if I don't do something with

this, If I don't just get started and figure this thing out, I'm never gonna do anything that I I set my mind to my big piece of advice,

figured out. Just make it happen,

is Nike Just do it. What do you do today? And what's general background? Yeah,

you know, I started my career in advertising. That's really what I wanted to be when I grew up, so to speak. It was an ad guy that sort of evolved over the years, but it's always kind of stuck in the back of my mind and really is kind of directed the of my career in terms of marketing. I think early on I decided that in order to get sales, it's a lot easier when people come to you versus when you're trying to convince them. So market it was I was a natural thing for me. It's like I like it better when people come and knock on my door, but at birth and vice versa. And so that's kind of what led me in the direction of, like, legion growth. You know, those some of those things you know about six years ago, I had an idea for a company called Coolly and essentially what it was is an equity exchange.

So in exchange for the influence that you bring to the table I started would give you a small percentage of equity in exchange or how impactful you are toward their brand. And so that was really kind of my first start into Hey, startups kind of wish I would have started sooner because I got hooked ever since then. Well, holy ended a blast. You know that two years or so raised, you know, a decent amount of money. A seed round went into an accelerator called Angel pad of a sepsis. Go. And ultimately, that's shut down. About a year later, I was able to salvage some of that emergent with a company called Loot, which is a sort of an incentive based at for influencers. Those very similar in the space. Except there wasn't any equity involved as compensation.

That was in San Francisco. I mean, were you today and hot ticket over there?

Yeah, that was interesting. So I'm based in Minnesota. So when we started with Julie, there was four of us, and we're actually all distributed. One of the founders was in Chicago, and then the two other founders were in Austin, Texas. And then I was in Minneapolis. And so we did a base in our company out of Austin, Texas, just because the talents better there. And so we thought we'd have a better chance that pirate on there so I would already communities down to Texas quite a bit. So when you gonna take Angel Pad? We felt it was important to have obviously a presence in San Francisco, given the space that we're in.

And we had a really close alignment with clout, which was really at that time 2013 ish at the height of its popularity. And so you know what I would do because I'm an older phoner with Children and, you know, I have three kids and a wife, so I would commute every week. I would fly down to San Francisco on Sunday night. We had an apartment that we rented for an ungodly amount of money. It was like 3200 bucks for a one bedroom apartment. Yeah, fly down there every Sunday night and then every Thursday night at flight back to Minneapolis and spend the weekend at home and then go back. So I did that for about four months,

but it worked. So I guess when you were closing, getting rid of that and going to the loot was loot still in San Francisco's Well,

no, they were actually based out of Orlando. Look at the time. So I've always been distributed. It feels like, you know, there isn't a lot of activity that happens in in Minnesota for 12 I'm in like a far out western suburb of the Minneapolis. And so, in fact, there was a guy that had reached out to me that wanted just Cem advisement, and he was willing to come on my way. And so you know, it took him an hour to get out here. We met up like terrible coffee. He's like, I can't believe there's somebody that had knows about startups that's lives way out here. You know, it's just the circles that I walk in out here and say, Michael are so much different than in my day to day. They really don't have any idea what ideo

I guess. Going from Louis when I guess bring it so to today,

then? Yeah, yeah, sure. Yes, I was in blue for about a year, and then after that, I decided, Well, I should say in between there in between Well, Holy and Luke, I started a couple Cos the 1st 1 is a site called Starts anonymous dot com, which is still running today and starts Anonymous is basically a place for founders to be able to share their stories, ask questions, maybe even just confessed something without the fear of retribution. So completely anonymous. Site four founders where they can ask questions openly and you get answers back from people that are also anonymous so they can be forthright and they can add offer their story.

So I did that because, well, who he went down. I really had a lot of sort of emotions with it, and so it is something I wanted to talk about, but I didn't necessarily want to write publicly, and so I had been looking for a venue to really share those stories. Ask questions. There were some questions that I didn't even know about shutting down a company, and I felt like I probably should have known, and that was a good venue for me to be able to have asked those things without, you know, disclosing myself. So yeah, So I started that, and that took off pretty quickly.

I obviously didn't want to be the only one asking questions and sharing stories, because then it would be pretty obvious that it was me doing that. So, you know, I spent the first few months of starts Anonymous, really just generating interest in getting people to share their stuff, doing disco, old

outrage. You could give us some examples

of that. Yeah. I mean, obviously it helps having a network with Angel Pad. And so that was one of the resources that I turned to. There's a lot of founders there. Many of them have gone through shutting down a company. I don't even have stories that I haven't shared. And so I reached out to that network. You know, after people submit things asking people ask questions, getting them involved. I literally had a network of people that have reached out to me over the years asking me questions or asking for advice or what have you and I compiled All those people reached out to them told them, You know what I was building and asked them to. You start populating and then I'd also just look for anonymous stories that have been shared elsewhere, and I would post them on the site and then give credit back to the other side, so I would sort of popular.

Early on, I populated some of that content through some of those methods. But one of the things that I did pretty early just to get some attention in credibility built for it is I reached out to Pando daily, or it's I think it's just referred to His panel now, which is run by two former TechCrunch writers. Seriously see is the head energy. And so I created a pitched a Siri's called Starts Anonymous, but we just basically any of these stories that get shared anonymously on Serbs Anonymous would be syndicated or written first on Pando and so gave Founders an opportunity to have, like a bigger stage for their stories to be shared. It wasn't a guarantee that it would make it on there, but it got the quality of submissions to really increase just by having that one alignment on, then also on the flip side of that. I was talking to tap into panels network to drive people back to starts anonymous on a weekly basis. So it was a really good partnership

there. That was one of the companies that you said you started, and then a couple

others. Well, the other big one is sticking a box, which is a coordinated Dietrich piece description. So basically what I do, it's quite simple. It's his description box which many people are familiar with. Also, on a monthly basis, I go and find sort of the best tasting the best flavors of beef jerky from small batch makers across the U. S. And then I shifted subscribers each month. So these air, I call it the anti Jack legs. So anything that you'd find at a convenience store, generally speaking, you're not gonna find and stick in a box.

So I've been doing that for about two and 1/2 years now. And the interesting thing about that is, most people don't realize this is how much food drippy is being made out there. In the two and 1/2 years I've been doing this, I've never once doubled our put the same product in a box on any given month. And every single month, I send out anywhere between 5 to 7 products in each box. So there is a lot of product out

there. And how did you decide to get into that? Like said, I guess you're still just so we kind of close the door on the other company would loot. So at the end of loot your closing this down he started. These two were saying was their 3rd 1 as well. We're now.

No.

Okay, so you sort of these two. Can you tell us about the transition? Like I didn't know if everything closed down at Lou and you're like, Hey, I'm done. And then you just started sticking a box. Or if it was, like, a month or two lay over kind of how that worked.

No, actually, yeah, It starts anonymous and stick in the box actually came before Luke.

Okay, I got you.

So for about a year after, well, holy shut down. I had all these that sort of assets of literally. Mainly, there was a really big community that stayed active in it. It was crazy because it kind of created a community of their own. Well, holy was a concept that a lot of people rallied around. And just to give you a quick background, this is how quickly this company came together. In September of 2012 I credit the landing page and basically describe what we're gonna do. The way I describe it, it was its shirt tank meets Kickstarter meets. That means closed. So it was those three things that kind of came together. Shark tank was just,

you know, on the air, I think starting out So people were interesting. That kid started was at the height of its popularity and clouds was as well. And so those three things combined, they're like, Wow, that's a really interesting formula. And nobody else was doing this at the time, which is taking, let's just say, 4% equity in the company and then making that into a pie and then giving up to 5000 people the opportunity to be part of that pie. So it was a pretty novel concept, and really, that landing page led to a lot of press. I mean,

it took some effort to get that press, but you know, we were in thrillers to begin with, then Business Insider, and then TechCrunch the National USA Today and NPR. I mean, it just kind of snowballed from there Through all that, we got into a partnership with clout, and we basically limited the people that could sign up to holy based upon cloud scores. So you got to be in the top 10% of clout scores. Thio actually qualify to be part of a league which created this really interesting dynamic. And so these people that joined were really they're all spoken people, obviously, because there with high club scores became, You know, you're actually gonna be people that are active on social and so they really rallied behind it,

and they created these groups. I mean, they bought up every single, well, who lead based demand that you could possibly imagine. You know, those And then they formed a group called the Whole Against They created Facebook pages that credit Wikipedia page for US State. They really rally together. And so I reached out to them quite a bit, and I cultivated that community and one of the things that I did once who was close to shutting down. As I said, What do you guys want to see? Happen? Like, should we make this a community based company like we all own it? Or should we?

Is there another direction that you guys would suggest? And so I got a lot of feedback on that. I'm one of them. It was still leveraging their influence for good. And so that's how sort of the loot then came together because I have been looking for a way to match this audience that I had this group of 30,000 plus people that wanted to participate in something with another company. And so that took me about a year to identify the right company. Todo

Well, then I must go ahead and I just talk a little bit more about the startups in honest and stick in a box. I don't know if you want to talk about one versus the other are what is Jackson. Help our audience a little bit.

Yeah, well, we could move on the stick in the box. I think starts anonymous is you know, is this per self explanatory? Yes. Stick in a box started. I was at a trade show just randomly in Chicago and I came across this booth that was sewn. Actually, they were just giving out samples of this turkey that they were making, and it literally stopped me in my tracks when it took a bite out of it. It was unlike anything I've ever had. And really, you know, I'm not some sort of connoisseur of be drinking or anything like that. Up to that point, I just I was a normal average consumer that would go through a gas station and buy a bag of Alberto or Jack legs,

you know? And so that was my basic understanding of beef jerky at the time. And so when I tasted this, I'm like, Oh my God, there's things there, you know? It's like the Flaming Yana of beef jerky, and I had no idea something like that even existed. And so I really didn't think about it much after that. I knew that I loved the products. I came back home a couple weeks later, I was thinking about that beef jerky again. I went online and I couldn't get it. It was only distributed through stores, and it was only distributed locally.

So really, it wasn't in my area. And so obviously with an entrepreneur mind ago. Okay, How am I gonna get my hands on this stuff? And what can I do with this other people need to have this. I don't have a retail store, so I can't sell it. So I started thinking about it, and I did a little bit of research online at one of the things that I did is I just basically looked to see how many times this product was being mentioned on Twitter. The product itself wasn't being mentioned much, but the topic of beef jerky was being mentioned constantly. And so I literally could see that almost every minute of every day somebody is confessing their love for be jerky. It's just one of those affinity type, sort of products. It's like chocolate,

you know. And so I just looked around and saw you know who's selling. Watch what stores online are available, you know, what's the market look like for this? Aside from just convenience stores, you know, come to find out there really wasn't much in the way of any offerings, and this wasn't that long goes to two and 1/2 years ago, I had just recently listened to a podcast about somebody that had just started a subscription box. And I'm like, That's an interesting idea because I could get product, maybe for free and then resell it to consumers, which was like the birchbox sort of model of doing sampling. So, you know,

over the course of about a week, I spent about $100 in total to get the entire site up and running. I used trap ified to pull things together. You know, did the Logan myself. I hired out a couple of images toe have done. I really didn't know what I was getting myself into. I just knew that if I could reach out to you enough for drinking manufacturers have them send the samples and then, you know, figure out some sort of price point that it probably did work. And so one thing that I did, I mention that some extra JIA's well is. I didn't know the first thing about subscription based boxes, so I didn't know, you know, where's the best place to gearboxes?

What's the best way to do? Shipping, You know, how do you do the labels to fulfillment and house, do you do it out? And so instead of trying to just learn all that stuff on my own the hard way, I recruited other switching box founders into a started a group on Facebook. Just four subscription box founders and I did cold average. I just looked for other companies that we're not selling the same thing I waas and they want some of the same thing that the other people I was reaching out to work. So is a big, non competitive group, you know, kind of basically people that are just starting out. I mean, I did reach out to some of the bigger ones do like the birds boxes of the world on the Dollar Shave Club, and it's like you don't try to get those people involved.

But what I found was the, you know, the people that were in a similar boat to me. They're just learning to, and so we just came together and started sharing our information. You know, we able to find out where where we all buy boxes at, you know, the platforms that we're using, the tools that we're using, the price points, you know, like what your pain for product on a per box bases. It was really, really helpful to go in, you know,

and take that step. And so that's basically how it got started. The early days of sticking a box for the first couple months. I was literally just relying on samples being sent to me from beef jerky makers. And I would use those samples to fill fill the boxes and, yeah, it's growing ever since.

So how'd you get the idea that I think that was really smart to reach out to those people? I kind of started a Facebook group. Have you done something somewhere like that before?

No. But I can tell you, this is one thing that I look back on my career is that I've always gone to places that just give an example of this. So back in college, I wanted to start a pool cleaning business. I have no idea why. I just thought it would be fun to get a Jeep. You know, I just imagine this sort of whole process and I didn't know the first thing about playing bowls. And so what I did is I got a job at a pool store, you know, and I did it for a summer so I could learn everything I needed to about doing Bull's eye never ended up starting the pool cleaning business, but I did have enjoying the pool business. Did that in college a little bit later in my career, I wanted to start an ad agency. At some point. I knew that I wanted to,

but I really didn't know anything about certain that agency so I wouldn't get a job on the agency so I could learn sort of the ropes of doing that similar story. I was getting into real estate investing several years back. I thought, you know, it'd be great to have a free magazine that has just investment property opportunities that would be get circulated just locally within stores, and I don't remember, but about 10 years ago, or maybe even earlier than that, they used to have these real estate magazines that they would put out like encounters at stores that you'd walk into and just have all these how homeless dance, this kind of pre pre Internet purchased in

Devon for cars. Still, if you go in this community stories, yeah,

yeah, yeah I don't care if something similar. Yeah, something like that. So I wanted to do that for real estate investing. But, you know, again, the theme of my life is I didn't know anything about starting a magazine, you know, we're doing in those states. And so what I did Someone got a job in a magazine for a little while, ended up starting that magazine as a result of learning. You know about pagination, about printing about, you know, getting things laid out about the cost structure and how to make probable source of things.

So it's not all that dissimilar from things I've done in the past in order to learn what I need you to go and start something, or at least for me to feel comfortable enough to go and start something. And that's kind of been the path that I've taken. Obviously, I didn't get a job description box this time. I want a different route, but it's sort

of the same thing. You know, it made return our train of figure it out. The expert story in the field, like said, it is. It's really smart to toe. Make sure there weren't someone in who's doing beef jerky boxing. That was in your group, for instance, Where they might give you the room information by quoting co accident.

So and that was important for the other people invited to. Yeah, but when I reached out to them and, you know, got this group started, I made sure that that was one of the first things I told them is that you know, there's not gonna be anybody competitors to you.

Yeah, So, I mean, I could see anywhere a listers like if they're thinking about starting a certain company doing some very similar. You're trying to sell shoes all mind, you know, you're not gonna go try to get zappers and Tony Shea on there. But maybe you get people who sell socks online or something that maybe not even that closely related where they can learn from that. So could you tell us a little bit more about, like, maybe the ups and downs as faras with stick in a box and kind of, you know, at first when you're getting those trials, could you tell us about your first customer and where you shipping those out yourself?

I was gonna want myself Yeah, I was actually handwriting. The labels. It was a real pain in the butt, so I didn't really have boxes at that point, and I didn't have anything. So basically, what I did is I used sticker mule to give them a plug, but I still use them to this day to get my stickers, but yeah, I created some stickers with my logo on it. I went to Office Depot bison boxes because this description quantity was, I think my first month, if I remember correctly, I would have to look back. But I think it was like 30 subscribers up to that point. There was a two minute lead time before I started shipping boxes in terms of how I got those for subscribers.

I'm gonna think about this for a minute, but I think, honestly, there was no ad spend. One of the things that I wanted to do was create stick in the box as like a marketing sandbox for me. Just experiment with different, which I'll talk about in just a minute. But it's always been kind of fun, too. Trading alter ego with it and do things that kind of push the envelope a little bit, which is what I've been doing since day one. But the early subscribers, I'm guessing that it was just pure hustle. If I'm thinking back on it, I don't think there was anything significant that happened to get those first in the shoulder. 36 drivers other than just outreach,

which would be within my network, one of the hidden gems. I think I'm Facebook, where these local community sites and I could just tell you, like within our area in Minnesota, our local community sites get 10,000 members in, and they all support local businesses, you know, and I'm assuming this is similar to any other market in the United States. But I'm leveraged that several times just to say, Hey, I'm a local business. Um, even though I'm online, you know, I've got this Father's Day deal or I've got this Christmas special,

and I know that I leveraged that early on to to get some early subscribers. And the nice thing about that, if you're shipping products, is that if you're using zone pricing for postage, it's a lot cheaper when you ship within your own state. So thanks an extra bonus.

Thanks for the tips.

Yeah. Yeah.

So then, like a ***, you said you're gonna get strip into it a little bit more into that. But how many subscribers air yet today? Just so we have an idea of where you started at where? Your

today? Yeah. So we're just over 500 right now. It's a side gig as full time, and I haven't talked about this yet, but full time. I'm the head of marketing for a company called Promoted at Io, which is a MPs or not. Promoter score software, SAS Company. So stick the boxes. I was kind of been a side gig for Mae. It's sort of therapeutic, and it's fun. And like I mentioned, it's It's a marketing sandbox, so I spend very little on actual bone marketing dollars,

so I don't do any Google AdWords. I don't do any Facebook ads to a large degree sometimes will boost him stuff, But other than that, I don't spend a penny on. So everything I do is intended to be organic. And so I'll give you an example of that. About six months ago, I started this sort of idea of reference C and sticking a box as Ashley Madison for vegans And you're familiar with Actually, Madison.

No way that could you tell. Describe the national minutes.

Yeah. So, actually, medicine is a site for married people, Um, where they can go to find other married people that are looking to hook up on the side. So it's the site for cheating, basically. And, you know, meet the headlines a couple years ago when they're entire psych operation, they released every member's name on the side, and then people created, like, search databases so you could find out that your spouse was using U. S. O at the time that it happened.

I don't know if I thought about it then, but it occurred to me. It's like, Okay, that's kind of what we do for vegans. Like if a vegan wanted a cheat, they would describe to us and we could send it straight way. Oh, my God, that's kind of funny. Let's see. Let's see if there's any interest in this that president would earn that Really Nobody responded because we don't have a big audience on Twitter, you know, engaged in there. But, um,

I ended up going through with this because I just felt strongly in the idea. So what I did is I. So actually, Madison has, like this defining image of this woman. That's she. Basically, you can't see anything, but it appears as if she's like standing there naked. It's kind of from the top, where the underneath her neck up and she's got a finger up to her mouth and she's saying like and so what I did instead is I had a image created of a woman like standing very similar to that. But instead we're figure being held up. It's a B stick that's being held up in front of her mouth, right? And so I created this tagline, saying,

It's okay to cheat with me and then print ad for that. And then I started. It begins just because I knew that they would be in an uproar, right? And so that is an area that I spent a little bit of money on on both Facebook and UNR. Edit. Targeting begins bread. It actually shut me down because they knew that what I was doing was just rolling. All right, so the actual ad and you know you can link to it if there is a spot totaling

two. There will be in the show notes, and I'm looking at it right now on your website thing.

I created a flaming page for this, like a vegan landing page. You know, it's all tongue in cheek. But the thing about like the stick in a box brand is that it's beef jerky with an attitude. And so I've always been able to create this alter ego of somebody that, you know, is just sort of hard nose. Hey, toes the line with being appropriate and not be inappropriate. And it really fits. So the profile of my customer, which is why it works. You know, people that eat beef jerky kind of fit into the stereotype. They like the innuendo, jokes they,

you know, they kind of find it funny that it's just the type of customer that I have, right? Yeah, And on the opposite end of that, you got vegans who are very passionate as well, and they're very passionate about their lifestyle, and they seem to unite with each other, and they really seem to get up in arms about people that you didn't mean. And so I thought all right. So I got two passionate audiences here, one that loves beef jerky and the other one that just can't stand anything. Be related. What if I could somehow get them to start arguing, you know, and do it over on my brand? So the whole intention of this beacon campaign wasn't obviously to convert any vegans? I'm not that naive to believe that

that's sure

you have that power. Yeah, it was actually just to create an uproar and start a discussion and get people talking about it and get media attention. And so this is actually still underway. But I have no food. Beast was the first article that has come out as a result of it. I'm actually talking about Entrepreneur magazine right now about another story, A za results. So there's a new variation of the campaign that's coming out that is gonna be male oriented, But yeah, it's it's really been fun doing this, and the results are great. So, you know, naturally, what I wanted was people that look at that campaign from a meat eater standpoint and go, Oh,

I like this simply because this company is willing to do this sort of thing, Um, and I can rally behind that ultimately just comes into it. It's a numbers game. The more people that comment on my Facebook posts about it, the more people I'm reaching. I actually got it. Surprisingly, when I did the Reddick campaign, which was Super Chief, I did have getting to people and I wasn't even crossed targeting. So the approach that I took was I was gonna target Deacon's first and then get vegans to start offering whatever words they wanted to offer. And then I was going to target meters following that so that they can get involved in that discussion, right? So built up the narrative. That way,

the actual step of getting the Beefeaters involved in the Facebook side is yet to come. So that's sort of my next step within there. But the ads that ran on Reddit actually got me subscribers, which was kind of crazy because I just didn't even think that was gonna happen cause I only exclusively targeted begins. I don't know if there were a few vegans that are just within those sub credits For the Who knows, I have no idea.

So is a stick in the bucks playing a dick on the Bucks. Theo is my chicken in a box because I think I think your stuff's funny like it is settled. So are you. Today I was still stripping all those boxes yourself. Or can you tell us how, over the years, I guess it's evolved? But what first was it like you're all in and you slowly taking yourself out? And then you can discuss, I guess, about promoter I. Oh, what you do,

Yeah, you know, I mean, I'll be honest about, like, my goal, and it's not really a lifestyle business for me. It's something that I will eventually sell, but I still haven't hit all my goals with it yet. It's more of a little company that I get the dream about and do. Little things with that are fun. So, for example, the whole stick in the box thing, How are the connection to Dick in a box? So one thing that's coming up right now I'm working on a box design right now. That's gonna include a perforated hole in the back as the quote unquote wheat access hole.

So you know the playoff that seem just a little bit born, you could pull the meat of the box and then deal with the box what you will There. I've done a few like shows where, like bike rallies and tailgating events, things of that nature. And so one of my plans is to have it cut out. Where is this? Sort of like a big D C looking guy, and you basically stand behind it, you think, picture. But the big beefy guy's got like a shirt on that says, I just got my stick in the box and the box is sort of being held at waste, right? So people can take pictures with it because the other thing that I'm working towards is a mobile man cave. So,

you know, basically calling a real town, which is, if you imagine, like a fax truck completely got it out. But it's hard floors in there. It has, like plaster TV, like a keg meister, a little basketball court area, basically a man cave on wheels that I would be bringing to tailgating events, different shows of things, things of that nature and sewing sticking a box out of that. They're like these things that I want to accomplish before I ended up selling it. But yeah, it's just sort of a slow growth type thing that I'm working towards.

All fulfillment is still done in house. I'm pretty much at that tipping point right now where I probably should outsource it because it is pretty time intensive to get those things ready to go on out the door. But I do have, surprisingly, I've have twin 10 year old boys and they love packing jerky boxes with me. So right now I have, like, a crew of helpers that they go at it with me and nice to keep that margin than I would have been stunning.

So So I guess during this point he said it, you figured you had to pick up a full time job as well. And this is kind of your side hustle. I mean, what made you do that for you? Initially, like I said, all in on, stick in a box. And you kind of knew eventually it's gonna be your side or tell us a little bit about promoter. I know what

you do. Yeah. I mean, I've taken stick in a box seriously, but not to the point where I've really invested 100% of my effort into it. You know, honestly, if there's a month that goes by that I'm not putting in time into sticking a box, it shows in the numbers, right? And so I know that if I were to put a full time effort into it, I could probably do it a lot quicker, But it's not 100% fulfilling for me. So what I have been doing was sticking a box after loot. What I I was consulting. I write quite a bit. So all right,

Frank magazine as well. Uh, right. A lot of Lincoln as well. And so those sources have actually been really good lead sources for me in terms of stick in a box in terms of my full time gig with promoter. But I was kind of looking to sort of scale back all the consulting that I was doing and just focus in on one product. One company and I wanted to be exclusively on Mercury. And so it's something that I hadn't done for a long time because I have been involved in every aspect of the business for quite some time, including fundraising, which I got completely burnt out on. You know, the financial sides of things. Just there's certain aspects as an entrepreneur, you just can't stand. And it felt good to me to go all out and just say, Look,

I'm just gonna focus on marketing and I'm gonna do it for one product from one company, and that was sort of my desire. At that point, time was to go and do that. And so I spent about three months talking to companies looking at different products, and I ended up landing a promoter, which is the base in San Antonio. So get again a remote person. But I really like the Net promoter space. It's very close to sort of the influence or space only with your customers. So the whole sort of objective of using that promoter is identifying who are your biggest advocates within your customer base and then leveraging the those advocates for growth. Most companies don't realize that between 50 to 80% depending on what type of business you are of your revenue, comes directly from your customers. They're the ones that drive the most thorough for all small amount. Three possible word of mouth and so off that 50% that's driving that revenue of the advocates. I'm sorry they're driving 50% of the revenue.

That's only about 20% of those that are willing, meaning that there are all these advocates, people that love your product, love your brand, are going to, you know, refer new customers your way, willing to give you a review online. Well into sure you socially he was writing for wisdom. They could do this. But there's a whole handful of people within any company's customer base that just are sitting on the sidelines because they don't know what to do. But they're willing. And so what Net promoter does helps you identify who those 80% are and, you know, put them to work. And so it's.

It's a huge profit center for a company if leverage correctly. And what's interesting about the space is that even though it was credit or started in early two thousands, it was only up until about two years ago that it was only used by enterprised level companies like Southwest Airlines, US A. Apple. You know, there really wasn't a self service tool that you could go you could just start as a I don't know. You know, a company that has 100 customers. Promoter was the first tool that came out that offered a self service option. And so this is they call it. And I don't know if I could swear on this button and angel pad. Uh, we always talked about ship rising markets. NPS is a shit rising market. There is a huge opportunity for growth in there. And so that's what kind of excited about promoter. Yeah.

Oh, yeah. Can we talk a little bit about like, you being a remote worker? Cause I met Some of our listeners are kind of could be remote. Workers work from home. And, I mean, have you had any challenges with that and kind of with your date a date, make sure you stayed productive.

Yeah. No, it's great. Yeah. I mean, one of the disadvantages of being at home is that it's never really off. I do have kids. So kid activities really do help, You know, they're in sports. And so I do sort of in my day, my work day at five on go spend time with family, but nine times out of 10 you know, after they're in bed at 99 30 ish, I'm back on my computer, so the day is sort of always on. The disadvantage really is.

I crave that team time. So I go down to San Antonio probably every 56 weeks, which is great. Uh, I'll spend a week, week and 1/2 down there, and we get a lot lot accomplished in the most times, but it's really helpful to have that to you time and so I just can't commit to moving to San Antonio right now, But yeah, that's sort of like the disadvantage for me. The advantages that Aiken basically walked down the steps in my pajamas Indian my pajamas all day and work or from my office. I enjoy that. I enjoyed not having a commute. I enjoy, you know, being able to jump really quickly into things. Discipline is important. I've had to work on that over the years, but I've been doing it so long now that it's kind of second nature.

Could he tell us like how you've been able to do that? Because that's what I wanna jump into. But

yeah, display.

Yeah, how were you able to do that? You know, I think there's gonna be more and more that work first is going to start working from home, and everyone always thinks it's awesome. It likes that I work from home. I've been doing it for four years and had that discipline at first. But sometimes it gets tiring and, like said, Just turn any hurdles and how you've been ableto stay disciplined

like you're saying, Yeah, my job is work right? It's that whether it's, you know, sticking a box of promoter, my wife stays home full time with the kids. So that's really helped in terms of being able to keep the distractions to a minimum in terms of the kids coming in or interrupting. And they know that when my office door is shut that they're not supposed to come in. You know they'll knock every so often, other than going out for a run or having lunch. I literally don't leave my office. And so that's helped me as well, not just going up randomly to grab a stack or things of that nature and keeping my hours at a normal sort of like I said, I'd shut down at five. So that's really helped me to know what my limitation is. Because if it wasn't there,

I'd probably just keep going. Very be honest, and I would just work right through it. I also have a start time, you know, every morning. So I locked myself sometime in the morning with my kids. I don't touch my phone. I don't look at it. I don't do any of those things and talents sort of time to go down, which is 8 30 And so once that starts, then you know that's my work day. And I just have to mentally keep it that

way and so kind and wrapping up. What advice? I guess. What do you have for would be or wannabe entrepreneurs? And and what's the best way for them to reach out and say thank you for doing the

interview? Yeah, sure. Well, first off, you know, addresses Dana. See person at gmail dot com. So pretty easy to reach out. You can also reach out to me through Sticking boxes website. There's a contact going on there. It's actually got my number listed, so we want to give me a call. I put it on there for a reason. I will answer it and chat with you in terms of advice. I think the biggest thing for me has always been just actually moving forward with something. So many people sit on ideas.

They talk about ideas. They over analyzed the ideas. They push it off till the next day. The biggest thing in difference for me was actually just doing something. That's how holy literally started. Because I had been on the guy that has an idea every single day, right? And it's always something new. It always seems super interesting. Assumes that idea comes in and there was a point in time. It's like, you know, one. Screw it. I was working full time when I started with Julie, and I just decided,

Look, this is if I don't do something with this, but I don't just get started and figure this thing out. I'm never gonna do anything that I I I set my mind to. And so my biggest piece of advice is figured out. Just make it happen. There's Nike would say, Just do it

Well, we get like said, Well, thank you for your story and all the advice, and we really appreciate coming on. Thanks. Have a good one thing. Think this episode could help inspire friend or family member. Then please pass it on. Thanks again for listening and catch the next episode. I got something really important to give, so just sit down and listen. Whipping together such a long time now. Ready to wow, you know is Christmas and my heart is open wide. I'm going to give you something So you know what's on my mind? A free a special sneak off. Take a look inside Is my chicken in a box? Wait.