Joe Grover: 0:00

Like the biggest failure in my life would be like failing my kids, like so it just didn't seem to matter, like as hard as that was to shut the doors, and like we decided just to like kind of let that happen. I felt even more like questions in my life. I'm like am I really focused on what matters? How can I create more balance in my life and not get fully sucked into things that are like consuming my whole life?

Lindsey Ivie: 0:27

You're listening to the Real F Word, a podcast that dives deep into the realities of entrepreneurial failure, and each episode features raw, unfiltered stories from founders who have navigated both the highs and lows of startup life. We'll discover the lessons learned and the strength found in facing setbacks head-on. Welcome to the Real F4. Lindsay, welcome, so excited to have you here today.

Joe Grover: 0:50

Thanks for having me.

Lindsey Ivie: 0:51

And I'm excited to unpack some of your personal experiences, both as a marketing leader, as a consultant and as an entrepreneur trying to build something, and then, finally, you're putting together a really interesting event. So we're going to talk about all those things in the next 45 minutes.

Joe Grover: 1:09

Yes, sounds good.

Lindsey Ivie: 1:09

Tell me a little bit about Ivy League Growth and how you, I think the early part of your consulting experience. You engaged with three different companies to help them scale and they all ran into some issues and, as we've talked about this, there's some patterns and some learning there that I'd love to share yeah, yeah, so that's actually kind of the.

Joe Grover: 1:30

How we began our consulting business was my husband and I.

Joe Grover: 1:34

So, um, we started working on a few different startups together, but it was more full-time because I like at the time, like eight, nine years ago, like fractional CROs, cmos and those type of things weren't as well known, like there weren't as many companies that were doing that um, so him and I both came on like the first company we started with um was a student housing software.

Joe Grover: 2:01

So we were um, and that was like my first time working with like a SaaS company. Before that I was working in telecom, so it was like you know, slinging fiber and all those fun things, um, but we were like in it and we I was over a lot of the partnership stuff and he was in the sales too. So we were just like out knocking doors of like different university um, uh, their, their student housing buildings and we were just like all over provo, because obviously there's a lot there, um, and we got a lot of sales like lined up for them and it was a really cool software. It was unique in what they were doing, where you could go in and you can book a room with your other, like if you have another roommate. So usually it's like you're booking the whole space, but it was like you could book the bed.

Joe Grover: 2:54

So that was kind of unique at the time and it was because front-facing the MVP and everything looked amazing. It was super polished, it looked great. It was really easy to looked great. It was really to get people on easy, to get people on board. Um, and we did, we did get quite like we. We had a huge pipeline.

Lindsey Ivie: 3:12

You built the marketing strategy and the sales strategy. Yeah, the sales we were crushing the sales.

Joe Grover: 3:18

But then it came time to onboard. Uh, and I still have a little ptsd from some of that because, um, it was a basically it was like a clickable wireframe at the time. Um, so I remember sitting inside of like king hang, is it like king henry? Is that the student house there's?

Joe Grover: 3:40

like one of the old yeah, down, down, in provo, in provo watching people line up to like sign up for it or like just to onboard, and every two seconds is breaking, breaking. I was just sitting there like shaking, like on the phone with the dev team.

Lindsey Ivie: 3:55

It was completely falling apart because you sold it before it had really been built yeah, um which, by the way is not a bad strategy for an entrepreneur, unless you're trying to do that outstrips your ability to build the product

Joe Grover: 4:09

so I just sat there and I was just watching like everything fall apart in front of me and I just I had to see it like it's not only like it's one thing to sell something, but it's another thing to physically be there and watch it completely like not work and and there's nothing you can do about it, and that was like really a lot for me. Um, but what had to happen in this case is they brought in like a dev team and they're like okay, now you're selling soft, like you're selling dev services, because they had to go and build it but they also had to bring in revenue. So our role switched from selling the student housing software to selling dev service.

Joe Grover: 4:46

Outsource dev development services and that happened back to back to back. It's crazy, Like same exact situation.

Lindsey Ivie: 4:56

And what was your role in the company then? Were you a consultant? Were you an owner?

Joe Grover: 5:00

I was a part of. Yeah, we were like the first, basically the first sales people yeah and so that happened again with another company same story same exact thing you.

Lindsey Ivie: 5:12

You sold it. You got some early traction. People were buying what? You were selling, but then yep, when they turned it on it didn't, it did not. Yeah, the integration how bad was the experience.

Joe Grover: 5:23

One of them was rough because it affected people's business in a big way. Because of what it was. I won't go into details on that one, but it happened. So it's crazy. After three times of that happening, I'm like okay, this is a pattern.

Lindsey Ivie: 5:43

Three times in a row.

Joe Grover: 5:45

Three times in a row Same exact problem. They had to bring it an in-house dev team. We were then now selling dev services to like bring in revenue, but it was the same exact problem.

Lindsey Ivie: 5:57

And in each case they were trying to drive revenue from both the product they had built as well as reselling dev services, which was way too early.

Joe Grover: 6:03

It wasn't working. They needed well. In a lot of ways, it was just how it was built. It needed to be built with an enterprise level, like software development team.

Lindsey Ivie: 6:14

Why do you think that was? Was it a function of the entrepreneurs and their kind of technical capabilities? You know? Why do you think? Because that's really unusual for you to have the same experience three times in a row. It sounds like you crushed the sales and marketing piece.

Joe Grover: 6:28

Well, they had a good product I was excited about it's like the product vision the vision of well, yeah, to specify, like the product wasn't working, but the vision of like the problem it solved was really good. Um, but in the in the same way. In those cases, what I found was interesting in the pattern of it is they all raised money. So I feel like when it's not your money coming out of your pocket and you can just dump it into different things, you're not as thoughtful.

Lindsey Ivie: 7:01

Interesting.

Joe Grover: 7:02

In how it's built.

Lindsey Ivie: 7:04

There was money from angel investors.

Joe Grover: 7:06

Angel investors okay yeah, so it was enough to, like you know, throw a couple hundred grand at like the development and put into your team. But that was the case in like all three of them. They had done that early raise based on like their pitch right an amazing.

Lindsey Ivie: 7:24

An amazing story, a vision, a problem to be solved in the market. And then ta-da, uh-oh, doesn't work.

Joe Grover: 7:30

Yeah, which was it's just crazy? Yeah, and I would imagine I've heard this happens a lot Right.

Lindsey Ivie: 7:37

So it's interesting to break down. Maybe the pattern is hey, like you oversold, right that you sold something that really wasn't ready for prime time. Maybe because they had access to outside money, they were a little bit more aggressive at selling the product early right To show some traction to those investors so they could raise more money. It also could be a question of whether or not early stage startups should be product-led growth or marketing-led growth.

Joe Grover: 8:06

Yeah.

Lindsey Ivie: 8:07

You've had many experiences since then with clients in your own startups. Where, in your experience, have you seen the most success from early stage technology startups product-led growth or marketing and sales-led growth?

Joe Grover: 8:20

That's a good question. I think it depends on what you're selling In a lot of places, like in the e-com space. It's like marketing, right like you can sell. If you have like the right marketing engine, you can sell anything um.

Joe Grover: 8:37

But when it comes to like, there just has to be the functionality like it has to work, which it sounds sounds crazy and sounds like a really dumb thing to say, because it's like well duh, why would you sell something that doesn't work? You'd be very surprised how many people are out there pre-selling a product that's not there, and I feel like you don't want to bring a sales team on too soon. If you're the founder, you should be ready and prepared to make those first sales until it works.

Lindsey Ivie: 9:09

Because the founder is closer, maybe to the product development and the functionality and the capabilities than a salesperson, especially a hired guy, right.

Joe Grover: 9:19

Especially if they're not being truthful about where the product is and they're just like just go sell it. Sales will solve our problems.

Lindsey Ivie: 9:24

They'll, just they're just like, just go sell it. Yeah, sales will solve our problems.

Joe Grover: 9:27

They'll just solve all the problems. We'll fix it as soon as they sell it and we can just make it work.

Lindsey Ivie: 9:33

But you're threading a needle as an entrepreneur because, like revenue, does solve a lot of problems and that early validation and traction is a really strong signal that you're solving the right problem and customer feedback can help perfect a product. But if it's too early, right, it has the opposite effect, right, which? Is the blowback from customers reputation risk both for the company and for the salespeople and the team that are delivering that.

Joe Grover: 9:56

Yeah, and I think, with one of these companies that I was working with, like this specific, sorry, specific statement like really, um, led to what we are like with ivy league. Growth was like I wish I could just put you on pause and bring you back on when things were working. I'm like and you're a w-2 employee, like you can't, yeah, like there wasn't a way to do that, and so that's where my husband and I were like well, what if you could like, what if we were fractional?

Joe Grover: 10:26

yeah and what if we can come in and you could get like a little bit of our time. Like right now you're not fully prepared to go out and do the sales piece but you do need help from sales and you do need help with marketing and you need help with building that out and figuring out pricing and figuring out all those different things. But you probably can't afford or you're not in a good position to draw up like a ton of money down for a full-time person and you're not ready for that full-time person. And that's what really kind of pushed us in the direction of like doing the more fractional was because I'm like people need this, like startups need the expertise, but they they need it on a budget and they don't need a full-time person. That's right.

Lindsey Ivie: 11:11

So I mean, yeah, you're preaching the choir, yeah.

Joe Grover: 11:14

I was like you get it right.

Lindsey Ivie: 11:15

And the reality is, is the flexibility that that affords actually de-risks the journey for the entrepreneur? Because they can get access to talent and experience that they wouldn't get access to otherwise, because they can't afford to hire a full-time head of sales or VP of sales that has done this three or four or five times, or a CMO that has done this, you know, three or four times, and so they get access to a caliber of talent they wouldn't have otherwise. But also the flexibility of like, let's go out and sell a little bit, let's build the go-to-market strategy, and if it doesn't work, I don't have to fire someone, right, I can throttle down.

Lindsey Ivie: 11:48

I can turn it off, I can go back to the workshop, figure out my product and then I can go back to market, and so I think that flexibility is really important. Fixed costs early in the startup journey I have seen create some bad decision making, because when you have high fixed costs, then, you're like. Well, I have to sell my way through it.

Lindsey Ivie: 12:09

And if you're not ready to deliver the product, then you have a bad customer experience and that hurts retention and reputation and it really is dangerous. Um, if you hire too early or hire senior people too early yeah so yeah it's a great, a great insight. You also have your own startup journey and I'd love for you to talk a little bit more about sharehouse and what was the vision there and and what did you learn from that experience yeah, so like how far?

Joe Grover: 12:39

like what are we? A year and a half. So I came on full-time um to share house. Was it 20, 23? Yeah, so last year, um, and I was in a position where they were they were looking for like another co-founder to build it.

Joe Grover: 12:57

So the initial vision of it was they were actually like really close to signing the paperwork on a big space for a co-working 3PL, essentially for e-commerce brands. But that kind of shifted gears in the earlier days of Sharehouse. And then they went more to like the community. So they were doing a lot of like monthly community events. Um, they did a big conference like an amazon conference, um, before I got there and that was truly like what they. They had done a really good job. They had like a good established slack channel and they had like a really good following that way. But when I came on we kind of sat down and we just like went over, like okay, what are we doing? What are we spending our time doing? We need to make money. Like we got to get a return here and initially I was like, well, I think we need to shift gears. I was like they were doing like two to three free events a month. I'm like that's a lot of work.

Lindsey Ivie: 14:01

A lot of cost.

Joe Grover: 14:03

It's a lot of cost and you're chasing down smaller sponsors Because your jam is events and partnerships right.

Joe Grover: 14:11

It's funny that you say that. I guess it is now, but I actually have a lot of experience more in building partnerships. But I think I've just kind of fallen into that because I've worked with a lot of startups who are like, well, what are we gonna do now? Like we can do an event or we can do whatever. We have zero marketing budget, what are you gonna do?

Joe Grover: 14:30

Um, but we kind of shifted gears and tried to focus on um, the act, on the e-commerce founders and the e-commerce decision makers, and trying to create resources and events and different things like that to help benefit them and help them in their journey. So it started off as like we it was a joke initially. The idea for Madeline, who was my co-founder, came up with the name Only Brands. She was like texting me she's like what if we called it Only Brands? I'm like, yes, that's it, that's the name. And it was initially just like a joke, like a text back and forth. But then it became something much bigger and just kind of like a humorous part of what we were building. And that was more on the side of like the community right, like only brands was what we built out on the the event side and what turned into taking, like a group of founders, to Disneyland and the UFC fights.

Lindsey Ivie: 15:34

I heard that was a fantastic trip it was so heard that from some clients.

Joe Grover: 15:37

It was so crazy, it was so fun, like that was my favorite. I've done Disney.

Lindsey Ivie: 15:42

I grew up in California, so like I've done Disney a lot but going with a group of like a mini mouse years at the house.

Joe Grover: 15:48

Yeah, just people were just so open and like like there's points where people were crying and like opening up and just having that experience with other people that are like on the same journey as you, it was really cool. It's cool and I'm like I have just lasting relationships from that. So that was a really fun, fun thing we got to do. But outside of that, we wanted to build more of a platform and that's where we were able to pull together, um pull it off in like a week. It was crazy how quickly we built it out, but it I knew from my experience of like you don't want to dump a ton of money into dev until you have it figured out. So we were able to kind of um use existing tools and things to like build it out initially, which was a platform where you could book a time with an e-commerce expert, and it worked. Built it out on WordPress and it worked. You could go in, you could book a time, the payments worked.

Lindsey Ivie: 16:46

That was all great. It was all off the shelf.

Joe Grover: 16:48

All off the shelf.

Lindsey Ivie: 16:49

No proprietary dev.

Joe Grover: 16:50

No, there wasn't any.

Lindsey Ivie: 16:52

This is another great learning.

Joe Grover: 16:53

Yeah.

Lindsey Ivie: 16:54

Just there's so much software available to us today that I think entrepreneurs feel like if I don't build it on my own and you know every line of code is new then I'm not creating something of value, and that's a fallacy. Yeah, you should build the things that aren't in the market. Build the integrations or the functionality that doesn't exist. Yeah, but why build another CRM? Why build another scheduling tool? There's, you know, we've got proven tools that have been in market for a long time yeah, I got to know calmly really well exactly like why build calendar?

Joe Grover: 17:26

I was like you literally can build an entire company off of calendly, like and we did wordpress and calendly, you can do that. Um, and yeah, that's what I learned from my learning experiences from those early stage startups was, like, we could figure this out like, and then we can do a proprietary one once we have the funding and once you've proven that.

Lindsey Ivie: 17:42

You've proven that people care like.

Joe Grover: 17:44

But we built it, it worked, pulled it off um and then it was like the recruiting piece. I was on top of that. We wanted to build a marketplace where people could go um and when these mentors like that were on the platform, made like, referred other services to people like they could get a residual affiliate model so I was also having calls with like hundreds of different partners trying to line that up and then trying to get this piece done, so like it was all coming together, I feel like it needed.

Joe Grover: 18:17

Obviously, like with platforms like intro and things like that, like a ton of marketing dollars are getting dumped into those to acquire new customers, which was where we were bootstrapping, so that was a little tricky, so everything was very marketed in a way, with like very limited budget on that piece.

Lindsey Ivie: 18:38

So like no capital or very little capital to yeah, so we were.

Joe Grover: 18:43

Yeah, it was. It was definitely getting bootstrapped like with that piece Cause we were trying to be smart in the way like not dumping more money into something, if we could kind of like figure out how to just like gauge the interest potentially raise later. And then, but people were interested.

Lindsey Ivie: 18:58

Like you, started building this and marketplaces. It's kind of a marketplace.

Joe Grover: 19:01

They're hard. Marketplaces are the toughest, they're the hardest, yeah, right.

Lindsey Ivie: 19:05

And where did you find more difficulty? Was it getting the experts? Was it getting the brands? Like which part of the, which side of the marketplace was the most difficult to acquire?

Joe Grover: 19:17

users. I think we had like a pretty good base of like experts on the platform and those weren't as hard to get on. It was just the marketing. It's like getting to the market with what you have.

Joe Grover: 19:28

That's the hardest part I feel like um, because people got it, though, like they clicked, like it made sense to a lot of people who are like, oh yeah, like this is needed, but getting that message to everyone is that's where there's typically like bigger costs or just have to be grinded out. I think a lot of it was in my mind. I was like we just need to do a lot of like personalized outreach to people Like, hey, this is a new platform you can use. I found a lot of success in doing like the dirty work that people don't want to do, but it's effective, like especially with events.

Lindsey Ivie: 20:06

Yeah, one-to-one um, interesting, so what is that? Yeah, expand on that. That's interesting. Like what is the dirty work that?

Joe Grover: 20:10

the dirty work is the laborious work that like people want to do like one video put, put it out there and then it gets to everyone and everyone buys what you're selling, which that works really well. But I think what I've found like over my years of like doing events and helping with events, it's like personalized messages, especially when you're newer and people don't know who you are and they need to know why they would be buying into what you're doing. Like it takes a text, it takes an email, it takes a lot of those different things, and I felt like that's kind of where we were at, where it's like okay, we're just going to have to do the outbound.

Lindsey Ivie: 20:47

Yeah, it's so interesting because, like we're throwing this event in two weeks and I'm just sitting and going scrolling through all my contacts and making text invites. And so I'm like sitting and going scrolling through all my contacts and making text invites, so I'm like telling all my partners I'm like, listen, this is not about like a LinkedIn post, this is about like just go invite 50, 75, 100 people, and a personal invite goes a long way. It's that one-to-one you know that is really powerful, because we're all just overloaded with so many marketing messages.

Joe Grover: 21:16

I get so many emails every day I don't check all my emails, no. And then I'm not bought in, like, I'm not bought into your newsletter. I'm sorry I get so many newsletters, but you have people like and a lot of times they're like well, why should I go?

Joe Grover: 21:34

And then you like they're not going to be able to ask that in a one-to-one message, but that's, I think, more and more like marketing people, because we get so bombarded with like ads and all these different emails and different things, like I just feel I don't feel a connection to that. I think more and more people are going to look for a one-to-one connection.

Lindsey Ivie: 21:56

I totally agree One-to-one is powerful right. In an environment where everything is one-to-many. So, tell me a little bit about, like, how you were feeling at this moment. Like you're seeing early traction with Sharehouse. Yeah, you're spending 12 hours a day. Yeah 15 hours. I mean it takes a lot of time to build a business. And then what happened?

Joe Grover: 22:21

I'm to build a business. And and then what happened? Um, not getting into too many details, um, there's just some differences in the, the partnership that kind of led to us deciding we needed to shut the doors. Like we did have an opportunity to like they were generous and like, hey, you can, you can take it over and keep running with it. But I was just, I was kind of contemplating, like I think a lot of times like so much of our identity is in what we're building at work, but then we lose sight of what, what's happening at home. And in reality, that whole year I was like, going through the motions of my life, that the things that like really mattered, which were like I literally I had my four kids, I have four kids, so I have six, so I and you, you get it.

Joe Grover: 23:11

Yeah, it's a lot so, and at the time I, in order to like pull off a full day's work, I was getting four kids out the door at like 7 45 every day, and then I wouldn't see them till like 5 30 that night, like. I would like do the loop, pick them up on the way home then you're back on your computer at night after the kids go.

Joe Grover: 23:33

Yeah, you know, yeah because you're always doing something like, so you're never fully like disconnected. And even though I had that opportunity to like I could take this, I could like keep going with it, but then I don't know, my kids are young and I just was like I I feel like I've forgotten, like the biggest failure in my life would be like failing my kids. Right, like so it just didn't seem to matter, like as hard as that was to shut the doors and like we decided just to like kind of let that happen. I felt even more like questions in my life. I'm like am I really focused on what matters? How can I create more balance in my life and not get fully sucked into things that are like consuming my whole life? And that's kind of what happened, right, I, I did that.

Joe Grover: 24:29

I allowed myself to to get, and it's hard for me to to like set boundaries with myself. When I get really excited about things I'm working on and I get really involved. I have a really hard time like setting boundaries and in my mind I'm like, oh, I'm doing all this good stuff, but then I'm like, but am I like who's who's not getting my time? Like who's not getting my attention? Um, I think that's where I I decided for myself is like I know if I continue down this path with this project, it's gonna take a lot of my and my kids are so young. Right now I don't feel like that's what I want to do with my life right now.

Lindsey Ivie: 25:09

It's a really tough decision to make, but maybe not so tough when you really put it in perspective, right Like the fear you had of failure was probably you had a greater fear that you would fail in the thing that mattered the very most, which is your role as a parent, as a mother, versus failing at a startup.

Joe Grover: 25:31

Yeah, yeah, and I think it kind of goes back to. Even so, my dad was an entrepreneur and I feel like a lot of that like entrepreneur spirit is like in me. But he passed away, um, when I was 20, and it was um after I hadn't seen him for like a whole month. He was working 20 hour days. He was doing a big project up in Washington for Costco, like sealing the flooring. Um, and I hadn't seen him for like and when, when I did see him after his like 20 hour work days and getting like three hours of sleep in the car, he just looked like dead inside.

Joe Grover: 26:22

I don't know how to explain it. Like he he very much was like driven, wanting to be an entrepreneur, wanting to do all the things to help support his family. And then, you know, the next second I'm he's gone. You know he, he died in an accident on his way to that project he was working on. Sorry, I think we just need those reminders and I think he is constantly reminding me those reminders and I think he is constantly reminding me of what's important, because I think if he could go back in time, he wouldn't. That's not where he would want to put his time Right, even though like he would want to have more time with his family, right 100%.

Joe Grover: 27:24

So that was the reminder, because you get so focused and you get so sucked into whatever you're doing and at the end of the day, it's like true failure is failing your family, right? Like the whole purpose of working and building is so we can grow as a person, but it's so we can support our family. That's the whole reason, is like that's why we go to work every day. So I'm grateful that I do still have like I feel like there is a purpose to my drive of being an entrepreneur and and wanting to do the things I do. But I think you just have to check yourself sometimes.

Lindsey Ivie: 28:05

Yeah, thank you so much for being so vulnerable and open about something that's so personal. And I find myself sitting here as a father right and asking myself the question is the cost worth the reward?

Joe Grover: 28:21

Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Ivie: 28:23

And maybe I'll just look at the audience and the listeners and just say maybe this is your time to reflect on whether or not your journey in entrepreneurship is worth it, because there's a lot of ways you can make money and fulfill your ambitions and provide for a family, and entrepreneurship takes a level of sacrifice, time, emotional energy, focus. That is unusual. It's not a nine to five, and so I love that you kind of surface this. This whole idea of failure in your family is the worst kind. Yeah, failure. Failure in business is, is not it's.

Joe Grover: 29:15

It's truly not. Yeah, like after we shut the doors of share house, I'll be honest, I was like I disconnected from social media. I was like I disappeared for like three months because I had to still process it, because it's a loss, like when you build something and then you don't have it anymore. There's a loss there, like, so I felt that loss why did you disconnect from social media?

Lindsey Ivie: 29:37

talk to me about like was it? Was it shame, was it embarrassment, was it just you were overwhelmed, I just didn. Embarrassment, was it?

Joe Grover: 29:43

just you were overwhelmed, I just didn't. I think it was just a little bit of both, probably. I think there's my identity. It's no longer there, you know. So you're just like well, who am I? I think it was finding myself again, cause I I gave myself to this and now I had to take a step back and be like nope, that's not who I am, that that's not who.

Joe Grover: 30:03

I am. That is not who I am. Like. Who am I? I think that's a hard question. Like and that's something we can all ask ourselves is like who are you outside of your business? That's right. Like, if you can't answer that question, I would invite you to take a step back and, like, really dig deep and figure out who you are, because that could be gone in a second.

Lindsey Ivie: 30:26

What's up, phil fans, you know, as we've listened to so many guests on this podcast, that the road to success is often paved with failure, with a lot of challenges and even full-on face plants. But there's a thing that you could do to help skip some of those bumps and bruises, and that's really where the consultants at Amplio come in. See, amplio offers fractional executives in finance, marketing and HR, and these are people who've experienced a lot. They've been in the trenches, they've built businesses, they've failed. But here's the kicker They've learned from those failures and now they're applying all that wisdom to your business to support you.

Lindsey Ivie: 31:04

So you don't have to learn the hard way. I mean, think about it. Instead of stumbling around in the dark and hoping you don't hit the wall, you could bring someone in who's already mapped out that room right. Amplio consultants and experts have worked with and for numerous companies of all sizes and they've gathered insights on what works and where to focus and how to actually grow your business efficiently. So while we embrace failure on this podcast, there is no rule that says you have to fail at everything yourself. So check out Amplio and see how their fractional executives can help your business move forward and avoid those painful learning curves. Sometimes the smartest move is learning from someone else's failure. Visit ampliocom.

Joe Grover: 31:46

Businesses will come and go.

Lindsey Ivie: 31:47

Yeah, and I I we've talked about this with other entrepreneurs we, when our identity and our feelings of worth and value are inseparably tied and connected with our title and our role as a founder, a CEO or a CMO or whatever our role is in our company, we set ourselves up for a lot more pain than is necessary Because the second we're not a CEO or a founder or a successful entrepreneur or a fast 50 event, then we feel like we're not worth anything or our value to society, to our community, to our friends has somehow been diminished yeah so it's easy to say that it's hard to do it.

Lindsey Ivie: 32:30

So what? How have you decoupled your role as a entrepreneur with your sense of self-worth?

Joe Grover: 32:39

um, I think it's actually helped that I've kind of done less if that makes sense Like I'm not at every event, I'm not, like I'm very selective in where I spend my time, because I feel like I don't have to show face anymore, like it's just like being more thoughtful, because I know that that time spent there is time spent away from my family. So I have like taken a huge step back. I used to be at like every networking event. I used to be at a lot more things, but I think I'm just a lot more thoughtful in where I spend my time.

Lindsey Ivie: 33:14

I think that's there's this FOMO as an entrepreneur and a founder, where you're like. I mean, I had an event last night I should have been at, and I'm just. I was feeling guilt around that, as you know seven o'clock and I was like I should really be there.

Lindsey Ivie: 33:26

It's down in Utah County, there's amazing people there, amazing speakers, and I wasn't there. And I can't tell you how many times I'm like I'm not doing my job, I'm not representing the brand I'm not building if I'm not present, but but guess what, I'm not representing my real job. I'm not impacting the people that matter most when I'm not present with my children, and so it's. You know we have to pick our places, yeah, as entrepreneurs, around where we spend our time. Otherwise, every hour of every day will get filled with things that seem important in the moment, which may or may not be highest impact, bring us the most joy and help us succeed in life outside of work.

Joe Grover: 34:13

Yeah, yeah.

Lindsey Ivie: 34:16

So it's really you know. Unfortunately, you and I are probably having to learn this the hard way. Yeah, but at least we learn.

Joe Grover: 34:22

That's the whole point of life, right. It's to learn Like if you're, if you're taking a step back and you're allowing yourself to like learn from these things like that's. I think that's the whole point of existing Right.

Lindsey Ivie: 34:33

What's your key learning from the share house experience?

Joe Grover: 34:40

What's the piece? I think, um, where I'm at in my life now with my kids, the age they are. I don't want to put myself in a position where I spend that much time away from them.

Joe Grover: 34:53

I know that's probably not like the business answer you're looking for, but but for me it's like um, and then, yeah, I think that's probably the biggest thing, what I needed to learn from that is the priority I needed to put in place and, like I can still be an entrepreneur, I can still build, but I can maybe be a little more thoughtful in what I'm building and how I'm building it and what where I'm spending my time what any learning around partnerships?

Lindsey Ivie: 35:31

partnerships are hard. I see so many co-founders going to business together and it's exciting on day one, and sometimes misalignment or personality conflicts yeah the, the thing that craters the business.

Joe Grover: 35:44

I wouldn't say this like share house would like that was. There was the personality, different things that played out there. But like overall, like I had a really good experience from that and I'm grateful for what I learned and I'm grateful for the opportunity that I got to like I feel like I got an MBA in building that like there's so much I learned and so many incredible relationships I made from being there and I think it was I was meant to do that, like I was meant to spend that time doing that.

Joe Grover: 36:18

I'm grateful for that. But I would say, like in other ventures I've done in the past, is to always get things in writing, because I've had businesses taken from under me through an email because somebody owned the domain that I didn't have access to and I didn't have anything in writing to protect me from that.

Lindsey Ivie: 36:42

Yeah, it's a great finding. We need to have trusting relationships with our partners, but it's also helpful to get things in writing, because I've seen too many times where there's a handshake agreement and then, when things get hard or things are going great, those handshake agreements get rewritten in ways that can be really damaging to the business and to the entrepreneurs.

Joe Grover: 37:00

I think I heard a saying it's like you keep honest people honest when you get it in writing because I, at the end of the day, like we, things will happen and you don't know what's happening behind the scenes with that. Your partner like what? Like they're dealing with at home if they're having like financial strain, what's leading them to act the way they're acting? But you're keeping them honest if you have it in writing. I like that keeping honest people honest. You have it in writing.

Lindsey Ivie: 37:26

I like that Keeping honest people honest. Yeah, I remember when we connected, I was fascinated by this event because I was just in the process of launching the podcast.

Joe Grover: 37:34

Yeah.

Lindsey Ivie: 37:34

So tell me about Failed Fest. What was the inspiration for this? Maybe what you've talked about today?

Joe Grover: 37:39

Yeah.

Lindsey Ivie: 37:39

But what was the inspiration? What's the format? Tell me more about Failed Fest.

Joe Grover: 37:43

Yeah, so it's actually. It was like two years ago. I was at lunch with my husband and we had like a few other people there my friend, um Sarah, was there as well and we were just kind of joking around like there are typical conferences in Utah. It's always like people getting interviewed, these super successful founders, and you're just hearing like all the things they did right and like all the things they did well, and then we just were joking around like what if we had fail fest?

Joe Grover: 38:13

and it was like everyone's failures and instead of like, um, we have like a couch and a therapist and they're like interviewing the founder of like all the things you haven't heard about, like behind the scenes, like all the failures that happened that led to their successes, and then just we were just kind of spiraling and we can have the graveyard of failed products and like all these different fun things. And I kind of sat on that for a while and I think after my experience with ShareHouse, where I was like I felt it a little deeper. I'm like I think a lot of people need to hear from people they look up to like what's really happening behind the scenes. That's right.

Joe Grover: 38:55

That led them to where they are today. So it's been like a work in progress. We were we're shooting for October, but I was pretty, I was pulled into a really big event that took a lot of my time, which was phenomenal. Yeah, so I'm I'm looking at a few new dates for that. So and we have some things leading up to I want to build more of a community around it and have like once a month panels, not just one big thing. So I'm trying to break that down and kind of because I want people to have access to it more often than like once a year, like one big conference where we could have these conversations more openly.

Lindsey Ivie: 39:31

I think they're so valuable.

Lindsey Ivie: 39:32

That's why I launched the podcast and that's why I'm so grateful you came on to share that because we need to hear kind of the unvarnished versions of these entrepreneurial stories, not just to like help entrepreneurs who are navigating the complex emotional and financial implications of a failed business, but also to help entrepreneurs that are thinking, hey, I want to start my own company and I'm reading Entrepreneur Magazine and Fast Company and LinkedIn. I'm watching LinkedIn and all these entrepreneurs are making it and the reality is it's like no, most of the entrepreneurs are not making it even when it seems like they're doing well.

Lindsey Ivie: 40:08

The cost of that and the eventual outcomes in most cases are closing the doors. The experience you had and that I've had and unless we talk about that and destigmatize failure, then I feel like we're just going to be glorifying the IPOs and you know all the success stories and really that's not the most probable outcome.

Joe Grover: 40:30

Yeah, and I wonder if there's more people being open about even like those three startups I worked with like don't do this, like this will make you fail. Like how many companies will be more successful if we're more open about like things to avoid? Like don't do this.

Lindsey Ivie: 40:49

At episode 100 of the F word, if we get there.

Joe Grover: 40:52

Yeah.

Lindsey Ivie: 40:53

I want to just take all of the patterns and all of the learnings and the stories and just like to still it down into like a guide. Like here are the hundred things that you should never do, and maybe it's 10 things, but, like, here are the things you should be aware of. Here are the hundred things that you should never do, and maybe it's 10 things, but, but like, here are the things you should be aware of. Here are the pitfalls. Right, here are the things that entrepreneurs, over and over and over again, have had to learn the hard way.

Lindsey Ivie: 41:16

And you don't have to learn the hard way. It's also the reason why your engagement with a company is so beneficial as a as a consultant, is you can help say whoa, whoa, whoa. I've seen this, I've seen this before.

Joe Grover: 41:28

You don't want to do this.

Lindsey Ivie: 41:30

Like let's not go sell that product 10,000 times when like it doesn't work.

Joe Grover: 41:35

Right, it's vaporware.

Lindsey Ivie: 41:36

Yep. So, lindsay, this has been so insightful. Yeah, what? What would you share with an entrepreneur? Both your perspective as a consultant, having worked with lots of companies that are growing and scaling, as a co-founder of a company that had to shut its doors, and as a mother? What would you share with an entrepreneur?

Joe Grover: 41:55

I would share that it's so important to not try to do everything yourself like to. It's to lean on friends and mentors and people to help you through those hard times, and sometimes that means like taking a step back. I think it's so hard. You get sucked into what you're building and doing and it might be just destroying your life. Right, and maybe it's it's okay to fail and I think that's a hard time or hard thing to hear is like nobody wants to fail, nobody wants to feel like a failure.

Joe Grover: 42:30

But even through shutting the doors of the companies I've had to to work with and I've seen the doors shut up um, you can. I've learned so much and I am the person who I am today and like I have the experience in my career that I have because I was, I took a chance and I learned from that. But I'm not a failure because things didn't work out. Maybe that's the biggest thing. It's like you're not a failure and just even if you you're in a dark place and you feel like um giving up and you you feel like you've just failed at everything. Just think of all the things you've just failed at everything. Just think of all the things you've gained and learned from those experiences that have created growth in you and the person you are today.

Lindsey Ivie: 43:16

I love that, that you have failed, but you are not a failure, yeah.

Joe Grover: 43:21

That's okay, I have failed. I have failed so many times.

Lindsey Ivie: 43:39

I have failed. I have failed so many times but thinking through all those times, I've grown so much as a company. And I said he was the CEO and I had just come off a stint as a CEO. That was really tough. And I looked at him I said it's really lonely to be the CEO. And he said no, it's not. And I was like I had just met him and I was like whoa, and he said it's not lonely. It's not lonely if you surround yourself by people that you trust and you share that load. The success and failure of this business will not rest on me alone, and that was such a profound moment in my career.

Joe Grover: 44:10

And.

Lindsey Ivie: 44:10

I've never said that the job of a CEO is lonely. There were moments, many years into that journey, that we talked about that conversation. I think there was moments he did feel the loneliness and I reminded him it's not lonely if you lean on us your management team and you lean on mentors and your family, so that's amazing.

Joe Grover: 44:30

I'm Lindsay Ivey. I failed, but I am not a failure.

Lindsey Ivie: 44:35

Thanks for tuning in to the Real F Word. The Real F Word is failure, and remember that failure is a stepping stone, it's not just a stumbling block to StumblingBlock. Join us next time as we continue to explore the journey of resilience and growth, without ignoring the true cost personally, professionally and financially that comes with failure. Keep learning, keep growing and keep embracing the real stories of entrepreneurship. See you next time.