← The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk
The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk
678: Jamie Siminoff (Ring Doorbell Inventor) - Shark Tank Rejection, Selling to Amazon for $1 Billion, Surviving $3M to $480M Hypergrowth, Hiring Passionate People Over Experts, and Jeff Bezos's Leadership Lessons
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- [00:03]
Ryan Hawk
Welcome to the Learning Leader show. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com now on to tonight's featured leader. Jamie Simonov is an entrepreneur, inventor, and the founder of the home security company Ring. He's best known for appearing on Shark Tank, getting reject, only to later sell his company to Amazon for over a billion dollars. During our conversation, we discuss why Jeff Bezos wrote the first book endorsement he's ever done and why he called Jamie, Quote, a real builder, scrappy, original and unsatisfied with the status quo. So cool. And then Jamie talks about the exact hiring filter he uses. He calls it looking for, quote, marathon runners and why it's not about resumes or pedigree for him. And then we want deep on a CEO or senior leader having a frontline obsession. Jamie still has his email address on every ring doorbell you buy. It's crazy. He's always talking with customers and is constantly working on making things better. I love it and I think you're gonna love this conversation with with Jamie Siminoff. This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. I love the leadership team and the people at Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit insightglobal.com learningleader today to learn more. That's insight global.com learningleader I read that Jeff Bezos said Jamie quote is a real builder, scrappy, original and unsatisfied by the status quo. He's poured his missionary spirit into this book and his story is a real world primer on founder mentality. What did it mean to you to have Jeff Bezos say that about you?
- [02:41]
Jamie Siminoff
It's pretty cool. I mean, I'd say like, there's some pretty cool things that have happened in my life and pretty amazing ones that I pinch myself. That one was definitely a pinch myself moment. I mean, I asked Jeff, you know, when I wrote the book, I said, I wrote a book on the story of Ring and I said, you know, would you do something for the back cover and read it? And you know, I'd say, like a lot of people, you'd think like that would just sort of do some sort of can thing or have someone in their comms group sort of come back to you and say here you go. Which I still would have been by the way, humbled by. But Jeff is Jeff and he did it and read it and looked at it and you know, wanted to have his own very curated quote that's from him. And so it was pretty incredible. And I don't, I don't think he's ever done any other book back jacket like that. So in a lot of ways it was, it was humbling and incredible.
- [03:30]
Ryan Hawk
We're skipping ahead and we'll get there. But I'm curious, I remember I had the founder of Whole Foods on. So he negotiated with Bezos and John Mackey and that was a fun conversation. What was the negotiation like because you eventually sold your company for over $1 billion to Amazon. How involved was he? What were the conversations like? I'd love to go inside the process of that transaction.
- [03:54]
Jamie Siminoff
Yeah. So for our transaction, which happened after Whole Foods, I think they learned that, you know, Jeff just loves entrepreneurs. And so I think they learned to keep Jeff out of the negotiations because he does. I think he's like, and I love entrepreneurs. Like I, it's, I find it hard when you're, you know, to negotiate hard with someone who you respect is, is that's pretty hard to do. Yeah. Because it's like, you know, Jeff's a builder, he is an inventor. So for ours like we worked with like the corp dev people and yeah, it was a little bit sort of more how you to picture like one of these deals going that said they were very like, they understood we were a startup, they leaned in. You know, these are never, they're never easy. I mean you're selling a company for over a billion dollars. There's a lot of, lot of emotion on all sides that takes place.
- [04:39]
Ryan Hawk
So you could have kept going without them. Personally, it's probably really hard to pass up the money. Amazon is one of the biggest and best companies in the world and of all time. It's their founder, right. As we're talking about is also someone that I think is well respected by all and has built something incredible. Why say, okay, yeah, I'm going to go join them or be a part of them or sell to them as opposed to saying, no guys, let's just keep doing this on our own.
- [05:04]
Jamie Siminoff
Hardware companies take a lot of cash, so balance sheet matters. We grew when we started revenue 3 million 30 million, 174 80. Which by sounds like to anyone listening, like that's amazing. Like, what a great growth. But the problem is, when you think about it, is how do you go from 170 to 480 is you're buying, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of products when you're selling less than that at that time. So you're basically always, in some ways going out of business if sales growth slows because you're over ordering in order to sell. And so we were in a position where we were going from 480 to over a billion. As great as that was, when we were selling, it's like anything that happened in the market, we were toast. It's like on a motorcycle going 200 miles an hour. If a leaf falls down and hits me, I'm dead. And so at Amazon, we say, hey, we need another billion dollars to order stuff for next year and we're growing. They're like, okay, sure, what else do you want? And again, it's just because compared to their balance sheet, just the size of ring compared to Amazon, it just was able to tuck in and fit in. So from that side, I really wanted my mission to make neighborhoods safer. I wanted to keep sort of doing that. I wanted to be the world's largest home security company. I wanted to have a huge impact, and I did not want to ace the thing into the ground, which was a very likely scenario. If we kept going alone, looking back, I think we probably would have been fine because you can, again, you can see how the capital markets were. You can see how the growth was. I mean, like, you can kind of see everything now. But I'd say with the information we had at the time, it was a great decision. And I'd say what we did with the business has been great. I mean, like, the impact we've had has been incredible.
- [06:47]
Ryan Hawk
It's crazy to think from an outsider's perspective, you're like, oh, he's making whatever they're doing. 500 million bucks a year in revenue. Obviously, this dude's crushing it. He's probably being able to relax, enjoy life, you know, go to work and work hard or whatever. But it sounds like that sounds amazingly stressful to have a company doing that much in revenue and yet could die at any moment.
- [07:10]
Jamie Siminoff
Our growth was so fast that it's what kind of killed us. And it's. And it's such a weird, irrational thing because you're right. Like when you hear it, oh, we did 500 million this year, people are like, oh, that guy's rich. That company. They must be worth a fortune. And it's like, sort of. Yes, but. But again, the other side is if sales went down 20%, that's 100 million in sales on a company that just doesn't have the balance sheet. We just didn't have it. And so it was super scary. And at some point, I just got to the point where it's like, do you want $1.15 billion or to keep trying to go with this thing? In some ways, almost like Vegas where you're putting your money on black and you double and you double and you double. And at some point you're like, I'll probably lose if I keep doubling.
- [07:55]
Ryan Hawk
I'm curious. This balance of you are a scrappy inventor, you're a builder. That doesn't always mean you're going to be a good business person. In a lot of cases, they're not, right? It's like one or the other the great musician, but they don't understand how to set up, so they have to hire other people. How is that for you being this scrappy inventor, this builder? I don't know. It sounds like you know what you're talking about.
- [08:19]
Jamie Siminoff
It's funny when you say it like that. So I think I am a great inventor. And I said, like, still humbly, but, like, I have, I guess, a track record that's, you know, decent of inventing things that never existed that have done pretty well. So I'm going to, like, take that. And then I've done a lot of invention around how to, like, build a company fast, like, how to allow it to scale fast, like the invention on that. What's interesting is that if you're trying to, like, follow this, there's a lot of people that made more money than me, and I'm fine. I'm not like, trying to complain, but because they're more business people, like, they would have looked at how to operate ring from a more profitable. Because, like. But I was deluding myself with raising money and I like. And there was ways to sort of engineer it to make more money as me, if I had looked at it in that way. But I didn't care. All I wanted to do was grow it fast, get product out there, build more product, invent more things. And so I kind of like, see that there's something like business people. And I always say there's like, different types of entrepreneurs. I'm more of an inventor entrepreneur. There's entrepreneurs who are like, literally business entrepreneurs. There's people that, like, we've never heard of that have just crushed it because they're Just maniacal business people. I am not a maniacal business person. I am maniacal on product and that I bring invention into, like how we run the company.
- [09:34]
Ryan Hawk
I was reading that you're hiring people from Craigslist. You're trying to find people that maybe something's happened in their life. They're scrappy themselves, they're humble, they're going to work. Can you walk me through maybe earlier in your time, what you look for when hiring other than like the table stakes of they got to be able to do X. Right. But I'm talking about attributes of people as well as maybe how that's evolved, if it's evolved over time. When it comes to hiring more people to work with your companies, I still
- [10:03]
Jamie Siminoff
try to hire people just based on passion. Like you said, there is like a table stakes. Like if you're there to do C plus programming, like, it turns out like you kind of need to know C programming. Like there are some things that are like, you have to be able to do the job. But for most jobs, I'd say, and especially with AI, by the way, AI has made it so by the way, C programming, you don't need to know C programming, just go to frigging cloud code. So I do think passionate people that care, that want to succeed at whatever the mission is, those are the people you want to hire. So I always say it's for me, it's marathoners. It's like someone who wants to run a marathon. Marathons are the dumbest thing that any human could ever do. Even if you win it, no one cares. I did the Boston Marathon twice. So stupid. 30,000 whatever people run it. I finished like 22,000 place and I'm so proud of myself. It's like my proudest moment is alone finishing the Boston Marathon in 22,000 place that I worked a year for, training every day and spending hours doing it. And so like you want those people that whatever they're doing, they care about getting the mission done. And so if you can find those people, and especially with AI democratizing like all information, just fill your business with those people and they. You'll crush anything.
- [11:21]
Ryan Hawk
How did you and how do you find those people? What do you ask? In the interview process. People are getting better at trying to fool others. So how do you make sure you're finding those people?
- [11:31]
Jamie Siminoff
There's two ways to do it. One is, again, I just sit with them and talk to them. I don't have like specific questions and all this stuff. I just want to listen to, like what Are they saying. What are they saying in their lives? I tell them what our mission is. Like. Our mission is to make neighborhoods safer. Like, do you want to work on making neighborhood safer? I'm like, because if you don't, you're going to be miserable here. You're going to hear it every day. You're going to be like, rolling your eyes. You don't have to care about that. Like, not everyone does. But if you do great, you're going to love it. And if you don't, you're going to hate it. So it's always like, start with a mission. I hire fast and I fire faster. And I think, like, the reality is I haven't figured out a way, and maybe it's my own failure in interviewing to raise the percentage of finding the best people versus finding, to your point, the people that say, like, oh, I'm super passionate. Oh, my. I love making neighborhoods safer. Oh, I'm like, it's my life's mission. And then they come in and they just. You tell. They just hate it. And so, you know, if you hire fast and fire faster, like, I certainly don't like firing people. Like, I don't. I don't like the impact on their lives, on their families, but get them out quickly.
- [12:34]
Ryan Hawk
Have you found certain things that have increased your batting average? Maybe it's they've actually run marathons. Maybe it's they've had a rough upbringing or a great one.
- [12:42]
Jamie Siminoff
The best is when someone's referred by someone because they usually feel guilty. Because we're very transparent. Here's what it's going to be. Here's what we're going to do. Here's how we work. If you hate that, don't come here. And I think when someone's referred by their uncle, by their whatever, that, like, they don't want to let them down. And so I have found that referrals once. I don't like referrals. You don't want to make an organization that's like, oh, you have to be the friend of Jamie to get in. But the other side is, I think there is a thing with referrals where they don't want to let you down. Whereas someone who's just like, sort of off the street, doesn't know anything, no connection, maybe just doesn't have that same level of care.
- [13:26]
Ryan Hawk
Where does this mission from yours come from?
- [13:29]
Jamie Siminoff
So, you know, it's funny. We started. I invented this. You know, I was in my garage. I couldn't hear the doorbell. I'm working on other Stuff, I just got an iPhone. I literally build a video doorbell. I just built it to like, so I could hear the door. My wife says it makes her feel safer at home again. The adventure in me was like realized when she said that that the way people were doing home security up until that point was not looking at it from an efficacy side. They were looking at it from like a marketing and getting a contract for the home side. I don't blame them. Technology had changed. All sorts of stuff had happened. But with having the phone, with being able to be connected to your home at any time, you needed a whole new set of things. And I realized like, these things can make neighborhoods safer. They can actually reduce crime in neighborhoods. Like, my head kind of exploded. And that is why Ring became so big. It's why it became probably the world's largest home security company, which I think it is today. Because I didn't like, you know, say like, oh, I'm going to build the best doorbell in the world. I'm going to build the best video doorbell. I'm going to get patents. Like, it was like, we're going to change the way home security's done with this like new thing that just happened, which was basically the phone.
- [14:40]
Ryan Hawk
Now, I mean, I've got one, everyone's got them. It's like, well, yeah, obviously you would have this, but it's just bizarre that not that long ago, and I think you even said on your shark tank pitch, the doorbell is like one of the only things that had not been updated or whatever the language you use since forever ago, 18, whatever.
- [15:00]
Jamie Siminoff
Yeah, like, it was like, it's just
- [15:02]
Ryan Hawk
crazy that now at the time, though it obviously had never been done, you invented it and now it's ubiquitous. We all have them. It's wild. And it seems because you are a tinkerer, you're a builder, you're an inventor, your wife said one statement to you and all of a sudden it goes, wait a second, this could be a thing. But it's one thing for your wife to say that and for you to have a little bit of an aha moment. It's another thing to actually create a full blown company and create a product that seems kind of like a pain to build and then make it so that we all have them. I mean, what's the next step after your wife says that? How do you get this going? How do you create a company?
- [15:40]
Jamie Siminoff
Once we had the mission and Jeff said this like in public to like this idea of infinite truth. So like Amazon, if you look at like Amazon's core principles, they're infinite. Will customers always want lower price, more selection and faster delivery? Yes. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, if you deliver within an hour, they'll want it in 30 minutes. If you deliver in 30 minutes, they'll want it in 10 minutes. Like, like, they'll always want faster, they'll always want lower price, and they're always going to want more selection. So it's like you can work on Amazon's customer offering of like E commerce forever. Like, until you're delivering it the instant you order it at $0 and 100% selection. Like, there's like, you can go forever. So when I found making neighborhoods safer, it's like, that's an infinite thing to work on. And as soon as you had that, that's what unlocked ring from being another little business that I was working on and tinkering to literally what is today probably the world's largest home security company. Because you are now working on something that had infinite possibility, infinite market. And then the hard part is when you have that is now how do you bring that down into tactical, tangible, short term, like every day. What do you do every day to work on that? Because you can also get overwhelmed by. And you see it, companies are like, oh, we're working on solving all X. And when they're trying to do it all at once. And so it is like, how do you eat an elephant? Like, you cut it into very small bites. Like, you eat it like one little bite at a time. You don't eat it all at once.
- [17:06]
Ryan Hawk
So it's called Doorbot and you go on Shark Tank. What was the process like to get on the show? What were you thinking before? I just rewatched the pitch, but, you know, so you're like standing behind and you did the doorbell thing. What was it like leading up to it? Were you nervous? I would love to go inside. How you were feeling?
- [17:22]
Jamie Siminoff
So. So, I mean, I, you know, here I am in the garage. I'm basically failing. I mean, like, I'm like, there's nothing's going right.
- [17:27]
Ryan Hawk
But you had started and sold two companies prior to this.
- [17:30]
Jamie Siminoff
Yeah, but for like very little money.
- [17:32]
Ryan Hawk
So not okay. So online, it looks like you've made millions. It sounds like you did not.
- [17:36]
Jamie Siminoff
No. Okay. I wasn't broke, but I was definitely not. Like, I was not rich. Like, I was not. Like, I should not have been in the garage just tinkering. Like, I didn't have that kind of money at all. Like, I definitely did not. And so I'm kind of like working on this doorbot thing. It's eating cash because it's hardware. A guy says, listen, I'd love to go to lunch with you and chat about my business. And so I'm like kind of driving to this lunch and I'm literally thinking in my head like, I'm like, jamie, this is why you never make it. Because you're literally, you can't focus. You're literally going out to lunch while you're basically, you're burning to the ground your family in your garage. And so I go to lunch, super nice guy, great business thing. To talk the whole time. He's like, what are you working on? I'm like, oh, I'm working on this doorbell. And when I would tell people about doorbell at the time, they would laugh and they'd usually say, come on, seriously, what are you working on? Because it was like, I'm working on a doorbell that goes to your phone. And they're like, like, that's hysterical. It's like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I mean, literally, that was the response. And so he's like, oh, that's so cool. Have you thought about going on Shark Tank? Still a big show, but at the time was like, I mean, it was the biggest. I think it was the biggest show. I think it was the biggest show on TV at that time. Or like the top five or something. It was crazy. 30 plus thousand people were applying a year to be on the show. So I'm like, no, I didn't apply. Like, send in my 1 of 30,000 application, which I should have, by the way. I just was like down on my luck kind of talking. And he's like, oh, the one of the producers is asking. They're trying to get bigger products and stuff like this. Here's his email. So I email the producer person. I'm like, hey, it's Jamie. Here's my website. Kind of like, meh. And I start driving home from the lunch. The guy calls me, he's like, this is great. You got to be in Shark Tank. And I'm like, holy shit. It's just like insane. So that was kind of my getting to Shark Tank, which then I started to do a million things to actually get on the show from there. I thought at that point that I was just like, I'm like, oh my God, I'm on. But it turned out there was still a million things to do. And then we go on Shark Tank. It's like, to your point of the taping, and if you rewatch the episode, which you did. So they said, like, you have these producers, and they have, like, your pitch and you got to do. And they're like, you need to do a live demo of your product. And I'm like, yeah, you know, because I'm, like, not telling them that. It's, like, really not working very well. Like, I did not, of course, like, did not disclose that. That, like, this thing is, like, super challenged and, like, barely working if. If at all didn't seem like the right thing to tell them. So they're like, yeah, you have to do a live demo. I'm like, okay, yeah, let's do a live demo where we just tape it beforehand and then we show it. Because it's just, like, you don't want to have all the, like, things happening. They're like, no. I'm like, well, let's do a live demo beforehand, because, like, we could tape it because, like, there's interference. Like, I mean, I tried everything. They're like, no. So we do a live demo on the show, and it wasn't working. The engineer I had was literally dying trying to set this thing up. They're breaking the ones. We only had four in the whole world, Doorbots, that had been produced by hand. So I go to ring the doorbell. If you look at my face when I turn around, because I look up, it's actually the live feed that's on there, and you kind of see this face. It's like, it looks like I'm kind of excited. I'm actually. I can't believe that the picture came up. Like, I'm like, literally, it worked. I'm, like, flabbergasted.
- [20:54]
Ryan Hawk
I was like. I just watched. I was like, this is really impressive. It's a live demo.
- [20:58]
Jamie Siminoff
In fact, that picture quality from Doorbot never was is that good again ever. Like, that was, like, the best. If you could ask for the genie for one wish. It was like, just make that one goddamn doorbell push work on Shark Tank, please. Just make that one work. I don't care if anything else works just in my life, Just make that one thing work. And it worked.
- [21:21]
Ryan Hawk
You even held up Mr. Wonderful's face right in front of it.
- [21:24]
Jamie Siminoff
I was, like, going crazy. I like, yeah, I went for it.
- [21:26]
Ryan Hawk
Oh, my gosh. Okay. And so they're all saying, no, no, no. No offers. Mr. Wonderful's the last I watched it. It's a family show for us, right? Mr. Wonderful is like, yeah, let's do some royalty garbage that he tries to do with Everybody else and you kind of stand firm and you ultimately walk away without a deal. Like, how are you feeling in that moment?
- [21:44]
Jamie Siminoff
I cried in my car on the way home. I mean. I mean, I really did go in there being like, mark's gonna give me the money. We needed money. Like, I needed money. I wasn't trying to just get markets around. Like, I. I needed money. I mean, it's. Now people are like, oh, it's so great you didn't get a deal. I'm like, it's like, I knew it was gonna be a billion dollars. So, like, why take a deal? You know, it's like. But at the time, I needed money badly, and Mark was out immediately. And then the Mr. Wonderful deal just. You can't. Like, you know, I was just telling you how bad hardware is on cash flow. If immediately you're giving cash flow out, like, it just. There's no way it would have worked. I left it. I was. I was devastated.
- [22:21]
Ryan Hawk
Doesn't he know that, though? Why offer a stupid deal like that on certain things that can work, but not like yours, where there's all that cost?
- [22:29]
Jamie Siminoff
First of all, you offer it because, like, someone's willing to give you, like, a crazy good deal on a business. Like, you take it, like, you know. So I think that's, like, the first thing. The second thing is the way the show format works. If you don't have that negotiation at the end, it's likely you won't err.
- [22:43]
Ryan Hawk
Ah, okay.
- [22:44]
Jamie Siminoff
And so a lot of what he's doing is actually, he's probably the most friendly to the entrepreneur because by us having that negotiation, it creates the bookend to. From the intro to the end. And if he hadn't done that deal, I might not have ever got on air. A lot of people don't know. A lot of people that go on Shark Tank to tape don't actually go on air because it's just like. Like a boring episode. Like, it's just like, you know, I get on there and pitch and nothing happens, and I leave. No one wants to watch that got you.
- [23:13]
Ryan Hawk
So you leave. You're crying in your car.
- [23:15]
Jamie Siminoff
I literally cried, devastated.
- [23:18]
Ryan Hawk
But something changes. What happened to go from that to where we don't have any money. I genuinely need money to $1 billion.
- [23:27]
Jamie Siminoff
The good news is, at that point, I was too far into it, so I couldn't back out of the business. If I had at that moment just went back to the garage and said, I'm done, I would have basically been personally bankrupt because I had Already ordered too many products and I owed too much money already. So it was kind of a boiling the frog thing. I didn't realize I was that deep in. But it was like 30,000 for this. You kind of like, okay, great, we'll sell these. And then all of a sudden you realize if you don't sell them, I was in a bad place financially from that side if the business didn't continue. So I couldn't stop. I didn't have the right to stop. So people always say, like, oh, people think I'm like, tough. That's so tough that you kept going. It's like, no, I actually had to keep going. It's actually the opposite of tough. I was like a chicken shit. I just couldn't stop. And so I kept going. And then when Shark Tank did air, it gave us a huge boost of sales that gave us like a cash injection, which then we were able to hire some more people to build ring. Then we were able to raise some money around that. And so that, like, you know, there still was a lot of hard sort of things along the way. But I'd say the airing of Shark Tank would start the clock on if you wanted to plot success. Like, that's when it kind of started. Because from that moment on, we kind of had, like, momentum that we could kind of keep trading on.
- [24:48]
Ryan Hawk
I also read that you were naive at times, and sometimes that can be really, really helpful. How was being naive helpful to you?
- [24:57]
Jamie Siminoff
What's a superpower? I mean, everything that you try to do. I mean, you know, great inventions are things that people say can't happen. Because if people said they could happen, then they'd already be out there. So, like, you know, if you look at, like, James Dyson and some of these amazing inventors, you know, Elon, I mean, people said the electric car couldn't work. You can go back and there's all this stuff about how it, like, can't have enough this and you won't have enough capacity. So you have to be smart enough to sort of not put yourself into too bad of a situation. But naive enough to say, like, I think I can do this. I don't even know that I can't. And so people said you couldn't build a battery operated camera at this time to go on WI fi. Like, I didn't know. I never built anything. So, like, what did I know? So we just went out and tried to put some parts together that seemed like they would work together.
- [25:47]
Ryan Hawk
It's funny, my first sales job after I got done Playing football after college, Jamie was, is this sales rep. And it was 2008, and people were like, dude, oh, my God. That had to be the worst thing ever. Terrible market, all this stuff. And I was like, I honestly didn't even realize it. I didn't watch the news. I didn't do anything. I was just like, you know, going to work out in the gym, do my sales job, hang out with my buddies. I didn't even realize that there was anything going on. I'm like, I'm glad it was just like, a complete meathead idiot. But sometimes that can be really good for you.
- [26:19]
Jamie Siminoff
I think a lot of times it is because we get so wrapped up in, like, the GDP is going to be down 1% off of whatever, and the stock market's crashing. Oh, my God. But the reality is, like, the markets are still huge, the consumer still huge. Like, people build more businesses usually when things are down, then when they're up. And so you're right. I think sort of, like, it's a hard thing to tell someone because you don't want to give somebody advice to be like, be stupid. Like, it's not, like, good advice. But the other side is if you try to sort of, like, do everything right, it usually doesn't work.
- [26:50]
Ryan Hawk
Yeah.
- [26:50]
Jamie Siminoff
And there is something about, like, naive is kind of part of that is like. And again, especially breakout, big things usually come from people that were like. And you'll see, like, everyone says, like, you can't do this.
- [27:00]
Ryan Hawk
And part of it, too, is if you are thinking and analyzing the whole world, that's time. You're not doing the thing. You're not working. You're not inventing, you're not building. You're not making the calls. And so sometimes it can. Knowing too much or trying to know too much gets in the way of actually doing the work. And I think that's a key takeaway for anybody. It's if you're sitting there, like, building all these plans and thinking about stuff and all, it's like, well, when are you actually doing the work?
- [27:30]
Jamie Siminoff
Yeah.
- [27:30]
Ryan Hawk
Because that's ultimately what's going to build Ring. And speaking of Ring, the guy who owned Ring.com, i believe, wanted to sell it to you for 2 million bucks. Right? 2 million bucks. And you're like, 2 million bucks. Are you out of your mind? Can you tell me the story of how you were able to get Ring.com
- [27:46]
Jamie Siminoff
might even be more. He wanted to sell it for a lot of money. I ended up getting it down to, like, 750,000 and the day I'm supposed to pay him, I have 178,000 in the bank. So, like, you gotta start to figure out that math. So I call him up and I'm like, hey, listen, my board said we can't do the deal. Like, I. They just, you know, which is sort of true because it's like, I didn't have a board, but it was me. So, like, I. It wasn't like, you know, it wasn't completely untruthful. So my board said I can't do the deal, but they did approve me to do 175,000 today and a total of 1 million for the purchase. So I'm increasing now the price and paid over two years. And so the guy f bombs and just. I mean, the guy thinks he's getting $750,000 that day. And I basically tell him the day of the wire and so just not happy. Hangs up the phone, calls me back like, you know, or he's like, fine. You know, like, when I was like. Like, it was like, but. And then I'm like, okay, so. Because I'm, like, figuring. I'm like, listen, we'll give him a 175. And, like, if we can't afford the domain, it's because the business went out anyway. So, like, I don't need the domain for a bankrupt business. And if a business works, we'll, you know, we'll buy it. And so it ended up being, you know, ended up working out for us. I guess for him, it worked out because he got 250,000 more than he thought he was going to. But, like, it certainly wasn't my best from a negotiations. I would say it was. Wasn't my most moral negotiation.
- [29:14]
Ryan Hawk
But you gave him all the money you had. Isn't that a very scary moment?
- [29:18]
Jamie Siminoff
It was a terrifying moment. I had a venture capital investment from True Ventures coming in, and that's why I kind of, like, was timing it. But I didn't tell True Ventures. I didn't tell them that I was buying the domain because I was worried that. So they were giving us, like, 5 million, I think. And I was worried if I told them that basically, like, 20% was going to a domain name, that killed me. I'm trying to keep everyone happy without blowing the thing up. And so then True Ventures delays their wire, like, a week or two. Just like. They're just like, yeah, we have this going on. Do you know? I'm like, oh, sure, it's okay. And then they're like, oh, we want to do this. Why? I'm like, can we maybe do Monday? Because Tuesday was payroll. And so I'm like, can we maybe do Monday, though? Whenever, you know? And they're like, sure, okay. I'm like, great, great. And so they, like, wire the money on that Monday, and, like, you know, Tuesday we make payroll. But, like, that was definitely, like. I was like, we're not making payroll. Like, we're not making payroll, dude.
- [30:12]
Ryan Hawk
I cannot. I don't know if I could live that. I mean, that's why you're, you know, whatever you don't. You've done. But I also read you did struggle to sleep, mainly because you're working so much. But I would imagine that would hurt sleep, too.
- [30:24]
Jamie Siminoff
Stress was like, that's the thing. I'm not. There are different types of entrepreneurs. I met lots of different types. There are people that can do that and literally sleep like a baby. Don't even. They don't even care. I internalize this stuff, and it just destroys me. So, like, I wasn't sleeping. I was super stressed. I mean, so I wasn't. I wasn't doing it out of, like, a chest pump. Like, I'm tough, whatever. It was more like survival and doing things to survive. But it was affecting me terribly. I mean, it was really bad.
- [30:52]
Ryan Hawk
How did that affect you in your personal life?
- [30:54]
Jamie Siminoff
My son was, like, three, like, when I started, so he was kind of like, at that point, probably 6 years old or something. I just have one kid. So we actually were very transparent at home, which helped. I just talked openly when my son was 6. He knew where the business was. He would be, literally, a kindergarten teacher would say to us, I hear the business isn't going well. I'm like, yeah, but we were just open. It was just a very open adult conversation always, which I think helped on that because it wasn't like I was trying to hide anything from them. But it also takes a village. I mean, having my wife and son sort of supporting me the whole way. But, yeah, it was. It was still pretty tough. I mean, it was definitely stressful.
- [31:33]
Ryan Hawk
What is your messaging around work life integration? Work life balance? Not killing yourself along the way with stress and not sleeping and trying to stay healthy, but also trying to build something extraordinary. How do you think about all of that now? And what advice do you give to others?
- [31:50]
Jamie Siminoff
I just integrated my work and life and family together. So, like, my son, the first doorbot that came off the line in China, like, my son came with me. So we just integrated the work life together. And so there Wasn't like a balance, it was just integrated. And I think that's everyone's different. But for me that was the best way to do it. So we spent a ton of time together. My son's been to like 40 countries and he's almost been to every state. Literally. I'd bring him to every meeting. I didn't care. We were going to meet with Home Depot. Like Oliver was there when he was 7, 6, 5. Wow. And then people would say, it's funny. People would be like, how do you bring your kid to a meeting? And I said, like, who do you think they're going to remember more? The guy that brought his six year old to a meeting or just some idiot with another product? It's so amazing. Like we're always scared to be different. But I can guarantee you if someone brings their kid to a meeting with me right now, I will remember that meeting over the 3,000 meetings I'm going to have this month.
- [32:48]
Ryan Hawk
What a life for him. He's been in some crazy rooms, I bet, and heard some amazing stories. How old is he now?
- [32:55]
Jamie Siminoff
He's 17 now.
- [32:56]
Ryan Hawk
Geez. What's it like for him? Because now he's an adult, basically.
- [33:00]
Jamie Siminoff
I mean, God, it's pretty funny. It's just like he. And what's funny is like he doesn't, you know, maybe because he saw this stuff, like he just like loves basketball, wants like work in sports. It's not like he's like trying to sort of follow in the footsteps and be an inventor and stuff. Like he's like, he's happy, wants to do sports stuff, which is great. I think everyone should again to the thing. Like people should follow their passion. Like you should do what you want to do. Like that's the best way to do it.
- [33:27]
Ryan Hawk
So I've gotten all sides of this. I'm, I'm glad you brought this up. Some say that's what you should do and other people say that's insane advice that billionaires give after they become a billionaire. Because it's easier to say, what you need to do is go earn a living, you need to get good at something and then you'll become passionate about it afterwards. Like, how do you feel about that passion and work and doing the thing that you're passionate about? What's your overall thought?
- [33:50]
Jamie Siminoff
A fair argument that like someone becomes wealthy and then says like, oh, go do like what you love. It is hard to see anyone, though, that's achieved anything of greatness in the world that didn't do what they loved. And so I think the other side of it is there are times, like, you know, when I was a bellhop and valet parking cars, like, that wasn't my passion. You know, I did that in high school and college. I did it to make money. Like, there are times when you have to, like, work your ass off to make money. Like, I've done sales. Like, and so. But I think when you start, like, the career of what you want to try to do, and you're going to set out to do something, like, do something you care about, versus, I think the worst thing is when people do entrepreneurship and they're trying to do something to make money. Because if they fail, like, if you fail trying to make money, that really sucks. If you fail trying to do something you love, at least you try to do something you love. I always just say, if Ring fails, we tried to make neighborhoods safer. We worked on something noble. If it fails because we just tried to make a buck, that's not fun.
- [34:49]
Ryan Hawk
You talk about sales. I also think you're a much more effective sales professional. When you are deeply passionate about the mission and about the product that you've created because of that mission. You can feel it in your voice. I have since the second we connected on Zoom. Like, you can feel that this is kind of oozes out of the person versus someone who's just like, all right, I gotta, like, make some money, so I gotta sell it. I think that's a real thing, and it's certainly aspirational. I hope for most people, if you want to become excellent at anything, there's gotta be that care, love, and passion behind it.
- [35:21]
Jamie Siminoff
If you look back at almost any brand, the original, again, over time, they lose this, and it doesn't matter. But usually very authentic when they start. Like, Nike was extremely. Phil Knight is an authentic person. Nike might now just be more of just like a big brand that produces shoes, whatever. I actually still like it. But at the beginning, these brands have usually true authenticity to them that goes deep. Ring is. It's a big brand, but it's because it was so authentic. It is authentic. Like, we care about what we do. You know, we just launched this dog search party thing. That was my super bowl commercial yesterday, which was kind of cool. But, you know, it's like, how do you invent something like that? Why do you do it? Because you care. Like, you. It's. That's authenticity, which then drives also the brand.
- [36:09]
Ryan Hawk
So as the company grows and you're adding more and more people, there are odds that some of those People are taking it as a job to earn a living and they'll work hard, right? But they don't care, care like you do or like some of the earlier people do. That's just natural. As a company grows in size. So how do you maintain this culture of authenticity and care and get after it as you grow and scale?
- [36:34]
Jamie Siminoff
One is you have to be realistic that yes, as you get bigger, not every single person in the company is going to like wake up eating their like making neighborhood safer cereal. I get it. Like that's just the reality. I think leadership though, is that from my side, if I truly am authentic with it, it does usually trickle down. So that keeps it, I think having a founder that's there, that keeps that energy and authenticity to it matters. Having other people around us helps. I do think also you have to, as a company gets bigger, just be willing to be accepting that yes, it's going to be slightly less. It can't be perfect because if you try to like keep it to perfect, you're gonna like die. That said, I think you can also do a lot of things to keep it much better than just letting it sort of go to just like a big corporate board.
- [37:26]
Ryan Hawk
There is a difference between being an inventor and being a CEO of a company. Especially a company that gets bigger. There's more and more people involved. There's a lot of elements of management, leadership, vision, public speaking, community. I mean a million things that go on with being a CEO. How did you get good? You're a world class inventor, one of the best of our generation, right? But how did you get good at being a leader? How did you get good at being a CEO and running a business?
- [37:56]
Jamie Siminoff
I think this is where people overthink what it is to be a CEO. A good CEO, a good leader is someone who's leading. It's like first principle thinking, like, how do you lead Ring? You lead it by leading it. You lead it by going out and installing devices. You lead it by caring. You lead it by continuing to invent. Like you lead it by being transparent with people and honest. Everyone knows at Ring that I will work harder than they will. And so that's leadership. I think people have come down to leadership as a process and it's a how do you do this and how many emails do you send a week? But everyone knows they're coming from some group that's writing the emails. And like I think authenticity and with AI is going to get way more important as a leader. Just be authentic. I mean, I think people want to Follow someone that is authentic and cares and wants to do it. And so for me, it's like, it's not like I'm not a good CEO. I am a great leader, you know, because I. I'll charge over the hill when the bullets are coming any day.
- [38:54]
Ryan Hawk
It feels to me like you still have and maybe have never not had a frontline obsession. The guy who started on the front lines and even as the company has grown, has stayed on the front lines. You know the business inside and out. You're authentic. I mean, we didn't have a comms team before this meeting. You can just show up and talk because you're on the front lines. You understand what's actually going on.
- [39:20]
Jamie Siminoff
Yeah, I mean, my. My email is still on every box. The letter jring.com is my email. It's on every box. Has been from the beginning. And when you're on the front lines, everyone else respects. When customer service knows that if someone emails me, I'm going to respond, they don't feel like they're doing a lesser job because they're not. Like, they're doing the most important job, as am I. Like, we're all there for the customer.
- [39:42]
Ryan Hawk
Do you get bombarded with emails?
- [39:45]
Jamie Siminoff
Not really. People are pretty respectful. I mean, like I say, like, every once in a while, there's always like, these, like, edge things that happen where someone's just like, kind of like, sadly, like, just not respectful with it and stuff. I would say most people again, but we mess things up. And so, like, I don't care if someone's unhappy, they can email me. If they're unhappy. We mess something up, we'll fix it. So overall, I'd say, like, I don't get a ton because we're pretty good overall. And by the way, the reason I don't get a ton is because our customer service knows it. At a scale of over 100 million cameras in the. In the field, our customer service knows, like, if they do something egregiously bad and someone emails me, like, I'm on it, like, I'm going to call them. Like, they know it, they know it. And so that everybody, I'd say, works at a level that they know that, like, I'm here. And so it does keep everyone, like, I'd say everyone on their toes a little more.
- [40:34]
Ryan Hawk
I'm fascinated by that element. I emailed you and I think you responded in less than an hour about doing this podcast. And I thought, wow, but it's funny. I'm be curious to get your take on this. But maybe it's different now that you're more powerful person. But I feel like some of the busiest people that have the craziest jobs and that you think are literally building the things that are changing the world respond so fast. And this has happened to me over the past 11 years, they're such fast responders, it blows my mind.
- [41:06]
Jamie Siminoff
It's a weird thing where I've found that the people that are the most successful, you can almost tell who's successful by how fast they respond. Yes. And it was just so flip flop of what it should be. A successful person should respond to you in, you know, a month.
- [41:22]
Ryan Hawk
Yeah.
- [41:22]
Jamie Siminoff
Yeah, you're totally right.
- [41:24]
Ryan Hawk
This is a commonality I've seen over the past 11 years that blows my mind. It's better for me now with the show that has, you know, shown to give others a good platform. So I get it. It's more common now, but it's still even over a decade. People who I would think, oh no way. And then 15 minutes later they're like, sure dude, let's do it. How about tomorrow? I mean it's wild to me how often that happens.
- [41:47]
Jamie Siminoff
When you're running at like the highest levels, you're actually very efficient and there's something about it. But you, it's 100% right. And I do I even find it like when I look at investing in people, I'll get like a founder, like, I'm sorry I'm so busy I didn't get back to you or you know something. And I'm like, and it doesn't mean that they won't be successful, but it is a like warning sign because yeah, like when the most successful people get back to me in five seconds, it's like there's something wrong here.
- [42:15]
Ryan Hawk
Yeah. I've been studying a lot, Jamie, recently, great teams, specifically the DNA of great teams. Whether it's sports, business, any team.
- [42:24]
Jamie Siminoff
Yep.
- [42:25]
Ryan Hawk
I would love to hear your frontline obsessed version of what are some of the attributes or the dynamics or the DNA of, of excellent teams.
- [42:34]
Jamie Siminoff
I think the DNA is that people know what they're doing on the field. I think, I think the best company runs the same as the best sports team. Seattle, yesterday, like that, that team ran freaking great. And they ran great because the quarterback didn't think he's a kicker and the kicker didn't think he was a linebacker. And so like, and he trusts the kicker. Trusted the linebacker is going to do his job. He's not like when they're about to hike it off as the kicker and go back to the, the guy. Hey, listen, are you going to block that guy over there? I just want to make sure we should have a meeting about this. So I think like there is an autonomy that happens where everyone knows a play. Like the play is set. So you know what that is. And so I think like people know at ring the play is making neighborhoods safer. We know kind of where we're going, but we don't have to all meet and talk about each other's jobs. Like Jason Matura who runs my technology. Like Jason and I talk all the time, but we don't have meetings. I don't even have a standing meeting with the team in any cadence because we meet when we need to meet. We talk about what we need to talk about. But like why do I need to. If these are the best people in the world, why do we need to get together every week?
- [43:38]
Ryan Hawk
Do you not have a lot of meetings?
- [43:40]
Jamie Siminoff
I have a lot of meetings on things that need to get done.
- [43:43]
Ryan Hawk
Say more. What do you mean by that?
- [43:45]
Jamie Siminoff
The best day for me is like a product's having an issue that we're going into production and we need to fix something. Like that's a meeting. Like not standing meetings of we're doing the budget meeting and we're doing this meeting. Like those.
- [43:58]
Ryan Hawk
How many direct reports do you have?
- [44:00]
Jamie Siminoff
I couldn't even tell you. I mean, not a ton.
- [44:02]
Ryan Hawk
You don't have reoccurring one on ones or anything?
- [44:05]
Jamie Siminoff
No, no, zero, man. But I talk to people like all the time responding. I talk to people that work with me and I don't care if you're a skip level. I don't even know what that shit means. I talk to people all day long, all night long, Sunday. Like we're talking about like things, but it's event based. We have to get the sales up on this. We have to get like where there's issues, where there's whatever. We work on it and I trust that people. But like if you're not doing your job, we fire you. Like that's kind of how it works. Like that's the reality.
- [44:33]
Ryan Hawk
I, I just think reoccurring meetings should be absolutely eliminated from the world. I hate them. I don't have any.
- [44:41]
Jamie Siminoff
If I can get rid of the button that allows for them, I would nuke it.
- [44:45]
Ryan Hawk
Yes, man.
- [44:47]
Jamie Siminoff
Like it's not first principle thinking. Like there's no way every Single Monday at 9am you have something important to talk about. It just doesn't. Like the world can't Exist like that. There are times though you should meet, but like it should be based on like when you need to do something, not some cadence and that. And they do, they just become like. And they just stack and stack and stack and like, I, I don't. Yeah, have the best quarterback, have the best kicker, have the best coach. Let them work together, let them practice together, have the plays. But you don't need to get together every day to talk about how are we feeling.
- [45:19]
Ryan Hawk
Yeah. Jamie, one more question. This is a little bit maybe adjacent to what we've been talking about and maybe it's personal, maybe it's professional, maybe it's both. So let's say we're meeting or I'm seeing what's happening with you one year from today, exactly a year from day. And it's called a champagne question. And you've got a bottle of champagne. I don't know if you drink that or not. With your wife. Your son, he's 17, 18 at that point. You guys are celebrating. What are you celebrating?
- [45:46]
Jamie Siminoff
Probably something. Probably something on the charitable side of things.
- [45:50]
Ryan Hawk
Like what?
- [45:50]
Jamie Siminoff
You know, we, we do a lot of work in South Central la. Probably something more on that. We do a lot of work with the police, lapd. We also do a lot of stuff. We have a house in Missouri that this farm and we do a lot of stuff out there with people. So probably celebrating something like again, I think the best thing you can do is kind of service to others. And so it's probably something where we somehow help someone do something and, and it wouldn't be like the champagne thing is like we wouldn't be like clicking it. You know, we're not that sort of family where we're like, oh, we did it again. Like, you know, we sold the business. Like, yeah, you know, like, like cigars and stuff. But it would be celebrating that like we were able to sort of do something good, you know, with our brains and minds and whatever that like helps
- [46:35]
Ryan Hawk
someone more service oriented. Yeah, I read 75 Acre Farm in Missouri. Like are you there a lot? What do you do there?
- [46:41]
Jamie Siminoff
I love it. I'm there all the time. It's, you know, it's. It became like a passion project. I invested in a business out there called Moink. Actually when I was on Shark Tank, I went there, fell in love with the place, became like a. I'm like sort of part of the town now. I love the people. The town had definitely been certainly impacted by opioids and by industrial farming and all the things, by the way, that are impacting these towns. Like these towns are all over the U.S. you know, small little town. And so I, you know, we started to kind of work there with the townspeople and fix the streets and the sidewalks and put a little coffee shop and everyone's kind of come together and it's a really cool place and I love going there and bringing people there and it's been fun.
- [47:25]
Ryan Hawk
Love it, man. Well, I really appreciate you being here and all the work you do. You're making my home safer, my neighborhood safer. So thank you so much for that, man. I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man.
- [47:36]
Jamie Siminoff
Absolutely. Thanks Brian.
- [47:40]
Ryan Hawk
It is the end of the Podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a Note ryan@learningleader.com Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Jamie Simonoff. A few takeaways from my notes. Frontline Obsession. I love that Jamie still has his email address on every ring doorbell. Also, by the way, he's a very fast responder, which we found to be a commonality among leaders who sustain excellence over time. Back to Frontline Obsession. The moment you stop touching the actual work is when you lose the feel for what's really happening. Distance from the front line is distance from the truth. I think CEOs and senior leaders should be obsessed with being on the front lines. And then the next one got me kind of tuned up during the conversation. No recurring meetings on the calendar. No standing Monday morning meetings. That doesn't mean you shouldn't meet with people, but only meet when you need to get something done, when you need to actually have a meeting. Other than that, there should be no standing meetings on your calendar. If you disagree, please email me. I'd be happy to talk about that. And then the next part of that was pretty cool. Why Jeff Bezos wrote the first book endorsement he's ever done and why he called Jamie, quote, a real builder, scrappy, original and unsatisfied with the status quo. What a cool part it was. It was neat to have that part of the conversation with Jamie. You could tell it meant a lot to him. And then I liked his hiring filter. He calls it looking for marathon runners. And also he hires fast but then fires fast if he realizes he makes a mistake. And I think that's something we all could get better at. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message, telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader show with Jamie Siminoff I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the show, rate it 5 stars, hopefully write a thoughtful review. By doing all of that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.
- [49:50]
Jamie Siminoff
Sam.