965: Starting a biz while in your 9 to 5, generating passive income, and making INFORMED DECISIONS w/ Steve Pugh

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Hey, what is up?

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Welcome to this episode of the entrepreneur to entrepreneur podcast.

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As always, I'm your host, brian Lofermento, and I've got to tell you something.

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Today's guest I have had the great pleasure of speaking with him even before we got together for today's episode, because this is an entrepreneur that I think in so many ways, you're going to relate to his story today, because this is someone who is truly an entrepreneur at heart, and I've said that in so many different ways in so many different episodes with our amazing guests.

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But the reason why I say it about today's guest is because this is someone who, even amidst having an incredible corporate career and a really impressive academic background, he's found ways to combine all of those interests and those skills and built upon them along the way to launch a really cool business, dating even back into his corporate career that he's ramping up in big ways.

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This is such a cool company.

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I'm excited to learn about it today as well.

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So today's guest, his name is Steve Pugh.

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Steve, like I said, is an entrepreneur at heart.

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He started and runs two businesses.

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Now we're going to talk a lot today about his company versus sportsulator, because I also want to know from Steve is it a tech company?

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Is it a content company?

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What are all the different things that he juggles as the CEO of Versus Sports Simulator.

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He also has a rental and property management business called River City Towns.

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This is someone who has at the end of his career.

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It feels weird saying that because in so many ways he's got so many fresh beginnings because he retired from his day job late last year, at the tender age of 53.

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And part of why he was able to do that is because he started his businesses 10 plus years ago.

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So today's episode we're going to get into Steve's journey and we're going to talk about all those seeds that we plant along the way so that we can harvest later.

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So I'm excited about this one.

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I'm not going to say anything else.

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Let's dive straight into my interview with Steve Pugh.

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All right, steve, I'm so excited that you're here with us today.

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First things first.

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Welcome to the show.

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Well, thank you so much, Brian.

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It's been a real pleasure to be invited to be on the show and I have to say, before we get started, I bet you hear this a lot, but I think I finally met my match with somebody with their energy and positivity on entrepreneurship, so I really respect and appreciate that about you.

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Thank you so much, steve.

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I will publicly confess that I do get that a lot and I always say it's super easy, because entrepreneurship gives us so much fuel and so much passion in our lives and for me, not only am I excited about my businesses, but I get to have amazing conversations with great entrepreneurs like you, steve.

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So super easy for me to maintain that and really build on that momentum.

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But I want to go beyond the bio, because I so respect all the things that you've done.

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But, like I said, planting seeds and harvesting is for sure going to be a theme of our conversation today.

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So who the heck is Steve?

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How did you start doing all these amazing things?

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Well, that's kind of a loaded question, but I'll do the best that I can.

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So, like you mentioned, I spent the majority of my career working at a financial institution and I was lucky and blessed to spend over 25 years there and started out as a software engineer and went into more people leadership and found that that's really where my interest and passion lies.

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But you're right, it was probably about 10 years or so ago that I realized you know, this isn't going to last forever.

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I don't want to work for a corporation forever, and so I started these businesses With that in mind.

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I just didn't know how it was actually going to turn out and that it was going to eventually lead to a point where I was able to retire at such an early age.

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But I'm super thankful, because one of the things that I realized is a lot of folks who are principals or CEOs at a startup they are challenged with where are we going to come up with funding?

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Where am I going to come up with the time?

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How am I going to get paid while I'm trying to get this business up and running?

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And, because of the timing of how this worked out for me, that has never been a problem for me.

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So I realized I've got a slight edge on a lot of other CEOs for startups.

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But I am so excited to spend the next two to five years seeing how we can scale this business and where exactly we can take it.

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I've always wanted to know.

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Now I have a chance to do that.

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Yeah, I love that overview, Steve, especially because I'm going to ask you a little bit of an ignorant question to kick things off today, because, talking about your corporate career, you're the director of software engineering at a Fortune 100 company.

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And when I hear that, steve, it must be.

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And this is someone who's been an entrepreneur for 16 years.

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I've never really worked in corporate America, but I imagine that it's easy to coast, it's easy to settle into that career and say this is what I'm doing, this is where my energy is, this is what feeds my family, this is what pays my bills.

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You somewhere along the way, steve, this is what feeds my family.

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This is what pays my bills.

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You, somewhere along the way, steve identified, and I'm curious if it was driven by passion, if it was driven by skill up leveling, like what was it that made you say yeah?

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Even while I'm in my career, I want to like a lot of people, especially entrepreneurs.

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I have a really inspired passion around passive income.

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I like I love being able to create something that is of value to customers and they're purchasing all through the night, right?

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I don't have to actually be there to make the sale and I'm able to make income.

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Be there to make the sale and I'm able to make income.

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And when you're talking about software as a service like what Versus Sports Simulator is it kind of sells itself.

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There's not a lot I have to do to attract new customers, it's just been growing by word of mouth.

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So been pretty excited about the growth that we've been able to enjoy so far.

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But I would say what inspired me to get into that back while I was still working at that day job and I've told a lot of people over the past year, by the way, I don't know how in the world I was doing that day job and doing this other stuff at the same time and obviously that day job was my highest priority and I spent probably 50 hours a week working on it.

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But I'm so busy now I don't know how I ever had the time to do both at the same time.

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So really thankful that that I've kind of exited that situation and now able to put a lot of time into versus sports simulator.

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And I think, finally, to answer your question is I was just really looking for an opportunity where I could take my mathematics background and my love for computer programming and my love for sports and combine those things together into something that could generate passive income.

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Didn't know it was going to work out the way it did, but I guess with a lot of perseverance over 10, 12 years it finally did work out and I'm super thankful for that.

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Yeah, and I think you just spoke to a really important point, which is we've all heard that cliche, that quote of if you love what you do, you'll never work a day in your life.

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And for you, working 50 hours a week at your corporate job, you probably don't even realize how many hours.

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I'm sure you were working a ton of hours on your own business as well, but it was your hobby, it was something you enjoyed doing.

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It's how I feel.

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Whether I'm podcasting or writing content or doing all these things, it doesn't feel like work.

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So the hours truly do fly by.

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So I really love hearing that perspective again.

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Coming back to I want to point this out for listeners benefit, which is you weren't measuring the work that you were doing on your business by the results, because you were just plotting forward and again planting those seeds, and I so respect that approach.

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And you lead us to I'm fascinated to explore the intersection here.

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And you lead us to I'm fascinated to explore the intersection here.

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If you talked about your love for math, your love for computer programming, your love for sports, and, Steve, I'm going to extrapolate that and say well, you're also running a business versus sports simulator, which also means marketing and sales and conversions, and website management and all these things that go along with it.

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So, Steve, what the heck is your company?

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What is Versus Sports Simulator?

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How on earth do you answer the question when people say, Steve, what do you do for a living?

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That's a great question.

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I wish I had a well-polished elevator pitch, but I really don't.

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But basically, versus Sports Simulator is, like I mentioned, software as a service, and the purpose is to help people who are interested in sports A have access to some really advanced sports statistics, but also a lot of my paying customers are casual gamblers, right, so sports betting has been legalized in a lot of states across the country.

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It's been on the rise for a long time as far as in the industry and how much money it generates, and so versus sports simulator is just a math based tool to data driven tool to enable customers to be able to make more informed decisions about about their betting, and I should probably touch on that just for a second.

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Uh, one of the things that I learned in my day job uh, that I did for 25 years was, um, I really enjoy helping, coaching other people and helping them to make great decisions, and that that was a lot of what I did both professionally and personally.

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It's something I'm really super passionate about, and so not only was I able to combine all these passions together with versus sports simulator, but also just my desire to help people make good decisions.

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You know, sports bettors, I think, are very used to seeing the guy that's just kind of yelling and saying here's why you should buy my picks and stuff like that.

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That is totally not me.

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My goal is to provide sound, math based predictions for every, every game and a whole slew of sports I think we cover like 15 sports now and put that data in front of people and put the tools in front of them that they need to help make informed decisions about which games they want to bet on.

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And in doing that, I think we've created a brand that is respected in the community, because it's really a breath of fresh air.

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You don't find a lot of people who are basically selling sports picks, who are doing it more from the standpoint of trying to help people as opposed to trying to make a dime for themselves, and I think that's what differentiates Versus Sports Simulator from some of our other competitors.

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Yeah, it's really cool to hear those insights, especially just knowing you even the little that I already do but you and I have obviously had prior conversations before today is it's fascinating to me how much you genuinely love getting, you love digging into this stuff.

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It's not something that sprouted up and people are gonna go to your website and I'm excited to talk about all the things that you've built and how you've got apps and everything for versus sports simulator.

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But what I really find fascinating is, steve, this is your child of labor.

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I mean, this is something that you've continued to learn the more that you're doing inside of this.

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When you talk about the SAS business model, it's a very sexy business model for a lot of entrepreneurs and for a lot of entrepreneurs, but obviously what holds them back is the whole software part.

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When we talk about a SaaS, it's that first S of how the heck do I build a software?

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Obviously, you have a little bit of a leg up there, having had a successful career when it comes to development, but talk to us about those skills, because there's a million tools that can help us along the way.

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What did that progression look like?

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Because it's easy to look at that finished product and think Steve's the best programmer ever.

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It's unbelievable how you've baked your math skills into it.

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But how did those baby steps actually happen?

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That's a really great question.

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I'm going to have to reflect on that for a second.

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I would say that it probably started with, as I mentioned before, when I spent the first few years of my career as a software engineer or at the time we called it a computer programmer, but software engineer sounds so much more fancy but basically it was writing code.

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When I went into people leadership as fast as technology evolved, it was really super important for me to have a pet project outside of work, that I was constantly building my skills and learning so that I could still talk the talk and lead my teams to deliver software at my day job, and so in doing so I was always looking for a pet project and this one just happened to pop up.

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So I started out developing the website and I learned how to develop a website using older well, at the time they weren't old uh website tools and then later came back, added an android app.

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I coded an iphone app myself.

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The challenge with that is it's really super fun to learn.

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Uh, take, take the iphone app, for example.

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I've never written a lot of objective c code in my life.

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They use Swift now for iPhone apps, but at the time it was Objective-C.

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I started on April 1st just takinga class with having in mind that I was going to code that app, and I had it in the store within four and a half months before football season.

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It was in the app store by August 15th and right away, like literally in the first month, it ranked in the top 50 top grossing sports apps in the US App Store, which I thought was just amazing that I was able to accomplish something like that just from starting from scratch and building it up.

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But I think that it's a testament to how I built all this stuff a little bit at a time.

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It was basically get it in my head that I want to learn how to code an iPhone app and then just really focus on that for months until I had one, and then, once that was in the store, it was on to the next thing.

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But but to your point a few moments ago, it's not just the technology, and one of the one of the big challenges with the technology is I have to stay on top of the latest trends, and that is a really challenging thing to do when you've got customer support, marketing, bookkeeping and things like that that you have to take care of, and so a lot of times when I need to update an app, a billing library or something like that, I will go ahead and outsource that to someone, but I know enough about the app to be able to call, to call, call them if they're trying to rip me off or something like that.

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So I've built a really nice network of people who can help me in a time of need, and that just gives me that insurance policy that, look, I can try to code it myself, but if, for some reason, I hit a roadblock, I've got people that I can reach out to.

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So, anyway, I think, just to sum that up, it's a, it is a labor of love, uh, and there's a lot of things that I still don't know, and if I had the marketing expertise that I wish I had, uh, I think I could probably scale this business a lot faster than I actually had.

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I think that would be my advice for for people is think about how you're going to market your tool, not just build it, but how are you going to market it.

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I think I waited a really long time to start thinking about marketing.

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Yeah, that's interesting to talk about because it's the classic chicken or the egg problem which I want to get there.

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But first things first, the chicken has to exist, which is your actual software, and huge kudos to you because, steve, when I think about all the things that we hear from our listener base all over the world at all different stages of business growth, their biggest competitor everyone wants to obsess about all these competitor analyses, but what I always see is that our biggest competitor is perfectionism.

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And obviously, in the world of software products, we always hear about the MVP, the minimum viable product.

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I'm curious to hear where, along that journey because I mean you launching the iPhone app as an example, sounds like you took very massive and very fast action there, which huge kudos to you, because most people don't do that.

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What has your attitude been towards rolling new things out?

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Is there an ounce of perfectionism in you that holds you back sometimes, or is it easy for you to just ship it?

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It's one of my favorite terms in the world of marketing ship it.

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Oh wow, I think it really depends.

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I think as.

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I grew in my career, I started to realize the importance of you're just going to have to make some concessions in certain places.

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It's important to weigh the pros and cons of speed to market versus quality and make the right decisions at the right time.

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I often used to tell people at work you know, all the decisions that we make are the right decision at the time that it was made.

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It's really easy to look back on it and play Monday morning quarterback and say we should have done this or we should have done that, and I try to encourage people to know that the decisions you're making right now are the right decisions.

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There's a principle that I learned about from a manager, probably a couple of years ago now, and it's a principle that I think I'd always managed to.

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I just didn't know that there was a term for it, right, and it's called the Yanni principle Y-A-G-N-I and it stands for you aren't going to need it, and so basically, what you do is you take your roadmap of all the things that you get excited about, that you want to do.

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Maybe customers have made suggestions or things that you just kind of, in the back of your mind, said, oh, I really need to go back and clean this up.

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You go back and prioritize that list and for each one, you ask yourself am I really going to need this or not In order to get to that next step?

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Whatever my next goal is, is it to scale the business?

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Is it to uh, you know improve the quality, improve the, the enhance, make enhancements to it?

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That is going to improve the customer experience.

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But once you know in your head all those things that that that you want to do, it's really super important, especially if you're limited with resources, like I am to, to go back and ask yourself am I really going to need this or not?

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And bubble those things down to the bottom of the list.

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Yeah, I love that.

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I remember in business school I was obviously introduced to the term of just-in-time inventory, and a lot of businesses really.

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The goal is that you don't want product just sitting in your warehouse for years on end because you're paying for that space.

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And the same thing for us as entrepreneurs is when we have that layer of intentionality that you're talking about so much with us here today.

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Then we can identify much more clearly what are those things that I need to tack on, whether it's me upskilling or, as you pointed out, even having a network of people that you can call on.

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I think it's a really powerful approach and that's why I've embraced just-in-time learning.

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I don't have inventory, fortunately, but I think it's still super relevant to our businesses.

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Steve, one word I wrote it down on my post-it note here as soon as you said it, because I said I need to force Steve to talk about that here on the air is passive income.

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Sometimes I've got problems with that term, steve, because obviously very little income is truly passive.

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We have to work for it a lot and a lot of entrepreneurs especially think that, oh, I can just build this thing and it's going to run on autopilot.

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Talk to us about the realities of it, because it's a really cool motivator and it's a really cool way to view the scaling of our business and the way that we choose our business models.

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But, as someone in the software space, I'd love for you to share some insights into the truth behind passive income.

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Oh, wow, I think that's a little bit of a loaded question.

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It's interesting, though.

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I recently started a nonprofit called Pathways to Success where I've been helping a lot of younger folks, help them assess what they want to do with their careers.

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Right, so should I go to college?

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If I'm already in college, should I get a job in the corporate world?

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Should I go into a trade?

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And I've been trying to mentor and coach people, just using my experience to help them make informed decisions there.

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But I have to say one common theme with every person.

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When I say young person, I'm talking, you know, senior in high school up to senior in college.

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I've been meeting with a lot of them recently.

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The common theme is passive income.

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They all kind of have in their head like, oh, I definitely want to go to college, or it's expected that I go to college.

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My parents are expecting me to go to college.

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They've already saved for it, but they're trying to take their time and figure out how could I also generate some passive income.

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And I know one gentleman, for example, who he's actually a senior in college right now, but he was doing machine learning back when he was in eighth grade, and I know both of his parents machine learning back when he was in eighth grade and I know both of his parents.

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That's incredibly smart and I don't pretend to be at that level, but it was purely driven by he really wanted to find a way to make money, a non-traditional way, where it's not working for a corporation and being dependent on that paycheck, but being able to generate some income that is supplemental to everything else that he wants to do in life, and I think that's a great example.

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It's kind of how I took it as well Passive income.

00:19:39.012 --> 00:19:45.657
I mean, as you know, I also own a rental business and so it can be considered passive income that you're getting rent right.

00:19:45.657 --> 00:19:49.673
I mean, you did take the risk of going and taking out a mortgage on a house.

00:19:49.673 --> 00:19:51.175
You own that house.

00:19:51.175 --> 00:19:52.298
You got to pay the mortgage payment.

00:19:52.298 --> 00:19:54.463
You got to take care of things if something goes wrong.

00:19:54.463 --> 00:19:59.702
Obviously you got to be responsive if a tenant calls and says there's a leak or something like that.

00:19:59.702 --> 00:20:18.430
But in the months when things are going pretty smooth, you're just getting a rent check and it's just kind of going into bank and you're seeing your bank balance go up until until something catastrophic comes up, like a HVAC going bad that you have to replace or something like that, but Uh, it's a really nice dream to have passive income.

00:20:18.490 --> 00:20:29.368
I think my advice for folks would be you know, first of all, find something that you know is going to work and do it in such a way that you don't make any sacrifices on on plan A in your life.

00:20:29.368 --> 00:20:32.743
I think passive income should remain plan B in your life.

00:20:32.743 --> 00:20:35.691
And then, secondly, don't put all your eggs in one basket.

00:20:35.691 --> 00:20:47.101
I mean, I it's no coincidence that I have two businesses and pursue actually more than that at this time just because I realized that one may not be enough.

00:20:47.101 --> 00:21:00.330
If I really want to live off of passive income, it is going to require investing in multiple different ventures, and probably the most important thing is making sure that you're passionate about those ventures so that it doesn't feel like it don't work at all.

00:21:01.114 --> 00:21:16.172
Yeah for sure, and even hearing you talk about that my analogy to kickstart today's episode of planting seeds it seems even more relevant because it's easy to look at people who get to harvest those crops of collecting that rent money or having people sign up for your software product.

00:21:16.211 --> 00:21:24.104
But the truth is that only happens if you plant those seeds, and that, of course, is a lot of work, and so I really love those insights that you share with us there.

00:21:24.184 --> 00:21:34.483
But one thing that stands out to me, steve, the more that you talk about this is it just seems like these two magical words motivate you in the way that you serve others, which is informed decisions.

00:21:34.483 --> 00:21:44.921
It's a term I've heard you say a few times here today, and, having gone through all the great things that versus sports simulator does, is that obviously, sports betting is a huge world right now.

00:21:44.921 --> 00:21:53.335
I mean, if you turn the TV on, you're going to see ads for draft Kings and FanDuel and all these other huge conglomerates, and and you're not trying to be them.

00:21:53.335 --> 00:21:58.631
Instead, what you're really bringing to the marketplace is helping people make more informed decisions.

00:21:58.631 --> 00:22:08.421
Talk to us about that positioning, because it seems so intentional in the way that your company shows up, but it also seems aligned with your values and the way that you truly want to help people.

00:22:08.421 --> 00:22:13.701
So talk to us about that positioning in this huge, global, multi-billion dollar industry of sports betting.

00:22:15.022 --> 00:22:15.304
Sure.

00:22:15.304 --> 00:22:22.615
So I mean, first I'll just say and I think most people know this, but there's a big difference between intellect and wisdom.

00:22:22.615 --> 00:22:32.730
Right, there's a lot of I know a lot of super smart people who have made a lot of poor decisions in their life and you know they're at a place in their life right now where they're looking back, going how did I get here?

00:22:32.730 --> 00:22:49.865
You know they may be straight A students, but they haven't learned from their mistakes and I think that's the key is always being observant of the decisions that you make and what worked well, what didn't work well, watching other people around you.

00:22:49.865 --> 00:22:53.880
I go back to when I was a child and I look at my parents.

00:22:53.880 --> 00:22:54.843
I think a lot of people can.

00:22:54.843 --> 00:22:55.223
Probably.

00:22:55.223 --> 00:22:58.769
I had great parents, don't get me wrong, but I think a lot of people look at their parents and go.

00:22:58.769 --> 00:23:24.414
That's how I'm not going to parent when I grow up, right, and so I think from a very early age I've been I've been just really overwhelmingly passionate about observing other people and observing what decisions they made that were good decisions, what decisions they made that were bad decisions, and collecting all that inventory in my own head and using that to make good, wise decisions for myself.

00:23:24.414 --> 00:23:41.148
And when I say wise, again, it's decisions that are based on things that you have learned, things that you saw work for others or did not work for others, and that's a lot different than just having an idea and knowing how to code machine learning stuff in eighth grade, right, it's a lot more than that.

00:23:41.611 --> 00:23:50.032
So you know, I take that to versus sports simulator and I think you know it's that's kind of almost like a brand promise for me.

00:23:50.032 --> 00:23:54.592
I'm not in it to convince people that, hey, you should go bet on this.

00:23:54.592 --> 00:23:57.044
I have people reach out to me and say, hey, you really do.

00:23:57.044 --> 00:24:01.872
You think I should take the Philadelphia Eagles at minus three over the Dallas Cowboys?

00:24:01.872 --> 00:24:03.760
And I'm not going to answer that question.

00:24:03.760 --> 00:24:10.962
Right, I've developed a tool to put in your hands where you can go and sort of simulate that matchup.

00:24:10.962 --> 00:24:22.834
You can adjust the offensive and defensive sliders, like if you know that Dallas Cowboys quarterback is injured or something like that, you can lower their offensive rating and see what the score output would be based on that.

00:24:22.834 --> 00:24:30.160
But again, my goal is to put the tools in the hands of my customers to make more informed decisions for themselves.

00:24:30.160 --> 00:24:34.030
Right, it goes back to that analogy about teaching a man to fish.

00:24:35.861 --> 00:25:08.468
Yeah, steve, I'm dying to ask you this question and I fear that I'm not going to articulate it perfectly, but I very much trust that I'm in good hands here and you're going to answer this, because it's going to outwardly sound like I'm asking you a math related question, but I think what I really want to get at is your philosophical brain, because when I think back to all the statistics in finance classes that I took in college, we always talk about using data to make informed decisions like what we're talking about here, but the truth is that past behavior and past outcome can only do so much when it comes to predicting future performance.

00:25:08.559 --> 00:25:14.536
And I guess the philosophical side of what I wanna ask you is that, as entrepreneurs, we're always looking to succeed.

00:25:14.536 --> 00:25:29.162
Obviously, as humans, we're always looking to maximize our chances for success, and there's something inside the way that you view the world and hearing the way that you're talking with us here today that goes beyond that math and it just sounds like you make the informed decisions.

00:25:29.162 --> 00:25:41.941
Yes, you have historical data, but you also trust in the fact that, hey, I'm doing the things whether it's building a company before I'm ever learning about marketing and launching it into the world and I'm going to do these things that will set me up for success in the future.

00:25:41.941 --> 00:25:55.346
So how do you, in your head and in your attitude and your philosophy, balance that approach of looking at and leaning on past data but also having, I guess, a little bit of faith in forward looking, performance and outcomes?

00:25:57.412 --> 00:25:59.076
Well, I'm definitely a person of faith.

00:25:59.217 --> 00:26:07.143
So you know, I think it goes without saying that you can't always look at past performance and predict the future about that.

00:26:07.143 --> 00:26:21.480
You know, when I retired, one of the first things I did was went and found myself a financial advisor and of course, that's one of the first things he said to me, right, like he's like I could do a whole lot better with with your money than what your previous company did with your 401k.

00:26:21.480 --> 00:26:31.019
He's like you know, that doesn't, that doesn't necessarily translate into the future, and that's true, I think, even in when it comes to to running a business.

00:26:31.019 --> 00:26:44.578
I mean, I think there's a certain amount of faith that you have to have confidence in yourself, knowing what your own hangups are, what are the things that you're comfortable delivering by yourself versus when you need to go out and get some help.

00:26:44.578 --> 00:26:51.701
It goes back to that decision of buy versus build, which was a big thing in my career and it's still an important decision to make.

00:26:51.701 --> 00:26:59.248
I don't know if that really answers the crux of your question, but that's all I got really.

00:26:59.788 --> 00:27:01.442
Yeah, no, I feel you, and that's the thing is.

00:27:01.442 --> 00:27:03.971
It's hard to talk about these things, because I think I mean both of us.

00:27:03.971 --> 00:27:06.971
It seems we arrived at the same word, which is it is faith.

00:27:06.971 --> 00:27:13.208
Is that and I did a podcast episode about this a couple months ago where I talked about yeah, you have to take risks.

00:27:13.208 --> 00:27:14.329
Essentially, you have to.

00:27:14.329 --> 00:27:31.606
My word for this year, for 2024, is building, because when you and I set out to build anything, we have that finished product in mind, but it's a whole lot of faith and it's a whole lot of I'm gonna introduce this to the conversation external factors that could get in the way, and we just have to trust that we're gonna navigate our way through that.

00:27:31.606 --> 00:27:33.046
Which leads me to this point.

00:27:33.200 --> 00:27:40.230
Steve, you and I have never talked about this within the context of your business, but here on the air, it's fun to hear your thoughts about it, which is obviously AI.

00:27:40.230 --> 00:27:43.442
It has been a disruptive force in so many different industries.

00:27:43.442 --> 00:27:47.660
What you're building is so cool from a math perspective, from a technology perspective.

00:27:47.660 --> 00:27:48.903
I've seen all the cool.

00:27:48.903 --> 00:27:50.547
You've got API hookups.

00:27:50.547 --> 00:27:53.820
You tap into data from real life, sports games and leagues.

00:27:53.820 --> 00:28:01.835
How does AI factor into all this stuff and what are you viewing its role in the future of versus sports simulator or the industry at large?

00:28:03.642 --> 00:28:04.566
You know it's interesting.

00:28:04.700 --> 00:28:12.974
I think I mean not to spend time differentiating between machine learning and AI, but let's just, for the moment, pretend that they're in the same vein.

00:28:12.974 --> 00:28:17.642
A lot of people don't realize that machine learning has been around, I think, since the late 60s, early 70s.

00:28:17.642 --> 00:28:20.423
A lot of people don't realize that machine learning has been around, I think, since the late 60s, early 70s.

00:28:20.423 --> 00:28:29.788
The only reason that you're only hearing about it now, over the past 10 years, is because we simply didn't have the compute power in the 70s and 80s to be able to do anything with it.

00:28:29.788 --> 00:28:37.594
So, interestingly enough, the algorithms that I created back in I guess it was 2006 now when I first developed these math models.

00:28:37.594 --> 00:28:44.798
It was before machine learning hit the mainstream, but essentially, these models basically do the same thing as a machine learning model.

00:28:44.798 --> 00:28:55.173
It's just that I actually coded it by hand instead of using some fancy tools and being able to take advantage of reusable components to put my models together.

00:28:55.173 --> 00:28:58.369
One of the things I like about that, though, is I have full control over it.

00:28:58.400 --> 00:29:12.990
I invented it, and so I'm able full control over it, like I invented it, and so I'm able to modify it any way that I want to, um, but as far as like how that differs from modern day AI, is modern day AI, because of the compute power, is able to do a lot of things in real time, right?

00:29:12.990 --> 00:29:30.648
So I mean you have apps that you'll be walking around, uh, in a hardware store, for example, and you'll get a notification on your phone that tells you that, hey, if you two miles over is a you know a drill that you were looking for on the internet two days ago and it's on sale 25% off.

00:29:30.648 --> 00:29:35.546
I mean that to me that's real-time AI and that's where you find a lot of usage from that.

00:29:35.546 --> 00:29:40.968
When it comes to the product that I've developed though I haven't gotten there yet I would like to.

00:29:41.872 --> 00:29:52.342
One of the things that I just published an article on a couple of days ago, or it's about to go live is about how you can place bets real-time during a game now.

00:29:52.602 --> 00:30:01.029
So for years and years it it was you looked at what the pregame odds were and you made a decision pregame what the outcome was going to be at the end of the game.

00:30:01.029 --> 00:30:15.114
Now you can be halfway through a game and you know scores have already taken place and you can still place bets on the game, and that's because AI allows for real-time line making and odds making and betting.

00:30:15.114 --> 00:30:17.548
So one day I would like to get there.

00:30:17.548 --> 00:30:20.589
I think it goes back to that whole Yanni principle thing.

00:30:20.589 --> 00:30:44.268
Unless that's something that's going to hold my business back, I really should focus on modernizing a lot of the infrastructure that I have, focus on marketing and scaling the business, focus on marketing and scaling the business and then, if it looks like I have a viable product that is going to continue to grow, then I would go back and take a very careful look at how I could implement modern day AI into the software product.

00:30:44.949 --> 00:31:05.851
Yeah, I love hearing the way you think about these things, steve, because, whether you realize it or not, you are sharing with us so much about the way that your executive brain thinks as an entrepreneur, and I so respect the way that you navigate all of these things, because there's a million things we could focus on, but you really bring it back to the stuff that matters, which you and I both knew before we hit record here today that we would definitely be short on time.

00:31:05.851 --> 00:31:21.730
You and I could talk about these things all day long for multiple days on end, but I do still want to squeeze in two questions, because one thing that I love about your self-awareness it's something that I really admire, because even ahead of today's episode, listeners know that we always ask our guests what's your zone of genius?

00:31:21.730 --> 00:31:23.782
And, steve, I love what you wrote.

00:31:23.823 --> 00:31:34.270
I don't often see this level of self-awareness about who we are, our strengths, our weaknesses, or at least I don't see it in a way that people love talking about it very openly for the benefit of others.

00:31:34.270 --> 00:31:41.351
But I love the way that you talk about being a generalist versus a specialist and I want you to navigate those waters alongside listeners.

00:31:41.351 --> 00:31:44.465
But we always hear you know, be a specialist, specialists make more.

00:31:44.465 --> 00:31:49.002
Look at primary care physicians versus, you know, a heart surgeon who makes more money.

00:31:49.002 --> 00:31:54.750
But at the end of the day, we do all have passions and curiosities and we, as entrepreneurs, we love learning things.

00:31:54.750 --> 00:31:57.974
So a lot of us do end up with generalist skill sets.

00:31:57.974 --> 00:32:02.632
Talk to us about how you navigate that internally of being a generalist versus a specialist.

00:32:04.080 --> 00:32:21.057
Well, I mean, I think that the easy answer for me is it's just so hard to become a specialist at anything anymore and, being the perfectionist that I am, I would always be telling myself, nope, still not there yet, and I would feel like a failure, because you know, I'm pursuing being a specialist in something and I'm never quite get there.

00:32:21.057 --> 00:32:24.467
There's always going to be people who are better at it than me, which is great.

00:32:24.467 --> 00:32:27.272
Right, like you need a beacon to follow.

00:32:27.272 --> 00:32:34.382
But what I like about being a generalist is you can learn a lot about a lot of things and apply those things in various areas.

00:32:34.382 --> 00:32:52.465
And when it comes to being an executive leader and guiding others, you have to be confident that this specialist that you hired is the right person for that job and be comfortable giving them assignments that you know not only please them intellectually, but you know they're going to knock the ball out of the park because they are the expert.

00:32:53.007 --> 00:32:57.767
In my career, you know a lot of times what I would say is knowing when to call the plumber right.

00:32:57.767 --> 00:32:59.948
There's a lot of things that you can do around the house yourself.

00:32:59.948 --> 00:33:03.584
There's a lot of things I can do with it, with a toilet or a shower by myself.

00:33:03.584 --> 00:33:10.307
But I know, I know when I, when I see something like, okay, this is above and beyond what I can actually do and it's time to call in the plumber.

00:33:10.307 --> 00:33:15.286
But it's so nice to be able to, you know, just not.

00:33:15.286 --> 00:33:28.063
It's nice to have the confidence in yourself that you can learn up to a certain point in almost any area, and I don't think that a person who's not a generalist is a failure by any means.

00:33:28.063 --> 00:33:28.865
We need both.

00:33:28.865 --> 00:33:30.189
We absolutely need both.

00:33:30.189 --> 00:33:36.365
I just think where my comfort zone is is sort of being a jack of all trades not knowing a whole lot about.

00:33:36.365 --> 00:33:42.125
Not knowing a whole lot about any one thing, but knowing enough about a lot of things.

00:33:42.886 --> 00:33:44.089
Yeah, steve, I'll tell you what.

00:33:44.089 --> 00:33:51.086
In all of my years of living, but also 16 years of being an entrepreneur, I've never heard that phrase in that analogy.

00:33:51.086 --> 00:33:52.474
Know when to call the plumber?

00:33:52.474 --> 00:33:54.703
I'm 1 million percent stealing that from you.

00:33:54.703 --> 00:33:56.288
So thank you so much for sharing that.

00:33:56.288 --> 00:33:58.142
It's a really good and powerful point.

00:33:58.142 --> 00:34:01.932
It's something that I feel as my team continues to grow and as my businesses grow.

00:34:02.059 --> 00:34:11.650
I agree, I think, being able to at least hold your own in a conversation you even talked about it earlier that when you talk to programmers that you outsource to, you can hold your own in those conversations.

00:34:11.650 --> 00:34:15.184
So, one, you know if you're getting a good deal or not and they're doing good work.

00:34:15.184 --> 00:34:25.190
But also, two, it's important for us as CEOs, as entrepreneurs and business owners, to at least be able to understand the intricacies of our business and how the machine runs.

00:34:25.190 --> 00:34:26.315
So huge kudos to you.

00:34:26.315 --> 00:34:28.681
I really loved hearing your perspective on those things.

00:34:28.681 --> 00:34:34.731
And, steve, this last question I ask it of every guest and it's always exciting for me because you can answer it in any direction that you want.

00:34:34.731 --> 00:34:46.110
And that is what's the one takeaway you shared so much good stuff with us here today and so many entrepreneurial insights, but also the ways that you view your own company's role in its industry.

00:34:46.110 --> 00:34:52.891
So what's that one thing that you want to leave every listener with, knowing that they're all at various different stages of their growth journey.

00:34:58.420 --> 00:35:00.123
Well, I mean, I think this is going to sound a little cliche.

00:35:00.123 --> 00:35:05.021
I hope not, but I think for me it's you can do it If you really want to do it, if it's something that you're passionate about.

00:35:05.021 --> 00:35:23.311
Don't let anything hold you back, because the key to at least for me, the key to success in life with regards to your career and finances, is finding something that you love to do and spending your time, the majority of your time, 80% of your time, doing that thing that you love to do.

00:35:23.311 --> 00:35:27.762
Find a way to turn it into a moneymaker so that work doesn't feel like work.

00:35:27.762 --> 00:35:39.144
And I think there's so many people, friends of mine, that I care deeply for, who just haven't taken that leap of faith yet, and I don't think it necessarily it's self-doubt.

00:35:39.144 --> 00:35:43.112
It could be that they just don't think they have the time or it's not the right time.

00:35:43.820 --> 00:35:52.512
But the thing that I try to encourage people, especially these, these younger folks that I've been mentoring lately, is the time is right now I've been mentoring lately is the time is right now.

00:35:52.512 --> 00:36:03.271
I mean no offense to myself or anyone else, but by the time you grow, you know, you grow up, you're out of college, you have that pesky day job, you've got a family to take care of, you've got a mortgage.

00:36:03.271 --> 00:36:20.802
You're going to find that it gets more and more challenging to take these things on, and that's exactly why Pathways to Success has been focused on this kind of younger group of people is because they are in a place in their life where they're ready to make a decision on what they want to do for the rest of their life.

00:36:20.802 --> 00:36:27.626
And sometimes you know you can make a 10 year mistake and go totally down a path because you weren't guided.

00:36:27.626 --> 00:36:34.362
You weren't, you didn't have someone providing the right guidance to help you make, again, informed decisions about what you're going to do with your career.

00:36:35.264 --> 00:36:43.884
Yeah, really powerful advice, and I think it's timely truth be told for every single one of us, because this is advice that we can't just give ourselves at the beginning of our entrepreneurial journeys.

00:36:43.983 --> 00:36:49.023
I think this is a solid reminder for every single one of us at all points of our entrepreneurial journey.

00:36:49.023 --> 00:36:55.172
So I really appreciate those insights, steve, and I know this episode is airing at a really exciting time in the sports calendar.

00:36:55.172 --> 00:37:05.766
We've got college football, the NFL, the NBA season is upon us, which makes me, as a native Bostonian, very excited for the Celtics to repeat and win banner 19 this year.

00:37:05.766 --> 00:37:28.248
So, steve, with all of that in mind, drop those links on us for listeners who are chomping at the bit, either if they want to see your business just because success leaves clues and they want to pick up some business insights from you, or, hey, they want to dive in and start making those informed decisions with all the great things that Versus Sports Simulator is doing in the world of sports betting and just enjoying the results of all the games that we all get so passionate about.

00:37:28.248 --> 00:37:29.512
Drop those links on us.

00:37:29.512 --> 00:37:30.905
Where should listeners go from here?

00:37:31.920 --> 00:37:33.365
So it's so easy to find me.

00:37:33.365 --> 00:37:40.101
Just it's versus sports simulatorcom and you can just google it and it's going to come up in the top of the results.

00:37:40.101 --> 00:37:44.550
Um, I've got a linkedin um link on that page at the very bottom.

00:37:44.550 --> 00:37:47.405
Feel free to reach out, contact me on linkedin if you have any questions.

00:37:47.405 --> 00:37:52.123
Also, my email address is steve at versus sports simulatorcom.

00:37:52.123 --> 00:37:53.768
I love hearing from folks.

00:37:53.768 --> 00:38:05.139
Again, I I've been really fortunate and blessed to kind of get out of the regular workforce at an early age of my life and I'm really at a point where I'm enjoying the opportunity to give back.

00:38:05.139 --> 00:38:08.748
So I would encourage folks if they have questions, if they just want to connect, meet up.

00:38:08.748 --> 00:38:12.505
I'd love to do a meet and greet yes, listeners, you already know the.

00:38:12.905 --> 00:38:17.554
We are linking to all of those things that Steve just referenced down below in the show notes.

00:38:17.554 --> 00:38:24.166
No matter where it is that you're tuning into today's episode, you'll find his business website at versus sports simulatorcom.

00:38:24.166 --> 00:38:27.963
You don't have to remember it though In the show notes, you can just click right on through.

00:38:27.963 --> 00:38:30.206
You'll also find a link to his personal LinkedIn.

00:38:30.206 --> 00:38:34.014
So, as Steve said at the very beginning today, he loves entrepreneurship.

00:38:34.014 --> 00:38:41.911
He is one of us and he firmly believe it's something that him and I talked about even before we got on the air today is that a rising tide lifts all boats.

00:38:41.911 --> 00:38:47.309
So, steve, on behalf of myself and all the listeners worldwide, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

00:38:47.990 --> 00:38:48.773
It was a great pleasure.

00:38:48.773 --> 00:38:49.333
Thank you, Brian.

00:38:50.739 --> 00:38:56.253
Hey, it's Brian here, and thanks for tuning in to yet another episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.

00:38:56.253 --> 00:39:00.271
If you haven't checked us out online, there's so much good stuff there.

00:39:00.271 --> 00:39:09.507
Check out the show's website and all the show notes that we talked about in today's episode at thewantrepreneurshowcom, and I just want to give a shout out to our amazing guests.

00:39:09.507 --> 00:39:18.311
There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate.

00:39:18.351 --> 00:39:20.344
These are not sponsored episodes.

00:39:20.344 --> 00:39:21.947
These are not infomercials.

00:39:21.947 --> 00:39:25.445
Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions.

00:39:25.445 --> 00:39:36.411
They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible.

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So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there.

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We also have live chat.

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If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom.

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Initiate a live chat.

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It's for real me, and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.