Ray McKenzie, founder and managing director of Red Beach Advisors, shares his journey from corporate to entrepreneurship. He started his consulting firm in 2015, focusing on go-to-market strategy and operational efficiency for Fortune 1000 companies in cybersecurity and cloud computing. Later, he founded Starting Point, a workflow management and automation platform for professional services companies. Ray emphasizes the importance of building and maintaining relationships, leveraging your corporate network, and utilizing referrals to acquire clients.

He also discusses the need for a centralized system to manage projects and communication, which led to the creation of Starting Point. Starting Point is a workflow management platform that allows teams, clients, and administrators to log in and see everything in one place. It offers features such as lead management, AI-powered proposal development, client onboarding, engagement management, file management, performance tracking, and invoicing.

The platform was initially built for internal use by Red Beach Advisors but gained traction when shared with professionals in the consulting industry. The development of Starting Point was driven by the need to solve the challenge of scattered information and lack of visibility in managing projects and client relationships.

Links

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondmckenzie/

Website: https://www.redbeachadvisors.com/

Website: www.startingpoint.ai

Takeaways

• Building and maintaining relationships is crucial for business success.
• Leverage your corporate network and referrals to acquire clients.
• A centralized system for project management and communication is essential.
• Starting a business while still working full-time can be a viable option, depending on individual circumstances. Starting Point is a comprehensive workflow management platform designed for professional services and shared services organizations.
• The platform allows teams, clients, and administrators to have visibility and access to all relevant information in one place.
• Starting Point offers features such as lead management, AI-powered proposal development, client onboarding, engagement management, file management, performance tracking, and invoicing.
• The platform was initially built for internal use by Red Beach Advisors but gained popularity when shared with professionals in the consulting industry.

Sound Bites

• "The people you're working with when you're 23, 25, 27, 29, fast forward 20 years, those are the people who are the VPs, the SVPs, the CEOs, the board directors of major companies."
• "These people are inherently receiving a community or a workforce bench of people and resources that they can use."
• "I just found myself not really having a great grasp as to everything that was going on."
• "It's a workflow management platform that allows your team to log in and see everything, your client able to log in and see everything."
• "I started showing it to people in professional services, consulting firms, people in my network. And as I started showing it to people in my network, they were like, hey, this is something we could use."
• "It's ideally meant to just be simple for people to be able to use."

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Catching Up

02:35 Transitioning from Corporate to Consulting

06:37 Managing Clients and Starting Red Beach Advisors

09:55 Starting a Business While Working Full-Time

16:16 The Inspiration Behind Starting Point

20:00 Introduction to Starting Point

29:02 Features and Benefits of Starting Point

31:36 Addressing the Challenge of Service Delivery

35:34 Advice for Transitioning from Corporate to Solo

Hey Ray, welcome back to the Corporate Escapee Podcast.

All right, how's it going, Brett? How you been, man?

I'm doing all right. We were just joking offline a little bit, but it's been almost three years since you were on the podcast originally, 140 episodes ago.

No, mean, I'm surprised time flew that fast. Congratulations to you in terms of number of episodes and good to see the success happening of the podcast and definitely the group overall and the community.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And so it's a perfect timing, right? The last time we were talking about you had just launched starting point a software company coming out of your, your you had built a solo what started out as a solo consulting coming out of corporate wouldn't even talk about your escapee journey last time because that wasn't even on my mind yet. It was really about the company. So I'm like, man, with you launching your new CRM product, I'm like, man, it's a perfect time to get you back and, know,

kind of share your story because again, one of the things, my goal with this podcast is just show people what's possible. So if you're sitting in corporate, there's just not one path. One, you stay in corporate, which you can absolutely do, but there's so many other ideas. So that's why I'm happy to have you back. We get a full update on what you've been doing with the software company and you'll go from there. So maybe a good starting point is.

just share with the audience a little bit of what you're working on now. Are you still doing the consulting and still doing the software? Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. background Ray McKenzie, based in Redondo Beach, California. Kind of I am the founder and managing director of Red Beach Advisors. Red Beach Advisors is a management consulting firm focused on go -to -market strategy and operational efficiency for Fortune 1000 companies, specifically in cybersecurity and cloud computing. But we also still also work with some SMB mid -market cybersecurity and cloud computing companies, but that's kind of the specialty.

in that area. So go to market strategy and operational efficiency. Then, you know, I'm also the founder and CEO of Starting Point. Starting Point, can find this at www .startingpoint .ai. It's a workflow management and automation platform for professional services, companies, firms, consultants, fractional executives, and to a certain extent, shared services groups within enterprise companies. And so that's kind of the background.

You know, and one led into the, we found one and the one led into the other. And so now we have both. And so that's why I'm here. So thanks for having me on.

Yeah, it's great. It's a great story. And yeah, in case you didn't have enough to do so we'll see if you can start a services company on top of this when you're done. anyway, all right, so let's go back. How long you've been out at corporate? When did you start the Magic Consulting firm?

Ha ha ha.

Gosh, I started my firm, I went full time with my firm in 2015. So kind of how it happened was I had spent kind of a long career leading services organizations in terms of privately owned tech companies and publicly traded tech companies between San Francisco, Washington, DC. And then I took an opportunity in Los Angeles with a early stage identity and authentication company.

OK.

doing some strategy and service delivery globally for them and leading the global services delivery team for them. So I used to be between Los Angeles, Belgrade, Serbia, Munich, and Frankfurt in London once a month. And so that's anywhere from a seven to 10 day trip. And what kind of led, the story is interesting, is I flew back from a European trip. I decided to take a day off work.

The challenge was, know, so I'll give you a three week span. By going to the office on Monday, I'm in the office Monday through Friday from seven in the morning until maybe six p If I've got to fly to Europe, I've got to fly on Saturday because I'm losing the day. So I get to Belgrade on Sunday.

Yeah.

I get there on Sunday and then I'm there all week for the next week. So now we're on week two, I'm gone, I'm out of the country. I fly back possibly on Saturday or Sunday. And then, you know, when you get back in your jet lag from European trip, you're kind of wiped for a full day. And then maybe I'd get a day with my family and then I'm back in the office from seven to six.

And so out of three weeks, you may possibly have outside of evenings with the family, maybe one day. Okay. And so I flew back from Europe. I decided to take a day off work. I just wanted to kind of take a day off, go to the beach, have lunch, things like that. go out, I'm here in Los Angeles.

I go have lunch with a bunch of strangers because I'm sitting at a restaurant by myself. And there's a lot of people that are outside Tuesday at one o 'clock in Los Angeles for some strange reason. And I don't know where it came from. And so I started having just random conversations with them. And I'm telling them, hey, you know, we're just talking about what do do for a living? What has you out here Tuesday at one o 'clock? And a lot of them were like, hey, you know, we're consultants or we run our own firms or we run our own companies.

And so fast forward, I left lunch saying, hey, eventually I want to start my own firm or my own company. I left there two weeks later, I got calls from two CEOs I knew. And so they needed help with kind of growing and scaling their companies from an operational capacity. And then I started in Red Beach Advisors. And so I did that part time for six months. So I double dipped for six months.

So I had two clients and then I also was working my full -time job. And then eventually I figured out that I liked consulting. I liked solving challenges for people without kind of bureaucracy and red tape. I liked the people I was working with and consulting. So I had the power of choice in terms of who I could work with. And then I could also dictate my schedule. So, you know, my wife and I, have four kids. So scheduling was, is paramount for us.

And so consulting and starting that firm allowed me to do all of those things. Still travel, still work with clients, still work with people I enjoyed solving challenges for people, having impact in organizations. And then I started full time with Red Beach Advisors.

Interesting. Would you recommend, and I've had different perspectives from different folks, starting doing it the way you did, managing two clients while still working full time. I've heard others say that now just cut the strings and go, you know, go start your consulting or your advisory or your fractional practice. I mean, I know there's no right answer. I'm just kind of curious if you would do it differently in hindsight.

I think I, well, I wouldn't change a thing. I wouldn't change a thing for my circumstance. However, if you have, know, say you've got a spouse who can also support the family and things like that, and you can still maintain your livelihood. Maybe you do jump full foot, two feet in and go ahead and start pursuing that dream of doing what you want to do or kind of breaking away from the corporate environment.

However, if you do have more responsibilities, more liabilities that you have to take care of in terms of family, friends, things like that, we all have bills, we all have a livelihood to maintain. I think it just depends on the person, know, and there's really their circumstance. You know, if you've got a six month windfall to say, hey, I can take a chance for six months, I would say go ahead and do it.

Yeah.

However, if you also have a six month windfall, but you've got kids in college, you've got kids in high school, you've got car payments, you've got home payments, you've got things like that, you may need to be a little bit more strategic in how you plan to make that jump.

Yeah, makes sense. how I've got to ask you, how did you manage just your client? Well, let me ask you to rephrase that. So the clients that you picked up while you still working full time, they knew you were still working. So you were, they knew that this was something you were doing on the side to help them out. Cause I do get this question a lot that say, how do I, what does that conversation sound like with a part -time customer that I'm working with? How did you, how was that communication process? And how would, how did you manage that?

Yeah.

Well, I had, I've known them throughout my corporate career. And so kind of the best kind of your immediate best network when you jump and lead corporate is your previous corporate career or your previous network. Like those are your firm, more than likely going to be your first client. And then if you're really good at follow up and talking to them, then opportunities do arise because people move opportunities, move opportunities arise.

Okay.

Yeah.

they're going to be the people that you can talk to and be open with. So for me, when I made that jump, I was always like, hey, just to let you know, I still am working with this other company full time, but I am able to put in this amount of hours per month with you. And so transparency was always the key.

Okay.

good yeah now it makes sense and yeah and there's a will there's way right it's how bad do you want it and right I think that's that's definitely the part of it and so all right so now you're you decide you're gonna both feed in at some point you leave the full -time job or the full -time job leave you just get to the point where you had the confidence and yet the financial runway you knew you could go cut that cut the cord okay

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, it was just kind of the full -time job wasn't what I wasn't what I wanted to do anymore. it, and it, also wasn't, didn't have the trajectory that I thought it was going to have. You know, when I took the chance, it was like, okay, early stage company, let's see how this is going to shake out. think we've got something here.

But then over the course of the 18 months, it was like, this isn't going the direction it needs to go in. And so you start to try to figure out what direction to move in. And so that's what led to just everything starting to cascade and fall in line.

Yeah.

Got it. Yeah. And again, most of almost everybody in our community is Gen X. So we're at the tail end of corporate and what's the exit strategy sometimes in corporate, right? You did it 10 years ago, kind of the head of the curve of most, which is good. I mean, you obviously put the work to do it. So let me just ask you a couple more questions about those early days, because I do get this quite a bit. So I like to hear from others.

Yeah.

First customers, you talked about the ones you had part -time while you were still working. Would you say the majority of your customers came from networking and referrals? How did...

yeah, yeah, corporate network, corporate network. That's kind of all it kind of started with. You know, I mean, I'm by nature a sociable person, so I'm an extrovert. So keeping up with people, keeping good relationships with people, developing relationships with people was always something that I did early in my career, throughout my entire career. Okay, so for the younger listeners,

The people who are just getting into the workplace, the people you're working with when you're 23, 25, 27, 29, fast forward 20 years, those are the people who are the VPs, the SVPs, the CEOs, the board directors of major companies.

So the relationship building you do when you're 23, 25, 27, 29, when we're all in the office, when you're all in cubicles, when you're all going to lunch at the same time, when you're all checking out at the same time, fast forward 20 years, you and or the people you used to work with are those decision makers in businesses going forward.

You know, nobody really taught me that early on. just thought, I'm just have great relationships with people. I'm cool. I'm cool with this person. I'm cool with this person. I'm cool with this person in this department. You know, we have conversations, we do lunch, we're just being sociable. How are you doing? Things like that. But fast forward 15, 20 years, those are those same individuals that are part of your network that you can lean on.

Right.

Yeah, it's such a good point. No, no one ever did teach us because in corporate it was really, well, maybe they help you find the next job or if you're looking for staff or somebody for a team that was there now, but we're thinking, all right, how do I leverage this corporate network to go find my customers and those things? as you were saying that I'm thinking back to, kind of transitioned industries after the first six years. So I kind of had a late start, but all those early folks, right, as we were managers and frontline people, I'm still

Yeah.

Hmm?

friends with a lot of those folks or at least networking that we can get together and talk about those things. So yeah, leverage that network. Start early. That's what I tell my three daughters all the time and just invest now. But even if you've been in corporate for 20 to 30 years, you've built up a network you may just have forgot all these different folks that are there and just reach out and connect with them.

Yep, Starter.

Yeah.

I mean, granted, I think when we were, you know, obviously in corporate life, when we started out, there wasn't a LinkedIn. You know, like we literally had what we used to call a Rolodex. You know, cell phones, Rolodexes, Blackberries, things like that. And then you have this thing called LinkedIn, which obviously changed how everybody did kind of corporate networking and tracking people movement. But we didn't have that early on.

No, true.

Yes.

But one thing I would say was that the early customers of mine were all from previous relationships, know, corporate relationships, things like that. And then as I got further into kind of consulting and building my firm, it developed into partner relationships, which is, you know, working with other firms to complete objectives.

Yes.

So if I knew of another consulting agency that was out there that needed help, I would reach out to that CEO or CEO or that point of contact I knew and say, hey, if you need help, I'm available. And then it goes the opposite way as well, which is when I had work or developed some work, I can lean on this bench of people that I could work with.

And I think that's one of the strengths of your community, which is, you know, these people are inherently receiving a community or a workforce bench of people and resources that they can use.

Yes, no, that's a really good point. you know, thinking back even through my four plus year journey as the solo, when I started consulting, was all my first customers were former corporate contacts. They were at new companies and they needed help in certain areas. And then even when I got my first fractional leadership role,

It was through a referral of somebody that same thing. was at capacity, needed some help and we had a connection. So I was brought in to kind of fill in, not even fill in, just help him where he had it. So I do, I think you're right. And that's what we're trying to get to with this community is leverage each other's networks, right? It's just not one person's network. You get to know five, 10 people, whatever that is. All of a sudden you get 10 networks that you can work with you.

Give and take, right?

Yeah, definitely, definitely.

Awesome. All right, so now you're consulting. If that's not enough, you built that, you got that going really well. What made you decide, hey, I got to start a software company?

Yeah. So let's see. I always look back on my corporate career and the one thing we always used to do in the services industry was well in services and tech was on Mondays, you know, my, my VP or my manager at the time or whomever, eventually it became me would ask people, Hey, give me a list of everything you did Monday and give me a list of everything you did Friday. And then if we

had any sort of vacations or people were out because they were sick or things like that. We'd have to sit in the conference room, do a brain dump as to everything that's going on, updates on everything, where things were supposed to go next, all of those items. And then pile that on top of having to use five to eight different applications across just myself to support one client.

Then I've got a bench of consultants who were working on engagements who were also using sometimes the same five to eight different applications, but sometimes they're using one offs here, one offs here, storing files here, keeping emails here, things like that. And for me as the owner of my firm, I just found myself not really having a great grasp as to everything that was going on. So, you know, I've, I have,

Yeah.

List over here. I've got a project management software over here. I've got calls I've got to make over here. I've got, you know, partners I've got to follow up on over here. I've got files from customers and clients all over the place. And that's just me as one person. And then as I start to work with other consultants on my team, they've got their own systems of doing things in storage places, whether it be Google, bots, Dropbox, OneDrive.

their laptop folders and email and their own way they work. And so I was like, how do I create some sort of application or system or some way to simplify this? And so I did the whole thing with people do, which is, Hey, you buy one application, you start to use one application, you want to integrate it with another application and you want to integrate it with another one. And then next thing know, you have a tech stack of five to eight different applications that somehow need to work together.

And if you're not always technical, it's difficult to maintain. But then on top of that, I wanted to give my clients visibility in terms of what we were working on and what we were doing and give them the ability to track what we were doing, track their performance, one single point of contact for my firm. then COVID hits, start kind of building, kind of coming up with the vision of things that are happening.

You know, understand what I'm building it for. And then, you know, it's just strengthen the use case, which is if Brett, we're working together, you're out for two weeks for vacation. A client calls me who used to work with you. How do I provide support to that client or customer? Now I've got to try to track you down in the Panama Canal, because that's where you're on vacation and ask questions.

Right.

So really, I just wanted to build a single point of contact, single pane of glass for clients to be able to come in and see everything that we were doing for them. But also have one application from my team that allowed them to manage everything end end for clients with workflow inside of it and AI inside of it. And so that's what starting point is. So then started building starting point in 2020, kind of the sketch framework. We kind of launched it initially.

You can manage all of your engagements through frameworks and templates and other inside the platform. You can manage all your clients files in one place. You can manage your track performance management. So, you know, we all have SOWs goals and deliverables. You can track all of that inside the platform and then you can also invoice your clients from the platform if you want to as well. So it's kind of a one stop shop for professional services or shared services organization.

That's awesome. And the intent was really just for you, right? For your internal use. And then you thought, hell, if I got this itch, then somebody else has probably got the same problem that I have, right?

Yeah, I started building it just for Red Beach Advisors, solely for Red Beach Advisors. I didn't think it was gonna be starting point. I didn't think it was going to be another company. I didn't have that vision at first. was just, how do I solve my challenge, which is information and data is everywhere. I can't see it in one view. My team can't see it or track it in one view. And clients have zero visibility in terms of what we're doing.

And so then it just spawned, I started showing it to people in professional services, consulting firms, people in my network. And as I started showing it to people in my network, they were like, hey, this is something we could use. Now, showing it to people in my network also came with the other thing that's free, which is opinions. Opinions are the one thing that are free.

everybody feels a way about something. And so I used all those conversations and even conversations with you to say, Hey, this is something we should add to the platform or this is something, this is a feature we need, or the, it do this? Can it not do this? Things like that. And all of that kind of led into building what is now called starting point.

Yeah, that's fantastic. And just a question for you now, because now you've got kind of two paths from splitting your time, right? Because now you're selling software, but you're still delivering and selling professional services. How are you dividing that up or how have you divided it up? I'm guessing it's still a work in progress as you go through, but.

Yeah.

Yeah, mean, I mean, we obviously on the consulting side, Red Beach Advisors has a lot of firms working on different engagements. You know, I've got consultants that are working on different engagements as well. Sometimes at the request of CEOs or executives, I do work on projects as well. But I do manage my time heavily in between the two. I mean, it's it's definitely still I'm still I like to work.

So it's not really a challenge for me. mean, my schedule is 5 a gym. I'm taking meetings at 630. Take the boys, take my sons to school, taking means at 830. We're working until baseball ends, you know, so it's a full day. So I'm still getting maybe 10, 12 hours of work in per day, which is fine with me. But yeah, it's just a balance every day. It's a different balance every day.

Yeah. And to your point, it's funny, I just had the conversation with somebody this morning. I think he's been out of corporate four or five days. He's like, man, I haven't worked this hard in a long time. He's like, you know what? I like it though, because it's for him, right? It's his thing now. it just, yeah. Like I I've been working super hard as well. It's just different because it's working for you and driving towards your goals and what you're trying to accomplish. it's...

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I'd say, I'd say when you break off and start your own firm, it aligns with your motivations in life. And as long as it aligns with your motivations in life, you wake up wanting to make things happen. You know, when, when people have corporate careers, corporate jobs, sometimes it starts off with what their motivation is in life. Like,

It's awesome.

When I was running in, when I was in corporate, my goal was to be the chief operating officer or CEO of, you know, a global 3000 company. That was my goal. My career path was leading in that direction. However, you have this thing called life and kids and adventures and you understand the value of time sometimes and

you know, that didn't quite always align with my motivation in life. But if you start your own company, it more than likely aligns with that motivation. And so waking up being like, hey, I'm putting in the most hours I've ever put in. I'm waking up at six in the morning. I'm done working at 8 p you know, a few breaks in between. But then you're willing, more than willing to wake up the next day and do it again.

Yeah, no, hundred percent. I tell people it's kind of the, the forest gump moment, right? Because again, in corporate, we're all chasing and climbing that corporate ladder. A lot of the time, that's how we're defined. We ran our life around that corporate climb, but at a different point and everybody hits it at a different point, you just stop, you're not like, I'm tired. I don't want to get to that next level anymore. I'm not, you know, I'm not climbing that ladder. Then all of a sudden you're like, what the hell am I doing in corporate? Right? There is, there's nothing I'm working towards or for, and you're just kind of.

loss, kind of like Forrest Gump when he's running and running and running. one day he just stops and says, I'm going home. I'm tired. I'm going home. And that's when we start to say, all right, what am I going to do? How do I turn this into my dream? And, you know, I think the beauty of it, and again, you were way ahead of the curve on this is the opportunities for corporate folks, especially Gen Xers, they got two decades of experience. There's a lot of companies that need help, right? And if you can be flexible and come up with the different business miles.

Yeah!

Yeah.

consulting, fractional advisory, mentor, teaching, software in your case, the opportunities are there so you don't have to reinvent yourself, it's just how you want to serve and who you want to serve that to. Before we get too far, because I want go back to the platform, because what got us reconnected again was I was telling you that as a solo business owner,

there's nobody out there with kind of an operating system. I call it an operating system. You call it workforce planning, those types of things, but same general idea, right? That there's nothing to manage the business off of because if you look at HubSpot or something, a CRM is fine from a contact management standpoint, but there wasn't a tool that I can manage if I was gonna do, like in my case, at one point I just had five different revenue streams.

Yeah.

How do I manage that? And I told you, I'm running it off of paper, remarkable, and a rocket book, and these types of things. And when I was younger, I could remember a lot of that stuff. Now I'm spending more time searching for. So again, that's part of the reason why I'm excited to dig in, because you've built this with enough flexibility for solo business owners to run. I know it's got more of a consulting tint to it. But again, I think there's a big opportunity for folks.

Yeah.

in this space that the gear towards, cause I still think there's a folks that are serving thing. it's just freelancers, right? And they're working on fiber or they're doing no, this is going to be the workforce or at least half the workforce in three years. So why is nobody building tools for us, right? To, manage and run our, businesses the way they need to be run. So, I don't know where I was going with that tangent other than

Yeah, no, I mean, I think I built the platform and starting point was constructed for a firm to be able to start with one person, but effectively be able to scale to more people. You know, so whether it's one person, whether you're a solo consultant or a fractional executive, you know, you have the ability to manage your business inside the platform.

So that's leads, that's your onboarding or task or calls or things you need to follow up on along with your projects, your frameworks, your templates or how you do the work that you do and then being able to support one to many. So if you're a consultant and you're working with two or three different clients, you have one platform that allows you to do all of that.

If you're a fractional executive, more than likely you're more than a fractional executive for more than just one company. So you may have two to three, four five different companies that you're supporting, all with different initiatives, all with different projects you're working on, all with different communication. And then you're also pursuing other opportunities too. So you need to have systems in place that allow you to do the one to many things in the service of support.

Yeah.

of relationships and delivery of services. That's really what Starting Point was built for. You know, to be able to just take, say, if I have one person in my business, how can I have a tool that allows me to support many customers?

Now it obviously is built for professional services companies and with a consulting frame of mind and workflow inside of it and for fractional executives, consultants or professional services groups. But it could be used across industries. It's ideally, it's just meant to just be simple for people to be able to use.

Yeah, and it makes sense, right? Especially if we're coming out of corporate for 20 years, we've had tools. We may have had too many tools to your point and managed, but we're used to having systems or multiple systems in order to manage those processes. So I'm glad to see it coming back towards simplification of it, right? But again, everything, least historically, I've seen is geared more towards top of the funnel work, right? The CRMs.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

But yet the real work starts with, you know, call it the onboarding, closing the deal, the contract onboarding, and then managing of the client, right? More of the customer portal or lack of a better word, but yet they're weren't, or I haven't found any tools. Again, that's what started our conversation that allows us to manage those types of things. You can modify Salesforce to do it, but it's not built to do that type of thing or HubSpot. So.

Yeah, it's it's one of those things like you mentioned, you know, we run across a ton of different tools that allow us to build demand gen, lead gen, manage leads, follow up on leads, you know, close revenue. That's a big part of business, of course, but also the other 50 % of business is the ability to actually deliver on services. And there weren't a lot of tools out there that help people easily deliver services or manage their business to deliver services.

And that's really where the focus came in was within my consulting firm, my challenge, I, while I, every company has a challenge in terms of closing leads and closing revenue. The challenge was when we did close it, how did we effectively support clients and customers and deliver on the services at a high rate of satisfaction for them? And how can you actually tell that story and measure it? And then also keep up to date on it.

I couldn't find a lot of tools that allowed me to do that. You know, I'd have to go to this spreadsheet over here, this, this tool over here, this checklist over here, this, you know, utilizing notion over here, utilizing SharePoint or Box or Dropbox over here, utilizing HubSpot to try to match it up in terms of sales and revenue and, you know, other tools like that. And said, I just wanted one platform. It was just difficult.

Yeah. Yeah, it's still, it is still difficult, right? Cause you're talking, I'm thinking, I've like, I got my Google forms, paying that Google drive. Then I've also got, Dropbox that I use. And then there's probably three or four other tools that I'm using to manage and they don't integrate. I'm sure I could figure out how to integrate it, but I don't have time to figure out how to integrate it. So, yeah. So I think that's

Yeah, yeah. there's, and don't get me wrong, like there is room and space for multiple applications to be used in specific use cases. You know, like it does make sense to have integrations with tools. The challenge is if you're going to have those integrations, don't overload your text tag. You know, or there's a subset of people out there who,

Sure.

don't need the integrations or high tech integrations. We just don't have the bandwidth to learn them. We don't want to pay additional consultants or contractors to come build a solution. You know, and a lot of companies do do that. They'll go find, you know, a contractor off a Fiverr or Upwork or something like that to build an integration. And then six months later, something changes in the code and then you got to go high, find that person again and continuously update.

The thought is there's an easier way to do more with less.

Yeah, agreed. And as I think I speak for many escapees is I don't want a tech stack. Right? My business isn't complicated to have to have a tech stack, but it almost requires it at times. So, no, this is awesome. So I have to ask you, are you looking at another revenue stream or is this enough to keep you busy here for awhile?

No, no, no, no, I think, no, think probably my next revenue stream is getting these kids out the house.

You're a little bit behind me and I can tell you it's awfully freeing. I've got two weddings somewhere in front of me not too far in the distant future, but sure that the college payments are now done. Yeah, that's 100 % right.

Good job, congratulations to him. But yeah, I think that's my revenue. That's my next revenue stream. But no, think right now, obviously the growth of starting point is big. We're having some massive success in the growth of the platform, the polish of the platform and its usefulness for different professional services individuals. And then obviously Red Beach advisors, we're continuing to work with.

you know, some great companies, great brands in cybersecurity and cloud computing and some other industries. So, you know, I think that's kind of it for right now. I think that's kind of all the time I have.

Yeah, no, that's awesome. And I know we flew by in this time. So any advice for folks that are listening out there that are still in corporate and thinking about are ready to do something else but not quite there? What's your best advice for folks to?

I would always say evaluate your level of risk for leaving the corporate environment. So if you're going to jump full -fledged and go into it, make sure you have the ability to sustain your lifestyle. If you're going to try to do some outside consulting work while you're working full -time.

You know, try to find a couple of clients that can sustain you and help you work through the rough patches of refining what your offering is going to be. I also say sometimes the market is going to dictate what services they want from you. So a lot of consultants or a fractional executives get into the market and they're like, we know this company. I know this industry. This is what people want to buy. This is what people need. Things like that.

Sometimes you need to ask the market and let the market dictate what you're Okay. And, and, and be open to that, those changes too. Another point is be vulnerable, which is share it with people in your network and be willing to take feedback. I think that's important because you just jumping out on your own.

It can be risky. It is definitely lonely. But share it with people because by the more you talk about it, the more other people can talk about it. And by them talking about it, they may lead you to people, introductions, things of that nature that you would have never even thought about. I also say, you know, just be prepared to work through the long hours.

That's it. mean, enjoy what you do. If you don't enjoy it, you know, don't do it. And I mentioned this before is make sure what you're doing aligns with your motivation in life. You know, like if you want to, you know, build a career where you're living in, you know, the coast of, you know, Mexico, build a life that allows you to do that and then work hard to get that. But also,

If you're not willing to work, it's not going to happen.

Yeah, so I tell people it's not easy, right? But you're working for yourself and there's no easy path. yeah, I've yet to really meet anyone that hasn't crossed over, that hasn't found it worthwhile, right? They don't want to go back, right? It's just, you've been doing it for so long. And again, if you want to work that corporate career, the challenge is as you get in your 50s,

Yeah.

At some point you're just not going get another job as good as you are and as strong as you are, it's going to get harder and harder to find that right position. So even if you don't necessarily want to go solo, it's not a bad backup. The other thing I tell people, it's not, if they think the golf from.

Yeah, definitely.

know, corporate to solo is, you know, you know, worldwide, but it's really, it's not that far. And a lot of the skills you have are already there. It's just, you know, I tell people getting comfortable being uncomfortable for awhile is the biggest thing. Cause corporate's comfortable. We may hate it. We may not like what we're doing, but it's comfortable because we know what we're doing. Right.

Yep. Exactly. Exactly. And the challenge just comes when, you know, the layoffs happen. You're forced to be uncomfortable instead of choosing to be uncomfortable. And that's the struggle for a lot of people. You know, I think, you know, a lot of people are sometimes forced to go out on their own, you know, versus doing the preparation and just being like, hey, you know, I've got a website up.

Yeah.

think that's fine.

I've got some services I can offer, you know, and maybe you don't have to promote it, but at least it's there and it's ready to go.

Yeah, yeah. What did I always say? Plan for the worst, but hope for the best. That's all you can do. All right, Ray, really, really appreciate your time. And if people do want to connect with you, I'll put all this in the show notes. What's, the best place to connect with you, two, where can they check out the platform, all the goodies.

Yep, always, always.

Yeah, definitely. to connect with me, probably the best way, even though LinkedIn is not always the smoothest way to send messages, LinkedIn is probably the best way you could find me. So Raymond McKenzie or Ray McKenzie, you'll see me on there. Don't confuse me with my son, Ray McKenzie Jr., who's also on there, but Ray McKenzie. And then to learn more about Starting Point, www .startingpoint .ai.

Feel free check out the website, sign up for a trial. We can set up a demo, show you the platform, looking forward to that. And then also Red Beach Advisors, www .redbeachadvisors .com. That's my consulting firm that kind of built from ground up that started kind of this whole journey. So, looking forward check it all out and looking forward to meeting everybody. Feel free to reach out. I love to talk to people.

I love to just have conversations if people want to talk through ideas, I'm always open for it and just willing to be a resource.

Yeah, that's awesome. I appreciate the time. Like I said, you're a great case study for what's possible, right? As you go through this possibly, you didn't know where it was going to take you. And, you know, like I said, everybody hits that different breaking point. So take him up on his offer, check out the software. Again, especially if you're looking for a tool, maybe if you're early on, you're not quite ready for it, but keep it in mind as you start to grow. And yeah, we'll have to do a check back in with you here, Ray, before too long.

Make sure that you haven't started another business on us.

No, we won't wait three years. We'll definitely do six months or so. Check in and kind of give some updates and see how things go.

100%. Really appreciate your time, continued success, and like I said, yeah, we'll check back in with you here much sooner than we did last time.

It sounds good, Brad. Appreciate you.

Thanks, Ray.