We are so excited to welcome Darin Lynch to our podcast this week!
Darin Lynch is the Founder and CEO of Irish Titan, an ecommerce agency that builds and grows ecommerce channels using strategy, marketing, creative, and engineering.
Darin offers over 25 years of digital, marketing, sales, technology and leadership experience ranging from Fortune 100 financial firms to national retailers to start-up and early stage companies. He has trademarked “Business First. Online Second.SM”, as it’s one of the key principles that shaped Irish Titan’s “Why” for their over 40 Titans, hundreds of clients, and range of services provided by Irish Titan since 2004.
Darin is a regular speaker and has been honored as a 40 Under 40 winner, one of the Real Power 50, and is a member of the Federal Reserve Board Small Business Council.
Darin and his Irish Titan team have been long-time friends and business partners to Simon Says Give, and Simon Says Lead.
Thank you Darin for sharing your time, your story, and your friendship!
Resources:
Irish Titan Website
LinkedIn
Transcript
John Simon Sr. 00:00
John, welcome to Simon Says, inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. I'm John Simon, SR
Dina Simon 00:14
and I'm Dina Simon,
John Simon Sr. 00:16
and today we have Darren Lynch as our guest. Darren is a longtime friend of Dina's, Mandy's and riches, and has been involved with Simon says give for many years. Darren, welcome to the podcast.
Darin Lynch 00:27
Hi John. Hi Dina. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation. Well,
Dina Simon 00:32
we are so excited to have you because, as John said, You're a long time friend, and I'm excited for my father in law, just to get to know you better, because he's seen you, you know, at events they live down in Texas, but Wayne's been here for Mandy's graduation party and things like that. So he's he's seen you, and certainly seen pictures and heard about you, but just for him to get to know the amazing person that you are, the leader you are, the dad that you are, and then our partnership over a decade with what you've done to support both Mandy and Simon says, Give and me with Simon Says, lead, and then you and rich share a passion for the Steelers, yep, for microbrews, yep, and and jeeps and so. So just lots to share and cover. So we're excited to have you
Darin Lynch 01:17
Well, I am excited for the conversation. We've been friends for a long time. Now. We have a we have a long history, which there's a lot of gold to mine, hopefully. Yes,
John Simon Sr. 01:26
I'm also excited to hear it a little about your Saint Patrick's Day parties. And I understand, as Barney Stinson would say, from How I Met Your Mother, they're legendary.
Darin Lynch 01:37
Yeah, we do know how to throw a party Irish Titan, not Amish Titan? Yes, exactly.
John Simon Sr. 01:42
That's terrific. Yeah, Darren. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and and your business? Sure. So
Darin Lynch 01:49
again, my name is Darren Lynch. I started a company named Irish Titan. I founded it way back in 2004 so we've been around for a good chunk of time now, in short, so I'm a big Simon Sinek fan. We'll probably talk about him a little bit when we talk about culture and things like that. So he would argue, for anybody who knows, he would argue start with why? Name of his most famous book, I think. But to familiarize ourselves with the audience, I'll describe what we do first. So Irish Titan is an E commerce agency, which means that we build and grow e commerce channels. So we build e commerce sites for our clients. We refer to our clients as merchants. When those e commerce sites are the sites where people are buying product, there's an actual checkout to the process, and then we work with our merchants on an ongoing basis to grow those sites with the email marketing, digital marketing that takes the shape of email marketing, paid search SEO channel strategies, things like that. So we build and grow e commerce channels. I started in 2004 as I mentioned. And I say that again because that seems like forever ago, right? And even by that point, I had accumulated quite a bit of E commerce experience. I launched office Max's very first e commerce site. I ran that project back in 1998 that I launched Wilson's leather, another national retailer in 2001 then I launched second swing golf, another national retailer in 2003 and after that's when I started Irish Titan. So in a lot of my talks and my podcast, I used to describe myself as a dinosaur and the E commerce space government doing for so long. And then I realized, well, dinosaurs went extinct, so I should probably come up with a different analogy. Now I say I'm a grizzled veteran, so that's what Irish Titan does. On the personal side, I am on Iowa farm. Boy. Grew up on a farm in northeast Iowa, moved here to Minneapolis in 1997 I have two daughters, 24 and 19 that I'm very proud of, and I've been very intentional in trying to be a good dad. It's up to them. I guess time will tell if, if I was or not. That's the personal side of things. So 24
Dina Simon 04:12
we're gonna have to have a big party. I'm sure you're planning that for your 20th year. That's that's a year away. Yes,
Darin Lynch 04:19
yeah, that's kind of sneaking up on me, because I've been thinking about that. And next March will be 20 years, so it's not all that far away. I think we'll probably roll it into our St Patrick's Day party.
Dina Simon 04:30
So I think we need to talk about your St Patrick's Day party, because, as John said, he's heard they're legendary. So share with us what how that happens. What do you do for St Patrick's Day, for the community and your customers and friends.
Darin Lynch 04:43
Yeah, so we actually do two parties. We do one that is our shenanigans for good party, and that's what you're referring to. And you and rich have been to many, and many of those. We've been doing those for, I think, about 15 years now, if I remember right, the. That's a just a big get together that we throw at a local Irish pub that we spend a lot of time at, and we welcome everybody. It's not just for clients. It really started to take shape as a get together for the business community, and it's turned into quite an event. We raise funds for a charity. We draw a name out of my green leather top hat, and one time Simon says give was was drawn. And so we do that, we I give a quick toast. There's no sales pitch or anything like that. It's just a good time with fun and food and friends. The other thing that we do on St Patrick's Day is a saint Titan's Day party internally with our Titans. And that's also become quite a deal, where all the Titans who are new to the company from the previous year, they're the ones responsible for the theme and planning. So there's sort of an annual contest every year to see who can make sure the party is as good as at least the previous year. Both of those are long standing institutions for us, and
Dina Simon 05:59
you probably don't do that on actual St Patrick's Day, because you take that day off as a team. Don't you correct? I
Darin Lynch 06:05
sometimes it is on St Patrick's Day, and I'll mention it here because I mentioned to my Titans too. I prefer for it not to be on St Patrick's Day, because I kind of have my own thing that I do on St Patrick's
Dina Simon 06:17
Day. Yes, and John, we actually, if Darren was wrong, it's not just one time that we've been drawn. So we we got the shenanigans for good last year when Chris ollendorff's name was was pulled, and he gave it to us the year right when we were closing down at covid. Oh, that's right, we got it that year too, because somebody in the audience gave it to us that we didn't even know at the time, but people had talked it up enough. And then I think also maybe earlier on, you might have, just like had selected a couple of your favorite nonprofits, and I think your team chose so I think we've actually received benefits from it. I think at least three times.
Darin Lynch 06:58
Oh, really, wow, you have a better memory than I do. One of my sayings is that I'm an idea. Man, don't bother me with details. You just demonstrated that. But yeah, that that fundraiser aspect is something that I've become really proud of over the years. You know, I think that we used to raise the funds more unofficially at the event, and then we started to put more structure and intention around that, with the raffle tickets and a few I jump on the microphone a few times to try to juice it a little bit, and then we started to match it a few years ago. And you know that those are things that we're proud
John Simon Sr. 07:31
of, nice. So, Darren, how many Irish Titans are there? John,
Darin Lynch 07:36
you're a quick learner referring to the employees as Titans, because that is how I refer to our Titans. So I think there are 44 right now. We're headquartered in Minneapolis. We have 39 here. We have one in New York, and four down in Texas. And so both of those geographies are intentional in the sense that they're industry driven. The E commerce space is somewhat similar, maybe, to like the IT space. Like it network services, where channel relationships are very crucial, beneficial and intentional. So for example, if I'm an IT provider, maybe I have a strong relationship with Microsoft, for example, and we refer business in the E commerce space. Once you reach a certain size and stature in the industry, you get a lot of referrals from what we refer to as the channel, which are the E commerce tech partners, like Shopify, Magento, Adobe, PayPal, big commerce, etc. A lot of those are in New York, so having an employee out there helps us invest in those relationships. But even more of them are in the Austin, Texas area, which is why we have planted a flag down there and are building an outpost down there, and that has helped double down on our growth. It's definitely contributed to some of the momentum over the last few years, because I think that those relationships have deepened and led to increased deal flow in both directions.
John Simon Sr. 08:55
And the other key that you talked about were your merchants, and are you able to share with us how many of those you have?
Darin Lynch 09:03
Well, sure. So at least in some regards, I actually still do all of our invoicing every month. I mean, I don't start it from scratch or just spreadsheet that gets put together then reviewed and sent to me, and I create the invoices, which some people would argue isn't a good use of my time at this point, but I'm really removed from projects now, so that is my chance to have some visibility and some fingerprints on things. And so I know how many clients we invoice every month and we invoice it's increasing, in general, because we're growing, although that doesn't always mean we're doing more projects, because some of the means some of the projects are becoming bigger, but we generally are invoicing between 50 and 60 clients every month. And so we have a good chunk of merchants, as we refer to them. And another point case you were going to ask this John, is they're very national in scope. So when Dena and I first met, we were hyper local. I was bootstrapping this company and building it from scratch. And I. Did it through sort of the old school way in 2004 and those times you kind of had to press the flashing, always hustle, be humble and stay hungry. And so we were hyper local. Then we started to become a little bit more regional. But I would say in 16 or 17, we were 90% local and regional, maybe 95% and 5% national, and that's absolutely flipped now, where we're 80% national and 20% local. We still try to really own the local e commerce market, but we have clients all around the country now,
John Simon Sr. 10:32
well, that's great. Is there an opportunity to go international? Yes,
Darin Lynch 10:37
and that's actually part of our growth plans. I have pretty aggressive growth plans. I'm not one to be satisfied with where we are, because I think I'm capable of growing a company larger than where we are, and running a company larger than where we are, and I think the management team that I've built is also capable of that, and that's part of what has attracted them and excited them. So we have some significant growth plans, and international presence is part of that.
Dina Simon 11:03
So I want you to tell us, Darren, about culture and stuff, but I just also want to just go back. So it was 2011 when we met you. Mandy had just she was eight years old, and knew that she wanted that we were set on moving forward with Simon says give our nonprofit and Jeff Brown on our board. He was actually not even on our board yet, because we hadn't even started our board when we first met you, and then he joined our board later, but he found you and said, Hey, there's this awesome opportunity. And you met with Mandy at eight years old and your team and at that time, I mean, I think Darren, maybe you had seven employees back then, when you were sharing the office with Paul and John. Your sister Chris Paris actually was up in town at one point, and Aunt Chris went to a meeting with Mandy over at Irish Titan to look at the wireframes. Yeah. So, So John's sister was up from Iowa, and we brought her with and just she's been super excited and obviously a big supporter ever since, but so that's when you leaned in to support us. I know you've done a lot of other things for other, you know, nonprofits and things, but we just always go back to thanking you for that. And we just did a refresh of our website about two years ago, as we were moving into our decade of service, we needed to grow up a little bit and love our amazing website that you've done for Simon Says give and then also my Simon Says lead website. So I just wanted to back up and thank you there.
John Simon Sr. 12:30
Well, I was going to ask a little bit about his connection with the University of Iowa, and understand he's a big fan of the university, and I always get a kick out of watching him on TV with the black and the gold, because that was the Steelers, cutlers. And I think at one point the university changed cutlers because they wanted to be connected with a winner. Correct,
Darin Lynch 12:50
John, you are speaking my language. So growing up in Iowa, I've been told that Iowa is the only state in the country that has no pro teams, and has two and only two division one football programs, and so we have three division one basketball actually four division one basketball programs. But you know, football really drives a lot of the sort of athletic halo effect around programs and states. And I've been told I've never verified, a quick gut check says it's possibly true at least that Iowa's only state with two and only 2d one football programs and no pro team. So there's a lot of Iowa Hawkeye enthusiasm in the state. That's why it's called the Hawkeye State. And so I grew up an Iowa Hawkeye fan and the Steelers fan. So they definitely have a strong intersection, because in my small, little farm town. I grew up in a town of about 1800 people. When I was growing up, that's about 1600 now it's struggled a little bit and stabilized. And it is an hour from Waterloo and an hour from Mason City in northeast Iowa. So the and those are the big, big towns of like, 50,000 people that we would go to. And the big towns that we would go to that are closer were towns like Waverly, Charles City, New Hampton, of like, six to 7000 people, so sort of a remote town, but had a really great school. I was exposed to technology very early, which maybe we'll talk about, which we won't I'm just putting the picture that it's not as Mayberry as people make it out to make it out to be right. But on the Friday of Super Bowl weekend, when the Steelers played the Cowboys the first time in the Super Bowl, which I think was 1977 the principal came around with football shaped sugar cookies that have blue frosting and gold threads, or had black or blue frosting and white threads, excuse me, or had black frosting and gold threads, and I picked the black and gold for the Steelers because I was already an Iowa Hawkeye fan, so I've been a Steelers fan since that Friday, which I'll admit, has been pretty easy, because here we are, Seven Super Bowls later. Pretty happy you got that. Right? And I did end up going to University of Iowa. Went to nearly every football game while I was there, nearly every basketball game while I was there. Have still been back for a few basketball games, but still go back for quite a few football games. So I'm a pretty, pretty passionate fan.
John Simon Sr. 15:16
Well, great. Well, I'm doing I always glad to run into another Steeler fan,
Darin Lynch 15:20
yeah, so there's a Steelers bar in town that rich and Dean and I have been to to watch stealers games. That also happens to be an Irish bar. Funny coincidence. Good Venn diagram there. So sometime when you're in town, John will have to go and watch a Steelers game over at McGovern's.
John Simon Sr. 15:34
Yeah. And of course, the Steelers are owned by the Rooney family, which are a big Irish family back in the Pittsburgh area, right,
Darin Lynch 15:41
right. I have some green Steelers gear with shamrocks on it. I have a green Steelers hat, green Steelers t shirt that has the Shamrock on it. So those have been easy purchases for me. I can practically write them off
Dina Simon 15:53
nice. So I want to ask some questions, especially since you're expanding so Texas, Minnesota, New York, and who knows what might be next, as far as like staff. So you've built a great culture. So again, I've seen you over the last decade plus, from seven employees to 44 so talk to us about, you know how you as a leader, have built a really strong culture, and how you will continue to with people in different locations?
Darin Lynch 16:19
Yeah, I think that building the culture was a mix of intentional and accident. Culture is a big time buzzword today, right? And I don't even you probably know more than I do. Three ish, four ish, five years ago is when culture as a term started to be used more frequently. I think prior to that, there were things in terms like vision and values and those sorts of concepts that were used more frequently. So I was really conscious of that, and I'll circle back to that point. So vision and values were intentional exercises I went through but, but even prior to that, leadership as a concept, was something that I was taught very early. And I think that strong leaders naturally create strong cultures, because cultures are are the muscle memory between meetings, the muscle memory between documents. Culture is vision and values and accountability and culture stuff going the way he describes it is cultures. This is the way we do things around here. And I think leaders, naturally, strong leaders, create those sorts of environments. And so I think I was mindful of that from the very beginning, because I didn't start Irish tight until I've been through a lot of leadership training and management training, etc. The best boss I've ever had still, and I've had, I've had the luxury of a lot of great bosses, but the best boss ever had was my first boss out of college, and I think that he's what I consider the best for a couple of reasons. One, incredibly strong leader and manager, but two, also, I was exposed to him and worked so closely with him for years at a very timely point in my career, right? Like your first manager with your first job out of college really has an impact on you. And he taught me explicitly some of the distinctions between leadership and management. And I was a bright eyed 2223 year old at that time that was just a sponge who already had been exposed to a lot of leadership as an athlete and student body president, all that kind of stuff in in school. So a lot of leadership, sorts of traits, I think, were ones I already cared about and tried to be conscious of, then was exposed to him. And so I think how to treat people, how to build teams, how to build teams of teams, was something that I learned early. Then when I got my MBA at St Thomas, which the completion of which led to me starting Irish Titan, that's when I started to build some frameworks around vision and values. And then the last point I'll make, Simon Sinek, already named checked him. He's one of my favorite he's my favorite author. But another one of my favorites is a guy named Guy Kawasaki, yeah, yep. I love him. He swears a little bit. It's very conversational but insightful at the same time. Yeah, his book, The Art of the Start is up here. You can't see it, but that book was really, really impactful to me too, because I read that toward the end of my MBA experience. And one of the things it talks about is don't worry too much about creating the soft parts of your business, like your values and stuff like that. Build a business with customers who are paying you and are happy. Start on that, and the rest will fall into shape if you have strong leadership. So I was really mindful of that for the first seven years of Irish Titan. And it was around 2011 when we reached a certain point where I felt like I had the, I shouldn't say, the luxury I we reached a certain point where I felt like it was then. And appropriate for me to to lean in on now defining that, and in 2011 was when I happened to meet Simon Sinek and read a couple of industry docs that helped me come up with how we define our culture. So that's a little bit of the background. I
Dina Simon 20:13
love that. And guy, I think also talks about like, everything doesn't have to be perfect. You gotta get your stuff out there, and you just gotta keep getting stuff out there, and it will continue to evolve. I had the opportunity to hear him early on in my career as well. So one of the parallels, and then John, I'll let you ask your next question. But one of the parallels was I was super fortunate enough in my early 20s to work for amazing leadership, and that would be John Simon and the leaders that were around the company, and so often it does go back to those early, you know, opportunities. And I hope all our children, your two girls and my daughter, get the same opportunities, because there's a whole lot of bad leaders out there and people that have just been promoted for whatever reason and not done what you just talked about, and that is leadership training, always learning, always watching, reading, and just trying to be the best leader that we can, because it's an important job to lead others and inspire them to do and be their best, and for them to then one day be great leaders. Right?
Darin Lynch 21:15
Leadership's a responsibility. It's not a prize, and I think that being trained on again, the distinction between leadership and management, because those are two different skills, and Leadership isn't necessarily reflected in an org chart, you know. And so they can go together, but they don't have to. But I think that you can learn a lot from a bad leader. Quite honestly, in my career, I really only had one, and that was toward the end of my arc before starting Irish Titan. And so by that point, I had already accumulated a lot of great lessons from really great leaders. I had really, really strong leaders because my my first boss again, he suggested that as my career unfolds, I should he encouraged me to be more mindful of who you're going to be working with and for than what the name is on the shingle. And so when I started to pursue second job and third job and then fourth job, I think before starting Irish Titan, I was really intentional about that, about looking for good leaders who would challenge me more so than what the trendy business is, that's hiring everybody in town.
John Simon Sr. 22:23
Well, you know, Darren, one of the things I always thought about was the key to a successful business is hiring quality people that buy into the culture of the organization. And how do you find people to join as Titans?
Darin Lynch 22:37
Yeah, I think you're, you're spot on, John, I think that, as a leader, people are our occupation, and the bigger organization grows the more your quote, unquote upper management. I don't really like that phrase, but we know what I mean when we say that the more and more their their job is to lead people, right? And so I think that that we've been successful in that, at least more often than not, for a couple of reasons. One, we really do have our culture well defined. So our culture is reflected in two lighthouses, as I refer to them. One is our golden circle from Simon Sinek. Our, why is business first online second? Our, how as partnerships, not transactions, are what is building and growing e commerce channels so that can really establish a lighthouse in regards to what kind of people we want to attract in terms of what kind of work we do and the philosophy behind it, the business, first, online, second, the other lighthouse is POTUS, and that's not a political term. It stands for passion, ownership, teamwork, impact and skills. Those are our five values. So when we have that so well defined and can speak to what that means and use that in our everyday, every day, literally just today, I'm not making this up. We had a meeting with some Titans to review some things that I want to elevate on right now. I want us to continue to become a little more sophisticated. And there are a couple of things where I noted we need more ownership out of POTUS. And I would write the O with the code around it that indicates it's the O out of out of POTUS. We use that when things are going well or not, we use POTUS in our golden circle, and so it's really embedded. Another thing that's really helped us attract talent and retain it is our Titan only model, and what that is referring to is the fact that we do all of our work with just our employees. We don't use any contractors, freelancers or offshore resources. Those models are very prevalent in our industry, and I understand why. There's nothing inherently wrong with those you reduce or fix costs, you increase your variable costs, which, from a financial perspective, can be attractive in. Concept gives you more scalability, and you know, there are some benefits to it. I have taken an intentionally different approach from Day Zero of Irish Titan, because I've been on the other side of the table before starting Irish Titan, and I felt like I could build something different and better. And so we have this Titan only model, which contributes to attracting people who are looking for a home and retaining them because they work tilt to kilt or shoulder to shoulder, I prefer kill every day, right? And so they build relationships, and they build friendships, and they build loyalty, and they build a better product. So there are fewer problems that they're dealing with, because there's more historical documentation and legacy about how we do things. And so I think those two things are cultural clarity and our Titan only model have really helped us attract and retain people. And
John Simon Sr. 25:51
that's great, because we all know that turnover is the most expensive way to just spend money that you don't need to spend anymore,
Darin Lynch 26:00
right, right? Yeah,
Dina Simon 26:02
and that will help you continue to expand, right, so that you can be in other markets, because your team is so clear as to what what they're doing and why they're doing it, and that foundation is extremely solid and will be very much celebrated when we get to year 20, next year, awesome. So entrepreneurialship, I know you're still very involved in the University of St Thomas and their entrepreneurial school, and you're a mentor on the Minnesota cup and things of that nature. So obviously, huge entrepreneurial spirit. What would be some advice that you would give to somebody young trying to start out as an entrepreneur, just some of the kind of key points that would come to mind, yeah, a
Darin Lynch 26:46
couple of things. And yeah, I am still very supportive of that community. I think that I still have that spirit. I think entrepreneurs also become a buzzword, you know, that I still have that spirit, and I want to support people who do. And when I was younger, and Irish Titan was younger, people took a chance on spending some time with me and sharing advice or insights. And so I want to do the same. You know, there, there are a couple of things I think I already believe I mentioned. One, the the concept of being humble, stay hungry and always hustle, right? I think that that, that is a piece of advice that I heard somewhere that I think resonated. I think that I saw an entrepreneur just other day and walked away very smart. He has a great idea. He's going to need to be humbled, right? Any, any movie, undoubtedly, right. I think another one is, I stole this from a song a band called Small Town Titans, just complete coincidence that Titans is part of it. I love it. But a band small town Titans, they have a song called doorbells or dreams, and it's kind of a rocking song, so it's not as sappy as the title might suggest. But the the lyrics are around rock star who, like in between shows or in between tours, goes and finds a old friend of his, and they reconnect like they grew up together. And the friend you know is married and has a job and kids and a dog, and the rock star guy doesn't have any of that, and he it's, it's written from the point of view of the rock star. And there's a little bit of longing in the verses around, you know, maybe I should have that stuff, but then the chorus is around, hey, like, what do you what matters more to you? Having a doorbell or chasing your dreams? You can't always have both. And so I think that came to mind. Then here's the other one that I would mention, and I heard this from a speaker early in Irish Titan's days, that every business goes through three phases in their life cycle. At first, you're everything to everybody, then you're something to everybody, then you're something to somebody. So that first phase, you're everything to everybody, because you need to check to keep those lights on. Second phase, you're something for everybody, because you started to narrow down what it is. You're good at what it is. You get energy from what it is you think you can be more successful with, but you're still doing it for anybody that will come and knock on your door and then last phase something to somebody you know what you do and who you do it for. And I think that is a truism across entrepreneurship and building a business. You might move through phases at different paces than other businesses, but I think that's an absolute truth. Yeah.
Dina Simon 29:22
I love that.
John Simon Sr. 29:23
Yeah. So Darren, I mentioned something in one of our other podcasts about the company that I work for, and our chairman had what he referred to as the three eyes, integrity, intelligence and intensity, and that was the foundation of the company that I worked for.
Darin Lynch 29:40
I like that. First of all, I believe in the power of threes, especially when you add alliteration to that, right? And I think that when you mentioned intensity, my ears perked up a little bit, because that's you hear integrity a lot, right? Lot of people talk about that. Intensity is a value. So that you don't hear as often. And I like that. So I think that that reflects a spirit and a sense of grit that appeals to me absolutely,
Dina Simon 30:08
yeah. And rolling up your sleeves and doing what needs to happen, yeah? And
John Simon Sr. 30:13
when you get knocked down, you get back up again, right? Yeah? Resilience
Darin Lynch 30:17
goes a long way
Dina Simon 30:18
it does, yeah. And Darren, one of you know, was we continue to have the podcast. I mean, John has been retired. How many years now? John,
John Simon Sr. 30:26
yeah, 2222
Dina Simon 30:29
years. He retired very young, but he still has many of his clients that he has stayed connected with all these years later, because they, you know, they played really hard in business together and did great things, and then have just created those long term relationships, which is super fun, and you have those, and you'll continue to have those as well, based on the relationships that you've built with your clients.
John Simon Sr. 30:52
Oh sure, you know, I've attended weddings of clients for their children, and they got when they get married, and vacation with with some of them. So you make a lot of friendships from from the people in business that you, that you did business with.
Darin Lynch 31:07
I totally agree, and Dean is a great example of that, like we are actual close friends, right? And there are a few other clients or peers that I would put in that circle, right? I think that when you work with someone, it sets the table to become friends in a different way when there are certain synergies with some of the underlying values. I think working together and then becoming friends is an interesting dynamic compared to being friends and then possibly working together, agreed, Oh, yeah. That can be very can be dicey, especially if you suffer from things like Minnesota, nice and some of those sorts of things that neither of us suffer from, right? That can be a little fraught with danger. Whereas, if your work together first, you don't become friends, if there's not already some synergy around how you engage, what your word means, those sorts of values,
Dina Simon 32:03
yes, yeah. John Darren just mentioned a term that we could do a whole series of podcasts on, and I'll explain it later. But Minnesota, nice is, is actually a thing. And it's not an actually nice thing. It's, it's a kind of a passive aggressive thing, that that is a real thing. But yes, yes, I agree with you. It's and I do agree that those relationships that start from working together like that, versus friends then trying to work together, there's a total difference that happens, absolutely right. I
Darin Lynch 32:34
have plenty of friends I would never hire, right,
Dina Simon 32:37
right? Because you want to remain friends, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
John Simon Sr. 32:43
I know we used to have a rule of thumb, and it not only applied to the business I was in, but a lot of people that I've talked to over the years, the 8020 rule. 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. And I never really believed that much until I started talking to some of my customers, and they were in the same position we were in. Yeah,
Dina Simon 33:06
right. So as we kind of wrap up our podcast, so Simon Says inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies, and we'd love to have you back on for other conversations. Any other last thoughts on just the Irish Titan culture leadership that you'd like to share today.
Darin Lynch 33:24
Well, I think that one of the things that I found interesting when you launched the podcast and we started to talk about it, is you focus on legacy, because my personal why, and my personal goal and circle is to leave a legacy that's my personal why. It's why I started Irish Titan. It's why I've tried to parent father my daughters as I have, etc. So I just thought that was some interesting synergy that probably also speaks to why we get along and have been friends for so long now,
Dina Simon 33:52
absolutely and you have built and are building an amazing legacy. But then again, I believe that our legacies are what we're doing every day and living out. And as you said, the just examples that we can be to to our children and and I know your girls, and I know that you've been able to do that already. So just more good stuff to come.
Darin Lynch 34:14
Mandy reflects well on you, and hopefully Zoe and Fiona reflect well on me.
Dina Simon 34:17
They do. They do
John Simon Sr. 34:19
well. Darren, I look forward to, I'm going to be up in Minnesota at the end of August at the Great Minnesota get together, or the State Fair, as a lot of other people comment, that maybe we'll have a chance to meet and get together up there.
Darin Lynch 34:32
Yeah, would love to John, awesome. Well, thank
Dina Simon 34:35
you so much for joining us, Darren. We just appreciate it. And thank you for raising your hand early on, when you knew that we were doing this to be a part of it. Yeah.
Darin Lynch 34:44
Love supporting the cause. Anything I can do to help you, Nina, I will sign up for without hesitation, and vice versa. Thanks for all the friendship and partnership over the years. Yes, thank
Dina Simon 34:54
you. And thank you, Darren, I would like to thank my friend, Darren. Inch for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Go check out Irish titan.com for more information about what his amazing Titans do as a client with both Simon says give and Simon Says lead for over a decade, I can share that I've just loved the journey, and love everything that they have done to support our two businesses. So go check them out. Darren, thank you for always leaning in to especially to support Mandy over the years with our nonprofit, and look forward to many years of continued partnership and to celebrate 20 years next year. I, as always, I thank my father in law, John Simon, for partnering with me and CO hosting this podcast, and we look forward to having you join on another episode. So until next time, thank you. You.
John, welcome to Simon Says, inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies. I'm John Simon, SR
Dina Simon 00:14
and I'm Dina Simon,
John Simon Sr. 00:16
and today we have Darren Lynch as our guest. Darren is a longtime friend of Dina's, Mandy's and riches, and has been involved with Simon says give for many years. Darren, welcome to the podcast.
Darin Lynch 00:27
Hi John. Hi Dina. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to the conversation. Well,
Dina Simon 00:32
we are so excited to have you because, as John said, You're a long time friend, and I'm excited for my father in law, just to get to know you better, because he's seen you, you know, at events they live down in Texas, but Wayne's been here for Mandy's graduation party and things like that. So he's he's seen you, and certainly seen pictures and heard about you, but just for him to get to know the amazing person that you are, the leader you are, the dad that you are, and then our partnership over a decade with what you've done to support both Mandy and Simon says, Give and me with Simon Says, lead, and then you and rich share a passion for the Steelers, yep, for microbrews, yep, and and jeeps and so. So just lots to share and cover. So we're excited to have you
Darin Lynch 01:17
Well, I am excited for the conversation. We've been friends for a long time. Now. We have a we have a long history, which there's a lot of gold to mine, hopefully. Yes,
John Simon Sr. 01:26
I'm also excited to hear it a little about your Saint Patrick's Day parties. And I understand, as Barney Stinson would say, from How I Met Your Mother, they're legendary.
Darin Lynch 01:37
Yeah, we do know how to throw a party Irish Titan, not Amish Titan? Yes, exactly.
John Simon Sr. 01:42
That's terrific. Yeah, Darren. Do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and and your business? Sure. So
Darin Lynch 01:49
again, my name is Darren Lynch. I started a company named Irish Titan. I founded it way back in 2004 so we've been around for a good chunk of time now, in short, so I'm a big Simon Sinek fan. We'll probably talk about him a little bit when we talk about culture and things like that. So he would argue, for anybody who knows, he would argue start with why? Name of his most famous book, I think. But to familiarize ourselves with the audience, I'll describe what we do first. So Irish Titan is an E commerce agency, which means that we build and grow e commerce channels. So we build e commerce sites for our clients. We refer to our clients as merchants. When those e commerce sites are the sites where people are buying product, there's an actual checkout to the process, and then we work with our merchants on an ongoing basis to grow those sites with the email marketing, digital marketing that takes the shape of email marketing, paid search SEO channel strategies, things like that. So we build and grow e commerce channels. I started in 2004 as I mentioned. And I say that again because that seems like forever ago, right? And even by that point, I had accumulated quite a bit of E commerce experience. I launched office Max's very first e commerce site. I ran that project back in 1998 that I launched Wilson's leather, another national retailer in 2001 then I launched second swing golf, another national retailer in 2003 and after that's when I started Irish Titan. So in a lot of my talks and my podcast, I used to describe myself as a dinosaur and the E commerce space government doing for so long. And then I realized, well, dinosaurs went extinct, so I should probably come up with a different analogy. Now I say I'm a grizzled veteran, so that's what Irish Titan does. On the personal side, I am on Iowa farm. Boy. Grew up on a farm in northeast Iowa, moved here to Minneapolis in 1997 I have two daughters, 24 and 19 that I'm very proud of, and I've been very intentional in trying to be a good dad. It's up to them. I guess time will tell if, if I was or not. That's the personal side of things. So 24
Dina Simon 04:12
we're gonna have to have a big party. I'm sure you're planning that for your 20th year. That's that's a year away. Yes,
Darin Lynch 04:19
yeah, that's kind of sneaking up on me, because I've been thinking about that. And next March will be 20 years, so it's not all that far away. I think we'll probably roll it into our St Patrick's Day party.
Dina Simon 04:30
So I think we need to talk about your St Patrick's Day party, because, as John said, he's heard they're legendary. So share with us what how that happens. What do you do for St Patrick's Day, for the community and your customers and friends.
Darin Lynch 04:43
Yeah, so we actually do two parties. We do one that is our shenanigans for good party, and that's what you're referring to. And you and rich have been to many, and many of those. We've been doing those for, I think, about 15 years now, if I remember right, the. That's a just a big get together that we throw at a local Irish pub that we spend a lot of time at, and we welcome everybody. It's not just for clients. It really started to take shape as a get together for the business community, and it's turned into quite an event. We raise funds for a charity. We draw a name out of my green leather top hat, and one time Simon says give was was drawn. And so we do that, we I give a quick toast. There's no sales pitch or anything like that. It's just a good time with fun and food and friends. The other thing that we do on St Patrick's Day is a saint Titan's Day party internally with our Titans. And that's also become quite a deal, where all the Titans who are new to the company from the previous year, they're the ones responsible for the theme and planning. So there's sort of an annual contest every year to see who can make sure the party is as good as at least the previous year. Both of those are long standing institutions for us, and
Dina Simon 05:59
you probably don't do that on actual St Patrick's Day, because you take that day off as a team. Don't you correct? I
Darin Lynch 06:05
sometimes it is on St Patrick's Day, and I'll mention it here because I mentioned to my Titans too. I prefer for it not to be on St Patrick's Day, because I kind of have my own thing that I do on St Patrick's
Dina Simon 06:17
Day. Yes, and John, we actually, if Darren was wrong, it's not just one time that we've been drawn. So we we got the shenanigans for good last year when Chris ollendorff's name was was pulled, and he gave it to us the year right when we were closing down at covid. Oh, that's right, we got it that year too, because somebody in the audience gave it to us that we didn't even know at the time, but people had talked it up enough. And then I think also maybe earlier on, you might have, just like had selected a couple of your favorite nonprofits, and I think your team chose so I think we've actually received benefits from it. I think at least three times.
Darin Lynch 06:58
Oh, really, wow, you have a better memory than I do. One of my sayings is that I'm an idea. Man, don't bother me with details. You just demonstrated that. But yeah, that that fundraiser aspect is something that I've become really proud of over the years. You know, I think that we used to raise the funds more unofficially at the event, and then we started to put more structure and intention around that, with the raffle tickets and a few I jump on the microphone a few times to try to juice it a little bit, and then we started to match it a few years ago. And you know that those are things that we're proud
John Simon Sr. 07:31
of, nice. So, Darren, how many Irish Titans are there? John,
Darin Lynch 07:36
you're a quick learner referring to the employees as Titans, because that is how I refer to our Titans. So I think there are 44 right now. We're headquartered in Minneapolis. We have 39 here. We have one in New York, and four down in Texas. And so both of those geographies are intentional in the sense that they're industry driven. The E commerce space is somewhat similar, maybe, to like the IT space. Like it network services, where channel relationships are very crucial, beneficial and intentional. So for example, if I'm an IT provider, maybe I have a strong relationship with Microsoft, for example, and we refer business in the E commerce space. Once you reach a certain size and stature in the industry, you get a lot of referrals from what we refer to as the channel, which are the E commerce tech partners, like Shopify, Magento, Adobe, PayPal, big commerce, etc. A lot of those are in New York, so having an employee out there helps us invest in those relationships. But even more of them are in the Austin, Texas area, which is why we have planted a flag down there and are building an outpost down there, and that has helped double down on our growth. It's definitely contributed to some of the momentum over the last few years, because I think that those relationships have deepened and led to increased deal flow in both directions.
John Simon Sr. 08:55
And the other key that you talked about were your merchants, and are you able to share with us how many of those you have?
Darin Lynch 09:03
Well, sure. So at least in some regards, I actually still do all of our invoicing every month. I mean, I don't start it from scratch or just spreadsheet that gets put together then reviewed and sent to me, and I create the invoices, which some people would argue isn't a good use of my time at this point, but I'm really removed from projects now, so that is my chance to have some visibility and some fingerprints on things. And so I know how many clients we invoice every month and we invoice it's increasing, in general, because we're growing, although that doesn't always mean we're doing more projects, because some of the means some of the projects are becoming bigger, but we generally are invoicing between 50 and 60 clients every month. And so we have a good chunk of merchants, as we refer to them. And another point case you were going to ask this John, is they're very national in scope. So when Dena and I first met, we were hyper local. I was bootstrapping this company and building it from scratch. And I. Did it through sort of the old school way in 2004 and those times you kind of had to press the flashing, always hustle, be humble and stay hungry. And so we were hyper local. Then we started to become a little bit more regional. But I would say in 16 or 17, we were 90% local and regional, maybe 95% and 5% national, and that's absolutely flipped now, where we're 80% national and 20% local. We still try to really own the local e commerce market, but we have clients all around the country now,
John Simon Sr. 10:32
well, that's great. Is there an opportunity to go international? Yes,
Darin Lynch 10:37
and that's actually part of our growth plans. I have pretty aggressive growth plans. I'm not one to be satisfied with where we are, because I think I'm capable of growing a company larger than where we are, and running a company larger than where we are, and I think the management team that I've built is also capable of that, and that's part of what has attracted them and excited them. So we have some significant growth plans, and international presence is part of that.
Dina Simon 11:03
So I want you to tell us, Darren, about culture and stuff, but I just also want to just go back. So it was 2011 when we met you. Mandy had just she was eight years old, and knew that she wanted that we were set on moving forward with Simon says give our nonprofit and Jeff Brown on our board. He was actually not even on our board yet, because we hadn't even started our board when we first met you, and then he joined our board later, but he found you and said, Hey, there's this awesome opportunity. And you met with Mandy at eight years old and your team and at that time, I mean, I think Darren, maybe you had seven employees back then, when you were sharing the office with Paul and John. Your sister Chris Paris actually was up in town at one point, and Aunt Chris went to a meeting with Mandy over at Irish Titan to look at the wireframes. Yeah. So, So John's sister was up from Iowa, and we brought her with and just she's been super excited and obviously a big supporter ever since, but so that's when you leaned in to support us. I know you've done a lot of other things for other, you know, nonprofits and things, but we just always go back to thanking you for that. And we just did a refresh of our website about two years ago, as we were moving into our decade of service, we needed to grow up a little bit and love our amazing website that you've done for Simon Says give and then also my Simon Says lead website. So I just wanted to back up and thank you there.
John Simon Sr. 12:30
Well, I was going to ask a little bit about his connection with the University of Iowa, and understand he's a big fan of the university, and I always get a kick out of watching him on TV with the black and the gold, because that was the Steelers, cutlers. And I think at one point the university changed cutlers because they wanted to be connected with a winner. Correct,
Darin Lynch 12:50
John, you are speaking my language. So growing up in Iowa, I've been told that Iowa is the only state in the country that has no pro teams, and has two and only two division one football programs, and so we have three division one basketball actually four division one basketball programs. But you know, football really drives a lot of the sort of athletic halo effect around programs and states. And I've been told I've never verified, a quick gut check says it's possibly true at least that Iowa's only state with two and only 2d one football programs and no pro team. So there's a lot of Iowa Hawkeye enthusiasm in the state. That's why it's called the Hawkeye State. And so I grew up an Iowa Hawkeye fan and the Steelers fan. So they definitely have a strong intersection, because in my small, little farm town. I grew up in a town of about 1800 people. When I was growing up, that's about 1600 now it's struggled a little bit and stabilized. And it is an hour from Waterloo and an hour from Mason City in northeast Iowa. So the and those are the big, big towns of like, 50,000 people that we would go to. And the big towns that we would go to that are closer were towns like Waverly, Charles City, New Hampton, of like, six to 7000 people, so sort of a remote town, but had a really great school. I was exposed to technology very early, which maybe we'll talk about, which we won't I'm just putting the picture that it's not as Mayberry as people make it out to make it out to be right. But on the Friday of Super Bowl weekend, when the Steelers played the Cowboys the first time in the Super Bowl, which I think was 1977 the principal came around with football shaped sugar cookies that have blue frosting and gold threads, or had black or blue frosting and white threads, excuse me, or had black frosting and gold threads, and I picked the black and gold for the Steelers because I was already an Iowa Hawkeye fan, so I've been a Steelers fan since that Friday, which I'll admit, has been pretty easy, because here we are, Seven Super Bowls later. Pretty happy you got that. Right? And I did end up going to University of Iowa. Went to nearly every football game while I was there, nearly every basketball game while I was there. Have still been back for a few basketball games, but still go back for quite a few football games. So I'm a pretty, pretty passionate fan.
John Simon Sr. 15:16
Well, great. Well, I'm doing I always glad to run into another Steeler fan,
Darin Lynch 15:20
yeah, so there's a Steelers bar in town that rich and Dean and I have been to to watch stealers games. That also happens to be an Irish bar. Funny coincidence. Good Venn diagram there. So sometime when you're in town, John will have to go and watch a Steelers game over at McGovern's.
John Simon Sr. 15:34
Yeah. And of course, the Steelers are owned by the Rooney family, which are a big Irish family back in the Pittsburgh area, right,
Darin Lynch 15:41
right. I have some green Steelers gear with shamrocks on it. I have a green Steelers hat, green Steelers t shirt that has the Shamrock on it. So those have been easy purchases for me. I can practically write them off
Dina Simon 15:53
nice. So I want to ask some questions, especially since you're expanding so Texas, Minnesota, New York, and who knows what might be next, as far as like staff. So you've built a great culture. So again, I've seen you over the last decade plus, from seven employees to 44 so talk to us about, you know how you as a leader, have built a really strong culture, and how you will continue to with people in different locations?
Darin Lynch 16:19
Yeah, I think that building the culture was a mix of intentional and accident. Culture is a big time buzzword today, right? And I don't even you probably know more than I do. Three ish, four ish, five years ago is when culture as a term started to be used more frequently. I think prior to that, there were things in terms like vision and values and those sorts of concepts that were used more frequently. So I was really conscious of that, and I'll circle back to that point. So vision and values were intentional exercises I went through but, but even prior to that, leadership as a concept, was something that I was taught very early. And I think that strong leaders naturally create strong cultures, because cultures are are the muscle memory between meetings, the muscle memory between documents. Culture is vision and values and accountability and culture stuff going the way he describes it is cultures. This is the way we do things around here. And I think leaders, naturally, strong leaders, create those sorts of environments. And so I think I was mindful of that from the very beginning, because I didn't start Irish tight until I've been through a lot of leadership training and management training, etc. The best boss I've ever had still, and I've had, I've had the luxury of a lot of great bosses, but the best boss ever had was my first boss out of college, and I think that he's what I consider the best for a couple of reasons. One, incredibly strong leader and manager, but two, also, I was exposed to him and worked so closely with him for years at a very timely point in my career, right? Like your first manager with your first job out of college really has an impact on you. And he taught me explicitly some of the distinctions between leadership and management. And I was a bright eyed 2223 year old at that time that was just a sponge who already had been exposed to a lot of leadership as an athlete and student body president, all that kind of stuff in in school. So a lot of leadership, sorts of traits, I think, were ones I already cared about and tried to be conscious of, then was exposed to him. And so I think how to treat people, how to build teams, how to build teams of teams, was something that I learned early. Then when I got my MBA at St Thomas, which the completion of which led to me starting Irish Titan, that's when I started to build some frameworks around vision and values. And then the last point I'll make, Simon Sinek, already named checked him. He's one of my favorite he's my favorite author. But another one of my favorites is a guy named Guy Kawasaki, yeah, yep. I love him. He swears a little bit. It's very conversational but insightful at the same time. Yeah, his book, The Art of the Start is up here. You can't see it, but that book was really, really impactful to me too, because I read that toward the end of my MBA experience. And one of the things it talks about is don't worry too much about creating the soft parts of your business, like your values and stuff like that. Build a business with customers who are paying you and are happy. Start on that, and the rest will fall into shape if you have strong leadership. So I was really mindful of that for the first seven years of Irish Titan. And it was around 2011 when we reached a certain point where I felt like I had the, I shouldn't say, the luxury I we reached a certain point where I felt like it was then. And appropriate for me to to lean in on now defining that, and in 2011 was when I happened to meet Simon Sinek and read a couple of industry docs that helped me come up with how we define our culture. So that's a little bit of the background. I
Dina Simon 20:13
love that. And guy, I think also talks about like, everything doesn't have to be perfect. You gotta get your stuff out there, and you just gotta keep getting stuff out there, and it will continue to evolve. I had the opportunity to hear him early on in my career as well. So one of the parallels, and then John, I'll let you ask your next question. But one of the parallels was I was super fortunate enough in my early 20s to work for amazing leadership, and that would be John Simon and the leaders that were around the company, and so often it does go back to those early, you know, opportunities. And I hope all our children, your two girls and my daughter, get the same opportunities, because there's a whole lot of bad leaders out there and people that have just been promoted for whatever reason and not done what you just talked about, and that is leadership training, always learning, always watching, reading, and just trying to be the best leader that we can, because it's an important job to lead others and inspire them to do and be their best, and for them to then one day be great leaders. Right?
Darin Lynch 21:15
Leadership's a responsibility. It's not a prize, and I think that being trained on again, the distinction between leadership and management, because those are two different skills, and Leadership isn't necessarily reflected in an org chart, you know. And so they can go together, but they don't have to. But I think that you can learn a lot from a bad leader. Quite honestly, in my career, I really only had one, and that was toward the end of my arc before starting Irish Titan. And so by that point, I had already accumulated a lot of great lessons from really great leaders. I had really, really strong leaders because my my first boss again, he suggested that as my career unfolds, I should he encouraged me to be more mindful of who you're going to be working with and for than what the name is on the shingle. And so when I started to pursue second job and third job and then fourth job, I think before starting Irish Titan, I was really intentional about that, about looking for good leaders who would challenge me more so than what the trendy business is, that's hiring everybody in town.
John Simon Sr. 22:23
Well, you know, Darren, one of the things I always thought about was the key to a successful business is hiring quality people that buy into the culture of the organization. And how do you find people to join as Titans?
Darin Lynch 22:37
Yeah, I think you're, you're spot on, John, I think that, as a leader, people are our occupation, and the bigger organization grows the more your quote, unquote upper management. I don't really like that phrase, but we know what I mean when we say that the more and more their their job is to lead people, right? And so I think that that we've been successful in that, at least more often than not, for a couple of reasons. One, we really do have our culture well defined. So our culture is reflected in two lighthouses, as I refer to them. One is our golden circle from Simon Sinek. Our, why is business first online second? Our, how as partnerships, not transactions, are what is building and growing e commerce channels so that can really establish a lighthouse in regards to what kind of people we want to attract in terms of what kind of work we do and the philosophy behind it, the business, first, online, second, the other lighthouse is POTUS, and that's not a political term. It stands for passion, ownership, teamwork, impact and skills. Those are our five values. So when we have that so well defined and can speak to what that means and use that in our everyday, every day, literally just today, I'm not making this up. We had a meeting with some Titans to review some things that I want to elevate on right now. I want us to continue to become a little more sophisticated. And there are a couple of things where I noted we need more ownership out of POTUS. And I would write the O with the code around it that indicates it's the O out of out of POTUS. We use that when things are going well or not, we use POTUS in our golden circle, and so it's really embedded. Another thing that's really helped us attract talent and retain it is our Titan only model, and what that is referring to is the fact that we do all of our work with just our employees. We don't use any contractors, freelancers or offshore resources. Those models are very prevalent in our industry, and I understand why. There's nothing inherently wrong with those you reduce or fix costs, you increase your variable costs, which, from a financial perspective, can be attractive in. Concept gives you more scalability, and you know, there are some benefits to it. I have taken an intentionally different approach from Day Zero of Irish Titan, because I've been on the other side of the table before starting Irish Titan, and I felt like I could build something different and better. And so we have this Titan only model, which contributes to attracting people who are looking for a home and retaining them because they work tilt to kilt or shoulder to shoulder, I prefer kill every day, right? And so they build relationships, and they build friendships, and they build loyalty, and they build a better product. So there are fewer problems that they're dealing with, because there's more historical documentation and legacy about how we do things. And so I think those two things are cultural clarity and our Titan only model have really helped us attract and retain people. And
John Simon Sr. 25:51
that's great, because we all know that turnover is the most expensive way to just spend money that you don't need to spend anymore,
Darin Lynch 26:00
right, right? Yeah,
Dina Simon 26:02
and that will help you continue to expand, right, so that you can be in other markets, because your team is so clear as to what what they're doing and why they're doing it, and that foundation is extremely solid and will be very much celebrated when we get to year 20, next year, awesome. So entrepreneurialship, I know you're still very involved in the University of St Thomas and their entrepreneurial school, and you're a mentor on the Minnesota cup and things of that nature. So obviously, huge entrepreneurial spirit. What would be some advice that you would give to somebody young trying to start out as an entrepreneur, just some of the kind of key points that would come to mind, yeah, a
Darin Lynch 26:46
couple of things. And yeah, I am still very supportive of that community. I think that I still have that spirit. I think entrepreneurs also become a buzzword, you know, that I still have that spirit, and I want to support people who do. And when I was younger, and Irish Titan was younger, people took a chance on spending some time with me and sharing advice or insights. And so I want to do the same. You know, there, there are a couple of things I think I already believe I mentioned. One, the the concept of being humble, stay hungry and always hustle, right? I think that that, that is a piece of advice that I heard somewhere that I think resonated. I think that I saw an entrepreneur just other day and walked away very smart. He has a great idea. He's going to need to be humbled, right? Any, any movie, undoubtedly, right. I think another one is, I stole this from a song a band called Small Town Titans, just complete coincidence that Titans is part of it. I love it. But a band small town Titans, they have a song called doorbells or dreams, and it's kind of a rocking song, so it's not as sappy as the title might suggest. But the the lyrics are around rock star who, like in between shows or in between tours, goes and finds a old friend of his, and they reconnect like they grew up together. And the friend you know is married and has a job and kids and a dog, and the rock star guy doesn't have any of that, and he it's, it's written from the point of view of the rock star. And there's a little bit of longing in the verses around, you know, maybe I should have that stuff, but then the chorus is around, hey, like, what do you what matters more to you? Having a doorbell or chasing your dreams? You can't always have both. And so I think that came to mind. Then here's the other one that I would mention, and I heard this from a speaker early in Irish Titan's days, that every business goes through three phases in their life cycle. At first, you're everything to everybody, then you're something to everybody, then you're something to somebody. So that first phase, you're everything to everybody, because you need to check to keep those lights on. Second phase, you're something for everybody, because you started to narrow down what it is. You're good at what it is. You get energy from what it is you think you can be more successful with, but you're still doing it for anybody that will come and knock on your door and then last phase something to somebody you know what you do and who you do it for. And I think that is a truism across entrepreneurship and building a business. You might move through phases at different paces than other businesses, but I think that's an absolute truth. Yeah.
Dina Simon 29:22
I love that.
John Simon Sr. 29:23
Yeah. So Darren, I mentioned something in one of our other podcasts about the company that I work for, and our chairman had what he referred to as the three eyes, integrity, intelligence and intensity, and that was the foundation of the company that I worked for.
Darin Lynch 29:40
I like that. First of all, I believe in the power of threes, especially when you add alliteration to that, right? And I think that when you mentioned intensity, my ears perked up a little bit, because that's you hear integrity a lot, right? Lot of people talk about that. Intensity is a value. So that you don't hear as often. And I like that. So I think that that reflects a spirit and a sense of grit that appeals to me absolutely,
Dina Simon 30:08
yeah. And rolling up your sleeves and doing what needs to happen, yeah? And
John Simon Sr. 30:13
when you get knocked down, you get back up again, right? Yeah? Resilience
Darin Lynch 30:17
goes a long way
Dina Simon 30:18
it does, yeah. And Darren, one of you know, was we continue to have the podcast. I mean, John has been retired. How many years now? John,
John Simon Sr. 30:26
yeah, 2222
Dina Simon 30:29
years. He retired very young, but he still has many of his clients that he has stayed connected with all these years later, because they, you know, they played really hard in business together and did great things, and then have just created those long term relationships, which is super fun, and you have those, and you'll continue to have those as well, based on the relationships that you've built with your clients.
John Simon Sr. 30:52
Oh sure, you know, I've attended weddings of clients for their children, and they got when they get married, and vacation with with some of them. So you make a lot of friendships from from the people in business that you, that you did business with.
Darin Lynch 31:07
I totally agree, and Dean is a great example of that, like we are actual close friends, right? And there are a few other clients or peers that I would put in that circle, right? I think that when you work with someone, it sets the table to become friends in a different way when there are certain synergies with some of the underlying values. I think working together and then becoming friends is an interesting dynamic compared to being friends and then possibly working together, agreed, Oh, yeah. That can be very can be dicey, especially if you suffer from things like Minnesota, nice and some of those sorts of things that neither of us suffer from, right? That can be a little fraught with danger. Whereas, if your work together first, you don't become friends, if there's not already some synergy around how you engage, what your word means, those sorts of values,
Dina Simon 32:03
yes, yeah. John Darren just mentioned a term that we could do a whole series of podcasts on, and I'll explain it later. But Minnesota, nice is, is actually a thing. And it's not an actually nice thing. It's, it's a kind of a passive aggressive thing, that that is a real thing. But yes, yes, I agree with you. It's and I do agree that those relationships that start from working together like that, versus friends then trying to work together, there's a total difference that happens, absolutely right. I
Darin Lynch 32:34
have plenty of friends I would never hire, right,
Dina Simon 32:37
right? Because you want to remain friends, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly.
John Simon Sr. 32:43
I know we used to have a rule of thumb, and it not only applied to the business I was in, but a lot of people that I've talked to over the years, the 8020 rule. 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers. And I never really believed that much until I started talking to some of my customers, and they were in the same position we were in. Yeah,
Dina Simon 33:06
right. So as we kind of wrap up our podcast, so Simon Says inspire a podcast about life, leadership and building legacies, and we'd love to have you back on for other conversations. Any other last thoughts on just the Irish Titan culture leadership that you'd like to share today.
Darin Lynch 33:24
Well, I think that one of the things that I found interesting when you launched the podcast and we started to talk about it, is you focus on legacy, because my personal why, and my personal goal and circle is to leave a legacy that's my personal why. It's why I started Irish Titan. It's why I've tried to parent father my daughters as I have, etc. So I just thought that was some interesting synergy that probably also speaks to why we get along and have been friends for so long now,
Dina Simon 33:52
absolutely and you have built and are building an amazing legacy. But then again, I believe that our legacies are what we're doing every day and living out. And as you said, the just examples that we can be to to our children and and I know your girls, and I know that you've been able to do that already. So just more good stuff to come.
Darin Lynch 34:14
Mandy reflects well on you, and hopefully Zoe and Fiona reflect well on me.
Dina Simon 34:17
They do. They do
John Simon Sr. 34:19
well. Darren, I look forward to, I'm going to be up in Minnesota at the end of August at the Great Minnesota get together, or the State Fair, as a lot of other people comment, that maybe we'll have a chance to meet and get together up there.
Darin Lynch 34:32
Yeah, would love to John, awesome. Well, thank
Dina Simon 34:35
you so much for joining us, Darren. We just appreciate it. And thank you for raising your hand early on, when you knew that we were doing this to be a part of it. Yeah.
Darin Lynch 34:44
Love supporting the cause. Anything I can do to help you, Nina, I will sign up for without hesitation, and vice versa. Thanks for all the friendship and partnership over the years. Yes, thank
Dina Simon 34:54
you. And thank you, Darren, I would like to thank my friend, Darren. Inch for joining us today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Go check out Irish titan.com for more information about what his amazing Titans do as a client with both Simon says give and Simon Says lead for over a decade, I can share that I've just loved the journey, and love everything that they have done to support our two businesses. So go check them out. Darren, thank you for always leaning in to especially to support Mandy over the years with our nonprofit, and look forward to many years of continued partnership and to celebrate 20 years next year. I, as always, I thank my father in law, John Simon, for partnering with me and CO hosting this podcast, and we look forward to having you join on another episode. So until next time, thank you. You.