[00:01:12 ] So today I'm talking to Kathy. Kathy, where in the world are you?

[00:01:15 ] Kathy: [00:01:15 ] I am in beautiful Sarasota, Florida.

[00:01:18 ] dane: [00:01:18 ] All right, well, this little human there in Sarasota.

[00:01:21 ] Kathy: [00:01:21 ] I don't care how good it is. It was a blessing to live here. I've been here 25 years. I grew up in Rhode Island. I don't like snow or cold.

[00:01:31 ] dane: [00:01:31 ] Good. And you're, you know that and you have no guilt or shame about it.

[00:01:35 ] You're live where you live. That's right. That's very important. When you find that authentic voice that's just so honest and you're like, yep, I no longer care what people think. This is what I want. That's a special woman. And there's also something pretty special about this podcast. Can you tell folks that are listening, how we know each other?

[00:01:51 ] Kathy: [00:01:51 ] I knew of you when I first heard about paperless pipeline and myself and my assistant at the time. We were [00:02:00 ] beta testers for paperless pipeline. So we were very involved in the building process of it and then utilized it for years afterwards.

[00:02:09 ] dane: [00:02:09 ] So that's wonderful. And so I didn't know this. People listening as she got on, she said, I know you because I was a beta tester for your software product.

[00:02:18 ] PayPal is pipeline, which has passed its 10th year anniversary. It's still going along nice. And so it's an honor to have you here. And also just for folks listening. For you to hear how happy one of my customers was in working with me. Did you feel cared for Kathy?

[00:02:36 ] Kathy: [00:02:36 ] I have to say that my perception assessment and the reason why I even continued to follow you all the years after pipeline was that.

[00:02:46 ] You were brilliant. You had a way of, even as you grew your

[00:02:50 ] dane: [00:02:50 ] product,

[00:02:51 ] Kathy: [00:02:51 ] making your end users still feel like you matter and you are important. Many people as they grow, lose that.

[00:03:01 ] dane: [00:03:01 ] Well, I did lose it a little bit and it came rushing back when I got hit in the face.

[00:03:05 ] Kathy: [00:03:05 ] I don't know. In my mind, I'm like, whatever Dane touches, I want to know what it

[00:03:10 ] dane: [00:03:10 ] is.

[00:03:12 ] That's so sweet. Thank you. Thank you. You know, when I say I lost, I probably still had it in comparison to others, but to the degree, like. I care so much about the people that I work with. I had one of my very first customers was a real estate broker in Texas. He's one of my first 50 customers, and you know what?

[00:03:31 ] I called him the other day just to say hi after not talking for eight years, and it had been 12 years since we worked together and I called them to say hi and say thank you. And to say thank you for believing in me. Thank you for buying my product when I was so young. Thank you for referring me to the customers you did.

[00:03:47 ] I still think of you. I think if you fondly and get even emotional as I talk about it, just thank you for believing in me. Like an entrepreneur's first. Customers are almost like a first boyfriend or girlfriend, you know, we know them by name. We're [00:04:00 ] so grateful they take a chance on us. So I called him to tell him that after like 10 years, just to say thank you.

[00:04:04 ] And it felt so good. And you know, he had had some doubts in his life and he had questioned a few decisions that he made and he was having a human moment where he's questioning if what he did mattered. And it just meant so much to him to hear from me, to say thank you and. That's the kind of connection that if you have with people, makes your businesses so much fun to run.

[00:04:24 ] Kathy: [00:04:24 ] And that's exactly how I feel about each person that I have helped buy or sell a home as you would just talking. That's how I feel about everyone I've worked with. To me, that's the rewarding part. It truly is. And to hear them come back to me and say. We wouldn't be in this house if it wasn't for you, Cathy, or that's what makes it all worthwhile.

[00:04:46 ] I'm celebrating my 20th year in real estate. It doesn't seem like 20 years.

[00:04:52 ] dane: [00:04:52 ] Wow. So what's your big goal for the call today?

[00:04:55 ] Kathy: [00:04:55 ] Honestly, when you put this out there, I'm like, yeah, anything you do I want to learn, I want to be a part of. And I'm like, what do I want to do? Do I want it? I have ideas for going in a different direction with my real estate, but I also have ideas for different business I want to do.

[00:05:09 ] So.

[00:05:10 ] dane: [00:05:10 ] So you knew there was something you wanted with this call and you're willing to book it to see what might happen? Yes. Okay. If you knew you couldn't fail and there was something that excited you to no end, you're like, wow, I could get to do that. Do you know what that would be this year? Yes,

[00:05:31 ] Kathy: [00:05:31 ] and I now have a look at anything like, I'm going to fail.

[00:05:34 ] dane: [00:05:34 ] Okay.

[00:05:35 ] Kathy: [00:05:35 ] I don't fail. Failure is not an option. So one of my passions has been nutrition and simple nutrition because I've lived it myself. And then I found myself stumbling into it with other people and helping them just to understand basics and make it easy and dumb it down to them and say, maybe you want to switch this for this.

[00:05:55 ] And I'm like, is there any way I can turn this into a business? I'm passionate about [00:06:00 ] this because. I lived it and I enjoy that. I helped my niece who had high blood pressure, cholesterol, diabetes. Just give her ideas, but different ways to make things so it helped make her healthier. I think what I'm learning from people is.

[00:06:17 ] We have a lot of information throughout. We are definitely in the information, like throw it all at us in our heads, spin 5,000 miles an hour, but something simple and say, okay, great. You like to eat this. Why don't you try this instead? Because you're going to feel

[00:06:30 ] dane: [00:06:30 ] better. Okay, perfect. This will be a wonderful call.

[00:06:35 ] So I'll give you a way to start this from zero effectively, and I can't wait to teach you about this, like really fundamental business principle that. I call it the spine of a business. And if you get this right, you can pretty much build anything you want on top of it. It also insulates you from your business failing because you can change and iterate it, and it's just one of the most harmonious ways.

[00:07:02 ] And when I say harmony, I mean like a full on rich cord and all of its beauty ways to build a business. And I'll give you some examples, and since I've talked about this in so many other episodes, I'm going to just introduce it a little differently again so people can get a different flavor for it. You can build a business at light speed, like really fast, like days, weeks, like if you just focus on the things that make a business a business.

[00:07:28 ] And a business becomes a business. The moment you get your first paying customer, not the moment you get the idea. Not the moment you buy the domain, not the moment you make a logo, not even the moment you buy your first location and move your furniture in, not the moment you declare you are a corporation.

[00:07:44 ] A business exists in my view of the world. As soon as you have that first customer paying for it, so you'd be surprised. Customers will pay for things that have no names, no business names, no branded email addresses. I built my software company to probably [00:08:00 ] half a million a year in revenue off my personal Gmail address because I was so intentionally lazy and not getting a branded email.

[00:08:07 ] Cause I knew people did. It didn't matter because I, that's a real estate broker said, Hey, do you care if my email is a Gmail or a branded email or do you care if you get a great result. Like, I really just want a result, Dane, I don't care what your email looks like. If a business begins when the customer pays, then this can eliminate all the anxiety around business because now what we do is we reduce ourselves down to zero and make our customer up to a hundred and so we don't exist.

[00:08:33 ] The customer exists at a hundred and then we just listened to them. And then with that listening, we use discernment. But you'd be surprised in areas that you're not listening where you think you are, because there's usually a spot. And the unfortunate truth that I've come to realize is that. If there's an area that you're being talked to and you're not listening, it's generally fear and likely unconscious pride.

[00:08:57 ] Like you don't know. You're too proud to listen, but you just don't. And once you address unconscious pride, you look at it, you're like, ah, you realize it's really uncomfortable. They listened to probably what they're saying because it's either too simple or you don't want to do it. Or like the truth of the matter is, I've got this advanced sort of level of technical knowledge and building software companies and this advanced level of business knowledge.

[00:09:19 ] But I could probably make a hundred million a year if I wanted teaching senior citizens how to use the internet. You know, like how to type in a domain. What happens when you forget your password. Like my friend has a website and his literal most popular page on his website is forgot my MSN password.

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