Podcasts about takeaways even

In this week's podcast episode, Chief Adventure Officer, Caleb Kolb, is joined by photographer and entrepreneur Ben McMillen of Hilltop Pack Coffee. Together, they discuss Ben's experience turning his outdoor passions into a business and how he's learned to adapt through challenges.Takeaways:Even silly ideas can evolve into great ones.Don't let others break you down, instead tune them out and stay focused on your path.Delaying conflict only multiplies it.Try saying ‘yes' more often as it might lead to unexpected, rewarding experiences.Mistakes are necessary for growth.Avoid over-planning at the expense of taking action.Tough experiences create the best stories, where learning and growth happen.Surround yourself with people who will support you through challenges.Quotes:“Resist the urge to say no”“There is growth in being uncomfortable.”MAKE THIS YOUR BEST DAY YET!

Faith with Friends Podcast Show NotesGuest IntroductionIn this episode of the Faith with Friends podcast, Lisa Lorenzo and Dr. Lydia Martinez are joined by a Christian therapist and mental health counselor, Dr. Lydia Martinez. Dr. Martinez is an expert in the field of mental health and has a passion for helping people grow spiritually.OverviewIn this episode, Lisa and Dr. Martinez discuss the topic of questioning God and how to deal with difficult situations. They introduce an acronym, A.S.K, to help listeners remember the steps to take when they have questions for God. The conversation also covers the relevance of the Bible, the importance of seeking God's promises, and knowing who God is.In this episode, Lisa and Dr. Martinez provide valuable insights on how to deal with difficult situations and questioning God. The K.A.S.K acronym provides a helpful framework for listeners to remember the steps to take when they have questions for God. By asking, surrendering, seeking knowledge, and persevering, we can find peace and grow spiritually. The conversation also highlights the relevance of the Bible and the importance of seeking God's promises and knowing who God is. The episode concludes with a discussion on tools to apply to your suffering, God's unchanging attributes, and the battle between the flesh and the spirit. Dr. Martinez also shares a prayer for listeners. Stay tuned for more episodes and upcoming events related to the topics discussed in this podcast.Timestamped Chapter SummaryIntroduction (0:00:00)Why we question God (0:01:21).A.S.K - acronym for dealing with difficult situations (0:02:35)A - Ask - accepting and acknowledging we are not in control (0:02:35)S - Surrender - trusting in the Lord (0:04:12)K - Know - seeking knowledge and wisdom (0:06:02)K - Keep Going - persevering through difficult times (0:08:18)The relevance of the Bible (0:04:56)Seeking God's promises (0:05:25)Knowing who God is (0:07:02)Tools to apply to your suffering (0:10:29)Changing "Ask" to "Ask Her" (0:10:38)God's unchanging attributes (0:11:06)The battle between the flesh and the spirit (0:11:40)Dr. Martinez's prayer for listeners (0:12:11)Conclusion and upcoming events (0:12:53)Quotable Phrases and Takeaways"Even hard, difficult, painful things have passed through God's loving hands before they touch our head." - Lisa "If you are already in Christ, then you already have these tools." - Dr. Lydia Martinez"Surrender, submit, seek God, and when you've done all you can do, stand on God's promises." - Lisa Lorenzo"Knowing God is not only having access to the power, but it's having access to endurance, to God's love, to wisdom, so that when we suffer like he suffered, we're able to endure, we're able to stand firm, we're able to be resilient." -

Welcome to our first LIVE Facebook interview and meditation with Rain Elizabeth Stickney in a raw episode that was recorded as part of our launch event from Santa Fe, NM, along with special guests sharing comments as we go.  This is one of my favorite episodes yet and was designed to serve everyone in getting through the holidays with as much zen as possible, as Rain oozes serenity!  If you would like to see some of the things we are talking about, find the link for the video below:) Rain is "A life long meditator, an expressive artist, and a bodyworker, she has an integral approach using body, mind, heart, and spirit to gently guide clients and support community into their own natural wisdom.  Rain lives and works in Charlotte, Vermont with her life partner and their school aged son. She is an avid gardener, enjoys maintaining and making new trails on their 52 acres of conserved and forested land, as well as envisioning how in person sessions and retreats might happen again for her existing clients, fellow meditators, and perhaps even you... one day soon!" (as described on her website -- see link below:)Please join us as we talk about why we have chosen our respective paths, what lights us up, and finish our time together with a 15 minute meditation (starting around the 18 minute mark).  We share our love for horses, and how Rain learned to ride a horse as a child with her sister.  Lastly, find out why water, that moment of connection, and love are what bring magic to our conversation, even and especially in the midst of seasons of grief.  We also touch on forgiveness at the very deepest level, and a book called "The Cow in the Parking Lot."Takeaways:Even in the presence of grief, we can still give love, not just to others but most importantly to ourselves.Remember, emotions are in motion.You will also hear in this episode, which was part of my podcast launch party 12/22, about 5 amazing giveaways available to listeners.  All you have to do is write a review of this podcast, take a screenshot and send it to me before 12/30 - we will draw the winners before the end of the year!!Here is a link to WATCH the LIVE, including the first hour with my husband and other special guests:https://www.facebook.com/100001197558153/videos/510232750913749/You can also connect with me through my website or on social media:www.catcaldwellmyers.com@catcaldwellmyersHorses, Mountains & Dogs Facebook PageHere is more information about Rain, from her website, and ways to connect with her - including her virtual Stillwaters Meditation Group:https://rainelizabeth.org/about-rain/https://rainelizabeth.org/stillwater-meditation/https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/every-moment-is-sacred/id1653325273?i=1000589805207(and remember, the "Forgiveness Essay" is available on the 4th episode - trust me, you want to read this - it is a beautiful piece!) A HUGE THANK YOU TO RAIN!!!And in case you have not read it today, I LOVE YOU, and so does a horse, mountain and dog near you.  May you seek what you love and know to be true for you in love!Just says "buy the book on Amazon!"Support the showUpcoming events:The 2024 Adventure Paradox Digital Course HOLIDAY PRESALEConnect with me here:www.catcaldwellmyers.com@catcaldwellmyersThe Adventure Paradox Podcast Page (Fb)

Today's guest is a visionary, public speaker, inclusive technologist, and Fashion and Industrial Designer that helped the first blind person to complete the NYC marathon without assistance. Keith Kirkland is the CoFounder of WearWorks, which invented a navigation system that removes the need for sight and sound. Kieth shared his incredible journey that led to the start of WearWorks, how his team in navigating the eCommerce world, and how you can use Amazon to test your ad spend.Takeaways:Even though you may have a specific audience in mind when designing your product, don't design your product so that only that specific audience can use it. Think about the other applications and don't add friction for them to buy your product.If you're creating a product that performs a function and is also meant to be worn, you need to make sure that it looks fashionable and that the form is not completely sacrificed for the function.If you are already selling on your website, try A/B testing it against Amazon and using the results of that test to determine where you should spend your ad dollars.When you are dealing with a revolutionary idea, don't just try and use it in the most obvious application, think about where it could go beyond that most obvious stepping stone and work to get there first. Amazon Launchpad is a special program from Amazon where you sell wholesale to Amazon and Amazon helps market the product for you. Through Launchpad, Amazon offers much better wholesale margins than those available from traditional distributors.The Launchpad program is very selective and your company must either be invited to join by Amazon or make it through the long application process.Quote of the Show:“Touch is the future of digital communications” - Keith Kirkland Links:LinkedInTwitterCompany InstagramCompany websiteWayband on the App StoreShout Outs:David Clark - Amazon Legends Episode # 119Ways to Tune In:Apple Podcast (Leave a Review)iHeart RadioPodchaser (Leave a Review)Amazon MusicAudibleSpotifyGoogle PodcastStitcherYouTubeAmazon Legends is sponsored by Argometrix, the authority on, and leading supplier of, competitive intelligence for online retail. To learn more, head over to https://argometrix.com/ Amazon Legends is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/ 

Cellphones have become a fact of life, with children as young as eight (yes, eight!) getting their very own “devices.” In this episode, I talk to Catherine Pearlman—licensed clinical social worker and parenting expert—about her book,  First Phone. I love this book! In it, she speaks directly to eight- to twelve-year-old children about digital safety in a manner that is playful, engaging, and age-appropriate. Watch this episode on the Mindful Mama Youtube channel! If you enjoyed this episode, and it inspired you in some way, I'd love to hear about it and know your biggest takeaway. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, post it to your Instagram stories, and tag me @mindfulmamamentor. Have you left a review yet? All you have to do is go to  Apple Podcasts or  Stitcher (or wherever you listen), and thanks for your support of the show! Takeaways: Even if your child doesn't have their own phone, they will be around phones through their friends Kids need a resource on digital safety, etiquette, self-care, and more to empower them to make better choices We can make easy, quick fixes to help some of the most entrenched problems with cellphones Dr. Catherine Pearlman is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of The Family Coach, a private practice that helps families solve common parenting issues. Get Hunter's book, Raising Good Humans now! Click here to order and get book bonuses! ABOUT HUNTER CLARKE-FIELDS: Hunter Clarke-Fields is a mindful mama mentor. She coaches smart, thoughtful parents on how to create calm and cooperation in their daily lives. Hunter has over 20 years of experience in mindfulness practices. She has taught thousands worldwide. Be a part of the tribe—we're over 25 thousand strong! Join the Mindful Parenting membership. Take your learning further! Get my Top 2 Best Tools to Stop Yelling AND the Mindful Parenting Roadmap for FREE at: mindfulmamamentor.com/stopyelling/ Find more podcasts, blog posts, free resources, and how to work with Hunter at MindfulMamaMentor.com.

It's a big celebration for Defining Hospitality! We celebrate a year of podcasting with some of Dan's most popular guests. Throughout the past year, we have heard many great stories and learned so much about what hospitality means to those who work in this beautiful industry. Listen in as Dan guides us through some of his favorite clips and conversations for this week.   Takeaways:  Even though there are devastating moments, there are silver linings that lead to greater opportunities. Use the difficult times as your inspiration to push forward. There is a shift in how to interact with design from the perspective of hotels. You have to keep in mind who you are designing for and create memorable experiences. The true reason hospitality exists is to bring people closer together. It helps to strengthen the common bond between people. Every project you work on will be narrative driven and it should reflect the values of the community the project is in. Providing a welcoming environment and a certain level of service in a hotel is something that can never be replaced by a robot or an Airbnb. Part of hospitality is how you make people feel. You want each and every guest to leave with the best experience they have ever had.  Hospitality is like a gathering spot for everyone to come together and find out how close we all are to each other.    Quote of the Show: "I walk away from each conversation completely energized. And I think that also taps into what makes our industry so special to really put others first we must excel at openhearted listening" Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/thedailydanryan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedailydanryan/ Website: https://www.ninesixseven.com/   Ways to Tune In:  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0A2XOJvb6mGqEPYJ5bilPX Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/defining-hospitality-podcast/id1573596386 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZGVmaW5pbmdob3NwaXRhbGl0eS5saXZlL2ZlZWQueG1s Amazon Music: ​​https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/8c904932-90fa-41c3-813e-1cb8f3c42419 Podbean: https://www.defininghospitality.live/ Youtube : https://youtu.be/mJFJucL3X7s   Defining Hospitality is produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through B2B podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

A proud visionary immigrant, start-up addict, and true entrepreneur, Dean van Zyl is the Founder of National Adhesive which operates multiple brands such as Great Stuff, GlueAngel, THICC, and EISH! Dean shares how to navigate the decision process about where to start with Amazon, what content you need to create great listings, and what to consider when choosing FBM or FBA. Takeaways: Even if your product is available through wholesale retailers, you can reach a larger consumer base through also selling on Amazon. One of the main reasons to sell through Amazon instead of selling to Amazon as a vendor is that you maintain control of your prices. This is especially important if you are also selling through distributors who are worried about being undercut by Amazon.Before launching on Amazon, there's a lot you need to do starting with building your team to handle the Amazon operations, researching how your competitors are doing on Amazon, creating content for your listings, and connecting all the software.The content that you need for a product listing extends far beyond one picture and a small description. You need to develop additional content such as how-to videos, infographics, and more.If you are selling through multiple e-commerce platforms and using a 3PL (3rd Party Logistics) for your fulfillment, it might be best to start with FBM. However, FBA removes many of the headaches associated with 3PLs and FBA also helps your conversion rate. Building out a strong ERP infrastructure is imperative when you are dealing with multiple e-commerce platforms to make sure you can monitor your operations for each platform. Quote of the Show:“Sometimes it's about making the wrong decision a few times before realizing I needed to make the right one earlier ” - Dean van ZylLinks:LinkedInCompany websiteGreat Stuff Amazon StorefrontShout Outs:The E-Myth Revisited by Michael E. GerberWays to Tune In:Apple Podcast (Leave a Review)iHeart RadioPodchaser (Leave a Review)Amazon MusicAudibleSpotifyGoogle PodcastStitcherYouTube

This episode: Tiny bacteria that live on larger bacteria reduce the inflammation and gum disease the bigger microbes cause in the mouths of mice! Download Episode (6.3 MB, 9.2 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Actinomadura viridilutea   Takeaways Even bacteria can be hosts to smaller symbionts living on them. Some kinds of these extremely tiny bacteria live in various parts of our bodies, and are sometimes associated with inflammation and the resulting disease. But being associated with something isn't necessarily the same as causing that thing. In this study, tiny bacteria living on other bacteria in the mouths of mice were found to reduce the inflammation caused by their bacterial hosts, resulting in less gum disease and bone loss in the jaw. Even when the tiny bacteria were no longer present, their former bacterial hosts were still less disruptive to the mouse mouth.   Journal Paper: Chipashvili O, Utter DR, Bedree JK, Ma Y, Schulte F, Mascarin G, Alayyoubi Y, Chouhan D, Hardt M, Bidlack F, Hasturk H, He X, McLean JS, Bor B. 2021. Episymbiotic Saccharibacteria suppresses gingival inflammation and bone loss in mice through host bacterial modulation. Cell Host Microbe 29:1649-1662.e7. Other interesting stories: Anti-tumor bacteria: engineered E. coli colonizes tumors and attracts immune response Cats have skin bacteria that could inhibit drug resistant pathogens   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

What should you do if you are the Fractional CMO of a company that has a weak CEO who lacks vision? This can be a frustrating position to find yourself in, but Casey Stanton has some advice to help lessen the stress. You'll learn when the right time to speak up is, how to mince your words properly, and how to introduce new systems.   Takeaways: Even when you are very selective with the clients you serve, sometimes the CEO's behavior is hidden until you have started working with them for a few weeks or months.  Short of coaching the CEO yourself, encourage them to adopt a system such as EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System) and hire a certified EOS implementor. This forces the CEO to have a measurable vision. When the leader approaches you with a new project, explain to them the opportunity cost that moving the team to this plan from their current project. They can decide if it's worth it to them to abandon the project to adopt a new idea.  If you think what the CEO is suggesting is wrong, you need to speak up. You are there to help grow the company, not to be an order taker. You are being compensated to have a voice.   Quote of the Show: “It really isn't your responsibility to coach the CEO”  - Casey Stanton   Links: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CaseyStanton LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caseystanton/ Website: https://cmox.co/call/   Ways to Tune In: Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/039bc2d6-c1b5-4ced-ac2a-437e69546e7c/fractional-cmo-show Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fractional-cmo-show/id1592740671 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1HGwnjsXA4c4gYQvj4w53E?si=bd6e0908e25749ec Google Podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mcmFjdGlvbmFsY21vLmxpYnN5bi5jb20vcnNz?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjlpNDTveb0AhUXEFkFHaZcDtYQ9sEGegQIARAC YouTube: https://youtu.be/FB5RfHmmzyM

Entrepreneurs are always trying to get their business out of its training wheels as fast as possible while experiencing the fewest growing pains possible. A successful entrepreneur in her own right, Kristen Sweeney, owner of Kristen Sweeney Consulting and copywriting extraordinaire, is this episode's special guest. Learn about solving problems at every level of business, how to set expectations for growing your business, and the importance of going through those growing pains with your business and learning from them.   Takeaways: Even with as much as you may learn about how to run a business in a classroom, you can't skip past your business' training wheels. The growing pains are an essential part of developing both your business and yourself.  If your company is truly operating really well, there's nothing that will jump out at you and catch you off guard. Just because your company is growing doesn't mean that you can outgrow your problems. As your company grows, so do your problems.  You will never be able to get to a point where you have solved every single problem that your company has or could have.  The problems that your company faces will grow and evolve and you will have to stay vigilant to catch them and be open-minded to solve them. The Great resignation has really shown that a lot of people are taking a step back and reevaluating what they want in life. It is important that you have a Personal/Professional Alignment between your work and your life outside of work. A good way to wind down before bed is reading. It's better to read fiction before bed than a business book because if you read a business book you're more likely to be kept up by trying to figure out how to implement what you just read, leading to worse sleep.    Quote of the Show “You have to grow up, your company has to grow up, You have to grow up as a leader.  You can't go from being five to being 15, just because you hang out with a bunch of teenagers, you have to be seven first” -Kristen Sweeney   Links:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristen-sweeney-1209/ Crews Consulting Group website: https://crewsconsultinggroup.com/ Kristen Sweeney Consulting website: https://www.kristensweeneyconsulting.com/   Ways to Tune In: Apple Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/leadership-in-action/id1585042233 Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/2t4Ksk4TwmZ6MSfAHXGkJI Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/show/leadership-in-action Google Play - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGVhZGVyc2hpcGluYWN0aW9uLmxpdmUvZmVlZC54bWw Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/4263fd02-8c9b-495e-bd31-2e5aef21ff6b/leadership-in-action YouTube - https://youtu.be/46MCMwbeSiU

As a leader, do you find that you're putting out fires instead of taking intentional steps toward the growth of your organization? If so, this is the podcast for you. While there's no doubt that the post-pandemic business world has placed increasing demands on the business leader's time and energy, this episode's guest says that it's possible to adapt and rise above the chaos. Listen in and learn from Dave McKeown, author of The Self-Evolved Leader, all about how to approach the faster pace, prioritize what matters, and elevate your focus above what doesn't. TAKEAWAYS Even after we return to the workplace, the world will continue its rigorous pace, so our leaders need to learn to adapt to this “new normal.” When leaders see new information come in, they feel obligated to respond urgently, a demand placed on them from our clients, the industry as a whole, and the leaders above them. Many leaders end up leading through active heroism which, over time, builds learned helplessness in our people. A self-evolved leader desires rigorous debate and discussion to arrive at a solution rather than implementing a top-down approach to problem-solving. Sometimes the greatest leaders have no answers — all they do is ask really good questions and help people come to their own conclusions. GUEST AT A GLANCE Dave McKeown is the Founder and CEO of Outfield Leadership, the author of The Self-Evolved Leader, and a leadership strategy coach, speaker, and trainer. With experience in helping organizations achieve scalable growth, Dave is passionate about seeing business teams reach not only their leadership but also their company-wide goals. A QUICK GLIMPSE INTO OUR PODCAST

This episode: An interesting bacterial genetic element protects against viruses in a unique way! Download Episode (7.1 MB, 10.3 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Mongoose associated gemykibivirus 1 News item Takeaways Even single-celled, microscopic organisms such as bacteria have to deal with deadly viruses infecting them. And while they don't have an immune system with antibodies and macrophages like we do, they still have defenses against infection, mostly based on sensing and destroying viral genomes. Restriction enzymes cut viral genomes at specific places, and CRISPR/Cas targets and destroys specific viral sequences. Knowing this, when microbiologists contemplate a strange genetic element of unknown function in bacteria, it's worth considering that it may be relevant to defense against phages.   The strange element in this case is retrons: a special reverse transcriptase enzyme takes a short non-coding RNA transcript and transcribes it into DNA, then links the RNA and DNA sequences together. These retrons are found in a variety of forms in a variety of microbes, and their function has been unknown up till now. In this study, one specific retron was found to defend bacteria against a number of phages. By comparing viruses, they discovered that this retron functions by sensing viruses' attempts to defeat another bacterial defense, a sort of second level of defenses. How common such a system is, what variants may exist, and how we may be able to use it for research or biotech purposes remain to be determined.   Journal Paper: >Millman A, Bernheim A, Stokar-Avihail A, Fedorenko T, Voichek M, Leavitt A, Oppenheimer-Shaanan Y, Sorek R. 2020. Bacterial Retrons Function In Anti-Phage Defense. Cell 183:1551-1561.e12. Other interesting stories: Bacteria can make biodegradable plastics from waste sludge   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

Nicolas Coster is a business lawyer with 16 years’ experience in China, specializing in helping foreign companies with the legal issues they may face when investing in China. In this episode, Nicolas tells Daxue Talks about the evolution of the “forbidden” investment sector for FDI in China as well as the general rate of capital gains tax applied to foreigners investing in the country. Takeaways: - Even if merging with a Chinese company, it is still forbidden for WOFEs (wholly foreign-owned enterprises) to invest in certain sectors, although the number of forbidden sectors is decreasing substantially every year. - If you want to set up a joint-venture company in Сhina, the company must be Chinese owned but can have foreign investors. - Capital gains tax is generally 20% in China. Jump to questions: 00:00 Introduction 00:27 So, if a WOFE merges with a Chinese company how would that affect the three categories of sectors in which foreign companies could invest: forbidden, encouraged, and tolerated. Would those categories still apply? 01:33 How do you distinguish Chinese equity and foreign equity in terms of where it can invest and how do the authorities assess if these are Chinese or foreign investors? 02:24 What documents could the Chinese government use to find out if there is foreign investment? 02:50 What is the rate of capital gains tax applied in China? Daxue consulting Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/daxue-consulting/ Listen & Subscribe Apple Podcasts: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDka8-Z2Jr0&list=PLcVM3NJYsLF1Z2LLcVGbBVlwVQOOsuuJh Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/user-177979339/tracks Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/daxue-talks/id1492896072 Website: https://daxueconsulting.com/ What is Daxue Talks? Daxue Talks, a China business vlog powered by daxue consulting, a china-based strategic market research company founded in 2010! With Daxue Talks, you will stay up to date with all the latest business updates in China. Every day, you will learn from china-based experts who share their knowledge about the Chinese market in 2-5 minutes. #DaxueTalks #China #FDI

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

Doug Weaver is a legend in the world of sales strategy and digital sales leadership. He is also the Founder & CEO of Upstream Group, Inc. and uses his expertise to help others break the mold of traditional sales conversations and get the best results for both themselves and their potential clients. He joins the show to share some of the best practices in digital sales and survival skills during the pandemic. Doug also talks about what strategies work best to keep large virtual meetings interesting and engaging.   Takeaways: ● Even though we are temporarily virtual, we can still make connections and help others feel seen and understood. During calls of upwards of 75–80 people, Doug personalizes it by calling people out by name and asking for their opinions while making a presentation. ● People can feel it immediately when you are just going through the motions and not invested in truly helping them. We can show empathy by doing our homework before, and knowing the business of our potential clients. ● While companies ease back into the new office structure, it is important to stay educated and hungry for information that keeps you essential to your industry and job. ● To stay on the edge of your game, you have to know more about your client than your competitor does and be open to knowledge that expands your skillset and helps others. ● We should think less about getting the business of our clients and more about if we actually deserve it. ● Our sales conversations can be a chance to help potential clients overcome a shortcoming in their business, and show that we truly deserve their loyalty. ● Keep learning and challenging yourself every day.   Quotes: ● “Authenticity is the new professionalism.” ● “You have to run this not as an entertainer, but as a party host.” ● “We’ve got to understand the client’s business.” ● “Everyone focuses on getting the business, we don’t focus enough on deserving it.”   Mentioned in This Episode: Upstream   Doug Weaver @upstreamdw Gary Elliott  

While they are stuck in the same house together, you better believe you are going to get a full serving of Bunnie and Jelly this week, doing what they do best - cracking jokes and keeping it as weird as possible. They share the highlights from their quarantine so far and answer your questions about their relationship, who really acts like a dog in heat, and how Jelly feels about Bunnie slaying on OnlyFans.    Takeaways: Even though no one wanted to do Bunnie’s special White Trash family backyard photo shoot at first, they ended up getting awesome pictures that you can check out here and Jelly made the lawn look like a professional golf course.  Jelly’s album, A Beautiful Disaster is out and it’s the perfect time to listen to it and share it with friends. He will be on tour in the fall and can’t wait to bring these songs live to you.  Bunnie and Jelly agreed that back and forth arguing is a waste of time, so they communicate with each other when the time is right with understanding and respect. They allow each other to be completely themselves and not live in a prison just because they are in a relationship.  If you have a friend or loved one that needs help you can try to help them, but they have to want to help themselves. Otherwise, you are going to end up tearing yourself up.  We know y’all want to party and celebrate but have patience during this time - things will work out. In the meantime be sure you are focused on the positive in life, taking care of yourself mentally and physically, and creating new things to look forward to.  Bunnie and Jelly are huge advocates for mental health and therapy and Bunnie has been finding a lot of success doing EMDR therapy for her childhood trauma.  Jelly loves that Bunnie is kicking ass on OnlyFans, and is involved in everything she does.  From watching The Sopranos to making sure their employees are all still on the payroll, Bunnie and Jelly are making the most of this time. They are enjoying not having every minute scheduled and more down time with the family.    Quotes:   “I don’t really have boundaries, as long as there is protection.” - B “You don’t ever do anything productive when you are arguing. You stress the f*ck out, you look like sh*t, it causes wrinkles, causes you to gain weight and eat bad - there’s no fun.” - B “Tell your time what to do, don’t let your time tell you what to do.” - J  “Old dong is never good. Just keep going forward.” - B   Mentioned:  A Beautiful Disaster  White Trash Family Shoot  Jelly Roll: Twitter | Website | Instagram | YouTube    Check out Bunnie:  @xomgitsbunnie BunnieXo  @officialdumbblonde

This episode: A global estimate of plants and their root fungi shows how agriculture may have greatly affected soil carbon storage over time! Download Episode (5.7 MB, 8.3 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Rhizobium virus RHEph4 News item Takeaways Even small organisms can have a big effect on the climate of the planet if there are enough of them. This includes trees, which are small relative to the planet, and also includes the fungi that attach to the roots of trees and other plants. These mycorrhizal fungi thread subtly through the soil, some occasionally popping up mushrooms, and transfer valuable nutrients they gather to the trees in exchange for carbon fixed from the air. Knowing how big an effect a given kind of organism has requires knowing how much of it is around. This study collates data from various surveys of global plant populations and the fungi that interact with their roots, to estimate a global picture of the fungi below our feet. It estimates that a kind of fungus that stores more carbon in the soil may have been replaced in many areas with fungi that store less, or no fungi at all, due to the transformation of land from wild areas to farmland. Journal Paper: Soudzilovskaia NA, van Bodegom PM, Terrer C, Zelfde M van’t, McCallum I, Luke McCormack M, Fisher JB, Brundrett MC, de Sá NC, Tedersoo L. 2019. Global mycorrhizal plant distribution linked to terrestrial carbon stocks. Nat Commun 10:1–10. Other interesting stories: Phages bind to fish mucosal surfaces and protect from infection Examining how archaea affect meteorites   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Android, or RSS. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook.

This episode: Phages eavesdrop on bacterial communications to attack at the perfect moment! Thanks to Justin Silpe and Dr. Bonnie Bassler for their contributions! Download Episode (11.1 MB, 12.2 minutes) Show notes: Microbe of the episode: Artichoke Aegean ringspot virus News item Takeaways Even organisms as small as bacteria can, and often do, communicate with each other through a process called quorum sensing, in which each cell releases a small amount of a certain chemical into their surroundings. When the population is large enough that the concentration of this chemical builds up to a certain level, the cells in the population change their behavior. The specifics of this change depend on the species and the situation. But since this chemical signal is released into the environment, anything around that can sense it can listen in on the communications of a bacterial population. In this study, Justin Silpe and Dr. Bonnie Bassler find a type of virus that uses such a chemical communication as a signal to come out of stasis and hijack a whole population of bacteria at once! Journal Paper: Silpe JE, Bassler BL. 2019. A Host-Produced Quorum-Sensing Autoinducer Controls a Phage Lysis-Lysogeny Decision. Cell 176:268-280.E13. Other interesting stories: Bacteria around plant roots can affect when they flower (paper) Certain respiratory microbe communities seem to protect against flu New process for finding better electric bacteria   Email questions or comments to bacteriofiles at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening! Subscribe: Apple Podcasts, RSS, Google Play. Support the show at Patreon, or check out the show at Twitter or Facebook

Today’s guest on What The Fat, is none other than the C.M.O. (Chief Mom Officer) Joan Lowery. In this inspirational episode, Dr. Ryan Lowery discusses his mother’s medical condition, how her life has been changed by the ketogenic diet, and how to remain optimistic in the face of adversity. Enjoy the show! Takeaways Even when times are tough, it is so important to focus on the light at the end of the tunnel and remain positive. Joan Lowery is an inspiration and role model for anyone looking to remain a shining light in the midst of an internal battle. Show Notes Getting the Crohn’s diagnosis 1:27 Mom’s diet before keto 4:49 Mom’s current diet 8:00 How diet and exercise have changed Ryan’s Mom’s quality of life 9:40 Filing for bankruptcy and financial difficulties11:28 Powering through tough times and working multiple jobs 14:14 How to be positive during challenging times 15:46 Tweetable quotes “Mom and dad are my heroes.” “You were very strong in the face of animosity.” “I am super grateful we went through the trials and tribulations and continue going through them because it truly teaches you work ethic and teaches you how to be grateful for every single thing you have.” “If you dwell on the negative, everything is just going to seem very negative at all times. Go with the positive and go with the fact that you got up that morning and you got out of bed and you were able to start your day.” Links/Resources Ketogenic.com Calculator: ketogenic.com/calculator/ Dr. Ryan Lowery’s Instagram page: @ryanplowery If you like today’s episode, subscribe on Apple Podcasts at What The Fat  and leave us a 5-star, positive review. Tips, Recipes, Community: @ketogeniccom Videos: KetogenicCom YouTube

(WTF) What The Fat  - Dr. Jacob Wilson Episode #55 In this episode of What The Fat, Dr. Ryan Lowery, and Dr. Jacob Wilson discuss the metabolic advantage of a ketogenic diet. Whether you are looking to lose weight or gain lean muscle mass, this episode will provide scientific evidence behind the advantage of a ketogenic diet. Enjoy the show!   Takeaways Even when calories and protein are matched, there are numerous studies showing that the ketogenic diet provides a metabolic advantage, thus leading to greater fat loss. Show Notes: What is a metabolic advantage 1:13 Proving the benefits of a ketogenic diet 8:04 The problem with meta-analysis 10:00 How does keto alter performance 11:34 The effect of keto on brown adipose tissue 12:54 The psychological and physiological aspects of keto versus a low-fat diet 14:35 Tweetable quotes: “Studies need to control for reality” “Garbage in equals garbage out” “Even when calories are protein are matched, there are studies showing there are greater results on a ketogenic diet.”  Links/Resources: Website: www.themusclephd.com Dr. Jacob Wilson's Instagram: @themusclephd Dr. Ryan Lowery’s Instagram page: @ryanplowery If you like today’s episode, subscribe on Apple Podcasts at What The Fat and leave us a 5-star, positive review. Tips, Recipes, Community: @ketogeniccom Videos: KetogenicCom YouTube

There's something that can hold leaders back from effectively making changes and seeing results: allowing poison and toxicity from team members to seep into culture. Toxicity creates disunity, inefficiency, low productivity, gossip, backstabbing...the list goes on. What do we do about it? How do we prevent it? https://chrislocurto.com/how-to-stop-toxicity-as-a-leader/ Takeaways: * Even if you found the "magic pill" to make you money like crazy, none of it would matter if you've got a toxic culture. * We allow this toxicity into our culture because we either don't know how to stop it or we're choosing not to recognize it. * Culture = actions + attitudes * If you don't create the culture you want, the wrong culture will be forced on you. * When we allow the "blame game" we start to allow poison to seep into the culture. * When we bring toxicity into the building, into our culture, what happens next is you start to see a replicating behavior. * Accountability is not pointing out flaw in others or judgment, it's lovingly helping them to succeed by lifting them up, asking the right questions, helping people get to the solutions they need...https://chrislocurto.com/how-to-stop-toxicity-as-a-leader/

In this weeks POWER COUPLE episode Amanda gives us insight into her BDB Live 2.0 talk all about the king mentality, how to have confidence in who you are as a man. Both Nicholas and Amanda share with us the learning curve events provide you with and the transformations they had the opportunity to facilitate and witness in many lives of men.   Timestamped: [ 01:27 ] BDB Live [ 02:58 ] King Mentality [ 06:00 ] Trust in Your Relationship [ 08:06 ] Encouragement [ 11:52 ] Winning in The Second Half [ 12:24 ] Game Face [ 16:40 ] Believing In Your Business     Takeaways: Even when you don’t want to do something you still have to show up. Dig deep and harness the power of who you know you can be to empower yourself to get through stress and mental blocks. Put on your game face. Put on your true self outside of the moment. Don’t allow the circumstances of right now to determine what you do. You create habits that create you. Give up the good for the great, sacrifice the stuff that doesn’t matter. When you hone in on you're power of focus and train everyday through the mental blocks, strain, and doing hard things, you can get through anything in any situation. If it feels super hard, that’s what you should be doing, always challenge yourself to continue growing and upleveling.   Resources: Billion Dollar Brotherhood Billion Dollar Babes Nicholas and Amanda on instagram!