Part 2 of our interview with Chris Barkhurst of Barky AI

Welcome to Building Better Developers, the Developer Nord podcast, where we work on getting better step by step, professionally and personally. Let's get started. Well, hello and welcome back. We are going into another interview. This is part two of our interview with Chris Barkhurst of Barky AI. We're talking artificial intelligence. Yes, we are continuing on this. And honestly, if you were in part one, I think he's got a really good story and really is somebody that can talk about like the application side of AI. It has some really cool applications that he's worked on and that he is currently working with with his company and actually another company that is also his company. I don't want to take too much away from him, though, so let's get right back into our conversation with Chris. Yeah, I think that's what I'm saying. It doesn't have to be strictly business. You can have stuff that also like that. You're making life better for people as well. It's not simply a bottom line kind of thing. It's a, hey, this provides some needs in some situations and in a way that, like you said, like a human, isn't necessarily going to be able to do it the same. Like you said, if you're getting cussed at and yelled at on the other side of the phone, then AI is not going to take it as personally. And so you can have something that instead of second guessing yourself and say, I wish I'd said this, is you've got something smart enough that has that data so it can say, no, this is in a heated situation. This is how you defuse it. Things like that. And I can see, again, this is where you see there's a lot of applications for this kind of an application or solution. Absolutely. And to expand on a bit, when the app first came out, we were approached by several members of the medical community to actually use Barkey as part of their counseling programs for people who needed to be counseled between sessions for anxiety and depression or for some other things. We talked about that and we said, let this be, but ultimately we were like, the, you know, the insurance costs and the cost upon ourselves personally, we just, you know, if something was to happen to the AI and somebody was to do something, it just take an emotional toll on us. So we decided not to do it. But people still use the app to self-counsel themselves. We have all the regulations in place for that. So it's great to see people continue to use that. Yeah, that's cool. It's again, that's the nice thing that you have technology like this is that it gets taken places you didn't even think about it going. And then you realize, oh, wow, there's a great application there. There's something there's a way that people have used this that is something maybe you weren't expecting, but it's still very beneficial. One thing that you, I'm going to switch gears a little bit, and you've been an entrepreneur roughly all your life. One of the first things you did is you sold your first business at 19. And now we sort of see where you've become. I want to get a little bit more into your, I guess, your origin story. And so how did you how did you get into that as at a young age? And was it maybe it's a little chicken and egg thing, but it's like, how did either that sort of form you as you've grown into other roles in other businesses? Or is this something that's always been just part of your character that that has kept you like as we've seen, you've gone back into starting a business again? Well, I mean, if you're a trace by origin story, we'd have to start back in high school when I took an entrepreneur class in high school for back then when we were we were all it was sponsored by the entrepreneurial Y.E.K., Young Entrepreneurs of Kansas. And we all got a little briefcase and a day planner and everything like that. It was it was great. And, you know, we got to listen to some great speakers come in, successful business owners and whatnot. And we all had to come up with a with a great business plan. And my business plan was a report, right, or something like that, where I would basically take and help. I was I would what I call it. I would write support papers for people who were on the go, like athletes and busy students. So they would, you know, it wouldn't be an essay for them. It'd be like the Cliff Notes version if you would. So if they needed to write a three or five page paper about, you know, Romeo and Juliet, I would write a one or two page support paper for them. And then they would have to fill in the blanks. And the the the business leaders that were judging said that would never. Why would you ever do that? This is way back when the Internet was just a just a, you know, young and this is when this would never work out. Why would you ever do this? This is apostress. This is patriotism. And the winning submission was squirrel corn, which what my buddy John he did. And he was like, I'm just going to bag corn up and sell it. And he was a farmer. So he got free corn. And he's like, I'm a bag corn up and sell it. And that won. I'm like, OK, that's that's great. You know, whatever. And then you look back. You know, 10 years from now and you start seeing these people popping up with these writing firms and they're like, hey, I'll write your essay for two hundred dollars. I'll write your essay for three hundred dollars. And they already have pre-made essays written up. And now today you have a either all write your essay for nothing. So I look back at my those people and I'm like, whatever. But that's my origin story. That's, you know, that business that I sold me. I built that business back in college, you know, just for my dorm room. And then, you know, when I was old enough to get up from under it, I just sold it to somebody who's interested in, you know, chipping away at it. So he made an offer. I can't refuse it. I wanted to move on with my life and we just we just did it. So. So when you originally started it, was that something that you knew you wanted to have a I don't know if you would have called it that at that time, but essentially an exit strategy or is it one of those things you just sort of fell into it and next thing you know, it's like, hey, I got a business and it's it's chugging along, but I need to. You know, I but I don't want to I don't want to be a part of it anymore. Essentially, I need to move on with my life to something a little different. Well, I was in I was in college at the time, so I was and the business I I I was spending too much time on the business and not enough time in school. So I had to choose one either business or the school. And I also had the unfortunate experience where I also had to move back to home. So it was kind of like I it was kind of a three way intersection. I could either focus on school, business, but I also had to move at home and I had to choose one of the three and four and I had to move. I chose to move back home. So I found somebody who could take over the business, sold it to them, went back home and focused back on school. So that's how that's how life dealt me the cards. Well, that's yeah, that's you know, sometimes that happens. You get a essentially a fork in the road and then you take it and you end up where and ends up putting you down a different path for sure. So after that, so so you see you had that early experience and then what brought you back into it or is that one of the entrepreneurial side of wanting to start something up? Was it something where you just that was an itch that came back or was it always something that was was in the back of your mind that you kept kept that fire burning as it were over the years? Well, I mean, I've always wanted to keep owning my own business because working for yourself is the ultimate goal. The problem is always being, you know, you know, money and that self-starting. And, you know, when it was just at the time when in 2015 16 ish when I started my own consulting company is I was working at a place where I should say working out, I was at a place where it was just a grind to get up and go to work. It was just the I don't want to put anybody down, but it was just, you know, to get up and go to work. It was just a hassle. So luckily, I was able to put myself together a little business plan and and and find a find one client. I like just find one person who would pay me to do one thing that I like to do. And then I found that person. It was an old friend that I had. And I said, this is what I want to do. I propose it to him. He says, that sounds good. I'll pay you to do that. And then I did it really, really well. And then he's like, I want you I want to introduce you to some some other guy. So he introduced me to this other guy. And then I was doing I have two clients. And then they introduced me to four other people. So now I'm like, OK, now it's getting a little large now, I need to hire somebody else. And then once once that network grew and grew and grew, I also had a team behind me. And, you know, and then we started developing applications and all this fun stuff. And I'm like, man, this all started with just having one bad day. So that's that's how this whole thing started. So, I mean, I'm thankful for having that one bad day. But it was stressful with that. Just taking that first step of asking this one person saying, this is what I want to do for you. And this is my business proposal. And having enough faith in me to say yes. Yeah, that's it's always fun talking to entrepreneurs and people who've started businesses where there's there's that that idea of somebody would talk about like, you know, you burn the boats where you like you just go and you're like, all right, I'm going to do this. I'm in it 100 percent. And you know, you decide that there's no way back. And that's how you want to do it. And sometimes life burns the boats for you. You know, sometimes there's something where it's just like you hit something. It's like, OK, I don't really the risk is the same in a sense. But it's like I've already lost so much for whatever reason. Like it's like, hey, you get fired by it from your job or something like that, where it's like, OK, this is this is really the best best way forward. Anyways, it's like, you know, like in your situation, you say it's like, I'm not happy where I'm at. And so something needs to change because I don't want to do this for the rest of my life. And so sometimes that's just the kick in the butt you need to, you know, to make that change and to go into something that that in a sense is life changing. As you said, now you've got like, you grow, you got a team behind you and you've been able to do what you want to do, what you like doing. Exactly. I was just I mean, there's no other way to put it. It was just the kick in the butt I needed. And fortunately, this was one of those cases where you didn't really need to be capital. It just needed that that drive and that motivation and getting over that, you know, that, you know, don't take no for an answer, but being respectful. Now, my other company, Benson Lloyd, that's that's another story for where you actually needed capital and you didn't have anything available. So that's another strategy you have to figure out your own way. But that's a something different. Yeah, it's a that's the sad thing. Most of the of your background is there's like there's going to be there's plenty that we're going to leave on the table. And that's one of them is that it's really it's a very fascinating application of AI to use it in in that that grading type of a, you know, of an approach, particularly because I know a little bit about, you know, like trading, whether it's cards or coins or books or things like that, where there's there's all these little things that can that can make it like new or perfect or used or gently used or, you know, practically worthless in things like that. And there's all those little grading things that particularly if anybody's ever gone to any kind of of trading conference, whether it's a coin show or card show or anything, it's like everybody's a little different. They're like, oh, they'll see some people see the blemishes and some won't. And some it's sometimes an important blemish and sometimes it isn't. But what I do want to talk about is that you've got a couple of businesses you've obviously are very invested in these. So how do you how do you make time to live your life? You know, you've got a very busy life. You've got a lot of stuff from a corporate point of view is how do you find that balance is how do you find the time to to go be, you know, Chris outside of the businesses that you that you run? Well, we are very employee centric. We are very centered around life work balance. And we put life before work at all at all times. We have a very strict 32 hour work week. And when we tell when we go to a client, a potential client and we just lay out, I mean, they usually approach us and they said, we'd like to bring on Barki. We like to we like we've heard about you. We've heard great things about you. We'd like to learn more about you. And we say, well, first, here are core values. You know, we help others people succeed. Life before work always. And there and all of a sudden, I mean, you see the white come across, come across their faces like, what does this mean? What are you guys telling us about this for? And we tell them because we're here to help you succeed no matter what your success is our success. But in order for us to do that, we need to put our life before our work. And what that means is, is that we have a strict 32 hour work week. So we work from nine to five with a one hour lunch break. Everybody does that. And then we have half day Fridays. So if you try to schedule a meeting on Friday afternoon, that means that person will probably take it, but then they won't work Friday morning. So they're very, we're very strict on that. And why do we do that? Because we want our team members very, very happy with what they do. And if they're very, very happy with what they do, then that bleeds into the, our clients and our customers, because that just makes it more energized. And when they're energized and they see, wow, we see Barkie just being really, really happy. Now I'm really, really happy. And then that just creates more energy and the energy spreads to more clients and more referrals. And that's what we like. And that's why we don't do any advertising. We haven't done any social media. And that's what's, that's just great. So we are, we're known as the, you gotta know one, you gotta know them to get them. Clients. So if, I mean, that's the only way to really know us is the, if you know somebody to know somebody, you know, that's the only way to do this. But yeah, our employees, they enjoy 32 hour work weeks. They, I think we get 31 days off a year, 32 days off a year for PTO. We have a strict four, a four week vacation, four weeks of vacation with unlimited vacation days. So, I mean, I think they get something like two months off, two full months off a year or something like that. It's something crazy. And that this, and it's not about the time away because everyone needs time away to recharge. It's about making everybody happy and wanting to come to, wanting to come and sit around and make it not work, but make it successful, which makes them successful. I mean, every paycheck, they get a, every paycheck, they get a hundred dollar gift card, which they use to make memories with their friends and family. So they can use that gift card to take everybody out to a dinner or bring dinner in, you know, with a grab hub or door dash, or they can save it up for a vacation, whatever they want to do. So we just want them to make, make memories with their friends and family. So that's how we like to do things. So how did you get into the, what led you into that, that culture, that approach, because it's definitely not, you know, as you know, it's not like, it's not the norm or anything like that, but what, what was it that led you into saying, Hey, I want to make a company that this is, this is what it's going to look like. And this is how I'm going to make people happy. I remember talking with my dad a long time ago. And I, I, this is when I was a kid. And I asked him, you know, my dad, you know, what would you do if you ran a company? And he worked for, he's, he's been working for the same company for 40 plus years. And he's a, I mean, he's a, a blue collar mechanic. I mean, he's the, the bluest collar, he can possibly kid. I mean, and he told me other things. He's like, I would, yeah. The things that he would do if he was ever a CEO. And I were telling him, like, I would never want to work for a place. If I was the CEO of a company, I would never want to work for a place that I would not want to work as an employee of. I hope that makes sense. So when I started Barkey as a, as a one, as employee number one, I told myself, I'm like, I want to give myself the best benefits. I want to give myself the, the most, the, the, the best plan possible so that when I start bringing employees in, they can enjoy the same benefits that I do. So when I brought employee two employees, team member one and the team member two and three, and I said, okay, this sounds crazy, but here's, here's our benefits. Here's our days off and here's our PTO plan. Do you like it? And they're like, when do we work? We work these days, but we get all these other days off. And they, you sure? I'm like, yeah. And the client's okay with it. Like they have to be, that's what they agree to. And I'm like, okay. So like, that's how we started. And that's how we, that's how we are today. So. Yeah, that's, that's a great way to go. That's a great story is to, is to start with, you know, how do you, how would you see your ideal company? And since you're building it, build it that way and start with, you know, you get the benefit from it, but then you also get to, you know, share those benefits with everybody else that you bring in on the team. Absolutely. And, you know, one of the things that I, I, I hate seeing is, you know, the, you hear about these companies and they have these skyrocketing profits, which we want to see as well. We want to see skyrocketing profits, but you hear about the, the, the, the, the worker, the, the lowest rung of the worker having, you know, barely scraping by, you know, so what we've done is we've actually tied our team members pay to profits. So as profits go high, so does the team members pay and the highest paid team member, which is myself, I'm tied to the lowest team members pay. So as my pay increases, so does my lowest team members pay and that's all tied with profit. So everything is all tied together. So nothing's out of balance at all. So if we get record setting profits, my pay goes up, the lowest team members pays goes up. So everybody and everybody's in flux then. So everything's great. Now the downside is, is that if sales ever decrease or profit ever decreases and we take a loss in lieu of like we would ever have to do layoffs or whatever, the senior level would have to take pay cuts and we have a, a, a work chest that we go off of to ensure that we don't do layoffs to keep as many people employed as long as possible. And we, and the CEOs and the executives, they are the first ones to start taking pay cuts. So that's how we do it. Cause that's the last thing we want to do is cause ultimately we're the, we're the leaders. We're the ones that make the decisions to make the things go on. We're the ones that should be the ones on with our heads on the block first. Agreed. So I've spent some time with you. What is the, whether, no, I think probably a lot of people are like, Hey, that sounds like a place I'd like to try to go work. But whether somebody wants to reach out to you and ask you about, you know, Barkie or some of your background or if they want to try to work for you in one of your organizations, what's the best way to get ahold of you? They can email me at ceo at barkieai.com. All right. Well, there you go. That's a, that's pretty straightforward. That's easy enough to get ahold of. That's easy. Well, I want to thank you so much for your time. This has been great. Like I said, there's so much that we didn't even, we just hardly or didn't at all, scratch the surface on. It's, and it's just, it's really, really enjoyable to have a conversation with somebody that's reached the level that you have, that you still have the, that connection back to your customers, your employees, and, you know, like I said, trying to make your customers successful, but also trying to make sure that, that everybody that's in doing that, that works for the company, they're doing that, they're not selling out their own life or their happiness just to make that customer happy. Definitely a, you know, a true everybody wins kind of a situation. Well, I appreciate you saying that. We strive for that, you know, success. So thank you. Thank you. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time and I hope you have a great rest of your day. Likewise. Thank you. And sadly, that will do it for our interview with Chris. I want to thank him for his time and it was a great time. I really enjoyed talking to him, learning about what they've done. It's one of those things that really takes the, the buzz that we see of AI in the news and turns it into something that's much more real and a little bit scary, I must say. There's, you know, the idea of having a voice on the other end of a phone that is just some AI robot and I don't know it because it sounds close enough to a human is a little bit disturbing, but also has a lot of potential much as we've seen with him. There's some ways to get very good response times, all the things that computers can do, particularly repetitive answers like call centers get a lot and I think we're just going to see more of that in the future. But go ahead and check out the Barkii. You can check out his stuff, contact him, let him know if you have questions. Obviously, he loves his stuff and can help you out. But we are not done with our incredible interviews. We will come back in a couple episodes. We're going to do it. We'll do, continue in, do a special topic, dive right back in. But we are starting to wrap up season 20 and 21 is going to be right around the corner. I don't think we're going to even pause. We're just going to boom, go right into season 21 and switch gears a little bit, but we will get, just keep on chugging along. If you have any questions, as always, shoot me an email at info at developaneur.com. But while you're pondering your questions and wondering if that voice on the other side is an AI, go out there and have yourself a great day, a great week, and we will talk to you next time. Thank you for listening to Building Better Developers, the Develop-a-Nor podcast. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon, anywhere that you can find podcasts. We are there. And remember, just a little bit of effort every day ends up adding into great momentum and great success. Please check out school.developaneur.com. That is where we are starting to pour a lot of our content. 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