Bronson Kurtz with Personalized Technology Services

Intro: Coming to you live from the Business RadioX studio in Woodstock, Georgia. This is fearless formula with Sharon Cline.

Sharon Cline: And welcome to Fearless Formula on Business RadioX, where we talk about the ups and downs in the business world and offer words of wisdom for business success. I’m your host, Sharon Cline. And today in the studio is a founder and owner of an IT company here in Woodstock. It’s called Personalized Technology Services. Welcome to the show, Bronson Kurtz. Hello.

Bronson Kurtz : Thank you.

Sharon Cline: How are you?

Bronson Kurtz : Fantastic. I hope you don’t regret having me on today.

Sharon Cline: What? Not yet, anyway.

Bronson Kurtz : I tend to break rules and boundaries, so.

Sharon Cline: Well, maybe that’s good for business.

Bronson Kurtz : I think so.

Sharon Cline: Let’s. Let’s talk about that. I mean, actually, if you think about it, innovators change everything, you know?

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah, I think there’s a a willingness and a desire to solve a problem. And if you’re stuck in a certain boundary and you can’t succeed, that’s how things become stale.

Sharon Cline: Yeah, stagnant. Nothing moves. Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about your your background. How long have you been in this industry, The IT industry?

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah, I’ve been in it since 2006.

Sharon Cline: So you must have seen a lot of changes.

Bronson Kurtz : I have, actually. I was supposed to be bought out by another company and so we were phasing out to be sold and that changed. And then I had to rebuild the company again and then COVID hit. And so we’re kind of still, it feels, feels a group we are rebuilding. Wow. We’re getting there.

Sharon Cline: So everyone I have on the show, I talk about what the the pandemic was like for you. And obviously when I started working from home 100%, I needed to upgrade a bunch of different things in my life, so I can’t be the only one. Did that impact you as well?

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah, actually, we we already had most people in place for working from home. It’s kind of a built in technology if if it was done correctly. So when things started happening with COVID, as other countries were like burning down and exploding, we we started going to the owners that didn’t have it up and running. Right. Look like this. If this happens, like if all the companies call in in the same week saying, hey, we need to work from home, we’re going to be in trouble. Yeah, so let’s be proactive about it. And so a bunch of companies became proactive about it because they had the technology. It’s just a matter of learning how to use it.

Sharon Cline: Right? So for did you have a lot of people coming to you asking, help, help us have this technology for ourselves?

Bronson Kurtz : Yes, that was interesting because our focus is business to business. We did a promotion on Facebook, basically offering free tech support for teachers and families so that, you know, even though we don’t support homes as a profession, you know, people were stuck and were struggling. So we spent a lot of time on remote sessions just helping people get their computers sorted out so they can work from home.

Sharon Cline: And did that for free. That’s so kind. Yeah, that was really kind. Not everybody does that.

Bronson Kurtz : I mean, actually turned into some some very large contracts unexpectedly, but I think that’s how things work when you just give and you support without an expectation of getting something like good things and tend to work out anyway.

Sharon Cline: For the right reasons. All the right.

Bronson Kurtz : Reasons. I don’t know how it would come back. I didn’t have like a strategy for how I would come back. I just knew that I kind of a believer of when you just do good things and you send good ripples out, has a great effect in the world around you, and sometimes those ripples can bounce back.

Sharon Cline: Well, what were the main things that you had to fix for people?

Bronson Kurtz : Well, first off, I am not in the ticketing room doing all the tickets, so I don’t actually see all the little things that come in. But most computers are garbage. They they go to the store and they go buy a $200 Windows computer. The kids have been playing on it for two years. It’s full of viruses and nothing works. And then I have that people saying, Well, why don’t I just buy a mac? I was like, Well, that’s 2000. So you’re not comparing the same thing. So people want to wanting to buy new computers versus fix the ones that have. And but us being able to provide the free support meant that we could help them even on their cheap computers where normally is it would be unaffordable. They’d have to go buy a new one.

Sharon Cline: What is the best computer someone can have at home then? What do you recommend?

Bronson Kurtz : That’s like saying, What’s the best car?

Sharon Cline: I know there’s like a there’s right. You’ve got, like you said, really expensive.

Bronson Kurtz : Are you racing or are you trying to be fuel efficient? You’re trying to have fun. So yeah, if you’re a gamer or are you trying to just, you know, do the bare minimum? So it kind of comes down to what you need. So as a business owner, I for business to business, it’s I can spec out a computer based on what they want. But to me what matters is how good is the support if a computer breaks. And there’s a warranty on it. How fast can that company come back and service the computer?

Sharon Cline: So who is your ideal client?

Bronson Kurtz : Well, we you know, it services everybody. And I don’t normally say no to clients. That’s changing. I have to as we grow, we have to start being more selective with who we choose. But our specialty is in construction and medical. I grew up doing construction. I remember doing construction with my father when I was a kid, and even throughout high school we would spend summer breaks after school days off doing construction for our family business. So I’ve grown up doing construction. My brother, he works in in building construction. He got a Georgia Tech degree there. He works in construction now. So construction has been a part of our family. So when I meet with a company that’s needing I.T. support and their construction company, I speak their language. So I understand the workflow. We’re also a vendor for large construction companies to pull like cables and their data centers and sealing all the racks and the servers. So we have a we actually work in the construction space. So we are pretty familiar with that vertical.

Sharon Cline: So how did you go from construction to being an I.T.

Bronson Kurtz : So my during the. The 2007 housing crisis around that time. That date, right?

Sharon Cline: Yeah. 27 2008. Yeah.

Bronson Kurtz : I don’t have it all memorized, but things were kind of building up to that point. So my. My dad’s business didn’t survive. So it went. It went down. And then while it was going down, one of our contractors who we work with hired me to do electrical. So then I did electrical for a few years, right around the time when all this is happening. And while I was doing electrical, I got a lot of exposure to doing things like running the computer cables in a house and just having that exposure and more exposure to low voltage. And then I had a friend that we just started doing the IT stuff on the side. It started off with home computers and then it grew into businesses.

Sharon Cline: I’m trying to imagine what it was like in 2007, 2008, as you know, home computers, of course, we had them. But it’s very different now, isn’t it? What’s one of some of the biggest changes you’ve seen?

Bronson Kurtz : Well, your comment made me think of the home Computers are difficult to work with because in a business world, all the computers are standardized. But the home computer, you never know what nightmare you’re going to walk into. You know, how much porn, how many viruses are on there. Everything’s broken. And they spent $200 in the computer. So it kind of taught me the art of having to work very, very efficiently and quickly, because a lot of people’s computers were low end and they couldn’t afford, you know, for me to be there a long time.

Sharon Cline: Got you. Goodness.

Bronson Kurtz : I don’t know the question you asked after that, but.

Sharon Cline: What did I say? What are the biggest changes you’ve seen? Is that what I ask?

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah. So the PC and the Mac haven’t really changed their their fundamental features are the same windows. I would say the biggest change is the movement to the cloud. In 2007, when you wanted to have email, you had to have an exchange server or something like that in your office. Those are very difficult to maintain. If they broke you were SOL, you had to get with Microsoft engineers. It was very difficult to work with. Now you can have enterprise grade email in the cloud, and so for a minimal amount of money you can run your business and have like this enterprise grade email for even for a small business. So cloud backups on all the documentation, all the normal documents being in the cloud has changed the way a business can run. So now when we meet customers, it isn’t about how many servers we have to buy. It’s like, Hey, are we in the cloud correctly?

Sharon Cline: Is it your cloud?

Bronson Kurtz : I do have a cloud. Some of our clients opt to use us for their for their disaster recovery if their company demands it. Some companies, if they go down, will lose 200,000 a day. So they have to spend the money to make sure that doesn’t go down. And if it goes down, how long will it take to recover? So we only have a few of those that are willing to can afford that. So most everyone else’s uses like OneDrive and Google Drive.

Sharon Cline: So how do you what do you use to combat hackers in your cloud?

Bronson Kurtz : Well, most of it’s encryption and they’re in limiting access to everything. So basically everything is blocked. You can’t get into it. So we have a direct connection from our systems to our servers. There’s no way to access it.

Sharon Cline: I don’t know why that came to mind. Well, I know why. It’s because I’ve had a credit card that I very, very rarely use that no matter. Where I seem to use it, it somehow gets hacked really easily. And I just I was speaking to the credit card company recently where I’m like, it’s like the fifth time and I hardly use this card. And they were saying, these hackers are getting so much smarter than we can keep up with. Actually.

Bronson Kurtz : I don’t know if the actual credit card gets hacked. As much as there are lots of businesses that get hacked, like Home Depot will get hacked. I got you. Yeah. And then all of a sudden, your emails and your credit card information have been leaked. They can’t necessarily use it, but then they start collecting enough information. And it’s not a person. It’s bots like these little mini computers that just mini programs that just collect all the information and actively try to hack you. Once your name is kind of out there and your email address is kind of known, you kind of become a target.

Sharon Cline: That’s terrifying.

Bronson Kurtz : It is.

Sharon Cline: Yeah. But it’s funny in my mind, I picture some like kid who’s much younger than me in like a really dark room and a dark room.

Bronson Kurtz : I think it’s the movies that do that. Is that what it is? Yeah. So hacking doesn’t really work that way. I imagine there’s probably some extreme situation where you have a, you know, one government trying to hack another government or some other entity and they are, you know, they have people trying to break in that way. But that’s a very manual process. I would say most of the hacks that happen now are almost all human error. Like I gave an example recently of how a person’s email was breached by a bot. And so once the bot confirmed access to the email, a person logged into the email and said, Oh, look, they’ve been getting direct deposits from this company. So they emailed the boss and said, Hey, look, we’re changing our banks. Can you change the direct deposit information? And so the boss, the employer changed it. And so then two weeks, the weeks go by and the employee is like, where’s my where’s my paycheck? And they’re like, Oh, you told us to change your direct deposit information. So there’s two there’s two human error right there. One, they didn’t have their email, personal email protected, and because of a personal email hack, basically their business got hacked. And the second part is that when you do any kind of ACH or direct deposit, you’re supposed to have a form that’s printed out with a voided check that signed and says, Hey, look, this is my new information. So companies get cavalier like, Oh, just shoot me your account information. And that’s easily. Tricked. So then they didn’t follow their procedures on both sides. And then now someone has stolen their payroll.

Sharon Cline: What are the main problems that you deal with, with, or that you handle and solve for a client in problems?

Bronson Kurtz : It’s mostly human error. It’s so sad because we have all the computers locked down on the service. Locked down. So it’s human error. People just either buying the wrong equipment or they’re not using the software correctly. Also, software does break, so we do a lot of work within Microsoft 365 and sometimes the programs just stop working. And there’s no way to fix it. You have to get the Microsoft support call to fix it. And and I have no control over how Microsoft builds their software.

Sharon Cline: So as time’s gone on and your company has grown and succeeded. What would you find? What is what is your biggest challenge? Is it dealing with clients who don’t have. I mean, I was kind of nervous to interview you because I’m not well versed in I.T. information, and I’m concerned that I’m going to sound stupid when I talk to you. But okay, so there it is. It’s out there in the world. But anyway, I appreciate that you’re not making me feel stupid. Thank you. But no, but I’m thinking, is that what you deal with? Someone like me who was like, I don’t know. It’s just not working.

Bronson Kurtz : It’s very, very common. It’s I hear this line all the time. It’s like, Oh, you know, I know computers just enough to break them. I hear that daily.

Sharon Cline: That’s. That’s me. You’re hearing it today.

Bronson Kurtz : Well, it’s it’s normal because, like, you know, I don’t need to master other people’s industries. So people use the computers a lot of times out of necessity, but they don’t understand what they’re trying to do. So that’s a that’s a I was I told you before this started and as we were pre gaming that I’m going to we are rebranding our business and one of the names I was going to think of doing was called I.T therapy because like a lot of the problem solving is the same. Like, oh, this breaks, this is the fix or I got to find the fix. The challenge some time is when dealing with a customer who thinks all their business information has gone. Or some. They put all their personal computer pictures on their computer and work and it died. And now where’s all the pictures? We’ve had a number of those where like old family photos of like, you know, a late parent or on a computer and the computer dies and they never backed it up. And now it’s my fault, or at least not my fault. But they’re definitely venting. In my direction. So actually therapy was a kind of a thing we were thinking about doing on TikTok, where I sit there and like a lab coat and just like, okay, breathe, it’s going to be fine.

Sharon Cline: And that’s what you, that’s what you do a lot is to kind of talk people down from the.

Bronson Kurtz : Yes, from the ledge. Yeah. So because the implementation is the same almost everywhere to solve a problem. So mostly it’s like reassuring someone that you can do it because like if a hard drive is broken. You don’t have a lot of choices. So, you know, whether you call me or someone else like your the end result is probably the same. So now it’s more like, okay, like I have to reassure this person that they’re in good hands. I’m going to do my best. But, you know, whatever’s going to happen is going to happen.

Sharon Cline: I have to say that if I ever have issues trying to work and I can’t figure out what’s wrong, I I’m not proud of this, but I get a little bit, like, unreasonable because I’m limited. I don’t really know how to fix something that I absolutely 100% need to be fixed. So I might be one of those clients that needs talking from.

Bronson Kurtz : So we knew we need a new name. Like, you know how people get really angry when they’re hungry. And we came up with a name for that. Angry, hangry, angry. Yeah. So when your computer stops working and you’re angry, we need a new.

Sharon Cline: Okay, I’m going to work on this.

Bronson Kurtz : New word for.

Sharon Cline: That and a logo.

Bronson Kurtz : Okay.

Sharon Cline: So when are you going to do your rebranding? I mean, that’s like an idea. One idea, right? It therapy.

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah, That didn’t happen because it was more humorous. And I’m actually not a funny person.

Sharon Cline: What we’ve been. We’ve been, like, laughing. Wait, have I been laughing?

Bronson Kurtz : Yes.

Sharon Cline: No, I appreciate. You’re actually very funny.

Bronson Kurtz : I know when I say.

Sharon Cline: That we’ve chatted.

Bronson Kurtz : Before, so. No, when I say I’m not a funny person, it’s like, you know, I’m very, very serious minded. So I can I can, of course, laugh at a joke. My humor tends to be a little bit dry, but usually I’m pretty focused and pretty intense and serious mind. At least that’s it. My wife will tell me, Oh, so my kids tell me that too. It’s like they think of always in like self betterment mode and have to do better all the time. And that kind of kind of wears everyone down sometimes.

Sharon Cline: I got you.

Bronson Kurtz : So art therapy was too humorous. Like, I don’t think I could maintain that.

Sharon Cline: I don’t know what your kids would probably love it.

Bronson Kurtz : I’m worried. Their therapist Oh no. We actually do have therapists for the kids. That’s a thing I believe in. But no, actually, I can tell you what the what we’re going to rebrand our company to.

Sharon Cline: What is it going to be?

Bronson Kurtz : Do you want the back story first?

Sharon Cline: You want? Yes. I always like back stories. I like to understand a whole story.

Bronson Kurtz : All right. So first off, I’ll give you the back story and then the name. So I wanted to come up with a name that that really resembles where we’ve come from and where we’re going to. When I first came up with her name, Personalized Technology Services, I wanted to be different because in the IT space it’s like trying to talk to a person who lives in a cave that speaks these really big words.

Sharon Cline: And that’s what I thought today was going to.

Bronson Kurtz : Be like, Yeah, you don’t know what’s you’re talking about and you feel extra dumb. I wanted to really personalize the approach to technology, and I kind of had a way with talking with people so they could understand the things I was saying.

Sharon Cline: You dumbed it down.

Bronson Kurtz : I don’t know if that’s the word.

Sharon Cline: You use the right words in order to make the like.

Bronson Kurtz : It’s like trying to talk to a doctor and they’re trying to tell you what’s wrong with you and these huge words and diseases. You’re like, I still don’t know what you’re talking about. And like, I feel like a good teacher can simplify very complex ideas, you know, even to those to those who are Christians. They look at the example of Jesus. One of the things he was able to do was to speak about very complicated things in a very simple way. So I think the the a person who’s trying to improve their communication and prove their their approach to teaching anything is to take something very complicated and to simplify it. So sometimes people try to teach things with very big words, almost like they’re trying to impress others by how many words they know and no one understands them. So I think it’s more important to speak simpler and be understood. And that was the goal. With personalized technology services, we want to really just change the energy of that approach. So that has changed though, because that was 2006 and now since then, we have a family, we have employees, we have much more travel, we have much more pain and loss in our life as as life is for everybody. So I went on some adventures. So after my my dad died, my dad was trying to get us to go to Europe on a family trip. We never had a chance to do it, but after he died in Germany, I was kind of forced to go over there because my mom was there. And so my brother and I went over there and kind of really got our first exposure to Europe as adults. And our FAM was kind of a European family. So we kind of aligned with some of the European cultures.

Sharon Cline: I saw that you speak German.

Bronson Kurtz : I try to speak German, I practice it every day.

Sharon Cline: But what was it like to be there then and kind of be exposed to a place that your dad had always wanted you to to really invest? Be Part of.

Bronson Kurtz : It was a it’s a tricky situation because first if I wanted to be there, but when you’re going over there on such an emotionally raw level, like you’re going to you’re going to bond no matter what, no matter what country you go to where that place is. So it was it was a good bond. And then we brought our family back so our families over there and then it kind of started this whole travel thing for our family. And we’ve been doing it ever since. One of the places we end up going to was Norway, and we’ve been to Norway like three or four times now. And it seems like. Every time we go, it’s in the middle of winter. So apparently we like the snow or something. We’re mountains. So we went there in the beginning of December and I knew that the days were really short when you would go there. So I started doing research and it turns out like for the time being that we were there, like the sun was only going to rise for like 45 minutes. Oh, my gosh, that’s a pretty foreign concept, right? So I was like, What is it like to live in the Arctic where the snow comes up for only 45 minutes? Like, what do you do with all that darkness.

Sharon Cline: And how does it affect your body to with the circadian rhythms?

Bronson Kurtz : Right. And then am I going to be depressed the whole time? Like so I didn’t know what to expect. I went online and did a lot of reading. I couldn’t find a lot of information on the subject. So the way we did it took the family on adventure and just went with it. But I was actually pleasantly surprised. The if you were to Google that Google look on Wikipedia and look up Norway, you would see that there’s no increased rates of depression in Norway during the winter months. And then the winter months is called the winter solstice, when the days is the shortest. So so we went there and all the towns were open and there’s great food and there’s great energy in the cities and the landscape is beautiful. And so yes, yes, the sun doesn’t rise for very long, but the sun sits on the horizon for like 4 hours. So. So tell me when the sun sits just below the horizon, what does what does the sky look like?

Sharon Cline: Like a sunset. Yeah. Sunrise.

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah. So we call that golden hour in photography. Yes. So basically you have golden hour on fire skies for 4 hours. So like, yes, the sun does come up. Yes. It’s not very bright. Yes. If you’re surrounded by mountains, it’s going to be darker. But the sky is always colorful.

Sharon Cline: Oh, I love that.

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah. So it sounds really beautiful. You’re on the coast. Like I said, the restaurants are there, cobblestone walkways everywhere, the amber lighting in the streets. And then at nighttime, right around 10:00, the northern lights come out. So. So when you go out driving around and you look up on the sky, the sky is dancing green and you can feel the energy in the air from all these all this high energy radiation is kind of floating, floating to the sky. So I was so, so genuinely surprised by how beautiful it was that we did it again. So. So taking that like surprise and like, hey, this is a journey that most people don’t take and most people just want to go to the beach. And so when they think of going an adventure to there, it’s like, ooh, that sounds really difficult and cold and cold and miserable. Dark and dark. So usually working with I.T. companies is pretty, pretty stale. So I was like, Well, I want to rebrand. How do I share my love of adventure, love of travel, you know, my energy to be different. And so that name of Polar Night came out.

Bronson Kurtz : It’s the colloquial term for the winter solstice polar night. And so I decided the name of the company Polar Night spelt NIGHTY, focusing on it over the word night. So it’ll be it’ll say Polar Night. And the idea is to get inspiration from a little bit from a black airplane here in Woodstock, because they’re a software company and they’re called Black Airplane. So if you were to look up or Google a software company like what’s Black Airplane, that makes no sense. Like, what’s this? I got my attention. So my thought process, too, was that if a person was looking for an IT company and they were Googling something like that, and you probably see all the standard names, including mine personally. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. How weird would it be to see something called Polar Night? So I deliberately wanted to create an effect where someone would look at that name, Either think they’re crazy, I don’t want to hire them or, hey, they’re seem pretty cool. I think I would want to work with them. And so the name would become a filter.

Sharon Cline: Well, if you’re just joining us, I’m speaking with Bronson KURTZ of Personalized Technology Services, soon to.

Bronson Kurtz : Be older Knights.

Sharon Cline: Puller Knight. But, you know, the winter solstice is coming up on the 21st. It’d be a great day to.

Bronson Kurtz : Just announce it on that day. Oh, Oh, that’s a great idea. We’re brainstorming right now. We just created something.

Sharon Cline: Well, I love the idea of being different because I think I always heard this. I want to say I said Dolly Parton, who said this. You either have to be first, best or different to really stand out, and that is different.

Bronson Kurtz : I’m not first, not the best, but I can be different.

Sharon Cline: I can be different, too. Let’s hope. Let’s hope. I’m I’m definitely not first of all, the best. I’m the best for me. That’s. That’s my healthy therapy. Yeah.

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah. I think the general goal is, are you better than you were yesterday? And so on a journey doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing necessarily, but it’s what you’re doing. What we’re doing.

Sharon Cline: Well, in the whole process of of kind of going through all of your travels and exploring different parts of the world, but also learning about yourself. Have you found that there are some really strong commonalities of people all around the world?

Bronson Kurtz : I haven’t really had a problem with people being different. I feel like when you just get past the. The stereotypical boundaries, which to me weren’t really a thing. People are the same. They like to congregate around fire and congregate around drinks, and they want to go explore and see the world. So I didn’t really run into that problem with that. I did. I did enjoy having different perspectives because sometimes you get stuck in your town and you only know or you get overly familiar with just your world view from Woodstock or your state or heck, even the United States. We have just the two main news channels that we watch, and that’s all that we see when you step outside of all that. There’s a shockingly new perspective, new angles to look at the way we look at our problems. So I think having having a fresh perspective on any problem is like a critical part in solving it.

Sharon Cline: I’ve always heard that if you leave the United States when you come back, it’s not the same United States.

Bronson Kurtz : Especially when it comes to coffee and pastries. Oh, yeah. I go to like a food depression thing because like, in every town, like even in the smaller towns up in Norway, you look up coffee shop, there’s like all these choices and they’re all like 4.6 on Google and higher. And then you come over here, it is so little choices and there’s no bakeries. Yeah, yeah, well, there’s a couple, but like, either they’re too big or too sweet, but like, genuine based pastries, you walk in and you see all the bread and the chocolate croissants out all day long with coffee. You just don’t see a lot of those.

Sharon Cline: I guess I’m. I’m lacking, aren’t I? And I don’t know it. I have to go explore the world a little bit because that sounds wonderful to me. Like imagine getting up and smelling like pastries that have just been baked and like coffee.

Bronson Kurtz : And that’s fantastic. Yeah. Joy, New York has a a better culture for that. Even even in California, too, but not for for some reason here in Woodstock, there’s there’s limited although I did hear rumors that there might be a coffee shop coming.

Sharon Cline: Things are always changing here.

Bronson Kurtz : Really close. Growing Another.

Sharon Cline: One. Another one. Well, good.

Bronson Kurtz : Woodstock.

Sharon Cline: Good, because they closed recently. One of the coffee shops that I used to go and work at sometimes. And I feel like there’s there’s a need.

Bronson Kurtz : I’ve also heard rumors about that one, too. So we’ll see what happens.

Sharon Cline: Okay. Well, I wanted to ask you also what what are some of the ups and downs that happened to your industry?

Bronson Kurtz : Well, ironically, the I think during COVID in general, what happened is everyone went into a spend freeze. So normally we have a certain amount of income, but then we also have a lot of projects that happen. Now, remember, most of our clients are in construction. So these construction projects that were going on were pre funded. And some of them take five, six years to build. So before COVID happened, the job was going to be finished and they had the funding for the job. So a lot of our clients weren’t really affected by COVID, so we stayed in business, thankfully. And with that being a business, we were able to help others with that. But we usually need some series of projects for companies to do, like we have to upgrade this or upgrade that to see the growth that we need and those projects stopped. Basically, it was like, is this a absolutely critical, necessary spend because we don’t know what the world is going to be like next year and we need to keep all cash, if possible, the necessary purchase. So we did struggle because we kind of broke it, barely broke even that first year we had to even we got the payroll protection and we used all of it for our employees. So it was still tight, but we survived.

Sharon Cline: So having gone through that, are there things that you are not afraid of anymore or are there things in regarding being a business owner that you still have kind of in the back of your mind as something that could that you need to look out for?

Bronson Kurtz : I don’t know if afraid or fear is the right word.

Sharon Cline: What’s the right.

Bronson Kurtz : Word? Like I have a stress because I have families that are dependent upon me and I have to do my job. If I don’t do my job, it affects people in a negative way. So I have that stress. And then if I don’t do my job well or if our company doesn’t improve or job well, then we won’t survive. And then then I have to let people go. And that’s not a great feeling. You care. I very much care. So. But when it comes to fear. I’m a I’m a kind of a person that will confront the darkness and I confront my problems. At least I try to I’ll go into the abyss and I fight. Or flight response, I have a fight response. So when there’s a fear, like I’ll acknowledge it, oh, there might be danger. Like I’m not going to go into an alley by myself and like, that’s stupid. So, like, there’s a fear of like, oh, why can I can look at that? But I’m not going to not go in like in the city because one street might be dangerous. I can still be intelligent about it. So I don’t know if I have any fears as much as the pressure to perform and the pressure to adapt, the pressure to do better. Right now, our goal this year was to three X or business and we did two and a half X, so we almost reached our goal. But as we brought on new businesses, there has been a stark spotlight on the fact that we have to improve the way we do our business. So I don’t need to be taking on anyone else right now. I have to do what I’m doing better because if I don’t, I go down.

Sharon Cline: So it’s not so much big as it is. A deeper understanding of your own, what you have right now.

Bronson Kurtz : Optimize the work I’m already doing so that there’s that pressure because I look around, I see if I don’t do this, then I won’t survive. So I would say it’s more, more pressure and confrontation than fear.

Sharon Cline: And it’s your own that you put on yourself.

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah.

Sharon Cline: I mean, that’s interesting, I think, because a lot of people have this notion of have to expand, have to grow numbers, numbers, but you’re actually looking at it more as perfecting what you have in front of you.

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah, I think the numbers game can be tricky because you can chase a number and reach a metric and still be doing poor or doing awful and they’ve tested that a bunch of times in business. So I’m, I, I guess I can take the example like from wrestling. I used to do jujitsu. I would love to get back into it. But one of the things with jujitsu that I learned was to master the basics. And if you didn’t know the basics of how to move and how to fall and how to like get out of a position, if you started just learning more and more moves and you have the basics, you still lost. So we would spend in our in our jujitsu classes, even up. I reached the rank of purple belt. We would still spend time, even though we were advanced enough to do more advanced moves. We would still spend time doing basics. So I think that to me it’s like taking the time to do the basics of how well does your team communicate? How well do you organize the information? What kind of energy are you creating in your office? Like the basic things of running a business that I guess can fall through the cracks if you’re just just focused on growth? And then if you really get to nail the basics, in my opinion, you build a really solid foundation and then you can grow because you have optimized.

Sharon Cline: That makes sense. Taking care of what’s most important first.

Bronson Kurtz : It’s kind of like our self care.

Sharon Cline: Yeah, I was just thinking, you’re speaking and I’m thinking about something. I was listening, I promise. But I was thinking.

Bronson Kurtz : About what’s your job to think of the next question, that you have to keep the conversation going.

Sharon Cline: Well, I was thinking about myself, unfortunately, because I’ve been seeing a therapist. And so this therapist was talking about You don’t have to be perfect at anything. It’s it’s getting you’re going to fail. You are going to fail. It’s it’s a given, but it’s how you get up. It’s like how you are becoming more resilient because there are some people that don’t. And and I love the notion of that because it’s it’s relieves me from the pressure of trying to navigate relationships or my job or my voiceover job having, having all of that. I have an inherent I want to succeed. And if I do everything right, it will. You know, like I was saying, I have control issues, but at the same time it’s it’s relieving knowing that there’s just really no way it’s going to go as well as I think it’s going to go. It will fail. Something will.

Bronson Kurtz : Fail. It’s going to fail. And the the can you adapt and can you respond with a smile in a way, those things, I think that kind of comes down to the the self care that we’re talking about. Like, like if a person is a good example, if a person is you would see a person at their then you think, oh, they’re healthy. But if they’re if they’re on a bad diet, they can have bad arteries and not have good cardio, but they’re thin because that’s all that you see. So it’s like what’s beneath the surface. So like with self care, it’s it’s really, really important to you to match the things that no one else sees. What is the what is the the time that you take for yourself, the time it takes to just stop and think about where you’re where you’re going, thinking about what you need to confront. I have followed several people, other leaders in the industries about what their healthy routines are, and every single person that has achieved the level of success has a routine on self care and no one sees it. It’s not in the public eye. It’s not not all over the Internet. But they wake up, they work out, they wake up, they have a positive mindset, routine. They they journal, they reflect, they have a music routine and they just spend time on themselves and at that time on themselves is like this core foundation to which all the pressures of your job can grow upon and you are stable. So and again, it’s one of those things that you do and no one sees, but it comes out. People can see the effects of it, like working out. People may not see that you’re working out, but they’ll they can you will know if someone’s working out because you can you can tell if someone’s working out.

Sharon Cline: It’s funny. Diesel David was on the show a while ago and he talked about the same things. I didn’t know that you all, you all can chit chat about that kind of stuff. You know.

Bronson Kurtz : We already we.

Sharon Cline: Are. Oh, is that right? Oh, is that why your friends. That works.

Bronson Kurtz : Though. He has a he’s an amazing mind.

Sharon Cline: Oh, he does. Yeah. Talk about feeling intimidated with conversation. I was like, yeah, that sounds great.

Bronson Kurtz : He scares me. Yeah.

Sharon Cline: Well, good. Then we’re in good company. So I wanted to ask you as well, like, what do you find is the most rewarding part of your job? Like, what are your your career, I should say, not just job.

Bronson Kurtz : So one of the things I’ve kind of taken away from the European model is a work to live culture. And I think here in the United States we have a live to work culture. And so when you go over to Europe, the way they’ll talk about us is like, what are you guys doing over there? Why are you so healthy, unhealthy? Why are you so stressed out? And you compare the way they live there? I was in I was in Zurich and we were just taking a walk around Lake Zurich and. We saw these business people in their suits taking their lunch break, just walking around the lake, eating an apple. And we’re like, What is this? Like, I.

Sharon Cline: Have an email to respond to.

Bronson Kurtz : I can’t even imagine. But they put their phones away and they stop. They have conversation and they take time to just enjoy being outside.

Sharon Cline: How much of a challenge is that for you here in the United States, though?

Bronson Kurtz : Well, it’s hard to walk places here.

Sharon Cline: Well, I’m saying, like just balancing your life with sort of self care and making sure that you’re not burning yourself out, especially with it industry being 24. Well, everything’s kind of 24 seven these days.

Bronson Kurtz : I see.

Sharon Cline: Specifically, I see specifically 24 seven. Is it a challenge to create boundaries around work or balancing?

Bronson Kurtz : Well, right now we’re understaffed, so our team has been working pretty hard and pushing past, I would consider acceptable boundaries because I would like to lead with a. A work to live culture. So we give everyone starting vacation at four weeks. We we do three day weekends once a month. And so everyone gets a long weekend, regardless of a holiday, as long as they all don’t do it together. I want people to pursue their hobbies and their interests. And I’ll, you know, I supplement their travel like I want them to do things that they love to do in their life. So when when I look at my work now, it’s I still I love I love doing computers and there’s a certain like itch in my brain that happens when I can solve these problems. So it is very satisfying for me personally. But now it’s more than just that. Now it’s like, what does it enabled me to accomplish with the rest of my life? Am I now able to do my travels? Am I able to pursue my hobbies and interests? So then now the work is linked to my life. So one. Your whole life? It is. It’s not my whole life. Even though for me as a business owner, it kind of feels like it is sometimes. But really it gives me the opportunity and my team the opportunity to pursue the things they want to pursue. So at least that’s what what I hope happens. And I believe the culture is already there. Like I said, we’re still very, very small and there’s much, much more to do in this space, but that’s kind of the trajectory I hope to be in.

Sharon Cline: Please, do you have is that a good question to ask? I don’t think I’ve ever asked anyone that on the show.

Bronson Kurtz : We have a mix of employees and contractors and we were I’m interviewing my seventh.

Sharon Cline: Oh, well.

Bronson Kurtz : That’s a pretty.

Sharon Cline: Sizable company.

Bronson Kurtz : I mean, maybe.

Sharon Cline: I don’t know what what I like, though, is they must love coming to work for you, knowing that they don’t have to work there for ten years before they earn like four weeks off.

Bronson Kurtz : Right. I’m actually not even super strict about it. I think it may have taken more than four weeks, but whatever.

Sharon Cline: But you might have loyal employees.

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah, I think. I think that’s true. We also like to do like, if work is slow, like we’ll play video games in the office and watch the soccer game, you know, watch events like try not to make everyone work every second of the day. Right now, it’s hard because I said we’re understaffed, so we need more people.

Sharon Cline: What do you need?

Bronson Kurtz : Well, right now it’s tier two technicians.

Sharon Cline: Tier two. Okay. I’m sure whoever knows what that means is going to hear.

Bronson Kurtz : I need a person that can do more than just reset a password. I need someone that can actually design infrastructure.

Sharon Cline: Okay, well, this is good to know. This may be an opportunity for someone who’s listening to.

Bronson Kurtz : I have a number of resumes in a lot of the resumes. Again, they’re coming from people that are coming right out of college. And right now, the last four interviews I’ve done with people coming out of college, basically they’re an intern. I don’t know what is being taught in colleges, but when I go through a rudimentary technical questionnaire like, Hey, have you done this and what is this and how do you do this? The answer is no to everything. Wow. So when I have to hire a person even coming right out of right out of college, they don’t know anything interesting. So I don’t know what they’re teaching them. So basically, you know, and at a college, they’re wanting like 70,000 a year. It’s like, I’m going to pay you $70,000 to teach you how to do it just so you can leave me and go work somewhere else. I’m like, okay, that’s not going to work. So there’s a hiring situation with that. So I’ve been finding that hiring people without degrees that have worked in this space and have experience has been better for me. So. It’s a weird hybrid like So now when I hire people from college, they’re interns, basically, and they have to agree to an internship. What’s interesting about that is it’s people that decide like, I guess they’re 18, they want to go to college and do it. But the people that are really exceptional at it are the people that never needed to go to college. They were building their own stuff when they’re six years old and they have a natural knack of it. They’ve loved it their whole life. I remember. Are you familiar with Xbox? Xbox Live? Yes.

Sharon Cline: I mean, I know about it. I’ve never played it.

Bronson Kurtz : It allows for people on Xbox to play with other Xbox players around the world. Right. Well, on the first generation of Xbox, it was the first or second. I don’t remember. We all were playing Halo and we were all bringing all our Xboxes over to our house. We connect them all together and play 16 play Halo. Wow. And that became cumbersome after a while. And so we’re like, you know, how do we solve this problem? So we ended up building our own Xbox Live so that we could all play from home without having to bring all our TVs and Xboxes over to our to my house. So like, that’s an example of like, okay, like you love something, you like game, you like technology, what are you going to do to fix a problem and what can you demonstrate with that? So that love or that desire to solve technical things I think exists before college. So that’s a challenge I face. Like, Oh, I have this degree in technology. Okay, what have you done before that? Nothing. It’s okay. Well. You know, in my experience, the ones that are amazing at their job love it regardless of college.

Sharon Cline: So I like the notion that you don’t have to go to college to succeed. There’s something about that that’s just so appealing to me.

Bronson Kurtz : Yes, I know that. I think in some industries, maybe college is required. I know one of my daughters wants to be a theoretical physicist, so I believe that requires a college degree because it’s a very, very complex. They’re not going to know how to run a business or know how any software works, but they’ll know how atoms interact, or at least theoretically.

Sharon Cline: Theory of it.

Bronson Kurtz : Theory of it. My middle daughter wants to be a nurse. She’s a nurturing spirit to help people. Well, you need to go to school for that. But like, for a trade or even I.T., a lot of that could be self taught. And if a person has a good work ethic and a desire to learn, I think a person can be taught anything but the ability to work or have a good or have a good work ethic or good work spirit is more difficult to find. So when I interview people now, it’s more like, okay, what is your energy like? Do we vibe? Let’s talk, let’s see what our our interactions are like. And that to me is almost more important because again, all the other stuff can be taught.

Sharon Cline: That’s fascinating, too. Just it’s almost personalities, you know, as opposed to brain, if that makes sense.

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah. I mean, they have to. They have to they have to have the aptitude to learn. And solving problems is a necessary skill. So if they’re if they’re aptitude or their IQ is too low, like I take a test, but like, if we talk and they’re struggling, solving problems or answering my questions or be willing to be wrong about things, they’re not going to be a fit. So I have never not hired someone. When it was necessary based just on skill. It was almost always based on their energy and their work ethic. And the conversation flow right now for this tier two position I’m hiring for. They need to have a certain knowledge, but I don’t need them have a degree. I need to. I knew that in the past, basically a knowledge test and the knowledge this won’t be a test. It’s an actual interview. I think tests can be tricked. So I’m going to ask I’ll ask the questions because I know how to do all of it and tell me how do you solve this problem and have them work it out for me and I’ll challenge them, push back and how that conversation goes. It’s not about being right or wrong or they made if they failed or succeeded at their problem. It’s like the dialog, the energy, the back and forth, the willingness to learn. Those are the things that stand out to me the most.

Sharon Cline: Do you find in it that it’s challenging to find people who are willing to be wrong or willing to admit that they’re wrong?

Bronson Kurtz : I think it’s a human problem, not an i.t. Problem.

Sharon Cline: I was wondering if it was in particular something you deal with with it because it’s so cerebral.

Bronson Kurtz : I have I’ve I think I’ve noticed it more with older hires who’ve been in it for 30, 40 years. And the market is shifting to a different way to do things. And if they don’t, their mindset isn’t on change. It’s just why? Why are we doing this? Then that’s a problem. One of my one of my first larger clients, you know, they had homegrown tech and the guy who managed all the right built everything from scratch. And but there were products available that we didn’t have to do that anymore. But their mindset was to do this really old, complicated, difficult thing. So when things broke, there was no way to fix it and no way to get help. And you can’t run a business that way. So they were old. They hadn’t, they hadn’t changed. Adapted with a newer way to work.

Sharon Cline: Did you encourage them to adapt?

Bronson Kurtz : They were fired. I was like, Oh.

Sharon Cline: Oh. So they were old school?

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah. So I’ve interviewed people that older than me. I think the oldest person I’ve interviewed has been 60, and I’ve noticed the challenge with that is, one, they feel uncomfortable that I’m interviewing them. It’s like, how dare I do that? So.

Sharon Cline: So there’s ageism.

Bronson Kurtz : Yes, for sure. And I’m willing, like, I don’t care how old the person is. What I care about is a mindset. So there are younger people that have an old mindset. I don’t know if old is the right word, maybe a sterile or stale mindset.

Sharon Cline: Outdated mindset.

Bronson Kurtz : Okay, yeah. I’m a believer in the bounds of the whole The order in Chaos concept. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that a little bit. I think people are familiar with that yin yang.

Sharon Cline: Yes, I’m familiar with that.

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah. So I believe that’s. Stale is how you basically rot away. And if you’re too chaotic, you destroy the world around you. So you have to blend both of them together to change with a purpose. And so when things are coming your way, should you blindly accept them? Or should you think about and choose what’s the best path forward? But you can’t be. It’s different. I’m not going to change like the Croods. Its new. How’d it go? It’s new.

Sharon Cline: New is scary.

Bronson Kurtz : It can be. But again, it’s a mindset. I think the younger generation of people. I have grown up on change more than our older generation. So like my kids, they’ve had they get a new iPhone every two years and so and the new software update every year and they go to school. This new laptop, new systems like they’re built on change. So whereas even in my generation when I graduated high school, there wasn’t a lot of change. It was kind of the same thing. Like, you know, Facebook came out, what, 2004 for colleges? It was a private thing for colleges. Yeah, Yeah. We you know, we had dial up Internet. It was very there wasn’t it was change, but not like a ton of change. Whereas now it’s like this new tech every.

Sharon Cline: I know my computer is like five years.

Bronson Kurtz : Old. That’s already outdated.

Sharon Cline: Yeah. Oh, it’s old school for sure. And so is my car. But I’m good. I’m good with that. Well, where would you like to see your company? Let’s say ten years from now, With a new name.

Bronson Kurtz : With a new name. So Polar Night, I would like to see that be to be completely self sufficient without me. And then with that, once it’s once it’s self sufficient, that will then free me up to do several other endeavors that I would like to do.

Sharon Cline: Do you want to talk about your endeavors? Are they private? And you just want to wait?

Bronson Kurtz : I’ll share it. So one of my hobbies is photography. And actually, I have a branding crisis here. And what’s not because I do so much photography that people see me as the photographer and we’ll stock all the time.

Sharon Cline: No kidding.

Bronson Kurtz : Yeah. So it’s like, Well, I’m actually not what I do. That’s my hobby. But the photography happens, happens to be very visible. Well, I was in Iceland and we were I was just exploring and taking it all in, and I saw this lifted Mercedes van with like these 38 super swamp or tires on it. Like, I was like, What is this? What is this place? And so it turns out that there’s this ex doctor, retired doctor from the United States, decided to take his photography skills and retired in Iceland and basically started photography tours. Oh, wow. And he charges like $250 a person for like a five hour trip. And of course, in the summertime there’s the sun never even sets. So you can squeeze in probably two of those. He works his van fills up with 12 people. Or I say, Van, it’s that’s the wrong word. Like it’s a lifted monster of a vehicle. What you need to have, what you need to have over there. And so basically he runs two sessions a day, three days a week, and it’s completely booked out. And so it’s 250 times 12 people. And that’s for the first half of the day. Wow.

Sharon Cline: I can’t imagine.

Bronson Kurtz : Imagine having a fleet of those. So you.

Sharon Cline: Could see yourself doing.

Bronson Kurtz : That. Well, because I like to travel. So how do I do? How do I combine my hobbies with a business?

Sharon Cline: But that’s the goal, right? That’s what I mean. I love the notion of that is something that you have a passion for already and you’re making money with it. That’s kind of what I’m doing with voiceover. I love that. So it’s like what? I can make money, right?

Bronson Kurtz : You know, that’s what I can win. That’s what happened with me in photography. And my drone work, like drones and photography, are a hobby to me, but I do so much of it that now I get hired to do a lot of it. So now it’s now the the paid work pays for my hobby, I guess. So taking that concept to other things that I enjoy doing, specifically traveling, I would like to travel. And so I also want to do the Airbnb route, but I don’t want to just do Airbnbs here at the beach. I want to do Airbnbs and cool, cool places, literally cold and cool places.

Sharon Cline: So what would you want people to contact you if they’re interested in photography?

Bronson Kurtz : So not not really.

Sharon Cline: Not really. You have enough work as that is?

Bronson Kurtz : Yes, I’m drowning. So basically my photography is a service that I do to support the community. So I do get hired. I’m not going to necessarily no to work. Usually it’s preexisting relationships or a lot of it comes from my IT clients because they know I do drone work and photography, so they just asked me to help them out and they’ll hire me to do work. Got you. But like, people will tag me on Facebook right now. Hey, they’re doing headshots. I’ll tag me. I’m like, No, I’m not doing headshots. So for me right now, it’s a it’s a it’s a mechanism to to support the community.

Sharon Cline: And you network that way.

Bronson Kurtz : I do. And sometimes when I don’t feel like talking, I can hide behind the camera when I’m feeling a little introverted, so.

Sharon Cline: Introverted.

Bronson Kurtz : And it can serve a useful tool. But that is the photography is a hobby and it’s like my give back to different events and places.

Sharon Cline: Well. So if you wanted people to contact you for it things, how can people get in touch with you?

Bronson Kurtz : Well, I’m very easy to find on social media. I imagine you’ll have all my my things linked in.

Sharon Cline: Yeah, I will. I have to have to do cyberstalking. I always do this with clients. I have to.

Bronson Kurtz : Or cyber.

Sharon Cline: I have to cyber talk to you a little bit so I can make sure I quote everything correctly for you. But yes. So I’ll I’ll make sure I have some information on the Business RadioX website. But you’re findable.

Bronson Kurtz : Obviously, I’m refundable and we’re on Google Maps or on Facebook, all all the social media ties to the same place and the new website. It’s going to be polar nike.com. It’s actually already up and running with a very small splash page. We’re still working out some of the legalities.

Sharon Cline: You just have to wait till December 21st.

Bronson Kurtz : Yes, apparently that’ll be I have an event at my office, but my office is too small to have everyone from Woodstock show up. So maybe I need an event planner.

Sharon Cline: Well, here at the innovation spot, you can find some a spot. Well, I’m so excited you came in. It was really wonderful to talk to you, and I was very nervous about it. So I appreciate that.

Bronson Kurtz : You. You’re still nervous?

Sharon Cline: No, I’m not. No, no. But it’s partly because you did the thing like you’re a doctor where you kind of made it understandable for me, a layperson who doesn’t have the knowledge you do. So I appreciate that.

Bronson Kurtz : Thank you. Well, thank you for inviting me. It was nice.

Sharon Cline: You’re welcome. Yeah. And thank you all for listening to fearless Formula on Business RadioX. And this is Sharon Cline reminding you that with knowledge and understanding, we can all have our own fearless formula. Have a great day.