Podcast appearances and mentions of matt just

An episode that schools you. Hello, I am a listener of your podcast and an undiagnosed autistic. My 12 year old daughter is a diagnosed autistic who has had some traumatic experiences in the educational system since they use the medical model of autism. She is very likely twice exceptional (our school has no gifted program to offer her), but she thinks that her brain is broken because so many things are hard. She probably also has social anxiety. I am writing to ask if you and Angela would consider doing a short podcast episode aimed at teens and tweens about the wonderful ways their brains work, what autistic culture is, why it is so hard to fit into mainstream culture/school, how to make it a little better now, and how it can become SO much better later, especially once you find friends who you click with. She feels pretty hopeless at the moment, and does not have any friends to rely on yet. Thank you for reading.- Autistic Culture ListenerHere's what's in store for today's episode: * In today's episode, Matt and Angela explore a fan-suggested topic: autism culture for teens and tweens. They discuss ways to support an autistic teen who might be facing challenges at school and struggling to fit in.* The education system can feel like a nightmare for autistic youth, often prioritizing conformity and uniformity over individuality.* Our hosts discuss the challenges of transitioning between subjects in school while also navigating the complexities of an unspoken social hierarchy.* Neurotypicals often view autism as a one-dimensional disability, focusing solely on the challenges while overlooking the strengths and positive aspects that come with it. They tend to ignore the creativity, unique perspectives, and valuable contributions autistic individuals bring to the table.* Neurotypicals often follow the lead of a dominant figure, so if middle school girls crown Julie from second period as the queen bee, she effectively dictates who's cool or uncool, what to wear, and the entire social hierarchy—creating a challenging environment for autistic individuals to navigate.* Young autistic children often view adults as equals and believe respect means treating everyone equally. However, someone like Julie expects to be treated as a leader or boss, not an equal—creating conflicts within the neurotypical social hierarchy.* Autistic young boys are often given more freedom to be eccentric, while autistic girls are expected to blend in and keep the peace, conforming to societal expectations.* As a child, you have less control over your environment—things like your school schedule or what's packed in your lunch are often out of your hands. This lack of control can easily lead to dysregulation.* We discuss masking in middle and high school, and how approaching it like a Jane Goodall-esque cultural research experiment—observing neurotypicals as if they were a different species—can be a helpful strategy.* We talk about finding ways to accommodate your body while at school, even if it doesn't look or function the same as everyone else's.* To all the neurodivergent and autistic kids out there: You've got to push through this, because adulthood gets better. Find the weirdos, your people, in school—because they're out there, and they'll make all the difference.* Self-discovery is crucial as a young person, as it lays the foundation for living as a healthy, authentic autistic adult.* We don't change the world by being average—we change it by being ourselves. We owe it to the people who challenged the system, the weirdos of the world, to do the same.“This is why neurotypicals can't understand autism - because they say, ‘well, I met an autistic person once and you don't look like them.' No, because every autistic person is wired differently. The commonality is just that we have lightning brains that are hyper-connected. And this is the reason why there's a very, very high overlap between autism and giftedness because of the hyper-connected brain.” - Angela“If you're a kid who spends your lunch period hanging out in the library talking with the school librarian, you're a bottom-up processor. If you hang out talking to the janitor, you're a bottom-up processor. If you go to the teacher and say, ‘Hello, I brought my stack of Pokemon cards because you mentioned that you were in to Pokemon cards in the 90's, you're a bottom-up processor.” - Matt “That's the difference between masking to be a good girl and fit in and this is how you're going to act by practicing this, it's going to come naturally to you. No, it's not. But if you mask to get through the class and you're doing it from that Jane Goodall perspective of like, this is a research project, you can preserve a little bit of your sanity.” - Angela “I don't understand the concept of high school reunions because the people that I want to see, I stayed in contact with the entire time. I'm not going back to say, ‘yes, I'm 45 and I knew you people when I was 17 and 18. I've lived literally an entire life since then. It's like going back to the 1800's and being reincarnated and saying, ‘yes, the butter churning sure was an excellent time, was it not?'” - Matt“You're going to attract the boring people. You're going to be put in situations that compromise your integrity. You're going to be put in situations that make you compromise your morals. The more you compromise yourself, the more dangerous the world becomes. You need to find the people who will support and love the real you. And if you have to do this under the radar, then by all means do it. But be aware that you do have the cape. You must wear it underneath the costume.” - Matt“Just because they're in the majority, doesn't mean that they shape the world. You are in a better position to make the world a better place just by having existed in it. You are going to be memorable. The average people are not going to be memorable.” - MattIn this episode, we dive into the challenges and nuances of autism culture for teens and tweens. From navigating school transitions and unspoken social hierarchies to finding ways to fit in while staying true to themselves, we discuss how to support autistic teens through these pivotal years. Thanks for tuning in! Share your thoughts in the comments and join the conversation using #AutisticCultureCatch on social media. What resonated with you in this discussion? Let us know!Show Notes:Galaxy High - Ep 1 Welcome to Galaxy High - 1986 CartoonYouTube · DRamos520 Mixed Music & Video24 Mar 2023The Muppets (2011 film)Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › The_Muppets_(2011_...Related Shows:Apple is AutisticGeorge Lucas is AutisticReady for a paradigm shift that empowers Autistics? Help spread the news!Follow us on InstagramFind us on Apple Podcasts and SpotifyLearn more about Matt at Matt Lowry, LPPJoin Matt's Autistic Connections Facebook GroupLearn more about Angela at AngelaKingdon.com Angela's social media: Twitter and TikTokOur Autism-affirming merch shop This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.autisticculturepodcast.com/subscribe

Join Matt and Eric as they say goodbye to Dell. At the same time they meet with Matt Just to talk about Aria Operations for Networks 6.11.

Australia's Strictest School Dress Codes. Matt JUST missed out.  The OTHER tattoo guy. If you've got something to add to the show, slide into our dm's @Matt.and.AlexSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

As designers or developers — even product makers — when WordPress is your hammer, everything looks like a nail. WordPress is certainly in an inflection point. Where as the software is evolving, read: gutenberg + fullsite editing, the community of users grapple with what WordPress really is. I feel like that's a statement which has lingered in the air for a few years now. When you unlock it's power of custom post types and fields with a dash of REST API magic, the CMS can become a neural network for your data. Yet with an interface that I struggle to drag a single block into the 3 column of my page layout. Today's guest has mastered the teachings of WordPress, specifically with Elementor for his students over the last few years but that usability struggle I mentioned earlier? Yeah…that's caused him to pivot his teachings to a hosted platform you may have heard of before on the show before — Webflow. Welcome today's guest Dave Foye, as he unpacks the challenges of not only learning a new CMS, but the challenges of designing a curriculum for new students seeking to become proficient in it. Episode transcript [00:00:00] Dave: switching tools is, is not for the faint-hearted, it's quite an expensive process, isn't it? In terms of well sunk cost in terms of what you've already. [00:00:08] Put into the amount of time and energy that you've put into learning tools that you've previously used. I also had have still, a multiple six figure a year business teaching WordPress teaching, very specific tools, WordPress and elements are, that combination elements or page builder. [00:00:25] Matt: This episode of the Matt report is brought to you by foo plug-ins or specifically foo plugins, foo gallery. You can find it@foo.gallery. There's a new pro commerce plan, and it gives you two way integration into WooCommerce. So if you want to sell photos, you can sell photos with foo.gallery and woo commerce. [00:00:47] It makes your job. Super easy, especially if you're a photographer. I just had family photos taken the other day and I looked at the big conglomerate website that my photographer sent me. He said, man, it would look so much better if you. Right through WooCommerce, especially if you use something like foo gallery, check out food, art gallery, and learn more about their pro commerce plan. [00:01:09] Check out their WooCommerce integration. They have a great way to watermark and protect your photo galleries. Check them out and thank them for sponsoring the show. It's food, art gallery go-to food art gallery today. Start selling images with foo gallery and. [00:01:27] As designers or developers, even product makers when WordPress is your hammer, everything looks like a nail. WordPress is certainly in an inflection point right now. Whereas the software is evolving Reed Gutenberg in full site, editing the community of users grapple with what WordPress really is. I feel like that's a statement which has lingered in the air for a few years. [00:01:50] When you unlock its power custom post types and fields with a dash of rest API magic, the CMS can become a neural network for your data yet with an interface that I struggle to drag and drop a single block into a third column of my page layout today's guest has mastered the teachings of WordPress specifically with Elementor for his students over the last few years. [00:02:12] But the usability struggle that I just met. Yeah, that's caused him to pivot his teachings to a hosted platform. You may have heard of before on the show web. Welcome today's guest Dave Foye, as he unpacks the challenges of not only learning a new CMS, but the challenges of devising a curriculum for new students seeking to become proficient in it. [00:02:34] You're listening to the Mer report, a podcast for the resilient digital business builder. If you'd like to support the show, please visit buy me a coffee.com/matt report. And buy me a digital coffee or joined the membership to jump into our private discord server with others. Chatting it up about the. [00:02:48] And greatest in our crazy WordPress world, that's buy me a coffee.com/maryport. And thanks to Fu plug-ins for supporting today's show. Check out food gallery food art gallery for more. Okay. [00:03:00] Here's my interview with Dave.  [00:03:01] Dave: I had a lot of resistance, a lot of inner resistance to partly because, switching tools is, is not for the faint-hearted, it's quite an expensive process, isn't it? In terms of well sunk cost in terms of what you've already. [00:03:15] Put into the amount of time and energy that you've put into learning tools that you've previously used. But I mean, I also had have still, but, I had at the time, like a multiple six figure a year business teaching WordPress teaching, very specific tools, WordPress and elements are, that combination elements or page builder. [00:03:35] And so it, it really was kind of. It, it, it was, it was a real kind of crunch time for me for thinking that I have got to the point where I cannot use these tools anymore. I'm finding that I actually I'm finding that. I'll talk about the details in a moment, but I can't in all conscience recommend this particular combination of tools that I am well-known for and, very well paid for I can't carry on. [00:04:05] So, believe me, it was quite a, quite a risk. I think I remember one of my students say, and I've mentioned it's something in, in the, in the little private Facebook group that I've got for one of my courses. And he just said career suicide. Nice. So, [00:04:23] Matt: for thanks for the vote of confidence. [00:04:25] Dave: Awesome. I mean, it, it probably had a point, you probably had a point  [00:04:29] Matt: What was that? Oh, just real quick. What was that concern for you to say? You know what, I don't feel like I can recommend these tools anymore. Was it more a, an ELA mentor thing? Was it more a WordPress thing? I mean, we're in this chaotic times where it's like, Gutenberg is still trying to get better full site editing's coming in. [00:04:48] You layer on the complexity of a piece of software that wants you to build a website a certain way? Are we just hitting a perfect storm here? Or was there something specific? [00:04:57] Dave: Yeah, possibly. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I had got to the point where I started, well, I've, I've been using WordPress since 2007, something like that, so for my own personal projects and my own client projects, I'd use WordPress for, for a good long time. It was when I actually decided to teach online. I long story, I think we've covered this plenty of times before, but for 10 years I was actually a school teacher. [00:05:23] I'm a, I am a qualified teacher, so I was a qualified teacher, teaching young children in the, in the UK. Like in the nineties and early two thousands. And I then got into web design and build up a great business, but it just decided that I just miss teaching so much. So for me, around 2016 ish, I decided I actually want to get back into teaching, but I want to teach the thing that I've been, I've been working with the web design tools that I'll be working with for, for, for many years, what, what a perfect combination. [00:05:54] So, I did a lot of research, long story, but I'd discovered elements or which was [00:06:00] just in its earliest stages at the time. And thought this combination of tools is brilliant for, for my target market. My target market is always non coders. People who don't want to code and probably feel a bit nervous about the prospect of. [00:06:14] Th they, they want to build websites, but web design technology, web design tools, web development, isn't something that is natural to them. It's not something that they are completely off-air with. And. So I always see my job as taking people who look at all this stuff and think, oh, wow, this is so complicated. [00:06:35] And possibly quite scary. It's my job to say, it's all fine. Just do this, this and this. And it all works out. So in a sense, I'd particularly chosen WordPress and elements or that particular combination, because it just seemed right for my target. Now over the gears, elements or has added on features and features and features WordPress itself, as you say, is changing dramatically. [00:07:02] I think ultimately that will be for the good of WordPress. Definitely. I know a lot of people complain about Gothenburg, but I think it is getting there, but it got to the point where I started to think would I in, in, in all kind of conscience, I suppose, would I, conscious now. Recommend to somebody who once frost-free hassle-free stress-free web design experience, where basically stuff just works. [00:07:30] All of the scary kind of hustle behind the scenes all the kind of configuration, all the. The, the stuff that people complain about WordPress, which is actually a strength at the same time, which is it's plugin plugin system, plugin architecture, but I'd got to the point where, for my own use of WordPress, but also just being sensitive to the needs of my students and the needs of the people who I work with day in, day out to help with this stuff. [00:08:01] I just saw massive frustration. Massive massive frustration with constant plugin updates, constant issues with plugins. It's not new in WordPress at all, obviously, but you know, updating plugins to find that something's broken, there's a conflict with something else, finding websites that now this is, I think, quite a bit of elemental issue cause they do, they have had a history of releasing some quite buggy releases in in more recently. [00:08:30] But you know, finding that a website that worked perfectly well, last time they logged in now, suddenly it doesn't work in, in some way there's some functionality broken or there's a, there's the layout that's suddenly off. Issues with hosting and all the RS, all manner of different things. It's kind of like that little drip, drip trip, the, the Chinese water torture, I think is called, the, the drip, drip, drip, drip of, of, of, of constant issues where I just thought there's, there's gotta be a better [00:09:00] way. [00:09:00] I know that, for instance, like I use Thinkific for my online course. And it's just all done for me. I can get on with actually creating courses, uploading the courses and teaching, there are, there are, I don't know, email marketing platforms where that the heavy lifting and the stuff that I don't need to know is done in the background so I can get on with my job. [00:09:22] And I started to think that there must be something better than this constant stress and worry and, and hustle. And maintenance and all of these other things, which is what led me to start looking at other possible or the solutions.  [00:09:39] Matt: I've seen the love, hate relationship with Gutenberg, how fast this piece of software has been iterated on. And just all the changes you couple that with ELA mentor, which is also on a rocket ship ride, they're growing, they're adding new features. They've hit a bout of turbulence, I guess is probably the nicest thing that I could say. [00:10:01] I know I've seen you and Paul on Twitter really hammering it home with element or for good reason. And they have to be conscious, I think, of element or they have the conscious of just not throwing the kitchen sink at everything for the sake of the kitchen sink.  [00:10:17] I feel like folks who are looking for a web flow solution understand that they should invest some money in a platform. That's just going to do it without the FOS updates, hosting issues. Incompatibilities with other plugins, like I will pay the, have that done on Webflow versus the WordPress side of it where it's like, man, there's so many variables that, that can be thrown at this. [00:10:46] Where are you getting that feedback from your audience?  [00:10:48] Dave: Yeah, it was it was, as I said, at the beginning, it was a very, very reluctant look looking for something else for very, very lots of, lots of reasons. I didn't want to be looking anywhere else. Yeah. Partly it was, it was my. And it was partly because of elements or boogie releases. So I got on with, for instance, I needed to build a new website for myself late last year, and they installed a new instance of WordPress and elements. [00:11:14] I was like, global colors just didn't work at all, just broken. And so, so w there were several issues like that just personally for myself, as it was like, oh, what, what is it now? There was not, and it's not just, it's not just elements or, I think. Lots and lots of other, other plugins as well, but let's, I'm probably focusing on elements are maybe a bit too much, but, but yeah, it certainly wasn't a good feeling from my audience and students by, by any means. [00:11:43] I mean, my, my group, I sort of private group was just every day there was just something of like, why isn't this working? Why is this thing broken now? Or it wasn't just necessarily as WordPress. It was like hosting as well, or. I think because. Because the, [00:12:00] because of the plugin architecture and there are plugins coming down the pipe every single day as you. [00:12:04] And I know constantly with, with new features and, potentially solving problems with SEO and page speed and everything else. So th th there were those issues with stuff just being broken and being hard. And, people struggling just to keep up with a frantic pace of change. I think that that was partly the thing, but I think also it was just, I think, yeah, just, just, I, I suppose people just I'm just trying to think of the best way to put it really. [00:12:33] Yeah, just, just gen general kind of anxiety about, about stuff being broken and stuff. Just not being easy, I think is the easiest way to put it. Yeah. [00:12:43] Matt: I want to ask you this question. This is going a little bit deeper in sort of like the creator in the, in the creator mindset, the, the business of being a creator and monetizing on, let's say YouTube and affiliate sales. It probably wasn't an easy decision to make either because one would imagine knowing what I did with affiliate sales, for elements. [00:13:06] Which was a flea on an elephant's ass, probably compared to what you and maybe others have done. It was probably a tough business decision to write, to be like, look, I'm making money. And I think you and Paul and, and, and the other folks that I communicate with on, on YouTube, you do affiliates. Right. I think of immediately when peoples think affiliates are like, oh, what are you trying to sell me? [00:13:29] What kind of cloaking device are you using on these, on these links? Like at one point in your, in your career, you're like, Elementor is a fantastic tool at this time. And they have an affiliate program. Why not recommend this and make money? It's a legit way when you're doing it a legit way. I don't have any other better way of saying that. [00:13:49] So I'd probably, at some point you were like, oh man, like I will be turning off this. Potentially of money. What was that like? And did you have, do you have any thoughts or feelings around affiliate sales and how this helps make the decision  [00:14:01] Dave: Yeah, well, I mean, affiliates, the affiliate business model was never ever my intention when I first started my thing was I'm going to sell courses and affiliate sales were have always just been a bit of a nice to have. When I first started my YouTube channel started making videos about this fairly brand new tool called elements or at the time I happened. [00:14:22] I mentioned my affiliate link. I think it just dropped it in the description. Sometimes I would, occasionally when elements I had an offer, I would let my email list know which was regrowing. My, my business model was growing my email list to sell courses in a nutshell. That's it. And it still is. Grow the email list to sell courses. [00:14:41] But thank goodness that I was an affiliate for elements or in those early days, because in the first kind of nine months of me getting to the point where I even had the confidence to make a course and to feel like I could sell it at all, we're going back to 2017 now, which seems so long [00:15:00] ago, it was only a few years, but yeah, the, the, the, the affiliate income from I was an affiliate for very, very few. [00:15:07] Elements or generate press. I don't know, maybe a hosting platform as well. Well, the income from that was better than I'd been making, working full-time as a web designer. And it absolutely saved my ass because if I hadn't have had that income I think the whole online course thing probably would have failed. [00:15:28] Now. I say that because I. Way too long to actually make a product and offer it to my, offer it to my audiences, to my MLS. So these days when I mentor and help people create products and make online courses, one of my first things is to say, is this a build. As a small and email list, as you can get away with find a hundred people and sell something, make something to sell. [00:15:55] It can be very low value, not low value, low, low price. It doesn't matter, but start making something and start selling something straight away, because it's only then that you can start getting true feedback about what people actually want, what they're prepared to pay for and where you? [00:16:11] should put your energies. [00:16:13] But yeah, the affiliate thing was, was massive, but. W my, the income of saying about, I'm not, I'm not saying it's a brag, but it's a multiple six figures a year. Business is mostly from courses. It's mostly from selling courses. I'd say 90% is from selling courses about WordPress and elemental, specifically about using those tools. [00:16:36] And yeah, to say that it's career suicide, there's the phrase, career suicide. [00:16:42] Matt: And you were, you were lucky enough to get to a point. Did you turn ads on, on your YouTube  [00:16:48] Dave: No, no, no, no. Never never had no, no, no,  [00:16:51] Matt: Just because you didn't want the experience or the user to have that experience of ads, or you were never looking at it  [00:16:59] Dave: I think, I think what I wanted to do was just to make sure. The foolishly probably, this is, this is not a savvy business head talking, but I think I just want to, just to make sure that when people watch my videos, that we're just not being interrupted by ads and, they could just actually enjoy the experience of, of watching the videos. [00:17:18] And I suspected that probably the income from that wasn't particularly going to be too great anyway. So I just always kept monitorization off for that reason. Really.  [00:17:27] Matt: My YouTube story is like, how do I get into this game? How do I create this content? And I quickly, but I don't say quickly, it took me six months to burn out, doing like three videos a week or maybe three or four videos a week. I had this ambitious goal of doing it like every day. And I just flatlined burned out. [00:17:46] I didn't literally didn't touch it for a year. And then all of a sudden. Ad sent, sent me the first check for a hundred bucks. Right. Then I logged in and it was, I had tripled my audience without uploading a video in a year, just because of SEO. [00:17:58] The light bulb went off. [00:18:00] Like you fool, you shouldn't have given up, you should have done it less. So you didn't burn yourself out, but you shouldn't have given up. And again, like life gets in the way YouTube stuff is so far away. My daily routine that I haven't uploaded episodes. And, but I still am making three or 400 bucks a month in ads. [00:18:19] And I have a lot of kids, so diapers are expensive. So I leave the ads on, but I, I, I can certainly, I can certainly see in your world where these bigger products, bigger prices, the brand, the value, there is a target for you to focus on. [00:18:34] Dave: Yeah. [00:18:35] definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I was the one that I think I wanted that sense of kind of trustworthiness. Yeah. just that experience. Really. I was not to say that people with ads, I watch, oh, I've got YouTube premium now, so I don't see any ads, but seeing ads on people's videos, I actually don't, I don't personally tie that into a decision that's made by the creator of the video at all. [00:18:55] It doesn't, I understand how it works as well, but I don't ever think, oh, they've, they've got ads turned on. They obviously don't care about my experiences as a viewer. It doesn't enter my head, so  [00:19:06] Matt: side note, I also signed up recently for premium, like late was finally one of those things where, you know, before you sign up for premium, every time you logged into YouTube, they'd be like, do premium, do premium, do premium. And I'm always like clothes, clothes, clothes. And I tell you, Dave, I am like, screw it. [00:19:23] I'm going to do it. Right. Like finally, you got me YouTube, literally a thousand pop-ups later is probably what my conversion metrics were. You finally got me and I signed up and I watched my first video with no ads. And I was like, wow,  [00:19:41] Dave: Yeah, well, consider the side.  [00:19:43] Matt: brain, because my brain was trained so much now with like their three pre-roll ads and then the, the pop-up in the middle of the banner and then like the mid roll. [00:19:53] And when I'm doing work for Casto, sometimes I'm in the Castle's account and I'm uploading my videos for Casos and I'll be watching something. And I'll be like, what is this ad? Like, my brain is like, what is this? Like, it was happening. And like, oh yeah, I'm not in my premium account. [00:20:08] Dave: It is awesome. I think it's. worth every single  [00:20:11] Matt: It is, it's. it is.  [00:20:13] Dave: Yeah, definitely.  [00:20:15] Matt: when I go on vacation with my children and recently w we're going to, we were in Florida and they're watching TV, cable, TV, and there's commercials. And my kids are literally asking me what dad, what is this? Why, why isn't the show playing? Because they're so used to Netflix and Disney plus. [00:20:33] Dave: Yeah.  [00:20:34] Matt: And they see a commercial and they are freaking out. They're like, what, what is a show? Where's the show? And I'm like, it's just a, it's a thing called commercial kids that you didn't grow up with. Welcome to my world.  [00:20:46] Dave: Oh, wow.  [00:20:46] Matt: All right. As we get into the back half of this conversation, web flow, did you, you said like, I want to find a platform that is easy, all encompassing. [00:20:59] Was Webflow [00:21:00] is in the back of your mind or did you start doing some homework and then you settled on Webflow? [00:21:04] Dave: Yeah, Well, I had, I'd actually been recommended Webflow several times over at least two years, probably more. And every time somebody said to me, you've got dude, you've got to check web flow out. And these were people that are trusted and respected friends of mine, colleagues, people all over the place. [00:21:19] And people who had never looked back, it would just adopted it for their agency as their go-to tool. And they moved from WordPress. And every single time somebody recommended it. I said, well, yeah, I've heard of that. I'll check it out. And then I would immediately toss the idea in the bin and think there is literally no way I am looking at any of the tools because I've got a lot of, as we've said, a lot invested in, in WordPress and everything. [00:21:44] So yeah. Yeah. So, so actually choosing Webflow. I, I had a little look around to see anything else. I obviously don't, didn't bother looking at the Squarespaces and the Wix and things like that. But yeah, the web flow was pretty much, pretty much the only one that I considered now, I actually tried it and gave up three times, like completely just thought, right, come on, come on. [00:22:07] You can do this. I mean, how hard can it be and gave up three times because it's not actually. It's not actually, it's not a beginner's platform. It's not designed for people who that, that Squarespace is designed for. You don't get a lot of pre pre-made designs and in fact, it's harder to use done. [00:22:26] I would say a WordPress page builder, probably not oxygen because oxygen is based very, very, very much on web flow as I understand. But yeah, it was, it was hard. And what I also found as well is. I well, partly so, so what would happen is I'd give it a try and think, oh no, no, no, no, no, no. I just, haven't got time. [00:22:46] I'll persevere with what I'm using. And it was the third time there was like the straw that broke the camel's back. I've got to figure this out. And in some ways it really appealed to me because when you start, well, we'll go into the details too much. But when you style anything in Webflow, you literally click on it. [00:23:04] A podcast doesn't make this a very good visual medium for me to explain this. But when you click on anything in web flow and you want to style it, it could be literally any element whatsoever. You give it a name, like a class, a, you give that class, whatever styles you like. You've got all the styles at your disposal, really easy, nice UI. [00:23:23] And then you just use that class on anything else that you want to give that, that that's those, those same styles. The sense of having literally on, con on limited global styling, not having to go to some separate styling panel somewhere to constantly kind of keep going back and sort of adjusting things. [00:23:46] And also not being out there, I suppose. Th the page, whatever the page builder developers decided the global styles are that you're going to have is what you're stuck with. You're limited by that. [00:24:00] Usually we web flow. You can just do what you like now as a, as an, actually like a dinosaur old school, HTML and CSS hand coder back in the day, this really appealed. [00:24:12] Because I used to write CSS and I'd have one single CSS file, which I could just create as many styles as I liked, and I could control them all from one place. So it was that particularly about web flow. That just super appealed to me, the lack of the lack of limits, really. I'm not being, I'm not being, I'm not being hampered by. [00:24:32] I mean, it's great. For instance, elements are just as an example, the whole load of widgets and know there are probably a million different third-party add-ons as well. It will all bring a load more widgets as well. And it is amazing. You can drag a widget on the screen, just onto the canvas. It just produces, your tabs or your, your posts Lao or whatever it is. [00:24:53] But you still fairly limited by the styling options that that developer has decided to give you where it was with Webflow is just completely open-ended. The problem, the problem it's like everything in life, concentrate offs. The problem with that beautiful open-endedness is that you can make a real mess. [00:25:14] If you're not careful, if you've not kind of got a system and a workflow and a, an a way that you decide that you're going to name classes and use them and reuse them, it can be a bit of a mess. And that's the issue that I hit immediately. The wet floor. The Webflow university, which is web flows own a free training is absolutely brilliant. [00:25:36] I mean, as, than, as an educator myself, as a teacher myself, I mean, I, I just think those videos are astounding. They're incredible. And I think it speaks volumes about a company like that who have invested so much time and energy into training their users. So that stuff was helpful. and it kinda got me got, definitely got me so far, but I was, I think because my teaching in WordPress and other mentor was all about, you've got all these tools, you've got all the colors in there, all the crayons in the box, but you need a system, you need a workflow, you need it. [00:26:16] You need, you need to set yourself limits. So. Yeah, you can produce sites really quickly, really productively, profitably and not have to think too much, you've got a system and you just do it and you just build them. So I, that was, that was the, that was the sticking point with Webflow. And it's what I ended up actually building a framework myself though. [00:26:36] There isn't anything really, there are web flow frameworks out there, but they all had issues for me. So I ended up building my own, [00:26:43] Matt: I've tried Webflow before. And me it's as much more of a like shiny object syndrome and a little bit of like this whole, like no code. Movement where it's like, I don't know. Sometimes I've thought of sat back and be like, man, if I could just have like a database that I use, like connected with Zapier [00:27:00] and I could like automate these things, I see all these other people do it, like in two seconds on the back of a napkin. [00:27:04] And I'm like, I want to do that too. And then like, I jumped into like web flow and I'm like, oh God, I don't know what the hell I'm doing. I'm just going to sound, I'm going away from this, this leads. And what I'm getting out of here is like, You tried it three times, whatever failed. And you're like, ah, somebody could just teach it my way you built it. [00:27:22] Right. You built the course to like, get people over that hump quite literally coming from WordPress to web flow. The name of your course is there a particular. Cut like a WordPress user or WordPress stack that somebody might be using. Who's like the perfect fit to, for your course number one, but for web flow, like certainly somebody who's us, I'm just a simple lowly WordPress blogger is probably not gonna need your course is probably not going to need web flow, but is there a certain, a certain avatar that is a perfect fit for your course, but for also to, to, to reap the benefits of web. [00:27:59] Dave: . I would say that people who I mean, if somebody is a WordPress developer, right? So we'll, we'll, we'll discount those people immediately, people are building their own themes and things like that then. Absolutely. Definitely not. I'm sure that WordPress gives you all of the, all of the control and the power and everything that you need. [00:28:14] So I would say more people who are trained to be. I'm trying to build full, fully functional websites using WordPress under page builder. I would say the people who definitely need a page builder of some kind. Now, when I'm in Gothenburg , is a page builder and it's developing fast as well. So I would say people who are using those tools particularly you, I, as I said, in a sense, web flow is a bit more complicated. [00:28:42] So it's, it's not just the. It is in some ways, but there isn't, the, the pre-built here is everything done for you. Aspect of quite a lot of the stuff that comes with a page builder. So there are certain things that you need to understand in the background. You need to understand what's going on. You need to understand a little bit about. [00:29:03] HTML and CSS as well. So just an, an understanding of just like how HTML interacts with CSS, just on a very basic level to understand things like inheritance, so when you set a style on the body, for instance, that is going to trickle down to everything underneath it, all the content and everything underneath it all, unless you override it. [00:29:26] So there are, there are concepts like that, that in a page builder, those people. I don't really even need to ever think about particularly, you can just eat just budge, something together quite, quite easily. I would say though that I, I do know of quite a lot of, of from end developers I suppose, backend developers as well, who really enjoy using web flow because it allows them to effectively write HTML and CSS without having to actually write HTML and CSS. [00:29:54] Cause like a graphical user interface for, for. Well, for me, [00:30:00] I am more than happy to recommend web flow to my audience, which are, as I said, non coders, they need a page builder and they're a little bit nervous about, all the multitude of different tools and, and, and things that they need to know. [00:30:15] Matt: I'm curious. I mean, I know the, as of, as of this time, which is September 17th at 11:30 AM Eastern standard time in new England, which is where we, we won't get into the  [00:30:28] Dave: I mean I'm in the old one.  [00:30:30] Matt: in the old one. You're in the original one. The, I know the course is not for sale yet. I'm curious. And I've seen it. [00:30:37] I think I've gone through the first two modules and, and, and, for the listener out there, like when Dave says he takes time, like it took me so long to do this. Yeah. But the quality is just mind blowing and I can't even imagine Dave, how much time you've spent on it. I don't, I don't know if you have a number of hours counted or if you even want to admit how long you've been into it. [00:30:57] I know it's not for sale yet. Do you, as of this recording, but maybe when we launch this recording do you anticipate. The some turbulence there. Right? So people in WordPress they're very much used to free or low cost web flows, paid the pain for your course. What are your thoughts? What's the gut tell you on promoting this as a business owner. [00:31:17] Dave: The first thing I would say is that when I started thinking about building a business, making online courses at all, my first thought was who on earth is going to pay any money for the learning, any of this stuff? And there's, there's this thing called YouTube. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's just full of all the free advice and tutorials and walkthroughs. [00:31:37] You could, you could ever hope for I purposefully, actually, I got over that mindset issue quite quickly, it's nonsense, but people are prepared to pay and they're prepared to pay good money as well for an investment in their career and their time and their stress levels and everything else. So, in terms of me worrying too much about people paying for a course or even paying for a platform, doesn't really worry me too much because the people who buy. [00:32:04] My course is our people. They are. I always think that out of my email list, probably, I don't know what the numbers are. 5% will buy something that I'm I make and those people are prepared to pay. I don't know how much my courses have been. I think, I think, I think the highest price, no stress WordPress was, which is discontinued now. [00:32:26] Not in know fairly indefinitely. I think there was about 800. For that. So, between sort of 4, 5, 6, 7, 800 bucks for a course, those people are absolutely. I mean, the web flow, cause it isn't that at all. I think it starting at two nines. So that's, that's, that's a bit lower just to, just to get started with at the moment. [00:32:48] But I'm, I'm, I'm fairly convinced and I am delighted to appeal to people who are willing to invest in their education and their professional development and the tools [00:33:00] that they use as well for an easier life. And so actually ultimately get a return on that investment, in terms of faster builds and not having to worry. [00:33:10] About updating plugins and maintenance and stuff, breaking and having to fix things and all that sort of thing. So, yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't really worry me. It's all. [00:33:19] Matt: Yeah. I mean, when you have somebody who's already, I did an article. I, again, if I was a professional podcaster, I would have this up, I think element or web flow. Let's just see if my site ranks first. It  [00:33:31] Dave: Oh, oh, harsh,  [00:33:33] Matt: Element or web. Oh yeah, it does. I'm on the first page. Okay. A little, a little bit down on the first page, if you Google element or web flow, but I say in defense of element or versus web flow, and this site publish this February of this year, God man, you just, I didn't even understand time anymore. [00:33:48] February 11th, 2021. When folks were talking about the price hike of element, or now I'm not here to argue whether or not the. The approach of what Elementor was doing with bugs and features and whatnot is fair or not. I didn't have anything against the price hike, if you will, for ELA mentor, because man, I feel like so many people are making money with elementary or. [00:34:12] That even if you bought their $1,000 a year for a thousand websites, I mean, if you're somebody who's producing a thousand websites, you're at least charging $2 for one of those websites, right. You're selling these websites for at least $2, you've doubled your money. Right? So I was never against the raising of the price because hopefully that raises value of all things WordPress. [00:34:34] But my point here is people are already spending money in the web flow world. Whereas. Hats off and kudos to you. You're selling courses in the WordPress world where a majority of people are used to free. So you already were fighting a battle that I've not been able to solve  [00:34:51] Dave: Yeah, there is. I mean, there is a sense isn't there because WordPress is open source. Everything should be. And you, you hear that all the time. And I think that's just going to be a constant issue. Really. One thing that when I actually looked at certainly for, certainly for the people that I'm M in my course out, and the people that I kind of want to help when you actually look at the price of Webflow, cause people say, God, man Webflow is so expensive. [00:35:13] I think, well, if you look at it, you pay an account. I won't go into all the massive details, but you pay an account plan fee, which is basically a single monthly families, about 24 books. Which allows you to build, buy all, to build onstage on a, on a web flow.io domain all your web flow sites you've got in development, and you can share those with clients and you could even just make those live on the S on the staging sub domain, if you didn't want to point a live domain of them. [00:35:41] So that's 24 bucks a month. It's basically similar to, if you've got like an Adobe creative cloud subscription or you've got an elemental license on it and a theme license, and it just allows you to use the platform. So that to me is like, well, that seems perfectly fair. And then you [00:36:00] pay a per site site plan fee as well, which I think is about 20 bucks a month. [00:36:05] Now people who are hosting. Crumbing websites onto, I could attend books a month hosting plan, and they're quite happy with all the configuration and the setup and everything that, that entails and possible performance issues and whatever, then absolutely. I mean, knock yourself out. [00:36:23] Brilliant. But if you compare to, I mean, let's just take a WordPress managed host, like Insta, for instance, I think Ken stir last time I looked, it was 20 bucks a month. Now w so, so for each live site, you've got a domain pointed to, to web flow. You're paying 20 bucks a month for that. I mean again, if you're not making at least $20 a month back from the website, then there's something wrong. [00:36:48] You, you, you really should be a book. Also with that. You also get like the CDN, you get all of the page speed stuff set up for you, and it's all done for the, the sites are blazing fast, absolutely brilliant. All green, like top of the range, kind of page speed scores, the host inside and out for you. [00:37:07] Security. So sorted out for you. All of the functionality seems to me in many ways, if you were a person who would appreciate managed hosting, and it seems to me that that is actually a pretty good deal overall,  [00:37:21] Matt: I tend to agree things get a little crazy when you start getting into the e-commerce world with web flow the way that they do pricing, I broke it all down in this, in this post. Although this post is now a few months old and I'll link that up. I'll try to link that up in the, in the show notes. [00:37:34] But  [00:37:34] Dave: was a simplified.  [00:37:36] Matt: Yeah. At the end of the day, like the trade-off again is support all in one platform. If you really wrestled with, I want to own everything for the sake of owning it, and it's a whole mind, it's hard to make that mental leap and appreciation leap. I don't have a better word right now, but like, it's hard to make that leap from WordPress if you're really stuck in that, in that  [00:38:01] Dave: Yeah, absolutely. And I would, I would say to anybody that it's not like, I certainly don't set say to everybody, you must use Webflow is far better than WordPress. That's actually not what I'm saying. He probably comes across that way. There are trade offs with everything, and if ownership. Or certainly a feeling of ownership anyway and having control over every single aspect of that, of your website and website workflow and everything else, if that is important to you, for whatever reason, that's great, but there's a trade off in the maintenance and the plugin updates and stuff, breaking and everything else. [00:38:37] That's the that's that's, that's the deal, you w you can't have your cake and eat it kind of thing. I think he's just true of everything in life. Same with Webflow, yep. You don't have all of those hustles, but Yeah. [00:38:48] you've got a platform where you are in a way renting the site from, from Webflow. [00:38:53] What if Webflow disappears overnight? There were all these concerns. I mean, I've got, I've got kind of, answers for all these [00:39:00] objections, but There are also just very, very quickly. One of the biggest objections is she's quite funny to me is about recurring income from care plans. [00:39:10] So people will say I've got a pretty good business making recurring easy money every month by charging clients to keep the website updated the WordPress website update. And make sure it doesn't, it doesn't break for them. What am I going to do about that with Webflow? Because he just works, what's the, what, what, what, where am I going to make this money? [00:39:29] My short answer is always, well, first, if all things were equal and you could build a website in WordPress or web flow, and let's also say that either of them would be appropriate for the project, Really recommend WordPress because it's prone to problems, it's prone to problems and it, and it breaks. [00:39:51] And you can charge the client forever in order to, just to be basically lightly. No, let them have a working website. It sounds a bit harshly. It sounds like I'm kind of over again things, but that's kind of how it is really. Now my view is the client, your clients don't care. About how you did something, all that, how long it took you, all the steps you took, they are, they only care about the result on all the clients are paying you for, for, for a care plan, just in terms of the maintenance side of it, not talking about anything else. [00:40:24] Well, the maintenance side of it, they are paying you so that their website is rock solid. Isn't down works perfectly, and it just doesn't have any issues. Well, why can't you charge the client for the. You've found a better or the best platform that you think for their particular needs for their project that has all that in place. [00:40:46] You've spent all this time and money learning the platform. Why not charge clients for that? I, I don't think clients particularly cared that you've got to update plugins. You've got to spend X amount of time doing that. I think it's a bit of a non argument, rarely.  [00:40:59] Matt: I think at some of the tiers on web load, there's a little phone number you can call, right. So good luck. Yeah. Calling yeah. Calling you got a dozen plugins doing. Things, you're not going to call PIP in and, and, WooCommerce, you're not going to call these people and get them on a conference call to figure out what your site is at the end of the day. [00:41:18] You look, you're paying for that support. And web flows. As far as I know, in the news web flows slated to be a IPO and, and be a publicly traded company here in the states. And they're a private company now, but they've raised over 140 million. So they're probably valued at billions. I don't even know what money is these  [00:41:33] Dave: Probably, yeah, exactly. yeah, MailChimp is worth what was it? 12 billion, or something like  [00:41:37] Matt: half the half the banana industry or the entire globe?  [00:41:41] Dave: So, so w what is money.  [00:41:43] Matt: yeah. What is money via Canva? Just raised Canva just got another 400 million valued@fortybillioncanva.com. It's just, I don't know, Dave, what are we doing wrong here? [00:41:57] Dave: Well, I'm I think I'm going to hang these [00:42:00] headphones up.  [00:42:01] Matt: I'm going to make a canvas course. What am I doing with Webflow? Here's how to make a template in Canva. Oh man. It's called WordPress to web flow. His name is Dave Dave for you can search for Dave for you can go to date for.com. You can search him on YouTube. You can go to WP two w f.com or pressed a web flow. [00:42:21] Dave, anything else that any other place that people should find you? Yeah. [00:42:24] Dave: The other thoughts that you've covered up. So everything there, my friend. Yeah. [00:42:27] Brilliant. Thank you very much.  [00:42:29] Matt: Fantastic stuff. It's my report. My report.com my report.com/subscribe. Hey, if you want to support the content happening here at the Matt report, go to buy me a coffee.com/matt report. You can join the membership there and be part of the, the news right now. It's about the, the WP minute. If you want to be involved in the news, you wanna have your hand in shape. [00:42:49] Our weekly WordPress news, the five minute dose of WordPress news every week@wpminute.com. Go to buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Support the show. Thanks for listening. 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Allen: All right, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the Option Genius Podcast today I have with me, Matthew D'Ambrosi .He's one of our passive traders. And he's gonna be telling us how he got started and how he's doing pretty well right now. How are you doing, Matthew? Matt: I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on. Allen: Cool. Cool. So how'd you get started with Option Genius?  Matt: Well, I have to actually go back, it's been quite a journey, I have to say, you know, it's more like a 15 year journey for me. Allen: Wow. You know, I was given a book by my sister at age 30. And I was a young guy, and I was just more not interested in reading books just kind of floating through life, didn't really have much direction. And the book was called "Automatic Millionaire" by David Bach. Allen: Okay. Matt: In that book, I wasn't really interested in reading it, but she handed it to me. So I said, at least go through it. And I started thumbing through and I came upon a compound interest chart. And it showed, you know, you're 19 years old, and you put $2,000 into an IRA, or Roth IRA, and you did that, and you continue to do that, it would be well over a million by the time you're 65. So I was caught immediately by that. And that's kind of where my journey began. So I took that information, and started reading more books. And I came across Dave Ramsey. He's kind of like a financial soldier, if you will, you know, to get out of debt. Yeah, kind of get your stuff together. And I started, I always thought about making money and you know, retiring early, it was always a thought of mine, it was a gold mine, it was definitely what I wanted to do. And I always felt like 65 is when I would do it just like everybody else. And I continue to read more, I read numerous articles and books. And about two years ago, I went to a workshop, and I was learning how to invest. And they introduced me to options and selling options. And I was told that everyone else was told, you know, it was risky. Don't touch it. There's a whole another world to me. Allen: Have you done any stocks or options before that? Matt: No, absolutely not. Allen: No stocks either? Matt: Not really, you know, I was more into mutual funds, I had gave my money to an advisor, I just believe that people had your best interest. And they're great advisors out there. I'm not saying they're not. But it really started me to take a hard look about how money is handled. And you're much better off if you take the plunge and believe in yourself and start looking into deeper and see that they can really work out for you if you're willing to take or have the interest really to go and look at that. So I started paper trading. And then I was wondering who else does this so I started searching. And then I came across your name, and I have to hand it to your master marketer. I've never had anyone hit my inbox like you. So I started listening to all your podcast, taking little by little, you know, all the information that you give out there and started little by little paper trading. And then I started making money slowly, you know, doing one contract, then adding two. And then now I'm pretty much on my goal to replace my income. And that's my ultimate goal so... Allen: Awesome. Matt: Just a regular guy, you know, I just kind of happy to be here. I'm really happy to be here today. Because I want to get the message out that you know, you're teaching just normal people like me, who have no experience at this. And it's really a wonderful thing if you're willing to get a hold of your fears and take a stab at it. Allen: Right. So you started about two years ago, you said? Matt: Yeah, about two years ago yeah. Allen: Oh two years ago. Okay. And you're still working? Matt: I am, yep. Allen: Okay, what do you do during the day? Matt: So I'm a forklift driver and it's tough work. It's very laborsome. And trading has allowed me to look at money in a different way. I just don't look at money as scarce as it was. So it's a whole different mindset. Allen: Yeah. So how do you find time during the day to trade? Matt: Generally I don't go until about 2:30 in the afternoon, and I go on to 2:30 at work so I spend the mornings pretty much studying and paper trading and learning and then even after work at 11 o'clock, sometimes I'll be up till 1am or so learning as well and paper trading and trying to think about things and whatnot so.. Allen: So you're all in? Matt: All in, absolutely. They say burn the ships and I burnt them. Allen: So what was your first trade? Matt: First trade I did was credit spread. I did far away from the money for about just one contract and I made like 18 bucks. It wasn't much but you know, you're, you talked about the options continuum. That was in that stage where I was very nervous and you know, you have these feelings and you feel like you're gonna lose all your money. And that's not true, if you study and really take what you have to teach, and I took it very slow and got into it. So after that, after you do, there's something about to do first live trade, it kind of clicks with you like, okay, that wasn't so bad, you know, not the think of the worst that can happen. So, yeah, I did it. And it's been a, you know, I'm gaining confidence each and every week. And, yeah, we just continue to evolve on that continuum. Allen: Cool. So if I can recap. So basically, you want to get into investing because you didn't like where it was going. And you didn't want to wait around till 65 to, you know, have a nest egg and retire and have somebody else in charge of your money. So you started looking at it for yourself, and you've been putting in time you've been studying, researching trading, paper trading? What else is it that you want to achieve, besides just the money aspect? Like what what is it about the trading that is, you know, speaks to you on a deeper level? Matt: Yeah, I think the main part and it's different for everybody, for me, it's actually you know, as you get older, you realize you don't know how much time you have on this earth. And, you know, you start looking at things like, Hey, you know, the time is right now. And if I can find a way to free up some time, I'm going to seize it, because I never want to look back and say, "Hey, you know, I got to 65" I'd be glad if I do. But to spend time with friends and family, I got, you know, parents are almost in their 80s, I would love to just free up just a little bit of time and already am and I'm already you know, I already feel successful. And that, you know, I found something that I can do and free some time up and actually see them. Allen: Okay. So when you say you feel successful, what does that mean in numbers? Matt: Numbers to me, it's like just even $500. And it's different for everybody. There's no doubt. I mean, $500 extra dollars a month is successful to me. It gives you just a little bit of breathing room. I'm a simple person, I don't need a lot. I drive a 2200 accord. I mean, it looks like it's gonna fall off the road. I'm not a man to really, you know, I love great things. I would love to get in a nice, wonderful car, but it's not the main driver for me. The main drivers just to spend quality time family and friends. Absolutely. Allen: Nice. Nice. Okay. So would you mind sharing how large your trading account is now? Matt: Yeah, I started with in the brokerage account, I started about 2 Grand, and I'm already up to about 16 right now. Allen: Wow, in two years? Yeah, that's phenomenal. Matt: Yeah, I mean, I'm also adding to it too, but.. Allen: Okay. Matt: It's amazing to see the compound interest grow. And I haven't been really calculating it like dollar for dollar. But I'm just more really tuned into just being successful and working through the trades. And not really focusing so much on, you know, $1 amount just being, "Hey, let me get this tray. Let me monitor it. Let me look at it. Let me learn from it". If I have any problems, if I look at it as a learning experience, I have to continue to go I want to be in it forever. You know, I want to continue to I want to be that guy standing, you know, 10 years, 15 years from now and still doing this. Allen: Okay, so you don't want to be a forklift driver anymore? Matt: No, I say, you know, I'm sure there are a lot of people who listen to podcast saying I hate my job. I do not I actually enjoy driving a forklift. I just don't want to drive 40 hours a week. Allen: Okay. Okay, so what type of strategies are you using? Matt: So right now I'm doing a lot of bull put spreads, I've ventured into bear call spreads. I'm also doing covered calls. I haven't done any naked puts yet. So I'm really kind of looking at some companies and, uh, you know, I want to know more about the companies and look at stable companies like you teach us and start doing options off of them. So, it's an ongoing process and what amazes me that you don't need to do a lot of different strategies to be successful. Allen: Right, right. Right. Okay. What's your if you had to only pick one, which was your favorite? Matt: At the moment, it'd be a bull put spread, but I have a feeling that's gonna change. Allen: Yeah depending on the market. Matt: Also venturing into into oil, like you're teaching in your program. Allen: Cool. Yeah. Welcome to that program. Yeah, it's definitely it's definitely the next level of stuff. You know, it moves faster, and it's more leverage. So the numbers are bigger. Matt: Yeah. Allen: Cool. So have you tried anything else that didn't work? Matt: You know, I've done about 60 trades so far. I've lost one. And I got out early, it would have worked out. And it was my first time losing money, but I look at as a big lesson. You know, there's a lot of feelings. I listened to one of your podcasts where you talked about how you lost and the feelings that surround that. Right. I think you have to kind of reevaluate and find the lesson in it. And the lesson I found in that trade was that I was trading too heavy. I was a little bit. I was actually doing too many contracts. I was a little bit too uncomfortable. Matt: So that it was is a really good learning experience to say, Hey, you know, I'm not really comfortable risking that much money. Let me just pare it back a little bit. And think about what I want to do here, so.. okay, that, you know, the experience of actually getting out of a trade out of our live trade because you know, your bloods pumping, and you're like, Okay, you know, am I hitting the right buttons? And I get now it's a little different than paper? Of course. Allen: For sure. Yeah. But did you say you did 60 trades and you only lost on one? Matt: Yes so far... Allen: And these are all real money? Matt: Real Money, yes. Allen: Wow. And what's your strategy? How are you doing that? Would you find that trading plan? That's amazing. Matt: You know, it's a lot of listening. I've read so many books, listen to podcasts, listening to education, I kind of go, I'm a very conservative person. So I trade very conservatively. So about 90% out or more, I try to get at least 23 cents, 22 cents, and then just move my contracts up as I feel comfortable taking that risk. Allen: Okay so if I heard you correctly, you are trading at about a 10 delta spread? Matt: Yeah, usually. Allen: And then you're trying to make about 5% on each trade? Matt: Yeah, but between four and 5% Allen: Between four or five? And how long do you stay in the trade? Matt: You know, it's almost embarrassing, but that's the level of how you get better. I really have my you know, you talk about your AHA moments, and one of them was mine. I didn't know you could get out of the trade. So I was always thinking you had to be there until expiration, but that's not obviously not true. So that was a big one. For me, I have to honestly say that, you know, when you're learning this, you just don't think of you don't know everything. Right? And I was like, oh, my goodness, you can actually get out of these trades. So I learned to get out. So you know, that's a benefit in my world, once you know how to get out, it takes a little bit of fear out. Allen: So when do you get in? How many days to expiration to get in? Matt: Generally, I'm between 28 and 35 days or so. Allen: Okay, and what how many trades at one time do you have on? Matt: I really try to do only as many as I can comfortably watch. I try to do maybe one a week. So about four trades at most that are going on? Allen: Okay, so four trades at one time. Okay. And so how much would you say you're making on a monthly basis? dollar terms? Matt: Well across two accounts. So I trade in my brokerage account, I trade under my IRA, I rockler. Right? I'm averaging about 1000 a week now? Allen: 1000 a week. Okay. That's amazing. So within two years, you're up to 4000 a month. And you're saying your account value is roughly around 16? Matt: Roughly 16. And then, you know, in the Roth IRA, it's considerably higher, but that's not money I really want to put a heavy risk of short term trading, but I do trade there. Allen: Okay. Yeah. Okay. All right. No, that's, that's crazy. And you're saying that you're almost to the point where it's getting close to where it's gonna replace your income or equal your income from..  Matt: Yeah I mean, I have no qualms about it. I my goal is to get make $5600 a month. And I know my number and but it's all about, you know, I guess one of the big reasons for me coming on is that you just have to trust the process. And you have to actually become in love with the process not be so result driven. I mean, it's important, you know, we all want results. But if you can find a love for the process, I think you're that much better?  Allen: For sure. Definitely. Yeah. Because, you know, like you said, You've been putting in the time you wake up and you work on it. And then after work, you know, tired long day, but you still sometimes you still get it and to look at it being you wouldn't do it if you weren't like happy and excited. It's really something to find something. I feel like this is a point in my life where I really found something I love to do. And I really do. I really love this. And, you know, it's, I just want other people that are just regular people like me, and people come all the time and say, you know, you can do this and do that. But I am I tell you to my core, I'm just a regular person, I drive a forklift. And if anyone can do it, you can do it. And thank God, there are people like you have to teach this stuff. Because I would have killed 20 years ago to have someone guide me through just hitting me across the head of the board and be like, Hey, you know, listen. But that's not how life works. Allen: Right, no, yeah. You know, when you're ready, the teacher appears kind of thing. You know? Matt: It really is true. Allen: Yeah. Yeah. So the biggest thing that surprised you when you were doing this stuff, besides that you could get out before expiration? Matt: Oh, yeah, that was a big one. I think it's coupled with what other people say but also with what I think is that you can trade on something that you don't own. I think that's a big thing for people. Because we're just conditioned to be like, you know, if I can trade something, I have to own it. And that was a big like, wow, for me, for trading. You know, also the covered call as well. Allen: Okay. And so what was your biggest challenge? Matt: The biggest challenge for me was overcoming your fears. I mean, it's, it's definitely a big fear. And I don't take it lightly. Because, you know, we all worry about losing our money, we worked so hard for it. I mean, I work 40 hours a week just to make the bills and do everything that we want to do, we want a better standard of living. And it's very scary  you know, you can think about losing all that money and a flash, and that's really fearful. And I think that's the biggest obstacle, but be to be able to papertrade it and learn from people like yourself that have gone through it. And like, they say, taken the arrows is all much better. I mean, you know, it's like, I talk to people, it's like, you're in a forest, and you don't know which way to go. And it's like, you have someone like yourself or someone else that has gone through this. And we're like, Hey, here's the path. You know, over here is a ditch over here, you know, there's a lion, go down this path, and you start to understand otherwise, you're just flailing around, and you'll be lost in that forest forever. So, you know, it's just one big journey, to be honest with you. Allen: Yep. Yep, yep. Yep. So is that the biggest thing that helped you overcome the fear? Got me a lot of people have that fear. You know, it's like, oh, my God, if I do this, what's going to happen? What if I press the wrong button? What if they take this away? What if you know, something, I do something wrong, my wife's gonna kill me, you know, how did you besides the paper trading was that the biggest thing that helped you overcome the fear? Matt: I think also, the actual structure of a credit spread, you know, knowing that when I have a set amount of money, that it's risk, I can only lose like, $500 in a trade or 480. That really helped me, okay, I was like, Okay, if you're uncomfortable, overall, losing $480 in this trade completely fails. And that's all I'm gonna lose. And I wrapped my head around that, then I can get past that barrier. And I can trade more and learn how to trade. I think initially, you just have in your mind that you're gonna lose all your money, which is not true. If you, of course, you I mean, you have to study and you have to pay attention. None of this is easy or simple. But you got to put in the time, I'm not saying you don't. But if you really want to, and you're, you have conviction, and you have desire, there's no reason why you can't do this stuff. Allen: So what do you think the future holds for you now? Matt: Well, I hope all good things. I mean, I go on with the, I hope I go in with the attitude. I'm really happy and excited to be part of the the oil, that's a whole another, the oil blank check trading program. It's a whole another world for me. And, you know, I kind of feel like, it's traded like options, but it's very different. And then I have to get in there. And it's like, you know, I'm back at the beginning a little bit. So I got to get him up to speed and learn that it's a whole another world. So you go through those feelings again, in a different way. So I'm kind of in the beginning, but I'm very hopeful for the future. And I just want to continue to be consistent and profitable. And that's all you can ask for. Allen: Yep. Yep. So would you recommend Option Genius to other people? Matt: Absolutely. I mean, I sing your praises almost all the time. I one of the big reasons is that how accessible you are. And you know, whenever I had a question, you guys are on top of it. I mean, I couldn't ask for any quicker response. And if you have a problem, you feel like someone's right beside you. And I really appreciate that. So yeah, I've absolutely, I would tell anyone to go to you and learn from you learn from you on the program.  Allen: Yeah, we try. I mean, we're not perfect. And we don't work weekends. But some people, some people are like, Oh, I bought this thing on Saturday. Why haven't I got it yet? I have questions. I'm like, Oh, we don't work weekends, you know. See that's part of the job here. You know, I talked about it on the podcast, and the books and everything. It's like freedom. You know, that's the ultimate, the ultimate goal is freedom. And however you define it, yeah, the time to do what you want the money to do what you want, and you just, you know, if you want to go here, do this, or whatever, buy whatever you want. Like, I'm so happy and excited that you're feeling a taste of that, you know, it's like, "Okay, if I'm going to work, I'm going to make X dollars, but I can always be laid off". I can always get hurt. I can always, you know, get sick. I mean, so many people right now are getting sick and they can't work and they're all scared because they don't know what they're going to do. And you know, the fact that you're you found something that you can stay at home, press a few buttons, and you understand it and you're like, Okay, intellectually, I can make this work. And you put in the time in the effort. I've seen that. So kudos to you for that. Because I've seen a lot of people. They're like, Oh, yeah, no, no, this is supposed to be magic. I'm supposed to hit the Escape key and I'm supposed to get money coming out of my computer. Well, it doesn't work that way. You know, you have to put in time, effort, thought process. You have to do it over and over and over again, which you've done for the last two years. You've been putting your dues in I mean, obviously you're not done yet. Right? You still got a long way to go. Matt: Oh, yeah, absolutely my goal is never to be complacent. You know, never think I've no at all, because I do not. There's people out there that are very smart, intelligent, people that are learning, I always look at life, you can learn somebody, something from everyone, just like all the people, all the books that I've read, if you can get one good thing out of them, you can learn something from them, you're all the better. You know, I just learned to not look at one thing as the way there could be multiple ways. But you know, you have to take the good and almost make it your own as well. You know it, but it's on you. And you as you get older, you realize that it is on you to make this decisions. I don't want to bury my head in the sand and just hope you know, I wake up at 65 and I'm retired. So it's a process. And luckily, I fell in love with it. Allen: That's great. That's great. So let's say you get your goal and you're making 5600 a month from your trading. You still going to work? Matt: I think initially I mean, you know, it's a wonderful question to answer. I think initially, I would go with part time, because I like I do like my job. I do enjoy driving a forklift. But um, it would allow me to do some other things that I would want to do in life. I mean, I like gardening, I like painting, maybe learn Spanish, I always want to learn Spanish, you know, and I could put my efforts towards that. It's just, it opens a whole another world for you. And I mean, it really does. And it gives you a chance to maybe go into some things that you never dreamed that you would be. For instance, after this, I'm going on a boat, I would never dream that I would learn, I always didn't want to drive a boat, I was afraid to drive a boat, I was afraid I was gonna to crash into a dock. But I'm a member of a book club now. And I'm going to go out my wife after this podcast and get on a boat. And I'm learning how to drive and docket and it's like I believe trading is broad and open that world for me. Because I'm no longer fearful making mistakes. And I'm going to learn from them. And, you know, if I crashed into into a dock, so be it. I'll learn from it. And I'll get better. So that's the way I approach life now. And I think trading is a big part of that. Allen: Oh, that's wonderful. So the fact that you've been you've had some success in the trading has given you confidence in other areas of your life. Matt: Absolutely. That's something I can ever believe. Yeah, absolutely. Allen: That's so beautiful. Okay, so let's say one of your fellow employees at Costco, you're at Costco, right? Yes, yeah. So if one of your fellow employees at Costco comes up to you and says, Matt, man, I got to do something. You know, you told me you talked about trading a little bit, how do I how do I get started? What do I do? How do I make sure that I don't lose money? Matt: Well, go to Option Genius. But I would more so I would tell them that, you know, it's a process and you have to put in the work. There's no shortcuts. And you know, people say that all the time. And you have to really believe that in your heart, and you have to put in the work. And thank goodness paper trades out there. And you can make mistakes and learn from them. And just keep trying. And then when you're ready, do it. Somy advice is to absolutely take it slow. You know, everyone's different. You could paper trade three months, six months, but don't be hanging up for a year paper trading. I mean, you want to get out there and try. So but do it with a little bit of money that you're finally losing, and then just go on from there and reevaluate your process. So that's the advice that I would give them. And, of course, I want to help everyone out there, you know, because I have co workers that are in the same, I know the grind they go through each day. They're hard working people, they're looking for the same thing I am that they're trying to look, you know, to better their life or help people that are left to right of them, and get through and improve it. And, you know, this is out there for them. So I've just tell it, take it slow, be patient. I mean, it's very difficult to be patient, especially this day and age. But if you can harness that patience, you can achieve what you want to achieve. Allen: Well said, Well said. Yeah, I mean, you know, the cool thing is that we've I guess since you started, I think you've been sending us emails every once in a while. Matt: Probably a little crazy. Yes. Allen: Yeah no it's okay. It's not crazy? I mean, you know, I bombard people with email, we generally like to sometimes people, some people get three emails a day from us, it's like crazy. We need to work on that. Matt: I'm one of those people. And I'm like, wow, I'm like, man this is something else. Allen: There's too much going on. Yeah. So we need to work on a little bit there. But you know, so it's been fun to watch your progress over the past. You know, it's like, I try to if there's a trading email or whatnot, I try to read those. And if I don't answer them, at least I try to read and see what's going on. And I've seen your emails come through, and it's like, you know, this guy, he's getting it, you know? And whenever you ask a question, it's like, there there are some people that they're nice about it. And then there are some people who are like they expect the moon and the stars and everything in an email like, "Hey, I'm on your list. I want you to tell me every one of your secrets". Like how am I supposed to do that in an email? Matt: Yeah that's impossible. Allen: We share that for you. Like we could have a course about that. It would be like a 20 million-hour course. I could share everything and bring an email. I'm not writing all that stuff. But the fact that you took it slow and methodical and whenever you, you did the work. And then when you had a question, it was specific to that particular thing. So you could tell when I'm reading, I can tell, okay, this guy is actually trying to learn, he's actually trying to trade. And this has given me a question based on his actual experience. So I mean, that's in, you know, for those of you who are listening and be like, Oh, well, I asked a question, I didn't get an answer. Or, you know, he didn't give me a complete answer or whatever. It also depends on, you know, how you approach the question how the question is asked, and if it's gonna make sense or not, because we do get inundated with trading questions, and how do I do this? And how do I do that? And without proper background, we can't even give individual moves. Legally, we can't give individual advice. But even trading questions, it's like, okay, if I don't have the proper background into what you were thinking, when you were looking at a trade, then I can't give you a, you know, what I would do even because if I'm looking at a chart, and I think it's going to go down, and you think it's gonna go up, whatever I tell you, it's gonna be the opposite. And you'll be like, that doesn't make any sense. So I love the way that you have approached this. And you've been, you know, slowly, methodically, you pick something you realized from the beginning, you knew what you want it, you knew your why you understand, you know, compound interest, you understand how that works? And it's not going to happen overnight. How long do you think it took you until you started becoming like, consistently profitable? Matt: I would say about three or four months where I felt consistent, you know, first, you know, you could say, Oh, you know, it could be you just not, you're not sure until you really feel like, okay, I can repeat this month after month. And third kind of understanding, you know, not only the positives of a trade, but also the negatives, and you start kind of wrapping your head around it and start feeling comfortable, but not complacent, then you start, you feel like you're on the right road, so that that feelings and the results probably about three to four months for me specifically where I felt confident about the trade. Allen: Okay, and you trade the same stocks over and over again? Or do you choose different ones every time? Matt: I'm looking, you know, basically the same. You know, I tell the story, way back, I bought Airbnb, you know, an IPO, which stands for is probably overpriced. And I consider it as a mistake. But my wife and I did a covered call together, and we literally push the button together. And we're like, we made like, 500 some dollars off of that. And I was just like, we were just like, baffled, like, wait a minute that actually work. Like we just got paid for that. And we're just like, How can that be? So, you know, I read books on covered calls and things like that. And, you know, there's there's downfalls of covered calls as well, the dark side as you speak. And it's important to, to learn all the different strategies. But the point is, you don't need to know a ton of strategies to be successful, I think it's important for the viewer to focus on one and get really comfortable before you move on to other things. And I feel that's kind of where I am with oil now I'm comfortable with a trade and now unwilling to go into another world, and kind of explain that or, you know, explore that, and I'll take that slow as well. And, you know, it just starts being well, and overall process and you bring it together. And it's all about learning and what a beautiful thing. Allen: Yep. Yep. Very beautiful. So, and there might be some skeptics listening to this. And they'll be like, Well, you know, the last two years, we've had a really good bull market. So are you prepared for choppy market volatile market? down market? bear market? How would you adjust to that situation? Allen: You know, I think it's, I look back, I'm actually reading your book right now, how to hedge, you know, all the hedging strategies, and what I always call my replay in my mind, what will I do if there's a big crash, and I don't think you can ever, you know, fully prepare yourself, but there's a lot of things that you can do. I think the most important part of that is knowing a valuable company, it's knowing what kind of strategy you're going to use, you can never do bull put spreads continually, because you're going to get hit at some point. Right. So again, learn how to do a bear call spread and do some different things to hedge your position. So it you know, that's education by itself, but there's definitely some big things. You know, you got to look at each thing of, you know, a comfort level and then continuing education. I definitely am. I'll continue to get better at that as well. Allen: Yeah, yeah. Because I mean, there's no way to tell which way the market is going, you know. Matt: Sure. Allen: I mean, we've been lucky that we've had a nice fed induced (inaudible) rally recently, the last couple years. But again, we don't know how long that's going to last and what's going to happen after that. But as somebody who has been doing this for, you know, a little bit longer than you have. Matt: Much longer. Allen: It's good to be able to, like you said, you know, understand the different strategies as well. And you said you've done you know, two or three of them and you've, you've practiced them over and over again. So that when things do change, that you can also see that coming and then you can change with it. So You know, I was talking to someone earlier today, and we were talking about and he was, he was asking about iron condors. And he's like, yeah, you know, I've tried honor condors didn't work at all. So how do you make them work? I said, Well, you know, every strategy doesn't work for every person. Some people might like one strategy, and they're really good at it. And somebody else, their brother might try it. And their brother might be horrible at it. You know, it's different risk tolerances, and different personalities will tell what strategy you should work on. And so.. Matt: Yeah, that's really fascinating. Like you said earlier, you know, we talked about how you can get the same trade as somebody, it just turns out different. And I think it's, it's fascinating in psychology, and it's also how, you know, you think of a trade and everyone's into individual to that trade. So it's pretty interesting. Allen: And you said, you had studied psychology, right? in school? Matt: Yeah, I have a degree in psychology from the University of Alabama. And, you know, I just, I never knew what I wanted to do in college. And it's interesting, I find myself using it. Now. I it's the psychology of the markets. And I think about how why people sell and why people buy and, you know, a lot of it's fear based, sometimes people that are very smart, do stupid things. You know, you just think that it's not that way, but it is very true. So it's, it's a whole, I never thought I'd be using psychology, but I do. I'm fascinated why people think the way they do. Allen: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. It's very interesting. Yeah. I mean, I've been a big fan of psychology, just trying to understand myself, you know, and most of the time, like, you know, when we try to figure out, okay, hey, this stock went down today, what happened? A lot of times, we can't figure it out. I don't know, there's so many. There's so many background factors. But I think the study of psychology really helps in the big picture thinking, you know, you might not be able to figure out exactly why a stock moved up and down, depending on if there's some news about it. But the overall market like, hey, if this happens, then this is how people react. And then this is how they think. And then this is what happens in the stock market. So it's definitely a learning experience. And something that comes with years of experience, as you get used to it, say, Okay, I saw this happened. So I, I expected this to happen because of that. So it's really interesting. Allen: I really appreciate your time, Matthew, and just wanted to give you one more, you know, like hey, is there anything else that last words that you want to share with our audience?  Matt: Just I encourage people that are, you know, maybe thinking just like how I am, you know, they're out there working everyday life, and they just don't think that this is possible, and I just wanted to really encourage them to, you know, take a shot at it. And really, you know, if you're really interested in it, and put your 100% into it. And, you know, you could really surprise you on the other end, what life has to offer to you if you really get into it. And trading is a wonderful way to do that. So I'd really encourage people of all walks of life to try to better their situation, I think it's a great, great avenue to do so. Allen: Right. And you got started again, how? Just by reading a book? Matt: Yeah, I was just really looking at a compound interest chart. I was just, I just looked at it. And I was like, man, I could just kind of see the overall plan. I was like, I didn't know, you know, you know, everyone wants to be rich, and they want to have enough money. And it was a different feeling. At that time, I was young, and you know, mostly when you're young, or just want to get things and accumulate things and, you know, burn the world down. And that's not the case, as you get older, usually, you know, you, you find out what's really important. And to me, it's time with family and friends. And once I saw that chart, I could see the kind of overall kind of structure if you will, what I want to do. And then now as I got into it, I started filling in the blanks and seeing what way to get there. And trading is really kind of sped that process up. And I'm very excited about it. Allen: So do you see yourself like, okay, hey, you know, and this year, or this keeps up and you know, this age, I'm going to be a millionaire or 100 millionaire or something like that-  that doesn't appeal to you, right? Or does it sometimes? Matt: You know, like, I have a goal of turning you know, our money and making a million dollars. And that's, I wrote it down and seven years, I'd like to do that. If I don't get there, I'm not going to be upset about it. Like I said, you have to be happy about the process and excited about the process. And long as you're generally heading the right way. You can't help but be happy. I mean, if there's little setbacks, but if your general trajectory is moving forward, that's all you can ask for. And we're excited about that. So, you know, the number is less of a issue to me, as I get into it, you know, it's a great thing. And it's a great byproduct of what we're doing. But I think you just got to really look inward and be contentment and what really makes you happy in life, whatever it is you'd like to do. So, you know, money is just a tool to get there. And I I really feel that at this age, you know, it took me 20 years to figure that out. But yeah, it's exciting. Allen: Yeah, I totally agree with you and I'm excited for you, man. It's Just like, you know, you just get started now it's just, it's just up from here, you know, it's just the sky's the limit, and you know, a million dollars one day, you're gonna be like, Oh, that was nothing, you know? Let's go for 3, let's go for 5. Matt: You know, if not, I always say, Hey, you know, I can be happy I took a shot at So, you know, yeah, I left everything on the table. And that's what you have to do. And I couldn't be happier about that. Allen: But you've gotten it done. You know, it's not, it's not like, You got lucky, you've been doing it for consistently, you know, over and over and over again. And yeah, we've had a good market. And that helps. But you know, every market can be a good market, if you know what you're doing. So the fact that.. Matt: I'm very worried about that, because I started investing in 2009. Okay, so I've never seen a crash. And I know that and I'm aware that and I also look at, hey, what are my feelings going to be? And I try to read books about it, and listen to people and talk about their experiences, because I want to know what to do in that situation. So I could, that's a continuation thing for me. I mean, I know I have not been in a crash. That's all been up for me. And but I do know that I have to be wary of that. And I have to have a plan for that. And that's what I'm doing right now. So, you know, I don't want to get complacent and that I'm winning and winning and winning, because losses could be around the corner. And I just gotta know how to mitigate that process. Allen: So and see, I mean, just that comment right there. That's like, you know, this guy knows what he this guy's got a head good head on his shoulders. You know, he's not he's not overconfident. And he's not like, Oh, yeah, this is gonna happen for the rest of my life. I'm just gonna make money every month. No, I mean, I've been looking at it from all different angles, and you've been practicing and trading and different things. And you said, Oh, yeah, I've been doing put spreads. But I'm also doing call spreads, you know, because eventually, I'm going to need them. So it's like, yeah, there you go. That's it. I appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, you do it the right way. You're doing it really the right way. And you started small and you're, you know, slowly, slowly, you're increasing. But you're still sticking to, you know, something that's manageable. You're not Oh, like you said that one trade I had. I mean, oh my god, out of 60 trades you've only lost one that's like, incredible. I never heard anybody do that. That's like, Well, can I give you my money? I want to go sail around the world here. You just take it in, take care of it for me. Matt: You can't have it back on if I lose it? Yeah. Allen: No, I think you'll be okay because you're getting prepared for it. You know, you're not blindsided. It's like, yeah, this is part of it. I've seen it. You know, you've maybe you haven't seen it yourself. But you've heard of it. But you're not. What are you like, 45 years at? Matt: I'm 45 Allen: Yeah, so you've been alive when there has been crashes? And oh, yeah. and stuff, you know, the.com bubble, everybody still remembers that? No, tell you about that. And, and stuff like that. So it's not like it's something completely out of the blue for you. If somebody was like 15 years old, or 20 years old - they're like, Oh, yeah, you know, I've never seen America crash. It's never gonna crash. But yeah, it's there. And you are, you're rounding out what I, you know, like, it's like, it's not just, you focused on something you learned about it, you practiced it, and you're like, Okay, this is working. Now I need to add to it, I need to add another skill, I need to add another skill. And you're, and you're still adding, that's the coolest thing that you're still growing, you're still learning. And you're still humble enough about it, so that you're like, you know, hey, I'm still working. And I work hard, and I have a good job, and I like it. But I would like to have more. And then eventually, I'm gonna work part time. That's really cool. Yeah. Matt: I actually parallel investing with running a marathon. You know  running marathons is a very difficult process, and it takes a lot of work. And there's a lot of dips along the way, and at times you feel like quitting, and there's a point of elation, and you have an angle. And I kind of feel like that kind of parallels my trading style. So I know that there's going to be, you know, mile 15 is going to be horrible. And mile 18 could be even worse. And then you get the mile 24 and you're like, elated. It's almost at the end. And that's kind of how investing is, you know, you have great times and you have terrible times. And you have to, you know, when you're training, you're accounting for all these processes along the way. You know, what shoes do I wear? How do I do this? If it rains? How do I count for this? I don't feel good. How do I account for that? What did I eat? all that stuff is very similar to how trading is in trading really, you learn a lot about yourself, just like you do in marathon running. I mean, you learn about what you're really made of, and the risk that you take and who you are as a person. So I think there's a lot of parallels there. Allen: Wow, yeah, I've never run a marathon but it sounds horrible. Matt: Yeah, I mean, people are like, they're either they do it or they want it done. I've got the bug. I was crazy. I decided doing but um, I don't do them anymore. I maybe maybe have one or two. I mean, I will see but uh, you know, I want to keep my knees going into my 50s. Allen: Cool. All right, Matthew. I really appreciate it. This was great. I mean, it's wonderful to see you know, somebody go from knowing nothing to making you know, four grand a month trading part time. And, you know, it's like, Hey, I can do this. If you can do for you can eventually do more, and it'll replace your income and make all your dreams come true. So kudos to you for getting in the path, taking the risk, and trying it out, learning, spending the time, and I hope that people listen to this and they're encouraged by it, they're inspired by you, I mean  when I heard your story, I was like, "we gotta get Matthew on the show". You know, forklift driver to early retiree. Matt: Yeah I hope so. I appreciate you guys and I can't thank you enough, you and your team, that there's actually people out there that teach this stuff and actually care about people, because there's a lot of people that don't have it all and I really appreciate that. Allen: Thank you Matt: Yeah I'm sure your viewers appreciate it as well. Allen: Yeah thank you for hanging out with us. Matt: Alright, thank you. LOVE ALLEN SAMA - OPTION GENIUS AND WANT TO LEARN MORE TRADING TIPS  AND TRICKS? HERE ARE SOME NEXT STEPS... SUBSCRIBE TO OUR PODCAST FREE 9 LESSON COURSE: https://optiongenius.com/  WATCH THIS FREE TRAINING: https://passivetrading.com  JOIN OUR PRIVATE FACEBOOK GROUP: https://optiongenius.com/alliance  Like our show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps.

The roundtable interview with Matt and Caleb Maddix and a small group of people who are trying to change the world. Enjoy part two of this special 4 part episode series. Hit me up on IG! @russellbrunson Text Me! 208-231-3797 Join my newsletter at marketingsecrets.com ---Transcript--- Russell Brunson: What's up everybody, this is Russell Brunson. Welcome back to the Marketing Seekers Podcast. So I have got to ask you, what did you think about episode number one of the World Changers Roundtable? Hopefully, you loved it. There were so many things covered in that 42 minutes. Anyway, we are moving on to the next part of this interview. As you know, this is going to be broken down into four parts because they kept me there, handcuffed to a table, until 3:00 AM. I'm just joking. They didn't really. But, the question was so intriguing, we were having so much fun, we just kept going and going until finally I was like, "I have to fly out in three hours. I need to get back to my hotel." But now we're going to go dive into the second part. This next episode is probably another 30 to 40, 45 minutes or so as well. So these are some things we'll be covering in this one, which is really fun. We talk about, number one, why my business partner, Todd Dickerson, is so amazing, and hopefully give you ideas about if you're pursuing opportunities and trying to land your dream job or partnership or whatever. Number two, we talked about personality profiling, how we actually are hiring here at ClickFunnels. We talked about where my love for learning came from. We talked about transition for me, going from an athlete to a business person and a marketer. We talked about some of the lessons I learned from Lindsey Stirling, things I was not expecting to hear from her that totally changed everything for me. We talked about people who intrigue me, my interest in health and bio hacking. We talked about is there anything that happens inside of this business that gets me as excited as what I felt in wrestling. We talked about what thing is close, but nothing actually has ever hit it. We talked about the first Two Comma Club Awards. We talked about how to upgrade your identity as you grow. We talked about the fact that you have to cycle and fail and rebuild in your businesses. We talked about the launch of ClickFunnels and how it wasn't just the fact that I was a genius, because I wasn't. There are so many things. Talking about the grace of God and how it tied into the launch of ClickFunnels. We talked about some of my early products, like Zip Brander and Forum Fortunes. We talked about my Christmas Grinch sale, which was the very first big sale, big launch I ever did, to my little tiny list that made enough money to cover Christmas for my wife and I when we were first getting started. We talked about becoming worthy. We talked about list building, how it's better than buying ads, and a whole bunch of other things. It's amazing, this could be 40 courses all wrapped into one super podcast episode. So if you liked the last episode, I think you're going to love this one as well. And I've got two more after this, coming back, going deeper into this conversation with the Roundtable of World Changers. So, that said, we're going to cue the theme song. When we come back, we'll dive right into the second section here of the interview. Matt Maddix: Dave and Todd, I mean, just wow. Those dudes are like... But what about those guys? Russell: So here's Todd's story. So the real long story short, I bought some software, it was coding Ruby on Rails, didn't know that. Bought this company with the last... I didn't have the money. So I borrowed money, bought this company, coded on some platform we didn't know, and I was like, "Screw it," right? And I tried to hire people to fix it, nobody could fix this platform until finally I was leaving the office one day. I literally emailed the people saying, "Turn off the servers." We lost all of our money to this company. They shut it down. And I'm walking out of the office and I had this impression of like, "There could be someone on your email list who knows Ruby on Rails." I was like, "That's weird. I had a bunch of internet marketing nerds. There's no one that's like, 'Ruby on Rails...'" Anyway. It was starting with the impression from God, I stopped, turned back around, set the computer to open back up, sent an email to my list. "If you know Ruby on Rails, I'm looking for a partner. I bought a software company and it's not working. Please send me a message." Send. Matt: And that's all you said? Russell: Yeah. And lo and behold, three years earlier, Todd bought some random thing from me, happened to be on my email list. He built the website three or four years earlier that was making six figures a year on autopilot. Hadn't worked in four years. Just hanging out relaxing with his wife and his daughter. And an email comes in and it says, "If you know Ruby on Rails, I'm looking for a partner." He's like, "I know Ruby on Rails. I can be Russell's partner." Emails me back. And at first I see him and his beautiful wife and I'm like, "There's no way he's a programmer. There's no way." That was literally my thought. But he was the only person that responded back so I was like, "Okay, well, here's the login to the site. Fix it. I don't know what to do. I'm not a coder." I went to bed, woke up the next morning. He's like, "Cool, I fixed the site. Plus I found this, this, and this. And I changed this. And I moved these things,", and all of this stuff. He's like, "It's working now. Do you have anything else you want to do together?" I'm like, "Huh." And so I give him another project, another project. And for an entire year Todd and I worked together, and never once did he ever ask me for money, ever. Matt: Wow. Russell: Not a penny. And I remember he started finding Boise to work on a project together ... Matt: You're telling me he worked for you for an entire year? Russell: For free. More than a year. Caleb Maddix: Why was that? Russell: I don't know. I found out later. He'd gone to Robert Kiyosaki at this event and he said, "Find someone who's doing what you want to do and work for them for free." So he told me that years later. I didn't know that. Matt: Todd, if you're watching dude. I love you man. You're legit. Russell: And so he kept coming and he started coming to Boise and we started becoming friends. The smartest developer I've ever met. Literally the smartest person I've ever met. I'll go that far. Just genius. And he'd come out to Boise and we'd work on projects and ideas. We tried to launch a couple of things. None of them really worked. And we were just trying stuff. He was just always there, always serving, always doing stuff. And one day were in Boise and I was looking over his shoulder cause we're looking at stuff and I saw his email. And there's all these emails from some recruiting site or something. I was like, "What's that?" He's like, "Oh, it's people recruiting me for a Ruby job." And I was like, "Do you get a lot of those?" And he's like, "I get three or for a day." I'm like, "Really? Are they good offers?" He's like, "I don't know. Let's check it out." He opened it up and the first one was like $400,000 a year starting salary. I'm like, "What?" The next one is $350,000. The next was 5 ... Insane things. I'm like, "Why don't you do that?" He's like, "I don't want to work for them. I want to be your partner man." I'm like, "What?" And then I all of a sudden had this realization that I hadn't paid him in a year. We didn't have much money at the time, we're still at the backside of a business failure when we met. I'm like, "I can pay you maybe $50,000 a year. Can I pay you that?" He's like, "Whatever." So I told our little bookkeeper, "Pay Todd $50,000 a year." And they're like, "Okay." So he did that and next year we're paying $50,000 a year. We're doing stuff and we have more things. Started to get a little success here and there. Making more money. Back in Boise again. And I'm like, "Can I pay you some more?" And he's like, "Whatever." Matt: So he wasn't ever just asking? Russell: Never in his life has he asked me for money. Ever. So we bumped it up to $100,000 a year because that's what we got, the year before that, after a year or two working together. And then, it was crazy, the day Leadpages got the first round of funding for $5,000,000, the same day Todd was flying to Boise. And he gets the email. It's east coast so he's two hours ahead. He's awake and on the plane, he sees the email, forwards it to me, and then jumps in the plane. He's flying for four hours. I wake up. I see the email and I was like, "Leadpages? Got 5 ..." I was like, we built landing page software in the past. I was perplexed and angry. And then Todd lands. And Todd, he's a little guy, he comes into the office all angry. He's like, "Leadpages got 5 million!" He's like, "I can build Leadpages tonight. Do you want to build lead pages?" I'm like, "Yeah. Let's compete with Leadpages." He's like, "All right." Matt: No way. Dude. I love this. Russell: This is like angry Todd. I love angry Todd. I like all Todds, but angry Todd is the best Todd. Matt: Is it? Okay. Russell: He's just pissed because he's like, "I can build this tonight. Everything thing they got we can have done tonight." So we're getting all ready. What should we call it and everything. And then he's like, "Wait, we're building this. You want to add anything else to it?" And I was like, "Oh. Yeah. What if it did this? And what if it did this?" And we spent a week in front of a white board saying, "What if it did?", and we mapped out ClickFunnels. Matt: So you're talking about a week where you guys just locked in and you were just having fun. Just doodling and whatever. Russell: Yeah. He's like, "Oh, I can do that. We can do that." We're brainstorming all sorts of stuff so we map the whole thing out. Matt: Did you know at that moment you were onto something big? At that moment right there, when you guys were like ... Or was it just still like ... Russell: All lot of people have tried something like that. I tried before other people tried. No one had done it. So I was kind of skeptical but Todd's like, "I can do this. This is easy." I'm like, "Okay because I tried it ..." He's like, "No dude, I can do it. This is easy." So I was, excuse me, optimistically hopeful because he's a genius but I was also nervous. But anyways, we map it out and then we bought Clickpros.com. I wanted to call it ClickFusion because I own ClickFusion, but we'd had three failed businesses called ClickFusion. All of them failed and Todd was like, "No. It's bad karma. We can't." I'm like, "But the logo is so cool dude." Matt: I love it. You love the logo. Russell: And he's like, "No, we can't." He's like, "It's got a jinx on it or something. We can't do that. You have to come up with a different name." I was like, "But ClickFusion is the coolest name ever." So we're trying things. Click everything and then ClickFunnels. We're like, "Ah." That was the thing. We're so excited Matt: Who first said it? Do you remember? The words ClickFunnels. Caleb: It's almost like God saying, "Let there be light." Russell: I would assume it was me but I'm not positive. I'll have to ask Todd on that one. Caleb: Well, when you said it, was it instant? Like fire? Russell: It was insane, it was available. Matt: Oh, you know that feeling, right? Checking domains. You're like… chills. Russell: How has no one thought of this before? And so we got it and I remember I was driving him to the airport at the end of the week to take him back home. And we got to the airport. Boise airport, It's a small airport. So we pull up to the thing to get out and you can tell he's probably nervous waiting. And before we get out of the car he's like, "I really want to do this man. I'm excited." I'm like, "Me too. Me too." He's like, "I don't want to do this like your employee though. I want to do it as your partner." And in that moment, I was just like all the fear of ... I'd tried partners in the past. It hadn't worked. All this stuff and all the everything. And it was just this weird thing of just all the emotions were hitting me as he sat in the car, about to get out the car. I have 15, 20 seconds before he's going to to go. I was just thinking about him. I was like, he's never asked me for money. He's never done anything. He's served. He's given everything. I was just looking at him. I was like, "All right let's do it." He's like, "Cool." And he got out of the car and he's gone. Matt: Wait a minute. So at that moment? Is was that quick? Russell: That was it. Matt: It was a gut feeling that you just knew. That he was ... Russell: It was him. Yeah. And I was literally... I said this on stage at Funnel hacking live, outside of marrying my wife, it was the greatest decision I ever made. Matt: Yeah. I remember you saying that with tears. Russell: Yeah. Matt: Why though? I'm curious because it's not just ClickFunnels. Russell: He's amazing. If you look at our personality profiles, it's fascinating. We have the same personality profiles. The Myers-Briggs. Except for one letter's different. Where I'm a feeler he's a thinker. And it's been magical as a partnership because we both have so much respect for each other that we don't try to fight each other. And it's very much like if I wanted to do something, I'm like, "This is what I want to do. This what I'm feeling. What do you think?" And he'll come back and be like, "Well, I think this." And so I come up from feeling instead of thinking and it's really cool. So sometimes his thinking will trump my feeling. And I'm like, "You're actually right. Let's not do that." Or vice versa. Where he's like, "I'm thinking this." And I'm like, "I don't know why but I feel this." And he'll be like, "Okay." He respects that. We just have such mutual respect that we've never been in a fight. We've never argued. We've never had problems. It's been amazing. Matt: Wow. Russell: And he's similar to like we talk about with Dan. He went back home after us white boarding that, sat in his basement for five or six months and built ClickFunnels by himself. Caleb: Really just by himself? Russell: 100% by himself. Caleb: No other team. No other dev? Russell: It was just him. And the right before we launched, we brought in another partner, Dylan, who built the front-end editor and did a lot of the UI. And so then it was those two as we got closer and closer to the launch. And then for the next year it was just those two that did everything. And then after a year, we started bringing in other developers. But it was 100% Todd. Matt: Wow. Russell: He's amazing. In all aspects. You know you have friends you think they know everything about everything. That's like Todd except he actually knows everything about everything. You ask him anything and he's just like ... I don't know how he does it. And I'll always fact check him, like, "Oh my gosh. He's right again." He's brilliant. It's amazing. Matt: So for those of us who have partners or are maybe going into partnership, what's your best advice? And what do you feel like he does right that other partners don't do? Russell: I think the hardest thing with partners is typically we want to partner with someone who is just like us. We did a podcast most recently. Dean, Tony and I, right? We've done two partnerships. Both partnerships made it through the launch and they stopped. Made it through the launch and stopped. The podcast was like, "Why?" I love Dean. I love Tony. They're amazing. The problem is that me and Dean had the exact same skill set. Matt: Oh. Russell: And so the problem is that both of us are right. We both understand it right, but we do it differently. And so it's like You have two people, and so typically you want to partner with those people who are like you. You're like, "Oh, we think the same. We should be partners." But that's not necessarily the right thing because then you've got two alphas with the same skillset, and someone has to win and someone has to lose. And it's hard. Whereas me and Todd, we have different skill sets. There is never a winner or a loser. We can both win because different skill sets, both the same mission. It's really easy. So I think the biggest thing is you're trying to find the yin yang. You're not trying to find someone who thinks like you or acts like you. In fact, this is true in most hiring processes as well. I used to have people like, "Send me a video if you want this job." Right? So I get these videos, and the people that I wanted to hire were the people like me. I'm like, "This person's awesome. They think like me. They're a genius. They're amazing." You'll hire them, and within a week I'm like, "I hate this person." It's horrible. So we started shifting the way we do our hiring based on personality profiling instead. DISC profile drives most of my own personal hiring so I know that I'm a high D, high I, high S. No C at all. Right? And so the people I need to hire around me are high S, high C. The problem is the people I who I watched their videos and I'm pumped, they're high D, high I. So I'm like, "Yeah. These people are awesome. They're charismatic. I'm going to love them. They're drivers, they're awesome. Worst employees ever. Matt: Right. Russell: Right? So when people send us this profile, first I find the right profile and then from there I do interviews. Because if I interview ahead of time I get sold by the people who sell and then they're horrible employees. And so I make sure they're high S high C, because I know that if I talk to high S high C, I'm going to be kind of bummed out. Like, "Oh, I don't know if this is the kind of person that I'm going to jive with." But they're the best people to surround myself with because I'm such a high D high S. I'm a creator. I'm throwing things up in the air and I need people who are S and C, who are faithful finishers, who are going to take the things, capture them, and make sure that it's amazing. Matt: Do you feel like businesses and entrepreneurs are making a mistake by not having their employees and their team take these tests? Russell: 100%. I have a new company we're launching all about personality profiling because I'm such a big believer in it. Matt: Really? Tell me why. Top three reasons. Russell: It's in all things in life. If you're going to be a partner. If you're going to date someone. Understanding who they are is such a big part of it. Right? Because we think everyone sees the world the same way we see it and it is not true at all. The way you see it, the way we all see is so different and so if we don't understand that at a deep level, then I get upset by what you do and at what everyone's doing because it's like, "Don't you see what I see?" And the reality is no they don't. So if you start understanding people better ... In fact, the software can be called Understand About Me. It's a place you go and you take all the personality profiling and it gives you a page that can show somebody this is me. So in five seconds I can understand you perfectly they're like, "Oh, now I know how to work with you." Because I understand what you are, what your beliefs are, what your values, all the things I need to know about you, I can find it really quickly. Where normally you're going to go years with somebody before you understand them. I can look at a thing and get pretty dang close in a minute. Matt: Wow. Russell: Now I know hot interact with you and spend time with you and work with you. Things like that. Caleb: Question. Where does your love to learn come from? Because one of the things I noticed from being around you, it's always like yeah, so I had this moment where I geeked on this and I geeked out on this. It was health and suppliments, and marketing and personality types. There's all these different things you geek out on. Have you always been that way? Is it like you geek out on marketing, you saw the rewards from it, and you're like, "Wow, what if this goes into other areas?" Where does that come from? Russell: Yeah, I didn't always have my life. In fact, I had a fascinating conversation with Tom Bilyeu about this, because when I was growing up in high school I always thought I was a dumb kid. I thought I was an athlete, so I focused there. I thought I was an athlete, so I was a wrestler, that was my identity, that was where I focused at. I thought I was dumb. Because of that, straight C student high school and college, my cumulative GPA graduating from college was 2.3. Straight C's and one B maybe somewhere in there, right? Because I was a dumb kid. When I got done I ended my wrestling career, so I stopped being an athlete, and I was like, "Oh crap." I started to learn this business stuff and I don't like to read. I'm a dumb kid. What do I do? It was fascinating. Tom told me, because I had this epiphany, I'm not actually dumb. He's like, "Actually, the reality is you probably really were dumb. But then you changed, right?" So for me it was like I shifted. It was fascinating. Do you remember the Funnel Hacking Live where we had Lindsay Stirling perform? One of my favorite parts of that, she did a whole performance. If you guys don't know, Lindsay does violin dancing stuff, and afterwards I had a Q and A with her afterwards. I had this question I was so pumped to ask. I was waiting for her just to like, the question is, she was on America's Got Talent, and I think she took 7th place. When she got kicked off, Pierce Bronson or whatever said, "You've got no talent. You're no good." Whatever, right? So I was like, do you remember that time when he said that? What I thought she was going to say was, "Yeah, I proved him wrong. Yeah." I was like, "What did you feel after that?" She's like, "Yeah, I got home and I realized he was right. I wasn't very good. So I went back and I started practicing and I started working harder and eventually I became good enough." It was like, oh my gosh. I got chills when I was saying it again. Matt: Yeah. Russell: I remember when Tom said it to me, he was like, "You probably were dumb." I was like, "I was." Because I wasn't reading things. So with marketing that was the first thing for some reason that caught my attention, that got me excited, right? And then if you look at my DISC profile, ROI is my highest value. I have to see ROI in something or I don't want to do it. So when I saw an ROI on this reading, I was like, "Oh my gosh. I read a book, I got one little sentence, changed a color, made more money. Oh my gosh." That is where it started, 100%. I started learning that and I started getting obsessed with those things. As this business grew for me I started being more, I always joke that crazy people got attracted to me, right? The best health people, the best fitness people, the best in every market kind of came into our world somehow. So I started getting to meet all these people. When you're around someone who's the best in the world at the thing, and they start talking about the thing, you can't help but be like, "Oh my gosh, this is amazing." Right? You zone in on that. So whenever I meet someone that's amazing and I have a chance to talk to them like this I just geek out. Like when I met your dad the first time with you guys. That's when I bought your parenting course and everything. I was just like, I saw you and I saw him and I was like, "I want that." So I started going down that rabbit hole, right? I met Anthony DiClementi, I was like, "I love this guy. I have respect for him, I love him." Every time he talks about anything, he fascinates me, when he talks about something it fascinates me. I have to look down those things, right? When people fascinate me, the things that fascinate them start fascinating me and that's when I kind of go down those rabbit holes. This person is so intriguing and fascinating. What makes them that way? What are they doing. It's interesting. I'm not a good question asker. You guys are so good at question askers. I've never been good at asking questions, but I'm really good at watching what people do and then seeing it and trying to go down the rabbit hole. What are they doing, why are they doing it, that kind of thing. Caleb: He's a true master in it. You can just tell. What are some things you want to take the time to geek out on? I'm sure you see something and you're like I want to get on that but it's not a priority, I've got to do this. What are some things, if I had a week or two? Russell: Just free time with nothing else involved? Caleb: What's the next thing you're going to geek out on? Russell: Oh. I would say every probably three years I get re-excited about SEO, for some reason. I start going down that path again, because I love it. There's times in my business when that was the focused. It's not now at all, but I went through a couple ... Brian Dean's a real cool SEO guy, couple guys… I started dabbing my toe in again and I'm like, I just want to get back into it so bad. Right now SEO is actually our number 11 lead source as of today in ClickFunnels, which is amazing. So we handed SEO the first four or five years, now we're focused on it again. It's doing really well for us. I want to go deep there because I like that. Anyway, I haven't had a chance to do that. Any of the health stuff really, really fascinates me. Matt: Why? I'm curious. Why are you drawn to that so much? The health stuff. Russell: Because I've seen with myself ... My history is I got in wrestling, at the PAC 10 tournament was my last actual wrestling match. My wife was giving herself fertility shots in the stomach during PAC 10 so the next month se was pregnant. So I got done wrestling, got done competing, got done running, got done lifting. All my athletic career ended, and then my wife got pregnant. She's eating for three kids, and I'm pumped because I don't have to work out right now, she's hungry, I'm hungry, we're eating. We just kept eating and eating. So over the next seven to eight months my wife gained like 60 pounds, I gained like 60 pounds. We were doing it together so who cared, it was amazing. Then one day she has two babies and she loses like 45 pounds and I'm like, oh crap. I'm stuck here. Where did you go? This for me? Matt: Yeah. Russell: Thank you. Then at that time the business was starting and I was stressed out trying to figure it out and I didn't get healthy again. I just was in that state of being 65 pounds heavier for years. But I didn't know the difference, I didn't know that I felt differently, because I'd never been in a spot where I spent eight hours sitting behind a computer, so I didn't know what good felt like or bad felt like. I knew if I tried to wrestle I'd puke, so I was like I don't feel like I'm an athlete. I just felt normal, I thought. Eight years in I was like, I don't know, I looked at myself in the mirror and I was like, "Oh, what happened to you?" You know what I mean? I'm sure hopefully everybody's had a chance. I was like, huh. It was hard because in my head I knew how to work out, I knew how to train, I knew these things. Finally I was like, "I need to get a trainer." So I got a trainer for the first time. I'd never really done that before. Started going, and got me from I don't even know, 27, 28% body fat down to 12% in a matter of seven or eight months. I looked better, I felt better, but what's crazy is I could work twice as hard and twice as long. I wasn't tired. I was like, "I can keep going. My brain's on fire. This is amazing." Matt: Wow. Just from the ... Russell: I had no idea until I lost all the weight. All of a sudden it was just like, I can do so much more. I think, when I first met Anthony DiClementi the first time I was like, this is my problem right now. I am at work all day slaying dragons, doing all these things, I have this energy. I get home at night and my two little twin boys are there, and my little daughter, and I'm spent and I have no energy. How do I still be a present dad and how do I have these things? The next tier was the bio hacking stuff. How do you do these things? How do you increase energy? There's so many ways to do that, from light therapy to supplements to sleeping to sound to breath, all these crazy things that seem stupid. The first time Anthony's like, "We're going to do breath work." I'm like, "We're going to breathe? That's your bio hack? We're going to breathe together?" He's like, "Yeah, it's going to be amazing." I'm like super annoyed. What's the ROI on this, I've got to get back to work. So he sat me down in our gym. You've been in our wrestling room. He sat me down and he's like, "You have to sit because if you're standing you'll hit your head and you'll die." I'm like, what are you talking about? He sits me down and we do these breathing exercises where he's yelling at us and screaming. All this stuff is happening. If anyone's ever done deep breath work it's nuts. We're doing this thing where we're supposed to do this heavy, heavy breath work until he's like, what's going to happen is the world is going to ... Has anybody done jiu-jitsu here? Been tapped out before? Matt: Yeah. Russell: So you get choked out. What will happen, the carotid artery gets choked and the world starts shrinking like this. If you take pressure off it, it comes back to life. If you don't, it goes darker and darker until it disappears and you're gone, right? If you've never been choked out, that's what happens. It's a really fun experience. But you have the minute when you see it shrinking around you and then it's gone, right? He told me that's what's going to happen. You're going to breathe so much that the world around you is going to start shrinking. If you don't stop you're going to pass out. So we go all the way to where it starts shrinking, stops, and then when you hit that point you let me know and then you hold your breath for as long as you can. He's like, "How long can you hold your breath for?" I'm like, "Maybe a minute." He's like, "You'll do it for at least five." I was like, there's no way. So he says sit down, we're doing this breath thing, we're going like crazy and sure enough the walls start doing weird stuff. I feel like I'm on drugs. I'm sweating like crazy. We keep doing it. He's yelling at me. All of a sudden the world starts closing around me, I'm like, "What is happening?" And then he stops and is like, "Hold your breath." He starts the clock. I'm sitting here holding my breath forever, looking around. We had three or four of us guys all doing it at the same time. I'm freaking out. And then it starts getting quieter, things are slowing down, we're sitting there and then he's like let some of the pressure out but don't breathe in. Let pressure out, pressure out, pressure out, keep doing that, and it gets done and the stop clock is over five minutes. I'm just like, I just held my breath for five minutes. Matt: And you didn't even know it. Russell: Insane. And then the rest of the day we were on fire. It was just like, whoa. Right? We brought a cryo-sauna at our house and we go freeze in the cryo-sauna and the rest of the day you just feel ... That's the thing I love now, these little weird things. Light therapy, breathing, weird things that just seem stupid. You do it and you can go longer, you can think better, you can do stuff. All those things just get me so excited. Anthony's fun because he randomly will just ship me weird stuff in the mail. Just the weirdest things. It makes my wife so mad. It just shows up. There's a big old box. She's like, what's this from? I'm like, I'm hoping it's from Anthony, it's going to be amazing. Just weird things. Tons of stuff. I love that kind of stuff because the ROI on it is crazy. They're always these weird things. I have this headband someone sent me. You put this headband on, you put an app on and you start working and it just makes you not tired, makes you focused. These weird things. How does this work? I don't know. And they're like oh, it works because the waves over here sync your brain and change your brain waves and the creative state and all these things. I mean, I don't know how it works but I just wrote two chapters. Caleb: Do you do breath work every day? Russell: No, because it's so intense. If I had a coach who could walk me through it. I have a recording of Anthony doing it and I almost dread it because I know how hard it is. By the time you're done you're sweating. Caleb: I've got to get that recording. Russell: I'll get it to you. By the time you're sweating, you're like what just happened? I just breathed for five minutes. It's weird. Anyway, I would love to understand it on a deeper level but I don't understand a lot of the things now. Some of them I've gone deep on, but a lot of them I do without knowing why. I hate it because my wife will be like, "What's this do?" And I'm like, I don't know. Matt: Just love it. Russell: One of my buddies, Preston Eli, he wrote this blog post, he called it the Warriornaire Workout. In there he explains part of his morning workout. He's like, why do I do it? He's like, because Tony Robins does, and I obey all giants who fly helicopters and have stage presence. That quote goes to my head all the time. People ask me, why do you do that? I'm like, because I obey all giants who fly helicopters and have stage presence, that's it. I'm like, I don't know the reason why, Tony says so, therefore I will do it. I would like to understand it at a deeper level so I have a better response than I obey all giants with helicopters and stage presence. But that's a pretty good reason. Anyway. Matt: Real quick, does anybody else want to throw in a question for Russell? Anybody else here live with us? Caleb: Let me ask one more real fast. Because I want to. I want to ask this. We were just having sushi, I was asking you, what are some of the favorite periods of your life? One of them you said was wrestling, which I found funny because by far one of my favorite periods is baseball, which people wouldn't expect because obviously I've been on stage and all this other stuff and that should take the cake. But those moments when you're just on the field, you're in the zone, there's nothing better. Where, with what you get to do now, whether it's being live on a webinar or being on stage or whatever it is, where do you get the same feeling of wrestling? Do you know what I mean? You know, the feeling in your chest? Russell: Today while we were in line at the grocery store I talked to your dad about this. I said that the best feelings I ever had in my life were from wrestling. The feeling of winning a hard match that I wasn't supposed to win and getting your hand raised, I never felt something like that, that felt as good as that, ever. I've been searching in business to find that, and I've never found it. Speaker 3: Do you feel like sports is like business in any sense? Matt: Good question. Russell: For sure, yeah. There's a lot, for sure. What I was going to say is the closest I've ever gotten to feeling that is when you serve at an event and you see a table rush and you see not only people where they get the a-ha, but enough of an a-ha where it gets them to get up and to move. That's the closest I've ever felt to that. It's not as good, but it's the closest I've ever felt to that. Which is why I love doing the big things. I get a glimpse of that. Caleb: How close? Scale of one to 10. Wrestling's a 10. Where does that rank? Russell: If wrestling's a 10, I'd say it's about an eight. In fact it's interesting because when I first started in business I was racing for that, trying to find it, trying to find it, trying to find it. It took me years before I was like ... Matt: Is it disappointing? Russell: For sure, yeah. We launch today and make a million dollars and it's like, huh. That sucked. What else have we got. Give me something else. Matt: Exactly. Russell: The money goal is always what I thought was going to be the thing, and those always were just like, huh. In fact, literally one of the main reasons I did the Two Comma Club Awards, for me I need, maybe it's just from a decade of my life someone grabbing my hand and raising it. I was like, entrepreneurs need that. No one raises our hands. Two Comma Club Awards, for me, is me lifting their hands like you did it. I needed that, they need that. That's one of the main reasons I did that, because that's the equivalent of that. Anyway. Matt: How many millionaires have you created? Russell: This year we passed 1,000 people that won the two comma club award. We're over 120. Matt: How does it feel to say that? To say it? You know how sometimes it's like so many people that have passion or goals or huge dreams and visions, rarely do they really celebrate what's happening on the journey. Do you find yourself ever getting where your vision is so big and your passion is so deep that even saying things like there's 1,000 millionaires. Dude, that's huge. Man, 1,000 people that are millionaires because of you. Russell: I think the first time I really got that, probably the most impactful time, was the very first Funnel Hacking live that we gave away Two Comma Club Awards. It was the third Funnel Hacking live. It was a couple of months before that we had the idea of a Two Comma Club and an award, talking about that. I legitimately didn't know. I wonder if anyone in ClickFunnels has actually made a million dollars. I don't even know. So Dave went back and the database guys went through everything and I remember he came back and was like, there's 79 people right now that made a million dollars. I was just like, are you serious? Matt: Was it a boost of confidence? What did it do for you? Russell: It was one of those things, looking back on me doing these events where two people showed up and nobody showed up, hardly anybody, where I was so excited about this? I was like, how come nobody cares? To now it was like, this is actually, I've talked about this long enough people are believing it and now they're doing it. You start seeing it, and there's the fruits of it. In my mind I was like a million bucks, even then, ClickFunnel was new, I was like a million dollars is hard. Most of my friends I knew were like made somewhere near a million dollars. There were people who have been in this business for a long time. A million bucks is a big deal. That was most people's goal still. The fact that 79 people had done it, that was just weird to me. I think that was the biggest one, the realization that just like, oh my gosh. It's not just a theory and I think it works, it's working. It's working at a scale that was unfathomable to me at the time. 79 people. To go to 200 and then 500 and then 1,000 is crazy. Matt: What was your question, buddy? Speaker 4: You're talking about how at each level of success you hit, some of your mentors hit that ceiling, right? Because of the posturing, right? So ultimately I feel like when you get to a new level of success it requires you to upgrade your identity, your self image. What have you found is the number one routine, what's your process for upgrading the identity, upgrading your self image? Because I think that's so important because it can either hold you back and have you self sabotage and not take action and go after what you want, or it's going to be the thing that keeps you at that level and continues to propel you forward. What's kept you ... Russell: That's good. It's weaved through everything, right? The one that's the most obvious external, especially in our world, because you see marketers, most people when they first start selling whatever it is they're selling they're bragging about themselves. Here's my ad, here's my name. It's all about them, that's the first tier of it. And then the second tier, when they start having the realization, I feel like is when they stop talking about themselves and start talking about the people they've helped. Speaker 4: Mm. Russell: You see externally. You don't hear me talking about how much money I make. I'm not like, oh, check out what I got. I talk about all the other people. It's like, that's next year, is that. And then for me the third tier now, which has been really cool, is talking about Lady Boss, right? The success story isn't Kailin, it's Kailin's customers, right? So it's like that next tier. What you're talking about is like the external version of that. There's a lot of internal things that you've got to deal with, but you'll notice it shifting in people when you look at just their messaging and what they're saying. From the way they podcast, they video, they market, their ads and everything, it's the shift of it's not about me, it's about them. It's not even about them, that's the external version of it. Internally I think it's really, it's what we talked about, I can't remember why, but we brought up yesterday or today I had this really successful guy I met one time who the first time we met he was like tell me your story. So I was telling him the wrestle posturing story about how great I was. He was like, no. Tell me about the time you failed. So I was like, well, I'm in the middle of one right now. So I told him let me tell you. I told this whole thing. I remember afterwards I was so embarrassed. He's going to think I'm an idiot. You know, that fear? He was like, good, you cycled. I was like, what? He was like, I will not work with entrepreneurs who haven't cycled at least once. Because if they haven't then they still believe their own bio, right? I think that's the biggest thing, the internal version is that. The first time around, before you cycle, you think it's all you. I know for me it was. I remember doing this the first time, I'm like, I am a genius. I'm the smartest guy in the world. And then when it collapsed I was like, oh, there's a lot of things outside my control. This is not me. There is a team, there's God, there's all these other things that are making this possible. There's a scripture, I can't remember where it's at, it's the Bible, Book of Mormon, but it says you can either be humble or God will humble ... Ah, I'm misquoting it by far. But it's like God will humble people. You can be humble or he will humble you. So it's like, looking at that, I'm like round two I'm going to be a humble person because I don't want to be humbled again, right? Matt: I still feel it. Russell: This is not me. I understand, I look around now and it's 100% like there's no way I would be where I am right now if Dan Usher didn't make videos the way he does. There's no way I'd be here right now if Todd Dickerson could not code software the way he does. There's no way, all these things are so many people. Matt: You're so right. Russell: Then there's so many success stories that inside of it there's just so many people. And then there's the grace of God. I just look at the timeline of when ClickFunnels came into the market. I've now got funnels for a decade, nobody cared. Then all these things were happening, we started having the idea for ClickFunnels, started building it, we're creating it, and then literally we go to traffic and conversion, Todd's halfway done building ClickFunnels, and Ryan Deiss stands on stage in the biggest event at the time and he spends the entire four days talking about funnels. Talking about how funnels are the greatest thing. Everybody's like, what's a funnel? They're all taking notes. Me and Todd are like, does he know we're building? He's talking about funnels. He's talking about funnels like crazy. And then the next day everyone gets home from traffic and conversion and everybody that day, the next day 8,000 funnel consultants pop up. Everybody's a funnel consultant. Everyone is on Facebook talking about funnel consultants and teaching funnels and all this stuff. We're like, oh my gosh. Todd, get this software done, everybody's talking about funnels right now. So he's coding like crazy, all this stuff is coming around, all of a sudden everyone's like, millions of funnel consultants, everyone's doing it, and all of a sudden we're like, hey, we created this thing called ClickFunnels, here it is. All of a sudden all of the consultants and all the people and everyone came and we were the only platform. I look at that, as smart as I think I am, there is so much grace and timing. If I'd launched a year earlier, a year later, it would not have hit the way it did. 100% it was the timing of all these things that have to happen. If it wasn't for that ... I can act like I'm smart, I'm a genius, but man, there's so much divinity that came into all the things. There's no way it could happen without that. Anyway, just understanding those things. Matt: What did you learn when you were cycling? Russell: So many lessons. Russell, you are not that good looking. Or cool. Or anything. Matt: It's basically not about you, right? Yeah, I feel that. So what was hardest? What were the tough lessons? Caleb: How many times did you cycle? Russell: Two big ones for sure. Matt: Really? Do you mind sharing? Russell: Yeah, the first time was after I was trying to figure this thing out. I remember one of my buddies was like, you're making money online? I'm like, yeah. He's like, that's cool. I'm like, do you want a job? He's like, what? I'm like, you're the first person I know who's interested. I'll pay you to come hang out with me. He's like, all right. So I hired my friend. He's like, I have some friends too. I'm like, okay. So I start hiring all these people because I want someone to talk to. Anyway, it was really bad. I ended up having a whole bunch of employees nobody knew how to do anything. I didn't know how to train anybody. I was hiding in the room trying to make money to pay payroll while they're standing outside like, do you want us to do anything? I'm like, don't talk to me, I've got to make money to pay your payroll. They're like, we can help. I'm like, I don't have time to explain anything to you. It was horrible. I built it up to the point where it was just like, I was launching a new thing as fast as we could just to pay payroll. As an entrepreneur, you kill something you get to eat, right? It's like the greatest thing in the world. Employees, they want to get paid every two weeks whether they killed anything or not. I did not realize that until they were like we need money and I'm like, but we haven't made any money. They're like you have to pay me. I'm like, what? I'm so confused. Like, okay. Anyway, it had grown and we didn't have a model, sustainable. Speaker 3: You just launched stuff to see if it works? Russell: Yeah. When I was by myself it was like, I had an idea today, let's try it. You launch it, it makes some money, sweet. And then it was like, I made 20, 30 grand. It was my wife and I, so it was like, that lasts nine months. You know? Caleb: What did you sell? Obviously I know the potato gun backstory. You said I talked about funnels for like a decade before that. What were you selling during that decade leading up to ClickFunnels? I know it's an inordinate amount of stuff. Is there anything not even close to funnels, like something ... Russell: Yeah. The very first, pre-potato guns, my very first big idea was ... Back then what everyone was doing, you know who Yanik Silver is. Yanik would write a book and then he would sell the resale rights to the books. Someone else would buy it and they could sell it. I remember I got online, I saw these books, I bought a book from Yanik and I'm like, I can sell this. I bought a book from somebody else. I was buying all these eBooks I could sell. But then inside the books they would have links back to all their sites. I'd sell the book and I was like, I made 10 bucks selling the book. And then inside the book Yanik is selling his thousand dollar course and seminars and things. They make all this money. I'm like, I got 10 bucks. He made like $1,000 off of me selling his book. I remember being mad. I was like I wish there was a way I could brand this ebook so that before somebody opens it and sees his ad they'd see my ad. That was the first idea I ever had, ever. So my first product was called Zip Brander, it was this little thing that would take an ebook and it would brand it. You open it up and it popped up an ad. You see the ad and you click a button and it would take you inside the ebook. It was my first thing. We launched that and I sold 20 or 30 copies of it. But that was the first money I ever made, it was amazing. I had a customer list, I was like this is amazing. And then the way I was selling those, I was going to forums. This is pre-Facebook, so all you little kids, before Facebook, before MySpace, before Friendster, we used to go to these things called forums. They were these things where people would talk all day. So we'd go to these forums. One of the rules in the forums is you could comment all you wanted but you could have a signature file. At the end you could have like, Russel Brunson, check out my new software Zip Brander. I'd go to these forums and I would just spend eight hours a day answering questions and asking questions and everything. People see my ad on every little thing. My footer was on everything. That's how I was selling Zip Brander initially. I was in 50 forums posting like crazy but I couldn't keep up with it. I was like, man, if I could create a software that would manage this whole thing, that would be amazing. So my second product is called Forum Fortunes. It was this little software that would manage your posting on every single forum. You post and you could see if someone responded back on Forum 49 it would pop up and you're like, oh, you can go find it and go back and comment and keep the discussion. I made it for myself and then we started selling that. We sold more of those because I now had a little customer base here and went bigger. After that it was the next. It was always what's the next thing. That's kind of how it started back in the days, little tools and things like that. Speaker 3: How do you know when you're shooting all these bullets, how do you know when you shoot a cannonball? Matt: Good question. Russell: The thing about it initially, I had been married, I was making zero dollars a year as a wrestler, so for me to make $600 in a month, that was a cannonball. That was insane. I thought I was the coolest kid in the world. $600 was insane. So I did four or five little things. I remember it was Christmastime and I remember my wife wanted to buy a couch and it was a $2,000 couch. I was just like, oh, I can't afford that. I don't have a job. I'm getting sick to my stomach. I had this idea, what if I do a sell and just sell a whole bunch of crap that we had. I had a bunch of eBooks I bought rights to, a couple of things I had created, so we made this Grinch sale. I remember I wrote the copy, it was like, it was the Grinch Before Christmas or something. It had a picture of the Grinch and his heart growing three sizes, I don't know. I wrote this copy. My wife and I had been married a year, she really wants a couch, I can't afford a couch, so if you guys buy this, if I sell 32 of these things, I can buy her a couch and put it under the Christmas tree. It will be amazing. Caleb: You said that in the copy? Russell: In the copy, yeah. It was the reason why. I still have the page, I can show it to you. I know exactly where it's at, I can show it to you. So I had the whole page and then only an email list of like a couple hundred people at the time. I still had an affiliate program, so at the top it had an affiliate link. So I sent an email to my list and went to bed that night. Someone on my list was a guy named Carl Galletti, I haven't heard about Carl in a long time. He was a big famous copy writer at the time. Carl went and saw the thing, bought it, and started affiliating. So he joined the affiliate program, he was like this is awesome. He took that email, sent it to his entire list of this huge thing. So I go to bed. I wake up the next morning, we're at $10,000 in sales. Matt: How much before you went to bed? Russell: Oh, like $30, $40 or something. I was like, what just happened. Did I rob someone? I didn't know what happened. I looked at my email and there's all these people who were like, hey, I bought two of them, I hope you can get your wife that couch. Oh, I sent it to my friend. All these people. Because Carl promoted it, all these other people who follow Carl saw it. Carl is like it's converting like crazy. Tons of people are buying it. I'm freaking out. I'm going to wrestling practice trying to answer customer support. I'm late for practice, I ran into wrestling practice, I get back out I'm like, "Oh my gosh, I made like $600 in sales." I'm freaking out. Anyway, the whole thing goes through and over that, I think it was a seven day sale or something like that, we made $35,000. Which is more money than I'd seen in all my lifetime combined times 100, right? I paid probably 10 grand in affiliates. We made, I don't know, $25,000 that we got to keep. I was like, "Oh my gosh." I told Colette, and Colette's like, my wife. I love her. She doesn't understand the business part of things at all. I was like, "We made $25,000." She was like, "Is it illegal?" First thing. "Are you going to go to jail? Is it illegal?" I'm like, "No, I don't think so. I'm pretty sure." The first thing I did is I went and bought the couch for her, for Christmas. We got it back, I got a picture of her, sent it out to the list saying thank you so much, you got the Christmas gift, the couch. They all celebrated together, all the people. I was like oh my gosh, this is the greatest game of all time. This is so much fun. I was like, what's the next idea, what's the next thing. It was like that, these little things. After that one was done now I had way more customers, all these people that had bought my product knew who I was now so the next thing was easier so it incrementally kept growing and getting bigger. Somewhere along the line I launched the potato gun thing. Upsales of things. We didn't call them funnels back then. We called them sales flows or sales processes. Talk about your sales flow, what's your sales flow. Caleb: Sales flow. Russell: I remember Dylan Jones was our partner at ClickFunnels. Before Todd we tried to build something like ClickFunnels, we called it Click.com.com, which is a horrible name. But Dylan's, I still have all the UI images, and in there we had a whole section for sales flows and all these things. It's like, this was the first ClickFunnels. Because Dylan was on the UI eventually on ClickFunnels anyway, but we literally designed something like this five or six years earlier. Just crazy. Matt: Do you think that all those little failures and all the trying and that kind of energy is what brought you here today? Russell: For sure. It's the key. I wish I could grab everybody because everybody's like, okay, I'm waiting for my ClickFunnels, or I'm waiting for my thing. They're waiting and they're waiting and they're waiting. I was like, the reason why I got this thing was because I didn't wait. If someone were to give me ClickFunnels initially it would have been bankrupt in 15 minutes, right? You have to become worthy of the thing eventually. You don't become worthy by waiting, you become worthy by trying. And trying and trying and trying. Eventually, if you keep doing that, over time, then God's like, all right, he's going to do it. He's built 150 funnels, now I'll give him the idea. Matt: Wow, that's powerful. Speaker 3: How much more did you feel that all your other friends are in the same game? Matt: I hope you guys take there's more that's caught than Todd. That's some gold in what he just shared right there, what you were just sharing. But go ahead. What was the question? Speaker 3: I was just saying how much more would you fail if all your other friends were playing the same game? Russell: All my friends were like why are you launching more stuff? Why do you keep doing things? They do like one product launch a year. They got so annoyed. They were like, dude, stop doing stuff. I'm like, why would I stop doing this? This is so much fun. It was just confusing to me. Why don't you guys do more? Everyone, they make money they'd just be done. Caleb: Why would you keep doing more? Was it genuinely like one funnel away? Like this next funnel's the one. Were you just like you sold yourself on it, this is it, so you keep going? Or did you just really enjoy it? Russell: Well each one I thought was. Each one, every time I was so surprised, like this is amazing. That was the one. The next one's bigger. Oh my gosh, that was even better, who knew? And then I just kept going from there, you know what I mean? So I wasn't waiting for ClickFunnels or anything like that. I was just enjoying the journey every time. It was so exciting. Eventually it was like, oh crap, who knew that that was going to do what it did. Caleb: Was it all emails? Was there any ads or was there anything to scale the traffic? Russell: First 10 years was 100% emails, partnerships. There wasn't ads back then. I mean, there was Google ads, but the first initial Google slap happened about the time I was getting started. Prior to that a lot of guys I knew built their email list off of Google ads and then the slap happened. A lot of them had lists. I started getting to know those guys, going to events, meeting them, so that's how it started initially was tons of that. And then there was this big gap for years where paid ads weren't a thing. Some people did banner ads, but it wasn't consistent. It wasn't like it is nowadays. It was harder. You worked harder and all the stuff wasn't there. Mostly we focused on ... If you didn't have an email list, you weren't playing the game. It's like, who's got lists, how can you build lists, what can you do? Matt: You still think that's true to a degree? Russell: 100%. That's why the traffic seekers book was so important for me to write, I feel like, because most of the people in the game today have been blessed with Zuckerberg's simple Facebook ads that make the game easy. Matt: Wow. Russell: They've never focused on building lists. I was like, you guys, just so you know, Zuckerberg is going to screw us all. It's going to happen. Matt: Yeah. Caleb: It will happen. Russell: It's like, if you don't have a list you're all screwed. I've been through this for 18 years now, I've been through five or six cycles. I've seen people who made millions of dollars who now are not online. The people who have waded the storm the whole time are all the list builders. They're the ones who survived. Everyone else who's good at ads, they come and they go and they come and they go.

Just take the first step towards what you want. Or as our "friend" Shia LaBeouf said JUST DO IT. In this episode, we talked to our friends Hannah and Matt, also known as Not Sorry and Posi from their time hiking the Long Trail in Vermont. Our talk ranges from them getting engaged (!!) on top of Killington Mountain, ways to just do it, how many dogs Matt saw, and our favorite bad superpowers. We skim over a little what it's like to finish hiking the Appalachian Trail and the post-trail depression that follows (if you do want more of a conversation on this please, please let us know, we would love to dive deeper into this topic!) as well as the fact that you do not need to be an expert hiker to start the AT. For both Matt and Leah, the AT was one of their first, if not very first, overnight backpacking experiences! Occasionally you may hear Matt saying "drink" usually following a mention of the Appalachian Trail... this might have something to do with that ages-old joke. How do you know when someone has hiked the AT? Don't worry, they'll tell you! You may also notice a few background noises and that the quality of sound is not as good as it was in our last interview. This whole podcast thing is still in learning mode, so we are still on a very steep learning curve! Better done than perfect! Our Four Questions: What's your best tip for living an adventurous life? Matt - Just dive in headfirst and figure it out as you go Hannah - Don't be afraid to fail What's one nonessential thing you can't live without? Matt - Soda Stream Hannah - Phone with the ability to read, take photos and write If you could have one useless superpower, what would it be? Matt - Grow facial hair exactly the way I want to Hannah - Make anything I'm eating taste like what I'm craving What's your favorite rainy day activity? Matt - Watching movies, with Vin Diesel Hannah - Reading Subscribe and review on: Apple Podcasts - link here Breaker Podcasts - link here Links to Social Accounts: Matt/Posi's Instagram: @positivemilage Hannah/Not Sorry's Instagram: @sirenical Hiker Trash and Trail Angel Instagram: @hikertrash_and_trailangel Website: www.hikertrashandthetrailangel.com Hannah's Personal Website: www.sirenical.com Winnie the RV Winnie's Instagram @winnietherv Website at: www.winnietherv.com Sounds and effects from Zapsplat.com

Sometimes an opportunity comes along that’s too good to pass up. For Matt Hulett, that happened when a friend approached him about a job at Rosetta Stone. The famous language-learning company was stuck in the analog world and they wanted Matt to be the guy to bring them into the digital future. It was no small feat, but Rosetta Stone has made progress on the digital transformation and Ecommerce journey, including introducing a subscription model and overhauling its tech stack and app. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Matt discusses the challenges of transforming a world-famous brand, including how he chose a free-trial subscription model over going freemium, what it was like to achieve buy-in from investors, and the future of Ecommerce and why he thinks social selling still hasn’t reached its full potential.   3 Takeaways: Even the most well-known brands need to earn their stripes when entering a new space. When a previously offline product starts playing in the digital world, it has to prove to customers that their investment in this new space is worth it AR and VR are tools that Ecommerce platforms will be exploring more in the coming years. If you can provide a more immersive experience, you differentiate yourself from the competition and create more value to your customers Stay true to the brand and don’t try to compete on business models that don’t fit For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length. --- Up Next in Commerce is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Respond quickly to changing customer needs with flexible Ecommerce connected to marketing, sales, and service. Deliver intelligent commerce experiences your customers can trust, across every channel. Together, we’re ready for what’s next in commerce. Learn more at salesforce.com/commerce --- Transcript: Stephanie: Welcome back to Up Next In Commerce, this is Stephanie Postles, co-founder of Mission.org and your host. Today, we're going on a digital transformation journey. Matt, how's it going? Matt: Oh, really good. A little cooped up here like we all are, but I'm hanging in there. How are you doing? Stephanie: I'm doing well. Yeah, same hot, very hot. It's 92 here and the places in Silicon Valley usually don't have air conditioning so just a little sweaty in the studio. Stephanie: So I must admit, I have not checked in on Rosetta Stone in a while and when I started browsing through you guys' website, I was like, "Whoa, you all have come a long way from CD-ROMs and everything that I was used to when I was growing up and thought of Rosetta Stone." So I'd love to hear a little bit about what brought you to Rosetta Stone and your background before you joined. Matt: Yeah. It's interesting, just before I dive in, it's rare to join a company where everyone knows your brand and your product like just about everyone in the United States does Rosetta Stone. Matt: And so actually, it's an interesting story because there's not many ed tech companies that are a public companies, you could count them on your hand and the company has been a public company for over 10 years. Matt: It's been around for 27 years and it's a really interesting backstory on how the company was founded and so some of that came into play with what got me attracted to the business. Matt: So a friend of mine who's a recruiter talked to me about this opportunity and I typically do restarts, pivots as they are [crosstalk] for startups. Matt: And even the startups that I join are typically pivots. So there's kind of this pivot transformation story that typically is a draw for me for whatever weird reason why I attracted to these things and when he said, "Oh, it's Rosetta Stone." Matt: I was like, "Oh, the CD-ROM company, the yellow box." I was like, "Yeah, but they're trying to be digital." I'm like, "They're not digital yet?" Matt: And so the draw for me was typically, I take on jobs and assignments that are very difficult where I have to either completely change the strategy or get new financing on a new idea. Matt: There's generally something really, really wrong and Rosetta Stone was so intriguing to me on the surface for the intellectual reasons why they brand the product, people love it. Matt: It's not one of those iconic brands that people are afraid of. It's not like saying, "Matt, do you want to restart Myspace? I was like, "Oh my God, it's Rosetta Stone, of course." Stephanie: That's your next project. Myspace. Matt: Yeah. Stephanie: Just bring it back. Matt: Making it great again. Too soon. But what personally drew me, that's kind of the intellectual business level, what personally drew me into the company was and is the fact that I'm dyslexic, and a third of the revenue for Rosetta Stone is actually one of the fastest growing. Matt: We sell software into K-12 schools primarily in United States that help kids learn how to read, better learn how to read which is a problem. I've seen my own youngest son struggle with his dyslexia as well. Matt: And so on a personal level, it's very emotional when you can kind of tie that emotional tie to a company to its mission and vision. It's really intriguing. So it's been one of the best career decisions I've ever made. Stephanie: Yeah, that's great. Were there any universal truth that you discovered as you are kind of pivoting from different companies and trying out different roles and turning them around? Was there anything like yeah, universal truths that you saw while doing that? Matt: Well, that's a great question. Yeah, a couple things. One is it's so crazy to me, when I step into a company how basically from week one, maybe day one, no one really understands how the business works, like truly understands it. Matt: The key insight, what makes the business special, what can you do to apply capital or a time or attention to improve your strategy or your outcomes? It's just so, it's so weird when you go to a business that's operating, and maybe these are the only businesses I look at where it's not quite tight inside around the strategy and what makes the kind of the economic engine run. I think that's the biggest one that I see off the top of my head. Stephanie: Yeah, that's interesting. I can definitely see a lot of companies struggling there especially as they grow bigger and they have many business units and everyone's kind of chasing a different path, I can see people losing sight of what's important and what's actually driving this business like you're talking about and making it profitable or maybe it's not, but it's the lost leader, something that we still need. So yeah, that's really interesting. Stephanie: So when you joined Rosetta Stone, it hadn't been digital. I mean, only a few years, right? I think it stopped, maybe it didn't stop doing CDs, but it went online. Wasn't it in 2013? Matt: Yeah, I would say it was like half digital. What that means is we were selling one of the most expensive products in the App Store at the time and we didn't really have the concept of really effective sales funnels, a well thought out pricing and packaging strategy based on the type of customers that we're going after. Matt: We didn't have a lot of mobile native features and capability. So I would say it was kind of a port of the CD product in the mobile environment and that was kind of the approach. Matt: And also the approach was really not to focus on the consumer business. So not only did we make this kind of business model and digital transformation move, but also when I came into the business, the big focus was for the language side of the business was to focus on enterprise customers. Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt: I thought that was actually the wrong move because enterprise is difficult, it's a smaller market, yet consumers where everyone knows Rosetta Stone, everyone likes the product. They actually remember the CD products in many cases and want to use them again, but they want to use them on your phone. Matt: So I thought, "Well heck, everyone knows who I am from a brand awareness perspective, I'll have an easier time deploying less capital against the consumer space and enterprise space." So there was not only just a business model shift, but also a strategy shift. Stephanie: Did you end up sticking with that business model shift to focus on enterprises or did you kind of make it a mix of 50/50? Matt: Oh, good question. So it is about 50/50 today, although consumers now are growing fast. I mean, we're a public company so I can only speak to our public company numbers, but in Q4 of last year, we grew the consumer business about 20% year over year and this is from a business step was growing at single digit. Matt: And then our last reporting earnings quarter, we grew the consumer business around 40% year to year and the enterprise business has struggled more primarily because of the C-19 impacts this year because obviously, we're in a never before seen macro economic headwind, but generally, it's the right decision to make and I view the enterprise business as more of an extension of what we want to do for all adult learners versus creating as a separate entity. Matt: That's a long answer to say consumer turned out to be the right move. It was not clear when I joined the company that even joining Rosetta Stone was a smart move. Matt: I had a lot of folks that I know, acquaintances more so than friends say, "Good luck. There's a lot of error in this company." And I just think it's just a really exciting problem and it's a ... Sorry to keep going because I've had maybe 80 cups of coffee today and just, I don't know. Stephanie: No, keep it up. Matt: It's like the two big verticals that are the most expensive that increased their prices to consumers over the last 50 years are healthcare and education and they have the lowest penetration of digital, and like, "Well, those are hard problems to solve. Why wouldn't you want to be involved?" So anyways, I think it's really fun. Stephanie: Yeah, that's fascinating. So when you came in, what were expectations for your role? What did people want you to do? Did you have a 90-day plan? How did that look? Matt: Oh yeah, if anyone thinks these are scripted questions, these are not scripted questions. These are very good questions. So during the interview process and I'm sure you've had this experience before, when you meet with somebody in a company, you're like, "I'm going to do whatever it takes to get this job." Stephanie: Yup. Matt: And I had one of those experiences with Rosetta Stone. I knew I wanted this job and so I came into maybe the first or second interview with a 90-day plan before I even started, this is the first or second interview. Matt: And the 90-day plan did change slightly because then I knew a little something, but I've done enough of these transformation projects, these pivots where I knew there's these basic building blocks in a format, I have a toolbox of things that I do that really didn't change. Matt: The inevitable strategy didn't know before I started, I didn't know the team members, were they the right fit or not, I didn't know any of that, but the basic building blocks I definitely put together. Stephanie: Got it. So what was on your roadmap, did you have to think about how to re-platform to support your commerce journey and shifting into enterprise and then consumer? What was on that plan that you laid out? Matt: Yeah, and I kind of learned some of this years ago when I was ... Sometimes I think my best work, I can't speak for you or anybody else, but my best work is when I'm completely ignorant of the challenges in front of me and so when I was younger, I worked for ... Well, actually, we sold our company to Macromedia and they had a division called Shockwave. Matt: And Macromedia at that point was not bought by Adobe, and this is Web 1.0 bubble, so I'm dating myself which is not legal in Washington State and these jokes have all jail time. Stephanie: [crosstalk] get us in trouble. Matt: I know. And so we step back through that experience and I learned a lot from the Macromedia Adobe kind of M&A folks about how to approach a problem. And that plus some other work experience over time really got me to the point of thinking through things from I call it the insight, the math in the heart. Matt: And no one framed it that way to me, but that's kind of how I framed it and so when I think about the insight, I think about the addressable market, the position that we are in the marketplace, so supplier's demand competitors. Matt: Then I think about what value we're driving to consumers, what value are you driving to your suppliers if you have them. And then what are the decisions you're going to make based on the strategy that you're laying out for the best outcome? Matt: So you want to grow market share, you want to grow revenue share. Do you not have enough capital? Do you actually need to raise capital and buy companies in order to get size and scale that's the outcome? Matt: So it's kind of a process that I've done over time and I want you to figure all that out, and it takes a while, maybe 90 days, maybe a little bit more, then it's really like how do you put a process together and dashboard is a little trite, but how do you actually run the business so you understand what things are working, the unit economics, what key layers of the business are you looking at, and then figure out an organization to support that and then you find the right team. Matt: And it sounds kind of exhaustive in terms of an answer, but I think too many people come in situations and they say, "Okay, I started this job, I got to restart it. What's my team look like?" Matt: And it's always I think the tail wagging the proverbial pivot dog and I typically, you can find startup people that are good at startups and sometimes, you find startup people that are good at later stage. Matt: You can find every dynamic possible, but until you do the work on, "I need this type of person for this type of growth stage, it's the right person the right time." Matt: If you don't do the work upfront, then you end up having a team that isn't the right team for the outcome that you want. Stephanie: Yup. Yeah, I've heard ... I forgot who said that startup advice where a lot of startups especially around here, are looking to hire that VIP level person, you have to pay a bunch of money to and someone was making the point of like, "Well, will they help you right now where you're at?" Stephanie: And it's okay to kind of grow out of people, but it's not okay to hire someone who's way above that actually can't get their hands dirty and do the work of what needs to be done right now. Matt: That's right. There's lots of people that have different approaches. I actually like to be pretty data driven in terms of how I think about people so I use like employee satisfaction studies and I use different personality profile tests. Matt: Obviously, you're not trying to like ... Hopefully, no one is like applying an AI filter looking at my reactions on this live video, but you can go overboard with data, but I do feel like you need to get the right alchemy talent for your team. Matt: And I've made mistakes where you have that senior person that doesn't want to get their hands dirty when you're like, "Look, I'm in build mode, I'm painting the fence, and I'm the CEO and I'm painting the fence and then I'm talking to the neighbors and driving Uber ..." Matt: The alchemy of that is hard to do, but that's a long winded answer to say there's there's a process and I think it's figuring out what's special about your company, how do you improve it, how do you run it? How did the inputs become the outputs and then what team is required for that? Stephanie: Yeah, very cool. So with the company having to shift as they did to go online and create mobile experiences, what kind of challenges did you see come up when you guys were going through that shift? Matt: Yeah, so there's multiple. So I always think about kind of the four constituents in most businesses, its investors, its customers, it's your internal employees and society. Matt: Not in that order. The order depends on lots of different things and so when I kind of checked down all those boxes, I think the big one, the first one I pick is investors because you're having to explain a model where the CD is purchased up front, it's very expensive versus you don't get all the revenue upfront, you amateurize that revenue and recognize it over 12, 24 whatever terms of the span of the subscription. Matt: So it's a change in terms of how you're reporting revenue, explain it in a consistent way, explaining the new metrics of subscription is challenged one I think from an investor perspective explaining why we have a language business, the Lexia business that I mentioned that focused on literacy is a 20 to 25% growth business, it's growing pretty nicely and language was declining. Matt: So then explaining to investors why do you still have this business and why are you changing the direction from enterprise to consumer, I think for employees. Matt: I always like to think through the employee piece, get the employee piece right, you can do anything and so getting the employees reason to believe, I was the first president to actually run the language business. Matt: It had multiple owners of the P&L and I was the first person probably since the CEO, we had one CEO that that started Rosetta Stone and took it public 20 plus years ago. Matt: I was the first single leader to ... I also tried creating a reason to believe a compelling vision, mission and culture and then when I think through kind of the customer piece, it wasn't as hard to be honest because there was so much brand equity that was good brand equity that doing little bit of things in a way that was kind of planful and data driven actually generated a lot of great outpouring of support. Matt: So the customer side of what we were doing wasn't as difficult as I would have thought and we also had an enterprise business that had already integrated things like digital tutoring with the software and demanding Fortune 500 companies. Matt: So there was some DNA in the company where we knew, "Boy, you can earn every interaction with every interaction." So that was that piece and then later, I started building more hooks into society as part of that and so I kind of view it as a self-fulfilling positive effect of you take care of your employees, they take care of your customers, the investors get great outcomes, and society benefits and you keep kind of turning this crank and you start getting much more reflective about it. Matt: And it does have, it does pay off. It takes I think, in general, I think people brag about how fast they can turn around companies. I don't know why people brag about that. Matt: I don't know, my experience is two years and taking a business from bad to like growing, at least, believing in itself is very hard and so I look at those four factors and I think the society piece is one that's super important that a lot of companies pay lip service to and there's a lot of discussion especially in Silicon Valley about some large companies that are controversial there. Matt: But I'll give you a for instance why if you can tie together the vision, mission, culture values to society, how that's self-reinforcing, we had a obviously horrible global pandemic that we're still pulling ourselves out of and everyone's kind of living through this experience at the same time. Matt: And we basically took just two days to decide that we're going to give away our software for free for three months for students. And we run a current business and selling software to enterprises and adults and we said, "You know what? We know that parents are actually going through hell because there's kind of a make your own adventure right now and schooling." Matt: [crosstalk] and I can feel it myself and we are like, "Oh my God, this is so stressful and the anxiety I heard from our own employees about it was overwhelming and I'm asking them to work harder." Matt: And so we said, "You know what? We're going to give away three months subscription and we're going to just do it and you just have to ... The parents have to put their email address in the school and that's it." Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's awesome. Matt: And we're not a free ... We're a paid subscription product. We're not, there are other competitors that have a freemium model and as you know, changing models or mixed models generally don't have a long history of working and we said, "You know what? We're just going to do it." Matt: And so the team decided to do it, I just said, "Yeah, let's do something." They said, "Here's exactly what we're going to do." And it was live, and then the amount of positive benefits, we got that from pure impressions. Matt: It actually helped our adult business to ... Adult language learning business. That's just one quick example of when those things all start working together. Matt: It's transparent, it's engaged and it's consistent. It becomes kind of operating leverage as well. So it's fun. It's fun to see how that work. Stephanie: Yeah, that's great. It's definitely a good reminder of do good things and good things will come back to you. Did you have any struggles with maybe like surges and people logging in and trying to get on the platform that maybe you hadn't experienced in the past? Because it was maybe a bit more predictable since it wasn't free? Matt: That's a really good question. Not on the system, the system's basis, but certainly from a support basis because we had a lot of, we outsource most of our customer support, and we debated for a while whether we we're going to continue phone support, we still do and I still debate that one, but a lot of our service providers were in outside United States and they all of a sudden had to work from home and then some facilities shut down and so we are just constantly playing whack-a-mole with our support organizations. Matt: And then also, I would say to our frontline heroes were our tutors and we employ a lot of highly educated tutors that have degrees in language learning and they all work from home primarily, they're part-time employees. Matt: And they turn out to be like our heroes because they took some support calls in addition to one-on-one digital tutoring. And so there was unique ways in which we had to adapt with the demand, but I would say more on the demand side regarding the support elements and we definitely saw a surge do the work from home trend as well, but that didn't impact kind of service levels and general software. Stephanie: Okay, cool. And I could see it being a bit tricky to develop and maintain a platform that has so many different layers to the business. I'm thinking about the enterprises who are going on there and buying seats for employees, and I'm thinking about the school is going on there for students, and then the individual consumer like me who's maybe like, "Hey, I'm going to Italy and I want to learn Italian." Stephanie: I don't know, but like it seems like it would be pretty tricky creating a platform that does all of that. How do you think about creating that so everyone gets a good experience and also being able to monitor and measure it in a successful way? Matt: Yeah, I've never seen the complexity Rosetta Stone before at the smallest scale, but what I mean by that is we have three businesses and we're a small cap public company. So that's unusual and the business was run on the language side ... Well, let me step back. Matt: So the literacy business is a business that was acquired seven, eight years ago and that's a 30-year-old company that was acquired, it's called Lexia and it works as a distinct operating unit from my business and is run by an awesome gentleman. Matt: And I use that word loosely and if he's listening, sorry Nick, he's a great guy and so passionate and his team is so good and it's ... I've never seen before a product that's built with like academic research combined with awesome data product engineering that gets results. Matt: It's just, I've never seen anything like it and they had the time to build this product over these many years, it was always digital first and so they're run separately. Matt: My language business was run on two different tech stacks. Actually, it was like five and when I started, I was like, "Well, wait a minute, why is this product that looks the same running off this underlying architecture? Why don't we move everything to react?" Matt: As I kind of went through this morass of tech stacks, it was a lot of M&A that generate a lot of complexity and a lot of tech debt. And so I would say majority of our innovation was not innovation, it was just keeping these old tech stacks up. Matt: So from an R&D perspective, in addition to all the other complexities we just talked about in this interview, I was trying to grow the consumer business, trying to change the business model, swapping out new team members for more growth orientation and doing a huge tech migration. Matt: And the complexity around that is mind boggling. We finished that late last year like de-flashing like old weird services, moving to a services architecture. All that stuff we end up doing and inevitably, the goal is to have one learner experience, just like you use Google, Google Mail for your enterprise, or personal. Matt: There were some admin privileges and other things that are associated in the back end, but in general, the product kind of looks and feels the same and that's, the inevitable goal which we're very close to execute on. Stephanie: Got it. Were there any pitfalls that you experienced when going through all those different pieces to the business or anything where you're like, "When we implemented this, or we move to this type of tech stack, this is when we saw a lot of improvements with conversions or anything around the consumer or enterprise business." Matt: Yeah, just on conversions, yeah, one thing on that is interesting is the amount of improvement we saw just with like putting different team members with specific goals and this is going to sound kind of crazy because everyone is going to like, "Yeah, he's talking about agile." Matt: Just getting very specific about areas in the funnel to improve and how to adjust the trial experience at certain times, and experiencing and showing customers different things at different times. Matt: That had like a crazy amount of upside for us. And I would say less architecturally that we see an improvement other than we had just less stuff that wasn't moving the innovation forward, but just these small things have big impacts and get and I must say like if any one of my team members is listening to this and say, "You haven't solved all that yet is." Matt: It's very difficult to take a business that is so complex, and then all sudden kind of say, "Look, we're going to reduce all the complexity, networks are innovating again." I think there's still a challenge of like, faster, smaller teams, we use a safe framework which is kind of scrum like. Matt: I don't think we figured all that out yet, but it's way different than when I came in and felt very waterfally to me. We're going to issue a press release, what this release is going to look like in one year and we're going to work back from that, I'm like, "Yeah, that's very Amazon." Stephanie: Yeah, yup. Matt: I'm like, "Well, how do you even know this is the right thing if you don't have any customer?" So there was there's a whole evolution of trying things, validating them, making sure that you're deploying enough capital against that makes sure it gets a fair shake, but not too much where you're, you're in over your head and we've had some public black eyes on some of our tests, and I don't care. Matt: We were trying some things internationally with tutoring, it didn't work out, it didn't have the capital honestly to support some of it and I kind of feel like those are good experiences to understand whether you're going to invest more in something or not. Matt: And so I think the fact that we can start doing those things now because we simplified the platform or if possible. Yeah, I think it's hard to say no to things and yes to things. And some of that discipline is easier when you're a startup because you just don't have people to outsource to. Stephanie: Yup. There's always an excuse. Nope, no one else can help us with that. Can't do it. Matt: Yeah. There's never like I'm a product manager by training and I've used every product manager tool under the sun and now I've kind of just resulted in my using Google Sheets again and what I'm trying to triage like epics and themes and stories, and I still like to play around with those types of planning elements, I just always look at all these people in these points available. I'm like, "You guys have no idea the luxury we have." Stephanie: I'm sure they like hearing that. Matt: Yeah, there's nothing more pure than a startup and it's like five people, five engineers and like a product manager that codes and the seat goes, doing UI, UX and it's ... Stephanie: Yeah, that's really fun. So you mentioned earlier a free trial which I actually went on Rosetta's website and I ended up going through the entire trial of learning Spanish. How did you all think about creating that free trial and actually convincing people to do it? Stephanie: Because a lot of times, I think I would see something like that and I'd be like, "Oh, that's too much time and I don't want to start that process right now." Stephanie: And I eagerly jumped in and started doing the lesson plan because it was engaging and fun, and it kind of felt like the real world with the person walking around and you're stopping and talking to them. How did you think about creating that? So it actually converted users into paying customers? Matt: Oh, thanks for saying that. Yeah, I think we have a long ways to go. I think in terms of what we could be doing is we're just, I just feel like we're sprinting to the start line because of the late start, but I think the core piece is for most companies and they think about like what business do you want to be in a lot of people will default to like whatever their venture capitalists said they should do from their other companies they manage or whether they read on TechCrunch or whatever, or listen to on this program is I think you have to be very specific once you figure it out the approach to the product that you're going after. Matt: Are you going to be freemium? Are you going to be paid trial? Or are you going to be for lack of a better term I call it force-trial or upfront trial and there's elements of this that change, there's kind of nuances. Because that's more of a nuanced discussion is the freemium players in the language space for instance would be Duolingo. Matt: How do you get the most amount of MAUs, Monthly Active Users and get enough of them to convert? Or the Spotify example, and you're using basically cap ex as cap, you're using your R&D to drive user and usage and that's kind of Slack-like. Matt: Slack is slightly different obviously. Then the paid trial is, "Well, I have enough of something that's good that I want a lot of people to use it, but I want the conversion to be pretty good." Matt: And so for the first one with freemium, you have to say, "Okay, it's going to be so fun and compelling and I'm going to actually invest in growth that isn't there yet because I think I have scale effects —I can crowd out everyone else." Matt: The second one is I actually have a pretty good product, I need enough people to use it and then feel like I use it enough to want to use more of it. And that's what I decided to do and I'll explain why. Matt: And then on the upfront paid thing is typical like for low ACV, Annual Contract Value SaaS companies you'd see, please just call my ... Just call us and we'll walk you through it with one of my sales reps. Matt: And we'll do a guided tour through the demo or whatever and the decision why we did the second one was it was a good decision and is people knew enough about what the Rosetta Stone brand was like that we knew people would want to try it and that for people that remember what it was like, they definitely would want to use it again and we felt like the pinch was more compelling if we gave everyone a little taste of that. Stephanie: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Matt: We could have said, "Please pay up front." And we're the gold standard and giddy up, but we felt like we needed to earn our stripes a little bit into proving to people that we weren't just like a port of a CD product. Matt: And so that's why we decided to do that and we've played along different roads before. We've never done full freemium and I would argue at this point in the market, we would not be better served to do that because Duolingo has done a really good job of growing their monthly active users and have built some advantages there and we're not trying to play that game. Matt: I'm trying to play the game of being a really good, effective language learning product and I'm trying to set the tone in the trial experience that when you're using the product, it's not going to be like a game. Matt: It's not going to be like Clash of Clans. I guess Clash of Clans is a bad example, or the jewel or like Candy Crush I guess is what I was thinking of. Matt: Every day, I collect coins and I'm collecting coins to benefit my gameplay. It's kind of how I think about Duolingo a little bit and it's ... I think they're masterful of what they do, but I think they're designed to do something different than what I'm trying to do. Matt: And if you're serious about learning a language, and you stick to what I'm doing and you do a couple tutor sessions that we offer, you're going to get there. Matt: And so the business model and what we're trying to do in terms of posture, not market share, but revenue share really drove kind of the philosophy on the trial experience. Stephanie: Yeah, it definitely, it felt more serious especially where you could speak in the language and it would tell you I guess if the tonality was right, and if you were saying it correctly, and it would keep kind of advising you on it, once I saw it had that feature, that to me was when I was like, "Whoa, this is really serious, and I better be ready to learn this language because it's not like a game, it's not just saying random words." Stephanie: You're actually kind of conversating and having to hear yourself which I think is really important. That seems like a big first step to getting people to try it. Matt: It's an interesting observation because we are very oral first in our pedagogy. We want people to engage with the product and speaking is actually just in general a really good way to learn and then the key outcome of speaking well is not sounding stupid. Matt: And so if you're trying to learn a language, you want to sound somewhat authentic. So for Rosetta Stone, I would say, for anyone that really wants to learn a language, we'll get you there, but if you're just kind of trying to build like, it's like counting your calories kind of. Matt: If you wanted to do something like that, then I would say, pick a freemium product over ours and yeah, it's not like super intense scary, but it's like, "Yeah, you better do your lessons before you do your group tutoring session." Stephanie: Yeah. No, that's, I mean, that's great to incentivize people like you're paying for this, you might as well get the best out of it. Is there, so one thing I was thinking when I was interacting with the free trial was, "Wow, this would be really cool if there was like a virtual world where you could be walking around and talking to other students who are learning." Stephanie: Are you all thinking about any technologies like that to implement or is there anything on your radar where you're like, "We're moving in this direction or planning on trying this tech out or this digital platform out?" Matt: Yeah, we've played with VR in the past. I've been kind of like bearish every time someone says, "Let's go into VR." I'm like, "This is [crosstalk 00:39:27]." Stephanie: It's a hot word for a while. VR everything, it doesn't matter to the problem. Matt: Yeah, I know and I have a lot of friends. One really good friend of ours, she has a pretty successful, his definition of success and I think it is honestly successful VR games company, but like I have a lot of other friends that went into VR that gaming or especially verticals that just had a hell of a time just because there's not enough handsets that are available. Matt: Well, we have dabbled in in terms of immersive experience. I think what you're saying is is there a way to since we're immersive, use technology to make it even more immersive and what I really want to do is enable more AR in our experience. Matt: And we have like a little feature called seek and speak where you can ... It's like an almost a sample app where you can use your phone, we use ARKit to do a treasure hunt for things around your house like fruits, objects around your house and incorporate that in your speech practice. Matt: And I always thought that was like a really cool thing for us to expand into and if we ever get the Apple visor, some AR HoloLens or whatever, it'd be cool to start interacting with your world around you, not just with translation, but also to see if you can actually interact with folks that are kind of ambient around that experience. Matt: I personally and maybe this we're going too deep here, but I always thought it'd be cool if like I can visit another country and just decide how much of the spoken language am I going to generate myself, how much am I going to have my device do it because I'm not going to spend the time. Matt: And then how can I phone a friend? How could I have my tutor or my guide integrated experience where I'm going to sound really authentic if I do this or here's an experience that I could do here. Matt: I think the goal for language learning inevitably is different based on where you are in the world, but if you're from the United States or one of ... Maybe some European countries like the UK, it's kind of like this is a cool way to get engaged with a culture. Matt: If you're not in those countries, learning English primarily is a necessity and so I think some of these AR ideas that you just mentioned would be really good and speaking more frequently to other folks that are even not native speakers, but just trying to generate language is a very good way to teach. Matt: We have a product coming out called Rosetta Stone English this summer, literally like a couple months and it is a version of Rosetta Stone for EL kids or English Learners K through six. Matt: And this product is an oral first product and this blew me away. The stat if you're trying to teach a kid English primarily from lots of different countries is written communication. Matt: It's like 20% spoken and so our product is like 70, 80% spoken because this ... And so it's just really interesting. What could you do that's more immersive using AR or VR? Matt: I think there's, I'm with you. I think there's a lot of cool things you could do and I think you could enhance the travel experience quite a bit. I think you could enhance the young learner experience quite a bit. I think there's so many cool things you could do. Stephanie: Yeah, I completely agree and there seems like a lot of opportunities there. So what kind of disruptions do you see coming to the world of ecommerce and online learning? Matt: Yeah, it's a weird market and it's weird because like depending on what we're talking about in terms of overall commerce, it's like a $6 trillion education market, 6 trillion. Matt: Consumer is probably the largest out of that and then obviously, there's higher ed, there's middle school, high school, there's elementary, and then there's adult education and then where it's coming from, is the consumer paying, is the government paying. Matt: And so take all this aside, less than 10% is digital right now and I think there's going to be this massive realization and awakening because of the C-19 pandemic of everything that I do has to be digital. Matt: And it's not that we're replacing teachers, it's how do we integrate digital curriculum and conductivity between the teacher and the student, how do I build a data layer that personalized that experience. Matt: I think that can happen between, language learning, it can happen in lots of different curriculum like reading and writing. And not having a digital enabled kind of curriculum I think is going to be like if you don't have a solution for that, if you're an education system, if you're a college, if you're whatever, and if you don't offer these types of products in the future, you're going to go the way the dodo bird. Matt: I think higher education has a wake up call. J.Crew, I like J.Crew, they're in bankruptcy now. Hertz, I used Hertz. They're in bankruptcy now and I think there's this massive pull forward right now that's happening because the product that we've been using in education hasn't changed in like 40, 50 years. Stephanie: Yup. Matt: It's the same problem. If I time warp myself from 50 years ago into most classrooms, it would look the same. Stephanie: Yup. Yeah, I've always kind of thought that a disruption was definitely coming around higher education, but this seems to have moved everything forward by many years and especially around K through 12 where that felt like it would be much harder to change. Stephanie: For colleges, it's like, "Okay, now it's changing pretty quickly with all the boot camps coming out and company's not really always requiring degrees, at least in this area." Stephanie: But K through 12 felt hard to change and it feels like this is going to be an interesting forcing function now that like you said, a lot of kids are home and parents are figuring out how to be a part of their education more in the online learning process. Stephanie: It just seems like there's going to be a lot of opportunities that come up because of this. Matt: Yeah, I agree. And I also think that now I'm sounding like the tech utilitarian, but I would say that ed tech and I'm not from the ed tech space, but I am in it now. Matt: I would say that the ed tech providers that ... We're now entering the third wave I guess is how I think about it. The second wave which is typical of most other businesses that you and I have seen before, like ecommerce or sales ops tools, now you can talk about those and go, "Remember Omniture and it was badass?" Matt: Yes, it's now part of Adobe Cloud Matt is when you talk about these generational shifts in how we think about things, I think a lot of the ed tech players, people who are selling software to schools or directly to the parents or kids or whomever, they've definitely oversold or oversold the efficacy of some of those products. Matt: And when I talk about digital transformation, I'm not talking about the ability to do things self serve, and have the teacher look at some flat experience. Matt: Right now and this is not against teachers. Teachers, they're like little mini MacGyvers to me. I mean, they're like doing amazing things streaming together curriculum on the fly. Stephanie: Yeah, both my sister and my mom are teachers and I do not know how they're doing it and how they had to pivot so quickly to being in the classroom and my sister is actually a ESL, English as a Second Language teacher. Yeah. Matt: Oh my gosh, okay. Stephanie: Yup, because I have a twin sister and she always tells me about the difficulties that she's experiencing right now trying to bring her students online and develop curriculums online and a lot of them don't have internet access and it's just very interesting seeing how they kind of develop workarounds to make it work for their students. Matt: Yeah, my criticism of education isn't the teacher clearly, a lot of it is kind of the cost basis in the bureaucracy and when I talk about ed tech, it's like I think it comes down to and this is not a Matt Hulett Rosetta Stone specific thing is educating a group of young individuals or even old individuals, it doesn't matter the same way at the same time makes zero sense. Matt: And so building in the ability for the student to do some things themselves, having a data layer so that a teacher understands the areas in which that student is struggling, and so that the instruction becomes very personalized. Matt: It is generally what I'm talking about and it's right now, I think we have a billion and a half young kids around the world that don't have access to computers. Matt: And if they do have access to computers, they're scanning in their Math homework and sending it to a teacher. Well, who knows if I struggle for five minutes on this problem versus long division versus multiplication? The teacher doesn't know. Matt: And so I think the ed tech software that I'm more in favor of what I'm speaking about is how do you build curriculum-based, efficacy-based software, not unlike what your mom and your sister think about because they have degrees and know how to actually educate someone, they're not software [inaudible 00:49:10]. Matt: And if they're wanting to provide very explicit instruction, my guess is they're really swamped. They've got other things they need to do, they're probably paying for materials that are [crosstalk 00:49:22]. Stephanie: Yup. Matt: And so I think about all these stresses and we're asking them to provide excellent education, it's just, it's too much. And so I really feel like this third wave of technology, and I think it's going to happen is it's going to integrate this we call AI and HI, how do you integrate the best of what software can do and integrate that into the lesson planning of the teacher versus let's try to create AI for the sake of AI and disintermediate teachers which I think is ridiculous is and that's what I'm talking about. Matt: Because I see a lot of tech companies playing the game of ed tech versus education companies that are actually trying to be technology companies. Matt: I think the latter will be the software and the providers that will end up actually being the most successful and the most adopted, but obviously, I'm passionate about this because I've seen this with our Lexia software. Matt: And we have like 16 plus academic studies that show that the software works and I'm like, "How is this possible that two-thirds of kids still today by the time they're a third grade or reading below their grade level that continues through eighth grade?" Matt: Two-thirds are reading below level. How is this possible? And I'm not here to tell my own software. I'm just like, "Why is this possible?" Well, it turns out we don't train teachers to teach kids how to read. Matt: There's an approach to it, and we don't do real time assessments of kids struggling, the teachers swamped, they don't know what's going on. Matt: Anyways, I could talk about this for hours, but I do think there's this world where at some point, the $6 trillion business of educating all these kids and adults and young adults will be digitized. Matt: And I think that will be an interesting space. Ed tech is that one space where most VCs wouldn't want to touch. Stephanie: Yup. Yeah, I know. It's a hard ... I mean, health care and education. It's a hard space. So yeah, I completely agree. I know we're running into time and I want to make sure we can jump into the lightning round. Matt: Okay. Stephanie: Is there any other high level thoughts that you want to share before we jump into that? Matt: Nope. I think I hit the verbose button when I answered that question, but I didn't realize you have some familiar background on education which got me going so I [crosstalk] Stephanie: Yeah, no, yeah. Matt: I will be [crosstalk] lightning round. Stephanie: Yeah, we need a whole other podcasts where we can just talk education stuff and I can have my family be the call-ins and they can give us a little advice and ideas. Stephanie: All right, so the lightning round brought to you by our friends at Salesforce Commerce Cloud is where I ask a few questions and you have one minute or less Matt to answer. Are you ready? Matt: I'm ready. Stephanie: All right. What's up next on your reading list? Matt: Words that matter. I don't know the author. Stephanie: Cool. What's up next on your podcast list? Matt: This podcast of course. Stephanie: Hey, good. That's the right answer. Matt: And then Masters of Scale. There's a new podcast actually with one of my competitors from Duolingo. Stephanie: Oh-oh. Very cool. Yeah, that's a good one. What's up next on your Netflix queue? Matt: God, it is embarrassing. Do I have to say it? Stephanie: Yes you do. Matt: Too Hot to Handle. Stephanie: Oh my gosh. I can't believe you're watching that. I'm judging a little bit, but I've also seen a few episodes. So if you were to choose a company right now to turn around, not Rosetta Stone, some brand new company, not a brand new one, but maybe one that's in the industry right now where you're like, "I could jump in and help." What company would you choose? Matt: That's a great question. WeWork. Stephanie: Woo, that would be an interesting one to try and turn around. Matt: Yeah. Stephanie: All right, next one. What app are you using on your phone right now that's most helpful? Matt: I listen to a lot of podcast, I love Overcast. I don't know if anyone ever mentions that. I just love it because I listen to things 2x. Stephanie: Yup, yeah, I know. I agree. I like that app as well. What language are you or your family working on right now to learn? Matt: Well, it's funny. I'm kind of barely competent in Spanish. My 16-year-old is actually I would say pretty intermediate level Spanish and my 10-year-old is oddly learning Japanese. Stephanie: Oh, go. Go him. A boy, right? Yeah, that's great. All right and our last, a little bit more difficult question. What's up next for ecommerce professionals? Matt: Oh boy, ecommerce professionals. I think to me it's a lot of the same topics in ecommerce have been discussed for so many years and I think that the interesting one is how do we actually make social commerce really good. Matt: And I think I spend a lot of time just, I'm not serious with it, but playing with like, TikTok and Twitch, and I think there's some elements to the social selling piece that I think are super interesting that no one's really figured out and I buy actually a lot of products off Instagram, and it's still too much friction and it's not quite working right for me. Matt: So I think there's some ... How do you integrate ecomm and then TikTok in a way that's native to that audience? I think there's some things there. Stephanie: Oh, that's a good answer. Well, Matt, this has been yeah, such a fun interview. Where can people find out more about you and Rosetta Stone? Matt: Rosettastone.com for the company and I'm matt_hulett on Twitter and it was a pleasure to talk to you today. Stephanie: All right, thanks so much. Matt: Thank you.  

In this inaugural podcast, Regie Routman, author of Literacy Essentials: Engagement, Excellence, and Equity for All Learners, shares her thoughts on what we need to focus on right now during these difficult times. We talk about poetry, about addressing the unique needs of everyone, and how we can embrace “Good is good enough.” Important Links (available on original site only):TranscriptPurchase Regie’s latest bookRegie’s poetry videos: Nurturing Writers in Uncertain TimesRegie’s writing project: A Notebook for YouTranscriptMatt: Thanks Regie for joining me today and this conversation about what's essential right now in education.Regie: Thank you for inviting me, I’m delighted to be here.Matt: This is Regie Routman, author of many texts on literacy and leadership most notably, most recently Literacy Essentials: Engagement, Excellence, and Equity for All Learners. This was a book that we did on the blog as a book study two years ago, and this is the inaugural podcast episode and I couldn't think of a better person to have here then Regie. Regie: Very kind, thank you.Matt: Just a little bit of background: I came into the elementary principal position in 2011. That school was a high poverty school that had already embraced Regie's work. The teachers had said, “You really need to come to the Literacy and Leadership Institute in Madison”. I resisted at first, saying that I have the schedule to get ready and I've got to get the budget square away first and I didn't buy in right away. Once I saw it in action and the teachers were the leaders in the professional development, I just said, “Wow”, this is real, kids are going to be engaged by this, it just makes sense. I went the next year and that's when I met you. So we've been colleagues, friends...I consider you a mentor and I'm very grateful to be able to talk to you today.Regie: Thank you Matt. I think we are equals, we’re educators, we're learning from each other. It has been a joy to watch you change, to watch your beliefs shift over the years in what you find essential now (and this is true for all of us) is not necessarily what we saw as essential years ago.Matt: That's very true. Now, what’s essential now is the big question related to your book Literacy Essentials and we want to take time for that: what you would tell someone in education what we need to focus on right now with everything going on with the pandemic. You have a cool project out now with Gail Boushey on poetry and nurturing writers in uncertain times. When I first saw this come out, Nurturing Writers in Uncertain Times, I thought, “Regie is going to choose poetry,” and you did! Why did you choose poetry?Regie: (laughter) It’s such a good question and really an easy question for me. These times are so different and full of so much fear and trauma for so many people. I was plagued, it kept me up at night, “What can I do to make things easier for families and students and teachers?” The equity issue pulled at my heart as it always does. I’m in Seattle and the public schools are giving out food and books for the neediest schools. I was concerned about kids that didn’t have computers, access to the same literacy advantages as other kids, so I came up with the idea of donating notebooks to these same sites. You can find that at regieroutman.org along with my writing project with Gail Boushey. The idea was to get students pencil and paper, it’s still good technology and to get kids writing about things that matter to them during this time. In all the years that I’ve been teaching, I have found poetry to be the great equalizer. For kids that are struggling, that are having great difficulty with following the rules, they take to poetry like a duck to water. I am talking about starting in kindergarten. The other thing I love about it is, one of the biggest shifts and hardest shifts for people to make in education and the kind of work kids are being asked to do, this is not a time to worry about following the rules, to worry about, “Is their spelling correct? Are they using capital letters?” This is a time to celebrate, and I say that word meaningfully, to celebrate what kids can do and have them soar. Poetry does that. They don't have to write a lot, they don’t have to follow the rules, and it’s very enjoyable. What we’ve done in this video series is to take you through how you might do that at home, as a parent, a teacher, a family member, and everyone is successful, it’s comforting. It’s joyful. It’s freeing.Matt: I found myself engaged while watching, especially when you were writing the poem, “Dandelions”. You said “lowly weed in the world,” and I wrote that down. I wanted to tell you that it was such a cool line that you said, and then you incorporated those ideas with weed and flowers. You mention nurturing and not following the rules, and I think that can cause anxiety for any writer when trying to following the rules when you just want to get words down on paper. Poetry seems to allow for that, gives them an entry point into writing.Regie: And also because poems tend to be shorter, instead of, say, an essay. It can be just a few words. In the video series, I demonstrate my writing process. You can see me do it on the screen, the thinking and the revising, and what’s going on. Writing is hard, and the satisfaction you feel from writing is great. Kids get that. I also love it because you start with the whole. I see that shift that all teachers and leaders have to make for teaching and learning to become joyful and meaningful for all students. You start with a whole poem, a whole idea, I tell the story first, and everyone is successful, even kindergarten kids who may only know a couple of letters and sounds. So I love that. It’s so critical right now.Matt: You base that on something your noticing - dandelions - which gives every kid, that everyone can notice something. You picked out something as simple as dandelions, but you make it into this rich text. Regie: I was very careful. I wanted it to be a neutral topic. “What are you noticing today, or now, that you didn’t notice before?” and to model something positive. I’m noticing the natural world a lot more. We are inside, looking outside, and I am really looking at something as I take a short walk. This is what I call choice within structure. I’m modeling a poem about dandelions (which I’ve never noticed until now), and the message to kids and parents is, “What are you noticing?” They can take that same process and they choose the topic. What’s very important right now is something Larry Ferlazzo says on a wonderful video he’s done through Education Week, to just throw out the regular curriculum and to ask your kids what they are interested in. What do they want to learn and start there. Don’t worry about the skills in isolation. I think some of the things we need to be concerned about now are kindness, being kind to ourselves, to our kids and families we are working with, and making whatever we are doing with them relevant. Easy - this is not the time for complex projects. I think putting people first. In Literacy Essentials, in the engagement section, that is where we need to start. I have four parts there: developing trusting relationships, accelerating learners, creating a thriving learning environment, and teaching with purpose and authenticity. This is where we can start, with this home-school connection and what parents are doing with their kids at home. You’ve got to set up a culture in your home, in our virtual classrooms now that allow for that kind of trust and celebration and purpose. A lot of that is offering choices and being a really good listener. What is it that they need? Keeping close relationships with the kids and their families. It’s hard.  Matt: You mentioned the home-school connection. I am meeting with staff in weekly meetings; we’re making them optional. They are noticing that kids are not as engaged as much right now and I think people are feeling some sense of, getting worn out and not noticing what's going well. So I think that's just really an important point of involving the families and how to create that structure together and noticing what's going well. Regie: That’s really hard to do. I was noticing in a New York Times article recently on the front page that parents are having a very hard time teaching their kids at home. They didn’t know that teaching was so hard.Matt: For any family that has thought about homeschooling, they are getting a real experience right now. Although I feel for the families trying to juggle jobs and homes, or parents who are unemployed. They are dealing with unique stressors right now.Regie: This is a hard time for parents. I don't know if your teachers are doing this, or for that matter even for you to do, it would be great to just start each day or each lesson with a read-aloud. Even if you're teaching high school, to pick a book that allows you to talk about it and to jump off and write something about it to just start off with something relaxing. Kind of a beginning to the learning day. One of the books that I like is Be Kind. It is a picture book by Pat Zietlow Miller about kindness. It would take less than 5 minutes to read it and then I might ask the kids to reflect on what's a kind act that someone did for you or that you did for someone else. Let’s talk about that. Let’s write about that. If there's a way for you to do some demonstration writing in front of the kids, do that because that's really helpful too, the kind of modeling that you're expecting. Matt: What you did in the videos is such a cool example, I shared that with my staff yesterday, where you pulled up your whiteboard and you had a picture in picture. You were talking as you were writing, at the same time, and they can see the process of writing. You could see poetry kind of in action, the development of it. I think that's a simple shift that I think teachers could do in keeping things manageable enough for kids and for themselves. Regie: I think what's really important there is that there wasn't a lot of planning for me. I talked about the fact that writing is a recursive process that it's not linear. So when I was done with that, I was really done because I was revising it as I went along. I was re-reading it, I was rethinking, I was talking out loud, and I think it's important for kids to see our thinking. That thinking aloud and seeing our struggle that we go through, that it's not perfect, and that that's okay. Matt; Yeah, listening to kids, like you were saying, and having a conversation about what they're noticing and with kindness and even doing some shared demonstration. My wife, she teaches special education, and she was dictating a letter to a friend they haven’t seen in awhile since we've gone to remote learning. Doing it in front of him and putting up the whiteboard, there’s a lot of options that I think your video, as well as the conferring conversation with Gail, it was just a cool example that anyone can do tomorrow, today. Regie: I think so and that's really why I love poetry and I think it’s really a great way to start a lesson. In fact, I thought it was quite interesting that, in the New York Times which I read every day because I am from New York, the national desk now, when all the reporters get together and talk about what they are going to write about, they start by reading aloud a poem every day. And so I thought that’s just wonderful to read that poem, to get people in the mood, and relaxation, and the beauty of words, settling down, to soothe your soul before you have to do this hard work. I think that's such a great way to start a lesson. So the read aloud could be a poem and it could be a poem that you’ve written together, perhaps as a class. That’s easier in some places than others. I also like poetry writing because if you just have paper and pencil at home, you can do that, you can put together a poetry anthology by stapling papers together. It could be a writing record, it doesn’t have to be poems, a writing record of what you did during these uncertain and difficult times. I think the hardest thing is to keep the celebration and joy part of whatever it is you’re doing - as a principal, as leaders, as teachers, as kids, and how do you do that and bridge that digital divide. That is why I like poetry. The other thing I would say is I think this is hard to do but I would include in my lessons every once in a while, “Let's talk about gratitude, we’re all struggling, we’re tired of being indoors, but what are we grateful for?” Maybe writing a letter to somebody telling them how much you care about them. Or even, if you can do this, especially where not all the kids have computers or a hotspot, actually writing a letter to each of your students. At the elementary level, I think that's doable and enclosing a stamp and having them right back to you. I think that whole connection, we need to keep our kids and family socially and emotionally whole, which is so difficult to do and to put that before any mandated curriculum. Matt: I couldn’t agree more. That leads to what’s essential right now for educators. You’ve mentioned celebration and stopping and being grateful. I’ve tried to do that with team meetings, starting with what’s going well, or checking in. One teacher yesterday shared that a fox family had taken up residence on their property. She was sharing pictures and it brings in those positive experiences and what’s going well right now. You mentioned parent involvement. What else is essential right now for us in education? Regie: I think that those are the most essential things, that we do right now. Our social and emotional well-being, the strong connections with families and listening to where people are kind of at. Making sure that the curriculum allows some choice, asking kids what do you want to learn about right now and being adaptable. Not worrying so much about tests. I just read recently, which I thought was great, a professor at Stanford University who was, up until the last minute, was going to give a final to his students, decided it was just too much. Everybody was in an emotional state including him. So instead of a final, he had each of his students submit a photo of something from the natural world and that was the final. They were gorgeous, of sunsets and a bird or maybe just the way the light hit a tree, and they posted all of those photos for all students in the class to see and that was, I thought, just terrific. Anything we can do to help people feel successful. Sometimes it feels like the world is ending. We are going to come out of this eventually, but we want to help families and kids come out of this as whole as possible. And then finally Matt, and this might be a good place to end: Years ago when I was teaching and I would go into a school and the teachers were always, you know how we are, we have high expectations, that's great, but I never heard a teacher say “You don't have to do anymore. It’s fine as it is.” But it’s always, “Improve, improve, improve”. When I left one of the residencies, I had a teacher give me (I have it on my wall) this huge necklace that was handmade with paper. It says on it, “Good is good enough.” That was the message they took away which I was thrilled about. We are all trying to do the best we can. We need to slow down, breathe, find moments of joy, do the best we can, and accept that our families and student are doing the best they can. Good is good enough. So, I wish everybody peaceful days during these very hard times. Thank you Matt for this opportunity to talk with you. I appreciate our friendship and collegiality so much.Matt: “Good is good enough.” I am going to write that on the cover of my journal.Regie: I am going to send you a photo of that. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit readbyexample.substack.com

   Episode #1 Description   Welcome to “What the Lyric?!?” In this episode, we bring our favorite bad lyrics from Pop Music (c. 2016-2019). One song from an artist who desperately wants to fix her “Reputation” with some cringe-y spoken-word lyrics. And another from a Brit whose time would best be spent learning to “let go” of the booze.   Transcript of Episode #1   Becky: Welcome to What the Lyric?!? -- the podcast that confirms...yeah, that actually made it to radio.   Matt: Is it recording?   Becky: Oh now we’re recording. Oh fun!   Matt: Oh yay!   Becky: Hello everybody and welcome to What the Lyric?!? where we talk about how much we love awful, awful lyrics. A little bit about me: I’m Becky. I will listen to anything once, and over and over again if it’s really bad. And then there’s Matthew over here, my partner in crime…   Matt: You know, honestly, if you had to summarize my musical tastes, the best way to look at it would be to say that my go-to karaoke song is “Promiscuous” by Nelly Furtado ft. Timbaland.   Becky: So you know we have good taste. That goes without saying. How this whole podcast is going to work is...We have one song each that {...} we get to pick off the theme of the episode. Today’s theme is Pop Music from 2016 to 2019. We get to do a dramatic reading, and after the dramatic reading, we talk about why the lyrics are SO bad and why we had to call it out. All right, so starting first is...Matthew.   Matt: Okay.   Becky: Get ready.   Matt: Definitely get ready for this. So I chose a song...just to give you a little context for this: it comes from, I believe, August of 2017. So put yourself in that state of mind. It’s a year after the election; things are terrible...still.   Becky: I was probably high.   Matt: I mean, weren’t we all?   Becky: Yeah.   Matt: It is Seattle.   Becky: You’d have to be.   Matt: And so this person has decided to reshape their image and, you know, I’ll just let the lyrics speak for themselves:   “I don’t like your little games Don’t like your tilted stage The role you made me play Of the fool, no, I don’t like you I don’t like your perfect crime How you laugh when you lie You said the gun was mine Isn’t cool, no, I don’t like you (oh!)”   Matt: And that’s the first stanza.   Becky: Okay, so I’m guessing… Who’d be packing heat in 2017, you said? August?   Matt: Uh huh. Changing the image!   Becky: Could be… Oh! Changing the image? Only because of the changing image thing, that would be Taylor Swift?   Matt: Correct.   Becky: Oh the Swifties.   Matt: But do you...do you know the song?   Becky: Oh Jesus! Is it that...It’s the one where she then breaks it down and says, “Oh, Taylor Swift isn’t here right now. Because she’s dead!” Something along those lines? *Laughs*   Matt: This would be “Look What You Made Me Do” by Taylor Swift.   Becky: Oh yes. *Repeats the phrase “Look What You Made Me Do” twice.* Or however the rest goes.   Matt: Exactly. And really, my choice for all of the songs in this podcast are based on what I like to call “Cringecore.”   Becky: I love that. We are going to copyright that.   Matt: *Laughs* Really any songs that have lyrics that [make you go] “Oh!” You’ve heard of cringe comedy; that’s kind of how I view these lyrics.   Becky: I like it.   Matt: And specifically the -- what makes this so cringey is what you already mentioned, the, let’s find it…”I’m sorry the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now” set to the background music of, “Ooh, look what you made me do.” “Why?” “Oh ‘cause she’s dead! Becky: The old Taylor is, like, what? 23? 24? I mean, she’s not old.   Matt: She’s got a guitar. I mean, her…   Becky: She’s country. Country Taylor.   Matt: She’s Country-Pop.   Becky: Yeah.   Matt: Don’t you remember when it was just a love song, baby?   Becky: Oh man. Oh God. Ohh...Getting a little gag reflex going.   Matt: And don’t forget the “I knew you were trouble.”   Becky: Oh is that the one with the turtle sex noise meme?  *Laughs*   Matt: *Laughs* That is exactly what that is. *Laughs*   Becky: My favorite ever!   Matt: So really Taylor...I had a lot of options, just based on Taylor, but I have to admit, the lyrics are just...a mess. Let’s keep it going. I mean, we’ve already heard the first stanza.   Becky: Oh yeah.   Matt: But then she continues to say she doesn’t like being the fool, but “[she] got smarter, [she] got harder in the nick of time.”   Becky: How does one get harder when they’re carrying their cat around everywhere? I see a lot of photos of her with her cat. Don’t get me wrong, [I’m a] crazy cat lady, but I’m not taking Kink with me...My cat’s name is Kinky Disco. I’m not taking Kink with me to the grocery store, to the gym...Okay, I don’t go to the gym, but like, I’m not taking her out on a night on the town.   Matt: Unlike Taylor Swift, which I will also say I find it interesting that for a woman whose last name is Swift, she didn’t choose “faster” for the lyric. Like, that would have made AS much sense… “But I got smarter, I got faster in the nick of time.” Okay! I’ll still take that!   Becky: She got badder? I’ve never heard her swear! I’ve never seen her not smile.   Matt: She doesn’t swear in this song either. The real question, and we can answer this question at the end of the analysis, but what, what, WHAT did we make her do? I’m just very curious.   Becky: Maybe make her carry a cat around all the time. *Laughs*   Matt: *Laughs* We did this to ourselves.   Becky: Maybe she has to date all these DJs. Maybe we forced that on her with our expectations of her music and turtle sex noises.   Matt: And her Starbucks lovers!   Becky: Oh God, that’s right.   Matt: “But honey, I rose up from the dead. I do it all the time.” Necromancer, interesting. “I’ve got a list of names and yours is in red, underlined. I check it once, then I check it twice. Oh.”   Becky: Wait, what does that mean? What are you doing? You checked it. Yup, still there.   Matt: Based on the lyrics alone, we have realized that she has gotten harder in the nick of time and also, presumably, become an elf of the Santa variety. She’s making lists; she’s checking them twice. Don’t know why she’s using a red pen.   Becky: Well it is festive. Red -- Christmas-y. Becky: See I can’t get past the “hard” part. She’s not like, all of a sudden, turned to Nicki Minaj-hard. Or like, back in the day, Lil Kim hard.   Matt: She’s not going to be Beyonce carrying around a baseball bat, breaking windows.   Becky: No, but she did bust out the band, the marching band.   Matt: Oh we can always get into that!   Becky: I saw that! I saw that!   Matt: But if that’s the case, then she still did not get harder in the nick of time because she’s still following Beyonce.   Becky: Yeah. And pink isn’t really a “hard” color for me. Like, it’s not a color I go, “Oh! I see Notorious B.I.G. is wearing pink. He’s hard.” That isn’t why I would have classified him as hard. I don’t think I’ve ever seen B.I.G. [in pink.] Maybe he did? I don’t know; I’d have to go back and look now.   Matt: *Laughs*   Becky: I feel like I’d have to look that up. *Laughs*   Matt: And then really, the rest is chorus, which in case you haven’t realized it, is just: “Ooh, look what you made me do. Look what you made me do. Look what you made me do. Look what you just made me...OOH, Look what…” Okay, I think we’ve got the idea.   Becky: I feel like someone got lazy. I feel like that happens a lot in lyrics. And that’s lazy.   Matt: Which part?   Becky: The just repeating the same line over and over and over again.   Matt: Yeah, it’s not a good look. And worse, is the next stanza:   “I don’t like your kingdom keys” Kingdom keys.   Becky: Keys? As in house keys? Car keys?   Matt: Yeah, apparently someone’s got a kingdom.   “They once belonged to me.”   Becky: Okay.   Matt: Uhhh, questions?   “You ask me for a place to sleep Locked me out and threw a feast”   And the best part of this is at the very end of the line is, “What?!” So even Taylor looked at these lyrics, “Locked me out and threw a feast...WHAT?!” And they just included it.   Becky: Yeah, they said fuck it. It’s Taylor Swift; it’s going to be huge. That’s exactly how it happened.   Matt: And ultimately, it was.   Becky: I know!   Matt: “The world moves on, another day, another drama, drama But not for me, not for me, all I think about is karma And then the world moves on, but one thing’s for sure (sure) Maybe I got mine, but you’ll all get yours.”   Becky: All of a sudden we’ve gone from one person to all?   Matt: Oh yeah. So whoever took her kingdom keys apparently stole her keys, stole her kingdom and was like, “No bitch, you don’t live here anymore.”   Becky: Could kingdom keys *laughs* be a metaphor for virginity, here?   Matt: But then which one? Which one of the Starbucks lovers is guilty of that.   Becky: *Laughs* I wish I had kids so that I could be like, “Kids, keep your kingdom keys as long as you can. Just lock them away.”   Matt: “Your chastity belts won’t rust. Don’t worry.”   Becky: “Just keep those kingdom keys to yourself and be sure to give them to the right person.”   Matt: Abstinence-only education.   Becky: “And if you are going to give them away, just keep them protected.”   Matt: Just keep them on a carabiner. Becky: *Laughs* Those Schneider keys that had the chain you could just pull and snap back.   Matt: Exactly!   Becky: Keep them safe. You’ve got to know where they are at all times.   Matt: Taylor did not follow that advice. She is thinking about karma apparently. She’s not going to do anything about how angry she is, which again really contradicts the meaning of the song.   Becky: The “Look what you made me do”!   Matt: Exactly. She’s like, “Oh karma will take care of it. I won’t do anything about it except sulk.”   Becky: I’m going to sit and just bitch about it.   Matt: Yeah. And honestly, the rest of the song. A) It goes back to, “I got smarter, I got harder in the nick of time.” Return to that and then another amazing chorus of “Look what you made me do.” And the final, original set of lyrics is:   “I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me. I’ll be the actress starring in your bad dreams. I don’t trust nobody and nobody trusts me. I’ll be the actress starring in your bad dreams.”   And it just repeats until it transitions flawlessly into “Ooh, look what you made me do.”   Becky: Taylor. Taylor, I get that you’re young, probably started partying, started drinking a little bit and that’s where this came from, maybe. I don’t know.   Matt: Girl’s nearly in her 30s.   Becky: Yeah, I don’t get it.   Matt: Britney had a weird stage; I’ll allow Taylor one, but this was a…   Becky: Britney had a good one because she shaved her head.   Matt: *Laughs* She put on a show!   Becky: *Laughs* She is a showman through and through. Like, she shaved her head, tried to attack somebody with an umbrella…   Matt: I don’t remember the umbrella… Becky: Oh yeah, that was after she shaved her head. I think she went for somebody’s car window because they were taking photos of her in the car, so she went for that. Yeah. That’s a good photo to look up. It’s priceless.   Matt: That’s the next segment.   Becky: Yeah, that’s the second podcast. Photos of people going crazy.   Matt: That’s the first one!   Becky: Okay, so I think, universally, this song is incredibly awful. I think we can both agree.   Matt: Do we have a rating for this?   Becky: I would say she’s mild. Like, on a scale of 1 to 5 -- like, 5-star spicy crappy lyrics -- she’s probably right in the middle there.   Matt: I am inclined to agree.   Becky: It’s like a 3-4.   Matt: Right. It depends on your own taste buds, your ethnicity. Certainly when it comes to this song.   Becky: Oh god, yeah.   Matt: Honestly, on a scale of 1 to 5 yikes, I’m inclined to give it a 3. What nudges it toward 4 is the spoken lyrics...   Becky: Yeah.   Matt: “The old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now.” “Why?” “‘Cause she’s dead.” And then I just hear the teenager in me slam the door and yell, “You’re not my real mom and you never will be!”   Becky: *Laughs* I will say, also, [those lyrics are] my favorite part of the song.   Matt: It’s only the original part of the song!   Becky: It really is! It really is. That’s like her acting out. And you’re like, “Oh. Ohh. Taylor got edge.”   Matt: To be honest, what would have kept it at a 3, if they would have just deleted the spoken word portion. This would have been a goth “Call Me Maybe.”   Becky: Yeah. Ooh, yes! I like that. I agree with you on that one. So we’re going a solid 3 to 4 yikes on the awful lyrics scale.   Matt: I am inclined to agree. It’s not the worst. It’s certainly not the best lyrics.   Becky: It’s definitely not. *Noise of a truck* Sorry for the trucks in the background, people! This is what happens when you record in an old building. Alright, so mine...Honestly, I don’t know when it came out. This song is the reason this podcast is existing because my coworker heard me bashing these lyrics and said, “Oh my god, please record this.” So Ellen, here you go!   Oh God, how do I do this? Okay:   “I met you in the dark, you lit me up You made me feel as though I was enough We danced the night away, we drank too much I held your hair back when You were throwing up   Then you smiled over your shoulder For a minute, I was stone-cold sober I pulled you closer to my chest And you asked me to stay over I said, I already told ya I think that you should get some rest”   Becky: And then it goes into the chorus. Go ahead, see if you can guess this one. Yeah.   Matt: I’m going to need some more lyrics.   Becky: I’m going to go into the chorus right now:   “I knew I loved you then But you'd never know 'Cause I played it cool when I was scared of letting go I know I needed you But I never showed But I wanna…”   Becky: I can’t even get to this part without laughing.   “But I wanna stay with you until we're grey and old Just say you won't let go Just say you won't let go”   Becky: ...Which is the name of the song.   Matt: Ohhhh my God.   Becky: That is James Arthur’s “Say You Won’t Let Go.” Now James Arthur, if I remember correctly won, like, X Factor, which is a British TV show like…   Matt: America’s Got Talent?   Becky: Yeah! I think it’s something similar.   Matt: Are there buttons?   Becky: There are people who are guest judges or whatnot. I think it might just be music, so it’d be like an American Idol situation. And [this song] is one of the more popular wedding songs, which I find offensive.   Matt: Oh no.   Becky: Yes! Yes, this is played at weddings. People pick this as their wedding song. So I’m going to go ahead and we’re just going to start again. So he starts with:   “I met you in the dark, you lit me up You made me feel as though I was enough”   Sweet enough sentiment. Right?   Matt: I will say it sounds like they’re both getting high at a party, which I’m just like, “Oh okay.”   Becky: They’re young. They can do that. I mean, I don’t remember the last time we’d dance the night away. Here’s where I start to have some issues with this being at all a good song and even a wedding song, where he says:   “I held your hair back when You were throwing up”   Now, there’s so many things here for me. You just met her and now you’re holding her hair back. While she’s puking.   Matt: Wow.   Becky: Do you want to be with a girl who can’t handle her booze is my number one question. *Laughs* Like, is that a thing?   Matt: I mean, I have to hand it to him. I can definitely see a couple of things wrong with the dating culture. Number one -- women who look at this song and think, “You know what? I’m just looking for a man who’s going to hold my hair back 30 minutes after I’ve met him.”   Becky: She’s gotten to that point. It’s like in Singles where she’s like, I was looking for all these things, and now I’m just looking for a man who says “God bless you” instead of “Gesundheit” when they sneeze. That’s where she’s at.   Matt: I mean, it’s a pretty low threshold.   Becky: Yeah.   Matt: But I also think it’s very much a critique on straight men who are like -- there’s no such thing as a red flag to me. She’s vomiting in a toilet? I bet I could get laid tonight!   Becky: She is so beyond her means; if anything, we’re going in for the kill. Okay, so now it says:   “You smiled over your shoulder”   Becky: All I can picture at this point is puke-face, which is puke stuck in the teeth, her make-up is now down around her cheeks, she’s got raccoon-face. She is that girl at the end of the night who is missing a shoe. And is holding the other one in somebody else’s shoe in her hand. Her purse is open; shit spilling out all over the place. That’s the girl I’m picturing, and you’re like…”Yeah.”   Matt: Say you won’t let go!   Becky: *Laughs* This is the girl for me. Forever. No. No, I can’t...And a wedding song! I’m going to keep saying this. This is a wedding song. People pick this for their freaking wedding.   Matt: See, what I love about that is that it explicitly gives the couple permission to drink too much, to dance the night away. And THEN, as she’s puking, he’s going to be like, “It’s like the first night we met!” *Laughs*   Becky: Open bar at this wedding! Very clearly. We’re not going to have food, just booze because we’re going to relive our first night. I can’t. And then he says:   “For a minute, I was stone-cold sober”   Becky: Now, when you sobered up for that second, did you go, “What the fuck am I doing?” Because that’s [when] I would have gone, “What am I doing? Why? This girl is puking and I’m holding her hair back and that’s the girl I think…”   But then he went, “Nope! We’re good. I don’t know what that was about. I’m pushing that to the back. Pushing it to the back. That is not a red flag in any way.” I don’t get it. And clearly, puke-face is a turn-on for this guy because then he pulls her close.   Matt: He’s got a thing.   Becky: *Gagging noises* It’s giving me the gag reflex thinking about it. Then he says:   “And you asked me to stay over I said, I already told ya”   Classy. He’s good.   Matt: Wow.   Becky: Yeah:   “I said, I already told ya I think that you should get some rest”   Becky: Now I’m not sure if he’s just being nice because she just lost the contents of her entire stomach in front of him and he doesn’t want to embarrass her any more or he’s like, “I’m going to go in for the kill even though I said ‘Let’s just get some rest.’”   Matt: He’s closing the deal. Honestly, if he cared, he’d be like, “We’re going to get you some water and medical attention.”   Becky: This is a “Me Too” movement issue.   Matt: Yeah, a #MeToo moment.   Becky: And then he goes on: “I knew I loved you then.” Got to be a fetish. Like, puke-face fetish. I don’t know. Not anything I go for. “But you’d never know.” Yeah because she’s black-out drunk. Who remembers during black-out drunk-ness? And then he says: 'Cause I played it cool when I was scared of letting go.” Yeah because she could die of alcohol poisoning. *Laughs* There could possibly be a death that your fingerprints are on the body now.   Matt: He’s scared of letting go and yet, at no point does he think, “You know, there are medical professionals who are paid to take care of this.” Becky: Yeah, maybe urgent care. That’s all I’m saying.   Matt: She deserves better at this point.   Becky: Yeah, and then he goes into, “I know I needed you.” More like she needed you rather than the other way around?   Matt: Yeah, she needed you in the same sense that she needed to be hydrated.   Becky: Yeah, maybe needed to be told, “Maybe not that last drink.”   Matt: Exactly. And this is going to be a bad decision.   Becky: Stop spinning while you’re dancing. Doing that little spinny-dance. That hippie dance thing. I don’t know. I don’t dance. I have no idea what the kids do these days. So then we go into the he wants to stay with her when she’s gray and old.   When you’re gray and old and you’re still puking into a toilet, holding her hair back. That’s old.   Matt: My brain went the opposite direction. Of course he’s excited for her to get gray and old because then all sorts of bodily functions go haywire. He definitely has a kink for this.   Becky: He’s waiting for the diaper stage.   Matt: Yep. 100%.   Becky: So then we get to the next bit:   “I'll wake you up with some breakfast in bed I'll bring you coffee with a kiss on your head”   This is an intervention. She’s daydrinking; she’s hungover. That’s what this has to be.   Matt: Too many damn mimosas.   Becky: “And I'll take the kids to school.” ...Because Mom’s had too much Mom-juice? What is happening here? Now we’ve established there’s a cycle. There’s a problem. “Wave them goodbye.” Because Mommy’s going to rehab and you’re not going to see her for a little while is what I’m getting. I could be wrong. “And I'll thank my lucky stars for that night.” The puke night? You’re thanking your stars because now you are having to take over care -- ALL the care of your kids -- because your wife can’t get out of bed because she’s been day-drinking and going on the Mom-juice.   Matt: Alright, two things. Well, actually, two kinks really come out of this. Number one, he definitely has a thing for girls who are messes. Like, full-on messes. Number two, the dude was playing long-game. If I can get with an alcoholic woman, enable it…   Becky: There will be diapers sooner [rather] than later!   Matt: Exactly. *Laughs* And I cannot wait to get custody of the kids who don’t exist yet. So...interesting, James Arthur.   Becky: Maybe that’s all he wanted was kids. And he just needed some drunk, crazy lady that would believe anything he said to her just to get those kids.   Matt: I hate to say it, but I know a fair number of straight women who, if a dude held their hair back, they’d be like, “Aw, he’s got a caring, tender soul.”   Becky: Yeah, I probably would have said that in my twenties. I’m also 45 now, so I’m like, “There’s something wrong with this guy.”   Matt: That’s because it’s amazing when you get out of your twenties...the clarity through which you can see the world!   Becky: Oh my God, yeah. Okay, so then we go back into the whole, “When you looked over your shoulder. For a minute, I forget that I'm older.” And here’s where I become an asshole for picking this song because the next line is, “Because you’ve been too busy hiding her alcoholism from the family.” The song’s about alcoholism! People are playing this for weddings! Again, top wedding song -- alcoholism is mentioned in the lyrics.   Matt: Wait, repeat that exact lyric.   Becky: “Because you’ve been too busy hiding her alcoholism from the family.”   Matt: Wait, who is? He is?   Becky: He is. His whole little stanza is:   “When you looked over your shoulder For a minute, I forgot that I'm older Too busy hiding her alcoholism from the family.”   Matt: This took a turn…   Becky: I know! I’ve never gotten past the first stanza where he’s holding her hair and she’s puking. No idea that they would all of a sudden mention alcoholism. THEY MENTION ALCOHOLISM. How is this a wedding song? You people have got to listen past the first stanza. And then it goes into, “I wanna dance with you right now.” I’m assuming now because shouldn’t she be in rehab? And then, “Oh, and you look as beautiful as ever. And I swear that everyday'll get better.” Everyday’ll. That’s everyday, apostrophe, L, L. Get better. “You make me feel this way somehow.” I don’t know. What would that way be? Afraid of drinking?   “I'm so in love with you And I hope you know Darling your love is more than worth its weight in gold.”   Now we’ve just completely gone past the alcoholism. That was just a little blip. Just a little mention.   Matt: Just going to drop that in as a reminder.   Becky: Yeah. Then this one gets me, “I wanna live with you/Even when we're ghosts.” Really?   Matt: That’s eternity.   Becky: That’s really...no.   Matt: I have yet to meet a single person in my living life who I would want to spend an actual eternity with.   Becky: I don’t want to spend that much time with my cat.   Matt: Ah! But see, that is the precise lyric that made that a wedding song.   Becky: Yeah. OR “I'm gonna love you till/My lungs give out.” Till my lungs give out?   Matt: But then he just literally contradicts what he’s just saying. He’s like, “I’m going to…” What?   Becky: Be with you even when we’re ghosts. But now it’s just till my lungs give out. He backed it up a bit. He was like, “Ooh…”   Matt: There was a rug that he pulled out from underneath her, which is that he doesn’t believe in ghosts.   Becky: OR he’s thinking he’s got a better shot in the afterlife of hooking up with, like, Anna Nicole Smith or something.   Matt: I’m guessing. But no one says what Anna Nicole Smith looks like after she died. What form of Anna Nicole? Becky: He’s thinking ahead. FAR ahead since he cut it back down to just till my lungs give out. “I promise till death we part like in our vows”?   Matt: Yikes. That’s just poor sentence construction.   Becky: Well, again, this song is about alcoholism and it’s a top 10 wedding song.   Matt: That’s a winner.   Becky: I think it’s a top 10 wedding song mainly because he’s British and the Brits do love their booze. *Laughs* So I’m sure it hits home with a lot of Brits.   Matt: I’m going to give you the win on this one. It was never a competition. I’m giving you the win. That is a clusterfuck of a song.   Becky: That TOP hit...I don’t even know what it topped at, but it’s up there. Not only that...WEDDING SONG.   Matt: First of all, he didn’t just have a thing for ladies who were messes, he then also proceeds to move forward with it to be like, “You know what I really love about you? How you hide your debilitating substance use from your family. That’s a major turn-on for me.”   Becky: See? He gave us a little hint in the beginning, and we’re all like, “This guy’s just an idiot. They’re just young.” And then it’s, “Oh shit. They’re alcoholics.”   Matt: She’s got a problem! And then it should have just been, “I’ll love you until we’re ghosts, which will be soon because your liver won’t last much longer.”   Becky: Because cirrhosis is bad. I say this is right up there. I say this is a 4.5 on the yikes scale for me.   Matt: I was precisely thinking somewhere between 4 to 4.5, but I will give it credit. There’s no way it’s going to be a 5, only because there was an emotional journey there.   Becky: There was. He took you on a little bit of a ride, albeit a crazy rollercoaster of alcoholism clusterfucks.   Matt: I don’t think I would have ever..No, no no. AMENDMENT: I would have never guessed there was an actual major pop song that had the word alcoholism in it.   Becky: Now I feel like I’ve got to look it up, but he was up there. I can’t remember where it was, but it played a lot, and I was like, did anyone actually listen to these lyrics before it went anywhere outside of the recording studio?   Matt: I think they saw it and thought to themselves, “Oh my God -- the UK -- this is going to be relatable.”   Becky: *Laughs* These people drink like fish and they are going to love this song. Alright, let’s see if I can find it...where did this damn song hit. I can’t believe this song about alcoholism made the charts. Let’s see, Brit Awards...Video of the Year and Single of the Year in 2017. Also, Oh thank God, it wasn’t for Teen Choice Awards. Thank goodness!  He also won American New Artist of the Year that year!   Matt: No. This is #MeToo moment. First of all it was a #MeToo moment and then, following that, was alcoholism and neglect?   Becky: Peaked at number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. In May 2018, it was reported that The Script, also another classic band, had launched legal proceedings against him due to alleged copyright infringement in regards to this song.   Matt & Becky: OHH!   Becky: It just got ugly.   Matt: Although now I’m intrigued at the title because...does the title, “Say You Won’t Let Go” refer to…   Becky: The booze?   Matt: ...a Jameson bottle? Or James Arthur?   Becky: I’d go with the bottle of booze. *Laughs*   Matt: I think she’s certainly loving that!   Becky: THAT is good when you’re a ghost.   Matt: You know what pairs best with cirrhosis? Jameson. Informal plug.   Becky: Jameson if you would like to sponsor us…   Matt: Please let us know!   Becky: Please!   Matt: Please get us out of this studio.   Becky: This studio is hot and there’s guns a-blazin’ probably somewhere in Seattle right now. Okay everybody, thanks so much for listening. Please join us next time when we take a peak at the riveting lyrics of songs from the ‘90s. That’s right. I’m Becky.   Matt: I’m Matt.   Becky: And this was…   Becky & Matt: WHAT THE LYRIC?!?

Download PDF Welcome to Larisa English Club #12 What’s New? Sentient Robots and The Future. Speaking Practice. Greetings in American English. English Grammar. Simple Past and Past Continuous. What’s New? Sentient Robots and The Future. Zombies and aliens may not be a realistic threat to our species. But there’s one stock movie villain we can’t be so sanguine about: sentient robots. If anything, their arrival is probably just a matter of time. But what will a world of conscious machines be like? Will there be a place in it for us? Artificial intelligence research has been going through a recent revolution. AI systems can now outperform humans at playing chess and Go, recognizing faces, and driving safely. Even so, most researchers say truly conscious machines — ones that don’t just run programs but have feelings and are self-aware — are decades away. First, the reasoning goes, researchers have to build a generalized intelligence, a single machine with the above talents and the capacity to learn more. Only then will AI reach the level of sophistication needed for consciousness. But some think it won’t take nearly that long. Speaking Practice. Greetings in American English. A. (Acquaintances) Matt: Good morning. Maxine: Good morning. How are you today? Matt: Just fine, thanks. How are you? Maxine: Wonderful. Things couldn’t be better. B. (Good Friends) Dotty: Hi. What’s up? Vivian: Nothing much. What’s new with you? Dotty: Not too much. I’ve been pretty busy. Vivian: Me too. Seems like all I do is eat and sleep. Dotty: Gotta go. Call me tonight. Vivian: Okay. Check you later. C. (Family) Mother: Good morning. Son: Morning. What’s for breakfast? Mother: The usual. Eggs, toast, and cereal. Coffee, if you want. Son: I think I’ll just have cereal for a change. Mother: Help yourself. The cereal and sugar are on the table. The milk’s in the refrigerator. English Grammar. Simple Past and Past Continuous. When to use the Past Continuous? To talk about things that were in progress in the past. Past Continuous Positive To form the past continuous positive, use subject + (to be) + verb + -ing I / He / She / It was studying You / We / They were studying Examples: “What were you doing when I called you?” “I was studying.” She was playing guitar at the party. At 5:30 last night, we were driving home. They saw a starfish while they were walking on the beach. Read more here https://larisaenglishclub.com/pdf-resources/larisa-english-club-12-pdf-version/

Knox Robinson is the Founder of First Run. Knox has spent time training alongside Mo Farah in Ethiopia, Eliud Kipchoge in Kenya and attended the Breaking2 Nike Project in May 2017. We dive into all of these topics with Knox in this podcast espisode. Don’t forget to check out our new book: Eliud Kipchoge – History’s fastest marathoner: An insight into the Kenyan life that shapes legends — — — — — — Podast Transcription (Matt) Thanks very much, Knox Robinson, for joining me today no this Sweat Elite podcast. Knox has a fascinating story, he’s spent some time training with Mo Farah and the Mudane – I think it’s pronounced – group in Ethiopia. (Knox) Mudane, Mudane. (Matt) Mudane? (Knox) Yeah, the president Mudane, yeah. (Matt) Mudane, yeah, got to get that right… Before the London marathon last year, and he spent some time with  Eliud Kipchoge in Kenya, as well, as attended the Monza sub-2 Nike event last year in Italy. So, thanks very much for joining me today, Knox. (Knox) I’m excited to be rapping with you, for sure. (Matt) Cool. I guess we can get started by talking a little bit more about yourself and your background. You were a runner in high school and in college, you attended Wake Forest University and got yourself to, I guess, a decent standard before taking some time away from the sport, but then, you were drawn back, I guess, some ten years later, or thereabouts. I guess it would be good to talk a little bit more about, I guess, what took you away, and then what drew you back, and where you’re at now. (Knox) You know, I think, you know, really, what happened was… It’s tough. I mean, like, legions of runners will tell you how hard it is to make that leap from a, you know, passionate high school runner to walking on a top level program. I mean, Wake Forest University, in the mid to late 90s, when I walked on, was – for a very small school – had an incredibly credential distance program for this moment in time. I mean, when I walked into the locker room my first year, half of the United States junior cross country team was there, in the locker room. So, you know… Like, we had guys in there, you know, beyond all Americans – we had, just, a bunch of dudes who loved getting it cracking, and on the women’s side, there was also great athletes as well. So, it was amazing, and it was a tight knit group. I kind of, on a good day, I was scratching at that 10th man position, but it was also really challenging to kind of keep going and stay inspired when, you know, you’re… You’re just, kind of, like, 18, 19 years old, figuring it out, you’re not there on an athletic scholarship, and, you know, there’s a bunch of other interests exploding around you, and so… It got to the point where it was kind of make or break, and I kind of had a… A couple of, sort of, like, disappointing, kind of, moments on my own accord. And so, I just, you know, stopped running. Now, I’m so deep in it, all this time later, that it’s weird to think that I just made the decision to stop. But that’s what I love about what I’m doing now, is, like, I want to kind of share back with, like, young people, that your own passion for running and your own pursuit – whether the competitive or non-competitive, or performance-based, or just, you know, feeling good about yourself and your body… It doesn’t really have to be dependant on university scholarship and being part of a team. You can do it on a team, you can do it on your own, you can form your own team, you can form your own crew, and I hope to share with the folks that you can, kind of, do it for the course of your life. It’s not just something you’re going to do in your school age years. (Matt) Absolutely. And I think… I don’t want to… I guess, before I go into the quote that I read from you, I did, I guess, discover your content, for the most part I’ve heard the name before, but… On the Rich Roll podcast. And on the Rich Roll podcast, you had a great quote that said ‘Running is act of religion…’ – sorry – ‘…of rebellion.’ And you go on to, sort of, talk about how, you know, nobody wants you to run, you’re supposed to just be a digit, a one of… A one or a zero in the code, and you’re not supposed to get out and think for yourself. And I think that that’s… It’s very, very true. And you can, sort of, go and do this on your own. And, as you just sort of pointed it out, you don’t have to have university scholarship to, sort of, prove that. (Knox) Yeah. I mean, to put it in a… To put it in a better way, less, like, strident way, like a friend of mine once told me: ‘You’re only one… You’re only young once, but you can be immature for the rest of your life.’ So… Definitely… You’re definitely only young once, but you can definitely run wild for a really long time. (Matt) Absolutely. And you, yourself, have ran quite a fast half marathon yourself. (Knox) I just ran 70 minutes. I just ran 70 minutes in a half, and… (Matt) That’s quick. (Knox) At Valencia, earlier this year. (Matt) Alright! Oh, I was there. (Knox) Oh. It was incredible. (Matt) It was very windy that day. (Knox) It was windy! That’s what I’m saying. Everybody can talk junk, you know, talk trash, like, ‘Oh, it was windy…’ It rained tw… It’s only a half, rained twice… (Matt) And… Yes. (Knox) And it was windy cross and in your face, and, you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever raced in Europe, but, like, European dudes don’t play. They’re mean. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) They’re out for blood. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) You know, it’s not like cross country jabbing you in the ribs – these guys are, like… These guys have, like, triangle formations, they’re talking in front of you as they’re running, like, 70 minutes for the half… They’re surgning… It’s definitely very, very competitive in the way that, like, that sort of sports culture in Europe is. And so it’s awesome to just, kind of, like, catch a plane from New York and pop into the race, and, yeah, I popped a big one. I was… That was wild. (Matt) Yeah, and I think… (Knox) So… That was a high watermark for me, for sure. (Matt) Oh, yeah. That’s awesome. And you ran 70 minutes, but I actually didn’t realize it was Valencia, and being there that day, I think most people ran at least 30 seconds to a minute slower than their potential, or their personal best, most people. So… (Knox) I was 70 low, I was 70 low. I would have… (Matt) You’ve got a… Yeah, you’ve got… People want to go here. (Knox) I was thinking… I would have leaned in for 69, but I was finishing up with two younger guys, and they were really struggling, so, like, I didn’t want them to ruin my finish line photo, I didn’t want them to, like, head to the side, so I was, like, ‘You go on ahead, let me just… I’ll give you a little room so I look cute on the finish line.’ (Matt) I’m impressed you were thinking this credibly at the end of a half marathon, well done. (Knox) Look, times are going to come and go, but, like, a good photo… You need to, like, make sure it’s crispy. (Matt) Yeah. It was super windy between, I think, what – 10 and 16 kilometer mark, but… Yeah. That’s awesome. (Knox) Yeah. (Matt) So, I guess, I think what most people listening to this podcast would be super interested in would be about your time spent in Ethiopia, with Mo Farah’s training group, before the London marathon last yeah. And, although I sort of know the backstory about how that came about, and how you were asked to go, and, sort of, what happened there, I think it would be really cool to talk about all of this over the next, sort of, 10 to 15 minutes, because it is quite fascinating how you ended up there. And, sort of, some of the stories, kind of, about that. For example, you know, the story about the… About the coffee, how they went to get some coffee one day and the coffee machine wasn’t working, and just the general culture around there and how… I guess what you went in expecting it would be like, and then what it was actually like. So, it would be really cool for us to chat a little bit about that. (Knox) Yeah. I mean, it was… It was… I don’t want to call it a fluke, but it was just kind of like a hilarious chain of events before the New York City marathon, I was kind of lucky to kind of be one of the last guys accepted into the Sub-Elite field, so I rode out on the Sub-Elite bus to the start line of the New York City marathon, and was in the holding area with the Elite guys, so everybody is in this sort of indoor track area on Staten Island before the race, a couple of hours before the race. Super chill environment, everybody’s running around on the track, men and women, elites and sub-elites, and I was… I had kind of been on a several months’ meditation wave, so I go off to the side, I meditate, I come back, and then, when I come back to the track, I’m not really friends with any, like, the elite runners on the New York City scene, you know? They’re in, like, the rich guy clubs, and they work on Wall Street and all that kind of stuff, and I’m sort of, like… You know, an older black dude with, like, a chipped tooth and, you know, kind hangs out in Brooklyn, so… I was, like, ‘I’m just going to go hang out with, like, the African dudes. (Matt) Which is a good move, which is a great move… (Knox) Like, I’m black, so, I’ll just hang out, and the black guy is, like, ‘Hey, is this, like…This is the black section, let me hang out with the brothers.’ So, I go over there, and I knew Abdi, so at least go over and sit by Abdi, I’m stretching… Meb’s over there, Meb, kind of, like, says ‘What’s up?’ And then, Kamworor’s there, I think Stanley Biwott was there, I knew Wilson Kipsang… (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) From meeting him in Berlin a few weeks… A few months before, when he dropped out. So… I knew some of the guys. I just, like, dropped myself down and hung out, and then Abdi sort of – to, like, make conversation – was, like, ‘Hey, man…’ And I’m thinking about New York, I’m thinking about, like, what I’m going to execute on First Avenue, I’m, like, in my zone, I’m trying to be cool. Not trying to, like, fan out, and, like, take selfies with these guys. And Abdi’s like, ‘Hey, man, why don’t you come out to Ethiopia? I’m going to be there training with Mo again, Mo ready for London.’ And I was, like, ‘Yeah. Cool.’ And I just left it at that. I was, like, ‘Yeah. Cool. I will.’ I said ‘Yeah. Cool.’ So… So, then, I mean, fast forward, I just booked a flight and, like, went out to the camp, which is probably north of  Addis Ababa, in this small little hamlet, this little town called Sululta, where Haile Gebrselassie’s complex is, and then, across the street, of course, is Kenenisa Bekele’s complex, or his old place that some Chinese guys bought. So, yeah, showed up in the middle of the night, they didn’t have a room for me as planned. I went across the street and stayed at Kenny B’s place… Kenny’s old place. That was one of the worst places I’ve ever slept at in my life, and I’ve slept at a lot of tough places… (Matt) This is Kenny Bekele’s accommodation? (Knox) Yeah, but it hadn’t been, like, kept up in a couple of years, because he sold it to, like, some chinese investors, and didn’t maintain it. And now he’s building a new place across the street, and that’s where Mo trains. (Matt) OK. (Knox) So, Mo trains at Kenenisa’s track, which is next door to Haile Gebrselassie’s hotel and track. (Matt) Right. OK. (Knox) So, Mo is staying at Haile’s pace, and training at Kenenisa’s place. (Matt) Big names there. (Knox) It was crazy, no, it was crazy. And then, like, you know… Met… Guys were just driving up… It was just… It was just… It’s a wild town, it’s a wild town, to think that much elite, sort of, talent is, like, in and out as much as… Goat herders are there, and, like, a church is, like, doing ceremonies in the middle of the night, all  night… It was just really a wild scene. Very, very different from the peaceful, sort of, environment that Eliud Kipchoge trains in. But I think Mo Farah really thrives on energy and excitement, for sure. (Matt) Yeah. OK. So that’s how it came about, and I guess you’ve introduced us to, like, how… What it was like coming in to Sululta… (Knox) Yeah. It’s Abdi’s fault. (Matt) Which I’d like to talk a little bit more about… (Knox) We can blame it on Abdi. Abdi’s fault. (Matt) Yeah, OK, so you were staying in this little shack. (Knox) Yeah. (Matt) Across the road from Bekele’s track. (Knox) Yeah. (Matt) I guess, what was the deal then, like…? (Knox) And then I couldn’t do that, so… (Matt) Alright, you changed… (Knox) The next day, then, I moved in… The next day I moved into Haile Gebrselassie’s, sort of, hotel spot. And that was cool. So, I stayed next door to Mo, Abdi, Bashir Abdi, who just got second in the 10,000 for Belgium at the European championships, and then, like, a bunch of young Somali guys, as well, in the camp. (Matt) Awesome. OK, and, I guess, what was it… Yeah, what was it like next to these guys and being able to… I’m assuming, you’ve mentioned in podcasts and to me before we started recording this that you attended some training runs and some training sessions, so it would be really cool to learn a little bit more about what that experience was like. (Knox) Yeah, I mean, I lived… I mean, I lived… Yeah, I don’t want to say I lived with them, because we were in the same room, but I lived next door, you know? Like… And I ran with these guys two or three times a day. I will say that I was in pretty good shape, obviously. A month after that I ran 70 minutes and a half, but… And I had spent some time at altitude… The same altitude, what, 8,000 feet or something like that, 8,000 – 9,000 feet in Mexico the month before, so the altitude wasn’t a big shock, but I will say that these guys, on the easy runs, definitely… It was definitely a bit rough. (Matt) You said it was also dead silent, too, in the… (Knox) Pardon? (Matt) You also said that it was very quiet in the easy runs, in the Rich Roll podcast? (Knox) That’s the thing, yeah, like… You know, you’d expect… And again, when you’re in school, or your hanging out in your little running crew, or even… Honestly, you know, when you go on on your long run, on the weekends, and you’re running, whatever, 20, 22, 23 miles… You’re catching up on the night before, you’re talking about this and that, you’re unloading on the week, all that kind of stuff… Then, on the easy runs, with these guys? They didn’t talk at all. Like, these runs, at a casual pace for these guys, the runs were in complete silence. And that was, like, really unnerving, that the easy runs are quiet. On other hand, the most intense track workouts that I witnessed – and It’s not like I was stepping on the track and running with these guys – but they had such a good vibe… Like, you would have thought these guys were just, like, messing around and, like, in the off season, the way the vibe was, and then, they’re stepping on the track and they’re running, like, 4 minute miles at altitude, like, on the track… And, like, dudes are falling down, you know, Mo is just, like, chewing through his pacers and, you know, the coach is on the bicycle trying to keep up, and… Meanwhile, while this is happening, they’re playing, like, Drake on their Beats Pill, or, you know, Mo is asking people to take pictures of, like, his abs and video on the iPhones, so he can post it later on his Instagram… (Matt) Yeah, he got you his phone and just said… (Knox) And he’s still ripping through reps, like, wildly. Honestly, it’s just crazy. (Matt) That’s awesome. There’s so many things I wanted to dive into there… (Knox) Yeah, yeah… (Matt) I guess, firstly, I’d like to know – before we talk about the track styles – when you were talking about the easy runs and there were, sort of, quiet. They were quiet, but you also said before that they were rough. I mean, what sort of pace are they guys punching up there? And, mind you, before we get into that, I guess the altitude is… What, it’s 2,700 meters, which… Or thereabouts, which is some… What’s that in feet? (Knox) Close to 8,000. So, yeah. Addis Ababa is, you said, 2,700 meters. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Yeah, so, I mean, that’s… That’s just casual running for them, at, like, 2,700 – 2,800 meters. And then, you know, sometimes on the long runs, they might do, like, an uphill long run, or you know, there’s a hill or a mountain right next to the training camp that these guys didn’t do, but a lot of athletes would run right up, and that’s, you know, close to 10,000 feet, so 3,200 meters or something like that. (Matt) Oh. (Knox) That’s… That’s pretty intense. I mean, if you look at… I don’t know what a lot of other places around the world are, but as far as in the United States, even a lot of these training locales in Colorado are much more casual altitude than that. Like, closer… (Matt) Oh, yeah. They’re closer to 2,000 maybe… (Knox) Closer to 64… 6,400 feet or something like that, not to diss any of my friends in Colorado, but… This was not that. This was, like, getting up and eating oatmeal at 8,000 feet, and then, you know, going out and… You know, like I said, I was in shape. I mean, I even went out and ran, like, my little 20-mile Boston marathon training run on my little Boston course before I went. And I was, like, ripping off pace, I was fit. And I went out to Ethiopia, and man… These guys were running, I don’t know… These guys were running quick on their easy runs, you know? Even their jog was just kind of, like… I was having to work. It was embarrassing, because I was in good shape, and they’re looking at me, like, ‘Ehh…’ You know? The only thing that saved me was, like, going out on a, you know, on a long run, and… Because I looked like I was dragging. I was tired, I didn’t look real, obviously I’m not stepping in their workout, so they didn’t know what it was. And when we went out on long runs, 20 milers, or 22 milers, the fact that I was able to do a 20 mile run in two hours, two hours and, you know, one minute with, like, no support, like, minimal fueling and hydration, at 8,000 feet or 9,000 feet, they’re like, ‘Ohh? OK, OK. Oh, OK. OK.’ Because, when it came to just the easy miles, the 7, 8, 9, 10 miles, man that… It was rough. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) But that’s the level… That’s the shape he’s in. I mean, Mo… Mo… Mo… Mo Farah is in shape this year, for sure, as you’ve seen by him… His run at London and then his run at the Great North Run, and then… I mean, I’m excited to see what he’s going to do in Chicago this weekend. (Matt) Yeah, yeah. It will be interesting to see how he goes there and whether or not he takes some more time off his… Off his personal best. But… (Knox) For sure. (Matt) Yeah, now thanks for, sort of, painting that picture about how it… How… What it was like to do the, the… The more aerobic running with them, and I guess it would be cool to touch a little bit more on what the track sessions were like and what it felt like to be there, and… I love the story that you told on the Rich Roll podcast, about how Mo was just, like, ‘Hey, man, can you… Can you get my phone from my bag, and here’s my password, and… Just open it up, take photos…’ (Knox) Right! This is, you know, like… This is not even in the beginning of the workout, this is, like, halfway through the workout, during, like, a… During the recovery. He’s, like, ‘Hey, mate – can you go in my bag and get my phone, the red phone.’ He had, like… He had two iPhone Xs, like… I… I… I’m from New York, I’ve got cool luggage, you know, I work with Nike. I’ve got, like… I’ve got the prototype of the Peg Turbos, I’ve got a couple of pairs of 4%s in the bag… You know. I’m cool. But I didn’t get the iPhone X before it went out. I didn’t want to, like, drop it, I didn’t want to get robbed… Whatever. So, I go out to Ethiopia, Mo’s got two iPhone Xs! I was, like, ‘Oh, man. This guy is embarrassing me, like… ‘ He’s asking me to go in his bag, gives me the passcode, and then, like, wants me to take, like, photos and videos of him as he’s doing his workout, so he can post something to IG later. And then, after I did it, he didn’t even use them. Like, he didn’t even think the photos and the videos are that good. Like, he didn’t, like… I failed. That’s the worst part. (Matt) Oh, no. (Knox) I haven’t… I haven’t told anybody that, but he didn’t any use any of the stuff I took. I was, like… He’s like, ‘Oh, yeah, oh… OK. Yeah, cool. Not bad, yeah.’ I was, like, ‘Oh, come on!’ The angle, I’m laying down on the track trying to do artistic shots as he goes by, yeah… He didn’t really respect my… My… My social media. My social media… My social media technique. He didn’t really respect it, so… It’s OK. (Matt) Awesome. (Knox) But that was incredible, man. Like, just… It just made me think, like, you know, usually I think that an elite has got, like, to approach the most serious sessions with the most seriousness of purpose, or the most serious demeanor. But, you know, you’ve got to choose the demeanor that works for you. And I realised it’s about creating a good environment and creating a good vibe, and having good energy. And then, that’s going to push you to better performances, rather than some real intense situation where, you know, you’re kind of on the wrong side of pressure and… And… And… And, and, and… And Intensity. You know what I mean? (Matt) Absolutely. (Knox) It’s better to create a vibe and then just to, like, have Mo get stoked, and then tear up the track. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Rather than just kind of, like, ‘Can I do it? Oh, I’m going to run and get this impossible workout and then fail!’ Like… The other thing is this guy loves… And this is what I wanted to bring back and also share with people in my group, Black Roses, but also with other folks in the running world at large – like, this guy loves the challenge. Like, you know, you’re used to it. People dread the long run, like, ‘Oh, I’m worried about my long run this weekend. Oh, I can’t believe I have to do this long run this weekend.’ And we always speak about our biggest challenges, I mean, as regular people, like, in negative terms. You know? But Mo would be sitting around at lunch on Tuesday, already excited and chatting about the long run on Sunday. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Like, at one point, he was pitching the coach, he was, like, ‘Oh, Sunday we might go to this other place and run with the Ethiopian group.’ And the coach says, like, ‘No. No, no, no, no, no. No.’ Because, right? Mo’s excited to go to, like, another location for the long run, and do the long run with, like, the Ethiopian national team, and Ethiopian elites. (Matt) Right. That’s really interesting. (Knox) Rather than my ‘hiding at a camp’, or my ‘training is secret’, or whatever. He wanted to go and have the Sunday long run with other guys and the best in the world, like, away from cameras, away from whatever – just for the battle. Like, the light in his eyes that went up, when he was, like, trying to get his coach to let him go run with these guys, and the coach is, like, ‘No. You’re not going to do that. Because, as soon as you guys get out there, you’re going to start going, and then you’re going to start going crazy…’ And Mo’s like, ‘No, no! It’s going to be chill!’ He was actually asking the coach, he was telling him, like, ‘No, it’s going to be fine. It’s just friendly, we’re just going to go and have a good time.’ And the coach is, like, ‘No way.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, this dude not only is, like, it’s Tuesday, and he’s already chomping at the bit for the long run…’ (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) ‘… but also he wants to go and race these other dudes that he’ll outrun, with these other dudes that he races at the olympics and championships, and the marathon.’ (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) He was, like, wanting to do that. For fun. (Matt) Just for fun. That’s awesome. (Knox) Just for the battle. Just for the war. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Like, that was inspiring. So, I’m trying to, like, really come back and, like, change the own culture around my own group that everyone, like, gets excited for the long run on the weekends, and people get excited, you hit them with a workout and then they’re, like, ‘Yeah, let’s do… Yeah! Alright! Yeah!’ You know? I want that excitement. (Matt) It’s… (Knox) Because that’s going to change the vibe and that’s going to change the results. (Matt) Absolutely. It’s a really interesting topic, this, actually. Because  I just spent, I guess, the better part of the decade living in Europe. And, other than Finland, for the most part, and in that country – I know it’s quite similar in other countries in Europe – it was very common for the… For it, sort of, essentially, to be the exact opposite of you just said, in a way that people would train on their own, they wouldn’t want to train with other people because they had a set, programmed, that they wanted to follow, from their coach. And it was almost, like… I was in Helsinki, it was almost like there was quite a lot of good runners around the town, but they were also training on their own. And the idea of getting together and doing something like you’ve just described, like, a whole bunch of guys that are all competing against each other just to, like, punch at a hard tempo around… That was, like, no way would anyone ever come up with that or do that. And it’s just… It’s not even a thought. Like… So it was really quite interesting that that’s how Mo was, sort of… That’s how Mo is. And that’s how he sees it, that’s what he wants to do. And it’s… Yeah. It’s really quite interesting. It’s… And I guess more people could do that. (Knox) I mean, it’s understandable. I mean, I come out of that, and, like, keeping workouts a secret, and training on your own… But it’s, like… And it…(audio skips, 37:29) Plan, and it doesn’t mean that, like, Mo doesn’t follow a schedule. But as, you know, as an elite, there’s only a certain number of workouts left to do. There’s only… I mean, there’s only a certain kind of workout to do. There’s only a certain handful of approaches, you know? (Matt) Absolutely. (Knox) So, what are you really going to do to get that little edge? Especially when we know that edge is .5 seconds or .2 seconds… You know? (Matt) Yeah. Exactly. Right. (Knox) What is that edge? It’s mentality and experience, and, like… I don’t know. Of course, we love that cliche of, like, the loneliness of the long distance runner. We love that. But I love seeing Mo, you know, having a whole training group of friends, and when they weren’t training, they sat around and listened to music, and laughed about a bunch of stuff, and talked about soccer and… you know? Or football, rather. Or whatever. And just, like, had a good time. And then, when it came to really go to that… To the highest heights, it was… (Matt) Game on. (Knox) It was game on. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) It was, you know… It was fascinating. (Matt) Yeah. I really found it interesting, too, that on the Rich Roll podcast, that you spoke about how they didn’t ever know what the training session was ahead of them until they were, like, warmed up in track. (Knox) Right. (Matt) Yeah. And how, you sort of said yourself, all these, you know… Nothing against all the people that have these, sort of, training programs scheduled out for months on end, and so on. But these guys, like, I think you said it well, like, Mo is thinking in his head, it could be one of many things before the training session, and that’s… You were talking about how that could be used as an advantage. (Knox) Yeah, had to step back and think about it, because it’s, like… Like I said, I wasn’t stepping on the track and, like, jumping in his workouts, you know? A couple of times, the guys are like, ‘Are you jumping in on this?’ When I was, like, ‘Come on, man.’ So, guys were cool. Wasn’t like I just, like, you know… But I was on the sidelines, and I was just watching, because it was better to… It was an education. When are you going to get to see one of the best guys in the world at the office, you know? (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Day in and day out. So, it was just fascinating to watch that… That… That particular approach, you know what I mean? (Matt) Absolutely. You also said that you had a lot of people after the trip not so much ask about the workouts, but they were asking about, like, the diet. And the… I think you said it was, like, a peanut butter, like a recipe or something… Something like that. (Knox) Yeah, I mean, it was cool because… Well, yeah. I just think that, like, in these days, we love… I mean, Eliud Kipchoge is so inspiring. His words are so inspiring, his life, his… His… His, just, entire aura is… Is super inspirational and aspirational. And then, Mo’s personality is infectious and what he’s done for the culture, you know… What Abdi’s done, like, all these guys are great personalities, and I like… I like… I like learning about that. I like studying… Studying that. And so, you know, a lot of times, Mo’s coach was really afraid that I was going to, like, leak this or that workout… You know, I Was taking notes or whatever, writing down the workouts… Was worried that I was going to, like, leak a certain kind of workout, and I understand that. It’s intellectual property, and Mo is heading up for London marathon, and Bekele and Kipchoge were entered in the race. So, I understand. It was in… The pressure was on. But, on the other hand, you don’t… No one ever asked me about a workout. People wanted to know what the diet was, people wanted to know about Mo drinking coffee, Ethiopian coffee, which is, of course, like, an incredible coffee experience… People wanted to know about the strength that they have in the camps out there, peanut butter tea and the recipe for peanut butter tea… So, you know, it’s really an interesting moment right now that we’re in, that people want to know not, like, what it is, but how it is. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) You know? (Matt) Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thanks, thanks so much for sharing a good 20 minutes there of, you know, your experiences i Ethiopia. I think it’s a perfect time to sort of transition to your time spent with Eliud Kipchoge in Kenya. (Knox) Yeah. (Matt) So, I’m actually not that… So much familiar with this experience that you had, but you did go to Kenya once, so… (Knox) Mhm. (Matt) And then, you did spend some time in Kaptagat, as did we, around  a year ago now, training alongside him before Berlin. I mean, it was really cool to learn a bit more about how you… About your experience in Kaptagat and training alongside that global NN Running Team. (Knox) Well, yeah. And I, you know… Much respect to the global NN Running Team, and  I definitely wasn’t’, like, training alongside of them, and did… It was much different from the Mo Farah experience. I was there, sort of, independently, and then with… In Kaptagat, I was there as part of a Nike team, you know, working on a project just to, kind of, like, connect with Eliud around that Flyprint innovation, 3D printed shoe that came out earlier in the year for a few elites to race in… So, it was more of just a chance to kind of connect with Eliud off the radar, Geoffrey, Abel… And then, also, like, I had connected with Patrick Sang, who’s a master coach, and just a master human being. And so, having spent time with coach Patrick Sang the year before in Berlin, and then being able to connect with him back in Kaptagat was an experience that brought all his training and coaching philosophies and arguments to life. So, it was more just a sort of an overall, cohesive experience, and a chance to witness that rarified element, and environment of Kenyan distance training, like, first person. (Matt) Yeah. For sure. I guess you’re such a… You’re very good at describing and, I guess, painting a picture, and I think it would be really cool to spend maybe a minute now describing what it’s like in Kaptagat. And coming Eldoret and then what… I guess what the little village is like. (Knox) Yeah, I mean, you’ve seen the visuals, you know it’s just, like, one highway coming into a town, it’s like that through much of East Africa, as so much Chinese investment is helping build roads and like, just, to really kind of ease with the export of natural resources… So there’s, like, a… You know, a main two-lane highway, blacked up highway, but Eliud’s camp, the NN Running camp, or the Global Sports… global Sports Communication, right? GSC camp, where Eliud’s lived for… Since his late teens, or for the past 14 or 15 years, if not more… Was really incredible. People know it’s super simple and austere, cinder block construction. But, at the same time, they also do have solar panels and solar energy that was installed last year, so really kind of looking at a well thought out training environment for the express purpose of, like, pursuing excellence in long distance running. Athletes would go out and, of course, you’ve seen the photos of them tearing up these tracks and these amazing chain groups, star-studded training groups on the track, and then you’ve seen, you know, or heard stories of the long runs where 200 people, 250 people show up for the long run. But back in the camp, it’s really amazing, it’s just the best athletes in the world sitting around on plastic lawn chairs, kind of checking their phones, playing, like, the latest music from, you know, their scene, like, on their phones, doing some dances, and then, you know, sipping tea and just kind of joking and giving each other a tough time. A lot of jokes and revelry, and then, obviously, because it’s a self-sustaining operation, all the athletes in the camp are assigned different duties and… And details. So, on one day, Eliud Kipchoge and Geoffrey Kamworor might be tasked to clean all the trains. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Even if they’re, you know, the best runners in the world, world champions in the half-marathon and, you know, world record holders in the marathon and all that, so… Dudes still have to clean the toilets. It’s super humbling experience. And the other thing is, even though Eliud’s the… An elder in the camp, he doesn’t always, like, set the schedule or set the responsabilites. Sometimes it’s the younger athletes who do the assignment. That’s how, you know, horisontal the structure is. That, like, everybody has a part in everything. So, even the younger athletes have to have not just labour, but also the responsibility when it comes to assigning duties and stuff in the camp. (Matt) That’s really interesting. So, how long did you spend at… There? (Knox) I was there a week. A little over a week. (Matt) And did you manage to get to Iten? (Knox) No, I was just in Eldoret. I was supposed to go and have dinner with Allie Kieffer. Do you know about Allie Kieffer? She is a super exciting runner on the US scene who surprised a bunch of people with a big finish at New York City marathon last year, after kind of working her way into elite status later on, and now she’s really been tearing up the roads over the past year. So, she shoutout Allie Kieffer, and she’s poised for, like, a big New York City marathon coming up in a few weeks. But, anyways, Allie was over there, training at Iten, and I don’t know if she was living with Betsy Saina, but yeah, she was, like, ‘Ah come over for dinner…’ But I really underestimated how hard it is to get from Eldoret to Iten. They’re not that far apart as the crow flies on Google, but… Or even in an Uber. But, the reality of transport between the two places is a little tough, so… I didn’t make it out there. (Matt) OK. Good, well, yeah. Thank you once again for sharing that, stories about that experience. And, I guess, a couple more things would be good to talk about. First one is, you attended the Monza Nike Sub 2… I guess, what was the official name of the race? So, I’m mind blanking, but it was the… (Knox) Well, officially, it wasn’t a race. (Matt) Yeah, the challenge, I guess. Event. (Knox) What was it? It was an experience. (Matt) Experience, yeah. (Knox) It was more, like… (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) Woodstock wasn’t a concert, you know what I mean? Jimi Hendrix said ‘Have you ever been experienced?’ Monza was an experience. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) So, Monza was an attempt to see if… An attempt to break two hours in over 26,2 miles, I suppose. That’s how you would put it cleanly. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) But yeah, it was incredible. I mean, obviously, you know, it was on a Formula 1, a very famous Formula 1 track in Monza, Italy, and along with Eliud Kipchoge, who else did we have there? It was… (Matt) Tadese? (Knox) Zersenay Tadese and… (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) The young Ethiopian guy… (Matt) I don’t remember his name, but he was the one that… Did he drop out or did he run? He was a little bit far back… (Knox) No, everybody finished. (Matt) They all finished. (Knox) Those 3 guys finished, and then they had a team of all star pacers, so even though the pacers were incredible – Bernard Lagat, Chris Derrick, Lopez Lomong… So it was really… Again, to use the word, the phrase ‘star-studded’, it was a super kind of crazy experience to watch this level of execution, just in the pursuit of an ideal. (Matt) Absolutely. And you mentioned how, I guess, how motivating and inspiring the event was, especially towards the end, and you mentioned that you shed a tear towards the end of that race, and I guess I would have been absolutely fascinated… (Knox) Yeah; I mean, at this point, I have to admit, I did get misty eyed. .. (Matt) It was raining, so, you could have caught a hardest… (Knox) Perhaps it was the high dew point, it may have been the dew point from the morning… But there was noticeable fogging in my sunglasses, and there was no reason for me to be wearing sunglasses, because it was cloudy and raining. No, but just to watch Eliud Kipchoge really commit – and I mean that in, like, a bunch of senses of the word, to commit his spirit and his body, and his mind, to this unprecedented task was beautiful to watch for most of it. But then, in the end, it was so excruciating as he was, like, straining, you know? And it’s tough to related this to other people who don’t have kids, but, you know, when you’re watching your kids figure out life, when you’re watching your kids, you know… You and I, we have success and failure perhaps an equal measure. And we’re figuring out for our own, and we don’t ask anybody to feel sorry for us. But to watch your kids try and fail, whether that’s try to ride a bicycle and fall, or, you know, make a team, or, you know, run for student government president, or in the spelling bee, or even just, you know, falling down at the playground and skinning their knee – it’s tough to watch another human being attempt something that they’ve never done before, and to be fearless, and doing that pursued. And that’s what it was like watching Eliud Kipchoge come so close to breaking two hours for 26,2 miles. It was in the heart. And to watch him finish, I… I cried. And then, immediately after he finished, I thought ‘Man, this guy did it because he thought he could do it. (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) And he didn’t believe in any barriers. I mean, Nike marketing aside and, you know, the shoe and the preparation, the science behind it, and then the empirical conditions and the marginal gains… Man, I just missed… I’m finished, and I thought ‘This guy doesn’t believe in limits. This guy doesn’t believe… This guy thought he could do it. And then, in the next instance, I was, like, ‘What’s holding me back from my potential? What’s holding me back from my goals? (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) And yeah, I don’t even mean, like, my running goals. Sure, my running goals are, you know, I could train that much harder, you know… I can go on the wagon that much sooner… You know what I mean? (Matt) Yeah. (Knox) I could kind of, like, scuttle various aspects of my life and commit to something in running. But also, on a life level, what’s keeping me from being a better father and a better partner? And a better friend? And a better son? And a better brother? You know? Like, what’s keeping me from being a better citizen of the United States of America? Like, what’s keeping me from being, like, a writer that I’ve always dreamed of being, you know? Watching Eliud Kipchoge at Monza made me reflect on all the other aspects of my life outside of running. I think that’s part of the power that this man holds for us at this time in our culture. (Matt) That’s perfectly said. Yeah, awesome. Thank you, yeah. I’ll let you go soon. Thank you very much for everything today… (Knox) No, thank you. (Matt) I guess, very quickly, I’d like to just… Maybe we could talk about, just quickly, where people can learn a bit more about Black Roses first run? You have a very… A very cool Instagram account, and the handle is @firstrun. (Knox) @firstrun yeah. @firstrun – that’s, for better or for worse, the only place to find me, unless you want to, like, come to New York and, like, hang out. And then, you know, I’m spinning records with friends at a reggae club, or hanging out in the park. So, come to New York and hang out, but if you can’t do that yet, check me out on Instagram at @firstrun. I’ve never been on Facebook, I don’t have a Facebook account. (Matt) OK. (Knox) And Twitter didn’t work for me, as you can tell from the wordiness and the verbosity of this conversation. Twitter… I never figured out Twitter. So, Instagram is where I’m at. (Matt) Awesome. Thank you very much, once again, Knox. (Knox) Thank you, Matthew and Sweat Elite. I’m super excited to participate in the conversation. I love what you’re doing, shoutout to everybody who’s a part of Sweat Elite, and is a fan of your stuff, because I’m a fan, too, man. For sure. (Matt) Awesome. Thanks so much. (Knox) Thank you.

Understanding what people in say from the sounds they make is all but impossible without context, even in our first language. So how can we make more use of this amazing tool which helps prediction, understanding, engagement and application? We discuss what context is, why it’s important and how to incorporate it when teaching adults, teaching kids and in teacher training.Tracy Yu: Hello, everyone. Welcome to our podcast. We've got our regular guest, Matt Courtois!Matt Courtois: Hey!Tracy: Hey, Matt.Matt: How's it going?Ross Thorburn: As our starting point, I wanted to play you guys a quote from Jordan Peterson's podcast. He's a psychologist. This is from a lecture actually about music, but it's him talking about how human beings can understand the sounds that come out of other human beings' mouths.Jordan Peterson: ...It turns out that it's very difficult to listen to what someone's saying, and that's partly because all of the information is not encoded in the sounds that they're making.For example, part of the reason you can understand what I'm saying is that you know, more or less, that this is a lecture about psychology. You know it has a scientific basis. You know that there are certain things I'm not going to talk about.The entire context within which you sit, informs your understanding of my speech. Every word I say helps build a framework for you that informs your ability to understand each word.Ross: Basically, just what we say to each other isn't enough, by itself, to be able to understand what's going on. We all have to understand what context we're in to be able to pick up all those clues and decode meaning from sound.Matt: I had a student years ago, a really high‑level student, and I asked her to quantify how much English she could understand whenever I was speaking. She said it was about 30 to 40 percent.The rest of it was knowing me and knowing this context and understanding things I probably would be saying, and she's able to fill in all that stuff. In this student's case, the other 60, 70 percent of her language is guesswork.We're actually talking about how you can do that within a real conversation.Ross: That's definitely a skill, isn't it?I had a really interesting example of this a few years ago. I went for a run. It was in Beijing, actually, in the winter. It was really, really cold, but I was still wearing shorts and tee shirt. Afterwards, I went into a 7‑Eleven and bought a bottle of water. The person on the other side of the counter, said, "Are you cold?" and leaned across and touched my arm.I remember thinking, "If I couldn't understand Chinese, I would be so freaked out."[laughter]Ross: I wanted to pay for the bottle of water, and then the person started massaging my arm. I think that's because context causes you to predict what is going to be said, and what's going to happen.When you go in to a shop and you put something down on the counter, you can say with 99 percent certainty that the thing that the person behind the counter is going to say next is the price.All these great examples of how we use context in our day to day lives to predict what's going on, but we also need to bring those ideas into our teaching and probably our training, as well.Tracy: I think what I encountered when I'm training teachers...Usually, teachers, they feel quite difficult to understand the concept of context, because it's basically about where you're going to use a language in real life.I usually tell them, "In real life, think about, if you're talking to somebody, who the person is. Is it a friend? It's a family member? It's a colleague? Is it a doctor or is it some stranger on the street?"Why did you need to talk to them? Ask for advice? Ask for directions? Maybe you are paying for something at the cashier? What kind of situation you are, or where you are," and then try to help them understand what context is.Ross: I would almost say it's like language learning physically happens within a classroom, but you want, mentally, for it to happen in another place.For example, we'll talk about examples later with kids, but if you're teaching kids the names of some wild animals, don't make it take place in a classroom with some flashcards. Make it take place on a safari, or make it take place in a zoo.I think people make the mistake of thinking you need context when you practice language ‑‑ you do ‑‑ but you need context everywhere. From the moment the students walk in to the class, there should be context. For when they first encounter a new language, there should be a context. When they're practicing a language, there should be a context.Matt: You reminded me of a podcast I was listening to recently.This person went and saw "Sweeney Todd." Before the show, they walked in, and people were serving meat pies ‑‑ which is part of the plot ‑‑ and everyone was speaking with a London accent, and it was in the US. Everyone who went to this just said it was such a richer experience for the actual play, that they...One thing, we're teachers...When they struggle with context, it's like they choose a grammar point, and they decide, "This is what my class is going to be about. I'm going to have a class about the second conditional."They start off with a bunch of advice like, "If I were you, blah, blah, blah." Then they ask a question, "If you won a million dollars, what would you do?" then everybody answers it. Then it's like, "If you were an animal, what would you be?"The only thing stitching the whole thing together is the actual grammar that's being covered, and it's a really boring class to watch.[laughter]Ross: Or to be in.Matt: My advice is always to think about...Don't stitch your lesson together with the grammar points. Stitch your lesson together with that context that you were talking about.Tracy: It's so difficult to cover the different language points. If they really want to teach some certain language points, they feel difficult to find the context.Ross: Maybe over the next few minutes, we can help people by giving them some examples of how to include richer context in their lessons.Let's go through our three questions. First of all, we can talk about how to use context with adults. Second, we can talk about...Tracy: How to use context with young learners.Ross: Finally, we can briefly talk about...Matt: How you can use context in training.How can we use context with adult students?Ross: One of my favorite things to do with adults to set a context, is to go in and to take something that the students actually think is real and use that as the thing for the lesson. Something I've done before, for example, is gone into the class, and I've pretended to take a phone call.I start talking to the students, and I get someone to call me. I pretend to answer and I pretend, "Oh, it's my girlfriend's called me. She's really, really angry at me. It's her birthday, I forgot to send her flowers."I say, "I don't know what to do," and then the students say something like, "You can take her to dinner tonight.""OK," and I'll write that on the board. "Do you have any other ideas?""You can say sorry.""Anything else?" and you get all these examples. "Thanks very much, that's really useful. Actually, before I came in here, I was speaking to my friend, and I asked him the same thing about what I should do with this situation. Do you want to hear?"They're like, "Yeah, we want to hear." Then you play the conversation. All of a sudden, there's this rich context for the lesson where the students believe that some of this is actually going on, that it's real.It's almost like a comedy show, when comedians talk about, "You know yesterday I was doing this and this thing happened."I'm like, "I'm not sure. Did this actually happen to this person, or are they just making it up?"Or avant‑garde theatre, where you're not sure what's really part of the act?I went to a pantomime when I was back home for Christmas. People walk in late, and the person on stage accosts them and starts asking them questions, and you thought it was real, but actually, my sister had been to see the thing before. She told me that that happens every time. When you're watching it, you're not sure. They're blending the lines between the act and the reality.Matt: Not only is it more interesting, but also, the fact that, if you can relate it to real life, you're showing them that this is a real interaction between us and the classroom. They're actually giving you advice, about what to buy for your girlfriend. It's not just context, it's a realistic context.I don't know if you've ever seen a class where somebody is like, "We're going to be the first group of people to go to Mars. We're going to set up the government, and we have to create a constitution and everything."[laughter]Matt: That might be somewhat interesting for that person who wrote the class, but the odds are that none of the people in that class are going to be in that SpaceX mission to Mars, you know?[laughter]Tracy: Well, you don't know.Matt: Yeah, maybe...[laughter]How can we use context with young learners?Ross: I think for kids, sometimes, people find it even more difficult to think of a realistic context, because kids' lives are often limited to school [laughs] and home.Tracy: I think that we should allow a little bit imagination or creativity your lesson, because kids, they do do that.They think about, "Oh, what I want to do in the future," when they play with each other. They have teddy bears or toys, and they try to give them names, give them different characteristics.I think we should take this kind of stuff into consideration. Allow the kids to use their imagination, not just, "Pretend that you are in a restaurant, and you're ordering food."Matt: Is that really a skill they need? To be ordering food? Because their parents are going to be ordering them food.Ross: Presumably, yeah. I think for them, like you say, a lot of things involve imagination.For example, your thing of going on a space exploration and starting a new colony somewhere, that actually might be more realistic for kids, because that's the sort of thing that kids might think about or talk about or watch shows about. I think those imagination things can work perfectly for kids.Tracy: We talk about games in the class, right?Kids like playing games, but you have to also make your games meaningful. Ross, you wrote a blog about how to use games in your classrooms, and I think one of the key point is to have the aim in it.You have to make sure why you need this game. Is it really help them to practice the language, or make them realize, actually in this situation, they can use this language.Ross: One of the best classes I think I ever taught, we got some bits of paper, scissors, and tape, and we tried to make a really tall tower ‑‑ me and these 10 students ‑‑ out of bits of paper and tape. All the students had to do, was say to me, "Can I have some paper, please? Can I have tape, please?"Tracy: That's something also reminds me...Now it's quite popular, teaching online, but the field is so difficult because everything just depends on the Internet. They cannot use real flash cards and let students to touch it, to feel it. All the kids can't see each other face to face. It's quite difficult to manage.I think don't just have a big lesson topic. Make sure the first second the kids see the screen, they understand where they are, and they are already in that setting.Ross: Right. Is that a zoo, a pirate ship, a pet store, or any of these things?Tracy: In Chinese we say, "Lead you into that setting or scenario." I think that's context, right?How can we use context in teacher training?Matt: I know all three of us have done teacher training at some point. One of the biggest frustrations I always had was, when you cover any point in the training room, that teachers won't necessarily transfer those skills into the classroom when they're teaching.I always thought it was my fault by not...by making that separation. "This is the training room, and that's your classroom, it's another place." I think it's really important in the actual training sessions to create the context of the classroom where teachers will be applying these skills.Tracy: Of course, if the time is really limited, but I try to maximize the practice time, because a lot of teachers, when you tell them, "I want you to teach..."Ross: To practice your skills.Tracy: "...To practice your skills, and not talk about how to use it." For example, you practice giving instructions, not talk about, "First, I would like to get the students' attention, and then, I'm going to do this and that." No, not talking through the steps...Do it! [laughs]Matt: Just do it.Ross: Even with doing it, you can then make it more specific. For example, I'm doing a training next week.As part of the training activities ‑‑ so there's a bit more context ‑‑ it's not just, "Teach this lesson to your partner." They have a lucky draw type thing.Someone has to draw out the age of the student, and then they have to draw out the student's personality. Are they shy? Are they outgoing? Then the teacher has to draw out a scenario like they're running out of time or they have to make up too much time.All of this goes in, there's all these extra constraints, and it makes it a lot more realistic. There's a lot more context then going into that practice, rather than just saying, "Now, practice."Tracy: Thanks everyone. Hope this episode help you understand and use context in your class and training. Bye!Ross: Bye, everyone!Tracy: For more podcasts, videos, and blogs, visit our website at...Ross: ...www.tefltraininginstitute.com.Ross: If you've got a question or a topic you'd like us to discuss, leave us a comment.Tracy: If you want to keep up‑to‑date with our latest content, add us on WeChat at @TEFLtraininginstitute.Ross: If you enjoy our podcast, please rate us on iTunes.

An interview with Alison Gianotto / Snipe, creator of Snipe IT Snipe.net Snipe-IT @snipeyhead Editing sponsored by Larajobs Transcription sponsored by GoTranscript.com [music] Matt: All right, cool. All right. Welcome back to the latest episode of Laravel Podcast. It's been a little bit of a break for those of you who tune in to every new episode, but I've got another great interview here. As with every single one, I'm interested and excited to introduce someone to you. Some of you have heard of before, a lot of you might not know that she actually works in Laravel. Either way, it's going to be great. This is Snipe. Although in my head, you have been Snipeyhead because I feel that's been your Twitter name for a while. Real name, Alison Gianotto, but I'm probably just going to end up calling you Snipe for rest of this call. Before I go in asking you questions, the first thing I want to do is just I always ask somebody, if you meet somebody in the grocery store who you know isn't technical at all, and they ask you, "What do you do?" What's the first way you answer that question? Snipe: I say I work with computers. Matt: Right, and then if they say, "My cousin works with computers and whatever." Where do you go from there? Snipe: Well, it depends on their answer. If they say, "Do you fix computers?" I'm like, "Not exactly." If they say, "Really? What type of computer work do you do?" I say, "Well, I'm a programmer." They're like, "So you make games?" "Well, not exactly." If they say something like, "Mobile apps or web? What languages?" Then I'm like, "Okay, now I can actually have a conversation." I don't do it to be disrespectful to the person asking. It's just confusing to them, and so I like to keep it bite-sized enough that no one gets confused. Matt: If you talk to a grandma in a store who doesn't have much exposure with computers, and you say, "Well, I work in InfoSec with blah-blah-blah." Then she's going to go, "Huh?" I totally hear you. If somebody does ask and they say, "You know what? I actually work in Rails," or, "I know what a framework is." How do you answer someone when they are more technical? Let's say, somebody-- You understand that this person is going to get all the names that you drop. Where do you go from there? How do you tell someone about what you do? Snipe: I actually usually say that I run a software company. I say, "I run a small software company that basically works on open source software." Usually, they look at me like, "How do you--" Matt: How do you make money? Snipe: Literally makes no sense. [laughter] Matt: Which is where we're going to go. Let's actually go there. Snipe-IT, it's a company that has an open source product. I'm guessing that you make your money by paid support plans and hosting plans. Right? Then you also have the whole thing available for free in open source? Snipe: That's correct. Yes. Matt: Could you give us a little pitch for anybody who doesn't know what Snipe-IT is, and what it does, and who it's for? Snipe: I'm so bad at this. I'm the worst salesperson ever. Matt: Well, I'm helping you grow. [laughter] Matt: Thirty seconds or less. Snipe: If you have any kind of a company and you buy assets like laptops, or desktops, or monitors, you need to keep track of them and you know who has what, what software is installed on what. Then usually I'm like, "I've got this nailed. I've got this nailed." Then I end up saying, "It's not a very sexy project, but people need it." [chuckles] Matt: Right, right, right. You have to justify yourself in your sales. Snipe: I know it. I really do. I'm really the worst at it. People get really excited. We're going to DEF CON this year like we usually do. I'm actually bringing my whole crew. Matt: Cool. Snipe: Because I really want them to be able to experience the way people react when they realize that we are Snipe-IT because they just get so excited. I've had people run across the conference floor to give me a hug that I've never met. Matt: Wow. Snipe: It's really cool. There was another time I was talking to, I think, YTCracker on the conference floor. He introduces me to one of his friends. He's like, "Yes, she's got a IT asset management software." He's like, "Really? I just heard about one of those. That was really great." I know exactly where this is going. I'm watching him look at his phone. He's like, "Yes, I just heard about it. It's really amazing. I think through your competition." I'm just sitting there smirking and I'm like, "Okay." Totally, I know exactly where this is going, but I let him spend five minutes looking it up on his phone. He's like, "It's called Snipe It?" I just look at him like, "Hi, I'm Snipe." [laughter] Snipe: It was actually wonderful. Matt: It's one of the benefits not just of having the company, but actually naming it after yourself. You're like, "No. I'm actually the Snipe. That's me." Snipe: I'm excited to bring my crew out to DEF CON this year so they can really get to experience that first hand. Because like anything else in open source and in company support in general, a lot of times, you only hear the negative stuff. You hear about when something is broken or when something doesn't work exactly the way they want it to work. To actually get just random people coming up-- I'm getting us swag. I'm getting us t-shirts printed out. I'm super excited. Matt: I love it. There's nothing like having the opportunity to see the people who love what you're doing to really motivate you to go back and do it again. I hear that, for sure. Snipe: Definitely. Open source can be really tough with that because for the most part, the only thing that you're hearing is, "It doesn't work," or, "Why doesn't it do it do this thing?" Or people telling you how they think your software should work. To just get basically unbridled love, it really recharges me. It makes me want to work on a project even harder. Matt: Plus, the phrase unbridled love is just fantastic. [laughter] Matt: It should be in our lexicon more often. Snipe: I agree. Matt: It's asset management software. I'm imagining I've got a 500-person company, and every single person gets issued a laptop within certain specs. After it's a certain amount of time old, then it gets replaced. We're going to make sure they have the latest build of whatever, Windows and the latest security patches, and that kind of stuff. It's at the point where you don't have-- My company has, I think, 17 people right now. There is just a spreadsheet somewhere. This is when you get to the point where a spreadsheet is really missing people. People aren't getting their upgrades. People don't have security updates. My guess was the reason there was InfoSec involved in this at DEF CON is because security updates is a big piece of why that's the case. Did I assume right? Could you tell us a little bit more about how InfoSec and security are related to what you're doing here? Snipe: You're kind of right. We don't currently have a network agent, so we don't have anything that listens on the wire. We do have a JSON REST API, though. Basically, we're now working with folks like Jira, Atlassian, and we're going to be working with a JaMP API to try and basically make that stuff easier. I feel like its out of scope for us to try and build another networking agent, but we have an API. If we can just build those bridges, then it just makes it a little bit easier. Ultimately, in terms of security, the real reason why I think people in InfoSec appreciate this tool, especially given the fact that we don't have-- And some people in InfoSec actually like the fact that we don't have a monitoring agent because that actually becomes a separate problem in and of itself. Let me give you a backstory on why I created this in the first place. Matt: Please do. Snipe: Maybe that'll help explain a little bit more. I was the CTO of an ad agency in New York City. We had grown from-- I think I was employee number 12, and we were now at 60 something people. We were using a Google Sheet shared between three IT people, some of which were not necessarily the most diligent- [laughter] Matt: Sure. Snipe: -about keeping things up to date. Basically, when you've got a single point of truth that is no longer a single point of truth, it becomes a bit of a hellish nightmare. Additionally, if you're repurposing-- Because it's an ad agency, so you have a lot of turnover. You don't have any history on any particular asset if this asset is actually bad. If the hard drive on this is actually just bad and should be replaced. If this is bad hardware, then we should consider just unsetting it, and getting a brand new box, whatever. We had to move offices. We were moving our main office and also our data center. Of course, when you're trying to move a 60-person company, and servers, and everything else, the very first thing that you have to do is to know what you have. That was an enlightening experience. It basically turned out that we had about $10,000 worth of hardware that we just didn't know where it was anymore. Matt: Wow. Snipe: People got fired. This is basically before I was a CTO and before I had set up the exiting process. People had been fired or had quit and just taken their laptops with them. That's got company data on it. That was a huge, huge issue for us. I was like, "Okay, we need something that we can integrate into our exit strategy or exit process to make sure that we're reclaiming back all of the data that--" Because some of those stuff is client data. It's actually really sensitive from a corporate perspective. Also, sometimes it's customer data. It was really important to have a way to handle that a bit better. That's it. The asset part is the most important part of that software. We do have support for licenses where the cloud offering portion of that is not as fully developed. We're going to be building in a services section soon. That will describe, for example, if you had Snipe-IT as a vendor, where would we fit in this ecosystem for our customers? We don't actually have a good answer for that. We're going to be building out a services section that lets you know how much money you're paying every month, how many seats you have. Matt: That's great. That would cover not just global stuff, but also individual subscriptions like Adobe and PHP-- Snipe: Sure, sure. Matt: Cool. That's awesome. Snipe: Licenses are really hard. They're hard because you can have-- One of our customers actually has a hundred thousand licenses. Matt: Oh, my Lord. Snipe: Because you've got this notion of a software license and then a bunch of different seats. There are some licenses that have one seat, and only one seat they only ever will. Then there are ones that have tens of thousands. For example, Microsoft Suite. If you have a large company, you're going to have a lot of those licenses. One of the things I care really deeply about in Snipe-IT, and I think one of the reasons why we've been successful in this really saturated marketplace, because it is a really saturated marketplace, is that I care a lot about the users' experience. I know, for example, that our licenses section, the UI on that, the UX on that is not as optimized as it could be. That will be the next thing that we're really tackling is because it is a popular section. It's one that because of the nature of the variability of licenses, makes that a really tricky UX problem to solve. That's one of the things that I love about this work is getting to solve those kinds of problems. Matt: You're just starting to make me interested in this which means you're doing your job of the sales pitch. You said you got something you're super comfortable with. Snipe: [laughs] Matt: I always struggle-- Somebody made a joke and they said something like, "It's a drinking game for how many times Matt says 'I could talk about this for hours' during a podcast." Snipe: I did see that, yes. Matt: We're there already. [laughter] Matt: I want to step back from Snipe-IT just a little bit. Snipe It, I want to call it Snipe It now that you said that. Snipe: Please don't call it that. [laughs] Matt: I won't, I promise. Think a little bit about what got you to here, and what got you to the point where you're a name and an online persona. I saw you had some interactions with @SwiftOnSecurity the other day. Everyone got all excited seeing the two of you interacting. What was the story? I want to eventually go back to when you got into computers in the first place. First, what was the story of the process of you going from just any other person on the Internet, on Twitter, on GitHub, or whatever to being a persona that is relatively well-known across multiple communities? Snipe: I can't really answer that for you because I don't really understand it myself. Other than lots of poop jokes-- Matt: It's the best. Snipe: Yes. [chuckles] I think, probably, I've been on Twitter for a while. Also, I was on IRC for a long time. I think I'm still an op in the ##php channel on Freenode, although I don't visit there as often as I used to. I was really involved in that as I was learning PHP, and as I was helping other people learn PHP. I don't know. I've always been a mouthy broad, and I think that's probably worked because whether you like me or not, you remember me. [laughs] Matt: Yes, for sure. Snipe: I'm doing my very best to not swear on your podcast, by the way. I've caught myself at least five times that I'm like, "No, no, no." [laughs] Matt: If it happens, it happens but I appreciate it. Snipe: I'm doing my very best. I'm at a conference-- Matt: Broad was a good one, yes. All right, exactly. Snipe: Yes, I know. Yes, exactly. I was like, "B-b-b-broad." Matt: [laughs] Snipe: Which is an offensive term in and of itself, but it's still- Matt: We toned it down a little. Snipe: -better than the alternative, I think. [laughter] Matt: I love it. Snipe: I'm trying my best here, Matt. Matt: I appreciate it very much. Was it in the world of PHP? First of all, I heard longevity. I've been here for a while. That's always a big win. Poop jokes, that's also obviously big win. Give the people what they want. Snipe: I don't know if I can say dick jokes on your podcast. Matt: Well, you did. There we are. Snipe: Dick jokes are definitely big part of my repertoire. [laughs] Matt: Yes, I know. Being an interesting person, having been around for a while, but was it in PHP, and teaching PHP, and being around in the PHP world for a while, was that the main space where you came to prominence versus InfoSec, versus being open source business owner? Was it primarily in being a PHP personality where you came to at least your original knownness? Snipe: I think probably. Probably, yes. When I grab onto something, I don't let go of it. I've been doing some Perl work. I've probably started with Perl, but that was back in the days when I ran Linux as a desktop on purpose. [laughs] Matt: Oh, my goodness. Snipe: I was writing some Perl stuff. Heard about this this crazy thing called PHP which looked way easier and was way more readable, and ended up writing some-- Now, terribly insecure. I know this now, because it's like 2000, 2001, something like that. Which is for going back a ways. I had just started to put out stupid scripts like e-card scripts and things like that, because they served the need that I needed to have filled. This is a well-known secret, but I worked Renaissance Fairs for a very long time. I was guild member number four of the International Wenches Guild. Matt: What? Snipe: Yes. That's not even the most interesting thing I can tell you. Anyway, I was running their website Wench.org which now looks terrible because Facebook took over that community. I used to have interactive like sending roses to each other. Because in the Renaissance Fair community, different rose colors have different meaning. It's basically like an online greeting card thing with these built-in rose color meanings. You could pick different colors of roses and send them to people that you liked, or people you didn't like, or whatever. Having this playground of a huge community of people who-- Basically, I would post to the forums. I'd say, "I'm thinking about building this. What do you guys think?" By the time they actually answered me, I had already built it anyway. I was just like, "This looks really interesting. I want to see if I can do this." Matt: To do it, yes. Snipe: Yes, exactly. It was really, really cool to have access to, basically, a beta-testing community that was super excited about anything that I put out. It definitely stoked the fires for me, stretching and doing things that I may not have done if I didn't have a reason to do it before. Matt: Well, I love how much passion plays a part there. Not this ill-defined like, "I'm passionate about programming. That means I spend all my free time doing it," but more like-- I've noticed that a lot of people who are a little bit older had PHP-- Actually, just developers in general which is quite a few people I've had on the show. Snipe: Are you calling me old? Matt: Me too. I'm in the group too. Snipe: Are you calling me old? Oh my God. That's it. This interview is over. [laughter] Matt: You're going to burn the place down. I think those of us who started back when becoming a programmer wasn't necessarily going to make you big and rich. There's a little bit of that idea today. Go do a six-month boot camp, and then you're going to be rich or something. I think when a lot of us started-- I'm putting myself in that bucket, in the '90s and the '80s. When we started, it was because it was something that allowed us to do things we couldn't do otherwise. I don't know your whole back story, so I want to hear it, but a lot of the people I've noticed, "I was in the dancing community. I was in the video game community. I was in the Renaissance whatever Fair community." Snipe: I used to work on Wall Street. That was what I was doing before I got into computers. [laughs] Matt: Okay. Well, before I talk anymore, we need to talk about this. Tell me the story. Tell me about Wall Street, and then tell me when did you actually first get into computers? Snipe: I left high school. I was living with my sister in a tent in Montana for about nine months. Then it got too cold, our toothpaste started to freeze during the day. We were like, "F this business." We went down to Colorado because we'd met some friends at Colorado School of Mines. Stayed there for a little bit. Came back to New Jersey, and was like, "Well, I don't want to go to college. I also don't have any money for college." [laughs] There's that. I ended up waitressing for a little bit. Was waitressing, wearing my indoor soccer shoes, because I was a soccer player for 13 years. The coach from Caine College came in to eat at my restaurant. He looks at me with disdain and he goes, "You actually play soccer with those, or are they just for fashion?" Matt: Oh, my goodness. Snipe: I'm like, "Bitch, I was All-State. What are you talking about?" [laughter] Snipe: He's like, "Do you want to go to college?" I'm like, "I guess." He invited me to go to Caine College where I studied education of the hearing impaired for exactly one semester. [laughter] Snipe: I was like, "Holy crap. This is so boring. I can't do this." Not the education of the hearing impaired part. Matt: Just college. Snipe: Yes, it just wasn't my jam. I was like, "I want to move to New York." I moved to New York City. I pick up a paper, and I'm like, "Okay, I'm super not qualified to do any of these things." Basically, I was a leatherworker at a Renaissance Fair. I'd done makeup work for the adult film industry. I'm like, "Um." Of course, the easiest way to Wall Street is sales. I had the most grueling interview I've ever had in my life, because I didn't know anything about real sales compared to retail. I remember sweating so hard. I'd just dyed my hair back to a normal color. You could still see a little bit of green in it, and I'm wearing my sister's fancy, fancy suit. I have no idea what I'm actually going to be doing there. It is literally out of Glengarry Glen Ross, high-pressure sales that they're expecting from me. I'm like, "I'm 17, 18 years old. I have no idea what I'm doing." I managed to pull it out. At the very last minute, I got the job. Matt: Nice. Snipe: Was working at a place that did forex futures. Then they went out of business because the principals moved back to Argentina with all of our clients' money. That spent a little bit of time in the attorney general's office, making it really clear that we had nothing to do with it. Matt: At least it was there and not jail. Snipe: That's absolutely true. It's not that uncommon that the main traders are the ones that actually have the access to the real money. Then we started working at a stock shop. I realized I was working until six, seven o'clock at night, busting my ass all for lines in a ledger. I was actually pretty good at that job, but I also caught myself using those creepy, sleazy sales techniques on my friends and my family. When you catch yourself saying, "Well, let me ask you this." You're like, "Ah, ah." Matt: "I hate myself. Oh, my God, what am I doing?" Snipe: I know. I just realized that I hated myself, and that I didn't want to do it anymore. I quit my job. I had a boyfriend at that time that had a computer. That's pretty much it. I had done some basic programming, literally BASIC programming in high school. Matt: Like QBasic? Snipe: Yes. BASIC in high school. In fact, funny story, when I wrote my first book-- I almost didn't graduate high school because my parents were getting divorced, and I just checked out. I was good in all my classes, I just checked out. I had to pass a computer programming class in order to graduate. My teacher, who was the track coach as well, Coach Terrell, he knew me from soccer. He calls me into his office. He's like, "Alison, I've got to tell you. You just weren't here, and you know that if you don't show up, I penalize you for that. Did really well on all your tests, but attendance is not optional in this class. I just don't think I can pass you." I'm like, "I'm not going to graduate then." He's like, "All right. Well, the thing is that when you're here, you do really good work. I'm going to let you go this time, but you've really got to get your shit together." Matt: Wow. Snipe: When I published my first programming book, I sent him a copy. [laughter] Matt: That's awesome. Snipe: I wrote on the inside, "Dear Coach Terrell, thanks for having faith in me." [laughs] Matt: That's amazing, and you know he has that sitting on the shelf where everyone can see it. Snipe: Yes, yes, yes. Matt: That's really cool. Snipe: That was really nice of him. [laughs] My life would have had a slightly different outcome if I'd had to take some more time, and get a GED, and everything else just because I didn't show up to my programming class. Matt: Wow. Snipe: Anyway, I left Wall Street because I had a soul, apparently. Matt: Turns out. Snipe: It turns out, "Surprise." I totally still have one. [laughter] Matt: It's funny because you're telling me this whole story, and what I'm seeing in front of my face in Skype is your avatar. For anyone who's never seen this avatar, it's got a star around one eye, smirky, slanty eyes, looking down where you're like, "I'm going to get you." It's funny hearing you tell this story, and just the dissonance is so strong of seeing that, hearing your voice, and then hearing you talk about being on Wall Street. Obviously, I'm looking back. Hindsight is 20/20, but seeing this story turned out the way it has so far does not surprise me, looking at the picture of you that I'm looking at right now. Snipe: Mohawk people have souls too. Matt: It turns out, yes. Snipe: I got that mohawk as a fundraiser for EFF. Matt: Really? Snipe: I raised like $1,500 for EFF a bunch of years ago. Matt: You just liked it and kept it? Snipe: Yes. Once I had it, I was like, "Wait a minute. This completely fits me. Why did I not have this my entire life?" Matt: That's awesome. Snipe: Yes, there was a good reason behind it. Matt: Honestly, what I meant is actually the inverse which is that I associate having the soul-- When you imagine a soulless, crushing New York City job where you hate what you're doing, you don't usually associate it with the sense of owning who I am and myself that is associated with the picture I'm looking at right in front of me. Your boyfriend at that time had a computer, you actually had a little bit of history because you'd studied at least some coding. You said primarily and BASIC in high school. Where did you go from there? Was that when you were doing the Renaissance Fairs, and you started building that? Or was there a step before that? Snipe: No. Remember, this is back when the Web-- I'm 42. Matt: I wasn't making any assumptions about what the Web was like at that point. Snipe: I think there might have been one HTML book that was about to come out. That's where we were. If you wanted to do anything on the Web, you basically figured out how to right-click- Matt: View source them. Snipe: -and view source, and you just poked at things until they did what you wanted. There was no other way around that. I realized that I really liked it because it let me say what I wanted to say, it let me make things look-- For what we had back then, we didn't have JavaScript, or CSS, or any of that stuff. Matt: Right. Use that cover tag. Snipe: Yes, exactly. It was enormously powerful to be able to have things to say, and put them out there, and other people could see it. Then I just started to freelance doing that. I was also doing some graphic design for one of those-- It's like the real estate magazines, like Autotrader type of things but for cars. I used to do photo correction for them using CorelDraw, I think it was. Matt: Oh, my gosh, that's a throwback. Snipe: Yes. I'm an old, old woman. [laughter] Matt: I've used CorelDraw in my day, but it's been a long time. Snipe: Our hard drives would fill up every single day, and so we'd have to figure out what had already gone to press that we can delete it off. Basically, Photoshopping, to use Photoshop as a verb inappropriately, garbage cans and other stuff out of people's black and white, crappy photos. Because he was nice enough to give me a job. I offered and I said, "You know, I can make you a website." He's like, "Yes, the Internet's a fad." I was like, "I'm just trying to build up my portfolio, dude, for you for free." He's like, "Yes, yes, yes, it's not going to stick." I'm like, "Okay." [laughs] Matt: All right, buddy. Snipe: That's where it started. Then I think I moved to Virginia for a short amount of time, and then Georgia. Got a job at a computer telephony company where I was running their website, and also designing trade show materials like booths and stuff, which, by the way, I had no idea how to do. No one was more surprised than I was when they took pictures of the trade show and the booth actually looked amazing. Matt: That should look good. Snipe: I was like, "Look, yes." Matt: "Hey, look at that." [laughter] Snipe: That's very, very lucky. There was definitely a lot of fake it until you make it. Also, I've never designed a trade show booth, but trade show booths do get designed by someone, and at least a handful of those people have never done it before. Matt: Right. I'm relatively intelligent person, I understand the general shape of things. Snipe: Yes. Get me some dimensions, I'm sure I could make this work. Matt: What is the DPI thing again? [chuckles] Snipe: Yes, exactly. That was exciting and fun. Then I moved back to New York to teach web design and graphic design at an extension of Long Island University. Matt: Cool. Snipe: Yes, it was actually very, very cool. The school was owned by these two teeny-tiny Israeli ladies. They were absolutely fabulous. It was kind of a crash course in Hasidic and Orthodox Jewish culture. It was in Flatbush, so basically, 90% of my students were Hasidic or Orthodox. I think I broke every rule ever. The two owners of the school would just look at me and laugh. They wouldn't offer me any guidance. They just liked watching. Matt: Well, it would be awkward. Yes. Snipe: Exactly. I'm like, "Why would you do that to me?" [laughter] Snipe: They're just laughing. I could hear them laughing from upstairs- Matt: That's hilarious. Snipe: -when they knew I was putting my foot in another cultural mess. That was really, really fun. I learned a lot from that. I learned a lot about teaching. I even got to have a deaf student one time, which was great, except I didn't know-- I used to know or still know American sign language, but when I learned, there weren't any computer-related signs. It was actually a weird barrier that I hadn't thought about. We're like, "Okay, I can sign as I'm talking," but then I'm like, "Wait, do I have to spell all this stuff out every single time? I have no idea." That was cool. Then I started just doing HTML for a company called Cybergirl, which is not a porn site. I always have to clarify that. Not that there's anything wrong with porn, but it was not, in fact, a porn site. It was an online women's community. Matt: Cool. Snipe: They weren't really super profitable in the community itself, so they had a separate part that did websites for clients. I was put on to work mostly with their clients. They had stuff written in ASP, ColdFusion. Because the people who had designed it weren't there anymore, I basically had to learn all of these languages. Also, we only had a part time sysadmin, so when we'd hire someone new, I'm like, "I guess I'm creating email accounts for people now." I became a stand-in for a lot of different roles. Got to play with a lot of different languages, some of which I liked vastly better than others. ColdFusion? Really? [laughs] Matt: ASP wasn't that bad. There was worse things than classic ASP. Snipe: Yes, there are. That is a thing that could be said. That is an opinion one might have. [laughter] Matt: Trying to keep a positive spin on it. Snipe: I would say that all of these languages, the ones that are still around, have come a very long way since then, including PHP. Matt: Yes, yes. .NET is not a classic ASP. PHP 5, whatever. PHP 7 is no PHP 3, for sure. Snipe: Certainly. Matt: Were you using PHP at that point already, then? Was that one your-- Snipe: Yes. That was one I was-- Because I'd already done some Perl stuff, and it just wasn't that hard. One of our clients had a website, I think it was The Bone Marrow Foundation, had their website in PHP. That forced me to do a bit more legwork on it. That was the beginnings, the very beginnings. Matt: At that point, we're probably talking about single-page PHP files for each page. At the top, you've got a common.inc that you're doing your database connections. Then below that, it's just a template, right? Okay. Snipe: Functions.inc and usually some sort of PHTML. [laughs] Matt: God, PHTML, yes. Okay, all right. Snipe: I told you, I am an old, old lady. Matt: Honestly, we worked on a site that still used PHTML and things like four or five years ago. I was like, "I didn't even know that PHP parser is still allowed for this." Apparently, some of these things still stick around. Snipe: Whatever you set as your acceptable file formats, it'll parse. Matt: Yes, you can make it happen. Snipe: I can have a .dot site file extension if I wanted to. Matt: I like that idea now. Jeez. When was the transition? What were the steps between there and ending up where you are now? Are we still many steps behind, or did you get out on your own pretty quickly after that? Snipe: I was doing some contract work. Thanks to a friend that I'd met through IRC. I was doing some contract work for a company out in San Diego. They were an ad agency. This is the beginning of the days when marketing companies were trying to own digital, and they were trying to build up their digital departments. They moved me out there because they're like, "You're amazing, so come on out here and build up our team." I did. I built up their team. We had some really cool clients. We had San Diego Zoo, San Diego Padres, California Avocado Commission. At that time, I didn't like avocados. I was giving away free avocados that I did not like. Matt: [chuckles] Oh, no. That's so good. Snipe: I hate myself now for knowing how many avocados I could have had. [laughs] I got to build lots of custom web apps, all the database-y stuff. That was really fun. I left there, started my own web design company for lack of a better term, where I was basically using PHP, but also pretending like I knew how to design anything at all. Sorry, hang on. Incoming call. Building my own custom applications for people. None of it is really that fancy, but whatever. That was fun. Then I broke my foot. This is before the ACA, and so I had no insurance. Thousands of dollars and a spiral fracture later, I'm like, "Maybe I should get a real job." [laughter] Snipe: I started to work for the San Diego Blood Bank, which was a great gig. It's probably my favorite job. The pay wasn't that great, but my coworkers were great. Your hours were your hours. There was no overtime. If you had to work overtime, you got paid double time and a half, something like that. It was insane. Matt: Especially compared to the ad agency world, which is basically the exact opposite. Snipe: Yes. Yes. There's no amount of blood you can show to prove that you're loyal to that particular market. I ended up moving back to New York and ended up working for the Village Voice for a little while. Matt: Really? That's cool. Snipe: Yes, that was cool. Unfortunately, they had already been bought out by Newtimes, and so they were not the Village Voice that I grew up with, the one that warmed the liberal cockles of my heart. It was actually a crap place to work, to be honest. People were getting fired all the time. There was this one guy, he used to hang out in the archives room with an X-Acto blade and a piece of paper and would just cut at the piece of paper. He was actually scary. Everyone was afraid of him, because that's office shooter kind of crazy. Matt: Exactly, exactly. Snipe: I left there, finally, and worked for another ad agency. That's the one that I was working at when I finally started to work with Snipe-IT. Finally started to make Snipe-IT. For a while, while I was in California, the nice thing about running your own gig back then, because it was like a one-man shop, so I didn't have people that I had to worry about. I got a chance to work with tigers for about a year. It was just exhausting. That was around the time when I was writing my book, too. Working with tigers, commuting four hours a day, coming home stinking like raw chicken and tiger pee. Then working on my book, and then whatever I can possibly eke out for customers. It was pretty chaotic and definitely exhausting, but they were good times. Matt: I don't want to preach too far on this, but I feel like the more of our story that takes us around different aspects of life and different experiences, the more we bring to the thing we're in right now. That's one of the reasons I keep pushing on people having histories before they came to tech or diverse histories in tech. It's not to say that someone who just graduated from college and instantly got a job as a developer is therefore now incomplete, but I think that a lot of what makes a lot of people interesting is what they bring outside. That's true for anybody, right? What makes you different from the people around you makes you different, and makes you interesting, and it makes you have a perspective to be able to bring that the people around you don't. It sounds like you have quite a few of those, at least as you enter into the communities that I'm asking you from the perspective of whether PHP, or Laravel, or anything like that. I don't know where I'm going with that, but anyway. Snipe: [laughs] Matt: That's very interesting to hear. Snipe: I always say I sound really interesting on paper. I'm not really that interesting to talk to, but when you actually look at all the crap I've done, it's like, "Wow. That's kind of a lot." Matt: Right. That is a lot going on. Snipe: It's all weird. Weird stuff. Matt: If I remember right, the book that you wrote was a Wrox PHP book, right? Snipe: Yes, yes. You can still get it on Amazon, but it costs more to ship. Matt: Really? I got to-- Snipe: Actually, I'm not sure. It may just be eBay. The last time I checked, it was selling for $2.95 and costs like $80 to ship. [laughs] Matt: Professional PHP4 Web Development Solutions. Snipe: Yes. Matt: I don't see a Mohawk. I don't know which one's you. Snipe: No, no. Matt: [laughs] Snipe: Yes, I know. Gosh, it's a mystery of the ages, isn't it? [laughs] Matt: All right. Yes. $22.99. Wow. What was your experience like writing a book? Would you do it again? Snipe: Possibly, but I would need a bit more written assurances up front about how-- This is a co-authored book. Basically, we were not given communication information with each other. We were writing these chapters completely independently and it sucked. I offered to set up a bulletin board just so we could-- For some reason, they didn't want us talking to each other or something. I don't know, but I was like, "Because I don't know where this chapter is going to fall, I want to make sure that I'm not rehashing a thing that's already been discussed, or touching on something that needs more information." They never facilitated that. They actually pushed back against it. It was really frustrating. You're literally writing chapters in a vacuum that then have to be cohesive when you string them all together. I would need to know if it was going to be a co-authorship. I would need to know that this will truly be collaborative. Because the way it looks on the cover, it looks like we're all hanging out. No, I don't think I've ever spoken to those people ever. [laughs] Matt: Wow. Jeez. Snipe: It's really weird. It's really weird. I did not like that. I thought that was really just not a way to give the best experience to the reader. If I was going to collaborate, I would have to make sure that there was something like that. I've toyed with writing a couple of books over the last few years. It is also a bit of a time suck. Matt: Yes, it is. My perception, what I've told people in the past is that people often ask me, "Should I write a book with a traditional publisher like you did?" Because mine was with O'Reilly. "Or should I self-publish like a lot of the people in our community have?" My general perception has been, if you want to make money, self-publish. Snipe: Definitely. Matt: If you want reach that's outside of your current ability, then consider a traditional publisher. You've got quite a bit of reach and I wonder whether it's-- Snipe: This is like 2003, though. Matt: I don't mean for them, but I mean now. If you're going at it now. It seems like there'll probably be less of a reason for you to do a traditional publisher at this point. Snipe: I don't know, though. I still kind of O'Reilly. Matt: You still like it? Snipe: Being a published O'Reilly author, I still toy with that, honestly. Matt: I tell people I got a degree in secondary English education, basically. This O'Reilly book is my proof that I'm actually a real programmer. Snipe: [laughs] You know what? Honestly, that was really important to me back then. Snipe: Me too, really. Matt: I don't know where things would have gone, I don't know if I would have-- I probably would have stuck with it because I really, really liked it. I think that gave me a bit of confidence that I really needed. Proof, again, because I didn't graduate college. I nearly didn't graduate high school because of the programming class. [laughs] It was a way for me to say not just to the rest of the world, but to myself, like, "Hey, I actually know what I'm talking about." Matt: You can't underappreciate just how significant that is. I love that you said it. It's not just to everybody else, it's to you, too. Snipe: More than anyone else, to myself, honestly. I don't care what you guys think. [laughs] Matt: I spent several thousand hours writing a book with a major publisher so that I can overcome impostor syndrome. It's totally worth it. [laughter] Snipe: I still have it. That's a thing, I have it. Matt: I still have it, but maybe a little less. Snipe: At least if someone actually pushes the impostor syndrome too far, I'll be like, "I wrote a book. What have you done?" Matt: Exactly. Snipe: Meanwhile, I go off and rock in the corner as if, "Oh, my God. I don't deserve to be here. I don't deserve to be here." Matt: Exactly. It certainly doesn't make it go away, but maybe it's a tool in our arsenal to battle it. Snipe: That's a very good way to describe it. Matt: I like it. Snipe: I would need that to be a bit more of a tighter process. Matt: Well, if you decide to write with O'Reilly, I know some people. Just give me a call. Snipe: [laughs] I also know some people in O'Reilly. Matt: I was just going to say I'm pretty sure you don't need me for any of that kind of stuff. I just had to say it to try and seem like I actually matter, so this works. Snipe: Of course, you matter. Matt: I matter. Snipe: I got up early for you, Matt. I got up early for you. Matt: That's true. Snipe: You don't have any idea. Matt: That's true, this is quite early your time. I appreciate it. Snipe: [laughs] Matt: I'm trying to not talk forever. I'm trying to move us on even though I'm just my usual caveats, everyone take a drink. You eventually started Snipe-IT. I think we skipped a couple of things. We were talking about you becoming the CTO of the ad agency and being in a place where you needed to manage that kind of stuff. You started Snipe-IT. You now have a remote team. Could you tell me a little about the makeup of your team, and what it's like running a remote team, and the pros and cons you've experienced, and anything else that you would want to share about what that experience is like for you? Snipe: Well, I'm really lucky, first of all, because although our team is remote, we're all also local. We can actually see each other, we'll go out and have beers when we hit a major milestone. We'll go out and have some champagne and celebrate that we do get to see each other's faces. Also, we were friends first, so that helps. It's totally, totally different. If you're looking for advice on how to run a real remote team, that I can't help you with. I can't tell you how to manage your friends through Slack, though. [laughs] Matt: Basically, you and a bunch of friends live like an hour driving distance to each other or whatever and choose to work from home? Snipe: More like seven minutes. [laughs] Matt: Jeez. Snipe: Yes, yes. Matt: Okay, so this is really just like, "We just don't feel like going to an office," kind of vibe. Snipe: It's pants, it's pants. I'm not putting on pants. I've worked too hard in my career to have to put on pants anymore. There is a reason this isn't a video call, Matt. Seriously. [laughter] Matt: I wish that this was one of the podcasts-- Snipe: I think I just made Matt blush, by the way. Matt: I wish this was one of the podcasts where they name each episode, because that would have been the name right there for this episode. I might have to, just for this one, just give it a name just for that. Okay. I hear you. I get it. Snipe: The thing is I hadn't actually planned on hiring when I did. The reality is I should have, because I was really buckling under the helpdesk. That customer support load was a lot. It was causing me a great deal of anxiety. Looking back at it now, it was really untenable. Of course, I think that I'm 10 feet tall and bulletproof, so I'm like, "I got this. I got this." Meanwhile, it's four o'clock in the morning and I can't even see straight anymore. I ended up having to hire someone for a personal reason. She's actually worked out great. She's an absolute rock star on the helpdesk. She's never worked a helpdesk before, and she owns it. It's actually really, really great. Once I'd hired her, I think-- The onboarding takes a little bit. Especially, literally never worked a helpdesk before, so it's not just onboarding with my company, it's like onboarding the entire concept. As soon as she got her footing, she just completely handled it. It was really great. The next hire was a developer/sysadmin that I've known for a while. He is just fantastic. He's actually the harder one because he, I think, requires a little bit more structure, and a little bit more face time. I need to be better. I do. I need to be better about working with that because in my head, I'm still managing this the way that I want to be managed. I forget that that's actually not my job anymore. Matt: People are different. Snipe: Yes, people are different. Also, not everybody wants what I want. Frankly, it doesn't matter what I want. Ultimately, that's no longer a luxury that I have, caring more about how I want things to go for myself. That priority has shifted, and so I'm having to painfully learn [chuckles] that lesson. Not painfully. I love my entire team. They're absolutely amazing. I'm super, super grateful for them every day that goes by. Every time one of them takes vacation, we all hold on to our desks. We're like, "Okay, we can get through this, we can get through this." It's a learning curve, certainly. I've run my own small business, I've run dev teams. This is a different thing though, because the reason why I wanted to make this a company instead of just running this as a side project is because I've worked for tons of shitty companies. I want to build the company that I wish I'd worked for. Matt: I'm so sorry for doing this, but I was doing that thing where you're hearing somebody talking and waiting for your chance to talk. I literally was about to say Dan and I, when we started Tighten, the first thing we said was, "We want to build the company we want to work for." You just said and I'm like, "Exactly." That introduces the problem you're talking about, which is you just assume everybody wants the same things you want. It also means nobody else gets to force you to put people through things that you wouldn't want to be put through. It's an incredible freedom if you can make it profitable. Snipe: Yes. Absolutely. Getting to institute stuff that I think is really worker-friendly. We all make our own hours. We have office hours so that when Victoria's handling the helpdesk, she's got access to the text that she needs during a certain amount of time. In general, she's got a kid. We have to have that flexibility, so that she-- Honestly, she just lets us know that she's going to pick up her kid. It's like, "Okay, cool. See you back in half an hour or whatever." Vacation, she had not had a real vacation in probably 10 or 15 years. Last year, we were like, "You are taking vacation." She kept checking into Slack. I'm like, "Girl, I will actually revoke your credentials." Matt: [laughs] Exactly. Snipe: Do not play with me. Matt: I love it. Snipe: This year, I've decided that there's two weeks basically mandatory vacation, and we're going to put $3,000 towards each person's vacation funds- Matt: That's cool. Snipe: -so that they can actually go and do something awesome, and relaxing, and not stress about money while they're there, and just get to go and actually enjoy things, and come back refreshed and ready to work. It's pretty cool being able to come up with stuff like this and really like, "What would I have needed?" Because when I was working at the ad agencies especially, I would accrue my PTO. Honestly, that's why Snipe-IT existed. It was because I had two and a half weeks, three weeks of PTO that was not going to roll over. They made me take vacation in November. They wouldn't let me do it in December. They made me do it in November, and I was like, "Yes, three weeks of just relaxing, playing video games." That didn't work. I accidentally the product. [laughs] Now, I accidentally the business. Matt: That's awesome. One of the things I often talk about as an entrepreneur, as a business owner is something that I think people are scared of talking about, which is power. Because being a business owner means you get to hire, you get to figure out how money is spent, you get to figure out what pressures are and are not put in the people you work with. I call that power, but I think power doesn't have to be a scary word because, really, what matters is what you do with the power. When we hear power as a negative thing, it is usually because the people on power are benefiting themselves. I think that something is really beautiful, and wonderful, and we need more of in the world is when we can see power as a positive thing, because people get power and then use it for the benefit of other people. I just want to applaud and affirm what you're doing, because you just described that. It's like, "I got power, and the first thing I did was work to make other people's lives better understanding what the situation that they were in was." I love hearing that. I'm really glad that we got to talk about this today. Snipe: Well, thank you. I'm looking forward to coming up with more stuff like that. Matt: I love it. Snipe: It's super important to me. Our customers are incredibly important to us, obviously, but my staff is as important. You can't have one without the other either direction. Matt: In the end, they're just both people who you work with. The hope is that you're able to make both groups of people really have lives that are better because they had a chance to interact with you. Snipe: Yes, absolutely. Matt: Okay. We are almost out of time. I asked people at Tighten if they had any questions for you. They gave me a million, and I haven't gotten any of them. They're all going to be mad at me, so I'm trying to look at the one that I could pull up that won't turn into a 30-minute long conversation. Snipe: I'm Italian. There is literally nothing you can talk to me about that won't turn into a 30-minute conversation. [laughs] Matt: All right. I'll literally go with the question that has the least words in it and see if that gets us anywhere. Coffee or tea? Snipe: Red Bull. Matt: There you go. See how short that was? All right. Snipe: This podcast is sponsored by Red Bull. [laughter] Matt: It's so funny that it's been the thing at Tighten for the longest time, where those of us who started the company and the first hires were primarily coffee people. There's one tea holdout, but over time, the tea contingent has grown. Just within the last nine months, we hired two people who are Red Bull addicts. All of a sudden, we're shopping for the company on-site and they're like, "Orange Red Bull, no sugar, energy, blah, blah, blah." I'm like, I have a course in Red Bull flavors. Anyway, I still think it's pretty gross, but I did try some of them. Snipe: It's disgusting. No, it is utterly vile. It is really, really gross. [laughter] Matt: I don't get it. Please pitch me on why I would drink red Bull instead of coffee then. Snipe: No. If you don't drink Red Bull, then there will be more for me. First of all, I'm not going to pitch that. Matt: World's dwindling storage of Red Bull. Snipe: Obviously, we buy our stores out of local Red Bull, it's ridiculous. We have a main store, and then we have a failover store. Listen, you don't drink it because it tastes good. It tastes like dog ass, but it wakes you up. It keeps you awake. It feels the same role that coffee does, and frankly, I don't think that coffee tastes that good. Matt: Okay. Fair enough. Snipe: I can ask the same question to you. Matt: Right. For you, it's a combination. You don't like the flavor of either, but one of them you can buy in bulk and throw in the fridge? Snipe: Yes, yes. Matt: Got it. I get that. I love the flavor of coffee, but I'm like a geek. I have all the equipment, and all that kind of stuff. Snipe: Of course, you do. [laughter] Matt: Am I predictable? I am predictable. Okay. Snipe: I will neither confirm nor deny. My lawyer has advised me. [laughs] Matt: Not to make a statement on this particular-- I have one more and I'm praying that I can make it short, but I probably won't. You are a member of the Laravel community. You use Laravel. You share things every once in a while, but for someone who is such a big name, who's a member of the Laravel community, much of your popularity is not within the Laravel community. You're not popular because you're speaking at Laracon, you're not creating Laravel packages that all the people are consuming. It's this interesting thing where you're a very well-known person who uses Laravel and is a member of the Laravel community but is not necessarily gaining all that fame within Laravel space. It's an interesting overlap. As someone who does have exposure to lots of the tech communities, you're in the InfoSec world, you've been in PHP for a while, but you're also solidly Laravel. Do you have any perspectives on either, maybe the differences between InfoSec and PHP, differences between InfoSec and Laravel, and/or is there anything that you would say to the Laravel community, or things you'd either applaud or hope to see grow? Is there anything you just want to say about the way Laravel compares, or connects, or overlaps, or whatever with the rest of the world that you're in? Snipe It's always an ongoing joke in the InfoSec community. PHP developers are pretty much the easiest punching bag in the InfoSec community. Matt: And everywhere else. Snipe: In fact, I think just yesterday, I submitted an eye-rolling gift in relation to someone at InfoSec, bagging on PHP developers. I get it. When the language first came out, it was really easy to learn. You didn't need to have any knowledge of programming, or discipline, or best practices. There were no best practices for quite some time in PHP. I totally get that. The thing is that that's not really the world that we live in anymore. It's actually hard to write a PHP application without using a framework these days. Because the frameworks are so much better and it's so much faster, that for me, I'm pretty sure I could still write a PHP application without a framework, but why the hell would? If I ever have to write another gddmn login auth routine, I'll kill myself. I will actually kill myself. Comparing InfoSec to PHP or Laravel is like comparing apples to orangutans. They're entirely different animals and there is a little bit of overlap, but typically not. In general, PHP has a bad reputation in InfoSec. In fact, I will tell you a very brief story about how I got into InfoSec. This one's always a fun one. I used to run a nonprofit organization when I moved to California the first time. It was basically like Megan's Law for animal abusers. Criminal animal abuse. I would pull in data, break it down statistically based on a couple of different pointers like domestic violence connection, blah blah blah blah blah, and basically run statistics on that stuff. This was going back a very, very long time when nobody really knew or gave a crap at all about AppSec. At one point, my website got hacked. The organization's website got hacked. I am literally on my way to speak at a conference in Florida, an animal welfare conference. I'm checking in. I'm like, "Hi, I'm Alison Gionatto. I'm a speaker." She goes, "You're petabuse.com. That's great. I'm so sorry to hear about what happened." I'm like, "I've been on a plane for a couple of hours." I'm like, "Wait, what?" [chuckles] I run to my hotel room, and somebody has defaced the website with an animated GIF, and a song playing in the background which was basically a clip from Meetspin, and they linked to Meatspin. If any of your listeners don't know what Meatspin is- Matt: I don't. Snipe: -please do not Google that. You can google it, but have safe search on. Matt: Is it like Goatse kind of stuff? Snipe: Yes. "You spin me right round, baby, right round" playing in the background on autoloop. To this day, when I hear that song, I shiver a little bit. Matt: Trigger, yes. Snipe: Exactly. I ended up actually talking to this guy who thought that we were a much bigger organization than we were. He was trying to extort money, of course. I was like, "Dude, you have you have no idea. We get like $800 in donations every month. You are barking up the wrong tree." He's like, "I thought you were bigger. I'm sorry, but it is what it is." I toyed with him long enough to figure out what he had done. The thing is, this is on a Cobalt RaQ server. First of all, we're going back. Second of all, those are not exactly going for their security, but it was what I could afford. Honestly, it's what I could afford. I figured it out, I locked him out. I did leave him one final kind of F you text. [laughter] Snipe: Just so that he knew. That was how I got into this in the first place was basically a horrific, horrific internet meme and the defacement of my organization's website. Again, this is 2004, 2005. Application security became really important to me, and that's why I'm here. [chuckles] That's why I go to DEF CON. That's why I speak about application security and security in general. To get back to your original question, there isn't really an overlap. There is this disdainful relationship, for the most part, coming from both directions because InfoSec people don't typically treat programmers in general very well, but especially not PHP developers. PHP developers are tired of getting shit on, and so they don't necessarily treat-- It becomes a bit of a self-fulfilling-- Matt: Impostor, yes. Exactly. Snipe: Honestly, it's all just a bunch of dumbass egos and it's stupid. If we would just talk to each other a little bit more, we'd probably be a little better off. Matt: Come on, somebody. You'll be surprised to hear that I could talk about InfoSec and PHP for an hour, but we're out of time. I don't know if I'm going to have you back sometime or I don't know what, but this's been amazing. I really appreciate you spending some time with me. Before we cut off for the day and I cry because of all the topics I'm not going to cover, is there anything you wanted to talk about? Anything you want to plug, anything you want to cover, anything you want to say to the people that we haven't got to cover today? Snipe: Nothing that really comes to mind. I am still really passionate about AppSec. If you're using a framework and you're not utilizing all of the security stuff that's built in already, specifically Laravel is really good with that. I've had write some Middleware to add some additional CSP headers and things like that. If you're already paying the price, the overhead of using a framework, then freaking use it. Actually use all of the bits that are good, not just the bits that you don't feel like writing. Laravel makes it really hard to avoid the CSRF tokens. You'll actually have to go out of your way to disable those. I like that about Laravel. I like that it's opinionated. I like that it doesn't want you to screw this up. That said, any developer left to their own devices sufficiently motivated will still screw it up. Matt: Will screw something up, yes. Snipe: Yes, Exactly. Frameworks like Laravel, I think once that are headed in the right direction, so your default login already uses bcrypt to hash the password. You would, again, have to go out of your way to write something that would store something in cleartext or MD5. I think it's a step in the right direction. Use your frameworks, learn what their built-in security functionality is, and use them. Matt: Use it. [laughs] Snipe: One of the packages I'm actually writing for Laravel right now is an XSS package which will basically walk through your schema, and will try and inject rows of XSS stuff in there so that when you reload the app and if you got to any kind of functional testing or acceptance testing setup, you'll be able to see very quickly what you've forgotten to escape. Matt: I love it. Snipe: For a normal Laravel app, that's actually hard to do because the double braces will escape everything. For example, if you're using data from an API, maybe you're not cleaning it as well or whatever. That's one of the packages that I actually am working on. Matt: That's great. Also, if you're using JavaScript, it's really common for people to not escape it, and so that all of a sudden, they forget to clean it. Snipe: Exactly. I wanted one quick way to basically just check and see how boned I was. That'll be fun. Matt: Yes. Does it have a name yet that we can watch for or would you just link it once you have it? Snipe: Well, the only name-- You know how the mocking data packages called Faker? You can imagine what I'm considering calling this that I probably won't call it? [laughs] Matt: Probably won't, but now we can all remember it that way? Yes. Snipe: No promises. Absolutely no promises is all I'm saying. [laughs] Matt: Assuming it's safe for work, I will link the name in the show notes later. If not, you could just go-- [crosstalk] [laughter] Snipe: Again, no promises. Matt: I like it. Okay. You all have taken enough drinks, so I won't say my usual ending for you to drink too. Snipe, Alison, thank you so much. Thank you for the ways you have spoken up for a lot of things that really matter both in this call and our community as a whole. Thank you for hopefully helping me but also our entire community get better going forward, but also the things you brought to us in the past in terms of application security. I don't know why I didn't say this earlier, but Mr. Rogers is maybe one of my top heroes of all time. That was what was going through my mind when you were talking about running your company. Thank you for being that force both for running companies that way and taking care of people, and then, of course, by proxy for just the people who you're working with. The more people that are out there doing that, I think the better it is for all of us. This has been ridiculously fun. If anyone wants to follow you on Twitter, what's your Twitter handle and what are other things they should check out? That URL for Snipe-IT? I will put all of these in the show notes, but I just wanted you to get a chance to say them all at the end. Snipe: My Twitter handle is @snipeyhead, because @snipe was taken. I'm still pissed at that guy. [laughter] Snipe: The URL for Snipe-IT is snipeitapp.com. Not very creative. All of our issues are on GitHub. Your pool of requests are welcome. [laughter] Snipe: As always. Matt: Nice. Snipe: It is free. If it helps you solve some of your problems at your organization, we would love for you to try it out. If you'd like to give us money, that's awesome too. Ultimately, the more people who are using it, the better. Matt: Nice. Okay. Well, thank you so much for your time. Everyone, check out the show notes as always. We'll see you again in a couple of weeks with a special episode. I'll tell you more what it is when that one happens. See you. Snipe: [chuckles] Thank you so much, Matt.

I'm excited to release this interview with Jason Calacanis during the launch of his new book, Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups-Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000. I've been a super fan of Jason since coming across his show This week in Startups when he produced it on set with black curtain backdrops and large wooden dining room tables. A lot of people give GaryVee credit for the foresight of thinking like a media company — but Jason got to it first. Behind the bravado is a kid from Brooklyn that worked his tail off to get to where he's at, challenged with lessons of success & failure weaved into the fabric of his story. Today, Jason leads Inside.com with the same burning passion to take on the big platforms as he did with his first startup, Silicon Alley Reporter.  Sit back and enjoy this episode with Jason, as he walks us through the mind of an angel investor and how to start thinking scale in your small software business. Listen the episode Matt Report - A WordPress podcast for digital business owners How to find an angel investor for small startups w/ Jason Calacanis Play Episode Pause Episode Mute/Unmute Episode Rewind 10 Seconds 1x Fast Forward 30 seconds 00:00 / 00:44:23 Subscribe Share RSS Feed Share Link Embed Download file | Play in new window | Duration: 00:44:23 Interview transcript Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Matt Report season five. We're winding down season five. In fact, folks who were listening, now you should have heard the last episode of season five. But I get a bonus episode with one of my favorite people on the internet, Jason Calacanis. Jason, welcome to the program. Jason C.: Hey, thanks for having me. Matt: Creator of Weblogs, Inc sold to AOL. Early investors in Uber, Thumbtack, created a company called Mahalo and fought Google at every turn and corner. Created another company that I originally found you through is This Week In, the sort of all the YouTube stuff and live video stuff you were doing. Now you're running Inside.com, news and entertainment delivered via email. I am a huge fan of that as well. You run LAUNCH Incubator and events, and now you've written the book, the book of angels as it were. It's angels- Jason C.: Yes, of angels. I like that. Matt: Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups—Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned 100 grand into 100 million buckaroos. Jason, welcome to the program again. Did I miss anything? Jason C.: It's- Matt: I probably did. Jason C.: Probably. Well yeah, it's one of the great things about history is like people only remember the victories if you have them. Then they forget all the losses. But you brought up Mahalo, so that was great, my PTSD started triggering. Mahalo, we basically pivoted into Inside.com, so the story ended up well. But we're working like dogs, get a return for those Mahalo investors. I never give up. It's one of my either charming or stupid qualities depending on the situation that I never give up. Matt: Obviously, want to talk about the book. For me, I'm not a super heavy book reader. I got it, I got an early copy. I did a little Jason Calacanis of my own, I just contacted your publishers. I sort of worked my way in through the backdoor and I said, “Hey, I'd love to talk to this guy.” Jason C.: Hustle. Matt: I definitely want to talk about the book, but real quick. This Week In network, I mean god, you had This Week In Web Design, of course This Week In Startups. You had I think This Week In Movies as well. Do you think that you were just so early, like the technology wasn't there? Jason C.: Yeah, for sure. What we did was we tried to do a network of shows seven years ago. It was a little experiment. Me and a couple of my friends put 100k in each. We got to the point where it was making some money and there were two breakout shows, Kevin Pollak's Chat Show and This Week In Startups. All the other shows, we were trying to groom talent. We had people like Mark Suster doing This Week In Venture Capital. Then we had other people doing This Week In Movies. We did a Mad Men recap show long before things like Talking Dead. We kinda pioneered that space of doing a show right after. We had a lot of, I would say, early signs of success. Maybe we should've stuck with it. But I came to this great realization, which was the more important, the more powerful, the more networks, the more credible the hosts, like Kevin Pollak, Mark Suster, myself, the greater the chance of success. If it was an emerging host, it probably had very little chance of success. We were able to get an unlimited supply of emerging talent to host a podcast. But none of them were breaking out. It probably would've taken us three or four years of trying to get them to break out. We had somebody named Dave Pensado doing Pensado's Place and he was awesome too. But all those people had in common that they didn't really need us because it's so easy to create a podcast that if you're a rich powerful person, or not even rich. If you just have 500 to let's say $2,000 to produce an episode, you can just do it yourself and not have a boss, not be part of a network. We kept having people who would just call in rich, like Mark Suster's like, “Yeah, I can't do it for the next year. I gotta raise a fund. I got things to do.” I just had this realization that all the great podcasters would be independent and I was right. If you look, Leo Laporte stayed independent, Joe Rogan, Sam Harris, Adam Carolla. All these people have become independent, let's call it $1 million to $10 million enterprises. I think probably Leo and Joe Rogan are above 5 million. They have this like, call it $2 to $5 million space like This Week In Startups, and maybe Sam Harris, and maybe Adam Carolla. In other words, it's enough money for those people to love doing it and not to need to have anybody as their boss. So all those people who are trying to making podcasting networks have had a hard go of it. Even Leo, who's got a lot of great shows, but he's had a hard time keeping talent on the network because they go have a life event. They get married. They go have kids and want to do something else. It's just hard to be a manager of talent like that. I mean Sirius XM is doing a good job of it, but they have this like huge bankroll. So I think podcasting is this very unique space because you don't need somebody. If you go down that list, all these like podcasting companies, they don't really … Malcolm Gladwell doesn't need the podcasting company in other words. He can just do it himself. If he does it with a podcasting company, it's probably because they're overpaying him. Matt: These shows, these either networks or these individual shows that somebody's running, they become massive platforms and catalysts to sell all their either goods and services or maybe even in your world, you get the advertising, you do a million bucks a year. You pay your staff, whatever. But it's also it connects you with so many people at the same time. It makes you become the [crosstalk 00:05:39]- Jason C.: My view on podcasting when I heard about it from Dave Winer and the pod father, Adam Curry when they were teaching me about it. I was like okay, I'm just gonna record two conversations from lunches I had in a week, and then all of a sudden it turned into we're about to hit 800 episodes for This Week in Startups. It just turned out to be a networking thing for me. Then all of a sudden, it started making money and getting 150,000 downloads in episodes. So it's a pretty big audience now and it's a great way for me to find founders to invest in. Matt: If people are listening to that and they're like, “All right, that's it. I'm gonna go start my podcast.” Folks, it's still a slog. It's still some hard work. It doesn't come that easy. I know. I'm only at maybe 300 episodes and man, some days it can be super draining to keep this stuff going. Let's just talk about the book. The structure of this book, for a dullard like myself who doesn't like to read, it is … I mean you say in sort of the winding chapters that this is the playbook. This is your decade plus of experiences sort of all put into this one book. I love the framework was I mean was that your idea? Or when you get to a publisher, they say, “Look, that's a complicated topic. We need to sort of piecemeal this for people reading it.” It's not all this hoopla and sort of Zen like stuff. This is the real deal. Jason C.: Yeah. The pitch was interesting. I've had a very famous book agent for a decade. His name is John Brockman. He does something called Edge.org and he's got Daniel Dennett, Jared Diamond, Sam Harris, had Marvin Minsky, just all the greatest authors that are out there, and Brian Greene, and then me. I would always get these like Blogging for Dummies, Podcasting for Dummies. Search engines, SEO for Dummies. They just wanted me to be the dummy author and it was always like chintzy. It was a couple of stories about my angel investing. People started to realize, “Oh, he's hit a unicorn. Oh, he hit a second unicorn. Oh, he hit three unicorns.” When that started to get released, the value of the portfolio started to get released and Wall Street Journal did a story on it, people were pinging my agent saying, “Hey, is he gonna write a book?” I just thought to myself everybody I meet, like the stupider or more inexperienced they are, the greater the chance they've written a book. So like people who have no life experience and nothing to share, they write books in order to become subject matter efforts. I just thought isn't that backwards? Like, shouldn't the books go to the subject matter experts? I just thought what am I a subject matter expert on? Like, I was a good entrepreneur. I'm not like an elite great entrepreneur, like folks I've invested in who have done much better than me. I was a good entrepreneur. But angel investing is something I have a lot of credibility on since I've done 150 investments now and now six of them have become unicorns. Another company today announced that they raised over a billion dollars making medal 3D printers called Desktop Metal, which I was an investor on the first round to fund it. Matt: Nice. Jason C.: I was like this is something I could do. Then I looked at it and I said how do you frame that? I could make something for angels, but really the book is about how wealth is created in the 21st century as opposed to how wealth was created in the 20th century. That's really what I'm going for and if you read the book, you realize it's not just for angel investors. It's for anybody who wants to know how many is gonna be made in the next century. Money and wealth is not created by real estate and being rich dad, poor dad, secret millionaire on the block, art of the deal. You're not gonna become rich through some deal making or real estate in all likelihood. That dream is over. That was a really good model when the white collar boom was happening. You could get a white collar job, marry somebody with a white collar job, bring peanut butter and jelly to lunch, and then just don't go out to dinner, take staycations. Matt: Right. Save, save, save. Jason C.: Save, save, save. Pay down your house. But at that time, when our parents bought their houses, my parents bought their brownstone in Brooklyn for I think $45,000. My mom was making as a nurse 40,000 and my dad was probably making 30,000 as a bartender. Their house was one less than one times their yearly income. Now if you live in New York, a brownstone's a million dollars, and most people are making, let's say they were, forget about blue collar, just white collar people. They're probably making 100 to 150k each, so let's just call it best case scenario, 300,000 a year. A brownstone in Brooklyn's a million dollars or $2 million depending on where in Brooklyn, so it's five times, seven times the household income. Forget about Manhattan or other places. In San Francisco, it's an even further joke. So the idea that you would have these two white collar people suffer and then hit this amazing real estate thing, then buy a second home, or leverage it into a second home, is kinda laughable. Also, people are graduating with what? At the same time, people's debt is growing, so there's educational debt. People coming out of school with 50, 150k each, so they have household debt of 150,000. Then what happens? Boom, you had  the $150,000 in debt, you're not paying for your mortgage until you're 35. In this book, I explain hey, if you can get on cap tables of high growth companies, specifically in Silicon Valley, because the hit rate there is so much better and the numbers are just, add a zero or two from any other market in terms of the scale of those companies, you could really hit a home run and move from poor to rich, from middle class to rich, from rich to ultra rich. That's really what I was trying to do there. My hope is that if 100,000 people buy the book, and 5 or 10% of them start angel investing, maybe 1,000 of them have this incredible, or 100 of them have this incredible result. If the other ones just are plus or minus 50% of their money, that's a fine outcome too. Angel investing is something that's becoming something that a lot more people can do. Matt: Yeah and I want to talk about that, but I also looked at this book of course for the folks who are listening, the WordPress product companies, hosting companies, people who are doing upwards of maybe a million bucks a year selling WordPress plugins. This is a great book to reverse engineer these frameworks, right? Jason C.: Of course. Matt: How does Jason go to look for founders? Now these founders out there I mean pick up the book just because now you can reverse engineer that and it structures so damn well that you just zero in right on the part where Jason's negotiating or setting up the interviews. I mean it's an amazing tool. Jason C.: Exactly correct. That is a very astute point. There's actually a cheaper in there for founders where I just say like, “If you're a founder and you bought this book to game the system, congratulations. You're smart. You smart mother effers, like I salute you. Then here's what you need to know about what angels are going through and how they make their decisions because they are human beings too who are trying to figure this out.” You're not trying to game them. What you want is to really be in sync. For the people making a million dollars a year, like basically either become angel investors or they could actually read the book and understand hey, this is what venture capitalists and angel investors are looking to do. How do you accelerate a million dollar, that wedge strategy of doing templates, and being a single person who makes a million dollars a year, and one person with a couple freelances makes a million? How do you add a zero to that revenue or two zeros? I think if you read the book, you'll have an idea of how things like that can scale. Matt: A little bit on that point, so a lot of folks who do do this, who are doing the WordPress thing, and they're selling some digital products, a lot of them are developers. They started coding in the basement. They upgraded to coding in the garage. Now they're in a coworking space, coding at the coworking space. They're not sort of the marketing type or the entrepreneurial type in the sense of I want to scale this thing. But what can be said about at least talking to maybe an angel investor? I mean are there some benefits to taking … a lot of these folks are just sort of gun-shy for taking money. Are there some benefits to it that you could sort of peg off for people who might be afraid? Jason C.: Yeah. If you have a cash producing business, let's say it's profitable in throwing off a $250,000 a year salary for you. That's pretty amazing. Consider yourself lucky. You can work from home. You control your schedule. You start bringing investors in, they are gonna be looking, an angel investor is gonna be looking typically for a 5 to 10x return. Not this angel investor. I'm looking for people who can do a 100 for 500. But really, 50 to 100 is probably what professional angels are hoping that some of their companies do. A regular angel might be looking for 5 or 10 times their money in seven years. Venture capitalists are trying to invest millions of dollars and maybe do 10x as well with an outside chance of 100 or 200x. So you know that about them and you are kinda lighting a fuse or hitting a starter pistol when you do take that money. So it's a very astute observation. Your life is gonna change. You're gonna have to send updates to them. They're gonna have questions. They're gonna give you money, but they're also, hopefully if they're connected, gonna give you credibility, and resources, and help you strategize about how to add that zero to your revenue. So that everybody involved, all stakeholders, your customers, your partners, your employees, yourself as the founder and the investors, win. That's what the cap table is all about, the capitalization table. So you have to create a cap table, sell them some shares, give your employees some shares and say, “Hey, we're all gonna go on this journey. The company has a million in revenue. We value out of 5 million. There's 5 million shares in the company. They're all worth a dollar. The investor just put in a half million dollars. They bought 10% of the company. They gave us 500,000. Let's deploy that $500,000 intelligently. We'll hire five sales people and give them $50,000 plus commission and hire two more developers. Now we got seven people cranking.” What the people who are your grinders and your audience, the people who know how to grind out and make a real business that people find value from, they typically have the great product sense and the great customer sense. But they don't have the scale sense, right? Or they don't have it yet. Matt: Right. Jason C.: What they have to do is study what they've learned, study their customers and say, “Hey, maybe the top 5% of our customers or top 10% have a need that we've learned about, that we can double or triple down.” If they looked at it and said, “You know what? We have these three customers out of 1,000 who are financial companies, and they keep asking for this set of features. Let's tell them that we're building that product and let's get them to pay $25,000 a month for that product.” That's what kinda pulling the string as an entrepreneur and learning about a market, that's what I respect about those grinders, the people who get to a million dollars in revenue. I just did my first cannabis investment. I wasn't expecting to do one until maybe California was legal and maybe two years from now when things were a little more sorted. But I found a company that's making a million dollars from advertising, and doing cannabis tourism, and doing cannabis magazines, and cannabis festivals. I was like okay, that's a good starting point. If they know how to make a million dollars from just traditional advertising, and events, and stuff like that, maybe they'll figure out some bigger business, and they have a bigger business in mind. So I love those scrappy entrepreneurs. Matt: Yeah. I see that come up a lot. Like, I see a lot of people who are scrappy, doing a million bucks a year, but then they see these ideas get funded for multi millions of dollars and they haven't made a nickel yet. Meanwhile, these people are making hand over fist, hundreds of thousand dollars in cash every single month. I mean is that attractive when a company's making money or does that signal like this is only as big as you're gonna get? Jason C.: Yeah. Matt: Like, we should maybe not invest in that. Jason C.: An amazing question. For some people, it is a signal, a negative signal. Like, these people think small. But for people who are in the know, like savvy people, they're gonna look at it and go, “That person built what we call a dude business, or a dudette business, which is dude makes a million dollars a year. Dude makes half a million dollars a year.” Those people are so smart. I have a friend, Phil Kaplan, who created a company called DistroKid, and previous he did Effed Company and a couple of other startups. He's really brilliant and he makes these companies like just himself and a bunch of freelancers, and they get to millions of dollars in revenue. If you can be lean like that, you're gonna learn stuff, and then there's a time to figure out, “Okay, I built MailChimp, or SurveyMonkey, or examples of companies built off revenue that all of a sudden started to scale.” In SurveyMonkey's case, they took investment and then I believe in MailChimp's case, they had 400 million in revenue, and they had never taken anybody's money. So both things can work. If you want to work with a group of elite investors, when you come with that million dollars, and explain your vision, and say, “Listen, we made a million dollars. It was quite nice. We can grow this business 20% a year for the next 10 years and we'll make $10 million.” That's awesome. “We want to build a billion dollar company. Here's the billion dollar opportunity and here's why we need $1.5 million for 15% of the company. We're gonna build it from here to hit these goals.” That seems pretty credible to me. If it hasn't grown for five years and it's just slowly growing, and you say, “We're gonna make this accelerate,” you have to have a good story. So is it, “Why hasn't it grown faster?” It might be that you just never had outbound sales. You add an outbound sales team and everything changes. So they would want you to test that theory and probably give you 500k to test it. Matt: Got it. Jason C.: But most people don't take enough risks. Out of that group of people who are making that million dollars a year, half million dollars a year, what they don't realize is they're so concerned to protect the nest egg, and their upper middle class lifestyle, or let's say affluent life style. Maybe not rich, they could stop working, but they kinda have a nice place in life. They don't want to risk it, which I understand. But what you have to realize is if you don't risk it now, there's no chance of outside success. If you go for an outside success and it fails, and you've built a million dollar business before, you're gonna be able to build another million dollar one. It's kinda like there's this kid who climbs Yosemite and other mountains without a rope, Alex Honnold, or whatever his name is. It's just like you watch these videos and you're like, “My god, please don't do that.” I don't recommend people climb mountains without ropes, but if you're climbing the startup mountain and you fall, it gives you more credibility, and you just get to start over at the bottom of the mountain again. You don't die. People have this idea that's if you fail in your startup, you're dead. No, you're more credible, you've learned something, and you get to play. You put another quarter in the machine, you get to play the video game again. Matt: Yeah, absolutely. I mean that's obviously well said. I want to circle- Jason C.: Take more risk is my advice. Matt: Yeah and on that note, you mentioned something earlier about sort of they understand the scrappiness of creating the product, understanding the customer, and the love of building a business, right? That's why they did it. But they don't understand the scale factor. Is that what you would argue a good angel would come in and say, no pun intended I guess, but come in and say, “Hey look, we're gonna bless you with a … maybe point you in the right direction for an advisor, or building an advisory council,” or something like that? Does a good angel do that for their entrepreneurs or do you try to stay hands off and not really push them in a particular direction? Jason C.: It depends on what the founder wants. If the founder wants me involved, I get involved. If the founder doesn't need my help, I get less involved. I like to get a monthly update from the founder because it creates discipline with them to write the update. It takes them an hour to write the update, share the key metrics of the business, talk about the challenges, talk about the wins, talk about the losses, and how we might be able to help. If you have that discipline where you have your metrics dialed in and you write that update, and you send it to 10 investors, and say your management team, you can have like a really open dialogue. The companies that do that go a lot further because they maybe create a plan. If you have a plan to be successful and you execute the plan, you will be more successful. You might not succeed, but you will definitely be more successful. People who decide, “I'm gonna create a two year plan to grow my business from 1 million in year one to 3 million. In a year or two, I'm gonna go from 3 million to 9.” If they don't succeed at the plan and they hit 2 in 6, they will probably be further along than people without a plan. I'm a big fan of planning, and having people involved, and talking about the strategy, and paying attention to the data and the metrics. The great companies do that. Matt: I think you mentioned on a recent episode of your show that the folks who are shy or shy-ish of saying, “No, I'm gonna not give you that weekly or monthly update,” as sort of an indication to you that they're not taking their job seriously, or they might not be taking your relationship with handing them some cash seriously in that regard. Jason C.: Yeah, for sure. We definitely like to find people who are just serious about the business and want to do the business right. I think if you're gonna take angels, you need to look at, especially if you're in that zone of 500,000 to a million, a simple email to 10 different angels saying, “I have a business called blank. We make money by doing blank for blank. Here's a revenue chart, quarterly, monthly, week, whatever, and here's a link to our product demo.” Like, literally that's what? Less than five sentences. You all of a sudden get this massive … we click on the links, and we go check it out, and then we're gonna take the meeting. Most people write their life story and what they plan on doing, the talkers, the tourists. What I love about your audience is they're not talkers and tourists. They're people who have actually built real businesses and they just maybe haven't built the business that is designed to be a billion dollar business. But if you can build a million dollar business, truth be told, you can build a $10 million business. Now, if you have built the million dollar business, I don't know that means you can build a $100 million one. But if you build a million, you can definitely get to 10. If you can get to 10, you've got a business that's gonna be worth 5 to 20 times that number and you can build a team around you of investors who can tell you what people you need on your team to hit that next milestone. That's the trick. You're bringing these people in, they're invested, and now you have five people working toward your success who have skills that you don't have. Again, why fear the downside risk when there is none? It's not life or death and people have a life or death approach where they just don't take enough risk. I believe, in my heart, people don't take enough risk. Matt: It's funny you say that because I'm a mentor in an accelerator program out here on the East Coast. A lot of these folks coming in, and it's sort of like a sustainable accelerator, so businesses that are gonna help the local community, drive jobs, that kind of thing. Nothing like in the tech sector, although some come through with the tech sector. So many people starting companies now, they feel like it's life or death, right? Some of them are trying to do it because they're jaded from the Shark Tank shows that are out there. They think like, “All I have to do is get to this, and I'm gonna win a million bucks,” right? They think of it like a game show I guess and it's sort of not the case. But also, look, you can get up the next day. You can start another business, get another job, or something like that, and take another swing at it I guess. Jason C.: It's correct. Shark Tank's an amazing show for inspiring people to get involved. It has put in people's mind that that money in some cases is like the reward, that's the prize, when in fact that's the starter pistol as we talked about earlier. That just means okay, now you've deployed it, and those people want you to return. It's an investment, which means they want a return on capital. So yeah, I think it's been great that so many people are inspired to start companies, but finishing is important. Matt: As an investor, this is the inside baseball question for the direct folks in the audience, we're all using WordPress. It's all opensource. Does that scare you as an investor? Do you not touch opensource? Do you know investors that do and don't that might be some guidance for folks listening? Jason C.: It is amazing. Everybody wants to do opensource based startups. They [inaudible 00:25:55] WordPress.org and I've got the name of the other CMS, but the Boston company that now- Matt: Oh, Acquia, Drupal. Jason C.: Yeah, Drupal. Yeah, so these companies are real and they make a ton of money. I think Android has put to bed anybody's fear that like you can't do an open source thing and also control it, right? Google's done a pretty good job of having their cake and eating it too, haven't they? They have like Android, and they figured out, and there's a- Matt: Tesla's doing opensource I think even with their chargers coming up, right? They want to opensource their charging station so other manufacturers can- Jason C.: Build them. Matt: Build them. Jason C.: Yeah, I think they … What everybody realizes is at a certain point, you pick where you want to make your money and make your company defensible. So for Google, everything is opensource, except for their algorithm and their search engine. You can't figure out, that's a black box, right? But they'll opensource everything else to kill their competitors. Then Facebook is like, “We'll make our hardware platform opensource and we'll have everybody working on grinding the hardware quest down. But we're sure we're not gonna make our ad network, or a social graph, that's not gonna be available. It would be lightly available in the API. If you get any kind of traction on the API that gets people to leave Facebook, we're gonna turn you off.” The API for Facebook says, “The API is not designed to make people leave Facebook.” So if you use the API thinking you're gonna bring people to your platform, the second you get traction, they just say, “You're breaking the terms of service.” Matt: Yep. So let's pivot and talk about your current business, Inside.com. Is playing in somebody else's sandbox, I mean as you learned with Mahalo, as sort of some of us listening now. We've learned that from WordPress.com versus WordPress.org, two different businesses, two different entities. Is your play in email sort of saying, “You know what? To heck with these platforms. I'm just gonna go direct.” Jason C.: It's exactly … you couldn't be more right. After years of being frustrated by … Google was a big partner of ours. I was in their first quarterly report for Weblogs, Inc was the partner that they shared that was making money off of advertising. We were making over $2,000 a day. We were like the first million dollar independent company partner. So they used us as a case study, Weblogs, Inc and Gadget, and they used New York Times. I had this great 10 year relationship. I knew the founders of the company. I knew everybody there. Then they just decided to like go ham on us, and all the other content sites, and destroy us. Then when I called them, like I couldn't get my phone calls returned. I was like, “We're partners.” Then Matt Cutts is like, “We don't have partners and you don't have a penalty against you.” I'm like, “90% of our traffic's gone and here's 1,000 emails with your team talking about how great our partnership is.” They basically lied and you can see them getting dinged. They just got a $2.7 billion fine just on comparison shopping, so they're gonna get dinged for local. They get dinged for all these other things as well. They really use their monopolistic position to hurt the companies in their ecosystem, which I understand. I wouldn't have done it that way. They were loved originally by partners. What they should've done is just given us a licensing fee for our content and said, “Hey, if we put your content on the one box or whatever, we're just gonna give you 10 cents a CPM.” All of a sudden Yelp would've been getting a million dollar a month check and everybody would've been happy. Google would've been making 100 million off of that. There was a way for them to do it, and I think they probably regret it now, and they're probably trying to fix it. Or they're laughing all the way to the bank, it doesn't matter. Matt: I feel like they're doing it again with YouTube content and sort of just- Jason C.: Changing the rules. Matt: Yeah, sucking the life out of ad revenue. Jason C.: Yeah. No, all of a sudden they said, “If you have under 10,000 views, no ads.” If CNN talks about a terrorist attack, they can have advertising. If an independent person who helped build YouTube into what it is, like Philip DeFranco, mentions a terrorist attack, they won't put ads on it. So Philip went crazy on them. He said, “Wait a second. I helped build this platform and now you're changing it?” So Philip's leaving the platform. I saw that coming. I left the platform. Wmail is one of these great things. You can go direct and you can make money directly from consumers, so not even having to rely on advertising. Now we're going and saying to our customers, “Hey, pay for the content. We'll give you some extra content if you pay. If you want free, you get whatever it's gonna be, 20% or 60% of the content for free. Some percentage, 50/50, we're not sure yet, 60/40, will be for the paid people and for people who contributed.” We did it with LAUNCH Ticker, our first email newsletter. Of the 27,000 people, we have over 1,000 paying, so about 4%. If I can replicate that with the 200,000 subscribers on Inside.com's 26 newsletters, we'll have a great business. We'll have 8,000 paid subscribers. We'll be making a million dollars a year. That pays for a lot of journalists and you have 20 journalists working from home for that. I'm really interested in owning a deep direct relationship. Now, if you think about it, Gmail is even trying to- Matt: Oh yeah, that was gonna be my next question. Jason C.: For that, with their tabs and putting you in their thing. But it's so hard for them to do. We are even going to be going … We started experimenting with SMS and owning people's relationship there. I think use any of these other platforms if it gets you customers, but own a direct deep relationship. I can't tell you how many people I know who have apps and have no emails. It's like get the email address of these people and email is the big growth hack for Twitter and for a lot of other sites where they email you, “Here's what you missed.” That was the big hack for a lot of these companies. So if you're not collecting emails everywhere, and providing massive value to those email subscribers, you're doing it wrong. Matt: Yeah and I mean as again folks who are listening now, WordPress itself, being an opensource platform, you can do whatever you want. I mean we have tons of folks in the audience who are building membership sites. People are coming to the site. They're paying either $9 bucks a month, $200 bucks a year, transaction happens right on a WordPress site. They can control the content, put up a paywall, all that fun stuff. What's the product evolution of Inside.com? Do you then spin back to where you were five, six years ago and start creating video content along with this stuff, audio content, along- Jason C.: Yeah, anything's possible. I think the goal is once you have 10,000, 20,000 emails, you start to have this virtuous cycle where the news is coming to you. You can bolt anything onto something with 20,000, 30,000 emails, and that's gonna have some amount of success, so it's a very astute observation. It's very possible Inside AI could have a weekly podcast, and the email would drive the podcast. The email content would drive the topics of the podcast, so it's possible we can layer on podcasting onto email. What I found was every business I looked at kept saying if email's the growth thing, why don't we make email look [inaudible 00:32:41], right? Matt: Right. Jason C.: If everybody's looking and saying, “Hey, email is the thing to get growth,” what if the entire product is centered around email, and engagement, and opening it? So that's really what I'm focused on. I set a goal in the beginning like, “Let's get a certain number of opens.” We hit that. Then I said, “Let's get to 50 newsletters. We're halfway there.” Now I'm saying, “Let's get to 1 or 2% of the people who are free, paying. That just started three or four weeks ago, but it's promised thousands of dollars in monthly reoccurring revenue.” It's a very lightweight business, like many people who are part of your audience, I'm like literally aspiring to hitting that million dollars in revenue and having 20 full time 50k a year journalists working from home. A 50k salary for a journalist working from home, or 40k plus benefits, or something in that range, I mean you can get people with three, four or five years experience. We have this thing in New York and San Francisco where they think journalists need to make 70, 80, 90, $100,000. It turns out if you're living in New Hampshire, or Arizona, or other places, to get a work from home job with benefits for 40 or 50k is a tremendous tremendous opportunity. Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Jason C.: Because you can't get that salary. If you do get that salary, you probably have to drag your ass into an office. Matt: Right, right. I do miss your Inside Drones YouTube series that you were doing at one point. I do miss that. That was good. Jason C.: We'll get back to it. What we found was we weren't getting … it was cart before horse. When we started doing some of those tests, we weren't getting the engagement that we wanted, and then they were trying to figure out how to regrow it. So it's like oh, let's work backwards, you know? Matt: As we sort of wrap up here because I know you're a little crunched on time. How do you live in that happy chaos? Let me just stage that. I was talking to a founder today and in my mentor session, it was like okay, you're selling your product. You're out there, you're pushing it. But then there's like this little cloud above you. That little 20% of ideas, and testings, and little things you want to try sort of just floats up there. You sort of pull things out every now and again, like your Inside Drones, maybe cart before horse. How do you manage that? Because I feel like you do a lot of that. You're always testing things. You're always trying new ideas. You don't shy away from it. Jason C.: No. Matt: Is there a way for you to manage that? Jason C.: Yeah, for sure. Here's how I look at it. I look at startups themselves when I angel invest and I look at my own little tests as satellites, little missions. If you wanted to find life in the universe, I think the way to do it is to send out 100 probes to 100 different planets that could have life on them, and just see if you get a return signal, right? Matt: Right. Jason C.: That's the way to look at these experiments. If you get to a planet that you think is in the Goldilocks zone and shouldn't be inhabitable, and you get there and there's nobody there, great. You can cross that one off the list. As you start crossing them off the list, you're gonna start getting data. So oh, doing the podcast about drones didn't work, but doing a newsletter did. Okay, what's making the newsletter grow? Oh, doing interviews with people who are CEOs of drone companies means they retweet it, and people get value from it, and blah blah blah blah. You start figuring out what works, which experiments are getting you closer to finding life and which ones are not. Sometimes you gotta cross things off the list to know they don't work. That's really what's entrepreneurship is about, is you're just trying to triangulate around a signal. Sometimes it's a weak signal, but the signal starts getting stronger and stronger, and revenue and engagement are the signals. So open rates are the signal. When we started Inside, we have a newsletter called Daily Brief, which is just about the news of the day. We realized hey 40, 50% of people were opening it in the mornings. Then people were telling us the next day that a lot of the news was stale. So I said okay, let's run a test. Take the thousand people on the list and send like 1,000 of the 10,000 people or 20,000 people, whatever it is, a second edition at 3 o'clock in the afternoon with whatever else has happened, like an update. Just tell them it's an update on what was happening in the morning news. Like, four people were like, “I didn't ask for this.” We're like, “We'll unsubscribe you.” Three of them were like, “Don't unsubscribe, I love it.” But they were kind of upset that they were … I just told the whole list, “Listen, we're moving to twice a day. If you don't like it, unsubscribe.” Someone's like, “I only want once a day.” I was like, “We don't provide that.” They're like, “Okay.” They're like, “You can't do that.” There's always like a couple of people in every crowd where the people at a restaurant who are like, “You can't charge for bread,” and the restaurant's like, “We charge for bread.” “Okay, fine.” Or, “A hamburger should come with french fries. How do you charge for french fries?” Then you would say, “Well, not everybody wants french fries, so we charge an extra dollar for french fries. That's just the way we choose to do it. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.” Sometimes people listen too much to their costumers, so you gotta understand the overall impact of the metrics. That just requires having not a discussion about emotions, or feelings, or predictions, or who's in charge, but data and the crafting of experiments. The Lean Startup's a great book by my friend Erick Ries that talks about this lean startup methodology, which everybody listening to this should be familiar with. Matt: Yeah, definitely. Jason C.: But what's the least costly and quickest way to get the signal to understand if this is gonna work or not? That's your goal. How can you cheaply figure it out? The way I cheaply figure it out was let's just put a newsletter out there. Inside had a news app, hundreds of thousands of people downloaded the app. Less than 1% used it a day. When we send emails, 30, 40, 50% of people open each one and we send two a day. So you put that together, we went 50x using an old technology, and now we don't have seven developers working on an app, eight developers working on an app. The whole app team was maybe eight people, very highly paid people. We can redeploy those eight people's salaries, and hire a dozen journalists, and get further. That's no dig to the … It just turned out that news apps didn't work. I mean I was an investor in Circa and a bunch of other news apps I loved, and used, and nobody made a news app that's worked. It just doesn't work. People forget they have it. Matt: Yeah, I remember when you launched that, and I was like oh man, I don't know if I'm gonna be using this app all the time and I installed it. But then when you pivoted to the straight up email, I was like yes, this is … Because this is all I, I swear to god, this is not just because you're on my show and because I'm a super fan. But it's like the only place I read news now. I don't go into Facebook and even dare click on an article. One, because I don't want to get retargeted. Two, I don't want to see all the bullshit comments that people have to say about stuff. I just want to see the news headlines, get the synopsis, and then click on it if I so desire. I think Inside really hits the mark on that. Jason C.: Thank you. Matt: Oh man. One last followup on that. Ad free and just go membership monetization model moving forward or make sure- Jason C.: Probably a combination. In the free ones, we'll have free ones, and you can rock out with a free one, and there's a little bit of advertising in it, and then we'll have the space of users who pays. One of the things we're experimenting with is just letting people turn off the ad. In Launch Ticker, we let the thousand people turn off the ads, and I think 10 of them or 20 of them took the time to do it. So you can turn the ads off technically by just clicking a button in your profile settings, and it turns out nobody does. People like to see the ads if they're targeted, so I think you can have your cake and eat it too. I think you can have a paid Vanity Fair, though with ads. So it's- Matt: That's a pretty cool idea because I guess if somebody clicked on that, you could. The paid for newsletter just simply doesn't come with ads. If you don't want to see ads in your email, just scrolling the headlines, just pay for it. I mean it's super easy, makes sense. Jason C.: I think like there's this group of people, like when Hulu came out with … I had a Hulu subscription for $10 bucks. It had ads. It was making me crazy because Netflix doesn't have ads and I'm paying $10 bucks for that. Then they made a $13 version that had no ads. I upgraded to that. I think there's probably like 20% of people are sensitive enough that they would pay the extra $3, an extra $36 a year. Then most people would not. In this day and age, I don't know you have to choose. I think it would be brilliant for Netflix to have a version where today, this Saturday, Mercedes is making Netflix free, and you can watch Orange is the New Black and all the original shows are free this Saturday, brought to you by Mercedes. You have to watch a Mercedes ad at the beginning and take a survey at the end. Mercedes could just make a Saturday Mercedes day on Netflix. Netflix gets all the people to download and sample the shows. They give them $10 million or $5 million for doing it. Like, just do one day a month where Netflix is free. It'd be great onboarding. Matt: Yeah, no absolutely. Jason, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to do this. Look, I am finally- Jason C.: Thanks for reading the book. Matt: Yeah, no problem. Jason C.: I appreciate it. I was like oh, you send a book to a lot of people, and they're like, “Yeah,” you know. I'm like, “What did you like about the book?” You actually have like specific moments in the book. You actually read it, so I really appreciate that. Matt: I actually thought you were gonna say, “How did this schmuck get the book?” Jason C.: No, it's- Matt: Listen, I am only a 10 minute flight away from Nantucket, so whenever you want to have a beer the next time you're in town, you let me know. Jason C.: Oh my gosh, so you're on the Cape somewhere or where? Matt: Yeah, I'm at Dartmouth, Mass. So it's just I hop anywhere to New Bedford, hop on the airline, it's about 10, 15 minutes in air. It's beautiful. Jason C.: I love that place. I love that place, yeah. No, no. Be careful. Matt: Where can folks find you on the web to say thanks? Jason C.: Oh, well Twitter. My Twitter handle is Jason, J-A-S-O-N, same with my Instagram. If you went to check out Inside.com, take a look. Angel, the book, is in stores now. If you tweet me your receipt, I will give you a unicorn number and a name. Matt: That is hilarious by the way. Jason C.: It's pretty hilarious. Yeah, like 300 people have done it, so we give them a unicorn name and a unicorn number, so you count up. We're gonna do 1,000 unicorn names for the first thousand people who tweet their receipts. We're 300 in, so that's good. Matt: Go grab the book, folks. Even if you're not considering angel investment, it's an amazing book to reverse engineer, to find those angel investors out there and get that money into your business. Try to scale. Stop being the development in the basement. Or be the developer in the basement if you want, but- Jason C.: Yeah, just add a zero. Matt: Just add a zero. Just add a zero. Jason C.: That's what I always tell my founders, like just add a zero. Then they add the zero, so I said, “Okay, let's add one more and we're done.” Matt: Oh, that's awesome stuff. It's MattReport.com, MattReport.com/subscribe to join the mailing list. Thanks everybody. Jason C.: Thanks Matt. ★ Support this podcast ★

  This week we talk Competitive gaming, Tournaments, & what we have been playing! also news Sea Fall & Xia Expansion!   News & junk! Seafall!! ROB DAVIAU ON THE NEXT PODCAST!!!!!!! Far off Games announced kickstarter dates for new Xia Expansion!!!!!!! Tabletop day recap! What we have been playing!? (Roy) Millennium Blades (Rob) Tiny Epic Kingdoms: Heroes Call and Tiny Epic Galaxies (Matt) Also Millennium Blades What games have you played competitively or in a tournament style setting? (Matt) TF2 (Rob) Call of Duty: WaW, Friday Night Magic, Risk Legacy (Roy)  Heroclix, Magic, Redemption How do you prepare for playing in a competitive tournament? (Rob) GET HYPE!!! (Roy) Meticulous thought. (Matt) Just play the game. What board game would you play in a competitive tournament? (Rob) Game of Thrones (Roy) Galaxy Trucker (Matt) Rhino Hero Follow Epic Gaming Night @EpicGamingNight on Twitter and Instagram EpicGamingNight.com www.youtube.com/c/epicgamingnight Glow in the dark tshirts!!! Analoggamer.com/Epicgamingnight Follow,like,subscribe, iTunes reviews! Facebook!!

Nasir and Matt discuss the class action suit against Jessica Alba's Honest Company for allegedlyselling products that contained harmful chemicals. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: And we get to cover your favorite actress today, right? She is an actress, right? MATT: Yeah, and I have something to bring up. She has like a bio on their company site. It’s Jessica Alba and it says, “Golden Globe-nominated actress whose career includes roles in films such as Fantastic Four, blah blah blah… and television shows like Dark Angel, The Office, and Entourage.” When was she on The Office? That’s what I trying to remember. Was that a typo? NASIR: Yeah, it’s a typo. MATT: She’s prone to typos or making mistakes. NASIR: Making mistakes, yeah. MATT: We’ll get down to the bottom of this before the end of the episode. You know, how do you choose the name of your company if you’re starting a new company? You know, there’s a lot of thought that’s put into the name, probably – or at least I would hope. Her company is called Honest – The Honest Company Inc. Started in California in 2011 – maybe a little bit later, 2014? Somewhere in that range. NASIR: Sorry to interrupt. I had to look it up, of course, on The Office. I couldn’t get over it. Apparently, remember there was a movie within the show where Jim and Pam would watch? MATT: That doesn’t count. Yeah. NASIR: She was in that with Jack Black. I guess she was on The Office. MATT: All right. Well, that’s fine. She’s not lying about it but why would that be…? NASIR: How she’s known for? I know. It was like one episode, right? MATT: And that one was tricky, if you remember, because it was I think someone right after the Superb Bowl and they kept billing it as “oh, we have all these big names in this episode with Jack Black, Jessica Alba and all these people” and then we got into the actual episode which was funny. The episode was funny, I’ll give them that. But it was tricky because these actors just being in a separate show. NASIR: It was a little deceiving or dishonest, I would say, no? MATT: Perfect, there you go – dishonest – and that’s what we’re getting to and it is deceiving. It was misrepresentation. Whether it’s intentional or negligent, it was something. NASIR: That is the question. MATT: Here is the problem. So, she has this company that has all these I guess we’ll call them beauty products and products for babies and kids. NASIR: I think they’re trying to expand in different vertical. I mean, they do baby wipes, too. MATT: Oh, I that was the reason it started – because she’s a mom of two and she wanted to have these “safe products” that are not full of all these chemicals like most things out there and that’s fine and that’s why she named it The Honest Company because our products are honestly made without all these things and there’s a whole list of them on the website. And so, one of the them is SLS – this is listing it as sodium lauryl? Do I have the right thing? NASIR: Yeah, it’s a sodium lauryl sulfate. MATT: Okay. Yeah, sodium lauryl sulfate – SLS. NASIR: They’re not selling that. That’s what’s in it. MATT: Just bottles of that. NASIR: They’re selling a laundry detergent that is apparently SLS is a common known chemical. It’s used a lot in soaps and different things like that. It’s a common active ingredient but apparently – for whatever reason – some people say it’s not good so they were basically selling this laundry detergent. If you look at the product, it will list out all the chemicals that it doesn’t have. As we commonly see, we see a list of ingredients. Part of their transparency is they list all the ingredients that it doesn’t have and that’s one of them. MATT: Right, and that’s the whole Honest aspect of it, you know? It’s trying to be honest about things. “We honestly don’t have these chemicals,

Nasir and Matt talk about JustFab's crazy valuation for a company that offerssubscription based clothes. They also get into topics of the evils of subscription model pricing and cancellation policies. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to the business news. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: I would say you’re like the fashion guru of the two of us, wouldn’t you say? MATT: Well, first of all, I knew you were going to say that. I was about to say something because I knew you were going there and, two, I would disagree with that. I think you’re more fashionable than I am. NASIR: Well, no, that assumes that I’m making my own fashionable decisions. I would say that you make your own fashion decisions in a very fabulous way – just fab way. MATT: Just fab? Okay. Now I got you because that’s what we’re talking about – JustFab which apparently is a start-up worth one billion dollars. I’d never even heard of it so it’s kind of crazy how it can be worth that much. I guess I also don’t buy any clothes or anything like that online. NASIR: But you’re right. There shouldn’t be anything worth a billion dollars that we haven’t heard about. That’s just wrong. MATT: Yeah. Well, I think we can explain why they’re worth so much with the kind of their business practices and it all kind of stems from… it sounds like, well, there’s a bunch of different things going on with them but one of the things is this subscription model that they kind of lock these customers into but, you know, just going back a bit about the history of the company, I mean, it looks like they started off more so with diet pills and wrinkle creams, using free trials, and then locking people, and this is something that’s not new to them. That’s why, any time I see a free trial, I’m always hesitant and I rarely ever actually sign up for it. If I do, I make sure that it doesn’t automatically roll into an automatic reoccurring subscription because that’s when you get locked in and end up having to pay and you forget about it and that’s a lot of money out of your pocket for something that was supposed to be a free trial. That’s what they started doing here with these diet pills. Eventually, they moved on to more fashion clothing items, things like that. But then, they did a couple of curious things and I’m not even fully sure how exactly this works. It’s a subscription model to buy something like shoes. They pay for the subscription model. This one person was saying, “I thought I was getting a good deal on shoes and I didn’t realize that I was signing up for a subscription that would be difficult to cancel. I was trying to buy one pair of shoes. Instead of that, I got signed up for a VIP club which charges me $40 every month,” and basically, you know, it was apparently difficult for this one person to get out of it. They just tried to do a one-time transaction and ended up getting caught up into a month-to-month – or I assume month-to-month – at least some sort of subscription where it probably took them a while to get out of. I’m sure there was long times of notice you had to give before terminating the subscription, things like that. And so, do that with one person, okay; do that with a lot of people, I think that’s how you kind of get to that one billion dollar mark. NASIR: Yeah, the subscription model for products and services, it’s in every business now. I mean, pick any service – whether it is transportation to selling any kind of products online – there’s a subscription for that. I think one of the most famous ones is that razor club, right? MATT: Dollar Shave Club. NASIR: Dollar Shave Club or whatever. I think they seem to be one of the most successful – well, I don’t know compared to JustFab or not. But I think the problem with it – and I don’t believe the other subscription models do this – is that you only have a five-day window to cancel.

Nasir and Matt revisit the Ashley Madison scandal for a third time to discuss data breaches, class action lawsuits, and fraudulent accounts. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: Did you say Nasir Pasha? NASIR: No, I said Nasir Pasha. MATT: Well, I’m Matt Staub, but it sounded like you said Sir Pasha. NASIR: Yes, Nasir Sir Pasha. MATT: You’ve reached another level of royalty, I guess. NASIR: I was at one level of royalty but I got to the next level of royalty. MATT: Yeah, you were at one then you went to two. NASIR: Oh, very good. Well, life is short, Matt. You should have an affair and then get caught with it. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: That’s my advice. MATT: They cancel each other out so then you’re at square one. NASIR: Yeah, exactly. MATT: Well, I think that’s what a lot of men were trying to do. Well, let me step back. I don’t think any men were trying to get caught but a lot of men were. NASIR: But, in a way, were they though? They weren’t; they were just asking for it, no? MATT: No, they were asking for it, but we’re talking about the Ashley Madison stuff again just because we have to because there are so many things going on. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: But I don’t see how any reasonable person could sign up for that and be like, “Yeah, this could definitely work out.” I mean, I don’t think they were expecting this massive leak of information or all the accounts that got signed up. NASIR: No. MATT: Just who are the people that were signing up with their work account? NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Why would these people ever do that? I don’t really understand it. NASIR: Exactly. There’s a lot of issues here and hopefully we get to cover it all. One of the main things that these class action lawsuits that are coming out now, there’s one in California that’s pretty big and another one in Toronto – that’s where the company is based – and they’re suing them – not only Ashley Madison but the parent company as well. Basically, if you paid $19.00, you would get your data deleted. Apparently, they were doing some of it, but there were some accounts according to the California lawsuit that weren’t scrubbed. But, if you look at even what they did purport to scrub, in the raw data that was released, they don’t quite delete the whole email address; they just delete the first part of it which is pretty strange. And then, second, apparently, they also include the GPS location of where you’re at and what your likes and dislikes are so it is anonymized to a certain degree – at least the default is – but, even then, they say that there were some accounts that weren’t deleted at all or somehow their personal information was still identifiable. MATT: Yeah, which is not surprising because that seems like how everything was run with this company from the get-go. I mean, one thing I thought that was funny that came out was, you know, they advertised this 70 to 30 split male-to-female which isn’t too great but, you know, it’s still decent. NASIR: Believable. MATT: Yeah, but after all this information’s been coming out, they’re saying it’s more akin to a 95 to 5 split with the 5 percent of females pretty much not even using the account. NASIR: And then, 50 percent of that 5 percent were actually men. MATT: Yeah, I mean, we don’t know for sure yet but what’s believed is this is what happens and I think there’s pretty good evidence of it is that Ashley Madison was just creating these fake female accounts to ramp up the numbers and now that’s just one of the many deceitful things that this company did. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Now, I mean, it’s one thing to have the data hacked into and all dumped out but, you know, that’s one problem. But now they’re really digging into the company and seeing all these other fraudulent things that have occurred. I saw some pretty sizeable numbers. I mean, the class actions alone,

Nasir and Matt look back at the last 100 episodes. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our 200th plus one episode. Wait. MATT: So, the idea was, this is #201. The idea was you can’t do a best of the first 200 if the episode is #200. That makes sense, right? NASIR: Well, I was also thinking, like, is it one of those things where 201 is the 200th episode because we didn’t start at episode 0? MATT: That’s not how math works. NASIR: That’s not how math works. Well, I was thinking, you know, the year 2000 where people talked about the new millennium and, like, never mind, because there was no year zero. Anyway, welcome to our business podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to these business news items that we cover, and we’ve done it about a couple of hundred times minus a couple of episodes here and there which were also recap episodes, right? Yeah, I think we’ve done one recap episode, right? MATT: Well, we did one on #20, I believe, because we were both gone or something. NASIR: Yeah, we were both gone. MATT: Then, we did one, I think 20 and 100 and then this one. There might be… I don’t remember. NASIR: Like, a true recap like a replay, kind of like a TV show where they just splice a bunch of clips together. That’s basically what we’re going to do. MATT: Ah, yeah. One, at most two, but definitely one because I remember doing it but, yeah, at most, two of them. NASIR: The first one, yeah, I was out of town and you just did the intro for it. It was like episode 20 which I think we should do. We should do it for this 201st episode and then again 20 episodes later. MATT: Just do a recap every 20 episodes. Well, that’s why the episodes are longer too. It’s made a little bit more sense. NASIR: That’s also true. Well, anyway… what we have coming up are basically the most popular episodes that we’ve had in the last hundred episodes, I think, the best of, right? MATT: Yeah, and I can probably give you a summary right now. it had to do with Uber, independent contractors, The Office, and pizza. NASIR: And Yelp. MATT: And Yelp. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Yeah, those five things. NASIR: All right. Well, enjoy the show! [] MATT: We have a great episode today. We haven’t had a guest on in a while – at least it seems like it’s been a while – but we have Mark Faggiano with TaxJar, the founder and CEO of Taxjar. Did I get your name right, Mark? MARK: You did. Nice work. Good to be here, guys. MATT: Well, yeah, thanks for being here. NASIR: Yeah. So, taxjar.com is a company in San Diego but what’s interesting about what they do – and, obviously, Mark can speak more of it – is on sales tax and dealing with, especially from a small business perspective doing online e-commerce, I know a popular business that seems to be kind of sprouting up probably in the last few years – and, Mark, you can probably correct me if I’m wrong – is these kind of online sellers that are using Amazon to fulfil its shipment and basically use a shopping cart instead of setting up their own website. What about the sales tax implications in that? I think sales tax in general is just a mess of laws because you have to deal with how each states applies different taxes, depending upon where it’s being sold and who it’s being sold to. Mark, this is something you deal with every day, right? MARK: Yeah. So, to call it a mess is really an understatement. There’s probably some more words that you don’t want to use to better describe it but you’re exactly right. So, you know, five years ago, if we were having this conversation, if you talked to an online seller, they would probably say, “I’m an eBay seller” or “I just sell on eBay” and what’s really happened and where we’re at now is that folks are multichannel, right? They’re selling on eBay. They’re also selling on Amazon most likely. They also have their own website and they’re using a point-of-sale device. They’re using Square to go to a craft fair on a weekend or,

Nasir and Matt discuss the decision handed down by the California Labor Commissioner that classified an Uber driver as an employee instead ofan independent contractor. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our Uber podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: I hate how “uber” is an adjective as well as a company. I don’t like the company. I don’t like the adjective. MATT: Well, I don’t know, I mean, I guess there’s probably some sort of connection to why they named it what they did, but I don’t know if it really.... I don’t know if they... I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t wait to read that transcript back when I just say “I don’t know” five times in a row. NASIR: In fact, that’s the only reason we have a transcript – to laugh at you. MATT: She could always cut it out I guess and make me look a little bit more intelligent. NASIR: No. MATT: Yeah, this is a double whammy because we’re talking about two things you don’t like – Uber and the whole independent contractor employee issue. If this podcast was live, we would be hitting the front page here because we’re quick to the scene but I guess, by the time this comes out, it’s going to be pretty delayed but that’s all right. NASIR: Unfortunately, but that’s okay, yeah. MATT: This shouldn’t be anything too big that happens legally between right now and when it comes out since they’re filing the appeal and waiting. NASIR: That’s true. MATT: Just different takes, I guess. NASIR: So, what’s the news? MATT: So, yeah, what happened exactly, decision handed down by the California labor commission. Long story short, one of their Uber drivers, she got this complaint trying to get unpaid wages reimbursement for expenses, liquidated damages, waiting time penalties – which what we just talked about recently – but she brought this against Uber and the California labor commission determined that she was, in fact, an employee of Uber and not an independent contractor like every single driver up until this point has been classified. In fact, they have a big group of I think over 1,000 employees in San Francisco but, other than that, that’s pretty much it, right? I mean, all of the drivers have been classified as contractors. NASIR: Yeah, and when you say 1,000 employees, you’re not talking about the drivers. You’re talking about actual employees – probably in offices somewhere. MATT: Right. NASIR: So, when we’re reading this – and we’ve been talking about this – besides the independent contractor versus employee issue – we’ve been talking about that since the beginning of the podcast – but even the Uber issue, we’ve talked about class action lawsuits against them, we’ve talked about a bunch of cases against them. I’m pretty sure this is the first case – and I use the word “case” kind of lightly here and I’ll tell you why in a second – that has classified one of their drivers as an employee and the internet is going crazy off of it and I think it’s fair to start out with what’s Uber’s response in the statement because I think it’s very accurate and they say that the California labor commission’s ruling is non-binding and applies to a single driver. Let’s talk about what that means and I think this is important for those in California but also in other states that have administrative hearings which is basically this employee went to the California labor commission and, through their administrative hearing, you know, if you talk to any litigation attorney, it’s a very loosey-goosey kind of atmosphere. The rules of evidence aren’t as strict. You don’t actually need an attorney to represent you. I wouldn’t even be surprised if an attorney wasn’t representing the driver here. MATT: Yeah, she was pro per. NASIR: There you go and that’s not surprising. I think that employers should be conscious of this that, if you do have a violation, it’s not as if there’s this huge burden for emplo...

The guys close out the week by discussing why companies like Google and Facebook are raising their ownminimum wage pay and how one company in Seattle isblowing up the minimum wage model. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to that news. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: I feel like I don’t have to introduce myself anymore – like, ever – not even on the podcast. I’m just talking about in general anywhere. MATT: Just go right into it. NASIR: People should know who I am. MATT: You’re the new… I don’t know. Who’s the most recognizable person? NASIR: Abraham Lincoln. MATT: Most recognizable living person. NASIR: Oh, Abraham Lincoln. MATT: I was going to say Obama but I think it’s an athlete – like, Michael Jordan, I think used to be the most well-known person, most recognizable person in the world. NASIR: But maybe not now. If you think about it, there’s a whole generation of kids that haven’t even seen Michael Jordan play. MATT: What was it? Like, Jordan and then Tiger Woods was really popular. I don’t know. Maybe Lebron James now. NASIR: No, it has to be a movie star or celebrity, not an athlete. It’s more universal. MATT: There’s not even any big movie stars or musicians. NASIR: Actually, it depends – like what you referenced last week – their Q score. My Q score has gotten up there enough that I should just not have to introduce myself anymore. MATT: Yeah, you should wear a shirt that has your score on it. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Very good. Well, good work. NASIR: Thank you. MATT: Next time you and I are in the same spot and we’re meeting someone for the first time, I’ll just introduce myself and you won’t say anything. NASIR: Exactly. And, if they don’t know me, I’ll get upset too. MATT: Just leave? NASIR: I’ll act offended, yeah. MATT: Well, I can’t make a connection from that to this so I’m just going to go into this but there’s a couple of things that have popped up, one of which is a little bit older but just increases in pay in general. And so, the reason we’re talking about this – for those of you who haven’t heard – Facebook just announced or recently announced that they’re going to pay a minimum $15.00 per hour to contract workers, right? Yeah, to contract workers such as cafeteria staff and janitors just to deal with this minimum wage thing that’s going on. I mean, $15.00 is higher than pretty much everywhere else other than the one spot in Washington State. NASIR: I don’t know if they’re at $15.00 yet. I think they will be or something but, yeah, you’re right. MATT: What’s interesting about this is it’s raising the minimum hourly rate of contractors, contract workers, so not employees. NASIR: Yeah, I thought that was strange too. MATT: Contractors will receive a minimum of 15 days of paid vacation, $4,000 new child benefit for parents who don’t receive parental leave. Isn’t that, like…? NASIR: Exactly. That’s why I think, when they say “contractors,” I think this article’s incorrect somehow. MATT: It has to be – inc.com? NASIR: No, I’m serious, because also they’re talking about lower paid workers regarding their janitorial staff and cafeteria. Like, okay, you could have a janitor or cafeteria workers in contractor status but, with Facebook having a campus and a building and they probably need something there on the full day, I don’t think that’s the case in this case so I still think they’re still employees. MATT: Yeah, that was the first thing I noticed, too. Just the job they were performing, it seemed like it was an issue. This has to be employees, I guess. NASIR: First of all, no contractor gets paid vacation or new child benefits, you know? MATT: Well, we won’t dig too deep into that. If it’s the case that they are independent contractors, we’ll maybe talk about it. But this kind of connects to this company in Seattle. I guess Washington State really loves to treat peo...

Nasir and Matt discuss the pregnancydiscrimination case against AutoZone that resulted in a $185 million verdict. They also answer, "Can I protect our trade secrets in a confidentiality agreement?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. My name is Nasir Pasha and joining with me today is just me, actually. So, perfect. MATT: Just you. All right, that’s fine. That’s less work I have to do. NASIR: Oh, Matt’s here, too. MATT: I’m Matt Staub. I’m here; ready to offer my input on stories and other things. NASIR: Yeah. So, we do have to say goodbye to our audio producer. He’s gone on to bigger and better things. His name is Chris and he’s been replaced by another Matt – Matthew, I should say, right? MATT: Yeah. NASIR: And I actually offered him to replace you as a co-host. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: He refused. It would have been perfect, but I told him he would have had to change his last name, too. He refused. MATT: Yeah, it wouldn’t have worked because I would have had to be the one who did the editing and producing, and I can’t do that. I can barely even record correctly half the time. NASIR: All right. So, thanks again everyone for joining us, and let’s get to our first story. MATT: Well, we have a local story – well, local for me, not local for you. NASIR: Not in Houston. MATT: Well, there’s probably AutoZones out there, right? NASIR: Uh, I haven’t seen one. I don’t know if there’s pregnant people out there either so I don’t know if either of these things apply to us. MATT: No one has cars. No one has kids. So, yeah… So, this was in San Diego but this is a pretty huge case in terms of at least the payout. It was a lawsuit of a former – I believe she was a former manager. NASIR: Some kind of manager, yeah. MATT: So, she was pregnant and she was later demoted from her position as manager and, of course, terminated because that’s why we’re talking about it. So, she sued for discrimination for her being pregnant and – guess what – she got a huge award here; $172,000 worth of compensatory damages – so that’s pretty good – and then an astounding $185 million in punitive damages. Punitive damages are only for penalizing, you know, basically someone for screwing up and that’s a pretty excessive penalty. I would think this has to be one of the biggest single payouts for one individual in terms of discrimination lawsuit. NASIR: No, I think you’re right. I did look. I think it definitely has broken records. But the problem is it is a verdict so I don’t believe this is a judgment, and this’ll happen often where a jury will decide some kind of million-dollar payout but then judge will reduce it, and punitive damages are often done that way. There’s some constitutional issues with having extreme judgments like that that have already been addressed previously. So, we should expect that to go down. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: Nonetheless, for a store, for AutoZone that has quite a number of stores – 4,000 stores – across the US, this is not a small issue. MATT: Yeah, and I just don’t see how companies like this still continue to screw up. I mean… NASIR: This is a huge screw-up. I mean, they have the vice-president of Western operations, so that’s probably close to the very, very top, right? MATT: Yeah. NASIR: And him pulling the district manager aside, saying, “What are we running here? A boutique? Get rid of these women.” MATT: I didn’t see that. Gosh. NASIR: Yeah, from a plaintiff's employer attorney, you can’t get any better than that as far as proving your claim against gender discrimination. And, by the way, pregnancy disability discrimination as well. MATT: The actual promotion and then demotion happened about ten years ago. She got pregnant in ’05, demoted in ’06, and then she filed a lawsuit while she was still working there in 2008.

The guys end the week by talking about Chevrolet awarding the World Series MVP a possibly defective truck. Nasir and Matt also answer a pizza related question about Yelp! Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: And this is our Friday episode – always a very exciting topic – somehow we get to talk about sports. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: Which is my least favorite topic. And then, after all that baseball. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: And, apparently, there’s a World Series going on which – I don’t know – will that be over by now? No, it is over, right? San Francisco won? MATT: Well, the story we’re talking about is about the guy who won the MVP for the World Series so I would wager to say it’s probably over. NASIR: Okay. So, that’s done. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: Who won? San Francisco, right? MATT: San Francisco won, yes. NASIR: Nice. MATT: I’m not surprised. I know you don’t follow baseball so I won’t hold it against you. NASIR: I don’t think most people follow baseball but okay. MATT: Yeah, I do. So, basically, I’ll explain this to the listeners – and to you, too – so you understand how this works. NASIR: Okay. Tell me. MATT: In the World Series, two teams play, one team wins, and when the World Series is over… NASIR: Two teams play and one team… Okay, I got that part. MATT: They select a World Series MVP so it’s basically the player that performed the best. I will assume it’s always been from the team that’s won. I know, in the NBA one time, the winner actually was from the team that lost somehow. NASIR: Whoa. And is it MVP of that game or of the league? MATT: Just the series. NASIR: Okay. Sorry. MATT: Just for that seven games. So, the selection was pretty easy this year because one pitcher for the Giants basically won three of the four games himself which is unheard of. So, he won and, recently, they started giving out cars – maybe ten years ago, maybe less. But, this year, Chevrolet was the sponsor and they gave out this 2015 Chevy Colorado which, yeah, great. I mean, actually, the guy who won loves trucks. He loves hunting. It’s going to be good for him. The only problem is this truck just had a recall on it for airbag concerns. So, basically, they gave this guy who just had a great performance this truck with potential liability issues and I assume that they got those fixed. But it got me thinking about, you know, if a business gives away something free – like, let’s say you have a promotion as a business and you give away a free prize, like when we gave away that… what did we give? An iPad Mini? NASIR: Yeah. MATT: What if that would have, like, exploded when the winner used it? NASIR: Like, what if the recall was that, “Whoops! Our iPad Minis are actually bombs. Careful with that.” We actually give away a bomb to somebody, that’d be horrible. MATT: I was trying to think of something. Obviously, a truck is going to be a lot more dangerous than an iPad, but it’s a consideration. I don’t know. From a legal perspective, this seems pretty questionable and, just one little tangent on this, I don’t know if you’ve seen the guy who actually presented the award. I feel bad for him because he was obviously, like, very nervous and he was reading off of like a paper of paper he had and he’s like, “This truck has really cool technology and stuff.” That’s what he said. NASIR: Why was he so nervous? MATT: This is less than 24 hours. Chevrolet is already using that slogan in their commercials. I saw a Chevy commercial last night and it’s like, “We’ve got cool technology and stuff.” From a PR perspective, they nailed it. NASIR: You don’t think it was planned? Oh, obviously, it was probably not planned, but they were just good to react, huh? MATT: If it was planned,

Nasir and Matt discuss the IRS looking into taxing free lunches provided by Silicon Valley companies. The two then answer, "I'm a franchisor, can I be held responsible for labor law violations of my franchisees if I don't know about it?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. You’re listening to Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: That’s correct. Welcome to the business podcast where we cover business in the news and also answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com and also ask us on Twitter @AskBizLaw and that’s our Twitter handle and you can also follow us and we may respond but we probably won’t. MATT: At least we’re honest. NASIR: No, we will respond. I’m just joking. MATT: I might not. I don’t think I have enough control of it. NASIR: Someone will respond out there. I’m not even in control of it either. It’s just some random guy. MATT: Just hoping that we convinced him to put the logo from the podcast up. NASIR: Exactly. MATT: It could be a fan, I guess. Maybe that’s what it is. NASIR: Super fan. MATT: Yeah. If you really want to tweet at us, go to @TheRealAskBizLaw on Twitter. NASIR: Verified account. MATT: Yeah, I think that’s kind of gone by the wayside. That was pretty big at the beginning because so many people were jumping on celebrity and athlete names but I think, at this point, it’s all kind of been sorted out, interestingly enough. NASIR: Yeah, you’re right. Now, it seems like it used to take a while to get a verified account but, apparently, now it’s pretty streamline and so forth. MATT: The only one I can still think of is Shaq but I don’t think he’s even @TheReal Shaq anymore. I think it’s just @Shaq. NASIR: That I don’t know. MATT: Well, we’ll get into the story because I know everyone wants to listen to people talk about tax issues. NASIR: That’s my favorite! MATT: I don’t want to deprive them of that. NASIR: Well, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. I had to say that. MATT: Aww, man. NASIR: Were you going to say that? MATT: That’s pretty good. I was going to say, “It’s two topics I like talking about – lunch and tax.” It’s a good story for me. NASIR: Wait, wait, you like talking about lunch? Who talks about lunch? Not dinner but lunch? MATT: Well, any meal, really. It doesn’t matter, yeah. NASIR: Oh, okay. I think you like food. I think it’s called food. MATT: Yeah, I would say that’s accurate. Free meals are always good, too. That’s what we’re getting into here. Google I think was the company that was really known for this. I didn’t realize that other companies too. I guess a lot of them and some of the bigger ones in Silicon Valley do this but they offer free meals to their employees. If you’ve seen the movie The Internship with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, they talk about it in there and Vince Vaughn kind of abuses the system. But that’s not the issue here. It’s that the IRS is looking at this and saying, “You know what? I think we can actually tax this somehow and so we’re going to look into possibly saying these meals are actually income of the employees and we’re going to start taxing it as income.” Obviously, that’d be bad for the employees but, on the employer’s side, guess what, that means you have to pay half of that for payroll taxes. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Basically, this boils down to this, and there are rules in place. To summarize it, employers are allowed to provide free meals for their employees but it has to be for the convenience of the employer. I think a very easy example would be if you had a business and there wasn’t any places to eat close to the business and you provided a free lunch for your employees. You know, you’d be fine with that. That’s a convenience of the employer because the employees would have to leave for a long period of time. Another classic example is bank tellers. If you need someone to be at the front,

Nasir and Matt cap off the week talking about San Diego Comic-Con suing a comic con in Salt Lake City for trademark infringement. They then answer the question, "I want to bring on a new shareholder in my S Corp. The only problem is they are not a US citizen. How can I get around this issue?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha and… this is… MATT: This is Matt Staub. NASIR: Matt, Matt Staub. Darn it. Welcome to our business legal podcast where we cover business in the news and also answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com, and that’s an email address so just don’t mail that in to that address. You have to use your email system to do that. MATT: You know, all week, you’ve been trying to introduce me, say my name at the same time I say it. It’s two different audio recordings so I guess, if you really wanted to, you could just have it be at the same time. I don’t know if it really matters. Even if you would have gotten the exact same recording, we could have changed it anyways. NASIR: Well, I assume you haven’t been listening to the previous episodes because I’ve had Chris cut out your name pretty much every time, and your voice. So, it’s just been me this entire time for the last few weeks. I was wondering if you were going to mention anything but you didn’t say anything so I assumed you knew. MATT: Just dead air time in times when I was actually speaking? NASIR: Yeah, and it sounds like I’m talking to myself and I’m hearing voices which, sometimes, I do feel that. MATT: Well, we’re going to go close to home with this story because we’re dealing with San Diego Comic-Con, specifically a lawsuit, of course, because that seems to be what we usually talk about. This is interesting because I obviously knew San Diego Comic-Con. It’s a huge event every year but I had seen some other Comic Cons that have popped up and I didn’t know if there was an affiliation with the San Diego Comic-Con or what the deal was and this kind of gives me an answer because San Diego Comic-Con is suing the Salt Lake City Comic Con. I guess this lawsuit was just filed – very fresh lawsuit, basically saying that they’re infringing upon their trademark with the Comic Cons. I guess the difference is the Salt Lake City Comic Con must have been awful. I take that back. It was either awful or it was so good and so lucrative that San Diego is trying to get money from it. It’s one of the two, probably. NASIR: Yeah, and I don’t know, have you ever been to the Comic Con in San Diego? MATT: I’ve never been. I’ve gone down to the area a few times but I’ve never actually been inside for any of the actual stuff. NASIR: Yeah. I’ve always wanted to go and I’ve come close but then I feel weird. I feel like it’s not for me. I feel like I’m almost depriving other people that are more interested in those things than I am so I feel like, “Okay, I’ll just let other people go,” because there are very limited tickets and it gets sold out every time and you have to go in the wait list. They come out I think six-plus months in the year and so forth for the San Diego Convention. But, the Salt Lake Comic Con, it’s actually pretty popular apparently. It’s only been going on for a few years and so forth. In Utah’s defense, they talk about that’s why they’re being targeted – because of their recent popularity and so forth. But what’s interesting is what you said. You were assuming that there was some kind of affiliation and that’s kind of an issue. The organizations are suing this Salt Lake Comic Con because it confuses fans into thinking the two are affiliated and that’s pretty much the basis for an infringement – if there’s a likelihood of confusion. Here, obviously, I mean, you have Salt Lake Comic Con and San Diego Comic-Con. When people say the Comic Con, pretty much everyone I understand knows that that refers to San Diego Summer Comic Con...

Nasir and Matt welcome Jesse Lindsleyto talk about people are ripping off successful mobile games and answer the question, "My partners and I have been developing an online software and a mobile app, but we are wondering if we should split the mobile aspect of our business into a separate LLC since not everyone is developing that and the app could stand on its own. Is that advisable?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business! This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in at ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com and we’re ready to go. MATT: Yeah, I hope we make this a good one. The Wednesday episode seemed to be the most popular one. NASIR: Yeah, it’s the hump of the week and the top of the week, I think, for us. MATT: Don’t screw up, Nasir. NASIR: I know. It’s a lot of pressure now. Great. MATT: Let’s get into the story we have for today. It has to deal with this game, 2048, which I’ve heard of but I never play. I actually downloaded it yesterday. NASIR: Really? Okay. MATT: Just to see what it was and played it a couple of times. I get the gist of it and I can get how it would be addicting. I try not to do any of these games just because I don’t want to get sucked in. NASIR: I agree. I’ve played it and I admit that I actually have played it quite a bit but I’m not much of a mobile app gamer, I would consider myself, but for whatever reason, I heard other people playing it so I took a look and I like puzzle games. I got sucked in, I suppose. MATT: I’m surprised you’ve played because anyone that listens to this podcast knows that your math skills aren’t always 100 percent. NASIR: Oh, wow, that’s a low-blow. That is a low-blow. I was a computer science major. Math was important at that time. But, anyway, my AP Calc teacher is going to be upset at that comment from high school. I was just joking. MATT: So, what we’re dealing with here, the underlying story is the intellectual property behind these games and, more importantly, I guess the infringement thereof. But when we’re dealing with mobile games and I think they talked about board games as well, not everything you think would be able to be protected is protected. They mentioned how the protection is of the expression of an idea but you can’t protect the idea itself. NASIR: Yeah, and if you notice these 2048 games are everywhere and apparently it’s some kind of version of some game called Threes and I think everyone knows that, well, I never played but that game Flappy Bird which became really popular but then went off the market and then everyone put clones up, the reason is basically there was no patent on that idea and there’s maybe copyright as far as the graphics go and so forth but there’s limitations on that. But I wanted to get Jesse from Thrust. They have a pretty cool mobile app development company and kind of want to get their perspective. I’m sure this issue has been brought up in their development as well. Jesse, how are you doing? JESSE: I’m doing great. Thanks for having me. NASIR: Very good. So, you kind of heard about what’s going on with 2048. You’ve seen all these clones and it’s weird. I use an Android. If you go to the top ten mobile apps that are free downloads or whatever, I think three of them are 2048 variations. I don’t know if you’ve ever had any experience with these kinds of issues dealing with your development. JESSE: Yeah, we come across this kind of stuff all the time. As developers, we get frustrated when people copy our ideas. I’ve been involved in these kinds of discussions from the gaming gambling days, early 2000 to the Facebook launching of games and a lot of the games were launched by Zynga and others were pure copycats of other games. So, it’s pretty standard and there’s court cases where sometimes the little gu...