From Initial Spark to Blazing Business: Lessons in Work and Entrepreneurship | Interview with Michelle Bassett, Founder of BizQor

Ryan Purvis 11:38:47
Hello, and welcome to the digital workspace works Podcast. I'm Ryan Purvis, your host supported by producer Heather big now, in the series, you'll hear stories and opinions from experts in the field story from the frontlines, the problems they face, how they solve them. The areas they're focused on from technology, people and processes to the approaches they took that will help you to get to grips with a digital workspace inner workings.

Michelle, welcome to the digital workplace works podcast, do you wanna introduce yourself, please?

Michelle Bassett 11:39:20
Yes, thank you for having me. I'm Michelle a Bassett, I have a background and internet marketing, I was a internet marketer for many, many moons. And then I moved on to data science. Soon here, I'll be deeper into artificial intelligence. But right now I'm just a data governance engineer, you know, friendly neighbourhood data gal. And I am currently in the process of launching a product called BizQor, which helps entrepreneurs get from the spark of that idea to a blazing business. So Spark, Flame, Blaze are the steps that you take.

Ryan Purvis 11:39:58
I like that. I'm South African, we'd like to we like to burn meat. So that's a direct translation of Braai's is burned. And in short, for "braai vleis", which is burned meat, meat, but sounds great. So tell me, because I just told you in the tunnel is called Purple unicorn? Because that's in your name? In the corner of my screen? Yeah. How did you how did you get to this point? What was the problem that drove this or opportunity that presented itself?

Michelle Bassett 11:40:28
Well, I've always been a person that exhibited applied curiosity. My, my grandmother who raised me had a different name for that, but I'm gonna call it applied curiosity for the sake of this conversation. And so I've always been like, super curious, always been into stuff. And when you are a multifaceted person, notice all these fancy words that I'm throwing out here. But when when you when you have more than one interests, you grow up to be a person with more than one interest. And typically growing up especially in America, you know, your child, be this one thing, you know, you need to be the best, one thing that you that that you can be.

So I actually started college, wanting to be a practitioner of orthotics and prosthetics. That didn't happen. I wound up graduating undergrad with the with a bachelor's degree in behaviour analysis, and I subsequently got a computer science degree by accident, but somewhere along the line from biology to I wanted to have enough credits to actually have a computer science degree as well. So that that didn't change my lack of ability to pay back my student loan. So I had to go back for a master's programme. And by that point, I was into internet marketing. So I got behaviour analysis, internet marketing, the natural step. For everybody listening to this is some form of data science, because you have the analytical background and a lot of statistics. And then you have the marketing background, which it's very, it's considered very creative and airy fairy, especially back in, you know, 2011 2012. Before a lot of the SAS companies came out with their data platforms and analytics, and everybody had a tick tock account was an expert in some sort of marketing. That's for sure. Yeah. So back then things were very airy fairy. So even using a little bit of data or analysis behind it, made your marketing campaign stand out. I wanted to kind of level up financially. And so I got my data science one, which is business intelligence, certification from Emory University in Atlanta. And yeah, there's then consulting, data governance, engineering, building products. I did a little trading on the side. I do I do a little bit of everything. And everybody is now looking for someone who does a little bit of everything. And like, recruiters call me purple unicorn, because they're like, Oh, these customers always want purple unicorns and I can never find them. And I'm like, Well, I'm a purple unicorn. You found me, that give me lots of lots of money. And then they typically don't, but it's cool, too.

Ryan Purvis 11:43:29
That's great. That's great. Tell me any neurodiversity in your your background, any ADHD?

Michelle Bassett 11:43:34
Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's definitely something wrong with me. But

Ryan Purvis 11:43:40
I didn't mean it like that. But

Michelle Bassett 11:43:43
yes, as far as as an official diagnosis, we are bound seen around different things. But as far as executive dysfunction, I definitely got a gold star on that one. Right. But as far as a specific, my health insurance will pay for this conversation with this person. I don't have that yet. But we're trying to figure it out for whatever reason at this point.

Ryan Purvis 11:44:11
Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying you have no idea. It definitely, is already, because you and I have so many things that are similar, you know, and, you know, ADHD diagnosed, and my wife will probably say 10 other things. But it was just me, I did the similar thing to you, in the sense of big university studied, one thing ended up with another thing, purely because I had enough credits to get the other things. But, you know, learn other stuff all the time become, like you say, purple unicorn. So I was just, that's why I asked the question, because I know that that's how I'm driven as well.

Michelle Bassett 11:44:45
Yeah, man, you just gotta, it's gotta follow it.

Ryan Purvis 11:44:49
Yeah, and it can be frustrating, because I used to actually read a very good book called The DaVinci method. And it's a guy who analysed DaVinci, and all his inventions and all the rest of it. And the thing about DaVinci, which I found interesting is he didn't finish almost half of his designs, it's like the things that we know about, or maybe 10%, of what he was working on. And one of the things about him, was that he would start a lot of things, you'd work on all of them at the same time. And you'd constantly be switching between them, which would be ADHD to an extent. And, you know, if you look at his reputation down the road, he's well known, he's famous, someone say infamous, but, but it is kind of the skill set you need to have if you want to do things that are different. And, you know, success is a personal measurement. But I would say he was successful to an extent, he managed to get somebody else to pay for his time, while invented a whole bunch of stuff that was never going to be built because the technology didn't exist. I mean, it was no hidden. No, no helicopters, there was no flying machines. It was, you know, most of his stuff is people in the last 100 years.

Michelle Bassett 11:46:01
Yeah, I'll definitely have to, I'll definitely have to check that out. And for a really long time, and I'm pretty sure this is not where we're gonna go in this conversation. But for a really long time. I was I felt bad like, I like I had like, the shame cycle around, you know, I'm not what the world wants me to be, or I'm not what people want me to be or whatever else because I can't make up my mind. Or I was old American phrase, I was real fuddy duddy and wishy washy, right. And it's like, I wasn't though, like I was just really interested in then I became really good because I hyper fixation, became really good at whatever I was doing. And I really, really, really felt bad about it. And it caused, it still causes me today to have a lot of impostor syndrome. Because, you know, when you kind of look at people, especially on internet, you look at people say, oh, this person is so great. They've been doing this for 20 years, and bla bla bla bla bla, I'll never be that. And why are these people asking me to do this keynote and this podcast and this that third? You know, I'm not that great. And then it's like the people that I've looked up to, for so many years, I actually, you know, happy happy to see me and consultant to asking me to consult with them and look at their websites. And it is insane to do that. And it's like, who am I? But yeah, so soon as I let go of this notion that I had to be one thing, or that, you know, I had to be what somebody else wanted me to be. My life has been way better, and I've had way more success. Just knowing that I am who I am. That's all that I can be WreckIt Ralph, for those of you who have watched that movie

Ryan Purvis 11:47:46
but now, I mean, so you're not medicated or you

Michelle Bassett 11:47:50
No I mean, ya know, so like, I don't drink coffee or anything. So I'm like, zero. i Right now, I got some Advil, like that's really the only medication that I've got going on right now. I did try. It's around here somewhere not sponsored actually good thing. I can't find it. But it's called Focus something. I found it. It's called brains on focus. Okay, and so when I'm having a particularly bad bout of staring off into the distance, not being fully productive, because I have no dopamine in my system, because I'm also always on some sort of weight loss, whatever. So sometimes I just don't have enough dopamine from sugar. That does help out a lot. But you got to you got to figure out what to focus on or elsewise, you'll just be staring out the window looking at a little yellow flower for like Three hours. You really got nothing. But that was helpful.

Ryan Purvis 11:48:54
It's funny, so interesting of I find cold showers help with dopamine. Yeah, big time. If you if you are feeling like not there, give a cold shower like 10 seconds, 20 seconds and you organised sure why

Michelle Bassett 11:49:10
I have the whole texture thing. But I also have a thing about temperature. So like living in Georgia, you'd be like, Oh, well, you know, it's always warm and stuff or whatever. But like I have a heater on under my desk right now. But so cold can't be too hot. So cold showers like, I don't know about outright?

Ryan Purvis 11:49:33
Well, it's a it's a so it goes back to the stoics. Even Marcus Aurelius and those guys. Part of it is just that that mental fortitude to go and do it to go to the shower on its dip underneath it. And then once you get past that calm breeze, which takes about two seconds, you get into this switch, where basically you and I actually feel like a physical, like, wave flow down from top to bottom, where I can actually feel like I'm changing. It's the weirdest weirdest thing, I get the same thing when I'm meditating. If I'm, if I'm meditating every day, it takes me less time to meditate. Okay, yeah, so and I have the same sort of thing with if I sit down and close my eyes, and I use an aura ring with an aura, the aura app is good at certain things, I've trained myself to use the same sound all the time, I can actually feel myself drop in to the meditation zone, I can set my alarm like I'm ready to go recharged. And it's the same thing with a cold shower.

Michelle Bassett 11:50:36
I'll definitely try it. The problem with whatever I have is that I get all the assessories, right, and then study all the things I need to study about it. And then it's time to actually start and develop that habit. And then I do it for a solid two and a half days. And then I'm out of like $3,000 and I have all this.

Ryan Purvis 11:51:04
Yeah, and Well, it's funny you say that because I'm exactly the same board for a while ballroom at all. And I've I made a conscious decision at some point that I wasn't gonna buy any more tools. So I'm actually talking to balancing on a wobble board. So when I'm standing, you're wobbling, it helped me to concentrate. So that's I bought that sort of stuff. And and I use it that's not all the time, but I do use them a lot. And the meditation and the cold showers. The ordering is actually just a general health thing. But those things that meditation does cost you anything and neither does the ice cold showers. Yeah, sure. So so that so you take away all the energy you spend on finding the right thing. Just like well, I'll just go and do 10 minutes meditation, I'll just go do a cold shower. So every time you have a shower, you just at the end of the shower, you just turn it to cold. For 10 seconds,

Michelle Bassett 11:51:57
I'll definitely try it out. You know, I'm

Ryan Purvis 11:52:00
yeah, let me know how it goes. And it gives me ideas. I mean, it's it's bizarre, because you walk out, walk out of the chat and you're like to ideas or pop in your head. Because now you've shopped your system a bit, and you've kind of unclogged some stuff. And yeah, you just you get you get the dopamine comes now, from one you've pushed yourself to do something you didn't want to do, which is the cold shower. And then to that you're rewarding yourself mentally by getting the idea. So now you know that it's a good idea to go do a cold shower, because the ideas will come.

Michelle Bassett 11:52:32
Yes. Yeah,

Ryan Purvis 11:52:33
Same as walking in, like gym for me is another one. If I go to gym, you know, often. And I'm sure the same because you're consulting your diary is not really your own, because you're dealing with clients and you under pressure all the time. And going to gym is like Well, that's an hour out of my day to go to the gym. Yeah, but it's I can't do any work in that hour. But often if I go to gym, and we're going to gym with a sauna and stuff. So I go to the gym and I go sit in the sauna for 10 minutes, that 15 minutes to an hour is like the ultimate brain time because you're doing this repetitive motion of lifting weights or sitting on the treadmill or whatever it is. And you force to do the repetitive boring thing, which allows your brain freedom to to process things and pop in ideas. So I cannot gym for two weeks, I became a very grumpy and heavy person. I've been going to the gym now even for 20 minutes and I'm like, back to happy cuz I've got the time to not be overwhelmed. So

Michelle Bassett 11:53:27
I don't want to derail too much from the conversation. But I feel like that's that's a later point for later because it's like, I find those things right? And then it's like, I'll stop. And it's like, Oh no, I miss going to the gym. And it's like, well, then I like talk myself out of doing it anyway. But

Ryan Purvis 11:53:48
this is now we can go anyway, this is our call, we can go around. But this is this is exactly the point in some respects, when when the world went through COVID, and lock downs and all that stuff, it was an opportunity for a lot of people to reset their behaviours. And to put some personal boundaries in. And that's why a lot of people don't want to go back to work to an office because they break their routines that they're quite happily in. Because go, like if I go into London for the day, that's not only a long commute, but there's no time to go to gym, because an hour and a half to go to London, sometimes two hours, two hours there two hours back all the calls that I'd be doing, I can't do because now I'm in, you know, meeting rooms and all that stuff. So there's just a productivity thing. But there's value in going for for the for the meetings, I'm grateful. So so but going to an office now has purpose. So it's okay to go to an office. And the same token goes into the office is a purpose driven thing.

Michelle Bassett 11:54:41
And so many people do move during COVID to, because again, COVID wasn't the two weeks that the government promised us it was going to be. And so I know people who were working in different countries. But no one knew that they were in a different country. Like they like pull it out for like a year. But but so I actually used to live in Atlanta. I don't live in Atlanta anymore. Because everything got crazy. And it was like, Look at this point, I, my my office is six minutes away from my bedroom door, max, And that's because I stopped and dropped something and had to pick it up. And I forgot what I was doing. And it had to go back to the room and then. And so until like, look, this doesn't make any sense. Everything's super expensive. Everything's getting dangerous. I'm moving. And they were like, fine. So now once a quarter ish, I wound up going back up to the office. Everyone loves me I bring doughnuts, we do face painting, it's good time.

Ryan Purvis 11:55:45
But it's but it's but it's a focus thing now. So become better. And you know, to go back to your thing about you do something for a day two, and then you start, the simple rule is, don't make it up. If you're going to do something, it's okay to miss one but don't miss twice. So if you don't do this cold shower today, you got to do it tomorrow. And it's just a psychological thing, because you just hold yourself accountable to just keep being the next day. In fact, not the next month at a patent because the minute you decide to miss the whole year. You're never gonna do it.

Michelle Bassett 11:56:17
Yeah, no, no.

Ryan Purvis 11:56:18
And I mean, I schedule everything. And my wife gets irritated with me, because I'll tell her I haven't got time, because my diary is full. And she said, but you don't make time for me. I said, Well, you know, if you need to get it my diary, I need to make time in my diary. So if you want to talk to me about that we have to book it in. And it's it's just to keep those routines going. And one of the things that I've had to struggle with the last couple of weeks to get gym back in is I had to put it over other meetings that have been booked in my diary. And I've it's not it's not for the immediacy it's for when the next week comes in when there's nothing booked. People can't book in my diary now because now the diary is booked in and all my meetings are driven to Calendly. Which Calendly obviously will only allow them to book in slots that are available. Yeah. So I mean that's how we got linked up to talk is through a Calendly Link. That's because it was basing my diary. Yep. Now Gym is next Friday. There's gym in the way so you won't get this, you won't get this stuff?

Michelle Bassett 11:57:09
No, so I've been having to do the same thing. Dating. So I'm not married. So I've been dating. So Damian has to go on the calendar, every single thing that my son does because my my son had does violin swimming, acting while he does MMA boxing. It's like his he needs his own calendar actually. But as as he designated Chauffeur and snack consultant extraordinaire, it is my job and responsibility to transport the king from place to place. So so you know that that is now on the calendar. Because for so for a long while. It's like people also had a bad habit because I wasn't using a third party system. I'm just booking over stuff. And it's like, why did you think that this was okay. Did you ask me? Was this okay? And so for a good long time, especially consulting people will just book lunch hours. It's like,

Ryan Purvis 11:58:13
yes, yes. Yeah.

Michelle Bassett 11:58:15
So it's like from 7;30 in the morning to sometimes nine o'clock at night. You know, I'm back to back to back to back to back. And I haven't eaten might have gone to the bathroom twice. I'm definitely not drinking water. So that had to stop. So I did that from like 2020 to 2022, like early 2022.

Ryan Purvis 11:58:37
Yeah, yeah.

Michelle Bassett 11:58:37
And then, you know, I had to put those boundaries in place because I also have an issue with that. Not sure if that's diagnoseable or not, but I'll shoot it over to the therapist. But so I had to put those firm boundaries like, look, you can book however you want to book. But if you see something that's already there, it doesn't mean I'm gonna show up. So you might be by yourself.

Ryan Purvis 11:59:02
Yeah. And I think that, I think, you know, that's one of things I've loved about Calendly as a solution is I love multiple calendars. Because I've got multiple customers that I deal with. And often what happens with that is they all want to have their standup at the same time. Yeah, which is nine o'clock or whatever in the morning,

Michelle Bassett 11:59:21
or 10:30, depending on where they are. Yeah,

Ryan Purvis 11:59:24
and then at any time and outs of this timezone considerations and all that kind of stuff. And by having Calendly in place, to an extent, external stuff gets handled. Now, I've joined all my calendars together, since they invite myself across my multiple calendars to all those meetings, so they can see that my diary is full, because of all the other stuff. So there's a little bit of and people get a little bit frustrating, like, well, your, your diary is always so full, we can't get into it. It's like, well, you know, there's there's a reason amazing,

Michelle Bassett 11:59:51
obviously, have you met me.

Ryan Purvis 11:59:53
Well, yeah, I mean, I don't think is that about the city. I mean, it's just, you do this kind of work, you've got to you've spread thin, but you've got to also manage expectations around what you can deliver in that space. Which is what you know, so the product, we built, Valuu, around work delivery management, because of this problem and prioritisation because my biggest problem life is prioritisation of things, and sequencing them. So it's the problem that I I struggle with the most but also the thing I'm really well known for doing very well because I've it's my anxiety in life and its priorities and sequencing. But like I think, you know, the product you you building is probably something that's a passion for you as well.

Michelle Bassett 12:00:36
Yeah, because it's it's one of those things where, again, purple unicorn, so many things. So growing up poor, one of my one of my main missions, right, was to make sure that my kids never had to deal with poverty. And I don't have kids with a 's', but I went to college I was I was the first person in my family to go to college, or not not because, you know, any, you know, anybody motivated me to do so. It was just hey, I believe the whole lot of you go to school, you get a good education, you make good money. Right.

Ryan Purvis 12:01:15
And so it definitely helps. And there's a stat that people that are integrated in America, thoughtless dial later than those that don't. Yeah,

Michelle Bassett 12:01:24
yeah, sure. So there's there, there's definitely a lot of positives if we could fix some American issues around the actual education system starting that kindergarten, and make things more affordable, you know, back since the does not mean, success. Anyway, that's a whole soapbox. But, but so I wind up having this not like a greedy money, Scrooge McDuck sort of money mindset. But it was money was a tool to get me things that I needed, you know, and to this day, you know, I don't, I don't really care about money like that. Like, I don't have like expensive labels and Prada and Louis Vuitton and all these other names. I can't say and I don't have a fancy name. Or my car, I have a fancy dance car. But it's a Kia. It's not like a Tesla or anything like that. But it's pretty big. But but it's like so that was never me. But I always wanted to make sure that I had options and choices. And so a lot of that was entrepreneurship, you know. And so I've always had a little bit, I always had a little side hustle. In like middle school, I got in trouble for selling Snicker bars. And you know, like, I've always had some sort of hustle, or like, doing people's art projects or homework or whatever, right. So I've always had some sort of hustle going on. And so I learned a lot about business. I learned a lot about sales. And you know, I have that actual professional marketing background. And so people come to me all the time. They're like, Hey, by the way, Michelle, I got this business idea. And I want to make a million dollars in two weeks. And you're my friends. You're gonna tell me how. And I'm like, Well, okay, sure. Let's play this game today. And, and I was like, Okay, so do you have a business name? Yeah, I'm gonna call it some outrageous name. I can't even think of anything because it's that outrageous right now. I'm like, Oh, okay. Not sure anyone can spell that one. Do you have a logo? Well, no. All right. Did you register the business with the state? No, no. All right. Did you think about a website? at all, no, no content for the website? Nope. Okay. So, so it's just these basic things, right? Or people who have been in business for a while, and they have a cleaning company, for example, and he's gonna kill me if you ever actually listen to this. But it's like, you know, you've had this cleaning company, you had good side money for a while, but you want to do you want to do it full time, but you don't have any business funding or this, that the third, but you haven't been filing your taxes properly. And you don't have a Dun and Bradstreet number. And I don't think that you actually renewed your licence with the Secretary of State. So we got to fix these things, you know. So it's just,

Ryan Purvis 12:04:29
you're providing an advisory service there so so

Michelle Bassett 12:04:32
Exactly, exactly. But but it's, it's, it's an advisory service that's so foundational, and so minimal that I don't think anybody else, like professionally, if you like, go on Google and try to find the advisory company, that they would even take you seriously as far as answering the call. And so that's kind of where I kind of filled in the gap for a lot of people, you know, it's like, Hey, you have this idea on a napkin that you stole from a hotel restaurant, with all these wonderful ideas on it. And no one's saying that these ideas aren't wonderful. Also, ADHD'er. But now, if you really want to make this into a reality, here are the exact steps and better yet, here's the platform, because because with this call, you get the phone number, you get the web design, you also get web hosting, we'll go for you that

Ryan Purvis 12:05:27
was that was very, that was a very good way of bringing what your product does. By the way,

Michelle Bassett 12:05:31
you know what I was trying real hard, I was trying to be smooth with it.

Ryan Purvis 12:05:35
But it's funny, because I was talking about with my product manager yesterday, she did a video on like a run through the product for some investors I'm talking to. And she did a typical product manager thing. Here are the features, she has the functionality. And I said to her long voice note because I was driving. I said you got it, you got to take it to what are the problems we solve? And yes, we solve it. from one problem to problem three, wish to it's only the top three they are not gonna remember past four. Nope. So you've got a good time to talk about it again today. And as I said, that's, that's how you tell the story, you tell the story of how it's the hero's journey is the hero. And the idea that we're going to this thing that had this challenge, come with challenges. So you're just more talented than ever carry on as a bigger challenge, and then have to overcome that. And then that's the end of the story. Happy laughter

Michelle Bassett 12:06:26
and always make yourself the Yoda, or whatever the wise man is. And yes, see,

Ryan Purvis 12:06:32
that's, that's a that's a great way, that's a great way to put it because it is very much like it's having. And there's very similar that says it's been their trusted advisor, there to guide and help but not necessarily do for them all the time. Because the more time you end up with a diary that you can't control.

Michelle Bassett 12:06:51
Yes. And so that that definitely goes back to those boundaries that you know, I was talking about earlier. And so when it comes to that line, and I'm segwaying back over to BizQor. When it comes back to that line, it's like, there is always more joy and pride when when when you did things yourself, you know. And so the way that I'm kind of explaining to a lot of people, they're like, Well, you know, it is their business, they gotta learn how to swim, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like, yeah, sure, but hear me out. Can , like you have the ability to do something. And should are two very different words or two very different meanings. Exactly. And then we throw in half, two. Now. Now you got three very, very, very different words, with very similar actions. And it's like, you can do these you can learn these everyone has access to do you can learn how to do these things. If you're a baker, should you learn how to build a website from scratch and HTML CSS? Probably not. Do you have to if you feel like you have to that's a problem. Because

Ryan Purvis 12:08:18
you're 100% Right. I mean, I was having this debate with myself this morning. I've got to do some financial stuff. I got a phone call from a bookkeeper. And I was chatting to them, and I was listening to them talk, talk talk. And I said, you know, by the time this guy finished talking, I could have actually just done the thing I needed to do. Exactly. So now this is the problem I see because you know enough information to be dangerous. So I know I can go do my books. I can go and do the thing I need to do. But what I don't value is by doing that. work because I usually do nothing. I mean, I should be doing something else, you know, I'll do my financials are doing the product owner supposed to be designing or the consulting document supposed to be writing or whatever it is. My Yes, I could do it. But I should have just paid somebody else to do it. Because whilst I'm capable, I shouldn't be doing it. Yes. And, and there's a level of trusting somebody else. And going back to your point, your point about certain type of person that you are and what you do, when I, when I want to bring somebody in that I work with, I want them to be similar, I want them to be the kind of person that's not going to say, this is the kind of thing and this is how you make the cookie. You do it this way every single time. And it gives you this result every single time, I want the person that knows how to make the cookie in the cookie cutter, but also go. But if you add this other ingredient, you get an exponential return from this thing, it's taste 10 times better. That's a person I want, because then I can I can trust that they're going to push the boundary to get the maximum benefit.

Michelle Bassett 12:09:48
But I had a similar conversation with second graders. And so second graders argue because they're second graders, and I was I was being mediator. And I said, Hey, are arguing little boys is two plus two four? Both second grade magnet excelling children, top 99th percentile and math. They both say yes. And I say, Okay, if two plus two is four, then what is three plus one? And they say four? And I say well, no, according to your logic, because they were having an argument. Two plus two is the only way. Because two plus two is four. And you say no, no, no, that's not what I meant. It's not what I meant. It's not what I meant. And it's like, you have to have that mindset when it comes to a lot of things, especially with language, because language is, is very sticky, especially at at a very early age, because a lot of things are just taking so literally as like two plus two is not four, two plus two is a way to get to four. So as long as you guys are getting two for it, I don't care how you get it, just get to four. Yeah, yeah. However you get to it, it's how you get to it And I think a lot of it's, it's just the basics of how to think not what to think. So as long as you know how to think we're cool. If I gotta tell you exactly what to think and what to do with data data that I can't, I can't do it, I can't do it.

Ryan Purvis 12:10:29
Well, and that goes back to the point around education systems around the world are broken. There is no there is no analytical system, there is no I mean, I see if we had these debates at home all the time. I don't care about my son going to school from a academics point of view, in the sense that he doesn't like I want him to be social. I wanted to know to read and write and do maths. He's definitely got the intellect to do those things. But what I do care about is, is he a critical thinker? Does he challenge things does he doesn't push, does he have an opinion? Yes, he's going to run into a lot of people that are not going to like that. But that's not a bad thing. And rather, he gets that gets you get used to that now, then, later on in life. And I'm seeing it with with somebody that sort of phoned me that he's done very well academically, but he's struggling in the business world, because, you know, in to do well, intellect in the academic world. It's very structured. As a test, you have to write an essay, you got plenty of time, you know, all that kind of stuff. But when you're in the business world, you got to know how to prioritise you notice things, you got to know how to interpret things, you know, to comprehend what's going on. And you got to bet note that what the deliverable is, and

Michelle Bassett 12:12:55
then in business as well. I've heard something similar as far as C students make make the best C suites because the more the more the more A's you got, just just basically said, I know how to regurgitate information and I will give you the answer that you want for for this particular task. Well, whether or not it's true or not, and so in America, it's always Christopher Columbus discovered America it is Columbus Day. I don't want to date the episode, but it's coming soon. And so even as adults, we have to tell our children that Christopher Columbus discovered America we all know that this is a lie. But if you want to get an A on that test, you have to create this cognitive dissonance and make it happen. Yeah, but I have diag digress myself, I was essentially saying, as far as being a business owner, you, you often have to come up with solutions that aren't cookie cutter. And especially as a consultant going into because I do small companies like, like literally like the company around the corner from my house, you know I just walked in there got better smoothing started talking, and now I'm consulting for that smoothie company, right. But I also have consulted with Best Buy and the people on a Burger King and Tim Hortons, and I've done the Home Depot, Delta, all the Atlana companies pretty much. And so. So that was like, the the solution for the smoothie lady around the corner from my house. It may be similar, but it's not going to be the same solution, cookie cutter, stamping, stamping Stampy solution that I have for IBM or, or Snapchat or snap, sorry to change your SNAP, you know?

Ryan Purvis 12:14:49
No, no. And I totally get that. I mean, it sounds like, again, we're very similar. So I'm one of those people that I will engage a different level of company and I will sit in the room. And I get frustrated because I will be saying this is the worst way you could actually do something. So guy reached out to me yesterday on LinkedIn. And he said, we have this thing we want to talk to you about. I was like, Oh, actually, that's very interesting. Here's my Calendly link booked in. And he replied to me, I was about user experience. That's what they do. So he said, Oh, no, we can't use your link, you have to use Aleksa. Here's the link. And you think I said, Well, that's that's really poor user experience. And, and he replied to me again, yeah, but this is how we work. I said, Yeah, but if if you are in a bad user experience, and the user, I've just given you my link to book the time, and now you've, you've irritated me, because now you've told me, you can use my link after use yours. And you're arguing with me about your ways, the only way to do it. So that's not about user experience.

Michelle Bassett 12:15:44
Two plus two is for you. Let's

Ryan Purvis 12:15:47
see, what exactly are you missing? This is not we're not going to proceed? Yeah, like, if you can't do this part, right. We're definitely gonna talk about serious stuff. And

Michelle Bassett 12:15:58
that takes a lot of maturity, like on your part as far as like the businessman that that that you are, because especially early on, right, it's like you, if someone if any company of any size just blinks at you, you're like, Yeah, I'm gonna do it. Right. But but it's like somebody hires you to, to on like, on like a ship to be a navigator. But then your your first two years, it's like, hey, here, here we go this bucket and bail out the water from from the bottom of the boat. And you're like, okay, cool. Oh, there's holes in here. Let me fix these holes. No, no, don't you fix those holes, those holes have always been in the found and put those holes here. Here goes your bucket, make it work. But I'm a navigator. No, here goes your bucket. bail out the water. Don't worry about the holes mind your business, you're causing trouble, we're gonna write you up. And so that that is essentially what working in a lot of different companies have been especially early on and until until you get the maturity or the brazenness to be like, No, I'm a navigator, I'm gonna go find another boat, that boat might have holes in it. I'm gonna try my best to influence those. But I'm a navigator. This is about to happen.

Ryan Purvis 12:17:15
And we I mean, I'm working with two into startups at the moment. And I was telling one of the founders yesterday. And we were saying when you when you build your, your startup business, you have in you have people in the first gear you have. But in order to get to the second year with a third year, you have to have different people that take you to those gears and the people that were good in the first year, I noticed gonna be good in the second or the third gear. And unfortunately, that means you're gonna have to have tough conversations with people that you can always notice. And this with with age comes experience. You can always tell someone that's got a lot of experience and has done a lot of things because of the way that they talk about themselves in a meeting music people with a lot experience and a lot of things don't talk about themselves.

Michelle Bassett 12:18:01
Yeah, I'm like, I don't think I'd ever talked aout myself.

Ryan Purvis 12:18:05
Especially that, especially not to give titles or whatever it is, because they very quickly turn it around about everybody else in the room to hear what everyone else has to say all the rest of it. And it may be at the end, they'll suddenly drop in something or suddenly say something like, oh, actually, you know, I run the whole product cycle. But yes. And I always love that reality TV show Undercover Boss. Because that That, to me is the best way to suss out the culture of a company. You basically go in, no one knows who you are. You get to know a few people. You see how they treat you. And sometimes getting into the gossip and stuff, but you want to see how people treat each other in the workplace. And then that's how you decide if you want to work with a company because They are respectful, nice people, they don't care about all the colour, creed, etc, that stuff, but they're treat each other well, then you know you're gonna have a good time working, if they don't treat each other well, or you can sense that little bit of friction, then you know that there's issues. And if you need to fix this issue, that's fine. But if not, then fix issues you they'll deliver something, you know that delivery is exponentially harder because it's already issues. That's the Yeah, I

Michelle Bassett 12:19:11
think I think that's where a lot of C suite fails as well. And it is really hard to do Undercover Boss situation kind of like have like a super small company where it's like you and like, pay them and like the contractors, but But it's like, I was at this data conference on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. And everyone had the same gripe about the level of expectation from their boss's boss's boss, or like productivity or whatever, because they don't understand the basic function of what they've been asking for. And so I think, even as business owners, if if you can just ask, when you are asking for something, you know, have have your vision, have your direction, have your whatever, but just say, hey, you know, that thing that I told everyone to do last week? What does that take on an individual basis? And then, and then ask the customers once the product is to the market, hey, wouldn't you have to do to implement this? The way that you're using it, because a lot of times, when like you create a product, people aren't using it the way you've made the products. So it tells like so how are you using this? Because I didn't build it that way. And then a net net next thing you notice a very bad example, but I can't think of anything else. So like the, like the mouthwash Listerine, but like, the blue one that was originally like to mop floors and stuff, like like like it like it was it was like a disinfectant. Yeah, yeah. So it was like a Lysol or whatever. Right?

Ryan Purvis 12:21:01
Well, I suppose I mean, I mean, Coke was a cough mixture. True. Very true. It still might work today. And it was cool. cocaine. Cocaine. So. Exactly.

Michelle Bassett 12:21:12
Exactly. So, so so it's like, How are people using this mopping solution that I created? Oh, they're using it for bad breath. Oh, I guess we're mouthwash company now. And so if if like they would have, you know, just kind of given up and you're like, Oh, well, no one's using our stuff to mop the floors. We must be a failure, then Listerine. When we hear today or Coke, you know, and they're cocaine, they would have been like, oh, well, I will actually people were just drinking it just to drink it. But I think that's a different, a different vein of thought, especially living in Atlanta. I've gotta get like, hate and stuff now. But

Ryan Purvis 12:21:52
what Well, I mean, yeah, I mean, a lot of these things. I mean, as you say, the accident leads to the, to the real innovation. I mean, I look at, you know, so many things, so many, so many businesses that I've worked with where they've pivoted, because they realised that what they were doing, and one of my favourite stories is one with with a friend of mine's company where they were, if you ever had a subscription to a TV service, like a cable service, and you tried to cancel, you'd speak to their company, they were the call centre for Goya Bucha company was and then you would speak to them and their and their value was the ability to convince you to stay on the service. Yeah. And we were just chatting. He was here to he'd become, he'd come in as the, as the marketing manager, CMO, and we playing golf, and he said, Oh ya so they've fired the CEO. And they've asked me to become the CEO. And I was like, Wow, that's pretty cool. And he's accepted the role. But now he said, You know, we've got all these issues that are there. So let me come in, go through, see what we can come up with, etc. So I went in, and I spent the time and I came back, I said, Well, look, your biggest value here is that you are actually an expert system. Like you know how you put all the pieces together, then everyone looks for when they want to go build a product to turn something into a product. So so your opportunity now is to bet because because they were a call centre business they had built instead of buying CRM systems, they built their own. And what happened is that CRM system had basically gone into clients as part of the service and then sold us they sold the software and the service to the customer of theirs to use it. But what that what the value is what they should have done instead of building the CRM service system and also what they should have done is packaged up their IP internet legs platform, which is what they ended up doing. And getting rid of the CRM thing. Now where they had the issue is that the basic people, people had bought the CRM system, and we expected it to be supported because it was the CRM system for subscription management, which didn't really exist the market. But there's so much legacy, somebody, whatever that said, the issues, whatever it was, but the thing I loved about that was that going in and doing that analysis with all the people was basically helping them join the dots between each other to realise that actually, the reason why they were so good at their job was not because one person was good at their job is because they all held in their heads. The expertise, when combined together gave you the full picture. Yep. And that became something that can be systematised. Not so they could lose their jobs, but that they could do their jobs exponentially better.

Michelle Bassett 12:24:34
Yes, yes. I feel the same way about like AI, because so many people are like, Oh, they're AI is gonna take over my job is gonna take over my job. Again, I just, I just left a conference. And it's like, AI is not taking your job, Steve, unless you're really, really bad at your job. In the next like, year, so like, calm down, it's okay. It's okay. But it's like using systems because before it was AI, everyone knows business automation is the system, whatever. It's like, if you can add as the individual person, figure out a way how to systematise your job. And don't put your company's information out on chat GPT, or anything else like that. But like, find a way to create systems within your day to day life, even if it's, you know, your your Calendly link, or whatever it is some sort of system sort of discipline around what you do, you will be exponentially productive, which I think is going to hurt us as a society in the next five years in general, but you will personally be superduper productive, and you'll, you'll have way less stress, because you don't have to think about it, it's just kind of already there and kind of already done. And then also like your story, you know, finding what your value proposition is, figure out how people are using the things that you've already given them, and then iron it out, package it up, sell it at a premium if you want to, you know, I'm not telling you what to do. I don't know you, but But you know, just just don't make hard things harder. By coming up with complicated solutions, just just just as simple as two second graders arguing 10 plus two is not four. T plus two is a way to get to four. So it's really that easy. It's really that easy.

Ryan Purvis 12:26:31
I think you're right. I mean, the the there are people that that I know of. And and I'm not, you know, obviously blaming anybody for what they are. But there are people I think that keep things hard, because it keeps them in jobs. Yeah. And and that's a sad, really sad state of affairs. But but that is sometimes what people's value proposition is in. And I saw this, that some of the banks that I worked at you guys that have been there for 20 years, 30 years, and they were doing the most mundane job, but because it kept them in their job. And because of the labour laws, and you know, some labour laws are really good, some are very good, because the labour was they couldn't get fired, because the cost of firing them was far more than just keeping them on. And that's, you know, it's, it's an unambitious way of doing things. But some people are like that, to me, I always try to put things in position, look through systems, and I don't have to be involved in everything. That's what I've tried to do, because then I know that if it's systematised correctly, then I'm out, then I can go do something else. Because I know that I get bored of this thing in, in three, four or five months. Right? Because I'm happy that I want to be dealing with more problems, not the problem I've already solved. Yeah,

Michelle Bassett 12:27:45
like, like, like, I want, I want new challenges. Nothing that's gonna stress me out and keep me up at two o'clock in the morning. But, you know, it's just like, I don't want to be. So people say, Oh, I have 15 years of experience. No, you have three years of experience five times. Like, that's not the same thing. Yeah.

Ryan Purvis 12:28:04
And, you know, when I was growing up in South Africa, and I was working for my own industry, my own thing, and then I was working for companies stuff, and I've been moving jobs over time. And that's, you know, you can move as well a lot, guys, I can't but you know, why keep moving? You know, there's no security maybe I think, no, no, there's no security and staying. Yeah, there's zero security because because, and there's no security job either. I mean, you know, American labour laws are very, very flexible in that respect. But, you know, you're no more you know, more at risk. Being a consultant as you are being a employee. It's the same level of risk. In fact, I think there's more risk being an employee sometimes because you your behaviours are driven to keep the job, not driven to be Out of the belly. And I think that's the world we're moving into, which is the fraction world and, and part time expertise, which is consulting, advising, whatever you want to call it. But I think that's where we're going. I think that's, that will always be core people employed the doers, but you need to come into his pocket. When we talked about your, your, your, your motto, your the three things for burning, what was it spark,

Michelle Bassett 12:29:12
Oh, spark flame Blaze. So Spark is just, you know, you have that spark of idea, right? It's like, oh, I got this idea. Michelle helped me right. And then flame is, you know, you kind of got things going, you got a couple of customers. Now, now you want to get, you know, business funding, or you want to, you know, understand your actual business analytics, God forbid, or, or, you know, you just want to be better, you might want to go from $1,000 a month to $10,000 a month or something like that, you know, or $10,000 $200,000, who knows, right? And then Blaze is alright, I've been doing this for a while I got all my all my foundation set up. Now, you know, everybody's talking about AI, I want to I want to I want to put some AI in my business now. But you know, is more so about business, automation, business, leveraging, taking things to the next level, maybe you put in new products, or maybe you go acquire another business, or maybe you go do whatever to kind of grow in Empire as far as that enterprise level type of business. And not just like a mom and pop shop anymore. You know, it's not like you and like, three guys just trying to stay afloat anymore. It's like, Alright, I'm real business. I got I got on a tie today. I'm a fancy fancy man, you know? Or lady or lady, you could be the answer. Yeah. So that's, that's more so of a, you know, elementary school, middle school, high school type of logic there.

Ryan Purvis 12:30:49
Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I think it's fantastic. We're running out of time. So do you want people to contact you directly? Or LinkedIn? What's your preference?

Michelle Bassett 12:30:57
Yeah. So um, right now, we're still in pre launch. Like all my friends kind of dog piled on me. And then I did a thing at the library. And so now, I have like, so many people that say, Oh, help me. And now I'm like, this isn't launched yet guys. Calm down. But so we're, we're still we're still in pre launch. But if you want to reach out to me on LinkedIn, it's a Michelle a Bassett. Pretty sure there's a link somewhere around here. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. But depending on when you listen to this, the company the product has it's part of a company. The product is called base core. BIZQ. Oh, are all other spellings and iterations were unavailable, domain wise. And it wasn't $50,000 Where URL for a product that I wasn't even sure about at the time. But here we are here. We are very sure.

Ryan Purvis 12:31:47
How are you? Oh, you checking your market fit? I mean, obviously, you've mentioned friends and family. But are you building a simple prototype to begin with? Or are you building? How are you approaching it? Maybe you finish all that.

Michelle Bassett 12:31:59
So it was in full transparency. It was a totally different notion and totally different idea when I actually wind up having the spark of what this was going to be. And I actually started for a friend, because she just had a baby. And she wanted to work from home. And I was, oh, it was a simple thing. Well, like, here's how you do it. She didn't want to do it. But so it started off as a white label platform. And then from a white label platform, it became well, it's missing like these 20 different components. And so then I had those 20 Different components added on and then added course material and things like that. And then I really built out the roadmap, and you know how to actually do the business to make two plus two four.

Ryan Purvis 12:32:47
Look, it's exactly how we started. I mean, we had a customer. I mean, I mean, this is a solution I've been trying to build for years. And I've tested the methodology a lot of times, and in the end because of low code, no code Technologies was able to build it. And I think you've got to start it, you gotta start with the pain and reproduce the solution to that pain a few times to come to what the call is, and then that becomes your product.

Michelle Bassett 12:33:11
That's really what happened.

Ryan Purvis 12:33:17
super cool. Great. It's been great chatting with you. I wish you all the best the product is keep in touch. You'll get a link to join our community more welcome to join it. thrive in there and yeah, I look forward to speaking in the future.

Michelle Bassett 12:33:29
Yeah, I look forward to speaking to you as well. I'll definitely right now but the shower thing.

Ryan Purvis 12:33:35
Cool. Thanks. All the best. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Heather is our producerand editor editor. Thank you, Heather, for your hard work on this episode. Please subscribe to the series and ratings on iTunes or the Google Play Store. Follow us on Twitter at the DWW podcast. The show notes and transcripts will be available on the website www.digitalworkspace.works. Please also visit our website www.digitalworkspace.works and subscribe to our newsletter. And lastly, if you found this episode useful, please share with your friends or colleagues

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