Building Empires & Communities: Andrew Segal's Global Impact through Staffing & Real Estate

we want mentorship and mentorship without physical proximity is very empty I think that's why we love even at relay is that people work within eyesight to teams even if they're doing different functions or with an eyesight of each other [Music] welcome to Super entrepreneurs podcast I'm your host Shahid durani today we have with us Andrew Seagal Andrew is the founder of boxer property 15 million square feet in commercial real estate and co-founder of relay human Cloud a staff hosting company operating in India Honduras and Mexico Welcome to our show Andrew thanks for having me my pleasure is very Dynamic companies that you have there is there any relation to the two how did you get into the Staffing when you were in real estate or was it the other way around no so I started in real estate 31 years ago I can't even believe it when I say that long it makes me feel like I'm older than 40. which I am obviously and as I was building my company it was just very frustrating looking for good people training those people and I felt like I was running a school for oil company so we were based in Houston and when we would get people up to speed on accounting and data management and things someone would just come and and grab them luckily when I was growing up my parents had traveled with us extensively one of the places we went to many times was India so I went to India we went we visited some other people who had employees there rented an office formed the company and filled it with people who were supporting what we were doing in the U.S and that was about 15 years ago wow it's incredible you actually have the network outside of India that helps with that business yes yeah so what what happened was we so we started in in India 15 years ago and Friends people we did business with tenants all sorts of different customers would come to us and say hey I just need two people can you just give me two people I'll send you a check and this turned into a lot of people and all of a sudden like we were administering people and we were helping other people set up companies we'd expanded to Honduras and to Mexico City um and and we realized about two years ago is we have to make this a business this is too much Administration so we separated it from boxer from our real estate company we called it relay human Cloud because we thought hey this is like a relay race where you hand the Baton of work around the world through time and through space and all of a sudden when it became available to really anyone we got a lot of a lot of interest a lot of adoption into it and now I think we're getting close to 80 customers 80 companies that are using our people in our offices around the world and it ranges from Financial to every type of Department correct yeah it starts so Finance is like an easy entrance as you add a couple of accounting people we started training people in specific softwares there's a there's a software that people in the real estate industry use called Yardie there's a software that people in news media use called Stringer so we started training people in these in these softwares and you can grow once you get used to having people around the world and covid actually helped because covid solved the mystery of is it possible for someone to work outside of the office so once people understood that they could go into different things and then all of a sudden we had policing agents we had assistant managers we had paralegals we had Architects we had database administrators I mean it really it really can expand and having been in it for 15 years now a real estate company has 300 people around the world who support our domestic real estate hey can you speak a little bit about boxer real estate what is it incorporate so boxer boxer property our property division has several things the largest of which is office space so we lease offices to primarily small tenants very much online you know it moves fast and we did something interesting and relay allowed us to do something really interesting in office leasing is we went to 24 hours a day seven days a week leasing it's really a revolution that you can lease an office space on a Sunday on a Saturday night on a Friday morning before work starts the leasing office just never closes at boxer and we found when we would talk to people they would say oh nobody ever leases on the weekends why would you do that but before Amazon someone may have said no one ever buys a washer dryer on the weekends either orders a TV they don't do that in the middle of the night and now we think of that as normal so it's very it was very exciting that it started off as hey I need people and I want to operate economically and then it turned into this tool that allowed us to do things that we otherwise couldn't have done you're actually purchasing these Office Buildings as well or yeah so we buy Office Buildings okay and we also run them sometimes for other people but most of them we own then we we buy hotels and resorts we have a a golf resort called the Tapatio Cliffs in in Phoenix now we do malls our our current mall is a 1.2 million square foot kind of Latino experience in Fort Worth and then a lot of other kind of for referral real estate things but offices our biggest model and that's what the most people uh support we have eight eight thousand tenants 8 000 companies leave space from us in our offices well did you notice when incline after covid when it comes to Office Space yeah so covid covet was very cruel to the office world for a while because everybody thought hey we could just work remote and what they didn't realize was it's like a melting Ice Cube because if I take a team that's been together for 10 years and I send them all home the first day it's fine and then the next day it's okay and then you someone leaves you add a new person that person doesn't really integrate so what we learned from going through covet and what we think the market has now begun to understand is you don't need to all be in exactly the same place but you need a team you need a cohort you need a tribe you need a group who you work with and share ideas with and interact with and if you don't if you don't have that you don't build a team and a dedication and Innovation and the biggest thing and we know this if someone's working in our office in India or if they're working in our headquarters in Houston is that everybody in our company has two jobs the first job is their job that one's easy the second job is help people integrate into the company and I don't care whether it's a security guard who's showing someone the ropes or a maintenance person who's explaining how we do things or it's the the CFO is showing the treasurer you know what to do so we want mentorship and mentorship without physical proximity is very empty I think that's why we love even even at relay is that people work within eyesight the teams even if they're doing different functions or with an eyesight of each other we want people even if someone has eight employees in India we want them in the same room we want them to be together we want them to feel like they're part of something and then we spend a lot of time at relay the making sure that there's an amazing culture we had a very funny story once is we have a cricket team in India and in India cricket is if you took baseball and football and basketball and put them all together that's Cricket to them and somebody left the the company and I got an email because they all they've got my email address and we've interact and people give me suggestions and he said Mr Siegel I want you to know that I think that your company is hiring people who are good at Cricket and that's why the team wins so much and I said yes we know that so the University of Texas brings in quarterbacks so does Harvard this is okay because the cricket is part of our culture and we're excited about it so it was funny he thought he was blowing the whistle on the thing that I said I want our cricket team to crush all the other companies and it does it does huh it does yes we have other things but cricket cricket is very important in India hey can you share some challenges running companies in different countries oh there are there's cultural things when you think about even the difference between Texas and California the way that you refer to people the holidays there's there there are religious issues India is very sensitive to Maps you've got to be very careful about having a map on your website because if the borders in Kashmir are in the wrong place it's it's heresy so every once in a while somebody will post something that culturally is very acceptable there that we go hey we're not going to do a aren't girls cute day on National girl day in in India that's not what we want on our International website so what I feel and I I feel very strongly about this is that there's a international language of business that we have to all that we have to all observe so it's almost like air traffic control when you fly a a plane from Peru to Beijing you're using exactly the same commands exactly the same alphabet exactly the same references and that's how we can move planes around the world so the question now is how do we move business around the world how do we interact with people and there's some fun cultural things one one of our other funny things is we had to get the people in India to stop calling their supervisors sir yeah if you work for Apple computer and Tim Cook walks in you're like hey Tim you're not gonna probably no one's called him Mr cook for 30 years yeah and that's how people interact so there are things that are like air traffic control that we've been we've been dealing with and it's fine because you have to rethink of things and say okay how do I celebrate someone else's culture but at the same time become a global Workforce hmm because you have to be sensitive even on your websites for each country like you mentioned you have to make sure the information that you're sharing is pertaining to that country and not saying anything otherwise yes and and also just make sure that we're observing sometimes it's the law sometimes it has to do with religion there there are things that you may do in India that you would never dream of doing in the U.S but it's fine and and the exciting thing I find is that as we've expanded globally the global team is totally integrated so this is a big difference it used to be that you'd have an office in India and it was like a bad they'd call it a back office or Outsourcing and those people would never really interact with their counterparts in the west and now I have 300 people talking to 300 people and really really exciting they're interacting directly with customers they're interacting with people throughout the organization as if they were here hey and we learn you also can learn a lot from each other it's like having a pen pal is like yeah when you're talking to someone every day you're like hey either have your parents arranged your marriage yet questions that we have there's so much yeah yeah there's so much you can learn from other cultures what makes you more compassionate as well I I think that the the diversity this is diversity in action and it's not forced it's organic and it's really cool to have a company that is that where everybody in our everybody in our U.S operations are interacting with people around the world where normally they wouldn't hey can you share some stats compared to remote workers and in the office what are we looking at now pre-covet was more in office and then obviously during covert it was more remote but how does it look now and what do you think is going to be like in the in the future I I think we're going to see a return to the office like I love that boxer when we're competing with people who are working remote and they're not in their office Friday and they're not in their office Monday and they're they're just not available it's it's been wonderful to compete with people who aren't showing up and I think we're gonna we're gonna see people understand the value of each other the value of being around each other and this there's a Lost Generation out there that hasn't integrated and at relay we can really do this as we spent several months before they go on assignment for for one of our customers because they spent several months integrating into our company and it's like boot camp where you learn you learn how we do things and and the culture of that is is irreplaceable as opposed to just hiring someone having them show up their first day of work and try and figure out what's what what's going on the teams are amazing and and it again it started with hey let's save money and the truth is when you use a global Workforce but you can cut about 70 percent um off of your cost when you look at the domestic cost of housing someone and benefits and all of that but it grows into something much much more profound I found when you got into real estate what were you doing before that and then what exactly happened that got you interested in real estate so I grew up in a in a family where my father was in real estate so from age I think he bought his first property when I was one so I started very early but I was never really involved in it and I went to I went to college I went to law school and right after law school I just got to Texas as quickly as I could and really thought that there was a there was an opportunity to reach out to small tenants that an office building could look a bit like an apartment where people there were spaces that were pre-made and people just moved into spaces um that fit it's something it observed my father doing when I was growing up and it it turned out to be just at the right time is there was technology was making it possible to operate in smaller groups used to be you needed a receptionist you needed a file clerk you needed a type typing pool you you had all sorts of infrastructure that you needed and sometimes libraries and records and things like that if you think about like a law firm like you couldn't it was very hard to just be a single lawyer or two lawyers and then all of a sudden the answering machine the fax machine the computer these things really changed the landscape and it enabled people to work in much smaller groups and we were there starting in 1992 we were there for the people and now we're seeing a similar opportunity set is that we can move work through time and space and that's even more exciting than the the progression to small offices can you share what you feel your innermost superpower is that got you to this point in life oh my God it's organization I actually own the domain name for that so my feeling is that that a dedication to data has to start way before you're going to use the data is you have to start thinking in terms of organizing and I was I was really lucky to have a brother who started the business with me Justin who was really good at actually putting this into practice so we are hyper organized we're so obsessed with organization it almost doesn't matter what we're doing we're more interested in the fact of the process and data management and artificial intelligence and I think that's what's allowed me to diversify that's allowed me to survive that's allowed us to thrive in a very challenging office Market organization that's wonderful so what do you think AI is going to do in your world sorry to say but a lot of these jobs are going to be taken over by AI what are your thoughts on that I I think we throughout history we've thought about that and we've been wrong every time we thought this theme shovel was going to take all the ditch diggers out and then this one's a big one though remember the computer the computer was in the 90s the computer was going to do everything I ended up with 40 people in my it departments like I actually ended up with more people so I I think AI is very exciting and very interesting applications but so for example we have something on our we have a software company called brava that that tracks everything that we do there's a button on the program that will summarize a situation for you it just saves you the time but the problem the the problems with AI is it's confused in other words we we're telling and really we're not effectively now when we say AI we should be saying generative AI because that's what we're talking about is something that can make something new is on one hand we want it to be original and on the other hand we want it to be real so if I say write a legal brief it's going to write a beautiful legal brief but it will also and it will be original it won't just copy a legal brief but it will also make up the cases and you're like no you don't make up cases I said be original over here but not over there I I think the most interesting thing is that it will get to the answer instead of the source and this is a sea change in the way that we access information is that we used to go on Google and say what are the the best bagel shops in Houston and it would find someone who published a list of the top 10 bagel shops in Houston and it would show you that list now it's just answering the question yeah I see it for example an idea came to my mind a few weeks ago but probably someone's working on it yeah but they will when they hear this yeah I'll love that I'll love that I love to be part of that initiative where I can Inspire someone to do something it's about accounting for example like accounting if there's artificial intelligence system that you just inject into any business that does everything even the POS system can be connected to it where you don't need anybody it just does it all that would replace specific departments wouldn't you think so I I don't really see it as replacing I see it as augmenting it's a tool so it's a very valuable tool but it has to be used very carefully yeah because it's still it still has true AI where it's not just an algorithm where you've defined things can be very problematic it can be it hallucinates this stage yeah who knows where it's going yeah good point maybe Andrew just ask it where it's going it'll tell you yeah no drama have a conversation don't be shy yeah Andrew it was great having you on the show my friend um looking forward to working with you and and your company and grow together and we thank you for agreeing to help us promote it as well it looks like you're doing fantastic things and and I wish you all the best did you actually make that up or are you reading something from AI I just want to know right now no I've just made it up no I just made it up yeah just made it up from my heart so it's it's great I love seeing this stuff right let's love hearing about these stories and what you have done and how many jobs you're creating all over the world is admirable you're a great piece for the communities great to have you on the show and help you spread this message and if there's any final thoughts please go ahead organization organization great that's wonderful thank you Andrew keep in touch I'll follow your social media as well if you have something that you wanted to get out just let us know we'll bring you back on yeah most of it is about my comedy career yeah how's it going yes no one's laughing now all right we will in the future get AI in the future right yeah absolutely audience thank you for joining us Andrew's information will be the show notes take a look if you need someone for your team get in touch [Music]