From Teacher to Tech Visionary with Nathan Plumb
Episode 288 of The Business Development Podcast features an inspiring conversation with Nathan Plumb, Managing Director of Fabled Solutions, an award-winning technology company transforming how businesses approach software development. Nathan shares his incredible journey from teaching across Europe and Asia to leading a fast-growing tech firm in Edmonton. His background in education built the foundation for strong leadership, adaptability, and global perspective—skills that have fueled his success in tech and entrepreneurship. Together, Kelly and Nathan explore how servant leadership, creative problem-solving, and an openness to opportunity can redefine what it means to build and scale in the modern business world.
The discussion dives deep into the evolution of Fabled Solutions, from humble beginnings to becoming a trusted technology partner for companies seeking smarter, more efficient systems. Nathan breaks down the hidden value in custom software, the power of integration over complexity, and why authenticity and trust remain non-negotiable in business today. This episode is a masterclass in leadership, innovation, and embracing the unexpected—proof that with vision, adaptability, and a learner’s mindset, you can truly turn any path into a platform for success.
Key Takeaways:
1. Adaptability can change everything; the ability to pivot opens opportunities you never saw coming.
2. Teaching builds exceptional leadership skills through communication, patience, and planning.
3. Servant leadership drives stronger teams by putting people first and leading from within.
4. The best opportunities appear when you’re ready to say yes; success favors those who stay open.
5. Failure is a teacher, not an ending; every setback brings lessons that prepare you for the next success.
6. Authenticity builds trust; in business, relationships will always outlast transactions.
7. Integration is the future; connecting powerful tools creates better results than any single solution.
8. Investing in technology early helps small businesses compete with giants and scale efficiently.
9. Continuous learning is essential; what worked yesterday won’t guarantee success tomorrow.
10. Build long-term relationships, not quick wins; the best partnerships are built on trust and shared growth.
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Bring your company into the 21st century with Fabled Solutions: https://fabledsolutions.com/
00:00 - Untitled
01:06 - Untitled
01:13 - From Education to Entrepreneurship: Nathan Plumb's Journey
03:14 - The Journey from Education to Technology
09:27 - Planning for the Future: Navigating Life Choices
13:35 - The Importance of Failure in Business
21:23 - Transitioning from Teaching to Tech Entrepreneurship
27:46 - Lessons in Leadership from the Classroom
30:31 - The Transition from Teaching to Business: Embracing Change
34:09 - The Impact of Legacy Software on Modern Business
45:51 - Understanding Value Delivery in Proposals
51:56 - Building Authentic Relationships in Business
53:47 - Introducing Fabled Solutions
58:55 - Trends in Software Development
01:06:34 - The Journey of Self-Improvement in Business Development
How does a schoolteacher become a tech founder leading one of Alberta's most innovative software companies?
Speaker AOn today's episode, we sit down with none other than Nathan Plumb, Managing director of Fabled Solutions, whose journey from education to entrepreneurship shows how curiosity and creativity can build industries from the ground up.
Speaker AStick with us.
Speaker AYou are not going to want to miss this episode.
Speaker BThe great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years.
Speaker BValue is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal.
Speaker BAnd we couldn't agree more.
Speaker BThis is the Business Development Podcast, based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and broadcasting to the world.
Speaker BYou'll get expert business development advice, tips and experiences and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to.
Speaker AGrow business brought to you by Capital.
Speaker BBusiness Development, CapitalBD CA.
Speaker BLet's do it.
Speaker BWelcome to the Business Development Podcast.
Speaker BAnd now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.
Speaker AHello.
Speaker AWelcome to episode 288 of the Business Development Podcast.
Speaker AAnd today it is my absolute pleasure to bring you Nathan Plumb.
Speaker ANathan is the dynamic Managing Director of Fabled Solutions, an award winning technology company revolutionizing web and mobile application development.
Speaker ABorn and raised in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, Nathan's journey has been anything but conventional.
Speaker AAfter earning his Bachelor of Education from the University of Alberta, he spent four transformative years teaching across Europe and Asia, building a foundation of leadership, adaptability and global perspective.
Speaker ATransitioning into technology.
Speaker ANathan's entrepreneurial spirit led him to grow Fabled Solutions from a small team of three to nearly 20, all while fostering innovation and delivering software solutions that consistently exceed client expectations.
Speaker ANathan is more than a tech leader.
Speaker AHe's a visionary who thrives at the intersection of strategy, creativity and execution.
Speaker AWhether managing high stakes custom projects or bridging the gap between clients and developers, his focus is always on creating impactful, results driven solutions.
Speaker AWith a deep passion for growth and an unwavering commitment to excellence, Nathan Plum continues to shape the future of fabled solutions and the broader technology landscape.
Speaker AHis journey is proof that adaptability, vision and determination can transform not only careers, but entire industries.
Speaker ANathan, it's an honor to have you join us today.
Speaker CWow, thanks Kelly.
Speaker CThat was quite the intro.
Speaker CThank you so much.
Speaker AThank you so much.
Speaker AIt's really, really awesome.
Speaker AYou know we connected a while ago and you know, we got to meet, went for coffee and I was immediately intrigued.
Speaker AMan, you've done some stuff and you know, especially that like, interesting jump from education to, I can tell you in like 300 episodes.
Speaker AThat is nothing we have seen yet on this show.
Speaker CYeah, well, maybe not as strange as you as you might first think after you kind of dig into it.
Speaker CAnd education, it gives you some really key skills that actually transfer so well into.
Speaker CInto other industries.
Speaker CAnd I would say if you ever are hiring people and they have teaching as part of their resume, I mean, it should.
Speaker CIt should really spark some interest in you as a.
Speaker CAs a hiring manager, for sure.
Speaker AYes.
Speaker AYes.
Speaker AYou know, I would agree.
Speaker AAnd I would say, like, the further I've gone down, my path, My path really led me into teaching, which honestly was something I never saw coming.
Speaker ABut, dude, I love it.
Speaker ALike, I was born to teach.
Speaker ALike, my passion is like 100% now in training other people how to do BD.
Speaker AI absolutely, absolutely love it.
Speaker ANever saw it coming, but now I totally get it.
Speaker AI know when I was in school, I was like, who in the world would want this teaching job?
Speaker AI was not a great student.
Speaker ABut it's funny now because when I look back, honestly, it's probably one of the most rewarding things I've ever done, Period.
Speaker CFor sure.
Speaker CWell, it's so funny too because, like, why did I get into teaching?
Speaker CAnd I guess it's because I didn't really have a clear idea of what I really truly wanted to do and what I really enjoy.
Speaker CAnd I think, like, that's so, so true for any 18 year old.
Speaker CYou just don't even know what the possibilities are out there.
Speaker CYou just.
Speaker CThere's just not enough understanding of what potential jobs you can fit when you're just coming out of high school.
Speaker CAnd so you go into university and you're trying to, like, take some generalization or generalized courses to get some kind of degree to get you somewhere.
Speaker CAnd for me, it was just.
Speaker CEducation was the quickest way I could find to honestly leave Edmonton at that point.
Speaker CI was also probably very similar to a lot of Edmontonians who grew up in Edmonton.
Speaker CThere's this drive to.
Speaker CTo explore the world a bit.
Speaker CI mean, we're relatively isolated geographically, and I think.
Speaker CI think you want to kind of spread your wings, and teaching was a really good opportunity to do that.
Speaker CI saw a very clear path how that could let me go and explore the world, and it absolutely did.
Speaker CAnd I'll like forever be grateful for that choice I made.
Speaker CI think it was absolutely the right choice at that time in my life.
Speaker CLet me go to England and to China and teach in some really amazing context with some amazing people.
Speaker CAnd yeah, I loved it.
Speaker CI absolutely Loved it.
Speaker AI bet.
Speaker AI bet.
Speaker AAnd, you know, let's like, let's touch back on that a little bit, because I do think, like, education is really weird that way.
Speaker AI don't think that anybody at 18 is even remotely prepared to choose, like, university, what university course they want to do.
Speaker ALike, man.
Speaker AAnd I don't know how you feel about this, but the older I get, I think that people should wait.
Speaker AI think that people almost need that.
Speaker ALike, that, like, life experience.
Speaker ALike when you're 18, I would say graduate and maybe don't rush into university.
Speaker ADon't rush into college.
Speaker AGo and get some life experience, because you don't know what you don't know.
Speaker AAnd I know at 18, you think you know everything, but, dude, there's so much learning that is done between, like, 18 and 25.
Speaker AIt's massive.
Speaker A100.
Speaker CLike, that up to 25 is so critical.
Speaker CIt's so critical.
Speaker CIt's like another life.
Speaker CLike, you look back at your life before 25, it's like, that is another person.
Speaker CThat's another life.
Speaker AThat's right.
Speaker CThere's a risk with that too, though.
Speaker CLike, you don't want to wait and do nothing either.
Speaker CSure.
Speaker CLike, you can't.
Speaker CJust for my kids, like, if they're, like, not going to university, and they have a really good reason because they're like, I'm doing this and this and this, and they have it laid on the.
Speaker CThey explain it to me, and I'm like, okay, I can kind of get behind that.
Speaker CBut if they're just like, I'm just gonna keep living in the basement, that's probably not gonna flood either.
Speaker CSo there's a bit of, like, a pressure to do something, and, like, I felt that too.
Speaker CAnd at the end of the day, I'm very grateful for my university experience.
Speaker CAnd I think I, in some ways lucked out the path I took, because it did again, that being a teacher, I was.
Speaker CI was dropped into some situations where you have to become such a good planner.
Speaker CAnd that's, like, at the core of being good teacher.
Speaker CIt's being organized and knowing how to plan long, medium, and short term.
Speaker CAnd that skillset.
Speaker CIt's what makes me, in my mind, good at what I do today.
Speaker CIt's that ability to organize and plan and execute off of that.
Speaker CYeah, yeah.
Speaker ANo, it's.
Speaker ADude, our kids are gonna be living with us till they're like, 30.
Speaker CI hope not.
Speaker CI hope not.
Speaker AI am not, Like, I'm not even remotely planning to have them gone at this point at the cost of housing in Canada.
Speaker ALike, my God, by the time they're like, you know, 15 years goes by, oh, no, we're in trouble.
Speaker CYeah, that's a whole other situation.
Speaker CThat's a whole other situation for sure.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker ANo, it's.
Speaker AIt's funny, man.
Speaker AI went into business because I didn't know what I wanted to do, and, you know, what turned out to be the perf.
Speaker APerfectly right choice, ironically.
Speaker ABut, you know, I think at the time I was just like, I don't know what.
Speaker AI don't know.
Speaker AI never saw business development being part of my career.
Speaker ATo be honest with you, Nathan, business development wasn't even taught when I went to business school.
Speaker AIt was like, you have sales, you have marketing, you have operations.
Speaker AThis is business.
Speaker ALike, figure it out.
Speaker AAnd it's so funny because I remember being offered my business development job and I had to Google it.
Speaker AWhat is business development?
Speaker ABecause nobody had ever told me.
Speaker ASo I'm this, like, huge believer now that you don't know what's coming.
Speaker AYou can't see the opportunities coming your way.
Speaker ASo it's like, we try so hard to plan everything.
Speaker AWe try so hard to have all the answers.
Speaker AAnd yet, I'll tell you, the best clients I've ever had, the best sponsors I ever had, the best opportunities, like business development, I never saw them coming.
Speaker AThey came out of left field.
Speaker AAnd the cool thing was I was just ready to say, yeah, that sounds awesome.
Speaker ALet's do it.
Speaker CYeah, yeah, yeah, I can relate to that too.
Speaker CLike, maybe we'll get into it a bit later.
Speaker CBut, yeah, you just get some key clients or key people coming into your life at times, and you do just have to jump at those opportunities.
Speaker CAnd it can.
Speaker CIt's funny.
Speaker CAnd I'm sure there's studies done on this, or maybe it's like part of that, like, 80, 20 kind of principle.
Speaker CBut, yeah, like, it seems like my business also kind of takes those.
Speaker CYeah, there's a steady progress always.
Speaker CBut there might be these big leaps that also happen.
Speaker CAnd so at times in our.
Speaker CIn my career, I've had these leaps sort of sparked by these external factors.
Speaker CSo I totally relate to that.
Speaker AYeah, I agree.
Speaker AI agree.
Speaker ASo much of being successful in business is just being around, right?
Speaker AYou have to be around when those leaps come.
Speaker AIt's kind of like, you know, when they teach you about stocks, right?
Speaker AYou want to invest, invest, invest, and just be there, because you don't know when those massive jumps are coming.
Speaker AYou just know eventually they're probably coming.
Speaker AI think business is really the exact same principle.
Speaker ASo much of business is just don't die, be there.
Speaker AShow up that little consistent progress over time.
Speaker ABut you're absolutely right.
Speaker AEvery once in a while something incredible is going to walk through your door that you didn't see coming.
Speaker AThat's going to 10x your business overnight.
Speaker ABut the key is you just have to be there.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CAnd it's, it's an interesting one because you're so right.
Speaker CLike you just have to be part of the game.
Speaker CAnd of course you have to deliver a product that is, is viable.
Speaker CAnd you, your business also has to be viable while you're in that position.
Speaker CYou can't be, you can't be like hemorrhaging money or, or whatever it might be.
Speaker CAnd I can, I can definitely relate to that in a lot of ways too.
Speaker CAnd there's a counter to that too.
Speaker CIt's like, even if you fail totally and you do have to get out, like getting back in is also just staying in there as well.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CI think failures are totally legitimate and totally fine as well.
Speaker CIn that sort of analogy you were making there.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd actually just like the stock market too, like.
Speaker CYeah, you could like bottom out and like you gotta just kind of like.
Speaker ASometimes you lose your money.
Speaker AIt is what it is, man.
Speaker AI don't, I don't even, I don't even wanna admit how much money I've lost investing in stocks before.
Speaker ACOVID Oh my God, we're not even going to go there today.
Speaker AThat's a whole another show.
Speaker AYeah, but no, man, I've had so many incredible entrepreneurs on this show who built back multi million dollar companies from a bankruptcy.
Speaker AIt, it isn't the end unless you make it the end.
Speaker AUnless you say, yeah, I'm never doing that again.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ABut the ones that were brave enough to try it again, most of them came out the other end in a pretty good way.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CI think failure is so important.
Speaker CFailures as a learning experience.
Speaker CAnd this is also something I take back from my teaching career.
Speaker CNot as, not necessarily failures that I experienced as a teacher, but even just teaching children that making mistakes is normal and learning from those mistakes is the most important lesson really.
Speaker CAnd like in business as well, making a mistake is totally fine.
Speaker CWhat did you learn from it?
Speaker CHow can you do better next time?
Speaker CI think Edmonton as a business community, it fosters that idea so well.
Speaker CLike I love Edmonton's business community from the standpoint of failures are so normalized in a positive way and not look back as oh, that person failed a business 10 years ago.
Speaker CWhy would I do business with them now?
Speaker CThat's just not how Edmonton operates.
Speaker CAnd I love that.
Speaker CBy extension Alberta.
Speaker CI think Alberta in general is like that.
Speaker AI think so.
Speaker AI think we got a pat Calgary on the back, too.
Speaker AThey're doing a pretty good job as well.
Speaker CYeah, I think.
Speaker CI think it's an Alberta thing.
Speaker CIt's a western Canadian thing.
Speaker AWe can't alienate our brothers.
Speaker AExcept for in hockey.
Speaker CYeah, I know.
Speaker CCalgary is also very much that same way.
Speaker CLike, it's.
Speaker AThat's right.
Speaker CYeah, we.
Speaker AWe're blessed, man.
Speaker AAnd I talk about it all the time on this show.
Speaker AI am so proud to be part of the Edmonton business community.
Speaker AI can't believe half the stuff that's going on here.
Speaker AWe talked about it when we met, but, like, when I got into this show, I had never really experienced the Edmonton tech sector, so I had like zero, zero exposure to it.
Speaker AIt hadn't really come up.
Speaker AI'd been in industrial work for like my entire career and I got introduced really with this show.
Speaker AAnd my God, the cool stuff that is happening right in Edmonton.
Speaker AThe fact that Edmonton is the fastest growing tech sector in the world, I think is absolutely incredible.
Speaker AAnd I, you know, I wanted to talk to you.
Speaker AI've talked with so many amazing, amazing tech gu companies in the city.
Speaker AI've talked with the cool startup companies like startup TNT who talk about everything going on.
Speaker ABut, you know, what is it?
Speaker AWhat has your experience been working in Edmonton in a tech company?
Speaker ATalk to me about that.
Speaker CI think it's awesome.
Speaker CI think one.
Speaker CIt does really feel like a growing community and the opportunities are everywhere because Edmonton and Alberta, I mean, I think we got to include Alberta as in this whole equation.
Speaker CI mean, Alberta entrepreneurs will always directly influence the Alberta technology sector.
Speaker CAnd so the fact that we have such a strong entrepreneurial spirit and we have these businesses that are not necessarily in tech at the start, but need to utilize tech and not just they.
Speaker CThey've recognized the value in investments in technology.
Speaker CThat is why we're doing so well.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker AYou know, you've been an entrepreneur a long time, so I want you to take us on the journey, man.
Speaker ALike, were you always entrepreneurial, driven, even as a kid?
Speaker ADid you come from an entrepreneurial family?
Speaker ATake me back.
Speaker AWho is Nathan Plum?
Speaker AHow did you end up on this path?
Speaker COh, I mean, my.
Speaker CI think both my parents are very creative in different ways, which is really interesting.
Speaker CI think I got the best of both of those creative sides.
Speaker CMy mother, she's more typically artistically creative.
Speaker CAnd so her, she's more like abstractly creative.
Speaker CAnd whereas my dad, he is technically so creative, if that's not an oxymoron for you.
Speaker CBut I mean, if you've met these kind, like engineers can also be creative, you know what I mean?
Speaker AVery much so.
Speaker CAnd so I come from like two very creative parents.
Speaker CAnd so I would, I would, I would say I've always been a creative person, or at least I like to.
Speaker CI don't.
Speaker CI have an imagination that's pretty, pretty malleable and pretty flexible and that, and that lets me see things, I think really abstractly and also very technically.
Speaker CAnd so that's where I would say I got my.
Speaker CAs a child.
Speaker CYeah, I'd have to think back and you'll probably have to ask my parents more, but I'd say they would, they would say I was creative for sure.
Speaker CFor sure.
Speaker CAnd entrepreneurial.
Speaker CI don't know about that.
Speaker CLike, I wasn't like hustling on the schoolyard kind of thing, but I was definitely creative.
Speaker ASo lead me in.
Speaker AObviously, we know that you eventually went to school for teaching.
Speaker AYou eventually went overseas to teach.
Speaker ATeaching.
Speaker ATalk to me about that experience, man.
Speaker ALike, that's incredible.
Speaker AYou're the first person that I've really had on the show.
Speaker AActually, that's not true.
Speaker AI might have had one other person who went to China to do, to teach English, but the reality is that it's slim.
Speaker AThe amount of people that I've talked to who have, who left Canada to teach is very, very small.
Speaker ATalk to me about that experience.
Speaker AWhat was that like for you again?
Speaker CWonderful experience.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CSo I got my teaching degree, I went to England and I taught in their, their equivalent to their state school, so their public education system.
Speaker CAnd that was again, an incredible wake up call to me just coming out of university.
Speaker CI'm like so young and I'm teaching in a relatively rough environment, honestly, and you just have to find a way to succeed.
Speaker CAnd it was so positive and so wonderful.
Speaker CAnd the kids were as rough as they might have appeared at the start.
Speaker CLike by the end of that two years, it was just so rewarding.
Speaker CAnd from there I used that experience to teach at an international school in Shanghai in China.
Speaker CAnd this school, totally opposite of my experience in England, where in England it's very underfunded, very chaotic, very fend for yourself kind of thing.
Speaker CAnd then in, in my school in Shanghai, it's just like this, this dream school with the international kids that are so well behaved and my class size is like 10 and if you can believe that.
Speaker CAnd my like amount of prep time is, is like significant compared to my teaching time.
Speaker CAnd that was so wonderful because I was actually able to get into some leadership positions.
Speaker CAnd so in, in England I'm just, I'm almost in survival mode where I'm just managing my, my classes myself.
Speaker CBut in China I'm actually able to do department level planning, multi year planning.
Speaker CSo really looking at learning objectives in, in a long term from a long term lens and that was also just super rewarding, super wonderful.
Speaker CAnd at the end of that I was you.
Speaker CIt's funny because I, I mentioned earlier like I chose that career path because I wanted to explore the world and, and see the world and at the end of that time, you know, you have this almost this cognitive dissonance where you're like trying to exist in two places at once and you have your, your current location.
Speaker CBut then you also are still my, My whole family, my.
Speaker CA lot of my really good friends were in Edmonton and it just, I don't know, I wanted to just come home in a way.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd whether that would be permanent or not, I don't know.
Speaker CIt was more of a. I was just ready for a bit of.
Speaker CA bit of that come home and because.
Speaker CAnd I'd seen it with my international colleagues too.
Speaker CThe p. The people who had stayed international for so long, they didn't really go home like they, they were.
Speaker CThey kind of had that.
Speaker CIt's a cut, a cutoff happens at some point for them.
Speaker CAnd I just don't think I was ready to just cut out of my, my Canadian life.
Speaker CSo I came home and I taught for a little bit in, in St. Albert.
Speaker CBut then I had an opportunity with, with Ken and Drew who were the, are also the, the founders of, of my company and they had a little tech startup that they were doing and it's.
Speaker CIf it didn't go anywhere really like we gave it a good run for, for I don't know, like six months to a year.
Speaker CAnd there were some reasons why I didn't go too far.
Speaker CBut from that I don't know how much you want me to get into what the product actually was.
Speaker CBut basically it was like a way to promote small businesses through social media.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CAnd used QR codes.
Speaker CThis was like over 10 years ago.
Speaker CSo like these things I'm saying now.
Speaker AYou'Re like QR codes are pretty high tech.
Speaker A10 years ago.
Speaker CYou know what's funny?
Speaker CIt's so funny.
Speaker C10 years ago they were hated.
Speaker CNobody wanted to do them.
Speaker CIt's so funny.
Speaker CLike, you put out these QR codes and people like, nobody will, nobody's gonna wanna scam.
Speaker CAnd like, it's true.
Speaker CIt was just like nobody wanted to engage with QR codes back then.
Speaker CThe phones didn't even have this automated like scanner, QR code scanner.
Speaker CAnd so you'd have to like download this like QR code scanner.
Speaker CSo yeah, anyway, like, that was like a huge hurdle.
Speaker CAnd then there were, there's some other aspects of like Facebook at the time was the big social media platform and it changed halfway through, like the course of our product.
Speaker CIt changed a few things and it just kind of sewered our, our product at the same time.
Speaker CSo it was not going to go like the.
Speaker CWe saw the writing on the wall and we wrapped up that product.
Speaker CBut the really interesting thing is I was meeting these businesses through the course of me trying to sell this, this product.
Speaker CAnd some of them would be like, ah, yeah, I don't think I could use this thing.
Speaker CBut like, look at this other thing I have.
Speaker CI am using Excel spreadsheets to like, manage my business and I can't, like, I need something else to like manage my inventory or I need something else to manage my, my, like, orders or whatever it might be.
Speaker CAnd it was funny because I was selling this little SaaS product and I started getting business for just application development because there was such a need for that type of product.
Speaker CAnd so, yeah, we wrapped up this SaaS that we were selling and but at the end of it, we forgetting these like great clients for just building custom software and just kind of snowballed from there.
Speaker CWow.
Speaker AWow.
Speaker AI want to lead back into something that you said because I do wonder, like, how that's influenced you as a leader in a perseverance sort of way.
Speaker AYou mentioned that when you taught in London.
Speaker AAnd keep in mind too, you spent what, two years at each location, Right?
Speaker ATwo years in London, two years in China.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker ASo you spent two years there.
Speaker AYou're working with public school kids.
Speaker AYou know, I was a public school kid.
Speaker AWe're not exactly easy on our teachers, man.
Speaker ALike how.
Speaker AOkay, so here's the thing.
Speaker AYou mentioned that during teaching you need to, you still need to accomplish a goal.
Speaker AYou still need to teach some kids, yet they're rough kids.
Speaker AIt's tough.
Speaker AIt's not exactly like they're pumped to learn the subject matter.
Speaker ATalk to me a little bit about what does it take to succeed when essentially your clients are fighting you the whole way?
Speaker AAnd how did that translate into business for you later.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CIt really translates into the leadership style in a few key ways.
Speaker COne, you learn very quickly.
Speaker CLike, you can't lose your cool like these kids.
Speaker CThe only thing these kids are wanting to do is get a reaction of you.
Speaker CYeah, you lose it.
Speaker CYou're done.
Speaker CYou can't lose it once.
Speaker CLike, you're, like.
Speaker CYou can't raise your voice even if you are, like, inside, you're just tearing your hair up.
Speaker CSo that's one.
Speaker CLike, you always have to present calm and like, you are that, like, sturdy.
Speaker CI'm not sure what the best comparison is, but you have to be that you're the rock, you're the mountain.
Speaker CStable factor.
Speaker CYeah, you're the mountain.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CAnd it's so interesting because in.
Speaker CIn England, these kids, they were churning through, like, I think one of my classes had four or five different teachers for.
Speaker CFor English in one.
Speaker CIn one year.
Speaker CLike, the year before I was there, they went through four or five teachers and, like, who knows how many substitutes in that.
Speaker CIn that timeframe as well.
Speaker CAnd so after the first few months, what I realized is they were just like, they were testing me as well.
Speaker CThey're like, when is he going to leave?
Speaker CAnd that was what they.
Speaker CAs soon as they knew, as soon as I told them, I said, I'm not going anywhere.
Speaker CLike, we are in this together.
Speaker CThe behavior stopped, and it was just go time from there.
Speaker CBecause they also have some very key exams at certain points, like the English system, it's much more about, like, assessments and standardized assessments.
Speaker CAnd so as soon as they realized that our goals are aligned.
Speaker CYeah, it was.
Speaker CIt was go time.
Speaker ASo talk to me about.
Speaker ABecause to me, there seems to be some lessons there.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AYou know, a lot of times, if we're lucky in business, our clients are really working with us.
Speaker AI think most of the time, that's the.
Speaker AThat's the synergy that we're hoping for.
Speaker ABut me and you both know there's a lot of hiccups that can happen, especially in a development project.
Speaker CWell, you know, it's funny, though.
Speaker CWait, sorry.
Speaker CI'm gonna correct you on one thing, though.
Speaker CThese kids, they, to me, aren't my clients.
Speaker CThey are my.
Speaker CThey are my team.
Speaker CThey are my work.
Speaker CThey're my staff.
Speaker CThat's the lesson I took from it.
Speaker CSo it's not about.
Speaker CIt's not as much me communicating to them as if they're clients.
Speaker CThey're my staff.
Speaker CThe comparison would be the client in that situation would, in a weird way, be their parents.
Speaker CAnd so the lessons I Learned in how to communicate to their parents.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CWould translate to how I communicate to clients today.
Speaker CBut the way I treated the kids, in a way, they're part of my team.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd so creating that team dynamic is also so critical to my, to the way I want my staff to, to view me and to work with me.
Speaker CIt's not a client.
Speaker CSo I think that's one little correction I'm going to make.
Speaker CThere is like, these kids, they're, they're my staff.
Speaker CAnd that's, that's the leadership I want with my staff.
Speaker APerfect.
Speaker AWell, me and you both know leadership ain't easy.
Speaker AIt takes skill, it takes a leader, somebody who's strong.
Speaker AHow do you unify a whole bunch of unruly kids?
Speaker ABecause I think if we can talk about how do we unify unruly kids, it'll translate fairly well into how do we unify our teams for the business goals that we're trying to accomplish.
Speaker ATalk to me about the lessons you learned on unification.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd I think I still learn those lessons all the time too, with staff as well.
Speaker CBut really it's about, for us, it's this idea of servant leadership is so critical to this.
Speaker CIn teaching as much as in business, you have to demonstrate that you're willing to work as hard, if not harder than your staff.
Speaker CAnd when you're a teacher, you have to show that you're working just as hard as those kids.
Speaker CSo servant leadership, I think was a huge lesson I learned then.
Speaker CAlthough I didn't define it as servant leadership, I had no idea what that concept even meant.
Speaker CIt wasn't until I started to be a business leader that I found that term and it resonated with what I wanted to continue to do.
Speaker ANathan, that's the first time that term has come up on the show.
Speaker ACan you explain it for us?
Speaker COh, yeah, that's interesting.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CI guess because you're more focused on bd, then.
Speaker CYeah, I totally get that.
Speaker CServant leadership, it's basically where the leadership position like you are, you focus on.
Speaker CThe term is a little bit interesting because you're like, of course you're not like doing whatever your team says, but your goal is to ensure that your team is working as best they can.
Speaker CAnd so your goal is to provide that support that your team needs to succeed.
Speaker AEssentially, you know, they can rely on you.
Speaker AYou will be part of the team.
Speaker AYou're not afraid to get your hands dirty.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CSo it's the opposite of like top down leadership style in a way.
Speaker CLike you're trying to be much more integrated into that team.
Speaker CAnd you are giving them the tools they need to succeed, you're giving them the support they need to succeed, you're giving them the structures they need to succeed.
Speaker CAnd so that's what servant leadership is.
Speaker CAnd that's like, the best teachers are that way too.
Speaker CAnd so I think there's a really cool alignment there.
Speaker AYeah, no, absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker AAnd I'm seeing a lot of leadership happening that way now.
Speaker AA lot, A lot more people getting down on the level, getting a little more human.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AWe're getting off our pedestals a little bit and we're integrating with the teams, which I think you're right.
Speaker AIt's like, how can you lead if you're not willing to do the work too?
Speaker AI, I think I've struggled with that.
Speaker CMy whole life, for sure.
Speaker ANathan, take me into today.
Speaker AObviously, a transition happened, a really cool one.
Speaker AYou mentioned before that, you know, you kind of hooked up with some friends, but, like, there wasn't a part of you that was like, business.
Speaker AI never signed up for business.
Speaker AI just wanted to teach.
Speaker ATalk to me about that, about that choice to make that switch.
Speaker AAnd then were there any challenges in making that jump for you?
Speaker AWas it like a massive learning curve or did you feel like you were well prepared for business?
Speaker CI don't know if it was like a well prepared.
Speaker CLike, I. I'm sure the imposter syndrome hit me pretty hard for however many years when I was just starting out.
Speaker CI was, I would say, as you kind of mentioned earlier too, it's like a bit of a timing thing because at that point in my life, I had very little risk.
Speaker CI didn't have a family, I didn't have really anything.
Speaker CI had no assets.
Speaker CI was just back, like, less than a year from overseas.
Speaker CThe risk was super, super small from a.
Speaker CFrom the standpoint of, am I gonna get into trouble here?
Speaker CLike, the worst case scenario is my business ventures failed and I would have to go back to teaching.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CAnd like, is that so?
Speaker CI guess my experience was not this horribly, like, do or die situation.
Speaker CIt was pretty cushioned.
Speaker CAnd that's fine too.
Speaker CI mean, not everyone can have this rags to riches story of it.
Speaker CIt was a relatively smooth entry for me from a risk standpoint.
Speaker CI think from a learning standpoint, of course, it was like, yeah, having to, to learn on the fly was, was really interesting.
Speaker CAnd I'm sure I would change a million things back then if I were to do it all over again.
Speaker AIt's, it's a wake up Call.
Speaker AI think when you realize that you're always learning, right?
Speaker ALike, especially in business now is shifting so fast.
Speaker AI've never seen anything quite like it.
Speaker AYou wait a year, things can be completely different at like just the rate of change in this time.
Speaker AAnd I think, you know, any, any good business person, any good leader realizes, holy crap.
Speaker AI may have been an expert in what I did, but I was only an expert until yesterday, Today and tomorrow is a brand new day.
Speaker AAnd so for me, you know, I mean, I'll say I'm an expert in bd, but really only until yesterday because guess what, things are shifting so quickly that if I don't keep up with it, I'm very quickly going to be left behind.
Speaker AAnd I think we almost have to have that frame shift.
Speaker AThere was a time when I used to think that, oh, when you learned a skill, you learned a skill.
Speaker AIt's like snowboarding, right?
Speaker AYou can snowboard, you know how to snowboard.
Speaker AYou're probably, you could, you could hop back on a bike or a Snowboard, you know, 10 years later and probably still know how to snowboard.
Speaker AWhereas I think leadership business, it really isn't that way.
Speaker AThere's so much learning that is ongoing all the time.
Speaker AUpgrading of skills, new understandings that unless you kind of have that I need to learn or I need to catch up or I need to figure out what's next.
Speaker AYeah, it's tough.
Speaker AIt's like you have to keep learning.
Speaker AThat's, that's the, the secret that I've learned in business thus far.
Speaker COh, for sure.
Speaker CAnd like, for, for me right now, it's when you go from three people to 20 people, it's a huge.
Speaker CThe things you have to learn also are things of necessity that you also wouldn't have wanted to have to think about, like hr, et cetera, like that stuff.
Speaker CNow you're having to learn that side of the business as well.
Speaker CAnd it's just, it never stops.
Speaker CAnd as you say, it's, yeah, you, you can't really take your foot off the gas in terms of, of learning the new things.
Speaker AAnd especially in software development, man.
Speaker ALike, you know, I mean, I don't, I'm no software developer by any means, but I understand that industry is changing very rapidly, very quickly.
Speaker AThere's lots of stuff going on, you know, at least I know from like web development side of things, there's like a completely new way to do websites every couple of years, every five years, at least.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ALike if you have a website from five years ago, it is probably hitting that outdated stage and needs to be looked at and revamped.
Speaker AI imagine that's relatively the same even with apps and software.
Speaker AIs that correct?
Speaker CYeah, I think that is totally correct.
Speaker CI think the biggest thing that people don't realize is just this impact of that problem right now with really large institutional level legacy software products.
Speaker CSo these are companies that are potentially like multi billion dollar companies that are operating on legacy software that is so fundamentals to their business.
Speaker CBut they built this software 20 years ago.
Speaker CYeah, 20.
Speaker CEven more.
Speaker CEven more in some cases.
Speaker CAnd the cost to replace it and the timeline to replace it is so astronomical that it's almost not feasible.
Speaker CAnd like the amount of legacy software infrastructure running right now is insane.
Speaker CAnd because software is changing so fast.
Speaker CYeah, those projects, there's massive projects that I, I'm so curious how, how it happens, how those shifts happen in those really key areas.
Speaker ATo me, if somebody's using a Legacy software from 20 years ago, my God, what is the cost in efficiency?
Speaker CWell, I don't know.
Speaker CMaybe should, maybe should ask some of our, some of our big banks, some of our large, large retailers.
Speaker CYou know, like it's, it's really interesting when you this the.
Speaker CThat's why also there's so much opportunities for entrepreneurs and businesses that, that are at a point where they're ready to take off because they're able to create these systems right now and they're not having to migrate.
Speaker C20 years of chaos.
Speaker CSo that's why you're going to have disruptors happening.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CI don't know how much we want to get into like specifics but like even a company like wealth Simple.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CLike they're able to do things that some of these big institutions aren't able to do because they are able to start from ground one.
Speaker CGround, ground level.
Speaker CThey're not like 20 years behind.
Speaker AWhat does it take?
Speaker AI guess like what are the, what are the indicators that have to happen almost for a company, let's call it a big bank, let's call it a major Canadian bank to make that jump and say holy crap, like okay, I think we need to make this investment, you know, in our 20 year old legacy software.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ALike you almost need somebody who's willing to shake up the boat pretty hard.
Speaker CI'm sure they are and I'm probably not the company to do it either.
Speaker CMy 20 person team is probably not going to get hired by one of the big banks.
Speaker CSo what would it take?
Speaker CMassive investment and some sort of transition plan that is probably pretty intense.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CWhat I'm more interested in is the companies that aren't that big yet but want to maybe get bigger.
Speaker CSo companies that are, maybe they're running just, there's, they just want to expand and they're not able to expand because they're also in some ways facing that same problem.
Speaker CBut theirs is more of they're running their business through Excel or through some sort of simple like Google folder structure or whatever it might be.
Speaker CAnd they're like, we're so busy, we're managing, we're over capacity because we're having to manage all these things through our Excel spreadsheets or we're having to hire more admin people to do their, to do this, this work.
Speaker CThat's what interests me because those have the potential to compete with these big slow entities that are operating off systems that just are not optimal.
Speaker AI love that, I love that.
Speaker AAnd I just have to ask right now because I think there is a massive opportunity for small businesses right now to essentially 10x their position simply by integrating modern day technology.
Speaker AAnd I just wanted to ask you, what advantages are there right now for a small business to take advantage of all the tech that is available today to situate themselves for a better future?
Speaker ALike is it a massive advantage or is it just a small advantage?
Speaker CI think it's a massive advantage because you have these large behemoths that they have to scale usually through, through staffing because their processes are so cumbersome that they need to hire more people.
Speaker CBut if you can have a smaller business that can create some sort of automated digital process and instead of having to hire four people, they maybe have to hire one person and that one person does the same amount of work, they're going to be able to compete so much better.
Speaker CAnd so like I think there's huge opportunity.
Speaker CThey just have to be willing to sort of take that leap.
Speaker AWhere does a business enter into that, that discussion, Nathan?
Speaker AYou know, I think a lot of small businesses, cash is tight.
Speaker AThey're trying to figure out how the hell do I continue to grow but you know, perform my service at the same time.
Speaker AAnd so you and me both know making any type of financial decision at a certain cost percentage in software ain't cheap.
Speaker AIt just is what it is.
Speaker ABusiness development isn't cheap either.
Speaker ASo if you're, if you're kind of taking those leaps, sometimes it can be a hard pill to swallow.
Speaker AHow can they know that they're making a good decision?
Speaker AYou know, what is the indicators that it's time to invest in a Software solution.
Speaker CSo that's.
Speaker CSo a couple of things to unpack there.
Speaker COne is, like, the timing of it.
Speaker CI think they know if they're spending too much time just like, running their business rather than, I don't know, doing like, if they're spending three or four hours doing admin tasks, that's.
Speaker CThere's time.
Speaker CThat is time to switch.
Speaker CAnd I think in terms of when does it or why does it make sense?
Speaker CThe why is because you need to recognize the opportunity for derived value in your business.
Speaker CSo derived value is.
Speaker CIs the difference between derived value and value.
Speaker CNot sure if I need to define this or not, but value can be determined through, like, the investment that's been made into a company.
Speaker CBut derived value is truly the output.
Speaker CAnd so I always operate on derived value being the key for entrepreneurs.
Speaker CSo you have to see that opportunity for an increased derived value.
Speaker CAnd we always look at it through.
Speaker CThere's five ways that you can drive value in a business.
Speaker CThat's.
Speaker CThis is my take.
Speaker CYou have an opportunity to make more money, spend less money, spend less time.
Speaker CYou can improve your brand or reputation.
Speaker CAnd there's.
Speaker CMaybe this is less of a fun one, but you might need to do regulatory or risk compliance.
Speaker CThat's also a form of value, too.
Speaker AShowing value is really hard for pretty much all companies.
Speaker AI would say, like, the biggest struggle that almost any company has is how do we truly show value in our products and services?
Speaker AAnd early on in this show, I actually did a series.
Speaker AI called it Proposal Playbook.
Speaker AAnd I was talking about how can we show value in our proposals?
Speaker AAnd what I kind of came down to, Nathan, you've broken it down into quite a few.
Speaker AI really just kind of separated it into about two.
Speaker AAnd you know, in all fairness, at the time, I was talking more towards services.
Speaker ABut what I kind of said in this was, you need to show a company how you're either going to make them money or save them money with your product or service.
Speaker ABecause these are the two metrics that companies are measuring to make decisions.
Speaker ABecause they need to know if I'm going to invest XYZ in this product and service, that it is going to either save me XYZ or make me back exponentially more than that cost over time.
Speaker AYou know, like I said, I might have simplified it to try to get it through, but, you know, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker CI would say you didn't simplify it.
Speaker CYou sort of just gave a.
Speaker CGave a unit to my five value areas so you can make more money.
Speaker CThat's the easy one because you're going to translate that into dollar a figure.
Speaker CAnd same with spend less money.
Speaker CThat's also dollar figure.
Speaker CBut you can, you can do the same thing for spend less time.
Speaker CThat can translate to a dollar figure as well.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CHowever you want to do it.
Speaker CRegulatory risk compliance.
Speaker CThat can also translate to a dollar figure because if you're not complying with whatever regulation, what are you going to get fined or what's that going to impact?
Speaker CThe improving a brand or reputation.
Speaker CThat's a little bit harder to put into a dollar figure, but at times you can do it.
Speaker CI think most businesses that we deal with, they probably.
Speaker CAnd entrepreneurs, they want to translate everything to a dollar figure.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CSo that totally makes sense.
Speaker CLike what you're.
Speaker CWhat you're proposing.
Speaker CIt totally makes sense.
Speaker CI would say.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CLike 90% of entrepreneurs care about that dollar figure.
Speaker CSometimes maybe presenting.
Speaker CYou might be able to put a step before that though, right.
Speaker CWhich is like this is where you're going to send.
Speaker CSave the money or spend less money or so the time and the compliance and the brand, I think they could fit really nicely into that structure you were talking about.
Speaker AI think it's just a hard lesson learned by anybody in business.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AYou know, I mean, it took me a really long time to get decent at creating proposals that made sense.
Speaker AAnd it's not because I'm an idiot maybe a little bit sometimes, but honestly, I just didn't have enough experience in business to know what matters.
Speaker AIf you can understand what matters to your client and then speak to them in that language, I think a lot of people have way more success.
Speaker AI think most businesses are struggling because it's like their clients are speaking French and they're speaking English and, you know, the translation is not translating.
Speaker AI think a lot of times people create a product, they create a service.
Speaker AThey're like, oh, this product and service is great.
Speaker AThey understand.
Speaker AThey understand why they need it.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker AI don't need to spell it out, but I think most businesses speak in numbers.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ALike we understand dollars and cents, and almost every business decision is made with dollars and cents in mind.
Speaker AIt's just our companies don't operate on goodwill.
Speaker AUnfortunately, many of them don't anyway.
Speaker AAnd so if you can learn to speak to an organization in a language that they understand, your success rate goes up exponentially, for sure.
Speaker CAnd I think that's like, you kind of touched on it really well there.
Speaker CIt's.
Speaker CHow do you sometimes communicate that in a proposal, though?
Speaker CIt's like that's really hard.
Speaker CEspecially when, depending on the proposal you're writing, like, you don't always know the client's not.
Speaker COr the potential customer's not always communicating the full picture to you.
Speaker CBut that's for us anyway.
Speaker CLike, we don't always know where one of these five value opportunities is the customer really looking for, because they might not always want to.
Speaker CWant to reveal that necessarily.
Speaker CBecause the best case scenario is they're like, I am spending four hours of my own time every evening doing work that I don't want to be doing that should be done somewhere else.
Speaker CWell, you can easily figure out the cost of that per year.
Speaker CAnd you can say, well, if we were to automate this process, it would cost 40% of that equivalency.
Speaker CBut sometimes the customer is not always willing to give you their side of that equation.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CAnd so all you're then doing is presenting this cost, and they maybe aren't even aware of that opportunity because they just see that number instead of seeing, oh, but actually, if I do this, I'm going to be saving this much money.
Speaker AYet you've had incredible success with fabled solutions, and you've gotten really, really good at this value proposition process.
Speaker ATalk to me like, what are the secrets here?
Speaker AHow are you able to find a way to communicate the value in a way that the customer is receptive to?
Speaker AYou guys have been incredibly successful with it.
Speaker AWhat is the secret?
Speaker CYeah, I. I guess I haven't unpacked that too much.
Speaker CAgain, I'm.
Speaker AYou're.
Speaker AI.
Speaker CThat's why I'd love to talk to you more and, and go for coffee again with you, because you are so good at BD compared to me.
Speaker CBD is not my forte at all.
Speaker CI think what I always try to do is, is communicate that we are about value delivery, even if we're not able to demonstrate that clear value proposition in their proposal.
Speaker CBecause for whatever reason, we don't have all the.
Speaker CAll the information, but we really want to emphasize we're about value delivery.
Speaker CAnd so in some ways, what I would say is just being honest to that goal is very helpful as well.
Speaker CAnd there's also two sides to value delivery.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker CThere's one which is that value, which is what we just talked about.
Speaker CIt's like, well, what is value?
Speaker CBut then there's also this delivery component as well.
Speaker CAnd so even if you're unable to communicate that value in a really, really nice, clean way because you don't have all the information, you should be able to communicate that delivery.
Speaker CAnd your philosophy on value delivery.
Speaker CAnd so we always do this in all of our proposals.
Speaker CWe explain why or how we deliver that value, not just what the value might be.
Speaker AYeah, like you're being essentially transparent about the process so that there's no confusion.
Speaker CYeah, for sure.
Speaker CAnd, yeah.
Speaker CAnd I think you lay it out there and it resonates with clients as well, even if the numbers aren't always matching exactly what you would want them to be.
Speaker AYou know what?
Speaker AI think one of the big challenges that almost every individual has right now in this digital age is establishing trust ahead of the proposal.
Speaker AI think that's the missing piece.
Speaker AAnd I've talked about it multiple times on this show.
Speaker ANow I'm.
Speaker AI'm working personally to be more out there, more authentic, to be able to share, you know, who is Kelly Kennedy?
Speaker AI'm.
Speaker AI'm taking on the video world a little bit.
Speaker AEven though it scares the bejesus out of me.
Speaker AI'm doing my best to be as authentic as possible.
Speaker AI actually wrote a post a couple weeks ago.
Speaker AI literally put in it, look, ma, no hands.
Speaker AI'm using no AI in this post because I'm trying to be as genuine and authentic as possible.
Speaker AAnd I think we live in this time now where it's kind of a bit of a missing piece, because, you know, don't get me wrong, we all love using AI.
Speaker AAI is incredible.
Speaker AIf I could use AI and create the connection I wanted to create, I would damn well do it, because it's.
Speaker AIt's amazing.
Speaker ABut unfortunately, in a sea of now everybody using AI, you're no longer standing out.
Speaker AYour message is just getting glazed over, because it looks like every other message out there.
Speaker AAnd I think all businesses need to figure out, how can I get back to authenticity?
Speaker AHow can I bring humanity and humanness back into this conversation, back into this relationship?
Speaker ABecause I think we're basically.
Speaker APeople are trying to sell to us before there's any kind of trust established.
Speaker AAnd without that trust, that, like, missing key component, it makes it really, really hard.
Speaker AAnd so I think.
Speaker AAnd I wanted to, like, commend you, actually, because when we met, you were so authentic.
Speaker ALike, you are so trustworthy.
Speaker ALiterally the moment I sat down with you, we had that one meeting.
Speaker AI was like, you know what?
Speaker AI really like Nathan.
Speaker AHe's a good dude.
Speaker AHe's.
Speaker AYou were authentic.
Speaker AYou were honest, you were open.
Speaker AAnd I think that is part of what has made you so successful, because your ability to connect as a person in, like, a trustworthy way is next level.
Speaker CWell, thank you so much for that.
Speaker CAnd I'll go back to it too.
Speaker CI feel that is an Albertan thing.
Speaker CLike I really do feel that way when I interact with like companies that are doing.
Speaker CI don't know, I shouldn't disparage the east too much but like Toronto does things different.
Speaker CThey're about that sale.
Speaker CAnd you can't survive as an Alberta business on a sale, sale, sale.
Speaker CYou need relationships.
Speaker ANot to mention there's.
Speaker CYeah, exactly.
Speaker CLike we don't have the benefit of never.
Speaker CLike we're a small community.
Speaker CYou, Everyone knows everyone really it comes down to that.
Speaker CWhereas in some of these bigger markets you can do whatever you want a hundred times over or even the global market.
Speaker CLike businesses that are trying to get your, like businesses that are approaching you and they're from who knows where.
Speaker CLike there doesn't have to be any trust.
Speaker CThey don't need.
Speaker CThere's no risk to them if they ghost you after the sale.
Speaker CBut here, oh, it's a massive repercussions.
Speaker CLike you, your reputation is so important in Alberta that you have to be authentic.
Speaker AYeah, I would agree and I would actually say that the world is shrinking.
Speaker ASo like I think your reputation at this point, you need to be thinking about it not just in Alberta, but frankly worldwide.
Speaker ABecause I think business, it's going worldwide.
Speaker AYou know, the Internet has shrunk things so much that I can coach in here, I can coach in Thailand, I can coach the United States, I can coach in Australia, I can coach in the uk.
Speaker AThere's no place on planet Earth for the most part that I can't coach as long as there's an Internet connection.
Speaker AAnd I think business in general is going that way.
Speaker AThe reality is you could develop software for any country on earth if they.
Speaker CNeeded it for sure and we'd be happy to.
Speaker CAnd I, I think these, I think this like Alberta value of.
Speaker CAlbertan value of.
Speaker CSeems like I'm just boosting Alberta, the whole podcast.
Speaker CBut that's fine too.
Speaker CYeah, like Albertans are good at that too.
Speaker CLike that's why like that it's.
Speaker CWe're, we understand that importance of a relationship and the projects we do it is.
Speaker CSo it's, it really lends itself to that idea.
Speaker CWe, the first thing we say is we are not looking for a one off sale, we are looking for a relationship.
Speaker CBecause the thing we're going to build for you in a year or after we release it, you're going to want more things on it, you're going to want it to change, you're going to want it to adapt as your business adapts, as the world adapts.
Speaker CAnd we want to be your partner in that whole journey.
Speaker CWe're not here just to give you a product and then say, see you later and.
Speaker CAnd never talk again.
Speaker CLike, we're going to be with you for this whole thing, so be ready for that.
Speaker CMake sure we're.
Speaker CWe're the right one for you to do that, because that's our mindset.
Speaker CYeah, yeah.
Speaker AAnd that's the thing, right?
Speaker ALike, at the end of the day, sure, you guys are creating apps and software and doing amazing things, but really what you're actually doing is solving a massive problem that your customer has, a really big one that's holding their businesses back, that's holding their revenues back.
Speaker ARight.
Speaker ALike, it's funny because we look at the thing you do as the thing, but it's really not.
Speaker AIt's a tool to accomplish a thing.
Speaker CYes.
Speaker CI mean, that's one thing that also probably sets us apart from some competitors, is we are not just programmers.
Speaker CWe are experts in process automation, like value streams.
Speaker CWe understand these things.
Speaker CAnd that's why I also love my job so much, is like, I get to learn about so many interesting businesses, and I've also learned about so many businesses in the last decade that even if you're, I don't know, you're operating in whatever industry, I might be able to suggest things that I've learned from completely different sectors, and it might work so well.
Speaker CSo I think it's really, really interesting how, yes, businesses are all different, but there's also some really interesting similarities that you can.
Speaker CYou can pull on.
Speaker AAbsolutely, absolutely.
Speaker AYeah, you're absolutely correct.
Speaker ALead us into Fabled Solutions.
Speaker AFirst off, amazing name.
Speaker AWe talked about this before.
Speaker AI was a huge fan of the video game Fable.
Speaker CYeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker ASo I love it.
Speaker AI'm automatically there.
Speaker AI'm a bit of a nerd.
Speaker AI got board games behind me.
Speaker AWe're good.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker ABut take me into it, man.
Speaker AFabled Solutions.
Speaker AWhat is it?
Speaker AWho are your ideal customers?
Speaker COkay, so first off, Fable Solutions is actually a new name.
Speaker CWe were previously Poderis Consulting, which was just one of the early products we had built.
Speaker AAnd.
Speaker CAnyway, as a name, Panaris was not great because it's hard to spell.
Speaker CI had to spell it all the time.
Speaker CHard to, like, search all these things.
Speaker CThere's just so many reasons why it just wasn't working.
Speaker CSo we rebranded about two or three years ago.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CAnd changing the name of the company these days is not easy.
Speaker CThere are few Names left, fewer domains left.
Speaker CSo you do have to search long and hard unless you're gonna make up some totally random name.
Speaker CBut again, I wanted something that people could actually spell this time.
Speaker CYeah, yeah.
Speaker CAnyway, so, yeah, Fable Solutions.
Speaker CWhat do we do?
Speaker CWe're.
Speaker CWe build custom custom software, otherwise known as web applications or mobile applications.
Speaker CThe term software and application, they're pretty synonymous.
Speaker CThere are some technical differences, but we'll use the term interchangeably.
Speaker AAmazing.
Speaker ATalk to me about some of the projects you've done.
Speaker ATalk to me about some of the applications you've created.
Speaker CSure.
Speaker CSo we do everything from.
Speaker CSo I guess we have a few different avenues.
Speaker CWe do legacy software replacement.
Speaker CWe can't touch on legacy software.
Speaker CSo we'll go into businesses that have existing software, but that software has hit a wall and they need to update it or get to the next level.
Speaker CSo we'll replace their existing software systems for them, update them, and then give them more of a flexible base to continue development.
Speaker CSo that's one area.
Speaker CThe other would be our.
Speaker CMore of our startup space.
Speaker CSo that's where somebody has no existing software.
Speaker CMaybe they have some Excel spreadsheets or they're just starting a business or they have an idea.
Speaker CWe'll go in and we'll start with a minimum viable product, build and carry on from there, depending on what they need from there.
Speaker CAnd then the third is similar to, similar to both of these, but it'd be more of the software as a service creation.
Speaker CSo we would actually create a software product that the client, that our client would then go and distribute and sell to other people.
Speaker COr essentially they would then license that out and scale it up that way.
Speaker CSo there's the three streams.
Speaker AOkay, okay.
Speaker AAnd like, what are, what does an ideal customer look like?
Speaker ADo you have like an ideal customer profile?
Speaker CWe don't have a specific sector or industry because we've worked in everything from like insurance, group benefits, storage, logistics.
Speaker CSo like it really runs the gamut of our clientele.
Speaker CSo there's no sector or industry that specifically aligns with us.
Speaker CBut what I would say is they all have in common, that the off the shelf just isn't cutting it.
Speaker CThere's, there's.
Speaker CWe like to use the, the comparison.
Speaker CLike maybe you're using off the shelf, but there's like 10% of your business that just won't work in that off the shelf product.
Speaker CAnd that 10% is so critical.
Speaker CSo a lot of that that comes to us where it just.
Speaker CThere is no existing product out there.
Speaker CAnd often these businesses are somewhat niche or have something unique about them that there's not some product that they're able to just purchase a license for.
Speaker AOkay, amazing.
Speaker AI love that because, you know, I mean, I find especially with the software that I've used, it's like that all the time, right?
Speaker AIf you're buying off the shelf software, it might meet the need or it might meet 50% or 80% of the need, but almost there's always a little bit left where like a custom software would make a huge, huge difference.
Speaker AWe talked about it ahead of the show where though you can end up with a custom software where, you know, sure, it's good for five years, 10 years, and then it starts to get outdated.
Speaker ATalk to me a little bit about the, the customer care after the service.
Speaker AIs it possible to then kind of keep that software up to date for them or to modernize it for them as time goes on?
Speaker CYeah, for sure.
Speaker CAnd I mean, it depends also on like the appetite for, of the customer to continue that, that, that process.
Speaker CBut we have clients that have been with us for like 10 years and yeah, their software has to of course update and the platform updates, but these are just incredible systems over the course of like 10 years where you're able to customize over time and it's able to adapt as your business changes.
Speaker CAnd so yeah, I think like the, the, that and also like what I said said earlier too, like we're all about that relationship.
Speaker CThat's what we love to see.
Speaker CI have some clients like they are, they've become friends too.
Speaker CLike we're, we're part of their team and we love that we're recording this.
Speaker AEpisode right now in late 2024.
Speaker AIt's actually releasing at, actually around the same time in 2025.
Speaker ASo we're heading into 2026 at the release of this episode.
Speaker AAnd I know it's hard for you to see that far into the future, but I guess one of the questions that I have for you is are you seeing any new trends in software development come the end of 2024 that you think might still be relevant around the same time, or maybe we're a full swing into them?
Speaker CWell, I think in terms of tech trends, I think the AI is going to plateau a little bit.
Speaker CI think we have this generative AI that is sort of hitting its peak and it's great that we have that, but I think some of the actual machine learning items might be tapering off a little bit in terms of their, their capabilities.
Speaker CThat being said, it's probably going to still be relevant in a year.
Speaker CI think the concept of integration is going to continue to be so critical in a business's software space.
Speaker CSo instead of having one behemoth system that does everything, like some massive ERP system, you're probably going to have the need to tie in multiple systems together.
Speaker CWe're seeing this all the time now.
Speaker CEven like the most common example is like integrating into accounting platforms.
Speaker CWhy build an accounting platform if you have these really viable cloud accounting platforms that everyone's using?
Speaker CSo integration and making integration as seamless and easy as possible I think is going to be super relevant still in one year, if not even more so.
Speaker AI love that.
Speaker AAnd specifically with the ERP side, I've had, you know, experience with ERP using business development software.
Speaker ACRMs specifically.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker AAnd the CRMs in an ERP I've found have always been lackluster and it's almost like they're thrown in as an afterthought.
Speaker AIt's like, oh shit, I need a CRM.
Speaker CYeah, right, totally.
Speaker CAnd like those are actually, it's funny you say that because so there's two, there's two things we rarely build in our applications and that's CRMs and like full scale CRMs, you know, like real often have like some sort of client database, but like a full scale CRM and an accounting portion because those are done really well.
Speaker CThere's a lot of options that are very integration friendly.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd why would we build it for our customer when they're already operating off of QuickBooks Online, for example?
Speaker CLike, yeah, why would we build them that functionality in our system?
Speaker CLike no point.
Speaker CSo we can integrate with them really nicely and it's very seamless.
Speaker CAnd so I think that's one area where our business like we keep finding that we're able to fit these little niches in a business without having to say to them, we're going to replace everything you've got.
Speaker AYeah, yeah, no, I agree, I agree.
Speaker AI'm almost always recommending third party CRMs even to companies are using ERP and I'm like, hey, just use the ERP when they're the client.
Speaker AIn the meantime, use this like high horsepower outsource CRM.
Speaker ATotally.
Speaker CAnd like why not?
Speaker CRight?
Speaker CLike it doesn't make sense to.
Speaker CYeah, so that's, I think that's going to be really relevant in a year, probably even more so.
Speaker CI think that just as systems become better at integrating with each other, we're going to get this much more dynamic flow of, flow of data between a business's systems.
Speaker CSo I guess the business owner, they just have to come to terms with paying multiple licenses or having these different silos and they have to really see the benefit of that.
Speaker AWell, that's the world we live in, right?
Speaker AUnfortunately, that's the world we live in at this point, even for this show.
Speaker AProbably sitting somewhere in the neighborhood of five to 10 subscriptions to produce this show on a regular basis and get every single feature that I want it to have.
Speaker AAnd yeah, none of the like, you know, almost every one of those apps on a certain level has something that another app has.
Speaker ABut there's like one thing they don't have that I still need.
Speaker AAnd so either way I'm paying those damn subscriptions.
Speaker ABut you know, they meet the need.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd that's, that's an interesting thing too because you in your experience here, where there's pain for the business owner in that experience is like where you have to do redundancy, where you are spending.
Speaker CIf you have all these subscription and you have to enter Nathan into all five of them, that's painful.
Speaker CYou know, like it's, it's much nicer when it just flows through or you have one bridge that sort of acts to dis.
Speaker CDistribute that data appropriately.
Speaker AYeah, yeah.
Speaker ABut you know, we have to talk about it though, because the reason that subscription models work so well is, you know, let's take the ERP system in.
Speaker AWhenever you create an all in one solution, there's almost always something that's a little lackluster because that's not the prime thing that that company's great at.
Speaker AI think ERPs are a perfect example of it.
Speaker ASure.
Speaker AOn the outset, something that does everything separ.
Speaker ASounds great, but I think in the actual utilization there's almost always a little bit left to be desired or it's like a jack of all trades, master of none.
Speaker CYeah.
Speaker CAnd I mean that's the risk with like a generic off the shelf ERP system as well.
Speaker AYeah.
Speaker CThat's why like for us, we'll, we will have people that also, ERPs are not cheap either.
Speaker ANo.
Speaker CLike the licensing fees are pretty crazy on those.
Speaker CSo sometimes like you could almost.
Speaker CBecause you have all that bloat.
Speaker CRight.
Speaker CYou're paying for features you don't want.
Speaker CEven if they say you're not like you're still having to offset their cost to have all their other modules.
Speaker CSo sometimes building what you want is able to be as cheap as an expensive ERP license because you're able to get rid of the bloat that's perfect.
Speaker ALet's just lead right into it.
Speaker ANathan, how do people get a hold of you if they potentially want to get a quote on something like that?
Speaker COh, we, we come to our website, give us a call.
Speaker CWe're around.
Speaker CI, I like to be as involved as possible when I'm talking to people for both their ideas, for sure.
Speaker CAnd we have a few other team members that are, are really ready to jump and, and assist on anyone that wants to get in touch.
Speaker CSo, yeah, our, our website, fabled solutions.com.
Speaker Cand yes, send us a message.
Speaker CLove to hear from you.
Speaker AAmazing.
Speaker AAmazing.
Speaker AAnd what's the phone number?
Speaker CBest phone number to reach us at would be 780-702-2583.
Speaker AAmazing.
Speaker AAnd are you on LinkedIn, Nathan?
Speaker CI am on LinkedIn, yes.
Speaker CAm I as active as I should be?
Speaker CProbably not.
Speaker CWe've talked about this before, Kelly.
Speaker CIt's so, it's so hard for me to.
Speaker CYou're doing it so well.
Speaker CLike, you're, as you talked about, like, you're going through the whole process.
Speaker CBut for me, yeah, I am on LinkedIn.
Speaker CYou can message me for sure, but I'm probably not checking it every day as I should.
Speaker AThat's all good, man.
Speaker AThere's always room for improvement, right?
Speaker AWe're learning all the time.
Speaker AI can tell you right now, man, I'm very introverted.
Speaker AI'm probably like, probably.
Speaker AIt's weird that I ended up in bd.
Speaker ALet's just call it that.
Speaker AI had to learn a lot of skills.
Speaker CIt's not so weird though, because you're better at listening and like, listening is so important in BD2, like, knowing when to just let the other person talk.
Speaker CAnd that was a big lesson for me in bd.
Speaker CIt's like I used to just talk, talk.
Speaker CI probably still do too much, but you got just like, okay, no talking.
Speaker CLet them talk.
Speaker CAnd then with that extra information, you can, you can say something actually impactful.
Speaker AYes, I would.
Speaker ANervous talk in the beginning.
Speaker CI can relate, man.
Speaker CYeah, yeah.
Speaker ANo, it's funny, man.
Speaker AAlmost everything on this front, on this like, this out there front for me is work.
Speaker AI'm having to learn it.
Speaker AI'm having to put myself out there.
Speaker AThe podcast almost died on episode three because I was just like, oh, my God, is anybody even to listen to this?
Speaker AOr am I willing to, like, put myself out there on this level or not?
Speaker ARight?
Speaker ABut I did it.
Speaker AWe're now at like 280some episodes in this recording, and if I can do it, so can anybody listening just like, understand that if I can do this, so can every single one of you.
Speaker COh, yeah.
Speaker CAnd I think, like, the podcast is such an example of you set, as you said, like, that authenticity, like, it's so clear when you're, when you're listening to the podcast.
Speaker CIt's just wonderful.
Speaker CLike, there's, it's not a surprise to me that you are at 200 and as you say, like, you're already tracking into probably 2026.
Speaker CThat's amazing.
Speaker CIt's just such an accomplishment, Kelly.
Speaker CI love it.
Speaker AThank you, Nathan.
Speaker AI, I appreciate that greatly.
Speaker AIt's been a, it's been a labor of love for sure.
Speaker AAnd it continues to be.
Speaker AUntil next time.
Speaker AThis has been episode 288 of the Business Development Podcast.
Speaker AWe've been graced with Nathan Plumb, the managing director of Fabled Solutions.
Speaker AIt's been an honor, Nathan.
Speaker CThanks so much, Kelly.
Speaker AUntil next time.
Speaker AWe'll catch you on the flip side.
Speaker BThis has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy.
Speaker BKelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry and founded his own business development firm in 2020.
Speaker BHis passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.
Speaker BThe show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your business development specialists.
Speaker BFor more, we invite you to the website at www.capitalbd.ca.
Speaker Bsee you next time on the Business Development Podcast.