
Your Seat at the Table - Real Conversations on Leadership and Growth
Join hosts Mike Maddock and John Tobin as they delve into authentic stories of leadership, decision-making under pressure, and the invaluable lessons learned along the way. Each episode offers candid conversations with seasoned leaders, exploring the challenges faced, the triumphs celebrated, and the insights gained from real-world experiences. Whether you’re an aspiring leader or a seasoned executive, pull up a chair and find your seat at the table.
Your Seat at the Table - Real Conversations on Leadership and Growth
From Lemonade Stand to Fortune 150: Marty Renkis' Journey
What happens when a natural-born entrepreneur with a "Pied Piper" gift for leading others transitions into corporate America? In this episode of Your Seat at the Table, hosts Mike Maddock and John Tobin talk with serial entrepreneur and technology visionary Marty Renkis.
Marty shares his incredible journey from lemonade stands and selling scrap paper as a kid to founding multiple successful tech companies — including TrainerSoft (sold to Outstart) and Smartvue (acquired by Johnson Controls). He opens up about the exhilarating highs and gut-wrenching lows of startup life, the difficult decisions that shaped his path, and the lessons learned about trust, humility, and teamwork.
Now an executive at a Fortune 150 company, Marty reflects on what it really means to lead at scale: shifting from lone visionary to empowering teams, embracing patience, and learning to whisper ideas instead of shouting them.
About the guest:
Marty Renkis is a serial entrepreneur, innovator, and executive at Johnson Controls. He has led groundbreaking work in e-learning, cloud video surveillance, and smart building technologies — holding a robust patent portfolio and scaling businesses to global impact.
About the hosts:
Mike Maddock is the founder of Flourish Advisory Boards, a public speaker, and a serial entrepreneur known for helping leaders turn big ideas into reality.
John Tobin is the co-founder and Executive President of Slalom Consulting, a global consulting firm helping organizations tackle their most ambitious projects and build cultures of trust and innovation.
Follow for more honest leadership stories and guest insights!#Leadership #Leadership #Culture #FlourishadvisoryBoards #MartyRenkis #MartinRenkis #YourSeatAtTheTable #MikeMaddock #JohnTobin
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no-transcript. Good boss is see how teams work. That you know. That's one thing I've been telling them. But but so you know, for me it's right now I've. I've learned and this took me a years, I mean a long time how to say I've got a great idea. Now I whisper I've got a great idea. Now I whisper it I've got a great idea. And I'm like I go, okay, who do I need to help me with this? So, and then I almost I don't pitch the hard pitch like I used to. It's kind of more like the you know we might be missing out on this market over here. Like the you know we might be missing out on this market over here.
Mike Maddock:Welcome to the your Seat at the Table podcast with your hosts Idea Monkey Mike Maddock and Ringleader John Tobin. We're two founders a serial entrepreneur and a billion-dollar operator who talk to leaders about how, when and why they made their most pivotal decisions in life. When and why they made their most pivotal decisions in life. Join us as we share wisdom, mistakes and a few laughs, learning from the brightest minds in business today. And we have the wonderful, full of wonder, marty Renkes with us this morning. Marty, how you doing.
Marty Renkis:Good morning Mike hey, john hey, marty.
John Tobin:Welcome to your seat at the table. It's great to have you. Mike, shared a little bit about your background and it's pretty crazy Different things and I think one of the things that we hope to learn a little bit about is the very different businesses and being an entrepreneur what that is like, juxtaposed against where you are now, you know, working for a huge company and kind of looking at that. But if you wouldn't mind, maybe for the bulk of us not Mike, necessarily, but me and the bulk of us that are listening can you take us back to maybe the early days and sort of how did you start your career? How did you get going and were you always going to be an entrepreneur? Was that like just in your DNA and was something that you were going to always do?
Mike Maddock:Yeah, marty. If you could leave out the part where we met in prison, I'd appreciate it.
Marty Renkis:And that's where we start in prison. It was a holding cell down on the battery in New York City. It was a dark, rainy night. I was in the corner there, with Mike Maddox sitting there, by the way, just for your audience. The last time I saw both of these wonderful gentlemen was at Mike Maddox wedding in Chattanooga, and and John made the most wonderful toast for Mike. I was like, dang, are these guys related or something? And they turn out to be related. So, or you paid him for that.
Mike Maddock:Maybe a little of both.
Marty Renkis:So thanks for the question, john, and really it is just awesome to be on with both you guys. I know Mike very, very well and a person I really tremendously admire, and, john, I've read about your background and it sounds it sounds phenomenal. I know Mike very, very well and a person I really tremendously admire, and John, I've read about your background and it sounds phenomenal. So I feel it's a real privilege to be hanging with you guys and sharing some ideas and if anybody can get a takeaway or something that makes their life easier or better or don't make a mistake of the millions of mistakes that I've made than mission accomplished here today. So thanks for having me on so good question. You know I'll tell you an interesting story.
Marty Renkis:So as a little kid I mean I don't know, I don't think I was ever diagnosed with ADD, but I'm like a warm and hot ashes since I was a little kid, you know, just always go, go, go, go, go, go go. It's just how I've always been. And down our street, probably one of the houses I lived in the longest was the Parr family and they had I don't know nine kids and I was really good friends with a kid my age and at their house was Doritos, brownies, chocolate, milkshakes. My house, because my parents are European, there was nothing. I mean do you want a pickle? You can have a pickle, or you know.
Mike Maddock:So this was an Eastern European. The choice is pickle or pickle.
Marty Renkis:Yeah, it's Eastern European, a dill pickle or a kosher pickle. We got options for you. So I've spent a lot of time at the Parr House and the reason where I'm going with this story is to answer John's question. Just in case you're wondering, is Mrs Parr would say when I was older, because just a wonderful family. I've stayed in touch with them over all these years. Mrs Parr said you know, as soon as you showed up at our house, she goes you were like the Pied Piper. You would show up at the house and wherever you went and whatever you did, and you'd start talking about something and everybody would just start following you. So that's a bit indicative of kind of what I've done my whole life and sometimes as an adult, I look back and I go why are these people following me? Meaning, I have no idea. I mean, I got some ideas, but it's not like I'm some gifted, brilliant person. I think somehow I have this. Just I think I'm always going and doing something. People go oh, that person looks busy. They must know what they're doing. Maybe that's the real answer there.
Marty Renkis:But I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs, so my dad was an entrepreneur. Both my parents were immigrants, came in from Latvia so came here not speaking a language, with nothing. My grandfather brought him in. My dad was 13 when he arrived here from Latvia, so came here not speaking a language, with nothing, my grandfather brought him in. So my dad was 13 when he arrived here from Latvia.
Marty Renkis:So you know, I grew up and my dad was always the boss. So I'd show up at his company. He made plastics for coating steel. I'd show up and there's, you know, there's my dad, he's the boss. It's like, ok, I guess that's what you do. You start a company and you're the boss and you'd like to think and I try to do this with my own kids it's like, don't be an entrepreneur if you don't want to be, if you want to be great, but don't be if you don't want to be. And uh, and I don't think my dad ever said you should be one. It's just I kind of assumed that's what I was supposed to do. So, uh, long story, a long answer to a very short question. John, I think I've always felt that I was supposed to do it.
Mike Maddock:There's a, there's a, um, there's a saying that if you want to know who the leader is, watch who people follow. Um, I, you know, it reminds me. Uh, we went to. Our family went to a reptile zoo in Cancun.
Mike Maddock:I laid on top of a giant alligator. That was a bad move. The pictures are really great, but I don't know what I was thinking. But we came up to this little pen and it was this the, the, the. He goes. This guy's like oh, you just missed a hatch, these alligators just hatch. And there were all these shells on the ground and there were like a dozen little tiny alligators and he pointed over on the other side of the cage. He goes, that one's the leader. And there was one alligator that had crawled away from the eggshells and crawled up on the side of this pen and it was up looking at all the other alligators and I'm like what he goes? Yeah, they know the leader out of the shell.
Mike Maddock:It happens immediately and I thought that was fascinating and a completely different podcast. So, marty, tell us about like, just give us like the companies. I know your story but, to John's point, no one else does. You've had a few companies and now you work at a like a fortune one 50 company. So give us like the, the, the, the autobiography.
Marty Renkis:I'll give you this. I'll give you the uh, the story on uh on on kind of my background. So I mean lots of lemonade stands. I remember one time I, uh, my dad had old stationery from his company that he was throwing out. I'm like this is like perfectly good paper, this is gold baby. Because he moved. He moved companies, so they changed the address, so he took all the old stationery with his logo and everything on it, and uh, and I said, dad, what I go? This is perfectly good. I got a wagon. I went door to door and I sold the paper. I actually, I think people bought it. They bought it because they felt like, wow, this kid's got some gumption.
John Tobin:Early Dunder Mifflin. Yes.
Marty Renkis:Look at this paper. This is high quality paper.
Marty Renkis:I think you know I made like $3 or something, but it was like. So I'm sure you don't want to hear that story. But I'll start with the first real company. So well, actually I had my own small production company in New York City. So when I graduated from college, I went to Dentist University in the middle of Ohio, moved to New York City, worked, for I wanted to be a film director, a famous film director.
Marty Renkis:I thought, ah, so I'm going to be worked for. I wanted to be a film director, a famous film director. I thought, so I'm gonna be, that's gonna be the life. You work three months out of the year and you make a million dollars. Somewhere I read that a good director makes a million dollars for three months of work. I'm like, who doesn't want that job? Bring me up. So, yeah, which is just insanity, right? No, there was no reality. Check there. Show up and show up in, uh, new york, get a job. You know a low level like a, a film prepping job that they did commercials, they shot commercials and I would sync the dailies and do all that back when there was film, before there was video. So I used to sync the dailies and put the dailies up for the, for the creatives to come in and watch. Nobody knows what that means, marty film what the hell's film syncing a daily.
Mike Maddock:That's like a daily.
Marty Renkis:What is that? It sounds wrong, so, uh. So I said, well, I want to start my own little production company and I shot some commercials and test commercials and you know, barely made it, barely eked out a living in in new york city, uh, uh. So that's short, short story on that one. But so the first time, let's say I, I created a, a, a business of consequence. Uh, was trainer soft and um how old were you, Marty? Uh, let's see trainer soft. I would have been 22. No, no.
Mike Maddock:Probably 24, 25, right Cause you graduated college late late 20s, okay, 20s yeah something like that.
Marty Renkis:So I did. I graduated college, live in new york city and then and then started uh, trainer soft did you get fired from doing movies and? No, I didn't want to live in new york city anymore yeah, you're a country mouse right, yeah, I am a country mouse deep inside.
Marty Renkis:So I did the new york city thing. I was like this fun, you're young and do all that great stuff. And then ended up moving to Nashville and but what happened was is I had. I was at an Apple store in my hometown in Erie, pennsylvania. I was an Apple store and I saw like one of the new whichever Mac Pro, something it was, was or the iMac or something like that, and it had there was a little video playing of like an African tribe and they're dancing and singing, and my brain just went oh my gosh, there's video playing on a computer. Right, right, what world are we living in? What? What kind of magic is this? I was so taken by that. I thought this is, this is crazy. Like this is the whole world's going to be like this. So, and that was forever ago, whenever they had the first time you could ever watch video on a computer.
Mike Maddock:So Can I jump in for a second? So one of the things that John and I are very involved in our boards and one of the key seats on a board a board of directors, a board of advisors is the technology futurist. And a technology futurist not only sees the future, but they see how technology can be leveraged to make the future come faster. So I just want to point out that, marty, you are central casting the technology futurist. You see something and you're like oh my God, that is the future I have to get, I have to jump on that wave Now. I started to interrupt you because you're going to talk about in a few minutes about a wave. You jumped on a little bit too early, but this one, this one you saw coming and you started paddling that surfboard, hopped up and it turned out pretty well.
John Tobin:I think it's one thing to see it and be like oh, it could go in this direction or there's this big opportunity here. There's another thing to do something about it. Yeah, Honestly, because I've seen. I remember the first time I hooked up a Novell network in like 89. Yeah, yeah, the first time I hooked up a Novell network in 89.
John Tobin:I'm like, oh my god, this is going to be amazing and change everything. I even at the time started thinking that they're going to catalog music and it's going to be an easy way to look at music, get music from the computers and if there's a way to, I thought of basically the early iPad in 89. I didn't do anything about it.
Mike Maddock:Hold on a second. So above me, ideamonkey. So IdeaMonkey ringleader, ideamonkey ringleader. John, you see the future, but I think, more importantly, as an operator in that construct, a strategist operator, you do something about it. So you'd be the guy that I do something about it.
John Tobin:So so you'd be the guy that you get a perfect partner After someone pushes me. That's right.
Marty Renkis:But you and Marty would be great partners. That could have been you. You could have been Napster.
John Tobin:So to Marty. So, getting back, you had the gumption, you had this in you. You saw this, you saw this video and you're like hey, where can this go?
Marty Renkis:So yeah, so I'm gonna tell you something just for some clarity here, because I've I've told this story quite a few times and and this is never a straight line, it's never been my whole life, and I just want to make this super clear. If anyone ever thinks, oh, I saw something cool, and then years later I'm a tremendous success, that has never happened to me, ever, or?
Mike Maddock:anyone.
Marty Renkis:So just just for the record. I mean you know, close to bankruptcy, not enough money to pay insurance, had electricity turned off twice. I mean just for the record. This is not a hey, I saw the future and it's so easy I went out and did it. What's everybody's problem?
Mike Maddock:Come on, sounds like a week in October for me. All right, keep going.
Marty Renkis:So and I'm obviously leaving out some parts just for brevity and to keep things moving along, but it did start off with that inspiration and I really was inspired. I just that super resonated with me. I'm sure it resonated with a million people, right? I mean, we were all looking at that and going that's cool. And what it turned out is I didn't know yet how it was going to be applied, so I didn't just go hey, this is cool, I'm going to do videos for the internet. I'm like, well, how you know, what do you do here? And I'm at a bar called Merchants on Broadway here in Nashville and it's still there. I think it's still there. Maybe it's been replaced with John Aldean's or somebody's bar or something, but it was a great bar downtown.
Marty Renkis:And I'm sitting there having a drink and I meet this guy and he works for Bridgestone Tire and he's like we're going to just start talking. And he said hey, I've got a problem. And the problem is I'm trying I don't know even know how we got into this subject. I just asked him I go, what do you do? He goes, I do training, I train people. And and he said, he, so one of my problems is, is that you know we have people on a production line. They're building tires. He worked at Bridgestone Tire and the production line is one mile long and you know, I've got to shut down parts of the production line to train people.
Marty Renkis:And in my head it just popped out I go what if you could like, have have an interactive piece of software where people could get trained? And this was, guys, this was, that's how old this was, that's how old this was, that's how old I am, is like that didn't really exist back then. I think there were some super complicated tools. You would pay people a fortune to build this stuff. And I said what if you could build it yourself? You know, you could put in your own content, throw in some images, audio video and ask questions, and it does all that.
Marty Renkis:And the guy was like, that's awesome, can you come talk to my team? Of course, I had nothing yet. I had no product, I had nothing. It was just, it was an idea, monkey thing. So go down, visit the bridgestone tire guys. Um, and I pitch it. And it's me. And then you know like six people on the other side of this table and I pitched and I mocked up something in powerpoint, and they go. Uh, they go, this is great, we want it. How much? Uh, I didn't even not even remotely prepared for the question, not even like, like I was completely so what did you say?
Mike Maddock:it should have you and should you have gone higher?
Marty Renkis:yeah, oh my gosh. I so underestimated it, I said 26 000 because your favorite player had the number 26.
Mike Maddock:No idea that was a complete rando number like it might have been.
Marty Renkis:Hey. With 26 000, I could pay my rent for the next six months.
Marty Renkis:I can do this I think it was like a needs-based number and had nothing to do with the value, so completely rando number, uh, and they said yes, right then and there, which totally confirms that I underbid it. So that story and hopefully I'm not rambling on here, but that story that was the beginning of TrainerSoft. So TrainerSoft was the first cloud-based e-learning software. But this was before the cloud, so this was LAN and WAN based. John, you mentioned Nobel Network, so this was running on LANs and WANs and on local desktops way back when.
Marty Renkis:So started that company up and then I went door to door, knocked on doors. Can I talk to your training person and the person you know? I go. It's $5,000 for the software. I didn't charge a lot because I was, it's all. I got it done already. I'm just going to give you the software and you can start building yourself. That was brilliant and I'm going gosh, software is awesome. I I dropped off a stack of floppy disks that cost me like four dollars and sixty cents and you gave me five thousand dollars how long did it take you to, to how big did the company get, and how long did it take you to get the company got to.
Marty Renkis:uh, I had 40 employees. We had, I think, about a $3 million, $3 million uh run rate, um and um, uh, we had 25% of the Fortune 500 using our software.
Mike Maddock:And then you sold it. What was it that made you decide, okay, it's time to sell? Was it your idea, or did someone come in and make it your idea?
Marty Renkis:This is a great question. I'm glad you asked it Because this was a good experience of mine, a good business experience, and I learned something. So I hadn't planned on selling it. We were doing okay, I built this on cash flow, never took a loan, never took investment. I mean it was we paid for growth, we paid for growth. We were never profitable At the end of the year. I just kept hiring more people and reinvesting. So we were. I wasn't building a profitable business, I was building a business to grow.
Marty Renkis:So I went up to meet a customer, uh, up in Boston, uh, flew up there meet with them cause it was going to be kind of a bigger deal. So somehow I ended up in Boston and Masoud Sarabian was his name. Um, he was the CEO of a company called Outstart and either they wanted a partner or they were going to be a customer. Something was there. So I flew up to have this meeting with him. I really like this guy, very sharp, sharp guy. So he goes you know we should acquire you and I'm like, okay, you know, let's talk about that. So we had this conversation. He said because you know, we're growing, we want to get into your space and you guys have customers already and have this run rate and have some tech and we need all that. And I said, okay, so we start talking about what that might look like. And you know, long story short, they're like yes, we want to buy you. They make me an offer. I go, you know this, want to buy you. They make me an offer. I go, you know, let's see how did this happen. Okay, before the oh. No, they make an offer. And then I go, I'm back in.
Marty Renkis:I was living in Raleigh, north Carolina, at the time and I was in EO, yeo, which might be you guys know very well and I was. I had my forum group and I had one friend at that forum group and I'll tell you his story. I won't use his name to protect the innocent. So he told me that he had an offer to sell his company. And so he told me that he had an offer to sell his company and the offer was I will give you, they will give him $100 million in stock or they're going to give him $30 million in cash to buy the company. So he took the stock and it was. You know where this story's going. It was six months before the dot-com crash. Okay, his stock was worth, yeah, zero. They actually called him and tried to get money out of him to pay for stuff yeah, it would have been part of the country so he's advising me.
Marty Renkis:He said marty. He said, you know, sell it for a fair price, you know, but take the deal, get it. You have a stock on it, right again yeah, marty, did you have a stocking horse?
Mike Maddock:was there another? Any other company in the in the running for you is this one?
Marty Renkis:no, I didn't. I didn't hire a broker. This was me kind of winging it, yeah, which I highly. Another lesson don't wing it. There's plenty of smart people around to ask for help. They're willing to help, and then so I accepted the offer. I come home that night my wife has two glasses of champagne and we're going to celebrate. And they call and they say hey, we're changing the offer, it's the same. No, seriously, like the next day we're supposed to sign. He says it's the same number, but we're going to pay you like 80% in stock or 90% in stock and the rest in cash.
Mike Maddock:Yeah, and you know, when you pop the champagne cork you can't get it back in the bottle.
Marty Renkis:You cannot, it's a problem.
Mike Maddock:Like it's the whole bottle's ruined.
Marty Renkis:Now, what are you going to drink? Put it in the fridge. We're not drinking that tonight. How much was that? I can't believe you spent that much on champagne, are you crazy?
John Tobin:I can imagine the mindset shift there was. Probably the most significant thing was just I thought I was going to have this tangible thing Now. It's only a little bit tangible in the future and like kind of, what did that do to your psyche?
Marty Renkis:Yeah, I mean, john, you know, for me, I mean you guys have all been in this boat I mean, when you're first building something, I mean it's a scrapper battle. I mean pennies matter. Yeah, waking up every morning worrying about cash flow, you've got. There's always problems, there's always something going on. So, you know, I didn't have a, I didn't have any kind of nest egg or anything to fall back on. So it was, it was tough.
Marty Renkis:So I'm sitting here going, hey, wow, I did it. I got some stability for my family and God bless my wife for being married to someone like me. But you know, I'm going to have some stability for my family and then I can go on and fight another fight. So I kind of had that in my head, right. And when that, just that rug just got yanked out, I mean it was a shocker, but I've been so used to working, you know, like that it wasn't that big of a shock. I was hugely disappointed and felt like it left my wife, let my wife down, uh as well. So it's like, cause I built it all up. It's like, wow, we actually did it. We're going to get this done and we're going to make it happen. So what happens is I get on the call, they say it's stock and, by the way, if you don't take it, we're calling. You know we're already talking to my two biggest competitors. We're already talking to them.
Mike Maddock:So we're going to buy one of those guys. So they had stalking horses, they flipped you so that you had emotionally probably spent half that money, like, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. And since there wasn't another suitor, they did the exact opposite. They're like they get your hopes up. They're like, oh, by the way, we've got two other guys that we might buy, okay.
Marty Renkis:So what swear word did you use? I was actually surprisingly nice about it. I said, masoud, I understand, but because part of me thought maybe I should take the stock, because he then pitched this story of like we're going to go public and they never went public, by the way, there was this whole story of like it's going to be amazing and you're going to be part of the team, and uh and. But I said no, uh and uh it was. That was one of the biggest, most best decisions I ever made my whole life is having the courage to say, to say no at that point, because, guess what? There were no stocking horses. Yeah, called one hour later and said, okay, we'll stick to the original deal.
Marty Renkis:So, it was just business man.
John Tobin:It's business, marty, we'll come back to this, but one of the things about this podcast is we're trying to drive the decision-making process almost. And how did you come to that decision? Was that just you just? Your gumption I I mean, yeah, I mean the eo like story on that. Uh, yeah, I mean the guy was that was that way weighing in your, your head or was it more of a moment yeah, yeah, it wasn't.
Marty Renkis:It's a great question, john, and it wasn't just in the moment kind of a thing. I mean I, you know, I had uh, I had talked to my attorney about this deal, not the hey, take the stock part, but I talked about the deal and how much money was involved. And I talked to my white you know forum friends about this deal and how much money was involved, cause I was like, should I push back for more? That was kind of my big question to everybody. You know, how far should I push? You know, to get a better, because let's get more money out of this, let's get more money out of this. So I kind of pushed it as far as I could to get it where it was and I said, can I push more? Because I think they really need me, I think they really need what we do.
Marty Renkis:So I had spent a lot of time in that, in that range, and then became comfortable with myself what the cash was and how important the cash was for my family and not having stock and saying, okay was for my family, yeah, and not having stock and saying, okay, if I'm gonna. And then there's the conversation in my head of going, if I'm gonna ride a horse. If I ride a horse, then I'm driving, not somebody else's horse. So that was another part of the conversation. It's like I don't really know these guys. I mean, I know, but I don't know them. They could be great business people. They could be horrible business people. So there were a lot of parts john in that, in that decision making to make it. Uh, yeah, to make it, but it seemed, it seemed clear to me it wasn't that much how did you recover from?
Mike Maddock:did you have two-part question? Did you have to stick with that company for a couple years? Was there a tail? And how did you recover from that? Uh, for a couple of years, was there a tail?
John Tobin:And how did you recover?
Mike Maddock:from that, that kind of game, playing the trust, like, yeah, I mean it feels like trust would have been blown up with that type of manipulative, and this is my opinion in my opinion, kind of a jerky manipulative move. And now he's going to be your partner. So real quick, cause I want to get on to what happened next, because I know that part of the story too, to your point that it's never a straight line. Did you stick with that company for a year or two and how did you recover from that? I?
Marty Renkis:did not stay there long and what's interesting, there wasn't trust there. Stay there long and you know what's what's interesting, there wasn't trust there. Um, and uh, even some of the other people on the team. It just didn't have a culture that I was. I was used to, uh, so that that played, that played part of it, um. But I also thought, and really incorrectly. So I'm like, oh, it's just business, but it's not just business. It just isn't Um. And you know, as I'm older, I look back and I go it's not just business. That was a. That was a pretty slimy thing to do, so, but that's what I thought at the time. I said, okay.
Marty Renkis:Hey you know they're they're getting the best deal they can and they're going to say whatever they need to say to get that.
Mike Maddock:But you know, now it's like those people you do business with that might be their biggest lesson for you there, right, like it's not what you do it to. You do it with and you need to be able to trust your partners Totally. Yeah, right, right. So you get all this money, you get a couple of new bottles of champagne throughout the old ones, yeah. And then you buy a villa in Italy and decide that you're just going to take it easy for the rest of your life, correct?
Marty Renkis:And that's where I am today. Yeah, Not Italy. I'm in the south of France and I've been here ever since.
Mike Maddock:So what do you guys want to talk?
Marty Renkis:about we could talk about. You know Italian wines and I can tell you which ones are Shot enough to pop, which Brunello is the best Avignon region.
Mike Maddock:That's where you are right now. So that's not what happened. Tell us what really happened yes.
Marty Renkis:So, um, uh, you know you talk about, uh, mistakes and and decisions, big decisions you make. So that was a great decision I made. I was very proud of myself and that that really paid off. Well, and then the next decision, which is was super smart, it's hey, let's put it all on black.
Mike Maddock:John is having a seizure. It's like well, I'm like, yeah, exactly, why wouldn't you?
Marty Renkis:Yeah, well, your poor wife, I'm going to be blushing and get pretty embarrassed through this whole part of the conversation. So, yeah, so you know, talking about, you know, you know, you look back and like big mistakes, like what was I thinking? So I had, I had already figured out that, hey, I was smart enough to see something in the future, because technology futures, as you mentioned. Execute on it, build something and sell it. I go, why can't I do it again? Makes sense, it's just magically going to happen again, because that's what happens. That's how life works. Everything's just repeatable. So I had this other thought and the other thought was hey, sometime in the future, people are going to be using the internet to remotely monitor homes and businesses. Right, it's, it's image. I've all, I'm already delivering images, audio video over the internet. So, wow, why don't we use this for security? Another like oh my gosh, this is it, this is the future. And I was right about that. I didn't execute too well on it, but I was right about that. I didn't execute too well on it, but I was right about that. That definitely was the future. So I started my next company, smart View, and I did. I worked for that company, for I don't think it was even a year Moved into a nicer house in Nashville, came back to Nashville from Raleigh, where my wife's parents are from, we had a baby and so we're doing the baby thing and grandparents, and life was awesome.
Marty Renkis:And I started this new venture and life was just fantastic. But I was financing it all. I mean it was like, okay, I started hiring people paying out of pocket for everything. We filed a bunch of patents. I did start raising money from investors as well, started me financing it and then raising money from investors. The investment community here in Nashville is phenomenal, by the way. There are so many family businesses. People have started themselves that want to support growth, and this is a huge entrepreneurial city. I was really lucky to be here, so I found some great investors, slowly built this company up, so it started. When did I technically started it? 2000, 2002, something like that?
John Tobin:That's what LinkedIn says. Linkedin says 2002.
Marty Renkis:Yeah, I mean, this was a haul, john, so you know built this up. We designed and built our own circuit boards. We built cameras, we built recording devices. We built technology that no one had ever used before, like long range wireless, which was 802.11n, nice, different kinds of imaging sensors that had had super wide dynamic range. We had self-configuring wireless networks. And this was all because it's like why doesn't it work this way? It should work this way. I should plug a camera and it should automatically connect well, back then that didn't exist for people listening.
John Tobin:You have to like for most people like you have a ring minimum, at least like a ring thing. This is so far ahead of that, though. I mean 2002, think about that Like this is really early, even thinking about remotely like SaaS and cloud. Yeah, to be thinking that way, this is really really early. That's pretty impressive.
Mike Maddock:It makes me think of the pitch. Who's the that started ring? I can't remember his name, but he pitched shark tank and they all said no, and he's like you guys don't understand. Everybody is, this is more than just a camera. It's gonna be in every house. And I'm like, and they're all like, no, it's not gonna go anywhere. And while I was watching, because I saw it live, I'm like man Marty's been talking about this for like 15 years 15 years ago.
Marty Renkis:Yeah, yeah, the same pitch.
Mike Maddock:I remember it and, by the way, this is kind of interesting At the time you had bright red hair, like not that entrepreneurship age, that entrepreneurship ages you at all.
Marty Renkis:I did clowning at night. I did clowning at night, so put on the nose with the red hair.
Mike Maddock:Well, you got to make money. You know what I mean. You do what you need to do.
Marty Renkis:Got to make ends meet and guys, I mean talk about 10 million decisions on this path, because this was a 20-year path, but I mean the company grew. I mean we were the world's largest commercial surveillance platform. I mean we were uploading two times more video than YouTube every day to the cloud. 72 million minutes of surveillance video was going up to our cloud that we designed. So you know, John, you're a tech. You know, John, you're at tech. You know doing stuff at scale is hard, yeah, Hard, super hard, super painful, but just kept plugging along, kept building, kept building. And then so here's a big business decision that happened. So along the way I've built a board, I made great decisions. I made great decisions. I made horrible decisions all along the way. And then at one point the board was like you need a lot more money to grow. And we're like, okay, what are we going to do? We're going to go out and raise money. And then one of the board members said, hey, I know a company called Fortress, and Fortress is that gigantic you equity bank thing.
Marty Renkis:And they said hey, we can loan you money against your patent portfolio. I go wow that's interesting.
Marty Renkis:So everybody always says that never take debt, don't take debt. I mean I've said that to a million people that I've talked to Don't take debt, because you know, obviously they got you by the short hairs at that point. So I didn't take my own advice. You know, I took the debt because it seemed almost too good to be true. It's like wow, they're. You know they wanted a small piece of the company. You know good interest rate. It was, I think, $15 million in tranches and so took this money.
Marty Renkis:First year was great. We hit all our numbers, knocked it out of the park. Second year, our largest customer went and built it themselves and then we didn't hit our numbers. So they called up and said we're calling the note. And I said you're calling the note. I go yeah, we're calling the note. You got to pay it all up, uh, which I couldn't um and uh, but we were. I had laid off some people clean things up, we were still profitable and they still called the note. So, um that that put us in a position that I had to sell the company. So that was a real difficult, uh, a difficult place to be.
Mike Maddock:And uh, um, you know we did end up selling and um that, uh, you know that the sale worked out and but it was so just the silver lining, because another lesson is that it was the IP right that saved your bacon, the fact that you had all these patents and all these like that. You had done the work and you had a portfolio of IP. That was really worth something the. Pd saw what other companies saw correct.
Marty Renkis:Yeah, they did. I mean they valued our patent portfolio at $75 million.
Mike Maddock:Yeah, and Johnson Controls bought you. Correct, they did. And so then you went from being an entrepreneur that lemonade stand selling your dad's paper seeing waves to an executive in a Fortune 150 company. What was that like? You're still there, so you have to be careful, I know, but tell us a few things. Just give us a few things that you notice about big companies that are different than small companies. How?
Marty Renkis:about that. I mean one of the things first of all, johnson Controls is a good company and I genuinely mean that. I mean these are, you know, what I like. One thing I like about Johnson Controls it has like a Midwestern ethic to it so it just it feels good. They're good people, you know, overall they do the right thing. Every company has challenges and problems, as you guys all know, but overall, because I'm still there, I'm there today, so that was eight years ago, seven years ago. So I mean that's kind of indicative of how I feel about the company. But so there are probably three key things or a whole bunch of things.
Marty Renkis:But when I first started there, they put me in charge of, they put me in charge of a larger division and a couple of things happened. Is that? Because what I was used to is showing up at Mrs Parr's house and start playing the pipe and everybody's going to follow me. And I thought, hey, I'll just start talking and everybody go. Hey, that's a great idea, let's go do it. And that's not how it works at a large company at all. I mean, it's actually just the opposite and it took me a long time to learn that, because I like to say I'm a nice guy. I mean I listen to people, I care about people, I'm genuinely empathetic. You know, I want to make other people successful. I mean I like to see that that's who I am. At the same time, I have the other side of me. It's like hey, I got this great idea, let's just go do it. This is going to be awesome, and it took a long time I mean years for me to learn that it doesn't work that way.
John Tobin:And so, marty, when you talk about that, the learning pieces, was it you have to be more influential? Was it you have to be more influential? You have to win people over? Or like, build your business case more than just having the idea and going for it Like what was the mechanics.
Marty Renkis:That's a great question, and I think it's one thing I've learned as I've become wiser older is that I used to think, because I saw my dad growing up, I go, hey, it's all about have great ideas and go build stuff and life will just fall into your lap. And maybe not that simple, but I thought that that's what life was about have great ideas and go make stuff. So I've kind of like I've built so much of my life around that and and and it was for me an amazing, uh, um, an amazing. I'm not gonna use the word epiphany, but it was an amazing learning thing for me to go hey, there's a team here, there is an, and I always had amazing team members and I love them and and you can call all the people, almost all the people I ever work with and they'd be like oh, marty's great, we had a good time, we did amazing stuff, but it's so different in a larger corporation. So for me, that lesson was this is a team sport and totally a team sport, and everybody has to have ownership and I can't be the guy who goes I got this great idea, let's go do it. It's gotta be.
Marty Renkis:Hey, you know, what do you think about this. Oh, I love the way you're thinking about that. That's great. What do you think? Oh, oh, my gosh, did you hear? And? And I had to learn and I probably should have learned this many, many, many years ago it's like it's the team, so grow the team and have them be successful, and that you know whatever kind of servant leadership or something like that, but it's like you know, empower the team. Hey, it's your idea. I'm just here to help you be successful and that's, you know, kind of a decades late in the learning for me. I always thought I was a team player, but I'm kind of not.
John Tobin:I think it's you entrepreneurs, because it really is an entrepreneur mindset that you just don't realize the power of a team or how to empower a team, because you didn't really have to necessarily. You really were the Pied Piper, and it's that's where you know, mike, you always say, like you and I see things differently, it is the. It is because how I grew up in the team in a corporate environment, not being the entrepreneur, that I like everything that you're saying, marty, it's like, well, yeah, I duh.
Mike Maddock:Like, but like for.
John Tobin:I've seen it so many times with entrepreneurs they that you underestimate saying Marty, it's like well, yeah, duh.
John Tobin:But like for, I've seen it so many times with entrepreneurs they that you underestimate some of the journey that people have to go on to like let you be the Pied Piper that you want to be, and so I think that's amazing learning for you actually to go through. And I'm sure what, like you said, it probably took you a little bit of time and maybe a year of scratching your head, like why can't I just go do this? What's going on there? And so, like, in hindsight now, like seven years in or so, are you at the place where I actually really like this. Now I'm comfortable, or and maybe this is too big of a leap, but or it's like you know now that I have, now that I have learned this and maybe even a better leader, maybe I should, I go start something with this team-based mindset and I would even be a better entrepreneur. I do do those things cross through your mind a little bit and I get you gotta be careful a little bit because you're you're very successful in what you're doing.
Mike Maddock:HR is on line three. Hr on line three.
John Tobin:But I mean, does the entrepreneur ever leave you? I think it's probably where I'm at.
Marty Renkis:I'm so glad you brought that up and I'll probably answer the question with the conversation I've had with my kids lately. And I've got two kids. They're full grown, they're out of college and they're doing their own thing and it's like please work for somebody else before you start your own company. I mean I it's like learn what how a team works, learn how people work together, because I'd man, I took that lemonade stand and built it basically a gigantic lemonade stand. Really. Yeah, you know, and I had amazing people, but I didn't you know that in retrospect it's like, yeah, hey, kids, go work, go work for some, go work for another company.
Marty Renkis:See what a bad boss is what a good boss is. See how teams work. That you know. That's one thing I've been telling them. But so you know, for me it's right now. I've learned and this took me years, I mean a long time how to say, oh, I've got a great idea. Now I whisper it I've got a great idea and I'm like I go, okay, who do I need to help me with this? Do I need to help me with this? So, and and and I and I, and then I, I almost I don't pitch the hard pitch like I used to, it's kind of more like the.
Marty Renkis:You know we might be missing out on this market over here. You know this data center market is killing it and obviously Johnson control is doing a lot in data centers. But what if we did something different, like cooling as a service? What if we sold air conditioning not as equipment that you buy, but you buy temperature, pressure and humidity, and we've done that before. But I'm like, how do we package this for data centers, just for example, as one example? So it's like getting team members together and then they go oh, wow, that's kind of cool and I can do this and I can add that. So I've learned goals and margins, and rightfully so. I mean they have shareholders to deliver to, so there's always some buffers.
Mike Maddock:There's a reason why the most successful entrepreneurs are in their 50s. It's because of what the question you asked, john that people start a company? Because they now have the wisdom, the resources, the relationships to take all that and move parallel to solve a problem. They use all those things to solve the problem. They see at scale, and so I love that question. Marty, I want to do a couple lightning round closers. If you don't mind, here here's one. So let's talk about legacy for a second. Fast forward 20 years. Um, your grandkids. Google your name. What's the headline you secretly hope pops up?
Marty Renkis:I just like entrepreneur, um, and I feel very comfortable with that. I like it.
Mike Maddock:And okay, here's another one. Your wife has been strapped in on the roller coaster in the roller coaster seat right next to you. How might she describe the ride?
Marty Renkis:Probably. I got to think about this for a second and God bless her. She is a saint and I bless her. She is a saint and I adore her. I absolutely adore her and because we have been, when I look back when I was young, you know when you, when you're young, you're like, oh, it's OK, electricity got cut off, we'll be fine, we'll turn it on tomorrow. Duh, hello, I mean, really, is that how a husband talks to his wife? Don't worry, electricity will be on tomorrow, we're okay, we got candles. So yeah, that was me. No, really, in retrospect, I go gosh, I would have divorced me. I would have been like, wow, you're just so clueless. So, but yeah, she's been on the roller coaster. She and I share absolutely the same core values and that's what's always stuck us together. So you know, I think, for her role, probably just stick with the roller coaster. It's been a roller coaster.
Mike Maddock:And hopefully she looks back at it and thinks that it's been worth the ride for her. We had an Enneagram expert in first advisory boards and I remember they said if seven is the enthusiast in Enneagram and he said that if any of you are married to a seven, just strap in and enjoy the ride, and I think I think your wife might be married to a seven. So one last question then, john no one thing. That startup Marty did. That absolutely horrifies who you are today. What is something that you used to do as a business person that you look back to and go, oh my gosh, I can't believe that's how I was as a business person.
Marty Renkis:Yeah, I probably need more time to think about that, although a lot of things pop in my head, I think I would just choose the overall statement of kind of arrogance. I mean, I really felt like I knew it. Yeah, and it's crazy, because I don't, you know, in secret, if you say, oh, you know, marty, you seem like such a confident person, you got it all together. Deep down inside, I don't, I don't feel that way. I don't think I ever have felt that way. So it's kind of weird. I can put on this facade of like, yeah, this is what we're doing, I got to figure it out. So that kind of arrogance. I look back and I kind of cringe a little bit. I go, oh dude, yeah, you know it's like be, you know, be more about the whole goal and the team. And you know we're all going this together and it would have changed financial outcome. I know it would have for the better, but but yeah, probably just a bit of arrogance.
John Tobin:Well, I mean, it's definitely doesn't show now Like I don't. You don't show up arrogant at all and I obviously I didn't know you until, you know, a couple of months ago.
Marty Renkis:Mike, did you have a question?
John Tobin:No, really, I don't. I'm not sensitive to arrogance at all, but I mean that must've been, it must've been interesting. I think yeah, whatever, john. So listen, I thought that would be Yet again.
Mike Maddock:So, marty, we met each other probably 24 years ago, I think, and I sat next to you when you were just starting company number one, and the one thing I will say, uh, is that? Two things. Number one I've never met an entrepreneur that wasn't. That didn't have to have, like some, some brass, something, to have the confidence to walk into a room and say, hey, bridgestone, you want it, 26 grand, I can do it. And then run out and go, oh my God, that is, that is the entrepreneurial story, and it takes it's not arrogance, maybe it's courage. And it takes it's not arrogance, maybe it's courage. But number two your values have never changed. So I just loved what you said about your bride, that you guys have shared the values and that's gotten through it. I know, john, you care deeply about values and you've built a company with 10,000 plus people in it because of those values. So, um man, what an honor, marty, to be your buddy and to spend a little bit of time with you this morning.
John Tobin:Marty, this was amazing. Amazing to hear your story and, uh, to see the different levels of success and kind of transition, how you have it's, it's. It's really, really inspiring story. Thank you so much for sharing it with us and the audience, and love the decisions that you made along the way and then how you can reflect on those and how that almost makes you a better overall leader today. So thank you.
Marty Renkis:This was really really fantastic, amazing. Love you too, hey, thanks guys. Really appreciate the opportunity to share. This has been a real pleasure. Best of luck with you guys and what you're doing. I think this is a huge value for people. I hope.
John Tobin:I think it will be, thank you, see you guys.