Julian: Hey everyone. Thank you so much for joining the Behind Company Lines podcast. Today we have Ian Hoppe, CEO and founder of Condoit, a platform for electrical design, analysis and collaboration. Ian, thank you so much for joining the show. I'm really excited to dive into your background, your experience, what you're working on.

At Condoit. We were chatting a little bit, you know, before the episode about, you know, the interesting, I, I think nuances of the EV space electrical vehicle space and, and how, you know, certain companies. For me, I, I'm very curious about not only how everything's being built now that in, in an emerging space, but also the different collaboration companies and, and even local governments I'm sure are having with the technology that is being implemented structurally.

But before we get into all of that, what were you doing before you started Condoit?  

Ian: Right before I started Condoit, I was a journalist for five or six years I was in journalism. I ran actually the video department for a big regional news organization here in the southeast, which is where so yeah, so I covered a lot of, covered a lot of news.

You know, between 2014 and 2018 or so. And I started this in 2020 right as the pandemic was covering up the world.  

Julian: Wow. So within that, I mean, being part of the journalism, what moved you into entrepreneurship and, and, you know, you did all this coverage, I'm sure you had an interesting insight into a lot of, you know, different companies, businesses, even, even government and things like that. What led you into Condoit?  

Ian: Yeah, so for the first two years when I was working as a journalist, I was covering the tech community here in Birmingham Birmingham, Alabama, which is where we're based, kind of growing, thriving you know, technology, you know, community here. And I I covered, there's a big group just right down the road here.

There's a big place called Innovation Depot. That's like a big incubator for startups. And yeah, so I used to just like crawl those halls and talk to folks cover these, these these startups. So I met a lot of folks in there and, and uh, it was a pretty cool experience. And previously before I was working in journalism, I I worked as an electrician and an electrical engineer, and that's where I kind of get the idea.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. That's so fascinating. So what was the, I guess, were you using journalism as a Condoit, I guess for for learning more about the community or were you just covering it kind of as an overall interest in, in the different ways It was growing and expanding. You know, I think a lot of, a lot of times we think about tech and, you know, Silicon Valley or Silicon Beach, you know, if you think about Los Angeles or Miami or, or all these other locations.

But really it's, it's now so widespread it seems like. Is everywhere, software is everywhere. Any, any industry can really be affected by technology. Right. Yeah. Just curious about, you know, were you using that as kind of like a way to learn about the community, to build your own company?  

Ian: You know, I was really more than anything I was kind of getting away from the electrical world. So like, my family is all like electrical, so my dad's an engineer. My whole family are all electricians, engineer. And that's what I was doing for, for most of my twenties, up until that point. And yeah, I kinda wanted to black sheep it a little bit and go do something completely different. And made a lot of friends and learned a lot and, and certainly was able to, you know, was kind of part of the, Exposure of these kind of, you know, what they call sort of third tier markets, tier tech markets, right?

So like, you know, you have the original New York, Boston, Silicon Valley, right? It's like what they call like tier, tier A and you had like Atlanta, salt Lake City, Austin, like tier two. And next is like what they're calling tier three, right? That's like you know, Birmingham is on that list.

Philadelphia's on that list. St. Louis is on that list, and so there's like these like kind of smaller, medium sized cities like this one that have like these tech scenes that are growing up. And you know, for investors they, they're looking at these up and coming scenes because valuations are a little lower.

It's kinda overlooked companies. But yeah, like you said, there's a lot going on here. And Birmingham in particular, has some of the largest construction companies in the world. We have like international, huge international construction companies, which most people don't realize. Most people don't even think of, right?

Think of, right. But, you know, Brasfield and go whore construction. Big, big, big contractors based here. And so there's a lot of opportunity around the construction and in construction technology spaces.  

Julian: Yeah. It, it's so fa it's so fascinating is the different tiers just, you know, to, to conceptualize it.

It's that just like the density of companies that are building with within technology and software.  

Ian: Yeah. And it's like, kind of when they happened, right? So like, the way that, that I, I tend to think of it as like a, like a cascading effect, right? So like, Siri, like the A tier. Like Silicon Valley, right?

That was like the original, like Intel, apple, hp, like these big, big companies, right? That created, and they all spun out these people with lots of money who invested in local new startups, right? And then those startups grew up and they invested, right? And then they said, oh gosh, everybody here is very rich and the valuations are super high.

Let's go. In Atlanta. Right? And so they went, or in Austin and like, okay, we're gonna go look at Austin and now there's all these small companies trying to get going and it's injected with this a to your money, right? Yeah. And so now, I mean, my main investors are in New York and Austin, I'm sorry, New York and Atlanta.

And so like, and they're pumping money into Birmingham because we've got all these new tech companies and they're still investing in, you know, a and b. But these, like, this like seed here, I feel like is up and coming and it's got a lot of money coming into it. So so it's growing pretty quickly.

Julian: Yeah. Well, what do you think the expansion of these different cities, is it founders having just more access to other bits of technology? Is, is, I mean, obviously technology, especially with the invention of like no code platforms, you know, is, is really making it easier to bring up a website, build a product.

You know build up an MVP and start pitching that out there. Yeah, I'm just, I'm just curious, is it, is it the access to technology that's, that's kind of moving this forward? Is it the conversations that founders are have, are they moving in dispersed groups? Yeah. What do you think is kind of, or some of the key features from the growth that you've seen in these different areas?

Ian: So one thing that's really successful and that I've had, that I had a lot of success through is acceler. Yeah. So I went, I went through Techstar. So Techstars actually opened up an office here in 2020 and it happened to be an energy tech accelerator, which was serendipity for me, right? It was like my backyard.

And Techstars has, they know how to, how to train and grow a company. Right. That's what they do. And like, they're, they're technically, they're an accelerator, but they're an investment firm, you know, so they put money into these companies and they take a chunk of their, of their equity, right? And then they train 'em over a really intense 14 weeks and then graduate 'em into fundraising.

And it's a really, and it's, I, I went through the first year, the Techstars here, and it was like life changing. And it built me an immediate network of people all over the country that are doing this same thing or have done it success. Or not, you know, so like other founders, you know, and so now it's, this is 2022 and I think demo day is in like a couple of weeks for the new cohort, and then it will be 30 companies that they've accelerated through the energy tech space here in Birmingham.

You know? Yeah. So that's like, it's such a multiplying effect and you know, not, you know, the companies are from all, there's two companies this year in the cohort this year from Sweden that moved you to Birmingham, right. And some of them stay and some of them don't. But like in my class, three companies stayed and then the class after that, I think four or five stayed, you know?

Yeah. And opened up offices here so that like, and they're, and then they've got this network of Techstars companies, this network of other founders. And like my class is helping that class and that class is helping this year's class. Right. And it all kind of like, we used to talk about like, You know, building a startup is like jumping off a cliff and building a plane before you hit the ground.

Right. And the cool thing about going through an accelerator, like, like Techstars or like Y Combinator or all the other accelerators out there, is that like, okay, you're following, you're following with your co-founder and you're trying to put this plane together and you look out and you look like left and right.

And there are like Techstars Folks like helping you like put the plane together, you know, and that's like, that's kind of the value of it, right? And it's, and it's pretty, it's pretty powerful.  

Julian: Yeah. What was the moving into Condoit? What was the inspiration for building something in, in energy technology and, and specifically within the space that you're doing it. And tell us a little bit more about the product and, and with Scott, you excited about it?

Ian: Yeah. So years ago where this all kind of started, I used to, like I said, I used to be an electric. And an engineer and when I was working for an engineering firm here in Birmingham, so Birmingham has UAB is a the University of Alabama.

Birmingham is a top 10 like medical school, and it's right in the middle of downtown Birmingham. And so there's a lot of hospitals like Teach, it's a, it's a teaching hospital, so there's a bunch of hospitals here, a lot of healthcare. Probably more per capita than we need. And so the engineering firm that I worked for worked on a lot of these hospitals, so basically maintaining it and, and my job, because I understand how electrical equipment goes together because I spent a lot of time in the field, they would have me out collecting information about real world systems.

Like how is this put together, building what are called as-builts of electrical systems. So like what's actually out there and how is it connected? What are all the parts and pieces, right? And they would send me out to these as-builts. And, and the reason you're building these as-builts is that you're gonna, if you're gonna add anything onto a facility, you gotta know what's already there.

You know, you gotta have understanding what's going on. And so I would usually show up to these facilities and say, Hey, Mr. Maintenance director, where are your as-builts? Where are your electrical records? And he would go, we don't have any electrical records. We've got a bunch of old drawings underneath Bob's desk.

And the rest of it lives in Bob's head, right? And so I would start at the Power. This is a hospital. If you go look around your city and you find the hospitals, most of them do not know how their electrical systems are put together, not in any granular detail. It's pretty incredible because it's a complex process.

And so I would usually start at where the power company hits the side of the building and trace this cascade of electrical system equipment all the way through the building. It took me months, you know, and we're talking about like St. Vincent's Hospital here on the south side of Birmingham has 735 pieces of equipment in it, you know, and I would be inside every single one of 'em.

It took me two or three months, right? Wow. Collect all this information, take pictures, and literally draw a diagram of this system by hand on a big piece of paper. So I thought about that for years, all the way through my journalism times, and learned kind of like. Then what it would've looked like to start a company while covering these, these startups here in Birmingham.

And so yeah, 2019 I started working kind of nights and weekends building a tablet application that walks somebody through the collection of all this information about an existing electrical system. And then it validates what you're putting in, making sure it's correct and complete. And then it saves it in the cloud along with photos and notes as a kind of like a living record of this electrical system.

Yeah. And that was great. So we, I went through Tech Stars, I applied to Tech Stars. Got in, went through that, changed my life. Raised a pre precede round at the beginning of 2021. And then me and my boy out here, I'm looking at my office and this is my VP of growth. He was just a, he was a a contractor with me at the.

And he and I went on like a customer discovery odyssey. Like we went on a huge, I think we booked over a hundred meetings, and we just went to all these different groups who were like, you know, I know we got something valuable. Like who's buying it? Who's buying it, and what are they buying, you know how are we selling it to 'em?

And yeah, we wanna talk to facility owners, facility management companies electrical contractors, electrical engineers. We did a big old rabbit hole with insurance companies who were really interested, but they're like, move really slow. So, We put them on the back burner and we decided into 2021 as our product was first getting onto the app store that we're selling this to electrical contractors, electricians, electricians, and the companies they work for, right?

And we're gonna sell them a tool to catalog the facilities that they serve, right? So they all serve all these, you know, you know, every single, you know, electrical contracting firm has 60 or 80 or 200. Facilities that they have relationships with, right? Yeah. And we're gonna give them a tool to catalog those facilities because like I said before, most people don't have records of their electrical systems and they need them.

Right? And we're gonna move a tool to do that. So that was going well. But it was earlier this year. It was probably March of this year when one of our customers came to us and said, Hey, can you help us with these EV charger installations? And we started looking at it. . It turns out that behind the installation of every single one of these new EV chargers going into a parking lot all over the country is an electrician or an engineer standing there with an out of date single line diagram of this facility trying to figure out how to fit this brand new piece of equipment into a 1970s electrical system nobody kept records of, right?

I was like, oh, that's what we do. We had a long electric, like electrical systems, right? So then it was like, okay, I had this kind of. moment We really started focusing specifically not just on electrical contractors, but on a subsection of those which are ev charger installers and changed around some of our feature set updated kind of our pricing a little bit.

You know, that's a whole conversation there. And yeah, and we updated all that and released version 3.0 in June. Specifically towards all this stuff, and in July we six Xed the number of people on the platform kind of blew up from there.  

Julian: Yeah, it's it's incredible. Yeah, it's incredible. Just going back on the technology piece, when you, when you say it validates whatever drawing or designs or whatever data you're inputting is, is it like a kind of a pre how do I say this?

Are there certain specific ways that things are done correctly and it kind of compares what you inputted in kind of the, the, I guess, encyclopedia or, or I guess, database of how things are supposed to be done and just make sure that it, it is in line with,  

Ian: okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So the way, and we're just bouncing off of is National Electric.

Got it, got it.  

So, like, you know, so it's, it's checking and making sure that, you know, cuz you just write something by hand. You don't know what's wrong until two months later in your back pocket. You know what I mean? And so like, it's so, I mean, there's a finite list of wire sizes you can put in there, right?

Yeah. And if the wire size is too big or too small, it's gonna go like, are you. Like, and you can say yes, you can say yes, I'm sure, and maybe that is what it is, you know, but it's actually, it's just checking to make sure that what you're putting in is, is correct. And, and even more importantly than that complete, you know, cause if you don't get, if you get 80% of what you need out there and then you go back to the office like you're, you can't complete the job.

You know, you gotta make sure while you're in that electrical room, you get all the information you need, you know?  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. Well it is so fascinating within the, you know, ev space and the fact that you were able to like 10 x in six months in such a short amount of time. Are are just more and more companies building these stations and, and are there more incentives around building these as well?

Whether it's from a local government standpoint or from like, you know, a monetary kind of private company standpoint?  

Ian: Oh man, it's blowing up, especially in your neck of the woods. I mean, all of our new customers are out on the west coast. Yeah. And yeah, it's just, well, I'll say that, but we just brought on a big group in Atlanta too, so Atlanta's got a big, you know, so there's, it is at such a rate.

There's a gold, there's a gold rush going on. It's like a land ra land grab gold rush all over the world. We're talking to charge Point Europe about the same problem they got over there, you know? Yeah. Yeah, they're, and every single facility in the country is asking themselves, can I put EV chargers in my bargain lot?

So they're all having that conversation with their utility guys, with their maintenance folks trying to figure this problem out. And yeah, the, the demand is just outta control. They can't put 'em in fast enough. Supply chain issues are a major problem. Mm-hmm. . And another major problem that we're running into is utility capacity, you know?

Mm-hmm. , or, you know, not just their capacity on the grid, but their, their capacity to get the work done. You know? Cause like for instance, I city, like a month and a half ago, two months ago, one of our customers, his, so an ACE hardware just outside of Salt Lake City, came to him and said, Hey, I want four EV chargers in my parking lot, like big DC fast chargers.

And Rod, my guy with, so logistics was likes like, yeah, sure, I'm coming. Like, we'll get it going. Like, so they go, he goes out there and they put together like a proposal to put these four EV chargers in the parking lot and they go to the utility and say, Hey, we need 2 77, 4 80 voltage, and we need a lot of it.

And we're prepared to pay for it to, to upgrade the service, you know, coming in here. And the utility company said, yeah, talk to us in 24 months. Like, we don't have enough time to mess with that. And so, like, rod and them, they, they went, they got together and instead of saying, okay, well nevermind they built a microgrid, they built a solar array on the roof.

They're putting a hydrogen fuel cell in the back of the place and they're basically never gonna pay a power bill. And the ROI on that. This is probably a 1.2, 1.3 million job. The ROI is less than three years because of all the state and federal incentives. Wow. It's insane. It's like, yeah. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a gold rush.

Julian: Yeah. It's so fascinating how. You know, first of all, the creativity to just be like, Nope, we're going to source this power ourselves and we're gonna do so because there's such an incentive, not only, you know, within I'm sure government-wise, but also within what it can actually you know, give in terms of, you know, the customers and the usage that they're gonna have.

If they're gonna be, you know, kind of going with this with this anecdotal story here, is, is there gonna be a. In the power grid system. You said a lot of these are all built in the 1970s or maybe even older than that. And, and the utility, I'm sure, and utility is capacity of the amount of voltage you can kind of use, utilize from, from the power system. Is that what it is? Or what is utility?  

Ian: Yeah, so the utility company, so like around here, it's power out there. It's pg and e. Right. Got it. Oh, and they can only make, they can only make so much power. Got it. Got it. And. You're also limited, for instance, like are you at your house right now? I yeah. I. Yeah.

So like your house probably has like maybe a 200 half service coming in. Right. And it's like a little wire. Right. And that's what was made for, because you know, it was put together in the 1980s or whatever, right. And they, like, they, you just had an oven and a bunch of lights, you know, and some places to plug in your appliances, you know?

Yeah. And now you say, okay, I wanna put in the DC fast charger, and that's gonna take a hundred of those amps. You've only got 200 and you're using 150 of them, and suddenly you gotta put this big new load. Yeah. Right. And that's a, that's a massive, and you gotta make that, so somebody's gonna come up and make that wire bigger.

And if that wire's bigger and all the wires on your street are bigger, then the wire coming to your street has to get bigger. And then the wire feeding that wire. You know what I'm saying? So it's, it becomes this like multiplying problem and it's all this stuff that was put in at, you know, you know, back in the day when they were like, oh, there's plenty, we got plenty.

You know, without realizing, you know, every single gas truck you see on the highway that represents a certain amount of. Right. All that energy has gotta move onto the power lines. Yeah. Every single bit of it, that's like the transition we're in right now and it's, it's pretty significant.  

Julian: So is the, I guess, is the innovation gonna come from private companies building solar or other ways to generate energy?

Kind of more localized towards, say, my community or my neighborhood? Versus, you know, being so reliant on major power providers. Cuz I, I just feel like that level of increased service just across the board, it would be a huge undertaking and it would take so much time. Do you see a lot of companies innovating in this space and, and, you know, is that an exciting you know, kind of a ecosystem for you to get into now that.

You know, a product that helps them not only keep track of designs, but also the implementation and collaboration within their teams.  

Ian: Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's, I mean, it's gonna be all these companies are trying to solve this problem because it's coming from demand. Yeah. So people are buying EB chargers or EB cars.

They need a place to, they need a place, a way to power them. And so it's not like we could be like maybe we, we won't invest in this. Like, you have to, like, somebody has to solve this problem, you know? Yeah. And and so like, yeah, it's being, the innovations are happening really quick, I think. I have a lot of hope for the the hydrogen fuel cell world.

Yeah, I think I went through a plant when I was out there in Utah and it was really impressive. Like the technology, they're baking and it's still very expensive. You know, making hydrogen for that is still very expensive. But. In the the what is the ira? The, that new act that just passed like a month or so ago, two months ago?

Yeah, There's a bunch of money investment for bringing that price of hydrogen down. And I think that that's gonna be some pretty incredible technology and it's gonna help drive this distributed power generation. Yeah. Model where you have microgrids everywhere kind of interacting.  

Julian: Yeah. What, what's the what's the most difficult piece around building in such a, a space that's, I'm sure, changing, you know, whether it's daily, month, weekly, monthly.

What's the most challenging part of saying, I guess, ahead of the curve? Or is it just making and fine tuning your product to fit specific needs better? Where does the challenge in your case?

Ian: Yeah, I mean, the fact it's just so wild. Yeah. Like all these, these different companies all are operating. Cause right now in the EV space in particular, all these companies are like constantly acquiring each other and changing their business model.

Everybody's trying to figure it out, you know? And so like when we go talk to. So our customers are the people that actually are on the ground doing the installation of these EV chargers, right? You go talk to an oem, a manufacturer of EV chargers, like a charge point, like a, you know, ev go, right? Those are two good examples because charge point, they don't have installers in house.

They subcontract installers. That's our customer, right? But ev go has installers in house. So those two completely different business models, like one is a channel partner and one is a customer, but they're the same kind of company. And that's just because they're both trying different things out. You know what I mean?

Mm-hmm. . And so that's the, their incentives. Everybody's incentives are a little different. So selling into that, it's just kind of a mess. Nothing's standardized yet. Yeah, and that's, we're trying to help with that. We're trying to like work towards that. But the, the product is constantly having to kind of shift and change and adjust Yeah. To, to, to meet those needs, you know?  

Julian: Yeah. How do you sell into those different partners strategies Do you use, based on, you know, if you're selling to someone who has a team in house versus someone outside that.  

Ian: So we've got a few things. So one of the things that we've, we've started doing instead of Condoit is actual design piece to where you can design a new, so you collect what's, You have an understanding of what's there and then you, based upon that, you can design a new EV charger coming off of that, right.

And all the infrastructure that, that, that requires. Right. Right now everything inside of Condoit is all generic. So you say this isn't an EV charger and it has a 40 amp rating. Right. Well, what charge point a lot of these folks are interested in, the manufacturers in particular are I'm not just, it's not a generic EV charger anymore, it's now a charge point, CT 4 0 21, right?

That has a certain size, wire and break that needs upstream, right? So we check all of that and make sure it's good. And what that does is put charge point and the ability to design with charge point in the hands of people in. Yeah. Which is a massive sales opportunity for them, right? Yeah. And so like what we're trying to work on right now, and we're on a project with them right now, is pay charge point.

We'll let you get on our platform as a piece of equipment you can design with if you pay us and also recommend us to your, to your installers, right? So that's, we're trying to work through that, like basically the data and the users are the product in a weird way. Yeah. So so yeah, and it's all, like I said, it's all kind of in, in flux right now.

Constantly figuring out who your customer is and why they're your customer and what their incentives are. It's all very interesting and, and ever changing.  

Julian: Yeah, man. I mean, it's, it seems like such a, it's, it seems like a challenge overall because, Not only can ChargePoint be your customer, but whoever wants say, Hey ChargePoint, I need your chargers in my parking lot.

And then those installers may not even come from them. They could come from another subcontracted customer and then they could still use your products. So it, it's fascinating to learn about this space in particular because it seems like. There's a bunch of different use cases for the product, but the, the moving target is the actual customer and how to kind of define that and target that individual.

Mm-hmm. , I guess kind of more on a broad scale, what are some of the biggest challenges that Condoit faces today?

Ian: Oh, so I'm raising capital right now. I'm raising a seed down. And that's been really difficult. I mean, the, the market right now, Investment is not great. I'm kind of up against the wall, so I've gotta raise yeah.

Which is not where I wanted to be, but it is, it is what it is. So I gotta go get, get money. And so finding investors right now has been difficult. I've, I've got a lead investor that I'm gonna sign a term sheet with like tomorrow. So it's like coming together. Yeah. But yeah, just, you know, as over the last, just, I've been raising now for about two months.

And during that, Like the conversations have gotten harder, you know, and I can feel the ground shifting underneath me, you know? So, yeah. Gotta get this round closed before, cause there was a lot of really great term sheets out there that were signed and things were coming together in, you know, fall of 2008, and they all went away, you know?

Yeah. And so, like, I'm trying not to say that we're there, but like, you never know. Like stuff changes really quick and then there's no work onto it, you know, no matter how well we're doing, what our customer base looks like So so yeah, so we're, we're, that's, that's been a real challenge. And then, you know, being while I'm raising means I'm not working full-time on the company, you know?

Right, right. So like my two other, I've got just three of us, you know, we're a small growing company and it's like these two guys have a lot more work, you know, to do because I'm out. I'm out. So, yeah. So, yeah, it's just, it's been a challenge and I'm ready to get this round closed and move on to actually working on the company.

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. How do you kind of work through the, the delegation of responsibilities as you know, I guess advice for other founders who are maybe in similar positions as yourself. What advice would you give them in terms of delegating responsibilities, managing the process of, you know, fundraising also kind of having this internal drive to work on the company?

Ian: Yeah, I mean, hiring the right people. That's what it comes down. I mean we, I laid off a couple folks back in the mid, midway through the summer because I don't know, they weren't startup folks. Yeah, like there's like a pre, there's a really important feature that is the type of people that wanna work in startups and that is like, oh, there's something lay on the ground.

I need to pick it up. It doesn't matter if it's sales or software development or whatever. Like I just, all this has to. , you know, and so like we, we all just have to work together to make it happen. And like some people are better at other things and they have different connections and whatever, but like it's all gotta get done.

And like finding the right folks is everything, you know? Yeah. The type of person to do that is really important.  

Julian: Yeah. If everything does go well, what's the long term vision for Condoit?  

Ian: I think that we grow I think we start in the EV space. You know, I think I, you know, as I mentioned when I was talk, talking about the kind of growing of the company and the idea we're much bigger than EV charger installation, you know, we're electrical contracting at large, so I think that we do another 12 to 18 months of specific EV charging and really figured out cuz like those, those.

That market is like super high volume and high velocity. So there's like lots of small jobs, right? Yeah. They gotta get jobs so it's perfect for Condoit cause we can like figure stuff out. The then in the long run, I think that we expand to all electrical contractors and engineers and, and really move into the market as.

Almost like an AutoCAD competitor for the electrical industry. I think that we, that's where we're, where we're headed.  

Julian: Incredible. I always like to ask this you know, what makes, what makes your job particularly hard?

Ian: It's lonely as hell, man. , that's like, I think, you know, that's part of the reason why it's nice to have other founders around cause they see, they realize what you're doing. But yeah, it's just, you just got a lot in your head and everything. The, the, the notion of the job is getting all that outta your head and other people understanding it and doing stuff with it.

Yeah. You know, but like early on, early on, every single bit of marketing, every piece of like messaging and like what you're doing and what the product needs to be, it's all gotta get outta your brain and into somebody else's. Yeah. And like getting that right. Cause if you, that's the hardest part is if.

You can say it all day long, but like getting them to understand it and making it happen is so hard. And once, you know, I feel like I'm over that hump a little bit now just because I've got like two guys that like know what we're doing and have the same vision, but it's like getting everybody aligned on that vision and it's keeping everybody align.

If I go to a vacation for a week, I come back, everybody's like floating in space , you know, just because like I'm the only thing that like keeps it on. Because I'm, I've got the rails, you know? Yeah. And so, like, that's, that's really frustrating and it's really lonely, like being, like, everything is dependent on you.

It's all gotta flow down from you. Not that it flows down. Like I'm a, I run a very flat hierarchy here, you know, but it's all gonna come outta you. And that's, that's different.  

Julian: Yeah. Yeah. I would like to ask this question as well, one for selfish research purposes, but also for my audience whether it was early in your career or now, what, what books or people have influenced you the most?

Ian: Books and people, man, great question. So I am a huge fan. Fan is not the right word. I'm not a fan of these two people. I am very interested in Winston Churchill. I think he's like a fascinating guy. He's a really great book by Andrew, wow. Blank on his name right now. Very famous historian who wrote a big biography, massive biography on what?

Winston Churchill. And like I said, I'm not a, a particular like fan of Winston Churchill, but I think he was a fascinating guy who Yeah. Created and was just prolific, you know? Yeah. I think him and Napoleon and some of these like big, like European greats yeah, were. Workaholics and single-minded and, and created an immense amount of, of, we would use the word content now, but like, it's, it's, it was, you know, it was they had like massive vision and they created it around them.

Yeah. And I think that's just fascinating. And they're very, like those two characters in particular are very inspiring to me. Not necessarily in like every single, single thing they did, but in the way they did it.  

Julian: Yeah. That's such a great way to put it. And you know, some people, if they think about like, you know, apple, they think about, you know, Steve Jobs or they think about Bill Gates.

People who are, had really a single minded vision in x. Cuted on it. Mm-hmm. so, so well, so that they it was just like they were relentless and regardless of the feedback that they were getting. So yeah, no, I mean those are some interesting figures to, to have to have research on. And I always like to add this little bit at Danny, cause I know we're coming close to the end of the.

Tell us where we can support, tell us where we can be, you know, part of it, if I'm a customer, where can I find you? Give us your plugs. What are your LinkedIns, your websites, all that information we need to be a part of the vision of Condoit.  

Ian: Yeah. Yeah. So we are we're on Condoit, that's C O n D O I t.io.

It's a it's our, that's our website. We're on LinkedIn. My name is Ian, i a n Hoppe, h o p p e. You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on. I was verified before it was, you could buy it before it was cool. on Twitter. So so yeah, so that's you can find us there. And and yeah, just get in touch with us.

I think anybody in and around the EV charger, installation space, companies in particular, I wanna talk to you. You know, I think that, that there's, I I, we have a kind of common theme around here, like saying, . Even if we got off a call and we didn't make it say, oh, like one more person knows about Condoit in the world.

Yeah. You know, that's an important, that's an important thing. Love that mentality is Andrew Roberts wrote the book on Churchill and it's called Walking With Destiny.  

Julian: Walking With Destiny. I love that. I love that. Well, Ian, I hope you enjoyed yourself. It was so interesting learning about not only your expertise and, and also your history.

Building companies, how you learned about other startups and, and, and then the different strategies you're deploying now in, in the midst of, of, of building is always so exciting because I think a lot of other founders are either in the same boat or, or can take from everyone's, you know, experience or piece of advice.

So yeah. I hope you enjoy yourself and thank you again for being on the show.  

Ian: Thanks Julian. Huge fan of what you're doing, man.  

Julian: Thanks. Appreciate it.