678: Jamie Siminoff (Ring Doorbell Inventor) - Shark Tank Rejection, Selling to Amazon for $1 Billion, Surviving $3M to $480M Hypergrowth, Hiring Passionate People Over Experts, and Jeff Bezos's Leadership Lessons

www. LearningLeader.com https://www. LearningLeader.com The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk This is brought to you by Insight Global https://insightglobal.com/learningleader/. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. My Guest: Jamie Siminoff is the founder of Ring, which he sold to Amazon for over a billion dollars. He's an inventor and builder who couldn't hear his doorbell while working in his garage, so he built a video doorbell. When his wife said it made her feel safer, he realized technology had changed, and home security needed a complete reinvention. Ring became the world's largest home security company with a mission to make neighborhoods safer. Key Learnings Jeff Bezos reads and writes his own stuff. When Jamie asked Jeff to write something for the book's back cover, Jeff actually read it and wanted his own curated quote that was from him. Jeff loves entrepreneurs, so they kept him out of negotiations. After the Whole Foods deal, Amazon learned to keep Jeff out of negotiations because he finds it tough to negotiate hard with someone he respects. Hardware companies can die while growing fast. Ring grew from $3M to $30M to $174M to $480M, which sounds amazing. But to go from $170M to $480M, you're buying hundreds of millions of dollars of product when you're selling less than that. If sales growth slows, you're basically going out of business. Going from $480M to over a billion in revenue was like being on a motorcycle at 200 miles an hour. If a leaf falls down and hits you, you're dead. At Amazon, when Ring said, "We need another billion dollars to order stuff for next year," Amazon said, "Okay, what else do you want?" There are different types of entrepreneurs. Jamie is an inventor/entrepreneur. There are business entrepreneurs who are maniacal business people we've never heard of that have just crushed it. Jamie is maniacal on product and brings invention into how they run the company. Hire marathon runners. Marathons are the dumbest thing any human could ever do. Even if you win, no one cares. Jamie finished the Boston Marathon in 22,000th place and he's so proud of himself. You want people that don't care about external validation; they just care about getting the mission done. AI has democratized all information. With AI making it so you don't even need to know C++ programming anymore, fill your business with passionate people who care about the mission and they'll crush anything. When building your team, start with the mission. Jamie tells people, "Our mission is to make neighborhoods safer. Do you want to work on making neighborhoods safer? Because if you don't, you're going to be miserable here. You're going to hear it every day, and you're going to roll your eyes." Referrals work because people don't want to let you down. The best hires are when someone's referred by someone (uncle, friend, whatever) because they feel guilty. They don't want to let the person who referred them down. Find an infinite truth to work on. Amazon's core principles are infinite: Will customers always want lower price, more selection, and faster delivery? Yes. If you deliver in 30 minutes, they'll want it in 10 minutes. Making neighborhoods safer is an infinite thing to work on. Your wife saying one thing can change everything. Jamie built a video doorbell so he could hear the door from his garage. His wife said, "It makes me feel safer at home." That's when he realized technology had changed and home security needed a whole new approach. The hard part is bringing the infinite down to the tactical. When you have an infinite mission, you can get overwhelmed trying to solve it all at once. You have to figure out what to do every single day to work toward that infinite goal. Shark Tank was a disaster that turned into everything. Jamie went on Shark Tank desperately needing money. He got zero offers and cried in his car after. But when it aired, the boost in sales gave them cash to hire people and build Ring, which started the clock on their success. Sometimes you can't stop because you're in too deep. After Shark Tank bombed, Jamie couldn't back out. He'd already ordered too many products and owed too much money. He'd be personally bankrupt if he stopped. People think he's tough for keeping going, but he didn't have a choice. Being naive is a superpower. Great inventions are things people say can't happen because if they could happen, they'd already be out there. You have to be naive enough to say "I think I can do this" or "I don't even know that I can't." People said you couldn't build a battery-operated camera on WiFi. Jamie had never built anything before, so what did he know? They just went out and tried to put some parts together that seemed like they would work. Knowing too much gets in the way of doing the work. If you're thinking and analyzing the whole world, that's time you're not inventing, building, making calls. When are you actually doing the work? The Ring.com domain negotiation was survival. The owner originally wanted $750K for the domain. Jamie had $178K in the bank on the day he was supposed to pay. He called and said "My board said I can't do the deal, but they approved $175K today and $1M total over two years." The guy hung up, called back, and said fine. There was no board, it was just Jamie. The stress internalized and destroyed him. Jamie wasn't sleeping and was super stressed. There are different types of entrepreneurs: some can handle that stress and sleep like a baby. Jamie internalized it, and it affected him terribly. Be transparent at home. Jamie's son was six years old and knew where the business was. His kindergarten teacher would say, "I hear the business isn't going well." They just had open, adult conversations about everything. Work-life integration, not balance. Jamie integrated work, life, and family together. His son came with him to pick up the first DoorBot in China. Oliver has been to 40 countries and almost every state because he traveled to every meeting. Bring your kid to the meeting. People asked, "How do you bring your kid to a meeting?" Jamie said, "Who do you think they're gonna remember more?" We're always scared to be different. Follow your passion, but make money when you need to. It's hard to see anyone who's achieved greatness who didn't do what they loved. But there are times you have to work your ass off to make money (Jamie was a bellhop and valet parking cars). When you set out to do something, do something you care about. If you fail trying to make money, that really sucks. If you fail trying to do something you love, at least you tried to do something you love. If Ring fails, they try to make neighborhoods safer. That's noble. You can tell who's successful by how fast they respond. It's a weird flip-flop of what it should be. You'd think a successful person should respond in a month, but the people running at the highest levels are actually very efficient. There's something about it. First principles thinking eliminates recurring meetings. There's no way every single Monday at 9 AM you have something important to talk about. The world can't exist like that. Meet when you need to do something, not on some cadence. Hire the best and let them work. Get the best quarterback, best kicker, best coach. Let them work together, let them practice, have the plays. You don't need to get together every day to talk about how you're feeling. No standing meetings, zero recurring one-on-ones. Jamie doesn't have a standing meeting with his team in any cadence. He talks to people all day long, all night long, Sundays, but it's event-based. "We have to get sales up on this, where are the issues?" If you're not doing your job, we'll fire you. Service to others is the best thing you can do. A year from now, Jamie would be celebrating something on the charitable side. Probably something with their work in South Central LA with LAPD, or at their 75-acre farm in Missouri helping the town that's been impacted by opioids and industrial farming. More Learning #191: Robert Herjavec: (Shark Tank Investor) https://learningleader.com/episode-191-robert-herjavec-shark-tank-investor-listener-q/ - You Don't Have to Be a Shark to Be Effective #626: Rob Kimbel https://learningleader.com/kimbel/ - The Power of Grit and Generosity #632: Nick Huber https://learningleader.com/nickhuber/ - The Sweaty Start Up Reflection Questions What's a problem you could pursue for decades without exhausting its potential? What mission has no endpoint, only continuous improvement? Work-life integration. What are you keeping separate that might be better together? Where could you stop trying to "balance" and instead integrate? Audio Timestamps 02:19 Bezos' Endorsement for Jamie 03:30 Selling Ring to Amazon 05:04 Hypergrowth Cash Crunch 07:54 Inventor vs Business Operator 09:34 Hiring Marathoners 11:20 Interviewing and Firing Fast 13:25 Mission Origin and Big Vision 15:40 Infinite Truth and Focus 17:06 Getting on Shark Tank 19:32 Live Demo and Rejection 23:13 The Aftermath and Momentum from Shark Tank 24:57 Naivete as Superpower 27:00 Doers Beat Planners 27:33 Winning Ring.com Deal 30:17 Stress and Family Support 31:33 Work-Life Integration 33:26 Passion Versus Practicality 36:08 Scaling Authentic Culture 37:26 Frontline Leadership Style 42:15 Team DNA & No Standing Meetings 45:19 Service and Jamie's Farm Mission 47:39 EOPC

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Ryan Hawk?

  Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawke. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com. Now, on to tonight's featured leader, Jamie Siminoff is an entrepreneur, inventor, and the founder of the home security company Ring. He's best known for appearing on Shark Tank, getting rejected, only to later sell his company to Amazon for over a billion dollars. During our conversation, we discuss why Jeff Bezos wrote the first

• 0:43Ryan Hawk?

  book endorsement he's ever done, and why he called Jamie, quote, "a real builder, scrappy, original, and unsatisfied with the status quo." So cool. And then Jamie talks about the exact hiring filter he uses. He calls it looking for, quote, "marathon runners", and why it's not about resumes or pedigree for him. And then, we want deep on a CEO or senior leader having a frontline obsession. Jamie still has his email address on every Ring doorbell you buy. It's crazy. He's always talking with customers and is constantly

• 1:23Ryan Hawk?

  working on making things better. I love it. And I think you're gonna love this conversation with Jamie Simonoff.

• 1:34Ryan Hawk?

  This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. I love the leadership team and the people at Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit insightglobal.com/learningleader today to learn more. That's insightglobal.com/learningleader.

• 2:19Ryan Hawk?

  I read that Jeff Bezos said Jamie quote is a real builder, scrappy, original, and unsatisfied by the status quo. He's poured his missionary spirit into this book, and his story is a real world primer on founder mentality. What did it mean to you to have Jeff Bezos say that about you?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  It's pretty cool. I mean, I'd say like, there's some pretty cool things that have happened in my life and pretty amazing ones that I pinch myself. That one was a definitely a pinch myself moment. I mean, I asked Jeff, you know, when I wrote the book, I said, I wrote a book on the story of Ring. And I said, you know, would you do something for the back cover and read it? And, you know, I'd say like, a lot of people you'd think like that would just sort of do some sort of can thing, or have someone in their comms group sort of come back to you and say, here you go, which I still would have been, by the way, humbled by. But Jeff is Jeff, and he did it and read it and looked at it and, you know, wanted to have his own very curated quote that's from him. And so it was pretty

• 3:20Speaker 01

  incredible. And I don't, I don't think he's ever done any other book back jacket like that. So in a lot of ways, it was humbling and incredible.

• 3:30Ryan Hawk?

  We're skipping ahead and we'll get there. But I'm curious, I remember I had the founder of Whole Foods on, so he negotiated with Bezos and John Mackey. And that was a fun conversation. What was the negotiation like? Because you eventually sold your company for over a billion dollars to Amazon. How involved was he? What were the conversations like? I'd love to go inside the process of that transaction.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Yeah. So for our transaction, which happened after Whole Foods, I think they learned that, you know, Jeff just loves entrepreneurs. And so I think they learned to keep Jeff out of the negotiations because he does it. I think he's like, and I love entrepreneurs. Like, I find it hard when you're, to negotiate hard with someone who you respect is, that's pretty hard to do. Yeah. Because it's like, you know, Jeff's a builder. He is an inventor. So for ours, like, we worked with like, the corp dev people. And, you know, it was a little bit sort of more how you'd picture like one of these deals going. That said, they were very like, they understood we were a startup. They leaned in, you know, these are never, they're never easy. I mean, you're selling a company for over a billion dollars. There's a lot of, lot of emotion on all sides that takes place.

• 4:38Ryan Hawk?

  So you could have kept going without them. Personally, it's probably really hard to pass up the money. Amazon is one of the biggest and best companies in the world and of all time. It's their founder, right? As we're talking about is also someone that I think is well respected by all and has built something incredible. Why say, okay, yeah, I'm going to go join them or be a part of them or sell to them as opposed to saying, no, guys, let's just keep doing this on our own.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  Hardware companies take a lot of cash. So balance sheet matters. We grew, when we started revenue, 3 million, 30 million, 170, 480, which sounds like to anyone listening, like, that's amazing, like, what a great growth. But the problem is, when you think about it, is how do you go from 170 to 480 is you're buying, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars of products when you're selling less than that at that time. So you're basically always in some ways going out of business if sales growth slows because you're over ordering in order to sell. And so we were in a position where like, we were going from 480 to over a billion. As great as that was when we were selling, it's like, anything that happened in the market, we were toast. It's like on a motorcycle going 200 miles an hour.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Like, if a leaf falls down and hits me, I'm dead. And so at Amazon, you know, we say like, hey, we need another billion dollars to order stuff for next year. We're growing. They're like, okay, sure. What else do you want? And again, it's just because compared to their balance sheet, they're just the size of Ring compared to Amazon, it just was able to tuck in and fit in. So from that side, I really wanted my mission to make neighborhoods safer. I wanted to keep sort of doing that. I wanted to be the world's largest home security company. I wanted to have a huge impact. And I did not want to ace the thing into the ground, which was a very likely scenario if we kept going alone. Looking back, I think we probably would have been fine because you can, again, you can see how the capital markets were. You can see how the growth was.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  I mean, like, you can kind of see everything now. But I'd say with the information we had at the time, it was a great decision. And I'd say, What we did with the business has been great. I mean, like the impact we've had has been incredible.

• 6:46Ryan Hawk?

  It's crazy to think from an outsider's perspective, you're like, oh, he's making whatever they're doing 500 million bucks a year in revenue. Obviously this dude's crushing it. He's probably being able to relax, enjoy life, you know, go to work and work hard or whatever. But it sounds like that sounds amazingly stressful to have a company doing that much in revenue and yet could die at any moment.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  Our growth was so fast that it's what kind of killed us. And it's, and it's such a weird irrational thing because you're right. Like when you hear it, oh, we did 500 million this year. People are like, oh, that guy's rich. That company, they must be worth a fortune. And it's like, sort of yes. But again, the other side is if sales went down 20%, that's a hundred million in sales on a company that just doesn't have the balance sheet. Like we just didn't have it. And so it was super scary. And at some point I just got to the point where like, you know, it's like, do you want 1.15 billion dollars? Or to keep trying to go with this thing. And like, I mean, in some ways, it's almost like Vegas where you're putting your money on black. And you double and you double and you double. And at some point you're like, I'll probably lose if I keep doubling.

• 7:54Ryan Hawk?

  I'm curious this balance of you are a scrappy inventor, you're a builder. That doesn't always mean you're going to be a good business person. In a lot of cases, they're not, right? It's like one or the other, the, the great musician, but they don't understand how to set up. So they have to hire other people. How was that for you being this scrappy inventor, this builder? And I don't know, it sounds like you know what you're talking about.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  That's funny when you say it like that. So I think I am a great inventor and I say it like still humbly, but like I have, I guess a track record that's, you know, decent of inventing things that never existed that have done pretty well. So I'm going to like, take that. And then I've done a lot of invention around how to like, build a company fast, like how to allow it to scale fast, like the invention around that. What's interesting is that if you're trying to like, follow this, there's a lot of people that made more money than me and I'm, I'm fine. I'm not like trying to complain, but because they're more business people, like they would have looked at how to operate Ring from a more profitable. Cause like, but I was deluding myself with raising money and I like, and there was ways to sort of engineer it to make more money as me.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  If I had looked at it in that way, but I didn't care. All I wanted to do was grow it fast, get product out there, build more product, invent more things. And so I kind of like see that there's something like business people. And I always say there's like different types of entrepreneurs. I'm more of an inventor entrepreneur. There's entrepreneurs who are like literally business entrepreneurs. There's people that like we've never heard of that have just crushed it because they're just maniacal business people. I am not a maniacal business person. I am maniacal on product and that I bring invention into like how we run the company.

• 9:34Ryan Hawk?

  I was reading that you're hiring people from Craigslist. You're trying to find people that maybe something's happened in their life. They're scrappy themselves, they're humble, they're gonna work. Can you walk me through maybe earlier in your time? What you looked for when hiring other than like the table stakes of they gotta be able to do X, right? But I'm talking about attributes of people as well as maybe how that's evolved? If it's evolved over time when it comes to hiring more people to work with your companies?

• 10:02Speaker 01

  I still try to hire people just based on passion. And like you said, there is like a table stakes. Like if you're there to do C plus programming, like it turns out like you kind of need to know C plus programming. Like there are some things that are like, you have to be able to do the job. But for most jobs, I'd say, and especially with AI, by the way, AI has made it so, by the way, C plus programming? You don't need to know C plus programming, just go to frigging Claude code. So I do think passionate people that care, that want to succeed at whatever the mission is. Those are the people you want to hire. So I always say it's, it's for me, it's marathoners. It's like someone who wants to run a marathon. Like marathons are the dumbest thing that any human could ever do. Even if you win it, no one cares.

• 10:45Speaker 01

  I did the Boston Marathon twice, so stupid. 30,000, whatever people run it. I finished like 22,000th place and I'm so proud of myself. Like it's like the, my proudest moment is alone finishing the Boston Marathon in 22,000th place that I worked a year for, training every day and spending hours doing it. And so like you want those people that whatever they're doing, they care about getting the mission done. And so if you can find those people, and especially with AI democratizing like all information, just fill your business with those people and they, you'll crush anything.

• 11:20Ryan Hawk?

  How did you and how do you find those people? What do you ask in the interview process? People are getting better at. Trying to fool others. So how do you make sure you're finding those people?

• 11:30Speaker 01

  There's two ways to do it. One is, again, I just sit with them and talk to them. I don't have like specific questions and all this stuff. I just want to listen to like, what are they saying? What are they saying in their lives? I tell them what our mission is. Like, our mission is to make neighborhoods safer. Like, do you want to work on making neighborhoods safer? Because if you don't, you're going to be miserable here. You're going to hear it every day. You're going to be like rolling your eyes. You don't have to care about that. Like, not everyone does. But if you do, great. You're going to love it. And if you don't, you're going to hate it. So like, it's always like, start with the mission. I hire fast and I fire faster. And I think like, the reality is, I haven't figured out a way, and maybe it's my own failure, in interviewing to raise the percentage of finding the best people versus finding, to your point, the people that say like, oh, I'm super passionate.

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Oh, my, I love making neighborhoods safer. Oh, I'm like, it's my life's mission. And then they come in and they just, you tell they just hate it. And so, you know, if you hire fast and fire faster, like, I certainly don't like firing people. Like, I don't, I don't like the impact on their lives, on their families, but get them out quickly.

• 12:33Ryan Hawk?

  Have you found certain things that have increased your batting average? Maybe it's they've actually run marathons. Maybe it's they've had a rough upbringing, or a great one.

• 12:42Speaker 01

  The best is when someone's referred by someone, because they usually feel guilty. Because we're very transparent. Here's what it's going to be. Here's what we're going to do. Here's how we work. If you hate that, don't come here. And I think when someone's referred by their uncle, by their whatever, that, like, they don't want to let them down. And so I have found that referrals, once I don't like referrals, you don't want to make an organization that's like, oh, you have to be the friend of Jamie to get in. But the other side is, I think there is a thing with referrals where they don't want to let you down.

• 13:16Ryan Hawk?

  Yep.

• 13:17Speaker 01

  Whereas someone who's just like, sort of off the street, doesn't know anything, no connection, maybe just doesn't have that same level of care.

• 13:25Ryan Hawk?

  Where does this mission from yours come from?

• 13:28Speaker 01

  So, you know, it's funny, we started, I invented this, you know, I was in my garage. I couldn't hear the doorbell. I'm working on other stuff. I just got an iPhone. I literally built a video doorbell. I just built it to like, so I could hear the door. My wife says it makes her feel safer at home. Again, the inventor in me was like, realized when she said that, that the way people were doing home security up until that point, Was not looking at it from an efficacy side. They were looking at it from like a marketing and getting a contract for the home side. I don't blame them. Technology had changed, all sorts of stuff had happened. But with having the phone, with being able to be connected to your home at any time, you needed a whole new set of things.

• 14:13Speaker 01

  And I realized like, these things can make neighborhoods safer. They could actually reduce crime in neighborhoods. Like, my head kind of exploded. And that is why Ring became so big. It's why it became probably the world's largest home security company, which I think it is today. Because I didn't like, you know, say like, I'm gonna build the best doorbell in the world. I'm gonna build the best video doorbell. I'm gonna get patents. Like, it was like, we're gonna change the way home security is done with this like new thing that just happened, which was basically the phone.

• 14:39Ryan Hawk?

  Now, I mean, I've got one. Everyone's got them. It's like, well, yeah, obviously you would have this. But it's just bizarre that not that long ago, and I think you even said on your Shark Tank pitch, the doorbell is like one of the only things that had not been updated, or whatever the language you use since forever ago.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  Eighteen whatever, yeah, like it was like.

• 15:01Ryan Hawk?

  It's just crazy that now, at the time, though, it obviously had never been done. You invented it, and now it's ubiquitous. We all have them. It's wild, and it seems because you are a tinkerer, you're a builder, you're an inventor. Your wife said one statement to you, and all of a sudden it goes, wait a second.

• 15:18Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 15:18Ryan Hawk?

  This could be a thing. But it's one thing for your wife to say that and for you to have a little bit of an aha moment. It's another thing to actually create a full-blown company and create a product that seems kind of like a pain to build and then make it so that we all have them. I mean, what's the next step after your wife says that? How do you get this going? How do you create a company?

• 15:40Speaker 01

  Once we had the mission, and Jeff said this like in public too, like this idea of infinite truth. So like Amazon, if you look at like Amazon's core principles, they're infinite. Well, customers always want lower price, more selection, and faster delivery. Yes, like it doesn't matter like, but if you deliver within an hour, they'll want it in 30 minutes. If you deliver in 30 minutes, they'll want it in 10 minutes. Like, they'll always want faster. They'll always want lower price, and they're always gonna want more selection. So it's like, like you can work on Amazon's customer offering of like e-commerce forever. Like, until you're delivering it, the instant you order it at $0 and 100% selection, like there's like you can go forever. So when I found making neighborhoods safer. It's like, that's an infinite thing to work on.

• 16:24Speaker 01

  And as soon as you had that, that's what unlocked Ring from being another little business that I was working on and tinkering to literally what is today, probably the world's largest home security company, because you were now working on something that had infinite possibility, infinite market. And then the, the hard part is when you have that is now, how do you bring that down into tactical, tangible, short-term, like every day? What do you do every day to work on that? Because you can also get overwhelmed by, and you see it, companies are like, oh, we're working on solving all X. And when they're trying to do it all at once. And so it is like, how do you eat an elephant? Like you cut it into very small bites. Like you eat it like one little bite at a time. You don't eat it all at once.

• 17:06Ryan Hawk?

  So it's called Doorbot and you go on Shark Tank. What was the process like to get on the show? What were you thinking before? I just rewatched the pitch, but you know, so you're like standing behind and you did the doorbell thing. What was it like leading up to it? Were you nervous? I would love to go inside, how you were feeling.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  So, so I mean, I, you know, here I am in the garage. I'm basically failing. I mean, like, I'm like, nothing's going right.

• 17:27Ryan Hawk?

  But you had started and sold two companies prior to this.

• 17:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, but for like very little money.

• 17:31Ryan Hawk?

  So not, okay. So online, it looks like you've made millions. It sounds like you did not.

• 17:35Speaker 01

  No, no.

• 17:36Ryan Hawk?

  Okay.

• 17:36Speaker 01

  I wasn't broke, but I was definitely not like, I was not rich. Like I was not like, I should not have been in the garage just tinkering. Like I didn't have that kind of money at all. Like I definitely did not. And so I'm kind of like working on this doorbell thing. It's eating cash because it's hardware. A guy says, listen, I'd love to go to lunch with you and, and chat about my business. And so I'm, I'm like kind of driving to this, this lunch and I'm literally thinking in my head, like, I'm like, Jamie, this is why you never make it. Like, cause you're literally like, you can't focus. Like you're literally going out to lunch while you're basically, you're burning to the ground, your family in your garage. And so I go to lunch, super nice guy, great, does this thing to talk the whole time. He's like, what are you working on? I'm like, oh, I'm working on this doorbell. And by the way, when I, when I would tell people about Doorbot at the time, they would laugh.

• 18:20Speaker 01

  And they'd usually say, come on, seriously, what are you working on? Cause it was like, I'm working on a doorbell that goes to your phone. And they're like, wow, like that's hysterical. Like, you know, it's like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I mean, literally, that was the response. And so he's like, oh, that's so cool. Have you thought about going on Shark Tank? Still a big show, but like at the time was like, I mean, it was the biggest. I think it was the biggest show. I, I think it was the biggest show on TV at that time, or like the top five or something. It's crazy. Thirty plus thousand people were applying a year to be on the show. So I'm like, no, I didn't apply, like send in my one of 30,000 application. Um, which I should have, by the way, I just, I just was like down to my luck, kind of talking. And he's like, oh, the one of the producers is asking, they're trying to get bigger products and stuff like this. Here's his email.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  So I emailed the producer first and I'm like, hey, it's Jamie. Here's my website, you know, kind of like, and I started driving home from the, the lunch. The guy calls me, he's like, this is great. You gotta be on Shark Tank. And I'm like, holy shit. You know, it's just like insane. So that was kind of my getting to Shark Tank, which then I started to do a million things to actually get on the show from there. Like I, I thought at that point that I was just like, I'm like, oh my God, I'm on. But it turned out there was still a million things to do. And then we go on Shark Tank, it's like to your point of the taping. And if you re-watch the episode, which you did. So they said, like, you have these producers and they have like your pitch and you gotta do all this. And they're like, you need to do a live demo of your product.

• 19:47Speaker 01

  And I'm like, yeah, we, you know, because I'm like not telling them that it's like really not working very well. Like I did not, of course, like did not disclose that, that like this thing is like super challenged and like barely working if, if at all. Didn't seem like the right thing to tell them. So they're like, yeah, you have to do a live demo. I'm like, okay, yeah, but let's do a live demo where we just tape it beforehand and then we show it. Cause it's just like, you don't want to have all the like things happening. They're like, no, I'm like, well, let's do a live demo beforehand because like we could tape it because like there's interference. Like, I mean, I tried everything. They're like, no. So we do a live demo on the show and like, it wasn't working. Like the engineer I had was like literally dying trying to set this thing up.

• 20:31Speaker 01

  Like they're breaking the ones, I really had like four in the whole world, door bots that had been like produced by hand. So I go to ring the doorbell. If you look at my face when I like turn around, because I look up, it's, it's actually the live feed like that's on there. And you kind of see this face. It's like, it looks like I'm kind of excited. I'm actually like, I can't believe that the picture came up. Like, I'm like,

• 20:51Ryan Hawk?

  It worked.

• 20:52Speaker 01

  I'm like flabbergasted.

• 20:54Ryan Hawk?

  I was like, I just watched. I was like, this was really impressive. It's a live demo.

• 20:58Speaker 01

  In fact, that picture quality from Doorbot never was, is that good again ever? Like, that was like the best. If you could ask for like the genie for like one wish, it was like, just make that, that, that one goddamn doorbell push work on Shark Tank, please. Like, just make that one work. I don't care if anything else works in my life. Just make that one thing work. And it worked.

• 21:20Ryan Hawk?

  You even held up Mr. Wonderful's face right in front of it.

• 21:23Speaker 01

  I was like going crazy. I like, yeah, I went for it.

• 21:26Ryan Hawk?

  Oh, my gosh. Okay. And so they're all saying, no, no, no, no offers. Mr. Wonderful's the last. I watched it. It's a family show for us, right? Mr. Wonderful's like, yeah, let's do some royalty garbage that he tries to do with everybody else. And you kind of stand firm. And you ultimately walk away without a deal. Like, how were you feeling in that moment?

• 21:43Speaker 01

  I cried in my car on the way home. I mean, I, I mean, I really did go in there being like, Mark's gonna give me the money. We needed money. Like, I needed money. Well, I wasn't trying to

• 21:53Ryan Hawk?

  Just get marketing.

• 21:54Speaker 01

  Around. Like, I needed money. I mean, it's now people are like, oh, it's so great. You didn't get a deal. I'm like, it's like, I knew it was gonna be a billion dollars. So like, why take a deal? You know, it's like, but at the time I needed money badly and Mark was out immediately.

• 22:07Ryan Hawk?

  Yep.

• 22:07Speaker 01

  And then the Mr. Wonderful deal, just you can't like, you know, I was just telling you how bad hardware is on cash flow. If immediately you're giving cash flow out, like it just, there's no way it would have worked. I left. I was, I was devastated.

• 22:21Ryan Hawk?

  Doesn't he know that, though? Why offer a stupid deal like that? Uncertain things that can work, but not like yours where there's all that cost.

• 22:29Speaker 01

  First of all, you offer it because like someone's willing to give you like a crazy good deal on a business. Like you take it like, you know? So I think that's like the first thing. The second thing is the way the show format works, if you don't have that negotiation at the end, it's likely you won't air.

• 22:42Ryan Hawk?

  Ah, okay.

• 22:43Speaker 01

  And so a lot of what he's doing is actually, he's probably the most friendly to the entrepreneur because by us having that negotiation, it creates the bookend to, from the intro to the end. And if he hadn't done that deal, I might not have ever got on air. A lot of people know this. A lot of people that go on Shark Tank to tape don't actually go on air because it's just like, it's a boring episode. Like, it's just like, you know, I get on there and pitch and nothing happens and I leave. No one wants to watch that.

• 23:12Ryan Hawk?

  Got you. So you leave, you're crying in your car.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  I literally cried.

• 23:16Ryan Hawk?

  Devastated, but something changes. What happened to go from that to where we don't have any money? I genuinely need money to a billion dollars.

• 23:27Speaker 01

  The good news is at that point, I was too far into it. So I couldn't back out of the business. If I had at that moment, just went back to the garage and said, I'm done. I would have basically been personally bankrupt because I had, I'd already ordered too many products and like I, I owed too much money already. So like, it was a kind of a boiling the frog thing. I didn't realize I was that deep in, but like, you know, it was like 30,000 for this. And you're kind of like, okay, great. We'll sell these. And then all of a sudden you realize like, if you don't sell them, I was in a bad place financially from that side. If the business didn't continue, so I couldn't stop, like I didn't have the right to stop. So people always say like, oh, like people think I'm like tough. That's so tough that you kept going. It's like, no, I actually had to keep going.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  It's actually the opposite of tough. Like I was like a chicken shit. I just couldn't stop. And so I kept going. And then when Shark Tank did air, it gave us a huge boost of sales. That gave us like a cash injection, which then we were able to hire some more people to build Ring. Then we were able to sort of raise some money around that. And so that like, you know, there still was a lot of hard sort of things along the way. But I'd say the airing of Shark Tank would start the clock on, if you wanted to plot success, like that's when it kind of started. Because from that moment on, we kind of had like momentum that we could kind of keep trading on.

• 24:47Ryan Hawk?

  I also read that you were naive at times. And sometimes that can be really, really helpful. How was being naive helpful to you?

• 24:57Speaker 01

  Well, it's a superpower. I mean, everything that you try to do, I mean, great inventions are things that people say can't happen. Because if people said they could happen. Then they'd already be out there. So like, you know, if you look at like James Dyson and some of these amazing inventors, you know, Elon, I mean, people said the electric car couldn't work. You can go back and there's all this stuff about how it like, can't have enough this and you won't have enough capacity and like, so you have to be smart enough to sort of not put yourself into too bad of a situation. But naive enough to say like, I think I can do this. I don't even know that I can't. And so, people said you couldn't build a battery operated camera at this time to go on wifi like, but I didn't know, I never built anything. So like, what did I know?

• 25:42Speaker 01

  So we just went out and tried to put some parts together that seemed like they would work together.

• 25:47Ryan Hawk?

  It's funny, my first sales job after I got done playing football after college, Jamie was, is a sales rep and it was 2008. And people were like, dude, oh my God, that had to be the worst thing ever. Terrible market, all this stuff. And I was like, I honestly didn't even realize it. I didn't watch the news. I didn't do anything. I was just like, you know, going to work out in the gym, do my sales job, hang out with my buddies. I didn't even realize that there was anything going on. I'm like, I'm glad I was just like a complete meathead idiot. But sometimes that can be really good for you.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  I think a lot of times it is because we get so wrapped up in like, the GDP is going to be down 1% off of whatever and the stock market's crashing. You're like, oh my God. But the reality is like, the markets are still huge. The consumer's still huge. Like, but people build more businesses usually when things are down than when they're up. And so you're right. I think sort of, like, it's a hard thing to tell someone because you don't want to give somebody advice to be like, be stupid. Like, it's not like good advice. But the other side is, if you try to sort of like, do everything right, it usually doesn't work.

• 26:49Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  And there is something about like naive is kind of part of that is like, and again, especially breakout big things usually come from people that were like, and you'll see it like everyone says like, you can't do this.

• 27:00Ryan Hawk?

  And part of it too is if you are thinking and analyzing the whole world, that's time you're not doing the thing. You're not working, you're not inventing, you're not building, you're not making the calls. And so sometimes it can, knowing too much or trying to know too much, gets in the way of actually doing the work. And I think that's a key takeaway for anybody. It's if you're sitting there like building all these plans and thinking about stuff and all, it's like, well, when are you actually doing the work? Cause that's ultimately what's going to build Ring. And speaking of Ring, the guy who owned ring.com, I believe wanted to sell it to you for 2 million bucks. Right? 2 million bucks. And you're like, oh, 2 million bucks, are you out of your mind?

• 27:43Ryan Hawk?

  Can you tell me the story of how you were able to get ring.com?

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Maybe more, he wanted to sell it for a lot of money. I ended up getting it down to like 750,000. And the day I'm supposed to pay him, I have 178,000 in the bank. So like, you gotta start to figure out that math. So I call him up and I'm like, hey, listen, my board said we can't do the deal. Like I, they just, you know, which is sort of true because it's like, I didn't have a board, but it was me. So like I, it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't completely untruthful. So my, my board said I can't do the deal, but they did approve me to do 175,000 today. And a total of 1 million for the purchase. So I'm increasing now the price and paid over two years.

• 28:29Speaker 01

  And so the guy like F bombs and just, I mean, the guy thinks he's getting $750,000 that day. And I like basically tell him the day of the wire. And so just, you know, just not happy, hangs up the phone, calls me back like, you know, or maybe he's like, fine. You know, it was like, well, it was like, like, it was like, but, and then I'm like, okay. So because I'm like, figure, I'm like, listen, we'll give them a 175. And like, if we can't afford the domain, it's because the business went out anyway. So like, I don't need the domain for a bankrupt business. And if a business works, well, uh, you know, we'll buy it. And so it ended up being, you know, it ended up working out for us. I guess for him it worked out because he got 250,000 more than he thought he was going to. But like, it certainly wasn't my best from a negotiation side, I would say it was, it wasn't my most moral negotiation.

• 29:14Ryan Hawk?

  But you gave him all the money you had. Isn't that a very scary moment?

• 29:18Speaker 01

  It was a terrifying moment. I had a venture capital investment from True Ventures coming in. And that's why I kinda like was timing it. I didn't tell True Ventures, I didn't tell them that I was buying a domain because I was worried that, so they were giving us like five million, I think. And I was worried if I told them that basically like 20% was going to a domain name that killed me. I'm trying to keep everyone happy without like, like blowing the thing up. And so then True Ventures delays their wire like a week or two, just like, but they're just like, yeah, like we have this going on. Do you, you know, I'm like, oh, sure. It's okay. And then they're like, oh, we want to do this. Why? I'm like, can we maybe do Monday? Cause like Tuesday was payroll. And so I'm like, can we maybe do Monday, the whenever?

• 30:01Speaker 01

  Yeah. And they're like, uh, sure. Okay. I'm like, great, great. And so they like wired the money on that Monday and like, you know, Tuesday we make payroll. But like, that was definitely like, I was like, we're not making payroll. Like we're not making payroll.

• 30:11Ryan Hawk?

  I cannot, I don't know if I could live that. I mean, that's why you're, you know, whatever you don't, you done. But I also read you did struggle to sleep mainly because you're working so much, but I would imagine that would hurt sleep too.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Stress was like, that's the thing. I'm not, there are different types of entrepreneurs. I met lots of different types. There are people that can do that. And literally sleep like a baby, don't, they don't even care. I internalize this stuff and it just destroys me. So like, I wasn't sleeping. I was super stressed. I mean, so I wasn't, I wasn't doing it out of like a chest pump, like I'm tough, whatever. It was more like survival and doing things to survive. But it was affecting me terribly. I mean, it was really bad.

• 30:51Ryan Hawk?

  How did that affect you in your personal life?

• 30:54Speaker 01

  My son was like three, like when I started, so he was kinda like at that point, probably six years old or something. I just have one kid, so we actually were very like transparent at home, which helped. I just talked like openly, like when my son was six, like he knew like where the business was, like he would be like, literally like a kindergarten teacher would say to us, like, I hear the business isn't going well. I'm like, yeah. But we were just open. Like it was just a very open adult conversation always, which I think helped on that because it wasn't like I was trying to hide. Anything from them, but it just takes a village. I mean, like having my wife and son sort of supporting me the whole way. But yeah, it was, it was still pretty tough. I mean, it was definitely stressful.

• 31:33Ryan Hawk?

  What is your messaging around work, life, integration, work, life balance, not killing yourself along the way with stress and not sleeping and trying to stay healthy, but also trying to build something extraordinary. How do you think about all of that now? What advice do you give to others?

• 31:50Speaker 01

  I just integrated my work and life and family together. So like my son, the first door bot that came off the line in China, like my son came with me. So we just integrated the work, life together. And so there wasn't like a balance. It was just integrated. And I think that's, everyone's different, but for me, that was the best way to do it. So we spent a ton of time together. My son's been to like 40 countries and he's almost been to every state. Like, I mean, I literally, I'd bring him to every meeting. I didn't care. We were going to meet with Home Depot, like Oliver was there when he was seven, six, five.

• 32:23Ryan Hawk?

  Wow.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  And then people would say, like, it's funny. People would be like, how do you bring your kid to a meeting? And I said, like, who do you think they're going to remember more? The guy that brought his six year old to a meeting or just some idiot with another product? It's so amazing. Like, we're always scared to be different. But I can guarantee you, if someone brings their kid to a meeting with me right now, I will remember that meeting over the 3,000 meetings I'm going to have this month.

• 32:47Ryan Hawk?

  What a life for him. He's been in some crazy rooms, I bet, and heard some amazing crazy stories. How old is he now?

• 32:55Speaker 01

  He's 17 now.

• 32:56Ryan Hawk?

  Jeez, what's it like for him? Because now he's an adult, basically. I mean, God.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  It's pretty funny. It's just like, and it was funny, he's like, he doesn't, you know, maybe because he saw this stuff, like, he just like loves basketball, wants like work in sports. It's not like he's like trying to sort of follow in the footsteps and be an inventor and stuff like he's like, he's happy, wants to do sports stuff. Which is great. I think everyone should, again, to the thing, like, people should follow their passion. Like, you should do what you want to do. Like, that's the best way to do it.

• 33:26Ryan Hawk?

  So I've gotten all sides of this. I'm glad you brought this up. Some say that's what you should do. And other people say that's insane advice that billionaires give after they become a billionaire, because it's easier to say, what you need to do is go earn a living. You need to get good at something and then you'll become passionate about it afterwards. Like, how do you feel about that? Passion and work and doing the thing that you're passionate about? What's your overall thoughts on it?

• 33:50Speaker 01

  I think it's a fair argument that, like, someone becomes wealthy and then says, like, "Oh, go do, like, what you love." It is hard to see anyone, though, that's achieved anything of greatness in the world that didn't do what they loved. And so I think the other side of it is, there are times, like, you know, when I was a bellhop and valet parking cars, like, that wasn't my passion. You know, I did that in high school and college. I did it to make money. Like, there are times when you have to, like, work your ass off to make money. Like, I've done sales. Like, and so, but I think when you start, like, the career of what you want to try to do and you're gonna set out to do something, like, do something you care about versus, I think the worst thing is when people do entrepreneurship and they're trying to do something to make money because they, if they fail, like, if you fail

• 34:32Speaker 01

  trying to make money, that really sucks. If you fail trying to do something you love, at least, like, you try to do something you love. Like, I always just say, like, if Ring fails, we tried to make neighborhoods safer. Like, we worked on something noble. If it fails because we just tried to make a buck, that's not fun.

• 34:48Ryan Hawk?

  You talk about sales. I also think you're a much more effective sales professional when you are deeply passionate about the mission and about the product that you've created because of that mission. You can feel it in your voice. I have since the second we connected on Zoom, like, you can feel that this is kind of oozes out of the person versus someone who's just like, "All right, I gotta, like, make some money, so I gotta sell it." I think that's a real thing, and it's certainly aspirational, I hope, for most people. If you want to become excellent at anything, there's gotta be that care, love, and passion behind it.

• 35:21Speaker 01

  If you look back at almost any brand, the original, again, over time, they're like losers and it doesn't matter, but usually very authentic when they start.

• 35:30Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Like Nike was extremely, Phil Knight is an authentic person. Nike might now just be more of just like a big brand that like produces shoes, whatever. I actually still like it, but at the beginning, like these brands have usually true authenticity to them that goes deep. Ring is, it's a big brand, but it's because it was so authentic. It's, it is authentic. Like, we care about what we do. You know, we just launched this dog search party thing. That was my Super Bowl commercial yesterday, which was kind of cool. But you know, it's like, how do you invent something like that? Why do you do it? Because you care. Like you, it's, that's authenticity, which then drives also the brand.

• 36:08Ryan Hawk?

  So as the company grows and you're adding more and more people, there are odds that some of those people are taking it as a job to earn a living and they'll work hard, right? But they don't care like you do, or like some of the earlier people do. That's just natural as a company grows in size. So how do you maintain this culture of authenticity and care and get after it as you grow and scale?

• 36:33Speaker 01

  One is you have to be realistic that yes, as you get bigger, not every single person in the company is going to like wake up eating their like making neighborhood safer cereal. I get it. Like, that's just the reality. I think leadership though, is that from my side, if I truly am authentic with it, it does like sort of usually trickle down. So that keeps it, I think having a founder that's there that like keeps that energy and authenticity to it matters. Having other people around us, you know, helps. I do think also you have to, as a company gets bigger, just be willing to be accepting that yes, like it's going to be a slightly less, it can't be perfect. Cause if you try to like keep it to perfect, you're

• 37:16Speaker 01

  gonna like die. That said, I think you can also do a lot of things to keep it much better than just letting it sort of go to just like a big corporate board.

• 37:26Ryan Hawk?

  There is a difference between being an inventor. And being a CEO of a company, especially a company that gets bigger, there's more and more people involved. There's a lot of elements of management, leadership, vision, public speaking, I mean, a million things that go on with being a CEO. How did you get good? You're a world-class inventor, one of the best of our generation, right? But how did you get good at being a leader? How did you get good at being a CEO and running a business?

• 37:56Speaker 01

  I think this is where people overthink what it is to be a CEO. A good CEO, a good leader is someone who's leading. It's like first principle thinking, like, how do you lead Ring? You lead it by leading it. You lead it by going out and installing devices. You lead it by caring. You lead it by continuing to invent. Like, you lead it by being transparent with people and honest. Everyone knows at Ring that I will work harder than they will. And so that's leadership. I think like people have come down to leadership as a process and it's a, how do you do this? And how many emails do you send a week? But everyone knows they're coming from some group that's writing the emails. And like, I think authenticity with AI is going to get way more important as a leader.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  Just be authentic. I mean, I think people want to follow someone that is authentic and cares and wants to do it. And so for me, it's like, it's not, like, I'm not a good CEO. I am a great leader. You know, because I'll charge over the hill when the bullets are coming any day.

• 38:54Ryan Hawk?

  It feels to me like you still have, and maybe have never not had, a frontline obsession. The guy who started on the front lines, and even as the company has grown, has stayed on the front lines. You know the business inside and out. You're authentic. I mean, we didn't have a comms team before this meeting. You can just show up and talk because you're on the front lines. You understand what's actually going on.

• 39:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, my email is still on every box. The letter J at ring.com is my email. It's on every box, has been from the beginning. And when you're on the front lines, everyone else respects. When customer service does it, if someone emails me, I'm going to respond. They don't feel like they're doing a lesser job. Because they're not, like, they're doing the most important job, as am I. Like, we're all there for the customer.

• 39:42Ryan Hawk?

  Do you get bombarded with emails?

• 39:44Speaker 01

  Not really. People are pretty respectful. I mean, like, I'd say like, every once in a while, there's always like these like edge things that happen where someone's just like. Kind of like sadly, like just not respectful with it and stuff. I would say most people, yeah, but we mess things up. And so like, I don't care if someone's unhappy. They can email me if they're unhappy. We mess something up, we'll fix it. So overall, I'd say like, I don't get a ton because we're pretty good overall. And by the way, the reason I don't get a ton is because our customer service knows if at a scale of over 100 million cameras in the, in the field, our customer service knows like, if they do something egregiously bad, and someone emails me like, I'm on it. Like, I'm gonna call them. Like, they know it. They know it. And so that

• 40:25Speaker 01

  everybody, I'd say, works at a level that they know that like, I'm here. And so it does keep everyone, like, I'd say everyone on their toes a little more.

• 40:34Ryan Hawk?

  I'm fascinated by that element. I emailed you and I think you responded in less than an hour about doing this podcast. And I thought, wow. But it's funny. I'm be curious to get your take on this, but maybe it's different now that you're more powerful person. But I feel like some of the busiest people that have the craziest jobs and that you think are literally building the things that are changing the world, respond so fast. And this has happened to me over the past 11 years. They're such fast responders. It blows my mind.

• 41:06Speaker 01

  It's a weird thing where I've found that the people that are the most successful, you can almost tell who's successful by how fast they respond.

• 41:14Ryan Hawk?

  Yes.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  And it was just so flip flop of what it should be. A successful person should respond to you in, you know, a month.

• 41:22Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 41:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're totally right.

• 41:23Ryan Hawk?

  This is a commonality I've seen over the past 11 years that blows my mind. It's better for me now with the show that has, you know, shown to give others a good platform. So I get it. It's more common now. But it's still, even over a decade, people who I would think, oh, no way. And then 15 minutes later, they're like, sure, dude, let's do it. How about tomorrow? I mean, it's wild to me how often that happens.

• 41:46Speaker 01

  When you're running at like, the highest levels, you're actually very efficient. And there's something about it, but you're 100% right. And I do, I even find it like, when I look at investing in people, I'll get like a founder that like, I'm sorry, I'm so busy. I didn't get back to you or, you know, something. And I'm like, and it doesn't mean that they won't be successful, but it is a like, warning sign. Because yeah, like when the most successful people get back to me in five seconds, it's like there's something wrong here.

• 42:14Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, I've been studying a lot, Jamie, recently, great teams, specifically the DNA of great teams, whether it's sports, business, any team.

• 42:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 42:24Ryan Hawk?

  I would love to hear your frontline obsessed version of what are some of the attributes or the dynamics or the DNA of excellent teams?

• 42:33Speaker 01

  I think the DNA is that people know what they're doing on the field. I think, I think the best company runs the same as the best sports team. Like Seattle yesterday, like that, that team ran freaking great and they ran great because the quarterback didn't think he's a kicker and the kicker didn't think he was a linebacker. And so like, and he trusted, the kicker trusted the linebacker is going to do his job. He's not like when they're about to hike it off as the kicker and go back to the, the guys, "Hey, listen, are you going to block that guy over there? I just want to make sure, we should have a meeting about this." So I think like, there is an autonomy that happens where everyone knows a play, like the play is set, so you know what that is. And so I think like, people know a ring, the play is making everyone safer. We know kind of where we're going, but we don't have to all meet and talk about each

• 43:18Speaker 01

  other's jobs. Like Jason Matura, who runs my technology, like Jason and I talk all the time, but we don't have meetings. I don't even have a standing meeting with the team in any cadence because we meet when we need to meet, we talk about what we need to talk about, but like, why do I need to? If these are the best people in the world, why do we need to get together every week?

• 43:38Ryan Hawk?

  Do you not have a lot of meetings?

• 43:40Speaker 01

  I have a lot of meetings on things that need to get done.

• 43:43Ryan Hawk?

  Say more, what do you mean by that?

• 43:44Speaker 01

  The best day for me is like a product's having an issue that we're going into production and we need to fix something like that's a meeting, like not standing meetings of, "We're doing the budget meeting and we're doing the this meeting." Like those.

• 43:57Ryan Hawk?

  How many direct reports do you have?

• 43:59Speaker 01

  I couldn't even tell you. I mean, not a ton.

• 44:02Ryan Hawk?

  You don't have reoccurring one on ones or anything?

• 44:05Speaker 01

  No, no, zero.

• 44:06Ryan Hawk?

  Man.

• 44:07Speaker 01

  No, but I talk to people like

• 44:09Ryan Hawk?

  All the time.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Responding. I talk to people that work with me and I don't care if you're skip level. I don't even know what that shit means. I talk to people all day long, all night long, Sunday, like we're talking about like things, but it's event based. We have to get the sales up on this. We have to get like where there's issues, where there's whatever, we work on it. And I trust that people, but like, if you're not doing your job, we fire you. Like, that's kind of how it works. Like, that's the reality.

• 44:33Ryan Hawk?

  I just think reoccurring meetings should be absolutely eliminated from the world. I hate them. I don't have any.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  If I can get rid of the button that allows for them, I would nuke it.

• 44:45Ryan Hawk?

  Yes, man.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Like, it's not first principle thinking. Like, there's no way every single Monday at nine AM, you have something important to talk about. It just doesn't, like, the world can't exist like that. There are times that you should meet, but like, it should be based on like, when you need to do something, not some cadence and that. And they do, they just become like, and they just stack and stack and stack and like, I don't, yeah. Have the best quarterback, have the best kicker, have the best coach. Let them work together, let them practice together, have the plays. But you don't need to get together every day to talk about how are we feeling?

• 45:19Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. Jamie, one more question. This is a little bit maybe adjacent to what we've been talking about. And maybe it's personal, maybe it's professional, maybe it's both. So let's say we're meeting or I'm seeing what's happening with you one year from today, exactly a year from day. And this is called a champagne question and you've got a bottle of champagne. I don't know if you drink that or not with your wife, your son, he's seventeen, eighteen at that point. You guys are celebrating. What are you celebrating?

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Probably something, probably something on the charitable side of things.

• 45:49Ryan Hawk?

  Like what?

• 45:50Speaker 01

  You know, we, we do a lot of work in South Central LA. Probably something more on that, but we do a lot of work with the police, LAPD. We also do a lot of stuff. We have a house in Missouri that, at this farm and we do a lot of stuff out there with people. So probably celebrating something like, again, I think the best thing you can do is kind of service to others. And so it's probably something where we somehow help someone do something and, and it wouldn't be like the champagne thing is like. We wouldn't be like clicking it. You know, we're not that sort of family where we're like, oh, we did it again. Like, you know, we sold the business like, yeah, you know, like cigars and stuff, but it would be celebrating that like we were able to sort of do something good, you know, with our brains and minds and whatever that like helps someone.

• 46:35Ryan Hawk?

  More service oriented. Yeah, I read 75 acre farm in Missouri. Like, are you there a lot? What do you do there?

• 46:41Speaker 01

  I love it. I'm there all the time. It's, uh, you know, it's a, it became like a passion project. I invested in a business out there called Moink. Actually, when I was on Shark Tank, I went there, fell in love with the place, became like a, I'm like sort of part of the town now. I love the people. The town had definitely been certainly impacted by opioids and by industrial farming and all the, all the things, by the way, that are impacting these towns. Like these towns are all over the US, you know, small little town. And so I, you know, we started to kind of work there with the townspeople and fix the streets and the sidewalks and put a little coffee shop and everyone's kind of come together and it's a really cool place and I love going there and bringing people there and it's been fun.

• 47:24Ryan Hawk?

  Love it, man. Well, I really appreciate you being here and all the work you do. You're making my home safer, my neighborhood safer. So thank you so much for that, man. I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Thanks, Ryan.

• 47:39Ryan Hawk?

  It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, [email protected]. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Jamie Siminoff. A few takeaways from my notes, frontline obsession. I love that Jamie still has this email address on every Ring doorbell. And also, by the way, he's a very fast responder, which we found to be a commonality among leaders who sustain excellence over time. Back to frontline obsession. The moment you stop touching the actual work is when you lose the feel for what's really happening. Distance from the front line is distance from the truth. I think CEOs and senior leaders

• 48:22Ryan Hawk?

  should be obsessed with being on the front lines. And then the next one got me kind tuned up during the conversation, no recurring meetings on the calendar, no standing Monday morning meetings. That doesn't mean you shouldn't meet with people, but only meet when you need to get something done, when you need to actually have a meeting. Other than that, there should be no standing meetings on your calendar. If you disagree, please email me. I'd be happy to talk about it. And then the next part of that was pretty cool. Why Jeff Bezos wrote the first book endorsement he's ever done and why he called Jamie, quote, "a real builder, scrappy, original, and unsatisfied with the status quo." What a cool part. It was, it was neat to have that part of the conversation with Jamie. You could tell it meant a lot to him. And then I liked his hiring filter.

• 49:07Ryan Hawk?

  He calls it looking for marathon runners. And also, he hires fast, but then fires fast if he realizes he makes a mistake. And I think that's something we all could get better at. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message, telling a friend or two, "Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Jamie Siminoff." I think it'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the show, rate it five stars, hopefully write a thoughtful review. By doing all of that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.