Podcast appearances and mentions of david where

What are the things you can control in your business? What are the things that we can look at? Identifying the very specific companies, the very specific industries that we need to be able to interact with, to be able to get our customers as close to what they need as possible. We might not be able to get them exactly what they want at the price they want it. But most of them are going to understand that. Most clients are not going to blame you for the fact that the economy is doing certain things, or that there are things happening in the world. David: Hi, and welcome back. In today's episode, cohost Kevin Rosenquist and I will be discussing focusing on things you can control. Welcome back, Kevin. Kevin: Hey, it's great to be here, David. I always am a big preacher around the house of "control what you can control." You know, I can't do everything. So control what you can control. So I'm excited to talk about this. David: Yeah, it's a really good topic, both from a personal standpoint and from a business standpoint. It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day of what's going on outside our own environments. Especially with the news. Everybody's talking about different things that are happening regarding the economy, the stock market, all kinds of things that are happening. When we focus too much on the things that are outside of our control, we basically abdicate the things we can work on that move the needle for us. Kevin: Do you feel like people are even more focused on stuff they can't control? Like what's happening in the world and in the news now because of how much news is thrown at us in so many different ways with social media and whatnot? David: I think so. Yeah. I think it's always been like this. But yes, it does seem to be more of an epidemic lately, than maybe it has been in the past. I remember being exposed to this concept, I think it was in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Stephen Covey was talking about your sphere of influence. Kevin: Mm-hmm. David: Where you basically draw a circle and you say, okay, inside this circle is what I can control. And everything outside. It is what I can't control, which is basically the world and everything else. Right. Kevin: Which is, which is a lot of stuff. David: It is a lot of stuff. If this is the circle, then everything outside the circle off into infinity is the stuff you can't control. Exactly. In a situation like that, the more you focus inside your sphere of influence, the bigger it gets. So when you're focusing on the things that you have control of, you end up having control of more things. When you focus your attention outside the sphere of influence, the smaller it gets. That's because you're not working on the things you can actually control. And so for those of us in business... When we are able to really pay attention to that, you can grow your sphere of influence. You can control more of your own environment to accomplish the things you're looking to accomplish. Kevin: Absolutely. So let 's get a little specific here. Let's talk about sales for a second. 'cause one of the things I think about with sales is that sales teams can get really tied up with market conditions and what competitors are doing and all that. How can sales teams kind of focus on what they can directly influence. David: That is such a brilliant example because it's so true. In sales meetings very often you'll have conversations. "Well, this person's doing this, or this person's doing that. Or these people are cutting their price." It's all valid. Those are all things that may actually be happening in the marketplace that we have to respond to. But the first thing to do in that situation is to say, how can we flip the script on this? How can we turn this into something that we can do that is going to be better, different, and received by the market in a way that makes what they're doing less important...

00:00 Introduction06:10 Transitioning to FinTech: Highbeam14:49 Navigating Retail and E-commerce20:57 The Future of Consumer Brands and AI33:58 The Pros and Cons of Opening Physical Stores41:54 Finding the Right Retail Locations47:46 The Importance of Data in Business51:25 Lessons from High-End Retail Experiences01:02:35 Understanding Market Differences: Canada vs. U.S.01:11:19 The Importance of Great Retail Staff01:14:00 The Future of Retail: Who Will Survive?01:21:14 The Challenge of Competing with Walmart01:25:30 Lessons Learned from Building David's Tea01:27:55 The Emotional Journey of Exiting a Business01:29:18 Connecting with David: Where to Find HimOperators Exclusive Slack: https://join.slack.com/t/9operators/shared_invite/zt-2tdfu426r-TepSHJP~evAyDfR29U2qUwPowered By:Fulfil.io.https://bit.ly/3pAp2vuThe Only Cloud ERP Designed to Efficiently Scale 8 and 9-Figure Brands. Northbeam.https://www.northbeam.io/Postscript.https://postscript.io/Richpanel.https://www.richpanel.com/?utm_source=9O&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ytdescSaras.https://www.sarasanalytics.com/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=operators+podcast&utm_id=9operatorSubscribe to The Marketing Operators Podcast here: https://www.youtube.com/@MarketingOperators

Patrick continues his conversation with Jane from the end of the last hour about helping her son understand that what he's contemplating is morally and spiritually reprehensible and the woman he is seeing isn't “wife material.” Patrick reads a “Nastygram”   Diana - If Jesus was crucified by his wrists than why do stigmata's like Padre Pio's have the marks on their palms? Pat - Is devotion to the Holy Face of Christ valid in the Catholic Church? Michael - I recently joined the Knights of Columbus, what do you think about them? Elizabeth - The Catholic School that my kids will be going to has a male teacher who is wearing makeup. The school said they addressed it but didn't give details. What should I do? David - Where did Moses and Elisha come from there during the Transfiguration since no one was in heaven yet? Janet - Is it okay to be buried in a Protestant cemetery? Frances - Can you explain the changes the Church has made to the Lord's Prayer? They removed the Amen and added 'thine is the kingdom...' Michael - I'm in the military and will be cremated because of the military vault that I will be placed in. Is that okay?

Sharon Bryant Baumgarten will never forget the exact moment she received the life-changing news that her 9 year old son, David, had leukemia. The whirlwind diagnosis took their family on a journey through the struggles of cancer and its treatments, especially on a young child. In this episode, Sharon — a retired educator, mother of two, and now a grandmother — is sharing her experiences as the mother of a survivor of high-risk Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia (ALL). She shares with us how the cancer journey inspired her son David (and their family) to live life fully, the power of community and philanthropy, as well as the lessons she learned about overcoming challenges to find purpose in the face of hardship.  We’re diving into:   What surprised Sharon the most when she first walked into the children’s oncology office Small yet powerful ways the community reached out to help create normalcy for David and his family (and why Sharon always accepted help, even when she didn’t think she needed it) How Sharon overcame the challenges of getting David back to school The people also impacted by a cancer journey who are often overlooked The unexpected family addition that gave David and his family companionship, responsibility, and purpose The 3 most important lessons Sharon learned on the cancer journey with David Where is he now? Sharon shares about David’s recovery, accomplishments, and endeavors to continue to be involved in philanthropy The many ways the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS) made an impact on David’s cancer journey, and how the organization continues to lead the way in research And much more!   Get involved with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society by visiting their website: https://www.lls.org   Follow me on Instagram to get the latest updates on the podcast: https://www.instagram.com/thejennifercochran/   Continue the conversation in my free private Facebook group, Surviving is JUST the Beginning: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SurvivingisJUSTtheBeginning/ Join me for a Coffee Chat here: https://fitnessdesignsolutions.as.me/CoffeeChat

Spencer is the owner of Aerodrone Solutions. Introduction: Spencer started Aerodrone early in COVID. He’d been in military, then went to college, found drones and did military contracting in Middle East. Because that work was touch-and-go, when he returned from Afghanistan in April and in May, he decided to start his own company. David: What I want to know first is--are there any similarities to flying drones in Afghanistan to flying your DJI drones? Spencer says it's similar in how the camera works. The DJI is more simplified but flying is different since he was flying fixed wing UAVs for the military. David: You were one of the first people to sign up for D$1K—ready to get after it—which is a big reason why you're successful. Obviously, you were in drones in the military, but from a civilian standpoint, how did that process start for you? Spencer signed up for the Part 107, started it, did five minutes of it and didn't touch it again for two years. His friend Gail is a commercial pilot in Ocala who had the idea of starting something casually. Because of the uncertainty of the virus, Spencer was real nervous—but other than drones, what could he do? So he went with what he liked, and started up the drone idea. Spencer says, “I loved the idea of having my own company and putting into it and getting something else. It's super rewarding.” Spencer is a local and has a lot friends who are real estate agents, so he thought it would be really easy. For two months, he did no business, but all of a sudden the flood gates opened and he was overwhelmed with work. David: Take us through those two months, what did you do to get the first client? At first, he didn’t know where to get contacts. He found good ideas from Facebook pages of guys that were starting out. He went to Zillow, found 300 of the top agents in the area and sent out an email, getting not one response. He then started doing direct messaging on Facebook, Instagram (a little on LinkedIn)—letting people know what he does that makes him stand out more. That's when it started clicking with people, Spencer says, mostly because the email was a template and the messages were more personalized. David: Things picked up for you when you started doing more direct reach out. What was your first client? Was it paid? How much did you charge for that? Spencer’s first client was someone he knew, who was a pretty good realtor in his area. She said she’d called three other people and Spencer was the first one to pick up. “What’s huge is answering all your phone calls and also being available. Agents have listings that need to get on the market ASAP. They call and you need to be there soon.” Spencer’s first gig was paid but he gave her a discount for the drone service and a free 3D tour of everything.  Normally that would have been around $299 or $295. Spencer gave it to her for $195, which also included full interior/exterior HDR bracketed photos and drone photography. David: After your first job, where did it go from there? From there, Spencer says, it went word of mouth to a couple of different realtors and some other friends that were slowly coming out of the woodwork. He had a photographer reach out that does shoots and mermaid portraits for kids. “I had no other option because I'm engaged, I have family, I just want to be home. I knew I had to make this work and that's why I've been so hungry for it.” Spencer continued to go on Facebook, asking if realtors in the neighborhood had needs and getting a few potential contacts from that. He’s also gone to happy hours for realtors, showing up with flyers. He says it’s important to market yourself, in the most budget friendly way to do it. Spencer has continued to get random requests other than real estate, which keeps it interesting. He says that specializing in something is good. It’s important to get in the door and make some money. David: You started charging for these jobs and making some money. When did you break $1K for a month? It took two months...in July he hit $1K. He's still growing. Spencer says that growing was like a domino effect because one person tells another person. He just needed to keep being professional, instead of stressing out over a job that should take two hours and it taking 20 hours. David: Let’s say someone is listening to this and says ‘I want to do my own thing’ or ‘It sounds incredible to fly drones on the side’. They say, ‘Spencer, I heard you on the podcast, you sound like you’re a credible person and you know what you're doing. What should I do? Where should I start? What should I learn?' Spencer says that he would tell them first to get their Part 107. “Do the course that Drone Launch offers. It has everything you need for a foundation. Get someone who knows SEO. If you're doing it on the side, it's going to be different managing your time, but be patient. As long as you're professional, produce a good product and chip away at it, you’ll eventually get some good business out of it.” David: Where do you see things going for you moving forward? Do you want to stay in real estate? Are you hoping to branch out into other areas? Spencer wants to do some roof inspections. Being in Florida, they get a lot of hurricanes. He also wants to focus on real estate because he enjoys it. His goal is seven listings a week, which he says is pretty doable in the future. Connect with Spencer: Facebook: Aerodrone Solutions Instagram: @aerodronesolutionsllc Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 3? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to 1K Business Owner Application Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Photo Pro Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course ($100 off) Aerial Roof Inspection Pro Course ($100 off) Drones 101 Course ($20 off) Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Google Play Spotify TuneIn  

Keepsakes, momentos, treasures, heirlooms — whatever you call them, everyone has certain things that they hold dear. For many people, hand-written notes fall into that category. In a world filled with 240-character tweets, rapid-fire text messages, and a stuffed email inbox, getting a hand-written note means more than ever. Even if it comes from a brand.   Personalization is one of the buzziest words in ecommerce, and every business is trying to find a way to give its customers the best, most personal experience possible. David Wachs is helping them with that.David is the CEO of Handwrytten, which uses robots to send personal, hand-written notes, which have a 300% higher open rate than other types of communication. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, David explains why personalization is the way of the future. Plus, he dives into the thinking behind subscription-based services and what it takes for your subscription to stand out to investors. David also shares the advice that he received from Conan O’Brien that has stayed with him his entire life. Main Takeaways:This is Getting Personal: Over the last few years, consumers have started seeking more personalized experiences. There are many ways to create those experiences in-store and online, but ecomm businesses have a personalization advantage due to the data they have access to. Brands that can tap into that data and then follow through are the ones that stand out.   Subscribe Here: Subscription services are popping up everywhere. When done correctly, subscription services provide a recurring revenue model, which is something most investors look for. However, creating the right model takes time, effort, and experimentation, and it’s important to be willing to put in that work to find the model that is best for you and your customers. Here’s Some Advice: When one piece of advice sticks with you 20 years later, that’s something worth paying attention to. Tune in to hear what words of wisdom from Conan O’Brien have inspired David every step of his journey.For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.---Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce---Transcript:Stephanie:Welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles, co-founder of mission.org. Today on the show, we have David Wachs, the CEO of Handwrytten, spelled with a Y. David, welcome.David:Thank you so much for having me.Stephanie:Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on the show. I just went down a great wormhole of watching your robots write letters. I think that's a great starting point to hear how you came to be at Handwrytten. What brought you to found it?David:Yeah, so this is actually my second venture. My first one was in the text messaging space. So, I started that one before the iPhone came out. We rode the wave of mobile technology with the iPhone and all that. By the end, we were sending millions of messages a day on behalf of major brands, like Toys R Us, a lot of brands that are now bankrupt, but no fault of ours, but Toys R Us, Sam's Club, OfficeMax, Abercrombie & Fitch, etc.David:What we did was we helped them connect with their customers through text messages. And then we also did iPhone apps and Android apps and all that, but our core was really text messages. What we found was, it really, really worked. I mean, these were not spam messages. These were people opted in, so they actually wanted to receive Abercrombie & Fitch offers, etc, straight to their cell phone. When we sent out those offers, they'd have literally lines out the door.David:We worked with Tropical Smoothie Cafe, which is a big smoothie shop chain. Every time they sent out an offer, I'd walk into a Tropical Smoothie. I'd say, "How's this mobile thing working?" They didn't know who I was, and they'd say, "Oh, my gosh. Every time we do it, we have to staff up, because we sell so many smoothies." So, I knew we had something good. But at the same time, I helped create a monster, because everybody nowadays is getting inundated with probably 50 text messages a day from family and commercial texts and right now, political texts, several hundred emails a day.David:I think the average office workers receives about 150 emails a day and spends 28% of their time sorting through all that email. And then you add stuff like Twitter and Facebook and Slack and all the Instagram, all these other electronic forms of communication. Maybe I'm just old, but for me, it all just becomes noise.Stephanie:It's very noisy right now, especially with the political texts that I'm getting.David:Oh, my God.Stephanie:I'm getting like five a day. Stop it. I don't want that anywhere.David:I know, I know. It all just becomes noise. The average 35 to 44-year-old receives nearly 1,600 texts a month. The average 18 to 24-year-old receives 4,000 a month. So, what I know and what you know is no matter how personalized that email or that text looks... Hey, David, thank you so much for your purchase of this coffee grinder or whatever. ... that text was automated or that email was automated. We immediately discount the value of it, right?David:Half of them or way more than half, I never even read, because you just know it's automated junk. And then junk mail, the slick stuff that comes in your mailbox goes directly to your trash can. But what I realized right before leaving, my last company, is handwritten notes not only do they get opened, but they get treasured. I have a bookshelf behind me at my last job that had the handwritten notes I received. My salespeople had all the handwritten notes they received. What I wanted to do was when I sold my last company is I wanted to send handwritten thank you notes to my employees and send handwritten thank you notes to my best clients, thanking them for helping me build up this company and sell it and all the rest.David:I started doing that. I sat down with the best intentions. Very quickly, my hand got sore or I ran out of stamps or I screwed up a card and I had to get another one. I just realized there had to be a better way. So, that's a long explanation on how I ended up with Handwrytten, which is what we have today. What Handwrytten is a combination of software on the front end and then robots on the back end. So, you visit handwrytten.com or use our iPhone app, Android app, Zapier, Salesforce.com Integration, which is a big integration for us, and I know a sponsor of the show, HubSpot integration, all these ways to get your handwritten notes into the system.David:And then we use robots, real robots that we have a patent pending on and I can get into how we develop those, but they're custom robots we built, robots holding real ballpoint pens that actually then write out the notes and mail them on your behalf. The end result is completely indistinguishable from a human.David:We're doing this for large brands and small brands and individuals. Consumers can go on and send their mother a birthday card, for example, all the way up to major brands.Stephanie:Though your mom might know. She'd be like, "That's not your handwriting, Stephanie." Do you guys have any tech that maybe could mimic handwriting, where I could go in there and write up a couple words, and then your robots come in and write it similar to my handwriting?David:So, not exactly. What we do is if you really want your handwriting recreated, we have worksheets for you. It's like you're back in middle school. You have to fill in all the letters and all the numbers multiple times, because we need multiple variations, and we need ligature combinations. So, like two Os together, two Ls together. Do you cross your two Ts with one crossbar or two? We take all that into account. We create a very robust handwriting just for you, but it's an expensive onetime thing. So, pay for it once, it's yours. It's in the system. You can use it as much as you want, no additional charge. So, yeah, but most of our clients or businesses not you sending to your mother. So, for them, it doesn't really matter as much.David:Honestly, I dissuade people from creating their handwriting style, because it is so expensive.Stephanie:Very cool. So, tell me a little bit about maybe some case studies or the ROI that some of your clients are seeing when they send out a note that looks personalized versus just a typical letter, something that's written up by a computer and is very obvious?David:Yeah, absolutely. Well, I have a bunch of stats here, but I don't want to constantly give you footnotes on the stats. So, if I say any stats that are of interest to any of your listeners, just visit Handwrytten.com. That's Handwrytten with a Y. You can pull up all the resources and double check, be a fact checker, etc. But handwritten on envelopes, just the envelopes, have a 300% or a three-time greater open rate than printed envelopes. You just Google that stat and that pops up everywhere. And then also response rates are anywhere from 20 to 50% higher.David:We work with a bespoke suit company based in Canada. They send out coupons every year around the holidays. Those coupons come with a handwritten note from their CEO and his handwriting style with his signature. Those coupons have an 18% redemption rate when usually the company's coupon redemption rate is closer to the 3 to 5% rate. So, it's been very effective for them.David:We have other clients... Let me see here. We have some retention improvements. So, we have a client that does meal box or actually snack boxes for offices. Basically, they'll send you a huge box of snacks every two weeks with like beef jerky or crackers and cookies and all that. What they do is if they accidentally send your office the wrong snack box, they'll follow up with a handwritten note and the right snacks. Now, obviously, the additional snacks help increase retention, but the handwritten note doesn't hurt.David:What they find is if they screw up a client and they send them this snack box, that customer ends up having a greater lifetime value than if they never screwed up in the first place.Stephanie:That's smart. I mean, not only are you getting more times to get in front of that customer, but then you can show them how great the customer experience is even when things go wrong. Yeah, it seems like you'd be a lot more memorable by actually messing up. That's pretty smart.David:Yeah, and then we have some side effects of these, because most people just get one or two handwritten notes a month now, not like the good old days when they receive a bunch. People literally Instagram and tweet these things. So, we work with a company called VNYL.David:What they are is they are a vinyl record subscription service. So, if you're really into old school vinyl, they will look at your Spotify account and your other... I don't know about Pandora, but your other music services. They'll see what you listen to. And then they'll send you vinyl records that they recommend based on your habits. With those vinyl records, they'll include a handwritten note written by us. So, every day we'll write up a whole bunch of their handwritten notes, send them back to VNYL. They'll get inserted with these orders. Not only people love those notes, they then post them on Instagram and on Twitter. That creates a viral aspect that then helps drive more business back to VNYL.David:We've seen the same thing with a morning YouTube show. It's one of the largest morning YouTube shows on the planet. They're a client of ours. They were launching a fan club, where you'd pay 5 or 25 bucks a month or whatever to be a part of their fan club. The first thing they'd send you was this handwritten note from the two hosts of the morning show.David:What's funny is they didn't change up the language on that note at all. Everybody got the same note with the exception of dear Stephanie or whatever, but the rest of the note was identical. All these people are posting these photos of this note to Twitter over and over again. I mean, it's the same note just different names over and over. People were so upset if their note did not arrive within a few days. You know what I mean? They were so looking forward to receiving a note from these two YouTube guys.Stephanie:Are there any backlash on that? Because I could see some people feeling like maybe they were tricked, or especially earlier, when you're talking about retention. If someone is sending out a set of vinyl records every month and see similar handwriting or the exact same one every single time, it seems like there could be a risk of someone saying, "Hey, this isn't actually authentic. You tricked me." Have you seen that backlash, or how do you guys approach that when it comes to a subscription model with someone who's maybe sending out a same snack box every month with a note in it that people will eventually be like, "Oh, yeah, this is obviously not a person writing it. It's the same every single time"?David:Yeah, that's a great question. So, with VNYL, they've got a number of personalities that are the box curators. So, there's like 10 some odd people that are responsible for making these recommendations. Each one of those people was assigned one of our handwriting styles. So, if you get a note from Cody, it'll be in Tenacious Nick. Our handwriting style is called Tenacious Nick this month. And then next month, you get a message from Suzy, it might be in Chill Charity. The following month if you get one from Cody again, it'll be back in Tenacious Nick. So, you'll associate Tenacious Nick with Cody. And then that's how that works.David:We have not seen a backlash. With the morning YouTube show, I was shocked that they didn't see it because they weren't... We vary stuff on the notes. So, in fact, we worked with a home fitness gym thing. They wanted a note from their founder included with every one of their products. They were annoyed with us that there was variation in the writing. We said, "Well, this is-Stephanie:A good thing.David:"... this isn't a print product. Every line's not supposed to identically look like the other card." They were just not a great client for us, because of that. They wanted everything to be exactly... That's not how people write.Stephanie:Yeah, that's actually the exact question I was going to ask. Do you incorporate errors or smudges? How do you think about building the technology behind the scenes to make it more real?David:Yeah, for sure. So, we actually built our own font engine for one, leveraging some best of class technologies underneath it all. But we do stuff like the left margin of the card is not straight. So, it's not like every letter of every line starts on the same exposition as the line above it. There's what we call jitter. It moves in or moves out very subtly, but a couple of points. A point is a 72nd of an inch for those that don't know, but yeah. So, we move those letters in and out, so that there's some variation there. We also do the same thing with interline or intraline, I always screw that up, but the spacing between lines.David:So, one line might be slightly closer to the line above it and slightly farther from the line below it than the next one and vice versa. So, there is some line spacing stuff going on there. Then, like I said, the letters themselves alter quite a bit. We've got at least four or five copies of every letter plus ligature combos. So, you might have three copies of an L, but then we also have three copies of two L's together. So, there's a lot of variation in going into our handwriting. We get this a lot. We don't curve the text. So, there is a little bit of maybe over precision on the text is fairly straight.David:Now, the page might be slightly rotated, so that the text runs up the page ever so slightly or down the page ever so slightly, but it's not like the text is going to be on a roller coaster and go up and then down and back again. It's relatively consistent. We are working on that, but it has not been a problem. It's still very much passes most people's internal Turing tests of what looks human versus what looks robotic. So, yeah, we don't want to overdo it. The line jittering and the left margin jittering is all very, very subtle. So, that it's not like creating some uncanny valley that looks totally bogus. You know what I mean? So, those are some of the things we do there. We work with a mattress company. In every mattress box, there's, "Thank you so much for buying our mattress."David:And then there was what I call a doodle. So, they made I think like eight of these little pieces of art. So, the words, "Thank you for your mattress," were not in one of our handwriting styles. It's a direct replica of somebody writing that. And then below that, the doodle is a direct replica of somebody drawing a doodle. So, it could be moon in the stars or there's one of somebody sleeping in a bed with a little thought cloud showing what they're dreaming of, a little cat.David:What was cool about that is with eight variations, if you buy two mattresses from them, one might have one little note from one guy in it and then the next mattress might have a note from somebody else in it. So, it looks really, really real. And then you post those to Twitter. It really shows up well there. So, that's what I recommend doing. If you're doing the same note over and over in volume, let's just mix it up a little bit. It doesn't cost you really anything more after you get going. You have some great variation.Stephanie:I saw you guys moved to having a subscription model, which a lot of guests who come on the show, they talk about thinking about doing that or some of them have recently. How did you guys know it was the right time to move into a subscription model?David:That's a great question. You're the first person to ask me that.Stephanie:Good.David:Yeah, so there's a number of reasons we did that. I will be bluntly honest, because I think it's of most value to everybody. Number one, I've self-funded Handwrytten to date for the last six years. I intend to continue doing that. However, we were just written up in the Inc 500. We had a good placement in the Inc 500. That created a lot of interest by investors. One thing investors are looking for is a recurring revenue model. While most of our clients recur every month, we have like solar panel installers that send thousands of messages a month. It's not structured as a recurring revenue model. It's just whatever you do, you pay for the next month, you don't do anything, you don't pay anything for it. So, we wanted to come up with a structure for a subscription model that would work.David:This is more the PR-friendly answer, but they're both totally true. On the flip side, we have customers that wanted to send a lot of notes a month but didn't want to do them all at once and didn't want to do a huge pre-pay buy. So, before this, there were two ways to get discounts. One was to do a huge pre-pay, where you say, "Okay, I'm going to send 10,000 notes for the next couple months, and I'll pay for that at a discount;" or go on our website and bulk upload a spreadsheet of 10,000 notes. For a lot of people, those two models don't work. What if I'm sending 10 cards a month, but they're spread out over the course of a month? I mean, I'm still sending 10 cards, can't they get a little bit of a discount on that?David:So, we tried to come up with a model that serves them. It's tough, because unlike an email provider or a CRM provider or anybody else, we have hard costs. Forget about the cardstock and the labor that goes into every card and all that, we have a 55¢ stamp on every card. That's expensive. You know what I mean? So, it took us years to think of a way that would make this work. What we decided was you prepay for credit. That credit, it goes on your account. So, you pre-pay 35 bucks, you get 35 bucks of credit on your account. But that credit also gets you a 15% discount on all orders for the month, so not just on the orders you spend the $35 on. After you exhaust that 35 bucks, you still get that discount moving forward for the rest of the month.David:So, that was the model that we came up with, because we wanted to provide value, we don't want to rip anybody off, but we needed a recurring revenue option. It is strictly an option. You can use our service for the rest of your life without ever using one of these subscription models.Stephanie:I think the one thing that came to mind was I've been listening to a lot of different interviews of SaaS founders, talking about how the subscription model, the future is not as much about getting into a long-term contract. It's more actually pulling back to where you only pay for what you use. It's not actually locking you into a contract anymore, because a lot of people are nervous about that or maybe prepaying. So, were there any surprises that maybe you guys have seen within the last week and a half as you implement this or pushback from customers or anything where you're like, "Oh, we weren't expecting that"? The consumer maybe thought this one thing, but actually, our plan was different. We adjusted it. Anything that you had to change after launching?David:Yeah, there's a few things. Nothing that was a got you and nothing we're really changing. It was more interesting. Okay, so we had somebody cancel their plan today. They signed up and then immediately canceled. So, if you sign up and you get the 15% off, that's 15% off the cards. That's not 15% off gift cards, which should go without saying, but maybe we have to add some language to the FAQ and all that, because I mean, that would be an arbitrage opportunity for somebody. You go on our website. You buy a Visa card for 15% off. You then take that Visa card and buy more Visa cards for... You know what I mean? So, that's just crazy town.Stephanie:It's good you didn't figure that out the hard way.David:No, no, this pre-pay for a while has always locked you out. I mean, when you pre-pay for something, you're pre-paying for the service, not for gift cards. It clearly does not work. I mean, it could be a huge issue. So, that was one. We had a woman that was very upset that she didn't get a discount on her gift cards, and we refunded her. We have a money back guarantee. So, if anybody uses our service and they don't like the service, they don't like the handwriting, they don't like the card quality. They don't like the subscription, whatever, we'll just give you your money back.David:I think more companies need to broadcast their money back guarantee, because even if they don't think they have one, they have one. On our website, we have our money back guarantee. Before that, if anybody called and complained, we still gave them their money back. We just didn't advertise that we had a money back guarantee. So, we gave the service without getting the benefit, if you know what I mean. Side point. So, point number one was people were shocked that you don't get a discount on gift cards creating an arbitrage.Stephanie:One person, but yes.David:Yeah. Point number two, I'm surprised that... So, we have a 10% plan, a 15% off Plan and a 20% off Plan. We might go 25%. But I'm actually surprised so many people subscribed for 10% off. I didn't realize 10% off would move the needle where people would be willing to subscribe. But if you're in that area where you send that many cards, why not subscribe? So, that's great. I'm glad people are using it. In fact, it's our most popular plan right now.David:So, that was two, and then three, which I expected. But my expectation was realized was people we have a cancel at any time type offer. So, we have a lot of people signing up for the 10% off plan, sending five cards, and then canceling the plan. That's fine. If they want to do that, I'm not going to stop people from doing it. It's more important to us to be transparent and create a plan that has no lock in and deal with the people that are just trying to take advantage of it. If they want to do that, fine.Stephanie:Yeah, I mean, it also seems like that you're still getting that sale and you'll probably be remembered in the future. They're like, "Oh, that was a good experience. Okay, I'm going to go back again.” So, maybe it's not as harmful as... Even though initially, you might be like, "Oh, that's annoying," but maybe the future customer that you wouldn't have otherwise had.David:Oh, yeah. No, I mean, it's totally fine. I've still sold them five cards or whatever it is. So, it's no big deal. It's funny how people will go out of their way to save 10%, 10% for me doesn't really move the needle but whatever.Stephanie:I know. Yeah, that's very interesting that, 10% moves people to act like that. I think the biggest thing that you are also saying is like the clarity in the subscription model, which I think is really important and that a lot of companies don't get right from the start, because they can make really confusing ones.Stephanie:So right now, it also seems like there could be... Well, twofold, either a big opportunity in direct mail or it's noisier than ever, because brands know that people are home and they're starting to do direct mail where maybe they weren't doing that a year ago. So, how are you thinking about direct mail right now and making sure that your notes are getting opened? Is there still an opportunity, or is that dried up with where we're at right now?David:So, I will say we are the largest handwriting provider in the world. Based on our volume, I will tell you there is room for improvement. We have very large brands using us, but it's still just a drop in the bucket of everybody that could use us. I think a lot of brands just don't even know it's an option.David:There's the BCG matrix, which is like the hardest thing to sell is a new product to a new customer. If you're an office supplier and you start selling your existing customer a different type of pen, well, they're an existing customer and they've already bought a pen from you. So, that's an easy sell. If you're selling a new customer a pen, people know about pens do an easy sell. But if you're selling Joe on the street that you've never met a handwriting service, it's very hard. So, there is a bunch of that. We're doing our best to raise awareness. That's been targeting quite frankly, a lot of Facebook advertising. We used to just go after Google and SEO, SEO, that type of stuff. But now, we're trying to drive awareness through Facebook and LinkedIn and all the rest.David:But yeah, I think there's a huge opportunity for brands to do this, because nobody is doing it or very few are doing it in a consistent, structured manner where some of our clients come to us and do a one-off campaign or one-off promotion, and then they'll say, "Oh, that was the greatest promotion we've ever done. We'll reconsider it again next year." You're thinking, "Why is it a promotion in the first place?" That should be an ongoing part of your CRM outreach strategy." Right now, we're developing a whole program just for automotive dealers to do just that, where you buy a car, you immediately receive a handwritten thank you. A couple weeks later, you receive a service offer, birthday card, happy holidays card, etc. It just repeats without the dealer even having to think about it. I think that model of moving it away from being a promotion to being a part of your CRM strategy is really what needs to happen.David:But a lot of other online brands actually have the advantage over traditional retail, because they have the home addresses of the clients where the retailers may or may not depending on if they're in the loyalty program. So, online brands have this huge benefit of creating a one-to-one personalization opportunity through handwritten notes that brick and mortars might not. So, there's that. And then also right now, it's at the disservice of large B2B brands, because they might have your work address, but then they don't have your home address. So, they're left out of the shuffle too. But even before this COVID crisis, we were seeing online brands take much better advantage of this than in-store.David:I can give you a perfect example here. We work with a very high-end perfumery that makes a very expensive cologne and very expensive perfume. Everybody that's buys this cologne and perfume from their website, they received a very beautiful handwritten note, thanking them for their purchase, etc. But if you walk into a department store, I walked in there with my wife and kids. We're walking through the mall, and we walked into this department store prior to COVID. I found the product and I was showing it to my wife. A store rep came over and said, "This is the product." I said, "Oh, yes, thank you. I'm just showing to my wife because we send out your handwritten notes." She said, "No, you don't, I have to send my own handwritten notes." I explained what I meant.David:She said, "As a store rep, we're supposed to send handwritten notes, but we're too busy talking to customers like you, finishing up a sale, cleaning up the merchandising of the department, doing whatever else is required. We never get around to it. So, even though we have the best intentions in place, because it's not automated for us, we don't get to it." We've been pushing this perfumery to offer the same service to their in-store experience, which would create a much better personal one-to-one experience than the online only.David:Where we've done a really good job of this or really the client that we have... It's all about the client. It's a high-end luxury leather goods company. They make handbags, purses, shoes, that type of thing. Every time you make any purchase whatsoever in one of their retail outlets, a handwritten note goes out from our service. But it's signed by the store clerk that you worked with or it has their name and their phone number at the bottom of the note. So, we automated what this perfumery didn't, basically. We tied it to the end. But short answer your question is I still think there's a huge opportunity here. Quite frankly, people are very lonely right now. Any handwritten mail I think will get savored and opened and really showing that-Stephanie:They need a good handwritten note.David:They really do.Stephanie:Now's the timeDavid:Yeah, people have the time for it. I think at an abstract level, so two things. One, maybe they might not believe it's actually handwritten if they start getting thousands of these a day or something, which will never happen. But they might say, "Oh, gee, this is not actually handwritten." But that doesn't stop people when they get their Christmas card from the president, depending on what election year it is. But if they get their Christmas card from the president, they probably realize the president didn't sit down and sign a Christmas card to them. But it almost doesn't matter. It's the thought that counts and there is that they went above and beyond just laser printing a note. They figured out a way to send me something that seems really personal.Stephanie:So, I wanted to circle back to what we were talking about earlier about investors and how you were self-funded for the last six years. I want to hear a little bit about why you're thinking about bringing on investors now and what that thought process is like.David:So, this really has more to do with David Wachs than Handwrytten. So, this is my second venture. My first company, that text messaging company, also was self-funded. I built that up and I was able to sell that off and do pretty well. That was a true startup. There were a lot of nights where it was just me in an empty room with a two-liter diet Mountain Dew sitting by my side as I program.Stephanie:Nice, healthy.David:Classic, stereotypical startup image, I lived that. But that company actually took off a lot faster than Handwrytten. This time, I decided, "Okay, well, I'm just going to invest my own money, I'm going to build it up." I never really considered venture until this year when we got on the Inc 500. The problem is or the problem I see is we're in a bit of a doughnut hole. Had we gone for venture early on, we would have been great, because then we would have had an idea and no track record. We would have built up this company.David:We would have taken up an S ton of cash, garbage truck cash. We would have invested all of this advertising and built it up really fast. But instead of doing that, I grew profitably and organically, I reinvested profits back into the company, so our growth trajectory is much slower. Because of that, now venture capitalists don't even really want to talk to us. Oh, you've only grown at this rate, not 50 times. I'm like, "Well, yeah, because I've grown smartly and profitably."Stephanie:That seems to be a focus, the tides are turning a bit. I mean, there was, for a long time, just grow as quick as you can, we'll give you a bunch of money. You don't even have to figure out the business model. Do you even have a business? If you want to pivot halfway through spending all the money, it's fine, but I am starting to see a shift now, where, yeah, they're looking for companies actually grow sustainably, at least some VC firms around here. So, I don't know if you experienced that yet.David:Honestly, I've been so busy. So, we entertained a few VC phone calls. They were very, very nice people and very, very big firms. They basically said, "Oh, well, you haven't grown enough this year." I said, "Well, COVID has been going on. So, there's that." Because not a lot of our clients were retailers, so we lost that business, etc. So, to answer your question, part of it was I've actually worked in VC. I've worked for two different VC firms, but I've never taken VC.David:I thought it would be good for me personally to go through that experience of receiving VC, having somebody else to report to from a funding perspective. And then potentially down the road, really working for a VC firm as a partner or something like that. I thought that would be my next transition, because this is company number two. I don't see myself going through this process again. So, that was the thought process of, "Well, if I take VC now, we could really blow this up, because I've got a well-oiled machine here that just needs money to scale, that needs to scale advertising."David:The technology is pretty much done, although we're doing some really innovative stuff in machine vision, machine learning, which I can talk about. The idea was, "I haven't done it before. Let me give this a go, if anybody's interested." I had a handful of conversations, they all went the same way. I'm short on time these days. So, I was just like, "Well, let me get back to the grindstone and maybe worry about that later."Stephanie:Got it. Cool. Yeah, thanks for answering that. I was wondering where you left off with that. All right. So, we only have 10 minutes left. So, I was going to shift over to the lightning round brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, David?David:I will do my best.Stephanie:All right. That's all I ask for. What one thing will have the biggest impact on ecommerce in the next year?David:Personalization. Whether it's a handwritten note or an experience that's personalized when you visit a website or anything else, I think standing out through personalization, there's been study after study by companies like Segment that say that's a huge opportunity.Stephanie:Do you name your robots?David:No, we name our handwriting. The robots are numbered. So, it's 1 through whatever, 95 right now. We used to have an animated robot, and he still is on our website. If you buy a card, you'll see this little animated robot at the end. His name is Pinbot 2000, because when I was growing up, things that ended in 2000 sounded very futuristic even though [crosstalk 00:44:47].Stephanie:Yeah.David:His name is Pinbot 2000.Stephanie:I like it. What's your favorite handwriting?David:I like Tenacious Nick. If you visit our website, it's a very sweeping block print.Stephanie:[inaudible] check it out. What's up next on your reading list?David:It's funny. I've got a bunch of books here. This one is by the head of sales for HubSpot, Mark Roberge? I hope I'm pronouncing that right. It's called the Sales Acceleration Formula. It was recommended to me. So, I figured I'd read it tomorrow when I have to fly to Chicago.Stephanie:Very cool. What's up next on your Netflix queue?David:My brother actually is a bigwig at Netflix, but what I'm watching right now is on Amazon. It's The Boys. I'm trying to finish season two.Stephanie:Oh, is it good?David:Yeah. It's a dark superhero tale. The one I liked on Netflix... It was 40 minutes and was great. I think it's called Cubers. It's great. If you don't care about Rubik's Cubes at all, which I really don't, it was still wonderful. It's the story of two Rubik's Cube masters. One of them is autistic, and the other Rubik's Cube master, who is just a really nice guy in Australia. The friendship that evolves through these two Rubik's Cube masters. That's really good.Stephanie:That's interesting. If you were to have a podcast, what would the podcast be about and who would your first guest be?David:That is a great-Stephanie:It can't be about handwritten notes.David:No, no, I think it would be about one-to-one marketing though, which is very much in the same vein and probably a sucker answer that I'm giving you. But it would be how do you market to people on a personal level that doesn't come across as junk, because everything's looking like junk?Stephanie:Yup, I like that.David:That would be what it is, and I apologize in advance for that answer.Stephanie:No, I like that one. I mean, I think it's much needed now. Who would you bring on as a guest?David:Joe Polish, who's a marketing expert. He's quite good. Dean Jackson who he works with would be a good guest for that. There's probably somebody from Segment as they have a lot of data that backs it up. So, I'd want to talk with them.Stephanie:Cool. All right. And then the last one, since you've started a company before and you've sold it and started another one, what piece of advice would you give to a new entrepreneur who's starting up a new commerce company?David:Commerce or not, the one piece of advice that I give to everybody was told to me in person over dinner. So, this is a little bit of a humble brag by Conan O'Brien. So, when I was in college, I used to be in this group that would bring speakers to campus and we brought Conan O'Brien. So, the guys that organized got to sit down and do dinner with him. This is a long time ago. So, he was relatively starting out on having his own talk show back then.David:But the advice he gave us was, "Always get in over your head." That has stuck with me for 20 some odd years now, always get in over your head. I mean, people give you advice every day, but how much of it sticks for 20 years. The way I interpret that is if you don't get in over your head, you're never going to grow. You're just never going to pull yourself out of your comfort zone and really do something bigger than you thought you could do. So, I think about it all the time.Stephanie:I like it. Okay, Conan, coming in with some good wise words, pretty good. All right, David. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. Where can people find out more about you and Handwrytten with a Y?David:Handwrytten with Y, so you can visit Handwrytten with a Y, H-A-N-D-W-R-Y-T-T-E-N.com. We have @handwrytten on Twitter, Handwrytten on Facebook. Personally, I'm @DavidB, as in boy, Wachs, W-A-C-H-S on Twitter. You can find me there, although I don't tweet very much. If anybody wants to try the service, there's two things I'd say. If you go to the business page, you can actually request a samples kit for free. That samples kit will have all sorts of different handwriting styles for you, including Tenacious Nick, my favorite, but they're all good.David:The other thing is if you sign up and you sign up with an email and password, you can enter a discount code. Enter discount code 'podcast', and you'll get $5 in credit that you can then use to send yourself a card or somebody else's card or send your first card, whatever. So, that's available for you too.Stephanie:Awesome. All right. Well, thanks so much, David. It's been fun. We will have to have you back in the future once you can see more about your subscription service and all that. So, thanks for coming on.David:Awesome. Thanks, Stephanie.

David Riley joins us on the BlueBay Insights podcast to share initial thoughts on the US election, fiscal stimulus in Europe and a market rally.We asked David:Where do we stand right now in terms of the US presidential election?Is there a chance of a contested election?You have previously highlighted the importance of which party controls the Senate. What happened in the Senate race?Why did markets rally through yesterday despite the uncertainty around the US elections?What do you think are the market implications of a Biden presidency and split Congress?Finally to Europe: the second wave of the virus in Europe has taken off and governments have announced tighter social distancing restrictions, what is the fiscal response?

In John 7 the citizens are confused that the authorities LET JESUS TEACH in the TEMPLE.They were concerned about PLACE. Why? Because it is such a special place. Does the TEMPLE MAKE IT a special place? or, does the Temple just RECOGNIZE that it already WAS a special place?Let's find out how it got to be such a special place. We have searched to 2000BC to Mt. Moriah with Abraham and the NON-sacrifice of Isaac. The Lord picks this spot of substitutionary sacrifice. Not Abraham. Location Location Location.Then in 1000BC we looked at David's Heart in his DESIRE 2 Samuel 7.No Location yet. No Location yet. No Location yet.Today we start on a little series in 1 Chronicles 21. David takes a census. He sins in doing so. God opens up a can of wrath because of that sin. David repents. Then God RELENTS. And David builds an ALTAR in thanks. The Lord tells David WHERE.Same Location. Same Location. Same Location as Abrahams non-sacrifice of Isaac.Then in a few more years, Solomon builds the temple in Jerusalem. Guess what:Same location. Same Location. Same Location as Abraham's Non-sacrifice of Isaac. Same location as David building his altar.The LOCATION of the Temple that Jesus was teaching in was special to God BEFORE the Temple was even located there!

Introduction to Andrew: Although Andrew started flying drones 5 years ago, about a year ago, he decided to build a business to make some extra money. Andrew says, “Aerial photography isn’t so big in winter so I didn’t start to get business the summer. But this winter, I’ve lined up clients through spring of next year.” By the way, Andrew is a senior in high school. Andrew bought his first drone for $50 when he was 13. He then got a Parrot Bebop2 which he loved but wasn’t pleased with the pictures. He later bought, and still uses, a Maverick2 Pro.” David agreed “Cheaper drones can get you interested and lead to more. My first drone was a Syma X5C so when someone wants my advice on their first drone, I say, ‘Get a Syma X5Cs on Amazon for $40. They're super light and when you need to land, you just cut the power and it flows to the ground’.” David: “What was it that sparked you to say, ‘I need to make some money doing this’? Did you target realtors when you started? Tell us about your original business plan starting out.” When Andrew could get his Part 107 license at 16, he got a nicer drone for taking pictures and videos. He thought, “Why not get a license, work and bring in some extra money to travel and save for college?” Andrew agreed to take pictures for a golf course in return for them putting it on their social media and tagging him. The job was unpaid, but got him clients and followers—basically, they advertised for him. Last summer, the most impactful thing he did was message a drone company in Chicago to ask for advice about getting clients. They told him to find a local real estate photographer and offer aerial photography to them. So that’s what he did. David: “Are you just doing photography or are you doing video too? Do you charge separately for videos? Do you also edit?” Andrew says he takes as many pictures or videos as he can in 30-45’ to give clients a lot to choose from. If he has to fly from one spot to another, that’s a video. He does some editing but outsources most of it to a company in Vietnam for a very affordable price. For pictures with some videos and no editing he charges $100, slightly more for editing and/or any location farther than 30’ from home. David: “Regarding your approach to the golf course, did you say, ‘I'm going to get my name out there’, and then Googled ‘golf courses in my area’ and contacted them? How did you specifically start to make that happen?” While flying one day, Andrew took pictures of a golf course across the road from his school which he posted to IG and tagged. When they responded that they loved his pictures through Instagram, he requested a contact. He sent them an EM saying, “I'm starting this company, I'm insured and licensed. Can I come to your golf course and take pictures for your social media?” They agreed, so Andrew took and edited pictures and sent them over (They still post his pictures). Since then, Andrew’s process has become simple...he finds contact information online and reaches out. At this point, though, he has a whole portfolio so he’s not offering his services for free. David: “Tell us more about the paying clients that you got from free work. Were they members of the golf course or people from the neighborhood who saw it on social media and reached out?” Andrew got two clients from the first golf course who were from the neighborhood. At first, they followed the golf course on IG. Then, they followed Andrew, reaching out to him later through there. They wanted pictures of the golf course for their home; he charged them $125 for 4x2 & 5x7 pictures. With printing costing $30, he made $95 from each job.  David: “So after getting paying clients from the golf course, how did you expand into real estate? Did you try and fail and then reach out to that company in Chicago or is that the first thing you did? Walk us through when you started shifting to real estate.” Andrew replied, “The first real estate job I had was in July before I reached out to that company in Chicago. I brought business cards to my school’s career day, and went up to a broker from a large commercial real estate firm who spoke and said, ‘I just started doing aerial photography for real estate. Here's my card.’ He said thank you—nothing more. In July he reached out to ask me to do a 500-acre farm. I was so excited because I thought they would give me more work if I did good.” The work took four hours and he charged $585: $400 for the time, $185 for editing and a 5-minute video (at that point, he had no idea what to charge so he made it up). Now, Andrew gets one $200-$500 real estate job per month. During busy months, Andrew averages 5-10 jobs a week, which is $2000 to $4,000 a month. During slow months, he often has 2 jobs a week, making $1,200 a month. David: “How much detail do you add to videos...Music? Narration? Overlay text?” He uses Litchi to map out his flight 10 minutes beforehand and then creates automated flight video going around the property for 40 minutes, taking video clips and pictures of the house. For video, he starts off with a title/address and puts it to music. David: “What other ways have you found effective to get clients? I know you also reached out to a real estate photographer. Talk about that a little bit.” Essentially, Andrew Googled “real estate photographer, Frederick, MD,” and found one company to email, saying “I do aerial photography, and I would love to be the person you hire.” When he sent his portfolio, they’d said other people had charged a lot more than him and their work wasn’t as good, so he was hired! Later when Andrew posted/tagged pics of big hotel chains, when they said “This is amazing. We love this”, he said it was a big confidence booster. David: “For your company, did you set up the SkyPix name as an LLC with a bank account or is that just kind of a name you chose to?” Since he’s under 18, the name is a trade name. When 18, he’ll create an LLC. Andrew keeps track of all payments, using Square for invoices and a Google spreadsheet to keep track of everything he spends. David: “Where do you see things headed? Will you stay in real estate, or with golf courses, or try to expand into other things? Will you build a team? What does the future look like for you?” Andrew wants to start a drone pilot network, like drone ERs. He’ll be working with a development team to develop the platform and do his marketing. He’s moving to Orlando, so right now he’s training somebody in Maryland to keep doing work there (right now, this person is studying to get their Part 107 license with Drone Launch Academy). Once he moves to Orlando, Andrew will reach out to real estate agents. He’d eventually like to get into mapping and infrared, but doesn't have the money saved up right now to put towards something like an Inspire 2 with a special camera.” Connect with Martin Instagram: www.instagram.com Website: www.skypixap.com Have a Drone Business? Want to be Interviewed for Season 3? Complete this questionnaire: Drone to 1K Business Owner Application Training from Drone Launch Academy Part 107 Exam Prep Course ($50 off) Aerial Video A to Z Course (20% off) Other Places to Listen iTunes Stitcher Google Play Spotify TuneIn

David Riley joins us on the BlueBay Insights podcast to discuss latest market developments and outlines a path to stability.We asked David:Where do you think we stand now in terms of the spread of the virus and the economic and financial consequences?Is this the beginning of the end of this crisis? When will we see economic and market recovery?Why are some commentators now suggesting that we again are facing a financial crisis?What has been happening in fixed and credit markets?What is the path to stability?

The Meaning of Christmas Matthew 1:18-25; Luke 1:46-55 What verse about the 1st Christmas gives us its meaning? 1)  The Meaning of Christmas - A _______________ Why do we need rescue? Matthew 1:18-25 What do we know about the betrothal of Joseph and Mary? What is significant about the reference to Joseph being a “son of David”? Where do we find the Davidic Covenant? What did it promise? What does the name “Jesus” mean? What does the name “Immanuel” mean? Why is this significant to our salvation? Luke 1:46-55  “The Magnificat” Mary says her soul _______________ the Lord. In verse 48, what does Mary mean by referring to her “humble estate”? In general, what are the effects of “pride, might, and wealth”? Practical Ideas...  

PAACS Part 1 Good morning and welcome to the first PAACS episode. PAACS stands for the Pan-African Academy of Christian Surgeons and on the next two episodes I’ll be sharing conversations with graduates and faculty in the PAACS training programs at mission hospitals in Kijabe and around Africa. Nothing done at Kijabe Hospital is in isolation. Surgeons have been training under the PAACS program at Kijabe for more than a decade, and I think the PAACS program develops some of the best Christian leaders on the planet – not just surgeons, but Christian leaders. Friends of Kijabe is a support organization – we support the work of Kijabe Hospital in general and we support the work of PAACS at Kijabe through infrastructure projects like the Operating Theatre Expansion or through needy patient funding. I’m excited to share these conversations because they paint a vision of what is possible. Dr. Jacques in Malawi describes the blessing PAACS is in African Healthcare The second interviewee is anonymous because of a sensitive location, but he articulates the intersection of mission, medicine and the gospel perhaps better than anyone I’ve ever interviewed. Dr. Beryl Akinyi, associate director of PAACS at Kijabe, talks about paying it forward – giving young surgeons the time and effort that was given her, to help them succeed. Please enjoy! David – You’ve been these multiple different places, you’ve seen PAACS working all over the continent, what is your impression on the work? Jacques – The work of PAACS? This is incredible, incredible work. As an African I can say clearly, without doubt, PAACS has been, and it is, and it will be a blessing for Africa. A real blessing for Africa. My real joy is, I come from nowhere, God allowed me to be a general surgeon, then on top of that, God allowed to become an educator with PAACS. I’m so happy to train others, just as Paul trained Timothy. This is my real joy, to train others. PAACS is a real blessing for us. David – Where is nowhere? Jacques – DRC is a huge country, blessed by several resources. But when you go to DRC, you will say what I am saying. People live in poverty, people die of simple health issues, people are not really educated. With all the conflicts that are happening in DRC, I really pray for my country. David – Where do you see yourself 5 or 10 years from now? The ways of God are sometimes difficult to understand. I don’t know why God didn’t allow me to find a suitable hospital in DRC to work and serve my people. He sent me instead to Cameroon to Mbingo hospital. I don’t know know why God has allowed the instability in Cameroon and sent me way down to Malawi. I don’t really understand, but I know as long as I’m on the path of our Lord Jesus Christ, I’m content with His plan for my life. But one day, if He allowed me to return to DRC, I would only say, “Thank You!” Y Interview David: One of the unique benefits of PAACS, you’re training not only surgeons, you are training Christian leaders. When you look at these wide-ranging systemic problems, that’s what you are teaching them to address. What does that look like in how you work with your students and how you are teaching them? Y: It’s really interesting to see how our residents are growing academically, but also spiritually. We recruit residents that are believers, they love the Lord, they want to share what the Lord has given to them. Some of them, they want to be missionaries, to go to remote places to help the needy people. But when they come to the training environment, they get more. We are trying to fit into the curriculum Bible studies, discussions that are related to what they are doing. How can you show the love of Christ to a sick patient? You might heal somebody with medication, but the way you touch the patient, the way you speak to the patient, the way you care for his well-being and the well-being of his family. This in our context, is very important. These are some of the things we try to emphasize, not just to look at the patient as a sick person, but as a person who has spiritual needs. Those spiritual needs need to come up so you will have the opportunity to talk to them. There are various ways we help our residents by demonstrating. As a teacher, I do all I can to help my resident understand why I am so compassionate to my patients. Why should I come and greet my patient? Why should I come and sit at his side and talk to him in a gentle way? Most of our patients are Muslims. It’s so amazing that when you offer prayers to them, they will always say “Yes, pray for me, pray for me so that I will get well.” And if we pray, we pray in the name of Jesus. We will tell them we are praying in the name of Jesus. And if they are healed, Jesus healed, not us. So, we integrate that into the system. We also help our residents to be residents that are telling the truth. That sheds light not only on the patients but on other workers. Did this thing happen? Did you do this test? No teacher, I did not. It helps to know we are not there only for the surgery, for the pathology, but we are saying to our resident, “Be honest in your deeds.” “Did you examine this patient?” No teacher, I did not. When we grow and understand honesty is part of the thing that reflects Christ’s life, it changes things. David: What’s interesting about that, is it shows the trust they have in you as a teacher. Y: One of the things I see in residents or workers, if they see the teacher saying, “I’m sorry, I think I should have done this thing differently.” That changes a lot in the life of the resident, the nurses, the team. For the teacher to say, “I think I made the wrong choice here. It was my fault.” It makes a lot of difference. This type of training I like so much because it carries me, because of who I am, and I should show respect and be honest to myself. If I am wrong, and I know that I am wrong, and I refuse to confess that, my resident will not do that. We know as a teacher, we do things, not intentionally, but if we make mistakes we must come back and confess them. And if we do that, the resident will train in the perspective that, if you are wrong, you have to say that you are wrong. It doesn’t have to be a hidden thing. It is a be a normal thing to say that you are wrong. “I’m sorry for doing that. I will not do this next time.” David: That’s so profound. Sometimes the hardest things to do are the ones that even a little child should know. This is an issue for every medical provider everywhere in the world. Am I willing to own the truth and speak the truth? Y: Really, we have a lot of opportunities. (Our country) is 99% Muslim. Most people who come to our hospital come for their health problems and this gives us opportunities to share Christ with them. It’s sometimes very easy to engage into a discussion with somebody. A few weeks ago, we got a gunshot injury. Somebody went to another country, bought a car, thieves pursued him to his house, and in his sleep, they shot him. The bullet went through the left side of his abdomen toward the right side. It passed in between two vertebrae, did not go into the spinal cord, just passing near. We took him into surgery, repaired about 4 bowel perforations, his ureter was cut, some of the vertebral vessels were so destroyed. But his function was not affected. Looking at the x-ray, “Is he really moving his legs, this man?” Looking at the entry, he narrowly escaped being paralyzed for his life, but it didn’t happen. That really gave us the opportunity to open the discussion, how God was merciful on him. We took the x-ray, showed him what could have happened to him. We opened that discussion, shared the love of Christ with. We are engaging in communication to lead him to Christ. So, trauma, getting into training, if I didn’t know how to repair these things, I wouldn’t have the opportunity to do that, to share Christ with someone. We see such scenarios in our hospitals most of the time. I’m really happy with the vision that PAACS has. We are going to change the way we do medical mission, because the Lord is in the process of changing the way we do medical mission. Why am I saying this? I used to be the only doctor in my hospital. When I came back I spent about 9 months being the only surgeon. I would be on call almost every night. That was the situation of each mission hospital about 20 years ago. Missionaries would come from overseas, they would go to the place where the need is overwhelming, and they would be the only doctor or surgeon in that place until they burned out. Do they have time with the patients, to share? If you look at the workload, you say “No, they probably do not have.” I’m proud to say, today we have 8 residents and we are planning to go up to 10. So, we will train and we will send. We are multiplying ourselves, instead of the past idea of just doing it. And we are multiplying with the local people, who understand the language, the politics, the places they need to go to. Medical mission is changing, it’s spreading, and I think now we are getting it right. Jesus started with 12 disciples, he concentrated on those 12, and taught them, and after that, they went all over. That’s how Christianity came to us, Christianity came to Africa. If they did not teach and also send, it would never happen. I think that PAACS is taking that hope. We are teaching, we are training, we are making disciples, and we are sending them to go spread the word. That is the positive thing to me in this situation. David – What motivates you as a surgeon, what gets you out of bed at three in the morning? Beryl – I’d say in Kenya there is a big surgical need, the fact that I can meet that and later they come back and they’re smiling, that motivates me. The other thing that gets me out of bed, is I’m heavily involved in training of residents. When I see someone comes in so green, and they graduate as a surgeon, to me that’s a very big motivation - we’ve added someone to the workforce, meeting the need within the country and Africa in general. How do you think about, and how do you talk about the surgical need in Kenya? Is there an easy way to describe it? Beryl – That’s one burden of having poor patients coming in late. The other problem comes in terms of workforce, when people are not properly trained to offer the service that is needed. Those who are trained or skilled, especially in subspecialties are very, very few. That means we have increased waiting time for anyone to get their treatment, and that just makes the burden heavier and heavier. That’s what I’d say currently. David – You were talking about how there is very limited sub-specialization, but a lot of you as general surgeons choose an area of expertise a little bit, even if it’s not on a diploma. What is that for you, what do you love doing? Beryl – Two things, I like doing breast surgery and surgical education. Breast surgery is a little bit individualized, direct to one patient. Surgical education, you are multiplying yourself, I’m not just one person doing this, I’m teaching many people at different levels. David – I have watched you in theatre, and you are a very good surgical teacher. You are very patient, very gentle, you are willing to take longer on a procedure so the person you are working with can learn to do it right. How, practically, do you think about surgical education? What are the things you do on a daily basis in your teaching role? Beryl – Currently, because Kijabe is a training site, we have general surgery, orthopaedic surgery, and pediatric surgery fellowship. I am the assistant program director for the general surgery program, but I coordinate the learning for all basic sciences for all these specialties. That has made me read more, but has also made me focus more on the bigger picture, what’s the need for all these individual students? I’m trying to organize, so that in the five-year-time that all these trainees are here, they get what they need to get to make them a better surgeon. As an individual, I’ve had people who invested time in me, so I could be a better surgeon. That drives me, because if they didn’t invest this time and energy in me, I don’t think I’d be what I am today. So, as an individual, I try to use those good qualities, to make me a better teacher for my residents. David – How does faith play into what you do with your teaching and even with patients? Beryl – God has called us to be good stewards with whatever talent he has given us. To me, being a surgeon is what God has given me, and that is what drives me. God has called me to be a good steward with this talent or this gift. Each time I go to the hospital to work, to teach, I do it for God, not necessarily for the patient or for somebody else to see me. If I do it for my own glory, or for the patients or everyone else to see me, at some point in time I will be tired if I don’t get any good feedback. Knowing I’m doing this for God, drives me to be better and better each day, because that’s what He requires of me. I’d say I’m very grateful to Kijabe and over all to the PAACS program for offering an opportunity for me to learn as a surgeon, to do what I love most, and for all the people who invested their time and energy to help me grow. I’m grateful to Kijabe as a hospital and to PAACS as an organization.

Welcome to Episode 32 of Mastermind.fm! Today masterminds Jean Galea and James Laws will be talking digital nomadism with David Hehenberger. David is the mind behind Fatcat Apps, a WordPress company helping bloggers, marketers, and business owners gain traffic and conversions with Fatcat plugins. David and Jean both consider themselves to be digital nomads, while James prefers to keep his feet in one place for the most part. Listen up and we'll dive into what digital nomadism means , how David and Jean got started with the nomad lifestyle, resources for others that want to travel themselves, and more! Shownotes are below but as always, tune in to hear the full story and all the exotic places these guys have been, and meet the shark that bit the internet (no really, you need to listen to this one)! What is Digital Nomadism? David defines a digital nomad as any digital worker who doesn't have a home base or headquarters. The digital nomad travels from place to place, often living out of a suitcase, going wherever their business takes them and working remotely the whole way. James compares it to the spirit of entrepreneurism itself, moving from place to place as an entrepreneur moves from idea to idea. Questions for David (& Jean!) Getting Started as a Nomad How did you get started on WordPress, development, and the nomad lifestyle? (David started out in Austria and, after completing an obligatory stint in the military, hopped on a plane for Thailand one day) Jean, how did you get started being a nomad yourself? (Jean made his first move from Malta, sick of living on an island as a young man, to Spain) Are there resources that either of you (David or Jean) would recommend to anyone thinking about taking up the traveling lifestyle? Where are you right now David? Where are some of the other places you've traveled recently? Jean where are some of the places you've been in your travels? The Nomad Lifestyle What are the best places for this kind of lifestyle? Is there space in digital nomadism for family? Can you do this with children? How to you remain productive without the typical daily 9-5 routine? Does it take some "settling in time" each time you arrive in a new location to become productive? How does the type of city you're in affect productivity? Is it tough to work full time in a popular vacation destination, for example? This lifestyle sounds very expensive- is it as expensive as it sounds and if so how do you deal with that? Working Nomads What kind of work are you doing right now, David? What do you think makes WordPress so well suited for the digital nomad lifestyle? Does the community that has grown up around WordPress make fitting in as you travel easier or harder? Is access to internet while traveling problematic? What is the experience like working with other people while traveling, finding partners to work with? How do you go through the hiring process as you travel? How do you put the word out that you're hiring as you travel? What does "typical" office culture look like for a nomad team? How do you handle paying your team? What are some of your favorite productivity apps? Featured on the Show: Fatcat Apps Zapier for Ninja Forms Nomad List Greenback Expat Tax Services Quiz Cat WP Migrate DB Pro Authentic Jobs Paypal Bitcoin Trello Slack Github Headspace Microsoft Outlook Calm