This week on Hello Chaos, host JJ interviews Ethan Foulkes, founder of Magic Button Labs, to dive into his journey as an entrepreneur. Listen in as they discuss Ethan's path to founding his company and the insights he shares about being a founder. Tune in for real, raw, and unbiased founder stories every Sunday on HelloCast, a podcast by OrangeWIP dedicated to serving and connecting entrepreneurs in affiliate cities.
In this episode of Hello Chaos, Jennifer Sutton had the pleasure of speaking with Ethan Foulkes, the founder of Magic Button Labs. Ethan's journey to becoming a founder is nothing short of fascinating, marked by a diverse career that includes stints in IT, professional poker playing, and various roles in the food import and consulting industries.
Ethan shared how his accidental path led him to entrepreneurship, emphasizing the importance of learning from each experience, whether it was in big corporations or startups. One of the most intriguing parts of our conversation was Ethan's decade-long career as a professional poker player, where he honed skills that he now applies to his business ventures, such as the ability to reset emotionally and mentally in dynamic situations.
Magic Button Labs, which started as a manifestation of Ethan's beliefs, has evolved into a venture studio focused on simplifying and automating operations around the customer journey. Ethan's insights into productization—turning expertise into scalable products—were particularly enlightening. He discussed how this approach not only makes processes more efficient but also allows for greater impact and reach.
They also dug into the emotional and mental challenges of being a founder. Ethan highlighted the importance of taking breaks and having a support system, sharing how his wife has been a crucial cheerleader in his journey. His biggest "aha" moment came from realizing the value of productization during his time in the consulting world, a lesson that has significantly shaped his current business approach.
Ethan's advice to other founders is to focus on getting the first customer before worrying about the finer details like business cards and websites. He stressed the importance of understanding that the advice from successful companies often doesn't apply to those still seeking product-market fit.
As they wrapped up, Ethan shared his vision for Magic Button Labs, aiming to become a prominent venture studio in Greenville, South Carolina, and help more entrepreneurs achieve product-market fit. His journey is a testament to the power of adaptability, continuous learning, and the importance of having a supportive network.
Overall, this episode was a deep dive into the real, raw, and often chaotic world of entrepreneurship, filled with valuable insights and practical advice for founders at any stage of their journey.
Jennifer Sutton: I love our music. Welcome to Hello Chaos, a weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic minds and lives of founders, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Every week we talk to founders from different industries at different company levels and stages of all shapes and sizes. and we get to hear the real, the raw, and the unbiased founder stories. It's why our mantra is where aha meets oh shit. We drop new episodes every Sunday so founders can tune in to us for tips and insights and strategies on not just growing their business, but ways on being a better owner, better leader, better connected into the community. HelloCast is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP, that is OrangeWIP, W-I-P for work in progress. We are a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. We've designed hyper-local platforms that inform, inspire, and create connections that help founders succeed. Our innovative digital zines are an all-in-one content hub with fresh and engaging stories, curated local calendars, and local dynamic roadmaps to help founders navigate their local entrepreneurial ecosystems with ease. We've done all the hard work for founders, so they only need to go to one trusted source in their market to find all the local information they need. My name is Jennifer Sutton. My friends and family call me JJ. I'm the founder of OrangeWIP and will be your host today. And we have Ethan Foulkes, founder of Magic Button Labs as our guest today. Welcome, Ethan.
Ethan Foulkes: Thanks, JJ. Nice to be here.
Jennifer Sutton: I'm so glad. I'm so glad. I've been looking forward to talking to you and meeting you. I think we've exchanged some dialogue on LinkedIn. So I'm so glad that you are a guest. So why don't you just start out and just tell us about how in the world did you become a founder?
Ethan Foulkes: Oh, accidentally. So Yeah, I've, I've spent my career in big companies. So I started off in the IT world doing everything from dial up modem support to network security and architecture. And then I landed accidentally as a professional poker player for 10 years, which was cool. So that was fun. But That was cool. And I learned a lot of that. That's actually, I think where I learned most of my, um, the lessons that I carry over, um, with me into the business world. Uh, it was a fascinating experience. Um, I eventually went back to the real world, uh, and I didn't want to go to it. Uh, so I took a job with a family friend who had always told me he'd hire me. I went into the food import world, uh, and I just paid my dues and did the rounds in, in every functional area. So operations and. logistics and accounting and purchasing and selling, all that stuff. And throughout my tour through the different departments, I'd be like, Hey, I think there's better tools and systems we could put in place and processes. So I ended up just kind of tuning each department and connecting them together. And that led to I'm moving up to the parent company and running it and supply chain and then i said i was gonna strike out on my own and that landed me i did a little consulting and i got sucked into a big boutique consulting firm in the atlantean space for development world. And that was fascinating experience to see how agile tooling and consulting is done on the biggest playing fields in the world, which was cool. But my heart has always been with the entrepreneurial journey and startups. And so I took the leap and I left a really nice, stable job. And I joined a startup that had just raised a couple of million dollars. And I got to build the team from the ground up. run operations and product. And that was fascinating. And, you know, it didn't last. That's why I started my own thing. So there's a whole story there, which we'll get to. But finally leaving that experience, I just realized that like, it's finally time to do my own thing and not get sucked back into anybody else's world, which is typically what happens. So I've got an accountability group that I said, hold me accountable. I am not going into anybody else's world this time. And so that was the start of Magic Button Labs.
Jennifer Sutton: I love it. And what does magic button laps do?
Ethan Foulkes: I didn't know when we started it. Now I know that it is a venture studio. When we started it, it was just my way to manifest my beliefs into the world. Now I know it's a venture studio. That means we incubate different companies that come out of Magic Button Labs. Right now my focus is on scale kits, which is a simplified approach to operations. So how do we simplify and automate operations around the customer journey through a company?
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, that's fantastic. All founders need that, right? Startups need that. So what's been the most rewarding aspect of your journey?
Ethan Foulkes: You know, I think looking backwards, what's been rewarding for me, it's not always clear in the moment, it's just the learnings. Like, you know, sometimes it's like, oh, sucked back in somebody else's journey, but that means you're playing on a bigger stage than you'd be doing by yourself. And you're, for me, it was, I think, the opportunity to see the biggest, like the patterns that I loved and I wanted to mimic, but also the patterns that I definitely didn't want to mimic. So that was it.
Jennifer Sutton: So gaining all that experience, right? Just to see that exposure. So, OK, so a little myth buster moment here. So what do you think is the biggest misconception or misperception people have about being an entrepreneur or being a founder? And how would you debunk that myth?
Ethan Foulkes: I'm curious.
Jennifer Sutton: You ventured out on your own.
Ethan Foulkes: Well, I'm curious what your other guests have said. That's what I want to know after. But I think my answer is, you think that being the founder or the CEO or doing your own things, like you're not going to have a boss, and you just have different bosses and more of them, right? Like it's not, it's a long trek through entrepreneurship to get to that other side that you imagined was just going to be that perfect.
Jennifer Sutton: I call it the freedom, like the freedom to get to the freedom of, but you're right. That's, that's been a very repetitive answer to most founders are like, yeah, you think that you're going to work a three day work week or you think you're going to shut off at two o'clock or you know, like, That doesn't exist. And you're held accountable. The more that you grow your team, you're accountable to other people. People are taking a risk on you, but you're also taking a risk and want to invest in those people that are working for you. So yeah, it is.
Ethan Foulkes: My wife's been amazing at calling me out on my crap, right? Because now I've learned not to make promises that I can't keep, right? It's like, oh yes, I'm doing this for flexibility. And you do have flexibility in certain ways, but then you have less flexibility in other ways.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. Yeah. I call it time and money are just shifted to you like that. You're just a mindset shift of, um, yeah. And how to, how to slate that time in, how to schedule and, and I call it, you know, blocking strategy. But then also it's like, no, no, no. Um, I just listened to a founder this morning, uh, at a, uh, minority business accelerator kind of a presentation of all these founders. And he's like, you know, my, I was coming upstairs to make lunch and he's like, my wife was like yelling at me going, Hey, if you're up here, we're not, you know, money is not happening. So you, I'll make you lunch. Like go back downstairs, keep working because you're billing out at two and 300 or $500 an hour. Let me make lunch for you. So it's like, you know, just time as time and money are, are just perceived differently. Um,
Ethan Foulkes: Well, that's all to do that. That story is cool because, uh, I think that's another, I don't know, myth, but like, it's so important if you have a partner, um, to be on the same page and it's such a different life. And like, like I didn't, I had my concepts, like I'm always, I've always worked with startups from peering in from the outside, but like, but you don't know what it is until you've experienced it. And so like, yeah, I wish I'd done a better job, like knowing what the journey was before, but how could I? And then I could have better communicated and got on the same page earlier.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. Uh, I, like I, I, I feel that, um, I thought I would wonder before I started bright marketing, which is my, was my first company and still is it's, you know, we started that in 2013 when I interviewed all these like other founders of what am I, what do I need to know? And I got some really good advice, but nobody talked about the rawness. And the, the, you know, like the, you're going to go through a hard, they talked to me about like the, the, the stages and phases of like scaling and, and what to look out for, for more of a business. But nobody talked to me about the emotional like, and mental health, and just, like, how to get your mindset shaped. And I just, you know, 10 years ago, it's, it, people don't like to talk about that. And I was like, that's one of the reasons I wanted to start OrangeWIP and Hello Chaos was, how do we get and elevate some of the, those pains and normalize it that it's okay to talk about it, of, you're gonna feel alone. And yes, yeah, we talk about the aloneness, but it's like, no, no, no, no, Because people are like, OK, I know you're you're off doing it on your own. I was like, no, no, no, no. You don't understand how alone.
Ethan Foulkes: There's a lot of parallels for me in my journey with being a dad and having three kids because everyone also tells you like how amazing it is. And it is, it's the most amazing thing. And then they tell you, oh, it's hard and you know, haha. But then it's like, that's glazed over. And it's like, no, no, but it's also incredibly hard at the same time. And I had to learn to be like, it's okay to hold both of those things in your head at the same time.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. and, and how to work through it, how to like evolve and grow and teach ourselves new things. And, and y'all, that's a great parallel. Parenting, because you are, you've, you've birthed a baby with, with a startup or a company. And, and it's all new. And, and it's, and it's, it can be easily broken.
Ethan Foulkes: Yeah. And, and I love that you're shedding light on the entrepreneurial journey with these questions too, because it's the same thing. Like you need to normalize it and make sure it's okay to say it because, because I didn't feel comfortable in the beginning telling my friends like, Hey, I think I might suck at being a parent and this is really hard. And I feel like a zombie. And it's the same thing as the founder of a startup where you're like, Hey, you get out there and you're supposed to rah, rah, rah, and everything's great. And it's like, yep. And it is. And it's what I wanted. And it's also incredibly hard.
Jennifer Sutton: Right, right, right. Yeah, no one told me about how hard it was gonna be, like brain sweat and heartache. So OK, speaking of that, how do you deal with the stress and challenges? Do you have little tricks, methods, routines that you put
Ethan Foulkes: Honestly, the number one thing I've learned is breaks. When you're gaining your skills early on, when you're working in someone's company, I always tell everyone there's a time and a place and a stage of life to put your nose to the grindstone. Right. So early on, it's like, yeah, man, I work 80 hours a week. And then, you know, and then I had a kid in 60, and then another kid in 40. And then you really have to embrace that, that at a certain point in your journey, people are paying you for what you know, right? Like, they're not paying you to press the button, they're, they're paying you to know which button to press. And you have to embrace that that's a big part of your value, that you need to surround yourself with people that are in that other stage or have that passion to, to crank out the work. And you have to put time into your, into your life to be able to step back and get perspective, which, which for me, like one, just doing that in small, like I'm frustrated or I'm stuck, step back, take a walk, go outside. But I've also found like I make Mondays my no meeting day, like no scheduled recurring meetings ever, because it's the most wonderful day of the week to do that if you can. Because over the weekend, you're decompressing and you're processing all these thoughts and ideas and takeaways. And so if you step into that Monday routine where you're team coordination and kickoff and planning meetings, you're right back into the, the, you know, grind and the, and the slug fest of the day to day. And it's like, that's probably the day where you want to sit down and have a two hour conversation or spend half the day whiteboarding or do your writing or something like that. So that's been, that's, that's, I hold Mondays dear.
Jennifer Sutton: That's a, that's a great tip. That's become my Friday.
Ethan Foulkes: Yes.
Jennifer Sutton: I probably should switch it Fridays and Mondays.
Ethan Foulkes: Try switching, try switching, let me know.
Jennifer Sutton: That's great. All right, so I have to ask you, you said that, you know, the online poker, right, that you did that for a decade. And what lessons learned have you, you know, from that journey? How did you translate that into the business, like your own business? I am fascinated with that.
Ethan Foulkes: I have endless lessons. It's like that thing that defines you that you kind of relate everything back to, right? Like if you were a cycler, I know somebody that relates every part of the business to a bicycle, things like that. The number one skill that I learned. So I played online poker for about eight years, which is multi tables, 14 tables at a time, a thousand hands an hour. Dead. That's insane. That was at the heyday. But I think the ultimate lesson was actually at the tail end, like the last three years where I was playing online tournament poker. Because the fascinating dynamic, what happens is you're sat at a table and you're given this stack of chips. And when you sit at that table, you have to sit down with a blank slate and gauge the table. Like, who's here for what reason? What skill level are they at? What are they trying to get out of it? And then a dynamic forms at a table, right? So there's a table captain and there's somebody everybody's targeting. And then sometimes there's friendly banter. Sometimes there's unfriendly banter. Sometimes you're engaging, sometimes you're stepping back. And so that's a dynamic. And you might spend hours in this dynamic and all of a sudden they break the table because tournaments evolve and people break out. And then you land in a new table. And you're in a mode, right? You are the table captain or you're playing this role or this dynamic, and you need to do a clean slate and go release everything that I, the mode that I'm in, everything I've been thinking about, go back to a blank slate, which is actually a hard thing to do.
Jennifer Sutton: That is otherwise so difficult. Oh my goodness.
Ethan Foulkes: Yeah. So, so otherwise you'll be in the wrong mode. Like you'll, you'll be trying to still be the table captain when there is a table captain. Or you're used to being the big stack and somebody else is the big stack. Um, and so, yeah, just learning to, to do that reset emotionally. Right. Like, uh, emotionally and mentally is just that. That's kind of what I was talking about earlier. Like that's take the break, just step back.
Jennifer Sutton: You got to do the mental reset to go, okay, I got to enter this room in a whole different mindset. Which we should do as, you know, owners, leaders, like as you jump from, you know, meeting to meeting or, you know, purpose to purpose, like, I just need to take a mental, like, you know, I do this when I do research, I have to do like moderating focus groups and stuff. I can't bring any bias into the room. So I'm guessing it's similar to that of like, I've got to do a complete clean and I'm just monitoring it with no subjectivity. Um, yeah.
Ethan Foulkes: Yeah, I'm sure. I know you're crazy busy, right? So you've got these, these back to back meetings some days, and you might be moving from a meeting where, you know, it's a relationship building type meeting. And that's a completely different dynamic from a more stable team, roadmapping meeting, which is completely different from a sales call. And it's like, you know, entrepreneur, we can't, we can't structure those perfectly. It's like, no, that had to happen at two. So it's happening at two.
Jennifer Sutton: All right, where am I walking into? What's happening? Okay, so what has been your greatest, what we call aha moment, like that breakthrough moment or like something that had a significant impact on your business or on yourself?
Ethan Foulkes: Yeah, my biggest aha is very clear to me. It happened when I moved over to the consulting world in the Atlassian space. I was working for a very large, um, uh, boutique consulting company and I was running professional services. So, uh, there were actually four of us running a big team of, you know, 50 to a hundred people with, you know, 50 to a hundred in-flight projects. It's like heavy at scale. Um, and I, it was fascinating to me in the beginning because you're working with huge companies, solving big problems, billing a lot of money. But over time, what I saw was that we're just rebuilding the wheel every time. And we're just, never was it a perfectly circular wheel, right? It was kind of misshapen each time, but it was a wheel. And I got fascinated with productization, which is the idea that if you're an expert at something, like, how do you get your expertise? There's really no way other than you spend, you know, a decade in the trenches and get really good at it.
Jennifer Sutton: The 10,000 hours, right?
Ethan Foulkes: And that I think may have been disproven in some studies. But anyways, you get the point, right? And so, um, So productization is this idea that 80% of what you know, JJ, as an expert in marketing, like actually doesn't have to reside in your head and sort of be mystically revealed. It's like, no, we can put it in a box. And it's not perfect, but it's 80% and it is completely scalable. Everybody can use it. You can bring the cost way down, but you can give it to way more people. You can do it faster. You can make them happier. And my aha was, after I did this for the first time and like proved it out, like, oh, I make way more money delivering this way than that way, all of that, I learned that, more often than not, consultants don't want to productize their knowledge. Because I think it's an identity crisis, like their identity is wrapped up in being that expert. And so, and some people lean into it and go, Oh, wow, you mean instead of helping 5 companies at a time, I could help 20 or 100?
Jennifer Sutton: We've done that. I mean, that's, that's how we had to, like, that was a big mental shift for us, I think, and Chandler's heard this story, our producer sitting here, my point over there. You know, we've had to do that. 3 years ago, we kind of sat down and we're like, you know, we're, we've got a, we've got a macro process. But I, I was having to touch all of it. And I was like, we had to sit down and go, no, no, no, no. We need to, you know, and I love the term. I didn't even think about it in that way that I productized. I just really kind of streamlined and made it much more consumable and scalable that I don't have to be involved. that we've got the processes and the systems in place that if you ask these questions, if you follow these disciplined methods and discipline your thinking, we can train that. You follow the process, now we can help 100 companies, right? Kind of do the same thing. So I never thought about that productization. That's fascinating. And it's a lot of work.
Ethan Foulkes: Yeah, it's a lot of work doing the meta model and delivering it out of your head is actually very easy. But all those boxes and all the little pieces down below is actually incredibly hard to do. But the payoff is huge. And so by the way, the I kind of learned that on my own going through that journey. And then afterwards, I found Alex Hormozy and hundred million dollar offers is like the that's the Bible on this topic. And I was like, why did I read that? I've been telling you? Yeah, it's amazing.
Jennifer Sutton: Oh, that's great. Say it again.
Ethan Foulkes: The Alex hundred million dollar offers by Alex Hormozy.
Jennifer Sutton: OK, we're going to hashtag that one. Yeah. All right. So, OK, the poker thing's pretty cool. But is there any other like any surprising fact or something interesting we'd you know, listeners would love to learn about you? That's not on your resume. It's not, you know, anything. else you'd like to share. I don't think anybody's going to top that.
Ethan Foulkes: That's right. That's right. I hide it on LinkedIn. Um, although I love talking about it now, but I just put it as remi.net. I actually built, um, uh, I was playing poker professionally and doing really well. I also built the first, uh, um, fish finding database for online poker. Um, so I just, that's what I say. There was a 10 year period in my, uh, in my career where I was running Remy.net, but mostly 80% of it was playing poker and 20% of it was building this first application that allowed us to find like the most profitable tables. So you're, you're playing the 14 best tables, not 14 random tables.
Jennifer Sutton: Whoa. All right. So obviously you went into the tournament and you were winning. I mean, is, is, is there, is it lucrative? Is this a, uh, We're making a lot of good money.
Ethan Foulkes: I mean, yes, yes, I was. My timing was perfect. I wouldn't recommend I wouldn't tell anybody to do it now. I didn't strike out to do that. I was playing in college before it was popular. I'd read all the books. I deconstructed it.
Jennifer Sutton: I was playing these low stakes like rain man going in there with like. Let's not don't ask my wife cards. Yeah.
Ethan Foulkes: Don't ask my wife. Yeah, I've got Yes, there's there's a bit it's part math and it's part like psychology and interacting with people.
Jennifer Sutton: But yeah, people skills. Yeah.
Ethan Foulkes: So it's, uh, yeah, anyway, so it was, it was one of those things where all of a sudden, if you remember, it came out on the travel channel and then, and then instead of like these small games where you're buying in for $5, you can buy in for 200 and then a thousand and then five. And I was like, Oh, I can, I wonder if this would work in the bigger stakes. And I just started playing and I was like, Oh, yep. Um, I've done more studying on this. And it was just, it was one of those, like, this would be silly to stay in it. Cause I'm making way more doing this. So yeah.
Jennifer Sutton: You need to write a book.
Ethan Foulkes: Maybe. It's harder now though. It's harder. My timing was perfect.
Jennifer Sutton: You're like my time as a online poker specialist. Um, all right. So what was your, what's been your biggest, like, Oh shit. Like you hit a wall, the biggest challenge. What was that? And how did you, how did you overcome or maybe you're in it? Dr. Patterson was like, John, I'm, I'm, I'm in it. I'm in the shit moment right now.
Ethan Foulkes: On the other side, the oh shit moment was the last company I was at before starting Magic Button Labs, which was that startup that had raised some money. And the oh shit was, so at the time, my expertise was operations and product management, software development. So I came on board to own those two pieces. And I did that. I put in all my productized tools. I hired an amazing team, built them up. We built the product, um, uh, put all the operation stuff in place. Uh, and then I found out that, um, the sales pipeline they had told me was there before I started, uh, wasn't actually there and they didn't know how to sell it. And, uh, and so I rolled up my sleeves, JJ, just to figure out marketing and sales in six months, just to learn how to do those things. There should be no problem.
Jennifer Sutton: And that was a complex. Yeah. Yeah.
Ethan Foulkes: Can't do it.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah.
Ethan Foulkes: So that was the, that was the oh shit. And, and that was the inspiration for me finally saying what I talked about earlier, like, no, I'm going to do my own thing. so that I'm in control of it so I can control the pace of it so I can avoid these mistakes that I've seen done and you know, I'll do it my way for better or worse right now saying I know and I'm perfect, but I just I didn't like that. I wasn't able to to do the things I wanted to do to try and save the company. There were just other factors at play.
Jennifer Sutton: Well, you didn't control all the cards. Now you control all the cards.
Ethan Foulkes: Yeah, control the cards for better or worse.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. Do you like that? Do you like that poker? Yes, I love it. I try. Well, if you had to hit rewind, would you do anything differently?
Ethan Foulkes: Nope. No, uh, because, because each time that I would set out to do my entrepreneurial thing, like I've been, I've been starting businesses since I was a kid. Right. Um, but each time I'd get sucked into, uh, in my professional career, I'd get sucked into somebody else's journey. Um, and that's what I was saying in, in, at the time I would sometimes get frustrated with why do I keep doing this? But looking back, I realized like, there was no other way that I was going to learn all the things that I've learned and have all the experiences that I've had, which now like looking backwards, I'm like, oh, that that's why I was there in that messy thing. Or that's why I jumped into that thing I was clueless on, because it taught me this thing that I'm now manifesting in this way. I don't think there's any other way.
Jennifer Sutton: Lessons learned moving forward. So that's that's the game, right? All right. So if you could pick two things about your business that you would change right now, what would they be and why?
Ethan Foulkes: What would they be and why? One, we're recently now ready to to take on some investment money, which I would say I wasn't ready to earlier. Now we're ready. And so if I could snap my fingers and do that yesterday, I would do that. But all I can do is start having the conversations, which I am doing now, which is cool. What would be the second thing? The second thing that I would change or do differently, I think when I started Magic Button Labs, we have a really big vision to productize all the functional areas of expertise that a company needs. So marketing, sales, operations, accounting, IT, all of those things. In the beginning, I was like, great, let's just start all of them all at once. And I pulled a lot of people around us because I'm good at that. know, and basically spread all of us too thin, and then had to pull back and focus on three things. And then finally, on one thing, and I wish I had just known not to do that earlier. But again, like, I don't look backwards and question decisions. It's like you do the best that you can at the time with what you think the dynamic is, and what the game is, and go forward.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. So I mean, you, you've worked with a lot of startups, founders, entrepreneurs, and you've also worked with these big consulting, uh, and I'm sure you've surrounded yourself with some really smart people. Is there a piece of advice that you've received either from another founder or another business leader that you really took to heart that you'd like to share with, with others?
Ethan Foulkes: Uh, yeah, the conversation comes right to mind. Um, There's a good, good friend of mine, Matt, who I've never worked with, although we've, we've tried to more than once, and we couldn't make it happen. But he's definitely one of my mentors. I've had a lot of long conversations with him. And I remember at one time telling him, like, I'm just, I'm ready for the next thing. And I'm ready to be the CEO of a company. And it can't be this one that I'm in, so I must go somewhere else. And he just goes, Ethan, why do you want to be a CEO? And I was like, because it's the next thing and the biggest thing. And he was like, do you have a better reason than that? And I was like, no. And he said, well, look, you're going to hate to hear this, but he goes, I think you're actually meant to be a CEO. You're meant to be somebody's right hand and you're meant to be the wind beneath their wings and support them on their journey. And I was like, screw you, Matt. You don't know me. Not really. But, you know, and then I said, yes, he said also. And this really hit me. He goes, also, you don't want to be tied to one thing. He's like, you're all over the place with energy around everything. And like being the CEO of one company forces you to to put everything into that one thing. And so I sat on that for a long time. And that's why I went to somebody else's startup. And ultimately, although I am the CEO of Magic Button Labs, that's a universe I've crafted to allow me to actually be the wind beneath the wings of multiple founders of the companies that we incubate and to help multiple other founders.
Jennifer Sutton: Ah, so you took, you took that gift and figured out a way to how to make it work for you. Yeah. But it's, you know, it's funny, you talk about mentor. We talk a lot about mentorship and, and, you know, having coaches. And the fact that you know that was the right coach or mentor for you that they were that blunt and that direct because there's a difference between having a cheerleader where you need cheerleaders in your life but you also need coaches and coaches have to be sometimes have to give you news you're not ready you might not want to hear uh but it but it makes you better yeah so speaking of cheerleaders who's the biggest cheerleader in your life um i mean
Ethan Foulkes: Definitely my wife. She, she is a true cheerleader in that, like, she'll listen to the details and often has good feedback for me. But ultimately, she's just like, you are who you are, do your thing. We've got your back. And like, I couldn't do that. I couldn't do any of this without her.
Jennifer Sutton: So, right. Oh, shout out to Ethan's wife. Okay, so if you had a piece of advice that you would give another founder, what is your piece of advice?
Ethan Foulkes: Yeah, sure. This is at the heart of Magic Button Labs. And, and like, this is the core thing, which is that my belief is out, out in the world, All of the inputs that we get on what success looks like, all the models for success, they come to us through successful companies. Meaning like, what is the right way to do marketing? What's the right way to do sales? What's the right way to raise money or do operations? You're only going to look at companies that are way far down the journey in doing things right. And the problem with that is that when you're a founder or you're an entrepreneur, you're not there yet. That comes later. You're trying to get to product market fit. You're not yet there. And so there is I see endless misapplication of what is good advice for when you're at and beyond product market fit. misapplied to people that are much earlier on their journey. And that's at the heart of Magic Button Labs. We've got a framework that helps people understand and not misapply that later stage advice earlier on.
Jennifer Sutton: Right. That's, that's just an aha for founders. I don't think founders or startup or even small business owners who are really trying to scale, um, having, I call it like precision targeted, uh, processes or decisions that they're making or precision resources applied.
Ethan Foulkes: Uh, so yeah, I'll tell you the most, the most common ones are, we call our framework, the one for 14 framework, which just helps people realize you're going to get one customer, then another three, then you're going to nail down your hypothesis on your, your ICP, your ideal client profile, your go-to-market strategy and your pricing. And you'll probably get it wrong, but you're going to test it on 10 customers and circle back. And the most common misapplication I see for this is like people start a business. And what do we all do? We sit down. and we make business cards and we start a website and we worry about the name and the logo and we make a, uh, you know, a PowerPoint deck and prototype and all this stuff. And I'm like, you don't need to do any of that to go get that first customer. You just need to pick up the phone and start calling people, you know, and you say, here's what I'm doing and why, and can I help you? Or do you know somebody and go get one customer? Like you can do all that stuff in the next phase or even the one after we just, we go too early to those, those things that look like the right way to do them.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah. No, that's great advice. And usually we kind of say that we like seeing, especially in the founder, you know, very early startup of get out there and kind of already get your elevator speech of who you are. So when we do like a brand package branding, they can answer our questions with with more authority and also it's proven like you already got your checks like you've already gotten all the questions because otherwise when we sit down with like I will pepper them with questions and they're like well I don't know I'm sure I can change that or I was like well you might need to even see if this is a like have you even researched the competitors like go and do some homework before you spend money on All the other things that meet, you know, makes a brand. Um, so I love that. That's, that's great advice. Um, all right. So if we met a year from now and we sat down for drinks or whatever, coffee or cocktails, what would we be celebrating?
Ethan Foulkes: We would be celebrating. the fact that Magic Button Labs has truly become a Greenville, South Carolina venture studio and has put together funding. And we are actively helping entrepreneurs through that journey to get to product market fit.
Jennifer Sutton: Well, let's do it. We're manifesting it right here, right here. That's fantastic. I love it. OK, so what keeps you up at night?
Ethan Foulkes: Um, I hate that I'm going to give you this answer, but I don't have problems sleeping anymore. Um, and that is the beauty of doing my own thing finally, because I've never lost. I've never lost sleep over. how to do things, I've always lost sleep over the dynamics that are outside of my control. Like the internal politics at the big company that you just know are wrong, but you can't do anything about it. And, you know, as soon as, I mean, occasionally once in a while, it's something stressful, but by and large, I just, I sleep so much better being like, this is the world that I wanted to craft. And like, there's lots of stuff that stinks about it and lots of stuff I wish was better and different, but I'm like, But I chose this and this is what I wanted. And so let's go to sleep and wake up in the morning.
Jennifer Sutton: You know, you're doing the right thing. You're in your space. That's fantastic. Yep. All right. So here's my question for you. If you had to sum up your entrepreneurial journey in just one word, what would that word be and why?
Ethan Foulkes: Yes, I was ready because I listened to other episodes. And so, yeah, it's fulfilling. Like that's I feel fulfilled at the end of the day, no matter what it turns into, if it turns 10 X or 100 X or 10,000 X, like I'm I'm happy and I'm doing what I wanted to do.
Jennifer Sutton: You're a well fed founder.
Ethan Foulkes: There we go.
Jennifer Sutton: There we go. What's your word, JJ? Mine was serendipitous.
Ethan Foulkes: That's right.
Jennifer Sutton: I remember. Yeah. Um, or accidental, but yeah, serendipitous. Like I'd never thought I would ever start a company, run it. Like I always thought I would be the, the wind beneath somebody else's wings and, and grow an agency or whatever and help and just be a really strong leader. Um, and, and what build somebody else's brand and, Just add. had an opportunity to step up, step away from the agency I worked for. I was frustrated, similar, like I can't, I, I have no decision maker. Like this is not how I would approach thing. The organization structure is not serving the business community. Um, and I, cause I had to, I was responsible for all the customer satisfaction surveys. And I was at the stage where I had to meet with all of our clients and they were just going, you're, You know, we're not being served. Well in a traditional framework And I wanted to change how we structure we were structured how the teams operated together our systems to like Product tie, you know systematized things and they were like now we're good like and so I had I had clients that That had left the agency had gone elsewhere and they were calling me just like and just flukishly in the same week while I was getting this feedback from our elite, the leadership of, and it was, I mean, so like, it was just very serendipitous of, I'm sitting there going, is this really a place for me? I don't see, I'm working 90 hours a week. Now I have four children. Um, and at the time, you know, when all this happened, it was, my kids were, uh, you know, ages like two through 11. two through 12 around that. But I was working 90 hours a week. I was traveling two weeks every month. So I was gone. I was missing birthdays, anniversary. I was missing all this stuff. And I was frustrated at work because all the burden for a lot of stuff was on me. And I'm like, but it didn't have to be. If we would have just reshaped our structure, it would have, it would have, we would have been a stronger agency and kept, you know, retain clients or whatever. So after all these like conversations with our, our leadership, and it was like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. And I was like, well, okay, well, then I need a raise. Like there is like, this is crazy amount of, of just pressure and weight. And they're like, nope, we're, you know, that's not going to happen. I literally left the office and it was, I had a text from, like I said, an ex-client. Who said, hey, you got a minute? Would you ever consider going out on your own? I mean, it was like, and I was like, I had never, because you know, when you're when you're happy, you think, okay, I'm fulfilled. I'm in this. I love the agency. I loved it. I loved our clients. I loved what we did. I was very fulfilled. But that was frustrated, right? Because I also saw like, I could project a year ahead and go, we are going to lose 80% of our clients if we don't change. Um, and, uh, and so, yeah, it was just like, all of a sudden that day, it was like, I caught the, the windows and doors in your, in your mental house, they start opening. And when that happens, other people can enter. And it was literally, I got that text and I'm like, Oh my gosh, this is weird. How crazy is this? How serendipitous is this? And I said, no, I'd never thought about that until today. And they were like, let's talk tomorrow. I might have an opportunity. And within like the next 24 hours, another, you know, an ex-employee, an ex-peer who had left the agency was now, you know, director of marketing somewhere. I got a text from her. She was like, hey, you ever consider going on your own? And so that's I had gotten within that week, I was like, you know what, I don't know how this works. I'll be I guess I'll do a contract, you know, do be a freelancer. And within that week, they had sent me proposals of of what that would look like. And it ended up being like I said, I was working like 90 hours a week. And the proposals were no more than it was like 1015 hours a week, but it was 70% of my salary. just with those two contracts.
Ethan Foulkes: So they built your business for you. They basically gave you your business model.
Jennifer Sutton: That's right. And so it just, it was, you know, my husband's like, next week you are putting in your, your notice. This is, we'll figure it out. And you get time, like either you just, you work these, you get time back that you have missed. You can go interview if you want to go work for another agency that maybe it's a better fit or and But it was funny out of the like the options not to start an agency was not even one of those options So that wasn't even like in my mindset. So I took the two like contracts and stuff but then when I announced that I left the company that was more public and My phone rang off the hook, not just with clients, but it was all the peers I had worked with, creative directors, research designers, media people, account people, brand strategists, account planners that I'd worked with in 25 years. who were like, you're on your own. OK, I need you to come on board. You need to build a media plan for this. And then I started shaping. I was like, you know what, I can I can create an agency that serves the business community in a much better way and feeds these independents way more, you know, just just way better and for everybody and really build kind of the community that way, a creative marketing community. but doing things in the right way. And, and yeah, and but then like by the end of that year of 2013, that's when I started, but it was not even in, like, wasn't even then an option. I mean, it never even crossed my thought.
Ethan Foulkes: So yeah, serendipitous. Awesome story for serendipity. Have you ever read the book Who Not How? Have you? Have you ever read the book who not how Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy? Oh, it's like that. The only thing I keep thinking is you're telling that story like I boil it down. It's one of our Magic Button Labs DNA library books. And basically, you have a different way of getting there. His his thing that I honed in on was procrastination. So he makes the point that if you're procrastinating on a task, it's because It's something you're not meant to be the one doing. And you're procrastinating because you don't know how or you don't want to. And all you need to do is go look for a who, because there's somebody out there that wants to do that. And then he says, the moment you find a who, They will be a who for you, and you'll be a who for them. That's it has to be a two-way street. And he says, and the moment you find that person, you'll find that your vision of what you can do gets larger. Because now there's more resources. And it's like, so you, you kind of stumbled into it, just like serendipitously. of people being like, and I'm a who for you, and we're who's for you.
Jennifer Sutton: And we all became who's, that's right. It was fantastic. And yeah, we've grown ever since, but it was never, like I said, it wasn't planned, but I've loved the journey, even through the ups and downs and the hardships. I mean, we've had some dark days and stuff, but it's like, I've learned from those, how do I move forward? and it also helps us like it's given me a different lens when I'm sure it does for you too like when you've you know working in big corporate but then also starting out and and and being a part of that startup you have a much different perspective when you work with other founders or I'll call you know aggressively scale up businesses of like I can go in and like dude I can totally relate to you from a psychological perspective like I get it. It is now real for me and it wasn't that way when I worked for somebody else.
Ethan Foulkes: That's cool. I'm glad we got to connect and learn your story and I'm glad we're in the same backyard.
Jennifer Sutton: I know, we need to do an in-person, in-person meeting. But like, I know we're at a time, I'm always amazed at how fast these things go. I mean, I've enjoyed the conversation. Your tips and advice have been, you know, invaluable. I was like Chandler's over here going, yes, yes, he's taking notes. But thanks for hanging out and chatting. But where, before we go, where can people connect with you, learn more about you and Magic Labs? How do you want people to connect?
Ethan Foulkes: Yeah, well, unfortunately, today, the best place to find me is on LinkedIn, Ethan folks, I'm sure we can drop it in the in the show notes.
Jennifer Sutton: We're doing a
Ethan Foulkes: big rebrand over the next probably 30 to 60 days, where we'll make it clear with our web presence, the difference between Magic Button Labs, the Venture Studio, and then ScaleKits, the simplified approach to business operations, which is one of the companies that I'm most focused on right now.
Jennifer Sutton: Yeah, fantastic. Awesome. I can't wait. We will definitely tag and push that out. Thank you, Ethan. I appreciate your time today. For everyone listening or watching us live, thank you for joining us. And just remember this podcast episode will be published on Sunday and available on your favorite podcast platforms. So subscribe to Hello Chaos, like, comment, and share, and help us build a more connected entrepreneurial community. And check out Ethan's information, especially if you're a startup or a founder, he's got some good info. So go check out Magic Button Labs. Hello Chaos is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That's OrangeWIP, W-I-P for work in progress. OrangeWIP is a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs in affiliate cities. We are in three markets today in South Carolina, the upstate Greenville area, Midlands, the Columbia area, and the low country, the Charleston area. We'll be coming to and spanning to other cities near you. Just your email to join our community. We are a one-stop content hub just for founders and an innovative digital zine experience. So come check us out. If you'd like to be a guest on our podcast or support us, send an email to hello at orange whip.com. Y'all thank you for tuning in to Hello Chaos. It is where aha meets oh shit. And I'm your host, Jennifer Sutton, JJ, and I'll see you next week.