My Perfect Path

From Accountant to Investor: Kurt Wilkin's Entrepreneurial Journey

• Daniel Koo • Season 2 • Episode 2

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Check out Kurt's podcast on how to find your unlocking skills to become an entrepreneur: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLby7E682NE-On_xZt7XqGlJpi8PiJAfCt


My "Strength-Finding" Path

Ever wondered how some people navigate from corporate careers to becoming successful entrepreneurs and investors? Kurt Wilkin's journey offers a masterclass in finding your path through uncertainty and challenge.

Kurt didn't become an entrepreneur because of passion or a brilliant idea – he did it because he needed to feed his family after the dot-com bubble burst. With a new baby at home and bills to pay, he started a consulting firm out of necessity. This decision would eventually lead him to build and sell a multi-million dollar company, co-found Hire Better, and become managing partner at Bee Cave Capital, where he's invested in over 200 startups.

What separates Kurt's approach from typical business advice is his philosophy on personal strengths. Rather than trying to become well-rounded by improving weaknesses, Kurt advocates doubling down on what you're naturally good at: "Focus on your strengths and be really good at what you're good at... there's people that can do things that you suck at better, cheaper, quicker." This realization transformed his leadership style and became the foundation for his book "Who's Your Mike?", which explores the common challenge of loyal employees who get promoted beyond their capabilities as companies grow.

Throughout our conversation, Kurt shares candid insights from both his successes and failures. He reveals why he always invests in people over ideas, what he's learned from board dynamics as both CEO and board member, and why entrepreneurship isn't for everyone. As he puts it, "For every success story you see, there's probably 10 to 20 years of blood, sweat and tears that went into that." His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs? Be comfortable being uncomfortable, be willing to do whatever it takes, and remember that things typically work out – just not always how you expect.

Looking for honest guidance about entrepreneurship and leadership from someone who's been in the trenches? This conversation with Kurt Wilkin delivers precisely that. Check out his podcast "Unlocking Moves" for more insights from his extensive experience.

Feel free to leave comments here!

Kurt Wilkin:

After that, com went belly up and I had a new baby at home and a relatively new wife who was no longer working at Ernst Young. So I had to find ways to make ends meet. And that's how most entrepreneurs are born honestly, out of some trial or tribulation, that they need to find a way to make ends meet, and that was my story as well. I started a consulting firm because I needed to feed my baby and feed my wife.

Daniel Koo:

Hey, welcome back to my Perfect Path. For those of you who are new, I'm your host, daniel Koo, and I welcome you to season two. For me, at large, pivotal moments of my life, such as applying to new colleges, applying to new jobs or determining what next career move is right for me I spent time researching and finding mentorship to determine what was the best path for me. I knew that this struggle was not isolated to me. Everyone struggles with this, simply because we cannot predict the future. However, I found something that is second best to predicting the future it's learning from those ahead of our career and from those who've seen more and experienced more. After all, there are not that many problems that have not been solved yet. If you've ever felt unsure about your next career move, you're in the right place. How do you go from being an accountant at Ernst Young to exiting a company that you built from scratch with a newborn at home and end up investing over 200 startups over your career? Well, for today's guest, kurt Wilkin, it all happened. Part of his strength finding path.

Daniel Koo:

Kurt's the co-founder of Hire Better and managing partner at Bee Cave Capital. He spent his career helping entrepreneurs grow, not just with funding, but with honest advice, hard-earned experience and a deep belief that the right people can make all the difference. In our conversation, he shares how he went from being a CPA to building a multi-million dollar company, what he's learned from investing in hundreds of founders, and why self-awareness might be the most powerful tool in any leader's toolbox. I think you're really going to enjoy this one. Let's get into it. Hi, kurt, welcome to my Perfect Path. We're thrilled to have you here. You're already very used to the podcasting format, so I'm kind of excited for this one. I think it's going to be pretty smooth and I'm really excited to listen to all of your insights and inspiration.

Kurt Wilkin:

Awesome. Hey, daniel, thanks so much for having me, man, I love what you're doing.

Daniel Koo:

Just to introduce Kurt a little bit. Kurt is an entrepreneur coach mentor with over 25 years of experience. He serves as the co-founder of Hire Better and the managing partner of BK Capital, specializing in advising in high growth companies. His journey includes significant challenges like the dot-com bubble burst, personal hardships and things like that, which kind of gave Kurt a lot of understanding about entrepreneurship and how to survive those things. Just to give the listeners a little bit of context on what your background looks like, could you tell us a little bit about how you grew up, where you grew up and things like that?

Kurt Wilkin:

Sure, I grew up in South Louisiana, just outside of New Orleans, and I ended up going to the University of Arkansas and I was born in and I live in Texas. So people ask me where my accent is. Why do I sound like a Cajun? I tell them because I've got all those three things all wrapped into one a Kunas, a Redneck and a Hillbilly. All wrapped into one beautiful package. But I grew up in a small town, little bedroom community of New Orleans and I'll say lower middle class. We didn't have a lot of money. My mom and dad both worked and my dad was a failed entrepreneur so he gave me a lot of powerful lessons on what things not to do as an entrepreneur. And I was the youngest of four, so I got a lot of hand-me-downs from my siblings and it definitely wasn't a posh upbringing but I never really felt poor, I just felt like there's a lot of things I wanted that I didn't get. But you know that's part of life.

Daniel Koo:

Now that we know where you came from, could you walk us through your day-to-day and what your day-to-day looks like? Daniel?

Kurt Wilkin:

if you don't mind, I'll give you two answers to that question. The first is what it looked like as an entrepreneur going through the middle of it, and then the second is what my day-to-day looks like today, which is different. I still work hard, but I have a CEO leading Hire Better and I've got a team that works with me. So my day is just different. So I'll start with probably my most famous, if you will, entrepreneurial journey. That was the Controller Group, and I started it with a partner and we worked 24 seven, and the beautiful thing about being an entrepreneur, especially as you have success, is you have freedom to go do things like go on vacations or have flexibility with your time. The downside is you're pretty much on. Whenever you're on vacation, you have to be able to respond to clients or customers or whatever the case may be. So, yeah, we worked a lot of late nights and midnight phone calls with Brett, my partner, talking about marketing or sales or finance, whatever it was, and that's just part of the journey. Being an entrepreneur is not for everybody. You're going to have to be ready to work your ass off. You're also going to have to be ready to get knocked on the floor and knocked on your ass and you have to be able to get back up. That's probably the number one attribute that successful entrepreneurs have is just the grit to be able to get back and fight and live another day.

Kurt Wilkin:

So my day-to-day now so I still am majority shareholder and chairman of Hire Better, which is a recruiting firm that focuses on entrepreneurs and helping them build next level teams.

Kurt Wilkin:

I also, as Daniel said, I'm managing partner of Bee Cave Capital, which is a small angel investing group with me and two of my partners, and we invest in early stage entrepreneurs with me and my two of my partners, and we invest in early stage entrepreneurs and typically we actually we have about 200 investments over the course of the last 20 years. So we've been pretty active at times, and there's a couple of companies that I'm on the board of, and then there's a lot of companies that I just help and advise and I'm just there for, and so my day can be anything from if Daniel's an entrepreneur I've invested in. I can help Daniel meet a really interesting person that could help his company, or maybe reviewing some financial statements on his behalf or introducing him to investors Lots of different things. I do have a couple of companies that I'm very heavily involved in right now, which almost feels like I'm an entrepreneur again, because I'm really helping, in a hands-on way, a couple of the entrepreneurs that we've invested in.

Daniel Koo:

Yeah, it seems like you really enjoy this space and maybe you want to get back into it again, perhaps.

Kurt Wilkin:

No, not a chance. So I will say this I believe that capitalism can be and is a change agent for good, so much better than any nonprofit you could have, any governmental entity whatever, because if you can make money doing good, you can make the world a better place, and I believe that entrepreneurs are the tip of the spear. If I can support and help good people build great companies, then they're going to make an impact with their company, with their team that they've built and, ultimately, when they have the financial means to help in other ways too, whether it's their time and treasures themselves, or maybe the ability to donate to those charitable organizations I mentioned before.

Daniel Koo:

I really like how you have a very positive perspective on businesses and entrepreneurship. I think that's a very inspiring force for a lot of the people that may be listening to this episode, and personally I'm inspired by you and your energy, so I'm really excited to kind of dig into this. So today we named our episode my Strength Finding Path. I kind of want to talk about your book here as well. I think that title really suits your book and how you're kind of approaching hiring and how you're approaching people in the business.

Kurt Wilkin:

Sure. So you want to focus on strength finding first. Yes, yeah, I think the main reason that you've gravitated towards that is because I've found I was going to say early on but probably not early on some point in my entrepreneurial journey that there are certain things that I'm really really good at and there are certain things that I really really suck at. And it was eye-opening for me when I was able to come to grips with that and I realized I no longer have to make excuses for the things that I struggle with and I can just lean into what I'm really good at. You know, there's a school of thought out there, daniel, that says you know, focus on your weaknesses and try to make them better so you're more well-rounded.

Kurt Wilkin:

I say, screw that. I think it's. Let's focus on our strength and be really, really good at what you're what you're good at, because you're going to have more energy around that, you're going to feel more empowered, you're going to be passionate about it. And then, candidly, there's people that can do things that you suck at. They can do it better, cheaper, quicker, more efficiently, all the stuff. And so that was a big eye-opener for me. It really gave me license to be myself when I realized that I could be good at that. I was good at those things, and it's okay not to be good at the details or the that. I was good at those things and it's okay not to be good at the details or the finances or the numbers or whatever it is for you that you're not great at.

Daniel Koo:

I think that's actually a perfect introduction to how you ended up quitting your first job as an accountant. Could you tell me a little bit about that and how you decided to go away from accounting?

Kurt Wilkin:

Yeah. So I'm probably like a lot of your listeners. I took courses in college because of whatever maybe in my case my dad suggested it, or maybe there's a pretty girl in the class, or whatever the case may be. We end up with majors and classes that we just end up with and at some point we get in the real world and we decide what we really like and what we're good at and how we can make money. And I passed the CPA exam. I worked for Ernst Young.

Kurt Wilkin:

I mean, on paper I look like a really badass accountant and the reality is I'm a very bad accountant because, honestly, just the details don't matter to me that much. And to be a good accountant you have to be pretty darn good at the details and love it. And in those firms like that, as you progress and grow in your career, you get more time with the client and you become more of a leader and a manager and more strategic and less in the details. But to grow to that level you've got to be really good at the details. So I like to say I would have been a great partner at Ernst Young but I never would have gotten there because I, just again, was not a great accountant. So the question is how did you get the job at Ernst Young if you're not a great accountant? And trust me, I can look good at selling myself or whatever.

Kurt Wilkin:

So after I left there, I went to a dot-com and I got the entrepreneurial bug. I had it before. I started a little company in college and I had the gene, especially since my dad and my brother were both entrepreneurs as well. But I rediscovered it and that's where I launched my entrepreneurial career. After that dot-com went belly up and I had a new baby at home and a relatively new wife who was no longer working at Ernst Young. So I had to find ways to make ends meet. And that's how most entrepreneurs are born honestly, out of some trial or tribulation, that they need to find a way to make ends meet, and that was my story as well. I started a consulting firm because I needed to feed my baby and feed my wife.

Daniel Koo:

I do want to touch on that in a little bit as well. I want to go back to how you kind of recognized that your talents were somewhere else. What were some telltale signs about you know, maybe I shouldn't be in this field.

Kurt Wilkin:

That's a great question, daniel.

Kurt Wilkin:

I don't know that I really knew it at that time.

Kurt Wilkin:

I had feelings, but I didn't really appreciate how to put it all together until later, at Ernst Young and even at the dot-com where I was the lead accountant, I would much rather spend time with the people and learning their jobs and how I could help them with their jobs, more so than the numbers side.

Kurt Wilkin:

So I probably had that inclination, but I didn't really know what that meant. When I started consulting, I was the main person doing the work, so I got to see firsthand how much I was, how I enjoyed it and honestly, I could have brought people in much smarter than me and could have done the job a lot faster than me even then. But that was the big eye-opener for me was when I was able to bring in people because the job was getting to be so big. I could bring other people in and pay them and make money from the difference between what I charged the client and I could have the great strategic conversations with the client and help them find the right resources to solve their challenge. So that was early on. It was not until later that I really had that epiphany.

Daniel Koo:

As you started this consulting company, how did you decide on, I guess, what to model your business on? So was were you inspired by a different company, or did you decide on, I guess, what to model your business on? So, were you inspired by a different company, or did you have a mentor? What was kind of like the ideation there?

Kurt Wilkin:

Good question. It started out of desperation and so I just would do whatever it took to find accounting related, because I was a CPA from Ernst Young, so I had that to lean on. So that's how it started. As it became a real firm, we did try to pattern ourselves after the big accounting firms, but we didn't want to do. I don't want to bore your listeners too much, but there's audit and tax are the main two ways that those firms make money. But in order to do the audits or taxes, the books and records have to be in good order, and the companies that they do the audits and taxes for aren't necessarily always great at getting them prepared for the Ernst Youngs of the world to come in. And so my idea was I will help them get ready. So me and my team will do all the work necessary to get you ready for Ernst Young. We'll do all the work necessary to get you ready for Ernst Young, and Ernst Young will love us because you're ready and they don't have to spend a lot of cycles with unbillable work to try to help you. And so that was my idea and everyone thought it was a dumb idea and it kind of was.

Kurt Wilkin:

But then a couple of key things happened that we took advantage of. The biggest one was a congressional act called Sarbanes-Oxley. Your listeners are probably too young to know about it, but it was the congressional act that was passed after the Enron scandal. Many of you guys have heard of Enron scandal, which was basically a company that was propped up with a bunch of bullshit transactions to try to make it look bigger than it was, and they pilfered a lot of money from shareholders. And so Sarbanes and Oxley were two senators that passed an act that said all companies, all public companies, have to have their internal controls audited every year, and we were one of the early adopters. My partners were much smarter than me and they knew how to do that work. I was good at selling it and they were good at doing it and managing it.

Daniel Koo:

So this happened at the same time you were raising a family. I think that must've been really tough. I recall you mentioning it kind of being a force of survival, Like it wasn't something that you could afford to not succeed. How was that motivation for you? And like do you think that's necessary for an entrepreneur to go through in order to succeed?

Kurt Wilkin:

Another good question, daniel. For me it was about survival at first, and by now we've got two kids a two-and-a-half-year-old and a newborn and I had to find a way to make it work, because I'm you know, because I'm a man and I want to provide right, I mean that kind of thing. And so that's where it started, and I had a fear of failure, and I think that was a positive at the time because, again, failure couldn't be an option for me. And then, looking back, however, once we got through the survival period, we were growing rapidly and that's where it became a whole different challenge. It was no longer about survival, it was okay.

Kurt Wilkin:

Well, how can I take advantage of this and build a great firm? And I didn't want it to be a lifestyle firm. I made the decision I wanted to grow and make it as big as we could at the time, versus just having a really casual existence, and hindsight I'm not really sure what the right answer could have been or should have been, to be honest. I mean we ended up selling and making a lot of money and I was able to do investing and such later. But I've seen a lot of people with lifestyle businesses that have a really nice life and they seem to be doing well too. So really, it's different decisions you can, different paths you can go down for sure, and right now I'm kind of doing both. I'm doing work that I love to do and I'm getting to spend time with clients and people that I enjoy being around and doing passionate work that I think does make a difference in the world, and I'm able to make a little bit of money to have a decent lifestyle and I'm having fun.

Daniel Koo:

We can actually talk a little bit about your book at this point. We can actually talk a little bit about your book at this point. I think your book is also about finding people in your company that I guess kind of like legacy employees right, that previously were a great fit for the role but maybe no longer is, and there's the challenge of either finding them a better fit in the company or finding them another job. Even so, we can talk a little bit about where you learned these things and what were some of the big lessons that you took away and why you decided to write the book.

Kurt Wilkin:

Sure, I'll give you a background on the book, a little bit of the concepts around the book, and then get to your question about the characters.

Kurt Wilkin:

So the book is called who's your Mike and the subtitle is A no Bullshit Guide to the People You'll Meet on your Entrepreneurial Journey. And I'll tell you about the title and who Mike is in a second. But basically there's four sections. The first section is legacy employees that you're talking about that have been with your organization, with you as an entrepreneur, for years perhaps, and there's different versions of those legacy characters. And then there's a what I call an intermission. That's advice on what to do with these folks and whether you have somebody that you've outgrown or something. And then I've got three chapters about what I call the silver bullet. It's a hire that you bring in from the outside to save the day, make everything great, which we all entrepreneurs always crave at some point. And then there's an intermission. And then I have a chapter around building a great culture and about the concept of human resources and all the broken parts about that. And then intermission. Then I've got a chapter about finding somebody who compliments you and your skillset that really helps you. So in my case, as I said before, I'm not a detailed person. Let me bring in somebody that's really good at the details to partner with. So that's the layout of the book.

Kurt Wilkin:

So the question is, who is Mike? And so Mike is in the book. I'll describe him, but it's really a character we all see all the time as entrepreneurs. Mike is a good friend that you started your business with, or maybe you went to college with him. You bring him on to help you with the back office things, things that you're not really good at, so you can build the product or sell the service or whatever it is. And when you become a real company, he quits his job and now joins you and you make him your accountant. And then, a couple of years later, you're growing and he's working a hundred hours a week and you reward him with a new title Now he's the controller. And a few years later or months later, you're now a real, real company and you're doing things you've never done before. And Mike's right there with you, working nights and weekends, working his ass off, and you make him your CFO, your chief financial officer, and then you look up and you're doing $10 or $20 million in revenue and you've got legit challenges now and Mike has no idea what he's doing. He's in over his head, he's swirling because he's trying to make it up and try to please you because you count on him. So my question is who's your Mike?

Kurt Wilkin:

Every entrepreneur either has a Mike, has hat or will have a Mike. The only way to avoid them is just simply not to grow, and so part of the intermission is well, what do you do with Mike? What skills does Mike have? He's not a bad person. He does good work in certain things, but is he your CFO of the future? And so you asked me how I know all this is because I've seen it with hundreds of clients and friends and my own companies over the years. It's just every single company has employees that are really, really talented and really dedicated. You've simply outgrown.

Daniel Koo:

I see, did you mainly learn this during the time that you were an entrepreneur, or was it kind of afterwards, where you're interfacing with a lot of CEOs and you're talking to leadership?

Kurt Wilkin:

Yeah, definitely along the way. Most of the stories in the book come from my time at Hire Better, because I'm working specifically with entrepreneurs and just hearing the same stories over and over again entrepreneurs and just hearing the same stories over and over again. My impetus to writing it was because I felt like these stories needed to be told and people needed to hear them, because people hear my stories or stories from my clients that are in the book and they can see themselves in the story and they can make their own decisions about their own people based on what did Kurt do or what did Daniel do. So it's all a bunch of stories and it's just powerful because I think we all learn from stories and the stories of others.

Daniel Koo:

Yeah, I read almost half of it before coming to this episode and the writing is actually really really easy to understand. I think the way that you wrote it is really nice. It's not like other business books, as the book mentions, and you have these characters that are very easy to visualize and it's maybe easy to even spot them within your company. I think the way that you characterize them. So I think, if anyone's interested, the book is who's your Mike? By Kurt Wilkin I think you should go and download the book. There's also an Audible audiobook and did you narrate it yourself.

Kurt Wilkin:

I did. I did so, which is harder than it sounds to do, but, yeah, you'll hear my voice, fortunately or unfortunately. Fortunately or unfortunately.

Daniel Koo:

No, I think, to kind of transition. I do want to talk about your experience selling the TCG company, and I know you sold it to Tatum and there were some unique circumstances there where you were in the board but you were also the CEO and I want to know maybe some detailed stories or anything like that or something that you learned from there.

Kurt Wilkin:

So, yes, it was really my first true entrepreneurial endeavor, and same with my partners, and we were approached by Tatum to buy us, and we were flattered at first and then, the more we got to know them, the more we realized this is probably legitimate and probably a good fit. And we did sell it. We took some cash, we also got equity in Tatum and we also got a note, so it's called a seller finance. So we financed some of it ourselves. So they basically borrowed money from us to buy it. And that's not unusual to have those kind of three levers a little bit of cash, a little bit of equity, a little bit of note. But part of the deal was because we wanted to have a say in how the company was run and, especially since they owed us money, we had a board seat as long as the company owed us money, which, again, is not too unusual. Now, I don't know how much your audience knows about boards We've all heard about them but boards are basically the governance of the company and, in theory, the board hires and fires the CEO and then the CEO hires and fires everyone else below that. Well, I'm an employee of the company, so I report to the CEO and I'm on the board and so in theory, he reports to me. So that creates some pretty interesting situations, especially when most boards are constructed from people that have differing interests.

Kurt Wilkin:

So like, if you go to, you know whatever company you follow, that's a public company. They've got a board of let's call it, six or eight people. Three or four of them are investors who have an interest because they're investors. They represent a group. Two or three of them might just be friends of the CEO. They somehow they know the CEO, they somehow have an experience in the space. In the industry. There may be an employee, there may be a customer, there's any number of people, but they all have their own interests in the company. You know a shareholder might want to. They've got a fund that's been around for 10 years. They want to sell the company as soon as possible. The CEO wants to maximize his return. The employee wants to, you know, maximize their level of pay.

Kurt Wilkin:

You know, whatever, there's any number of things that are across the board, and this one was no different. So it's dysfunctional by nature. All boards are dysfunctional, not just this one, and so you can imagine an interesting dynamic when I didn't really make as I like to tell people. It wasn't private jet money where I can go and just spend anything, but I had enough where I didn't really need the job, if that makes sense. And so the poor CEO is managing me, who doesn't really need the job, and so I can speak and I'm respectful, but I can speak what I see, versus have to say yes to my boss and yeah. So that created some pretty unique situations and the louder I got, the more the interest in paying off the loan became.

Kurt Wilkin:

And it wasn't by intent, but that's just what happened. So, basically, they found a way to pay off the loan and I sailed off into the sunset.

Daniel Koo:

That's actually interesting. I, um, I would have imagined when you sold the company you're set for life or or at least something like that, like you don't have to be, uh, tied to the job anymore, right? Um, and I know you mentioned that you faced like, uh, like two years of hardship, and it's hard for me to imagine where you're set financially in a way that you don't have to depend on a job. But there are other things that are making your life really difficult.

Kurt Wilkin:

Yeah, so in your specific example, I was there for a couple of years and I was trying to make it. I have a passion for what I do and I wanted to make it great. So we wanted to make this new company great. We had some headwinds. We had the economy in 2008 and 2009 were really, really challenging for the world and so that was part of our challenge. But once I realized that I was beating my head against the wall, it was time to go. And around that same time, I had you can imagine my proverbial baby. My company was now being dismantled and I was being kind of put out to pasture and both my parents passed.

Kurt Wilkin:

And talk about a really, really challenging time in your life when both your parents passed Two different instances. They both had cancer. There's a long story there, and I did spend some time in the desert Like, what am I doing? How can I make an impact in the world? You know all the things. In fact, when I left Tatum, I fired off a Jerry Maguire letter if you're familiar with the Jerry Maguire movie and Show Me the Money. You know basically, hey, we're going to, I'm going to change the world and here's what I'm going to do and I still believe a lot of that stuff.

Kurt Wilkin:

But, um, your, your point is more financially, do I need to work? I probably could have lived in a very low lifestyle or whatever, and that could have lasted me forever if I wanted it to. Um and um, I don't think I made the wrong decision, but I did continue working somewhat, but not because of the money so much as I was 40 years old and I'm not a guy that's going to go play golf for you know, for days at a time. I wanted to continue to make an impact, and so that's what I decided to do is continue to make an impact. I try to live a little more with a flexible schedule where I get to enjoy my time and enjoy my kids and my family, but I'm not a guy that's just going to go, especially at 40, sit on the beach and play golf all the time. You drive yourself crazy. If you have some people can do it, I can't do it.

Daniel Koo:

Yeah, I think that's exactly the energy. Maybe that got you through everything before and got you to where you are right now. So I think that's also maybe like an attitude thing where money isn't everything and retirement isn't everything. I think that's also important for us to know. These days we have the movements like FIRE, where you have financial independence and retire early and you try to race towards that and then feel free. But I think work gives us a lot of meaning. I don't know if it does for you as well, but it does for me for sure, and that's one of the things that actually brings a lot of happiness to my life as well.

Kurt Wilkin:

That's great to hear, daniel. I think this concept of retiring whether it's 40 or 70, is a misnomer. I think that's put in our heads by these financial advisors. You want to be able to retire and that's like I said. That's kind of golf and RV trips or whatever, and I want to be in a position where I can do both, where I can have some meaning in my life through some form of vocation and have flexibility to go do those types of things if and when I would like, which I do for the most part. I still have one kid at home. I've got two who have graduated and pretty much on their own, and then a third one at home. So I don't have full flexibility, but I've got the ability to be pretty flexible. I think that's what people are looking for.

Daniel Koo:

Maybe not retire early but be flexible earlier. Yeah, I think what it is is feeling safe and feeling financially stable. I think that's what people maybe mistake for the comfort of retirement. So it seems like you achieved this lifestyle through Hire Better. Can you tell me about how you got started and you acquired this company and kind of transformed it into what it is right now? Could you?

Kurt Wilkin:

tell us that story. I'm happy to tell you the Hire Better story, but the one where I really achieved greatness is the previous one that we talked about a little bit. The controller group and I made a couple of investments along the way. That panned out very well. So I can dive into any of those stories as you'd like. I'm happy to talk about Hirebetter, but I'm also happy to talk about the others.

Daniel Koo:

Before we go into Hirebetter, let's fully cover the controller group, then that's actually interesting. One of your questions in your podcast that you like to ask is what are some questions that you want me to ask and what are some of the questions that you don't want me to ask? And I feel like this is maybe one of those moments where you want me to ask about the controller group, because there's some more insights there.

Kurt Wilkin:

Well, specifically to your question, I've got another one for you. But the controller group we've covered a fair amount. I started it out of necessity and we ended up being very fortunate and I had very smart people around me and we were able to grow a company to about $20 million in revenue in a five-year period for a service firm, which is really really tough. And the magic there was really my partners Brett Lawson, who is an operating person he's much better at details and organization and structure than I am and that's really a big part of our success. And then our third partner was Kathy Schrock, who was fantastic at those internal controls I talked about before and she was able to convince even the biggest of companies that we were better than even Ernst Young or Deloitte and Touche or you name the big CPA firm. So that was a big part of our success.

Kurt Wilkin:

But your question, the question I ask in my podcast, is tell me one question that you're never asked and you're either glad they you know they wish they would ask or you're secretly glad that they don't. And that podcast is Unlocking Moves, by the way. So check it out. But the one that you got me thinking of is something around the investments that you've made. So I told you earlier we've made about 200 investments and people always want to ask about the big ones, the ones that do great and Takovus Boots.

Kurt Wilkin:

If you're familiar with Takovus, they're a company I've invested in Got very, very fortunate with that one. They're a great brand and many of your listeners have heard of. There's a company called Open Lending, which is an Austin based tech company that became a unicorn, which is, by definition, over a billion dollars in value. That's a great success story. But there's a whole lot of dogs. So out of 200, there's maybe one, maybe one and a half you know grand slams, maybe a one or two home runs or even close to that, and there's probably a hundred ones that don't make it. Maybe not a hundred, but a lot that don't make it, and no one ever talks about those. But I've got a boatload of stories that we could talk about when it comes to companies that didn't make it.

Daniel Koo:

What's one of them that you?

Kurt Wilkin:

companies that didn't make it. What's one of them that you, I guess, learned the most from? So there's one called Home Plate Peanut Butter, which I don't know if Clint will listen to this or not, but great peanut butter, which I know you're like. Well, why'd you invest in a peanut butter company? Great peanut butter, it's delicious, awesome. They had a lot of major league baseball players they were working with, but not a great business, and I'll leave it at that.

Kurt Wilkin:

There were some things around the business that just it's just hard to grow a business like that and I didn't really I didn't appreciate that going in. There's another one that I won't mention the name, but it's a company that we invested in through the advice of a friend and we got overextended. We got to know the founder and we invested more money than we probably should have and some things came to light. We found out that the founder was a fraud. He had been basically building his own lifestyle with millions of dollars from investors and we uncovered it with some help and really put him to task for it, and I hope he doesn't fully get away with it. But I don't like dealing with dishonest people, especially if you're. I just don't like frauds.

Daniel Koo:

Let's put it that way. So I guess you've you've went through a lot of investments that maybe not have, maybe did not pan out the way you wanted it to. What's your approach now to approaching new companies that are seeking, like venture capital?

Kurt Wilkin:

Yeah. So I'm always going to invest in the people and that's where I start, versus any kind of idea or how big you're going to be or how fancy your idea is. It's more about the people and do I think that I can trust and respect you and do I think you've got the grit to get through those hard times and enough experience to make it happen. And the few times when I have gone against my gut on the integrity of a person, like the second example I gave you, I knew early on my gut was telling me this was wrong and I just didn't follow through with my gut. So that, for me, is the biggest lesson is invest in people and trust your gut.

Daniel Koo:

Would you say experience is more important, or maybe, like the grit or, you know, like the attitude is more important?

Kurt Wilkin:

I think it's grit man. I'm telling you, like we said early on, you're going to be knocked on your ass and you got to be able to get back up and you've got to learn from it and keep going and no matter how smart you are, how experienced you are, if you don't have that level of do whatever it takes, you're not going to make it.

Daniel Koo:

Just for the sake of our listeners. When you say knocked on your ass, what kind of scenarios do you find yourself in as an entrepreneur? Just to be aware of the scale, of the weight of what's happening.

Kurt Wilkin:

Yep, so let's think about that.

Kurt Wilkin:

So things like you've got a company that makes widgets and the company that produces your widgets goes out of business and you're trying to figure out where the hell am I going to get my widgets manufactured now and I've got to figure this out in the next 30 days Like that's an example.

Kurt Wilkin:

Example is one of your very big clients discovers that one of your contractors that you have out there doing work is doing things inappropriately and you have to go answer the bell when they're like pissing and moaning like what the hell? I'm not going to pay you anything and I'm going to tell the world that you hired assholes and you have to own it and appreciate it and fall on the sword and apologize and it's never going to happen again and swallow your pride. And some of my best client relationships or customer relationships have come from times when things didn't go right and I took the high road and made it right for them and I didn't try to shirk and hide from that, and so that's just another example of getting up off your ass and, you know, taking it.

Daniel Koo:

That actually kind of leads us into the questions of to whom would you recommend this career of entrepreneurship, be being in venture capital? I know being in venture capital probably isn't something you can just jump into. It's not like a job, right, you have to be more of an investor. But for entrepreneurship, who do you recommend it to? What's kind of like the archetype of a person that you think this would be most well-suited for.

Kurt Wilkin:

Yeah, on the first part, bk Capital we're not venture capitalists, we're angel investors, which means that we're yeah venture is a big word that gets thrown around and there's some different styles we're definitely not venture, so it's just FYI, not a big deal. If you like charting your own course, if you like being maybe being your own boss, if you like having the ball in the closing seconds to take the final shot, like you want the pressure on you, those are all some attributes. If you are comfortable being uncomfortable, if you are comfortable in the gray area, if you're comfortable being uncomfortable, if you are comfortable in the gray area, if you're passionate about something, if you are willing to do whatever it takes, if you're willing to roll up your sleeves and one day you're schmoozing with the CEO of Walmart, the next minute you're mopping floors, all those are attributes that I would describe as an entrepreneur. Attributes that I would describe as an entrepreneur. If you want to be rich because you see someone else started Facebook and you want to be rich like him or whatever, probably not.

Kurt Wilkin:

If you see somebody that's an entrepreneur and they're out on a yacht because they've made it 20 years later, probably not, because for every success story you see there's probably 10 to 20 years of blood, sweat and tears that went into that, and just make sure that you're ready for all that Now. It could be awesome when it works, and even if it doesn't work, it can still be decent. But I know a lot of small business owners that look successful on the outside but they just have a really shitty job On an hourly basis. They probably make $10 an hour because they work 150 hours a week.

Daniel Koo:

I also heard something that was interesting. They say that the CEO is the person that needs to solve the most difficult problems in the company, because when your employees have a problem and they can't solve it, they always go to the manager and it keeps bubbling up. Would you say that's true, and would you say that the most difficult problems bubble up to you, or do you feel like you are always able to delegate that to someone else?

Kurt Wilkin:

Well, by definition you're right. The most difficult problems do ultimately make their way. Now. I used to be really bad at solving people's problems versus encouraging them to solve themselves, and so I'm much smarter about that now. But your point's still true. They say it's very lonely at the top because there's no other place to go on some of those problems, especially if you're the owner. If you're not the owner, you can always quit, but if you not the owner, you can always quit, but if you're the owner, you can't quit.

Daniel Koo:

One last question what's something that you would say to yourself in your 20s? What would you tell yourself in your 20s, with all the knowledge that you have now? What's like, maybe one phrase that you think will inspire them and keep them going?

Kurt Wilkin:

You know it's a good question. It's a question advice to your younger self. I mean, there's all kinds of philosophical things I could go to. The one that I think I'm leaning towards is things typically work out. And so I don't know if you have a spiritual guide or a faith. You know Christianity, buddhism, whatever it is, faith in a higher being, perhaps. But things generally work out. But here's the catch they don't always work out the way you expected it to or wanted it to. So, for example, if you start a company and it's just a slog and it's not going very well and you really just don't understand it, and you're putting 100 hours a week into it and two years later you're still looking at this slog, maybe what you're supposed to do is walk away from that. It doesn't mean that that's going to work out and be a $100 million company and you're on your yacht. It's just a lesson that you can learn and how to apply that for my next venture or my next stage in life. What did I learn that along the way?

Daniel Koo:

You're saying there's multiple ways of things panning out and sometimes you don't expect them, but they always end up do working out in the end.

Kurt Wilkin:

Yep, I'll tell you, I'm not a planner. You know, when I was in college I don't know about you guys, your generation but there was always like, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. And you got to have a five-year plan and you got to, what are you doing next? And I've never been that guy like blowing in the wind. There's a little bit in the middle, right where I have some things I'm working towards and I get thrown curveballs. I had no idea I was going to be in the recruiting business. I had no idea I was going to be starting a finance and accounting consulting firm. I had no idea, you know, I was going to pass the CPA exam. It's just all these things that the steps that took along the way led to, honestly, a pretty blessed life.

Daniel Koo:

Thank you so much for all of your insights Today. What I learned is, you know, actually I learned a couple of things from you. The number one thing is strength finding. So kind of focusing and leaning into your strengths and I've had like a growth mindset for a long time and not that that's not true but I think it's good to know what your strengths are and be able to utilize them in the right way and to scale myself into a bigger company. I think you definitely need to know what those strengths are and what your weaknesses are so you can fill them with other people.

Daniel Koo:

I think through your book I can really see how companies are built by people and I can really kind of resonate with how this world is kind of run by people. So you really have to know how to manage them and you know, I guess, build like a power group of people that can achieve the goals that you have. The other thing that I'm learning is that being in entrepreneurship is not easy and I know that's. It's probably obvious, right, but I don't think we know how hard it is and I feel like it's not like a workout, it's more like a. It's like a survival kind of thing that you're experiencing in the wilderness. So I feel like that's something that our listeners should really take note before really diving in, although I feel like a lot of the people who end up going into entrepreneurship will find their way into it somehow at some point in their lives.

Kurt Wilkin:

Well, daniel, I learned a few things from you. You asked me some really good questions that I hadn't really pondered the way that you asked them, and it gave me some things to think about as far as decisions that were made or steps along the way that were good to kind of reflect on and see why or how that step was taken. So, thank you.

Daniel Koo:

Thank you so much. Everyone be sure to check out Unlocking Moves. That's Kurt's podcast. It also is on a two-week schedule and it's very, very good. He interviews guests with tons of experience and it's going to be one of my go-to podcasts going forward, so I hope you enjoy that as well. Awesome.

Kurt Wilkin:

Thanks.

Daniel Koo:

Daniel, thank you you.