Podcast appearances and mentions of matt they

An episode that explores autistic and neurodivergent representation in The Big Bang Theory and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. From Sheldon's neurotypical framing to Charlie Kelly's proudly autistic chaos, we break down what hits, what misses, and why it matters.Here's what's in store for today's episode: * In today's episode, we're diving into It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and how it nails autistic representation—unlike The Big Bang Theory, which mostly reflects a neurotypical perspective.* We start by breaking down what The Big Bang Theory got right—and wrong—about autism, touching on Young Sheldon and the dynamic between Sheldon and Amy.* After that, we dive into how It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is actually deeply autism-centric, even if it's not explicitly framed that way.* Then, we dive into how It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is deeply autism-centric—thanks in large part to Charlie Kelly, who is explicitly autistic and gives the show its neurodivergent heart.* We also explore how the writers of It's Always Sunny approach the show from a neurodivergent lens—crafting characters who consistently misunderstand the world around them in ways that feel deeply relatable to autistic viewers.* Our hosts get into all the autistic tendencies throughout the show—from Sweet Dee, Dennis, and Charlie's unique quirks to Charlie himself, who has openly identified as autistic multiple times.* We also talk about how the humor in It's Always Sunny is specifically tailored to an autistic audience and sense of humor—sharp, absurd, and rooted in social misunderstandings.* Matt and Angela also discuss the concept of autistic integrity and how it shows up both in It's Always Sunny and in the core values of this podcast.* Sometimes we have to play the game of capitalism just to get by—but as long as you've got your crew of fellow weirdos to lean on, you'll make it through.“It's representation, but at what cost? We don't have a seat at the table. There is a picture on the table of a caricature of an autistic person. And then everyone else talking about how weird they are.” - Matt“The impetus behind It's Always Sunny was not, ‘hey, let's make a marketable show and sell it and have lots of airtime and get in the top 20 or whatever.' They're like, ‘hey, you know what would be funny? If we did our own thing with a low-res video recorder.” - Matt“They are very, very socially minded. They're very, very self conscious about these things, which is the autistic way. They do things in the way that they do it because they think it's the right thing to do. Whenever they see an issue, they want to call it out on the show. So they do it in the most blatant way possible so that the people watching it will be like, ‘hey, that's an issue.” - MattDid you love this episode? We took a deep dive into autistic representation in pop culture—comparing The Big Bang Theory and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. From Sheldon and Amy's dynamic to Charlie Kelly's openly autistic identity, we unpack how neurodivergent humor, character quirks, and autistic integrity show up on screen. We also explore how Sunny nails an autistic lens through its writing, jokes, and chaotic logic. Join the convo with #AutisticCultureCatch!Related Episodes:Community is AutisticFollow 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

Serving up an autistic take on Thanksgiving traditions!Here's what's in store for this episode: * Thanksgiving isn't always the easiest time for autistic people, with our senses of justice triggered by the holiday's problematic origins and the need to mask during family gatherings - in this episode, Matt and Angela talk about both navigating Thanksgiving as an autistic person and Mystery Science Theater 3000, a beloved autistic Thanksgiving tradition.* Matt and Angela explore the origins of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and how interactive TV serves as a beacon for autistic people.* Our hosts discuss how MST3K emphasizes the concept of found family, a theme that resonates deeply with autistic folks.* In this episode, we dive into the original Turkey Day marathons on Comedy Central that cemented MST3K as a Thanksgiving tradition, along with the show's turbulent journey across networks, Kickstarter campaigns, and different media platforms.* Matt and Angela also discuss how MST3K's bottom-up processing style of comedy makes it especially appealing to autistic folks.“For 24 hours, you watch really bad movies, you eat some stuffing, they had some new interstitials in there, and you get together with your friends and watch bad movies. Or, if you're alone, you get together with your friends on TV and watch some bad movies. So you still have some community. You are like Joel, keeping your sanity with the help of your robot friends. And to this day, this is the only Thanksgiving tradition I have.” - Matt“They just need more funding because, again, they don't have studio backing. They're doing it all completely independently. Just like we do it. We are often forced to be independent. We are often traumatically independent because we don't have that support system around us.” - Matt“I would rather do something small and funded myself than be beholden to explaining my creative ideas to these people that will never get it. It's not a problem to explain it. It's explaining it to people who are gonna drive you crazy.” - AngelaDid you catch the whirlwind of emotions that come with the holidays? In today's episode, we're diving deep into Matt and Angela's autistic take on Thanksgiving and how Mystery Science Theater 3000 offers a perfect comfort break during it all! Thanks for tuning in! Share your thoughts in the comments, and use #AutisticCultureCatch to connect with fellow listeners on social media. Which moments or insights resonate with your own Thanksgiving traditions?Resources:https://www.gizmoplex.com/browsehttps://shoutfactory.com/collections/mystery-science-theater-3000 https://www.twitch.tv/mst3kRelated Episodes:Community is AutisticDinosaur is AutisticPoetry 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

Dr. Angela Lauria and Matt Lowry, LPP discuss how tabletop roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons appeal to many autistic people due to the game's intricate rule systems, statistics, and logic. D&D allows autistics to socialize with confidence in a structured, inclusive environment of shared world-building.They explain how D&D provides a space for Autistic strengths like monotropic focus, special interests, pattern recognition, and world-building to take center stage. The design of the game encourages players to embrace differences rather than mask them, including a recent introduction of a canonically Autistic character!Historic moral panics around D&D are highlighted as examples of misunderstandings and ableism towards autistic interests. The hosts see the game's recent mainstream popularity as a shift towards acceptance.“Because of ableists in society, anything we do is inherently wrong because we are not like them and we don't do the things that they do. And they are going to find reasons to criticize anything we do for us being different from them.” —Matt They note famous examples of D&D's popularity in media, including the show Stranger Things. The character-building and communal storytelling aspects of the game—which play to Autistic strengths—are emphasized.“I am a non-fiction reader and a big part of why…is I don't have a picture-things-in-your-mind's-eye gene, and a lot of fiction sort of requires—to enjoy it—that you can imagine the scene. So for me, one of the things I've always liked about D&D is you can say to your—especially if you have a good DM—'What is that? Tell me more about that feature, that trait, or that thing.'” —AngelaThe podcast hosts conclude D&D allows autistics to socialize and build community safely and effectively. Families of autistic individuals can better understand intense interests in gaming as tools for connection. There is great value in embracing neurodiversity.Who's your character in D&D? Do you have a multi-year game going?* Superheroes are Autistic - Episode 28 which discusses Conan the Barbarian* The Trouble With Temple - Episode 24 which discusses Temple Grandin* D&D players save the world on Netflix's Stranger Things* Little Wars: A Game for Boys of Twelve Years of Age to One Hundred and Fifty and for that More Intelligent Sort of Girl Who Likes Boys' Games and Books* Study: Screen time and diagnoses of anxiety and depression in autistic versus neurotypical youth* The Ancient Origins of Dice * A Dice Tower from Richborough * Dice History, Invention & Games* Rise of the Dungeon Master - Gary Gygax and the Creation of D&D: graphic-novel biography* Inside the 40 Year-Long Dungeons & Dragons Game : Youtube(10 mins 44 secs)* Dungeons & Dragons introduces its first canonically autistic character* How autism powers my D&D: D&D allows me to connect with my friends in a way I couldn't before * Therapeutic social confidence building game: Critical CoreRelated episodes…Want to learn about more Autistic activities popular among children and adults? Episodes 16: Pokémon is Autistic and Episode 31: Chess is AutisticReady for a paradigm shift that empowers Autistics? Help spread the news!* Follow our Instagram* Give us a glowing review on Apple podcasts and Spotify* Matt Lowry, LPP* Matt's social media: Autistic Connections Facebook Group* AngelaLauria.com and Difference Press* Angela's social media: Twitter and TikTok* TACP's Autism-affirming TeePublic 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

 Discover why you don't really need a complex survey tool Understand what is the principle of “closing the loop” and how can it help you Learn how you can avoid survey fatigue and ensure you get high-quality answers at a lesser cost Resources/Links: To learn more about what you can put in your survey to create impact, click here: surveyconversations.com/MTI Summary Do you want to deliver surveys that create an impact and push your audience to say YES? To ensure that your survey creates an impact not only on your business but also on your audience, it is important to get clear of your actions and make sure your audience feels wanted through three important things. You can't just ignore or assume. Dr. Matt Champagne is a scientist, author, and serial entrepreneur. He was named Technology Visionary by SURVEY Magazine for his pioneering work merging psychology and technology to create unique customer feedback solutions. Listen to Matt's expert insights on how you can maximize the potential and impact of your surveys through the secret psychological levers that get you that YES with less stress. Check out these episode highlights: 01:33 - Matt's ideal client: An ideal client comes from many industries, but typically, it's a small business owner, or it's a head of a larger organization or department, but they have a survey. It's an important survey. 02:13 - The problem he helps solve: It's three problems. I always tell folks, I saw three problems which are the problems of surveys. One is that you haven't generated a lot of participation. 04:00 - Clients' common mistakes before consulting Matt: They'll like to try to give incentives that don't solve the problem. They'll try to go to a more complex survey tool, which just adds complexity. 05:27 - Matt's Valuable Free Action (VFA): We talked about the nine principles of feedback. But if I had to pick one of those principles that you could do quickly, and for free, it would be principle five, which is called, "closing the loop". And this rests on the psychology that people only want three things. 07:12 - Matt's Valuable Free Resource (VFR): To learn more about what you can put in your survey to create impact, click here: surveyconversations.com/MTI 07:50 - Q: How do AI and ChatGPT intersect with surveys? A: My prediction is it's going to be a huge mess to start. Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode: “People only want three things-- they want to know their voice was heard, that they made a difference, and how they compare to others.” -Matt ChampagneClick To Tweet Transcript (Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast) Tom Poland 00:10 Greetings, everyone, and a warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I'm Tom Poland beaming out from the sunshine coast, very sunny indeed, here in Australia joined today by Dr. Matt Champagne. Matt, good day from Down Under, and a very warm- welcome back! You're the Boomerang that has come back to Australia because I think we've interviewed. This is maybe even the third time. Matt Champagne 00:30 It is the third time. Thanks for having me back, Tom! Tom Poland 00:33 This is the first time we've had a third-timer, and there's a reason for that, Matt, and everyone who's listening, I should say. Because Matt's the guy who is a marketer, wrapped up in science because he is actually a scientist. He's also an author and a serial entrepreneur. He was named- get this- Technology Visionary by SURVEY magazine for his pioneering work merging psychology and technology to create unique customer feedback solutions. And Matt and I have worked together. I've invited him back not because there are any affiliate commissions involved because there are not, but because his stuff is,

Matt Lowry, LPP tells co-host, Dr. Angela Lauria, all about the Autistic origins and characteristics of popular superheroes. Topics include:* The mystical realms of Doctor Strange, the dark alleys of Batman's Gotham City, and the soaring heights of Superman's Metropolis! * Superheroes' unique abilities, struggles, and triumphs mirror the experiences of Autistic individuals. Examining their origin stories and the challenges they face, reveals how these beloved characters (and the Autistic celebrities and writers behind them) can inspire and empower Autistic children, teens, and adults. * The origins of superheroes, tracing back to early 20th century pulp fiction writers like Robert E. Howard, who created Conan the Barbarian. Howard had a strong moral compass and desire for justice—sound familiar?* Iconic superheroes created by Jewish writers in the 1930s-1940s, who often drew from their cultural heritage for story elements to create Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel/Shazam.* Tim Burton's Batman film's focused on Batman's need for order versus the Joker's chaos. Burton incorporated German expressionist influences.* James Gunn's several Autistic-coded superhero characters, including ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.' The Guardians form an Autistic “found family.”* How Superman appeals to Autistics with his monotropic focus on truth and justice. Jerry Seinfeld (himself, Autistic) is a huge Superman fan.Quotes from this episode:“Batman's real identity is Batman. He camouflages—he masks—as Bruce Wayne, in order to fit into the world around him.”Matt: They did this study and they had autistic people and allistic people play a card game. In this card game, you could win fake money and there was a way to cheat to get more fake money. Inevitably, all of the allistic members cheated to get more fake money because getting money was the point of the game.Angela: Maybe not all, science check.Matt: Well, no, no, no, all actually, yeah. Legitimately, it shows in the study, all of the allistic people cheated and none of the autistic people cheated. And that's where the researchers came up with the conclusion that autistic people have, quote, ‘a rigid moral inflexibility that prevents us from succeeding.'Which super hero best represents Autistic Culture to you? Looking for more discussions about beloved Autistic characters? Check out…* Episode 02: Ghostbusters is Autistic* Episode 10: Star Trek is Autistic* Episode 41: Tim Burton is Autistic* Episode 67: X-Men are AutisticReady for a paradigm shift that empowers Autistics? Help spread the news!* Check us out on Instagram* Get your retail therapy on in our merch shop* Apple podcasts and Spotify* Matt Lowry, LPP* Autistic Connections Facebook Group* AngelaLauria.com and Difference Press* Angela's Twitter and TikTok 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

 Discover why customer complaints don't necessarily mean the end for you Learn how to build a sustainable pipeline for more guaranteed revenue at a lesser expense Find out how to move forward by doing things based on your customers' reasons instead of yours Resources/Links: Want more tips on how to make sales less stressful and more bearable? Click here: Eastonuniversity.com Summary Do you want to know how you can easily close deals and get guaranteed streams of revenue without the hassle and stress? Marketing isn't about you; it's supposed to be about who you serve. Closing the deal shouldn't be as stressful as you think it is. Sales are hard, but Matt Easton makes it a whole lot easier, more predictable, less stressful, and more fun. Sit back and grab a drink while you tune in with Matt as he shares his secrets that can help give you a quick fix on your sales game plan and guarantee you more closed deals! Check out these episode highlights: 01:59 - Matt's ideal client: Ideal clients can be sales reps, managers, business owners, and entrepreneurs. Anybody, Tom, who wants to increase sales and top-line revenue. Those are two different things because I can increase sales and give my products away, you know, as a marketing genius. 02:33 - The problem he helps solve: Well, I would define it this way. And hopefully, it will resonate with some of the audience out there. Really, this is a terrible statistic, but it's accurate. 98.4% of people in charge of sales, people in charge of business development, don't have a simple process. 03:38 - The symptoms of the problem: So yeah, the obvious is, "I don't know how to close" and I'll teach you guys how to do that right here on this call, okay? Don't know how to close it. 05:44 - Clients' common mistakes before consulting Matt: They think they know everything, right? They think they've got it down. They underestimate the amount of people that they're going to have to talk to, to sell their product. 06:43 - Matt's Valuable Free Action (VFA): Well, I'm going to show you how to close both in your business career and in your life. Tom, let me ask you this. What do you say to close the deal? 08:16 - Matt's Valuable Free Resource (VFR): Want more tips on how to make sales less stressful and more bearable? Click here: Eastonuniversity.com Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode: “People are exponentially more likely to move forward to do things based on their reasons and not your reasons.” -Matt EastonClick To Tweet Transcript (Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast) Tom Poland 00:10 Welcome, everyone, to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. I'm Tom Poland beaming out to you from the Sunshine Coast in Australia, joined today by Matt Easton. Matt, good day, sir. Welcome to Down Under. Where are you hanging out, buddy? Matt Easton 00:22 A pleasure to be here, Tom. Thank you so much for having me! Tom Poland 00:25 You're very welcome! It's a pleasure to have you here. How did you go with the midterms yesterday? It looks like your candidates are getting elected. Matt Easton 00:32 Well, I'm a salesperson, Tom. So, what I figured out is, no matter who gets elected, or what's going on, if I can control my business and my top-line revenue, it's all good. So, I don't need to worry too much about elections. Tom Poland 00:45 Amen, I mean, my wife says to me, "You know, we're in Mercury Retrograde. Your market isn't going to go so well this week." I said, "I'll do it anyway." You're going to go and start a war in Ukraine, I'm still going to keep going with my marketing. Yeah, 100%. So, folks, one of the reasons that Matt is a pleasure to have on the show is that he does things differently. Yes,

Matt Danna is the Co-Founder and CEO of Boulevard, which powers next-gen salons and spas. Its mission is to modernize the technology while improving the daily lives of professionals and the clients they serve. Chad talks with Matt about discovering a problem and then making the jump to working on it, overcoming hurdles in terms of continued growth, and deciding to invest in building their own hardware by creating Boulevard Duo: a point of sale credit card reader. Boulevard (https://www.joinblvd.com/) Boulevard Duo (https://shop.joinblvd.com/products/duo) Follow Boulevard on Twitter (https://twitter.com/joinblvd), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/joinblvd/), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/joinblvd/), LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/boulevard/), or YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCo9FyMtvqrDGHFl797iOhww). Follow Matt on Twitter (https://twitter.com/mattdanna) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattdanna/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. I'm your host, Chad Pytel. And with me today is Matt Danna, the Co-Founder and CEO of Boulevard, which powers next-gen salons and spas. Matt, thank you so much for joining me. MATT: Thanks so much for having me, Chad. Great to be here. CHAD: One of the things that I was interested in learning about Boulevard is it's a large product that does a lot for salons and spas. And so, I'm interested in talking with you about the process of getting to where you are today. But why don't we get started by giving folks an overview of everything that Boulevard does for salons and spas? MATT: Yeah, absolutely. So Boulevard offers what we think is the first and really only business management platform that's really focused around the client experience. We work with businesses that help all of us look and feel our best. And it's a really special industry to be powering where there's a really close sense of that human touch and that human element. We try to use technology to help automate and relieve the day-to-day operations as much as we can for these businesses so that they can focus on providing that world-class client experience and deepening relationships with their clients. CHAD: And tactically, that's online booking, scheduling, payments, schedule management, all that kind of stuff that goes into running. MATT: Yeah, absolutely. So it goes all the way from, like you said, scheduling to we are a fully integrated payments solution to even have time clock kind of commission reporting. And so it really goes from managing everything front of house all the way through back of house. And happy to share more about how we ended up building such a wide and deep product because it's definitely an interesting story. CHAD: So you were not in the salon industry prior to Boulevard, is that right? MATT: That's correct. CHAD: So, how did you end up getting brought into this industry? MATT: So the founding story...so my background is in software engineering, but I ended up turning much more into a designer over time. So I've been naturally drawn to building technology for creative individuals. And so, at my last startup, which was called Fullscreen, it was a startup here in LA. We were helping YouTube creators make better content online, helping them monetize on YouTube, understand their audience. And this was in the days where YouTubers couldn't monetize directly. They needed to go through a network. And so, we created this proprietary technology offering that really helped them understand how to build their audience and further monetize. So the original founding story was that I met my co-founder of Boulevard at Fullscreen. His name is Sean Stavropoulos. And I was the VP of Product. He was the VP of Engineering. And the kind of inception moment was that there was this week where Sean's hair was a complete disaster. CHAD: [chuckles] MATT: And as a great colleague, I was making fun of him [laughs] and telling him like, "Dude, you need to go get a haircut." And he said to me that he kept forgetting to call his salon during the day to make an appointment, and at night when he remembered to do those types of things, the salon is obviously closed. And we were just thinking how much friction there was as a client of these businesses in the booking process and that we didn't understand why you had to do basically so much work in order to be a client. It just was incongruent with what was going on in other industries and kind of restaurants and everything going through this digital transformation. Our hypothesis was that they must still be on pen and paper; they haven't adopted technology yet, and that's why you need to call to make an appointment. And we started thinking a lot about this problem and started obsessing over it. [laughs] And there was a weekend that we were hanging out, and we ended up walking into a few different salons and spas in a neighborhood that we were hanging out. And we did a bunch of research and asked them a lot of questions. We said we were UCLA students working on a research project. CHAD: [laughs] MATT: Which was a pretty smart move because everyone loves talking to students, and we weren't trying to sell them anything. We were trying to learn more. And so, a good research tip is just to state you're always a student. And we ended up learning. And we were super surprised that they were all using technology. All the technology that these businesses were using were also capable of online booking. And so we were like, "Okay, none of this makes sense. Like, you're making your customers call you, but you have these capabilities." We were like, "Do you need help embedding it into your website? Like, why don't you use online booking" And their answer would be, "We absolutely cannot use online booking, no way," which made us even more curious. And so what we ended up learning was that self-care businesses, you know, salons, spas, nail salons, you name it, they're generally running on pretty thin profit margins like in the 5% to 10% neighborhood because their labor costs are so high relative to their sales. And the other important piece that we learned was that the front desk has outsized control over the revenue that the business makes simply by how they place appointments on the calendar. And so when you call to make an appointment, they're looking up to see if you have a client file, to see if you've been there before, what services did you get? Who were they with? How long exactly did they take? They're also looking to see when they could fit you in. And they're doing double booking, triple booking whenever possible so that staff can be with multiple clients at once and double up. And then they're also making sure there are no gaps between appointments. And so they're doing basically this yield optimization, schedule optimization on the fly. And none of that was taken into account if customers self-booked using any of the solutions available on the market. And so we thought that seems like a straight-up technology problem to solve that these businesses needed an online booking solution so customers can have that convenience and self-booking whenever they want. But it also needs to take into account some of that business logic that the front desk follows so that they don't get gaps in the day and have a really sub-optimal and inefficient calendar. And so that's where we thought we could provide some particular value that would be unique in the industry. And that was what we focused our MVP on, was that very thing, having an intelligent scheduling solution. CHAD: It seems like it's a pretty big leap for the director of product and director of engineering at a startup to discover a problem like this and then actually make the jump to working on it [laughs] and making it real. Was there something in particular that happened? Why did you do that? [laughs] MATT: Yeah, I mean, we had a, you know, being executives at the startup and really loving the team, loving what we were doing, our mission. But I think one of the motivators and catalysts was when we were doing this field research. And we ended up going out to a couple of hundred businesses over the course of several weekends to learn even more about this problem area. But one of the things that was so evident and clear was that all of the technology in the market that these customers, these businesses were using, they were negative NPS scores. They were like, "Oh, we use, you know, X, Y, or Z solution, and we really don't like it. It's so hard to use." You would see the red in their eyes when they would talk about this technology." And we're like, "There's something very powerful here." And we weren't exactly sure at the time was it legacy technology not keeping up with modern needs of these businesses and the growing expectations from end consumers, or was it user error problems? And we had come to the conclusion that it was really a lack of innovation in the market from existing vendors. And that got us particularly excited, and we formed a lot of conviction, so much conviction that we made the leap to start working on this. So we transitioned out of our full-time executive day jobs, and we ended up doing a little bit of consulting work while we were doing a lot of product discovery. So for about six months, we were doing three days a week on Boulevard and a couple of days a week on consulting. So it was a nice little part-time way to keep paying the bills but also then be able to spend a significant amount of our brain space thinking about this opportunity and what problems we wanted to solve. CHAD: So maybe I'm just off base here. And I'm not trying to get you to say that something was wrong at Fullscreen. But it strikes me there needed to be something going on, in my mind, maybe I'm off base, for you to even before deciding to make that leap, though, to spend your weekends going to salons and doing interviews. MATT: Yeah, I think this is how most companies are started is by founders who are trying to solve a problem that they're exposed to. So everyone is always trying to build companies that are solutions for problems that they have. And we just, I think, got excited by this problem. And my background being in building technology for the creative individuals, like, I got really, really excited. And Sean took some convincing that this was worth it and that this could be a thing. CHAD: Was it an aspiration for you to find something that you could use to found your own company? MATT: No, no. CHAD: And then why were you doing it? [laughs] MATT: I think it felt like the right thing to do. I never considered myself an entrepreneur, and I really still don't. I think of myself as a builder, and I love building things. And this was in a way for us to think about, like, oh, let's build a company and turn this into a massive business. We saw that there was a particular pain point that was experienced from both consumers and businesses and that we could provide something special. It felt like it was something that only we saw, which I think made it feel even more compelling to work on. And so we didn't know if we were crazy at first. We always had this question of like, why hasn't anyone figured this out? This seems so obvious. I still don't know why we're the only ones that have any type of kind of logic on top of the schedule in that sense. But we saw it as a unique opportunity to build something really special and provide a lot of value to consumers and businesses. CHAD: Well, that's super interesting. So once you decided and you started working on Boulevard, how did you decide what to focus on first? And how did you set your market for what the first version was going to be or a target for what the first version was going to be? MATT: So, we focused on the businesses that had a front desk. So those are generally the ones that really struggled with getting the most out of every minute possible in the day. And so we focused on what were typically mid to upper market single locations to start, and we got introduced to a salon owner through a mutual friend. They were based in New York, and it was just a two-person salon. And so, we built our MVP to be able to support their day-to-day functions. And they were using some other system, so we kind of had to get to a place where there was general feature parity to support them. So we built up the features that we needed, and then we launched them, transitioned them off their previous solution. And then we did all this in person and then hung out with them for about a week or two after to babysit the system, make sure there weren't problems. We were iterating in real-time. Sean and I were releasing code. And from there, we got an intro to our second customer through another mutual friend. CHAD: How long did it take you from when you started to when it was live in that first salon? MATT: It took about nine months. CHAD: And were you self-funding that based on the consulting that you mentioned? MATT: Yeah, self-funding. And then, after we launched with the first business, Sean and I actually both liquidated our 401Ks. And we didn't have the time to continue to consult. So we bootstrapped the company and put our life savings into it once we had traction from our first couple of customers. And that's when we started to hire our first employees to help us continue to accelerate development and that kind of thing. CHAD: So again, liquidating your 401k is a pretty big step. MATT: Yep. CHAD: Did you try to do external fundraising before doing that? MATT: No. At that point, not yet. We wanted to really validate the concept on our own dime. And then, when we had paying customers and a decent customer base, we did a friends and family round. And then, once we achieved a certain milestone, we joined an accelerator, which is based in Los Angeles called Luma Launch. And we were part of that accelerator for about six months. And then we raised our series seed following that. We went from liquidating our savings, living like college students, ramen noodle budget-type to once we felt good about the value we were providing, had the case studies and the customer feedback, and had a pretty awesome MVP to show to investors; that's when we decided to fundraise. CHAD: How nervous were the two of you? MATT: Very nervous. [laughter] I mean, it's one of those both of us come from really, really humble families, and there was no safety net. And so we were all in. And I think often from when there's a lot of constraints; you have to find creativity. We were all in. We were working all the time on this, really gave it everything we had. And in hindsight, it was a good decision. But it could have easily been a terrible decision. [laughs] CHAD: I mean, this is one of the things with founding stories is we talk to the people who are successful. [laughs] So, would you recommend this path to other people? MATT: I think if it's something where you could see providing unique value to the world and that you have lots of validation from real people, not just your friends but from prospective customers...it was when we were talking to real businesses where they would say, "This is something we would use and pay for." And so, after hearing that dozens and dozens of times, that matched with the negative NPS scores with their current solutions. That's where we were like, "This can be something pretty special." So I wouldn't recommend building in isolation and making that leap of faith without really doing your diligence on the opportunity. But yeah, I think everyone, at some point, if they have an idea or a problem they want to solve, should give it a go. Mid-Roll Ad: I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: That first customer that you were building the replacement for, were you charging them? MATT: No, we were not. CHAD: Are they paying now? MATT: They are, they are, very little. CHAD: Okay. [chuckles] MATT: They're a small business and have been staying super successful. And so, in the earliest days, the learnings and feedback matter a lot more than revenue, and so you optimize for that as opposed to the economics. And so for us going and working on location at these businesses and they're paying us essentially in the learnings and teachings of helping us understand and absorb ourselves in this industry, and working as front desk and doing the jobs that all these professionals have to do. And so that's where we were able to build and get to a place where our product is really, really authentic. And it was from that first direct observation. CHAD: I've worked on products before where they're currently being done by people. They might have technology solutions in place, and they feel like there's no technology that will do this; we need to have a person being the one to do it. Because like you said, there's something special about a person doing it. And so sometimes those businesses, when they have a solution, even if they've properly solved it, there's a lot of resistance from customers who are very skeptical that the technology is going to be able to do it the right way. Have you encountered that? MATT: Absolutely. CHAD: How do you combat that? MATT: We iterated on, essentially, the objections. So the first objection was that "People can't book online because it's going to mess up my day." And so we created this what we call precision scheduling, where it does the optimization on the calendar. And then the next issue was that we started seeing some no-shows coming because I think there's this mental analog of if you miss an OpenTable reservation not as big of a deal. But in our industry that we're serving, if you miss a two-hour appointment, that professional is out a significant amount of their income for the week. And so that's where we actually started dipping our toes in payments, and we started requiring a credit card at the time of booking just to authorize the card and to hold the appointment. And so that objection of no shows we solved there. There was a lot of concern of like, "Hey, our customers are not going to know the right thing to book." And we have learned that customers actually are very savvy and that the clients deserve more credit than the professionals are giving them that if a woman gets a balayage, she knows it's a balayage. And so, usually, the way that we overcame that objection was we'd work with them and have best practices on menu design. But that they also then, when they're giving a service that they discuss what they actually did in that service so that the customer knows what to book next time if they want the same thing. And so that was kind of the pattern is like, build something, learn, iterate, and do it on location with these businesses so that we could see it firsthand in an unbiased way. And so that's really how we were able to build such a product with this amount of scale and overcome some of those initial objections. CHAD: Is it easier now that you have 2000-plus customers, some social capital out there? They can ask other people, "Is this working for you?" Is that easier now? MATT: Absolutely. Absolutely. One of the ways...we didn't have a sales team for a long time in our company, and we were actually under the radar. We were stealth, didn't announce anything about ourselves for the first three or four years. And so we were just very much focused on product development and building something that was incredible. And then we were really fed off of referrals and that word of mouth. So it's I think when you get a product that people love, they're going to tell their friends about it. And for us, that really helped accelerate our growth. CHAD: So yeah, so this was all taking place in what year? MATT: So we transitioned out of our last company and started doing part-time work in summer of 2015. And then, we officially launched our first customer in spring of 2016. CHAD: Cool. And I think that that is, you know, you didn't get to 2,000 customers overnight, right? You've been at this for a while. MATT: Yeah, the barrier to entry is very high in the market, and VCs called our type of opportunity a brownfield opportunity where there are a lot of legacy solutions in the market. And we compete with some companies that were actually started before I was born. CHAD: [chuckles] MATT: And so they've had many decades to build functionality into their platform that we need to get to some level of feature parity with in order to seamlessly transition them off of their previous solution to our platform. And it did take a significant upfront investment with product in order to get to be able to pay the price of admission and to be able to actually compete in the market. CHAD: So one of the things I'm curious about is, do you have a sense of what does the overall market looks like? I feel like there are probably lots of salons, spas, haircutting places. There are a lot of them all over the world. MATT: There are, yeah. So we believe that there are about 500,000 self-care businesses in the United States. CHAD: Just in the United States. MATT: Yeah, just in the United States. And the employee base in the labor market is about two to two and a half million professionals across all those businesses. CHAD: So, where do you think the hurdles in terms of continued growth are for you? MATT: So one of the areas that we focus on is...so all of these self-care businesses are about 90% similar in how they operate. And so we started in the hair salon vertical and then have expanded into many adjacent verticals over the course of the past few years. We really tried to make sure that we had really, really strong product-market fit in the hair salons, which is the biggest self-care market, and before we expanded into, say, nail salons. When expanding into adjacent verticals, there's some functionality that is unique to those verticals. And so, for example, one of our recent verticals that we expanded into is med spas. And the way that med spas charge for their services is generally based on the products that are used, and so if you buy 100 units of Botox, they charge a per-unit fee. And so that was something that was pretty unique to the medspa market that doesn't exist in other self-care markets. And so vertical expansion is a vector of growth for us and then segment expansion. So we started with the single location, very small businesses. And then we have worked our way up to enterprise where we're powering chains and franchises of hundreds of locations. And then the other aspects kind of the third vector of growth is the different product sets and functionality that we are releasing to our customers. So continuing to develop the platform but also look at different opportunities where we can provide outsized value by developing it ourselves. CHAD: So we could literally talk all day, and I could talk to you about scaling and product and everything. But one thing I'm interested in before we wrap up is I think it's really special to found a company with a designer, a product person, and an engineer. And I can tell even just by looking at the site and the product that you very highly value design and creating a product that people love to use. MATT: Absolutely. CHAD: How does that lead you to creating Duo, which is a point of sale card reader? MATT: One of the things that we saw in the market was this real importance in service design so what information is showing when to the users of our technology. So there's that aspect of what's the overall experience? Then there's the product design; how easy is it to use? And how quickly can new employees, new front desk staff, how quickly can they get ramped up and start using the system? Do they need two weeks of training? And for us, we try to make it as intuitive and as familiar as possible. And then we look to see how else can we extend design? And one of the complaints that we always received from customers was that hardware options were always pretty ugly, that all of them look dated like the kind of hardware that you use at a supermarket. And they wanted something that was more sleek and that they weren't ashamed to have on their countertop for checkout. And so that's where we decided to invest in building our own hardware. And that was particularly exciting for us. So it's been really, really well-received from our customers. And it was a really fun project to work on. Getting into the hardware space is always challenging. But as a designer, it was super cool to build something that became physical for the first time in my life. CHAD: Does the logic that led to you creating Duo eventually lead you to creating an entire hardware point of sale system? MATT: We're assessing all opportunities. There's this interesting moment happening in the payments space where like Apple, you know, announced that I think they're piloting now that you won't need hardware in order to accept credit card payments on the iPhone. CHAD: You'll just be able to do it right against an iPad. MATT: Exactly. So I think there's a real question as to what is the...and I'm sure this is something that folks like Square are thinking about, that have really best in class hardware is like what does the future of hardware look for fintech companies? And is it just going to fold into the actual devices, or will you continue to need standalone readers? That's something that we're constantly thinking about and keeping smart on the latest developments in that. But our expertise and what we love is building incredible software. Hardware was that area that we saw that we could provide unique value, but our goal is to always be a software company. You generally don't make much money off of the hardware piece in this business. CHAD: Now, how personally involved were you in the hardware project? MATT: I was very involved, potentially too involved. [laughs] CHAD: As a founder, when new projects come up like this that maybe you're interested in, how do you either hold yourself back or not hold yourself back from being involved in them? MATT: I think when the company is venturing into new territory, entirely new like uncharted waters, that's when it's valuable for me or any founder to get really, really smart on what's the opportunity, what's the risks, all that kind of stuff. In this case, my experience working at our initial customers for the first couple of years of our business was really, really impactful. And so our Duo captures...and the reason why it's called Duo is because it's a countertop, but also you can take the top off, and you can do an in chair checkout. So you could bring it over to the customer, and they can check out right while they're in the chair as an express checkout. And so those types of things I learned while being on location working at these businesses. And so I was providing a lot of the guidance and conceptualizing how we could think about what the hardware offering would be that would be unique to us, and collaborated with our head of design and then an industrial designer to get the proof of concept there. CHAD: And you said, "Potentially too involved," so why did you say that? [laughs] MATT: I think as a founder, you are always trying to figure out what altitude are you flying at. And there are some things that you will need to dive in and be very hands-on. And then there are other times just to guide and support and coach. And I think for this because it was a new project, I was particularly excited to be able to get into hardware because that was a first for me that I was involved in all aspects of it. But it was a lot of fun. CHAD: Awesome. Well, Matt, thank you so much for stopping by and sharing with us. I really appreciate it. I'm sure the listeners do too. If folks want to find out more about Boulevard, about joining the team, about becoming a customer, or just to get in touch with you, where are all the different places that they can do that? MATT: Yeah, absolutely. I think the best place is just on our website. We are hiring across all levels and all functions, especially on the product design and engineering side. And so our website is joinblvd.com, J-O-I-N-B-L-V-D.com. There's the about page, and it links out to my LinkedIn. So if anyone wants to connect and get acquainted, that's probably the easiest way to do it. CHAD: Awesome. Well, thanks again for joining me. I really appreciate it. MATT: Yeah, thanks so much. This was a pleasure. CHAD: You can subscribe to the show and find notes along with links for everything that Matt just mentioned and including a complete transcript of the episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Matt Danna.

Matt Faircloth is the co-founder and president of the DeRosa Group, a real estate investment company that specializes in buying and renovating residential and commercial properties. Matt and his wife, Liz, started investing in real estate in 2004 with a $30,000 loan. They founded DeRosa Group in 2005 and have since grown the company to managing more than 370 units throughout the east coast. DeRosa has completed more than $30M in real estate transactions involving private capital—including fix-and-flips, single-family home rentals, mixed-use buildings, apartment buildings, office buildings, and tax lien investments. He is the author of Raising Private Capital, has been featured on the BiggerPockets Podcast, and regularly contributes to BiggerPockets' educational webinars. In this episode, Matt shares his background in real estate investing, and a roadmap for investors looking to raise more private capital to close more deals. Additionally, he talks about the reality of running a real estate business.   Episode Links: https://derosagroup.com/ https://www.instagram.com/themattfaircloth/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mdfaircloth/ https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/contributors/mattfaircloth --- Before we jump into the episode, here's a quick disclaimer about our content. The Remote Real Estate Investor podcast is for informational purposes only, and is not intended as investment advice. The views, opinions and strategies of both the hosts and the guests are their own and should not be considered as guidance from Roofstock. Make sure to always run your own numbers, make your own independent decisions and seek investment advice from licensed professionals.   Michael: What's going on everyone? Welcome to another episode of the Remote Real Estate Investor. I'm Michael Albaum and today with me I have Matt Faircloth, author, podcast speaker, co-founder, president, investor, syndicator. He does a lot and we're gonna hear a ton from Matt about what he's been doing in the real estate space, and what he's currently putting together and actually closing on today. So let's get into it.   Matt Faircloth, thank you so much for coming on the show today. Really appreciate you taking the time to hang out with me.   Matt: Michael, I appreciate your time and having me on your show, man. Thank you.   Michael: Absolutely, absolutely. So I know a little bit about you but I would love if you could share with our listeners who maybe have never heard of you. They've been living under a rock for the last couple of years, who you are, where you come from, and what you're doing in real estate?   Matt: Where did you come from…   Um, it's cool that my company's called the DeRosa group and I just love saying this, that we're a company dedicated to transforming lads real estate through real estate transforming lives to real estate. We can get into that in the show if you like. I… where I came from, let's see, I grew up Baltimore, bopped around the East Coast for a minute. Before I landed in Philly, met the woman of my dreams because she put Rich Dad Poor Dad in my hand, and we were still dating, that got me to read that. And that that gave got me to drink the entrepreneur Kool Aid, which I guzzled and quit my job in 2005 to start a real estate company, bumped into a lot of walls, you know, did a lot of it, made a lot of mistakes, made some money and then and then just built it and grew over time and just learned how to run an effective real estate company through the school of hard knocks. And now I've been doing it for 16 years and just apply what I've learned over the years, you know, attracted more and more the right people who work with me and build what I think to be a phenomenal brand now.   Michael: Oh, that's awesome, man. That's awesome. You said that once or twice before I can tell it just rolled off your tongue there so nicely.     Matt: You know, this is not my first podcast. Sometimes people ask me, let's just get real, screw it, man. Let's get real right now…   Michael: Let's do it.   Matt: What I get I go on a lot of podcasts and when you go on a lot of podcasts, people tend to ask the same questions, Michael, right and so when they do, it's almost like I'm that guy, I'm the DJ sing in a DJ booth and then in the in the DJ booth of Matt's brain. And then people ask like, Hey, Matt, tell me about your first deal and I'm like, okay, let's get the first deal track pull the first track.   Michael: Go, pull the file.   Matt: You know, yeah, go pull the file, first deal, right. Tell us about the first time that you raise money, tell us about a mistake you made. Okay, let's go ahead skip, let's go pull up mistake file eight. Okay, let's write that file out, right. So it's more fun to go curveball. You know, like…   Michael: Totally   Matt: Yeah, that was a good curveball in the first five seconds of the show that you and I went down right and you into it, you can't help it you end up just going to a script a lot of times you know talking about things on podcast over and over and over again and I was it that a want to be plastic like that, but you end up like, if I've told that story six times the seventh time it starts to come off the same way over and over again, right.   Michael: I totally get it, and I hope that today is not one of those repetitive podcasts.   Matt: You're getting not to be that show already man, you are curve balling, I love it. Keep it up!   Michael: Well as a follow up Matt, what's your favorite mammal, man?   Matt: It's good one, I am, okay, growing up, I have an eight year old, right, so my eight year old is always: Daddy who would win… I wish he was here because you and me, we would have a ball right now… Daddy who would win when a colossal squid or a great white shark? And I'm like Simon, first of all like, but he'll even be like a gorilla or a colossal squid and like girl is gonna drown buddy battle…   Give me more data, that would depth are we talking about the ocean? Are we talking about like 3000 gorillas... To you question, I probably go a gorilla, if I had to pick or, or maybe I don't know why, but growing up I loved Black Panthers.   Michael: Mm hmm. Okay, pretty majestic animals.   Matt: Yeah, I don't know, I don't know, the majestic, they are majestic animals. Yeah, so that would be my favorite, those are my two favorite man…   Michael: I love it, well so real real quick change because we're already on this rabbit hole. You know that there was a show put on by I think NatGeo or discovery that answered your son's questions they would pit these two animals together in a simulation… like that exists…   Matt: You can google and they would show cuz he would be like, daddy who would win a saltwater… It's just you can google saltwater crocodile versus great white shark…   Michael: Great white shark, I saw that episode…   Matt: It's good, it's good, right. Good job displaying well you see the saltwater croc would try and take the deathroll on this or do that...   Oh, he was my son's itch was scratched with that, you know. I don't know, why he is up to the Komodo dragons. Komodo dragon versus anything you can name, that's what you want to talk about…   Michael: That's a battle royale this century… Oh my god. I love it.   Matt: Well, dragons are badasses man, these are like, there they are… Would you know that?   Michael: Yeah, that's the kiss of death, yeah… Matt: It is! Not only the monstrous lizards like little dinosaurs, but they also the venomous bite, you know…   Michael: It's such a ridiculous concept like, oh, let's take two of like humans worst fears, like, long tailed long tongue lizards, and then give it venom, sounds awesome.   Matt: Right! Give it nasty teeth. Yeah, like a really weird awful roar and give them venom, too…   Michael: Oh my god, so good.   Matt: They're nasty creatures, man. Good thing that'll make them in North America.   Michael: I know, I'm stoked, I'm stoked. All right, well, if we bring it slightly back towards the real estate, you know.   Do you want me to do a whole podcast on mammals like komodo dragons… So you started a company, your real estate company in 2005 and when people hear that, I think it might be ominous to some people, you know, what is a real estate company mean? And so what was the transition, like, I mean, like, what is the DeRosa group do first and foremost and then what was that transition, like going from just owning stuff on your own to now I have a business focusing on it?   Matt: That's interesting, you know, that man, um, interesting concept, because a lot of people out there are running real estate investing, like it's a gig, you know, like, or it's like driving Uber, you know, you could just decide to not do it at some point, you know, I mean, it's not a gig, it's a real estate investing is a business because it's a marathon, unless you're wholesaling or just doing a deal here and there something like that. Not for nothing. This business… the business of real estate investing is a business and you should treat it as such. And we didn't always do that the first couple years, I treated it like a hobby and I bumped into walls and did a bunch of different things but like once I really got my legs underneath me, as a real estate investor and really found the calling found the purpose and got and got and got focused on real estate investing. I got clear that it's a business that is like a living animal it's a it's a living thing…   Michael: It's a living Komodo dragon?...   Matt: Real estate investing is like a Komodo dragon, right, it needs food, you know… It can have a venom's bite and can be nasty and shit and can get the fuck out of you. And a lot of people are scared of it, you know, right… Yeah. People read articles about it only exists in certain places we can keep going. But it is something that needs, you know, if you want to grow real estate investing business and sustain yourself in this, in this industry, and not just make it a hobby, you have to have a company that's got you know, clean books and has a purpose and has a mission and has roles and responsibilities and job descriptions and stuff like that, because there's sucky things in real estate you have to do and it's like, well, you know, and you could look on Instagram. And if you look on Instagram for real estate investing, people think that it either means you close deals every day, because it's the people every time people close stuff, they put it on Instagram, or they go to it's like, Instagram thinks that for real estate investors, all you do is close deals, go to conferences and go on vacation That's what you see people doing on Instagram, the real estate investing, right? But there's actually like, this sucky part of real estate investing, which is sitting on your desk and answering emails and you know, just corresponding and looking for deals and swinging and missing and dealing with knucklehead tenants and stuff like that that want to, you know, recently Michael, we had a tenant, had his girlfriend come in and he must have done something bad because she went, put all his clothes on his bed, dumped gasoline on the bed, lit it on fire, walked out.   Michael: Mike dropped…   Matt: This is what happens, that's real stuff, you know… That did not make on Instagram unfortunately, you know…   Michael: No, that wasn't the highlight reel.   Matt: Living my best life, look it's amazing…   Michael: Well, so you bring up a really great point that and that it should be treated like a business and I, I wholeheartedly agree. But so what about all the people out there that are just getting started that could never see themselves as a business owner as an entrepreneur but hear about real estate investing as a great side gig like you mentioned that what about what about all those folks? Where are they left?   Matt: Okay, they need to decide if they want to do it full time or not, right…And there are people out there that have a day job that they love and it's, it's probably something that's very fulfilling to them, or maybe they went to school for a long time, like a doctor or an MD or whatever. I mean, Jesus, those folks go to school, God bless them for like another 12 years after they get out of college, right? So why would they change careers, right? They want, there are people that really in their heart of hearts probably ought to go passive for real estate investing, as a side gig and as a way to build wealth. And there are people that that are doing it because they want to build up the passive income and become a business owner out of it. So you got to choose if you want to be an investor or be, let's remember Robert Kiyosaki Cashflow Quadrant book, right. Yes, ESBI, remember that thing?   Michael: Mm hmm.   Matt: Do you want to be a B or an I, B= business owner, I= investor. And if you're willing to put in your time and and you know, quit your day job eventually become a business owner and that's what you need to do. But unfortunately, people, a lot of people misunderstood Kiyosaki, to think that to be a real estate investor, you have to be an active operator, you have to do it full time. You can make the passive income all you want as an I-quadrate investor and just passively invest in things. And I think that that's, I think it's probably the most misunderstood function in a lot of his books, people that quit their job that really should have never done that they should have just passively invested their way to financial freedom.   Michael: Yeah, okay. And let's talk about that for a minute because you wrote a book about raising capital and I think capital is so often the biggest obstacle for people, the biggest hurdle people overcome. So do you see the kind of this roadmap for people? Where if passivity, is it really time is the goal, right? That's what everybody is after and we get there by either usually being a B or an I, by being at B that sounds terrible, don't be a B. So if people are capital is their obstacle, using real estate as a active vehicle to then take a backseat and invest passively?   Matt: Yeah, well, that's I mean, my book talks about that and then it goes back to like, let's just keep walking to the B and I road, right. So if you're a B quadrant business owner, we're rising D quadrant business owner for real estate, and you either want to do it full time, you already are doing it full time, then at some point, unless you win the lottery, or unless, like, you know, you just got a silver spoon in your mouth, and you got billions of dollars waiting on the sidelines, from your friends from your family or something like that. You're going to need capital, right? You're gonna run out man you are. And so on the other side of it, you've got I quadrate investors, and they have either retirement accounts, real estate equity, cash, any of those things that they want to put to work and not have to put in the time to make that money, you make that money, do what it's supposed to do, you know, then they can those two can marry up the B quadrant business owner of real estate versus the quadrate investor that wants to make a return on their money without trading money for time. Those two can have a really happy partnership. My book talks about all those things, how those two things can get structured together and how the why in my book are called the cash provider, as SI quadrant investor.   Robert Kiyosaki is a good guy, but he probably sue the hell out of me if I use his terms of my books. I didn't use that, I did, I did the the deal provider and the cache provider. The deal provider is the D Quadra business owner, the cache provider is the I quadric investor.   Michael: Okay, awesome and what is your book called?   Matt: Raising private capital. So funny Michael you asked that it happens to be right here behind… They can get it on Amazon or they can get it on biggerpockets.com.   Michael: I was just gonna ask. Alright, so it's called raising private capital and without giving the book away. What can people expect to find in it?   Matt: Along with a lot of my personal story on on you know how I got from guy that quit his job in oh five to you know, running a company that runs that owns, you know, multi 1000 doors of multifamily real estate. It's got that journey in there. And and that but also it's it's got a lot of tools and lessons, it's a how to really on how do you look in your own personal network as an investor, I'm sorry, as a B quadrant designer, it's how to look in your personal network to find the money, you need to do deals because you don't have to go to private lender, or you don't have to go to hard money lenders, you know, if you go and go more corporate level, or sell your soul to get the money you need for the deal that you're trying to do. You can look in your own network to find that money and raising private capital talks about how to find the money you need for deals in your own personal network.   Michael: Okay, all right, Matt can we do something kind of a silly exercise?   Matt: Please.   Michael: Can you because, I think a lot of people are really nervous to have that conversation and I think they feel slimy or gross. Can you pitch me on a deal that you're putting together as someone that would be in your your kind of sphere of influence? Let's let's see. Let's see what that sounds like and feels like.   Matt: Well, it depends if you're accredited, or not, Michael, because if you're not accredited, we have substantial relationship. But if you're accredited, I can talk to you, I can do a Facebook ad that you notice, right? All joking aside, let's pretend you and I are friends. We already know each other you already like and trust me, because I'm me, right and my book recommends that those are your first targets. You know, and that so hey, Michael, how you doing today?   Michael: I'm doing pretty good, what about you, man?   Matt: I'm awesome, man. Hey, listen, I happen to remember you saying that you were working over a company XYZ. You did a great job, didn't you. It's good. But you better get an opportunity to come up with ABC Company. And I'm really grateful for that you were able to move over to that did take on that new job. How's it going?   Michael: It's going really well. XYZ was terrible, ABC is infinitely better. Thank you so much for man, remembering you've got a killer memory.   Matt: No, it's great, I swear to you… I also barely remember going further, Michael, is that XYZ day as much as you hated what they did, and you know, and I'm so grateful you got out of there. But XYZ had a great comp package they did as I remember, you told me they paid you a really great 401k program.   Michael: Yes, yeah, it was pretty.   Matt: Those markets been taken off lately, right. So no, it's maybe maybe hit a top here and is starting to get a little squirrely and everything like that. So I want to tell you that we did you happen to know, Michael, you can take your retirement account and invested in things not Wall Street, you know, in that retirement account you have with XYZ company because you don't work there anymore that retirement account could be put to work in real estate. Did you know that?   Michael: I had heard that. But I didn't really know that I could do anything about it…   Matt: Well, you can now that you've left XYZ company, right, you can take that retirement account that they have, and they probably were paying you and lots of company stock, take the chips, man, take the chips off the table cash in, sell that company stock and roll that and roll that retirement account, which is now by the way was a 401k. Now it was an IRA. And you can roll that IRA over to a third party IRA custodian and you can do all kinds of cool stuff you can buy, you know, shares of companies, you can buy your own your own real estate investments, you can lend that money out and you can also invest it in deals like we have, I, we are right now Michael buying 670 units in two states, five apartment buildings in two states. That's the deal, we're in the middle of right now, produces phenomenal returns, produces, we're going to fix these buildings up and we're going to refinance them over time and as we refinance them, we're going to give some of that money back to you to your retirement account. So you can then take it and parlayed invest in another stuff. It's a great return.   I know a lot of people that we work with are really happy with work that we've done as a company. So you and I should talk further as a matter of fact, I have some Ira custodians that can handle this whole thing for you, if you'd like, I'd like to introduce you to a few of them that I love. You know, and then they we do a lot of work with them. So they give us white glove treatment. Can I introduce you to them for you?   Michael: Yeah, that'd be great, man, thanks so much for doing that. I appreciate it.   Matt: Yeah, and I'm going to mail you the offering. And if you don't, if you're not happy with my, if you don't like the returns, and you're you're nervous, whatever, it's okay, I get other things I can send you over to, I really want to help you build your wealth while I build my business. Because we're building a great real estate company and we're, our mission is to transform lives through real estate, I want you to help me do that. By me helping you earn money with your retirement account. Well, we do the work. So we can do that for you. And if it doesn't work out, that's okay. I have plenty of other friends for this awesome network called biggerpockets.com, you should check out and you can look on BiggerPockets to and find other things to invest in, like private loans and other cool things that can show you that are not real, like that real estate that I mentioned, even though that's a great deal. There's other things you can do to and I'll hold your hand the whole way. What do you think?   Michael: Oh, sign me up, man, I'll be looking for your email.   Matt: Cool, no problem.   Michael: Man, that was awesome. That was so so so good.   Matt: Thank you, thank you…   Michael: So firstly, for first and first and foremost, you've now got to send me that email because I'm sold. But secondly, what I love about what you did is the conversation felt very much, let me help you, let me put provide value for you educate me around what I could do with my retirement funds, which I might have not even been aware of, and then to tell me how you're able to help me, before even the you being helped in the process, being able to your own deals be my financing was even mentioned.   Matt: Yeah, well, so is a few facts, right, um, of the $10 trillion, that's currently in IRAs, right now, not 401k, it's just IRAs of the $10 trillion, it's out there. 4% of us invested in anything else outside of Wall Street and so if you're looking to get your capital game going, the easiest low hanging fruit, and the thing that everybody has is a retirement account that has if they've got a job, and they used to work at one company, and they now work at another company, their retirement account, they had the first company is now eligible to get rolled over to an IRA. And with the big run up the stock markets had it that's what you should be talking to people about, is like, hey, you used to work over here. Now you work here, don't you are you got laid off, you quit whatever it is, they don't have you there them a job. Now they just have to use to have a job. It's such an easy, low hanging fruit conversation and it speaks to their needs too. Because everybody's get a little squirrely and where Wall Street's going, it's just been a great run. You know, it's had a great run over the last 12 years. But now it might be time to pull a few chips back. So I think that that's something that's probably the most underutilized conversation out there. For those looking to raise money, is to talk to anybody that's got a job about investing their retirement account with them with their real estate company.   Michael: That's so good. I think so many people when when thinking about having that conversation, think, well, I don't know anyone who has money, because they might not be in cash assets or liquid assets on the you know, in a taxable account, but the retirement side of things brings into focus a whole another option.   Matt: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can and there's other ways you can go about it, too. You can kind of sniff out, my book talks about like how to sniff out people that are in your network that likely have a lot of cash. What does what are the signs that a lot of cash leaves, you know, my book talks about that, my book talks about, there's another vehicle that they can they can invest with you and as those are people with free and clear real estate.   Last time I looked, Michael 30% of America owns their home, their primary residence free clear 30%. You know, but they don't. It's not it's not to get paid to ask a different color when it's paid off. It's hard to tell. Like all the purple houses in America are free and clear. Yeah, no, I don't know. So, but my book talks about the signs to look for free and clear real estate. And I also can tell you, here's the free clear real estate conversation. Here's the those with cash conversation and here's the retirement account conversation to have. I just pulled that into my playbook because it seemed like the most obvious one to go for is retirement account is probably the most, it's the most underutilized one. But I think it's the one that's most unnecessary right now, in today's world.   Michael: That makes so much sense, that makes so much sense. Matt, you mentioned before we hit record here that you are actually in the midst of closing the biggest deal that you've ever done to date today. Can you talk to us a little bit about what that looks like?   Matt: That was a by the way, Michael that was it bullshit. That was a real deal. I was pitching you on for your retirement account when you were working for XYZ comm your XYZ IRA could be invested in the deal that we're closing part of right now. Yeah, it's 670 units. It's in it's in two states. It is a five apartment buildings and we're closing two of those today. The other three close in a couple of weeks.   Michael: Amazing, okay, and what attracted you to this deal?   Matt: Um, that okay, so two of the buildings are in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and that is a company that is city we're already heavily invested in and it's a city that's showing phenomenal growth, 14% rent growth last year, RD on pace to do at least 12 this year percent rent growth and this owner hasn't increases rents in the last two. So he hasn't seen any of the rental upside that's been happening, the rent growth has been happening in that market has not been realized on those properties. So great opportunity, we already have property management in that town lined up and Lexington we own six other apartment buildings. So we are a niche down company. We're not going to just invest anywhere that is a good deal. We invest in super specific markets, so those are there were three markets Lexington, Kentucky, the Piedmont triad in North Carolina, and in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, of all places. Those are the three markets that we're in. That's it   Michael: If it works, it works…   Matt: So…I like about it. I also like that it's diverse meaning like it's it's different geographies, different management strategies, even different property conditions. I like all those things about it that it brings a lot of things to the table, that make it more of a stable asset.   Michael: Okay, okay..   Matt: But it's stable investment, like stable here, but poised to go up.   Michael: Okay and we've had a lot of folks on the show recently talking about passive investments. And you know how you're really evaluating the operator more so than the deal itself. But can you give folks listening some tips about how to evaluate maybe the deal? I mean, what, what details of the deal itself should people be looking at to feel comfortable?   Matt: Yeah, um, you should look at…, I'll tell you why I'll tell you, what people will do to make their deal look better than earlier is, you have to look at what their exit criteria is. That meaning like, they might be saying, okay, we're going to buy the property for this number, and then we're going to invest this and then we're going to sell it for this, like that nine times you paid for it, then you investors aren't going to make any money till we sell it, or you're not going to make very much money until we sell it, if the majority of investor returns are projected to come through the sale and the end, the syndicator is assuming that the markets gonna stay very stagnant, that cap rates are gonna stay down and streets gonna stay down, yada, yada, then they're kind of making a lot of assumptions that may or may not come true. So that's one thing to be concerned over. So make sure that they're conservative that their crystal ball is is, you know, that they're looking into has some conservatism's as it in it, because that's one thing. That's one thing, as indeed a syndicator can do is they can predict that the markets going to be super favorable at some point in the future when they go to sell and that makes the deal look really good right now.   Michael: Right, right…   Matt: Yeah, make sure there's a lot of there's some experience on the team that have been it's okay to have new new and to work with new people, because we're all new at some point. But make sure somewhere on their team, there's some deep, there's a deep bench of experience.   Michael: That's great, that's great. Yeah, no, I love those points, I love those points. I think I've seen that too and a bunch of syndication deals like oh yeah, we're gonna buy it at a six cap and we're gonna exit at a three cap and it's like, really look.   Matt: Phenomenal… 22% IRR man, what's the cash flow? Oh, it's only gonna pay like 3% cash on cash. But you know, magic fairy dust, get sprinkled on the deal, and it's gonna get sold and you're gonna make you're gonna triple your money. You know, three right now when I sell it, and that's how it's gonna go, right… When the crypto rises, you know…   Michael: No, that's a great point, those are great points, Matt. And I'm curious to know what do you you know, in your book, I'm sure talks about this but for anyone listening, that's thinking about starting to raise money but doesn't really have experience. They've you know, they've got the hustle, but they don't have the experience and they don't have the capital. You know, what should those people be doing right now?   Matt: Okay, I'm getting smudge get as much exposure as you can. Some folks do that through investing some some people that I know, that are very successful, syndicators now got started investing in other people's deals to learn the ropes, right. And that's it, do that get some exposure, we know why you can to other people's deals, you know, network, do what I did. But to start small, like we're on our 50 we're closing, this is our 15th syndication that we've done. But our first syndication was a guy my wife went to college with put in 50k into it into one into a deal that we did, we bought two single family homes with his 50k, right, that was our first syndication. So you can start small, find the one person that has some capital to work with in your in your network, and do a deal and then expand it out, do another deal, expand it out, do another deal, expand that out, do another deal. So for those that are looking to get started, it's okay to start small. It's not sexy to start small, but it's also okay and there's a lot further there's there's a lot smaller distance to fall and a lot easier to course correct on a small deal than it would be to correct on a behemoth issue first. Michael: Yep, I think that's such a good point, I think that's such a good point. I know I've spoken to people and I thought, well, my first deal would be a 10 year multifamily, because multifamily is the best everyone's talking about it. It's like yeah, okay, well, have you done a single family deal? Well, no…   Matt: I'm telling you, I hear people like, oh, I'm gonna do 100 unit multifamily deal. You know, like, that's my first deal I want to do, I've never done a deal before my life. But I want to close 100 units is my first deal. I get it and I want that, too for you, you know. But you might have to bang your head against the wall a lot. Where you could just go and syndicate a duplex right or syndicate like get your Mama to go give you a couple give me a couple of dollars and you and your Mama would go buy a duplex right, you know…   Michael: But then I can't post it on Instagram. No one wants to see me my mom and me doing deals…   Matt: I can't fake it till I make it that right, you know, or pose next to the Lamborghini that I just bought because I've been, I've been investing in real estate for the last few months.   Michael: So good. The last question I have for you before I let you out of here is, you were talking at the beginning of the show about how you did all these things and kind of rally different directions and then you really niche down and you got really focused. How did you do that? I mean, how did you, what did it take for you to get hyper focused? Because I think so many of us as they get started real estate like, oh, I could do long term buy and hold or I could do flipping or I could do wholesaling or I could do burr investing. And there's so many different ways to go. How do you know when you found the right one?   Matt: Well, first of all, Michael, I just got I just get tired to get my ass kicked, you know…   I'd like to wholesale deals going on at for fix and flips going, I was buying a bunch of rentals and everything like that, and it wasn't sleeping awake, you know and I was doing everything media doing a mediocre level, any of those three things that I was doing, I was involved in some other stuff, too. Any of those three things that I was doing could have gotten to me to my financial goals. But the mistake that I made with all this tribe was doing a bunch of things, mediocre lee versus doing one thing really well, right. And so I found that I was, you know, good at being a landlord, because with the landlord properties that we had raised very well. And it's also good at raising money and explaining what I do land lording in a very simple fashion to people and so I was like, okay, well, I'm awesome at those two things. Let me just focus on those. And the more I focused on those, guess what, Michael, the more money I made, like, money's good. I like making money. I do enjoy my family. You know, that's good. So how about anymore, though? Yeah, I'm not good at managing contractors, some too nice that I believe them when they tell me that their car broke down. And that's why they couldn't show up on the job site, but they still need me to give them 10 grand, you know, and I believe them. Okay, here you go. And that, so I just knew I didn't have people in my network to outsource that to at the time and so it made sense. I had tried partners to run that fix and flip division, my company didn't work out. So I needed to abandon the things that weren't working, and focus on the things that were and for those that are looking to niche down and focus. It doesn't have to it doesn't have to be apartment buildings, believe me, don't listen to Instagram does not have to be apartment buildings. It can be other things, I promise.   But figure out what you were calling your core genius, right? Your God given talents, what are you gonna call it, figure that find out those and how you can best bring those to the real estate table and even better, how they are benefiting your business today. And then just easy, Michael, do more of that. How about that, there's two more of those things, if it's working, you do more of it, and less of the things that aren't, you know, it could be that simple and that's kind of how we grow in and I found people that were able to sit in the seats that I needed for me to focus more on raising money and more on the land lording , and I'd filled in those seats and I got it, you know, tight and I expand that up and I was like okay, land lording is amazing, but I could probably scale faster if I outsource that and hire third party management companies. So we did that I could focus on raising money and I could focus on building the team and enrolling and inspiring and being the leader of my team. Now that's really all I do is I lead my team and I raise money and I talk to you…   Michael: I love it, I love it. That, this has been so much fun Matt, if people have questions for you want to reach out to you are interested in investing in some of your deals, what's the best way for people to get in touch with you?   Matt: There's a ton of stuff on my LinkedIn bio. My LinkedIn is the Matt Faircloth, I'm sure there's plenty of other Matt Faircloth in the world but my Instagram handle…   Michael: You stake your claim…   Matt: I've claimed it, there also the Instagram I'm the only Matt Faircloth, @themattfaircloth and there's a there's a link in my bio on Instagram and there's a ton of stuff there you can go and invest in my and you can hear about investing in deals with us if you're an accredited investor you can join our mailing list because you do a non-accredited deal sometimes for those that are that we have a preexisting relationship with so you can join that list or you know hear more about that. You can buy a copy of my book there you can you know join all kinds of different cool things we have going on and Masterminds webinars, all that jazz is on the link in my bio on Instagram.       Michael: Sweet, well Matt thank you again, man, from Komodo dragons to passive investing, this has been a blast. I'm sure we'll be chatting soon.   Matt: My family and I play a game at dinner called: True two truths and a lie and I'm going to slay it right in two true and a lie there that I was on an interview and me and this guy talked about Komodo dragons. Nobody's gonna believe that. But I totally got my family, totally gonna crush them at true two truths and a lie tonight…   Michael: I love it, I love it. Well, I am glad I could be a part of it.   Matt: Thank you.   Michael: Awesome, take care man.   Alright everyone, that was our episode. A big thank you to Matt for coming on. It was super fun from Komodo dragons to real estate syndication. I didn't think we'd be able to get there but we kept it on the rails. As always, if you liked the episode, please feel free to leave us a rating or review wherever it is you get your podcasts and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. Happy investing!

Today's a bittersweet moment in WordPress business land with the announcement of Awesome Motive acquiring Sandhills Development suite of plugins including Easy Digital Downloads, AffiliateWP, and more. I'm honored to call Pippin my friend who has helped me “grow up” in the WordPress community. I'm happy for him, and sad that he's retiring from the WordPress world…for now. I had a chance to sit down with him earlier this morning to hash out all the feels around this news. I hope you enjoy the episode, please share it with others! Episode Transcript [00:00:00] Hey,[00:00:01] Matt: everybody. Welcome back to a special episode of the Matt report, breaking news almost. And not this one's not erring on the WP minute, but we broke a lot of news on the WP men. They go to the WP minute.com. If you want your weekly dose of five minute WordPress news delivered in your inbox every week, uh, this episode is sponsored by easy support videos, easy support videos, support your WordPress users right inside the WordPress admin.[00:00:23] Using videos. Check out easy support. Dot com why am I doing this in line with the episode? Because we have a special guest today, Pippin, Williamson, Pippin. Welcome to the program. Thank you, Matt.[00:00:35] Pippin: It's great to be back.[00:00:37] Matt: I woke up writing my weekly script for the WP minute and I was getting all of the acquisition news in there.[00:00:43] I was getting all of the liquid web and learn dash and what WooCommerce was up to and I was ready to send it to my executive producer and I looked on Twitter one last time. And there you were saying that Sandhills was acquired. My awesome[00:00:59] Pippin: motive. Sorry to screw up your, uh, your scheduling plan.[00:01:04] Matt: I had a donut in my mouth and I'm trying to type in like, oh my God, what's happening.[00:01:08] I was real newsroom, uh, breaking moments here. First of all. Congratulations. Thank you. Um, at the top of this episode, what I want people to do is an, a link this in the show notes is please. For the love of all that is holy. If there's anything you do with what I say here at the med report, read the blog post on Sandhills dev.com that Pippin wrote about the breakdown, phenomenal piece, one of your best, the best that you have written, uh, you know, uh, to, to bookend this, this, this book, this chapter of your life.[00:01:49] Uh, you know, it's, it's, it's actually an emotional thing for me. I don't have a question straight away. It's an emotional thing for me. I feel like I've been part of this journey with you. Have you felt that same vibe from others in the WordPress?[00:02:02] Pippin: You know this entire morning, um, when we publish the, the announcement that all of the WordPress products were joining automotive and that after a transition period that I'm retiring from WordPress, um, and moving onto some other things, uh, it has been pretty much a constant stream of messages from.[00:02:25] Friends colleagues, people that we've met once or twice at word camps and, and so many friends. And, um, from over the years, just, you know, saying hi, saying congrats, mentioning, you know, something about, you know, what we did together. You know, there's so much. People that we have worked with over the years and that I've had the amazing opportunity to get to know.[00:02:51] Um, so yeah, it was it's, it's been a pretty wild ride and a journey and hearing how many different people, um, have been impacted by the work that we've done over the last 10 years is an amazing way to, um, you know, maybe conclude this part of it.[00:03:14] Matt: They're in my, in the WP minute, uh, script that I wrote today, I said that you are your Sandhills and you specifically are either one of the most respected.[00:03:30] Product companies in the WordPress space, if not the most respected, uh, WordPress plugin company in the space. There's yeah. There's such a deep connection that I think a lot of people share this. It's what makes WordPress special, I guess, is because we all get, so the reason why we're all so emotional about it, or at least I know I am is because we all get so connected with one another.[00:03:51] We want to see each other when we want to see the software do well. I'm retiring from work. I was, I just ran to grab a coffee before we hit record. And I was thinking about some of the questions that I was going to ask you. This is probably a pretty blunt question to ask, but there's the side balconies of the world.[00:04:13] And then there's you and me, right? How do you frame yourself to be able to say, okay, I'm retiring with WordPress from WordPress. I don't even think the word retire is. In vocabulary. What do you think makes the entrepreneur your yourself as an entrepreneur versus SIADH maybe so different and has that played a role into making this decision?[00:04:40] In other words, we're world domination,[00:04:43] Pippin: really? So it absolutely played a role. You know, one of the, one of the most challenging parts of, of this type of transition is we have this, this huge history of, of, of customers, of our team, of our products that, you know, those don't just turn off those don't just suddenly go away because I'm moving on to other things.[00:05:11] What we have to try really, really hard to do. I spent an enormous amount of time on over this last summer is finding the best avenue for those to carry on for the products to carry on for the customers to continue to be supported better than we were ever able to do. And, you know, finding the right fit that ensures that that will happen.[00:05:34] Truthfully requires someone like CYA, you know, SIADH is extremely laser-focus. And driven for his mission of helping small businesses. And he, his, you know, the first thing when, when he, and I started talking about this in depth over the summer, one of the first things that I, I asked him is, you know, what are you, what are you going to do?[00:05:58] And what is the time, um, you know, do you plan to continue working on these and building these for years to come quick answer was, yeah, for at least this next 60 years, uh,[00:06:12] You know, that is something that is a huge amount of reassurance for someone in my position that is, you know, knows that it's time to move on to something else, but also, you know, agonizes over the details of how do we ensure that the customers and the team and the products are taken care of and, you know, knowing that he is committed to the long-term future, um, is extremely important to me.[00:06:36] Um, You know, I, I recognize a couple of years ago that while I have had an amazing time and I absolutely loved the last decade, I'm not ready to keep doing it for another decade, you know, I need to do something else. Um, so[00:06:56] Matt: yeah. I mean, it takes a lot of courage to admit that you've always been one, that's been transparent with your posts and, you know, income reports and all this stuff with, with the product and the services side of the product services side of things.[00:07:08] Uh, but to sort of put your entrepreneurship. Scars, you know, in front of everyone. Right? Cause I know what it's like to run a business at a very much smaller scale than obviously you, you and I had spent some time in a mastermind years ago where we were just banging heads with things that were just so uninteresting, probably to both of us, like talking about taxes and like when VAT came out and you're like, good, I don't want any of this.[00:07:36] I didn't choose to be the janitor and the tax guy doing this stuff. It's not fun. I just want to code and. You stumbled onto the success that you had, and it is, it's a totally different weight. And I think a lot of people are jaded in this space. Sometimes myself included saying he's got everything he wants and needs right in front of him with this busy.[00:08:00] But sometimes it's not what you want. And, and what you wrote in this piece. Uh, again, please read this people about family, your father, your grandfather has a deep connection to me because I started a business with my father. He started a business with his father and it's this lineage that has, you know, gone on.[00:08:20] So, I mean, it really hits home with me. But I think a lot of people just want you to keep going. And sometimes it's, it's not what you, what you want. And, uh, again, no real question here just like applauding you to,[00:08:32] Pippin: you know, the thing that I think so often people don't realize or think about enough until they find themselves in that position.[00:08:40] Is any, anybody who is, is heading a team or a company. When they no longer have the passion for it or the drive, or maybe not that their passion for it has gone away, but maybe passion for something else has eclipsed. It is the longer that they stay in that seat, the more disservice they are going to do to their customers and their team and all of the people that they work with in some capacity or other, you know, anybody who leads a ship needs to be the best of themselves.[00:09:16] As much of a time as they possibly can. Um, because that's the only way that you can do your absolute best to take care of, of your team, of your customers and of your business. And when you are no longer your best in that seat, the best thing you can probably do, if you can, if you know that that is a permanent thing and not just a transitory.[00:09:40] It's put someone else in that seat. Uh, it's hard to do, and it's really, probably even harder to admit to yourself when you reach that point. But if you don't, you know, that that's what causes amazing things to decline over time. That's what causes businesses to slowly fail and, and start to suffer is when, you know, obviously there's other factors too, then, you know, there's other things that can cause somebody to go downhill.[00:10:03] But when, when the captain of the ship is, is no longer. Wanting to be there, no matter what their level of dedication, you know, it hasn't been.[00:10:12] Matt: Yeah. How does that unfold internally at, or how did it unfold internally at Sandhills? Like when you got the gut feeling, did you gut check and, uh, you know, talk to the, the, the top brass at, I dunno, what, what you, what you title them, but do you talk to the top brass and say, I got this feeling.[00:10:31] What do you all think before. Dispersed[00:10:33] Pippin: everywhere for this one. It, um, it unfolded in a couple of ways. So first, uh, you know, a much longer string of events is I'll say that it first started to happen years ago for me, which was basically the day that I, you know, one day I recognized I had hired myself out of it.[00:10:54] 'cause I had, you know, we had, we had grown the team. We had hired, we had grown the dev development team, the support team, the marketing team, even the leadership team. And I re realized that like, I don't, everything that I did, everything that I used to do that I was passionate about is now somebody else's responsibility.[00:11:13] So that happened years ago. Uh, and that was probably one of the first periods where I started to like really recognize that, you know, I don't know that being a CEO is. What I desire to be in the long-term future. I just want to write code again. I spent the next few years trying to get back into code and it, it never happened for one reason or another.[00:11:36] There's lots of reasons. Um, you know, here, here and there, I would, I would dive back in and have a little bit of, of success building something for fun. Um, but like on a day-to-day basis, I never returned to being in the. And it, and that was where my, my true passion was. I loved writing code. I loved the, you know, just cranking something out and, you know, more or less building something from nothing.[00:11:58] It was so fun and magical. So that when realizing that that had happened, that, that transition where I was no longer doing that. Is the first step to what got us to today. And that was years ago, much more recently. Um, basically, uh, when my, my dad's health issues that I mentioned in the blog post popped up, that was when I, I think I really got serious with myself to admit that it was probably time.[00:12:31] Um, at that time I wrote out a message to my partners, um, and. Basically told them. I wrote, I wrote up this very, actually a very short message and it was just titled the exit is near and FYI. Here's basically the way that I'm feeling now. And I think I'm going to start having conversations. And, and that was, it was very, it was very brief, but then we, you know, we followed up and had a lot of in depth conversations as, as a partners group for the next several months.[00:13:05] And then, you know, I kept wavering. I kept going back and forth and, you know, deciding to, to sell something you've spent 10 years building isn't some, like, at least I don't maybe, maybe some people, it happens this way, but for me it was not like a light bulb moment. It was not this, you know, one day I just know, you know, okay, that's fine.[00:13:27] Let's do it. No, it wasn't that at all. It was, you know, it's this, this inkling, this feeling, this, this like weight in your stomach that says. I think it's time, but I'm a F I'm truthfully terrified of that commitment of that, you know, actually making that choice. So over, over a couple of months, you know, trying to figure out if that was the right move or not, I finally decided, you know what, I'm going to take a sabbatical.[00:13:54] I'm going to take three months off the entire store. I'm going to close slack, I'm going to close base camp. I'm going to close emails, disabled, all notifications. I'm going blackout mode for the next three months and see what happens that the, you know, our, our team was set up and so effective that, you know, I was able to do that.[00:14:17] Um, I was not necessary for the day-to-day operations. And so I knew one of two things was going to happen. Through that sabbatical either. I'm going to go out, get refreshed and decide, you know what? I love this. I want to keep going. Um, I'm back, I'm 100% committed and let's put the pedal to the let's hit the gas, or I'm going to know for sure that this is the right move.[00:14:44] Um, and obviously with today's new news that we announced, um, we know how that ended. I knew that it was the right move after I'd spent several months away from it. And you know, it just helped me realize that I'm ready for this.[00:14:59] Matt: Yeah. I mean, and again, I've known you for awhile. A lot of people have known you for awhile, but if you haven't known PIP in, um, You know, just all like the moments at word camps, replaying in my head with like sitting with you and you sitting with your team and just like whatever diving into code features, new product announcements.[00:15:18] How are you going to market this? How are you going to grow the team the whole, how do I get a great team chemistry? Like your. Like the painting that I have of you over your time in this space has never been like, how do I build this thing to sell it? Right. And over the years I've seen which I guess, like, I don't fault anybody anymore.[00:15:35] I used to have like really strong opinions on it, but now people want to build a business and sell it, whatever, Hey, that's just another way of going about it. Like you're building it to sell it, to acquire it. And it's all strategically done. Thumbs up, Hey, that's your way of doing it. Um, you know, and, and just seeing the way that you've done over the years, you know, knowing that this was, this wasn't the intention, although as you highlight, it was[00:15:57] Pippin: a reality that was known to have a strong likelihood of happening,[00:16:01] Matt: right?[00:16:01] Yeah. There's a, there's a point in the, um, in the blog post where you say every business owner knows or will eventually learn that there are three possible fates for their. One one day it'll be passed on to someone else perhaps whose family inheritance, uh, to it's solely or rapidly decline at some point, uh, be shut down entirely three.[00:16:22] It'll be sold to a new owner, uh, for one reason or another. I want to just shift gears a little bit in the conversation. Get a little bit more like strategic businessy, uh, on number two, uh, it'll slowly or rapidly decline at some point be shut down entirely. Um, before we got on, I was talking to somebody else.[00:16:39] Who's going to be writing up a piece on the business of WordPress space. They asked me a couple of questions about what I think about this and why acquisition is so hot right now. Um, I think that there are a lot of mature businesses like yourself, or like Sandhills, where you get to a certain point where, Hey, it's successful.[00:16:57] It's good, but you hit this plateau. And in order to get to the next step, the next stage. You have to almost build a whole other business model or hold a product whole or business. It's not just, Hey, two X, my effort now it's like 50 X my effort to get to that next point strategically that did that have a, a role in this.[00:17:20] And then we'll talk about awesome motive and how I feel like you slot into that, that suite of services. But was that a thing for you?[00:17:26] Pippin: Oh, absolutely. Um, you know, like any, any business that has been going for. Uh, while, you know, and, and at this point we were, uh, almost 10 years old. Um, the sandals development as a, as a company, as a brand is eight years old.[00:17:41] But the products, you know, it's been, I think, 10 years since we launched EDD, um, or close to it, um, you know, what, what used to work, what works when you're really, really small and you're new and you're growing. It's not the same thing that works today. You know, when, once you reset maturity point, um, it's a totally different set of challenges.[00:18:05] Um, and the consequences for getting your approaches wrong are a lot more significant. Um, you know, w at our peak, we were a team of 28 people, you know, if we, if we screw up and we do. Aim for the future properly. And we don't manage our growth and we don't recognize where our pain points are. You know, the consequences of that are a lot more significant than when, you know, it's just two or three people that are, you know, mostly just late night keyboard hacking and having a good time doing it and, you know, have a little bit of success with it.[00:18:41] Yeah. So, you know, when I said that when I, when I went on a sabbatical, I knew one of two things was going to happen. And one of those possibilities was that we were going, I was going to come back refreshed and ready to just hit the gas. We have definitely been at that stage for the last couple of years where we were trying to figure out how do we hit the gas?[00:19:02] You know, we're, we're still doing good. We're still comfortable, but the signs are there, that what we're doing. Is not going to sustain us for the next 10 years or even the next five years. There are, there are changes that we're going to have to make. Um, you know, we didn't, we ended up going through this process with automotive before we really had to dive into what those changes were going to be.[00:19:27] And so, you know, I honestly, I can't tell you what they are cause I, cause I don't. Um, but we knew that we were going to have to adapt our approaches and adapt our strategies and adjust, um, and do things in a different, in at least some form of different ways. Um, because it wasn't going to be enough to get us through the next five years.[00:19:46] Matt: I think a lot of successful. And this is, and again, these are just my opinion and obviously happy to hear yours, which just, you just hinted that really. But, you know, you get to a certain point where it's like, Like, if you looked at EDD or your suite of prod products, let's say affiliate EDD. So you have like the affiliate side of e-commerce you have e-commerce, but then it's like, okay, what does everybody want?[00:20:10] You know, with e-commerce is, I don't know, maybe like the hot thing of, uh, customizing checkouts or lead gen or all of this stuff. And it's like, man, That's like another 10 years, right. To like, think about how to build that, like the thought process on how to succeed with that. Yeah, man, it takes so much time and money, um, to really get to that.[00:20:34] So, and I[00:20:35] Pippin: thought a very careful planning. Yeah. I had[00:20:37] Matt: a lot of planning. It's. It's not like the concept of cowboy coding in the early days where it's just like, yeah, just throw another feature and see what happens when you say throw another feature. It impacts 28 employees that you're responsible for tens of thousands.[00:20:52] I'd imagine customers that you have, and it's not just as flip, flip of a switch. That is, is that easy to just change? Oh, that feature wasn't good. Let's pull it back out. Like no, maybe nobody will notice. Oh no, it doesn't work that way. Uh, it's very hard. Uh, I want to talk about finding a suitor for the company.[00:21:11] Now I know how SIADH found you because quite literally, I was at a word camp where I think SIADH was walking around, asking if anyone was for sale. This was like five, six years ago. And I think he would literally walk around, Hey, you want to sell? Hey, you want to sell? Hey, you want to sell? So I know he's got into your ear years ago.[00:21:31] I wrote a blog post back in February, 2020, where I predicted they would buy e-commerce. And I had a discussion with somebody privately that they would probably look to EDD to sell, to, to acquire. Did you look at anybody else? Did you have those conversations and what was[00:21:45] Pippin: that like? So when I first announced, uh, to my partners team, that I felt it was time for me to, to find an exit, uh, immediately after that.[00:21:58] I started reaching out and having conversations with people. Um, and I talked to quite a few. Um, I had. Uh, and I, I mentioned this a little bit in the, in the blog posts, but there were a couple, there are some requirements that I really needed to have met. Um, and so as I, as I started to reach out to, you know, people that I thought might, might be interested, I had a, I had a list of, you know, maybe 10, 10 companies or individuals that I felt.[00:22:29] Would fulfill the requirements that I needed. So number one, that, you know, obviously they had to be capable of doing it. Um, and, and both, you know, both from a finances perspective, but also from, you know, their ability to carry on what we had built. You know, I had no interest in. You know, selling, selling this to a private equity group that, or venture funded group that their goal is just to, you know, cash cow and kill and shut it down.[00:22:56] No interest whatsoever. So I had, I had a few requirements. The, I had to trust and know that their ability. Was there to carry on what we built to. They had to take all of the products. Um, I was not interested in piecemealing, the suite of products that we've built. We have a lot of overlap between our products, between the team that works on the products, um, and our customer base.[00:23:25] I did not want to, you know, send one, one, place one to another one to another, and then try to figure out, okay, what goes there? What goes there? What goes there? That just sounded like a disastrous nightmare that wasn't going to end well for anyone except maybe myself, maybe. So they had to take the whole suite of products.[00:23:43] They had to take the whole team, you know, no acquisition is perfect. No transition is perfect, but I needed them to commit, to taking the whole team, be willing to take everybody, you know, if somebody didn't want to go over, that was, that was okay. That was understandable. But they needed to have that commitment from day one.[00:24:00] If we're taking this as a complete package, um, and. You know that as we, as we had those requirements, um, it, it, we, it, it narrowed down our candidates list, if you will, um, pretty quickly, um, because for one, you know, we'd go in, we'd have a conversation and then somebody would be like, this is great. I really love this stuff.[00:24:24] But honestly, I only want to feel like it'd be cool. Thanks for your time. Maybe I'll circle back to you if you know, if something else doesn't work out and we repeated that quite a few times, uh, CYA. And I have known each other for a long time, uh, actually fun stories at site. And I have had conversations in the past, um, specifically around EDD.[00:24:45] Um, and I turned them down early on and that was several years ago. Um, so it's kinda fun to come full circle now, but with when, when I approached SIADH, um, and I, I told him very bluntly said, are you interested having a conference? If the answer is yes, here's my four main requirements. And if the answer to any one of those is no thanks.[00:25:09] Um, let's not waste each other's time and it was immediately. Yes. Um, so he, he was very, very interested and was immediately happy and will in knew that he wanted to meet all of those requirements.[00:25:22] Matt: Yeah. I mean, I could see, I could, I could definitely see like the negotiation room where like you're both in the room and then SIADH leaves and his lawyers come and you're like, Hey, we say, Hey, where are you going?[00:25:32] Like you leaving, are you staying up, stay around for this conversation. How long did that process take? Was it months Fido two months. But[00:25:39] Pippin: so, um, it, it's, it's funny the way that you characterize it, because while like, I think that's probably how a lot of people expected negotiations with sign to go.[00:25:48] Honestly, that couldn't be further from the truth. Um, it's when, when you negotiate with SIADH, when you sit down and have a conversation with him, it's a very one-on-one candid conversation. We hopped on a lot of zoom calls and we chatted face to face, and I never once negotiated with the attorneys or anything.[00:26:06] You know, it's always cited is extremely personable actually. Um, and he and I have always had a really good relationship. And so we were able to be very candid with each other and, you know, share what we, what we need. What we wanted, what our, what our desired outcomes were and what our challenges were. Um, and then, you know, when an issue was raised, um, you know, whatever it was, we addressed it and we worked through it.[00:26:30] Um, it was, uh, it was a wonderful experience. Honestly, I would, I would repeat the process with SIADH again in a heartbeat. Yeah.[00:26:40] Matt: Uh, we, uh, you know, Matt report listener, you can look forward to a, uh, interview with Saya next week. He's a little. This week. I don't know why he does things on his plate, but we are going to S we are scheduled for an interview next week.[00:26:53] So look forward to that PIP and wrapping up, wrapping up here. Um, yeah. So the hinting at the size of the deal, I won't directly ask you the questions. I mean, you are retiring. Life is probably pretty good for at least the next couple of years. Yes, no, we'll be, we'll[00:27:12] Pippin: be. Okay.[00:27:14] Matt: Uh,[00:27:14] Pippin: we are plenty to put our focus on you.[00:27:17] Matt: I like in the blog post, uh, you sort of say, uh, in the section, what's next for Pippin, uh, after finishing the transition period with automotive, I'll retire from WordPress, then put my focus into spending time with family nature conservation efforts, which I know you've been big on even years ago. I remember you talking about some of the stuff you were doing in Kansas, uh, in Sandhills brewing.[00:27:40] Listen, you, I like how you just threw that in there, kind of the Sandhills, really. But if anybody who does, like, I follow you on Instagram, right. For Sandhills brewing. And I remember it's this like, Hey guys, like on our mastermind calls, check out these bottles I made. Right. And it's just like, you know, You got like a six pack and like I made these bottles and then like our next call, you were in like your tub in the bathroom.[00:28:01] Like, look at my tub full of beer. And then it was, Hey guys. Uh, I got so many crates in my basement. Like I have to get like a rental store. And then now, like Instagram, you have people working for you. I see the, you know, the Instagram models holding the beer there's food. There's build-outs, that's like a whole, like you're not retiring from businessman.[00:28:19] You get a whole.[00:28:20] Pippin: Other big things. It's a pretty, pretty hefty operation at this point.[00:28:24] Matt: I mean, that's going to probably still take up a lot of your time, I'd imagine. And you run that with your brother.[00:28:29] Pippin: I do. Yes. Uh, my, my twin brother and one other business partner. Um, so we, we built two different locations.[00:28:36] Uh, my brother and I live about three hours apart and, uh, we, we really wanted to build this brewery together. Uh, and then we realized like, well, I'm not going to move and you're not. So obviously the next best thing is we build, do locations. Let's do it.[00:28:53] Oh, COVID tool is a interesting monkey wrench. You know, all of them. Everything about COVID aside. I will tell like the, the health and the, the stupid politics around it and all of the worries and the concerns and the financial sides I was telling you that that is one of the most interesting business challenges I have ever gone through is trying to run a hospitality business during a global pandemic.[00:29:16] I have no interest in repeating it. But it is something that I think has been a very, very valuable experience because of how many different things it taught us. You know, if you want to see a great like years from now, we're going to go back and look. At businesses that, that survived businesses, that failed businesses, that thrived and businesses that you know, everything in between.[00:29:43] And we're going to have so much valuable learning about building resiliency and flexibility, and like the ability to pivot in businesses, because that was what, you know, March, 2020 was like, that's when, when that happened. Your businesses that succeeded and made it through were those that had some level of financial resilience because do the hit the hits to the hospitality industry was brutal to had the flexibility and the willingness to change.[00:30:20] And then, and three, just the, the wherewithal to. Chug on and no pun intended, but like seriously, like that was a drag. That was probably the hardest thing that I've ever done in business was surviving COVID as a hospitality business. Um, and, uh, yeah, there's, there's gonna be so much to learn from it in the years to come, uh, as we, you know, are able to take steps further back and reflect on it.[00:30:50] Matt: Yeah, man. Uh, yeah, even, I mean, congrats on that. You know, as somebody who. Again, has been in a S has seen a small, uh, portion of your experience growing a business. When I see these things, when I see like the success of like, where you're going with that brewery, like as fast as it happened, I felt pretty fast to me.[00:31:11] I'm sure it felt, I dunno, maybe fast to you, but yeah, it depends on the day I looked at that. I was like, man. Yeah. This, dude's not long for WordPress, because like I know like, man, if I could just give up everything, I would just go cut people's grass and just be like, there's no worries about the colors I'm picking for you.[00:31:28] There's no worries about like sound audio quality. I just go cut your grass. You just tell me where to cut the grass. And like, that's what I would do for the rest of my life. If it could sustain, uh,[00:31:37] Pippin: you know, three kids you're years ago when, when my brother and I. Well, we're getting ready to commit to building this brewery.[00:31:45] Um, he, he said something to me. I think we were just sitting down late at night. One time. He was like, you know what? I realized why I liked beer and he wasn't talking about the why he likes drinking it or making it, it was why it likes the business of beer, you know, in the software world, we get this opportunity to work with and keep my, my brother runs a software company, 3d animation, right?[00:32:05] Yeah. Uh, so, you know, we get this opportunity to work with. Amazing customers and amazing people. But do you know what the truth is? Like the only time that we actually get to talk to customers, unless we, except the outreach that we do do with them is when there's a problem at the end of the day, all I am is a problem solver.[00:32:27] People bring me problems. Good, bad, enormous, small. It doesn't matter, but I just, I solve problems. You know, like if you've ever heard somebody describe themselves as, you know, like a code janitor or something like that. Like I was not for the longest time that my, my role as, uh, as the CEO of this company was basically to be a janitor, you know, because at the end of the day, everything that comes to me is typically a problem.[00:32:52] I'm kind of tired of solving problems. So the beautiful thing about. Do you know what happens? People come to celebrate. People are happy to see you. You know, when you work customer support, most of the time, people aren't happy to talk to you. People are doing so begrudgingly because there is a problem and they want, and you have the ability to fix their problem.[00:33:14] But with, with beer, people come to celebrate, they're happy to see you. They're thrilled to be in your space, you know? Yes. There's the, there's some darker sides to it. They come to more and they come when they're sad or upset. But in general, you, you are a bearer of good news and they're there because they want to be there.[00:33:33] Um, and that is a very interesting, like psychological difference in the industries. Uh, And it was so refreshing. Yeah. Yeah.[00:33:42] Matt: I can imagine. And look, if I had beer in front of me right now, I would raise a toast to you and everything early in the morning. Well, you know, it's never too early when you're selling beer.[00:33:53] Um, I'd raise a toast. To you and everything that you've done over the years, uh, you know, we hopped on this call last minute. I feel like I was rambling with some of these questions as a seasoned podcaster, but I feel like I'm just trying to hold onto the final threads of my Pippin in the WordPress world.[00:34:10] Um, like, like the Sopranos ending and just watching that last episode, like, I can't believe it's over. Uh, w will you show up at other WordPress events and do you have any final statements for the WordPress community?[00:34:22] Pippin: It's been an amazing journey. Um, you know, my, my current intentions at this point are, you know, truthfully to see what happens.[00:34:33] I don't have any short-term plans to continue working in WordPress, but I don't know what the future is going to hold. Uh, My, my goal and my hope is that sometime in the future, be it in six months in nine months, in 10 years, the itch to code again will strike and I'll build something completely for fun.[00:34:55] Uh, and it might be a WordPress. It might be something totally unrelated. Um, but if it does then, you know, I'm, I'm looking forward to that. Um, so truthfully, I, I don't know, uh, it's been work. WordPress has. Been a wonderfully weird world. And, uh, some of my best memories, the best people I've ever met are from WordPress.[00:35:20] Um, it's given me the opportunity to travel around the world and visit so many amazing places and see, and meet people from all of them. Uh, I, I realized something a few years ago. That was really pretty cool. Is that because of WordPress and because of what this. Community has made possible. I think I know somebody in probably every major city of this world, you know, I may not realize they're there, but I think it's pretty darn close because of just the connections over the last 10 years that have been made.[00:35:58] And that's amazing. And so fricking cool. Um, so you know, this might be the, you know, the end of my WordPress experience, uh, And I will miss it. I will, but I'm happy to end it on a high note where I know my team, the customers and the products are an exceptionally good hands. You know, the truthfully the future for them has, has never been brighter.[00:36:32] And, uh, I'm really looking forward to watching what they do.[00:36:36] Matt: Yeah, absolutely. Bravo to you, sir. Thanks again for everything. Uh, Twitter, I guess now is probably the best place or do you know anyone? You don't really want to talk to people anymore? Stay away from me. I'm come[00:36:46] Pippin: buy some beer, email me, uh, you know, my Twitter account is still active.[00:36:51] But, uh, I, I'm not very active on Twitter. I was very active today for the first time in months and months and months. Uh, but so contact me via email. Um, it's pippin@sandhillsdev.com. Uh, you can find me@sandozdev.com. That is that's still my place. Um, and, or you can find me at my personal website.[00:37:09] Matt: Fantastic everyone else.[00:37:10] matterport.com airport.com/subscribe. Don't forget to miss. Don't forget to miss. No, don't forget to not miss your, your weekly dose of WordPress news. over@thewpminute.com. Support the show by buying me a coffee. Buy me a coffee.com/matt report. Thanks everyone for listening. Thank you again, Pippin. And for the last time, please read the blog post, which will be, uh, linked up in the show notes.[00:37:33] Fantastic PR. To the saga that is Pippin Williamson in the WordPress world. Thanks everybody for listening. And we'll see you in the next day,[00:37:42] Pippin: everyone. And thank you. Ma'am. ★ Support this podcast ★

We’ve all seen it — maybe some of us have even fallen for the trick — you’re on an ecommerce site and a big “Wheel of Savings” pops up. This innocent-seeming discount offer, though, isn’t what it seems, and it’s doing damage to the end-user spinning the wheel, and the site the wheel pops up on. The world of malvertising and browser extensions has been causing headaches in the ecommerce world for years and brands are constantly looking for ways to fight back and regain control of their websites. Matt Gillis is helping with that mission. Matt is the CEO of clean.io, which offers real-time protection against malicious actors and code for some of the most-trafficked websites in the world. On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, Matt takes us through some of the methods bad actors are using to install malicious code on ecommerce sites, and he gets into the nitty gritty of why browser extensions like Honey and Wikibuy are hurting brand bottom lines, and why those extensions are making marketing attribution nearly impossible. But he also offers some solutions, too, so that ecommerce brands can finally win back control of the user experience. Enjoy this episode!Main Takeaways:Good Guy or Bad Guy?: Traditionally, malvertising is done by bad actors who infiltrate websites and take over through ads. But in the world of ecommerce, the bad actors are actually manifesting in the form of Fortune 100 companies that profit from website extensions like Honey and Wikibuy, which disrupt the user experience of the customer on the original ecommerce site. Solving that problem is the challenge for ecommerce brands that want to take back control.Sneakily Effective: In the malvertising world, the bad actors are at the top of the marketing game. They can achieve a 100% click-through rate at little to no cost because they are using sly, untraceable strategies. Targeting and eliminating those malvertisers is critical in order to level the playing field for ecommerce marketers to have success moving forward.Last Line of Defense: Publishing platforms hold most of the responsibility for the end-user experience. Everybody has a role to play in minimizing the risk of malicious buyers or advertisers, but ultimately, the publisher is the last line of defense against malvertising moving into the user experience, and they should be held accountable.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:Hey everyone. And welcome back to Up Next In Commerce. This is your host, Stephanie Postles co-founder at mission.org. Today on the show we have Matt Gillis, the CEO at clean.io. Matt, welcome.Matt:Stephanie, thanks for having me. I'm excited.Stephanie:I am very excited to have you here. We were just talking about how cool your background is, and I think that's actually kind of a fun place to start of where you're at in the world. And tell me a bit about your background.Matt:Yeah. Hey, so I'm in Baltimore and we actually just took possession of this office in February, right before the pandemic. And so the irony is I've been here every day since the pandemic started pretty much.Stephanie:By yourself?Matt:But I'm by myself. So we have 4,000 square feet. We just did the mural right before the pandemic and no one on our team has been able to experience it pretty much. But yeah, cybersecurity company located in Baltimore, we're about 45 people, I guess you could say solving this problem of untrusted and malicious JavaScript that is ruining user experiences in revenue across the internet. That's us in a nutshell.Stephanie:Cool. Well, I am really excited to dive further into clean.io. Before we do that though, I was hoping you can kind of go through your background because I saw you've worked at places like AOL, you've been in publishing. You've been in ad space. Tell me a bit about what you did before you came to clean.io.Matt:So full disclosure, I'm old. And so I've been around a little bit. I've had some fun. But yeah, I think key things I've spent probably the last 20-ish or so years in a couple of different capacities. Right out of university, I started in the mobile industry and mobile at that time was just making phone calls, that's it. There wasn't even texting then.Matt:In fact, my job back in those days was I would stand on a golf course at a golf tournament and let people make free phone calls because that was the cool thing to do then. No one had cell phones and if they did, they were like those brick ones. You remember those ones that you couldn't fit in your pocket?Stephanie:Yeah. And you were the cool guy like, "I've got access to an awesome phone, anyone want in?"Matt:Yeah. And listen, men and women would come up to me and they'd be like, "Can I call back and check and see if I have any messages?" And so that was the cool thing to do then. I know it sounds so crazy that was a thing at some point, but yeah. So I worked at mobile operators in the early stages of my career.Matt:So I worked at Bell Mobility in Toronto, Canada. I'm from Toronto. And then I moved down here to work at Verizon Wireless. And at the end of my tenure at Bell Mobility and my tenure at Verizon, I was focused on some of the services that you live by on your cell phone today. So this was in kind of late '99 and then the early 2000s of things like video on demand on your phone, playing games on your phone, downloading ringtones on your phone, I'm sure you did that.Stephanie:Oh, ringtones, yeah [inaudible].Matt:They were, obviously a huge business at some point.Stephanie:Now if my phone rings I'm like, "Stop it, what are you doing? Who's calling me? Don't call me, text me."Matt:Put it on mute. Yes, exactly. So I was kind of part of the foundational days of things that you would do with your phone, before the iPhone. And then I went and took a swing at being an entrepreneur and joined a little small video game company. Our biggest game was Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? We did a lot of TV game shows. So we did, Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? And things like that.Matt:So I kind of walked the mile as a publisher for a while and then Capcom, which is the Japanese video game company acquired us. So I ran their publishing business for a few years and I got to experience what it's like to be a publisher and how hard it is to make money.Matt:And that was kind of in those early days of the iPhone where I'd say to people, "You'll go and spend $5 on this latte, but you won't pay $5 for unlimited use of a game over a period of time." And this is back in 2008, 2009. And so we had a real struggle and people weren't wanting to pay for our games. They want them free and free became kind of the thing on the iPhone.Matt:And so recognizing that struggle, I actually joined this company called Millennial Media, which was one of the earliest mobile ads platforms for app developers, helping app developers make money with ads. Some of our biggest customers at the time were like Words with Friends, if you've played Words with Friends-Stephanie:Yes, I have.Matt:... ads in every game. So we were kind of one of the foundational tech partners with folks like Words with Friends and various other games across the internet and apps. Did that for eight years through an acquisition with Verizon and AOL. And then we acquired Yahoo. So I ran the publisher platforms business at the combined entity of those companies, which was awesome.Matt:And one of the biggest problems in my time over that period was this thing called malicious ads, or malvertising as they call it. You probably are familiar with when you're scrolling away on your phone and all of a sudden it redirects you and says, congratulations, you won an Amazon gift card. And you're like, "I didn't click anything." Or spin the wheel for your chance.Stephanie:Yeah. I did that once I fell for it. I was like, "Oh, I spun it." I couldn't help it.Matt:Never spin the wheel, Stephanie.Stephanie:I only did it once, but yeah, afterwards I'm like, "That was a bad call. Why did I do that?"Matt:Yeah. So it was a big problem in my past life. And there were a few folks that were solving this problem and two of them were folks that I had worked with at AOL. When I left, it was called Oath at the time, which is Verizon Media now.Matt:I went and had lunch with these guys and they told me that they were spinning up this company called Clean Creative and set to solve this problem of malvertising. And I didn't have a job and it was getting too cold to golf. And so I said, "Hey guys, can I be an intern?"Matt:And so I came and hung around for a couple of days a week. And I was like, "You guys are really onto something here because this was a massive problem in my prior life." And so I said, "Hey, can I have the keys?" And they obliged. And that's how I'm here, started as the CEO two years ago. And we've kind of been blowing it up ever since. That's awesome.Stephanie:Yeah, such a fun story. So what is your day to day look like now? And what's your best day in the office look like while you're there by yourself? Are you around skipping around bicycling around the big office? What is your days look like?Matt:I do pace and I get my steps in over there. Day-to-day, we're startup, so we're small. And so as any of your listeners would know at a startup you do everything, and you take the trash out and you sign big contracts, hopefully you raise money. You kind of do run the gamut. So it's a little bit of everything. If you've worked at a startup you know that generally speaking, there's epic highs and epic lows. And so you have those days where you are the king of the world and you and your team are high-fiving and celebrating. And that's a little different now because you got to do it all virtually.Matt:Part of being at a startup is you get that culture of everybody generally speaking, being in an office like this, but we're a widely distributed culture now. We were before the pandemic where we kind of had, I don't know, five or six or seven locations among all of our people, but now we have 40 locations. So it's just like any other gig except there's really no net underneath you. You're walking this tightrope and hopefully you get to the other side.Stephanie:Yes. I definitely feel that.Matt:It's fun though. Isn't that why you do it?Stephanie:I mean, yeah, it's definitely really fun. Other times you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm responsible for so many lives." And then other days it's like, "This is fun." So it's a good balance.Matt:Yeah. I mean, I won't lie. I had months of sleepless nights when we were raising money. We most recently raised our series A and we started raising it in March, right at the beginning of the pandemic. And yeah, all these people's jobs, for me, the pressure was on me to make sure that we could raise money and continue on this mission.Matt:The reality is, is the people behind the scenes are the ones that actually made my job easy because they're the ones that enabled me to go and tell the story of our massive revenue growth and our massive traction and our product market fit and all of that sort of stuff.Matt:Startups are hard, but there's a reason that many people once you leave the big company and you actually go and take your swing, that becomes the thing that you keep doing and doing and doing because you like having that euphoric feeling.Stephanie:Yeah. No, I definitely agree. And I mean, I think it's a good reminder too, as the CEO at any company to kind of get out of your way and hire a team that can support you and do things, but then let you do the higher level things like selling, raising money, such is a good point for, I think a lot of business owners who want to kind of stay attached to, "I've always been coding." Or, "I always did this part of the business." You need to step away and find people who can step in for you so you can go on to the next thing.Matt:Yeah, and focus on your strengths. Don't try and overcompensate and really... We did this thing called StrengthsFinder with our leadership team. And it was really about figuring out what are the strengths across this group of people that are practically leading the company. And you go, "Okay, well, I'm really good at this, this and this. And you're really good at this, this and this. Wow. We compliment each other. I should continue to keep doing this stuff. And boy, we should just let you handle all of this sort of stuff." So yeah, hire a diverse team and hire people that are way smarter than you and you'll be successful.Stephanie:So how have you seen the digital security landscape change? Maybe even over just the past year or two, what new things are popping up, what should e-commerce owners be aware of right now that maybe wasn't happening last year or two years ago?Matt:I would say that where we cut our teeth was in this malvertising space and what it is, is malicious JavaScript that's kind of being injected into the user experience through ads. And what we've seen is that the bad actors, the people that are doing it, are getting even more sophisticated over time. They have figured out how to get around the systems. They've figured out how to get around the checks and balances.Matt:And we kind of stumbled into this e-commerce world where we were protecting, we're protecting some of the biggest websites on the internet. There's seven million websites that run our code. Probably many of the websites that you go to everyday either to get your news or to read entertainment gossip, or that sort of stuff if you do.Stephanie:No.Matt:I'm not saying you do Stephanie, but we protect all of those sites; every single page view on those pages, we make sure that the user experience is protected and revenue's protected. And by the way, in that world, it's folks that I would say, delivering malicious JavaScript. What we started seeing in the e-commerce world is there's this whole phenomenon of what I would call untrusted JavaScript.Matt:Now in either case, the premise is you own your website. You should be able to control everything that executes on your website. You should be able to protect your user experience. You should be able to dictate your user experience because it's your website. On the malvertising world, what we saw happening was if folks had ads on their website, they had lost control of the user experience. They had lost control of revenue because any bad actor could just buy an ad and take over the user experience and get you to spin the wheel.Stephanie:Only once, but yes.Matt:Only once, but it happened. And so in the e-commerce world, what we've noticed is there's a lot of stuff happening on e-commerce sites, just like there is in any website that is without the permission or without the authorization of the person who owns the site. The biggest problem that we kind of dug in and gone to solve for is, if you ever heard of these things called Honey or Wikibuy?Stephanie:Yeah.Matt:So these are Chrome extension, Safari extensions, Firefox extensions. They sit resident on the user's device and Stephanie, when you're out shopping on your computer and you get to check out, Honey will pop up and say, "Hey, I've got coupons for you. Do you want them?" You as the user you're probably like, "Yeah, I'd love to get a discount. I'd love a better price, if I can get it without having to do any work." Honey does all the hard work for you.Matt:We think that's not really in the best interest of the merchants because they own their website and now someone is injecting code in and disrupting the user experience, disrupting your revenue. So just like it is in this malvertising world, the same phenomenon is happening over here. The difference is Honey is owned by PayPal. Wikibuy is owned by Capital One.Matt:So the folks that I would call "bad actors" in this world are actually fortune 100 companies. They're folks that you would expect to be able to trust. And what they're doing is they're actually injecting code in to disrupt the user experience and disrupt revenue. And so that's the problem that we've gone out and solved.Matt:We just launched our product that's called cleanCART. And what it is is it's a Shopify app and it gives Shopify merchants the ability to protect their carts at checkout and make sure that they can prevent this sort of code from disrupting user experiences in revenue. So it really is giving control of the websites back to the merchants.Stephanie:Oh, interesting. So when you implement that you just can't get coupons or are there other pieces that it kind of protects as well, or the user can't see coupons from a Honey or something, or are there other things that your app is also protecting against?Matt:So we're in, I would say the second inning of the baseball game. So early stages. We're really focused on to start is blocking the automation of these coupons. So we don't want to block you as a user going in and manually inserting the coupon. We think that's the intended use case. But what we think is unfair is that someone is standing beside you at checkout and handing you a mitt full of coupons and actually not even handing them to you, they're actually giving them and just scanning them all to make sure that they all have a chance to work.Matt:If you think about this analogy, the grocery store would never let someone come and stand beside the checkout and save you 30% off your grocery order while you're already ready to pay. And I think that's the phenomenon that we're trying to solve for in the earliest days, which is, let's prevent the automation from happening. Let's not prevent people from manually inserting coupons. Let's give control back to the merchants because it impacts them in so many different ways. Obviously, it impacts them from a revenue loss perspective.Matt:I talk to merchants every day. Many merchants are complaining that these injections are literally scraping and pulling 30% off of their cart value at checkout. So someone who had $100 cart, they go to checkout, Honey runs and it knocks their cart value from $100 to $70. That's kind of bad for the merchant, especially if that person was going to convert anyway.Matt:The other key thing is Honey and Wikibuy and these other discount extensions have made it really hard for merchants to have discounting strategies that they can track. And so what's happening is that promo codes are ending up in the wrong hands. It's creating an attribution nightmare for merchants where they think that this social media influencer or this Instagrammer, or this YouTuber is driving tons of sales and lo and behold, Honey has grabbed that coupon and is injecting it.Matt:And now every order that comes through where Honey was present on the page is applying that person's code. And so now the merchant not only has bad data that is going to ultimately drive their marketing decisions but now, they're also losing revenue and they're paying out affiliate fees to folks that generally didn't deserve that affiliate fee. So I think it's created a bit of a nightmare.Matt:And so, we felt this kind of pent up demand for this product. And that's exactly what's happened is that no one has solved it. We think we're first to market. And we think it's important that people are fighting for the merchants. There's been 10 years of growth in e-commerce over the last year. The pandemic driving a lot of that.Matt:And we think it's important that merchants really get control of their websites, get control of their margins, get control of their revenue and really get the right data to make the right data-based decisions of how they're going to run their marketing programs.Stephanie:Yes. I think that's a really cool story. You were just talking about how you were looking at a problem that people were complaining about, and then now you guys are like, "Well, let's solve it." Because I've read, I'm trying to think where this was, where they're talking about going to Reddit and looking at some of the threads of people talking about problems that keep occurring and occurring and how you could build businesses just based off Reddit threads. And you guys did that, just looking at problems with what merchants were struggling with. So a really cool example of how to build a business is look at all the problems that are going on and jump at solving it.Matt:Well, and I think the other key thing here is as you know is solving the problem, but also during that process of your hypothesis that you're going to develop of what you're trying to prove, it's you also need to prove that people pay for it. And that's, I think part of the foundation of what we've built here, obviously on the malvertising side, but also on the e-commerce side is it's a big enough problem. People need to protect user experiences.Matt:If you think about just in the internet in general, it's very expensive to create content. It's very expensive to drive traffic. And once you've done those two things, why would you leave it to chance that someone might come to your website and have a crappy user experience? Protect your user experience.Matt:It happened last week on the Harvard Crimson on the crimson.com where somebody was on Crimson and they got one of these redirect ads that took them to this landing page that said, "Hey, you're a Verizon customer click here and take the survey and answer these nine questions and you'll have a chance to win." And this user actually took to Twitter and said, "Hey @thecrimson, which is, I think their Twitter handle, you've got a crappy user experience. Why are you letting this happen?"Matt:I never even saw a reply from the Crimson. But when we did some investigation on what was going on, they don't even have protection on their website. So it almost feels irresponsible at this day and age to not be protecting your asset because your asset generally speaking, isn't your website, your asset is your users.Matt:And so protect your users, make them feel confident that when they come to your site, they're going to have a great experience. And so that's really what we've focused on is just delivering technology that solves a problem that people are willing to pay for. Because obviously without that, we don't have a business.Stephanie:So when thinking about like the Crimson example, that's all from a bad ad being run on their website, correct?Matt:Mm-hmm (affirmative).Stephanie:Someone was able to buy that ad unit have bad JavaScript, and then that's when they were sent to that Verizon survey. I'm I thinking about that, right?Matt:You're totally thinking about that right. And what's interesting about the thread is that when this woman went on to Twitter and said, "Hey, this is what happened. And here's a screenshot," there were a whole bunch of people that piled onto the thread of like, "Oh, here's what I think is happening." "Oh, you have a virus on your computer." Or, "Oh, you have a bad extension on your computer or whatever." Everybody had a hypothesis of what's happening.Matt:And so we actually went and captured the threat and reverse engineered it and said like, "Here's exactly what's happening." And yeah, it's all coming through ads in that case. And there's so many great things of the open programmatic ecosystem.Matt:So programmatic media being able to buy a single oppression at a time by single user real humans, real devices, real networks, like you know I'm having a one-to-one engagement with this person and in the malvertising world, that's a feeding ground for bad actors because they get to do the same thing.Matt:And quite frankly, they're better at it than any other advertiser out there because they're the ones who know how to pay 20 cents CPM and buy an ad and actually get 100% click-through as opposed to the rest of the world that's just hoping that they get a half a percent click-through rate. And so they figured out how to buy that ad, that ad renders on your device.Matt:And then usually it's like an onTouchEvent. So when you actually just touch the device, they put a transparent overlay on your device. And that turns into a click or they'll auto click something on your behalf, or however they decide to inject their technology. But yeah, it's as simple as that. And I think it's lucrative, otherwise-Stephanie:They wouldn't be doing it, yeah.Matt:What they do is they try to do it at the lowest possible level without getting caught. So if you think about sophisticated marketers, what do you do? Well, you pick the right users, you maybe frequency caps so that you don't lambaste them with ads. You want to hit them at the right time with the right message and all that sort of stuff.Matt:And so these bad actors have figured out how to very elegantly and in a sophisticated fashion, they'll hit you with that ad. But the reality is they'll probably frequency cap you to one so you can't reproduce the experience and that's how they evade getting caught in most cases.Stephanie:Yeah. Very interesting. I didn't understand the whole backend of how that works. I mean, I do spend a lot of time thinking about building incentives for advertisers because we build up our own ad networks to advertise our podcast and we bring on partners all the time.Stephanie:And it's really funny thinking through how to build incentives for especially newer advertisers when you might say something like, "Oh, we'll incentivize you based on a download." Then all of a sudden you're getting all these fake downloads. No, not downloads. We'll incentivize you based on consumption. Like, does someone listen to the episode? They wanted to hear it.Stephanie:And then you see instead of actually having good people come through and consume the episode, the advertiser will say, "Okay, I'll pay you to review the ad or review the podcast, which makes it show that you were consuming it because you had to for maybe a minute to then be able to review."Stephanie:And it's always interesting trying to figure out, I mean, and these people are not good actors maybe, I'm not really sure. But it's always very interesting thinking, how do you incentivize people to do the right thing and actually deliver and not try and always get around the rules and just meet a number which I'm sure a lot of the platforms deal with the same kind of thing, but-Matt:It's interesting you use the word incentivized, and that was a dirty word in the early days where most advertisers didn't feel that the word incentivize was a good user because they didn't truly have the intent to do the thing that you want because they were being paid or a bounty or whatever the thing is.Matt:I saw the evolution of incentivized in my mobile career where it became really hard to get people to consume video commercials, like 15, six second whatever that metric was. And in the games world, they figured out this thing and they actually rebranded it instead of calling it incentivized video, they actually called it rewarded video. And-Stephanie:I feel like that's a little more, I don't know.Matt:Well, listen, and so I talk about one of the apps that I love is this app called Candy Crush. And I've been playing candy crush for almost 10 years now, I think. And when's the last time you played the same game for 10 years? Like never?Stephanie:Yeah. That's impressive.Matt:But they've artfully integrated video into their app. And I think if you run out of lives, you can watch a 30 second spot that is unskippable. So you have to watch the whole thing. And then if you, do you get rewarded with that extra life or whatever it is, maybe a lollypop, I don't know. But yeah, so I think there's different ways to approach it. But you're right, usually when you figure out the bounty, everyone else figures out how to capitalize on the bounty.Matt:And I think the interesting thing with Honey and Wikibuy is they've figured out how to get paid for the bounty or get credit for the bounty when lo and behold, they didn't really do anything. All they did was they had code that was resident on the machine that allows them to kind of get credit for that user purchasing when I think it's questionable whether they had any influence on that.Stephanie:Yeah. I've kind of thought that too, when seeing different Instagrammers with their promo codes for e-commerce site. And I always thought like, "Oh, how does that attribution work?" Because I mean, she's sharing it here, but I'm sure it's very easy for someone who doesn't follow her to also find that code outside of a Honey, but just be like, send it to my friend, "Hey, use this code." They never even followed her and now, they've got 25% off or something. So it does seem like attribution can be tricky, even if someone's not using Honey. How do you think that world's changing right now to make it easier for merchants to track where their sales are actually coming from? It feels very messy.Matt:Oh, I agree. I think it's a total mess. That's why we focused on the automation because I think that's one of those low hanging fruit, but big problems. Honey will tell the world that they have 17 million or so users. I don't know if Wikibuy which is now called Capital One Shopping, I don't think they announced how many users they have. But what I can tell you is both of those companies are spending a tremendous amount of money acquiring new users.Matt:Every time I log into Twitter, usually the first ad that I get is from Honey. All throughout the Christmas season, the holiday season just recently Capital One which owns Wikibuy Capital One Shopping, they were running TV commercials for this product with Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta. So there's like a tremendous push for them to grow these user bases.Matt:In talking with merchants and we've got, I don't know, we've got maybe 25 merchants using our product right now. And we're in closed beta. That problem that you just mentioned, which is, "Hey, I worked with an Instagrammer and I gave them a code. And all of a sudden two days later, I've had a vitamin company tell me that story. I've had a sporting goods company tell me that story. I've had a toilet paper company tell me that story.Stephanie:They're using Instagrammers?Matt:They're using Instagrammers. They're using YouTubers. They're actually using podcasts as well.Stephanie:I mean, interesting to see how they're partnering on toilet paper.Matt:Because they're partnering for the audience on these podcasts and they're hoping that they can get that audience to find out about their product and again, then they're incentivizing them to come and become a customer. It's basically the same net story. The vitamin company told me they're like a supplement company. They partnered with one of the biggest triathletes in the world.Matt:Let's just say they had 50,000 or 100,000 followers, but you've got to imagine they're probably rabid followers. If you're into that, then that's probably the gold standard of who you would listen to. And that person did some blog posts and did some Instagram posts and posted their code and as soon as it happened, they saw a surge in sales attributed to that person.Matt:Now, the marketing person at the company was like, "Oh my gosh, we figured it out. We nailed this. We knew that people would be rabid about that person's content. We knew that person had so much influence to get people to come and buy." And then they're like, "Oh my God, it's Honey." Because literally they went from zero sales to 80% of their sales that had coupons was that person on Monday.Matt:I think it's a frustrating problem. And I think the sophisticated marketers have woken up and are like, "Man, we're bleeding money." One merchant told me that when they started kind of parsing out the attribution that Honey was costing them. They did about a million and a half in revenue online per month, so call it a $15 million business give or take. They believed that these promo code extensions were costing them about 150 grand a month, 10% their overall value.Stephanie:I mean, we just had a guest who they ranted about their hatred of Honey, I mean, even on the show. So I think it's maybe a couple episodes before maybe when yours is going to go out.Matt:Call me. We can help.Stephanie:Yeah, I'll send the link so you can hit him up.Matt:Absolutely.Stephanie:He was not a happy dude about Honey. But I guess when I think about promo codes, it kind of feels archaic to me. Maybe this is just a me thing, but it feels like where QR codes were where all of a sudden they're gone and you don't even think about them anymore. Promo codes kind of feel like that to me too of just, it feels like a manual old way of attributing things.Stephanie:How do you think about attribution when it comes to influencers and stuff or anyone, without having to use a code? Are you guys even thinking about a new way of doing things or do you hear of people trying new ways of attribution that isn't like I'm putting in a manual like Stephanie 20, to get my 20% off? Is there a new way of doing it?Matt:I mean, we're thinking through all those things. I think the challenge is specifically if you're using these one-to-many mediums. In a perfect world, I think you'd have a unique code for every user and so you'd have to authenticate. We'd know that that code went to you Stephanie and if you redeemed it, I would know that you actually bought something and you bought something because of this engagement that we had. I think in these one-to-many mediums it's, how else can you do it? And some of the challenges that the one-to-many mediums like think of YouTubers.Matt:One of the companies that we're working with has a problem where they have a very high dollar ticket item. Their item that they're selling is about 1,000 bucks. And obviously, if somebody grabs a code of 20% off that you're losing 200 bucks, it's a lot of money. Their problem was that they were doing YouTuber videos and they were publishing a code within the YouTube video to reach the audience. And for them, it was extreme sports, the audience that they were going after.Matt:Well, literally the next day, and I don't know if you know how Honey works. If you have a Honey on your machine, the very first thing that Honey does is it scrapes out anybody who manually puts a code in. So in order for Honey to be able to grab that code, it has to happen once where a real person saw the code and was motivated to go and type it in and buy.Matt:If that happened to me, if I got that code, I would go in and type it in. And if Honey were on my machine and then I hit okay, Honey will scrape that code out and now everybody who comes after me gets access to that code whether they saw that YouTube video or not.Matt:The problem for this company is spending a lot of money engaging with YouTubers and creating videos and obviously, doing the presentation layer of these offers. Well, once Honey gets a hold of the code... And what they've also found is that Honey and the other extensions, are not very merchant friendly. The relationship between Honey and these merchants is actually quite adversarial. And so it leaves them with no other option.Matt:I guess the two options: one, you just keep running your YouTube thing and you resign yourself that you're going to be paying out a 20% discount to everybody who comes and has Honey; which that stinks, that doesn't feel right or you need to reach out to the YouTuber. You need to recut the video. You need to recut the voiceover. You need to kill that code. You need to put a new code in. And so it's made this sort of marketing endeavor with YouTubers and Instagrammers and you name it very hard, because you're actually turning off codes.Matt:We saw one email which was interesting. I always say to people, let's remember we're all consumers too, you and I buy stuff on the internet, even though we're deeply entrenched in the businesses that we're running. I have Honey on my machine, so I can understand what that user behavior is, so that I can actually talk with merchants.Matt:One of the folks on our team bought a pair of shorts from one of these companies that advertises on Facebook and Instagram. And they were out of stock after he had ordered it, so they sent him an email. And they said, "Hey, listen, sorry you didn't have it but guess what, here's a code. You'll save X percent. But please, make sure you use it within the next 48 hours because Honey has been grabbing our codes and we're going to shut this code off."Matt:How can people market, if you constantly have to play whack-a-mole. And if you now think of the analogy, it's back to what we do in the malvertising side. If you aren't going to solve things with software, you're basically playing this long cat and mouse game that you won't win.Stephanie:I mean, that's why I think about merchants turning on and off codes.Matt:It's a nightmare.Stephanie:We were handing out swag and me just trying to... I had unique links that could work for more than one person and just thinking, "That could be tricky and go really bad." But I guess that's why I just think codes just feel, like I said, a little bit archaic. Why can't I just go to a YouTube video?Stephanie:I mean, the internet knows so much about me and where I'm at anyways. It should say, "Hey, Stephanie watched Matt's video where he was talking about this toilet paper." And then all of a sudden she's at our website, you can say, "Stephanie, a 20% coupon awaits you when you go here."Stephanie:And then when I get there it should know who I am and then be like, "Your coupons applied. And it will be applied for the next three days on this website or whatever, because I know where you've been and what you saw and where exactly you came from." Why can't it just work?Matt:I mean, I wish it was all that simple. Listen, we are taking obviously, technology solution to what we think is a longstanding and challenging problem. And in the malvertising world, the people in ad operations were literally playing whack-a-mole. Like, "Let's figure out where this bad ad came from." "Turn that demand source off." Or, "Turn that buyer off." And guess what, the bad actors, they just pop up again.Matt:And so we believe that, and I've seen and talked to merchants who are like, "Listen, here's how I solved the Honey problem." And they're like, "We actually created promo codes for 10% off, but the promo code was Honey is stealing your data."Matt:Because if you use Honey, you know that when Honey pops up it'll actually tell you the codes that it's implementing. They went on a mission to discredit and put the fear of God in their buyers that Honey was doing... They were like, "Honey is doing nefarious things with your data." And guess what, Honey D listed them as [inaudible].Stephanie:Well, there you go. Now, you know how to do it, I guess.Matt:The irony is, is that was three months ago that I talked to that merchant. And yesterday they cameback in and said, "Listen, we have a problem again."Stephanie:Honey added us again.Matt:No, this time they've got a Wikibuy problem. The problem is going to be never-ending, I think. Ultimately, we're hopefully going to give e-commerce companies the tools that they need to go out and be able to operate their business and focus their time on the things that really matter, in my mind, which is driving incremental revenue; not playing whack-a-mole with your promo codes and having to go recut YouTube videos. Hopefully, that's one of the big things that we help solve for.Stephanie:That's cool. I mean, I do like the idea of that one merchant you were mentioning where they said, "If you act within the next 48 hours or whatever, it'll only lasts this long." And I just had a guest yesterday who said that. I think it was either Burger King or McDonald's made it so if you're within 20 feet or something of a McDonald's they would send you a code and say, "You have five minutes to get to a burger King to get a free burger or something."Stephanie:And I'm like, "That's interesting." That's a good way to make people act quickly if you know something's expiring, I know I act a lot quicker. But I mean, of course, solve the problem that's number one. But I do think that's an interesting marketing tactic too.Matt:And make it measurable. I think that's the key thing is that... I often say, "What gets measured gets managed." And so hopefully, what we're doing is we're taking one of the things out of the equation that is making measurement really challenging for merchants. Again, using the triathlete example, yes, the marketer was high-fiving the rest of their team going, "We finally solved this." And then when they actually looked at the data they were like, "Damn it. I guess we got to go back to the drawing board."Stephanie:It's also just so tricky too, knowing how much of those people would have bought otherwise or not. So even looking and being like, wow, we have all this attributed to this one promo code and maybe it was because of Honey. But how many of those people would have bought if there wasn't some promo in there? It's just hard to know.Matt:We're solving that problem. We're giving merchants some deep analytics on exactly what's happening on their site, because we think there's a blind spot there where they don't know. For instance, how many users actually came to your site that actually had an injection capability? One of the extensions of Honey, Wikibuy, Piggy, Amazon Assistant, you name it. So we give them that lens.Matt:And then we give them the lens of, what were all the promo codes that they tried to inject? What was the most popular promo code? And stack rank those things and then going deeper down to conversion rate. And guess what, what we're seeing in these early days is that when you block Honey and Wikibuy at checkout, the vast majority of users actually still convert.Matt:And so that to me is the icing on the cake which is, guess what, you take control back of your website. You take control of your margins. You take control of your revenue. You now have the data you need to be able to go out and drive incremental sales. We think that's pretty powerful.Stephanie:I mean, that makes sense. I've heard a couple of times that also, discounts don't matter as much as you would think. I think they were talking about, they did a study between 10% off and 20% off. And actually, they were kind of the same when it came to consumer happiness. And what can be worse though, is if someone has the ability to go in and put a promo code in or something and then it doesn't work.Stephanie:I don't know if you remember those days of just going to the internet promo code for macys.com and trying out 10 different promo codes and all of them failing. I was way more unhappy then, than just not having one at all, just buying at full value.Matt:Let me tell you the opposite of that which is the worst-case scenario, in one of our merchants experience and that's why they're using our software. They're in the home interior space, so they do drapes and carpets and wallpaper and all that sort of stuff. And they were trying to build favor with interior designers because they wanted interior designers to know their site and know their stuff and all that sort of stuff. And so they did a very exclusive but unfortunately, a promo code that Honey got ahold of that gave interior designers 50% off.Matt:Well, lo and behold, as soon as one designer used that code and also had Honey on the machine, that code then got swept up in the Honey and everybody, every order that had Honey was now getting 50% off. Their customer service nightmare was that they couldn't afford to give every consumer 50% off, so they actually had to cancel orders; believe it or not.Matt:They called customers and said, "We can't honor your order with that coupon because that coupon was not intended for you." Created a customer service nightmare for them. And that's what they want to do is, they want to control their user experience. They want to control their revenue and their margins.Stephanie:Oh my gosh, that's horrible.Matt:Out of control. But think of that disaster of having to call someone and say, "Hey, I know you wanted to spend $500 with me, but only pay me 250 bucks. I can't give you 50 off but I can give you like 15 off, that's kind of what you were probably entitled to." So anyways, just trying to get control back in these merchants hands and let them control their destiny.Stephanie:I love that. When thinking about back to the now advertising piece, how much do you think it's on the publishing platforms? Is it their responsibility to make sure that they continue to increase their efforts to make sure bad actors aren't out there anymore?Stephanie:I mean, I know they're probably doing a lot. A lot of people like to hate on the publishing platforms and they want them to always do more and more and more. Is it maybe on them or maybe not on them anymore to continue to try and track those bad actors, who like you said are kind of popping up here and then they shut down and then open up a new account and do one off things and then shut down again. How should we think about leaning on the platforms like that?Matt:Well, I say to folks, the value chain in that industry is actually quite wide. And so from the bad actor who's putting their hands on the keyboards to the consumer, there's a whole bunch of players in the middle. I think it's on everybody to really have defenses in place and to make sure that they're protecting...Matt:So if you're at the front end, if you own the demand side platform that the bad actor's using, you need to have your own checks and balances to make sure that you're not bringing in malicious buyers. But all through that value chain, the onus is on everybody. But at the end of the day what I say is, the only person that can be responsible to that end user, is the publisher.Matt:Pick your publisher, if you are Fox News or you're the New York Post or you're the Washington Post, you're the one that has that ultimate relationship with Jenny or Johnny consumer who is surfing your site and consuming content. So you're the last line of defense. You're the one that created the site. You're the one that drove the traffic. You're the one that is using ads to monetize your traffic. It's really on you I think, ultimately.Matt:Now the publishers, all those folks that I named and there's millions of them, they all want to look upstream and they should. And they should hold everybody accountable upstream. But I think they're the ones that are really the that last line of defense.Matt:Because if you go to one of these sites and you have a crappy experience, you don't really care that it came through an ad. Like the woman at Harvard Crimson last week, she didn't know the origins of why it happened. And here's the other crazy thing, she knew that when she went to the Crimson, she was delivered a crappy experience.Matt:Now, the crazy part. First time we've ever done it, we actually did a private webinar with the end user because we wanted to explain to her here's exactly what's happening. She told us this story, she said, "Listen, I use ad block." And obviously, the risk to publishers are, if you don't create great experiences, your users are going to start using ad block.Matt:What she said was, in the desire to get real news and in the desire to really understand what's going on in the world and in the desire to actually make sure that real news publishers are actually getting compensated, she turned her ad block off and this is what happened.Matt:So shame on the Crimson for not delivering a great experience, because guess what? Now that user's like, "I'm not turning ad block off the next time I come to your site. You're not going to get paid for the traffic that I'm going to generate." So again, it really goes back to the publishers, the onus is on them.Stephanie:And thankfully, I think there is like new technologies popping up that maybe we'll be able to enable them or even just thinking about implementing. I mean, I've seen some advertisers looking into blockchain and having that as being kind of like a more source of truth to be able to know a one-to-one relationship and knowing who's behind... You don't know exactly who's behind what, but if you have it in a way where they sign up and they can't just start creating a million different accounts because they've got their one single one that they can go off of, it seems like there's a lot of ways that it can improve over the next couple of years that maybe hasn't been so easy the past decade or so.Matt:I agree. Obviously, there's industry bodies all trying to figure this out together. There's companies like us who are innovating and coming up with new and unique techniques to block these sorts of nefarious actors. I do think the biggest and most important thing is to recognize that the bad actors aren't just sitting still waiting for somebody to solve this problem. They're innovating honestly, a more rapid rate than many of the industry leaders that you would expect that have hundreds or thousands of people trying to solve this problem. Bad actors unfortunately, are innovating at quite a rapid pace.Matt:So the problem I think is going to evolve and change. We've seen it evolve to not just being ads but obviously, compromised Chrome extensions that just seems to be a great vector. And so I think you're going to see the problem move around and especially, if there's a lot of money in it. If there's ways for these guys to make money, you're going to see them salivate with... You're going to put up this defense and they're going to figure out this way to get around it.Matt:And there's so many different browser types. There's so many different machines. There's security flaws. There's zero-day. There's so many ways for these guys to actually buy and target, to only focus on iOS 13 and below and blah, blah, blah to reach their audience.Stephanie:So tricky. Hopefully, it'll get solved over the next decade. Cool. Well, with a couple minutes left, let's move over to the lightning round. The lightning round is brought to you by Salesforce Commerce Cloud. This is where I'm going to ask you a question and you have a minute or less to answer. Are you ready, Matt?Matt:I am ready.Stephanie:All right. First the harder one, what one thing will have the biggest impact on e-commerce in the next year?Matt:Listen, I think it's been the gold rush for e-commerce merchants over the last year. In many cases I talk to merchants, they're like, "It was raining money last year." Sales were up five X, 10 X, who knows. I think the next year is going to be that year where folks actually look to efficiency, and they look to figure out where there are holes in the boat that they haven't had to look before.Matt:And I think that plays to our product because I think in many cases when it's raining money, you almost turn a blind eye to some of these sorts of things. But I think now folks are like, "Listen, if I can be more efficient. If I can take control of my revenue and my margins, I'm going to do that."Matt:So I think that's probably, this is the year of people now are catching their breath and they've figured out their distribution and they've figured out their fulfillment and their warehousing and all that sort of stuff and the panic that they had to do to keep up with the pandemic growth. Now, I think it's a deep breath of like, "Okay. Now, let's look at the math."Stephanie:Yeah. I agree, that's a good one. What one thing do you not understand today that you wish you did?Matt:What one thing do I not understand. I think the affiliate landscape is complex. I think there are a lot of legacy ways in which people have calculated incrementality and I'm not sure if they're all believable. And I hear a lot of feedback from merchants where it's kind of like they just brush it under the rug and they're like, "I know I'm probably paying for stuff that I didn't really get, but let's just let it go." I think every percentage point matters. That ecosystem, because I hear there's good guys and there's bad guys and I'd love to really dig deeper on that. And I think that's a big opportunity for us as a company.Stephanie:That's a good one. What's the nicest thing anyone's ever done for you?Matt:Wow. The nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me.Stephanie:I like to go deep.Matt:Yeah. That's a deep question. I think I've been fortunate throughout my whole career in that, I have been given opportunities that I probably wasn't ready for. And by the way, I had never been a CEO before I was at this company. And so, who knew that I'd be able to do it.Matt:But I think it actually starts way back to when I first graduated and I was seeking my first job. And I had a mentor that took a risk on me and gave me my shot. And I worked my butt off and hopefully that translated and he and she felt great about what I was doing. So I think the nicest thing, I've just been given opportunities that I don't think I deserved and hopefully I earned that respect and trust over time.Stephanie:That's a good answer. If you were to have a podcast, what would it be about and who would your first guest be?Matt:Wow. This lightning round is hard.Stephanie:Good. Needs to be.Matt:If I were to have a podcast. I love gadgets. I'm one of those guys that buys the infomercial type stuff. I bought one of those Rotisserie Showtime girls 20 years ago, I still use it.Stephanie:Worth it.Matt:Maybe it could be interviewing people who've built made for TV products and really understanding the backstories behind how they came up with the idea and how successful they were and God knows how much money we all made them.Stephanie:That's good. We had Kevin Harrington on the show, he was the original OG shark in Shark Tank. He basically made the infomercial. And it was very interesting hearing his perspective of how it started, where it's at now and Shark Tank.Matt:I'm fascinated by that ecosystem, it's super cool. And by the way, I always do buy one of those stupid things for my wife for Christmas and she hates me for doing it because she's like, "You're just burning money."Stephanie:I had fun buying it and watching the infomercial today.Matt:Believe it or not, one of my coworkers gave me a Squatty Potty for Christmas.Stephanie:I actually feel like those have good value though, the science is there. It's just a weird thing to buy your wife, if you got that for her. Someone gave it to you, got it.Matt:I was given it, by one of my coworkers, "By the way it works."Stephanie:And their marketing, I think that's the Harmon Brothers who did their marketing with the whole unicorn and they did the Poo-Pourri thing.Matt:Oh yeah, it's super cool. I love those kind of gadgets.Stephanie:That's a good one. I would listen to that show. All right. And then the last one, what's up next on your Netflix queue?Matt:Well, on my Netflix queue, I think I've got three episodes left on the Queen's Gambit.Stephanie:Love that show. That was a good one.Matt:I'm a documentary guy. I actually will tell you that I've been kind of hooked on HBO Max for a little bit. And I just finished the Tiger Woods documentary last night, which was fascinating. Nothing that you hadn't been told before. This guy through adversity has come back multiple times; knee surgeries, winning on a broken leg. So I'm into those sorts of stories. One of my guilty pleasures is The Bachelor, so it's on my DVR. I'm playing catch up on that.Stephanie:That's great.Matt:I love reality TV and that sort of stuff.Stephanie:I like where your head's at, me too. Well, Matt, this has been a very fun interview. Where can people find out more about you and clean.io?Matt:So you can find me at matt@clean.io. So if you want to send me an email, obviously happy to help you guys in any of your challenges and would love to hear your challenges if they're similar or if they're different than ones that we're solving for. Hit me on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. And our company website is clean.io.Stephanie:Awesome. Thanks so much for joining us.Matt:Thanks Stephanie. Thanks for having me.

This episode is part two of a mini-series focusing on the NEH-funded project "Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis.” Jolie is joined by Dr. Lauren Salisbury, a graduate of BGSU’s rhetoric and writing PhD program and an online instructor, and Dr. Matt Schumann, who has taught in the department of history. They served as "camp counselors" for a month-long summer program for humanities faculty on adaptive teaching and learning during the COVID-19 crisis. They discuss the importance of intentionality, reflexivity, and building community in virtual course design.    Announcer: The is BG Ideas. Musical Intro: I'm going to show you this with a wonderful experiment. Jolie: Hello and welcome back to the BiG Ideas podcast brought to you by the Institute for the Study of Culture and Society and the School of Media and Communication at Bowling Green State University. I'm Dr. Jolie Sheffer. Jolie: This episode is part of a miniseries focusing on a National Endowment for the Humanities sponsored project Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis: Adaptive Teaching and Learning at Bowling Green State University During COVID-19. Due to the ongoing pandemic, we're not in the studio but are recording from home via phone and computer. As always, the opinions expressed on this podcast or those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily represent those of BGSU or its employees. Jolie: Today, we are speaking with Dr. Lauren Salisbury and Dr. Matt Schumann. During summer 2020, they served as camp counselors for a month-long summer program for humanities faculty, which was a central component of the NEH-supported grant. Jolie: Lauren is a graduate of BGSU's Rhetoric and Writing PhD program and is an instructor in the department. Her research explores how space and place shapes student experiences in online courses. Matt has taught classes in our history department, receiving the Elliott Blinn Prize for Instructor/Student Basic Research for Innovative Design in his historiography course. He's also studied the scholarship of teaching and learning including how technology can be used effectively in humanities classrooms. Jolie: Lauren and Matt, thanks for joining me to talk about big ideas. I want to start with just giving a little background on the summer camp. The camp focused on humanistic pedagogy for digital environments. Can you explain who you were designing the camp for and some of the main goals you set for yourself and for your campers? Matt, you want to start that question off? Matt: Sure. I guess I'd like to start by saying we wanted to de-center technology just a little bit because the COVID crisis really forced a bigger conversation about our priorities and identities as instructors. What we really wanted to do was gather faculty from as broadly as we could across the humanities and have a conversation about, "Well, what does teaching look like in this strange new world that we're encountering in the midst of this pandemic?" Having that question really right at the center of our organization efforts for the summer camp, that really determined a lot about how we organized it and how we arranged our material. Jolie: For you, Lauren, a lot of times, when we are talking about and thinking about teaching online, we're talking about technology tools and using new tools. You made the choice not to explicitly center the camp around learning new technologies. Can you explain why not and what you felt was more important in this moment? Lauren: Yeah, absolutely. There's nothing to say that technology isn't important. We didn't want to say that at all. But, technology comes and goes. It evolves constantly. What was cutting edge last week, isn't this week. Although having those tools in our back pocket is really important, it's more important, as teachers, to start at the end goal. We wanted to give instructors the opportunity to really have a space to reflect on what their learning goals were for the course, for their students, and the goals they had for themselves as instructors this semester in this really unique situation we've all been put in, start there and then backtrack and learn about ways to go out and find those tools or find ways to make those goals happen, that was more what we wanted to put at the forefront, in the center of what we were doing in the summer camp. Jolie: That really leads to my next question, which is for you, Lauren, in that the camp really did emphasize reflexivity in course design as a tool for building community. This is something that has been interesting you for a long time. Can you talk about your background in rhetoric and writing and how you became interested in student experiences in online environments? Lauren: Yeah. I've been doing online teaching and learning scholarship for a very long time since my master's degree. It really was born out of my own frustration as a student, alongside my frustration as a graduate student who is trying to learn how to teach and didn't have a whole lot of experience using online tools from the teacher perspective. I had taken online classes quite a bit as an undergraduate, to varying degrees of success. From the instructor side of it, I didn't have a lot of experience. Lauren: I started digging into online learning and teaching scholarship a lot more, and realized that although a lot of the popular scholarship on online learning is about what instructors are doing, and, again, what technologies are being used or what influence technology has on teaching and learning, there wasn't as much from a student perspective. Anytime we get student perspective in online teaching and learning scholarship, it's typically from the idea of responding to what instructors are doing rather than speaking for themselves about what would be effective. I was really interested in seeing if we asked students from the beginning and say, "What working for you or what do you need in an online environment?", what kind of responses we would get and how students are experiencing those online learning environments that we're helping to curate and design. Jolie: Can you give an example of why something like a policy around using your camera is more than it seems to be? Because, on the surface, it sounds like, "Well, you want student engagement, so, of course, they should have their cameras on." Why is there more to the question than that? Lauren: Absolutely. I, 100 %, understand the desire. I'm teaching online synchronously this semester for the first time in a very long time. Technologies have changed a lot. Having the ability to see students' faces in a video format like a Zoom is great and, at the forefront, seems like a good idea. You get to see everybody's faces, see that they're engaged and participating. They get to see you and you don't feel like you're talking to yourself at your home office, but it can actually provide a lot of barriers for a wide variety of students. When you force your students to have their cameras and microphones on, although your goal might be to see if they're engaged, respond to them, what can actually happen is you're inserting yourself into their private space. Lauren: The majority of students, right now, are taking their online courses from either their residence, if they moved back home with their parents, or are living in an apartment off campus, or their dorm rooms. Those are very private places for us to suddenly be popping into and to have a full view of as well. Students are being forced to reveal things about themselves and their private home life that they wouldn't otherwise be asked to do. Likewise, students who are already in disadvantageous positions, students that have children at home, students that are caretakers for elderly parents or other folks in their families, people who have full-time jobs or who might need to multitask at the same time that they're taking their online course for whatever reason, they're suddenly laid bare in a way that they wouldn't otherwise be. Although the goal is great and I completely understand it as a person who has taught two 20 black screen boxes a couple times in the last few weeks, the risk and the thing that we're asking students to reveal there, to me, just isn't worth it. It becomes more of a surveillance tool than about effective teaching. Jolie: Matt, you are, by training, a historian of the 18th Century. You research the use of technology in classrooms. I'm pretty sure they didn't have digital technologies back then, unless you're referring to finger puppets. What inspired you to bring technology into your history classroom? Can you explain some of the challenges you faced and how you approach using digital technology to navigate those? Matt: Sure. Well, I'm glad, just right off the top, that you mentioned my specialty in the 18th Century. As a scholar of teaching and learning, I know there are a lot of my colleagues who will run right up to the present with the best pedagogy, the best techniques, the best and the latest scholarship. Honestly, my point of departure for even thinking about my educational philosophy was Edmund Burke in 1757 when he was honestly barely older than many of our students. He made a quip in the introduction to something that he was writing that, "Well, it's really great if you can teach me what you know, but I like it so much more if you can teach me how you know what you know." Matt: As a practicing historian, as much as I love digging around archives, and microfilms, and things like that, if I'm honest about my craft, much of it is online. It was really natural for me, if I wanted my students not just to know what I know but do what I do, to send them online. I had been doing this long before there was any talk of forcing online courses, or having a pandemic, or anything like that. It was much more about, "Well, what can I access digitally as a historical researcher and how much of this can I put in the hands of my students?" The more that I found that I could, and especially in recent years as more archives have gone online, libraries have gotten much better at putting their materials online, as just learning management systems like Canvas have become significantly, first of all, more standard but, second, more user-friendly, it's been that much easier to design courses, with students in mind, and be able to say to them, "Well, you're online anyway, you're using a number of tools that are familiar to you like Google. Can we put even more powerful, even more academically relevant material in your hands that helps you to replicate the process that I have or any of my colleagues have as well as scholars doing their scholarly thing?" Matt: One of the priorities that I have, as an instructor doing this, is, exactly as Lauren shared, really trying to be student-centered, really trying to ask students, "Well, okay, you're paying for this learning experience, you're enrolled in my class. What do you want out of it?" The second point of departure for me, beyond the young Edmund Burke, was the first student that I brought to a conference with me for a discussion on technology in the classroom, and that particular discussion centered on students insisting on bringing laptops and phones into the classroom, thinking that these were good educational tools and maybe finding out that they weren't so good. I asked this student, as he was a co-presenter of mine, "Well, why do you want to have your computer in the classroom? What is your priority? Why are you doing this?" He said to me, "What I really want out of my educational experience is I want you to teach me how to use my computer the way that you use your computer." This was a sophomore. For him to say that, echoing a 22-year-old Edmund Burke, only 260 odd years later, that just reaffirmed my approach to my courses. It became very much about designing that pedagogical, that learning experience for students so that they really could master the skills of their computers much more than any particular body of knowledge. Jolie: Yeah, that's so interesting because what you're really showing is that, so often, what we talk about is... from the faculty side, is there's your research and there's your teaching. Ne'er the twain shall meet, right? What you're showing is that actually it's not just that faculty members want their teaching to reflect their research interests, but actually students want to understand the processes by which faculty members learn and translate that knowledge into products, like an article or whatever it may be, and that laying bare those processes is actually a really effective pedagogical strategy. Matt: It is and this is something that I've experienced now in honestly three different modes of teaching the historiography class for Bowling Green's history department. I have told students that if they really want to join my project, researching the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, they can and I can almost guarantee that they will sleep very well. On the other hand, they can replicate what I do with the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle for topics that honestly are much more interesting to them. I've been very pleasantly surprised by not only the variety of topics they've chosen but also the follow through and ultimately the quality of the products that they're coming up with. Jolie: One of the major areas of interest at the summer camp was on building a learning community online in a time of crisis. How have your past experiences with digital teaching methods prepared you for the current situation? Conversely, how has this crisis maybe challenged or shifted some of your thinking about creation of community online? Lauren, will you start us off with that question? Lauren: Sure. I think that, first of all, one of the most wonderful things about the summer camp was that there was this sense of community. It was very palpable that there was the sense of community in that space. Instructors automatically gleamed onto one another, and bolstered each other up, and were able to form the sense of community in a very short period of time because we were under a month that we spent together in that space. One of the things that was really wonderful about that community, which I think taught me more about forming community online, was that we all started from a place of vulnerability. Lauren: If there's anything we've learned in the last, how many months has it even been now, I don't even know anymore, seven, six months, that we're all very vulnerable right now in distinct, unique ways. We're all experiencing the pandemic, we're all experiencing the challenges of this year in unique ways, but we are all experiencing challenges. Lauren: Sharing that, right away, right from the beginning, felt very uncomfortable, I know, at the beginning for a lot of our participants to lay it out there, "Here were my failings, here were what felt particularly scary about moving online, here's what I don't feel like is going well," but that was what brought everybody together because we saw that we're all in that place. We're all having those feelings. Lauren: We're all having that experience of inadequacy, or fear, or just, "How are we going to the grocery store safely?" Those were conversations we honestly had in that space and that I continue to have with my students in our spaces as well, starting from places of vulnerability that understand we're all facing challenges right now. They're going to continue happening, that's not unique to the pandemic. Even whenever this is over and we can move back to our "normal lives", those challenges will still be there. Laying them out there right from the beginning and saying, "This is where I'm at, this is what I'm experiencing. Here's how it might affect what I'm bringing to this course or this summer camp," is really important. One of the things that I've done in my courses is have both a public and then a private one-on-one space where students can share those kinds of things. At the beginning of the semester, we do a typical get to to know each other discussion where they share just where they are right now, that's a unique space. Lauren: But then, I also have a private questionnaire that students answer, which is completely optional. I say that in about 12 different places and ways, that it's optional, but it asks them just about anything else they want me to know, that place of vulnerability, that place of mutual sharing has been just a wealth of community formation. Jolie: Thank you. What about for you, Matt? How have you been thinking about community? Matt: A lot of it... I feel like I'd like to reemphasize what Lauren said about almost having channels of communication open by design and also really, again, echoing Lauren, having ourselves as instructors really be, if not the center, then perhaps the anchor for the communities that our classes form. There are a couple of ways that I do that. We're in a Zoom session now and you can see that I'm broadcasting from my basement, right? This is the trial that I'm going through from the coronavirus chaos. Matt: I haven't formally lost my office at Bowling Green, but it's actually an hour drive away. My workspace now is half a desk in my basement, that's what I'm restricted to. I'm sharing that with my students as well and saying, "It's not just you that's been affected by this, it's really been everybody in the university community in one way or another, and it's important for us... as a community of learners, I might be a professional learner, you're the students maybe paying to learn, but we're still all learners here. It's important for us to recognize that this is a journey that we're all taking together." This is something that appears frequently in my course content as well. Matt: I joked about my project studying the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle. Very often, I'll joke with my students and tell them that there's no way that they're going to be interested in my topic. But, the way that they respond is that they'll say, "You're right. We're not particularly interested in the topic that you're studying." Matt: They're not going to care as much about Mid-18th Century diplomatic history, but what they do care about is that they see me not only demonstrating but actually going through the same process that I'm teaching them to go through. They see me get frustrated, and they see me asking myself questions, they see me losing confidence in parts of the process as well, and they see when I do well. I look, in some respects, like one of them. I try to open up formats for them to present to each other. I tell them, right at the top, and then they affirm this for each other, "If you're going to present in front of your peers," and I've set up opportunities for them to share screens with each other and share the products of their own research with each other... I tell them that upfront, "You will never have a more supportive audience for yourself, as a teacher, than your own peers." Then, they live this out teaching occasion, after teaching occasion, after teaching occasion. As they come to see me as an older peer, in a manner of speaking, they give the same benefit of the doubt to me as well. Jolie: I'm going to take a quick break. Thanks for listening to the BiG Ideas podcast. Announcer: If you are passionate about big ideas, consider sponsoring this program. To have your name or organization mentioned here, please contact us at ics@bgsu.edu. Jolie: Hello and welcome back to the BiG Ideas podcast. Today, I'm talking to Dr. Lauren Salisbury and Dr. Matt Schumann about their work as camp counselors for the NEH-sponsored project Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis. The camp brought together instructors from across multiple disciplines in the humanities. How would you say that the interdisciplinarity of this learning community enhanced the camp conversations about creating equitable and inclusive learning environments? Matt, for you, what was the benefit of the interdisciplinary nature of this project? Matt: This is, again, a really great question. I find interdisciplinary conversations, in general and especially in this context, to be hugely beneficial. It is really easy, especially as scholars, to get siloed into our particular disciplines and also to get siloed into our own personal experiences of whatever is happening around us, coronavirus or otherwise. To have scholars and teaching colleagues from all over the humanities echoing our struggles, echoing our frustrations, echoing our experiences, and, in some cases, echoing our growth and our triumphs was really affirming. It was very, very good to hear a number of voices processing the same event or the same sort of struggles in a variety of ways. Somewhat, as I had shared earlier before, not really insisting on a particular methodology for my students but exposing them to a lot. The interdisciplinarity of our own conversations in the summer camp was really refreshing because it allowed me and, as far as I could read from our participants, it allowed others as well to process their experience from a number of different perspectives. Jolie: What about for you, Lauren? What do you think that interdisciplinarity brought to this project? Lauren: Well, I think not just interdisciplinarity but also the variety of roles that we had present in the summer camp was really important. This was something that was by design on our part as camp counselors was that we really wanted the camp to represent the teaching population in the humanities at Bowling Green. It was important for us to make sure we had graduate students who are teaching. We wanted to have adjuncts who are teaching, we wanted to have non-tenure track faculty who were teaching and talk about how those challenges and those vulnerabilities we talked about are unique to those groups as well and, like Matt said, bringing in each of those perspectives to then talk to one another and understand how we each are experiencing the pandemic and pandemic teaching in distinct ways. Lauren: The graduate students were able to bring this dual perspective of student and instructor and talk about what it looked like, from the student perspective, to have all of their courses suddenly online, what do seminar courses look like when they're, poof, in a Zoom room instead, what was that like, what was it like to try to do that and then balance teaching at the same time, alongside all of the housing, personal, care taking challenges that went along with it. Non-tenure track faculty likewise who are perhaps full-time or who have been at Bowling Green for longer than those graduate students were able to speak to the way that institutional shifts happened or how it was unique for them to suddenly be online when they've never taught or taken a class online because they got their undergrad degree decades ago, so that was really wonderful to see not only those perspectives be shared but then also in things like... where we shared resources or we did a lot of sharing syllabi that were in process, things we wanted to do for fall. Lauren: To see those groups of instructors support one another, provide feedback was wonderful. It was mutual. We saw a lot of grad students say, "Hey. Actually, I just learned about this. You could try this," or the non-tenure track faculty went, "Oh, a few years ago, I taught a course that we did this." It was a mutually beneficial experience, I think, for all of those groups because of their different positionalities. Jolie: In the name of this grant is the term crisis, right? We regularly talk about, "This is an unprecedented time," right? The pandemic has revealed multiple crises. But, the summer camp emphasized a lot about play and playfulness. Can you talk about why you felt like that was an important aspect of this summer camp? Lauren, you want to go first? Lauren: Sure. I have a unique perspective on this, I think, because I currently have a almost two-year-old at home and another one on the way. I do a lot of play all day long, but a lot of play to learn, so that's something we do right away from the moment we're born is we play to learn. Play is all about understanding our position in the world, understanding how we interact with things in the world, and so that's a huge piece of it. I think that we also play because play invokes this no pressure or low pressure feeling, and that's what learning should be about. It should be low risk. Lauren: It should be okay to fail because that's, again, where our learning happens. I think one of the beautiful things about having play be emphasized... it's not just about, "Oh, we're going to have fun here," it's about, "Let's mess around and see what works. Let's mess around and understand that a lot of those stuff isn't going to work, and that's okay." It's okay to have failures, it's okay to have things not go the way we planned. It's okay to change things in the middle of teaching or in the middle of designing a course, realizing we need to make a change. Play is all about low risk learning opportunities and the ability to say, "I'm going to mess around with this. I'm going to get into my syllabus, completely trash it, rip it apart, put it back together, and see what it looks like now, or I'm going to rip apart that Canvas site, and see what I can do to play around with it, and make it something that's useful to me." Jolie: What about for you, Matt? How do you think about play and how was it important to you? Matt: I think I may actually take a slightly different tack from Lauren on this one, I also have a young one at home. There's plenty of learning through play going on that way as well, but also I do think of play as really invoking this term fun. Just like the pedagogical word "play," it's a very deep term. It's not something where we just mean messing around or just have a positive, emotional experience, but there's a much deeper pedagogical significance to it as well. What brought this out, for me, is actually the privilege that I had in the history department this last year. Matt: We just happened to have a couple of jokesters. Regardless of circumstance, it is an impulse for them to make it into a joke. Because they do that, I would just come away from every meeting in which those jokesters were present thinking, "If they can lighten the mood that way, if I can participate in lightening the mood in that kind of way, then really everything's not all that bad." The fun that I had in some of those history department meetings, the fun that I was able to transfer to our summer camp, to some of the classes through that sense of rhetorical play, that sense of just simple fun, it wasn't just a matter of, again, a positive, emotional experience. What it actually did was it spawned this sense of thankfulness that, even in the midst of a crisis, even in the midst of things being gloomy, or not going the way I wanted them to go, or feeling put upon by all the different circumstances, to have that sense of not only community but jocularity was immensely important. Matt: As I came to approach my situation with gratitude, it lifted not only my spirits but also the spirits of those around me, including in the summer camp, including among the students that I teach. Jolie: I want to conclude by asking both of you to reflect on the current moment. What do you think are the most important lessons that you want us to learn? What do you see as the best case scenario for how we might learn from this crisis to transform both academia and our own lives? Matt, will you start us off? Matt: I think there's a lot that depends on institutional leadership, and I don't just mean the president or the provost, I mean even at the department or collegial level. A lot that I'd like to tease out is that it can be a real temptation, in a time of crisis, to buckle down, look for what works, and just stick with it, really keep things on a tight leash. I feel like the best leaders and really the best case situation is going to be really looking at this crisis as an opportunity to experiment and innovate. As that happens, it's not just that we're going to find data-driven things that we can do, but we can also find new solutions to these problems that then carry us into whatever's coming once the worst of this particular crisis has passed. Jolie: What about for you, Lauren? What do you hope we can learn from this moment and take forward? Lauren: I think that one of the wonderful and also simultaneously frustrating things about being an online teaching and learning scholar as well as a working from home online instructor right now is that I've been doing both of those things for a very long time. To see a lot of these conversations come to the forefront is both a, "Yay. Finally, people are talking about it," and also like, "Yeah, I know. We've been talking about this. Thanks for joining us," kind of situation. It's been a lot of, "Yeah, the future is now. This is what's been happening for a couple decades now." I think that although that is very frustrating in a lot of ways, my hope is that whenever we go back to whatever it is we go back to after this, that those conversations continue, that we don't just have faculty members or instructors go back to teaching exclusively face-to-face and ignoring the online component. I've said, for a very long time, in various contexts, that we all are already online teachers, even before spring. Before March, we still were doing that because we all are using some component of online instruction, whether that's using a learning management system or we use our email. I also hope that we continue to see a lot of student participation in these conversations, too. Lauren: One of the things that's been really amazing, to me, is how involved students have gotten in the last few months in their own learning experiences. I've seen a lot of frustration from the side of faculty with this, and I get that to some degree. But, I've really enjoyed getting to see how many students have said, "No, this is unacceptable, this is not working. You need to do something different," or have said, "Yes, this is what we need. Thank you for doing this," and have taken a front seat role in their own education, that's amazing to me. Lauren: I love that there are all of these students who are really involved in that. I think, like so many things having to do with this pandemic, it wouldn't happen this way if it wasn't happening in 2020. Students have the tools to do that, too. How many call outs on TikTok have we seen, how many screenshots of really bad interactions have we seen on Twitter? We could talk about the privacy issues of that later. But, students, whether we like it or not, are taking ownership of their learning and saying, "This is not what we need, this is what we need. We need to have conversations about tuition. We need to have conversations about equity and access. We need to have conversations about privacy, about the fact that I have to work a full-time job to pay for this online course that I'm taking." All of those conversations that students are having is also something I hope doesn't go away. Really, I'm just hoping we all keep talking a whole lot because it makes me happy. I think that's where the change happens, that's where we all start to understand each other better, too. Lauren: Having conversations about the challenges from the student side, having conversations about the challenges from the instructor side and what that looks like, I think that's the only way we make any kind of lasting change or improve things. Jolie: Thank you, both, so much for joining me today. Listeners can keep up with Toward a Pedagogy from Crisis and other ICS happenings by following us on Twitter @icsbgsu, Instagram, as well as our Facebook page. You can listen to BiG Ideas wherever you find your favorite podcasts. Please subscribe and rate us on your preferred platform. Our producers are Chris Cavera and Marco Mendoza with sound editing by Marco. Research assistance for this podcast was provided by Stevie Scheurich. Thanks very much, everyone, and stay safe.

Good morning everybody! I was on with Ken and Matt and we had a good discussion about how Remote Diagnostics, Remote Work and Coronaviruses, and AI and how this is changing our world.   These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com --- Automated Machine Generated Transcript: Matt We're back again, and it is 7:38 on the WGAN Morning News with Ken and Matt. We are now talking to Craig Peterson is our tech guru. And he joins us now. Ken Mr. Craig, your timing couldn't be better because I got a new MacBook because my keys kept falling off the butterfly keyboard, which sucked him. I don't know why Apple did it. So I installed on I migrate everything over. And now, when I put on Chrome, and I tried to Google, I get this thing called Rona that comes on air express or something. And I clicked on it to see what it was and at someplace in Tel Aviv, that that says Nitsa. And so what's fascinating to me, by the way, Craig, I'm sure you can't do tech support from the phone right now. But uh, he got a brand new computer and did nothing. I didn't know it was already there. And on my last laptop. I mean, I thought it I identified it as like malware, right. His previous laptop, I sort of found a way around it or whatever, but like he just doesn't do anything and it's there also. Craig Yeah, but it must have happened when you migrated from your old one, hidden deep somewhere, and got installed during migration. Ken Yeah. Oh, that's why you pulled it from the old computer. I thought it was off my old computer. No, it wasn't I hit it. When I did that screen, I hit it so well, should I email Google? Should I email Chrome? Or I throw the computer against the wall? That is another option. I mean, what's this guy? If I email this guy in Tel Aviv, and said, what's this? Craig Yeah, don't do that. Don't do that. For the love of God. Don't do that. Matt They did a scan. They didn't find it. I've done so, give me suggestions. Craig Well, it sounds like you got a good tech support guy there locally to figure it out. But it looks like this is coming from Google, isn't it? He's got Chrome. It comes up from Chrome. I didn't know you didn't Google. Ken When I hit a web Chrome, it comes up instead of saying, "Google," it says, "Search." And then it's a smart search. It has this air Express, Facebook, Twitter, and it's just a standard launch page, but it has this Ollie Express thing next to it. Craig It's malware. Yeah, something new, but they got installed a while ago, a month ago and migrated. Well, that sort of thing takes a little bit to fix, and I definitely can do it. I bring it down virtually. Ken I wonder if I find the mouse if my guy can do it. Craig Yeah, usually the migration, it's not a big problem. And it's, there's a lot of these types of things go around. Well, of course, the biggest one is when people install these toolbars on their browsers. There's nothing but spyware in there. It doesn't sound like that. Matt would notice the difference. The toolbar Yeah, Matt The toolbar Yeah. No, I actually, that's the first thought I had too. I tried to get rid of it. I went to see if it was an extension. It was an extension. Yeah, I think I put Malwarebytes on his computer too. It's got Malwarebytes, and I ran it, and it found nothing. So this is probably not nasty, it's just annoying. Craig Yes. Matt It's trying to sell him something. Craig Yeah. Well, hey guys, I've got to bring something up here that I did almost a week ago now. There are millions of people who are working from home currently. Remote workers, many people even trying to figure out how to start a little business at home. I almost didn't wake up for this morning. Because I've been putting on these webinars, there are nine different webinars on topics related to security, not installing these nasty browser extensions. I did two webinars yesterday. These webinars are free. We talked about a browser extension you can put onto Chrome and other browsers, that is going to save your laptop battery, it's going to speed things up. It's just going to do a whole bunch of great stuff for you. I wanted to bring up today that I again, a bunch of people signed up. My next one is on Thursday. I'm going to do two on Thursday, two on Friday, one on Sunday. And then every day next week, I'm going to be doing two of them. And we're covering all kinds of topics, including some extensions that do stop malware on your browsers. We're going to go into VPN, when can you use them? When should you use them that Norton VPN isn't going to help you at all when it's time to get into the office, using a VPN versus remote desktop software. We're going to be covering your firewalls, and What kind of a firewall should you have? The attacks prevalent right now for home users? For a network router slash firewall? How should you be trading at a Wi-Fi? What do you need to know about Wi-Fi? All of this stuff and all free. And unlike that nastiness that you've got to your machine can I'm not sitting there trying to sell you anything. These are free, and we're talking about 10 hours plus worth of some training here. I'm working from home and doing it securely. And what I'd like to do is ask people to take a couple of minutes right now, because whether you are a retiree, or you are running a 500 person company, this information is something you need to have. And we've had a great response. I love the feedback people have been giving. So that's kind of given me a little bit more energy to do this. But if you are interested, You need to be on my email list because that's where I put the announcements out. I am not one of these marketers and new million pieces of emails a day. But if you go to Craig Peterson comm slash subscribe. It is so important right now because I'm getting notifications every day almost from the FBI, about new scans that the bad guys are running against people who are working from home. It is nuts. So these are not just me lecturing, these are two, and as they are LIVE. I'm answering all your questions, live. I'm showing you how to do things. And it's I hate to say this sounds a little self-serving, but it is thousands of dollars worth of training that I'm doing for free This is to help people out. Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe to attend You're going to need you can have a computer you can use your tablet you can use your phone, your smartphone that is and make sure you've got a piece of paper and a pencil ready and handy to do stuff. And anyone who attends gets replays. I have specialized training and special thank you things are people that participate because I know it's a lot of work for you too, but, but I want to get this out right now. It is just it's so important. I don't want you to get nailed or badly by these bad guys. Matt we're talking to Craig Peterson, he's our tech guru, and he joins us at this time every Wednesday to go over what's happening in the world of technology. No topic gets discussed without Coronavirus as part of it. Ladies and gentlemen, and so that is no exception for you, Craig, companies are trying to respond to this whole thing, and it's making them turn to what appears to be artificial intelligence. Are we creating Skynet here, in response to the Coronavirus? Should I be worried about this? Unknown Speaker 8:08 I heard that Prince Charles tested positive for Coronavirus this morning. Testing positive looks like the world might be coming to an end. Who knows, right? Yeah, here's the trick. We have a lot of companies who don't have all of the workers, and there was just a new story here at the bottom of the hour talking about the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and some of the ironworkers trying to say, Hey, listen, we this is kind of dangerous for us. Workers are just not showing up, or they're being told not to show up. It depends on the company. The big tech companies are trying to use this artificial intelligence now. I don't like the definition that pins these days are using When it comes to artificial intelligence, that word has changed. We used to think of AI and man you too as kind of a Skynet thing. Right? Right? It the computers making decisions, it's learning, it's advancing that smarter than we are, etc., etc. We don't have that yet. It hasn't happened. And there's a lot of warnings about what might happen if that were to happen. But we don't have it. It's not artificial intelligence, and it's barely even machine learning. What it is, is pattern matching. Companies like Facebook, and many others out there right now YouTube, where you're putting content on the site, and people want to make sure that you're not racist, like saying things like President Trump is excellent, which would be horrific. If someone were to say that on Facebook, for instance, tongue firmly planted in cheek there Unknown Speaker 10:02 Who is going to censor the internet now? While they're turning more heavily to computers, machine language programming is looking for patterns, and those particular patterns are what they're calling AI. It is not artificial intelligence. There's throwing that term around again. So Skynet is not a threat. But if you are trying to start a new ad campaign on Facebook, for instance, all ads are reviewed by Facebook. It is going to take longer to get it approved, and there's going to be many more false positives. That is because AI, as they call it, is a little bit more of a curmudgeon than the people who review some of these ads and articles and posts and everything else. So yeah, it this is going to force some movement forward on this AI type front, but the singularity I think, man it is still many, many years away. Matt It is still coming, though. It is today. Ken You just wish to be here fast. Well, we're talking to Craig Peterson, our tech guru joins us every Wednesday at 738. before we let you go, Coronaviruses are the story of the year, or the websites and have that the talk about screening is well you can't go to a website to get screened, but there is useful information on testing. Craig Yeah, it didn't come out, believe it or not, you can go to google.com slash Covid-19 and find information there. The symptoms are listed there. Of course, they're all over the place. The CDC has, among many others, but one of Google's companies that the company they own did launch just a few days after President Trump announced is called Verily, this primary site allows people to go on and answer a few questions. It comes up with a diagnosis of, yeah, you probably got it, which you could have got that same diagnosis from your cousin. It is very, very simple. They're adding in now where you can go to get tested because, of course, as you guys already know, they don't want you just showing up in the emergency room of a hospital, with potentially Coronavirus where you can spread it. We already know hospitals are the worst place to go if you're sick, because you can catch diseases there, you just can't get anywhere else. They don't want to add Covid-19 to that list. So you can check it out. google.com slash subscribe if you want a little more information. Unknown Speaker 12:48 All right. Greg Peterson, our tech guru. He joins us now as he always does on Wednesdays to go over the world of technology. We're going to leave it there, Craig. So we appreciate you joining us as always, and we will talk to you next week. Unknown Speaker 13:00 All right, I'll be on Saturday, of course, at 1 pm cover some more of these topics everyone needs to know. And then again that URL to sign up as Craig Peterson dot com slash subscribe in here guys. Thanks a lot, Greg. Unknown Speaker 13:15 Great. Let's go to the break room, ladies and gentlemen. Go to Eric. He's got all the top stories of the day. Transcribed by https://otter.ai --- More stories and tech updates at: www.craigpeterson.com Don't miss an episode from Craig. Subscribe and give us a rating: www.craigpeterson.com/itunes Follow me on Twitter for the latest in tech at: www.twitter.com/craigpeterson For questions, call or text: 855-385-5553

Join the Marriage After God movement and grab a copy of our new book today. https://marriageaftergod.com In this episode, we interview Matt & Lisa Jacobson From http://FaithfulMan.com and http://Club31Women.com & Faithful Family podcast. Here is a quote from our book Marriage After God “Your marriage is the message you are preaching to others. The way you and your spouse interact with each other reveals the gospel you believe.” Dear Lord, Thank you for creating marriage with such a significant purpose of revealing to the world your divine love. Please help us to make choices that reflect your love in the way we love one another. May we choose to walk in obedience. Thank you for your word which instructs us and shows us how we should walk in obedience. Please continue to give us wisdom and strength as we choose to walk in the Spirit and not our flesh. We pray we would make our marriage a priority. We pray we would gain a deeper understanding of how our marriage is our first ministry and the impact we have in each other’s lives and in this world, just by remaining faithful to your word. If our priorities are ever out of order or if we are not unified please help us to change course. Constantly direct our hearts to align with yours. May our marriage always be in a place where you can use us as a symbol to point others to you and may you be glorified. In Jesus’ name, amen! READ: [Aaron] Hey, we're Aaron and Jennifer Smith of Marriage after God. [Lisa] Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage. [Aaron] And today we're in part five of the Marriage after God series, and we're gonna be talking with Matt and Lisa Jacobsen about marriage being your first ministry. [Aaron] Welcome to the Marriage after God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after. [Jennifer] I'm Jennifer, also known as Unveiled Wife. [Aaron] And I'm Aaron, also known as Husband Revolution. [Jennifer] We have been married for over a decade. [Aaron] And so far, we have four young children. [Jennifer] We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media. [Aaron] With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day. [Jennifer] We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life, [Aaron] Love. [Jennifer] And power [Aaron] That can only be found by chasing after God. [Jennifer] Together. [Aaron] Thank you for joining us on this journey as we chase boldly after God's will for our life together. [Jennifer] This is marriage after God. [Aaron] Hey, thanks for joining us on week five of this series that we're doing. I hope you're enjoying it. You're definitely going to enjoy today's guests. But before we move on, as always, we want to invite you to leave a review. Those reviews help the podcast get seen by new audiences. So, if you've been enjoying the content, we'd love a star rating, which is the easiest way to do it, all you gotta do is tap a star in the app. And if you really, really want to and have time, leaving us a text review would be awesome. We read every single one of 'em, and we love them, so thank you for that. [Jennifer] Another way you can support this podcast-- [Aaron] So today on this episode, we're gonna be talking about content from chapter five of our book, Marriage after God. And the chapter's titled, "Your First Ministry." and we thought, what better way to talk about this chapter than to talk with our pastors and ask them who inspired us and showed us what it looked like to recognize our marriage as ministry. And now we actually reference them and talk about them in this chapter, and so today we have Matt and Lisa Jacobson with us, welcome. [Lisa] Hey, nice to be here. [Matt] Awesome to be here, you bet. [Aaron] Yeah, and we're in our garage, sitting on our couches. And today we're gonna be talking about this topic. But before we talk about that, why don't you introduce to the audience, just in case they don't know you guys, who you are, children, marriage, all that. [Matt] Okay, well, Matt Jacobsen, and this is my lovely woman. [Lisa] Hey, hello. [Matt] Lisa, and so we've been married for 26 years. We have eight kids between the ages of 12 and about 25. [Lisa] Yup. [Matt] Right, and there are four of them are out of the house and moved on. And so, what keeps us busy when we're not just hanging out and kissing in a dark corner somewhere. [Lisa] That's right. We also, we do homeschool and we do a lot of work with our kids. Our kids help us out with what we do at home and also in our ministry. [Matt] And so, speaking of ministries. So, my website is Faithfulman.com. [Lisa] And I'm Lisa with Club31women.com. [Matt] And so that is a writing ministry that speaks to marriage, parenting, church, and culture. Biblical perspective on those things. And so, that comprises a lot of what takes up our time in a given week. And then, of course, we're the pastors of a small local fellowship as well. [Aaron] Yeah, it's our fellowship. [Matt] That's right. [Aaron] You're our pastors. And we love you guys. And by the way, if everyone listening didn't hear what those were, that's faithfulman.com and club31women.com. You guys should definitely check them out. And why don't you tell them about your newest podcast that you guys just launched? [Matt] Awesome, okay. Well, the name of that podcast is Faithful Life. And it's essentially a podcast that is pursuing the and exploring the topic of what does it mean to live as a biblical Christian. There are a lot of people in the world, lot of Christians, people who identify as Christians, who are living a life that is really separate or tangential to the Bible. And really, if you're going to be a biblical Christian, you've gotta know what the Bible says about these various aspects of life: marriage, parenting, how we're to live within church community and then how we're to interact with the culture. And so, that's the focus of the podcast, faithful-- [Lisa] With a lot of emphasis on practical ways to do that, sometimes we kinda know in our heads what the right thing to do is, or what we believe the Bible says, but then how does that look in our day-to-day life, and that's something that matt and I really have a passion for is just connecting those two things. [Matt] And a little bit of experience. It's only been, what, 26 years you've been married and walking with the Lord and learning through all of the eight children. [Aaron] So we just want everyone to check out their podcast; it's called Faithful Life. And you're gonna love it. Just search for it wherever you listen to podcasts. So, let's get into the icebreaker question. And this is how we start all the episodes. It's just a fun question. How does your spouse like their coffee and what does that say about them? [Lisa] Okay, I get to go first on this one. Because everybody that knows Matt Jacobson well knows that he likes his coffee black, but, even more importantly, he likes it burning hot so that it burns a hole in your tongue, so he, if-- [Matt] And you better not put it in a cold cup. [Lisa] Right, the best way to show love to Matt Jacobson is to heat up the cup first and then pour his coffee into it. [Matt] Wow, that's one of the ways over the years you've shown love to me. But right, so anyway-- [Lisa] In the coffee-- [Matt] No, that's right in the coffee, in the realm of coffee. And Lisa takes her coffee with a teaspoon of sugar and cream and-- [Lisa] That's right, I like it a little sweet. [Matt] She likes it a little sweet, that's right. [Aaron] And it's just like her character too. Little sweet. [Matt] And I love making coffee for her; I do. In the morning, I love making coffee. I love bringing her a cup of coffee in the morning. [Jennifer] And you guys do coffee as a family a lot, so can you just share a little bit about that 'cause I just love that. [Matt] Okay, so, why don't you tell how we've corrupted our young children? [Lisa] Well, we started off in our marriage. We started each day with having coffee. Matt would make a coffee tray for him and I, and we would sit and have coffee together. And then as each child came along, we then slowly incorporated them into this special time until it became something our whole family just loves and so even our older kids when they come home for the holidays or different vacations, they'll come and that's the thing they look forward to most is having our time together over a pot of coffee. And we just talk about what we're thinking about, what's going on in our world, and it's just a really close family time. [Matt] And you know, oh, sorry. That whole process of incorporating the kids into it. It's kind of funny because it's really a metaphor, or an example, if you will, of what happens in your family. Over time, we're very strict with the older kids. I don't even remember when we began allowing them to have coffee. Including them. I don't even remember, do you remember how old they were? [Lisa] No. [Matt] But, as time went on, the younger kids just get to start earlier and earlier. And I think we started, did Hawkin have his first? [Lisa] He was about seven or eight maybe-- [Aaron] It was a bottle right? [Lisa] When he had his first cup of coffee. [Matt] That's right. [Lisa] A very, very tiny cup of coffee, mostly milk. [Jennifer] Mostly milk, yeah. [Matt] Yeah, right, and so now we're going, okay, so. [Lisa] Almost because their dad's kind of soft on the issue. [Matt] I am; I am. [Jennifer] I was just gonna say, I follow Lisa on Instagram, and I love watching your stories because you'll post about it every once in a while of just your guys' family time around that, and it's beautiful and you can just tell, just from that short glimpse that you give the rest of us that it's a really beautiful time that you're cultivating in your family. [Matt] And in some senses, like you see the snapshot, and it is awesome, it really is. But, it's just so normal, a part of life, and a wonderful life is built on a lot of normal moments that you just string together over time. [Jennifer] Mm-hmm, it's true, yeah, it's good. [Matt] And so, yeah. [Aaron] Yeah, there's the big one-offs that are memorable, but then there's the, it's the everyday things that shape who we are, it's all those habits that we have and those routines. I love that. Why don't you share the quote from the chapter? And then we'll just start asking questions. [Jennifer] Okay, so this is from chapter five of Marriage after God. "Your marriage is the message you are preaching to other, "the way you and your spouse interact with each other "reveals the gospel you believe." [Aaron] Matt and Lisa, how would you that that is true in what you guys have experienced, because it's something that you've definitely not only shown us through your own marriage, but also directly have shown us in ours in saying hey, you can't expect to have this ministry over here if your home doesn't match. So could you give me some insight on how this quote plays out in real life? [Matt] Well, one of the things that you just naturally see in life is you see people in ministry and what's the big joke in America, at least it used to be, I don't know if it still is, who are the worst kids in church? The PKs, the preacher's kids, right? And so, that is so antithetical to how we're called to live in the word of God because we are called ambassadors. That means that we are representatives of the kingdom of God on earth. We bear the name of Christ, and we're his representatives. And how is it possible that you have this ministry or you have this public presence, and then it's not true in your own personal life. You wanna tell somebody about the wonderful truths of Scripture. And you wanna tell somebody the gospel and explain to them how they can have a wonderful relationship with the Lord. And then you don't have, you're not living those wonderful relationships in your family. I know that we had seen a lot of this early on. And we were even involved in a particular church, years and years ago, they were lovely people but focused just on evangelism and kinda lost the relationships with their kids over time. We just saw-- [Lisa] And in their marriage. [Matt] This family's disintegrating. And the marriage is. Then we though, you know what, the life that we're called to as believers is much more holistic than that. And the truths of the gospel are supposed to be manifest in our lives. And if I could just say one more thing. I know you've got a lot to say, too. You see in the instructions for church leadership in the book of 1 Timothy, one of the principal requirements of anybody in ministry and this is serving as an elder or a deacon within the church. [Aaron] Yes, specific position. [Matt] One of the principal requirements is that you've demonstrated that your children have yielded hearts to you. You're governing your family well. You're leading your family well. There's a sense of order and peace in your home. So God wants it to be true at home before we go out to represent him to the world. [Aaron] And what does Paul tell Timothy, he says how can you presume to manage the household of God if you can't manage your own home, which is how he, after all that teaching, he says that it doesn't make sense. [Matt] Yeah. [Lisa] And I think that Matt's kind of big picture guy. And I'm more of what does that look like in my day kind of person. And one thing I had noticed that in Scripture, when it talks about how we are to be towards one another, how we're to be, to be loving, patient, kind. And we apply all of those things to out there. So, just an example: I go to the grocery store, and the cashier's taking forever to get me through the line. And she apologizes, but I've read the Bible, so I'm going to be, oh it's fine, I'll wait. I understand you're trying your hardest, and we'll get through here because I'm being patient, and I'm being kind. And then I go home, and I have a different response when it takes Matt forever to come out and help me bring in the groceries in the house. Or, because I'll be snippin' at him-- [Matt] Has that ever happened, like even one time in our marriage? [Lisa] Like I wait for you? Do you really wanna bring that up? [Aaron] Everyone listening was like that was just today. [Lisa] So, but it really struck home to me that all those things that we think apply to out there to strangers or maybe to friends. It somehow, or maybe there's a disconnect, to actually sometimes the hardest person, sometimes, is actually the person your married to. [Jennifer] I was just gonna say, thinking about our own marriage. I used to do this thing where I would always be upbeat and positive and smiley with everyone. And then I'd come home and immediately my countenance would change, and Aaron-- [Aaron] I finally called you out on it, I was like-- [Jennifer] Yeah, 'cause Aaron would be like-- [Aaron] Why do they get the smiles and then I get this? [Jennifer] Yeah. [Aaron] What is this? [Jennifer] And then I remember specifically him saying, I want your best. And I had to figure it out. I had to figure out why I was doing that and check my flesh on it really. [Aaron] Well, I think there's a default position of, well, I have you, therefore you should deal with who I actually wanna be today, and everyone else has to, I want them to see the best part of me. It's almost like it's just totally backwards. And it's actually lying. [Matt] Well, the harsh reality of the circumstance is who you actually are in terms of your personal character is who you are when the doors are shut and you're letting your hair down, so to speak, and you're just being your natural self with the people where the consequences might not be as immediate or severe as they might be if you do this in public. And so, that's the reality of who we are. And so, it's important to take stock on those things. How am I with the people that I'm closest to because those are the people that we tend to take for granted and those are the circumstances that we tend to be a little less guarded. [Aaron] Now that you're saying that, I'm thinking, it's actually probably infinitely less damaging to be that kind of person in public, when people they may be offended for the moment, but they're gonna forget your face in like eight seconds 'cause they don't live with you than the person that we literally spend hours and hours a day and our lifetime with: our children, our spouse. We sacrifice the main thing for the non-main thing. [Matt] Totally, and that's of course humanly speaking, in terms of the cost, over the long-term. [Aaron] Yeah, publicly. [Matt] But relative to the Lord's perspective on these relations, he wants it to be the same everywhere. [Aaron] Yeah. [Matt] He wants us to be loving and in the spirit everywhere with the people, especially close to us, but also with everybody else that we're interacting with. [Aaron] Or repentant if we're not. [Jennifer] Yeah, yeah, there is grace Right? [Aaron] Which changes us. [Matt] Well, you know what, you brought up the R word: repentance. And that is such an important word and such an abused word in our Christian religious world because repentance has a specific meaning. It's a word that has a definition. And we cut ourselves so much slack and we dip back into the same sins over and, how about this, just this sin we're talking about here where we're not being kind to our spouse, but we've got it for everybody else. And, oh, I'm sorry I shouldn't have done that. Please forgive me. And Lord, I was unkind to my wife, please forgive me. I should have been more kind. And then we go on our day, and then I do it again. And then I do it again. Have I repented if I just keep walking in that same sin? [Aaron] No, you've apologized. [Matt] I've apologized, right? [Aaron] You're sorry for being-- [Matt] Because to repent means I used to do that, and now I'm doing this. It means to turn from, that's the definition of the word. And it's such a good word for Christians, all of us, to really wrestle with, and say, you know what, have I really repented and forsaken that sin? Because that's what it means to walk as God would have us as a couple and not to just keep going back, over and over and over again. [Aaron] I think of this quote. I'm not gonna say who said it, but someone in our family used to say, "If you were sorry, you wouldn't have done it." That's kind of the idea; we say sorry over and over and over again. But in reality, our heart hasn't changed. We're just allowing something, whether we're intentionally doing something. We're not intentionally walking in the spirit, so therefore, we're defaulting to walking in the flesh, and we haven't repented of anything. This is something that I had to recognize in my life with certain sin in my life was I was sorry, but usually I was sorry for the shame or the regret or being caught or the remorse I see in your face or the pain I've caused you, Jennifer, but I'd never had been sorry for my sin which is what leads to repentance, and then I change and walk in that. So thanks for bringing that clarity. [Matt] Yeah, absolutely. And so to come full circle on your question, what does it mean to have a marriage that is reflecting the gospel? Well, if you have a marriage that is the kind of marriage that someone else is interested in, then you're not creating this incredible disconnect in the mind of the person that you're sharing the gospel with because what are you inviting them to? If the gospel hasn't affected and hasn't made your marriage beautiful, what are you inviting them to? Here we are married, and we have a bad, bickering, difficult, challenging marriage, and I'm out there telling somebody that Jesus loves them and died for them. It's so critical 'cause as we, and I know you guys have talked about on your podcast and certainly in your book, that your marriage is the gospel you're preaching, that is the gospel you're preaching. And the power of your message will not be one iota stronger or more influential than is the meaning and the love and the strength of your marriage relationship. [Jennifer] That's so good. I hope everyone hits rewind and just listens to that a few times. [Aaron] Yeah, and let's take marriage out of the picture, just in the Christian individual's life. If the gospel's not true in our life, so for me, when I was walking in my addiction to pornography, and I wasn't repentant of it, I thought I was, I was sorry for it; I was sorry for what it did to me, but I wasn't truly repentant of it. I could never tell someone that Christ came to bring freedom, which is what the Bible teaches us, that's the fruit of the gospel. [Matt] There you go. [Aaron] Because I couldn't walk in freedom. Like you said, I'm literally showing them, like, hey, here's God, he's awesome-- [Jennifer] He's powerless. [Aaron] He's powerless. [Jennifer] In my life. [Matt]right. [Aaron] He can't, and this isn't about just all of the sudden everything being healed and perfect and great, but this is definitely the truth of freedom from sin and death, which is what the Bible teaches, which is what Christ came to destroy. He took the power away from it. [Matt] Absolutely. [Aaron] But he doesn't have that in my life. Therefore, you should love God and believe in Jesus, but he can't actually do anything for the core of who you are. He can't change your physical situation or your spiritual situation, but, you know what, he's the thing you should believe in. It just doesn't make any sense. [Matt] No, it doesn't. We just need to remember that even if we're not saying anything, even if we're not on the street corner, preaching the gospel. We're preaching a sermon every time we walk out the door together. We're preaching a sermon. We're literally saying, this is what it means to be a Christian man and a Christian woman. Whether you mean to or not, you're preaching a sermon. The question is, what's the message that you're giving other people? [Jennifer] And how, can you explain, just for those people listening, how are they giving that message to other people? [Matt] It tends to be if you're living in a town and you've got your immediate circle and then you've got your circle of influence, the people you interact with, the people at the bank, the people at the gas station, the people at the grocery store, they know, over the course of time, they know whether you're a Christian or not. It just becomes evident that that is who you are. People probably don't realize it, but as somebody who identifies as a Christian, people watch you a little closer. They tend to want to just scrutinize you a little bit, or when we're at a restaurant. [Lisa] I was gonna say, what I was thinking about was how many times we've been in an airplane, traveling together, in a restaurant together, we have been stopped so many times by people we didn't even realize were watching us, someone who's serving us or the flight attendant, and said, you know, you two are just such a loving couple. And they could just see the way we were just interacting. And so people do notice that. And often times, especially at a restaurant, they'll see that we've prayed, so they also know that we're believers. And we've had a lot of opportunities to share the gospel with those people just even based on their observation of us. [Aaron] Well, it's uncommon. It's uncommon; it's normal to have cold relationships and being on the phones. It's uncommon to see engagement and true infatuation and adoration or-- [Lisa] Yeah, like the last time we were on a flight, we had a flight attendant come to us at the end of the flight, it was a long flight. And she said, "You know, the other flight attendants and I "were all talking about you two." Really? We're not that interesting. [Matt] Well, we were kissing, I mean. We were getting along kissing. [Lisa] That's right; that's right. And they were just observing how we were with each other, and how cute it was and thought we were maybe somewhat newly married. And I'm like, "Oh, no, we've been married 26 years, "and we have eight kids." Like, no way, yeah, really. [Aaron] And you're still in love? [Lisa] Yeah, yeah, it was really astonishing. [Matt] And you mentioned something about praying in a restaurant. And I know a lot of people listening probably do. It's probably less common these days than it has been in the past, but a lot of people still bow their heads and pray in a restaurant. Personally, I love doing that. I love just the witness: I'm a Christian, and I'm gonna give God thanks for this food. So I like doing that. But if you're somebody out there who does that, can I just encourage you to leave a fat, hog tip? Okay, because-- [Lisa] It's like a bonus. [Aaron] It is a bonus. [Matt] Because you've literally hoisted your flag at the table, I'm a Christian, and so, leave a great taste in your waiter's or server's mouth. [Aaron] It's a little sacrifice. [Matt] It's so small, yeah, so small. So small, but it's a good testimony, too. Just to say, you know what, love the Lord, and oh, by the way, God bless you. [Aaron] Going back to the, I think that's a great little bit of advice of how to spread the love of God. Like, hey, we love God and we just wanted to bless you, thank you-- [Matt] And certainly if it's a place that you go back more than once. [Jennifer] Yeah, that's true. [Aaron] Oh yeah! [Matt] You have struck up, well you've created an opportunity to strike up a conversation with the person because they're, well, first of all, they're business people, right? They wanna make money. So they wanna serve you well, and it's just an opportunity, that's all. Just an opportunity, if you're going to pray, then by all means, please don't complain about the food. [Aaron] I was gonna say that actually. There's certain Christiany things that we do, maybe we were raised that way, and we just pray. We're Christians, we love God, we pray. But then, let's say we're bickering at the table, or we are being super rude to the waiters, or our kids are throwing food on the floor and silverware. That is a part of our witness. [Lisa] It is. [Aaron] How we are. And they're like, you did the thing that I thought you were gonna do. They're looking for us to fail. [Jennifer] To fail, right. [Aaron] Doesn't mean we're not gonna fail, but the majority of the time, our hearts should be aware of how we're being, which goes back to that marriage being your ministry. You guys had this awesome, oh, people noticed us, and they stopped us and said thank you. We've had the other side of it. And no one's actually confronted us and saw us fighting, but we've had people message us after the fact. We've mentioned this a few times. And like, "Hey, we saw you in the store. "I didn't stop and say hi, but just wanted to say hi." And they'd message us on Instagram. And then we were like, "Oh my gosh, I think we were, were we fighting?" [Jennifer] This was a long time ago; we've gotten better since then. This was a long time ago. [Aaron] It made us aware, man, like, well, A, we have a social media presence, but it doesn't matter if you do. Like if you're a Christian, there's people that know you. You have friends, you have neighbors, you have, and people that may not know you personally, they're gonna see you regularly in your small town, or big town, I guess, because you frequent the same places. What kind of fragrance as a couple and as Christians do we give in this world where we say one thing and act a different way? That's literally what hypocrisy is. We talk about this, actually, in this chapter. We talk about, we're gonna ask you a question in a second, another question, but it doesn't make any sense if we're trying to minister in other ways, and then in the home, there is no real ministry happening. And so, question for you guys is are marriages being a ministry, and being our first ministry, because it's our first one another, our closest neighbor, we always like to say is our spouse and then our kids and everyone else. Are there marriages that are exempt from this? Well, this husband, he's a minister, and he doesn't actually have time to be focused on his family. Or a wife that's doing this thing over here for God, and she doesn't have time to serve her home and children. Are there marriages that are exempt from this? Why or why not? [Lisa] I don't know that there are exemptions in that sense although Matt might want to address that, but what that's come to mind, I do have many women write me who are in a marriage situation where the spouse is not a believer or at least not walking with God. And I know that that's a greater challenge, and I wouldn't want to put undue burden on that couple, especially the one that's trying to be faithful, and the other is not walking that way. There has to be grace for that, and the one person has to, you know, scripture tells us to keep quiet and just keep shining the light of Christ in their home. But I also wouldn't want to feel like, oh, I can't minister to others now because my spouse is not walking in truth right now. [Matt] And the way I would look at that is the Bible teaches us what is normal and how we are to walk as normal Christians in this world. And when it comes to marriage, what's normal is the way Jesus loves the church, his bride. That's how we're supposed to love our bride. That's normal. And that instruction, love your wife as Christ loved the church, that's not a special instruction for somebody who happens to be in the public eye. That is an instruction for absolutely every Christian man, every man who stands up and says, I follow Lord; I have committed my life to Christ. I have repented of my sin, and I'm a Christian. Every man who has said that should have a wife who says, I'm the most cherished woman I know. And no man is exempt from that. And so, here's the thing, if a church lays claim to being full of godly men, then there's one thing you know for sure, it's full of cherished wives. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot be a godly man and not cherish your wife. And so in that sense, I would say nobody's exempt from this, but, of course, we live in a broken world with lots of relationships and circumstances, and people have struggled. And God has grace for those things. But in those circumstances, the person, whatever they are, wherever they fall on the spectrum, difficult and virtually sad and very challenging to not that bad, wherever they are in the spectrum, their job is to draw near to God and walk as closely to God as he wants them, as he desires them to, and to seek them in those circumstances. But I appreciate you bringing that up because there are lot of people, lots of wives, lots of husbands, a husband called us recently. His wife left, he's got, I think they've got five kids. One of the kids has Down's Syndrome, and the wife's just like, "I'm done." And she left, and he didn't want her to leave, he tried to love her right up through, for several years, up to point where she left. He himself has remained faithful and has a ministry even though she's left, so it's true, it's not that you don't have a ministry. It's just that God provides his standards and principles and requirements for Christian men, for Christian wives, and for marriage. And then sin comes in and everything else is an exception to the rule, but the rule is every man is to cherish his wife in the way Jesus Christ loves the church. [Aaron] So, I do appreciate Lisa that you brought that up, too, because I'm sure that we have people that listen, and one of the spouses is not walking, is not a believer, and we get, praise God, he gives provision for this in his word, in 1 Peter, he shows, it's funny because it's to the wife, it's almost like he knew that men were gonna be more prone to this, not being faithful, which is sad, but it's true. But even then I think, you're right, that it doesn't mean they can't have ministry outside of the home because their marriage isn't in order correctly faith wise, but that doesn't mean that their first ministry still isn't their spouse. Like you said, they still have a call, the wife or the husband, to serve and love their spouse the way the Bible has called them to, faithfully, whether they receive it or not, of course. And that's also, I don't wanna say qualifies, I don't know if that's the right word, but, it still prepares them to do ministry outside their home because it's in order. Instead of, I'm not going to love my husband or my wife like this because they're treating me this way, but I am gonna go love over here, that's not gonna produce the kind of fruit that God's looking for. But I did appreciate that. I think it's totally relevant to recognize that there are these non-ideal marriages. [Matt] You know, and one of the things that might be important to mention here is wherever you are on the spectrum: you have a spectacular marriage all the way to it's terrible. We tend to fall into this wrong thought process that goes something like this: you're walking in sin; therefore, I can't help being the way I am. [Lisa] Oh, now, that's a good point. [Matt] And the fact of the matter is is the way you act has nothing to do with my capacity as a believer to walk in holiness. [Lisa] Right, no that's-- [Matt] And we kinda cut ourselves a little slack there, don't we? 'Cause if you're a certain way, well then that gives me license to be another way in response-- [Aaron] Yeah, if you only respected me, I would treat you or love you as Christ loves the church. [Matt] That's right, and every one of us has the capacity according to the word of God to walk in holiness, irrespective of how our spouse is walking. Now we certainly make it easier, right? If we're walking in holiness for the other person. But, we can't blame our distance from God on how someone else has chosen to act. [Aaron] Amen. [Jennifer] Taking a look into your guys' marriage. You know, you've been married quite a while. So go back to the beginning. Was there a learning curve in your guys' relationship on how to love and respect each other and cherish each other in that? [Matt] OH, absolutely. I was the most loving husband in the world. The only problem-- [Aaron] That's a real laugh, by the way. [Matt] The only-- [Lisa] Revisionist history, I think that's what it's-- [Matt] The only problem with it is I was loving Lisa in the way that said love to me. [Lisa] Oh, that's true. [Matt] We'd like to tell the story, in fact, we tell it on our own podcast. We just have this crazy story where I literally am superman husband, okay? I am helping out with everything. [Lisa] It's our first year of marriage. [Matt] First year of marriage. I am helping out with everything. I am helping with, not the laundry, you wouldn't let me touch the laundry 'cause she said, nope, that's mine; I will do the laundry. Everything else, the vacuuming, folding the laundry. [Lisa] Cleaning the bathrooms. [Matt] Cleaning the bathrooms, everything else, the dishes, everything, I'm helping, I'm helping. I'm doing it all, and I'm thinking-- [Lisa] And I'm getting madder and madder and-- [Matt] And she's over in the kitchen. And there's the flames, you know, the ones coming out of her eyes, are visible from across the room, and I-- [Aaron] Although I have never seen Lisa angry before, so I couldn't-- [Lisa] Oh, I'm capable. [Matt] And I thought, what is wrong with this woman? You can't find five guys in the entire state of Oregon that do the things that I do with a willing heart, and I'm trying to bless you, you're just, there's nothing that will make you happy. You can't be blessed; I don't know what your problem is. And so, she just takes the towel, and she almost busts a dish on me as she sets the plate down on the counter. And then she takes the towel and throws it on the counter. [Lisa] Thank you. [Matt] And I'm going, what in the world. She turns to me, and she goes, "I just don't know why you don't love me." [Lisa] True story. [Aaron] What's happening? [Matt] And I'm going, okay, am I losing my mind here? And I'm going, you've gotta be kid, you've literally got to be kidding me. [Lisa] So my thinking is I can vacuum, I can clean the bathrooms, anybody can do that. But there's only one guy in my life that can take me out and spend some time with me and listen to my thoughts. [Aaron] Look in my eyes-- [Lisa] Yes! [Aaron] And talk to me. [Lisa] And so he could just feel my frustration over time. So, the more frustrated he would feel-- [Matt] I would try harder. [Lisa] The more he'd vacuum. [Matt] I'd do more! [Lisa] And I'm just like, put the stupid vacuum down. I just want to spend time with yo. [Matt] So I'm going, wow, that's easy. [Lisa] Yeah. [Matt] Who knew love was that easy? So in our case, it was just me taking the initiative to say, okay, we're gonna go out at such-and-such a day, and it didn't matter what it was. We'd go for a walk; we could go have a cup of coffee. And I mean, at any time you as a husband tell your wife, "Hey, I just wanna spend some time with you." You can turn one cup of coffee into an awesome date. You really can. [Lisa] It doesn't take much. [Matt] It doesn't take much. You talk about learning curve, absolutely we had to learn each other and what was important to you and what was important to me and this is so true in absolutely every area of marriage. For instance, we've given you the for instance in terms of the learning curve, but in terms of discovering what it is your spouse is interested in, what they like, what's important to them. There's a very, very interesting way of finding out. [Aaron] You ask. [Matt] You ask a question! Yeah, yeah, and it's such a great thing to do because you know what happens when I turn to you and I ask you a question about you. [Lisa] Yeah. [Matt] Who doesn't like talking about themselves? Who doesn't like being known and explored and discovered. Who doesn't like someone being interested in them. So that's what we do when we turn to our spouse and say, okay, I wanna ask you a question. I wanna ask you what are three things that I can do that would make you feel loved? So that's just the normal stuff of marriage. But you know what? And you can even take it right into the subject of sex. And you can say, what are things that you enjoy when we come together physically? What are some of those things? Because, you know what, we tend to love the other person with the things that we want. [Lisa] I think that sometimes people boil this down to love languages, which is interesting and helpful. But what we're talking about is so much more than a love language, for one thing, those things change over time. It depends when the season when we had four kids, five and under, the vacuum really helped a lot, and I had a, not that I still didn't want to go out, [Aaron] Right, in that season, that was much more loving. [Lisa] Yeah, it was loving; it did mean a lot. [Matt] And physical touch when we had five kids. What would the age's spread have been with our five kids? [Lisa] Yeah, six and under. [Matt] Five kids six and under. Physical touch was less important to her in those years. [Lisa] Imagine that. [Matt] You know? She's got kids. You got enough of that. [Jennifer] Her tank is full. [Matt] Yeah, I'm touching 24/7, exactly. Right, so it does change over time. [Lisa] So instead of thinking of it as big subjects of love language, think of it as who you are as a person and where are you at today, where are you at in this season, where are you at in your life right now. And that involves that continual seeking and pursuing and asking. [Jennifer] So continual even after 26 years. Like you guys are still asking? [Matt] Absolutely. [Aaron] You have gotten there yet? [Matt] Absolutely. [Aaron] You haven't gotten to the-- [Matt] No, we're seeking each other all the time. And you know what? [Jennifer] And it's fun, right? [Lisa] It is. [Matt] It is fun, absolutely fun. And the thing is, if you love the other person, it's not a burden to do it. You actually want to know where they're at. You wanna know where their heart is at. [Lisa] And I think it can even be in somewhat negative things like say, I notice something triggers Matt into a bad mood or just like a dark, you know. And it used to be, when we were younger, that would just like, oh, fine, if you're gonna be in a bad mood, then I'll just stay away from you. I'm not saying those things, but that was my basic attitude. And I feel like over the years, now, let's say something like that happens, which it does, then I can say, I noticed, like something happened, you know, we had a good start today, and then something kind of went sideways. You wanna tell me about that? Did something happen or did I say something? Not in a defensive way, but just really, we've had some really good conversations about that. He'd go, "You know, I wasn't aware of that." Sometimes even going back to your childhood. As a child, my mom treated me a certain way, so now whenever I hear this phrase, it takes me back to a time when I didn't feel cared for. [Aaron] Yeah. [Lisa] And you're thinking, oh, well, I didn't mean to [Aaron] I know how it feels. [Lisa] communicate that I didn't care for you. But I can see that that would translate to that. And now I know, and I can be more mindful of that. [Aaron] And lovingly. Just the loving hey, is everything okay? Not because you're bothered by it. [Lisa] Yes. [Aaron] But because you're concerned for it. [Lisa] Yes. [Aaron] Which then, I'm sure, Matt, you would experience. There's been times that I don't even know why I'm brooding. It just takes a moment to be checked on it. And then I'm like, oh, I actually don't know why I'm brooding right now; I actually do feel irritated. I don't know why. Which it totally could be a hormonal thing, it could be a something I ate, and maybe there's something spiritual going on that we need to be praying through, but that approach of not taking it personally because we do that. Why are you doing this around me? I was in a great mood, now you just brought me down. But rather, helper, but for each, an actual concern. Hey, is everything alright? That was a really good bit of advice. I think everyone listening is gonna be loving these tips because this is 26 years of you guys learning this. We're only 12 in, what is that? We're not even half. [Matt] It'll go quick; it'll go quick. [Aaron] We are halfway to the kids, though. [Matt] Oh, that's right. [Lisa] Yeah. [Matt] And you got started earlier than we did. [Aaron] We got started earlier, so we might bypass you So you guys'll [Matt] Outpace us, yeah, that's right. But then there's adoption, we can stay ahead of 'em. [Aaron] It's true, that's true. So I'm loving these tips. And it all plays back into this. Right now, you're talking about how you guys minister to each other. Loving each other, cultivating intimacy, the communication, the strong bond which allows us, then, it frees us to be more able to minister outside the home. Not that it can't happen, but when you guys are so connected, so close, there's more freedom, and less internal turmoil. [Matt] I might even say it a little differently. I would say what it does is it authenticates the message. [Aaron] That's perfect. [Matt] And you know, we see this principle, well not just principle, we see this exact teaching in the high priestly prayer that Jesus prays in John 17 where he's saying, their unity, let them be one as we are one, Jesus is praying. Let them, his followers, those who come to Christ, who come to a repentance and become the children of God. Let them be one as we are one that the world might believe that you have sent me. The unity that we have, the oneness that we have is the authentication of the message of Christ that he came from the Father. And so, that's so true in the church as a whole, and it's absolutely true in marriage. When we're walking in love, when we're walking in unity, when we're exuding that, where we go through life, it authenticates the message when we do speak the truth of the gospel to someone. [Lisa] And not just out there, but in our own homes, to our kids. [Matt] Oh, that's just so true. [Lisa] When your kids are little, you can kinda get away with it, or at least you think you are. [Aaron] We think we think we are. [Lisa] Believe me, as they get older, they'll tell the world what it's really like at home. They'll tell their friends. [Matt] They do. [Lisa] I'm just saying because it's reality. And the opposite is true, too, that if you are loving each other, it's a witness to them, it's an encouragement to them. Our kids all want to get married. They want to have that kind of marriage. And that's a huge blessing. One of the things that we recently asked one of our older daughters, who's in her twenties. I think it was a Father's Day thing. What do you like most about your dad? She said that, "He loves Mom so well." And it was such a beautiful testimony that yeah, they're watching, they know whether you have loved each other in those quiet moments. [Aaron] Well, when you think about it, almost everyone probably listening, when they look back and they think about their home and how they were raised, I'm sure a lot of them, being raised in Christian homes or not, maybe heard the Bible, but did they see it? Did they see the Bible; did they see the gospel? They don't remember what they ate. They don't remember all the places they've been. But they definitely remember how Mom and Dad were together. They definitely remember how Mom and Dad treated them. And that's where the ministry in our home comes in. 'Cause I've told Jennifer this. I said, Jennifer, all of these things that we have, Unveiled Wife, Husband Revolution, our podcast. I said all of that means absolutely nothing if my kids don't know the Lord. And so, not just our ministry to each other that we have a healthy marriage and that we're godly, and that we love each other and respect each other and honor each other and cherish each other and serve each other, but that my kids see it. And that they recognize what we're doing and why we're doing it, and that at the end of the day, they look back and they say thank you to us, not because of us alone, but because we were obedient. I want my kids to say that. I want my kids to say, "Mom and Dad loved each other. "I just know it; they loved me, and they showed me "who God was and they lived it every day. "They didn't just use their words." As James says, don't just be hearers only, but doers of the word. Are we just listening and not doing? Are we just telling and doing the opposite? The do what I say, not what I do? [Lisa] Right, right. [Matt] Do what I say, not what I do. It works every time, just not the way the parent thought it was going to work. [Aaron] Exactly and so I just, going back to that, that's what I want everyone listening to understand. The main purpose of this chapter in the book, is, and it's early on in the book, it's chapter five, and it's setting this idea of we could want to do lots of things for God, but God wants us to do what he's told us to do. And if we can't be faithful with the little thing, and the little thing is our children, our spouse, our home, this is a little picture of the world. If I can't minister to my wife and love her as Christ loves the church, I have no right going and loving a stranger like that. I could. [Matt] I think what we do is we tend to think like, I know what you're saying, as this is the little thing, so to do the big thing. I actually think that reality is kind of on its head. [Aaron] Okay. [Matt] I think the big thing we're doing is we're being faithful with our spouses, we're being faithful in discipling our children. And it's a great, big deal, and see-- [Aaron] Man, I heard that, yeah. [Matt] If the church had been teaching and focusing on that these past, what, I dunno, however many years. [Aaron] 60 or 70 years. [Matt] Would the church be in the state that it's in today with disintegrating families and churches filled with unfulfilled marriages and disappointments and divorce and all of those things. It's a great big deal. And if we're faithful here, God can entrust with ministry elsewhere. [Jennifer] In chapter 14 of the book, we talk about how what God sees as extraordinary is so different than what the world deems extraordinary. When we look at our own lives, it is that day-to-day, all those little choices of discipling our children, being faithful to one another, that is extraordinary because that is where God is working. [Aaron] Especially today, it's normal, you brought up the word normal, it's common, that's what it is, it's common in the world for there to be divorce and unfaithfulness and children who are rebellious and hate their parents. It is extraordinary and remarkable now even though it should be normal for a marriage to have love in it. [Matt] Well, that's just it. [Aaron] The gospel. [Matt] It is normal, biblical marriage to have a loving, close, wonderful, fulfilling, enjoyable, beautiful oneness in marriage. That is normal Christianity; that's normal marriage. The problem is, is we see what's common around us in the world, and we get used to what's common, and start thinking that that's normal, but it's not. If you have a biblical perspective, if you walk God's way, and your marriage reflects God's priorities and principles, then you're gonna have an awesome, wonderful, beautiful, loving, enjoyable marriage because that's what a normal Christian marriage really is. [Jennifer] And the power of God's testimony in your life is actually powerful. [Matt] Absolutely, right, exactly. [Aaron] Well, people can't argue with it. I mean, they can argue with anything. We were just talking about this. When you're around people that are walking a certain way, makes it easier to believe that you can too. That goes both ways. So when you see someone, and you're like man they're, like the stewardesses looking at you. They don't your whole story, but they know the story they just saw. You're not faking it when you're sitting in the aisle, whatever row you're in and like, oh we want everyone to see that we're perfect. We have this smile on because you can't fake it. [Matt] Yeah. [Aaron] Everyone fakes it, and no one falls for it. Like, oh-- [Jennifer] Maybe for a short flight, but not long one like you said. [Aaron] Yeah, the short flight's, but yeah. [Matt] That's right. [Aaron] And again, we keep going back to this. God's not interested in just us having a happy marriage and a healthy marriage. [Matt] No. [Aaron] For the sake of happy and healthy marriage. That's not an end game. [Matt] That's exactly right. [Aaron] It's the means to the end, like you said. It's what, what was the word you used? It verifies, no-- [Matt] Authenticates. [Aaron] It authenticates. [Matt] Yeah. [Aaron] What's sad and still is very powerful to realize is when we're not it doesn't make God the liar. It makes us the liar. [Matt] It reminds me or brings to mind that phrase. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power. 'Cause you look at it from a galloping horse at 100 yards, and it looks like Christianity. It looks like something that's related to God and related to the Bible. But then you get close and you see, well, no, actually. It's not real; it's not true, and that's when we see the disintegration in the next generation when the kids are like, I don't want any part of that. Again, you just can't hide that. And especially, you mentioned, Lisa, you said, yeah, you can't hide it, your kids will absolutely tell the story and we know of a family. The snapshot looks amazing, and nobody would know this, but their kids told us recently, oh yeah, our parents yell all the time. And you'd never know it, but the kids know it. And the kids are now talking; they're all older now. And now they're saying, oh, no, no, no, no. Parents yell all the time. So that's why it's gotta be true there because if you're out witnessing, if you're that parents, and it could be yelling or bickering or fighting or cheating on your taxes or any number of things, but if you're that parent, and in the gas stations, you're telling a guy, oh, hey, the Lord Jesus Christ died for you, and God loves you, and he wants you to have a relationship. The kid is sitting there going, "Are you kidding me?" it's so important that for the things that we say to be true about how we live. It's called not being a hypocrite, and your kids can figure it out at a very early age. [Aaron] All of this was so good. I'm encouraged; it makes me think about my marriage even though we're constantly working on it, I just think, man, I wanna-- Makes me think [Jennifer] Of the kids. [Aaron] Yeah, I wanna pursue you more. I want to constantly be doing that for the sake of our outward ministry and for the sake of our home, so thank you for these stories, the openness with us. We're gonna ask you our question that we're asking everyone. What is your definition of a marriage after God? [Lisa] I think that it's that ever growing a deeper love for each other. And it doesn't have to be perfect. I think sometimes we just go, well, it's perfect, so we throw our hands, or it's not perfect, so we throw our hands up. Instead of thinking, no, I'm gonna move forward in this. And I'm gonna grow in these areas. I can even think of things I have struggled with. Believe it or not, I do have a temper. And Matt has the ability, somehow, to press that button better than anybody else I know. [Matt] Well, I mean, just on a boring Saturday. I mean if there's nothing else to do. [Lisa] Press my buttons. So I'll find myself reacting to him, and I will stop myself literally mid-sentence and go, wait, it's like, yep, like okay. [Aaron] That's a good-- [Lisa] What I wanted say was. I didn't quite the first two seconds or minutes, however the situation was, wasn't right. But checking myself and going, okay, but that's not who I wanna be. That's how I was, but that's not who I wanna be anymore, so I wanna try again. And giving each other that grace to grow, but being determined to change and not say, this is not who I wanna be; I do want us to be loving close. [Matt] And for me, I think I would boil it down. I mean, that's a huge subject, right? And there's so many facets to it. But I would boil it down to this. The fundamental understanding that my marriage is what God is doing in the world. It's not what I'm doing in the world. It's not the thing that I have; I have a marriage. My marriage is what God is doing in the world. The Bible says what God has put together let no man put asunder. This is something God is doing, and so if you have that basic, fundamental faith about this relationship, it's a foundation and a starting point for moving forward. [Jennifer] Thank you guys so much for joining us today. This has just been, like Aaron said, incredible and inspiring. If people were inspired today and they want to follow you more, can you just remind them where they can find you? [Lisa] We have a podcast, Faithful Life. And we'd love to have you join us over there. And we also, both of us have a website. Matt has faithfulman.com, and I have club31women.com. [Matt] And then you're also on Instagram, club31women and faithfulman, on Instagram, so you can find us there as well. [Aaron] Everyone listening, definitely go follow them, they are golden. [Jennifer] If you like Marriage after God, and you like what we share, you're definitely gonna like them. [Aaron] We actually just steal all of our content from them and repurpose them. They have been integral in the growth and maturity in our life. And so, we appreciate you guys. [Jennifer] Thank you. [Aaron] And we thank you for not only sharing with our audience now, but for sharing with us over the last five years. [Lisa And Matt] We love you guys. [Aaron] That we've known you guys. So, we're gonna close out with a prayer. Jennifer's gonna pray and then, yeah. [Jennifer] Dear Lord, thank you for creating marriage with such a significant purpose of revealing to the world your divine love. Please help us to make choices that reflect your love in the way we love one another. May we choose to walk in obedience. Thank you for your word which instructs us and shows us how we should walk in obedience. Please continue to give us wisdom and strength as we choose to walk in the spirit and not our flesh. We pray we would make our marriage a priority. We pray we would gain deeper understanding of how our marriage is our first ministry, and the impact we have in each other's lives and in this world just by remaining faithful to your word. If our priorities are ever out of order, or if we are not unified, please help us to change our course. Constantly direct our hearts to align with yours. May our marriage always be in a place where you can use us as a symbol to point other to you, and may you be glorified. In Jesus' name, amen. [Aaron] Amen. [Matt] Amen. [Aaron] So, thank you all for listening today. I hope this blessed you guys. And as always, we want you guys to have a conversation about this. Go on a date, and discuss the things that we talked about today. We have, what is it, 11 more episodes in this series. 11 more interviews to come. They're gonna be awesome; please stay tuned. We look forward to having you next week. Did you enjoy today's show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave a review on iTunes. Also, if you're interested, you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageafterGod.com, and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Ezra Taft Benson wanted to run for U.S. President. Dr. Matt Harris describes a few attempts by Benson to run for POTUS, and how Church leaders finally put an end to Benson's political aspirations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-oIv27fYmA Matt: The Birchers will create this secret organization called the Committee of 1776. It's run by Birchers. It's got Birch footprints all over it, but "we can't reveal ourselves as Birchers because it's too controversial." And they say this in their board meeting. "If we say it's us, then people will be turned off by it. So do not mention that Robert Welch or anybody is behind this. But it's really mostly Birchers doing this. So they draft Benson as their presidential candidate and they draft a man named Strom Thurmond, who was a Dixiecrat in the 1940's, and split off from the Democratic Party because he was so pro-segregation and didn't like the civil rights tack that President Harry Truman was taking. ... And, without going into the details, the ticket fizzles. It doesn't raise enough money. Thurman never had the buy-in, to be honest, that Benson had. Benson was alarmed by it and just giddy about it. President McKay gives the green light for him to do this, by the way, which is interesting, over the protest, of Hugh Brown and some other leaders. ... Elder Benson and his son Reed fly out to Birmingham and they have a three hour meeting with George Wallace and Benson tells Robert Welch, "He's a great guy. We have a lot in common." So, Benson tells Governor Wallace, "I need to get the support of President McKay. I can't do this unilaterally." President McKay knew that there was some pushback when he gave the green light to run with Strom Thurmond. Some of the Apostles told him, including Hugh Brown, "This is stupid. Don't do this." McKay is an old Scottish man. He had a little temper. "Don't tell me what to do." The brethren were sensitive to that, including Hugh B. Brown. So he goes back to Salt Lake and tells President McKay in a highly confidential meeting, "They want me to be the presidential candidate with Wallace." This is on the Independent ticket because there's a Republican Mormon who might wrap up the Republican nomination. So we've got two high profile Mormons running for the same office. GT: This is George Romney, right? Matt: George Romney, right. What really muddies the water is there are a number of brethren who support George Romney and not Benson. That's another challenging issue. GT: And Marion G. Romney is in the quorum. How is he related to George? Matt: They're cousins. So, we've got that dynamic going on, too. Romney has gotten priesthood blessings from President McKay, from other people about running and they tell him, "You're going to run and we support you." President McKay supports George Romney and tells him this. If you were't aware, George Romney is the father of Mitt Romney.  Harris tells how LDS leaders ended Benson's political ambitions. Byt the way, Harris' book on Benson is now available for purchase on Amazon!  See https://amzn.to/2EHTklK Check out our conversation…. Dr. Matt Harris describes Ezra Taft Benson's attempts to run for POTUS and how his political career ended. Our other interviews about Benson. 252: Benson on Civil Rights & Communism (Harris) 251: Benson and John Birch Society (Harris) 250: How Ezra Taft Benson Joined Eisenhower (Harris)

Nasir and Matt return to discuss the different options available to companies looking to raise funds through general solicitation and crowdfunding. They discuss the rules associated with the various offerings under SEC regulations and state laws, as well as more informal arrangements. The two also discuss the intriguing story about a couple who raised over $400,000 for a homeless man only to allegedly keep the funds for themselves. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Hi, and welcome to our podcast.My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub.We’re two attorneys here with Pasha Law, practicing in California, Texas, New York, and Illinois. NASIR: And this is where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to that news.Legally Sound Smart Business – we’ve been doing this podcast for now, I don’t know, I feel like it’s been like five, ten thousand years, something like that. MATT: Well, I don’t know if those numbers are accurate, but there’s a recent story how the podcast industry is oversaturated which I would probably agree with because now everyone and their pets have a podcast.When we started doing it, I mean, we weren’t— NASIR: It was novel at the time, but now it’s like everyone has a podcast.You know, we still get a lot of listeners, so why not? MATT: Yeah, sure.That’s the thing. The market’s over-saturated, but there’s not a lot of podcasts – not in our category, I guess you could say. You know, not everyone is as charismatic as you and I are. NASIR: Ah, yeah.Unlike other attorneys, we actually have lives and want to do something else other than write contracts and review contracts all day. Maybe that’s what it is. But we enjoy our work, so that’s why, I think. MATT: Yeah, no complaints. NASIR: Well, anyway, today is a tough topic because it’s a little kind of technical, so I don’t want to make it too dry. But, at the same time, it’s pretty relevant to so many of our clients in the sense that this is a pretty prominent issue, and that is raising capital for your company – whether you’re an early startup or really well into your road – what are your options out there and talking about what’s going on with crowdfunding and kind of give it a quick update in that regard as well. MATT: Sure.Like you said, it can get pretty complex, pretty technical, so what we’re going to do – and I’ll start off with a recent story. NASIR: Should we just start out by reading the statute? Regulation 506(b) says… MATT: Now, I’m pretty sure, I’m going to say wit pretty strong confidence, there’s no podcast that does that, but I guess I could be wrong. NASIR: We could be the first. MATT: There’s a story – by the time this comes out, there might be an update, they’re just kind of waiting – there hasn’t been anything recent in at least about a month or so since we’re recording right now, but the story I’m talking about – and maybe the listeners saw it – I’ll try to summarize it here.It was a fairly young woman that was driving at night in Philadelphia. Car ran out of gas. She didn’t have any way to get gas, and no Triple A or anything like that. A homeless man happened to be around. He had only $20.00 to his name. He offered to give it to her. She was able to buy gas and get home. Really nice gesture.What ensues from there is what gets interesting.This woman Kate McClure and her boyfriend Mark D’Amico started a GoFundMe page to try to raise – at the time - $10,000 for this good Samaritan that gave his last dollars to this woman that was stranded on the highway. They started the page. The goal was $10,000. It got all the way up to over $400,000. They stopped it at that point just because it was just getting out of control.For those of you that are not familiar with how GoFundMe works, anyone can donate money and it goes into this pool. Correct me if I’m wrong, as long as you hit your goal, you get the funds, right? NASIR: Right – minus their fees, of course. MATT: They definitely hit their mark – 40 times over.So,

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.

Mike Selden (@mikeseldenFF) is co-founder and CEO of Finless Foods, a food startup that uses cutting-edge cellular-agriculture technologies to grow marine-animal cells, creating fish and seafood products enjoyed around the world. They are working toward a sci-fi, soon-here world where everyone has access to healthy, delectable seafood, without the environmental devastation or the health hazards of traditional fishing and aquatic farming.Mike has a background in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, he is dedicated to climate justice and science advocacy. Before co-founding Finless Foods, he was working at the Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine in high-throughput cancer screening.  You can listen right here on iTunesIn our wide-ranging conversation, we cover many things, including: * The clean meat revolution and end of animal agriculture * How Mike's company Finless Foods is growing fish in a laboratory * The exciting science of foodtech * Why people need to embrace GMOs * How agriculture is increasingly driving climate change * Why we aren't far off from growing usable human organs * How hard it is to fund traditional deep tech * Why we are entering a foodtech revolution * How human's will eat and thrive in space * Why we need to start pricing pollution into our productsTranscriptProducing this podcast and transcribing the episode takes tons of time and resources. If you support FringeFM and the work we do, please consider making a tax-deductible donation. If you can’t afford to support us, we completely understand as well, but an iTunes review or share on Twitter can go a long way too! Mike: Yeah, I mean this is probably the only way anyone would ever be able to eat meat in space and actually we were invested in specifically by an investment firm that the focus is entirely on space because they know that this is kind of the only option so we're very, very excited to be the first fish in space. I do know that because of human polluted activities we're going to end up with more plastic in the ocean by weight than fish by 2050 is the estimate that I've seen. So that's like well within our lifetimes and at that point we're gonna have you know an ocean this completely filled with plastic like what are we going to do in order to get food from that? I think we should A: stop poisoning the ocean and B: start to move our food sources out of it.Matt: They're using cutting-edge cellular agriculture technologies to grow marine animals from cells creating fish and seafood around the world. It's the sci-fi future that's here today; delectable, healthy and great for the environment. In today's wide-ranging discussion will discuss the clean meat revolution and the end of animal agriculture, how Mike's company Finless Foods is growing fish in a laboratory - it's real, the exciting science of food tech, why people need to embrace GMOs, how agriculture is increasingly driving climate change, why we aren't far off from fully growing human usable organs, and how we’ll fuel humanity's rise and expansion in space. Without further ado, I give you Mike Selden. Just a quick note, we wanted to apologize for the audio on Mike’s side, we did the best we could. It got a little bit garbled up at times but it's easy to follow and incredibly valuable. Now I give you Mike Selden.Mike: Yeah so what we're doing is basically trying to give consumers a different choice than the one they're face...

Nasir and Matt talk about the changes at Starbucks that have led to many disgruntled employees and customers. 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 are talking about our second favorite food item, I would say, right? After pizza. Would you say? Coffee. MATT: Is that a food? NASIR: No, uh… that’s true. MATT: I guess you could freeze it and then eat it, but it seems more like a beverage. NASIR: Well, you know what I mean – at least we talk about it. I know you and I tend to talk about coffee a lot for some reason, too. It seems like it comes up. I don’t know if it’s on the podcast or otherwise. Or we’re just happy to be drinking coffee at a coffee shop. MATT: Well, it’s possible. I mean, I don’t like Starbucks – which is what we’re going to talk about today – and I think I’ve mentioned that many times how it’s more of a convenience. Basically, if I need coffee and it’s the only option available, that’s the only time I go there. Even when people want to meet at Starbucks, I’m always reluctant and try to go somewhere else. NASIR: Try to go somewhere else. MATT: I don’t really necessarily try. I mean, now, I oftentimes just suggest where we should go. NASIR: It’s not that I don’t like Starbucks nor do I like it. it’s just that I have had great coffee and there’s a difference but I’m also very tolerable to different degrees of quality. MATT: Yeah, that’s the thing. I will say, I mean, I only drink iced coffee. NASIR: That makes a big difference. MATT: Their cold brew that they’ve had this last year – maybe more than that – is actually not bad. I’ll give them that. NASIR: Okay, we’ll give them that. MATT: Yeah, I can drink that. I don’t drink hot drinks so maybe that’s the problem. NASIR: Maybe they’ll be a successful company now that they have some good iced beverages. MATT: Yeah, I was looking up the numbers for how many stores they have. We can get to that in a bit. NASIR: How many stores do they have? MATT: More than 23,000 in 2015. NASIR: Wow. MATT: Looks like about half of that… NASIR: Half of them are right next to each other. MATT: They’re on the same block, basically. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: About half of that looks like to be US locations but that number is a year older. I don’t know. It’s somewhere in there. But it’s quite a bit, obviously. Let’s get into this. First, it all kind of stems from this – I assume it’s a barista who started this post – basically saying the morale at Starbucks amongst the people working there is at a low – maybe an all-time low – or at least it’s sinking because a slew of issues, the first of which being the hours that the baristas are working there. I think it’s well-documented that Starbucks offers benefits to its employees which I think has been a huge selling point for a long time now. It’s something they’ve gotten a lot of praise for. But, if you work there for the requirement to get those benefits or you have to work at least 20 hours a week so obviously the workers want to do that, but I would guess that most of the people working there probably see this as a full-time job just because, if you’re working a minimum 20 hours a week during the day, I mean, it’s tough to work two part-time jobs – just from a logistics standpoint – to make it all sort out. The problem that it looks like a lot of these workers are having are it’s very difficult to work more than 25 hours a week there based on the scheduling that’s been done in recent months or I don’t know how long it’s been going on but that seems to be the case. NASIR: I think for a little bit now. And so, one of the reasons we’re talking about this is because this barista – like you were saying – Jaime Prater, he started this campaign on this website. I’ve never heard of it. it’s called coworker.org and it’s basically an open letter to Starbucks where you can get multiple signat...

The guys discuss the boycott of Amazon over the products of an unnamed presidential candidate. They also talkabout how a business should handle a boycott and whether it's possible to exit one unscathed. 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: Did you say Nasir Pocket? Sounded like it. NASIR: Yes, my name is Nasir Pocket. MATT: I’m Matt Staub – couldn’t think of something creative to say. NASIR: Very good. MATT: Sometimes, you forget you forget your name. NASIR: It happens. It can’t see you, Matt. My internet connection’s down. MATT: That’s fine. I think that’s why. You might have said your name correctly. I just, without the visual, I can’t… NASIR: You didn’t know it was me, right? MATT: Yeah. I do know a Nasir Pocket as well so it could have been them. I’m going to check. I didn’t see who was on the other line of this call. So, here’s the goal for today. We’re going to not try to say – other than right now when I bring it up – we’re going to try to not bring up Donald Trump at all even though we’re going to talk kind of about what’s going on with these boycotts and everything else. Is that a deal? NASIR: I kind of have to bite my tongue but, yeah, I’ll try. I’ll try my best. We’ve had more Trump articles in the last month than I think most people can stand but it’s topical. What can we do? MATT: Yeah, I think we can do it even though one of the stories we might talk about is kind of related to that. Amazon – I think people are familiar with who Amazon is. You can buy products on there. We’ve talked about it a few times. I think people know. They’re getting a pushback from what’s the group? Ultraviolet is the group. I’m not even familiar with it – an online community that promotes equality and fights sexism. They’re kind of boycotting or protesting against Amazon for selling a certain candidate’s… NASIR: You created the rules! MATT: Well, it’s going to be difficult. NASIR: “A certain Republican candidate’s menswear collection.” MATT: Yeah, exactly. NASIR: The only candidate that has a menswear collection. MATT: Well, I don’t know that. There could be other ones. NASIR: Cruz does have some style. MATT: They’re wanting essentially for Amazon to remove these products from its marketplace and that’s kind of the gist of this. Amazon has policies in place. You know, it won’t sell offensive products. If you go to what these are, listed as some examples, I mean, really, it’s offensive things. We’re talking, you know, promoting hatred; violence; racial, sexual, or religious intolerance; crime scene photos; other more graphic things – which would make sense. I don’t think Amazon wants to be selling that. NASIR: Yeah. For example, I think Amazon prohibit confederate flags was in the news – whether that’s allowed – and I think they prohibited that, correct? MATT: Yeah, I’m not sure but that would make sense kind of based on, I think, that would fall under this first category they have. But what about a product that is sold under somebody’s name or a business’ name and it’s the person that might have these beliefs particularly of sexist nature – or alleged sexist nature. NASIR: Or racial or religious intolerance. MATT: Yeah, exactly. What if it’s that person that has those beliefs? Like, in this example, I don’t think the shirts themselves are promoting sexism or racism. It’s the person behind the shirts I guess that is the one that’s doing it. It’s an interesting idea. NASIR: Well, I do have a Trump tie. Oh, I said his name. Whoops! Sorry. I was wearing it out and someone did call me a racist but I’m trying to figure out if it was the tie or not or it was just my racial comments or something. MATT: Yeah, you know, a quick side note, I also have a tie and I used to have a shirt – I got rid of it – and I actually like the actual product a lot. It’s pretty good quality, in my opinion.

Join Jay, Matt, and the IWS Radio gang as they celebrate love and at the same time mock those who see Valentine's Day as an important day on which to validate and boost the fragile self-esteem of others with roses, candy, and ginormous teddy bears hooked on Ursine Growth Hormones (UGH). Also... The IWS crew and the live-wired folks in the chat room will discuss the creepy side of "love" that is the art and science of stalking. Be it in every day life or through Social Media outlets, stalkers are everywhere, and Jay and Matt will discuss the do's and dont's of good/bad stalking techniques. Also, the 2016 Lenten Season is upon us. Are you giving up anything or going to try to be a better person over the next 40 days? Will Jay and Matt? They, along with Jamie Mapleleaf, and you the callers who call-in at 661.244.9852 will discuss all of these things as IWS Radio presents: Roses, Restraining Orders, and Repentance.  

The guys take the court to discuss the recent lawsuit against a video game company claiming copyright infringement over tattoos on NBA players' bodies. 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 I have zero tattoos. How many tattoos do you have? MATT: 32. NASIR: 32. Actually, you know, I just read, by the way – I don’t know what made me think of this but – someone ranked the best football cities and I think San Diego is ranked, like, 34 or 32 or something like that. I don’t know how it goes, but there’s only like, 30-something teams in the country, right? MATT: Yeah. Well, there’s 32 teams so I hope they weren’t 34th. NASIR: Yeah, I’m pretty sure it was 32. MATT: Well, so there’s a couple of things – well, it wouldn’t matter because they’re either going to count Saint Louis or they’re going to count Los Angeles. But New York has two teams. NASIR: Does that count as two cities? No, they did best or worse cities. MATT: They played different spots. NASIR: Yeah, I see what you’re saying. Well, let’s not analyze it too much. The point is that you have the same number of tattoos as the rank of San Diego in their fan base. MATT: Well, you figured it out. I have all 32 NFL logos tattooed. NASIR: Okay, perfect. Well, actually, I mean, that may be a copyright violation. Did you think about that before you put it on? MATT: Well, I’m glad you mentioned that because it’s something I did want to bring up. It’s kind of a second layer. If this episode was an onion, this would be the second layer of what I was going to discuss here. NASIR: What if it was an orange? Same thing – second layer? MATT: Maybe. It could just be the peel or the rind – whatever that is. NASIR: Okay. MATT: Yeah, but the actual juice of this episode is the deal with the tattoos. It’s something I never thought about before. You know, when I go out and get my 32 tattoos, you know, obviously, it’s on my body, but who owns the tattoo of the artwork that’s done on the individual? I never really thought about it at all until I saw this lawsuit this past week with the NBA. Well, I don’t think it’s even with the NBA. I don’t think there’s any players involved either. I think the actual lawsuit is… NASIR: With the videogame maker, right? MATT: Yeah, the creators of NBA 2K are getting sued by this company that did the tattoos. NASIR: They bought the license or the copyright ownership from all these tattoo artists, actually. MATT: Okay. Is that who it is? NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Are they the company that employed or the house artist that did it? NASIR: No, I think what they did was they wanted to license out these tattoo images – who knows why? Maybe other people wanted to get these same images as a fan. And so, I think it was Solid Oak Sketches. They purchased. They went to these different tattoo artists and actually bought the rights to that particular art piece – that copyright image. MATT: I saw that there were these licensing agreements from the artists and this company that ultimately sued but the point is this company sued NBA 2K – whoever has the ownership in that – for copyright infringement because what this game is doing is it has all these NBA players and, you know, it’s 2016 so it gets better. The graphics get better every year. NASIR: By the way, that’s debatable. If anyone plays sports games, it’s like, “Yeah, you can see one more freckle than you did before.” Well, this is my area, right? At least we’re getting into videogames and you can talk the sports stuff. But, from the videogame perspective, it’s kind of frustrating because, you know, especially with Madden, it’s like every year they come up with something new and try to make the graphics a little bit better but, really, you know, we’re still pretty far from where we need to be, I think. I mean, really, we want just realistic, you know,

Nasir and Matt discuss how a Houston nightclub is facing claims of discrimination for charging customers different cover charges based on their race. 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 and here we have our expert on clubs and nightlife in Houston, Texas. MATT: That’s you? NASIR: No, that’s you. MATT: I’m not in Houston. I’m Matt Staub. I’m definitely not in Houston. NASIR: No, but you’re an expert in clubs and nightlife in Houston, that’s why we got you on. If you’re not, then I don’t even know why, I thought that was what you were bringing to the table here. MATT: That’s the guest, yeah. Well, I think I’ll be able to do a better job than their attorney that was interviewed for this. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: We’re too deep into it now and I had an awesome start to this episode and now it’s too late. NASIR: No, let’s just all just restart. Okay. I say something like, “Welcome to the podcast. We’re awesome and I’m Nasir Pasha.” MATT: And I was going to say, “Houston, we have a problem.” NASIR: But, if you say that, it’s like, every time Houston comes up, then you could say that. MATT: It doesn’t come up that often. NASIR: That’s true. MATT: This is a pretty interesting case – it’s not a case, I guess, but it’s a pretty interesting d rgeur Teko oafe that happened. As the Houston nightclub expert, I first heard about this weeks ago but there was rumors of racism in these nightclubs meaning that they were giving preferential treatment to basically it sounds like preferential treatment to white people in charging other ethnicities certain money, things like that to get in, VIP, et cetera. A local news station, Channel 2 Investigates, tested this out and they sent groups of people at different times of the night to a few different clubs. I think most of them were okay but there was one, GasLamp, this is where they really ran into a problem. What they did is they sent a group of white people, a group of black females – both of those groups didn’t have to pay any money. They sent a group of Hispanic females, I think they got in free as well but had to pay… NASIR: The VIP or something? MATT: They sent black males in, I think they had to pay a cover just to get in. So, it got increasingly worse. They were even asking follow-up questions with the bouncer and things like that. Basically, at the end of the night or whenever they all gathered together the next day, they looked at it and said all the white people basically got in for free and got full access to everything and the non-white people, some of which got in for free as well, some of which had to pay extra to be in the VIP, some of which had to pay just to get into the nightclub, so this is kind of a problem that we’re not going to put up with. What happens is they ask the owner of the nightclub and he says something along the lines of, “We don’t charge money to good-looking people to pay in,” and then their lawyer comes in and says a bunch of bad stuff saying, amongst other things, you know, “We want successful people in here.” NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Also, misquoting the law multiple times but basically that was the one statement I heard is, “We just want successful people in here. We want good-looking girls in here. And so, we can do whatever we want basically,” and there’s a lot of problems with this but that’s kind of where we start. NASIR: That’s what happened in the last couple of weeks but this actually goes back about a month ago. There were these three attorneys. I think they were all black. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: And, somehow, they noticed this was going on. I guess they sat outside and just watched every white person, according to them, white person get in for free and non-white being charged, et cetera. And then, they made a hoopla about it on social media and it got picked up by the press and their Yelp page, the GasLamp’s Yelp page went crazy and so forth.

The guys close out the week by talking about Urban Outfitters asking salaried employees to volunteer their time on the weekend and how employers can get free work out of salaried employees. 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 and, again, we’re joined with our fashion guru, our aficionado. Some would say an expert, others would say my co-host. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. I guess it’s kind of fashion-related, I suppose. NASIR: It’s not? Oh. MATT: I guess, as much as we’ll ever get into it. NASIR: Well, I mean, no, you’re the expert. You tell me. MATT: They do sell more than clothes at these places, I believe. NASIR: Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, I don’t know much about this stuff so, yeah, please, tell us. MATT: Well, I haven’t been to one in a long time – Urban Outfitters – which I guess they also own Anthropologie and Free People. I feel like I’ve been to Anthropologie before. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Urban Outfitters, I don’t even know where they’re headquartered but this happened in Pennsylvania. Somebody sent an email out recently basically saying salaried employees were urged to work side by side with paid workers to pack and ship orders as a team-building activity. I was going to make it sound nicer than that but, I mean, it’s just kind of silly. The people are getting paid by the hour, okay, it makes sense for them. But what about these salaried employees who I’m assuming they aren’t working in the fulfilment center most of the time – or ever. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: These are people not even doing a job they normally do asked to volunteer and come in on the weekends – this weekend. Slightly better than being told they have to come. Basically, what this amounts to is salary workers being asked to volunteer their time for free which could create a problem. NASIR: But that is a little bit editorialized. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: Because the company would probably say, “Okay, they’re not coming in to work for free. These salaried employees are coming in voluntarily to work on this particular day,” because they’re still getting paid, right? I mean, they’re paid a salary whether they work 50 hours or 40 hours, they get paid the same amount. MATT: Right. And so, people, I think a lot of times people think that, once they’re paid a salary, that the exempt/non-exempt issue doesn’t come into play. I think that’s probably a pretty common thought, wouldn’t you say so? NASIR: Oh, yeah, and people don’t even realize, you can actually be a salary non-exempt. It’s not common. I don’t know why some people do it but I don’t particularly like it. Yeah, salary non-exempt employee. MATT: Yeah, what that means is you can still get paid a salary and still get overtime pay which is really the best of both worlds, I guess. NASIR: Yeah. Really, it can be problematic. That often happens, okay, “Look, I’m just going to pay you X amount for 40 hours a week and that’s it,” and there’s no expectation of overtime. But then, there’s that occasional week or two that goes over 40 hours and you’re like, you kind of just brush it to the side but it ends up being a problem down the line. MATT: Yeah, and you still have to pay. If that’s the case, you have to pay it out regardless of whether you told them to leave or not. You know, why is that not being brought up in this instance? And so, the exempt/non-exempt issue that we’re just talking about, amongst other requirements, there is a minimum salary threshold. In Pennsylvania where this was, it’s only $23,660 annually. NASIR: Yeah, and that’s actually a federal minimum – or $23,660 or $23,600? MATT: $23,660 is what I have here. NASIR: I thought the federal is $600 and maybe Pennsylvania is $60.00 more? I don’t know. MATT: Well, no, according to what I’m reading here which I think was pulled from the state website earlier, Pennsylvania maintains a test to determine exemption,

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 talk about the company that's attempting to convince athletes to stay in college by raising money from fans. 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: I was going to try to do the lead-in for this even though it’s another sports story and the only reason is because I was at Sports Clips this week getting my haircut done. Yeah, that’s right; I get my haircut done at Sports Clips. And so, I was sitting down in the waiting area and there was I think it was ESPN. There were two guys. It looked like they were doing a radio show but they were being filmed on TV which I thought was strange. MATT: Mike and Mike probably. NASIR: Yeah, I think that sounds right. They were talking about this exact story and I’m like, “That’s pretty much Matt and I.” We might as well be on ESPN. MATT: Yeah, maybe. Actually, this is good timing. This episode will come out on Monday and this is right after Selection Sunday. NASIR: Oh, yeah. MATT: Which you actually like. I mean, Dayton will be back. You had your big Dayton thing last year. They’ll be in the tournament. NASIR: Will San Diego State make it this year? I don’t think so, right? MATT: They’ll definitely be in it as well. I’m projecting they’ll probably be a seven. I mean, it’s still hard to say because they still have a couple of games possibly at this point, but they’ll probably be around a seven. They’ll definitely be in. NASIR: Well, I was looking at their rankings and I was confused because there’s 36 teams that are selected, right? MATT: 68. NASIR: Oh, okay, then that makes sense because I thought they were outside that 30-some. So, okay. Phew! Very close. MATT: Now, they’ll definitely be in because they won their conference and it’s not a problem for them. NASIR: Yeah, I was thinking, like, they won their conference, they should be able to. Okay. Well, yeah, so Dayton and San Diego State, they’re going to be in the finals probably. MATT: Bold prediction. They’ll probably play each other first game. NASIR: Not to get distracted on our topic but you heard the billion dollar bet or billion dollar perfect bracket is no longer on the table this year because there was just too much legal dispute as to who came up with the idea and then people were upset because one of the participants went to the insurance company to insure the billion dollar bet but, by doing that, it made everything public and kind of let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, before they wanted to and it became a whole legal hoopla. MATT: I didn’t see that. That’s not surprising, I guess. NASIR: We’ll cover that next year – a little too late. MATT: Let’s get to your story that you already saw earlier in the week which is I’ve a very strong – well, not strong opinion – I think I have a correct opinion on this. NASIR: Okay. MATT: But this guy in – I believe – Chicago came up with this new idea. Actually, if we go really far back, I think this is one of the first things we ever talked about with the investment into a player. Do you remember that? That was a long time ago. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: Adrian Foster. NASIR: Adrian Foster, the Houston Texans, but that was for the NFL professionals, obviously – a little bit different. MATT: Well, it does mention professional possibly in here, but basically what this company is, this idea, this concept is, if you don’t follow sports, basically, you have four years you can play in college and then you have to leave. But some guys that are really good, especially in basketball and in football too, you have to play a couple of years, but you can play and then go to the pros and, you know, then your college team’s worse than it was presumably when their good players leave. So, this guy’s idea was, “Hey, I will just come up with this thing where anyone can donate money,” and a certain percent – it says 80 percent but then,

Nasir and Matt discuss the legalities of surge pricing and how one company is flipping the script on surge pay. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our business legal podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist to the show. Mmy name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: All right. Welcome. So, again, for the second time, I feel like I just should repeat myself after Groundhog Day a couple of days ago. We’re talking about surge pricing today. Unfortunately, we’re not focusing on Uber but I think we’ll have to talk about them, right? We get to talk about them, right? MATT: Yeah. I mean, they’re kind of the ones that put it in the spotlight – at least recently they have. We’ll talk about surge pricing and I think everyone knows pretty much what that is but, for those that don’t, we’ll use the Uber example really quick even though I know you don’t want to. They have a certain rate for when you want to take a car or want to take a ride somewhere. But, if the demand is really high, they bump up their prices and then your ride is whatever – a multiplier of 1.5 to et cetera. So, you pay more during peak times. That’s kind of the surge pricing model. Well, there’s this company, Zappos, which I believe is, are they shoes? NASIR: No, they do shoes but I think they do other apparel, too. MATT: They are testing out surge pay so it’s not surge pricing per se but it’s the same sort of concept and it’s dealing with their employees in their call centers. And so, I’m not sure of the exact arrangement they have and I think it’s still relatively new, too. But, essentially, they tried this open market pilot that they tested out and it gave every employee 10 percent flexible time so you’re not working the same exact hours every single day, every single week, and the thing with this is, like I said, it’s surge pay. So, if you’re working at a time when the demand in the call center of this customer service center is really high, they actually pay you more and, if you’re working in times where it’s not, you get paid less. It’s an interesting concept. Let’s say you’re on the East Coast and it’s early and a lot of people are calling in, especially because no one’s calling in on the West Coast, you know, it might not be as high a call time but, in the middle of the day, when both East Coast and West Coast people are calling in, the IRS is kind of a similar thing. When I call in to them, I’m realizing now that I structure my calls at a time when I think most Eastern Time zone and Central have all done for the day because that’s peak times. So, it’s an interesting concept, but I wanted to talk about the whole surge concept in general. NASIR: I think, in this case, it’s pretty neat in that the surge pricing aspect of things, people are somewhat uncomfortable with it – not only customers are uncomfortable with it but even cities and governments are uncomfortable with it too – because there are anti-gauging laws that are put into effect in certain circumstances and, if you think about it, when Uber implements them and these other companies that may do the same thing, they do it when supply may be low and demand may be very high. But, since the surge pricing for Uber and other companies, it’s done on an algorithm or done automatically based upon how many people are requesting a ride and how many rides are available, sometimes, it can have some – I don’t know if it’s attended or unattended but – results in the sense that, during a national tragedy or a storm, for example, surge pricing can go into effect. In just this last month, we’ve seen the same thing happen in France during the last terrorist attack though the surge prices were done taken away manually but they kicked in as soon as that happened. And then, also, with this last winter storm last week on the East Coast, that was also kicked in. But the difference is now, with East Coast specifically and I think in New York City specifically – in ...

The guys discuss the racial discrimination filing against the makeup company Sephora. They also answer, "Can I allow my employees to bring their dogs in the office?" 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– that’s an email address and not a web address. So, send in your questions that way. It’s not a phone number either. If you’re calling that, you’re just so off, I don’t even know where to start with you. MATT: Well, I think the— NASIR: Wait. Wait, hold on. Did you just interrupt my intro? MATT: Yeah, I did. NASIR: I’m not done yet. MATT: It wasn’t going anywhere. NASIR: My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: Mine’s Matt Staub. NASIR: And I was going to say, if they ended up at the web address, it would take them to the spot where they could still submit their question. MATT: I don’t know. NASIR: I think. Yeah, you’re probably right. MATT: Well, didn’t we switch stuff around with the website? NASIR: Yeah. That’s true. If you guys are going there, you’ll be very confused. I don’t know what they’re going to see yet so it’s still in the (00:01:01 unclear). MATT: But the email still works. NASIR: The email still works. MATT: Okay. NASIR: Hopefully, for you guys, it’s pretty much the same. Just ignore what we just said. MATT: I was just thinking out loud. NASIR: We’re going to talk about your favorite topic today, right? Makeup law. MATT: Makeup law, yeah. Well, I don’t know too much about it. NASIR: Didn’t you study it in law school? No? MATT: Was that cosmetology? I think that’s an actual major. NASIR: In law? MATT: No, in real life. NASIR: Oh, yeah, you can get your cosmetology license. MATT: The place next-door to here is, well, I guess that’s more hair. NASIR: That Paul Mitchell school? MATT: I always want to say Paul Walker but that’s the guy from Fast and Furious. Paul Mitchell School of Hair Design. I always think it’s make-up because all the people that go to the school are wearing so much make-up, it doesn’t make sense. They’re probably the people that we’re going to talk about in this story. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: So, I’ll just get into the story. So, Sephora – which is a make-up store because I’ve seen that… NASIR: I know you know about it. Don’t act like you don’t. MATT: I’m going after this recording. So, I guess they have some insider, some VIP-type memberships and they’ll run special deals for them. I think, in this one, it was 20 percent off all products – no limits for a five day period starting November 6. So, running this promotion and they started cutting off some people’s access or shutting down people’s accounts because they thought that they were just buying products in bulk which they call the “grey market.” NASIR: Basically reselling, right? MATT: Resell, yeah. I guess it’s not an illegal product so that’s why it’s not the “black market.” So, they thought these people were buying in bulk so they shut down their account because they said, “Hey, you can’t do that.” Problem is, at least the people that have filed this class action lawsuit say, that’s not the case and they all happen to be women of Chinese descent so they’re claiming racial discrimination. NASIR: Racial discrimination and… MATT: They probably aren’t claiming gender discrimination. I don’t know. They’re claiming the only criteria for cancelling accounts were looking at their names, seeing that they were Asian names or Chinese domain names like qq.com and 163.com which I’ve never even heard of those so I want to know that. NASIR: First of all, this is strange to me because they put this no-limit on their discount or sale and then basically they are getting upset because people are buying too much of it, right? It doesn’t make sense to me. If they wanted a limit then just say “limit one per customer” or what everyone else does, right?

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 talk about the recent Yahoo sexual harassment claim involving two women and answer, "Why is it that manufacturers refrain from mentioning one another in their advertisements (eg. "Tide cleans better than these other brands - bunch of white bottles with no labels")? This is observed with, well, basically every niche of the commercial market, with two exceptions I've regularly noticed, Pepsi vs. Coke and cars." Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And this is 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 also follow our Twitter account where you can also ask questions @askbizlaw. I want to say “askbizlaw.com” but it’s just “askbizlaw.” MATT: I don’t think we have that one. NASIR: Twitter. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: We probably have the dot-pizza one. MATT: Are you asking people to send their questions via Twitter? NASIR: Yeah, that’d be cool. MATT: That’s tough – limited number of characters. NASIR: That’s true. I didn’t even think about that but we’re also accepting questions on Reddit. That was cool. We do that every week. We do an AMA. I have lots of options for you. If you have a short question, Twitter is good for it. MATT: They’ll have to find out who we are on Reddit, I guess. It should be pretty obvious. NASIR: Search “Legally Sound Smart Business” and then we should come up. MATT: All right. Well, we have a pretty interesting story for today because it deals with a lot of different things going on. It’s a Yahoo executive. She and Yahoo in general are being sued by a former principal software engineer for sexual harassment and wrongful termination. Now, we’ve talked about similar things in the past but it’s typically been a male superior and the lawsuit’s been brought by a female – I don’t want to say… NASIR: Inferior. Uh, subordinate. MATT: A female employee. Now, we have a female executive or superior and also a female employee. That’s a little bit different. Also, typically, with these there’d be some sort of reaction from the company. Yahoo is just straight up denying any of this happening and is very strong in their stance. NASIR: Yeah, that seems unusual. MATT: Yeah, I won’t get into the specifics of this unless you want to, but we’ll link the article so they can read because there’s a lot of accusations made. This also is taking place in another country, too, I believe, right? NASIR: I don’t think so. I thought it was still in California. I know the suit’s in California so I assumed it’s in California but maybe not. We’ll take a look. But, you know, what’s interesting about this is, well, first of all, again, Silicon Valley is another scandal when it comes to the workplace environment. We covered Tinder. There’s this other case with a Google executive who overdosed on heroine on his yacht and some kind of killing as well. Silicon Valley is just being hit with a lot of issues right now. But I think what people may find significant – and this isn’t the first time that it’s happened – it’s when you have a female supervisor that’s being accused of this. I think people need to understand that these issues, when it comes to sexual harassment and wrongful termination, they stem from having power over another. That’s the main issue and that’s the main concept of employment law protections because, when you have an employee, they’re in your control as opposed to an independent contractor where the control is a little bit more loose. But, when you have an employee, because of that control, you have certain obligations that you may not have as a non-employer and I think, even though people generally understand this, they may not understand the significance and how much they could become liable, especially in California, for things like these. MATT: Yeah,

Nasir and Matt discuss the potential benefit of PiinPoint, the digital location finder, will have on small businesses. They also answer a question on whether you should make the first draft a contract. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business! This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: And we are starting our new format at Episode 25 – a quarter of the way through to a hundred. I think that’s 1… 2.5 percent of a thousand. MATT: Great math lessons we’re giving here. NASIR: Is that right? I don’t even know. I’m probably off. MATT: Yeah, 0.25 percent is correct. As long as you put the percent after it. NASIR: Perfect, yes. Or 0.025 which is a decimal. MATT: It would be 0.0025 or, no, you’re right. NASIR: No, 0.025. MATT: Sorry, I screwed up at the beginning. NASIR: All right. Well, so long as we got our math correct. Good thing we’re not mathematicians and we’re attorneys. MATT: Right. Well, let me talk about this new company – I guess it’s not a new company. It’s new to me. PiinPoint – I don’t know if you’ve heard about this but it’s a pretty unique thing that they’re doing. It’s this digital platform and it basically allows companies to, first of all, you have to pay for the service, of course. Once you’re in, it allows companies that want to add a new location – or maybe add a first location, I suppose – to use their information, their data to find the most ideal location for your business. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: They just got about $250,000 in funding but it’s still relatively new-ish. I don’t know if they even have a model that’s even fully functioning yet but this would be pretty cool for businesses looking for a new spot. NASIR: Yeah, it seems like they really take data and analyze it. They do everything from monitoring locations, your locations, exploring new locations, reviewing your competitions’ locations and things like that. I don’t know what kind of data they’re actually collecting and how they’re accessing it but I think the most important thing to get from this transaction is for startup companies, I think they said – as far as what they disclosed, they started in July – right now, they have only around ten customers but they were able to raise $250,000. Understand the concept here is we’ve hear a lot about this minimum viable product is get out to market in the fastest way possible and see if it’s viable. This company was able to show that they were able to attract ten customers and it seems like they’re actually pretty sizeable customers as well and raised $250,000 overnight with angel investors. MATT: I just went to the website. Right now, you can only sign up for the pilot program. But I’m really interested to see how they do this because we still don’t really know. I’m sure they obviously have some sort of algorithms that they use. But is it based on people checking in at locations? I don’t know what access to data they even have. I think it can be a good thing, especially for startups. Location is pretty key. They say that’s one of the most important things you have is location. NASIR: Yeah, especially if you need a retail environment. I had a friend back in high school and his family owned a Long John Silver franchise. I remember distinctly that one of the reasons why it went out of business is because it was at a corner which was very difficult to get at in the sense that the driver would miss the line and so forth. Just because of that alone, it wasn’t producing the amount of customers that it needed. So, location is obviously important. But getting the information and data, getting this information that probably these bigger companies have ready access to through their market research but being able to aggregate it in a way that’s reachable to the smaller guy I think is pretty huge. MATT: Yeah, just like the frozen drink bar that has been open up in Downtown San Diego. San Diego is one of the biggest beach towns – it has the most beaches in t...