The LoCo Experience EP 289 | Seth Silvers - CEO of Story On - New Chapters in Life and in Podcasting

0:00 In today's episode, I sat down with a third-time guest, Seth Silvers, CEO of StoryOn, and truly my mentor in podcasting. Seth joined me in studio only a little over a month removed from the birth of his first child and shared some new perspectives that he was told to expect, but still to hit differently when it's real. StoryOn has been focused on podcast production since soon after Seth and I had our first venture together in 2018, the Small Business Storytellers podcast, for which I stuck around for about 10 episodes, and Seth went on to create 100 episodes and publish 99, before putting down the mic and focusing on production and strategy services for others in the business podcast space.

0:41 But soon they'll be producing content again at StoryOn and formally launching their consultancy arm and getting Seth back behind the microphone and digging into the stories that make business and podcasting great. If you're watching the video feed for this one, you'll note there's only a solo camera. We were flying solo without studio support due to a scheduling goof with my producer and decided to kick it old school. But I was happy to hang out with my personal podfather, Seth Silvers. Welcome to the Loco Experience Podcast. On this show, you'll get to know business and community leaders from all around northern Colorado and beyond. Our guests share their stories. And through it all, you'll be inspired and entertained. These conversations are real and raw, and no topics are off limits.

1:25 So pop in a breath mint and get ready to meet our latest guest. Welcome back to the Logo Experience Podcast. Yeah, good to be back. I think it's been a couple years. At least two, maybe three. Yeah, I think probably two, two and a half years, something like that. Seth Silvers, the man, the myth, the legend, one of the podfathers of Fort Collins, and the CEO of StoryOn. Yeah, thanks. Happy to be back. I think it's always fun talking with you because I remember pretty vividly you and I walking down College Avenue. And this was now, gosh, I don't know, probably eight years ago. Yeah. And I think you were kind of imploring me, like, I think you should start a podcast.

2:06 And we were kind of talking about it. I want somebody to do it, not me. Yeah. I think that's what it was at the time. And it ended up being the small business storytellers, which the first iteration of was me interviewing business owners. And then at the end of the episode, you'd kind of come in and we'd talk about the interview. Yeah. We did that for maybe like 10 episodes and then realized it was horribly clunky. Yeah. To be able to do it. And so it was good. But, you know, we were both figuring it out. And then I ended up doing small business storytellers for about 100 episodes. 99. Did you really have stopped before 100? So I stopped at 100, which interesting story that we can get into if you want. But we stopped at 100 and then had to go back and delete an episode after the fact.

2:46 But then... I kind of stopped because I got very busy with once I started podcasting. Other people said, well, you know how to podcast. Can you podcast for us? Yeah. And so our marketing agency shifted to a podcast agency. Because you were a conventional marketing agency. Right. You had no... ideas of yeah so yeah social media content marketing kind of typical content marketing storytelling yeah you were early kind of in that storytelling space for sure um and for some reason i think it's naivety uh i but i mean i believe in god and i think that there's certain things at certain times in our life that for whatever reason we end up being naive to yeah and i don't understand why i wasn't thinking about podcasting Um, when I started story on, uh, I was thinking about all these other media forms and it was, even when I started small business storytellers, wasn't really thinking about podcasting, um, for as far as like for our clients and then, uh, starting it, seeing how it impacted my business caused me to be like, Oh, this is the tool that I really, really love.

3:53 for other businesses. It is one of the best storytelling tools out there. I think it is. Yeah. Like a well done podcast is not that different from an audio book or something. Yeah, the time that people spend with podcast hosts is pretty wild compared to other media forms. It's very hard to get listeners. Yeah. But once you have them, then what's the value of people spending 30 or 40 minutes a week with you? There's people that probably listen to your podcast that kind of spend more time with you on a yearly basis than they do with their closest friends. Yeah. I met somebody in Loveland the other day at this Sour Small Batch Beer Festival.

4:38 Carla or something? Yeah. Sorry. Hopefully she's listening. But she was like, are you Kurt Baer? Because she's been listening to my podcast. She knows my face with the QR code on the cover of the podcast. She saw my Loco Think Tank shirt. She correlated that with the advertiser. And I was like... because sometimes people have met me that I've also met them, but I don't quite remember. It's out of context or things. So it's like, I'm sorry, but do I know you? It's like, no, no, I've just been listening to your podcast. But I know you. Yeah, but I know you. I've heard, you know, 60 hours of you talking to people. Which you think about it, like there's people that I would consider a very close friend that I've spent an hour or two with over the last year.

5:24 Yeah, for sure. So the trust level is very interesting with it. It is. Well, being on a podcast, like just yesterday I delivered a short ribs add your own wine because I didn't have any wine to Sean Fallon. Okay. One of my past podcast guests with whom I spent... two hours and 40 minutes and drank about 60% of a bottle of tequila with. It was back in the crazier days of the local experience. And like, we've probably spent 10 hours together in our lifetime, but he just also had a baby. He's one of the trifecta.

6:05 uh with you and ben holtz and uh with fresh babies in august yeah it's been like forever since i had like more than one fresh baby in my world like since shortly after i was married when all my friends were married freshly and having babies so kudos to you on that anyway but that podcast is And a few other, you know, social engagements are enough for me to be like, here, have a meal. Yeah. By the way, I'll bring you guys a meal, too. That'd be great. We just need to coordinate. No, we've been so amazed and so blessed by the, like, generosity of people because it's weird to ask for help. when you are technically capable of something.

6:45 Like, if I can't lift this chair, then it makes sense to be like, somebody who is stronger than me, come lift this chair, when it's like, well, I technically could do this stuff. So it's an interesting season, and the times that we've had people just out of the blue be like, can we bring a meal to you? It's such a blessing. Probably. Like I suspect the earliest days of your business, you might have felt supported like that in some ways by some of those first clients or whatever. But to have friends just kind of show up like that. It's like been since I was 18 or whatever, right? Since you've really been blessed with people's generosity in the same way.

7:25 Yeah, it definitely, it definitely is special. And also it's challenged our own perspective to, uh, seeing people pour that out. Then it also has caused us to look and be like, man, like we really want to be more intentional with, uh, people in our life that are in the hospital or having babies or are doing these things where they probably would be very grateful to have extra support, but maybe wouldn't, uh, maybe wouldn't like step out and be like, Oh, we need, we need help right now. um what's lacy's favorite meal like especially something that could be dropped off or crock potable yeah so lacy's a vegetarian so any kind of like super veggie filled pasta we we joke that our whole diet is car is some version of dairy on some version of carbs okay it's like okay it's like some version of like a cheese cheese on a quesadilla or oh yeah so like yeah we we do vegetables a lot is in like peak production mode great yeah so uh tomatoes zucchinis love it a lot of that yeah we've we've had your cooking enough to know that any uh any like veggie packed meal that you come up with whether it's even if it's a big lasagna for you You could, because I told you this the other day.

8:42 I still think of the best lasagna I've had is actually Kurt Bear's vegetarian lasagna that we had at your house years ago. Yes, that was when I was totally gluten-free, and the lasagna noodles were zucchinis. Yeah. I better hurry up and put that on my schedule, because my zucchinis are— They've been making like five—one plant, making like five big zucchinis per week for a while, and that's going to wrap up here eventually. No, I mean, obviously, if it works for you, then amazing. Next time I have two big zucchini to go, I'll put some together. Yeah, we would be super grateful for that. If anything else, I can freeze it and give it to you, and you can cook it when you're ready. Great. Cool. Sounds good to ask. Let's talk about the baby.

9:23 It's got a really cool name that is Brooklyn. Yep, Brooklyn James Silvers. Ah, pretty cool. Yeah. Specs, do you share the specs publicly? Okay. Uh, she, I, I haven't, but I haven't had the chance yet. So yeah, she was a tall baby, 21 inches and, uh, eight pounds, four ounces, which i i have only done this once so i imagine any baby that comes out you kind of think that they're large i think but then we didn't really feel like half is kind of big yeah we didn't really feel like she was a big like we were surprised when they told us that way she was a savelt uh yeah we i i don't know she didn't seem like a huge baby but um well there's 12 pounders out there too that's you would notice that one yeah for sure but no she yeah amazing yeah like six weeks now okay amazing experience grateful that everybody is healthy at the moment and yeah Yeah, just one of the bigger perspective-changing events.

10:26 What you hear everybody say, and it's also you hear everybody say, when you leave the hospital, you're wondering, where's the user manual? And it's just true. It's just one of the stereotypes that everybody talks about the moment of leaving the hospital and being like, we're allowed to take this, and it's just true. You feel that. And that same week, one of my nephews got his driver's permit, and we were both thinking he had to do way more work to get his driver's permit than we do to take this like human home that hopefully we can like raise into a functioning member of society. This is a total sidebar, but kind of related. We have a exchange student. I mentioned when we had lunch last week, Julian from Germany and he's got a one 25 like supermoto style motor motorbike back home.

11:12 And next year he can get, uh, like a motorcycle that's limited to like 42 horsepower based on his age. And I don't know if you got a test for different levels or whatever, but it's largely age based, but also time you've been riding. And then two stages after that, he can get like a real fast motorcycle. Yeah. Um, and here in America, and it blows his mind, like as soon as you get your motorcycle endorsement, you can do anything or even on Facebook marketplace, you can buy the fastest, you can buy a 200 mile an hour motorcycle. As soon as you got it, you know, or, or Facebook marketplace, you usually, if you got the cash, you can just buy it and go ride it.

11:54 Yeah, but then he's also probably shocked that we allow you to vote when you're 18, but you can't drink alcohol until you're 21. So there's also these things where when you're over in Europe, we've spent a decent amount of time in Europe over the last few years, and it's... interesting to see the differences of like some things that feel like they really matter over there and some things that really matter over here. Well, and one thing that was kind of wild and sad to me. So he, he's, uh, he's headed toward a, kind of a technical track working for a company kind of apprenticing first and then, you know, see a little bit where it goes, whatever. Um, and not like a university education, if you will, but he's gifted with dogs and our friend just got a puppy not long ago.

12:39 And he, um, He has a four-year-old dog that was a little similar, so he immediately fell in love. But he was training this dog and had more correctional behavior change in two hours than the owner had applied in two months. And we were like, dude, you should start a dog training business. You should be a freaking dog trainer. You can have an amazing... living and lifestyle and he's just like people don't really do that in Germany and like job trainers don't really make much money I just watched the, um, and I was just like, yeah, yeah. It's really interesting. You should be able to make a lot of money.

13:20 Yeah. I just watched, uh, there's for some reason, my Netflix algorithm, uh, knows that I'm into like, uh, English dubbed Siri, like entrepreneurial series. And so there's a, um, there's a series on Spotify called the playlist, um, Okay. So it's on the company Spotify. It's on Spotify. It's on Netflix. But it's made in Sweden? Probably Sweden. Yeah, I think it's Sweden. Yeah, so it's made with like Swedish. Yeah, it's Swedish series. I think it's a six-episode series. Yeah. And then it's dubbed in English. And it's great. It's done in a really unique way.

14:01 But in there... They're kind of talking about like, oh, in America, they're doing all these like Silicon Valley is doing all these things. And people are like, they don't you don't do that here. You don't do you don't do startups like in their kind of saying, like, we'll be like the startup of Sweden. Oh, really? And obviously they're a very, they end up very being very successful. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but it was just interesting. It was like, Oh, I guess like I've grown up under the premise. They were totally contrary to the culture there. Yeah. I've grown up under the premise for better or worse of if I want to start something, then I will just start it. Right. And I know not everybody feels that in the same way that I do. Like I feel that probably to a, to a fault at times, but, um, this kind of like mentality and I've heard some people say, um, I've heard some people say, I've heard some people actually talk about like the, I probably won't say this correctly, but they're like, if you think back to the makeup of the people that left for America and even like between like the 1600s to the late 1800s people that were initially America was made up of people that were leaving their countries for a new future.

15:10 And so you even think of like, And they would have to work really hard for it. Yeah. And so the potential, like, genetic makeup, even, of, like, what's passed down genetically of people that are willing to. Because that's Irish. Yeah. Or, like, a huge, like, element of our cultural and genetic makeup. Yeah. Yeah, but you think, yeah, I mean, you think of it like being a country, again, not getting political with it, but we are a country of immigrants. We're a country of people that have said we're going to, like, leave what is familiar to go and do something. And so then, you know, me being, I don't know, five, six, seven generations down from immigrants. Yeah. does that contribute to like somewhat of like a cultural, genetical makeup of like, Oh, like most of the people that came over here were rejecting what was normal and saying, we want to start something new.

15:59 We want something new. And does that end up leading to like some of the like innovation and maybe willingness to start things or do things differently here? People will be the next frontier, right? Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah it's very very interesting to think about like uh the new world uh is the moon yeah it's a little boring for the first 20 years but wait until we get that atmospheric generator going good yeah yeah yeah it's true that out yeah Anyway. It might be like a tropical island and not too long, you know? Yeah, I'm sure. The space magnet to pull in commas to get some water up there. Yeah, I mean, I think it's like end of next...

16:39 I mean, Elon is always accurate in his... He accomplishes what he says he will, but never on time. No, yeah. But, I mean, they're saying that, like, their data centers will be in space, like, by the end of, like, next year. Did you see the little scuffle between him and Sam Altman the other day? No. Sam Altman said something basically kind of like... Elon's conning people with this idea of space-based data centers. Elon was like, hey, we're launching next year. Hopefully, your parole officer will be willing to let you check it out.

17:23 Good job stealing a non-profit AI company and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, I don't know where it went from there. I can't imagine it was good. Yeah. Yeah, probably not. But it will be, I think that, I'm just going to be, it's going to be very interesting to watch. All of the space stuff. I know that's an overgeneralization on a lot of things. Yeah, space is... Watching all the space stuff. Like, AI is definitely a frontier and hopefully a leveraged tool that doesn't, like, capture humanity and decide that it's better off if they just extinguish us kind of thing. Mm-hmm. You know, or even... just control us right i'd rather have surfed them by humans yeah it seems yeah more appropriate um but the space is actually the next frontier for realsies you know yeah you know moon and mars and with what we can learn about like what we already know about chemistry like we got chemistry largely figured out Yeah.

18:23 The interesting thing though, so the last few years, um, I think the last three years I've been to South by Southwest. Okay. Um, which is kind of a, I didn't know you were that kind of party guy. Well, it is. I didn't go to party, but there is a lot of parties there. So they started out as a music festival. And then now it's kind of hybrid of music festival and like business and innovation. It's always been that. Yeah. Because Twitter came out at South by South. Yeah. So now like kind of it's about a 10 day festival. And typically the first like four or five days are heavily focused on like business, innovation, tech. Yeah. So there's actually a significant podcast. space there now.

19:03 Yeah. And so the first like two days, there's one of the podcast movement events. And, um, so the last like three years I've gone, man, your tent down there, by the way, I can learn. We don't, we don't, we don't sponsor it, but I say that, but then last year at South by Southwest, we hosted a, a private podcaster dinner for 24 pod established podcasters that were kind of doing it professionally. And then we hosted a podcast mixer, Um, and had about 120 podcasters come cool just to like network and meet each other. And it was amazing. It was really, really great. And so we were there for two or three days, um, at the podcast movement event. And then also going to a bunch of different, like founder CEO events by like founder, um, by the podcast movement had their annual event.

19:50 They have. They have one of their two annual events now at South by Southwest. Oh, that's just what they do. Yeah, this was their first year doing it. Because that's the one I went to with you years ago, right? Down in Florida? I think that was Podfest that we went to. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was back when I thought maybe I'd make a living at this rather than just... We can talk about that. It's still possible. Still possible. Um, well, I mean, honestly, the fact that we've, you'll be like episode two 89 or something like that, just having created that much content and having, you know, some thousands of regional listeners every month kind of thing, you know, that's not nothing.

20:31 It's definitely not nothing. Um, and, uh, yeah, Let me come back to that in a sec. Okay. So two, two years ago at South by Southwest, it was like the hub of space content. Oh yeah. And so I was at a bar just sitting there and hanging out. I like met the guy next to me and he was for some huge space company. And he's telling me that the, I can't get into, I can't get into all the details, uh, because I am not smart enough, not because I'm under NDA or anything, but, uh, yeah, The engineering capabilities that he was telling me that are happening in space where they're initially, uh, their company is building like portable warehouses that are in space where then they can manufacture certain materials.

21:17 And when they, when you're in space without friction is a whole different, because the rules of physics are different in space than they are here. And so they've realized that there are certain products that. that when they create in space and then bring them back to earth's orbit, they're dramatically more strong or powerful. So there's certain like metals and alloys that interesting. Like, I don't know if this is an actual example, but for illustration sake, like, um, building a sheet of steel in America or anywhere, we'll say Detroit. Cause it's where you build steel. I think in my brain, uh, and then they assemble the steel. Yeah, there you go. Uh, yeah, versus a sheet of steel made in space yeah the one in space is dramatically stronger yeah so is this whole interesting thing where there's this whole there there's a whole lot of interesting interesting things that i think like 20 years from now yeah or the space data centers yeah it's like oh you don't need to cool it uh-huh yeah natural cooling electricity from the solar panels yeah yeah i'm sure 20 years from now we'll think it was like oh well of course like that absolutely makes sense to have the data centers in space you know what's interesting is like right now space is just kind of a just don't run your shit into anybody else's shit yeah um but that's not really going to be high functioning over the long term if we're going to park stuff on orbital routines and stuff like that.

22:47 Yeah, I heard one theory. I don't remember where I heard this, but there's one theory out there where, like, as space gets more crowded with satellites and Starland, like, I think Elon owns, like, it's a alarming number. Like I think it's over 80% of the things orbiting around Earth. Yeah. That's probably, is owned by SpaceX. Um, and so there's some thought of like, as it gets more crowded, there will eventually be a inflection point where if one thing were to get to explode and explode into, let's say like a thousand fragments, right. That then, uh, you know these are going at thousands of miles an hour so those little pieces it would just take a little fragment to cause another thing to explode into a thousand fragments and then this chain reaction happens initially all over the world and then everything is gone yeah um i'm not smart enough to know if that's actually true or a nuclear war or something but when i heard that it was like oh that's interesting yeah i'm sure something like that will happen in our lifetime probably yeah you know we'll figure it out though we're smart For now, it does seem, it seems weird.

24:01 It seems, it seems odd to not take advantage of space. Like when you hear the businesses that are talking about like data centers in space and all this stuff. Yeah. The like resources that are available without knowing all the details of it. It's like from the ground level understanding, it's like, oh, all of that seems to, seems to make sense. I'm pretty sure the first, well, actually it's probably a niche market, but... Like a motorcycle race on the surface of the moon. Yeah. Hell yeah. That would be awesome. You could jump forever with one-eighth of gravity. Yeah. Yeah, that would be fun. Let's, like a lot of people have not heard our first couple of podcasts together.

24:45 So do you want to describe Story On just a touch? We hinted at it already, but you've become largely a... service business focused on podcast production yeah yeah we just hit um 10 years um Uh, well, I guess we're at 11 years now in September last fall, I wanted to do a 10 year birthday party and then we didn't. And then I was like, I'll do an 11 year and now it's September. Who knows? Um, but yeah, so we started out as a like social media marketing company. Um, original vision was to help businesses market through storytelling. My 23, 24 year old self thought that was extremely specific and narrow and that I didn't need to niche down beyond that.

25:32 Yeah, yeah. And we did a lot of email marketing, videography, social media content. That was kind of when businesses were really starting to do it. Yeah. Yeah, so that was... It was the frontier at the time. It was. It was like, we need to get into that social media thing a little better. Yeah. We don't know how to do it. Yeah, I remember one of the times that I feel... I've heard some people describe of like, what's, what's the, what are the moments that you felt the richest in life? Which is an interesting question. But I feel like I remember one of the moments where it was like, oh, this is, this is golden. This is all going to work. And it was our first client getting signed.

26:12 And we were going to make, we're going to do one video recording, like video session a month. And we're going to record videos to have one, like eight, 10 minute social media video per week. Okay. And then we were going to break that down and use that to create daily social media posts. Daily. And so we were doing that for them and we were charging them $400 a month. And I remember thinking, I only need 100 of these. legitimately and this is this is where the naivety comes in i'm like you just don't know what you don't know but like yeah we're starting a business and i was like i only need a hundred of these right and then i'll be able to pay myself forty thousand dollars a year or something like that um and the person the lack of perspective is wild yes um in retrospect aren't always excellent at math No, but then at the moment, in the moment, you're just like, this is great.

27:13 And so that was kind of some of the earlier projects. And I would say the first five years was kind of fumbling around, uh... anything that people would pay us for related to storytelling and marketing. Yeah. Um, and then started small business storytellers, as we mentioned, um, loved 2018. Yeah. Teen is a little bit. Yep. Yeah. Loved, loved podcasting. Did you get some sponsorships and stuff for storytellers? That was really just to prove that storytelling was valuable. Yeah. I really even wasn't, I wasn't even thinking about like, Oh, well, this helped grow my business. It was more so just like, this will be fun. And there's business, there's stories that I want to tell.

27:53 Yeah. Um, and then it did help grow the business, which was interesting. And so for me, then that was this moment of a, uh, realization of like, oh, this is, the medium that I've kind of been looking for. Um, cause our passion all along has been like authentic growth for businesses, like helping align with businesses, doing really great things, making an impact and helping them grow through storytelling. So people stumbled across small business storytellers along the way. They got to know some of those people, some of those stories and they're like, Oh, I want to meet this guy. And then they'd hire me for something unrelated to podcasting, which was like, because I host a good podcast, it should not, yeah, it should not mean I'm good at email marketing, but there was kind of the, like, Oh, well you did that in a quality way.

28:41 I'm sure you'll do this. So it was interesting to like transferred level of trust. And so started, um, yeah, I remember, um, By within like kind of a year, there was maybe like three or four podcasts that we were doing. Uh, we're helping in some way, whether it was editing or not. I think the first podcast I edited for $30 an episode, um, which I thought I, in my mind, again, I pay you twice that local experience. Yeah. That would, I, you'd lose your ass. I would, I would, yeah. My team would not be happy nor my wife. Um, but we, yeah, again, like you don't know what you don't know with it. And so then, um, you know, it was, uh, but I, I really, really liked it.

29:24 And so then it was probably like two years into that. We were still kind of doing some marketing stuff, some story, some podcasting. And it was kind of in, um. in line with COVID, we like lost some clients in traditional marketing. Cause marketing budgets got tightened up. Yeah. Um, and then, and people were spending a bunch more time. They were listening to podcasts. They were spending more time listening to podcasts. Um, and then, uh, it was also this moment of, we had some business debt and kind of had to come to Jesus moment with, uh, my wife and I, where we sat down and I was like, uh, I'm working way harder and making way less money than if I just went and like worked for Kurt bear or like anybody in town depot.

30:08 Yeah, exactly. It was like, I could like probably make more than this easier. And so it was kind of this moment of, uh, we probably have like four to six months of us like really trying something specific. And so that was when I decided to really just focus on podcasting. And I said, you know, though our podcast clients are the ones that, I enjoy working with the most. And I feel like this is the medium that I love the most. And so that was like a six month period of, I'm just going to try and get as many businesses as we can. And did you push a pencil to how much you would have to charge them? You raise, we did. Yeah. It was more than $30. Yeah. Yeah. And I can't remember the exact numbers, but we did, we kind of had numbers of like, Hey, if I'm not here in four months, then I'm probably going to go start looking for a job.

30:53 I've had at least two of my former guests start podcasts that hired you for that. The biggest honor I had was Elizabeth. Yeah, Elizabeth Ledoux. Because when she launched her podcast, she used my podcast with her to be like her Meet Elizabeth Ledoux podcast. Yeah, that was really cool. I was so flattered by that. I can't even tell you how... like honored i was because she was she was awesome she is awesome yeah you know and uh so anyway i just yeah yeah no that was really fun because i remember talking with her and like it's always fun early on in the podcast you kind of want your guests to get to know you right but it's ideal for that to be able to happen in a way that's maybe not just you saying hey here's about me yeah and so for us like you had done that interview recently and so we figured well let's just use this Plus I thought she was really cool.

31:46 Yeah. Yeah. Comes through. Yeah. She's great. And we're not still working on her podcast, but we did for, I think the first like a hundred episodes and they're still doing it and doing a good job with it. And so, yeah, that was about five or six years ago. And, you know, long story short, it's just been getting more and more narrow of focusing on really helping businesses understand how they can use podcasting. So that's really our like sweet spot in the market is understanding how as a brand, um, can you help? grow your business through podcasting. And that's kind of the slice. We could do a lot of things in marketing, but that's the slice of the pie that we try and fill. Some of your recent productions have been somewhat business experts.

32:27 You know, Elizabeth is one, for example, and you mentioned you were name dropping earlier. Patrick Lencioni is one of your clients, has been for quite a while now. Yeah. And, like, it's not just business-y podcasts. It's like, hey, I'm an HVAC company that wants people to learn to... change their filter more. I don't know, whatever. Maybe that's not the best example. But business of various sorts, especially when they have business expertise to share. Yeah, it's like the... We've struggled with whether or not we should use the phrase of like the phrase business podcasts is complicated.

33:08 Right. Because does that mean that these podcasts are about businesses or these podcasts are by businesses? Those are two totally different things. Right. So for us, like we, we help businesses launch and grow podcasts. So that doesn't necessarily mean all of the shows that we're going to produce are going to be about business. Right. We are producing some that are about business. So like a dog training business, for example. Yeah. Go back to Mr. Young Man from Germany. Yep. Like if you did a podcast about tips and tricks to keep your dog from being such a miserable fucker. Just to earn my explicit warning for this podcast episode, that would be a really good business podcast because probably people are like, yes, my dog's not a miserable son of a gun anymore, but maybe I should invest in a few lessons.

33:55 Yeah. And we actually just taught, it's funny you bring that example up because we just talked with somebody in the last few weeks and they are, they are a dog training franchise. So they have over a hundred locations around the country. Um, and they are getting ready in the next year and a half to rebrand and expand. Wow. And so. A podcast will probably – Probably attract more new franchisees. So the audience would be both people that want to train their dog and people that already maybe have a passion for dog training. They're like, ooh, look at this. I could start a dog training franchise and be self-employed and tell my boss to get lost. Yeah, exactly. So the value from a brand perspective of this company having one of the top handful of dog training podcasts, in some ways would seem counterproductive because people would be like, well, why are you giving away this advice for free and also charging for it at your franchises?

34:51 But it's from a brand perspective, you are becoming the one that people trust with this topic. You gave me these tips that helped me train my dog a little bit. Yeah. I want to take my dog to the next level. Yeah. And then also in a market like that where franchises are kind of recruiting companies. Yeah. Where their business model is recruiting franchisees. Yes. And so some level of like. If only one out of three succeed, well, that's fine as long as we attract enough of them. Yeah. So there's some level of like values, alignment, identification, where as people are getting to know your brand, can they easily access content where they can get to know it? Yeah. And so a lot of those things that are deeper, maybe harder to measure things are things that podcasts do really well.

35:36 Yeah. Cool. Yeah. And so that's become all you do. Like when did you drop other stuff? Uh, it was kind of, it was really at that. It was at co it was during COVID. So that was where we decided we're going to say, Hey, we actually got some clients. They're happy. Their podcasts are growing. We're making them. We're actually making money. Cause I did it. Right. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. We were lazy. Yeah. There was still, I mean, there was definitely still like a rapid turnaround. No, it wasn't. But, um, yeah, I think that was really the moment for that. There's been things, little things here and there that we feel like, Oh, maybe we're supposed to help out with this, you know, uh, like one client that's a nonprofit, you know, we like help them do their website.

36:21 Um, and we like help them with some like kind of organizational discovery stuff. Um, but it was also cause we heard their vision and we were like, you guys need some help. And, uh, we, this is out of the ordinary, but we really want to help you guys get this up. And then a year into that process, then we were able to start their podcast. Because they kind of came to us and they were saying, we want to start a podcast. We have a good amount of budget for it. And we were like, you're too early, actually. Yeah. Like, you don't know what you're about. You've got a budget. Yeah, exactly. So there's been some things, but overall, like, 95% of our work has been marketing through the avenue of podcasting. Well, I want to actually, I thought about doing this before, but I didn't want to interrupt you, actually.

37:01 But I'm wearing some Matthew's House socks. Yeah. And that's really where we got to know each other more than anything was, you know, I recruited you, I believe, onto the board to help tell the Matthews House story. Yeah. Yeah. And you did an amazing job, like helping them understand. Like they did a great job of capturing data and stories, but a terrible job of sharing them. Yeah. Yeah, it was really fun. I actually, I think I'm like a year and a half off of the board, but I was on the board for seven years. So I think when I joined the board, I was the youngest member. For sure. You were, uh, no, uh, but yeah, I mean, it was, it was amazing. And I think there's so many stories that need to be told.

37:43 And the hard thing is podcasting is kind of complicated. Um, you know, we have to find time to like sit down and who's going to edit the conversation and different, different things like this. Uh, yeah, Thank you, Loco Think Tank, for the long-term sponsorship of Loco Experience Podcast. Yeah. But I love it because it's accessible. So, you know, there's Fortune 500 companies that it makes perfect sense for them to spend $500,000 in starting a podcast. And there are people that order a $89 microphone off of Amazon and start it in their house and publish it for free and promote it on their Facebook page. Neither one is right or wrong.

38:23 And so that's where like you don't have this range of accessibility in television or even in radio. Right. Right. So that's part of why I think podcasting is great. If you're just an old small like me, you can just put a podcast up there. Uh-huh. Yep. And there's nobody, there's no gatekeepers. You know, Spotify could decide that they're pissed at you and they could cut you off of Spotify. Right. Right. But there's still ways for your audience to always find you. Like you own your feed, you own your content. And I think that's why it's a really special medium. Yeah. Let's talk about your journey the last couple of years. Cause you kind of caught some traction and kind of leveled up, I would say probably, and kind of building a team.

39:03 Yeah. You know, more than just the Seth and a couple of contractors. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think the last two, I would say the last two and a half years, I'm thinking of separation of calendar years. But I think over the last three calendar years, there's been at least 40% revenue growth each of those years, which has been great, and that's wonderful. I've heard some people say like, zero to, um, like zero to a hundred thousand, uh, you and I could, like, you should be able to sell your way to a hundred thousand dollars.

39:46 Yep. Like most people given a product they love, like you could probably sell your way to that. Yeah. Um, yeah. from like, it's kind of this law of like ones and threes. Then from 100 to 300, you probably are mostly doing it yourself, but you might need like some support. Yeah. Like you're probably going to hire, like maybe it's a VA or maybe it's an admin. Like you're probably going to have one, maybe two people that are like, maybe like part time for me. I got to like one 13 in revenue before I hired my first. Yeah. Yeah. It's like pretty darn accurate. So then from like 300 to a million, the next like jump from three to one. And we've been like, we've been right around there. Um, then, uh, you can't, you, you really need to have a team.

40:28 Right. Um, like you need to have a few core people in the business and recruit enough new. Yeah. It's kind of this thing where like you, you can't hire. Yeah. You probably can't be the main one delivering all the goods. Right. Um, Like you have to have some systems around delivering goods. Then from one to three million. Okay. That's when you start actually getting like managers in place and processes. And then there's further jumps that I will learn about one day. Sure. And so that's kind of been like the last million. Yeah. Like the last few years has been that jump from three, 300 to 1 million. And, uh, so it has been building a team. Um, and, uh, I think it's been like last year.

41:11 So 2020, what is it? 2026, 2025. We went, I think from the beginning of the year from six people to 12 people, um, which I've described as like. uh, if you're going to dinner with six people, you're at one table, right? And you can kind of all have one conversation. Um, if you're at dinner with 12 people, you probably all want to be at this. Like you're going to reserve one table for 12. Like you're not going to do two tables for six. Um, but at that one for 12, it's not all one conversation. It's just not possible. Um, and so I think that's really interesting. Then the jump, like if you were going to dinner with 30 people, uh, You know, you'd probably reserve like seven tables of five or whatever.

41:55 Yeah, exactly. Like, and so it's kind of these like micro, you kind of go back to the like five or six person intimacy, but a bunch of those groups. And so it's this weird, like this 10 to 15 people range is really interesting culture wise. And so there was some elements in there that were just really hard of being super excited to hire. But also, I mean, not really knowing what I was doing in ways of like the development and people spending a bunch of my hiring and training. training and all that time you're spending hiring and training, guess who the primary salesperson is who's not working very hard on sales. Yeah. Yeah, that's for sure. I don't know if you've heard this story before, but I've seen it.

42:37 Yeah. And that's – our local think tank really started with that demographic, that 5, 7, 10, 12 employees because – growing through that spot where you're still probably the primary rainmaker yep and you're the primary hirer primary trainer yeah and it's just too much yeah well and i've always kind of been under the belief of um and this has been really challenged this year um I've always thought I want to be structured for bigger than I am current, bigger than the position I currently am. Yeah. So if we're a 1 million business, $1 million a year business, I want to be structured to be able to do 3 million a year, um, which sounds really, really great.

43:18 And I've always, it sounds like a lot of overhead. So, yes, I need it. No, that's great. These are the things that I've needed. Yeah. So for that, like, that's the things that, like, usually when I've told people, like, oh, yeah, we're always, like, building earlier. So, like, I'm wearing an EOS hat. And I love the EOS model. And we've been doing our best to implement EOS. And it's been really helpful. And they're also one of our clients, which has been really great. Um, and so they're struck that like they're, they say their ideal kind of like business is usually once you have about 10 people and are kind of like 3 million and above. So for me, I'm like, well, that means we can do it at 1 million.

43:59 Right. Um, and I'm, I'm, my team does the OS best we can too. And it's a little bit. it's a little bit it's a little bit clunky for like teams of three to five or seven or whatever yeah this whole meeting every week we're like we've both been talking about all the things are going on yeah yeah yeah 10 people to bring on to the same page it's way better yeah yeah Yeah. So then with that, I think this year, um, you know, we hired a salesperson, we like hired onboarding, we hired like a project manager that was going to grow into a COO and hired a lot of the overhead that ideally would like carry us into the next season.

44:40 What I didn't realize, which now looking back makes me feel dumb for not realizing it. Um, what I didn't realize is if you're going to be structured for bigger than you are, then that means you have to be over dramatically over profitable. Right. To be able to, to be able to sink the profit into that overstructure, because there's going to be some version of like, Oh, I'm going to have to overspend into overhead for the next year until we catch up too little. Yeah. And you eventually caught up to charging people the right amount. Yeah. That didn't factor a lot of growth in. Yeah, I think we've done a – like I've joked with some people. Like a lot of people told us to raise our prices, and then in the last year we raised our prices, and then we have had way more people say no.

45:24 So I think we've appropriately adjusted our prices to where, like, we have been able to, like, figure out kind of where we fit in the market price-wise. Yeah, but, yeah, I think that was a – I think this last year there was a lot of times where I felt like my mistakes as a CEO other people were paying for. Whether it was, you know, there was a couple situations where we hired people and then after, you know, sometimes a few weeks and sometimes many months had to let them go because I realized, oh, we don't have the budget to sustain this. We don't need an onboarding person when we haven't. Yeah. Or like a hard thing for us was like, we hired a salesperson.

46:05 Right. And, um, we hired them based off of projections of an event that we sponsored the previous year, um, which was a big, big success and big lead thing. And we did all the same things for the event and, uh, the event didn't go as well as we thought. And so we had about half of the amount of leads from this event. after a few weeks the sales guy was like uh where's the rest of my yeah so i mean yeah so it was a big thing where we we didn't even talk about that base salary yeah for sure and that was a really hard conversation where like it's it's easier it's actually easier to fire people because usually when you're firing people they're you're firing them because bad behavior or they're an idiot or something like that's the worst yeah like your fault Yeah, when it's like, hey, you've actually done nothing.

46:55 Like, you've been great. But I thought this was going to go this way, and it went this way. And that's really, really, like, those are just hard days. And I think I've realized, like, days that I have to, like, end someone's job. Um, I, I need the rest of the day off, like emotionally, emotionally. I just like need some time with it. So I think that's been a big challenge now. You went all the way up to 12. Yeah. We're, I think we're around like nine ish right now. And I would say like four to five of those are like full time. Okay. And the rest are like part time, um, still pretty contractor heavy and we're kind of like transitioning more towards bringing our producers and houses employees.

47:37 Um, did that put a lot of extra weight on you? Some of the things that you had hired for and had to take back? It did, or those things just fell flat. So I think for me, like the marketing and sales has been a piece that has felt has more just like fallen flat over the last year. And so we're starting to see some of the consequences of that. I think it's been in one way. It is amazing that I've been able to keep up a business for a decade. largely based off of referrals and like my personal network and personal relationships. Um, and I think that that's part of the beauty is I do think that most people, like if you are a good person and you do things well, I think you can go to a million dollar business.

48:23 Yeah. Mostly your sales and your charisma driving it. That's pretty impressive. Yeah. And it doesn't even have to be that. Like you can have a $500,000 a year business and probably take home 300 and probably like, like, Maybe. Yeah, but like you don't. Yeah, like I think that it doesn't. There's these like numbers in business that are over sensationalized. Like you have to have a million dollar business. And I think as we've grown over the last few years, for me, it really forced me to step back and be like, What do I want? Because it would be dramatically easier for me to step back, for me to be the lead producer, for me to have an editor, for me to have an admin.

49:05 Like I could probably have a very lean team of like two to four people. Right. And we could probably do the like five. Six or eight shows. Yeah. Like we could probably do the 500 in revenue and 200 in earnings. Like we could probably do that. And that is amazing. And that is like. very good earnings. And, um, ultimately it kind of forced me to step back and say, if I'm wanting to grow, then we've got to like really know that because if I'm just going to grow for growth sake, like I'm going to get burnt out. And there's been some moments over the last two years where, um, I don't feel like I was connected to the like bigger vision. And there were some times where there was like pretty high anxiety and stress and, um, Panic and different things like that, where it's just like, oh, this is not, this isn't what should be happening.

49:51 Yeah. And so I think in that the growth has kind of forced, it's forced me to say, if I'm wanting to go forward and grow, it really needs to be for good reasons. Yeah. And I need to be connected, reconnected to like the mission of it. And I think that's been interesting. And that makes me very like when I look at other people's journey, it very much is a, you find out what you want to do. Yeah. Like I'm very pro. Like if you want to, if you want to grow a hundred million dollar business, do it. Yeah. If you want to grow a hundred thousand dollar a year business, do it. But just know, know that that's what you want. What's your vision now? Yeah. Are you thinking a $3 million business is still a boutique-y style?

50:34 Yeah. Yeah, I think it's hard. Yeah, it's hard for me to laser it in around a revenue number. Yeah. And I don't know if that's insecurity or... I don't know why that is, but it's hard for me to just like, I think a piece of it is like, it's not a final target. You're right. 35 or something. Yeah. I, what I, what I know is, so our like mission, our core focus and mission as a company back to EOS terms, our core focus as a company is to fuel authentic growth. So, um, my like passion is connecting with businesses that are doing really great things and I want to help them grow.

51:17 That actually has nothing to do with podcasting. Right. Podcasting is the way that we want to do that. And so that's like I always get so excited when I see businesses doing really great things really well. And I always want to help them grow. Perfect. So that's like the core mission behind it from a podcasting perspective. It's not about size. It's more about a proficiency in some ways. Yeah. Really. Because I imagine you already have become a bit of a. collection space of best practices like just with all these different podcasts you produce yeah sometimes you're supporting them with marketing usually not right like their teams yeah yeah usually we're kind of production here's your stuff yeah you do with it what you will yeah and but then you notice i'm sure like yep hey this podcast is doing these kind of clips and Yeah, for sure.

52:12 We've mostly been kind of producing and then handing it over, which has its own challenges. Yeah. But the expectations are lower. For sure. But, yeah, so I mean I think that what we – But they might leave the podcast neglected too, right? They're like, ooh, we created this podcast to grow, but – Yeah. Nobody's listening. You're like, well, the last time you posted was three weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of funny, I have endless X funny stories of people wondering why their podcast isn't growing. But I think for us, like I really do love podcasting as a medium. And so, um, I do feel at this time in my life, a sense of calling to help businesses realize that podcasting is a really good way to grow your business.

52:58 Yeah. Um, I think that we will continue to stay, we'll continue to stay fairly boutique from production. Yeah. Cause productions like it's very involved. Yeah. There's not really a way for us to handle soup to nuts production and not be fairly expensive. And I don't know if I want to have 100 A to Z production clients. So this is where over the last two years we've shifted... The market has kind of helped me to shift more towards consulting. And that's been an interesting shift where we've realized there's a lot of companies, there's a lot of podcasts where they're not necessarily... You don't actually have to do all the production.

53:41 No, but they want somebody to kind of guide them in best practices. And so that's where I do see over the next few years... It's a process developed. I've got this person that loves the idea of it but feels daunted by the challenge. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I, I mean, I see us from production standpoint, it's probably always going to be handling tens of shows. Yeah. Um, from a consulting and kind of being like third party strategy and being able to help guide people in their own podcast and guide businesses that that's where it could be hundreds. And so that's where, um, the growth I think is really going to happen for us and, um, where we're focusing a lot more so is on the side of helping to educate, helping to resource more people.

54:28 Um, and now that we have years, almost a decade of best practices and expertise of like what's working and what's not working. Yeah, we learned stuff. And a lot of times, um, And I think we've seen a shift in the market to where we're seeing more companies actually take their media back in house as opposed to outsourcing agencies. Yeah. But they still want a strategy. They recognize like, well, I have, you know, we have this college intern who can capture video. Yeah. But we don't know how to distribute the podcast. We don't know how to grow the podcast. We don't know how to know if the podcast is generating any ROI for our business. So can you work with us over the next year to help us do that? And that's what's really exciting because we can actually help a lot more people in that.

55:11 So that's where now the company's going to kind of have, I guess, three arms now, but two service arms of like consulting and production. And then kind of the third arm is more like original content that we'll be doing. And we'll come back to that after the break. Great. This episode is sponsored by Loco Think Tank. Loco Think Tank provides peer collaboration for business owners. We build smart, safe places to help business leaders navigate every stage of the business journey. And we love what we do and who we do it with. Our model features gift-back-minded business veterans who are a part of the business. in the role of local facilitators. And we're always looking for abundance-minded individuals to add to our membership, facilitator team, local community, or to feature on this podcast.

55:55 Listeners of this podcast who go on to become members of Loco Think Tank get their sixth month of membership for free. Just mention the Loco Experience podcast on your application. To learn more, visit our website at locothinktank.com. That's L-O-C-O thinktank.com. And we're back with Fresh Cocktails. Cheers. Thanks to my most recent podcast guest for bringing a bottle of bourbon. Usually I provide the bourbon, but thanks to Ben Smith and Lindsay Phillips for bringing me a bottle of Law's bourbon. All podcast guests in the future are encouraged to just say it. But instead, you are sitting in as our producer.

56:36 A little bit, yep. And we're single viewing it because... I don't know. New software. I didn't, yeah. Different to you. And so anyway, we decided to kick it old school and just move forward. And, you know, I think I like it. Yep. So we talked about talking about your new content. Yeah. Started, you know, some content early in the journey of Podcastville before you even started selling anything like that. And now you're going back to the roots a little bit and creating. Yeah. Yeah, so, I mean, we talked already about small business storytellers. Once I started doing podcasting, then I got busy doing other people's podcasts.

57:19 Right. And the most common question I've gotten over the last five years is like, oh, well, what's your podcast? And it's really easy for me to say, well, we're producing 15 shows or 20 shows. Like, you know, I'm kind of the guy behind the guy. You just dodge it. Yeah, yeah. And it's... it's easy to dodge it in a way that like shows like, Hey, we know what we're doing. Um, the problem is I'm always thinking of ideas for content. Yeah. Um, and there was actually a moment in the last like two months where, uh, I was up, um, really late. I was up pretty much all night and this was not because we had just had a child. It was actually unrelated.

58:00 Yeah. But it was in the season of just having a child. Okay. But I couldn't sleep because my mind was racing. Okay. And it was – I had taken several weeks completely off of work. And so you kind of have – after – I feel like after like two weeks, you get really like the fresh brain. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I was up – You get a little bit after a long shower. Yeah. But the real fresh brain comes – Yeah, for sure. And I just remember thinking – We've had so many ideas and visions for business podcasts that we think would really help business owners grow. And I've been trying to get our high level clients to do these shows where I've been trying to like morph their shows into this.

58:43 And there was kind of this moment of why am I trying to outsource my vision? Like why? And that was the thought that kept me up all night. That was what I did with you a little bit. Yeah. I want a podcast. Yeah, exactly. But you have the technology. Yeah, I would love to have a podcast. So you should start a podcast. Right. And so it was this thought of, huh, why... Why aren't we taking, at least taking a stab at creating the vision that we think the, there's a gap in the market for. Um, and so then actually the next day I found out that, uh, our, one of our biggest clients was like moving on. And so they were taking production back in house and we were ending on good terms.

59:25 And they were saying like, we've, you know, we've worked with them for a couple of years and. help them in a lot of ways, but they're like, we're going to bring, you know, we have this person that's a producer and different things. So it was fine. Um, but it was interesting because it was this moment of, I was up all night and I was like, man, I think, I think we need to shift some things. And I was even beginning to think, I think we need to shift some team and personnel resources towards actually more story on original content, us creating content, me hosting content. That's interesting. So, yeah, we're going to be shifting a lot of time towards kind of having this, like, third branch of story on within the next year.

1:00:09 A lot of time? Like a third? Uh, 20% or, yeah, it's hard to put a percentage on it. Um, but significant resources. Yeah. I mean like we'll have a couple of team members that probably, you know, a majority of their job will be a story on content. Um, and so we're launching a show called on business and it's going to be three times a week interview show. Wow. Uh, really focused on like sharing stories of like the nuts, the nuts and bolts of, uh, Um, growing a business. Um, and I feel like actually like 10 years ago when I got into this, there was a million podcasts that were all like, we're going to tell business stories. We're going to do a bunch of interviews.

1:00:50 Yeah. Like, you know, kind of like John Lee Dumas and, uh, a lot of people that followed him. And if you look at the business, the business charts now in podcast, um, platforms, um, There's actually not that many shows that are really focusing on doing really good business interviews. And so we kind of feel like there's a little bit of a gap right now. There's a lot of commentary on business. Right. But there's like a lot of like there's non-business podcasters that are saying their business people. Yeah. And then there's a lot of like really shallow origin story business shows, but there's not a lot that are like really going into like the nuts and bolts of revenue and profit margins and actually figuring out like what obstacles are you running into and different things like this.

1:01:41 Yeah. And so kind of blending that with the experience that we have in podcasting of seeing what's working and what's not from behind the scenes. I feel like we're pretty uniquely positioned. And so. And who's the target audience, if you will, for the audience. I mean, target audience is going to be small business owners. So I would say they already have a business. Yeah, they already have a business. They're wanting to grow it. And they're probably running into some obstacles. And so this show will kind of be phase one of launching a network of podcasts focused on business owners. Cause again, there's not really a podcast network that is specifically focused on business owners. And so, um, we're going to be over the next year, we'll be taking our stab at, uh, creating some original content focused on helping businesses grow.

1:02:25 Who you should call on is that what's that home services, business brand that owns all the like, electric doctor and this and that and oh i don't know oh there's there's one brand that owns like maybe it's a dozen different franchise okay operations yeah it's neighborly a neighborly okay got it and they've got like if you need a gutter guy you got a gutter guy if you need a remodel guy you got a remodel guy but they've got all these they've bought mostly the the brands and put them all as neighborly companies but there could be a neighbor podcast for sure Yeah. It's something like, yeah, it's an interesting thing where like there's, there's a lot of concepts of podcasts.

1:03:08 There's probably five or six different show concepts that I've been really excited about in my mind. And I've kind of been like, who's going to do this. And so now it's kind of this like, huh, maybe we're supposed to do this. Yeah. Um, the, we, we've kind of always separated our business of like, I think when you get into podcasting, you need to know, um, what type of podcast you have. And I think there's, there's three types of podcasts. There's the hobby podcast. Okay. Um, which I would say is like mine. i i not not mine's approaching maybe uh so there's the hobby podcast there's the podcast that supports a business that's the the hobby podcast is more the like i really love space rangers or trans yeah yeah exactly yeah yeah it's probably yeah exactly it's more stuff like that it's like you're probably doing it at home with your friends yeah exactly your podcast supports It expands my network.

1:04:04 I get to meet interesting people all the time. And also you love doing it. It's connected to your business in really positive ways. And then the third way is a podcast that is the business. So this is your Rogan's. Jordan Harbinger. Jordan Harbinger. These people were like the model. Exactly. The model is grow listenership and then sell that listenership to sponsors. So their ROI that they're looking for is sponsorship. All three of them are totally different models. We have primarily focused on the model of podcasting that supports the business. And so from services, that's our sweet spot is helping... businesses build a podcast that in the long term will help them grow their business.

1:04:47 This is a little bit of a shift for us where, yes, it will be connected to story on services, but we're going to be starting podcasts where, especially for this first podcast on business, we will be, you know, the podcast itself will be a business model. And so we, we have been, it's a whole new business. It's a whole new business. Yeah. It's literally going to be a different business than story on. Um, we've been, it sucks that it can't get some more sponsors or whatever. Yeah, exactly. And he, We'll kill it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And we'll give it a year. Like we'll, we'll give it time. Um, and we feel very optimistic about it.

1:05:28 Yeah. Uh, and we have, you know, been able to talk with a couple of different companies and been able to secure a pretty sizable sponsorship to like cover the first year. handful of months of like production advertising, different things. So I feel like we're going to be able to do it well with our experience of kind of saying like, let's launch this thing at a 10 out of 10, because we kind of know what that looks like. Um, but it's still, we're launching a totally new business. You can't make people do stuff. No, exactly. Yeah. Your podcast. Yeah. And it'll help. I mean, we talked earlier about the marketing and sales stuff. Um, you know, this will be connected to story on, it will ideally help with some of the marketing of, you know, just exposure for our brand because story on will also be sponsoring the show.

1:06:11 Um, but it still is, we're launching a totally new business. Um, and even though we know podcasting, we're still. launching a new effort in a new model. Well, I think you'll do great. My talent sniffer suggests you've got a good opportunity there. The question that's been noodling on my mind is kind of back to your core demographic, those small businesses that have a podcast that supports the small business. Like, would I listen to the sponsors that advertise on Joe Rogan or Dark Horse Podcast or Jordan Harbinger or whatever? like they're national brands that are selling you nutrition supplements or new beds with fancy adjustable heat or elevation or whatever.

1:06:55 But they're national brands. But most smaller businesses, service businesses especially, are – or very geographic. And I guess my question is ultimately, do you have to have a national marketplace to advertise or to do a podcast that makes sense for your business? If you're Joe's Garage Door Company with one location in Northern Colorado, does that potentially make sense? Yeah. So I don't think so. And I think that historically... You have to, there's kind of been the thought around sponsorship and business podcasts of a lot of business owners say, we don't want to have a sponsor.

1:07:41 Right. Because like we don't want to water down our audience. Um, one of our clients, Alex Hermosey, we, I was talking with him and we were talking about like, what would it look like to bring a sponsor on? Because I was like, your audience is big enough. And I'll, I'll, I'll disclaimer this with all the numbers I'm about to mention are made up for the sake of this story. Um, but Alex is a more brilliant business brain than me. Um, you know, they, he's built multiple hundred million dollar companies and he's very smart. And so we were talking about it and we were like, okay, so let's say that American Express wanted to sponsor your show for a hundred thousand dollars. Right. Um, the only reason they want to do that is because American Express knows they can turn that a hundred thousand dollars into a million dollars.

1:08:27 Right. They, they know that many more small businesses to sign up to accept American Express if nothing else. Yeah. For them, it's a, it's a math, it's a math problem. Right. Um, yeah. So for them, it makes perfect sense. The only reason they can do that is because they have a sophisticated enough business model on the back end to be able to turn $100,000 of exposure into a million dollars of revenue. Most podcasters are looking at the value of their show at that $100,000. They're saying, okay, how much can I get from sponsors as opposed to how much are the sponsors getting out of me? So in reality, like if American Express sponsored Alex's show, he might be like, cool, I made $100,000.

1:09:12 American Express, they're sitting back there, cool, we made a million. So what if podcasters or business owners begin to realize... Oh, my show is worth a million dollars. How much revenue could I pull out of my show? So in one sense, I think that there's a lack of perspective to where some people are shortcutting themselves. And so the impact of that is they say, we don't want any sponsors. We just want it to connect to our business. However, most business shows are not doing a super good job. at like connecting back to their business in a clear way. So the only reason American express can do that is because they, they know how everybody uses credit card.

1:09:56 Yeah. Like they have the model there. Um, so that's where I think it's interesting where, um, I think you can absolutely have sponsors on your show. I mean, you've talked about like you have, you know, thousands of local people that are interacting with your brand in some way. Um, I would maybe advise from having like Vistage sponsor your show. Do not do that. Sorry, just because they're probably a mastermind competition. Yeah. But I think that, um, there's no reason, like the only time I hate ads are when they're not relevant. Hmm. Uh, we just had a baby. So in the last nine months I was perfectly fine seeing stroller ads because we were shopping for a stroller.

1:10:41 Now I'm not, so I don't want to see those. But if you bring a relevant sponsor to your audience, it's like, that's great. If you bring a random, a random sponsor. So that, that's where I think like the long winded answer, the national versus local be relevant. It's more about relevance. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, talk to me a bunch, a bunch of stuff. Like I actually liked the idea of possibly buying supplements or maybe a bed sometimes. Yeah. But like for you, like I, it's like business owners, aspiring business owners. So, uh, as a good, uh, transition, frankly, to the purpose driven questions from purpose driven wealth management.

1:11:23 Thank you to purpose driven wealth of thriving for sponsoring our purpose driven questions segment. Um, At Purpose Driven Wealth, they believe financial clarity leads to a life of contentment and purpose. Their mission is to help guide clients using a values-driven, stewardship-based approach focused on provision, contentment, and enjoyment. With more than a century of experience, Thriven helps individuals and families navigate life and business transitions and prepare for the future while creating space to live generously and give back in meaningful ways. To learn more about purpose-driven wealth, please call 970-330-7411 for a complimentary initial consultation.

1:12:04 And now, on to the questions. I heard on the fly over podcast this morning that of the 5 million or so, 5 million plus wealth people in the US, about 350 million or whatever, there's 5 million people that have 5 million plus. And 3 million of them are small business owners. Interesting. So 60% of people with $5 million or more own their own business. Interesting. It's not surprising. So it's still the path. Like, unless you can inherit it, a small business is the best way to become a five millionaire. Because a millionaire isn't going to do it anymore. Yeah, for sure.

1:12:46 Yeah. So anyway, that's relevant. I've always thought that, like, for a show like yours, like... I think it makes perfect sense for Crazy Carl's to be like, we want to sponsor two episodes a month. Yeah. Because almost everybody, I would say 70% of the people listening know who Crazy Carl's is. Sure. And so there's these hyper-local sponsors like that where it probably makes disproportionate sense to sponsor local shows. And you do fresh content on November's... I think you can. And I mean, that's the fun thing with the technology behind it is like, well, you and you guys are hosted on flight cast, which nobody in the audience probably cares about.

1:13:31 But this is just how the content is distributed. But yeah, I mean, it's it's possible to say, OK, here's our November sponsor and then to swap that out for for December. So. I think that's where there is the capability to have hyper local, hyper seasonal sponsors like that. Or you could do per episode and they're baked into the episode. So I think the thing is you have options and the kind of like closing point with this is a lot of business owners that have shows think. Oh, we don't, we can't have sponsors. It'll water down our message. Just don't have a competitor sponsor. But like, if you have relevant sponsors that are actually adding value, if you're just trading, like you're just trading like $20 for a sponsor, then like, that's not worth it.

1:14:16 If you have somebody that's a good sponsor, it's like, that can be great. One of my favorite stories from the last 12 months or so is a Reed Miller. One of my good friends. That's awesome. Yeah. So he was on like a year ago or something. I don't know. And a guy contacted me and was like, Hey, uh, stumbled across your podcast with Reed when I was looking for a Medicare person for, um, my parents and listen, I thought I would tune in for 10 minutes and listen to the whole thing. It was awesome. And listening for a while and like, I thought about leaving my job. I wonder if you wanted to like meet up, talk about entrepreneurship and like what it really takes and things.

1:14:58 And it's like, that's what this podcast is for. It gives credibility to this guest. It maybe activates a new entrepreneur. Yeah. Like what's better than that? Yeah. I think the most common scenario with podcasting is after you've been doing it for at least a year, typically we tell all of our clients this, Uh, you're going to have some sales call or some phone call. Yeah. Um, and we tell our clients like create your show for one person. Like if only one person listens. Yeah. Uh, but over the next year you get a phone call and they say, I listened to everything. I didn't comment on social media. Right. I didn't share it saying this is the best podcast ever.

1:15:39 Cause I'm kind of shy, but I want to hire you to. Yeah. And yeah, exactly. And they're like, but I've listened to you for 30 hours over the last year. Um, and that, that's who you want to create it for. And that stuff happens all the time. But a lot of people stop short of that. And so I'm, you know, you've been doing this long enough to where it's probably a fairly frequent. experience for you to hear some version of people that are like, oh yeah, I've been listening for a while. And because of that, I did X, Y, and Z. And it's this moment of like, oh, this is why things like this. I ran into Mary McKnight at the food truck rally a couple of weeks ago. And, uh, she and her husband, Brian came on two years ago or something like that.

1:16:23 And, uh, the first 40 minutes I had learned that they own property in Patagonia in North Chile. And so we spent like 40 minutes talking about Chile and Patagonia and their whole journey there. And I was like super fascinated. And she's like, you know what? We had two or three people contact us that heard us on your podcast and hire us to their backyard. Yeah. I was like, that's awesome. Yeah. You know, just because they liked, because I love. Mary and Brian are awesome. They deserve to be celebrated and share that story of young adventurers that bought property in Chile in 2012, five years before there was power to their valley. That's a cool story.

1:17:05 Here. All right, let's try some chips. We're going to move on to the purpose-driven questions after that. This is, oh, by the way, of working the sponsorship into the conversation. but you have access to that little pool there i had the privilege of trying some iterations of your sauce that's right you were here with some of those samples i i like that i like them i don't it's hard to compare them because it was months ago but i know that what i'm trying now is good so thanks to paul at matador mexican grill for those iterations you can get your own crazy ginger hot sauce at Matador. Nice. You have some right in there, as well as some local experience sunglasses.

1:17:46 Perfect. A couple extra pairs. I thought it was out. So, we've talked a bit about purpose-y stuff already, but, like, I guess one of the questions I would be thoughtful of is your 35 or 42 days or something out from fatherhood has your purpose... changed on a day-to-day basis in that time i don't know if the purpose has but i think the perspective has so we had um we had a moment where so we went in for like a a checkup with our midwife and they ended up recommending not out of any emergency but out of precaution that What that initially meant is that the end of that routine doctor's appointment ended in them saying...

1:18:44 You should walk across the street to the hospital and you're going to have this baby today. And so our, you know, my mother-in-law was with us, which was wonderful. And so Lacey and her mom walked across the street to go check into the hospital. And I drove home to get our hospital bags. Right. And, um, I joked with Lacey, I needed designated driver driving home. Cause I was like, I was crying and just very emotional about it. Cause it was, it wasn't this progressive thing. It was part of you. Like, yeah. don't have it before I get back. It wasn't that the thought was very much, um, Oh, but her health perhaps. Well, it was, I love my business. I could lose all my clients.

1:19:25 I could, I love my family. Um, if I got cut off from my family, if I had to start over with all my friends, right? Take my left hand. All of that stuff. The only thing that, that mattered was like, I want Lacey to be healthy and I want a healthy baby. Yeah. Yeah. And so it was this interesting perspective shift where it wasn't that these other things, like, yeah, it wasn't that these other things like don't matter, but it was this, like, this thing of like this elevated of like this feeling of like providing for family and, you know, the future of now another person other than. you know, me and my spouse, I think just the perspective changed. And I think there's just an excitement around being able to provide for, um, whatever, whatever Brooklyn wants to become in her life, being able to hopefully like resource and guide her along that path that that's exciting and fun.

1:20:21 You know, falling in love and getting married is a really special thing, right? We've both done that over the seasons. Yeah. You know, Jill and I haven't become parents, but I have to think that like, like Lacey's a career woman too, or has been, I don't know how much time she's got off or planned or whatever, but like, she can kind of take care of herself. You can kind of take care of yourself. You guys got together in your mid to late twenties. Right. Um, but the baby can't know. So it's a whole shift in that. What are my responsibilities? Yeah. Yeah. It's very interesting. Uh, the baby cares nothing about my schedule, right?

1:21:04 Right. But, yeah, I mean, it's just a perspective shift, and I think that I've... I've always felt like you can't unsee perspective. And this is, this is part of the reason that Lacey and I have always loved traveling and just going to like, people ask me like, well, what country's on your bucket list? And it's like, I just want to see something. I just want to be around people that live differently than we do. Yeah. Um, because I feel like you shift, you shift in perspective and American standards. We have a very small house to be like raising a family and, um, Uh, and you know, when we come back from Europe, we're like, we live in a mansion. Right. Um, and the rest of the world lives in much smaller mansions.

1:21:47 Um, so I, I think it's all perspective and perspective sticks with you and like really impacts you. And I think that that's, that's been a big, that's probably been the biggest word over the last like six weeks. It's just perspective shift. Um, yeah. So I guess probably in our first podcast, which was like in our first 10 episodes or so of the local experience, but we talked about like kind of your faith background and you kind of rose to some level of prominence by bringing together like a big group of teenager Christian kids for some concert-y kind of thing. Yeah. Remind me the name it had? Yeah, that name was Thirst.

1:22:28 And between when I was 16 and when I was probably 21, we did probably... 15 or 16 of these kind of like, uh, region wide worship events in Northern Colorado. And then we did another like probably 10 or 12 across the country in different states of bringing Christians together of different backgrounds. Yeah. So different denominations and, um, kind of bringing together to like activate and don't be like weirded out by you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It was very much like we all have differences, but we also have some pretty big similarities. Yeah. And that was for me a big piece of beginning to see that I really love storytelling and I love bringing people together.

1:23:14 And I can do stuff. Yeah. It sounds like, I imagine, you were talking about the agency of thinking that you can do stuff earlier. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know why. I do not know why at 16 years old. I, and I mean, it really was like a God given vision. And I, I actually have physical photos, uh, now that I have the vision that I saw six months before those photos were taken. Right. So it really was this like supernatural, like I saw a vision of this thing happening. Yeah. And then, you know, I remember gathering friends together in my parents' living room and saying, Hey, here's what I feel like we're supposed to do. Let's figure out how to do this. And we started a nonprofit organization and, um, It went very well by any means and, you know, impacted a lot of people.

1:24:02 And that was really amazing. And so it was very much bigger than me, but also I think back often to— Kind of a minor miracle in some ways. Yeah. Just how explosive it became the age before— Even much social media. Yeah, no, like, I mean, we promoted those events on MySpace and also, but also more so than that. It was like, I remember learning graphic design. Yeah, exactly. Like, I remember making a promo video on Windows Movie Maker and going around and showing it at probably 15 different youth groups in town. And then I remember designing, learning how to design flyers and designing flyers and Photoshop and printing, you know, raising, actually working.

1:24:46 landscaping to raise money to print like 5,000 flyers. And then I had like a team of people that in all the public schools that were going and putting them in lockers and stuff. All this stuff that was organizing the distribution of that many flyers. Yeah. Yeah. You couldn't do group texts, but you could do like group, uh, or I think you could do group texts up to like 10 people. Right. And so I remember having to have 300 people. Yeah. Yeah. So it was all this interesting stuff. Um, and, uh, Yeah, I mean, really amazing. But I've often thought back to why, like, and I need to have this conversation with my parents. Like, what do they remember when I first came to them with the idea?

1:25:28 Yeah. Because for whatever reason, when I came to my parents... They did not squash the idea at all. Yeah, yeah. And I've often wondered back to how much that would have been potentially a very different path for me. They were like, awesome, go do this. Yeah. And I think that was such an important moment for me. Even if I would have failed. Yeah. They probably thought it would fail. I assume so. Like, they would be silly to not. Right, right. They would be silly to think it would succeed. Well, I guess, like, I'm angling my question toward that end of, like, you just saw this kind of big dose of God's providence just kind of be dumped out on this whole endeavor of sorts.

1:26:10 And then... like I'm sure you've heard that voice here and there and stuff, but you've had ups and downs and a bit of a roller coaster, even in the last 18 months. Um, have you had other like moments like that, uh, along the journey really like, and maybe that didn't seem that providential. It just seemed kind of what, and sometimes, In the moment, that's what Providence feels like. It's just the right next thing happened as it was supposed to. Yeah, there definitely was. We're going to talk about that. Like, what's that? There definitely have been other moments like that. Going into college was a moment similar to where...

1:26:53 I didn't know what college I was going to, but I remember feeling like I was hearing a pretty clear inclination or voice of, uh, you're going to be a part of a prayer movement in college. And I was like, well, I don't know where I'm going to college. Um, and then in college, I got to the college I was at and there was no prayer movement. And so we started one and it turned into this very large, very big thing. And, um, and I also like ended up kind of in a situation where I had to very much step back from leadership and, um, step back from starting things for a time. And that was actually when I realized I wanted to go into business. Um, and I think starting story on was a very similar moment where I felt this like internal kind of inclination movement and leaning, uh, this new podcast.

1:27:39 Yeah, I do think that I've been, um, I think in many ways I've been thinking about the slate. I do think in many ways I've been, uh, maybe less instinctual over the last five years. Like I've maybe like, tried less of my own ideas um and i mean in how we're telling these stories i don't feel like they're all my own ideas but i think yeah i think uh historically it's there's been these pretty big moments when i've trusted my own ideas and got or or things that i feel like are inspired well like this this concert this uh what was it called thirst yeah thirst and yeah some of these other things are totally out of the blue kind of yeah that's right Yeah, so I do think that, I mean, I'm currently feeling like maybe I have quieted some of those voices.

1:28:30 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And maybe, you know, I'm feeling more inspired to realize, like, you know what? To your detriment, perhaps, almost. Yeah, like, you know, it is worth trying. And even if I try and fail. I build stuff. Yeah, like I should try and fail. And so I've probably played it a little safer than I would imagine. Yeah. or maybe should over the last handful of years. Fair enough. Yeah. We've already drank a couple of bourbons here, so I won't give you too much more before you go home with your new wife and baby, but I'll give you a taster of the WizCal, which is our spirit sponsor. Shout out to Seed and Spirit Distilling. I think I remember this from last time.

1:29:10 Funkworks. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, the new Funkworks, or the old Funkworks location, they'll have a tasting room soon. Cheers. And this is their Mezcal whiskey hybrid spirit. Mezcal is interesting. There's a place in Las Vegas, a Mezcal bar, and I ordered a Mezcal whiskey. a mezcal old fashioned and it kind of came in this cup and then the top of it had this skull okay and it was a smoked mezcal old fashioned and then the skull the smoke was like coming out of the out of the skull nostrils it's like that's pretty cool that'll bring me back to this place one day just because of that skull like when i drink mezcal sometimes i think about those smoky old fashions that you get at fancy places like social or whatever yeah And so I hope they're already serving the Wiz Cow Old Fashioned down there.

1:30:03 Yeah, just tasty. It's a good one. It's easy. Do you have any local experiences, any crazy stories of the last three years or so since Seth Silver has been on the show? Other than having a baby. Yeah, having a baby has been a crazy experience. I don't know. We've spent like... Last year we spent a, so there's the biggest podcast conference each year, uh, in the world is in London every day. Oh yeah. And so the last like three years. We've gone and added time to it. So like last year we spent a month or a little over a month in, um, yeah, in Europe.

1:30:46 Oh dang. Um, and this year it was like two and a half weeks. Dang. Um, so that, that like, that's been fun. Have you gotten some clients from that not to be your accountant or your, uh, yeah. So, I mean, we've been, um, when we go to these podcast industry events, it's more, I would say it's more for relevance than it is for like client acquisition. Yeah. So it's more so like to connect, you know, I'll probably have 20 meetings over a three day period of different, you know, different owners of other podcast businesses where we're sitting down and getting to learn, you know, getting to kind of catch up and see what's happening. Almost like an association of sorts. Like there isn't really a podcaster's association per se. Like there was a CPA's association.

1:31:26 Yes. The podcast movement and stuff, but this is what you're talking about. Yeah, so I think it's a lot more connection focused. Now that we're doing more consulting, it's a little bit more acquisition focused because our audience is expanding a little bit. You don't have anybody. Yep. So, yeah, I don't know. I'll share. What's that like to, like, be gone for a month? It is interesting. So, um, we, yeah, it was, it was awesome. I definitely want to do it again and I want to do it slower. Okay. So we did it like, wait, we went to, so when we were gone for a month, we did, um, three off days. We did Italy. So we went into like Italy and to Milan and then went up to like Como and then went into Switzerland for a few days.

1:32:08 And then, yeah, we were in Zurich and then we went into Strasbourg, France, where we were for like eight days, which was our longest single time. And then we went to Paris and then London for the podcasting event and then finished in Barcelona. Oh, wow. So I think one interesting story, it's not necessarily crazy, but it's unique. So we, in the middle of that trip, we were in Strasbourg, France, which is right on the border of France and Germany. It's French currently. It has changed nationalities like four times in the last 150 years because of the wars. And so it's very much like half German, half French. And it's beautiful town.

1:32:49 We kind of wanted like, it sounds like a very walkable name actually. Yeah. Like we wanted like, it's one of the main like Christmas marketplaces. We wanted a very walkable area, like walkable city, but not something huge to like spend for like eight or nine days. And I, I worked, so I would like work, um, those days I was working. And then in the evenings we'd walk around. Yeah. And so it was extremely nice to be in a town in another country long enough to kind of like, one, somewhat get bored. Yeah. Of like, I don't know, what do we want to do today? And then two, get to like revisit a restaurant. Right. Which sounds like a simple thing.

1:33:30 Yeah. But being in like another country and then being like. Let's go back to the place we went to three days ago. It was like actually really special. And so there was this one night where we just like walked and we were like, we want to find like live music. And we found some unimpressive pub and they had music and we crammed in there and there was, you know, maybe 50 people in a pub that's the size of your office. Yeah. And there was a older lady probably in her mid seventies and, and a younger guy who was the lady was singing the guy was playing the accordion okay and for like two hours they just played music and sang and we didn't it was all in french yeah so we didn't really understand any of it yeah but you could like you could understand the emotion of it yeah um there were certain songs where it was like that was about one of the world wars.

1:34:22 Like that was about world war two. Like you could kind of understand like with the context of what had happened to this community. And it was just like a beautiful night. And so it was just a really fun, like getting to be in a hyper local space in another country, even though you don't understand, you don't understand the language at all. Um, and just being able to spend a few hours, just like appreciating the culture, Like that was, that was really special. There's an old line and an Ani DeFranco song that like, it's something like people used to make a record as a record of an event of people being in a room playing music together. And like that kind of memory in some ways, like there's 50 people in that room to be like included in that collection of people is a pretty, and it wasn't like a monumental It wasn't monumental.

1:35:16 It didn't make news headlines. It wasn't anything crazy. And I think that there's something special about being able to draw meaning and purpose from these fairly nominal events. And that... You know, we... got the privilege to what for, I mean, we feel very grateful, but for many, it was like, we were on that trip. We like, this is the trip of lifetime spending four or five weeks in Europe. They've never imagined that. Yeah. And you know, one of the, one of the moments that stood out was this, uh, you know, night, night in a pub where we couldn't speak to anybody. You're going to, uh, what's the name of the band I'm looking for? The dude that thinks he's Jesus, but he's not quite.

1:35:57 Oh, I don't know. It sounds interesting. Yeah. You too. Oh, okay. Bono. Bono. Yeah. I would love to go to a couple of his shows and they're really quite incredible. Uh, but after the first one, I was like, I'm not going to say I'm Jesus, but I'm not going to say I'm Jesus either. That's kind of his level of ego, it seems. But it's not like because I went to the Formula One race or anything like that. It's because I was in this little lonely pub and just came in there. Next June, maybe, probably. So Jill and I host in Sarah. Did you ever meet Sarah? I didn't meet Sarah, no. Enrico from Italy? Did you meet him? Okay, I don't think so.

1:36:38 That was her brother. So we hosted two siblings from the same family three years apart. And Sarah is graduating high school next June. And her dad has a motorcycle. And so the theory is, I think we're going to do it probably, is go to Italy, Ravenna, two hours south of Venice. Do it. Hang out for maybe close to a week. And then go up through Switzerland, go see Bettina in Switzerland in Zurich she's at now. Yeah. Maybe go see our current exchange from Julian in Stuttgart because it's not far really. And then drop down to France to see Navart, who I used to work with down there, and then come back over the hills on the rugged road along the Mediterranean on...

1:37:23 Andrea's motorcycle, Sarah, and Enrico's dad, and have the most budget three-week Euro trip ever. You should do it. For sure. Yeah, absolutely. As long as airplane tickets are less than $1,200, because Trump hasn't invaded Iran. Yeah. Yeah, I'm very excited about it. I'm very pro things like that. Yeah, yeah. We... We've probably spent a disproportionate, like we've spent more money than Dave Ramsey would recommend on travel. For sure. But only a few international trips, kind of. Yeah. Just travel, travel.

1:38:04 But I love the cultural experience as well. Yeah. Yeah, I love it. So are you going to go next year with a fresh baby? So I will for sure be going to London for at least four or five days for the event. We're leaning towards a yes of kind of just like, let's suck it up and figure it out. Babies are easier to travel with. than our like three or four months. So frankly, maybe get one more, one or two more years. Yeah. So we're, we're looking at still doing a week in Europe. Um, we're, you know, we're kind of, uh, we really like the idea of like some of the hiking trips, um, Um, the like end to end hiking trips in, uh, England and the Cotswolds or different areas where like during the day you're hiking with like a day pack, but then they actually like move all of your like luggage to the next hotel and you maybe like walk like five or six miles through the country.

1:39:02 Perfect. So like, we're thinking about something like that where it's like, we can just like throw Brooklyn in a backpack. Um, so we might do something like that. We're leaning towards trying to do that. We're going to a cousin's wedding. Yeah, we're doing our first... You're kind of an Englishman heritage anyway, right? Yeah, I'm like an English-Scottish-German mutt. Yeah. With... Silver's is my last name from a non-blood grandfather. So it's like I have a Jewish last name. Oh, is that right? Oh, that's a Jewish? Yeah, it's like a Jewish last name, but... Have you ever felt discriminated against for being Jewish? No. Uh, but yeah, I think we're, we're traveling in November with the baby for the first time. And so we'll kind of, we're kind of waiting to make any decisions until that judgment from that.

1:39:48 Yeah. We'll see. We'll see how that piece goes. Um, any questions for me before we wrap this up? Uh, what do you want to see the podcast be your, what do you want to see the local experience podcast be two years from now? Two years from now? Because I, I get on here about every two years. So I want to know what you want the podcast to be next time I'm on. I guess, you know, I would just like to have more consistent listenership. We kind of go up and down. We always have, I'd like to just have that steadily trend up and, you know, I think, uh, One of the commitments I have is to have people more realize what Loco Think Tank is and does and how that's related to the Loco experience.

1:40:34 how the business journey is a lonely place and it's, yes, it's not for the faint hearted, but it's also, it's, it's for the awesome. Yeah. So go do it. And so like, if, if anything, I would love to see, like, this is a big amorphous dream, but, If I could have strong evidence that the local experience helped a few dozen people make the decision to start something or to grow something in northern Colorado or somewhere else and love their community more than people would think was normal. Yeah. That's, you know, the more examples of that that I could have, the better.

1:41:20 Yeah. Well, if you are listening... And this podcast is encouraging you in any way to start something. Just take the time and email Kurt at. I'll give you an hour. What's your email? C-U-R-T at loco think tank, L-O-C-O think tank.com. And I'll give you an hour. Like if you want to plot your escape from your shitty corporate job and start something for real. I'll do my best to help you for sure. Yeah, it is. It is. And if you want to start a business podcast. Yeah, let me know. Because you've got a message to share. You know, story on. Yeah, happy to chat about that. But it'll be fun to chat in another hundred episodes.

1:42:00 I got sweaty from the hot sauce. Kurt looks like the crazy ginger. Let's wrap this up before a ginger comes back. There we go. Cheers, Seth. Cheers. Hi, this is Kurt bear host of the local experience podcast and founder of local think tank. Every week I explore intimate conversations with business founders and leaders. And so I hope you'll join us this week and every week for the new episode of the local experience.