SPEAKER_03 0:01

Today's guest is someone who has spent more than two decades helping technology companies grow skill and break through crowded markets. As the founder and CEO of Fung Future, Jeremy has helped companies skill. He lives in Colorado with his wife and three kids, and he's telling me that he's a die-hard posture sports fan. Jeremy Fung has built a reputation as one of the energy industry's premier connectors, helping innovative companies accelerate sales, recruit top talent, and expand their market presence. He's also the host of multiple podcasts that podcasts, a trusted advisor to founders and executives, and someone who believes that in a world obsessed with technology, relationships remain the ultimate competitive advantage. Jeremy, welcome to the Future Ventures Scaling with Clarity Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Thank you, Maxim. This is uh like am I red? Because I feel like I'm blushing a little bit. Those are like that's some of the nicest stuff people have said about me. Those are all the things that I aspire to be. Um but you know what I actually do, we'll we'll dig into all of that. But thank you for having me on today. It's a pleasure. As you noted, I have my own podcast. I've done a number of different podcasts that I've hosted over the last six years, starting in COVID. So coming on yours, thank you for inviting me on, and it's a pleasure. This should be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Um, I'm super excited for the conversation. And uh the the one trend that's uh that uh we're observing is people are dying for more analog experience, they're they're dying for less digital, and of course, podcast is uh is a medium that connects people, but um people want in person, it is especially after COVID, people want in person. So we've seen this shift in momentum. We're looking at companies and looking at investing in companies that they're uh kind of facilitating this. Jeremy, you're known as this as a super connector, kind of like what's driving this? Kind of like what what's what's your motto, what's your cradle? Um, and and kind of give me your view and lay of the length on how you think about relationships.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah, so I mean you're speaking my language here for sure. Um, you know, it's it's it's kind of interesting. So I am mid-40s, technically maybe late 40s at this point. And you know, back when I was going to school in the late 90s and early 2000s, it was like develop a skill. Um, whether that, you know, whether that be a professional skill, like you know, going to law school and becoming a lawyer or or being a doctor, or at that time with um kind of the initial tech boom, it was you know, learn how to code, right? Be a developer. And none of those things were really me. None of those things interested me. So then you get out in the working world in the early 2000s, and it's like, well, what are you good at? Right? Well, I was a good bartender, I was good at waiting tables, I was at, you know, a popular guy, class president, high school and captain of the sports teams and all that stuff. So I was good at um building relationships, um, kind of distilling relatively complex topics and simplifying them for people to understand and and having a level of you know persuasive skill and capability. So naturally, that sort of just as I started to apply for jobs, led me to a career in sales. And my first job uh out here in Colorado, uh, geez, 23 years ago, um, was inside sales, which was basically just hammering phone calls. I the first it was so incredibly invaluable for me to have that baseline of making an average of about 85 phone calls a day for almost the first two years of my career. But what was crushing me was I would see our outside sales reps and they get take, they'd take people out to lunch and for happy hours and dinners and try golf and travel the country and go to sporting events. I'm like, I want to do that.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

So how can I shorten my path to be able to get there? Um, even if I wasn't ready, didn't have the experience, didn't have the relationships, I wanted to do that because to me, relationships are everything. Um ultimately why I was able to start Funk Futures, which as you noted is kind of an outsourced fractional sales organization. We also do some recruiting and some content and marketing work, was because, like, what is my value? Like, my value, honestly, is is this it's the the contacts and the people that are in my cell phone that will respond to me. And those could be um C levels at oil and gas companies, those could be friends of mine from college, it could be somebody that I grew up with, it could be a 23 or 24-year-old that just got out of college that I want to support um in their career journey, right? Because there's a lot of wisdom that I've been able to gain and obtain over time that you don't have at that age, right? So for me, relationships are everything. Um, and in sales, you know, I think one of the differentiators that my team brings to the table and that I take a lot of pride in is um the number one pillar of Funk Futures is authenticity always. And to me, what that means in a nutshell is I think when you are a full-time W-2 salesperson, you're constantly telling your bosses and telling people what you think they want to hear. My motto is we're gonna actually tell you the truth. And and I think that that's really important in sales and and communicating authentically and honestly um is critical and important for these companies to be able to learn and to grow and to scale. And I take a lot of pride in the way that we communicate and work with our clients and really with with people in general. You know, I think there's a lot to um life that can be learned from sales, and the relationship building aspect is something that uh is deeply meaningful to me. So hopefully I answered your question. It was kind of rambling, but remember, I'm a podcaster too, so I talk.

SPEAKER_03 6:18

Um, no, I love it. Uh what um what is your best advice, or how should uh founders think about uh building rapport, building relationships with uh with customers? Kind of like what have you found to work really well? And uh in particular because you are in enterprise sales, that's the hardest zone in in some ways, uh hardest to break into, right? Because you were dealing not just with uh one buyer, but you're dealing with an economical buyer and a technical buyer, and you have all of these personas that you have to keep in mind.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, I think it's building a level of trust and doing so in a way where you become a trusted advisor. And I don't think that's necessarily something that you have to do um through experience. I don't think it's something that you find out in a book. It's really meeting people where they're at, right? So when I go into a room, say say it's a it's an energy company, it's an oil and gas company, and there's gonna be four people um on their side in the room. I will look at their LinkedIn profiles. I'll ask Claude because we have all the AI tools now, um, something about these people, right? And you might you might find out some interesting things. Maybe I find out they're also a diehard Boston sports fan, or they went to college 10 minutes from where I went to college, which is over 2,000 miles from here. Um, those are you know critical insights into the person that could tell you a little bit about them. Maybe there's a charitable organization that is deeply meaningful to them. Maybe they coach their kids' sports teams. There's likely commonalities that all of us have that can change the dynamic of the conversation in a sales environment from a transactional one into a bit more of a personal one. And to me, that's how I like to break down a lot of those barriers is meeting people where they're at and kind of reflecting, reflecting how they are approaching you. I don't need to talk about all of those things. If they want to be all about business, I will get down and be all about business. But if there is an opportunity to connect in a way that is more human, uh more authentic, then I'm going to lean in that direction. And then critically, I think it's asking questions like how do you learn, right? You've got a product and you want to sell this product, right? But it's super important for the salesperson to realize that you need to understand why they would buy this, what the true value and impact is, not just on their business life, but does that bleed in then to their personal life too? Some of these people in the accounting world, for example, could be working every single month at the end of the month for hours. They could be working on weekends, they could be taking time away from their families. Your solution might have all the bells and whistles, but ultimately what does it really do? It allows them to buy some time back, right? And be able to spend time doing the things that they want to do versus the workflows that they have in place, which doesn't allow them to do that. So get to the value of what it is you're selling, understand how it can make an impact for them on their day-to-day life and even outside of their day-to-day business life and into their personal life. So for me, you know, one of my best friends is a is a very high senior ranking sales leader at a publicly traded company. And one of the things that I've noticed in the conversations that we have over the years is both of us just ask each other tons of questions. And it's almost like somebody has to step in and be like, all right, come on, man. Like, you tell me about you, right? But I think that the best salespeople are curious. I think they're inquisitive, I think they ask a lot of questions, and they're always trying to decipher is this something that I should invest my time in, not just something that the person on the other side of the table should invest their time and money in. But should I be spending my time on this? Or are there more fruitful opportunities for me to pursue?

SPEAKER_03 10:11

I couldn't agree more with you. I spent um 10 years working with Ernst and Young, now UI, and then three years with Deloitte. Um, the the amazing thing about the professional services firms is that they are incredible sales economies. And I remember um I was working with one of one of our business development executives, and he was telling me and that about the Mickey Mouse principle. I'm like, what is the Mickey Mouse principle? And and for context, at that time, almost the entire entire BD organization was coming from Xerox. Xerox is known to have like one of the premier sales organizations. And he's like, the Mickey Mouse principle is two giant ears, one small mouth. If you're in sales or business development, you're there to listen, listen, listen, listen, kind of understand why should they buy? Because at your point, like uh what is it for the business persona, what is it for the personal persona or if it's their career risk, what's an influence? Like this is super helpful, like in just thinking about it. But now if I if I was to kind of turn that down a little bit, now we're living in um AI space where outreach is is out of it. I mean, you uh you can you can use a plethora of uh sales tools that would just blitz blast messages. Um this has become uh you ubiquitous, it's kind of like what's um um how do you stand out in a crowded space where like everyone is bombarded with messages? How do you get to the point where you actually can start building relationships with customers?

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Yeah, I think it actually because of AI's advancements, and I mean by the time this episode comes out, there'll probably be some other, you know, new AI tool or new advancement of the popular applications that could make everything we talk about today move. But I mean it's it's crazy. The the rate of technology and what AI can do is just simply unbelievable. But that's created an opening, it's created an opportunity for people who really do want to authentically build relationships to stand out. So to me, I know people say cold calling is dead. I don't believe that. I don't buy that. I think if you're an excellent cold caller and you're good at asking questions and getting to the root of the problem and identifying where there could be business opportunities, people have more appreciation for that because everything else is so AI generated today. Um, I also think that for people like me, um the world in business and in technology has actually come in our direction where the skills that someone like I have, that you have, um, are important, right? The people person is more valued today than ever before because everyone is so comfortable hiding behind some sort of chat bot or agent or AI platform. Yeah. So for me, it's I do still leverage some of the old school principles and approaches that we take. Like, I don't love mass blasting emails. I send less emails, I make more phone calls, but I've done my research on every single person that I'm reaching out to, and I think that shines through. So people know they're not doing business with the robot, they're doing business with the human being. So the skill sets of being a good listener, being a good human, being a good relationship builder are more important than ever before. And if you have those skills, you can stand out and build a tremendous lucrative and fun career. Um, and ironically, the skills that I was told to develop in terms of figure out how to code in 2000 are less important because those jobs are going to be taken away. So it's gonna be a really interesting time uh with AI, and I would just strongly uh advise everybody to figure out how to connect with other people in a way that doesn't feel forced, that feels real, where they can add value and sort of find their place in the the working world and in the professional, in in the in the personal world. Because I think that like my kids, right? My kids are 16 and 14 and 8, and they use AI for a lot of things. But what they have is, you know, through their mom, who who's amazing, um, and myself is you know, they're they're good people, people. And I really want them to lean into that and try to find some careers where they can shine with their personalities and their ability to connect with other humans.

SPEAKER_03 14:45

How do you Jeremy? I mean, this this is a the perfect segue. I I'm a dad of two girls, 14 and 12, um, soon to be 15 and 13. How do you encourage them to develop that uh those skills? Like my girls are extremely uh friendly um with friends. And when it comes to like um uh but kind of like what people would associate with business development skills, I I don't see it as much. I was impressed last summer. My older daughter and her best friend decided they wanted to now don't judge the motivation, but decided they want to make some money to buy a retail clothing. And within three days, I'm kidding you not, within three days, they generated a thousand dollars just off cutting grass, trimming grass, like helping with yard work. And those are girls. Um, but and then the some of the customers, they're like, hey, come back in two weeks. Hey, come back in two weeks. So they started to kind of do around. Um, and again, they didn't keep it up, but God bless them. I mean, like they they made enough money for them to blow it on a rate according to um, but how do you encourage your kids to be more outward, focused, and ask questions? Do you like invite them to hey, when you when you when we're in in a public space, go and talk to this stranger, like a word, like like how do you teach them skills like that? Because to me, sales and and storytelling are probably the two most valuable skills that a human can possess.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

I I agree. Um well, I think that we're really fortunate. So, for one, I'm Jewish, right? And that is a big part of my identity. Um, you know, my wife actually works in the Jewish world, and and I was really fortunate in that when I was growing up, every summer for two months, I went to a sleepaway Jewish summer camp. And my wife did the same thing, not at the same camp. Hers was in Pennsylvania, mine was in Massachusetts. Um, but you know, not only were devices not as prevalent then, but for a period of two months, you didn't have any access to devices. And we've passed that gift on to our kids. So there is a period of time where I think it's about three weeks that the camp cycles have shortened a little bit. But for three weeks, they have no access to technology.

SPEAKER_03 17:04

No way.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

And and I love that. And they come back and they love it because they're just leaning into that true human experience and getting to they don't have a choice, right? They have to connect with it's not my dog, it's his for the record. Um, yeah, they they have to um connect with people, right? They're put in a position where they don't they can't just go in the corner and sit on their phone. And yeah, of course, the second they come back, they want to get on their phone, and who's been you know DMing them on Instagram and what tick TikToks have they missed and all of that. And I understand that, but I think the even just a few weeks a year, right? Being forced off of your devices, it's critical. And I think that that's actually bled over into the rest of their life. You get to be out in nature, you get to be with other people, you have to figure things out, you have to understand how to coexist with other people at a young age, and I think that that is incredibly critical for this generation. So sending them to camp is one. I think two is you know, we have rules with that dinner, uh at meals, no phones, right? I mean, we try our we try our best, it's not easy. Um, but I'm just as guilty of it. You know, I mean, my phone's right here, it's probably buzzing right now. Is this a work-related thing? Is it you know, I mean, it's we're so tethered to our devices that I really value getting away from the technology. And my kids like that as well. So I want to continue to encourage them to the lessons that they learn in those three weeks at camp are lessons that I hope stick with them for the rest of their life where they can do things that don't involve technology.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Yeah, it's uh it's it's a blessing and a curse technology. I mean, like, I don't know if this is a real product or rumored product, but Apple coming out with a flip phone, like with a down phone, where all you can do is make phone calls and see the time, right? Like there's a lot of companies that actually spinning up like anti-technology products just because they want to force you to disconnect.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Um, absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Jeremy, uh you talked about like finding ways to build connections and and it talked about authenticity. Like, what are your ways of building genuine authentic relationships?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

It's a really important question. And you know, I actually um a good friend of mine that I met back at summer camp in the 90s um is a an associate professor, or I guess a full-blown professor now at Bentley University, um, teaching a sales course. First of all, I'm jealous. Like I wish I could have had a really strong professional salesperson teach me how to do sales uh when I was 20, 21, 22 years old, but that wasn't really any curriculum that was available to me at that time. So Professor Young he has me come in and he encourages all the students to do some research on me, right? Come in and ask questions about how, you know, how did you get to where you are in your career? And and I feel like the answers to the questions are oftentimes very similar to what I'll answer to the question that you just asked me. And that is, I think when a lot of people decide that they're going to pursue a career in sales, they feel like they have to fit a certain persona, right? Like they watch the Wolf of Wall Street, or they, you know, have, you know, back in our generation, um, it was just Wall Street, right? Or Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross. And you think that a salesperson is this slick talker, wears nice suits, doesn't listen, and and closes deals and and drives nice cars. And I'm here to completely dispel that, right? I actually look at my conversations in business as the same that I would look at them in life, right? If somebody wants to have a conversation and the conversation isn't anything about business, I'm happy to meet them there, right? Yeah, like I said earlier, if they just want to talk about business, I will meet them there and talk about business. But for me, it is I really try to be myself. And this is easier to do with years of wisdom and experience, but I'm always conscious of I don't want to come across as a really sales y person. Of course, sales is how I make money, and I've built a whole business around effectively doing sales. But the truth is, is I really think that it's important to show up as a human being, to show up in a way where you make people comfortable and disarm them, where you're different than other salespeople, and that you truly are just yourself. And and that's the best advice that I could possibly give is you know, outside of work, we're all people, right? And I want to bring more and more of that into work. It's part of why I started the podcast because I want to get to know people um at a level where I understand what's meaningful to them because they're They're getting inundated with product pitches and sales and AI and um you know work politics and all this crap. And and I'm really here to just say, look, I'm just here to see if there's value in what we're bringing to you to the table. And if there's not today, you know, I'm gonna be in this space for a long time, and so are you. So is there an opportunity for us to get to know one another in a way that the next time I call on you, you know, with a different business card, you're gonna say, Hey, I like doing business with that guy, right? And you build up enough of those types of people over time, and they know what they're gonna get when you show up in the room, right? You're gonna get somebody who will listen, you know, who cares about the business impact of the solution that they make and is not in the back of their head calculating how much commission they're gonna make when they get the sale. So again, some of this comes with experience, some of it comes with wisdom, some of it comes from lots of painful losses in business. But I've kind of decided that the best way for me to show up and authentically connect with people is to be as consistent as I possibly can. Whether you meet me at a baseball game, right, whether you meet me at a conference, whether you meet me in the boardroom or at lunch, you're kind of getting the same thing. You're getting the same experience. And at that level of predictability and knowing that they're not gonna get a pushy salesperson unless they want the sales pushed on them and they explicitly tell me that, um, you're gonna get somebody that wants to have a conversation, that wants to listen, and that wants to diagnose is this an opportunity that's worth both of us investing our time in.

SPEAKER_03 23:34

Couldn't agree more with you. Um we we've been working with Techstars, another amazing Colorado organization. And so we've Bradfeld, David, yeah, uh, Eric Matisek, like amazing organization. Um we've adopted the Give First manifesto. We've put our own twist on things, but we believe that if you want to build an ecosystem, if you want to build valuable relationships, not just because I mean, sure, it you're a podcaster, I have a podcast. Um we have large networks, but large networks to me is different from a valuable network. And the way that you define a valuable network is to give value, like make the people that you're the the part of your network better for it.

SPEAKER_00 24:23

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I mean, the you said giving, and that's a super meaningful word and term to me. Um, I consider myself an extremely generous and charitable person, whether that would be giving um to charitable organizations or even giving my time, like I said earlier, to folks that are younger that I think could really benefit um from understanding from all of the years of learning and and uh experience that I have. I would love it if the younger generation could learn from my failures and not have to experience them for themselves. I mean, yes, it's experience is the greatest teacher. You really can't duplicate that. But you know, if I were to look back, um, I would say there's a lot of hard lessons that I had to learn on my own. Um, and I would love for the younger generation to be able to see those flags coming and diagnose them themselves and not necessarily have to have some of the challenging times that people like myself have had in their career or in life.

SPEAKER_03 25:20

Yeah. Um where in Colorado are you based out of?

SPEAKER_00 25:26

I live in a city, I guess, technically. I think of it as a town, but it's a city called Lafayette. It's in Boulder County. Um, and I guess to bring back some of the personal stuff, right? I grew up in New Hampshire till I was 18. I went to college at Brandeis University, just outside of Boston. Um, and at 23 years old, loaded up everything that I had, which wasn't much, um, into a vehicle with two of my best friends that I grew up with, and we drove sight unseen to Boulder, Colorado. And I ended up in Boulder in on Halloween of 2003, and I've been here ever since. It's a beautiful area. I love living here. I met my girlfriend who became my wife, you know, not too long after. Our anniversary is tomorrow. It's gonna be 17 years of the marriage. Like I said, three kids. My daughters are very similar in age to yours. Um, so thinking about college now, driver's license, you know, it's a different, it's a different time. Um, but also, you know, I was able to kind of stick around here because I started to build a network, I started to get into technology sales, we work at some recognizable companies and brands that might not be known entities elsewhere. So, yeah, a bit of a longer answer to your question, but really half my life on the uh in northern New England and then half my life here in Colorado, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

SPEAKER_03 26:46

Hey, um New Hampshire, Jewish, got any connection to Noah Khan? We can't get tickets to see him.

SPEAKER_00 26:55

I don't think so. But if he's a Jewish guy from New Hampshire, there's not too many of us. So I could so I can probably connect, I could probably connect with them on that, or maybe being a Red Sox fan or something else, right?

SPEAKER_03 27:06

Yeah, it it's it's amazing. I mean, uh my girls uh like that's one of their favorite artists. I mean, obviously he's a really talented musician. Um we've seen him perform live. We're trying to get tickets now to see him again. It's just bloody impossible for him. The highlight was uh playing um at the Red Talk Stadium, right? Like because he was coming home, yeah, Fenway Park.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good good story about that. So I was just recently uh in the Boston area about three weeks ago, and I took my son, he's eight. You know, I've gone to like a hundred baseball games at Fenway Park before um, it's my favorite place in the city of Boston. My heart's there, right? That was my home city growing up. All my sports teams are there. I've got the family there, friends. And I took my son to a game, and it was sort of like this perfect confluence of events where it was raining all day in Boston, and one of my friends was gonna meet us there. He's like, I don't know if they're gonna play. Flight was a little bit delayed, we land, and you know, I get this notification they will play, but it's gonna be a 20-minute delay to start. I'm like, perfect. That actually works well with my schedule today. So went into the city, you know, grabbed my son a Red Sox jersey. He's obsessed with jerseys, so we got him a Red Sox jersey. I went on the game time app, I got these unbelievable tickets right behind the Red Sox dugout.

SPEAKER_01 28:25

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Like somebody just panic sold him, right? The weather wasn't great, they weren't gonna go to the game, we're 30 minutes before the first pitch. And, you know, I certainly paid like half of face value for them, right? Um, we get in, we sit there, and these, you know, there was another father and son right behind us, but they were more like 60 and 30. And they're like, oh man, um at the end of every inning when the Red Sox run off the field and come to their dugout, they're like throwing a ball to a kid in the stand. Like, you've got a kid, you've you've you've got an eight-year-old son. Like you gotta like lift him up and make it obvious. So Red Sox finish out an inning, they come off, they throw the ball to somebody else. I'm like, no, I gotta make it obvious, right? So, you know, I stand out in the aisle, I'm waving my arms, right? Trevor Story, the shortstop, used to play for the Colorado Rockies. Actually, I'm like, I'm waving and I'm like pointing at my kid, like, no, it's not for me, it's for him, right? And he kind of gives me a head nod, throws me the ball, right? I catch it, hand it to the kid, and he goes like that, right? Gives me like the like wanted to make sure that I wasn't actually taking it for myself. And two innings, two innings into his first game at Fenway Park, he gets a baseball. Meanwhile, I'm a hundred games in and I've never gotten the ball in that part.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Wow, this is the charm of acuteness of of little kids, right? Like it can beat it. Um, that's an amazing story.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Thank you. Yeah, and so of course he's like, he's like, you think I can get another one? I'm like, all right, buddy, let's let's not let's not be greedy. He's like, well, I don't know. Like they keep throwing it in the stands, and there's foul balls. I'm like, if you get two balls in your first game here and I get none, we're gonna have it shows yet.

SPEAKER_03 30:09

Um I want to go back to to Boulder, Jeremy. Um as I mentioned, we've we've been working with Textiles and Boulder, Colorado is Techstar's most successful community. And we've we've worked with Eric on kind of like, well, what makes Boulder special? But um I want to get your perspective. Why of all the places in the world where tax tech stars operate, why is Boulder so special?

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Boulder is just a magical place for one. I mean, there's you know, I believe in um, you know, cities and places and humans and the world. There's there's energy, and there's just this this palpable energy in Boulder, which is kind of like this, it's just kind of like a happy vibe. Like some people say, it's crunchy or granola, or it's hippie. Um it's pretty yuppified at this point. You know, what they say about Boulder is it used to be a Subaru town, and then it got more expensive and became an Audi town, and now it's now it's a Tesla town, right? So Boulder's just sort of this this magical place that's in the middle of the country. Um, you know, not far from Boulder, right up against the foothills. It's just absolutely beautiful. I mean, I can see the mountains in the foothills from my my you know desk office, which is just spectacular. Um, the weather's great, it's not hot, it's not humid, and it's just comfortable. There's just something about here that the quality of life is so high. You know, you're you're kind of nature is just sort of always around you. You're you're in nature a ton. Um, and I think that that's really important for you know mental health, you know, providing a little bit of peace. But I think that it's there's something about Boulder where it it allows for creativity and it's also expensive. So you have to find ways to be able to make money to live here. You know, it's it's sort of like real estate in Boulder is comparable to San Francisco or Manhattan or Maui. So, you know, even people like myself who have had successful careers, like we couldn't have a house this size in Boulder. It costs six million dollars, you know what I mean? So you live 10, 15 minutes away, but it's a little bit more, I'd say, real world and normal. Yeah. Um, but Boulder is a bubble, you know, it's kind of a it's a special place. Brad Feld actually was on the board of a company that I worked at called Rally Software back in 2005, 2006 time period. So he was building up his brand. He was a board member and an investor and an advisor. And I think that he's a bit of a shining light for um how to uh not just be your typical grind you out VC private equity type, right? He's a bit he's big into giving back, he's big into building community. Um, and seeing someone like that operate and following their path in my um more formative early career days uh was really impactful. So I think he's a great representative of what um you see from people in Boulder. It's a welcoming place, it's a friendly place, the weather's beautiful, you've got nature, it's hard to beat him.

SPEAKER_03 33:16

Yeah, no, I I completely agree with you. That kind of echoes with some of the community building comments. And I mean, it's not surprising that Texter is a community architect, is a is a title, is an archetype. Um, and for for context, I live in Calgary. Our sister city is Denver. We both are in the foothills at the Rocky Mountain, so there's a lot of similarities. Like we lead the country in terms of GDP growth, population growth, venture, venture growth, like um, but we're coming from behind. Calgary, if if you if like we're 1.75 uh in a million people in terms of population, um, but Toronto is way ahead of us in terms of uh ventures, and so it's been cooler. So but there's a lot of momentum that's kind of happening here in the city.

SPEAKER_00 34:03

That's good. I mean, I love Calgary. You know, I remember back in 1988, um, in the winter watching the Olympics uh in Calgary. Sort of, you know, I would have been about eight years old. So it was like formative times for me, and I was always like, oh, cool, Calgary, you know, it just resonated with me watching the Olympics in those days. And then, you know, I got into oil and gas 20 years later um and worked for a company called Energy Navigator, which was based you know, you know, right across the bow when the bow was being built in Calgary. So I went up there uh in late 2010. It was, I want to say October. Yeah, it must have been October. And it felt so much like Denver, man. It was like eerie, crazy, you know, and and I I felt you know a lot of like the things that I love about here, you know, the the the welcoming nature, the comfort, um, the the oil and gas influence, um, some tremendous similarities where you know maybe used to be a little bit more of a cow town and an oil town, and it's become more of a technology town. And interestingly, from the perspective of the oil and gas industry, a lot of the best technologies have come out of Calgary. Um but a lot of technology companies in Calgary have died on the border, right? Like it's it's yeah, it's different in the US, but it's similar. And yeah, I you know, I love when we bring on Calgary-centric clients because for one, maybe it means I can go up there and sneak off to Banff for a day or two, but for two, I just love getting up there. I've built good friendships and relationships in that city. Um, I'm looking forward to the new hockey arena. Like I remember the first time I went to the saddle dome, I'm like, oh my god, this location would be so amazing to have like the best hockey arena in the world. And it sounds like they're going down that path um to do so. But I like the saddle dome. I like Calgary. I feel super comfortable there. I like the food, the people are great, the weather can be good, right? Super long days in the summer, even longer than we have because of where you're based. But yeah, it's a great, it's a great town. And um recently just brought on uh a resource that's based in Calgary on the Funk Futures team, which is which is awesome. It kind of helps us extend our reach a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 36:16

Amazing. Um no, I I I I echo your comments. The the new arena, it's uh it it it's already above ground. Um I I don't know, I think it's uh fall of 2027 when the target completion date is for it, but it's soon. I'm surprised that they didn't make it bigger because the old Sarodome, I think seating capacity was 25,000. I think the new arena, it's only sitting 28, so a little bit more, but not that much more in terms of seating capacity. Um, but it's yeah, uh, there's a ton of energy in the city.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

Well, it'll be more of a draw for concerts too. Because like I've heard just because of while the the shape of the saddle dome is unique and cool and you know part of the the Calgary skyline, it's also horrible for acoustics, right? So I do think they'll be able to get some of these acts that that go up to Edmonton or go to Vancouver, but don't go to Calgary because they're like it's gonna sound like shit. So I'm just not gonna do that here. Um I yeah, I'm gonna be, you know, it makes some sense to me why they built it out on that side at that size, right? You want a full arena, you want there to be demand still. I saw them do sort of the opposite here in Denver when the Rockies came to town and were more of a baseball novelty, they played in the football stadium, and the football stadium seated almost 70,000 and they would fill it up. So naturally they decided, well, let's build Coors Field, let's put it downtown, let's make it a 55,000 seat stadium, and it almost never sells out, right? So there's something about having, even if it's a smaller arena or stadium, somebody in almost every seat, I think it just creates a different vibe, a different atmosphere than a whole bunch of you know empty open seats. So I I can see it. I think it makes a little bit of sense uh to me why they did that, but it's gonna be fun. I'm definitely gonna check it out. I'll go to a game up there, visit a client, take some people out to Caesars or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 38:12

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know all the good places. Um, we're working on launching uh a new fund, and I'm curious where do you see opportunities in energy in the industrial space?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I mean, the obvious answer is AI, right? I mean, any level of automation that you can create or provide um for the user is it's not just going to be like a differentiator, it's going to be expected, right? So, an example, an example that I like to use, we just were about to start with a new company that's actually based in Calgary called Fueled, F-U-E-L-L-E-D, and they've got kind of a marketplace for um oil and gas equipment. It's been a traditionally like kind of broker-driven market, but you think about you know, an oil and gas company finishes up a project and then they have all of this equipment that they pull out of the ground and it sits in a yard, right? And they call their local broker. We've got some pipe, some PVC pipe or steel pipe, or we have these, you know, compressor engines, or you know, oil and gas, it's ultimately it's construction, it's a big construction project. So you have various different types of machines, but you know, we don't want this on our lot, right? We want to get rid of it. So fueled really fascinating organizations. To me, they've sort of become like maybe an Amazon for oil and gas field equipment or eBay. And there are things that they're doing now that are based off of what they see with apps like eBay and Amazon, where it becomes, well, if you like this, maybe you want to buy this, but also just take a picture and scan in the item, and the AI in the background will tell you what the picture's of and maybe suggest what you should list it for. That type of time savings is going to be incredibly valuable for a company that's like, no, I'll just hire a broker, he'll come on site, write everything down for a few days, go to the internet, look at potential comps, try to source buyers. If that experience can be shortened and you can do it all digitally, there's an incredible competitive advantage to that because what AI does really well for the most part is save people time, right? Absolutely. It's not always 100% correct, right? We still have to be, it's gotten better, less hallucinations, more accuracy, but it saves you time. And I think that people are going to start expecting that and really be almost turned off by any user experience that forces them to do things manually and take away from their time because we're getting spoiled with AI that we can now accomplish so much in a short period of time. So for me, it's it's anything around AI and automation, um, and also I think sort of predictive capabilities, right? So give me some line of sight on what might happen and what impact that could have, I think would be really, really um impactful, special, something to look into is all right, cool, you've automated this experience for me today, but what do I need to think about for the next six months and allow AI or you know, predictive analytics or large language models to assist in that process? I think if you're building a technology company now and you're going to market without AI, you're you're crazy. Like I just I don't see um any real benefit into doing that. But also you need to meet people where they're at, right? This isn't just selling to people that are so computer savvy. There's older people like my dad was asking me, you know, he writes music, right? He's written musicals, he's written plays, he write, he writes his own music, uh, plays the piano. And I was saying to him, there's probably AI apps out there that you could tell what you you know want to write in a song and the types of sound you want it to have, and it can do it for you.

unknown 42:04

Right?

SPEAKER_00 42:04

But he's eight, he's 80 years old, right? So he needs somebody to show him how to do it. But nonetheless, the fact that somebody thought to create that for the you know, the older boomer to be able to that likes to write music, to be able to write a song that might take him weeks or months afterwards, yeah, and in five minutes be able to split out the split out the lyrics as well as the notes, it's crazy. And and that's the world that we're heading into now. So anything that can save people time, that can automate, that incorporates AI, uh, and and provides, especially on the business side of things, some level of um predictive intelligence are the types of companies that I'd be looking at. But ultimately, to go back to the beginning, I mean, you're investing in the people, right? Like you're you're ultimately going to decide like, are these the types of people that one we want to work with, that two will be good stewards of the money that we're going to give them. Yeah, then three, um, somebody that you know is authentic and that we want to work with. And if it's not working, they're willing to pivot and be honest with us about how they're doing that. So no matter what, as great as technology is and as great as money is, it comes down to the people.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

Yeah, I I mean I I couldn't agree more with you. And and so if you look at kind of like who who uh what are the best archetypes for founders, it's like people that have had to overcome some some personal challenges, build people that have built credit in resilience, farmers, athletes, uh soldiers, like people that they're that they've had to persevere through challenges, they typically make them the best founders. And to your point, I mean, like even if it's a later stage company, you're still investing in the people because they're the ones that they're leading the company to the future.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

You got it. Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, culture is really, really important. I value that in our organization. It becomes very Obvious if there's a resource that comes in, even if they're brilliant and a hard worker and super skilled, if they're not a cultural fit, it's probably not going to last very long. Right. And I completely agree with you that you're looking for resilience, right? You're looking for like what is different about this person based on their experience. I mean, hell, I've been laid off or fired, I don't know, three or four times in my career. I thought I thought, I think that I'm excellent at what I do, but that doesn't matter. You might end up in a situation where you lose a couple of deals, your confidence gets crushed, you're not hitting your numbers, and you get let go, right? And and understanding that that's just all part of the experience. It's part of the life experience, it's part of the business experience. And frankly, if I didn't get laid off from my last job in 2021, I probably wouldn't have started Funk Futures and the 2020s would have looked much different for me. Um, I also don't think like like on that topic, I don't think that everybody needs to be an entrepreneur. Like I I actually I actually say this to a lot of folks, and I think there's been this sort of like hustle culture that's that's emerged, and social media has been the worst part of this is like you know, sell everything you have and live in your parents' basement and um bit of startup. Yeah, go go do a startup. It not everybody has to do that. Like my view is there's nothing wrong with being a uh W-2 employee if it brings you happiness and you have some level of balance and uh harmony, harmony, and and peace in your life, um that you don't necessarily need to give all of that up. For me, right, I always you know make that caveat. You know, my story is like, you know, I I didn't really enjoy being an employee. I I think that I'm an excellent consultant, I think I'm a good entrepreneur, um, I think I'm easy to work with um on my terms, right? So for me, taking an entrepreneurial path made a lot of sense. But there are plenty of other people that you can do just fine without ever having to be an entrepreneur. Um and it's a grind, man. I've you know, I said this last week when we went on vacation when I came back. It took me 65 months of working about 65 hours a week to take my first true vacation and unplug. And sometimes that's just what it takes. And I don't say that to to brag or to juice up my hours, but you know, it's taken a lot to get to this point. And and now we're sort of at this really interesting inflection within my business where you know we have people, right? It is not all just reliant on me. Yeah, you know, I can start to tap into maybe more of my creative side or think about new lines of business or or branch out, you know, deeper outside of oil and gas or lean into some of the coaching things that speak to me. Um, but that took time, right? It took time, it took, it took money, it took uh a lot of turnover and getting the right people in place um to find some level of business zen, which we're getting close to.

SPEAKER_03 46:55

Yeah. Your overnight success after working 65 months for 65 uh hours a week and 20 years before that, right? I mean, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, appreciate it. Uh Jeremy, I I like to ask this as a closing question. What's the kindest thing anybody has ever done for you? The kindest, the kindest.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

Wow, you didn't prep me for that one. What's the kindest thing that everyone has done? I don't know. I mean, my wife decided to marry me. That was probably the kindest thing that anybody's ever done. Um I think that's one. I mean, I want to reflect back actually on my parents. So I I grew up, like I said, in New Hampshire and they were both teachers. So, you know, teacher salaries, I never needed anything, but there were things that I wanted. We didn't go on the big fancy trips to Disney. I only got on a couple of airplanes in my life before you know I got to college and out in the working world. Um, but they really prioritized, you know, sending me to summer camps um to you know integrate and spend time with other people. Uh, and also they saved their pennies to really allow me to go to whatever college I wanted to go to. Yeah. And that really stuck with me. So I think the kindest thing is probably the sacrifices and the sacrifice that they made, the selflessness that they displayed to prioritize their children's education and my education to allow me to go to a school like Brandeis where I saw what it would take to be successful, because there were people that came from money and that had more opportunities available to them and went to better schools, you know, prior to going to college. And it was eye-opening for me that, well, what's my competitive advantage here? Like I better figure it out, right? I better level up my game because maybe I'm not as good as I thought I was. So, truly, probably the kindest thing, you know, bigger things, of course, one, my wife marrying me and having children with me and all of that. But but I probably say just the selflessness of my parents to, you know, prioritize saving for their children's education um is most likely the kindest thing that anybody's ever done for me.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

That's amazing. I think that's probably uh a common response um to this question. I mean, I feel the same way. Like um, I grew up in a working class family, and and I remember if it came down to courses, textbook, education, there was always money, always money on the table for that. Um Jeremy, absolutely love the conversation, the authenticity, the rawness that you brought in. Let's continue these conversations. Uh, but thank you so much for your generosity with time.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Yeah, man, I appreciate it. And look, if anybody wants to reach out to me, I am always here to provide whatever service or value that I can. You know, I'm Jeremy Funk. You can find me on LinkedIn, you can go to our website, funkfutures.com. Um, but certainly always here to give back where I can and provide value for others. Thank you so much, Maxine, for having me today. It was awesome.

SPEAKER_03 49:59

Absolute pleasure.