E23: The Metaverse, The Power of Networking, and Principles for Starting a New Business with David Bradford

Jim: What is up Remote Start Nation! Let's get something started. I'm Jim Doyon and I wanted to welcome you to another episode of Remote Start, where I bring you stories and strategies on how to start a business, build a brand and create your desired lifestyle.

On today's episode, we're gonna discuss the metaverse and the power of networking, and we're gonna go over some principles for starting a new business. In order to do that, I've brought on a guest I'm so excited to share with you today. David is CEO of the VIEW known as Virtual Immersive Educational Worlds with brands, 3d meet and fluent worlds. Both are based on the principle of immersion. The view has taken video game technology and applied it to the core of your instructional paradigm in the metaverse. He has previously been CEO of two of America's Forbes, fastest growing tech companies, Fusion-IO and Higher View. Along with a lifetime of other honorable achievements and awards, David is the author of Up Your Game: 6 Timeless Networking Principles. Remote Start Nation, I am beyond humbled and honored to have David join us today. So without further ado, I would like to introduce you to David Bradford. David, welcome to the Remote Start Nation.

David: Hey, Jim. Great to be with you today, thanks for the invitation. I love what you're doing in terms of honing in on starting up companies.

Jim: Thank you David. I appreciate that, and you know, like I said, I'm definitely grateful for you to be here and I'm really looking forward to the value you're gonna give to the Remote Start Nation today, and you know, some of the things that we're gonna go over, I know the nation can put together today and start really getting something started. So with that said, David, tell me something about you or your business journey that you'd say is a little bit different, different than the next one.

David: Well, I kind of came at the tech space in an interesting way. Going back 40 plus years ago, I was a practicing lawyer, but I got involved in the law related to technology. And that led to a position the general council, chief legal council for Novell and people forget about Novell, but back in the eighties from 1985 to 2000, it was one of the most valuable tech companies in the world. In fact, at the point, if you would've compared our market value to all international airlines, our market value exceeded them. It was a pretty crazy journey taking that company from 150 employees to over 10,000. So that was a blast.

Jim: I bet. So I bet you learned an absolute ton from that journey.

David: Yes. And I had some great CEOs that I worked for Ray Noorda, kind of the founding CEO, and then, Bob Frankenberg, who'd come over to us from HP, and then my last CEO was Dr. Eric Schmidt who people will know later, went on to become the chairman and CEO of Google. But I worked for Eric for four years, from 96 to 2000 and we both left in 2000. He went to Google, he did all right, and I went to some other entrepreneurial endeavors and I've had a blast as well.

Jim: So you've been able to with multiple companies, not just one. You've, you know, taken something and grown it to tremendous levels. Can you give us some ingredients to success that have helped you along the way?

David: You know, as ever reflected on that, Jim, I I've kind of come up with three main principles and I would say it's capital, it's people, and it's market timing. If you're missing one of those three ingredients, you're just not gonna take off, you know? It's not always the best product that wins, unfortunately, sometimes as, you know, founders, entrepreneurs, startup people, we get so enamored with the product that we're building, that we can't see the force for the trees. And so I really encourage your listeners to kind of step back and that it's not the best product that wins, it's a good product that has capital behind it, you have got to have the capital and whether you have it personally, uh, which is my, my most recent case or whether you're getting it from Sequoia capital or NEA or light speed or Andreesen Horowitz, which we did at two of my other companies, you know, you need that capital to boost the effort. So capital people, market timing.

Jim: That's a great advice. Let's talk about people a little bit. I mean, to grow from 150 into the thousands and tens of thousands. What's the strategy there with people.

David: Well, let me just say my, my general philosophy with people is that 60% of the success of any company is based on its people. I'll make that statement again, because I think it's really important for your listeners to understand 60% of the success of any company is based on its people, not its product, not its technology, not its market, etcetera. Because if you get the right people into your organization, Smart people, they'll figure it out, they can take your product, they can morph it, they can massage it to fit the market, etcetera, but you gotta have some smart people involved. So I'm really big on the people part of the equation.

Jim: Now, for someone that's just starting out, might not have the capital might not have the people yet, would you recommend first thing they do is put together a business plan, put together, you know, just go talk to friends and family, What would you recommend for someone on a very small level that's trying to grow.

David: Well, let me just say that a business plan is important. Yes. Create it, but you don't need more than 10 slides to tell the story. You can add slides letter on later on finances and, you know, use of proceeds and different things like that, but just narrow it down to 8 to 10, really good slides that kind of capture your market, that kind of answer the question as to what problem you're solving, what's the problem you're solving, what's the solution you're proposing, etcetera, eight to 10 short slides, but more than that at the same time, go form that corporation, because unless that corporation gets formed, nothing else is gonna happen. You've gotta have a company, it could be an LLC. It could be a C-Corp, it can be an S Corp talk to your lawyer account and whatever, figure that out. But you need a corporate entity. And once somehow those articles of incorporation get filed, things begin to happen, right? Yes. You've gotta get a name, you've gotta get a board of directors, you need a board of advisors, et cetera. Things begin to flow from organizing that corporate entity.

Jim: So step one, get that corporate identity formed, and, you know, I like to say something on this podcast. I say it all the time in every episode, it's it's just do it, get it done, go out and do it. And what's your take on that? I know that's, the principle of doing let's talk about that for a second.

David: I love it, Jim, because, uh, that's what I've seen over time. I’ve seen literally thousands of people that have organized businesses, ‘cause they're always pinging me on LinkedIn, what do you think of the, What, you know, etcetera, I have 30,000 ridiculous connections on LinkedIn. And so I hear a lot of stories, but what I say to people is what Nolan Bushnell said to me some years ago now, Nolan people don't realize Nolan Bushnell, the father of the Atari and the father of let's see, oh, Chucky cheese, he built both those enterprises. Anyway, Nolan was the first guy to hire Steve jobs going back many years ago. And he, so he wrote a book called finding the next Steve jobs. And in that book, he throws something out there that's just stuck in my mind, he says everybody who's ever taken a shower has had a great idea, it's the person that gets out of the shower, towels off and goes and does something about it that changes the world?

Jim: Yes, that is huge.

David: Yeah. Gotta do you gotta execute on those dreams? Another phrase that I learned many years ago and I adopted it as my own now is that the world needs dreamers and the world needs doers, but most of all, the world needs dreamers that do, and so their execution piece is really important. I think my wife and I are pretty good examples ‘cause she's a real dreamer and I'm a doer. So good combo.

Jim: It's probably, I was gonna say that sounds like a great combo.

David: Yeah, it's been good.

Jim: So, you know, we talked about going and filing and getting started in your business. You talk about, you know, getting funding or going out and getting people as well. So part of starting a business and scaling it, you know, I'd like to think of it as networking, and, you know, you've wrote a book about networking. I'd love to hear more about how, what we've already talked about and some of the principles in your book. How, you know, it follows the same line of getting your business started and going and talking and going and networking and meeting people.

David: Yeah. You know, I kind of reflect back on, gosh, my mom just passed away about three months ago at the age of 98 and a half lived a full and wonderful life but the whole idea behind networking kind of got started my mother Kay. And I remember I had been in law school and I was working hard and I was in the top 20% of my class, and I thought, oh, you know, this golden path would be laid out for me, et cetera. And I remember I was having a hard time because I was going to a new law school bringing the young University, they just started the new law school and we were hopeful of, to live in Southern California and raise our family there et cetera. And I remember going home for Christmas one time and I didn't have a job after law school, et cetera. And I remember my mother kind of shaking her finger at me, wagging her finger and saying, David don't, you know, it's not what you know, it's who, you know. And I went, wow, mom, that's pretty good advice. And so kind of starting there, I became kind of a networker and I've tried to flip networking on its ear because it can have a bad connotation, like you're out there networking to get something, but I flip it and I say, listen, in order to be a great networker, you first have to give, think first of the other person, if you're going to a business conference, look around that group of a hundred people in that lobby and think to yourself who here could use my help. Who here could use somebody that I know or a referral to a venture capital fund or whatever it might be. Think first of the other person, when you start doing that and you engage in conversations about with other people then magic happens because there's a law of reciprocity in the universe that kind of demands that once you've gone out of your way to help somebody, there's an intuitive desire then on their part to give back, and so that's how you start to network is to begin asking questions about other people, what they're doing, how you might be able to help them.

Jim: That's a great advice. I appreciate that. And as you're saying that I'm sitting here even thinking to myself of new projects that I wanna start, and it's kind of the same thing, you know, getting out and networking and, you know, I'm part of the kiln coworking space here in Utah, and I love it, and that's part of it is meeting new people every day and getting out and just starting, you know, that communication and conversation and ask him how I can help them and that was to your point of what you just brought up that's, you know, to give first.

David: Right. And the other thing that I point out in my book that relates specifically to what you said there is you show up in life.

There, I can't tell you the number of times that you'll have decisions in your life to make. I remember some years ago I was debating whether I should go to this conference in Sun Valley, Idaho or I had some golf tee times that I could go off and do. Well, and so I love golf, I'm pretty good at it, and so, you know, go to the conference, do a little networking or go play golf. And that day, I made one of the best decisions of my life, I canceled my tee time, went to the conference and lo and behold, Steve Wozniak was there, apple computer, and I got to meet Steve, we had a wonderful conversation and within a matter of weeks, he was on my advisory board for Fusion Idaho.

Jim: That is incredible from one decision.

David: One small decision. There's a good book somewhere that says, you know, from the smallest things come, the biggest things, the greatest things And now I believe in that principle and if you look back, if anybody looks back on their life, they'll see, I had a choice to make that day, and I went this way and it led me down that path. And just those small little decisions that you made, but it's important to show up in life, I showed up at that day in Sun Valley, Idaho, and literally it changed my life. It changed the life of the company, the future of the company, based on the Wozniak resume, we were go out and were able to raise money, capital, et cetera, and the company took off and three years later, Public on the New York stock exchange.

Jim: Wow. What a story? Thank you for sharing that. What's one piece of advice, what's the number one if there's something that you can go back and look at, what's the number one piece of advice that you would give to a young CEO right now?

David: I would say to follow up, follow up. That's a really important principle to me. It's so forgotten in this generation. I got the other day I got the nicest note from somebody who was more my age, right my generation probably, and I agreed to do a couple of things for him and he wrote me back a personalized note and put it in an envelope and sent it to me, et cetera, and it was so meaningful to me because he took the time to follow up. I would say that 90% of the people that don't follow up in a meaningful way, be part of that 10% that follow up, you meet somebody at a church event, you talk about business a little bit or a soccer stadium or wherever it might be a concert, get their name, get their address, get their, you know, iPhone number, whatever it might be, but follow up within 24 to 48 hours, otherwise you are gonna be forgotten. So I would say the principle of follow up and follow up in a meaningful way.

Jim: That's a great advice. If you were, let's go back 40 years, you've been in business for a very long time. Let's go back to, you know, 40 years ago, what would you do differently?

David: Well, for me personally, I probably wouldn't have ever gone to law school now going to law school, I had a great education, it taught me to think like a lawyer, which is to say you're able to kind of hone in on what really matters, and I would say, that principal has been so important in my business career. So I love law school for that, I was a practicing lawyer for 25 years, but I love the business side of things, I love to connect people to opportunities, et cetera. And so I probably just would've gotten my master's degree now, I eventually did get a master's of business from Pepperdine, but, you know, I would say that’s the one thing be, be certain of what you're doing, I would say the other thing is I would've gone and taken those computer science classes, I remember when I was a freshman at BYU, I signed up for a computer science class and I went in the first day I went, whoa, this seems really complex, you know? I actually walked out of that class, I never took the class, but having now I've accumulated a lot of technical information over the last 40 years, but I'm not a computer programmer, I'm not a deep techi, and so, but having that, when I look at resumes these days, and you know, I see a social marketing person, let's say it's social marketing person, I'm looking for social marketing person right now, so email me if you can help me but so if I look at two resumes of people who claim to be social media, marketers, and someone happened to, you know, have an undergraduate degree in maybe arts and sciences, but also, you know, maybe, or maybe a second degree in computer programming or something like that, I'm always gonna choose that person with a strong technical background because that's our world today.

Jim: Yeah. That's so true. And you hear that Remote Start Nation, social media. Social marketing, send it David's way.

David: Come find me on LinkedIn, David Bradford and say, hey, you heard me on Jim's podcast and you wanted to connect with me and you have some ideas around social media marketing.

Jim: That's awesome. So what would you do more of going back 40 years? What would you do more of? You talked about those classes.

David: Yeah, I, I kind of live my life. This is a crazy principle that I've developed for myself. I kinda live my life in 20 minute increments and I guess it would've started earlier in that vein. But I kind of naturally was drawn to it cuz maybe I have some, A D D et cetera, but go to a task, and don't spend any more than 20 minutes, whether it's a power app, whether it's your workout, whether it's, you know, you're gonna get bored of something, but you can get a lot done in 20 minute increments, moving your life, going to that business meeting, et cetera, work expands and meetings, expand to fill the amount of time you have to do them in, and so if you allocate 90 minutes for a meeting, it's gonna last 90 minutes, but those last, that last hour, you're not gonna get a lot done, I'll be honest, hit the key points. Get in, get out, move on, execute.

Jim: So let me ask you this because I have a little, I guess you could say some, A D D myself. I love the principle that you're talking about in 20 minute increments and trying to time box your time there. What do you do when you get to the end of your 20 minutes of a project and you're not done:

David: Oh, well, listen, there are times when you've gotta stay at a task for longer, you're building the PowerPoint, and you're in that mode, right? But always just take a break, get up, walk in the backyard, that's what I do, I've got a little river that runs through my backyard here, and so, you know, I'll get up for five minutes when we get, I'll go out, I'll look at my garden, I'll look at the river, maybe I'll cast a couple, whatever, take five or 10 minutes to do that, come back in, dive back into the PowerPoint.

Jim: Awesome.

David: Or you know, if in golf, you know, I'll spend 20 minutes on the putting green finish that go to the driving range, hit some balls there et cetera. My workouts last, you know, 20 to 25 minutes. So that seems to work for me. It's not perfect for everybody, but I love the concept of a 20 minute power nap that I'll take in the afternoon.

Jim: Nice. Sign me up for that one too. So do you have a daily routine?

David: Yeah, I pretty much have a daily routine. I get up, I create my list of things to do, here's today's list, it's not very complete, well actually it is pretty complete, we're not gonna do all the stuff that I had to do, but you know, it's contact Sean, meet with Madison, meet with Jim, you know, et cetera. And so I'll allocate my day. I'll spend 20 minutes in the morning to do that, I'll spend 20 minutes reading, now it could be scriptures or the, this is my current read, it's called the metaverse, it's fitting everything, you know, it's great, great read. And so I'll go through and you can see, you know, I'm marking the book up, et cetera, and taking some principles out of it, and so forth. But anyway, so kind of reading, digesting, creating my list of things to do gets me started off on a daily basis, and then I'm able to look back every day and go, oh man, what didn't I do? What did, you know, check those things off, et cetera. And then I wake up the next morning and rinse and repeat.

Jim: Rinse and repeat. Now being a CEO for years, family, I know is very important to you, and I know it's something that, you know, in speaking to other entrepreneurs on this podcast, or just in general in life, and even with myself, you know, work, life, balance is a huge part of my life and trying to keep that in check and I know it is for a lot of other business leaders. Talk to me a little bit about how you're able to keep that work life balance and spend that quality time with your family.

David: You know, as I've observed over time, there are years of our lives where we kind of need to dedicate ourselves to a task or two, and our family is not gonna get the attention it needs. I remember Rex Lee who was Dean of the first BYU law school went on to become president of BYU, but he was number one in his graduating class, at the University of Chicago. Now being a member of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints, also known as the Mormon church, you know, he had church responsibilities, he had a large family at the time, et cetera, but I asked him at one point, you know, Rex, I mean, how did you do it all? And he gave me a very interesting answer that completely surprised me, I did not see it coming. He says, David, there are times and seasons for everything he says for those three years of law school, I was the first one at the law school at 6:00 AM in the morning, I stayed there till midnight every night for essentially three years, I'm sure he took vacations here and there during that time, but he absolutely dedicated himself to being the best lawyer, and guess what? He went on to become the solicitor general of the United States. That's the number one lawyer representing the us government in front of the Supreme court. But that's what dedicating your life at certain points in times have to be and so at those points in times, it's tough and as a startup person, you're starting a new company, it's gonna be all consuming. You wanna succeed at it? Yes. But once you succeed there, then later in life, you have more time for the kids, grandkids, et cetera. So, yeah, I know that's kind of a harder lesson and it's certainly not easy to live it on a day to day basis, but you kind of have to take a longer term view, I guess, is what I'm saying.

Jim: That's that's good advice. Thank you. I appreciate that. You know, one thing before we, before we go, I wanted to talk your current business is in the metaverse. And this is something that is, you know, newer, as far as I think a lot of young entrepreneurs know of, or it's not as well known yet. Talk to talk to me a little bit for business owners out there, what do we need to know about the metaverse and about getting our businesses in line with it and what can you tell that can help us?

David:  Well, thanks Jim, for that question. I think when most people these days hear the word metaverse, they don't know quite how to grasp it but it's gonna be a very simple concept, all the metaverse is having 3d characters and virtual environments interacting with each other, you know, that would be a broad definition of what the metaverse is. Virtual characters, virtual environments, simulations, et cetera. And how that then translates into a business, you know, could be a variety of things. But I think we all need to get educated on the metaverse because it is according to many experts, the next great computing and networking platform, we remember 1994, ‘95. I do when the internet was erupting and we didn't know what it would look like at. We heard of websites and then how would they be connected and so forth, and now we're going through the same thing with the metaverse is, gosh, what's that gonna look like? Is there gonna be interoperability among network metaverses, for example, if you're in meta and you want to go to roadblocks or you want to go to Microsoft's metaverse are you gonna be able to teleport your character or avatar into other 3d world, and retain your same personality and retain your same clothing and so forth. It's starting, you know, to blow your mind. Interoperability of the metaverse is gonna be a big deal. But I would say get educated on it because just like the internet was 25 years ago, the metaverse is going to be the next great computing platform. In fact, Bill Gates, Bill Gates said in a pot or in his written journal or whatever he does online, back in December of 2021, so about nine months ago, he wrote that in two or three years, every online meeting would be taking place in the metaverse. Think of that.

Jim: That's, huge.

David: Not a dumb guy. And when you've got companies, the size of Facebook and Microsoft kind of reorientating their businesses around the metaverse, these are the smartest tech people in the world. They know a little bit about what they're talking about. You better be listening and you better figure out how your business can play in the metaverse

Jim: And talk to me a little bit, o, you know, fluent worlds, one of your brands in the metaverse, you know, to apply that video game technology and into an instructional paradigm, like, to me, it makes sense, it makes so much sense. And especially having, you know, my daughter's 12 she's, my kids were homeschooled for last two years, as we traveled the country in an RV, like they, everything they did was online and to put themselves in that gaming environment, I feel like it's their opportunity for learning is increased that much higher.

David: Absolutely.

Jim: It seems like you've done that.

David: Well, and that was, hey, listen, Dr. Linda Bradford, my wife's a PhD in an instructional technology, and that was the light bulb moment that she had maybe 12, 15 years ago. Where she says we need to be using video gaming technology for something other than shoot 'em up games. And so rather than having video gaming technology, interfering with instruction, let's put it in a way at the heart of the learning paradigm. And so, and video gaming technology is nothing more than, nor less than the metaverse using a 3d character in a virtual environment and when you immerse yourself in something like language learning or coding or you know, taking a class in web 3.0 or blockchain, et cetera, when you're immersed in those environments, it's gonna be more memorable. My wife once told me, David, our brain is not a word processor. It's an image processor, and so when you're in those virtual reality environments, they become more real and it becomes more engaging, and you can retain a lot more faster. So I would say that's one of the reasons that for utilizing, you know, we call them video gaming technology, but you can call them meta universal technologies or whatever, but the ability to simulate an actual environment, going to fluent worlds wouldn't you much rather be walking through an airport, going through security, learning the word security, learning what an ATM is, et cetera, rather than just seeing a photograph of an airport or a security thing and trying to say the word security. So we immerse people and learning paradigm is much stronger.

Jim: So where can the Remote Start Nation find you had already said reach out on LinkedIn, which I think is huge for that personal connection. What about for your business and other ways that the Remote Start Nation can follow you?

David: Oh gosh. I'm pretty active on Facebook, it's not as active on Insta, but, and then feel free to email me DBradford@3Dmeet.com. That's one of our brands, logos, et cetera. And I'll do my best to respond. Yeah, but I try to make myself available like you reached out and said, hey, yeah, you know, let's do a podcast, etcetera. And I love to teach, I love to interact and so forth, so if I can help. And I've got the time, I'm happy to do it.

Jim: And you did that. You did that today, you taught, the stories, the principles, the lessons, David, I can't take you enough for your time and for sharing that with the Remote Start Nation, I know you have a tight schedule, so I don't want to take up more of your time, but I really do thank you for spending this afternoon with us today.

David:  Jim happy to get to know you and congratulations on what you're doing. And again, I would just encourage all of your listeners out there too, not just be dreamers, but also doers and go out and get that business started and so forth. And my grandson quoted this to me the other day from Cinderella's story. And I actually think it's from babe Ruth. Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.

Jim: Well, you heard it here Remote Start Nation. David, thank you. Remote Start, I hope you've learned as much as I did today and could put some of what David shared with us to work for you from the bottom of my heart. I thank you all for joining us on this journey as we help you to start a business, grow your brand and create your desired lifestyle.

So remember the comment, subscribe and more importantly, share this episode with anyone within your community, who you think could learn from what you heard here today. Until next time as David said, go start something, be a doer, get it done today, go build the lifestyle you desire and take action.

Thank you Remote Start Nation. See you next time.