He Left a Cushy CFO Job to Fix a Broken System (with Clym.io Founder Michael Williams)

Brett Trainor (: 00:01

Michael Williams, welcome to the Corporate Escape-y Podcast.

Michael Williams (: 00:04

Thanks, Brett, glad to be here. Appreciate the opportunity.

Brett Trainor (: 00:06

My pleasure. And again, I love this podcast because just the scope and the different folks that we get to bring on and talk about their journeys. So, excited to talk to you. know we've talked offline a few times, like we need to record this. So, welcome officially to the podcast and, maybe for the audience, just a little bit about your background and what you're working on now, but then I want to go back in time a little bit to talk about, know, your breaking point, your escape.

and how we got to this point. But I always like to start with where we're at and then we can go back.

Michael Williams (: 00:41

Sure. Also, before we jump in here, I listened to a couple of your podcasts in preparation for this and I love the guitar solo at beginning. I'm a child of the night. I grew up in the eighties and nineties, but I love music from the seventies and it's like very classic American rock band. So that's great.

Brett Trainor (: 00:48

No.

Brett Trainor (: 00:56

That is so cool. I appreciate you saying that. will let the, the musician that actually create it's a custom, um, tune. And it took me forever to try to figure out what's the right balance that strikes the tone of the podcast. So thank you for noticing.

Michael Williams (: 01:07

Yeah.

ck background about Climb. in: 2018

t we had customers in Europe.: 2018

of the journey. So, launching: 2020

Brett Trainor (: 02:20

Right.

Michael Williams (: 02:39

that there's all these other laws that affect companies from an online regulatory perspective. So there's a lot of enterprising, ambulance chasing plaintiffs' attorneys that will sue companies, both large and small, for violations of things like the Americans with Disabilities Act, state wiretapping laws. There's a number of these things that are affecting businesses, both large and small. So we are the only software in...

the industry that provides like an all-in-one solution.

Brett Trainor (: 03:12

And timely, right? Because you know, U S is always trailing the world with, with all of these things, right? With privacy, but I know it's starting to ramp up and we've got a few folks in the collective and the digital marketing space that work with the smaller businesses to make sure that they are a, is it ADA compliant? that, and I don't think I'm guessing this audience doesn't realize how important that is. And because I'm to plead ignorance that I don't know.

Michael Williams (: 03:29

That's right, ADA, yeah, that's what you...

Michael Williams (: 03:37

Sure.

Brett Trainor (: 03:40

I know it's important, so maybe enlighten us on the risk of us not being compliant.

Michael Williams (: 03:43

Sure.

ith privacy compliance. So in: 2020

nia's privacy law. One law in: 2020

It used to be the case that private attorneys would walk into a restaurant with a measuring tape and you'd measure the width of a bathroom stall to see if it could accommodate a wheelchair. And if it couldn't, that attorney could sue you. In the last five years or so, all of that action has moved online. So according to various sources that are out there, there's an estimated 250,000

Brett Trainor (: 05:00

Yeah, okay.

Michael Williams (: 05:12

lawsuits initiated for online accessibility violations last year. Average settlement is $20,000. That's $5 billion worth of these accessibility lawsuit settlements last year alone. And when I say violations, there are things like if you're vision impaired. So the ADA, for those who don't know, requires that companies provide what's called a reasonable accommodation for consumers to use their goods or services. So if you are visiting a website and you're vision impaired and you can't

read the website, or if you have epilepsy and you get seizures from looking at certain things, or if you have dyslexia and you can't read these certain attributes in the website, those are all violations, right? And your company, whether you're a single person or you're a Fortune 500 company, you're subject to the same kind of rule set. I should also mention that actually most of these attorneys are going after small businesses or individuals, right? So 78 % of the lawsuits.

Brett Trainor (: 06:00

Yeah.

Michael Williams (: 06:10

are against small businesses because they don't have the resources to protect themselves and a $20,000 lawsuit is a massive issue for them.

Brett Trainor (: 06:18

Yeah, no, mean, I get it. I'm thinking and two, one, I want to get to how do you help protect? But I mean, with AI out there now, you can enterprising folks and the wrong side can go scrape websites and say, Hey, give me a list of all these that are not compliant and I'm sure they can come back. how is a software? don't you explain how it works?

Michael Williams (: 06:39

Sure, I'll give you the layman's terms. I'm an attorney, not a developer. So we basically provide our customers with just a single snippet of code. Now, if you can copy and paste, you can use Clam's software. We give you a piece of code, you copy and paste it in your website, and then you are up and running with both a consumer-facing aspect of the technology, which allows...

Brett Trainor (: 06:43

Please.

Michael Williams (: 07:05

When a consumer comes to your website, and again, this is not just for those who are selling online, this is for anyone. you have an informational website, you still need to follow various rules and regulations, right? So the consumer comes to the website, they're able to make various choices, whether to provide you with consent to collect their information, to modify their, how your website looks and feels to them if they have a disability.

those kinds of things and then our customers are able to you know track different metrics on a back end, make modifications to their site, modifications to how the platform looks, respond to certain requests that a consumer makes. It's basically a manager platform. But the nice thing is there's typically providers in the space that offer a solution for privacy or accessibility or wiretapping or age gating or any of these other things.

We're the only ones doing it all in one, so it's one system to learn, and it's very easy to learn it, and then one low subscription on it. It's on a monthly subscription basis.

Brett Trainor (: 08:16

Got it. No, it makes sense. And again, I think we're heading in, and this is the world of my world or the, crew is newer entrepreneurs, right? So we didn't grow up in the digital space in the sense of e-commerce and all these other things. So this is a bit of a wake up call, if you will, just said, Hey, there is a risk. If you want to roll the dice, have at it, but you know, you're better protecting yourself.

Michael Williams (: 08:31

Yeah.

Michael Williams (: 08:40

trying to deploy an ounce of prevention rather than the pound of cure. And also, you know, like I'm an attorney, when I worked at a firm, my billing rate was astronomical, right? And so that's just what you see here. And that's what we're trying to help avoid. The other part about it, we know we're talking about a new entrepreneur or solopreneur. Oftentimes when you're getting set up, you have to pay an attorney to draft certain documents for you, those kinds of things, right? So Climb has a document generator that

Brett Trainor (: 08:50

Yeah, yeah.

Michael Williams (: 09:09

provides you with things like a privacy policy or terms of service or a cookie policy, things that you should need on a website. while you still may have an attorney look at those things to review, at least they're not drafting it from scratch. So it's a really powerful tool for new entrepreneurs as well.

Brett Trainor (: 09:24

Right. Save you some money. Yeah. And what I kind of love back, way back when you're talking about is you saw a problem, right? Cause that's, that's the other thing I try to get folks to think of shift your mindset from job title to problem solver. And you guys found a growing problem. It may be a little grew a little slower in the U S than maybe you anticipated, but

But you didn't just even thinking out loud. mean, we've completely gone down a rabbit hole. will get back to your journey at some point, but this, this is important. think, you know, even thinking about, because one of the areas that I'm really trying to get newer folks to focus on is creating a service. For your first offers, right? Cause we think, we're leaving corporate and we're going to go and become a fractional or a

a full-on consultant and find engagements. I'm like, man, there's a quicker path. You can be a reseller of, you know, of your solution and say, Hey, there's, there's a hundred businesses in my area need this. can just be a reseller of doing, I'm not, don't even know if you have a reseller program, assuming you probably do. But, but to me, that's again, starting to find and look for opportunities that you don't have to conquer the world. You can start to stack some of these interesting problem solving solutions that.

You know, in this case, solo businesses need, right? So, go ahead. Sorry.

Michael Williams (: 10:45

Yeah, and you kind of, you you're right. And I think as I've, you know, as I've listened to some of your podcasts, or reason, you know, our mutual friend, Paul, who talks with a lot of people about this, you have to start somewhere, right? And you can solve, find us, find a problem to solve. A lot of people try to create a solution in search of a problem, but if you've identified a problem, you can, you can provide a solution and it doesn't have to be something that you create. Like my company created this software from scratch. You don't have to do that.

But to your point, there's a lot of people need a lot of assistance in a variety of different ways. And if you can identify those problems, and all the better if you can monetize those things on a recurring basis as well.

Brett Trainor (: 11:26

Yeah. Find a monthly program. I've got somebody coming on the podcast. We don't have a date set yet, but started, picking up dog poop. I can't think of a more technical way of saying it, but it's a big problem in cities. And he figured out how to create a system to pick up new customers. And he's starting to franchise this, this whole system for,

So again, back to solving the problem, business owner, business dog owners don't want to pick up after it. And yet now there's a service business out there for it.

Michael Williams (: 11:57

I paid my way through law school. went to night school and I paid my way through by working for a septic and sewer company, pumping septic tanks and installing and repairing sewer systems. And somebody told me one time that there's an inverse relationship between how sexy a business is and how hard it is to be successful in that business. Everyone wants to be an actor or an athlete. For a client, there's nothing less sexy than in a regulatory compliance company.

Brett Trainor (: 12:24

That's where the money is. I listen.

Michael Williams (: 12:26

That's, mean, yeah, for sure. It's also, it's not just the money. also is, you know, again, society needs people to solve these problems, right? So like, you know, I live in Los Angeles and there's a lot of dog poop on the sidewalk. And I would, I would love to solve that problem.

Brett Trainor (: 12:33

Yes.

Brett Trainor (: 12:42

Yeah.

And again, it's, it's sometimes, again, to your point, we, sometimes think too big for where we need. And if you start smaller, I just listened to a podcast with a guy in north of Toronto in a town of 60,000. That's making 10,000 a month, just flipping couches off of Facebook. Right. And like, is he refurnishing or re no, not just finding the couch. Maybe does it pass sells it as is, but what his secret sauce was, uh, he has a trailer hitch and so he can go pick up.

Michael Williams (: 13:00

Wow.

Brett Trainor (: 13:13

the couch. Most people don't, right, if you're selling a couch, either you got to come pick it up. You have no way of picking it up. He's like, problem solved. I can deliver it. so again, that's so I'm definitely on the path of least resistance. What's the problem we can solve that's repeatable monthly or quarterly and, you know, start to stack those up a little bit.

So, all right, so let's go back to attorney in a consulting firm, right? So you had the double whammy of corporate if you ask me on that one, but so what were you, did you go to law school straight out of undergrad or did you pick up, did you go to law school a little bit later?

Michael Williams (: 13:51

So this doesn't come through on this podcast, but I'm six foot 10. So I had the good fortune to play professional basketball for a while and not in the NBA. was not quite good enough to make that, but I played three years in Europe and then two years in the NBA's minor league here in the U S. And then I went to law school and that was sorry. And then I took a job at the sewer and septic company. And then I went to law school. So I've had a little bit of a very early career backgrounds, but that way, but then

went right after law school, went, you know, I got a corporate job. I got hired by Ernst & Young, which is one of the largest consulting firms in the world as a tax attorney. So I provided tax consulting and strategy services to clients, like very large, you know, hundred million billion dollar clients.

Brett Trainor (: 14:40

Yeah, interesting. And how long did you work for them?

Michael Williams (: 14:43

I was there for three years and I got recruited out to be a CFO of that company that I worked for. So, which, you know, which again was another nine figure of revenue kind of company. So it was large corporation to not nearly as large of a corporation, but still a very sizable corporation, which I thought, you know, again, when I graduated law school, it was.

Brett Trainor (: 14:47

Okay.

Brett Trainor (: 15:04

Yeah.

Michael Williams (: 15:08

you know, incredible to get it. I thought it made the time, it was, you you learn a lot at these larger organizations, but to get the job at Ernst & Young was, it felt great. And then when I left, no, when I left, it felt even better to get the opportunity at a relatively young age to be a CFO.

Brett Trainor (: 15:18

Yeah, and it is, it is a.

Brett Trainor (: 15:27

Was that what the goal was when you went into EY or did you just kind of figure it out as you went?

Michael Williams (: 15:33

You know, the goal I think is always to make a partner when you go to a firm like that. But then, and look, that's a, that can be a very lucrative life for people. But when I was there, my partner track was to be the partner with the subject matter expertise of the Los Angeles business tax and the San Francisco grocery seats tax. And I was like, that is a pigeon hole with pigeon holes right there.

Brett Trainor (: 15:37

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 15:57

Yeah

Michael Williams (: 15:59

Uh, so, and look, it's great. And some of that stuff is interesting, but it just felt very narrow when I wanted something more expansive. And then I got an opportunity to be a CFO and manage things like legal and accounting and finance and tax and, you know, kind of a broader scope of, of understanding.

Brett Trainor (: 16:18

Yeah, and that company that recruited you, did you end up starting a company after this or is this where you started your current company?

Michael Williams (: 16:27

This is where I had the idea. it was like, was, and so that's, and that's where we had, I started in 2015. I didn't leave until 2020. So I stayed there, was CFO there for five years and then left right before COVID started in 2020. So, but the seed was planted in 2018 when GDPR came out. And that's when I,

Brett Trainor (: 16:29

gotcha. Okay.

Brett Trainor (: 16:37

Okay.

Michael Williams (: 16:56

when it kind of like the thought started and then I thought about it for six more months and then trying to figure out because I had a super comfortable salary it was a relatively easy I mean at that point it become there were some challenges but it was not like I was you know working super hard every day but I was bored out of my mind and I want to do something different and I was in that boredom breeds frustration and it just doesn't doesn't feel great

Brett Trainor (: 17:17

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 17:23

resentment, yeah, it's...

Michael Williams (: 17:25

I mean, yeah, and then you're the only thing you really care about at that point is like, what's my paycheck look like? You know, which is not the kind of person I wanted to be.

Brett Trainor (: 17:30

Right.

No, and I think you realized it earlier than, definitely earlier than I did, right? But I think I moved around a little bit more and was chasing the ladder more than actually thinking about what I really wanted to do. And it came later. And that's why I'm always fascinated when folks younger, cause when you left, you were late thirties when you exited. Right. Okay. And.

Michael Williams (: 17:54

Yeah, but 38. Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 17:58

and to leave right at a cushy job or a nice well-paying job. And so what was your idea? So you had the idea, did you go solo? Did you put a team together? How did you go from that to getting started?

Michael Williams (: 18:09

I'm sorry.

Well, not like, I'm not a, I'm just real quick to back up on like the, when you use the word resentment. So when I left, you know, as your early years at place like EY, you don't make much money. You make, I mean, it's fine, but you know, it's not the salaries you probably think people there make. So I get paid about three times as much to be the CFO. And I was over the moon. And then five years later, when I was making even more money, I was resentful of how little I was making, you know? So like, it's like, we all acclimate.

Brett Trainor (: 18:37

interesting.

Michael Williams (: 18:40

And it's really unfortunate and I got caught up in that as well. But when you use the word resentment, was like, yeah, that's so how I felt about it. When five years previously you told me what I was making, I'd be like, that's impossible, no way.

Brett Trainor (: 18:52

Yeah, no, think your perception changes as you and sometimes you don't even realize what you're feeling until you have a chance to look back at it and go, whoa, because when I, until I left corporate and consulting and really managed everything on my own for the first time, I didn't realize how I was truly unhappy at the tail end, but didn't know it. If you looked on the outside, everything looked good. Good job. Good pay. Family's good. Everything. But man, I was just everything. Something was off. Just something was way off. And

Michael Williams (: 19:00

Yeah.

Michael Williams (: 19:10

Yeah.

Michael Williams (: 19:21

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 19:22

better late than never in many cases. And again, I think it's part of it. The other thing that I've kind of started to follow again was not necessarily intentional is what's giving me more energy. And it sounds like the same thing EY, then the CFO gave you the energy and all of a you have the itch to, you had an idea. So when you left, was the idea fully baked or you're just, okay, so why you walk us through how that transition happened.

Michael Williams (: 19:34

Yeah.

Michael Williams (: 19:49

I think the original idea, like I'm not a software guy. Like I tell people, I'm a pretty good attorney. We have wonderful developers, but I have an iPhone 8. I'm not, you know, it's, don't, please don't rely on me, on my personal tech background. But we, I mean, we have a team of wonderful developers that have created, I think, a best in class product, right? But it's, I thought this was a consulting gig for me. I saw the $100,000 check that we wrote. I knew that more of this, in 2020 was the year that,

Brett Trainor (: 19:59

Right.

Michael Williams (: 20:19

privacy came to the US, you know, with California's law at the time was called CCPA. And I thought there were a lot of big fat checks coming. And I was like, hey, I know how to do this now. I can resolve these problems. can, you know, make it, can, I can create this new challenge. What's your other thing about this at that, CFO job? I didn't really have any challenges left, right? Like I, and that's like a too philosophical here, like,

One of my favorite kind of characters in Greek mythology is Sisyphus, right? Are you familiar with Sisyphus? So basically he angered the gods and they said, for eternity, you have to roll the boulder up a hill. And he almost hits the top and the boulder rolls back down, right? And it's supposed to be like this story. It's supposed to be a cautionary tale about, you know, if you do something bad, can, you know, it's basically like, you know, it's futility.

Brett Trainor (: 20:54

I'm not.

Brett Trainor (: 21:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Michael Williams (: 21:18

I think Sisyphus is like an amazing character. It's about perseverance. It's like, keep pushing the boulder up the hill. Like he almost feels like a happy warrior to me because he's got a purpose. And so I was like, so I thought when I was starting this was there's probably a big consulting piece about this and we can probably help. We can help companies make some money. And as these regulations change and evolve, they'll all be

be new challenges, right? And now that has come to fruition in a different way, right? Because, you know, while there was a software component originally, and I had a small team assisting with that, I thought a consulting piece would be bigger than this. And I said, you know what, if we do that, we're no better than the people that charge my company $100,000. So let's do the software. And that was kind of the iteration was let's focus on the software because we want to build something that's

Brett Trainor (: 21:49

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 22:11

So interesting.

Michael Williams (: 22:16

scalable and cost effective and flexible for our customers. Right. So let's leave that. The dollars that we charge are pennies compared to what consulting firms charge for this. But that's why we have, you know, solopreneurs using it. We also have some of largest companies in the world.

Brett Trainor (: 22:35

Yeah, no, and what I like about that, because you came from a background of consulting, so you understand the service aspect and the dollars there, then you were the CFO. So you were in understand writing the checks for these services and then putting it together. So was the idea when left to start the software or did you think it was going to be a services based company that ultimately had a technology involved with it?

Michael Williams (: 22:46

Mm-hmm.

Michael Williams (: 22:56

thought it was gonna be a little bit of a mix. thought it was gonna be more, know, software's hard. It's also something that is a constant maintenance. You constantly have to iterate. You constantly have to do these things. I think consulting is less so, and I think it's a little easier. And again, like the per project basis, the money's a lot better in consulting. But I also thought that's not...

Brett Trainor (: 23:19

Yeah.

Michael Williams (: 23:22

That's not what's best for our customers. What's best for our customers to provide a solution that as you know, if they are, they start off as a solopreneur and they grow to a hundred employees, I don't want to have to charge them a hundred times more, you know, for the consulting. I want to be able to, Hey, it's the same price or maybe it's incrementally more, but it's still going to scale with whatever your business looks like. You know, it's also something that we can be more dynamic, you know, is

As those 18 other states have implemented privacy laws after California in the US, every time that happens, instead of charging, we don't send the customer, we basically add that service to our existing platform and we push out a solution to our customers so they never have to reinstall. We make it very easy. Like part of this is just making it easy and cost effective for our customers.

Brett Trainor (: 24:17

That makes sense. More people should think this way too, right? Cause most of the time it's like, how do I get them maximize the dollars out of it? And again, and you probably didn't even see it at the time, but you know, with the solar manure market, right? By like 2028, think it's going be a little bit longer than that, right? 50 % of the workforce is going to be solo businesses, even in enterprise companies are going to be solo. So you're going to have dual and there's not a ton of folks that have been focused on this, this growing segment, or at least being able to service this.

Michael Williams (: 24:24

Yeah.

Michael Williams (: 24:37

Yep.

Brett Trainor (: 24:47

So, I don't know something better lucky than good or intention or however it was the perfect combination, right?

Michael Williams (: 24:55

Yeah, and I think we want to be able to service this market, right? Like our competitive set is not typically not, they're mostly focused on enterprise, but market. We, because our product is scalable, we want to, the word democratize, you throw it around a lot, but no one's really doing that, but we're trying to, right? So like for a fraction of what you would pay for an attorney's, an hour of an attorney's time, you can get our service on.

your website and get up and running in five minutes by yourself with default settings across 150 different regulations. So it's probably, it may be a little bit too much of what people need for some things, but better to have more than less.

Brett Trainor (: 25:32

That makes sense.

Brett Trainor (: 25:39

Yeah, I mean, again, the law, especially when maybe back in the old days, when it was just the government had to track you down and figure out if you weren't compliant. But now that you've got people being opportunistic with, with that, I mean, it's unfortunate reality of where it's going to go. So think we're going to see more of it than.

Michael Williams (: 25:59

Yeah, we talked about the accessibility lawsuits. know, if you're walking into restaurants to try to get ADA violations, you might be able to do 50 restaurants in person a day. How many websites can you create? A thousand, 10,000, a hundred thousand? You know, like it's pretty much unlimited now with some of the tools you're talking about, AI. So that's why we see an explosion in those lawsuits. And again, most of those lawsuits, which are 20, 25,000 plus attorney's fees,

know, most, % of them are against small businesses, including solar printers. And it's really, it's really unfortunate, but there's a reason why there's a lot of attorney's jokes, right?

Brett Trainor (: 26:31

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 26:36

Yeah. Right. Ambulance chasers in this case, it's business chase. Yeah. No, mean, it's the unfortunate reality. It is the world we live in. We got to take those precautions. It's funny because when I was sitting down talk to you, it was really more of the attorney to software. But the fact is, this is probably the bigger issue for small businesses. just, as you said, an ounce of prevention versus, I don't even know what the saying is, a cart full of...

Michael Williams (: 27:06

There you go.

Brett Trainor (: 27:08

There you go. Yeah. All right. So let's, let's think back. now that you've started the company, what did you, what have you learned? Right. I'm sure that's going to take more than that, but just curious, cause you, did you set out to, mean, we look into be part of, you know, Silicon Valley raise money and really grow, or was this more of a, I want to bootstrap this baby and see. Um, cause again, my listeners go across the board from, I just.

Michael Williams (: 27:13

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 27:36

I need to work. I'm going to make a couple thousand dollars a month and I'm good all the way to, man, how do I get to 25 to 50 K per month? curious where you were at and what actually happened.

Michael Williams (: 27:41

Sure.

Michael Williams (: 27:49

Yeah, so there was kind of like two moments of breaking free for me. The first one was to leave the corporate job. And then, you know, while I kind of worked on the consulting part of it initially, and we quickly pivoted to just the software side once we kind of figured out what we actually wanted to do. I, you know, I'm not a developer, so hired some development team and started creating the software. And two years later, in 2022, we kind of we thought we hit the jackpot because we were we had

were driving revenue and a small VC reached out and they're like, we want to invest. And it was a big check, a seven figure check, right? So that was a great win, we thought at the time. And pretty much anyone who starts software, they kind of dream about being a VC backed software company. said, okay, well, this is amazing. And...

Brett Trainor (: 28:29

Okay.

Michael Williams (: 28:49

We quickly found out that the structures that were put in place, we were a little bit misaligned in terms of what we wanted to do from a strategic perspective. And so after about maybe just about two years of doing that, we had an opportunity to get out of that investment and we had the ability, thankfully, to repay the investors plus.

Brett Trainor (: 29:18

No interest.

Michael Williams (: 29:19

some fees and interest in those kinds of things. So we were able to repay that investment and exit from being a VC backed company to once again being a bootstrap company. while doing that is financially challenging, we thought from a strategic perspective, it was the right long-term move for us.

as a company. you know, ultimately it came down, it's my decision to make from a shareholder perspective, but obviously I wanted to get input from various members of the team. And we said, okay, this is where we want the product to go. And we always wanted to be product and customer focused. And so we made the decision to exit that investment. And, you know, now we're with Shrepp again.

Brett Trainor (: 30:14

Freedom. Yeah. I'm a big fan. was funny because when I first left consulting, thought I wanted to do something with the VC of the smaller companies, but man, the deeper, and I was doing some advisory work for some startups, but yet the more conversation I had with those founders, was more about the priority was raising the next round and those, wasn't about building a business. I mean, it was there.

But the business was the vehicle to go raise money versus the other way around. And I'm like, I'd rather go help small businesses that are, they have a good product. They just don't know how to execute and they just don't have the influx of cash to throw at their problems. So I, I understand where you're coming from.

Michael Williams (: 30:59

And look, there's no, there's, I just want to make clear, no animosity with those investors group. It just, we had a difference of opinion on a few things and, they were helpful for the period of time they're invested. You know, they provided some good advice. just had, we had a difference of opinion on some of the long-term, longer-term strategies we were trying to deploy. So, but they were, I mean, again, it's a great learning experience and they took a chance on a small startup at the time.

Brett Trainor (: 31:02

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 31:28

Yeah, interesting. So how big is the how big is the team now?

Michael Williams (: 31:32

We have about 35 people now. So to put that in perspective, well, three, maybe four or three years ago, but it's grown up pretty well.

Brett Trainor (: 31:34

Okay. And in the early days... Go ahead, sorry. Okay.

Brett Trainor (: 31:45

Okay.

And I do want to, I want to take a step back because folks leaving corporate, did you have a plan when you were leaving? Did you like to have the business plan or here's what I'm going to do? Or did you exit and say, all right, now I'm all in, I got to go figure this out. I didn't have a plan when corporate quit on me. So I'm always curious, different folks and how you got to that inflection point.

Michael Williams (: 32:10

Mike Tyson is very famous for saying everyone's got a plan until they get punched in the mouth. while I had some semblance of a plan, if you, again, you know, hindsight's 2020, but where this company is now compared to five years ago or three years ago, again, if you talked to me three years ago when we took the investment and you said, hey, you'd have to repay this thing, a big, why would I take the investment then?

You know, so, but even leaving, leaving the original corporate gig, you know, I think what my plan was, see how it goes for a couple of years. I knew that worst case scenario, I could go back if I wanted to. Right. Like I still have a really good relationship with the people at the farm and you know, they said, if you want to come back, there's an opportunity for you. And then so, but I'm still grateful for being able to say thanks, but no thanks.

Brett Trainor (: 32:37

Right. Right.

Brett Trainor (: 33:06

Right.

Michael Williams (: 33:06

Because this is again the autonomy that you are able to obtain when doing something on your own or with a small group that eventually grows. as long as you know, you know, for me it's having the control of something like this is important. And I felt when you're part of a large bureaucracy at a very large company or even a mid-sized company, it's just, you know, you feel a little suffocated and you're trading.

the risk of being a solopreneur or entrepreneur for paycheck. But you're also capping your potential upside reward as well. Because there's obviously that relationship between the amount of risk you take and the reward you're able to obtain. It's interesting that when I was listening to a couple of the other podcasts, it seems like diversification of services is a pretty common theme, which is great. I love that. It's a very basic law of economics is you diversify your

Offerings you are reducing your risk income streams as well you know the so the flip side of that is that if you Put all your eggs in one basket you have functionally unlimited upside, but you also have unlimited downside so I think you know originally You know by repaying the investors my eggs are kind of all in this basket now

Brett Trainor (: 34:07

Income streams, yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 34:23

All right.

Brett Trainor (: 34:33

Yeah, which again, I think makes sense. And that's what I kind of warn people that just build the momentum first, right? Stack a few wins, gain the confidence that yeah, and knowing you can always go back to corporate, even though corporate's on fire right now and trying to find a new job in corporate may be really difficult.

But that path is always still there. So yeah, go figure it out. Find that the path of least resistance to get started. And then like I said, two years ago, the corporate escapee wasn't even a thought. Now it's a hundred percent of my time. Right. And so I am going all in on the escapee and this ecosystem and this, this, this world. But again, two years I was, and I was finding my way, but it was my way, not through a corporate way. I, I get you.

Michael Williams (: 35:17

Well, you know it's interesting you're saying, my way is...

So I grew up in an Irish Catholic family. I have something like 52 first cousins and none of them are entrepreneurs to my knowledge. They're all working in these hierarchical corporate structures. A lot of teachers, people working for hospitals or insurance companies. And that's great. They're all lovely people. But I think some of them think I'm insane for doing what I do. And they're taking the risk because it's...

Brett Trainor (: 35:43

Yeah.

Michael Williams (: 35:51

because it is a risk, right? Like, you I don't get a paycheck every two weeks, you know, unless I generate revenues to do that. And I think that's the scariest part about moving on from a corporate job is it's a loss of comfort. You have to be comfortable with discomfort in order to take that risk. And oftentimes you'll get negative feedback.

Brett Trainor (: 35:56

Right.

Michael Williams (: 36:17

for taking that risk. You may not have the support from your friends and family. They may think that you're making the wrong move. And that's okay. But I you have to make a choice of what you want your life to be and what you want your professional life to be specifically.

Brett Trainor (: 36:31

Yeah.

I think that's, it's so true. And they'd be looking at you now judging you, but in 10 years, they're probably going be flipping the other way and say, man, I, I didn't, again, some of those jobs will have pensions that will carry through, but, some of them, don't, there's not a, there's not an exit strategy with a lot of corporate roles. So you don't have control. They tell you when it's over and what you're going to do. And again, if you're, and the thing I found is I think it's less than 10 % of the folks that I've talked to actually have enough money.

that they could comfortably retire and not just live off a drip system in order to get them, especially with longevity and other things that, so that means 90 % aren't. What are you going to do when corporate runs out, right? At that point, are you going to try to figure it out or are going to take control a little bit earlier? And I know that's super uncomfortable for people, but slowly but surely, um, folks are starting to get it.

Michael Williams (: 37:28

You also have to think about what are you working for? You know, like, so when I was 18, my high school basketball coach told me a story about when he was a senior in high school, his team won the state championship. And for like an 18 year old boy, like that's like the pinnacle, right, of your success. Like there's been movies written about this, right? So, and he said that he was in the locker room crying because

Brett Trainor (: 37:48

Right.

Yeah, who's yours?

Michael Williams (: 37:58

the victory felt empty. The victory was meaningless. It was the fact that he had woken up at five in the morning to practice with his teammates. He had to endure some of the challenges. They had to work together as a team. had to do all these, you know, he had to, it was the journey that mattered. And that's what made him fulfilled. He got the brass ring and he was like, this is not what I hoped it would be. So I think part of this, you know, again, one of the reasons I find this company super interesting.

is always this is going to be a constant battle to as these regulations evolve and we're always going to have new challenges. I mean I brought up CIS's FIST before like it's a little bit of like that where you're always going to be facing new challenges but you got to deal with spot on your face and you got to think about how you want to spend your time with your purposes and then you know make the right decision based on your current needs.

Brett Trainor (: 38:55

Yeah, no, I think that's well said. And it's true because that's another thing, you know, my purpose when I was in corporate was chasing right the next promotion or the responsibilities. And at some point I just like, you like when Forrest Gump in that movie and he's running across American when he just stops and I'm tired, I'm going home. It's, think we all hit that at different points and like, what am I going to do? And that's kind of the other thing I've realized over the last five plus years. This is all about the journey. It's not the outcome, right?

I think in corporate we're looking at the outcomes we're trying to get to but yeah, all of sudden you've gone five years in a job that you hate and Built your life around this thing versus it versus now. Yeah, there's gonna be ups and downs It's gonna be uncomfortable at times, but you're in control of it. And that's the other thing that I don't think people fully Appreciate is yeah, I've yet to see so I'm sure there's been some bad outcomes from people that are pushing really hard in our you know

going after it, right? Taking action, but very rarely, right? Because a lot of people just want to wait for things to come to them or things to happen and overanalyze. But, you know, I've taken somebody with, you know, a 10th of experience and maybe a little bit of talent, but it's willing to go have conversations and go do it. Guess what? They're going to, they're going to figure it out.

So again, that's my reoccurring message to folks is just do it Nike. had it, they were on it. Just have this conversation done is better than perfect. Get started and you're going to be ahead of the game.

Michael Williams (: 40:31

Yeah, think about it this way. It took me two years to leave after this idea kind of came to me. Maybe like a year and a half, 18 months, whatever it was. It was a while, right? And I kind of wish that every day I look back, I'm like, why didn't I do this sooner? And again, part of it is every day is a new challenge. Every day something else comes up. And that's true of whether, my company has grown to 35 people and that's amazing.

Brett Trainor (: 40:42

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 40:51

Yeah.

Michael Williams (: 40:58

Like, but even if I was doing this by myself, when you're an entrepreneur of any kind, of any size, you're gonna face new challenges every single day. And that for me is exciting, right? That for me is much better than the alternative, where it's like more rogue, it's more, you know, it's more, it's more, it's more like just normal, it's normalized, right? I don't really like that.

Brett Trainor (: 41:16

Agreed.

Brett Trainor (: 41:25

Yeah, no, same, even in my corporate career and I was looking back, I was much better off in organizations that were either building or rebuilding something versus status quo. Just keep the ship on the right on the, or the train on the tracks. like, I was looking for things to break in those companies because it just, it's boring. It just wasn't, it wasn't there. So yeah, again, I think in hindsight, 10 years prior pod would have worked, but,

Maybe I wasn't ready for it the world wasn't aligned to do these types of things. But I think, I think we're in a great opportunity for anybody that does want to do it. It's, it's much more receptive because there is that path with fractional and working with smaller companies that wasn't there before all the way to what you're doing and beyond, right? There's people that are even, bigger, bigger, bigger, but, that's, that's the beauty meant to go follow what you want to do versus somebody else's dream. And so that's.

Michael Williams (: 42:20

When you're looking, the way that I think about it, when you're looking to exit a corporate life, the timing is never gonna be perfect, but it's almost always gonna be right.

Brett Trainor (: 42:32

That's a good way of saying it. think you're absolutely right. Yeah, there's no perfect time. You can work with the perfect storm. think, again, I love to quote movies. you look at Castaway, Tom Hanks, when he built the boat and he was ready for the winds to change and all of a sudden the winds change that day and he went. And that's what I try to get people in Still Corp. Just plan, build your boat. And I say, by the way, you may actually like this, doing this before you were asked to leave or you do leave and you're going to be surprised. So, no,

I think that's really good advice. once again, I've overextended your stay, so I appreciate you sharing some time. I think this is super interesting. I appreciate it. And if folks want to connect with you, learn more about you, find that reseller program or one, take it. Make sure their website's compliant. What's the best place to track you down?

Michael Williams (: 43:27

Sure, just go to the website www.climb.io. That's C-L-Y-M dot I-O. And I think, we're gonna have a special offer for your listeners as well. So we'll get that set up maybe however you wanna do it.

Brett Trainor (: 43:38

Yes. Awesome.

Yeah, no, I'll make sure I'll put that in the show notes. So anybody that wants to look for it, you can find it on your favorite podcast platform. And, no, appreciate you spending some time with us and best of luck with the growth. I think you're in a, while you know this, you're in a good position with where the world's going and what you have to offer. it's, looking for problems to solve. You've got one to solve. All right. Take care of yourself. We'll catch up with you in the future.

Michael Williams (: 44:07

Thanks for the time.

Thanks.