Learn more about Rick –
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/rgarciajr/
- https://www.g12com.com/
- https://www.engage.co/ (Company Acquire’d)
- https://monstervoip.com/ (Company Acquire’d)
Transcription:
Andrew Gazdecki:
All right. I am excited to be with Rick, who recently Acquired a couple companies for I believe high six figures and is the COO of G2 Communications. So Rick, thank you for joining me on this podcast.
Rick Garcia:
Yeah, man. It’s good to be here.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Well, to kick things off, do you want to just maybe give a background of just yourself and maybe companies you Acquired or your current parent company?
Rick Garcia:
Yeah. Yeah. So let’s see here. I started my first… Well, I’ve always been sort of an entrepreneur at heart. I’ve always had a side hustle. And I think that’s how a lot of entrepreneurs get started. It’s like you have a main job or you have a little job and you want to do something else, and you create something, you think it’s cool, and you kind of just keep going. But I guess in 2011 is when I started my main company here. It’s G12 Communications. So started in 2011 after the company that I was working for got Acquired by Zayo. So the big fiber company. So that company gets Acquired. I leave with a little bit of cash and I go, “I think I can start my own business at this point. Let’s see if there’s enough runway.”
Rick Garcia:
I go into debt, start G12 Communications, and then it’s a long haul. We’re still building G12 Communications, but we’re significantly bigger now. But last year, I got excited about investing in small businesses. And businesses that I can grow; that are somewhat tied to what I do today. So today, G12 Communications is a Voice over IP provider. We provide services to businesses globally, mostly nationwide. And then I was like, “Okay, well, what can I do that’s in that same sort of space?” So I started an online sort of Shopify store called Teams Device Center. So everybody’s moving to Microsoft Teams. So I thought we’d sling some headsets and Teams devices there. So we’d do that.
Rick Garcia:
And then I got introduced to Acquire. And I think I wrote you a nastygram one day, because I was like, “Do you know that I wake up every morning now and look forward to the emails that I get from Acquire?” And it’s like, instead of looking at my email that I hate, whatever email I should be looking at, I’m like, “Oh, let’s take a look at Acquire.” That’s the first thing I look at every morning. So anyway, so yeah. So in February, it became almost… I don’t know if you ever get inside…
Rick Garcia:
This is a bit of a side track, but… If you’ve ever been on this eBay kick, as an example… This was a long time ago, but you buy something on eBay. You’re like, “Oh, that’s cool.” And you go buy something else on eBay, you start bidding on it. So you go into this little pattern of, “Let me get a couple things. And this is pretty cool.”
Rick Garcia:
And so I engage with the company on Acquire. I knew of them outside of Acquire, but they were on Acquire and we engaged a little bit. And then I ended up buying them. And so we closed on that February 1st. And then again, you get so excited about shopping about businesses that… Again, businesses that are in my area of expertise, essentially. So I’m like, “Oh, this would be great technology. This is a great technology to add on to whatever it is I do.” So then I saw this other one and I thought, “Well, could I put a deal together for that?” And the interesting thing is that I talked to the guys three or four or five months prior to I found them on Acquire, but I had talked to them… I don’t know. Yeah. Four or five months.
Rick Garcia:
And then one day, I was doing this whole what’s my revenue goals, my personal revenue goals for 2022, literally up on my whiteboard back there. It’s where it was at. And I write one of the companies that is on Acquire, I had already asked about their information, and so I kind of thought about it. I’m like, “I like that business. I think that’s pretty cool.” So I put their name on there and I had already talked to that first company. Well, out of the blue, the first company pings me and says, “Let’s meet for coffee.” I’m like, “Well, I already talked to you and I didn’t think you were interested in what I was interested in putting together.” And so they pinged me a little later… But we had a really good conversation. And so he scheduled coffee with me; an in-person meeting. They happened to be out of Seattle. So an in-person meeting and we put a deal together over coffee.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Nice.
Rick Garcia:
And I came back and I was like, “Shit, I think I just bought another company.”
Rick Garcia:
So that was it, man. So yes, two companies, closed on February 1st, then what was yesterday? And then closed on February 24th. So within three weeks of each other, something like that.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah. Pretty good timing on this podcast, because we scheduled this before you closed the second company. So that’s awesome. What are the two companies? Do you mind?
Rick Garcia:
No, no, no, no.
Andrew Gazdecki:
You don’t have to, but…
Rick Garcia:
No, no, for sure. So Monster VoIP is another one. They’re basically a VoIP company just like G12 Communications. The brand is really cool, though. They got a young, hip, cool brand. They have cool technology. And I’m like, I like what they do. And today we sell G12 into big organizations, hospitals, at school districts, government agencies. And the vibe at Monster VoIP was young and hip and cool and full of tech. So you go to some smaller businesses… And I think it’s a great brand, as an example, for college kids to go share. So my dream, to be honest with you, is to have a nationwide, massive college kid sales force for Monster VoIP because every business needs voice services. Everybody needs to transition from whatever they had before to something that allows them this sort of flexibility of hybrid work environment and stuff like that. And Monster VoIP is that… If I had young kids selling G12, I feel like it would taint the G12 brand because the G12 brand is like solid, older folk communication. When I say “older folk,” I mean like guys like me that have been in the business for 20 years. You get your goods-
Andrew Gazdecki:
And enterprise sales is part of that, I would say.
Rick Garcia:
Yeah. Yeah. There you go. So it’s like enterprise stuff. Whereas Monster is like, “Hey, let’s go talk to small biz and say, ‘What do you need? Let’s give you something really cool for a good price.'” So Monster VoIP is one. And the other one is engage.co. And Engage is really cool because they’re… It’s like chat technology, but it’s a bit different than everybody else. So everybody else has got AI and chatbots and there’s a million of them out there. Theirs is… They’re all about, like, “Hey, let’s put a face on the website and show you who you’re talking to. And if they’re available, let’s take a look at their presence. If they’re available, you can chat with them right here.” It’s like exposing Teams on your website, as an example, is what it’s kind of like. Big customers like the Dolphins, the Cleveland Browns, the NCAA, the PGA Tour.
Andrew Gazdecki:
No way.
Rick Garcia:
They’ve got some cool, cool customers. So I’m excited to take that over and rebrand it; keep the name, but rebrand it and kind of spice it up a little bit. And again, it’s in the same space that I work in today. So it’s B2B sales, essentially, for communication applications.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah. I love the strategy. I mean, it’s basically just growth through acquisition. And with Monster Voice IP, you’re essentially entering a new segment of your existing market.
Rick Garcia:
Yeah.
Andrew Gazdecki:
I’m assuming it’s maybe SmB.
Rick Garcia:
Yeah. It’s SmB for Monster. It’d be just straight SmB.
Andrew Gazdecki:
And we were chatting before, but yeah, give college kids sales jobs. It’s like the number one skillset I always tell founders; please learn how to sell. It’s like 90% of the job.
Rick Garcia:
Yeah. Yeah. I get inspiration from… I’ll tell you this. When I was a kid… I think I was in high school going into college. I worked for a company called Cutco. So for those of you who know…
Andrew Gazdecki:
That’s a grind.
Rick Garcia:
It is. Vector marketing. So it’s like this whole Cutco selling knives to your family, essentially, is what it is.
Andrew Gazdecki:
I’m a firm believer that having a SCR role or BDR role, the demo-setting role… You’re at the bottom of the totem pole in terms of where you sit in the sales organization, but just what you learn from it, the rejection, just how to open up a conversation… I think it’s just a skillset that just carries into every single part of your career for the rest of your life.
Rick Garcia:
100%. I don’t know if you’ve been to this website, it’s called Acquire. And so what they-
Andrew Gazdecki:
I know a guy that works there, actually.
Rick Garcia:
There’s a ton of tech guys on there. And I say “tech guys,” software guys, that are building amazing tools, that build amazing sort of applications, that I look at and go from a… I mean, I’m selling to businesses every day. And I look at them and go, “I see where this fits. I see where this fits. I see where this fits.” But they don’t have the sales organization or the knowhow to build a sales organization or the idea to build a sales organization; what it looks like. I feel like there’s a lot of those. If I look at the listings, and man, I look at the listing every single day, it’s like, “Need a B2B sales team, need a B2B sales team, need a B2B sales team.” Right?
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah.
Rick Garcia:
That’s like over and over. And so it’s like, when you know how to build sales teams and do branding well, it gets to be pretty exciting. Because I look at this and go, “Boy, I could certainly leverage guys that have built and gals that have built an amazing product, and I can take that and I can brand it and either keep them or help them transition to me,” or whatever it is. So I get pretty excited about it.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Nice. I love that. And I totally agree. I mean, there’s the typical builder and then the scaler. Somebody who knows how to scale the business. Somebody who knows how to put the business together. I guess my next question would be if you had tips for sellers. It sounds like if you’re on Acquire every day, you’re probably looking at a lot of different businesses. If you had to give people looking to sell businesses on Acquire two pieces of advice, what would it be?
Rick Garcia:
Here’s one that would be interesting because I think a lot of Acquirers out there… and this is for the sellers, but I’m going to start with the Acquirers… may not be as aggressive as I am, as an example. Like, “Hey, let’s put a deal together. Here’s what I can’t do and here’s what I can do, but let’s figure out how to put a deal together. I like what your product is.” So for a seller, I think if you’re really interested in putting your business out there and selling your business… Because particularly those that are just kind of hanging on and have already found a different project to work on… Let somebody know you’re willing to negotiate upfront. Let somebody know this is what you… You’re willing to build good terms in to attract someone, to take it and do something really good with it.
Rick Garcia:
I’ll give you just a quick example: I found another company on Acquire that I was in touch with. They were, I think, out of Italy. They were out of the Bay Area. They were a Y Combinator company at point. I think they were back in Italy. And they have a really, really cool platform. Their platform, it was, I mean, for businesses to create content. And I thought it was a really awesome platform. And in my last conversation with them is that they were selling the technology to someone who’s going to piecemeal it, essentially. And I’m just like, “Oh, gosh, because I get your vision.”
Rick Garcia:
When I can sync with an entrepreneur and get their vision and understand what they’re doing and then I can relate it to my experience because… I got a gray hair, man. I’ve been in this space a long time. Then I’m just like, “Oh man, I feel bad that somebody’s tearing their baby apart.” So before you get to a point where it’s going to be put to pasture, if you will, give somebody an opportunity to take it and run with it by letting them know upfront that, “Hey, I’m willing to do something crazy to put it in the hands of someone who can do something really cool with it.” So I guess that’d be number one.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah. What would be number two?
Rick Garcia:
Oh, man. For sellers, yeah?
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah. You can’t leave me hanging.
Rick Garcia:
If you put together a good information pack, think about a buyer and think about all the little things that a buyer is going to want in a due-diligence process. I had the luxury of knowing my business probably better than other guys in my space. I think I know my business in the voice space better than the guys at Vonage or Ring or the big guys. I know this business very, very well; down to the penny. And so I know what looks right from a financial perspective; what looks right for me. Other businesses, like an online business, like the chat business, I don’t know the financials as well as I do the voice space. But put together a package that you put some time into. It’s not just a snapshot of your Stripe revenue. It’s not a picture of your account statements from your bank. Those sort of the things are… They’re interesting, and that’s great that you can show that.
Rick Garcia:
A spreadsheet showing all of your cost is cool. If you have a spreadsheet that shows all your cost. Having a PowerPoint presentation on your market, what the market size looks like, who you’re trying to sell to, who’s your avatar. The people that when I say, “Who’s your avatar?” who are you selling to? Is it a niche business? Putting together a really good deck and a really good spreadsheet, and then a really good sort of small… And it doesn’t have to be crazy big. You don’t have to spend weeks on this stuff.
Rick Garcia:
Putting together a spreadsheet is an afternoon. If you’ve got the information out of QuickBooks, let’s just say, or if you’ve got your banking info and your billing info, then you can put together a cool spreadsheet based on what Stripe sends you or what Stripe has available to you. And I say Stripe just because it seems like that’s where everybody’s at. But those two things, a spreadsheet and a PowerPoint, and then some supporting information around it are very powerful.
Rick Garcia:
And that’s really it. Because a lot of the stuff that I see out there, it’s… “Here’s our competitors, here’s this, here’s just our basic numbers. And then here’s…” Even when you ask for additional information, it’s not a full pack. It’s just like, “Oh, here’s a snapshot of this. Here’s a little spreadsheet.” You know what I mean? But give us some more detail as an Acquirer. Give us some more detail about who your avatar is, what the market size looks like, what do you expect… How do you expect to penetrate that market?
Rick Garcia:
All those different things would be interesting. So I know the voice space, I know the voice space size, so I know how big it is. So I know that if I throw a rock out of my window, I can hit a potential customer. So who are your potential customers? Is it difficult to sell to? Those sorts of things. But I think if you put together a couple things like that, you have a much better shot at getting at least a decent look from buyers that are interested in acquiring businesses.
Andrew Gazdecki:
That’s really, really good advice. Because have you ever heard the saying, “Most startups are bought, not sold”?
Rick Garcia:
Ooh, I haven’t. No.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah, there’s a saying and it’s not true. It basically means Google shows up to your door and they’re like, “Hey, here’s your check. You got Acquired.” But a lot of founders don’t understand, you actually have to sell your business. You have to point out the opportunities. You have to point out the market. Who are you selling to? What’s working? What’s not working? And for maybe buyers like you, you’re looking at a lot of businesses. So to stand out, even… Just like in sales, standing out above your competition… Because you’re probably looking at one deal or five other deals. And so the more information you can really show… Number one, it just shows you’re serious about selling the business. So that really kind of cuts, I’m sure, a lot of time for you. And then two, really just openly sharing the opportunity of buying this business. I think that’s fantastic advice. So I guess my next question would be: When you think about where you want to take these two businesses, how far do you think you could take them, if I could ask?
Rick Garcia:
From an ARR perspective?
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah. Are you looking to grow these substantially and resell? Are you looking to roll them into your existing company?
Rick Garcia:
No. Yeah. I’m not going to roll them in. I’m going to keep them as separate entities. I’ll tell you what I think is going to happen. I think Monster, as an example, can scale to… Again, that could be a massively scalable organization. So I think Monster, I could scale that to $10 million in ARR pretty… Not easily. It’s been a long haul at G12, as an example, to get past that. But ultimately, I think it’d be a $10 million organization. There’s no desire to just kind of get in and get out. It’s the space that I understand. I think I’d like to create… I enjoy creating jobs for people. So I think that’s a pretty cool place because you treat your employees like you would your family, essentially. And maybe people disagree with me, but I have a good connection with all of my team members. And that doesn’t matter if they’re here, El Salvador, the Philippines, it doesn’t matter. Because I’ve got employees globally.
Rick Garcia:
So yeah, I think that is there. I think the other one… Engage. Ooh. I don’t think there’s a shelf-life for that, either, because there’s so many different businesses out there that use the Engage services. Because believe it or not, there’s the early adopters. You’ve got the early adopters. I forget what the little graph is… There’s something called… Some theory or something.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah. It’s like early adopters-
Rick Garcia:
Yeah.
Andrew Gazdecki:
… or early majority. Late majority.
Rick Garcia:
Yeah.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Mainstream and like laggards or something.
Rick Garcia:
Exactly. So take a… And I’m going to use my space… not the old website, but the telecom space. You look at that and you go, a lot of people… I’ve been in the cloud PBX space since like 2007 or ’08. Like a long, long time at my prior company and stuff like that. So you look at that and it’s been a long time. Here we are in 2022 and now it’s sort of mainstream, if you will. Now everybody is transitioning to some cloud PBX platform. If it’s not Teams, it’s going to be some other cloud PBX platform. So now it’s like, you’re sitting here 12, 13 years later, 14 years later, and it’s finally becoming seriously mainstream. So then I look at this chat business and everyone… The fancy stuff is the AI chatbots; this machine learning chatbot and all that good stuff.
Rick Garcia:
But there are millions and millions and millions of normal businesses that are just picking up a normal telephone every single day. You think those guys know what a chatbot is? You think those guys care what a chatbot is? If they’re changing tires, as an example, and maybe somebody’s coming to the website, sure, but whatever their business is, there’s just so many businesses out there that don’t know any of this stuff at all. And so putting a chat platform into a business website that is showing the picture of the people that they could talk to to me is really cool. It may be kind of old, but nobody’s doing it. Their picture is here. I can go click on a picture if they’re available and see their presence, that they’re open to chat with. I think it’s really cool. So I think that the shelf life is at least another 10 years for something like that. And I think that could scale to well over $10 million in ARR on its own.
Andrew Gazdecki:
I love your mindset. So there’s multiple different types of buyers I speak to. Some are buying whole. They usually will… Their goal is to reduce expenses, increase profitability. But I love your growth mindset because that’s where I usually see… Most of the opportunity on Acquire is finding really good products and then putting together stellar go-to-market strategy and executing on that.
Rick Garcia:
Yeah. I don’t like the whole buy and hold. Great. I can buy and hold and I can make 10 or 20 or 30 or 40 or 50 grand a month off businesses like this and just kind of Acquire another business, do the same thing. But my idea is to… There’s so much more to… I look at it just holistically and go, “This is an amazing product. I want to get it out in the marketplace; let’s get crazy big.” And it’s not to go and build an organization to sell. I really haven’t thought about selling a business. I’ve got G12 and I think G12 is an amazing business and I wake up every day loving what I do.
Andrew Gazdecki:
I can tell. I can tell you’re a B2B sales guy and I dig it.
Rick Garcia:
Man, that’s it. I was a sales guy forever, turned engineer for a long time, slash founder. And then now I’ve converted to, “Here, let’s run operations.” I actually just changed my title to Chief Revenue Officer now because I’ve got some smarter people than me now that run operations inside of G12, as an example. And I’m like, “Yeah, just thank goodness we got much smarter people than me.” I hate to be the guy that knows more than somebody because it’s like, that’s terrible because I feel like I’m woefully inadequate in that space. So it’s pretty fun, man, when you scale an organization. So yeah. I wake up every day loving the stuff and go, “How do I grow other businesses that could use my skillset?”
Andrew Gazdecki:
That’s awesome. All right, I got three more questions for you and then I’m going to let you run. But this has been fantastic. The first question… So these are kind of just the last rapid-fire, but… If you had to give one tip to just entrepreneurs in general, what would it be? I know that’s super broad. It could be literally anything. Maybe it’s learn sales. Maybe it’s just… If someone came up to you as an entrepreneur looking to start a business, what’s the one piece of advice you give them?
Rick Garcia:
If they’re looking to start a business, don’t do it. I’m just kidding. If they’re looking to start a business, it’s harder than you think. It really is. The grind is real. I’ll tell you what, for everybody that’s built a successful business, you’ve got to tip your hat and go, “Wow, that’s pretty impressive.” Because you’ve created something from scratch and built something that people are buying now without your involvement. And that’s really cool to see it evolve like that. I would say, prepare for… It’s a longer haul than you think. If you think you’re going to go build a business in inside of 18 months or two years, have money flying in the door and you’re going to just like, “Yeah, I’m buying my Ferrari next week. This is exciting. I get to call myself an entrepreneur on my LinkedIn profile,” and stuff like that… It’s harder than you think.
Rick Garcia:
And it takes a lot of different people to help you be successful. And what I mean by that is this: I can’t tell you how many businesses I semi-started growing up. I had a domain called cigarbox.com when I was like 18 or 19. I was spamming people before CAN-SPAM, as an example. I did… I don’t know. I did a bunch of little things. And so none of them really materialized. And they didn’t materialize because they didn’t have the right skillset from a business perspective; from a financial perspective.
Rick Garcia:
And when I met up with my partner at G12 Communications, my partner is a financial and legal and kind of that solid sort of keep-me-in-bounds. He’s literally just… keeps me in bounds. Because I’m everywhere; I’m creating and creating and creating and creating. And he just helps keep me in bounds. And so I think the right team is important because you can’t do everything on your own. It’s not just about… Here’s another one; this is another tip because this is… It’s about the team, number one.
Rick Garcia:
Number two, I’ll say that it is more than just creating an amazing product. You can create an amazing product and maybe you’re the next Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or whatever it is. But you still got to sell it. I’m a firm believer in you still have to sell a product. You can build something beautiful, but if nobody knows about it, you’re not going to get any customers. So this goes back to having the right team.
Rick Garcia:
So having the right team in place to help you with the facets of the business that you’re not the best at. You may be the creative thinker and you may be the coder and the builder, but you need a business person that’s going to help you structure the organization properly. And you need someone that can go help you grow the business, and that’s in sales. So you need all different things. You need all those components within your organization to be able to build something that is remotely scalable.
Rick Garcia:
I mean, like I said, I see beautiful products every day on your site. And I go, “Oh, God, if I could just buy another business right now, it’d be great. But I don’t have the bandwidth to buy another business right now.” I’m just like, “I got to get these guys hired up.” And that means just put the right people in place. And that’s what I’m talking about. My first goal of all these businesses is to put the right team in place. Put the right team in place. And fortunately, I’m in a place where I can hire a few people now to put in the right place. So I know what I expect out of them because I’ve lived through this now. So it’s like, put the right team in place and they can go scale this product because this product is cool.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Man, you got to write a book. I agree with you on so many levels. The way that I was… I totally, totally agree with… Yeah. If you build a product, people aren’t just going to come and buy it. I always say distribution is more important than product in terms of just… There’s hundreds of thousands of startups in the market today. And it’s more important than ever to stand out and actually learn sales, learn marketing. Everything aside from product and how to get in front of customers is crucial. Because you see a lot of the times where not even the best product wins markets. But anyways, the second question I have for you, and then I have one more and then I’ll let you run. But this is awesome, Rick. Who’s an entrepreneur you look up to? If you had to pick one. Or maybe you get a chance to get dinner with an entrepreneur. Who are you picking, Rick?
Rick Garcia:
I think I’m going to go with Mark Cuban. I think I’d go with Mark Cuban. And the dude worked hard his first business, just grind, grind, grind. Didn’t take vacation. I think he’s relentless. Obviously, I watch a little videos on Elon Musk all the time and a little bit of Bill Gates, not so much, not necessarily Mark Zuckerberg, but… I look at Mark Cuban and go… maybe because he’s closer to my age than a lot of these guys… but I look at him and I go, “He did the groundwork, man. He just grinds and grinds and grinds and he’s relentless.” And his motto that I think… for me, it resonates with me, is like, “Revenue cures everything.” Revenue can cure everything. And so-
Andrew Gazdecki:
That’s true.
Rick Garcia:
… when you’ve got a mess of a business, as an example, but you’ve got revenue coming in the door, you can go fix that.
Andrew Gazdecki:
You can fix things. Yeah.
Rick Garcia:
If you’ve got no revenue coming in the door, there’s nothing to fix. You can’t fix anything.
Andrew Gazdecki:
We’re so on the same… That’s why I always say distribution of a product, because when you are able to sell the product, you can improve the product and that’s how you get the best product. And it’s just this big circular.
Rick Garcia:
It’s a life cycle, man. But it starts with driving revenue. That’s it.
Andrew Gazdecki:
You should try cold-emailing Mark Cuban. He’s responded to me a couple times and I’m like, “How do you have time for this? You’re a billionaire. What?”
Rick Garcia:
That’s awesome. That’s very cool.
Andrew Gazdecki:
I mean, I just sent him like, “Hey, I’m working on Acquire.” And he’s like, “Cool.” I’m like, “Oh, my gosh, you responded. Please don’t respond to this again, but I just want to say that’s really cool of you.” Okay.
Rick Garcia:
Mine would be, “I love you.” That’s amazing.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Okay.
Rick Garcia:
Yeah, that’s cool.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Last question. Favorite book or a book that you’d recommend to entrepreneurs. You got it right here?
Rick Garcia:
Think and Grow Rich.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Oh, that’s a classic.
Rick Garcia:
It is a classic. Actually, I like a bunch of Russell Brunson stuff. So I got a lot of Russell Brunson stuff on my desk right now. So ClickFunnels is pretty cool. There’s a lot of cool things that they do. But all-time classic and my personal sort of… It almost looks like a Bible. It’s like it’s a…
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah. You pulled that out as an authority. I’ll give you… I’d recommend… Check out this book, Play Bigger. It’s about branding and category creation. I think you would really dig this one. It talks about how Salesforce created the CRM-
Rick Garcia:
Marketplace.
Andrew Gazdecki:
… created SaaS; Software as a Service.
Rick Garcia:
Yeah. Oh, that’s cool. Play Bigger, huh? I’ll dig that up.
Andrew Gazdecki:
And I’ll give that book another reread, but…
Rick Garcia:
Did you write it? No. Now, here’s the biggest piece I like out of that book. And I’m just going to tell you my… The piece that resonates with me in there. And there’s a lot of things in there that resonate with me. But the applied knowledge you can make money on. If you have applied knowledge.
Rick Garcia:
You can be the smartest dude in the world, but if you can’t create something, if you can’t apply it to something very, very… It’s specific applied knowledge… And you can’t apply it to something specific and know something very well, know your market, know your niche, know your delivery, know whatever… To know it really well, if you do know this space really well… And this is why every major book will tell you, “Oh, do something that you know, do something that you know,” because when you’re a kid and you’re starting out, you go, “Ah, that’s bullshit. I can just go do this. This looks easy for me to do.” But it is, because if you understand some very specific product or a way or anything, you can create a business around that and be extremely wealthy. So specific applied knowledge.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah. Another way of putting that would be, having a unique insight into a market. So you see something that others don’t, sometimes just from personal experience. Like you’ve experienced a problem personally and you’re like, “This thing sucks. I got an idea on how to fix it.”
Rick Garcia:
It’s true. And I’ll tell you, right now, the technology that’s out there and the creativity and some… and I’ll say young people… is pretty awesome because there’s a lot of things that you could revolutionize that is… They’re not ready just yet, but they’re going to be. I think of all this Alexa stuff, right? Voice activation for this… Now, voice stuff has been around forever. Big companies like Nuance, who was Acquired by Microsoft a few years back. It’s all voice stuff. But the AI that’s available today for voice stuff… I mean… My thought this morning, I’m driving to Starbucks this morning and I think about, “Huh, it would be cool…” My daughter’s name is Alyssa, okay? And I think about all the voice activation stuff that’s going on right now. I’m like, “How cool would it be if I could build in Alyssa into a softphone to be the virtual receptionist that’s included with your phone system?”
Rick Garcia:
Nobody in the phone business has that today. They just don’t have that. They have an IVR or they have an auto attendant and stuff like that. But they don’t have someone that’s actively listening and doing something while they’re talking. And I bet anybody that’s listening out there that is a developer looks at that and goes, “What? That’s super easy.” But what I know is, I know how to put it into a product. I know how to put it into a product. I know how to get it out into the marketplace.
Rick Garcia:
And I know that’s why… If I can find someone to deliver on some products that I like, then I can create something that’s really cool. And it just, again, it adds on to what I do today because I know this space. But that’s something that’s new and it’d be hard to go sell it to the world unless you kind of mashed it in with a product that’s their everyday product. You’re not creating a category, as an example. But you’re creating the utilization of your product or of your creativity. Right?
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah. You’re plugging it right into a distribution channel.
Rick Garcia:
Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Gazdecki:
There you go. Well, Rick, this has been a pleasure. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast. And if anyone wants to learn more about G2 Communications, where should they go?
Rick Garcia:
All right. So it’s G12; g12com.com. So-
Andrew Gazdecki:
Wait, what did I say?
Rick Garcia:
You said G2. Because that’s the ratings website, right? G2 does all the…
Andrew Gazdecki:
Oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Rick Garcia:
… online ratings or whatever.
Andrew Gazdecki:
G12 Communications. My apologies.
Rick Garcia:
There you go. It’s G12. Yeah. It’s g12com.com. You can go there, take a look at it for business voice services, monstervoip.com for small biz voice services, and engage.co for web chat services. Or you can just hit me up at rgarcia@g12com.com.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Right on. I’ll put all that in the show notes. But Rick, congrats on all your success, man. I really enjoyed this conversation. Rooting for you, man. And if you ever need a favor, reach out, because I felt like I learned a ton of stuff on this podcast with you.
Rick Garcia:
That sounds good, man. Nice to chat with you.
Andrew Gazdecki:
Yeah. You as well. All right. Cheers.
Rick Garcia:
See you, bud. See you.
