This week's episode of Automation Unplugged we’re talking to Gordon Van Zuiden, Silicon Valley Branch Partner at Daisy. Gordon is a returning guest, who was last interviewed on AU in 2018.

About Gordon Van Zuiden:

Gordon founded cyberManor, a full-service home technology integrator headquartered in California’s Silicon Valley, in the summer of 1999. cyberManor was one of the nation’s first custom electronic integrators to focus on IP network-based technologies for the home. Their mission is to design, install, and integrate internet-empowered home networking solutions that enhance the entertainment, communications, and comfort of their clients’ homes. In March 2024, cyberManor was acquired by Daisy, a nationwide smart space installation and services company.

Gordon is a past Chairman of the CEDIA Technology Council, served on CEDIA’s Board of Directors for 6 years, and is a regular author and educator on home networking topics in industry publications and trade shows.

Interview Recap

• Gordon’s journey from his early career in IT to founding cyberManor in 1999.
• cyberManor’s acquisition by Daisy in March of 2024, and what the first six months have been like in the acquisition rollout.
• Looking into the future, what has him excited about technology in the home.

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Transcript

Ron:

This is Automation Unplugged, and I'm Ron Callis. On today's show, I'm talking to Gordon Van Zuiden, Silicon Valley branch partner at Daisy. Gordon is a returning guest who was last interviewed on Automation Unplugged in 2018.

Ron:

Gordon founded cyberManor, a full-service home technology integrator, headquartered in California's Silicon Valley in the summer of 1999. cyberManor was one of the nation's first custom electronics integrators to focus on IP network-based technologies for the home. Their mission is to design, install, and integrate internet-empowered home networking solutions that enhance the entertainment, communications, and comfort of their clients' homes.

Ron:

In March 2024, cyberManor was acquired by Daisy, a nationwide Smart Space Installation and Services Company. Gordon is a past chairman of the CDA Technology Council, served on CDA's Board of Directors for six years, and is a regular author and educator on home networking topics in industry publications and at trade shows. We recorded this interview the last week of August.

Ron:

In this episode, we'll talk about Gordon's journey from early career in IT to founding cyberManor in 1999, cyberManor's acquisition by Daisy in March of 2024, and what the first six months have been like in the acquisition rollout. And looking into the future, what has him excited about technology in the home? I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you do as well. Let's tune into this interview with Gordon Van Zuiden.

Ron:

Gordon, how are you, sir?

Gordon:

I'm doing well, Ron. Thanks very much for reinviting me back to your show. I had a great time doing it 2018, and I'm looking forward to doing this again six years later.

Ron:

Awesome, my friend. Now, you look like you are outside somewhere. For those that are listening in, I'm looking at Gordon. It looks like maybe he's sitting on a deck outside. Where are you coming to us from?

Gordon:

I'm coming to you from lovely Moss Beach, California. It's not usually considered a destination resort for many people. It's a quaint little coastal town here between San Francisco and Santa Cruz because my daughter arranged kind of a family get together for this week. And we had a new baby granddaughter born three or four days ago.

Gordon:

So we're all kind of celebrating that here in this little place. And she's also kind of working part time. So she got the nice ADU warm office. And I've been kind of delegated to sit out here on this kind of cooler back deck where I don't interfere with her call and I have my call and the babies and kids are upstairs and hopefully all will will work out well. But, you know, it's the time we're living in where you can do these things from anywhere at any time. And this was a call I didn't want to miss. So I'm kind of keeping my arms together because it is a little chilly out here.

Ron:

What is the temperature? I'm here in, you know, Florida and you step outside and you're instantly covered in sweat due to the humidity and heat.

Gordon:

Yeah, this is probably, yeah, a lot of people may be envious of me actually because I'm chilly, but this time of year around the country. But here in Moss Beach, it's probably about 62 and overcast.

Gordon:

And yeah, it's definitely on the cool side. Typically, the fog doesn't burn off till around 1:00 or 2:00 p.m., but it's a beautiful place in the state and it's fun to be here.

Ron:

And how is Baby and Mama?

Gordon:

They're doing well, very well. Baby Rhea. That's our fourth grandchild. Our first three were all boys. And they are three, two, and one.

Gordon:

So we're covering the gamut. Yeah. And this one is now less than a week old. So yeah, it's a thrill. My wife loves it. I enjoy them when they're really small, but I certainly like them a lot more when they as they age, like my three year old grandson hops on my back and stuff like that. Babies don't do that kind of stuff.

Ron:

It's fun when they, you know, they sleep and puke and poop and they do those things right now. But it is fun when they start talking to you.

Gordon:

Exactly, yes.

Ron:

So what was her name?

Gordon:

Rhea.

Ron:

Rhea.

Gordon:

Yeah. So if you look at the background and the name Maria, it's a very flattery background of an Indian name, which can know its intelligence and actually willingness to take risks, which has got an interesting choice of names for my son's daughter. So yeah, maybe the risk-taking will continue in the family.

Ron:

I love it. Gordon, I know that this year, earlier this year, it was announced that your business, cyberManor, was acquired by Daisy, but there are going to be folks tuned in that don't know about cyberManor. So can you take us back in time and help us understand your background in the industry and then bring us to the present where you ultimately made the decision to work with Daisy and to be acquired?

Gordon:

Sure. Happy to go over that. So cyberManor was founded back in 1999, Los Gatos, Northern California. It's hard to believe. It's now 25 years ago, but here we are. And this was really kind of my second career getting out of engineering school and business school in the early eighties.

Gordon:

I started with a classmate of mine, a integration firm around microcomputers in the early '80s, '82, '83, advent of the Mac and the IBM PC. And at that point, corporations were moving from mainframe minis to these desktop machines.

Gordon:

And there was really no integrator per se for these corporate IT departments to bring these in and have knowledge about those computers and how they would link together in local networks and white area networks. And lo and behold, through the '80s and the '90s, you know that was a huge part of the growth of enterprise computing.

Gordon:

And what made that so successful in the enterprise was a combination of bringing these machines together and then connecting them to a backbone of an internet connection, meaning that having a T1 line or a high-speed line to the enterprise and all these microcomputers on desks was an incredible productivity tool for corporate America. And so right around, we sold that business in '97, '98, and like so many things, timing is everything.

Gordon:

I was then thinking, "Okay, in my mid-40s, what am I going to do next in my life?" And I had really young children and just happened to be in our neighborhood that AOL dial up was moving towards always on cable modem services. And so that in conjunction with a lot of Windows 98 computers in our home printers and knowledge of connecting computers together, I thought, you know what we did in the enterprise could make some sense in the home.

Gordon:

And especially if we have an always on connection, then we could start thinking that the home was going to benefit from the services of these micros and the internet to enhance living at home. And that was the beginning of the smart home, really. And Cisco, kind of a window that I actually remember doing the first connection show with Trisha Parks and the rest of the people from there and was in Vancouver, Washington.

Gordon:

And it was really the beginning of my understanding of what technology and gateways and potential networks in the home could be all about what they were all about. Cisco was there along with a lot of other networking companies, integrators, ISPs were there. And so in '97, '98, '99, I kind of built our, as we were doing a remodel of our home. I pulled all the wires, terminated the wires, set up the PCs, got connectivity, the cable modem, got our kids hooked up to it.

Gordon:

They did their initial chat, gaming and internet search, Netscape, all that good stuff. And Cisco did a video of our smart home back in 1999. And what happened was all the neighbors in our neighborhood with young children said, can you do that for our house? So cyberManor was really born as basically an IT integration of four or five PCs and printers and storage drives in home offices for the people that lived in our area and primarily a family based kind of a solution.

Gordon:

And I knew all that because I'd done that in the enterprise. So, you know, lo and behold, you know, that was essentially the beginning of the smart home I like to think is kind of centered around the fact that that was the year and the day that high speed and the switch entered the home, meaning that that was the beginning of IP addresses, connectivity, network connectivity that said, okay, this is really working really well for data. We've proven that.

Gordon:

But can we put audio on this backplane? Can we put video on this backplane? Can we put control systems on this backplane? And as you march forward, the years and decades as we move along, of course, all of those things are part of that and control systems are part of that voice part of that. And then the iPhone comes and you have got a control system that's in everybody's in everybody's pocket. So, you know, what we thought would happen 25 years ago, that this quality of life would be improved through technology and computation at the desktop.

Gordon:

And not only in the office, but around the house, it's definitely come to fruition. And that was really the birth and growth of cyberManor. And so I came into the industry from an IT background.

Ron:

Do you remember, Gordon, how you felt or what you were thinking? I want to say it was '07 when Apple came out with the iPhone. I say that because I launched Firefly in '07 and it was the first phone me and my first two employees had.

Ron:

I said, "Well, we're a tech company. We were an engineering company." I said, "Well, we got to have this latest newfangled technology, this touch phone from Apple." And so I want to say it was maybe second half of '07 when that thing came out. But for you as an integrator, already running a business, already serving clients, it had to have been shocking for you to see such a technology. Do you recall, I mean, what was going through your head when you saw that?

Gordon:

I recall exactly. I mean, that was that was a watershed moment, no question for industry. But I'll even back it a little further. A previous watershed mobile was the introduction of the scroll wheel and the iPod device, the music listening device. Because that that completely changed the way people could easily access music content and leveraging the cloud.

Gordon:

And I remember clearly Jeremy Burkhart, when they had their own whole house audio system and control platform, and everybody had their own way of keypads and things on the wall you put to control your music. When he saw the iPod, he said, that's changing everything. And they put cradles in and enable the iPod to be the front end of the whole house music system.

Ron:

And then every control system and every audio system instantly or quickly had to come out with in-wall or tabletop.

Gordon:

Cradles, yeah.

Ron:

Cradles for the iPods. I remember that.

Gordon:

To start merging the fact that Apple was, you know, obviously the de facto dominant player in music. We're in the music distribution whole house business. They were not in the whole house business. And that really is what leveraged us and what we do compared to the big players is because we provide whole house solutions. And so that was a marriage of those two products. And so the iPhone was just a touchscreen way of doing that.

Gordon:

And the iPhone, when it became richly populated with all the apps that our manufacturers were putting on a phone, now you had, again, something that was much more affordable, much, much more readily available in everyone's pocket. And it exploded, the ability for people to leverage and control all the features in their home around lighting, around thermostats, around music through that product. So yeah, all of those things coming together, obviously that enhance the need for Wi-Fi and all those are mobile products.

Gordon:

So there's a lot of things, you know, you start these businesses with certain ideas and intentions. And again, you pivot and good and fortune happens that manufacturers and products come out with things that you never dreamed of in '99. There was no such thing as an iPad and an iPhone. But the concept of networking, higher speeds, ease of use, all the things that we did in an analog world that are just much better when they're done well in a digital-based world.

Gordon:

Again, have come to fruition. So here we are 25 years later, and it's now not a novelty. This is a must-have. And COVID certainly was an accelerator to that as well. And I think a lot of that, you know, segues and it brings us to what Daisy's all about and why Daisy and why now? Because we've gotten to the point where it's not a luxury. And we know, for example, we need our homes cleaned, we need our gardens maintained.

Gordon:

And more than ever, we need the infrastructure network to be up and running constantly for our kids, for ourselves, for entertainment, for our security. And so there's a necessity now at a national level to have some kind of recognized entity that a homeowner can feel that this smart network home is going to continue to do what it needs to do on a daily basis because it's too important to not. And it's not easy to do.

Gordon:

It's complicated. You know, it's a complex industry and complicated products. But that doesn't mean it can't be done.

Ron:

I've known you, Gordon, long enough to know that you've been thinking about legacy and thinking about your team and thinking about your customers and how this ultimately transitions.

Ron:

You've been thinking about that. You and I have had those conversations, I want to say for maybe the last versions of that for the last five or 10 years. And you've been exploring lots of different ideas and options. Our industry is made up of many folks in their 50s or 60s or 70s that are reaching, call it an age where one might think about doing something else or they might think about exiting their business.

Ron:

And I know I've heard you say you've told me on many occasions, Ron, it's much easier to start a business. It's much easier to start a successful business than it is to exit a successful business. Can you maybe just take me through some of the ideas or kind of some of the thought processes you've gone through in this regard?

Gordon:

Sure. And I think it's, you know, I didn't realize how critically important it is to understand and think about that until you kind of reach the point in your career and your age and your family that you owe it to yourself to have answers to that to yourself, to your employees, to your clients, because nobody wants to take a successful enterprise and business and just kind of have it slowly dissolve. It's not in anybody's interest.

Gordon:

And yet, you know, the nature of life is that you don't have the same energy levels, you know, all of the different things that for all the reasons we know in this world, you need succession. It's just the nature of the circle of life. And so thinking about succession in this industry is particularly difficult because it's highly personalized. Much of it is highly relationship based between the founders, employees, vendors, and clients.

Gordon:

Doesn't translate easily towards a succession where as if it were a product based business or, you know, you had everything, all the processes well established or recurring revenue or something that was easy to translate or transfer. This is not one of those kind of businesses. So as I kind of embarked down that path, as you said five, six, seven years ago, in my early sixties, knowing that a day would come to think about it.

Gordon:

No sons or daughters that were interested in kind of running cyberManor or longer term. They have their own careers, their own lives. It's great. Love them for being able to do that. Other options are key employees that essentially took the company to where we are and where we are today and had numerous discussions with them and how I'd be able to roll over ownership and equity and responsibility to them.

Gordon:

There was some progress being made there, but I just generally think that they were pretty happy, just kind of in the relationship we had, you know, that they didn't necessarily have to take on the risks and liabilities of company ownership and enjoy the position and what they were doing for their clients and kind of, you know, the overhead of taxes and audits and workers' comp and liability and insurance, not really high in their list of things they wanted to assume, which I fully understand.

Gordon:

So those discussions ongoing, but it really didn't didn't come to anything of any real fruition, even though I said, you know, got to do something here. And then there were other discussions. I don't think this is atypical for anybody in my industry. Discussions with other integrators that I respected in our area over the years. So I had conversations with those integrators that were typically larger, maybe younger, had a longer runway, and find some way to partner up and tuck in what we do and serve continuity for our customers and our employees and vendors and the like.

Gordon:

And those had some traction. But the reality there was, you know, we were really busy. They were really busy. It was hard to find an intersection of time to really solidify those relationships. You know, you get excited, you have discussions. And then you just didn't hook up for a while just because life got in the way. And so there was no really third party to say, "Hey, let's make this thing happen on a certain timeline." So we get there.

Gordon:

So there you are. Those were the options. And at the end of the day, none of them were really clear-cut. This is what can happen. And when I turned 70 at the end of this year, I'm going to move on or I'm going to do something different.

Gordon:

So given that's the kind of background and scenario, as fortune would have it, I still remember it was July 28, 2023. I got a FedEx letter in the mail from Hagan Kappler and Dion Pearson, two founders of Daisy, saying that they were starting a new company in the custom integration business that was based on their career background in residential services and their knowledge through Merry Maids and Terminex and Service Master that the nation and people's homes greatly benefited from a recognized branch for the services such as that they provided on a recurring type of revenue basis.

Gordon:

And when they looked at the smart home market, they saw that there were a lot of players. They saw that was a huge market, but there was no really go-to name or brand for something as critical as keeping your technology infrastructure up and running on a day-to-day basis, that homeowners can turn to. Yeah, obviously in our industry, we have relationships with key homeowners that know us by name.

Gordon:

And so those people know to call cyberManor or call any other integrator in the given area to help solve those problems for them. But there's a huge portion of the market. They don't know who to call. We don't, as Hagan says, we don't even have an SIC code. You know, this is an unknown industry to a huge part of the population. You know, CEDIA doesn't have a lot of recognition. So to the general consumer, to the population.

Gordon:

Now, I know we serve the very, very high end, but home networking and that infrastructure is critical to a huge part of the population, not just the high end. So the sense from Daisy's perspective was leveraging their skills or knowledge and their financial acumen that they could add value to this industry through what they knew about residential services.

Gordon:

But they knew very clearly they just really didn't know our space. They, you know, they didn't know what custom installation was about, what keeping up home technology in these various homes is all about. So to their credit, they spent the last year just spending time with almost anybody you could imagine is flying around the country, meeting with integrators from all around the United States, meeting with vendors, meeting with people within CEDIA.

Gordon:

And from that, they called, I think, 100 or so, or maybe it was 50. I don't remember the exact number of people that they thought they could learn from that could add value to the model that they were trying to create. So they reached out to our company and they said end of July of last year and it's a FedEx letter, very well-written letter with a slide deck of what they were trying to do, who they were, the venture, the capital behind them to get them where they wanted to go. And I said, "Would you like to talk?" And I looked at it and I did.

Gordon:

The other thing I should have mentioned was I get like maybe others, I get business brokers that reach out to me every week saying, hey, we have somebody interested in selling your business or buying your business, very impersonal, didn't know anything about it. And it was just this kind of random phishing. I didn't give much credibility to it. But this was quite different. And so I googled like any Google anybody.

Gordon:

And these people have definitely some credentials and somebody that I would just enjoy talking to, even if nothing happened. I think I enjoy understanding what they're thinking about, what they're doing, what their ambitions are. So those conversations started in early August of 2023 and continued for seven, eight months of due diligence to where I think I, through that process, learned more about myself and my business than I even knew in the previous 24 years.

Gordon:

But I thought it was excellent because obviously they needed to know all those things as well. And it just made me feel good that I was talking and working with somebody at a professional caliber that we all knew exactly what to expect from each other when we finally signed the deal. And that was at the end of February of this year. So that kind of takes you from the early days when they reached out to myself.

Gordon:

And I think there were, as I said, there were 50 some odd letters sent out. I think they heard back from half of the integrators that they reached out to. And so and then today, I think, you know, they now have eight or nine different locations around the country with the goal of quite a few more by the end of next year. And it's all being built upon the knowledge that we have to share with them and their knowledge of branding and backend infrastructures to share with us to create something that's of value to the entire industry.

Gordon:

And I'm honored to be part of that, to be honest with you. And the first six months have been a great reflection of what that team effort's been all about and what we're trying to accomplish.

Ron:

You're going to be at CEDIA talking to people about that first six months and what your lessons are. Can you share that? By the way, this podcast will air after CEDIA. So those conversations will have already been had. But what's kind of the format for some of the sharing you're going to do next week?

Gordon:

Sure. I'm happy to do so. And yeah, I think I'll kind of take you logically through the sequence of steps over the six months. First and foremost is day one. How do you even announce when you've been 25 years, you're cyberManor? And then on February 26th, you're Daisy. How do you explain that to your team? How do you explain that to your customers, to your vendors that have already acknowledged what cyberManor leases, what it means at a local level.

Gordon:

And again, to Daisy's credit day one meant that half of their executive team, including the founders, flew to our office. And we spent the day talking about what Daisy means, what Daisy's trying to do. I agreed to my explanation of what my role was. I'm not going anywhere. And the name itself and the name wasn't going to change overnight from cyberManor to Daisy. It was going to evolve.

Gordon:

It was going to evolve to be a cyberManor or Daisy fulfilled by cyberManor or on our trucks, cyberManor powered by Daisy. So I worked with my head of their marketing group. And they all understood that the best way to handle this would be a gradual transition until everybody really understood and knew what this all represented. So that whole brand transitioning process continued for months.

Gordon:

And even today, if you go to the cyberManor website, it's still there. There is a pop-up banner when you first get to it that says we're now part of Daisy. Click here to learn more and it takes you to the Daisy portal. But our website is still up and running. And I think it'll continue for at least several more months because there's still a lot of content that's relevant to our customer base that hasn't been fully ported over to the Daisy site yet. So it's still up there.

Gordon:

But you know at some point, you can't create confusion in the market and say, cyberManor, Daisy, Daisy, cyberManor. So we're definitely going to evolve, but that's not an overnight thing. And I think the goal is to do that over a course of six months to a year. And we're kind of on that path. So that's the banner that I was referring to.

Gordon:

And it's interesting as you think about that brand transitioning process. Now I get a lot of times a question. So how did your customers take that? Especially, I mean, that's the big concern is how the customers feel about this? And employees or vendors and other constituents? So, interesting, customers, the first thing they would typically say is, we really don't care. Is Ed still coming out? Is Jim still coming out? Is Shan still there? You know Are the people that are within your organization that we've counted on for years still going to be there? Is there going to be a change?

Gordon:

And I tell them, no, those people are going to be there. And in fact, we'll not only be there, but we'll be there with an enhanced set of initiatives and tools to make what we do better for you down the road. And so we have this great support and what we've done for you over the years should just improve. That's obviously the goal of this kind of acquisition. So once they hear that, they're relieved. They're fine. That's not an issue.

Gordon:

And the employees who have kind of, which this was a surprise to me, who felt like, you know I joined up and I'm part of the cyberManor team and what that means and what we've built together. And I don't know much about what Daisy means and what that team's all about and what that's going to bring and what's going to happen to you. That that took a little longer for them for Daisy to build the trust, I'd say, that they had in them and our team to make that transition.

Gordon:

And I think a big part of making that trust, 'cause it's one thing for me to say, you know I was the owner, so I benefited from the acquisition. But their benefit's gotta be more of a long term over a period of time. And Daisy's been phenomenal about having their people not only visit, but be part of almost all the conversations. You know, so much of these things as comfort level only enhances through conversation, through physical onsite meetings, through assurances that, you know, yeah, these are certain things we like to do.

Gordon:

But if it doesn't make sense now, tell us, you know, we're learning about this together. So you have a certain way of doing things and it doesn't make sense right now, then let's not rock the boat. It's working for you. We're going to learn, we're going to shadow you. We're going to find out what's best for you, what's best for the other people that we're acquiring. And then we're going to come up with a consensus on what makes sense.

Gordon:

And when you do those things over time, and our team and staff learns what the CRM package could do, or what the RingCentral could do, or what the learning management system can do, and start to understand and dig into it, and see the breadth and scope of those packages and how they make their jobs better, their lives better, their relationship with their customers better, the proposals better, then they're on board. They say, this stuff's a heck of a lot better than what we used to do.

Gordon:

So yeah, this is great. I'm glad we did it. But in the beginning, there's no knowledge of that. It's just there are promises, there's uncertainty. We don't know really where it's going to take us. But six months later, those promises are now real. And so there's a lot more enthusiasm about the relationship. And that's hugely rewarding. Morale goes up, enthusiasm goes up, productivity goes up, excitement goes up, and that's what it's all about.

Ron:

Gordon, what can you talk to us about in terms of deal structure and how Daisy, you know, maybe big picture deal structure and then anything specifically related to you and what you guys did?

Gordon:

Yeah. So you know ours was one where Daisy really was interested in acquiring the entire company. So it was a stock transfer. And so it was one where they acquired all of our assets and they acquired all of our liabilities.

Gordon:

And they acquired our people and they acquired me. So I have a contract to sign on that I sign on for two years. So it was one that was very, very mutual. And I'm six months into it now. And as I tell people, which they're kind of surprised to hear sometimes, I think, you know I should be on the beach by now, just sunning away. And they know, I just really enjoy what I'm doing. And I don't look at this as two years and thinking, "God, I've got a year and a half to go."

Gordon:

I think it's two years, and I've only got a year and a half left to do all the things I really want to do to raise what we're doing, to raise what Daisy's trying to do, to raise what the industry's trying to do in this space. And so I feel like time's running out. Now, I don't think Daisy is necessarily going to throw me out after two years.

Ron:

Do you get an option to stay or is that at their discretion?

Gordon:

No, I think that, well, it's at their discretion, but I think if it's in our mutual interest to do so, I think, you know, I'd like to do so. And I think they would like it as well.

Gordon:

It's not going to be 60, 70 hours a week. But in some way, you know this story will not be fully told in another year and a half. So I like to think if there's still more of it to be told and I can be part of that, then I'd like to be involved in it. As I said, I've really enjoyed working with the people. And I continue loving cyberManor and what we do locally. And so things that we're going to do, I can foresee, we have this Experience Center home that we built finished three or four years ago.

Gordon:

Well, that's version 1.0. You know We good success with it. We've been able to really leverage it well. I think that's one of the things that attracted Daisy to us in the first place. But there's got to be a smart home 2. 0. And that will be a reflection of new technologies, kind of Daisy's footprint in the industry, and the things that we can do to leverage that through their knowledge, their capital, their people, and their footprint is going to be super exciting for us. And I look forward to that.

Ron:

Do you know if the deal structure for you is similar to how they're thinking about all of their acquisitions or location expansion? Or is it different for others?

Gordon:

Yeah, that's a great question. And I think that is to their credit. I'm not trying to make this sound also like a big daisy commercial because, you know, and I'll also be honest and critical about things that haven't worked as well. But in this particular space, what I think Daisy recognizes each one of these transactions are unique.

Gordon:

You know, the founder's needs are unique, the locations are unique, their background, their expertise, the businesses they build. And I think Daisy recognizes that for these transactions to be successful in the long term, they have to craft something that custom that fits best for the principles and fits best for them. So that ranges anywhere from, let's say, Richard Gilke's, and that's kind of a consultant advisory role all the way to my end, which is a complete acquisition of all assets and liabilities. And anything in between, anything in between can be, you know, a franchise kind of arrangement, a part ownership arrangement.

Gordon:

Daisy from the get go will say, we're open to whatever kind of makes sense for you and for us. So if there are parts of what you want to release to us and we can make it a financial gain for both of us, then let's do that.

Gordon:

So when you think of these things, there's just many elements of value that a business has from the founders to what they've built to the technologies, whatever it is. If there are pieces of that that fit within what Daisy wants to do and that has value, then maybe that's all that they're interested in, and maybe that's all that the principles of a company are interested in sharing. And that's what they'll do.

Gordon:

So best I can say is you know each one of these has been a case-by-case transaction. They take a long time. You know That doesn't happen in 24 or 48 hours, but that's the way we're doing it.

Ron:

What's typical in terms of timeframe from your experience?

Gordon:

From what I've seen, I think anywhere from probably four months to maybe a year. You know I mean, it's not like it's two or three years, but it doesn't happen in a week or two. And that's in everybody's interest again, I think. So that it's been very, very, you know, the more prep work, the more clearly these transactions are thought out, I think the better chance for success on the back end.

Ron:

Not to ask you to speak on behalf of Daisy corporate, but maybe just from your perspective, what type of business do you think is likely not a good fit?

Gordon:

Likely not a good fit. I guess the first thing that pops up in my mind would be a business where they think they know all the answers or they think, you know, we've got this covered. We know this. We know this industry. We know our clients. We really don't need much help. We're good.

Gordon:

So, you know, there's their businesses like that and that's perfectly fine. But I think, and I've met with some of the largest, most successful integrators in the United States and those that are in that position ever feel that way. They know that they're always learning. They know that they could always be better. You know, I follow a lot of tennis and Djokovic is considered the greatest player of all time. And he knows every day that he goes out to practice, he could be better.

Gordon:

That's just the DNA trait says, you know, the more you learn, the more you work hard at what you do, the better you're going to be at what you're doing. And so that's the attitude, I think, that Daisy would look for in any potential acquisition, that we have something to share that can make you better. You have something to share. I think that can make us better. In an industry that's so fragmented, it's time to end the fragmentation.

Gordon:

It's time to build up value in each of these organizations. Let's put our brains together and see if we can't do that. It's something that's critical to homeowners across the United States and across the world.

Ron:

Congratulations, Gordon. Certainly on being acquired, most businesses aspire to have an exit where you know an exchange of equity for cash or something you get to put in your bank account.

Ron:

And when you do decide to go to the beach you know or take that cruise or go play golf, you have a little comfort knowing that for many business owners, the most valuable asset they own in the world is their business. And most business owners have a hard time transferring that value into something that's more tangible and liquid. And you did that. So congrats for me and everyone listening. I know they're rooting for you and happy for you.

Gordon:

Thank you.

Ron:

Moving on to just, you have an interesting perspective in that you've been in technology for a long time and you know a lot of people around the world, you know a lot of integrators and business owners around the world. When you look forward, what has you excited about technology in the home? What gets you up in the morning goes, man, this is going to be cool?

Gordon:

Yeah, I think what gets me excited is I feel like we've spent 25 years of building up all this infrastructure and we now have all these great things connected. The software is pretty stable. The hardware is pretty stable. As I said, we talked about these control systems from touchscreens to voice have gotten to be much more robust. People get a lot more value out of them because they can use these things more easily.

Gordon:

So what gets me excited now, you know as we move into the next five or 10 years, I think it's the idea that we could really personalize the home. And what I mean, you know, we've already seen a lot of that, you know, Amazon or whatever has suggestions, you like this, therefore you like that music, you like this, you like that shows you like this, therefore you like that. The extent that we have kind of a, you know, a non invasive digital twin, so to speak, I would call it.

Gordon:

Let's say I had a personal digital twin that in a non-offensive digital twin.

Ron:

Digital doppelganger?

Gordon:

Yeah, someone was my partner, you know, that knew these are the restaurants I like to eat at. These are the shows I like to watch. These are the things because the world we live in now, so much, so many options, so much complexity to go through and find the station, the music, the restaurant, the travel destination, the learning experience.

Gordon:

There's tens of so many options going to the grocery store, you know, 20 different options for bread. I need somebody beyond my side to kind of help me navigate a world that has so many options that knows me and says, "I think this is the one you're going to like the best." And so that means in the home, this is the temperature you probably like the best for this time of day. I think there's a show she might like. This is what you'd like to read.

Gordon:

This is the entertainment experience that's going on in Los Gatos tonight you might like to go to because I know that so that I just have this kind of all knowing partner that says it's at your options at your discretion. You can opt in. I'm not trying to tell you to do these things. But in a very comfortable way, says, you know, that digital life that's all around you, that's living and breathing in your home and around your home and in your family, here's some things you might be interested in for the day.

Gordon:

And so that level of personalization that we can create in the home around music, around comfort, around lighting, around shades, around security, around learning. I think it's the next evolution that will bring this all together. And we have a footprint now to do all this stuff, and we have the knowledge. And now we have some of the capital, and it'll be a fun ride to see how that plays out.

Ron:

Sounds like you're describing a really fun, interesting, futurist version of an AI application or an application for AI in the home to really help the home take that next step in terms of truly not just operating with a button press command, but the home truly understanding you and who's in the home and how you want to live. Is that what you see happening industry wide? Or is that what you see happening because of, is this a Daisy position or angle?

Gordon:

No, I think this is industry wide. But, you know, like almost everything in life, it's just iterative, two steps forward, a step backward. It's going to be all sorts of security and privacy and a whole range of issues that have to get resolved. So none of this is easy. We just know all we know is the direction's going that way.

Gordon:

And so with a lot of bright minds, a lot of people working on it, you know, we're going to try to come out with what the best is from these solutions to enhance your life. And so now I don't think this is a Daisy initiative. This is something that technology can bring to us that wraps around who we are and what we do. And the way we do it well, it makes our lives better, healthier, more enjoyable, and we do it wrong. It doesn't do those things. So that's an iterative process.

Gordon:

And we hope to add the elements that make it a very positive experience for people. And I have to look back at 25 years of the technology that we've added into people's homes and in my own family's homes. One of the greatest enjoyments I've had about the career is that I feel like through bringing these things together in our own home in our own household has just enhanced our family's life.

Gordon:

The ability to force our young kids to educate themselves better through the technology that was at their desktop, for us to experience better entertainment streamed throughout the house has been a wonderful asset to be connected by phones and iPads. I mean, day to day, this career has allowed me to live a better life for myself and my family and to share that with others is still a great experience.

Gordon:

And one I would not want to ever end because...and this and as I said, this level of personalization and when we can enact that over time, which is making a rigid experience for everybody. As I look at my grandchildren, I think, you know, one, two, and three. And when they're 65, 70, what's that world going to look like? So if I could help in one small way to make that world a little better through the skills that I have and the industry skills that we all have, then we've done our thing to move the needle a little bit in the right direction. And that's the hope.

Ron:

Paint the picture of the future. Your grandkid is 70 years old. What are some of the technologies in the home?

Gordon:

Well, you should probably ask Rich Green that question.

Ron:

I'll ask Rich, but I'll ask you. What's an opinion of something that you think will probably simply be true? I'll go first.

Ron:

I think a humanoid robot that is tied closely to generative AI or a very, very decades advanced future version of AI to where it sounds human when it talks and the way that it thinks and it has an opinion and has opinions and ideas and is creative. I think that'll be a normal part of our life.

Ron:

And I, you know, like Rosie from the Jetsons, for those that tune in regularly to me, you know that I have this opinion that this is probably in our very near future. And I think our industry likely will be at some point bringing these types of solutions to the luxury consumer, at least first. But then if you advance 50 years in the future, 60 years in the future, I think those technologies are very elegant and very sophisticated. I can't see how that isn't true.

Gordon:

Yeah, can you argue with something that you're predicting for 60 years in the future? I guess I actually prefer to answer that what I think will definitely not change in the future as opposed to what the future will. And my gut feeling is a strategy is to talk about what won't change. What won't change.

Gordon:

And I think what will not change is fundamentally being a human being and interacting with other people in a personalized human fashion. I was just thinking about this the other day. You know, all this technology on these video conferences, the wall we're having right now. Yeah, we have tremendous tools now to bring the world together in ways that are non-physical.

Gordon:

But thinking about expo next week and thinking of what it means to handshake or give somebody a hug or just, you know, read and talk to somebody that's physically present in the room. No substitute ever will be available for that. Even at the robotic level and you say the seamless level, we, you know, that human characteristic of caring and needing and being with somebody else that you care about, that you enjoy being with, I don't think will ever change.

Gordon:

And that's just going to be an innate part of our species. And, you know, so I hope that will still be the case for our grandchildren, that they'll still enjoy these family reigns at Moss Beach, just like we're doing right now, and put the technology aside for a little bit while we do this.

Ron:

I agree with all of that. And I think we'll also equally likely give that robot the human embrace and it'll feel human. But I agree with you, everything you just said. And I love that philosophy of thinking and focusing on what won't change.

Gordon:

I think this idea of personalization too, I think that's kind of what Daisy's trying to do too. When I think of you know a customer relation management platform that they're putting together, that would be prohibitively expensive for us as a small integrator to do on our own, but it's something that they could do on a national level for all of us.

Gordon:

That's a level of personalization by record, by client that takes it out of our individual heads and puts it in a database so that you know the littlest things like knowing that one of our customers has a grandchild, knowing that it is their birthday, knowing that it is an anniversary, knowing that you know they have a 10/100 router or switch and they should have a gigabit switch.

Gordon:

Knowing that the WAP is in this closet, not that closet, just knowing as much as possible about the client, not only their infrastructure, but their family, creates a personalized touch to technology in the home that we can leverage these technology tools that they're bringing to us. And at the end of the day, that's what it's about. That's why people let us in their door day after day to help us out.

Gordon:

And the same people that are saying, "Why don't you stay for dinner if we're still there at six o'clock?" We could do that well with the tools, the software tools that are available to us in our hands and in our pocket, then we've just created a level of personalization that just enhances the business. And that would be a goal of Daisy's, well, a goal of any business, but it's very difficult to do that well. And so you know that's the iterative process we're embarking on.

Gordon:

But if you ask me five or 10 years from now, when that Daisy person shows up at the door or any custom integrator at door, there should be first a warm feeling that we know each other. And secondly, a sense that I'm comfortable with you at home and that you can solve my problem quickly and accurately with the tools that you have on your phone through AI, through the physical tools, and it's going to be a good experience. And that's what we want.

Ron:

I love it. Gordon, I want to thank you for coming on the show. This is show 274. Thank you for doing that. Thank you for coming on six years, almost to the month for our last recording. I want to congratulate you on your transaction. And I want to thank you for all your years of service to the industry. I know you're not done yet.

Ron:

You still got more to put in, but the old industry I know is in your debt and gratitude and appreciates all the contributions you've made over the many, many years of hard work, critical thinking, problem solving, contributions in writing, articles you've drafted, seminars you've participated in, tables, I was going to say, you know, seminars or in group settings where you've stood in front of audiences and shared and admitted mistakes and admitted learnings, you've been a part of the process of helping us as an industry to get better. So thank you for that. Really appreciate it.

Gordon:

Well, those are very kind words. I appreciate them. I could say many of the same things about you. And maybe in closing, we did this six years ago. We're doing it in 2024. So maybe like you book me for 2030 and we'll chat again about what things are at.

Ron:

You got it. Those that want to get in touch with you directly. Gordon, where can we send them?

Gordon:

Directly? There's my email is the hybrid email. Gordon at cybermanor.com is my kind of old email, my new email, Gordon dot Van dot Zuiden at daisyco.com. Little hard to remember that, but it's online. You can check it out. You can go to our website. There's contact information there as well. So yeah, those are probably the best ways to reach out to me. And anybody that's going out to all this, I guess this is after expo that you're going to listen to it. So it doesn't do any good.

Gordon:

But I'll be around, catch me at trade shows. Write back to me from the articles I write or whatever or through Daisy. And if you're in Los Gatos, drop by sale, I'll give you a tour of the Showroom Experience Center.

Ron:

Awesome. All right, Gordon, thank you, sir. Thanks for coming on the show.

Gordon:

Thank you very much.

Ron Callis is the CEO of One Firefly, LLC, a digital marketing agency based out of South Florida and creator of Automation Unplugged. Founded in 2007, One Firefly has quickly became the leading marketing firm specializing in the integrated technology and security space. The One Firefly team work hard to create innovative solutions to help Integrators boost their online presence, such as the elite website solution, Mercury Pro.

Resources and links from the interview:

• My First 6 Months With Daisy
• Residential Systems: 25-Year Old Integration Company Transitioned to Daisy
• Gordon Van Zuiden LinkedIn profile
• cyberManor Webpage