ALPS In Brief Podcast - Episode 85: Listening to Your Life with Entrepreneur Troy De Baca

In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with Troy De Baca, the man behind The Silk Screen Machine, Inc. to talk about life, risk taking, and an ice cream dream.

Hello. I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the risk manager here at ALPS. And welcome to ALPS in Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the Historic Florence Building in beautiful downtown Missoula Montana. I'm here on a business trip at the mothership, the home office here, and we've had some interesting speakers the past couple of days. And the one that I have enjoyed the most, and have been it's just got all kinds of things gone in my head here, just a lot of things to chew on in terms of life insights is a presentation given by Troy De Baca. And I just want to sit down, and we're just going to chat a little bit. For those of you that have listened somewhat rightly, or more rightly on all that I've done with podcasts, I've done several on listening to your life. I am going to add this discussion to this series, if you will, because man, oh man, is there a lot here. So Troy, welcome. It's a pleasure. 

Troy De Baca: 

Mark, great to meet you. Thanks for having me. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

You're most welcome. And before we jump into just having a chat, can you tell our audience a little bit about who you are, and what you are in life I guess? 

Troy De Baca: 

Sure. Sure. So out of the many titles that you can be given, I've magically found myself in this role of entrepreneur, and I know that's a very big buzzword right now, but yeah. I basically am an American entrepreneur, who creates very outside of the box thinking in terms in the world of advertising, and marketing, and promotional items. And what my job is for the most part is when people ask me, "What do you do for a living," I say, "I'm a professional solutionist," because that encapsulates everything that I do. My job is to find solutions primarily for Fortune 500 companies to go out, and do experiential marketing, which is basically finding a company's demographic, or target demographic audience, and then providing them with an experience that they then hold onto, and they have a positive moment with, that they'll hopefully buy the brand, or support the brand. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

I love that. I love that, professional solutionist, and boy, trust me, folks, when he talks about what he's done here, it's just like, good for you. God bless. Man oh man, are you freaking kidding me? Got to stop. 

Troy De Baca: 

You're too much. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

You talked in this presentation yes a word that it explains some things, but entrepreneurs is not necessarily a word you use comfortably to describe yourself. You just don't see yourself that way. 

Troy De Baca: 

Right. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

But you talk about all of this being unexpected. 

Troy De Baca: 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

What does that mean? You are in a great place, and tremendous success, but it's very unexpected. What's the journey? 

Troy De Baca: 

Yeah. So what I'm realizing now that I didn't know growing up is that I've just deeply been passionate about art and creativity. I didn't really know how to express myself. And that got me down paths that as most artists or creatives, there's a dangerous side to it, because you want to explore everything. And then that can be hurtful or harmful when you're not fully in control of your art, or your craft. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Okay. 

Troy De Baca: 

So growing up, I took a lot of [inaudible 00:04:15]. I wanted to get into everything, and explore everything. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

And through doing that, like many artists, I got involved with drugs, and I went down a rabbit hole pretty deep. I got addicted to heroin, and I spent about six years of my life pursuing that. And it took me to some really deep, dark places. And I also overdosed a few times, and was considered legally dead two of those times. So I consider myself very lucky for making it out of that realm. But the process of getting through that, and becoming a normal person again was probably one of the most beneficial points in my entire life. Learning the strength that I had to overcome something so damaging, and through that process, it encouraged me that I can conquer big goals, and big dreams. And to date, that's by far the biggest goal and dream that I've ever conquered. I've been clean for 27 years. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Just an incredible account. 

Troy De Baca: 

And when I say clean, I need to actually, for the listeners, I don't know if some people call me out, because I do drink occasionally, and I dabble in marijuana edibles when I can't sleep. But when I say clean, I mean specifically clean from heroin, because to me, that was the anchor that was going to take me out. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

And I've not touched it in 27 years, and I'm very proud of that moment when I decided that I'm going to do every single thing it takes to never go back. So with that confidence of being able to maintain that goal, and maintain that dream, it's given me confidence in other elements of my life as far as business, and being an entrepreneur, building companies, and really seeing those things through. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

What I find interesting about this is how I hear it and respond to what you're saying is you had a period in your life that was just deep darkness. 

Troy De Baca: 

Absolutely. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

And to have the strength and fortitude to come out of that, and then realize the positive side of all this, if you will, that there's this internal strength, and desire, and say, what I'm trying to do here is, to me, this is it's a big life lesson, or listening to you. It's not. Sometimes things that we look at in our life and miss at times are small, but this is a big thing. 

Troy De Baca: 

Yeah. Absolutely. It was the fork in the road as it were. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you had the courage to really do something that, and I have tremendous respect for this. I don't think this happens a lot. Certainly, a lot of people struggle at times with, and have dark, whether it's mental illness, or drugs, and they can come out the other side, and be better for the experience, but this journey is, our story is a story of extremes. That's what I hear. And the fact that you did this is just crazy cool to me. I want to throw out a few words. 

Troy De Baca: 

Sure. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

And just if it fits into the story, what's your response? What do you think? Fears, how do you deal with fears, and explore that with me, because I think, again- 

Troy De Baca: 

I love it. I love it. So when I originally took the steps to get clean, I went through what they call, I believe they call it now more of a therapeutic bootcamp. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Okay. 

Troy De Baca: 

But I went through a pretty hardcore intense program, and through that, I was given this book called Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway. And I read that. It was the first book that I can honestly say I read cover-to-cover, and multiple times. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yes. 

Troy De Baca: 

And I still to this day when I feel like I'm being circled by my fears, and there's no way out, I still turn to this book. And I couldn't even quote anything from it. It's just the magic that I get by reading it, and allowing myself to really walk through the fear, and get to the other side. So I've also given this book over 100 times. I've given it out to people who I saw that were in some pretty fearful moments, and pivotal moments in their life. 

And my process now really goes back to who am I at my core? I'm an artist, and with my art, my mediums are almost anything I can touch, but I have many, many fears. And the easiest way for me to overcome those is to literally just go back to the fact that I know my purpose on this planet, and it's to create, and it's to create my value, and my art. And when I do that, and I see a project come to a close that I was so fearful about, it gives me this magical confidence, and these magical openings to take further steps into the unknown. And that leads me to a risk category. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. That's what's going to talk about next. So let's go there. Let's go there. 

Troy De Baca: 

This leads me to a risk category that many people, I scare a bunch. I scare a lot of people. Many days I scare my wife, because she sees me taking these bold steps, and these bold, literal, just my entire being going into projects that sometimes I'm ill-equipped to be in, but I do this purposely to challenge myself, and to keep myself responsible, and absolutely there for my craft. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. 

Troy De Baca: 

When I do that, the rewards are beyond monetary. They're beyond. They're almost magic is only thing I can say. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

How I respond to that, and again, just boy would I love to have you around for a long time just as a friend to get together and chat. Oh my gosh. 

Troy De Baca: 

I'll have to come down to Florida and visit. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

You'd be welcome. Anytime. What I'm hearing is taking risks, and really daring to go way beyond your comfort zone is how you obtain. It's how you discover who you are, and it's how you grow. 

Troy De Baca: 

Absolutely. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

And that's what I'm hearing the returns are. 

Troy De Baca: 

Absolutely. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

We're not. Yes, I'm sure there's some financial benefits to a lot of these risks. 

Troy De Baca: 

Yeah. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

So you wouldn't be where you are, but that's not really what this game is about to you. 

Troy De Baca: 

No. It's- 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

This is about, "What am I capable of?" And I love it when people dare to see how far they can go. 

Troy De Baca: 

Absolutely. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

In my mind, I think that's a huge limitation to so many people. 

Troy De Baca: 

I agree. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

We don't dare to put it all out there. And again, it's not about throwing all the money. Sometimes people take- 

Troy De Baca: 

Money is nice. Don't get me wrong. It's nice. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

No, but I'm saying even risking a lot of money to do something. 

Troy De Baca: 

Absolutely. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

And yes. Money is nice. I agree. But the real reason that people are doing this I think is for the excitement, for the fear, for the growth, for the, "It's just life is too short as it is. Let's see what I can get out of this." 

Troy De Baca: 

Mark, you nailed it right there. I want to tell you a sign that I saw hanging on the wall of the place that I'm staying. When I landed in Missoula, I go into the bathroom, and on the wall is this picture that says, "You only get one life, and if you do it right, one is all you need." 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. And that's so good. 

Troy De Baca: 

I saw that, and it struck a chord with me, because I'm squeezing this lemon for all it's worth. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

That is clear. 

Troy De Baca: 

Robert plant. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Troy De Baca: 

No. I just am really, I'm here for it. And this is now, I think it is very tied to my addiction as far as getting that dopamine hit. I do the same scary thing in business when I build these companies, and when I build these dreams. When I get the reward of the accomplishment, it is truly the biggest fix of life. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

I love that. 

Troy De Baca: 

I still get that strange risk, because it's very risky behavior. I put a lot of money on the line. Sometimes I put my entire reputation, and what I am on the line, but then when I see it through, and I see it on the other side, holy cow. Yeah. The reward is immeasurable. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Again, here's how I respond to this, and I love it. Taking these risks, I think you're comfortable at it. And I'm trying to solidify the learning for me, and I'm trying to share, and express this. So I got to think out loud here, and I got all kinds of planes up. But that response does not surprise me at all, because I think what, again, how I respond to this, here's a guy who is willing to take great risks, but actually comfortable in doing so, because you have traveled this extreme, the strength necessary to do that you know is there. The faith that you can get there is there. 

Troy De Baca: 

Yeah. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

And when it hits, you want to talk about self-validation, and people, we are only capable of validating ourselves. 

Troy De Baca: 

Yeah. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

No one else can validate us. That's false. That's a false flag. 

Troy De Baca: 

Sure. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

So may I ask you? I'm going to go on a tangent here for a second. 

Troy De Baca: 

Please. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Every risk that you take is not going to play out. 

Troy De Baca: 

Yes. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Okay. 

Troy De Baca: 

Yes. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

How do you respond to that? 

Troy De Baca: 

I've had massive risks that I've taken that have completely fallen through. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

And what's strange about it, I know that it's been said many times. I can't even pinpoint the first person I've heard or read that said this, but essentially fail fast. When you put yourself out there, and you challenge the norm, you challenge everything that you're doing, the quicker you fail, the quicker you get to the solution, the learning. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

And without the learning, if every project you did came out perfect, if every cake you bake is perfect, then it's going to taste like shit. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

It's not all built to taste good without that failure. And I've got probably 30-70 split ratio. I don't know. I don't know that the ratio. I like pie charts, but one of the biggest gambles that I've taken recently, and this is just post-COVID, we were going into the year 2000. We had approximately 1/4 of a million dollars already booked into that year with clients, and then COVID happened. And every single one of those obviously backed out. And our livelihood, and the company that I had built from this dream literally was at risk. 

And what I started doing was thinking of ways that we could abide by a six-foot rule, or I wasn't sure if we'd ever be able to do live events again, because we obviously couldn't gather, and that's our bread and butter. So what we started doing, and especially when Zoom came on the scene, and it blew up, we started doing virtual conferences with some of our clients, and they had very cold feet about it. That went over okay. It was mediocre. By the way, the company is called The Silk Screen Machine. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. No. Please fill us in a little bit. 

Troy De Baca: 

Our primary goal is to do live customization of promotional products for customers. So we do a lot in the conference and convention space. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

We're in Vegas a ton because of that reason. And when we had all these big clients back out due to COVID, it shook me to the core. In talking about being fearful, every moment of my life was, "How do we?" And I'm going to use words that I don't really necessarily like, but there are buzzwords that you'll understand is, "How do we pivot?" 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

"We know our skillset. How do we showcase what we can do in a Zoom call? Or how do we take orders from guests over Zoom in a virtual conference of thousands of people, and then manage that in-house, and provide these guests with a package that shows up on their doorstep?" 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Mm-hmm. 

Troy De Baca: 

And that's what we did. Then coming out of that cloud, I was riding a high, because this really worked. This was working. We were making money. We were profitable in the virtual space. So then when conferences started, when we were able to gather, but it was still six feet distance, I came up with this plan. Here's the failure attempt. I came up with this plan to devise an app that you could scan. Instead of standing in tight lines, and being on top of each other, you scan the QR code. It's your leisure, and it's a drag and drop T-shirt builder. 

So you could scan an event design, drag it to your T-shirt, place it wherever you want it on the T-shirt, hit send. It would then spit back to our printers that were live. They would then print the item, the garment, or the bandana, or the tote bag, or what have you, and we would be able to hand it over to the guest, put it on a table, walk away. They know it's theirs, staying distant. So great concept. Right? 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. 

Troy De Baca: 

Beautiful. The idea is phenomenal. The reality of it were things that I didn't foresee. The truth of the matter is, and I'm sure all of us know this, because we've all been in conference space, data sucks. Your cellular sucks. You typically don't have a Wi-Fi. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Boy do I know that. 

Troy De Baca: 

The free Wi-Fi is garbage. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

It is. 

Troy De Baca: 

You're not getting anything accomplished on that. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

So what would happen is we would bottleneck, because no one's cell service could actually send it to our printers. So then we would always have a backup method, which was handwriting it, and then handing off tickets. The app actually we sold it for a good deal of money. And the other beautiful thing about the app, which I expressed earlier, was we were collecting people's data, and selling it back to our client, which is very valuable. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

So anyway, we actually, we were making great money with it, but it was a failed product or service. And what ended up happening with it, this is when I had to give it up, and I kept trying, and kept trying, and kept trying it. And eventually what happened is we get this giant bid from Microsoft to go to their, basically it's an intern day. They have people from around the world, all these candidates from around the world. I think it was 3,000 to 5,000 kids that were genius on the computer. And someone hacked our system, and literally sent bogus names, funny names, weird names to our brain, the system. And we had over 50,000 order requests. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Oh my God. 

Troy De Baca: 

They just kept coming in, and we had no idea whose was real, whose wasn't. So it failed miserably. We had huge backlogs. People were pissed. It was not comfortable. And here I am watching the ship burn, and there's nothing I can do about it. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. 

Troy De Baca: 

It was embarrassing. It was Microsoft for crying out loud, and technology for crying out loud. And here I am botching the worst experience. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Oh my God. 

Troy De Baca: 

So making it through that immediately got me to the point where I go, "Okay. This isn't going to work, and if it was to work, we need to put a lot more money behind it." And that was a huge learning lesson. And it's weird, because I have this other ability that's very uncanny, and I think most humans don't share this with me, is that I don't care about being embarrassed. I don't care being the butt of a joke. I don't care looking like an asshole. I don't care looking like an idiot, because that's one of the fears that I dealt with most of my life. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

And it would always prevent me from pulling out my best art. So that's one of those things about caring about what other people think. I had to completely relearn, reteach myself to not give a shit, and just do it, and put myself out there in the most embarrassing moments. And that's actually paid off. It's a weird strategy. When you laugh at yourself first, and everyone's in the joke with you, it goes over a lot easier. It's a lot easier to stomach. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Absolutely. 

Troy De Baca: 

So I don't fake the funk now. If I'm going down, I'm going down hard, and you get to watch it. So yeah. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

My suspicion is as we talk about fears, and failures, and all, if you have two choices in life, you're going to pick the one that scares the shit out of you the most. 

Troy De Baca: 

Absolutely. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

And that's the one to go down. 

Troy De Baca: 

Every single time. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

And I love that though- 

Troy De Baca: 

Every time. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

... because you're not afraid of failure. It's how you grow. It's how you learn, and it's how you push boundaries. It's a lesson I learned a long time ago myself. I've had multiple times where, "Do I take the safe play, or the other play?" 

Troy De Baca: 

Isn't it funny how those forks in the road are very vivid now? 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Oh. They are. Absolutely. 

Troy De Baca: 

And they're some of your best growing tools. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yes. Now, I always go toward the one that says, "It makes me uncomfortable. I'm afraid. I don't know. This is scary as shit." 

Troy De Baca: 

Absolutely. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

But you have to have some faith, and go, because there's no other way. Again, why are we here? 

Troy De Baca: 

Right? If you play it safe, your couch is only going to get you so far in life. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. 

Troy De Baca: 

You got to get out there. You got to get off the couch, and you got to do it. And obviously, my risks are very different than I think we all have our own set parameters. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. What we might consider risky is going to differ between. Yeah. 

Troy De Baca: 

I think that one of the coolest things now about risk, and management, and fear is you gain wisdom, and you gain what works, and what doesn't with you. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. 

Troy De Baca: 

And because you're more comfortable with who you are in your space, it allows you to almost not predict the future, but see things a little bit clearer for what a lot of times our fears are complete absurdity. The things that I'm afraid of at night, that keep me awake don't ever come true. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

But the things that do come true, that are factual, that are fact-based evidence, those things, you become intuitive, and you become a little wiser when you approach things in situations. So I'm very grateful for that side of it. It's another feather in the cap. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

One final word, and I want to have you tell one very short story. 

Troy De Baca: 

Sure. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

What does the word relationship mean to you, and how does that play into your story, if you will? 

Troy De Baca: 

Wow. That's a great question. I think that I know now today that without relationships, I don't exist. Whether that be personally, whether it be professionally, I know that if I'm not tending to the garden, so to speak, I'm not doing it right. If I don't listen to people, if I don't hear people in their perspectives, I'm not doing something right. Relationships to me are the ultimate key to almost everything. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Would it be fair to say that there are relationships at all stages, at either end of your story, that there are relationships there that are a foundation for you to stand on? Or would this story have happened absent relationships? 

Troy De Baca: 

Absolutely not. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Okay. So it's not all you. 

Troy De Baca: 

Yeah. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

But you had to do all the hard work. Don't get me wrong at all. But I really want to. I guess what I'm trying to get to, and ask in a roundabout way is it's important I think, to recognize that we are not alone. Did you prioritize? Did you nurture these relationships? Do you continue to do that? Is that fundamental to, again, your story, and where you're at? 

Troy De Baca: 

I think that I have been bad at relationships the majority of my life. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Okay. 

Troy De Baca: 

And one of the biggest, biggest relationships that I've been bad at is the relationship with myself. Personally, I wasn't good to me for most of my life. I had a lot of negative self-talk. I had a lot of doubts about who I am, and where I want to be. So I think one of the greatest gifts that I've come away with over these years is letting myself off the hook, and taking it easier on myself. No one's perfect. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Oh. Absolutely. 

Troy De Baca: 

And I actually embrace my imperfection. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Okay. 

Troy De Baca: 

I know now that without a really healthy relationship with myself, I can't have relationships with other people. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yes. Yes. I love this. 

Troy De Baca: 

And saying that- 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

That's so important. 

Troy De Baca: 

I've had fallings out with my family all my life, especially due to my drug use. There were years that I didn't speak to my closest people, my loved ones, my mom and dad, and my brother. And they stuck through it all. Incredibly strong people that sat by my side in the darkest times of my life, and I still wasn't able to be there for them. And I'm so, so happy that I can say that one of the biggest gifts in my life now is my wife, and my relationship with her. None of this, the business elements, and where we're at, and at the level that we execute would not be possible without her. And she's believed in me, and my ridiculous schemes, and dreams, and goals. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Yeah. 

Troy De Baca: 

She's been right there on the sidelines, cheering me along. And a lot of times, she gets in the game with me now. Now we travel all over the world doing what I love, which is providing these promotional products for companies. And she came on board full-time about two years ago, and it's helped us accelerate. It's just put the pedal to the metal. So shout out to my wife Katie, because she's amazing, and she's the backbone of this operation. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

This story, let's talk about the dream, and one of the learnings from that. I'll let you fill folks in. 

Troy De Baca: 

This is probably the coolest part of my day. And again, going back to my wife, she hears the story, she's like, "I hear it one more time, I'm going to blow up." So she's heard it way more than most. Anyway, really, I started a screen printing company in 2007 in Denver, Colorado with $1,000 loan from my dad. And he put me up in his garage, and he gave me the time and the space to dedicate my life to learning about this craft, and this skill. And through that, I started the company, and was just doing bars, and restaurants, and friends' bands, and things like that. 

And the medical marijuana industry popped up in Colorado. And that was a big. That really put us on the map. We started getting our name passed around the craft beer industry. Of course, we started doing things there, and those were all goals of mine too back then. So when I started playing with some of the biggest brewers out there, it was really a proving ground, and it gave me a lot of faith in our abilities, and what we do. And then in 2012, this is the dream. I had a dream. I was chasing an ice cream truck, and it was this alien spaceship ice cream truck. It had LEDs, and smoke machines, and laser beams, and it was wild. 

And it was so vivid. And I ran up to the truck, and I asked the team that was on the truck, if I could have a Rocket Pop, and a Fudgsicle. And instead of them handing me ice cream, they printed tee-shirts off this truck. I woke up the next morning, and my head was on fire. I couldn't get this dream out of my head. So I went to Google, and I started googling every instance of Screen Printing Truck, and Trucks that Screen Print, and Print Truck, any phrase, and it didn't exist. There were no hits coming back. And A, that blew my mind. But B, it was like, "Wow. Am I onto something?" And then C, I was like, "Let's go build this thing." So I built the first truck in Denver, Colorado. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

As an aside folks, it's a freaking awesome truck. I've seen photos of this. Oh my God. It's awesome. 

Troy De Baca: 

It's wild. I had a graffiti artist from Mexico City who was new to Denver. He painted my truck for very, very cheap. I got a bargain. He didn't know his value, because he's very prominent in Denver now. But his art was just so explosive on this thing. It really carried my vision. And we got this truck on the road, and the next thing, Red Bull came across us, and saw what we were doing, live screen printing, and handing out these promotional items to target demographic audiences. So they picked us up, and they wanted the truck in Los Angeles. And we didn't have a truck there. So we shipped out the truck from Denver, and we did a 30-day marketing campaign with them. And it really set things in motion. I realized right then, "Wow. This is bigger than me." This idea was bigger. And that's really where things took off. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

I love it. 

Troy De Baca: 

And then the fact that this wasn't even on my radar at the time, but they wanted to wrap the truck. And boom, there's another revenue stream, is making a billboard truck for clients. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

So yeah. That really, that was the pivotal moment, again, seeing the fork in the road. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

But what is the learning? You talk about if you're going to Google something, when you say- 

Troy De Baca: 

Oh. Yeah. Bottom line. Honestly, when I speak, when I talk to people about it, I go, "If you Google something, and it doesn't exist, it is your job. It's the universe selecting you out of all the people on the planet to go make this thing, to put it on Google. It's your now job." 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Go build it. 

Troy De Baca: 

If the universe gives you a nudge like that, you got to take the blinders off, and you got to look further than where the blinders are. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Right. 

Troy De Baca: 

We spoke about that a little bit, but yeah. Take those cues, because they're there for a reason. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

And that's where I want to leave it with your story. Again, folks, I'd like to share a couple of comments. And if you have something to add, please do. We have talked about it. And in my experience, and just personal learning as well, I have a different life story, but a lot of the lessons have been learned are somewhat similar. 

Troy De Baca: 

Mm-hmm. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

We do need to take blinders off, and we do need to look for the sounds, the things that your life is saying to you, the opportunities. Yes. They may be fearful. Yes. They may be risky, but again, if you're trying to set up a new law practice, or you're walking into a firm as an associate on the first day, and it's normal and natural to have these fears, but don't say no to opportunities. Look for them. I love it. 

You talk about the universe giving you this little nudge. I see it as your life is speaking to you, and there's an opportunity here. Only you can see it. Only you get to choose what do you do with it. But if you, for out of fear, not wanting to take risks, all reasons that we don't want to do this, because life's comfortable right now, and it's good, but you're not growing. You're not doing anything. 

Troy De Baca: 

Get off the couch. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Just get off the couch. That's exactly right. So that's the point. And I just have loved visiting with you. It really just- 

Troy De Baca: 

Oh. It's been so fun, Mark. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

And I want you to hear just guy to guy. I find, here's how I want to say this, to have the opportunity to have met you, to have some discussion yesterday, and today, and to listen to you speak, I feel quite privileged to visit with you. I really do. 

Troy De Baca: 

That's heartfelt Mike. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

I want to say, well done. 

Troy De Baca: 

Thank you. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

You're somebody I really look at, and admire, and respect for just the courage to do all that you've done, and we could talk for a long time yet about what's coming. 

Troy De Baca: 

Oh. And we will. We will, offline. Yeah. No. I don't take that lightly. I really, really thank you for that. I'm so grateful to have this opportunity with you, and it's been fantastic to get to know you, and chat about life, and everything that goes with it. 

Mark Bassingthwaighte: 

Well, I hope we can stay connected. That's it, folks. Before I sign off, I just want to remind all of you that while I am the risk manager here at ALPS, I am not a traditional corporate risk manager. I am hired by ALPS to be your risk manager, a risk manager for the bar at large, nationwide. So feel free to reach out anytime if you have questions, concerns, anything that I could do to try to help. Whether it's risk management in your practice, law practice management, ethics, the list just goes on and on. Even want to talk insurance, now, there's an exciting topic, but I'm happy to explain all kinds of things. You can reach me at mbass, M-B-A-S-S @alpsinsurance. That's one word, A-L-P-S insurance.com. That's it. Thanks all. Bye-Bye.