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Since the pandemic began, I have written, blogged, and recorded podcasts about how society has been impacted, and how organizations can come out of this time, better than before.
One area where most of us have been affected is Education and Learning. I see firsthand through my engagement with Blackbaud and their K12 Teams and partners like BrightArrow, how educators and schools are adjusting from the physical to the virtual, and are leveraging technology in bolder ways.
The spotlight for this episode is an interview with Travis Warren, President K12 Private School Group at Blackbaud.
Travis shares how a modern cloud technology platform is allowing customers and the K12 Education market to pivot and adjust during this time. He also shares why partnerships are a key accelerant to delivering “best of breed” capabilities to his customers, including BrightArrow’s Mass Notification Solution.
Also joining this episode is Raymond Bily, the Founder, and CEO of BrightArrow, to discuss the partnership from his perspective.
I hope you enjoy this episode, as it uniquely shares how two organizations can partner together, leverage technology in bolder ways, and deliver for the greater good
LINKS & RESOURCES
- Find Travis Warren on LinkedIn and Twitter.
- Blackbaud
- About Blackbaud K12 Private School Group
- Becoming a Blackbaud Partner
- Find out more about BrightArrow
- Travis’ Billboard – “Persistence, Patience, and Humility”
- Best Piece of Advice – “If you never quit, you never fail”
- The Transcript of the Interview is below.
As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ and where they can find us. I’d love your feedback. Please like the podcast and provide comments or reach out to me at @vincemenzione on Linked In, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also like and follow Ultimate Guide to Partnering Facebook page or drop me a line at vincem@cloudwavepartners.com.
Ultimate Guide to Partnering™ is a rich compendium of what makes successful partnerships and is available on iTunes, Spotify, Google SoundCloud, Stitcher, Google Play, Player FM, almost anywhere you get your podcasts!
This episode of the podcast is sponsored by Ultimate Partnerships. Ultimate Partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get Partnerships Right – Optimize for Success – Deliver Results – Ultimate Partnerships.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai Please excuse any typos.
Vince Menzione
Travis, welcome to the podcast. I’m excited to have you as a guest on Ultimate Guide to Partnering. You and I had the opportunity to work together. And you have built an amazing business focused in on this market. So welcome. Yeah, thanks. For our listeners who might not know about Blackbaud. Can you tell us a little bit about the company and its mission?
Travis Warren 2:27
Absolutely. Yeah. So Blackbaud is the largest provider of software to the social good space, we focus on cloud solutions that run operated nonprofit organizations ranging from hospitals, to museums, higher ed. And then specifically in the private k 12. space, which is the vertical that I’m responsible for.
Vince Menzione 2:51
Can you share with our listeners, the genesis of the company that became Blackbaud’s K12 group?
Travis Warren 2:57
Yeah, sure. So, in 1998, I started a company called Whipple Hill, which initially was building software in the cloud, of course, we weren’t calling it the cloud then, but on the internet for private schools, and our product was a content management solution. So we, you know, schools, private schools have admission offices, they have development offices, they’re trying to raise money, recruit students, and they were, you know, in the late 90s, early 2000s, really keen on telling their story with their websites. And at the time, you know, you had Microsoft front page, you had Dreamweaver, you had people FTP in HTML files to servers, it was really kind of pretty crude. And they weren’t able to keep their websites current with content and weren’t able to keep them looking professional. So we swept in with a product based on initially, while we were really early on that kind of ASP model, Microsoft’s internet server, developed a content management system that administrators could log into to a browser and add photos and modify headlines and update content. And we were multi-tenant, we were hosted. So we wouldn’t let the schools hosted themselves. We hosted it, we ran them all off the same servers, so and we sold it as a subscription, which by 98, was definitely ahead of the curve. And it worked really well and it just sort of spiraled from one school to another one subscription to another. We ultimately expanded the portfolio products to include student information systems, learning management systems, enrollment management systems. And by the time we got to 2014, we were have a reasonable amount of size and we’re on blackboards radar and in June of 2014, bipod acquired will help and asked me to lead the US K 12 vertical market for Blackbaud.
Vince Menzione 5:04
And within the K 12. Market, you primarily focus in on private schools parochial schools and boarding schools and the like, is that correct?
Travis Warren 5:11
Yeah. Yeah, it definitely, which seems like, you know, kind of a strange restriction to put, you know, like, why not public schools? Why not charter schools, but, I mean, fundamentally, our schools, you know, collect tuition, they have an admission process, they have an annual fund, those three properties, make sort of our collection of tools are a suite of tools, unique in terms of our ability to meet their needs. If you look at a public school, you know, they’re not doing any of those three things. So the systems tend to be focused more on standards and the record-keeping side of the equation, and then the curriculum delivery side. And last, on the sort of three components, I just described,
Vince Menzione 5:58
we have all been living in a time like no other, and schools and learning have been greatly impacted by the shutdowns in March. And this constant state of uncertainty that we’ve all been talking about, can you share with our listeners, how that’s impacted you? And your business?
Travis Warren 6:15
Yeah, I think, you know, the first schools, they’ve been sort of, you know, is k 12. Schools, unlike higher ed, you know, there’s been a much slower adoption, prior to the pandemic of sort of online, you know, remote learning, right, that primarily k 12 institutions are serving kids who are under 18. And parents who, you know, want their kids to either get on, get on a bus and go to school every morning, or go away and be a boarding student. So the purpose of that k 12 School is really physical in nature. And that, you know, the kids come to the school and participate in sports and activities and learn and grow and mentor. And so the pandemic really forced k 12, into a place has never been before. And with the idea of distance and remote learning, most of them were doing it’s, you know, synchronously. So they were, you know, using zoom or teams, or any of the, you know, screen sharing tools out there. And, you know, everybody stays home and then logs in and conducts class, much like many of us conduct our businesses using those same technologies. So for us, the fact that we were in the cloud, the fact that our portals and our software was, you know, we weren’t zoom, we weren’t, you know, the the synchronous sort of screen sharing tool, but we were the scaffolding, if you will, the framework that they were able to utilize to help manage this transition. So our portal, we’ve got the schedule, we’ve got the room that the classes in, we take attendance, all that stuff. So when the pandemic had, we worked very quickly to kind of refit our tools. So instead of the software listing room that this class was in, you know, it provided a link to the zoom meeting. And as we’ve now evolved into this sort of hybrid model, where some people are remote, and some people are physically present, you know, we’ve had to modify our attendance software to be able to keep track of you know, who’s remote and who’s in the, in the room, also, even looking at something like online assessment where you know, delivering a test or quiz and you know, your ability to do that remotely, instead of proctoring it from within a within a classroom. So we had to roll with it. And when this all went down, you know, when it became clear, these fools were going to be teaching remotely, there were lots of good things that our software were able to leverage in our platform. But, you know, there were also things we needed to adjust quickly and listen to our customers and incorporate those changes into our platform in order to evolve with the schools. But it was very satisfying to be have a front row seat for all that and you know, to see our schools kind of adapt the way they did and the businesses continue operating and you know, not have to close it was it was very satisfying to see that happened. It sounded
Vince Menzione 9:12
like you really pivoted to support your customers and their businesses. What was the feedback back to you from them at the time,
Travis Warren 9:21
it was hectic, you know, they were stressed out. I wish I could say they were heaping praise on us and just so thankful they were our customers. But it didn’t feel like that at the time. It felt like we were rushing software out the door, which was a times introducing bugs and defects which was lighting up our support channels with Do you know how critical this has taught us? Like, I can’t believe this is broken. Hold on, we’ll fix it. It didn’t. There was really never a moment where you step back and get to take a bow. I think it just felt like a nonstop barrage of activity and I think we got a little bit of that perspective, by the time we got to the summer, and when people were able to step back, and we were able to hear from our schools and hear that, they were very, very thankful they had our solutions in place, and that we were as responsive as we were, and that we were a big part of their transition. So it came, the platitudes came eventually, but it certainly didn’t feel that way. In March and April, when, when we were seeing some of these systems were getting used, you know, 1015 x. Wow. So, and we’re in the cloud, and we’re scaling CPUs, and, I mean, we had more videos uploaded in 90 days, this spring, then in the prior 20 years combined.
Unknown Speaker 10:46
That’s amazing.
Travis Warren 10:46
You know, so you know, that really, I think back to I know, you’ve been doing this for a while, you know, back to our colo facilities with the racks and servers, and how much lead time we needed to, you know, add storage or CPUs, our systems are good enough that, you know, they can add a CPU or add storage without without any incremental costs. It’s just fully elastic, which is a beautiful thing.
Vince Menzione 11:12
You know, the, the elasticity is amazing. We’re not building out racks and servers and doing what we were doing 20 years ago, right? Yeah, would have been dead in the water even five years ago,
Travis Warren 11:22
even five years ago, frankly,
Vince Menzione 11:24
yeah. You know, this whole shift from physical world to virtual world. In fact, you became the lifeline to them the virtual school.
Travis Warren 11:31
Yeah, exactly. And I, I think the fact that the teachers, parents, students already had a username, password, you know, the portal, and the use of the Portal was already established, was really key, because they didn’t, you know, it wasn’t like they had to roll something new out all of the learning the tools that they use, there’s a standard called LTI, learning tools, interoperability that allows a lot of that stuff to get plugged in to the LMS. And the fact that the whole community knew where to go, and knew how to log in and knew how to get access to them that they could get to these new tools that the school we’re adding on to the equation, you know, which I mean, the LTI model is interesting, because it’s a free open standard. You know, it’s not, it’s not I know, we’re going to talk about partners. But you know, in those cases, we don’t even have official relationships with those schools, other than we support standard that schools partners, we support the standard, and they support the standard. And that allows for our products to interoperate. And it’s super valuable when you consider things like, you know, some of the deep subject areas, like you know, what a company like dreambox does with math or tabula rasa with language arts, there’s just very deep areas that a company with bipods not ever going to get in Sure, yeah, it’s really imperative to have those standards and be able to leverage those. And that, that was a big part of the way things played out in the spring as well.
Vince Menzione 12:59
So the LTI standard allows other point solutions or best of breed learning solutions to plug into your solution. Is that the way I understand it?
Travis Warren 13:09
Yep. And there’s another one rosters and other pieces of that equation as well, which is just kind of a unified, you know, because that every system within a school, you know, really needs to know that, who’s in the class, right? That becomes an important component of any integration for a lot of that stuff. In the early days, we’re having to roll our own. And now you know, you can leverage those standards and get it at 90% of the way there, if two companies are willing to push harder, you can, you know, make the integration even tighter and get get it 100% of the way there. But it is amazing that you can get it 80% of the way there with really no lift at all.
Vince Menzione 13:46
Let me ask you this. Were there any other technology requirements that you didn’t expect to see?
Travis Warren 13:51
You know, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t say really, in the way of technology requirements. I mean, I think, you know, we try to remain pretty agnostic with regards to Google, you know, Microsoft, Apple, some of the big players that are out there, canvas. So but that is problematic at times, because I know if we could go deep, a look at how far Microsoft has come with teams and SharePoint, and one node. And it’s tempting to just there’s some really amazing opportunities there that if we could commit the resources to we could go really deep. But unfortunately, if we were to go deep on that, we’ve got people who are clamoring for the Google side of the equation as
Vince Menzione 14:34
well. It sounds like a potential partnering opportunity for each of the tech giants to work more closely with you in these areas. I’m going to pivot now, as you know, I focus in on the art and science of successful partnering. And I’d love to ask you, from your perspective, what makes a great partner.
Travis Warren 14:55
Let’s see if I think about it. I mean, fundamentally, you Got to be able to find that Win Win scenario, where, you know, you’re both sort of mutually benefit from the partnership, I think if there’s too big of an imbalance there, if it’s too one sided in terms of what one entity gets, and the other doesn’t get, then I think it is hard to drive focus. So I think that balance and being able to find the win win, I think the cultures of the respective organizations and the customers are important as well, you know, if you’ve got too big of a misalignment there, that can cause problems. But fundamentally, you want that situation where and you know, I think about some of our better partners, we’re definitely positioning ourselves as a platform. And, you know, we’re trying to say, where you’re kind of data database of record and the core to the schools sort of information systems, and but we’re not, you know, we don’t do everything. And whether it’s these LTI partners that go deep on certain subjects, or companies that specialize in specific areas, I mean, we’re seeing it pop up around the pandemic, there’s contact tracing, and companies that are providing kiosks, to schools to take temperatures and do health screening upon entering some of the other companies out there emergency call dialers that, you know, allow the school principal to record a message and push that message out to all the parents via telephone with the click of a button. So to me, what’s great about those solutions, all the ones I just mentioned, is for them to work, they they need a platform, and they need the data that that is required for their systems to do what it does to be accessible by API’s and, and be current and up to date. But they don’t want to have to build those systems, in order to get that data, they want to be able to access it through an API. And then from our perspective, they’re very deep and very specific to what they do, and they do it much better than we could ever do it. So that’s that compliment, where, if that partnership works, well, our retention goes up, the stickiness of our product goes up. Because our customers are the best part of the benefit of our platform is that ecosystem, and are those partners that connect to us. And then you know, from their perspective, they gain access to the thousands of schools that we already work with. And they get sort of frictionless entry into the school where they can ride on the tails of our marketplace, and we can stand up, they can stand their software up very inexpensively very quickly. And you know, schools get the benefit of it right away. So, which is very different, you know, different than if they’re knocking on doors, and you know, every school they talk to has a different si es system, you know, and they have to figure out how are we going to get the data from the si s system, I mean, that could that could crush those smaller companies opposed to, you know, knowing that we’ve got the technology figured out, and we can just scale, you know, within the backbone base. So you can see in that in those scenarios I’m describing there, you know, especially the pandemic stuff, I mean, those companies sprung up overnight, opportunistic entrepreneurs, who fashioned systems to do contact tracing and some of those things, we were never going to be able to pivot that quickly. We were busy with this, the pieces we were working on, and to be able to leverage those sort of partners and allow those solutions to, you know, be taken advantage of buyer schools, that that’s that win win that I was alluding to,
Vince Menzione 18:42
you know, Travis, it seems that you made a smart decision early on not to build out all the capabilities within your application, but to rely on best of breed solutions, to build out a partner ecosystem to support your customers better. And you know, what you mentioned alert management and one of our mutual friends and one of your partners bright arrow Raman byli, from bright our has been talking about how his solution has seen a huge spike since COVID. And especially now with the need for persistent communications. Can you talk to our listeners a little bit about that relationship that you have with bright arrow?
Travis Warren 19:18
Yeah, it’s a interesting solution. And you know, I think is historically has been used in a variety of different ways. But basically, I go back 10 years, you know, the the ability to in a lot of it was even, you know, the interface was through a phone. So it wasn’t even necessarily a browser based interface. It was really more of a phone interface. So you know, if I’m a school principal, I call into this number, I put my key code in, you know, I press star, one to record a message, and then I press start to to send it and behind the scenes, that system is, you know, has thousands of phone numbers that it’s gathered from systems. So, you know, if a parent went in and added a new phone number of five minutes prior or the night before, you know, the system is going to hit whatever number is in there, it’s it’s very important that it be, you know, very current to the to the second but it starkly in New England, of course, you know, that would be how the principal would notify the parents that, you know, school was canceled due to a snowstorm, you know, in Florida, or the Carolinas, you know, hurricanes, we even saw, because we’ve been working with these solutions for a while when Virginia, I had that unfortunate situation with the shooter, active shooter situations at schools, or, you know, they need to, and that’s why the interface, you know, the ability to access it through a phone, I mean, is more of it as it sounds, you know, you could be under a desk recording a message and sending it and saying, you know, shelter in place, right. So in over time, not just the voice over the phone, but but also the ability to text message. And really, in these emergency type situations, you’ve got to go multichannel, you know, you put it on your website, you put it in an email, you text it, and you call and because you know, it’s imperative that everybody gets covered and that you don’t miss anything. And so that business has been growing nicely. That connection there, one of our more frequently used partners, right arrow, they do a great job with it. And they’re kind of a one trick pony, right? They do one thing, it may be one or two things, and they do it really well. And that our customers love that. And it’s you know, from an emergency planning preparedness standpoint, it’s an essential tool for the school, it’s a big part of how they communicate in the state of emergency.
Vince Menzione 21:47
Travis, we’re going to ask Raymond Bily of BrigtArrow to join us now to discuss how his solution is being used uniquely during this time, and to discuss his relationship with you and your company. So good. Raman, as you know, I focus in on helping organizations to improve their partner relationships. And you’ve mentioned Blackbaud, one of the partners that certainly I spent some time working in the organization. And we both have a mutual friend and Travis Warren at Blackbaud. Can you explain to our listeners why this partnership in particular is important to bright arrow,
Raymond Bily 22:24
I think the big thing here is that we complement the what we provide to the schools Blackbaud has a very comprehensive environment that that allows administrators and teachers to document and provide the kind of information necessary to operate well. And at since our focuses really is both on communication and integration, we make it easy within that environment to really reach out to parents and to staff and to whatever, whoever that is. It’s an important relationship, because Blackbaud has, has opened up the integration to key partners so that there isn’t this export process, you’re not making the schools and school administrators be programmers, you were doing the back end stuff, we’re doing the heavy lifting, and Blackbaud has been very receptive to new needs and requirements, things change, I find Blackboard to be a wonderful company, for listening to what we’re hearing from customers. So when there’s new functionality, new API’s, we’ve been involved since the beginning, we’ve helped them identify and design what’s in these communications. And the other thing is, the customer needs to know from one partner that the other one works, I mean, you know, you have three different vendors reaching you, then you become an integration organization, instead of a school instead of a, you need to focus on what you do well. So for Blackbaud, to say, here are partners that integrate well, we know they integrate well. In fact, here are some customers that have done it, you know that that type of infrastructure of working together at the back end so that the customer doesn’t have to worry about it on a friend and makes life so much easier. And I would say that when compared to other student information choices that customers have, where they have to kind of plug different things together and hope they work. The Blackbaud is very strong at finding the partnerships, making sure they integrate well together and give that that school or that customer you know, it’s not just schools, but it can be other types of black organizations. Give them that organization, that comfort that these things are going to work together. They don’t have to worry about bugs and issues. They just know these pieces work together.
Vince Menzione 24:40
some really great feedback from Raymond on your partnership, Travis.
Travis Warren 24:44
Yeah. It was great to hear from Raymond on that,
Vince Menzione 24:47
Travis. Any suggestions or advice for other technology organizations that wish to partner with you? Or Blackbaud?
Travis Warren 24:54
Yeah, I think we have definitely been trying to streamline the process for for connecting with us some standard programs, we run, you know, occasionally with strategic partners will veer off of the standard program. But we’ve been making, you know, big investment company wide into our marketplace and helping with the discoverability of our partnerships. And like I said, trying to make the the sandbox and the technology accessible. So that potential partner could build out their integration and test it out and see if the endpoints and the technology they need is there, you know, instead of sort of wasting lots of time trying to build the partnership, and then only to figure out that the, maybe you don’t have everything you need to make the technology piece successful.
Vince Menzione 25:45
Yeah, so great to see the progress there between you and their organization.
Travis Warren 25:49
Yeah, we’ve got a form that we fill out, I think there’s, you know, that kicks off the process, and like I said, gets you access to things that you need to start working. And I think we try to have conversations as soon as we can in the process, and make sure it’s a match and figure out how best to position what our partners are doing within our market. But we really do strongly believe that, that you know, the value in bringing those solutions to our ecosystem to our group of schools is, you know, it’s it’s very powerful for us. And by being one of the larger players in the private k 12. space, I think it gives us a distinct advantage. Because if you’re going to partner with another company, you want to partner with a company that has as large an installed base as possible, because those are the rails that you’re going to grow your business and that the partnership is going to grow on. So when I think about how we’re positioned relative to some of our smaller competitors, makes a lot of sense for the bright areas of the world and others to make that investment because they know it can be leveraged over in such a large install base.
Vince Menzione 26:59
Absolutely. And we’re gonna provide links in the show notes on how our listeners can reach out to you and the team. That’s great. So Travis, I’d like to pivot our conversation, as I’m fascinated with how entrepreneurs and leaders like yourself got to this particular spot in life, was there a pivot point or a seminal event that got you on the track to do what you do today?
Travis Warren 27:22
It was interesting, I definitely sort of grew up, my father owned a few businesses and was in technology in the late 70s, and are in the 70s. And in the early 80s. So kind of we grew up, you know, he was in data processing and owned a company, a service bureau that did some processing in the financial industry. So, you know, I feel like is as a role model, as you know, for me that that was sort of like, all I knew was that, you know, of course, I try to own my own business and build something right, just because I saw my dad do it time and time again. But I think I definitely is I got into high school, and was programming and technical myself I led development team for on one of his companies and was involved in a project where they were rewriting a old COBOL system over to a client server using a tool called power builder. And sure, if you ever did you ever run into that one. I do remember PowerBuilder back from the client server days, and I remember cobalt two, I mean that that was sort of the right time, right place for me. I mean, I was like 15 or 16 and love this stuff and was involved with that, through my high school years and college years ultimately decided not to go back to Carnegie Mellon and went to work full time for my dad, and you know, when his company was acquired, you know, decided to take the money I made from that acquisition and basically afforded me a couple of years without needing to draw a salary, which was when I started the Whipple Hill and you know, initially trying to solve a problem for a school that I cared about us, you know, Proctor Academy, which is where I went to school, but you know, wasn’t really looking at it so much as a business, it wasn’t like I was going to do around and raise a bunch of money and start a business, it was more like, Alright, if I could turn be pragmatic about it and turn sort of one opportunity into another. And I remember, even in the early years of helping Proctor and a few other schools, it wasn’t 100% clear to me that, you know, oh, I’m going to start a content management company for schools. I remember I had other ideas I was simultaneously pursuing and they weren’t really going anywhere. And I remember my dad and my dad’s partner kind of giving me a hard time because I kept sort of pitching them on all these other ideas that I had, although all the while, you know, the business around the school product was growing, but it was almost like I was like ignoring that focused on other opportunities. And finally, they said, you know, you get your business right here. Like why are you so obsessed with trying to Find some other kind of, you know, it’s almost like I stumbled into it.
Vince Menzione 30:03
I love how they helped you clarify your path. Were there any other great pieces of advice that you received when you got started?
Travis Warren 30:10
You know, I think, I mean, the whole story was not was not one of these, like overnight success stories. I mean, there was a lot of persistence, we, you know, owned and operated the business for 16 years, we always stayed focused on on cash, and, you know, our software subscriptions, we get paid up front. So we’re able to keep our cash and we, you know, didn’t have to bring in a lot outside money, we did have a little bit of angel, money and certain critical points that helped bridge new product launches and stuff like that. But you know, I think the the advice, I remember, my father’s partner, and his business was a guy who was very influential for me, he is sort of motto and really stuck with me was if you never quit, you never fail. And so he was just, you know, patient and keep going and focus on your customers focused on your your partners, and your employees, and the rest will take care of itself. And that was super, super valuable. The other thing that author and business sort of book guru that really was very influential for me was a guy that Geoffrey Moore
Vince Menzione 31:20
Yeah, Geoffrey Moore, I’ve been a big fan of Jeffrey Moore over the years.
Travis Warren 31:24
Yeah, I mean, Crossing the Chasm inside the tornado guerrilla game, like, there were key points in each one of those books that were really a very important part of what we’re bowhill you know, the decisions we made and the focus we had, and, you know, kind of doing what we did. And to this day, I, you know, zone to win and some of the other stuff he’s got out there. I, you know, his his wisdom is, is, you know, still still rings true today. But those were definitely some of the key principles, you know, for us. I mean, we were focused on a niche within a niche, and we wanted to be the gorilla. We wanted to be the global leader in private school content management, right. And by shrinking that market down to something that’s small, we were able to obtain that. And, you know, we said no to all sorts of opportunities to build websites for because by building websites for the private schools, we actually ended up getting exposed to quite a few high profile people who would call I mean, in one case, at one of the schools, one of their alums called the school and said, I, you know, we love your website, we’re trying to build a website, this alum was in the handbag business you had just signed Gwyneth Paltrow as a spokesperson. And was like this was dot bomb, right? It was 99 2000 e commerce, right. And they were trying to build a website for their handbag company. And they found a way to us, and we probably had 10 schools at the time. And we’re, you know, this was very exciting. Like, we’d never heard of this company before. And but we’d certainly heard of gweneth Paltrow, and you know, they had a lot of money, and they were going to pay us a lot of money. And but you know, the reality is, if we take in that opportunity, and taken our eye off the ball and what we were trying to do with the school product, we certainly would have failed and would have, you know, not got to where we did when we were acquired,
Vince Menzione 33:29
yeah, that really could have diverted your focus away from the core mission of your business.
Travis Warren 33:34
Yep. So that was the rate, you know, the focus and saying no, and walking away that that company, Vince
Vince Menzione 33:42
was Kate Spade. Yeah, I was thinking it was either Tory Burch or Kate Spade.
Travis Warren 33:46
Yeah. Yeah. So you know, and who knows? I mean, if we had gone in that direction, it would have been a different journey. And maybe it would have ended up but you know, I think it probably would if, you know, I just look at what happened to the companies, especially the web companies that just started didn’t focus on any one industry or any one problem. They just sort of were doing whatever taken opportunistically you know, whatever came their way. And in the end, that that was, you know, inability to focus and build a product and, you know, create recurring revenue, you know, what, you know, buried a lot of companies in that time frame.
Vince Menzione 34:24
Yeah. And I also love your father’s partners advice. If you never quit, you never fail. And we’re gonna put that in our show notes. As a matter of fact, yeah, Travis, if you could have a billboard that could sum up your philosophy or your view of the world, what would it say on it?
Travis Warren 34:42
Hmm. I mean, I think I like the, if you never quit, you never fail. Well, bored. I mean, to me, you know, persistence, and patience. I never. I think there’s a certain amount of humility that’s required in life and I would never want to be The smartest guy in the room, I’d always want to be the hardest working. So to me, I think the people who I respect the most are hustle and work hard and you know, good things come to people who who take that path. I think if you’re looking for more of a of a lucky, you know, luck mentality where you’re just going to get lucky and or think you know, all the answers, you know, to me that that’s not the answer.
Vince Menzione 35:26
So persistence, patience, and humility. I like that. Yeah. So Travis, if you were hosting a dinner party, and you can invite any three people from the present or the past to join that dinner party, who would they be? And why?
Travis Warren 35:43
You know, for me, I think we were talking about this a little bit before we recorded about Apple and Microsoft. And I mean, when I was super young, the edge just a fascination with Apple. And, you know, so for me, if I go back to the ringleaders at Apple, you know, and look at somebody like was an anchor or jobs or, and, or even was a guest, say, john Louis guest. Yeah, what
Vince Menzione 36:10
was his role?
Travis Warren 36:12
Yeah, I think he was, I’m not sure what his role is. But he was an interesting guy. And then like Guy Kawasaki, right, some of the kind of ringleaders there. I mean, to me, that would be a fascinating conversation. I know, I was at Carnegie Mellon, when I was at Carnegie Mellon, they had the next cubes there. And when I remember sort of hyperventilating and passing out when we got our first back in 86, just being like, so excited. And so to me, that cast of characters and that sort of time in the history of computing, and you know, what they were doing and kind of, you know, talking about, about their journey, you know, that would have been, that would be a conversation that I would would want to want to be in. But I mean, it must have been a fascinating place and the impact the work what they did in that short period of time head computing was just phenomenal. Yeah, they were so far ahead of their time. I remember that Steve Jobs visited Park this year, the Xerox facility Park, and they were just so far ahead and advanced in terms of what they were able to create. And everyone else followed. Right, when a lot of the A lot of what they saw there, and it certainly got them excited, but their ability to kind of turn that into a product that people could buy and deliver it to the masses.
Vince Menzione 37:33
Really so true. Travis, I want to thank you, again, for joining us today. You’ve been an amazing guest. Are there any closing comments or advice that you have for our listeners?
Travis Warren 37:44
No. I think, Vince, you did a great job. I appreciate being on your show and appreciate you sharing the links. And I definitely if there are companies out there with solutions that you think complement the Blackbaud k 12 platform and that you think our schools would benefit from we know you said you’d share the link, fill out the form and let’s have a conversation and see if if there’s an opportunity there. I appreciate you getting the word out on that.
Vince Menzione 38:11
Happy to do so Travis, so great to have you as a guest today on the podcast. Thank you again. As with each of my episodes, I appreciate your support. Please tell your friends about Ultimate Guide to partnering and where they can find us. And I’d love your feedback. Please like the podcast and provide comments or reach out to me at Vince Menzione on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can also like and follow Ultimate Guide to partnering on our Facebook page. or drop me a line at Vince m at ultimate dash partnerships.com Thank you for listening. And I hope you enjoyed this episode. This episode of the podcast is sponsored by ultimate partnerships. Ultimate partnerships helps you get the most results from your partnerships. Get partnerships right, optimize for success. deliver results, ultimate partnerships, please visit us at ultimate dash partnerships.com to learn more.
Announcer 39:17
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Ultimate Guide to partnering with your host Vince Menzione online at Ultimate Guide to partnering.com and facebook.com slash Ultimate Guide to partnering. We’ll catch you next time on The Ultimate Guide to partnering
Transcribed by https://otter.ai