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Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. So excited about my guest today, Mrs. Donna Marshall-Payne, the powerhouse CEO of Doing Far More, LLC, an organization dedicated to helping families and business owners build legacies, not burdens. For over 26 years, Donna has led a national insurance and financing firm specializing in funeral pre-planning, cemetery services and business funding across all 50 states. Her mission is to bring peace of mind to families while empowering entrepreneurs through access to capital. She is also the founder of Doing Far More Foundation, a nonprofit focused on education, entrepreneurship and cancer awareness, inspired by her own journey as a breast cancer survivor. Whether she’s building partnerships with brands like Kendra Scott or mentoring small business owners, Donna’s work reminds us that purpose and profit can and should go hand in hand. Donna, welcome to the show.

Donna Marshall-Payne: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Trisha Stetzel: So excited to have you on today. So just tell us a little bit more about Donna.

Donna Marshall-Payne: Oh, God. Where do I start? So a little bit about me. Um, actually, I’m a native of Galveston County. Um, born and raised. Graduated from the Lamar High School, class of 1988. And who knew? Fast forward 30 plus years. I would be in business and doing business as I have for so many years. I’m a mother. Um, I’m a mother to one, but have raised five, and, um. God, I could say I’ve raised an army because God still keeps putting younger people in my life. Uh, so. But I receive, and I love it. I’m a woman. I’m a woman of God. Um. And I just honestly just like to do far more in communities everywhere. So that’s just who I am. And I’m a survivor as well. So, yeah, all in a nutshell.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh my goodness. I’m so excited to learn more about doing more. So you’ve built a legacy around that phrase and even named your business and your foundation using that phrase. What does it mean to you personally and professionally?

Donna Marshall-Payne: Well, I’m glad you asked. Actually, doing far more is actually a dream. It it kind of. It was inspired from a dream and from a prior Life, uh, prior to doing far more. I was doing more nationwide. That was the business. And after, um, big life changes, and I like to say God removed the shackles from my feet. Um, I started to do far more just from a little conversation on the phone with my brother. He said, well, since you are doing far more and I’m like, you know what? I took it. I actually trademarked it. So I made trademarked business because I’m about my business and I don’t want you in my business. So, um, and then later on in life, as I, I grew and developed, um, more, I learned it was really biblical. Um, Ephesians 320 is really where it’s derived from. And from there, I’ve actually been able to be very faithful because sometimes it’s nothing but faith. I have, but he has definitely, um, given me the provision once I’ve had the vision to do far more.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So tell me a little bit more about the business of doing far more. Donna.

Donna Marshall-Payne: So we started actually, um, in Miami, Miami Dade, Fort Lauderdale. Um, I started my business in 1999, actually, when I left corporate America because I gave them, I like to say, 11 or 12 years of my life in the financial industry. And I had just kind of, you know, hit that that ceiling. And I got bored. So I got pregnant and then took a leave of absence. And during that leave, I studied and got my mortgage broker license back then and was able to, um, I like to say, kick the door down to my business partner at the time who didn’t want to see me. She kept saying, no, I’m not going to see you. And I stayed and remained faithful. And me and the beautiful Paulette Phillips became business partners there, and we developed a wonderful relationship, and we were doing mortgage all over the tri county area. And I just had a passion for real estate. And so, um, doing the mortgages and from there I kind of scaled and started marketing and using my voice, um, to just get into more doors. And that led me into insurance. And the insurance didn’t like I was good at it, but I didn’t like the life insurance. And the whole life. I don’t like telling people, no, I can’t help you. And then, you know, people ask how I got into the business I’m in now. But you’re still insurance. I’m a broker, but my niche is the pre-planning, so I can help everybody.

Donna Marshall-Payne: And then that just developed into so much more, being able to touch communities all over with the knowledge and the seasoning. I like to say that I have, uh, to give back and do far more and just kind of grow from there. And it’s just been a remarkable, um, scary, um, but worth it experience, you know, to develop that. And then 2022, you know, I always say here today, gone tomorrow. It is a true statement. Went to sleep one night, woke up the next. And then I got cancer out of nowhere. You know, um, a cancer that I had never heard about. And most times, 95% of the time when I talk to someone, they’ve never heard about it. Um, it is the worst form of breast cancer, which they call triple negative breast cancer, which most don’t survive. I did, and, um, I celebrated two years on November the 3rd, 2025, um, of being cancer free. And that means so much to me. So through my foundation, I’m able to kind of give back, do far more, and touch lives. And because I am the entrepreneur and boss that I am, I took that with my trademark and actually created the foundation for Entrepreneurship and Cancer Awareness to be able to touch lives all over. So that’s kind of who I am. And I just, I just it just opens up doors because like you introduced me, it opened up the door to Kendra Scott, who I thought was Spam Girl.

Speaker4: Really? Okay, so you have to share the story. Let’s hear it.

Donna Marshall-Payne: So you know how you get all of these random emails? I mean, I get them all the time, and then you sign up for different subscriptions. Girl, I thought that was spam when they was reaching out to me and I deleted it, they called. I was like, shut the bus door. And so now, you know, fast forward, I must say. The beautiful team in Cypress, Texas at Kendra Scott is amazing. I went in there and um, now I have a Kendra Give Back celebration for my birthday. My birthday was October 26th, but we celebrating Sugar on November the 15th at Kendra Scott in Cypress, Texas. And they may need to put a rope out there girl, because everybody’s coming. Yes, they’re actually giving me the entire weekend to raise funds for my foundation. So anyone, anywhere in the world can just log on and use my code, um, to be able to help us continue to touch lives and do far more. But can I just I need to share this little part because it’s so important.

Trisha Stetzel: Yes.

Donna Marshall-Payne: One of my missions, of course, for the Foundation is we have a huge event coming up, December the 20th. I don’t know if this is the time, but I know I’m limited on time, so I’m going to get it all in sugar.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. Please do.

Donna Marshall-Payne: December the 20th is going to be my fourth annual Christmas experience. And what that is I’m glad you ask. It is me adopting families and give them a Christmas experience that they wouldn’t normally experience. And I started this a couple of months before I was diagnosed with cancer back in 2022. And honey, I didn’t want to do it because, right, a month up to it. I’m leaving trails of hair everywhere I walked and you know, the emotion and everything were my my team pushed me to do it, and it was the most remarkable experience to partner with the mission of Yahweh in Mission Bend, Texas. Um, since then, I’ve been able to partner with the star of Hope and the Glad Tidings Division. And, um, and then just it just kept elevating. So I went from two families and, um, 4 or 5 kids to last year I had 17 kids. And God bless. This year we’re serving 38 family members. So we are super excited. We’re doing it in Galveston County at the church Progressive Missionary Baptist Church. Shout out to Pastor Jones where I was originally baptized. So God gave me that vision to take it home to Galveston County, uh, to Lamar, Texas, and bless 38 family members this year on December the 20th. Uh, it’s a church of 77 church anniversary as well.

Donna Marshall-Payne: Uh, that’s one of the things. And the second thing, God gave me the dream of what I call the rest. Retreat. Rest, rest. To rest, eat, spa and thrive. Because when I went to chemo, every time my husband tried to take me to eat after. And I just couldn’t. I want to save space for women to come and just kind of rest. You know, when going through that because that chemo is y’all, that’s just poison to the body. But I want the women to be able to come and have a spa kind of day, because losing my hair was one of the most traumatic things. I don’t want it back now, but I’m just saying, you know, I want women to have a, a a space to be transparent about emotions. I want women to come in and have their children to come and have be cared for, and they don’t have to worry, as too many single mothers going through breast cancer don’t have a way lose their jobs and all of that. And that’s part of my ring my bell ceremony that I do as well. So just pointing out the activities that I’m doing with the foundation and where your money goes, it’s all tax free, y’all, and it’s used for God’s purposes. I think I’ve said enough, Trisha. Go ahead girl.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh, I love that.

Trisha Stetzel: So tell us. So for those people who are compelled to give or volunteer or be a part of what you’re doing in your foundation, how can they connect with you?

Donna Marshall-Payne: Um, oh great question. So as of this morning, are both my websites have been launched, redone, revamped? Uh, there’s a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful soul. Her name is Ashley Lipsman fond memories by Ashley. She has transformed the sights. Just took what I had in my heart, in my mind and put them digitally so w-w-w-what more Foundation.org you can donate there. Um, for all the the services we’re doing, you can also volunteer there as well. Everything is kind of a one stop hub, and then you can see the things we’ve done in the past as well. Yes. Mhm.

Trisha Stetzel: The doing more foundation.

Donna Marshall-Payne: No no no no no Trisha. Like we’re doing far more today okay. The doing far more foundation.

Trisha Stetzel: Got it. And you guys as always I’m going to put it in the show notes. So if you’re sitting in front of your computer you will absolutely have a link to point and click to find exactly everything that Donna is talking about.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh my goodness, so much.

Trisha Stetzel: You have so much going on. And I remember when we had this conversation a few weeks ago, like, you have to come tell everybody what you’re doing and you’re serving the community in such a way that is so beautiful and impacting so many families, so 38 families that you’re going to be serving this year. Amazing.

Donna Marshall-Payne: 38 family members.

Speaker4: 30 members.

Donna Marshall-Payne: Members. Beautiful. 38. 38 souls? Yes.

Trisha Stetzel: For sure. I just love that. All right. So, Donna, would it be okay if we. If we tapped a little bit into your business? Because I know that there are people out there who may be interested in the planning ahead piece of what you’re doing and what you bring. So you’ve spent decades helping families plan ahead for difficult moments. How do you help people shift from fear to empowerment during that process?

Donna Marshall-Payne: So great question, Trisha. You know, I ain’t have time to prep for none of this, honey, so. Okay. So doing far more abundantly and by Faith LLC is the trademark business. That business. I’ve only been serving families in the cemetery and funeral industry for eight years. I’ve been doing the real estate and everything else for 26, but for eight years it has become a mission and actually a ministry for me. And we have fun doing it, actually. So, um, pre-planning, you know, usually it’s not about you. It’s really about those you leave behind. So I try to be creative in letting the families know how important it is to get your affairs in order. Because what if what if something happened to you today? Who is going to be that person to take care of those affairs? And are they ready financially, mentally, spiritually? You know what I mean? A lot of people don’t think about that. But what I see day to day money and death separates families. And if you could put your stuff on layaway and be done in about five years. Ten years tops. Why wouldn’t you do it when you’re paying for your life insurance every day of your life? No shade to life insurance because remember, I’m a broker. Life insurance is for the living, though. That’s what’s going to create generational wealth for those you leave behind. But be proactive versus reactive when it comes to death and take care of your pre-planning. And a lot of people didn’t even know that you could do it or that you can. I like to say put it on layaway because you can put it on a payment plan. And a lot of people didn’t know that. And you can save thousands, just thousands of dollars in advance. And I can do it from a computer, from the house, from the beach. I can meet you at the coffee shop. It’s important. And it’s. I’ve really turned it into my life mission to do it. And I’ve created what we call pre-planning parties, like Tupperware parties to do it. And that’s what makes it a little bit easier for people.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, so now you have to tell me about these parties. Tell me more.

Donna Marshall-Payne: So the pre-planning parties, uh, came to me a year ago, and actually I put myself on tour this year, actually, and I really. And this is important for people to know. I wanted to start in my community first. So I created the Black Entrepreneur Tour, where I was able to partner with black owned restaurants, venues, businesses, and I did tour stops. Okay, we did storytelling, but storytelling sessions about if your family preplanned or not, because that could be good, bad, indifferent, comical, not so comical, but it captures the attention more. And so I involved influencers to come along the journey with me, which brought even more people. And it brought exposure to the businesses and restaurants here in the city. And it just grew. It grew from like 22 people. In my last stop in June, I had over 132 people in the room. And so now in 2026, it is called the Entrepreneur Tour because baby, you can bleed girl as long as you bleed red. That’s what I was going to say. Bleed red, bleed red. We can collaborate and do business. And now vendors. I have a waiting list. I’m just I’m super excited. I got four stops this coming year with businesses now because you know what? You can do things together and rise where you can try to do things on your own. And I’m about elevating other entrepreneurs and businesses. So we collab, we do a little barter system and everybody wins. And it’s a fun experience. I have mobile bartenders. I’ve had celebrity chefs come. It just depends on the spot. But it has been truly impactful, intentional, and it has touched a lot of people in my community thus far and is raising such awareness in other communities. Hence 2026 The Entrepreneur Tour.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. Okay, you guys, now see why I asked Donna to come on the show to talk about all of these amazing things that she’s doing. Um. Can we? So you’re so involved in the community in so many different ways, helping families in need, helping entrepreneurs, and bringing an audience actually to their stores through this tour that you started in 2025, which is amazing. Connecting people, supporting people. You’ve built a company and a foundation that blend faith, finance and legacy. How do you stay grounded, Donna, while leading all of this?

Donna Marshall-Payne: Um, they say I’m the most humble individual, you know. I’m also a caregiver of four. So, um, I take care of my mom and dad. I’m still blessed to have both. There are 85. Mom will be 86 in December. I take care of my uncle, who has vascular dementia, and he’s a, um, he’s a veteran, uh, from the Army and Navy. He gave over 30 years. Um, and my cousin, who has cerebral palsy, and they don’t live here. They live in Galveston County. So I’m 45, is best friends. But God, to me is what keeps me grounded. I used to call it work life balance, but I’ve learned it’s work life integration. So I’ve learned to integrate my personal life with my business life, and I’ve learned to have fun doing it. Therefore, what I do does not feel like work. It always feels like fun and somehow God has created me to be a magnet, to bring people together as a community, to continue to do far more. Girl, that’s why I use that term right there.

Trisha Stetzel: Doing far more. Yeah, I yeah, it just it it’s in everything that you do. And I see why you’ve trademarked that phrase. Because it is part of who you are and the business that you run and the foundation that you run and just what you bring to the community. So for those people who are listening today, Donna, that, um, work really hard and they don’t feel like they’re getting a return on all of the blood, sweat and tears that they put into their business. What advice would you give them to take the next right step?

Donna Marshall-Payne: I would say be present. Um, one of the main things that has helped me, um, I absolutely adore networking. Um. You cannot be seen and no one will know what you’re doing if you don’t tell someone. I always say, put what you do on your forehead so they can see you coming, and put it on your back so they can see you leaving, so no one will forget who you are and what you do. So you may hit a stumbling block now, but it’s all in God’s timing. And if you really have faith, like they say, the size of a mustard seed, you know, just believe. Because sometimes if it’s not happening right now, that means you’re really not ready, even though you want to be. Because God can open up the floodgates in the blink of an eye. And if you’re not ready, then what is it all for? And I’m a walking testimony of that so yeah. Mhm.

Donna Marshall-Payne: Keep pushing.

Trisha Stetzel: Keep pushing and and what about surrounding yourself. You, you bring such a community vibe to everything that you do. How important is it to surround yourself with the right people?

Donna Marshall-Payne: It is the most important for me. Discernment is key. Alignment is is so important. Um, because if you’re not aligned, then you could stay at the same spot that you are for so long without realizing, you know, it could be the people around you. They say birds of a feather flock together. It’s not. I may be telling my age, honey, but it’s a true story. You know, so if you go in the rooms with the people that may not look like you, but are in places that you desire or aspire to be, then you can learn. Just be a sponge and just take it all in.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. And you’ve surrounded yourself with some really neat people. By the way, if you’re not watching the video, I’m going to encourage all of you to jump over to YouTube, because I want you to see Donna and how beautiful and vibrant she is, because she does have a voice, but she is also just glowing with energy. And you have to see it. And what I want to point out is the beautiful piece of artwork that she has behind her. So, Donna, tell us a little bit about this piece that you have on your wall.

Donna Marshall-Payne: Wow. So, C.J. Christian okay, if she she’ll see this eventually. But, um, I also walk with a team. I call them my village, my ambassadors. And, uh, one of my ambassadors was a young lady, uh, back in the day, who’s doing phenomenal things now, um, her daughter was, I want to say, 15 or 16. Uh, she was one of my, uh, my mentees. And so, um, she surprised me for one of my birthdays. They did an uncovering. It’s a commissioned piece. She has it signed and everything. And it’s supposed to be me. Because before cancer, I had hair all the way down my back, honey, to be all curly and everywhere, and. And she said, Miss Donna, you’re always on the phone. So she took my logo. As you can see, and kind of created that. And people have called me from all over the place wanting to buy it or get it, but it’s only one. And so I’m just very grateful and thankful to see that she’ll see that eventually. She’s an artist. Yes.

Trisha Stetzel: It’s beautiful and not for sale, by the way. So those of you who are admiring it, you must have admire from afar, because Donna is not giving that up.

Donna Marshall-Payne: Um, I want to point out before we go, there’s a wreath on the wall. Um, over here, it says I am a survivor. Um, Avis Reeves from. She’ll kill me. I want to say bling my thing, but her name is Avis Reeves. This was the first wreath of hope at my ring, my bell ceremonies. And she hand makes these. And so for anyone that’s looking, you know, breast cancer survivors and things like that, um, I want to shout out to her because I’m really blessed to have that. It’ll be at the Kendra Scott actually, as well.

Donna Marshall-Payne: Okay, fantastic. All right. Donna, um, I know you’re doing the tour in 2026. What else is coming up for Donna? What’s next for you?

Donna Marshall-Payne: So really, just the tour in 2026. In March, we will be, um, celebrating triple negative Breast Cancer Month. Uh, stay tuned for that as well. Um, and right now, just trying to wrap up this year with the Christmas experience. Um, I actually on a new project with Black Wall Street as well. And that’s just really helping and elevate entrepreneurs as well. So really just follow me, guys, because every day God gives me something else different and I just receive.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Donna, how can people find you and follow you?

Donna Marshall-Payne: So everything doing far more. It’s trademark. Y’all put it in there. I think I might got a Google review page now too. So w w w Farmall or w w w doing far more foundation. Please follow share, like and support.

Trisha Stetzel: Doing far more. Donna, this has been so much fun today. Thank you for being with me. So you have an event on November 15th, which is the the Kendra Scott event, and then you have your event on December 20th, and then you have the rest event that’s coming up. So you guys go to the doing far more foundation or doing far more. Those are the places you want to go. Go see the beautiful work that her website designer has done for her. Donna, thank you so much for being with me today. This has been such a blessing. I’m so glad that we were introduced to each other, and I knew immediately that I needed to get you in front of the people that I love as well, who are listening to the show.

Donna Marshall-Payne: Thank you Trisha. Thank you for having me. It’s been wonderful.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. That’s all the time we have for today, guys. So if you found value in this conversation that Donna and I had today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran or Houston business leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate, and review the show because it helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Today’s guest is Daniella Granzotto, chief growth officer at Wednesday Waffles, the app that’s redefining digital connection by prioritizing authenticity over algorithms. Daniella is leading their go to market strategy, driving growth and engagement as the platform takes on the loneliest epidemic and positions itself at the forefront of the anti social media movement. Before this, she spent eight years in senior leadership at Shopify, including as head coach, head excuse me, head of Shopify VIP, where she worked with some of the companies most influential brands and highest revenue merchants, shaping executive communications and building scalable teams that delivered multimillion dollar impact. At Wednesday Waffles, she’s bringing that expertise to turn a viral trend into a cultural shift. And she’s here to tell us how. Daniella, welcome to the show.

Daniella Granzotto : Thank you so much for having me.

Trisha Stetzel: I’m so excited to have you on today. When, uh, you and I engaged quite a while back and I was like, What is Wednesday waffles? And we got on the phone and I was very excited about what you’re building and these communities of people that you’re bringing together. Uh, and it’s lovely. And we’re going to talk about that in a few minutes. But I’d really like for the audience to know a little bit more about you. So tell us about Daniella.

Daniella Granzotto : Sure. I have a very unconventional career path in history. I, uh, am a theater school dropout, uh, by Education and, uh, spent a lot of time doing a lot of odd jobs before I eventually landed, uh, at Shopify as an executive assistant. Um, I applied seven times before they let me in. And on cover letter seven, I said, I have cover letter eight and nine ready to go, so let me know when you want them. Um, and I didn’t need them, as it turns out. And so I started right at the bottom and through the last eight years, worked my way up to, as you mentioned, head of VIP, where my team and I oversaw all of the biggest brands that utilize our platform. Um, and really the focus was around commerce, entrepreneurship and helping brands succeed in their own entrepreneurial endeavors. Yeah, yeah. And then from there, I, after eight years, decided it was time to take a leap into my own entrepreneurial journey myself and had, uh, owned a couple businesses in the past, had owned a wedding and events planning business. I owned a fake lash line at one point. Um, but when I came across this concept Wednesday. Waffles, that’s when it really spoke to me that this was the thing that I was supposed to do.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Okay. So I’m sure if people are not familiar as they may not be around Wednesday waffles tell us exactly what it is.

Daniella Granzotto : Yeah. So it started by one of our founders, Zach from Australia about a year and a half ago, uh, took to TikTok to just share. Hey, my friends and I have been doing this thing. We call it Wednesday waffles. Uh, waffles in Australian and British slang, kind of means just the gift of the gab. Just chatting on about nothing. And, uh, they just waffle on about what’s going on in their day. And so every Wednesday, they would record a 2 to 3 minute video of just letting their friends know what was going on in their life. And it could be anything from the mundane to the challenging to the the winds that they’ve been having. And you just pop that in a group chat. And it allowed everyone to stay connected in a way that actually let people know what was going on in their life. And so I saw this, uh, TikTok go viral, and I was about to make a move across country, and I sent it to my girlfriends, and I was like, we need to do this. And so we had started doing it just in a group chat. And as I was doing it in the group chat, although it technically worked, there was a lot of limitations. It takes up all of your phone storage as the sender. It would look like my whole video sent, but as the receiver it would get cut off halfway through and it just wasn’t as good as an experience. But I had seen tremendous value just from the act of doing it already. And through that I was like, okay, this this is very valuable, but it needs to be better than this and it needs to be an app.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. So, uh, you had I’m assuming that you got involved because you had a need. It looked like a really great idea. It was a way for you and your friends to stay connected. So how did it go? Daniella, from just this concept of hanging out with your girlfriends and figuring out how you were going to use different tools to stay connected without using up all the storage on your phone to where it’s at today?

Daniella Granzotto : Yeah, I think as we started to do more research into what the activity of recording a 2 to 3 minute video, it sounds simple. It sounds okay. Obviously I can let people know what’s going on in my life, but the benefits of it are it’s just hard to ignore. Despite being more connected by technology than ever, 30% 36% of Americans report being lonelier than ever. The traditional social media outlets that we have today are highlight reels, and it becomes a place of, honestly, more loneliness and depression for more people than support and community. What it might have originally been intended to do, which was, you know, originally sharecropping photos of what you ate for lunch on Instagram, how it’s evolved today does not have the same, uh, outcome. And so being able to take everything out of what social media has become that we don’t like and distill it down to authentic connection between the people that you love, that want to know the mundane, want to know what’s going on in your life, and being able to share that in a close circle has been so much more beneficial than feeling performative on our traditional social media outlets that we currently have.

Trisha Stetzel: So it sounds like I record my video and I do my waffle, if you will, on my own. And then whenever my group has availability, then they can watch my waffle and reply or um, I guess, uh, have an emotion to it. I’m guessing I know it’s not social media, and we’re trying to get away from that. Um, am I on the right track?

Daniella Granzotto : Yeah, we’ve designed it in a way that we don’t want you to stay on it forever. We don’t want you to be doom scrolling. It’s not something that’s created to suck you in. Which is why Wednesday waffles. We do limit your Wednesday to recording only on Wednesdays. You can only record on Wednesdays. We do have a feature that allows you to record on Thursdays. You just have a moldy waffle if it’s a little late. Um, because we want to give people the benefit of the doubt. You know, life happens and sometimes you can’t record on Wednesday. And so but you just record your 2 to 3 minute video that day, and then you have access to watch everyone else’s waffles all throughout the week. So it’s not meant to be this. We also don’t want Wednesdays to be treacherous for you, right? It’s you can consume all throughout the week. Your friends can common, they’ll react. So you’ll be able to see in real time. If you say something funny, the laughing emoji will pop up on the screen and you can see all of your friends laughed at that moment. Um, we have a little notes section where you’re able to go in throughout the week. If something really exciting happened to you on Monday, you want to make sure you didn’t forget it. You can pop it into your notes so that it’s all ready to go. Once you are ready to record your waffle. Um, and then you can have as many groups as you’d like. We don’t. We know that every group in your life is intimate, and you might want to share different things with different people. So I have a girlfriend’s friend group I have a friend group with. I have a waffle group with my siblings. I have a waffle group with some of my really close coworkers, and that way you can maintain those relationships while not having everyone have to see the exact same side of you.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, I love this. So I’d like to kind of move into how does this play out in the business world? So I, I heard you say with some of the people that you’re close to in business, so does this play out or is it useful in business as well?

Daniella Granzotto : We have seen what’s really interesting. Some business use cases for it, in particular with stand ups. So a lot of teams will have their weekly stand up where everyone gets on a call, tells everyone what they’re working on, what they’ve got going on and projects wise. And to be able to do this asynchronously actually gives you and your team more time back, but allows you to still feel connected and up to speed with what everyone’s got going on. So it has been really fascinating to see, although we’ve definitely created it to tackle the loneliness pandemic that’s currently going on right now. Um, there are many use cases to be able to use Wednesday waffles.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, I love that. I think that’s fantastic. And I think we’re all tired of the let’s all get on a video call together and wait for each person to say what they need to, and waste an hour when we could do it in 2 or 3 minutes and then on our own time, go back and see what everybody else has going on. I love this, this is awesome. So take me through how someone would actually use the app. You talked about different groups and recording the video. What? Maybe it’s just day in the life of a user or week in the life of a user.

Daniella Granzotto : Sure. So when you sign up for Wednesday waffles, we actually have our own little waffle mascot named Wally. Um, and you’ll enter a group with him and the Waffle Gang that he has. Every waffle needs friends. And so they’ll actually walk you through exactly what waffling is, what sort of things you can talk about, um, what the concept is like and who you should invite. And then from there it will give you either a link and you can record a little video of yourself that you can send directly to your friends saying like, hey, I want to start waffling with you. They’ll get that same invite process. A lot of times when we say Wednesday waffles, the first thing is, what is that? And what does waffling mean? And so we need Wally or Waffle to be able to explain it to people. And then you’ll get a notification on Wednesday. We are very intentional about not overloading you with with notifications. Again, we don’t want it to be something that you’re sucked into. And so you get a notification on Wednesday. It’s time to record your waffle. You’ll get a notification that your friends have recorded their waffles. Um, you will get a notification at the end of the day. If you still have not recorded your waffle, you have an hour left before you know you might want to get that waffle in. Uh, and then you’ll be notified once you’ve eaten all your waffles, once everything’s been eaten and you’ve watched all the waffles for that day, you ate and you completed the task for that day.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. That’s amazing. And don’t don’t have a moldy waffle. I, I love that.

Daniella Granzotto : Yeah. We try, we’ll get we’ll give you the pass. We don’t want to, you know, judge anyone, but it will be a little moldy, that’s all.

Trisha Stetzel: I think that’s fantastic. So we’re about halfway through and I know people are already curious. Daniella, about Wednesday waffles. What’s the best way to connect with you or even learn more about Wednesday waffles?

Daniella Granzotto : Yeah. Our app is available on both iOS and Android, so either the Google Play Store or the Apple App Store. You can follow us on Wednesday Waffles app on all social media channels, and you can check out our website, which is Wednesday waffles.com.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. And so this solves the problem. Or is part of solving the problem of feeling lonely, right, where you have a place to go and connect with people.

Daniella Granzotto : Yeah, I will say the thing that keeps. I’ll speak for myself out of our team. Me motivated and and driving forward is the initial feedback that we’ve received from launch about how helpful this has been for people’s mental health and their connection. I’ve. We’ve received multiple messages from people who’ve said, if my brother had this, I think he’d still be around today. Um, we’ve also received, honestly, heartbreakingly, people who have lost someone to suicide. But the fact that they have all of these waffles of every single week, these memories with this person, has been super helpful with them on their journey. And that’s something that we are specifically really passionate about, is how can we create an environment that feels like a safe space where if you’re recording yourself every week, the people closest to you can maybe kind of pick up on some of those hints that, hey, things aren’t going as well as they would have liked, or I’m not doing so hot and being able to see the recording. I know a lot of people generally feel quite uncomfortable recording themselves on a screen, but if it’s just your intimate friend group and we can get them to a place where they can pick up on some of those nuances and maybe reach out because someone does need a little bit of extra help, rather than just sitting at home not feeling like they could reach out to anyone. We feel like if we can make that happen, even just a little bit more than we’ve won.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. That’s amazing. So I got goosebumps and even, like, a little frog in my throat as you were talking through that and being able to connect with someone who’s now no longer with us, which is super meaningful to most of us, and also it hearing just the kind words that people have shared with you about what you’ve created here. So if it’s okay, I’d like to shift to this business builder entrepreneur blood that you have running through your veins. And you said that you’ve had some other businesses even before Wednesday. Waffles. Listen, this was something a TikTok viral video that you latched on to. So how do you go from this viral video like, wow, this sounds like a really good idea to actually building a business around it.

Daniella Granzotto : Great question, I think. So having done a couple of businesses in the past, there’s a a metaphor I suppose, of. It’s going to it’s harder to create your own wave than it is to surf a wave that already exists. And so once I saw this, it had already gone viral. It means that people are already engaged with the concept. They just have either started doing it in a way that isn’t effective, or they’re interested, but they haven’t started doing it yet. And so having tested it and seeing, okay, there is area for improvement here, I can make this better. I, I’m not an engineer by trade. I, um, may have influenced slash stolen a couple of employees from my past to, uh, get on board and do this with me. And then I reached out to Zack. I found the original TikToker. It was his idea. He obviously is going to be more passionate about it than most. And I reached out to him and said, hey, I’m I’m going to build this thing. I’m going to build it with or without you. But I would love for you to be on our team and join. And he was on board after meeting all of us. And so it started with just the basics, right? What is the most painful part of doing it on a group chat? Because anyone can technically do it on a group chat.

Daniella Granzotto : And so storage was one. Um, and also being able to if you’re doing it in a group chat, you scroll and scroll and scroll to get to every Wednesday because there’s all this chatter in between. And so being able to host your videos separate from your chat and have it stored on the cloud so it’s not ruining all of your storage where our three biggest pain points. And so we started from there of like, okay, how do we solve the pain points. And then as we grew and expanded, it was how do we now make this even better? How do we make this a really unique experience that allows people to take their experience from inside the app and actually bring it outside? And so we’re now working on gamification. And if you and your your waffle group waffle every month and you hit a streak, then you’ll get entered into a draw to win a $500 Airbnb gift card. And that way you can take your friendship out of the app and into real life where it really matters.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. Wow. That’s really cool. So I’m sitting here thinking, you know, one of the questions I would ask you is what’s next for Wednesday waffles? But we’ll wait for that until the end, because I’ll bet there’s a next. Next beyond this gamification, which sounds really cool. So as a business builder, really smart obviously that there’s a problem and you build the solution for it. So many entrepreneurs and people with great ideas go and build the solution and then try and find people that it fits. So what would you say to people who have this really great idea, but they don’t yet know who to put it in front of?

Daniella Granzotto : Great question. I think never underestimate the power of talking to people. Like, go find those people first and ask them what their problems are, because they will be so quick to tell you their frustrations, right? Everyone has them in any industry. And if you say, hey, I’m. It could be as simple of I’ll use the wedding industry because that was my previous background. I’m looking at getting into the wedding industry. You work in the wedding industry. What’s the most frustrating part about it? And someone will immediately be like, oh, it’s like I can’t keep my contract straight or vendors are so slow to respond or like nothing fits in. Everyone has their own platform and you’re like, okay. And you start to get your, um, ideas racing about what do all of these problems mean, where it can still be in an industry that you’re passionate about because that’s important, too. It’s going to be hard work and it’s going to be treacherous, and it’s going to be lonely, and it’s going to be frustrating. So you want to make sure that you have your why or something that you are very passionate about that keeps you going, but at least it’s a problem that, you know, other people have in that area that you’re interested in and not the other way around.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Beautiful. Uh, we don’t want to go build something in a silo. We need to really understand what the challenges are of those we want to serve.

Daniella Granzotto : And I think to that point, one of the things that we have found the most humbling, but also the most helpful, is we did build this out in the open because the concept had already been, um, reached. People already knew about it. They were already aware. We said, hey, we’re building this thing. We got a ton of engagement and followers before we even had built the thing, because people were interested in the concept and they were like, yeah, great. And because we had interest, we built our V1 in three months, super scrappy, super fast, and it showed. We launched it and it it broke and it was there was a ton of bugs. And so then we had to get back on and people told us they weren’t shy with their feedback and we had to get on and be like, hey, we promise we’re good at this. We know, we know tech. We we did it very quickly and that was a mistake. We’re now going back to the drawing board to do it a little bit better. And thank you for staying with us on this journey. And that is it can be very humbling, humbling or even embarrassing to put something out that you’re not necessarily proud of at first. Uh, but the feedback we received as a result were people were immensely kind, sending us paragraphs of feedback of just like this button didn’t work, but I want it to work so badly because I’m just waiting to do this with my friends. And I’ve never, I don’t know about you. I’ve never sent such kind and robust feedback to an app before in my life. Like, if it doesn’t work, I’m moving on to the next thing. Yeah. Um, and so it is. I would recommend for anyone that is starting out, like put your crappy first version out fast and it allows you to reiterate and don’t be, uh, don’t be so attached to the results of it and what people think of it. It has no reflection on you and your capabilities. It just allows you to reiterate faster and get to the finish line of the product that people want faster.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, and being honest about it, and I’m assuming that’s why you got so much great feedback is because you were honest. Yes, we brought it to market. It certainly wasn’t ready yet. As you can see. We need to know from you what did it feel like? What’s broken? Right. Yeah. And being transparent.

Daniella Granzotto : The basis of what we’ve built Wednesday waffles on is authenticity, right? We want to create a friendship deepening tool that allows you to be your genuine and authentic self in an environment where you feel safe. And for us to build that with the goal in mind and not be authentic ourselves as the creators of this app and not feel comfortable to come out and say, hey, we missed the mark. It’s not that great yet. It’s going to be better. Were deeply invested in making it good. And we want you to stick around for the journey that resonates. Because if we can’t do that, then we can’t build an app. On authenticity. It just won’t work.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So I think we have a glimpse into who your audience is, your ideal market, if you will, for Wednesday waffles. Do you can you describe who your ideal market is? So if we’ve got folks that are listening, they can either connect with you directly, or they know someone who may be very interested in using the app.

Daniella Granzotto : Yeah, absolutely. I think there’s two different categories that we really serve well. The first is that high school university student, like going from high school to university is the first time in your life that all of your friends are no longer going to be in the same spot, right? And similarly from university than graduating out into the real world. Those are the first times where, hey, suddenly my friends aren’t just located down the street or on the same block as me, and if I want to maintain those relationships, I have to find a new way of doing it. And so we’ve seen a ton of usage from those two groups. And then the second group, where we’ve seen a lot of usage is also that late 20s, early 30s. I think particularly women, although men too. But that’s the stage where suddenly everyone’s starting to have kids. Your hangouts don’t happen as frequently as they used to. You can’t get together at the same cadence, and to be able to connect with those people still, in a way that’s light lift, low stress, it doesn’t feel burdensome. Um, has been really a target audience for us, too, that we’ve seen benefit greatly from it.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that that’s beautiful. And there’s use case for business as well. I’m just putting that out there because I can see even in my own space that this could be very beneficial to the area that I work in, uh, and even with client work could be very beneficial as well.

Daniella Granzotto : Yeah, absolutely. Having a like for coaching or mentorship, having an accountability partner, being able to create groups that hey, you check in once a week, you see how you’re doing. There’s a lot of benefits to it. And what is relatively a simple concept that we’ve made, we’ve just made better.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah I love that. And I love your authenticity. I love that you’re so transparent. Um, and sharing your story. How do you get through the hard times in your business when things get really tough and really low? How do you get past those?

Daniella Granzotto : Honestly. Great question. In the spirit of authenticity, I was having a tiny little mental breakdown before getting on this call. Um, because especially when you’re doing go to market for a new product, and I think also I’ll speak for myself. I worked for a very well known company, uh, you know, three months ago where anytime I emailed someone, I would get an email response right away. And so going through that shift again of back to nobody knows who I am, nobody cares what I do. It is a it can be discouraging. And I think staying true to your mission and being reminded of your why is super important. And then also for entrepreneurs, if you are privileged enough to be creating alongside other people who you you choose to be, your team is makes the world of a difference. And ultimately, I think if your first if you have a group of people who are committed to building something together, even if your first idea doesn’t work, if you have intelligent, hard working people by your side, you will. It will work out for you. And it could be idea one. It could be idea three it could be idea five. But that’s something I highly recommend when you are looking to start a business, be very careful about how you choose your partners. Get everything papered. I do recommend that. Don’t be foolish. However, having a team that is there to support you and lift you up when you’re feeling down is crucial.

Trisha Stetzel: Amazing. Well, I hope that. I hope that this was in your day as you came into this conversation.

Speaker4: It was. Yes.

Daniella Granzotto : It’s definitely a highlight for sure.

Speaker4: Good.

Trisha Stetzel: Uh, okay. Last question. Daniella. You gave us a sneak peek into what’s next for Wednesday waffles with the gamification. But what’s next? Next? What do you see in the future?

Daniella Granzotto : Yeah, I think so far we’re not a friendship binding tool. We’re a friendship deepening tool. And so this we’re very intentional about this is for deepening the relationships you already have. We want those relationships to be very strong. And we believe that even a few strong relationships are better than many fickle ones. And so that’s where we’ve started. And you don’t. I also say waffle groups. You can waffle 1 to 1 with one person. It does not need to be a group of 5 or 6 of your closest friends. Right. And so I think once we’ve nailed that and tackled that and been able to give people an opportunity to take their friendship in app, celebrate it out in the real world, it then takes the next step of okay, how can we become a friend finding tool as well? And what does that look like? And I think we have a unique capability to do that because we have, you know, people record two minutes about what’s going on in their life every single week. And so hopefully in the future, there’s a way for us to maybe, hey, like, this person cares a lot about knitting and so does this person over here. And they are not in the same waffle groups, but they have a lot in common. Maybe we could introduce them to each other. And so that’s next. Next. We’re not there yet. Um, but that would be the long term goal is if we can be a friendship deepening tool as well as a friendship finding tool.

Trisha Stetzel: Fantastic. Daniella, thank you so much for spending a little bit of time with me today, talking about Wednesday Waffles and about Daniella. Your story is amazing.

Daniella Granzotto : Thank you so much. It was a pleasure chatting with you. I’m happy to be here.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s all the time we have for today. Guys, if you found value in this conversation, please share it. Share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran or Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate, and review the show because it helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours. Your business, your leadership, and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Today’s guest is Eric Mulvin, CEO of Pac Biz Outsourcing, where he built a 250 person remote team without outside capital. And we’re going to talk about that a little more later to. Eric’s company specializes in helping B2C e-commerce businesses scale with a powerful mix of human intelligence and AI tools, improving support, dispatch, and finance functions while keeping service quality at the forefront. He’s passionate about creating systems that allow leaders to delegate like CEOs lead effectively across time zones and protect a company culture, all while driving growth and client satisfaction. I’m excited to dive in to his journey of building and leading a global team the smart way. Eric, welcome to the show.

Eric Mulvin: All right, Trisha, thank you so much for having me. And that’s an awesome intro. I’m going to have to write that down. That’s a great one.

Trisha Stetzel: You can always come back and look at the recording, right? I’m just saying you can listen to the podcast. Well welcome. I’m so glad to have you on the show today, Eric. Um, when we had our initial conversation, we really connected. And I think there’s a lot of things that we have in common. I’d first love for you to tell the audience more about Eric. So tell us a little more about you.

Eric Mulvin: All right. Uh, a little bit about me. Uh, I’m Phoenix guy, uh, Arizona native. Um, and if you know people from Arizona, you know that there’s not too many of us. Everyone here probably like Houston, Dallas, you know, those a lot of people from all over the place. Uh, yeah. And so, uh, that that’s a rare part of me, but I. I love being here in the desert. And I always knew that I wanted to start a business one day. I used to tell people that all the time. And, uh, there’s some really cool stories out there about some of the businesses that I started over the years. I just had no idea, as this entrepreneur, from building a Lego City when I was five years old and charging charging my parents admission. Um, my first business card I ever made for myself was in I think it was like sixth grade. I built a Kobe’s card Shaq basketball card, uh, where you could buy and sell cards for all the neighbor kids. And, uh, thanks to that, I’ve got some Kobe Bryant rookie cards that are locked away, uh, that are pretty valuable. Uh, but I’ve gone on and on and made a lot of businesses. I didn’t realize, though, that, uh, that was my career. I actually tried to go into marketing. Um, tried to. I was one of the first content creators out there in 2009, writing YouTube spots for, like, the Arizona Lottery, uh, casino Arizona out here, Arizona Department of Health and uh, then went on to Yelp, worked at that.

Eric Mulvin: That was a Yelp as a startup. Uh, so that was a fun time. Um, and I took my last paycheck from that job and used it to get a loan for my first taxi, because I wanted to get into something I wanted I could disrupt. And being in college out here, uh, growing up, you know, I was I graduated college, like, 0708. Um, the taxi industry, that’s how you got home. If you were drinking at night, there was no Uber, there was no Lyft. And for those of you guys that remember what it was like back then, like everyone leaving the bar and there’s like how many taxis to take people home. So it’s a mess. You know, it’s a it was a broken system and no innovation for decades. And so I wanted to get into some place I could disrupt. And I was like, taxi, why not? So that’s what like was my first official LLC, my first business. And, uh, that got me into the entrepreneurship world. Um, but I should say really big important part of that story is nine days after I started the business, like I got the taxi. Uh, I met my wife. Uh, so we, like, there’s a crazy connection there. And she’s a business owner as well. So, um, but, yeah, that’s all part of the story. Uh, and then it kind of grew from there.

Trisha Stetzel: Well, okay. So first, congratulations. So the two of you been together for quite a long time, and two, it sounds like there’s some serial entrepreneurship happening in the household. I’m just saying lots of that.

Eric Mulvin: Yeah. Now starting to rub off on our kids, too. So, yeah, there’s definitely a house of, uh, entrepreneurs here for sure.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I love that. So let’s talk a little bit about Pac biz outsourcing. Tell me what it is. Uh, describe for the audience who you serve and why you serve them.

Eric Mulvin: Yeah. So outsourcing, we provide 24 seven outsourced support to businesses across the US, Canada and the UK. Uh, and as Trisha mentioned earlier, we got a team over 200 people out there in the Philippines doing that work. And, uh, we focus primarily in, uh, transportation, e-commerce, uh, software companies. And, uh, we also have a virtual assistant division and that anybody could use. Um, but that’s, uh, pretty much what we do. And then being that, uh, we started it in 2015, uh, you know, I mentioned the taxi business, you know, Uber, Lyft, the whole thing changed. And so, uh, we pivoted to running a call center, uh, because we started the call center to take calls for ourselves. We had five people, um, working 24 over seven in the Philippines. And that’s what sparked the idea for the call center. And, um, from that 2015 to now, we’ve been able to grow it. And we’ve taken like, we’ve done some rough numbers, I think, for some back of the napkin estimates about 30 million phone calls at Pacages. Outsourcing is handled over the last ten years. Uh, and that’s a lot of experience. That’s a lot of data. That’s a lot of expertise there. And so we’ve taken all of that. We’ve learned over the last ten years. And now we’re building AI tools, uh, AI powered tools and software for the industries that we serve. Uh, and so that’s the, uh, 2.0 of Pacages that, uh, that we’re pivoting into.

Trisha Stetzel: That is really cool. Okay. So, uh, I mentioned earlier in your bio that you actually built this team without any outside capital. So tell us the the secret to your madness over there. How did you get this built out? It sounds like it started with the taxi company and the need for having a team. And then you started building it so that you could support others. So how in the world did you get there without outside capital?

Eric Mulvin: That’s a great question. And, uh, it’s, I guess one that I’m pretty fortunate that I because of the marketing and everything I was doing all these years. Um, I got connected with some people, some other business owners, and they really liked what, like what I was doing. Uh, and I actually, for one business owner, I was like, you’re spending TV ads, you’re doing radio ads. I was like, I don’t think you’re getting any results. So we cut about, I don’t know, is it $100,000? Out of his marketing budget? Sales stayed the same. So that was the moment where he was like, ah, whatever business you start, I’ll invest in you. Um, and so that’s what happened is, uh, he was one of the early investors in the taxi business, and then we, we stayed working together for the call center, and, uh, but we actually built it all from scratch. So we took all of the revenue that we created and put it right back into the business. And, um, we were able to grow everything from there. Uh, I look back and I, I didn’t realize how fortunate we were to be able to do that. I just thought, oh yeah, the business is growing. Let’s just keep taking money. Uh, lots of mistakes made along the way about budgeting and finances and and all that. But, um, but we’ve learned all those lessons, and we were able to, to scale it up to where we’re at today and, uh, but and that’s, that’s probably for another, uh, answer that, you know, what happens? How do you get to the next stage? Uh, because it, it, it starts to get very more challenging to continue to just bootstrap yourself, uh, as you want to get bigger and bigger and bigger. But that’s kind of how we got started.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. Yeah. And so why don’t we. If it’s okay, we’ll dig around in there a little bit. Uh, you know, what have been your biggest challenges in scaling?

Eric Mulvin: Um, well, my business partner, who we’re 50, 50 partners with, um, I joined this this, uh, peer advisory group, uh, that was really beneficial to me. And because of that, I realized after that first session, uh, I went to him and I was like, I need to buy you out. Like, there’s really. You’re not really contributing anything here. Uh, and it was making the taxes a mess, and, uh, it’s just all kinds of stuff. So got him out of the business. And because I knew I could grow this to way bigger heights, and, uh, I was the one doing all the work, so that was part of it. Um, what are some of the other misses? I know being a business owner, you know, like, we I put my house as collateral, you know, for some of this, like, business loans that we ended up having to do over the last couple of years to, to get ourselves growing. Uh, and I think that’s a common thing that you hear business owners, uh, do as well. Um, definitely no credit cards. You know, we haven’t we didn’t build up, like hundreds of thousands of credit card debt, but, um, but I, I maintain really good credit history and, uh, good payment history, good reputation.

Eric Mulvin: So I was able to go out and get some business loans and we, we built stuff up. Like what you hear a lot of businesses go through. You know, we got lines of credit so that we’re not relying on all this short term capital all the time. And that’s helped a lot now. And, you know, we’ve been able to pay off those loans. And now banks are like please it’s funny how that works right. Like when you need the money, it’s really difficult to get when you don’t need it. Everyone wants to give it to you. But we experienced that as well. So, uh, but we’re in a good spot. So if we want to grow now, uh, there’s, we have hardly any debt. And, uh, if I have a choice, I could take on money to to grow and accelerate the growth even faster. Or, uh, we could continue what we’ve been doing, build grow off of our own profits and grow from there.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that, yeah, I heard someone say more than once, uh, the best time to get money is when you don’t need it, right? Or the best time to borrow money is when you don’t need it. Uh, because that’s when you’re prepared to get the money.

Eric Mulvin: Exactly.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Uh. Let’s talk. You talked a little bit about human intelligence and AI tools and how you’re using those together in your business. So, um, how do you decide just at a high level, what to automate and what still needs human touch, and how does that work in your business?

Eric Mulvin: Yeah. Uh, that’s another great question. You know, we’ve been working with AI tools now for, uh, well, at least at the leadership level, about a year and a half. Um, me personally, over two years. Uh, and I think it’s just because of the industry we’re in, you know, getting disrupted by AI. And so we jumped in sooner. Uh, a lot of you guys listening might be like, you know, it’s not really impacting my industry as much. And so you’re not seeing the pressure that we are. We’re like, hey, everything we’re doing in our call center could be automated by AI. We need to look at what else is out there. Um, but what we’ve done is we looked at what are the job like. We look at everyone’s role and we look at the tasks that they’re doing. What are the things that they could be doing that could be augmented, assisted by AI. And what are the things that could be possibly replaced by AI? And uh, and also what else could they possibly be doing if they’re not doing all these other things that now you’ve taken away from their plate? Uh, and so you go through that and you can do that with any role. Um, but doing that for your company is vital. And I think another step that was really beneficial for us is process mapping, and that you can’t skip that step.

Eric Mulvin: And, uh, it it’s very time consuming, very laborious. But the dollar savings you get out of it, especially if you haven’t done it in a while for your business. Oh my goodness. Like the the money that’s leaking out of your company. Because people are just following a process. Just because that’s the way it was. They don’t question, you know, why is it the way it is? That’s a leader business leader’s job. And I think a lot of people don’t realize, like, how come people don’t think like me? Why don’t they see that glaring like hole in our process that no one has tried to fix? And it’s because not everyone thinks like a business leader, so they’re going to run through those steps over and over again for years until you actually sit down with the team, look at your process, be like, whoa, like this right here. We could totally put AI in this step and eliminate these steps over here. So you go through the whole process mapping and so you clean up your company, um, fix streamline things, but at the same time recognize here’s where we could put AI here and here. Uh, and so that that’s a very basic level, obviously, you know, this is months and months, sometimes years of work. Um, but that’s a high level overview of what to do.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. So and process mapping gets missed when we see solopreneurs or somebody who gets into business because they’re very passionate about a particular thing. And so they’re doing everything themselves and they don’t write any processes. So in the beginning, it’s bringing the team on. And now you’re in a position where you’re building these process maps with your team and implementing AI. I love that, I think it’s amazing. So we’re about halfway through our conversation. I know people are already interested in having a conversation with you, Eric. So what is the best way to connect with you?

Eric Mulvin: Uh, best way to connect is on LinkedIn. You can find me on there, Eric, Marvin, and, uh, or, um, what’s another good place? Uh, our website Pac Pac biz com. Uh, and we are just, uh, at the time of recording today, we’re we’re rolling out a new website in the next 24 hours. Uh, really excited because all the stuff I’m talking about here, um, hasn’t been on our website yet, so, uh, there’s a lot of stuff about AI. We’re getting ready to do webinars, um, put out a lot of educational material and, uh, getting ready to launch my own podcast. So all that stuff, you can follow me and, uh, look for updates on there.

Trisha Stetzel: It’s very exciting. I can’t wait to hear about your podcast. Okay. Uh. You guys. Eric. Mulvin. And it’s m u l v I n if you’re looking for him on LinkedIn, a great way to get connected again. Uh, CEO of PAC biz outsourcing. So. All right, Eric, let’s dig into you as a leader. Um, many business owners struggle to step out of the weeds, right? We’re so deeply embedded in our businesses. Uh, and you also serve people who are in the weeds and need to get out, right? So not just you, but the people you serve. What systems or even mindset shifts have helped you truly delegate like a CEO?

Eric Mulvin: Oh, wow. Uh, I mean, I think one thing that I’m really grateful for is, uh, we got an outsource company, and that’s where you go to get virtual assistants. And so, uh, after years and years of people coming to me saying, like, do you have virtual assistant? I’m like, no, we just have to call center people, not virtual assistant. I finally like I better start looking into this. So I took one on first. And uh, for a couple of years I did that and I was like, this, this is amazing. I even just this week, um, the assistant that I have working with me now, shout out to man, in case you’re watching this, uh, but, um, we’ve been working together for over a year now, and I can’t tell you how amazing it is to have someone that you could throw any crap that’s coming your way to them and like, oh, there’s a conference coming up. I need to book. Book me for this and the travel. And we’re going to try to host a dinner. So contact the hotel and you know all that stuff. I don’t have to explain anything. I don’t have to, like, double check to make sure she booked the flight, okay? Because she’s booked dozens of flights for me. She knows. And, you know, we talked about, um, process mapping. We document every every time there’s a new task she has to do. It’s documented. And, uh. And if not, I can’t blame her for not doing it right.

Eric Mulvin: We did take the time to document it, so. Alright, let’s do it right this time. And, uh, and so that whole thing has been so beneficial. We’ve been able to put all of that, that we’ve learned into, uh, our virtual assistant program. And the virtual assistant program is far from complete. Uh, because one thing I’ve recognized is business owners come to us at varying skill levels of working with an assistant and delegating. And so I know exactly the challenge that you guys are having. If you’re listening, like, I don’t know where to begin to delegate or I can’t delegate, none of that’s true. Everyone can delegate something. Um, there’s no way that there’s like you, your day is so filled up that you can’t pass things on to other people. Um, it’s just about control. And then creating the system so that you can get that stuff out. Um, and then another thing that I think has been Really beneficial as well. Um, is taking the time to get that assistant, um, some custom AI tools so that when they’re putting stuff together for you, whether they’re filling out like a description of your for a bio for some social media page or, you know, again, I, I use a conference example when you’re registering for a conference, give us details about your business. She knows exactly like he can create anything in exact words of how our business, uh, should should say it. Um, and in any of those processes are all in the AI tool as well.

Eric Mulvin: So she can go to that for questions first before going to me. But even I built the tool where it’s like, what? Like what time of day I like to travel. Where on the airplane I like to sit, you know, if it’s a flight leaving in the afternoon from the Philippines, you know, when should I like? There’s all kinds of stuff in there that I know she can get. Right. And, uh, it also the accountability side is really interesting too, because when you give that I’m talking about virtual assistants, but the same thing applies to business owners and their employees. When they have that level of information. It’s not that you just verbally told them and they need to go do it. It’s like that AI tool has all the information you need to do your job, and if you’re not using that to do your job accurately, that’s a problem. Uh, so we give them those tools to, um, so that now I could just focus on running the business. And it’s taken a while to get to this point. Um, now we’re trying to see how can we bring that, the AI stuff to virtual assistant, because we’ve been doing that for years with clients. Um, we haven’t brought the AI side to it, so I’m really excited about that because that’s going to unlock so much more that a virtual assistant can do for business owners. And this is going to really help people accelerate faster.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And you’re right about delegation. Some of us may be a little afraid of it, but it’s a learned skill. Not everyone’s good at it, and most of us aren’t in the beginning, right? It’s something we can learn. So go get good at it. And it can start with a virtual assistant. We have one to shout out to Risha. She’s been with us for three years this week and, uh, congrats. Yeah, it was a game changer. It was absolutely amazing. So as you are talking through that, I was thinking about leading across time zones. Uh, and many of us are doing that in our businesses, uh, or even as leaders in bigger corporations. And it can be tough to lead across time zones. So how do you maintain your company culture, uh, and, and even employee engagement when your team is spread across the world?

Eric Mulvin: That is very true. Yeah. So the way we keep our company culture and engagement intact, you know, despite people working 24 seven all over the place. Uh, there’s a couple things. I mean, one really actually focus on culture. Uh, we have a full time person. We’ve had a director of company culture for many years, and we still have a full time person on the team that plans events. They recognize people on their birthdays. Uh, they they do all the fun stuff, uh, in their company. So if you don’t have anybody, if you’re a small company, right, like, hey, we six people. I can’t have a dedicated person. No, that doesn’t make any sense. But why not give someone that responsibility a couple hours a month? You know, a little bit of a budget. What would that do for your company? You know, and so, um, that’s, uh, that’s something that people can do. But how do we how do we manage the 24 over seven thing that that’s been something we’ve been struggling with? Uh, it’s been hard because, you know, we’ll have, uh, the bulk of our work is done daytime in the US. Um, so where we got a lot of people working, which is overnight in the Philippines, but our admin works daytime in the Philippines. So if they need to talk to some of the workers like it’s okay. Come in during the day. There’s been some issues, but we’ve been able to figure that we people in HR to work overnight.

Eric Mulvin: So now there’s a meeting. Okay. You meet with this person overnight. Um, another thing. So we brought in a new COO. Uh, you know, I was earlier level company up. And how you do that. So in July, that’s a major change that we did. And one of the things that, um, she brought to us was a tool called asana. And so, no, I don’t have any promo codes for you guys. Pay me. But, um, just some, some management tool, and I know my wife is. She’ll be like, I’m telling you this for years that you need to get on like some to do list, but that in the last four weeks or so, like August is when we started putting that in place. It’s been because, like, we’re really trying to eliminate emails and meetings and everything into a sauna. And so that again, it’s a skill. It’s it’s taking time to learn. Uh, and getting everybody on board because you’re the way you’re doing your work is different. Um, but already we’re seeing drops like huge drops, number of meetings that has done, um. Emails are down, and, uh, but communication is. So we’re not spending more time in meetings. We’re not sending more emails. Um, we’re working more efficiently. So, uh, I think it comes back down to systems. It’s all systems in business. So, you know, you need a system to help you out with that. And, uh, that’s a good one to, to look at.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. No, I love that. And I think that adopting tools that help us stay out of meetings and can keep us organized and create better communication with our teams is so important. Uh, earlier you talked about your VA service for anyone. And you know, the the language around using a virtual assistant is pretty well known. A lot of people know what they do. Let’s talk a little bit, just for a couple of minutes about the call center. Uh, you gave some examples of clients, but if someone’s listening and they may or may not know if they need a call center. Who are your best clients? And what is the benefit of having a call center?

Eric Mulvin: All right. Our best clients, uh, would be. Well, there are bigger clients. We love those, of course, because if you come to us and they say we need 30, 40, 50 people. Yeah, that’s that’s amazing. Um, but we have these core values at practice. Uh, for us, it’s family, respect, teamwork, compassion and personal growth. And for whatever reason, that family one, um, it shows up in a bunch of different ways. One of them is a lot of our clients are family, business, family owned businesses, generational, multi-generational, like the grandparents started it 80, 90 years ago. Pass it on to their dad. And now they have. And now they’re trying to, you know, whether what how do you transform an 80 year old company into, you know, something that’s still viable in 2030? Um, but that gets us also working with smaller businesses, too. So some of the smaller. Well, obviously, if you have a virtual assistant, you just got one person working for you. Um, but we have some clients that have, uh, 2 or 3 people. So when do you need a call center? Well, it’s you one, you probably have a lot of calls, emails, chats, a lot of incoming stuff coming in. And you got someone from your team that’s doing that work. Now two things happen.

Eric Mulvin: One is the person that’s doing all that work. They’re really good. And you want to give them more stuff, but you can’t because they’re busy with the customer stuff, and you’ve tried to hire somebody to take on customer service and everything. You not really representing your brand or you tried. They worked for a couple weeks and they quit. And now your your person is back to doing the same task again. These are the stories that we’re hearing from customers when they come to us. Uh, and so if you don’t want to deal with hiring, training, managing that person that’s doing the basic work, then that’s where we come in. So we could help with that. Uh, and then you focus on the parts of your business that matter. Uh, I don’t think anyone started a business to run a call center or to manage someone answering email, customer emails. It’s vital, but we can help with that. So that’s where we the experience, the support, all the people to do that. Um, then you could focus on your business. Um, so that’s the, the main thing that typically happens is that then. Yeah, maybe you already have some call center people and you’re trying to cut costs. Again, the having people here in the US, if you do great.

Eric Mulvin: You know, and the people that do that I’ve seen be successful. They pay their employees a lot of money, more than, you know, minimum wage for the call center job. So if that’s not in your budget and not in your business model, We could be another solution because the people working in the Philippines. This is a white collar job for them. Many times they’re the breadwinner for their family. And when I say family, it’s not a four person household. It’s like a person household with the grandma, the brothers and some cousins all living under one house. And that person is usually the one making the money for everyone. So these are professionals. The issues that you deal with, people are working, working with people here sometimes, or I hear it from Canada, the US, the work ethic and some of the challenges there. They just don’t have that with the people in the Philippines. Uh, when you’re at least with the people we hire. Uh, so we really so whether it’s us or whether you’re working with anyone else, um, it doesn’t it’s not a magic wand to outsource. Oh, my problems are solved. There are. Even in our tiny city of 250,000 people, there’s like over 100 call centers, some of them having over 5000 employees.

Eric Mulvin: And so there are tens and tens of thousands of options in the Philippines. And then even more so globally. So not everyone’s equal. You gotta look and make sure that the company you’re working with do they take care of their employees? Uh, are they happy? Do they stick around a long time? You know, we’ve been certified. Great place to work in the Philippines now from 2023, 2025. Like going on three years now. Uh, and we do that even though we’re a smaller company, most of them have like thousands and thousands of employees. But I want to show people like we really do take care of the staff, take care of the people there. And and it shows. I’ll, I’ll say this a long answer, but, um, we’ve been I, we have a new CEO. What typically happens in a company when there’s a new COO, there’s a lot of changes. People aren’t happy. Had some people leave and the last two, three weeks not even like the last week, I think it was like half a dozen people that have tried to come back to reapply. So I don’t know that that tells me something I haven’t dug into, like any interviews and surveys and what’s going on with that. But, uh, that’s that’s pretty interesting.

Trisha Stetzel: That is very interesting. Well, and I love that you were able to just tell us your values. And one of those is family. And it sounds like whether they’re in the United States, Canada or across the pond, if you will, or across the globe, they’re all part of your family. And you, um, support family owned businesses as well. So I just I love that you were able to tell us that and you know exactly what your values are. And it sounds like everybody in your company understands that as well. All right. So as we get to the back end of our conversation, um, I have one last question for you, Eric. You talked about a few things that are kind of coming up the pike and things that you’re working on. But what’s next? What’s next for Eric and Pappy’s outsourcing?

Eric Mulvin: Alright a lot. Uh, I was just listing out to my business coach, like the next couple of months. He’s like, what big projects are you working on? And, like, I ran out of room because there was so much. Um, we’re, you know, it’s all again. I’ll. I’ll tie it back to the story of leveling up. You know, we’ve been about the same size for the last 4 or 5 years. We hit the ceiling. Everything that I have tried to do to try to grow this company, going to conferences, doing more stuff on LinkedIn, spending a bunch of money on online ads, you know, like you’re just running around trying all this different stuff and like, something has gotta work. So finally last May, I was like, we’re just shutting down all of our marketing and we’re just going to figure out, like, who are we going to be? Because that was like for us, the peak of the freak out about AI, like, oh my gosh, like the news, the headline, it’s still now, today. But like then it really was like, okay, we really need to do something. So, um. So that’s where, like, now we’re getting ready to get a new website going. We got, uh, I’m launching a podcast, and then hopefully the next 30 days, it’s called Unfinished Business with Eric Walden.

Eric Mulvin: Uh, interview people talking about what they’re doing with their business with AI and, uh, and outsourcing. Uh, and then, um, yeah, we’re getting ready to launch a bunch of webinars. So if any of the services I talked about sound interesting to you over the next 3 to 4 months, we’re going to have a webinar for every one of those, and we’re going to do that all the time. So, um, that’s another thing you could check out from our website. And then the big thing is our AI tools, like the, the first tool that we’ve been working on is a tool that listens to the calls and what we’ve figured out along this journey of like building a development team, um, building this for ourselves and now building for companies is that there’s so much more that you do like. Like for the people that are listening here, if you guys have ever had an AI tool on your meeting, on your zoom calls, you know the power of what that can unlock in your business. If you could take that transcript, you know, what can you do with it? With ChatGPT, you could do a million things for your business. Well, imagine the power of that for every single interaction that happens on the phone, because QA buy for call center, we typically if we’re talking to a company this week, they’re like, we’d be lucky if we’re listening to 0.25% of calls.

Eric Mulvin: Wow. And, you know, we try to go for like 1%, but even then, that’s 99 point whatever percent of your calls. No one is monitoring. It’s completely of no idea. Most the time it’s like this bad thing happened. We need to go figure it out. Let’s go listen to the call. So what you can unlock from that is amazing. And it’s it’s taken this this simple tool that we thought we were building into something massive where it’s going to be able to do coaching for the people on the phones. It’s going to be able to lock in. That’s happening between, uh, in the transportation space, between the drivers and the dispatchers. Um, and then there’s, there’s a whole bunch more so that that’s the biggest thing. And we were we were talking with some pretty big folks in Europe, uh, that are probably going to be on board with us with the next couple of months. And so that’s crazy, like going from a call center to where we’ve got our own development team coming out with software. Uh, it’s I still can’t believe it. That’s the big thing. We’re working.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. That’s amazing. Eric, it has been such a pleasure having you on today. So you guys go out to LinkedIn, you can find Eric Mulvin m u l v I n on LinkedIn. Or you can visit his website at Pacback. And find all of the cool things that he’s been talking about. Because I know the website is already out there. I’ll put all of these things in the show notes so you guys can just point and click as well if you happen to be sitting in front of your computer. Eric, again, thank you so much for being with me today.

Eric Mulvin: Thank you so much. It was awesome being on here. And hello to everyone in Houston.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation I had with Eric, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran, or a Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Today’s guest is Roberto Capodieci, a lifelong innovator whose journey began when he sold his first video game. I’m not going to give you all the deets because we’re going to talk about that in a few minutes. He was also nicknamed the Sheriff of the internet. Another story we’re going to talk about. And he went on to become a respected global leader in blockchain and decentralized systems from Bali, where he balances family life with leading international teams. He continues to push the boundaries of what’s possible with Web3, Blockchain and digital transformation. Roberto’s motto is under promise, over deliver, and his career from programmer to author, CTO and speaker is a testament to building trust while driving innovation. Roberto, welcome to the show.

Roberto Capodieci : Thank you for having me and wow, what a beautiful introduction you’ve made.

Trisha Stetzel: Well, we don’t often do it for ourselves, so I spend some time making sure that I can represent you very well when I introduce you. So, Roberto, you’re. Yes, of course. You’re coming all the way to us from Bali. Thank you for being here. I’m very excited to have this conversation with you. So tell me a little or tell the audience a little bit more about Roberto.

Roberto Capodieci : All right. Yes. Well, I’m Italian because I’m nobody’s perfect, you know? But I grew up in Italy. Then I spent about 12 years in the United States, in Florida, mainly in Florida. And then I came in Southeast Asia a little bit in time in Singapore, and then here in Bali, Indonesia. You know, I’m from Venice in Italy. You know, probably there’s another tourist destination. Bali is another tourist destination. So if people want to holiday somewhere and make the effort to go in that place, why not living there directly, right? So we have only one life and I did my best to enjoy it the most.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. That’s beautiful. Bali is not someplace I’ve been, so I will definitely have to visit and I will come see you.

Roberto Capodieci : He’s in the bucket list of many people. It is a nice place nonetheless. I am a father of four. I’m already a grandpa. Even if I look like I’m 25. Not. But. And, um. Uh, I’m into it. And computer. Since I was a little kid, that’s what is in my life. Um, what else I can say? You know, I’m a happy person in general.

Trisha Stetzel: Very much. Well, uh, why don’t we start with something I alluded to when I introduced you and you sold your first video game at just the age of ten. So what sparked your early passion for technology, and how has that influenced you to the path where you are now?

Roberto Capodieci : As a little kid, I love the all the mechanical things, gears and things that move so many that my parents would bring me things to dismantle and study, you know, uh, then I made a choice, uh, because my father had a small programable calculator where it could be coded as a small display, and it was asking, what’s your name? If I put my name, it was a good answer if I put some other names, as I don’t want to talk with you. And that fascinated me a lot, so I shifted my interest. I’m talking about being five years old. That is at this time. And so my parents invested by purchasing computer for me. You know, the personal computer, very old, all the stuff. And um, and, you know, and I spend my time it was school just because I had to go to school and then go back home and spend time there. And at a certain point, my parents, uh, were spoiling me a little bit too much. So they decided to cut it short a little bit, and my lifestyle changed suddenly. So I needed to monetize my talent. And this pushed me to do a few entrepreneurial things as a little kid, and one of which was developing video game, making all the tapes because it was saving cassettes at the time, cassette tapes, and distributed around and started selling it. And, you know, so from there he started as everywhere there is a small trauma to start the sample. There was the mini trauma that pushed me to enter into his ability of producing income in order to have always a nice lifestyle. As a ten years old.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. So are your children also into technology? I’m just curious.

Roberto Capodieci : Not not the way that I would like every teenager in my is, you know, using technology, like it or not, because it’s part of everyday life. Today, I think what what was my blessing is that at that time there were very little things and there were not so difficult. So it was easy to reverse engineer a game or code your own game. And, you know, many times you buy the magazine. They had all the code to copy by hand in order to get the game running in your computer, and that these things made the few kids that had a computer, which was very, very few, closer to the actual functioning of the machine and so gave a certain direction in the technology, kind of, uh, you know, today your kids is playing with an iPad when they are two years old. And, you know, they just don’t question how it’s working, why it’s working, but they just consume the product. So, uh, unfortunately, now none of my kids have I don’t force them to do something like this, but they are talented in other things. They’re good in drawings. With me, I am not at all. And so.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s okay. It’s well balanced between the kids and you, right? Yeah. I remember when not everybody had a computer. I know I look like I’m 15 kidding, but I remember, uh, not everybody had a cell phone computer in their house. And you’re right, it’s so available now. Not everyone is as curious as you were when you were younger and building video games. So in the 90s, you were dubbed the sheriff of the internet for cracking cyber fraud cases. So what’s one of the most memorable challenges you tackled?

Roberto Capodieci : I would say that, uh, on one side, I lived on the other side, meaning that, uh, I’ve been a little bit, uh, thank God that there were no legislation to regulate cybercrime at the time. So whatever I was doing pretty much was okay. You know, uh, there was no, no, no, uh, you know, law that would have put me in trouble, at least in, uh, in, in Italy where I was. But, uh, um, so that was for sure. But to understand the mechanics of many, uh, you know, things that could have been done, etcetera, etcetera, which made me more alert and aware of, uh, situations. So, uh, from a particular kind of scandal there has been with Dialers, uh, for dial up modems back when the modem were making the strange noises. Right. Uh, to even finding and investigating groups of criminals, uh, online. So I did a little bit of this, uh, um, like many, many people that is there. Good on, uh, something, you know, becomes, uh, quite distinctive to, you know, walk on the borderline and say, on what side? On what side? I do what I do. So.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So how is that experience? And, um, the, the, the challenges that you had working in that space, how was that really how does that play into what you do today?

Roberto Capodieci : Well, there have been a lot of interesting. Uh, there is a very funny story, um, when I was, uh, 15, 14, 15, something like that, there were still no laws about intellectual properties, so piracy wasn’t illegal. Um, you know, every university had a copy shop right outside, so, you know, one book and then photocopy for everybody. And, uh, imaging software for computer was even less, uh, regulated because, uh, it was, uh, like something alien for those old people of the government. And, uh, I start making a huge business in, um, selling pirate video games. Um, pretty much the scene was a lot of kids were coming to my house. Is there a tour coming up? Spend five minutes leaving, and it was full of money. My parents thought I was selling drugs because the behavior was identical, right? And strangely enough, they were complaining with other people about this son that is selling drugs so much that somebody came to me, offered him to enter a larger business. Uh, you know, in, in something totally legal. I had a friend who was working in the police, so I immediately called him and said, look, there is this guy that is offering such and such. And so, you know, he became an important operation. 57 people arrested, you know, like, like.

Roberto Capodieci : And I became friend of this, uh, very special, uh, team in the, in the police. They were doing very particular investigations. And, uh, when one day I went to visit them and I find them all around the table with the highlighters and papers, a lot of papers calling for numbers. What are you doing? Uh, we are checking to see who called who. And I said, look, with the computer, you do all this job in one day. So I help them and I start implementing software to do, uh, social network analysis, organized crimes, uh, you know, analyzing of, uh, phone records, bank records, uh, you know, and all those things. And, uh, I started a very particular career in a field that was I was a pioneer because there was not yet now there is plenty of companies that sell any sort of software that does those things. But at the time, it didn’t exist. And, uh, and it’s been quite interesting. So I spent a good three years, day and night working with the anti-drug unit, uh, and doing some incredible experiences. Uh, that really shaped one big side of my. I even became a private investigator of the youngest in Italy. Uh, that has been quite, uh, quite an interesting experience.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. So you went from being accused to finding the accused, right?

Roberto Capodieci : I don’t know if my parents ever change the idea of what I was doing as a kid, but.

Trisha Stetzel: Oh my goodness. Well, I know people are already wanting to connect with you, so I would love for you to give us your contact information. What is the best way for listeners to contact you?

Roberto Capodieci : Roberto and my handle in LinkedIn is R10R like Roberto C10, because the H in Italy is ten. So RC one zero. So it’s the classic linkedin.com slash slash RC one zero. And it’s very easy to see my page my profile connect with me and send me a message.

Trisha Stetzel: Perfect. Thank you for that. So let’s talk a little bit about balance. You live in Bali. You’ve raised a family. You’re, um, working with teams across the globe. How do you balance everything in your life and your professional, your professional space as well.

Roberto Capodieci : With a few nervous breakdown? No. It’s not. It’s not easy. And I’ve been through being burned out several times is, in fact the power of living in Bali. Bali, for people that don’t know, is a small tropical island in Indonesia, uh, where, uh, people just go to holiday. There are beautiful rice fields and the local culture is fantastic. Um, and this gives a lot of recharging power. So it’s easy to just, you know, go out, uh, like, breathe the air and feeling already. Um, but Singapore, which is a hub for business and technology, is just two hour flight from, uh, from here. So it’s very easy to just take a flight to go there for a meeting and then fly back in the evening. Um, so I got to a point where, like, doing a few days of consulting per month are enough to cover the expenses, and not being greedy to want too much as being easy to then, you know, balance things in a certain point. Consider that I remain a single father of two kids for many years, so I had the kids, the business and all to to bring together. So, uh, the Bali really being helpful in these times where I somewhere else it would have been very difficult.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Wow. A single father of two. You’ve got four children and grandchildren. And I know you’re an awesome grandfather, too. Let’s talk. Let’s get a little more technical and let’s talk blockchain and Web3 both still evolving. Solving. So from your perspective, what’s the most exciting opportunity for real world impact that most people don’t know yet?

Roberto Capodieci : I think that uh we are going finally the, the spotlight is on artificial intelligence now. So blockchain as an emerging technology can finally be deployed for real purposes and not just for hype okay. Which is a very interesting aspect. Uh, and hopefully also washes away because get tainted the name by all the scam that people did with crypto. Uh, while blockchain is a tool that can do many other things except beside the cryptocurrencies. So there are a lot of applications that can come very useful as of today, in a moment where deep fake, uh, AI created, uh, you know, clones are so common, being able to certify an identity, entity should certify the originality of something. It’s very important because, um, we don’t know if I am now AI generated and talking to you or.

Speaker4: I hope not.

Roberto Capodieci : But but it could be made by somebody else pretending to be me in a business deal with some, you know, other party, I don’t know. So being able to sign and say, look, this video stream is actually authentic, you know, approved by me, even if it’s a clone and, uh, or a phone call or whatever else. So we enter a moment where we need, uh, an identity management that is very effective compared to just having an ID card, uh, to show somewhere. And, uh, blockchain between is ingredients to make the final result of blockchain has all the use of cryptography in mathematics. There is, uh, a system to guarantee signature that cannot be tampered, you know. So it’s a very powerful tool in that sense. And it’s also an amazing tool to bring back Singularity University to the digital world, because in the physical world, if I give you a painting, you have the painting. I don’t have it anymore. But in the digital world, I have a jpeg, I make a copy. We both have the exact same thing and nobody knows which is the original. Who is the real owner of the image? And with thanks to blockchain, we can create singularity on digital things. So in fact, if I give you a bitcoin, I don’t have it anymore. If I could copy and paste the bitcoin you know it would be worth nothing tomorrow. And so I can put the ownership title of my car in the blockchain. So when I pass it to you the car is yours and can be certified and is even more difficult to fake. You know somebody’s signature for a transfer of property. So there are many interesting use cases that are not so glamorous, like cryptocurrency Bitcoin, where people made a lot of money but are going to be applied because people start understanding the real capacity that there is in this technology and the utility and the reduction of costs and the reduction of needing to trust somebody else to manage our data. We become owner and controlling our data and giving it to who we want, which is very important things, you know.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And keeping everyone safe and keeping their data safe, uh, and their technology safe, all of those things are so important. Uh, thank you for sharing that. I heard that you might have a book out there. Do you want to talk about it?

Roberto Capodieci : That this is a book that has been written together while working on a very ambitious project, and the reasons on the different kind of technology that are there. So and plus there is the story of this team building this, this product at the same time. So it goes between technical and non-technical. Was it fascinating about this book is that it’s interactive. So you can see in some pages that are QR codes. And if you are reading the book with one hand or with the other, you’re holding your cell phone. You can scan the QR code and hear a commentary done by voice. You can join a discussion about the paragraph with other people. So it is a very interesting book and it’s for free in PDF is 270 pages. Or if somebody want to pay money can buy it in Amazon.

Trisha Stetzel: Beautiful.

Trisha Stetzel: So if someone’s interested in getting the book, where’s the best place to find it?

Roberto Capodieci: I think we can leave it in the comments, uh, or in the description of the video, but the link is a little bit complex to say by voice.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, perfect.

Trisha Stetzel: Well, I will put that in the show notes so folks can just point and click. Uh, and if they’re listening in their car today, when they get back to their office, then they can pull it up and grab what they need from the show notes.

Roberto Capodieci : Yeah, well, they can always write to me in LinkedIn or C10 and I give them the book.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Perfect.

Trisha Stetzel: And by the way, if you guys are listening in your car, uh, spelled c a p o d I c I just so you know, you have the right guy on LinkedIn. Ah. C ten is his link there. Uh, Roberto, I heard you may also have a podcast. Is that true?

Roberto Capodieci : Yes. Um, I was guest in a podcast a few years ago, and, uh, they asked me if I would try to co-host, and then I had my own, uh, series inside, uh, talking about, uh, security, safety. Because there is a lot of scams online. Uh, a lot of people, you know, uh, fall for those scams. They lose a lot of money. So I thought it was interesting to inform people about these things, uh, and interview a lot of, uh, very cool YouTubers that I follow that, uh, work in, uh, you know, stopping the scams and, uh, and that started and then, uh, and this was under some other people that were organizing this thing. Then I moved and I started my own, uh, things, you know, more technical, uh, or more talking about general things. So is new since January, so it’s nothing, uh, like, uh, over ten years of age, but, uh, it’s taking shape as I go ahead. It’s interesting. It’s called interchain dot me, interchain dot me. And there it is.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that.

Trisha Stetzel: I will also put the link to that in the show notes, so you guys can go directly there and again connect with Roberto on LinkedIn. Anything that you want. I’m sure he can deliver that back to you. You’re very humble man. Thank you for allowing me, uh, to talk about your book and your podcast. So as we get to the end of our conversation today, I’d love to hear more about your motto, which is underpromise and overdeliver. Tell me more about that.

Roberto Capodieci : Sure. We don’t want delusion, right? So it’s very important to be limited in the promise and then deliver always something extra that people feel more surprised and happy about. That’s pretty much a way to keep. Even though many companies promise a lot and deliver very little because it is a way to grab maybe a business and a client and create a dependency to them, because they’re the only one that can put hands on the software, etc., etc.. But I think in general it pays off, to be honest, to tell the client, no, you don’t need this to, you know. So I think there is a more important things to be modest in what people want. Let’s do the basic, let’s do the things that are important and then be able to deliver something more. And you know, people is always happy and they come back.

Speaker4: Yeah, absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: So for the young innovators and entrepreneurs out there that are listening to this show today, uh, what would you tell them about moving outside of the comfort zone or doing something new and innovative? Um, what advice would you give them?

Roberto Capodieci : Well. This is a very interesting discussion point I had with somebody that says everybody can be an entrepreneur. And I says, no, you need to have it inside. But it says any transaction in life is a business transaction. If you want accepting to be a guest somewhere or, you know, like taking a bottle of water and offering water. So yes, true, under the respect, everybody can start seeing life like a set of business operation. But on the other side, to actually run a business, uh, it is not so simple. I there is the classic aspect that if you are a good chef, uh, it doesn’t mean you can manage a restaurant. You can cook well, but that’s just one small part of what it means to run a restaurant. There is so many other things that are, you know, required to be done. So it’s important to know how to delegate and to who and trust and never give up. Meaning that if you start and this doesn’t go well, keep going, keep going, keep going. Because it’s like, keep buying lottery tickets. Sooner or later, you know, get the right one. And. That’s pretty much it’s not easy. It’s not easy. I mean like lifestyle change. Completely.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And and it takes hard work. It just does. Right?

Roberto Capodieci : Really being brave to bet on something without knowing the outcome. You know, if you have employees. When I was 18 and 19, I had 52 people working with me, and I would never hire somebody that the salary was something they needed to feed some kids or something. I always hire kids. Living with the parents where the salary was paid to them was just something extra, because I wouldn’t sleep at night thinking, if something happened tomorrow and I leave a family with no money. You know, is is not an easy, you know, aspect to, to handle. So when you have people that work with you become even more complicated because there is a lot of human aspect, a lot of business aspect, you know. Now I’m, I’m out of this a couple of years of sabbatical. So that’s a, that’s a very. Good thing. I think now there is this trend of solopreneur. So you run business, you can run with the perfect number of business partner, which is one, and with the perfect number of employee which is one. And, you know, you can make uh, I think, yeah, the world is split in two. There is those that do the regular life things with, uh, you know, worker salary or whatever. And then there is these people that do this mobile application, a very silly video game, and make a few million dollars. It is strange how these two worlds collide. But you know, you don’t even know. So there are opportunities. There are options.

Roberto Capodieci : You know it’s a matter of exploring them now with the eye. We are facilitated to do what we want. Right. So it is easier now.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: And we have the choice we get to make that choice which is so important. Yeah absolutely. Roberto thank you so much for being with me today. It has been such a pleasure to have you on to talk about technology and especially about you. And I know you’re very humble, but I appreciate you sharing about your book, which sounds very interesting, by the way, as well as your new podcast that just started in January of 2025. If you guys want to connect with Roberto, his last name is spelled c a p o d I c I, or you can find him at LinkedIn. His handle is r c ten one zero. So RC10. All of that will be in the show notes so that you can connect with Roberto. Thank you again. This has been such a pleasure.

Roberto Capodieci : Yeah. Likewise a big pleasure for me. Thank you.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. And that’s all the time that we have for today. If you found value in this conversation I had with Roberto today, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran or Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.