Seb Wichmann (00:55.721) Welcome listeners. am Seb Wichmann, your host of the Do Good Founders podcast, where we dive deep into raw and meaningful conversations with visionary founders and CEOs who see beyond profits elevating the lives of employees and the planet as we call home. At DoGo we combine business growth and goodness, assisting our clients and optimizing their processes and nurturing high performing teams. As for me, I love a good vegan diet, I'm an avid triathlon athlete. However, my life's work orbits around the principles of business excellence and the nurturing of profound relationships along the way. And who better to share this journey with than inspiring leaders who live these values. So I'm super excited to welcoming today Benji Kolthai, the co-founder and CEO of Galley Solutions. Benji is a progressive leader who leveraged his expertise in computer science to revolutionize the culinary industry. He started his career at a software engineer at Box. before partnering with his brother-in-law to make a remarkable impact on the food industry. At Galli, Benji and his team are working hard to improve the lives of those in the food industry, transforming this labor-intensive sector into a more efficient and sustainable workplace environment through modern technology. He imagines a world where a recipe-first culinary resource planning platform enhances operations, reduces waste and most importantly improves the well-being and livelihood of hard-working chefs and food service workers around the globe. He plays water polo, he speaks English and Spanish and seems to be overall an awesome dude. So welcome Benji. How are you today? Awesome, awesome. Good to have you as well. So Benji, let's dive right into kind of a question that I think Benji Koltai (02:37.388) Awesome, pleasure to be here with you Seb. Good man, doing great. Seb Wichmann (02:49.942) is in the heart of all entrepreneurs, founders, as we talk to them right now and to our listeners, talk us through, before we dive a little bit more into Galley Solutions, what is your current biggest challenge that you can't kind of, where you wake up in the morning saying that was a crazy night? What is happening with you? Benji Koltai (03:09.882) Yeah, well, I feel like there's two phases of being a founder. There's pre-product market fit and post-product market fit. And the types of problems you have in those two phases are very different. We are in the pre-product market fit phase, it feels, where we are trying to build a very ambitious solution that helps. run a significant part of food service operations. And we're, you know, the sort of proverbial building the plane as you fly it. So trying to get as many features done as we can with as high quality as we can so that we can meet the needs of the market in full while also still trying to drive revenue and still trying to get customers and help people with, you know. giving them the features that we have, which are transformative in themselves, but finding that right sort of message and process to get customers onboarded and successful with the platform, given how ambitious our goals are with what we want to do with Galley. Seb Wichmann (04:21.786) Thank you for that. Would you say that Galley is at a point right now where you satisfy your customers sufficiently for them to have a first-class experience or where are you at in terms of your own headache on that? The level of headache that you're experiencing. Benji Koltai (04:42.204) Yeah, I mean, I have a very high bar for where I want us to get to. We have customers who tell us, you know, this has completely changed my life. I will never work at a food business that does not use Galley. So from their perspective, I think we have done a great job of, you know, solving a problem. But from my perspective, I think we have lots of room still to grow and build and create. So, you know, I'm probably our harshest critic and think there's still a lot of room to improve and, you know, things that we want to do that we don't yet have. But I don't want to be too harsh on Galley and we are helping large businesses run and we are a full-blown real platform. It's just relative to where I want to take it, I guess. Seb Wichmann (05:34.028) It's so interesting, it resonates with me so much, know, like this whole piece around us setting ourselves such high expectations as founders where we are having, you we love what we do, right? In terms of the service offering and we want to create an exceptional first-class experience for our customers. Would you say that this is what makes the great being great, this ferocious pursuit to never being satisfied and always being hungry for more? Benji Koltai (06:04.499) Yeah, I mean, I think it's that human infliction that we all have of, you know, we're never satisfied with what we have. We always want it to be bigger, better, more. And in a way, entrepreneurship is the maximum degree of that where you're just constantly driving and pushing and trying to innovate. And that's what's so exciting. It's also what's so draining and hard and isolating about being an entrepreneur. Seb Wichmann (06:36.068) Tell us about Galley Solutions. What do you guys do? Who's your clients? What's happening? Benji Koltai (06:41.226) Yeah, so we, I like to start with our why. So our why statement is that we are working to improve people's lives by optimizing kitchen operations. So first and foremost, we want to improve the lives of our employees. So we strive to be a really great place to work. And in doing that, we hope to deliver to the food service industry. So people who make food for other people. a system that we call the Culinary Resource Planning Platform. So it's sort of analogous to an enterprise resource planning tool that helps kitchens run. It helps people make food more efficiently. It helps them keep track of the recipes that they make. It helps them plan how much of each recipe they want to make at some point in the future. And then do all the things that have to happen to make food. You have to procure ingredients. You have to store your inventory. And then you have to go and make the food. You have to execute your recipe. So Those are sort of the core five modules, recipes, planning, inventory, procurement, and production that our CRP offers. And in providing that tool to these culinary workers, they can then improve the lives of everybody in the world by feeding us higher nutrient dense foods, higher quality foods at a better price point because there's less waste. we reduce the waste for the planet. So it really is that sort of inside out impact vision of wanting to just create a better food system in totality, driving that with this technological platform that we've come up with. Seb Wichmann (08:25.087) So what has been the seed that's invigorated this thought that you want to revolutionize the culinary industry? Where does this come from for you? Benji Koltai (08:37.142) It was all a personal journey. I have Crohn's disease, which is an autoimmune bowel disease. And that led me to learn about a gluten-free lifestyle, which has really helped me manage my diet, my... manage my disease through diet. And when I tried to do that at a food tech company that I thought would have been sort of the leading edge of transparency and nutrition and making it clear to consumers what they're being served, I sort of ran head first into this problem that kitchens are run on pencil and paper still, pretty much. And so even though this previous company that I was at indicated on their app whether things were gluten free or not, I couldn't trust those indicators because ultimately they were manually set and they were not connected to the kitchen in any way because the kitchen was using the standard tools of the trade, which is spreadsheets and pencil and paper. So that's where my journey started. I started building a operation tool for that business, which ultimately solved my problem as a consumer of that essentially restaurant. It was a delivery only restaurant. I was able to then start relying on the dietary flags. And so, you know, I guess the entrepreneurial journey of wanting to solve a problem for myself, having a very unique opportunity to be a software engineer embedded at really one of the first like high tech restaurants in San Francisco. And then in implementing that solution, I not only solved the consumer problem, but I also solved the operator problem. And all the chefs who worked at that business told me how transformative this operation system was for them. And they really encouraged me Benji Koltai (10:25.718) to spin this out when that company shut down and bring it into the broader industry. Seb Wichmann (10:32.329) It is so interesting, you when we first met Benji, you know, kind of read, you read as well, but you watch, you know, episodes, you know, whether that's Gordon Ramsay or whoever, crazy kitchen, you know, nightmare type scenarios. And, you know, what I got to learn over the years is that it is a supply chain issue at times, know, sourcing information, sourcing products, you know, just not even talking about the internal processes and what goes in that all. Right. So. That really what brought me to you and what fascinates me for you to really systemize this and to provide a value for the culinary industry that otherwise seems to be a huge headache, at least for myself. Would that be fair to say? Was that your... Benji Koltai (11:20.23) For sure. mean, I've, yeah, you know, recently the bear, the TV show that's won all these awards. It's fantastic if you haven't seen it, highly recommend it. But it's the perfect depiction of the mental health toll that culinary professionals have because of the chaos, because of the sort of, there's so many things that can go wrong. Your supplier might not deliver the items that you ordered. You might just run out of stuff that you didn't know you were running out of. And then everything in between and you have to keep all that stuff straight. And then now that we have technology encroaching on the food service experience where, know, 20 years ago, a restaurant was a restaurant. It was easy to run a restaurant. had your four walls and your roof and you went in, you ate the food. It was chaotic then. It was hard to deliver, you know, every night service. It was a push. was a manual grind, and then you bring in technology for the consumer where you can have delivery and you can have drop shipping and you can have all these different ways that now the consumers are expecting to interact with your food business. And the complexity just goes up by an order of magnitude. So I think people are starting to get a glimpse through the Gordon Ramsay shows and these sort of cooking shows that we're all starting to really love. It's incredible to see and it's dramatic. Seb Wichmann (12:45.289) It is there. Benji Koltai (12:46.108) unfortunately it should become more boring. So our goal is to make the food service industry a little bit more boring, take some of the drama out, take some of the chaos out. So enjoy it while it lasts, because we're coming for it. Seb Wichmann (12:50.657) Right, bit of boring. I love that. Seb Wichmann (12:58.379) Yeah, I love it. Sometimes I'm wondering who invented this chaos in kitchens, you know? And I do think there are some chefs actually that purposefully and intentionally don't shout. And I've seen that also and I think that's to me a much wiser approach, but that's just me being a total idiot with this, right? So let's shift gears. you know, at DoGood, we love to help mid-size startups to... Benji Koltai (13:16.261) Yeah. Seb Wichmann (13:23.745) you know, streamline their operations, workflows, and to building high performing teams. And we have a huge passion and focus on culture. Talk me through, when we first talked, you spoke about that you scaled your company down from I think 65 employees to 35. Talk me through that. First of all, that must have not been an easy experience, like even emotionally. Talk us through kind of the, the goods, the bad, so to speak on that, in that moment. Benji Koltai (13:51.794) Yeah. So I think like everybody, it's a journey. There are ups and downs, think, especially with... the crazy capital markets that we just went through. We sort of had record high valuations for venture backed startups, which led to, you know, crazy, you know, rounds being raised and scaling up and scaling down and the pandemic. And all of that has just, I feel like been such a pressure cooker and such a condensation of like, what it is to run a business in a very short amount of time. And so for me and Ian, my co-founder, when we started the business, one of our primary principles is that we need to first and foremost take care of our employees. if we're going to be a successful business, that's going to depend on having employees that feel fulfilled at work, that feel values aligned, that feel purpose aligned with our vision for the world and have some personal conviction that that's what they want to spend their time doing. And so, you know, in hiring, And in running the business and in developing our culture, that has always been a primary goal of making really clear what is our why statement, what are our values? How do we have conversations as a team on what are your personal why statements and your personal values and how do those align or not with Galley's? And so with that foundation, we've then been able to really navigate this chaotic period. Benji Koltai (15:33.692) sticking to those values. And so one of our values is active stewardship. And that's sort of a intentionally broad value that comes into play in the form of my leadership style of being very transparent with the team. where as we've gone through these rounds of layoffs that we've unfortunately had to do because the markets change and our models don't end up being what they are, we make adjustments, but we are open with the team and we say, look, you know, this was our revenue number that we had to hit. This is the amount of runway that we have left. We need to make changes so that we can increase our runway so that we can stay alive as a business. And that transparency creates from what I've heard from my employees, a level of trust and and a level of really inspiration and motivation for them to, you know, not always be wondering like, what's the surprise that's gonna hit us next? And they can kind of settle into their life as Galley employees, knowing that we will do our best to keep them as informed as we can as, you know, situations change quarter to quarter. So, yeah, you know, it's been a hard journey for sure. Seb Wichmann (16:32.009) Ahem. Benji Koltai (16:49.972) But I don't think anything good comes easy. So it's to be expected. Seb Wichmann (16:54.281) Yeah, so interesting, know, I again can relate Having employees and we as founders we know our vision Man, I mean we sleep we we sleep over it. We you know, we have a bite to eat We constantly think about especially people like yourself right to what's what's the next? Kind of nuts we can kind of turn to make it tighter or to make it more flexible or whatever it is. So You know, we know our vision well, we know our values well, and we communicate those values to our teams. How do you keep the team that have also life, right? Beyond it and other responsibilities that's very quickly can forget what you spoke about just five minutes ago. You know, we know that and they try their best, right? But how do you continuously reiterate and make sure that they're really seeing of the same song sheet and it's not going to be just a kind of a poster on the wall, so to speak. Benji Koltai (17:56.983) Yeah. I'm a new parent. And one of the things that I've started to learn as a relatively new parent, guess, you know, I have a five year old and a two year old. and, you know, relative to galley. And one of the most valuable lessons that I learned as a parent was the importance of rhythm. Seb Wichmann (18:03.421) Congratulations. Benji Koltai (18:19.651) And we as humans have rhythm in our DNA. The sun goes up, the sun comes down. Our bodies do things according to that rhythm. And one of the biggest unlocks for me operationally in the business was bringing in rhythm into the business. So the other concept is that rhythm happens on different time scales. So you have your annual rhythm, you have your quarterly rhythm, you have your weekly rhythm, you might even have your daily rhythm. And so this... reinforcing of the values of the vision of what are we doing tactically today? What's our goal for the quarter? It all comes down to that establishing of the rhythm and repeating various traditions and activities at different cadences. So every quarter we have an all hands meeting. And sometimes, you know, it's changed through the life of the business. I think right now we might even be at every six weeks we have an all hands meeting. And at those meetings, the first thing we do is we show our vision statement, we show our mission statement, we show our values. I talk through them. I continually repeat them over and over. And so the employees sort of get into a habit of like, OK, this we're going to have this all hands meeting. It's going to start with reviewing our visions, our values and our mission. And then we're going to talk about the quarterly rocks. And, you know, we're using the EOS model, which is all about this idea of creating these rhythms and traction and these core components of your business that everybody should be sick of. You should be repeating it so much that people are saying, okay, enough, I get it. And that's when they're gonna be dreaming about it just as much as I'm gonna be dreaming about it. And that's when we have team alignment and we can get into a good swing. Seb Wichmann (20:14.793) Yeah, I love that. know, speaking about EOS, when we did initial research, you EOS as an end-to-end solution that really pivots around culture and operations is probably the ones, it's probably the one that we are closest to in terms of our service. You know, we focus on SOP development, on hiring the right people at the right time, culture alignment, and then also which I'm the expert in training and development, which is all about how do we train top talent so that we move from good to great in Jim Collins terms, if you know the book, right? And I'm a thoroughbred when it comes to training and development and what we do are micro learning nudges, where we have those three to five minute learning chunks where we plug into your internal comms channels. to train people on the go about value creation. So you don't have to make people available operationally to train for two hours a week or two hours a month. Right. Now talk me through us. What has been the major catalyst that made you say, Hey, hold on a second. We kind of need to up level here. What was this like? Wasn't operationally as a piece were in place or the vision wasn't there. What was it that that's made you say we need something here? Benji Koltai (21:38.364) Yeah, we were just kind of winging it. I mean, I was, I'm a first time founder and CEO. And I guess as my engineering mind is lazy and a good engineer is lazy and we as engineers try to build on what was already built. Like that's what technology, that's why technology is exponential is you don't have to redo a transition transistor. You can, you know, build on the abstractions that have been created and not retrace steps. And so I thought, well, this must exist for business as well. People have been running businesses for a very long time. there have to be frameworks and sure enough, there's a whole market of frameworks. And so I just started exploring those, found EOS pretty much as a first one, read the sort of synopsis, got the pitch from a integrator in the town that I was living in. And it was exactly what I was looking for. was here's the checklist, here's the complete set of things. If you have all these things, you're probably going to be doing just fine in business. And here's the process to go and implement those and do them well. I think that was the impetus of like, we were just reinventing the wheel. We were kind of winging it. We were cherry picking concepts. And it just didn't feel cohesive. It didn't feel really dialed in and something that we could execute. And so we went through the EOS process of onboarding and it worked out great. Seb Wichmann (23:04.371) So was it for you the, I guess, the system and the thorough processes EOS have in place? Because to me, you're striking as somebody who's incredibly process-driven. Also, I guess, as an engineer, you need to have proof points and you need to know what the trajectory looks like. You're not somebody who's just intuitively winning things, right? So was that a major draw towards EOS where you knew that there's a proven system that you can just follow and you probably will get there? Benji Koltai (23:31.645) Yeah, and in a way, I'm also a skeptic. And so I think that the process that it out that it outlined made sense to me. And then it was also just empirical. was like, look, I'm going to try this out. I'm going to experience it for myself. I'm going to feel I'm going to give it like I will follow the process for three months. And if I'm feeling a change, I'm to stick with it and I'm going to keep going and I'm going to adopt adopt more of it. So I think it was the. incremental aspect of it where like you can use just the one thing or just a couple things and you'll you'll get value and that creates the positive feedback loop of okay that worked this is working well this is feeling good and then you can continue to roll it out sort of more holistically Seb Wichmann (24:16.499) So talk us through, I think that's really interesting, talk us through kind of this piece around how much time do you give it, right? So you're spending now a lot of money on EOS, all costs money, right? And that is part of business. Like talk us through kind of. this piece around, I'm going to give us X amount of time or I'm going to give it X amount of investment. And if it works amazing and you constantly look at data points and proof points for it to work or not for your specific use case, like how do you make that judgment call saying, yes, it works. What are your success metrics? How do you go about that? Benji Koltai (24:54.183) Yeah. I think the best sort of success metric is the results. That's pretty lagging in this in the case of EOS where like the reason why we wanted to implement EOS is to have a better business. Knowing that you have a better business takes months to see the outcome. So apart from that, and one thing I want to mention, EOS itself does not cost money. It costs money to onboard. It costs money if you want to have this sort of handheld experience, but you can implement EOS by yourself for, you know, the cost of the book or whatever training materials you want to have. Like there's, that's the other thing that I really liked about it is that it was a spectrum of, you know, how much of it you want to do or not. It's not just a single, here it is, you pay this much every month forever. Like we're not. spending any more money now on using EOS, we have it just ingrained in the business and it's just our meeting cadence and how we run the business. But I did spend the money on the integrator. I did do the paid onboarding, essentially. And for me, I just have a mentality that coaching, mentorship, pairing, I'm a big pair programmer. It's so valuable to have an external guide in embarking on these types of projects, improving your business operations, especially when that guide, you know, they're an expert. They've done this for hundreds, thousands of businesses on the same, right? So I think that, I mean, people are smart. People figure things out. And there was a lot of trust that I had. And so, you know, I sort of commit to something. and then see it through. And sure, if I'm getting really bad feedback week after week, like, hey, the weekly L10 meetings are a waste of time. We're not getting anything done productive. Okay. I probably would have, you know, considered stopping. But as we started to have those weekly meetings, it was like, wow, we had a great 15 minute conversation about a really important issue. We wrote down some action items and the next week we got those action items done and our system got tighter. That was like, Benji Koltai (27:18.817) the tight feedback loop that we were able to get while implementing EOS. And granted, our early L10s were terrible, you know, but they were still providing value and you get these positive reps. And it all just also made sense to me. Like I agree with the framework. Seb Wichmann (27:22.314) Mm-hmm. Seb Wichmann (27:38.037) Amazing. You co-founded Galley Solution with your brother-in-law. Benji Koltai (27:45.334) Yes. Seb Wichmann (27:46.807) Talk us through that. Talking about my own experience, I have also a family member sitting on my board of DoGood. It is not as rosy as it sounds at times. least sometimes you have to have hard conversations. Sometimes you wish you wouldn't have, at least in my case, such a knit with the other part of the business. So talk us through, maybe the brother-in-law is listening, maybe not, but... Talk us through this experience. What made you make the decision? What are the issues? What are the goods? Talk us through that. Benji Koltai (28:24.524) Yeah. Well, first off, the reason why I chose to do that was because I happen to have a very talented brother-in-law. So I got lucky. It wasn't like, hey, I want to start this business with family. Who can I start it with? It was more I got to experience his work. He comes from the hospitality industry. He has a... very different skill set for me. He's very intuitive. He's very not process driven necessarily, although in some ways he is. But he just has this skill set that I was able to experience firsthand in the form of like staying at the hospitality organization that he essentially built. And I was just blown away by the quality. Seb Wichmann (29:06.585) Because you don't have experience in hospitality, right? Or do you? Yeah. Benji Koltai (29:12.001) No, I mean, I was a server in college. That's pretty much it. I know how to cook. That's, you know, but so that was one aspect of it where he was in my life. I experienced his sort of craft and I was very impressed with that. And then there was this overlap with this project that I wanted to start. So it was coincidental in that sense of like, hey, you know, I'm thinking of starting this business. I would love to do that with you. Great. Let's partner up. Let's make this happen. When we agreed to be co-founders, we held as the most important thing, and it still is today, and it's been the backbone, I think, of the business. We would not let the challenges of entrepreneurship and co-founding come in between us as brothers-in-law. And just for the context for the listeners, our wives are. sisters. So we just, I mean, we met each other because we were, you know, married to these two incredible women and we had no other connection beyond that, but we had created this bond. you know, our wives are best friends. We started hanging out and we're really good friends. So that aspect of my co-founding relationship, I think has done wonders for the business because there has been no option to break up as co-founders. And we have gone through really hard times where he started as the CEO and I was the CTO and he was, you know, taking all the investor calls. And I, you know, ultimately this is sort of my product, my vision that has really been improved and augmented by him. And so much of our culture stuff is him. And there's so much about Galley that is from him, but you know, it's not even, and there is a, you know, a majority that is my vision and, what I think the product should do and all that, that then had to get proxy through him. So that created a lot of challenge and tension. He had never been in tech before. I have spent my whole career in tech. That created some challenge. But through all of that, we just had this commitment to each other that the most important thing is that we stay connected, that we keep talking, that we work through it. We went through coaching together. It was essentially couples counseling. Benji Koltai (31:39.375) with a couple that says divorce is not an option. I think for a business having. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. With implications on my wife's family and all of that stuff. So it has been incredibly complex, but I think it has been one of the most fulfilling, rewarding aspects of doing this journey and a huge part of Gally's success. Seb Wichmann (31:42.268) With your wives. The same call. Seb Wichmann (32:02.479) It's easy said to, Hey, brother-in-law, know, our relationship stands above all rights. And then it's a totally different ballpark to apply this in the thick of it and saying, Hey, do you remember this thing that we agreed on? Is it still applicable? Are we still like on the same page? Like what are those moments? Can you give us a little, whatever insights you can give us? Right. all right. But how did you both remind yourself that this is what you agreed on and also talk us through a little bit kind of the importance of bonds and relationships kind of as a team, right? Speaking about your wives and you you are such a for-whore strong team, like talk us through the value it provides to the company. At large. Benji Koltai (32:49.456) Yeah. You know, it's an interesting thing because people always say, you know, if you in an interview hear that a company says, we're all family. It's like a family here. Like that's a red flag. Like you don't want to be in a business that feels like family because it's not unconditional. It's a transaction. You are in business. And if you are not performing, what is best for the business is for a change to be made. what and then, you know, I'm in business with my it's not like family, it is family with my co-founder. And so that created this aspect of needing to figure out how to best utilize both of our talents at every step of the way. And as you're saying, that's backstopped with the family family, the at home. I come home, I've had a hard day, I've had a hard conversation. I'm in a hard place with Ian, my co-founder, and I'm venting. And the only person that I'm going to vent to is my wife. And she has. Yeah, exactly. And she's, you know, really good friends with Ian. And and it created so many complex, multi angle relationships that we were just forced to work through. And I think we all grew. Seb Wichmann (34:00.444) Best friends. Benji Koltai (34:18.602) from that in saying, look, I'm not getting divorced from my wife. He's not getting a divorce from his wife and I'm not getting divorced from Ian. And so we are all in this incredibly tight and we're all, you know, in a way there's that reinforcement so that you have redundancy. So if it ever gets to the point where it's like, I can't do this anymore, my wife will say, but you need to, you need to figure it out regardless. So I think that having more than just two people, I'm a big. I'm a big fan of three body problem, the sci fi novel, but three bodies in motion. I'm a big believer that if you have two things in motion, you can get into a rut. You can they can get into a stable orbit. They can get into an area where you kind of get stuck. But when you introduce a third body, gravitational pull makes it chaos and you lose the opportunity to just get into this rut. And so in a way, although it's four bodies in the four of us, Seb Wichmann (34:58.764) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Benji Koltai (35:15.883) that has acted as this reinforcer of the bonds between me and my co-founder, where there's just this constant external bondage that has forced us to uphold that principle of no matter what, we're gonna get through this, we're gonna keep our relationship intact. Seb Wichmann (35:36.417) love that, yeah, three body scenario, gravitational pull. So last question on that. A lot of founders, CEOs that I get to talk to and serve, I would say probably most of them have co-founders. What is your kind of applying this three body principle? What is your, because co-founders usually are their two bodies, right? How do they introduce a third party? it their dog? If they don't have a wife, what's the next best thing do you think? Benji Koltai (36:14.864) advisors, board, you know, having external parties who can speak into your situation. A big thing for us was coaches. Ian and I have been through, I think three different coaches through our time at Galley. so just finding people outside of the system who can provide support, who can facilitate conversations, who you can work with as a pair, who you can work with individually as well. And then also just like, I don't know, it's almost a discipline. It's just like a commitment to say, this is, I'm going to think about it. I'm going to agree that statistically speaking, one of the biggest killers of startups is co-founder problems. We don't want this business. to fail. So one of the best ways that we can ensure against that is to dedicate to each other, do whatever it takes, do the coaching, do the therapy, do the self work and really lean in to that co-founder relationship. Because I think it's critical to have a co-founder. I would never start a business by myself. It's so isolating. It's been so valuable to have a co-founder through this journey, but it makes it hard in other ways. Nothing is free. Nothing is a, you know, benefit always. And so I think that the advice would be like, first of all, be very careful about who you pick as your co-founder. Try to flesh out as many of the problems ahead of time as you can, almost in like a prenup type thing of like, look, we're going to get into this agreement. Here are the risky areas. Here are the skeletons. As much of that as you can get out upfront. And then you kind of just have to commit and go for it. And sometimes you have to break up as co-founders. Sometimes you have to make a change. But I think it's just so critical to the health of the business to figure it out. And, you know, I do want to mention right now, Ian is an individual contributor on the marketing team who does not he's not on the executive team. He doesn't report to me anymore. We had this weird sort of flipping and Benji Koltai (38:36.62) That is so much a credit to his ego-less approach to this whole endeavor, where there's no part of him that has ever said, I need this for my LinkedIn status, or I need this salary, or I need this title. He has constantly been willing to just do whatever it takes. And that's such a key aspect of what has worked in our relationship. Seb Wichmann (39:04.477) It's a constant working on it, right? It's like a, as you said, it's like a marriage, right? We are, and I am at DoGood, we are big believer that... You know, yes, there are moments where you really have to hustle in a company, but I'm a person that really believes in the strength of being very intentional with what you do and how you strategically go about decision-making, right? It's sometimes it's about, yes, do this, do that. And we just go, right? Most of the time we get pay as founders to make high quality decisions, probably. the time right so it's probably fair to say in my point of view that the quality to which you make can make decisions is all that counts and As you really reverse engineer this concept. It's all about intentionality and you can only be intentional If you give yourself a bit of space a bit of rest To not just hustle but also to pause and stop and think and say hold on a second. This is the dynamic here Let me just slow down to really Feel into this and make a quality decision here. This kind of this slowing down sort of speed up concept, right? I'm an ironman athlete and for me You know in training is you can't just always go full gun, know 100 of your heart rate. It is about tempering Your quality of training as it is in entrepreneurship you spoke about four day work week as we talked through kind of the initial conversation, talk us through like what has been the value for you in terms of making decisions and what has been the impact also, know, culturally, maybe even operationally in your team, because if you're not present, the lead, the head is missing, right? So talk us through that a little bit. Benji Koltai (41:04.08) Yeah. You know, I think you're absolutely right that as founders, we always have to be just making the best decision. A concept that became... you know, objective that was subjective, something that I was able to hold out in front of me and look at and benefit from being able to do that as opposed to just having it drive me and me being unaware of it, is this notion in the integral theory called redundant polarities, where you exist where there are polarities, there are things that can be one or the other way that seem to be opposite, but both are actually really valid. And so that is the definition of a polarity where you have a decision where you really have two choices and both are valid. And then redundant means you have a series of these. So it's almost like a system of equations in math where you have five or six different choices you have to make that all have different tradeoffs that as founders, we have to choose where do I sit on all of those polarities and with urgency versus self care or work-life balance or this sort of idea of, hey, we're a startup, we're a venture-backed startup, we are cash-strapped, we are racing against the clock all the time. How do you balance that with, but I'm also a human and we're in a pandemic and everyone's super stressed out and everybody's sick and whatever it might be. And you kind of just have to do the best you can. And in a way, our four-day work week was an attempt at that. It was saying, look, This is a really stressful time in the world. It was right in the pandemic. Everybody was working from home. Everybody was Zoom fatigued. All of that was happening. And I'm also an athlete and know that part of performance is how you rest. And I'm a big sleep nerd. And a big part of how I operate is that I get my sleep. Right. And so I and it's rhythm. Right. It's the same concepts. Benji Koltai (43:11.234) of that rhythm that we talked about earlier of the in-breath and the out-breath, the rest and the hard work. And then there's this redundant polarity aspect of like, how do you make all those right decisions with the appropriate trade-offs? Because if we're doing a four-day work week, we have one day less a week of work time to be productive. But then there's this intuitive or this more non-scientific sort of claim that, you're going to spend more time in flow, so you're going to actually be more productive and you can actually get more done in a four day work week than in a five day work week. So. I kind of just said to like against a lot of my executive team members who said this is a bad idea. I said, we're going to do a four day work week. We're just going to try it. It was kind of similar to the EOS thing. This concept makes sense to me. We're going to try it. We're going to see how it feels. And then we're going to iterate and I'm going to trust that at the next point in time, I'm going to be able to make the next right decision. It ended up being that we had just hired. a lot of people. We had gone from 20 people to 75 people and that's when we did the four day work week. And I realized that that was actually a really bad time to do the four day work week because there is a truth in just getting the reps in. You cannot, no matter how good your pull-ups are, you will only get stronger if you do a thousand of them. You know, sure, the quality matters, but getting the reps in, know, spending the hours learning the thing. ultimately leads to the outcome. And so the four day work week truncated the number of hours of, you know, shitty reps that people were able to get that were required in order to get good. And so I think that in the sort of asymptotic sort of learning curve, right, that plateaus eventually, if we had done it when people were at their peak productivity, because they were fully ramped and they knew the systems and all of that, I think we probably would have gotten a better result. Seb Wichmann (44:44.319) you Benji Koltai (45:11.905) And I still fundamentally believe in the idea. think that it's really important that people have the flexibility and we still have a very flexible sort of work style where if you need to go out of the office in the middle of the day, go. And we trust that you will get your work done in the evenings or whenever else. So it's been an evolution. I think the fundamental principles are there and it's so hard. You just have to intuit yourself into finding the right place on all these redundant polarities as a founder. Seb Wichmann (45:47.343) Mm-hmm. I thought you just an engineer and very process driven But I just realized you also a human being that has emotions and it's intuitive like to me. It is such a Powerful, you know, I had to learn the opposite Benji. I'm very intuitive and I'm really I Love that in me saying okay. This is my gut and usually when I follow my guts. It doesn't go wrong You know, yes, they are really bad mistakes and decisions But if I think about it, it they have always been made in rush Right. And so I had to learn the opposing sides. How are we process driven to be able to predictably understand where our trajectory goes, right? So yeah, really, really interesting. Benji has been an amazing conversation. I mean, there are lots of things I still would love to. discuss maybe we get to in a second time or so. think it's really fascinating. You I know also that your wife is an executive coach. I'm sure that there are interesting dynamics there. And, you know, I certainly will follow the evolution of Galley Solutions to wrap things up. You know, like you putting yourself in a, in a, in a founder's shoe, a CEO's shoe that's listening right now and you contemplating on, your own journey that you're going through. You're talking to, you know, companies that are, you know, venture back that have received fundings that are, that have a partial or full pro-op market fits. Like for you, I guess, what is something that you would like to share right now that really made such a profound impact, either something you're a third from one of your mentors or something you're you're going through, you spoke about the three-body theory, I think a lot of interesting, almost like engineer type concepts you pull from, right? So maybe talk us through this a little bit. What's something that you really apply right now that has been such a dramatic change within Galley? Benji Koltai (47:48.898) I think it's like introspection. It's recognizing that as a founder, there is so much on your shoulders and surrounding yourself with a good support network and a good supporting system, your personal practices of self care, your personal routines. It is so important. mean, there's the whole LinkedIn, you know, crap of like, what's your 5 a.m. routine? I think that's a lot of it is garbage, but a lot of it is is true. Like you will not be able to perform at your best if you are not dialed in, if you do not take seriously your self care. And I think that not only requires individual discipline, but also external accountability partners and support partners who can help you, who can come in and help, you know, install a operating model like you offer. So I would encourage listeners if you don't have a coach, if you don't have an operating system that you're running your business on, if you don't have a self-care routine. Start exploring, find the one that works for you. It doesn't have to be meditation or cold plunging or running marathons or whatever it is for every, but you need to have something. You need to have an outlet. You need to have a safety net that you know, hey, I have this tool. I can go to it. I can get the relief that I'm guaranteed to need through this journey. Because the most important thing as a founder is to just keep getting up. You're going to get knocked on your ass hundreds, thousands of times, and you only fail when you stop getting up. And the things that help you get up are your support network and your personal practices. Seb Wichmann (49:33.17) Benji, it has been an absolute pleasure. I said, sometimes there are people I talk to where I wouldn't tell them, guess, personally, but it's not all that interesting, to be honest. But with you, I really loved the piece around your brother-in-law for sure, the insights there. And what really struck me, this balance that you're running. having grown up as an engineer and probably where you had also to find new feeds to trust your guts that probably has not always been there. I think it's really fascinating, really interesting. Yeah. So thank you so much for opening the books and to the listeners, you know, if you need somebody to vent to and need a coach, need operational or cultural efficiencies, know, hopefully do what can be part of that journey as well. Yeah. So Benji, thank you so much. All the best and yeah, take care. Benji Koltai (50:34.222) Awesome. Thanks a lot, Seb.