Founder & CEO Of Ringer Consulting Group: Gabriel Meacham AKA The Ringer Boss – S2E24 (#52)

S2E24 – Gabriel Meacham – powered by Happy Scribe

Oh, no. Oh, I don’t have audio. Is it me or. It was me I thought of knew a. Well, subtrend, good. I see the drone you drone in, yeah, it’s cool. Yeah, we still have the hobby as I have been coming along for you guys. Do you know me? Not so much, because I’ve I’ve got my expensive equipment, so I’m not going to build a bunch of drones. But you probably know 50 drones. Easy. He’s he’s, he goes out like we just did. So what they do is they’re like they’re like a chase car. Right. So they just film the competition. Nice. And so right now or next weekend, he’s going up north. And the you remember the one thing we did with the bars and all that was so he’s starting to get some traction, you know, and we’re getting a lot of YouTube and stuff like that. So he’s building some crazy birds and oh, my God, you should see this guy fly now. I mean, he can hit a one with what’s an eight-inch bird? You can hit a nine-inch window, easy

Flying to tone it. So,

yeah. So you just throw the ball, too.

So, I mean, you listen to any episodes before,

I’ll be honest. No.

OK, so. Yeah, so. Yeah, yeah. So just to give you a quick run now, I mean it’s pretty much as a business podcast. One hundred percent designed towards business owners and entrepreneurs startups. So it’s just kind of getting to know who you are, what’s your business. And in your case, I mean I think we could kind of reference more so like rare. And it’s, you know, kind of how did you get into that business? You can even tell if you want to. You talk about, like the rise and fall and you can talk about things you would do differently. You would think so. So, yeah, it really gets into I mean, I have some people on here that we talked about the successes, the failures, and then he like your morning habits, your morning routines, things that words of wisdom that you leave behind for another entrepreneur and then a couple of random bonus questions.

Where there’s also, I was thinking kind of bowstring. It’s like for me personally. Yeah. Was I came to the realization that my first job that like I was I was good, honestly, for what I wanted to be a good five years long. So it’s kind of like, what do you do when you find yourself in that position where you’ve been so hands down what you’re doing? But at some point you have to come up and when you do, you realize, oh, crap, my personal development is, you know, so I have some good advice on that.

Cool.

So that’s been my focus for like the last four years. But yeah, we can get in.

Yeah, it’s just a conversation, so it’s just flow with it man. So how it’s going to be more funnier and then that’s the whole point. I mean it’s business strategy, it’s, it’s ingenuity, it’s people and it’s, it’s funny. It’s not funny. It’s just, you know, always I think I’ve gotten the podcast. The way it is right now is because everyone is just genuine when they come in. It’s not it’s unscripted. Everybody’s just being themselves.

Right now, let me go ahead hit record on this other device, and you had the honors of this free flow.

So the video part, I’m still working on how to edit the videos, but I have Ed that and it’s all my content for the podcast. So I edit in commercial spots. I edit an intro reel. So it’s it’s intro outro all that’s edited post. OK. So welcome back to Boss uncage podcast. On today’s show, we have gained the founder and CEO of Ringa. How are you doing?

I’m amazing how you know.

I’m doing well. I’m doing well. So I guess I’ll give people a little bit of who you are.

I’m just a goofball that wanted to have a good time figured out that I felt early on I worked on for other companies. I couldn’t enjoy myself nearly as much as I could be in my own remounting. So I’ve always tried to figure out the strategy that affords me freedom, you know. So at first that was we really broke for a long time and learned to live on nothing. And so we you do it.

So if you could define yourself in three to five words, what would those three to five words be?

Oh, boy. Creative is kind of a big one that probably gets overused, but I kind of notch that down to clever in in the creative space. It seemed always that we could be little ideas. So there’s that patient, I would say is focused. I’m kind of and maybe schizophrenic. Is that one in there?

I mean, sounds balanced.

Yeah, it’s unbalanced. That’s a good one to know. For me personally. I’ve always kind of not been both the left brain, right brain. And that’s always been my battle is the focus when I’m trying to be creative and vice versa. And the whole game has been figuring out what that balance is and how you can set your life up in a way that really. What’s that showing rather than less than you’re right.

Got you, got you. Yeah, I think that’s one of the reasons why I think you and I just clicked on the same page above both 50 percent analytical or 50 percent creative, which is kind of a hard comedy, either one extreme to the other, but right down the middle.

So it can be frustrating to people around us, too, because, you know, one day we’re one way and the next day we’re like hyper focused and don’t mess with me, you know what I mean? And I can be the nicest guy in the world on Monday and on Tuesday, I could be like, I don’t like people leave me alone because I’m doing this and the next day.

So it’s funny that as crazy as we could, we could use it as an excuse. But in the real world, they would call that bipolar.

There’s got to be a job for every personality right now to find out.

This is true, this is true. So define I mean, what is your business? I mean, what is it that you actually do?

Oh, you know. We have gone through a lot of stages and I’ll say as far as rare and the encapsulation of what it is, what it it was, you know, basically we were a front end design shop, but we always tried to say bleeding edge with what was going on in terms of new types of design. We partnered with a lot of companies and we would be their kind of creative branch with the technical twist. And we kind of knew how to do what we were trying to do and then we bring partners in to augment and stuff like that. But, you know, that grew and over time it became half marketing because that’s what our clients relied on us for as well. So we always considered ourselves a an outsourced digital department. All right. But we had the freedom to work within businesses, make suggestions, and we saw a lot of businesses do a lot of successful things and. That was lab stuff mixed up pretty on the Web. And then what kind of took off in the last five years is really the front end. Back end has been established in all kinds of techniques and stuff like that. But front end was really seen, a lot of revolutions, single-page applications, which basically make everything work more like an out and Web site. So, you know, there’s a lot of demand for that. And that’s kind of reversing the direction I was running.

Got You. So you’re more on the front-end user development.

Yeah, yeah, I’m what they call me in the real world is the front end you guidance. And so I work with I still work with companies. So my clients and contractor for Cox right now. But basically I go in and they have a huge and usually it’s like a combination of like 20 different applications that end up coming into one. And there’s no constant updates throughout it. There’s no constant UI components to it. So I kind of get involved and build libraries. My specialty is building react UI component libraries and then providing the company the ability to test against those libraries. And it gives them so, you know, a modern company. Now that’s a bigger company. I mean, I’ve been to departments where there’s thousands of. I am working for a company now where there’s thousands of developers that are using shared components and it doesn’t take long for that becomes a huge mess. And right now what I’m focused on is finding ways that, you know, in to build modular components that get digested and used by the rest of the games.

Got you. Got you. So, I mean, you always was a still a Frankenstein, right? I mean, it’s patching pieces together and making things worse. I mean, is that would you say that’s like your core passion right now is more kind of making things work on the front end and designing them into applications or.

Yeah, like fixing problems. The last two big jobs that I took on where you come in and they were like, we don’t we’re not sure how to do this type of things like this one that I did is they wanted to animate SMGs to make different gauges and and different like level tank levels and stuff like that. And, you know, there’s no there’s stuff like high charts as the one little goofy gage and stuff like that. There’s no components out there. So I wrote a series of components for that company, which was different level gauges, different, so different, different kind of instruments and visualizations that they can plug into their app. That gives the user instant reference to what’s going on with that device right now.

Got you.

So really, that comes down in a technical term of either using something like reacting with you, creating animated as museums and libraries, and then figuring out how to make a standardized component with the rest of the team and then send data to an asynchronously updates.

Cool. Cool. So, I mean, you definitely through out a lot of jargon that some people are whistling. So we were like,

well, sorry.

No, no, no. So does this take it back a little bit, though? Usually you started your business. First-generation was North Georgia, correct?

Yeah, yeah. I it’s interesting. The first time I got Froggies that I’m not working for the man anymore. It was a week prior to 9/11. So you can imagine that that was not a very good launch. In fact, I started the business. I struggled with it for about three or four months and I was stupid and young. And I went back to my boss and gave me a job that so, you know, took a while and run some tests again to go out and do it again. But then when I really did, I started out coming out of the security industry, keeping some of those clients and slowly move towards, you know, initially all I did was branding, you know, and then those clients started asking for, hey, can you do some Web work? And I kind of scratch my head and I was like, well, you know, let’s do it. And then that turned into, as you know, you know, doing a lot of I was getting pretty good so I could do and databases. So I was writing a lot of little custom content management systems and stuff like that. And then we started growing the team and that was yeah, that was up in Dawsonville. We were up there for about what, fives? I want to call it five or six years before eventually we moved, we moved everything down to be a little bit closer to the action, really to a lot of my clients were down in Alpharetta Rosewell and they were having to drive up to Dawsonville, their sit downs and back and forth and stuff and a while and it just became like personal reasons. Also, I moved around arousable, so. All right, guys, who’s picking it up? So we move it down. Rosewarne got a building down there and you’re the team.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So I got the next question is, is you always hear about the 20 years it takes for someone to become a success story, and it always seems like it happened overnight. How long did it take you to get to where you are, to where you’re comfortable and you’re following your passions and following your dreams?

Oh, man. It took me a good 10 years just to figure out what I was good at. I tried all kinds of different things and what I was good at just I was reading stuff and I love using jazz. And it was really and I love playing with things that are what I consider are like next level. There’s always a market for that, though. So what I had to do is either wait for the market to mature and hone my skills or find something that the market would tolerate. Let me do the right.

So that’s one side effects, right. Side effects of being a left brain right brain thinker. One side always wants to think ahead and the other side always wants to be in the moment. And it’s a constant push and pull that.

Yeah and, you know, I’m that at heart, I think I know I’ve got the heart of an artist because I have all the downfalls too. So, yeah, it’s.

So what was one thing you would do differently if you could do it all over again.

So try to grow slower and try to, you know, not be so hungry for next level. You know, the web was really blooming at that level. And I had a group of peers that their companies were going from like five people to one hundred people overnight. And so you kind of caught up in that kind of thinking, like we need to figure. The other thing is everybody at the time was like push for a bigger contract, push for getting contract and we did, man. We went from our average closed contract being around five to seven grand to in a matter of three years. I think, you know, our close rate went down, but at the same time, we were close in twenty forty thousand dollar projects without blinking. And for a small webshop, that’s pretty good. But what happened and kind of the big underlying thing is our our clothes, our times, I’m going to do an image and then I’m actually signing off on the dotted line and us having to foster that sale and provide content with the sale and value to that so we get that. So and I went from like usually around fifteen days to six months we’re dealing and the sales guys can get well, you know, we were dealing with departments that had to get funding that then had to get this and that and the other. And it was just hard being a little guy trying to be a big guy. Right. You know, you can go in with the representation on website look like we were huge. Our contracts with like we had a lawyer on staff. And, you know, we we did I mean, we had all the right set up. But at the same time, we were always pushing for bigger, faster, more. And I really think if I had any advice to give anybody, like especially right now in this marketplace is in today’s marketplace knows pre covered marketplace, you know, the biggest thing would be I want to say stay in your lane, but I will say, like, really focus and get paid for what you’re really comfortable doing and find a way to learn new techniques and stuff with nothing work. You know what I’m saying? Don’t. Laughter I personally went after all the jobs that I thought were going to be a challenge. You know what they were? They always took twice as long as I thought they were going to take and they were twice as complicated and stuff like that. It’s always that way. So my biggest advice would be like, really try to sell what? No, you can deliver on your worst day.

Got you, got you.

And then also, when it comes time to grow, and if you’re hiring more than one person every six months, I think you need to pump the brakes, especially when you’re going from four people to 16 people. You know, you can find yourself just that. That would be my biggest regret, looking back, is I wish we would have been more focused on our core team developing our core team and figuring out giving time to let all the personalities come out and figure out how to best use them rather than, you know, having everything and saying, we got the right people, let’s do this. You know, and I think that was really. It ended up hurting us quite a bit.

Got you. Well, I mean, everything is a learning experience. So coming to I mean, do you come from an entrepreneurial background or all this you just kind of learned on your own is like your dad, uncle, your mom, and you have them entrepreneurs

know everything. Everything. But that’s like coming out of high school and whatnot. I worked for some interesting people. All right, so. I always kind of learn from them. They were hyperaggressive, knew how to make the sale. I was drawn to that kind of business. And so the first real business that I was a real big part of was a business that sourced and sold obsolete computer components or computer chips. So widely considered, it was kind of a gray market, but it was it was kind of like high sales, high turnover kind of shop and high adrenaline and that one it taught me really like how to really get out there. There’s money out there. There’s plenty of money for anybody that wants to go out there and find it. You can walk down. You can go out to your go to your closest Wendy’s or McDonald’s walk in either direction. You’re going to find at least 20 businesses that will give you money to do something. You just have to figure out like how do I force myself to go out there and get in front of those people? How do I play that game? And if you can figure out those kind of games in those kind of little routines that catch people’s attention and. Then then then that’s the first thing. So learning the hustle was really the first first thing, and then I got involved in a security, a security business. And you know that I’ll say the owners of that business, probably in terms of business, like how business works and all that, they were my my my business college. I learned that, you know, like four years. And while they were kind of like old school, you know, they’re there. Yeah. They were kind of old. They were very successful. So I got to learn a lot of things like how to structure deals, how to structure contracts, how to how to position yourself to be the top of the nopal, you know what I mean? So and really the importance of bringing and that’s where it really instilled in me the importance of, you know, this was like I said, right after 9/11, I got involved in that business and business went from zero to 50 million in revenue in less than a year. And it was just rapid growth. So I saw those things. And then I kind of said, wait, that’s much started my first business. But yeah, I would say learning from the people around you is probably absolutely key and taking a keen interest in not only what is my job, but let me watch them do their job and try to learn something, you know, good or bad. I learned I learned a lot of like what not to do and both those.

Got you. Got you. So how do you juggle your work life with your family life?

Oh, boy, I used to not do a good job. And then I saw myself in a hospital bed and I realized it’s time to do a better job, you know? And so, you know, I got three kids, I, I get involved in what they’re doing and in turn they get involved in what I’m doing. So a lot of our time is doing stuff like that. And, you know, it’s just that’s kind of one of those things is like you look at successful people. And to be honest with you, I look at your posts, what you’re doing with the boy, and it’s just like, man, you know, that’s that’s what I that’s as far as being a good dad, that’s that’s the most important thing. Right. And I think that’s the job is just keeping away from being able to turn off how I make money and not how do I love my kids and that’s what I believe is probably the number one having the right mindset and attitude. That’s got it.

Got it. So what’s your your morning habits, morning routines? You know, everybody that I usually speak to on this podcast, they usually have some kind of particular routine that they do every single morning. What’s yours?

When I get up, I take the kids to school, cook them breakfast, take the kids to school, and then I come down to the basement, my office here. And, you know, initially I have a bunch of morning meetings that I usually have know you’re probably like talking about before that. But what I do is I make stuff up. Like I come down here right away. I get my initial fifteen minutes of workout and I’ve got a little gym off to the side. I go and what I do is like, I’m not I’m not I’m not in a position to give anybody any kind of like exercise advice or anything. But what I do is when I get frustrated with what’s going on on the screen, I take ten minutes and I you know, I go do my thing for a little bit, work up a sweat, come back, sit down. All right. Now, cool. Turn off and start working again. So that’s really kind of that’s my first part of the morning and then, you know, I still I spend about two hours a day focused on work. So, you know, usually around lunch while I’m eating or something, I’m watching a video about something I’m interested in, whether it’s like a new reality component, state management library or podcasts. So I lot of for a while I was really into anything recently, like massive masterclasses of emails. Yeah. Like watching stuff like that. Really just. Allows me to exit this mind space and go into more of a learning mode, and then I feel like I’m done with that good start work and focus, hunker down, if you will, and try to obtain silence long enough to get something significant done.

What do you see yourself in 20 years ago?

Twenty years. Yeah, 20 years. Oh, man. If I’m not sitting on a beach somewhere now, you know, there’s a little there’s don’t steal this from me. There’s a there’s a there’s there’s like a large lake in the middle of Guatemala that actually has a wide channel that goes out to the Gulf. Right. So I see myself on the northern edge of that lake, sitting with a little canoe, fishing and living the nomadic lifestyle people.

Got it, got it. Yeah, I remember you was looking at sailing at one time, too, aren’t you?

Yeah, that’s a dream. That’s a dream. But when you got you know, when I had one kid, when he turns 18, I’m going to go sailing. Now that I’ve got three, it’s like got one in 20 years. I’m going to want to graduate, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sailing is definitely one of those things. I mean, I actually to that point actually went ahead and bought a sailboat.

I saw that you scooped it from the ground.

No, not that one I got.

No, no, no, no, no. But I am jealous when, you know,

whatever. I mean, it’s still taking sailing courses and classes right now. But I took it out last week with the original owner and kind of just went sailing to kind of get the ropes off, you know, every boat. It’s uniquely different to its to its owner. So there’s little nuances. But yeah, I mean, like, powerboats are cool, but sailboats are just it’s a whole nother thing. It’s a monster, man. I love it.

That’s awesome.

Whenever you want man. It’s it’s there.

So we’re doing this.

We should we should have done this on on a sailboat.

So we’re going to go.

We could do a follow-up on the boat. Yeah, definitely do a follow up on the boat.

Oh that is awesome. I love that idea. Especially getting out there with kids and just enjoying the day.

Yeah, definitely. Definitely. So as far as what you see yourself in 20 years, do you potentially see your will you see your company in twenty years?

Oh. I don’t know that all circles around the technology and what’s going on, I don’t know. I don’t know if I’ll bloom back again or just not, you know, I really just it’s hard because I don’t I don’t stay in the past. I don’t see in the future. I really focus on the here and now is doing what I can do for this situation right now. That’s a good question. I should have been more studying. I see myself being prepared for this kind of thing more in the future.

OK, well, what tools you use that you wouldn’t be able to do what you do without?

Man. JavaScript, I mean, it’s technically a computer without the computer. I’m utterly worthless, so that that’s pretty much my name to the fingers. I protect these puppies this morning. Money, man. Specifically, if you want to get into the specifics of it, then I’m a react guy. I’ve chosen that course. So react redux. One of the big tools the Airbnb put out that I use is storybooks. Storybook allows me to develop components outside of the actual application, and I can share that with the team and the rest of the design team. Exactly how does this component work and then figure out like outside of that, how does it work inside of the application? So it makes testing a lot easier, just is another tool that we do a lot of testing with, but it makes all that kind of work easier, if you will, and it gives me a platform that I can share with the applliance and the other departments to get approvals. That way I can deliver a chunk of code that I know works 100 percent to the application. They can use it.

So for our listeners, you got to say when I first met this guy, the only thing that he would ever talk about was Joomla.

OK,

so to hear him say everything but Joomla, it’s kind of like I want to check his temperature. I want to make sure he’s feeling OK, like

we’re going to like this. Like this. I just finished up with a website where for a buddy of mine, he just called me up and said, hey, I need a favor. So it’s a shot out creative. So anyway, just I just finished and dude, I use WordPress.

Where are we?

I know it’s horrible to know for a regular website like the average business out there, man. You know, I’m not going to say I ditched Joomla because me personally, the websites that I married, I prefer them enjoyable because again, I’ve got 15 years experience in journalism with Joomla, whatever. I don’t know. It’s just not I don’t know anyway. I still prefer making my custom designs and putting them in Joomla. And the custom design is one thing and was a. WordPress, if I’ve got a buddy that says, hey, I need a website, I say, cool, there’s this templates out for you over here. Let’s go look, let’s find something that’s really close because most of the websites now are like rich photography, right? So, yeah, really, the template is just giving you your building blocks for how things move around, whereas the menu was about and 90 percent there. And again, it’s different if somebody is paying for something to try to do a custom job. But again, if I’m just doing quick work or I mean something, you know, to put out there and also if I know that the guy is going to be self managing the site, then the WordPress sorry, Sergel.

I mean, if it works, it works. Right now,

Joomla has got Joomla for about to drop and I don’t know, dude, since I’ve since I’ve gone more enterprise application and stuff, I very rarely so much anymore. The only time I do it is like an old client is going to call me or most of our focus is is enterprise-level component.

I mean, that’s what everybody is claiming to be right. I mean, the whole app enterprise is this where everything is and the subscription model is where the money’s at so

yeah. But even with that, there’s so many good tools out there that unless you’re truly an enterprise, like if you’re, you know, if you’re AutoTrader, got it. You’ve got to bake your own pies.

You can’t lose stuff that’s just out there. So that’s where people like, you know, I’m just one of so many contractors that are there just to support the team.

OK, so what words of wisdom do you have for any up and coming entrepreneur or developer or web developer for that matter?

OK, say to them, what do you know what companies are wanting to buy? My biggest tip, and this is kind of the personal journey that I went through and I don’t know, you know, I just this is what made sense to me, is I went on like monster.com and LinkedIn and I saw all the job postings. What were the commonalities? Right. I literally went through there and poppy stuff from the requirement first overview. What does that mean right then over to you to watch videos about it. And then once I got in the vernacular. Right. And I think that was the correct vernacular is because even in job postings, they don’t usually do it. Then I take that and I would go back and I would search for people’s resumes on those that included that. Now, if they’re using the correct vernacular, then they’re likely going to use the reference throughout their resume. And I’d go through and pick through the resume and go, these are the key technologies that somebody is legit is learning right now. Also, make sure these guys have a job at a legit company. They’re not just like you out there searching for money. Right. So these are the key components. And then I just kept on for me, man. I just clicked for me was first it was angular and I ran after Angular for a while and then kind of a pump the brakes because all of a sudden all of like the Fortune 500 were suddenly developing react departments. And I’m like, that means they’re planning on using more more. So I found that and then I started getting content around it. But, you know, you update your resume, update this kind of thing, you update your website that includes segments. But then the here’s the advice part is pay money to learn those concepts and any for the last four years, two hours a day, I’m watching on like you, damn me. I’m buying courses that are usually like what? Thirteen nineteen dollars.

Yeah

I know it says two hundred. But if you wait thirty days, trust me I’ll be 90 million people and now they don’t even bother advertising.

You know, it’s just all just kind of.

Yeah right. So I find things that I’m interested in and I watch those and you go your report, you just constantly learn and there’s there’s no excuse. I think right now the way the Internet is all the information you ever need. I mean, I can take any normal programmer, sit down for six months and say, OK, here’s the course outline. Here’s the things you’re going to learn. You know, you’re going to be taking lots, two hours a day minimally. You’re going to be learning these concepts. You’re going to be put into action. And, you know, the truth is you can you can you can tackle and you stick to your salary at the end of the year by learning these things in six months. Easy, because the companies out there paying for modern web development and understanding how and modern web development works.

Yeah, I think he brought some really solid, solid, solid points. I think the only thing is to step back a minute. And it’s kind of like some some of these viewers may understand. You talk about some of them may not. But I mean, it’s obviously a diverse. Right. So what is UX?

Start with that user. UX is user experience. It’s basically, you know, just kind of like a branding is you take a simple idea of the logo and you stare at it long enough. You develop all these ideas around how logo should be. There’s truth in all of those things. UX Thing is like, are you knowing who your user is and having tools that like, I’m not shaking my desk, get a little bit sorry,

the coffee shakes, man.

But knowing exactly who your user is, developing a system to profile your user. So when you’re dealing with decision-makers, you’re not dealing you just kind of the art of taking the power of how things should be away from the owners and away from the stakeholders and putting them into shape. Can we at this hour get the answers? Hello, how’s it going? Am I going to? Alison. I’m so sorry, dude. Oh, no problem. They’re calling right now. Why? I don’t have anything on, like. That’s the nature of the beast, man. We’re. That’s the weird. OK, so not a problem, and it will likely persist the songs. So anyway,

so you covered it UX, so I guess the next sentence is what’s react?

OK, so react as a JavaScript library that basically allows for you to create I don’t know if I should do the technical version and want to

make it as lame as possible.

Oh, man. It makes. Web experience is more interactive, like an actual in fact, most or a lot of apps that you see out there are probably written in react and then loaded up to be you know, they have react native that it’s made of components for native applications. So so did the library.

So what are your thoughts on no code-based apps?

Code base apps like Lix or not,

I mean, Wex is more so like a Web design platform, what full integration of a mobile app that was designed on a platform that’s essentially tablets and goolies. You put the pieces in functionality together and then you submit to Apple.

Yeah, no, I’ve seen a lot of those. If they do what you’re wanting them to do, if you have an idea that fits within their capabilities and you happen to have enough experience with that one thing, then that would be great. The moment you get a requirement that great for right now, eventually you will likely have to refactor into something else or hope that the the foundry, if you will, or the people that created the app creator, keep expanding and whatnot. So there is definitely a place in the market for that. There are a lot of people that, you know, there Apple want is I want to see all of the churches within a 10 mile radius of whatever, something like that. Yeah, you can do those kind of things all day long. The higher you go up the scale with your app, like the moment your app starts to become a brand name, if you will.

Yep,

it’s not likely I mean, you know, you start hiring on people that demand that you’re a different kind of analytics in the background and security in the background. So we’re kind of off log. So where you don’t even have to log into the app and it’s and then it has to try the different databases and data stores and stuff like that. It just becomes very prohibitive because by the time you find somebody that can do all of those things. Yeah, it’s it’s. You’re paying as much to get somebody to develop a scratch, right?

Got You. Yeah, let’s look at it as Marshall prototyping. If you have, like a low level prototype that you want to get to market the test market at a cheap cost, test a market, and then you hire the developers once you raise equity to to build it from scratch, that you could own the code.

Right. Right. Right. And find somebody that’s good at doing that. Find a specialist that knows me when there’s thousands of people, they can put together a WordPress site a million times better than me. Right. That’s not my thing. That’s never good, I think. And I have struggled so much putting this site together, something I literally could have done, you know, just using regular e-mail and doing things I hadn’t called you. Yeah, I could handle that in a day and because I’m having to navigate WordPress and something I don’t do every day. Yeah. I couldn’t charge for it. I would be making three dollars an hour. There’s just no way. All right. So find somebody that is really good with the tool that that. Now I will say the advice for the business owners out there is this is on you. If you go to any dev shop, they need the money and they’re going to say, do you get in this? And they’re going to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, let’s do this. Right. That’s just the honest truth. So it’s only owner to know first what their true requirement is, right? They can’t just say, hey, I need an app or a I need a site that does blah blah, blah, blah, blah, and not understand any of the technology that goes into it because this is like kind of like buying a car at the end of the day, you’re buying better be sure you understand one, what kind of maintenance costs you’re going to have with it, what it’s going to look like when it’s outdated, you know, all these kind of things. Right.

So now I got a bonus question for you, and this is like one of my favorite bonus questions, because it always kind of tells me, like, you know, how people perceive themselves, but at the same time, it kind of defines who you are. Right. So if you could be a superhero, who would it be and why

superhero?

Yeah. And don’t try to cheat and think about what the kids, what the kids say,

and you remember the tick.

Yeah, yeah, right. He’s still on his Amazon Prime right now.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think that. Yeah, just somebody that looks like a superhero, huge and and is pretty much ineffective as a.

I mean, think it’s funny, though.

I don’t know. I don’t know. I mean, you know, my brain wants me to save watch. My brain wants me to say quick, it’s all about speed. It’s about this idea. It’s about speed of communication. I want to say flash, but physically I’m not flash. So I got to think of a superhero. It’s like a turtle, Mr.. Ninja Turtle,

OK? Now, if you could spend 24 hours a day with anybody dead or alive, uninterrupted, who would it be and why?

Elon Musk, yeah,

Mr. Ahriman himself,

huh? Yeah, you know. I think that just to point out, is the real you know, I’ve got this like a cyborg dono or he might have like a million people, like the security that is behind them producing Garatti very much. It seems to be like alien is him. It you know what I mean? It’s like people can’t what I whatever you think,

everything he did to get to where he is, I mean that people don’t realize like his his daun was essentially in a totally different market than what he’s in right now. Yeah. Totally different market. Yeah. L.A. definitely. I think to his his nickname, The Iron Man of today is definitely he definitely represents Iron Man. I mean, that’s who he is. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if the next ten years he ends up in Iron Man suit for real flying to space.

I just got to talk him out of going to Mars. I just think it’s a bad idea altogether. I mean, let’s just sit them down and say, look, there’s there’s no

total recall madness water, there’s water in the hills,

total recall in the Gulf or anybody.

They had oxygen at the end.

I want to leave somewhere I can breathe, somewhere I can,

just as true. This is true. All right. So close things out, man. What’s your most significant achievement today?

Oh, man. You know, when I think back and get nostalgic about things, I think there was a pinnacle moment at Ringer. Where? I remember thinking to myself. This is everything that I’ve ever wanted right now, right, and I think when we reached that point where, man, you know. The team was gelling, we were all being very creative, we were all just fireworks were happening every day. Right. And. I think achieving that level of. Personal satisfaction with my work. Felt like we were producing. Top level product. That was true, and then we were we’re taking cues that we’re documenting stuff along the way. I think that that that was my my peak moment that, you know, if if I had it to do over again, I would have. I figured out how to live there and not. I didn’t recognize it for being a trip and by keeping on climbing a mountain that wasn’t there, you know what I mean? That that really is something you’ve got to learn when things are good, how to maintain good. And that’s it.

Yeah, nice. So is it a part of the show where I usually flip the script and pass you the microphone and what questions you got from me

and how do you do it. Do you like you’ve got. OK, so I’ve had all these great ideas and it’s like you just got. I don’t know, man, I sit back everything you’ve ever talked about, everything you’re like somebody, this somebody, this somebody, this is somebody this it’s like you done it, you know what I mean? Everything from you know, I remember you first saying I’m going to start writing books. I was like, all right, go in the first one to four forever, right, but but once you figured out the combination, then it was like you just took off with it, like a machine and and I guess that’s the biggest. Like, how do you keep your mind focused that want to work even for success rather than just go for it?

So I think part of that goes into like what your morning routine is always learning. So every single time I learn something new. The first question I ask myself is I have to make a decision in that moment. Am I going to dedicate all my time to this new thing if it’s completely against what I’ve been doing? Or is it partnered with what I’m doing? So to your books, for example, write the books were more so I have all the information. How do I get the information out there? I was already marketing. I was really designing and developing and doing business. So I needed to kind of figure out a way. So the books was an add on and then everything else I’ve done from that point on or add on. So like course development, this podcast, they’re all essentially add ons to take what I’ve learned to delegate, educate other people and monetize them across the board. So anything you seem to do moving forward, it’s all for me. It’s all the big vision, right. It’s all about some people could compartmentalize and think about I’m just gonna write books, but I’m like, well, books go hand-in-hand with education. Education goes hand in hand with reach, which goes hand-in-hand with marketing. Put them all together. Sounds like course development strategy. Me.

Yeah,

build those phases out, so that’s just kind of how I do it every morning when I wake up. I have a vision of, OK, what’s on my agenda today? I have my clients stuff. Then I have my S.A Grant stuff and then I kind of split in the middle. OK, who do I need to hire to execute my client? Stuff like like legit. Like who can I hire to do this? Because my passion is I want to build my brand and to the point to where kind of like Gary V, right. Gary VS at the point where he has a company that does all the work and he has a brand that somebody else does all the work, he’s the figure in the middle, then, you know,

that would be pretty boy in the middle,

that big pretty boy in the middle. And that’s not necessarily where I want to be. But seeing Gary ve seen Tony Robbins, seeing all these different people over the past 10, 15 years, that’s the formula. Sure. Formula is being consistent, building great content and and not doing it all by yourself. And that’s the biggest thing I had to learn, is I can’t do this all by myself. How can I outsource whatever I need, outsource or hire whoever I need to hire and stay on my path to my path is I need to get all my content in front of as many people as humanly possible. And that’s what I wake up to every single day. What content or what am I going to build and develop today that can get my books or get my courses or get the brand or get the podcast one step further?

Yeah, I have another question for it, because this is something that I sell and and I’d like to think we’ll see what you think. But, you know, I feel bad for, like, a lot of people right there just completely out of work. Not but it’s very interesting that. To me, this whole slowdown and everything that’s going on is it’s kind of like a tree. all the players out of the game and I’m finding so many more opportunities just coming my way that are solid opportunities. And it’s kind of like it feels surreal. It feels like this isn’t how it should work. But I feel like it’s the fact that we’ve been, you know, nose to the grindstone honing our crown for so long that by the time all that the tree shake happens and all the money and the money just kind of has to be spent wisely, it goes towards people that actually can produce results and and I don’t know, I’m having a hard time being depressed. And everybody’s supposed to be depressed because. I’m kind of an introvert to begin with, you know. So to me, this was like, wow, everybody else is on the page now. So, you know, zombies are awesome. Let’s not get personal. I don’t know, you know, but what do you think I mean, and how has it affected you and your psyche?

Which is weird because from a wealth standpoint and all the studying and understanding of wealth management, I understand that this is the time to where wealth is created. Right. So just understanding that principle, that opportunity, there’s going to be more opportunities when things are worse than when things are good, when things are good, everybody is surfing and everybody’s happy. But the market, for example, right. If you know how to short the market, you’ll potentially become a millionaire overnight versus dealing with a bull market and you’re waiting for money to climb. It’s going to climb, but it’s going to drop way faster. And you could make way more money a lot faster that way. So it’s the same thing that the real estate market pops the same damn thing. If you’re sitting on two million dollars, you can go buy as much as you want because it’s 100 times cheaper than it usually is. Yes, but our space in digital is the same thing. It’s like you’re saying you shake the trees, players are falling out and there’s not enough people that they’re looking at, oh, my God, nobody’s hiring anymore but know that they are. But you just have to do a little bit more to get those jobs and once you get those jobs, you just have to kind of execute the jobs. And the biggest thing for me is keeping people on scope of work because like to your point earlier, if you have a job that’s going to be X amount and you’re burning 300 hours on it and it’ll be in three dollars an hour, well, that’s not the way to wealth. You’re working on an hourly basis. You have to have it set to where I’m I notice my margins are this is what I’m going to make and how am I going to get this job done on time and keep the client satisfied in scale step and repeat.

So for me, I mean, honestly, knock on wood covid. I have not been affected. I mean, business has increased, right. Since Colvard has happened.

And I think we’re unique in just our space. I mean, it does make sense. I mean, in a lot of ways what we do is facilitate the nonaction of people by, you know, as people can do it on the computer versus going going outside and doing so. You know, that’s what we’ve been doing. So it totally makes sense that, you know, the people that create the interface between the machine and the man, we’re going to do well.

But, yeah, it’s just very interesting. Different people. You talk to you and it’s and then the whole learning code thing is just. You know, it’s like. Look, I will not be good enough to do my job if I just started it two years ago. The only reason I’m good enough to do what I do now is because I started it 20 years ago and I haven’t had to think about anything else. So it’s just it’s kind of it’s a little bit daunting thinking about other people, especially while it feels like I’m getting job offers constantly.

Yeah, I think it’s a business model. Right? It’s a business model. I mean, like you’re like when your friends he owns a a smoothie shop or a Jewish shop.

Right. And so it’s kind of like for him, it could be a gift and a curse right at me. As long as he keeps it up being clean and he has everything set up and this is the property keep in climbing. But, you know, if it was more so like the the jumping playgrounds where you send 50 kids in. It’s kind of like now by default, they’re not going to have access to anybody because nobody wants their kids to get infected so much to maintain the business.

Rothbaum those guys are going to unfortunately, you know, it’s just kind of one of those things.

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, I think in the gym arena, I think there’s a lot of opportunity for digital gyms now. I mean, every time I go on Facebook now, I see these digital TV mounts or these vertical screens that are essentially 30 and screens turned sideways and they have software running on them, which is essentially like an Amazon fire stick. It’s a subscription for fifty dollars a month to the gym membership. Yeah, yeah.

So it’s like you just spent four thousand dollars for TV and you also spend fifty dollars a month for gym membership.

That’s online when a regular gym membership is 10, 20 bucks. Yeah. So the increase is. Opportunity knocked and somebody seized on the day, so, yeah, yeah, it’s some of those things you can do, I try to do like an online yoga thing and maybe would help some of these guys kind of stuff, like sounds like you was doing advanced hot yoga mat.

I don’t know. The first thing I could find, the heaviest advertisers got my business. So nice. So nice. I don’t know.

It’s confusing world. I just I’m just trying to stay positive more than anything else, you know? I think that’s probably one of the biggest things is is being able to wake up and to have the motivation and have the dedication to get things done to a day to day basis. Because to your point, I think society wise, we’re designed to be around people and the screen contact is OK, but it’s not the same as sitting down having a beer or coffee with somebody facing somebody and giving them a hug.

I mean, these are the things that struck me the most honestly, is the fact that I have to think twice before going up to a buddy I had seen in a while.

It’s like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Elbo that the new album, Handshake’s is interesting. It’s like, you know, the fist bump pneumonitis, elbow to elbow. Built for hugs and hugs, a grizzly man, the grizzly bear.

Well, I definitely appreciate you taking the time out of your schedule to come on the show.

I think we’re definitely a well, knowledgeable episode.

And it’s not that I know it’s probably a little off base and let’s rehearse them. But, you know, that’s just not true. So, yeah, I mean, that’s the goal of this this podcast.

I don’t want it to be scripted. I mean, the questions are kind of formulated in similar fashions, but I know every answer from everybody I interview is going to be uniquely different. So.

Yeah, yeah. And you played a little trick on me. Left out some of is always.

Keep your toes depressed. Yeah, well, have you breath and take me sailing, Captain.

OK, well. Well, yeah, that sounds I mean, nothing else to come out, check out the boat, maybe like next week to be available, so.

Well, I’m actually I’m here in Seattle for a week tomorrow. Cool. And so that’s fine of up there saying family and all that. So. We’ll lock in the time and is there so I appreciate it. Thanks again. All right. Thank you. Later.