Hunter Jensen Podcast Transcript
Hunter Jensen joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, Home of The Digital Executive podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Hunter Jensen. Hunter Jensen is the founder and CEO of Barefoot Solutions. For more than 20 years, Hunter Jensen has been at the forefront of software development, technology, and innovation.
He has spent his career running and growing a software development shop. Additionally, he has been involved as the founder or C-level at many startups, raising eight figures in venture capital. He began as a self-taught web programmer to help pay college tuition. From the freelance practice, he organically grew Barefoot Solutions into a leader in software and AI in web, mobile, IOT, medical device, blockchain, and data science, AI.
As a lifelong entrepreneur, he leveraged his resources and background at Barefoot to found a number of startups to varying degrees of success and failure.
Well, good afternoon, Hunter. Welcome to the show!
Hunter Jensen: Hey, it’s great to be here.
Brian Thomas: Awesome. Thank you for making the time hunter. I know we sometimes have to schedule calendars and different time zones and so forth.
It’s not so bad today. You’re hailing out of the great state of California down in San Diego and I’m here in Kansas City. So, it’s not a big deal. But when I traverse the globe. I’m up late, up early, whatever it takes to get these done. So, I appreciate you making the time and Hunter, we’re going to just jump right in.
You started as a self-taught web programmer and eventually founded Barefoot Solutions. Could you share your journey from freelancing to establishing a leading software and AI company?
Hunter Jensen: Yeah, sure. So, it all started for me in college at the University of Virginia. I originally joined the computer science department.
But dropped out pretty quickly when I realized that they weren’t really teaching the cool stuff. You know, web development was a brand-new thing, and they hadn’t had time for building the curriculum for it. So, instead I went to the library. I checked out a bunch of books. And I taught myself how to build websites.
I was at the time I was picking up gigs on Craigslist. You know, PHP programming jobs, basically help pay for my tuition. After graduation, I came out here to San Diego and I, I stayed a freelancer for a little while enjoying the, you know, the sunshine and the ocean and the waves and the lifestyle out here, but.
After a while, I realized I needed to get really serious about you know, starting a business. And so, I bootstrapped the whole thing. I just, I took out a bunch of 0 percent interest credit cards and, you know, you got 18 months to pay those things back. So, I better make this work and started hiring a couple people and yeah, but just building it from, from the ground up you know, we started.
As a web development shop, we got involved in mobile app development very, very early on. We had our 1st app in the app store within 30 days of the app store coming online. We just like to bet big on mobile. And as you can imagine, that paid off and that really fueled the growth of our company after mobile you know, we rode that wave for 3 or 4 years.
And then we started getting really into the Internet of things and also medical device apps. And so that was. A great sector for us, that’s really complicated work really, really critical work, especially around med device. And then more recently, about 3 or 4 years ago, our focus really has been on data and data science.
And so, we’ve been doing this for a while. Certainly, before it was cool and done a lot of interesting work in that space. You know, the way that we stay relevant at Barefoot is by being ahead of the curve on technology. Some firms focus on, like, a vertical or a certain piece of software, but we have always been able to grow by staying at the, at the bleeding edge.
You know, our clients run the gamut we’ve worked for big enterprises, like. Microsoft and Salesforce and Samsung, we built the IMAX dot com website, which is more of a more higher profile sites. We also work with venture funded startups. Most of which nobody, nobody’s ever heard of that’s the fun stuff, but it’s not always all that reliable to keep the lights on.
And then we work with medium sized businesses which is kind of probably our bread and our bread and butter, that type of company, you know, one of the things that makes us unique at barefoot is in 2019 I actually sold a controlling interest. I sold 51 percent of the company to a really large Global software consultancy with nine locations across the globe on three continents. And so, what that means is, you know, we have this, let’s call it a boutique, you know, high touch white glove type of software agency. But behind me, I’ve got 1500 engineers. And so, there is no task too complicated or too large that really we don’t feel comfortable taking on at this stage of a company.
And so that’s been that transaction was tremendous and our parent company is very supportive and is. Really helped fuel our growth for the last 4 years as well. So, it’s been, it’s been quite a ride. And, you know, I still love coming to work every day, even though I’m about 20 years. And at this point,
Brian Thomas: Thank you Hunter. I appreciate the story. And there’s no better bet than betting on yourself. I liked how you, like I said, bootstrapped it. You went all in. That’s just an amazing story. And of course, you’ve had some wins along the way. And I know there’s a lot of challenges. We all know entrepreneurship is. Thanks. Is not for the faint of heart, so appreciate the story.
We’re going to switch gears. I want to talk to you about having been involved at the founder or C-level. In many startups and raising significant venture capital. What key lessons have you learned about nurturing and leading successful startups?
Hunter Jensen: Yeah, it’s a good question. It’s a good question. So, my model has always been Barefoot.
My software shop is, is home base and it’s safe and reliable to a certain extent, but it provides me with resources that allow me to take swings for the fences. You know, try to hit a grand slam. So, I’ve been involved in many startups. I’m either the founder CEO, or oftentimes I’ll come in as a co-founder and the CTO and I’ll split my time between the startup and continuing to run barefoot.
And I’ve been doing that for many, many, many years. It keeps things awfully exciting. You know, 1 of the 1 of the most important lessons, I think, for maybe startups that are just starting up and then and probably the number 1 thing I see failure is. Not finding your product market fit. So, product market fit, right?
It’s like the degree to which a product meets some sort of very strong market demand, right? You know, if you survey your customers and less than 40 percent of them say that your product is a must have. You have not found your product market fit yet. You should not be spending on growth to too many companies haven’t found product market fit and think they need to be spending on growth because that’s what investors want to see.
But it’s really important to get to know your customers, right? You need beta customers. They need a channel to give you feedback and you need to iterate on your product. Until it is a must have for a significant chunk of your customers, then and only then does it make sense to start spending money and time and energy on growth and promotions and paid advertising and all the rest of it.
I mean, I can’t tell you how many startups I’ve seen just blow through their 1st. You know, 2 million or 5 million without getting product market fit and, and just running out of capital. It’s, it’s again, it’s where I see failure the most. When I look around the ecosystem, it’s just so critical and it’s often overlooked.
Brian Thomas: Thank you and I appreciate some of the insights you and experience you have there as far as working with startups. That’s, I think some great advice. We have got a lot of entrepreneurs in our audience. So, again, I appreciate that, Hunter. Hunter, on to the next question throughout your career. You’ve experienced both success and failure in various ventures.
Could you share a particularly challenging moment and how you turned it into a learning experience?
Hunter Jensen: Certainly, this might sound a little boring or practical, but it was 1 of the most transformative learnings. Of my career, and it was very early on this is early days with barefoot, we’ll call it, you know, 2007 or 2008 around that time frame.
And we just got our largest customer. It was our very 1st. 6 figure deal and so it was like, we were over the moon and the way that payment worked back then is your client pays 50 percent up front and they pay 50 percent on the back end. Once the project’s done, and so we took our deposit and built this beautiful thing for them.
And said, here it is I, please let us know when it’s when you agree that it’s done so that we can bill you for the final payment, which we need, because we poured all of our resources and efforts into this 1, very large project. And what happened was that this was a huge company. They did not care, and they took 6 months and every few weeks.
They’d say, oh, there’s a little thing. We need to fix here a little thing. We need to fix there. Meanwhile, we are desperate for this cash just to be able to continue operating and I had to stop taking any sort of a paycheck and we were barely making payroll. And it was, I mean, it was dire. We were very, very close to coming out of business.
And so, like I said, it’s kind of a boring topic, but cash flow management is just so important. And all we had to do was make a small tweak to the way that we, we build our customers, which was. 50 percent up front, 40 percent when we deliver it and 10 percent when they say it’s done and that changed everything.
And I’ve seen so many startups. mismanage their cash because they may be, you know, software developers or big dreamers or good marketers, but typically they’re not finance people. You know, the finance people come later on, but you just raised your first million and that’s the most money you’ve ever had in a bank account that you control.
And it feels like a fortune, and you think let’s spend and build and get this product launch and make all the monies. Right. And you just run out. And guess what? There’s no more coming because you spend it in the wrong places. So, you know, that’s a, a small business example. And you know, a venture funded startup example of, of.
If you don’t know how to manage cash flow, you need to take a class. You need to figure this out because it will end your company if you screw that 1 up. So, I’ve learned that the hard way I’ve watched my clients and other suffer. From just mismanaging cash flow and it’s just, it’s critical. It is critical.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. And I appreciate you sharing that again. I know there’s a bunch of gems in this podcast here this evening, and I know that our audience is going to pluck those right out, but that is so important. And people don’t realize I see it all the time. People that have. You know, beyond the seed rounds, the ABC, and they’re just burning through it.
And I do see that. So, thank you. And last question of the evening hunter as a lifelong student of emerging technologies. What current trends do you find most exciting? And how do you incorporate these into barefoot solution strategies?
Hunter Jensen: Well, so the obvious answer here is a, but, like, let’s do better than that. Right? You know, has been around for a long time, but we have hit an inflection point with generative large language models. And most specifically, like, the day that chat launched. You know, and I think it’s people, it’s important that people understand the timeline of human innovation that sits on.
Okay. Most people are acting like this is the next phase of the digital revolution. Okay. So, that would be personal computers, the Internet, mobile phones, right? That’s what I see a lot of that kind of thinking out there, but that is not the timeline we are on. We are on fire, language, tools, farming, math, industry, digital, AI, that’s the like, that’s the significance of what we’re seeing here.
I mean, had the most users of any software platform ever built within the 1st, 3 days it launched. I mean, that is absolutely incredible. Most of the playbooks and like business models that are all going out the window this year. This year, like SaaS as we know it will never be the same. Same with software development.
You know, this is, this is the most significant world changing event that anyone alive has seen. If they’re alive today, this is the biggest. Okay. And so, for Barefoot, we’ve all been in for years. You know, we, as I mentioned, like, we, we made a big shift to data science and AI over 3 years ago. And so, we’re, we’re training everybody at the company, right?
And not just our developers. But everybody takes prompt engineering courses, and we teach them about tools that are out there that can help them with their jobs, whether you’re in marketing or operations, or in sales or in engineering. There are tools now that can help. Everybody and so, you know, as an example, we’re launching various next week.
In fact, an AI powered lead generation system. And it can do the work of roughly somewhere between 10 to 20 sales development reps. And it costs less than 1 of their salaries. Like, that’s the level of transformative change that’s happening. And so we are, you know, there are software developers are scared a little bit, right?
But we’re not taking that approach. We’re taking the approach of we’re going to be the best at using this technology to push this business into its next, you know, phase, right? And 1 of the ways that we’re doing that is like, we’re, we’ve positioned barefoot to be. Really, you know, really in a good place where we can help companies sort through all the hype and the noise and at Barefoot, we focus on 1 thing.
We laser in on ROI. If you’re doing AI work, you need to be getting a return on that investment. Right if this is going to go into the enterprise, that that’s what we need. And, like, what I’m seeing right now, it actually reminds me of 2008. I think it was when across boardrooms across America executives were looking at each other saying, do we have, like, a mobile strategy?
What is that and that’s what’s happening in companies right now. They’re, they’re, they’re asking their CTOs and others. Like, what’s our AI strategy? What is our data strategy? What is the state of our data? And, you know, that’s where barefoot comes in and we can help is sort through that. What is the state of your data?
Do we need to upgrade and modernize to get it into a position where we can use it for protective analytics and to train machine learning models and optimize pricing and do all these amazing things that I can do, you know, that’s how we’ve positioned ourselves and we’re seeing a lot of interest.
And we’re able to drive a lot of value for companies by providing that kind of consulting. But in addition to the consulting, we’re not just, you know, writing a 10-page report and putting it on their desk as soon as we’re done with the analysis. We built it for him, and that’s pretty critical too, because otherwise it would just collect dust.
So, you know, that’s where most of our thinking and most of our innovation and most of our forecasting of what the next 1, 3, 5 years looks like is figuring out ways to better leverage. These tools and to teach companies how to do the same.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. And I appreciate that you’re truly a steward of this technology and you’re helping your customers navigate the waters of the future.
But I see it already. I’ve seen some, as you know, I’ve talked to a lot of people on this podcast, some of the companies that have created some of this technology out of Silicon Valley hundreds of podcasts. And I can tell you, we’re starting to see some of those ships go down because they didn’t embrace some of this technology about 18 months ago.
And the conversational AI is beyond just blows my mind. I’ve been on calls where I could even tell it was a human. And they could, I could throw a curveball and they could, they could easily answer it. So, I agree with you. 100 percent hunter. I appreciate all the great nuggets you shared this evening, and it was really a pleasure having you on and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Hunter Jensen: Thanks so much for having me. This is great.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Hunter Jensen Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
