How to Build Product-Market Fit Without Sacrificing Culture

Intro 00:01
Welcome to Startup Success, the podcast for startup founders and investors. Here, you’ll find stories of success from others in the trenches as they work to scale some of the fastest growing startups in the world. Stories that will help you in your own journey. Startup Success starts now.

Kate 00:17
Welcome to Startup Success. Today we have Kevin Turpin in studio, who is the CEO and founder of Weavix. And Kevin not only is the founder of this successful company, he has an incredible background. So welcome Kevin.

Kevin Turpin 00:34
Hey Kate, thank you. It’s a pleasure to be here. It’s awesome.

Kate 00:37
I’m looking forward to talking to you before we get into Weavix, and what you’re up to now, which is super fascinating. If you could just walk us through a brief overview of your background. I think what led you to this point in time is pretty interesting as well.

Kevin Turpin 00:53
Perfect. Yeah, I was born and raised in Wichita, Kansas, actually, Augusta, Kansas. So with that being said, I was raised with an entrepreneurial family, but I came from basically they’re in the oil and gas industry, just doing more high-end like roustabout stuff – my dad was. My mom stayed home and took care of us three brothers. And from that point, I started a business. Whenever I was a sophomore in high school, just power washing. We had a flood, actually, that happened in our town. And playing football and doing everything is normal. And also, you know, obviously my father and being out in kind of a more of an industrial environment, I started helping people out around town. So what I did was, bought a power washer, realized that that heat would take off more things than cold water, believe it or not. And went from that to owning multiple power washers. And from that point, moving forward, starting a company straight out of high school, married my high school sweetheart, which is cool. And grew it to, you know, 1000s of employees and spread out across the United States and providing technology in over 25 countries. So it’s kind of kind of a crazy, crazy, eventful opportunity, but it’s really about people. I don’t know if I love it. I know that was a lot compacted in one area, but I think it’s really, truly to say that it’s really about the people and relationships that you make and how you grow and in that journey along the way.

Kate 02:28
I love it first of all, good for you that you saw an opportunity at such a young age, right? And you figured out something that people were struggling with, and then you doubled down on it and had this incredible success. I mean, that’s amazing. And to scale that way, you know, in such cross states, with so many people, that’s what so many listeners are struggling with right now that tune into this show is that scaling right? You get the good idea you start, but then it’s the growth that’s pretty incredible how successful you were. So I’m guessing this kind of spurred Weavix. So what was the inspiration there? And walk us through what Weavix is all about.

Kevin 03:14
Yeah. They kind of all are, you know, they stack upon each other. I know you get to talk to a lot of entrepreneurs that have different philosophies and so forth. And you know, one thing leads to another. If it’s not from your upbringing or what you’ve developed, it’s one of those areas that comes in. So what’s happened is, basically, I brought my brothers on when I was about five years into it. So we’ve worked together, I think, over 20 some years now, and so because of my family and my mom and dad, they’re such great parents.I know that we would not be saying that when we’re 17 years old, but as we grew through they did a really good job teaching hard work ethic and your good moral values, right. Making sure that you’re taking care of people and that grew from us brothers, working together as a team and collaborating and knowing which hat to wear at what time, right? My hat was obviously understanding how to invent, how to solve problems and how to work with people. And one of the things I pride that I love to death, is you know the most, the saying I always say is the most important person in our organization is the person that starts tomorrow. And with that being said, it’s because the value of that has to be like they’re on the team, just like a NFL football player, or anybody else comes on the team. You know, they have to be part of that and feel that a part of it. They don’t have to earn their stripes, they basically get them whenever they come in, and then when we develop, we grow as a team. So how we’ve spun out of that is we started a mix of companies, I talked about power washing, and moved into industrial services. We then used those industrial services to build a customer clientele. And that customer clientele then moved to different services with the same customer clientele. Wow. So we grew into what we call safety services, because we were providing scaffolding, insulation, coatings, fire protection in this industrial environment. And then it moved into, Oh, we need to provide a service that we need, that we were hiring, that nobody was doing very well at. So we started that business, and it was to the same customer clientele, even to our own customer. And then we said, Wow, we need inspection services. So we added another service on top of that. In this growth that happened, I learned that people, you know, the good really, ones that really have the same, you know, work ethic and understanding of this business, they come to people they like. We always say, people that are good people all end up working together, you know. And so where Weavix came about was, there was one problem that I, I see in the industry, as we grew these massive companies, was that there was no really good form of communication,especially when you have different languages and you have different areas of that way. And there was no really value to show the true value of your worker. And so is, you know, this, Kate, like, the most really valuable ones are the really quiet ones. And it’s kind of, it’s kind of weird, you know, like, it’s like, they always say, show your worth. Don’t tell people about your worth. And I really play on that with Weavix. So what we’re doing in Weavix, is we created a form of communication to go after the two way radio. I’m not going to say the name of who usually provides those radios, but we wanted to provide a smart radio and a way to weave together the entire workforce. So what we did was we went on this journey. Matter of fact, us brothers invested the first $20 million in the company from our companies we started from power washing, and through that and believed in ourselves to say, Let’s build a form of communication that allows us to see the value of the worker and also use real time location and also build a device that we call Walt to build like how the smart radio or how the smartphone turned in from BlackBerry to smartphone, we went did the same thing in that same platform. So today, we provide over 30 different languages that are live on the train, a live translation on the fly. A lot of intellectual property that we actually provide for between those communications. And what we’re really doing is we’re trying to orchestrate to solve problems faster and see the value and appreciate the value, no matter what language you speak, no matter where you’re located, and understanding how we can actually build products around those that platform to basically boost our workforce. We’re having an amazing result of that too. It’s fun. It’s probably the most it is the most exhilarating thing for myself, especially from my background and understanding the value of people, and that’s why I wake up every day, is to really make others successful. That’s, that’s, that’s what I truly live for, especially ones that never thought they would be doing what they’re doing. So, and it’s a long winded answer, I apologize, but I’m passionate.

Kate 07:54
No, I love your answer. Your enthusiasm and passion is so strong. It’s great to see. It’s really admirable with what you started, this is so different, right? Like this Walt product, I mean, that sounds complicated to build, that it can translate 30 languages on the fly and do all these things. Who helped you with that? Like, you knew where to get resources? Because that’s something that founders grapple with a lot. They have these great ideas, but getting to the actual implementation, making it happen. There’s a lot that goes on there.

Kevin 08:35
I think what we really like to do is we, we like to solve problems and that appreciation to help others. And so whenever you’re out to try to solve a problem, the challenge was, okay, yeah, we’re going to use the phone, you know, with Weavix, we’re like, we’re going to use the phone. Is that going to be an app? Okay? Well, why hasn’t anybody done that? Obviously, it’s failed miserably time after time. And then you start learning, learning the personal aspects of the workforce, and that is like, Oh, it’s my personal phone. I have personal information on it. I might have a picture of my kids. I might have personal things, my bank account that might be taking a picture of my credit card, whatever that is. And we don’t really have a lot of trust, you know, for the organization. So the complication of that was for myself to say, Wow, we need to build a special device that is only built specifically they can leave there and take home and also make it easier. So we went on a mission to build a smart device, and from traveling to Taiwan to traveling across the United States and figuring out how we build an American product mixed with what our current situations are, it was a challenge. But again, back to the point of the challenges about getting each step in line. I think when you say entrepreneurs, or people that start businesses, that’s the challenge. Well, that is, that’s entrepreneurship, right? That’s evolving and figuring out how to solve a problem so.

Kate 10:12
Really amazing that you all took it on and were that involved in this. And I love what you said that really struck me that I hear as a theme on this podcast is trying to solve a problem. I feel like all of the very successful founders, the problem is close to them, and they’re passionate about solving it. Is that kind of where you were as well?

Kevin 10:37
Exactly right. Yeah, whenever you have when you just like anything we do, our hobbies are passionate to us, so we do really well at them. And we look at like, how do we help the hobby or do we, you know, want to be the best, like Master, and I think you’re exactly right with that. It’s about the passion of knowing. And we don’t even know where we’re going, honestly. As people that start companies and this is like my fourth one to do that, there’s a lot of things I’m not good at, but what I am good at is not giving up. And also, you know, failure is really not an option. So you really got to move and you got to understand, you know, people and stages of your business, and really making sure that stage of business that you’re bringing in people, that you really are helping you around what you’re not good at. And then you have to, obviously, let the company also know when you make a mistake. And I think that’s one thing I would say to everybody out there, is you really got to admit, Hey, I made that mistake. I’m, you know, it’s like being in a huddle, you know? I know I’m giving a football analogy, but you’re being a huddle, and it’s like, Hey, man, you missed your block. I got it. But you know, the quarterback can miss a block, the head person can miss a block, the coach can make the wrong play. We all just have to really work together and, hey, I made that mistake. Let’s, let’s, let’s get together and let’s regroup, and let’s move. So it’s a lot of the big things that people don’t want to do, and then you lose trust with your people if you don’t admit your mistakes, so.

Kate 12:01
I like that you’ve mentioned people a few times now already. Is that a big, important component do you think of your success?

Kevin 12:12
Yeah, they have to keep the pace. They have to relate with you. They can’t be a groupie, meaning that they’re just along for the ride. They have to partake in what’s happening. They should be learning and understanding. They should try to be finishing your sentences. There’s a lot of things that you you know, the kinetic energy of just your team is a big thing. Now, that doesn’t mean they have all the right answers, but if the efforts there, and you’re seeing people push through, and I think that’s in different stages as well, right? So at the beginning, you’re on this journey, almost like going down a river with the biggest, you know, rapids. Nobody knows what’s going to happen. Is the boat going to fall over? And then all of a sudden you start getting in some calmer water. And then you’re like, Okay, we really got to step up, which is moving towards your product market fit. And then as you move through that element, you know, you get into product market fit, things start to really like they start to, I would call more showing where our faults are at, right? So if you don’t have a great finance, if you’re not great in understanding for sales and then scaling and building processes and stuff like that, it really starts to show where you’re weak. So those are where you’ll see some elements of like people that have certain elements come into your business and help that out. So it’s, yes, people, it’s, it’s all about people, but you have to write a good product too, right? It doesn’t have be perfect, but it’s a very big part of the spoke of the wheel.

Kate 13:32
Right, right. And you talked about product market fit, it sounds like you found that with Walt. Like, do you feel like, I mean, just for the way you’ve described it, it sounds like you’ve really hit that.

Kevin 13:45
Oh yeah, yeah, we hit a home run. One of the things that the our biggest challenge that we’re working now is the same challenge that we all dealt with before the smartphone, is the workforce doesn’t understand the value of their worker. And it actually breaks my heart a little bit, because, you know, one of the things that a lot of people don’t understand is like they enjoy all of the products, they don’t understand the effort it took to build them. And I think we really need to come back around and say, a device you’ll give your six year old a device, $1,000 phone, or call it a $500 phone, whichever route that is, but we won’t hand an employee a device and trust them with that to give us feedback, information, collaboration, understand that there are language differences their safety. And I’m not gonna play on the safety role, because everybody plays on the safety role. Yes, as an industry, we are safe, but there’s additional things that we can do that we didn’t understand, where we could prevent, and it only takes one to prevent. But I think the challenge I ask everybody out there is, why aren’t we doing that? Why aren’t we looking at better ways to take care of our work forces, versus just counting pennies and worrying about the profitability of businesses. Which I’m not saying that this doesn’t drive that, but I think there’s a big disconnect between the office and the field. And we’re gonna weave that together, and it’s happening as well. And don’t they want to, all of us owning companies and people, we want to do well. We get caught up in the dollar, and then we got to pay the bills and stuff. But we gotta, we gotta merge them in together, and we’ll see happiness in that way.

Kate 15:26
So I like how you framed that, because I bet business owners probably get so focused on the cost, right, and they’re managing to that. Yeah, survival. But I’m sure when using Walt and empowering employees and all of that, they probably see a lift from that, right?

Kevin 15:48
Absolutely. Kate, yeah, so they get empowered, because I’ll tell you a little reason of why. So we thought we insure our device, so we’re a technology company, we provide the device and the license. And what happens is, if you damage that, we encourage the worker to use it. Don’t be afraid of it. Use the product. Help it make you make better decisions. Help make your company make better, better decisions, and keep people safe. So it’s basically a full insurance like, if you damage it, you send it back and we’ll send you another one. It’s really, really cool. And so all the investors, everybody is going, Oh my gosh, what are you doing? This is crazy, yeah. What are you going to do? And at the end of the day, the workers that have never had anything, what do you think they did? They take care of it. So at the end of the day, right, so the value of that is in powerful we’re doing it. Obviously it’s a big piece that we offer, which I think is great, because we’re not a hardware company, even though we have an excellent, excellent hardware group and division in our company, we’re just known as providing data and the right tools for that. So I love that I’ve seen that, because I was like, that’s exactly what I anticipated. And it’s not the opposite I guess is what I was saying of like, of how the office treats the worker. Meaning like, oh my gosh, you can’t do that. You’re gonna damage that. You’re not gonna use it. You’re gonna push against it. That’s kind of where my heart sits on that.

Kate 17:10
I get that. That makes sense. And you probably, you’ve probably seen a lot of case studies right of your clients that are using Walt, that HAVE seen success in a lot of different areas.

Kevin 17:23
Oh, yeah, yeah. So flow engine that goes on top of all this. So action, reaction, I always say, you know how to use Excel, you know, like a pivot table, like things happen, right? If I do one thing, the system can then alert and do things to give notifications, just like our cars do, and everything. Okay, so it’s the case studies that are happening are pretty remarkable. I mean, when it comes down to, I’ll give an example. So there’s a large, massive airline that was trying to increase five minutes for every pushback of every plane, and you’ve probably flown on these planes, and just that five minutes is worth $1.5 billion in revenue.

Kate 18:06
Wow. I believe it.

Kevin 18:08
Yeah. I mean, so think about it, one plane gets delayed in the morning, and then it’s just a downhill effect from that. Why is that important? Because all the equipment and people have all different lifestyles and all different time at that company. So for instance, the equipment might be older at a certain location, or the person might just be there for a couple months that they’ve been there and not been trained as well. So they’re in this tug and they’re sitting on it. And again, take this example across any industry, any manufacturing, so I’ve got the experience in all of these, this is a really good example, is they hop on that tie and doesn’t start, and they have Walt on them. And so what Walt does is allows them pre to all of this, they were issued it whenever they went to employee, that there’s a channel on Walt already that says maintenance, or it says whatever they’re they’re doing, or they’re part of their organization, or their title. We already know what answers they need. We just don’t know when they’re going to ask them. So they hop on the Walt and they go, Hey, tugs, not starting. It goes back to a center of excellence, of people that have been there forever. And they’re like, hold on a second. Are you on 6580 tug, you know? Like, oh yeah, pull this. Do that, and do and, you know, and I’m giving that as hypothetically, but that’s how this is working, and that element is moving and solving problems faster, and we actually look at those and say, Hey, here’s the time that it’s saved in between that. And that’s how we’re actually grabbing the metrics to show of one small example of just that to achieve five minutes so.

Kate 19:36
Super powerful example. Yeah. I mean, that must really help move the needle. When you’re out there talking to customers and potential customers that you have examples like this.

Kevin 19:47
I think we’re I think we’re at over 1.5 billion transmissions a month of people speaking, and we have different languages. We know of how they’re communicating. I mean, it’s real. It’s changing the world. And at the end of the day, AI is changing it as well. I think we’ll probably be one of the, if not the best worker product for AI. And it happened to fall in our lap a little bit, so don’t think that everything’s on purpose. But built the device did some really cool technical things to reduce capital expense for putting in networks that nobody has in their businesses, like they don’t have Wi Fi everywhere, right? So we did a lot of cool stuff in this device to allow us to grab everything we could grab to empower not have to put that in there and invest. And so they could get, they could experience the power of Weavix and Walt and Walt the smart radio is because we actually built that technology. And then that technology is allowed to see the ROI really quickly, which then they put budget forward, and now here we go, right.

Kate 20:49
Got it. What a great cycle it sounds like with all of this success. And just like, through talking to you and your passion, you must have built a really strong culture at Weavix. Do you like put some of your success on that, that you’ve been able to make all these breakthroughs?

Kevin 21:09
I mean to me, I mean, I think everybody out there will have different mindsets, and we can all do this a lot of different ways. My way in culture that I believe totally is. It starts with myself and how I present myself to not only just the people and everything about what we do, but I should feel like I’m the lowest person to understand and know my product. Nobody should ever feel like that I’m this in-charge person that developed all these things or sold a company for, you know, massive amounts of money. That’s not that’s not about this. It’s about, how can I help you be successful? And then as this goes down into our organization, our main focus is, how do we make our employees successful? From that point, good things happen, right? When you’re a happy employee, and this isn’t just lip service here – this is the truth. We should actually know our employees. We should know who they are. And this goes down in the tier effect, right? It doesn’t mean that the CEO of whatever main airline company needs to know the worker out on the field, but he does need to know the heat that’s happening, or, you know, like the things that are going on, so he can give his appreciation for all the hard work that’s happening, as a leader. So culture, I think, Kate, starts with your integrity, everything about what you do, people have to believe it. They can’t watch it and kind of like, Oh yeah, here he goes again. He’s speaking about it. So one thing I pride that I really love about myself and my two brothers is there’s people I wish I could get back because they went on to a better thing. But I really feel like it’s from us saying, Hey guys, we really care. And then they take that generation down in the piece. And you know, we have guys and gals in business over 20-25 years from the start. I still have the original employee that started with me when I was in high school. Yeah, it’s pretty, pretty cool to say that, but they’re successful, and that’s an end goal, and it creates everybody successful.

Kate 23:18
Wo. You can feel it. I : That’s amazing. You give a great testament to the importance of strong culture. That’s a big difference from a lot of startups in Silicon Valley that I talk to. Do you think that’s maybe a competitive advantage, that you’re not the typical Silicon Valley business? Right?

Kevin 23:39
Yeah. I mean, I think there’s, you know, whenever, I mean, I have a lot of friends in Silicon Valley, yeah, (I do too.) and I love them to death. Yeah, they’re a lot smarter than me. There’s no doubt about it. I mean, I think they bring the intellect, and they have the where, I would say, and I always pride them, is they come up with some brilliant processes. Just like, you know, in sales right now, just if you look at from Gong being developed, to from AU, to looking at digest, to moving into your, you know, everything about the sales strategy came for a lot of Silicon Valley stuff, and they’re thinking like, wow, I need a moneyball this and really do it. I think where they’re missing and where we all needed to get together and figure out is, is understanding what their product they’re selling to when it comes into the OT market. So I think where the advantage would be to us is we’ve learned a lot from a lot of friends and investors actually. Our board is absolutely remarkably awesome. I’m not just saying that, I really do have one of the best boards. I’m the most fortunate person to have in this whole whole deal. But bringing the knowledge of the OT operation technology business right versus IT, which would mean, yes, more of your IT configuration things from security through computers to compute. A lot of those. The OT market is, is wide open, and it’s very hard to understand how people operate. So I would pride us on that kind of saying we really, really, really, are probably the best, and understanding the OT market and learning the IT aspects, and we’re merging that together. And so, yeah, and so, like, I mean, if it was just an it only IT business that was really sophisticated in the way of going into this main infrastructure, it’s like that versus people weren’t involved, we probably wouldn’t be as successful. So our culture and where we’re at and from, where we came from. A lot of us that obviously are part of Weavix, came from those cultures of OT and I think that’s why we’re dominating with using the IT principles of Silicon Valley and and I’m not going to discount also, we got Boston and New York and all of them. But really, I mean, the Midwest doesn’t produce a lot of the new, latest and greatest processes, right? They have more of the culture feel, and they want to really know their product better. So yeah.

Kate 25:56
And good for Weavix that you all can see that. And then we’re actually coming up on time, which I can’t believe it’s been so fun chatting with you, but I always close every show with this question. It’s a favorite for listeners. For all those like early stage, you know, founders listening right, they have not seen the success that you have seen. Advice you can give them because they’re, you know, at the early stage, which can be very hard.

Kevin 26:25
Yeah. I mean, my advice is, be aggressive and believe in your product. Don’t spend your parents money if you’re if I’m speaking to some of you out there, that’s a seed stage and just want to do it because you’re wanting to do it. Truly believe in what you’re doing, right? I mean, absolutely, if you’re spending people’s money and you’re taking that money, believe in what it is. And let’s say it doesn’t work out, you truly believed in that, in that product, so you gave it 100% and that will lead to another thing, and people recognize that. And then lastly is lead with integrity. Whatever you say or do, you need to be able to work as hard and know your product as well as your best salesman or the best person. You might not be the best salesperson, but you’re going to show the company that, Hey, I’m a part of this, and I know just as much as I can do to help out. So be a part of the team. It’s about grit and hire the right people. You gotta move on if people aren’t helping you succeed, And it’s not your fault, not their fault, but make sure you’re making wise decisions and putting people where you’re not so good at so.

Kate 27:31
Really good assortment of advice for right now. I love it. Where can people listening go to find more information about Weavix.

Kevin 27:39
Go to our website, which is weavix.com, and there’s a bunch of ways to hop on there and reach out to us on that, or even on LinkedIn. You can grab us on that. You can reach out to myself at Kevin Turpin. And I’ll reply back to you. But hey, this is all about connectivity and connections, and just like what you’re doing with your podcast, it’s not easy to go through all this and do the, you know, the production of it and everything, so we greatly appreciate that too, to get these words out there. But I’m a firm believer that, you know, put hard, hard work and grit in, and it all pays off.

Kate 28:14
That’s great. I think that approach that you have is so helpful, because so many founders don’t give back. Yeah, right, and people help you along the way. So your philosophy is great. I appreciate that. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate how open you were and you shared so much. What an incredible story. Seriously, I love from where you started to where you are now. It’s really, really incredible. So thanks for sharing and being here.

Kevin 27:44
Thanks for the opportunity

Intro 28:45
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