John: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. I'm John Pacini and it's featured guest time on the show. I'm pleased to be here with Richard Yoo, the co-founder and former CEO of Rack Space. Richard, welcome to The BusinessMakers Show.

Richard: Thanks for having me.

John: Richard, let's start here. For those people that don't know about Rack Space Managed Hosting, can you tell us a little bit about the company and its background?

Richard: So originally, Rack Space started as a web hosting company. Basically what that means is that all these web pages you visit online, whether it be Yahoo! or Google or even MySpace or Friendster, anything like that, all those web pages and sites live someplace and so what Rack Space does is it creates kind of like this home for where all that data lives. And so Rack Space is - our expertise is making sure that that data's safe. That that data is accessible. So wherever you are in the world and you pull up www.whatever.com, that if that site is hosted within a Rack Space facility, that data is delivered on time, quickly and there's no lag. But one of the differentiator of Rack Space amongst other companies that do that work is that most of those companies were telecoms or just kind of infrastructure companies and so what made Rack Space different was is that they delivered a customer service layer on top of it. So most of the customers who interacted with Rack Space actually enjoyed talking with the people at Rack Space and working with them, which is kind of rare in that telecom space 'cause almost everyone has a horror story with a cell phone company or a Internet company someplace. So it was definitely something that was different for most of the people kind of working that space.

John: So when you co-founded the company in 1998, you saw this as a need. Was it obvious this was the need that you were going to fill or was it something there -

Richard: No.

John: - where you said, "Let's start this," and it evolved into that as you learned to understand the space?

Richard: No, it was completely, like most good things, like you know, like the 3M Post-It Note, it was like total accident. And what happened is when the Internet boom happened, we were there. Netscape had just gone public, you know, Yahoo! was public. Everyone is just totally gaga over Internet kind of things and so what I wanted to do was just kind of be, just play in the 'Net space at the time, just like, you know, back in the day when you took your car in to get fixed, you just took it to the mechanic and the car guy would just take care of whatever your problem was - whether it was your air conditioning or the brakes or the tires. And so 10, 15 years ago, that's how it was with Internet. If you wanted Internet email addresses; if you wanted a webpage; if you wanted, you know, to do ecommerce, there was always some guy that someone knew that did Internet. And originally, we were that kind of company and originally it was a company called Scimitar and we did everything and anything related to Internet - whether it was the actual work itself, the email or the webhosting or whatever, but also the creative side, too, and a lot of consulting, 'cause there was a lot of people who were saying, "You know, my business I sell cupcakes. I don't need a .com," is what they would say. And so we did a lot of that work. So how we stumbled across Rack Space was it turns out that we were very bad at consulting. We were very bad at giving advice. We were very bad at all sort of stuff and what made it bad was is that we were so focused on solving the problem we weren't focused at all about building the business. And so the big joke was that we would go into a client's place and we would actually solve their problem and they would never call us again. You know, that's kind of a big joke in consulting, right? You got a -

John: You didn't create an ongoing demand.

Richard: Right, right, right. There no relationship there at all. We would stay - they would call us, fix the problem, we'd go fix the problem and they were gone and then -

John: Yeah.

Richard: - and that was kind of it. And so during that time, we were having a really great time and we enjoyed all the customer engagements we had but we weren't creating any sort of ongoing revenue base or just any kind of upward tick on anything.

John: Cash flow stream.

Richard: We were just kind doing - yeah. We're just kind of doing the work but we weren't really focusing on the P&L or anything like that. And so what ended up happening is that when we started reviewing some of the books, we realized that, you know, the 80/20 kicked in and we said, "Look, you know, 80 percent of our revenue came from 20 percent of the effort we were putting in," and then we identified that it was actually the web hosting. 'Cause we would get a customer in, we would build their web page, we would put it on the server, it would be accessible to the Internet and then we would never really talk to them ever again but we definitely would bill them every month and so this kind of notion of recurring revenue was kind of something we stumbled across and it was working. And so literally, like within a week, we said, "You know what, we should probably spend more time doing this web hosting thing and see how it goes." And it turns out we started getting customers all over the place. Our first non-Texas customer was out of Turkey and then we got another one out of Germany and so we realized that there was kind of a demand for just kind of solid, credible web hosting because there was a lot of people producing content that they wanted put online but they couldn't find a company they really rely on or trust to do it. And so we were kind of the first people to do that.

John: And how were you acquiring your customers in the early years like that?

Richard: So at the time, Dell was kind of our model. Dell switched from kind of their mail order method to Dell Direct - they did a total Dell Direct push and they were one of the first e-tailers or online retailer that were starting to do this kind of like fully online purchasing process. 'Cause back then, even like in the late '90s people were still buying PCs at computer stores. They weren't actually going online to a website just kind of to buy something 'cause the Internet was still kind of young and people just didn't trust the Internet. So Dell was putting a huge push out of Austin to say, "Hey let's see if we can push all of that work, the customer service, the order fulfillment, the tracking, everything, online," and we started looking at that and go, "Hey that's a pretty neat way of doing it," because you know we're all just a bunch of geeks and nerds doing this. We weren't salespeople. We weren't suit and tie guys. We kind a had to struggle to get to tie street, let along try to do a deal, right? And so the obvious answer for us was to go ahead and put it online. And so we built this thing called The Configurator and you could select what kind of server you wanted and what sort of plan you wanted to pay for and what the duration of that plan would be and whatnot and that's kinda what happened. And so we did a few banner ads, which was kind of like the only form of advertising you could do online back then and people started finding us. Once we did maybe once or twice a month, we started getting orders once or twice a week and then it went to once or twice a day and then it went to once or twice an hour. It was just -

John: And you had the hockey stick growth?

Richard: Oh yeah, it was insane. And so when people talk about this hockey stick growth thing, like I mean I remember seeing these numbers go up and people also asked, "How did you know that Rack Space was a good idea?" To me it's like falling in love. When it happens, you know. Like you don't have to think about it. You know when you're in love and you know when this is working because you realize how easy it is. You enjoy doing it and it comes easy and that sort of stuff. And that was probably kind of like the interesting thing about that whole transition was that before we were definitely struggling to make every paycheck and get every client. That sort of stuff -

John: Right.

Richard: - versus, it was just being barraged by customer inquiries and we want to buy more of this. It was kind of nice and refreshing.

John: Well and there's a difference between a business that grows to be successful and a business that grows to be as successful as Rack Space is.

Richard: That's true, too.

John: And so at what point do you think you realized that it was really going to explode? I mean was it two years in? Three years in? What point did you think that, "This is really gonna be something"?

Richard: There was several fulcrum points that we identified but the initial part was just kind of like this is an idea that was definitely getting away from us. And then a few years later it became an idea that, "Well maybe we can get a lot of VC money and blow it out." And then later on it was one of those things where it's like, "Well maybe we should take this thing public." So I think there was few different things that happened that made us realize it was bigger than we originally thought. So in the early stages, it was just kinda one of those things where like this is not a mom and pop thing. This is not something that we're just gonna do as a lifestyle.

John: Right.

Richard: This is one of those things where if we don't embrace it, someone else is gonna embrace it -

John: Right.

Richard: - and we're just gonna be a small company.

John: And you have market traction, so you might as well just, you know, continue that -

Richard: Right.

John: -continue that push and go ahead.

Richard: Absolutely.

John: And in a minute, we're gonna talk about the concept of fanatical support and how that revolutionized your business -

Richard: Great, thank you.

John: And revolutionized that model. Okay, well we're talking with Richard Yoo, co-founder and former CEO of Rack Space and you're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com.

John: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. I'm John Pacini and continuing on with Richard Yoo, former CEO and co-founder of Rack Space. Well listen, right before we went to break we were talking about the growth of the company and some of the things that helped make it the ultra success that it was.

Richard: Right.

John: One of those things that you and your early team helped put together and continues on to this day is the concept of fanatical support.

Richard: Right.

John: And you go to the rackspace.com website now and that's - it's all over the site and that continues to be a mantra of the company.

Richard: Uh huh.

John: Tell me how that developed and what that meant to you and how it influenced the company.

Richard: Yeah, so during the early growth phases of Rack Space - that was probably the late '90s - and just like any kind of disruptive technology that comes about, whether it's a internal combustion engine for a car or the telephone or anything like that, originally it's always kind of like a technical thing, right? And those people who are only technical can really embrace it. This is why, you know, cars today are very different than cars back then, where trying to start up a Model T apparently is a real pain 'cause you gotta crank things and whatnot. The same kind of transition happened with Rack Space, too. Initially, when we started kind of selling, the customer base that we were selling to were very technical. They would specifically say, "This is the kind of memory we want on the server," and, "This is the kind of SCSI drives we wanted," and, "This is the kind of," you know, "d3 kind of connectivity and 10-Base T," and all the jargon that you would hear from the Geek Squad would be involved in the sales call. And so our other competitors in this space, and we weren't the only people doing webhosting, there was lots of companies doing it and it turns out that all these companies were competing at that kind of same technical level and it was kind of like, you know, like a machismo kind of thing where it's like, "Well, we have the bigger data center than those guys so we must be a better product," or "We have more connectivity than those guys do," or, "We sell larger storage arrays," and so it became kind of like this one-upmanship kind of thing. And ultimately, we felt like, okay - 'cause we were kind of the smaller guys - 'cause some of the bigger, the players that were there were big companies like AT&T was a player, MCI Worldcom was a player. These are extremely large multi-billion dollar telecom companies that we were competing against. So in terms of customers looking at us versus them, you know, they have presence in New York and Silicon Valley and all the right places and we're this kind of small team in Texas where people believe people ride horses and there's tumbleweeds going across the streets and stuff.

John: Exactly.

Richard: And so it was really difficult for us to compete and we did and we did really well but to really kind of kick it over we realized that the customer base that are coming were not gonna be technical. These are the guys that wanted air conditioning and leather seats and, you know, power seats and power windows and automatic transmission. These weren't computer guys, you know? They were business people and they were starting to realize that the Internet was an opportunity for them and they didn't want to mess with the gobbledygoop of all the technical stuff to make it happen. When computers were first introduced in the business, when IBM did that with the mainframes, there were teams of people who would manage that. But you know, the Internet was this great equalizer for small businesses. This is a chance for small businesses to compete against big guys and these small businesses were maybe two people, three people, one person. And there was no way that they could have, you know, a tech guy on staff doing it. And most of the times, they really didn't want to go with the tech guys because you know with the tape on their glasses and whatnot, these are not the kind of people you would wanna associate with. When we did fanatical support, we realized that the main differentiator we could kind of bring to the table that the telecom guys couldn't keep up with was really kind of like this Texas hospitality, right? Being really nice, just kind of feel what the customer feels, empathy and really try to kind of like close the distance gap between the customer and us as the provider because even today, when you call a telephone company, you don't know where that phone call's going. It could be going to Chicago. It could be going to Bangladesh.

John: Right.

Richard: And sometimes there's a cultural problem in what you want to solve and sometimes it's a technical problem because the jargon is not quite there. Like there's something wrong with my flip phone and then halfway through the conversation, they go, "Oh! It's the problem with your SIM," it's like, "What's the SIM, right?" Like it's just one of those things. And so Rack Space - that was kind of the major transition. And you ask, like, "Was that easy?" It wasn't easy 'cause our team at the time was highly technical and they're saying, "Well, you know, we're trying to build the best technical service possible," anyone can do customer service but we learned quickly that it was the opposite. Anyone can build technical stuff. Doing the customer service was what was difficult.

John: Right.

Richard: This is what differentiates like the Lexus versus Toyota. This is what separates Nordstrom versus Macy's, you know?

John: Right.

Richard: And people found that that's a premium service. People were willing to pay more for it. People were looking to kind of like go after it, looking for it. This is the place where our competitors could not compete and so that's kind of what happened with that.

John: So whether it's Ritz Carlton or Nordstrom, it's imbued in the culture, you know, that sort of service. How did you develop that? How did you drive that into your employees and partners?

Richard: It wasn't easy. So originally, we were hiring people who knew Windows NT Server or UNIX and that sort of stuff and that was kind of like the bar. Like if you didn't know the technology that we were trying to build and deliver then we weren't interested in hiring you. But it turned out that when you hire a technical person - and everyone has kind of this experience with technical people, this kind of like, "Oh, you're just not doing it right," there's just kind of like this _____ arrogance, right? And you hate asking for help because you might get punched in the face by this slobbery, you know, nerd guy who is just a complete mess and you're like, "You know what, I don't wanna deal with that," and so _____ _____ embarrassment. So we actually had initially kind of this very short period of time where our culture was kind of like that. A customer would call and after the customer would hang up, the guy would turn around going, "Oh I can't believe this guy on the phone. What an idiot he is 'cause he doesn't know how to do this." And we realized that this is not the kind of culture we wanted to build.

John: Exactly. Exactly.

Richard: We wanted to say, you know what, the guy who didn't know is the guy who calls us and finds us the most valuable. He's gonna really pay a premium. He's gonna be the guy that tells his friends about it and that sort of stuff. And that was the day that we realized that we needed to hire a different kinda guy, a different kinda person -

John: So it became a hiring approach as much as anything else?

Richard: Yeah, it was two part. One was cultural -

John: Yes.

Richard: Like we wanted to make sure that never again was someone allowed to kind of like make fun of a customer. And the second one was well maybe we should hire people who are better at customer service and so we ended up hiring people based on their personality. We started doing personality tests to see if they were empathetic. If they, you know, could understand the customer. The people who like talking. People who like listening. Eventually, it kind of became one of those things where we would just train the kind of social people that we're hiring to do technical things. 'Cause it turns out that there's only a small subset of things that our technical support people were doing, right, like uploading the web page, making sure it's working, changing passwords. They were very typically kind of the normal things that you were doing. And then if that person that we trained couldn't handle it, then that person can kind talk to the super nerd and ask them, you know, behind the curtain, like, "What do we need to do to make this happen for this particular customer?"

John: Right.

Richard: And so the culture became very much from technical prowess was kind of a thing that people loved to, you know, "Wow wasn't it great that we helped that customer?" And like, "What other things can we do to help that customer," and people kind of rallied around the customer itself and that kind of was a huge kind of 180 versus our competitors in this space and that's kinda what made us different from everybody else.

John: Well and that growth was spectacular and obviously the investment community was excited by it and it was something that allowed you guys to have pretty exciting growth. Love to hear more about as you guys grew as a business and talk about how you guys were able to grow into the business that you were behind the scenes over the course of the coming years and grow it as you did.

Richard: Sure.

John: After the break, we will discuss that a little bit and chat more with Richard Yoo. So we're talking with Richard Yoo, co-founder and former CEO of Rack Space. You're listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com.

John: This is the BusinessMakers Show heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com. I'm John Pacini and continuing on with Richard Yoo, co-founder and former CEO of Rack Space. So before the break we were talking about the growth of the company and how the concept of fanatical support really changed the company, transformed it into something that was service oriented and made it really exciting, I think, to a lot of people in the business community that were watching it. As you guys were growing, as things were really sort of taking off, obviously, your employee count grows, your obligations grow, your overhead grows. Everything starts to take off. How did you manage that as the CEO of the company back then? How did you manage the opportunities, all the things that suddenly started coming your way and all the investors, obviously, that started lining up on your doorstep? How did that happen for you guys?

Richard: So, the hockey stick that we talked about happened fairly quickly. It actually happened within the first, like 12 to 18 months. In the spectrum of am I suit-and-tie guy or am I kind of like a blue collar guy, I generally lean more towards kind of the doer than the suit-and-tie guy and so we actually started building the team of executives fairly early because of that. We hired a CFO early on and I just kind of started transitioning of the CEO role and into more of a CTO role within the first kind of like 12 to 18 months. And so because of that, that allowed me to kind of focus more on like the product offering and understanding the customer and that sort of stuff; the things that made fanatical support and that sort of stuff happen. And so the other things like dealing with the investors, that sort of stuff, kind of was split off to the new, kind of young executive team that was coming in. That's not to say I wasn't involved but kind of the answer to your question as to how that transition went, it was very, very like a rollercoaster ride. 'Cause from the early part there was no one interested in us at all 'cause we're the small guy around. And then within a year and a half, all these guys were calling. They're like, "Are you guys for sale?" "Are you guys taking investment money?" "And we heard great things about you guys and the service offering." And at the same time, that category was booming, too because we were definitely in the middle of the dot com boom. So every other site out there that was being built, even like YouTube, was looking for places to kind of host that data and we were there. And so because the category was booming, too, we kind of had this kind of perfect storm of things happening. We were doing really well, the environment was really good, the investor community was like really into that space too, and so I mean it was crazy. Literally, we would have VC companies, other acquisition possibility companies coming in maybe once every three days, two days. Like, it was a dog and pony every other day, you know? I don't think I wore a suit and tie more often any time in my life than then because of all the different guys were coming in.

John: But you didn't show up in your pajamas, like the Facebook guys did? [Laughter]

Richard: Well, no. So what ended up happening is because I was doing the work, too, I would stay up all night long, 1:00, 2:00, 3:00 in the morning, fall asleep at my desk. Someone would come in the office saying, "I can't believe you're still here." And they would send me home. Like, "You have to go home to get cleaned up because we have, you know, people flying in. They'll be here at 9:00." And so I would go home and get cleaned up and come back and, you know, grab like a Pop Tart or something on the way in.

John: And be presentable.

Richard: Yeah, and be presentable. And here I am, at the time, I was like 24, 25 years old -

John: Right.

Richard: - and these guys were salt-and-pepper, you know, late 40s, coming in evaluating what we're doing and meanwhile, our phones are ringing off the hook because customers are calling, too. So we were balancing all of the kind of administrative stuff of growing the business, working on the business with also like being in the business and doing the business, right?

John: Right.

Richard: And also trying to figure out, you know, does the customer like A or B? Like do we - which one do we do more of? Which one do we do less of? And it was kind of very much one of those things where I just don't remember a lot of what happened 'cause it happened so fast and thank goodness I took a lot of pictures along the way because, you know, I pull up photos that I took that I don't even remember what happened here. It's like - and then I'll show someone else who was in the picture. They're like, "Oh yeah, that's the night when you know, like we stayed up two days straight and that's why you don't remember," but I'm like - and so, so yeah. So it was a - I'm not sure if I'm answering your question but it was a crazy ride -

John: No, absolutely.

Richard: - and it was very, very - there as a lot of things going on at the same time. I'm glad there was a lot of people involved helping and we're also very fortunate that everything kind of like was stacked in our favor at that time.

John: So along the way and through the boom, you guys - was there any opportunities to be sold along the way that might've changed history and changed the course of the IPO?

Richard: Yeah, so you know, the first year everyone wanted to invest in us and everyone wants to buy us. The second year, you know, it was kind of more of the same but it was more kind of like, you know, "If you guys took more money could you be better poised for an IPO in another year or two and maybe we could all become billionaires?" Like it was kind of like the pie in the sky story.

John: Yeah.

Richard: Like, I guess this is kind of what the banker community does and that's kind of their business. And so during that process, we ended up in this kind of engagement where I think at the time it was British Telecom Company who was looking to buy us and we ended up going on this process. So like in '01, '02, probably the third year of kind of our full operation, we were thinking that we were probably gonna get bought by somebody else and it was kind of bittersweet. On one hand, you know, I really enjoyed all the people I was working with, all the stuff, all the customers we were working with. We just got comfortable with the business. Right, we just kinda got to the point where I can now take a vacation. I can now sleep at night and that sort of stuff. And here we have a situation where some other company's gonna reap the benefits, right? They're gonna buy it. But that's kind of you know, semi _____.

John: So did you resist the temptation of being acquired or -

Richard: It wasn't more of a resist - it was kind of like more like, "Wow, this more stuff I'm uncomfortable with," right? It was like - the first part was like, grow, grow, grow, grow and I was uncomfortable and then it became like, "Okay, now we're being sold," and I was uncomfortable. So it was kind of a eternal state of discomfort.

John: Right.

Richard: And so we started that process and we were - all the paper was being done. It just so happens that the deal was being finished on September 10th, and so -

John: Of 2001?

Richard: Of 2001.

John: Oh wow.

Richard: And so we've had many deals happen like this before where we thought we were gonna get bought or not or invested in or whatever and so my personal lawyer called me and he goes, "Hey, I don't know where you are right now," and I happened to be at dinner at that time. It was evening of the 10th and he goes, "I think this deal is gonna happen, so tomorrow morning your company will be owned by this British company," and we're like, "Wow, that's both - it's exciting -

John: Right, right.

Richard: - and uncomfortable," right? We were ____ that. And so we had a good n- we popped the champagne, we had a good time. And so long story short, I woke up the next morning with the phone ringing 'cause you know I didn't plan on getting up early that - 'cause I figured I took the day off and the phone kept ringing, the phone kept ringing. I'm like, "What is going on?" And I'm like, "I know the company's being sold, everyone's excited to say congratulations." I picked up the phone, they go, "Hey, have you seen the news?" And I go, "No. Are we on the news?" Like, "You're not on the news but have you seen what's going on in New York?" And so I turned the TV on on the phone and I see the twin towers in flames.

John: Yeah.

Richard: And I'm like, "Wow -

John: Unbelievable.

Richard: - what is going on?" And the really sad thing about this is that the people involved in the deal for our company happened to have just flown to New York to kind of finish the paperwork. _______ was FedEx, part of the deal he was going up there and lo and behold, these guys officed out of the twin towers.

John: Oh my God.

Richard: And so, you know, talk about discomfort now. I mean -

John: Right.

Richard: - we didn't know if they were okay. We didn't know what was going on with our country. We didn't know, you know, what's gonna happen with our company. Like we didn't know what's gonna happen to the stock market 'cause it was a public company that bought us. We went from hero to zero so fast, it was the most uncomfortable time in my life, ever, right? And so it was one of those things where talk about good luck, bad luck. I mean this is like just catastrophically bad luck, right, in terms of timing. And it was one of those things where three guys in our deal we never saw of again. You know, bless their souls -

John: Unbelievable.

Richard: - but like it was incredibly sad. And we were lucky that we still had kind of a solid team. The deal didn't happen because of all that and we kind of brushed our knees off -

John: And you moved on?

Richard: - you know, like moved on and stood by fanatical support -

John: Right.

Richard: - and what we're doing. And -

John: That's fantastic.

Richard: - the whole, you know, everyone knows. The whole market kind of like went through a correction during that time, too -

John: Right, right.

Richard: - because of it and so -

John: That's incredibly personal time to -

Richard: It was one of those things. Yeah. It was a very, very stressful, very upsetting.

John: So, Richard, one of the questions that we always ask of our guests is obviously, you've been very successful in business. If there's an entrepreneur out there who's listening to the show right now who would want some advice or, if you would be able to share some mentorship with them, what would be a piece of advice you'd give to somebody at the idea or growth stage of their business?

Richard: Yeah, so I talk to entrepreneurs all the time about this sort of stuff. You know, the both early-stage where before they even start going and halfway through when they're in the process but they're just not sure what they're gonna do. So entrepreneurship I think is partly blind faith, right? You have this idea that you think is gonna work. I mean, Steve Jobs is kind of the king of this. Like, the iPad or the iPhone doesn't exist but I think if I build it, people will buy it, right? So part of it is blind faith. If I - I think I can do it right and if I do it right then I think I'll have a success. I think the part of kind of the thing I see every day now with a lot of entrepreneurs is that there's a kind of a fine line between vision and delusion, right? And so part of -

John: That's part of the charm. [Laughter]

Richard: - yeah, well, and that's the trick, right?

John: Exactly.

Richard: Sometimes you're lucky and sometimes you're not. I think the most important thing about entrepreneurship is that it's iterative. Sometimes what you wanna build is the correct thing to do and everything, the timing and your luck and everything kind of lines up just right. And it just takes off like an airplane. And sometimes, you know, things like 9/11 happen. Things like, you know, you have a baby on the way. Like, other things happen around life that may affect what's going on. So I think that a really good entrepreneur can take the blows, take the punches, and then kind of move on and take what they learned from that one project they're working on and apply it to the next project. So I think that a lot of entrepreneurs I meet are very discouraged. The first time they run into some sort of road block or some complications, they're like, "Oh, it's a lot more expensive than I thought," or, "I can't really find the right guy to hire for this project." You either kind of get through that or you're just not an entrepreneur.

John: So resilience and creativity?

Richard: Resilience and kind of like knowing that this is a long haul project. You know, Google doesn't happen to everybody. Apple doesn't happen to everybody. Even me, like Rack Space was probably my fourth deal that I was working on, not my first but my fourth. And so a lot of these entrepreneurs I meet, like they're 16, they're 20, they're 30 and this is the first deal that they've done. And they're upset that it's not going the way they want and I'm like, "Look dude, it's like dating, man. Like the first girl you meet, you're not gonna marry. You have to kind of go through this process, right? And sometimes you're hurt. Sometimes, like you go into debt. Sometimes you get lucky," 'cause you know, people always heard the story about they get lucky in love and they marry their high school sweethearts and sometimes it happens, sometimes, like you meet 'em when you're 40. It just kinda happens, right? And so you just kinda have to keep going through the process and I think that the commitment and planning on things not working the way you want is kind of the key. I think this kind of like pie in the sky, "I just build it and they will come," is totally crazy. Right, it just doesn't work -

John: So it's about managing expectations, like life?

Richard: Absolutely. Absolutely. And just sticking with it and just kind of plowing through it.

John: Well Richard, thank you so much for being our guest today and I hope you come back and visit us sometime.

Richard: Yeah, yeah. Of course, of course! Anytime you want.

John: Fantastic. That's great. Okay, we've been talking with Richard Yoo, co-founder and former CEO of Rack Space Managed Hosting and you've been listening to The BusinessMakers Show, heard here and seen online at theBusinessMakers.com.