Transcript
Transcripts are automatically generated and may contain phonetic spellings and other spelling and punctuation errors. Grammar errors contained in the original recording are not typically corrected.
Mike Landess: For UT Tyler Radio, 99.7 KVUT. I’m Mike Landess. Phil Burks is the pride of LeTourneau University class of 74, an entrepreneur’s entrepreneur having started, built and sold a number of tech companies over the years before beginning the Genesis group here in Tyler with his wife Bobbi. The company provides software that helps manage and operate giant two-way radio and public safety communications networks.
And Phil is our guest today. Welcome.
Phil Burks: Great to be with you, Mike.
Mike Landess: Good to have you here. I talked about you being the quintessential entrepreneur. Tell us about First IZ.
Phil Burks: Well, first off, I think that’s overrated. It’s saying quintessential, but. The,
Mike Landess: I can’t even spell it though.
Phil Burks: If we’re gonna fit in a bunch of $20 words, then you have done it First IZ. Let’s talk about that for just a second. So that an idea born out of the ability to give our first responders eyes on a scene before they actually get out there. That’s the ideal for them to know exactly what they’re getting into.
We had a local investor three of us actually gentleman that put in. A good bit of money than our company that put in a lot. Another company here in Tyler that put in more, we developed from zero up to a fully operational drone in a box is what it’s called.
Mike Landess: It’s a drone.
Phil Burks: A drone in a box. Yes. This, this is a drone situation and the box houses the drone, keeps it air conditioned and heated and totally connected to the internet at all times and to GPS, so it could be launched in a seconds notice. And anyway, we spent a lot of money. We spent a bunch of years and we knew about when the runway would end. That’s the, the money that you put into a company. And as that was approaching, we started raising and they all asked the same question, you know, “So, what are your sales tell us about your sales.” Well, we spent all of our money on research and development.
Mike Landess: Not marketing,
Phil Burks: Not marketing. And in fact so that was the kind of the death knell for a lot of the investors along the way. But good news is couple of the guys that were involved with our First IZ project have started a new company, so they got a fresh slate.
And so we have sold our intellectual property to this new company called Modular Flight. And Modular Flight is going to take the marketing arm and really pushed that angle hard. They have a working product that’s beyond mvp, minimum viable product. And we’ll see what they can do with it.
Mike Landess: Phil, this story is perfect in terms of your book. A published author with a book titled An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Failure.
Phil Burks: Yep.
Mike Landess: A memoir. Well, I mean, and that’s what entrepreneurs do. You put it out there, you do the best you can with it, and if that doesn’t work, then you shuffle a little bit and come up with something else.
Phil Burks: Yeah. Sometimes you call it reframing, but the whole bottom line, Mike, is you just say, don’t quit. You find a way to make it work. We could look at and go,” Well, we failed.” Nah, this is kinda like John the Baptist. We were kind of, kind of going out in ahead of, you know, Jesus, so this is kind of what we’re doing here.
We, we did that.
Mike Landess: He was the point, man.
Phil Burks: That’s exactly right. And now, so these guys are gonna take it and run with it from here.
Mike Landess: That’s, uh, interesting that you would bring that up. You are very, very strong in your faith.
Phil Burks: I am.
Mike Landess: And you have been involved with Green Acres Baptist Church for many years, and, and Pastor David Dykes as he was serving there.
Tell me about some of those adventures. I mean, those, you guys had some great adventures. One of my favorite stories that you and David told me at lunch one day was about the guy in the gray jumpsuit.
Phil Burks: Blue jumpsuit.
Mike Landess: Blue jumpsuit. I’m sorry.
Phil Burks: Yeah. No, and that’s, and that’s significant. This is a David story more than it is a Phil story. But yeah, we’ve, we’ve did many mission trips. I mean, we’ve been to China Thailand Guatemala and, and Ukraine in Crimea. And the story that, that, that’s, that’s absolutely true because I’ve actually heard this from more than one person.
In fact, I, I just verified it the other day. they flew into Moscow, and this is a group of about 30, 40 people flew into Moscow and they had to change airports from the internet.
Mike Landess: This, this is on a mission
Phil Burks: This is on a mission. Yep. Yep. And they were headed down to Crimea. So they fly into Moscow, had to change airports. Well, they look at the immigration line and it’s just packed with people. Packed with people. And so anyway David’s looking around and somebody in a blue jumpsuit walks up to him and says, you got a problem? Can I help you with anything? He said, sure. We’re trying to get O out to the curb cause we’ve gotta catch a bus to get over to the other terminal.
Guy said, gimme a second. So he walks away, comes back, says Follow me. And this is in English. This is in very good English. Mm-hmm. . So he says, follow me. So they pick up all their stuff and they walk right past all of the immigration, go out to the, the the bus, get on the bus and start loading up the bus.
And David turns around and finds his interpreter and says, Hey, I wanna find this guy in the blue jumpsuit cause I want to tip him and say thank you. And they said, well, We don’t have blue jumpsuits around here. There’s nobody with blue jumpsuits. And you know the only thing they could figure is that it had to be an angelic being of some sort that just showed up.
Now, the significance of this is, there’s another story that I’ve got in the book about a very good friend of mine who worked for Motorola, who was having life issues. He was tired. His family said, why don’t you get back into a church and get yourself kind of plugged back in? So he finally gives up and one mor Sunday morning, he drives up to a church parking lot.
Parking lot’s full, and a guy in a blue jumpsuit. watering the plants in front of the church at 1115. You looking for a place to park? And he says, yeah, I’m probably gonna leave. There’s no places. And the guy says, just park over here on the grass. Nobody do care. And so Dave, my friend, gets out of his parks there on the grass, gets out of his car, walks in, the guy in the blue jumpsuit, you know, opens the door for him.
He sits down. Can’t find the guy in the blue jumpsuit anywhere around. Starts asking the questions afterward. Do you have a guy? Nobody would be watering plants at 11:15 on a Sunday morning. That’s, so apparently angels wear blue jumpsuits.
Mike Landess: I know. And, and they intervene at the perfect time, which is what angels do.
Now I have to say as a person that’s been in broadcasting for a long time, I’m listening to your voice, I’m thinking, Does this guy ever do any broadcast work?
Phil Burks: Yeah. I tell people all the time, it’s a hollow head that has a resonance, you know, in it. Oh, I see.
Mike Landess: You said something early on that I think that our, probably anyone not just students at UT Tyler, but anyone listening to this interview probably should hear again that that sort of credo of the entrepreneur about not giving up.
Phil Burks: That’s exactly right. I mean, it’s, you are permitted to fail and I’m going to steal somebody else’s statement that is, if you’re gonna fail, please fail early. Please fail forward. Please don’t quit. You know, and again, in the book, I wrote a line in there that says, if you have an exacto knife, go to a dictionary that you might have. Find the word quit. Take that exacto knife, cut the word quit out of the dictionary, throw it away because you are not even permitted to. Utter the word quit. You have to think forward into, how can I use this failure as a launching pad for something else? Now, you know, there’s, there’s this is, this statement has been said about a lot of things, but never waste a good failure. Never waste it. Never waste a good depression. Use it as a bounce point for the next thing that you’re gonna do good.
Mike Landess: Good advice. Our guest has been Phil Burkes of the Genesis Group here in Tyler. To hear this interview again or to share it, go to KVUT.org. I’m Mike Landess for UT Tyler Radio, 99.7 KVUT.