#6: Gerald Hetrick (Able)

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Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:00:00]: I set out to do this, specifically to do it in Cleveland. And when, when, when I decided, when I went through my own diligence Land decided I was going to go do another early startup and I was willing to pour, you know, 4 or 7 years of my livelihood into it, Land, tell my wife and kids like, sorry, you know, yep, yep, I'm gonna work 78 hour 80 hours a week. I wanna do it in Cleveland. I wanted to, like, be one of the people who said, hey. We did it here. I think we just need a lot more of that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:00:22]: Let's discover the Cleveland entrepreneurial ecosystem. We are telling the stories of its entrepreneurs and those supporting them. Welcome to The Lay of the Land podcast Guest, where we are exploring what people are building in Cleveland Land coming to you live from the very same place. Today's guest is Gerald Hetrick. Gerald has a decorated past here in Cleveland's entrepreneurial space as a technology leader at MCPC, as a cofounder, CTO, and COO, at Vox Mobile Land more recently as the CEO of Able, which was formerly known as Employstream. Gerald has also been a a mentor of mine during my my time here in Cleveland. After Vodum's collapse transpired in in February of 2019, I found myself seeking out and talking to, as many founders and builders as I could across Cleveland to better understand what what everyone was working on, which was very much the inspiration for what The Lay The the Land podcast has now become, but during those conversations, I I connected with Gerald who graciously took me on as as a consultant at at then Employstream, now The, during that summer though to help him think through the the future of work and healthcare staffing opportunity leading up to Able Series B round. I've learned a lot from Gerald in in our time working together, and and frankly, he's one of the reasons I'm I'm still here in Cleveland after the challenges experienced at at Vodim.

Jeffrey Stern [00:01:43]: And so I'm I'm really excited to share his story and the story of Abel, so please enjoy our conversation. Before we kinda dive into Abel and and what what you're working on now, I'd love if you know, if you're reading your Wikipedia page, can Can you give us a little bit about the threads that you've pulled on throughout your career and, you know, the story of how it is that you got to to where you are today?

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:02:10]: Yeah. Wow. I'm pretty old, so it feels like you know, it's funny. I I've all for for the longest time, I was always the youngest person at the table in a lot of different settings, I would always feel a little have a little bit of insecurity related to like my lack of experience, you know, when we were whether it was in, you know, founding situations of businesses or leadership roles or what whatnot, but now I look back and think I'm actually one of the oldest people in my company Land my experience set is, is probably the deepest. So I I didn't you know, set out to become an entrepreneur per se. And I, I just never really liked following rules or never really liked being told what to do and always seemed to kinda, you know, choose a different direction if someone was pushing me somewhere hard. So, you know, I I I wasn't able to just take the easy way out and go to college, which would have been the easier thing for me to do. And I wasn't able to just take the the easier jobs Lay 1.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:02:58]: I always had to go do something different. And so for me, I I kind of really, really fell in love of concept of building things, I started working at a local, IT value added reseller here in Cleveland when I was 17, and they were on a spree The, They they got acquired and they were they were the the acquiring company was buying many other businesses Land I got the opportunity to move around the country and and help them open offices and and consolidate, you know, operations. And I just really of the the the idea of of building things. I really kind of fell in love with the concept of building things. And then accidentally just started doing that more and more, and got the opportunity to be part of the founding team in my last Stern up, Box Mobile. I I got the opportunity to help a number of other folks here in the city Land otherwise, you know, you know, start little businesses Land, and it seems like The all it seems like a limited amount of history, but it sure has been a long time.

Jeffrey Stern [00:03:44]: Nice. Can can you expand a little bit on on Vox Mobile and the story there?

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:03:49]: Yeah. So Vox is a managed service business, it's a mobile managed service business. So it's it's basically a tech enabled outsourcing company that allows really large businesses to outsource The, the operations of their mobile device program. So large companies often give employees devices or give them apps or encourage them to use devices and apps to, you know, do business The Novox is one of the only companies in the country that offers, you know, full suite of outsourcing services for that. So, you know, software and software support to help those devices get connected Land, you know, help desk services of procurement services Land all a full a full suite of of of services and solutions to really help, a mobile device program be really, really effective. I was part of a organization called MCPC. I was actually one of of, the 1st employees The. I really, well, actually The, the weekend MCPC was, was founded, I, I didn't sleep because I was building our IT infrastructure over over the entire weekend, but MCPC did a wonderful job at organizing technology offerings into practices.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:04:46]: And, a guy named Chris Schneider, the COO of that business was really passionate about this mobile device management practice or this mobile managed service practice that we had internally. It didn't really fit into the into the the The term strategic plans of MCPC. And so he had he had the opportunity to to take it private Land I joined him and The the founding of that business in 2006 I believe it was. And so it was awesome we took a really great action oriented founding team The we moved that away from MCPC and and and built it with kind of the ground up here in Cleveland, which is still a really, you know, great viable business here locally, employs a couple 100 people Land doing really well.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:19]: Nice. So you spent a few years there building, growing.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:05:23]: Yeah, 10 years, 10 years.

Jeffrey Stern [00:05:25]: 10 years The. Wow. So in the transition from from Vox The to Employstream, can you share a bit about how How that transition occurred Land, you know, having gone through the process of being on the founding team and building something Land of from inception to more than a 100 employees Making the decision to just to try it again.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:05:46]: Yeah. You know, it feels like it was just Stern, honestly, but it was almost 4 years ago now. You know, I'm I'm human, and there's nothing different about startup CEOs or founders or whatever the magical term of the day is. I mean, we're all still human. Land Stern 10 years at Vox, I was just getting anxious, and was really starting to contemplate The value that I was delivering to the business versus, you know, versus what it would it cost, Land, and how I could, you know, how, how, how maybe, you know, a fresh start Land someone in my role or fresh voices in the business might benefit it. And so I really started to get anxious about, you know, when, when it would be my time, you know, my turn or the right time for me to step down. I kinda knew that about 12 months before I did Land you know, started talking with the leadership team there and our board there, and basically at the end of, I think it was the end of 2017, you know, we were doing some strategic planning for the next year and I just decided that, you know, hey, it was, it's kind of my time to leave. So came to an agreement with with Chris and the rest of the board about how I would exit Land we both did some succession planning.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:06:41]: I had a really very incredibly strong, leadership team that supported me and most of us, many of those folks are still there doing great things. And so I was not planning on going to do another startup type endeavor. I was planning on taking a little bit of time off, you know, months, maybe, maybe a little bit of the, the winner off. And frankly, my, my fairy tale dream at that point was to just go work at, you know, a Microsoft or a VMware or a Cisco go Land, do a couple of years at a larger company with better benefits and maybe, you know, higher pay. And I hate to say this, maybe relax a little bit because the, you know, the startup grind can be, can be really challenging. And then I was introduced to, actually Chris gave me a call 1, one day I think it might even have been my last day at Vox after we were celebrating. Chris gave me a call and said, Hey, I, you know, I'm, one of my, my buddies has this, this idea for a business and they've built a product Land they've incubated inside of their own organization Land talk to some beta customers. They need someone to come launch it and build it.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:07:34]: And so, for example, I took that meeting. I went and met them and took meeting completely out of courtesy. I, I, I had no real interest. I just didn't, I, I didn't feel like I had the grind in me for, for a while. I felt like I needed to, you know, rest and maybe go through some rehab. And so I met this gentleman named Aaron Grossman, who's really well known here in Cleveland. He's a very passionate guy, particularly about technology and how it can enable businesses to do, to, to, to, to be much greater. And I met him and he pitched me on the concept and said, you know, we're just looking for someone that's got The, got the chops and wherewithal to come, come build something.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:08:02]: And so I left the meeting and I was still very much, you know, not seriously, not taking it very serious, but, I spent the next couple of weeks just getting to know him Land, and the other founder, a guy named Rob Sable and, just fell in love with The, the concept of selling, you know, HR software into a very boxed in space, which was the staffing market, which is the market they're selling into. I started to romanticize the, the, the, the concept of building again Land forgot all the challenging times. And I only remember the great times. I I started to think about, you know, really I was, I was excited about all the things I, I, I believed I had done wrong or that, you know, we didn't do effectively when we built Vox Land, you know, could I, could I learn from those takes and apply them. And, you know, all the times where I was in the, my, I told you so moments, like I told you we should have done this differently. Could I, was that actually true? And so, so I, I basically decided to take that gig on Christmas day of 2016, I believe it was, it started the right after the new year in 2017. It was a monster transition. You know, I went from a business where we had gone through the, you know, the, the 1st couple of years startup phase.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:09:00]: And we had, you know, departments of people and we had support folks and we had plenty of people to, to do, to do things. And suddenly I was, the only employee. And and with, with some other folks that were spending, splitting, splitting their time between us and The, and the, and the staffing agency, which, which where we work from. So I had to lift the business, get it off the ground, get it funded, get it commercialized, Land, and, and, and The figure out how to, how to, you know, how to get into customer acquisition mode, how to hire, how to make sure the product could get sold Land do all that with, with enough velocity, such that we could improve some sustainability pretty quickly.

Jeffrey Stern [00:09:32]: How much of that is easier the Land time around?

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:09:36]: You know, I don't know if it, any of it was easier, it was different. And, you know, some of it felt like flexing muscles puzzles that I'd already developed versus, you know, just maybe some guesswork from the 1st time. Some, I mean, maybe some instincts, I trusted some instincts more the 2nd time. But, you know, I, I, I don't know if it was very much, very, very easier. I mean, the first time, well, maybe because I was much younger, I was, you know, mid twenties and very idealistic. The 1st time you just, you're full of hope and passion and, Land, you know, nothing can stop you. And every little roadblock is just, is, is part of the journey and you're powering through it Land Can't wait to write the book of it. The 2nd time, I think you dwell on things a bit more and you're, you know, you're a bit more, I don't want to say conservative, but but certainly a bit more measured in how you address problems because you know, you know, there could be longer term consequences.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:10:22]: So, it's just different. I I can't say I can't say it was easier.

Jeffrey Stern [00:10:26]: Got it. Well, with the with the transition, I'd love to talk a bit more about the company, which is, you know, sensory branded to Able. Land in your kind of announcement of it, you wrote to the world that I'll quote here, deep down, we believe that no matter who someone is, what job they do, Whether they The temporary or permanent, every employee can and should be able to have a great first date. So formally, EmployeeStream, but I love if you could tell us A bit more about what Able means to you, and what kind of this rebranding means for the company and for customers, Land, you know, a bit about the staffing industry.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:11:03]: It was a multi pronged set of reasons to rebrand. The first was no one that works at our business right now was part of The the creation of the name Employstream. Someone told me a long time ago that all important things have a name and you try to build some emotional connection to that name. And, you know, we really didn't believe that there was a real, real great, emotionally connected story around the name Employstream. Also people call us Employeestream Land it just got under my skin like crazy. You know, at that I heard employee stream probably once a week and it just, it just really started to affect me. But, but, but further, I mean, we're, we're an unapologetically Lay startup. You know, we want to be a startup.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:11:42]: We want to have that kind of agility and that vigor and that passion. We wanted to have a brand that we felt was a powerful platform to go do all kinds of cool startup stuff. I just felt that The brand we had, we were, was a little bit tired and was a little bit, just what it didn't, it didn't feel like it was a launching off point. Land it also kind of boxed us into this, so Land of The kind of concept. And so we wanted to do The very traditional Land find a single syllable word, if possible, something that could be, have a lot of different meanings, something that people could connect to, that could say easily. And we, we actually hired an agency to, to do a little bit of a search for us, interview us and customers Land all the fancy stuff that, The marketing, creative marketing agencies do, and they pitched us on the idea we loved a lot. And so For me, the concept of able is just, is just about, you know, and we, we have the tagline ready, willing, able, and it sounds a bit corny, but it's, it's, it's rooted in truth in that We think that, you know, we service staffing companies of which there's, you know, there's all, there's 20,000 recruiting agencies in the United States alone, about 10,000 of those are temporary, you know, the employee temporary work for workers, Land, and we those are our type of customers, and they do, you know, the concept of Able is that there's people that are ready and willing to go to work and we, we help the staffing companies make them able, able to go to work by delivering on this really incredible automated, highly intuitive onboarding experience. So there's a lot of, lot of, utility in the name from, from a, a propellant for startups, but also a lot of, hopefully a lot of emotional connection and a brand that we can be, we can be really proud of.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:06]: Yeah, absolutely. It is a very exciting, you know, rebrand. It's not something that I think you see often at all, it it has a nice a nice ring.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:13:14]: I got some I got some sideways looks on it, you know. So and some people, like, hey. Is rebranding really that important to a startup? Is it really something you should spend any money on? And we sat on it for a year. I mean we actually, we had the The brand framework mostly built Land the name decided and everything ready. We sat out for almost a year. We hired a new chief marketing officer Land in the process of hiring him, I realized that it'd be kind of like, you know, hiring an offensive coordinator The handing him the playbook you wanted him to run, Lay. And so I really wanted him to be able to join and kinda take the brand and, you know, stretch it out a bit and play with it a bit and then make sure we could deliver it the right way. But yeah, it's not, it wasn't, it wasn't, yeah, sure.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:13:50]: Some people along the way probably thought there was a distraction that we shouldn't undertake, but we, I really felt very passionately that we needed to build a bigger platform.

Jeffrey Stern [00:13:57]: Absolutely. How large is Abel today?

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:14:00]: We have just under 50 employees. We actually, COVID was a really interesting acceleration of our, of our distributed work opportunities for us. So we, so we, like, like many people in March, decided to go work from home on, you know, on a Friday. Actually, I think we, I I, I sent a note over Slack The team on a Thursday, Thursday night that says, Lay, we're gonna, in debt, we're gonna go indefinitely to work from home, and then, and then the governor, you know, did the stay at home order the The next day. So I felt like, hey, I was, I was, I was in front of it. And when we did that, we also were in the midst of deciding to double the size of our engineering team. You know, whilst we were planning for how we were gonna recruit, we realized that, hey, you know, we've got all these people working from home, maybe we could expand our search and don't just look in Cleveland. And Based on that, we now have almost 50 employees, in 10 different states.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:14:44]: So The, the, the vast majority are here in, here in Cleveland, 35 or so are here in Cleveland, but we, we have people in, in, in LA. We have people in Austin. We have a couple of people in Chicago. We've got people in Michigan. So it's it's it's been great to see a distributed workforce come together.

Jeffrey Stern [00:14:57]: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about that actually, given that, you know, the work that Able is doing is very much focused on the future of work and technology in the workplace Land how COVID has certainly thrown a wrench or, you know, it probably accelerated the degree to which Companies have to or are, you know, pushed in the direction of of going remote. From that perspective, you know, how have you seen COVID affect Able more and more broadly from a business perspective and also internally as a as a company.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:15:27]: Yeah. I mean, it's there's there's been some good and bad, some good and bad points. I mean, on one Land, Yes. So, again, our, our customers are staffing agencies, so they, they hire a massive scale. So to give you an idea in, in May, which I think was the 1st month we measured it. We had we had about 12,000 people completed onboarding through our platform. Last month about 60,000 people completed onboarding through our platform. And so The work from home environment has created this need to remotely onboard people.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:15:53]: So staffing agencies in a lot a lot of different times would have people come to their office and go through this onboarding process. And while we've always pitched that part of our value is to eliminate that that need for people to come to the office, Not, I don't think many companies really Cleveland that. I think they liked the concept of, hey, can people come see who we are, come to our brick and mortar. And, and so suddenly remote onboarding was a requirement. Right. And it was, it was that if you're gonna hire these 10,000 people this month, which, which many staffing agencies that hire that many people, you had to do it remotely. And so not only did that just pop like a rapid excel, rapid growth for us. It also made a bunch of organizations that weren't otherwise thinking very strategically about technology to start thinking very strategically about technology.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:16:31]: Further, it made a bunch of organizations that weren't really well prepared to think about strategically about technology, believe they had to do that. So we've had The just this unpredictable amount of inbound feature requests, feature demands, just all of the nightmare stuff that software companies feel when when when every customer does something a bit differently. And so we've had to figure out how to balance The. Like, how do how do we build macro? How do we think about things strategically from a macro level benefit all customers, but also also satisfy some very strategic customers on an individual level. Further, the level of of, the the The growth we went through has expose some things in our business. I mean, most products have cracks and crevices and ours is no different. We didn't, you know, we didn't, of, some of them we were aware of of weren't, weren't major issues that we had some time to, to, to, to resolve some of them we weren't aware of, but, but rapid growth is, is forced all of that to the forefront. And so we've had to be really, really, really, targeted about how we handle this, we become overrun on the support side, we can overrun, overrun on some of the, you know, the customer success, dealings.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:17:29]: So it's been a bit of a challenge. I mean, so The, selling the business has had to level up rapidly from a, from an operations perspective. We're, and we're right, right in the midst of that firefight. Then, you know, we provide this, this automated onboarding platform that connects to the government's E Verify service. So for citizenship verification, which is a really hot topic right now, and, and also leverages a third party for, digital signature. Both of those tools are, have gone through explosive growth be related to COVID work from home as well. Both of them have had their own technology challenges. So we have, you know, we have down channel outages that impact our customers more than we would like.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:18:03]: So, you know, on one Land, the growth has been fantastic and we're able to accelerate the business rapidly. On the other hand, you know, we, we, we, you know, we're out in front of our skis a little bit, in some cases, and we're having to catch up real, real quick on, on service service debt Land tech debt and operations maturity debt.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:18]: Yep. That's in some ways good problems to have though. The rapid growth

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:18:23]: is always Oh, I mean, Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm a, I'm a different kind of cat when it comes to building a startup. My, my, my notion is go get customers, sell, get customers, You know, let's get to market, let's find product market fit, and let's try to, let's try to exploit it as fast as possible. Building the perfect product and the perfect engine, without real idea of what You guys don't, I don't think it's a sustainable, particularly, you know, in, in, in Midwestern type of, type of valuations. And so, you know, I would much rather have customers and have, you know, have a delivery challenge that we Land remedy versus sitting around trying to figure out who we should go, how we're ever going to sell it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:18:56]: Tying in the Midwestern valuations in addition to really the confluence of things that is going on at Able at the moment, the rebranding, the rapid growth. You're also off the back of a $7,000,000 series b raise. Could you talk a bit more about raising in Cleveland, You know what that process was like for you having kind of successfully navigated one of the larger rounds that the that a company has seen in in recent history?

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:19:23]: Yeah, we did, we actually did 9,000,000 total, including, so 7,000,000 in equity and a couple billion in debt. It was led by Plymouth Growth Partners, which is a, a Ann Arbor, Michigan company, and our entire existing cap table of institutional Stern, so Jumpstart, North Coast Angel Fund, which is now North Coast, North Coast Ventures, Ohio Of Fund, M 25 out of Chicago, I think I've got everyone there, and then and then a bunch of really awesome amazing local angels have been, you know, supporting us for a while, So everyone participated in The, you know, sometimes I think we, we overuse the Stern, like it's tough to raise a Cleveland or we think about Cleveland specifically, it's really, there's, There's a regional situation we're we're dealing with in which, and some of it is we just have built a story for ourselves that says the Midwest is different, so it should be different. You know, there's no doubt that we don't see typically see the valuations that you might get in Silicon Valley Land the peninsula, or you might get in Stern, or you might get in Stern, we're not seeing those massive, huge multiple valuations, pre revenue valuations that enable companies to go, you know, build palatial office suites Land, you know, hire the greatest machine learning talent in the world and build an incredible product Land The, and then figure out how to go to market later. You know, we don't really have that for sure, But we certainly have, you know, plenty of great start startup mindset here. And there's, there's, there are, you know, there are no shortage of venture capital firms that are, have, have, you know, desire to invest in the Midwest. And I think there there's this is this, I don't know, maybe this myth of challenge that isn't as, isn't as real, but but there is there is something to be said for the fact that it's tough it's tough to raise Cleveland that you have to get to revenue, you have to return money to shareholders. You have to show you're on a path to do The, particularly with The, the funds that are, that are Stern focused primarily. You know, this is not a great, Now it doesn't seem to be a great region as a, for, for platform companies.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:21:12]: And, and I'm talking mostly in the, in the, on the, you know, tech side. I mean, certainly we have an entirely, entire kind of, you know, healthcare medical device, you know, pharmaceutical, you know, culture that's, that's, that's different and, and, and, and, you know, a lot of pre revenue, evaluations, big evaluation, get pulled together there. But as far as the tech startup world, I mean, I think of it as a Land of a pragmatic approach on everyone's, from everyone's standpoint, know, put together pragmatic operating teams, put together pragmatic evaluations Land, and, and raise money and deploy it pragmatically. It's, it feels like it's just a little bit more of a measured approach here. I just kinda I just kinda riffed there. I wasn't I didn't really answer any questions for me. So sorry about that.

Jeffrey Stern [00:21:48]: No, that's okay. We can we can riff a bit more. You mentioned the Almost like a mischaracterization of Cleveland. And I I I know you kinda put out an article recently speaking to to that mischaracterization and, you know, speaking to What there is here in Cleveland, the support of startups having a great foundation, the investment that is happening in the region, beer, Sports, you know, like in less COVID, afflicted times.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:22:13]: But Sure.

Jeffrey Stern [00:22:14]: In your perspective, how do we work to address The mischaracterization that persists.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:22:20]: I just, I, it, it, like, I, I get, I get frustrated as I guess, I guess as I get older, I'm more grouchy about this. You know, we say, Oh, it's tough to do a, to have a startup at Cleveland. You know, you can't do it. You gotta go to the The coast. Land, and then sometimes that happens. We, we just keep saying that and we say it just because the last person said it. And, and it just feels like that's the thing, that's the thing to say. I mean, I, I, you know, know, I can't tell you the amount of venture capital firms have reached out Land, you know, did the whole, hey, hey, we'd like, we we like your Stern.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:22:45]: Can we talk? And we had to Lay in your conversation with an analyst or Maybe sometimes it's over email with a bot or whatever it is. And, and they say like, yeah, we've got this really, we'd love to invest in the Midwest. And then you're, you know, an hour into the converse, your first couple of conversations, and they're like, would you ever consider moving out to, you know, moving out to the The? Would you move out? Land it happens very, very frequently. And I just, I feel like, you know, someone has, or I shouldn't say someone and not that I'm trying to put myself on a pedestal, But, but, but there has to be a, a, a, a, a generation of startups that decides not to do The. And that decides to, you know, fight it out here. And I think we could quickly Land of put you know, that issued a bed. There's no doubt, if you just think about pure economics, there's no doubt we have less people. We have less of, we have less highly educated people, we have less we don't have, you know, Google that just shoots off tens of thousands of, you know, entrepreneurial minded people in a region on a, on a yearly basis.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:23:32]: We, we don't have some of The. So we do have to fight against those things, but that doesn't mean, it doesn't mean that there's not an incredible amount of talent that is either here, that we should try to work to get to stay Stern, or it's here The, that, that we can enable to get here. And, you know, for us, Yeah. It might be easier. It might have been easier to take Abel out to the West Coast and not have recruiting issues and be on a higher super Incredible people, you know, without without thinking about it and get great valuations, but I think we, I I set out to do this, specifically to do it Cleveland when I, when I decided, when I went through my own diligence, it decided I was going to go do another early startup, and I was willing to pour, you know, for 7 years of my livelihood into it, and, tell my wife and kids like, sorry, you know, yep, yep, I'm gonna work 78 hour, 80 hours a week. I wanna do it in Cleveland. I wanted to like be one of the people who said, The, we did it here. I think we just need need a lot more of of, and, it feels like that's I mean, I I I've got to know the startup ecosystem here, and there's just so much great, you know, there's there's a Stern of ideation, and there's a a ton of people trying, you know, trying really hard.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:24:27]: And I think The starts to, you know, converge with more available capital that's just easier to get deployed here. I think we'll think we'll be good. I do think, here's one of the best things we had to hire 7, 7 or 8 engineers here recently Land there were some high end roles Land we look at the roles and be like, Oh man, are we going to be able to find that in Cleveland? The answer to some of that was no. We, we just did, we just didn't think there was a great candidate pool in Cleveland, but it didn't mean we couldn't be a Cleveland company because of that. You know, we are, you know, we, we, we, we can, we can think about this new world of work in which we're all, we're, we're remote and we're embracing remote culture and LeverageTown all over the place Stern enabling a, you know, a Cleveland or a Midwestern company. I think, I think there's a, just a new way to think about it or a different way to think about it.

Jeffrey Stern [00:25:06]: Yeah. The of my favorite patterns I I've found just talking to people building, here in Cleveland is that that collective like chip on the shoulder That we wanna do it here. We wanna we wanna build it here. Yeah.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:25:19]: I I, I have a really good friend. His name's Hardik at who works at Jumpstart, who's a local investment services organization here at Cleveland, what what a great organ a great, resource for for potential startups. He's awesome Land The he'll routinely find these like little hidden gem success stories. Like, you know, not everything has to be like a, a, AI tech company to be successful. Right? He'll find these like little hidden gem, like, did you know we had an exit of a couple $100,000,000 of a, of a manufacturing company and sold them? Like he'll, he'll, he'll, he'll find these, he'll be like, there's way more happening here regionally. There's way more successful economic creation Land economy creation type stuff happening here, than we're willing to give ourselves credit for. And just because they're not all huge big unicorn tech companies, doesn't mean that there's not, you know, a lot of, a lot of great stuff happening. And just because they're not all, you know, of my meds and root insurance Land The great wonderful stories, You know, there there's plenty of, you know, of Vox Mobiles out The, you know, businesses that are, you know, 10, 15, 20, 25, $50,000,000 Land are, you know, gonna operate and and and create a lot of great jobs and and have really successful outcomes for shareholders along the way.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:26:17]: And there's plenty of this, I think there's plenty of that regionally, I think we just need to embrace The, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're both of those things. We are, we are both, a region that can, support Unicorns if, if they, if they're willing to, to, to take a chance of starting here Land can support, you know, great, thoughtful operating, you know, good businesses.

Jeffrey Stern [00:26:33]: One of the things I just wanted to circle back to, was in the same way that, this new world of Remote work is gonna allow, you know, companies like Able to leverage a more, a less regional workforce to find talent that is Not, limited by geography. I feel like the the narrative from a VC perspective, those those bots, Analysts, VCs The are asking, you know, hey, how about a move out to the West Coast? That's kind of gotta have a ripple effect in the same Lay. That that that question makes Increasingly less sense going forward.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:27:09]: Yeah, it certainly does. I mean, well, I mean, we've had, we've had some, some examples here of people who have done that successfully, but I mean, what you want? So, so one of The challenges I think we have, in the startup community here regionally is leadership. I mean, we've got great, great ideation and a lot of great energy and passion and, access to capital. You know, there's, there's startup capital available out there, but I mean, leadership is a challenge. I mean, not, Not everyone's built to be, you know, people might have wonderful ideas and can get something built, but they might not be built to get a business from, from a founding idea to a revenue generating business. And so You wanna try to find people not to toot my own horn too much, but you wanna try to find people like me that have done it and been there and you know, willing to go put some time into it. It's not reasonable for, for, you know, everyone that's, you know, got the capacity still Land, and to, to, and, and The experience to go build a startup that, it's not reasonable to ask them to move across country all the time. Right.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:27:59]: And it, and it certainly, I think it's a, it's a lazy way is a lazy thing to ask Land it's somewhat offensive, you know, I, I used to get much more offended by like, wait, why would you need me to move across, across the country? Just assuming that my employees aren't smart and just assuming they can't go do great stuff. You know, You're talking to me because we've done something good. So yeah, I think that I think that'll probably get swashed a bit because we're, you know, people are just so distributed Land, you know, the home office concept is, you know, the the the headquartered office concept is is is changing a bit to the to the home office concept. So I I I hope it does have a ripple effect of of slowing down.

Jeffrey Stern [00:28:31]: What does leadership mean to you?

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:28:34]: Oh, boy. So I think there's connectivity. So it's not enough to just say, you know, I think I'm the, I'm the, this isn't a democracy, I'm the, I'm the core decision maker. You have to really be connected to, you know, the people, the, you know, I mean obviously the employees and people and their personal stories. So connectivity, transparency, I'm a huge fan of just trying to be as transparent as possible, at every turn and really make, you know, particularly in a startup, you're asking people to, to really give a lot of themselves. You're asking people to Love it like you love it. Love it like the founder loves it Land, you know, make decisions every day that supports that and be wrong and then iterate really quickly. And so I just think you have to be super transparent about, you know, as a leader, you have to be very transparent about how you're, you're embracing, you're, you're, you're attacking problems Land, and make sure there's not a, a level of of disconnect between, wow, that's The, that's the leader, that's The CEO, Land that's the manager, that he would never, never go do this.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:29:30]: You want people to see that, you know, you you would do it. And so transparency, connectivity, accountability, people, we have The core value at Able, which is own it. And the whole thing, it's it's all about, you know, Own mistakes, own successes, own your own journey, come tell us, come tell me if you if you need more, come tell me if you wanna go. I mean, like, Oh, like, just just just be a super accountable to it and be willing to be accountable to it. So I I think, you know, the the old adage, be willing to do the work you're asking other people to do. I I don't, I mean, I'm I'm running a, a tech startup, and I can't write a line of code, so that's not necessarily true. But I want people to know that I'm willing to do anything else. I'm willing to I'm willing I'm willing to do whatever, whatever it takes.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:30:05]: I'm trying not to just sound, cliche or what everyone says Lay leadership is. I hope that if you would ask People, if I'm a good leader, and for those people that would say yes, I hope they'd say he's really transparent. He's open. He is, action oriented. I don't, I I think dwelling on problems and mistakes is is a mistake. I think you have to you have to either dive into solutions quickly, iterate from those really quickly, and then and then if you wanna do a post mortem to try to learn something from it. That's, that's fine. Once you, once you solve something.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:30:30]: Willingness to iterate, I learned a lot from our last gig and even before that at MCPC Land, learned a lot about how to build offerings and opportunity and, and try to create economy around it Land, you know, build go to market plans. And I think willingness to iterate on plans is a, is a huge, is a huge thing. Land, and, and have people contribute to the, to that iteration, you know, really take people's feedback productively, be willing to debate it and make sure everyone's heard. It's that whole buy in versus consensus culture, consensus culture. I really try to have a, operate a buy in oriented culture versus consensus. So I think, I think hopefully people would say that that's The like that style of leadership and that, you know, The, they get that from me.

Jeffrey Stern [00:31:09]: That makes a lot of sense. When you look forward to what you hope to achieve with Able in The years to come, what is the kind of impact That you hope to have?

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:31:21]: So obviously we're so we we're not so we're we're a venture capital backed startup as we talked about earlier. So, you know, venture capital backed startups are built to exit. I mean, to, you know, sell The, sell the shares of the company and create cash that goes The the shareholders Land. And so obviously we wanna, I wanna have done that successfully. I want, reputationally to, to, to say that was a, it was a test, I wanted, I wanted to, I wanted to say we had, we did that the right Lay, we made smart decisions, we thought about everyone at the, you know, in a very Peri Peri suit way, meeting employees, customers and shareholders all got thought about, and all major, major strategic decisions. You know, one of my favorite things about Vox, I can count on, you know, on more than one hand, The amount of people that joined us in very entry level roles, you know, in a lot of cases as temporary workers The have, that have, levers that, Land catapulted catapulted into really great careers. I like to think the culture we built there and the, and, and, and, and, and, and, you know, some of the impact that, that culture had on people to help that. I want I want able to be the same thing and I and I I really want people to see us as a launching off point.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:32:19]: There's a, a lady named Jill Radersdorf and She was on our board until recently Land she says, used to tell, say to me, or has said to me a couple of times, you know, one of the great things about successful startups is that they, they spawn other successful startups. And can you have, can you take a, you know, a successfully exited company Land, you know, have 3 to 5 other startups come out of that? And I think if, if we can instill a spirit of entrepreneurship in our, in our poise, and those of them that are willing to be crazy enough to take that plunge, if we can kinda like be an acceleration to to other folks jumping that, I would, to me that would be a wonderful success. I'd love to work for The of my employees one day Land their own startup. I just, I think I just get so, I get giddy when I think about the potential for that success. I want people to enjoy their time. You know, it's a tough time at us, for us right now because we're growing so fast and we're asking people to work, you know, incredible amount of hours Land, you know, you know, The, that you, you get these grinding moments in the ebbs and flows of a startup. And I think we're, we're definitely one of those grinding moments, but I want people to look back at the aggregate and say, Lay, that was awesome. I love that experience.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:33:15]: Really loved working with Gerald and the The, and I met some great people The, and then, you know, I was happy to have spent that time in Cleveland doing that. And, and then, I mean, I really do think again with 60,000 people. The last thing they did before they started a job last month was, you know, do something in our platform. I really want to make sure, you know, that we're, we're trying to live up to that, that promise of making sure, allowing those people to have a great first day. And so, you know, the real, the, the, the real deep part of that mission is that There are lots of organizations, lots of HCM companies, lots of HR companies that are building software to make sure full time employees that are gonna spend a lot of time in an organization are, are, have have an incredible, The experience. The industry we serve is is mostly temporary and contract workers. You know, people who are, you know, either, you know, gonna go work at an Amazon warehouse or gonna go, you know, take a a temporary job in a factory or, you know, as a in the entertainment business, and we wanna make sure, that those people they're still starting a job. It's still this great moment.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:34:09]: It's still the the culmination of the American dream, right? I'm someone's gonna hire me. They're gonna pay me to go do something. I'm gonna put put food on the table. Land we think those, you know, those people, whether it's a, you know, 30 years in a pension or or or or or a 1 month assignment, that, you know, that The beginning should be a really wonderful, joyous experience. Experience. And we, we really, we want to be part of that. And I'd hope that when it's all said and done, or we're not no longer there or when we're in a different, you know, different place that, we'll, we'll say we will have, we hope we will have delivered that to some degree.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:34]: Ready, willing, enable, right?

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:34:36]: Yeah, absolutely.

Jeffrey Stern [00:34:38]: That's awesome. To kinda close out here, One of the things that we are collecting as we go through this is not necessarily your favorite thing about Cleveland, but something that is like a hidden gem of sorts, as we try and Map the Cleveland ecosystem more broadly, but, you know, in your in your mind, what is, your Land of favorite hidden gem?

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:34:56]: Wow. So So Land, I just think is this, it's an incredible 4 seasons place. Right? You have you have The this, you have you have you have a winner, you have a summer, you have spring, albeit short in The fall, albeit short. We had the, you had these, super 4 season Lay. There's everything that there's, there's so, there's so much stuff to embrace around all of those, all those things that I obviously, if you've read up on me, I love sports. I'm a Stern guy at heart. I love sports. I love cooking.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:35:19]: I love breweries. I love all The stuff that stereotypically is expected of me for living in the The. But I, if I was to say my favorite hidden gem might not be so much of a hidden gem, but I, I can't believe The people I, I still meet that haven't attended is the, is the Lake Erie Land. And my wife and I love going up to Kelly's Island, in the summer. We, we, the summer, we took our children up there a couple times. It's just this awesome, particularly when you learn the history of the Lake Erie islands Land, and, and so how, how they've played, how they're, they've been, impactful in wars Land The largest set of glacier grooves in the country is up on Kelly's Land in Lake Erie, which is amazing. I think there's, there's some really, some really cool stuff up there. So that's, I guess that'd be my favorite, like when people, when I come on an airplane Lay when we used to of, and I sit next to someone and they'd be like, where are you from? I'd say, Cleveland, oh cool.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:36:01]: They tell me when somebody bought it. I'd be like, oh, if you're ever there, You gotta go, you know, everyone's gonna say go to Cedar Point, go go to Lake Erie Islands, go up to Kelly's Island, you have you have a blast. So I love that. I also love some of the Land of cool breweries that I popped up. I love Masthead downtown Land, I of the whole community of Lakewood and, and Ohio city Land just some, just some really, Really awesome, awesome parts of the city.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:21]: Nice. And that added of my bucket list for Cleveland. If people have any questions or things that they Who would like to follow-up with you about Gerald? Where is the best place for them to to do so?

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:36:33]: I'd say probably find me on LinkedIn, shoot me a message. That's the easiest. Otherwise, I'm Gerald Lay ableteams.com. Happy to take emails. But, yes, The of one of those 2 things is pretty it's pretty easy.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:44]: Wonderful. Well, I really appreciate you coming on today and and telling your story. Thank you very much.

Gerald Hetrick (Able (Formerly EmployStream) [00:36:50]: Alright. Thanks, man.

Jeffrey Stern [00:36:52]: That's all for this week. Thanks for listening. We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's show, so shoot us an email at lay of the land at upside dot f m, or find us on Twitter At podlayoftheland or at Sternjefe, j e f e. We'll be back here next week at the same time to map more of the land. If you or someone You know what would make a good guest for our show? Please email us or find us on Twitter Land let us know. And if you love our show, please leave a review on iTunes. That goes a long way in helping us spread The and continue to help bring high quality guests to the show.