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Guest Patti Reilly helps brands SELL online & on-air with confidence & purpose. She's a live selling host with over 20 years of experience and 14,000 hours of unscripted selling and over a billion dollars in career sales, including at QVC. Patti has worked with Kim & Khloé, Jessica Simpson, Tony Robbins, Paula Abdul, Suze Orman, Sarah Blakely, and Lori Grenier. She is dedicated to helping you create & deliver a compelling multi-channel brand experience that activates customer engagement, accelerates sales, and stuns the competition.Hear Patti discuss WIIFM (what's in it for me) and the mental barrier people have to overcome in order to sell through live events. Learn how to keep an audience engaged during a long livestream through her “wash, rinse, repeat” framework. Discover how to lead with empathy and make it your superpower so you can sell to your dream buyer. Find out what best practices Patti learned from her experience at QVC, like finding comfort with viewers. Get tips on how to give “broadway” on camera while understanding that no one will be more excited about your product than you. Gain an understanding of the pros and cons of hiring a professional host or influencer to represent your brand or do the “heavy” work as a co-host. Uncover perspective on discounts, sales, bonuses, and other monetary incentives during live shopping.Want Patti's support? She offers multiple forms of support through her coaching, brand strategy, and consulting services offered on https://www.thepattireilly.com/.Ready to get started livestreaming? We have a free PDF checklist that you can download here: https://try.estreamly.com/successchecklist/Get marketing best practices here: https://try.estreamly.com/marketingbestpractices/
Dinesh made appearance on Shark Tank on October 22nd, 2021, specifically for Season 13 Episode 3. He acknowledged an arrangement from Lori Grenier for $500,000 for 15 % value stake in his organization. Dinesh and his organization incrEDIBLE eats has effectively taken out over 1.2M forks from landfills by making them palatable utensils. The thought is splendid, rather than discarding your utensils, you EAT them and save the landfills from billions of plastic utensils tossed out each year. Partake in this incredible episode with a new Shark Tank graduated class! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/genius-juice/support
When you first start a company or launch a product, you always have big dreams. You picture the massive deals, the millions in revenue, the corner offices and hiring a huge team. But before any of that happens, you have to tamp down those dreams and live in the real world, doing the hard, often year-long work on the ground proving your concept, talking to anyone who is willing to give you feedback, and knocking on doors to try to make a single sale. Kelley Higney trodded that path — in fact, she got her start selling her product at her daughter's bake sales. Her fellow moms were her beta testers and, but they were also the wellspring of feedback and proof of concept she needed to bring her product to the next level… and to those great heights most people dream of.Kelley is the founder and CEO of Bug Bite Thing, a safe, chemical-free solution for stopping a reaction to bug bites in their tracks. Today, Bug Bite Thing is available in more than 25,000 stores and has the backing of Shark Tank shark, Lori Grenier (who even gave Kelley her famous “Golden Ticket” when Kelley appeared on the show). On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Kelley broke down all of the hurdles she had to overcome to reach that point. She discusses the strategies she used to protect her brand before even going into distribution, and she talks about the importance of community and feedback. Plus, stick around to hear about how she and Lori work together. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Any Feedback is Good Feedback: Even when you are just starting out, you should be pitching your product and accepting feedback from anyone and everyone. The early users and beta testers will guide you through your initial iterations and highlight some problem areas you might be blind to that you can address before going more mainstream.Distribution is a Dangerous Game: It's not a matter of if, but when copycats will come after you. When you start to distribute widely, copycats will come out of the woodwork and you have to be prepared. Do the work beforehand to learn how to protect your brand and fight against knockoffs. Even if you think you don't qualify for a patent or other legal protection, reach out and try because it's better to have any kind of legal backing than none at all.Find a Mentor: You don't need to go on Shark Tank to find a business mentor. There are people in your network or on the periphery who you should tap into and who can guide you through the highs and lows of business. Doing it on your own is a pipedream. Every successful person has had a team behind him or her, and the truth is, having help will get you to your goals faster.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---For a full transcript of this interview, click here.
Go Where There Is No Path: Stories of Hustle, Grit, Scholarship, and Faith by Christopher Gray For all who dare to go off the beaten track, this is the inspirational, power-packed playbook for transforming your life and your world—from a young, Black social entrepreneur whose dorm-room tech startup has helped millions pay for college and access unprecedented opportunity. Gray, the son of a single working mother who had him at age fourteen, grew up in deep poverty in Birmingham, Alabama. An academic star, he had every qualification for attending a top college—except for the financial means. Desperate, Gray headed off the beaten path, searching online to apply for every scholarship he could find. His hustle resulted in awards of 1.3 million dollars and became his call to action to help other students win their own “schollys.” It inspired him to start up Scholly, an app that matches college applicants with millions of dollars in outside scholarships that often go unclaimed. When he was a senior at Drexel University, he appeared on Shark Tank as CEO of Scholly. In the most heated fight in the show's history, the sharks challenged Gray as to whether his app was a charity or a profitable business. Both, he insisted, proposing a new paradigm for social entrepreneurship and netting deals from Lori Grenier and Daymond John. At the time Scholly's subscriber base was 90,000 users. Today the app has 4 million subscribers who have won scholarships totaling more than $100 million. Meanwhile, Gray—without help from the mostly all-white boy's club of Silicon Valley—has emerged as a tech startup superhero now tackling the crisis of student debt with innovative, unrivaled strategies. Gray's premise is that when you lead with the good—confronting issues such as poverty and racism—the money will follow. His story is proof that when you develop a mindset for success, you turn disadvantages into gold. And when you create opportunities for others, you enrich the marketplace for yourself too. Gray shows us, we can carve out new paths to better days and leave trails for others.
Want to know how Tracy Hazzard grew her business? In this episode, she joins Nathan Latka from The Top Podcast to discuss just how she made it to the top with her design business! She talks about their business model and how their process was designed to increase success for their clients. Not everybody can have an 86% success rate, especially in the saturated product design and creation world, but Tracy figured out what works. With over 250 products launched and nearing 1 billion dollars in sales, there's no doubt that what she's doing shows results. Tune in to find out more and get advice for your design business!
Roll away back pain on the...Tate Stock Founder of the Chirp Wheel, struck SharkTank win with Lori Grenier, and Founder CEO ShipStud is interviewed by David Cogan founder of Eliances and famous celebrity host of the Eliances Heroes show broadcast on am and fm network channels, internet radio, and online syndication.
Roll away back pain on the...Tate Stock Founder of the Chirp Wheel, struck SharkTank win with Lori Grenier, and Founder CEO ShipStud is interviewed by David Cogan founder of Eliances and famous celebrity host of the Eliances Heroes show broadcast on am and fm network channels, internet radio, and online syndication.
Today on the podcast I am joined by Tom Burden the founder and CEO of Grypmat a multi-purpose flexible tool tray that keeps your tools in place and organized while you work on cars, planes, or anywhere else that you might need tools. Tom came up with the idea for Grypmat after serving in the Air Force as a jet mechanic, and after leaving the Air Force he dove into the startup world and launched his company. The Grypmat is a favorite of mechanics and DIYers all over the country and even caught the eye of Marc Cuban, Richard Branson, and Lori Grenier who all invested in the company when Tom appeared on an episode of Shark Tank. During this episode, Tom and I discussed what it was like to start your own business after serving in the Air Force and if his military background was a pro or a con in starting a business, what he has learned from his Shark Tank investors and what appearing on the hit show was like, and we also got to talk about his experience running an eCommerce business with a partially remote team and how he plans to continue using remote work after COVID.
Today's guest set out to create a product to solve a problem in his bathroom sink, wound up with two utility patents, numerous copyrights and trademarks and went through lots of ups and downs along the way. This week we are having him on the podcast to recount the seller side of a two-part seller/buyer series on the build and sell process. It's always inspiring to hear stories of entrepreneurs who built something based on a need they uncovered. Nicholas Galekovic, the co-founder of Beard King had always been creative, going way back to the dawn of design in technology. He was active in the early days of the digital space, doing one-offs for brands and starting a small digital marketing agency. He had gotten used to seeing brands succeed and fail when he realized that it might be time to start building his own brand equity. Episode Highlights: Nicholas walks us through the process of jumping off the couch and creating the product. How the timing was a factor in the success of Beard King. The patent processes and how they played into the growth and eventual sale of Beard King. What Nicholas did that was outside of the box to make his product and brand different. How long it took him to pivot from US-based to overseas production. Why learning every day is part of the success equation. Nicholas's Shark Tank experience. Amazon's patent neutralization program and how it helps protect product builders. Nicholas shares his two must-dos for preparing the business for the exit. What his next adventure is and what he can now do with all that invaluable learning. Transcription: Mark: For those of you that are listening in your cars and not taking a look at the video that we have up on YouTube of this podcast. You can't see that Joe is actually supporting just the faintest hint of a beard. So Joe is this intentional or is it just the stress of Quiet Light getting to you. Joe: Oh my dear this is embarrassing compared to the guest on the podcast this week. His name is Nicholas Galekovic, there you go. I wasn't going to try saying that name. I know you aren't. But let's just call him the Beard King because that's his company's name or former company name. He developed a product to solve a problem, wound up with two utility patents, a couple of design patents, lots of copyrights, trademarks, and went through lots and lots of ups and downs as we talked about the podcast. He's essentially run up with his doctorate in product development, branding, marketing, things of that nature before he exited a couple of months ago. So this week we're going to have Nicholas on the podcast. He is the person who sold his business. So people get to hear about the process and what it takes. And then the following week we're going to have Raj the person who bought his business. So we're going to do a two-part series on who sold their business and who bought that business so people are going to see it on back to back. Mark: That's fantastic I love this series when we can do the buyer and the seller. Even if we can get just one of the parties on it's always super useful. I know I talked to somebody recently about the podcast and they told me that these are some of their favorite episodes. So we are going to try and get some more sellers on. I know I have a seller coming on here soon in the coming weeks of somebody who is going to tell their story as well. I'm excited about this because I love these products that come out of this practicality of I've experienced this, I had a problem, I solved it, I turned it into a business and not only just a little business but something pretty significant. Joe: Yeah, he's been on the Shark Tank, got an offer, got a deal, ended up turning it down rightfully so; intelligently so. He talks about utility patents, the Amazon program, and grants to patents, and talks about some of the great things he did right in terms of social media and video. He actually had Snoop Dogg who was tweeting about his product and brand which is pretty cool. And then he talks about some of the mistakes he made. You know things that if he looks back he does want to live, gone, I wish, I should have, I could have, I would have. But he points out directly what he thinks he did wrong and what he could do differently and just dropping some advice for folks that are following in his footsteps. Mark: That's fantastic. Let's go and listen to him. Joe: Hey, folks Joe Valley here from Quiet Light Brokerage and today I've got somebody that just sold their business. Well, I shouldn't say just because it was in late spring of this year which is 2019. It's August 29th, 2019, my wife and I's 21st wedding anniversary. Thank you very much. Nicholas: Congrats. Joe: Thank you, Nick or Nicholas. Folks we have Nicholas Galekovic on the line and I had to ask him how to pronounce his name. I've known him for almost a year now and I've always screwed it up so I wanted to get it right. Nicholas, how are you? Nicholas: Good, Joe. How are you doing man? Thank you so much and don't worry my whole life I've heard the mispronunciation of my last name. So I'm quite used to that. I bring that into the branding side but I'm definitely excited to be here. Thanks for having me today so I can share my experience with you guys. Joe: We were going tell it you folks he's down in Florida and there's a hurricane coming in and pardon the lightning and whatnot but instead, he had a light just fall but we're not going to cut that out because you still are great. You sound great and it's life in the podcast where we're not professional; well I guess we, I don't know. Nicholas: Yeah we are. Joe: I don't know if we're professional podcasters. Anyway, I was going to say that is one fine looking beard. You should be in the beard business. Nicholas: Absolutely and I think by accident, by default I became in that business. Joe: You did, didn't you? So why don't we tell the folks because you and I have that little inside joke there; why don't we tell them who you are and your background? I'm going to let you do it. Tell them a little bit of background about yourself. Nicholas: Sure, absolutely. So you know I've always been in kind of the creative field and I really started to hone in on my expertise about eight years ago and I was doing more graphic design for other clients and really started to hone in what technology I like to use. So obviously Photoshop being the main one, Adobe Illustrator, I really got used to the Adobe Creative Suite. So I would just charge clients to do a flyer or one-off. I mean back then the digital space wasn't as big. I mean it has always been big but this is back in like the MySpace thing. So I even started off designing MySpace pages before I created havoc. Joe: You're aging yourself right now. Nicholas: I mean you know but I'm going way back. So then I'll just fast forward a little bit here and I started to hone in on my skill set of design. So then from there at a company called Kovick and Kovick was what I call a brand tailor. We really focus on helping companies with their brand identity, their strategy, website design, logo design, you name it. So I had a small marketing agency where I really started to I would say have success in business in that regard. But I always had a designer mentality we'll call it which later on down the story you'll see how that soon fulfilled me. And then I started to see a lot of these companies fail as far as whether they're small big or whatever and I would put my heart and soul into these companies I was designing. But then I realized I'm building all this brand equity but for other people in a sense. I'm still an entrepreneur but I'm doing it for the sake of their brands; which is fine. So then Beard King came about when I was just simply solving a problem that I had on the day to day basis which was trimming my facial hair. You mentioned the glorious beard hair. So it wasn't always this long and glorious but usually when it's a beard like let's say you're a size or small-sized beard you make some mess all over this thing. Basically, I just came out with this product called a beard bib and we'll dive may be more into the story in detail here but that's kind of how Beard King came about for four and a half years ago. And then I met you Joe last here. And then here we are right now. Joe: You and I and I think Brad. Right? Nicholas: Yes. Joe: We had lunch or breakfast may be down in Miami before the Blue Ribbon Mastermind; shout out to the Blue Ribbon Mastermind members. Nicholas: Shout out to Ezra; yes. Joe: A heck of a group of entrepreneurs there for sure. Nicholas: Absolutely. Joe: So we've been through the process of doing the valuation of getting your business ready for sale of getting it under contract and going through and selling it. We're actually later in the month going to have Raj on the podcast as well. Raj is the gentleman that bought the Beard King. So we're going to go full circle with the buyer and seller and hear Raj's story about how it's been going since he purchased it. And you and Raj have got along great. You're good friends now. You might be doing some business together in the future outside of the Beard King which is always great to hear. Well let's talk about the process because you have something or had something; Raj has it now that was relatively unique. Nicholas: Yeah. Joe: 100 plus businesses in the last seven years and less than a handful have had a utility patent on them. Let's hear a bit of that story you were making a mess in the bathroom sink and created something called the beard bib. How did you develop the product? Did you create one? A prototype from an apron at home or what did you do? What was the first epiphany [inaudible 00:08:25.0] and where do you go from there? Nicholas: Of course, so I mean I used to use a T-shirt. So you could picture you're at home, you're about to trim, it's either A. use the sink. Let that be the catcher. Get the hair all over. Try to clean it up. We all know that's super tedious. And being in 20 19 and then when I invented it that's four or five years ago so still though we're in this age where there's always a solution, right? There's always a product that's been invented. Everything's been invented and now you're just creating a better mousetrap. But in this case, I usually just use my T-shirt but then I wouldn't get like the little hairs all inside the T-shirt. And I'm like there has to be something like; I don't even know if Amazon was huge back then as far as how big it is now. But I think I just did some basic Google searching, Amazon searching, and I didn't really find anything. So I'm like you know what I'm just going to draw something together for myself. And I remember being home one night, I had a few glasses of wine, just chilling and I'm like you know what let me get up and start grabbing whatever household materials I could find. So I grabbed; it wasn't necessarily like an apron but it was almost like one of those hair cutting capes. I didn't know how to sew so I just; what's a man going to do? We're going to use staples. So I was literally finding whatever I can. And it was hideous but it actually kind of worked. So if you can imagine a product like a bib attaches around your neck and suction cups to the mirror as simple as that. Some of the simplest solutions are ingenious. And in fact, as the story goes along a lot of our customers are like I wish I would have thought of that like one of those things. And actually part of the story is funny because I remember thinking to myself well there's nothing out there I'm just going to use this for myself. I know how to brand a business but I don't know how to operate and scale a business. So I kind of let it sit for almost six months. And I remember coming across the Norelco or Panasonic clippers that tried to solve the same issue but with like a vacuum seal. What I found was; what my goal was the death of this idea. Let me just go and buy this product. And I actually tested it out but it didn't really work. It may be caught 20% of the hairs. But not only that sometimes people try to solve simple problems with these extravagant solutions which is unnecessary. So after that, I'm like you know what let me try this again. So I actually ended up manufacturing. I live in Miami so there are tons of manufacturers around here but of course with that comes greater costs. So I just tried a few. And long and behold I'm realizing in my mind, okay I have a company or I have a product called a beard bib but that's very limiting and so the branding mind starts to kick in. So I started thinking bigger scale. And I tripped up on during my naming process. Since I have all these processes and I saw ease of how to create brands it was easy for me to kind of just bootstrap that portion of it which sometimes a lot of people pay a lot of money for that. And I came up with Beard King thinking bigger picture; beard oils, brushes, washes, all these things. So I kind of accidentally got into the beard market. I did just wake up one day and said I'm going to get into the beard niche. And it just so happens that it also started to trend big time many years ago. But the trend was going up and I think that was from some other companies kind of breaking through. And yeah that's kind of the initial process of how I came up with the invention, prototyped it, tested it before even scaling it. Joe: You got off the couch and you actually did it. People have great ideas all the time but don't act on it don't know what to do with it. I'm going to just put this out there and then maybe we'll edit it out but seriously this is like an alcohol-infused invention. You sit and grab whatever you could in the house and started stapling things together and as you said it was hideous but it worked. And after several prototypes and a lot of money you wound up with was it; remind me, was it two utility patents and two design patents? Nicholas: Yes. So we can talk about the intellectual property side of things and again mind you as an entrepreneur you have to be willing to learn. So I didn't know anything about intellectual property maybe besides a little bit of trademarking but the pat world is completely different. So, of course, I did the initial patent process. The name of not a utility, not design but what's the one right before that? Joe: I don't know if there is one before that I thought it was designing utility. Somebody is going to have to call us and help us out. Nicholas: Right. Well, basically it just gets your spot in line for a year. So it allows you… Joe: Provisional patent. Nicholas: There you go. Thank you, Joe. You see your lawyer; I know, but essentially the provisional patent is your spot in line so you can kind of tweak and work on it but you can't go so far outside the scope. I mean it was five years ago that I did it so I forgot the name of it. And they're also not strong; they're really just your place in line. But if you have something that you really know you'd go straight for the utility patent. And what I found was I mean it took almost three years to finally get the patents that were issued. So you have to remember during this process; yes it's great for exit, it was amazing and we'll talk about that of how it all kind of played into the whole Amazon patent neutralization program. But going back in time the product went viral. And of course there's going to be knock offs and whether you have a provisional patent, a patent pending in this cut-throat industry, in this fast-paced e-commerce business, people don't care. They're going to still sell it. So this is kind of gets into the pat IP side of where when you do have a viral product that never existed before we basically created a new market; this beard bib market that never existed before. So it was flattering on one hand but obviously very aggravating on the other. We're losing money left and right with the knockoffs. Joe: Yeah. And that was for a period of time that was just too darn long. Looking back do you think that you could have done anything differently with the provisional patent and patent pending? There's just simply no real protection there. Nicholas: Yeah I mean the only thing I could say that you could do different which I never really like to say I'd like to do all that over again it's more like what did I learn from this. Joe: Yeah exactly. Nicholas: Would be perhaps accelerating the patent process. I think we chose the route because of cost. Usually, that's always when you have a company you don't have the cash to infuse into intellectual property. So I think we did the slower one, not the accelerated patent. Also as you're waiting for the provisional patent it gives you kind of time to pick and choose what elements that you want to claim or drop. Also, it's extremely hard to get a patent because some of these patent examiners they're tough. I mean it's not like they know you personally but it's like every little thing and then prior arts. So that's where you get into the field of you might think you invented something new but when they start stacking you against prior art; for example bibs in general, that was one of the prior art cited against our patent. It's just so difficult. So we have to kind of adjust to what parts of the application we want to claim. Joe: I was curious about that because anybody that I know that's filed a patent has said that they're going to say no and then you've got to pivot and go back at them with this other unique feature to your patent. How many times did you have to go back to that examiner until they eventually said granted; you're right, here's your patent? Nicholas: I mean looking through the docket history; by the way I mean first of all get a great lawyer. I'm not a lawyer so if you try to do things yourself you don't really know the ins and outs but I believe we went through at least three rounds per se and we still by the time we were getting ready to sell the business we'll have to talk about that with Raj when you interview him but there was a design patent still pending. So it took about like I said three or four iterations for the first utility and then just the next utility fell right after that a month later. So I think we got the first one in September and the next one in November and then you know. Joe: It was falling quickly. You were getting them quickly as you were preparing the business to sell. Nicholas: Correct. Joe: But from beginning to end from the time you decided to file for the patent until you got that last one in November of 2018 how many months or years was that process for you? Nicholas: It was almost about like I said three and a half years because again provisional patent was in the first year but that kind of only hold your spot in place. And then when you file for utility that time clock starts all over again. So that was one of the takeaways I was saying that I might have changed is just either going straight to utility and or accelerating. That's how you can probably get it faster. But in hindsight also being able to enforce your patent you're going to need cash to also enforce. It's one thing to have a patent. That's great. That's amazing. You know I actually literally; you could see on the back my wall right here that's a little patent but it doesn't mean anything if it was sitting on a wall. You've got to have cash to enforce. So that was the second part of this strategy was being able to have cash to take down these people. And we can probably segway into the topic of Amazon's pattern neutralization program. Joe: Yeah, I do want to talk about that. You know what I'd like to hear first because though? [inaudible 00:17:44.5] your story and the success that you found at the very end and actually helped Raj your buyer and propelled the business. I mean it was taking off by the time he bought it which is just great timing for him. But you had some great successes along the way with the Beard King and the bib. Can you just highlight a couple of those points? What did you do that was a bit outside the box that your standard e-commerce entrepreneur or Amazon FBA entrepreneur may not have done? Nicholas: Yeah. I think the first thing would be the branding and the marketing. You know with the named Beard King I started to brainstorm on okay how can we treat our customers different? I think even when we first met I would say King Joe or Lord Joe or Queen Sarah or whatever. Joe: [inaudible 00:18:31.7] is what your email add. Nicholas: At a royal day was the signature. So I really thought to every touchpoint, every detail; whether it's a phone call, email, flyer, or whatever it might be; packaging, everything was based around royal theme. And that's important to stand out nowadays especially with Amazon businesses just kind of being one out products and you kind of forget about the brand you just want function but to have that little extra piece; the second piece of that would be the video content. So I did a lot of the storyboarding, scripting, and writing of these pieces. I think the first one we hired one of my buddies to shoot it. And that first video ended up being picked up by a huge Facebook account like 9Gag or Unilab. And then once those big Facebook accounts picked it up it just goes viral. So I think within the first six to eight months of business that first video we did went viral. If anything I was a little self-conscious about it because people were making fun of it. But good or bad PR doesn't matter; it's great. Joe: I think if I recall in the package we put together we shared some of those links and am I remembering it right that Snoop Dogg tweeted out; as it Snoop Dogg or somebody else? Nicholas: Oh yeah. I think the meme was; so that was the meme portion of it but I think it went along the lines like you know a pissed off woman invented this. Joe: Yes, that's what it is. Nicholas: And so basically Snoop Dogg, Usher, even besides those accounts the big accounts; Facebook was huge on video and you can go viral a lot easier than you can today. I mean I think we're in the 40, 50 million views collectively across social media platforms which of course infused fire into the sales and this was right before picture going Shark Tank. So I imagine we had okay sales and then one month I think we had $80,000 in sales. I'm like how am I going to fulfill these orders? Joe: Yeah. Nicholas: That's a good problem to have but… Joe: So moving along with a story there and you just mentioned Shark Tank but we'll get to that in a minute as well. You were manufacturing in the United States which was more expensive. How long did it take you to pivot and move your manufacturing overseas? Nicholas: I think… Joe: I think you did right? Nicholas: Yeah, we did. I mean I think another pain point of any business or entrepreneur is when you're kind of forced to grow. Some people just want to grow but then you grow too fast and you can't handle it. But for me these types of pivots; when you're almost forced to do something it's kind of like working out and you've got to go to that next level of weight to kind of grow. So for me, yes we were manufacturing in Miami for an insane amount of cost per unit. And I did that also on purpose which I suggest people do because you don't want to invest too much with too many units and then they don't sell. So I was willing to see proof of concept. That was my first thing. Joe: Especially for you, because you invented the niche, a lot of folks are finding a niche that's already selling well and they're just doing that branding of their own product. They know there's; they need to get eyeballs. They know the units are going to sell if I can get eyeballs. You know it only had to get eyeballs but you had to educate the people what the product was. Nicholas: Right. Joe: So the video was fantastic. That's a very visual product. Nicholas: Absolutely. Joe: So at one point you did pivot and you moved manufacturing overseas. Did you figure that out yourself? Did you hire a company? Nicholas: Yeah. You know actually that guy originally; so I'm kind of like Bob the Builder, right? I'll piece everything together and when we were manufacturing Miami I was sourcing the materials from China. You just buy; my natural gut feeling like let me source material there, ship it here, and then make it here. So the problem with that obviously is the fact that it's super expensive to be shipping a bunch of material. So the same guy that I ended up ordering a lot of the material from we established a nice rapport and relationship he ended up kind of telling me on the side hey look I'm going to go up my own manufacture let me know if you need anything. So essentially not only did I create a niche but for this individual, he ended up starting his own manufacturing facility almost really based off of our product. And we were like his number one customer. So we had a long relationship. He was basically the only guy I used for the entire time and I think to this day the new owner is actually still using him. Joe: [inaudible 00:22:53.9] loyal; that's the story. Good relationships like that are great. I'm going to throw out there to some of the folks listening there are companies out there that can help with the manufacturing overseas. I just did a podcast with Zach Leonard from Gembah and he's explaining what they do and it's the exact type of company that you probably needed at the time. It would've made your life a lot easier. They do all the importing and shipping, the [inaudible 00:23:22.1] industrial designers on the team. I know their company; I think in Gembah is Austin, Enventys is down in Charlotte. They've been around since 2002. They actually did some of the industrial design work for the Miracle Mop and other products like that; a really, really impressive company there as well. They actually; really interesting for proof of concept like your new invention, new category that you created, they will actually do all the industrial design work, do 3D printing, do a video of the product, and then put it up on Kickstarter there's interest. And then if it's a success they'll take the orders but then they'll go manufacturing. So brilliant idea. It's; I don't know, I wish everybody listening that's an entrepreneur now knew about these different companies. Nicholas: Of course, it would make it; I mean that's why I said in the beginning of the podcast you got to be willing to learn something new every day because I didn't have experience in sourcing or manufacturing but I learned. Joe: Yeah. Nicholas: So it's great to have those companies but with that also will come costs. So you do have to have a little money. I'm sure it's not free. Joe: Yeah, they probably don't work for free that's for sure. Nicholas: No, they probably don't. Joe: Let's talk about Shark Tank. You brought it up; you were on Shark Tank. How did you go through the process? What was it like? Was it the biggest joy in your life or very very difficult? Nicholas: I mean it's obviously very stressful in the sense that they leave it open-ended. Like literally; and I think when I heard one of the other guests on the show talk about how they never really guaranteed anything and that's super true. Actually, the whole process took a year. So from the year that you audition until; and it could be different in any case, but the year you audition or the beginning of it then you go through several funnels of interviews, face to face Skype calls or Xoom calls like this and then eventually you fly out to LA and you pitch in front of the producers and it's still not guaranteed. And then they'll call next. And if not you fly back. And then if they choose you, you stay another day or two and then you just wait for your spot to be filmed and then you're still not guaranteed to be airing. Now the airing of the show is kind of like the pivot for the company. And not only that if you do film and you get a deal that's huge because it adds a lot of value to that shark to then want to close the deal with you. So by the time that we auditioned, filmed, and then I think there was like a six-month gap in between due diligence and finally getting that air date which they only give it to you like a week or two in advance. So imagine that, it's like you're always on your toes like are we going to get it, are we're going to air, are we not; but they just say do your business as if Shark Tank doesn't exist. Joe: That's hard to manage your inventory level if you're going to get that extra 10,000 orders next week. Nicholas: Of course and you can imagine I like to call the Shark Tank effect this kind of trickle effect because let's say you do air. The amazing thing about it is as we all know nobody really watches TV live anymore, or at least I don't. So you get that initial spike from viewers that are viewing it live. Of course, you can advertise that; promote it, but then you're on Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, you're on all these things that you're kind of in the Shark Tank alumni books forever. So you still get spikes. I mean in fact we still re-air all the time; airports, I think it goes from ABC to CNBC. So that content is syndicated across all the platforms and it's great. So just to be on air alone the exposure is worth millions of dollars advertising. So it was a great experience. I definitely will go for it again if I can. And it was great. It was an amazing experience. Joe: I bet they would love to have you back with a second invention someday. That would be really; a good story for them too I could just see it really, really working. So we're going to fast forward a little bit. I just want to say one thing about Shark Tank I had another guest on that said that after you pitch a lot of entrepreneurs come pitch the same day they take them and they put them all in separate hotel. You have to go for an hour of council and then you go to separate hotels. Do you have to do the same thing? Nicholas: Yeah, that was absolutely true and I think I know the conversation that you were having with [inaudible 00:27:51.9]. Joe: So you had to go through an hour of counseling as well just to make… Nicholas: I was like alright can we go now? I'm good. But yeah it just depends. I mean it's very stressful you need to almost debrief because I mean I remember the call time was like let's say 6:00 a.m. but we didn't film until almost 12:00. And I was starving I'm like I literally pulled the producer and I'm like I got to eat I'm about to pass out. I imagine it's like the biggest pitch in your life. And that's another crazy thing to think about to kind of show anybody that's scared to pitch, public speak, to do anything like that. That was the first time I've ever even pitched a business. So it's like I never pitched a business in front of Joe or Bob or anybody. And then here I am in front of Mark Cuban, Lori Grenier, Chris Sacca, like all these major names that I'm like just doing my thing. And that's another cool tidbit of the show that I could probably add that you feel like you might be nervous and all that but not really because it's like having a conversation. They're intimidating, you're in there for like an hour, and then they condense it down to eight minutes. So it seems intense but it's TV guys. So just keep that in mind. Joe: Lots of editing. So the success on Shark Tank led to lots of knock offs. But you were working on the patent the entire time. And eventually, you were offered two utility patents, design patents, things of that nature. What did you do? We talked about this just as they started coming out and you mentioned the patent, the Amazon patent neutralization program, for those that are not familiar with it could you talk about that a little bit? Nicholas: Yes sure. You know this is Amazon's way of showing you know what guys we got to do something about this we know it's an issue and Amazon is such a huge platform. And I think that's why everyday people are kind of like well I want to do this too. And so sometimes dealing with some of these knock offs directly and strategically you realize they're just everyday people that didn't even know they were knocking you off. And then, of course, you have people that know that they're knocking you off and then they try to be slick and go around you whatever it might be. But the Amazon patent neutralization program is great for patent holders, inventors and it says look if you're selling this product you have a utility patent we're not going to be a lawyer but they hire a third-party law firm that instead of going through litigation which we could even touch on that quickly as I went through a litigation with a knock off that tried to sue me and here I am blowing cash which of course affects the bottom line; cash that I'll never see again. But circling back the program actually is instead of going through a long drawn out expensive process of patent litigation it brings in a third party and it says seller if you have a patent give us a list; I think it's 50 Asense at a time, we're going to reach out to all them. They have two weeks to respond. If they don't respond well then guess what? Automatically you get removed; the sellers that are knocking off. So it's kind of like they just said alright we bow out without saying anything. And then what we found was a small percentage of people opt-in. The opt-in process costs I think $4,000. I don't know if it's changed as of today. I mean it's only been a couple of months. So you opt-in with 4k, the other seller has now another two weeks to put in 4k and then you go through the process. I don't know what happens after that because I at this point in the business ended up selling it. And of course, this gave great hope for the new buyer because he's like wow we just got rid of 50 plus Asense, only two people opted in. I think this is great. So it just allows the inventor; because there's really nothing you could do for patents right now before that. You could do trademark claims and copyright claims but that portion of it what we found building our SOP's is that it's really outsourced. So it's crazy you could do the same trademark claim eight times and it doesn't get caught by the first seven agents so the eighth agent might pick it up and remove it but it's a game of Whack a Mole and man is it frustrating. Joe: Yeah. We'll talk to Raj about it. Nicholas: Absolutely. Joe: About the neutralization program and what it looks like competition-wise on Amazon now that they've got that program in there. Let's talk a little bit about preparing your business for sale and you've gone through this, you've got the benefit of hindsight. You did a lot of things right. Clearly, these folks have heard about Snoop Dogg tweeting about your product line, being on Shark Tank, and you got an offer but you ended up turning it down eventually. Just for clarification purposes that is the deal, right? You got the offer but you ended up not going with it. Nicholas: Yeah on Shark Tank we ended up doing a deal with Laurie. That's a funny piece; definitely watch as far as the way I close that deal. She was about to be [inaudible 00:32:38.0] I'm like why don't you make me an offer and she's like wait, what? Okay. So we got the offer but it was a rich 40% for 100k. Thank God I didn't take that deal. Looking back now I'm going to exit, imagine if I only owned 60% percent of the company. Joe: Yeah. So you did get an offer but you eventually turned it down because your business was exploding and growing. Nicholas: Financially it made zero sense but I wouldn't change it for anything. Joe: So then you're preparing the business for sale. We had a chance to meet again down in Miami at the Blue Ribbon Mastermind. So you've got that benefit of hindsight. To the audience that's listening now, that is running a business and may eventually exit or they never thought they could exit. What advice do you have for them in terms of the one or two things that they must do to prepare the business for sale and get them out? Nicholas: Well, first things first. I think having the benefit of hindsight is start a business to exit, right? Have an intent to exit because I don't think most people think about that. Even when I started Beard King I didn't think oh I wonder how this is going to end. I just thought it's going to always go up. And that's fine if you want to leave on a legacy or pass it to your kids or whatever it might be. But regardless I think you should always have an exit plan in the back of your mind and start there and then reverse engineer the business to always have a target to move towards. The second part of what I would suggest and probably would have changed for myself the beginning setting yourself up is the books. When you and I met back in January of 2019 you're like Nick look you got to get your books together. I mean obviously, if you're trying to sell an asset people need to see the numbers and the SDE based off of your last twelve trailing months isn't so strong. But you know what Joe I like how you said wait a little bit. Wait six months or and go get the valuation in the multiple that you want. So I think having your books in place, having the SOPs ready to be literally turn key is really the benefit to getting ready to exit your business. But if you do that from the get-go and you reconcile that every month it's much easier to do so literally in our case sell a business in two weeks. Joe: Yeah. The most difficult thing as a business adviser like myself, broker advisor is when someone comes to us and wants a certain value for their business and they ask is it worth this. And I can't tell because they don't have good clean financials. And by good clean financials, I don't mean that you don't run your personal stuff through the business. Most entrepreneurs do that. In fact a couple of things; I want to give a shout out first to Tyler Jefcoat at Seller Accuntant. So Tyler was great in this relationship; introduced us, good guy, you never hired him but he just gave you some advice and or did you hire him? I don't think you actually hired him to do the books, right? Nicholas: We ended up hiring him to do an audit sweep. Joe: There you go. Okay, so Tyler shout out to Tyler Jefcoat at Seller Accountant. The other thing is that there are generally four pillars; it's that risk, growth, transferability, and documentation. So if you do number one what Nick said was go into this with a plan to exit. Figure out what that exit process is like; figure out what the valuation process is like. Do you know audience what the definition of seller's discretionary earnings is? If you don't go to one of last three or four podcasts; Mark and I did an entire episode on what's a legitimate add back and it goes through that entire process. One of the benefits that you have now is that you've been there and you've done that. You've got that patent back there on your wall. You've sold a business. You've got the branding experience. You've got the manufacturing experience, the importing experience, the marketing experience; you've got it all. Now you just have to find that next great product and do it all again. And I see this every time; the first one you take some money off the table and the next one it's five to ten times bigger. And I'm hoping that's going to be the case for you. What is your next adventure? Do you have it sort of turning around back in your head or you're doing it or are you just taking some well-deserved time off from it? Nicholas: I'm sure like most entrepreneurs you could retire on a beach and then figure out what am I going to do with all this sand, right? You get bored. Joe: Yeah. Nicholas: You know taking a couple of weeks off to just reflect; your personal development I think is key to just kind of figure out your next move. And I think for me it's reflecting and learning from the mistakes and then creating an even stronger foundation even if it's from a corporate level, operational level, legal level; all these things that I learned on the fly. If you can set them up in the beginning with the intent to exit you're going to have a better shot at what you said; a higher multiple. I mean look selling Beard King was amazing but I think for me besides the liquid side of the asset I basically just purchased an MBA. I got a legal degree. Joe: At best you got your doctorate man; you learned so, so much. Nicholas: So much and I think it's that key takeaway of learning all those things hands-on versus just your standard education or self-taught on YouTube; it's invaluable. It's absolutely invaluable. Joe: I'm calling you Doc Galekovic from now on. Nicholas: I like it. Joe: [inaudible 00:37:54.2] because that's what you did for your own business. That's great. Nicholas: Absolutely. Joe: So listen we're running out of time, how do people find you if they want to reach out and talk to you about your story; maybe you can help them with their business or whatever the case is. It's always good to connect. How does somebody find you and reach out? Nicholas: Yeah, for sure. Definitely. You can reach out on Instagram. My handle is just my name so it's Nicholas Galekovic. I know that spelling is going to be tough but G-A-L-E-K-O-V-I-C, or you could shoot me an email directly. It's actually galekovic.nicholas@gmail.com. Joe: And we will put that in the show notes as well. Perfect. This has been fantastic. You're a good man. I appreciate you choosing Quiet Light Brokerage. It's been a pleasure working with you. I look forward to hearing about and helping you with your next adventure. Be sure to stay in touch [inaudible 00:38:43.1]. Links and Resources: Nicholas' Company Nicholas' Instagram Email Nicholas
The Peoples Voice: It’s been a little over 50 years since the Apollo missions carried men to the moon 12 men who walked on the moon the words one small step for man one giant leap for mankind spoken by Neil Armstrong as he planted his foot on the lunar surface. But what’s next we’re going to be talking about the new mission caring mankind to the moon again this will be a huge step the next program Intended to return man came to the moon in 2024. The Success Factor: What does it take to truly become successful. How have others done it and what sort of mindset does it require. Will be talking about success and focusing on a particularly successful individual today listen in and find out. UNEDITED AI TRANSCRIPTION Kevin O’Leary 0:06 Hey, Wes, Chef wonderful here, I just want to do a really big shout out for you. I'm working today selling YB cakes on QC. But I have enough time to shout out for you because you have done something amazing. I love this whole idea of winning first place in the New York Book Festival. I love your new book, big things have small beginnings, which focuses on being the catalyst that delivers success. Of course, great ideas start small, but you have to really focus on them to make them happen. And I think that's a great theme West. I love everything about it. And you also made the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. How cool is that? So, you know, hats off to us. Keep up the good work, take care of my friend. Wes Berry 1:04 Welcome to the Wes Berry radio show. This is the people's voice segment. And I'd like to thank Mr. Wonderful for his very kind words. He's a great guy. Yeah, I don't know if you watch Shark Tank. But if you shouldn't, you really should watch it. It's a great show. We're here today with Ryan toll, my good friend. And we're going to be talking a little bit about the space program. And more importantly, it's you know, it's always important to celebrate things that have happened. But it's also critically important to be looking forward. And last week, the Apollo program celebrated its 50th anniversary of landing a man on the moon, and it landed two of them. Actually that day, on the 20th of July, Neil Armstrong with those famous words, one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind. But you know, since the 70s, we just haven't been back there. And the question remains, what's the purpose? Where are we going? Why do we want to be there? Well, we've got to cut cut coming up in just a couple of minutes. It's going to talk about that Apollo 11 landing on the moon. But then it's also going to talk about the next stage the next step in the program. And that's that's really, it's, I believe, it's Artemis is what it's called. And Artemis is is the sister of Apollo, the sister of the Greek god, Apollo. And you know what's really interesting, she's also the goddess of hunters, which really, really pokes at me, because it's called the capsule and everything part of the system is called Orion, which is the hunter. Oh, that's interesting. So think about that. Yeah. So you've got the goddess of the hunt of the hunt. And you have the hunter, you know, most of you are probably familiar with a Ryan Ryan belt, you know, the three stars that are sort of in a crooked line in the sky, night sky. But it's I don't know whether or not NASA is trying to send us a message or not. But Ryan Toll 3:10 they're not very smart Wes. I'm sure they have no veil meaning. Wes Berry 3:14 You know, I'm sure they have so many men in there. I don't I don't know what they're planning on hunting. But I'm sure that the conspiracy theorists will soon unravel that, Ryan Toll 3:23 you know, there's a lot of conspiracy theories speaking that believe we have not been to the moon that it was all done enough. Yeah. I don't believe that. I'm not I'm not advocating that. Unknown Speaker 3:31 Yeah, but I do believe those are the same ones who do believe that the moon is made of cheese, very good, very well being specifically Swiss cheese, or Alsace Lorraine cheese, you know, that's a little bit smaller. Unknown Speaker 3:43 comes from France. That's true. That's true. Unknown Speaker 3:47 I forgot about that. But the problem here is not whether or not we should go back. But what's the mission? What is the reason? You know, the only reason Apollo the Apollo program was, was to put Flipboard sun the moon, you know, right, Unknown Speaker 4:01 yeah, put a flag there, put some Unknown Speaker 4:02 footprints there. Yeah, but we've got to have a more resoundingly reason to return the moon this time. And we are looking at going back, that the plan is for us to land on the moon by 2024. And I'm, I was very curious to see that that same program is supposedly going to be the one that's going to allow us to go to the moons of Mars, they've got this whole thing planned out. So let's go to that clip right now from NASA, about the Apollo program and where it's going now. Unknown Speaker 4:37 50 years ago, we buy into the path to the trail we blazed cut through the fictions of science, and showed us all what was possible. Unknown Speaker 4:50 Out here, today, our calling to explore is even greater. Unknown Speaker 4:55 To go farther, we must be able to sustain missions of greater distance and duration, we must use the resources we find that our destinations, we must overcome radiation, isolation, gravity, and extreme environments like never before. These are the challenges we faced to push the bounds of humanity. We're going to the loo to stay by 2024. And this is how Unknown Speaker 5:25 this all starts with the ability to get larger, heavier payloads off planet and beyond Earth's gravity. For this will design Unknown Speaker 5:33 an entirely new rocket Unknown Speaker 5:35 Space Launch System, SOS will be the most powerful rocket ever developed. Unknown Speaker 5:39 And with components in production, and more in testing, this system is capable of being the catalyst for deep space missions, we need a capsule that can support humans from launch through deep space and return safely back to Earth. For this, we built Unknown Speaker 5:57 a Ryan, this is NASA next generation human spaceflight capsule. Unknown Speaker 6:02 Using data from lunar orbiters that continue to reveal the moon's hazards and resources, we're currently developing an entirely new approach to landing and operating on the moon, using our commercial partners to deliver science instruments and robotics to the surface, we're paving the way for human missions in 2024. Unknown Speaker 6:21 Our charge is to go quickly Unknown Speaker 6:24 to press our collective efforts forward with a fervor that will see us return to the moon in the manner that is wholly different than 50 years ago. Unknown Speaker 6:35 You know, it's a big, it's a big, big step, it's a big thing to initiate. Right. Any thoughts on this? No, I think I think, you know, the, the there was this common view throughout the 70s. And, you know, even in my childhood, in the 80s, and so forth, that we would colonize the moon. And there's I dozens of movies made right about, about, you know, colonization, the moon and those colonies and and how that would move to Mars and so forth. So I think I think there's a lot of people are probably a little surprised that it hasn't happened yet. But that that that isn't the natural state of evolution from 50 years ago, from landing on the moon. Well, you know, so many people watch science fiction, and and they have a tendency to, to blur the lines between reality and and science fiction. And it is difficult, I'm sure that you could have made a wager 50 years ago, that we would be continuing to go to the moon. And you know, nobody would have taken that bet they would run sure that we were if it would have been the greatest bed of all times to say we wouldn't we wouldn't be back in 50 years. Right. But it's just hard to believe. But you know, it's that momentum. Sometimes, it takes a long time to make those, those those furthers step. Right. You know, you think about Christopher Columbus coming here to the new world and 1400 92 I don't think there were a lot of things settlements in 1400 93, you know, right, right, takes a while. But I'm very excited about this. I'm pleased that we're going back, please, that we have a reason to go back the scientific reason is something we're going to talk about a little bit later on. But this should really give a lot of energy to the whole process. Unknown Speaker 8:20 I would agree. And I think, you know, I think that's the natural, you know, man has been an explorer, always right, whether it was to the next mile away or over the next mountain or whatever. And that is the next stage in our exploration or evolution, right is where else we can go within our galaxy. Sure. And you know, what got us Unknown Speaker 8:37 into that. That position of landing on the moon was that we were in a competition. It was a space race between the United States and the Soviet Union. And that's what really really pushed it. You know what, we've got to go to a quick break now and we'll be right back. Unknown Speaker 8:59 Some things in your mind medicine cabinet are more dangerous than others. When it comes to prescription drugs. opioid pain medicines can be addictive and even deadly. Half the people who misuse prescription pain medicines, get them from a friend or family member. Be part of the solution? Go through your medicine cabinet drawers anywhere you keep unused opioid pills, patches or syrup's? Find out how to dispose of them safely. Visit FDA. gov slash drug disposal. Hey, business owners, you can grow your small business into something big. Everyone starts somewhere. Big things have small beginnings is the best selling ebook by business expert West Berry. Learn how to build a $60 million international business from a $60,000 flower shop. Don't ignore the little things, build something big and turn your business into a huge success. Big things have small beginnings. Unknown Speaker 10:02 Mason's among us, brought to you by Michigan Mason's Unknown Speaker 10:05 nickname wise. Unknown Speaker 10:07 He is an inventor, programmer and technology entrepreneur who co founded apple. He is known as pioneer of the personal computer revolution of the 1970s and 80s. Unknown Speaker 10:16 And he single handedly developed the Unknown Speaker 10:18 apple one, his name Steve Wozniak, a proud member of the Masonic fraternity, Unknown Speaker 10:24 brotherhood fellowship community, be a mason go to We are the masons.org to find out more. Unknown Speaker 10:34 We are this close to making history Unknown Speaker 10:37 22 making history this close to changing this class, we are this close. This close this close to making history for this close to ending polio, to making sure no child suffers from this crippling disease ever again. All we need is you. Unknown Speaker 11:13 Thank you for joining us. We're back. This is the people's voice segment of the West Berry radio show. And before I forget, I want to mention that my best selling book, big things have small beginnings is available on Amazon and other platforms. But it's probably easiest to get it there. It's a it's a great book. It's well it's got a Wall Street Journal bestseller on it and a USA Today best seller. So it's not just me and my mom, Tanya, it's a good book somebody else's to we're talking today about the new space program of returning to the moon. And I'm here with with Ryan tool. And I don't know, you know, Ryan, what do you think about this whole returning to the moon idea? Unknown Speaker 11:57 Well, I think I think it's, you know, a good idea. I think there's a lot of technology that's coming to us from and I think we've talked previously about you know, that's, that's the space programs where Velcro came from, and the space programs where a lot of sustainable food ideas came from and freeze drying of food and so forth. And I think that the other piece to that, really and where I'm always looking for used is, I feel like there was this whole step out of that space program. We went away from the capsule away from that to the to the space shuttle for the you know, the 70s and 80s and 90s. Right. And now that program is scrapped, right? We're done with spit. And now we're back to if you looked at the pictures, the other video capsules, right. So Unknown Speaker 12:30 it does look very, very familiar, doesn't it? Well, you know, that whole space shuttle program was a what's referred to as a low Earth orbit. Right. And we haven't we have not gone back to a distant orbit or a deeper space orbit since the Apollo program. You know, one of the things that I find a little bit curious about the new program, is that they they are it's a system, and they've got a plan that goes beyond just being able to get there. You know, the original space program is, as we mentioned earlier, was a space race between the former Soviet Union and us. And I think what really got us on our heels, is when China mentioned just a few years ago that they were going to Right, right, I agree with you. And you know, and I think I think the reason there wasn't a longer term plan and the original Space Race is your point. Right? It became well, we have to get there before the Russians, the Soviet Yeah. And, and so it didn't matter what we did to do that we were just going to get there first, it was equivalent to the race to Berlin was to get to the scientist should the race to Berlin at the end of World War Two, right, who that just showed your superiority? You know, that's a very good point. And on that subject. You know, after World War Two, the Nazi scientists that came to the United States under what was called Operation Paperclip, Verner von Braun was the guy and Verner von Braun was really I've got a chapter in my book about him actually about, about his personality type and about him. He was really a what you would refer to as a technocrat. He didn't really care who he was doing it for or why he was doing it. He just wanted to work his craft, like a technological mercenary, almost right, just whoever wanted to do it. And he invented the v1 and v2. Right? He did. He did. And actually, you know, there's I certainly don't, wouldn't say that this is the right way to say it, but that there were people who used to say that the United States didn't have a United States or an American space program. They had a German rocket program in the United States. Unknown Speaker 14:37 I think that's that's factual. I mean, even the nuclear program, right was basically Unknown Speaker 14:42 same rockets. Yeah. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 14:42 You know, defected, you know, German scientists that defected. But Unknown Speaker 14:46 right, German scientists. Well, the same rackets that were used in the space program were used in the ballistic missiles. Right, right. And, you know, the other thing that's kind of funny about this is in the Soviet Union, they had German scientists, too, right? Yeah. I guess it was a race to see who had that better German scientists. I don't know. Unknown Speaker 15:03 Turns out we did, apparently, Unknown Speaker 15:05 apparently, not many people realize that Verner von Braun was actually a major in the SS, which I didn't know that very difficult to believe sometimes. And for some reason, all photographs of him in that uniform form had been expunged. Unknown Speaker 15:20 from us, we're anywhere it's almost like there was some clandestine act taking Unknown Speaker 15:25 place. But if you actually read, you know, it, read the read the story, you know, and I'm not talking about reading some some conspiracy guy, but if you read his Wikipedia page, it'll tell you actually won't call my major is a different something, something group inferior, which is German for, you know, the same same pay grade as it would be over here, which would be an old for I guess, but at any rate, the point being, that it was so important to us to get to the moon and to enter to get control of that rocketry programs, that we were willing to do almost anything to accomplish that. And, you know, we've talked about this, and we've seen it in other situations, the whole computer age, I do not believe it could anywhere exist anywhere near the level that it exists. Now, without that Apollo program. I Unknown Speaker 16:17 think you're absolutely right. And I think the, the acceptance by people of the world of the computer of technology, I think, was driven by that, you know, I, if you were to talk to some some, you know, older folks that were maybe alive during was, you know, there's a was a fundamental distrust of technology and its shareholders. Sure. And and I think that that is there's come a long way. Well, the reliability Unknown Speaker 16:39 wasn't there, but the reliability had to be there. Because actually, you know, be the first Apollo craft had a monkey in it, right. And the monkey went up and came back down alive. Now that the Soviets, the dog, a dog, I'll think of his name, just as I leave here today. dog's name, I think it started with a P, but the dog didn't come back. No, they left them out there. They you know, so that was kind of a big difference between the American space program and Unknown Speaker 17:10 the program. I think that's really that's the crux of the difference, right? Yeah. I think that we won the space race against some eyes that were pretty crazy, because I don't think they were also concerned that everybody they sent up came back to dogs, not a person, I get it. But there were no Unknown Speaker 17:25 live broadcast, right, right of any Soviet rockets blasting off and no broadcasts of any failures either. So we had we had live fears that everybody got to watch. And and you're absolutely right. They had some advantages. But those same advantages are what gave us a better hand of cards. Unknown Speaker 17:48 there who's still Is there anybody still alive? Do you know that was in the Apollo program? I'm thinking about it now. I mean, Unknown Speaker 17:53 because it was all it is. And also Duke, I can't remember his first name, Duke, but actually a friend of mine, Danza who lived in West Bloomfield, the, the community that I grew up in, was actually actually in the Apollo program. And you know, he used to talk a lot about the Apollo 13 situation where they were having a hard time, right, okay. And he was really there. And he was a, he was recruited out of Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame, a real rocket scientist. Wow. So he was an interesting character. I haven't seen him in a long time. I, I know he moved out west. But he was also an avid Civil War historian. But at any rate, that and that, you know, that was something for me to get to meet somebody who was really there now, right? No, I, me I had I had met Alan Shepard at one point. But that was that was something to talk to him and just to pick his brain so to speak. But so what are we going to do, we've got to go back to the moon, we've got to make this work. And let's go to another clip that we have here. That will really help out help us to understand the new system that will allow us to travel to Mars and beyond. Unknown Speaker 19:09 We want lunar lander is that are reusable, that can land anywhere on the lunar surface, the simplest way to do so is to give them a platform in orbit around the moon from which to transition, Unknown Speaker 19:19 an orbiting platform to host Deep Space experiments and be a waypoint for human capsules. We call this lunar outpost gateway. Unknown Speaker 19:28 The beauty of the gateway is that it can be moved between orbits, Unknown Speaker 19:31 it will balance between the Earth and men's gravity Unknown Speaker 19:34 in a position that is ideal for launching even deeper space missions. In 2009, we learned that the moon contains millions of tons of water ice, Unknown Speaker 19:44 this is can be extracted, purify, for water, in a separate an auction for breeding for hydrogen for rocket fuel, Unknown Speaker 19:50 the moon is quite uniquely suited to prepare as and propel us to Mars and beyond. Unknown Speaker 19:57 This is what we're building. This Unknown Speaker 20:00 we're training for. Unknown Speaker 20:01 This we can replicate throughout the solar system. This is the next chapter of human space exploration. Unknown Speaker 20:07 Humans are the most fragile element of this entire and, and yet we go for humanity. We go to the moon and onto Mars to seek knowledge and understanding and to share it with all we go knowing that our efforts will create opportunities that cannot be foreseen, we go because we are destined to explore and see it with our own eyes. We turn towards the moon now, not as a conclusion, but as preparation as a checkpoint toward all that lies beyond our greatest adventures remain ahead of us. We are going, we're going. We are going. Unknown Speaker 20:48 Down. We're going. Unknown Speaker 20:56 One of the things that I find very curious about this whole program. Is that whole gateway system. Yeah. So I have a prediction. And I haven't read this anywhere, but I'm willing to go out on a limb. But not too far out. You know, if you wanted to cross the desert, and you could only carry you know, like three gallons of water with you at a time. That's where you depots so you go out one gallon Berry one use the other one to get back, then you know, you have to depot your back and forth. And I would not be surprised at these gateway, maybe not for the first trip. But eventually, if we're actually going to be able to colonize Mars and it unless we're able to find some way to change the the laws of physics that we accept currently. Right? It's going to take a long time to get there and a lot of resources. So I think they're going to do it the same way across the desert. I think they're going to depot and I think they're going to depot, US utilizing this gateway type system. Unknown Speaker 21:57 Well, I read a little bit before today that was talking about one of the one of the keys to this whole process is that that Elon Musk self landing rocket and you know, the SpaceX concept to do exactly that, right, they're going to send supplies ahead to Mars, and they're the Rockets going to go land. And when the astronauts do arrive, or cosmetics or whatever, you know, then they will go to those rockets. And they will retrieve the supplies because they can't carry enough supplies. Unknown Speaker 22:23 And I agree with you. My thought is though that in addition to that we're going to need gas stations along the way, Unknown Speaker 22:28 I think you're probably correct. And Unknown Speaker 22:30 I wouldn't be surprised if that doesn't come about at some point. You know, it's interesting that you bring up Elon Musk, by the way, he's a very good publicist for himself, because NASA had NASA, Lockheed Martin, and actually vertically landed a rocket like five years before that, but they didn't do a press release. At any rate, aside from that, there is something that people should know, you know, the Freedom of Information Act, which allows us to have access to all the information that the government has, unless it's like national security, some special special stuff, and then it just gets a date on it when it'll get released. Right. That doesn't apply to private companies that we do that the government does business with. So any information that is held in by SpaceX trade secret, basically is that is not something that falls under the preview of the Freedom of Information Act. So hypothetically, they go to the moon, they find little green men, if Elon Musk's guys find it, we don't get to know if the United States government agency finds it, then we have to tell Unknown Speaker 23:34 That's very interesting. I never thought about that last but I if one word conspiracy theorists, they would say that by using private companies, it gives a layer of protection. Unknown Speaker 23:42 Well, it avoids the whole Freedom of Information Act thing. It's certainly like offshore banking. Right. You know, and I find that very curious that that is going on, to the extent that it is, I think it's a good thing, because anytime you get capitalism involved in it, anything and you you put in it, that there's some sort of monetary incentive that there's incentive pay, if you write for what you're getting done, all of a sudden, it's a huge multiplier, and a multiplier that the government can't usually provide very well. Right. Even if they decide to provide it, they don't seem to do right. But so, um, any more thoughts on this? Or Unknown Speaker 24:23 how I think I think, you know, there's probably a lot of discussion to have, I think it's, it's exciting to me to think that, you know, in my children's lifetime, in the very near lifetime, assuming the 2024 day, they're going to get to see someone land on the moon that, you know, they'll have that to talk about, and I think I'm excited to see how that translates to your point into into moving farther on, whether it's to move out to the next way station along the way that gets us to Mars, or I think, you know, and I think that's sort of just exciting in our time, that's going to be the next bastion of exploration. Well, Unknown Speaker 24:53 the whole idea that humanity needs to become a multi planet species. Is, is like, it's difficult, because just like back in the in the 70s, and late 60s, when this was going on with Apollo, there were a lot of people who thought it was a bad idea, because they want it to have those same funds utilized for things at home. Yeah, there was an interview that I was watching the other day from back then that somebody said, well, instead of going to the moon, why don't we you know, clean up New York, why don't we make it easier for people to get fed here? So there is this this innate desire in humanity to want to explore that, you know, what's around the corner, you know, what's what's over the hill, it's, it's, it's just in our nature. And it costs money Unknown Speaker 25:44 aside, no use for it. So my wife sent me a text yesterday with a link to an article. There's an island. That's very, it's in the Pacific. And it's it's so isolated, that at most given times the people on the International Space Station are closer to them than anyone on Earth. Well, and, and but the point being that, that that isolation is is the hardest part of all of this, right? That's the that's the hardest part of space travel is sure, you know, yeah. Let's lock the three of us in a room and, you know, see how long we can stand each other before someone goes crazy. Unknown Speaker 26:17 I don't have any problem with that, because I've gotten years where no one was willing to speak to, you know, so I'm sure that I would be able to handle it. Whether or not I would get any of the mission right or not. That's a whole nother thing. Right? Probably not probably why they wouldn't be speaking to me it would Unknown Speaker 26:30 you go Let me ask you that question. Where's the near? Where would I go? Somebody called you up and said, West, Unknown Speaker 26:33 there's a spot. This is a one way trip, though. Yeah. What one way? I don't know. I have to give it some serious consideration. Let me think about that. As as we're we're going to move to our next segment. But before we do, we're going to leave you with a few words from my favorite housewife from New York. Bethenny Frankel. She's also a guest on Shark Tank as one of the sharks from time to time. Let's hear what Bethany has to say about whatever she wants to say. Unknown Speaker 27:07 Hi, Wes, congratulations, I hear you won first place in the New York Book Festival for your new book, big things have small beginnings, which is the truest thing I've heard all day. It focuses on being the catalyst delivering success. I'm all about it. Congratulations on making the Wall Street Journal, best sellers list. That's real accomplishment. Well, it's not as good of an accomplishment as getting your hair to be this wild. By doing nothing to it, hi, small say congratulations, but good for you. And big things are here for you. And you come from a place of Yes. And you are supported, you are loved. And you are going to have amazing success and good fortune and health and happiness and love and wealth in your life. So beyond the road, and look at all the signs and all roads lead to Rome. room are the big things. And wherever you are small beginning. So congrats with Unknown Speaker 28:59 Hey, Wes, Chef, wonderful here, I just want to do a really big shout of you. I'm working today selling wine beef cakes on QZ. But I have enough time to shout out for you because you have done something amazing. I love this whole idea of winning first place and the New York Book Festival. I love your new book, big things have small beginnings, which focuses on being the catalyst that delivers success. Of course, great ideas start small, but you have to really focus on them to make them happen. And I think that's a great thing. Wes, I love everything about it. And you also made the Wall Street Journal bestseller list. How cool is that? You know, hats off to West Keep up the good work, take care of my friend. Unknown Speaker 29:50 Glad you could join us. We're here with this success factor segment of the West Berry radio show. I don't want to forget to pitch my book. I gotta make sure I do that. Big have small beginnings. It's a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and I hope you'll consider picking up a copy. Well, thank you, Mr. Wonderful. And thank you, Bethany, for your kind words. Let's, we're going to focus a little bit on a different shark. Today we're going to talk about Lori Grenier, who is a really a remarkable business person. She's She's the principal in Q BC. She's also one of the sharks on Shark Tank. And she holds patents on over 100. And I'm 450 products note 120 products, I'm sorry, that she holds patents on. And she's created over 450 products that she sells through q BC and other sources. She's a true entrepreneur. And she's really someone that it's hard to. It's hard to get past her when when you start reading about her a little bit. Really a very accomplished woman. Unknown Speaker 31:04 She's very impressive. I don't know if you ever watched her on Shark Tank at all. But I mean, I she's very engaging, and interesting, and she has a different take on it. And I think you know that QVC aspect I and you know, truth be told I've never bought anything NQ Vc, but she is intriguing. I feel like maybe she does have something I need to buy? Maybe I should watch NBC, Unknown Speaker 31:22 you know, you're absolutely right. And she knows how to leverage her position. You know, we if you watch, you know, if you don't watch Shark Tank, you really should. It's a great show. And one of the things on Shark Tank when that she'll like leverage her abilities through q bc or through remarketing that maybe someone else won't have that on the show. And be able to, you know, get that little bit of an advantage sometimes and she's not. She's She's always happy to bring other other people in on a deal to Unknown Speaker 31:49 get noticed that Yeah, she's she's not use the word greedy about it. But she's more than willing to partner up with somebody who thinks the right move. Absolutely. Unknown Speaker 31:57 You know, I got a couple of quotes from her here. And I this one I really love. And I love this for a lot of reasons. First of all, I always sort of thought that I was in an optimist and I even belong to a club that's called an optimist. But she says, optimists, pessimist realist, why are you guys busy arguing about whether the glass is half full or half empty? Sincerely, I am an opportunist. She says, you know, that's, that's a heck of a way to think about it that, you know, may sound a little crass, or it may sound a little overbearing, but, you know, if you're going to make it, you have to be an opportunist, you have to be able to see opportunities and sees them. Unknown Speaker 32:38 Yeah, no, absolutely. And, you know, I think, you know, I work in sales, right? Which is there's a super, there's a piece of that that's opportunistic, right, right. You have to you have to meet somebody needs Sure. Little little saying that I always tell people, right, whether you're optimistic about glass half full, half empty, I just think that glass might need some ice. Right. And that's, that's providing something that's and I think that that's, that's some of these real successful people that you're not worried about a glass walls half or half empty, they're worried about how they fill the rest of that glass and how that benefits what they want. Unknown Speaker 33:05 And, you know, I think that's what she's she's talking about, you know, she, I think that really, perhaps, with instead of thinking about being an optimist about things, which is really positive thinking, which I really embrace, but that opportunists thing is just too critical to ignore. And what I really like about it, is that you get to see how she thinks when she does these shows. And another thing that she says is, I was fearless. I knew I would make it work. And that's the difference between successful entrepreneurs and peoples that don't get somewhere. It's the tenacity, it's the drive. You know, we used to call that stick to toughness. I don't think that's a real word. I think it's one that Alexander Haig made up, but it is it? I don't know, if I suppose tenacity is that is really the right word. Unknown Speaker 34:03 I think you're absolutely right. And I could go on a whole tangent on Alexander Haig, but I won't. That guy was he's in charge. You know, he was he was chief executive for what self proclaimed, when we walk out of here later, I'm Unknown Speaker 34:14 going to be I understand the only true coup that the United States has ever had pulled on. That's Unknown Speaker 34:19 right. That's right. Now, but but really, I mean, I think I think I think you're absolutely right, though, you know, it's, it's what you see in success with these folks that all those books on success factor, and they're almost all self made, right? None of them. This is not a jab, none of them got this million dollar loan from their father, anything they their self made, guys, and gals. And but what you see in common is they have the ability to size up that situation. And they don't say it's going to work or not work. In fact, often they're like, yeah, this might work for you. I don't know that I can help you, you know, they have the ability to determine where they fit in and how that works. And sometimes you'll see him say, I, you know, Kevin, say, I can't help you. Maybe Lori can maybe she you know, I mean? Like sometimes we're and that just kind of shows their intelligence overall, right? That they, they like I can't, this isn't for me, but I think maybe she gets this. Well Unknown Speaker 35:06 guess also, at the same time, when you're talking about venture capital investing in those sort of situations. The idea isn't so much as to pick a winner, as to pick something that can win big Yes. And if you pick 10 of them, and you put 100 grand in each, it's a million dollars, but if every one of them have the potential to pay off 100 fold. They I'm talking to you, then you're talking money. And you'll see a couple of Mark Cuban who we've talked about before Mark Cuban, I'll say that some of those folks, right is, hey, you're probably worth 500,000. And you might be able to pay me back 10% a year, I don't want to I don't want the investment that's given me 10% of your I want it's given me 40 or 50, or whatever. So I'm not saying you're broken. I'm saying you don't work for me. You know, I was in a in a conversation at one time with someone who was talking to me about, well, when you were scaling your business? What percentage of growth Did you plan for each year? And I'm like, Oh, my God, this guy doesn't get it. You know, if you're starting off, like I was starting off at $60,000, and you have 100% growth every year, you're never going to get to see a million dollars in my lifetime. And an interesting point about that, is that, yes, you have to have goals. But your goals have to be lofty enough to really make things happen. Unknown Speaker 36:24 Right? Well, and I think though that's that's why private sector so important. And that's why that's why small business is so important by So look, I you know, it's no secret, I work for some I live and die by a budget, right? That's what I have to do. And so if I have to grow by 10%, my goal is to grow by 10%. It's you know, and in fact, I've worked for companies in the past where if you were growing more than that, they would say, Whoa, slow down, you're going to make this number for this year, you need to you need to save some of that for next year's number I see. Whereas words, you know, an entrepreneurial perspective for yourself. It would make a lot of sense to just Unknown Speaker 36:54 get it, get it I understand. We're going to go to a clip from Lori, that I think really helps us to to understand who she is better. Go with that clip, please. Unknown Speaker 37:05 If we just believe we have to be driven, you have to be motivated, you have to have passion. Unknown Speaker 37:14 If I have an obstacle, I go over it, I go under it. Unknown Speaker 37:19 You just don't quit waiting for Unknown Speaker 37:25 glory actually reigns over a multimillion dollar Empire. And it all started with a jewelry organizer over half a Unknown Speaker 37:31 million of these spoken for. She's one of the most prolific inventors of our time with over 120 patents to her name and has grossed over a half a billion in sales. Would you buy this? Do you like it? Would you need it? And what would you pay for it? Unknown Speaker 37:43 She's a serial entrepreneur and has kept expanding her brand. Despite the difficult economy. I can tell instantly if it's a hero, or a zero sees the warm hearted shark on the hit show shark tank and has been crowned the Queen Unknown Speaker 37:56 of QVC. The most successful Shark Tank item to date, I'll make you a millionaire within a year. Unknown Speaker 38:04 What is Lori, a shark tank, I knew she would be the right partner. Unknown Speaker 38:07 This is the best sponge in the world. And I've got to bring it to all of you at QVC. To be a good business person, you must be decisive. You could have PVC Bed, Bath and Beyond target all the different retailers. You could have your online you could go to insurance, shark do it all. We all do it but I will do it the best. I know from 17 years of experience, what's going to work on the market. Unknown Speaker 38:33 Please welcome the author of invent it, sell it back it Unknown Speaker 38:39 so much great advice. You've really Unknown Speaker 38:41 covered it all. In this book, Unknown Speaker 38:43 you learn how to do exactly what I did. You learn how to take a product from concept to creation, from marketing to manufacturing, packaging, patenting. Everything is in there step by step, Unknown Speaker 38:54 everything that Lori touches is gold went over $8 million. Unknown Speaker 39:00 Lauren has made me really busy. She's made me Unknown Speaker 39:03 pretty wealthy, such a great partner, such a great mentor. Unknown Speaker 39:05 I'm very happy to be here tonight with all of you, I love speaking to people because I can feel them getting excited, their mind spinning saying I can do it, I can do something to I'm inspired by people that love to make things happen. I'm not just business driven. I'm a true real person who has a heart. I've always felt that if you're lucky enough to be successful, you have an obligation to give back. greatness to me is achieving something that makes you happy and has a profound impact on the world. You can make anything happen in my life, there are no knows just how can I Unknown Speaker 39:48 now that somebody who you can use as a role model, I'll tell you absolutely, she's definitely the sort of person that that you can see that she has enthusiasm, and she has the drive. And she has the determination to be successful at what she does. It's amazing to me that she's been in your neighbor in your living room, in your house on TV. And we all feel as though we know her a little bit. But I think that there's an awful lot more to know about her. And one of the things that I found very, very curious was how she positions herself in the market. She's in sort of a vertical position, because she has the retail part of it, right. And she has the development of it. And she has the venture capital to create things. So she's carrying it all the way through. Lots of people that start a business are looking to sell something that's already on the market. This is a this is a person who they sell things that are in the market, but she goes out and tries to find things that people should want, will want. And then she's able to deliver that. And in many cases, she's creating it. What what a marvelous individual. And that whole vertical integration is something that a lot of people miss. It allows for scalability. And that's one of the things that Lori has accomplished is that her business model allows it to scale. Right? If you know, if you're going to mow lawns, and that's in you're going to you want to you want to build a million dollar business, you're gonna have a very hard time doing that. Because it's really not scalable to that. Right. Right. And it may pay a better living for you at that age in your life. And when you and it, you know, in a small way, but somebody who's really looking to build something scalable, has to be willing to take it on the chin for a few years. And then get it long Unknown Speaker 41:58 risk is such a big part of that right there. That old saying no one ever no one ever got rich working for someone else. And no one ever got rich without taking a risk. Right. And I think those are probably very factual statements. Right? That that's it. Although I guess the people that work for like General Motors is the CEO, they might have gotten rich. Unknown Speaker 42:14 She's kind of a machine created, though, right? That does this. She recruits she develops, she manufactures. She retails she benefits. That's, that's like, holy cow. She's got the whole thing. Unknown Speaker 42:32 Why? And I gotta tell you, I think it goes back to have you I'm sure you've done this, I've done this where I've, I thought, Hey, you know, I should, I wish there was a product that did x, whatever it is right? And you think about it, you think about it, you kind of design in your head, but then you never do anything about it. And then all of a sudden you see Unknown Speaker 42:48 it on the shelf and you go, I could have invented that. Unknown Speaker 42:50 I hear you. I hear you. We're going to go to a quick break now. And here are a few words about a few things. Unknown Speaker 43:00 Hey, business owners, you can grow your small business into something big. Everyone starts somewhere. Big things have small beginnings is the best selling ebook by business expert West Berry. Learn how to build a $60 million international business from a $60,000 flower shop. Don't ignore the little things, build something big and turn your business into a huge success. Big things have small beginnings. Unknown Speaker 43:35 A legendary golfer, used to say that it didn't bother him when he would have a bad shot because he expected to have a few bad shots every round. And every time he'd have a bad shot. He was thankful because he got the bad shot out of the way. That's the way you got to think about it and not let yourself be overwhelmed by setbacks. Unknown Speaker 44:04 optimists volunteers contribute time and money to programs that inspire and bring out the best in kids. optimist give leadership guidance and hands on involvement to activities that shape young people's eyes. optimists help form positive attitudes and kids and optimists creating opportunities for you as they develop into adulthood and become role models for future generations. optimists are doing all these things right here, right now. Unknown Speaker 44:34 Because of Shriners hospitals for children, I can play basketball. Unknown Speaker 44:49 I can write my name. That's Shriners hospitals for children. Unknown Speaker 44:53 Love is caring for a child, regardless of the family's ability to pay. If you no child, we can help visit Shriners hospitals for children.org. Unknown Speaker 45:15 Welcome back, this is the success factor. And this is Wesley Berry. I'm here with Ryan toll. And we're talking about a really a wonderful person. Lori Grenier, who is a she's on Shark Tank, she runs q BC, she's done over a half a billion dollars in sales. And I probably shouldn't go into this because it'll sound as though I'm trying to trying to pat myself on the back. But I do that pretty regularly. So I guess I shouldn't be worried about that. When I heard that, that line in there, and I researched a little bit. She was talking about things that she sold her through her own business from that through Creek, UBC, you know, over a period of time. So I went back to and I ended up how much I had done all together while I was in business. And I came up with over 750 million dollars in sales. And I never thought of pitching it that way. But I must say that that you know, Lori, she's got it figured out. She knows how to how to package? Unknown Speaker 46:17 Yeah, no, I think that's smart. They might want to put that on the front of your book. Yeah, maybe this next? Unknown Speaker 46:24 Throw it on there. Unknown Speaker 46:25 Yeah, I hadn't thought about that one until I read that. So you need to pay your own way in the world. That's a line that she likes to use frequently. And I that's, that sounds simple and sounds True enough. But it's not always easy. If you want to really have the opportunity to enjoy success and to succeed, you really do need to understand what that means. And that means you either be need to be in a business, that you're able to develop your own book of business, so to speak, or your own relationships, and that you're going to be rewarded for those relationships and for maintaining them. Or you need to be going out there and starting your own business. You said it earlier. You may you may get well off, but you it's really hard to get rich working for someone else. Right. And that's that's a key thing to understand. true that there used to be those that saying it was it was actually about Michael Jordan, right. Michael Jordan's rich, but the guy who signs Michael Jordan's check is wealthy. Right? I mean, that's the best difference. Right? Exactly. Exactly. It she's, she's got it under control, and she's got it going on. One of the other things that she likes to say is, the big thing for me is, I never think about myself as a female in business. I'm a person in business. You know, I hate to say this, but you know, society has, for a long time brought women up to believe that that they were not necessarily the the one we're going out there making the biggest difference, you know, and and that's not right. And she's not letting that hinder her. In other words, she's not making excuses. Because that's all it would be for what she's able to do or not able to do. Yeah, you know, it's like the guy who says, Oh, you know, I can't do that. I don't I don't have a college degree. Well, you know what? That's just an excuse, right? Get started, you know, if you're not going to get started, then you're definitely not going to be able to do it. Right. But if you get started, at least you have a chance. I mean, what the heck, Unknown Speaker 48:31 yeah, yeah, you're never you're never going to get to an outcome. If you don't, if you don't start? Unknown Speaker 48:34 Well, for sure. But that's a real big problem. You know, I I like to say that fear has prevented more success than failure has. And, you know, when you think about that, you think about just like you were talking about earlier, about, you have an idea about a product, you know, or something that you would wish you had. And then the next thing, you know, it comes out, it actually happens, sometimes things are different, at the same time in different areas. And that's simultaneous discovery. And that's when society's needs and the components that exist, are in play at the same time, and someone recognizes that opportunity idea. So they recognize that and it can be two different companies and different parts of the country, or they can be across the street from each other. And they come to a realization that, you know, we need a better mousetrap. And they start working on it. And and then they look at the technology that's available to build a better mousetrap, right. And the technology that's out there from which they draw on may lead them to almost the same type of conclusion. And that's it simultaneous discovery, right. And you and I had a discussion before, Unknown Speaker 49:45 off air, just you know, in their personal life, but one of the you were you were giving some advice to somebody, but one of the things you said was, Hey, you know, if you want to become a millionaire, then you should probably hang out with people are millionaires, because that's their they're emulating them is going to get you there. If you want to be a millionaire, but you choose to hang out with a bunch of people that are hanging out at a bar, you're going to end up being the guy that hangs out at the bar, not a millionaire. Unknown Speaker 50:03 There's a lot of people who who have said it in different ways that you're a reflection of the five closest friends, or this or that or whatever it is, but I'll take it a step further. Absolutely, it if you want to succeed, you need to hang around people who know how to succeed. But you don't have to hang around them physically. Just if you are willing to make a leap and say, all right, I need a mentor. To get where I need to be. Okay, I'm going to read about a mentor. And you know that when you read a book about somebody, or about what they did, you can relate to them, you start thinking about how they did things, you know, when you read a book about Howard Hughes, right. And you understand a little bit about how he was thinking and why he was doing what he was doing in order to accomplish things. And reading Lori's book, I think would be a great idea. And especially for anyone who give it to someone who's been making excuses. Give it to someone who's been making excuses. If you don't need the book yourself, give it to someone who's been making excuses for not being there. You know, entrepreneurship is the way we take control of our lives in a tough economy. That that's Laurie Laurie talking there. That's how she thinks. And you know what, there are times in a tough economy where you can grow a business faster. Okay, I have a I know a guy who was a congressman. And during the tough economy, his his business pivoted to foreclosures. He made a fortune in foreclosures. He was only he only did okay as an attorney before that, right. And then when he you know, then all of a sudden he was he was a, you know, a jackpot winner, right? So you've got to be willing to look at those opportunities. We're going to go to a quick segment here with just a couple of little little spots about once about an optimist. Unknown Speaker 51:57 optimists volunteers contribute time money to programs that inspire and bring out the best in kids. optimist give leadership guidance and hands on involvement to activities that shape young people's eyes. optimists help form positive attitudes and kids. And optimists create opportunities for youth as they develop into adulthood and become role models for future generations. optimists are doing all these things right here, right now. Unknown Speaker 52:30 This is Brad Paisley, how does it good more become a good man. same ole believes that it takes good friends, good activities and good role models. The Malaya is the only nonprofit youth organization where young men decide on the activities planned them and carry them out. But it takes adult volunteers to be the role models that steer them in the right direction. a celebrity isn't necessarily a role model, role model is a caring concerned adult like you to learn more, call one 800 DMOLAY or visit them on the web at DM live.org. Unknown Speaker 53:13 Welcome back. I'm glad that you're still with us. And we've only got a couple minutes left. Ryan, any thoughts about Lori or about? You know about her her expertise or anything? No, Unknown Speaker 53:24 I think you know, I was thinking about the number of patents she said she had 120 and I think the average cost to get a patent is like $10,000 probably so I mean just she's got you know, millions of dollars in patents, you know, they weren't making money now. It happens that they are yeah, oh yeah. Unknown Speaker 53:39 I wear jewelry box before though that the whole photo ID I didn't see it until you watch the video. But I seen that places before. You know, I hate to do this. But I think the same that should go with this. When you talk about this. She started with that. Just making a jewelry box. And then she created to BC, is that big things have small beginnings. I don't know. But I think it would be a great named for a book if somebody wanted to write a book. But she started she actually went in the garage and built that first jewelry box prototype herself, she used her dad's workshop, woodworking shop and created it. And she created it, it's it was it's a sort of a different kind of jewelry box it it has a lot of different holding mechanisms that you wouldn't ordinarily have. And it was just her putting her creative thoughts into it and developing it so that it would would be able to satisfy those sort of needs, right. And she sold a boatload of them right out of the shoot. So you don't have to have some big venture capital guy or some big investment or whatever to write your business go. She went out in the garage took a piece of hardwood and started bits fit fiddling with it till she made what she wanted to make. Unknown Speaker 54:53 Yeah, I have a buddy who built a pole a solar pool heater. Just he had an idea and he went and kept the hardware store and kept by in parts and and it's your his patented now and he sells it and Walmart's buying and whatever. But through exactly that same. He just decided off of off of picking up a garden hose that was given up some hot water. We've all done that. Right? He went Hey, how do I harness this? Instead of paying $1,000 a month? You're cool. Unknown Speaker 55:16 Hey, but that's what you know, the difference between your friend and most people is they had that idea, but then they don't do anything. Right. Right. You know, there's an old expression that I always love. And and I i Reese restated in a little bit more friendly way. But that is that Unknown Speaker 55:40 a good idea? Unknown Speaker 55:42 poorly executed is a failure. Yeah. Unknown Speaker 55:46 But a, an average idea. well executed is a success. And what does that mean? It means that it's more about the doing even than the idea. I honestly believe there's no bad ideas. It's the execution. That's the blame. Somebody told me once Unknown Speaker 56:03 well done is better than Well said. Unknown Speaker 56:05 Right? Absolutely. We're going to go to one last clip as we close out the show. And this is from a good friend of mine. His he's a pawnbroker. His name is less gold from hardcore pawn. And when your name is less gold, I guess you belong in the pawn business. You know, I mean, it's like a birthright. Let's go to that clip as we leave today, and I hope to hear from you and see you next week. Unknown Speaker 56:31 They watch this is let's go from hardcore pawn, and American Jewelry and Loan, giving you a big shout out all the way from Detroit. You know, I know it's not easy writing a book. As a matter of fact, I wrote a book for what it's worth, business wisdom from a pawnbroker A few years ago, which I was fortunate enough to make the New York Times bestseller list. And I want to congratulate you and winning first place in the New York Book Festival for your new book. You know, it's not easy doing a book like I said, so I give you a lot of accolades and wish you the best of luck in the future. You know, and also our Transcribed by https://otter.ai
Grypmat is a Veteran-founded company founded by former Air Force F-16 Mechanic, Tom Burden. Grypmat premiered on Season 9 of SharkTank when Burden landed a combo deal with Mark Cuban, Lori Grenier, and Richard Branson. Grypmat has since been named as a TIME 50 Best Inventions of 2018 and has received other awards such as the Edison award and a Core77 Design award. https://www.grypmat.com/ https://www.fsifulfillment.com https://www.tiffanykrumins.com/
Join Pierce as he interviews Grypmat Founder Tom Burden who appeared on Shark Tank Season Episode 10 and struck a deal with Sir Richard Branson, Mark Cuban and Lori Grenier. Go to Grypmat.com to get one of your own.
Crack open a cold one and listen in with El Rubio, El Moreno and El Chuckarino as we recap, reflect and answer questions about our incredible run to Shark Tank on this podcast. You’ll hear about: - Thinking we were cooked at the Shark Tank Open Casting - Our pitch, and how the edit was different from real life - The drycleaner incident and our biggest fear - Lori Grenier’s recommendations and Daymond John’s sudden exit - Robert Herjavec’s “man bun” - Why we were ready for Kevin O’Leary’s offer - Our valuation strategy and negotiations with Mark Cuban - And getting JUICED UP for walking down that hallway. Get behind the scenes with your boys in this action packed episode. It’s the The Longhairs on Shark Tank podcast. LISTEN UP
StartUps compete in pitch competitions across the globe. In the US, there is a Pitch Competition like no other- the reality show / pitch competition phenomenon that is SHARK TANK. We were fortunate enough to reach out to a BIG winner, just at the right time. Tom Burden is an engineer, mechanic, inventor, dreamer and visionary. The inventor of GRYPMAT, and one of the best-prepared presenters in the history of the show, Tom's presentation caught my attention , and I decided to reach out to him. he graciously agreed to be interviewed, and we are the true beneficiaries. Learn about his focus, routine, meditation practice, and how long it took him to win a spot on the show, and then... a DEAL with Sir Richard Branson, Lori Grenier, and Marc Cuban.
The Top Entrepreneurs in Money, Marketing, Business and Life
Tracy Hazzard, CEO of Hazz Design. Tracy is the co-designer of over 250 products, generating over $1 billion at retail. She also co-hosts the WTFFF?! Podcast, and writes for Inc magazine. Listen as Nathan and Tracy talk about her wildly successful design business, the ins and outs of starting a podcast, and just how the profits from an office chair are broken down. Famous 5Favorite Book? – Rembrandts in the AtticWhat CEO do you follow? — Ken CourtrightWhat is your favorite online tool?— Get PocketDo you get 8 hours of sleep?— Absolutely not! I got two copies of Thrive for ChristmasIf you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?— Recognise the power of not having to do everything yourself. Team up with experts. Time Stamped Show Notes:01:00 – Nathan’s introduction01:44 – Welcoming Tracy to the show01:46 – What came first?02:00 – Tracy worked for two of the world’s largest design companies from ‘9202.50 – Having a great CV helped her to strike out on her own03:20 – Won an IP battle... but lost money03:58 – Created Hazz Design as a design consulting business04:45 – Tracy has helped launch over 253 retail products04:50 – Those products generated $758,457,260 of client sales04:55 – Tracy and her team have racked up over 98,688 design hours05.30 – ‘Platinum record’ product is the Metrex office chair at Costco06.00 – Received a royalty of 2-3% on chair sales06:30 – Charge a monthly retainer to a client - $10-20,000 per month08:30 – Breaking down the Metrex chair, which retails for around $9908:55 – Chair costs: $50 to build; $10 to transport; $2 design royalty; $8 sales royalty 09:56 – From Costco’s perspective: profit per chair around $29 gross 11:22 – Metrex sales from 2010 to date - around 1 million units; $1 million profit12:20 – Their business model: fees cover costs; royalties on a product line generate profits13:16 – “Ghost design” - why Tracy designs for known brands14:00 – 86% of their designs have sold successfully in the last 10 years14:55 – Tracy and her husband run the business together15.15 – Total 2015 revenue: $500,00015:30 – Currently investing in brand building: WTFFF?! is a podcast on 3D printing16:24 – 30,000 total downloads per month16:40 – Costs around $200 per episode to produce17:40 – Landed first sponsor for $4,000 per month20:40 – Just started writing for Inc in January - recent article hit 15,000 views23:50 – Famous Five 3 Key Points:You don’t have to do everything yourself. Team up with consultants, experts and mentors to be more effective.Invest in brand building by educating people about your area of expertise.Working for a recognised company gives you a pedigree and contacts to strike out on your own. Resources Mentioned:Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts. Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books. Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives The Top is FOR YOU if you are: A STUDENT who wants to become the CEO of a $10m company in under 24 months (episode #4) STUCK in the CORPORATE grind and looking to create a $10k/mo side business so you can quit (episode #7) An influencer or BLOGGER who wants to make $27k/mo in monthly RECURRING revenue to have the life you want and full CONTROL (episode #1) The Software as a Service (SaaS) entrepreneur who wants to grow to a $100m+ valuation (episode #14). Your host, Nathan Latka is a 25 year old software entrepreneur who has driven over $4.5 million in revenue and built a 25 person team as he dropped out of school, raised $2.5million from a Forbes Billionaire, and attracted over 10,000 paying customers from 160+ different countries. Oprah gets 60 minutes or more to make her guests comfortable to then ask tough questions. Nathan does it all in less than 15 minutes in this daily podcast that's like an audio version of Pat Flynn's monthly income report. Join the Top Tribe at http://NathanLatka.com/TheTop
Bobby Edwards just wanted to help his mom poop. Having discovered the extensive benefits of squatting to poop, he set out to create "the stool for better stool". It wasn't until a barrage of awkward Christmas gifts resulted is raving enthusiasm that he truly realized the potential of his poop platform... or as it's famously known today — Squatty Potty. Brilliant in it's simplicity, much like the product itself, Bobby's initial marketing strategy was to find bloggers in the health space and send them a Squatty Potty. That led to a phone call from The Doctors and later an endorsement from Howard Stern. Bobby eventually took the business to Shark Tank and landed a deal with Lori Grenier who got them prime placement in Ben, Bath, & Beyond. All of that... and they still only had 1.2M customers. Working with The Harmon Brothers, the marketers behind the viral success of Poo Pourri, the Squatty Potty team produced a three minute promo video titled "This Unicorn Changed The Way I Poop" and drove over 48M views (between Youtube and Facebook) and was submitted to Reddit 42 times within the first 50 days it existed. Bobby shares the details about the creative process and how this viral video catapulted their sales. Create social leverage with the Ghost Influence community.Music: 'Contact - Somewhere (LIONBLOOD Remix)'
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes are back to for the Season Five, Episode Six. Lori Grenier and Damon John are back with Kevin, Mark and Robert where they review “Fiber Fix”, “Elephant Chat”, “Ten Thirty One Productions” , “Total Merchant Resources” and an update on “Shell Bobber”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes are back to for the Season Five, Episode Four. Lori Grenier and Barbara Corcoran are back with Kevin, Mark and Robert where they review “RuffleButts”, “Bare Ease”, “Rent A Goat” , “Veggie Mama” and an update on “Nardo's Natural”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes are back to for the Season Five, Episode Four. Lori Grenier and Damon John are back with Kevin, Mark and Robert where they review “Sunday Night Slow Jams”, “Hamboards”, “Scan” , “Screenmend” and an update on “Mission Belt Company”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes are back to for the Season Five, Episode Two. Lori Grenier and Barbara Corcoran are back with Kevin, Mark and Robert where they review “Fairytale Wishes”, “Freeloader”, “Kookn' Kap” , “Rapid Ramen” and an update on “Echo Valley Meats”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes are back to for the Season Five, Episode Two. Lori Grenier and Damon John are back with Kevin, Mark and Robert where they review “Mango, Mango, Mango Preserves”, “Breathometer”, “Man Medals” , “Kane and Couture” and an update on “Simple Sugars”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes are back to recap Episode 21 of Season 4. Lori Grenier is back with Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review “Liddup”, “Echo Valley Meats”, “RootSuit”, “Gobie H2O” and an update on “The Coop”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes are back to recap Episode 19 of Season 4. Lori Grenier is back with Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review “Baby Loves Disco”, “Lose 12 Inches in Any 12 Workouts”, “Cell Helmet”, “Cordaroys” and an update on “The Painted Pretzel”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Steve Hayes is back with Pierce Marrs to recap Episode 17 of Season 4. Lori Grenier is back with Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review “Addison's Wonderland”, “Muddy Water Camo”, “Hip Chix”, “Proof” and an update on “Liquid Money”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes recap Episode 13 of Season 4. Lori Grenier is back with Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review “Coffee Joulies”, “Teddy Needs a Bath”, “Sub Zero Ice Cream”, “Urbio” and an update on “Litter”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs is joined by a special co-host, his son and entrepreneur Nick Marrs as they recap Episode 14 of Season 4. Lori Grenier is back with Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review “The GameFace Company”, “Arkeg”, “Dura-Tent”, “Hot Tot Haircare” and an update on “Wild Squirrel Nut Butter”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Click here to subscribe to the podcast in iTunes. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes recap Epis0de 8 of Season 4. Lori Grenier is back with Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review “Cool Wazoo”, “No Fly Cone”, “Plate Topper” and an update on “Duality NailPak”. Tune in Friday's at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes recap Epis0de 7 of Season 4. Lori Grenier is back with Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review “Scrub Daddy”, “The Bear and the Rat”, “SBU”, “Shemie” and an update on “Lollacup”. Tune in Friday November 2nd at 9:00 PM Eastern/8:00 PM Central at The Shark Tank's new time on ABC. Also, CLICK HERE to Like Us on Facebook.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes recap the fifth episode of Season 4. Lori Grenier is back with Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review “Cozybug.”, “Wired Waffles”, “Spatty”, “Marz Sprays” and an update on “Games2U”.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes recap the third episode of Season 4. Lori Grenier is back with Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review “Back 9 Dips.”, “Lifter Hamper”, “Bagbowl”, “Zomm” and an update on “Villy Customs”.
Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes recap the episode that aired April 12th, 2012. Guest Shark, Lori Grenier from QVC joins Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review the “Duality Cosmetics Nailpak”, “Debbie Brooks Handbags”, “TriMi Tank”, “Lollacup”and an Update on “Talbott Teas”. You can contact Pierce and Steve or comment on the show at MarrsCoaching.com. Call and leave a question or audio feedback at 615-59-COACH or 615-592-6224. If you have a business you would like to pitch to the sharks, ABC is casting for Season 4. Click here to see the details.
Shark Tank Fan Podcast, Season 3 Episode 6. Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes recap the episode that aired February 24th, 2012. Guest Shark, Lori Grenier from QVC joins Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review the “Five Minute Furniture”, “The Painted Pretzel”, “ESSO Watches”, “Readerest”and an Update on “Man Candles”.
Shark Tank Fan Podcast, Season 3 Episode 4. Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes recap the episode that aired February 10th, 2012. Guest Shark, Lori Grenier from QVC joins Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review the “The Swilt”, “Sho No”, “Puppy Cakes”, “Wine Balloon”and an Update on “Notehall”.
Shark Tank Fan Podcast, Season 3 Episode 3. Pierce Marrs and Steve Hayes recap the episode that aired February 17th, 2012. Lori Grenier from QVC joins Kevin, Damon, Mark and Robert where they review the “Last Lid”, “Ledge Pillow”, “Talbott Teas”, and “3M Girl Designs” and an Update on “Lightfilm. You can contact Pierce and Steve or comment on the show at MarrsCoaching.com. Call and leave a question or audio feedback at 615-59-COACH or 615-592-6224.
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