SHORTS 10 | Community Impact with Nick Armstrong with WTF Marketing, Fort Collins Startup Week & Comic Con

Welcome to the Loco Shorts Podcast from Loco Think Tank. In this podcast series, Loco Business Developer Rory Shah will help unfold bite-sized business learnings through the crazy experiences the business owners face along their small business journey. Listen in and listen up because these short business stories may just have the secret ingredient to taking your business to its next level of success. All right, so we'll get started. So this is another Loco Shorts episode with me, Rory Shah with Loco Think Tank. And I'm here very excited to talk to Nick Armstrong today. So he's got a few titles, mainly geek and chief at WTF Marketing where he's been for over 11 years and is also the lead organizer with the Fort Collins Startup Week and Comic-Con. So no doubt you don't have a lot of free time. So Nick, welcome to the podcast. I'll let you introduce yourself a little bit more. I've always got time to talk to you. You and Kurt, you know, it's one of those things that you've got to support your community and when they ask for your time, you come out and do it. Absolutely. Well, thank you for being here. So I'm curious to know more about your journey as a marketer. How did that all get started with WTF Marketing? When I was in college, I went to CSU in 2003 and joined the, I was a CIS major, which is sort of like the manager of the programmers. So not the like hardcore programming, chugging, Mountain Dew, you know, downing Snickers bars at the computer, but the folks who are like, hey, you really might want to, can we strategize this a little bit and integrate it with the other business company? So that's CIS, right? And I was miserable after one semester and I didn't really pick up on why because I wasn't smart enough then to figure it out. But then I joined KCSU, which was on campus radio station and I was surrounded by my people and my people were like in a music and they were, you know, diverse and they were enjoying life and they were having fun and they were out there in the world and doing cool things going to concerts, meeting people, they weren't afraid to talk to people. And it was such a great experience. And I learned so much from just the advisors, everybody, all the DJs, it was such a welcoming environment that I started to shift my perspective about what I wanted to do. And so I added a marketing minor at that point and then I turned it into a full on degree. So I graduated in 2007 with a dual degree in marketing and CIS. And when I was working at the radio station, I really ran my first marketing campaign and it was a lot of fun to get the students integrated with it. It was a lot of fun to get the staff and a lot of the DJs to work together. We did sound effects. We all made high pitch squirrel voices. It was so much fun. We had concert tickets and trees and it was just amazing to get the students involved. And we actually did bump the listenership for about three months or so. So when I started, I was at four o'clock in the morning and I was DJ St. Nick and the right appropos. I was actually named after Santa Claus, so with a little bit of trivia for you. The 4am crowd is mostly the guys at Lamar making donuts who will call you and also the folks out the cycle team, the trash team, and they'll call you and they'll say, you need to put on death metal if you don't put one death. And so if you play anything slow, they're falling asleep and it's a deadly situation for them. So we can't do that. And I really learned how to talk well with the audience, even at 4am, to bring out good questions, interviews and things like that. It was a really cool learning curve and something that I took with me as I continued through my college career. And my first marketing job was a misnomer. It was actually cold calling. And I was so mad about this because Facebook was a thing and Twitter was becoming a thing and blogs were kind of a thing and live journal was a thing back then. So we really weren't using it for business yet, but I knew it was there. I knew we could do it if we just applied ourselves and worked towards it. So fast forward 12 programming jobs later and was really only fired three times. So when I say 12 jobs, I worked at HP and then I jumped over to a, you know, other programming smaller programming companies, GIS companies and all sorts of this other. And every time I just hated it and I was miserable and my eventually, my appendix almost burst. And the doc was looking at me and he says, for this to happen at your age. And with your, you know, you're, you're, you're me, you know, you're moderately healthy or, you know, you've got all these, but listen, it's about stress. And so if you can get your life under control, if this stress and get it, you know, back to his end, your, your life will be much happier and you'll live a lot longer. And so I really took that to heart. My 13th job was WTF marketing. I had $10,000 in medical debt, pulled my 401k, all the, you know, earnings that I'd put aside for that, you know, it's just a small amount because I was at the start of my career and hadn't held down a steady job for, you know, a span of two years and paid off what I could of my medical debt and paid for a month of rent and a month of groceries. And that was my runway. And so did you start the business? Did you come into the business? No, I started the business. WTF marketing was, it was, it started as a, I was mad about the gurus who had moved into the space and we're saying, look, you just need to turn your business into a person on Facebook and then like all the people in your community and make them your friends and then they'll buy from you, which was such sleazy, it never stopped, right? There's always some sort of snake oil or magic secret sauce that they want you to buy into, like Instagram followers or whatever, like, oh, we've got the secret TikTok stuff not going on. No, it's so much nonsense. And I was mad about that, about small business owners getting built in, you know, but it doesn't in my community. And I was WTF, man, WTF. So that became WTF marketing and then really get what the, what the, you know, the whole feeling of the brand was until about two years later when I was having a crisis of conscience and I was like, maybe I should change it to like rebel marketing or, you know, what is in that? And you know, you know, maverick marketing and so that I had an advisor who luckily was a lot smarter than me and she said, you must own the thing that you are, which is completely unabashedly honest to a fault, right? And so, you know, not to put people off because it's marketing, you know, you have to, you have to attract the crowd, but you also have to be honest about who you're for. And over the course of the last 11 years, I've only really lost one prospect because of the WTF no more. So it was, it was a bold choice and I think you have to be good at what you do with a name like that. And I, that was really a trust builder, but it was also a, a filter and it worked really well. Yeah, I imagine you're, you're having the conversations and speaking to the people you want to talk to you because they've already decided to pick up the phone because they're intrigued in some way by your name. They laugh, they giggle, the ones who get it, they giggle and then they tell you that they're giggling about it and then, you know, you have a natural in. So it works out pretty well. It helps if they like you from the beginning and one of the, you know, the initial logos and you can see this from like two years ago and I'll send you those files so you can show it. You put it in the show notes. It's horrible. Now, it's not horrible because the designer did a bad job. It's horrible because I didn't have a clear vision what the company was. Now the designer was brilliant and turned it into something that was really, truly stunning with, you know, my lack of vision. Now, when I turned around and had that conversation about a bash it honesty, that's when the brand changed. And it became much more of an accessible brand and it became that stick figure with the glasses and the curved logo. And that was a different graphic designer, Ellen Bryant, who's still here in town. She does amazing work. And, you know, my first lucky break with WTF came as a result of Ignite Fort Collins, which was a community organization put together by Ron Zazydinsky, Lori May Comer, Ava Diamond and Vivica Von Rosen. And so those were the big four guru, not guru, like in the bad way, but like they were the business mentor people that you wanted to get to know. They were the leaders of business in Fort Collins and they did great job at connecting the community through Ignite and other things that they were doing and they served as my mentors. And my very first dollar that I earned in my business, which you can't see in the audio version of this, but the video version, I'm pointing to it and Rory can see it's on my wall. It's mounted. It's in a frame. And, you know, Lori, that was my very first dollar. I had her sign it and it was it's amazing. So fast forward and I, you know, Lori asked me to set in for one of her talks that she was going to be doing at the small business symposium. And I ended up talking in front of Budweiser and Fort Collins brewery and I had the room was set up. It was the Hilton on prospect and it was set up in a lecture style. I took all the chairs and turned them into a circle and then spent the entire time like a giant spaz running around and jumping up on the chairs and running around and you know, running around the circle, talking to people like, you know, three feet from them and which wouldn't fly during COVID, but it was fine, you know, 10 years ago. And so it was so much fun to do that and really have that conversation. And that was the real impetus for getting into more and more marketing. So that was a really long and roundabout way of answering your question. But there were so many different, I was alternatingly super lucky and in the right place at the right time and also working like crazy just to get any sort of, you know, website design, I've read copy, I would throw Google ads up, I would, you know, subcontract under a different marketing company. And I actually was paid, I was paid 90% of a contract because I was two pixels off on a website design. And it made the designer so mad that they learned how to code and they fired me from subcontract marketing. They learned how to code because they were so mad about that two pixel difference. And when I explained how the box model works, which is basically everything, even if it's a rounded circle, everything in a website is a square. And you have to imagine that it's a square. And if there's something that is, you know, in the transparent space behind a round thing, it's still blocked because the transparent space is a square. And you can't click the thing behind it. And that's what was causing the problem for this website. So, you know, without that context, it became this like, and I didn't know enough either about contract negotiations or talking with them about it to sort of bridge that gap. So there were so many great learning opportunities in the business that everything sort of led to learning how to do it better as I went along. Absolutely. So what would you say as you kind of got into it because it sounded like you, you were already rolling with the punches and you're like, all right, let's just do that. So as you were getting into business, was it easy to find clients or contractors or know how to do your taxes? Like, did any of that have like a big curve learning curve for you or you just all in? I have this picture on my Facebook page, I think is public still of our screenshot of our TV counting down to the day I go to jail because I was doing my own taxes as a small business owner, which was just a, I am not, I'm not the finance guy. So I hand that all off to now it's Craig and Michael Hour and they're fantastic. They took over the books, it's been such a huge relief off of me. I didn't know anything to sort of short answer to your question, I didn't know anything. I knew what I wanted to do and that's not always the right thing in business. So finding the next client was a matter of subcontracting it, subcontracting it first and going really to work with other folks and learning how they put together their contracts and what they were doing and I would talk to people who had, you know, been there done that got the t-shirt and asked them to say, could you send me your contract? I'm really, I'm trying to rework my contract, I don't understand. And of course business owners who are in of the right mindset will share and collaborate with you. I send my contract out to newbies all the time and say, here, check this out. This is, it's written, of course, in plain English and it's written as a comic book, but, you know, put this in your own way. And of course my lawyer goes over it and reviews that stuff to make sure it's all proper and that I'm not going to get sued and all the rest of that stuff and that I have all the proper protections and all the, you know, insurance and whatever else. Learning about how to do all of those things was a result of good mentorship and having folks who had been there done that and got the t-shirt. All the lots and lack camp from the Poodle River Public Library District, communication director, before the most recent Katie Omen who is also equally awesome. They really, Paula really was the one who said, you need to get oops insurance. And oops insurance is, you know, Arizona omissions. And if you are doing work for other companies and you screw up their brand or screw up their profitability, you need to have that oops insurance because it covers you butt. Because you will make a mistake and you will, you know, screw up and honest intent in those moments is really key. So yeah, I mean the going at it with honest intent and going at it with an open mind and knowing that you don't know anything near what you need to and that you should be asking for help and mentorships. Most people if you ask them for a very specific thing will give you 15 minutes of time or send you a file or send you, you know, something to help you or link you to something. The SBDC is great. The library is great. They have great business librarians. Any really of the hubs, you know, loco is for more established businesses. But as you know, there's always something new to learn. Absolutely. Right. So I'm wondering as you're looking to the next step or milestone, I mean, what is that milestone knowing that you've been a business for 11 years, what's next? That's an interesting question. I tend to look at things in the community that need fixing. So I'll do there and ask tell me more about why is that. I think if you don't care about the place that you're in as a business owner, you probably should move to some place you do care about. And you know, that's to say like if your heart isn't in Fort Collins, if your heart is in, you know, Winter Park or if your heart is in Parker or if your heart is in Denver, go to those places and care about the community and the way that you can. If you can't put your energy back into the community, invest back into your community in some way, whether that's mentorships or, you know, creating something new or helping support artists or creatives or doing some sort of passion project along with your business. Even though you might absolutely love your business, if you're not going beyond that, it creates some really interesting fatigue. And that's called burnout or, you know, the wall and you most people hit that five to seven year mark and they're like, I need to pivot. I need to change what I'm doing. I need to do what. And that really I think is just, you know, community support on we for lack of a better term. You just get bored with the thing that you're doing and you can't, you're not supporting yourself. I was sitting in a meeting and the Poodle River Public Library district at the time had just lost the building where they were storing the books for the book sale that they do every year, which is their major fundraiser. And that later became the butterfly cafe. They were going to be out like 20 K to 50 K because that's a big fundraiser for them. So I said, well, I've had this idea and I've talked with Nate Scott, who is the lead organizer of the Fort Collins zombie crawl back in the day. And he and I were buddies going back and forth and we should need a con. We need a con. We need an event. A convention, a geek convention up here in Fort Collins because we were tired of driving down a Denver, drop in $250 for tickets, spending twice as much on hotels, food, you know, everything else, travel, gas, all the things that you need to have for, and then also you want to buy stuff at the convention to help support the artist. And I know I'm flat broke at that time, you know, so I wanted something that I could go to, something that was relatable, something that, you know, when, when, and I, you know, my son had just come along at that point. It's like, we need to have something that this little dude can go to and really have a good time. And so we sat down with Paula and we said, Fort Collins Comic Con. The thing, let's do it. And we thought nobody would show up the first year and we had it at the Azalon Center. We had 1500 people show up. Wow. And we were just floored. We charged, I think it was like 10 or 15 bucks for the, the one day badge and folks came, they did panels, they did cosplay show off, the mayor was there. We had a runway, we had art vendors, we had about 100 artists in the basketball court at the Azalon Center. Nowadays we're smarter about it. We can get about 140 in there, which is pretty, pretty good. And it's such a great community event. Over the last six years, we've raised $120,000 for the Puda River Public Library District. So that first year we raised 15, we met our goal, and then we just kept the ball rolling and smart recruitment to the team, folks who didn't look like me, who didn't think like me, who didn't come from the same background as me, who, you know, they, they connected with different communities, they, they brought different skill sets. They were vital to the growth of this. They were some of the smartest, hardest working geeks that are in Fort Collins and beyond. And they are the reason for the success. The community came out because of their hard work and the community then started showing their love by becoming volunteers. And then those volunteers then grew into staffers with kids who are in middle school, high school, when they first started at it with the con they just were attending. And they became volunteers and they were on their, on our staff. Wow. Talk about impact and idea to support another organization and then having this giant ripple effect where people can become involved and invested and, and look forward to that each year. Yeah. And supporting the artists is in the community is such an important thing. You know, our artists normally pay around 150 plus for a booth at a place. And so we only charge them 75 for the Aslan Center table. And they come in, they get, you know, they get their booth, they get a tablecloth, they get all their stuff, they can show up. And if you are a newbie artist, 75 bucks might seem like a lot, but really it's like three covers of something, right, or a commission plus, you know, two other things. And if you have some product, you're going to make back the booth on the first day. The second day, money in your pocket. So having that venue as a, as a place, a platform for those artists to connect and collaborate as well. And then we started training them on how to be better vendors. So they set up their credit card systems and their processing. And then we started talking about how to do things like marketing email lists and promotion because you know, I know that world. And they didn't, they didn't. So it was time to bring in friends from the SBDC to help them do that training and really walk them through that vendor process. And now with COVID, we've gone into the foco marketplace, which is just, you know, I, I can't say enough about visit for Collins and all the work that team did. And that also, by the way, is Ron Zazydinsky's team from Koggi built that. And the folks from a launch, no co also help provide, we love them, we love Ron. So what I'm hearing is like, like, Nick, your business doesn't have boundaries. You just, you go where you see the need and you fill in the gaps. And it almost, you create things that didn't previously exist. So where do you find the energy and motivation to act on those things? Like I'm in picturing our business owners with, with a local thing, you know, but there is just so much to do as you do as well. But how do you find motivation for that stuff? What is interesting to me is finding a problem that I think is really tricky and figuring out a creative solution to it. That's energizing. More so than, you know, closing a new deal with a client or, you know, really nailing a project or other things like that. Where a lot of small business owners get their, that's where they get their, you know, their energy back is, oh, I really nailed that logo. I really nailed that piece of copy. I did so, you know, for me, it's always been, what is, what's in the community that we can do that's cool and new and interesting? And how do we grow that into something that is outstanding that folks want to replicate? And how do we then bring more people up through that? So one of the interesting things about Comic Con in particular is that we, we started off as just a Comic Con and then we, we grew into, oh, and else we've got the Kessel Run, right? Which is a Star Wars themed 5K and if you're a Star Wars fan, you get the Kessel Run joke. Then we said, I don't know how to run a 5K because I'm a geek and I play video games mostly day. This is me talking about me. And so I said, I need help figuring out how to run a 5K. Can anybody on our team teach that? And it became this, oh, we should teach that. And so then we brought in runners who could help us figure this out and partnered with the Fort Collins running club and he had a runner on staff and then two runners on staff. And then we created the Kessel Runners couch to 5K fitness program where every week we would get together, dress up in cosplay, have, you know, dress in park dinosaurs, the inflatable dinosaursuits chase us around and then we would have, you know, the ghost busters out there with slimer and we would have a Pokemon run with a giant inflatable Pikachu and it was so much fun. It just made exercise joyful. It was, it's probably the most unique exercise program that I've ever seen in Fort Collins. And it brought out a completely different community. And the reason that we started down that pathway to begin with was, you know, Leonard Nimoy Spock, died of COPD and then, you know, Carrie Fisher, General Leia, died from heart complications from, you know, years of drug use and other things like that. But this was, this was two huge losses to the geek community within the span. I think it was six months and geeks were reeling and they were, these were health-related issues that were, that could be eased through exercise. So it became an imperative that we build those things. So it sounds like, oh, yeah, we're just chasing the fun things. But as we went along, we realized that there are different types of literacy. And, you know, there's, you know, literacy in terms of reading, then there's cultural literacy. And so you bring in the artists and there's art literacy and comic literacy. And then there's, you know, fitness literacy and then there's environmental literacy and financial literacy. And all of these things sort of play together to make you a more cohesive geek, but also a more cohesive member of the community. And if you can become literate in all of those different ways, it makes you a more fulfilled person and it lets you lead a happier life. So that became the ultimate mission of the Comic Con. And we actually started a nonprofit called Howdy Neighbor Events around that entire idea. And so I, you know, it's one of those things that sort of became organic and each one of those initiatives was led by a team member who thought it was important and advocated for it. He said, yes, go try it. Go do it. Let's build it. So how important is your team since you're doing so much? I imagine you've got a pretty competent robust team. For Comic Con, I literally could not do without them. There is no way, you know, between Jeff and my at and programming Todd for vending and vendor relationships, Nathan and, you know, Ben on all things volunteer and Brianna. We have such an amazing team for Comic Con that they all come out and bring their best. Now when it comes to and Kira who just joined the team, she was a very dedicated volunteer who moved tables like you had never seen before. I mean, just she was going and going and going and going. And you know, when you see a volunteer like that, you can't, you just can't let them, you know, slide into the, the, the rafters. You have to get them back and say, look, we really need you on the team. And so now she is one of our volunteer coordinators and ops managers for putting together the event. So it's just an amazing, it's an amazing way to build up a team as you go to find and recruit good people who are, who believe in you and believe in the mission. Now for, you know, startup week recruiting folks from the community was an imperative as well. And everything in Fort Collins is sort of siloed unless there's a really good reason. And COVID sort of really changed this and it put, turned it on its, on its head. So I'm very proud of our business and nonprofit and local city and county governments for coming together to the table and, and every week now we have business round table and community round table about all of these different things that are happening in the community. And sharing resources and talking with one another so that we're not duplicating efforts, which is a huge, that was happening a lot before COVID where folks would, you know, we'd have one entity doing one thing and another entity would be doing the exact same thing and they'd be fighting over funding and sponsorship and whatever else and it's just a mess. It didn't need to happen that way. And so startup week, I really tried to like bring all the people together in one room to begin with. And we were so fortunate with our timing this year with COVID and we were one of the last events in Fort Collins before COVID really struck in Colorado. And so we had the county at the table, we had the city at the table, we had the economic health office, we had our state government folks, we had funding NGOs, we had nonprofits, we had the United Way, we had folks from the small business sector, we had the scale up week, so we had the big businesses, we had the chamber coming to the table, all of those pieces played together to really make a cohesive team. And we purposefully went out and the same thing with you did with Comic Con was recruited for representation. So who are people that don't think like me, don't look like me, don't sound like me, don't have the same background as me, don't have the same type of business as me, how can we bring them all together to talk about business in a new and cohesive way. So you know, we've got people like Penn Street, we've got people like Moses Street, we've got Phil and Candace from Propel Growth, we've got all of these different folks, we've got, we brought Achilles and he was a musician, he's actually my neighbor as well. And they brought such a cool, new dynamic to the event because everybody was encouraged to use it as a platform for elevating the people in the community that they thought didn't have enough of a platform or a voice of their own and they were being muted. And so we, we said amplify the voices you need to have amplified. And so then we got, you know, we had panels by Joe Buckner and we had panels from, you know, there's this amazing company that's down in Denver, it does fantastic DE on artwork and we, we just, there was so much good that came out of startup week as a result of that purposeful recruitment. So yeah, masterful teams by all rights. And that's why we also, you know, put them out on the website and highlight them as who they are and what they do and why so that they can get some, you know, acclaim as well for doing the things, it's not just, you know, like, hey, I'm the lead organizer, I'm out here talking about it because that's what I do. But look at these great and amazing folks as well and you can't do it without them. In terms of WTF, mostly subcontractors, it's mostly just me because I can, you know, I can handle the marketing work. So that's, that's where we're at. Okay. So you're small and nimble and you have this team of community partners and, I don't move as in shakers kind of in your, in your network to mobilize. Yeah. You got to be willing to do the work. I mean, if you can set the pace for other folks and do the work yourself, Will Smith has that great quote, like, you will not outrun me on a treadmill, like, I will, I'll keep running until I die, but you will not outrun me. And so that, that is really the work ethic that's required to do some of these bigger projects. And, you know, it's that's also true of the, the latest endeavor as well. Yeah. So tell me about your next level of business commitment and the newest things you put on your plate. So because I figured I wasn't doing enough yet. Sure. I decided to run for Fort Collins City Council in district one. And the learning curve, I thought I was busy before the learning curve on this has been just truly incredible. And the amount of community support that's come out, you, you really learn a lot about, you know, how to ask your friends for things that you had maybe thought were skeezy before. So you're like, you know, I really, can you just, you know, pay for someone help me with my campaign and that turns into, hey, I got to write this letter and I got to send out these postcards and I got them have money to do it. Can you help me? And then they, you know, of course, give you money for it. And so, or they send you to somebody who can give you money, which is a useful thing too. And so campaigning is a really interesting thing. And folks will get upset about it because you're marketing too much in your, you know, in their face or whatever else. But you try and be respectful about it, but you do have to get the word out and you have to be pushy in a way that I don't think unless you are really adept at sales that you are used to. And so if you are more of a, you know, a subcontractor or a service writer that sort of is, you know, like, I'll let the folks come to me, I'll let my customers come to me, I'll set out funnel and whatever else or Google AdWords, you really, it turns that entire perspective on its head and you have to, you have to get more comfortable with the ask. And it's such a cool thing to be learning about because in business, as we've talked about before, there are so many cool things to learn about all the time. And this is just another level of how to be good at sales and pushy without being obnoxious about it. Has your expertise in marketing helped you kind of activate this campaign? Is it kind of like a work project in your brain or is it like another type of strategy? It's a, there's, there's marketing strategic elements to it. The first part of the campaign is getting people to believe in you. And you have to sign it, they have to sign a petition to get you on about it. And so you go through your list of people who live in your, if you're in the district, and you're going for city council person in your district, then you have to get 25 signatures in your district. If you're running for Mary, you can get them from anywhere. And so you have to have 25 people who believe in you, who are your, you know, neighbors more or less, who will sign that petition on your behalf. And so that we got done in the first day, I, I sort of rallied and just went to every single person asked, everybody that I knew was in the district and said, can you sign this, can you sign this, can you sign this, please, it'll just get me on the ballot. And then one, I had 25 moved on to the next and the, the second page, which was, it goes up to 42, made sure I got 42. And of course, I started with my wife because, you know, if she's not on board, it's not happening. The campaign is not happening, this is, so, you know, you got to, you got to, you got to get the support early on. And so that, that was the first thing. And I was the last signature, which they say only do if you have enough signatures to go for, you know, the full thing. So I wanted to make sure that I had my name on it as well, because I wanted to be on board with it two feet in and all things. And then from there, I built a really just a, just a trotious logo on the very beginning. And I, you know, got my website put together and was just like, is, it was, you know, not good. Because I was hustling, right, because I had to, I could file my stuff and I got the bank account set up and you have to do all this logistical stuff. So it was very much like, I, that was the logisticals. I've already done it through finding, you know, funding so many businesses already that it was like, yes, all right, that's fine. I know how to get an SOS certificate. I know how to get the EIN. I know how to do all those things. I know how to set up a bank account. But then it became like, great, I'm a marketing person. And I have to market myself, not on a completely new front. I have to market me. And that hadn't really happened before beyond like WTF, right? Because WTF is a nice shell that you can sort of hide behind and be like, hey, I'm WTF marketing. But if you're Nick Armstrong, your neighbor, who's got to have your back and look, here's my face on all of this, I have never been so sick of my face before until I made and make all the, you know, and so then you get really good at, you're like, I'm Nick Armstrong, I'm your neighbor and I'm running for city council. Can I talk to you about what's important to you? I want you to tell me what issues you're having. And you start that conversation and you really want to have those, those, it's really, it's not, it's more sales than you would think because you got to get them to believe in you. And that only comes from a place of honest intent. Mm hmm. What are you telling people and what are you, why are you running? You know, and in my neck, the woods, the neighborhoods aren't connected with sidewalks, bike lanes, trails, nothing. So the quality of life up here for our residents or neighbors, me and two thousand of my neighbors completely different than somebody who lives in another part of town. Our neighborhoods aren't walkable, just to get to the local elementary school requires a car or a bus, otherwise you're taking country club road and it's a meat grinder. And nobody has addressed that for 30 years. So the infrastructure can has been kicked down the road and it has some serious consequences when it comes to, you know, protecting the environment, which if you don't have any other alternative from a car, you're going to be taking the car everywhere you go to play, to work, to shop and you're not going to be able to bike, you're not going to be able to walk to, you know, the parks or anything else like that. We have two parks in our neck of the woods that service, you know, all those two thousand homes. And it's not enough. All of that infrastructure is completely overloaded and the can has been kicked down the road for so long it's time to start paying attention. That being said, it also has consequences far beyond our side of vine. If you have ever tried to go north on vine or on lume, you know, rush hour, you've seen the direct consequences of some of this traffic impact and the utter lack of any alternative transportation and a car. So real quick, would you let our listeners know the loose boundaries of district one? Yeah. So it's everything east of college and everything north of Drake. And it goes quite a ways it's one of the biggest districts in Fort Collins. It goes all the way out to Budweiser and it goes all the way more or less to Sprouts. And it's, it's a huge district with a lot of different concerns. One of the, one of the biggest being, you know, how do we, how do we maintain walkable and pedestrian front in the neighborhoods? How do we make sure we have affordable housing? How do we address the homeless crisis? How do we provide a pathway for those folks to get jobs and earn their first home and be able to stay there over the long term and have support with mental health and, you know, healthcare and everything else like that. Those structures of support have to be 360. They have to be fully cohesive and just like any good small business support structure, you have to be in all places all at once otherwise it just sort of there's, you know, you're going to fall off the rails at a certain point. So helping small businesses as a main proponent of my campaign and as, you know, the organizer of startup week, having been around so many different startups and knowing creative businesses and traditional businesses and skilled based businesses, vocational training is a huge component of the affordable housing crisis. If you can teach people how to do things that are skilled but don't necessarily acquire a college degree, there's so many skilled labor jobs out there right now. In our community that are going unfilled, these companies cannot find enough skilled workers. So there's actually a really cool program that's starting up in collaboration with a couple of different organizations at the CSU powerhouse, which is going to be a vocational training opportunity. And so there's so, we're just in the prime spot to be able to do some really cool things for our community. And I think having an action-oriented problem solver who's been in business for 11 years on City Council really helped to bring more folks to the table who need to be there, bring the community together so that everyone in Fort Collins knows that their City Council person has their back because, you know, he's their neighbor. I love that. So give us a little bit behind the scene. So what do you have to do next as you're running for council? What's next? We're going to do a mailer. Okay. You know, we sort of, and, you know, our team is out there putting out signs and things like that going knocking on doors safely, of course, we have masks on and keep our distance. We move away from the doors as soon as we knock and then just kindly ask for their support and ask them if they have questions or concerns about Fort Collins. And if they know what City Council is and what it does and how it works and who's their rep and so on, so it's, it's all a lot of fun. Ultimately, it comes down to just having honest intent again. If you really genuinely care about the community and really genuinely care about making things happen and solving problems and care about your neighbors, you know, it's a, it's a good job to be seeking out, I think. Absolutely. The question I want to ask would be for the voters. So what would be the next milestone for someone in district one who could potentially vote for you? What's the date that they need to keep in mind? The ballots will go out around March 15th to March 22nd, I believe. So they should arrive somewhere around that time. They might get sent up just a smidge early to make sure that they, you know, arrive in time and that folks have a chance to vote. So everybody gets to vote from home. It's a mail-in ballot process and you can drop it back off at City Hall. And you know, the, the election itself is on April 6th. And so it's a, don't expect the results right away. We had hard-working city staff from the clerk's office going to be tabulating all the results since probably around after nine o'clock PM, you know, beyond that, we'll, we'll know. But really, truly, if you want to have an impact in your city, really, figure out what city council does, really understand where your city councilor is, you know, working on what the six month agenda is posted right on the city council website. You can figure out all of the topics that are coming down the pipeline. If you care about something, go and speak. It's not as intimidating as you might think. It is your neighbors. You're speaking in front of your neighbors and you've got two minutes. There's a light. All of the city council people are like smiling and encouraging you and listening to you and your ideas and they're taking notes. It's, it's, it's a really, it's a heartening thing, our local government. And I think that we, we can show a lot of appreciation for the time and the talent that it takes to serve in that capacity. So, you know, the existing city councilors, you know, the former city councilors, they're all around and helping each other out and giving advice and whatever else and advising and various ways and joining boards and such because they generally care about the community. And it's such a, it's such a powerful thing. So of all of the things I've learned, that is probably the most heartening is that there are the people that care so much about Fort Collins will do almost anything to help the folks that are trying to do good things for Fort Collins. Mm-hmm. I would agree. Yeah, it's a pretty magical community. So that's a good way to summarize it. Yeah. And it's really important. It's sending the elevator back down and bringing up new, you know, new, cool folks who have great ideas that can help the community and, you know, the pathways there, the pathways there. Nick, my last question for you would be kind of a charge for our business owner and business enthusiast audience. So knowing you have a huge, diverse amount of experience and different passions and seemingly endless motivation to do all these different things, what would you encourage our business owner audience to try to look in and then selves to stay motivated and to get back to the community and to even find balance within making all of that stuff happen. Just in yourself and when I say invest in yourself, I mean, get your house in order. So if there's something about you that is bothering you, if you're, you know, you're bothered by something about yourself, figure out a fix it. When COVID first started, I was anxious and I think a lot of folks were anxious. But I was, you know, as I started feeling the same way as when, you know, I, I had about of depression for a while, I had to go on some meds and to really pull myself back out of it and had to talk to some folks and that was a really, it was an enlightening experience because it's humbling to have to talk about those things with other people. Then you are the business owner, you're the one on the, you know, on the guy like this is me, you know. And when I had similar, I had a similar like twinge happening with the, the start of COVID and I said, I need to stop this and it's tracks now. And so I, I talked to Joe Simoti, who's an interesting, he actually also ran for city council in district one. And so he is a meditation and yoga teacher by trade. And he was hosting these meditations every Saturday for free. And I started going and it got me into this meditation habit, which it's, you know, and I was the like, this is too woo, woo, I'm not going to touch it with a 10 foot ball. And I don't know. And it became a really important thing for me. And before COVID, I had started working on my health through Taekwondo. And so I, I joined, you know, my local ATA school after doing a lot of research and seeing my kiddos do it and they were having so much fun, punching and kicking things and blocking and they were teaching them life lessons and having a lot of fun. And so the, the school started doing virtual lessons. And so I started doing workouts at home too. And all of a sudden, you know, you know, day by day, day by day, day by day with the meditation, the exercise, I started coming out of that funk and I started having a really clear view of the things that I wanted to accomplish and what I could do while we were, you know, and so we had a science track for Fort Collins Comic Con that we did live and we learned a lot about that. We essentially made our own broadcast network, which is insane. And it was so much fun. And we learned a lot about what it takes to do a virtual event and so that, those lessons that applied to startup week now, which is at the end of February. And so it will perpetuate through May because it's all pre-recorded for the most part except for a few panels here and there that will do live. And so we learned a lot of lessons from that, namely don't do everything live because it will burn you out and it will burn out your attendees and they'll want to pull their eyeballs out through Zoom. So all of that being said, I think investing in yourself and understanding that the next right thing is an okay thing and it's okay if it's small, but the next right thing is pretty clear in most situations. So putting, you know, putting your workout clothes on and getting on the bike or going to a virtual Taekwondo class or doing whatever else. And you know, it all adds up. And so after three years of doing all that, you know, going to classes, learning from all the students, how to punch and kick and block properly, iron my black belt. And it was a ceremony that was unique because it was, you know, we had to do it during COVID. And we were virtual and all, you know, everybody's at home, we had our, you know, ceremonial stuff. And so it was meaningful and it was one of the hardest things that I've ever done. And it sort of proved to me that I could do hard things. So investing in yourself also has an element of leveling up. And if you're sort of, if you're a multi-potentialite or polymath, you are, you know, I'm going to learn the ukulele this week. I'm going to, I'm going to learn to paint. I'm going to do all sorts of, you know, I'm going to make art. I'm going to make a comic. I'm going to write my novel. Where's my nanorimbo? Like all this stuff that's sort of sitting out there, pick, pick one or two of those things, which seems really hard, but just do it and really go after it. And really leveled up or find a skill area gap that you have and level that up and fill in that gap. One of the best things I ever learned was how to do video production. And then look for after you've leveled up your skills and gaps. Look for the annoying things that are in your house or in your business. The things that are no longer serving you, the tools that you've had forever and you're just holding on to them because they're habit or route. And get rid of them, upgrade them, do something different. We upgraded, we upgraded our pizza cutter and it was like game changing. I, you know, that's a silly example, but that's just one of those things. You know, we, we also, I had a coffee filter that was just like, you know, on its last legs and like, all right, we got to upgrade this thing. And in coffee tastes so much better now and so, you know, it's just those silly things that you don't think of that are just, you know, they're out there because they're out there and you're living with them and they're horrible and you just don't think about them, but they can be replaced in an instant. And so you just do that. So investing yourself, upgrade your skills, fill in the gaps and fix your old equipment or upgrade your equipment if you can. And it doesn't have to be expensive equipment, it could be a microphone, it could be, you know, a mouse, you know, anything. You do you and get yourself to the next level. I love all of that. I think that's, that's attainable and it's definitely actionable and I think it also gives people permission to, you know, take, take stock of those little things in their routines that are a little bit of an emotional snag or a little bit of a shadow and have it be okay to say no to upgrade that. So make things easy. Thank you so much for being here and sharing your story and I'm still in shock with how much you do. So I really appreciate your time. So I know you're busy and best of luck with City Council and let us know and the audience know where they can get a hold of you for all the different outlets that you have. Yeah, so if you want to learn about WTF marketing, it's WTFmarketing.com, it means exactly what you think it does for City Council. It's Nick for FOCO.com and for Fort Collins Comic Con, FOCOcomacon.org and for startup week, it's startup FOCO.com. All right. Well, thank you so much, Nick, we appreciate your time. Of course, thank you, Rory and thanks for having me. Thank you for listening to today's episode of the LOCO Experience Podcast. This is Kurt Baer, founder of the LOCO Think Tank and host of the LOCO Experience and I'm here with Rory Shah, LOCO Business Developer and host of the LOCO Shorts episodes. We hope you heard some new ideas and business perspectives in this episode. Our mission and all that we do, including this podcast, is to share collaborative business ideas and solutions that uplift the business community. Subscribe and follow us where you listen to podcasts to get new episodes as they are released. Curious about LOCO? You can learn more about us at LOCOthinktank.com where you'll find more information about our chapters, business resources and events for business owners and key leaders. If you're looking for perspective, accountability and encouragement along your business journey, why not apply for a chapter near you today? Why not? Why not? We'll catch you next time on the in-depth LOCO Experience Podcast with me, Kurt. And with me, Rory, for Bite Size Business Lessons and the LOCO Shorts. Bye!