welcome everybody to another episode of glide chat my name is michael lombardo today i'm with adolfo acevedo aka ace aka ace boogie and we are excited to bring you the first ever live in person glide chat at the new glide fast headquarters in waltham mass right next to servicenow headquarters ace how are you doing today my friend i'm doing excellent yeah it's a wonderful day ace man i am so first of all i gotta say i'm so proud of you i i've i've known you for what three or four years yeah it's gonna be three three going on three years yeah three years i met you first uh at the year up program which i am a proud alumni of as well yeah and i was actually your mentor yes actually through the program i met you met you there and i still remember that first lunch you meant to uh forget the name of the place but right near uh europe headquarters and we just had such a great connection right off the bat yeah i know you you really made an impression on me especially you know coming from you know this servicenow atmosphere and explaining to me all the stuff you know that you could do with it and you know talking to me about this this awesome ecosystem that's out there and i don't know immediately i was i was impressed i was excited about it i mean i felt super lucky that that you were my mentor and i when i went back like you know that day we were all meeting our mentors at the year out program so yeah i thought you know i nobody had my story beat as far as meeting the coolest mentors well i it had so much to do with you because you were so you wanted so much out of the mentor like you went in there with the mentality of i want value what value can you give me what perspective can you give me before before you even knew who i was like that was your expectation like listen i'm not here for any bs i'm not here to check the box and go to go get a free lunch i'm here to learn something so and that's what i was looking for i i you know i was fortunate enough where i went through the europe program i've went through the help desk world and i know you know what it's like to be a europe student and and i i have perspective to give and i wanted to add value so it was i think it was refreshing for both of us to meet each other and it was like match made in heaven yeah yeah i think we said right off the bat like i'm like listen one day you're gonna work at gladfest i promise you that yeah i just had my fingers crossed like i was i was super hungry i was looking for you know to start off my career and get an opportunity to break out there and i think yeah like you said a match made in heaven it looks like you know you were looking for someone that was just that hungry and it's like you know you were doing great things already so it's it was it was a it was amazing i think it was cool it was it's amazing to to to have met you and to you know be introduced to glide fast this great you know beautiful company it's great family i mean it's it's awesome it's a blessing it's a blessing for both of us right you know it's mutual i look at you and i'm so i'm proud to be part of your story and i mean so let's talk a little bit about your story so you went to europe uh for those who don't know europe's a phenomenal program not europe year up one year year up started by gerald tretavian he's an unbelievable human being first of all and he cares about each and every student and he cares about closing the opportunity divide and he started this company i was class nine so i think he started it's a non-profit i think he started in 2005. i'm not mistaken and he basically took people in in urban communities and gave them an opportunity where he'd pay them six months of school so he teach you how to be professional in the workplace and there's there's different tracks like finance we we were in the it track and then give them six months of inter actual internship at professional organizations and you actually interned at google yeah which is it's crazy are you sure you wanted to leave google to come to glidecast yeah tell us about tell us about google oh it was an amazing opportunity so i went to yeah the google i was interning at the google headquarters in cambridge at the it department and from from the start it's crazy just the amount of perks like i think we were working in in like a lounge and there was like a couch and there was a huge screen with cats playing all the time it was just you know that's yeah like like actual cats yeah like just kittens playing around like just to relax people and stuff okay we're gonna write that down we're gonna get cats we have the couch we have couches it was a super unique environment they had like canoes hanging from the roof because they give everything like an interesting little theme yeah so that was like our whole workstation that people would google employees would come and yeah the pressure was when someone would show up to uh to be ready to take on whatever problem this google employee was having that day so it was it was fun and it was challenging you know yeah it must have been challenging you were doing help desk there yeah was it help desk and desktop support yeah so yeah they would come up to us and you know at a certain time of the day usually in the afternoon we would go to their own workstations and try to help them out as well that's awesome and so at some point you you graduated europe so you finish your internship right and i think we were talking about that towards the end like should i finish and just come and i think it was important for both of us to make sure you finished right i think that was one thing we said listen let's make let's help you finish make sure you finish the program then you know if you want to stick with google because they offered you the job or well so the program the way it was structured was to have you do another two years where you would be doing essentially the same thing but they would bring you to different campuses oh okay the google program not europe okay well yeah yeah so so yeah for them that that more internship yeah more internships yeah so that you made the right decision either way so you came into the service now world you joined glidefast you know i had told you about servicenow and i think i had given you some you know homework essentially where like you know go to the developer community but we didn't give you any official training before you started i don't think right um how did you learn i mean man you learned so fast how did you it took me like a year i mean you just picked it right i remember you had these he looked like an a true architect like like an actual building architect you had these these noses yeah but they were rolls i took a big uh notebook and then i i wrote down all these notes and then to study it i took these huge can huge pieces of my canvas paper and just glued everything so i could see it all at once and then study everything no but you know as far as picking it up fast i i definitely like you know we've been talking about i was super hungry so i ended up you know during the year program i think in the day normally ends at like two o'clock or something later on in in the day like uh after the europe program i would stay over and for like an hour to just work on hard work yeah just figuring out what the heck servicenow is overall just you know it's hard yeah it's hard to go zero to understanding it the terminology alone is terminology overwhelming what somebody calls an application is really a module you know so like it sounds like an application it could be but no that's not an application it's a module you're getting initiated too like this yes it's but you know for me it was like one day it clicked you know what i mean like one i just remember like oh you know it's like i guess it's a series of things clicking you know yeah so if we're giving people advice number one is get ready to work jump in yeah yeah right get ready to work jump in first of all you jump in you got to take the risk you got to jump in but you got to be all the way in right it's not it's not a it's not a part-time job it's no no no not at all just just to get your head around it and start thinking in a way that would be productive on the platform itself it seems like yeah you got to let it consume you a little bit uh okay so never mind so you're staying late uh just working hard kind of solo right yeah yeah i mean i wish i had somebody else i was trying to encourage other people to be like hey this is a great career yeah but they didn't see me with a career yet so you know i didn't have anybody following me yeah so then you joined gladfest yes and tell me about what that was like first of all it was amazing just how you know friendly the environment was and um how yeah how much everyone's willing to help each other especially when you're getting started and and you don't know you know you're scared of ruining something on the platform and you have a million questions you know i personally always feel like i'm bothering somebody if i'm asking them too many questions but that never seemed to be a problem yeah like yeah it seems like people just love love to help which was amazing um and you know glide fast i started out doing a lot of internal work so that gave me a chance to just really you know try things out on the platform without having on our space instance exactly so we run our business for those who don't know we run our business on on service now drinking our own champagne not for marketing we do it because it it makes us more efficient business we're not doing it just because we want to practice what we preach we do it because it allows us to scale and be nimble and get things done quick i mean it's we we run pretty pretty tight ship but so you got to work on our internal instance uh adding automations and things on top do you remember what the first thing you touched on on space man that was a while ago yeah that's that's a good question that's a tough one well you know if you don't remember the first thing what's what's something what's a what was like a big win like you comprehending something maybe or you know something like that we were trying to build out these dashboards for sales just to show how each salesperson has had done over the previous quarters yeah and we needed a widget that had us a type of report that we that wasn't really available out of the box you know if you unless you're using performance analytics like it's pretty limited yeah so i ended up coming up with a ui page i figured out that you could embed those in the widget and i created my whole report just using css html and then gave it a back end to just pull the number so that was that was a huge win for so i appreciate i have you to thank for all my sales reports that i literally check almost daily so not all of them okay not all some of them all right i'll give you credit that's awesome so and then and then so you did that for a while you shadowed i assume i know i remember josh really kind of uh being being really close with you yeah and anthony right d'souza yeah anthony and anthony and i you know it was great especially when everyone was coming into the office super often yeah we would we would work next to each other and i would get to see what it was like in action yeah yeah before i had even gone out there and worked with clients it still intimidated me but you know it felt i felt a little closer like okay maybe maybe i can do that yeah no that's and that's what you need you need some confidence and it's there's nothing like having that ramp up but and then you got on your first project what was that like that was it was intimidating i mean i mean i think was it a hospital it was a pharmaceutical company oh no it was intimidating boston one right yeah yeah okay boston one yeah and just the fact that meeting with clients like i felt more comfortable you know you tell me what to do and i'll figure it out you know put my head down that stuff i was cool with yeah it's the you know meeting with clients being prepared to actually do the part of consulting yeah you know yeah and soft skills and yeah answer navigating those tough questions that maybe you don't know how to answer because you know you can find out the answer but you may not know it right right then and there what kind of advice would you give to somebody maybe in a similar situation oh i one of the greatest pieces of advice is a phrase which is if someone tells you something in it and you're stumped obviously you know you you don't want to lie but you definitely want to be want to help them get the answer is i'll get that i'll get back to you on that yeah and it saved me a lot and i honestly didn't end up needing it as much as i thought i would but it's an amazing just real pressure relief to just honestly tell them i may not have this answer for you right now let me get back to you when i have the most accurate information that i can get you yeah and that you know it doesn't work for everyone not everyone can just say that either though like you have to have like i think people some may interpret that because that's the same strategy i have you have to have the trust like you have to have some foundation with the customer where you can say that and that's acceptable right you can't say that to every question right absolutely you know what i mean like and then it becomes watered down it's just like man or the first question but i think the point is yeah well the first one that's that's that's key right you have to get you have to get some wins on the board you have to establish that trust right and i think then what's really important is don't lie exactly right if you if you lie it's it kills the trust it kills it it's anything in life though it's not just development and consulting but you know because then you have to lie again yeah again and it's like a little white lie turns into it snowballs and also you know the saying that trust take it's so hard to build and take so much time it can take a second earned and drops lost in buckets oh there it is yeah that's a great thing yeah so yeah no definitely absolutely don't lie also yeah you have to develop you know show the fact that you're competent and you have a good view of the best practices and you're going going to guide them so yeah using it as a crutch terrible idea yeah yeah yeah it's not a crutch that's that's what i was getting at it but it is the right thing to do and when you have when you've established that trust and that and that and that certain level of expertise because you went in there like i said you went in there faster i think than anyone anyone i knew and it was with the right setup you know it's not like we're like hey here's acer our architect we're like hey he's learning you know yeah bear with him a little bit but he's really really smart and we just set you up for success it was a perfect project to start with it really yeah it really was it really was doing like it started out doing mostly admin stuff and i had already started feeling a little comfortable with development so it was just and and then we started moving into that so it's yeah it was right at my level i mean i i honestly i'm still pinching myself at how smoothly it was i didn't have to i didn't get any phone calls nothing i got phone calls there good good so okay so now fast forward so you're about two and a half years experience right yeah maybe maybe more yeah well it's going on three okay it's going on three and so and now i know you're doing some heavy lifting stuff i mean you're doing some really heavy lifting stuff like i'm proud you know i love you man you know that i love you i love you so much and i'm just proud of how far you progressed and where are you at now like what type of stuff are you working on now is it is it is it heavy script and stuff is it there's there's a good amount of uh scripting right right now i'm wrangling with just like just a big workflow that i'm working on for for this uh process actually with the same pharmaceutical company they want to let go of me great client yeah we're creating like this workflow for introducing lab data um into their system whether it comes in like digital or by sftp so yeah it's awesome yeah yeah it's that's right up your alley that's what you want you want the heavy hitting stuff i know you yeah and and honestly that's what i want for service now when people ask me and really since the beginning i realized that right away like i want service now to be not forget i mean i think we're past this but i don't want it to be a ticketing tool i wanted to be and i think finally we're past that but i wanted to take it even further and now be part of the business like i wanted to be part of the revenue that's coming into these companies for it to be so strategic for them that they they can't get rid of it right that that you know that they need it to facilitate how they make money and i think we're getting real close i mean we see these use cases starting to pop up right because because literally it's so the possibilities are so unlimited i was actually uh at dinner with some servicenow folks yesterday and this is what we're talking about it's so unlimited like there is no ceiling for this because you could there's so much automation potential you have that base platform that you can build off of build applications quickly it integrates with everything it's one central location it's set up for such an amazing future we're just getting started yeah it's crazy and and you know whenever a client asks whether they can do something [Laughter] yeah probably but yes and what's the best way to do it that's usually what the answer is i think it's yes we can but let's like really think about this and let's make sure we do it the best way and let's make sure we think of all the gotchas that could come up you know right right certainly just because you can doesn't mean you should but it just shows how incredibly a diverse toolkit yeah service now is and just how much of the business it can encompass it just because it is so flexible it's so adaptable whatever your business is yeah it really is i mean every industry every and now servicenow is really moving to industry specific out of the box solutions and i think that's what's probably going to get us there is the specific industry solutions like they're probably going to take a look at what you're doing for that pharmaceutical company and say oh this is great let's steal what ace did make it into the platform you know yeah it's it's too eventually these different pieces of the platform will become so valuable that they alone will sell and not that you know there's so much more but the fact that they're going with these industry-specific solutions and they're actually consulting with these industries to find out what suits them best what do they need yeah it's an amazing strategy so last thing where do you want to go next days where do you want to go next what you know and this is it's been a while since i think we talked about this so this should this probably could be a private conversation we talked about it yeah but but but yeah what what do you what do you uh what do you want to go next like what what's what's next for you honestly i want to contribute more value to you know to the stuff that i'm doing with the platform yeah architect architect level type stuff i i i'm bigger projects bigger transformations that's what you need but he's a little small right like that company's i think you need i think you're ready i think i mean you've probably been ready but i think it's like we gotta probably tell that that company like hey listen we i know you love ace but he's ready for some more bigger stuff yeah yeah i you know definitely as you know especially as my knowledge and competence in the platform is starting to grow you know you want to see how how well you can manage different level projects so yeah um yeah i i'm thinking architect but yeah we'll see all right i'm going to text uh pip right now and tell them hey listen we need get put put ace on our toughest products all right i think it smoked too much but hey man i appreciate you uh taking the risk on glidefast and trusting me and appreciate you trusting me yeah no i i knew you know like i said the first second i met you so thank you here's to a long future cheers [Music] you