Entrepreneurial Appetite
Entrepreneurial Appetite is a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism, and supporting Black businesses. This podcast will feature edited versions of Entrepreneurial Appetite’s Black book discussions, including live conversations between a virtual audience, authors, and Black entrepreneurs. In this community, we do not limit what it means to be an intellectual or entrepreneur. We recognize that the sisters and brothers who own and work in beauty salons or barbershops are intellectuals just as much as sisters and brothers who teach and research at universities. This podcast is unique because, as part of this community, you have the opportunity to participate in our monthly book discussion, suggest the book to be discussed, or even lead the conversation between the author and our community of intellectuals and entrepreneurs. For more information about participating in our monthly discussions, please follow Entrepreneurial_ Appetite on Instagram and Twitter. Please consider supporting the show as one of our Founding 55 patrons. For five dollars a month, you can access our live monthly conversations. See the link below:https://www.patreon.com/EA_BookClub
Entrepreneurial Appetite
From Cybersecurity Experts to Media Entrepreneurs: A Conversation with Chris Cochran and Ron Eddings founders of Hacker Valley Media
What happens when two cybersecurity gurus take the leap from the corporate world to media entrepreneurship? In our latest episode, Ron Eddings and Chris Cochran, founders of Hacker Valley Media, recount their journeys, from early enchantment with technology to their time in the cybersecurity field and, finally, to the founding of Hacker Valley Media. Tune in for a candid conversation about their transition from cybersecurity industry employees to content creators for the cybersecurity community.
But what exactly sparked this drastic shift? We delve into Chris and Ron's shared passion for learning and teaching and how a unique diet challenge fueled a strong friendship and a shared dream. Hear about their journey to California, setting up a Hacker House, and the creation of their podcast.
What's good everyone. I'm Langston Clark, founder and organizer of Entrepreneurial Appetite, a series of events dedicated to building community, promoting intellectualism and supporting black businesses. In this episode of Entrepreneurial Appetite, we feature a conversation with Ron Eddings and Chris Cochran, founders of Hacker Valley Media, a media company that is passionate about empowering cybersecurity communities through high quality content that entertains as much as it educates and inspires. Today I have Chris Cochran and Ron Eddings, who I met last year at podcast movement in Dallas, and these two guys are cybersecurity experts who made the transition from being in cybersecurity to actually podcasting and becoming the founders of Hacker Valley Media, a platform where folks can get access to information about cybersecurity in ways that you may not otherwise get. And so I want to start by getting these two brothers the opportunity to introduce themselves and just tell their story about how they became who they are and how they got to be the founders of Hacker Valley Media.
Speaker 2:Start us off, chris. Yeah, so I'm Chris Cochran. I've been in cybersecurity for almost 20 years at this point, and I would say my origin story started when I was a young kid. You know I was always a tinkerer. I was one of those guys that played around with those electronic kits that you could turn into a AM radio or an alarm system. I thought I was going to build terminators because I love robotics, but now, with the advent of AI, I might I might get to build SkyNet after all. I would say that probably around when I joined the Marine Corps I really started leveraging all of that tinkerer mindset.
Speaker 2:I was in the United States Marine Corps doing intelligence. I went to the National Security Agency doing technical intelligence over there. I was a part of US Cyber Command when it first stood up and I really got to work at some really cool places, everything from Netflix to the House of Representatives, to the Department of Justice, to Mandiant. I've been at Booz Allen Hamilton. I've been to a lot of really cool different places and I got to do a lot of really cool different things. And then I fell in love with content and I'm sure we're going to talk about that at length, but I would say that's pretty much me in a nutshell, and right now I'm an advisory CISO. I'm also a Chief Evangelist and also a co-founder with my good brother here, ron Eddings, hacker Valley side.
Speaker 3:Just like Chris, you're going to hear that I have way too many interests and hobbies, but here it goes. I got my start in tech when I was 13. Me and my friends, we used to love go play ball, talk trash while we're playing especially, but we would go home at the end of the day and jump on AOL instant messenger and we would continue to talk about who's the best player Kobe Shaq. And one day we were all in this chat room and we used to talk crap amongst each other, but also the other people as well. So if someone didn't like the player that I liked, we would start racking on them. So we get into a little bit of like back and forth with a stranger in a chat room and they send me a file on AOL and I open up the file and all of a sudden my computer starts restarting my floppy. My CD-ROM drive starts opening. I'm like trying to close it back up and it keeps on opening and I get this matrix like text on my screen and this is just this person. They completely hacked my computer from just sending me this one file. So I did anything that a normal teenager would do and I tried to restart my computer tried to get it back online. I was a little nervous because it's a family computer, so I'm freaking out a little bit, but I was able to finally get whatever was happening to stop. I joined the chat room again and I asked the person how they did it and surprisingly, they told me they were using this tool called ProRat. This is a O-O-O-G remote access tool that hackers used to use. He told me how he did it and I was hooked.
Speaker 3:I remember one story that my mom loves to tell is one day I came home and I told her that I was in love. She's like oh, you got a girlfriend. I was like no, I'm in love with my computer and I've been in cybersecurity. My entire career started in 2010. Got to start at Booz Allen. Hamilton Did some contracting for the NSA, which was really awesome to see how the absolute government professionals do it and spend some time at many other companies. Maybe one that your audience would know about is Intel. I spent some time at Intel and now me and Chris are running Hacker Valley Media. We started with a single podcast and now we do a wide variety of content projects amongst our own company, but also with cybersecurity brands.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. I didn't know that about you, Ron. I don't think you shared that podcast movement last year. I know I heard Chris's story and that was one of the most powerful stories I think I heard at podcast movement last year. And for those of you who don't know, podcast movement is the big podcast and conference that happens every year in the United States. And Chris, you talked about this pivot. I think you were working at Netflix. I know you said you made a lot of money. So tell us a story about how you all decided to actually leave your corporate jobs, your tech jobs, and become entrepreneurs and just do your own thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've always had an entrepreneurial bug. It's pretty much my entire career. This is my third company that I've started and obviously it's the most successful one, because you probably haven't heard of the other two. But I would say that while I was at Netflix, that's why I really started focusing on content with Ron and developing that connection with the community, and so I was like, wow, we're making a difference. People are hitting us up. They're saying, oh wow, I got this promotion because of you, or I broke into cybersecurity because of the content that you put out. And I mean that really hits you Like, oh wow, I'm doing something that makes a difference.
Speaker 2:A lot of times in cybersecurity, you're not going to get any accolades, You're not going to get any news, which is why we started the Difference Makers Awards with Sands, but that's another story. But I would say that once we saw what kind of an impact we could have in our community, we're like why just give all of our time and attention to one team when we can have a platform where we share the stories, the experiences, the voices of other people, have great conversations and make our impact in cybersecurity that way? Because content scales. Sometimes content scales more than technology right In some cases, so why not focus our time and attention on making our impact that way? And that's how we got to make the business of hacker-bounded media.
Speaker 1:So, ron, if you can add to that, how did y'all meet? What's the story of you two becoming homeboys and meeting? Because I think I remember I think I remember you all speech Were y'all roommates at some point. Was y'all living in the same house? I think I remember that being part of the story at podcast movies. So what was it like to be founders living in this? Was it like yo? What's my man name from Motown in the Hit Factory? Was that it Like? Were y'all just all living in the same house and everybody had all these ideas and y'all were just going at which y'all could get done Like. What's the story behind y'all being roommates?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's more or less part of the story, at least. So me and Chris, we met back in, I think, 2016,. We were both working at Cybersecurity Startup. It was called Ironnet Cybersecurity and I think we might have been the only black people at the company. We were definitely like one of the first few. There's only a few black people that. That's the case for any cybersecurity company but ironically they sit me and Chris right next to each other, so his desk is right next to my desk.
Speaker 3:But it was perfect because you know me and Chris, we have a lot of similar interests. We lifelong learners, we're lifelong teachers and we love to acquire capital and skills and opportunities and share those with the world. So, like at the time, Chris was all about threat intelligence, I was all about threat hunting. How can I catch the bad guys? Chris was like oh, I got the baseball card for the bad guys. Here you go, Ron, Go hunt for them.
Speaker 3:So you know, we had that great kind of chemistry when it came to our, our careers, but we also had a lot of chemistry when it came to personal growth. So we did this crazy challenge. We went on like a liquid diet for a month. It was no one do it. I don't do it, Don't, would not recommend it. But that was like the start of our friendship Blash. We could definitely work together. We go on a liquid diet together. We're not, you know, encouraged to stay on. We're good to go, and years go by. So, like I worked there for about six months I think Chris is there for a year to year and a half I moved to California to work at Intel and when Chris was moving from the East Coast to California to work at Netflix, he hit me up and said hey, coming through to California, like what's, give me the lay of the land, Me and another friend, we had just made a decision.
Speaker 3:We wanted to build a hacker house. We saw this on TV. You know, everybody watched the Silicon Valley, at least a few episodes. We were like you know what? We could build one better, but with Swagger, Like, this isn't going to be like a house full of just people on their laptop. This is going to be a house of you know people that are trying to push themselves to get better. So we would do all types of you know activities we will bring.
Speaker 3:When we first moved in, we had the house blessed by Buddhist monks and that was a crazy experience because got to see the love from another person that's a complete stranger. Bring that love into the house. I want to say that love stayed in the house throughout. Shout out to the monks that came through. We would have yoga teachers come to the house and kind of do yoga instruction. We did a lot of meditation together and that's where the podcast was born to. I built this makeshift studio at the hacker house and one day Chris was like hey, you know, like let's build something together, let's go up in the studio and let's just see what happens. And here we are four years later, you know, still going at it, the hacker house.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I'm not familiar with the concept of hacker house. Is that was the title, hacker house something you all came up with, or was it a concept that already existed?
Speaker 2:I hadn't seen it anywhere. But would they you should call like an incubator, incubator house or something like that, or a bunch of founders will come together or even just practitioners from a technology perspective, would tinker and figure things out. But we were four brothers in the house, middle age focused on cybersecurity, so we call it the hacker house, and we were in Silicon Valley, so hacker Valley mansion is what we called it. We all had our own piece of the pie, so to speak, when it came to the house. I was in charge of the network, so I bought these Orbeez, set up the Orbeez set up the Wi-Fi and we're trying to figure out what we want to call it. We're like oh, we're a hacker house from Silicon Valley, so we call it hacker Valley mansion. It was a pretty nice big house and we were like hey, so if we're, the original name of the podcast was runs brain child, which is a sec dev opsai, cause that was when sec dev ops or dev sec ops.
Speaker 2:They were trying to figure out what the order was, and so he was like I'm going to double down on this plus AI. And so if you go back to some of those earlier episodes, they're like this is sec dev opsai and we're like, ah, we might want to change the name of it. And we were all just sitting around in the kitchen and we thought, well, what if we just use the Wi-Fi name and just call it like the hacker Valley studio? We said, well, we love it. We ended up going back to my house, we were in our backyard and we were like toasting, it's not like we started a company, we just changed the name of the podcast, but for some odd reason it did feel like a starting of a company and that's one of the memories we definitely cherish.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I asked that question because it's a dope name Like hacker house, y'all having trademarked that y'all need to trademark that ASAP Cause. Like Ron, you live in Austin, if I'm not mistaken. Right, that's right, right. And I'm y'all y'all in Texas. So I'm sure y'all are familiar with South by Southwest, but y'all know Rainey Street. There's all of these houses during South by Southwest that exist on Rainey Street and other places. So Tulsa, the city of Tulsa, has a house on Rainey Street for two days and they call it Tulsa house.
Speaker 1:So in my mind, I'm just imagining you guys, one day at South by Southwest, if you choose to do this, have a hacker house, and so people who work in cybersecurity, that could be the spot for those two days of that day when they come do stuff that just came to my head.
Speaker 1:But don't let me impose that on you, but I feel like that would be a dope thing, a unique thing, and you, and it calls on your audience, right? You know what I'm saying. So, speaking about your audience, one of the things that I noticed about both of you is that y'all are so coordinated, right, so you have the purple, the purple vibe going on in the background.
Speaker 1:And I took some time to watch you all's podcast on YouTube before we did this recording and I was man. Y'all are really good at. The aesthetic is really good. Your mics are like really good, you come off really clear. Y'all look at the camera. Y'all have the etiquette and the ambiance of the podcast down. So talk about what it means, as businessmen who are creating this content, to honor your audience with the product. Because, even though I'm not into cybersecurity stuff, man, the look and the setup that you all have to me is really it's gorgeous, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I appreciate that. I mean it didn't happen overnight, I'll tell you that. I mean, if you go, I don't even know if these videos are still up anywhere, but they're gone. Yeah, okay, good Cause they were terrible.
Speaker 2:We had we were in the same room and we had two different cameras. One camera was like looking up at me, so you see all my like double chin and stuff like that, and then one camera's like looking at Ron. People are like are y'all, aren't y'all in the same room? Like, yeah, why do you have two cameras looking at each other? It's very strange.
Speaker 2:But then we were like, all right, let's focus on the audio. Our audio was already pretty spectacular, thanks to Ron, and then we just started putting things together. All right, you know, we're just going to use a regular webcam for our videos. And then we started to crank it up a little bit.
Speaker 2:We had a conversation with Alissa Knight, who makes some some really spectacular movies, and she was like, hey, we'll give, I'll give you all of the playbook for the lighting that I use. So they ended up, she ended up sending over all of the lighting. So we got nice lighting, we got nice cameras, we got all kinds of different equipment to make our production better. Because we realized that when you focus on quality, especially when you focus on one thing at a time, like audio, you're like oh, it's got to be perfect, constantly editing, constantly remastering, getting things even better. So when we brought in the video component to it, we're like we can't have terrible video and have good audio. So everything had to kind of level up. When we do in person events, the in person events, it has to be just as good as our audio and our video.
Speaker 1:So that's, that's what I'm one of the things that I noticed that you all do that is really unique as well is that you appeal to your audience through the visual aesthetic, but you guys are really dynamic on LinkedIn too, and I view LinkedIn as like community building and so talk about how you are leveraging LinkedIn to build your brand and get your product out there for folks to consume.
Speaker 3:One of the synergies between Chris and I is I think we're both I will call us professional. We're laid back, we're not like suit and tile buttoned up, but we're professional. I think we we love mastering our craft, so LinkedIn is the perfect place for that. There's a lot of people that are talking about up leveling their career, up leveling even their mind, talking about books. On other social media platforms you have, like Twitter and Instagram, those are, I would say, more hobbies and just talking about a specific topic rather than talking about leveling up. And when we were first starting out Hacker Valley, one of the areas that we wanted to focus on was leveling up the person.
Speaker 3:In cybersecurity. You always hear about patching your software, upgrading your systems, but what about upgrading your mind, upgrading your skill set, upgrading your lifestyle? We were like we got. We got to definitely bring those pieces and elements to our podcast, but also to LinkedIn. A few weeks back, we just posted and I think Chris already posted this as well, but there was this video of him dancing. We were at the studio one day and we're like you know what? Chris is an amazing dancer. Go ahead and break it down and completely crushed it, and we shared it on LinkedIn and I think when people see that, hey, I could be professional, I could be positive, I could be motivated and, you know, have this high level of quality is inspiring.
Speaker 3:You know, we we got inspiration from listen night, like Chris was saying. But there's also another person that we worked with. His name is Ian Van Allen. He has a company called AeroStoy Media for anyone that ever needs to get some high end production. But Ian really, I would say, showed both of us how to up your game without overburdening yourself. He's a very calm, relaxed and but his quality is always top notch. So that's something that we've also like brought into our production, but also the LinkedIn as well.
Speaker 1:So you all do a great job of appealing to your audience on LinkedIn and through YouTube. I'm just wondering y'all have been boys for a while now how are you all continuing to cultivate the relationship between the two of you? I know y'all did that all water fast or whatever it was, or liquid diet when the diet is over right, when y'all have no longer roommates. Y'all got families now. Chris, your daughter was just in the room, so how do you all balance what I think is still a friendship, but also a business partnership? How do you make that work?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Ron just tells me what to do and I do it. You know, that's it. So one thing that I do. We used to do it all the time. I think we used to have multiple check ins per day. Right now it's every morning. Every morning, around six thirty or so, whenever we get around to getting up and calling each other, we'll talk every morning. Just, it could be about business, it could be about life, it could be about what we're going to do next year, all kinds of different stuff. So just having that open line of communication is super important for us. We did have to get to a point where we had to divide and conquer run, and I used to do every single meeting together which is great from a like a relationship building standpoint, but terrible from an efficiency standpoint.
Speaker 2:There are some meetings where you just don't need both of us. So we started dividing up you know pieces of the company like, hey, I want to take charge of this, you're going to run this part, and so we just leverage each other. I mean there are, you know, points where he's had to step in for me because I had stuff going on at home, Maybe I had some family stuff, had a death in the family, and I'm going to have to do the same because, Ron, he's about to have his first baby, Ava. She'll be here in August. So I'm going to have to step in and kind of keep the keep, everything kind of moving forward with the rest of our team. So we just leverage each other. I mean we're going to be lifelong friends forever. Even if, you know everything, sunsets with Hacker Valley in the hopefully distant future, We'll be lifelong friends forever. So that's never gone away.
Speaker 1:Ron, congratulations on the baby. I know that's a that's huge, that's like that's a big thing, especially me, like I'm. Me and my wife are working on having kids too, so I know that that's that's a huge thing, right, until I know. Yeah, so it's like in some ways you got two babies because you got the company and then you have your real baby, right. So there's some nuance thing that I want to get into. So you all have this friendship you are doing well in business. I think now, more and more we're hearing people are building companies, media companies, in particular, podcast companies and there we have people in the Philippines who are doing this editing. We got somebody over here in Europe doing this, somebody in Nigeria doing that. I got my team in the States. So how are you all managing the two of you and maybe some of the other folks on your team being in different cities? What are, what are the strategies that you use to stay on the same page in these distance relationships that you have in your business?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's been a work of just work over time and what I'll say about that, especially when people are thinking about leveling up their podcast, making it into a business and monetizing it. There's trials and tribulations you're going to have to go through as a new founder at that point, but also working and hiring people. We've hired a lot of part time help and over and over and over again we learned how to ask better questions. We learned that through the podcast. Fortunately, that's one area that we get that skill. But hiring someone to edit your podcast, that's a very delicate thing to do because you have a vision and maybe you've built an audience and they want it to only get better and not backslide at all.
Speaker 3:So we've had situations where we've brought on an editor and the parts of the content grew and then parts of the content suffered, and then we've had other team members. You know, especially on the marketing side, that will be a challenge for anyone that's launching a business or a brand is letting everybody know that you have something to buy. That's a very difficult thing to kind of get down. So we've just gone through many iterations, but what I'll say is the biggest opportunity for us is coming up with a set of tools and processes that will work for the company. Not everybody follows the exact same processes to the T, but I think now we have a common lexicon that we use to say, hey, an episode is ready to be edited. And everybody knows what that means because like it's like the Hacker Valley terminology.
Speaker 3:I think our onboarding has gotten a lot better for bringing in especially part time help or temporary help. I think we're able to get people the information that they need and, just you know, working over the past few years, we have a Google Drive that has everything that you need in there Any, any picture, any Photoshop file, any MP3 for a previous episode and we use notion to handle our production process. So, like as an episode makes its way into ideation or after it's recorded, we have buckets that we put the episode in and then assign it to the right person that can get that part of the job done.
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Speaker 1:Full transparency this is what I'm afraid of. This is the part in my podcast production that I'm scared of. I know it needs to be done, but I just, especially with the editing right. I know how I want to edit it, but I also know that there are people who can edit a podcast way better than I can. So I think for me it's reassuring here that you all have gone through the same process. What advice do you have for somebody whether it's in a podcasting business or whatever business that they're in to let go of some things and take responsibility for developing the SOPs, the standard operating procedures? How do you get over that psychological hump?
Speaker 2:What are the things that you are best at doing? Like? Ask yourself that. And then what if you're the salesperson in your company and you know you can sell your podcast? You can sell your product, your solution, to anybody. Would it be better for you to be managing your checkbook or managing your calendar or editing a podcast, or is it more important for you to build pipeline and have these conversations with prospects and clients, once you start to realize that there's a finite amount of time? Elon Musk, jeff Bezos, ron Eddings, chris Cocker we all have 24 hours in a day. How are you going to spend that time to push forward towards your goal? And if there are other people that you can delegate that stuff to, that can do as good or better, and even if it's not as good or better in the beginning, if they are able and have that passion to be trained, to become better, to eventually surpass you, then you have to start delegating some of that stuff over over to other folks.
Speaker 3:There's one more thing I wanted to add to that as well. So what? Me and Chris we have like this running joke that one of the quotes that I told him one day that he brings up and I bring up sometimes is higher health pay, top dollar, mm. Hmm, it can be painful to give up 90% of what you've earned to support a new cause. If you had to pay your editor 90% of your proceeds for your sponsorship, but that gives you the ability to produce more episodes, then you know you have to weigh out those that situation and scenario. All right, where do I want to spend my time, like Chris is saying, and definitely don't underpay someone, because you will get exactly what you paid for at the end of the day as well.
Speaker 1:Ooh, I got to stop being cheap. So I'm going to impose, from my perspective, what I think you all's mission is that hacker Valley media as an outside, haven't gone to your website and seen the mission, or anything like that. I think part of your mission, at least, is to democratize cybersecurity democratize knowledge and information about cybersecurity. Can you talk about what that means to you all? Because cybersecurity is something that folks hear about all the time, we know about it, but we don't know about it in a way that you all do. So talk about you all's mission to make that happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you're pretty spot on. I would say, you know, we always talk about knowledge being power, but I don't think we talk enough about how fear is a disabler of people. Fear is, a lot of times, is the fear of the unknown, the uncertainty of things. And so when you talk about cybersecurity, for a long time I think cybersecurity practitioners that got by on like, hey, the cybersecurity is magical, you all know nothing about this, is only for geniuses. But it's not. It's not only for geniuses, it's for people of different mindsets and backgrounds. But when you start to show people that, hey, you don't have to be a genius, it isn't magic, it isn't scary. Here's what this is.
Speaker 2:People feel more confident. They feel more able to say, oh, I know, that's a fishing email, oh, I know not to do this. Or X, y, z. Well, I'm going to teach my grandmother about what she can do on her computer to stay safe.
Speaker 2:So I think, by opening it up to everyone, showing people of the younger generation what cybersecurity is, not only are they going to be able to be more safe online, they're also going to say like, maybe I want to look into being a cybersecurity practitioner, maybe I just want to be in technology period because Ron and Chris are doing great stuff. They, it seems like they're living a great life by showing people that being an example of what can be, I think, is important, and not only that. I hope that the next generation takes it up a level. I hope there is more diversity and technology. I hope there's more people of different backgrounds working together to solve some of these tough problems, because it's only going to get more difficult. When you look at things like artificial intelligence, you look at quantum computing, things are going to get hard and complicated fast, and so the more people that we have wrapping their minds around those problems, I think the better off the rest of the world is going to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you brought up more people, more different people, more diverse voices, being part of building out the future of cybersecurity. But one of the things I noticed about the two of you is that you are your brand isn't diversity, inclusion, and I don't think that that's a bad thing. You are known as experts in cybersecurity and that's not to say that you all are against diversity and inclusion, but I think it's a powerful thing that you all are known exactly for what your technical skill and knowledge is, and oftentimes I think folks black folks get pigeonholed, incorporate or business spaces to only be about what people call a DEI, what I call a DIE, but that's a separate conversation. So talk about what it means for you all to be known for your technical expertise and not just as being the black guys in cybersecurity.
Speaker 3:There's a story that I think is very powerful that Chris shared on our podcast. He shared with me, he shared with many other people. But, chris, if you want to share that story, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I was in San Jose, so in the cradle of innovation and technology right there in Silicon Valley, and I was living in a really nice house $2.5 million if you were to buy it outright. And I don't say that to boast, I say that to kind of just set the scene up in the hills of San Jose and I'd order some food and it was a brother coming to the door with my order and kind of looks like that. It was like, oh snap. He's like, hey, what's going on, man? I was like, hey, what's up? He's like, hey, this is a nice house. I was like cool, appreciate it. And he's like you, a football player. And I'm like we're here in this mecca of technology and entrepreneurship. And the first thing he thought was, oh, this brother must be a football player.
Speaker 2:And I was like we got to do better. We got to do better and show that there are so many different avenues of success that we don't have to be the dancers, the singers, the entertainers, the sports professionals. There's nothing wrong with that. But to assume that that is what all we can do is, I think, a fallacy.
Speaker 2:If we can expose people to I mean, I don't know if you've ever gone to like Dev Color, but there are so many black engineers that are brilliant, and they not only are there, brilliance in development, but they've been around for 20, 30 years. There are people I was like wow, I didn't even know this person exists. There's so many other avenues for us to do well in the world, and so that's part of our brand as being examples. But we don't want to only be that. We don't want to be the black podcasters. We want to be the great podcasters that happen to also be black, and, of course, we're going to continue to provide space for those conversations. We want to support the organizations that are fighting a good fight for diversity, equity and inclusion, but what we're focused on is being great ourselves, leveling everyone up and just being black while we do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think this leads into a question about, chris, your ascension to the board of the podcast Academy I voted for that, brother, by the way. Thanks for the vote and I think about a book conversation we had last year for the podcast and it talked about diversity and leadership, and I think it's interesting that when they talk about long standing companies and organizations, there's this concept of a glass ceiling or a concrete concrete ceiling, right that point where you can't break through. But the podcast academy is something brand new. So talk about what it meant for you to get yourself a seat at a table in an organization that's brand new, rather than going to some other organization that has an institutional history that may make it more difficult. What was the strategy behind positioning you for your company, but also, in the broader picture, to be in that position?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say the reason why I fought for a seat on the board for the podcast academy is because I love the podcast academy in general. Everything from the mentorship that they put on for folks to the training to the events. I mean it's all just a fantastic organization. And I mean it wasn't just my contribution to the organization. But I think a lot of the folks that started the podcast academy, they wanted to be inclusive by design. They didn't want to have to like, okay, now we got a bunch of people, now let's make it diverse, just like, hey, let's just open it up for everybody and be intentional about it, which I think is really, really important.
Speaker 2:The thing that happens when you have these organizations that have been around for a long time, that have glass ceilings or concrete ceilings, like you're talking about, is because it's not even necessarily on purpose. I'm sure there are organizations out there that, do you know, count people out or marginalize folks on purpose, but I think they're in the minority. I think what happens is you have social groups, you have career groups, that people you've been around a long time, and they happen to think look and sound like you and so you're going to bring your friends over and it's going to be a lot of group think, a lot of sameness in those organizations and that can create a glass ceiling because even if you're open to having those folks additional folks from different cultures or background in the organization, they don't do all the same things that you do, they don't speak the same way, they don't have the same mannerisms and so that could be hard on the person that's coming in to be like I don't really fit in with this group because they all know each other, that they know each other's kids and they've gone on trips together. Here I come from a completely different background and now I'm trying to assimilate into their world.
Speaker 2:But when you can create an organization that's diverse by design from the outset, it's much easier to see that. Oh wow, it is better if we have different perspectives when we're trying to solve a problem. It is much better because now I'm learning, not for the organization, but I'm learning as a person. What is it like working with people of different cultures? In one culture, one thing might be a glowing and even like an affirmation, and in another culture it could be a diss or an insult. So really just understanding the nuances of humanity, the nuances of culture, race, gender, whatever it is. I think that's what's going to perpetuate the togetherness that I think a lot of us are missing in today's time.
Speaker 1:I want to give a shout out to the podcast academy because everything that Chris just described that's been my experience as a member in the academy Very people, very, very welcoming. You get partnered with a mentor who is probably not going to be in the same demographic as you are, but they give everybody the same attention. If you show up, you get the benefits of it. So any of the listeners who are interested in starting a podcast, I think one of the first organizations that you should invest in to get a membership that's going to actually help you level up is the podcast academy. I also think about just going back to you all in terms of your business. Right, there's a difference between founding a podcast company and founding a podcast.
Speaker 1:This is what I think in a prior episode somebody was talking about how 80% of people want to write a book, but most people never write a book. I think podcasting is becoming the new book, and so talk about what it means for you all to go beyond just writing the book but maybe creating the anthology. What has been the difference for you to create Hacker Valley media and not just Hacker Valley the podcast?
Speaker 3:You know what? I love the book analogy because, just like, if you write a book, are you an author? I think yeah, by definition, but an author when you think to someone that writes fiction, they're going to be writing multiple books. That means they might need to be working with multiple publishers, they might need to be working with multiple editors and also working with their content continuously. And I think that's the difference between being a podcaster and running a podcast business. This is like a podcaster might have a single podcast Maybe they occasionally go on other people's podcasts but if you're running a podcast business, then everything that you do is revolved around podcasting for one but also running a business for two and Chris's.
Speaker 3:I've always said that he's the best salesperson in cybersecurity period. He could sell cybersecurity products, I would say, to the best of anyone's ability, let alone a cybersecurity podcast. So Chris was really vital. When we first found out we were a company One of our close friends, mk Palmer. He's one of the directors of the CISO group at Google. He came on our podcast. He was like I love working with young black entrepreneurs and we were like what?
Speaker 3:We haven't made any money off this podcast, but Chris, you know, knowing how to sell and he's also ran other businesses in the past. He knew how to make it into the business. So he was like, hey, if we sell one sponsorship, that's great, but being a business, you have to continually sell sponsorships. You have to continually be creating those relationships. So, just like how Chris was just describing about the TPAs, he's actively joining groups all over the place and, luckily for me, being a business partner to Chris and also being co-host, I've started to acquire those tendencies to always try to be open to the conversation. Sometimes you know, some might invite you on their podcast. Maybe you don't want to go but you don't know what's going to come out of that relationship. You can get a new mentor, a friend, business partner, podcast guest. There's so much out of an opportunity, but leaving those doors open and actively pursuing them I think that's the difference between like people that are just podcasting and people that are running the podcast business.
Speaker 1:Chris, talk a little bit about these other organizations, conferences, things that you're going to level up. Talk about the importance of continuing to expand your knowledge base in your community.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I would say it's always community first for me, just going out and meeting with folks. I was just at the North Dallas podcast meetup. Last night I taught a leadership course that I've been teaching last night and I took put a post on LinkedIn today. Two pictures look very different but they were within one hour of each other. So I'm always constantly saying where are the people, where are the people that need me or my expertise, or where are the places that I need to learn more about another subject? So I'm always going to things like podcast movement, which I'll be out there again.
Speaker 2:This year we're doing a. We're doing a panel on podcast disasters, like what to do when disaster strikes and how do you overcome some of those situations where something technically happens, maybe it's in production, maybe you have an unruly guest, like how do you handle those situations. But I'm also, you know, focused still on the cybersecurity side of things, like making sure that I keep those ties to that company, to that community. So constantly just going to where the people are, seeing what the problems are, seeing where you can help out and lend a hand. That's really what I've been focused on, and I did want to touch on a point that you all were making about.
Speaker 2:You know, whether you write a book, sure, you're an author, but if you're an author, you write multiple books. I'm reading a book it's one of my favorite books about words. It's called Magic Words, and they say there's a power behind. If someone says I write, or if someone says I am a writer, you're going to think the person that says I am a writer is going to not only write more, but they're probably going to write better, because that is an identity that they put onto themselves. So you know there could be people that podcast, but are they a podcaster? Are they someone that's going to put in the time, in the diligence to continue to grow this thing? If you would have told me right at the outset, if someone would have popped in like a genie and was like hey, chris, I know you guys are about to go into this podcast studio to have this first conversation, but just so you know, if you do, you're going to have to make 12 different shows, you're going to have to make a web series, you're going to have to go and do like 100 different talks and keynotes and you're going to build all these communities. I'm like man, I ain't trying to do all that. I'm not going in Iran. You go in there by yourself. But I would say that anyone that's trying to build anything great.
Speaker 2:I think it was on the Joe Rogan podcast where he said that it's basically building a mountain one layer of paint at a time. If you say, hey, you're going to build this mountain out of paint, you're going to. I'm not doing that. But if you say, hey, go ahead and put that layer of paint down, I'm going to put another one and another one. You know, oh, this is easy. But you look back and you realize, wow, I've been doing this for five years and I've done a lot of ridiculous things and I'm proud of all the stuff that I've done and it's been a lot of hard work. As long as you're present, you're in the moment, you're doing what you need to do. It's easy. But if you try to take on everything and try to do everything all at once, that's when it gets really hard.
Speaker 1:So, chris, you read my mind. I was listening to you all before we started the recording that part of what I do is I pair authors with entrepreneurs when I can get the schedules to align, because our origins are as a book club, and so I always ask my guests at the end to tell us the title of a book that you're reading that inspires you. And so, ron, is there a book that you've been reading that has inspired you on your journey? Or it could be a book that you read in the past that has helped anchor you and inspire you?
Speaker 3:as one half of Hacker Valley Media, yeah, there's two books that come to mind, and these books I've read at least 10 times a piece and they're really fitting in my life right now because we started the full-time entrepreneurial journey on Hacker Valley January. We were already going full-time on our company but we had a semi-exclusive sponsor, so things were a lot easier. But January 1, we went all the way in no exclusive sponsorship. We're going to do things the Hacker Valley way, each step.
Speaker 3:Two books that really have helped me continue on and not be discouraged or not get too caught up with the successes are the Four Agreements by Damigael Ruiz. It's a great book. It's just four simple principles that one could choose to live by. The first agreement is you want to always do your best, you don't want to make assumptions, don't take things personally. And why am I blanking on the last one? Blank it on one? But that is one of the books that really helps me. Whenever I'm feeling a little unsure or uncertain, I refer back to that book. And then the second book is the Alchemist. This is also.
Speaker 3:This book is the most special book in my life because it's about a kid that's growing up to be an adult, pursuing their personal legend, and each step of the way in their journey, they had decisions to make. Am I going to go left down this road that I don't really want to go down but is convenient, or am I going to go right and get out my shovel, start digging that dirt road and trailblaze that path? And this book is special because I feel like that's my life. There's convenient choices and then there's the right choice and then sometimes there's just even this random choice that I just shouldn't even pay attention to. A lot of times I get caught up in these technical deep dives that I don't need to be paying attention to sometimes. But thinking back to that book and just realizing that I have a dream and following that dream is what keeps me on track.
Speaker 1:That was good. Both of those books are classics, by the way. I haven't read either one, but they've been suggested to me numerous times, so that's going to be on my book list for 2024, for sure. Ron Chris, thank you for joining us today. I know you brothers are very busy. I know y'all are hitting up the conferences Real quick before we go. Where can my audience go to listen to and watch you all's content on Hackern Valley Media?
Speaker 2:Easy HackernValleycom or check us out on YouTube and then definitely leverage us on LinkedIn. That's our home away from home, so we're always dropping stuff there all the time. All right, thank you, fellas.
Speaker 1:I appreciate you, appreciate you. All right, thanks, yep. Thank you for joining this edition of Entrepreneurial Appetite. If you like the episode, you can support the show by becoming one of our founding 55 patrons, which gives you access to our live discussions and bonus materials, or you can subscribe to the show. Get us five stars and leave a comment.