What does it take for a husband and wife team to build a $20 million software business while raising 10 children and coaching over 100 of their youth sports teams?
An Exponential Mindset!
Jenn Davis and her husband Dan have accomplished things in their business and family lives that many of us would assume to be impossible. Apparently they are not!
And now Jenn is preparing to share a how-to guide to their success in her first book, Living Exponentially, Unlocking the Potential of Every Moment in Your Business and Life.
Tune into this week’s conversation to meet Jenn Davis and learn more about their incredible journey.
Book website: https://www.livingexponentially.com/
Davisware website: https://www.davisware.com/
What follows is a computer-generated transcription of our entire conversation. Please excuse any typos!
Frank Felker 00:23
Thank you, Dude Walker. Yes, indeed, I am Frank Felker. Welcome back to Radio Free Enterprise.
My guest today is Jenn Davis. Jenn is the co-founder and former CEO of a $20 million software company, mother of 10, and the author of the upcoming book, Living Exponentially, Unlocking the Potential of Every Moment in your Business and Life.
Jenn Davis, welcome to the program.
Jenn Davis 00:50
Thank you so much for having me today. I appreciate you spending your day with me.
Frank Felker 00:54
Jenn, there’s so many things that I want to ask you. I wish we had all time I wish our whole day. I wish that our viewers and listeners would give us all day, but I’m afraid they won’t. So I’m going to try to organize our conversation as best I can. I want to start with this. You and your husband, Dan, have achieved things in your business and in your family life that many people and I’m sure you’ve probably heard this believe are impossible. You chalk it up to what you call an exponential mindset. And we’re going to dig deep into that as we go along. But I’d like to start with just sort of a thumbnail sketch, or an elevator version of what is an exponential mindset.
Jenn Davis 01:39
You know, it’s interesting, I didn’t realize it was something special. But the, you know, the version of it, as I’ve talked about it throughout the years, is really thinking about things as a possibility. Thinking about, you know, not looking at why things can’t happen, but thinking about how things can, and you know, it’s almost like playing Jenga, right? It’s fitting all of the pieces together, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. So how can I do you know, the most with my 24 hours and not necessarily do more but enjoying more. And so that’s really the focus of the exponential mindset is figuring out how to make sure everything you’re doing is filled with joy. So it’s not just you know, the rat race of life that I think so many people face in all that they do.
Frank Felker 02:25
That’s great. And you know, it’s funny, I wouldn’t have normally connected the words exponential enjoy together. But I think that’s fantastic. And I really like where our conversation is going. Because, as you and I discussed, just prior to our interview today, it is so important for people to keep not lose sight of their own lives, and what they’re passionate about, when even when business is going well, you still got a life to lead. Now, I want to talk about your company a little bit. And the success journey. And I want to start with my understanding is Davisware software was founded in 1988. Is that correct?
Jenn Davis 03:10
That is correct.
Frank Felker 03:11
Okay, and what were you guys doing? Just prior to that? What did your life look like then?
Jenn Davis 03:17
Yeah, so I was in high school. So that’s, that’s awesome. Very fun fact. So you know, it’s, so we weren’t, we started the business. My husband was 22. And I was 17. So, you know, Davisware is my adult life, in whole. And, you know, as you think about that makes it very interesting, because this is all I’ve ever known. And so I think part of the idea of the exponential mindset is that I didn’t know any differently. I didn’t have extra money, we didn’t have extra time. So we just had to solve everything on our own and had to be just creative problem solvers from you know, from the get-go.
Frank Felker 03:56
Hmm. And what was the market need that you guys created Davisware to solve?
Jenn Davis 04:02
Yeah, absolutely. So my husband’s brother was in the tech business, that’s where it all began. So his brother had hired me to help my husband actually write, you know, work on the software. My husband was a developer, while in school to be a developer, we were both children. And, you know, he was using a product and you know, didn’t like some of the features that were there and had looked to his brother to kind of, you know, mimic the things he liked and create something a little bit different. So, you know, it really came out of a family need and we both came from family businesses. So I think you know, that was a natural place for us to land in spite of it wasn’t really where I was headed. I was going to go be an elementary school teacher probably a kindergarten teacher was my was what I thought my life aspiration was.
Frank Felker 04:48
Interesting. Now a little-known secret. I once worked as an HVAC technician. About the right about the age that you and your husband were when you started your company. So I know a little bit about it. I’ll admit I wasn’t very good at it. But what exactly did the software do for the technician? Or for the company that the technician worked for? Or for the, for the client, for that matter?
Jenn Davis 05:14
Yeah. So my elevator pitch on our product is the software is for companies with guys and trucks who build things, guys and trucks who fix things, and guys and trucks who deliver things. So it’s business logistics software. So when you think about a, you know, a company in the trades, then you are trying to figure out the logistics between product between labor pools between equipment, and the software itself is designed to kind of manage all of those very complex pieces to their business.
Frank Felker 05:45
Great. Okay. Well, we’re really here to talk about your book, and I, so I don’t want to go too far down that rabbit hole. But I guess it’s probably because of my own experience in the industry. I was interested to know more about it. So you guys start the business. And apparently, people liked what you were doing, the company starts to grow. And little by little, along your success journey, you sort of discovered this idea of exponential reality. What? How did that come to you? And what how did it present itself to you?
Jenn Davis 06:15
Sure. So I think, as I think back, you know, I don’t do a lot of reflective time, or I have never done a lot of reflective time. And I think that’s part of the nature of who I am. And it’s also probably contributed a lot to our overall success. And really what happened a few years and not too terribly many years ago, I started just reflecting on the fact the number of people that would ask me, like, how do you do it all, I don’t understand how you’ve put all of this together. And I started to realize that how I thought about things and how we approach things was different than a lot of people. And you know, and that’s where it started. And a word of the day popped up on my phone. And it was the word exponential reality. And I thought it was interesting, because the word didn’t have a real definition. It said the art of being exponential. And I thought, that’s no definition at all.
And so I created my own definition, and it was centered around you know, you, I use the word joy earlier, but it was centered around creating joy, harmony and valence in, you know, in your life, because that’s really how you can create an exponential mindset. If you’re, if your life is Miss balanced, meaning you’ve got too much time personally, or too much time, professionally, you know, or one side of your business or your life is taking over the rest of your life. You don’t create exponential reality, because you become more you know, you’re managing whatever it is, with your hair on fire, you aren’t, you know, you’re not able to, to live in the moment. And I would equate it, you know, I’ve played a lot of sports, my kids played a lot of sports. And you know, I always think about, you know, you, you get hurt when you play scared. And I think that so many people in life, they just play scared, they’re always scared, they’re running, because they have too much work to do, they have too much in their personal lives. And, you know, you get hurt when you play scared. And when you start to live with an exponential mindset, you truly start to live in the moment. And that’s where all of these, you know, peace, joy, harmony, balance all come together.
Frank Felker 08:16
So on a day-to-day basis, where you have 200 employees and 10 children, and you and your husband are coaching sports teams, and you have all of these plates spinning on a date, what was a day in the life of Jenn Davis looked like? And how does that? How does the exponential reality fit in?
Jenn Davis 08:37
Sure, you know, so I guess it’s important to level set and say that nothing I do is easy. I mean, this is hard. And you know, it is hard. And I will also say that nothing we do in life that’s easy, is something you’re you look at with joy or accomplishment, the things that we do that are hard, are the things we’re most proud of. So, you know, just I guess I want to start with that mindset, because I think people are looking for the easy road and there isn’t one. So you know, with that, that perspective, I get up very early. I try to get to the gym every single morning. Before I get out of bed usually or when I get out of bed, I’m checking my emails and just kind of organizing my day, you know, in making sure that I know what’s coming at me.
Failed expectations are the number one source of disappointment, anyone’s life. So if my day is different than I anticipated, I’m going to be disappointed. So I always like to get my head around that, you know, making breakfast and dinner all at the same time in the morning driving my kids to school. You know, there’s many elements of my day our kids a school is near right next to our office that was by design, because I can reduce travel time, you know, coaching my kids, every you know, so often people would say, Oh, that was you know, so giving of your time and certainly it was but it was also self-serving because if I’m coaching I can control when the practices are So you know, I can make sure that I connect you there, you know, and just, you know, the office being right next to the school, that was important, because then I’m reducing travel time moving near our office and our home close together and create a time in my day. So everything that I was doing and everything I do on a daily basis, I do with the intent of making them very efficient, not necessarily cramming more into a day. That’s really important differences. And it’s a difference in how people think about, you know, they go about their days.
Frank Felker 10:36
So many questions come to mind. One is, I heard you use the word intention. It sounds like you live with a lot of intention.
Jenn Davis 10:44
Yeah, that is absolutely true. I everything that I do has a purpose. There’s nothing that is just random. There is no randomness in anything I do.
Frank Felker 10:54
That’s wonderful. And another type of question, which has to do with multitasking? Would you describe yourself as a multitasker? Or do you just knock something the heck out of something here? And then you knock the heck out of the next thing here, and so on, and more of a serial Tasker?
Jenn Davis 11:11
Yeah, I would say more of a serial Tasker than a multitasker. But I definitely catch myself multitasking, but I think you are not present when you’re multitasking. Now with that, you know, if I was helping kids with spelling words that I’m always going to be doing, you know, folding laundry or doing something else. So, you know, it isn’t that I’m doing a single task at a time, but I’m using my brain for one task, and maybe my hands for a different task. I might be, you know, I’m meeting with a friend while I go get exercise, I think, you know, there’s kind of a joke within my my group. So we do spend a lot of time in the commercial food equipment service world, and a service restaurants, and one of my least favorite things to do is eat out. And it isn’t because I don’t like eating out, it’s because it feels like a waste of time, I can go for a jog with a friend, or you know, my client, no need to make them go running with me or biking with me. And so I’m going to do something productive. While I’m doing some, you know, while I’m doing serial tasks, if that makes sense.
Frank Felker 12:21
You talk about also your non negotiables. What when you say that, what does that mean?
Jenn Davis 12:28
Yeah, so I think part of being using an exponential mindset is starting with what your non negotiables are. So what is it that really drives your joy? So, you know, for me, it was being very engaged with my kids from, you know, birth all the way. Till today, I want it to be very engaged with our kids’ lives. And I was very intentional and very specific on some of those I, you know, purposely scheduled my world around their school vacations. When my babies were little, I nursed everybody, and a working mom who traveled for a living, most moms would say, That’s impossible, but I, you know, I figured out how. And so making sure that I have defined what those non negotiables are at the same side, or on the flip side with the business, making sure that I knew what those non negotiables were. Because oftentimes people don’t define them.
And so if you don’t define what they are, they end up controlling your life and they create anxiety. So some of my non negotiables for, you know, for our business was in person meetings with clients, it was being at trade shows and industry events, you know, where I could speak and represent the company, and those were non negotiables, our annual user conference was a nonnegotiable, because I had to be a part of those. And so by defining them in advance, it reduces the anxiety, and it sets the expectation for the people around you as to what they can expect. And again, you know, going back to disappointment is created by failed expectations, not necessarily the situation. So by setting the expectation of when I was in, and when I was out, in both my personal life and my professional life, it reduced that that anxiety that’s created by those expectations.
Frank Felker 14:13
That’s a big takeaway for me that what you said about disappointment is created by unrealized expectations. That’s really a powerful thought.
Jenn Davis 14:25
You know, and often times, actually, to add on one quick comment there is many people think about it in the business world, but what they don’t think about it in terms of is their kids and their spouses too, is there’s failed expectations on you know, we do a good job at work of letting people know when we’re going to be at a meeting and when we’re not. We do a lot less of a good job of doing the same thing and having the same respect for our families that we do.
Frank Felker 14:52
Interesting, interesting point, yeah. The family generally takes the backseat, the business meeting was more critical. Now, you also mentioned that the world we’re living in right now with the pandemic, and people doing business virtually, and communicating, like you and I are today is actually beneficial for helping businesspeople develop this exponential mindset. Why do you say that?
Jenn Davis 15:21
Yeah, I had a revelation early on in the pandemic, as it relates to just the world we were evolving into. And it really came around the concept of, you know, back in colonial times, and back, when we were settling the Wild West, everybody’s home life and their work life were together. So that meant that, you know, the blacksmith lived in the back of his shop, the shopkeeper lived above his shop, the farmer lived on his farm. With the advent of commuting and suburbs, there became a division between your home life and work life, and that word actually started to exist of work life versus home life. And what that did was it created this artificial boundary by time, that is really unsustainable, you can’t you, you know, neither one of those could fit into time boxes. And so it creates automatic anxiety, it creates automatic friction between the two.
Well, when COVID came around, and you know, the pandemic came around, you know, certainly there was lots and lots of tragedy out of it. And, you know, I don’t want to minimize that by focusing on the positives. But there were some tremendous positives. And if you talk to most people, they will talk specifically about some of the exponential mindset that they have, they’ve actually learned by, you know, by accident, I guess, throughout the process, meaning, you know, you can go get a delivery at your front door, you can meet with the pool guy in the middle of the day, and does it extend your day to maybe a 12 hour day instead of an eight hour day? Because you took an hour off to go get your kindergartner You know, it could and likely it did.
But what it did was it created so much more harmony, that the value of both your home life and your work, life became higher, and your joyfulness became better. So I think, you know, that was really where the pandemic and I think that people in the beginning, they were, you know, they were frightened, everybody was kind of panicked, right in the beginning. And then we got out of the fight or flight and we looked around, we realized, you know, this is, okay, we’re, this is, this is a really good thing. And, you know, Case in point, I am able to do my job now. And all last year as the CEO of Davis were from wherever I landed, so I spent a week with my mom, I went the state of my son’s dorm room, I, you know, today I’m in Florida. And none of those were because I needed to be there for work. So typically, I would have had to be in my office. And that’s, you know, there’s some real value there for sure.
Frank Felker 17:52
That’s a really profound point. I think you’re spot on with that. Now, you talk about also something exponential life balance by design. How do we how do we do that? How do we design that?
Jenn Davis 18:06
Yeah, so again, I think it’s not focusing on a clock. You know, I’ve mentioned it just briefly earlier, but you know, I’ve had a little balancing man, and it’s actually on the cover of my book that I’ve had, he’s traveled with me since I was maybe in high school or college. But, you know, I think about people think about balance, and they think about a definitive line between work and home life, and it just isn’t true. And, you know, balance has sway in it. So anytime something is in balance, there’s way buildings when they, you know, they built the Burj Khalifa, it has sway, when they built the Sears Tower, it has sway. And so we have to think about, there is going to be sway in our lives, and there’s going to be times when our work responsibilities are going to be significantly more than our home responsibilities, and vice versa. And it’s okay. And so you have to make the conscious decision as to when one can Trump the other. And, you know, that’s where the non-negotiables come in, you know, which, which ones are going to help you achieve your non negotiables. And sometimes you do need to work more, and sometimes your family is more, you know, requires more out of you. And if you’ve really spent an effort, you’ve spent the time and the focus to be very conscientious to that. It becomes part of your design.
Frank Felker 19:29
Well, that’s great. And I take it you share all these ideas and, and some formats and instructions in your book on how people can do these things for themselves. Is that am I right? But that
Jenn Davis 19:43
we do so, you know, in writing the book was challenging. So that was, you know, in the middle of being a CEO in a software company during a pandemic, I thought I would write a book.
Frank Felker 19:54
Of course you did. Again, that’s what you’re
Jenn Davis 19:56
doing. But No, we did go through the process and really tried to calibrate it to something that people could take away. You know, I’m somebody that’s always trying to improve. And I really want people to look at this book, almost like a workbook or a handbook for success, you know, not just a good idea that they can, you know, call it part of their book reading, but that they actually took something away, that made their lives more harmonious and created real balance in their lives.
Frank Felker 20:27
That’s great, I think people are going to get a lot out of this book. And from what you’ve shared, it’s funny how much of what you’ve described, and you’ve said, so yourself, is just the way you are, that you didn’t specifically set out to, you know, do all this is just what Jenn does. That’s how she lives and but nonetheless, you know, we can’t all be born like that. But we certainly can learn lessons and like any other book, take from what you have to share what resonates with us and what we can make work in our own lives, then we just got to leave aside the things that man, I’m just never going to be able to make that work. But God bless, Jenn that she can do it. One of the things she talked about is what you call the slingshot effect. What is that? Yeah, so
Jenn Davis 21:11
you know, we often look at, whether it’s failures or setbacks, and, and we allow them to actually set us back instead of taking those as opportunities to step back. So my daughter was very into the musical Hamilton. And so for about two years, we listened to Hamilton every day to and from, to and from school. And there was a line in one of the songs that said, You can’t put a fire out from inside the house. And that was really profound to me, because I really thought of it as it related to the slingshot effect, right, you can’t put a fire out from inside the house, you have to take a step back. And sometimes you have to do you have to have a setback before you can move forward. You know, for our company during COVID, we decided we were going to focus on what we could control. And what we could control was being organized for the app, you know, for the outcome. And so we spent a lot of time changing out tools and organizing our business.
For Dan and I, when we were building the business, we knew we needed to outsource we had realized that that was kind of what we had to do to survive. And you know, for us, both farm kids from Wisconsin, that was really hard to overcome the thought that we wanted to, to outsource, once we decided to outsource, we failed, and we failed a few times. And you know, out of each of those failures, we move forward, so we had to pull back and redo and move forward again and pull back and move forward again. And, you know, being a farm kid, we get slingshots, and you know, your rack isn’t going to go very far if you barely pull it back, but if you pull it, pull things with all your rack is going to go to the neighbor, or hit your brother, which probably,
Frank Felker 22:54
that’s great. So if you want to make something happen, good or bad, you’re going to have to really try to make it happen, pull that thing back and let it fly. It’s funny. I know another guy. What he says is, if you always want to hit a bull’s eye, just let the arrow go and then go paint a bull’s eye around wherever it landed. You know, I have to ask you, this is actually a personal question. I have a 29-year-old daughter, and she and her young man are planning on entering into an entrepreneurial journey together. This is sort of a curveball for you. Would you have any advice for them on how to try to maintain their personal relationship while they’re starting and growing a business?
Jenn Davis 23:36
Yeah, that’s a that is a hard one. That is a good curveball. But you know, it is my life. It’s what we did our whole lives, you know, setting realistic expectations. You know, it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t perfect, there was really good times, and there was really bad times in transition was really hard. And I think being graceful to each other in, in those transitions. When we opened India, and spent a third of the year or half of the year in India, while I was birthing children and building a house. And, you know, that was hard. And but we knew that’s what needed to happen. So I think, you know, part of it is really being focused on the goal. You know, knowing who’s you know, whose strengths, you know where they live. For us. That was pretty natural. He was he was the technical guy and I was the business development person. And, you know, for us that was that was simple, but not especially when you have similar strengths.
That could be for sure harder, but you know, I think it’s realizing that they’re slingshots, realizing that there were times when dad had to carry that carry the water, realizing that sometimes I had to carry the water. In 2014, I had a really bad bicycle accident. And it was the first time I didn’t go to those shows. So I talked about those non negotiables he went, and you know, he learned something he learned to appreciate that it was hard. You know, and The flip side of that, you know, I got involved with some of the development things throughout my journey and realize that was hard. So I think, you know, just having empathy for one another, and you know, in your journey and realizing that each person serves a role, and your roles change, and the requirements of those roles change in, you know, it’s the same thing as the balance in your life, that balance, you know, balance comes with sway. And sometimes it was very swayed. There was years and years when Dan was gone a lot, whether it was personally or professionally, and I was carrying a lot more than water, you know,
Frank Felker 25:37
that must have been tough.
Jenn Davis 25:41
It was not easy as I call it the hardest year of my life, we moved our offices, we downsized our office, so that we could fund India. So my nephew and I actually moved, physically moved our offices ourselves, I gave birth to our fifth child, we moved into a house that we juggle contracted, and we moved in without a kitchen. And with one sink, one toilet or one shower that worked, and none were on the same floor. So that was, that was exciting. In dance, but 212 days or so in India, so put all together on one calendar year, it was a really hard year. But you know, it was, it was it was what it took to get here. Right? So wasn’t easy. That’s
Frank Felker 26:26
very impressive, just amazing. Now, we know that we can’t get your book on Amazon just yet. But I’m sure that there are plenty of people who are watching and listening to us right now, who would like to learn more about Jenn Davis and possibly connect with you? What’s the best way for people to do that?
Jenn Davis 26:45
Yeah, so the website is up. So living exponentially.com is the URL so you can hit me up there, obviously, the Davis ware website is linked to it. So regardless of which way you go, you should be able to find me.
Frank Felker 26:58
Right? Now, we’re just about out of time. But I always like to leave by asking my guests if there’s a question I have not asked you, or something that’s come to mind during our conversation that you’d like to share before we go.
Jenn Davis 27:13
Yeah, I think the one thing that I always try to get people to think about is the possibility mindset and that, you know, that falls, or it plays nice with the exponential mindset is, you know, none of this works unless you decide it’s possible. And so everything has to start with believing that this is possible. So you know, if you want a house full of kids in a, in a full career, it’s possible. And if you want to, you know, be a stay-at-home mom and raise your kids, it’s possible for a stay-at-home dad, or if you want to be a CEO, you know of a company and you’re a technician. It’s possible. And so without a possibility mindset, none of this is even relevant. And so that’s really it really has to start is believing that it’s possible.
Frank Felker 27:59
Jenn Davis, thank you so much for joining me today.
Jenn Davis 28:02
Yeah, it’s been absolutely My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me on.
Frank Felker 28:06
Thanks again to Jenn and thank you for joining us. Until next time, I’m Frank Felker sand, I’ll see you on the radio.
Dude Walker 28:15
Forgiving your entrepreneurial sins with a gentle wave of his microphone, here’s Frank Felker.
