Brian Gregory - Co-Founder and CEO of FMX: Waiting to Raise Capital, CEO Transitions, and Going Outbound

Brian Gregory 00:00
Beyond the financial benefit of having a capital partner, there are a few other advantages. It's almost like having a personal trainer—you’ve got a whole new level of accountability, and it’s a healthy accountability. I'll ask questions, and as nice as our capital partner is, I know they’ve got their own obligations. That has helped us tremendously to level up our quarterly board meetings and the decisions we’re making.

Callan Harrington 00:23
You’re listening to That Worked, a show that breaks down the careers of top founders and executives, pulling out the key elements that led to their success. I’m your host, Callan Harrington, founder of Flashgrowth, and I couldn’t be more excited that you’re here. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of That Worked. This week, I’m joined by Brian Gregory. Brian is the co-founder and CEO of FMX. FMX is a leading provider of purpose-built, cloud-based solutions for public sector organizations. They help their customers transform facility maintenance and operations management in the communities where everyone learns, works, and lives.

Before founding FMX, Brian was a partner at Dynamics Energy Services, managing energy savings projects that highlighted the critical role of proper facilities management, ultimately inspiring the creation of FMX. I've known Brian for a while now, and honestly, hearing the full story of FMX was really interesting. Like many founders, he discovered his business idea at a previous company and recognized that the solution they were developing could be a much bigger idea than they initially thought.

We talked a lot about the timing of raising capital and the benefits of doing so later in a company’s lifecycle. Brian has a philosophy that you shouldn’t throw money at a problem before you've actually discovered a solution. I thought that was a really interesting take, and it’s something I’m seeing become much more popular. Hearing how he was able to implement this and bring it to life was super interesting. That being said, my favorite part of the conversation was about the transformation his business went through at around 50 employees, where they had to implement standardized, repeatable processes. One of the examples that stood out was how they weaned themselves off paid leads by building a scalable outbound engine. It was fascinating to hear about the staffing changes that made that possible. I believe pretty much every founder of a growth company will go through this at some point, and I loved hearing Brian’s personal story.

So with that, let’s get to the show. Brian, we’ve known each other for a while, but candidly, I’ve never heard the full story. Tell me about catching the tiger by its tail.

Brian Gregory 03:07
Yeah, thanks, Callan. Funny story here—this actually goes way back to high school. Before I went to college for engineering, I always liked to tinker with mechanical things and learn how they worked. One time, I was over at my girlfriend’s house, and they had this old lawnmower in the backyard. It was so old that it had rusted through the frame, so it was just the engine sitting on the ground. I asked if I could mess around with it, and her mom said sure. So, I hung this thing up in a tree, put some gas in it, and I don’t know what I was thinking—the blade was still attached to the motor, rusted on there.

It’s also important to point out that the same tree had a goat hitched up to it. They were in the middle of fair season, getting ready to show this goat. So, I tried to pull the starter the first time—nothing. Second pull, the thing fires up and goes to full throttle. The blade’s still attached, so it’s spinning around like crazy. I had no way to turn it off. Thankfully, the goat kept its distance, but it turned into this spiraling death machine! Eventually, I found a long piece of PVC pipe and knocked off the spark plug wire to turn it off.

I think my girlfriend’s mom thought I was insane, but thankfully, it didn’t scare her off—spoiler alert, we’re happily married now. But when I think back to that experience, how quickly it went from nothing to full throttle, it reminds me of FMX. We’ve tried things over the years where we weren’t sure if they’d work, but when they did, we had to figure out, “What now?” It’s like catching a tiger by the tail, or in this case, a lawnmower engine spinning like crazy. Without the right processes in place to handle that kind of growth, you can find yourself in over your head.

Callan Harrington 05:47
So at what stage did you start really implementing more process?

Brian Gregory 05:53
I’d say around 2019. We’d had some moderate success. We started FMX in 2012, and by 2019 we had about 50 employees. Early on, we had a lot of teammates who were Swiss Army knives—they could do a bit of everything. But we started to see problems that needed specialists. For example, we had one person handling rev ops, customer success, and some finance tasks all at once. It became clear we needed dedicated support for those functions.

My wife was running marketing at the time, and our twin boys were turning two, and the business’s marketing needs were growing rapidly. So, in 2019, we hired a VP of marketing, a VP of rev ops, and a VP of Finance. That’s when a lot of process started to come into place. Up until then, we had brute-forced it, but continuing down that path would’ve been unsustainable.

Callan Harrington 07:22
I’m excited to dive more into that. But before we get there, I want to pull this back a bit. Am I correct that you worked on this business on the side for about four years? Is that how this was created?

Brian Gregory 07:32
Yeah, that’s right. After graduating college in 2008–2009, during the recession, it was tough to find work. I ended up joining a firm called Dynamics Engineering in Columbus. In 2011, we started a new business venture called Dynamics Energy Services. The goal was to make school buildings more energy efficient. Over time, we realized that maintaining those energy savings was difficult because of the way facilities were managed.

At one point, we saw that our clients weren’t reaching the energy-saving targets, and we realized it wasn’t just about equipment—it was about the culture and process of maintaining these buildings. We knew we had to do something about it. That’s when we built a software solution to help manage these processes. We rolled it out in a school district, and it was a huge success. The superintendent spent most of a testimonial video talking about the software rather than the energy project itself, and that’s when we realized we were onto something.

Callan Harrington 16:04
So, you were working on this on the side for four years before fully diving into it?

Brian Gregory 16:18
Exactly. We were selling energy projects at the time, but as we kept getting feedback on the software, we started to see that it could be its own business. After selling about 20 licenses for the software without pushing the energy projects, we realized that FMX had real potential.

Callan Harrington 18:12
What was the moment when you fully realized FMX was its own entity?

Brian Gregory 19:59
It became clear after we’d sold several software licenses without doing energy projects. We founded FMX in 2012 as its own business, and we grew it over time. In the beginning, I didn’t have a lot of time to focus on sales, so we started with paid leads. But as we grew, we had to build out more sustainable processes.

Callan Harrington 29:31
How did things change after bringing in those VPs in 2019?

Brian Gregory 29:31
It changed everything. We started to build real processes, like weaning off paid leads and building an outbound engine. We also revamped our tech stack, thanks to our new VP of RevOps. We grew quickly after that. We also had to part ways with some early employees who weren’t a great fit for the growth stage we were entering.

Callan Harrington 32:05
How did you build that outbound engine and transition away from paid leads?

Brian Gregory 32:05
It started in 2017, but we scaled it in 2019 by bringing in new talent and using Sandler training to standardize our sales process. By 2021, outbound was over 50% of our new bookings, and we were able to reduce paid leads to about 5%.

Callan Harrington 34:28
You mentioned you and Jeff were not big on raising capital early on. What changed?

Brian Gregory 34:47
We raised capital in 2019, mostly to provide liquidity to an early investor. As our outbound engine started taking off, we realized that with more capital, we could accelerate our growth. Having a capital partner also brought healthy accountability that helped us level up our decision-making.

Callan Harrington 38:46
What’s next for FMX and for you personally?

Brian Gregory 38:46
Personally, I’m excited for this next chapter, especially as my twin boys start first grade. I also think FMX has a lot of potential for growth, especially with new hires at the senior level. We’re focused on expanding into new verticals and potentially launching new products.

Callan Harrington 41:05
If you could give advice to your younger self, what would it be?

Brian Gregory 41:05
I’d tell my 23-year-old self to enjoy the journey more. I was always so focused on the future that I didn’t take time to enjoy the present. I’d say it’s okay to stop and have fun along the way.

Callan Harrington 42:36
I love that. Thanks for joining me, Brian. It’s been great hearing your story.

Brian Gregory 42:36
Thanks, Callan. It’s been a pleasure.