Ep. 28: Pray.com CTO Ryan Beck on Overcoming Childhood Challenges, Going to Jail, and Finding Purpose
In this episode, Darren Reinke chats with Ryan Beck, Chief Technology Officer at Pray.Com. Ryan discusses what it was like growing up with a single mom, how he got involved in drugs and gangs, how his time in jail guided him toward his faith, why you need to prioritize purpose within your organization, and so much more!
Pray.com is a social impact company driven by a mission to grow faith and cultivate community. Pray.com is the world's #1 app for faith and prayer. The Pray.com mobile app brings faith to peoples' fingertips through daily prayer plans, inspirational audio content, and a private social network. Pray.com's vision is to create a world where everyone leaves a legacy of helping others.
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SHOW NOTES
How Growing Up In a Low Income Household Shaped Ryan’s Perspective [1:03]
Why Ryan’s Dream of Playing Basketball Evolved into Becoming an Entrepreneur [3:59]
How an Unsupervised Childhood Led Ryan to Make Poor Decisions [5:06]
Why Ryan’s Mother Telling His Lawyers to Keep Him In Jail Was the Best Decision She Ever Made [7:34]
How Ryan’s Cell Mates Led to the Greatest Turning Point of His Life [9:53]
How a Neighbor Helped Ryan Establish a Support System After Jail [12:43]
The Importance of a Strong Support Group [16:25]
Ryan’s Transition from Ministry to Technology [17:33]
How Ryan Merged Purpose and Technology [21:43]
How Purpose Has Been Paramount In Driving the Culture of Pray.com[26:33]
How Purpose Influences Ryan’s Day to Day Role as a CTO [28:42]
How Ryan Seamlessly Transitioned from the Head of Engineering, Product, and Marketing, to the Head of Technology [30:20]
The Words and Values that Anchor Ryan’s Own Sense of Purpose [36:30]
How Ryan Fosters a Sense of Trust Within His Team [39:40]
SHOW LINKS
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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Pray.com CTO Ryan Beck on Overcoming Childhood Challenges, Going to Jail, and Finding Purpose
[00:00:00] Darren Reinke: Welcome to The Savage Leader Podcast, where I interview leaders from all walks of life so that you can walk away with tips to apply to your life and your career. But this isn't your traditional leadership podcast because I believe that leadership tips come from successful entrepreneurs in business executives of.
[00:00:21] Darren Reinke: But they also come from unexpected places like from Navy SEALs, successful professional athletes, sports coaches, musicians, entertainers, and more. So let's dive right in to today's episode. My hope is: You walk away with something tangible that you can apply immediately to your life and your career.
[00:00:42] Darren Reinke: Today's guest on the Savage Leader Podcast is Ryan Beck. Ryan is a CTO of pray.com, a social impact company that is driven by a mission to grow faith and cultivate community. Ryan has an inspiring story of faith and perseverance that I know you'll inspire you to overcome your own hurdles. Ryan, thanks for coming on today
[00:01:01] Ryan Beck: For having me, appreciate it.
[00:01:04] Darren Reinke: So, take me back to little Ryan. I talked to me about where you grew up and the environment you were in is what made you, who you are?
[00:01:10] Ryan Beck: Yeah. So, I think we can go all the way back to when I was younger. So, I'm from Norwalk, California. I was raised by my mom, and she did what I think a wonderful job doing the best.
[00:01:24] Ryan Beck: She could be in a single mom, raising a boy and trying to help him develop into a man that would become that. So, she knew first off that she wanted to move me into a better situation. Then we were at Norwalk, California. So, we moved up to a place called Thousand Oaks, California, and it was about five or six.
[00:01:45] Ryan Beck: And so I started kindergarten there in that area. Very nice suburban area. We moved in with my aunt, and so we just had a little room there, but it was a new opportunity, a new place for her and for myself. And so over the years, she would try to find a way to move us into our own place. And eventually, she was able to save up and get a position of employment that would allow her to have our own place.
[00:02:13] Ryan Beck: And so that was exciting. We had our own place now. She was, still, a low-income earner. So, we would need assistance to make sure that we've had the place. And so during that, she raised me with really good ethics and just hard work. She was an inspiration during that time because she was always working, trying to give me a better opportunity in life, setting me up for success, even if that meant sacrifice.
[00:02:40] Ryan Beck: So forth. And so, that's how my childhood developed. I loved playing basketball. She did the best she could to give me what I paid. Anything that would help me be a good contributor to society. I remember one thing that I wanted as a kid growing up was a computer. I was running. And I remember we just couldn't afford.
[00:03:02] Ryan Beck: I think we were there like $2,000. This is like that's a couple of months of wages for her. And so, she did what she ended up doing. She saved up for a couple of years, and she ended up getting out alone so that she could get this computer for me, that she had to pay off over five years and has this huge impact in my life.
[00:03:23] Ryan Beck: It's the gift that I remember that my mom give because of the sacrifice she put in just to give me this. I love that computer. I wish I could say, that's that's how I started my computer science journey. I just played games on it, and it kept me entertained, but it did open me up to the world of tech in a way that I wouldn't even know until later on in life.
[00:03:43] Ryan Beck: It gave me a fascination for games and for technology it's the internet and seeing how all of that developed before my own eyes was inspirational in, in a way that I didn't.
[00:03:54] Darren Reinke: What were you interested in then as a kid, obviously computers and basketball. And at that point in your life, obviously you grew up in a challenging situation, but what was your world view in terms of your future?
[00:04:03] Darren Reinke: If you had one at that point,
[00:04:05] Ryan Beck: I didn't really. I have too much developed at that time, I was really into basketball. I didn't know how tall I would be or how tall I wouldn't be at that time. So, I guess, basketball was my pursuit. I'm not a very tall person. So, I had to realize that basketball is not going to be something I'm going to be able to pursue professional, but I loved it.
[00:04:25] Ryan Beck: And I would say something that always stuck in my mind was some sort of. Business that I wanted to start. And it was really around restaurants. I really was fascinated with restaurants and cooking. And so, that was a hobby of mine. And I always envisioned myself of having my own restaurant. That'd be the one thing that I remember.
[00:04:43] Ryan Beck: I didn't think about being a firefighter or a doctor that just wasn't something that came to my mind, but it was being my own business owner. I liked the idea of being able to own a business. Work for myself and really start something from the ground up.
[00:05:00] Darren Reinke: So what was next for you in terms of your childhood?
[00:05:03] Ryan Beck: I ended up 13, 14. I was no longer able to go to, my mom couldn't afford to send me to a childcare or anything like that. So, I started staying home because I was old enough and that was the time that all the kids in the neighborhood were staying home. So all the kids, my age, where we're staying.
[00:05:21] Ryan Beck: There's only one friend I had that did not come from a single mother family as a, from a, single mother home. So, we were all staying. We have no supervision. Our parents taught us to be good kids. If you met us, you would be like, these are good kids. We didn't know how to be men. And we're trying to figure that out.
[00:05:39] Ryan Beck: And you put a bunch of 13-year-old kids together, boys together to figure that stuff out. We didn't make the best of this. So, all of us coming from low-income families, home, alone, unsupervised, we started making dumb decisions. We got into drinking and smoking pot or the arm, and then eventually that evolved.
[00:05:58] Ryan Beck: And so that involved into local gangs. And so, a lot of us ended up down that path of gangs and drugs. Cause our parents, our moms were working to put a roof over a head to put food on the table and literally food on we're living paycheck to paycheck. All of the families. Even though we're in a pretty nice neighborhood.
[00:06:17] Ryan Beck: And so that's how it started to day down in junior high and high school for me. So, I would say that, I went into high school with all this potential, a good upbringing, a good mother, but lack of supervision. Ability to are this responsibility for me to make the right choices. And I just wasn't equipped.
[00:06:38] Ryan Beck: I didn't have that fatherly figure that could tell me, don't do this, do that, the discipline me in a way that no fathers are supposed to. And that, that applied for all of my friends.
[00:06:50] Darren Reinke: Yes, it's a challenging situation. I think about just first of all, it just a big shout-out to single moms and single parents.
[00:06:56] Darren Reinke: I just, I've seen that firsthand through friends and family and so forth. It's a real challenge. And I know we've got our hands full as two parents raising two boys and so much less, one parent with one kid, for sure. So tell me more in terms of just the rest of your high school and what that was like.
[00:07:12] Ryan Beck: Yeah. It only got worse there in high school, I ended up getting involved in selling drugs, involved in the local games. This was a really rough time for my mom because she saw this. She didn't know the details, but she knew something was wrong. And she just didn't know how to solve this.
[00:07:30] Ryan Beck: And she really couldn't. She could just do what she was. She's always done. It was just love me and try to support me the best way to, to drive me, to go into the right directions. At the end of the day, I was going to have to make my own choices on the type of person I was going to become. And at that time, being naive and not understanding what my type of man I was going to become.
[00:07:53] Ryan Beck: I was choosing the wrong things. I was involved in these local games, so I wanted to be tough. I wanted to have street credit, and selling drugs was a way to develop that quickly. And ended up going even further down where I started getting in trouble with the law. And so, I ended up getting actually arrested outside of school for fighting.
[00:08:13] Ryan Beck: And I ended up, that was my first run in with law. And I was released real quickly. It turned out it was just a normal, no fight between your high schoolers, but that was just a symptom of what was really wrong with me. I was developing myself into a man that was not a good man. It was a bad man.
[00:08:32] Ryan Beck: And it was devastating my own life, and I was too stubborn to see it. And it was also devastating my family's life as well, particularly my mom. And then it got worse for me. After a shortly graduated from high school, I ended up getting involved in selling drugs, more hardcore drugs than just pot. And I ended up getting arrested, and I served time in jail, substantial time in jail for that.
[00:09:00] Ryan Beck: That was extremely difficult on my mother. But she knew that this type of correction because that's what gels, our correctional facilities, was probably the best thing for him. I remember talking to her afterwards. She said, I talked to your lawyer, and they wanted me to get you out because it's not the safest place.
[00:09:19] Ryan Beck: She doesn't help. That's the safest place. That's the best place for them that I know right now he has to learn this lesson. And that was actually the best decision. It was the toughest decision. She's probably made the best decision she made through. Because during that time, while I was in jail, I was very fortunate to be put in with people that didn't look at me as just another person that can develop their criminal life.
[00:09:43] Ryan Beck: They looked at me as this young man developing into something that they had developed in, and they wanted to see me develop into a better person than they were. And these people coming from all backgrounds and all sorts of things said, I want to invest. And Ryan and I want to help him be a better person.
[00:10:02] Ryan Beck: And so they would give me Bible readings, scriptures. I was not raised religious. I went to a Lutheran preschool. That was the extent of my religion. And they really invest in me. And one guy told me, he said, do you want to be a big shot in the pen? Or do you want to be a big shot on the golf course?
[00:10:20] Ryan Beck: You have to decide. And he put it so plainly and it was so obvious. It was so dumb, right? Big shot. And him, why would I, why would anyone want to be a big shot in the pen when they could be a big shot in the golf of how my golf, I never have really a golf? But I got the point and the point was, why am I choosing to do something so ridiculous as be a tough.
[00:10:41] Ryan Beck: Be a tough guy, be recognized on the streets as tough and devastate my family and alienate myself from my family. When I have been raised in such a way that I have all this potential to be someone else, someone better for a better son, eventually a better father, and even now, a better husband to my wife.
[00:11:02] Ryan Beck: And so that was a turning point. I really had to reevaluate the course that I was going down. And I remember one night in my jail cell praying. And so, I said, God, I don't know exactly what to do. I've been reading these scriptures and learning all about Jesus, but I don't believe, I don't believe, I don't know what I should do.
[00:11:21] Ryan Beck: I need you to soften my heart. My heart is hard. I don't use that language. It's very Christianese language, but that was the language I used. I remember waking up the next morning and that was the turning point of my life. And that's when I just knew that I needed to follow Jesus. And this is the path I needed to go down.
[00:11:40] Ryan Beck: And I knew that meant, I didn't know the extent of what that meant, but I knew it. At least, it meant that I needed to remove myself from the situation that got me to jail. That was the turning point for me in jail and has been the turning point for the rest of my life.
[00:11:56] Darren Reinke: What an incredible, just a turn of events, just a change in your mindset and the way you viewed yourself in the world.
[00:12:04] Darren Reinke: And at that point in time what did you view for your future at that point? Obviously, things really turned around for you, but what were you thinking at that point?
[00:12:12] Ryan Beck: Yeah. So I ended up getting out by a couple of weeks later and I went right back into the same place I was with the same friends, and I had to make decisions.
[00:12:23] Ryan Beck: Who was I going to hang out with and who wasn't. And that's tough because that's how a lot of people end up back in jail because it's not like they get out, and they get to go to wherever they want it to go back to where they're at. It's not like I have the means to just up and leave and move and things like that.
[00:12:38] Ryan Beck: But I was very fortunate because during that time God was working, and he brought people into my life. He brought an old friend who went down a similar journey, who is going to a church, and brought him into my life. And so, I started going to church with him, talking with him, and that was an amazing experience for me because now I was able to form friendships that were not based on my previous actions, but what the new actions that I was going to be basing my life.
[00:13:05] Ryan Beck: And that was rooted in faith. And then my neighbor, she witnessed, all of this. She was much older. She's my mom's age. And she just always had the stern in her heart to reach out to me and talk to me. And she saw all the problems that would come to my house and all the activities as.
[00:13:21] Ryan Beck: And she just one day stopped and said, yeah, just started talking to him and said it, would you want to join me for church one Sunday? I said, that'd be great. And so, my mom and I went to that church and a thousand notes, Calvary chapel, with pastor Rob McCord. And that was a pivotal part of my life because that'd be.
[00:13:39] Ryan Beck: My home church and when I was in that area. And so that community continued to invest in me. And that was this great opportunity that I had while I was being there. I was able to volunteer. I was able to learn from these men, these fathers, that I didn't have, that they can show me what a real father is like.
[00:13:57] Ryan Beck: And then they can also report. Do you, my heavenly father, because that turns out to be something so critical for me and my life now is not having a blood father that I can look to you and say, this is a role model? By the way, I have a really good relationship with my father. We're just not like I'm not hanging out with them all the time.
[00:14:14] Ryan Beck: I've talked to him once a year or so. Something like that, but no hard feelings there and just. Him being a father, but I have a heavenly father now that I can look to as a role model of what a true father she wants to be like, and what I, what am I supposed to be as a nursing father? As I have kids, and so I had this really good foundation at this church, and they were able to really pour into me and invest in me.
[00:14:39] Ryan Beck: I, my story is just a life of not haters, but believers, people who believed in me and just poured into me and that's, what's fueled me, is having these believers in my life, believers in. That really want to invest in me and help me achieve what they think I can achieve and push me to be a better person.
[00:14:59] Ryan Beck: And so from that, I actually had a great opportunity to go into a Bible college. And so, I got to train as a man to become a minister for a couple of years. And that was a very unique opportunity because I got the late, an ethical foundation for myself. During that time that I didn't lay in my high school years.
[00:15:19] Ryan Beck: So I've torn out. The old foundation laid a new foundation, and now I have this better ethical standing on which I can view the world, one that was centered on virtues and vices. And so, that's been something that's really impacted me as I've gone forward in my life, trying to be more of a virtuous person and someone who not just wants to do the right thing, but wants to do everything excellent.
[00:15:45] Ryan Beck: That laid the foundation
[00:15:47] Darren Reinke: you touch on so many points, the importance of faith, and then also just the importance of community and mentorship, and just people who support you or believe in you. And just comparing that to the struggles as a kid. But you're starting with, your time in jail is incredible. Guys who just, who believed in you and wanting to get you on a different.
[00:16:04] Darren Reinke: And then the friend, it took you to church and the neighbor and then your church community, and that you're working in the ministry. It's just, it just underscores the importance of just how important it is for all of us to have people around us that support us and just push us along and don't pull us back and don't drag us into those tough, challenging points in our lives.
[00:16:21] Ryan Beck: Definitely. And that, to go into that a little bit more, my story is the story, not of I guess you can say the beginning was the story of me trying to do it on my own and trying to figure everything out. But now it's, its about the people around. The people that I've been blessed to be around and surrounded by that have helped me be the person I am.
[00:16:40] Ryan Beck: So my mom, to my pastor, to my wife, these are people that have formed me. And without these people in my life, I couldn't be who I am. I can't do it alone. I don't believe any of us can do it alone. We need the right people around us to really help us Excel in life and be the best version of it.
[00:16:58] Darren Reinke: So what was next for you?
[00:16:59] Darren Reinke: I know you studied, I believe, philosophy and computer science in college. And how'd you make that trans transition from your work in the ministry to actually getting into technology? Yeah,
[00:17:09] Ryan Beck: so I worked in the ministry after going to school for a miniature. I worked in the men's shoes a couple of years. I love the church.
[00:17:15] Ryan Beck: That's going to be a lifelong passion of mine, is how I can help the church in any way possible. I realized that full-time ministry being a ministry is not for me. That's not where my talents lie. I really enjoy it. I love the people. And so anyways, I decided, and I'm going to actually go to school and get a computer science and philosophy degree.
[00:17:35] Ryan Beck: I went with the intention of philosophy because I really love philosophy. I love just understanding different philosophical perspectives and where people are coming from. I think that's very important in my is to know that we all come from diverse backgrounds and have different philosophical views.
[00:17:53] Ryan Beck: Of life and the way we do things in it, it allows me to have a more empathetic view of other people so that I can help have better relationships with people that may differ and whether their philosophy of life or political sense. I can have those dialogues with them. So, I went to school at Calvin college, and that was a great time for me while I was there studying philosophy, I realized philosophy does not pay the bills.
[00:18:17] Ryan Beck: And I don't know if I want to do another six years of school to be a teacher of philosophy. So, I added computer science. And so, this is where, when I got the computer, when I was early on, I had this fascination with technology and games. It really resonated with me. I added a computer science degree. I said, I'm only going to do it if I can do it in two semesters.
[00:18:39] Ryan Beck: And I'm only going to do it, if I can get a major. So, I went to the computer science department, I talked to the head, I said, Hey, look, I have two semesters. I want to get a major in computer science. They tell you that. I thought you were going to say that I laid out a plan. Here's the plan. Here's a couple of versions of the plan.
[00:18:55] Ryan Beck: And I really think that I can do it. I'll have to start now over winter break, and I'll have to continue during the summer. But I think if you allow me to do all these classes concurrently, I can do it. And he said, good luck. He was skeptical. But he was like, all right, let's see how it happens. And so, I just dove head first into computer science and I love that.
[00:19:16] Ryan Beck: It turns out that although I like to think I was a good philosophy student and even better a computer science and software engineer. And so, I got this opportunity to get my computer science degree, graduated with a double major. And really during that time I had the opportunity to work with. A company called mission India, and they're a nonprofit company.
[00:19:38] Ryan Beck: And one of the things that is so nice about nonprofits, if you have a felony like myself, they generally are a little more gracious. Because I had tried getting employment earlier on at places like Taco Bell or Starbucks, and I couldn't because of my phone. And so, I was able to get a job at a nonprofit and work on their software and help them move.
[00:20:00] Ryan Beck: Their company into the 21st century because they were just now building out their technical solutions. So, their work in India, but also the greater Asia area because they did Phil's philanthropic projects all across their thousands of projects across that area in which they have to. Consolidate put into the shop where, and then send out reports to the different donors and stuff like that.
[00:20:25] Ryan Beck: So I really got a chance to take my skills and software engineering and apply it to a company that was doing really great things in the world, such as helping children read, helping women in India, understand business and helping them start their own businesses, helping people plant churches. So, this is a great organization that gave me.
[00:20:46] Ryan Beck: This mindset of how I can take purpose and take technology and makes it something one of them.
[00:20:52] Darren Reinke: And how did he do that? That was like this big aha moment for you, just in terms of purpose and technology, which is such an incredible combination, much like the philosophy and computer science major. So, how do you go about actually combining those two interests, and I'll almost say it's beyond passionate.
[00:21:07] Darren Reinke: It's really something that was, sounds like it's really deep-rooted in who you are
[00:21:10] Ryan Beck: working in the ministry. It's all about. You're not in it for the money. Your hits non-profit right. And so going back to my time in the ministry, it was really about this developing this passion for purpose, knowing that what your work doesn't just impact you in your bank account, but impacts other people's lives in an extremely positive way.
[00:21:31] Ryan Beck: And so that's what I was able to. Find what I already knew. I love doing things with purpose and then taking technology and applying that I can amplify that ability, much like a speaker who speaks to a small congregation or a PA or someone broadcast on TV or radio. These technologies allow that message to go out further.
[00:21:51] Ryan Beck: And so that's the mindset that I had. I had this skill that allowed me to hit massive scale of impact and what I think. And I was able to then take that and I actually. Ran into a friend of mine, Steve katina@theceoofgray.com. We haven't seen each other in years. We went to junior high and high school together, and he said, “Hey what's going on?”
[00:22:15] Ryan Beck: We ran into each other. I said, no, I told him what I've been up to and what I'm doing. And he said, oh, Sounds interesting. I think we should connect. I want to build a website. I think you can help. And I said, okay, interesting. I have a lot of friends that when I tell them I build software, they're like, I've got a website.
[00:22:33] Ryan Beck: I think you can help. Then he told me it was pray.com, and I said, okay, he's pretty serious. And this is a pretty serious website that can do pretty serious things for people and the world at large. And so we had lunch, we started talking about pre.com and what was going to be. And I'm I'm a pretty reserved person along the Shulie energetic and emotional, and this was exciting.
[00:22:56] Ryan Beck: And I knew that it had a lot of impact. And so, I just told them, Hey, let me know how I get. Happy to just work with you on this. This sounds what sounds like. It can be pretty amazing if you do the right things. And so, we just took it from there probably six months after that many meetings, many hours spent many conversations had with customers in the market, pastors and members.
[00:23:21] Ryan Beck: We got together, me, him, Mike and Matt, the founders of prey. And so let's start a business together called pray.com. And let's help people grow faith and cultivate community. And that's what we did. We started off, I remember the very first thing we did and there's one thing I love about Steve is we didn't write lines of code.
[00:23:42] Ryan Beck: First. We started off with what's the purpose of prey, and we knew that we wanted to help people leave a legacy of poverty. And so, we got to start off with this great vision and this great purpose. And now is about applying our skills. Now our business skills and our technology skills, not product skills, just something special.
[00:24:03] Ryan Beck: And so that's where the work began. And then we got the vision set out. We got our core value set out, and we knew, okay, this is the foundation on which we're going to build the company, the culture of the company. And we started writing code. Then that's where I got to. And it was a truly exciting time for me.
[00:24:22] Ryan Beck: That was this chance, where, not only am I going to help build some great software, but now I have a platform in which I can reach hundreds of millions of people. And potentially paintings of people across the world in a very meaningful way, in a way that is this virgining part of technology, where these mobile applications are starting to come online all over the world where people did not have access to this, and we can help reach them with faith.
[00:24:54] Ryan Beck: Faith is core to everybody's not everybody, but to, to most people across the globe. It's important. It's one of the most important factors, and we were creating, we are creating something that helps them grow the most important thing about who they are.
[00:25:12] Darren Reinke: It's fascinating. There's something that's so important.
[00:25:15] Darren Reinke: And I would say, frankly, Is that starting with purpose and then the writing, the lines of code. I think it, most founders of technology companies are probably really strictly realistically, any companies is they start with the product, right? It's what are we building? How are we building it?
[00:25:29] Darren Reinke: What are the metrics? How are we going to make money? Versus, I think you gave an incredible example. Also, I interviewed someone in my book who started a company called brown bear digital. They started with their values pillars before they even started their digital agency. So, I think that's a really unique way of building a business.
[00:25:45] Darren Reinke: As you've built upon that initial foundation is how has purpose been useful to all of you in terms of not just impacting all of your users in terms of the apps and that the website and so forth, but also in terms of just driving the culture of your organization.
[00:26:01] Ryan Beck: Yeah. So, I think that's, there's common language used in startups, missionaries and mercenaries.
[00:26:07] Ryan Beck: We've been very fortunate since we laid that foundation that we've got a lot of people that really come to pray because of the mission, and they want to be missionaries in their work. They realize they can go work for a lot of different companies, make really good money and do cool stuff. But will it have the impact on other people's lives?
[00:26:32] Ryan Beck: The positive impact that pre back home can have, and frankly, most companies don't also that now more and more people are starting to realize that how important that. To their work for people at gray, tying purpose and technology. That's just common here@pro.com, and it's becoming more common in the world where we're finding people who have these amazing skillsets.
[00:26:56] Ryan Beck: They want to do something positive in the world because they see the reports come out about social media, about advertisement, and they want to do something different. They want to do something new, something different that can really impact people's lives. And so laying down that foundation, that is one of the most important things to people that we interview.
[00:27:16] Ryan Beck: They see that they see how important purpose is here, and they want to be a part of that because who wouldn't want to go to work every day, apply their skills and know that they're there helping people fight depression, helping people overcome a loss, helping people reconnect with theirs. Helping people through these times of difficulty, just like people, w when people go to church, and we connect with the faith, they're looking to overcome some struggles a lot of times.
[00:27:45] Ryan Beck: And they're able to do that at pour that on. They're able to help facilitate that through technology.
[00:27:51] Darren Reinke: If you get something interesting in your role as the chief technology officer, Most people would think, oh, a CTO, a CIO is thinking about purpose in terms of informing their decisions in terms of what they'd probably think more of in terms of features and functions and scale and different things like that.
[00:28:05] Darren Reinke: Like, how does purpose influence your day-to-day role as a CTO?
[00:28:10] Ryan Beck: I like to start high level with things, and I like to go back to the customer. So, when I'm talking with whether it's the engineers or whether it's the product. I always like us to start at the customer because that's who we're building for.
[00:28:24] Ryan Beck: And that's the people that we're impacting with the features that we built with the code that we optimize with the designs that we do. And so, we start there, and we want to understand they have a purpose for coming to pray. What are they seeking to gain for us? So having that mindset has allowed me to get outside of the typical technology bubble or a way of thinking where it's all about lines of code and optimization.
[00:28:50] Ryan Beck: And functionality and into the customers have now I also worked in the ministry, so I'm actually a customer of the product. And so, it's really helped me and bridging that gap in and technology and product and marketing. And so, that's been how I've done. It is always go back to that fundamental building block, which is the customer, that's who we're building for.
[00:29:10] Ryan Beck: And that's what we're building on top of. So, we want to build stuff that really helps. Do those two things that we're about, which is growth and cultivate community. And so, we tie it back to those basic blocks.
[00:29:23] Darren Reinke: Another thing that's actually fascinating about your background, especially in your roles@pray.com is how you started.
[00:29:29] Darren Reinke: I believe he's the head of engineering, then the head of product, the head of marketing, and then back to now, the head of technology, how have you actually gone about making those transitions? Obviously, you seem like an incredible self-learner and driven by lifelong learning is how do you make. Pretty big switches.
[00:29:43] Darren Reinke: I think in early startups, of course we wear a lot of hats, but it sounds like you actually moved into those roles as the company grew and got larger, more sophisticated.
[00:29:51] Ryan Beck: That's one of the beautiful things about startups. You get to try a lot of things. You do get to do a lot of things. You don't have to go through red tape.
[00:29:59] Ryan Beck: You don't have to get a bunch of approvals. You can just do it. And if it works. And then people, more research, just start coming alongside you to help grow that thing. And so, that's been a unique opportunity for me. I love learning, obviously. That's why philosophy is like a core part of me.
[00:30:16] Ryan Beck: It's about constant money and some with technical. I remember when I was talking, when I was in school, I talked to a recruiter. I said, what's the one lesson you would give me as a new software engineers. She said, it's easy to go obsolete. And that really resonated with me. It's there's never a time where I can not learn.
[00:30:34] Ryan Beck: I have to always be learning. And that's one of the core things that I operate on, I need believers and I need to be learning. And those things drive me. And so, I have this opportunity where we needed to grow the company and we do that through marketing. So, I had to learn how to become a marketer overnight.
[00:30:51] Ryan Beck: And so quite literally overnight. And I would just stay up ridiculous hours. I liked the thing that I go from obsession to being possessed by this thing that I must do, and it drives me. And so, that's how I got into this. This marketing mindset. And I said, all right, how are we going to grow this company?
[00:31:10] Ryan Beck: Because to make this successful, we have to grow substantially. I was able to do that. I know I needed product help. And so, we had some great people on product that I got to lead during that time to really transition how we used to do product into how we needed to do. So that we could that we could scale, and it goes back to that fundamental thing.
[00:31:30] Ryan Beck: We had to move from this mindset of building features. She had a form tuning, a learning. And how do you do that in product to do experimentation? You've gotta be constantly alarming. If you can't run the experiments, you can't learn this fast. And you're just relying on these big releases that take time.
[00:31:46] Ryan Beck: And so I have to shorten that release cycle, so I can make it day release cycles so that we could actually get loans really fast, make rapid changes. And that's one of the beauties of product and marketing. If you build the right infrastructure, you can constantly be experimenting, constantly learning and constantly be up there.
[00:32:04] Ryan Beck: Your strategy and your tactics. That was the fundamental principle that I used on both product and marketing was we have to learn, and we have to learn really fast and what's the best way to do that. Experimentation use experimentation to drive growth, and that's what we did on product. And that's what we did on marketing.
[00:32:21] Ryan Beck: And that's what we still do today. Now I fortunately can get, go back to engineering now because we've brought in some really great marketing and. Product executives that I can pass the reigns over to and know that they're going to do what I couldn't do because they're seasoned in this, they're vets.
[00:32:39] Ryan Beck: And so I'm super excited to be partnering with. Because they're truly world-class talents, and that's not an exaggeration. And so, I love being able to work alongside people that, are going to take your learnings, but then teaching new things. Because we're all students all the time, if they're doing it right.
[00:32:59] Ryan Beck: And so I get to be a student again and watch them do it and take it beyond what I can do. And then I also get to go back to my true love of software engine. And helping the engineers with build that mindset as well through rapid experimentation, rapid releases and things like that. So, I'm very excited to be partnering with great people and to be back just focusing on engineering
[00:33:21] Darren Reinke: Back to what you love.
[00:33:22] Darren Reinke: But also I think it's so powerful to actually cross train a little bit and build up some different muscles and experiences. I'm sure your knowledge of product and marketing of course really influenced your role as a CTO.
[00:33:33] Ryan Beck: Yeah, I would like to think. So one of the core values that we have here@pro.com is.
[00:33:39] Ryan Beck: And what this cross-functional role that I've had to play. If marketing, product and engineering has allowed me to do is it's allowed me to develop empathy for the marketing people and the product people. And when I'm working with. The chronic people, and there are talks about product specs.
[00:33:59] Ryan Beck: I, I understand what they need to do. I know, and I can say, no, this is good engineers. You need to take it from here. And this is how we can actually take the good work that product is done, and we can make it even better to fit our needs, and we don't need them to do it for us to meet. And so, one of the, another thing that I operated.
[00:34:17] Ryan Beck: Is another principle called extreme ownership as a great book. It's another thing. And so, I have allowed me to exceed in those areas was rapid experimentation, but extreme ownership of that. And so, it's given me empathy, being able to go to marketing and product and engineering for each different. And it's allowed me to, I had to own these and there was no one to come and save us.
[00:34:41] Ryan Beck: We have the team to rely on, but it was us. We hadn't done it before. And we had to own it, and we had to figure it out and there was no one coming to save us and did it, it wasn't just, I came in, and they're like, oh, I fixed it. It was the team as a supporting cast. Like we went back to Africa.
[00:34:56] Ryan Beck: Yeah, my life is about learning and the community that supports me in my in the endeavors that I go through. And that was still true in the product and the marketing roles. And it's given me extreme empathy so that I can be a better partner to these other teams. And hopefully that shows and they.
[00:35:14] Darren Reinke: Yeah. You talked earlier just in terms of the type of man you want it to be, and I'll answer a different word in terms of the leader you want it to be. You've also talked about a lot of values, like being around believers and learning. What do you, and you think about your own personal sense of purpose?
[00:35:29] Darren Reinke: What does that look like to you? What are some of the words and some of the values that you really anchor onto and how does that really influence whether you lead.
[00:35:37] Ryan Beck: So for me being a believer of the people and not a doubter of your people, right? One thing I pray we're very selective on who gets on the team and who stays on the team.
[00:35:48] Ryan Beck: And I believe a hundred percent in every person on the team. And I want to make sure that we have this culture where we believe in each other and what that allows us to do now that we have this really good foundation. We can rely on me each other. I love this quote. And I tell my team, I don't expect tons of hours from you or where you're breaking back and no family time.
[00:36:13] Ryan Beck: That's not what I'm about. What I'm about is you give me a hundred percent effort, a hundred percent of the time, because you're going to get that from me. You're going to get that from your other teammates and they expect that from you. And so when you don't live up to that's when we got. And so having this ability to believe in each other, knowing that we're going to give it our all, and that's been a foundational building block, and that's something I tried to instill in the people that I lead is to believe in each other and to expect certain things from me.
[00:36:43] Ryan Beck: And then to operate with excellence. So virtue to me is something very important in my life. Virtue, not just in ethics, but in excellence. And so I love this idea of excellence in doing everything excellently and it comes back to the a hundred percent effort, a hundred percent of the time. And so we instill that expectation and all of our teammates, they expected of me.
[00:37:07] Ryan Beck: And so they call me out. That's one thing that I've. To establish as well as this open communication up and down and around the chain of commands. So that people who report to me can call me out when I'm not meeting expectations and I can call them out respectfully. I know that as a boss I, as a leader, I have a little more weight and I have to be careful how I throw around that.
[00:37:29] Ryan Beck: Nonetheless, we can have expectations of each other of excellence. And so believe in people expecting excellence from ourselves and from each other have been two foundational building blocks. And then, at the end of this, Respecting each other. We want people to be respectful and I have an incredible team.
[00:37:49] Ryan Beck: That's helped me be more empathetic in how I communicate. Especially now we go into a very distributed remote world where communication happens through slack slash text. And so the communication you have. You have to be very cognizant of how you're communicating. And so if I were to distill down the three pillars in which I think about leadership is believing in the team, excellence and respect.
[00:38:16] Ryan Beck: The believing and the team's an interesting one. Obviously you can do that with recruiting and getting high caliber talent, which it sounds like you guys have just up and down across your organization, but from a practical perspective, how do you foster that sense of belief in each other? I'll use a different word in terms of trust is, I hear people talk about wallet, trust and verify, or they got to really earn it.
[00:38:35] Darren Reinke: Like, how do you go about actually instilling that within your teams?
[00:38:39] Ryan Beck: I don't know if this is the right way. This is how. I know the potential of each person on the team. At least, I like to think I do. And when they don't meet that expectation, it's not to belittle them is to say, Hey, look, you can be this person, you can reach this standard, and you're not right now.
[00:38:59] Ryan Beck: That's okay. We can resolve it. I'm raising the awareness to you. And, I guess it comes down to this was that because a lot of times when people ask that we know that's not the best we've got. If they're asking us that know, they know it's not the best we've got, and we know it. And I try to go into every conversation.
[00:39:16] Ryan Beck: There's a reason why we have the team that we have and the people that are on it. And it's because they're great at what they do. And so, when they're not meeting that level of greatness that, I know that. It's just about helping them realize that they're not being everything. They can be in a way that is not calling out their faults and just saying, Hey, you're failing at this.
[00:39:39] Ryan Beck: I try to avoid the strong language that could make them feel like a failure, but to help them realize that they actually are not, they're incredibly great. We just need to course correct and get on that path to greatness.
[00:39:56] Darren Reinke: Yeah, I think so, you imply, which is it's about individualizing your approach to this person.
[00:40:00] Darren Reinke: Obviously you're going to have that same level of standard for each person because they have different unique talents and experiences and so forth.
[00:40:07] Ryan Beck: There's a bit of that. Yeah. There's probably different views on leadership. I think that each person requires a different approach to them.
[00:40:16] Ryan Beck: No, there are some people that if I give them, if I communicate them with a lot of fluff, they're like, just get to the point. I got a lot of things to do. And then some people, if you're very direct with them, they feel like, Hey, this is an aggressive tone. And so, you always want to tailor your approach to the type of person that you're dealing with.
[00:40:33] Ryan Beck: And so I like to tailor my leadership approach, not so that it's favors or a certain person. It's more to tailor it, to meet the specific needs of this person. So, I can help lead them to be the best version of themselves in respect to what they do for protocol.
[00:40:53] Darren Reinke: Ryan, I really appreciate your time today.
[00:40:54] Darren Reinke: Where can people go to connect with you or learn more about what you're up to or what pray.com is up to?
[00:41:00] Ryan Beck: Yeah, you can just go to pray.com. You can visit there. See what we're up to. You can also download the apps on the iOS app store and the Google Play Store.
[00:41:10] Darren Reinke: Great. Thanks for, I appreciate your time today.
[00:41:12] Darren Reinke: Yeah, thank
[00:41:13] Ryan Beck: you very much. Yeah.
[00:41:15] Darren Reinke: Thanks for listening to today's episode of the Savage leader podcast. My hope is: You're walking away with tactics that you can apply to become a better leader in your life and in your career. If you're looking for additional insight into. Be sure to check out my book titled, The Savage Leader, 13 Principles to Become a Better Leader From The Inside Out. Also be sure to subscribe to the podcast and I would truly appreciate it. If you left a review and also rate the podcast. Thanks and see you all on the next episode.