DVG – S1 – Episode 14 – Jesse Biter

Speaker 1:
Coming up today on David Vs Goliath.

Jesse Biter:
My chiropractor hates me to this day. My spine looks like this, carrying that bag around.

Adam DeGraide:
I don’t know if you guys are fired up, but I’m fired up. I learned a ton today.

Jesse Biter:
You know, I have this blind faith and, you know, coupled out with the pure stupidity, just don’t care and just jump in and do it.

Speaker 4:
Welcome to today’s episode of David Vs Goliath, a podcast dedicated to helping small businesses leverage technology to not only help them compete against their large competitors, but win. Your host is currently the CEO of Anthem business software, a three-time Inc. 500 recipient and a serial entrepreneur with a passion to help small businesses everywhere find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. Please join me in welcoming your host, Adam DeGraide.

Adam DeGraide:
Hey, everyone. It’s Adam DeGraide with another awesome edition, an episode of the David Vs Goliath podcast, one of the best business growth podcasts in the world. And I say so myself, which makes it funny, but true in my mind, at least, hopefully in yours as well too. Today, we have an incredible guest, Jesse Biter, the CEO of PropLogix. This guy is a legend entrepreneur. He’s been a dear friend of mine for years. You are going to learn a ton. It’s going to be a great episode for all of us, including myself. Today’s episode is brought to you by Anthem software, where you can find, serve, and keep more customers profitably, where they’re all in one software marketing consulting platform. Visit anthemsoftware.com to take the 120 second video tour. Also, you can visit us online at davidvsgoliathpodcast.com. There, you can subscribe to receive emails and updates on the podcast as well as apply to be on the podcast if your business has a very interesting story. We want to hear from you. Make sure you apply there. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Adam DeGraide:
Great news. Not only can you watch the podcast on YouTube, you can now watch the podcast on Spotify. They have ingested the video version. Thank you, Spotify. And Rumble. So YouTube, Spotify, Rumble, you can watch it. And then any one of your favorite podcast listening applications, you can listen to it, but there’s a lot of visuals, and the visuals are pretty cool on David Vs Goliath. We are so glad you took the time to watch this episode. Let’s get right to it with Jesse Biter, for the CEO of PropLogix, Jesse, welcome to David Vs Goliath.

Jesse Biter:
Thanks for having me here. I appreciate it, Adam.

Adam DeGraide:
Man, you’re looking great. Look at the hair, the glasses, everything looks amazing on you. Thank you so much for joining me.

Jesse Biter:
I’m growing up.

Adam DeGraide:
For the watchers and listeners, Jesse and I have known each other for years, man, since we were young pups in business. We both had our first successful exits together, not together, but you know, at the same time you had a business and you worked with my business, and that’s how we met. And I think your lineage, you’re like a legend, a myth in the entrepreneurial world. There’s not a lot of you in the world that whatever you touch turns to gold. They say it’s the Midas touch. You definitely have that, and I’ve always admired not only your tenacity in business, your work ethic, but you’ve had a very interesting path to lead you to where you are today. And I know we don’t spend a lot of time on this, but I think it would be good if you could take three or four minutes to just tell people the generation of how Jesse started in business and ended up here on the David Vs Goliath podcast. I think people would love to hear it.

Jesse Biter:
Oh yeah, absolutely. I was thinking about it. I think it’s been 21 years we’ve known each other. I remember getting that first call that you had your website business and you needed some help with inventory. But my entrepreneurship gene I think was born in me. My parents were awesome, big supporters, kind of let me do whatever I thought I wanted to do. They gave me everything I needed and nothing I wanted. So if I wanted to go get something, I had to go earn it and get it myself. And so my first business was setting the VCR clocks for the neighbors when the power would go out.

Jesse Biter:
Those of you watching are old enough to remember, back then, the power would go out and the clocks would start flashing 12. And all the programs that were set to record would get erased, and I’d go around and charge my dollar and reprogram everything for them, and went into mowing lawns and plowing driveways. Anything for a dollar, really, just happy to go out and work and make money. And then after that, got into car detailing and car washing, and car alarms and stereos, and installing all those things myself and turned that into a business doing software. I just fell in love with technology and IT, and right in ’95, the internet was starting to become popular. And I remember there was a big debate whether it was here to stay or not, and I just fell in love with it.

Adam DeGraide:
I can’t believe it.

Jesse Biter:
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
I can’t believe that was actually a debate, but it was. There was a debate whether it was going to be here or not.

Jesse Biter:
Absolutely. I mean, you know. We’re selling to car dealers back then, they thought it was a fad.

Adam DeGraide:
Oh yeah. Yeah. [crosstalk 00:05:16] try to do all these charts. We were doing all these charts and graphs to show them it’s not a fad, right?

Jesse Biter:
Exactly, exactly. So, I started wiring dealerships with networks and letting multiple computers print to one printer, and one of the car dealers came to me and said, “I bought this kiosk and it works great, except there’s no inventory in it. I can’t get the inventory out of my system. I’ll pay you 20 grand if you can figure it out.” And I didn’t know how to program, but I bought a book and learned, and spent the next three days, any waking hour at my computer and sleeping hours at my computer, passed out on the keyboard, but I figured it out. And three days later, installed my solution and he paid me 20 grand. For a 19 year old, that was a lot of money. And I kind of took that and he actually gave me some great advice. He’s like, “There’s all these other people I know that have this problem and need your solution, but don’t go charge them 20 grand. Charge them five, and then charge them 250 a month to maintain it.” And I was like, “That’s great advice.” And I went and did that, and led me to you.

Adam DeGraide:
You know, it’s funny because I remember back in those days, we had the same struggle, right? We, at that time, had not built software at the company BZ Results. We were getting ready to build some software, but we hadn’t built it. And so what we did, Jesse, was because we couldn’t pull inventory, I came up with this concocted idea that I’ll create a thing called virtual inventory. And so it always looks like everything’s in stock at the dealerships and the blend of the two-

Jesse Biter:
I remember that.

Adam DeGraide:
… of the virtual new and the actual used ended up becoming a major magic spot for car dealers all over the country. And we were a big part of that. And thank God I met Jesse Biter, and I bet you’d probably say the same thing. Thank God.

Jesse Biter:
Absolutely.

Adam DeGraide:
Thank God you met Adam DeGraide. And that’s why I love having you on the show because you know, selling a business, building it and growing it, if you think about it, you had all these different things you did as a kid, right? People don’t realize this. I used to deliver newspapers, the morning newspaper-

Jesse Biter:
Me too.

Adam DeGraide:
… on my bike, morning newspaper and the afternoon newspaper, because I figured if I could get an extra $1.25 a week by doing the afternoon, I could get this much more candy or this much more toys. Candy wasn’t a great idea in hindsight. My teeth are a mess now as I’m [crosstalk 00:07:32] at the time were very shortsighted, right? And that candy looked awfully good. You know? So that [crosstalk 00:07:37]-

Jesse Biter:
Delivering papers weren’t, either. My chiropractor hates me to this day. My spine looks like this, carrying that bag around the neighborhood. So, it’s brutal.

Adam DeGraide:
You know what? It’s funny. I break my … My back, if I stand up and I bend over, it’ll go pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. And I bet you any money it stems from the time that I was riding my BMX bike around town with that paper bag on my back-

Jesse Biter:
[crosstalk 00:07:57].

Adam DeGraide:
… and it all started at that young age. Now, you had a very successful exit with HomeNet, Inc. was what it was called at the time. We don’t need to get into numbers. People can look it up. It’s public information, but it was very, very successful. You’ve done other things since. Tell them a little bit about that.

Jesse Biter:
No, so I got out of that business in 2010 and it was funny. They wanted to have me sign an employment agreement and I was like, “You don’t need me.” You know, they called me the CEO, the chief entertainment officer. My job was to take our biggest clients out for dinners and fun events. But other than that, they were buying the technology and the customers and everything else, and that was pretty much turnkey. My whole thing with any business is to not be the person, not be the one that people have to come to for answers, and just kind of oversee the team and make sure that the vision’s set and that we’re all in the right direction. So when I sold the company, it was basically just handing them the keys and walking out the door, and it was designed that way and it was great. But I got to … right after that, thought I would just be done working. And about three months after that, I was like, “Well, this is no fun.”

Jesse Biter:
So I started a company called Dealers United with a good friend of mine, which is still doing great to this day. It’s about 11 years old and about 60 people at that company. And then at the time, I was buying a lot of real estate, and my two best friends in the world are real estate attorneys. And we were actually hiking Kilimanjaro and they told me about this little side gig that they had, this little side hustle called professional lien search. And it was to help title agents do lien research on homes as they were transacting. Said, “Why don’t you come in and take a look at it? Maybe you can help us grow it, and it was designed to be our gambling money.” So basically they were making few bucks a month-

Adam DeGraide:
I remember when you called me and you picked my brain on this thing a little bit as well too, in the beginning. You were contemplating it, and you said, “I found this amazing opportunity.” And I thought it was just so interesting because you know, obviously I know nothing about that industry. But you found that space, so keep going. Gambling money.

Jesse Biter:
It was a side hustle and it was something to me to come in and consult for a little bit. Now, if you grow the company by a third, we’ll give you a third and we’ll just let it ride. And a few months into it, I realized how really broken the home process is. Those of you who’ve bought a home, you go in and you realize you’re texting this person and emailing that person and trying to figure out who to use for this, that, or the other thing. It’s all just very convoluted. So, came up with a bigger vision to kind of tie all the pieces together. And that was six, seven years ago. So now here we are about 420 employees, tons of software built, and a lot more in the works. And we’re marching forward to creating that one stop shop for home transactions.

Adam DeGraide:
[crosstalk 00:10:42].

Jesse Biter:
It’s been a lot of fun so far and you know, it’s going to continue to be. We have a great team here. We call it bleeding green. A lot of people are just in love with this company. And one thing I did differently, when I sold HomeNet, I took 10% of the company and divvied it up amongst those that were there the longest and contributed the most to its success. And I thought after the fact, I was like, “Wow, if I had done this earlier, how much more motivated and part of the …” And they were part of the team, but how much better it would’ve been. And so when I got involved in this business, that’s the first thing we did. So just about everyone in the company, if you’ve been here a year longer, you’re an owner in the company. And when we ultimately get to whether it’s the New York Stock Exchange or a big exit, everybody in the company that’s been here at least a year will get to participate in that.

Adam DeGraide:
There is no doubt in my mind that that will happen for you, because when you put the energy and effort in it behind you have … I mean, for the watchers and listeners, you got to think about this, guys. You start as a paper boy, you end up building and selling, having major exits in your business. He thinks he’s never going to work again. Can’t stand himself when he’s not working. I’m the exact same way, by the way, as you know. Sold my last business last November, and I think it was November 20th. And I think on November 21st, I incorporated my next one, because I learned my lesson, Jesse, that I must continue on. I can’t stop. I must continue on.

Adam DeGraide:
Now, you mentioned your people. All right? But before we do that, when you came into PropLogix, there’s five stones we talk about on David Vs Goliath; plans and goals, people, tools and technology, the process that people use the tools and technology, and then the courage it takes to actually make that plan come to fruition. So when it went from at PropLogix being more than just gambling money to something that you realized you’re sitting onto a gold mine here, how much planning and goal setting do you and the management team do together right now? And explain to the listeners and watchers exactly what you do as far … You don’t have to tell them the specifics, but exactly what you do to prepare for this year and next year, the five years. You get what I’m going with this.

Jesse Biter:
Totally. So back then it was … When I stepped into the company, there were seven employees. I was the management team. We had some folks that were there running it, but it was really just a shop to do the work that needed to get done. It wasn’t really a business. And you know, it was like, how do we turn the side hustle into a real business? And the first thing was building the teams. In fact, when I started my business, my first one, HomeNet, I was just a kid with no education, two parents that just worked for someone else. So I had no experience. I learned a lot from you and Sean and the whole team, but really what changed my life was the book E Myth, Michael Gerber. And I learned in there about building systems, and learning, okay, you can’t just wake up every day and hope that’s the day things work out. You got to build these systems.

Jesse Biter:
So the first thing I did when I got in there is like, all right, we need some systems in place. We need to improve the way we do things. We need to standardize the way we do things. We need to document the way we do things. And the first thing I did is got on a … We used Google G Suite, huge fan of it. Logged in and created a Wiki that everybody would have access to and just said, “Here’s how we do sales. Here’s how we do marketing. Here’s how we do accounting. Here’s how-“

Adam DeGraide:
So smart.

Jesse Biter:
We just kind of laid it all out. And to this day, that’s evolved into our handbook. And so, you know, that’s our … You talk about playbook. That’s our playbook. It’s not set in stone. It’s ever evolving, but we play by the playbook.

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah. And that speaks to the process, right? So you try to McDonaldize … I call it McDonaldization. Sean taught me that years ago. McDonald’s has a process for everything, and we need to have a process for everything, whether it’s doing this or that or this and that. I mean, we would go so micro and into the details, it makes all the difference. But planning and goals, when you go from seven people to almost 400 employees now, Jesse, that’s not an accident. So when you came in and you saw the opportunity, did you just fly by the seat of your pants? Or did you say, “Now we’re going to try to do this in year one, this in year two. Here’s our milestones we’re going to try to do as far as software development, implementation, automation.” I mean, listeners [crosstalk 00:15:01] watch the show, they love education information, and most importantly, inspiration and activation. And I want to give them some practical things that guys like you and I do when we start a business. For example, when I started Anthem recently, we sat down and I mapped out the entire life of this company from day one, every single month, all the way until when we exit someday in the future. I call it beginning with the end in mind. Did you do the same thing for PropLogix, and what do you do?

Jesse Biter:
So, the answer is yes. Now, it took a year because the vision kept expanding. As I learned more about the industry, the vision kept expanding. I didn’t know anything about the real estate business. I was the guy when I bought property … When I sold my first company, I bought a few different buildings. I started building some things and really got invested into real estate. But I was the guy that showed up at the closing table and just signed where the stickies were. You know, I wasn’t reading the fine print. I trusted my friends who are attorneys and you know, just show me where to sign. So when I actually got in-

Adam DeGraide:
[crosstalk 00:16:01] get me in and out.

Jesse Biter:
Exactly. When I got into the business, I kept learning more, kept seeing the pain points and the vision kept expanding. But for me as a kid, I always solved mazes starting at the finish line and drawing the line back to the start. And I believe wholeheartedly, you got to understand where you’re going so that you can build the roadmap to get there. And so that’s what we do. If you walk around our office, you’ll see 2.3B everywhere. That’s our goal, to hit a 2.3 billion valuation. To get there, we have to have a certain number of customers doing a certain number of things, and we build the software to do those things, but we kind of back into it. So it’s like, how do we get there? Well, we need these pieces.

Jesse Biter:
So we just kind of work our way back to where we’re at. And we figure out by doing that, what we need to do to continue to move forward. And that’s what we’ve done. That’s what we’re executing on. And it’s never perfect, right? It’s three steps forward, two steps back sometimes. And you know, you just keep marching forward. And that’s what we’ve been doing for the last seven years, and it’s been very successful. We’ve grown profitably. You know, it’s all been just one customer at a time, $1 at a time from that customer. And we just reinvest all the profits back into growing the business.

Adam DeGraide:
And what’s so important about what Jesse just said is, and like what I said before, even Jesse’s answer, is you have to, as a business owner and as an entrepreneur … And Jesse, we’re going to go to break in a second. As an entrepreneur and a business owner, you have to begin with the end in mind. What is your end? At some point, you have to have that, because it’ll determine what is now in what you’re planning to do. Well, Jesse, we’re going to come back in a second. We’re going to take a quick break from our corporate sponsor, Anthem software. You’re on David Vs Goliath. I’m Adam DeGraide. This is Jesse Biter, and we’ll be right back.

Speaker 5:
Anthem business software system is designed to specifically help small businesses just like yours find, serve, and keep more customers profitably. We do this by providing you with the most powerful software automations and marketing services to help your business compete and win in this ever-changing digital world. Take a short video tour at anthemsoftware.com.

Speaker 6:
(singing)

Adam DeGraide:
We’re back with Jesse Biter. Jesse, first of all, awesome that you guys do plans and goals, and that was the shortest break ever as far as you’re concerned, wasn’t it?

Jesse Biter:
Oh yeah. I love it.

Adam DeGraide:
What’s really important to understand, a little birdie told me that you have a little bit of OCD in you. I do as well, too. Your OCD is that you can’t have a full inbox. So, [crosstalk 00:18:53]-

Jesse Biter:
Oh yeah, I hate email.

Adam DeGraide:
Hold on a second. This is important, because if you go into my inbox right now, Jesse, I swear to goodness gracious, I probably have 39,698 unread emails, by the way, which I just checked before the show between all my different email clients, and I got a little calculator out and added it up. That would drive you insane. But a guy as busy as you, and as focused as you, how do you have the time to do it?

Jesse Biter:
I’ll tell you, I just live by it. And you know, I’m a slave to it, but I love it too. You know, I go on vacation and I’m working and people are like, “Why can’t you just put that away and relax?” I’m like, I’m relaxed when I have no emails in my inbox. I’m not relaxed when there’s things in there. I use a tool called Boomerang. Boomerang’s amazing. So if there’s something in my inbox that comes in that I’m not going to do right now, let’s say it’s something that can wait a month and I’m reviewing my … One I keep pushing off, I pushed off a year is my will. You know, it’s just sitting there and it keeps haunting me, but I’ll kick it, you know? Okay, I’ll be back in the office three weeks from now.

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah, you got to get that done, man. You got to get that done.

Jesse Biter:
Oh, I know. I know. But I’ll Boomerang it, right? So it’s out of my inbox and it’ll pop back in there when I know I’ll have time or I’ll think I’ll have time to work on it. But you know, right when I clicked the link to go into here, I archived the email. My inbox is zero again. So I’m constantly checking emails, deleting stuff.

Adam DeGraide:
Mine is filling up right now. Mine is just filling up right now. I can actually see the anxiety on your face growing as you’re imagining my inbox. But yeah, it’s weird. Like, you have Boomerang. I’ve got my own filter to like, oh, I think this is important. But you are right, though. There are important emails that I do miss from time to time. So let’s actually-

Jesse Biter:
Totally.

Adam DeGraide:
We’re going to come back to people in a second, but let’s stick with tools a little bit, because you know, software guys like you and I and people that have built software and love software, you and I are geeks in a lot of ways, right? I mean, I’m a gamer. I don’t know if you know that or not. I play game. I’m a gamer.

Jesse Biter:
Oh yeah. I remember your office, you guys used to shut down all the lights. Like it would be 11:59 and boom, the lights went out and everyone’s computer just went to Doom or whatever you were playing.

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah, so lunchtime at BZ Results was Call of Duty. We had dedicated servers to run that game in our office with our hundred plus employees all doing tournaments at lunchtime. So I’ve been a big gamer and I love technology, but the small businesses like Boomerang, great tip. What other tips and other tools do you have that you can’t live without?

Jesse Biter:
When I sold HomeNet, we were a Microsoft shop, and that was just a nightmare. I had to have a full-time administrator and servers and all that sort of stuff. And this was really before AWS. So we were hosting everything ourselves. When I started this company, and actually when a month later started or three months later started Dealers United, the first thing I did was switch to Google Suite. So Google Suite, I can administer myself. It’s super easy. Just log in, you set it up, and you’re off to the races. So that’s one tool that I love. The great part about it is we do a lot of collaboration, especially in this remote world we live in. So we keep all our documents on the Google Drive and if somebody’s working on the spreadsheet, then anyone else that’s privy to it can jump right in and take a look at what’s going on.

Jesse Biter:
And you know, I can take my laptop or my phone or any of my computers and burn them, walk into the store, get another computer, and I’m right where I left off. And you remember back in the day, when you upgraded computers, was a nightmare. Now you just pull up a Chrome browser, log in and you’re right where you left off. So I can’t live without that, my inbox, and then the other tool, I mean, everybody is your iPhone. I just love having everything accessible right there, and the Google app on the phone just makes it easy to jump right into the drive and edit documents and look at documents or do whatever I need to do.

Adam DeGraide:
It does. I got to tell you, we use G Suite as well and our whole company runs off it. You know, you’ve got managers all over the place now. We’re very much a remote business, especially if you’re in technology. And so the ability to collaborate is fantastic. I’m actually building a video game as well. I don’t know if I ever told you that. Did I?

Jesse Biter:
Yeah, you told me about the video game. Yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
It’s coming out great, by the way, buddy. It’s coming out really good.

Jesse Biter:
Love it.

Adam DeGraide:
It’s going to be out next year, probably September-ish, I’m thinking. Anyway, I’m working with a team overseas as well as a team here locally in a few different states, and we collaborate all through technology and it really makes a huge difference. And the fact that you and I can even have this dialogue right now, we’re recording in high definition and other business owners are going to be able to learn from you and I. This is a conversation that you and I would’ve had just at dinner together over a few glasses of wine, talking about things that make us successful. And here we can share with people. Technology has changed the world and I’m grateful to be a part of that. You know, your team is probably awesome. I mean, between … You mentioned almost 400 employees, you said, at PropLogix?

Jesse Biter:
420 now, yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
420, wow. And then do your eyes glaze over like this?

Jesse Biter:
So I’m not a [crosstalk 00:23:47]-

Adam DeGraide:
They know who you are when you call them.

Jesse Biter:
Do they know who I am or do I know who they are?

Adam DeGraide:
No, do they know who you are?

Jesse Biter:
Yeah, oh yeah. We do a huddle three times … or actually I think we pared it down to two times a week now. And I’ll speak on that once a month and talk to everyone. But when the pandemic hit, we had 188 people and we just started hiring people all over the country. So, people that have never met us and we’ve never met, we’ve only had these types of interactions, but they’re full on W2 employees and they get the benefits and in certain cases, some of them are coming up to ownership now. And they’re all part of the team. They’re all part of what we’re doing here and bleeding green.

Jesse Biter:
And we actually, as a executive team, just finished reading Think Again, and it’s a fantastic … Actually, I realized the way that I’ve always operated with my teams and with my people, but I never kind of understood it. This book kind of brought that out and it’s really just surrounding yourself with people that are willing to challenge you, that you don’t have a bunch of yes men on your team. You have a bunch of people that believe in the mission, they understand their role in it, and they’re willing to challenge anyone else on that team to do the right thing. And it’s been very enlightening to do that. We do it actually quarterly. We read a book as an executive team and-

Adam DeGraide:
That’s great.

Jesse Biter:
… we feel that that helps us all speak the same language, get on the same page and keep us motivated to achieving our goal, reading about other people being successful achieving theirs.

Adam DeGraide:
You know, I’ve always been a big believer in books, and sharing them with team members, so that’s fantastic. How do you find these people? I mean, is it all just Indeed and video interviews? I mean, what is the best practices in finding, recruiting and training? You know, how do you find them and then recruit them? And then what’s your process in training these people remotely as well, too? I’m curious.

Jesse Biter:
Well, that’s a different answer depending on what part of the company you’re talking about. Me personally, much like you, I’m a very shy guy, but I’ve got a decent network and a lot of friends. And so when I’m looking for a specific role, I’ll talk to people. Tim Healy, who’s our president, he used to run all United States Postal Service retail stuff, retail division, 55,000 locations, 18 billion in revenue. I found him through a mutual friend when we were out having dinner one night. Said, “Oh yeah, you know, I’m looking for somebody that can come run the company so I can work on vision and sales and marketing and the things that I’m passionate about.” But I’m not a dot your Is, cross your Ts type of person, and he very much is. So we’re kind of a yin and yang. I say there’s two parts of the company; the part that makes the promises, and the part that keeps the promises.

Adam DeGraide:
I love that.

Jesse Biter:
So, Tim and I work really well together that way.

Adam DeGraide:
Oh, man. Two parts of the company, those that make the promises and those that keep the promises. I’m going to steal that, by the way, in a future episode, but I promise you I’ll give you credit.

Jesse Biter:
There you go. All yours.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s amazing. And you know, it is … You find good people anywhere, right? Great people everywhere. And I’ve always told people like attracts like, right? A types personalities and A players attract A players, B players attract B players. And so when you try to build a company of A players, make sure the A players are the ones trying to attract the people.

Jesse Biter:
Absolutely.

Adam DeGraide:
What tools is your team using to recruit? And then what tools are your team using to train?

Jesse Biter:
All right. From a recruiting perspective, I don’t get involved so much in the hiring of our analysts, even our software developers, even our sales team. I know with sales and marketing, it’s a lot of who they know. Our marketing team’s pretty small. I think we’re about six people, and a lot of that has either been people that have applied to the team internally. We always try to hire internally when we can. And then a few have been, “Hey, I know this person. I know that person.” I think one or two were just applied to a job that we posted on Indeed. We also, from a tech perspective, it’s a lot like that. Friends bringing in friends and, “Hey, I’m really part of this cool company, this great mission. Come be part of it.” We actually had cards at one point. If you ever run into anyone that really impresses you, hand them this card, it says, “Quit your job and join our mission.” And we also incentivize people-

Adam DeGraide:
Bleed green. Hold on, let’s say it together.

Jesse Biter:
Bleed green.

Adam DeGraide:
Bleed green. I love it.

Jesse Biter:
Absolutely, absolutely.

Adam DeGraide:
He not only has external slogans, folks, he’s got internal slogans to motivate the troops, and everyone at PropLogix has to bleed green. I love that, Jesse.

Jesse Biter:
Absolutely. I tell people all the time, if you don’t love what you do here, then find another job here. And if you can’t, then find another job somewhere else, and we’ll help you do that, and let us know. It’s not like, oh, you don’t like it here? You’re fired. It’s like, let us help you as a human being, you know? And let us help you find your right role in this world because … I didn’t make this up. I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times, but if you love your job, you don’t work a day in your life. And we want people here to love their job. We want them to love what they do. You spend more time at work than you do awake with your family. And so if you’re here working, I hope you love it.

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah, man. I love that, Jesse. We’re going to take another quick break, but when we come back from break, I want to talk about two things. Your travel is insane. You’re also a pilot. And then I want to talk about what I believe to be the most important smooth stone, the actual one that slayed Goliath, which is that stone called courage, because it takes courage to do what you have done in your life. And I think a lot of people can learn from that. But Jesse, stay with me. Here’s another very important message from another sponsor right here on David Vs Goliath. I’m your host, Adam DeGraide. We’ll be right back

Speaker 7:
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Adam DeGraide:
And we’re back for the final segment with the man, the myth, the legend, one of the greatest entrepreneurs I’ve ever met in my lifetime. And you’re actually very debonair. You’re looking better as you get older, by the way. I don’t know [crosstalk 00:30:57]. They say you get more distinguished as you get older.

Jesse Biter:
You’re too kind. You’re too kind.

Adam DeGraide:
I’m like reverting back to my teen years with my T-shirts and my spiky hair. I’m losing my hair, Jesse. So to me it was like, I’m going to go out with a bang. You know what I mean? I’m just going to keep spiking it up until it eventually falls out.

Jesse Biter:
I love it. I love it.

Adam DeGraide:
But you travel a ton. You travel a ton. You bring your family with you a lot of places as well too. Talk about-

Jesse Biter:
Absolutely.

Adam DeGraide:
And I know one of your struggles is trying to figure out … Because you are workaholic. You and I both love to work. I mean, we can’t help ourselves. I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I wasn’t doing just this right now. How do you have that balance in your life? Tell people where you travel, how you became a pilot. Not long, but give me three minutes on your travel life.

Jesse Biter:
Sure. No, I always wanted to be a pilot growing up and I wanted to go to the Air Force, and I wanted to fly for the airlines. And then when I realized that lifestyle and what it entailed, I realized it wasn’t for me. And my dad took me to the Air Force Academy. I saw people getting bossed around and screamed at. And I had a neighbor who was a Delta pilot and he was gone all the time. And I’m just like, this is horrible. I don’t want to do this, but I love planes and I want to fly. So I knew I needed a different way. You know, when it comes to travel, I’m going to explore it hard. I love scuba diving and snorkeling, and if you put me in the water, forget about it, I’m just gone for hours, because I’m just always looking around rocks and seeing what’s here or there. And I’m not [crosstalk 00:32:16]-

Adam DeGraide:
Is that a beached whale? No, wait, it’s Jesse.

Jesse Biter:
Yeah, right? But I love the world. I mean, God made this great place and I want to see all of it. So we try to travel as much as possible. And you know, I love being with my family. They’re a ton of fun. And so, we all go as a herd to most places we go. The hardest part about traveling is actually traveling. Once you’re there, you can usually find an Airbnb or a VRBO that’s reasonable and you can hang out there and work remotely. I was the first guy working remote. I moved from Pennsylvania to Florida in 2000 and was running my company from a thousand miles away, and I’ve always had that mentality.

Adam DeGraide:
I thought you were crazy. Remember I used to tell you like, “Jesse, how are you doing that?” Because I’m in my office with 170 employees of Rhode Island every day dragging my butt there. And you’re on a plane hanging out in Florida on a beach. I’m like, I got to get to know this guy better. And fortunately I did, because guess what I do now, Jesse? I travel a ton.

Jesse Biter:
[crosstalk 00:33:13]. Yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
I rent VRBOs or wherever I go, the Airbnbs. And I work from [crosstalk 00:33:20]-

Jesse Biter:
And here’s the best piece of advice I’ll tell you and everyone. I know you know this, but you hire really, really good people. You pay them what they’re worth and you don’t micromanage them. So, you hire them, you show them the vision, and then you just let them go.

Adam DeGraide:
Smart.

Jesse Biter:
Good people will take you much further than you take yourself.

Adam DeGraide:
No doubt about it, man. That is great advice. You know, let’s talk a little bit about courage. Sometimes I think people meet guys like you and I, and they think that we don’t have worrisome nights from time to time. Right? You know, that’s just not true. I mean, all of us, no matter how successful, no matter where we are success-wise in our businesses and our personal lives, we’re always thinking to ourselves there’s more, right? We could do more. We could be better. We try to do it. But think back to the very first time you took that gig for 20 grand. The advice … What I’ve always loved about you is you’ve always listened to really smart advice. And then when that guy told you, “Hey, charge them less money to set up, Jesse. Charge him a monthly fee,” that was prophetic because who would’ve known how software models would’ve been valued based on recurring revenue or monthly recurring revenue? You and I, we kind of did it instinctually, but we weren’t planning that out. We didn’t know what the markets were going to do with that-

Jesse Biter:
Totally.

Adam DeGraide:
… but you’ve always been smart. And so it takes courage to start not only your first business, your second business, your third business, keep them all going. What is the intangible in you? Is it just something you were born with? Is it something you saw in somebody else that inspired you? Tell us.

Jesse Biter:
Well, it starts with my connection with God, honestly. I mean, you’re David versus Goliath, right? David walked out there and he know he didn’t need anything. He know he needed his stone and his slingshot because he trusted God. And you know, I have this blind faith and couple that with pure stupidity, just don’t care and just jump in and do it. You know, when I was a teenager, I just kind of went and just did whatever I had to do to make money. And I think back to the first time I was really stressed at business. I hired my very first employee and it was a friend of mine. I had him drop out of college to come back and work for me, because I knew he was a smart guy. And I remember working the deal with him, agreeing to it. He put in his notice, he was coming home.

Jesse Biter:
And that night, I was driving back from my parents’ place that my dad was working in Maryland at the time. I was driving back. And I just remember just bawling, crying my eyes out, because I didn’t have the money to pay him. I had no idea how I was going to pay this guy. He didn’t know that. He didn’t know I didn’t have the money to pay him, but I knew once he’s here, I’m going to have to work twice as hard to make sure that I can pay him. And God provided. I mean, it was just the next week, more work came in and this was right when the software thing was just getting started, and the money was always there just to pay him.

Adam DeGraide:
Isn’t that [crosstalk 00:36:08]?

Jesse Biter:
It was certainly a lot of focus and hustle, but God provided.

Adam DeGraide:
Isn’t that amazing, Jesse? So, I think back to … You know, I’ve been blessed, man. I’ve never missed a payroll in any of my businesses, dude. Now, I personally have missed payroll, but the team that has been with me, we’ve never missed a payroll.

Jesse Biter:
Same. Yeah, I’ve missed a few payrolls for me, myself, but not for the team.

Adam DeGraide:
I’m sure you have. I’m sure you have. But what a blessing to be able to know that there’s a higher power, something bigger than us that’s helping us do this as well, too. There’s no doubt about it. And it’s awesome that you say that, because there are a lot of men and women who are starting to listen to David Vs Goliath and they’re at various stages of success, whether they’ve had it or not. To the person right now who’s discouraged or a little fearful of starting their own business, what would the Jesse Biter today say? And what would the Jesse Biter of yesteryear … Is that even a word, yesteryear? Yesteryear?

Jesse Biter:
Yeah. I’ll tell you, one thing that hasn’t changed from the first time that I started signing the front of paychecks to now is, and even before that, I pray every night. It focuses me, and I ask God for his help and his wisdom. And actually, I remember we prayed, me, you and Sean one time. And Sean said something that I pray to this day is, close the doors that you don’t want me to go through and open the doors that you’ll have me go through. My first business plan for HomeNet, that’s why it’s called HomeNet in the automotive business, right? Was to wire the neighborhood with fiber optic cable. And I always say, if you want to make [crosstalk 00:37:41]-

Adam DeGraide:
Yeah, I was always wondering, your name is terrible. Your name is horrible.

Jesse Biter:
Oh, it’s horrible. It’s horrible. But I didn’t want to pay the money to set up another LLC. And by the time that we were successful, everyone knew us at HomeNet. So, that was it. But you know, it worked out and it was that. It was God opening the doors and closing the ones I thought I wanted go through. And I’ve always said if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. And that was my plan. And he’s like, “That’s not your plan. This is your plan.” And I just went with it. I followed where it made sense to go where it was actually quite honestly easy to go, because what I was trying to do, knock down doors that I wasn’t supposed to go through, but these open doors over here, I just walked right in and it was easy.

Adam DeGraide:
[crosstalk 00:38:21].

Jesse Biter:
And that’s what we did.

Adam DeGraide:
You know, man, I got to tell you, David Vs Goliath is not a religious podcast, but I will tell you the crazy thing about this podcast. You’re like the sixth guest I’ve had that when it gets to this section of the podcast, they give credit to God for their success. You know, and I always tell people, one of the reasons why I personally have faith is I don’t ever remember asking to come here, Jesse, but here I am.

Jesse Biter:
Yeah.

Adam DeGraide:
And so someone or something, and I believe it’s someone, but something has put here right now on this place, on the David Vs Goliath podcast, and you’re listening for a reason, and we are here to help you get inspiration, education and activation. Jesse Biter, thank you so much for joining us. Did you have fun today?

Jesse Biter:
I did. I loved it. I’m happy to come back anytime, but you know, I’ll keep you updated on how we’re doing here. And for all those out there listening, I mean, just keep at it. Just have faith and you know, it’s a scary thing. There’s two people in this world, people that sign the front of paychecks and the people that only sign the back of paychecks. If you’re one of those out there that sign the front of paychecks, there’s a lot on your shoulders, and a lot of people and a lot of families depending on you. I started my first business to make money, but the reward wasn’t money. The reward was seeing people get married, have kids, buy homes, buy nice cars. And I didn’t set out to do that, and I realized that was my biggest reward when it started happening. You keep at it, and that will start happening for the people that work for you and the people around you, and that will be your biggest reward.

Adam DeGraide:
Man, no doubt about it. I don’t know if you guys are fired up, but I’m fired up. I learned a ton today from Jesse Biter, PropLogix. Check them out at proplogix.com. I’m assuming that’s the URL.

Jesse Biter:
That’s us here at proplogix.com.

Adam DeGraide:
That’s right, with an X. IX at the end. Anyway, thank you Jesse for coming. Thank you for watching. Thank you for listening. If you loved the podcast, share it with somebody you know who wants to grow their business, because there’s no better place to get what you need than David Vs Goliath podcast. Thank you so much for joining. We’ll see you next week. Have an awesome day.