Season 3 - Episode 2 - The Importance of Your Luck

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Cousin Bill 0:38

Yeah, stay up in our business all day long.

John Tabis 0:43

Every week

Cousin Bill 0:45

every day, and we are here on the giving them the business podcast. Please welcome our hosts the fastest flower slinger in the West, the king Protea of silicon beach. He puts the boss of boots John Tabis take it away

John Tabis 1:00

cuz hey this is where we put it in the sound effect of people clapping

we should have a studio audience right and we have a big piece of glass we can put people down the glass they can look at us but don't touch us. be great. What's up everybody? Welcome to week three. I am in recovery mode when we have social media rolling you'll see me and my big boot had some foot surgery. I'm on some painkillers it's gonna be fun guys little tired that's not a bad thing. But but excited to be back at week three Good to see you all we got cousin bill in the House. What's up cousin What's

Cousin Bill 1:44

up everybody good to be here.

And we have Katie Rotolo.

gonna hit us up with some news later on. But uh, good to be back. Good to be here on week three of given the biz, and we are your podcast that talks a little about business. But we don't take ourselves all that seriously. We have a little bit of fun and hopefully teach you some things along the way about the word of entrepreneurship of business a finding of keeping of, of maintaining a career. Real quick on the on the social tip facebook.com slash give them the biz g IV, M, th, E, bi z, and add to give them the biz on Twitter and Instagram to check us out on social media. And a quick shout out to our sponsor, the books company Bo u q s.com world's freshest flowers drop shipped from a volcano in South America for $40, flat or less. So check out our number one sponsor, we're here recording in the books headquarters here in Marina Del Rey, California. And what's up to all of you, and thank you so much for your support, please tell your friends about us. If you're listening for the first time, if you're listening for the third time, if you're listening for more than the third time, I don't understand. And, you know, spread the word. This is how we get this little pirate ship off the ground. And we hope to make something out of this. So you know, this week, you know, for my quote unquote opening rant, I was thinking a lot about this in sort of my post surgery recovery phase. And I've given this speech before to the students, to my employees to folks that other companies, and it's something that resonates a lot with me. And when I get into a situation like this, where it's sort of like not the greatest right? I mean, sitting around in a boot for X number of weeks on your couch with your foot up and it's throbbing is just like not fun. In a boot I know there's only so much Westworld, you can watch there's only so much what you can do until you're just like while the board

sounds incredible. Besides the sound I

Unknown Speaker 3:40

wish I could do that. Wait, you're taking opioids and sitting on a couch watching Westworld? It's

John Tabis 3:47

really boring after like 24 hours. But But my point is, is one of perspective and context and sort of understanding where you sit in the world. And it's one of these things I tried to do a good job of, but I certainly don't do a great job all the time, which is sort of understanding how wildly lucky I am to live the life I lead. And so I go through this exercise with folks every once a while. And so I want to do with you all just because it's fun. And it's sort of this exercise and just understanding how wildly lucky you are whatever your station is in life at this moment, and I'll give you what the context is so so the first stage and this is if you think about life, and the odds of you being born is just like your parents had to have sex where like v chromosome on the sperm, and the chromosomes on the egg had to match to create you. And there was lots of other eggs and there were lots of other sperm. So no matter when you were born or whatever you're born into, like the odds of it being you were it was already astronomically against you being you now granted if you were someone else you wouldn't no point being though odds are stacked against you being you from day one, right? It's just it's a drop in the bucket. Yeah. But then you start looking at sort of the history of the world and your place in and this is where I get really fired up about how wildly luck You we are. And I mean that in the very royal way means sort of anybody around today sort of in our ecosystem in our sphere here in Los Angeles or in the United States. So the first is when you're born. So you think about all the bajillions of years in which the universe has existed now, we've only been around as a race for, you know, less than bajillions of years. But point being lots of time when you could have been born, you could have been born into the black plague and live for literally six minutes. And that was it, your parents were about to die from the black plague, you died from the black plague that was your life. And so millions of people and you know, millions of times instances where you could have been born into that situation, instead, you were born now, in the 90s 8070s 2000s, whatever, you've hit the lottery in a major way. polio is wiped out, the black plague is gone, like, yeah, there's problems in the world. But you're not wondering whether or not you're going to survive the next massive plague that's going to ruin you know, the population wipe out 70 5070 60% of the population. So you've dodged that bullet. Congratulations. Thanks, john. You know, you're you're now you're through the sort of sperm and egg, lower layer, and now you're through the black plague layer. If you're born in this time, like these 30, call it 30 or 40 years, amazing. And now you live in the United States, not everybody listening was born United States. Not everyone lives in United States. But we here live in the United States, a place where you can hate on lots of parts of living United States, but you have freedoms, you have rights can do protections, you have a free society, right? Where you can actually not just be run over by a dictator and his goons. And so now you're in this this world where you're you actually have freedom and rights, like, on top of being born in this timeframe, like you're killing it, the odds of you being born into this set of circumstances is already pretty tiny.

Cousin Bill 6:51

Make me feel really good about myself. Yeah, nothing.

John Tabis 6:54

Exactly. And by the way, you have nothing to do with any of this. This is just pure luck, right?

Cousin Bill 7:01

sperm, let's start with that. There's some Darwinian, we're the best at something.

John Tabis 7:07

So then so. So then on top of that, now, it depends on you know, our audience, I would say we're lucky, right? So to work in the world of entertainment, to to be in a place where we can create this podcast together to friends that are interested in willing and able to do this kind of stuff. If I'm in a classroom, I'm talking to him like

Cousin Bill 7:26

friends, we could be special.

John Tabis 7:33

But like, if I'm talking to a class at USC and Marshall School of Business, like you're now in a top 25 Business School, talking to UCLA, Anderson, where I went, you're in a top 10 Business School, you know, if you're referred if I'm talking to Yeah, whenever if I'm talking to folks at a startup is like you work in a cool company where your mission is important, where you have free coffee or free beer snacks, like, now you're getting to the point where you've literally won the lottery, a million times over. You were born in this time you were born in United States, or you live in United States, you've been educated to a certain extent. And now you have a job where people give you free stuff to come to work every day. Like when other jobs are like you go into a coal mine for 12 hours. And you You're lucky if you don't get the black lung pop. Right, right. And so that's like, to me easily look at just what the alternatives are. You're born into the black plague. You're born into a immigrant family migrating out of Syria today. Like you're born into a world where there is no education available to you, you're born into a world you have no rights. If you come to work into one of these companies that I talked to her into my company, or if you go to USC Marshall, you go to UCLA Anderson, and you're miserable about your lot in life, you got to just take a step back and think about, geez, I dodged the black plague. I was born at the right time, I ended up with these great set of resources against me, I have freedoms, and I'm in this place right now where I can actually make opportunity for myself. And when you start thinking in that way, it's really hard to bemoan your situation. Mind, same thing. Yeah, I'm kind of bummed about the foot. But I got a good doctor, I got insurance. Having this done is not bankrupting my family, I have a home that I can rest in and actually do it in a way where I can cover and shifting that mindset away from the relatively small annoyance of this and instead focus on like, well, I've already won the lottery. It's all upside from here is such a healthier way to come to your work every day to sort of go into the world everyday sort of reminding yourself of and I don't think people ever think about that broader context of Wayne lottery. So if you're ever down and if you're ever wondering, oh listeners out there, what how can I get my mind set on this? Think about the black plague and everything will feel a lot better. And there's another story I'll share it very quickly about this woman in calf Kaushal you can check her out. She's the founder of the kindness I want to say it's called the kindness factory. I always get it wrong. Yeah, kindness factory and I think they're they're socialist at kindness factor. I saw Kath speak. So talk about an amazing story. So calf Was Australian born. And so she sounds really smart just because that's just the way it works. And she's up on stage at this Patel and we'll talk about Patel another time PTT Oh, W check it out. It's pretty cool organization that I belong to. And she's telling your story. And this is again, this talks about perspective. So she was she was born, was a really great athlete became essentially a professional cricket player, like Olympic level sort of cricket player. And in Australia, you could actually play cricket, right, have a career. So she's, she's playing cricket, cricket. It's like baseball with a weird bat. And you know, the ball on the ground and sticks and stuff. Three great. crash. Yeah, yeah, that's what's crankiness. And so she's, she's a, she's a professional poker player, pretty much. And then she breaks her back and like some like freak injury, and she's now paralyzed from the waist down, can't walk. And so she goes to rehab. And in rehab, she she's like, in that she can't read what she called it. That's another word for rehab, but essentially, a bunch of old people. And her and this dude, and this dude and her fall in love, while rehabbing from these, like serious life threatening injuries. And they both make their way back to like, full physical capability. And then he kills himself. Wow, and just tragic story. And she sort of makes her way through that part of tragedy. And she makes it back and she starts this thing called the kindness factory. And she's like, her whole thing is like, I'm so lucky to live my life, despite two major tragedies happening in like, you know, the recent history. This is how she approaches the world. And then she decides that she's gonna become an iron woman triathlete, I think it's called Iron Man is the brand but I don't know if the iron woman but she's an iron woman. So I'm gonna go there and woman. She's gonna become an Iron Man, triathlete, and iron woman, and she is training for it. And she's like, all of a sudden, she's like, super competitive, like really good, despite having been paralyzed. And she's training for it. And she's on a bike ride, she gets hit by a car, paralyzed again, stop, broke her back again. Oh, and through all of that this woman's like, whole thing is about spreading kindness through the kindness factory and good vibes and good Mojo. Again, like,

Cousin Bill 12:06

you know, like,

John Tabis 12:06

no way, right? Like, no way. And so I look at my, the tiny little, like, broken foot. I'm like, shut up, dude. So um, you know, there's like, having that perspective and thinking through the greater the greater sort of context of life and not not saying that our problems aren't real, they're real problems. But I think it just helps in any environment to think about what the greater context of where you could have been, would have been. And man, it gets you really jazzed about the opportunities you have in front of you the things that you're doing on a day to day basis. And it really I think, provides that grounding of like, okay, I really don't have much complained about cuz I haven't broken my back twice my significant other has not killed himself or herself. And and you get inspired by people like Kathy who sort of power through those things. So that's my opening rant. Keep that context in mind. I don't know if that's helpful to either of you. But feel free to have that for

Cousin Bill 12:59

Yeah, that was. So just so you guys know that john doesn't really share with us what his opening rant is gonna be usually so I was not prepared. Well, I didn't know that story at all. So that was really good. And really, really inspiring. For sure you

Katie Rotolo 13:11

feel better about yourself to battle, right?

Cousin Bill 13:13

Yeah. Yeah.

John Tabis 13:14

I mean, because your sperm was so strong.

Cousin Bill 13:15

Yeah. Because I was the strongest sperm. And also, all those really, really inspiring things.

Unknown Speaker 13:21

And you avoid the black plague.

Cousin Bill 13:22

Yeah. Yeah.

John Tabis 13:23

I mean, that's the hardest part, guys. No, I'm

Katie Rotolo 13:26

very grateful to be here. And I, I do try to check in and remind myself to it's hard, though moments of gratitude every day. It's hard now.

Cousin Bill 13:35

Yeah, wake up,

John Tabis 13:36

your back is sore, your leg hurts. Your tooth is bothering you, and you're brushing your teeth and like those little day to day things add up, and they get in our psyche, right? It's kind of like okay to do this thing again. Or like, I gotta go or to sit next to Steve and Steve is just like, super negative all the time. And like, it's so annoying to deal with Steve. When it's like Steve is not you know, the bubonic plague. Right, right.

Katie Rotolo 13:57

Yeah. benben I just think like, you know, it your circumstances Could I at least mine usually it could be worse, you know, and, and really just reminding myself to check in and you know, like, hey, what am I grateful for today? before I go to bed, you know, write down five or six things you're grateful for, you know, and and maybe those are things you'd like you said you take for granted that you can brush your teeth by yourself that you don't breathe by yourself when you feel

John Tabis 14:20

like you've already won. Right? You go at life as a winner right? And and when you exude that energy, when you're excited about those things, like those things tend to come to you right? When you're when you're feeling that on a daily basis.

Katie Rotolo 14:32

I actually believe in what you put out, you get back in you know, whether you believe in energy or spirituality or whatever. But yeah, you have, you know, when you come at it with a good attitude and a positive and it's

Cousin Bill 14:41

a good place to start. Yeah,

John Tabis 14:42

so let's go into this podcast recognizing how lucky we are to be able to do whatever's next. I think maybe the news

Unknown Speaker 14:51

coming up on today, Tom

Unknown Speaker 14:53

Cruise has a new movie and we're gonna be talking to him. Hey,

Unknown Speaker 14:55

funny man. Al Franken will be stopping by for a visit and Wolfgang Puck shares his recipe for apple strudel. Hey, so stay tuned because we've got all this and more coming up in the next hour.

Cousin Bill 15:08

Oh, well, nevermind. Hey.

Katie Rotolo 15:18

So today we're talking about some cool things. The first one being this a legit Apple Car. So apparently Apple for several years, there's been a rumor about an Apple Car, it's gone back and forth, whether it's like they're actually developing a car or they're, you know, there was a rumor again, it's all speculation. So there's a rumor that they like halted production on the actual car and they're developing like software for other types of cars. So it's all kind of unclear, but apparently they are operating a project called Project Titan air quotes under a separate umbrella company called 68 research in Sunnyvale, California. So basically, they've purchased like a big chunk of land. And it sounds like it fits the bill for making

John Tabis 16:02

call on let's just pause one second really quickly here. So here's my thing. If you're going to create a secret car company in your Apple, put it in like the Moines Iowa,

Cousin Bill 16:13

we're really remote I'll put

John Tabis 16:13

it next door to your head, like how super secretive Apple just expanded all this land and they're gonna call it a different name and it's gonna be right down the street like come on brought

Cousin Bill 16:23

in someone from Tesla to work with them. Well, yeah,

Katie Rotolo 16:26

like and that's the thing is like, even Elan Musk has said, this is a very open secret. You know, this is like something I've known about.

John Tabis 16:31

We can do better. We're I mean,

Cousin Bill 16:33

come on. Yeah, they're

Katie Rotolo 16:33

not they're not hiding anything.

John Tabis 16:35

But yeah, they do like area 5451 5150. Yes, studio. Studio 51 is where the aliens go to dance.

Katie Rotolo 16:45

But yes, nobody really knows what it will look like. But there's definitely something going on. There's Doug field who used to be at Apple went over to Tesla to oversee production of the model three. Now he's back at Apple. There's also rumors that they've poached from other car manufacturers. So I'm sure

John Tabis 17:04

I'm sure that whatever they say the ranges once you start driving it, it ends up lasting about half. It's like it's an 88% battery. And then it's a 12 you're like

Cousin Bill 17:15

no I'm in the middle of the desert. Yeah, it's happening. Have you updated the cargo

John Tabis 17:20

you have to hit the low battery thing turn off the Wi Fi try to extend it a little bit close all the programs you'll get an extra three months of any

Cousin Bill 17:26

music any more miles also don't read on the windshield. No, that's what's gonna crack so

Katie Rotolo 17:31

yeah, so I mean, it sounds like a great thing. You know, hopefully obviously having more electric cars on the road is

John Tabis 17:36

Yeah, if your windshield cracks you take it to I break you fix. They will not have the honor the warranty any longer on your apple.

Unknown Speaker 17:44

iPhone. Oh,

John Tabis 17:45

my God. No, I think it's all the same. I mean, it's pretty much same thing, right? No,

Katie Rotolo 17:48

it's actually not, you know, that's another thing that people are saying. You know, that that if What if a car manufacturer tried to make an iPhone, you know, and so people are like a lot, you know, again, it's all speculation and people are having their opinions about it, but

Cousin Bill 18:05

the charger for it like separately.

Katie Rotolo 18:08

You'll have to buy an adapter every three years.

John Tabis 18:11

Oh, yeah, they're gonna change that. The plug is gonna change every six to nine months for sure.

Cousin Bill 18:15

You're gonna need a new car every year. And if you don't update

Katie Rotolo 18:17

your apps, your cars is gonna die.

John Tabis 18:21

I do hope that the entire windshield is touchscreens with apps on it. Oh, great. Yeah, self driving. Yeah. So you know, I'm gonna touch everything. I got to play my Clash of Clans while I'm driving.

Katie Rotolo 18:31

bys do not

John Tabis 18:33

I know I'm done with Apple doing this. I mean, look, they Yes, there are there are a mobile device company, but they're also a technology company. Do I think they're gonna win at it? It's probably a long shot. But I think the more competition that we get into this world between you know, Google and cruise, which got bought by GM, I think maybe, and and now the Apple Car and Tesla, like, the more competition around smart, connected vehicles, the faster it's going to exist, the more capital flows into it, so I'm down for it. If I was gonna bet on who's gonna win for the future of cars do I think it's apple? I don't know. But man, they got the cash. Yeah, if you think you got a shot, you might as well try their money to invest in this category. Right. But yeah, I do think there's a bunch of hilarity that could ensue with the just, you know, I'm gonna actually put a case around mine that looks like a cassette tape. Because that's gonna look awesome skins for it. Yeah, it's gonna be bandpass Oh,

Unknown Speaker 19:33

so we'll see. I mean, I

John Tabis 19:35

yeah, down with the Apple Car.

Cousin Bill 19:36

What else we got? Yeah, next the Samsung is gonna do it and make a car that nobody can use. Well, yeah, Samsung

John Tabis 19:41

cannot take that car on the plane.

Unknown Speaker 19:45

Oh, my God.

John Tabis 19:45

Everyone will die to take this car on the plane does not worked in the belly of the beast.

Katie Rotolo 19:50

Do you not bring a car on the plane? Yeah, I think it's probably the first I think it's a little too heavy to check.

Unknown Speaker 19:54

I don't know. Last time I checked.

John Tabis 19:56

Well, but smaller transportation might work. Sure. A trip

Katie Rotolo 20:06

they're talking about scooter, I

John Tabis 20:07

win guys. This podcast is over today. See y'all later

Cousin Bill 20:10

drugs are working it is that's it.

Unknown Speaker 20:13

call it a day.

Cousin Bill 20:14

Go to credits the drugs made him faster. How's that possible roll roll the credits. Hidden slate none of those things are a thing we don't we don't have credits. John's not even drunk. I'm just gonna leave it let's not waste his great segue though.

Katie Rotolo 20:30

So the great segue to smart transportation scooters so we're talking I think the ones people are most familiar with are the bird scooters but there's lime there's a there's jump which is actually owned by Lyft or sorry yes is owned by Uber my mistake and so there's all these companies right putting out these these scooters which is great if you think about it, it's it's eco friendly. It's getting people

John Tabis 20:58

who may not know how this works. Bill take us through like what it's like to use.

Cousin Bill 21:03

Yeah, so you get the app right you get the bird app and you find these bird scooters there it tells you where they are all around literally lying

Unknown Speaker 21:09

around

Cousin Bill 21:11

everywhere. But it's super cheap you just log on you like put your credit card information in get to one of these scooters turn it on and you pay I think it's like $1 cents a

John Tabis 21:21

mile or something or minute or something.

Cousin Bill 21:24

Yeah, super cheap and you see them all around the west side over here like eco friendly all electric and you just leave it wherever you're going and then someone else will grab it later.

Katie Rotolo 21:33

Right which is where kind of the problem is like people are getting pissed that there's there's scooters all over the sidewalks or scooters in the yard because you can literally

John Tabis 21:41

so much outrage

Katie Rotolo 21:42

The idea is that you just kind of drop this word like and then the next person picks it up kind of thing. But there really is so much outrage so much so that there's whole Instagram pages like dedicated there's a there's a page called bird graveyard where they are literally torching

John Tabis 21:57

at bird graveyard. Oh, yes.

Katie Rotolo 22:00

Yeah. And they have an insane amount of followers actually. But yeah, it's people throwing them in the ocean people throwing

Unknown Speaker 22:08

sand

Katie Rotolo 22:08

that people are really upset because they're and there's even one there's one if you guys can see where they're hanging them on like this light tower up on a

John Tabis 22:18

wall and and they banned them temporarily in San Francisco. I heard that they're gonna ban them

Unknown Speaker 22:26

already good.

John Tabis 22:29

But that's not where birds gonna be scooting.

Cousin Bill 22:34

shooting in Beverly Hills.

Katie Rotolo 22:38

That was amazing. But yeah, so Santa Monica has said that they are going to give control to to ride sharing companies. So they're going to have a pilot program starting in September. So they've had I believe it's 13. Companies have pitched using, you know, theirs. And they're going to only choose two. So they're talking about leaning towards, like ride sharing companies like the one jump that's operated by Uber. And companies that are already like familiar, I guess with this ride sharing.

Cousin Bill 23:07

That's all messed up.

Katie Rotolo 23:08

But yeah, but that's what people are saying, you know, especially these companies are like, hey, we've worked really hard to come up with some a solution to ride share, you know, that isn't harmful, you know, with emissions.

John Tabis 23:20

It's a bunch of cars off the road. Yeah.

Katie Rotolo 23:22

And take cars off the road and the wear and tear off your car.

John Tabis 23:26

And the evolution of this has been amazing. So I mean, bird came along, you know, call it six months ago, they came out in sort of the Venice Santa Monica area. And like overnight, you you'd be driving anywhere you'd see 25 3050 people on these things you like what's going on? Yeah. And then you grab the app, and you use it once you're like, this is the most convenient, ever. And I think you know what's amazing about it is how quickly it happens. So the first month that bird operated in Santa Monica and Venice, they did a million rides. Wow. So that's, it's $1 plus, so you're talking about a million and a half dollars of revenue in the first month operation, and it caught on but what's amazing about it is the level of convenience and the ease with which you don't have to worry about it. But that's also the problem, which is because people consider them sort of throwaway they tossed them in trees. They leave them on sidewalks which people complain about this is the part of the of the controversy that don't understand. It's the it's the level of the outrage. It's it's like how offended people are by the existence of this thing. Now, there are real legitimate complaints when people are going 1718 miles an hour on a sidewalk and you're 78 years old walking on that sidewalk and you're almost getting knocked over or you're actually getting knocked over and there have been people like seriously injured that's a problem right when there's when people were breaking the rules and riding on the sidewalk and putting people in danger I'm 100% with the people are normally

Katie Rotolo 24:39

breaking the rules aren't Can't you ride on the sidewalk

John Tabis 24:42

you're not allowed to ride on the sidewalks. Oh, illegal Yeah, and it's also very dangerous.

Katie Rotolo 24:46

Oh, so many people right on the side. Yeah,

John Tabis 24:47

yes, that's the problem. I've been I've had them zip by where I almost got taken out and I got like three year old kid next. Yeah, it could like really injure people. People have been in the hospital

Katie Rotolo 24:56

and they're talking about actually changing the speed limit, like making it slow. Have to go slower? Yeah. But one of the things I was getting at though with the uproar is that the companies that are have been doing this are mad that, you know, like companies like Uber and Lyft are coming in and like steel, they're like, Hey, no, this was our idea, you know, the alternative, like the healthy for the environment,

John Tabis 25:19

I mean, bird raised like a $15 million series seed. And then five weeks later raised, like $100 million, Series B, and then like, two months after that raise a $200 million, and they're already valued at like over a billion dollars.

Cousin Bill 25:32

And so insane

John Tabis 25:33

if if the whole thing becomes about how much can you pay to get the contract with the city, Uber and Lyft are always gonna win, because they've raised just a lot more money, right. And so that's going to be tough for them. If that becomes like sort of what happens now they also have first mover them in lime are really rolling out very quickly. But then they're also getting shut down pretty quickly. Because the difference between Uber and Lyft, when this was like Uber and Lyft, beg for forgiveness, I didn't ask for permission. But it wasn't changing anything about the environment, you didn't see those cars, because they're just cars on the road, right. Whereas these scooters, you see them everywhere. And it's, but again, going back to this is the part I understand. So I live in Venice, Venice is like this great, cool hippie town or whatever. Wherever the everything's supposed to be really progressive or whatever, except for change and changes the devil. Yeah. And like my next door like nextdoor.com, which is a cool little neighborhood app. Like it is just filled with the vitriol about the evils of birds, and like, let me count the ways. Yeah, so one is there on the sidewalk. Okay, like that one's legit. They're not wearing helmets. I don't understand why you're gonna ride it. You should wear a helmet if you care about it. If you don't if the other person doesn't care, there's two of them on the bird. Why do you? Why do you care that there's two people in the bird. They're in the bike lane.

Unknown Speaker 26:45

That's That's me. Right where they should be. Yeah, isn't the bike. Okay, we're gonna play with it.

Katie Rotolo 26:52

We're gonna maybe, yeah,

John Tabis 26:53

these, they're, they're too young. They're riding them and they're under age. A 16 year old can handle a scooter if they're allowed to drive a car. And so there's there's all these sort of made up. Anger.

Katie Rotolo 27:04

Yeah. And all those things are the same for a bicycle exam. Nobody they didn't. Did they have an upper about the bike shares? No.

John Tabis 27:11

That's the thing. The electric bikes they don't care about. Because it doesn't look different. It doesn't it doesn't sit

Katie Rotolo 27:15

on the station for though, right? Think that's the issue with with some of these cities, which I think they're hoping to when I do

John Tabis 27:22

when when the birds or the line bikes are tossed in like four of them in the middle of the sidewalk. Yeah, I'm a little bit annoyed. But you know what I do, I pick them up and move them to the side, it takes me about 15 seconds. And I continue on with my day. I'm just being a good citizen, unlike the person who decided to knock them down. And the problem is they're blaming the the company for the bad users use of it, right? I mean, look, anybody that rides a bike can ride a bike like an idiot and cause traffic accidents or get hurt. Anybody who has a motorcycle can do the same thing, a car, the same thing. You're not gonna ban cars, you're not gonna ban voters, like they're not gonna ban bikes, right. But I do think there is a difference. And the difference here is where they're left, like the first time that I had one leaning up against my garage when I opened the garage door, and it fell. And it was weird. I was like, what's coming into my garage right now?

Cousin Bill 28:10

Like, what's happening? What

John Tabis 28:11

is this thing? Yeah. And our neighbors cost me like, hey, do you left your scooter outside? Because he didn't know what they were. And it's like, I guess it's a gift. Just said to them. But I do think ultimately, there will be places where you're allowed to store them. And that there is regulation that's probably required. Yeah. And and or, you know, what bird should do is just say, here's our designated areas where you can leave it, if you leave it outside of that you're gonna pay more, and then pay someone to then move it to a designated area, right? And there's ways to work around it. But I just don't understand the like, get off my lawn, kind of

Unknown Speaker 28:41

black and white. It's

John Tabis 28:42

and it's so just, like, the hatred is insane. I mean, these people

Katie Rotolo 28:46

like like, Hey, we're trying to get cars off the road, like Santa Monica. Westside is like a real pitch to dry. Like, you don't want to fit they make a lot less traffic,

John Tabis 28:56

a lot less emissions. Yeah, I mean, there's a million things that make it better. So like, I'm net net, all for it, I do think there needs to be a little bit of regulation for it. And I'll be really interested to see how it falls out. I'm really against this whole, we're just gonna pick who gets the contract, because then it literally just becomes about who has the most money right now, that just means Uber, right? Uber has raised can raise as much as they want, for whatever reason, unlike anybody else. And so it just becomes a little bit of sort of just like a buying your territory kind of thing, which is a little bit annoying, but I love them. I don't use them that often because I own my own little RV scooter. So as a brand on my own, but for sort of getting around town and you know, not having to deal with traffic at night and wait for the bus or whatever. It's amazing. So, a big thumbs up for lime and Bert, I hopefully they will let them do that what they want to do.

Cousin Bill 29:41

Yeah, great.

Katie Rotolo 29:43

Yeah, I think it's, I think it's great. You guys already know I'm gung ho for the environment. And then this

John Tabis 29:47

is where we do the KT outro music. There's very, two different interpretations. Like very different to

Unknown Speaker 29:59

that Think

Cousin Bill 30:01

Katie's going clubbing her. Yeah, true. Next up, we have one of our favorite segments that we do every week. Business the shit out of it.

John Tabis 30:11

Yeah, we got to get some music for this to like, instead of like fun.

Cousin Bill 30:17

We do think we have option or not.

Unknown Speaker 30:19

Yeah. Okay.

John Tabis 30:26

Can we just take that clip and just run it every show that we're gonna do? Yes. We're like that we're like the we're like the acapella we're the Bella Barton's of a podcast podcast. We sing our own Intro music. We create our own Denny's that is you never saw perfect.

Unknown Speaker 30:44

Oh, I've actually never seen Is it the Bella Barton? Yeah,

Cousin Bill 30:47

all right. Yeah, thank Barden, Bellas, the Barden, Bella. Bella Barton selberg. Yeah, you know, I was close. Yeah,

Katie Rotolo 30:55

I do. Like what's your name the McKendrick robbery but yeah.

Cousin Bill 30:59

Well, anyways, the the gist of this this whole segment, is we take either calls, and someday it'll be a call. But we take Twitter questions from Twitter, to our inbox, you can slide into our DMS. And again, the social media is at give them the biz g i v e, m, th, E, bi z, both on Twitter and Instagram. So

Unknown Speaker 31:27

zero is

Cousin Bill 31:30

this week. The question that we have rolled

out, roll out.

Katie Rotolo 31:40

We only sing that song. Now. That's entirely what the show is.

Cousin Bill 31:44

So the business is shut out of a question for this week. Thank you, like,

Unknown Speaker 31:49

Who's this from?

Cousin Bill 31:50

This is from Jodi,

Unknown Speaker 31:51

Jodi. What's up, Jodi?

Unknown Speaker 31:53

Thanks

John Tabis 31:54

for the question. We appreciate it.

Cousin Bill 31:56

Her question is I have built my clothing business on having everything made locally. But overhead keeps going up and outsourcing overseas could save my business. How do I keep the integrity of my business and still

John Tabis 32:09

have a business? awesome question. Thank you, Jodie. So I this is a really good question. Because I know that there's a lot of people that care about the way that they run their business. And they they get into it because of a certain passion. And then they have to look at the way that they operate at some point. And I think ultimately, you have to figure out because I mean, part of part of this question bothers me and it's no judgement God, but what you say here, and what I dislike is that you're implying that you can't have integrity in your business. If you outsource overseas, as if anybody who outsources overseas or source of their product overseas has no integrity in their business. And I take big issue with that. So just as a personal example, we have a competitor. They're called farm girl flowers. They're very nice. The founder there for years, ranted and raved about how we sourced terrible downmarket irresponsible flowers out of South America, and how that was bad for everybody. Because the farms down there are low quality, they don't invest in sustainability. It's all about American grown. Right? I disliked that positioning of us one because it was negative about our business. But to is this completely untrue? We have a ton of integrity while sourcing from South America, all of our firms and South America third party certified sustainable, we reduce waste by over 90% by sourcing those farms. And we give people mostly women really great quality jobs by sourcing down there. And and so it's not that like overseas means you don't have integrity. But if you built your brand and your mission around sourcing local, that's what I was gonna say, then then you know what you don't want to say is we source local and then goes worse internationally, because then you're not being authentic to your brand. But I think ultimately have to figure out what you want to be. And how do you make that business work. At the end of the day, like there's some economic pressure that you have to figure out which is sourcing locally, because of just the cost structure of living United States, food costs, more land costs, more labor costs more, it's going to cost more. So your cogs, your your fixed costs, everything's going to be more expensive by producing and distributing out of the US. And what you have to figure out is, is it so important for you to do that, that you were willing and able to do? And is it so important your customer that they're that you're willing and able to charge them more, and just say to them, hey, look, honestly, I can't do this at $40, I have to charge you 60 bucks to be able to do this thing that you and I both care about, which is sourcing locally. If the customer says both of their dollars and says I'm not willing to spend $60, well, then you just don't have a viable business sourcing locally. But you have to test that out. You have to do to spend your time with your customer and figure out Hey, how much does this matter to you send them surveys and say, if we started sourcing from Manila, is that viewed as very negative for you? Maybe they don't actually care about it. Maybe they care about the way that it's manufactured and the way the labor is treated way more than where it's coming from, or they might say absolutely, and I'm willing to pay up to 30% more to ensure that you stay local, and but unfortunately, you aren't going to get to have it both. ways, you're not gonna be able to source the cheapest stuff, even if the same quality, you're not gonna get the best pricing sourcing the best and most categories. And so it's gonna be tough, you have to figure that out. But ultimately, you have to figure out to like, What are you trying to build? Are you trying to build a business, that's a $50 million a year massive business, are you trying to build a lifestyle business where you can pay yourself $100,000 a year and get to work on your passion. And those are very different outcomes, and I think lead to very different decisions around this topic. If you're really dead set on building something very big and having this massive impact in the world, you may be forced to make one decision over the other, if you find out that willingness to pay for locally sourced goods is there, but it's in a segment of the population that's relatively small, and you can build a certain size business out of it, and you're okay with that. And that's going to work perfectly well. But if you want to build something really big, then that's just not going to be tenable, you're not gonna be able to make that really big. And so what I would say is, if you find that you can't get the pricing to work with the sourcing locally, then what you got to find out is what else is important to your customer and make sure that that's reflected no matter where you source. So is that the quality of the craftsmanship is that its handmade, is that it's designed in the United States? Is it that it's manufactured by people that work in you know, really healthy working conditions that make a really fair wage or that have overtime? Or that you know, that that manufacturing facility, whatever it is, has sustainable practices, figure out? What are those things that do matter that can be replicated in other countries, and make sure that those are communicated back to your user. But unfortunately, it's probably unlikely that you're gonna get the lowest price and all those things you care about, and source it locally. And so I think you have to put together those different pieces plus with what you're trying to build to solve that problem. Boom, business

Cousin Bill 36:43

the shit out of it, just business the shit out of that question, john,

John Tabis 36:46

shout out one man. I

Katie Rotolo 36:47

think transparency, like you said, it's like really key?

John Tabis 36:50

Well, I don't know if that's it, right. That actually might not matter to this person's business. I don't know what it is their customer base, maybe like, I don't care at all about transparency. I care all about price. I care all about speed of delivery, not going to be great shipping from Manila. Right. And so figuring out what those things are, I think, is the most important part and transparency we care about in our brand. Yeah, there's lots of people that shot flowers, who could care less. And another brand might say, that doesn't matter to me,

Katie Rotolo 37:17

right? Yeah, I just figured if Jodi's you know, trying to do this a certain way that that might, you know,

Cousin Bill 37:23

that's where whenever we make these phone calls, will will be helpful to us to get more information.

John Tabis 37:27

Yes, yes. Oh, God calls back another time. Yeah,

Cousin Bill 37:30

I will say that. I ordered something from American Apparel a few months ago. And they same situation, they started sourcing things from not in America from ups. And they there's a little note in it that said, Hey, just so you know, I know we're companies based on this. But here's here's how it is American Apparel went bankrupt.

John Tabis 37:52

Yeah. Because that model didn't scale. Right. They just couldn't make enough people care at an at a high enough scale that was made in America and less people love to say Made in America. I mean, I have this debate with my parents all the time. My mom and dad, like those like, oh, as made in China. I'm like, cool. You want to make it in the US for 5x? The price? Or do you want the China price? Right? It's in your home? You clearly okay buying in from China, but you're gonna complain about it. But when it comes to voting with your dollar, you really love the one that cost 25%? Less? Yeah,

Katie Rotolo 38:20

well, a lot of people like cheap and convenient, you know, and that's why we have fast fashion. And I think based on Jodi's question that she's trying to get away from fast fashion, you know, but I think that as long as you're staying like, somewhat, like you said, like, kind of figuring out, you have to, like make a list of like, almost like pros and cons, like, figuring out like, what really like maybe this is negative, but like you said, like,

Unknown Speaker 38:46

what's your weighing?

Katie Rotolo 38:47

Yeah, what what, what you're,

John Tabis 38:49

it's a combination of what you want to build in the world and what your customer wants, and can bear, they can bear doubling the price, and you can make money and it makes sense. Awesome. Double your price. Yeah, everybody, this is what it takes to be a local only company. and off you go. Yeah.

Katie Rotolo 39:04

And some people will be willing to pay that, you know, there are like really basic brands like American Apparel that like charges a lot, you know, like a lot of money, you know, you would think because we're so used to like Target prices, to make a T shirt, you know, or something and willing doing that, right

John Tabis 39:19

is the key to making a business that scales. I mean, like, Look, there were five other startups that came around the similar time as us and floral. Two of them were based. One of them was based on a subscription model. One of them was based on speed of delivery. Another one was based on speed of delivery. And the other one was based on American made only. And, oh, there's another one that was based on like 100%, from local florists, and we're the one that broke out of that group. Because what we said was we care about is nationwide delivery, quality and sustainable sourcing. That was what we bet on. And that sort of turned out most people cared about, and we could do it at a price point that made us money and that made them happy. The other models just turned out to not really work as well, they didn't scale as fast. And that's sort of like why we're the ones that have broken out of the pack. That doesn't mean that there's not audiences. For other ones. It's just the one that resonated the most. And so figuring out what combination of features and benefits your customer cares about, is the key to product market fit and making sure that what you're putting out there is the right fit for the market and gets people engaged in it and sort of, you know, scaling out and driving revenue growth over time. Right. So yeah, Jody, go get it. Let us know. You know, in six, eight months, whenever you figure it out what you do,

Cousin Bill 40:29

yeah, again, yeah. Outro

John Tabis 40:36

like, that was like a game show. Yeah, like it was like, removing from one puzzle to the next.

Unknown Speaker 40:41

We are speaking of puzzles.

Cousin Bill 40:42

Look at that segue. It's almost like wow, we were gonna do our weekly game this week. It's gonna be a movie trivia game. Oh, boy. Where I'm going to quiz john. And I guess Katie to

John Tabis 40:59

you can go stand on the corner. Think about what you've done.

Katie Rotolo 41:03

I'm sorry that I haven't seen what's that movie called?

Cousin Bill 41:06

No. Pitch Perfect. Yeah, actually goes to the corner. A little bit. What's a good point?

John Tabis 41:12

To dudes in the room? Yeah. Pitch Perfect. Also, I

Katie Rotolo 41:16

feel like with her, whose name I forgot again.

Cousin Bill 41:19

Oh, great. You're killing it right now. I worked with a person once who's in a movie nice.

John Tabis 41:26

She was a kind of tall,

Cousin Bill 41:29

sort of blonde. Totally not totally not. But I bought a unpopular opinion. I do feel like the troublemakers got robbed at the end of that movie. I think it were better. My fair argument. That's a fair argument. Yeah, but anyways, I just coming slam slam me on Twitter for that if you want. How

Katie Rotolo 41:49

bad are we at segways

Cousin Bill 41:51

pretty good. We get them. We do great segues and then we get distracted. shiny object. Yeah, that thing over there. Wow. All right. Well, so these are all going to be quotes from business related movies, movies, it somehow revolve around business and we have to guess the movie. You have to guess the movie. Alright, let's do it. All right. First of all jingle jingle. I'm very confident that both of you are gonna get this one was special. I don't know. That is not what inspires people. Play the game. Wow. Let me I was so fast. Wow.

John Tabis 42:25

You're my ambassador. Kwan. Man. That's it.

Cousin Bill 42:29

I didn't even get four. Sorry. Sorry.

John Tabis 42:33

inspires people. Catch the ball? Boom. touchdowns make miracles happen.

Cousin Bill 42:39

All right, Ted. Well, I go across the middle. JOHN knows the whole movie. Yeah, love Jerry Maguire. That was a bit of a softball. I guess.

John Tabis 42:47

What, what? Renee Zellweger. Wow, how in love with Renee Zellweger. Where you went? Yeah, unbelievable. swim.

Cousin Bill 42:53

Still bad. Hashtag swim.

John Tabis 42:55

She didn't look like they were Zellweger anymore. She just looks like another human being completely.

Cousin Bill 42:59

Yeah, but Oh, yeah,

Katie Rotolo 43:00

she was it's her body letter.

Cousin Bill 43:02

I say like, I'm not judging. I'm just saying anything.

John Tabis 43:04

I'm just saying it's not the same person. Yeah, she was. Yeah. Okay. Well, one one. Nothing, Katie. Yeah,

Cousin Bill 43:10

I was fast. All right. This one little tougher. personal favorite of mine, but put that coffee down. coffee's for closers. Only Wolf of Wall Street. Nope.

John Tabis 43:19

No, it's um.

Unknown Speaker 43:22

Oh, that's Oh my god.

Unknown Speaker 43:25

Sorry. Hold on.

Katie Rotolo 43:26

We're just shouting.

Cousin Bill 43:27

I don't know. establish rules. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 43:30

Yeah. I just made it up.

Katie Rotolo 43:34

It's the one with Chris Farley.

Cousin Bill 43:37

No, wrong. Definitely not did that way negative points? No,

John Tabis 43:40

this is this is a classic. This is a classic business movie that for whatever reason, I'm totally blanking.

Katie Rotolo 43:46

We remind me. What is it? Is

Unknown Speaker 43:47

it Wall Street?

Cousin Bill 43:48

No. I'll give you a hint on who the actor is. That says Now I know who it is. Yes. Glengarry Glen Ross. Ah, I saw chicken. Yeah,

John Tabis 44:00

that's a that's an ease like, I could picture the scene. I pictured him standing there with a suit on and the window behind like, I could see the movie. Yeah. Well, whatever reason, Ed Harris.

Cousin Bill 44:09

Whatever. Chris Farley. Sorry. Yeah. All right,

John Tabis 44:14

one nothing.

Cousin Bill 44:15

All right one Yep.

Katie Rotolo 44:16

So why didn't we do one A while ago was the movie wasn't it? Didn't we did.

Cousin Bill 44:25

Let's go step in all over. All right, next one. And there's no such thing as a no sale call. A sale is made on every call you make either you sell the client on some stock, or he sells you a reason he can't either way a sale is made. The only question is who is going to close you or him

John Tabis 44:41

boiler room? Yep. Bingo. Yep. That is a great. That's a great soundtrack. Yeah. Like talking about getting introduced to like New York hip hop. That was a great, that's a great song. I think I listened to soundtrack like for two years straight. That was a great 111

Cousin Bill 44:58

All right. Next Hey, we're losing all our damn money and Christmas is around the corner and I could have no money to buy my son the GI Joe with the kung fu grip. My wife ain't got my wife ain't gonna make love to me if I ain't got no money.

Unknown Speaker 45:13

Oh boy. Oh boy, hold

Unknown Speaker 45:16

on,

Unknown Speaker 45:16

hold on enough business movies. You say it

Cousin Bill 45:18

again. Hey, we're losing all our damn money and Christmas is around the corner and I'm gonna have no money to buy my son the GI Joe with the kung fu grip. My wife ain't going up. My wife ain't gonna make love to me if I ain't got no money.

John Tabis 45:32

Oh, I'm not gonna get it. There's no way I'm gonna get Katie and

Cousin Bill 45:37

guess the chris farley movie again. Katie. I can't remember the notes Trading Places. Because it takes the air out of the next one. Next one. The point is how do you know the fair isn't a crazy glue sniffers Tommy Boy yeah

John Tabis 45:59

victory How do you know the fair Isn't it crazy? That's a great scene. Yep, classic was really good one good one.

Cousin Bill 46:09

Yes.

John Tabis 46:10

So we got three out of five

Cousin Bill 46:12

yes john.

John Tabis 46:13

took it home Yeah, what is what's my prize but I when

Cousin Bill 46:16

you get to keep me in the spot I get to wrap us up and

Unknown Speaker 46:23

our sponsor

John Tabis 46:25

congratulations on episode three in the Can everybody thank you everybody for staying with us. Don't forget check out our our sponsors, books calm bo UQ s calm freshest flowers sustainably grown etc etc.

And, and also bill Um, I don't know these guys are officially a sponsor yet. But I see you taking a sip of that what you're drinking. Oh,

Cousin Bill 46:48

I've got the the Firestone nytro milk stout. Very delicious. Sounds nice. Firestone.

John Tabis 46:55

Firestone has not given us any money. But if they give us beer, we will keep talking about them. And probably we'll keep talking about them anyway.

Cousin Bill 47:01

Yeah. But we're like, seriously, guys.

John Tabis 47:04

We're just down the street. You know, if you want a sponsor, just let us know. We will drink your booze and we will talk about it.

Cousin Bill 47:09

Yeah, every week.

John Tabis 47:10

Thanks, everybody, for being here. This is where the outro music starts to roll over me that you really want this to be a rave?

Cousin Bill 47:20

I don't even I don't think of

John Tabis 47:22

this project as a rave. interpretation is different. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 47:26

Just today.

John Tabis 47:31

See you guys next time here on give them the biz. Let's give them the biz later, folks.

Cousin Bill 47:36

Thanks for listening to give them the business podcasts from the books and podcast one. Be sure to download new episodes every Tuesday right here on podcast one on the podcast, one app or on Apple podcasts. And don't forget to rate review and share. also find us on Twitter and Instagram under the handle at give them the biz g i v e m th e bi z