Expert Business Advice with Tatsuya Nakagawa

Episode 85 • 10th May 2023 • Construction Disruption • Isaiah Industries

Intro/Outro:

Welcome to the Construction Disruption podcast, where we uncover the future of design, building, and remodeling.

Todd Miller:

Hi, this is Todd Miller with Isaiah Industries and with me today as co-host of Construction Disruption is Ryan Bell. Ryan, how are you doing today?

Ryan Bell:

: 00:00:27

Hey, Todd. I am doing great. How are you?

Todd Miller:

: 00:00:30

I'm doing well also. I have a question for you, though. So what do you call a bear with no teeth?

Ryan Bell:

: 00:00:41

I don't know. I don't know.

Todd Miller:

: 00:00:43

A bear with no teeth. So Ethan here in the studio is nodding his head. He's got it, but he's not miced up. A bear with no teeth is a gummy bear.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:00:51

Oh, geez. I've heard that one. I've heard that one.

Todd Miller:

: 00:00:57

Oh, well, we started with something. So as a reminder to our audience, both Ryan and I and our mystery guest, who is soon to be revealed, have a challenge word today that we have been challenged to work into the conversation at some point. So you, as the audience can be listening for those, see where perhaps we use a word that you're thinking maybe that's a challenge word. And at the end of the show we will reveal whether our challenge words challenge has been successful for each of us or not. Oh, my goodness. That became a cumbersome sentence, didn't it Ryan?

Ryan Bell:

: 00:01:33

Just a little bit.

Todd Miller:

: 00:01:33

Okay, on with the show. Well as today's guest. I'm very excited about this. This is a gentleman I've known for a little while and actually was on one of his podcasts a little bit ago. But today's guest is Tatsuya Nakagawa, known by his many friends and followers and fans as Tats. He is the CEO of Castagra, a roof coatings manufacturer based in Reno, Nevada. He also hosts the Specified Growth and Roofer Reflection podcasts. Tats, welcome to Construction Disruption.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:02:06

Yeah, thank you, Todd. Thank you, Ryan.

Todd Miller:

: 00:02:09

Well, it's good to have you here today. So let's just dig right into some things here. We have a lot of ground to cover today. Can we start out maybe by you telling us a bit about your background and how you ended up founding Castagra?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:02:24

Sure. You know, I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. And I remember when I was ten years old, a friend of mine had a pear tree in their backyard. And I had this idea of, you know, why don't we go take those pears and sell them? So we found this location that was near a bus stop and a convenience store, and we set up this this table. And, you know, these pears are horrible, they're very ugly. And our execution is very, very poor. And we weren't doing very well. But there was a guy and his, I think, girlfriend that came up to our booth just before we were sort of taking things down and said, I love entrepreneurs. And he pulled out a crisp $20 bill and gave it to us. And that was just, to me, $1,000,000. And I was hooked. I love the idea that you can go out there and have an idea and you try something and your execution sucks and your product sucks and you don't know what you're doing, but if you give it a go, you never know what's going to happen. And I've always sort of carried that with me. I had other hobbies and interests, you know, from ten to when I grew up, but it kind of stuck with me and I knew I needed a mentor. You know, back then there wasn't as many cool podcasts like yours or, you know, other sort of online resources which really break down how business is started, so naturally just, I thought a mentor would be good. And a friend of mine introduced me to a guy named Peter Rosen. So he was an inventor type. He invented the Windows Media Player, sold it to Bill Gates, he worked on some early 3D-printing technology. He, you know, invented a steel measurement technology that later partially inspired the MRI. So I was like, I need to work with him for free and I need to learn what I need to learn to just get an idea of how to do this. So that's what I did. And we developed a relationship over the years. I had a company that helped launch different innovations into the market for about ten years, and then I basically, a situation where I wanted a better alignment with the type of things I was doing instead of just promoting any product. And Peter invented something earlier, which is a coating technology by accident, and, and we decided to launch it. So a long-winded story, but basically, you know, that's kind of how it started.

Speaker:

: 00:05:01

Wow. Certainly tells us, don't ignore those people that people introduce us to. That was a pretty meaningful introduction for you. Very cool. Well, so Castagra, you kind of clued us in already. There are roof coatings manufacturer. I'd love to have kind of an overview of your product line and where your products are typically used, how they're used.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:05:24

Sure, absolutely. I think we did originally start in roofing. I think, you know, as many as things the path's never linear when it comes to entrepreneurship. And we had a talented sales executive who's still at the company and is now an owner that had a lot of contacts in the oil and gas space. So, you know, we started to connect us with opportunities and what we started to originally use the technology which Peter accidentally invented, you know, at that point 20 years earlier into coating tanks like petroleum tanks. So talk about a, you know, very specific application, the inside of tanks, not all the inside the bottom third or the bottom ten feet of a tank. Internal tank linings is probably as obscure of an application that you can get.

Todd Miller:

: 00:06:17

Yes.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:06:19

And then it just started from there. It just kind of grew out. Started to work with the top oil and gas companies in the world and then got into water and wastewater because it's drinking water safe and coated up to million-gallon water tanks. And then 2014 hit, which was when the oil prices tanked. And, you know, we saw sales plummet 80% in two months, which, you know, I must imagine is similar to what some of the restaurants were feeling during the start of the pandemic. And we luckily were able to pivot into flooring and then ultimately into roofing based on demand and interest.

Todd Miller:

: 00:07:02

Very interesting. So, I'm kind of curious, do you feel that there are ways in which your products or the technology and what they can do are disruptive to various industries out there and love to hear a little bit about that?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:07:16

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's many different products in the roofing industry and we weren't intending to go into the roofing industry, but we kept getting interest. You know, we were in the flooring space. The decision makers are very similar there. And we started to get things like, Hey, you know, we need a product like yours. There's a gap, the existing products don't cover what you cover. And of course, being in a company over ten years that launch products or evaluate the feasibility of products, you get a little skeptical, right? Because everyone loves their own ideas. Everything is the best in the world. And then you go to the market and the customer doesn't care. So we spent a lot of time trying to validate it and understand the space. And part of things, one of the approaches you can take is just go to the toughest applications or the biggest critics first. Like for us on the market side, it was high-profile projects and professional football stadium, professional baseball. You can't just go in, walk in and win, right? Because when you show up, there's 40 other manufacturers sitting there wanting to win that bid so they can go to a professional football stadium and call it work. And we were able to go through that, through side-by-side tests and win those projects and also going to specifiers and people that have been in the industry for 40 years. They've seen everything and, you know, winning them over. The question was, could we do it? And we were able to do it. And that's kind of how we kind of came in.

Todd Miller:

: 00:08:55

Very interesting. So, yeah, I have to imagine you you've got some strong competition on those projects and you sure want to get it right. Also, as you look at the coatings industry and maybe it's roofing coatings, maybe it's, you know, other markets that you're involved with. Just kind of curious, you know, looking into your crystal ball. Do you think there are some future disruptors coming down the road in that industry? And if so, any dreams on what those could be like? I know, I'll just kinda let you in on one. So this is different than anything you've ever probably dealt with. But in metal roofing, you know, we often talk about and in fact there is some work being done at the university level in this area about the fact that maybe the coatings used on our products could someday be solar collectors so that you wouldn't have to have a different type of solar system on top. But anyway, is there anything that you see coming down the pike that might be a real game changer or or disruptor?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:09:59

Yeah, that's a very good question. I think you're going to continue to see more products that have an emphasis on sustainability and health. I think that, you know, during the pandemic, the awareness around that was very, very high. And also you probably going to see a lot more higher-performance-type coatings that come into the market. Ours is a high performance, one with very, very high adhesion, but you're going to see a lot more high performance ones. And I think a lot of those technologies exist at some level in the marketplace. They usually just end up in the bowels of an R&D department that, you know, that doesn't get support, mainly because, you know, from a finance or big company perspective, there's a huge advantage to holding the market place, you know, the way it is with existing specifications. And there needs to be a certain amount of pain from newer, newer disruptors to be able to unlock those. So I've heard many cases where people that ran these R&D departments quit because they see all these wonderful things that they've acquired or they came up with, never see the light of day, because, you know, it takes a disrupter like yourself, right, to go out and shake up the industry enough to to pressure, you know, these these companies to to make a wholesale change.

Todd Miller:

: 00:11:25

Very interesting. And just so our audience knows, bowels is not one of our challenge words. It would be a great one though, but it was not one of our challenge words. So here we are and, you know, COVID is not too far in our rearview mirror at this point. Were there ways in which COVID impacted your business or industry? Or I guess also even beyond that, do you see ongoing ramifications as a result of COVID that are going to continue to impact our industry or what your business does?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:12:04

Yeah, as I mentioned before, there is a bigger awareness of health, right? Some so the things that are on your roof, you know, emitting VOCs, right. You know, as you know, 90% of the air on commercial buildings comes from the roof. So, you know, when you're cooped up inside, you're thinking a lot more about the quality of the air and the environment, so it certainly has an impact. You know, we took a heartbreak, so we had a hard time when the oil prices crashed, which is bad luck, you know, But one of the things that we we were lucky during the pandemic is that we didn't really have a supply issue. You know, there was other challenges, but I think we didn't have a supply issue because we didn't share many of the ingredients that our competitors were competing for. Like, you know, ours is plant-based and it's use is quite unique. So that and there's less processing involved in that. So our supply chain was very, very solid. I love to think that it was our company's genius in doing that, but it's just we're just very lucky. But I think the overall direction using as you know, the least amount of processed materials is, is a good direction generally. So we hope that trend sort of continues. But that was one of our huge advantages, is we were using materials that were not competed with the other building materials manufacturers. So our lead times were next to nothing.

Todd Miller:

: 00:13:41

That is really fascinating because, you know, our industry, the metal roofing industry, did get caught up in some chemical shortages and things that kind of threw us for a loop there for a while and we still haven't fully recovered from them. So let's go back to that. I kind of forgot about the fact that your coatings are plant-based and means you also have, you know, as you mentioned there, I guess, less processing that has to be done. And that's fascinating. But tell us a little bit more, so it was your original partner was Steve Rosen, you said, who kind of developed the coatings technology and you've just got a lot of different places.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:14:21

Yeah. So Peter, Peter Rosen, he had a friend. This is right now, it's like 30 years back. He had a friend that was in the carpentry trade. And so this like, visualize like late eighties, lots of high-end homes had curved walls. And you know that, picture a curved staircase that you know carpenters have to come in and put baseboards, you know, down the bottom and they'd have to take these wooden pieces and cut them up into Lego-sized pieces and try to reassemble them so they didn't look horrible. It was an absolute nightmare. So, you know, Peter's friends in the trade came to him because he knew he was an inventor and said, Hey, you have to fix this. Like this is a huge problem. And it took Peter about six months, but he came up with something, a molding that was flexible that you can nail into, that you can paint. And for him, this is way before it was trendy, sustainable. And when he created that, he accidentally created a coating, right. Like, you know, like WD 40 or the the microwave or whatever. It's just by accident and being the scientist that he is, he started to coat roofs with it, floors with it, started to do ship decks with it. And you know, he sold a bunch but then he lost interest and just let it sit there for 20 years. So we're just kind of in a unique situation with yeah, there's a lot of people that haven't heard about us, but the coating has been in the field now for 30 years and performing well. So because many times when a manufacturer introduces a new product, especially a chemical product, they'll run it through a battery of, you know, hundreds, you know, hundreds of tests in a lab, right? And then most of the times they'll know ten years if it's going to work. But that's the reality of the situation. So, you know, there's a running joke in the chemical industry is if you want to go broke, get into bridge coatings. And it's just one of those things. It'll take you about 15 years to see if it's going to work right for the market to be receptive to it. So we are in a unique situation where we had 30 years of seeing it. So a lot of times we say that, you know, you heard about us maybe, but but we have this track record just in a unique situation.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:16:53

That's really cool. Do you know more about like, how does one discover that they accidentally made a coating? Like, how was it that he was like, oh, this would be a good coating?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:17:05

Well, you know, that's the funny thing, right? Because the thing is, when people see it, they go, you know, if you hang around creative people, they say, what about this? What about that? We get that all day, right? And as an operating business, if you start to chase all of them, it can. But I think, you know, Peter's started this. He worked in a wooden garage and he's curious, right. Because I've watched him innovate for like, now from being my mentor, he's the business partner still, you know, is over 20 years. And I still don't hundred percent understand how his mind works because, you know, it's not a regular thing when you can just kind of invent stuff. But the best example that I can think when I asked him or the best thing that he's ever said is, It's more like a pile driver or a jackhammer approach. So he does a bunch of research. He has a basic hypothesis in a given general area, and then he just creates a huge amount of trials in that given area quickly and as cheaply as possible. And then just, you know, watches what occurs. So I think coatings was within the wingspan of curiosity and that's how things started.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:18:25

Interesting, makes sense.

Todd Miller:

: 00:18:28

That is, yeah. That is something; that that could be a whole show of its own some point. You know, how do you tap into that?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:18:37

You know when you're a inventor and you're trying to, like you said, disrupt. Sometimes, it's very stressful, right? Like it sounds awesome, but when you're going through, it's stressful, I think, to the point where, you know, you might have to even get therapy because I see a therapist because you have so much on your plate, because, you know, you know, it's kind of that zig zag path to get to that end thing that works, right?

Todd Miller:

: 00:18:59

Certainly is, yeah, very interesting. You kind of think of Thomas Edison and all those guys, too. So let's kind of flip gears here a little bit. Love to talk a little bit about your podcast. You are an incredibly busy guy in your office and on the other side of the microphone. So thank you for switching sides with us this week. But you've got two podcasts, I believe, Specified Growth and Roofer Reflections. Tell us a little bit about what your goals are or who your targeted audiences are, who your typical guests are, that type of thing.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:19:35

Yeah, absolutely. So the Specified podcast mainly started out of a need to to continually sort of find ways to put myself out there and become more comfortable. Like I'm an introvert, you know, all of, you know, 20 some odd years and you know, if you want to push new ideas, if you want to naturally introduce new things, which I have a tendency to like to do, you have to put yourself out there. And it's like a muscle if you stop doing it or if it's a different venue, then, you know, it sort of ceases to be as effective. So part of it was that the other part is I find that the construction industry is very, very complicated in the roofing industry and stuff like that. There's many different decision makers, influencers. Every market is slightly different, right? So one market, the specifiers could be a key, the other market, the contractors can be a key. There's this nuances of it you almost have to create like a a mini launch in any jurisdiction. And I just didn't understand that very well. I wanted to become a better operator and I couldn't go to one person that I felt knew it all. So in order to, you know, have an excuse to talk to all the people that I want to talk to and learn, I started the podcast and that's how it originally started. And it just kind of went from there. And then I realized that I started to talk to, you know, I want to talk to more roofers, but I didn't want to turn into a roofer show because I, I wanted, you know, a broader base there. So I started this one where I was interviewing more roofers. And then I realized the value of telling people or sharing people's stories and dispelling myths within the roofing industry and helping the trade. There was good feedback. So that's kind of how it evolved. When you talk about being busy, I try to view it as, Hey, who are the people I want to connect with? Who are the people I would I would just meet anyways that I want to get to know? And why don't we just record it anyways?

Todd Miller:

: 00:21:50

Very cool. And I have to say, whne, I was on your show. It very much had that feel. We were just sitting down having a conversation, you know, just two folks and yeah, cool stuff. So, you know, one of the things I do know sometimes you dig into a little bit too, is kind of, you know, what what drives people? What is important to them in their businesses? Is there anything that you pick up on as trends that just are real hallmarks of successful businesses? I mean, things that just seem to come up in episode after episode after episode. So like, yeah, that's got to be something we got to pay attention to.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:22:30

Sure. I mean, the the simplest advice I've ever heard is I think, this is a memorable episode. So there's in episode 11 is someone that has been like a very informal mentor here and there over the years, is the guy that sort of helped scale BlackBerry originally. So he built a business from zero to 350 million. It was a computer distribution business. And on the side, he he came in as a founding board member at 100 employees and grow it to 15,000. And I think he's invested in another 150 companies, but no one seems to know him. It's kind of the most, to me, of underrated entrepreneurs. And he goes, Because I interviewed him and like all he did was he just looked at the next size of business. So he when he was at a certain size, he looked at the next size and see what they were doing, take ten ideas, see which two or three worked. And then he just kept doing it over and over. If he had a problem about, yeah, let's say, you know, he was at a 1,000 transactions a day and they needed to move to 10,000 transactions, you'd go to a company that was doing 10,000 transactions a day and looked at what they were doing. Take the ten ideas from different companies, find the two that worked. And I think that's the thing when you're very, very small as an organization that the broad-based ideas work, right? You know, as a leader, you should do this marketing, you should do this. But as your business becomes more nuanced and sophisticated, you get it, you know, as a leader of the organization or the people in the organization, just become the experts in it, right? So, you know, how do you provide more workable ideas to systematically test and work into it? Because no one from the outside is going to be able to come in and just jump in and, you know, lay down a piece of advice that's going to transform everything. You know, your business becomes very nuanced, and Todd, if you look at your business, it has so many different components in it. You know, I talked to a thousand people. I would have no idea what I'm doing in terms of impacting your organization, it's so nuanced. And I think that's the most important thing, is when I talk to these, it's the curiosity, the, you know, ammunition on who maybe we can solve this problem this way that's most valuable opposed to the exact advice, right? Like, you know, no one has the exact path of winning. It's all kind of based on, you know, very nuanced things. But it helps to have a big, broad database of ideas.

Todd Miller:

: 00:25:17

That's very interesting. I love that where you were talking about the gentleman from BlackBerry. You know, look at the next size of business up and make that list of ten things and figure out what you're gonna go after. That's an amazing approach that I never heard of before. So thank you.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:25:35

I love the simplicity in that. Not easy, doesn't mean it's easy, but just the simplicity and that idea.

Todd Miller:

: 00:25:43

Yeah. No, that tickles me. That's good stuff. Very, very neat. Well, we think a lot of our audience members here on the show, Tats, are younger folks who are, you know, just getting started in their careers, in construction or design or maybe manufacturing in some cases. Any just overriding advice you would have for someone who is, you know, young in their career, in their twenties or something, and just trying to figure out this industry?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:26:11

Yeah. I mean, the only thing I can say and this is what's worked for me, so I have no idea if it'll work for them, is when I was running a company that was working with all sorts of different types of products and, things and launching them into, I think roughly about 50 different industries. So I did about 100 different product launches in 50 different industries. So about 70% commercial and stuff like, or consumer. Just the more diversity that you can get, put yourself in to situations or expose you to different mindsets or industries or ideas, I think they'll serve you well. Like you're in construction. But I, I had a foot into either online or technology entrepreneurs, not because I wanted to start a business there or I wanted to do that, is that I always find that the best ideas have always have already existed in some form somewhere else. So if you're just looking, you know, right in your industry, narrow, you know, it's just one step over. You know, there's an idea that you may be able to turn into one of those ten ideas and try and and work in and make the difference. So I always say, if you're starting a career, there's two ways to become an expert. You could spend 20 years grinding on a very, very large topic like, let's say I want to become an expert in marketing. Okay, well, to be recognized as a marketing expert will probably take you about 20 years to really understand marketing and marketing strategies. It's a very difficult area. Yeah, but if you were to get on a brand new platform and become an absolute specialist and run faster than anyone else, it probably take you a year. It'll take you a year to do that. And I did that with LinkedIn. I got on LinkedIn in 2004. This is just before, just when I came out of the technology. So Silicon Valley areas and it's the first million users. It's like hundreds of millions now. And in my area, I was the only one that knew anything about it, but there was interest in it and people would bring me in as speakers and when I do a speech, I'd say, Hey, this is how it works, this is how it benefits me, and then give me your business cards and I'll add you as my contacts and I'll be your resource. And I just I did about 30 or 40 speeches and I'm a horrible speaker like, you know, especially back then. And but they couldn't find anyone better. Women's entrepreneur groups, they couldn't find a woman to present because there was no one. So, you know, one way you can approach things is to go in to an area that has little competition that's new. You're not always going to be right, but to move quickly, fail quickly and to get the results, you can instantly give yourself, you know, a leg up in that area.

Todd Miller:

: 00:29:29

So you have to be bumping up against the 30,000 max connections in LinkedIn, don't you?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:29:36

Well, I try not to approach it as the max connection things, right. Because I think sometimes, you know, people get so stuck on the the numbers. And in most businesses, especially B2B businesses like the next ten good contacts, you know, are huge. I think, Todd, in your business or maybe in your area as well, Ryan. I know you're, you have a startup is you know, if you look at all the contacts with like all the customers you have. Let's say Todd, and you think of, just visualize two or three of the best ones and you think what percentage of those 2 to 3 really good ones, you know, and what that impacts your business. And without fail, it's massive. So why are we focused on the next 100,000? Why don't we just focus on the ten really good ones, right. And using social media as a way to attract and identify the next one, two, three, five, and not think about the 100,000. And just optimizing for that. So not every business works well that way. I think in the consumer products business is more about audience development. I think there's three buckets, right? There's using social media to augment your network and your relationship building. There's the audience building, which is a very narrow path, and basically it's talking about very, very similar topics. And then there's community building, which is more like finding like, you know, let's say 20 like-minded people and then, you know, finding your way to not be the center of it and to cultivate success all around. So I think in the B2B side, it's the most easiest to approach it from a augmenting relationship building and stuff like that, opposed to a peer audience development approach.

Todd Miller:

: 00:31:44

That's great advice. I remember when I was a number of years ago, I was younger. Yeah, we were all younger a number of years ago, weren't we, now that I think about it. But anyway, I remember someone did talk to me about something that they had referred to as Chinese marketing, and the idea was if I could sell to 1% or 1/10 of a percent of all the people in China, you know, this is what would result. And, you know, everyone just always kind of laughs about that because it's just not realistic. But what you just said is is right, focus on that that next ten or that next five that can really move your business.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:32:25

Yeah like another one.,Slightly different version of that. I've heard very well of Airbnb's story which yeah, Brian Chesky had an interview with Reid Hoffman who's the founder of LinkedIn, is the first episode of a show called Master of Scale. And I think this applies to any startup is, instead of trying to get a thousand customers, try to figure out how to make one person happy with your product or service or whatever and after you make one person happy, make two people happy with your product. And when you get to ten, figure what 20% it gets 80% of the results and then start to scale from there, right? Maybe you get your first hundred or something, but like you said, simple but requires discipline and hard work. But just start by making one person ridiculously happy.

Todd Miller:

: 00:33:25

That's good stuff. So. So do you think that that can also be applied? I mean, a lot of our audience members are B2C type customers. You think that can also apply to a B2C business as well?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:33:36

I think when you're validating a business, absolutely. I mean, that's what you do at some point with the B2C one. And I think because of the transaction, volumes are so tight, right? So the average sale is a lot lower on the consumer products side than the B2B side, right? So it's slightly different. You actually have to get very, very good at audience building. So that's the other thing, right? When you look at, you know, an entrepreneur, no one has all the skills, right? When you say someone is an expert in marketing, well marketing has arguably 50 or more different subdisciplines. I've never met anyone that's, you know, better than three or four or two. So within that scope, you know, are your skills in line with the type of business you're trying to operate? You know, consumer product business, you may need to get very, very good at creating high percentage hits on viral content. Or you're good at that, right? Are you good at or are you good at like meeting people face to face and working through like a consultative process and getting a referral and doing that? You have to make sure the business matches your temperament or your sort of core contacts. Like there was that ongoing joke before. I know Todd, you've always liked websites. Is that your website was as good as your closest friend or your contact, right? And how good they were at design. Now web design is more accessible now, but I think that's. It relates, right? If your accounting is good, you probably hired a really good accountant. You're very, very close to someone that takes finance very closely. So evaluating your network around all the functional areas and seeing how close you are to those assessing your skill set and trying to constantly get better or your network more solid around that is just I feel like it's a valuable process.

Todd Miller:

: 00:35:46

Absolutely, good stuff. Well, Tats, this has been great. Very interesting. And we could talk a long time, but we really are close to wrapping up the business end of things. It's been a real pleasure. Is there anything we haven't covered today that you definitely like to get out there for our audience today?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:36:06

I mean. I think, you know, there is a huge opportunity in the construction industry. I mean, it has such a big impact on the economy, the carbon footprint. There's all sorts of opportunities. So, you know, whether it's attracting, you know, great marketers, great technology individuals, you know, people that want to work in the labor force, whatever. I think there's a huge opportunity if you were to go to the tech sector, which has a lot of appeal for the younger generation, it is so heavily competed right here. You have an advantage for about a day, right? It works. People see it. You know, those automatic bots clue in on it and your advantage evaporates. You can take that same idea and then you can apply it to certain parts of the construction industry two or three years and still maintain that advantage. So I think, you know, looking at construction, if you want to make an impact, if you want to, you know, do well, I think that's huge. And, you know, I'm going to do whatever I can to keep promoting the opportunities and trying to highlight the people that are doing awesome things. And I appreciate what you both do because I know, you know, it doesn't, you know, immediately sort of impact your day-to-day. But I think overall, you'll help all of us.

Todd Miller:

: 00:37:42

Yeah. Well, good stuff. You keep up the great work out there. I love what you're doing and this is just been so insightful talking with you today. Well, before we close out, I have to ask you if you're willing to participate in something we call our rapid fire questions. So Tats, these are seven questions, maybe a little serious, maybe a little silly. All you got to do is give an answer to each and our audience understands if you agree to do this, you have no idea what we're about to ask. So, are you up to the challenge?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:38:16

Anything for the cause.

Todd Miller:

: 00:38:17

Anything for the cause, good one. Okay, well, let's go forward. We will alternate asking. You wanna ask the first question, Ryan?

Ryan Bell:

: 00:38:23

Sure. I'd love to. Excuse me. Hopefully I can enunciate this properly, I've got a little tickle in my throat. What product have you bought in a recent memory that has been a disruptor or game-changer for you?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:38:38

I think, I took up pickleball recently, and being a tennis person, I think some of my friends would be disappointed, but I think that's the accessibility of the sport. It's going to change things.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:38:54

I keep seeing a lot of that.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:38:56

I was a hold out, but, you know, it's it's way more participation friendly.

Todd Miller:

: 00:39:01

Yeah, well, we're in a town of about 20,000, and there's another town up the road about ten miles away, about 20,000. Both towns are putting in, you know, paid for pickleball courts at this point, they'll be open this summer, so very cool.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:39:16

I think it's a lesson, though. I mean, tennis is very, very hard to gain a base level of ability. So tthis thing could apply to business. How do you make it easy for people to get started with you? Right. So pickleball is way easier to just have fun with. Tennis takes a lot longer to, you know, be fun and exercise.

Todd Miller:

: 00:39:42

Wow.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:39:43

Okay. I got to ask, what's easier about pickleball than tennis? I've never played pickleball.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:39:49

Ah, well, it's just you just have to make contact. It's like badminton, right? So whereas tennis, you know, there's all sorts of things that can go wrong while you're making contact because that ball flies off the the racket much quicker.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:40:01

Okay.

Todd Miller:

: 00:40:02

That's it, you just make business analogies out of everything. I love this, I love it. Okay, rapid fire, question number two. What part of a business do you think absolutely must be gotten right? In other words, if you're in business and you don't get this right, there's no point in even attempting anything else.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:40:26

Well, you have to make it profitable. Business has three buckets, right? Operations, which is keeping your internal team happy and your customers happy and doing it profitably. So you have to be at least good in one, average in two. So you can't outsource it without being average. So I think that the one that I think I've missed the most is the doing it profitably bucket. You know, I thought all entrepreneurs knew how to do it well and I struggle with this as well. But and, I realized that you know that the financial bucket is the one that commonly is the weakness.

Todd Miller:

: 00:41:03

Yeah, that's one that will drive a company under the quickest, also. Very, I love those three buckets. That's good stuff, good stuff.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:41:12

Next question. What would you like to be remembered for?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:41:16

Wow. Yeah, I know. It's just someone that cared who wanted to make a difference. Mainly, I just wanted to make sure that, you know, I have kids, that I was doing a good thing.

Todd Miller:

: 00:41:27

Good stuff. Next question. What was the first car you ever owned?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:41:33

Well, I had a hand-me-down Dodge Neon, and it was a green one. And when it was icy out, it would slide on the road like a hockey puck, so. And I could picture the green Dodge Neon, no problem.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:41:52

Yep. What is your favorite meal?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:41:58

Wow. I love breakfast. I mean, I'll eat breakfast at night. You know, I don't know why there's that designation, but I love breakfast.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:42:08

So I'm never, I love breakfast food, but I'm not a, I don't eat in the morning. Like I'm not hungry until, like, lunchtime. So we do breakfast for dinner a lot, like at least every other week, if not weekly here.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:42:21

That's what I'm talking about.

Todd Miller:

: 00:42:25

Well, we're going to continue with another food question. Do you prefer the top or bottom half of a bagel?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:42:33

Wow. I didn't know there was a difference. But now that I'm thinking about it, I think it's the doughier. I think it's doughier around the bottom. Is it?

Todd Miller:

: 00:42:42

Yeah, yeah.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:42:42

Yeah, the bottom for sure.

Todd Miller:

: 00:42:44

Interesting. So I'm complete opposite. I eat the bottom first because I enjoy the top the most and I save it for last, so.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:42:53

Got it.

Todd Miller:

: 00:42:54

Good stuff. Okay, we're down to our last question, Ryan.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:42:58

Would you prefer to have to wear bellbottom pants or have your hair styled in a mohawk?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:43:08

I've never worn bellbottom pants, so I'm willing to give that a try.

Todd Miller:

: 00:43:14

That beats out the mohwak, huh.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:43:16

I was hoping you would just say you'd do both.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:43:19

Oh, that was the right answer.

Todd Miller:

: 00:43:22

Whatever, he would draw some business analogy out of it and we'd all be wiser at the end, I have no doubt.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:43:34

I held back.

Todd Miller:

: 00:43:35

Ok, so let's revisit. We were all successful on our challenge words.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:43:43

I was impressed with Ryan's thing. I was just, like, blown away. It's like...

Ryan Bell:

: 00:43:45

I had to get it in there.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:43:47

That's a different level.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:43:47

Todd I think you threw me a layup at the beginning and I missed it.

Todd Miller:

: 00:43:53

No, not intentionally, sorry.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:43:53

Oh, okay. Well, that's all right. But I was like, That would have been the perfect time to sneak it in, sorry.

Todd Miller:

: 00:43:58

I'm not that kind, sorry. So I had the word tickle that I squeezed in. Tats, you had the word, therapist, right?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:44:08

Therapist, I think yeah.

Todd Miller:

: 00:44:09

Got it worked in, and Ryan had?

Ryan Bell:

: 00:44:14

Enunciate.

Todd Miller:

: 00:44:14

You did a great job working it in. No, I don't know. I didn't realize I kind of threw you one at the beginning.

Ryan Bell:

: 00:44:19

I think. I mean, it wasn't like, perfect, but I could have snuck it in there. It's okay.

Todd Miller:

: 00:44:26

Well, this has been great. Very, very much a pleasure Tats, and very eye-opening and just wise. Just a lot of wisdom today. So that's good stuff. So if folks want to get in touch with you or just follow what you're up to, how can they most easily do that?

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:44:42

I mean, I'm on different social media platforms. I'd have to say I'm most active on LinkedIn, so follow or connect through there. Just know, leave messages.

Todd Miller:

: 00:44:53

Oh, yeah. Everyone wants to sell you leads, don't they? Oh, my. Okay, well, thank you again so much. This has been great, really enjoyed it.

Tatsuya Nakagawa:

: 00:45:05

Alright, thank you. Thank you both.

Todd Miller:

: 00:45:07

I will thank our audience, too, for tuning into this episode of Construction Disruption with Tetsuya Nakagawa, known as Tats with Castagra, and he's also host of the specified Growth and Roofer Reflections podcasts. So I encourage you, please watch for future episodes of our podcast. We're always blessed with great guests. Don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts or YouTube, and until the next time we're together. Keep on disrupting. Don't forget to have a positive impact on everyone you encounter. Make them smile, encourage them, simple yet powerful things you can do. God bless and take care. This is Isaiah Industries signing off until the next episode of Construction Disruption.

Todd Miller:

: 00:45:51

Intro/Outro: This podcast is produced by Isaiah Industries, manufacture of specialty metal, roofing and other building products.

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