The Hard Reset That Built a Better Company ft. Nicolas Breedlove

On this week’s episode, Jana sits down with Nicolas Breedlove, CEO of NVB Playgrounds, who built a national business without a traditional blueprint, and then had to rebuild it after a major breakdown in trust.

Nicolas takes us into a pivotal moment early in his company’s growth, when a trusted employee exploited internal systems, stole leads, and created competing distributorships behind the scenes. What started as a scaling challenge quickly became a crisis of trust, culture, and leadership.

What followed wasn’t just damage control, it was a complete reset.

Nicolas was forced to make hard decisions: cut entire teams, rebuild relationships with distributors, and confront the reality that the failure wasn’t just operational, it was personal.

This episode breaks down:

•  Why lack of systems and oversight creates hidden risk during growth 
•  How trust, once broken, impacts every layer of a business 
•  The difference between building a big company vs. building the right one 
•  Why leadership requires evolving your identity, not just your strategy 

Nicolas also shares how he rebuilt the company from the inside out, from implementing better systems and surrounding himself with stronger operators, to redefining culture and committing to personal growth.

Because at the end of the day, scaling a business isn’t just about growth.

It’s about becoming the person capable of leading it.

Where to find Nicolas:

• linkedin.com/in/nicolas-breedlove

Where to find Jana:

• https://janaaxline.com/ 
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/janaaxline/
• Instagram: @unstoppableleaders
• TikTok: @jana_axline 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This employee, they were taking leads, they had set up some fake distributorships across the US, and then they were reselling our product before other employees knew exactly what he was doing and participated. And then all of a sudden his department was completely eliminated, practically minus two people. And they had recorded thousands of hours of meetings and phone calls and all sorts of things, knowing that they would get to court eventually.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Today I'm here with Nicholas Breedlove, who is the CEO of NVP Playgrounds. He stepped into an industry with no background and no blueprint, facing real challenges around trust setbacks and what it takes to rebuild and lead differently. Thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Thank you very much for having me, Jonna.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Yeah. Well, I'd like to dive right into it and have you take us to a moment where you made a decision that changed the trajectory you were on.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Absolutely. Uh uh moment it was probably around 12 years ago, and we had a little bit of a issue with uh an employee that was taking some privileged information and kind of uh reworking it for their own enrichment. So they were taking leads, they were taking um a lot of different pieces of the business, and then they were the way our company is set up, we have uh distributors in probably around just about every state. We've got around 200 plus that are active, and we supply those companies with a variety of different uh commercial playground equipment because that's what we do. We manufacture commercial playgrounds. So we empower about 200 plus entrepreneurs across America and we allow them to resell our product. And we have operations in Savannah, Georgia, Houston, Texas, Indianapolis, and we distribute our product all across the United States. And this employee, he we they were taking uh leads, they were taking um they had set up some fake distributorships across the US, and then they were reselling our product, which, you know, it's uh it's one of those gray areas. It's uh it's it's like uh you know, you you put all that trust in somebody to um set up distributorships to help uh empower all these small business owners, and he was he was taking those the a lot of those leads for himself. And at the time we were scaling big time, you know, we were going from twenty to forty million in revenue, and uh just a lot of things were missed back then. We just didn't have the we didn't have the foresight, we didn't have the systems in place to really execute along the way where we needed to. And it led to a a big pivotal moment for me as a leader in the company.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

And so what what were the constraints you were under at the time, then would you feel like I mean, you know, it sounded like this was a key person. So, you know, kind of what was happening in that environment for you.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Yeah. Um, when I think about that moment, uh, you know, and I've had replications of that moment uh throughout the years, you know. It the more the the bigger you grow, for some reason, it it doesn't get easier, even with systems in place at sometimes. I feel like uh lately, over the last probably five years, I feel like some people they just sneak on through still. But I think the constraints, the biggest things for me was like, you mean the constraints or what was at stake? I guess for me, constraints would be the systems that we had. Our systems were lacking the data and the checks and balances that we needed to be able to say, you know, this was happening. And I, as a manager and as a leader back then, I I wasn't a huge believer in giving things away. I I have too many hats and I wore them for too long. You know, as a founder, I was as this typical entrepreneur story, right? Like we don't like we don't we have too much control. We want all the control, but we don't want and then we we get it's no surprise when things go off track, right? And it's no surprise, actually, when things go off track. But it was of course a big surprise for me. It's like, what happened? How did I do this? And you know, I'd say that's the biggest constraint is the data. We had a big data problem.

SPEAKER_00 4:22

Yeah, and so it made it difficult to see what was going on. And so what what would you say the stakes were then?

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Uh the stakes you could start at it's very simple for me. We have all those distributors, and we put a lot of time into those relationships. I'd known some of them for going on 20 years, and we're 20 years, a 20-year-old company right now. So back then it would have been you know just as just as old 10-year-old distributor and relationships that he had we had built. And I had nurtured those relationships into what they were and what they are. Some of them are 20, 30 million dollar companies at this point, but back then, you know, they were five or ten million dollar companies. And that's a lot of revenue. The idea of, hey, you know, lying to all of them, you know, but you know, being a part of the lie, I should say, not myself, but you know, we had built this company where we would always give leads out. We were we're big on we're big on marketing and giving out leads and opportunities. And I love to be able to be different than all of my competitors, and that's one thing that none of them do. So we've always been doing that. And, you know, to have somebody betray that trust, it just it sucked, you know. And so when you when you when I think about like the trust value that we lost in that moment, I think about that. I think about, you know, because it's one of those things where in business, there's always somebody else to do business with, you know. And and in those moments, in that moment there, it was like, you know, I was feeling a lot of guilt on myself. How did I let this happen? And then how do we talk to people? Because it was one of those situations at the time where, you know, the lawyers are telling us, don't say anything to anybody. So on one hand, we had this problem happen where all of a sudden, you know, we're finding out, you know, distributors are asking, hey, why is your employee selling in our territory under this brand? And it's like, oh crap, you know, what do you mean? Uh Bob, our employee Bob is selling our playgrounds in a territory maintained by someone else. And it's like, how? Well, uh, you know, it's it leads to a lot of fun conversations. And it led to, it just leads to one of those relationship moments where it's like, yeah, we we made some mistakes and we had to own it really quickly.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yeah. So it sounds like you're saying there one, which is what a really important factor is that you had relationships on the line because when you break trust, I mean, even like you said, there are other people out there to do business with. But as we all know, like in our industries, news travels and we get reputation. So, you know, that that's obviously was significant. And then I assume there was revenue on the line as well, because any one of those could walk away because they'd be angry. And then I'm sure there was an element of morale, maybe even.

SPEAKER_01 7:16

Absolutely. I mean, you know, I at the end of the day, I put this person in charge of a big piece of the company, you know, like one of probably 10 or 12 different divisions at the time. Back then, there was way too many under myself. And, you know, everybody around him, you know, that that's that was that was a secondary issue. You know, it's like an onion in those situations. And the more you peel, the the stinkier it gets and the more you end up crying. And uh I think it was probably after about a week we realized that four other employees knew exactly what he was doing and participated, right? And then all of a sudden his department was completely eliminated practically, minus two people, because we couldn't have them there if if they were involved. And you know, they were out there writing Google reviews and helping him maintain relationships outside of the company. And it was one of those moments where it's like, you know, all of a sudden you make this giant cut and it's just all happens at once. And the rest of the company, they can know a little bit, but they can't know everything, right? But those rumor, the rumor mill starts pretty quick in those situations, especially in a smaller company, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah. And so what did you feel, or did you even maybe make it this far in your reflection, but what the personal risk was for you for personal risk? Hmm.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

There's a lot of risks.

SPEAKER_01 8:33

This, you know, I've been through a few of these at this point in my career, and they all go through when when people are, I don't know what they are, if they're bad or what what's going on, but when they're guilty and and they're truly guilty or they feel that guilt, they a lot of them tend to go through a very similar approach and they end up trying to make up, they try and deflect another situation that doesn't really even exist. Like in this particular case, he started saying rumors about me personally, right? And it's like, you know, that I've you know, of all the things, I've fathered children with all these people, right? Meanwhile, what he didn't know was that all my kids have to be in vitro because I can't have kids normal way, you know, you know, and he would make up rumor after rumor after rumor, and he was spreading them around to other employees, and it became like this weird battle of like trying to affect me personally in my personal relationship with my distributors, telling distributors, oh, I knew that he was doing this or I knew all these things. It's like if that's the case, then why are you not here? But and then, you know, and then with the the vendors, you know, trying to affect it, my vendor relationships that I've also nurtured throughout the years, uh, whether that's you know, factories overseas or factories here in the US or a variety of different relationships that he was a prize to. So I think of all those things, and I had a lot on the line, and I was a much more immature adult back then. So, you know, I had I didn't handle it too well. I was uh I probably drank too much and did a lot of things that I I it didn't exactly help me overcome things on a short-term level, you know. As as sometimes we approach things, not always with the best.

SPEAKER_00 10:22

I think there's other entrepreneurs out there who could relate.

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Yeah. So, you know, and it took me a while to even say, you know, gosh, uh A, you know, how'd how'd I let this happen? And then B, okay, I lived in the moment of this guilt and this whatever for a minute. Now I've gotta get over it and I've gotta get past it. I've gotta do what's right for my employees and what's right for me, my family, and everybody else. And I don't I it's one of those moments where you're like trying to rebuild and desperate to not go backwards, right? Like I didn't want to fall backwards. I was always after more revenue. I was never really after profit. And maybe that was, you know, it's not a it's not uh necessarily a common thing, but I was definitely after revenue at a certain point. I wanted to be the biggest guy out there in the online space. And it didn't take long to be the biggest guy in the playground equipment online space. So I probably could have slowed down on the uh revenue um uh gain, but you know, uh it was just it was it was difficult for me. I would say so.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

In this m moment, what what was the decision you were trying to make? I mean, I assume there's the obvious that you had to terminate your employee, but was it really a decision about how you were going to rebuild?

SPEAKER_01 11:38

I think the decision was a little bit about the rebuild. It was more about like what kind of company do I really want to have? And do I want do I want to work here? And, you know, am I willing to do what it takes? Because this is like that 20% across the finish line that's really tough for people. And do I really have it in me to do this all over again? And to and it felt like I had to go from the bottom up. It felt like I didn't trust anything anymore. This this employee had gone through a a lot of internal, obviously, a lot of internal dialogue in his in their heads, and they had recorded thousands of hours of of meetings and phone calls and all sorts of things, knowing that they would get to court eventually. And for a long time, I I would sit at a table, and if somebody put a phone on the table, I'd be like, oh God, you know, now what what are they trying to set me up for here? So there was a lot of other things associated with it more than just that. But I think the decision at the end of the day is like, like I said there, it's what kind of company do I want to work at and how do I get there?

SPEAKER_00 12:45

And so when you were reflecting on that, what did you see that your options were?

SPEAKER_01 12:49

I think that's probably the beginning of me being really freaking lost, right? Like I didn't have the right people around me, like friend-wise, my friend group as a CEO man, I I wasn't growing my friend group the way I I needed to, you know, I enjoyed the people I was around, but not necessarily was growing in a positive way.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Um uh, you know, so you know, I I think that uh it's it's a tricky it's for me. I don't know on that one.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Well, I mean so I think I think there's obviously you you touched on a little bit. You said, well, do I even want to continue this company? So I assume the alternative of that was what you go get a regular job.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

You know, I I I thought about that multiple times, and I thought about that uh so many times, but I can't do it. You know, I I I don't it's not in my soul. Like I can't quit. You're gonna have to rip it from me out of my, you know, my cold, bloodless hands. It's just not gonna happen. So it's just a matter of what what's left, you know, and and do I do I want to keep building? And I had to make a decision. Do I want to keep building a bigger company or do I want something I can control? And I I wanted something I wanted to keep building, which means which meant that I needed to change the way I looked at business. I changed the way I looked at leadership, changed the way I looked at being able to delegate, do all the things that I was uncomfortable doing, and creating the relationships in business to be able to learn those skills uh at a at a very quick rate. Otherwise, I was going to be falling behind again. So, you know, I needed uh I need to uh integrate uh business models like a modified version of EOS. I needed uh implement checks and balances throughout the entire network of employees. I needed to trust people again.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

And it sounds like you may have even ended up changing or thinking about changing basically who your advi your external advisors were, whether they be friends or or just the people who had influence or the sounding board that you were using.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

Yeah, I think the pivotal moment for me back then was realizing that I needed more people that were entrepreneurs and people that were much smarter than me. And I I hated being the person in the room. Uh the, you know, I I joined groups like MMT, which is Mastermind Talks. Um I've been on a lot of uh Wayfinder trips, which they're entrepreneur-led organization. They they go on, you know, uh spiritual and non-spiritual journeys across the world. And, you know, just being able to be around other entrepreneurs that are like-minded or, you know, a much much different scale than me. I met a guy last year, he he ran a baseball company card company for over a billion dollars. And, you know, there there's all sorts of people that have so much more value uh in in regards to learning from. And I just wasn't putting myself out there in a way where I could really understand how to learn. I I was I was kind of unapproachable. I was a very stubborn, stubborn guy back then. And I did I thought, you know, if if I didn't know it, why would I want to? Not a very smart way of going about things.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Did you, when you were evaluating this, because it sounds like you said, um, you know, while you entertained briefly the idea of just quitting and getting a job, you like most entrepreneurs probably felt like you were unemployable, um, not where your heart is, like you said. You know, you had the option of um rebuild like taking the company and maybe holding it steady and just just kind of being in a safe mode where you could control it all yourself. I don't know what revenue number that is, but you know, some revenue number where you could have your fingers basically in all areas and control it, or you could scale it and put in the systems both in the company and in your life that you needed to scale it. Was there one that you were drawn to initially from instinct or was there?

SPEAKER_01 17:08

My instinct is always to grow. My instinct is always to for more. And I I think that over the years, though, more means a a few different things to me nowadays. So, you know, uh I enjoy the build and I enjoy the clim of it all. And you know, I I've started a few different companies, and I I think there's there's there's positives to a lot of it. But nowadays, in the world we live in right now, you can build a company and scale it with very limited resources in regards to people, and it's easier than ever before, right? So I I think that, you know, back then, you know, you needed uh a team to call, you needed a team to do this and this, and all these different teams of people to run different departments. And as much as we have physical product and we have a very unique product and we have big, oversized freight and containers and all sorts of different things, aspects to how we do business. I enjoy being able to, with my newer my newer products, I enjoyed being able to do software, I enjoyed being able to do other aspects when necessarily thinking about uh scaling in the in the same sense anymore. I I think uh of it uh a little bit differently. I I and at the end of the day, I enjoy the build. I enjoy being able to take an idea and get it to the right group of people and assemble them to to sell whatever that is to the the populace and try and make something good out of it.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

So do you remember a specific moment then where you finally made the decision and decided you were like all in?

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Yeah, absolutely. I I mean uh I think it was me and Lacey, she's me now my wife. She, you know, and she even to this day still can tries to convince me once in a while, hey, you know, let's just uh let's just slow it down, let's uh let's take a step back, let's uh let's, you know, skip, let's just right size ourselves and and not put ourselves on the line. And and she has there's there's rights and wrongs to that. And and I think that I think that I don't know, there's just a certain part of me that always thinks that if if you're just going, if your goal is level, it's a negative. And if your goal is slightly positive, it it's a level. And if your goal is more than that, then you've got something. And that's just the way I look at it. It's really hard for me to break that mentality. I don't know that it's it's ever really gonna break. I think that I always want that next step because I always see there's opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

So you were in that moment and what she was saying at that time, let's just let's just right size it and you and you were saying, Nope, I'm I'm all in, I'm going big.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

All in. I'm gonna go in and and she was right there with me. She said, okay, let's do this. And she's still here. And you know, now we're married uh after, you know, some fun years. Uh, but uh, you know, I think that uh without her support, I'd I definitely, you know, even though she doesn't agree with it a lot, she supports it. And it's it but it's it's definitely a difficult choice to make. Uh but that that would have been the moment. And and then from there it's about how do we get there? What do we need? And you know, she helped me figure out, you know, these this is the kind of groups you need to be a part of. These are the types of people that we need to bring in. We need to improve our leadership. We need to cut down on the people we manage, we need to do all these things. You need to be smarter about your decisions and all these fun things. And you need to slow down your life and you need to stop drinking and change the way you are.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I was about to ask, yeah, what did you have to say no to to make this work then?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

I'd say, you know, like I think it's you know, I I look back at those moments at that time in my life, and I think, you know, I I was a completely different person. And a lot of a lot of, you know, you you read books and you you see a lot of people they say that you're pretty much set in your ways at a certain age in life, you know, men in in their 18 to 20s, and I definitely am not the same person I was back then. And it's just I don't know, it's just a conscious decision you have to make that you don't want to be this type of person, and I want to be I want to be good for all of my people, all of my employees, all of my distributors. I want to be honest. Um there's what is it? Mercenaries and the opposite of mercenary, I don't remember anymore. Uh good friend of mine always uses it as an analogy, but I'm more of a I'm more I like to give a lot of what I have to to the team, my time, whatever. I love to see people succeed. So you had to say no to a lot of your old behaviors and and basically say yes to new ones is that sounds like Yeah, I mean I had to I had to give up my life the way that I thought I wanted to live it, this party life, this life of all of this other crap going on in the world that I was creating for Myself and I had to say, you know, I have to refocus everything on business and on what we do and how I learn. Because, you know, I I was kind of, you know, it was a two-pronged thing that happened there. This this person that came in my life that screwed up my business in quotations, I allowed it to happen. I got a little lazy, right? And I had my eye off the ball. And as a result, I I left the door open. And when the door is open, anybody can walk in.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

That's a that's a huge lesson that I think a lot of people just in in life don't learn that basically everything is all is all our fault. And everything's our fault. Like it's a good thing and it's a bad thing, but it can all be boiled down to what we can control. And once we accept that, then we realize we're we have much more we have much more control about where we're headed and what our future looks like.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah, I have plenty of Catholic guilt as it is. So my internal guilt bar is way up there. So I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Are you a firstborn child too?

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yes. Yeah. And uh so I I'm guilty on old counts all the time. And I feel it 24 hours a day.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

So that's it's uh just where I live.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

I understand that. So when you think about it and you reflect on that moment and what made you decide to um, you know, go big, I guess, right? You know, let's let's go for it. We're gonna do this again, get back on the horse and and drive the growth. Do you know what your underlying principle or belief was at that time? Like what was it that made you feel that that was the right decision?

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Lacey, my my wife, she'll she'll probably say it's a little bit of ego. And she's probably a little bit right. You know, I I think there is a little bit in there always. I think without that little bit, you never have the strength or the capacity to pursue it in the first place, the will, without a little bit of that. It's just untamed that becomes a problem. For me, I think that it's I I enjoy just I love to to create it, man. I built a rebuilt an entire uh website uh probably three weeks ago myself, just myself, coded it out, everything. I took took about a week and a half to do it from the ground up, and I love that stuff. I love being able, but now the whole team uses it. It's it's creating real leads, real assets. It's integrated within an ERP and uh CRM, Acumatica, HubSpot. I love that kind of stuff. I and I think that man, I just get super super energized from being able to do that stuff and see the, you know, uh being able to see within one week, be able to see a lead and a new deal I created go straight into the pipeline, straight into sales, hundreds of thousands of dollars just um moving over there. It just it's just a lot of fun. It just gives me a lot of energy. I don't know. There's something about that. I I have uh I love selling too. You know, it's one of the things that so I love the marketing end of things, but I also love selling. And there's just this rush and the salespeople get it, and they they get so much excitement out of that. And for me, yeah, I get to see that on both sides. I get the marketing end of it, I get the sales end of it. Also, I get to see it from a whole different level with finance and accounting and operating. Yay. It's not quite the same feeling over there for me, but there it's it's a rush. And critical investment. Part of it, I think, is that rush. It's like I'm just going so fast sometimes that it's just a real rush to be able to operate.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

So I could be wrong, but it it sounds like though the principle may be that you understood your makeup, right? What what drives you, what keeps you motivated, what's required for you to succeed. And therefore, since you're the leader of the company, what's required, what do you need in order to enable other people to succeed? And so you held true to that, you know, your DNA basically, of what excites you, where your skill set is, and what people will pay for.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

I I would I would agree with that. Every time that I haven't held true to what my unique abilities are, I've always landed myself in trouble. Um if I if I try and be a CEO 24 hours a day, this company will be screwed. I am not the CEO 24 hours a day. That's just not who I am. I am the marketing guy, uh, I am a lot of things, um, but I am not always the perfect little nice knitted little CEO that they saw a lot of people think exists in the world. It just doesn't for me, right? Um and there's CEOs that are accounting-wise and opsa-wise. I'm just not that guy. And I've tried to sit in all those seats and I just can't do it. So, you know, finding some really, really talented people over the last couple of years has allowed me to kind of sit where I need to sit. You know, I've got a really talented guy in sales, he's been there for a while. I've got a super talented guy in ops. And both of those guys come from, you know, half, you know, they come from companies, billions of dollars in revenue, right? And I'm very fortunate to be able to have them with me and to be able to learn from them. And shoot, uh I uh I'm uh I'm very grateful to have those kind of people around me at this point in my career.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Well, I mean, I think that that shows a sign of maturity in entrepreneurialism is when you start to understand where your skill state skills lie and where you need to hire the right people. And then, I mean, obviously you have to keep hiring as you scale, keep hiring the right people until basically you're, you know, the strategist. But yeah, I mean that that that that's the journey of an entrepreneurial entrepreneur through the scale cycle. But I'm curious, if you go back to the to the you know, the decision and the decision that you made, if somebody were there at that time frame and maybe it's Lacey, what would they have said your blind spot was? Or did Lacey even specifically, you know, call out a blind spot?

SPEAKER_01 28:13

My blind spot is is definitely my heart. You know, I've got a lot of heart in it, and sometimes it means sometimes I allow myself to ignore some of the obvious things in the room. And, you know, sometimes I don't. Sometimes I just burn everything down around me. But a lot of times I I've got a heart for some stuff that I shouldn't. And that means I allow things to happen that shouldn't. And well, that's where sometimes she has to come in and play cleanup. Um is when I I don't I'm not that that consistent as I need to be. And she is a very consistent person. She believes in consistency and she's the uh we're the yin and yang, uh opposites in regards to a lot of different things with that.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

No, it's it's very useful to have somebody who can who counterbalances you. I I have that in my own life. Um so then like let's like look at what what happened. Now, fast forward it sounds like 10 years, and when you reflect back, what was the outcome of that decision?

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Outcome of that decision was I I would say I understand, like back then I thought core values were garbage, right? I thought, you know, they're written at Burger King's walls, they couldn't mean anything. They were written on the building we bought. So we at the time we bought a uh Sam's Club and inside of uh because they were going on a selling spree back in the around COVID, so they sold a bunch of them. And we bought one up at a a deal, and there's you know, core values written on the wall, and you're like, God, this is garbage. And you know, a few months later I'm dealing with this problem, and then, you know, one of the biggest things is like, you know, all these entrepreneur guys are, you know, that I'm trying to get into groups or like talking about their core values and all this crap, and I'm like, what does this even mean? And I don't I think that there's a lot of misconceptions around it, but for me it was like a realization all these years later, like, wow, you know, like it's more than just like some value. It's more about like, this is what this place is about. Right? These are the types of people that we have. If you don't like it, that's not a big deal. You just can't be a part of us. Exactly. It's no problem whatsoever, but this is what we need you to be to succeed here. And there is no rhymes about it. Like, it's no big deal, but get out or come in. Give you a hug or a hug you goodbye. But uh there ain't no in between. And I think that was probably one of my biggest things I walked away with and and I walk away with even today is like the um fluidity and even today, the fluidity in which we still have to live in those values, like as a company, you know, whether it's COVID or whether it's some new problem like uh tariffs last year, right? Had to change the type of company we needed to be at the time. And there'll be another thing in a few years. There's right now there's the war in Iran, right? And anybody that's shipping anything freight is gonna be dealing with surcharges pretty soon because you're looking to be looking at six dollars for diesel fuel, which means if you're buying anything, it's gonna cost more money. You know, there's there's it's always a new thing.

SPEAKER_00 31:20

So obviously, you learn you learn the value of of core values, which I agree totally goes into the it's the DNA of who a company is and whether you should if people are the right fit or not. It's a it's a lipness test. And then you're talking about, you know, flexibility. So as a company you have to be flexible. Where has the company gone? Like, I mean, like has it grown? Sounds like you've recovered, you know, from from, you know, maybe some of those broken relationships. Like, what does the picture look like now versus at that point when you were making the decision?

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Sure. The company has grown. We breached, I think we breached 60 million a few years ago, maybe two or three years ago, which isn't incredible in my like own perception of things. Um, but that's just because I'm hard on myself on that. But uh uh, you know, I used to think it was number of employees or it was this or that. And the more I get through it and the, you know, the more I develop as an entrepreneur, it's more about like I would much rather pay those 75 employees a lot of money than have 200 employees I don't get to pay as much money to. So, you know, it's no offense to the employing it more people. It's more about I would love to really uh offer a great life to some people. And, you know, for me, that means more developed skill sets, um, a lot less irresponsible parties, which means that uh it goes along with what everybody's afraid of in life right now, which is automations and all those terrible words that go around that. It doesn't mean that the end of jobs, it just means that their jobs are a lot if anything, they're more safe than ever because they're more skilled and they are really dedicated to some sort of function rather than picking something up and putting it down, only being able to answer the phones. No, you don't answer the phones. You answer the phones and you go through these things and you follow up on these things and you go through this CRM and this CRP and this and that and that it's an end list to it. So as far as where we're at there, um, and then we've grown, we've grown a little bit. Uh but as a company, we also changed in the last couple of years, we've changed again. And we used to be 70% quick ship. So we were inventorying a ton of merchandise. And more over the past two years, we started doing more custom work, which means that it's not our standard turnaround of a two-week turnaround, it's more about eight to twelve-week turnaround, which changes our cash flow, changes a lot of different things about how we operate. So it just presents more change. So, I mean, we're always going to be changing, and then over the last six months, we introduced a SaaS product. So, you know, and that's pretty unusual for this industry. And we like to kind of do things a little unusual, and that this industry doesn't really take care of their product in an aftermarket. You know, you you sell a hundred thousand, a million dollar playground, and they're just like, well, you know, there it is. Have fun. Yeah, have fun. And they don't tell the operator, hey, you know what? It's gonna cost you just as much as it is right now, today, over the next 20 years to maintain it. They don't tell you that it's going to, you know, you're gonna have an injury on this playground and you're gonna get sued. They don't tell you that you need to make, you know, you need to do these things. So I wanted to read that second mountain book probably a few years ago, which is, you know, about you know, just trying to figure out where your next step is in life and where where are are you as a human being? And I've I've I wanted to build another business. And I thought, you know, what's gonna be meaningful and impactful in the playground world? And there's about 400,000 hospital visits for kids here in the U.S. And I thought, how can I be a part of that? I had a a brand that I hadn't invested any time or money in, and that was Playgrounds.com. So we have a lot of domain assets. Playground Equipment.com is our equipment brand, but playgrounds.com ended up being a um a SaaS brand. And so we sell um essentially it's aftermarket software, and we we provide QR tags for playgrounds, and you know, it allows parents and teachers or whatever to report issues and it sends the feedback back to the owner operators and they can fix things before hopefully a kid gets injured, right? And you know, hopefully we can have a meaningful impact. And that's you know, my next, you know, thing is, you know, boy, that would be an interesting Bhag would be to meaningfully impact injuries across the US with a single application. That that would be impactful. So we'll see.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

You always gotta keep uh keep climbing. So when you when you think like let's pretend somebody else now was in similar shoes as you, like they're at a point where maybe a bottom point for their company, maybe it's due to fraud, maybe it's something else, right? But what would you what would you suggest somebody facing a similar decision, how would they foc how should they focus on the problem or the decision that they're making?

SPEAKER_01 36:16

How should they focus on the problem or decision that they're making? I think taking a minute to think about it and really, really plan that out with and looking at a few different scenarios. For myself, I kind of lost my own faith back then, and I was probably too much invested in myself and didn't, you know, didn't think about others as much as I needed to. And not that you need to in that situation, it's a very selfish moment, if anything. You need to decide whether or not you're going to keep pursuing this dream of yours or not. If anything, that's a it's a selfishly led led led task. One could argue. But I think that's you know, it it's it really shakes you up as a human being at this moment. The only thing that's it's it's so it's so freaking difficult. If you can accept that it's gonna be difficult and you can accept that it's gonna be difficult again in your life, then you're gonna be fine. If if this is if this is what it takes, then you're not it it's not cut off for everybody. And the scaling that you know some of us do in life, you know, when you get to over 50 million or you get to over 20, that your your percentage is a human being uh and percentage of the rest of the population of entrepreneurs just keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller. There are less and less people that you can talk to about your problems. There are less less things, there are less there's less resources. So you really have you you have to make that decision for yourself. Do you really want this? And why? Why do you want it? Is it your ego? And if it isn't, just admit whatever it is. Because for me, I can admit it's partially my ego. Absolutely. I have no problem admitting that, but I also love the rest of it too. I love being able to provide people a place to live. I love being able to see them get their house and their car and their everything else that they get to do in life. I love being a part of all of that. So but that is also ego driven.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

So so reflecting on um on our conversation, what what would be the one thing you want people to carry forward from it?

SPEAKER_01 38:20

One thing uh carry forward. Know your culture and probably know what kind of culture you want to bring the company and the rest of the world to see. Because and then be willing and committed to own it at any cost. Whether you have to fire your best friend or fire everybody in the company and start over. Be be willing to and be willing to look in the mirror and admit whether or not you are the person you need to be.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

Hmm. Yeah, that's a that's a really good question. Because what, as they always say, what got you here won't get you there. You always have to be looking at what what in you has to change.

unknown 38:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:58

So, Nicholas, this has been great conversation. Um, if someone wants to follow your work or learn more about what you do, where do they go for that?

SPEAKER_01 39:06

Um, I'm active on LinkedIn and uh uh I I probably put out more content than I'd like to some days. I think we put out uh about 200 videos every month through various assets. But but we have three brands and we've got a lot of different uh we've got a lot of different brands. But uh and and they made me the face of four of them, so yay. Uh uh but uh LinkedIn is always a good place because Shelly always bumps those straight to me if anybody has anything they want to ask me.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

But um, and you have a book where can they find it's yeah, the book is on Amazon.

SPEAKER_01 39:43

It's a biography of play. Uh uh I enjoy writing. It's probably my uh one of my few passions that I don't get to do enough of. Uh but I do that's kind of how I started was writing my marketing material back when writing was a thing, when people could actually do it without uh hitting that GPT and the claw button.

SPEAKER_00 40:04

Yeah, very important. I'm very proud of the book I wrote now that AI is out here.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

No, I really wrote that. Yeah, it's really uh now I've seen a few AI books, and I'm just like, man, I don't know. I don't I don't know what you've written here, but I don't think you do either.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

It's awesome. Well, Nicholas, thanks so much for joining the show today.

SPEAKER_01 40:24

Thank you. I appreciate it very much.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

Yeah, and to our audience, uh, until next time, make the decision, act on it, be accountable, and we'll see you next time. Stay unstoppable.