EW 077 – How To Build Innovative Software Solutions That Make Businesses More Profitable – Winning with Ryan Malloy, CEO of Liquid Software Corporation

Gordon Sheppard (00:00.691)
Ryan, welcome to the show.

Ryan Malloy (00:03.318)
Thank you very much for having me.

Gordon Sheppard (00:04.681)
Well, we are so lucky to have you because you're an entrepreneur who goes into many different areas. You've had success in the oil and gas business, success in the software business, success in supporting nonprofits in the work that you do and just all the mentoring that you've done along the way and all kinds of different things. And so we're just so loaded for a good conversation based on your background and your history and all the good things that you're doing out there in the world. But you know, there's a lot of people that haven't met you just yet.

and if you could describe yourself, what would you say?

Ryan Malloy (00:35.714)
Well, that's that's quite the introduction. I'll do my best to live up to it. my name is Ryan Malloy. I'm the CEO of Liquid Software. you know, age old story of of an oil and gas guy turned tech entrepreneur. And yeah, I just have have, you know, born and raised in Edmonton. been self-employed since I was 25. And you know, obviously the the term serial entrepreneur is is used quite often on your podcast. And, you know, I fall victim to that myself.

you know, just have always loved kind of starting businesses and working with different companies. And that really kind of gave me a love for the software business because now I get to do that all the time.

Gordon Sheppard (01:17.481)
Interesting. And you work with a variety of different businesses. We're gonna get into that a little bit. I'm just gonna go back on the timeline for the pedigree a little bit here. So you're you're leading up to twenty five. Did you did you go to school? Did you just jump into the oil patch? Like what take me up to twenty five and that sort of moment there?

Ryan Malloy (01:31.754)
Yeah, I actually had a trades background. So you know, was was investigating attending the U of A at one point and was working a summer job in a technical trade in refrigeration at the time and was offered an apprenticeship and just decided to do that instead. It's that seemed to be a better fit for me at the time than attending university. So went went through that program, ended up changing trades into appliance service.

And you know, that the kind of that it old age old adage that, you know, if you have a trade, it gives you something to fall back on. I I'm a wild advocate of that. That is so true. you know, something else that, you know, I the the apprenticeship program is incredible. that's that's one of the one of the things that, you know, as a as an Alberta program, Alberta really does a unique, outstanding job of of the structure and adoption of of the apprenticeship programs.

something that people don't know is that you're actually able to challenge some of the schooling. it's different for every trade, but that's a way to get things done a little bit faster. If you if you're a little bit impatient like I am, there was an opportunity to do that. And so ended up shaving a little bit of time off off the the end goal there of being a Red Seal journeyman and it was really cool. So we did a lot of restaurant equipment at the time, which was

was great in my twenties and and met a lot of fun people and learned a lot about business. And you know, in terms of getting into the oil patch, I'd always been as a as an Albertan, I'd been a little reluctant of joining the oil patch. You know, I had seen some of the the ebbs and flows and, you know, friends being laid off and things of that nature. So I was always very reluctant. And an opportunity came up. Some friends were were starting a company.

And they asked me to join and it was completely outside my area of expertise, but it was just a a really exciting thing. And you know, I mentioned like having the trade to fall back on. That really allowed me, had I not had that, had I not had, you know, that certification behind me that I knew I could come back to it if I needed to, I I would never have left. So like that really did give me a platform to kind of jump off of and just safely try new things. And I'm just very lucky it worked out.

Gordon Sheppard (03:53.001)
Isn't that good? So you got so there you are, you got your trade under your belt. You know you've got a place to land if you know, if you take a bit of a risk and you're, you know, in your mid twenties and you're at a chance to do that and you're in part of a startup. I have to ask about the mindset of a tradesperson, which funny enough may not be different from anybody, but is there anything unique you think mindset wise that then would have translated into the business sort of success that you were able to contribute to?

Ryan Malloy (04:18.849)
Yeah, you know, it the the nature of kind of like the my foray into the trades was a little bit unique because you know, when I was doing the refrigeration stuff, we it wasn't really service work, it was a lot of new construction stuff. So you know, we were we actually built seven eleven stores. And so that was an interesting thing where you'd kind of get to it was it was contract work by and large, and so we we'd come into an empty building and

And build out all the refrigeration equipment and install a lot of the other things. And then when we left, it was a 7 Eleven store mine and sold the product on the shelves. So you know, that was really interesting. actually opened the door for some travel, which was kind of atypical. But you know, the obviously Alberta being having such a a strong trade and workforce, there was the opportunity to to send some people from Alberta to undertake some projects in Ontario. so I was I was

you know, quite young for that, but had the opportunity to do that and ended up there's a lot of growth there and it turned out really good and it was a great experience to kind of you know spread my wings and especially in a scenario where there wasn't really that was a renov a set of renovation projects so there really was no no rule book or or game plan so we were kind of seat of our pants working at night in in you know downtown Toronto and other places like that. So it was

was definitely an outside my comfort zone time and and it was great. I I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Gordon Sheppard (05:46.796)
Well, I'm hearing acceleration at every aspect along the way. I wanted to accelerate my red seal completion. I wanted to I'm I'm into a situation where I've been thrown in the in the fire in a sense to adapt as a young tradesperson, traveling across the country, implementing, you know, in this sort of entrepreneurial setting, and you're making that happen at a rapid pace. You jump into this business and pick me up there. So you've jumped into this business with your buddies and you're in the oil patch now. What's what was that sort of part of your journey like?

Ryan Malloy (06:13.771)
Yeah, that was great. It you know, the the early days were, you know, your typical startup. something that, you know, so I was an oil field supply company. so you know, buying and selling product, being the you know, the most essential middleman we could possibly be. And you know, trying to deliver as much value to the customers as possible. And you know, our our strategy and some of our methods around that were a little bit unique. We you know, the the products, you know, Valves pipe.

They're all heavy. So the the transportation logistics angle and aspect of that business is really important. adds a lot of costs, you know, relative depending on the nature of the product. And so we kind of undertook that as with those two things kind of hand in hand. So we were we were, you know, selling and delivering everything we sold. And you know, that was kind of like two businesses in one, but it it just gave us a value proposition. We were able to

you know, offset and absorb all the heavy transportation costs. And you know, obviously that was, you know, so that was 2004, 2005. a lot of oil sands construction happening at that time and in the years that followed. So just having the ability that we could, you know, make promises and keep them about when the product would be there and so on and deal with whatever remote sites were required and and things of that nature, you know, l let us compete with the big guys. All of the companies we were competing with were

you know, multi-hundred million plus organizations, some larger than that. And so that was that was key for us that we we kind of had a niche and and something that we could do that the others couldn't. They were calling third party trucking or things of that nature. And you know, that's a low margin business. you know, over those years it, you know, became more and more commoditized. And so as you're kind of dealing in those razor thin margins, every little bit helps. So for us to

To be able to include and absorb the trucking costs was was key for us.

Gordon Sheppard (08:12.041)
Interesting. So we think if we say vertical integration, do you know what I mean? You're not just doing one thing, but you're doing multiple things to serve the customer at a highest level with the highest demanding customers. You can't mess around with those those folks, right? You're either delivering or you're out of the game, I would think, especially in that low margin commoditized sort of space. And you would have started to see in that setting that you were in the need for integrating information systems and processes. Would would that was that emerging at that time for you in your thinking that led to where you are now?

Ryan Malloy (08:40.641)
Absolutely. That's that's exact that's exactly how it all evolved. Like we you know, you in a in a low margin environment, you gotta be lean and mean. And so we likewise we we didn't have a lot of money. So we, you know, we're reinvesting every dollar we made into the company and trying to grow as much as we could. And you know, that definitely didn't make way for having a whole lot of staff and so on. So we really had to get as much done as possible with with as small a crew as as we could.

And so we were just driving efficiency at every turn. And, you know, we didn't we didn't think of it that way at the time. It was just getting the job done with the tools that we had. so you know, and as the company evolved, we were very fortunate. Our timing was great. you know, that that period of time where the oil sands largely was being constructed, you know, was a was a time kind of of rampant opportunity in in the energy sector and especially for Alberta companies, you know, a a lot of people might not realize the

the role Edmonton plays in the oil patch in terms of material. Edmonton is the hub. Almost every bolt that that gets installed anywhere in Western Canada comes through Edmonton at some point in time. So it was a great place for us to be because we were, you know, kind of on the forefront of of where the action was. And you know, by focusing on supply chain and relationships on the vendor side, that just gave us more and more product to sell. It was a fast-moving, fast-paced environment. So

If you could say yes to the order and then, you know, kind of with the trucking side as well, we could commit to get it to wherever it needed to be. That just gave us the chance at more and more orders. And and with that growth came growing out of our systems at times. So we we found that, you know, in 2013 we'd outgrown QuickBooks as many companies do. And so we were looking for, you know, some out of the box software that was gonna take us to the next level. And we we looked around and

Did a did a deep dive on the stuff that was commercially available at the time. And what we'd learned is that, you know, we were really happy with a lot of our internal processes. And the out-of-the-box kind of methodology, especially as it relates to inventory, was just gonna add work to the chain. It was gonna slow us down, not speed us up. And you know, we we just couldn't really afford to do that. So the alternative was we ended up hooking up with a custom developer, another Emmton-based company.

Ryan Malloy (11:06.253)
And and we built a platform. And so that was that kind of threw me into the foray of of software design and really enjoyed that process. And as it it was, you know, in the early days, like just kind of like seeing the need and thinking of a kind of a way to do it and then seeing that take shape. And you know, weeks later, then now we've got you know this area that we could use and this feature that did the job for us. So you know, that took a few years as it

continue to evolve because as it got kind of some of their baseline needs down we kept adding on and wanting it to be better and better. So yeah it was a great it was a great experience for me. I really fell in love with software design. And you know that that product continued on for, you know, like I think like over 10 years, maybe 11, 12 years. I ended up exiting that business in 2020. they continue to run that for a handful of years. They actually had to

run a new out of the box program in tandem for I think like twenty four months. it was just a really user friendly thing. So you know, purpose built for for that business. And as I've learned later that that's you as people have custom stuff, it's the you learn to really lean on that no matter how old it might be.

Gordon Sheppard (12:26.131)
Interesting. So we can hear the serial entrepreneur when you were 22 and rushing through that red seal. We can hear it jumping across 7 Elevens across that early history. We can hear it jumping into an entrepreneurial business where you wore many hats. You didn't sort of stay in one lane. You were just problem solving with whatever it was that it took to sort of get things done, including the evolution of what this is. And it's funny when we think about these big ERP providers, for example, at the at the large scale end or whatever that is, there's a lot of

handshakes and scotch or whatever at the front end and often a lot of broken promises down the road. But you were there intrinsically in the middle of not just a one month a multi year solution where you're like, what's the next thing that we can put in? What a nice way to again essentially apprentice yourself into the software business by meeting real needs for your company at that time, which then has expanded since. Is that fair?

Ryan Malloy (13:20.429)
Absolutely. Yeah. It kind of, you know, that process of seeing the need and and then having something delivered, it was it was intoxicating. It was very addictive. and then just as we saw that impact our business more and more, you know, it got to the point that things were kind of largely done for a while and I found that I I did miss that process. So act after exiting the company, and you know, that was the also the depths of COVID. So that that definitely did have an impact. It was

was certainly a funny time to be semi-retired because you couldn't buy a sandwich and we couldn't travel. You know, I have two young children. So you know we were we were definitely not about to to jet set around the world even if we could have. So what I ended up doing is is hooking up with a couple of guys that were involved in that original build, guys that worked for the custom developer. So they had designed and built over 200 different applications over the years, big, small and in between.

And so you know that those that combined knowledge and experience, you know, with everything we learned on the legacy product, everything they had learned, all the business acumen that I had kind of picked up along the way, that that low that material supply environment is definitely unforgiving. you're operating in low margins, so there's not a not a whole ton of profit to absorb mistakes when they happen. So and and your customers are very demanding. So if mistakes happen,

You need to fix them right away, which is often super expensive and maybe even in excess of whatever your margin expectation might have been in the first place. So, you know, being really efficient and being really accurate, you know, those those things and and acumen like that, and especially, you know, on the financial side, you roll it having the chance to build something from the ground up, with all those lessons learned was just really attractive.

So it didn't take a whole lot of talking in for us to to kind of come together as a group and then look at you know what it would take and what it would look like and what we thought we could accomplish. and something that was kind of unique, and I think something that definitely sets us apart at Liquid Software is we've always had kind of a developer first mindset. whereas, you know, a lot of other products.

Ryan Malloy (15:39.576)
They they might kind of build what sells and and you know do it in a quick way so they could deliver it as quickly as possible. And what we found, and especially with with the input of my partners, you know, being developers who worked for clients for many, many years, they saw all too many times that you you'd you'd have a little need that was kind of, you know, maybe investigated not very thoroughly. You build something out that would do that thing and just that thing, and then weeks or months later.

The need would expand a little bit, the that original feature wouldn't do, wouldn't, wouldn't rise to meet the expanded need, and you'd end up rebuilding the whole thing. And sometimes that would happen two, three, four times. And you know, as a as a custom developer, you're you're charging out hourly and you you do whatever and you say yes, sir, and keep going. But they were just they hated that. They hated not having that foresight to just build something bigger and better in the first case and the first place. And so we

Really, that just kind of went into all of our core design and philosophy. And as things have evolved, they're so good at that. And they make me look good all the time because oftentimes, you know, we'll be presented with a with a need, a small need, and they'll come up with a way for to you know for us to build out something that's a little more robust that does five things instead of one. And we're able to really leverage that.

you know, kind of through our journey of of trying to be a a solution provider to more and more businesses, especially diverse companies and different industries, that philosophy's really carried us forward because some of those things that along the way, the the four things that we weren't intended upon servicing, you know, you meet s meet a new company and that's exactly what they need. So we're able to say yes to more things as a right out of the box solution and

As the company's growing, that's just it's really exciting, it's motivating because you meet a new company, a new prospective client, and you're able to handle everything they need, some some of the stuff that were, you know, in their top five wish list and it's commercially available today. That's a great conversation to have and it's it's really satisfying.

Gordon Sheppard (17:48.699)
I love it. It's so neat to hear. Thank you for the thorough description of the evolution. Do you know what I mean? No, it's no, it's valuable because what we see then is when you land in this moment with liquid software today, you're in this strong position. You'd be in meetings now, confident to say no. You'd be in meetings to like in some if somebody wants to take take you down the wrong path that's not developer centric in a sense, right? Because you know you're providing the best service for the customer. You're also

Ryan Malloy (17:53.236)
Yeah, sorry.

Gordon Sheppard (18:15.078)
in this custom setting able to help the customer achieve their goals. I think that would be just a massive part of what you're talking about as well in terms of what they're doing. And then we hear the evolution of where it came from, which was you hands on, you would have been in the trenches. And the buyers of what I I just can't imagine the buyers ever being really almost fully knowledgeable about what you're doing. You're like they like, I want it to work. I need my material tracked. I need it to tie into my software. I want to know where my revenue like all these things that you'd be asked for for features

But they don't really know the developer process in the end. I mean, some might know a little bit more than others. So that thing of just make it work, I think would be often the attitude of your clients. Is that fair?

Ryan Malloy (18:55.077)
Definitely fair to say, especially like we deal a lot with business owners. You know, the kind of our our founding mission statement was to help business owners extract more money from their business. And and what we found, and to I guess to drill into that a little bit, especially in a you know, in a warehousing and product environment. you know, when and just you know, based on the experience in the oil patch and and work with other companies, oftentimes when a mistake happens

That turns into a widget in the corner or on a dusty shelf. And that is in every case dollars that that business owner could have extracted had that not happened. So so we really try and we we go back to that adage often because it's it's widely applicable. and that's the kind of thing that like as we're thinking of new features or as we're we're designing new things.

We really kind of hold that philosophy true and really try to kind of apply that and and ask ourselves, is this, is this feature set gonna do that? Is it gonna stop mistakes from happening? Is it gonna stop the dusty widget on the shelf that that may cost tens of thousands of dollars? And yeah, so so we do our very best to to hold that true. you know, over the years we've expanded a lot into service-based businesses as well, something that we found.

was a real challenge, especially for a lot of the entry-level software out there. We talk about people outgrowing QuickBooks. When you have a when your business has a mix of products and services and you're carrying inventory, that can be really difficult because that that has you need the features of of the big global ERPs. But you know, it's quite a leap to get there oftentimes, you know, not only financially, but some of those platforms take a relatively sizable team to kind of turn the wheels.

And so that's the kind of thing that, you know, we we definitely appreciate being able to deliver some of those features to, you know, to small to medium sized companies and quickly.

Gordon Sheppard (21:01.799)
And quickly and and so that just in time as you need it with a long term vision to growth based on multi hundreds of applications built. Do you know what I mean? Like that's a really strong business premise to put together so that I'm sure when people come to you and they know all of these things about what you're doing and why, and the people that you're serving, you would serve them at the highest possible level. Well, that's just a great introduction in terms of finding out where the thinking came from, some of your entrepreneurial journey.

Boy, listening to you, you're about you're about maybe midway or a third of the way through all the things you're gonna do in your life because you just see the next thing and you're able to adapt and sort of get on to that thing that we have there. So it leads me to my first question, funny enough, in this, which is you know, if you had to describe your biggest win in all this sort of journey, what would that win be and how would you describe it?

Ryan Malloy (21:48.309)
I'll I'll do my very best. I think maybe something we'll we'll do is you know, the biggest is kind of subjective because as things move along, they all they all feel really big. one of the most recent is something that they're really proud of. Was very fortunate to be featured in April's edition of Business and Edmonton magazine. And that was something that I I really had that was certainly not on on my radar whatsoever.

you know, the idea of, you know, the next big customer or the next big deal, like that, that kind of stuff, you know, we're we're always working towards those things and and trying to trying to advance through thresholds and and deal with bigger and bigger companies. but but that was, you know, kind of that that unique flavor of of you know just being noticed and and kind of recognition. That was something that was, like I said, certainly came as a surprise.

You know, we're we're really honored that they kind of found our company interesting. And you know, definitely kind of through that process and so on, and and there's there's just been so much positive attention. you know, people that then you know, some for some other some previous featured companies had had told me to expect that that like you'll you hear from people that you haven't heard from in a very long time, and and that was certainly certainly exactly the case. So

it was great to reconnect with a whole whole bunch of people in different businesses and and some folks that obviously it's been a fast moving environment the la in the province the last few years, you know, kind of as as we collectively shook off COVID and are now, you know, working in the AI sphere, it it's easy to lose touch with folks. So having heard back from from a whole bunch has been incredible. the positive attention it's brought to the business and the work we're doing has has just been amazing.

So so yeah, I'd have to say we'll we'll we'll go with the most recent win and and and the the folks at business in Edmonton.

Gordon Sheppard (23:50.058)
Yeah, and how lucky with Business in Edmonton magazine. I've been able to interact with them quite a bit. been lucky to sort of refer some wonderful people over there. And then they've sent me people like you. Like I've had a chance to meet you through the people over there, and I've attended their Business Leader Award event, which I recommend for anybody to attend. If you just want to be inspired, go sit at that event and watch people like you stand up on the stage and be able to come on and and then, you know, inspire the not only the room, but get that message going forward. Shafina Muhammad was there honored on the night that

you know she runs Jetco Lighting, 38 years second generation family business, told another great story about high levels of customer service that she's done, taking over the business from her dad and this kind of thing. I can go on about the the folks who run Pemcode, Jeff, Jeff and Kevin Lapish doing their work again right from that leadership award event to get to tell more of their story, to get to tell your story out there, hopefully to inspire more entrepreneurs to learn from you and, you know, help to build their businesses as we go forward. So if the win is

You know, getting into business and magazine and and you know, unexpected and nice surprise, we always break that down with talking about the anatomy of a win. So we talk about the strategy, the work plan, the people, operations and results. Strategically, there's a moment where they call you up and they say, Hey, you wanna be featured? Why strategically did you say yes?

Ryan Malloy (25:05.952)
Well, you know, it's n no press is bad press, they say. But you know, that was that was an easy yes. you know, just the idea of like I said, you know, kind of the recognition, but as as an opportunity to get more of our message out. it's it's our our path to growth. We really wanted to you we kind of had a slow burn methodology, and that really comes from that developer first not building anything twice.

So we were years literally in in early development before we had a commercially available product. and and part of that was we wanted to build a really big solution out of the gate so that as we you initially were we want to service the companies of outgrown QuickBooks. And that was just something that that was a space we knew, that was a space I knew, having gone through that exact thing myself. So because QuickBooks is so diverse.

We knew we had to be. And we didn't know there was not other than obviously, you know, some oil and gas companies and and people in in, you know, different warehousing and distribution businesses. you know, we wanted to be diverse that as we met new companies, we could say yes. And, you know, so that really caused us to to build out things a lot, in order to, you know, kind of service those that that first wave of customers. And, you know, the idea of of

you know, taking advantage of of a publication like that, just being able to get out in front of more and more different diverse companies, you know, that was that was a a a massive that was a massive win for us.

Gordon Sheppard (26:46.451)
I love it. I do a lot of strategic facilitation. And if we had it out on the whiteboard right now, we would see, you know, that development line. Then there's a hockey stick jump to like pathway to growth as you sort of you know level up those different moments. And Business Inemitant magazine is a moment that suits your strategy well and they come along sort of at the right time to get that story out, get that awareness built as you level up your next moments along the way. So there's the strategic aspect. There's always a work plan involved in getting a win. So there's a moment when they make the call. How long from when they made the call?

did it take to go through the process, the interview, get those things down and and describe sort of the timeline and the highlights on that timeline.

Ryan Malloy (27:22.166)
You know, in our case, it was incredibly quick. I think that you know, maybe we I'm not sure exactly you know, how big their pipeline is. I know that that's I'm sure no one turns down an opportunity to be featured, but yeah, it was quite quick. I they they had an opening and you know it was like a four week turnaround for the whole thing, maybe maybe five weeks with with some of those initial discussions. So it was relatively quick, very painless.

And yeah, the the process was just incredibly smooth. So it was an it was an easy yes. There was really no business interruption or anything like that. So that was just really handy. It was it was an incredibly easy process.

Gordon Sheppard (28:04.722)
So we can hear they you know, they kinda know what they're doing, right? They're able to sort of get that in play pretty quick. They're able to guide you along the process to produce a really I I was glancing at the the feature interview today. I mean they who did you there's always peop sorry, the third step is there are always people involved in a win. Who were you dealing with at Business and Edmund magazine and what was that like dealing with that person?

Ryan Malloy (28:08.224)
Pretty much.

Ryan Malloy (28:23.934)
I yeah, actually so Kat Johnson was our kind of main point of contact. And you know, even from someone else in our business and business development, Josh had met her, you know, kind of months prior, I think at an event and just learning more about the publication and so on. So had a couple kind of initial meetings with her, just about, you know, the various things they do and so on. And then yeah, so just kind of said

you know, would love the the chance to you know to to be included to whatever degree is possible and and the wheels turned pretty fast. So that was yeah, it was very painless.

Gordon Sheppard (29:03.368)
So she was able to guide you through all the different sort of possibilities for what it could become and and how that would be an impact and guide you know, get you into that what that meant. And then it was there would have been an interview at some point. Who was the interview with and how did the interview go?

Ryan Malloy (29:15.402)
Yeah, the interview was with a lady named Narissa and incredible writer, was so so nice and easy to work with. And yeah, it was it was a pretty quick process. We were a little bit under the gun. So that was nice. I love a deadline and so it that worked out quite nicely and and we got everything wrapped up quite quickly.

Gordon Sheppard (29:41.715)
Well, and glancing through that, and I hope people pick up Business magazine and see the feature that you're involved with, because it's not just talking about your software business. There's other elements in there that I picked up on around some of your good works in nonprofits, some of the mentoring work you do got picked up in there. And then your bigger your bigger view for you know what things can become on the horizon all kind of got captured. So I was very impressed with with what was captured there through their process. So it sounds like you you dealt with a couple of strong people and there was you, quick turnaround.

gets us into operationalizing, you know, the four step is operations. So operationalizing it is doing this interview, getting it out the door. Did you have to do any was there approvals or in terms of actually getting it out and getting it up and running? Was it just the interview that you did and then they took it from there or how did it work to operationalize and get it into the magazine?

Ryan Malloy (30:27.296)
They they took it from there again with a with a relatively short time frame, that was handy. It was kind of you know, we we did our best to get things right the first time. So so that worked out really nicely. And yeah, that I was I was really appreciative that they you know, kind of included some of the other stuff. You know, we you know, we're a small business. We do our best to kind of do what we can to help the community. we we feel as though we're kind of just kind of on the forefront of the things we can do.

so you know that that kind of started out with just helping out some I'm very passionate about minor football in Edmonton. And so there's an opportunity to help out some of those organizations. You know, they're all volunteer run and oftentimes and and you know, something we've we've all heard kind of some of the horror stories where, you know, sometimes people could take advantage of associations like that. You know, you bad actors on the inside and things like that.

and so, you know, early on you know, in my experience volunteering, fortunately, none of the organizations that that I worked with suffered from that, but there's a lot in Emmetton that have. And so something that we kind of saw as as a nice kind of fail-safe and a firewall for them is a QuickBooks online license. So that's something that can be you know, for those volunteer organizations, if especially if they if

you know, as a volunteer treasure or whatnot, they might not have experience with a platform like that. And it might be a lot of times people are really worried and reluctant to get something wrong. So, you know, they they keep running things on Excel and so on. And it ends up taking a lot more time. And so it can kind of be a drain on the volunteer resources. So that was something that we saw our with our work with Intuit.

we get a a sizable discount on licenses and it just makes it super easy for us to to redonate those licenses. And then also just kind of aiding in some of the setup and configuration and and long term administration over that stuff. It's it's a really nice way to kind of offload, not only offload some of the work, some of the day to day month to month work that it takes to to kind of keep the financials of an organization like that straight, but also to safeguard

Ryan Malloy (32:47.614)
And to say, hey, this is a fully cloud-based online platform. And you know, there's an audit trail and all those things that just like can protect those organizations. So we really see that as just kind of a nice way to help future proof some organizations like that. And and that's just been a great kind of foray into being able to to give back just a little bit. obviously a bit of a narrow group, but something that we're really excited about.

As we kind of take the next step with Liquid over the next six months, we're building out an enterprise grade accounting suite. So that's something that opens a lot of doors. And it's it's something that I've always really wanted to do. That was like kind of one of the ultimate evolutions and some of the the appetite we have for design. we we've learned you know, as as we're kind of investigating this and start beginning to advertise it that it's that's

would be kind of a a unique bit as a Canadian product, that a lot of especially from an enterprise grade standpoint, basically all all big companies and government institutions and so on are all running American software. So as as we start to kind of see you know, maybe different levels of exposure or or whether it's just, you know, we're a you know made in Canada approach,

So we're very excited to be an outlet for that and it'll be a bit of a unique outlet. But where I'm going with that is something that we really see as exciting is adapting that to different charitable organizations. So something that we see as you know, even just through our existing client base, once someone's on or you have a series of companies on this this identical platform where everything's kind of being done the same way, really opens the door for shared services.

So we've got you know a handful of companies in our existing client base that are able to action that and especially in accounting. the way our structure works, it's it's very accounting friendly. and what we think the net result will be was be is being able to have a handful of different charities being able to to action those shared services, especially on the accounting and admin end, so that overall they'll just be able to lower their their operating costs. So that's something that when it's ready.

Ryan Malloy (35:10.108)
we're gonna donate that. We're gonna donate full suite solutions to a handful of different charities starting in Edmonton. And so not only are we excited to get back, but it's also a two-way street. We're gonna learn a lot from those guys because obviously, you know, those guys don't have big budgets, things like that. And and the nature of the work they deliver is, you know, very different. And so the you know, we definitely anticipate a two-way street there that we're able to learn a lot about.

people that work in a product that's not necessarily a product and what the what the needs are from a from a software and infrastructure standpoint. So so we're really excited to kind of open that door. And that's something that we'll definitely be pursuing pretty hard in 2027. And if you know of any good charitable organizations that you think could benefit from something like that, we you know we're we're super excited to to meet more, you know, Alberta and Western Canadian based charities that that might fit that mold.

Gordon Sheppard (36:08.623)
I'm a huge fan of what you've just said, and I'm gonna end up buying you lunch some point for what you just said. And I'll go back and say thank you, Narissa, for getting that out in the article that I could ask you the question in this interview. I've probably done strategic planning as an advisor for at least 15 charities in Edmonton. So I have a good feel for them and their leadership teams and their needs. And for them, for all the misguidance they've gotten in the area that you're talking about, you're talking about a responsible way.

Again, a grassroots way where you've actually done it in a way saying, what meets your budget? What's the need that you have now? but wait, we might have that future state there for you. And I think when we look at the capacity building that these nonprofits are doing and the massive, massive need that they have to be efficient in this area that you're addressing, I'm a huge, huge fan of what you just said. Funny enough, there's moments where for the nonprofits that can't afford it, I'll donate a half a day of strategic planning. No problem. Like like just jump in and give them that feel for what it's like.

And it's a bit of a it's a bit of a rocket ship for them because they're not used to that sort of heavy professional pace. But I'll I'll go in and you know, by the time that four hours up, hopefully change their perspective and given them a roadmap forward that they can use in a very practical manner. So I'm super aligned with what you said. And again, glad that Business Independent magazine was able to surface that, that brings it to this conversation, that raises that conversation, and then maybe some of the nonprofit leaders that are hearing this as well. And yes.

I do have people that I'll recommend to you and can't wait to do that as we kind of go forward. I'll go back to the win. The win was getting this article in. It led to all kinds of things. Strategy, work plan, people, operations we explored. Finally, there's results. So quantitative and qualitative results. Quantitatively, you're hearing from people that you haven't heard from in a while. That's something kind of quantitative about it. Any other sort of quantitative results that came from getting that article out in the world?

Ryan Malloy (37:48.554)
Yeah, just like, you know, a as were even if it's someone that that wasn't necessarily you know, in our s in our sphere prior to that, it's it's really kind of raised our level of credibility, I guess you could say, is that you know, we've been very fortunate to have some kind of high profile customers in industries. And you know, it's you know, having someone trust you with their business.

is no small task. Like that's it's a big ask. And you know, we we certainly appreciate all of our clients for that. And, you know, we work tirelessly, you know, to to justify that trust that they've given us. And that's not a that's not a one and done. That's something we have to do every every week and every month and with every update and and uptime and all the all those things. So you know, it's definitely kind of raised our profile of credibility. you know, s the

We've had a few events like that along the way. Like we something that that we got into over the last few years that was a little bit unexpected, was is a presence in aerospace and aviation. And that was something, yeah, we we didn't expect it either. you know, w taking the time to build the the the framework of the solution the way we did, some something that would kind of hear back to the background in the oil field was

An ISO 9000 background. And that was something that even back to the legacy product, w we went for in the oil field supply company, we went for an ISO 9000 registration. And in a company that size, the typical turnaround time was like 24 months. and we did it in three. And and part of how that was possible was just the the nature of the software. ISO really wants everyone to do things.

You know, the largely the same way, a little bit of wiggle room for different s strokes for different folks at times, but they they largely want things followed the same way and really centralization of information and access of information. And as we kind of you know went through and and learned more about the aviation business, that's exactly what Transport Canada wants. or or it it overlaps very well with the things Transport Canada wants. So a lot of people don't know that.

Ryan Malloy (40:09.551)
like Transport Canada is world renowned for having excellent standards. So that's something that you know, the group we deal with has this international presence. you know, aircraft stay in in service for a really long time. And you know, once once something might be once a better widget comes along in Canada, that aircraft they don't they don't crush it. They they ship that off to, you know, other emerging markets and so on. So

That gives a lot of those companies in that space just a reach globally and along the lines of you know Transport Canada and and their, you know, the standards that are trusted worldwide. That it's like, hey, if it meets if it's good enough for Transport Canada, it's good enough for us in a multitude of countries that they'll just allow Transport Canada standards in some cases to kind of pre-qualify. So yeah, that's that was really exciting for us to get into aircraft stuff, was a little bit unexpected.

But it it's super interesting. It's it's every bit as interesting as you'd expect. Just learning more and more about those companies and the way they operate as we have over the years. And you know, that definitely gave us a lot of credibility as well early on. That, you know, if obviously if we're if we're, you know, playing a very small role in in the aircraft business and and keeping things moving, then that definitely gave a lot of early customers satisfaction that we could

That we could handle some of their widgets and other distribution items. So that was one that definitely gave us some credibility early on. And and you know, as we broke into bigger and bigger companies, something we're super proud of is our relationship with Crystal Glass Canada. that is an incredible organization as we've gotten to know them more and more and the needs, you know, just every bit of a a blue chip Western Canadian company, and you know, then that's kind of

brought us to the to the business at Emerson article. So we've just been really fortunate to kind of have some some stepping stones you know, as it relates with a lot of help from people in the community in various aspects. And you know, just kind of to to bring us to here and and you know, we're excited kind of for the next phase. We know that that by having, you know, our our kind of our strategy with you know, initially helping companies that have outgrown QuickBooks, that turned into

Ryan Malloy (42:31.135)
businesses where you know they might be happy with a larger enterprise grade accounting suite, but it might be a little bit older and, you know, their frontline people might need, you know, more modern architecture and so on. So that's that's been our strategy around enterprise grade companies, and and dealing with companies, you know, that might be too large for QuickBooks. And, you know, kind of the the next evolution is for us to be able to replace that that full back end with a a full cycle product.

That's something that we it's really exciting in meetings and we talked about this a little bit earlier, but like when you when you're able to say yes to people and they they might come into the meeting with a a top five things they really need and we're able to say yes to those. So you know, full accounting is one that that definitely checks a very big box from that respect. and something that we really are are really trying to empower business owners and this really applies to, you know, the small and medium-sized companies all the way up to the bigger ones.

a trend that's really emerged over the last few years is more and more kind of apps and non-integrated applications to run a business. And you know, that's you know really start often starts out with with CRM, might be different like planning and management and HRIS type applications, you know, then to invoicing and order management. So, you know, a lot of comp the average company is running like five or six different programs in order to turn the wheels. and that's tough.

What we really find is that ends up being this this incredible operational load on on business owners, on their staff. Excel is the the ever present police officer in between all of these programs, making sure nothing's falling through the cracks. So for us to be able to be a full cycle solution, that's that's really our goal. We're everything we're building is adding kind of to that philosophy. So we we did build out an integrated CRM.

that you know that's really easy to use and is also suits relationship selling. That's kind of also, you know, harkens back to the oil field. a lot of the CRM stuff and and different aspects of different applications are really kind of centered around a one shot, one shot win. You you get the deal or you don't and you move along, maybe you follow up. relationship selling is a totally different animal. And you know you're you're dealing with the same companies, open tenders often and

Ryan Malloy (44:52.607)
Some you get and some you don't, and you need to, you know, you talk about like the anatomy of a win there, super important to those guys because what went wrong on this one and how do we make it a little better on the next one? they really need to have that and it needs to be easy. and you're talking about a you know, a diverse team, often geographically diverse as well. And so, you know, part of our goal and and what we've built is just giving all that information a place to live where everyone can access it.

without having to sign in four times and and, you know, maybe deal with a program that they're not familiar with and, you know, things of that nature. So that's definitely the kind of stuff that's that's on the forefront for us right now.

Gordon Sheppard (45:34.383)
Interesting. All I hear in here is doing it right and bolting it in. Do the next thing right and bolt it in. ISO 9000 in three months. I mean, that's un that's crazy in terms of, you know, and the and but then leads to aerospace because you're ready. The thinking in behind the relationship management that you just mentioned on the CRM side, the ability to identify that need of outgrow QuickBooks. We know where you're at with this type of company in terms of where they're scaling to. Let's get them the the solution that they need there and let's pull it all together.

to keep them more profitable. And with the results that you're getting, multiple, you know, big names, you got blue chip coming in the door and a bunch of these, again, I'm gonna say mid-sized companies would you would have made successful along the way. There's only growth opportunities, I'm sure, as you kind of go forward because of the foundational work that you've done along the way. This is not a rush that you're talking about. Again, this is this thing like you said in your first business where it took three years to get that system in place. Now you're using all that combined experience from your developer centric approach along with the mindset that you have going in

To only sort of simply be in a position to grow. Well, qualitatively, how's it feel?

Ryan Malloy (46:39.029)
Feels great. It it's w e every time we kind of might get to a new level, it just lets us know everything we still have yet to accomplish. But you know, it's it's an exciting time to be in tech, certainly. And you know, it's n in the same way COVID adopted drove the adoption of cloud computing, which was just incredible because we got to kind of be along for that ride where you know.

People didn't trust the cloud in a lot of respects. And and you know, the that that that historical server infrastructure and they go to the back room and put their hand on the server and they knew where their stuff was. a lot of people really, you know, that that was the standard. People you know, knew and understood it. And then, you know, through COVID, where all the remote work needed to happen, that just drove cloud computing ahead, ten year, the adoption of cloud computing.

Ahead 10 years in in the span of six months. and now here we are with the with the AI revolution, as it were. And you know, it it's it's not unlike that in that a lot of people want it and they're not really sure what the best way to get it is. you know, we have a lot of, you know, in some cases, you know, the larger companies and maybe some of those that are publicly traded, they just wanna be able to say, yes, we're

We're AI enabled, we're we're doing the thing and and you know, get some of the the benefit or the perception that comes along with that. And other companies, you know, it might be, you know, more niche solutions or whatever the case may be. So everyone's talking about tech right now, and so it is definitely an exciting time. a lot of people aren't really sure where they land. You know, there's a lot of fear at times that, you know, not always necessarily from businesses, but the people, the sum of the parts.

Are are in a lot of cases worried that, you know, am I gonna be replaced? Things like that. So we're having a lot of those conversations now. our AI strategy is a little different than a lot of other companies in our space. you know, the space race that we have, you know, with the large AI infrastructure corporations, the LLMs. there's a lot of companies that are investing very heavily in these kind of niche AI solutions, and we're gonna

Ryan Malloy (49:03.039)
do this very narrow thing with it with this AI infrastructure. that's not our that's not our path. That's not our strategy. we feel as though it's it's a little bit wild to think that you're gonna compete with companies spending billions a month. And that that just the the amount of of attention and drawing the best talent, all the things those companies are doing, you know, for us, we're certainly not going to try and replicate any of that. We want to leverage it.

So rather than than you know kind of building out AI features and things like that, we've just built to integrate with the largest LLMs and something that's a l a bit of unique strategy, especially because like we're old school accounting at heart. And that's something that I think, you know, for anyone that that was following some of the stories with IBM in the news and you know, something that that I think

when we think of like new adoption of new technology, the last place we adopt it is wherever our money is. And I think then, you know, hearkening back to that IBM story, that ATMs run off the oldest software still in operation. And it was, you know, part of it's ain't broke, don't fix it. And the other part of it is no one wants to take a risk when financial transactions are involved. And so that'll just be kind of the last area where where some of the new technology gets applied and and

probably as it should be. So our strategy

Gordon Sheppard (50:30.809)
Well, I'm and and what and what I'm hearing in there is this idea of saying, What are the tools that are out there? How can we adopt them in in a responsible way again to drive the company goals? Like whatever those you know, you've got the client in front of you. You said that, you know, they've got their top five requests, you're able to meet them. And then as you fold in this AI thing into your world, you're doing it in that responsible manner and not saying you're chat GPT. You're actually able to say, What do we need here at this moment in time?

to get this done. So I I'm just sort of just gonna roll back and say, wow, what a great journey. What a great, great conversation. How neat to hear about your sort of origin story and all the adapting that you've done along the way. The serial entrepreneurs, again, I'm just thinking you're a third of your way through all the cool things you're gonna do. Can't wait to talk to you in 10 years and go, what other neat things happen because you're adapting so rapidly and then you're catching these moments, the 2004, 2005 build-out time, you caught that moment, you caught the COVID moment, you got this sort of

joy for the work that you're doing now because you know you're gonna benefit you're getting that chance to open up a bit of wiggle room to give back to people along the way and there's just sort of all this AI upside for what you're gonna do kind of going forward. It's been just a terrific interview. Anytime I get wonderful leaders like you on the show, I always like to say, you know, if you had a few sentences for another leader, another serial entrepreneur in the making, just to leave behind. What were the few sentences that you would say from a leadership perspective for them?

Ryan Malloy (51:49.675)
Hmm, that's a that's a great question. I should have put I should have done a little more pre-planning to do a better job of that one. But you know, I think what I'd what I'd say to to the next entrepreneur is you know don't don't discount the brain trust and the work ethic that comes out of Western Canada. we it's it's not every business that gets a chance to kind of compete, you know, on a broader stage.

But as I as we see more and more that get the chance to do it, you know, that Western Canadian initiative really stands out and carries us pretty far. So that would be my my thought is don't don't be afraid to compete on a on a larger stage or even a global stage.

Gordon Sheppard (52:36.269)
And you've demonstrated that, right? In in this short, really short window that we've been describing here. You've been able to demonstrate that and get that done. Ryan, we could talk all day long. There's so many good things going on here, but I just want to say thank you so much for being on the show.

Ryan Malloy (52:49.343)
Thank you so much for having me. It's a real pleasure.