Eric Robichaud
Founder and CEO · 508 Consulting
The "Accidental" Programmer Who Saved a Retail Giant | Eric Robichaud
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"as the business grows, all of a sudden you have to decide what's my real role here. And it might not be the role that you envisioned, and it might not be the role that you necessarily prefer, but it's the one that's actually going to make the business most successful.
Key Takeaways
- ◆Eric built a single transaction processing system at CVS in six months (not three separate year-long projects) by recognizing that credit card verification, check processing, and healthcare adjudication were all the same problem, real-time transaction routing, and he modeled the solution after a packet-switched phone network.
- ◆When Eric started his software company in 1993, he tried to sell a programmer's text editor but couldn't get traction because download times were too long on dial-up modems, so he bundled a free screensaver as a marketing tool, and discovered everyone wanted to buy the screensaver, not the editor, which taught him to build a software company first and then follow demand, not evangelize a single product.
- ◆Eric spent his first summer at CVS sitting at a desk in the hallway outside the executive VP's office (because the new building wasn't finished and they had nowhere to put him), which accidentally gave him direct access to a board member who became his sponsor and got him onto the Skunkworks team at age 21.
- ◆When Deloitte and Touche audited Eric's code (because the board was nervous about a 21-year-old running billions of dollars in transactions), they reported it was some of the best code they'd ever seen and told the CEO to leave him alone.
- ◆Eric realized his most valuable role in his own business was sales, not engineering, because he could communicate technical solutions in plain English (the same skill that got him pulled into cross-departmental meetings at CVS as the only 'egghead' the help desk could talk to), and he hired engineers to replace himself on the tech side instead of trying to hire salespeople who couldn't match his closing rate or make decisions on the fly.
- ◆Eric's philosophy: be humble, roll with the punches, and recognize opportunity when it appears, his hallway desk and his free screensaver both looked like setbacks or distractions at first, but staying flexible and paying attention to what people actually wanted led to every major break in his career.
Full transcript
Show
Chad
Welcome back to Process Over Pressure. My name is Chad Paris your host. Today I have a special guest with me. This guy has been building businesses since most founders listening were still in elementary school. Eric Robichaud is the CEO and founder of 508 Consulting, actually out of Massachusetts, but born and raised in Rhode Island. And he's on what he calls his fourth business and serial entrepreneurs. Eric started his first company in the 1990s while he was a 20-year-old kid working as a CVS pharmacy headquarters, designed credit card processing systems and healthcare adjudication platforms that ran tens of billions of dollars in transactions. From there, he built one of the most recognized indie software brands of the 90s on the back of a free screensaver he originally gave away as a marketing gimmick. He sold that business. Built another, sold that one, and he's done it three more times since. Today he runs a boutique creative and tech agency working with small to mid-sized businesses on branding, website, customer software, and he's intentional about staying small, which, as you'll hear in his story itself, Eric, welcome to the show.
Eric
Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.
Chad
Very excited to have you today and and and and always a pleasure to get to talk to people who have who have been in the business and have seen a thing or two, I should say, as they've built and grown and and and done that. So we're gonna dive right in, have some questions and and we'll just see how this goes.
Eric
Go for it. Absolutely.
Eric
All right, all right, absolutely. Fire away.
Chad
So when we met before, the one of the things that I I I wrote down that I wanted to talk about is is is let's go back to that that twenty year old in the CVS where you had the business owner, I believe, or or somebody coming to you and asking you, I how do how does this like I need your help. You're twenty years old here. He's like, Can you help me here? And and the next thing you know, you've got companies coming in and auditing
Eric
Yeah.
Chad
the work that you built, to say, you know what? This twenty year old's got a damn pet. He's doing it right. What was that like?
Eric
Yeah. Yeah, there was there are some stories there and there's some life lessons that I learned very early on that I was not expecting. I just thought, hey, I'm just a kid, I'm gonna show up and I'm gonna do some work, I'm gonna get paid and then I'm gonna go on my way, you know? I learned some life lessons unexpectedly. one was that I started working there when I was in college. for the my freshman year in college when I started looking ahead towards, you know, by by maybe around
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
December, January, I'm like, Well, what am I gonna do this summer? You know, 'cause and and my parents to their credit were like, you know, you gotta plan ahead. You can't wait till summer's here and go, What am I gonna do? So, you know, like, you know, plan ahead. So I said, All right, well, I could go back home and just like most college kids do, go back home and, you know, work in the restaurant that I was at when I was in high school, you know, go back to flipping burgers and stuff. Said, but I'd like to build some resume. It's only for a few months, but maybe I can get an internship somewhere or that sort of thing. I was born and raised in Rhode Island in C V S pharmacy, you know, which is nationwide and the big one of the if not the I think they're the biggest pharmacy chain, but certainly one of top two. and they're headquartered right in town. so long story short, I applied there, and the first lesson I learned is, you know, it's all about who you know. I got a job there because someone went and hand delivered my resume and they like, All right, fine, whatever, you know. the And then so I said, you know, at least I'm building resume fodder, right? You know? I went to work there and I remember after I was working, mom was all excited because you know, she's figured like tech, you know, there's no this was back in you know the eight late eighties. They're like, there's no tech industry, you it's Rhode Island, you know, it's in one socket, Rhode Island. She goes, You but she's all excited, wow, you got a job here. Do you think you're gonna stay here? And I was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, mom, slow your roll. You know, this is just you know, this summer job. They don't do anything here that like I would do.
Chad
Yeah.
Chad
Hmm.
Eric
This is great for building resume fodder, but no, don't it get excited that I'm gonna, you know, stay in town, you know, or anything like that. Cause because they were I I was going to school for software engineering, like hardcore software engineering. And this was you know, six hundred people back then it wasn't called IT, it was called MIS, Management Information Systems. and there were like six hundred employees in the division who are doing Cobalt and RPG report programming for like payroll service and stuff. It's like, I'm like, this is not what I do, you know. but it's it's good for resume building, you know. My first day, the next life lesson I learned was I showed up for work my first day, and here I am, you know, young little whippersnapper. I had my shirt and tie, my briefcase, my whole thing, and I show up and they I say, you know, I was here for my boss, his name was Juan, Juan Dominguez. I said, Yeah, I'm here to see Juan, and then there was this little all right, hold on a second.
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
They grab, hey, Juan, one. He's walking by, they grab him, they bring him over. I'm down in the lobby, it's a big atrium, you know, and all this stuff. He's a multi-billion dollar corporation, you know. So they they bring me down, and he looks at me, and the first words out of his mouth was, and I quote, shit, I forgot you were coming. So that was my welcome to corporate America. Like, shit, I forgot you were coming. And they were growing so fast at the time, they had a whole sec they're they're a corporate building, they built a whole second half. And
Chad
Ha ha.
Chad
That's it.
Eric
When I first talked to him back in December, he's like, Yeah, by you know, late May when when you know when school is over and you come here, the this the new building will be open. Half the employees are moved, they were packed to the gills and you know, they were running out of space, but half those people will move to the new building and that would open up, you know, half and half, you know what I mean? Like they'd have all this open space. Well, like everything else in life, the project is behind schedule. So when I got there, the new building wasn't open. Everybody's in like new building mode, you know, we gotta and he's like, I literally don't have any place for you. So he walks me up there and says, the cube you're supposed to be in is still occupied because they haven't moved yet. sit here for now. And he points to an old wooden desk that's in the middle of a hallway. It was a wide hallway, up against somebody like an office, but you know, like they're just it this is where What I learned was the executive team, like the vice presidents and all these people, there's who their offices were. And this is out in the hallway and and just here. And now normally most people would feel kind of, you know, maybe disrespected or a little weird. you know, but he's like, just sit here for now. And he brings over a computer, has someone bring over a computer, there's a tag on like a like a posting note on the desk, you know, for maintenance to take it away. You know, like, all right, whatever. He gives gives me a computer, says, Here, work here. So the first day I start, you know, getting up to speed and passwords and logins and all the stuff and whatever. And I'm sitting in a hallway. People are walking by and they're like, like, who's the kid sitting in the hallway? Like and and and the Feng Shui was really bizarre. Like they're all behind me. I'm like, I'm up against a wall, you know, like, and they're all walking back and forth behind me. And it's like a little weird, you know. the second day, so the second day I come in, you know, 9 a.m., I come in and do my thing or 8, 30 in the morning, whatever the time was, come in, do my thing, and I'm sitting there. And late morning, like around 11 o'clock.
Chad
yeah.
Eric
Older guy with white hair comes shuffling in with a newspaper under his arm, walks past me, goes into the office. The whole first day that office was empty, it was dark. So now he comes, he walks in, goes in, and I see this guy go in, he goes like, you know, and he walks in. And then all of a sudden he's just like backs out and looks around the corner and looks at me and is like And I'll never forget this either. Direct quote: Who the hell are you and why are you sitting at my old desk? So, because they were building the build the new building, they had he he they did reconstruction and all this stuff, and he got all new furniture. He's the executive vice president, he was the third ever employee at CVS, and he was on the board of directors and the whole thing. And he backs out and he looks at me. I was at his old desk that was put out into the hallway to be taken away.
Chad
wow.
Eric
But because of all the, you know, everybody trying to get the new building open and maintenance, they were all busy doing other stuff. So it was just sitting there. So, long story short, probably too late, I I spent the entire first summer sitting at a desk outside the executive VP's office. And where most people would feel disrespected, I didn't get a real cube, I didn't get a real desk, you know, whatever. The old when you're giving lemons, make lemonade, I ended up cutting like Four or five levels of management, and I became his personal gopher, if you will, you know, on tech stuff. So he's like, hey, kid, you all of a sudden I just hear, hey kid, come here. I'm looking around like. So I go in the yeah, and he's Do you know anything about this? And he would just rapid fire. He was he was sharp. He was like, but he was the original guy who wrote all their payroll programs and did everything back in the day when he was like the third ever employee. And then now he's up in high-level management and all this. Do you know anything about this? I'm like, yeah, I answer you know his question. He goes, Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay, good, interesting. Do you know anything about this? No, I don't. Cool. I like your honesty. Go research it, figure it out, tell me what you think. Come back tomorrow. Do you know anything about this? Do you know anything about it? And he just hit me with all these questions. And and the long story short is I I I built rapport with him. I ended up doing projects directly with him. And all of a sudden, that is how I got on the team to do again. Now I'm telling mom, don't get excited, it's not gonna happen. So the other life lesson I learned is never say never. Because here I am. No, mom, get that out of your mind. I'm not coming back. Well, I went back every summer. Now all of a sudden school's over, and they're like, hey, by the way, and now I'm thinking, all right, what am I gonna, where am I gonna go? What, you know, I need a full-time job, where am I gonna work? And they contact me and said, hey, we're putting together a Skunksworks team. We're working on this new project. Nobody here is qualified. Nobody knows how to do any of this stuff. So we're putting together a special team. We want you on it.
Chad
That's right. Yeah.
Eric
I'm like, well, tell me about it. They told me about it. I'm like, yeah, that's right up my alley, and I can't pass that up. No, I don't do what you guys, all the rest of you do, but this is like I'm like, They're like, yeah, they I built rapport over those summers. And all of a sudden I'm on this team. and now at that point, I was, you know, the first year when I started 18, when I now all of a sudden I'm 21 years old. I go in there and he says, We have a one-year project to do this project.
Chad
I can do it.
Eric
A w we have a one year time frame to do this second project. We have a one year project to do this third project. We're gonna one after the other after the other. So we got about three years worth of development to do all the stuff and blah blah blah blah blah blah. And I looked at and I said, Okay. Then I looked at it and I came back to him and I was like, These are not three projects. This is one project, one one-year project. And I told him why, and I pitched him on it, and he goes, That just makes all the sense in the world. Like, they're not three different systems. This is one generic system that can do all three. And here's how I would architect it, and here's what I would do, and blah blah blah. And he's like, Okay. And if you fast forward, six months later it was done and up and running, and did all three in six months. but that's where it was do you know, centralized credit card processing, healthcare adjudication. So like if you got blue cross or whatever and you go into the pharmacy, one of the problems they were having is people go into the pharmacy, they got their blue cross. Remember, this is forty years ago. This is the day where if you went with a credit card in in a store, everyone behind you would be like, man, 'cause they'd take like three minutes and they'd have those machines, shh, machines and the whole pro you know, everything would slow down. So they were trying to automate and speed all that up and get systems like you have today. We swipe a card, boop, and in a second you have an answer. that's what we implemented. we did the same thing healthcare adjudication. You'd go in and you get your script and you'd give him a healthcare card. It wouldn't be till 30 days later, through all the mail manual process, they'd find out his coverage expired the week before. You know, this is April third, his ex his his coverage ran out March thirty first. He's not covered anymore. Now we just gave him five hundred dollars worth of drugs, now we have to chase him.
Eric
So they wanted an automatic real-time like credit card, you know, like verification. Does he have the money? So I'm like, no, these are all just transactions. It's one, you don't need a healthcare system, you don't need a credit card system, you don't need a check processing system, you need a transaction processing system. And then with different types of transactions that it can handle and blah, blah, blah. More like a switching routing, like a packet switch phone network system. And that's that's what I modeled it after, and I built it on that concept. And at one point, they're like,
Chad
Yeah.
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
Yeah, billions and billions of dollar transactions. Basically, there was a point you couldn't go into a store and buy anything other than if you paid cash for something at the front desk, like a Snickers bar. Other than that, everything else in that store went through the software that we developed. And we had a small little Skunkworks team. I led it. there was a point where, yeah, then they were like it got wind in the in the upper board that like, wait a minute, you got a twenty one year old kid coding all this stuff, like we're a multi billion dollar corporation. Like
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
Dude, what are you doing? You know? What are you doing here? So John was like, No, no, no. Like, trust me, I know that. I'm like, So he's like, All right. They brought in Deloitte and Touche. They did an audit. They were there for a couple of weeks. I didn't like the concept, but I'm like, all right, fine, you know, it is what it is. We'll let them do their thing. And they came back, my boss and then they just left. I was like, that was odd. And my boss came up to me and said, Hey, just want to tell you. They looked at it, they had a meeting, and they told the the CEO and the whole board some of the best code they've ever seen. The kid knows what he's doing, leave him alone. And that was it. Never heard another word. And we built the systems. And I was there for about five years. And then during that time, I started building my own software. I my my long-term vision was to run my own software company. like Bill Gates. I wanted to be the next Microsoft, you know? I'm gonna develop software and sell it, put it in a box and sell it, you retail software.
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
so I had developed some products and I started selling them on the side and building up a business and I did it with full disclosure to CBS. I told them what I was doing. I'm like, this has nothing to do with healthcare, adjudicate any of the stuff I'm doing here. This is games and screensavers completely unrelated. And they were like, Okay, fine. so I went and I built, I just did it evenings and a week. I was giving them not forty, I was given like fifty, sixty hours a week as it was. So I'm like, it's not cutting into time. I'm giving you more than you're paying me for, you know? but then
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
Eventually got to the point where it was getting stressful for me because there was just too much going on and I couldn't run have a full day job and run this business. Some I had to either decide that was a hobby and make it go away, or jump in with both hands. And that's what I did. So it was July, I remember July nineteen ninety-three. I gave my notice, w jumped in with both feet, and I've worked for myself ever since, building businesses, building, selling, growing businesses. full time, you know, jumped off the ledge. I I say like an entrepreneur to me is a guy who takes a a a kit for a an airplane kit, jumps off the ledge off, you know, jumps off the cliff and then starts building it on the way down, you know? And hopefully you you you you build that glider before you hit the bottom. and that's what I did. I just jumped off and went for it.
Chad
Love it. I love the whole, you know, what I hear and and I think is is really cool is that, you know, here's a young kid coming into a multi-billion dollar company and you know, finding a problem and coming up with a solution for it. and and that shows it doesn't matter how old you are, if you're willing to you know, be be willing to step up and try something and do it. Man, look at the path and what it created for yourself. And that's a awesome story.
Eric
Right, right. And that's the thing. Looking at don't just always do that's another life lesson for me was don't just do what you're asked to do. Sometimes take a step back, look and say, and the first thing you gotta do is is this the right thing to do? Like I looked at this and I was like, wait a second, you know, and one thing I I did not know back then that I know now, I'm fifty seven now, so I've learned a few things. One of the things I learned about myself was that the way my brain works, I'm it it's all about pattern matching. It was a weird thing. And it that that I didn't even realize until I was probably almost in my forties, you know, and then I realized like, like I can see and spot patterns and understand like pattern matching. My that's how my brain works. So and th that's an example of it where I just looked at this problem and what I saw was here's a problem, here's a problem, here's wait a minute, these are all the same problem, you're just calling them something different. You process you take in the store, it's gonna come in, it's gonna hand you a transaction, and it wants you to check if this check
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
Physical check is good or is it gonna bounce? I'm swiping a credit card. Is this good? Am I gonna get paid or is it bad? Healthcare adjudication. Is this healthcare still valid? Or like these are all just store level transactions. So we have them all come into one system and then the one system has line had lines back out the back end that this one goes to the payment processor, this one goes to the check verification house, this one goes to
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
We do and it's like a packet switch network. And then when the response comes back, I just gotta know how to map it back to where it came from and you know, and but but I'm just passing all these transactions around through a centralized hub. I'm like, they're all the same. It's just no. So I I actually wrote a programming language. I d I did some cool stuff. It was kind of fun. It was nerd and nerdy, you know, cool stuff. built a whole scripting programming language to to trend to manipulate these transactions on the fly. It was cool stuff.
Chad
No, that's I I think that's really, really cool. And so was the was the I know you later on you did the whole the screen safer story. Was that like a same kind of deal, like found a problem, made a something at it and like
Eric
Yeah.
Eric
Yeah, so that that came you know, that was a funny thing. and that's another thing that I learned and and became a core tenant for me. it was about you know, like like the old saying like I said about you know when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. It's about things getting thrown at you and you either respond to but also recognizing the the life lesson behind it. Recognizing the life lesson is a key thing. Paying attention to that. So one of the things that I learned early on was that someone came to me and said, Hey, we need a screen saver. Now, this is back in the 80s, you know, and this was in the days of you had monochrome monitors, and screen burn-in was a real thing. Screen savers started to save your screen because the phosphorus, you know, green monochrome block, all uppercase, you know, kind of old school terminals would burn in. And like at CVS headquarters. They had monitors all up the hallway for maintenance to takeaway that were all dead coming back from stores because they're just sitting there all day with the pharmacy fulfillment screen, you know, the home screen sitting there, and they were all burned in. They got like thousands of dollars worth of monitors that are all trash because they've just been sitting there and they're burned in. Like we need we want to put a screensaver on these things. the problem is that any of the screens there were lots. I'm like, there's a billion of them out there. I'm sure I I I can find you one, no problem. You're like, yeah, we the problem that we have is that the screen goes blank. But when you press any key, the screen comes back. Okay, great. The problem is whatever key you press is a live active key. And sometimes you don't know what's on the screen when it goes blank. And they had an example, they showed me an example. Someone was just aggravated because they were processing. This was before Excel. It was Lotus 123. And they were doing they were doing Lotus 123 spreadsheets and stuff that from store sales and all that they were so complex. It literally would take about 12 hours to run through, do all the calculations, come up with all the, you know, and they were like 3D spreadsheets, not regular spreadsheets, but then you had each worksheet again, and then they would compile against all the different work, like it was the really complex stuff. And it would take 12 hours. So after a certain amount of time, the screen would go off. But but Lotus 123 would say calculating, press any key to abort.
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
And they would leave for work, they would leave at the end of the day, it would run all day, they'd leave, you know, and then they'd come back in the next morning and it aborted because someone walked along, pressed a key, and it aborted. And they're like, I just spent all day waiting for this, and someone came across and hit a thing, and just now I have to run it all over. And by the third time, they it's it's like it's been three days. I still don't have my numbers because someone keeps touching the they posted, they taped a thing. Don't touch this under penalty of death, you know? And they like put a thing right over the keyboard, you know. They're like, we need to do something about it.
Chad
my gosh.
Eric
I'm like, all right, can you find something that'll eat that keystroke? Like, don't pass it through. Like, just turn the screen on, but don't pass it through. I'm sure I can find something like that. I went on the bullet back then it was bulletin board systems and you know for downloading and all this stuff. Couldn't find anything. Literally couldn't find anything. So I'm like, all right, I'll write it. I wrote it for them all in assembler for DOS assembler, little what was called a TSR terminate and stay resident program, and it was all done in assembler. And I coded it, and I'm like, okay, here you go, you can have this.
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
I did it on my own time and I said, Here go. So When I launched my software company, I was I developed an edit a software editor for for programmers and stuff. And that's where I was gonna go into business. I'm gonna sell this editor. And I tried marketing it and I was doing all this stuff and and I couldn't get any traction for it. Any it was like the coolest thing, but I couldn't get traction. One of the problems that I recognize is this is the day of the dial up modem, you know, your your your twelve hundred baud modems, you know, kind of thing. And And the files, the software, it was just too big to download. It would take like an hour to download. And people weren't gonna like spend an hour downloading stuff over like that was a lot. That was a big ask at the time. It was all dial up, AOL dial up kind of thing. and they weren't gonna spend the invest that kind of time and energy downloading something that they don't even know if it's any good or not. So what I did was I came up with Bundling the screensaver. It's a short, fast, quick download. It's very popular. All these people download it. And then when you install it, I gave more. by the way, we have this editor, we have this, you know. And I use that as a marketing vehicle. And what I found out is nobody wanted to buy my software that I was actually trying to sell, but everyone kept saying, Where can I buy this screensaver? This is really cool. I'm like, there's nothing to buy. I just gave it to you. You know? Like, so eventually, yeah, but no, but really, like, like shareware and you know, try before you buy software and all that. No, but really, okay. This is great, you know, but but where can I buy the Fulver or where can I pay you to, you know, for licensing it, you know, and all that stuff. And I'm like, what, what, what? Finally, I and it was one of these things where I was like, get your editor, get your editing software, get your nobody, all right, get your screensaver, get your screensaver. So one of the things I learned, another life lesson for me, was that I did not build a software company to evangelize a product. I built a software company, and then here's a product I can sell.
Eric
It's a different philosophy. I had a lot of friends who built a software and then they created a company to evangelize that piece of software. And if it wasn't very popular, they're banging their head against the wall, doing all the work, doing all the stuff, and not getting a lot of traction. Instead, I went with the path of least resistance. No, I'm a software company, and here's the product that everybody wants. And then I put something out, and that's what I I learned to test. Put something out, like a your MVP, minimal viable product, put something out. Put something else out, put something else out. this is getting traction. All right, then work on that and do more of that. Like we're in the I'm in business and software is what I'm selling. I'm not in business to sell this software, if that makes sense.
Chad
No, that that's that's so good, so rich. And you know, I I I asked a l those two stories are like gold to me because, you know, and and I say this because you've sat in that seat, you've been there. Like you to go back to when you're 20 and go to go to even to what you're doing today. Like for someone who's out there and they're listening and they're young and maybe they're coming out of college, or maybe they're young entrepreneurs and they're they're hearing this, you know, what would you say to them as far as like, here here is some here is some advice that I would give you based off what you've experienced.
Eric
Yeah. Yeah. So the the first thing is stay humble. You know, when when you when you start off, you start at the bottom and you work your way up and just look for opportunities, build and grow and shuck and drive and work your way up and look for opportunities. You know, when I first walked in there, shit, I forgot you were coming today. Ugh, like I'm a pain in the butt. I'm like, more one more thing he's gotta try to figure out. Here, just sit here for a minute. And and most people would feel very disrespected, stuck in the middle of a hallway, whatever. But
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
That's how I ended up. If you look back, that's how I ended up meeting the the executive VP. And that's how I mean at that I wouldn't have met him. I would have just been some low-level guy. And they and who knows, maybe the people I was working for never I was so low level, entry level and dismissed, maybe they never would have noticed that, you know, I was a diamond in the rough and they would have just seen the rough and never noticed. But, you know, time and place and whatever and
Chad
Yeah, and you wouldn't have met him otherwise.
Eric
You know, so the first lesson is, you know, don't just like, I want this, I want, you know, be flexible, roll with the punches, and take advantage of the opportunities when they pop up. You know, you never know. You know, make you know, you got lemons, make lemonade, you know, make the best of it. That worked out exceedingly well, keeping your eye open for opportunities, and and roll with the punches, just like the screensaver thing. You know, I was truly trying to push this more techy.
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
more substantial thing, but everyone wanted this goofy little screensaver that I made that like I'm like, really? Roll with the punches. That's what people want. That's where I realized. I'm in business to be in business. So roll with what go with it's easier. And this is Amazon. Amazon's success, they're fulfilling demand. The demand's already there. Amazon doesn't come up with like, all right, we're gonna sell this new widget and then try to promote that widget. What Amazon does is say, They just look at the data. What do people want to buy? they want to buy these pens, then they start selling the pen. you want to buy mugs? Then I'm selling this mug. You know, like they, where's the demand? And then the people who are most successful selling on Amazon fulfill the demand that's already there. People are looking for balloons for birthday parties, they're looking for whatever. They go, where's the volume? Those are the successful sellers. Not the guy who comes up with some product idea and is trying to push it.
Chad
you're you're you're spot on and you know we we live we we we're in a society today and and I've had this conversation and and and I think you'll relate to it we're in a society today where everything is such at the fingertips, way more than it was when I was younger and even when you you know like you know the the things that the the you know let's say it this way
Eric
yeah. yeah.
Chad
There's more people who are wanting to be social media influencers, like that wasn't even a thing years ago. But now, like, I mean, these people make a living on doing this, right? And and yeah, like just telling people their story or I think there's one guy I saw he's like building, like redoing a house. And there's like people, thousands of people watch this, right? Like just like amazing. But w we we do that and that and and that's the world we live in. And so people today coming out into the workforce think that, you know.
Eric
Yeah, right. You're doing what?
Chad
The story that you told about being looked at and going, I forgot you were coming, like you're a nobody. I mean, just be honest. Like they they could care less whether you were there or not, to somebody who actually was vital in writing code that they still platform off today. That's that's real. That's that's stuff that we take for granted and people realize like you you gotta work through some things. You're not just gonna be an instant millionaire. It's not not gonna happen.
Eric
Well, yeah, there there there is that there is that that now I'm sure every generation has said like I sound like my dad now, you know what I mean? Like I'm like some words come out and you're like, crap, I sound like my dad, you know, but like kids today, rah rah rah, kids today are soft, you know. I mean I'm sure every generation has said that, you know, and you know, like you know obviously like my grandfather, like, kids today, you know, they get to drive around these fancy autumn auto auto carriages. They don't have to, you know, they
Chad
Yeah, sure. yeah, sure.
Eric
Like they don't have to go shopping for buggy whips anymore, you know what I mean? It's like, yeah, okay, you know, I mean, you know, so I I I get there's a lot of that. But, you know, I do feel, I definitely do feel like like kids today are especially in the United States, you know, standards of living have grown so much that that kids today are kind of I don't wanna say they're soft, but I guess that's what I'm gonna say, but they expect more like that instant gratification. Like I just graduated from school and now I'm gonna be CEO of my own thing. You know, it's like, dude, sometimes you gotta start at the bottom, you gotta work your way up, you gotta like it takes experience. You know, there was an old saying, I'm probably gonna butcher it because I don't number it exactly, but there's an old saying I heard that I liked something about wisdom is gained from experience and experience is gained from fucking up. You know, you gotta make your mistakes and you learn from
Chad
Yeah, yeah.
Eric
And then over that that's but but the key is paying attention to these things, seeing the recognizing the patterns, recognizing opportunities.
Chad
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I think I think, you know, I think there's some there's some beautiful being in the moment and being being where you're not at the top. Like like I get it. Look, especially for atypical people like you and I who are I would imagine, you know, striving to be the best that you can be. You're trying to be successful. You know, there's people that's built that way. Like they just have that in Like they just want to keep moving up and grow and grow and grow. And and there's nothing wrong with it. It's great characteristics. but I think sometimes we we can ge be so fast in trying to do that that we just stop and miss the learning moment that we're in. you know, I think I I keep going back to this, but I think it's the it's the coolest part is that, you know, here you are sitting in a hallway with people walking by you, like looking at you like you have this disease, like don't talk to the kid in the corner, to like having all this trust. And it's about being in the right place at the right time, but it's also about When you get the opportunity, the observation that you had while sitting there made you able to say, Hey, I'm this, or I can do this, or I can do that. And and that's what I mean, that's I bet you look back on that today as a business that you own today, and there's some learning points in that that you still use.
Eric
Yeah. And I said be humble. No no.
Eric
Absolutely. and that's what I'm saying. These are things that I learned along the way. But rather than just things happen and you got your head down and you're not noticing and whatever, and then I'm you're just going through the motions, having your head up, paying attention to these things, learning lessons, making connections and and recognizing opportunity, you know, it's it's led to these, like I said, lessons, you know. yeah, I was there when I was at CVS when I first started as a summer intern. I it was the same thing. I walked in there and I figured, all right, I'm the young kid. You know, be humble, right? I'm the young kid. I don't know anything. And there were people, there was I remember there's this one lady who who I looked up to. She was smart, she knew her stuff. She was she had been there for like twelve years, over a decade. She's been there twelve years. I was there barely two weeks, and she comes up to me and says, Hey, I heard you're really smart. I need some help with something. Can you help me with this? And I'm like, Okay. And it was very basic entry-level stuff to me. But like I said, I was a software engineer. I was a deeply technical software, you know, data structures and all this stuff. And most of the people who were there were report programmers. You know, they had a different, you know, different type of training, different type. They didn't learn the systems level stuff that I've learned and whatever. Like it's it's just it was different, all right? And so you know, she's been there for like 12 years. She comes up to me, she's asking me for help on something, but it's because The old mainframe systems were going away and being replaced by minis and you know, like Unix mini computers and like DOS-based like desktop first PCs. The PCs were just coming into the workplace. And that was totally different than their mainframe stuff. You know, when they're like, you know, mainframe, I don't know if this means anything, but mainframe was all EBSIDIC program. Now all of a sudden it's ASCII-based, you know, and all that like and they don't know how to do the conversions and binary stuff and hexadecimal and all of that. And I'm like, all right, I can help you with that. So that's part of how I built this reputation. I you know, I I wasn't I was humble and I was nice about it and sure, however I can help, you know. I found out this really surprised me. I started getting asked, this was another thing, as a tech guy. I started getting asked to go into these meetings. This was weird to me, very weird. All of a sudden, like my boss come up to me and say, Hey, you got it you you you free between now and one o'clock? I'd be like, Yeah, why? He goes, they're having a meeting up in
Eric
the help desk, which is a whole different department. They help the pharmacies when they call them with problems with the computers and stuff. It's like, yeah, help desk and the POS guys are having a meeting and wanted to have you, you know, go. And I'm like, I was technically in the pharmacy department. We work on the computer system in the back pharmacy. I don't do POS I'm not in the POS team. I'm not in the help desk team. I'm like, why? they're like, they asked for you. I'm like, okay. I go up there, it's really weird, but they're asking they're all fumbling around with stuff, and finally I'm like, hey,
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
No, just do this. And they're like, yeah, yeah. They're like brilliant. I found out later. Then and then I get asked, hey, POS is having a meeting. You know, can you? I'm like, I'm not on the POS team. What is this? Like, I was doing all these random meetings and stuff, and I'm like, what, why, what? And finally, the the leader of the help desk, the head of the help desk, she goes, Hey, can you come to? I'm like, Yeah, I don't mind. I'll do whatever you want, however, I can help. But like, what I'm not on the team. Like, why? And she goes, Basically, and she said it this, because you're the only egghead I can talk to. And she meant the software tech guys, nerd the nerds and stuff, right? She goes, What I realized is that I had all the software guys were like techie nerds and spoke techie stuff. I could speak in English. And what happened was I was almost like, you know, the Batman Universal Dakota ring or something like that. You know, like I I like they would call me into meetings and she'd be like,
Chad
Yeah. Yeah.
Eric
Yeah, we have this system, you know, when I press F two I get my report. When I press F two now it's broken. And I would analyze it and then I go back to the programmers and say, Hey, you know when you're running the end of day routine, yeah, the stuff is getting caught up on the okay, wait, wait. Then I'd go back to her and say, You can press F two now. It works, that's all she cares about. So, like, I could take that, and and you know, whereas other guys would be Well, is it the of the day proc that's that's causing a problem? And and then she'd be like, I don't know, I just press F2, it doesn't work anymore. I would analyze it for but I I would I was basically translator between the end user, and I'm like, That's why you keep calling me to these meetings.
Chad
Yeah. That's it.
Chad
Because you're you were smart enough to understand, but you're also tangible enough to have a a dialect conversation and meet where they are.
Eric
Right. And so the other life lesson in that that I took took away from that, there were several things. And one of them was that again, recognizing this, like, like not just going through the motions and doing stuff, but like, wait a second. So this is valuable and people need this. okay, that's interesting. And that's when I learned later in my this this came back. I use this in my own business about five years now, ten. About ten years later, this this concept came back. I got to a point where I'm I'm the software engineer, right? I'm the techie guy. I'm building all my products. Like now, now I'm ten years, I'm in my own business. I've got dozens of people working for me now. It's building, it's growing, it's whatever. And I keep trying to hire sales guys and the sales guy to bring in new business and whatever. Yeah, I hire sales guys, and the sales guys just aren't selling anything. They just can't do anything. Every time I walk in, I close a deal. and and someone said to me. You should be selling. And I remember and and I always when I say the story beg for forgiveness when I relate a story. because at the time, honestly, I'm like looking down my nose, I'm like, I'm a sales guy. Like, like that's a dime of dust. Like I'm a software engineer, like I'm not some freaking sales guy, you know, like that's beneath me. Like I'm not doing all right. And then I started thinking back to that experience with the help desk and all that stuff, and like
Eric
How I can communicate and I can do and and looking at this is my business. This is the decision I had to make, my role. When I fundamentally shifted my own role, I get the tech stuff and I can hire, I know how to hire tech people. Like I know what to look for, like talk to talk, walk the walk. I get higher, I have good competent tech people working for me. I can hire more. They can I can hire and manage tech people. I keep stumbling with the sales side.
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
This is my own business. If it fails, I fail. If it succeeds, I succeed. It matters. I'm all in on this. I have the skin in the game. This is my business. So where am I? This was my fundamental question. Where am I more valuable to my business? It's actually selling. Ouch! That was a hard swallow. No, I'm the tech guy. But I'm like, but I want this to succeed. Where am I actually most valuable? I'm most valuable because I can talk to the prospect.
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
Don't get all the tech stuff and doesn't care. They're running a business. You know, they're they're, you know, a dentist who just needs a website that can take appointments and this and that and the other. He doesn't care about the tech stuff or I'm a dentist, just book me some appointments. You know? first thing off the top of my head, whatever. But but the point being that I realize, and that was a tough decision, and I know as a business grows.
Chad
That's right.
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
Every owner goes through this where as the business grows, all of a sudden you have to decide what's my real role here. And it might not be the role that you envisioned, and it might not be the role that you necessarily prefer, but it's the one that's actually going to make the business most successful. And eventually I swallow hard and I embraced it. And I became head of sales and marketing and all that for my business. and hired common people to I replace myself. Cause I'm like, I can replace myself as an engineer. If I get good quality engineers, I can replace myself. I can't replace myself as easily on the sales side communicating our value proposition, who we are and why we're different and all the like that level of passion. And I've always said the owner ha and and this is where I told like even to when I had then I started hiring more sales people to work with me. And I just said, look, like I would blow everybody away in terms of closing rates and all that stuff. And I'm like, look, I understand it's not fair. It's not a level playing field. You're an employee here. You can only do so much. I, as the owner, I can make decisions on the fly. I can look at something and go, Yeah, we'll do that. Sure, I'll do it. You can't make that decision. You can't speak for the rest of the company to do some weird thing. and I just have all this experience. I've been doing this for over a decade now and I can tell you, yeah, that's like this other project we did. You know, you were hired six months ago. You don't remember you don't know about that thing we did 10 years ago. It's like it's unfair. But I had this unfair advantage. So I should be leveraging that.
Chad
Yeah. Yeah.
Chad
I I love it. Eric, this has been we're we're actually pressed up on our time now. This has been outstanding. What a what a gem to have you on. And this is exactly the kind of conversations that I love. It's just real. It kind of shows a story. so I'm I'm very thankful for you to being on today. What a great, what a great show.
Eric
Okay, yeah.
Eric
Thank you.
Eric
I'm I'm I'm I'm thankful that you had me on. It's great. I really appreciate it.
Chad
It it was awesome. So ladies and gentlemen, if you're if you want to see more, please subscribe to the station and channel and watch. Eric has been a a great guest today and really got some good nuggets here for you out there. So again, this is Chad Paris with Process Overpressure. Thank you for coming on today.
Eric
Thank you.
Chad
Then we'll cut it there. So Man, this is great. Thank you.
Eric
All right. you're very welcome. You're very welcome. and you know, someday you ever want to circle back, we can go to the second half of the career and another life stories. Give it some time, let it sit or whatever, but when you're looking for, you know, down the road we can reconnect. Talk about all the stuff I went through with the cannabis industry and all kinds of there's so many life stories that, you know.
Chad
I'd love to. No, I'd love to.
Chad
Absolutely. Yeah. Love it. been great. Well thank thank you again. And and what I'll do is I'll send you the raw footage so you have it too.
Eric
Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you. And yeah, and obviously if you know anybody that wants to you know, we're still we do five away consulting now. I mean I do a lot of marketing stuff. We do brochure design and branding and logos and all that all the creative stuff, but our real key has been the tech side. W you know, I'm a software engineer by by background, right? So I mean we're still part of a key differentiator for us is that we build all these really cool back end systems to power businesses, you know. So
Chad
Yeah.
Eric
You know, o always looking for referrals and things like that. So
Eric
It's good. It's all about networking. You never know. I I found that's the other thing I found. You never know. It could be four years from now, something pops up and like, you know what? I got a guy.
Eric
All right.
Eric
Same here. Thanks, Chad. Good luck. Right, right.
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