David Novak 0:04 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Michael Walrath, Chairman and CEO of Yext, I gotta tell you, Michael is one of the most remarkable entrepreneurs I know, get this in three years, he built a $35 million company called write media, and then sold it to Yahoo, for almost $800 million. No doubt about it. Those are some impressive numbers. But when you dig a little deeper, what makes Michael truly impressive is how he's found lessons and growth and opportunities all along the way. He's always looking for what's missing, and how he can build it. If you can see what problems haven't been solved yet, when you look at your industry, or your customers, or even your team, and then build something to solve it. Let me tell you, you're going to find some success. It's a vital skill for entrepreneurs and every other kinds of leader. And when you listen to Michael, you can see how he's done it. So here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, Michael Walrath.

Mike, it's really great to have you on the show.

Mike Walrath 1:30 

It's great to be here, David, I feel like we should just end it now. Because I can't live up to that introduction. You know, you've had

David Novak 1:37 

such a remarkable career, and it's full of highlights and some amazing experiences. And I want to walk you through your career journey, and give some of the insights that you had along the way. But I gotta start by saying Here you are a CEO of a public company. But I learned you actually tended bar after college. Yeah. What do you learn from that experience,

Mike Walrath 2:00 

that I didn't want to 10 bar for the rest of my life? You know, that's a true story. I went to the University of Richmond, I graduated with the university's finest bachelors of English degree, which made me entirely unemployable. So I went to the job I knew I could do which was tending bar. And actually, what I would do is I would tend bar until about three o'clock in the morning, and I'd go home and sleep for three or four hours. And then you know, me, I would sneak out to a golf course and play golf and have a little nap. And then I go back and attend bar again.

David Novak 2:29 

I understand that one of your regulars at the bar was a wealthy commodities trader. Yep. What intrigued you about this guy in that business that eventually led you to the DH blurb, brokerage business.

Mike Walrath 2:40 

So there was this guy and who I won't name, but anybody who grew up in my town probably knows who I'm talking about. And he would come in, and he was a nice guy. He was a big personality, a little rough around the edges. And he always had a fistful, $100 bills, and he was kind of demanding, but like, you always knew you were going to make some money when he came in. And so I was just kind of fascinated by him. And I had grown up in a household that had, you know, my dad was a school social worker, spent 37 years in the inner city school system. And my mom was a homemaker. And just, there was no kind of real business grounding in my, in my world, which was, you know, it was a long line of teachers, which was what I figured I was going to do. And so this guy with this business background, it just kind of fascinated me. And I was, you know, kind of watching him and getting to know him a little bit and reading the paper on ads in 1998. And there was this ad that said, you know, Wall Street job, no experience required. And so I picked up the phone, and I called them and they said, Yeah, come on down for an interview. And that happened to be at that firm th player, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

David Novak 3:50 

I read where you had a little stint at DHS player where you were making 500 cold calls a day for $250 a week. That's right. How did that experience impact the way you look at failure and rejection, and even perseverance, even all these years later, I mean, that had to have a lasting impact on you.

Mike Walrath 4:10 

After that selling anything was easy. Doing that job, you know, you got really good at dialing, push button phone with your right hand cradling it against your neck and with your left side. And you just it was a numbers game. It was you had to make 500 of those phone calls. And, you know, if you kept 20 people on the phone for more than a minute, then you were doing pretty well. And the goal was to have five people, you know, tell you that they might someday buy some stock over the phone. And I did it mindlessly for about, you know, two months there. And after that, no sales job, selling anything was hard.

David Novak 4:46 

And then one day, the company was raided by the FBI and the Securities and Exchange Commission and they shut it down. This sounds like you can't make this stuff up. It sounds like a scene in the movie. Were you there that day?

Mike Walrath 4:59 

I was there that day I was probably two months on the job. I was living at home in Connecticut, I had to drive 30 minutes to a train station, I would take an hour and 20 minute Train To Grand Central. And then I had to take a subway down to Wall Street. So it took me about two hours and 20 minutes each way, I would generally leave the house at 430 in the morning, I'd get home around 10. Because you were required to be in your seat by 7am. There I am, I'm sitting in my seat one morning, it's about 715. And the guy who I worked for comes in and he says, hey, put your stuff in your bag and meet me in the lobby. And I said, Oh, it's like a field trip. He goes no everything in a bag, meet me in the lobby. And so I did what I was told, put my stuff in a bag. And as I'm walking out the elevators, the vans are pulling up outside and the FBI and the SEC or the DOJ, I don't know who they were, they're all running in the building. And it turns out that one of the one of the guys at the firm had been had been doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing.

David Novak 5:57 

How did that experience shape your view of leadership? So Wildwood

Mike Walrath 6:05 

was pretty wild. And the crazy thing was, was, there were about five of us who were part of this little group at the place who worked for this guy, and we gotten these black cars. And we drove uptown due to a different firm that was operated in fairly similar manner, maybe a little bit more legit. And by 830, we're sitting at desks with phones doing the same thing we're doing down there, I literally changed jobs in an hour.

David Novak 6:28 

So I guess it taught you that you have to be adaptable, and move to the next thing, if that was what the case said.

Mike Walrath 6:36 

It really you know, it was you gotta roll with it. I mean, I'm learning this again. Now, every day, there's going to be a surprise, and you, hopefully not quite like that. But

David Novak 6:46 

now, a week before this raid happened, you were planning to take the exam to become a licensed broker. And then I understand you actually went from there into the fitness industry, I mean,

Mike Walrath 7:00 

yeah, so this was pretty formative for me. So it was actually after that. So after the raid, we went to this other firm called sans brothers, which was definitely a better place than the original place. I continued to study for the brokers exam there and was actually, you know, doing the job and making the numbers and doing all the things. And what's funny about that job is you're doing it 12 hours a day, and you just don't even have time to think about what you're doing. And you're so tired, and you're so exhausted. And so I finally I'm about to go take the test and kind of the bosses call me into a conference room one day, and they give me this big pep talk about taking the test and about how I'm going to be so successful and about how you know, I'm going to be just like them, and they give me this whole speech. And so I leave and I go home, and I'm actually feeling pretty good about myself because you work really hard and you want to progress. And the craziest thing happened. So I went to bed, I was always just kind of fell into bed. And I woke up at about two o'clock in the morning, and I'm having, you know, what I now know, was a panic attack. But I never, you know, I didn't know what was happening. I was sort of seeing strobes and my heart rate was up, and I was sweating. And I did at that moment, the only thing that I knew what to do, which is I called my wife, who was finishing her senior year at the University of Richmond, where we had met and she happened to pick up the phone at two o'clock in the morning. And I told her this whole story. And I said, I don't know what's wrong with me. And she said, I think it's obvious what's wrong with you. And by the way, this is a trait of hers is to be annoyingly right about everything. And she says, I think it's fairly obvious what's wrong with you, you you don't want to be like those guys. And you know, you've been working so hard and, and it was like a light bulb went off and like my heart calmed down and the sweat went away. And I was like, she's she's right. Like, I had no desire to achieve the thing that I'd been working so hard to achieve. And so I woke up the next day, and I went in and I and I quit the job. And they looked at me like I was crazy. They said, You've been torturing yourself here for months and you're there, you're done, it's gonna get better now you're gonna, you're gonna get to, like, go out with us and you know, go to the clubs and just couldn't do it.

David Novak 9:00 

What was your boss, like, their

Mike Walrath 9:03 

mind was not quite the character that a lot of the guys were he was actually fairly low key by these standards. And, you know, I mean, there were a lot of crazy bosses in this in these places. Everybody's aggressive in that environment. But he was on the less aggressive side. So you know, I don't think I would have lasted as long as I did with one of these screamers as a as a boss.

David Novak 9:24 

Well, then you went to be a trainer.

Mike Walrath 9:26 

Well, yeah. First I went back to the bar. Oh, okay. You had to get you got it. You had to have a drink. I needed some money. I was making $250 a week. You know, at the time, I could make $250 a night and a good night at the bar. So the first thing I did was I went back to the bar and I made a little bit of money. The second thing I did was I actually did a six month stint with an event marketing company where I spent six months on the road doing event marketing for Reebok. We just traveled from event to event and did shoot demos and stuff like that, which was a really fun job. And then I came home and I said, I don't know what I'm going to do. But I'd gotten really into the kind of fitness while I was on the road. And so I decided I would become a personal trainer. And that was the next step in my, obviously, rocket ship trajectory.

David Novak 10:14 

And then you change your career path again, and you start selling online advertising a double click ads, you get into that business, I had

Mike Walrath 10:21 

become pretty good friends with the guy who sold memberships at New York Sports Club, which is where I was doing personal training. And ultimately, I got promoted to manage the personal trainers, which is really kind of a sales job. And so the guy who sold memberships, he heard about this company called double click that was, you know, changing the way advertising work did, he got all excited about it, he went and interviewed and he came back and he said, I got the job, you really should go interview. And so I took his advice. And I went in, and I interviewed and at that time, this was, I guess, like late 1999, the Internet was on fire, everything was a bump up in double click was hiring about 25 Young salespeople a week, putting them through a whole sales training program, and kind of inside outside sales. And so pretty much if you had some sales experience, they would hire you and and so I told them about my 500 dials a day, and they said we could do something with you. And they offered me a job.

David Novak 11:16 

No, no, you climb the ladder there. Really quickly, though? Well,

Mike Walrath 11:21 

I'd say that the ladder climb, you know, kind of came down on me in some ways I joined there in late 1999, the scene was, it was late 99, the stock was trading it probably, you know, oh, I can tell you for sure. My, my stock options, were priced around $200 a share. And I think they gave me 2000 of them the day that I joined, you know, and I figured I'd be a millionaire. Because because the stock seemed to go up about 10% every day. And by March of 2000, the stock was down to about nine bucks. It was I don't know where it was, it was on its way to about nine bucks. And I realized I wasn't gonna be a millionaire. But I was having some success selling. And what happened was the company went through just a series of seven or eight layoffs. And every time there was a layoff, there was kind of something lying around that somebody didn't want to do. And I would just say, I'll take that, you know, I'll take that client, or I'll take that project, or I'll take that on. And for me, it was that was business school. That's where I kind of figured out how to maneuver and I learned like, you know, it was embarrassing how little I knew about kind of my vocabulary, and I didn't know what a p&l was, and certainly didn't know anything about, you know, accruals and other accounting terms and things like that. So I had some good mentors there. And I and I got a chance to learn a lot of things because the organization was in turmoil,

David Novak 12:37 

tell us a story of how you mustered up the courage to leave double click and go out on your own and start right media, what made you pull the trigger and jump out of the comfort zone? If it was a comfort zone? No, it was

Mike Walrath 12:49 

comfortable. I mean, you know, for the first time in my life, so one of the things about that time period was I had developed this kind of niche there where I was selling to direct marketers, and I was selling digital advertising and direct marketers. And during a time where the you know, we were in a major recession. And it was, you know, this is where direct marketers thrive, right. So they can buy a lot of stuff cheap. And they were, I had a great book of business there. And I was making a great living at age, you know, 2425, or whatever it was, I just had my first I actually just had my second child. And things were great. And I didn't really want to leave, I actually had pitched this idea. So the genesis of this was, I had figured out how to game the algorithm that was delivering the ads. So I would sell something for $5. And I had figured out how to make that basically deliver ahead of something that was priced much higher, which was really bad for the company. But it was just a matter of kind of, you know, figuring out how the how the ad system thought and what it delivered. And so my first step was I went to the, you know, I got a meeting with the president of the company, and I said, Look, if I can do this, anybody can do this. Like, we got to fix this. And I think if we do this, right, we could build this kind of exchange like functionality, where we always make sure that the highest paying ad gets delivered into each spot. And rightfully, I mean, I'm just some, like 24 year old sales guy, and they kind of looked at me sideways and said, What do you go back and sell a man. And so I did that for a little while and it just kept gnawing at me. And I finally just said, I gotta go. So I left and I decided that I was going to find a way to make enough money to build a build a company that solved the problem that I was exploiting as a as a salesperson.

David Novak 14:35 

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You become Ernst and Young's Entrepreneur of the Year in 2007, after building the company to $35 million in revenue in just three years, and then you sell it for almost $800 million. I mean,

Mike Walrath 15:40 

that's not bad. No, it was bad.

David Novak 15:43 

What was the key to the to your growth that others could learn from as they apply that to their businesses?

Mike Walrath 15:50 

Well, I mean, humbly, I think the key was, was, you know, sort of be in the right time at the right place with your idea. You know, we had a lot of tail winds coming out of the sort of, it felt like 2002, the holocaust of the meltdown was never going to end that sort of a nuclear winter was going to be around forever. And by 2003, you know, we're like, booming again. And so that that was part of it. I think the other part of it was the biggest thing I learned was like, all I did was sort of question everything that, you know, I saw, and then tried to figure out how to build something better. I love this Paul Graham story. So Paul, the Y Combinator, Paul Graham, he said something that, to me, always resonated, which was founders. They live in the future, and they build what's missing? Right? And I think the only way you do that is by analyzing all the time what's missing, what's not right here? What could be better? What can work better? What this story taught me was, everything starts with understanding that

David Novak 16:47 

Yeah, makes a lot of sense. You know, that's how you disrupt categories, you solve the biggest problems that occur most frequently. And, and you did that with right media, which is amazing. You know, it's always tough to sell your baby. I mean, you created this, and, sure, you're selling it for a ton of money, almost a billion dollars, but take us through your key personnel decision, because I'm sure, it looks easy now, but probably wasn't back then.

Mike Walrath 17:11 

It was not easy. We had a great team of people, what made it a little easier was that we knew the Yahoo folks really well, they were investors in our business, Jerry, who I know is a good friend of yours was, you know, I'd say had become a friend, we didn't know each other real well, but he had supported them investing in our business. And we had a commercial partnership that, you know, that was important for us. And, and so, you know, it's a lot easier, I think, when you know, the people who you're you're getting involved with, but it didn't make it easy. I mean, it was really, I think, at the end of the day, what was going on in that like three week period of time, double click sold to Google. And we were competing with double click, and then a quantum of sold to Microsoft. And we were sort of the last significant asset in the ad delivery and management space that hadn't been acquired in like a two week period. And so, you know, it was clear that we were going to get a, a significant premium for the business. And, you know, in the end, it was a kind of a gut call. And I think if we had stayed independent, we would have wound up building a much bigger business, because what we built became an industry, I think, you know, inside Yahoo, we struggled to continue to innovate. And, and that wasn't the easiest thing. But there's a lot of good that came out of you know, that that whole experience. And, you know, I think, you know, I'm a big believer that one thing leads to the next thing, and I probably learned a lot of things that I never would have learned if I had held on to it.

David Novak 18:34 

You know, it's really interesting, because here you are, you're an entrepreneur, you know, you've you've really started this thing from scratch. So this entrepreneurial spirit has to be in your DNA. And then you move into a corporate environment, like Yahoo, I think you're the Senior Vice President, you basically are running your your business. What did you learn from that experience?

Mike Walrath 18:56 

Sometimes you don't know when you're going to use the things you learn, right? And so, in the moment, if you didn't or viewed me in the moment, or shortly afterwards, what I would have said was, like, I had no idea how hard it was going to be to make the shift from you know, kind of running a startup where like, I got to control everything, I got to have my hands and everything. I mean, you know, every wire in that company kind of ran through my head, right. And I actually thought that was a that was a really good thing at the time. And so then you go inside, you go into Yahoo, and, you know, I sort of got myself grounded there. And I wound up with this huge organization. I was running the basically operating all the ad marketplaces there. It was a almost 5000 people. It was a global organization. I was spending most weeks on an airplane. If you'd interviewed me during that time, or right after I would have told you I hated it, you know that like it was too much of a transition. And this place operated differently and everything happened too slow and you had to get too many people to buy into things and too much bureaucracy and in hindsight, my view is really different. I learned a completely different mode of opera. ration. And I learned, you know what it takes to do things at scale. And, you know, that's serving me today, like literally today, because if I had never had that experience, I would still be the guy who thinks that you got to do everything yourself. And so, you know, I didn't realize it was gonna take as long as it did before I really got to put that experience to work. But you know,

David Novak 20:21 

well, that's a perfect segue because I want to get into how you're now leading Yext. But before I do, I got to just a couple more questions, you know, tell us a story from your childhood that that impacted the kind of leader you are today.

Mike Walrath 20:34 

My childhood was awesome. I grew up in Brookfield, Connecticut, I had great parents, I have an older brother and two younger sisters, really tight family, you know, we were not a household where the Wall Street Journal or, you know, financial publications were coming to the house every day. And it was a sort of idyllic environment where I grew up, but we didn't think too deeply about a lot of the, you know, entrepreneurial endeavors or anything like that. The first kind of, I think, touchpoint, I had with with an entrepreneur was when I was about 14 years old, my brother had gotten a job at at the local convenience store. They needed someone to come for three hours on Sunday mornings and put together the New York Times, because you would come in all these different sections, and you had to put it all together. I took the job for five bucks an hour, three hours a week, I would go in there and and I'd eat a doughnut and I learned to drink coffee, because it was five o'clock in the morning. And I would put together the New York Times and the guys who own that business turned out they had bought this convenience store. But then what they became were like the karaoke kings of Connecticut, where, you know, karaoke was super, this is 9090. I don't know, maybe it's 99. And their, their sort of karaoke is hot. And you can just see the there are these kind of two young guys who own the convenience store. And they're out there, like, you know, running karaoke shows and stuff. And, you know, there was just something about the like, the hustle that got my attention. And turns out, I worked at that store. Most of my high school career I was, you know, to became a pizza place and a convenience store. And I just kind of stayed and figured out and by the time it was done, I was kind of half managing the place, which really I wasn't qualified to do, but they didn't have anybody else.

David Novak 22:14 

That's what you keep saying, but it seems like you do pretty well and everything you get into,

Mike Walrath 22:19 

it was just another thing to figure out.

David Novak 22:21 

Now tell us about Yext and how you hooked up with this company.

Mike Walrath 22:26 

It's funny, it's segues from the Yahoo story, right? So when I left Yahoo, in late 2010, my tour of duty that I had agreed to when I sold the company was over. And it was it was time for me to move on. And there are a lot of changes going on inside the company. And, and I really didn't have any any plan, you know, I sort of somewhere thought I'd probably start another company, but I wasn't in any hurry to get right back into the grind. And so you know, what I did was I got together with my partner's Jonah, no Goodhart, who had been part of the whole write media story since day one, as investors and board members and advisors and we started investing. And one of the early investments we made was in this company called the x, which was run by a guy who, you know, named Howard Thurman, who was a brilliant entrepreneur and was early in his cycle. And I just, you know, really liked what the company was trying to do, and, and the people who were around it, and so I made the investment. And I got involved in an advisor, and then invested again and invested again, and eventually Howard asked me to be the chairman. And so around 2010, I, I became the chairman of the company. And we proceeded to have a really great run for about 10 years ago, I was a non executive chairman, I was hands off, but I was talking to Howard, you know, a couple times a week or daily sometimes and just really enjoying the ride of kind of a disruptive startup again.

David Novak 23:46 

Yeah, absolutely. And I understand you're aiming to be the next Yellow Pages, except for digital. Yeah, explain what the business is.

Mike Walrath 23:54 

So what the business is today is actually nothing like what the business was when I invested, which is part of the what makes the story so, so interesting. So the original business was a paper call marketing company that had come up with some really neat technology to transcript phone calls. So you could buy leads, if you were a locksmith or a gym, or something like that, you could basically pay for leads based on people driving phone calls to your business, the company will provide a transcript of every call, it was a really neat, you know, piece of technology. And the company had a lot of headway, and then it kind of hit a wall and raised a bunch of venture capital. And it just became clear that the growth in that business wasn't, you know, kind of what was needed. And around the same time, Howard had this idea to build an engine that would help people manage their listings, their local listings, because that that market was becoming very fragmented. And you needed to be able to make sure that your phone number and address and hours of operation were correct. In more than just one place. There was a major kind of moment where the company actually sold the legacy business to it. See, and started over and use the money from the sale as basically refresh its its coffers and started over as a as an enterprise software startup. And the fundamental value proposition of that company was your customers have questions about your business? Such as where are you? What time where you open? What are your specials? Things like that. And you need to make sure they're getting the right answer to the question. And there's been a big evolution of the company since then. But I would still say fundamentally, at the center of everything we do is that principle.

David Novak 25:30 

Now, you mentioned earlier, and I thought it was a great insight about finding out what's missing. And then solving that, when you look at your business today, what's missing out there? Or can you even talk about it? You don't want to give it to your competitors? Yeah, no,

Mike Walrath 25:44 

look, I mean, well, I'm sure there are things missing that we haven't figured out yet. But the company, you know, as, as you know, we've talked about hasn't had the best run the last couple of years. And there's lots of reasons for that. And some of them are R Us. And some of that are the market. And when you sell a big part of our customer bases, retail, and hospitality and pandemics are tough on those industries. So there's a lot there. But I think fundamentally, if you go from 2010, what we built was something that wasn't there, it was a platform that lets you manage your local listings. When we first built it, it was it was an evangelical sale, because no one had a platform that did that. By the time we got the company public in 2017. It was, you know, sort of a foregone, you kind of had to have that as a business because the the market was established. And so we went through sort of a similar exercise around that time, where we said, this is a great market, and we really had a lot of it, but there was a question about the growth prospects. And so we started right back to that same question of like, okay, what's missing, what's not working, that we can make work. And the thing that jumped out at us was, was search. So we all know how well search works on Google. But what was missing was the ability to make search work elsewhere. And so the company launched a new product in late 2018, that enables businesses of any kind to basically embed different search functionality into their website and to different functional areas of their business. And it turns out that I think a lot of people don't know how much that functionality was missing. Because the same problem that comes from not having the answer to the customer question on Yelp, or on Yahoo, or on Google occurs when the user comes to your site. In fact, it's probably worse when a user comes to your site, and they can't get the answer to the question they want.

David Novak 27:34 

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Michael Walrath. In just a moment, you know, Michael's journey as an entrepreneur has been about seeing what's missing in an industry and then building that thing. And it reminds me of another leader with a clear philosophy on how they build products. Patrick Spence is the CEO of Sonos. And in our conversation, he shares a lot of wisdom about the importance of building things to last, whether it's a product, or a whole company,

Patrick Spence 28:02 

it's really been a philosophical thing to try and build amazing products that lasts for a long time. Because it's something we would want as consumers, it's something we think is better for the environment. And so it's just something that's been important to us. And I think when you're hiring for that, when you're thinking in that way, it can't help but influence also the kinds of people that you're attracting to your culture. And so I think that helps in trying to build a company as well, that's enduring. Go back

David Novak 28:28 

and listen to my entire conversation with Patrick, Episode 81, here on how leaders lead.

Hear you are your executive chairman, you're not involved other than maybe a couple phone calls a week just to check in with Howard, the business obviously goes the wrong direction. And now you're the man it bring you in to basically turn it around? What have you learned about that turnaround period? How long does it take you before you, you basically own the results? Because I've been in those situations where I came in, and I'm not proud of myself, necessarily, but I blame my successor and you know, but how long does it take you about where you say, Hey, this is on my dime now, or does that happen immediately?

Mike Walrath 29:18 

Well, it's easy to look back and criticize decisions that were made before. And, you know, part of this is, look, I was here, right? I may not have made the decision, but I was in the boat. I could have said something. You know, it's been an interesting transition six months in, you know, I think we're getting to the point where we really need to own the results, right? I think those first couple of quarters, you're spending a lot of time figuring out what you don't know. And now you know, that's if I don't know something as that's my bad, right. And so, the decisions that I make now we're going to impact the performance of the company going forward. And I think my team thinks the same way about this. And by the way, my team is awesome. We're gonna have to own it, good or bad. It's on us.

David Novak 29:57 

What's the biggest leadership challenge you have in this situation? mission now,

Mike Walrath 30:00 

right now it's just change is hard, even when you know it's the right thing. And even when organizationally, I mean, one thing I'll say about this company in particular is like it is a group of people who want to find the right answer. And more than any company I've ever been part of, there's a spirit here of, you know, if you can show me that there's a problem, I want to help find the solution, even if that means that my role has got to change or the scope of my, my Jobs got to change, or I got to do something else, or I'm wrong about this. There's a real great culture here of that. But even with that, it's just changes hard. And we've had personnel change, and we have we have some strategic changes and some approach changes. And every time you do it, it's hard. And you know, there's no way to make it easy.

David Novak 30:45 

Do you have a process that you use yourself to navigate through these challenges? Or, you know, how do you go about it?

Mike Walrath 30:51 

So my process and it goes to, you know, what, I think what I learned, being an entrepreneur, and being in the center of every decision and realizing that, that that doesn't work that well. And, you know, I think in a lot of ways, and maybe I've I've overcompensated, so I've gone from, I'm going to control everything, to you know, what I think some of my team members refer to as, you know, radical delegation. So a big part of my process is like, I don't believe in tops down at any level. I think communication is important at the top level, but I can't ask my team to do things that they're not bought into. And so one of the ways that I try to manage the change process is just making sure that you know that everybody knows that the discussion is transparent, that we're all being very honest and very transparent about what's not working. And then to the extent that we have to make changes that everybody's, you know, buying in and the way I do that is by delegating a tremendous amount of responsibility, and then making sure that we all feel a sense of accountability for the decisions that we make. And I'm not gonna say it makes it easier. But I think, you know, generally it feels easier to me, when everybody's kind of bought into the choice we're making.

David Novak 32:00 

What are you most excited about? Now, at Yext?

Mike Walrath 32:02 

I think one of the things I'm going to benefit greatly from is the fact that we were too early to the search market. And, you know, we brought a product to market that was aspirational, which is just kind of a, you know, disruptive startup thing to do. But also just people I think a lot of companies weren't ready for this phase of their digital transformation yet to really think about what does my customer journey look like across every everything that I control, my support site, my website, all the different properties I might have. And so I'm excited because I'm now meeting with CEOs of companies. And they're, they're acknowledging, hey, one of the biggest problems we have is getting correct information to people through all these different channels. And that is right in the company's wheelhouse. And, frankly, like, I'll wind up getting credit for executing on something that was Howard's idea and Howard's mission and Howard's vision. And he was, frankly, just ahead of the curve. And he probably, you know, and he and I talked about this all the time, he probably pivoted too aggressively towards it too early. And so it'll look like I did this, this big fixing of the problem. But really the markets ready for it. And that's, that's the thing that's most exciting.

David Novak 33:11 

Great, you know, and, Mike, one thing I know about you, you have such varied interests, and you founded a production company, Atlas films, along with your wife, Michelle, tell us about that, and what you're working on today.

Mike Walrath 33:23 

I guess technically, we found it that it was with one of my great friends from childhood, who had gone to NYU film school and worked in the she worked for Barbara Walters, and Bill O'Reilly and we actually lived next to each other when I first moved to New York City after college. And we used to sit around in her in her living room. And we talked about like, you know, I mean, neither one of us had two dimes to rub together. But we talked about how cool it would be to, like, someday make, you know, documentary films that matter about subjects that matter. And, and so, you know, she was sort of at a at a turning point in her career right around the time that we had done the right media transaction, it just felt like the time to take on some of these projects. And so we got pretty actively involved in a couple documentaries. First one was around bottled water in the plastic industry. And the second one was around and this was the one that I think we were kind of most involved in was around the the food industry and the kind of health epidemic that was being created by sugar and the added sugar in our food supply called fed up that turn that was the kind of most commercially successful of those endeavors. But I gotta say, like, Stephanie really drives this, this thing, and she, she runs it, and she does a great job of it. And you know, we're incredibly proud of the content that comes out of it. Although, you know, I have to say we're less involved and the founder title would would suggest, Yeah, but

David Novak 34:43 

you're making a big difference in the world by dealing with those big subjects, you know, and, and you've also had a little fun and you found it oh hoopy match Club, which is one of the most prestigious and top new golf clubs in the world. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you thought through the meme. and guest experience, because it's amazing, I've had the blessing to be able to go there and just enjoy your place. But it's there's no place quite like it. And you, you have definitely thought through the what I just call the customer experience. Tell us a little bit about how you went about that.

Mike Walrath 35:17 

OB has been one of the great, you know, sort of surprising adventures for me. And it's surprising in the sense that like, it's the kind of thing you wouldn't even dare to dream about when you were you know, when you're a kid who grew up loving playing golf. And when I grew up playing golf on a nine hole municipal golf course, we had mats instead of tee boxes, it was 10 bucks, and you can go around as many times as you want, we lose all our golf balls and go in the woods and find more. And that was how I grew up playing golf. I wasn't a country club kid. And I was probably 25 years old, the first time I ever played on a private golf course. But I hope he came along at a time in my life when you know, I was really passionate about golf had been fortunate to have friends like yourself and others who, you know, who were part of a network of golfers that expanded my universe in ways that I never could have imagined. And a lot of the great experiences that I've had over the last 10 or 15 years had been on these golf trips with friends with you know, sometimes they're for business, sometimes they're just for pleasure. Sometimes it's some combination of the two. And you know, getting to spend that quality time. I mean, I think you and I got to have a four hour conversation on a flight to a golf event at one point. And it's impossible to put value on that the whole thing started with well, what if there was just a place that was like, only about that sort of friends trip. And it was casual, and it was relaxed, but it had a serious kind of golf component to it. And that's what started it was just this idea of like, you know, same, I'll go back to it like what's missing, right, and there wasn't a lot missing for me and in the world of golf. But what was missing was, was this sort of retreat where it was all about that trip and the interaction with people. And everything we've done, there has been to, you know, in service of that

David Novak 37:04 

that's such a simple, yet bold vision, it really isn't people can rally around that kind of thing. And it's great. Have you always had that capability to just kind of wrap things up in a nice bow like that. So people get what you're talking about?

Mike Walrath 37:18 

Well, first of all, you're you're so kind and you and you put these amazing spins on things, which is really, you know, what I just described was just an incredibly selfish act of wanting to create a place to hang out with my buddies, and you turned it into something much of much higher value. So I appreciate you know, the one of the things that for better for worse that that English degree, composition and literature from University of Richmond gave me was the ability to communicate an idea. And I never would have guessed how important that was going to be. To me in business. And in life when I was, you know, basically taking the classes that came came, you know, most naturally to me to avoid, you know, those chemistry and biology classes that I couldn't seem to pass. You and

David Novak 38:01 

me both. I'm a journalism major. Yeah, so we have a lot in common. I think that's why we hit it off. You know, you have so many projects that I could go into that you've been a part of. But you know, it's really interesting, you're involved in a lot, you got to be getting multiple phone calls ringing, which call the pickup first. I mean, how do you focus it? What have you learned about, you know, you got all this stuff on your plate? How can you help others navigate through such a situation like that,

Mike Walrath 38:29 

I'm sure I ignore, or don't pay attention to a great opportunity every day. And it's it's one of the downsides of, you know, having a lot of really interesting things to think about and to, and to work on. One of the things I'm figuring out now and you know, this, this experience unexpectedly coming in to take on a big meaty public company kind of turnaround situation is like, I think for a little while there, I forgot how important focus can be. And I've, I've been refocusing myself of late. And what it means is it's sort of a distilling process and figuring out what things I don't have time for is just as important as how I manage the time I have with the things that I am focused on. And it's not the easiest thing because there's a lot of things I'd really like to be giving more time to right now that that I can't, but I think that's a very high class problem.

David Novak 39:21 

I would agree with that. And, you know, I understand that the amazing chef Thomas Keller has inspired the way you live and lead. Tell us about that.

Mike Walrath 39:32 

I don't keep in touch with Thomas as well as as I wish I did. And he and I got to know each other. I'll forget even what the original connection was, I believe it was through his wife. I've been to his restaurants I'd always admired the way he delivered his experience. And then I got when I got to meet him and spend some time with him. I just I was even more impressed because he's he's as low key as they come he's, he's a really nice human being but his dedication to his craft and his his focus on on quality and the elegance of what he delivers. I just always been so impressed with it. I find him as a human being to be inspiring.

David Novak 40:08 

Yeah, he's a very humble guy who's done a lot, you know, he's not looking for the limelight. And, and neither do you. In fact, I was really happy to get this podcast because I know you don't do it very often. So thank you. Thank you very much.

Mike Walrath 40:19 

I listen, I pay a lot to talk to you for hours. You know,

David Novak 40:24 

this has been so much fun. And I'd like to have a little bit more with some rapid fire questions. It's a It's my lightning round. Okay. What would be three words others would use to describe you.

Mike Walrath 40:34 

Hopefully, they will be words like, like thoughtful and patient and engaged. But you know, if we're not including my college buddies, they might have different

David Novak 40:45 

if you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it be and why?

Mike Walrath 40:49 

I would be Rory McIlroy, because just once I want to feel what it feels like to hit a driver the way he does,

David Novak 40:56 

what's your biggest pet peeve?

Mike Walrath 40:58 

I think my biggest pet peeve is just, you know, lack of attention to detail, lack of focus on the core things like, which is actually even as I say this, it sounds hypocritical, because one of the things about myself is, you know, I sometimes lack this and I think it's one of the reasons that that bothers me is like, if I'm going to do something, I need to try to do it with detail and with focus. And I think it's one of my weaknesses. And I think it's one of the reasons why it bothers me when I when I see it in business. What's your biggest joy builder? It's time with my family. I've got an amazing group of kids and an amazing wife and an incredible extended family. It's huge. Its enormous. It's chaos, but time with them. And you know, of late, it's become even more precious.

David Novak 41:40 

What's something about you? Few people would know? I don't know. I feel like people know a lot about me. Well, I thought you might say that you're a helicopter pilot.

Mike Walrath 41:48 

Oh, geez. All right. Well, now they know everything. I'm not a very good one. And I'm not a licensed helicopter pilot. But there was a period of time where I was doing a lot of helicopter training and have about 350 hours probably in the cockpit, although I don't have a license, which means I always have to have a real pilot with

David Novak 42:06 

what's your golf handicap and your most memorable hole in one?

Mike Walrath 42:10 

Well, okay, here we go. So my golf handicap, the last time you and I played together was probably one and today it's it's almost four. So that shows that I'm working at least as much as I should be. I have never had an official hole in one I've been playing golf for the 37 years. I have one hole in one but it's not official because I was entirely and completely alone. This is actually a great story. I was playing at Meadowbrook one day I went out by myself. on Long Island, I went out by myself. I double bogey the first of all, I double bogey the second hole on the back nine I bogey the third hall and I got to the 13 tall and I hit this the only good shot I hit all day from about 220 yards and I couldn't see it go in and I assumed it went over the hole over the back of the green and I got up there and I'm at the furthest point on the golf course there's no one within 500 yards in the dang thing is in the hole. So I take a picture and I call one of my friends and I'm like you're not going to believe what just happened in the first thing he says because my friends are wonderful people is you know, it's not official, right? And I say that's okay. And so I go back to the clubhouse. And the Pro is the only one there. I mean, it's like this was like a Thursday afternoon in October. I walked into the pro shop and I said Rick mescal was the Pro and I said, Rick, you're not going to believe what happens. And he goes, I bet you had a hole in one. And I said, How did you know he goes, what else would you be in here to tell me about? And so about a week later he he sent me one of those plaques that you get it if you make an official hole in one, he included a note with it. And it said, Dear Mike, here's a plaque. He said if you were going to lie about it, you would have done it long before now.

David Novak 43:48 

If I were to get into your car right now, Mike, what would be coming out of the speakers,

Mike Walrath 43:53 

it would be a very eclectic mix. I have a collaborative playlist with my children, which has been growing over the last two or three years. So it could be Post Malone. It could be Zach. Brian, it could be Zac Brown. It could be Dave Matthews. It could be a lot of things right now.

David Novak 44:09 

Last one. What's your superpower?

Mike Walrath 44:12 

I guess it's patience, maybe some combination of patience and optimism. And it may be a curse that sometimes but I always believe things are gonna get better. And sometimes maybe sometimes I hang on too long and investments or other things like that because of it. But you know, I just am allergic to quitting.

David Novak 44:32 

You don't like I know you're a great family man. What's it like working with your wife, who's an outstanding entrepreneur in her own right great restaurant to a great creative person. And what have you learned from that experience?

Mike Walrath 44:44 

So Michelle is is an incredible entrepreneur. She would argue with me on this maybe but she raised our children while I was off, you know, doing my entrepreneurial thing and as they got old enough and were school age, she decided she wanted to do something and she had a number of projects but the one that really stuck when she started this organic crush, lifestyle cafe. And initially, it was just something she and a friend of hers wanted to do in our town, it really kind of caught legs and she opened a few more, and she has 10 of them. But I have to say, like, the last three years, as a restaurant entrepreneur is going to test every ounce of patience and fiber and commitment that you have in your body. And nothing I've done has ever been as hard as what she's been doing over the last few years between a pandemic and inflation and a labor shortage. And, to her credit, she has not closed a single restaurant one day since the pandemic started. She's increased wages, she's decreased time, she's increased benefits. And she's done this, you know, at a time where, you know, I mean, you know, the restaurant business, and I'm sure you can imagine how hard it is for a small operator of a multistore operator. And I just can't say enough about how tenacious and how unbelievably committed she is to it.

David Novak 46:02 

And let me wrap this up with one last question here, Mike, what's the one most important piece of advice you'd give to aspiring leaders

Mike Walrath 46:10 

understand the complexity of human beings, as entrepreneurs, and as tech entrepreneurs, and as scaled operational leaders, I think one of the things that we have a tendency to do is we want to create systems that make sense on paper and work in real life. And, you know, I think the best leaders I've ever worked with, they understand the difference between a system on paper and how it works when you put human beings and into roles. And I think this applies to coaches, I think this applies to executives and, and leaders in all forms. And it's one of the things that I catch myself doing all the time is I want to perfect the system. But you don't always have the perfect player for every role in the system. And so there's a human complexity element to this that, that I think, you know, has to be considered. And it's one of the biggest challenges that we face. And the more tuned in we get to it, I think the better outcomes that we will produce.

David Novak 47:10 

You know, Michael is never going to toot his own horn. He's got to be one of the most humble guys around. But I'm sure you can hear for yourself just what a tremendous thinker and leader he is, through all the twists and turns in his career. He's always tuned in to what's missing, and how he can build it. I just love the way how he finds insights, obviously, is crucial for entrepreneurs who want to disrupt any industry. But really, it's wisdom for everybody to consider. Great leaders are always considering what's missing from the lives of those they serve, and then they go out and build it. Now this week, I want you to tune into that kind of thinking. Ask yourself, what's missing in your industry or market? What's missing for your customers or your team? And then schedule some time to consider it. And you might just uncover a big opportunity of your own. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders build what's missing? Coming up next on how leaders lead is Bill Farish, founder of Woodford racing and general manager of lanes in, which is one of the world's premier thoroughbred breeding farms.

Bill Farish 48:21 

You know, you just want to leave the industry in a better place then. And you found it and that's that's really the driving force for me. The Breeders Cup was sold out every year, the derby is sold out every year. Royal ASKET is sold out every year. So we're doing some things right. But we can't stop we've got a lot of things to try to make the sport better.

David Novak 48:43 

So be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation and you might get something that'll give you an edge for the Kentucky Derby. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday, you get to listen and while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be