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Brendan King
Co-founder and CEO of Vendasta Technologies
Intense, boisterous, imaginative. Brendan King, co-founder and CEO of Vendasta Technologies, is the innovative force of the company. Always in discussion with the partners who provide Vendasta’s solution to over a quarter million local businesses, Brendan is constantly coming up with new ways to help enhance brand awareness, increase revenue and drive down cost of acquisition. It is his ability to look at the big picture while maintaining quality on the finest details that ensures Vendasta’s success.
Q. Do you have a routine you do every day, maybe something that has changed since the Pandemic?
Well, you know, there’s some parts of my routine that haven’t actually changed at all. I do have a routine before I go to sleep at night, actually my wife asks me, how I can fall asleep so fast? What I do is I take all the things that I am thinking about, those I’m worrying about, and usually the things that I have to do, and I prioritize them. This is a crazy routine minutes, but I do it each night. Then I say, here’s the things that I can do something about. And the things I can’t do anything about get pushed out to the side, the things that I can do I ask myself, why haven’t I done them? Then I make a plan to do them tomorrow. And then I can go to bed and sleep like a baby.
Q. Did you start any new hobbies or routines during the Pandemic?
I’ve been running and doing a few little more exercising.
No, I haven’t stopped drinking. I don’t know why that is.
But I have also been working harder than ever. So it feels a little bit like Groundhog Day but it’s an interesting thing.
Q. Is there something that people might not know about your hobbies, interests?
Yeah, you know, they might not know that I’m actually a physicist. I am involved in software now but that is not how I started out.
I also love foosball. I brought my Foosball table home from work because no one’s here to play with. So, at home I am now teaching my 12-year-old daughter to play.
I also play soccer. But I’m not very good at it. I didn’t start until I was coaching my oldest daughter who’s 30 now, so I started when she was about 12. It gets me out there and gets me running. But, obviously, that’s been, it was happening in the early days of the pandemic, but now it’s off again.
Q. Everybody has to start someplace, and everybody has their first job, what was yours?
Sure, I mean, if, you know, while I was going to University, I always worked my way through, and so I’ve done everything from working in a wood mill to make stacking pellets to painting radio towers. Painting radio towers was a job I had to get up in the morning and cover my face with Vaseline, climb up a five-hundred-foot radio one-thousand-foot radio tower and start painting, that was interesting. But after university my first real job was, I worked as a mining geophysicist for Eldorado Nuclear, which is now a chemical and big uranium mining company.
Q. What made you study to be a physicist?
I always just enjoyed physics figuring out how things work.
I was good at math but at the end of the day, didn’t want to have a desk job, and I was always entrepreneurial.
I started a clothing store in university and while I was doing my geophysicist job two weeks in and two weeks out, I also ended up starting a computer storage business. So, I guess no matter what I am destined to be an entrepreneur.
Q. If you are going to have dinner with anyone in the world, who would that be?
I was thinking about that before. I think it would be someone like Elon Musk. If I was bored, it would be the worst thing for me so I think he would be fun. He’s got some big ideas about going into mars and at the same time, electric cars, I think, it’d be fun to chat with him.
Q. If we were to write a book about Brendan King, what would the title of the book be?
Man, what would be the title…. I think something like –
“Keep moving forward and leave it better than you found it”
Q. What is one of your favorite cuisines or comfort foods?
I really like Thai, Food, and Vietnamese food.
But my comfort cuisine would be just a big old steak, and side dishes there are lots of ways to make good potatoes. I’ve been trying to avoid the carbs so many sides like asparagus and other vegetables that you can have.
Q. Do you cook?
I do, well, my wife’s a much better cook, but what I’m good at barbecuing and smoking.
Even though it’s, sometimes minus Celsius, I’m still out there with the barbecue going, or I have the smoker going all year round.
Q. What is a message you would like to give your partners, other Siinda members, and your colleagues?
Hopefully we’re all going to be seeing each other in person in Berlin in June.
I’m looking very much looking forward to that, but, you know, it’s still a while to June. But I have two things.
One, I would say to everyone that we all know a vaccine is on its way and, I hope it can happen by June, and I’ve predicted that by June, we will be wrapping this up. 2021 is going to be wild, So, hold on. I think it’s going to be just like the roaring twenties again.
Second in the holiday season, happy holidays or whatever you’re celebrating and from us I wish you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.