In this episode, Jay Aigner shares invaluable leadership lessons from his entrepreneurial journey. He emphasizes the importance of embracing failure as a steppingstone to success, highlighting how rejection fueled his determination to build a thriving global team. Aigner's leadership is rooted in empowerment and delegation, enabling his team of 60 to innovate and drive growth. He believes in creating a culture of trust, where team members are encouraged to take initiative and contribute ideas.

Aigner's approach to leadership is not just about managing but inspiring and mentoring, demonstrating that effective leadership can transform challenges into opportunities for development and success. His story is a testament to the power of resilience, vision, and the ability to lead by example.

Want to learn more about Jay's work? Check out their website at https://www.jdaqa.com.

Connect with Jay on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/anneliesemvance.

Key Points

• [00:00:00] Introduction of Jay Aigner, detailing his entrepreneurial journey from being rejected by Uber and Lyft to building a successful business and leading a global team.
• [00:01:34] Jay's motivation to start looking for additional work due to his wife's challenging nursing job, leading to his venture into freelancing and quality assurance.
• [00:02:13] Transition from freelancing on Elance to starting his own business in quality assurance (QA) for software.
• [00:03:38] Jay's realization of potential in QA and decision to build a company around it.
• [00:18:53] Discussion about managing a team of 60 people and the importance of loving the process of running a business.
• [00:20:25] Leadership insights: the critical role of delegation, complementing one’s skill set with talented individuals, and maintaining a no-ego approach.
• [00:22:12] Handling mistakes within the team: Jay emphasizes ownership and accountability for any issues, avoiding the blame game.
• [00:24:17] Jay's commitment to uplifting his team and handling problems as the leader, taking responsibility for all outcomes.

Transcript

00:00:09:18 - 00:00:46:24
Craig Andrews
Today I want to welcome, Jay Aigner. He is an entrepreneur with over 60 employees in three different countries, working for his company JDA, QA. But that's not how it started. Jay got rejected by both Uber and Lyft as a driver. he was, you know, looking to get things started, and he just kept plugging and eventually found his niche. In addition to running his business, he runs an astrophotography group with over 1700 people around the world.

00:00:47:01 - 00:01:01:21
Craig Andrews
He is a student pilot. He's got five kids, but that's not enough. He's got another one on the way. And today we're going to learn more about Jay's fascinating journey. Jay, welcome to Leaders and Legacies.

00:01:01:23 - 00:01:03:16
Jay Aigner
Craig, thanks for having me. How are you?

00:01:03:18 - 00:01:21:10
Craig Andrews
I'm doing well. I'm doing well. So I'm sitting here. I'm trying to figure out all this, you got five kids you're trying to get with, Uber and Lyft. How many kids at the time did you have, Or are you getting rejected by them?

00:01:21:12 - 00:01:27:13
Jay Aigner
I think we only had 2 or 3 back then. Two? Only 2 or 3? Yeah, only to have only 2 or 3.

00:01:27:15 - 00:01:31:04
Craig Andrews
Only two? Yeah. Oh, only exceeding the U.S. birth rate.

00:01:31:05 - 00:01:34:11
Jay Aigner
Well, you know, somebody's got to do their part, and that's that's me.

00:01:34:13 - 00:01:44:08
Craig Andrews
Yeah. That's awesome. So give us a little more color. What was going on? Why, why were you looking at Uber and Lyft and, and, you know, what was the setting?

00:01:44:10 - 00:02:04:23
Jay Aigner
so my wife, is a nurse and was a nurse. she was doing long term overnight care. it's very sad. you know, kids that just aren't going to ever leave the hospital. And, I went one time and saw it, and, it was kind of clicked with me that that's why she wanted to get out of there.

00:02:05:00 - 00:02:22:18
Jay Aigner
so I started looking for anything to kind of fit more hours in the day. I was looking at overnight stock for jobs. I was applied to Uber and Lyft. My license wasn't from the same state, so they turned me down. and then I stumbled across, elance.com, which was, you know, I could do freelance quality assurance.

00:02:22:18 - 00:02:32:10
Jay Aigner
That's what I did. So my 9 to 5. and that's kind of where I started the business, just to, you know, make myself work in after hours and built up from there.

00:02:32:12 - 00:02:38:06
Craig Andrews
Wow. Now QA. What? What is that? Where are you talking about?

00:02:38:08 - 00:03:03:02
Jay Aigner
so there's, you know, a few pieces to the software creation process design. You know, product folks get in there and figure out how it's supposed to work. Developers develop it. and then a lot of people are unaware that there's a pretty heavy competitor, which is testing it's quality assurance. It's making sure that all the stuff that happened before, it gets to QA was done properly.

00:03:03:04 - 00:03:20:06
Jay Aigner
the buttons do what they're supposed to do. The screens are supported. if there's 100,000 people, there's just people to log on at the same time. You can do that. make sure it's secure so nobody can get to the data that's behind the application. so basically, just kind of make it is the last line of defense, for software before it goes out to the masses.

00:03:20:08 - 00:03:27:09
Craig Andrews
Okay. And so you started doing that on Upwork. You started getting QA jobs on Upwork?

00:03:27:11 - 00:03:48:14
Jay Aigner
Yeah, I was doing it as part of my career. I went to be a developer and realized very quickly that I wasn't a good developer. but, but I kind of got bailed out and got a job in QA. so and then I found Elance and found some, some consulting gigs, some some freelance gigs. Just doing QA for websites and mobile apps and things like that.

00:03:48:16 - 00:04:01:03
Jay Aigner
and then kind of realized, like, wait, there's something in here. and kind of built it, from, from, like I said, just working after hours. You know, the, the the 9 to 5 to the, I guess, 5 to 9 or whatever you want to call.

00:04:01:05 - 00:04:18:24
Craig Andrews
Wow. I mean, you're like the icon of resilience. You know, you you're I appreciate your bluntness in the software development. And you say, well, I'm, I went very good. And and so you went off and you did something adjacent to development. You built a big company doing it.

00:04:19:01 - 00:04:39:19
Jay Aigner
Yeah, I got lucky, man. I think that's just a common theme with my life. And I like to give, like, it's it's credit. you know, I equated being a developer to an author, but I think anybody could be a developer. Anybody could write a book. But to be, like, top ten best seller, to be a really good developer just wasn't who I was.

00:04:39:21 - 00:05:12:04
Jay Aigner
and I saw, like, I could apply the same skills, but I didn't have to, to write code. I got to validate stuff and it just really, you know, I think I lucked out. I got a very good job at the good time. Bless college and kind of, well, on my way. So, and also had a, my son during college when I was 18 or 19 and my oldest son, which, you know, probably isn't recommended, but, it's just never been an option to do to not move forward and do the next thing.

00:05:12:04 - 00:05:19:24
Jay Aigner
So we figure it out. And, you know, he's 18 now and about to go to the Air Force. So, you know, it all worked out.

00:05:20:01 - 00:05:27:00
Craig Andrews
Wow, that's really cool. And so why so many kids?

00:05:27:02 - 00:05:49:12
Jay Aigner
I don't have a good answer for that. I don't, I love kids. you know, part of me thinks that it is the a thing that I'm going to leave behind. is is a good generation of of agnostic and who hopefully well-adjusted and hopefully have something to add to the world. And, but I just love I mean, I didn't really come from a huge family.

00:05:49:12 - 00:06:02:05
Jay Aigner
My wife had two siblings. She didn't really come to a huge family. But, I'll give her seven if I can. You know, I'm not sure if I can convince my wife, but I would go for seven if I could. I could do it.

00:06:02:07 - 00:06:20:11
Craig Andrews
You know, I have a cousin that I forget where they were. They're around, I think, number six or so. And I asked him, I said, so you can call it quits. Are you going to keep going? And I got the biggest kick out of his answer of all the viable answers for, you know what, six kids are enough.

00:06:20:13 - 00:06:23:15
Craig Andrews
He's like, it's getting kind of hard on the wife, so we may stop there.

00:06:23:16 - 00:06:35:00
Jay Aigner
That's what it is. That's what I mean. Once they do the real work and carrying them. I think my wife's been pregnant somewhat longer than I've known her. I don't know if it's possible, but she's just always pregnant. but, yes, it's definitely harder in them than it is on us.

00:06:35:02 - 00:06:58:17
Craig Andrews
Yeah. Wow. Well, and and and and what were you saying about, you know, leaving an impression? Well, you know, a couple times recently, I've heard some of my say, hey, do you know your great grandfather? What do you know about your great grandfather? And, you know, I think most people would say they know very little about their great grandfather.

00:06:58:19 - 00:07:21:10
Craig Andrews
And so that's that's kind of the endurance of our legacy. You know, once you go beyond your kids, kids, nobody's really going to remember you. And so I like your attitude of your building, the legacy. You know, they're not going to remember you, but you're increasing the number of people making an impact on the world.

00:07:21:12 - 00:07:37:22
Jay Aigner
Yeah. Yeah, that's the interesting point. I don't really know much about my great grandparents either. and probably I should, but, yeah, I guess you really got to make an impact, to kind of endure past a generation or two.

00:07:37:24 - 00:08:08:01
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So, you know, I'm. When you said that you weren't good at, a good developer actually surprised me because just in the few minutes I've gotten to know you, you strike me as somebody who's intensely curious. You know? So let's let's talk about the astrophotography. What? What are you doing? Was was that mean to people? What are you doing in in that and what's involved?

00:08:08:03 - 00:08:38:14
Jay Aigner
So it's a very time intensive hobby, especially early on when you're getting started. yeah. And I think I am an innately curious, and it's certainly a hobby. You could go for the rest of your life and not know, you know, even a percentage of what other people know. I started off a little point shoot camera, and I saw a smudge on the screen, which was like Andromeda and, did some YouTube searches and kind of figure out, how do I do more of this stuff.

00:08:38:16 - 00:08:55:05
Jay Aigner
and it really just kind of stuck me into the hobby. The biggest thing I noticed, though, that there was no, you know, there's bunch of communities is Reddit and there's a bunch of other stuff, but there's a lot of gatekeeping. It was just a bunch of old rich, like guys with, like, money that didn't really care if new people got into the hobby.

00:08:55:07 - 00:09:24:00
Jay Aigner
so I started a little group that was actually on slack back then. a couple of people I'd met on Reddit and, kind of just built this community, and people have been very receptive to just having a nice, safe, fun place to share knowledge and, you know, help other people and get help. And, so and kind of the hobby itself is, is literally I have a giant telescope in my yard that stays up, pretty much all the time.

00:09:24:00 - 00:09:42:13
Jay Aigner
And it's covered, you know, when it's not in use. I run it from inside on my computer, but it's basically, you know, kind of planning out what you want to shoot. So there's all sorts of nebula and cool stuff way out in space. you plan what you want to shoot? You set it up, it starts firing away.

00:09:42:15 - 00:10:03:24
Jay Aigner
and then you collect all that data you put on the computer, you process it, stack it all together. and you produce these images that you see, you know, from Hubble telescope and all these other things are all kind of doing the same thing. but it's it's a, it's addictive hobby. it's it's very fun. And it certainly is, is a hobby for people who are continually curious.

00:10:04:01 - 00:10:13:10
Craig Andrews
So I'm curious, you know, one, just for those listening, what is light pollution? And you live in an urban area, how do you deal with that?

00:10:13:12 - 00:10:35:03
Jay Aigner
Yeah, I'm a little further out. I'm in the suburbs, but I certainly have light pollution. and it's gotten worse because of LEDs. so traditionally a lot of the filters that we use for the cameras, we stick a filter in the front of it, it'll filter out some of the, the broadband light that comes from shopping malls and, and streetlights and all that stuff.

00:10:35:05 - 00:10:52:24
Jay Aigner
But as those have been switched over to LEDs, those filters don't, necessarily have the same impact. So the closer you are to the city, the closer you are to those lights. The more washed out things are, the harder it is to get fine details. That's why I like going out to like Cherry Springs, Pennsylvania, which is like one of the darkest places in the country.

00:10:53:01 - 00:11:14:09
Jay Aigner
And, no light pollution, basically, and taking, doing astrophotography out there. But, yeah, it's, it's it's certainly, restrictive based on where you live, if you're in the heart of the city, it's going to be tough. but, you know, you take enough photos, you can get some, you know, some good results eventually.

00:11:14:11 - 00:11:38:04
Craig Andrews
Yeah. You know, I grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. I grew up right on the, the tank River, which is, you know, a tributary of the Chesapeake Bay. one of the things I'd love to do is walk out on the the pier and just gaze up into the sky. And it was so dark there, that, you know, you just see so many stars.

00:11:38:04 - 00:11:47:23
Craig Andrews
And this is what, the naked eye, you know, in a scope. But it's just it's an immense beauty that it's hard to appreciate. If you live in the city.

00:11:48:00 - 00:12:05:14
Jay Aigner
You don't even get to appreciate. It's like a weird thing that, like, is there all the time that you don't get to see, and I, I just went down to Whitestone, Virginia last, summer this summer. And same thing. Water on the dock and look up. You can see the actual Milky Way, like across the sky. yeah.

00:12:05:14 - 00:12:23:09
Jay Aigner
It's what's wild, man. I'm not like a religious person, but when I, when I go out to Cherry Springs and you can actually see the Milky Way coming up over the trees with no light pollution, like, you can kind of understand how the stars and space and sky was, like, such a big part of human culture and civilization for so long.

00:12:23:09 - 00:12:34:24
Jay Aigner
It's like you can feel like, you know, you feel this like just massive thing coming up over the trees. It's a wild experience. So, yeah, it's it's, I wish more people got to experience it for sure.

00:12:35:01 - 00:12:45:22
Craig Andrews
Well, if you ever make it down to Texas, there's, there's a town down near the Mexican border, and, right next to Big Bend National Park called Terlingua.

00:12:45:24 - 00:12:46:13
Jay Aigner


00:12:46:15 - 00:13:05:19
Craig Andrews
And, that is that's the darkest place I've ever been. And, you know, and it's just you can see the Milky Way with naked. I mean, it's just beautiful. And, live photographers like, going out and, you know, shooting, you know, shooting the sky there.

00:13:05:21 - 00:13:08:03
Jay Aigner
Yeah, definitely. Check it out.

00:13:08:05 - 00:13:19:13
Craig Andrews
So, so that's one thing you're do. Oh yeah. I got a question. All right. So for some of my gazes into the, universe so much what's your take. Is there a life out there.

00:13:19:15 - 00:13:44:05
Jay Aigner
I mean, there has to be, man. There has to be like, it just statistically. I mean, what I thought was cool was somebody said to me one time, and you can't really see it, but I have a big picture of Andromeda that I shot over here. And there's little red specks all over the place. And, you know, you've got the big disk of Andromeda, this giant galaxy, and there's these little dots everywhere.

00:13:44:07 - 00:14:07:23
Jay Aigner
And somebody said, you know, the pictures of stuff that we shoot, like we shoot the Rosette Nebula and like, all these different nebulas on these different things. For somebody who was in Andromeda Galaxy, those little red dots would be the stuff that they were shooting from their astrophotography spots because, like, that's the nebula in their galaxy. And it's just like just seeing these massive groups of stars and planets and whatever.

00:14:07:23 - 00:14:24:10
Jay Aigner
It's like, there's no way they're just a has to be other things out there. Will we ever in our lifetime, communicate with them? I, I don't know, I doubt it. It's just so far. but yeah, I would I think so, man. I think there has to be. Wow. What about you?

00:14:24:12 - 00:14:56:05
Craig Andrews
You know, I don't know. I'm kind of agnostic. There. I, I don't, I'm not sure I believe in the UFOs. you know, these UFO sightings. I heard some commentator recently say, oh, there's, new UFOs story. So-and-so must have some bad press. And sure enough, you know, there's one figure, and I won't get into politics, but there's one figure that every time he gets in trouble, there's a new a new UFO story coming out.

00:14:56:07 - 00:15:03:07
Jay Aigner
Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I don't believe in the UFOs. I don't think that they're zipping around up there. I think that's all stuff that we're doing here on Earth. But.

00:15:03:09 - 00:15:20:11
Craig Andrews
Well, for me, it's just it's kind of a mathematical issue. If I, you know, and of course, I'm thinking in the constraints of our understanding of physics. But if I think about the speed of light and I'm thinking about, you know, isn't the closest, class, planet, like 100 light years from.

00:15:20:11 - 00:15:22:06
Jay Aigner
Now or something like that?

00:15:22:08 - 00:15:56:21
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So if there's life on that planet and class, has a much broader definition than than what Earth has, but if there is life, one on that class, planet, and there's peering through their telescope saying, these humans have something interesting going on. Whatever they saw, they saw 100 years after it happened. Right. And then let's say their their spaceship can go light speed, which, you know, you know, let let's just say that that's the theoretical limit.

00:15:56:23 - 00:16:20:14
Craig Andrews
Well, that would take another 200 years. So we have the super advanced society that can, you know, that can see farther that than we can see that can travel farther than we can travel. They can travel faster than we can travel super advanced. They're looking at America during colonial times and saying, this looks interesting. Let's go check this out.

00:16:20:16 - 00:16:31:04
Jay Aigner
Right. Yeah, yeah. So we're even further back. I mean, some if you're further away, they're saying like cavemen and, you know, stuff that's a thousand years ago. It's crazy.

00:16:31:06 - 00:17:15:15
Craig Andrews
Yeah. So that's kind of my, take. I, you know, it's I'm kind of agnostic, you know, it's, you know, from a probability. I mean, if I just look at it from a, you know, probability standpoint, I'd say probably, but then there's some things. And this boy, this is a whole different tangent. We don't go and go down there, but, you know, there's the whole aspect of fine tuning in the universe where, you know, you have to, you know, when you look at the fine tuning that exists in the universe, you have to kind of wonder, okay, well, you know, who's the tuner and what's what's going on?

00:17:15:17 - 00:17:31:02
Craig Andrews
but I don't know. That's, that's a, that's a rabbit hole. And we'd eat up all of our time. But anyway now that's, that's really fascinating. And that speaks to your natural curiosity. now you're flying.

00:17:31:04 - 00:17:59:00
Jay Aigner
Yes. and if anybody has ever wanted to do it, go to your local airport because everybody has a local airport and spend a hundred bucks and go on discovery Flight, and they will take you up, and they will fly around and they'll let you hold the controls. And if you're like me, it'll become a giant, hole in your wallet and you will become, you know, obsessed with it.

00:17:59:00 - 00:18:16:18
Jay Aigner
And you'll want to become, you know, at least a recreational pilot. So. Yes. I don't have my license yet. We have 70 ish hours. I've done a bunch of my solo work and flown a bunch of different places by myself. but, you know, I was racing to get it done before my baby. The baby was due.

00:18:16:18 - 00:18:25:13
Jay Aigner
Or a baby was born, like, a year ish ago. didn't quite get it done. So now I'm. I'm still working on getting that finished.

00:18:25:15 - 00:18:55:16
Craig Andrews
Wow. Yeah. Well, and that's, you know, I think that's one of the things that's just fascinating about is I think two things, one, there's no job that's too menial for you. You'll you'll do. You know, it doesn't seem like you let your ego get in the way of, you know, finding a path forward, but two, you just have this intense curiosity that that goes off and explores, and I, I, I just have to well, the evidence is true.

00:18:55:16 - 00:19:02:23
Craig Andrews
It's a fantastic combo. It's not this company at 60 people. What's what's that like?

00:19:03:00 - 00:19:29:21
Jay Aigner
Besides my children, it is the most rewarding stone. you know, just intensely enjoy it, I love it, I love running a business. I don't I think a lot of people run a business and they've done it, you know, somewhat successfully. We'll tell you the same thing. Like they don't ever see themself working for anybody else again.

00:19:29:21 - 00:20:00:19
Jay Aigner
I mean, obviously, we work for our customers. but yeah, I, I, I love it and, it's been an incredible ride. I want to be a, you know, a serial entrepreneur. I think that there's a blueprint for IT services companies. So once you kind of figure out how to do that, you know, it's not not, trivial, but I think it's pretty straightforward to spin up a new LLC and go out and, you know, find new customers and do it.

00:20:00:19 - 00:20:06:10
Jay Aigner
I just love it. It's one of my favorite things on earth.

00:20:06:12 - 00:20:35:13
Craig Andrews
Well, and starting a company, you know, and going going for Upwork, you know, doing jobs through Upwork or whatever. that's one set of skills. managing 3 or 4 people is hard. Managing 60 people is is tough. What what have you learned in the journey about leading and managing people?

00:20:35:15 - 00:20:58:00
Jay Aigner
Number one, you have to delegate. I mean, I think that's every business coach is bread and butter when they come into a situation is like, learn to delegate, handle stuff. Like I am very much a delegator. Consider myself a delegation evangelist. I think people should pay other people to do things that, you know, their time is better spent doing other things.

00:20:58:02 - 00:21:27:13
Jay Aigner
but yeah, I it's, I think it's, it's learn how to, to complement your skill set with people who are better than you and having, no ego. Right? I mean, like you said earlier, like being able to hand that stuff off, miserable to trust somebody else. Some people aren't comfortable with that. And I see that a lot of times, the friends that I that I know that run agencies, they're not comfortable or trusting enough to hand stuff off.

00:21:27:13 - 00:21:49:19
Jay Aigner
And like, I don't know, I always think in kind of a risk reward scenario, like what would be what would be the reward of me handing off a bunch of stuff? Well, I can go win a much new clients. I can spend time with my family, I can do a bunch of other things. What's the risk you know, I lose a client, you know, I don't know, just name any better than that could happen.

00:21:49:21 - 00:22:04:17
Jay Aigner
And it just doesn't scare me, I guess, like, you know, I would much rather take the risk to, free myself up than to, you know, worry about all the bad things that could happen.

00:22:04:19 - 00:22:22:11
Craig Andrews
So one of the challenges when you, you know, when you delegate things, inevitably, you know, they're not going to do it the way you would do it. And sometimes they just straight up make mistakes. Something breaks when that happens. How do you how do you react to those things?

00:22:22:13 - 00:22:55:18
Jay Aigner
I learned a long time ago? nothing in my business or in my life. is anybody else's fault? Especially my business. If somebody that I hired didn't do the job right or messed up or whatever, that's because I didn't set them up for success. I didn't, delegate properly. I hired the wrong person. I set the wrong expectations.

00:22:55:20 - 00:23:18:19
Jay Aigner
owning all that has been the best thing that I've ever done as a business owner or leader. Like, just just. I don't care if it's my second in command or somebody who's, you know, been here for two days and, like, screws up a client project, like anything in that spectrum of problems or responsibilities comes back to me.

00:23:18:21 - 00:23:34:14
Jay Aigner
And it's just a lot easier to run the business that way. It's a lot easier to have accountability for with me. And I tell my customers that and they know I'm there, you know, if there's anything wrong than trying to, like, blame other people and figure out whose fault it was. And like, it doesn't matter. Like it's nobody's like, I hired these people.

00:23:34:14 - 00:23:55:08
Jay Aigner
It's my business. Like it's my fault. So, I think that's been the biggest, you know, if something happens, then I'll get on a call with the client. I'll get on a call with my guys or talk to whoever it is, like, we'll figure it out. it's just never a blame game, so I don't look for reasons to freak out or, you know, justify being.

00:23:55:13 - 00:24:19:12
Jay Aigner
That's one of my least favorite things when any leader or person of authority and businesses that I've worked at or clients of mine or whatever, whenever they chop down other employees or people inside of the company that they work for, I think that's like just about as low as you can go in business. And I think it's very immature and unprofessional to do that.

00:24:19:12 - 00:24:26:18
Jay Aigner
So I really strive to like, you know, make sure I just raise my guys up. And if there's a problem that comes back to me.

00:24:26:20 - 00:24:53:02
Craig Andrews
Well, Jay, I, I mean, this is just an absolutely fascinating conversation. I wish we had more time because it's very clear you have a lot of wisdom that's valuable to, to a lot of business owners, regardless of your industry. So, but we need to wrap up. And so I just want to make sure, people understand you.

00:24:53:02 - 00:25:03:15
Craig Andrews
You help people, who develop software, you help them with the QA process. how are you? How do they reach you?

00:25:03:17 - 00:25:15:21
Jay Aigner
JDA qa.com or hit me up on LinkedIn. Gagner aig na And happy to see what you have going on and, see if we can help.

00:25:15:23 - 00:25:27:24
Craig Andrews
Well, Jay, thanks for coming on Layers and Legacies. thanks for sharing your wisdom and your passions. you know, it's you've got a fascinating story that I know I won't continue to follow.

00:25:28:05 - 00:25:30:18
Jay Aigner
Awesome. Thanks for having me on. I appreciate it, but a great show.