Ep. 7: Stem Audio CEO, Jacob Marash onBuilding a Startup Culture within a Bigger Company

In this episode, Darren Reinke chats with Jacob Marash, the CEO of Stem Audio. Jacob talks about his decision to launch a startup within his existing organization, why he emphasized having employee input when building Stem’s culture and values, and the importance of revisiting your company’s values each year to ensure alignment.

Stem Audio is a manufacturer of a suite of audio-conferencing solutions that create, manage and scale collaboration space audio.

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SHOW NOTES

• Launching STEM Audio in a Niche Market [1:01]

• Creating a Start Up within an Existing Organization [4:23]

• The Importance of a Company Relaunch [6:04]

• How to Build Confidence in a New Vision [7:58]

• Revisiting your Vision [10:18]

• Why You Should Fake It Until You Make It [11:30]

• The Traits of a Successful CEO [15:20]

• The Importance of Practicing Humility [18:36]

• Discovering the Spark of Entrepreneurship [20:04]

• Why You Should Seek to Build a Product that Answers Customers’ Needs [23:11]

• Why Overnight Success’s Don’t Exist [26:22]

• Challenges of Scaling a Business [28:01]

• Persisting through Dark Moments [29:09]

• Why You Should Join a Peer Group [33:04]

SHOW LINKS

• Stem Audio Website

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For additional leadership tips, be sure to check out Darren's book - The Savage Leader: 13 Principles to Become a Better Leader from the Inside Out. 

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

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 and business executives, of course. Still, they also come from unexpected places, like Navy SEALs, successful professional athletes, sports coaches, musicians, entertainers, and more. So let's dive right into today's episode; my hope is you walk away with something tangible that you can apply immediately to your life in your career. Today's guest on The Savage Leader Podcast is Jacob Marash, founder, and CEO of STEM Audio, STEM Audio designs and manufactures high-quality audio endpoints for conference rooms and other collaboration spaces. Jacob, thanks for coming on today.

Jacob Marash: My pleasure. Thanks for having me, Darren.

LAUNCHING STEM AUDIO IN A NICHE MARKET [1:01]

Darren Reinke: So, take me back a bit. I know it's only been a few years since you launched STEM Audio. But can you talk to me about the genesis of the company?

Jacob Marash: Absolutely. Yeah. So, I'll start by saying what we do is one of those niche markets that a lot of times when I explain to people on the street what we do, they have no idea. But we deal with audio endpoints for video conferencing; ever since the pandemic, we all have more or less experienced Zoom, right. But this world has been around for a very, very long time; it's been a pretty big industry for a while now. Think about every conference room that you walk into with any company that has to have some audio hardware in that room to pick up the audio. And the quality of that audio is very, very critical. I entered this industry about a decade and a half ago with my family's business, Phoenix Audio. And it's way before anybody out there understood or knew what video conferencing was unless you worked in that space. And we, for many years, manufactured the speakerphones, which is what we call them. And again, we're an engineering company. So, every year, we would focus on what engineering companies do. And that's algorithms and echo canceling and noise-canceling. And these are very well-known words in our industry. But the bottom line is that that stuff ended up being less important for the end-user than what our companies in our space and our competitors, as well as ourselves at Phoenix audio, though. So, after I went to business school at Anderson, I came back, and I took over as CEO of that original company, Phoenix audio. And my first kind of task was to sit down and figure out the next products that I wanted to come out with. And remember, we would historically come out with one or two new speakerphones every year. And the only difference in those speakerphones was that we improved these algorithms a little bit more. And pretty much us as well as all of our competitors. It kind of got to the point where it was good enough. So, I was trying to figure out what the next thing is? What will the audio sound like, you know, in the future, the next decade, 20 years from now? And I sit on this long journey, which maybe we'll go into detail later, but not directly to kind of try to sit down with our end-users and people that install and buy and sell and use these products. And try to understand for them, what are the pain points, what are the things that they're missing. And very surprisingly, we found that it wasn't necessarily the audio quality. That was the issue, but it was instead the experience. And with that, we created this, what I like to call a revolutionary solution, which is stem audio. And as soon as we thought out where we thought about the product, it became evident that it's going to have to be its own thing, its own company, its own experience. And that's the point we're launched the separate company. So, the goal was not to go out and launch a company. I already was a CEO of a company that was in the space. But we came up with asking our users what we consider a revolutionary solution that there was no other option other than to spin it off to something completely different. And here we are today.

CREATING A START-UP WITHIN AN EXISTING ORGANIZATION [4:23]

Darren Reinke: I think that's interesting. I think many leaders can relate to something that, especially if they're trying to jumpstart their innovation, they're trying to have more of that startup culture. And it's interesting that you started as a startup within a long-standing business; what was that like? And how did you create that new culture that's more innovative, more agile, faster-moving within an existing entity?

Jacob Marash: You know, that question is a very powerful one. And you actually alluded to something, and maybe it wasn't even part of the question, but I just have to address the first aspect is to think about this for a decade I was part of Phoenix and like any tech company, you know you in some way shape or form everyday go to work, and you want to create this product, but you do dream of that exit of having, you know, some kind of event, and you try to get it, and it just doesn't happen. And the epiphany that happened with then was that a lot of times we go about these things the wrong way, a lot of times we try to have a startup. So, we think about a product that we want to create. Whereas what I learned through STEM is that the process should be the exact opposite. You have to find a problem and solve it. And if you stay true to that, and that brings a lot of success, a lot of opportunities. And that was the big aha moment for STEM. But when we did launch STEM, it just happened to be more or less at the same time that I took over as CEO of Phoenix. And it was very evident to me as I came in, that I needed to change a lot of things about the company, not just about the products, you have to understand that my biggest problem was that I was still part of Phoenix, which is a very small company, for a decade before that I was the chief operating officer. And then one day I became the Chief Executive Officer. And that's a really weird thing to deal with, right? Because I mean, how do you walk into the office one day, do your day's work, and then you come in the next day and tell him, “Hey, by the way, I'm the CEO.” And now it was very clear that I need to change things and turn it into my company. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF A COMPANY RELAUNCH [6:04]

Jacob Marash: So, we did something called the company relaunch, where we basically shut the company down for a full week, we told all of our customers that we were going to be unavailable. And we sat down with all the employees, and we literally redefined and redid every single aspect of the company, including the product itself. So, we started with the culture, we redefined our employee handbook, we rewrote and recreated our mission statement, which tends to be terrible in most companies, we created what we call our five company pillars or our core values. And we did this altogether, you know, the employee handbook we had was one that we got from one of the largest HR companies that were servicing us back in the day. And it's something it's kind of a template they handed us, and it had like, all the basic stuff like, you know, if you're five minutes late, you get written up, you can't wear open-toed shoes, you can't do this, you can't do that. And he kind of looked at me said you know, “Do we even follow these rules?” And we didn't. So, we said, “Why do we have all these rules written when we don't really care about them?” We really sat down, and we tried to make the main thing, the main thing. And what ended up happening at the end of this week was, we all created this thing that we all believe in, and we all want to be part of it that really, really, really changed the course of the company. And it also happened to coincide with this brand-new product that we dreamed up. And I think a big part of STEM success is not just the fact that the solution itself is very revolutionary. And I can talk about that for hours. But we won't do that in this podcast. But also the change that we are in the shift that we had in the company with the employees and our mindset and how we hired people, and how we're firing people. And what we really cared about what we didn't care about in the day to day.

Darren Reinke: That's really interesting. You shut down the company for a week. And, you know, I found so much success with leaders when they're co-creating whatever it is, a strategy, we get that buy-in as part of the process. 

HOW TO BUILD CONFIDENCE IN A NEW VISION [7:58]

Darren Reinke: Can you take me a little bit behind the scenes in terms of what were those conversations? Like? How did you get employees who perhaps had worked for Phoenix for the last 10, 15, 20 years to be bought into something that was very different.

Jacob Marash: It wasn't an easy task. So, we took that week that relaunch week very seriously, my partner and myself, went on a would be called an executive retreat. And we literally went for two days, we locked ourselves in a hotel in Palm Springs. And we wrote the curriculum for that week, and every day had a theme. And there were a couple of things that we wanted to achieve. So one of the first things that we wanted to achieve was first to get everybody to really understand what all the other parts of the company do. So for instance, one of the activities during that week was everybody went to the warehouse, and the warehouse manager had everybody do packaging. So, our salespeople had to actually do packaging of products that got him to understand sometimes when they get orders, and it takes a while for those orders to go out. And they just get upset and angry that she saw what it entails to get a product to test it, to package it. And there's a lot more understanding and empathy for the folks in the warehouse. We went to the sales guys, and we asked them to give a session about what's the journey with a customer from talking to them and doing a demo and getting to actually buy and how difficult that is. And the folks at the warehouse, who typically just, you know, feel like the salespeople have an easy job. I understood how difficult that was. So, we did stuff like that, like I said, we rewrote our employee handbook, our core values maybe is a very interesting one. So, we actually asked everybody to pitch in and to say what they think are the important values and everybody had, I think, to contribute one or three of them. And then we put it all on like sticky notes on the wall. And we consolidated them, then we voted on what everybody wanted to do. So, we did a lot of stuff like that. And I think that ultimately the outcome was that I never had to uphold any of these new rules or understandings, since we all pitch in, and we all decided on this everybody now kind of acts as a manager when it comes to the culture of the company and the direction that we're going. And I never have to necessarily convince people, enforced by Him because they decided on these core values. And just as important as defining it was to upkeep it and maintain it. So, every year, on the anniversary of the relaunch, we do kind of relaunch revisit, we don't do it for a full week, but we do shut down for a day. And we kind of reflect back on the mission and on our core values, we give examples of how we use it on a day to day, we make corrections when needed, if people say, hey, we all agree that this is not relevant anymore, we change it. We also, twice a year, do kind of an assessment where every single employee in the company anonymously rates every other employee in the company and how they do on their five core values. And then at the end of that, you actually get feedback from all your team members, and how you're doing on your core values. And again, there's no, it's not like if you score low, there are any repercussions, but it just gives you a sense of like, what you're doing well, and when you need to improve on. And it's by all of us, it's not by management. So, you don't have to necessarily impress your managers. But you also have to realize that you get kind of rated based on how you are with all of your team members on a day to day. So, it's a lot of little things like that.

REVISITING YOUR VISION [10:18]

Darren Reinke: I'd love to switch gears a little bit because it's I think it's interesting is you mentioned just walking in one day and taking off the COO hat and putting on the CEO hat. What was that journey? Like? How did you go about learning some of those skills as behaviors so that you can be successful? 

Jacob Marash: Clearly, you've already proven to be a successful CEO with the acquisition to share recently, you don't fake it till you make it. I'm 100% convinced of that, I kind of learned this from my military experience. So, I became an officer. Before I was 20. And I think by the time I was 20, I was a second in command of 100 people. And the military has this quality of the kind of convincing you that you can do it. And in retrospect, in my civilian life, when I'm now a little bit older, and I look back at myself, when I was 20, it was doing that, I kind of laughed, and I realized how underqualified I was to do so. But I didn't realize it back then. And that's why I did a good job.

WHY YOU SHOULD FAKE IT UNTIL YOU MAKE IT [11:30]

Jacob Marash: All of us and I hear this from other people you've interviewed, you know, sometimes the topic of imposter syndrome comes up. At the end of the day, we all have our insecurities, and nobody's necessarily born a leader, you just have to jump into the deep end and do the best that you can and listen, and it just kind of grows on you, when there's no other option. There's no other choice, you're given the wheel, you start driving, and actually find that, that happens with a lot of people in my organization that I don't necessarily think, have leadership responsibilities. And maybe I'll connect to one more thing I learned in the military. You know, we had this thing when we would typically have when you had a difficult soldier who was consistently difficult, I'm not saying somebody would mess up on time, you obviously get reprimanded in the military. But if you had someone who, no matter how much stuff, you would think that they would still act poorly, what we'd actually try to do is give them responsibility, we'd actually put them in some kind of commanding position. And I can tell you that from my experience, 100% of the time they step up, it's actually the best way to get someone who's misbehaving to string up that you give them responsibility. And they feel like they have to own up to it and have to grow into it works much better than trying to discipline them. So, it's kind of a weird sideways answer to your question. But I think how that comes across, or how I did that is, I just decided that one day, I want to be CEO, and I think whether I'm ready or not, I just have to do it. And I just did it, I did the best I can, I made some mistakes. I try not to be too tough on myself. But also, you know, stay open-minded. And just listen.

Darren Reinke: I get it, listening is so important. And I think a general perception is that these visionary, transcendent CEOs are just these ultra-confident Yeah, I probably sure they are in a lot of cases. But the majority of people who do have these doubts do have these concerns, who don't know if they can do it until they actually get a chance to do it. So, I appreciate you sharing your story on that.

Jacob Marash: Yeah, I think we all have it in us, right. To some extent. A lot of people in this world become parents, and they lead a family, you know, and people think that that works that way. But it doesn't work with an organization, but it’s not very different, right? People come they work in a place, they want to work with someone who kind-of knows what they're doing. But people are also very people are forgiving, you know, people see you make mistakes, and if you can own up to it, and you, and you correct it, and you fix it. They'll follow you. You don't have to always be right 100% of the time.

THE TRAITS OF A SUCCESSFUL CEO [15:20]

Darren Reinke: Yeah, that's a great point is showing some of that vulnerability, getting them to buy into that but also you talked about listening, anything other practical tips you might be able to provide in terms of what you did to really get up to speed and to be a successful CEO.

Jacob Marash: Before I answer that question, just to say every time you say you asked me to be a successful CEO, right, a part of me deep inside says, “Whoa, am I a successful CEO?” So, it just goes to show that I don't necessarily feel that way, either even though I've managed this company for a while, and I had an exit, and by all means, this is a success, it just goes to show that I still don't feel that way. And it's essentially, my number one tip, by far would be, just do it, jump into the deep end and just do it. And I think my number two tip would be kind of similar to that. And that's basically, you need to just be okay with, you know, being true to yourself, and realizing that you don't necessarily know everything, but you know what you know, and you might not be great at everything. But every one of us has something that they can offer. And whatever it is, you need to double down on that and surround yourself with people that could correct and kind of walk you through those, those other issues. And I have a lot of things that I need to work on. And I'll give you an example. And I think you kind of, for those of you listening don't know, the Darren knows me for a couple of years now, you know, I'm not necessarily the calmest person ever, I tend to have somewhat of a temper. I don't think I am the textbook example of a chill tech CEO or great leader. But I have awareness of that. And I don't try to be someone that I'm not, I'm not Steve Jobs, I'll never be Steve Jobs. I'm not Simon Sinek. I love Simon Sinek videos and books. But I try to take away from that what I can. But I don't try to be that because I'll never be that. So, I cheat, I stay true to my personality. I explained that to the people that work with me. Like I said earlier, double down on the things that I'm very strong at. And I have people come in and help me with the things that I'm not as good at. And maybe I think a lot of people who go and try to start things and try to become leaders, try to work on everything and say amen. I'm not necessarily a good public speaker. So, I can't lead a team. No, you can be a leader that's not necessarily a good public speaker as long as you're good at other things. And the final thing, just to cap this long-winded answer with, is you have to go all in. And a mistake that I see a lot of times with entrepreneurs or people who are starting to try something new is the kind of try to do it in a safe way. So maybe they won't leave their job, or they'll just do like a side gig or whatnot. And when you do that, you always have an out. And you will tend to take that out when things get really tough. So, when you do fail, like I told you earlier, I knew it was going to fail in some things. When you do fail, and you have that ejection button right in front of you, you'll tend to press it, you actually interviewed someone who said something a little bit contradictory to that. So, I'm going to go ahead and say that I don't agree with hedging your bets. Goal and believing yourself. If you give yourself an easy way out to not go forward with this, then you'll probably end up taking it because there are going to be some bumps in that road, when you don't have any other option when you're hungry. And when your next paycheck depends on you succeeding in this endeavor that you have. People tend to succeed a lot more than when they're just doing it as a side gig or whatnot. That's the whole concept of burning the ships, right? Yeah, you're all in, you're all in jump into the deep end, right, you got to learn how to swim. That's the only way.

Darren Reinke: You have some great points, you're talking about playing to your strengths, surrounding yourself by people that complement the things that you're not as strong at all. So, you talked about authenticity. So, you described your own style of leadership and things that you're really strong at. I love to go all in, just do it. But also something you said, and I'll say the word for which is humility. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF PRACTICING HUMILITY [18:36]

Darren Reinke: So, you said I don't know if I'm a successful CEO, that's humility to know that there are additional things to learn and to grow and get better. And I think that's really important, really, of any leader is to show that humility, it'll just change the way people show up, they learn from other people. And they're constantly trying to learn and grow and get better.

Jacob Marash: Yeah, and I mean, it can come in many different forms. So, the way I do it is, I openly make fun of myself in front of my team members. It doesn't have to be necessary, you know, something corny, where I sit down and say, Hey, guys, all times when you hear like, people talk, and they're inspiring you, they're like, Oh, you got to have super humility, and you have to be done. You know, I just make fun of myself, and I make mistakes. When I'm overreacting in a meeting, I tell people, hey, you know how I am, I'm probably going to be a little bit aggressive and say things that I don't mean. So please don't listen to the next five-minute rant. And they know it, and they deal with me. But I think, ultimately, the outcome is that people who work with me know exactly what I'm thinking and what I'm feeling. And there's a sense of humility and be they know where they're at any given moment. They know that you know, it's not Jacob is all nice and everything was great. That means, based on making fire tomorrow, they know exactly where they stand with me. And me wearing my feelings on my sleeve is kind of turned out to be a pretty positive thing.

Darren Reinke: So just to go back in time a little bit. I think it's always interesting just to hear how people got into entrepreneurship. 

DISCOVERING THE SPARK OF ENTREPRENUERSHIP [20:04]

Darren Reinke: So, what was that initial spark for you? I know you backed into it a little bit, you went about it not by coming up with a product and trying to find a fit for it, but actually addressing a customer pain point as it pertains to stem. But what was that drive? What was the initial impetus to become an entrepreneur?

Jacob Marash: I don't know, I do not know. There are so many corny answers I can give to that. Right? There's the cliché answer of, if you don't know why you want to be an entrepreneur, then you're not one. And we've heard all of them. Maybe I'll just attribute it to the fact that, you know, growing up, my dad could not work for other people, he could only work for himself. And he kind of instilled that philosophy in me. So maybe it's that it's, obviously, it's been an easier path for me. I heard some of the folks that you interviewed mentioned that, like, their parents, we’re all about having stability and a career and don't take any risks. I imagine for someone like that, it's a lot harder to make a decision. And for me, it wasn't. But again, Darren, you know, me, I'm very opinionated. I like what I like, I don't do well, being told what to do. So, I think just by definition, I probably wouldn't do well, in a corporate environment. But it's just what I was surrounded with. And I kind of walked in. And it's also fair to mention that when I came into Phoenix, I walked into a family business. So, those were the cards that I was dealt, and they were pretty good cards. And I took advantage of them. I think about this a lot. If my dad did not have a company that I could come and take over and then use to spin-off to a different company, would I still do it? I'd like to believe so. But I don't know for sure. I know, some people will say hey, I just I wouldn't be a good employee, you know, wouldn't be good working for somebody. So, I think that seems to be a lot of the common thread about entrepreneurs is that independent streak. It's 100%. In the case of me, I feel like I'm a very high performer, as long as I get the runway that I need. And I don't do very well, with performing mediocre, but without any runway. So, I read it's for me, it's kind of all or nothing, give me everything that I need to make my own decisions. And I'll do great, I'll work long nights, I'll work for a little bit of money, I can do that very well. And you know, by the way, keep on reflecting back to my military service. But that's another thing I learned in the military, you know, the military is a very, very large organization. No matter how high up, I went, which was not very high, relative to the military, I was never really a decision-maker. And that was a very difficult thing for me because there are a lot of things that the military does that I disagreed with the way they did it. But I didn't really have a say in it. And that was a very frustrating thing for me. So, when I got out of the military, I knew one thing for sure. And that's that I don't want to work for a very, very large and cumbersome organization. I have this blurry line between my personal life and my work life, but at the same time, get those freedoms that you don't get when you work for big corporations.

WHY YOU SHOULD SEEK TO BUILD A PRODUCT THAT ANSWERS CUSTOMERS’ NEEDS? [23:11]

Darren Reinke: I want to go back to something you said earlier about just how you got into STEM audio and that you didn't just build a product. Because I think it's really important. What you touched on is around listening to your customers and your clients and actually responding to those needs. Can you explain just how you went about that? What were those conversations like and just what was really that impetus for that?

Jacob Marash: So I told you the products that we had, and again, I think I was basically planning on just coming out with another one of those products. So, I just wanted to make sure that I get some customer feedback. And then I want to let you know, I didn't just go talk to customers, I actually went, and I went and did installations with them actually went out to the field and physically tried to do what they need to do. And I just got a lot of flack, a lot of anger from, and we all know this, you know when you buy a new product, and you install it, you know, whatever it is a nest thermostat. And it's supposed to be super easy, but you run into a weird snag where the screw doesn't screw into your wall or something. And you're like, Ah, I wish the person who created this knew that if they made the store a little bit thinner and fit better. So, I really got the experience that it was a real aha moment for me. And I wanted to write that. Because ultimately, I think the most important thing as a CEO for a hardware company, is that at least I would be able to stand behind my products. 100%. So, that was the goal. I just ended up being really lucky that the things that I found out were much more than what I expected to get feedback on like what color it should be, what shape it should be, you know, put a screw here and not there. And what it ended up turning into was that there's this whole world of pain points. So, specifically, six pain points that we came across that no other company in our field solves, and we were able to basically realize that and double down and then say, hey, if we can solve these six pain points, we got something huge happening here. But that was not the intention. It's very important for me to mention that it was kind of like an opportunity that we were open to, and we pounced on it. You didn't ask this question, we're gonna answer it anyway. Now that add an exit, I have a lot of business acquaintances, and friends even that come to me, and they want to start a company, right? They know that maybe I have some bandwidth, maybe I have some funds. And I have this idea. And let's do this. And the problem that I come across a lot with people who want to maybe start something is that they want to start something. So, they start with that fact. And then they say, let's think about something that we should create. And I'm no expert. But what I've learned, what my opinion is, is that that doesn't work. You need to start with a pain point, you need to first find a pain point. And that should be your jumping-off point. Not search for “What can I do that will that I like?” Well, I like to do this. So let's create this product that I'm not sure if there's a pain point for it. And we'll just do it really well. In my opinion, that doesn't work. So again, I keep on saying that I was lucky, I was lucky in the sense that I just came across that at a time when I actually had the power and the resources to be able to create a solution for that. So, it was almost like the perfect storm.

WHY OVERNIGHT SUCCESSES DON’T EXIST [26:22]

Darren Reinke: So one other question I want to ask you, Jacob is that, and they talk about every overnight success is really 10 years, some expression like that. And it seemed like from the outside that this process was really fast. From the time you got to the stem audio logo or standing up that business to an exit from Sure. What were some of those challenges you faced during those couple of years that you were growing and scaling your company?

Jacob Marash: First, before we before I launched them and had that great opportunity? You know, I was at Phoenix for over a decade. And I mean, that was an eternity of nothing happening years upon years of just stagnation and, and no matter what, you know, new thing we tried to launch our new initiative, we gain revenue in one product, but lose revenue in another one, it really felt like it would never happen. It's kind of this really weird experience. That now I don't know how to explain it. But I was 100% Convinced that I'd make it big one day, and also at the same time 100 convinced that it's never going to happen. And I would listen to all these podcasts I would go to all these panels was people who succeeded and exited companies. And they would all say the same thing, you know, do this for 20 years, and only then had a success. But if you guys stick with it, it'll eventually happen. I was like, oh my god, easy for you to say. But it ended up being the case, it was basically 15 years of felt like running in place. And then one year when everything just blew up. And I don't know what somebody can take away from that. It's really weird to me, I still can't believe it happened to me, either. So, I'm sorry, I kind of lost what your question was.

Darren Reinke: Basically, I just was asking you about some of the challenges that you faced along the way from fundraising to product issues, etc.

CHALLENGES OF SCALING A BUSINESS [28:01]

Jacob Marash: Everything, everything right, everything from, from HR, from sketchy people coming to work for you, taking advantage of you and making false claims, to launching products that you put a lot of effort at and think it's going to be the greatest thing. And then nobody buys them to every pitfall that every business has. You have these external vendors, whether it's digital marketing or leads that come to you, and they tell you, Oh, if you give us this amount of money, we'll blow you up and you, everybody makes that mistake once and realizes that there is no magic pill out there. And there's no company, they will give them $10,000. And they'll give you a million qualified leads. It just doesn't exist. I apologize to anybody listening to this, who does this for a living? All of it, really all of it. And you just have to grind. Right? And if you listen to How I Built It by Guy Ross, like his favorite question that yes, and every single podcast is, how much of what of your success do you attribute to hard work? And how much of it is luck? Everybody gives them the same answer. 

PERSISTING THROUGH DARK MOMENTS [29:09]

Darren Reinke: And that answer is absolutely 100% True. It is absolutely luck. But the hard work is how long you can stick around to wait till that luck hits. And, you know, when you're an entrepreneur, and you're doing this, there are so many dark nights of not knowing, and I mean, I can only imagine what you're going through writing a book, right? You're putting yourself out there, and you're sending it out. And you don't know if people are going to read it if they're not. And one day, you know, you become a New York Times number one seller, and then everything in hindsight is 2020. But until then, you're in the dark, and that's a very lonely place to be. So yeah, I experienced all of it for a very, very, very long time. And then one day just exploded.

Jacob Marash: As a great point. It does feel like a very lonely place to be. I've talked to so many friends and colleagues who have it seemed like it is made it and had a fantastic exit, or it always worked out well. But there were so many times where they've maxed credit cards and borrowed from friends and family, taking overnight trains to go to meetings not having slept or shower. Just so many stories I've heard from people that all you see is the glam you see the exit, you see the success, you see the billboards, but you don't see that hard work those lonely nights, those dark moments as you described, dark moments, and you know, any agent at any level of experience, lack of a better word, begging people for money is not a fun experience, and almost certainly had to do that when I was pitching, you know, I pitched to VCs and literally had them like, put me on mute. And like I see them talking to there, like family members while I'm still in the middle of my pitch. And I'm like, do I continue talking to nobody or, you know, really hurts your ego, you go through some gnarly, gnarly, gnarly experiences, and you just have to just keep going, I don't know what to tell you. It's sucks. But it's the price, right? If it was easy, everybody would do it. Right? If everybody would get an exit in six months, and everybody would have exits, everybody would have startups. But the reality is that for some of us, it takes a couple of years. For some of us, it takes a couple of decades. But if you stick at it, and you believe in it, and you do it, your chances are better than the rest of us.

Darren Reinke: So, looking forward, then like what's next for STEM Audio now that you're required? By Shure?

Jacob Marash: That's a good question that we should ask, look, stem, it has a very aggressive goal. And stem out, his goal is to take over the world. That's my joke. I always say that. But our goal is to be everything in a conference room. And we have a long, long way to achieve that. And you know, us being acquired by sure was not just an opportunity for an exit, it was something that when we launched stem, we knew that this had to be part of the roadmap because we knew that we needed a large company with great resources and the ability to open doors for us to put us in a place where we can offer a vast array of products for the conferencing space. And so, it's fantastic that we have that now. And we have, we just our journey has just started. I hope to be part of that journey for as long as possible. But I can tell you that so far, it's been a really, really cool and good experience. And it's been a very exciting ride, when the things you get a lot of excitement from having a startup company, that's mostly how to make do how to survive and how to thrive with very little resources. You know, now we're entering a new chapter of we have a lot of resources, how do we scale fast and efficiently with that, so now, it's kind of like a kid who gets to play with much bigger toys. And that's new to me as well. So, that's a very exciting thing for me. And it's very exciting for STEM, and I really, really hope to one day be able to walk into any office space and see our products there.

Darren Reinke: It's been a great success so far, I look forward to tracking your success in the years ahead.

Jacob Marash: Thank you, I really appreciate it. And maybe I want to just give one more plug to you. And one of the things that we do on the side, I don't know if it's okay to do so. But I won't mention any names.

WHY YOU SHOULD JOIN A PEER GROUP [33:04]

Jacob Marash: But you know, Darren heads my CEO forum, which I've been apart from for many, many years now. And that has been such an important and huge resource for me, not necessarily because you learn something specific, and one of the guests that you had talked about his MBA, and he said that he didn't really learn anything new from his MBA. But if nothing else, what I get from that is you just hear other people who are in the same place as you're going through the same problems and you and that gives you strength to continue on. And we talked about how it's a very lonely place. So, Darren, by the way, is a great leader for that group for that team. And I think it takes up a certain kind of ability to be able to lead a group of leaders. But the main plug here is to folks that are listening, if they are entrepreneurs or thinking to do that, I highly recommend being part of some kind of group where there are other people who are in the same space as them. And if nothing else, just to be able to vent and more importantly, to hear other people's problems, which kind of puts things in perspective, and makes you realize that everybody's going through this, and you're not alone. And you're the only person who's walking down this path with all these obstacles.

Darren Reinke: Yeah, no, thanks for the plug-in. Absolutely. I recommend to anybody to join a peer group because it is lonely at the top. And it's so helpful to get insight from other people who sit in that hot seat every single day, like yourself.

Jacob Marash: Yeah, it's also very grounding to realize that other people who manage companies are just as clueless as you are. We're all just kind of freaking out as we go fake it till you make it right.

Darren Reinke: Absolutely. So, where can people go to find out more about STEM Audio products or perhaps pick one up for their company in their conference rooms?

Jacob Marash: Yeah, so the number one place to go to is our website www.stemaudio.com That's STEMaudio.com. You can also find information about us at Shure which is shure.com. And we're active on all social media whether it's LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, you name it, just search @stemaudio, and you shall find us.

Darren Reinke: Great. Hey, thanks so much, Jacob for coming on. I really appreciate your time.

Jacob Marash: My pleasure. Thank you so much, Darren.

Darren Reinke: Thanks for listening to today's episode of The Savage Leader Podcast. My hope is you walk 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 in tactics, 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 would leave a review and also rate the podcast. Thanks and see you on the next episode.