Surviving the Side Hustle

E107 - From College Hustle to Building Sellable Businesses: Jordan Calderon's Entrepreneurial Journey

• Coach Rob • Season 1 • Episode 107

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Ever wonder what separates the entrepreneurs who actually exit their businesses from those who just dream about it? Jordan Calderon has done it twice already, and he's just getting started.

Jordan's entrepreneurial spark ignited at the tender age of five, selling plums from his father's backyard tree at the community pool. This early venture taught him three pivotal lessons that would shape his future: the joy of making people smile, the thrill of selling, and the satisfaction of providing solutions. Fast forward through high school side hustles to college, where Jordan made the bold decision to reject an Apple internship—much to his father's dismay—to pour his energy into his own ventures.

The gamble paid off. Jordan successfully built and sold College Clout, a college apparel company, while still a student. More significantly, he launched StratDev, now a top-100 ranked marketing firm specializing in explosive growth for B2B startups. One client even skyrocketed from zero to $40 million in just five months under their guidance.

What makes Jordan's approach unique? Rather than disguising his youth, he transformed it into his greatest asset. When pitching to business owners his parents' age, he positioned himself as the expert who understood platforms like TikTok and Instagram—digital landscapes where the next generation of buyers lives.

Perhaps most valuable is Jordan's insight about building "sellable businesses" rather than simply trying to sell businesses. He reveals the critical factors buyers look for: minimal founder dependency, consistent growth, documented processes, competitive advantages, and clear transition plans. By focusing on these elements from day one, entrepreneurs position themselves for successful exits whenever opportunity knocks.

For those juggling multiple priorities, Jordan shares his time-blocking strategy—scheduling everything from lunch breaks to "touch grass" moments—ensuring no aspect of life gets completely sacrificed at the altar of entrepreneurship.

Ready to break free from analysis paralysis? Take Jordan's simple but powerful advice: just do it. Like a baby bird pushed from the nest, you'll figure out how to fly just in time—but only if you take that first leap.

Speaker 1:

What's going on, guys, and welcome back to another episode of Surviving the Side Hustle. I'm excited because today we've got Jordan on the show. So a little bit about Jordan. He is a two times exited founder and he's the president of StratDev, which is a top 100 ranked marketing firm. He's built multiple companies from the ground up, experienced the full spectrum roller coaster of startup life and navigating both the highs and lows of scaling a business. He's very passionate about sharing those lessons, and specifically with audiences who are looking to grow smarter. So you guys are in for a sweet treat today. So, jordan, welcome to the show, man.

Speaker 2:

What a introduction, Rob. Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. I know that you have the podcast and being a host here, but if it doesn't work out, ringside announcer might be up your alley as well. Great, great introduction. Thank you, my man.

Speaker 1:

Love that. Thank you so much. That's exciting. So tell me a little bit about yourself, because we were talking right before we kicked off and there's a couple of things that we could dive into, but I'm interested to hear where do you want to take it? To start off with your story, where did you begin this entrepreneurial journey? I know college was the first taste of it for yourself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, you know, the Wikipedia page says college, but I'll actually take it just a little bit earlier than that. So I grew up with divorced parents and every other weekend I would go over to my father's townhome and there was a community pool there and I think I was maybe four or five years old. We had a very small backyard. It was probably a two foot by two foot patch of grass in the corner and there was one tree on it that took up about all of the two feet by two feet and it was a plum tree, and during the summers it, you know, bared the fruit of a plum. And so when I was five years old, I realized two things One, fruit of a plum. And so when I was five years old, I realized two things One, that these plums are really really, really good, and two, that when I gave them to my friends, they also really enjoyed these plums. And so every weekend we would go to that community pool and I had just the genius idea hey, let's try to fit as many little plums into a Ziploc bag and sell them at the community pool. And so I started to do this every other weekend when my dad had me, and I would you know, at five or six years old, right, be making from the equivalent of a five to six year old bank, from 50 to 60 cents. There'd be a little line of people waiting for these plums and I would, completely, you know, strip naked this tree of all of the fruit every other weekend. But it was so much fun and I realized at that time that I, you know, had a couple of talents One, that I can make people smile and maybe it's because I was, you know, a cute six-year-old back at that time selling plums, but I like to think I make people smile. Two, that I really enjoy the passion of and the art of selling and business as a whole. And then, three, that you know I'm able to solve problems or be a solution. Right, you're at the pool, you know kids are running around, they're exerting a lot of energy, they need plums, you know, sugary fruit, healthy fruit, healthy food, right to regain the energy. And so you know it was a simple solution back then, but I think that really sparked my interest into entrepreneurship as a whole.

Speaker 2:

So, you know, fast forward to high school, I used to, you know, flip iPhones, I used to resell shoes, things like that, as a lot of 16 year olds entrepreneurs do had a couple of you know fun, little you know side businesses there and then, going into college, I really tried to go 100% into entrepreneurship after I realized that college really wasn't for me. Mind you, I still did my four years, I still graduated. I followed through with that promise. But I built a small handful of companies during that time. A couple of them did end up being successful.

Speaker 2:

So that first one was, as I was a freshman is a college apparel company called College Clout. We made custom designs for fraternities, sororities, clubs, organizations across school campuses and slapped that on a Comfort Colors t-shirt and then shipped it out in bulk to that entire club or organization. And so I grew that over my tenure at UC Santa Barbara and ended up selling that my senior year to a great company called Greek House, which just recently got acquired by University of T. So if you have any, you know nephews, rob, look at the back of their t-shirts if they're in college and you know they'll likely be University of T.

Speaker 1:

That's pretty cool, and I love the. I love the growth and evolution of your entrepreneurship and the businesses that you work with too. It's kind of cool to see them kind of growing up and getting acquired, and I'm interested to hear about this, though. So where did you get the ideas for all this stuff? Either of your parents are an entrepreneur, or did it just start coming to you, and then how did you know what to do as a freshman in college? Did you study any of this?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's a fantastic question, rob. So did I study it? No, I, at UC Santa Barbara, was an economics major, and UC Santa Barbara is a public school. I learned a little bit too late, as I had already made the decision to be an economics major that public universities, and the same with UC Santa Barbara, teach economics in a very theoretical way, which means that it's not practical nor applicable. So you're not, for example, learning how to you know learning business in a practical manner, but rather just you know ideas of, theories of, and so it was very hard for me to try to match the two. So could I you know, backtrack it to? Oh yeah, I learned a lot in the classroom? No, unfortunately not. Question that you had was you know backtrack it to? Oh yeah, I learned a lot in the classroom? No, unfortunately not. Question that you had was you know, did you get it from your parents? No, I didn't. I am not just with my immediate family, but really extended family Only entrepreneur, or at least the first entrepreneur in the family. Everybody had really worked in corporate or at least attempted to climb up that corporate ladder to find success, and that's really at least growing up the definition of success that my father instilled in me Fast forward into college.

Speaker 2:

When College Cloud was starting to pick up some steam, I remember that he wanted me to essentially apply to all the FANG companies Facebook, apple, amazon, netflix, google and I got waitlisted at Amazon and then I did get accepted for an internship at Apple for my I think, my freshman to my sophomore year. And then I got, I did get accepted for an internship at Apple for my I think, my freshman to my sophomore year. And I ended up rejecting them and instead saying, hey, I'm actually going to go full time during the summer on my company and see how much I can grow it. Saying that that pissed off my dad was an understatement. He was very, very, very disappointed in me. You know, jordan, it's not like you decided to do this and you didn't have another opportunity, right, you had an amazing opportunity and you turned it down and you still did this. And so, you know, fast forward, you know, a couple of years. I tell him, hey, I'm actually not going to get a job out of college, I want to continue on this path, which further, I think, disappointed him. And then there was, you know, my.

Speaker 2:

I had a, I had a like a like a kid's bank account, and in college it was attached to my, my parents, and there was a point in time where the bank account just started to go exponentially, really, really, really quickly, and my parents could see that they had visibility. And so I think that, you know, it was kind of an unspoken thing, but my mom actually said something when I came back from, you know, for winter break or something like that. It's like Jordan, like we're looking at your account, your account is growing insane. Like what are you doing? Are you drug dealing? Are you like what's going on? No, mom, it's the business. My dad kind of yeah, yeah, uh, you know, turn your chin down.

Speaker 2:

Uh, there was that, um, and then, by you know, the first year of me graduating college, um, my dad did something quite uh, phenomenal, which is that he ended up quitting his uh, corporate job of 20 years to go into entrepreneurship and yeah, and so I think that that is probably one of my biggest successes in life and the fact that I changed my dad's mind, which is which is so difficult, and, as a fellow guy, I'm sure that you can, you know, really really appreciate that, and so, yeah, so, long story short, no, I didn't come from entrepreneurs. Where did it come from? If I'm being honest, I don't know. I think it's a mix of impatience and tenacity together, where I didn't want to wait my four years of college to make something happen.

Speaker 2:

Um, and then tenacity, like I'm a hard worker, I like to, you know, get, get the fruits of my labor. My parents didn't hand me anything. You know. I had friends that you know, whose parents bought them their car. My parents said, nope, we're not buying you your car, like you're working for that shit. And so I. I I learned to be tenacious, and so, you know, I do have my parents to thank for that. But I think it was just a mixture of the two, I wanted to carve something out for myself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you said early on that kind of getting into the entrepreneurial world. You got, you realized that you get to solve a lot of problems and seeing that you turning down like excellent opportunities for internship just to take on the challenge and the problem itself shows a lot of grit and determination and tenacity and everything you were just saying there. So I'm excited to kind of hear, as you were kind of growing and working through these companies and things that you're growing yourself in both business and personally, and things that you're growing yourself on both business and personally. What were some of like the big obstacles or challenges that you kind of came into Just like? Was it more like was it personal kind of development growth or was it more of like a business kind of thing that you needed to kind of work through to get up to the next level? Because scaling at a quick pace has got to be kind of scary and exciting for everybody but it can be tough and something to learn to get over that hump to the next stage.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, when you sign up to be an entrepreneur, you're also signing up to not have a full, complete, isolated separation between personal and business, so everything becomes blended into one right. It's not like you have a nine to five, where you clock in at nine okay, business mode mode, and then, from nine to five, clock out okay, personal mode after five o'clock and so, um, I think I think it has been a mix of the two. I think a lot of things that I've learned in business has helped me personally. I think a lot of things that have helped me or that I've learned personally have helped me in business. And so you know, I started at a relatively young age my now company that I'm working on, a company called StratDev. It's a digital marketing company. I started that also in college as a junior.

Speaker 2:

I was 20 years old, and getting those first customers was very difficult, and the reason being is because I looked really, really, really young. You know, I have a little bit of a beard. There's a reason why I keep this patchy beard going on and it's because I look my age. I'm 26 now. If I shave this thing, I immediately go to 21. And so when I was 20 years old with no beard, I looked probably, at best, 16, 17 years old, and so, you know, these business owners that I was trying to solicit, to, to, to garner their business, you know, were the age of my parents or the age of my grandparents, and so when they spoke, or when I spoke to them, I was trying to, you know, be all macho and big and, you know, act all professional, and it just looked cute to them, you know. It's like, oh cool, like a little little little kid is trying to, you know, act like a big businessman. And it didn't really. It didn't really bring the respect that I was hoping that it would to bring. So it was definitely, you know, a big disadvantage, and so what I ended up doing to turn that over is I, instead of trying to push it away, I embraced it, embraced my youth, and so the company is a digital marketing agency, and so a lot of these older business owners are doing marketing tactics that worked maybe 10, 20 years ago, but the digital marketing world's moved really quickly and back in you know, 2020, when COVID ended up coming into play right, a lot of these businesses were forced to move from a digital marketing transition.

Speaker 2:

That was really the big boom of digital marketing, and so I accepted that and said well, you know what, I am young, I'm the age of your kid, I'm the age of your grandkid. But one thing that I do have over you is a really deep understanding of how Instagram works, how TikTok works, how to captivate an audience online and how to captivate, you know, the next generation of buyers, and these buyers are, you know, starting to become 18 and starting to make a living wage. I understand how to attract those folks, and so that was a really big switch of how I turned a disadvantage into an advantage, and that was the start of me growing and building my company. So, you know, there's been a lot, you know, and even from a personal standpoint, right, that has allowed me to essentially embrace.

Speaker 2:

I don't even know what lesson I would learn here, rob, but I think through those experiences has just made me a little bit more of a grounded individual. It also, you know, forced me to grow up a little bit too right, ucsb is a party school. I definitely had my fun my freshman and sophomore year and, you know, starting this company and speaking to you know, some of the older bucks, I think, mellowed me out a little bit too, because I had to kind of speak to part and speak to bat with them. So yeah, I mean it's been wholly inclusive from a personal and business standpoint.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that story about really embracing your authenticity, because everybody always says you know, like the cliche, like, uh, fake it till you make it, but they never tell you when you've actually made it and you have to then adopt your own strategy and style and really be yourself. Um, so a lot of people from what I see is they continue to fake it and then they have this, they live this lie and then they never actually transition into that authentic version of themselves and they never quite get to that next level. So I love that you were embracing that, like yeah, let me get back into just embracing the youngness and just kind of being who I am and not really letting them take that essentially disrespect because they weren't treating you as like an equal or seriousness and then not letting that bother you yeah, that's that's true to say.

Speaker 2:

And to that point, rob, there was actually and I'm remembering now a point where I called myself or dubbed myself the millennial marketer, because it just has a good ring to it. Right, the thing is, and why I don't call myself that anymore is because the cutoff to be a millennial is what would be now the age of 28. I'm 26, so I'm actually Gen Z. I learned that. So there was somebody back when I think I was 21, calling myself that, being like, wait, millennial marketer, when were you born? I was born, you know, october 10th 1998. Oh crap, you're not a, you're not a millennial marketer, you're not millennial.

Speaker 1:

You're a Gen Z marketer, oh man. So I'm interested to hear a little bit more about StratDev and kind of like where that's at, what's what's going on with that and where are you planning to take that? Is this something else you're looking to? Eventually exit down the road, potentially, maybe.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, you know, I think, I think the dream for a lot of entrepreneurs is, you know, to have an exit. I've gone through two and they're phenomenally amazing feelings. I think it is the cocaine of being an entrepreneur, really, in terms of the serotonin that it, you know, brings out. And so, yeah, with StratDev you know, I don't know, I don't have that crystal ball I love the process of M&A. If there's a great opportunity that comes our way, you know I'll definitely be open and entertain it. But right now we're growing so healthily, we're growing so amazingly. The customers really love us.

Speaker 2:

We have an amazing track record here at StratDev with the work that we do, as well as just the sentiment that we have within the market, being a top 100 ranked agency, having almost near perfect five-star reviews across every reviewable platform that you can think of and if you're an angry customer listening to this, that's not a solicitation to give us a one-star review. No, I'm kidding. But and even then, you know, the team is also just in a really great place. We're a phenomenal team of I truly think, digital marketing rock stars and we all really enjoy working with each other and we all really enjoy the projects that we work on. So that translates to just great work for our team.

Speaker 2:

You know we have a 4.9 star review on Glassdoor, which just shows, I think, the good environment and community that I built here. So I'm having a lot of fun building the business, as is. We're very much in an up and right direction. We grew from quarter one to quarter two of 2025 at 28% and on track to achieve over 100% year over year growth, which is awesome, you know. With that said, yeah, yeah, having fun with it.

Speaker 1:

That is pretty sweet. So what are some of the kind of projects that you work with and, like, who are the different types of people that you work with?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. So we, we love our startup companies. We've transitioned the business over the past couple of years to really focus and home in on the B2B side of startup companies. You know these startup companies are SaaS companies. Sometimes they're software based, like enterprise applications or platforms. Sometimes they could be B2B service as well, in terms of you know the service offerings that they provide, and so you know, with these startups, a lot of them come to us for a really specific outcome, which is profitable and scalable growth.

Speaker 2:

So we essentially use a lot of different tactics and our, you know, sales specialists and strategists will essentially work together to create an outcome-based engagement with our prospects and, if it's a match, work with them to achieve those outcomes, and so we do a phenomenal job doing that. We have about a 94% success rate in achieving outcomes that we set for ourselves and our customers within a six-month period or less. The majority, by the way, of those outcomes are an ROI. So achieving a good ROI for our customers is why we exist and something that we do very, very, very well. But yeah, yeah, I mean we've done some really phenomenal work. One customer that I'm thinking of in particular we grew from zero to $40 million in five months, and so that's definitely a unicorn client and one of our greatest case studies. But we're very good at quick growth, which a lot of our startup companies are definitely looking for.

Speaker 1:

Wow, Zero to 40 in five months. That's incredible. You should be proud about that and that's awesome. You had mentioned something before on how exciting and how awesome the feeling of exiting from the companies is. I'm curious to ask you what are maybe some things that entrepreneurs or business owners might not think about when they are thinking of exiting?

Speaker 2:

I love this question. I am so enamored by the idea of M&A. I think that, honestly, if I do let's just say self-strat to have some some years down the line, uh, I would, I would probably want to be a business broker just because I have so much passion for, for the entire process. It's a it's a stressful process, um, but there's definitely things that you know to your point, rob, you can do to make it a little bit less stressful. And and take it from me going through two acquisitions, I've learned my lessons. I've, I've, uh, I put in my reps. So, um, you know one, one of my uh mentors, as well as a, uh, an advisor for, um, my company told me something, uh, a little while ago that made a lot of sense and he said you know, and still, instead of trying to sell your business, work to build a sellable business, right, and so you find a lot of entrepreneurs essentially putting up their business for sale or working with a, you know, an investment banking company, investment banker or a brokerage company, whatever that might be. Really, in a sense, of man, I'm burnt out. Now, hey, we were going up and now we're going down and I just want to sell the company. You know it's like I don't want to do this anymore, and so that's not very attractive for a buyer, right? That will usually lead to a really poor multiple or valuation in the business. That will lead to poor outcomes that are favored towards the buyer, not the seller, and you, the seller, want to make as much as possible, have the most favorable terms, and then three just lead to a really stressful acquisition or due diligence period specifically, where they're going to grill you on a lot of things and the worst thing as a seller of a business could be something called a retrade.

Speaker 2:

A retrade is essentially when you come into a very long, extensive due diligence period with a potential buyer of your company and they say, hey, we're going to give you just, for example, a million dollars for this business, right. And then, at like the 11th hour, right, when you're about to sign stuff, they're like, hey, well, you know, over the past days we found all these 24 problems and now we're actually going to reduce our price down, you know to to 500,000. At that point, you know, you as a seller are just so tired and so exhausted that a lot of people just kind of give in. At that point you know what Screw it, I'm just going to take it Now. You just lost 500K. It's a good amount of money for some people, and in reality these numbers are not from a million to five. It's from 10 million to 5 million $5 million loss. Or 100 million to 50 million or 20 million. The worst I've seen is a retrade from $50 million to $1 million 98% loss Exactly $50 million to $1 million 98% loss, exactly right. And that was just due to terrible preparation on the seller's end. So how do you prevent that?

Speaker 2:

Right, there are a couple of different things that buyers look for and how you can build a sellable business. The first one, probably the most important one, is that there is no, or as little, founder dependency as possible. So, rob and your company, or my company, right, if one of us gets hit by a bus, will the company still exist? Right, if we're no longer here on this earth? And so if the answer to that question is yes, then there's a high likelihood that you've built a sellable business. A couple other things that they look for are up and to the right growth, right, they want to see an incline of growth rather than a decline of growth. They want to see really clean operations, that everything has a process and procedure and, even more importantly, that everything is documented, and documented very well. Sops or standard operating procedures are a phenomenal way to do that.

Speaker 2:

The third one is that you've essentially built a moat, that there is some differentiating factor about your business and others and that if a competitor comes and tries to crush all your other competitors, can they crush you Not quickly, could they? You know, having product market fit, which is very difficult for companies I mean, there's massive billion dollar companies that have yet to find product market fit. But if you have it, it's definitely a good, good, good thing. You have a good transition plan, right that you know. You're very clear as a seller that selling a business like, hey, these are the perfect ideal buyers, right, and this is why. And if you've been able to identify who those are, then it makes the conversation when you are able to, you know, find prospective buyers a lot easier, because you have an idea of how you can integrate and you have a transition plan behind that as well.

Speaker 2:

So a lot, a lot, a lot of different ways to go about that. That's probably just touching the tip of the iceberg. Maybe the 1% of the 10% of the 100% of the iceberg, but definitely things to think about. And if you have at least those in mind, you've built a really, really, really good kind of mainframe of building that sellable business and start before you decide that you want to sell the business right, because you never know what that trigger is going to be to sell that business. You know it could be a health issue, it could be. You know you woke up and you're just like I'm done. It could be whatever it is Right, and so sometimes it just kind of smacks you and you're not expecting it.

Speaker 1:

And if you've been working on building that sellable business beforehand, then you are ready to go when, when it's go time right, Rather than finding yourself in a very in a situation where you need to be reactive. Yeah, I feel thank you for sharing all that too, by the way, because that's like a ton of value, it's like a full masterclass right there, and you said that's probably just like the tip of everything. So I appreciate you sharing that, and I know a lot of the solopreneurs and side hustlers that I work with in my world. They kind of come in and they're definitely not thinking of exiting and they're not thinking of kind of growing and scaling. They're just looking to kind of make a couple extra bucks here and there with their day job.

Speaker 1:

But there are a few individuals who do make that transition into solopreneur and then eventually build it up and hiring a team and you had mentioned earlier in our talk about how your team is, has fun. They really enjoy the projects that they got going on. They enjoy working. You've created such a great atmosphere. So for those listeners who are in that stage of kind of growing and hiring or looking to hire to create a team, how, how do you create such a culture and atmosphere where people are excited to show up and want to stick with you through thick and thin?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely Good, good question and just really quickly bring it back, even with the listeners listening in that run a side hustle business. There's no minimum to when your business is valuable to sell. There's a big misconception about selling business like, wow, I need to be doing $100 million a year to do that, not even close. There are platforms like bizbuysellcom One of my favorites is acquirecom, where you can, you know, have a side business. You know that's making you know, five, 10 K a month and you can go and sell that business. There is a buyer for that business. Right, I might be a buyer for that business if I'm being fully honest, and so there's always an opportunity to. There's no minimum to what you need to do in terms of revenue or success to be able to sell that business. So, just something to keep in mind.

Speaker 2:

Everything that I had said still applies Great. So, in terms of building culture, you know, at Strativ as well. So all my companies, for that matter. Well, actually, let's talk about Strativ specifically. So Strativ as well. So all my companies, for that matter. Well, actually, let's talk about Strativ specifically. So Strativ is a B2B, service-based company. Right, we're a marketing agency and I really strongly, truly do believe that we are only as good as our slowest man, right, our slowest person. And so, you know, the business is the people, and if the people are not happy, then the clients are not going to be happy because the performance is going to be bad, or people are not going to care about other projects they're going to work on and everything just goes, you know, downhill very, very quickly.

Speaker 2:

And so, right from the onset, I have worked hard to build a good culture and good community, hiring leaders and hiring co-operators within different pods of the business that are good people, that are enjoyable people, sometimes chatty people, right, you know people talk about like being personality hires. Yeah, we definitely got a couple of those. And team, if you're listening in, I'm not going to tell you who it is, that's for you to decide, but it just helps people feel really good. You know people are excited to clock in, you know, are distracted At least I feel so, or hope so, or hear that but you know it's good. And then for me, as a boss perspective, right, what I've done is a couple of things which seem really trivial, but I've just learned over time my team just so tremendously appreciates. The first one is you know, I'm kind of up here, up on the top right.

Speaker 2:

I think a lot of employees can be a little bit nervous to go to the top and say, hey, this is why something is wrong and this is my recommendation to fix it. I make sure that we have no red tape in StratDev, and so I really enable and empower our team through open conversations, through anonymous postings and pollings of are you happy in the business? What could we be doing better? Are you happy in the business? What could we be doing better? And really encouraging people to come to me and say, hey, this is how things should change, or tell me what they need to be able to do a better job, to be able to be enabled and empowered to do a better job, and so that happens all the time. I probably accept 90% of things that come to me. I might not agree with it, but these are the folks that are in the day-to-day trenches of it right, and so there are geniuses that work at StratDev I think most of our team is, and so, as a result, listening to them has really helped us and I don't see everything right I'm not perfect by any means and so that's been very helpful.

Speaker 2:

The second thing is just showing in small little ways that we care. For example, giving everybody something as small as $100 Visa gift card for their birthday is like something that is just so unheard of. You know, I see someone working really hard. We have an accolades channel in our Slack where we send messages of appreciation to everybody and it's for the entire company to actually see.

Speaker 2:

It could be, you know, that they were stressed one week, you know, or had a really you know, difficult client and like okay, you know what here's, you know, two tickets to go to the next town over. I got you guys a hotel, you know, for you and your wife. I figured out babysitting for your kids. Go have fun. Small things like that just mean the world. And so we have a really like zero turnover with StratDev. Over the five years of growing this business, I think that I've fired or people have dropped off maybe like five times out of the entirety. Once somebody joins Stratum, they're usually here forever, which is really great, and I know it's not a forever, so I knock on wood but truly it's because people really enjoy working here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you shared a lot of great valuable information there and strategies to really check in and make sure everybody is feeling really good and part of a great team. But I'm curious, what about some of the smaller guys where they might feel like they don't have time to necessarily check in and where they can't pay attention to Sally on everything they're doing? Do you got any advice for them? Because I feel like a lot of people are even on a different scale but solopreneurs, who are juggling a lot of different things and forgetting to even check in with their family at home. Like, hey, dude, you've never you haven't checked in with your girlfriend, your wife, in forever, Like you should. They're part of your team. They might not be on payroll or directly helping with your business, but they're helping you be a better person so you can show up as best you can for there. What kind of advice you got to somebody who's a little hardheaded like that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, you're speaking to me because I can absolutely be, but that goes to the point of you know, when you sign up to be an entrepreneur, like your personal and your business are inter intermingled, from from from that moment on. And so you know, am I perfect with this? Hell, no, am I. Am I learning on a day to day basis? Hell, yes, what I've done and what I've applied is something called time blocking. So, rob, you should see my calendar. I probably have anywhere between 15 and 20 calls on any given day, monday through Friday, and then I have a handful of calls on Saturdays and Sundays. It is a lot. And so, yes, I absolutely forget to show appreciation and some love.

Speaker 2:

So what I do is I have this super busy calendar, but I actually add to it as well and I time block, which basically says, like I'm going to do this at this time and it might sound really overkill or a little bit weird for maybe some listeners that don't have such a busy schedule, but for me, like I need to block out, I'm going to eat lunch from this to this time to force myself to do that. Or then, take, go to the gym every single day at six o'clock, at six, 30. My girlfriend's name is Maisie, um, it says show Maisie appreciation and love at six, 30 to seven o'clock, every single day. And it's just my reminder to do that. Check in. How is she doing? Is everything okay? How can I be a you know show? You know the five different love languages or something like that, right, you know, during that time.

Speaker 2:

And so, yeah, I, I, I scheduled my friends, you know, hang out with you know, john, from you know six to nine o'clock, right that? That that forces me to to sometimes get out of the zone and just look at the macro, have a little bit of a broader perspective. Every, it's like I think it's bi-weekly, but like every 14 days or every 15 days, my executive assistant put on my calendar a touch grass, get some air for an hour, and it's just like, yeah, go go for a walk, you know, do nothing, leave the phone, you know, at the, at the office or at home, and just go, go, go, chill. And so you know that is just what I've done. And and and and helps me personally. I don't know if that's a best answer, but for me it is.

Speaker 1:

No, I mean, I think that's an excellent answer. I think that's a great reminder. I feel like everybody knows that they need to schedule personal time and they need to schedule things that they want to get done, but I feel like a lot of people often forget to actually do it. And like the reminders too like just get outside, breathe some fresh air, like go in the sun for 10 minutes, just get outside that's also a powerful reminder too, because that's a little more harder to kind of measure on the impact it has on you. But I just know for a fact for myself that it plays a huge role for my own productivity and sanity as well.

Speaker 2:

You know, I haven't experienced this, but one thing about me is that I learned vicariously through other people. You know, like when your people, when your grandfather, tells you all these stories about how he did these bad things and don't do this, kids, most people are like, yeah, yeah, okay, grants, and then they do that same thing. I actually listen to the elders and learn things, and so one thing that I've learned is that, to your point, rob, you and I are both young. We are neglecting these certain things, neglecting health, neglecting, you know, relationships, things like that. We won't feel it today, but I promise you that we'll feel it in 10, 20, 30 years. Right, that's when you start to see the repercussions. So, focusing on that today, right, trust me, it is very, very, very important for just your overall happiness.

Speaker 1:

You know we got one life and we got to enjoy it and hopefully live as long as we can so we can going to listen to it multiple times. And for those who are interested in kind of like connecting more, following what you've got going or potentially working with you, how do people get in contact and stay up to date with what you've got going on?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, linkedin is always a good way. Linkedincom forward slash Jordan hyphen a hyphen Calderon. Or, if you just want a whole, more holistic view of what I'm working on at any given time, jordan Calderon dot me. That's my personal website. Again, jordan Calderon dot me me and there's also a link where you can essentially reach out to me, ask questions. You know, work with me. We can figure something out. But yeah, calendar is open for that. You can find that on my, on my personal page.

Speaker 1:

Awesome Again, dude. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you hopping on and sharing. Before I let you go, though, I got to ask you, man, if you were to take away all the lessons that you've learned and the experiences and everything else, and just everything you know, and you were to boil it down to like one piece of advice to a younger Jordan who's like yeah, I'm just going to start this little side hustle, get things rolling to get them with their feet off the ground and get the momentum rolling. What would be your piece of advice to them?

Speaker 2:

Just do it. I think Nike Nike had it right. All along, working with a lot of startup founders, I see so many entrepreneurs that just get into a state of analysis paralysis, where they just overthink things and it's like everything just needs to be perfect before I launch. And oh well, that's not perfect anymore. I need to make it better and better and better. And so then you find yourself three years into this passion project, $100,000 into investing in this, and you haven't even launched. Right At that point you might not even be excited about it anymore and it just becomes dead space and wasted time. I see that so many times. Do and you will learn by doing, figure it out along the way, but just take that, go off the cliff and you'll figure it out. That's, you know, same idea as the mama bird kicking the baby bird out. You'll figure out how to fly. You know it might be at the very last second, but you'll figure it out.

Speaker 1:

Oh, man, love that, just do it, Just take that action, just go with it, learn on the way and don't be afraid to fail. I hear that so much and it's so powerful to remember Constantly. Got to be a reminder for myself and everybody to just do it, just go for it. So, dude, I love that, love this episode, appreciate you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, man. Hopefully we talk again soon.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely, thank you.