is just consistent. Show up. Now I'm not doing like half marathons or those sort of things, but yeah, my marathon has been. Show up every single day. Four years and four years. No. Four years.

[Aaron]

Oh, I would say for years. Yes.

[Breck Goen]

And four years to come.

[Aaron]

If it's years. Plural.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Um, that's always been my practice. I mean I, I went into college a pretty small guy, so yeah, my pops was like, hey, you should, you should lift some weights. Uh huh. That's a good idea, huh?

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And from there it's kind of changed everything just in terms of like discipline, grit. I mean there's so many benefits from. Where'd you take care of yourself?

[Aaron]

Where was college?

[Breck Goen]

Washington State.

[Aaron]

Washington.

[Breck Goen]

So pretty school. Yeah, very.

[Aaron]

Is that in Seattle, up on the.

[Breck Goen]

No, it's Pullman. So, like, east side of. More east.

[Aaron]

What's, what's, what's the school?

[Breck Goen]

University of Washington.

[Aaron]

Washington. Right on the lake there.

[Breck Goen]

Okay.

[Aaron]

Okay. But that's, That's a big school. And so like the gym at a big school, at a big college, like, huge. You've just got like, I went to Arizona State. You walk into the gym and I'm like a little. Little shrimp, like somebody's, you know, kid. Like a 12 year old. And you walk in and there's like these ogres just looking at you and they're just juiced up on God knows what.

[Breck Goen]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron]

And like shitty Costco protein powder.

[Breck Goen]

And.

[Aaron]

Creatine 18 pounds away. Some sort of. Yeah, just weird HGH regimen.

[Breck Goen]

And.

[Aaron]

And they're looking at you like they're just about to eat you. Yeah. Even that's an experience in itself.

[Breck Goen]

Like, okay, I didn't touch anything in high school. Went to like a smaller high school. So, like walking into that big of a universe, I was like, holy shit, there's a. Of ton. A ton of people here. So that was a huge switch.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And then walking into the gym with like this massive place with a bunch of.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

You know, meatheads.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

All right.

[Aaron]

Yeah. With like 15 squat racks.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. The luxury of not really waiting for a piece of equipment was. Was nice if you timed it right.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah, that's. That's good. And we talked last night. San Francisco. I mean, from a running standpoint, one of my favorite places to run now. I love it.

[Breck Goen]

You get. You get a variety of landscape in San Francisco. Hills, you get parks.

[Aaron]

The hills do suck.

[Breck Goen]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron]

It's pretty brutal.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. The cyclers love it.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Well, yeah, it depends on your mindset as a cycler, but yeah. Yeah, it's a good training. Great training. Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Have you cycled in sf?

[Aaron]

No, no, no, sadly not. No. I. I would love to. A friend of mine from high school, she just did. She just did border to border. Started up in Canada and ended Mexico, which. Which looked fantastic. That looked.

[Breck Goen]

That's like the Pacific and Crest Trail, isn't it?

[Aaron]

That's. That's walking.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Yeah, but that's a little.

[Aaron]

And it's a little shorter.

[Breck Goen]

Oh, is it shorter? Yeah. Does they go from Canada to. Maybe next year maybe they do it making stuff up and he smell like shit, man. I'm like, I bet you need a shower, buddy. Yeah, he's out there for four or five, six months.

[Aaron]

Yeah. See when you do that or the Appalachian Trail. Yeah. It's like a six month ordeal.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Because I've known some people that have done the whole Appalachian Trail as well, which that's on mission. Or some people break it up and so they'll do a few weeks and then stop and then go back to normal life, which is kind of what normal people have to do because you have a job.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

Children, etc. And then you pick up where you left off, do another week or two, stop, go back, and then over years you finish it. Yeah, but that doesn't, that doesn't do it for me.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, that's never really interested me to spend four or five months out in the trees and.

[Aaron]

No. So you're from Washington?

[Breck Goen]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Were you there your whole, your whole childhood?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, Spokane, Washington, a little bit smaller. Have you ever been to Spokane, by the way?

[Aaron]

I was.

[Breck Goen]

Spokane, you do?

[Aaron]

I'm a big fan.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. So born and raised in Spokane, Washington. Pretty much spent my entire.

[Aaron]

North of Spokane is extraordinary.

[Breck Goen]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

Unbelievable.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I didn't know it existed.

[Breck Goen]

You got Coeur d'. Alene, that's 40 minutes away, which is awesome. It's absolutely exploded in the last couple years too.

[Aaron]

Yeah, well, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, everybody moving from Seattle and.

[Breck Goen]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Portland East.

[Breck Goen]

Yep.

[Aaron]

San Francisco even.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

So yeah. You grew up there. I interrupted you. But around a family construction business.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Yeah. So my. So I was born and raised in a drywall subcontracting family. Grandfather was a logger. Early in her journey, they called him a hooker. That's what you're called, a logger hooker. And then he went to these other camps and like, hey, you should probably not call yourself a hooker anymore. That means something different. A 15 year old kid. But yeah. So born and raised in a drywall subcontracting family. Worked in that throughout pretty much my entire life. Like a six year old showing up and pops was like, hey, if they give you shit, they like you. So I'm like, all right, cool. That's where the camaraderie came from.

[Aaron]

That's one of the first things you learn.

[Breck Goen]

Right.

[Aaron]

You better hope they're talking shit to you.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah. If they're, if they're not. If they're quiet, then you got some, you got some thinking to do.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

So yeah, grew up around that. Worked in that pretty much my entire life. Best buddies. Dad was a general contractor, godfather was a builder. So that's pretty much like everything that I did growing up. I just had like a really Big fascination with the industry. But, yeah, did that most of my life.

[Aaron]

And drywall is a pretty glamorous trade.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, it's one of the best. Yeah. You don't get a speck of dust on Ape.

[Aaron]

Yeah, don't get a speck of dust on you.

[Breck Goen]

No dust.

[Aaron]

Don't have to lift anything heavy.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Don't wear a mask.

[Aaron]

Don't have to work.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Above you. No stare at the ceiling.

[Breck Goen]

No shoulder for hours. No shoulder pain. I. Thankfully, I never hung drywall overhead. We had a. A guy by the name of Roger, and this guy was just throwing sheets up one half.

[Aaron]

Hardcore.

[Breck Goen]

And we're over here. Like, you gotta. You gotta lift.

[Aaron]

It's hardcore.

[Breck Goen]

It's too slow. Too slow.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Obviously the lift was designed to not take a toll on your body, so we'll see how that long that lasts. But, yeah, I did that. I was pretty shitty at taping, so that's one job that I never did. I was just too messy at it or not fast enough.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

So did that and. Yeah. Then kind of journeyed to Seattle after that. But, yeah, worked mostly in.

[Aaron]

What'd you go to school for?

[Breck Goen]

I went to school for finance.

[Aaron]

For finance. So were you trying to get out of that world at that point?

[Breck Goen]

Not necessarily, but I think much like you, we were just kind of, I guess, like, told that we just needed to go to college. Like, that was the avenue, really.

[Aaron]

So your parents did?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm first generation college student in the family, and so that was like, kind of the milestone. And. Okay, you know, coming up, the last decade, that was the thing to do is college. But I don't know, like, it wasn't ever something where I was like, oh, my God, I must go to college. It was kind of just like expected that you go get a degree. And that was kind of the path. But I was the. I was kind of the kid, like, growing up, middle school, high school, where it's kind of bored. A little bit antsy in school, too.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Like, I mean, my whole family's entrepreneurs. My grandfather, my mom, my dad, my godfather. So, like, that seemed more natural. But the way that college has been presented to so many people today is like, well, maybe less and less these days, but that's the path. Like, you got to get a degree. No matter what you're going to do, you should probably get one. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah, so I definitely kind of bought into that Kool Aid. It's played out. But, I mean, in college, I still had the very much the. Itch to start something. I mean, my entire family is entrepreneurs, so it really was kind of weird thinking about anything else. And mostly I wanted to study. I was always interested in business. Whether that was going to be running a contracting company, whether that was a tech company didn't really matter. I was just passionate about like what's at the intersection between like construction and so I think that was like the Kool Aid that I absolutely drank.

[Aaron]

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[Breck Goen]

I don't either for college very much.

[Aaron]

And I'm very, I'm still very pro college for a lot of people. I think it's a great experience.

[Breck Goen]

I could argue in both ways.

[Aaron]

I can argue in both ways. I just think there's a lot of people just like now the more popular thing to do is shit on college. So everybody's like, yeah, let's hop on that bandwagon. It's like, okay, I get it, I understand. But I think the college or no college argument, like everybody loves these binary conversations and if I can just pick, I'm just going to pick a team.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And it's like, well, that's not how the world works. Like you can go to college and be in the trades. Like, like why, why are we this or that? And you can go to college without a ton of debt. Like it's still pretty possible to do that in almost every state in the United States at this point. Like, yeah. And there's you don't have to go to an Ivy League. Like there's a lot of options for colleges. You don't have to go to these big prestigious universities. There's a lot of other great universities that are just public universities that offer you a lot of experience and like, maybe the degree is not worth anything, but I think the greatest value. And it takes a special person with a special kind of discipline to take advantage of it. But it gives you four years of just risk free life.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

Completely risk free.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

That you can just use to experiment to make stupid mistakes and to figure out who the fuck you are before you go make these career decisions that potentially dictate the the rest of your entire life. And to think that an 18 year old can make those decisions adequately is a little silly to me. Like, I feel like I needed that four years in a lot of ways.

[Breck Goen]

I do too, to some extent. Yeah. I think I was good on 3, 4. I was like, all right, let's show up.

[Aaron]

I was, I was in the same category. Yeah, I kind of learned everything I needed to in the first, honestly. 2. I would say it also gives you.

[Breck Goen]

It gives you a lot of experience. Experience to like experiment with what you like too. Yeah. Like, I mean, even more on the Kool Aid, Aaron. Like I was kind of bought into the whole doctor, lawyer, blah, blah, blah. Like that's the path. Because I mean like that was the Kool Aid. I mean I'm 33, so looking back on an impressionable 15 year old that was like the journey and everything. Hey, these are the careers that you should go after. It was kind of interesting because I always had always, I always had like an affection towards construction. I just thought it was so cool. Like my dad is fired up about this. My grandpa will tell me about every damn road that he's ever built and he seems pretty fired up about it. And he's 70, 80s old and still doing this stuff. So like that's pretty appealing.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Breck Goen]

They're not people that are like hated doing this for 30 years. I never had that story from them. So I thought that that was always kind of appealing. But I don't know, like I can be kind of pulled both directions a little bit on the for college, not for college argument, I think. I don't know. What's kind of interesting is like you look back, or at least my experiences with my grandfather. I mean he started in logging camps at 14, 15 years old. And I think about what, what I was like back at 14, 15, there's no way I'd be hooking logs at that age.

[Aaron]

Right.

[Breck Goen]

There's still a lot of growth. But I think that you can absolutely use college to experiment, meet great people, and, like, build a network around you of what you want to do after that. But I don't think you should just drink the college Kool Aid of, like, I gotta go.

[Aaron]

No.

[Breck Goen]

Or. Or even the other side of the coin of, like, no. All college is bad.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Like, for me, if I were to, like, kind of reflect back on my college experience, I mean, it was less. It was actually less about the studies, if I'm being totally blunt. Like, I was pretty bored.

[Aaron]

Like, well, I did. I took a few business classes. I'm like, this is college for them.

[Breck Goen]

I was even. I was like, this is my first year.

[Aaron]

This is.

[Breck Goen]

I learned in about a semester.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Well, I was like, all right.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, time to pivot.

[Aaron]

Prerequisite classes are just garbage.

[Breck Goen]

But, like, I mean, I was in office hours for chemistry. I was like, I don't give a shit about this at all. I don't sense any sort of interest going. Eight more years of college. Like, I'm ready to be done. Would love to start my own thing, whatever it is. But. So I quickly pivoted out of that. But, like, reflecting back on my journey, I mean, I met some of the most influential people from that experience, like, other entrepreneurs that I ended up keeping in touch with, having a lasting relationship with.

[Aaron]

So, yeah, I, like, I think you.

[Breck Goen]

Just really got to evaluate your options and trying to.

[Aaron]

With the mic too much.

[Breck Goen]

Oh, my bad.

[Aaron]

No, it's okay. You can mess with it. Just don't do it too much. Like you said, though, it's. Yeah. The temptation of college. Bad college for everybody. Like, there's a middle ground. I feel like that just a lot of people are not being fair to and. And. And engaging in, like, legitimate conversation about. Because everybody wants to pick a team these days. So it's so frustrating. But. And it's. And it's a lot of people that went to college that are saying college is bad now. It's like, well, it's kind of wrong. So, yeah, so I had that. I don't know. But, yeah, like, the path I was on was college was not a choice, but it wasn't forced on you. It was just, like, going, like, how I explain. It's like going from fifth to sixth grade. Like, you don't think. You're, like, you're not choosing to go to sixth grade. You're not. Like, I don't want to go to sixth grade.

[Breck Goen]

Good analogy.

[Aaron]

Yeah. You're like, you just after fifth come sixth grade. So it's like after high school comes college. And so it was just like that, like there wasn't it just that was the world I grew up in. And my dad was like highly educated. Like he went to law school and then graduate law school and then clerked after graduate law school. Like he just spent a whole decade of his life within the higher world of higher education.

[Breck Goen]

So based on your experience, that was like the expectation or like, hey, if I'm gonna map.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it wasn't even like an expectation though. Like I didn't feel like I had to go to please my parents again. It was just like going from fifth to sixth grade.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So all I had to figure out was like, what do I choose to study? And I wanted to be like this construction business owner in town because I also thought I was raised around people that built shit. All like highly successful family in it too. No. Zero.

[Breck Goen]

Okay.

[Aaron]

So my dad was a lawyer, tax lawyer. And then my friend's dads were all just businessmen. But they were self made and what they had was created from nothing. A lot of them had grown up completely poor. Like one of them, you know, sold everything to buy a Porsche dealership. Which sounds baller, but this was, you know, back in the day and he slept in the dealership because he didn't have anything else. Like he just went all in on that.

[Breck Goen]

That's a cool story.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it was stuff like, like people like that was. That's who I was with. And so in your naive child mind, you just assume that that is how the world works. And so it's like, like you, it's like.

[Breck Goen]

Well, I very much resonate with that.

[Aaron]

Yeah. If everybody's an entrepreneur, it's like that's what you do.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like you don't and.

[Breck Goen]

Like have this on my own company. I, I don't even tell people to go drink the Kool Aid. Like, hey, you should go start this thing. So it's kind of the same argument of, you know, you and I went to college. It's always like a, an argument of. It depends.

[Aaron]

I, I recommend to most people they shouldn't start anything.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. I mean, like looking back on my journey, I mean, this has not been an overnight thing at all.

[Aaron]

No.

[Breck Goen]

It's been so many haymakers. I mean my. One of the quotes that I love is everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. Mike Tyson. Yeah, very much true. So even like when people come to me, like, hey, I have an idea. It's like, that's great. I don't know if your idea is good. I don't know if it's bad. Have you made any money on it? Have you tried, can you sell something? Did you ever have experience, like trying to sell something as a kid or like any of those sort of things? So even like when people do ask for entrepreneurial advice, it's, I'm not the type that's like, yes, you should do. It's going to be the most amazing thing ever. I'm like, this is the reality. If you can, if you want to stomach the reality and you have a lot of drive and you're consistent and you can see this thing through and you know that that first thing that you're probably going to start is probably not going to be the one. Yeah. Then like, sure, go consider it. Yeah, But I also don't drink the Kool Aid of this modern day because there's a big movement around, like, you know, starting your own business. You want ownership and equity, you should go start your thing. I mean, we've seen it on social media in the last several years. Everybody's just peddling this idea they should go start something. Like, that's the avenue now. It's almost like the same argument of, you know, you should go to college now. It's, you should start a business.

[Aaron]

It's like, well, maybe I don't think it's been good.

[Breck Goen]

Maybe not.

[Aaron]

I don't think it's been good for society, for a lot of people.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. I mean, what's your position on that? I'm curious where that comes from.

[Aaron]

I just don't think it's in most people's best interest. Like, most people, they want to have a nice family, they want to have nice kids, they want to live in a nice house, they want to have weekends to go do things, they want to go on nice vacations. Like, they want to have a nice, a nice life. It doesn't happen here. It just doesn't for a very long time. And even when it does, it's kind of up. Like it just, it doesn't work. Like it, it. You're either, you're either built for it or you're not. And, and I'm, I know I am. And so I don't, I don't look at anything else. But it's like, man, it would be nice to just like watch a football game on Sunday and just like be happy with that. It would be great.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, I'm Gonna sound like an idiot here, but I don't know any of the seasons going, I hardly know. Yeah, it's just like, that the tunnel vision required to start something I think is really underestimated by a lot of people.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And I don't. I also don't like how people will frame it, too. They'll be, oh, it's so hard, and, like, all poor. They almost come out of, like, a victim mentality. It's like, yeah, dude, you've chosen to do this. You.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Or they try to have this sense of superiority over.

[Aaron]

Yes, yes. Yeah. And. And, like, where I'm at, like, it's no better, it's no worse. If it's for you, awesome. And if it's for you, you're gonna know it's for you. Like, you're gonna know. And if I, if somebody like me says, you know, really? And you're kind of like, fuck that guy, like, yeah, maybe it is for you. Like, you. You've gotta. You've got to be all in on you, and it has to come from within. It's not gonna come from anybody else. No one's gonna tell you, great job. No one's gonna be there to support you day one, because why should they? You haven't done anything, so they have no reason to believe in you. You've got to believe in yourself. And if so, it's. If it's for you, great. But if it's not, like, there, you can. Like all of the engineers that are really talented in Silicon Valley, they're balling out right now. They're doing.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, you have this AI Rush.

[Aaron]

They're getting paid.

[Breck Goen]

They're getting paid a lot. Also seeing the headlines, too.

[Aaron]

You are? Yeah. You know, but. But I mean, you're. You're living a pretty good life. You can live a really good life in, in working at one of these companies.

[Breck Goen]

But also, I don't think we should just say, you know, part of the argument could be, okay, look at engineers. They make so much money. They have this good life. I think a lot of them also fear for their jobs, too.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I wasn't the best example. I just mean, all right, you have a Steve Jobs that goes and creates an Apple. How many employees does an Apple have? Tens of thousands, Hundreds of thousands? At this point, probably you need so many more people than just one guy leading the charge and creating this vision to create something like that. So, yes, somebody has to put it into motion and somebody breathes life into it. But you need all the other people to make it work. It doesn't work without that. And then you look at Steve Jobs and you read about his life, and he's put on this pedestal now because he died a little early, a little too early. And when you actually read about his life, though, you're like, oh, this guy, in a lot of regards, wasn't a nice guy, wasn't a good guy, terrible father, wasn't a good spouse, wasn't. Wasn't a good friend, oftentimes wasn't a good employer. Like, you could make all of those arguments, and I'm not accusing him of that, but it's like, once it's laid out, you're like, oh, I think, okay, he just kind of ignored the fact that he had a daughter. Like, yeah, that's.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I mean, you know, I think it's.

[Breck Goen]

Pretty well known that Steve Jobs was an asshole.

[Aaron]

So. But that. But that, like, you know, all this good comes from it. But then all this.

[Breck Goen]

This.

[Aaron]

Yeah, there's like. It's just good. It's just. You're just your own boss. No one tells you what to do. You can do whatever with your time. You can take time off whenever you want. You're gonna make a bunch of money. It's like, no. 1, all that's a lie. Two, there's also downsides.

[Breck Goen]

It's like you and I are running past experiences through our head right now.

[Aaron]

Well, for me, it's like, I haven't been able to hold on to a relationship, and that's my problem, not theirs. I could sit here and be like, oh, it's. You know, it's. It's all their fault. It's like, well, there's enough data here to point that maybe it's 30 countries. Well, yeah, but maybe it's me haven't been able to hold on to a relationship. I still live above somebody's garage in my 30s, which fucking sucks. And I'm not happy about it. My dad hasn't spoken to me in almost four years. You know, largely because of the business, if not solely because I went down this path.

[Breck Goen]

As in, like, didn't, like, the choices or just like, it's all.

[Aaron]

It's all right, I guess. Yeah, that's a.

[Breck Goen]

You're like, hey, we can do a therapy session after this.

[Aaron]

But you could just go down the list of like. And I couldn't have told you. No one told me this was gonna happen. I couldn't predicted any of it.

[Breck Goen]

I feel like if most people saw the cards laid out, I don't know if they would opt into it.

[Aaron]

No. And I would argue a lot of people my age are living a better quality of life than me. A lot of them.

[Breck Goen]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

I'm not comparing, but it's like, oh, yeah, they're having kids now. They've got a fucking Labradoodle, you know, because they're home every night. They can have a dog. I can't. They've got a house they're buying. How? You know, a house. They've got a nice, nice car. Like.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

They just went to, you know, maybe Maui for vacation. Like, life's good again. I don't. I don't look at that and envy it, but it's like, that's a really nice. That's. That's a nice life. Like, that's great.

[Breck Goen]

It really just depends on the choices that you want to make. Like, some people are more comfortable in that. They want a more predictable lifestyle. There's also people like you and I, or other business owners that find a lot of meaning and purpose into building something and trying to bring something to life into the world.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Breck Goen]

So I don't know, like, you just got to pick your path, really. And there's.

[Aaron]

I don't think you pick it, though, in terms of.

[Breck Goen]

Do you feel like you have, like, an intrinsic calling to do it? Is that where you're coming from?

[Aaron]

I think if you're really. If you're really going down, if you're really behaving, like, in accordance to who you are and what you're supposed to do, it's not a choice. Like, I think I can see where you're coming from. It's hard to explain, but it's like, I feel like your job is to go find. Find it. Find what it is for you and then go chase it. And it's different for every single person on planet.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And I was. I in. In a lot of ways, just stupid lucky. I found it at 18 years old, and thank God I did, because since then I've been running with it. But I. I just don't. I don't think you really choose it. I think you have to find it, and once you find it, you've got to run with it. And again, it looks totally different for everybody.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, I can see that. I mean, when we were out in the lobby, I saw the book Mastery by Robert Green. You and I were chatting about that. There's a chapter in the book, and I would recommend anybody go read this specific chapter, but it talks about going back to your roots because, like, I. I Feel like I felt it. You've probably felt it too. But you have some sort of intrinsic motivation to set out to do something, right? Whether it's build what and build all these things around you. But that's exactly kind of how I felt. But I don't feel like it's, at least for me, speaking on my experiences. Like it wasn't like a clear crystal ball of like, this is exactly what I need to do. No, it was actually. I remember the phone call with my dad. I was sitting on my air mattress in San Francisco. I had like a one way ticket to get there. And I'm more than happy to kind of unpack how that kind of unfolded. But I'm sitting on an air mattress in San Francisco. I just moved to the greatest city in the world, right?

[Aaron]

Hell yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Right, Aaron? Like, this is going to be gravy.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

You know, you just go raise a bunch of money and you're on the, you're ready to go.

[Aaron]

That's all you need to do. Just need to move there. That's the hardest part.

[Breck Goen]

Well, my experience was move there. No network air mattress. Felt like I kind of had a call in to build something. I didn't know exactly what it was going to be, but I'm like, hey, kind of got bit by the bug. I've had a mentor and brought me to Silicon Valley. I'm like, all right, well, if I want to build something at the intersection of construction and tech, I probably want to optimize and at least get to a better place than Seattle or Spokane, Washington. Because pretty much any city outside of those and like a top tier city, you want to, you know, be around the resources that could give you a little bit better of a chance to, you know, build something. But I remember that phone call, call my dad. I'm like, I don't know why the fuck I'm doing this to myself. And I just sat there. I mean, I wrote a LinkedIn post on this a while ago, but I was like, I moved to San Francisco and think it was going to be sunshine and rainbows as most depressed I've ever been. Because I just felt completely lost. I didn't really know.

[Aaron]

Always cloudy. There's.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, that did not help either. That did not help either. I'm like, dad, the sunshine is gone. This is why, this is why I'm pissed. No, but I remember sitting there that day and I'm like, I don't know why I'm doing this stuff. Like, nothing seems to be working. Like I'm trying To meet people and do all this stuff. It's just, like, very messy in the beginning, right? And the one thing that he said to me that actually changed a lot of how I thought about that messy chapter and what I needed to do was you said, breck, when you were six, you told me you always wanted to be a builder. So you kind of wanted to be like me when you were older. And I thought that was kind of cool. He's like, this is your chapter. Go and run with it. Just go build. And so I had to internalize that. Not necessarily, like, go build a contracting business or anything like that. It was whatever I'm set out to do. Just build it one step at a time. That was the only thing that got me through that chapter because it felt so messy, so up. Felt like an absolute, like, idiot and a little bit of a loser. I mean, I'm sitting on, like, a deflated air mattress and a whiteboard and a shitty IKEA desk. There was nothing else in that bedroom. So it was like, okay, that resonated. But I go back to the Robert Green Book because after that, there was parallels between what my dad told me. You always wanted to be a builder as a kid. Go build, figure out what that means to you. And it was kind of right around that time where I opened the Robert Green Book. And I think I just read that chapter and I was done, basically. But I read it and it says, go back to your roots. Try to figure out, like, as a kid what got you really excited, what made it feel like you were just in a flow state of nothing existed in the world besides that one thing.

[Aaron]

What was it? Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And a lot of how I kind of rationalize and kind of just built this internal drive and discipline around it was, all right, I'm here to build something. I'm going to go figure out exactly what that is.

[Aaron]

And for you, that flow state was sanding drywall.

[Breck Goen]

Yes. As a six year old, I was the best hanger they had.

[Aaron]

Total flow state, bro. I just lock in for eight hours and time would vanish.

[Breck Goen]

Those screws were like magnets for.

[Aaron]

Yeah, but I. I do think that's where it comes from, is. Yeah, like, I do think thinking through, especially as a child, what you were excited about, like, what. What physically changed you or, like, for me, it's like, man, every time I see a bulldozer, there's. There's a change in my physical state. Like, it's a legitimate. I don't. It's like a fucking magnet. Like a magnet cannot. You're just a kid.

[Breck Goen]

You light up.

[Aaron]

Yes. But it's just. I don't know what it is, but it's just me. Heavy machines moving dirt like a magnet.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Can't explain it, but I don't have to explain it. I just know that that's how I am. And I think you have to figure out what's what. What interests you, what's what excites you, what changes your physical state, what you've thought about a lot about. And maybe you're, you know, far on an adult world that's like an adult world tells you be. Be reasonable. Don't. Don't overreach. Just do your job. Just get in line. Just follow the rules, man. And you've been beaten down because the whole education system is designed.

[Breck Goen]

Keep you in line.

[Aaron]

Yeah. To just make you a cog. So you have to break free of that, which is really hard. Really hard. And think about what's excited you. And then you have to go start to play with that. It's like finding that thread and start to pull it. And you have to. Then you have to learn by doing. And so then you have to do somewhere around that and then through that doing. Then you have to listen. And as you do and as you listen, you can start to then refine it a little bit. Like, ah, okay, I'm. This is actually where I need to be going. And then you go down there and you do more.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And then you listen more and it's like, oh, actually, I need to back up a little bit. And I need to, you know, I passed that right turn back there. I thought this was the way to go, but now I see that I've made the wrong and. But I can. I know that's the right way now. So I can flip a ue and go down that way. And then you go down and you just, like, you just kind of keep doing that is the best way I can explain it.

[Breck Goen]

I don't think people embrace the mess enough, like, when they first. Like, if we're talking about the entrepreneurial journey, I feel like a lot of people will get their first punch in the face or whatever you want to call it, and they just quit. Not for me. That is literally what entrepreneurship is designed to be.

[Aaron]

Yeah. But I think you can extract it beyond entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship too. I think that's.

[Breck Goen]

I agree. Yeah, I agree. Totally agree.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

It's the drawing where. I'm sure you've seen it. It's the. You go up a little bit to the right bunch of little Scribbles, scribble, scribble, scribbles. And then you got the eject.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And that's the process.

[Aaron]

I. Quitting is. Is definitely an issue. The bigger issue that I see is that they quit. But it doesn't look like quitting in the fact that, like, I'm gonna go get into a finance career, and I know it's probably not for me, but I'm gonna lie to myself and say it is for me. Cause I went to finance school, I spent money, I promised my parents I was gonna go do this. I go get a good job at Goldman, I start to make good money. I hate my life. For a few years in New York City, I quit Goldman. I go to BlackRock or whatever, or Vanguard or JP Morgan or whatever, and then work my way up. And now I'm making good money. And then they just. That's where they stay for the rest of life.

[Breck Goen]

Well, you know the reasons behind that, right?

[Aaron]

Well, you're stuck. It's the.

[Breck Goen]

You are. I mean, you're making really good money. You've bought into this lifestyle. You've had lifestyle creep going backwards. Almost seems like no option. Plus, you got a bunch of peers that you've created friendships with. Yeah. You're ingrained with them.

[Aaron]

You've got a. You've got a big mortgage.

[Breck Goen]

Who are you to be the black sheep?

[Aaron]

Big mortgage, three kids at home, maybe even a vacation house at this point. That's really nice.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Oh, man, that vacation house, bro.

[Breck Goen]

It is. But you're also grinding your life away, too. Like, so you see a lot of these people going in investment banking.

[Aaron]

I mean, but that's. That's what I mean. You can't.

[Breck Goen]

You got to pick your poison.

[Aaron]

You can't outrun who you're supposed to be. Yeah, you can't. So you can't outrun it.

[Breck Goen]

Are entrepreneurs born or made, then?

[Aaron]

I think it's a little bit of both. This is the way I would say it. Like, I think I have, like, the core characteristics, but then I also think I had to be around it in a very particular way. And because those two things mashed together, I was then able to. To go. To do what I'm doing. But had those two ingredients not been, at least I can just speak on it on my behalf. But I try to extract beyond because it's like, again, I. I don't. I don't talk a lot about, like, my entrepreneurship journey because, one, I don't think I'm qualified because I'm an idiot.

[Breck Goen]

Being in the arena, you're qualified, aren't you?

[Aaron]

Sure. Yeah. But. Idiot. Still, nonetheless. And then I do, in a way, think it's kind of silly because, again, like, your business, my business, no business works with just. Just me. Like, I need all of these other people that aren't entrepreneurs to make it work. Like, I'm just playing my role. Like a CFO plays a CFO role. A developer plays a developer role here. A videographer plays a videographer role. Like it's. It's a role at the company, but it's a role at the company. I need all of these other things to make it all work. And they're all just as important in the grand scheme of things. There's not one that's more important than the others. Like, you need them all to make it work. And I think the pursuit of being better, of being the best version of you, whether you're an entrepreneur or you're in a career in the trades, you're a drywaller, you're an operator, foreman, you're a cfo. Like, I think it's kind of the same thing. I think striving to be a better human being and a good example. Like, I feel like those values are the same no matter what you're pursuing or should be pursuing.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, I can get behind that.

[Aaron]

I don't know if that makes.

[Breck Goen]

No, it does.

[Aaron]

I don't know if I explained that very well.

[Breck Goen]

I think what you're just talking about is the intrinsic drive behind, like, human motivation to do better.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. Like, that's what I want around here. Like, we don't. We don't need a bunch of entrepreneurs. Because a business doesn't work with a bunch of entrepreneurs. It doesn't work. But you need a bunch of people that want to be better.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And if they don't want to be better, and if you. You kick them in the ass and say, hey, you've got to be better. You're not better, you're not wanting to be better. I mean, you kick them in the ass.

[Breck Goen]

You're the one setting the standard. Right. Well, it's kind of the.

[Aaron]

They still don't do it well.

[Breck Goen]

You know, they need to move on. Fortunate side of, you know, being an employer.

[Aaron]

Well, and it's real unfortunate when you see how fucking good they can be. You see their potential, you see how smart they are, you see how capable they don't do it. And you're just like, damn it. Like, can you help me here? Like, help me help you? But that's not how it works. It. I can only do so much.

[Breck Goen]

You can give them all the resources in the world, but you cannot.

[Aaron]

Can't make decisions for people.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

So that was a total tangent.

[Breck Goen]

I like our tangents.

[Aaron]

What was it like growing up in a household because both of your parents were in the business?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

What was that like? What was that dynamic like in terms.

[Breck Goen]

Of, like, working in the business or just childhood in general?

[Aaron]

No. What's it like having two parents in the same business, but then also being parents?

[Breck Goen]

I mean, the one thing that I really.

[Aaron]

Cause that's unique, having both your parents involved in a business.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, kind of reflecting back on that. I think the one thing that I'm grateful for is, well, growing up, like, my dad was my basketball coach, so I think it was just like a work life type of integration where he made these requirements for him as a father to kind of show up to some of these things. So the one thing that I do remember that I admire and something that I want to carry into my future family is, I mean, the man worked hard. Man worked weekends, like, still picked me up from school. The one thing that I actually really appreciate is not only his work ethic to provide for the family and everything, but I can't remember a time he missed a basketball game. And I think that's one thing. Just reflecting back that I'm grateful because not everybody gets to experience that. Especially when you have an entrepreneurial family too. Like, they're just sacrifices that you need to make or maybe you're going to work with your parent because they have to work extended hours. So I mean, my. My dad had a contracting company, my mom had a hair salon. And so, like, I was hanging out the hair salon if I needed to, like, get picked up, like, I was just like, fully ingrained in that versus, like sometimes after school daycare was the hair salon, or I had to go to the job site because my dad was wrapping up something and I was just going to go fudge around with like, drywall scraps that young.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

You know, or just take some heat from the other guys. I don't know, you know, so that was just like, purely ingrained in me. But I think, like, growing up, my family was just trying to be involved with my extracurriculars, whether it was basketball or something, showing up to basketball games. I think that's really the only way that they were able to kind of balance, I mean, raising a kid or kids while they were starting their businesses is work, work life integration. I don't Think. Because I think the other side of the coin is like when you're building something, especially when you're like, my parents had me a little bit later in life too, so they had a little bit more of a foundation. It wasn't necessarily like they were starting their business and they had all this chaotic going on, plus kids. I think my life would have been a little bit different if it was that case. But a lot of it was the work life, integration. I was. My daycare was the job site.

[Aaron]

But I. I love seeing kids in.

[Breck Goen]

I think it's so cool.

[Aaron]

Places like that. I think that's it's. It's like. Yeah. People almost think it's like they almost feel sorry for the kid, but it's like, no, no, no, no, no.

[Breck Goen]

They feel sorry.

[Aaron]

No, that kid's doing way better.

[Breck Goen]

His eyes light up. Have you seen that video where. Or maybe it was the photo that was floating around the Internet recently, but it was like they were in a neighborhood, some suburban neighborhood. The guys were on a piece of an equipment and the kid is just sitting there in the yard.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Just like watching these guys work.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

One the guy's actually working. This is awesome. Like, this kid loves this. This has me fired up. This is probably like a highlight of their day. And that kid is just in awe.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. That. And this is where. When people talk recruiting the next generation, I think they're overthinking it a little bit. Cause it's like you just need to get a kid around it. Like oftentimes just once, they don't need to spend a year on a job site.

[Breck Goen]

This is like Legos on steroids. It's pretty fucking cool.

[Aaron]

That's kind of all it takes. It's not. We've got. We're dealing with a loaded hand here. But because. And I just made a post about it today, like went to an equipment show on Sunday and they had a dirt area where you could run some of the antique machines, really old machines. And there was a, you know, an antique dozer pulling an antique scraper pan. And it was a nine year old running it. Kid was nine years old. He was locked in, man. I mean, just doing circle and same shit. Would pick the dirt up here. Put it down over here. Yeah, pick the dirt up over here, Put it down over here. Like there wasn't anything being created. But that wasn't the point. He was just, you could tell, locked.

[Breck Goen]

That's a. That's a happy kid right there dialed in.

[Aaron]

So like I. That. That beats any form of technology from a focus standpoint. Like it. You could. It was. It was just so awesome. And, And I. The post I made today was make child. Child labor great again. And it's like. And it's like. It's a joke.

[Breck Goen]

You clickbait?

[Aaron]

No, but. But it's not a joke.

[Breck Goen]

I know where you're coming from.

[Aaron]

This, this whole, like, the recruiting strategy for the trades for the past, I don't know, thousands of years has been raise your kids around the trades.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Has it not?

[Breck Goen]

It's not. It's not a hard concept. It's. I mean, this is how I got into it. I got exposure.

[Aaron]

That's how you got into it? That's how.

[Breck Goen]

I was an iPad kid. I was, like, rolling in dirt.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And you, you know, fun, like a lot of people in construction. Is your story uncommon?

[Breck Goen]

No, not all that much.

[Aaron]

Not really. I like. And. And that's not like a bad thing. It's. That's how a lot of people grew up. They grew up around a job site.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And that's why they're now in the trades. That's why they're now in construction. That's why they can weld really fucking well at 18 years old. Cause they've been doing it since seven.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

It's over a decade experience.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. And they like the people. That's also a big indicator of that, too.

[Aaron]

Yeah. But now you've got. I'm calling it, and I'm gonna coin this term, the safety regime. I'm coming after the safety regime. You've got the safety regime. You've got lawyers, which are part of the safety regime, but I'm calling out lawyers as well. And you've got just suburbia as well. Like a kid growing up in San Francisco or the Bay Area. How much time are they spending on a job site?

[Breck Goen]

Very minimal.

[Aaron]

I mean, and that's not their fault.

[Breck Goen]

No. It's just a totally different way of life.

[Aaron]

Society's changed.

[Breck Goen]

I didn't grow up in Silicon Valley. I mean, if anything, I was an outsider going into Silicon Valley. Really. If you look at my journey.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And those kids. I mean, their exposure is. I mean, if you were to go to Silicon Valley today, it's. You have to go in tech. Everything is designed around that. Yes, everything. That's the expectation.

[Aaron]

Everything.

[Breck Goen]

It's.

[Aaron]

It's not.

[Breck Goen]

It's not a nice to have.

[Aaron]

As soon as you drive across. It's a Bay bridge. You drive across the Bay Bridge and you hit San Francisco. Skylines off to the right.

[Breck Goen]

I Mean, what kind of billboards do you see when you do work? Cisco.

[Aaron]

Right. Slapped in the face silly by AI. Billboards and. Right.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

Billboard, billboard, AI. And you're just like, they speak to only engineers.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah. It's a complex.

[Aaron]

Yeah. You don't know what any of them mean.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah. That's the first thing that people comment when they come to San Francisco. They're like, what are. What the fuck are these things? Yeah. Never heard of these things in my life.

[Aaron]

But. But, yeah, you. And. And so that's part of the challenge too. Like, I don't just want to cast blame on the. The industry. I think they. Some are to blame somewhat. But, like, I grew up in Paradise Valley, Arizona. I couldn't be on a job site if I wanted to be on a job site. That was just not the world I was in. And it's not my fault. It's like, yeah, I showed up on a job site at 18. I didn't really know how to use a tape measure. I didn't know how to use a ratchet strap. I didn't know how to use a grease gun. Like, I didn't know how to do anything.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, because you were a laborer after college, right?

[Aaron]

No, before, like, right out of high school.

[Breck Goen]

What was your first job out of college, though?

[Aaron]

First job out of college was like, field engineer for road building, but I worked construction through college.

[Breck Goen]

Oh, yeah, okay, I see. So you study, like, construction management or anything?

[Aaron]

Engineering.

[Breck Goen]

Engineering.

[Aaron]

Okay. Yeah, yeah. But. But I. And it's like, you can call me stupid, but it's like, oh, I didn't choose this. I didn't choose my ignorance. I. I just grew up in a different world and. But does that disqualify me?

[Breck Goen]

No.

[Aaron]

I mean, and it. And it can't if we want a future workforce, because that's the whole future workforce 100.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, you shouldn't disqualify. Like, if somebody is interested, has motivation, wants to do well in the industry.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Openly welcome that.

[Aaron]

Yeah. And so that's like, people, whenever I get criticism, what's like, oh, you know, you. You're just acting like you like it all this. And that's like. Or whatever it is. Like, you're not supposed to grow up.

[Breck Goen]

Like, to act like you grew up.

[Aaron]

In a wealthy neighborhood. It's like, yeah, I did. Yeah. Sue me. Like, what do you want does that. But I still love it.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Am I not supposed to love it? I'm sorry, I just. I can't do anything about it.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I think everybody looks for like an excuse to disqualify what people are doing. Really. Like they always look for a black and white. It kind of goes back to the college discussion that we had at the start of this is everybody tries to choose a team. Not everything is completely black and white.

[Aaron]

No.

[Breck Goen]

Live in a world of. A lot of it depends and well.

[Aaron]

And I came up with the school of hard knocks and it sucked. So you have to as well. And because I was abused. You have to be abused.

[Breck Goen]

You think that gets passed on to the next generation too when that talent comes into the workforce?

[Aaron]

Uh huh. Well, maybe. But it was, it was interesting. I just saw it going back to college. You can see it very, very clearly with fraternities. It's wild. Fraternities are fascinating. I learned so much. I was in one for three semesters and that was more than enough for me. I was the only one that didn't drink. So that was a part of the reason why it was very interesting. But just the group think and yeah, you're, you're treated like when you start.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. So I see what you're doing. You're. You're kind of drawing parallels to that.

[Aaron]

And then you get older and you're like, finally I get to go treat people like shit because I was treated like shit. And it's gonna make me feel better about getting treated like shit. I didn't like it, but it's gonna make me feel better about it. And so I'm gonna go do it to others and I'm gonna do them a favor. They've gotta, they've got to earn it.

[Breck Goen]

They've got to earn it.

[Aaron]

That's.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And so I, I think I'm doing the right thing by it. But it's like if you ask somebody, did you really like being treated like. No one likes that. No one likes that.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. It's almost treated like the. An admission to the workforce to a certain degree.

[Aaron]

Right. Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And I'm not saying apprentices or.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I'm, I, and I'm not saying like, I'm not advocating for making anything easier. I don't think you can make the trades easier. You can't. I mean, I think the people that are trying to make it for everybody have never worked in the field.

[Breck Goen]

I mean that's terrible messaging in the first place.

[Aaron]

Well, yeah, but, but one of messaging, it's just. Or I go to these technology conferences for construction. They're talking about the future and this and that. I'm like, that's all great, but like, you still gotta pour some concrete. You've still gotta hang some drywall.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah. You can't get around these things.

[Aaron]

I think we're dealing with physics guys.

[Breck Goen]

When you're talking in the tech sector, I mean, I'm surrounded by it.

[Aaron]

You're surrounded by it.

[Breck Goen]

Waking and breathing.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

You walk out of your door and it's in your face.

[Aaron]

Yeah. But it's like we're still dictated to by physics and we still have to do the work. And I think the work is what makes it special. I'm just saying, like, do we have to, like it's already hard.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So do we have to treat people like shit while we do it as well?

[Breck Goen]

I don't know.

[Aaron]

I don't know if that's the best way to do it. I don't want to be treated like.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, people could say the argument of don't be soft, but I don't think that's a valid argument either. You know, you talk a lot about the Y generation. You ask too many questions. You shut up and do the work. There's a lot of that. I don't know. Can it be toxic? Probably.

[Aaron]

And there's a, there's a balance.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, probably.

[Aaron]

Yeah, but, but you like, you can give someone shit in a light hearted way.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And like a kind way, if that makes sense. Like a genuine way. Or you can give them shit in like a hateful.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. And try to tear them down.

[Aaron]

Yes. Yeah. And that's. And oftentimes they look the same. But.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, it's just masked by big difference.

[Aaron]

A big difference between the two. And like, like if I wrote down all the, all the things that were said to me by the Mexican guys I worked with my first few years.

[Breck Goen]

I love that, man.

[Aaron]

Dude, like, you'd be like, what did you guys say?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

What? Yeah, but that was one of my favorite things about it because it wasn't in this hateful manner. It was, we were. It was this form of play.

[Breck Goen]

It is.

[Aaron]

And it's. The work is miserable and it's middle of summer in Phoenix, Arizona and anybody saying it's a dry heat can go fuck themselves. Like, go work out there for a day and then we'll talk about dry heat. But you, you, you, you have to play to make it tolerable.

[Breck Goen]

Oh, 100%. I mean, you and I were chatting at dinner last night. Like, digging a ditch isn't always fun. No, most of the time it's not.

[Aaron]

Most of the time it's Not.

[Breck Goen]

But if you do it really good people, you have that sense of camaraderie. Yeah. The hard sucks less, I guess. Like, anything worth doing, I would say is gonna be hard. So, I mean, just with construction, very manual. It's labor. I think everybody knows that. But I think it's the sense of camaraderie that really forms really great cruise. I think that's what makes it tolerable and maybe a sense of, like, very high passion behind it too.

[Aaron]

Well, yeah.

[Breck Goen]

How that comes out is different for a lot of people.

[Aaron]

It varies and it varies by region.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Manhattan, you're gonna get a totally different kind of passion than.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

In Miami.

[Breck Goen]

100. Yeah.

[Aaron]

And in a different language.

[Breck Goen]

Yep.

[Aaron]

But, yeah, it creates a sense of pride that I just have not found anywhere else.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, it's very. It's very difficult.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I, I, again, I've. I've seen. I feel like a lot of people and a lot of people chase money and they. Because they haven't seen it and been around it. And I don't blame them. I'd be doing the same thing if I were them. Hadn't seen it. And they go get into these careers that are the distinguished careers, the lawyers, the doctors, the business executives, whatever it is. I've been around a lot of those people. There they are not radiating oftentimes this sense of pride. Like.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I mean, you don't walk into the country club like, wow, these people are just so proud and so connected to reality. Like, you don't get that feeling. And for, you know, some. Sure. You know, if you're self made, quote unquote, and you've built something incredible, great. Yeah, maybe, but not on average. And in construction, you. You get it. On average.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Which is amazing.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, you ask anybody what they've worked on, I just light up. They don't talk about how difficult it is. I mean, some might. I mean, even if it was hard, like, okay, we experienced this building. This building. I mean, there's still a sense of pride even going back to. I mean, my dad does this, My grandfather does this. I was just in Idaho a few months back and he's still pointing out new roads. He built. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like, well.

[Breck Goen]

But just cleared an entire side of a mountain for a fire road.

[Aaron]

Some probably told you 17 times. Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

My grandfather has a missing finger because it got, like, lodged into the hitch. And then, you know, he went to the hospital and everything. But, I mean, even that shitty day, he still looks back on it and laughs. This guy has half a finger.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And I mean those are some of his best stories. And I mean I don't want to lose a finger by any means. I mean still there's a huge sense of pride behind even doing the hardest and the most shitty things. I mean him sitting in logging camps at 14, 15 year old years old, that was probably really hard. I mean you're eating your sandwich, sitting on the logs and going back and living in these camps for two, three weeks. I mean you even had a kind of an experience with these mining camps that you were just recently at. Yeah, but I mean these are some of his most favorite stories to tell. And it comes down to the people that he had the chance and the opportunity to work alongside. And it was like that sense of pride even for him it was more like clearing forests versus building and standing something. But still there's even those hard experiences he found a ton of joy in. And these are his favorite stories to tell. Yep. And same with my, my dad too. I mean we mostly worked on like high end custom homes and everything but it was, it's still that picked me up from the airport still pointing out job sites. I mean honestly his body is a little broken down these days, but still he has a sense of pride. He can't do the work that he used to do. You look up for 40 something years. Brutal, slow, tough on the neck.

[Aaron]

Right.

[Breck Goen]

So I was dealing with that. But still there's a lot of sense of pride. Point out the job sites. Even though he's in some of this physical pain, there's still a lot of joy around it. I think maybe some things that he would have changed is maybe delegate some of these things a little bit earlier because you're not built to last for 40, 50 years doing hard manual labor and everything.

[Aaron]

Everything.

[Breck Goen]

But I 100 agree with you. It's one of those career paths and we shouldn't be just painting this message of it's going to be sunshine, rainbows and like it's all about the money and everybody should get in the industry. They should know they're opting into hard but also opting into if you really have a purpose or an intrinsic motivation to do these things and find fulfillment of real scale Legos essentially then it might be a good fit for you. Well, but I think people also paint this perception that there's careers that are just easy. And I think sure there is, but you got to choose your heart at some point. Either you're going to do it earlier in life or you're going to do it later in life.

[Aaron]

Well, and yeah, again, you can do this easier career. That's not for you.

[Breck Goen]

Sure.

[Aaron]

You will pay for it. Yeah, you will pay for it. It's just a matter of time. And maybe it's on your deathbed, you know, I. It could be, it could be after. Could be your kids paying for it, you know. Yeah, the bill, the bill always comes due. It's interesting too, thinking about people's bodies and like, do I think people should be destroyed through hard work? No, I think there's some stuff that's avoidable, but also to think that it's unavoidable. The hard work is also completely disconnected.

[Breck Goen]

Yep.

[Aaron]

And I think that's how all of modern, that's all, that's how humanity has been created, was hard work. And to think that we can remove hard work is completely insane. And like, sure, some of these guys have these completely obliterated bodies and is that good? No. But oftentimes I don't see them really regretting things though. And I see a lot of old people that are like super fat, that are not at all healthy looking, that haven't really worked hard in their lives. Like, they're not, they're not in a good place. And so these, these guys that have worked their whole life, like, yeah, they're, they're beat up, but a lot of times they're not like that much more abused than some of these other folks. Then I'm painting with a very broad brush and not a lot of them are like, they have. Not a lot of them have this huge sense of regret either. Like I really this up. It's like, this sucks and I'm not having fun, but I don't know if I would have done it necessarily a different way or I did it the way that I was supposed to do it. And I did my best. I, like, maybe in hindsight there was a better way to do it, but I applied the best tools I had to every situation and this is the result. And it is what it is. I mean, I think maybe I'm reading that wrong.

[Breck Goen]

No, I think you're correct. I mean, we can talk about the physical toll of the industry, even like other industries, you can talk about the emotional or the mental toll it takes. Like, I think everything comes at a cost. Yeah. Especially when you're so ingrained and maybe even driven to do something or whatever it is. Like whether you want to talk about the corporate world where, you know, it's a little bit less, you know, soulless. People hate it. They don't really, they're not really fired up to go to work. They kind of feel like a cog in the machine. But that also comes with, like, an emotional or physical toll, too.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Breck Goen]

Or so. I mean, I don't know. It kind of sounds like we're being pessimistic right now, but, like, something comes at a cost. No, I think we just need to recognize. Recognize that.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I think it's realistic.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I think it's.

[Breck Goen]

You.

[Aaron]

You know as well as anybody, the world is comfortable for most of us because of the labor of a few.

[Breck Goen]

I. I agree. It doesn't go wholeheartedly. Yeah, yeah. No. And it's not gonna go away.

[Aaron]

No.

[Breck Goen]

And for good reason.

[Aaron]

And I don't think it should.

[Breck Goen]

I don't think it should either. I don't think it should either.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah. And so I start to have qualms with some of these.

[Breck Goen]

If anything, I want things to be hard to a certain degree. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, you and I speaking, because we're business owners. If it was so easy, everybody's gonna be doing it to a certain degree.

[Aaron]

Oh, exactly.

[Breck Goen]

And I also feel like there's a huge sense. I mean, you and I, we can talk on the topic of entrepreneurship all day, but there comes a huge sacrifice to it. We've already kind of talked about that a little bit. Like, not the best relationships or can't keep one, or the sacrifices you have to make or very lonely chapters in your journey of, like, you're not really surrounded by a huge social group. Like, there's just things that you have to do if you really want to do something. So I don't know. I. I think the admission to do really anything that important is it's going to be hard and it's going to be a lot of sacrifice.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Whether you're making it on the front end or the back end.

[Aaron]

Well, it's. It's. What's funny to me, though, is, like, when I tell people, like, yeah, I don't really ever go out, hang out with people. Like, I don't. I don't, you know, do anything or whatever it is or, like. Or my favorite example, they're like, oh, are you traveling? It's like, yeah, I'm traveling. I'm going. I was just in Australia. I'm going to Australia. Is it work or fun? And I say, oh, it's for work. They're like. And they're, like, bummed out for me, like, oh, man, that's too bad. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I would choose a Mining camp in the Bowen Basin over the Sunshine Coast. Beautiful place in the Sunshine Coast. 10 out of 10 times, no question in my mind. Now, that's insane to most people. That is insane. And it's. It is insane. I will agree with them. It is insane. But I love it. Like, yeah, No, I mean, you.

[Breck Goen]

You find joy in the work that you do.

[Aaron]

Yeah. But they put their reality onto my reality.

[Breck Goen]

Oh, yeah.

[Aaron]

No, no, no, no.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

That's not. No, no. That's not how it works. Like, I. I've designed it this way. I want to stay at the mining camp. Yeah. Because I learned more at the mining camp than I will at some.

[Breck Goen]

That's such a cool experience. Like, you and I were chatting on this at dinner last night. But, you know, moments in building your company or really building anything that you're kind of generally passionate about, I think one thing that's probably helpful for me and a lot of folks is like, embrace the mess. There's going to be chapters where, you know, you're. You're optimizing for experience, not the sunshine and rainbows. So things like the mining camp, other people are going to think that that's dirty, gritty. And the hell are you doing in mining camps, Aaron? Like, you got this studio with the podcast. You got a sweet office.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

All these things, they're like, this is backwards. You're like, no, I'm doing it because when I'm 50 to 60 years old, I get to look back and however this pans out, like, I'm doing this because this is an incredible opportunity, a great experience, and I get to tell these stories vicariously through other people. And I think that's also what's really helped with the podcast. And everything that you do is, like, you know, you. And I've probably been criticized. You've probably been criticized even more than me because you're so vocal and out in front of everybody. But I think the really cool opportunity that you have is, like, the message that you get to deliver to the industry is because you've seen and are able to tell so many other stories from people that you've lived through. So, like, people in the mining camps, those sort of things, you've done this, too, but it's all part of your chapter, and I think that's cool. I'm sure people are going to project and criticize, but.

[Aaron]

But what's. What's the best? And they do. But honestly, I don't pay attention to a lot of it. I don't see.

[Breck Goen]

You don't read all your YouTube comments.

[Aaron]

I don't see. But I think the comments are fun. I know, I know.

[Breck Goen]

I've seen you get better at it, like, over the years. The years. I mean, I've known you for years now, but, like, when you're even. Even my buddy Matt. Matt Bangswood. I mean, he used to send me all these, like, YouTube comments. It's like, dude, you're on the right path.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

If you're not getting criticized. No, you're not. Really.

[Aaron]

No, dude, the YouTube comments are a blast. Like, some of the creative shit people.

[Breck Goen]

Say they come up with to talk.

[Aaron]

Shit, like, I'm all for the more creative. I'm like, al is actually pretty good.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, all right, you got me there.

[Aaron]

But then the dumb stuff is like, you're stupid. It's like, oh, yeah, you got me.

[Breck Goen]

Thank you.

[Aaron]

Now, the only time. Again, tangent before I go back to the main point here or the main question, the only time in the past, maybe year, if not two, because I did get bothered early. Early on.

[Breck Goen]

Maybe you should. I mean.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I think especially as you're, like, a younger man, too, you're more vulnerable.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. You want a lot of validation when you're first starting out your career, too. And so, like, when you're not getting that, it's like, am I on the wrong path here?

[Aaron]

Ego's at play. And, yeah, yeah, I stumbled across. I don't know how I did, but this random fucking thread of people talking shit. And it wasn't. It wasn't the people talking shit. It was somebody talking shit that had worked here and saying this stuff that was, like, clearly not true, but. And it's like, I wanted to comment, like, what are you talking about? Like, and. And I wanted to, like, defend myself. Like, yeah, and. And some of it, honestly, probably was true. Like, I think some of it. I've realized I am often perceived as uncaring or an asshole because I'm really. Everybody's like, you're such a good communicator. You're so personable. But I'm still really fucking socially awkward. Like, I'm good in this format. I can do this format all day. I can go speak, I can do social media, travel, whatever. But there's situations in which I am still super. Like, I'm not.

[Breck Goen]

What situations would those be?

[Aaron]

Like, like, most social situations, I would say. But that's perceived as me being an asshole, which I understand. It's like, that's not at all how it is.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, you're just judging somebody that you've never known or interacted with. So.

[Aaron]

Yeah, but. But it's even in interactions. So when I go to a job site and I don't say hi to everybody because in my, in my head I'm like, well, I'm still an outsider here. I don't want to bother them. They're just trying to do their fucking job. Like, I don't. I don't need to bug them this and that. I don't say hi like that. They don't need that. But then to them it's like, well, this guy fucking sucks. Like, he didn't even say hi to me.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, you know, you didn't give me shit. Who's this guy?

[Aaron]

So I think it bothered me because one. One part of it wasn't true.

[Breck Goen]

True.

[Aaron]

Part of it was not at all true. They were saying, you know, this, they were diagnosing me as this. And it's like, well, I, I know I'm not that I've. Because I've put in the work to not be that. So I can say like, definitely not.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But then I. I feel like what really bothered me was like, I didn't want to admit it at the time, but it's like, nah, that is true. Like, and that's not like, yeah, you.

[Breck Goen]

Just gotta take it on the chin.

[Aaron]

Anyway. Going to. You making construction better through software. Payroll software hammer. The.

[Breck Goen]

The funnest.

[Aaron]

The business world we've alluded to now for an hour and a half, but haven't actually.

[Breck Goen]

Are we on an hour and a half right now?

[Aaron]

Yeah. 9:30. Damn.

[Breck Goen]

Flying by.

[Aaron]

I told you you didn't have to prepare. I don't worry about anything.

[Breck Goen]

Aaron was. I called Aaron. I'm like, what do you want to talk about? He's like, don't prepare, dude.

[Aaron]

You said like, what?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

You really wanted to prepare a mic.

[Breck Goen]

You know, like, give me something.

[Aaron]

You have to. To. I think to serve the industry through any facet, but especially through technology, you have to understand the industry. And so I've done that through the way I've ways I've done it. You've done it. I think a very interesting way too because the first I. I met you through what builders of.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah. That's a whole nother story.

[Aaron]

But yeah, but, but that. That's how I. I feel like I came in contact with you a long time ago.

[Breck Goen]

Long time ago.

[Aaron]

You had this Instagram and I was kind of in the same world. I had. You had an Instagram page for primarily homebuilding.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

My instagram page is primarily Earth moving.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

But daily construction, originally. I remember that.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

But I think through that and through some of the other stuff you've done, you've been able to get, not just through your experience, but through the experience of others, a really good understanding of the industry, which has probably made you a lot more effective.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, when you know the people like the back of your hand, it's. I'm not going to say easy, but it is a very unique advantage.

[Aaron]

I. I think it's a prerequisite to do anything extraordinary within the space.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, you. Especially for this industry, you have to have domain expertise. I mean, whether you're an outsider like you. So you and I, we differ on the playing field that you got your industry exposure later. I got mine earlier.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Breck Goen]

And then I bought my admission into doing certain things. You did yours a little bit differently, but. Yeah, I mean, that. Builders. Vincent, when we first met each other, first off, I was like, all right, another young guy doing something in the industry. Like, this is pretty cool. Yeah. Like my exposure to meeting all my dad's connections. I mean, these are a little bit older people, a little harder to resonate.

[Aaron]

When did you start posting online?

[Breck Goen]

I think it was like 2018, maybe.

[Aaron]

Yeah. So that was about when I got.

[Breck Goen]

I think it was right around the same time as you.

[Aaron]

I got daily construction.

[Breck Goen]

2018. Yeah, yeah, go in 2017.

[Aaron]

But there wasn't, like, my point is, it wasn't that long ago, but there wasn't. There wasn't many people doing it.

[Breck Goen]

No. So the whole reason I did that in the first place is so after I graduated college, I went back and started working with my dad again. And I was just very interested at the. I. I didn't know what I wanted to start, but I was like, you.

[Aaron]

Went back to work with him, huh?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. So went back to work with him, was living at home. I also had a lot of personal stuff going on with the family, so it was just. Which I'm more than happy to get into. And it kind of breeds into the why became an entrepreneur. But I don't know if we want to go down dark alley, but go down it. No, I mean. So during that time, junior year of college, my brother was diagnosed with brain cancer. I had, like they said, six months to live. I was a wreck. I don't think there's any other way to put it. How.

[Aaron]

How. What's the age difference between.

[Breck Goen]

I think it was stage three.

[Aaron]

The age difference.

[Breck Goen]

Oh, age difference. Nine.

[Aaron]

Nine years.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Younger.

[Breck Goen]

Older.

[Aaron]

Older Older. Okay.

[Breck Goen]

So I mean this is my brother and took me on dirt bikes.

[Aaron]

I mean like, this was like the.

[Breck Goen]

Cool guy that I got to hang out with my older brother, ride bikes, like all that stuff. So that was like a very painful situation. I kind of went back to work with my dad, but also like comfort my family and I mean I was just a wreck at that point. There's no, no other way to put it. Right. Um, so I went back thankfully. I mean I, I'm. This is not to be a sob story. My brother is still around 10 years and.

[Aaron]

Oh, that's incredible.

[Breck Goen]

Six months going on. Well surpassed 10 years. Good for him.

[Aaron]

A good run.

[Breck Goen]

That's a long six months. Uh, whenever I think I have things that are hard by. I don't know if I should be comparing this situation, but it's a, it's a good reality check of, you know, doing this for more than just me.

[Aaron]

That's amazing.

[Breck Goen]

So anyways, how I kind of started that journey and kind of getting into the social media stuff is so I was always interested in the intersection of construction and tech. I just thought it was so cool. We didn't have a lot of it on the job site. This is like paper processes. My procession of my dad growing up was like a briefcase on the dining room table. So like everything was paper, everything was written down. I remember one day where he's like, all right, I'm going to show you how to use the fax machine. I'm like, I'm going to show you how to use fucking email. No, no, no, I'm not going to learn how to use that thing. So anyways, went back, worked with him kind of during that time that I had just explained and I really just wanted to learn about what problems people had. So I would stay after the job site, I would talk to the builders, like, what are you experiencing? What are the problems, problems you have, blah blah, blah. And it would just turn into like this network effect of like, hey, who do you think I should talk to? I wasn't on this journey of like, hey, I have an idea, I need to go prove it to everybody and like try to sell a solution to a, like a non existing problem. So I was just like, I was just trying to go through this discovery phase of like what exists. I really like this industry. I really want to start something that's in tech. So I want to find the intersection of these things. The whole reason that page started in the first place, place to start was because I like tapped out the network. I Talked to as many people. And then me being a millennial, I'm like, these people should be online. Can't I just message them? Not a lot of them on here, or they had a username, but it wasn't really active. And during that kind of time, I think you and I chatted about this a few years back, but I was definitely getting a sense that every company in the future is going to be a media company. We've seen this play out with all these companies, contractors on Instagram, and all these other social networks, yours. And so I bought into this belief that that was definitely going to be the case. So I was like, if I can meet people, it wasn't even at scale, but outside of my, you know, watering hole of Spokane, Washington, that might be a good idea. But I realized, like, a lot of these folks weren't posting their work. They might have a website up and everything. And I was like, I wonder if I could, like, give something first and then see if they'll have a conversation with me. But I don't just want to be like a random guy saying, hey, give me 30 minutes of your time. Who am I? And so I started posting. I would always credit them because I was like, maybe they'll get a notification, reach out. Like, oh, what's this? It got to. I mean, I still remember the days it was like, 5,000 followers. And I'm like, this is so cool. Yeah, my parents are over here. Like, what are you doing?

[Aaron]

Put us on social. I still have screenshots.

[Breck Goen]

Same. Yeah, I had my little announcements. 5,000 followers screenshots.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I've looked through, like, recently. Even, like, the analytics from back in the day. I'm like, oh, yeah, those numbers weren't so bad.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, it was pretty good. But it was also the conversations that I was having. So I started recognizing that this was working. Like, it was getting me conversations. The builders were like, this is great. You got us exposure. Like, our Instagram account was dormant and, like, we got some new followers. People. We have a bunch of photos. We may just send these to you. Yeah, absolutely. These are. These are incredible. This is kind of stuff that we worked on. But this is, like, next level really opened my eyes to kind of the. The home building industry.

[Aaron]

And this, again, this was when, like, the whole resharing thing.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, the whole resharing, yeah.

[Aaron]

Being done a lot. And you could create a ton of value. Like, that's what I.

[Breck Goen]

You could. Because a lot of these. When I started, it's transformed into something much, much different. This is Just how I started, but started sharing that it just turned into this engine. People tagging us using our hashtag. It got to a place where I was getting so many messages from people. I'm like, just use the hashtag and I'll just go through, pick them. I'll credit you. Like, I'm not just trying to siphon off of your work. And then, like, maybe I'll chat with them and like, hey, what are your issues? Blah, blah. Anyways, long story short, got a ton of traction a lot faster than I anticipate because nobody was really doing that. This is 2017, 2018. People were kind of like, hey, we should consider Instagram. I was talking to Landon yesterday, by the way. He said he got on Instagram in 2012. 2013.

[Aaron]

Landon.

[Breck Goen]

Landon from Southern Sun.

[Aaron]

Oh. Oh, yes.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

But I started reaching, killing it online.

[Breck Goen]

He has. I love that guy, man. He's such a good dude.

[Aaron]

Yeah, super good. I'm really excited to see where they go.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, same. He's. He's. I was just catching up with him at dinner. They've almost doubled their company in the last year.

[Aaron]

It's amazing. It's. It's amazing.

[Breck Goen]

It's so awesome.

[Aaron]

Their shop just burned down.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Oh, my God. But then he's such a good dude.

[Breck Goen]

He's like, well, here's what I mean.

[Aaron]

We're going to build. Here's the new shop. And actually, this is better for the company because this is what we needed in the first place. And it's just like. I mean, he was. He was. He made a video. The place. His shop was still smoldering.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And he's talking.

[Breck Goen]

I called him right after that. I'm like, dude, are you good? What's going on, man?

[Aaron]

And it's like, you're allowed to be at least 24 hours pissed off. But even. Yeah, I mean, when I.

[Breck Goen]

Even when I chat with someone, but. No, I hear you. The guy is just. He's one of the most positive people I've been around. And it's not like the toxic positivity of like. Oh, like golden retriever energy type. Right.

[Aaron]

Anyway, anyway.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. So anyway, start posting Builders of Instagram builder fences. Started.

[Aaron]

Yeah, builders.

[Breck Goen]

What that really transformed into. And then I did a couple across our other channel. We are Hammer and then podcast, which I can get into, but did that got a lot of traction. Started getting a lot of conversation. This created, like, a bunch of buzz around us where we went and did events at, like, the home building. Nhb national association of Home Builders. At their international builder show that gave a space. And I just, like, just fully immersed in the community. It was, like, the coolest thing.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Like, all these builders that I thought were really cool. I come from a residential background. Like, I have such a unique opportunity to become friends with these people and to learn. And during that time, kind of where it started, like, the first chapter of Ammer is a bunch of people just started reaching out, and they're like, hey, you post, like, the coolest builders. Can I get an introduction? And, like, as a builder, if you can attract. Or any construction company, if you can attract people based on the cool work that you do, your values, so on and so forth, they come inbound. They see that, like, that is a great qualifier for somebody that really wants to be there. Anyways, I You not. I just started creating, like, a database, like an Excel spreadsheet of people that I introduced or builders that want me to post jobs. I was doing this for no financial gain.

[Aaron]

Well, it's a. When I started, it's like civil construction, too, in the fact that it's very fragmented. Like, you've got, like, the Dr. Hortons. But that's a different.

[Breck Goen]

I'm not even talking about.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

I'm not talking about. I'm not talking about talking about track homes or anything.

[Aaron]

Like, so there's. There's a ton of builders in every metro area in the entire United States.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. So that grew. And basically I. I just felt like I was playing matchmaker for a little bit. I'd share stuff through my Instagram page. I was getting builders of exposure, which just grew like a weed.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And people would reach out, and I was like, I'm going to connect them. But then, like, where the kind of first chapter, first kind of iteration started, which is completely different from where we're at today, is I would ask these guys, I'm like, send your resume or something. Like, give me something. Just nothing. Yeah. All right. No LinkedIn profiles. Not. This is like, basically how we vetted people in the family business.

[Aaron]

Do you show up on the day and they're sober? Good. Let's go.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Jesus. Yeah. Or did your car break down that day, or is your car getting repo. I mean, so many different things. That was the qualifier.

[Aaron]

Your car's broken down four days this week.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And it's Thursday.

[Breck Goen]

I forgot to ask, do you actually have transportation? So I just started doing that, and kind of the first iteration was like, all right, we should build a LinkedIn for construction for a lot of these Workers, they didn't have digital profiles. They were really passionate about their work on and so forth.

[Aaron]

And you went and did that. That's how you first became a billionaire. And then now you're on the second.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm on my second one.

[Aaron]

So.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, just, just. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Aaron]

You're. You're like us. Like I say that I'm right there with you.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Yep.

[Breck Goen]

Billionaire. Yeah. Sipping margaritas every day. Not a care in the world today.

[Aaron]

Featuring some Scrooge McDuck, you know, swimming through the money. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I've did it.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. I don't know, maybe it just hasn't hit my bank account. Yeah. I don't know.

[Aaron]

Any day now.

[Breck Goen]

Any day now. Waiting for it.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Breck Goen]

No, that's not at all exactly how it happened. I mean, like, I mean, we killed this project. I mean the whole reason why we're working on what we're doing today is because of failed experiment really. If you look back at felt like a really noble cause to build this network for workers and to find them jobs. So like our overall thesis was in order to match the best people with the best companies, we need to build a community where they can share their skill sets. They don't really have resumes, so they need some sort of digital portfolio. We saw some people posting on, on Instagram, but it was like something hyper focus on the worker. They didn't have LinkedIn profiles like the white collar workforce, so they needed a home, really, a digital home. We grew that to about 12,000 workers on the platform.

[Aaron]

It's pretty huge. That's.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, it's not too bad. Yeah. One thing that I really understood though is that is a consumer app, right? Much like LinkedIn, much like Instagram. You need distribution very similar to what you're doing today. You have a massive distribution engine for good reason. What we learned through that is we had a really hard time finding the right type of business model. Sure there was workers engaging on there. We were really trying to build some sort of consumer app because the one thing that we. We had found two learnings from that was one, you have to have distribution because you got to get people to the app and you can't go buy users. Like buying people to join is just not scalable. It's not.

[Aaron]

PayPal did it. But that was a different time.

[Breck Goen]

That's different. You're moving money. We are just getting people to post and build some sort of data on them so that we can become, you know, a matchmaker. So our thesis Was all right, let's build a community. Let's get people active. And by data, I mean, like, get them to post photos, drop their skill sets, their experiences, because that doesn't live anywhere today. What we had learned through that process is two things. Our own Instagram account was killing us. So I did it with Builder Insta. My next thought was, I want to build something more that's oriented towards the actual construction, the labor. Everything that we do on the channel, we are hammer on Instagram. So I understood distribution was the play to get people there, and it was working. There's also diverting their attention back to the Instagram. That became. We were our own biggest competitor.

[Aaron]

Sure.

[Breck Goen]

Because we were garnering the attention there in order to drive traffic and awareness to the app.

[Aaron]

Because you. And you were doing that really well. Yeah. Huge.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. I mean, we didn't spend any money on marketing. I think we did, like, one Diamondback tool belt giveaway.

[Aaron]

Did you switch. Did you. Do you still have Builders of Insta as well?

[Breck Goen]

I still have.

[Aaron]

Okay, so you didn't. You didn't make that.

[Breck Goen]

No, no, no, no, no. So I. No, no, no, no, no. I did. No, because the audience was so built out. You had, like, when I first started, I mean, that was builders, that was designers, that was consumers.

[Aaron]

Yeah. So you couldn't.

[Breck Goen]

So I mean, that's going to be a hard switch of audience. And you're. That's fair. So it just wasn't going to work. Plus, it's like an asset, so. Which, by the way, funded my whole entire entrepreneurial journey. So, like, as that builder audience grew, you know, I was getting flown out to Vegas to do the events, and we'd have sponsors there. I wasn't really making money on the actual events, but where it did fund my initial entrepreneurial journey was doing brand deals. So I know I'm kind of, like going in a circle here, but to kind of round it out, this was the whole reason I got to San Francisco in the first place, was because of an Instagram page. If I were to simplify.

[Aaron]

Isn't that funny? Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

That's really weird.

[Aaron]

I was just in Australia for a month because of an Instagram page.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's very weird. Yeah. And I remember James Hardy reached out to me. They messaged me. Do you know who James Hardy is? No. It's like a sighting company. It's like on most houses.

[Aaron]

Okay.

[Breck Goen]

It's a big brand.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And I remember seeing the logo, green. Jh. I called my dad. I'm like, you Know James Hardy's like, yeah, it's the one on a lot of the homes that are built around here. So pretty big deal. Kind of a big deal. And I remember we launched a couple of products for them. I was kind of acting as like their social media growth kind of manager slash consultant, but also like driving traffic for their new product that was coming out. That was like a 10 or $12,000 check that was literally that funded my move to San Francisco because I had started previous projects and failed and I sold my car and did all that shit.

[Aaron]

Sure. So, but 10 grand, I mean that's, that's it is.

[Breck Goen]

And I was like, wow, there's a.

[Aaron]

Lot of money but at that point that's a shitload of money.

[Breck Goen]

It was interesting because when it's just you. Yeah, it was just me. I think my first year like actually doing that wasn't anything meaningful. Was like $30,000. But it was through an Instagram account. It was what I loved doing at the time. A lot of people were like, why don't you just get a job? I'm like, I have a long term vision here and sure I could have probably have done that, but that's just not how the cards played out that time. But yeah, so I did a lot of that. Built the builders of Instagram account. That brought a lot of opportunity. That kind of brought the initial kind of funding of this project and got me to San Francisco. That was my goal. It was like, if I'm going to build a tech company, I probably need to be around all the resources that are going to give me the utmost better chance of actually becoming a thing. Which plus I was just like very attracted to that. I'm like solo guy. I didn't have a co founder at the time. I'm like, I just want to be absolutely immersed. I was also running into a ton of roadblocks in Spokane. I mean, and then Seattle. And Seattle had like the Microsoft and the Amazon ecosystem where a lot of people had their golden handcuffs. Very people that were kind of like risk averse. I mean I was a 20 something year old. Yeah, like let's go build something. And they're like, I got a family. I'm not. You're kind of.

[Aaron]

And each city has a different vibe if you start to different. Listen, you travel enough and Seattle is very heavy. Well, Seattle, Seattle is very heavy.

[Breck Goen]

Amazon, I mean, yeah, you got Amazon campus downtown.

[Aaron]

Oh boy. And that is the center of the universe. And then you go up to the. Was it Redmond? Yeah. And then that's Microsoft World and then you go up to Everett, that's Boeing World, which is a little bit different. But I mean, they are like, that's the gravitational pull.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

The whole area is. Everything is about.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. And there's not this really. There's, at least in my experience, and at that time. It's gotten better over the years, but there wasn't this DNA of starting things. So, you know, when I moved to San Francisco, you know, you saw the Uber billboards, you saw all these exciting startups that were being created. And I have my own opinions on California for good reason. But like, for what we're doing today, it's like I want to be surrounded by those resources. It was very inspiring to be taking such a leap of faith to be surrounded by other people that their main question was like, hey, what are you working on? Not like, yeah, it wasn't anything. It was less about families and all those sort of thing was more about like, hey, what are you working on today? And I think you need to be surrounded by that to a certain degree.

[Aaron]

Now you sit in any coffee shop in San Francisco.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And you listen to the conversation to the left or the right of you.

[Breck Goen]

Yep.

[Aaron]

That's. That is what it will be.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

100% every time.

[Breck Goen]

Every time. There's nothing else. I mean, the common joke is like, oh, what, do you work in tech?

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Like it's. You don't even need to ask at that point.

[Aaron]

I like the videos that are like dating in San Francisco, like the tech bro stuff. It's like, ah, this is funny, but this is probably exactly how it is.

[Breck Goen]

It. It exists and it's getting so much traction because that is the reality.

[Aaron]

Yeah. But, yeah. So you go there and you're like, I'm gonna go build a technology product.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And if I needed, if I'm gonna build it, I need to go where people are building technology.

[Breck Goen]

Exactly. Yeah. I wanted to be surrounded by that environment, so I went there. That was kind of like the start of like my entrepreneurial journey. I wanted to move there to meet a co founder. I wasn't technical. I didn't have the actual software engineering background. I had the domain expertise. I was like, I know these people inside and out. I love these people. I have a ton of passion for this. I can sell, but that's not gonna help get a product to market. So went on a journey. I've met so many people trying to figure out. I wrote like everything down of what I wanted to see in like of years.

[Aaron]

A Couple.

[Breck Goen]

Co founder of somebody that I would want to choose to build with. But it was, it wasn't an easy journey. A lot of them, a lot of software engineers, they were kind of inundated with ideas. Like ideas, they're everywhere and they're also everywhere in San Francisco. Execution is the game. And so a lot of what I had to do is convince people and I think this is also really helpful is because I've built these audiences, the builders, Vince, the, the hammer, everything. I'm like, I'm completely immersed. I'm not showing up empty handed of saying, hey, let's go code this project and it's going to be amazing. Yeah, it was like I am completely embedded. I feel like these are my people. I love being part of this, kind of have an idea of what we should build. Given that everything that I've learned from this community, I think it's going to be like a LinkedIn for construction. That was the initial project. So we got to work after Covid that, you know, help kind of spite the user. I mean, everybody was kind of yearning for connection. Things are locked down some places more than others. So that helped us. But kind of the hurdles that we ran into. What we were kind of chatting about earlier was the Instagram page and everything became our biggest competition because we were keeping people on that platform and if we were to cross pollinate some of the content, you know, then we're posting on both. And then it was really the business model. Like I wanted to build a business, I didn't want to just build a charity. I'm probably going to get backlash for saying that. But I wanted to build something that was meaningful to me with my family, so on and so forth. Right. Like, I always had a dream to retire my parents or get to a place where I can do that because like they've given me everything that I have.

[Aaron]

So I don't think that's wrong either. I always say when people are like, when we're talking about, you know, talking about money is like, I don't know, for whatever reason, it's taboo and especially in the company. And it's like, listen, unless you are willing to work for no wage and to just do this as community service, we're going to be talking about money.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

How do you pay your mortgage? Send your kids to school?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. You got people to take care of. Right.

[Aaron]

How do you feed yourself? Yeah. How does that car get from A to B? Yeah, Money, money, money, money.

[Breck Goen]

And we were making none at that time.

[Aaron]

It's a Problem.

[Breck Goen]

It is a problem.

[Aaron]

It's a real problem.

[Breck Goen]

And, I mean, it really felt like a noble cause because everybody you would talk to, and they're like, oh, you're gonna help solve the labor shortage. All right, well, we can help provide a bridge. I don't know if I can necessarily solve the labor shortage, because that starts maybe at childhood. Maybe that's apprenticeships. Like, we're not solving that part, the whole nother conversation, but a lot of people solve.

[Aaron]

Okay, you're playing this up. Well, come on, come on, come on, come on.

[Breck Goen]

No, you just.

[Aaron]

You just didn't try hard enough, all right?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, Yeah, I didn't try hard enough. God damn it. I thought I was gonna come on here and tell you I solved the labor shortage in the workforce.

[Aaron]

I've already solved it. Sorry I beat you to it.

[Breck Goen]

Well, we're done.

[Aaron]

That's why. That's why there's bags of money laying around everywhere.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, I saw you kicking that stuff under the desk.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

But at that time, I think the next thing that we kind of were moving into is like, all right, we got workers on the platform. We should start testing the business model. Let's try, like, a staffing agency type of model. I don't know if it's necessarily just going to be job postings, because people can do that on. Indeed. And these other things. So we had started working with a few contractors, and they're like, hey, these are the roles that we're starting to fill. So we were just going through our database, you know, going through the skills that were put on these profiles and everything. The thing that we ran into is, like, these guys are just getting jobs from their uncle, their previous foreman, their supervisor. The construction companies didn't really want to pay for staffing. I think it's a lot of issues. The guys weren't showing up to the interview.

[Aaron]

Yeah, the staffing doesn't work all that well. I haven't seen it work.

[Breck Goen]

I. Yeah, the guys weren't showing up to the interviews. Profiles weren't filled out, and it sounds like I'm dogging on the guys. There was actually some great people that interviewed that may or may not have gotten a job. But the thing is, too, is, like, the staffing, too. It's like, you're not staffing like a general labor. Like, if you actually need a business to make money, you're probably going to be staffing for more of the managerial roles. The foreman's, the supervisors, the project engineers, the construction manager. So that it actually justifies the Placing costs. Right. What we ran into is there's a million boutique staffing agencies.

[Aaron]

There are.

[Breck Goen]

And people were just getting. They were circumventing the entire kind of business model. So we tested that for a little while. We just got to a place where we can't really figure out the business model here. What this had kind of basically my entire journey is just like keeping my ear to the ground, keeping a pulse on the industry, talking to people, listening, listening, not making assumptions and thinking I'm right about everything.

[Aaron]

I've never done that.

[Breck Goen]

If anything, I'm more of the person where it's like, I want to find the quickest way to prove that this thing works or doesn't. And what that kind of led into is we're running into a bunch of hurdles in terms of that business model working and everything. I really got to a point where I'm like, I don't think that there's actually a business here.

[Aaron]

And there were other people trying it too.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

There's money behind them.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

A few come to mind that they. They raised some serious rounds. Yeah. To go do this.

[Breck Goen]

Yep.

[Aaron]

They didn't, to my knowledge. No one's done it.

[Breck Goen]

No one's done it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And I think. I mean, we can get into this, but I. It sounds like a noble cause.

[Aaron]

Bought by a big company and then murdered.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Could have been. There was a couple players coming up, but, I mean, we saw a lot of holes in it. They didn't have data or buying users. And I just see it. Saw it playing out in a bad way of, like, not a sustainable business, really. I mean, because it's really hard to go displace or build LinkedIn for any industry.

[Aaron]

LinkedIn's really good.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. And you might say, like, oh, well, like, it has this type of user. It doesn't fucking matter. You have economies of scale.

[Aaron]

It's really good.

[Breck Goen]

It's really good. I'm a fan. And also, you need people to commonly come back to your site to create a business model around it. So during that time, we started hitting the ground, just boots on the ground, talking to a lot of contractor friends. What really this led into is I had a conversation. It was one conversation that kicked everything off to what we're doing. So a lot of people have probably, like, stuck out this episode and they're like, payroll. Sounds fucking boring. It is. Where it all changes.

[Aaron]

Super lame, dude.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, we love it, but we want to master the boring.

[Aaron]

But as far as importance is concerned. Pretty key.

[Breck Goen]

Pretty key. Yeah. Families need to be Paid, they need to be fed. But one conversation kind of changed everything. I went back to one of my buddies business. He was based in the Bay Area. He had a framing company, about 50 people. And kind of by chance, just like in a conversation with him, he's like, hey, my wife is just inundated with paperwork today. I don't want to touch the paperwork. I don't want to, like, do the conversation. Just come down, meet with him, and just like, you're the techie. I don't know. Like, maybe there's a better way for us to do things at this point, I'm like, I'm in discovery mode. I'm not saying no to anything because I'm gonna figure out what this next chapter for us looks like, right? And so I had went down there, I spent about three hours. She's taken me through all of her process. Everything from how they track their time, they're paying people by checks, paper time cards, OneDrive for employee information, Excel spreadsheets for trying to figure out the prevailing wage calculations, because they were doing both prevailing wage and private work. And so I just remember, like, one thing that she had told me. She's like, my mom comes in every single week with me ever since we won this prevailing wage job. We thought it was a big contract, and I fucking hate it.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

I was like, all right, that's kind of interesting. I came from a residential background, so I didn't really know a ton of those things, But I was curious enough of big contract. Said they were making money, but they hate it. What's that mean? And so I sat there in that conversation. We stayed there for about three hours with her, and I just asked her, I was like, do other people have this problem, or is this just specific to you? Because it seems like there's resources that might be out there, like, what's the real issue? And she goes, I don't know, but it sucks. And I kind of just left it that it wasn't some, like, grand. Aha. Coming away from that meeting, being like, that's exactly what we need to do. Learning from that was. I think we need to double click into that.

[Aaron]

So this was when probably like 2022.

[Breck Goen]

Because we had pivoted going into 2023.

[Aaron]

So is that when you got into Y Combinator?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, so we got into Y Combinator the beginning of 2023.

[Aaron]

So I feel like that is when I saw you got into Y Combinator because you were sharing about it or something online, maybe LinkedIn or something.

[Breck Goen]

Did we? I think we went out to dinner. Was it before that or was it after?

[Aaron]

You were down this new path at that point.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, maybe I was even in it or right after.

[Aaron]

Yeah, no, you were, you were like headed down it, but this is when you just gone down it. And I remember, I remember like, huh, that's interesting. And I remember like clicking on your website and looking at it and it was completely payroll software. I was like, huh. But I was like, they're figuring it out.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Because I think a lot of people see that, like, oh, yeah, you know, that the whole original LinkedIn for building people didn't work out. So now here's the next. Here's the next thing. And maybe it felt like that a little bit, but I saw this because I've been going through the same process.

[Breck Goen]

Sure.

[Aaron]

Iterative process as well.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And I knew it's like one that's not easy to do, to go, you know, to take something you love out back and shoot it. Like, yeah, that, yeah, that's hard. And then two, it's like, oh, again, they're figuring this out. They're barking up the right tree. And now you've had two years. Yes, over two years.

[Breck Goen]

And it definitely felt like that because we had had like a town hall with all the key members that were help in catalyzing that kind of initial idea and everything. I was so, I knew these people's families and everything, like all of this. I had written handwritten notes to a lot of people that joined. I mean not 12,000, but hundreds. I mean, I, I had, I was doing 10, 20 a day, like me personally writing them, sending them. And so it definitely felt like that, of like taking this thing out in the back and shooting it. And we had a town hall with them and saying like, hey guys, this is the reality of this situation. This is where we're going. I, I had a couple people call us out and they're like, hey, you did this for an experiment? I'm like, I mean, a little bit of a lengthy experiment. We're sleeping on couches and air mattresses. Yeah. Yeah. Like, sounds like I, I got the.

[Aaron]

Did I show up here to.

[Breck Goen]

Bit. Yeah, no. I feel like I got stiff on more if anything. But what was kind of key about that is just the transparency. I mean, one of your guys core values is transparency. And I've always been a fan of that.

[Aaron]

Transparency wins.

[Breck Goen]

Transparency wins.

[Aaron]

Always wins.

[Breck Goen]

And what's cool about that is some of the exact people that we had the town hall saying like, hey, we're sunsetting this thing, I think this is where we're going. Do any of you want to come with us? And some people were like, I love you guys. You guys care about the industry. We've seen that you guys can build things like let's, let's attach to your stitch. And some of those became our earlier customers.

[Aaron]

Nice.

[Breck Goen]

But all of that started because when we truly made the decision to kind of go down the payroll route was I didn't want to go down this experiment alley of let's go build something for the next one to two years and then try to figure out how this thing makes money. I was like, I want to try to make money or like get these stingy contractors. I mean I come from a construction background. Like my dad's frugal. Like getting him to fork over some money is like a huge vote of confidence for like anybody.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

But it's not like, it's not like asking your buddy for money too of like, hey, will you support this thing? It's like asking a complete stranger to take a bet on you for something that's probably going to be half baked of what might exist in the market. And it's going to be a process. So our goal before we got into Y Combinator was if we can get 5 to 7 paying customers before this thing actually exists. So we're going to show them designs. We're actually going to show up with like a little bit of a presentation. Here's some mock ups how this thing should work. We're definitely open to feedback. We don't have all this figured out, but if you write us a check and we get five to seven customers pay us before this thing exists, that'll be enough for us to at least start. And that was, that was going to be more money than we had made during this whole thing outside of the Instagram account stuff. Yeah. And so that was a huge vote of confidence for us. And I think probably what got us into Y Combinator in the first place of like, let's, let's just like summarize the application domain expertise found a technical co founder has customers but doesn't have a product. It's pretty good because a lot, I think a lot of people go through these accelerators or try to start a company where it's, they go build this thing and then they go try to find the, the customer. And I think that's the wrong way to do it.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I, had I been in this world and gone through some of this process, I would have saved a lot of money.

[Breck Goen]

I think, I mean, same. But I didn't learn. That was not my first at bat.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

First chapter was completely different.

[Aaron]

Sure. No, it's, you know, it's been really interesting.

[Breck Goen]

Like, if I were to do everything over again, I mean, I would have changed a lot of things, but I would have tried to figure out, like, an actual business before taking the bet.

[Aaron]

Isn't that interesting? Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Where it's like, at this point, like, I don't even care about ideas. Unless you can get to a place where, like, it's providing value to somebody or somebody is willing to fork over money for. And it's. Again, it sounds like I'm like, money, money, money. But it's also, if you can provide values to someone they're willing to exchange. Oh.

[Aaron]

That's all it is.

[Breck Goen]

It's an exchange, a transaction for you to help them, then that's a bet that you should. Or a road you should walk down and explore.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I. I've explained it as, like, for years, I was playing business, and then I started to understand what business was, which is execution.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Making money.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Being consistent. It's like, oh, this is actually way cooler. Like, hitting goals.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Is way, way cooler than looking cool. Like, I could give. I, I. I couldn't give two shits about looking cool anymore. Like, that's.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

We're done with that, man.

[Breck Goen]

It comes with the battle scars.

[Aaron]

Yeah. But I just want to hit numbers. I just want to deliver. We're not going to say they're going to be extraordinary numbers. We're just gonna. Here's the realistic numbers we can hit, and we're gonna hit them consistently. And if we do that, other things will take care of themselves.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Which, again, is just, I think, so much cooler. Which sounds obvious to somebody that's been playing the game for a while, but when you're new to the game, you.

[Breck Goen]

Got to learn those.

[Aaron]

You've got to figure.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. And it's not about you at all.

[Aaron]

It's not about you at all.

[Breck Goen]

And I think, like, what kind of resonated with me there? I think, like, the coolest thing is getting to tell a customer story. Mm. They're the hero on the journey. We're just acting as a bridge.

[Aaron]

Yes. Yes. Well, that another one of our values is the stage hands, not the stars.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So.

[Breck Goen]

And I mean, even in your office, you have all the portraits and everything from the people in the field because they're the unsung heroes. Right.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And I think that's a really cool aspect, and I Think that every business should be run like that. The business is not the hero. The customer is the hero.

[Aaron]

Yeah, the customer. The customer and the people making the business run as well.

[Breck Goen]

Yes.

[Aaron]

I think a lot of businesses and I have, I. I'm guilty of this. I have spent all of my energy focused on the industry and the people of the industry building our world and ironically haven't spent enough time focused on our people in some seasons of business. And I think that's where a lot of businesses are too, is like they've kind of forgotten who makes the whole thing work. It's like, you, you've been in the office a little too long here.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

When's the last time you were out in the field? Like, I would, I would go.

[Breck Goen]

I see.

[Aaron]

See some.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Of the work going on out there because I think we're a little far off from what actually drives this place. Like, you walk into Blattner's office and I love. They have a sign everywhere. It's. It's, you either work in the field or support somebody that does.

[Breck Goen]

And it's like, that's good.

[Aaron]

That's exactly it.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

That's how this whole thing works. This whole beautiful building with all these offices and people.

[Breck Goen]

Yep.

[Aaron]

This is overhead. They do, they do renewable energy, you know, wind and solar. I don't see a single, you know, solar panel being put in the ground here. I don't see a single wind turbine getting erected here.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

So this is all overhead.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And I think companies recognizing that too, definitely focus on the customer and focus on. On their people making. Making it happen for the customers.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. And I think that's what switched with us when we got into Y. Conrad chose to go down the payroll HR route is. I mean, a lot of the conversations that we had in the beginning still do actually, like every day it was just overworked people in the office, disjointed tools, very burnt out team members. Like I remember, this is actually pretty recently, this HR payroll manager that I was chatting with, she's like, the owner does not know that I'm working on weekends. What are you doing weekends? I'm preparing for payroll. That was not glamorous work by any means. Yeah, it actually fucking sucks.

[Aaron]

And it's often run every week.

[Breck Goen]

Every week? Yeah.

[Aaron]

Which is different for other businesses. Other businesses are every two. But yeah, it's every week.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, she's living in Excel spreadsheets. They do both public and private work. And so she's trying to figure out the rates, doing all the calculations Run her Excel formulas, trying to figure out where the hours came from. There's a mix of, you know, maybe using apps or using paper and she's just preparing payroll. And a lot of what we help with too is pending the cost of inaction. There's a cost to every workflow that exists, whether using software or using some outdated workflow, which I'm sure you've seen too. Yeah, no, no.

[Aaron]

It's like most of the US infrastructure built on Excel maybe, but maybe not.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, yeah. And that's the reality that we're working with. And I think that's what got us really excited because like, long story short, our biggest competitors today are ADP in an Excel spreadsheet.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Maybe some apps here and there.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Maybe a configuration of like Bamboo HR and some of these other ones. But they're all like, they're not built for the industry and they're configured, they're disjointed, they don't work together. You have these softwares that aren't cloud based on.

[Aaron]

Your advantage too is you can cater specifically to the industry, 100% people. Whereas an ADP, they don't fucking care.

[Breck Goen]

No, they don't care.

[Aaron]

Catering to a thousand different industries.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. And I also think it's. Sure it is messaging, but it's also like the technical capabilities too of like when you see these ADP implementations or some of these generic payrolls, one, they're not built to fit the workflows of construction. So whether it's getting data from the field, they're very generic apps or the payroll system, they don't handle things very well like prevailing wages and, and fringe benefits and calculations and all these overtime rules that can be different for a cross contractor. So all this like boring mundane stuff, they say it can be configured. It's really not comes with failed implementations. And then it's like, hey, they told us we had to go hire a consultant to try to get this thing figured out. It's like the product is not built for that workflow. It's why you are stuck in an Excel spreadsheet.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

That's just the reality of it. And so that's why, that's why we chose to hyper focus on that. Like most of our customers today, their goal is to generate a labor report. It's I want everything to calculate our fringe benefits, our prevailing wages. We do both public and private work, we do infrastructure work and we need to generate all these labor reports every single work week. Work. And they need these certified payroll reports. And it's Everything is manual through that process. Sure. Talk to teams every week. All right, Maybe you got a configuration of paper, or maybe they're using some, like, time tracking solution. All right, I got to extract that data. Let me put it into our Excel sheet. Let me manually key this into our payroll system because it doesn't work with our tools. And then I got to go fill out these government reports because, you know, we're mandated to.

[Aaron]

Yeah, well, it's just a pain in the ass. And that's a whole can of worms, too. Like, you learn about prevailing wage, you're like, oh, that's great.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, the work, some of the workers love it. They get paid pretty well. I think it's competitive advantage, but also there comes at a cost on overhead, too. So, like, when people come to us and they're like, hey, we're thinking about breaking into prevailing wage, I'm like, you have a lot to learn. I don't think we're the best solution today. Because you don't want to automate the things that you don't see or that you've never experienced. Because just certifying that payroll sounds great in practice, but if you don't understand the inner workings of that or how you arrive at those numbers or you can't manually reconcile those things, like, you're not only getting slapped on the wrist with a penalty, but you could just be kicked off that site in the first place.

[Aaron]

It's again, I. I think it's like we're. We're chasing the same tennis ball in a lot of ways, in completely different ways. But it's, it's all. This is fun seeing what you guys. It's fun seeing from, from my perspective, because you start with a Instagram page and then you end up in payroll software. And it's like, how are those two things connected, Aaron?

[Breck Goen]

When I was six, I knew, I want to start payroll.

[Aaron]

Yeah, I'm just passionate about payroll, man.

[Breck Goen]

Maybe it was like, hey, I'm tired of delivering these paper checks to Safeway parking lots and sitting here in the heat for the guys to pick up.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Breck Goen]

I don't know, maybe that's where it was planted in me. I have no idea. But, yeah, wake up thinking, I was going to do that, I guess, but.

[Aaron]

That it, it is what makes the world go around. Like, if people don't get paid, you've got some upset individuals, rightly so, because they're, you know, whoever their mortgage is through. It's like, oh, oh, you didn't get paid. Oh, no worries. You can just pass next month. Like, that's not how it works.

[Breck Goen]

Nope.

[Aaron]

We're coming for you. Yep. We're coming for you. Your house is ours, Buster. No if, ands, or, but, like, there's. There's a lot there. But I think all this is to illustrate too. It's like, one, solving problems is messy. And two, there's a lot of opportunity in construction with all the inefficiencies. And again, that's what we're after as well, is where are these opportunities and how can we serve the industry by making them more efficient, effective. Like we're. I'm not here to tell somebody how to build a bridge better. They've got that figured out. You guys do a pretty good job of that. You put asphalt down just fine, Pour concrete, move dirt, light pipe. You keep doing that, we're just gonna help you do it more effectively.

[Breck Goen]

Yep. That's it.

[Aaron]

It's that easy. Anybody can do it.

[Breck Goen]

Sure.

[Aaron]

So. Oh, yeah, I'll call you when we make money. Just don't hold your breath. No, we're doing just fine.

[Breck Goen]

I mean, it's a process.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And I think that's one thing that you guys have learned too, is like, you're constantly evolving as an organization. Right. You fully leaned into the tech side of things with the product that you guys are building today.

[Aaron]

Yeah. If you traced our journey from. And I couldn't have told you it would end up this way, but me again, sharing on Instagram tractor pictures that I would take without permission around Dallas Fort Worth, primarily in Phoenix with a drone. We would do a very shitty job editing logos off and would just put them on the Internet. From that to we have a leadership conference. Wouldn't have thought we'd be in the event space, but here we are. And then we have a training and development software, you know, daily improvement type. Type software platform. It's like, huh, okay. But I think we're similar in the fact that we've always had, like, I struggle a little bit when people are like, oh, you've been so wish washy. It's like, as a business. Sure. However, we've always said that we're going to make the industry better.

[Breck Goen]

Yep.

[Aaron]

That's been the goal the whole time. That I have never been inconsistent about that one point. You cannot point to a single data point that says I've been inconsistent about that. We've been inconsistent about that as a business. That said, like, has it been messy? Sure. Have we made a lot of mistakes? Sure. Have we gone down a lot of rabbit Holes. Absolutely. But we've always been 100% dedicated to this one thing, and I think that's where you are as well, is like, I've got. Always been dedicated to making this world better.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

I just. It's just taken me some time to figure out how. And you're still figuring it out, which I, again, is. That's the whole point. That's the whole process. The only way to actually do it. Very good.

[Breck Goen]

I think it's just a process of serving your customer. That's. I think, where a lot of people kind of get off track is they fall in love with so much of the idea of the product where they're trying to fill some sort of need or void or something. They really lose track of the customer.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Breck Goen]

I think that's where things go.

[Aaron]

Yeah. I agree.

[Breck Goen]

The wrong direction.

[Aaron]

I agree.

[Breck Goen]

Or they chase too many different things. Yeah. Guilty as trouble. Which.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. I mean, all of us are. We're entrepreneurs. Like, we want to explore new ideas. That's probably what gets us fired up. But mastering the mundane is the key in all of this, really.

[Aaron]

To bring this home. The business.

[Breck Goen]

It's called Hammer H A M M.

[Aaron]

R. But no E. We didn't know.

[Breck Goen]

How to spell it, and so I accidentally bought the wrong domain. And that E was $285,000. So I was like, it doesn't really fit the budget.

[Aaron]

Yeah. So is hammer.com was 285,000?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. And somebody else has that now.

[Aaron]

Yeah, sure.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. So how to just slash the E off and call it a day.

[Aaron]

Okay, fair enough. And then you have a podcast.

[Breck Goen]

Podcast. Bred to build. Construction.

[Aaron]

Podcast to build.

[Breck Goen]

Yep.

[Aaron]

Which I'll try to get on to at some point.

[Breck Goen]

We would love to have you. It's only been three, four years in the making.

[Aaron]

I know. Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

I'm actually kind of surprised that it took this long for us to do this. Yeah. It's just.

[Aaron]

I don't. I feel like it's just been a result of, like, we're both busy.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. I mean, I think we've both kept up with each other's journey of, like, all right, yeah, you're out doing your thing, I'm doing mine. We'll catch up when, like, it. When it happens. I don't know. I. I think, like, what's kind of brought us closer is both the. Especially, like, you're going after, like, purely the tech stuff, you know, with kind of the recent announcements and everything, and I think that's probably brought us a little bit closer, but know, we're just, like, in the trenches together, and it's kind of cool seeing each other's journey. And.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

You know, I remember three, four years ago, that first conversation of, like, hey, you're building a cool Instagram page.

[Aaron]

Yeah. What's your page, bro?

[Breck Goen]

What's your vision? Like, I don't know, like, build a community and see where it takes us. And. Yeah, I don't know. We believe media is kind of important, and. Yeah, well, all right, see you in a couple years. And then, like, through that process, I was like, we both haven't died. Like, that's pretty cool. We're still in the industry. We're not hopping from industry to industry. It's like, I think that's one thing that I've really respected you, too. And other people that, they just. They love a domain and they're just gonna figure it out. Mm.

[Aaron]

No, I. Again, I've. I've had the benefit of seeing all the other stuff so I don't have to think about it. I don't have to be like, well, what if. Like, what if I got into, like, big business? Or, what if I did real estate? You know? I don't see it. Like, it's not for me. Yeah, this is it, and this is gonna be it until the day I die. I have never been more sure about one thing. That's probably the only thing I'm sure about is, like, this is it, man. And I've seen a lot. I mean, yeah, I'm 30 years old, but I've been to more places than most people. I've met more people than most people in a lifetime at this point. So it's like, yeah, this is it. I don't need to think about anything else.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. And it's cool that you guys have figuring out that lane, too, because I can very much resonate. It's like, when you feel something, when you have customers that are raving about something, it's a very reassuring thing. And then you start living vicariously through your customer of, like, again, they're the hero. We're just the bridge. They're getting a lot of success using our platform that does xyz. That is a very reassuring thing that finally we've been able to feel tuned. Seems like you guys have, too, which is. I think that's very addicting, too.

[Aaron]

It's the coolest thing.

[Breck Goen]

It's the coolest thing.

[Aaron]

Oh, cool.

[Breck Goen]

You get an email from somebody or phone call, and you're. They're like, I got my nights back.

[Aaron]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Like, hey, I'm a new controller. Like, this is our specific experience. I'm a new controller. We came in to revamp things and like they look amazing in front of their team. It's like you came in to revamp these systems, you put something in place. One, you took a bet on a startup over like a big payroll company and it's completely changed the direction of a company. Yeah, that's freaking cool to us.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's, it's the coolest. To create legitimate value and change in the world.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Even this morning, it's not product example, but it was like a guy, he just reached out randomly on LinkedIn. He's like, hey, can I introduce you to somebody? Like, yeah, absolutely. Because I kind of know him, but I haven't talked to him in years. And in the email then he was like, I was watching his videos with my kids the other day and I thought I should introduce you to for this reason. And I was like, that is cool. Like, that's so cool that I have the ability to create that opportunity. That is like him and his kids watching something. They're excited.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And his kids learning about how the world works. Like, right, man, that's awesome.

[Breck Goen]

That's why you do it. It's less about like the billion views, it's more about the impressionable kid that says something good about what you guys are doing or gets a nugget.

[Aaron]

The views. I don't, they, they don't get me excited one bit. It's, it's, it's that stuff that is just the coolest damn thing. Or I went to that, that show again on Sunday and there were these toddlers, these young kids that had drawn me a dump truck and they were so excited to meet me because they watch all of our videos. Yeah. And then I met a bunch of old guys in their 60s and 70s that were so excited to meet me because they watch all our videos and it's like, that is amazing. Like, there's seven decades.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, we're covering a lot of ground here.

[Aaron]

Yeah, yeah. That people are just like the one.

[Breck Goen]

Thing that those guys can resonate with the younger generation, 70 and the seven year old and both like, we love this.

[Aaron]

Yeah, it's so cool. It's just awesome. And then on the product side of things, if we can make people better, like even Dan was making a note this morning. He was like, yeah, I was just watching a video on like how important protein is and I'm not getting enough protein. And it's like, this is the kind of stuff that really makes a difference in this world. Like the safety stuff, equipment stuff, job based off cool. It's important. But like this is what changes lives. Teaching people how to be a little healthier, teaching people how to take care of themselves mentally. You know, we have a lot of mental health stuff to talk about. Pill addiction, alcohol addiction, suicide. Like stuff that is not being talked about. And it is being talked about, but not in like a helpful way. It's like we need to talk about it.

[Breck Goen]

It's like being talked about in a generalized sense of like industry has this thing. It. But it's bad.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Like we, we did a, we did an episode a while back with this guy named Garrett. I don't remember the podcast episode. So if anybody wants to go check it out, they'll go and find it. But we had chatted with him and you know, he had a, he had a drug addiction. Alcohol addiction.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

He talked a little bit about toxic masculinity in the construction industry, which I mean people probably have their opinions on. I have my opinions on it too to a certain degree. But there's sometimes in construction you just don't have the environment to deal with personal problems like a lot of people have talked about. You know, leave your problems at home, don't bring them to the job site. I don't really think that's fair. Should you come to the job site with maybe a sob story? Probably not.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

But, but I think like providing, like, yeah, it's a great, it's going to be a great area for any, any industry. Right. But I think like being able to cater to the realities of that and you as an employer making sure that you're providing resources to your people to be healthier people.

[Aaron]

And that's the, I think that's the big thing that's missing right now though.

[Breck Goen]

I think it is too because people like to talk about the problem. They're not actually doing it within their.

[Aaron]

Well, Australia just had Are you okay? Day. It's R, the letter R. U, U. Okay. And they do a big, actually a really good job getting it across the whole industry. It's quite impressive. They're a lot further along in a lot of ways than.

[Breck Goen]

Than we are.

[Aaron]

Their mining makes our mining look third world in a lot of ways. So they have this are you okay? Day. But I was really thinking about it and you know, you go around and like if you're mentally unwell, this or that, but it's like, shouldn't it be. If you're not okay, why are you not okay, like, shouldn't we also be asking that? Or like, you know, I think within this gray area. So if a guy comes to the job site and his wife last night just said, we're getting a divorce, is he probably in a productive, safe mental state? Probably, probably not. So should there be room for that conversation or should there be room for that level of understanding? A hundred percent. I think that's in not just their best interest, but everybody else's best interest, especially if they're running equipment or putting other people potentially in a hazardous situation when their mind's not right. But should we also ask, well, why did his wife ask for a divorce? And that's, you know, that's a can of worms. But could it, you know, could one of the factors be that he's been working 80 hours a week for three months now?

[Breck Goen]

Could be away from the family? There's maybe a lot of things behind that.

[Aaron]

Maybe. I don't know. But it's like, shouldn't we be asking why? Like, you with your discovery mode, you know, you're in this discovery mode. It's like, why are we not in a discovery mode of like, yeah, why are so many people killing themselves? Like, I don't see anybody asking why. It's like, well, we're taught for suicide. That's terrible. We need to talk about it. Okay, yeah, we need to talk about it. But one, people don't know how to talk about it. You don't know how to talk about it. So how do we talk about it? Where do we start? And then two, it's like, why are so many people killing themselves? Yeah, why are so many people overdosing on drugs? We're number one by a mile for drug overdose. Well, that's because they're just addicts.

[Breck Goen]

Huh?

[Aaron]

So they're just addicts. Not my problem. And it's just. That's that, well, could the work be potentially facilitating some of this? Like, could their bodies be broken so that they then have to go to a doctor and get a script for Oxy or something like that? And then they get hooked on it like that, because, boy, is that shit addictive. And then the script runs out. They're somewhere else. They don't want to go back to the doctor. They can't go back to the doctor. So you just get some pills from your buddy who you trust. You've been working with Chuck for three years. You know, this guy, he's not going to give you. He's not a drug dealer. You go get these pills, next day, you're dead. Well, they're just an addict. Well, why. Yeah, maybe they are, because you are attracting people at the, at the bottom of the barrel within this industry in some ways. Which is, which is fair.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

And, and, but, but then, is that just reality? Like, all these people are just shitheads?

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Like, but then that's our view of people. Like, you know, you can quickly, like, I think part of the problem, but it's like you can ask why? And start to just dig through it a little bit and be like, oh, okay.

[Breck Goen]

I'm sure there's a bunch of different employers doing this, but one example that I love is my podcast. CO host, Keith Jr. Works at K and L Industry. One thing that I love about them is I think what you and I are talking about right now is like, the generalization of mental health, suicide, some of these other things people love. It feels good to talk about the topic, but, you know, maybe people aren't putting in the actual effort to address it head on with their own organization. What I'm arriving at is the one thing that I've admired about K and L Industries is they're taking their people out on retreats. They employ their second chance, second chance employer. So people that have been down, you know, the wrong alley, let's just say second chance employer. And they talk about this openly and willingly. Because Keith Jr. Now the CEO of K&L, also went on this, like, five, ten year journey that was also a drug addict.

[Aaron]

That's.

[Breck Goen]

And is now. Is now sober. So what I'm arriving at is, sure, maybe the owner's story resonates and makes people feel like they have a home because they are a second chance employer. But in light of that, they're actually addressing the issue. They're not ignoring the fact of, like, oh, this will never happen to us. Like, our people don't have this. It's like people could be dealing with a million things. They might be addicted to whatever it is, or dealing with, like a personal struggle. Struggle. I mean, humans are messy.

[Aaron]

Yes.

[Breck Goen]

And you should address it.

[Aaron]

Well, but that's why it hasn't actually been addressed. I think it's because it requires the leadership within this industry to deal with their shit.

[Breck Goen]

Mm.

[Aaron]

That's what's required. He's dealt with his shit.

[Breck Goen]

He has. Yeah, that.

[Aaron]

That. That's where it all starts. Yeah, that's where it all starts.

[Breck Goen]

And I think it's having empathy for the people too. Where it's not like, hey, leave your shit at home.

[Aaron]

Well, because you've dealt with Your.

[Breck Goen]

Because you've dealt with your shit.

[Aaron]

You have that level of empathy, and.

[Breck Goen]

You have that level of empathy, but you're also willing to have an open conversation. So, like, furthermore, like, what they do, it sounds like I'm kind of like tooting their horn or being like, rah rah about them, but I've just like, seen some really amazing things they do. They. They do financial planning for these guys. Another, like, it's more than just like a safety training.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

Or this is how you swing a hammer, for lack of better words. This is how you rake asphalt. It's like, how do you design an experience for your people where they feel like they have the physical and emotional safety to talk about their shit. To talk about financial planning, because that's important. I feel like a lot of guys in the industry probably ignore that, but, like, financial planning, relationships, just like so many different areas that I don't think, like, a lot of employers really touch on because it's like, oh, those are your personal things. No.

[Aaron]

And financial planning for this world is so key because it's again, going back to the example of, well, you know, his wife just asked for divorce. Well, there's a lot of divorces that start with money. And we could say, well, I can't control how people spend their money. That's their decision. Well, who's taught them how to.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

How to. How to. How to. How to. How to do anything with money.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. I mean, that's a point that they've made. And if you talk to Keith, goes by Junior, but if you talk to him today, he'll say, like, a lot of the guys that come in, like, had a no sense of, like, actually being smart with their money. Like, they're getting paid on that Friday or they're blowing it and they're back on Monday.

[Aaron]

I know, but we. There's a lot of people that criticize that.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Aaron]

Wait a minute.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

That's not their fault.

[Breck Goen]

No. They just haven't been taught anything differently.

[Aaron]

They don't know any better.

[Breck Goen]

And I'm not even just talking about the construction labor force to this amongst a lot of Americans that don't have the financial literacy.

[Aaron]

Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

To do any of these things.

[Aaron]

Right.

[Breck Goen]

Or it's like, way too. Yeah. Or it's way too intimidating. Or they just don't know where to start. And that's one thing that I've, like, admired about this specific organization. I think there's a lot of probably other organizations we could probably even talk about. Sergeant Too. They probably do a Great job.

[Aaron]

Go down the list. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Breck Goen]

And you probably have even more than.

[Aaron]

Out on this podcast. Yeah.

[Breck Goen]

As you should, because they're great examples of those things.

[Aaron]

Sergeant. They're employee owned. Yep. So yeah, they're by, like built into the system. They're creating wealth for their people.

[Breck Goen]

But I think those are all examples of like, the things that you should be doing as an employer to take better care of your people. It's less about like, hey, come serve us, do the work so that we can make money and sure, we'll give you your paycheck. It's like if you truly invest in your people, they're going to feel like they have a sense of home, community, camaraderie. But also they also recognize that the employer has their best interests in mind too. And that's a very empowering feeling.

[Aaron]

But the employer has to have a sense of humility or it doesn't work. They have to go first. Yeah, yeah, they have to. Like the financial example, a 27 year old male will not, probably, probably not say, I don't know how to do anything with money because that's pretty emasculating. Like you're the provider for your family and so to admit you don't know how finances work, it's like, that's a pretty vulnerable position to be in.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Or to admit that I've got a problem, you know, especially alcohol or something like that. Probably not going to do that. And so what I mean by, like, the employer has to create opportunities for them to have those discussions and for them to even understand. Like, oh boy, I don't know how to manage money. But I don't feel helpless because here's a resource that I can actually put to work. That's not some bullshit program offered to me by some bullshit 401k provider or, you know, insurance company with the medical stuff. Like, those aren't real benefits because they suck. Like, try using them. Try using the benefits you offer. If they suck, they suck for everybody else. Like, that's advice for employers. Like a lot of your benefits, they're not benefits because they're so hard to use and so cumbersome. And we're there too. But I think we have, we have great people in the financial world that help us out, that our whole team has, they have their number. You don't even have to tell me you're calling them. Just call them, please. Please just call them. We have Build well U Turn Health with Rich Jones. It's a program. Here's a number you or anybody in your family can use this, we don't even know about it for anything. It can be addiction, it could be stress, anxiety, whatever it is. Relationship problems. You just call them and they're gonna at least talk to you about it. And I've used it with my family. It's been, it's been great. You know, it's, it's, it's like because. Do we have a solution through our insurance carrier? Yeah, we do. Is it worthless? Yeah, it is.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah.

[Aaron]

Is it going to give you more mental health problems to try to use? Like, yes. You know, like it's a joke, but not. I don't want to touch that shit. Yeah, but that's the kind of stuff that I think sets us apart.

[Breck Goen]

Yeah, you got to create the environment for the people. They're not going to create it themselves.

[Aaron]

Okay. I think that's a podcast.