Shawn is the Chief Executive Officer of BoodleAI a SaaS platform powered by machine learning that helps nonprofits with donor acquisition. BoodleAI uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to help people discover contacts in their network that match particular personas and then deepen the connection with those contacts through messages that resonate. In today's episode with Shawn, we unlock some very large secrets, that will have you spellbound! Learn about:
Shawn's past and his connection to social good nonprofits revolving around education. Apparently Sean could not fall out of planes properly- but learn more about his Army experiences that brought him to where he is now.
Learn more about BoodleAI on their website https://boodle.ai/nonprofits/, and reach out to Shawn Olds on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnnolds/.
Shawn is the Chief Executive Officer of BoodleAI a SaaS platform powered by machine learning that helps nonprofits with donor acquisition. BoodleAI uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to help people discover contacts in their network that match particular personas and then deepen the connection with those contacts through messages that resonate. In today's episode with Shawn, we unlock some very large secrets, that will have you spellbound! Learn about:
Shawn's past and his connection to social good nonprofits revolving around education. Apparently Sean could not fall out of planes properly- but learn more about his Army experiences that brought him to where he is now.
Learn more about BoodleAI on their website https://boodle.ai/nonprofits/, and reach out to Shawn Olds on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnnolds/.
00:00.52
barlele
We're gonna roll we're rolling now hello Sean we're rolling what's up with you today.
00:02.15
Shawn
Um, great dealer. Just a bright sunny day in Sunny Colorado know
00:09.40
barlele
Excellent, well we are back folks with a new episode of talking shisel where we're gonna talk all sorts of shisel with Sean old. So see how that like I like the alliteration we're talking shisel with Sean today.
00:21.86
Shawn
Um, of it.
00:27.78
barlele
And I'm excited about this conversation. It's good to have you here I'm glad things are sunnier. Is it snowy again in Colorado this late in the summer
00:32.97
Shawn
No, we we got our last snow may None we got eighteen inches and the wonderful thing about Colorado springs is it's gone 36 hours later I was I was in shorts in a golf shirt 36 hours later so gotta love it.
00:38.80
barlele
Yeah.
00:48.76
barlele
Ah, well, the weather is weird. That's all I can say um.
00:52.86
Shawn
Um I have a friend has been here 20 years he said he has had more white mother's days than he has christmases. So.
01:00.92
barlele
Um. Ah, well and we've got William who we are now calling bill on the line. We're gonna chat about dad jokes and data and all sorts of things entrepreneur stories today. But let's get into who you are. Little bit about Sean and your entrepreneurial journey and what you're doing these days.
01:28.96
Shawn
Sure no Taylor thank you again and and bill will it's it's good to good to meet you as well today. Um you know is is quick background Taylor as you know I studied computer science in college I went into the army I found out I couldn't fall out of airplanes properly though. So the army kicked me out.
01:33.58
Will Novelli
Are you.
01:48.31
Shawn
And I went into pretty much pretty quickly. The startup world and um, did my first startup I was actually a consultant too and so it was a great experience because I got to ride them from pre a round to b round to croundipo Seven point five billion dollars valuation to debt spiral and bankruptcy and it totally gave me the bug and started building companies I took a small respite after September Eleventh to return to government service doing counterterrorism work in Southwest Asia and Africa but after that respite came back and started building companies again. Um, but Taylor's you know the None consistent thing I also did during that period of time was I've always worked with nonprofits and so for None ears I started literally the week after I graduated college on a youth education centered nonprofit for 25 years I've always focused on youth education. And after the military worked with several veteran service organizations and I thought I was done with being an entrepreneur I met my wife who kind of conditional on me being allowed to do angel investing I had to go get a real job as she put it. And um I found my my now co-founder who I'd met way back in the army in ranger school who pitched me on the idea boodle which was helping nonprofits by bringing them data science machine learning and ai to make their development easier faster. Um, and more efficient so they could focus on their mission and when I went back to my wife kind of tail between my legs to ask her if I could do None more startup. She realized I was merging startups with the nonprofit space which before that had always been separate I was going to be able to bring it together and that's what's brought me on to we're going on six years now with boodle. And it's been ah it's been a blast
03:37.27
barlele
I Love it. Let's go back to one of the things we like to talk about on this show sometimes is failures because we learn a lot from our failures you mentioned that you couldn't fall out of an Airp plane properly. What? what like we we went went went.
03:48.28
Shawn
Um, yeah for.
03:55.73
barlele
What what back up? Ah what? what? What do you mean? What were you doing ah were you like a parachuter I mean I clearly know nothing about this so that probably was even a dumb way to ask the question but tell us tell us what this period was in your life.
04:03.83
Will Novelli
Um.
04:06.14
Shawn
No, not at all this was I had finished being a platoon leader and was working as a signal officer to an armor battalion in the eighty second airborne division which are are is the. Only parachute division. There are several other units that have paratroopers in it. But this is only division size element and at the time there was an aircraft this was 9098 called the c seventeen which is in in large use today. You saw those. Um, evacuating people in Afghanistan if issues sell the news. Um, they're very large cargo airplane but they were being tested at the time for their ability to have paratroopers jump out of them and my unit got volunt told to be the none group of human wind dummies to get to go out of the. C seventeen and my particular jump there were I believe 22 of us injured and None of us ended up being medicaled out of the military because of it. So expensive way for the army to learn. Um I was definitely I went to a period of time where I thought life was over because I grew up in a military household. The word civilian was not my vocabulary when I graduated from west point I knew my entire career path from platoon leader to chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. And having to get out of the military and find a job in the private sector was just a shock to me and I felt like a failure because I always kind of wanted to grow up and be like my father and that wasn't going to happen.
05:44.61
barlele
And what were some of the things that you did to get over that if you felt like a failure you you you failed faster. You fell faster. You felt real fast. Yeah, but like what was something that you did to get into the mental space you needed.
05:52.68
Shawn
Um I failed real fast on that one. It was less than 30 seconds
06:04.34
barlele
To be and to move forward from that.
06:06.79
Shawn
A couple of things one was um, just being able to get back out and get physical again I mean being laid up for a while taking you know when you're 24 at the time and you've been physical your entire life and you can't move. Um, it takes everything away from you so the ability just even start basic physical therapy again was was refreshing beyond that one of the big things I think I did was just really start to do what people would call networking I started with friends initially. Um, but then just started to get out and meet people who were in the private sector military people who had gotten out before and asked them about their journeys and I talked to a spectrum I mean I talked to people who were doing things I would never ever want to do? Um I talked to people who were doing things. They never thought I could do. Um, and I talked to people just sounded like they had interesting careers and that information gathering made it obvious that there were other opportunities out there that the the path I had limited myself to was not the only path I could be successful on.
07:15.90
barlele
Well good for you. That's good I think a lot of times we learn about ourselves in those moments of like extreme. You know I don't even know what to call it like where it's just you have a circumstance something happens and it's just jarring.
07:32.41
Shawn
Um, in.
07:34.58
barlele
And you know, Um, yeah yeah, I've had those moments myself. So let's talk a little bit about Okay, you went couple of startups How how many did you do before boodle.
07:45.87
Shawn
I did before boodle so I did 2 in the private sector before I went back into government and then after government I went overseas and did another one over there and then did a fourth one overseas. And then started to.
08:05.71
barlele
And what was it. What was it? Okay, so you have this connection with the nonprofit space and startup life coming together. What was it in particular about boodle where you're like okay this is the one This is the idea and then tell us what boodle is for people who don't know.
08:17.51
Shawn
Um, it.
08:25.21
Shawn
Sure so the it was one of those like the guy who discovered penicillin oh wow this thing is killing off all these diseases I want to get rid of and it was always been a pain to me as a board member you kind of show up for your board meetings. You do what you can you add value. But you've got a life going on. And so in the back of my mind I'd always been very frustrated with how ineffective and inefficient fundraising was in the nonprofit space but just really didn't contemplate how I could fix that or you know I'd figure out how to fix it on a small scale with my little nonprofit but not necessarily an aggregate. Um, and it wasn't until my co-founder France who had had a very bad experience with a particularly large fundraising campaign he was doing for a university came and said look we're both datadriven people. We're both technology people. There's got to be a better way to do this. And and starting out the you know the analogy I use today is we're we're sitting on on Zencastr but people have been using Zoom and Google meets and I would bet you a really good bottle of wine and a steak dinner that 90% of the people you've been on Zoom with could not explain to you how video over ip works. But they don't have to because Zoom made it the press of a button and that's what France and I wanted to do from the very beginning was figure out a way to take data science machine learning and and ultimately artificial intelligence and make it so a development team didn't need to learn how to code they didn't need to go hire computer scientists. They could press a button and capitalize on all of that and then do what they're good at which is engaging the donor and we always say the best Ai team is the human machine team because the machine is going to take what would take you or I weeks if not months to do and it's going to compress it down to hours. But what the machine could never do. Is call will up and when will answers the phone and the machine says hey will how are you doing and will says oh my wife's down with covid my dad just broke his leg and I've got this huge board meeting. Well the machine's going to go will's a good potential donor I need to ask for money. And the machine's going to blow it whereas the good development director is going to have empathy and say hey well that's I'm really sorry to hear that is there anything you need help with and is going to make a note hey I need to check back in two weeks to make sure everything's going well with Lil and then maybe check back in a month and actually ask for that donation and so that human machine team becomes much more empowering. And it allows the nonprofit to actually focus on what they need to be which is their mission.
10:58.40
barlele
So let's break down a couple of terms if that's cool with you. Ah, and then we'll pause and we'll do a dad joke but before that and I we're gonna ask you 2 guys to do the dad jokes I'll just listen and laugh. Um.
11:01.36
Shawn
Um, please. Um.
11:06.46
Will Novelli
Um, it.
11:16.86
barlele
So you mentioned couple of things. Maybe for people who are listening who aren't in the nonprofit world. But maybe they're entrepreneurs or tech people you mentioned that so the development team doesn't have to you know, hire and develop birth. But by development. We mean the fundraising team. The people who work at the nonprofit who go off and. Find the money to source the impact right? like to make to make it happen. But you mentioned a few terms that I think oftentimes people probably don't really understand the difference between you said data science you said machine learning and you said Ai. Can we break down those terms for people like talk to me like I'm None Sean and tell me what those things mean how they work together how they're different and let's start with data science and.
11:55.50
Shawn
True.
12:05.50
Shawn
Easy to do and and you know my son is about to turn 4 and we've been reading Ai machine learning and data science to him since he was three so I've got a great book for you now in all of sincerity. Actually I'm going to start the other direction if you don't mind because artificial intelligence is the umbrella.
12:19.40
barlele
Hi.
12:24.83
Shawn
Everything kind of sits under and within artificial intelligence. There are various branches machine learning is one of those branches machine learning is this just that it's the ability of a machine to learn but at the end of the day. The machine's got to be Programmed. It's got to be taught how to Learn. So you see learning going on in a variety of different areas. 1 of the big areas learning happens. Um, just just that we see is facial recognition. Um, for those of you who you know use your phones to use face Id so you don't have to punch in a code for people who are. Um, in in various areas where their security features are used as they walk in those faces are being recognized because a machine has been taught how to recognize those faces um within the the um ah subset of that is the machine learning where that that machine is constantly learning. On faces on other things that come in and then below that is Data Science. So Data Science is the art of understanding the data that you have in front of you How you use it what it can be used for and then really getting in I Just got back from speaking at the giving Institute. We talked about Bias in data and a lot of people hear the word bias and they think it's always malicious. Um they've seen you know going back to the facial recognition algorithms where you've seen I'm sure in stories where some of the ones used by police forces. Don't recognize black people as well as they do say white people. Well, that's because. There was an over teaching on white faces and very little black faces or even Asian faces were used and so those are not recognized as well. Now it wasn't necessarily done maliciously it was that was the data set and what people were familiar with.. There's actually a really good um story about how the None um. Um, artificial heart was designed by a group of male doctors and so it was built for a male and when they were successful. They realized it actually couldn't be put in a female body because it didn't work because it was designed by men. There was no input from a woman doctor in in the Original. Um. And the original design and so these biases are are sometimes just oversights um that we need to be more cognizant of and that's the art of Data science is being able to look at your data understand what's there and then be able to build it up properly so you work out the biases. And allow the machine to take in really good data that it can then make really good conclusions from.
14:57.59
barlele
It's interesting about the heart. Yeah see I could go you know say some joke about see women. We really got it all together more you know enough, but the men ah you you know it all.
14:59.79
Will Novelli
Um, that's pretty good stuff.
15:10.78
Shawn
Um I can take it I heard a lot.
15:16.10
barlele
Until it comes to building a heart. Um, interesting. Okay, thank you for breaking that down I think it's important because a lot of times like we can get technical and we can say all these words that maybe you know I want to make sure like we give context for our audience about what these things mean when we're talking about it.
15:33.49
Shawn
Um, in.
15:38.15
barlele
Now Let's go a little bit deeper now that we've got a good understanding from you. Let's go a little bit deeper on how you're actually using these kinds of technologies to help that person who's I'm at my organization and trying to find the right people who want to be involved and give. How how does it all come together and start to actually do the work every single day to help those people in their job.
16:02.73
Shawn
Yeah, what one of the big things is most of us are just not using a resource we have at our at our fingertips and that's the data we have in front of us and a lot of nonprofits think well I don't have enough data to really. Help out and and that's where we go back to the art of data science when we built the boodle platform. None of the big things we did was knowing that nonprofits had limited data. We required a nonprofit to only have to give us a name and an email address and then what we can do from that is we can perform the identity resolution to find out that it's. Taylor Shanklin that lives in North Carolina and not the Taylor Shanklin that lives in San Diego California and then we can enrich her along with the cohort of other donors. She belongs to with hundreds if not none of data points and so now organizations are no longer dependent on having gathered their own data. They can leverage tools that are out there to bring in other data about people they have in their database and when you ask what does that? do how does that empower them None of our favorite campaigns to run is what we call a hidden gems campaign. So we're convinced that in your email newsletter list in your low donor list and the variety of lists that you have out there. There are really good donors that you want more of and so last year we ran with an organization. They gave us their 850 major gift donors. We went through that enrichment process I talked to you about which a human just couldn't go through and be able to do that on their own but the machine's able to. And then we built a bespoke model for what their best major gift donor looks like so not what a generic philanthropic major gift donor looks like but what this charities major gift donor looks like and then we overlaid it on top of 2000 people who had donated less than $100 we were able to give them a dozen names of people. We said these people look like your best major gift donors and the very none person they called made a $20000 donation. The only thing they were upset about is that person had been donating $100 a year for None ars and if it just never been approached and asked properly and so. When you ask? what can this do this in minutes and and literally the process that development director went through took her less than 3 minutes of just filtering and being able to say these are the None names I need to call and then having the development team reach out and call them. And so before for a person for a team to sit down and sift through 2000 names if they could even really bring the data together and bear to figure out who's there would have taken the months to do and they were able to do it in minutes.
18:38.85
barlele
Yeah, because a lot of times like they're literally just looking at excel spreadsheets of like a bunch of names and it's like I don't I don't know you know how am I supposed to be able to tell you know Sally from Harry you know those are the None names that came to mind.
18:45.86
Shawn
Yeah, yep. Um, better than John Further John and Jane yeah, ah.
18:55.96
Will Novelli
Um, throw throwing darts at at a wall when you don't even know where your targets at yeah, it's tough to do That's really cool though. It's commendable.
18:57.83
barlele
And when man Harry but Sally he made a big gift and everybody was happy. You know, but.
19:10.15
barlele
Now we're gonna go have you fact, check all of this stuff that Shana saying will because we never know with this guy that whole heart thing at all now I go let's go fact, check that one? Um, so.
19:14.20
Shawn
Um, that's right? yeah.
19:14.16
Will Novelli
Um, ah for sure that's that's one hundred percent and
19:23.10
Shawn
And and and if you can't find it I can update Wikipedia so you can find it ah but.
19:26.60
barlele
Yeah, how convenient so tell me a little bit about you and I were discussing this concept of micro campaign. So that's ah the the hidden jims that's that's kind of 1 way to go about this.
19:26.83
Will Novelli
There perfect.
19:44.20
Shawn
You know.
19:46.15
barlele
Then there are also some micro campaigns that you've been finding a lot of success with how do those work. What what is that.
19:50.36
Shawn
Yeah in in just stepping back from it I mean one of the fun things about the micro campaigns is it was truly part of the entrepreneurial journey. You know one of the big things. Entrepreneurs will fail at is they're convinced. Their product is so right. And they go tell organizations hey you just need to shove yourself into the square hole I don't care that you're a circular organization and they fail because of it. Um, we went out with what we thought was an amazing product. We had had a lot of good feedback from people. But what we realized very quickly was last year when nonprofits were doing their budgets. No one said oh by the way make sure we put $5000 in the budget for Ai and predictive analytics and so we were talking with organizations who liked what we were doing but they didn't have the budget. They didn't have the the time built in for it. What everybody did do last year is everybody said hey. Don't forget to put $1000 a month in for marketing. We need to be doing our digital ads on facebook or linkedin or or banner ads and so organizations already had money allocated for that and they always want to optimize that money. They always want to do the best they can do. And so what we figured out are my chief data officers a very brilliant woman and we had gone through the exercise to build our platform of mapping all 240000000 americans and what she said is hey sean instead of taking this organization and building their their major gift model and then applying it to their donor set. Why don't we take their model and apply it to our database of 240000000 americans and now what we can tell them number one is we can tell them there are none americans in the country that look exactly like your best owners and oh by the way we can rank order them and give you. five thousand ten thousand twenty five thousand to be able to then market to either digitally by phone or drette mailil and as you said together the results have been phenomenal. We had no university last month they wanted to raise ah for a cause from non-alumni donors. And so they had given the the machine 1500 of their non-alumni donors. They built a model of what their good non-alumni donors look like we overlaid that on the two hundred and forty million americans we gave them 10000 leads. They spent none for the leads and the advertising. And at the end of four weeks they picked up 58 new donors and $34000 and so these these micro campaigns four week campaigns they can do this every month now with very limited effort by their development team to to go out and do it.
22:30.00
barlele
It's where things get creepy but good. You know, creepy or good.
22:32.46
Shawn
The theory though Taylor is if we're doing our job right? We're delivering to you ads that matter so back in in last year my sister sent me a women's spa that she wanted a birthday present to. So trying to be a good big brother you get on there. You spend about ten fifteen minutes picking the right pack send it out for the next thirty days I get women spa ad on every web browser that I open and it's a total waste of money and kind of frustrating to me. If we're doing our job right? We're delivering to you an ad for something whether you know the organization exists or not you look like the other donors that are in there. You look like the people who have an affinity towards that cost. So hopefully while yes, maybe a little creepy There's a lot of data out there. That's being used in far creeper ways. We're hoping we're doing it is is Ai for good.
23:21.98
barlele
Yeah, no, that's why yeah ai for good that sounds better than creepy for good. But I think the machine needs a name and his name is Creeper or something like that. No it ain't.
23:26.20
Shawn
Um.
23:27.90
Will Novelli
The head of.
23:32.27
Shawn
Um, we we call it boodle. We call the machine boodle. So.
23:39.99
barlele
All that boodle. That's what ah the machine is boodle. Actually it's funny I've got ah I've got a story you mentioned the Taylor Shanklin in North Carolina versus the Taylor Shanklet in California so I get a call one day from this number in Asheville and it's the up store and they're like hey we have a package for Taylor Shanklin I like to is this one yours I'm like no, but there's another Taylor Shanklin in the Asheville area and I know this yeah is and I know this because I i.
24:10.48
Shawn
Um, no kidding.
24:17.27
barlele
You know like you go Google yourself sometimes and then one day I randomly find out um like who could partly I Google myself to see are there any other Taylor shklins out there and what are they doing and who are they I don't know maybe I'm weird. Um, but I find this guy Taylor who.
24:17.74
Shawn
Um, yeah.
24:35.46
barlele
Lives in my like same area and he's like a physical therapist or something so it was funny and he the guy at the UP store was like okay, yeah yeah, we we're gonna try you first. We had his number 2 We'll go call him I'm like it. It must be his you know because.
24:48.84
Will Novelli
And.
24:51.65
Shawn
Um, that's funny I.
24:54.94
barlele
There aren't a lot of Taylor Franklins in the world and it's funny to me that I found one that I'm like he's in my area I need to find him on Facebook or something and be like do you want to have coffee sometime now. Ah just to say we did it. But.
25:05.95
Shawn
Um, you you are the only Taylor Shank and I have ever met and for the None one to be in the same zip code is amazing. Had.
25:06.42
Will Novelli
I said.
25:17.17
barlele
Weird right? I know I thought that was strange. Yeah, yeah, so I know Yeah, yeah, yeah, just see they also call him T shank and ah.
25:22.35
Will Novelli
It's definitely pretty crazy pretty far out That's for sure. Got to find out his nicknames to.
25:23.81
Shawn
Um, but just just ah.
25:30.36
Will Novelli
Exactly Yeah, my.
25:35.43
barlele
Ah, he's probably not None um so das and but if I found that out I would be like this is really weird. No.
25:36.65
Will Novelli
Um.
25:39.00
Shawn
Um, with.
25:45.97
Will Novelli
Um.
25:46.85
Shawn
But if if you're ever ever really curious and you don't want to tell me it's the way you're using it just send me over a donor file and include his name in there and then we'll get you back all the information on it.
25:56.53
barlele
Yeah, exactly he's going to go listen to this podcast and be like what a weirdo? No I'm never having coffee with her.
26:02.60
Shawn
Enter and.
26:05.70
Will Novelli
Um, yeah.
26:10.17
Shawn
Um, he's like guess I have coffee with you in a very public place.
26:13.33
barlele
Very public exactly well um Sean this has been this been really good I'd I'd love to hear leave us with.
26:13.76
Will Novelli
Yeah, right.
26:27.97
barlele
We got a couple of kind of lightning round questions. We like to do at the end and so I'd like to ask you just kind of rapid fire. None thing that comes to your mind. What should every young entrepreneur be doing right now.
26:29.29
Shawn
Okay.
26:36.18
Shawn
All right.
26:45.16
Shawn
What should they be doing right now. Um, what is I'd say finding their passion I mean one of the the most frustrating things for me in grad school after having started several companies that asked people what are you goingnna do after for grad school like I'm going to be an entrepreneur like oh great. What's your company I don't I'm just gonna be an entrepreneur.
26:47.75
barlele
Not.
27:04.24
Shawn
And entrepreneur was code for I don't want to go get a real job because it sounds a lot more fun doing a startup as I said to you earlier I thought I was done being an entrepreneur but I found something that I was again passionate about and felt like I needed to solve. And so what I tell people who who think the startup world is where they want to be or the entrepreneur world is where they want to be go get as much experience as you can until you find that what you're passionate about and then go make that jump into building that but in the meantime learn about finance learn About. Um, the the legal world learn about um, networking because no one builds a business all by themselves. You've got to have a network of people you can reach out to who who help you and if you don't understand the concept of product Market fit yet. Read everything you can on that before you start your company because that's going to be essential to figuring out how to build it.
27:55.43
barlele
I Yeah, love it all right next one. What's the best compliment you've ever gotten.
28:04.34
Shawn
Besides my wife saying I do I mean let's face it I got someone to commit the rest of their life to me That's a pretty pretty big compliment. Um for me I think in the business world it. Ah.
28:06.80
Will Novelli
And that's a go one.
28:07.15
barlele
Aha.
28:18.83
Shawn
Watching our customers teach us how to use our platform and as I said we go Out. We knew what we wanted to build. Ah, ah what we wanted it to do and now I get customers coming back going? Yeah, but can I get it to do this and you know you have to catch yourself. Oh Of course you can. Yeah,, That's what we meant right? but. What it means is your customers have gone beyond what you wanted them to do. They've really ingrained themselves into the platform and found new ways to use it and then the fun thing there is we can take those new ways to use it and share it with the rest of the community so they can benefit on it.
28:50.88
barlele
I love love it alright last last one what's been your favorite job. You've ever held.
28:58.80
Shawn
Ah, bar none hands down and this is no insult to the boodle team I have it was being a platoon leader in the army I was 21 years old when I walked into that job I had 60 men and women who were the sons and daughters of America. And I was empowered to take them on some of the most dangerous training and ultimately um, although I never did with them take them into combat you knew that you could take them into combat at any point in time and to have that trust um, is phenomenal. And what's even more phenomenal is you're doing a lot more than just teaching them to shoot straight. Um, you're their marriage counselor. You're their pt mentor. You're the person is responsible for challenging them each and every day to become the next best version of them and at the same time you're learning from them. They've been doing their job when I walked into the army I had no experience I had people on my platoon had been there 1015 years so bar none that was the singular greatest job I've ever had the second best is obviously boodle the team I have here. Um, while I haven't taught any of them to shoot straight. Although that might change on the next company retreat. We may be doing that. Um I get to do all those other same things I get to challenge them all to become the next best version of who they are and every single day they challenge me to do the same thing.
30:21.59
barlele
Just don't do one of those like tomahawk things like those things terrify me I'm like wait what you want a bunch of people to get into the same room right next to each other and throw axes all around like I Just know that about that.
30:24.60
Shawn
He I.
30:33.95
Shawn
You know, but what's worse. What's worse is these are always at a bar. They always at a bar you want to ease? Yeah, like it's dangerous enough just doing what you said Taylor but now let's add vast amounts of alcohol to it. Yeah.
30:39.59
Will Novelli
That's what I was going to say oh is that a ah local watering hole.
30:42.10
barlele
Um, yeah.
30:48.90
barlele
I Know it's terrify I I don't I can't understand why people do this I'm like please never take me to one of those. Um, no.
30:52.34
Shawn
But my state.
30:57.11
Shawn
Um, the North Carolina you got quite a few.
31:01.35
Will Novelli
That's a darts darts has been at bars forever though right? darts right.
31:04.85
barlele
There's 1 right down the road from me. Yeah, like there's there's one really close to my house and I'm like I I should go there but I should go there by myself you know because I don't want to hurt someone? Yeah yeah, so yeah.
31:13.62
Shawn
Um, know know you know who you need to go with you need to go with tshake in there. But.
31:22.70
barlele
Um, mother with my alternate ego. Yeah, that's a good idea. Um all right I do have 1 more question has you said something and so I want to add one more in I'll wrap it up. What are you doing to be the next version of yourself right now.
31:26.91
Shawn
Um, yes, and.
31:42.18
barlele
Like what are you? What are you working on to be your next best self.
31:44.10
Shawn
So as I said I I interact with the team as often as I can because they challenge me. Um I used to love to read and about 2 years into starting boodle one of my investors asked me if I had any regrets about starting a company in my 40 s. And one was the less family time that I had it was hard initially with a lot less family time but the other thing that really bothered me is I wasn't reading as much I read every day but I was reading blogs I was reading things that were very pertinent to the job we were doing and he turned me on to audible and. I love audible I always have like None books going at a time I always keep I'm not a big fiction reader but I always keep None big fiction book there to just kind of throw things up but I have things outside of ai machine learning and everything else. Um, and then the last thing I do is. Spend as much time with the family and if there was lemonade to be made out of the lemons of the pandemic. It's that I get to work from home. You know if we finish this up before the end of the hour I'm gonna get None nutes to go play cars with my 4 year old and then when my daughter gets home from school I get to spend five ten minutes finding out how she was and. Before the pandemic you didn't get to do that you left the house at None in the morning and you got home at six at night and that interactions wasn't there and so as much as I can do to find outside of the you know 18 hours a day I typically put into boodle and that's every it's something every entrepreneur has to do to to. Um, make sure they mean they maintain their own sanity and help the people on their team.
33:21.25
barlele
I Yep I hear you on that look Borleli has something to say I accidentally hit the little I hit the little hand sign on our recording that says Corlele has something to say Oh do you now? Yeah, take a.
33:28.95
Shawn
Um, was like go ahead see whatever you want.
33:29.48
Will Novelli
I Breathe race And. Um, yeah, it's It's really cool.
33:41.70
barlele
Someone of those axe throwing retreats. Um, not so much will don't tell everyone else we talked about this. We're not going on an a referring retreat. We'll go like deep sea fish eat or something like that but no axes. Um.
33:41.71
Shawn
Um, ah.
33:47.29
Will Novelli
Um, yeah, no access.
33:53.88
Shawn
You you you can come on our shooting retreat one one of our investors every year he know you got to hear this Taylor you'll like this is better better than axe throwing every year he brings about 50 of his classmates together. He lives about an hour outside of Colorado springs. He's got thirty five acres
33:58.36
barlele
Hello.
34:11.29
Shawn
And they do combat horseshoes. So the the None horseshoe station is like a normal horseshoe station. You're just throwing horseshoe the next station station number 2 and there are 16 stations station number 2 is a skeet station or you're shooting ske for the shotgun.
34:15.20
barlele
Huh but. Okay.
34:28.14
barlele
Ah.
34:31.10
Shawn
And then station number 3 is a horseshoe except it's going down a steep hill and and so basically there's 8 horseshoe stations they alternate and every single one of them gets hard to wear the last one you're on a rope swing.
34:44.47
Will Novelli
Um, you have written.
34:45.99
Shawn
Across a ravine and you have to throw the horseshoe as you get to the other side and then come back so and then and then each of the other 8 stations are shooting stations. They got a pistol range or rifle range everything else so combat horseshoes come play.
34:57.66
barlele
Well combat Horse shoes. It's a and new obstacle course on America Ninja Warrior No, but.
35:00.19
Will Novelli
Um, combat horseshoes yet.
35:07.96
Shawn
Exactly But we wait to do our drinking until after everyone's done. So yeah, but.
35:09.46
Will Novelli
Um, yeah, heaven says that's for hands.
35:13.93
barlele
That's a good idea I think that idea I'll just drink while everybody else does that and then I'll be like really fun by the time. Everyone's done with that and I'll tell a lot of jokes that sounds good.
35:21.90
Will Novelli
Um.
35:24.96
Shawn
There you go.
35:28.67
barlele
Sean thanks so much for spending time with us talking shisle today if people want to find you reach out to learn more about boodle. What's the best way to do that.
35:34.76
Shawn
I am at SeanSHAWN at boodle b o o DLEDotA I and thanks for having me today. Well great to meet you? No, we're out to find time for more dad jokes later on.
35:47.75
Will Novelli
For sure. Yeah, no I've That's my favorite one lately now was ah.
35:48.80
barlele
Yeah, you can close us out with 1 both all right. Everybody give us a dead quick. Yeah, give us a dead joke will well named bill.
36:01.74
Will Novelli
How did the hamburger introduce his girlfriend meet patty.
36:07.70
barlele
Um i' allow man The ah.
36:10.15
Shawn
Um, ah, nice. Will you guys know the most condescent you guys know the most condescending bear right? A panda.
36:16.11
barlele
I.
36:18.90
Will Novelli
It's my best 1 I got um.
36:21.78
barlele
No, ah.
36:27.28
Will Novelli
I did insert the post effects.
36:29.82
Shawn
Um.
36:31.57
barlele
Oh and with that my friends we'll see you next time.
36:37.25
Shawn
Ah, thanks, well thanks Taylor great to see you all.