Well, I'm Dr. Karen Hardy, and welcome to Flip This Risk Podcast. Today I'm very excited to have with me, we call them just Q, but also known as Quinton, is it Alums? Alums, yes.
Alums, fantastic, all the way from Milwaukee. And Quinton, let me tell you, the reason why I reached out to have you on my show was that I've been following you on LinkedIn, and I'm saying, this is this young guy doing his thing without apology. And I saw just your attitude and vigilance in what you do. I like that energy that you bring.
Never met you before, and this is our first engagement here. But as you know, my podcast is all about talking to high achievers to understand what the relationship is with risk-taking and how that influences their leadership abilities. So you fit the candidacy for that. So I just want to start off to say welcome.
I appreciate it. I'm excited. Well, it's good to know that you're excited to be on a risk management podcast. That is the first.
But would you consider yourself a high achiever? If I'm a high achiever, then I'll answer. Well, what do you think a high achiever is? Someone that's doing the thing, you know?
Someone that's out there, they're making things happen. For me, I would say, I don't know, I would say yes. You would say yes. But I just do things because I'm curious, you know?
I want to see if it works. I want to see what happens. Oh, you're one of those people. You want to see what happens, and you just want to have a little mystery there.
It doesn't matter what the outcome. Is it the journey that gets you? Is that what really is? I would say just my curiosity.
Just my curiosity. Even owning my company, it's like, yes, my company helps people. We've impacted a lot of companies, a lot of people. But also people are paying me so that I can learn how they run the company.
That's just the kind of person I am. I want to know everything. I want to know how it works. I want to know why you do what you do.
I don't know. I'm curious. You know they say curiosity kills a cat. How do you feel about that?
Probably going to kill me one day. But in the meantime, right? So listen, let me ask you something. What's the biggest risk you've ever taken?
When you look at your body of work and everything you've done, what do you think the biggest risk has been? Yeah, I was in my office when I got back from Arizona the other day. I was grabbing something. And I look back when I was about to lock the door.
And I'm like, damn, I built this. We built this. These are my employees. These are my people.
That's my conference room. That's my podcast studio. My new wood floors. It was the first time I really took the time to appreciate what we did since we actually moved into that new office.
And this time, everything that's going on right now, this is a big risk. Everybody's an entrepreneur. Everybody's got toys. Everybody's got interns.
Everybody's trying to change the world. But I think a lot of us don't realize how big risk that is. I'm responsible for hers. I've got my four founders.
I've got another guy. He basically runs a company. He does all the ops. I'm responsible for his builds.
That's the biggest risk. I'm taking a lot. But the biggest risk is just this. It's my company because I'm responsible for people.
Well, that's definitely an entrepreneurial attitude in terms of there's a big payoff at the end. There's the engaging, the curiosity, that piece of it. But also, the way you explain, hey, I'm responsible for the guy who's having a baby for the first time. He's my responsibility.
And to see that you're at ease with accepting that that comes with the territory is really amazing to see that. Because most people will honestly be freaked out thinking and knowing that someone else's livelihood depends on them. So they have to make sure things are in place to make sure everyone's covered. Yeah.
Yeah. Incredible. But was it always like this for you? You're sounding like a very confident gentleman.
Did you just wake up one morning and have this big company? I mean, was it always like this? In terms of business, though, I joke with my siblings all the time. It's like, why are we the way that we are?
Why are we so weird? I don't know where my confidence comes from. But honestly, maybe failure. In terms of business and confidence in that regard, no.
I was a terrible leader. I failed two times before this. I just definitely learned by doing it. And I learned where my strengths are.
I'm not good at running a company. I have a number two that does that. I'm really good at let's go forward. I'm really good at understanding what people are at.
I'm really good at what's going to work. That's the kind of person I am. I'm that visionary. Ask that person that sits there.
And I always need that number two. If I don't have that, it's very hard for me to operate. But it just came through trial and error. In terms of confidence, though, it's just understanding who I am.
Understanding what I'm good at, my strengths, and what I need around me. That's really where that confidence came from. I don't know. I'm a super high-energy dude.
I love it. It's buried underneath my service-level coolness. Not a lot phases me. And it's just how I am.
Again, curiosity. It sounds weird, but this time just kind of excites me. I was just saying, we were coasting deal after deal after deal after deal. New hires, speaking game that's left and right.
And then this happened. I was just thinking, I wish something would come along where I feel that hunger again. I feel that need to survive. And this is it.
And I don't know why, but it just excites me. It excites me. That's incredible. So when you had that, when was that one moment that you can pinpoint where it actually turned for you?
You mentioned pivot. When did it pivot for you between the two failed attempts that you had versus getting to everything started to click and work? What was that key pivot that you had identified? I remember I had a buddy come and visit me.
This is after my first failure in my second company. I called it a failure, but I had some success with it. I just dissolved it. My company was a little bit of a client base, basically.
But a buddy came and visited me. And I just got a big check in the mail. I was struggling. My power was literally off.
I had rotten food in the fridge because my power was off. And I just got grocery so excited. But my buddy came and visited me. I didn't know he was going to stay.
So he was like, can I stay with you? And I was like, no one knew what I was going through, where I was at, business-wise or personally. And I was like, yeah, but my power was off. And he saw me like that.
And that, for me, was like, shit. This is real. I'm not taking care of myself. I'm going to do this.
I've actually got to do this. And that never happened again. The power was never off again. I never had rotten food in my fridge ever again.
There have definitely been hard times. But that, to me, was like, okay, you're going to do this. You actually need to take care of yourself. Otherwise, you're not going to be able to take care of anyone else.
And then that's when I'm like, I'm not actually enjoying myself. I'm building this company by myself. Let's look at doing something else. And that's when I started this.
We absorbed that client base. And we just started moving. Well, I guess one of the motivating factors is the fact that you don't want to see rotten food in your refrigerator again, right? Who wants to live like that?
And then you find that path where you're trying to do your best to actually avoid something like this. So how do you take that energy and vision that you have? Because everyone's, you know, appetite for risk is not the same. Even working on someone as incredible as you, you have to have people, you know, who have different variations of the appetite for risk.
How do you, you know, transfer or communicate what you have there to them? Yeah. And again, I think of it like a relationship, you know, like an intimate relationship. Like me and my girlfriend.
You know, like I'll do it. Like, I don't care what it is. Like, if I see the other side, I'm doing it. She's like, okay, I need to know this.
I need to know this. Like, how are you doing this? And like my side is not rights, you know, but it works for me. Her side is not right, but it works for her.
But together, we're very fucking dangerous, you know, because we work well. Okay, what do we need to look at? Are we set here? Are we okay?
Okay, cue, let's go. Let's do this. You can figure it out. No, I'm just balancing that.
Like, if I had a bunch of me on my team, we would be dead as a company. Like, we just cannot work. Isn't that interesting? We just don't.
But I've got Izzy who questions literally everything that I do in a good way, you know, and he pushes me forward and vice versa, you know. So just understanding where everybody's at and knowing that one's not right and one's not wrong. It's just like this is what works for each person and then just making sure that it's aligned with the company vision where you want to go. That's fascinating because with everything that you've been through, able to see the difference, being able to see and understand the value of diversity, of thought and perspective is actually the strength versus a weakness for the most part.
You know, there's a lot of companies, organizations out there that, you know, they have struggled. They actually struggle with getting that diversity piece in their companies and they don't quite understand the significance of that. I think you're actually portraying a great example of how that can be an asset to an organization as a CEO yourself. It's the biggest asset.
It's the biggest, most important thing. Since we started, since we started, we said it's the most important thing. The people, you know, but diverse people. And if you really have to think about it, you have to be intentional about it because we're like, yeah, we're diverse.
You got two black dudes, we got a white dude, we got a Hispanic dude, you know, like we're diverse. You know, we don't have any women, you know, we don't have anyone over 30. So we weren't, you know, it just really depends what you're trying to achieve, but it's the most important thing. So like I said, like I grew up in your city, I was poor as hell, I was homeless when I came to college, you know, that's my background.
We've got a refugee, you know, a dude that like came to America when he was like nine years old, you know, like these diverse backgrounds. But now we're really making a push on women. We need more women on our team because it's a whole different perspective that we're missing, you know. A lot of the times it stems from leadership.
There's not diverse leadership. If you don't have diverse leadership, there's not everyone at the table, you're not going to bring a diverse team. You know, you're going to bring your friends, you're going to bring people that look like you, people that think like you. If you do that, then you're going to get beat by people like me and that's when we've got that diversity, you know.
We're thinking about things that those teams aren't thinking about. That's amazing. I see that how there could be a competitive advantage itself. Is that something you put out there a lot in terms of that competitive advantage when you're selling and trying to, you know, get a new customer?
Is that one of the things you put out there? It's actually not. It's not something that I go out and say. Like, we talk about diversity a lot, but it's not like our marketing differentiator that we're diverse, you know.
It just kind of speaks to itself. You know, our company name is Urban Misfit Ventures. You know, we're weird. I wear a big black hat normally.
It's actually a great deal. You don't want to see the hat out. I don't want to have my hat out, you know. Like, we're just weird, you know.
We're already different. So it's not something that I really lean into, but it should be, you know. But I think it speaks for itself. What advice would you give those big companies that are not as agile as you, that can't pivot as fast?
What type of advice would you give them? Yeah, I would say don't check the D&I box, the diversity and inclusion box, just for the sake of checking the box, because I think there's a lot of that. I think you need to start with truly understanding why diversity is important. If you don't understand why it's important, then you probably shouldn't be in leadership, or you need to bring in somebody that can educate you.
And when you do understand, I think it's going to be a lot easier for you to start implementing that change or finding someone to implement that change, because it's a no-brainer and it's a game changer, you know. It's just going to make you better. Just going to make you better. And there's so, so much talent out there.
Like, I wore it for my TEDx talk. I wore a t-shirt that said Genius from the Hood. The reason I wore it is because, like, we all have this idea of what smart looks like. We all have this idea of what beauty looks like, of what intelligence looks like, you know, like, what successful looks like, but it comes in all shapes and forms.
You know, like, on paper, like, I was a D student, you know, like, I had a 1.8 GPA college at one point. You know, like, I'm not smart, but I understand that I'm smart. You know, I just, I don't look like everybody else, and I don't do it in the way that everybody else does it, you know. So, smart, intelligence, like, beautiful, whatever, it comes in all shapes and forms.
In the hood, in the suburbs, it doesn't matter, you know. I'll tell you, it seems that, you know, just leading companies with instinct, how much of that is instinct for you versus you use a lot of data and information to help make decisions for yourself? Yeah, I would say it's predominantly data. With times like these, you know, it's like, yeah, like, what the hell do you even do?
You know, like, there's no playbook, which is why I was saying before, you know, like, there's going to be a lot of entrepreneurs that fall off because they're not meant to do this, you know. And maybe I'm one of those, you don't know. But right now, it's instinct. It's full instinct, you know, with some data where if we need to pivot this last longer than three months, what are we going to do, you know.
I say it's predominantly data for us, but right now, in times like this, and a lot of times as well, it's just straight instinct. That is fantastic. So, this is saying that the act of risk-taking is transformational. What do you think about that?
Do you agree or disagree? So, I have my main business partner, Izzy Hugo. We were college roommates back in the day. He went the corporate route.
I went out to do it. I struggled like a madman. He was madly successful. And then, like, at the point where I found success, and he was like, okay, I don't like this anymore.
We came together and we started this company. Big risk for him. Honestly, a big risk for me, too, because I dissolved everything that I was doing, and I was having success finally for the first time. If I go back and look at the people that we were back then when we took that risk, completely different people.
I was a dweeb. I had no idea what I was doing. You know, like, this is a weird kid. I'm still a weird kid, whatever.
But him, you know, like, and specifically him. He's like, I don't want to do videos. I don't really know what I'm doing, but, like, I know I can sell. I can help you guys here.
I can help you with partnerships and sponsorships and clients. So, let's do this. But he's just a completely different dude. You know, lost a significant amount of weight.
Lost his hair, too. But, like, discovered his love for sneakers. And now he's going to have this huge partnership with this huge secret company that I can't mention yet, you know. He's partnered with Adidas, with Nike, with Puma, with Reebok, I'm pretty sure.
Like, all these companies out of nowhere, you know. And he's making these videos. And people stopped us at Inbound, which is one of the biggest marketing conferences in the world. And they're like, Hugh, Izzy, I know you guys have all your stuff.
And it's, like, a completely different person than he was before. So, see that risk turns you into a different person. There's self-discovery there. I'd say 1,000%, you know, any adversity, you know, friction.
There's no growth, no friction. So, 1,000%. If you're going to take a risk, you're going to change. I'd say that's one of the best main areas that human beings learn, you know.
Risk, pain, failure. That's like gold right there. Just a threat, you know, a few words that you explained with his story. That's incredible because a lot of people, they're very risk-adverse.
They flee risk. And to see his life change over because he actually embraced his fears. You both did. You took hold of your fears and said, hey, let's just go for it and then see what happens.
And then to see on the other side what we have today, this transformation of a genius CEO that you are and doing incredible things, it's just very inspiring for me and other people to see that it's not something to shy away from. A lot of opportunity is right where it's in the direction of the risk, and we should really take advantage of that. So just to wrap things up a little bit, so what are you working on now that we should look forward to? Yeah.
So right now, a lot of my focus is going to the pivot during this COVID-19 stuff. Just because we're rolling and where do we want to go now? What can we do now? We're still fine.
We're doing well. So a lot on that. A lot of my focus as well is going to our company podcast, which is Screened on Purpose. We're making a pivot there, which has been a lot of fun.
And then also on a personal podcast, which I'm super excited about, which is Humans.agame, and it's all about esports and video games, which I'm just super passionate about. But also, you know, like, instead of Twitch streaming, because again, video games, but I'm really focused on what do I want to do in esports, because I'm confident that now is the time. You know, like, there's a lot of isolation. People can't leave their homes, you know, like video games and virtual reality, like whatever the medium is, you know, like now is the time.
So I'm really just thinking about what I want to do in the next few months and how I'm going to tackle that. Well, you definitely flipped your wrist, Quentin, and really made something incredible out of nothing for the most part and really capitalized on that. And I can definitely see how what you're doing just doesn't impact you, but it changes other people, anyone that comes and contact you. So that is fantastic.
And I definitely want to just thank you for being here. So is there contact information that people can find out more about what you do? Yeah. You can find me on any social media platform at tag, T-A-D, just J-U-S-T-Q, so at tag just Q.
That's my handle on just about every platform. On YouTube, I think it's just Q or hashtag just Q or something like that. You shoot me a message on one of those, and I don't get back to you. You shoot me a message on a different one, and I will get back to you.
Listen, I want to thank you. Any last words of wisdom or anything you want to leave with the audience? Stay safe. Now, like now specifically, I don't know when you're listening to this episode, but now specifically is the time to invest in yourself, you know, do things that you wouldn't normally do, you know, take that risk.
And take that risk on yourself, because no one else is going to. Fantastic. Awesome. I want to thank you again.
Thank you, audience, for tuning in to Flip This Risk. I'm Dr. Karen Hardy, and I'll catch you next time. Thank you for having me.
Yeah, this is Red.