Bringing Home the Mission Field - Scott Elequin

00:01 - Speaker 1
I'll tell you what. I keep meeting people who don't think that their skill can be used in the Great Commission and I'm like, well, good meeting you, but we're never going to see that on the platform, never, ever. And then I get a call two days later and there's somebody that needs that exact thing. I'm like how cool is God that you can literally just say you know what. I'm just going to trust God, put it in, we'll see what happens. And then, all of a sudden, it happens. It's just, it's been a real inspiration to me. My name is Scott Eloquin. I'm from Austin, texas, father of three. I've been a believer for many, many years and actually I'm involved as the executive director of Switchboard, which connects believers globally to Great Commission activities around the world. And this is my Faithly Story.

00:48 - Speaker 2
Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories podcast.

01:29 - Speaker 3
I want to begin by just talking about Switchboard, Like what is it? What do you guys do? What are you hoping for?

01:36 - Speaker 1
Sure, I mean, basically, Switchboard really came as a. It was really an effort from some startup guys in Austin. They're strong believers who really were frustrated that you've got all this technology and all these people with all these skills that really want to be involved in the Great Commission and want to help missionaries and they really are excluded from it. I think in a lot of ways, in the West at least, that we kind of outsource our Great Commission activities by giving to organizations but not directly participating. So we basically have built a platform that connects believers, virtually working remotely, based on their skill set, with Great Commission organizations from around the world. For whatever it is that the need, you know, whatever need arises in the field.

02:26 - Speaker 3
But how does it work Like you go on the site and then, or who is the site for?

02:33 - Speaker 1
Well, you know, it's interesting because, like a platform technology, it's like they're really two different customers. So for Uber you have to have, you know, you have drivers, you also have riders, and if you don't have either one, the other side gets disinterested pretty quickly. So what we've done is that we're basically working with some pretty large global organizations. Pioneers and Crystar were two of our biggest design partners in the very early stages and we partnered with two pretty large global mission organizations. One is Pioneers out of Orlando, who's been around for many, many years, and Christar, who has their international group in Malaga, spain, and their US offices in Dallas, texas, the Dallas area. And what we do is we take the missionaries in the field or we consider them great commission organizations and we basically have them fill out a profile on the system, fully secured, and they basically bring needs to the table and it could be a need around the ministry itself.

03:39
I need cartoons for a video I'm working on. It could be needs for the mission organization. I need someone to help me with my accounting or setting up my books, or it could be something that helps the missionary themselves or the individual themselves. I have a son that's going to be going to college in the United States and would like to talk to a college advisor, or I have an issue in my family and I'd love to be able to have a will put in place.

04:08
And so it's basically missionaries coming to the table to put their needs available to the global church so that volunteers from around the world can log in and can receive that need and help them with whatever that thing is, and so it's connecting the believer, based on their skill set, with the needs around the world. And I think the other thing I would want to point out is that, from our perspective, if you look at the demand side customer on the platform, it really is not just a traditional missionary, like pioneers and Chris are, but it's also indigenous missionaries. So it's a local guy or gal that's preaching from a street corner in Burundi, or it's a marketplace professional that's working as an oil and gas person in Saudi Arabia, or it could be a business's mission or B4T that's setting up businesses so that they can have access to these countries. So if you exist for the purpose of the Great Commission, you're our demand-side customer and we want to help you kind of get your thing done.

05:14 - Speaker 3
Is Switchboard a nonprofit?

05:16 - Speaker 1
We are, yeah, 501c3. We're funded really through some of our larger customers and some key donors, and then we actually have a plan in place to be self-supporting monetarily by mid-2026.

05:31 - Speaker 3
But not pull an open AI right when you go from profit to profit.

05:35 - Speaker 1
We are not going to pull an open AI. We will also not do open source because there's a lot of security concerns. But, frankly, there are a lot of believers who are faith-based, who really care about what we're doing, who want to be a part of it, and there's several organizations we're working with who are actually providing volunteer resources to help us build out the platform.

05:57 - Speaker 3
So do you guys charge the missionaries? How does pricing work?

06:02 - Speaker 1
So pricing works right now it's completely pro bono services. It's no charge whatsoever to the mission organizations and we believe we have to kind of see how the monetization plan plays out and the model plays out. But our hope is that we would never charge field missionaries anything at all, ever. We're also not charging the mission organizations. All the development work, the implementation work, the rollout work implementing a church so that people join so that they can serve and volunteer, is a lot of work but we're not really charging anybody right now.

06:41
But we are taking donations from folks that really want to see this moving forward and one of the things that we do believe we can argue is that right now, but we are taking donations from folks that really want to see this moving forward. And one of the things that we do believe we can argue is that, from an investment, a faith investment perspective, we feel like a dollar invested in connecting experts who can really help with missional activities has a very, very high return on value, return on investment. So we actually have coined the phrase return on kingdom investment, because we're really investing in an asset that can deploy lots and lots of pro bono resources, which means you really, for every dollar you put in by the end of three years you're going to show $6 of value returned to the field just by people getting involved dollars of value returned to the field just by people getting involved.

07:27 - Speaker 3
Do you only specifically work through missions organizations or can, like missionaries who are not part of an organization get connected?

07:32 - Speaker 1
So, as our initial pilot we were working strictly with established initially ECFA approved, so people that were very, very highly credentialed, now we've moved to people that are being referred by those organizations or partnering directly with those organizations and as we're getting a lot more mission organizations that are hearing about us at conferences, that are businesses mission as well, so they're not technically even non-for-profits in some cases, we're using kind of a credentialing process where we ask them to sign a statement of faith to kind of demonstrate what they're doing and then we use kind of a social construct to be able to you know people, know people in regions, so we look for referrals as well. On the supply side, we ask every volunteer that serves to be 18 or older to sign a statement of faith, which is the Apostles' Creed, as well as sign a code of conduct that really kind of governs their activities on the system, just to make sure they're treating it as something that's very important, even though it's a volunteer activity.

08:38 - Speaker 3
So everything you say sounds so inspirational. I'm getting excited talking like you talking about it only because, um, it's hard to create something of value and give it up for free and then sustain it long term, right, uh, and not only that, like helping people. I think everybody, or a lot of people, have that heart, but, like, when you start helping people, it's like, but then for you it's on a global scale and like you were talking about right before we got on to this call. Is that like how do you help missionaries that are in Africa? Or like in Asia, or like Europe? Like there's just so many different contexts.

09:22 - Speaker 1
There are. So the, the, the taxonomy of the connection. So if you think of it this way, you know if I put a circle over here that said, here's every possible thing that a missionary could need in the field to spread the gospel and here's everything that a volunteer or somebody could do, a believer could do, but working virtually over the phone, it's like. So what's the intersection between those two circles? We try to keep it super simple. Complicated things we left out. So you look at, for speech, pathology, not yet Counseling, wow, that's way too complicated. Legal, too many statutory areas of jurisdiction, but by golly if my car won't start, any statutory areas of jurisdiction, but by golly if my car won't start, hey, that's a thing. Everybody uses MailChimp pretty much globally. That's a thing.

10:17
So the bottom line is we started with the easy stuff and if you think of it as concentric circles, so right now it's a one-hour phone call around a specific thing that you know and that they need. So I need to talk about marketing strategy. Bam, it's a really easy connection as we've started to add a lot more customers on both demand and the supply side. Well, now we could be. Well, I need a marketing strategy, but I really would like to have an advisor that would kind of stay with us as we implement the strategy.

10:40
Well, that's a different request for a person with a different level of availability. Talking to someone that's willing to talk to you about being like what tools you use for your Internet, for your website, is different than a guy or gal that could actually be your webmaster. That could work maybe one hour a week on an ongoing basis. So that's a different person. So we actually started with a one-hour phone call around discrete tasks. We're now expanding to one-hour phone call plus other stuff around conceptual tasks or topical tasks, and then we're going to add more topical tasks. If you're familiar from there's a book called the Cold Start Problem. It talks about how it's really hard to get things going and I know that you're in this business as well.

11:26
So it's like we want both sides to have a good experience.

11:29
So you know we have somebody that's a volunteer kingdom consultant we call them that is really good with revenue and tax planning and understands business accounting principles really well. And we had a woman that was in Czechoslovakia that was running a business as mission and she didn't have an accounting background and she was categorizing her revenue in a way that wasn't actually according to accounting standards, so she was overstating her revenue. So she thought her tax liability was crazy high. She's like, well, I can't afford to stay here. This is true. We put her on a one hour phone call with somebody who's really good at that and they're like oh no, no, here's how you do it.

12:10
This is what it looks like, here's your projection, and it rocked her world and so it's a super high value engagement that can happen in one hour.

12:19
And, by the way, I will acknowledge that I spent a lot of time on chat, gpt, saying how could a financial analyst help a missionary in the field in a one-hour phone call and what are those things that kind of popped out.

12:33
Those are the things that we started with. Now that we've got a lot more work to do and a lot more workers to do it, we can now start to define that work in greater granularity and we can start searching for deeper relationships, so that right now it's about the work, but a year from now, when you have 500 financial analysts or personal financial planners, well, maybe matching someone that really cares about human trafficking with somebody that does human like, combats human trafficking is a better fit, because now it speaks to both sides. So there's a lot of those types of things that the more you get to critical mass, the more you can really do. A much better job of number one is putting more work available on the platform and number two is doing a better job of matching it to somebody who is more likely to who's really willing to stay with that ministry on a long-term basis.

13:28 - Speaker 3
So on the supply side, are you working with churches?

13:31 - Speaker 1
So the answer is yes. It's interesting. Our ideal customer I call it that on the supply side is really anybody that equips people to serve, anybody that helps you look at your skills to like how can I help the world, kind of thing, but doesn't have stuff for people to do is like a bam, perfect customer, a really very like strong missions focused church here in Austin that basically goes through all these classes to train people that they should serve and they put them through perspectives classes, they put them through Colson fellows and all of a sudden they're like, okay, I'm ready to go change the world. And I'm like, okay, well, we have serve day on Saturday. You can go clean a park or you can go to the food bank and, by the way, those are not bad things. But the challenge of putting you know 111 worker like volunteers to work on a Saturday between nine and one, it's like it's really hard to find things to do. And if you're a patent attorney, chances are really good. You're not going to have like a faith organization that needs a patent attorney.

14:50
And so to me, the people that really are trying to get people to really live out their faith and serve but don't have stuff for them to do. I mean we're just like bringing in buckets or dumping it on their desk of stuff they could do. I mean, we met somebody this week it's a creative access country who is just struggling staying in the field because they had a special needs job. So we reached to the mission pastors at some of our equipping organizations and said, hey, if you have maybe a family that's raised a child with this condition, it would be a huge blessing to be able to just work with this family to help them understand. You know what life could be like or how they could really manage better. And all of a sudden, this person who's like. So my gifting is that I struggled raising a special needs child and now I could give that back. It's like that's amazing, yeah, this is my calling.

15:39
Are you kidding? That's so cool. You're about the guy who went to prison talking to prisoners. Okay, okay, I get that when I hear somebody who's gone through a hard situation in parenting and they can really use it to help with resilience and keeping a missionary in the field. Wow, wow, it's just. I'll tell you what.

15:59
I keep meeting people who don't think that their skill can be used in the Great Commission and I'm like, well, good meeting you, but we're never going to see that on the platform, never, ever. And then I get a call two days later and there's somebody that needs that exact thing. I'm like how cool is God that you can literally just say you know what? I'm just going to trust God, put it in, we'll see what happens. And then, all of a sudden, it happens. It's just, it's been a real inspiration to me and part of what we're doing as part of the process is that is, we're cranking through these engagements daily now, and so as these engagements drop, you know, concluded the system, we dropped them into our marketing system and we basically write a snappy headline, we anonymize the name of the missionary and we have a twoence description of what they did, so that now we can put this on our website saying you know what do you do? I'm a CPA.

16:53
Well, here are 10 things that CPAs did for the Great Commission in the last two weeks. Why? Well, I guess there's no excuse. So all of a sudden, you can bring it home that says that you homeschool your kids. Well, guess what? We need that. Oh, you grew up in Ethiopia. We need that too. Oh, you speak that language. Well, guess what? We need a bunch of that. And so to be able to bring home those things that were non-traditional ways for people to serve and to show them that they can serve, it's just like a match to dynamite. You've got these congregations. You know, the harvest is plenty, the workers are few. It's like no, the workers are all in the pews. They're just not doing anything. So giving them something that can mobilize those people is just amazing. So on the supply side, we've got these really cool dashboards so a, an equipping organization can go through and look at what the people are doing and see how they're serving and look at the stories that are coming out of that and look at their skills.

17:48 - Speaker 3
It gives them the ability to actually be much, much more effective than they currently can be with their congregation and get them much more plugged into missions, which frankly changes the whole equation yeah, it's funny because when you're talking, the thought I I had is like oh, this is like a gateway missions, it's like an hour, just give an hour and see how you like it. And then it's like oh, and then it starts rolling into. I really like this, let me give it two or three and then kind of give your whole life to it so interesting that it's an interesting analogy or illustration that you suggested.

18:23 - Speaker 1
I agree a hundred percent From the beginning. We tested a lot of hypothesis as we went through this process. It's been about two and a half years now and we believe from the beginning that the kingdom consultant, the volunteer, is actually going to be impacted more than the missionary.

18:39
Because the missionary is going to get their website done Awesome. But the guy in Austin who works on websites is like hey, I'm working with this ministry that's in Indonesia and they combat human trafficking and you won't believe what these guys are doing. It's so cool, it's a really amazing thing. And all of a sudden, the woman thinking of a specific ministry, the woman that runs that ministry, is like a person. Specific ministry, the woman that runs that ministry, is like a person. They're not like this mysterious missionary thing that floats in and comes in once a quarter to raise money. It's someone that you talk to once a week, that's doing real stuff and you're actually on her team.

19:16
So I think that it's going to be really interesting to see what the progression looks like and, frankly, we only do remote. So if you're serving with this missionary Unbound is the name of the ministry, they're out of Antioch If, all of a sudden, you feel like this is a really important thing and you're really getting involved, well, it's kind of an introduction to missions that lets you know hey, I really care about Indonesia, I really care about Unbound, I really care about human trafficking, I really care about human trafficking. I think I am going to go. So I think that you know we've seen organizations that are now that only send, that don't do virtual which is kind of a new thing who are now basically referring anybody that wants to serve but can't go to us, so that we can basically prepare them to mobilize as virtual volunteers and then we can actually assign them back to their organization in the field so they can actually serve with the organization that referred us.

20:14 - Speaker 3
Yeah, so it's like that biblical principle of like it's better to give than receive. But I think it's because I don't know what it is about the human experience but when you observe an impact where you participated in it somehow exponentially expands the wildness than when you just receive something, because when you receive something, I think you kind of forget it on the phone.

20:34 - Speaker 1
You know, I think, what we want to do. And you know, again, you go back to a younger generation. I mean the people who pick up our app. It's like the 25 year olds are like well, why wouldn't every believer be on my smartphone? And what time is it there? Can I call him? Now, where the 50 year olds are like well, you know, that's not really how we do it. I think there's a couple of real benefits. The one is for the I call them zillennials. So the disease in the millennials it makes it real Right. So the Z's and the millennials it makes it real right.

21:08
So now, where I think that people that are more my age is like well, your social status comes from what you own and what your title is. It's your social status, I think, for younger people as well. You know, what are you involved in, what do you support, who are you, what do you believe? This is a really cool, tangible way that you know if you're at work. It's like you know what do you support, who are you, what do you believe? This is a. This is a really cool, tangible way that you know if you're at work. It's like you know oh, what are you doing tonight. Oh, I'm working with this guy in the philippines. He's trying to set up a well so that he can bring water to the village, because right now they don't have access to clean water. It's like you're doing what? So all of a sudden you're like a 26 year old civil engineer who's helping somebody across the world to determine power management requirements so you could get enough power into a pump so that you could develop this. Well, it's like all of a sudden, you've had this whole new narrative, this whole new thing you can talk about. That, I think, creates a lot of social status and shows you about impact and helping the world and not just about yourself, which I think is a really big thing. So getting the Zs and the millennials involved in that has been really powerful and they're, frankly, some of our most active and enthusiastic volunteers.

22:15
The other thing is that, because you're now working with the guy or the gal who's on the front lines, you know you can talk about unreached people groups, 1040 window you can talk about historically under. You know that only one out of every $30 goes to the areas where it's most needed. Well, I mean, you could basically receive a request, click a button and be introduced directly to a guy who literally runs a facility two miles from where the army rangers have a checkpoint to keep, like the you know, the dangerous parts of southern philippines out of the area where you live. I mean, this is the definition. These guys have been trying to plant a church for 99 years and you know, this guy's telling me it's like I don't know if it's 99 years into a 200 year window or 99 years into a hundred and one year window.

23:04
We might be right there, but you're working with a guy who's on the ground, who's actually doing it and not necessarily giving to a big thing that has a regional thing, that's got a local thing. It's like you're actually working with a guy who's literally on the ground and I think that the immediacy of that and the sense that you can have a relationship with your Uber driver or the guy who comes and picks you up actually knows who you're going to be. It's a different expectation and people that are used to the technologies that are in place expect and it's frankly, it's easier. That way you don't require a cost structure is almost nothing. The cost structure is almost nothing.

23:43
I mean, if you came in and you said, hey, scott, we really could use somebody to help with social media strategy, you would click a button. It would pop up a little when you say here's kind of what we're thinking. Here's what's going on. It's about a two-sentence thing. You click a button, it goes to four volunteers, it hits their email and, honestly, danny, within, usually, within, usually within less than 10 minutes somebody says, oh, I'll take that, that's a good fit for me, and they're automatically introduced to the missionary and they set up a time to work.

24:16
Actually, we have a new enhancement. We actually book it on their calendars and then let them adjust it, which is way easier. And then the other three people are like hey, thank you for your willingness to serve. You know, better luck next time. You know, click the button faster next time. So we're, you know. I mean, we're trying to get out of the middle. And if you think about switchboard as a name, it's really about connecting everyday believers with missionaries in the field so they can do whatever God is leading them to.

24:43 - Speaker 3
Yeah, so the image I got at the end was the telephone sit-for right. It used to be personally operated until they automated it and it's self-sufficient Right. So how do you see AI disrupt or help or impact what you're doing?

25:01 - Speaker 1
So there's a couple of things that I think AI can help a lot. We are working on something, or we're testing something right now to actually put on the website, which basically says hey, I homeschool my kids, can I help with the Great Commission? Or, oh, I'm a high school football coach, can I help with the Great Commission? So, taking that little bit of information that you can discern about yourself and then running it through an AI model, so we basically have the ability to take that thing and break it into. High school football coaches typically have the following skills and the following attributes, so we can use AI to break that person down into assumptions and then all the things that are currently available on the platform. We've got an AI model that maps certain assumptions or characteristics to a potential service opportunity. So one thing that we want to do is we want to demonstrate. I want to put in a little promotion for my shirt. I'm called. We believe that every believer is called to the Great Commission. You homeschool your kids, you're a coach, you're a software programmer, you're called to the Great Commission. You homeschool your kids, you're a coach, you're a software programmer. You're called to the Great Commission too, and you can directly participate. So we want pastors to be able to say, hey, go here, type in whatever you're good at. I'm a beekeeper, I don't know. There probably are some things that are not very good fit, but for the 99% of things that you could type in, there's some way somebody in the world could be helped and you could benefit. The Great Commission. So using AI to discern what's inside of people, try to connect them with service opportunities, I think is really powerful.

26:41
And then the final thing and this is the so. This is basically when we talked about the circle what missionaries need, what volunteers could do. So the first thing I mentioned makes this circle bigger. The volunteer can do more things. The second thing is makes this circle bigger. What mission organizations need is also a bigger target to hit, because you didn't know you needed social media help, but based on what you told me, apparently you do. So let's get that started. The third part is really the hard part, and if anybody watching this podcast is really good at this and you're a believer, please call me, because this is a really important thing is that the intersection of the two circles is really hard. What do you call things? What does it look like? How do you contextualize? The more and more we specialize and the more and more that catalog of activities, where we connect people, expands, the more important it is to be able to look at those nuances that AI can help us interpret. So it's not everything, but in terms of understanding and pulling in information that is not immediately available on a profile that somebody filled out, I think it's super informative.

27:48
I'll give you a specific example. I won't use a specific country, but when we were doing our proof of concept, we had basically someone who was in Eastern Europe. They're running a business as mission. They employ women to do handcraft goods. I think she was at a conference in Thailand. She heard about us. She's like that sounds awesome and she was struggling with manufacturing. So she created a request in the system that says I need somebody to implement a manufacturing system. I'm like that's a really big thing and that's what I did for a living.

28:21
So I'm like I think I should talk to her. So her first connection on Switchboard was with me and I basically went through kind of her problem statement what are you trying to solve? What are your revenues? Um, how many people work there? What is your, what is your technical skill base to be able to run a system like that? You know, and you looked at the workflow. It's like wow, that you know.

28:43
We got to the end of that call and again she said I want someone to implement a manufacturing. Got to the end of that call and again she said I want someone to implement a manufacturing system. At the end of that call we changed it to I need somebody that can help me track my inventory and track my hours so that I can pay people but also know kind of sort of what I have in stock so I'll know when to order more stuff. You have that now. Well, she had it all in Google Sheets.

29:10
I said so what would happen if, when you put a purchase receipt into this tab on this sheet, it updated your inventory and also went to your payment ledger to show that you now have money? She's like that would be amazing. Well, at the end of the day she really needed someone who was good at Google Sheets or Excel to link some spreadsheets to define a couple of entry forms for receipts and payments. That was. I mean, it was like 16 hours of work total for someone that knew Microsoft Excel. It wasn't 12 months of work and $30,000 of licensing for someone that needed manufacturing so to be able to go.

29:47
So what do you really need based on what you're saying, gotcha oh, my goodness, gracious danny, I cannot even tell you no, I understand the solution. We we implemented a proof of concept last summer that basically tried to solve that problem, and it was so hopelessly over engineered I could not pay people to use it because I'm like, well, I need to know more. I need to know more. Well, what else do you know? I'm like I don't know. That's why I'm asking for an expert.

30:15 - Speaker 2
And I'm like.

30:15 - Speaker 1
I'm trying to drag information out of people so I can like create this perfect solution. It's like you know what I really need a guy that knows manufacturing. And actually from the leader of Crystal North America, steve Coffey, uses the term Wusta, I know a guy. It's like I know a guy. I need to know a guy that's good at marketing. I need to know a guy that's good at buying software Like, why know a guy that could totally do that? So that's really what brought us to the one-hour phone call, so that you capture skills and you say what skills do you need? I'll connect you with a guy or gal that's got those skills. And now, as we expand the taxonomy around what we call things and how we get them to the solution really pulls them into a different. It pulls them into a consultation with an expert around what the solution is before you try to define. Okay, here's everything that I could possibly need.

31:11 - Speaker 3
Yeah, most of the times people, when they ask for help, it's more like a tip of the iceberg, because underneath they think it'll solve a current problem, but in actuality it's just covering the depth of more problems. So you got to keep asking okay, why do you need this? Are you trying to go?

31:28 - Speaker 1
That is exactly. That's exactly the problem we ran into last summer, and you know, the other thing is people don't ask you for things that they think they can't get. And we're piloting this with Crystar right now. Is that building virtual teams? That said, I need a CFO advisor, I need a human resources advisor, I need an IT advisor. I need a CFO advisor, I need a human resources advisor, I need an IT advisor. I need a webmaster, I need a proofreader, I need somebody that edits photographs. I need somebody I mean people will help with all that stuff. Let's build a team. You can literally just assign the team and, frankly, danny, what we think is going to happen is that when you start to launch a virtual digital marketing team, you're going to sign up a guy who does websites and he's going to sign up his buddies so we can work together in the same ministries. Hey, work with me on this. I need a photo editor. I need somebody that can write stories. Okay, we're the team.

32:26
I think that they're going to start to form their own teams and then those teams can actually start working with these ministries. And boy howdy, no, 55 year old missionary in the field wants to learn mailchimp and wants to figure out how to do html. They just don't want to do it and I don't blame them. So when you show up and say here's your team and here you go, and this team, like you won't believe what we're doing these days. We just, you know, literally I mean for them to be able to be involved with the school in Mauritius or be involved with you know somebody that's in Myanmar. It's like they don't even know where these countries are and they're like I'm working with a guy who's in Mauritius who runs a school and is doing this thing, and here's what we're doing. Wow, it's a totally different thing. I think people are going to really catch the bug is what I think.

33:16 - Speaker 3
Yeah, that's pretty amazing. Yeah, I kind of want to dig into your career path, mainly with SmartDog. You spun that out out of your time in Oracle and you were there like 16 years, right.

33:29 - Speaker 1
Yeah, I was.

33:30 - Speaker 3
How did. Oracle come about.

33:34 - Speaker 1
Well, so actually I learned Oracle stuff at Pricewaterhouse and then I worked as an independent consultant before going to Oracle and I left Oracle in 2003, and I went to an organization that was actually founded by a group out in New Orleans. So we built a really terrific business. Paul McCarthy actually had been Ernst Young's Entrepreneur of the Year and it was all high flying and stuff like that and I just felt like I wanted to work in a smaller company and so I went to. It was DCC Services at the time, but we renamed it Smart Dog because it was a consulting model, a remote services consulting model in the Oracle space, which had really never been done before, and so it's funny. We basically started signing customers, working with them virtually remotely. We developed really strong expertise and knew their businesses really well, and then that model and that business actually grew through 2019. We actually exited that business to a group out of Boston right before COVID started.

34:37
But the thing that's really interesting is that we were a very faith-forward organization and we implemented basically a model that says that I'm going to work virtually, I'm going to set the scope virtually, we're going to agree on it in advance, we're going to basically log these things as incidents, as tickets, and it was a really novel concept. And then fast forward 2019, 2020, we're starting to do research for switchboard. It's like, why does nobody not do this? This is like everybody's been doing Zoom forever, but the faith community has never adopted these techniques. If you look at the smartphone, you look at Starlink and you look at platform technologies like eBay, uber kind of thing, it's like everything already exists to do everything that we need to do to mobilize the church, to get involved directly and so to be able to apply that.

35:33
You know, really cool time I had with Smart Dog to what we were doing at Switchboard was like, you know, maybe God was a faith principles who was led by a very strong Christian man and he allowed us to do this thing, and then this thing became switchboard. I'm like get out of town. You know, yet again, just another time that something happens that you didn't expect that you go. Yeah, I could totally see that this was part of the plan.

36:06 - Speaker 3
It's fascinating because the more new people I meet and I listen to their story, everyone has a unique experience and, based on their own unique challenges, patience and strengths, they come up with, like because human beings are just problem solvers right by nature. Oh yeah, that's what, like the whole switchboard thing really worked. Because it's like people tend to discount their own life, you know, or life experiences, because it's not like social media or like highlights, but it's like no, you actually have a lot to offer just by sharing what you did. And, yeah, I just find it really funny or just wowed by you know God.

36:43 - Speaker 1
Well, but you know there's a lot of change management because you know God Well, but you know there's a lot of change management because you know pretty much the reason we call our volunteers kingdom consultants is missionaries don't like the term volunteer because there's so much stigma attached to it. Volunteers don't really help.

36:57 - Speaker 2
They maybe help pay for stuff.

36:59 - Speaker 1
But you know, you got 10 people that show up, and I'm not. I'm thinking short-term mission trips to some extent, but in general volunteers have always been problematic for mission organizations. They just aren't. And then you look at the kingdom consultant side and it's like well, the last time I volunteered I scraped poop out of a chicken coop with like a little trowel and I'm a you know. Again, I'm a, you know, a real estate attorney, or I have a PhD in whatever it's like.

37:30
If only somebody could use my skill based on what I'm really good at. And also, danny, I could fill you up with stories of people who have super specialized skills. They got plugged in ways that are just crazy, amazing. I would take up another hour hour long call to do that. But it's like people, it's like you just never know, until you put it down and you make yourself available to the body of Christ, what's going to show up. So I mean, that's what we say is when we ask you to fill out a volunteer profile. It's like you know what you don't know. If you don't know, are you willing to be available? If you are, just put it down.

38:08 - Speaker 3
And if the body body calls, the body will call. Well, the reason why I'm asking about smart dog is the tagline is the oracle's customer's best friend. So like why and what were you trying? Like, what problem were you trying to solve? Because I get the whole consulting thing but like I don't know what you did or so here's the thing about.

38:25 - Speaker 1
or their software is really expensive.

38:29
It's really good. It's incredibly powerful and the vast majority of customers don't get full value out of their investment. You know you would go see customers and I bought a Ferrari and I'm driving a Chevy kind of a thing and so what we found is that the typical customer that we serve typically we did both the technical stuff but also the business application side. So finance, manufacturing, customer service, you know, shipping, distribution kind of stuff is that. You know they. Basically you know we're running software that could use this much value, but they're only getting this much value.

39:06
So what we would say is we were the Oracle customer's best friend, because we would say that we would help you get value from the software that you already own.

39:16
We're going to run diagnostics, so we're going to show you stuff you could turn on that you already bought, that's already implemented, that you just didn't know you could do it, and we're going to show you how to use the software in a way that you can. Really, you know, what we used to always say is that we're going to make you glad you bought Oracle and people would go spend $5 million on this thing and it's terrible and all this stuff it's like because you're not using all of it. So that was really our tagline is that we want to be the Oracle customer's best friend by helping them, by helping them get value where they already had an asset that was underutilized and, frankly, switchboard's kind of the same thing. You've got 260 million Christians just in North America who are kind of sort of mostly not doing anything for the Great Commission other than maybe contributing to a cooperative fund, and it's like you know what? You've got skills you could use them. So get off the sofa and get busy.

40:15
So in some ways it's the same thing it's activating and mobilizing a pent-up asset.

40:20 - Speaker 3
Yeah, I really appreciate your heart and your thought about seeing problems as opportunities to help people and you're like wait, why are we doing it this way? It doesn't help anybody, or like it's wasting so many things and let's do it another way. I so I like youtube. I usually try to youtube like um podcasts from other guests, but you only had one from, uh, humanizing technology or something.

40:43 - Speaker 1
Yeah, a couple years ago, units of labor, breaking things into chunks. We've really separated the human from the work and in the process we've separated the faith from the work. So, tim Keller, I mean there's so many things now where it's a faith at work movement, but it used to be that I was part of the blacksmith guild and our families lived together, we did similar work, we worshiped together.

41:27
It was all kind of part and parcel to the same thing. And, you know, even though what we're seeing at Switchboard requires huge, huge change, management to think differently, the bottom line is every single thing we've used to build this platform already exists, exists, it's readily available off the shelf, ready to put together, ready to use.

41:52
So I think that, in some ways, I think that the separation of faith and the way that people really move in terms of their pursuit of their faith is really separate from a lot of innovation and it really relies the current structure relies on structures that have been in place since the 70s and 80s. Now, if you look at, you know, the guy who is from Burundi who's preaching from a street corner in Rwanda. He doesn't have a structure, he's just trying to figure stuff out. You look at the B4Ts and the businesses mission guys. They're like, hey, we're trying to like create a whole new thing. So I think you're going to find that the 25 and 30 year olds are moving out with a different expectation. There's a lot more entrepreneurship and a lot of more business and with entrepreneurship, there's a lot of seeking ways to leverage new tools and it's kind of like.

42:43
I kind of see it like you know, as the millennials came out, when they realized that their most active users on Facebook were their grandparents, they stopped using Facebook. And I think you're going to find in mission organizations. It's like if you're going to look and see the mission organizations are using Zoom or hey, we're now like using ChatGPT, which is still pretty darn new, but it's kind of like if your grandparents are using it, it's probably not the new thing anymore and I think that there's a new mindset and there's a new hunger around what it really takes. There certainly is a new opportunity and I think that giving those legacy people who really poured the ground, who created the ability to be in those countries, who sacrificed in the 70s and 80s, giving them the respect to kind of you know, to kind of move off into their retirement and really appreciate the fact that they created, you know, as the Marines they created the beachhead, that these new people are coming in with new ideas and techniques.

43:41
I think that we can celebrate what they've done, but I think that the ways that they've done it are kind of moving into the you know, are kind of moving into the background, and we're finding that there's new ways to really pursue, you know, faith.

43:54
I mean, some of the stuff that I'm seeing with from some of our our more innovative customers that are using, you know, available tools to reach millions of people is incredible. It's absolutely incredible and it's like is incredible. It's absolutely incredible and it's like why not? I mean, there's a girl, 16-year-old, that was at my wife's school that had, you know, 2 million followers on TikTok. It's like, and so not that we want to be on TikTok, but I just don't want to ignore that there are new ways of doing things and, as believers, it's our responsibility to find every possible asset that's been put at our disposal for the kingdom so part of my own personal theory is, you know, when jesus says, if you've been feel like you've forgiven a lot, then you will forgive more easily.

44:42 - Speaker 3
And I think that also applies to people who have received help. I think people who received a lot of help realize how valuable it is, so they have this reciprocity of trying to help others. But if you don't have ever experienced that, I think like help becomes kind of more optional than necessary. And the reason why I bring this up because on the podcast you mentioned, like you know, you credit other people in your life growing up right Like forming you, helping you understand and growing. What did you learn from them and how did they shape you?

45:13 - Speaker 1
Oh boy, man Well, first thing, that's a great question. Second thing is shame on you for going to a two-year-old podcast to try to remember what I said back then. I think that everything that we do is on the shoulders of those who came before us. I think, that everything that we do is on the shoulders of those who came before us.

45:30
I think I did mention my father on that call because my dad was kind of the what's possible guy what exists and walking into a situation and saying, hmm, you know what's available to me now and what can we make happen and who wants to be a part of that? I mean, I always felt like I'm an aggregator, not necessarily an idea guy, but it's like who benefits from this and who wants this to happen and who can we bring together so it forms a team? I think it's just huge. It's really enormous to have a different mindset and to be brought up in a house where why wouldn't you be the one who would win math competition, who would start on the basketball team or who would you know? Somewhere in the house there was a letter I wrote to I was talking about I'm sure we were watching the news and my parents were like, oh well, you should write the president. I'm like, okay, and I wrote the president. I was eight years old and the letter came back from the president.

46:35
And then, 25 years later, I'm in graduate school and I was given this case study around some, some, something, harvard, something, something and I'm like, well, I'm just going to call the guy. So I got on the phone and I called the guy that was the head of the department of Harvard. I'm like we just got this case study. I'm at Baylor what did you guys do? And he's like he tells me what he did. I'm like that was awesome.

46:52
So this idea that people are available and that nothing is impossible, it's like why wouldn't you try? I went to a conference, a speaking thing at DCX, where there's a guy in town that brings these business leaders together to have these really great, faithful word messages Chris Miroff, I'll throw a bone for him. I went to this event that he threw two months ago with an XXL I Am Called t-shirt because Tim Tebow was speaking thinking, hey, you know what, if I run into Tim, I'm going to get him to put on my shirt, I'm going to take his picture so that people will want to like volunteer for the great commission. I did not find myself in audience with Tim but hey, why?

47:31 - Speaker 2
not Right.

47:32 - Speaker 1
So there's a little bit of that. I think getting that from my dad and, honestly, my wife is the same way. She's like well, give it a shot, see what happens. Um, I think that, wow, I don't know. I I've been inspired by many, many people, so I just look at all the people that are out there trying to do things in faith, who have really extraordinary skills, technically very marketable skills, who are like you know what? That's not what I want to do. I'm going to focus on this and it's a real inspiration. I mean, it's something that I've drawn from myself, because I feel like God has really provided for us.

48:11 - Speaker 3
The other reason why I bring this up is because there's this idea, like for young people, you might go out and find like a mentor or find the information you need.

48:20
But to me like that makes sense in some aspects, because you need to be kind of proactive in some aspects, because you need to be kind of proactive. But a lot of times I was just placed in situations to be around people and just by being near them I learned from them. Do you know what I mean? It's not like I asked them to like teach me. It was just like, oh, there was this opportunity and there was just this person that was really good at what they did. So I just observed them, asked them a lot of questions, and so what advice would you give young people?

48:51 - Speaker 1
Well, honestly, it's interesting because I was not very good at recruiting mentors. I think I felt like I was a bother, maybe or they wouldn't care or it doesn't really benefit them.

49:05
And what I've learned is that it's literally just the opposite. So I mean, I've said, my wife and I teach a class of what was once referred as the young marrieds. They're not that young anymore, but I'm just going to go with that and I meet with those guys a lot to talk about their families, to talk about issues that they've got, what things they're struggling with, to talk about jobs and what to do. And it's interesting, you know, especially if you're changing careers or you're coming out of college or you're going into college, you really have a backstage pass to meet with anybody. Hey, you know, I notice that you're in this. I really feel like I want to be a senior software engineer. That's what I think. Hey, danny, I would love it if you would let me buy you coffee. Honestly, I'd love to kind of find out what things do you wish somebody had told you when you were my age? And people love it. They love that. They love it when people ask their opinion.

50:03
I think that, weirdly enough, a lot of people that are 45 and older feel awkward around 20-year-olds, like like well, I don't, can I? I don't know how to ask you know, do I just take it or what do I do and kind of walking them through that process to understand, you know, the things that really matter, I think, are just really important and I mean there's just nobody that is off limits in terms of being a mentor, especially if you're at one of those formative stages. People really enjoy it and recruiting them and keeping them in your life. We have a fractional chief technology officer, marcus Smith, who frankly came at a perfect time in our project. He was really we would not have gotten this done without Marcus. But he's recruited a team, team of older guys that are kind of a formal mentor group that meet once a quarter and we're developing relationships with each other. But these are guys that, um, that he's brought together to really provide that kind of guidance and mentorship and we're not like all awesome, you're so good, I mean we're. We kind of tell them what we really think and it's really interesting to kind of see. So I mean, be fearless, I mean there's no reason to be discontent but to be out there and just I don't know, I feel like you really have the ability to consider anything and build those relationships.

51:44
The other thing I used to tell my kids is that you know every day you're going to meet somebody new and today may be the day that you meet somebody that you'll know or work with the rest of your life. So pay attention and stay in touch. I mean, linkedin is such a great tool. I mean LinkedIn is such a great tool Faithfully is such a great tool that would really let you, as you form these relationships, to be able to reach back out and find people that you share values with is really huge. And so to do that systematically and this isn't trying to secure a bunch of contacts from a sales perspective these are people that you meet, somebody you're like wow, we kind of get each other. I really like to know you down the road. You know you don't know what, what the trajectory of their life will be, or whether or not you're going to intersect or not, but maintaining those relationships are incredibly valuable.

52:33 - Speaker 3
It will make you happier and make you better connected and make you more professionally successful as well you say you met your wife at church, um, but you mentioned one story, like you're traveling and you're eating fancy food and you bring a fancy dessert home and then she's eating cereal. She's like thanks, and you stop. One, why did you think it was a good idea? And then, two, what did you learn that day? You're like, oh okay, I shouldn't do that.

52:59 - Speaker 1
Well, so I did it because I wanted to, like you know, I'm thinking about you, dear, and I brought you something special and all that kind of stuff. What I learned is that number one it reminded her that I was, you know, having a five-star ribeye and she was having, you know, cereal and macaroni and cheese. And number two is the last thing you want two nights a week is someone to bring you a big piece of cheesecake, you know, at nine o'clock at night. That's just. That is no bueno. That doesn't help with anything. So, so yeah, that was a great idea while it lasted, but I stopped doing it.

53:36 - Speaker 3
Did you bring anything else home, or you just didn't bring anything else home anymore?

53:41 - Speaker 1
Probably didn't.

53:42 - Speaker 3
I mean, I would bring home flowers occasionally, stuff like that, but no more food, certainly no more really like heavy, heavy fat food so the reason why I ask is because often we think something's a really good idea, because we have really good intentions, but then how someone receives it can be completely off base because of where they're at, you know, mentally, emotionally and just in the life stage. And so, yeah, like would you have, just like ask her, like hey, like was there even a thought? Or like would you like dessert, me bring dessert, or you just kind of like do things I typically just do things because it seems more spontaneous or romantic or whatever.

54:22 - Speaker 1
Um so, uh, hmm, she's pretty, she's in our relationship. I'm more the emotional one, she's more the pragmatic one gotcha in some ways super pragmatic, um, but uh, I mean we we're coming up on 34 years this well, in two weeks, two and a half weeks. So we're doing, okay, we're doing yeah, yeah.

54:45 - Speaker 3
And so what was it like dating someone in church? Because nowadays there's always this like intense anxiety about like oh, if we break up, we gotta do church, or like, which I don't understand, because it's like, why can't you stay friends? But I get the whole emotional part of it it was more of a joke.

55:01 - Speaker 1
I used to tell people I never date a girl lives next door. It was more of a joke. I used to tell people I never dated a girl that was next door and I never dated a girl from church, and that was really just a joke. I met her. She's really smart and she was really interesting and really pragmatic and technically when we went out it wasn't a date, it was kind of a let's go hang out kind of a thing. And then you know, 11 months later we were married. So fortunately we did not have to choose which church we would go to or things like that, but it was always more of a. You know, we had seen people that had like met at church and had this long courtship and their friends became, you know, couples' friends and then all of a sudden you're not a couple anymore and it's like then who gets? Who gets custody of the friends? And we obviously never dealt with that because we we moved on and got married and stayed married.

55:52 - Speaker 3
So what would you say to like early entrepreneurs who are like really ambitious about like building a company but like it's married and have kids I'll give you a plus and a minus.

56:01 - Speaker 1
I do do think that Melanie stayed home with the kids until they started school and then she actually went back to teaching, but we were really good about you know, family time was family time, so you know whether it's.

56:15
you know church stuff, sports stuff, you know, camping stuff, whatever we were doing, we there was never. There was never a. You know, I wasn't the guy that was working, you know, seven days a week kind of a thing. I think that the downside is that I felt like I wasn't good at like putting it out of my mind and leaving it out of the picture. So I felt like even when I was with family, it was always kind of hanging with me.

56:46
Now I will tell you that I talked to my kids, who are grown now, about this and they didn't realize it. Obviously Melanie did so they were like oh, you were a great dad and you were goofy and all that kind of stuff. But I wish that I had been better at just doing a better job of letting go, maybe building a stronger management team or structuring management differently so that it wasn't kind of all on my plate. And I'll admit I'm not great at that now either, although Melanie's actually helping out with switchboard and I work with my son is with switchboard and you know the kids are out of the house, so it's less problematic.

57:31
But for the people that have the ability to compartmentalize, I think the younger people are better at. You know, when you punch out, you're out, kind of thing, and I'm, you know, simultaneously frustrated and jealous because I'm like, yeah, but I really I just need a five-minute question on a Saturday, but it's also I wish I wasn't thinking about it on a Saturday kind of a thing. You know, I, I don't know it's, it's just kind of how I'm wired and how my how my dad was wired so what are you hoping for at Faithly?

58:01
I think Faithly is a really great. It's funny, actually, I had introduced you to the guy in Atlanta, jeff Brink. I think it's really clear to people that come from the business world that the connections are crucial, and it's not just around conversations, it's around shared values, it's around circumstances, it's around geography, it's around whatever it's around, and that thing that it is the ability to bring together the body in a way that really matters, that is impactful. Frankly, it's the reason I feel like believers are playing defense. In modern culture today. There might be two people of some sexual or you know gender or you know philosophical orientation. There may be like 1% of people, but because that 1% is like all talking together, they have this huge voice. I mean, meanwhile, you've got this huge body of people that are faith-based, that believe in the same thing, that care about the same thing, that really follow the same Lord, and we never, ever, outside of a Bud Light moment, we never get together around anything. It's like what would happen if we just decided to buy the same brand of potato chips. I mean literally, you know that we would only buy this automobile, or that we would only watch this TV station or we would only watch, you know this streaming video service. I mean, we literally could rule the world.

59:41
And so, to me, finding organizations that are taking the time to build out platforms, that your objective is to connect those people and provide ways for them to find each other. Frankly, if you look at our three-year roadmap, we're just trying to get a bunch of people that want to serve and a bunch of people that need help. Get them in a thing, so we got them. And a bunch of people that need help. Get them in a thing, so we got them. But once those people are in a thing, well, these people are going to want to interact around civil engineering and wells. These people are going to want to interact about what's happening in this little village in Southern Philippines, it's like. So there's a lot of organizations that have finite objectives around selling customers or putting people on platforms.

01:00:27
Creating some marketplace, some town hall, some place that they could come together is the thing that actually allows us to, number one, be effective as the body, to really act, as the Holy Spirit really directs us and supposes just what we happen to see in front of us. I think it's crucial and I wish you guys the best, because I think it is absolutely, absolutely crucial that Christians you know number one, you know identify themselves. Number two, that they come together in strength and to encourage each other and hold each other accountable. And number three, to create, you know, something that really has meaning, so that we are not always playing defense.

01:01:12
In modern culture, I think that we have been robbed of the word gay, we've been robbed of the rainbow. Apparently, we can't do okay anymore either. It's like. It's like like what happened in this world. So to me, I think that that you know for you guys to bring people together and do it successfully creates so many other opportunities for the body and for us to grow and to strengthen ourselves that we could really mobilize a lot more people than is even currently feasible.

01:01:40 - Speaker 3
Last question is how can we be praying for you?

01:01:42 - Speaker 1
even currently feasible. Last question is how can we be praying for you? Oh, wow, we have a lot to figure out, the intersection when you get a lot of people trying to connect with a lot of people. So, you know, really helping us to really have wisdom and understanding what that connection can look like, to not overcomplicate it. Helping to identify people that are really good at that, the taxonomy of work, understanding maybe some of the ML, some of the data models that are available to help us maybe discern some things that aren't evident in the text, things like that, because we're trying to draw from anybody who has expertise in that area that we can.

01:02:24
And then right now we're actually doing some bridge funding, so we're raising money to basically take us through kind of getting to full launch, which is really May, june timeframe. So we're opening up a lot more volume starting in January, based on kind of what we've learned in the last three months after the general release, kind of what we've learned in the last three months after the general release, and and and, of course, the supply side that people would really be touched, that people would be moved to serve. I mean, we find that in every church of a thousand there's 30 people that are begging for a place to serve, probably another 70 that if if it was obvious that there was a way for them to serve, they would. But there's probably another 300 in that church that need to kind of think differently. So kind of the change management on that side is going to be really important. It's a completely different thing, yeah.

01:03:16 - Speaker 3
Well, this is great, scott, Thanks for coming on.

01:03:20 - Speaker 1
I enjoyed talking. I'm glad that I wore the appropriate podcast apparel. I was really just trying to rep my shirt, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Good, you showed up in your black t-shirt.

01:03:31 - Speaker 3
It's just coincidence. Thanks for all you guys. You're doing. I appreciate it All. Right, that's it for the podcast.

01:03:37 - Speaker 2
Thank you for tuning in to the Faithly Stories podcast. Faithly Stories Podcast. We pray this episode gave you the encouragement you needed to continue on your journey. The Faithly Stories Podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. The Faithly digital platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.