This is the entrepreneurs versus coronavirus podcast with your host Ryan Kononoff. We're in an unprecedented time right now as Chronovirus continues to spread throughout Canada and in fact our world, we're starting to hear some remarkable stories of how businesses are rapidly evolving and innovating within their space. In this next interview, I had the opportunity to speak to Parker Ray who is the director of operations and the original co-founder of world spec.org, but I want you to listen for is how we saw an opportunity to innovate at a time where the general acceptance for online learning just wasn't there. Today more than ever everyone is buying into online learning and so. Talks about how they're taking this opportunity to meet the needs that exist today through discounts payment plans and some alteration to how they would normally service their customers. In particular, listen how we talks about some of the challenges they're facing with their own people who are already working from home and are now struggling to get full days of work in at a time when they're busier than they've ever been. Parker welcome to the entrepreneurs versus coronavirus podcast. So just to start out why don't you tell me a little bit about world spec for those that haven't heard of you? Yeah, perfect so Worldspec became the world's first ever online training company in our niche sector, which is called non-destructive testing. Essentially, we use technologies that are similar to the medical field like ultrasound and x-rays to look at the inside of metal things like airplane fuselage brains pipelines, and we can see inside. Of them and look for products or defects that are maybe just beginning to happen and hopefully get to those and get those fixed before something big really does happen and they crack or break off. So, my father was a trainer in that sector my whole life and he traveled all over the world and we didn't want to do that anymore so he and I and and my family together we were thinking about their ideas and we said, you know, we've got this great 56K modem here. Why don't we look at doing some online training and so we we built this online training and Literally we were just shifting over to DSL or cable modem that's about how long ago was. Wow, And we built this online platform and it was incredibly basic it was basically like a textbook online almost like a PDF online and and we started selling this training in in my father's industry and it started taking off pretty significantly. However as with most things in a disruptive industry, there was significant push that we had a lot of people that were in their 50s and 60s. In the industry older men that didn't think was possible to do online training. So we. We sort of showed them otherwise but essentially all they would do is if you if my father went to a classroom to teach you bring the power point and just stand up there and and read a textbook or a power point and so there was really no reason why this couldn't have been taught online, but there was just kind of a stigma I guess with online training which to some degree in some industries there still is that stigma that the training is not as good or not as effective as traditional classroom training so basically in a nutshell that's how we got to where we were we ended up kind of exploding because we were the only ones and there was an New generation of millennials that were moving in to take over the industry and they obviously want to training now and they want to training immediately and at their fingertips and. So that really helped us and we eventually sold to the largest NAT company in in North America and I've been working for them since then. Wow that's an awesome success story of from from startup to to exit and and you're still are you still involved on on sort of an earnout is that you're involvement or are you what what is your role look like today Yeah so today I mean, our note is is coming gone now. I've been with the company this newly acquired company for seven years. Now and I'm still an entrepreneur apart and they kind of let me run it a bit like an entrepreneur. I have technically a boss but in terms of the day-to-day operations I can kind of do what I want with it except when I need money or funding then it's you know, there's a lot of bureaucratic red tape that goes on to get anything but in terms of operations I can kind of run it as I want and and make my own hours and just be responsible for it that way so I still feel a little bit of entrepreneurial stuff in me and and I really want to get back out there and explore what else. Is out there but for now I've been happily employed very cool okay and and so let's let's just for for those that are listening tell us a little bit going back to where you started like what did a course look like on your website back when people were connecting to the internet on dial-up modems or through ADSL or DSL connections, what did it look like then and fast-forward to today what is a course on your platform look like today yeah so initially literally what we did was scan textbook pages from my father's textbook and upload those to the internet and we had the legal commercial. Grades to sell them so we just literally had scanned pages to text and just put it through there and and so today we're now in a position where we create dynamic courses with video and drag and drop features and making users engaged through clicking or through browsing somewhere typing in answers doing different activities that keep them as engaged as possible we use a software politiculate storyline and that's basically where we're at today, but, We have to start looking through the future because that's that's no longer good enough either right and so your whole website today, there's a turn for that it's called an LMS right and and so just as someone who's maybe never gone through learning online, like what what does that experience like through your website today as far as signing up registering for a course and how does it compare to to in class physical training that would be comparable to you know, just to someone who's looking for an NDT certification? Yeah, so, It the online process is you know pretty similar to any other website you go on you make an account register for courses you have access and then you can log in whenever you want and it's essentially a self-study program but you are given this this sort of an instructor or mentor that has you know, 30/40 years of experience that's available whenever you want to ask them questions, but essentially it's the same process as you would normally see with regards to the second part of your question, what was that again someone who's who's looking at two different options? But they if they are looking at moving online versus learning in class like what does that experience like through your your website today, yeah, so. Ours is a lot more condensed obviously when you learn online you can learn much faster than in a classroom where an eight-hour day would be filled with a couple lunch breaks a couple of recessed breaks some introduction to who each person is an introduction of with instructor all these other different things you can actually sit there and deal with just the material so you can fly through quite a bit quicker in the classroom setting you're maybe going to get to meet new people. I guess that's kind of the big advantage there you're going to meet new people probably in the same industry as you maybe network a bit you. Don't really have that networking luxury with the online at least the way we've got it set up now so that would probably be the advantage the classroom but if you like to just get your training done and your self-starter and the self-learner then the online is is by far the way to go you save on, you know, hotel accommodation to save on paying to go to a classroom training because they have to pay for the building they have to pay for the physical instructor to be there for eight hours a day, so you're able to save a lot of costs and we're able to save a lot of costs and push those off to our clients at the end of the day and As well and and of course learn you know around your own schedule perhaps work or school or or home or you know in a time like this where people are sort of confined to their their four walls at home it's it's a great opportunity that gives them some flexibility yet the ability to to keep learning, of course, yeah the flexibility and the convenience is probably the biggest selling point for online training, especially in you know, today's situation that's very interesting and uncertain they can do it whenever they find time 24 hours a day seven days a week great. So let's talk a little bit about your customers, so today who are your customers what does that demographic like today you mentioned millennials, what what else who's a good candidate for world spec dot org? So we have all kinds of people from all different industries to give you some background like some of our larger clients are Boeing for example, we have bombardier Northrop Grumman a lot of large companies. SpaceX, la all these companies have used our training and and the reason they use the training is because it's far more again convenient for them, but the bigger thing is their employees don't have to take time on. The work to do the training so they're not losing that employer for one to two weeks to go and take an in classroom training course and also paying for that person's accommodations and food and lodging and what have you this way the student can do it on their own time and they're not losing them in the workforce great and how many staffs like what what does it take to to run your business how many people are involved in the office remote in the field what does that look like so as of today we really have about a team of eight there's myself a business development person and administrator and then Some instructors we're kind of all remote we work from our own homes all over the world, we have an instructor in Egypt, we have a couple people in the US some people all across Canada right now, so one of the more interesting things about what we do and what I do is is trying to learn that balance of leadership and trying to to lead people completely remotely all over the world at different time zones and making that all sink together properly. Wow. So in a time like this and we'll get more into this later but hasn't really in. Tacted your people they're used to working from home this is sort of just they haven't skipped to beat this is just another day in the in the life of a world spec employee, well yes and no I think our biggest downside in this is is that we need to be better with our infrastructure because we're getting such an influx of people coming in now now that all of the other classroom training centers are beginning to close that we have to also keep in mind our I have to keep in mind that all of my other people that work with me have families at home now too and and especially those with children at home, they're not in school, so where I could have gotten eight hours of Solid productivity from this person before now I may only get three or four because they have a family as well to attend to however we're getting a lot more people coming to the site because we're basically the only ones out there offering this training to them right now from all over the the world so it's kind of a difficult balance that way at the the struggle for us right now is more internally trying to make sure everybody isn't overworked but make sure that they're still able to work enough and balance having to deal with like I said everybody being at home and and everybody kind of, Being afraid and all of those kind of things especially the people that are overseas in Egypt, you know, their situation is is not great at the best of times and and so with the coronavirus hitting that area as well, it's it's even more difficult to make those things and and so talk to me a little bit about your revenue model are you subscription-based yourself courses as it a products what are you actually selling and how does that revenue model look today, so in terms of strategy where a low cost provider we we do have a couple of competitors. They offer significantly higher product, they do all video training ours is more interactive but we try to be the low cost provider and especially now what we're doing is we're opening our doors a bit and actually discounting a lot of the prices so that these people that are dealing with the coronavirus and still need to get that training in we want to accommodate them and and be available to them. I think the biggest opportunity for us in terms of revenue models right now is accessibility and availability if we can be available for these people at all hours of day and offer incredible customer. Service we're going to gain them for the long term so even if we're you know just barely breaking even on a course or something it's worth it both for us and and for them in terms of the revenue model like I said, we're we're a low-cost provider and we match everybody's price that that comes to us and we really feel good about our course we believe that learning in an interactive and engaging way is is better than just video training where you're just sitting there and watching a movie of something because you could fall asleep turning that movie, you know, you're not physically getting involved and having. To pay attention right and so when someone comes advisor your course are they are they just buying that one course or do you sell as a recurring subscription that they opt into or what is that revenue yeah sorry I sort of forgot about okay, it's just a course like course basis we're not subscription at this time okay, they could buy a one course or we do have like two course three course four for specials, but generally it's it's a course but course basis and a lot of what we do for these bigger clients, like Boeing is will sell them course credit, so maybe they'll buy you know, 20 course credits at a time and then they can simply just call or email us and say you know I'd like to assign two credits to these two employees for these two courses and then we deduct that off of their account and so they now have 18 credits left in so that's kind of our big play on that okay and so with that said how much of your business is is repeat business then how can you can you share that you know, what percentage of your your revenue is you know. Boeing coming back and buying more more course where more credits yes, so we have very high repeat business because in our Industry taking one course and having one method in our industry is not enough so because we offer thirty different courses we quite often have people coming back to to then take, you know, three four, five more courses over the course of the next few years. So it's a very high repeat customer basis awesome so you started this this company long before online learning was popular you shared a little bit about what that looked like within your industry tell us what where did the idea even come from. I mean, like I was saying, my father was a trainer world. I didn't as we were growing up he was always gone he was an Amsterdam and Dubai and. Portugal all over the place doing training and he really got sick of being away from his kids so one that we were actually all sitting around in a hot tub and we just were brainstorming ideas and we came up with the idea to do online training and you know that was that we were kind of committed to its history yeah my uncle happened to own a website company as well as a server hosting company, so he was able to kind of help us out with bootstrapping some of the initial development and funding that we needed for it and Then we just went from there with him back in the napkin business plan yeah possibly it's a so how does the the acceptance for online learning and just to give us a bit of a timer here when did you start the company two thousand and three was one week I guess four million started okay, so so 2003 online learning was just a new thing and in its infancy we all we all know about it today and especially in this time we're seeing literally every school out there is is scrambling to find ways to take their curriculum online when you. Took when you look at your industry specifically what's the acceptance like today for online learning in in the NDT world, you know, it's it's still not close to a hundred percent we still have a lot of people that are object to it, they don't think that the training is sufficient basically these courses that they attend are generally one or two week courses, however the material that's in them if you look at a PowerPoint slide and you just sat there and went through that PowerPoint slide with audio attached with you could finish that in about you know, seven or eight hour day. And so putting that online and condensing that online is therefore in their opinion reducing a two week course down to or one eight hour day of sitting and watching online learning and so they cannot equate where typically they would have somebody take two weeks now everyone taking one day and so for them there's a loss in the translation there there's there's something missing even though the same body of knowledge is being covered throughout the curriculum of the course, so that's been one thing that's still. Is a thorn in our back and still an obstacle that we you know, may never overcome however do you see that changing right now like a yes time yeah so that's the thing with covet and and coronavirus evidently everybody seems to be throwing that by the wayside and just wanting to get their guys trained and and getting them out there or or at least giving them something to do that's productive in this anxious time. So let's let's jump into that let's talk about coronavirus what what were your immediate thoughts when coronavirus and coveted started to hit the news my immediate thoughts were fear. I had just had a baby so he was only but one month old at the time and my wife is a pharmacist and and so we have a lot of friends that are in the medical field and and it sounded. Very scary to me who has you know, almost known background or full understanding of what it was when it first came out which is most of us yeah yeah and so just you know, you clear the unknown and fear that uncertainty but the other thing that went through my head was you know, this could be a great business opportunity for us we're positioned perfectly we're kind of the the one industry that it has an opportunity to thrive in this situation where so many are struggling, you know, so before the current, Basis hit what was your biggest challenge as a business as a kind of mentioned before legitimacy is the biggest one there's an entire baby boomer generation that's still in management and then you know still doesn't want to accept or believe that the online training is sufficient for their employees, that's what I probably say we also face a challenge of staying current we have to constantly update the material and even the platform that we're using is highly outdated so with the internet and and with online companies if something five years old, it's about 40 years old and turned. Terms of internet technology so paying for that and keeping that current and and having a team in place that can really help with that that's a major challenge for us and so when did you start to see an impact in your business as you know, the virus was spreading and things were blowing up in the news can you pinpoint a turning point for your business when you started to see the phones ringing and and new sign ups and your sales growing we typically grow about 10% per year on revenue and where we're at right now is we're up 20% already from last year after the First quarter so that's a significant improvement for us obviously but the start of March was really where we saw the spike come in and we're all kind of like okay, you know, we we have to get organized communication has to be key because as I said, we're all working remotely so you know, we need to know when someone's gonna be available here when someone's gonna be able to jump in and do this so that all became key and we're using you know, some traffic features and obviously relying heavily on our phones and trying to get through that and so from the start of March when you when you start to see this impact to now, And is it has there been a bit of a hockey stick curve there has it just been consistent growth what has that growth look like it's it's just been consistent. I would say honestly it's kind of going up kind of like the coronavirus charts are all going up we're probably reaching that point that that China was that we're seeing where we would typically do last year in March we did about 70,000 that's 70,000 US dollars, we're now about to equip about a hundred and ten thousand and you know, we still have probably close to a week left here in March, so it's really going off the walls for us and You know we're excited about that but we also are very customer-centric so we need to make sure that we're able to deliver great customer service as well so as you look at new customers, have you acquired any any mostly been one officer have you acquired any really large contracts like Boeing or any of the larger entities or has it mostly been people maybe going back and re-educating taking this opportunity to learn a new skill do you have any ideas around what that demographic and in March looks like versus what it might normally look like yeah. I mean, the the only big client that we really have taken in is seem. Means. There and large worldwide client mainly in the energy sector a lot of it though has been as you've mentioned individuals who are you know taking this opportunity to work from home and try to get trained up in some stuff that they typically wouldn't have had time to do before because they're working full-time and they have their family now most of them aren't working at all and some of the companies that are you know, good employers will subsidize them to take this training while they're at home so that they can be more prepared when they come back out to the job site, so we're seeing mainly that situation and then with with this. Change in in March have there been any specific strategies or any ways that you've adapted your business or found it particular ways to that you were able to innovate to capture this this opportunity that that you saw ahead of you was there anything specific that you chased after or evolved within your business just infrastructure, you know, we're before we're I guess a little bit of a smaller business so we were just and we still are every day kind of reassessing how we deal with growth right and and how we innovate and deal with this. Significant growth that can come on at any time and so we just are looking at different innovative ways to handle that whether that be through using things like slack or being able to offer new features to our students or our clients right now, we're just at a point where honestly we're just trying to fulfill orders and and get those done but in the background, you know, we're trying to look at different innovative options to handle it the other interesting thing is you have to be cautious about. How much you spend and and how fast you can get that innovation going right in most cases especially if online stuff development takes time and you know maybe we're gonna be out of this in a couple months so if we commit, you know couple hundred thousand dollars to some development, you know will be worth it at the end of the day where we see the ROI on it, if we're gonna be out of it in a couple months or will this take a year and will it be well worth it there's so much up in the air that you know, we're kind of still scrambling so you brought up a really good point and let me dig into that a little bit what what happens if if this person. Just six months what what do you see as your biggest challenge should this, you know go on beyond one month two months and and runs for the better part of this year. I mean resources are a big challenge we would obviously need more people and with people there there's the challenge of having to deal with hiring and training and having to be able to do that virtually wouldn't be ideal, but that's something that we'd have to deal with it'd be mainly the resources in terms of human time, so you mentioned this a little bit earlier on when you talked about the different. Challenges you've had as you've ramped or had to ramp things up and respond to the influx of sales what's keeping you most occupied and and, I don't know if you can give some specific examples around where you're finding the majority of your energy is going and then I don't know if you have some examples for your team can you can you speak to that yeah, I mean the majority of my energy right now is is just trying to ensure that each of our customers is is getting the experience that they need and really customizing all of our training right now. I want to make sure that anybody that comes to this site can afford to take the training. So we are slashing prices If we have to and or even opting for payment plans if somebody wants to pay 50% down now, they can get access to the course and then we just won't give them their certificate until they pay the balance where we're trying to really work with the customer right now more than we ever have before. And so that's that's been my role for most of this period. So that's really interesting when you when you look at the economic challenge that so many people are finding themselves in I think you know, the most recent numbers were we're a million EI applications in the last week. You're adapting your product to try to capture that that audience as people may be find that they have more time on their hands but can't necessarily afford to to invest or you know, the company they work for is cutting back and you know, minimizing their overhead again your catering your product in this time to that particular opportunity, which I think is really great. Yeah, well there's a few things. I mean, first of all, we make about a 60% profit margin. So we have Wiggle room with that. But the other thing is, I believe that if we can appeal to these people now, we can have a client who. Will life right And so that's a much bigger picture for us Yes we'll give you a course at almost cost but we know that in our industry one course is not going to be enough. So that person is going to come back and therefore want to take much more courses through us down the road and that's that's what we're really aimed at. So there's there's a recertification or continuing education component to to the life of a client with respect absolutely yes great. So, so what's next what's next for world spec, where do you see the greatest opportunities from this point for? Ward We really want to look at doing more live training you know whether that be through webinars or through just having an instructor that's available 24/7 kind of like a live chat somebody that they can just type in a box and immediately have a someone there to answer their questions. So we're looking at different options for that. In addition to that, we are a worldwide training entity, however we only operate in English and so we're looking at scaling into different languages, which is has a whole set of unique challenges of its own because our industry is based on. Acronyms like NDT and everything within the industry is based on acronyms and so you have to have somebody with a working knowledge of our industry that's doing the translation. You can't just hire a typical of translation company to come in and do your translation. So we're looking at Spanish and Chinese and then with that comes you have to find obviously certified instructors and trainers that speak those languages and are available to communicate online as well. So that those are our next approaches for sure as we get into 2020 and One here And so what would you say to those listening who maybe are struggling in their business There's a lot of uncertainty in the world around us right now from a health perspective from an economic perspective and and I should say many of those people haven't figured out how to pivot or shift or innovate in their own businesses. So, they're really struggling to figure out how to make ends meet how to keep their business alive right now. What advice can you give those people that maybe you've learned early on or just through the innovation that you've seen in a market that perhaps is quite resistant to? Do it. Still, you know what? Before the coronavirus got here, we kind of had our own virus in all of business and a lot of that is just disruptive technology. You're seeing that blockbusters gone. Uber comes in and upends the cab industry. These things are all considered viruses to traditional business, you know, and so I think anybody that's in business now really has to always have innovation at the top of mind and and also not just innovation but infrastructure and you know, how flexible can we be how mobile can we be if the situation or? Rose you know do we have things in place that we can turn on quickly like a generator if we lost power, you know, something like an emergency plan. Those should be top of mind right now in a world where every industry has disruptive technologies starting to take over. And do you have any any resources or suggestions you can make to help people find ideas or find frameworks or methodologies around idea generation or technology itself or innovation? I mean nothing out of the ordinary. I think looking at agile ways of Doing things is obviously a good option going and reading books that are by experts in that industry would be ideal but really I've always just thought there was a fire on my ass all the time and you just got to constantly keep taking that next level keep going to the next step and and just constantly feeling like sitting back on your laurels is going to cost you your business and if you're always have that at the top of your mind that innovation will find you you'll find a way to to make it work it the whole business world is going to change here once this coronavirus is done because there's Going to be so many businesses that are going to realize that they can work remotely and that they don't need a hundred thousand square feet of office space half their staff can work from home, you know. Well, it sounds like you have this tendency to always operate your business in your work under a bit of a mode where you always see that there's risk of that next competitor or of that next innovation that puts you out of business. Would that be an accurate assessment? Yeah, and I believe that any entrepreneur today that's in business should be operating by that scene principle. Thanks, For being on the show Parker what's the best way for people to reach if they want to connect with you? They can just visit our website which is www.worldspec.org check it out and if you're interested in the industry give us an email and now is the time to be buying because I'm throwing up this once awesome. Thanks so much Parker have a great day. Thank you Ryan. Thanks for listening to the entrepreneurs versus coronavirus podcast with your host Ryan Kononoff for complete show notes and additional information visit clearbridge.ca/podcast. Ryan is the founder of Clearbridge Business Solutions. To find out how investing in technology can help your business, especially during uncertain economic times visit lifewithclearbridge.ca connect with Ryan on LinkedIn or on Twitter at Ryan Kononoff, that's RYAN KONONOFF. Thanks for listening.