Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Cut the Tide podcast. Hi, I'm your host, thomas Helfrich. I'm here to help you cut the tide of whatever it is holding you back from success, and I do hope you've defined that success yourself, because, I've said before, you're on someone else's journey If you haven't today. I am joined by Mr Mark Paria. Mark, how are you? I'm great. How are you doing, thomas? So Mark and I both are here in Atlanta. We play racquetball together and, as we've known each other for a long time, I discovered that he's actually an entrepreneur, because that's what men do they hang out with each other and don't actually ask any meaningful questions at any point. I just know he has new rackets from 1980. Anyway, mark, take a minute, introduce yourself and what it is you do.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Hey guys, so my name is Mark Perea. They call me Microtik Mark, and the reason for that is because I have a software company for managing microtik routers, firewalls and switches. We help customers all over the world manage their microtik networks so that they can get more done with their small teams.

Speaker 1: 1:01

Do the people have to be like little people, like four foot tall, or do you mean like just numbers of teams?

Speaker 2: 1:07

Smaller teams. So what's typical on a microtik network is to have like one guy that knows everything and everybody else is kind of just along for the ride. So our customers really aren't small physically but as much as small teams that you know need. Here's a good, great example. You know you got the one guy. You want to be able to know whether the network is healthy or unhealthy. We make it so that the customer service team can help, the operations team can help the knock and help. You don't need that one super techie engineer to be the one to take a look at it all.

Speaker 1: 1:44

Those are not in the tech world generally, there's this like the technology persona is paranoia and everything close to the chest and that's like the 80s, 90s, early 2000s tech and MicroTik is an actual type of router, specifically right, Is that correct?

Speaker 2: 2:02

Yeah, so MicroTik is a company out of Latvia which is a European company, and they make hundreds of different models of access points routers, switches, firewalls, big guys, little guys, everything in the range from 10 bucks all the way up to thousands of bucks, different speeds and capabilities, indoor, outdoor, and so they made a great software for managing one at a time. But if you've got dozens, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of them, that's where I come in. I make it easy to automate, remote access, manage, monitor, get alerts and notifications on how healthy the network is.

Speaker 1: 2:39

Oh wow, so you well, one, it's something you de-risk a company who has them from the beer truck rule happens to the tech guy that knows everything. That's one. And then two, uh, just just the cost avoidance of having to have a dozen people manage a bunch of stuff, right, does that? Does that fair, like you kind of put that over that little wrapper layer over all that.

Speaker 2: 3:00

Absolutely yeah. So what we found is that there's kind of two schools of micro tick users. One is the guy who sees the Swiss Army knife that is a microtech and says, oh wow, I can do all this cool stuff and they love spending days, weeks, months tinkering and figuring things out on their own and kind of building their own stuff. They get into servers and software and scripts and all kinds of stuff. That's not our customer. Our customer is the guys and gals that want to go hey, five minutes from now, I want to have a fully working solution and I'm great with that being in the cloud. Take my money and give me access to this thing that will have me running and taking backups, doing all my automations, giving me all of my access that I need five minutes from now, and just want to get started right away without having to be a server admin and all the other stuff that goes along with it.

Speaker 1: 3:55

So before we get into your journey here, a little bit how do you define success?

Speaker 2: 4:00

God, that's very individual. So I think in the past growing up, that's very individual. So I think in the past growing up, I just had this vision of being success in the amount of money that you can make, and so I think, for the first 20 years of my life was all about making more money than my parents made, which means that I was shooting for six figures. And so I achieved that and, just like everyone does, once you achieve a goal right, you got to set a new one. So at that point I went well, what is the next journey? And I think at that point it's kind of when I shifted into entrepreneurism where I said I want to spend my time doing things that I enjoy. I really, I really want work can go along with that. Work could be unbundled from that, but I really want to be intentional with my time and do things that that make me happy.

Speaker 1: 4:53

I love that. The um. You know, when I've hit six pack, shown I can't. There's not an eight to have. Apparently I can't go after that new goal. I was so excited to go for an eight pack and I only can have a six. It's so frustrating. I'm just hey, if I don't put the humor in, you won't. Okay, I'm just going to be done.

Speaker 2: 5:12

That's not true. I mean I tried to, I tried to feel up your I mean all over it was. It's almost like you get grillgasms meat first. That's right.

Speaker 1: 5:27

Grillgasms, google it guys, anyway. So all right, I love that because the definition of success definitely changes and most people's it's like it started off as something that was related to a parent, what they wanted for you, or some mentor, and it evolves. I think what happens to a lot of people? It becomes flat but they don't really have a definition and I think defining that as a big piece of kind of owning your own world, time of well, am I successful? Do I have time with my kids? No, is that important to me? Yes, okay, whatever it is, and I love the fact that yours has evolved over time. Talk to me about how you started a little bit to start chasing that. So dive into the journey a bit. And what was kind of that first big metaphor to tell you how to cut to?

Speaker 2: 6:09

do it. Yeah, I think right along the lines of what you're talking about. As I was kind of wrapping up my corporate journey, I was listening to Tim Ferriss and four hour work week and that was like a pivotal book for changing my mindset. I've read lots of good books. I've got tons of recommendations on, you know, different business strategy. You know, good for personal growth, good for professional growth.

Speaker 2: 6:35

But that one in particular was almost required reading for me to kind of shift that idea that you can either spend your time and so four hour week quick synopsis for anybody who hasn't read it yet Hopefully you have. But it's basically, if you don't enjoy doing your work, what it takes to make you money. Get that down to a reduced set of time and maybe your target could be four hours a week. What I took out of the book was not necessarily that you want to do that. It was that if you don't enjoy your work, do that. If you do enjoy your work, spend as much time working as you'd like to, but at the end of the day, just make sure that you're spending your time on the things that you find enjoyable.

Speaker 2: 7:18

And to me that again comes back to the definition of success. That's exactly where it is, and so I'm listening to this four-hour week-week audiobook and that was really the pivot for me was hearing that I think in his words it was you can be comfortably miserable, if I remember correctly, and the idea there is that you're comfortable right, I was making six figures by all rights, my retirement was growing, I had the money, I had the great house, I had all the things that I thought that I wanted to pursue financially, and yet I was not feeling the passion that I feel today. I was not engaged in the way that I am today with being able to say, hey, I'm excited to get up every day, I want to pursue the things I want to pursue and I want to keep growing and going all the time.

Speaker 1: 8:18

Yeah, I love that because you're taking the depth of success and then you're reevaluating it. And I do this all the time, like every year or so I'm like, what can I do this year to get better? And what really matters? And it's the Home Depot bucket analogy I think I've discussed before where happiness pours in. The holes are unhappiness, and every time the hole sometimes it creates two or three more holes, right, and you're like, well, maybe I should just close that hole and those other ones close too. And then I need less to go into my bucket.

Speaker 1: 8:51

And I think if you're not doing this practically, you take anything from anything we're saying today. Just do that, go and find your own success of what that means. And are you on a path to do it? Um, it's funny how the financial one, uh, when you kind of hit some level of comfort, just kind of dissipates. Um, I think to get to the like 100 million dollar level something, you just have to be just relentless. You have to be such an unsatisfiable person to get there. I just don't. If your eyes want to get to a million and quit, you'll never get to a million. You say I'm going to get to a billion. You'll stop at 250, maybe I don't know. I love that Along the way. There's one thing to know that's success. There's another thing to have the journey and start cutting ties. But tell me about the how. Can you remember a moment where you're like I'm doing that right now, like the absolute, like you know, recall the moment and what the how was to get there, achieve it?

Speaker 2: 9:50

Yeah, I guess. I mean, it's not one single moment for me, it was just kind of stacking up over time with with all the different things. And so, you know, I had a, a vision for where the corporation that I was in could go to, because I was, you know, always been a high achiever, always, you know, kind of on the fast track, regardless of whether it was in school and the military, in the corporate world, in college, like always, I follow the motto of do your best. So always trying to, you know, advance and do better today than yesterday and tomorrow than today, and so I saw a vision for where the company could go, and I remember just throwing that idea out into the company, and not for me personally, but just, you know, ideas that that, hey, I think this could do better and this could do better, this could do better.

Speaker 2: 10:44

And, as you know, right, like in the corporate world, there's many times I've seen your cut the tie, parodies, right, and and uh, you know you talking to your business boss self. You know exactly what it's like. There's times where your good ideas are just they don't, they don't resonate, for whatever reason. And you know when you're a high achiever and you really feel like you can create a better world. Um's hard to say no. That's not worth investing time and effort and money into yeah Well, have you gone through the exercise yet?

Speaker 1: 11:21

where every business does this, where they maybe if you've read the book or not, but you know 10x is easier than 2x where you just realize I need to focus on this one thing?

Speaker 2: 11:31

That's probably my next book and I understand the idea behind it right, I think, is that if you're thinking in a 2x mindset way, you think what you're doing today, but better, but a little more, when you think about things in a 10x way and I haven't read the book, so I'm totally guessing here- but just put in GP, gpt, you'll get a great summary like got it.

Speaker 1: 11:56

Next, I'll read 100 books in a day. Um, that's it. No, you get. You got the gist like just you know it's easier to go 10x than it is 2x, and so you've had some focus, free shifts though, in your business, right, like where you've had some opportunity, did it and maybe talk about that a little bit where opportunity presented itself, and I think that triggered you just because you know I'm teasing a little bit, just because I know a little bit but it triggered you to go. Maybe we really should focus on that.

Speaker 2: 12:24

Yeah, I mean there's been a couple of different times where we've had to pivot and adjust. I mean there's been a couple of different times where we've had to pivot and adjust. You know, I'll share one story that I think relates to failure that turns into success. You know, at one point we had some great traction and things were looking good. We've got our sales kind of doing well, our marketing is kind of locked in, at least as far as we were to that point.

Speaker 2: 12:52

So this was probably two years ago, maybe a little bit longer, and we went you know, things are going great, let's hire a full-time salesperson, because I, as the CEO, I invest maybe 10, 20% of my time it should be 30, 40, 50% on the sales and marketing aspect. But you know, as a bootstrap company we only have so many resources and so much time in the day, so there's just too many things to do. So we thought, hey, if we can hire a full-time salesperson man, that guy should be able to at least do as much as Mark can do on his 10% time. Right, that seems like a reasonable thought. So we did some modeling and projections and we went hey, you know, if we hit our sales targets times two, we'll be able to give everybody raises, we'll hire this new person and we'll be able to cover health insurance at 100%, because, that's, you know, one of the goals for our company is to make our employees' lives better. Company is to make our employees' lives better. So we did all those things.

Speaker 2: 13:50

It was a triple whammy and unfortunately, our sales did not meet up with our expectations and our projections, and there was plenty of reasons for that. We don't need to go deep in that. But it was a big failure that we did all that and one of the hardest things we had to do. We ended up letting a couple of people go. We had to reduce wages after you know increasing wages, which is always hard to tell your employees that, hey, you're going to do the same work, but but get paid less. And that was, that was a really, really, probably the toughest scenario that I've been in. But on the other side of that, now we've turned things around and we're back on the growth journey and everything's going great at this point.

Speaker 1: 14:39

I've been through it, where you're like I need you to stay, but for a lot less. And I know I promised you we're going to raise money too.

Speaker 2: 14:45

And.

Speaker 1: 14:45

I know everything's more expensive. This is actually, I think, a good moment, though. When people stay through that and they it's a, it's a measure of your character and culture you've built, where, if people can't stay cause it's just as too much, then you understand and you're like, if, when we return, I will, I will be reaching back out. Some people who stay choose you over finding more money because they appreciate you and what you're doing and your honesty, and they feel like that has value over money, and I think that sometimes I think, when people have to go through that, that's a really big reflective piece is that you know they stay. Sometimes they stay because they just got nowhere to go and you probably should have fired them, but I don't think that was the case.

Speaker 2: 15:24

No, our team's incredibly talented. I have no doubt that all of our folks could go somewhere else and make more money, but we've been 100 percent work from home the whole time. So you know, even before, covid was no big deal that that things were no travel, because as a software company, if you have Internet you can do your work, and so we're. We're very flexible in that way.

Speaker 1: 15:48

Now, if you could go back in time at any point in your life, when would you go back and what would you do differently?

Speaker 2: 15:54

Probably that triple whammy scenario that I just talked about. That was really a bad business decision to make projections on things that we didn't know would be true. Didn't know would be true, and so, going back, the thing I would do differently would be to base all of those decisions on revenue generation instead of on projected revenue, because I think, had we done it that way it would have been we'd still got to today where things are looking good, but we'd have done so in a way where, instead of going straight from, you know, 20 miles an hour to 100 miles an hour, you know we would have went 20, 30, 40, 50. And I think we'd still get to 100 miles an hour, but it would have done in a way that was not so stressful and difficult for you know, me personally and probably everyone on the team.

Speaker 1: 16:46

Yeah, If there's a question I should ask you. Dan, I didn't.

Speaker 2: 16:56

What's that question? Probably when you're going to lose to me at racquetball. And so the answer is soon, because I'm a firm believer that you're either winning or you're learning. There's no losing unless you quit. So until I quit, quit. You can't, you can't finish beating me well, what if I've quit and you've? Never, beaten me but then so you know that that means I win because you forfeited to be fair.

Speaker 1: 17:21

I thought when you're gonna concede then, then I I'll take it. I was thinking you're gonna go back in time to when you learn how to hit a backhand and would have done it right. That's what I thought you were going to say that hurts me.

Speaker 1: 17:36

You can't do it now. You can't go back to any other time. You know, the best answer to that question that I actually had was the guy was like I would have ordered a black coffee instead of this latte. That was his answer. I was like that's great of this latte. That was his answer. I was like that's great. He's like I would have gone back like two minutes ago. He's like I'm going to fix that right after this, though, so it's all good.

Speaker 2: 17:54

Sounds like he follows the Ted Lasso be a goldfish, because that's very like all the other.

Speaker 1: 18:05

Maybe the last question I get asked is this who should get a hold of you and why should they get a hold of you?

Speaker 2: 18:21

Well. So obviously my software particularly runs just for managing microtics. 80, 90% over what I'm currently paying for Cisco, juniper, brocade, other manufacturers for routers, firewall switches. Microtik's not always a fit, but I'd say 90% of the time there are ways to make it work for most networks and that cost savings is really, really incredible. So whether you've got MicroTik or are interested in MicroTix, I can be reached at mark at admiralplatformcom by email. Our website is admiralplatformcom. Like everyone, we've got YouTube, linkedin, facebook. You can find us on the things.

Speaker 1: 19:02

You guys even have an OnlyFans account, which is really weird for a MicroTix place, but you'll have to search that one, guys.

Speaker 2: 19:10

It's a different style. Routers are sexy man. They are so hot.

Speaker 1: 19:13

I mean they can. If they're not wired right, they can get really warm. Thank you, mark, for joining me today.

Speaker 2: 19:20

All right, Thomas.

Speaker 1: 19:22

For those still listening, I hope if this was your first time here, you come back many times time. Here you come back many times. If you've been here before, thank you, Get out there, Go cut a tie to something holding you back. But first to find that success on your terms so you can chase the right things to make it happen.