Season 3 - Episode 1 - How to Get Started as and Entrepreneur
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Cousin Bill 0:36
It is business time here on give them the business podcast. Please welcome your host the five eights our flowerpower the beast formerly from the Big East, touchdown Jesus homeboy. The real JT john chavis CEO of the boots flower company and host of this podcast What up?
John Tabis 0:59
Yes, Episode One. Welcome everybody welcome welcomes up cousin bill.
Cousin Bill 1:04
What's up? My name is cousin bill. I am trying to run the show the best that I can and keep us all on track. It's going swimmingly so far great so far, but Yeah, awesome work. Yeah, what's up Katie? Hello, what's up? How are you?
John Tabis 1:18
Good Katie Katie girl gonna help us out with some news and take us through some adventures with her own business. And I am john chavis founder and CEO of the books. And you know, quote unquote, serial entrepreneur. Lots of lots of lots of tries with not a lot of things that went a lot of places. And then the one that has, has gone some places. And, you know, this podcast is hopefully a place for folks to come to learn about the practical side of starting running, scaling a business. And also, you know, hopefully having a little bit fun along the way. We're not gonna take ourselves too seriously though, we will take Of course, all of your questions and all of your concerns. Very, very serious. Guys roof.
Katie Rotolo 1:57
Yeah, I think you went said it's like kind of explained more of the human side, less of the tech and kind of more.
John Tabis 2:03
Yeah, human. This isn't gonna be an MBA, right? That's not all we're gonna spend our time doing. I was told there would be no math. That's why I'm here.
Katie Rotolo 2:12
Oh, yeah. No, definitely no math. No.
John Tabis 2:16
This is this is important. But you don't have to do the math. today. Yeah, you can hire other people to
Cousin Bill 2:23
know your strengths or your weakness.
John Tabis 2:25
So super excited to be here. You know, this in and of itself is a startup we literally, you know, pulled this together ourselves nights, weekends, emails in between us all sort of doing our day jobs. And Bill has learned how to run a board and sometimes successfully.
Cousin Bill 2:43
Success has I checked to make sure it's still recording. Are we recording we are recording episode at this point.
John Tabis 2:52
So we are we are given the business and you can follow us on social media at give him the biz gi v m, the biz bi z. And hopefully that'll be a place where we can interact with all of you get your questions, help answer some of those questions and and hopefully have a good time along the way. So Bill as as producer, cousin bill, but actually, by the way, is my actual cousin. Yes. We grew up
Cousin Bill 3:18
with my my name on this
John Tabis 3:19
500 feet, I think from from one another back in row Ridge, Pennsylvania town of approximately 450 people. And so it's not just a made up cousin bill. It's actually doesn't bill. But he's a producer by by day, and he's gonna be a producer here on a podcast by night. Yeah. So what are we gonna do? We're gonna work. I just showed up here and started talking.
Unknown Speaker 3:42
You're doing great so far. Yeah, awesome.
Cousin Bill 3:45
We, I think the whole point of this is, you know, john has has gone through a lot of these startups. And it's a wealth of knowledge for, you know, a lot of people who want to get into it. So, you know, we're here to just kind of guide you through it. And hopefully, this will be a helpful tool. And as well as having, having some laughs time and some beers together.
John Tabis 4:06
Yeah. So I think the thing that's been sort of hot for me lately, and I get this a lot, and this is probably relevant for us here today. And for anybody who's entertaining this world as an idea, or, or is already in it, is sort of how do you get started, people come to me all the time, like, so. You know, I want to be an entrepreneur. And it's sort of like I don't even I don't even know that means. And I was I was at the same conversation with a lot of people when I was trying to figure out how to do this, because I was at Disney for six years in the corporate brand group, and was really sort of had an itch to run something. And it was like, I don't know, how to get how do you start something like, what do you do? And I wouldn't talk to other entrepreneurs, and they're like, well, you just go do it. And it was such an annoying answer. But they're actually right. Like when you're not when you're not through it yet. You get that answer of like, well just start something and you go like, well, that's a terrible answer. But that's actually the thing. You have to actually go and just do things. I think one of the hardest things about getting going is it just seems to overwhelm If you look at any other startup that exists, you know, bird scooters, or bonobos pants or the books company, you think like, how did they get to that? And the answer is, you don't just jump to that. There's a million other things beforehand. But the first one is literally just starting. And so I think, you know, when I asked that question of Andy Dunn, from, from bonobos, who's a friend of mine, and an advisor and a mentor, it was literally his response was like, just go start something, just figure out your idea, and then start executing against it. I was like, well, I need to raise money. And he's like, you don't need money, you can do a lot of these things on your own on your own time. And I was like, but I need this or that. And he's like, these are all just excuses. They're not really reasons. Yeah, it's just a really easy way to say like, I can't, I don't have time for it, I don't have this, I don't have money, I don't have the expertise. And the end of the day, like, no one else is going to do it for you. And so you have to literally just get started. And so
Katie Rotolo 5:52
I think it'd be can be really intimidating, obviously, like you said, like, there's a lot of there's just overwhelmed, there's just so much you feel like you have to do, but a big thing for me that I'm noticing and really is just is getting out of your own way, like, you know, like, really just this imposter syndrome of Am I doing the right thing? Do people like my idea? Is this stupid? And it's like, well, I've already, you know, kind of tested it on some people and they seem to like, so just, you know, it's a lot. It's really like a lot of self doubt, you know, and I think it's hard to when you're doing something that's different than is out there to kind of, you know, scale and see, you know, like, Oh, well, this is, you know, my competitors and this and you know, a lot of the things that you think you're supposed to do when you're starting a business and, you know, you just get scared and I think you just have to like just say Screw it, like you told me like with with getting jobs, like, you know, if I'm putting myself out there for bigger jobs, and I don't have enough equipment for those amount of people. I'll figure it out, you know, I just have to do it and set myself up for that. And then those opportunities will come.
Cousin Bill 6:54
Yeah. And it might be stupid. Like, yeah, like these, like, Who cares? Yeah.
Katie Rotolo 7:00
That you've you've, you know, you've done many businesses, and they weren't all like the one that was the thing and only one work, but bill mine is okay.
Cousin Bill 7:10
You know, getting good
Katie Rotolo 7:11
intentions is a winner.
John Tabis 7:13
getting past your own fear is a big first step of it, afraid of telling people about it, and they're gonna say it's dumb. You try it, and it fails. And it's the great and the terrible part of being an entrepreneur and trying to start something is that you control it, you're, it's a test of you. But then you know that if it fails, it was you. Right. And so that's scary. No one wants to fail. I mean, I'm a person that generally speaking, things have been sort of easy. School is kind of easy, sports was kind of easy. You know, the startup in the very beginning was kind of easy, until it wasn't, you know, very easy anymore. And, you know, I'd say like, last year in the boost company, I owed sales first time, like I failed as a professional, like I was a bad CEO for like six months, I just didn't know how to run a company of 6070 people, I knew I run a company of like 15 to 20 pretty well. And things started to break. And so you know that when you sort of dive into this world, that there's a very high likelihood 90% of startups fail, that you're actually going to fail. And so that's scary. So let's sort of get over that part of it. But I think at the very beginning, the most important thing is literally just doing things to move things forward. And so when we were starting books, one of the things that I started with was I was like, okay, so I can't do all of this by myself. So I need a team. So I went out and begged, borrowed and didn't quite steal help from people. And you know, I got people to work for part time, nights and weekends for a little bit of equity, no money promises of money in the future if it ever came. And you just sort of find others to lean on in some way. And a lot of that is just like friends and friends of friends. Same thing with a startup write about you guys. Because it's like, you're stuck with me. But yeah, choice. But like, at the end of the day, you know, I didn't I couldn't do it myself. I don't know how to do these things. I don't know how to produce I don't know how to how to do anything technical on this stuff. And I don't have time to figure it out. So
Katie Rotolo 8:59
john doesn't even know how to Google Drive. Really?
John Tabis 9:01
Hey, get about how old I am. Yeah, later. Well,
Cousin Bill 9:06
speaking of getting your team started, I digress a bit, but I love the story of the original customer service. For the boots. What's new?
John Tabis 9:13
Oh, yeah, the best. Yeah, so the initial team that this company started with, so now we're 78 people, you know, millions $1 million of revenue, we've done pretty well. But at the very beginning, the team was myself, my co founder, JP one pombo. Went to for oil from Ecuador. My mom doing customer service, and she was essentially the entire customer service.
Unknown Speaker 9:34
Your mom's name? Let's shout out your Rei.
John Tabis 9:37
mega mom. And and then we had, you know, some part time help. And then we had an intern at UCLA doing the technology. And that was the entire company. Like that's what we launched with on day one. And when you say she's still she still does, yeah, she's she's her mid 70s at this point, and she's still working. I love it. I
Katie Rotolo 9:56
bet she's so freakin proud of you like she was there literally from day one. I didn't see your company grow like,
John Tabis 10:02
she loves it, she she almost can't stop now. I'm like, Mom, you can retire again, like retirement at 72. You can call it a day. Now she doesn't want to she loves it.
Katie Rotolo 10:13
What's fun, I'm sure
John Tabis 10:14
gives you something to do. She makes a little bit of money. And she gets to see sort of what's going on in the business that she essentially she helped build. Right, right. But again, you might say like, well, I don't have anyone to help me my business, ask your mom. Yeah, maybe your mom will help. Like, who knows? Right? Like, that's what that's the kind of help that you need. Someone's gonna believe he was never gonna stop. He's gonna throw all in for you. Yeah, Bill. So, you know, finding others to lean on early days is absolutely huge now, are those all going to be the same people there at the end of the business? Probably not. Right, and that those people will change. But getting that sort of community around you to help you is massive, I think the second thing is like, figure out what you can do to actually produce a product that you can sell in whatever in the idea, right. So if you have like a super technical thing, where you need a lot of r&d, then you got to go raise some money, but we need to do is just ship some flowers. So we figured that out, we just figured out international shipping, packaging, labeling customs. Now that's really easy, but it was just about like, willpower and smarts. It wasn't about sort of having some massive amount of resources to bring to the table. So we just started doing things like I went in, you know, formed an LLC, that was a first step, we actually had a company, then it's like, oh, now there's actually a company that can give people equity and so they can come and help us out. So just starting tackling, going,
Katie Rotolo 11:31
starting an LLC prematurely can really bite you in the ass. So I did that with my first business. And in California, at least, you know, there's a minimum that you pay whether you profit that quarter or not. And the fees, yeah, just be careful. That's why and that's why a lot of people, you shouldn't do this. But that's why a lot of people go like out of state when they you know,
John Tabis 11:52
register, you can totally do that. We're, we're we're a Delaware Corporation.
Cousin Bill 11:56
Yeah, you're one of those totally.
John Tabis 11:59
Well, I don't know, a single startup that isn't a Delaware Corporation. Well, I
Katie Rotolo 12:03
have a California LLC.
John Tabis 12:08
Okay, so getting things going. And like taking those steps can help you get momentum to actually build other things. And then like, don't afraid to just try things. Don't be afraid to try things either, right. Like, we launched our first website, it was the ugliest It was so I mean, it was so bad. Photography, my co founder, who's a farmer, took the photography, like on his like old school like Nikon, like digital camera. And then we just cropped them and photoshopped them afterwards and stuck it on a website. And it was really embarrassing when you look back on it. But we did $20,000 of sales in that first month on that website. And so all we need to do is prove it like, hey, people might actually care about this thing enough to then get to the next step. And I think that's the last thing I would say is, you know, figure out what the milestones are and focus on those milestones. You don't need to know how to build a $50 million a year company, you just need to know how to build a company today that over X number of years can get you there. It's like Mars, right? Like, we actually don't know how to go to Mars yet. But if you go back solve to what we know how to figure out there's a step along the way that we can figure out, and that's where you start. And so you can't sort of dream about or worry about the thing that's gonna come 10 years, five years, three years down the road, you have to do what you can handle today, and just start checking off milestones. And each time you get one of those milestones, you're a little bit closer, you know, to the end goal. And so I think there's, you know, there's a lot of very practical, easy things you can do, right? Get some people around you to help you out, set milestones knock things down and take the sort of early action, just get yourself moving towards it. And what happens is the momentum happens, and then you kind of can't stop. Yeah, and I think that's how you get started. Now,
Katie Rotolo 13:46
I think celebrating the small victories, like he's like you're saying, like, celebrate, like, you know, each thing along the way really has been like, at least for me helped a lot, you know, because you can, like, you're up against so much, you know, and oh, there's so many things on the table. But when you know, One really cool thing happens. It's like, awesome, you know, that's gonna propel us forward for them.
John Tabis 14:05
We had so we started this company, this is not like the right way to do it. Right? I better way. I think the 23 year old doing is the right is the right way. But, you know, I was in my mid 30s, we had, we had a one year old and we just bought a house. And I essentially said to my wife, I don't I want to make $0 and start a company selling flowers and my buddy, what do you think about that? And it was sort of like, Okay, so, you know, $0? How long is that gonna last? The question. And so for us the milestones. My wife and I, when we talked about this, and she's been a massive supporter the whole way, but we had to be, we didn't show progress because it was gonna be like five years of just no income. It's sort of like, well, at some point, it's actually going to cost something. And so we had the milestones laid out as agreed between us, which is, if we don't start hitting these things in this timeframe, I'm just gonna go get a job because right she was working in public education. It's not like she was making a rain right? Just
Katie Rotolo 14:59
Is that a storage unit?
John Tabis 15:00
Yes, I agree conversation, but it's just a principle to public school. Right? It was enough to keep us afloat. And she's, you know, carried that load for us, for which I'll forever be grateful. But it's not like we could just do that indefinitely. So we set those milestones, both practically from a build a business perspective, but also from a personal lifestyle, management of cash. Yeah, side of things. And I think that goes the other point, which is, because people people say this all the time. And they say that, you know, startups are super risky. And they focus on how high the risk is 90% of them fail. And I just don't fundamentally believe in that at all. I think that it's, it's really the other way around, which is that the riskier thing is not trying, and here's, here's my weird, backwards logic, and you guys tell me, you know, if you agree with nothing, but self clap, look, at the end of the day, you know, you're gonna, let's say you quit your job tomorrow, and you make x. And let's just assume you make $100,000 a year for easy round math. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 15:58
It's almost
John Tabis 16:00
easier. Okay, so let's say you're making $100,000 a year and you quit your job, and you make zero for six months, and you're gonna, you're gonna try your company for six months. So you're giving up $50,000, after taxes, you're giving up like, $30,000, right, let's just say that you're essentially for six months, if you tried it, and you totally failed, what you would have lost an income is about $30,000 of cash in the bank. And then let's say that your career spans 25 years, and you average something close to $100,000 a year over the course of the entire time. At the end of the day, the 30 grand is a rounding error, like you're not going to miss that over the course of your right. Now, of course, everyone has different financial scenarios, right? Like, some people just literally could not afford to live for six months without an income. And that's what you have to try things on nights and weekends. And we started this thing, sort of on the side when I had a job and then eventually quit and went full time made zero for nine months, and then I was able to pay myself a salary. But my point is, is that side hustle, if you think about the actual cash at risk, in that given period, three months, six months, nine months, whatever, over the entire your entire careers earnings, it is very, very small. And it's only worth what that is worth. So there's no other value to that it's whatever it was going to be is what is going to be so 30 grand, right. And so but but not starting the company could cost you literally potentially millions of dollars. And it could also cost you all the learning that you would get in that process that would make you more valuable in the marketplace that actually make me put you back in the market at more than $30,000 of income over that time frame, right.
Unknown Speaker 17:31
And so you learn from that experience.
John Tabis 17:34
Exactly. I mean, you're going to be more employable as a failed entrepreneur than you were before you were a failed entrepreneur, you're going to know more about yourself, you're know more about the business world, you know more about marketing, sales, operations, administration, team building hire, like, you're going to be a better employee, because you try to this. And then the other part is, you only got one crack at this thing, like you only have one life. And if you're gonna spend your whole life sitting there going, you know, when I was 28, or when I was 23. Or in my case, when I was 35, I had this thing. And I, it could have been huge. And I didn't do it right that what if that's the thing, when you're 68, you're, you're sitting around, look at it again, like I have a fine retirement, but man, like I never took that swing. And so when you think about it from a cash perspective, the the weighted average here at nets out about equal so it's not that much risk, right? Only 30 grand, potentially exchange for either zero or millions. But again, it's only a finite amount of time, right? You're going to give up on awesome learning that would have made you so much more valuable in the marketplace anyway. And then you're also going to like mentally and spiritually let yourself down. And so actually think that you like sort of way those things, there's no real risk to trying to start your thing. And at the end of the day, it ends up being like a six month thing where nights and weekends, you're wasting your time. It's not gonna be a waste, because you will learn a lot and you would have checked the box of, Hey, I launched this new app I had already dreamed of doing it, but I always wonder what would happen. I launched it and 700 people downloaded it and that wasn't enough, but you really should know the answer and you're gonna drive yourself crazy later in life wondering what if
Cousin Bill 19:03
totally, when God asked me why I quit my job to start a company. I'm gonna save it. JOHN yelled math at me tonight. And that's math.
Unknown Speaker 19:10
Math. All right. Coming up on today, Tom Cruise has a new movie. We're going to be talking to him. Hey, 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 19:29
Oh, well. Nevermind. That's right. It's news time with Katie Rotolo. Katie, I'm
gonna tell now give him a news.
Unknown Speaker 19:37
That's me. Alright, so
Katie Rotolo 19:39
we are talking about some interesting things today. Something I'm particularly interested in, especially with starting my new business and it being a sustainable business, which we'll get more into another time. But um, Starbucks has been in the news lately, you know, with their whole lot of things. Well, yeah. But um, you know, getting rid of the straw, this has been this huge topical thing. And you know, I'd say probably for like the last year that people are really talking about banning the straw and you know, replacing it bringing your own, which is great, you know,
John Tabis 20:14
when more broadly to I mean, lots of businesses right around single use plastics. Yeah. We're waking up a little bit. Yeah, whole
Katie Rotolo 20:23
cities, countries are now banning plastic bags. And so we know that plastic is a huge issue with, you know, destroying our oceans with actually, if you're a seafood eater, and now you're consuming plastic. And, you know, there's so many detrimental things that come from plastic, but
John Tabis 20:39
really depends on the plastic that like, some of it is like a really nice flavor.
Cousin Bill 20:43
No, sometimes I'll just throw, I'll throw plastic.
John Tabis 20:48
If you put some water, you know, going over to
Katie Rotolo 20:51
recycling and if that whole thing. Little bit about basically, Starbucks is talking about this new lid that they're providing, that gets rid of the straw. And it's interesting, because this lid actually is made of more plastic than the lid once was, it just doesn't have a straw. And so you know, we're, we're in this space where I think like people are like, What does eco friendly really mean? What is what like these companies like people are throw around these words, like, you know, we're moving towards being more environmental or, like, more environmentally friendly. And Ben and Jerry's actually recently did this. They said they were, you know, taking better care of their cows. And that, you know, that this was, they were they're using sustainable practices. And really, they're being actually sued, because of their claims of being eco friendly, and how they're not actually and how most of the milk they're using. is astonishing. numbers actually are don't don't actually, what's the word fall into those standards that they're claiming they do? So it's an interesting thing, too. These are two separate things going on. But it's it's just funny to me, especially an exploring this whole space with my new business how, how just how greenwashing is a thing, and it's just what it sounds like, it's like, companies that are saying they're making higher standards, or they're doing certain things that are either better for the environment or better for animals or better for, you know, workers rights, or whatever they might be. And oftentimes, they're not really being transparent about what they're doing. And so it's just, it's, I feel like it's a funny time. It's, it's really great, in my opinion that Starbucks is this huge company that's talking about this, and it's great that people are doing that. But it's like, are these companies really bettering the environment and animal welfare is, you know, is straws, really banning straws really helping the environment? You know, there's I don't know if you guys saw the video that went viral about the straw that like, went through a turtle? Oh, I
Cousin Bill 23:03
didn't see that. Yeah. Yeah, it's
Katie Rotolo 23:05
awful. It's very sad. And you know, I think that brought up a lot of this, about straws and why they're bad. And they are,
John Tabis 23:13
I think one of the hard things about this. And, you know, I see totally both sides of this thing. But at the end of the day, like the most environmentally friendly business, is to not have a business, right? Like, the thing that we can do to best protect the environment is literally just stop making stuff. And and that's just not practical, right? So the world is not going to be that way. But there's a lot of people to look at and go like, well, Starbucks, like, the best thing you could do is just stop producing all of this waste. And it's like, but we're, you know, we're a capitalistic society. And these are massively impactful businesses in the world to do a ton of good. But my point is, like, the number one thing, like I had a friend who was once dating a guy, and he was like, sort of on her around her fashion addiction, she loves to buy new jeans, and he's like, you're buying all these jeans, and it's just wasteful. It's like, it's hurting the world. And I was like, say that to the person whose job exists because you buy those jeans. Yeah, but
Katie Rotolo 24:06
is it a fast fashion job? Or is it a person that actually gets a fair wage? Well, but it might be that you stopped buying,
John Tabis 24:13
but the alternative literally might be zero, right? The alternative might be zero. And so what I what I get sort of hung up on a little bit is there's this this perception that like, oh, a company like Starbucks, or like Ben and Jerry's, or like us, or whatever, should be able to engineer everything to perfectly have no impact on the world. Because actually accept people say this to me with my company. They're like, well, you ship these flowers from across the world. So you know, all that. Why don't you just don't ship them at all. And then you wouldn't use all the fuel? Yeah, it's like, well, people are gonna buy them somewhere. And whether we do it reduces waste by 90 some percent that are 100%, sustainably farmed, we work directly with the farmers to make sure that's happening. And so it's compared to the alternative, much better.
Katie Rotolo 24:56
Yeah, I think that's transparent about all of that. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 24:58
And that's, I
Katie Rotolo 24:59
think, what's what's what's hard is is when, when people aren't being transparent one, it's like, why should we believe any of it is, you know, and I don't know, my feeling on the like, especially the Starbucks thing is like, they're not even using post consumer recycled plastic, like, at the very least, like, I know, they they're not gonna, you know, we're a society of, you know, convenience, we're not going to Yeah, they're offering a discount they have been for years on your coffee, if you bring a reusable cup. That's wonderful. I wish more people would do that. But you're right, like it's not going to our culture is not going to stop and like stop buying coffee that comes in plastic. But is there a better solution? You know, and it's interesting, because now there's all these, this this, you know, talk about compostables and compostables. Sounds like it's a really great idea. But when compostables which actually Starbucks, their alternative, if you ask for a straw is going to be a compostable option. And the thing about compostable though is that if you don't actually responsibly compost that straw, it doesn't do any good. It creates like toxins, if it goes to landfill, and it actually contaminates your recycling. If you put it in recycling, and it looks like regular old plastic, it's like, you know, it's it's instead of made from petroleum, it's made from corn. So it's just it's one of those things where it's just like, what is the lesser of two evils? You know, and it's something that I've, especially with starting my business, and you know, really looking for sustainable answers. It's hard to find really even answers at all on like, what this all means and sustainable versus eco friendly versus if it's good for the planet. But is it also good for the people and the animals? And you know,
Cousin Bill 26:41
those I'm maybe focusing on the wrong part of it. But my question is, I feel like Ben injures speaking and vagaries like, what, how are the cows being treated better? Like, I just picture them, like slipping into a robe at the end of the night. My cigar? And it's like, yeah,
Unknown Speaker 27:00
like, a little bit,
John Tabis 27:02
but I think the whole thing right is, and this is where I think it's hard to understand too, like, I have a relatively small company, 75 people, millions of dollars in revenue, compared to these guys are billions, right? And I think you'll get at the end of the day, right? It's all about the marginal improvement, and we're treating our animals better our processes better. I know, it's, it's hard to be like, well, show me exactly, it's easy to ask, like, show me exactly how we're showing exactly what you're doing that is different. But the end of the day, like if they're moving in the right direction, marginally, their impact is actually a lot more than someone starting up a brand new company that does it perfectly and perfectly, probably doesn't scale. And this is one of those things that I go back to, it's really hard to imagine, like what the world would be like without these companies sort of providing these services, in terms of employment, in terms of GDP growth, in terms of reinvestment into the communities, all these things that happen because these companies exist. And I personally love that both of them. And again, there's better ways of messaging and not right, I agree, like the vendor, Jerry's doing something actually different. They should say exactly what it is. But anybody's gonna lead the way and lead the conversation by saying, we're gonna move our business, we're gonna take on costs, we're gonna eat margin, we're gonna lose money, because we believe in doing the right thing is having both the direct impact of what they're changing what you can maybe margin, like small steps, but then they're also leaving the conversation,
Unknown Speaker 28:24
or even talking about it,
Katie Rotolo 28:26
or that they're leading the conversation is valuable. Yeah,
John Tabis 28:29
these big brands are taking a small step towards moving the entire society in a direction without those steps. It never gets there.
Katie Rotolo 28:36
Are they? Actually I don't know. Yeah, we'll see.
Unknown Speaker 28:42
And again, if the
John Tabis 28:44
rest of the city have what it takes to change, like,
Katie Rotolo 28:49
Oh, sure what they've been doing per year on a corporate
Cousin Bill 28:51
level that big like,
Katie Rotolo 28:53
Yeah, and that's why they say they're not doing it till 2020.
Unknown Speaker 28:56
But it's like,
Katie Rotolo 28:58
yeah, cuz you've already produced like, 10 billion straws and you can't do anything about it. So that right so
John Tabis 29:02
what what's maybe landed on is Be specific. Yeah. Don't use straws. And fish don't the greatest flavor ban or cherries in history of all time.
Cousin Bill 29:12
No, use single use. Plastics bring
Katie Rotolo 29:15
bring your own jar. Shop in bulk.
John Tabis 29:18
What else we got? Katie?
Katie Rotolo 29:20
We're talking about the World Cup, you guys. So
Unknown Speaker 29:24
yeah, I
Katie Rotolo 29:25
mean, there's some interesting stories out about you know, the conversation around economy in the UK with the World Cup. But I know you guys are actually Croatia.
Cousin Bill 29:37
What percentage do you place? So I'm around like, 25% Yeah, I'm
John Tabis 29:41
the same way. Yeah, yeah. So
Katie Rotolo 29:42
what is are you guys like third generation or like what?
John Tabis 29:46
My Alex earlier like my grandpa 50%? Yeah, probation. Okay. And so I'm 45 Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 29:54
I've got the loo crew
Katie Rotolo 29:56
Croatians in the same room though. It's only cuz you guys are related. Cousin bill.
John Tabis 29:59
Yeah. Pretty awesome to see, you know, second
Cousin Bill 30:02
just second smallest nation to ever make the mean.
John Tabis 30:07
And then, you know, just kind of fell apart in the final. But I do think the thing that I get interested in and you know, I've read about this at a bunch of different ways with the like it, could you be a World Cup, it could be anything else but like, with the Olympics with the World Cup, like these massive events that come to different regions, and what it means in the economy and like clearly, right, like, in London, when England wins, like beer sales are up 7,000,000,000%. Right. So clearly, there's an impact. But I want to move away from that to more like the specific host city thing, because this is one of those things that I always find really fascinating from just a pure local economy and business perspective is you have the Olympics coming to LA and 2028. Right? Like, literally, if we're still around, estimate so much investments gonna happen. So many jobs can be created all this kind of stuff. But people come countries and cities depending and investing so much money to infrastructure, and then three years later, it's like, laying empty. Yeah, you look at like, Bill, I mean, you have these massive, massive investments where they employ all these people for like a two year period. And then it's just sitting there and it's just sort of this artifact. And the the pitch has always been well, this is going to boost your economy so much blah, blah. And people actually look at the math. More math for you, Bill. Sorry. Yeah. This fuzzy thing where you're like maybe it's actually not that great of a net benefit.
Katie Rotolo 31:30
Yeah, they see it kind of like it goes up but it's like this feat. They call it like a feel good spending where it's like it does go it'll like go up but then it won't, it'll come back down. And there's no real correlation between like this actually helping the economy. There's
John Tabis 31:44
no long term. Yeah, so yeah, do it for either vanity or for fun,
Katie Rotolo 31:49
but to destroy your city,
John Tabis 31:52
just to build a bunch of stuff that's just going to be overgrown in six years. But I do think it's fascinating how much sports and major events can drive consumer behavior right I mean, we we all rally around it it's a it's the biggest deal to get the Superbowl the biggest deal the road cop, it's the biggest deal to get the Olympics. And yet at the end of the day, it's it may not economically actually pay out.
Cousin Bill 32:15
Well, let's look at the city of Cleveland. God bless their sweethearts. Losing LeBron James is gonna like, like the rain when he left and went to Miami, like the city struggled when LeBron James left so like, it does affect things like those people are just they can't catch a break. It's too
Katie Rotolo 32:34
bad. He can't give them some of his money went before he split, you know, he's got plenty of money or just like leave him with a little
John Tabis 32:42
severance. Like how much he's put back into that community to Yes, he's really amazing charitable contributions. And just his personal spending in the city. I mean, it's probably Cool. Cool. Well, yeah, the outcome was kind of sad and World Cup, right? I mean, yeah, Croatia thought like, a legit shot. Yeah, you know, congratulations, France. Yeah,
Katie Rotolo 33:09
it's it's funny when Sure. I don't really care so much. I think I think a lot of Americans don't watch.
Cousin Bill 33:16
We're gonna go back to not caring about soccer the frames that's what happens in this country.
Katie Rotolo 33:21
For me, like every sport when I was a kid, I was super into sports because my dad was my brother as a now it's like the World Cup or, you know, the World Series. You know, when it's the when it's the best people in the world playing the sport. It's the most fun that's what
Cousin Bill 33:34
people and I am surprised at how well it did. I mean, I don't know what the numbers were. But it seemed everyone that I know was talking about it. And I'm not friends with a lot of soccer fans the World Cup. Yeah, with the USA not being in it. And how, how much of a big thing it became a surprise because we love to wrap ourselves in the flag. Right? Whenever those things happen the Olympics and yeah, totally probably. Yeah, USA and then like, we don't give a shit about USA soccer for another four years.
Katie Rotolo 33:58
Yeah. Today, nobody showed up at yoga. And on Super Bowl Sunday, I had one of the coolest classes I've ever had. So that's, that's amazing.
Unknown Speaker 34:06
Thanks for the news.
Cousin Bill 34:08
Yeah. All right. So next, guys, we have a segment that we're gonna do every week. And since this is our first episode, we couldn't really go out there and get callers or anything like that. But we would love to get some emails from you guys, and maybe tweet us at give him the biz. But john is going to business the shit out of some stuff. Yeah. Would you like to explain the segment?
John Tabis 34:31
Yeah, sure. I mean, if you think about it, right, there's a bunch of things in, in sort of the business world that you can you can sort of create corollaries for in Personal life In, in your professional life as a career in actual business question, right? So we're going to business shift stuff, or it's not going to be you know, hardcore math. Business focused, you know, deep concepts and strategy on the mat is gonna be very practical, like how do we look at a problem Businesses shit out of it and start up the shit out of it and I've used business to shit out of I think they're a little bit different. But we're gonna business shit out of some stuff. So what do we got here for you know, episode one
Cousin Bill 35:10
all right business the shit out of it hold on headphones on so
Unknown Speaker 35:18
he's just over here gesturing
Cousin Bill 35:19
wrap wrap everyone just happened. So since we don't have any callers or emails or anything yet, our news girl Katie Rotolo has recently started her own business. And I will let her explain it. And that's your question. Oh, my gosh,
Katie Rotolo 35:39
thank you guys so much for taking my call today. So excited. Really Hi, from Katie, thanks
Cousin Bill 35:44
for being the only other person in the room.
Katie Rotolo 35:47
I'm calling from the west side of Los Angeles.
Unknown Speaker 35:51
Marina Del Rey,
Cousin Bill 35:53
beautiful in the summertime. Yeah, it's
Katie Rotolo 35:55
lovely. So I, I actually, my business has changed quite a bunch. And I've seen you guys last. So I'll give a little quick little breakdown and for our audience at home. So I recently started a startup started a startup called set intentions. And so we're stainable Mobile yoga community, which basically means that we provide all the eco friendly supplies to participate in a yoga practice. And then I myself am a yoga teacher. And I come and teach yoga. So we tailor it, whether it's a corporate office, a nonprofit, a birthday party, whatever you want. We just basically bring yoga and the community and mindful practices and sustainable practices, which you'll hear me talk a lot about, to the people and just really wanting to bring more mental and physical health to people that are on the go. And especially like Phil and I actually know each other from our film background. And one thing I really noticed and what sort of brought me to my own yoga journey was the burnout was the constant gogogo of, you know, answering the phone at all hours of the day, you know, and just so much of startup life and everything. Yeah, I'm never doing anything for yourself. So I wanted to find a way to work out my own stress and my own physical healing, and then find a way to kind of bring that to the people. So that set intentions. And yeah, so we've been plugging away for the last few months. And my question right now is really just, we're jumping up some steam, you know, we have a few events under our belt now, which is really exciting. But we're just kind of, you know, like you said, you're new, you're not an expert in everything. And we're really trying to do some marketing, but with no real marketing budget. And you know, we don't have any kind of outside investors, this is all just us, and somebody that loaned us a couple of dollars, but not much. And then a couple $1,000 from crowdfunding. But otherwise, you know, we really don't have any kind of like, you know, the original budget I built out in my business plan for my marketing budget is not nearly what I have. So yeah, I'm just curious, like, if you have any creative ideas, or any suggestions for how to get the word out, and
John Tabis 38:07
so I coupon code, I get this question all the time, I mean, entrepreneurs will come to me and say, Hey, you know, here's my idea, blah, blah, blah, I'm now ready to raise money to spend it on marketing. And it's probably the most common reason that people give me four needed raise money. And in some places, that's absolutely the right answer. But often, you don't need cash to market a business. And and I actually would argue that sometimes it's better for the business long term, but not have cash up front. Because at the end of the day, what cash will do is it will get you eyeballs and then they will buy your thing. But it's not forcing if you have the cash, then you're not forced to be super creative in the way that you tell your story. And the way that you message and the channels that you use, because you can sort of just what is quote unquote, lazy just sort of go click buttons, you can put money into Facebook, you can put money into here or there. And it doesn't force you to really refine what it is that you're selling. And so I actually have this stick that I do with, you know, MBA programs, when I talk about entrepreneurship, where if someone comes to me and says, you know, because we started this business with $13,000, that was our total invested capital at the beginning of business, we did about one and a half million dollars of revenue in the first year off of that $13,000. Wow. And so you don't need cash. It helps you don't need cash to market a business.
Katie Rotolo 39:17
Was it word of mouth? or What did you say
John Tabis 39:19
what you need are really two things. The first is you need a really great story. And then you need to hustle the hell out of that story. And so getting to a really great story isn't that easy, though? Right? You can you can, you can try a bunch of different things. And it may not ever go anywhere. And so the first thing you have to do is you have to figure out what that story is. And the way that I figure that story. figure that story out for us was just by testing with people. And a lot of people are afraid to talk about their startup like someone's gonna steal it. So I don't want to share what my idea is. And so like, well, if you're not willing to share it, how do you plan to market it? Right at the end of the day, if you share a story with somebody in a line at a grocery store or a bar, yeah, whatever practice and if they copy it and steal it number one, like wow, what bad luck for you that you actually found the one person that It wants to do exactly what you want to do. Yeah. And to if they were able to execute it better than you that fast, he probably weren't gonna really defend your business that long anyway. So number one, don't be afraid of talking about your business. If you have some super like important IP that you need to protect, sure, go file your patent get protected first. But most businesses don't have that level of r&d. Right? And so first thing is to figure out the story to the Ron talk about it. So I did this, I ran around, talked about it. And I talked about, hey, we're sustainable. And we're straight from the farm. And, you know, no hidden fees, free delivery, and I had all these different combinations that I was testing people. And what you want to look for is you want people to say, No shit, really, like you don't want to respond to like, Oh, that's nice. You don't want that response. That is not the response that says you have it right. When you get it right. Someone's gonna lean in and lean towards and go. No way. Like, remember the first time you used Uber? Like you literally, you hit the button and the car Shut up. You were like, no way. Your mind on New Zealand. Lift brand you prefer whatever shocking the kids a lift person. ever believe? No way. But anyway, everyone was first. So they're the first one. Well, I mean, that's the curse of you're like No way. And if someone told you that story, and before it launched, they're like, Look, I'm going to have a thing where you can see all the taxis, your press a button, and they're gonna show up and pick you up, be like, Oh, my God, life's just got so much better. I can drink so much more, because I don't have to worry about driving around in LA, right? So
Katie Rotolo 41:27
take the park sometimes
John Tabis 41:30
blows your mind. You're looking for that response. So we were walking around telling these stories, and I wasn't getting that response. So I just kept pushing, kept pushing. And eventually we're in a meeting. And I was just telling something about the business. And I was like, Yeah, my co founder, he lives in Ecuador on this active volcano called khanjan Bay where this farm isn't. And I was just sort of moving past that part. And he goes, Oh, what's this volcano? And I was like, yo, what's this volcano? It's called Qian Bay is like, Yo, I know, you told me like, how have we talked about this for 25 minutes. And this is the first time you're the volcanoes, the best thing
Unknown Speaker 42:02
you have in volcano
John Tabis 42:05
flowers. And I was like, Oh, wow. Because we've been there a bunch of times he's lived there. his entire life we just thought of is like that. But oh my no one has thought about like flower bubble volcano flowers before. And so all of a sudden, we had our hook. And three weeks later, I was running around saying we dropship flowers from an active volcano in South America to your loved one for $40 flat. And so we went from all these other messages about sustainability and free delivery, all these things to that. And that was the thing that really made it work when people went Oh, like, tell me a story again. And so for the first year, or we talked about the volcano picture, the volcano on the homepage, volcano flowers are pitching er about the volcano, volcano volcano. So we got our story. But before that we didn't have it, we didn't have something was going to go because we didn't have that hook. Now, the other thing is, that initial hook doesn't mean that that's what you're building forever. So like we talked about the volcano today, but way less than we used to, they used to be the thing. Now that's a thing and part of a bigger thing. And so you don't want to necessarily restrict your brand, your messaging or whatever, to sort of your ultimate ideal. You want to find the thing that's gonna get you those milestones tomorrow, right now, what's gonna work for tomorrow? So for you guys, you got to figure out what is that story that people go like? No, it's amazing. Like, whatever it is. And yeah, you just got to iterate on that. And you
Katie Rotolo 43:18
might have your story and you'll have to riff on it. I wonder then. But this person you consulted with that you're talking about, you know, that had this you have this volcano moment with like, focus. Did you did you? Yeah, this eruption?
Unknown Speaker 43:34
Um,
Katie Rotolo 43:35
did you pay the person with this? Like a no, this was that's what I'm wondering too, because like, I've heard, you know, there's these people that do that, like, marketing, and they help you build your brand story and all these things. But that I mean, right? sounds expensive.
John Tabis 43:48
No, this, this was literally just talking to anybody. I talked to everybody literally, in a line at Ralph's. Someone behind me like, Hey, I got this flower idea. What do you think about it? Yeah, did flowers in their basket? What do you think about this thing? And then I would go to the next personal
Katie Rotolo 44:00
Keno guy sounds like the smartest one of all
John Tabis 44:02
what But again, it's just about your repeat, repeat, and someone's going to get you to that thing. And you're going to say something like, no way. And that's when you know you have it. So that's the first part, you need to have an awesome story. And then the second part is you have to hustle the shit out of that story. So I have people again, coming to me saying like, I need raise money to hire a PR firm to get people to talk about my company. And I'm like, No, no, you have to be able to sell your business to everybody. Like you have to be able to sell this concept to everybody. And the early days, you're not going to drop 15 grand a month on a PR firm. And even if you did, it probably wouldn't work. Because again, you haven't proven out the story. So we did was we ran around and we just make connections and press ourselves. And the really awesome thing about press is while a PR firm can in theory, get you in front of people faster. Those are just people and with LinkedIn, and with social media, you can get in front of the right decision makers at publications. And so I actually just networked my way directly to someone at daily candy, which at the time was like The she's like, oh, you're in daily candy like, and we've I pitched her directly via email and saying, I got volcano flowers. Here's some pictures and she was like, I need to want to be the one to break this brand. She wrote about it the next week. And the cool thing about PR is once you get good PR, it just the gravy train rolls, right? It's like, because there's now there's permission. Now all of a sudden, we're in daily candy. And Oprah came along. And then we were giving prices right, which is like the Bob,
Unknown Speaker 45:27
what's
Katie Rotolo 45:28
what's I don't know what the candy what a daily Candy Candy
John Tabis 45:31
was like an email like it was the first sort of like the KDC.
Cousin Bill 45:34
Well, Katie's only 15 Wow.
Katie Rotolo 45:37
I'm twice that actually. Thank you very much. So
Unknown Speaker 45:40
15 times to a mass.
John Tabis 45:42
It was one of the first sort of like lifestyle based resort of referral content sites. It got massively got sold to I think NBC Universal, and then sadly, eventually shut down. But the idea but thing was like, What do you bring daily candy, like it was like thrillist and thrillist. Right after daily candy, it was just more female focused. And so you get these these things rolling in that they can be getting more so than we were in Oprah's 50 while list thing. And then that led to celebrities, you know, tweeting us about being part of their party, and then it just kind of rolls right and then you sort of go with that thing. Now we're at a point where we actually do have a PR firm, they handle that stuff for us. But in the early days, you have to tell that story is to be passionate about it and you have to be a salesperson, if you aren't salesy in any way and you want to start a company, you need to find somebody who is salesy and is willing to go out there and talk about the business, because you can't afford to spend the money. You can't afford to hire some big marketing agency. You have to do that yourself. So early days, get it going. Figure out the story. Hustle the shit out of it. Like that's really what you need to get a business off the ground.
Katie Rotolo 46:45
I think it's important to to Oh my God, I totally just had a brain fart. This IPA? I don't know. I'm sorry. Nevermind. Good talk.
Cousin Bill 46:55
Yeah, thanks. Thanks.
Unknown Speaker 46:56
This should
Cousin Bill 46:58
remind so hard.
Katie Rotolo 47:01
Something, but I didn't want to interrupt and I was like, I'm gonna save it. And then it just got
Unknown Speaker 47:06
way the business right?
Katie Rotolo 47:08
I'll bring it up later.
Cousin Bill 47:09
Well, it's funny that you mentioned all these celebrities in these things that that brought the books to prominence because we're gonna change the we're gonna flip the script a little bit. And some of you might know john was on Shark Tank as a as a guest at one point. And we're going to flip it a little bit and we're going to pitch john some ideas and he's going to get to be he's going to be sharper now.
Katie Rotolo 47:35
Another time. We have to tell that story.
Unknown Speaker 47:37
Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah,
John Tabis 47:39
well, I'll give you the 32nd version of it now. When on Shark Tank everybody totally rejected me walked out literally on camera you can hear me saying brutal because it was brutal. It sounds
Cousin Bill 47:49
like high school to me.
John Tabis 47:51
Two hours in there just got just got destroyed at the end. Mr. Wonderful said, I'm gonna send flowers to your grave. It was hilarious. But then, three years later, we did the flowers for Robert herjavec sweating and we save so much money they end up investing in the company anyway, we're the only company in history of Shark Tank believe that the tank without a deal, and then eventually actually get an investment from a shark. So that is my shark tanks. No big deal. Definitely go deeper into like, a topic in a future show. It's pretty fun. And I've had a couple friends go on the show, you know since so a lot, a lot of love for and respect for the team at Shark Tank for sure. But I'd love to be a shark. Let's Let's do it.
Cousin Bill 48:28
All right, well, the first product that we have. So it's a line of candles that if you've ever smelled the smell of a burnt out candle, that's amazing. It smells like burnt out candle the whole time.
Katie Rotolo 48:43
Like after you blow it out that
Cousin Bill 48:45
amazing like, smell. Yeah,
John Tabis 48:48
I'm pretty sure you get a little bit high when you smell
Unknown Speaker 48:52
like huffing painters.
John Tabis 48:55
So so that scent, I think is really great for them that like really quick moment. I don't know how great that scent would be if it continued the entire way to the candle, or you want that scent. Like that's great. But it does make me think about there are a lot of sense in the world that are sort of beloved by nice groups of people that don't necessarily have candles. So I go to gas station gasoline. Like when I'm at a gas, gas, and I know it's like not good for me. I think a bit
it's so good. Like it smells like childhood to me. It's like America. Smells like
noses. But my point is like it evokes something for me. I just love the smell of it.
Katie Rotolo 49:42
And so Sharpies if you like gasoline
Cousin Bill 49:48
so like I looked at all these candles, maybe
John Tabis 49:50
there's something here that's like candle sense that I'm like, yeah, you know for like traditional candle sentence just like find find smells that people love so that I get more excited because you have a much broader audience of just then the people that love the loan out candle smell, which maybe that's our leading product. But then like, we can layer on all these others.
Katie Rotolo 50:07
Can I just say, john, you're the nicest shark. Because you you're like, here's how we can actually.
John Tabis 50:14
Yes. Yes and thing, right. This is actually coming from business goals. Yes. And and from. Right. But no, actually,
Unknown Speaker 50:23
you know,
John Tabis 50:24
yeah, just the one cent I'm not so sure about it, but I think we can go broader into some like other weird sense that people for whatever reason,
Unknown Speaker 50:31
do it.
Unknown Speaker 50:32
I think we should do.
John Tabis 50:35
All right. So I think that one's like a, like a yes. And I don't know what price I'm paying, right? I don't know, like, five grand for the whole thing.
Katie Rotolo 50:45
We're only five grand.
John Tabis 50:46
I'm just saying like, um, yeah, cuz
Cousin Bill 50:48
that's how that works out. Right?
John Tabis 50:49
I'm Yes. But let's go bigger.
Cousin Bill 50:50
Okay. I like it. All right. He said, like me. The next is a, excuse me. The next is an app. So tech world, one of your, you know, one of your strong suits. And is it, john?
John Tabis 51:06
I have? They're all strong suits. Yes. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 51:09
man.
Cousin Bill 51:11
So this is called ping me, pi n. g, ping me. And it's a dating site, that when you are at a certain location, you know, it's like, What's the hardest part about? About dating, right, is that for a lot of people, it's the the first approach, right? The cold, the cold approach. So what this does is like, Hey, I'm in, I'm in this location. And yes, like, come talk to me if you're interested, like, or no, like, I'm here, to hang out with my girls and just dance. So it's like, passing a note down the bar. It's an app that like, if you can come Yeah, you're allowed to kind of talk
John Tabis 51:46
to them have to make the first move. Right? You have a warm opening, right? So I love the place where it's coming from. Because I mean, as a guy, who was never all that confident in a bar in my 20s, wherever, where I'd
Katie Rotolo 51:58
really, oh, you seem pretty confident. These days?
John Tabis 52:01
Well, you know, 40 different world that 22 was literally I would, I would I would sit and like, I'm gonna go talk to her after I have one more drink. Later, I'm like, too drunk to talk to anybody. So like,
Unknown Speaker 52:20
I guess you knew that?
John Tabis 52:21
Yeah. I get like, where it comes from, which is this nervousness of like trying to mix whether it's male or female, right? It doesn't doesn't matter sort of what the role is. And so I love that. But I wonder about it a little bit, as I think a bunch of these have already existed. And I haven't heard of any of them going massively big. Right? I think the the, the thought, again, is a good one. If you're in the same bar, you might have something in common, and maybe there's some profile filling out or it says like, Hey, you two are both runners, do you want to talk about running? Because that is you have a reason why not just you're physically in the same location, right? There's been a bunch of these, and for whatever reason, Tinder and Bumble and those have gone big. And these ones haven't necessarily gone big. Yeah. And so actually, about what might be holding those back, because again, I think everyone's sort of would agree that having a little bit of help in the first interaction would certainly be great. I do like this idea, though, of like, if you all your profile, here's the things that I'm into. I'm from Pittsburgh, so I'm into the Pittsburgh Steelers, I went to Notre Dame, so I'm a big Notre Dame fan. I like to jog and whatever. And if you're in a bar, and you say, you know, I'm into dating women between this age range, whatever. And if you're in a bar, and there's somebody else there that is also from Pittsburgh, or also as an attorney, fan, or whatever, and it it gave you that now you actually have like, a reason other than we're just in the same bar, because Yeah, probably become also there's like no selectivity at that point. So essentially, if you have the app and you're in the bar, you're now paying your own paired you're not all that intriguing, but then I wonder if like you just go into bars and you never get a ping Yeah, well, cuz if you if you're super into like, you know, robot your
Cousin Bill 53:58
soul warfare. Like, it's like, there's no I'm not gonna. That's funny.
John Tabis 54:06
So I think the challenge of this one is probably more of the, if you went out and did research on the world and said, has this existed? Yes, it's existed four times. And how big do they get? And it's all zero. You'd have to really go into like, why? Yeah, what was it that didn't work there? And yeah, things. What are we going to build into this experience? It's actually going to get it over that hump.
Katie Rotolo 54:24
Well, Andy, you get too drunk and then you just start saying yes to everyone, or do you just not look at your phone? Because you're too drunk? Like, yeah, does it? I would want to personally Yes,
Unknown Speaker 54:35
I don't know. I'm
John Tabis 54:39
personally more in the gasoline candles. Maybe on this guy, okay.
Cousin Bill 54:45
Okay. All right. The next one is another app. And it's a sports shit talking up and me. It is Yeah. Going off book
Unknown Speaker 55:00
Africa.
Cousin Bill 55:00
Yeah, now this is this is a real this is really rogue. It's a real one. It's a friend of mine. But it's I think it's real. Yeah, so this one's real. So it's a sports shit talking app. So you can do it in a public forum with like, 1000s of people or you can create groups with your friends. And you pick someone and you have a debate about sports. So if you've ever seen the show, like around the horn, or Pardon the Interruption, it's like a debate, you know, you get points or whatever
Katie Rotolo 55:27
is around the horn, the one where the timer goes down.
Cousin Bill 55:30
Yeah, and the reward points are you get damned if you make a stupid point. So you can either do this with your friends like your fantasy football league, where you can do it on a broader scale, but you and this person have 4chan it's sort of a debate to go back and forth about a subject. And then the people that are in that group, vote on who won the debate. Oh, that's cool. We can get points so on so
John Tabis 55:51
when you said I was talking, I was sort of thinking more of like, you remember the I don't I was one it was one on MTV. There was one on HBO which was like it was like almost like oh my god yeah, he
Unknown Speaker 56:01
was called Yo Mama was
John Tabis 56:06
literally just like us dis each other Yeah, was funnier one
Katie Rotolo 56:11
bar where he was a regular. That's just a
Unknown Speaker 56:13
fun fact, carry carry karaoke,
John Tabis 56:16
totally hang out with him. He loves karaoke. But so I think it was more like that. But this is actually more like debate, then. Yeah, I guess that's a better so it's not like how good are you at making me feel bad about my team or myself? It's like, you can
Cousin Bill 56:27
also do that? Yeah, part of it.
John Tabis 56:29
Yeah. Right. And so within this community, then you go back and forth. I love this idea. I think that's super fun. It's also it's sort of harkens to, like the world of like eSports. Now, where like millions of people watch other people play video games against each other. There's this whole sort of it's all these old ways of, of entertainment, right? Like, yeah, all these old things that we used to do and bring them online, like now you have these quiz games, right? It's just a quiz game. Yeah, it's Trivial Pursuit. But it's on an app. And millions of people play and they went like $3. Right. But there's these things are taking over the world. And so I love the idea of digitizing the building community around some it could be sports as a starting point, but could be any topic. Sure. Yeah. And I love the idea. You're like four tries, like four points to me. And then you know, the world judges like who the winner is? Yeah, I love this funny.
Unknown Speaker 57:16
Okay, bring
John Tabis 57:17
this one. Let's build it. Yeah. Or does it already exist?
Cousin Bill 57:19
He's working on it. it's it's a it's a thing. It's probably who's here
Unknown Speaker 57:22
at first go, Jeff.
John Tabis 57:25
Let's talk.
Katie Rotolo 57:28
No, at first, I was like, a little confused. I didn't realize. So it's the people that are paying for the app that are judging or like watching or I
Cousin Bill 57:39
mean, once you're in you can be a participant or someone who's got it. Okay. Yeah, essentially. Yeah.
John Tabis 57:45
Cool. Well, but I mean, you could you could actually, you know, you create tournament's. You could have sponsors on that, you know.
Cousin Bill 57:54
Yeah, I was actually a part of the the beginning, like the testing, you were talking shit about sports? Yeah, imagine that. Oh, so bad because I got, I got paired up with a guy from New England. And it was just, and the subject was like, you know, it was before the season before the season. It was like, Who's gonna win the Steelers patriots game this year? Which is everyone who follows that game knows that we got hosed. But um, but yeah, I mean, that's, yes. You're in Boston. Right.
John Tabis 58:24
I'll just turn it off. Yeah, that's fine.
Cousin Bill 58:27
Okay, love you guys.
John Tabis 58:30
Know, I like that one a lot. I think that's cool. And I think there's that, you know, you look at like fanduel, and sort of all the things on eSports I think there's a lot of corollaries you can look at and say like, this is a trend of these types of competitions and pushing it all into digital sort of competition. So I'm waiting for that one. This may actually beat out gasoline candle. Whoo. So pretty strong.
Unknown Speaker 58:53
Pretty strong set.
Cousin Bill 58:58
Well, you know, I guess this is, this brings us to the end of episode one. We're already I know. Congratulations.
Unknown Speaker 59:06
Did you press record?
John Tabis 59:10
I'm sure you know, all seven of you listening. Enjoy the journey as much as
Cousin Bill 59:15
no do not downplay. There's there's seven people just in my family.
Unknown Speaker 59:20
My mom's in listen.
Unknown Speaker 59:21
Yeah, there's one yeah, you guys get your mom
Cousin Bill 59:27
like at least at least a dozen like cat like Yeah.
John Tabis 59:30
Look, all it is about milestones, right? Yeah, the first thing we will have accomplished is that we recorded an episode Yeah. And then it's gonna be out on the podcast one network. Oh, by the way, really quickly, a shout out to our sponsor,
Cousin Bill 59:41
the books case of bills,
John Tabis 59:42
Bo u q s.com. stainable flowers dropship from an active volcano for $40 flat when you beat it actually on a subscription is $36 now and free delivery on those. So check it out for your loved ones. And you know, tune in next time and you know, super fun chat with you guys here. Dinner episode one and look forward to Episode 3426.
Cousin Bill 1:00:04
Yeah, five years old Hell yeah, it's gonna be awesome. Thank you guys this is really fun. See you next time guys
John Tabis 1:00:10
fun clapping outro music thing everybody give them the business.
Cousin Bill 1:00:26
Thanks for listening to give him 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
