Awarepreneurs interview - Scott Gates

Hi and welcome to AwarePreneurs, the world's longest running social entrepreneur podcast. My name is Paul Zelizer and I'm your host. If you could take a moment and hit subscribe and do a review on your favorite podcast app, it helps our guests help more social entrepreneurs have more positive impact. Thank you so much. Today our guest is Scott Gates and our topic is the growth benefits of Second Chances Hiring. Scott Gates is the co founder and CEO of Awake Window and Door Co. A luxury window and door manufacturer specializing in building windows and doors at massive sizes with minimal frames to maximize views in luxury custom homes. But even more important, the business focuses on its mission to reduce recidivism by providing meaningful second chance employment to those formerly incarcerated.

And before I introduce Scott, I want to mention We've done two other interviews over the eight and a half years that might be very relevant. Episode 236, I had the absolute honor of interviewing Tom Bozo, who recently retired as CEO of Homeboy Industries, which is one of the pioneers of this approach worldwide. And episode 352, I interviewed Rose Velasquez on some of the HR issues of second Chances Hiring. So I'll put links to both of those in the show. Notes. Scott, welcome to AwarePreneurs.

I'm excited to be here. Paul, I love your podcast and I appreciate you helping tell the the stories of businesses out there that are trying to make a difference.

Thank you so much. So let's, let's kind of wind back and give a little bit. Like what? Before we get into specifics of Awake Window and Door, what would somebody want to know about you and your professional journey before you got to Awake Window and Door?

Yeah, so I've. In college I was actually working. I was teaching a fifth and sixth grade Sunday school class at my church and there was a guy that, whose son was in my class and he worked in the luxury window and door business, which I knew absolutely nothing about. And he kind of said, hey, would you. You seem like a smart, motivated kid. You're doing a great job with these young boys. Would you like to come learn about my company? And that started me on a journey where I've spent, you know, 20 plus years of my career now in this space. And what's unique about it is people build these amazingly beautiful homes and executing on them is really difficult.

So the window and door side of luxury homes is quite challenging and energizing. And what I've had the pleasure of is I've worked on the dealer side of the business and then on the manufacturing side of the business. But my latest venture is the first time I've truly been an entrepreneur and actually got to build my own manufacturing company serving this space that I worked in for a long time.

So you came into this. I love that story. Huge, huge fan of having a network and, you know, paying attention to the opportunities that your network bring you. And what a great story. You're teaching Sunday school. Somebody saw your engagement and wanting to make a difference, invited you into the space. You learned about the industry, and somewhere along the way, you said, you know what, this knowledge and this desire I have to be an entrepreneur, I can sync this up with my desire to have a positive impact. Tell us a little bit about that thinking.

Like, when did those two things, hey, I know something about windows and doors in this luxury space, and I also want to have a positive impact. When did those two sort of, you know, threads start to weave together? Scott?

Yeah, that's a great question. And I. I think I've had this entrepreneurial bug in me since I was a teenager. So I've always had, like, an interest of, like, creating something that was truly my own. And I used to go to a lot of different leadership conferences, and the. In the businesses and leaders that I heard from that I would say I was most motivated and inspired by were those that were using their business as a way to make a bigger impact in the world. And, you know, there's ones we can think of. I remember one of the leadership conferences I was at, the.

The founder of Tom Shoes was speaking, which we know that story. Successful company, One for One Shoes. And I just remember thinking, man, if I ever get to do my own company, it's going to be about something more than just making a profit dollar or building. Whatever we're building or selling, I want it to be connected to making an impact in the world. And I think that's something that's motivated me as a millennial. And then also my wife, who is my partner in my new company, she's just always had a very strong social justice bend as well. So I think when we decided to take a major risk and start awake, part of how I got her buy in was, well, let's do something that we're going to be really proud of, and we'll be a legacy for our family.

Beautiful. So when did you launch the company?

So I was a CEO of another window company for about a decade, and then that company got acquired, and the transition was complicated. Integration is tough. Blending cultures is tough. And I made it for a While. But then I decided to resign and, and this would have been early 2020. So we all know what happened.

There were a few things happening in the world in 2020, weren't there?

I definitely didn't have clairvoyance of what was about to happen, but it was interesting timing. So I resigned in January. Of course, Covid hit in March. And what ended up happening is myself and two of my closest friends who were also on my executive leadership team at my old company, we all resigned within a few months of each other. So we spent our quarantine period writing a business plan of how we were going to start a new company. And ironically, and this is one thing that I think is really cool, this mission around second chance employment was actually decided on before we decided on the business.

And so you knew it was going to be a second chance as focus before you landed on windows and doors for sure.

Yes. And we, we felt like between a few different things, we had read some podcasts and books. The type of book, when you read about it, that breaks your heart where you're like, I can't look away and I need to be a part of the solution. We all went on a journey and ended up in that same place. So we explored a bunch of different businesses. We looked at starting a barber shop, we looked at a food based model, we even looked at designing clothing. And I, I got some really good advice from another entrepreneur and he said sometimes we have a lot of success in one space where we spent our career and we have our connections and network and then we assume because we were successful there, if we pivot into something else, we'll have the same success. And he's like, I've seen a lot of people fail in that type of endeavor.

And it was enough of a moment for me to realize, I know the mission, but I don't have enough disposable income that if I start a business and fail that I get to try again. So I need to make sure I'm going to start something that I know will work. So we came back to what I've been doing for 20 plus years. And then we started realizing, okay, if we're going to build a business model around windows and doors, what should it be? And that was essentially our journey throughout of early 2020 was figuring out, all right, what business is it going to be and how's it going to work? And that was a fun adventure.

I love that advice you got, Scott, that to have to leverage your existing knowledge of an industry or network like you probably had some ideas once you started making windows and doors, who to call up and say hey, I've got some great windows and door and there's an awesome mission. As opposed to starting from a clean sheet. You had some long standing relationships you could lean into. Is that fair to say?

Yeah, it is fair. And even just in the we got, I'd say on of the alternative business models we got furthest on it was like the barbershop. So we had a pro forma, we had a business plan. But I'm still, I'm going around trying to meet with various commercial real estate firms and they kind of look at you like you're crazy because you're coming out of nowhere. And then all of a sudden when the business model pivot back to what I do know, instantly I had connections across all the different supply chain people were interested and, and honestly I think so. There was a lot of us know about this but in the post Covid kind of stimulus packages, the economy boomed. And part of the reason we were able to even fight through as a startup and get access, we had a reputation and were well known in our industry. And sometimes I think having the right connections and if you are going to do something entrepreneurial, making sure you're in a space where you can play to all the strengths that your career has afforded you.

Absolutely great advice. So talk to us a little bit. One of the biggest questions our listeners want me to ask Scott is how did you get the capital to start this thing? How much are we talking to launch a luxury window and door company? And how did you raise that capital?

Yeah, so that was one of the biggest, most stressful parts of starting awake. So in the course of growing my old company, it had been private equity backed and actually when I started there it was about 6 million annually in revenue and when I left it was around 150 million.

Wow.

So it grew really big. And in that time it actually was bought and sold four times while I worked there. So fortunately for the three of us in the last transaction we came into some liquidity as a result of that last deal. But it was kind of one of those moments where we had enough. Especially after analyzing the startup costs, it's probably between 5 and 6 million dollars to get off the ground where we had just enough to make it go. But if it didn't go and it didn't go pretty quick, we were going to need some outside investors. And I think one of the things we had realized in growing our old company is man, if you can survive those early years with limited cash, the reward in the out years is much higher than a capital raise. Right.

And fortunately for us, the business came out of the gates very quickly. There were certainly some stressful cash moments, a few equity calls that we were hoping we wouldn't need, but we were able to self fund completely and now have paid ourselves back the loans we gave to the business. And the business is now in a really healthy, strong spot, which is great.

Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. So not everybody is in the opportunity to self fund, but that certainly allows a level of freedom and particularly, you know, I'd be curious on your thoughts on this, Scott, but when you take outside investment, sometimes those outside investors have similar priorities in terms of impact and balancing that with profitability. But sometimes there's differences there and you got to sidestep that and really find your own equation in terms of how you wanted to balance impact and the revenue of the company in a way that some social entrepreneurs don't have the opportunity to. But it certainly is a very wonderful position to be in if you can take a lean startup approach. Agree with that.

Absolutely. And that was one of the big things we kept debating as a leadership team and founding team was this mission is our why. And it's going to drive how we make decisions, it's going to drive how we reward people, where we spend money and do a lot of things that are not, quote, unquote, just for profitability.

Yes.

And we had a lot of concern that an outside investor might not share that same alignment. And if we could avoid it, we knew we were all aligned, but we didn't know if our investor partners were. And we were definitely fortunate enough to have enough to make it go. But it was, it was certainly risky when you, for the first time, you're looking at payroll and everything and you're like, oh, that's just my savings going out the door.

You're watching. You're watching the burn rate. It's one thing to talk about burn rate when it's somebody else's money, but when it's your buddy, it's a different animal, isn't it?

It is added. And it's funny, in growing our old company, I had growth stress as a CEO and growth stress is real, but cash stress is just a different kind of stress.

Is a different kind of stress.

Yes.

If anybody does need to raise money and you want to have a conversation about, you know, how to find aligned investors and to have those conversations, most entrepreneurs do need to raise some money. So if that's your situation, Totally understand. Feel free to reach out. There's some good resources on that, but we're going to move on. So talk to us. This whole episode is focused on Second Chances hiring. So now you're up and running, you have your, the area focus for your business. You're going to go into the window indoor space, lean into your network, you're able to self fund.

When did you start actually leaning into the Second chances hiring? And at the start, how much of that was like front and center in your brand story and how much of that was something a little quieter when you were launching?

Yeah, so it was a nuanced thing because we wanted it from the beginning to be part of our value proposition. You know, we knew we had to get the product right and it had to be something that the market wanted that they would value and that everything associated with the features and benefits of the windows and doors had to be outstanding. But we wanted just as quickly as they discovered what made the product special, we wanted them to understand our ethos and who we were and that this mission was a big part of what we were doing. And it was a little nuanced at first because the core startup team, none of us had any criminal background or anything. So you're, you're crafting a story that you don't, you know, authentically it's who you're going to be, but it's not actually who you are at this very early phase. And that was a little nuanced to walk through, but we had kind of made a commitment that the second we start to take orders and start, you know, processing and building up our manufacturing and shipping and receiving teams, that this is how we're going to hire. And we had kind of set an internal benchmark for ourselves of as we grow, we want at least 40% of our staff to be formerly incarcerated or have Sanit justice involved backgrounds. And that was a bar that we felt like was kind of a true north to aim for, to hold ourselves accountable, that as we grew that this wasn't just something that was part of our marketing or what we were explaining who we are, but we were making it very real.

And that was kind of a guide post at the beginning of okay, this is what we're going to do now. Let's go about getting there.

And I have the website open right now. And today as we're recording this In August of 2025, there's this beautiful picture of a custom home with these just mind blowing windows. And the first copy, the first section of copy on Your website says complex problems require innovative solutions. And there's two paragraphs of copy. The first is talking about the complexity of engine, the type of windows and doors that a home like this would need. Like you, when you look at this, you could see into the home, it's all beautifully lit up and there's like so little framing around these windows. It's just like, oh my God, this is amazing. So the sort of engineering of creating an aesthetic like this.

And then the second paragraph right on the homepage is talking about one such, you know, it says complex problems require innovative solutions. And again, first you're talking about the engineering and the design. And then the second paragraph says one such problem in the USA is the issue of mass incarceration. Our country has 4% of the world's population, but 25% of the prison population, et cetera, et cetera. So right on the homepage you have this dual. Those paragraphs are equally long and equally a lot of care get got baked into those two paragraphs. And that's. You're, you're being pretty front and center in 2025.

Is that fair to say?

Yeah. And I, and I think we liked, it was a little bit of a play of, you know, sometimes when you pick a social cause or something that you want to define your business as, sometimes those can be politically motivated or it puts, makes a kind of a binary choice of we're for that or we're not. We felt like it was best to just be loud about who we were and really try to also bake in some education along the way because we felt like once people understand recidivism, this isn't a left leaning or right leaning thing, it's just a human thing. And we then challenge ourselves of how do we come up with creative ways to continue to educate. Because the buying process for a luxury home with windows and doors is intense. It's takes a lot of time and they're going to be vested in your brand. Well, let's find ways to educate them through that process. So little things like, you know, we have eight or nine different types of windows and doors that we make, but each one of them has a series number associated with it.

And we felt like the series number was a creative opportunity to educate on their social mission. So every number is a play statistically on something that our guests, most people don't know about mass incarceration or recidivism. And as they're in and we're working on plans and going through and we're going to use a, a 905 multi slide. Maybe we get an opportunity to explain. Well, what did, what do you mean by 905? Well, 905 represents that 90% of foster kids who have had five or more home placements end up in prison. And most people look at foster kids as. That's a sad story, but they look at people who've been incarcerated as bad people. And you realize, no, they're the same.

They're the same people separated by a decade or so, Right?

Yes. And all those little moments were opportunities just to really educate and across each of those products, all of those numbers. So even in the naming of the product, the mission was there. So we wanted it to be a part of what we were doing through and through and not be shy about it.

What a creative. I don't think I've ever heard anybody say the literal number of their product is an educated. That's a new bar. Well played. Very well played. So talk to us. So you had some window and door experience. And if I'm putting myself into our listeners, I know you listeners, some of you have been with me for hundreds of episodes right.

On this journey together. I think a lot of people would resonate with what you're doing and really appreciate how front and center, whether it's on the second paragraph of your website or in the actual numbers of the product themselves. One question, if I'm a listener, Scott, is like, I think our listeners morally and ethically and impact orientation wise, love this idea. But like, how do I do this? Like, like, you didn't start out as a Second Chances hiring expert. You started out as a windows and doors, you know, many years of experience. What did you have to learn and how did you prepare for the actual act of what's different about hiring second chances hires and especially in a luxury space, how to feel comfortable that by definition these are going to be homes that are above average in terms of the cost of the homes and, you know, wealth of the individuals involved. I would imagine there's a learning process there and you had to think about how do we do this? Well, yeah.

No, and that's. And I think, you know, one of the most important decisions we can make as entrepreneurs is know what we're good at and what we're not. And you're absolutely right. We did not have an expertise on this space. We had a passion to help, but we needed to pull in some expertise, both from a partnership perspective and an internal staff that could help guide us so that we could do this well. So one of the first hires that we got right was a social worker who had spent a big chunk of his career working with this people group. So he was familiar with some of just the challenges that they would be facing, familiar with the nuance around working with parole officers and, and what was great is he was passionate about the mission, but he knew nothing about windows and doors. So we then crafted a role that could exist, that would complement his skills so we could bring in that expertise, but also still justify having someone like that on the payroll.

So we actually sent him to get OSHA certification. He actually became our safety director in our plan. But he is a part time safety director and a part time social worker that is instrumental in shaping our one on one culture. Kind of meeting employee needs when they're move and has became, along with my wife, who's our chief people officer, the liaison for the community partnerships that exist for this people group. So in a lot of states there's subsidies and non profits and or, you know, different organizations that exist to help people getting out of prison that may have, you know, limited access to work clothing or limited access to, you know, I ID cards. And what we've done is made them the hub of pulling in all these other partnerships to help this group of people succeed. So there are things we do internally and then there are partners that are way more suited to execute on the needs of the staff. But they are kind of the hub of making sure our staff find, act and get access to that people group.

Beautiful. So as we're recording this today, like tell us about like, what's the scale of the company? How many employees do you have and how many are second chances hired right now, today, as we're recording this?

Yeah, so that's been, oh man, it's, we've grown so fast. So this year we, we should finish about 35 million in revenue. We're up over 100 employees and right now, high water mark for second chance employment. About 56% of them have a justice involved background. So what's been amazing is as you make a company culture where people like that can be successful, no surprise they are successful. Right. So 40% two years ago maybe felt like an ambitious goal. But two years later, a vast majority of that staff are still here.

And they've transitioned from being vulnerable, maybe just out of prison, to stable, stable home life. You know, a lot of them have permanent housing for the first time. And they're no longer risky employees. They are the company veterans that are training and developing our newly developed staff. And it's so fun to realize that that number can keep growing because the staff really is succeeding in such a big way. And one thing I'm also proud of is it's not just entry level positions where that mission is lived out. It's white collar positions across it. Marketing, supply chain, shipping and receiving.

If we are hiring a role, we make it our mission to actively explore opportunities to find anybody that could fit. And while we don't reverse discriminate, we definitely are open to anybody with a record for any position we hire. And it's been pretty awesome to see the amazing talent that has come our way.

Beautiful. 100 employees in five years. And some of those years being Covid years. Scott, that's a scale and a level of impact that is really inspiring. Congratulations.

So yeah, I appreciate it. And I think what's fun is we took our first order at the end of 2021. So really, and I think in 2021 our revenue was only, you know, a few hundred thousand. So it's really almost like three years of going from 100,000 to 35 million.

That's amazing.

Definitely white knuckle growth. But it's been fun. And I think one thing our staff gets excited about now is they don't see growth any longer just as increased revenue or higher commissions. They see growth as. That's more people we get to hire that we get to change their lives and help them turn it around. And it's kind of an interesting position to be in as a growing manufacturing company, but we actually have a waiting list of people who want to work here. So I feel the burden as a CEO of like, we gotta grow so I can hire all of them.

So what a great, what a great story. So in a minute I want to ask you about our title, the growth benefits of second chances hiring because you're onto something and talent and you know, once a company's up and running and profitable, that's an initial. Like you got to do that to survive. But once a company actually has revenue, getting good quality people, retaining them, engaging them and creating a culture of high performance across the company is maybe the second most common thing I hear people asking about. The first is how do I get up and running, you know, capital and then get to some baseline of financial sustainability that I'm going to survive. And then if I get any traction whatsoever, the next thing people are asking about is talent and how do we attract. And so a waiting list is awesome. I want to ask you about that.

I want to ask you about your plans for further Growth. And I want to ask you about how your customers and your employees that, that relationship. What an interesting relationship. Before we do that, I want to take a quick break and hear a word from our sponsor. Are you feeling stuck growing your impact business? A lot of founders I work with hit the same three roadblocks. Number one, too many priorities. You're spread thin and not moving the needle. Number two, around capital.

Figuring out how to raise the right kind of money feels really daunting. Number three, business model fog. You want both impact and profit. But the path to achieving this isn't clear. You're not alone. In my 18 years as a coach, I've worked with 30,000 plus impact leaders in teams and had over 300 deep dive conversations with top social entrepreneurs and impact investors on awarepreneurs. I've seen what actually works and how to get unstuck. That's why I offer my 90 minute strategy sessions.

We'll cut through the noise, get clear on your best opportunities and leave you with three to seven action steps plus implementation support. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and actually move forward with focus and confidence, let's talk. There's a link in the show notes below. So welcome back everybody. We're here with Scott Gates and we're talking about the growth benefits of second chances hiring. And right before the break, Scott was telling us four years, three and a half years in right to 100 plus employees, 35 million a year revenue and a waiting list of people who want to work for the company, that's just so inspiring. And so one of my questions, Scott, is now that you're up and running at scale, just shared with us 56% including the inspiring data point that this isn't just folks in the warehouse or people driving the truck, which are great jobs, but the fact that it's company wide and that you're, is it fair to say you're actually looking to develop pathways that somebody who starts at a week can move up into more professional roles if they show, if they so choose to. That's kind of, I think, what I'm.

Hearing between the line, yeah, you nailed it. And that's been one of our major driving areas of focus is how do we keep internal promotion and the opportunity to create a career path front and center for our staff. And what's been amazing is I'm thinking of one individual right now. He started in our plant because that was the position we had available. He had his bachelor's degree, super smart guy, but got into some, some trouble with drugs, just mistakes of his past. And that of course has limited his ability to get back to maybe what his education would, you know, entitled him to. But he took a position, entry level position at Awake. He thrived.

We had an opportunity to hire in our CAD team. So then he moved on and, and developed an AutoCAD school and doing drafting for jobs. But then as we continued to grow, I realized he had an aptitude for marketing and storytelling. So then he got promoted off of our CAD team to actually running our marketing team. And it's those types of stories that I love because he had to be humbled and willing to take whatever job was available because of the. Some of the discrimination that exists out there for people that have a record. But he had the drive and the work ethic and the intellect to just create new opportunities for himself within our organization. And we've got so many stories like his that have happened.

So we always tell our hiring team if we're hiring for any role, we look internally first to see if we can find a fit and an upward new opportunity for someone that exists. And that has been something that has been really fun to see play out.

Yeah, I thought so. And thank you for breaking that down sometimes without, without bad conscious intent. Something I see and I like that you didn't do. This is like a tiered approach in an organization like this. You're shaking your head. I think you know where I'm going with this, right? That, that the founders who maybe wouldn't be justice involved. Right. Or the folks who create the company who want to help have a bias and they wind up tracking the folks who have justice involved or addiction involved or folks who've been human, suffered from human trafficking.

I've seen a lot of businesses like this, but sometimes there's unintentional tracking that gets in the way. Remember our title is the growth benefits of this Approach. That I think that is a big mistake that can happen in these types of business models. And you all didn't do that. And when I'm looking at it from the outside, I would say part of the growth you've experienced is that culture of all right, I might need to go into a warehouse or you know, a frontline position, but I'm not tracked there forever. I don't. I can stay here and build this culture and help grow the company and I will get career opportunities that are really exciting to me. So I want to stick around and help grow the company as opposed to, yes, I have a job, but there's no future here.

For me beyond where I currently am. Have you seen that as well? Do you know what I'm talking about?

Oh, for sure. And I think that's. And what really kind of our staff even led some of this endeavors. These are the types of questions they ask in their interviews of like, I am grateful that I'm not going to be turned away because of my past and you see me as a person with potential. But I also out of curiosity want to understand like what potential growth is there for me here. Yeah, right. And we've. It's been fun to meet the ambition and drive of individuals with the opportunities that are become afforded when a company grows and we some roles that we need.

Like I think one of our individuals that actually is our data architect that really guides our MRP and supply chain systems, she has a record, she is an incredible employee. But that was a role we were hiring for, that she applied for and we hired her directly in. And I think what we always try to tell our staff is we want to create opportunities, but we also want to find the best people for the best jobs. Right. And I think what they get excited about is when learning opportunities or cross training or step up opportunities. You know, like I can think of one of our second chance guys that showed an aptitude and interest in our CNC machines that create specialty hardware and was started as an assistant, then got his CNC certification and now he's running those machines. And as his skills grew, so does his income, so does his potential. And that is just, I think it's an organization and a founder's job to leave that type of space for their staff and not pigeonhole the mission into one tier of employee.

Absolutely. So yeah, listeners, make sure you're doing your work to avoid a common bias that can happen in business models like this. And I would guess as somebody who's been doing this a while, Scott, if you unintentionally had that bias in the folks who are coming to you, the most ambitious, the most driven, the most high performing folks would bounce out of the culture if that bias was. It would be a much less sticky culture for those folks and your growth would reflect that.

Yes. And I think it's one other little bias or trap that we try to avoid that I think is helpful, especially on a podcast like yours where it's a mission based company is we also try really hard to connect the dots with our staff. So like one of our core values is gratitude and there's this fine line of we don't want this to turn into oh, I'm so grateful for this company. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. We're grateful for you. Right? That you are the one who shows up every day and works hard. You are the one who've made these choices. That we are not your saviors.

We're the people who were just smart enough to give you an opportunity. But you are the person who's turning your life around, not us. And I think sometimes there's this, I'm helping you, so you owe me. And that's just negative energy that I would advise just making sure your staff never feel like they fall into that trap either.

Makes sense. Thanks for that nuance. So talk to us about your customers. Like, so you have, how you show up in the marketplace, and we've talked quite a bit about that. You have your internal culture, your customers. How much of your, the engagement that you're getting in this growth that you're seeing is what you're doing product wise, how much of it is the mission? How much of it is your marketing? Like, unpack it a little bit from a customer looking into the company and, you know, maybe there's some variety there. Maybe some customers, they don't care, they don't give a damn that you're doing second job. I imagine there's some people, all right, whatever, but I want this person product.

Some of them, it might be both. Some of them, it might be the mission. Like, yeah, you know, product's kind of cool, it's good quality, but I'm super engaged. Like, where do you think it is on that continuum how much your customers are resonating with the mission? And that's. Is it 2% of their, you know, purchasing decision or is it 98% of their purchasing?

Yeah, that's a good, that's a good question. So I, I'd answer it in a couple different parts. So kind of even going back to that intro part of our webpage where you were saying there's these, these two big things around complex problems and innovative solutions. And I, if you, if you look at the homes that we do, they're very complex and very cutting edge and modern and contemporary, and architecture is a big part of that. So if a home is drawn a certain way and the architect has a vision that he or she wants to realize to perfect something for their homeowners, oftentimes they need partners across the supply chain that can make that vision a reality. And when we decided to start awake from a product perspective, we knew we wanted to be the guys. The company that Architects thought that they could call when they had something really tricky or really complex and they needed someone to solve it for them. And like that house you saw on our homepage, the whole house is glass.

So so much of their design is hinging on our ability to make it happen. Right.

So I'm just thinking if a window breaks in a house like that, it's, it's, it's different than in a house that wasn't. So higher percentage of windows, like, yeah, if that breaks. You got in a wall, right? You've got no wall. Yeah.

And it's very. A real thing, these glass homes where they want all this view. And that's a niche that we've kind of carved out to the customers. They know that Awake is the company that's going to figure it out for them and do this crazy unique detail. But I will say the the same customer or architect that gets energy by doing something different and creative, typically there's something in their psyche that also gets energy from like the dual purpose of Awake that they love that there's like this problem in the world. But instead of like an organization coming saying, hey, can you give me a donation to help with this? We're saying we're going to give you your unique solution to make this incredible luxury home a reality. In exchange for you giving us this solution, you also get to be a part of the solution to this real world issue. That ability to connect the dots between those two things, they seem to be the same type of person, is what I'm going at in my job.

Sometimes I get to go in to an architect's office and explain, here's all the options we have and all the unique things we do. And we always close each presentation with a detailed explanation of our mission and really work to try to connect the dots of the impact that they are having just by drawing a home with windows that look like this. And the response has been overwhelmingly positive. I've never in my old company got standing ovations at the end of presentations before, but it just, it speaks to how real this issue is and how many. I mean, there's a crazy stat that 1 in 3 people now in America have some type of justice involved background. So what that means is if I'm doing an architect presentation to 20 architects, there are probably a good portion of them in there that either have some type of record or have a friend or a family member that does. So it's an issue that matters to everybody. And they just love hearing that there's a company out There that's trying to be part of the solution.

Beautiful. So, Scott, 2020 to 2025. Five years. Amazing. 100 employees, 35 million revenue. Five years from now. Now it's 2030. What do you think the company looks like?

Yeah, that's a crazy thing that we keep debating as owners too, is there are, you know, in my previous company, which grew quite a bit, there were phases of that company that I loved more than others. I love when I know all the staff's name. And even now at 100 plus, it's getting a little bit harder for me. Right. So there's like this part of a poll is saying, well, stay in the sweet spot where you avoid some of those next hurdles of growth. And you, you really do a good job for your customers. But then there's this other thing. There's this real humbling reality of this waiting list of people who just need an opportunity.

And I think the thing that we as owners and honestly as a whole company, we want them to join our team. Right. So we feel that, you know, our awareness of the competition and what we see happening in the market, that our ability to double in the next five years, both employees and revenue, feels very realistic. So that, that kind of feels like our goal right now is what we're trying to achieve. And I, you know, I talked to my wife about it. I just keep thinking if we get to see and develop relationships with, you know, 100 plus more staff and see some of the life change that we, we've seen already, that will be a pretty rewarding way to spend the next five years.

Beautiful. So give us a sense, like on a product level. So that's a little bit about what's happening in the people level and the revenue level. What, what is happening? Like, have you seen an equal number of addition and innovation in the product level as you have seen in the growth and the engagement around your team?

Absolutely. I, I think.

Tell us some on that level, what's happening, what are some of the innovations on the product level?

Well, I think it's good as an entrepreneur and this is like a total lesson that we learned. So we had the. All of the base product offerings that we underwrote our pro forma with to start the company because we felt like this is what we needed and if we stayed beholden to decisions that we made four or five years ago of what we thought the market would need, we're not listening to where the market's taking us. So we have added significantly more product and product options in the last few years because what we thought the market needed, they took that and they're like, well now we need, it's slightly different. We need this flavor. And I think if you're going to carve out a niche as the customer, you know, the innovative solution company, you better have innovative solutions. And it has been really, really fun to create. And this is a little window and door nerdy, but like solutions of turning very highly custom door options that I didn't even know were possible.

But our engineering team with their creativity and our customers with their creativity have helped us create solutions that, you know, I've been doing this 20 plus years and I've never seen companies do the things that we're doing. And I think it's just an alignment that the core values and the ethos of the company at the beginning were we are the guys who aren't intimidated by the big problems, so we better solve them. Mass incarceration is a big problem. Recidivism is a big problem. So is, you know, 4,000 pound pieces of glass. But if you plan accordingly and you engineer well, you can actually come up with solutions.

Very cool. Scott. I could hang out with you all day. You're doing such great work and I know you're busy. Our listeners are too. As we start to wind down. If there was something we haven't covered yet and you think it's really important part of the awake story that our listeners could learn from, or there's something you want to leave our listeners with as we say goodbye, what would that be?

Yeah, I think what is awesome, especially all the businesses and listeners to your podcast, they are drawn to it because they want to see, you know, capitalistic or endeavors do great work in the world and you know, recidivism and justice involved individuals, they are a very, very common discriminated against people groups. So there are moral reasons to want to try to help them that are very satisfying. But I think what I would want to really connect the dots on as well is not only has that been something that has brought us a lot of pride of really a bigger purpose and motivation to make a difference, but some of the people and talent that we have found have been so we have been so blessed and lucky that this mission brought them to us. And really where I'm going with this is the, the strategic benefits, not just the moral benefits of finding a talent pool of people who maybe didn't know they wanted to be in your industry, but because you had open arms to them, because of their background, they found you right and there's been a lot of narrative in the markets around labor shortages and, and not being able to find people to do certain jobs, that we're a company, like I said, that has a waiting list. So I believe that the, the profitability, the talent, the, you know, retention, the innovation that have made us successful are as much or more of a benefit than feeling like we have a bigger purpose. So, you know, I would use it as encouragement to people, you know, like us, that are trying to do right in the world, that if, if those things end up overlapping, well, they're not only going to help make a difference, but they're actually going to make your business more successful and more profitable and grow faster than maybe you even thought it could.

Scott, if somebody's listening to this and they have a project where they're like, I need a 4,000 pound window or they have a question about they want to come work for you, or they have a question about how do you do this kind of impact at scale? How would they get a hold of you?

Yeah, and I'm someone who gets a ton of energy from questions like that. I love helping people. Anything like that, I would encourage you to reach out. So if you visit our website, it's awakewdc.com there's a contact us portal I actually get. I have my eyeballs on all of those that come in. Just mention this podcast, mention that you wanted to talk to me and I would be very happy to connect, be it Windows, mission, startup entrepreneur, whatever it is. Happy to help.

Scott, thank you so much for being on the show and sharing your inspiring story with us.

You got it, Paul. And thank you for reminding all of us business people out there that there are, there are people trying to do it the right way, not just make money.

So listeners, it will cost you absolutely nothing to share this episode. And let's be honest folks who listen to the show, we know somebody who could really benefit. So please, if you found something valuable here, share it with somebody who can learn from a real world example of something that's working at this kind of scale. And a quick reminder, if you're ready to develop an innovative strategy for your own impact business, whether you're just getting started or you're dealing with the uncertainty that we're dealing with in the marketplace, take a look at my strategy sessions@paul zelizer.com Finally, I just want to say thank you for working for positive impact and please keep letting your values guide your business actions.