Tangled Rabbit (00:00) Welcome to Untangled, a podcast for founders and people considering becoming founders. This is where building a business gets personal. Each episode features honest conversations with founders about standing out in crowded markets, defining what makes them and their work different, and building something that actually fits. I'm Beth Elliott, and I'm glad you're here. Let's jump in. Beth Elliott (00:26) Welcome everybody and thanks for joining us for this episode of Untangled. thanks for joining me. Will you please tell us a little bit about you and your company? Kristi Broom (00:36) Yeah, absolutely. So I am Kristy Broom. I have one of those names that feels like it should be harder than it is. So Broom, like you sweep with. There we go. And so I describe myself as unapologetically and, and that is true for all my life. It started when I was in high school, it continued through college and my career has been and as well. And so, you know, when you meet those people and they say, I am a. I'm manager. I'm a marketer. I'm a, I'm a doctor. I'm a lawyer. I am not that. I am not a single job title. I am unapologetically and I've had a number of titles. I've had a number of roles and really the common thread is helping people. and so when I started Lotus Transformation Group, I built this company to embrace that unapologetically and I knew I wanted to help people. knew I had a couple of areas of focus. But importantly, I wanted to bring in what I do outside of work and that is teach yoga and dance and have this focus on wellness. And so I'm a lot of things and a lot of titles and, I am embracing that complexity. Beth Elliott (01:49) That's excellent, Kristi. I think a lot of people who go into solopreneurship are in those spaces where they have hard to define roles that they've been in. They just tend to be problem solvers and tend to dive in and want to get messy. So when you reached out, you mentioned wanting to talk about that tension between your many passions and interests and the advice you've gotten to niche down to grow your business. Is that still what you're hoping to untangle today? Kristi Broom (02:18) Yes, absolutely. Beth Elliott (02:20) Alright, so as you think through your career, can you tell me a bit more about your many passions? Kristi Broom (02:28) Hmm. Yes, absolutely. So early career, I'm not sure I knew what I wanted to do. I, in fact, the story goes, I was a history major in college. And when I graduated, I knew I did not want to take either of the common paths at the time. One was becoming a history teacher. I didn't want to do that. The other was going to grad school and I knew I didn't want to do that right away. I did end up taking the GRE. I got a wonderful score. I haven't been to grad school yet. and so I had to figure out what I was going to do with said history degree. And so I opened up the newspaper. I am that old. and I looked at the job listings there and I happened to, to really land on administrative assistant seemed like a good a good role that would take advantage of my skills. And it wasn't the job that I landed in that was special. It was the boss that I landed with. And she has been a mentor for me throughout my career. And so in my early days, I really just went where she went. And as we navigated two companies together, she would give me increasing challenges. She would say, hey, Kristy, do you want to take on this project? Do you want to do this thing? Do you want to? ⁓ increase your responsibility. And of course the answer was always yes. So I let that guide me for the first, probably worked together five or six years and then she left and I didn't follow her at that time. Although we both tried. It was just the organization that stopped us from working together again. But I thought that was the way that work worked. I thought that when you were in the workplace, you just kept navigating for whatever challenge was ahead. You took it on, you conquered it, and then you did something else. And so that's really how my career has been. It's been tackling the challenges as they come. Again, not in a single department, not in a single job role, just whatever needed to be done. That's how I've worked. so, yeah, that's been the story of my career. Beth Elliott (04:45) So what led you into the path of solopreneurship? Kristi Broom (04:48) Yeah, so before my last job, I had an itch for it. I do love helping people. That is the short answer. I love helping people and I wanted to do more and I wanted to guide my own journey. Before my last role, I had an itch, but the timing wasn't right. My kids were still young. They're grown and flown now, so timing is better now. And it wasn't back then. But I spent eight years at my last organization. I loved it. I left as part of a layoff and I think it was the best thing that's happened to me because it was that, that moment where I had to say, what am I going to do? And am I going to take this leap now? And so it's been the best thing. It's been the best decision. And I'm really enjoying this path that I'm on towards solo preneurship. Beth Elliott (05:44) So that you and I are similar in that regard of kind of being forced to fly the coop. And so I will, I don't often like to assume in these, but I assume that that was, you might've had a general idea of what next looked like, but it was probably a lot of impromptu baking of it on the fly once that happened. Kristi Broom (05:50) Mm-hmm. Yes and no. When the layoff happened, I actually spent a couple of weeks thinking I was going to find a full-time job. Two and a half, actually. Two and a half weeks. I gave it a long time. And it was August. The job market wasn't great, response times are what they are. And I thought, I'm not going down this path. If I'm going to work and fight for something, I want it to be my dream, not a role that I would. Beth Elliott (06:19) You Kristi Broom (06:35) cake because it was there. so, ⁓ so I didn't know at the beginning, it took me two and a half weeks to figure it out. ⁓ so yeah, best decision. Beth Elliott (06:46) So tell me then, when you made that shift and you decided, okay, I'm going for it, what was the vision for the company? Kristi Broom (06:53) Yeah. So I had a couple of things in mind. I knew I wanted to do consulting and I knew I wanted to work with startups. And the reason for that is that there's magic in a startup when founders have this strong belief towards what they're building. Tech startups in particular is my niche. I've niched a little bit. so they're building a product and, and they're so excited to bring it to market. They've been doing all the hard work to build the product, to sell it in the market, to gain some revenue. And then there's that moment where people start coming into the equation. People in terms of customers who need to be managed and serviced and loved and expanded as well as. team members, right? Founding a company means you're going to have to build a team. outside of kind of the friends and family that we all pull in when we're starting companies, that first hire who's an outsider is really critical. Getting that right is really critical. And so that's the work that I wanted to do was to help these tech startups when they're at that moment of having customers that they need to create relationships with and having a team that they need to build. Those are areas where I have a lot of passion, a lot of expertise. And then of course, Lotus is a nod to the name that, or a nod, the name is a nod to my desire to help people be more well-rounded, to bring wellness into our life, our work, everything we do. I do that through yoga and dance, but I know there are lots and lots of ways to bring wellness into the workplace as well. And so that was an important component as I think about building the company that I want to have to make a meaningful change in the world of work. Beth Elliott (08:59) when you think of your ideal client because early stage, I'm looking at your website, early stage tech startups can mean it's a it's it can be ambiguous right there are many early stages how early How early and what things are they wrestling with at that stage? Kristi Broom (09:24) Yeah, yeah, there's two, there's two triggers, I think more than, you know, any revenue goal more than any kind of, I don't know, customer count. The two problems that I think are triggering me being able to come in and help are too many customers to manage and pressure to start reporting on net revenue retention. So NRR, net revenue retention is a number that funded startups typically start reporting on because investors want to know are their customers churning or are they staying and if they're staying are they expanding are they buying more of whatever the product is so when NRR becomes important that is one trigger that means that very likely they're going to need to have a specialized person to handle customer relationships and that's me The other trigger is when they're bringing in their first external leader. So, you know, again, as founders of companies, we count on ourselves a lot. We count on our friends and family and network a lot in those early stages. But that point when you have to hire someone from the outside and you're really looking at, you know, different kind of criteria and characteristics. And that hire is super critical because we all know a bad hire can have a big impact on any organization. But at that moment in a startup journey where you're bringing in your first outside leader, that is such a pivotal moment because the culture can change in positive ways. The culture can change in negative ways if the hire is not the right person. So those are the two indicators, NRR and first external leader hire. Beth Elliott (11:13) So you sound very, it sounds like you have your story. Like when you are being told to niche down, who's giving you the advice and what is it, what's triggered that advice from Kristi Broom (11:20) Hmm. Yeah, it's such a great question because I actually haven't really mentioned the rest of the story yet. So you're right. And thank you for that confirmation that when I think about the work in my consulting business, I've, I've worked through to provide some clarity in who I serve and how the niching down is I've got a number of other balls in the air. So I'm working with to other sets of partners to think about other products that we're bringing to market. So Untethered Education is one of them. It's published on my LinkedIn profile. We are a partnership bringing to life AI education in the enterprise, but doing it with a design thinking background. so, you know, rather than kind of... training on the tools and how you can use them and how they're evolving and the cool capabilities that they're bringing to market. None of all of those, by the way, are worthy efforts because I think there are many of us, me included, who don't get to spend all of our time paying attention to what AI is doing. So, so those are worthy efforts to do kind of generalized knowledge sharing and generalized knowledge training. And I know there are a number of organizations and people who are, who are popping up to do that. We are focused though, slightly differently in that we are looking deeply into the organization's processes and workflows, and then looking at where tools might help and what those tools might be. And then training on very specific interactions. So if we go into an organization, they have Microsoft Copilot and they're looking for improvements in their customer service area. We're going to look at workflows and call scripts and those sorts of things and how Copilot as a specific tool can help with those. So that's one partnership. Yeah, I've got another partnership going on. We haven't been public about it yet, but we just closed our first friends and family test of a leadership skill practice product that also uses AI. Beth Elliott (13:29) Super cool. Kristi Broom (13:46) ⁓ so it's solving the problem of there's a lot of leadership content out there. You can Google it. can follow LinkedIn, Adam Grant posts all the time. Simon Sinek, a number of experts on what good leadership looks like. ⁓ the challenge is, that content is one thing. We want leaders to be prepared before the conversation is critical. So the first time you fire somebody, the first time you have a very serious performance conversation, whether you are. a direct manager of employees or whether you're just leading something like a product team. Those conversations are critical. They can have critical impact and much like that first leadership hire that I described earlier, those conversations also can have critical impact. And so we're bridging the gap between content and criticality by introducing scenarios and practice scenarios that build over time to competence. so that when the individual has to have one of those critical conversations, they're prepared. They've practiced it. They've had that conversation in a practice scenario, and they have built their confidence to be able to do that. So that is option number two, or opportunity number two, in addition to my consulting, and I've got more ideas. So that's where, as I think about this advice to focus. ⁓ it's because I've got a number of different ventures kind of popping up all at the same time. Beth Elliott (15:18) there's one of you. Kristi Broom (15:19) And there's one of me. Yes. Beth Elliott (15:24) But depending on what your role is in those spaces, right? It's hard to say as an outsider looking in that that's not okay, right? I think... It depends on what your role is. I think when you're in this space and you have a lot of things in the fire. The thing that gets complicated is how do people refer you? How do people know you, right? You have this much time to be sticky in somebody's head. And so if you're like, I'm this, and I'm this, and I'm this, all of a sudden you're less sticky. However, if your job is not necessarily business development, then the importance of you being sticky in that way is is less important. Kristi Broom (16:21) Mmm, yeah, yeah. Beth Elliott (16:26) So, if you sound like you're a bit of an inventor and a wonderer... and that those things bring you joy. Kristi Broom (16:38) They do. Beth Elliott (16:42) So let's dig in to. So let's go back to the purpose of the Untangle for a minute. Do you see yourself ever not, now that you're unleashed, you are not tied down and you can be whoever you want to be. Do you see yourself being able to turn off of that part of your brain that just wants to explore and dabble? Kristi Broom (17:13) No. No. Beth Elliott (17:14) No. Okay. So then the question becomes, how do you embrace it and make that the part of your brand? Kristi Broom (17:24) Hmm... Hmm... Beth Elliott (17:30) Not everybody wonders and invents. I have a buddy out there with the Genius Network who talks about Patrick Lencioni's six types of working genius. You're familiar? Are you a WI? So for those of you on the podcast who are like, what are they talking about? Patrick Lencioni, and you'll probably hear it through this podcast, basically put Kristi Broom (17:33) Okay. Mm-hmm, I am. Yes. Yes. Beth Elliott (17:59) It's like a strength finder for the product life cycle is how I describe it. I'm probably oversimplifying it, but the strengths spell out the word widget. So W is wonder. Think about all the things. I is invent. So think about ways to fix those things. D is discernment. Figure out which one of those inventions are the best things that you should be focused on. G is galvanizing people around doing that thing. E is enabling. Getting on board and getting the things done that need to be done and T is tenacity of getting things across the finish line. According to my buddy Mitch Bliven, who does these assessments, only like 25 % of the population live in wonder and invention. It's very little. Kristi Broom (18:47) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (18:52) And I am also a WI, so that's why I'm like, hey, we are, are, we are simpatico and we drive people bonkers people. And that's why, right? As a consultant, being able to come in and wonder and invent and being able to step out again is actually really healthy because organizations don't exist. Well, if they are constantly in wonder and invent, wonder and invent, they have to do some Kristi Broom (18:55) Yes. Yes. Beth Elliott (19:21) just get stuff done work in order to be a business. So if you are in this space of wonder and invent and that gives you joy and you're able to bring that in different ways, whether through a consultancy or helping ramp up businesses or I mean your business could be to ramp up new businesses. And it sounds like you have the niche in these tech Kristi Broom (19:46) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (19:51) AI spaces, possibly as a learning component. I mean, what if that's your niche? You're an AI learning inventor who is helping keep learning companies at the forefront of inventing the technology that works within their organizations to keep moving forward. Kristi Broom (20:01) Hmm. Yeah. It's interesting that you say that. A couple of things. I'll take us back to WI. One of my partnerships, the leadership skills practice, my partner there is a 100 % WI. She's got ideas after ideas after ideas. And the role I play in that partnership is not WI. It is very much kind of the discerner, right? Okay, let's sort these into something that's going to work. You know, tenacity is a hard thing for me to say. I don't love that last mile. But I play the role of taking those ideas and bringing them to life. And so while WI brings me joy, and if I could only do that, that would be great. I often play the role of let's... bring this thing to life, right? Like, let's see what it looks like to bring this idea into the world. so that's, that's the first thing. The second thing is, you know, as I've been on this journey and I've been thinking about what am I good at? What brings me joy? And then of course there's the, and what is a viable business, right? What can I monetize? I do come back to, I really love being in a room with people. ⁓ working through brainstorming, right? Working through these, these sticky problems. And, you know, there is a part of me that wants to walk out of that room with something. So again, a day or a two days or an hour worth of brainstorming that doesn't have a thing at the end of it is hard for me. ⁓ but again, those time periods that we have really collaborated on a problem. and we've got something that we're going to walk away with and bring into the world. That is magic to me. Those are the best days in my working career. So yeah, I love what you said, thinking about that being the brand, that being the business and focusing there. Beth Elliott (22:39) Do you want to go more into this learning space? Because looking at your background there definitely is the tie into learning. Kristi Broom (22:49) I've been having this realization, this conversation with myself lately. There was a period of time when I kind of railed against it. Not that learning is bad, but I think I had burned out from it. I think I was kind of tired of just doing learning. But the conversation with myself lately has been, I'm kind of being drawn back into it. And I... I can't decide if it's reluctance or if I'm just, there's that part of me that remembers railing against it. And so that was a long way of saying, I think I probably am interested in going back there. I just haven't wrapped my head around the fact that I'm okay with that yet. Beth Elliott (23:37) So let's take, so as I said, I also have a bit of a modeled background in marketing training, operations, communications training. And I've talked to some recovering trainers recently. What I'm... Kristi Broom (23:45) Mm-hmm. Yes. Beth Elliott (23:59) What I'll put out there from what I've experienced over the last 20 years in training and training adjacent roles is that especially in corporate America, there is a way to do training. that doesn't feel authentic. It is a way to check a box, to say we put content out there, they've passed the knowledge check, we've done our job, and we're gonna move on to the next training. Now what I'm hearing from you and the things that you were lighting up, because I didn't prompt you for any of it, right? It's, I want... Kristi Broom (24:17) Mm. Beth Elliott (24:42) We want to get in on the processes. want to get on the flows. We want to improve metrics. We want to have an impact. That's a different mindset from what I think a lot of us have experienced in corporate America learning over the last 20 years. So imagine if the last 20 years had been 30 years, right through your career, imagine if it was, we're really building this around metrics. We're really building this around outcomes or you use design thinking. We're really using this to meet people where they're at so that they can be their best selves. Kristi Broom (24:57) Hmm. Beth Elliott (25:19) Imagine if your career had felt like that. Would you have felt like you needed to push away from it? Kristi Broom (25:22) Hmm. Yeah, such a key observation. Because you're right. It was about the box checking. It was about the mandatory bring everybody in. What did we used to call it? Spray and pray, right? Like spray everybody with the same content and hope that some of it sticks somewhere. Yeah, I probably burned out from that. Yeah, and I think what I have been exposed to since I left. So I went to work for a company whose original mission, so the company was Degree. The original mission was to jailbreak the degree. And it was a nod toward, there are different types of education, not that degrees are bad. That was never really the point. was more about, back in the day, back when Degree was formed, jailbreaking meant opening up. like expanding the possibility you jailbreak your phone, not to make the phone useless, but to be able to add additional capabilities to it, additional apps, because phones used to be much more locked down than they are today. And so that was the concept, right? Not that the degree is bad, but the degree on its own, it doesn't serve a purpose, particularly as you get distance away from it, right? I graduated a very long time ago. And so my degree is not as valuable in the market as the experience that I've gained has been and the education that I've done. So anyway, I take that not as a commercial for a degree, although they're a fantastic company, but it really expanded my thinking on how we learn and why we learn and what learning effectiveness can look like. So yeah, I think you're really hitting on something. You're helping me untangle this block that I've had in my brain about, I'm not sure I want to go back. learning and I think it's because of that, you know, the way corporate had been treating training at the time versus kind of how I've spent the last almost decade of my life looking at the ways that people learn and the importance that it has. Beth Elliott (27:39) So let's... There's a couple of different tangents in here that I'd love to explore. One of them gets into, okay, if that's true, then that gives you a framework of who don't you want to work with. And that's super important to frame up, right? You're not for everybody. Everybody is definitely not for you, right? I think all of us who go into solar pernureship have the list of people who you're like, I never have to be in the room. Kristi Broom (27:57) Hmm. Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (28:11) With that person again, I will be a very happy person. So do you want to take a minute and dive into what good doesn't look like? Kristi Broom (28:15) Mm-hmm. Yes, Beth Elliott (28:28) Okay, let's do that. Kristi Broom (28:32) spray and pray, not my thing. And, know, Beth, I've actually been thinking about what would it look like if I were to go back into learning? What would it look like if I were to go into organizations and offer workshops? And much like with untethered education, right, we are building in the design thinking component that is core to what we're offering. You know, we don't train without it. I think about my own offering, my Lotus Transformation Group, what would I offer there? And very much the, you know, the analysis ahead and the follow-up is so key to what I want to do. again, sitting in a room and whiteboarding ideas is fun for me, but it's only fun if there's an outcome, if there's something to take away. And so much so that you know, I want to be part of the follow up. And so the question of what is, what does the world of not look like? What is the world of what I don't want to do? Um, I don't want to be a once and done. I don't want to be a spray and pray, you know, hurt everybody in and check all the boxes that everybody took it, uh, whatever learned the thing. Um, Hmm. Those are the big ones. There's probably more. Probably more. I am also a thinker. So sometime between now and 24 hours from now, I'm going to come up with another magical item or two or three or four. But yeah, those are the big ones for now. Beth Elliott (30:07) It is definitely something that is worth simmering on. What are those things that if I never had to do them again, I would be so happy. Kristi Broom (30:12) Yeah. huh. Beth Elliott (30:21) One of the things on mine, and I don't know if this will ever fully be true, if I never had to do another PowerPoint deck again, I'd so happy. Right? It can be as simple as that. Like, what are the things that if I did not have to do this again, those things that corporate taught us was so important in day-to-day life, if I never had to do them again, what would my company look like? Kristi Broom (30:31) Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah, definitely a status deck. Definitely a status deck. Side note, I was just thinking it's, you know, it's quarter end today. And I was just remembering all of the quarterly reports and being so thankful that I don't have to do them anymore. There's no board that I am reporting to at this moment with my quarterly progress. Yes. Beth Elliott (31:01) Yeah. Hmm? Thank you. So let's talk a little bit more about the nuts and bolts. Because I found that when people say that they like to do whatever it is that they like to do, how I translate that with my view of the world is very different than how they translate that with their view of the world. So you talked about analysis, you talked about workshopping, you've talked about innovation and ideation. Kristi Broom (31:16) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (31:38) When you think of, I want you to think of even the side projects that you've built, the side companies, I don't want to call them projects that minimalizes it, but the side companies that you're building. When you step into those spaces, what are the things that you just automatically dive in and do? Kristi Broom (31:58) you So it's interesting because again, I think it's probably true even in my own company. So the other companies have partners and I do play that role. I play the D. I play the discerner. You know, I do a lot of the kind of moving us along, getting us to the goal. But I think that's probably been true even of my own. journey myself. So when I'm with a group of people, I like to lead them through the ideation phase. You know what's coming to light here for me, Beth? I like teaching people how to VWs and I's. Beth Elliott (32:55) Hmm? Kristi Broom (32:56) I don't know that I necessarily, if you leave me to my own devices, I don't stay there long, at W &I. I do it, and I like it, and it brings me joy. But if I stayed there without getting to D, without getting to a result, I wouldn't be happy. So I think what I really like to do is teach people how to have that way of thinking, how to innovate, how to think bigger than... you know, where their thoughts currently are. Beth Elliott (33:33) Yes. Okay, so now let's think about... who values what you bring to the table. Kristi Broom (33:46) who values or who devalues. Beth Elliott (33:49) Who? Yes! You can start where you want! Kristi Broom (33:50) Ooh, yes. Yes, let's talk about both of them. Let's talk about both of them. Who devalues? I think business leaders who are focused on quarterly results devalue or could devalue and not all of them maybe, but if you're focused on productivity efficiency, bottom line. everything is related to an ROI and revenue, it's probably a tougher sell. They're probably more on the devalue than the value side again. Not always, but if I had to place on one side of that line, it's probably devalue. Who values it? You know, I think I spent some time, one of my titles was in a product organization recently, actually. And I think about people who are building products, whatever they are, you know, this is their world, right? Thinking bigger, thinking what if, thinking about the world of the possible, being really, really, we used to say being obsessed with the problem, right? Being obsessed with the problem that you're trying to solve. Tech founders, when they're in the founding stage, they value. right, because they're all about building the thing, building the thing that they can bring to market and make whatever change in the world they want to make. So they are definitely on the value side of the fence. I think there are people in organizations and bigger organizations as well. I was having a conversation about culture and who owns culture and who, you know, who owns the responsibility for people being happy. I think that's traditionally an HR function, but I don't know in every organization that that's a hundred percent true. think leaders have a responsibility for culture, for engagement, for happiness of their employees. And so when I think about who should be thinking about new ideas and brainstorming and creativity and engagement, I think people leaders are in a should value that. HR, think, is in a traditional lane of probably is a it's traditionally in their area of responsibility to think about, you know, how do we engage and bring to life the ideas that our employees have. Learning and development, of course, would be on the value side. Marketing. marketing would be in the value side. And actually, so, my goodness, you got me going Beth. When I think about marketing and external marketing, so anybody who's telling the stories of the organization, I think they're definitely on the value side as well, because the collective expertise of individuals inside of an organization is something that I think marketing departments do really well when they harness that and share that and explore that. Beth Elliott (37:17) So can I, with your two, the businesses where you're a partner of them, who, how did they get started? Who approached whom and how did they start? Kristi Broom (37:31) Hmm, great question. In untethered education, the idea was not mine. Actually, in neither case was the idea mine. So in both partnerships, we are recent solopreneurs. So recently, you know, liberated from corporate jobs. through whatever means. And so in both cases, the people that I interact with were looking for, what do I really wanna do next? What engages me? So in neither case was the idea of mine, which is interesting, right? From a WI standpoint. Beth Elliott (38:20) How did you get brought into each of them? Why you? Kristi Broom (38:23) Yeah, yeah, why me? In partnership number two, so the leadership skill practice opportunity, Corinne and I work together. We work together really well. We are actually a yin and yang. She is WI of WIs. She is, she has ideas all of the time. In fact, we recently had a conversation about, do I drive you crazy? That was her question of me. I'm like, no, no. I'm sorting through what you're saying. So I'm organizing and prioritizing it, but no, you don't drive me crazy. That's how we move forward. And usually our best conversations are us riffing off of each other's ideas. When I get into WI mode as well, and we are like, no, how about this? No, how about this? No, how about this? And we eventually get to something that's worthwhile. But she brought me in because I can be that balancer to her. I can help sort through all of the things that she's thinking about. And we just work well together. We have complimentary. capabilities and strengths. The other partnership was similar. think Steve reached out to me, one, because he knew that I was kind of exploring what was next and I had time to go have cool conversations and explore what was possible. That was reason number one. But reason number two is that I had been in the product organization. I had actually worked on an AI chatbot. So he knew I had some expertise in the subject matter that would be. valuable as he thought about bringing this solution to life. Beth Elliott (40:02) So I want to wind it back to that, right? When I asked you who values it, you went back into corporate. Here are the people in corporate who would value what we have. Startups may or may not have that level of structure, especially if you're talking about gains their first hire, right? They're not gonna have, they might not have HR. probably, their marketing is gonna be whatever marketing is at that point, right? Like you're talking very... Kristi Broom (40:04) Yeah. Mmm. soon. Beth Elliott (40:30) organic natures of fast moving components. I am something that I would, don't know that we'll have time to unpack today, but when you talk about people who have product people already, are they too far down the path for you? Kristi Broom (40:49) Mmm, maybe. Beth Elliott (40:50) We already know what the product is. Now we're in build mode and we might be doing iterative design, but we're building and if we get too much wonder in that. Kristi Broom (40:54) Hmm. Beth Elliott (41:02) your Lotus you talk about getting into customer experience, which is great, right? You want to make sure that the product has a great customer experience. And the thing that I challenge you on there is yes, and in everything that I've heard you, when I I prompt you, everything that you light up about is about how do I get how do get these founders to build the right thing and get them there quickly? Kristi Broom (41:32) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (41:33) How do I channel, like you seem super excited, how do I channel the collective resources for the power of good so that, yeah, someday they're gonna have a great customer experience and that's gonna be built. And if you wanna play in that space, that can be a part of your growth journey for your company. That could be one of the offerings. But I don't think it's, I think that from what I've heard you say, And I like to say provocative things so you can be like, no Beth, you really just don't get me. But what I keep hearing is, I get charged by these people who have really great ideas and I can live with them in these spaces that are super messy that often make other people really anxious and upset. That's why they're asking you, right? Like being a wonder and innovator. We've all seen the people's eyes glaze over as they're like, God. Kristi is excited about something again and we're gonna go on this great journey of wonder. To have somebody who can live with you in that space as an early founder and channel that and help you create the resources around that to get you to the next steps as opposed to just letting it live in future state is super powerful. Kristi Broom (42:30) Yes, yes. Beth Elliott (42:52) The question that you then get into though, right? You are then in this space of are you early startup where there's likely a lot of risk? Some of them are going to go great. Many of them are not going to make it off the ground. And if that's exciting, lovely. Throw yourself into it and be in a lot of different places and figure out, okay, if that's the case. Kristi Broom (43:11) Yeah. Right. Thanks. Beth Elliott (43:22) How many customers do I need? What does my charging model need to look like? How can I show value to them while being approachable until they make it and maybe your pricing structure as, and when you make it, here's how I'm going to take it. This is how we're both gonna benefit from that success. Or, and it shouldn't be an or, I'm sure there's many, many, many, many things. Kristi Broom (43:41) Mm-hmm. Beth Elliott (43:50) Or do you want to be in these larger corporations where they have budgets? It's going to be more packed with check the box, innovative processes. You're going to be working with a lot of different mindsets, politics, whatever. Kristi Broom (44:11) Yes. Beth Elliott (44:12) to build this thing, in which case your model looks different. Kristi Broom (44:16) Hmm. Yeah, it's, it's, this is what I've been struggling with, honestly, because I think when I, when I think about what I love doing and why I love doing it, right. I love teaching people how to get from here to there. I love teaching people how to like make the thing real. ⁓ it is the former, it's the founders. It's, it's the startups. It's the people who need someone who can be kind of a sounding box, but a, but a reality check. And I think that's. you know, when I've been talking to founders and working with them, that's also a value I bring. I've been on the other side, right? I've worked for big companies. I know what that means. I've been at a startup that has scaled. I know what that means. And I can help prevent some of the rough edges, right? I can smooth them out for startups. So that's really my passion. The getting there. and then making it a product is where I have angst, right? It's the how do I package that up into a thing? What do I call it? How do I price it? How do I get it out in the market? Where is my market? Those are all of the anxieties I have about doing that work that I really love. Beth Elliott (45:34) How do you feel and I know we're getting close to time how do you feel about well I wanted this will be some takeaways learning do you want to hang your hat on learning and you don't have to call it learning, right? that's something that we untangle in a future date. You don't have to call it learning, right? learning is a thing, but I think there's ways to message it in a way that's novel and unique and talks about hitting metrics and being in this AI piece of it, right? This is like when you're talking about your unique differentiator, at least what's playing out in what's coming to your plate right now. Kristi Broom (46:17) Yeah. Beth Elliott (46:19) We are doing AI learning in a way that moves the needle, meets people where they are in their company, in their lives, in their flow, and helps companies deliver an impact. if you start positioning yourself as let's bring your big AI learning ideas to life, or what's next for your company and the AI learning journey, like those are too vague. They're too big. But that's all of a sudden a very specific niche. Kristi Broom (46:52) Yes. Yes. It's niched down, which is the start of our conversation, isn't it? Yes. Beth Elliott (46:59) This is the of the conversation. How was that feeling? Kristi Broom (47:10) So, intriguing, intriguing. Not what I expected, Beth, but absolutely, I don't know what I expected, to be honest. But you've opened my eyes, you've got me thinking, which I love. And you're really, you ask some really intriguing questions to have me think about, well, first of all, you unblocked me from. why I was resistant to learning or training. But you've got me really thinking about, again, as I think about what do I love to do and who would value that? How do I shape that into something that is meaningful for me, meaningful for them? And I think that is the takeaway. So yeah. where I thought we were going to talk about which ball was the most important to keep in the air and you're helping me untangle. Maybe that's not the question to ask. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. It feels great. Beth Elliott (48:11) all of the balls are great. Well, we are at time. Kristi thank you so much for joining me today. And to all my listeners, I look forward to catching you on the next episode of Untangled. Kristi Broom (48:20) Yes.