SDS 145: How to Use Data Science In Offline Business

Kirill: Welcome to the Super Data Science Podcast. My name is Kirill Eremenko, data science coach and lifestyle entrepreneur. Each week, we bring you inspiring people and ideas to help you build your successful career in data science. Thanks for being here today. And now, let’s make the complex simple.

Kirill: Hello and welcome back to the Super Data Science Podcast, ladies and gentlemen. Today, I’ve got a super energetic guest for you: Josey Parks. So what you need to know about Josey is that he is a serial entrepreneur who uses data and technology in his businesses. Josey is involved in industries such as metal roofs, construction, designer glass specialties and others. At the same time, he actively leverages data science to improve the way he approaches his customers, the way he sells to his customers, the way he services his customers and he’s seen massive success from that initiative.

Kirill: For me, this was a very exciting podcast not only because I got to understand how Josey thinks in the sense of entrepreneurship, but especially because I could see an example of how data science can be applied in industries that are not entirely digital, online. We often hear about online companies applying data science and analytics to improve their services and products and that’s totally fair and expected, but how about companies where your core offering is not online, it’s not digital? For instance, in the case of one of Josey’s companies, when you are selling or installing metal roofs for your customers and the way you approach them is actually coming and knocking on their doors and speaking to them. How can you apply data science there?

Kirill: This is going to be an exciting podcast for those of you out there who are entrepreneurs or who are thinking about entrepreneurship and how to use data science in any kind of industry, any kind of business, regardless of whether it is predominantly online or not. Great example of that, and we had some amazing chats there. Also, of course, as a business owner, as a leader of an organization, you will get to see Josey’s perspective on how he inspires people to take up data science, to understand data science, and to use it in their roles and how he selects his future employees and the people that he works with in his company based on what criteria and what tips and tricks he can share there. That will be helpful both for entrepreneurs and for those who are looking to get a job in data science, in consulting or any other industry-related role.

Kirill: Finally, of course, we will talk about Josey’s own perspective on data science because he didn’t come from a background of mathematics or physics, but rather, he took on data science when he saw the opportunities that it has for his business. That’s a very, very exciting journey as well. Lots of very interesting things in this podcast. By the way, this podcast is available on video. If you’d like to watch it, you can always go to www.www.superdatascience.com/145 and see us chatting there. At the same time, if you don’t have the opportunity right now, if you’re driving or running or riding your bicycle, that’s totally fine, you can always come and check that video version out later as well. You will get all the same value from this audio podcast as well.

Kirill: On that note, without further ado, let’s dive straight in to it and I bring to you Josey Parks: serial entrepreneur who uses data science to propel his businesses forward.

Kirill: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Super Data Science Podcast. Today I’ve got a very exciting guest on the show: Josey Parks, who is a cognitive contractor. Josey, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

Josey: Thank you very much for having me. I’m excited to be here and I’m doing fantastic here in the greatest state in the world, which is Texas, if you didn’t know.

Kirill: Fantastic man. You’re from Ft. Worth, right?

Josey: Yes.

Kirill: You mentioned that. It’s a bit south of Dallas, is that right?

Josey: Yeah. DFW Metroplex, Fort Worth, there’s the stockyards here, there’s a lot of history here. It’s actually the last conservative major metropolitan city in the United States, so it’s a big city with a small town vibe. It’s a really cool place to see.

Kirill: Fantastic. I’ve never been to Texas but when I go, I’ll definitely stop by Ft. Worth.

Josey: Come see me bro!

Kirill: Yeah, it’ll be cool. Okay! We had a little discussion just now with Josey on how to introduce him, but you’re involved in so many things and this is why I’m so excited about this podcast just for our listeners. Josey is, the way I understand it, he’s got a good acumen of data science, but he’s not actually a data scientist as a profession. He’s an entrepreneur. He runs things, he provides services, builds businesses, and he knows how to put the right data scientists in place and how to use data. At the same time, you involved so many things, so that’s why I’m excited about this podcast: to unravel everything as we go along. To see how you use data science here and the mindset behind it.

Kirill: To kick us off, can you give us a list of things that you are involved in currently?

Josey: Okay. Number one is Metal Roofs of Texas. That’s what I got started in was metal roofing, so we manufacture metal roofing and install it. We generate leads, set appointments for sales reps, and sales reps close deals. That’s one company, then I have Jay Wells’ Construction, which we build hotels. I’ve built Spring Hill Suites, Hilton Garden Inn, Residence Inn, I’m remodeling a hotel, I converted a church to a business. We do all types of construction. And then, I have Designer Glass Specialties, which is a glass company that would do frameless shower doors, leaded glass, stained glass, we invented a product we call Moon Glass, which is the sexiest glass known to man. It’s an awesome product.

Josey: Those are my construction business. From that, I’ve always pursued better technology, better ways to understand my business and the data that we put off. How do I capture that and get better? That brought me to the cognitive contractor, which we’re looking to predict the next home improvement. That’s what I’m involved in and it’s a lot, so it’s all about finding the right people and putting them in the right place. If you have the right person and you don’t exactly have the right place for them, it will come, but the hardest thing is to find the right people. I hold onto them if I find them and I plug them in where I can.

Kirill: We were actually introduced to each other by one of those “right people” that you put in the right place. [inaudible 00:07:53], right? He was on the podcast before and he was like, “Oh, you’ve gotta get Josey on the podcast, it’s gonna be a killer podcast!”

Josey: He’s the man. He’s awesome [crosstalk 00:08:04]

Kirill: How did you guys meet each other in the first place?

Josey: I was looking to hire a data scientist focused on Milo [inaudible 00:08:12] and machine learning, that mix. It’s a very unique mix. He was the perfect fit. I had interviewed people for a few months. In the past, I’ve made a lot of mistakes just hiring people. I get someone in, “hey, do you have a beating heart? Great, let’s work!” I’ve made a lot of those mistakes, so I got very detailed with my hiring process and the questions that I asked. I thought, I want to know more about the character, competency, and work ethic than anything else, so it doesn’t matter how great and smart you are, if you don’t have great character, I don’t want to deal with you.

Josey: I really saw that right off with Milo. The dude’s a man of character and we just hit it off from the start. We were hugging at the end like, “let’s do this!” It was exciting. That’s how we met.

Kirill: Good stuff. He spoke very highly of you as well. Tell us: so many things! Metal roofs, Jay Wells’ Construction, Designer Glass Specialties, Cognitive Contracting. How do you fit all of that into your life? How do you have time for everything?

Josey: Very carefully. I’m also a proud husband and father. I have two boys. It’s a lot. The way that I do that is by putting the right people in the right places. I’m not a micromanager at all. I like to give people authority and just say, “Hey guys. This is your position, how can I help you? I want you to make the decisions, but I want to give you feedback.” Really, the way I’ve done this is by putting people in positions of power and authority and allowing them to be an entrepreneur. I’m building them up from their position as an installer or a sales rep and bringing them up. I have a call center guy right now, he started in my call center and he’s my operations manager because the guy had that mind. He was one that wanted to fix things, put things in place, make sure things were taken care of. I just looked for people who are willing to carry some weight, carry a burden, really.

Josey: In business, people think, “entrepreneurship is so fun and exciting.” No. Get real. It’s a grind, 24/7. It doesn’t stop. You have to have people who are willing to take that on and that are excited about it. That are like, “Hey man, let me take this. Let me carry this for you.” When I find those people, I’m like, “Alright, what can you hold baby? Come on. Put more weight on.” That’s how I do it, really. I’m not involved in the day-to-day with glass. I’m not involved in the day-to-day with construction. I’m not involved with the day-to-day with metal roofs. My main focus is the cognitive contracting now.

Josey: I’m in the day-to-day, what are you guys doing? What problems are we solving? Then I’ll let them work on it, so maybe a few days goes by where I don’t talk with them and they’re working on it. That’s how I do it. I try to have good dashboards, good data that’s given to me, that’s provided, so that I can make educated decisions based on the data.

Kirill: I’ve gotta totally agree with you. For me, it was exactly the same way. Starting out as an entrepreneur, you have ideas. It is exciting, but it’s so much hard work all the time. The best people I’ve met were usually also according to that philosophy that you pointed out. You find the right people first, right? You bet on the people rather than the position or the skills and things like that, and then they fit in automatically. For instance, the best people I’ve met were when somebody would come to me and say, “hey, I want to translate one of your courses,” and I’d be like, “okay, what does it cost me?” I just provide them the videos and they sit down and translate into their language.

Kirill: I’ve had cases where a person sits down to translate in, say, Spanish, and in one month, there’s one video ready. So there’s no point in continuing. But then there have been people who will sit down and in a month, they translate the whole course. I don’t have to say anything. Completely autonomously, everything sparkling. I’m like, “Dude, we gotta do more work!” And from that onwards, a year later, the course that they translated is a tiny fraction of all of the amazing things we started doing together. Just because I can see that that person is serious and that they are really willing to put in the hard work and take a lot of the workload onto themselves. I completely agree with that. It’s a unique quality. It’s like I say: people who get shit done, who actually sit down and are not afraid to persevere and push through things.

Josey: I like to do this test. I like to watch them get their teeth kicked in. It sounds wrong, but a lot of people at that point will stop. Other people will be like, “come on, I took that, let’s keep going.” Those are the people I’m looking for: people who can sustain the blows, because entrepreneurship, business, there is always going to be problems. A lot of people want that to pass to somebody else. I like to say that friction creates sparks, so when that spark happens, you have to be ready to ignite the flame and passion.

Kirill: Fantastic man. I totally agree. You’ve probably not been an entrepreneur all your life. How did you get into entrepreneurship? By the way, for the listeners of our podcast, we’ll get to the data part of things very soon. I really want to dig into this, the history of things, the mindset and what kind of person you are.

Kirill: So how did you get into entrepreneurship in the first place?

Josey: I started knocking door-to-door when I was in high school, my senior year, selling security systems. I was a 1099 subcontractor. That’s where I started in the business world. In high school, I was doing that, then when I was 18 and I graduated high school, I started right into roofing and I was a sales rep 1099. At the age of 19, they asked if I would start my own business and take the Dallas Territory. At the age of 19, I started my first business and never looked back.

Kirill: That’s crazy. 1099 is the company, right? Is the name of a firm?

Josey: No, in the US, there’s W-2 employees which are your employees, then there’s 1099 subcontractors. The last “job” I’ve had was at Outback Steakhouse as a bus boy. It just moved from there. The way I got into business, I grew up in a family business. A print shop. That’s part of my story on why I think that I’m so geared towards where’s the future headed, what is technology going to do? I watched my grandfather’s business and he was a very successful printer. He printed the newspaper. How did people consume information? The newspaper and TV. He printed the newspaper, so to me it was a big deal. We print the paper, I would have to work there as a kid growing up and do the paper route, all that kind of stuff. I had to work really hard as a kid.

Josey: In 2007 when I was graduating high school, technology, the economy, everything was going down and my grandfather’s business was completely disrupted by technology and the digital age. He did not change paths, he didn’t start to bring on other products or services, and so I watched him lose everything. That just kicked something in, that I have to look at the future and where is it going and how can I be a part of it.

Kirill: Gotcha. A real wake-up call, a real-life example of a person in your life that was affected by technology. Double sided sword, the technology. You can either get [inaudible 00:16:32] or use it to empower yourself.

Kirill: That brings us to the world of data. There are so many entrepreneurs out there, especially in business that are completely, if you think about them, like metal roofs or designer glass specialties, or Jay Wells’ Construction. These are more brick-and-mortar type businesses where you produce actual products or services, you don’t think that they’re actual technology businesses. They’re not like computer software businesses where data is an inherent part of things. Why data? When did you start using data and what prompted you to look into using data or leveraging data to get that competitive edge and progress your businesses further?

Josey: That’s a great question. I used to knock on a lot of doors, so when I was 18, that’s what I did. I knocked doors all day long. I had this little black book. I’d write the areas down I was working and after about a year of that, I was like, “Man, this sucks. I keep going back to these areas, and I forgot to check back with this person in the amount of time where I could’ve gotten that deal.”

Josey: Being in Texas in this area, there’s a lot of storms. So when Hell hits, certain properties are affected, and it’s all about timing. “The early bird gets the worm” kind of thing, so you’ve gotta get there and share your message with them. I was tracking the doors I was knocking and that’s where I was like, “Alright, I’ve gotta figure out a better way.”

Josey: I used handy base for a while to track addresses. I used different products, and then I found EveryTrail, which is a bike trail app. What I would do is “star trail,” I’m not on a bike or anything but I’m in a car. It keeps up. Literally, I would just track myself: where all I was driving. It would show me everywhere I had driven. Properties of [inaudible 00:18:47] that’s when it really started. “Man, I’m really onto something.” That was back in 2012, is when I started using EveryTrail. Shout out to EveryTrail [inaudible 00:19:02].

Josey: That’s what started. I’m tracking this, I’m learning more and more about my typical day, what I do, how much drive time, how many stops, how much time the average stop is. THat’s when I started really pushing it. That’s how I got started with the data with the metal roofing business.

Kirill: Wow, very interesting start. Did that increase your efficiency? Did that help you a lot in your operations?

Josey: No doubt, because I could see areas I’d been in the last month and hadn’t, it’s real easy if you have all of these streets and know where the properties are. You can see a red line to see “have I gone by them?” That’s old school. Now it’s a lot better. Back then, it was amazing. It really helped. I probably had six guys out at the time knocking doors also, so we would all get on the maps and you would share each other’s routes. It was pretty cool and it was a way to visualize the information and to see it, a picture of the house. Think about it. If you’re knocking 40-50 doors a day, 7 days later of knocking, you don’t remember what you knocked. That’s where you just go back and you can literally visualize it right then and see, “okay, I’m gonna go back to that. I remember that house, I need to go back there.” Whereas if it was just a name, you may not remember because you’ve talked to so many people.

Kirill: Gotcha. Now, your data science capabilities, I’m assuming, are much higher because I’ve talked to [inaudible 00:20:40] and I know what kind of mind he is. He’s probably been able to implement way more sophisticated things right now. Can you tell us a bit, without disclosing any trade secrets or patents and things like that, what does your data science operation involve at the moment?

Josey: Big aspect of it is geospatial. We’re going with geospatial and Big Data and leveraging both of those. We’ve now got synergy with those two components. We’re trying to do a lot of time series data. We’ve knocked this house on Tuesdays and Thursdays 4-6 between that, so now we need to go Saturday 10-2. Imagine 5,000 properties of interest leveraging time series, knowing the best time to knock, who could possibly be the best representative to knock it. When it comes to the data side, we’re also getting other data sources, leveraging those.

Josey: What I’m really trying to do, as I said previously, is predict the next home improvement. I’m also trying to predict who’s home, when they’re home, the right messaging to get to them, and its very important to have the right information and structure data so every single action that we take, there’s gotta be a reaction that’s gonna be generated from that to go to the next or else things just kind of stop. And that’s what we realized is, you can have all of this information, but if you don’t have actionable insights, like, “from this, we’ve gotta take this action,” that was the hardest part. Also, getting sales reps.

Josey: I really think about a virtual sales rep. That’s where my mind is, that’s what I’m trying to understand. I’m teaching all of my sales guys to be data analysts, basically. To look at the data, to gain insights from it, so I have all of these sales reps that I’m training to be data scientists in a sense because they look at all of the data, they pull queries, “not contacted between this time and this time,” “positive between this range.” They’re building a route and they optimize that route, so rather than knocking 40 doors a day, they can now knock 60 doors in a day and they see the fruits of their labor. It’s something where we’re really training our guys, everybody in the company to do that.

Josey: In construction, it’s very hard with structured data, there’s so many different things that can happen, so certain parts are really hard. The ones where we really see opportunities, we’re just going all in on.

Kirill: Just to understand the full picture clearer, when you say “knocking on doors,” you go and physically knock on doors of residential homes and you say “do you need a roof” or “we think that this might be beneficial for your house”?

Josey: Yeah. “I just wanted to stop by and introduce myself. Investment Grade Roofing, have you heard of metal roofing before?” I just go in, knocking on doors like that.

Kirill: An interesting mix of a physical product and service and the old school knocking on doors rather than email marketing type of thing. Plus, you still have data. The data still helps optimize those things. It’s a great testament to those who are working and, for instance, they think “I don’t have email marketing, I don’t need data.” No, your operation is an example where data can be beneficial, even to the physical introduce-yourself-knocking-on-doors type of approach.

Josey: We’re huge believers in ground truth, to really understand. Then after we have the ground truth, we can do email campaigns, telemarketing, direct mail, social media. That’s where I’d say the right time with the right messaging. What’s the channel that I’m contacting them through? But we have ground truths. I know that I have a huge advantage because my marketing efforts, digital marketing efforts, are ground truth verified. Dirty data in, dirty data out. They’re getting garbage out. I’m very particular with the guys and what they do with the data, because I’m like, “this is important to every single person in the organization, you have to make sure that you push the right button.” I try to simplify it for reps, because sales reps, it’s difficult for them. That’s not how their mind is.

Josey: Data scientists, like all of you guys, are amazing and the capabilities that you have, the attention to detail. Sales reps, that’s not how they’re geared. You also have to think about how can you have your user interface in its simple form and its something they like to do and they can quickly see the results from it.

Kirill: Okay, I have a twofold question: the first one was, let’s start with you. You started using more and more data in your business after that experience with the mapping where you’ve been-

Josey: EverTrail.

Kirill: -exactly, EverTrail. Was it hard to get into the mindset of using data? There’s probably a lot of entrepreneurs listening to us and are like, “I’m not sure how to use this in my business.”

Josey: It’s different and it definitely was fun and exciting and new, but then there is this plateau that you reach to where it’s just a grind and going back and forth with it, implementing, execution, and then other people doing what you ask them. It was exciting, but it’s very difficult to leverage data and all aspects of the business, so I realize I really need to just focus on the area.

Josey: The 80/20 Rule applies with almost anything: 20% of the actions that you take will get you 80% of the results.

Kirill: 80/20 Rule still applies even when learning about data science?

Kirill: And when you teach these sales reps that come on board, what approach do you take in order to get them into the right data science mindset?

Josey: The mind is what creates. We were created to create, not consume. I tell the guys, this is an opportunity to be a sales rep for the future today. You’re living in 2020, 2025 with how sales reps will conduct themselves and how they’re gonna use data. I’m gonna train you now. You’re not just a sales rep, you’re somebody who looks at data and makes decisions based on the data, so I need you to apply yourself in data.

Josey: It’s really changing their mindset that they’re not just a sales rep, now they’re really looking at all of this data in a way that’s going to help them and make them better and more effective and get better results. The sales reps, I challenge them to push themselves to learn data science and how we’re applying this. Watch some videos so they see that it’s crazy sophisticated and it’s something that we don’t really understand, but yet, we can apply it. We can help. We can be a part of that and we can create something amazing that’s gonna help everybody. It’s really just opening their mind to that, showing them that they can have a part of it.

Kirill: And also actually seeing the results of applying data and realizing that it’s actually helping. These techniques that you’re teaching them, they’re coming to fruition and they’re getting better outcomes out of that. I think that would be very useful for them to see as well.

Josey: They get annoyed at times, like, “Man, I don’t see why I need to know all these different fields and plug this in,” and then, “why aren’t y’all building the routes for us anymore?” They want it to be easy, spoon-feed them. We want them to get to where they’re leveraging it and they’re the ones making decisions, because in the end, unsupervised learning behind the scenes, collecting all of this, everything is structured. Every action that they’re taking, we now have better time series, we now can predict when they’re likely to be home. We have a lot that goes behind the scenes, but it’s up to them to do it. In the end, it’s going to tell them where to go, exactly what to do, but it’s not to that level yet. Until that time, we need them to be data scientists and looking at it and making decisions based on the data.

Kirill: Alright, that’s very exciting to hear about, how you use data in the sales process. Shifting gears a little bit. You talked about cognitive contractor. Can you tell us a little bit more about that, or what is that? It’s a really cool sounding term, but what does that mean and what kind of work does that involve?

Josey: The Cognitive Contractor is a service provided to large contractors that we’re working with. In the contractor space, it’s a lot of old school techniques, marketing, TV is still a big deal with a lot of contractors. Radio, direct mail campaigns, and digital is a big part. But when it comes to them wanting to change the way they do things, it’s worked for so long so they’re not really interested in doing that and there’s so many companies coming in now with AI, with Big Data, they’re going to do this and that. A lot of people don’t really understand that market very well, and so they’re coming in from top down. I’m coming in from bottom up, and so I understand the marketplace and the important aspects of the business. We’re working with all of their data, we’re getting intel, we’re gathering information and we’re using our geospatial platform for service guys, where their service guys are at, where their sales reps. To visualize where all of their assets are, also all of their leads, appointments, customers, and so that way we can find more of their best customers and we can build out products for them based on their needs.

Josey: Every company has specific, niche markets that they’re usually focused on, products that they’re authoring. We’re just trying to provide that as a service to these large contractors and when it comes to the data and things like that, we have a lot of different data sources and partners. It’s an opportunity for these contractors to get ahead of the curve, for these contractors to start working on it.

Josey: The payoff is not quick. It’s a long-term play for them, because it’s not just immediate results. Click a button and it’s done. It’s not going to be like that. It has to take action off of it, it has to get smarter and learn more and more and then we will be at a point where we can tell them exactly what to do with their marketing budget, exactly which sales rep to send out to the appointment, which crew is the most efficient with this type of product. We’re tackling it on a lot of different sides of the business all at one time. It’s really hard to jump in and do that and its taken years to get to that point.

Josey: I have 3 data scientists that work for me and we’re at a point right now where we’re looking to bring on more data scientists and people that can help with this project. It’s an opportunity right now to bring the contractors to a cognitive era, that’s what we’re doing.

Kirill: So, you’re taking all of the experience that you got through your own businesses and how you’ve optimized them to get that competitive edge through data and you’re providing that as a service to help other contractors leverage data better in their own operations and become cognitive contractors.

Josey: Exactly.

Kirill: Very interesting.

Josey: It’s a lot of unstructured data and that’s a lot of the problem. Then you have the guys out in the field, they don’t want to use the apps. There’s a lot of pushback. It’s not an easy thing. Really, I look at what I’m doing and if I would have applied this in other types of industries, I think I would have insane growth. But I’m a contractor and that’s what I really know and that’s what I want to dominate, so that’s what I’m doing.

Kirill: In essence, it’s a very different type of business, right? You’re not actually doing the physical product or service for the roof installation or things like that, you’re doing, almost, a data science consultancy service for these contractors. How are you finding that? How is that? Obviously that’s a challenge, that must be exciting, but what kind of road blocks have you come across? What are the main things that you’ve looked into so far?

Josey: By now, there’s a lot of companies that have tried to get into the contractor space and to say, “hey, we can do this with AI, we can build this product for you.” A lot of people who have over promised and under delivered. A lot of contractors have been burned already, that’s a big part of the problem. Those are the roadblocks. “I’ve tried that,” “I’ve done that,” “I’ve worked with this.” It’s people that have tried it and there are some companies that have done pretty well with leveraging newer technologies, but for the majority of these contractors, they’re at a point where they have a lot of awesome things in place, but they’re not in the future yet.

Josey: They’ve perfected the past technologies and what used to work.Now what I’m doing is trying to help them and I have a large network. I haven’t even really started to pursue all of my network because I’m trying to finalize this product that I’m building that can apply in any market with any type of service, so I can use this for insurance, for financial, for health. I’m solving a lot of problems all at once because the different types of information coming in is not your typical data that people see.

Josey: What I’m looking to do is connect with these contractors that I have gained trust and credibility with and leveraging my relationships and moving forward. I’m a part of the roofing technology think tank, we were just in DC. I had a presentation on Capitol Hill. It’s a bunch of roofers that are looking to leverage technology and I’m head of the Future Workforce Task Team. Our workforce is diminishing. We have to find more people to fill that void. We have to find better ways to leverage technology. That’s one of the things that I’m a part of and I have a lot of other projects in the works. It’s exciting and it’s very hard to sell contractors this type of service.

Kirill: The main difficulty is because they don’t believe in it or they’ve been burnt on it. Is there any other problems with it?

Josey: Because it’s like, “Is this gonna fit into my 11% marketing budget? Well, I’m already spending this and this, how am I going to take from this to apply it here?” That’s one, others is, “yeah, but I already spent $50,000 on this and it didn’t work, so I don’t want to try that.” A lot of people aren’t going to invest that time to get it to the point where it needs to be and that’s a lot of the problem. When it comes down to it, this is an opportunity for them for the future. They have to live today as if they were in the future in pursuing that because if not, the small guys that are coming up leveraging technology, they’re growing like crazy.

Josey: It’s in their market, they know that they’re coming, so how can they get ahead of the curve?

Kirill: It’s a bit sad when you have large companies or even sometimes governments or government agencies where they’re so large that even with the technology that’s coming in, they still have a lifetime that it’s going to take a long time to die off, to get edged out even if they’re slow and diminishing. And the executives of such companies or people in head of such government departments, they understand that and they’re like, “I’m an executive for 8 years, I don’t want to take the risks of introducing new technologies and I’m just going to do things the way they’ve been done before. Nobody’s going to ask questions, and then I leave, I don’t care what’s going to happen.” I’ve seen it happen so many times, I’ve seen it in governments, in companies.

Kirill: It’s sad when people are just worried about themselves, about keeping their position and maintain the status quo and not take risks, not get any heat for it whereas, as you say, the young players, entrepreneurs that are coming in, they take the risks. They’re not afraid. For them, it’s make it or break it. All or nothing. They just go into it and that’s how they succeed. That’s why, what is the statistic? In the next 10 years, half of the Fortune 500 companies won’t even exist. In the next 15 years or something like that. That’s one of the reasons, because of that attitude towards disruptive technologies.

Josey: I’m a huge believer in the fact that now, you have to innovate to compete whereas in the past, you could innovate and dominate. Now, innovation is required to simply compete. If you’re not innovating, you’re dying.

Kirill: Yeah, exactly. Let’s talk a bit about tools. Again, as much as you can disclose, is it just about geospatial big data or are you involving some machine learning algorithms, maybe deep learning artificial intelligence or are you planning to involve those in the cognitive contractor space?

Josey: No, we definitely are. We’ve built some models and, for instance, one of the models that were built, it had 71% accuracy. We were like, man, we are really getting somewhere. What we’ve really focused on is getting all the data structured and getting it in a way that makes sense for the models and then picking the best models. When it comes to the tools that we’re using.

Josey: Charles, but I call him Chaz because he’s smooth like jazz, he’s He was actually an intelligence officer for the military and he was the first guy I hired. He’s 61 and this dude loves data science. He’s so passionate, he gets so excited and it just burns within him to where it comes out. He’s always researching. He spends his nights, mornings, weekends researching, reading books, figuring out new ways. Really, what we focus on is the tool chain. It’s not just the AI, it’s not just all of that.

Josey: Ours is a pretty complex problem, it’s not a simple solution yet. What we’re focused on is the tool chain and the different things we can use. It’s difficult to say all of the tools that we use just because what we’ve spent so many years trying to figure out and find the best ways, because with a problem you can solve it this way, but when you get down to the next application of that, if you solved it in a way that doesn’t make sense for a future problem, then it doesn’t necessarily work right. Now we’re at a point where really have a defined tool chain for solving specific problems and that’s what people need to focus on. It’s not just this tool, it’s not this application, it’s your tool chain and for this part of the problem I need this, for this product I need to use that.

Josey: [crosstalk 00:42:22]data scientists out there, sorry.

Kirill: You’re primarily focused on customer segmentation, is that correct? Root analysis, sales, basically? Data analytics around sales, you’re not doing any other part of the contractor space like operations or maintenance and things like that using data in those spaces?

Josey: No, we are. That’s what I was saying. That’s built into the product for services and where your contractors are at, we can really leverage that for big construction companies and there’s some really good construction technologies out there. Leveraging that and the information that they’ve put off, like predicting the best jobs to bid on.

Josey: Imagine that you’re estimating all of these jobs. You have to get all of the plans. It takes days of work to bid a job. Let’s put all of that into the model, and that’s for larger construction companies to predict which jobs to bid on. Based on this company, they tend to not go with you on this service, but that company will go with you on this type of project. It’s not just sales. It comes to estimating and when it comes to the project side, there’s a lot of stuff that is available and you’ve got to think about safety and the risks that you’re at.

Josey: You’re at a job site and there’s all types of moving parts, and so looking at the safety aspect of it. My buddy, he built a product called Harness. It’s really awesome, what he’s doing for safety. There’s now products for your shoes. It’s a sole that goes in your shoe that can predict all types of hazardous things that could happen based on how you stand. There’s a lot of different moving parts to it and we’re trying to build this geospatial platform that can integrate all different aspects of it into one.

Josey: When it comes to customer segmentation, that’s the easy part. When it comes to construction in a complex job, you have 120 guys on one job site, 7 different trades going on at one time, how do you build a product for that? What do you build? What is really going to help the contractor to understand what’s going on, real-time, at his job site without having to go out there. That’s one of the problems that we’re trying to solve.

Kirill: Interesting. I just had this question for you put into my head, something that I’ve encountered myself. I can hear you talk about this and I can see that you’ve got so many ideas around everything. What happens when you, as an entrepreneur, especially in the space of data science technology, I know that you see all of there different ideas, I can do this, I can do that, I can do that third thing and so on, but the life cycle of these projects is quite lengthy. That’s what I’ve experienced. I have an idea, let’s implement this, I think I’ll take three months and it turns out, it takes one and a half years. I’m like, “One and a half years?! I could have done three, five of these projects!” What is going on?

Kirill: My question is, how do you choose what to focus on and how do you actually manage these projects so they’re contained and you get them done before the idea itself is outdated?

Josey: That is, by far, the most frustrating part about it. I’ve hit brick walls. I hate that part of it, because you see it, you visualize it, you know you can do it, and then it doesn’t happen and then it’s four months, and we’re still trying to solve this problem, which is a complex problem, and I understand it’ll take time, but that’s where I was saying the 80/20 rule. Looking at the problem and saying, “okay, what is going to get me the most results?” And focusing on that. In the contractor space, it’s like the Good Ol’ Boy-type network, and it’s a pretty big hurdle just to get the contractors on board and to stay on board whenever they don’t have immediate returns. They don’t want to spend more than 12% on their marketing budget. Which budget do you take from? You have operations, marketing.

Josey: They look at it, they’re like, “well, which budget am I going to take from for this?” It’s like, bro. This is a whole new opportunity for you. This is like R&D. This is for you to be prepared for the future. So to sell them on that is one of it, but like you were saying, we’ve definitely had some things where we were like, “This is amazing! We’re gonna do this in no time, we’re gonna have this done!” And it’s like, alright, screw that. On to the next! That’s happened a few times.

Kirill: I hear you, I hear you. Same here. After a couple of times where you, as you say, you visualize it, it’s in your head, you see how it’s going to work, but then just getting it there takes so long. Or, on the flip side, when you push things, you’re like, “I’m not gonna let this drag on forever.” Like us, for instance, when we’re doing our first Kickstarter, like, “Let’s do a Kickstarter!” And we fought double thinking about anything, we just did it in a month, launch, go. But the thing is, then when you want to do a couple of those, they’re successful, but then you have the maintenance that comes with them and then it piles up. You have one thing, two things, four things, five things, all the sudden 20 things that were successful, but they have tails. You have to maintain them, you have to complete everything, the stuff that follows on. That drags you down.

Kirill: It’s interesting how, even though there’s so many opportunities in technology now, you still have a business to run. You still have to manage those [inaudible 00:48:34].

Kirill: Cool man, so 80/20 rule for sure.

Josey: And you have IT people who are trying to block you because now, you’re getting in their space and they’re like, “Nah, I handle this.” That was one of the big deals that I learned was that, yeah, I could sell the CEO on it, he trusts me, he allows me this and that, then I have to deal with the back end IT guy and he’s behind the scenes trying to crush me and making it really difficult for me to get into a sequence.

Josey: There were things I didn’t expect. I do a presentation, they’re all about it, and then the next meeting, the launch meeting, someone’s in there who knows nothing about what we discussed and so now he has all these questions, “Oh, why are you gonna do that? Why do you need that?” There are a lot of decision makers involved, and so a hard part of data science and as an entrepreneur, you have to be really good at visualizing and explaining the concept, number one. You also have to be good at communicating throughout because the onboarding process is difficult. For these people to give you more data, for these people to trust you with that, a lot of communication is involved in keeping them updated. Those are some of the roadblocks that we experience.

 

Kirill: That’s good advice. Be good at visualizing the concept and communicating it and also, explaining the route. Explaining how people are going to get onboard, how the company is gonna get onboard with that.

Kirill: That’s great advice for entrepreneurs and people in the space of applying technology and building businesses around it, what about some advice for data scientists? For people who want to get involved in companies like yours? What would you say are important things for them to look out for in their careers to be able to participate in things like this?

Josey: Everything starts in your mind. As I said earlier, we were created to create, not consume. You want to find a company that really wants to pioneer with you and wants to give you the ability to build something, to create something.

Josey: You can go and work in an organization and say, “Hey, build these queries. Clean this data.” Cleaning data is required, that’s a big part of it. As I said earlier, be ready to carry some weight. Yeah, that sucks, but that’s part of data science. 80% of it, I think, is pretty much tied to cleaning data, but where it comes into play is who values that and who really wants to create with you and give you the opportunity to think outside the box and come up with new ways to solve problems and to coach you, to work with you.

Josey: Your mindset is the most important key ingredient, and so when you go to interview, make sure people know your mindset and that you’re looking for someone that’s going to give them the ability to create and that you want to come and bring all the passion and fire and fury that’s going to help their organization. You have to really care about the problem you’re trying to solve and you have to relay that message and find a company that is willing to invest in you and lets you work on these projects.

Josey: A lot of the time my guys spend is on science, it’s not so much on business, and it’s because I’m paying them to research things that will help them in the future and it may not be something that I’m applying to my business now, and so for data scientist that are out there trying to find a good career path and company to work with, if you’re new with data science, maybe you go work for an organization to better understand how it operates, and then at nighttime, keep focusing on your data science. Then you find a problem to solve. Be like, “hey, I could do this for you. I see that this isn’t working right and I think that if you allow me to look at all the data, I can come up with some models for you.”

Josey: It’s not necessarily going to work for all of these huge organizations, there’s a lot of small companies that have a lot of unstructured data that they need to put together. I really think if you’re a rookie at it, getting into an organization and thinking outside the box for them, with them, and pursuing a future that they don’t even understand yet but you do. Or you just go to one of those huge companies and hopefully they hire you and you can learn best practices that they’re applying.

Kirill: Fantastic man, love it. Great advice and I hope everybody listening or watching is taking notes. You’ve dropped some really cool gems along the way. This is what I love, this, “We were created to create, not consume.” I totally agree with that for sure, man.

Kirill: Slowly coming to an end, to a wrap-up, I’ve got a really philosophical question for you. You’ve seen a lot of things in the space of entrepreneurship and data science and technology and how to combine these and how to leverage one for the other. What do you see the future looking like and where do you think the world is going? What should our listeners prepare for that’s coming in the next 5 or 10 years? What do you think the world of data and technology will be like?

Josey: I do think it’s a bit scary. Here recently, some Toyota engineers built a robot that can beat any player, any statistic on shots. It made 100% accuracy free throws, 3-pointers, and so data scientists are getting very, very good at creating this AI. There’s going to come to a point where it’s going to start pushing us out, but that’s where we have to create new ways because God has given us this mind and this ability and so we have an amazing opportunity to leverage that.

Josey: I do think certain aspects of it are scary, but I think it’s going to be one of the most amazing opportunities for those that focus on creating and not getting bogged down in looking at the dark side of it, but keep your mind positive. You use that stuff as poison or fuel. When you see things that are coming in scary that are kind of like, “Oh man, where am I going to be? How am I gonna do that?” Use that as fuel and not poison. I really think that the future, we’re going to work hand-in-hand with bots and we’re gonna have a lot of sophisticated things within our life. Everything is going to have a sensor on it and we’re really focused on the internet of moving things. That’s gonna be a big part of our lives. We’re gonna have technology always around us.

Josey: My wife started me an Instagram. I’ve never had a Facebook. I’m really not one that likes to consume except Flipboard. I love consuming Flipboard because its amazing and it gives me a lot of articles I really like. Just finding those things that help you be the best you, that is gonna help you to create the best products and services. Whatever you consume is whatever you’re creating from and so you have to be very very safe. Safeguard your mind and if you catch yourself consuming stuff that you know is not producing good results, cut it out.

Josey: Be self-disciplined and really focus on that, because it’s an unlimited world out there, especially with the skills that you have.

Kirill: Very good, thank you. That ties in very well with what you mentioned before about consumption and creation and finding the role for yourself. Very excited about that, thank you so much for sharing.

Kirill: Alright, before we finish up, where can our listeners contact you, get in touch and follow your career? It sounds like you’re going to have some opportunities for data scientists to jump on board with cognitive contracts and other projects you’re doing, what are the best ways to get in touch with you?

Josey: LinkedIn, Josey Parks. You can definitely find me there. Instagram is joseyparks and you can go to cognitivecontractor.com. We’re still in stealth mode where we’re not really putting a lot of information out there yet, we’re about to actually launch that product as a product. But when it comes to connecting with LinkedIn or joseyparks@yahoo.com. Feel free to shoot me an email, connect with me. We are looking to hire quite a bit more data scientists right now, so if you’re new in it, I’m not saying don’t contact me, but we’re looking for people with more experience right now. I have products built and so I need to take those to the next level, so that’s what I’m looking for.

Josey: Regardless, I would love to get in contact with any of you, shoot me a message. If you have a problem, I would be happy to answer.

Kirill: Fantastic. One final question for you today. What’s a book that you can recommend to our listeners that can help influence their lives or careers?

Josey: The best book, it’s a daily devotional, it’s by John Maxwell. It’s “A Leader’s Heart”. All of you are going to be leaders no matter what, you’re a leader. It comes to your heart, your mind, and so John Maxwell, “Leader’s Heart.” It’s a devotional and it’s amazing. It really helps you to think about things in a different way. It is, by far, one of my favorite go-to books.

Kirill: Gotcha. Well, thanks a lot-

Josey: -and one other thing. You have to sell your concepts and ideas, so you’ve gotta read “See You At The Top” by Zig Ziglar. That’s a great book to read and that’s what started my sales career. That’s another great read.

Kirill: John Maxwell, “A Leader’s Heart” and Zig Ziglar, “See You At The Top” in order to help people understand how to sell themselves better and their services.

Josey: You have to see yourself as the [inaudible 00:59:42]

Kirill: Yeah. Alright, well, thanks a lot Josey for coming on the show and sharing all of the fantastic insights. I’m sure a lot of people are going to really benefit from this and get some great info, insights from here. Thanks a lot.

Josey: My pleasure. Connect with me, guys! Best of luck to you.

Kirill: So there you have it. That was Josey Parks, serial entrepreneur, and I hope you enjoyed this episode and felt the energy with which Josey speaks, the passion with which he describes what he does. And of course, there was so many great, valuable comments that he made. I wrote a couple of them down.

Kirill: Here are my top three favorite quotes from this episode: “Live as if you are in the future,” how powerful is that? “Live as if you are already in the future.” Prepare yourself for it that way. Going to number 2, “now you have to innovate to simply compete.” Previously, you had to innovate to smash it and disrupt and be completely crushing it, now, if you’re not innovating, you can’t even be competing. You’re not even competing because everybody is innovating. It is so important to innovate even if you just want to stay afloat as a business. And quote number three, “we were created to create, not to consume.” Very, very powerful quote as well there.

Kirill: That’s some great takeaways from the podcast already, I’m sure you have some of your own, some of your own great gems that you got from this episode. It was very exciting talking to Josey because of the different perspectives, the perspective of a person who wasn’t geared up to do data science from the start but saw the value of it and the value it brings to his business and other businesses as well. He’s taking advantage of that and he’s building success for himself and his operations, for his companies, for his employees around that whole notion of data science.

Kirill: I highly encourage you to connect with Josey. You can find his LinkedIn URL at www.www.superdatascience.com/145 and there you can also find all the show notes, materials mentioned in the show, as well as the transcript for the episode. And as mentioned at the start, this was a video episode, so you can find the video of us chatting right there at www.superdatascience.com/145. Connect with Josey, reach out to him, get in touch. If you’re in Texas and you’re a data scientist, definitely get in touch. It looks like he’s going to have some great job opportunities in the near future. And if you’re a contractor, why not get in touch as well? It looks like Josey can help you out building this data science capability into your business, it sounded very exciting when we were chatting about it.

Kirill: And on that note, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. If you do know somebody who is an entrepreneur who wants to learn more about data science and entrepreneurship or is looking into starting a business, has an idea, whether it’s data-related or not, forward this episode to them and help them get started on the right foot. Help them integrate data science just like Josey did into their efforts.

Kirill: Once again, on that note, hope you enjoyed that episode. Can’t wait to see you back here next time and until then, happy analyzing.